by Kevin Brooks
“I don’t see why not.” He gazed out through the windshield at the lines of cars parked along the road. “It doesn’t look as if we’ve got much choice anyway, does it?”
Tarn nodded, then began maneuvering the car into the space behind the Land Rover.
“Did you hear that?” Dake said.
“Hear what?”
“Another siren.”
“What siren? I didn’t hear anything.”
“I’m sure I heard it,” Dake said, crossing over to the front window. “It sounded like it was —”
“What are you doing?”
Dake reached for the curtain. “I just want to check —”
“Leave it, for Christ’s sake! I already told you —”
“Shit!”
“What is it?”
Dake had inched the curtain open and peeked through the gap, and a split second later he’d yanked it shut again and quickly stepped back, his eyes wide and his face drained of color.
“What is it?” Jenner repeated, his voice calm but urgent.
“Cops . . .”
“Where?”
“There! Right outside . . . they’re right there!”
“At the door?”
“What?”
“Are the cops at the door?”
Dake shook his head. “Across the road . . . they’re parked across the road, right behind the Land Rover.”
“They’re in a car?”
“Yeah.”
“Marked or unmarked?”
“Marked . . . a patrol car.”
“Just the one?”
“I only saw one.”
“How many in the car?”
“I don’t know . . . as soon as I saw it I shut the curtain.” As Jenner came over to him, Dake’s staring eyes were bulging with panic. “What are we going to do? What the hell are we going to do?”
“Just calm down, okay?”
“Calm down?”
“Listen, Dake —”
“You’re seriously telling me to calm down?”
“They don’t know we’re here.”
Dake froze. “What? What do you mean?”
“Think about it. If the police knew we were here, if they knew what we were doing, they wouldn’t just send out a single patrol car, would they? If they were on to us, there’d be dozens of cops out there — hostage teams, snipers, negotiators . . .”
“Maybe there are dozens of them out there,” Dake said. “I mean, they wouldn’t be out in the open, would they? They’d be keeping themselves out of sight.”
“Yeah, and they wouldn’t park a patrol car right across the road from us either, would they?”
It took Dake a little while to work out what Jenner was saying, and when he finally got it — slowly nodding to himself — some of the fear and panic left him. Some, but not all. There might not be dozens of armed police out there, but there was a patrol car, and whatever it was doing there — whether it had anything to do with them or not — it wasn’t a good situation.
“Check out the back,” Jenner said to him, moving over to the wall next to the front window.
“I’m not going out there.”
“Just take a look through the window.”
“What for?”
“Anything. Just do it, okay?”
As Dake went over to the back window, Jenner cautiously opened a tiny gap in the curtains and looked out. The patrol car was parked exactly where Dake had said — right across the road, directly opposite the house, between a Skoda and the stolen Land Rover. The headlights were off, the engine wasn’t running. Jenner could see that there were two of them in the car, but the nearest streetlight was at least twenty yards away, and in the dim light he couldn’t make out much detail. They were both in uniform, he was sure of that, and so far — from what he could see — there was nothing to suggest they knew about him and Dake. There was nothing to suggest they didn’t either. But then headlights suddenly appeared, the twin beams of a car coming down the road, and just for a second the face of the cop in the driver’s seat was clearly visible. He looked away almost immediately, quickly turning his head to the left, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. Jenner had seen his eyes. He’d seen them staring hard at the house . . .
They knew.
There was no doubt in Jenner’s mind.
They knew about him and Dake.
He closed the gap in the curtains and stepped back. Across the room, Dake had pulled back the edge of the curtain and was peering out through the window.
“See anything?” Jenner said.
“No,” Dake said, letting go of the curtain edge and turning to Jenner. “Are the cops still out there?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Still in their car?”
“Yeah.”
“I think you’re right.”
“About what?”
“Well, they wouldn’t be just sitting out there if they knew about us, would they? They must be out there for another reason. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Dake smiled nervously. “We’re going to be all right, aren’t we?”
“Yeah,” Jenner said, “we’re going to be fine.”
There were three things bothering Shirley. First, she really needed to pee. She’d been desperate to go for the last couple of hours, and it was getting to the stage now where her bloated bladder wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was really painful. She’d tried telling the two men that she needed to go to the lavatory, grunting and mumbling through the tape over her mouth, but they’d either not understood her or they simply didn’t care. She was damned if she was going to suffer the embarrassment of wetting herself, though, so she’d just resigned herself to being in pain.
The second thing bothering her was the curtain in the back window. When Dake had finished looking out of the window, he hadn’t closed the curtain properly. The edge he’d been holding back had snagged on the heavy blue vase on the windowsill — as it quite often did — and Dake either hadn’t noticed or couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. It bothered Shirley, though. In fact, it bothered her a lot. Stupid little things like that had always bothered her — cutlery being in the wrong place in the cutlery drawer, cans of food facing the wrong way in the cupboard . . . all kinds of meaningless things. She knew it was totally irrational to worry about them, and that nothing bad would happen if she didn’t rearrange the cans or close the curtain properly, but the way Shirley saw it was that it was a lot easier to just accept her little foibles than to put herself through the hell of trying to get rid of them.
The third thing bothering her was the sudden change in Jenner’s demeanor. She’d noticed it when he’d turned back from the front window, and she’d heard it in his voice when he’d told Dake they were “going to be fine,” and as he stood there now — staring at the floor, absentmindedly scratching at a rash on his chin — she knew she wasn’t mistaken. Something had changed in him. It wasn’t an obvious change, and Shirley was fairly sure that Dake hadn’t noticed it, but there was no question in her mind that whatever Jenner had seen outside — and it had to be something to do with the police car they’d been talking about — it had suddenly made him realize not just the enormity of what he was doing, but also the subsequent level of punishment he’d face if he was caught, and what he might have to do to avoid being caught and punished.
He’d looked up from the floor now and was gazing over at Shirley and Grace, and Shirley could see the cold calculation in his eyes. He didn’t want to kill them — not for their sakes, but simply because it would make things worse for him — but if it came down to a choice between their lives and his . . . ?
He wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.
He’d do what he had to do.
Shirley knew it. And as Jenner looked away from her and began talking to Dake, and she turned to her sister beside her, she could tell right away from the look in Grace’s eyes that she knew it too.
I hear the siren just as I’m going over the stile into the field at the bac
k of Shirley’s house. It sounds like it’s coming up the road into the village, and I wonder briefly if it’s the same police car (or fire engine or ambulance) I heard earlier or a different one. The siren I heard before was also coming up the road, so unless that police car (or fire engine or ambulance) had gone back down the road with its siren off, I think this is probably a different one. And as I start struggling up and across the field to my left, heading for the backs of the houses, I also wonder (just as briefly) if either siren has anything to do with Mum or Shirley or me.
It’s possible, I guess . . .
It’s possible.
But that’s as far as I can go with it. I feel so dead now, physically and mentally, that the only thing I can think about — the only thing I have to think about — is the exhausting and agonizing (and at times seemingly impossible) process of walking. Every single step has become a grueling trial of body and mind, and with every single step the trial’s getting harder and harder.
I keep going . . .
You can take one more step, can’t you? Just one more . . . ?
What’s the point?
Just try it, okay? For me.
Keep trying . . .
See? That wasn’t so difficult, was it?
It was just one step.
They’re all just one step . . .
I don’t know how long it’s been since the siren went quiet, and I have no idea if it faded away into the distance or stopped suddenly. All I know is that after a while — a minute? two minutes? — I realize it’s not there anymore. And at the same time I also realize that I’m not walking across the field anymore. I’ve reached the rickety old fence that separates Shirley’s backyard from the field, and (as far as I can tell) I’m just standing there, staring vacantly at nothing.
I close my eyes for a moment, take a breath, then open them again.
The fence isn’t solid, it’s the kind with upright posts joined together with horizontal timbers, so it’s not blocking my view of the backyard or the back of the house, and although I’ve never seen either from this side of the fence before, there’s no question that this is Shirley’s house. There’s not much light coming from it — the curtains are closed — and I don’t seem to have the flashlight from the hillbilly’s rifle anymore (I must have dropped it somewhere), but there’s enough light coming from the houses to the right of Shirley’s to let me see all I need to see. The ramshackle greenhouse, the little patio area in front of the window, the path that runs down the side of the house to a wrought-iron gate . . . I’ve seen them all before. And even if I didn’t recognize them, I’d still know this was Shirley’s house because it’s the last one in the row — or the first one if you’re coming into the village — and I can see from here that there isn’t another house to the left of it.
I’m still feeling nothing but deadness as I hobble up to the fence — no relief that I’m finally here, no curiosity about what I might find, no joy at the prospect of seeing Mum again . . .
Nothing.
I’m not even scared anymore.
Just dead.
It’s as if all the alarm circuits and fear mechanisms in my brain have been overloaded to such an extent that they’ve either crashed under the pressure, or they’ve automatically shut themselves down to avoid crashing under the pressure. I can still feel the big hole inside me where the fear should be, but it’s empty now, just a hollow black chamber . . . a cave, a nothingness. The fear’s gone, along with everything else I once had, and it’s left me dead to the world.
Which is why, when a glint of light from Shirley’s back window catches my eye, and I look over and see the edge of the curtain being pulled back, and a moment later the face of a nightmarish Santa Claus peers out . . .
I’m not scared.
I know I should be, because ever since that time in town when the monstrous Santa frightened me so much that I wet myself, I’ve been absolutely terrified of them.
But now . . . ?
I’m dead.
Everything’s gone.
The moment I see the Santa looking out of Shirley’s back window, I immediately move to my left and take cover behind a tree at the end of the fence. I stay there for a while, maybe thirty seconds or so, keeping myself out of sight as I try to figure out what the hell’s going on, and then — having failed to come up with any kind of answer — I cautiously peer around the tree trunk at the house.
There’s no one at the window now.
No nightmarish face.
The Santa’s disappeared.
My first thought is that it was never there in the first place and that I’d just been seeing things again. I’m exhausted, freezing cold, out of my mind with pain . . . it’s not surprising that my brain’s playing tricks on me. And why on earth would there be a horror-Santa peering out of Shirley’s back window anyway? It makes no sense at all.
But then I realize something.
The curtain isn’t closed properly.
It looks as if it’s caught on something. And I’m almost certain it wasn’t like that when I first saw it. So someone must have pulled it back and peered out . . .
Someone.
It can’t have been Shirley. She’d never leave the curtain like that. And it can’t have been Mum either. She knows her sister’s funny little ways so well that she’d never leave the curtain like that.
So it must have been someone else.
So maybe I didn’t imagine the Santa after all.
There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?
I check to make sure there’s still no one at the window, then I step out from behind the tree and clamber over the fence into Shirley’s backyard.
As I crouch down beneath the back window, in line with the gap in the curtain, and I slowly raise my head — inch by inch — until my eyes are just peeking over the sill, I’m momentarily convinced again that I really have lost my mind, and that I am seeing things that aren’t there. What other explanation could there be for the vision I see through the glass?
Two Santa Clauses, both of them even nastier-looking than the monstrous nightmare of my childhood — two blood-red creatures, like hellish twins . . . two anti-Santas . . .
And one of them has a gun in his hand.
It’s impossible.
It can’t be real.
It has to be all in my mind . . .
But then I see Mum.
And I know, in an instant . . .
This is real.
She’s sitting on the floor with Shirley, both of them bound and gagged, and they’re both in a really bad state. Shirley’s got an ugly gash on the side of her head, and Mum looks even worse. Her jaw’s all swollen and discolored, and there’s so much swelling and blackened bruising around her right eye that it’s completely closed up. They’re both deathly pale, and their ashen faces are stained with tears.
As I crouch there at the window, staring dumbstruck at Mum, a flood of feelings surges through me — rage, fear, love, hate, confusion, madness, violence, vengeance . . . all at once, all together, all uncontrollable and overwhelming.
Mum suddenly looks up at me then — it’s as if she’s felt my presence — and after a brief moment of stunned surprise, she glances anxiously at the anti-Santa with the gun, checking to make sure that he hasn’t spotted me. When she sees that he’s busy talking to the other anti-Santa on the other side of the room, she looks back at me — staring desperately into my eyes — and starts shaking her head.
The gesture’s so vague it could mean anything, but I know what she’s trying to tell me. She wants me to go, get away from here, don’t get involved, it’s too dangerous . . . please, just go . . . right now . . . before it’s too late . . .
I sense rather than see the anti-Santa with the gun turning around, and I quickly duck down out of sight.
I don’t know if he saw me or not, but it doesn’t matter.
We’ll be seeing each other in a few moments anyway.
There’s nothing in my head as I cross o
ver to the back door. No thoughts, no questions, no plans. And my heart is empty too. The flood of feelings has gone. I don’t feel anything at all. I’m just doing what I have to do — whatever it takes, whatever needs to be done.
I’m not scared.
I’m dead.
Nothing in the world can frighten me.
The back door leads directly into the kitchen. The bottom half is solid wood, the top half is a glass panel. Shirley usually keeps it locked. I try the handle, just in case, but it doesn’t open. I step back, raise the rifle, and crack the butt into the glass. It smashes loudly, the broken glass scattering all over the place, and there’s no way the two Santas could have failed to hear it. I quickly reach in through the shattered glass — only vaguely aware of a sharp pain slicing into my gloveless hand — and then I turn the key in the lock, open the door, and step through into the kitchen.
It’s a fairly small kitchen, a bit cramped, but clean and obsessively tidy. Halfway along the right-hand wall is an archway into a little dining room, and on the far side of the dining room a doorway leads through to the hallway, which in turn leads to the living room, the stairs, and the front door.
Just as I’m heading through the archway into the dining room, the anti-Santa-with-the-gun appears in the opposite doorway. We see each other at the same time, and as he stops in the doorway and levels his pistol at my head, I stop in the archway and raise the rifle to my shoulder, aiming it at his head.
The anti-Santa just stares at me for a moment — his eyes cold and hard, his jaw set tight — and then he blinks, and frowns, and looks me up and down, his brow furrowed, and then he shakes his head in disbelief, and his face breaks into a grin.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, “what the hell are you?”
Gordon was still singing along to the radio as he approached the junction at the top of the village, and as he swung the Corsa to the right, without slowing down, the car skidded sideways across the road and the back end slammed into a drystone wall. The wall collapsed, and the Corsa’s right rear wheel arch flew off, but Gordon just straightened the car, put his foot down, and sped off down the road toward the village.
