No More Heroes-#1 Dystopian Thriller Heroes Series

by Roo I MacLeod

  ‘But you’ve got the bag.’

  ‘Yes and it’s really heavy.’

  ‘Where are you going with it?’

  ‘To save Tilly’s arse if that’s okay?’

  ‘A noble quest.’

  ‘Seriously miss, I don’t have time for discussing the bag. Harry and a load of Punksters are setting up an ambush and I’m central to the trap being sprung.’

  She stepped aside. ‘Good luck’

  I watched her turn toward the woods, wondering about the nobility of my quest. ‘Wolf Girl,’ I called. Her head poked out from the trees. I passed the Black Hat’s phone to her. ‘Call your phone. Tilly might need help as she was last seen entertaining a load of Black Hats and not looking happy about it.’

  She tapped in the numbers and waited for her phone to receive the call, before handing it back with a smart salute. ‘I’ll report Tilly’s status when mission is complete.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I saluted in reply.

  The wolf followed Wynona into the woods and I broke into a jog, a long chilling howl inspiring me to increase my pace.

  ‘Cometh the hour,’ I called back.

  ***

  No traffic traveled the street running parallel to the school building. A streetlight to my right offered a feeble glow to guide me to the back end of the building. A set of lights flickered in the black and the sound of a motor suggested I had arrived before Cooper. I dragged the bag across the thick grass until I hit the brick of the school building. The motor approached, its pace crawling along the black top.

  I took a quick slurp from my flask. My heart raced. I rubbed at my hands and blew hot breath to warm them.

  The bag scraped against the concrete, following my path against the dark of the school wall. Once I reached the front of the building, I sat down on the bag and began the relaxation process taught by Jackie at the Projects. Deep slow breaths, counting slow and steady to five and held for five while trying to shut out the thoughts of the children hidden in the woods. A soft sigh as I exhaled. Again holding, ignoring the soft purr of the approaching motor. My heart slowed and I felt loose and cool.

  I opened my eyes and stretched my neck standing in the horse stance and performing the first form of Jackie’s marital art. The breathing matched the slow relaxed movements as the sound of the motor grew louder. The tall ornate lamp post illuminating the path from the school to the front gate flickered, crackled and died.

  I stepped to the edge of the building gazing toward the woods beyond the sports field, hoping thirty plus children lay in wait.

  The black sedan appeared way to my left with its lights set to park. It cruised the yard, crawling along the school fencing before continuing on to the intersection leading to Upper Ostere. Again, I checked my knife and reached inside my coat to touch the metal of the gun. The bag sat at my feet. I stepped out of the shadow and stopped beneath the dead lamp post. At the intersection the car made an illegal U-turn and began the slow return journey to the yard, its tinted windows hiding its occupants.

  When it parked, the car remained closed. Wind rustled the leaves of the trees lining the fence running along the road. The front passenger door opened and the large lamp above sparked, flickered and lit up the night.

  I stood exposed.

  The monkey with the sling opened the back door. Cooper’s feet stepped out, but he remained seated, finishing a phone call before standing and brushing his suit. The two men stood by the open doors, looking left and right, before focusing on my position beneath the lamppost.

  ‘Where’s Tilly?’ I called out. ‘We had a deal.’

  Another black sedan emerged from the darkness and parked behind the first car. As Cooper approached the gate, doors to the second car opened.

  ‘Where’s the bag?’ he called from the gate.

  The monkey opened the gate, but Cooper’s attention focused on the playing fields, the goal posts standing tall and white. I followed his gaze, afraid he could see the children. He stepped through the gate, pacing with measured steps, past the flowerbeds and shrubs lining the path. The man in the sling scuttled beside him, looking right and left and back at the long, black vehicles. Cooper stopped beneath the arc of the light.

  ‘I can’t see the bag.’

  ‘I can’t see Tilly.’

  He rubbed at the back of his neck and stretched, rotating his head with his eyes closing and a long sigh escaping. The white shirt sported a myriad creases. It lay open at the top, showing a flabby, wrinkled neck. His thinning hair had lost the product needed to keep it neat, the sheen gone and strands fighting gravity. He needed a comb and a hat. Black I guessed as it would match his suit. He tried straightening his shoulders, but the effort lasted seconds before he slumped into a tired, round shouldered shape.

  I squared up and we held each other’s gaze, revisiting the game he’d won at the police station. He rubbed at his chin, his fingers dragging through the rough stubble. I smiled as his eyes dropped to rest on the dark shape pushed against the red brick of the school

  ‘And still no Tilly,’ I said.

  Cooper attempted another back straightening effort, but it lacked heart. His monkey stepped to his side fixing me with a hateful look. ‘You’ll get the goby cow as soon as I have the bag and am happy you haven’t lightened the load. We’re talking mega bucks here and you street people can’t help yourselves, can you? Just got to thieve because it’s in your blood, isn’t it?’

  His companion walked behind me and dragged the bag back to Cooper and dropped it at his feet. Cooper’s head bent and stared at the bag. He touched the chains with his foot, caressed the rough canvas with a scuffed shoe. He looked at me and smiled before kicking the bag with a quick sharp movement, turned away and swore loud and hard at the night.

  The Punksters emerged from the woodlands beyond the playing fields. Harry took the bag as the signal, but Tilly still needed to be negotiated.

  I looked at the car ‘Is Tilly in the car?’ I asked. ‘You’ve got your bag. I want Tilly. That was the deal.’

  He stared at the bag and exhaled a deep sigh. ‘It’s not the bag.’

  His words threw me as I never thought to question the bag’s part in the deal. ‘It’s the bag Marvin had in the square. It’s the only bag I’ve got.’

  ‘It’s not the bloody bag I want.’ Again he kicked it.

  I stepped backward, my hand reaching for my gun. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s the wrong bloody color, you fool.’

  The Punksters approached as a dark mass, moving fast, their bikes silent on the short grass of the playing field. They divided into two groups with Tyson leading the pack heading for Cooper, his companion and me. The second group, with Harry leading, his head bent between the tall handle bars, headed for the line of trees by the fence.

  I pointed at the bag and shrugged. ‘Marvin didn’t offer me a choice of colors.’

  Cooper stood with his back to the Punksters. Scarves covered their faces, the ends flapping in the icy night. Hoods shrouded their heads and pedals and spokes flashed. Cooper scratched at his cheek, massaging the back of his neck before he spat at the bag and shook his head.

  ‘Fuck this,’ he said. His hand reached for his pocket.

  With the first bike leaving the playing fields and hitting the path circling the school, I pulled my gun from my coat and shot at Cooper.

  I missed, but took a sizeable chunk from the arm of his companion. The kick from the gun left me open to Cooper’s return fire.

  I threw myself to the ground with my arms covering my head. Tyson and his crew rode through Cooper and the monkey with bats raised and knocked both men to the ground. Bodies jumped from the two cars with guns pointed as they ran to protect Cooper.

  Harry and his crew met the second wave of Black Hats as they ran through the gate, striking with bats and chains, swinging hard as they broke into the line of men. Harry pulled his group up by the two oak trees beyond the gate, dropping their bikes and taking cover behind the trees. I wa
tched Harry draw his Glock, the flash rapid as he pumped bullets into the army of Black Hats.

  Tyson’s crew skidded to a halt beneath two old yew trees toward the end of the school building and dropped behind the gnarled trunks with guns firing. The Black Hats fell to the ground, but the shrubs and winter pansies offered little cover from bullets fired on both sides of the path.

  Tyson pulled a bottle from his bike pannier, lit the rag and threw the missile high into the air. The flare streamed in the dark, over and over in a high arc, the bottle shattering on the path, the flame exploding amongst the men. More bottles lit up the sky, the flaming fluid creating panic. Tyson’s team moved in, firing at will and I eased back against the school wall watching the carnage and shaking my head in disbelief as the children showed the Black Hats no mercy.

  Two men stumbled along the path, flapping at the flames, twirling and screaming for help. The taller man reached forward as he sunk to his knees, his plaintive cry howled against the night. His companion fell flat to the ground, rolling back and forth as the flames consumed his body. He brought his mate to the ground, clutching at his body. They grappled with each other, the wind feeding the flames their cries dulled as their actions slowed and the flames dropped in intensity.

  From the safety of the school building I watched open mouthed, horrified by the sight and the smell of the burning flesh. Over by the fence men ran for the gate, but Harry’s team fired from the trees as Tyson organized his crew to make another run at the men. I heard a shout from the trees and Harry’s team joined the massacre, firing into the men fighting to get out of the narrow gate. One man took a hit to his chest, clutching at his broken heart as he pirouetted and fell. Another man took a hit to the leg, the bone appearing to snap as he dropped to the ground.

  Tyson and his crew fell on the men, beating them with their bats and chasing them toward the trees to be dropped as Harry’s crew kept on firing.

  I stood looking at four corpses. Two men smoldered, wisps of smoke rising from their bodies, a putrid smell of burning flesh souring each breath and overriding the gunpowder clouds.

  The monkey took a hit to the arm, but Tyson and his crew had battered his head to a pulp. His crumpled sling lay on the ground soaked in blood from the shattered shoulder. He stared at me, not blinking or seeing. Cooper lay facing the bag, the fingers of his right hand gripping the handles, blood coating his thin blond hair.

  The wind blew a cloud of smoke swirling above our heads. The children emerged from the trees, their guns held by their sides, picking up their bikes as they moved across the battlefield. Beneath the lamp, its glare flickering, sat the bag and the children approached as if it called to them.

  Two Black Hats came to life, morphing from the dark by the fencing and made a run for the car. They kept low and ran fast. The taller man dived for the passenger door, but his short squat mate stopped, bent and fired.

  A chip of brick and the flash startled me before my arm flinched at the burn of the passing bullet.

  Tyson lifted his weapon and sighted long and slow. The man dived for the back door as the engine roared and tires squealed. Smoke billowed and the back window exploded. A volley of bullets fired from the windows as the car fish tailed and drove at speed into the darkness.

  ‘Shit,’ Tyson yelled.

  I used the wall to stand, my hand clasped to my arm, blood oozing through my fingers. ‘It’s cool,’ I said. ‘They won’t be back.’

  Three of Cooper’s men escaped, but we won. The escapees witnessed a mugging, bloody and violent as muggings go and the bag stolen by a rag-tag bunch of children.

  Tyson kicked at the burnt bodies and fired his gun into the air to signal victory. The children jumped back on their bikes screaming and whooping, skidding and bouncing and performing elaborate wheelies.

  I called out to Tyson. ‘Result, eh?’

  He turned to face me and saluted. ‘Too bloody right.’ He picked up his bike and approached at pace and skidded the bike into the bag.

  I kicked at the bulky canvas bag. ‘It’s all yours as per our deal,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see the bloody thing again.’

  He stooped to pick the bag up, but struggled with the weight. ‘Jesus, how much money’s in it?’

  Cooper’s words sounded fresh in my mind. The wrong bloody bag. ‘I don’t know. Are you going to be able to get it back on your bike?’

  ‘Don’t know, but we big time now. We can hire a taxi.’

  I bent to Cooper’s mate and searched his pockets finding a good sized wedge of money and cigarettes. ‘Go and search your bodies out there,’ I said. ‘One of them will have keys to the car sitting there doing nothing.’

  Cooper moaned, the sound a whispered plea. He clutched at his stomach as his body curled up in pain. Perspiration covered his bloodless face.

  ‘Shit,’ I said. ‘He’s supposed to be dead.’ I looked at Tyson and smiled. ‘You and me, are we all right?’

  ‘Too bloody right.’

  Sirens sounded, faint but close. We looked to the source of the noise and lights flashed against the low clouds, way back toward the overpass.

  ‘There’s no circus without the clowns,’ I said. ‘We going to divvy up the bag back at Weismann’s?’

  Harry appeared from the dark, the child called Spike and a smaller dark haired girl, helping him walk. ‘Jesus, Harry.’ I ran to his side. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Don’t know, but it hurts.’ Blood covered his right trouser leg. He smiled and held out his hand for me to shake. ‘We gave what for, like.’

  I shook my head as I gripped his hand. ‘You know I’m a dead man. What were you doing here? I told you not to come. Your mother’s going to carve me up for this.’

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Tyson said. ‘Spike, get back to the Camps and tell Weismann we’ve got wounded and we’ll need the Doc. Alex,’ he said.

  The girl smiled.

  ‘Get him into the back of the car.’

  He turned and pointed his gun at Cooper.

  I touched his hand and pushed the gun away. ‘Can you drive?’ I said.

  Tyson nodded.

  ‘Then get Harry and the bag back to the Camps. I’ll deal with Cooper.’

  Tyson and I brushed knuckles.

  ‘We need to be gone. The Law and us don’t get on so well.’

  And with a cacophony of hoots and hollers and ‘Ben’s the man,’ they dashed for the black sedan, fighting for the front seat. Harry lay in the back with his head resting in the girl’s lap. The bag sat across the driver’s seat with Tyson balancing on the straps gripping the wheel as one of the children worked the pedals. The boot took the spare bikes and the car took off with a convoy of bikes guarding it.

  I pushed off the lamppost, watching Cooper’s hand clawing at the asphalt. ‘Jesus, Cooper. You gonna die or what?’

  The sirens sounded close. Cooper still lived and my remaining task involved stopping the two from meeting.

  While he remained alive, I’d be jumping at shadows, forever waiting the day a bullet called my name. Revenge was a tool in Cooper’s armory that kept him strong. He knew I’d set him up using a gang of truanting juveniles to carry out my work. And he might die, but if the Law found me here I’d never see daylight again except on the end of a rope.

  He looked dead. Pale, almost chalky with glassy eyes and fuck all going on with his chest. He coughed and gagged and I jumped back in alarm, thinking maybe he’d taken his last breath. Another cough from the grave bent him double with phlegm and blood and all sorts of shit dribbling onto the ground. The sirens wafted on the wind, closing in on my dilemma too fast. Five minutes, less, before they pulled up to the school and pointed guns at me.

  As the first flashing light became visible through the trees I lifted Coopers head off the tarmac. I didn’t know how to kill him, but I didn’t want him bleeding on me.

  ‘Turn over.’

  I punched him with the handle of my knife. He reached out, his hands pawing at the rough paving. I pick
ed up his head by his forehead and stretched it back, bending and lifting, until he knelt and his head faced the heavens. His arms flailed, flapping at the night, struggling to fight for his life. His neck stretched taut.

  The sirens sounded loud and close with reds and blues flashing through the trees. I grabbed a handful of his thin blond hair and stretched his head further back, but I didn’t like him looking at me.

  ‘I told you it was fuck all to do with me,’ I said. ‘Didn’t I?’

  His eyes stared at me, the whites massive. He tried to shake his head and wriggle in my hold. I stuck my knife against his neck and pushed hard, drawing blood but struggling with the final effort needed to end his sorry arse, fuck of a life.

  Cooper coughed and he reached out to my arm, trying to push the knife away from his throat.

  ‘You can’t kill me,’ his voice croaked.

  ‘Why not? You’ve tried hard enough to kill me.’

  ‘Not true,’ he whispered.

  ‘You left me in a smoke-filled building with flames Hades would be proud of.

  ‘You sent men to Tilly’s house with guns.

  ‘You killed the love of my life.

  ‘You’re the reason my old best mate is dead. But you want me to let you live? I based my whole miserable life around Linda and Marvin pissing on me. I’ve nurtured that hurt and pain for two long wretched years.

  ‘You’ve taken my reason for opting out away from me.

  ‘You’ve robbed me of my reason for living and you think I should let you live?

  ‘Are you mad?’ I cried.

  The phone in my front pocket vibrated against my thigh. I dropped the knife to the ground and pulled the phone out and smiled as Wynona whispered her report.

  ‘Tilly wants her child back pronto.’

  Cooper gagged and grimaced and his hand reached for me, the grip so weak his hand flopped back to the ground. ‘I know where your girlfriend is. You kill me you’ll never find her.’

  I swapped the phone for the knife, pushing it back against his neck and tried to laugh at his remark. It choked in my throat and turned into an asthmatic wheeze. ‘Good try, but I know Tilly is safe, you stupid fuck.’