by Shaun Hutson
Tanner moved it closer to his eye.
From somewhere above them, there was a hammering sound.
It grew louder.
ANDY BANGED HARD on the main doors of Shelby House.
When no one came, he banged harder.
The sound reverberated through the building.
If he banged long enough and hard enough then someone, he reasoned, would answer.
Another twenty seconds and he stopped.
There was no sound from the other side of the door.
No footsteps.
No key turning in the lock.
There was a security camera above the door and Andy stepped back to ensure he was visible to whoever might be looking out.
He hoped it was Ronni.
He banged again and waited.
Still nothing.
“Hello?” he called, pressing his face against the doors.
Silence.
“Ronni?”
If she heard him she didn’t answer.
He stepped back again and almost slipped in the blood.
The blood. You’ve got to get inside. Find out what the hell is going on. The old peopk might need help.
He banged again.
In the basement, no one moved.
It reminded Ronni of some kind of bizarre waxwork tableau.
Different expressions etched onto each face.
She couldn’t see her watch, but she guessed it must be well past one in the morning.
She, like the residents, wondered who was knocking at such an hour.
The police?
Why should they be?
A parent of one of the missing kids?
Why would they come here to search for their offspring?
Then who?
Tanner kept the open razor inches from Thompson’s eye.
Errington retained his grip on the youth’s head, peering at Ronni through the one remaining lens of his spectacles.
There was more banging.
Ronni felt something cold thrust against her cheek and realized it was the barrel of the .38.
Simultaneously, Helen Kennedy began to unfasten the ropes that held her so tightly.
Upstairs, the thumping on the main doors continued.
Leave it. Call the police.
Get back in your car and find the nearest phone box
Call them.
Something’s obviously wrong. Badly wrong.
Andy stepped back and looked first at the doors, then again at the security camera.
He stroked his chin thoughtfully.
Someone would have answered by now.
Wouldn’t they?
A member of staff.
One of the residents.
Ronni.
What if they were too afraid to open the door? After everything that had happened, it’d be understandable.
But whoever checked the security monitor inside would be able to see him. If Ronni was watching it, she’d see it was him.
So why didn’t she come?
“Don’t call here again, it disturbs the residents.”
Again her words echoed inside his head.
But so too did the words of the doctor who’d rung the house.
“I haven’t been able to reach your wife .. . I’ve tried a number of times ...”
Andy spun round and prepared to walk to the car.
As he did he heard movement on the other side of the main doors.
RONNI TURNED THE key in the main doors of Shelby House and peered out onto the porch.
She managed a smile when she saw Andy.
“What the hell’s been going on here?” he wanted to know, wondering why she didn’t open the door wider. He could barely see her through the tiny gap between door and frame.
“Why are you here, Andy?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
“I was worried about you. The hospital rang and said ‘ “Is my dad all right?” she interrupted.
“That’s what they rang about. He’s out of the coma. He’s improving.
They tried to contact you, but they said there was no answer.”
She squeezed her eyes tightly together. The colour, drained from her cheeks long ago, seemed to return briefly.
“Let me in,” he said.
“I can’t,” she snapped.
“Why not?”
“The residents. You’ll wake them.”
He regarded her through the crack in the door.
“What’s wrong, Ronni?” he asked.
She looked at the floor.
“Ronni.”
“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong,” she said, a little too quickly.
“What about that?” He pointed to the trail of blood, noticing that it continued beyond the door into the building itself.
“There was an accident,” she told him.
“Who got hurt?”
Again she looked at the floor.
“Andy, I ‘ She started to push the door shut.
He put his foot against it, like some overenthusiastic doorstep salesman.
“Andy, please, just go,” she said imploringly.
Tell me what happened here.”
“Just go.”
Again she tried to close the door.
Again he blocked it.
“Ronni, for Christ’s sake. If there’s been an accident let me call for help. Who got hurt?”
“It’s been dealt with.”
They faced each other in silence.
“Why are all the lights out?” he said finally.
“The residents are sleeping. You’d better go before you disturb them.”
“Just tell me what’s been happening. Have those fucking kids been back here?”
She swallowed hard.
“Ronni?”
“Go now, Andy,” she urged.
“While you still can.”
He looked puzzled.
“While I still can ... ?”
The door was suddenly wrenched open.
For fleeting seconds he wondered who the figure was standing behind his wife.
Wondered what he was holding.
Jack Fuller lifted the .38 into view and aimed it at Andy’s head.
“Get inside,” the older man snapped.
Andy looked at Ronni and saw the blood on her face and clothes.
“What the fuck is this?” he demanded.
“What happened?”
“If you don’t do as I say, I’ll kill both of you,” rasped Fuller. He pulled back the hammer of the pistol and the metallic click sounded like thunder in the silence.
As THE DOOR was locked behind him, Andy didn’t know what to focus on first:
The trail of blood that led from the entrance all the way down the corridor ... The bruised and bloodied features of his wife ... Or the gun pointed at his head.
The gun. How fucking stupid did that sound? The gun.
He looked at Jack Fuller.
The gun being held by the resident of Shelby House. The gun being held by this man who was living out his last years in an old people’s home.
The gun.
Andy looked at his wife waiting for her to burst out laughing.
Surely, any moment they would both start and let him in on this joke.
Wouldn’t they?
There were a couple of fluorescents glowing in the ceiling and, as he walked, Andy could see the blood glistening in their cold light.
The trail led towards another open door at the end of the corridor.
It was towards this that he and Ronni were being forced.
All the other doors on either side of the walkway were firmly closed.
“What’s going on?” he asked finally.
“We had some trouble,” Fuller said flatly.
“We’ve been dealing with it.”
“Who got hurt?” Andy enquired, nodding towards the blood.
“And what happened to your face?” He looked at the cut above her eye, the blood that had congealed on her
cheek and chin and the dark bruises that had mottled her flesh.
“A boy was killed,” Ronni told him.
Andy swallowed hard.
“Who killed him?” he wanted to know.
“No one killed him,” snapped Fuller.
“It was an accident.”
“Was it one of the kids who’ve been causing trouble here?”
“One of them,” Ronni said quietly.
“You know about our problems then, Mr. Porter?” Fuller observed.
“Ronni told me.”
“Did she also tell you that the same children were responsible for putting her father in hospital?”
Andy looked at Ronni in bewilderment.
She nodded in affirmation.
“And one of them got inside here?” he persisted.
“Three of them,” Fuller told him.
“Go in.” He nodded towards the basement door.
“Have a look.”
Andy looked at Fuller.
Then the gun.
And finally at Ronni.
At her injuries.
“Who did that to you?” he asked, reaching out to touch her face.
“I fell,” she told him, sniffing back tears.
“Did you do that to her?” Andy rasped, turning to look at Fuller.
“If you did, I’ll ‘ “What, Mr. Porter? What will you do? Don’t threaten me. You’re hardly in a position, are you?”
Again he nodded towards the basement door.
Andy glanced at the blood on the frame and the threshold, then stepped through.
He looked down into the subterranean room.
It was like looking at a scene from a nightmare.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he whispered.
THEY DIDN’T GIVE us any choice.”
Andy walked slowly down the basement steps, Jack Fuller’s words reverberating around him.
“They killed my wife,” Harry Holland added.
They’ve been punished for what they did,” George Errington said flatly.
Andy gazed at the body of Graham Brown lying prone on the cold floor, blood still seeping from his shattered skull. Then he glanced at the unconscious figure of Donna Freeman, still tied to the chair, her dishwater-blonde hair matted and tangled, her face and chest splashed with crimson.
Carl Thompson looked at him warily, the tape gag still firmly in place across his mouth.
Andy saw the bruises on the boy’s body. The cuts and grazes on his face.
He looked at Ronni as if wanting confirmation that what he saw before him was real and not the product of some fevered dream.
So many questions crowded his mind, but he seemed incapable of giving them voice. Besides, where the hell would he start?
“I tried to stop them,” Ronni said softly.
Fuller grinned. That’s a lie and you know it, Ronni,” he chided.
“You helped us. How else could we have kept them here for so long?”
“And no one would have blamed you,” Harry Holland offered.
“They’re the ones who almost killed your father.”
Again Andy looked at his wife.
She shook her head.
“Why didn’t you just call the police?” he wanted to know.
“Because the police wouldn’t help,” Fuller snapped.
“We’ve been through all this.”
“So now what?” Andy asked.
Donald Tanner produced the open razor.
“Watch,” said Fuller.
Tanner lifted the blade so that it was level with Thompson’s right eye.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Andy gasped.
Ronni could only shake her head.
Errington gripped Thompson’s head to prevent him moving.
Tanner brought the blade closer and prepared to cut; one single horizontal slash that would slice the eyeball cleanly in two.
The blade sparkled under the cold white light.
“This is justice, Mr. Porter,” Fuller said flatly.
Tanner steadied himself.
“No.”
The shout came from Andy.
He launched himself at Tanner and crashed into the older man, the impact causing him to drop the razor.
The two of them slammed into Thompson, who fell backwards, smacking his head hard against the floor.
George Errington stumbled away from the tangle of bodies.
Ronni spun round and struck at Fuller’s face, the sudden movement catching him unawares. She connected with his lower jaw and saw him stagger backwards.
Andy was on his feet by now, hurtling after her as she ran for the stairs.
“Go!” he roared behind her, aware of the residents moving towards them.
Colin Glazer swiped at him with one of the Stanley knives and Andy felt something cold slice into the skin of his upper arm.
Ronni was halfway up the stairs now.
Andy followed.
He stumbled close to the top, fell to his knees.
Ronni was already into the corridor beyond.
Andy clambered to his feet and prepared to follow her.
The roar of the .38 was deafening in the subterranean room.
Andy felt as if he’d been hit by a red-hot hammer.
The heavy-grain bullet caught him in the back, tore through his lung and exploded from his chest carrying a flux of blood, sputum and pinkish-grey gobbets of lung tissue with it, some of which spattered Ronni.
She spun round and saw him hit the ground.
Saw the look of shock and pain on his face.
Saw the blood pouring from the wound.
He tried to crawl.
She tried to drag him.
The blood was spreading around him like ink soaking into blotting paper.
Every time he tried to breathe, she could hear a wet gurgling noise.
It took her a second to realize it was coming from the wound itself.
A second longer to realize that his riven lung was filling with blood.
He would soon drown in his own life fluid.
She looked beyond him, down into the basement.
Fuller was moving steadily up the steps.
No hurry.
No urgency.
Andy tried to speak, but blood filled his throat and spilled over his lips.
He sounded as if he was gargling.
Then Ronni saw the key.
The basement key.
Still in the lock.
She snatched at it.
Fuller saw it too.
He raised the .38 and prepared to shoot her.
Like a dog.
She slammed the door shut.
Locked it and slid the key into her pocket.
From inside, she heard furious shouts.
Then the first thunderous impact against the door.
She knew she didn’t have long.
“ANDY.”
She gripped his hand tightly.
His eyes were open, but he didn’t seem to see her.
His lips fluttered soundlessly.
Ronni slid her hands beneath his armpits and tried to lift him. The movement made him groan with pain and she thought about leaving him where he lay.
“Get up, Andy,” she begged.
He coughed and bright red blood sprayed in all directions.
He pushed against the slippery floor, desperate to haul himself upright, desperate to help her.
The pounding against the inside of the cellar door grew louder.
She knew it wouldn’t hold them for long.
They had a hammer. Chisels. A bolt-cutter.
The door would not present too much of problem for them.
And once they emerged, Jack Fuller still had the gun.
The thought of the weapon seemed to spur her on and she kept hold of Andy, ignoring the blood that stained her blouse and skirt.
She found reserves of strength she didn’t know she had and she half-carried, half-dragged him along the corridor, his legs sometimes
giving way.
“Get the police,” he gasped thickly.
He slid to the floor and she tried again to pull him, but he shook his head and tried to crawl on all fours, like some stricken animal.
A cow on its way to the slaughterhouse.
He forced himself on, his hands slipping in his own blood.
She was aware of movement to her right.
Barbara Eustace emerged from the day room, the wheels of her chair slipping in the blood.
Ronni looked at the older woman.
Barbara glanced down at Andy. At the blood. At the pallor of his skin.
For precious seconds no one moved or spoke.
They held each other’s gaze.
“Don’t try to stop me, Barbara,” Ronni hissed.
Andy groaned in pain.
Barbara manoeuvred herself back into the day room and pushed the door shut.
Ronni sprinted off towards the downstairs office.
From behind her there was a shriek of splintering wood.
A panel of the door exploded outwards into the corridor.
Then another.
She saw hands fumbling through the gap, reaching for the lock.
Searching for the key.
Blows began to rain down upon the lock itself.
Andy was still crawling along, head bowed, blood spilling from his nose and mouth.
She dashed into the office and snatched up the receiver.
Jabbed three nines and waited.
In the corridor, Andy groaned and fell forward, his lips quivering, his eyes now barely open.
A voice answered on the other end of the phone.
“Which service do you require?”
“Police and ambulance! Hurry!” Ronni shouted into the receiver.
“Shelby House Residential Home. Quickly!”
She dropped the receiver and ducked out into the corridor and knelt beside Andy.
Again she squeezed his hand.
“Get out,” he said, his voice barely audible.
“I’m not leaving you,” she told him.
He saw the fire in her eyes.
When he tried to breathe it felt as if someone was sitting on his chest.
It was a terrifying feeling. Like drowning.
He began to shake uncontrollably.
“Hold on,” Ronni said imploringly.
At the far end of the corridor there was another thunderous explosion.
She realized Fuller had shot the lock off.
The basement door opened.
The residents emerged into the corridor.
RONNI LOOKED AT each of them in turn.
Donald Tanner had retrieved the open razor and now brandished it before him.
Colin Glazer held the claw hammer
