by Jason Beech
Sultana rapped his arm. “For crying out loud, Dean, this is bigger than you.”
“Sultana, please …” Mr Breckin’s eyes formed perfect circles at her effect on Dean’s trigger-finger. His forehead crumpled and he splayed his fingers wide, palm out, to placate one student and roast the other.
She bit her lip. “Sorry.”
“Dean.” Mr Breckin put an arm across Penn, whom Dean recognised had taken one step forward too many.
“Nobody has betrayed you. This suit, it … nobody would take my ideas seriously. You can't believe the number of people I've tried to convince, high up in the establishment, about my idea for an invisibility suit. I mean, who wants to listen to a comprehensive school teacher? None of them, believe me. They thought me mad, some frustrated nobody who spent his days teaching lower class kids some generic chemical formulas. And then you two tweak my ideas and make it a reality. I mean … It's just unbelievable, isn't it? I spend years on this, and boom … but …”
Mr Breckin came back to himself. Mopped his forehead of that glint.
“They wouldn't even look at my formulas until I gave them practical evidence. Well …” He shoved his triumphal smile in the MI5 agent’s stone face, whose expression set firmer. “… here it is.”
“Sir?” She slipped an arm through Dean’s. Her warmth hardly thawed the freeze he'd imposed on himself. The shake in his hand did not relent.
Penn brushed Mr Breckin to the side. “Dean, we’ll need the suit.”
“You don't need it if Mr Breckin here knows how to make a new one. And here you have the proof, so I can keep it.”
“I don't know how to recreate it. I have most of the formula right, but not all – or the code you two added to make it work. Let the gentleman have it.”
The bullet-head offered his best puppy eyes mixed with a righteous nod in agreement with the comprehensive science teacher. “It's the best thing, son.”
“Mr Breckin, I can't –”
“You can't?”
“I can't. I can't do it. It's mine. I … I just need it.”
“Come on, Dean, be serious. You live on a council estate. Where you going to go? You have no contacts. The government knows where you live –”
“Then why didn't they take it before now?”
“I hoped you'd hand it to me before I had to get them involved. But since you've been chased by those thugs, you've become … rather arrogant.”
Dean waved the gun between them. Somewhere between his ears his old self knew he should just hand over the suit and get on with life. The sense of betrayal coshed that old Dean over the head. He couldn't read Sultana’s face anymore except for the lies and a sense of superiority. He pointed the weapon at the ceiling and fired a shot. He didn't expect it to send concentric rings of sound over his senses. For a moment he stood as dazed as the rest. He pulled the suit across his face so they only knew his whereabouts by the weapon in his hand. He let the gun fall to the floor as he burst between the men and thrust down the corridor.
He checked his shoulder, once, twice, again. The judgement in Sultana’s shake of the head needled into his heart and made him pick up his pace. Ran straight into the guard he'd followed down that long corridor. Dean’s breath came out like the chug of a car when its battery died. The man’s surprise disappeared beneath his professionalism and he threw himself across the patch he guessed Dean might lie. He guessed right and worked his gym-built arms round Dean’s skinny torso.
“Get off, get off.” Dean knew his best bet involved wriggling like a snake until he could slither from the grip. The man sat on top of him, thighs holding Dean in a vice so tight it made his voice trail off in a squeak. “Get off me.”
“Sorry, sir, this is a matter of national security. I'm afraid I can't let you go.”
Dean bucked and rolled. He succeeded in making his muscles raw and nothing more. Mr Breckin, Sultana and Penn stepped close enough to fill his vision entirely. The guard fumbled around the suit in search for a part which protruded from his skin. Once he could grip the material, he ripped.
“No. No. Nooooo.” Dean squirmed and wriggled at the hook, but his captor had him. Hard muscle ranked above his weak-arsed struggles.
Sultana hunched above with the clothes on her arm. She kept her eyes on him as material ripped and flesh became exposed, until he lied bruised and naked beneath the harsh strip lights. The guard folded the suit while Penn held open a briefcase for its placement. Sultana kneeled beside Dean and planted a hand on his upper thigh as he took the foetal position. “Come on, Dean, cover yourself up.”
Breath chuggahed through the snot from his nose. Tried not to side-eye her like a beaten dog. Laid a hand on the clothes she offered and grunted for her to go away. It was the kind of naked he didn't want her to see.
The men whispered to each other in a huddle. Aimed the odd glance at Dean. Made him beetroot red, like Mr Breckin had when he told him off as an eleven year old. Once clothed, they arced around him as he backed into the wall.
The crags in Penn’s face deepened beneath the harsh light, enough to throw a rope down and go caving. His eyes needled into Dean, but Dean held his nerve and glared back.
“Dean, there's a lot of paperwork for you to sign. We're going to give you money, not a ton, but plenty to live a much better life than you do now. Those pricks you killed … well done. You did the land a favour. Fuck ‘em. Very Bondian of you. Makes me proud to be British when somebody takes the initiative against scum like that.
“But … no word of this suit to anybody. Not a soul. Not even your mother. And that goes for you, too, Sultana.
“We're going to let you both go home. We’ll drop you off. But we will have agents keeping an eye on you both – you know, to make sure you both stay safe.”
14.
The guard dropped Sultana off at her house and Dean stepped out with her. They'd called ahead because how else would Mr Singh-Cheema sit so calmly for them, one leg crossed over the other. He jumped off the front garden bench when he recognised the official cars held his daughter. He pulled Sultana so far into his chest Dean thought she might disappear into his moobs. His soft, relieved features hardened for Dean.
“I didn't like you as soon as I set eyes on you.”
Dean sunk his hands into pockets to show his carelessness, and to keep warm. “It's only because I have a penis, Mr Singh-Cheema. You'll get over it. Your daughter has done me the world of good. I'm a new person.”
He could see her struggle with her cool, but she relented and let that big cheesy grin take over her face. She whispered something to her dad and he let her go, slow like she would melt into the outer world again and never come back.
She approached Dean, all poised, the kid he'd grown with all womanly. She held his hands. “Let's hang out. Do some normal stuff. Watch a film, or something.”
“Or – make a new suit. Make two new suits.”
“What?” Her laugh rose above the roof of her lovely house and into the clouds. He hoped it would brew and rain back down on him. “That’s … Dean, the government is onto us. They're watching us from now on.”
“Not forever. I can rejig the material. Get rid of the flaws. We can do stuff.”
“What stuff? What are you saying?”
“You know what I'm saying, Sultana. What a pair we'd make. Nobody ever needs to know.”
“They would know. Mysterious occurrences, unexplained actions, which nobody could explain – of course they'd think of us first. We're not cartoon characters, Dean.”
“We're not. We're serious people.”
“You're a nutter. An absolute nutter. Just, dangerous.”
Maybe, but he could see how the idea had planted in her head. He stepped backwards to the MI5 car to gage her emotions widescreen. Her hand combed deep into her hair and culminated in a scalp scratch, at the itch which infected her thoughts.
Dean grinned. They could begin in the city. Clean it up before expanding their horizons.
Why not?<
br />
Why not?
Dean asked the guard for pen and paper. The man suspected some kind of ruse because he imposed an interrogatory stare which Dean deflected with dead-eyed boredom. The guard relaxed and handed them over. Dean rested the paper on his knee as they set off for his house. He feigned resignation. Blinked at the street lights as they strobed past, and penned the first rough draft of a new chemical formula.
Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed Bullets, Teeth and Fists 2. If so, please consider reviewing the beast on Amazon and Goodreads and you would have my eternal gratitude.
You can also get involved in my other work – Moorlands, the first Bullets, Teeth & Fists, Triple Zombie (an anthology with James Newman and John Bruni), and the charity anthology, Paladins.
Bullets, Teeth & Fists
Jason Beech
Take a turn down a dark alley where a New York cop sees murders before they happen. Climb a drainpipe and pad your way across London rooftops to see what a man would do to keep his daughter in the country. Drop down again, to that restaurant where a date goes from bad to worse, to boutique coffee. Boutique coffee? Wouldn’t you run?
14 short stories take you from London to New York, to the sun-seared hills of Ancient Greece, where you’ll dodge bullets, teeth, and fists all the way to the end.
‘If you want a collection of crime stories you can really sink your teeth into, look no further than author Jason Beech.’ – Carmen Amato, author of Cliff Diver, and Hat Dance.
Triple Zombie ft. The Bloody Path to New Mexico
Jason Beech
Lizzy and Frank are seemingly the only two people left in the world after a zombie apocalypse. Lizzy has visions of being the world’s new Eve. The only problem is Frank is its new Adam. He’s big, dumb, doesn’t look after his teeth, and his bloodshot left eye makes her suspect he’s heading for life as one of the undead. She wants to get away from New Jersey to the less populated New Mexico, but Frank has unfinished business. He wants to find Danny, the man who betrayed his gang of armed robbers, even though he knows the man is one of the brain-dead horde.
In the meantime Lizzy deals with her own demons, checking her old home and the sister she locked away years ago. When she suspects there might be another human out there, a woman to rival her status as Eve, Lizzy’s actions lead to an explosive ending.
Moorlands
Jason Beech
Small-time crook Larry is in a world of trouble. He has a missing sister, dodgy friends, and money-induced cracks in his family. Sophie is the missing sister, and his step-father wants him to use his criminal skills to find her. Larry’s in debt to a man called Stan, who has a side as dark as long-dried blood. As time runs out on paying Stan his money, Larry fears his sister is more than avoiding everybody. His nerves are stretched by multiple tensions, from friends’ roving eyes to the consequences of an ill-advised one-night stand. Can Larry escape Stan’s heavy hand – and find Sophie alive?
Set in Brexit-fever Britain, Moorlands is a rollercoaster ride through the nation’s underbelly, where bitterness, violence, and surges into the wild crawl beneath the surface.
