ASBO: A Novel of Extreme Terror

by Wright, Iain Rob

  Frankie walked into the room and sat on a futon opposite the sofa. “At first, yeah, but Damien told me that if the police come and find us in a group matching the exact description that a victim gave it would corroborate their evidence. I gave everyone their stories and sent them on their way. They know what to say so don’t worry.”

  “I’m not worried,” said Davie. “I don’t know what I feel. Last night was messed up.”

  Frankie nodded in agreement, seeming to reminisce about the events. “Should never have gone down that way. Too messy leaving things like that. Jordan’s face was really messed up this morning – think it’s infected or something. My fault, though; should have dealt with things better…more neatly.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Davie. “You should have killed them?”

  Frankie shrugged. “Maybe. Too late now, though. We just need to be ready.”

  “Ready how?”

  Frankie smiled and tilted his body forward, sliding off the futon onto his knees. He reached an arm underneath the sofa and retrieved a flat wooden box, placing it carefully on his lap.

  Davie frowned. “What’s that?”

  “Our insurance policy,” said Frankie, unfastening a pair of brass clips on either end of the box and popping open the lid.

  Davie couldn’t believe what he saw inside. “Guns? Are you crazy?”

  “Chill the fuck out. They’re just in case that nutcase comes after us. I ain’t going to play with this guy no more.”

  “Nutcase? We held him hostage and stabbed his family. I think he has good reason to be a little nutty.”

  “Whatever,” said Frankie. “If he comes at me he’s going to taste lead…or whatever the stuff is they make bullets out of nowadays. Now quit your whinging and take this.”

  Frankie thrust one of the revolvers at Davie and he immediately tried to shove it back. “No way! I don’t want it.”

  Frankie pushed harder until Davie had no choice but to take ownership of the weapon. “Keep it in your waistband. You don’t have to go looking for trouble, but I want to know you’re going to be safe if that prick comes after you.”

  “Andrew.”

  “What?”

  “His name is Andrew.”

  Frankie shook his head in confusion. “Does it look like I give a monkey’s nuts?”

  “No,” said Davie. “No it doesn’t. Fine! I’ll take the gun, but only for protection. What about the twins? Did you give them a gun?”

  “Screw ‘em.” said Frankie. “They can fend for themselves. Only person I care about is you.”

  “Hope I’m not breaking up a Hallmark moment,” said Damien, entering the room. He stood in front of them both. Everything he was wearing was emblazoned with a logo of some kind.

  “Nah, man, everything’s cool,” said Frankie. “Was just getting my little bro strapped.”

  Damien nodded. “What’s your next move?”

  “Don’t know. Either the police will turn up at my door or this guy who has a beef with me will. I’ll be ready for whatever happens, though, thanks to you.” Frankie waved the gun as though it were a toy and not a deadly weapon.

  “You get caught with that you leave my name out of it, you hear me? They belong to my old man and he’d go ape if he knew I was lending them out. Can’t have you dead, though, can I? Need you out on the street. What you do to this dude anyway? You can’t have just fucked up his car and house.”

  “We stabbed his wife and daughter,” Davie blurted out. It felt like a weight had been lifted just by saying it; by admitting it.

  Damien’s eyes widened and his eyebrows lowered into a scowl. “The fuck? The hell you do that for? You don’t fuck with a man’s family – with women.”

  Frankie waved a hand dismissively. “Shit went down. That’s all there is to it. You’re one to talk, anyway, man. You beat people down all the time.”

  “Business,” said Damien. “I don’t hurt women. Did this guy even do anything to you in the first place?”

  “No,” said Davie. “He never done nothing to nobody.”

  Frankie turned to Davie and growled. “Will you shut the hell up, bro!”

  “Sounds like your little brother has a conscience,” said Damien. “Good for him. You should both get the hell out of my house now, though. I mean right now.”

  Frankie stood up. “What? Why you being like this?”

  “Cus you’re a fucking mug; an amateur. Now piss off – and leave the pieces behind.”

  Frankie pulled the revolver on Damien and cocked the hammer. Davie wondered how his brother even knew how to do that. Damien’s face was unflinching, while Frankie’s twitch had gone into overdrive.

  Damien curled his upper lip into a smirk. “I hope this dude fucks you up, blud. Makes you his little bitch like you were when I found you. How long’s it been since you had a cock up your arse, Frankie?”

  Frankie stepped forward and shoved the weapon’s barrel against Damien’s forehead. His whole arm was shaking but Damien was statuesque, completely unshaken. “Not another word, cunt, or I’ll end you right now.”

  Davie sprung up and moved in front of his brother, trying to attract the attention of his demented eyes. “What’s he talking about, man?”

  Damien sneered, despite the gun in his face, and directed his gaze to Davie. “He never tell you?

  “Tell me what?” asked Davie.

  “When I went down for a little stretch – for dealing and shit – they sent me to the same nick as Frankie.”

  Frankie thrust the revolver forward, shoving the muzzle right up against Damien’s forehead. “Not another word! I’m warning you.”

  Damien continued anyway and Davie dreaded what he was about to hear. “Your big tough bro here was the prison bitch for a whole year. Fell in bad with the top dogs when he arrived – mouthing off and acting like a gangster before he even knew the score. Spent the next year getting it up the shitter by half the guys on G Wing.”

  “Bullshit,” said Davie. “You’re talking bollocks.”

  Damien winked at Davie. “God’s honest truth, little man. When I arrived my dad’s rep was enough for me to be one of the top dogs straight away and I put a stop to all that stuff – shit-stabbin’ ain’t my thing, you get me? Your brother was so grateful that he offered to do anything in return. Just so happened that I needed some help shifting gear when I got out. The rest is history.”

  “Is this all true?” Davie asked his brother. It seemed like he was going to go off like a firework; veins were bulging through the hot redness of his skin.

  Frankie sniffed back a nose full of snot. “Guy’s full of it. He did me a few solids during our time together, that much is true. In fact the only reason he ain’t dead right now is because I owe him.”

  “Owe me big time,” Damien added. “Big time.”

  Frankie nodded. “Lucky for you, I honour my debts – but consider us even.”

  Damien smiled behind the gun barrel. “Fair enough; guess I can let this slide. Say goodbye to your supply, though.”

  “Whatever,” said Frankie. “Come on Davie. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Still pointing the revolver at Damien’s face, Frankie backed out of the room. Davie followed after him, shell-shocked by what he’d just heard. There was every chance that Damien was just making shit up to mess with Frankie – Davie prayed that was the case. But if it was true…

  Then my brother is messed up for good reason.

  “Hey, little man,” said Damien. “Don’t end up like your brother, okay? He’s a bloody train wreck.”

  Davie said nothing. He left the room with Frankie and together they navigated the house’s long hallway towards the front door. Frankie turned the Yale lock and pulled down the handle. The door opened silently and the cold air of the afternoon hit Davie in the face like a punch, making his teeth ache.

  “Getting cold,” he said dazedly while rubbing at his shoulders.

  Frankie shrugged. “Going to be snow, I reckon, but we hav
e other things to worry about at the moment.”

  “No shit,” Davie agreed. Yet somehow he couldn’t help but think about the weather. Perhaps it would start snowing soon, but Davie had a feeling that before any snow started to fall there was going to be a storm of epic proportions.

  And the first drops of rain had just started to fall.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Officers Wardsley and Dalton had refused Andrew’s request to locate Frankie for him. They didn’t want him taking the law into his own hands. So now he was sat at his wife’s bedside wondering what to do. It was approaching 5PM, the morning and afternoon having come and gone in a whirlwind of grief and emotion. Bex was yet to wake up but the Doctors had assured Andrew she would soon – that her body was just taking the opportunity to rest. Pen’s condition was less optimistic. Her surgery had ended a couple hours ago and she was now lying deathly still. Stitches and gauze covered her throat while a drip entered the artery of her right arm, supplying her body with whatever it was the Doctors thought it needed.

  “I’ll make this right,” Andrew whispered to her. He grabbed her left hand tightly in his own, unsure of whether or not she could hear him. “I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done to you – for what they’ve done to Rebecca.”

  Andrew sat for a while and listened to the silence, wishing beyond all hope that his wife would just sit up and say something. It wasn’t going to happen, though – might not ever again. Tears fell from Andrew’s eyes and stained the thin, white cotton sheets covering his wife’s injured body.

  “I failed you, Pen. I’m your husband and it’s my job to keep you safe. How can I ever forgive myself for any of this? If you die, how will I go on? I’ve loved you since the day we met; since we were just kids. Life wouldn’t make sense without you. You’re my best friend. Please don’t die.” Andrew leant forward and laid his head against her stomach. He could hear her heart pumping – slow and steady – the pause between each beat a balancing act between life and death. “Please, don’t leave me, Pen. Please!”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said a young blonde nurse entering the room, “but your daughter has just woken up.”

  Andrew’s stomach churned and he had to swallow back a mouthful of stomach acid.

  What the hell do I say to her? She’s just a kid and shouldn’t have to deal with anything like this.

  Andrew got up, kissing his wife’s forehead before following the nurse out of the room. Both Penelope and Rebecca had been moved once their surgery concluded and were now in separate parts of the building. Pen was in ICU under constant watch, while Bex was in the convalescence ward. They were on separate floors now and it took Andrew five minutes of marching through a maze of corridors to reach his daughter’s room.

  Although obviously weak, Bex smiled at the sight of her father entering the room. Andrew’s heart ached at the sight of her. Dark-brown hair matted her forehead and her usually rosy complexion had turned ashen. She looked like a zombie from one of the films she loved to watch.

  “Hey,” Andrew said to her as he placed himself down on a cheap plastic chair beside the bed. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

  “Like I got stabbed with a pair of scissors.”

  Andrew grinned, happy that his daughter’s sense of humour had not been damaged despite everything else. “Arts and crafts never were your strong point, Bex.”

  “How’s mum?”

  Andrew had hoped the question would wait, that his daughter would not remember events so much as to realise that she was not the only one who’d been injured. Telling Bex that her mother might be dying would not be good for her own recovery.

  But he couldn’t lie to her; not his daughter.

  “She’s bad, sweetheart. The Doctors have told us to wait and see, but right now she’s not responding to anything. Her surgery went okay, though, which is a good sign. We have to hold on to the positives.

  Bex looked him in the eye, wearing an expression of sadness than should not have been possible for such a young girl. “Why did they do this to us, Dad?”

  Andrew shook his head and looked down at the floor. “I don’t know, honey. Really, I don’t.”

  “They would have killed us all if you hadn’t done something.”

  “I got you both stabbed!”

  “It would have been worse if you’d done nothing.”

  “I might not have gotten the chance if Davie hadn’t tried to put a stop to things first.”

  “You think he’ll be okay? What if the others blame him?”

  Andrew shrugged his shoulders and winced at the pain that shot through his ribs. “To be honest the only people I’m concerned about is you and your mother. Davie still sat and watched Frankie torture us all. He did what was right at the end, but it wasn’t enough.”

  “Don’t be angry, Dad.”

  Andrew looked at his daughter. “Don’t be angry? Are you joking?”

  She shook her head wearily. “If you’re angry then you’re just letting them get away with even more. Of course I want them all arrested and sent to prison…for-like-ever…but I won’t let them inside my head one moment longer. They don’t deserve to change who we are, Dad. You’re not an angry person, so don’t let them make you into one.”

  Andrew couldn’t believe his daughter was so willing to move on. Would she feel the same way if the Doctors came in right now and told her that her mother was dead? Would she let anger inside her heart then? Andrew understood what his daughter was saying, but it was too late to put aside his emotions – anger had already chronically infected his soul. There was no going back to the man he was before.

  He needed to change the subject. His heart was beginning to pulse with rage. “Should I go home and get you some things, sweetheart? What would you like?”

  Bex smiled at him, but seemed trapped in a constant state of drowsiness – as if she could not escape the fringes of sleep. “That would be nice,” she muttered. “Can you pick me up some magazines from the shop as well? Then I just want my iPod and my…phone.”

  Andrew thought about his own phone. He had not called work in days and would probably not have a job to return to anymore. Sympathy was not something his firm was known for and they would offer little understanding to the events of the past few days. He put such worries aside for now – they seemed so utterly unimportant – and gave Bex a warm smile to match the one she had given him. “I’ll go home now and get them for you. I won’t be long, but you try and get some rest in the meantime.”

  Bex nodded and already seemed to be snoozing into a deep sleep. Andrew exited the room silently, not wanting to disturb her, although he was sure that no amount of racket would have woken her now.

  The corridor outside was bustling with staff and patients, in contrast to the deathly silence of the ICU ward. An old man ambled past, trundling a drip-stand behind him. He said “hello” and Andrew said the same, surprising himself that pleasantries were still within his capabilities.

  A middle-aged, male-nurse passed by next and Andrew reached out to stop him. “Excuse me? Is there somewhere I could find a taxi?”

  The nurse nodded. “There’s a small taxi rank on the east-side of the car park, can’t miss it.”

  Andrew hadn’t seen it when he’d entered the hospital, but then he had not been paying attention to such things. His plan was to catch a taxi home, get Bex’s things, then immediately return via taxi as well – he wasn’t up to driving with his nerves the way they were.

  The corridor on Andrew’s left had an EXIT sign so he took it. It led through to a waiting room and then straight on to the car park. But, as Andrew was about to pass through and head outside, he noticed something that made him stop dead.

  His heart rose up into his throat, filling his mouth with a coppery taste.

  It was impossible.

  Sitting in a nearby waiting room, looking extremely sorry for himself, was one of the twins – Jordan, if Andrew wasn’t mistaken. The bite wound on the boy’s perspiration-soaked fa
ce was glistening with pus and blood and his whole body trembled. Infection had set in and Jordan looked in a great deal of discomfort.

  Good, hope it kills you!

  But it wouldn’t, would it? Jordan would recover and put the whole thing behind him as just another laugh in a long line of terrorising innocent people. Andrew moved to the rear of the room, behind Jordan, so that the youth would not see him. Of the options available to Andrew, none seemed clear. He could call Wardsley and Dalton, but he had little faith that they could do anything sufficient enough to be called justice. The other option was to attack the son of a bitch right now, to wring the little bastard’s neck, but that would result only in his own arrest.

  Andrew took a seat and decided to wait.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later a nurse called out a name: Jordan Ebanks. Andrew watched the boy get up and then slowly followed after him, making sure to stay several steps behind. The nurse took Jordan into a consultation area that contained two rows of adjustable gurneys inside curtained surroundings. Andrew stayed back and watched Jordan hop up onto one of the beds, but then the nurse pulled the curtain closed and Andrew lost sight of him.

  He crept forward and tried to look inconspicuous by nodding hello to anyone that noticed him. Hopefully he could blend in with the never-ending crowd that filled the hospital during the day. Putting his head down, Andrew hurried over to Jordan’s cubicle and stopped just outside of it. He listened to the conversation coming from inside.

  “How did it happen?” asked a female voice belonging to the nurse. “Looks like a bite-mark.”

  “Got jumped by some nutter, innit. Think he was a crackhead or summin. Must have thought he was a zombie cus he took a chunk outta me.”

  Lying little shit, Andrew thought. Why don’t you tell her what really happened?

  “Well,” said the nurse, “if that is what happened then you should inform the police.”

  Jordan sucked at his teeth. “Don’t deal with the pigs, darlin’. I deal direct with my shit, if you get me?”

  The nurse ignored the boy’s bravado and carried on with her job diligently. Andrew assumed she heard such nonsense all the time and paid it no mind. “I’ll get it bandaged for you,” she said, “but then you’ll need a course of general anti-biotic. If it gets any worse you’ll need to come back.”