by Park, J. R.
Aimee rolled over to face him and punched out as she did so, hitting his stomach and knocking the wind from his lungs. She scrabbled to her feet but was caught before she could stand by the surprising speed and agility of her adversary. His long, spindly fingers clamped either side of her head and pulled her face, at rapid knots, towards his knee.
Aimee instinctively turned in his grip, rolling to the side to protect herself. Duell’s bony kneecap glanced the back of her neck as the Special Constable crashed to the floor.
Viciously he kicked at the side of the prone woman, connecting hard with her ribs. Grabbing her neck, and with unnatural strength, he lifted her clean off the ground and began to throttle her. Gasping for breath, Aimee tried to kick out but was thrown through the air, colliding with one of the reinforced windows of the Audi. Dazed and reeling from the blow she tried to find her feet but her balance had deserted her; the world spinning in wild rotations before her eyes.
Pathetically she stumbled on her knees as she heard the mocking leer of Duell above her.
‘I lost my gun in the brawl earlier today. But I didn’t need it to beat you. You’re lucky we let you live as long as we did,’ the sound of his voice felt like the cold claw of anaesthetic. ‘Scullin wants me to take you back to the others. To torture you in front of your own brother. But you’ve given me the perfect excuse to end this here. I would have killed you a long time ago, so let’s enjoy this. Let’s make this slow.’
Aimee tried again to stand, but her legs would not obey. She fell onto the dusty, clay ground, landing hard on all fours.
Trying to focus on one spot, she watched Duell’s blood-splattered shoes come into her blurred and unsettled vision. He cast a shadow over her, sending a shiver through her body. She was defenceless, unable to look up, let alone protect herself against the next attack.
‘You have quite the fighting spirit in you,’ he drawled in a tone that although sounded emotionless and detached, was unable to hide a ravenous anticipation. ‘I’m going to savour your essence.’
Through the carousel of her spinning vision Aimee saw Duell’s sunglasses drop to the floor, landing by his feet. She tried to look up, but couldn’t move, the dizziness too debilitating for her to do anything but wait for his next assault.
She closed her eyes tightly as he unleashed a guttural scream, forcing her to clench her teeth. Aimee thought about her family, about her parents, about her brother. She hoped they’d be safe.
Everything fell silent.
She braced herself as she waited for the final blow.
‘Leave my sister alone,’ Jake shouted, enraged.
‘I’m afraid it’s far too late for that,’ Scullin replied, his words causing vomit to climb Jake’s quivering throat. ‘She’s in one of our cars, and not looking too well if I recall. Don’t worry, you’ll get to say goodbye. That is, unless Duell gets carried away. He can be so over eager.’
Scullin shot a glance to a grinning Cross who beamed with a knowing smile as she wiped Laura’s blood across her lips. She choked the nineteen year old as a warning to the others, squeezing Laura’s neck and forcing the scratch marks to pour with more crimson liquid.
‘He’s not the only one,’ Cross laughed.
After a moment Aimee opened her eyes, and as the dizziness began to lift, her focus found its clarity. Aimee eyed the feet in front of her, noticing that the blood splashed shoes had been replaced with a pair of boots. A pair of Magnum Hi –Top’s, just like hers.
Turning her head to the side she looked across to see Duell, motionless and sprawled out, face down in the dirt; his arms and legs spread at unnatural angles. She squinted through the clearing haze of her correcting sight to see something on top of Duell’s head.
No, not on top, through Duell’s head.
A steel support rod, twisted and still with one end firmly attached to a block of concrete, had been driven straight through her attacker’s cranium. The rod glistened with a hint of crimson, coated in fleshy fragments of brain matter. His blonde hair dyed red.
The wires of a taser protruded from his body, leading to a gun that lay in the dust.
Aimee looked back at the boots in front of her. Slowly she raised her head, following the line of the crease that had been carefully ironed into the dark blue trousers. The uniform was a familiar one that ended with a friendly face and reassuring smile. The man crouched down beside her.
‘It’s Forrest, isn’t it?’ the police officer asked, offering a hand to help her up.
‘Aimee, that’s right,’ she replied as she gripped his palm and pulled herself to her feet, resting against the limousine for support.
‘I’m PC Pritchard,’ his smile widening, revealing a perfect set of gleaming white teeth. ‘You can call me Paul.’
Paul took her shoulders and steadied her, then turned back and studied the dead body on the ground.
‘Shit, I didn’t mean to kill him,’ he scratched his head as he thought back through the last few moments. ‘I fired the taser to stop him, but he fell onto that post. Ah fuck.’
‘He’s dead alright,’ Aimee responded. ‘But it was either me or him. Thank you.’
Paul bent down and rummaged through Duell’s pockets.
‘Nothing,’ he sounded dejected. ‘No wallet, no ID, no gun. Who is he?’
‘Not a clue,’ Aimee responded. ‘And he’s not alone. What’s that?’ she pointed to the other car. ‘I could have sworn I saw something in there.’
PC Pritchard tried the door to the Audi.
‘Locked,’ he confirmed as it refused to open. ‘Hello, is there anyone there?’ he called through the tinted glass. Must have been a reflection, he thought before turning his attention to the other vehicle and ducking his head into the back of the limousine.
‘What happened in here?’ he exclaimed. ‘Oh shit. Oh God.’ His voice soften with sadness, ‘Isn’t this PC Osborne?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Aimee looked down at her feet, unable to rest her eyes back on the body of her friend.
‘I’m pretty new to this city, didn’t know him that well,’ Paul explained. ‘But from what I’ve heard he was a really good guy.’
‘He was one of the best,’ she felt unfallen tears glaze her eyes with grief, but fought them back.
‘I’m sorry,’ her saviour said as he rubbed her shoulder in sympathy. ‘What’s going on here?’
Special Constable Forrest did her best to describe the events of the morning. She explained how she and PC Osborne had been on patrol when they chased a gang that had been shoplifting. They hadn’t been in pursuit long when the gang had ran into a group of men and women escorting a man carrying a briefcase. The two groups fought and in the scuffle shots were fired. They escaped with their lives, but hostages were taken on both sides. Whilst the fleeing gang had ended up with the briefcase and its carrier, one of the girls was left behind with the gun carrying civilians. The two constables had been caught in the gunfire, PC Osborne was hit badly several times, whilst Forrest had been lucky. A graze across the temple had knocked her unconscious but nothing more serious than that.
‘I can only guess we were taken hostage too, they gave chase and we ended up here,’ PC Forrest concluded.
‘Then you’re lucky to be alive,’ PC Pritchard remarked. ‘Twice.’
‘I guess God is looking favourably on me today,’ she smiled as she thought back to Osborne. His words through her. Repeating them made her feel closer to him, like part of him was being kept alive.
‘You’re lucky I heard your message. The radios have been all messed up today,’ Paul’s friendly smile returned. ‘I was heading back to the station to see what was what, when I caught fragments of your distress call. I couldn’t make out much, but thankfully the part I caught was your location.’
‘I’m so glad you did,’ Aimee flashed a grin of thanks. ‘We’ve got to help these dumb kids out. Do you think anyone else is coming?’
The smile faded from Paul’s face, ‘I doubt it. With all this weird i
nterference we’d be lucky if anyone else heard you. It looks we’re on our own.’
Another growl of thunder clawed at the unsettled sky, its low frequencies reverberating through the walls of the abandoned buildings. Knight heard the faint sound in the dank basement where he was held captive. He looked towards the ceiling and his grin grew wider. Rising to his feet he puffed out his chest and pulled his arms apart, freeing himself as the ropes that bound him snapped like cotton. The room grew darker as even the tiniest traces of light seemed to sliver out of existence, retreating in his presence.
‘Your man’s been a while,’ Sam barked.
Scullin ground his teeth in annoyance, crushing the discarded police radio under foot.
‘Sam, stop making him angry,’ Eleanor spoke softly but with a tone of annoyance, one she’d heard her father use many times with her.
Laughing off her comments, Sam barked again, ‘Maybe your man’s bitten of more than he can chew. Maybe the cops are already here waiting for the right time to charge down and fuck you up!’
‘Enough,’ Scullin seethed as he walked forward.
With a powerful strike of his hand he knocked Eleanor to the ground and took Sam by the throat, silencing his tirade. Cross laughed as Sam struggled in the choke hold and Eleanor held her throbbing cheek.
‘Jake,’ Laura called out with an expression of pure hatred for her boyfriend, ‘help your friends. Do something!’
‘Radio communication will come back up,’ Special Constable Forrest sounded hopeful. ‘It’s probably some sort of technical glitch. They’ll have it fixed soon, I’m sure.’
‘Well I hope so,’ PC Pritchard replied, his tone less sure than his colleagues. ‘If those goons have guns we’ll need back up. I don’t fancy rushing down there without armed response.’
‘We can’t just leave those kids there,’ Aimee protested.
Aimee couldn’t help but refer to them as kids, despite them all growing up. Jake and his friends had been a part of their family life for as long as she could remember. Even when they’d finished school they didn’t drift off and move away as others had done. The gang stuck together, unemployed or working crummy jobs, they still lived in the same council block. They were jokingly called The Stills. Still living at home, still not got a job, still hanging round with your deadbeat mates.
They were directionless and their boredom took them into pursuits at odds with Aimee’s policing. But she hoped her new vocation would rub off on her brother and his friends; provide them with a sliver of inspiration. To her they were all family and she cared for them deeply.
‘We won’t leave them,’ Paul assured her. ‘My car is just a little way up here. We’ll get up on higher ground and see if we can call through to control. Like you said, I’m sure they’ll have the radios fixed soon.’
Aimee knew Paul was talking sense, but as she walked up to the perimeter of the construction site she looked back toward the stand-off with a feeling of guilt. She should be walking towards them, not away.
She’d already witnessed two people die today, there would not be any more.
Ollie shuffled down the stairs, unsteady in the darkness. The screen from his phone did a poor job at offering illumination, decreasing in power the further he went, forcing him to feel for the edge of each step in turn. His journey had been slow and steady, taking so long he wondered if he’d gotten lost along the way. But as he felt through the gloom he reasoned there was only one route and the dark can play tricks on the mind. A curious pull continued to drag him forward, undiminished by the fear that edged his thoughts.
The air in the basement felt unclean; stale and old. Ollie took a deep breath and stifled the resulting cough as the musty atmosphere tickled his throat.
He shone the dim, blue glow of his make-shift torch around the room, exposing the monochromatic outline of a chair, knocked to the floor and leaning on its own back rest; the metal poles of its legs angled toward the ceiling.
Ollie’s heart pounded against his rib cage.
Where was the hostage?
Sweeping his light across the floor he saw trails of black glisten against the glow of the phone. Lengths of discarded rope littered the floor like resting vipers.
A flash of movement caught Ollie’s eye. He shone his torch in the perceived direction but the light did little to penetrate the engulfing blackness. Shapes appeared to writhe out of the darkness, black on black, offering no definite sense of form but suggesting… something. He felt a presence but wherever he turned he saw nothing; nothing but the same crowded emptiness. It was as if the darkness itself was alive, teeming with formless terrors that screamed silently, unravelling the bravery and curiosity with which Ollie had made his descent into the basement.
Walking backwards he stumbled over the upturned chair, catching his balance before he fell. He’d only saw Kayleigh leave which meant the guy with the severed hand was still down here. Somewhere.
He held his breath, straining to listen for a sound that might give away the man’s location.
A faint creaking floated through the room, a slow deliberate scratching, the gentle laughter of a child.
What?!
Ollie’s skin prickled with fear and his mind raced with unfathomable answers as he catalogued the barely audible sounds that punctuated the stillness; their sources incoherent in a room so dark, direction had lost all relevance.
A gentle gust of wind, the ticking of a clock, the mewling of a new born lamb.
He slowly stepped through the basement, trying to remember where he’d entered, trying to find the staircase that would lead him out of this surreal scene. As an uneasy dread clambered through his thoughts his calm disintegrated; not due to one definable incident, but down to the multitude of creeps that swamped his brain. Unnameable nightmares filled his head, faceless feelings of terror plucked at his nerves, growing and consuming his thoughts until he could stand it no more.
The sounds, as subtle as their volume was, overwhelmed him.
The hiss of a snake, the crackle of fire, the terminal cough of his Grandmother.
Grandma Elsie had been a habitual smoker and died of lung cancer when Ollie was only nine years old. The sound of her terrible, hacking cough had disturbed him greatly as a child. He’d always thought he could hear her dying, piece by piece as she seemed to rot away from the inside. Each splutter had made him clench his teeth with hatred for the disease that ravaged her. Each cough would bring silent tears rolling down his face. He’d never forgotten that sound, and although he’d never hear it again after her death, his nightmares kept it alive, giving it a deeper, threatening resonance.
How was he hearing it here, in a disused basement?
His body turned cold and a tear fell down his cheek. His jaw clenched and Ollie ran. He didn’t know if he was going the right way, and didn’t care. He just needed to escape. He would have dug through the walls with his bare hands if he needed too.
Hurtling through the blackness his journey seemed to last forever as he careered head long into the dark. His legs shook from under him as they burned with exhaustion, crumpling beneath his weight when he was knocked to the floor by a powerful and unseen blow.
His phone flew from his hand and skidded across the floor, the light from the screen fading as it smashed against a wall.
Special Constable Aimee Forrest sat in the passenger seat of PC Pritchard’s police car, leaving the door open and allowing the breeze to circulate in an attempt to remain cool. The air was hot and sticky, and the gathering wind was just as humid, providing little respite.
‘Is he okay?’ she asked, nodding her head back towards the figure that sat, cuffed in the back of the car.
‘That is Sergeant Bryne,’ PC Pritchard replied. ‘He’s a traffic cop I picked up this morning. His colleague waved me down, said the guy was going nuts.’
‘He looks in a bad way,’ Aimee eyed his puke splattered uniform. Bile had dried onto the fabric leaving yellow crusts that trailed down his front.
‘He’s been harmless since we got him into the car. Poor sod,’ Paul scratched his head. ‘God knows what he’s taken, or maybe something just snapped inside.’
‘Even in this state he looks pretty mean,’ Aimee replied. ‘I’m glad of the partition.’
She tapped the metal grill that separated the front seats from the back. Byrne glanced at her with unfocused eyes before returning to his fixed gaze at a point somewhere above him.
Unaware of the detainee’s disturbance Aimee looked across the bowl-like dimensions of the Oracle shopping centre building site; her vision focused through a gap in the crumbling buildings and barely standing walls, making out the people stood in its centre. From this distance they were barely anything more than silhouettes, unidentifiable figures only inches high.
What were they doing down there?
She grew impatient. This was wasting time.
Ollie got back to his feet as his eyes tried their best to adjust to the blanket of darkness. The adrenalin surged through his body, increasing the power of his senses to a point of near disorientation. The sounds grew louder and the musty, damp smell was so strong he could taste it on his tongue. His vision though, improved as it was, still remained limited.
In the darkness, about eight feet away, he made out a faint shimmer of white. The more he focused on it the more sense it began to make. The glow came from a shirt, the part exposed from the opening of a suit jacket.
It was the white shirt worn by their hostage.
It was Knight.
Without any time to react, Knight came charging towards him, swinging a fist and knocking him across the room. Ollie landed hard on the cracked, tiled floor, his side catching the end from one of the chair legs that stuck up like a set of spikes. He held his stinging wound and felt his t-shirt grow damp with blood.
