‘Give me a knife.’
‘Why?’ I said. To offer him another weapon didn’t make sense.
He stared at me, but his gaze dropped off and he looked at the bottom of the stairs. He pushed himself onto his knees and said. Coz I’m going to cut this fucker’s heart out.’
Drool, bloody thick drooping slobber, hung from his chin. I stepped closer, reaching for my rusty cutthroat and threw the blade across the hardwood floor. As he reached to grab the knife, the fat copper’s head appeared above the sofa. He fired and the loud retort caught me full in the right ear. I reeled backward from the blast and Mick slumped to his haunches. His hat fell to the floor, the knife dropping, sticking upright in the floorboards. Mick wailed, bent to the hat and slapped it on his head before he tipped on his side.
I cringed against the wall as the fat copper came into view. He held his gun out front pointing the weapon at Mick. I wanted to call out and remind him of the third gun, but I remained silent on my step. He kicked the knife toward the kitchen, nudging the body with his foot. Mick rocked but lay still. The copper took his phone from his pocket and busied himself with the menu.
I relaxed on my step, but I didn’t like being left with the fat copper. A shot slapped at the couch and then a piece of plaster spat into the air as another blast hit the wall. The third shot slapped into the big copper’s barrel chest and knocked him back over the sofa. I threw myself to the wall, down on my haunches before the big fella’s fall shook the house.
A sharp stench and haze of gunpowder hovered in Tilly’s front room. Another random shot exploded from the back and hit the wooden lintel above the front door, followed by a grunt of pain. A heavy object clattered against the wood of Tilly’s hallway.
‘Mick?’ the voice called. ‘Mick? Are you cool?’
I let the silence grow.
‘Ah Jesus, Mick. This hasn’t worked out too good. We still don’t have the bloody bag.’
Chapter Fifteen
Guns for sale
I stood up, keeping my back to the wall. Thick, red ooze seeped from the skinny copper’s leg. His eyes gazed long and hard. Mick lay dead, curled in the fetal position. The sofa hid the fat copper.
‘Mick?’ The voice lacked energy and hope. It sounded forlorn.
‘He’s not talking,’ I said.
‘Who the fuck is that?’
I stepped off the last step and peered around the wall, keeping the majority of my body safe behind the thick plaster. Zac’s large black frame lay slumped against the back door. Both of his hands pressed against his stomach. His gun lay on the floor. To reach it he’d have to forego the wound to his stomach.
The fat copper’s face sucked on Tilly’s rug, his arm bent against the sofa and his lifeless hand reaching for the gun lying on Tilly’s bloodstained African rug. His trousers rode high up his thick calves revealing an abundance of hair on pale skin and a gun in an ankle holster. He made no move for the gun.
I needed alcohol. Tilly stashed her beer in the cellar. I kicked Zac’s gun toward the kitchen before I descended into Tilly’s Spartan cellar. It had a fridge, a rickety chairand a small toolbox sat in the corner by the sewer hatch.
I sat on the chair and fumbled with the ring pull of the can. My hands shook, but the first chilled, bitter sip allowed my body to relax. The cold fluid rumbled and growled in my empty gut and threatened to erupt. The objection turned to outrage and I ran for the sewer hatch. The rusty bolt objected, but gave way and I dragged the heavy door inward and threw up into the dark, putrid space. A splat sounded as the contents of my stomach joined Ostere’s effluence. I pulled back from the sewer and drank from the can, gargled and spat into the dark hole.
I collapsed against the wall, with the sewer hatch closed and finished the can trying to lose the noxious scent of Ostere’s waste. My stomach continued to rumble, but it accepted the beer. I skulled another can and the shakes eased. With an armful of cans and the two empties, I headed upstairs.
The gun remained where I’d kicked it, but I stopped at the doorway, hesitating, fearing the bullet that might stop me. No shots followed me to the kitchen. The thick, fetid scent of death irked my stomach. A slight odor of gunpowder hovered in a light swirl of smoke. No one had moved. Zac’s attempt to hold his life together continued at the back door. The cat circled the foyer, brushing against the dead coppers back. A grumbling gurgle sounded from the rear of Tilly’s house.
I opened a can and drank, wiped my mouth and wandered along the hallway watching Zac as he tried to straighten his position against the door. He watched me, blinking too much, cringing with each step landing on the floorboards.
‘So what’s this all about?’ I said. I kicked his foot. ‘What were you two dickheads looking for upstairs? Tilly hasn’t got anything of value.’
‘The bag,’ he said.
‘What’s the bloody bag to you?’
‘Please, I need a doctor.’
Blood oozed from his clothing and pooled at his arse and legs. I shook my head. ‘No, you need a priest. It’s a little late for a doctor. But tell me more about the bag. You give me something on the bag then maybe I can be getting you a doctor.’
A mass of bloodied pulp lay exposed and moved with each shallow inhalation. His left arm hung limp to his side, his right nursing the remnants of his intestines.
‘I don’t know how you think a doctor will reinsert that bucket of shit you’re hanging on to. Is it your stomach? It smells like poo. I can’t see it fitting back in that hole you’re hiding.’
He grimaced before looking up at me. ‘Fuck you,’ he whispered, the words drained him.
‘Why? What have I done? I haven’t got a gun. You did this to yourselves. And the question still is why? Why here?’
‘He was your mate and must’ve given it to you.’ He coughed, groaned at the spasm the coughing caused and looked at me with a watery gaze. ‘Please, help me.’
I kicked him in the leg as his eyes closed. ‘Don’t go dying on me.’ His eyes opened, but they struggled to focus on me. One minute he stared left then right, the whites large and his brow creased up in pain. ‘What’s Marvin’s part in all this? I don’t get what possible relationship Marvin could have with you goons.’
My man’s eyes rolled, his hand slipped and a load of bloodied pulp slid to the floor. He reached for me, a feeble gesture dripping with blood. He’d turned chalky white. Perspiration beaded as a hand rubbed at his black curls, smearing blood through his hair then fell to his side.
‘Marvin didn’t need money, eh? Marvin came from money. I’ve never known anyone richer than Marvin’s family.’
‘His father.’
‘Marvin’s father? The man was an arse.’
‘He was Cooper’s accountant. That’s all I know. The bag. Cooper just wants the bag back.’
Zac doubled up with a loud wail of pain. He slapped the floor splashing blood against the wall. ‘Please, you must help me. I don’t feel too good.’
‘So Marvin’s dad, the wimpy, balding octogenarian, ran with you guys and he left Marvin a bag of your gear in his will.’ Zac nodded and grimaced. ‘That’s a bit like throwing your drowning child a rock isn’t it?’
I didn’t buy it.
‘Just one more question,’ I said, but my time with Zac appeared to be fading fast. His breathing sucked shallow ragged gasps of air. Pain scarred his features, his mouth gaping and dribbling bloodied saliva. He looked at me, intense but brief, then his attention turned to the heavens, his body slumped and with a final gurgle he became silent and still.
‘Bugger. So you can’t tell me who the hell Cooper is? And where else you think the bag might be? Maybe I should’ve started with that question.’
I moved away from the body, slow steps, not wanting to turn my back on the man. I backed into the kitchen, relieved to get out of his line of sight. I leant against the server looking out on the bloody battlefield the nausea in my stomach stirring at the sight and thickening putrid aroma.
The sound
of a wailing siren sounded from the top of Tilly’s street and the impulse to flee the scene made sense, but the beggar and thief ruled. I grabbed Zac’s weapon and wrapped it in a kitchen cloth. Nab might pay for a gun. I stepped over the man propped against the doorjamb and hid the gun in Tilly’s overgrown post stamp garden. A slight breeze chilled the growing gloom.
I ran back inside to search through the pockets of the four men. It took an age to turn the fat copper onto his back without touching his bloodied suit. The thin copper propped against the doorjamb, fell to the floor as I frisked his pockets, his head hitting the wood with an almighty whack. I relieved them of their badges, pocket notebooks and two wallets. They were penniless, but had left five children fatherless. The twat with the ponytail proffered a pack of cigarettes and a large wedge of money secured by a plain silver money clip. My man by the back door owned a similar wedge, rolled and fixed with a rubber band and a pocket full of betting receipts and various scraps of paper.
Outside, not far away, the throb of a helicopter approached. The fresh cool air outside refreshed my body. I didn’t like leaving Tilly’s house full of bodies, but danger waited if I stayed. Tilly needed to be told about the bodies, the blood on her African rug and why my jumper and shirt remained on the back of her lounge chair and my book sat on her table. I turned back to the death house deciding to pack my stuff, make the break Tilly asked for, but before I took the first step I stopped realizing I needed a bag to carry my stuff.
Chapter Sixteen
Shots fired during Curfew
Quiet and calm ruled the streets. Homeless folk crawled through the gutters, dragging their baggage with their hounds sniffing and growling at the past. Closed signs hung across darkened doors with most shops battened tight since the bombing. Every now and then an army jeep appeared with a soldier shouting through a megaphone, counting down to curfew.
I stooped under the tape around the square, peering through the rubble, hoping to find the bag. Debris covered the seat and litter collected beneath the worn planks. A pile of charred bricks and plaster represented Bob the Bookie’s Shop. The screen buzzed with static, but remained blank.
Mud and rubble, twisted metal, soggy napkins lay scattered on the ground. Tinsel glittered and a sodden rabbit with long, floppy ears nestled amongst a small bouquet of flowers. A crew of dogs gnawed at the abandoned carcass of a roasted pig. A large black hole dominated The Drunken Duck, the tables and chairs reduced to muddy ash. In the chill wind the cable used to lynch the mayor swung against the blackened town hall.
I didn’t find the bag.
I approached the cemetery from the top of Church Lane. This diversion led me into an abandoned industrial site inhabited by the Slotvaks and the extreme homeless they employed for the menial tasks of theft and intimidation. Fires sparkled in the cracked and smashed glass of the buildings. Drums beat a slow monotonous rhythm to a dirge sung without enthusiasm. Random bodies littered the grounds in various states of inebriation. A couple copulated in a burnt out vehicle while dogs slunk in the dark, their tails tucked beneath their bodies.
The Slotvaks partied hard. They brewed hooch and manufactured a drug not for the faint hearted. They came to our land with energy and hope, but we don’t treat immigrants so well. Ever since the recession mutated into the Great Recession, the Man blamed the immigrants for everything from the weather to bad roads, so the Slotvaks turned to theft and drugs.
Marvin had asked why so many knives that night in the square. In the darker parts of Ostere, you could never have enough knives.
The black-shadowed church spire pointed an accusing finger at the heavens. Bats swooped low. Figures clad in long cloaks paced the small graveyard between the church and the monastery, a low harmonious lament deflected from thick books cradled in their hands.
Through the window of the Poet, Ivan’s slumber occupied the hatch to the back bar. Nab sat on a stool reading the paper. Up the back of the pub a clown and the dapper host occupied the stage, singing a sad song to a glittering crowd of mourning T-Birds. I crossed the road to the cemetery gate, the hinges squawking in protest, lifted the heavy metal lever and cringed as the gate squawked in protest. It rattled and clanked back into place as I headed for the twisted trunk of the yew tree.
A soft drizzle enveloped the grounds. The dull monotone of the chanting monks carried clear through the night. I zigzagged between the graves, mindful of the open holes and the bodies lurking beneath the earth. A screech sailed above my head, carried by the chill wind from the Ferals forest. From the slagheap behind the cemetery a wolf howled, its cry to the silver lined clouds scratching at my taut nerves. I rubbed hard at my arms and peered into the dark for Marvin’s mound of earth.
A light flashed to my left followed by a loud crack, muzzled by the drizzle. The chanting stuttered then ceased as another shot-like sound, louder, reverberated through the gloom. I heard a cry to my left and I dropped to my knees, ready to grovel on the ground. The dark ruled. With the curfew in place, I guessed, a soldier fired blind.
A hand grabbed and yanked hard on my foot and I yelped in fright as it dragged me across the wet grass. I kicked and bucked, but my body slithered backward with my fingers trailing, digging into the soft dirt. With a final jerk I fell backward and twisted to land face first in the soft, damp earth of an open grave.
I jumped backward, spitting mud from my mouth and prepared to defend myself, but against what?
The dead?
Hands, strong, calloused fingers gripped my throat and backed me up against the soft wall. My toes scratched at the ground, kicking at the loose earth, my head pushed hard into the damp soil. Fingers dug deep into my throat as a light flickered, blue and yellow and Pete’s ugly mug stared with hate in his eyes. It took a moment, but he loosened his grip once he recognized my face.
‘Why you shootin’ at me, Ben?’
He let me go, but gave me a hard shove to the chest, dumping me against the far wall of the grave. I didn’t like Pete’s aggressive tone, but he owned the advantage in the cramped grave.
‘Are you not my friend anymore?’
The flickering light added years to his fat, pockmarked face and bent his features into a monstrous leer. No, he wasn’t my friend, not since the funeral, but mentioning his indiscretion in a grave bordered on lunacy.
‘What are you talking about?’ I said. ‘I haven’t got a bloody gun. What am I shooting with, you retard? Come on, it’s me, Ben. I dragged you out of the square, not more than three days ago and saved your sorry arse.’ He stood with his fists balled, the tendons in his neck pronounced. ‘Who bailed you out when Social come calling and hid you in Blacky’s shop? Don’t you go turning on me, eh? I’ve done bugger all to piss you off.’
He flicked his lighter closed. Black, cold and dank death consumed me. Pete exhaled a heavy, hoarse rotten breath and paced the sodden earth. I searched through my pockets for my lighter. I’d known Pete awhile, but not well enough to be sharing a grave with him in the deep dark of night and a marksman on the prowl. Pete bumped into me, his body big and hot. I jumped away and tripped, falling to my knees, my hands landing on a lump of something soft and covered in cloth. I jerked my hand back.
‘Pete?’ I said. I found my lighter, hesitated, but the need to know pushed me to strike the light.
‘What?’ Again the aggression tainted with nasty.
I lifted the lighter so I could see Pete’s hunched body against the far wall. A child in a scout uniform lay slumped against the muddy wall on the opposite side of the grave. Small white trainers covered the child’s feet and khaki and badges made up the ensemble. A lick of brown hair hung across his forehead and his head rested on a small brown satchel. In the flickering light the child’s face resembled the pallor of death. Pete looked at the child and shrugged.
I crouched by the body and brushed the loose strand of dark hair from his face so it didn’t cover his eyes. His body felt warm. The yellow flickering offered no sense of the child’s demise. I touched his ne
ck, searching for life, a throb in his carotid artery, but the child offered nothing: It looked so dead.
I shuffled backward, resting against the earth wall, the lighter held out, my thumb easing the lid shut on the angelic image. As darkness consumed the grave, I punched my elbow against the soft clay wall. The images of the missing children displayed on the screen in the square played in my mind. The poster with the happy faces and phone numbers asking ‘Have You Seen My Child’ tacked to Blacky’s shed wall. My knees accepted my forehead, but I wanted to scream at Pete and slap him hard.
‘Why?’ The word seemed inadequate. ‘How?’
Movement at the end of the grave suggested Pete’s approach. I flicked the lid of my lighter and panned the flame so I could see him. The shadows turned his fat face sinister. The straw hair sticking out from the pointed monk’s hood gave his image a maniacal, mad monk bent. Black bags hung heavy beneath his eyes. The sore on his nose had grown with the puss and mucous leaking from the festering wound. We both watched the child.
‘Is he okay?’
‘Pete, this little fucker’s dead.’
He shook his head and placed his hands on his hips, looking surprised at my diagnosis. ‘The vicar told me we all have to die. It’s natural.’
‘He’s quite young.’
‘Just a child, isn’t he? The angels will take his soul, I reckon.’
‘That’s not really the point.’
‘Yeah, it is. The vicar told me about the angels. Everyone has an angel.’
He stepped back and kicked at the wall of the grave.
‘He wouldn’t share.’
The damp clay of the grave wall muffled his voice.
‘The vicar says we should all share. And he wouldn’t share.’
My lighter grew hot and the flame wavered and lowered. Before I closed the lighter, I located the ladder. I needed to get out of the grave, but I didn’t want to leave the child with Pete.
No More Heroes-#1 Dystopian Thriller Heroes Series Page 10
