Hot Zone (Major Crimes Unit Book 2)

by Iain Rob Wright

  A sleek black limousine awaited the three men outside the terminal and Peter and Yuri hurried excitedly towards it, further sickening the stomach of their silent companion. At least the man who greeted them was a true Russian. Vladimir Rusev was a portly man with a harsh face that never smiled. Yet, when he spotted the three men leaving the airport he greeted them warmly. “Peter,” he said, shaking hands. “Yuri. How are things in Moscow? Glorious I hope. And you, my good friend, it has been too long.”

  Al Al-Sharir smiled. “Yes,” he said. “Indeed it has. But now that I am here, Vladimir, I expect things to move along very quickly.”

  Rusev nodded and winked. “Very quickly indeed, my friend. Everything you need is in place. We have been waiting for you. Welcome to the United Kingdom.”

  “Thank you,” said Al Al-Sharir. “I came just in time to see it fall.”

  END.

  Book 3 Coming Soon

  About The Author

  Iain Rob Wright is one of the UK's most successful horror and suspense writers, with novels including the critically acclaimed, THE FINAL WINTER; the disturbing bestseller, ASBO; and the wicked screamfest, THE HOUSEMATES.

  His work is currently being adapted for graphic novels, audio books, and foreign audiences. He is an active member of the Horror Writer Association and a massive animal lover.

  Check out Iain's official website or add him on Facebook where he would love to meet you.

  www.iainrobwright.com

  FEAR ON EVERY PAGE

  More Books by Iain Rob Wright

  THE FINAL WINTER: UK US

  Apocalyptic horror novel where it never stops snowing and something ancient stalks the earth.

  ASBO: UK US

  Innocent family man is targeted by a gang of sadistic youths.

  ANIMAL KINGDOM: UK US

  Animals turn on mankind and try to make humanity extinct.

  SEA SICK: UK US

  A deadly virus is unleashed on board a luxury cruise liner.

  SAM: UK US

  A young boy seems to be possessed. But is he?

  RAVAGE: UK US

  Apocalyptic horror that culminates in a fight for survival at a hilltop amusement park. Say goodbye to the world.

  SAVAGE: UK US

  Apocalyptic sequel to Ravage where the stakes are even higher at an abandoned pier. Sometimes being alone is better.

  THE HOUSEMATES: UK US

  Reality TV turns deadly. 12 competitors but only 1 winner.

  SOFT TARGET: UK US

  Nonstop Thriller where the future of the United Kingdom is at stake.

  HOLES IN THE GROUND: UK US

  Collaboration with J A Konrath. Some things should stay buried. And guarded forever.

  THE PICTURE FRAME: UK US

  A haunted picture frame that curses anybody whose photograph is placed inside it.

  THE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS by CRAIG SAUNDERS

  The 1st Day of Christmas

  Best Stuffing

  I.

  On the first day of Christmas, I should've been getting up, thinking about making Christmas Dinner. Maybe even hitting the sherry early...it's Christmas. Eight in the morning for a first sherry seems perfectly reasonable. Instead of being drunk in charge of turkey, though, I'm in the bath thinking about shaving my ankle-moustaches. I've had them for around a year. My husband's barely home, and when he is, he doesn't look at my ankles. I suppose I'd worry about my appearance if he did. But he doesn't. So screw him.

  Or not. It's been a while. I could give birth to dust bunnies, it's been so long.

  I don't really want ankle-moustaches. It's not a conscious thing, like wearing knickers that cover my ass since I hit forty. I think I just got tired, then I got belligerent about it. They're my ankles, right? Every time I shave my legs, I cut off a knee or an ankle. I have beards on my knees now, and moustaches on my ankles. I'm forty-five and my husband hasn't noticed this odd fashion in leg hair. I'd be very surprised if he ever does...but by New Year's Day, I'm getting laid and I suspect he's not going to have a damn thing to do with it.

  II.

  Once I get going, I'm going. It takes me a while, but there are choices when you're home all day...or your husband thinks you are.

  'What did you do today?' he asks, every now and then. I think he asks mostly to show willing. When he's 'listening', I see his eyes turn right back into his head while he's thinking about what he's going to say next. Then he's prattle out some boring shit that happened at work.

  The truth is, around ten years ago, he stopped knowing what I do all day, and I stopped caring in the slightest who got hired, fired, or spilled their coffee in the playground. He thinks I watch the soaps, and what do I care if he does?

  Would it matter if I did? It would to me.

  So, I get up slow, but when I get going, I really get going.

  At around nine in the morning, legs freshly shaven (except the knee-beards and ankle-moustaches) I start stuffing the turkey. Sage and onion's just fine, but I've got olive, a little tarragon, a ton of sausage (I wish) meat, all soaked in Amontillado sherry since the night before. There are other things involved, but I never made up a stuffing before. This one probably would've turned out just fine, except it was only a little sherry because it was Christmas Eve, I was alone, and I like getting drunk.

  In truth, it was very little sherry in the stuffing. It was a small bottle and I didn't want to waste it. It was a largely sober kind of stuffing.

  I stick my hand right up the turkey's behind, which squelches.

  'Uh-huh...you like that? Just a little...oh yeah...that's it...that's the spot...'

  I talk dirty to the turkey between large sips of red wine. Red wine's not really drinking in the morning, as long as you're cooking. Also, breakfast counts as cooking.

  I'm not an alcoholic. It's more of a dalliance. Call it an affair, if you will, of a woman who thinks marriage should be final.

  Or...who thought.

  I look at my hand stuffed up the turkey's behind and sigh. I'm not saying I fancied someone stuffing their hand up my behind. I'm just saying at this point, this was the closest thing I'd seen to a bit of action since...Christ...must've been months.

  Dust bunnies and tumbleweed blow through the kitchen. Spitefully, the dust bunnies were giving the tumbleweed a damn good rogering.

  Sometimes I hate that I have an imagination.

  Potatoes are peeled, resting in salted water. I've got trimmings...chipoltas wrapped up like dwarf penises in the loving embrace of tasty bacon. Little nubs of chestnuts nestled in the bosom of Brussels Sprouts. Red cabbage seeping in red wine vinegar, which is an experimental thing as I don't really want to waste good alcohol on red cabbage. No one will eat the cabbage, either way. It's just for a bit of colour, really.

  It's only dinner for three this year. Mum and Dad and little old pissed me. This year it's just me and the oldies. My husband's not coming. I don't think he ever planned to.

  I take a sip (kind of a big sip, but it's a small glass. Smallish.) of the red wine and wonder if I'll still be standing by the time they get here.

  III.

  When the doorbell rings I look at the clock on the wall, which is unnecessarily large. It's one in the afternoon. I can smell burning, I've got dribble all the way from chin to cleavage, and I'm on the sofa.

  I don't have the foggiest how I got on the sofa, or what's happening with the dinner. Everyone likes crispy turkey, right?

  'Fuck!' I say, and realise I haven't got dressed, done anything much with dinner, I've got a kind of purple dribble down myself and no doubt a purple tongue, and Mum and Dad will be tapping their feet on the red flagstones on our stupid porch with its stupid white plaster columns, like some footballer's mansion.

  I'm a bit wobbly, a bit drunk, so the first excuse I think of when I open the door in my nightdress and dressing gown isn't the best.

  'Sorry, Mum...had the shits.'

  Mum's not an idiot, though. We're both from the East End of London, and we wer
en't born yesterday.

  'Purple shits, was it, Love?'

  'Come in,' I sigh.

  'He didn't come home, did he?'

  'Nope,' I say. Not even for a good stuffing, I think. She's probably thinking the same, too. Mum's mind's a dirty one. She grew up in pubs, worked in pubs, 'til she married dad. Dad's used to be a copper. Between the two of them they could turn the air blue at a Christening.

  'Come on,' says mum while dad just grins, like he always does. He says more than mum even when his mouth's shut. 'I'll give you a hand. And we'll see if there's any wine left, too, eh?'

  I groan. I like a good drink, but mum's basically a pub on legs.

  'Thanks,' I say, though, because when your husband doesn't even bother to come home for Christmas, a mum and dad are pretty welcome house guests.

  IV.

  Three places laid, dad sits at the head of the table. It's where my husband would sit, I guess, if he were the man of the house. He's not, though...turns out I am. I'm turning into the man I wanted to marry. Getting better at having sex by myself, too.

  We're not poor. I've got the right tools for the job. I haven't had to shag the washing machine yet. It's an expensive washing machine, though. Barely shimmies. Not that I've butted up against it or anything. Out of curiosity. Maybe once, I might have leant on it to reach up for a glass or something.

  Mum and I bring in the stuff, the turkey, which looks like it just got back from Marbella.

  Dad nods his approval as we serve him up the biggest portion. Turkey, pigs-in-blankets, stuffing, sprouts, roast potatoes, about a litre of gravy and put a healthy dollop of horseradish out, too, because cranberries give him the runs.

  When we're all sitting, eating or watching or drinking, mum starts in with the talk I know she's been dying to have. Probably since I married the man who stood me up for Christmas...and plenty of other meals besides.

  'Honey,' she says. She says 'honey' when she's going to give me a lecture, calls me 'love' when she's being sweet. It's always been one or the other.

  Dad gives her a hint of a look, like they spoke about this before. They probably did. It's been going on for the last ten years. Half of our marriage, maybe.

  'Don't you think it's time you did something about this...situation?'

  'Mum...he's my husband. I'm in for life. I take my vows seriously...'

  She puts on that soft look. She's had that look there since my first boyfriend. I was thirteen, he was fifteen. She put that soft look on then, when we had one of several talks. We'd had the talk before my first shag. We had a different one after.

  I know what she's going to say.

  'But if he doesn't take his vows seriously?'

  'Mum, he's working. Working to keep food on the table...'

  'That he doesn't eat.'

  'It's not like he's off shagging younger birds, mum. He's just...busy.'

  'Too busy for you? You're his wife, aren't you?'

  I sigh. I'm sticking up for a husband I don't believe in, even though I know it's pointless, like trying to argue dragons are real. She knows exactly what I'm thinking, but I won't say it.

  I'm not going to stop her, though.

  'You should've married a good man, love,' says mum.

  'He's a good man.' Even as I say it, I feel dirty like a liar.

  'No, he isn't,' says mum, and dad punctuates that with a hearty nod. 'I mean a good man. Like your father. I know I moan about him. I nag him, too. But that's all right. He was a man who could screw like a racehorse.'

  'Mum!'

  'Believe me,' she says, 'that man could pound nails with his...'

  'Mum!'

  Dad's grinning through all this. She can see him, I can see him, and we lay a place for him every meal, but of course he's not there. He's been dead five years. Dead, but he still hangs around. It's kind of nice. He doesn't eat much, though.

  Dad winks at me. Mum pretends to be all innocent.

  'What?' she says.

  'Mum, seriously...if dad was still alive, he'd be blushing or something...'

  'But he's not, honey. If he was, he'd been home for Christmas dinner. And a good fucking Christmas night, too.'

  'Mum!'

  'Oh, grow up, honey. And you know I'm right. Anyway, enough. Let's eat. Then we'll get pissed.'

  'Spare room?' I ask with a sigh.

  She smiles and nods. 'Got any more of this wine? Good, innit?'

  V.

  I can hear mum snoring in the room next to mine.

  Mine.

  Was it ever 'ours'?

  I can't remember. That makes me sad. I know mum's right, too. I should've married a good man.

  I go to sleep, thinking about that.

  A good man.

  In my dreams, sometimes dad's there, sometimes he can talk.

  'Hold on, darling,' he says. I'm falling off a giant wheel, big wheel, I think they're called, or Ferris wheel in the U.S., maybe. I'm shouting for my husband. He's on a mobile phone, in the carriage or cab or whatever. He can't see me falling.

  Dad's there, though. But he doesn't catch me. I fall, and fall. In a dream, I don't think you can die. Falling wakes you up in a dream. But I don't hit the ground. A turkey flies down from the sky, and it's got a long string of sausages trailing from its beak.

  The sausages are there, right in front of me, like a lifeline. I grab them.

  VI.

  On the second day of Christmas, I wake up with a hell of a hangover, a muzzy head and the phone ringing. I drag myself down the stairs to the house phone. When I answer it, and try to speak, it feels like a cat stole my tongue and put his there in its place.

  'Hello?'

  'Baby...it's me. I'm coming home. Meet me at Heathrow? My flight's in at three.'

  He gives me his flight number. No apology.

  I can hear mum snoring even all the way down our expensive wood stairs that freeze the feet.

  I rest the cool plastic of the phone against my aching head.

  'Thank you,' I say, to no one in particular.

  The 2nd Day of Christmas

  Salted Nuts

  I.

  On the second day of Christmas, most people would be eating leftovers, tidying up the wrapping paper or swearing about the bins not going out.

  Me, I'm in the men's toilet in a Heathrow bar with a mouthful of nuts. They're far too salty, and a little bit sweaty, like old nuts tend to get when they've been tucked away too long; the ones you thought about having in September and prudently waited for Christmas instead.

  You probably think the opening paragraph is some kind of pun, like I'm eating KP salted peanuts in the men's toilets. Why would I be doing that?

  Nope. I have a man's balls in my mouth. The fact that he has a peg-leg is almost, but not quite, just the icing on the cake.

  When I said I wanted to get some action...this really wasn't it.

  II.

  I'd expected my husband back on Christmas Eve, then on Christmas Day, but in that kind of tentative, hopeful, not-really-expecting-anything-way. He's abroad, or he's supposed to be, at least. Where, what country, doing what, I have no idea. He probably said, and I probably didn't listen.

  His flight's due in at three. British Airways, first class, of course. We're not poor people. Not stinking rich, but we have a wine cellar, rather than a wine rack.

  I'm working my way through it that morning, after seeing mum off in a taxi. When I tell her my husband's coming home, she gives me a look.

  'Shut up,' I say, and bundle her into her taxi.

  'Uh-huh,' is her reply, but thankfully she leaves it there. We're pretty clear where she stands on the issue of my absent spouse.

  Dad shrugs his shoulders in the seat beside her. That's his only contribution, but for a ghost, it's pretty expressive.

  Normally, I don't start drinking until later in the day (around 11, most mornings, I suppose...seems civilised enough), but by the time the taxi arrives to take me to Heathrow I'm a fair way drunk. I like it better that way.r />
  III.

  'You alright, love?'

  The taxi driver makes me jump when he speaks, and I realise I've been staring out the window most of the ride. Probably gawping like an idiot, a couple of glasses of wine away from licking the windows and hurling into my handbag.

  'Thank you,' I say. I don't qualify it. I don't really want to talk. In a roundabout way I'm thinking of how I'm going to greet my husband when he gets into the airport. Meeting him in the arrivals area. Me, pissed and hung-over at the same time, swaying in the midst of happy families waiting on loved ones. He'll breeze in, kiss me on the cheek, trailing a suitcase on wheels because he's never lifted anything heavy in his life, unless it's maybe his bank balance.

  Do I have a right to complain? I'm comfortable, aren't I? Isn't that enough?

  I wonder if I'd be just as happy alone with a bottle of cider as alone in a too-big house with expensive wine.

  Probably. I think that's as close to an answer as I can get.