Sam knew he was stating the obvious; most of his escape party had lived in Westbrooke for more years than he had been alive. It was the relief speaking, lightheaded and dizzying that it was. Knowing that they weren’t going to have to fight their way out through an angry mob made anything else waiting along the country road seem like some blessed relief.
He felt his heart settle into a steady rhythm. His thought processes cooled. They were going to make it out of Hell.
Sam managed to keep that positive frame of mind for three hundred yards before alarm bells began ringing inside his head. Two felled trees blocked the road. Billy Rogan was sat on top of the barricade, a 12-guage shotgun resting not-so nonchalantly on the brace of his left forearm and thigh. There was no more than twenty-five feet between them.
“Hiya, Mister Sam,” Billy called, scratching at his scalp with his free hand.
“What are you doing there, Billy?” Sam asked, slowing his walk to a standstill. Behind him someone moaned. He didn’t dare lift his gaze from the shotgun on Billy’s lap. All of a sudden he was very, very cold and all he could think was: this is where being a hero gets you, Sam.
“Waitin’ for Pops,” Billy said easily. His free hand went back to resting on the stock of the shotgun. “I’m gonna teach him not to cleanse me no more.”
“That’s fine, Billy. You going to let me and these people go by?”
“Nope, Mister Sam,” Billy said, shaking his head.
“Don’t be silly,” Sam started to say but the dissenter had snatched up a branch and charged at Billy. Billy brought the gun up. “Billy, give me the gun, son,” Sam said, trying to keep his voice calm.
Billy Rogan took aim, but his arms were not strong enough; the barrel wavered in the air, not enough for him to miss when he pulled the trigger on the dissenter. He shot half of the man’s head along with his face, neck and shoulders.
The few refugees that had made it this far scattered.
Two barrels, Sam realized, seeing Billy’s finger hook around the second hair-trigger. Billy brought the gun around to aim at him. Chaos ruled on all sides around him while Sam remained rooted to the spot, hypnotized by the eye of the gun.
“Don’t do it, Billy, lad. I can help you. Give me the gun. Come on, come down from there, lad.”
Keep talking, just keep finding words and keep the voice calm. Keep him distracted and hope to god someone does something before –
“Got to say bye-bye, Mister Sam. Got to wait for Pops to come. Got to teach Pops a lesson.”
Billy pulled the trigger back no more than a fraction. In the breath between the shot and the pain Sam tried to hurl himself out of the line of fire.
The shot ripped through Sam’s right hand side, shredding his arm and most of his side from the pectoral down to the knee. Part of it punctured his right lung, ripping a hole out of his back. The sheer force of the blast spun him around like a rag doll.
Whether any of his hapless band of refugees made it as far as the motorway was down to them now; he had done his part getting them this far, Sam thought, falling to his knees. He pitched sideways, sprawling across the road. His blood leaked into the puddle around his side.
- 74 -
Doyle slammed the brakes on, slewing the squad car ninety degrees as its wheels locked on the gravel. The restaurant wasn’t in complete darkness, dim flickers of candlelight danced in the windows. Too many windows, too exposed, Doyle kicked himself for ever having agreed to those patio doors on the verandah. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t have known, he was a policeman, this was his town, he should have known and that was all there was to it. He slammed the car door and sprinted through the rain to the door of his wife’s restaurant.
Ben came around the car and gave Kristy a tight hug. “Didn’t think we were going to make it back there,” he shuddered at the too- recent memory.
“Thank god for the man in the white car, eh?” she said, taking him by the hand and leading him after Doyle. For now, at least, the urgency had evaporated. They walked through the rain. The sounds of the riot weren’t far away but as of now they were far enough away.
There were eight cars in the car-park, one of which was Evie’s little Fiat.
“Come on,” Doyle shouted from the shelter of the porch. Ben couldn’t tell whether his anger was directed at them for dawdling, or at Evie for being slow about opening up, or at the village for turning on him. He suspected it had more than a little to do with the sudden and powerful surge of relief at finding Evie unharmed. They hurried up the steps and ducked in through the door.
He’d been right about the candles. The diners were still at their tables, though none were eating. Obviously the worst of the noise hadn’t made it over the Muzak. Did they even know what was happening out there? It wasn’t that far away, surely? Shaking the rain out of his hair, Ben did a quick head count: twenty, including Doyle, Kristy and himself. Not an army by any means.
“Holy god,” someone blurted.
“We’ve got to lock the damn doors!” Doyle shouted above the piped Pavarotti. “Evie! Evie! Where are you, woman? Ben, that table and those chairs, make a barricade! Quickly!”
That kick-started Ben’s adrenalin. Not caring what the diners thought, he dragged the table over to the door, whipped the cloth and the cutlery off in one go and upended it as the first line of the barricade. Next, he wedged the chairs up under the table. “We’re going to need more,” he told Doyle. Doyle was already taking care of it.
“Barney Doyle, just what the hell do you think you are playing at?”
“Up, come on, up!” he yelled, ousting a couple and dragging their table across to the blocked door. He upended it without bothering to clear the crockery. He used it to shore up the chairs. “That’s the best we can do in the circumstances. It’ll hold for a while at any rate. Kristy, try and raise someone out there, let them know where we are.”
He handed her his police radio. She took it without question.
Doyle saw the panic spreading through the group like a scrub fire on a windy day. A woman – no more than a girl really, he amended mentally – began to sob.
“Everyone just stay calm,” Evie said. “We’ll be all right, won’t we, Barney?” she looked at her husband.
“Okay folks, listen up good,” Doyle said, fighting his own fear to take up the cue left by Evie. “We’ve got a problem outside, but I reckon you guessed that much for yourselves already. The power’s out, so are the phones. Half of the village is on fire. There are kids running riot on the streets. Best thing we can do is batten down the hatches and sit tight, but if you want to go, go now. I won’t stop you,” his announcement ended in shock silence.
Just don’t let anyone talking about dying or getting overrun.
Kristy on the other hand was beginning to wonder just how long it would be before her mind decided it was time to take refuge from this insanity. She saw everything she needed to in those paled faces at the tables. No one seemed willing to move.
“I don’t understand any of this,” someone said into the air.
“Analyze it all tomorrow, fella. Do now. Help me. We might not have that long before the fighting makes it this far.”
“Uh hunh. I’ve got two girls at home. I’m not sticking around here. Sorry.”
“Do what you need to. I still need a hand.”
“What do you want me to do?” The speaker sounded glad of a chance to work the paralysis out of his system.
“Check the windows. Make sure every way into this place is secure. I don’t want any surprises.”
The diner did so, his body buzzing with gratitude. Doyle felt safe relying on this one at least. The windows would be as secure as he could make them and that was all any of them could ask.
Ben was moving between the tables, offering quiet words. Should have been a bloody priest, Doyle thought, watching him.
Breaking every one of Evie’s rules, Doyle sat back against the barricade and rolled himself a smoke.
For once hi
s wife didn’t complain. She kept herself busy following Ben, checking if people wanted a drink, something to calm the nerves. He smiled, his heart swelling with love at the sight of her.
* * * * *
Kristy lifted her eyes to look across the room at Ben. She thought back to an hour ago, making love in front of the open fire in the family room, the clichéd romanticism of the memory left her wanting to giggle but now more so than ever she didn’t dare risk the slippy road into hysteria. Maybe in time she could convince herself to fall in love with him – it wasn’t out of the question, but it would need time for the normal experiences of lovers, not this hot-housing of emotion.
She hefted the police radio and thumbed down the black button on the side. Another faint static hiss sprayed out. “Watersedge Restaurant calling Westbrooke Police Headquarters, come in, over,” she said quietly. Someone out there had to be tuned in. Had to be listening. “Is there anybody there?” she whispered, feeling stupid for coming out with a line more suited to a séance. More suited? And this isn’t like trying to raise the dead? “Watersedge to anyone. Can anyone hear me out there? Over.”
There was another crackle of static hiss, then a small burb of the connection being made.
“Can you hear me?” came a faint voice broken as much by pain as by static. Kristy looked around quickly, but the voice wasn’t loud enough to have been heard by anyone else. She could barely hear it herself without having the set right up against her ear.
“Thank god, Yes! Yes I hear you.”
“He’s got a gun,” the tiny voice gasped, biting back so much pain.
Kristy yelled for Doyle across the dining area.
* * * * *
Ben reached her first, in time to hear the next line from the radio.
“Been hit. I think I am gonna… oh god it hurts.”
He recognized the voice. Sam Ash. Ben snatched the radio from Kristy. “Where are you?”
“Spine Road, down by . . . Arches. Billy’s got a gun.”
“I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes,” Ben said. He handed the radio back to Kristy.
“Do you want to die?” she rasped, pushing herself up so she didn’t have to look up at him.
“No and I don’t suppose he does either,” Ben said, pointing at the radio in her hand.
People were staring at him. Let them, he thought brutally. Maybe Kristy wasn’t so wrong, maybe he did have a death wish. Maybe he owed that one to his brother, Mike. Ben wasn’t about to own up to thinking thoughts that black. Not to anyone.
He dodged through the tables.
In the thirty feet between Kristy and the door Ben Shelton’s life whittled down to one maxim: do unto them before they do unto thee, twice as bad. He had become almost some kind of mirror, his thoughts reflected back off the glass so even he couldn’t see the driving wheels behind them.
He ignored Doyle’s protestations and started pulling back the barricade so he could get through the door.
Doyle did everything he could to stop him, short of outright violence. There had been enough of that already. He came after Ben, grasping ahold of his arm.
“Ben, lad, listen to me. You can’t go back out there, son.”
“Let go of me, Barney. He’s dying out there for pity’s sake. We can’t just leave him . . . them.”
“Let him go,” Kristy said, suprising him. Her voice ached with anguish. She thought she knew now why Ben was pushing himself so hard. If she was right, she wasn’t going to be the one to stand in his way.
Doyle shook his head. Looking at both of them as if they had each grown extra heads, and all of them had gone mad, Doyle backed off, letting go of Ben.
- 75 -
Alex hammered on Beth McCusker’s door.
“I know you’re in there, come on open up! We can have some fucking fun! You owe me a shag, you bitch!”
He teetered backward, craning his neck to look up at the upstairs window. There was nothing to give away whether the biggest bitch in his world was home or not. All the banging in the world wasn’t going to open the door for him. Still he beat the heavy wood again and again before he backed off and turned his attention to finding another way in. The most obvious was a downstairs window but they were made from that toughened UPVC stuff that wouldn’t break. The ones out front were locked. He decided to try around the back. There had to be a chink somewhere waiting to be exploited.
The only pounding now was inside his head where the fever was burning fiercely. He rubbed his brow, felt the waxen quality of his skin. He told himself he would have killed for an Anadin and then belly laughed at his own dumb joke.
The shed door was cracked open. Alex ignored it. He walked into the centre of the back yard and stood there staring at each dark window as though by looking hard enough he might suddenly see her, hidden or not. Then he raised his voice and called: “Beth you cow, I know you are in there! I’ll huff and I’ll puff and then I’ll tear that fucking bastard out of your cunt with my teeth! You hear me, you bitch? Now open that bloody door!”
Like a lot of houses in the area the McCusker place was designed for show not security. The smart new UPVC windows of the front weren’t repeated around the back where no one could see them. Old paint-stripped frames held single panes of glass. Alex wrapped the body of his leather jacket around his fist and broke through the glass pane in the back door. He reached through and unlocked it, but for a moment did not open it. He walked back to the shed and opened that door wide instead. The darkness inside was almost complete, but some thoughtful soul had hung a rubber-handled torch on a hook on the back of the door. It worked.
He used the torch to search through the junk piled high inside the shed until he found what he was looking for: a clear plastic bottle, three quarters full of transparent liquid. Alex pulled the cap off and doused his head and shoulders with the thick smelling turpentine, letting it stream down over his body and soak in. He felt his skin contract on contact. Its reek was dangerously dizzying. Alex needed the constant flow of rain to keep from puking.
He stumbled back to the door, breathing in the heady vapors.
“Coming, Bethany, ready or not!”
Ready or not, yes, yes, I am ready! This time I am ready. You’ll not catch me twice. Not have Alex Slater walking out with his prick limp between his legs twice. Slut. Bitch. Whore.
The hunger inside Alex was nothing compared to the sunburst of anger he’d felt the last time he had faced Beth. A different house. A different Alex. The hunger in him was barking at the moon hunger, rattling the windows hunger, tearing out chunks of her cheating heart hunger. This time she was going to pay.
He would take everything she had.
To Alex that included the precious fucking embryo in her gut. Let the bitch suffer. Let her hurt.
Stepping into the house, he found that he knew instantly that he wasn’t alone downstairs. He felt her presence seconds before he saw her. It was like a butterfly churning in his gut. His eyelids were sticky with the sludge of turpentine. He turned his head just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of someone – something – hurtling at his head.
Alex threw a hand up instinctively to protect his face, taking the blow from the fire poker right across his forearm.
The bone shattered painlessly.
Beth came at him out of the darkness, hissing like a cat. She sank her nails into his cheek, tore gouges out of his face. One of her fingernails broke off inside a bloody runnel and stayed sticking obscenely out of his weeping cheek.
The initial onslaught had Alex recoiling, one hand up, the other useless at his side, but the sheer ferocity of it could not last. He came back at her twofold, slammed a clenched fist into her jaw.
The blow sent her straight back as if whiplashed, crashing into the staircase. She came down on all fours, hacking over something stuck in her throat. Gagging.
He kicked her in the side of her ribs. As she doubled up, he grabbed ahold of the shoulders of her blouse and tried to rip it clean off her back. Butto
ns ripped through buttonholes, but the shirt only tore back far enough to bare one strapless shoulder. He punched her in the sternum with enough force to crush one of his knucklebones. He sank his teeth into the flesh of her shoulder, and tore out a chunk.
The blood tasted like an elixir.
“Gonna show you just how fuckin’ good it is, bitch. I’m going to fuck you up and then I am going to fuck you until you scream and then I am going to keep on fucking you until you wish you could scream. When I am done putting it in you I’m going to bury my hand in you and rip that bastard right out of your gut,” Alex screamed every word at her, fumbling with his belt, trying to release his aching erection.
Beyond screams, Beth twisted around beneath him, struggling to break free of his press. Her hand scrabbled out. The poker was inches away from her fingers. She twisted, snagged it with the pad of a fingertip, rolled it closer, caught it in her hand and swung it around hard, not looking to aim, into Alex Slater’s temple.
Pain or no pain, the blow nearly blinded him.
Shrieking, his good hand flew up to the side of his head, clutching at his skull, the blinding fire lancing from his head to his heart in a pulse.
Vengeance swam tantalizingly close, then elusively distant. He felt himself shrivel. His legs gave away, everything about him suddenly clumsy –
“Bitch,” he wailed. “You fucking bitch.”
And toppled forward onto his knees, hanging there suspended before plowing face first into the carpet.
* * * * *
Sobbing, Beth McCusker crawled away from him, backing up, her eyes trying to trick her into thinking he was out as well as down. She knew better.
She wiped a sleeve across her face. She straightened her shirt and pulled it shut. Half of the buttons from the neck down were gone. With shaky hands and equally unsteady legs she tried to stand and had to use the wall to keep herself from falling. Amid the torment, the anger, the reviling and utter disbelief that little piece of reality didn’t escape her. There was a lapse here; a monumental breach of faith. Alex had always been one of the good guys – a prick some of the time, sure, but a fundamentally good prick. Not savage. Not like this. He had tried to rape her. She backed away from him as though he were a serpent laying there, a snake in her boyfriends clothing. She took a run and leapt over his prone body, hitting the space where the back door was open to the rain at a flat out sprint, and not stopping to look back.
Sufferer's Song Page 45
