by D C Grant
but all remains dark. I close the window carefully, pull the hood of my jacket over my head and head off down the street.
It isn’t far to my house and there’s no one else around. The streets are dark and quiet, there are no cars on the road, no people out for a midnight stroll like me; most of the lights are out in the houses, everyone warm and snug in their beds, unlike me.
I let myself into the house and am surrounded by the abandoned, chilly atmosphere. Using the flashlight, I make my way along the passage and up the stairs. A step creaks under me and I jump in surprise. It’s loud in the still, empty house. After a few seconds I walk on, knowing there’s no one in the house to hear it.
I reach the landing and enter my parents’ bedroom. I look around, my eyes following the beam of the flashlight. There’s nothing out of the ordinary apart from the mess. I walk over to the bed, imagine myself sitting there, looking at Dad, and trying to picture where he’d been standing. It doesn’t work so I sit on the bed and play the flashlight over the floor, and find the turf of carpet sticking up like it had been earlier.
That’s where Dad was standing.
I get down on my hands and knees and pick at the tuft, realizing that there’s something strange about it. I sit down on my haunches and place the flashlight on the floor, and the shadow from the beam shows a corner of the carpet has lifted. I pull at it and a square of carpet comes away from the floor.
Underneath is the particleboard flooring, and a square has been cut into that too. I use my door key to pry it open and a piece of wood lifts up to reveal a cavity beneath, filled with papers and photographs wrapped in plastic. I pull them out and remove them from the plastic. There’s the list we found on the computer, photographs of people I don’t recognize, pictures of what look like packets of drugs, and a picture of Sandman shaking hands with Mike. I can tell it was taken in a hurry because most of the background is blurred, and even the two men look a bit fuzzy. It makes little sense to me, but it must mean something to Dad. There are other papers too, but I don’t want to look at them here. I’ll take them back to Ben’s house, wake him up and we can look at them together.
The stair creaks and I drop the bundle onto the floor. My heart thumps in my ears but other than that, I hear nothing. I think that the board must just be settling back after I stepped on it earlier. It’s time to split. I gather up the stuff and get ready to leave.
The door opens just as I’m getting to my feet and the man I know as Sandman walks in.
“Thank you for finding that for us, Jason,” he says as he holds out his left hand.
I back up, away from his outstretched hand, but he raises his other hand and points a pistol at me. I halt, feeling the bed touch my thighs. I have nowhere else to go. I’m trapped, alone with a very dangerous man, and from the look in his eyes I can see that he doesn’t intend to let me leave the room alive.
Caught
As Sandman moves forward, Chan follows him into the room and stands to one side. He’s holding something black in his hand, but I can’t see what it is – another pistol?
Sandman points to the papers in my hand and says, “I’ll have those.”
Knowing I cannot resist, I let the photographs and papers fall into his hands. He looks down into the hole and then toward Chan.
“Idiot, didn’t you think of looking at the floor? I told you to look everywhere – to turn the place upside down – and still you missed this. It took the boy to show you!”
Chan stands there silent while Sandman turns back to me and says, “Who else, besides your friend, knows about this?”
“Ben doesn’t know about anything,” I say. “He doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“You didn’t say anything to him before you left?”
“No, he was asleep.”
“And so you just crawled out the window?”
“How did you know … you were watching the house!”
“Chan was watching the house. We were waiting to get you alone. We had to find out how much you knew. You played into our hands. I couldn’t believe it when Chan said you were leaving the house and coming here. It couldn’t have been better.”
I led them right to it! Inwardly I groan. I look around for Chan, who is standing by the bedroom curtains, looking out. “All clear,” he says.
Sandman switches on one of the bedside lights; it has a dimmer switch that he turns right down, then he pulls out the stool from the dressing table and points his gun at it.
“Sit,” he orders. “And take off your jacket.”
I don’t move. Chan shoves me and I stumble forward until I’m beside the chair, then he pushes me down onto it and stands behind me, his hand on my shoulder while Sandman stations himself in front of me. He pulls down on the jacket zip and roughly strips the jacket off me, throwing it aside and I shiver – from cold or fear?
“Now then,’ says Sandman. “Tell me what you know.”
I’m not going to tell him anything. I know that this man has something to do with the death of my mother and my father’s critical condition. I’m still trying to figure it all out but I know I’m not going to tell him a thing. He raises his hand and I duck, but Chan pulls me upright and Sandman strikes my cheek, hard. I taste blood in my mouth.
“Tell me,” he hisses and I recognize the menace in his voice enough to open my mouth. He knows it all already, I guess. The words burst out of me and I’m shaking with anger. All the emotions of pain and frustration over the past few days spit out of me like bullets.
“You killed my mother, you bastard. You tried to kill my father. You trashed my house. You planted drugs in my room. You tried to make us look like drug addicts or something so that no one would believe our story. I’m going to prove them wrong.”
“You’re just like your father – too damn smart and too damn nosey,” Sandman says as he steps forward and crouches in front of me so that his face is level with mine. “If he minded his own business, we’d be all good, but no, he had to investigate, had to gather the evidence.”
“It’s what he does!”
“Does too well, I’m afraid. It got your mother killed. Do you realize that? Your father got your mother killed.”
“It was you that killed her!”
“Well, she was what we called in the army ‘collateral damage’. It was your father who was the target. We wanted to send him a warning – back off. Maybe now he’ll get the message.”
Tears are running down my face. “Who are you and why are you doing this?”
“I just do what I’m told and right now I have a job to do.” He waves the papers from the floor in my face. “How did you know where to find this?”
I hesitate.
I feel two points of cold metal touch the skin on the back of my neck, just above the neckband of my sweatshirt, and the next minute a sharp jolt runs down my spine, so severe that I yell out in pain.
“It’s a stun gun, Jason. That was only a taster of what it can do and I can see that it hurt. It would’ve been worse if Chan had held it there for longer, which is what he’ll do if you don’t start talking.”
There is a tingle up the back of my neck that remains after Chan has taken the weapon from my skin. I notice that my hands are trembling.
“Let’s try that again: how did you know where to find this?” Sandman asks.
I feel Chan move the metal points against my skin and I talk quickly. “I remembered something my father said.”
“And what was that?”
“He said he had the evidence at his feet. He was standing here at the time. I noticed a tuft of carpet sticking up and came back to look at it.”
“You see, you did know something about it all, even though you didn’t tell Mike.”
“I wouldn’t tell Mike anything. He tried to set us up. He was supposed to be my dad’s friend.”
“There is plenty I could tell you about Mike, but that’s not what we’re here for. So who else knows about this?”
“No one,” I say quickly.
“I told you, he doesn’t even know I’m here.”
“You’re right, Jason, no one knows you’re here, so don’t worry, we have all night. We’ll get all the information out of you in the end; you just have to decide how painful you want it to be. Now, what else do you have? What did you find on the computer?”
“What computer?” I ask.
“Don’t act innocent with me, Jason, we know your friend took the computer and put it back together, how else would you know about the flight times?”
“How …”
“You think I didn’t see you following me at the airport? I’m sorry, but I’m well-trained and you have absolutely no experience in shadowing. I noticed you there but I didn’t know who you were until I mentioned it to Mike in the car. He recognized you from my description. We knew then that there was something you weren’t telling us. But you’re going to tell us everything now, aren’t you?”
“There’s nothing left to tell.”
I forget about the stun gun until the electric current stabs through my body, throwing me off the chair and onto the floor where I lie dazed and disoriented. Nausea rises in my throat. It takes me several seconds to get my breath back while Sandman looks down on me with cold blue eyes. Eventually, he reaches down and pulls me back onto the chair.
“Let’s try that again,” he says. In fear, I glance over my shoulder at the black stun gun in Chan’s hand and lick my dry lips. Now my arms and legs are trembling; I’m not sure if it’s fear or the effect of the stun gun.
“Let’s not,” says another voice, a voice I recognize – Mike!
Sandman swings round and smiles. “Mike, you’re just in time. Jason’s about to tell us everything.”
“I’m afraid not, Sandman,” Mike says. He too has a pistol and it’s aimed at Sandman. “It ends here. You’re not torturing that boy anymore.”
“And who made you the boss?”
“I’m telling you, you’re to let him go.”
“I don’t think so, Mike. He knows too much.”
“We’re not about to start killing children.”
“If that’s what it takes,” Sandman says.
“It’s no good, police teams are on their way. It’s all over.”
“And it’s all over for you too,” Sandman says, as he turns his gun on Mike. Mike is too quick for him and ducks away, but he stumbles on something on the floor and loses his balance. Before he can recover, Chan slips out from behind me and jabs him with the stun gun for so long that Mike convulses and falls to the floor, groaning and insensible. Sandman smacks the side of Mike’s head with his pistol and he stops making any noise and lies still, unconscious.
It’s all over within a second and I can only stare at Mike in shock, realizing that it’s likely he isn’t with them after all, that he’d come to rescue me – but now it appears that my hope of rescue is gone. Sandman prods him with his foot and announces, “He’s out. Have to let the boss know what’s going on.” He takes a cellphone from his pocket.
For a moment he’s distracted and Chan is leaning over Mike’s inert body – I see my chance. My muscles have regained some of their strength after the last jolt and I shoot off the chair toward the door, but Sandman swings round quickly and hits me with his gun hand. My head snaps back and my body follows it over until I’m lying flat on my back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, wondering how it was that he could react so fast. He places his foot on my chest and dangles the pistol over my head while he talks to whoever is the boss.
“Yeah, Boss, Mike was just here. It seems he’s called for back-up … yes, we’ve got the evidence … and the boy … you’ll stand them down? Good. We’ll carry on here.” He listens to the other person at the other end of the line and then says, “Sure” before he disconnects and looks down at me. “Sorry, boy, but the cavalry is not about to arrive, in spite of what Mike said.” He grabs me under my armpits and sets me back on the chair as if I were a rag doll. Chan, satisfied that Mike is not a threat, comes to stand alongside me again. I’m dazed from the blow and when I put a hand to my cheek where the gun hit me, I feel the wet stickiness of blood.
Sandman glares at me. “My orders are to get rid of the evidence, get rid of you, Mike and your friend, and then lastly, your father; all neatly dealt with.”
“You leave my father alone!” I say as I attempt to launch myself at him, but Chan is quicker. He grabs my arm, jabs the probes of the stun gun against my skin and the massive electric shock throws me to the floor where I lie stunned and immobile while my head spins, the nausea rising in my throat and my muscles trembling so much I’m actually moving along the floor.
“Really, Jason,” Sandman says. “I would have thought that a boy as clever as you would have learnt by now. It’s no use struggling.”
In spite of my half-dazed state, I think to myself that if I had been clever, I wouldn’t have got myself in this position in the first place.
Stunned and Confused
Through the fog that shrouds my mind, I hear Sandman say, “I’ll fetch the liquor from downstairs. Chan, take the pistol and shoot them if they move.”
I guess he leaves the room, but I can’t see as tears mist up my eyes. My heart is racing and the blood is pounding through my veins. I wish I could get up and race out the door, but the truth is I’m so immobile I can hardly breathe, much less move. Just as my vision returns and my heartbeat ceases to pound in my ears, Sandman comes back and both he and Chan haul me back on the chair where I sit, swaying, while the room swims in and out of focus. Sandman holds a liquor bottle in front of my face. It’s the one Ben found under Dad’s desk. Sandman has wrapped a cloth around it so that his fingerprints don’t transfer to the bottle. I focus on the cloth – it’s the T-shirt Mum bought me from Las Vegas, the one that had been ripped up and left on my bedroom floor.
“You’re going to drink this,” he says to me. “It’ll make things easier.”
“Easier?” I mumble.
“Yes, you’re going to kill yourself, Jason.”
I’m so astounded that I can’t speak. I just stare at him.
“The story is,” Sandman continues, “that the son is so devastated by his mother’s death and his father’s pitiful condition, he drinks his father’s liquor and gases himself in the family car. Very tragic.”
“You can’t make me!” I say and knock the bottle away.
There’s a metallic click behind my ear and I feel the cold metal of the pistol in my ear.
“Drink, or Chan will shoot you.”
“How would you explain my brains all over the carpet?” I sound braver than I feel. I’m terrified.
“You really do think you’re clever, don’t you, Jason?” He looks at Chan behind me. “Give me the gun.”
I think that this is it, this is how I’m going to die, but instead Sandman steps over to Mike, who’s still immobile on the floor, lays the muzzle on his forehead and asks, “How about his brains on the carpet?”
My voice quivers. “How are you going to explain that one?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t know, let’s say that you shot him and driven by guilt, you kill yourself.”
“You won’t do it.”
“Do you want to take that chance?”
I know he’s serious and my thoughts whirl in my head. He could kill Mike and still kill me, there’s no reason for him to stop. Whoever is his boss has managed to stand down the police response, so no doubt he would be able to cover up two dead people in my parents’ bedroom. I have to keep both of us alive for as long as possible. While there’s life, there’s hope. Sandman sees the indecision on my face and laughs. “It’s not so easy now, is it, Jason?”
Almost weeping, I hold out my hand toward the bottle and say, “Give it to me.”
“I knew you’d see sense.” He holds the bottle out to me so that I can take it in my hand without the T-shirt wrapped around it. Now my fingerprints are on the bottle
I hol
d the mouth of the bottle my lips and the fumes make me gag. I swallow down the rising nausea and take a mouthful. The liquid is bitter and hits the back of my throat where it burns all the way down to my stomach. I cough violently.
“Don’t worry, Jason, we’ve got time,” Sandman says. “Little sips at a time. Keep going.”
I try again. It’s awful, like bad medicine, and I want to be sick but I keep tilting the bottle and pouring it down my throat while Sandman watches with cold, callous eyes until I’ve drunk half of what was in the bottle. I keep looking over at Mike, thinking that at some stage he’ll wake up and save us, but he remains senseless where he fell.
“That’s enough,” Sandman says, as he takes the bottle from me and places it on the floor where he kicks it over, spilling some of the liquid on the carpet. “Chan, put the board back and replace the carpet, then cover it with this stuff that’s lying on the floor.”
I hear Chan moving behind me and I think that I should be trying to get away, but the alcohol has hit me hard. I’m unable to focus, and with the room spinning more than it was before, I know that if I don’t keep my hands on either side of my body, palms down on the chair, I’ll just fall right off.
Chan replaces the board and carpet and drags me to my wobbly feet. I have to resist, knowing that if I don’t, I’ll be killed, and I struggle, managing to kick him in the shin. His grip on me loosens and I turn to head for the door. But the door’s no longer there – in my confusion, I’ve turned the wrong way. Sandman doesn’t hesitate, striking me hard on the temple, and I have a second in which to feel the pain of the blow before I lose consciousness.
Death by Car
I wake up coughing and spluttering, the back of my throat raw and eyes streaming. I can hear an engine running. I’m in a seated position, my limbs heavy and fingers tingling. It’s a mission to open my eyes.
The garage wall appears in front of me. There’s glass between me and the wall. I struggle to make sense of it until I see the windshield wipers lying on the glass – I’m seated in my mother’s car in the garage. I relax. I’m safe. I close my eyes again but a thought is tickling the back of my brain. What’s the engine noise?
I open my eyes again. I’m inside the garage, inside my mother’s car and the engine is running. Why would that be? There is something blowing against my cheek and I turn my head toward it. The round hole of a hosepipe is jammed into the open window and a soft breeze comes from it. Why would someone put a hosepipe in the window?
My eyes want to close again but I fight the urge. I know that I’m in danger but I can’t figure it out. This is my mother’s car, this is safe – or is it?
With difficulty I turn my head and look over my shoulder to the back of the car so I can see where the hosepipe leads to, and jolt when I see that it goes around the back of the car – to the exhaust. I’m being gassed. I’ll die if I don’t get out.
I hook my fingers around the door lever but the door doesn’t open. It’s locked, but when I press the button to unlock it, that doesn’t work either. I
