by Mark Tilbury
She stumbled sideways. ‘You can’t defeat me. God is on my side.’
Marcus rubbed his injured eye. He should have shot the bitch when he’d had the chance. He glanced at the rifle lying on the deck. Through his blurred vision, the rifle now had two handles and three barrels.
Alice rushed at Marcus, hands outstretched like a monster in a horror movie. She tried to grab him around the throat, but he seized her wrists and twisted them around. The left one snapped like a dry twig.
Alice screamed and tried to bite his face.
Marcus let go of her hands and shoved her backwards over the top of the three feet high guardrail. He could no longer afford to think about right and wrong. He picked up the rifle and hurried towards the steps.
By the time he reached the bottom of the tower, his hands were shaking like an alcoholic in dire need of a drink. He forced his mind to focus on rescuing Emily and getting as far away from Penghilly’s Farm as possible. They could start again. Get jobs. Have kids. Buy a nice little house by the seaside. Do all the things normal people did.
His father had always warned Marcus that he would end up in trouble, and his father had been right. He was in the deepest shit imaginable. Locked-away-for-life trouble, and the sooner he disappeared, the better.
Marcus approached Sister Alice’s motionless body with caution. A pool of blood had spread out beside her head. One of her eyes stared up at the sun. The other was closed. A few flies buzzed around her like hesitant kamikaze pilots. If she wasn’t dead, then she was the world’s greatest actress. She was also the keeper of the keys now that Ebb and Tweezer were both out of action. That meant he would have to search her body for them if he wanted to let Emily out of the Sisters’ Room.
He moved a few steps closer. Goosebumps hatched on his arms. Sweat dribbled into his eyes. His wounded eye reacted to the salty intrusion of the sweat. How on earth was he going to search the pockets of a corpse? To make matters worse, he needed to put down the rifle to go through her pockets. That meant he would be defenceless.
Come on! You can do this. Thirty seconds, tops.
More flies joined the others circling the corpse. Black dots peppered Alice’s yellow overalls. What did the bloody things have? A fly grapevine?
Marcus knelt beside Alice and laid the rifle on the ground. ‘Alice?’
Alice’s open eye winked at him.
Marcus shook his head. That didn’t happen. No way. That was just his mind playing tricks. He swatted the flies with the back of his hands. He then fished in her left-hand pocket for the keys. Nothing, save a hot slab of dead thigh. Just touching it caused bile to rise into his throat.
Don’t puke. Not now. Get a grip.
Maybe he should just go. Forget Emily. Look after number one. What was the point in risking his neck for a girl who’d thought nothing of dobbing him in to Sister Alice and the Father? He could live without Emily. He’d been doing all right before he’d met her. No, scrub that, better than all right. Plenty of drugs. Free rein to deal. The girls on the streets liked him. Ebb trusted him. All things considered, life was cool before Emily Hunt had turned his world upside down.
You love Emily.
So what if he did? What was love, anyway? It was just a word. There were plenty more fish in the sea. Particularly down on the coast. He could find another Emily and start again.
And spend the rest of your life wondering what happened to her? For once in your life, do the right thing.
Marcus crawled to the other side of Alice’s body. Through her blood. He could feel it soaking through the thin fabric of his overalls. Alice’s arm was in the way of her pocket. As he pulled it out of the way, her closed eye flew open and treated him to an icy stare.
Marcus gagged. A fly landed on his hand, showing no distinction between the dead and the living. Thinking Alice had reached out and touched him, Marcus screamed and jerked his arm away.
Alice seemed to watch him with those sightless eyes. Her lips were peeled back. Blood trickled from one corner of her mouth.
Marcus dry-retched several times.
Get a grip. Don’t look at her face.
He fished in Alice’s pocket and was rewarded with a small bunch of keys. Overcome with a curious mixture of relief and hysteria, he brayed laughter and stuffed the keys in his pocket. He then scrambled to his feet, retrieved the rifle and headed back towards the farmhouse.
35
Ebb pumped the empty cartridge out of the shotgun, just as Cyril had shown him many years ago when Cyril still had arms to pump with. He also remembered Cyril telling him that another cartridge would automatically load into the chamber. So that was him armed and ready to go looking for deserters.
It was as clear as the crucifixion itself that something bad had happened. Sister Alice wasn’t coming back. Call it intuition. Call it premonition. Call it one big disaster after another. The truth was as plain as pasta: she’d either deserted him, or she’d been attacked by that retarded deviant, Marcus.
The traitor had already shown he was more than capable of murder; just ask that gaping hole in Brother Tweezer’s back if you wanted proof of what that pudding was capable of. It took a special kind of coward to shoot a man in the back. A man without heart. A man without compassion. A man who deserved to be pinned to a cross in the Revelation Room.
Most of Ebb’s clothes lay in a crumpled heap on the floor, decorated with fragments of glass. No big shakes. He would treat himself to a brand new wardrobe once he got to Thailand. He walked out of the bedroom and into the lounge, his robe hanging open. His stomach wobbled and obscured his feet. A strict diet of rice and Thai chicken should do wonders for his figure. To hell with being a vegetarian. A man needed protein to put a spring in his step. But this was no time to fret about his appearance. Not when there was a goose on the loose with a pickled egg.
Marcus entered the farmhouse by the back door. He stood in the kitchen and tried to listen for movement. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his heart thumping in his ears. Still, with Alice and Tweezer dead, and the Father incapacitated, it was unlikely that anyone would oppose him now.
He tiptoed past the huge pine table where The Sons and Daughters of Salvation had shared so many happy meals together. The floorboards creaked beneath his bare feet. The rifle felt slippery in his sweating palms. He wanted to put it down and wipe the sweat away, but he didn’t dare let go of it; it was as if doing so would conjure Ebb from his sickbed.
He walked into the hallway. Why couldn’t he breathe properly? His lungs felt as if they had surgical stockings wrapped around them. He stopped and rested against the wall, the rifle dangling by his side. It would be so much easier just to leave Emily behind. It would only take two minutes to get to the barn where the Land Rover was parked and make his getaway. Then he would be free. Free forever.
You’ll never be free. Not if you leave Emily behind. Your conscience will haunt you until your dying day.
‘I can’t do this,’ Marcus whispered to the empty hallway.
And what do you think Ebb will do to Emily? Let her keep the baby and raise it up as his own? Or do you think he’ll kill them both and put them down in the Revelation Room?
He pushed himself away from the wall and moved towards the stairs. He removed the safety catch on the rifle and prayed to God that he wouldn’t have to kill anyone else. By the time he reached the Sisters’ Room, he was convinced he was going to throw up. He fished in his pocket for the keys, unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Dixie gawped at the rifle. ‘What the fuck….’
Marcus put a finger to his lips. ‘Shut up and listen. We haven’t got time for questions. We’re getting out of here.’
Emily stood up and put a hand to her mouth. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Ebb knows about us. Tweezer’s dead. Alice is dead. And if we don’t get out of here, so are we.’
‘Alice?’ Dixie said. ‘Who killed Alice?’
‘I said no questions. We’re going to nick the Land
Rover and get the fuck out of here.’
‘Where are we going?’ Emily asked.
‘As far away from here as possible.’
Maddie asked, ‘But what about Ben?’
‘I’m only taking you three. Ben and Bubba will have to make their own arrangements. If you’ve got a problem with that, then you can stay put. I don’t give a shit.’
‘I can’t leave without him. We came here looking for Ben’s dad.’
Marcus’s jaw dropped. ‘His dad?’
Maddie nodded. ‘He’s a private investigator. He was looking for Emily.’
‘Looking for Emily? Why? This isn’t making any sense.’
‘It’s a long story.’
Marcus suddenly looked as if he’d seen a ghost. ‘Jesus Christ! He must be the dude in the Revelation Room. The Imposter.’
‘You know where he is?’ Maddie said.
Marcus nodded.
‘Then we’ve got to go and get him. Ben, too.’
Emily asked Maddie why Ben’s dad was looking for her.
‘We haven’t got time for this now,’ Dixie said. ‘But Maddie’s right; we can’t just leave them behind.’
Marcus looked at each woman in turn. ‘All right. But we have to keep quiet. Ebb’s only one floor above us.’
Edward Ebb hobbled down the stairs using the handrail as a crutch. The shotgun dangled by his side, primed and ready to fell the very Devil himself. His injured leg throbbed and competed with his nose for attention. He tried to focus on nice things, like chocolate and rent boys, but his mind only seemed interested in pain.
A noise on the landing. A door closing. All thoughts fled from his head. He stood stock still about halfway down the stairs. His heart banged against his ribcage, pumping blood into his ears. He let go of the handrail and held the shotgun out in front of him.
Sister Emily’s whining voice drifted up the stairs. ‘But where are we going to go?’
‘As far away from this shit-hole as possible.’
Brother Marcus this time. Ebb crept down another two steps and watched the leaving party as it gathered outside the Brothers’ Room. They were so busy whispering and conspiring that they failed to notice the shotgun aimed at their miserable heads. Brother Marcus fiddled with a bunch of keys.
How could they betray him like this? How could they be such a dirty, filthy miserable bunch of Judas Iscariots? He walked down the last few steps and stood a few yards away from the traitors. ‘Going somewhere?’
Marcus dropped the keys. He made a grab for the rifle propped against the wall.
Ebb fired. The blast boomed around the landing. Marcus clutched his chest and fell against the wall. He slid to the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
‘That’s right, Pixie-pea. You get it off your chest,’ Ebb shouted, as Marcus came to rest in a heap on the floor. He pumped a fresh cartridge into the chamber and made an instant decision to shoot Dixie with his last cartridge. She was the one most likely to cause a fuss when he was out of ammunition.
Dixie walked towards him, teeth bared, Satan riding shotgun on her tongue. ‘You crazy bastard.’
Ebb squeezed the trigger and blew half of Dixie’s chest away. He watched a why-hast-thou-forsaken-me-Father look creep into those gypsy-blue eyes. And then he watched death draw the curtains on her miserable prostitute life.
The landing certainly needed a lick of paint now, not to mention a damned good scrub. Sister Emily and Sister Madeline would have had some busy days ahead of them if they weren’t both bound for the rabbit hole.
Screams circled Ebb’s head like vultures. Sister Emily knelt beside Brother Marcus, her head pressed against the remains of his chest. Young girls didn’t know which side of their toast was buttered, and which side was burnt these days.
Ebb pumped the gun and released the spent cartridge. ‘Would you two girls like to join Brother Marcus and Sister Dixie at God’s table?’
Madeline looked at him with eyes like obituaries. He would excuse her for now because she was in shock. ‘I suggest you both do as you’re told from now on, if you want to remain in charge of your lives.’
36
After locking Emily and Madeline in the Revelation Room, Ebb went back to his living quarters and reloaded the gun with three fresh cartridges. It was one thing bluffing the women, quite another, Bubba and Benjamin. Or the Brothers Grimm as he now referred to them.
He’d managed to struggle into his black Nike tracksuit and matching Nike trainers. It had been a right royal bitch getting the tracksuit bottoms over his bandaged leg, but at least he now felt a lot more comfortable and better dressed for the journey ahead.
He studied himself in the one remaining wardrobe door. Black was a good colour. It made him look streamlined. Athletic, even. Black was also a suitable colour for mourning. The colour of grief.
He’d asked Emily and Madeline a dozen times where Sister Alice was, but either they weren’t telling or they didn’t know. He’d put his chips on ignorance, considering they’d both been in lockdown prior to Brother Marcus’s failed rescue attempt.
Both girls had reacted badly to the Revelation Room, but they would just have to get used to it. They wouldn’t be in there for long. Jesus had already instructed him to burn the bunnies as soon as possible. A new life beckoned. He would miss Penghilly’s Farm, but when Jesus told you to burn bridges, you bought matches and tested wind direction.
He was sure that Sister Emily and Madeline didn’t have too much to fear. Jesus would forgive them their sins and allow them safe passage to Heaven. It was unfortunate that Sister Emily had been foolish enough to let Brother Marcus impregnate her with his filthy seed, but he didn’t think Jesus would hold that against her. She was still young. Her heart was open to abuse. The Lord would understand her immaturity and forgive her. Ebb would say a special prayer for Sister Emily. And Madeline. May God forgive them both.
Poor Maxine was dead. Slain by that hideous fool Marcus. He hoped that God would see fit to punish Marcus appropriately. Perhaps St Peter would mount his head on a spike outside the Pearly Gates.
Maxine would have to be buried somewhere on the farm. He didn’t want her to burn with the bunnies. She was way too precious to perish in the flames. Considering Maxine had consumed most of Brother Gerald, it would be like burying Brother Gerald as well. It would certainly ensure a fertile soil for whoever took on the farm after him.
How are you going to get Max out of the Revelation Room, Pixie-pea? He weighs a ton.
Ebb jumped. He turned to face his mother’s reflection in the wardrobe door. ‘If you’re referring to Max, the dog is a she. For your information, she’s called Maxine.’
His mother puffed on a Woodbine. He’ll be all dead weight. And poor little Pixie-pea’s a wounded soldier.
‘Shut up, whore.’
Sticks and shovels, Pixie-pea, sticks and shovels.
An idea. A good one. ‘Bubba can carry her up the steps.’
Risky, Pixie. What if that streak of lightning ups and bolts?
Ebb turned away from the wardrobe. He’d had enough of shooting the breeze. ‘He won’t be going nowhere with a shotgun aimed at his head.’
You can’t go nowhere, Pixie-pea. You can only go somewhere.
Ebb ignored her. He hobbled through his living quarters and stepped onto the tiny landing. There was so much to do before the bunnies burned. All traces of his existence had to be removed from Penghilly’s Farm. Clothes, personal possessions, documents, weapons and just about everything that could be traced back to him.
He wished with all his heart that Sister Alice was still alive to help, but intuition told him she’d already been killed by that fraudster, Marcus. Why else would she be missing? It was beyond comprehension to even consider that she’d deserted him. Well, he’d just have to manage on his own. And he would. He’d single-handedly built The Sons and Daughters of Salvation from a humble concept into what it was today. You didn’t accomplish such a feat by being a woolly-minded mammoth.
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With the taste of Thai chicken on his tongue, and visions of burnt bunnies hopping about in his head, Ebb limped down the stairs to put the last two bunnies in the pot.
Ben stared out the filthy window at the motionless body lying on the ground. He couldn’t tell for certain who it was, but he thought it might be Alice. The hair looked grey, but it was impossible to tell for sure with the sunlight casting shadows across the courtyard. It was also raining. Sunshine and rain. The magic ingredients for making a rainbow cake as his mother used to say when he was still young enough to think it was funny.
He’d watched Marcus search the body and then walk off towards the farmhouse. Not long after that, he’d heard two shots ring out on the landing. Maddie was dead. He knew it. There was a huge black hole in his heart telling him so. Pastor Tom would never know what had happened to his daughter. Not even a mound of earth in Rwanda to mark the spot. And it was all Ben’s fault. If Stutter-buck had possessed one ounce of courage, one shred of decency, he would never have let Maddie get anywhere near The Sons and Daughters of Salvation.
Hindsight’s a wonderful thing.
Ben shook his head. ‘I’m just a useless c-coward.’
Bubba put a hand on Ben’s shoulder, making him jump. Ben turned to him. ‘Maddie’s dead.’
Bubba shook his head.
Tears pricked the backs of Ben’s eyes. He thumped his chest. ‘She is. I c-can f-feel it inside.’
Bubba formed his thumb and forefinger into an O.
‘She’s not okay. She’s dead. We’re all d-d-dead.’
Bubba put both his hands on Ben’s shoulders. He looked at Ben with those clear blue eyes that so reminded him of Pastor Tom. Don’t give up, Bubba’s eyes said. Never give up.
Ebb stood on the first floor landing and looked at the corpses of Brother Marcus and Sister Dixie. ‘Planning to leave, were you?’
Dixie and Marcus kept shtum. Traitors the pair of them. After all he’d done for them, and this was how they repaid him. By God, you certainly found out who your friends were in a crisis.
