by T. J. Lebbon
‘Plan?’ Chris asked.
‘We’ve got just under an hour until the call’s due,’ she said. ‘They’ll know I’m here, and some of what I’ve done. But hopefully, they still think the hunt is on.’
‘So?’ He was panting, sweating, determined.
‘So we don’t have long. And we need to hit the barn quickly and without warning. We waste time looking for the one who’s on watch, that might warn whoever’s at the barn.’
‘You know them, don’t you?’
She didn’t answer. Her arm was numb now, but she could feel the damage that had been done. She was past exhausted; her eyes burned with tiredness, her muscles were weak and watery. But Margaret Vey smiled in her mind’s eye, drawing a knife across her husband’s throat while her children watched.
‘I call her Grin,’ Rose said. ‘She’s the woman who killed my family, and the one guarding yours.’
‘She’s done it before.’ Chris’s voice sounded flat.
‘She won’t do it again.’
He nodded, looking down into the valley. They could not quite see Goytre Barn from here – it was too far away, hidden in the wrinkles of the land – but he was close to his family, close to winning. She didn’t dare tell him how unlikely it was that he’d ever see them again.
‘We’ll go in from two directions,’ she said. ‘If one of us runs into the guards, the other one will get through.’
He looked at her, doubtful. He didn’t trust her, and she could hardly blame him. Selfishness had been her driving force, and perhaps it still was. But now she could see that his own triumph might be hers as well.
‘Really, Chris. I’ll do everything I can.’
‘And your guy won’t help us again?’
‘Holt? No.’ She shook her head, although she wasn’t sure. He’d have escaped from the farm, she was quite convinced of that. And he’d come this far to protect her because … he’d fallen in love with her? She hated even considering that because it felt like such a betrayal of Adam and her dead children. But the truth was there before her – in his abandonment of the Trail, the ease with which he’d let her go in Italy, and the fact that he was here now. Confronting it, she wasn’t quite sure how she felt. And that confusion troubled her even more. ‘No, we’re on our own.’
‘Okay,’ Chris said. ‘The guard will be close to the barn, he’ll want to stay in touch. And as soon as he hears any trouble … ’ He shook his head. ‘Got to be a better way. Come on. We don’t have long, let’s think while we’ve moving.’ He started running again, the hunter’s walking boots slapping hard at the road surface.
Rose pushed off on the bike and rolled downhill after him.
We’re so close, Chris thought. Nothing can go wrong now. I can’t let it. I won’t.
Running in the stranger’s boots felt unnatural. His feet were heavy, legs fluid, muscles hot and aching. Blisters burned on his feet, and his groin felt chafed, nipples sore and bleeding from where they’d rubbed back and forth across his breathable top. His left knee was stiff and hot. He’d suffer for weeks, but he’d suffer for so much longer if he didn’t push himself onward with every shred of determination he could muster.
The barn was across the valley on the eastern slopes of another, smaller mountain. The looming bulk was harsh and steep, great swathes of rock having broken away and tumbled down over the aeons. People didn’t think about that when they built their villages and dwellings. They didn’t consider the vastness of time, and the chance of another huge chunk of mountain breaking away and burying them all. Time would wear away the whole mountain, but it was an order of time that did not affect a human lifespan. Chris often thought about this, how a human’s life was nothing. And yet the lives of those he loved were everything, and he’d tear away at the mountain with his bare hands for every remaining second of his life if he thought it would save them.
The road veered south, away from the location of the barn, so he climbed over the stone wall and started across the fields. Rose called for him to slow down, let her catch up, but he didn’t listen. If he stopped now he might not start again. After all he’d been through, the idea of getting there a minute too late was too terrible to contemplate.
He yearned to see his family again. Hold them to him, hug them tight, tell them that everything was going to be all right. What came after … he could not think about that right now. That assumed survival, and beyond that was a whole different world. He would open the door to that new existence only when the time came, and not an instant before. Chris was not a superstitious man, but he would not tempt fate.
The field became marshy and he had to pick his feet higher, lifting his knees to wade as much as run. Behind him, Rose was struggling with the bike. He could hear her grunting and cursing, and then there came a single shout and she cast the bike aside. She was running after him now, and he admired her determination. She’d kept going all through the afternoon and night before, and she was pushing on now. Even with a wound in her arm. There was something special about her, or perhaps her quest for revenge was really a form of madness. Would he go mad if he reached the barn only to find his family … ?
He tried to shove the images away, but the more he pushed the more insistent they became. Terri, the girls, and blood. His eyes watered. No! He ran faster. The rifle strap had rubbed his shoulder raw and the stock bashed against his lower back with every step. Everywhere was pain. The few parts of him that didn’t hurt felt numb and strange, as if they had no part here.
He climbed into another field, paused to locate himself in the landscape, glanced back to Rose. She was close, struggling across the field but no longer urging him to slow down. Her face was grim, pale but resolute. She caught his eye and nodded for him to go on.
How long? She’d said an hour, but maybe it was less. Maybe it was half an hour, or twenty minutes. Perhaps Rose was starting to believe they were minutes too late, and they’d close in on the barn in time to see the two Trail members leaving in a Land Rover, the building behind them still echoing to his family’s dying screams.
Chris ran. He had always run, but it had never been towards anything so important.
The end of this run meant his whole world.
He crossed a wider spread of marshy land, aiming for the areas where sharp marsh reeds grew, hoping that meant drier land. The ongoing deluge drowned out the splashing and his groans of effort. Sometimes he went up to his knees in mud, but he was still strong. He pulled through.
Rose was almost keeping up with him. He wondered at the boundaries she was crossing. Pain, exhaustion.
They reached another road, and looking slightly uphill towards the mountain he saw the barn at last. It sat on a flat area of land on the gently sloping hillside, several outbuildings surrounding it. Smoke rose from the chimney. That almost stopped him in his path, because it was such a homely sight. Someone wanted heat, and comfort, and warm water. He wondered whether the two Trail gave a shit about his family’s comfort, and knew that they did not.
Whatever the outcome of this hunt, surely his family were doomed from the beginning. Even if the hunters had found and killed Chris, how could his family ever be released? They’d have a story to tell, if only a small part of the whole truth. And the Trail could not afford that.
But this was not his world, he had no idea how these things worked. He was just a fucking architect.
Maybe they’d been dead since yesterday morning.
The thought was sickening, but he could not let it influence him. He shoved it aside.
Rose reached him and grabbed his arm. He pulled away and went to set off again, but she kicked his foot from under him, tripped him, fell across his body and pinned her arm across his throat. She was panting so much that she could barely talk, but she screeched out in pain from her injuries. Chris had to respect her force of will in carrying on. He tried to buck her off, but she increased the pressure. The gun was pressing painfully into his back.
‘Wait,’ she gasped at last.
> Chris shook his head beneath her arm.
‘Wait!’
Chris relaxed a little.
‘Vehicle.’
Chris listened and heard a distant motor.
‘How long?’
‘We’ve got half an hour. Long enough. But we can’t be seen.’
He struggled again, but Rose was stretching to look over the tall reeds, up towards the barn and its approach road. When she saw the vehicle she let Chris up at last, but kept one hand on his shoulder to make sure he stayed out of sight.
‘Saved by the post office,’ she said. ‘We’ll see where the guard is now.’
The red postal van bounced along the barn’s approach road, moving faster than it should have. Even from several hundred metres away Chris could hear the van’s chassis bouncing from the uneven road surface, suspension groaning, metal screeching.
‘Too fast,’ he said.
‘Yeah.’ Rose knelt up and slipped the rifle from her shoulder.
Chris crouched, watched the van, scanned the barn’s surroundings, saw no one. He wanted to start running again, to get there as soon as he could. But getting himself shot in these final moments would serve no purpose at all.
‘Can you shoot from this far?’ he asked.
‘Long shot.’ That was all she offered.
As the van neared the barn its brakes slammed on. It slewed to the side and struck a stone wall, throwing up a fan of mud. The driver’s door opened.
Holt, Chris thought, it’s him, and he’s come to help me save my family.
But the man who emerged was much taller than Holt, and definitely not a postman. He wore casual clothes and carried a machine gun slung over one shoulder.
‘Fiona!’ the man called.
Closer to Rose and Chris – much closer, maybe only two hundred metres away – a woman emerged from behind a rusted cattle feeder. She was short and lithe, wearing a heavy waterproof jacket and carrying a Kalashnikov.
‘What’s up, Tom?’
Tom walked from the van and leaned against the stone wall. ‘It’s definitely all gone to shit,’ he shouted. ‘Fucker had help, that Rose woman from a few years back. And she’s still out there somewhere. We’re compromised, cell’s wasted.’
‘No shit?’ Did this new Trail woman care? Chris wasn’t sure. Perhaps only for herself.
‘Rose!’ he whispered urgently. She touched his mouth with her hand, never taking her eyes from the exchange.
‘Margaret inside?’ Tom asked.
‘Yeah.’
Tom seemed to sigh. He looked up at the mountains around them, and for a moment Chris thought the Trail man was smiling. He muttered something then, shaking his head.
‘What?’ Fiona asked.
‘I said it’s a damn shame,’ Tom called. ‘Come on. Let’s help Margaret clear up.’
‘Clear up?’ Chris muttered. He went to stand. Crouching down here, hiding, waiting, could do nothing. He had to keep moving forward, one step in front of the other.
‘We’ll give them one minute—’ Rose said. But Chris was done giving them time, and done listening to her.
Rifle held at the ready, he shoved with both feet, launching himself away from Rose and out into the open.
He ran.
Tom saw him first, eyes going wide, right hand fumbling for the machine gun hanging from his shoulder.
Then Fiona turned around.
Fucking idiot! Rose thought, but she couldn’t blame him. If she’d heard that fucker Tom right – and over this rain, that wasn’t guaranteed – it sounded like they’d already killed Chris’s family. Now there was nothing left to fight for but revenge.
It had kept her alive for so long. She let it guide her now.
She brought the rifle up to her shoulder, aimed, and fired in one motion. Chris was between her and the woman, Fiona, but Rose could not let that stay her finger. His only chance was her first shot.
Fiona’s head flipped back as the bullet struck her in her face. She stiffened, then hit the ground like a fallen mannequin.
Chris ran on, shooting at Tom as he went. It was pointless.
Tom crouched behind the wall and let loose a burst of machine-gun fire. The range was long for such a weapon to be accurate, but Chris dropped and sought cover. It was what Tom wanted. He sprinted for the barn.
Rose fired at him three times before he reached one of the outbuildings. If she hit him it didn’t seem to slow him one bit.
‘Chris, circle around!’ she called, hoping the instruction reached Chris but not the Trail man. She started moving forward, eyes on the barn and outbuildings.
Chris stood, swaying. His face was splashed red, but he was beyond caution. He started running again, limping badly, veering slightly to the left to bypass a dip in the ground.
Tom darted for the barn’s front door. If it had been open, maybe he’d have got inside.
As he stood struggling with the handle, Rose braced herself into a shooting position, shutting out the pain, aimed, fired.
The bullet smacked Tom against the door. He slid down, leaving a smear of blood on the old oak.
Rose readied to fire again but the barn door opened and Tom slumped to the ground. There was movement inside. She eased her finger from the trigger.
She wanted to see Margaret Vey’s face as she killed her. Wanted to kill her slowly, make her feel every moment of it. A bullet through the skull was much too kind.
The door slammed closed again, and Rose felt an instant of regret. If Chris’s family were still alive, maybe that one shot would have saved them.
But the moment was past.
Rose followed Chris towards the converted barn, alert for movement at the windows. Grin would certainly be watching.
Chris reached one of the outbuildings but did not pause. He ran across the tended lawn and pressed up against the barn’s wall.
Rose passed the woman she’d just shot. Half her face was missing. The other half was pale and attractive, and she wondered what made a young woman like this do the things she’d done.
Money, of course. But that was the least of it. The Trail were as bloodthirsty as the clients they served.
A window smashed and Rose ducked down. But no gunfire came.
‘I’m leaving here!’ a voice called, and Rose felt a wave of nausea. Margaret Vey. The woman she’d dreamed of killing for so long, and who now was less than a rifle shot away. ‘I’m coming out, and you both need to step back and drop your weapons. Both of you!’
‘No way!’ Rose called. She was close to the edge of the barn’s garden, hidden in a field of ferns. She lifted her head a little, saw Chris. There was blood on his face and neck. His eyes were wide. He was in the same place, gun across his chest, not knowing what to do. If he dropped the gun and walked into view, she’d likely shoot him. Rose didn’t think he could see her, but she still held up her hand – Stay there!
‘I have three of them in here,’ Grin shouted. ‘I’ll kill the first two quickly! He’ll not want them all dead, I’m sure. Not all of them. Three seconds and I send the first one out to die.’
‘No, don’t!’ Chris shouted, and then there were squeals from inside, and then a gunshot.
‘No!’ Chris ran for the door, passed it, ducked around the smashed window.
Rose readied herself to hear the gunshot that would take Chris’s life.
He saw them.
Terri, his dear wife, in her jogging bottoms and tee shirt. And his girls, Megs still wearing her pyjamas, Gemma in wrinkled school clothes, dried blood on one shoulder. They were sitting on a sofa, Terri in the middle. Their arms were tied behind their backs. Their ankles were bound. They wore gags, but their whines could not be constrained when they saw him.
The woman from the van was crouched behind the sofa, gun pointing at the window.
Chris went to lift his rifle, but she was turning slightly towards him, and he saw not an instant of doubt or hesitation in her face.
He dropped down and back as she fired, and t
he bullet whispered by close to his face. He’d already been shot in the cheek by the machine gun. He didn’t know how bad it was, his entire face burned and blood flowed, but he didn’t care. As long as he could still see, stand, shoot, he didn’t care.
Rose was running across the garden. She signalled that he should stay down as she headed for the front door.
Where was the guy she’d shot, Tom? Chris didn’t know. Badly injured, at least, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t fire a gun.
‘Last chance!’ the woman shouted. ‘I’m sending Megs out the window now, and if I can’t see you both standing there with guns on the ground, I’ll blow her brains all over you!’
No no no! Chris thought, but he could see no other way. He hated the bitch using his daughter’s name. The woman meant to escape, and she’d happily kill them all to do so. If she had only one hostage, it would be easier for her.
As she’d said, killing the first two would be quick.
‘Okay!’ he said. ‘I’m backing away, dropping my gun!’ His jaw and face hurt when he spoke. He sounded desperate.
Rose frowned at him from by the front door. He raised his hands – What else can we do?
Rose tried the front door, and from deeper in the house Tom called out, words lost but his alarm obvious.
‘You try the front door again and I’ll start shooting them in here!’
Chris stared at Rose. Desperate. Hopeless. To have come so far …
She lifted her jacket and showed him the pistol in her belt. He signalled for it. She shook her head.
Chris scurried along the barn’s wall to Rose, whispered, ‘She’ll be watching you, not me.’
Rose shook her head again. The woman was the one she’d come here to kill, and to hand over that task to Chris—
Chris grabbed her shoulders, ignoring her wince of pain. ‘It’s not all about you,’ he whispered.
‘Yes it is,’ she said. But he could already see that she was wavering.
