by David Moody
What started as a gentle training run had suddenly become a painful struggle. As well as having to contend with the shock of what he had just discovered, Harry also now needed to get his body moving again. He may only have stopped running for a couple of minutes, but that had been more than long enough for his muscles to begin to seize and tighten. He was just over halfway along his circuit so it made sense for him to continue on in the same direction. Perhaps he'd come across some of the school traffic that he'd originally hoped to avoid, heading back home after dropping off children.
Harry forced himself to try and maintain a steady pace. He was tired and he knew that he didn't have enough energy to run faster � with more than three miles left to cover he knew that if he tried he'd probably end up walking most of the way back. At the same time, however, the furious, adrenaline-fuelled chemical reactions racing through his body were intent on making him pick up his speed. All he could see were the bodies he'd just found and all he could hear was the thump, thump, thump of his feet hitting the ground and his heavy, rasping breathing which seemed to be becoming harder, deeper and more desperate with each passing metre.
Finally another sound disturbed the uncomfortable silence and distracted him. He could hear a plane in the distance. He rounded another gentle corner at the bottom of the lake and began to run the relatively straight two and a half mile stretch of road that would lead him back into the village. The relentless sunlight flickered through the trees, blinding him intermittently with its brilliance and causing him to involuntarily screw his eyes shut. The run was getting harder. He was suddenly beginning to feel cold and the ends of his fingers and toes had begun to tingle. Had the temperature dropped or was it shock? He'd run this route many times before and he knew he was more than capable of completing the distance, but now he was beginning to doubt himself. And all the time the plane's engines were getting louder.
At the side of the road a twisting mountain stream tumbled down the hillside, disappeared under the road and trickled into the lake. That was Harry's two mile mark. If he pushed hard he knew that he could be home in less than fifteen minutes now, but it would take just about every last scrap of energy he had to do it. His legs were hurting. Christ, that plane was getting low and close...
When the noise from the plane became deafening and was so loud that he could feel it through the ground beneath his feet like an earthquake, Harry stopped running again. This plane sounded different. Apart from the sheer volume of the noise it was making, this didn't sound like one of the military jets that often flew down the valley or even one of the smaller civilian aircraft that frequently passed over. The aircraft was moving in the same direction as he was, coming from behind him and flying along the length of the lake towards the village. He could see it above the trees now and it was flying lower than any plane he'd seen around here before. The slope of the bank down to the lake was relatively gentle here. Breathing heavily he jogged down to the water's edge to watch.
The plane passed alongside him. It could have been no more than fifty meters from the surface of the lake and it was falling rapidly. As Harry watched in stunned disbelief its nose and starboard wing dropped slightly. The inevitable seemed to take an eternity to happen. Its rapid descent continued until the tip of the wing eventually clipped the water and somersaulted the plane forwards, flipping it over and over in mid-air and breaking it into several huge pieces which landed in the lake with a series of massive splashes, sending vast plumes of water shooting high into the air.
Harry didn't connect the two crashes he'd seen until he found a third. He discovered Kenneth Brent, the local postman, dead in the middle of the road next to his motor-scooter. Letters were blowing casually across the silent scene like leaves on the breeze.
By the time he arrived back at the village � exhausted, bewildered and terrified � he knew that something of vast and disastrous proportions had happened.
By the time he arrived back at the village the wreck of the plane had disappeared beneath the surface of the lake, leaving the water appearing calm and deceptively normal. By the time he arrived back at the village everyone else was dead.
JACOB FLYNN Part i
Jacob Flynn is serving a prison sentence for manslaughter. Like pretty much every other inmate, he will protest his innocence relentlessly to anyone who will listen. The fact of the matter is, however, that Flynn caused the death of a seventy-three year old gentleman through reckless driving. He will tell you that the old man was at fault as much as he was. He will give you any number of entirely plausible reasons why he feels his case was handled badly, and why the judge had something against him, and why his solicitor let him down, and how if it hadn't have been for the fact that he'd caught his lying bitch of a girlfriend in bed with his best friend then he wouldn't have been driving at almost twice the legal speed limit down a narrow residential road at just after two-thirty on a quiet Thursday afternoon in late November last year.
Whatever Flynn might tell you, the fact remains that he lost control of his car around a tight bend, mounted the pavement and mowed down Mr Eddie McDermott as he walked back to his house after a lunchtime drink with friends. The fact remains that his driving was the sole cause of Mr McDermott's untimely death, and in the eyes of the law he is being punished accordingly.
Flynn shares his small, rectangular cell with two other men, Suli Salman (minor drug trafficking offences and assault) and Roger Bewsey (corporate fraud). According to his own mental records, he has now been locked up for five months, three weeks and a day. It is just after eight o'clock in the morning and he has been awake for three hours.
I hate this place more with every second I have to spend here. I don't know how the rest of them can handle it in here. I still don't know how I'm going to handle it. Every morning I wake up and wish that I hadn't got into the car that day. Every morning I wish that I'd never found Elaine with that bastard Peters or that I'd never met the bitch in the first place. We'd only been together for just over a year, and look at how much it's cost me. I'll spend more time in here alone than we ever spent together. I know there's no point thinking like this but I can't help it. The hours in here are long and slow and I don't have anything else to do.
It's the stench that gets to me first. Even before I've opened my eyes I can smell the soulless, disinfected emptiness of this fucking place. Then I hear it � the relentless clattering noise from the scum in the cells around me. No matter what time it is it's never quiet in here. There's no escape. It never bloody stops. I keep my eyes closed for as long as I can but eventually I have to sit up and look around this concrete and metal hell.
I shouldn't be here. Maybe if I'd driven a different way that day or if I hadn't gone round to see her then I wouldn't be here now. I'd be out there where I should be. Because of that fucking slag I've lost everything, and I bet she bloody loves it. She's out there with him, sleeping with him in the bed that I helped pay for, wearing the clothes and the jewellery and the perfume that I bought for her. Bitch.
Bewsey is snoring again. He amazes me. I don't know how he does it. There's a man you'd have put money on cracking up by now. He's in his late fifties, he's overweight, has a stammer, gets picked on constantly by the mentally-challenged thugs in here and, as far as I'm aware, had never been in any trouble before he got himself wrapped up in the mess that eventually wound him up in here. Salman, who sleeps in the bunk above mine, on the other hand, is a cocky little bastard. He's only in here for another couple of weeks. He's in and out of these places all the time, has been for years. He'll be back in for another stretch before Bewsey or I get out.
The mornings are hard here. Some days there's work to do, but most of the time there's nothing. Most days we spend virtually all of the time sitting in here, locked up. That's when it really gets to me. I've got nothing in common with the rest of the shite in here. I've got nothing in common with the other two except the fact that we share this cell. I don't have anything to talk to them about. I don't even like them. The
y both irritate the hell out of me. Most of the time I don't have anything to do here but sit and think. Sometimes I wake up and I can't imagine that I'll make it through till the end of the day. I feel like that now. Tonight seems an eternity away. Next week feels like it will never come. And I have years of this to get through...
Here we go, first fight of the day. I can hear trouble a few blocks down. Someone's screaming. Sounds like they're being strangled. This kind of thing used to shock me, even scare me, but you get used to it pretty quick. It's par for the course in this place. You can't go for anything longer than a couple of hours here without...
Jesus Christ! Bewsey just scared the hell out of me. I thought he was still asleep. Shit, he just sat bolt upright looking like he's just seen a ghost or had his parole turned down or something. Bloody hell, his face is ashen white. Something's not right with him.
`All right, Bewsey?' I ask.
Bewsey doesn't answer. He's just sitting there, looking at me with this dumb, puzzled expression on his face. Now he's starting to rub at the side of his neck, like he's strained it or something.
`You okay?' I ask him again. Being in this place has made me suspicious of everyone, no matter how harmless they might make themselves out to be. I don't trust him. I'm starting to think that he's either trying to trick me into getting closer or he's about to have a full blown panic attack. Either way I'm stopping over here on my bunk, right out of the way.
`I can't...' he starts to say as he rubs at the side of his neck again. He's looking into space but then his eyes dart up to look above me. Salman is trying to climb down from his bunk above mine. He's half-tripping, half-falling down. Now he's doubled-up with pain and he's coughing and wheezing like he can't catch his breath. He's dragged himself over to the sink. Christ, he's spitting up blood. What the hell is going on here? Now Bewsey's up on his feet and he's grabbing and scratching at his neck too.
`What is it?' I ask but he can't even hear me, never mind answer. He's not messing around. I can tell that this is for real. The cell is suddenly filled with their hoarse, grating coughing and rasping screams for help. The fact that it's happening to both of them is enough to make me... Wait, Bewsey can't breathe. Bloody hell, the poor bastard can't get any oxygen. He's up on his feet and he's trying to take in air but it looks like his throat is blocked. I have to do something. I push him back down onto the bed. He tries to get up again but then collapses back onto the mattress. His body starts to shake and he tries to move but all his strength has gone. I can hear Salman moaning and coughing behind me and I can hear similar noises coming from other cells around this one. I glance back over my shoulder just in time to see Salman fall to the ground and smack his head against the wall.
Bewsey is convulsing now and it's taking all my strength to keep him down on the bed. There's panic in his eyes. They're as wide as fucking saucers and they're staring straight at me like he thinks that whatever's happening to him is my fault. There's blood on his lips. Shit, there's a dribble of blood trickling down his cheek from the corner of his mouth. He's stopped shaking now. Bad sign. Fuck, he's grabbed hold of my arm and he's squeezing it so bloody hard I think he's going to break it. More blood now. Fucking hell. He arches his back and then crashes down onto the bed.
I just stand and look at him for a second before touching his neck and checking for a pulse.
He's dead. Jesus Christ, he's dead.
I stare at Bewsey's body for so long that I almost forget about Salman lying on the floor of the cell behind me. I turn around and I can tell by the way he's lying that he's dead too. Like Bewsey there's blood trickling from his mouth and there's more pouring out from a deep cut on his head.
And now I realise that I can't hear anyone else.
The whole bloody prison block has suddenly gone quiet. It's silent. I've never known it like this before. I'm scared. Jesus Christ I'm scared.
`Help!' I scream, pushing my face hard against the bars and trying to look down the corridor and across the landing. I can't see anyone. `There are men dead in here. Help! Please, someone, help!'
Shit, I'm crying like a bloody baby now. I don't know what to do. This cell is on the middle floor. I can see the bottom of the staircase which leads up to the top landing. I can see one of the officers sprawled over the last few steps. I don't know whether he fell or whether what killed Salman and Bewsey has got him too. Even from a distance though I can see that he's dead.
For almost half an hour Flynn stood in the corner of the cell in shock. He pushed himself hard against the wall, trying to get as far away as possible from the two bodies incarcerated there with him. It was a while before the initial panic began to subside and his brain was able to function with enough clarity to start trying to make sense of the situation. What had happened to the two men who shared this cell? Why had the rest of the prison also fallen silent? Why did he seem to be the only one left alive?
A few minutes later and Flynn's logical thinking helped him to arrive at the cruellest realisation of all. He dropped to the ground and began to sob uncontrollably. He was trapped. Much as he was used to being locked in this small, dark, depressing space for endless hours on end, he realised now that, for the first time, there really was no way out. There would be no exercise or work sessions today. There would be no meals, showers or classes or counselling sessions. If it was true and he really was the only one left here, then there was no-one left alive to let him out of his cell.
As the day wore on and no-one came and nothing more happened, Flynn painfully began to accept that, without warning or explanation, the term of his prison sentence had been dramatically extended to life. No parole, no early release, life. Paradoxically, he also knew that without food or water, this life sentence would ultimately be much shorter than the minimum length of time the law had originally decreed he serve.
All he could do was sit and wait.
BRIGID CULTHORPE
Brigid Culthorpe yawned, rubbed her eyes and squinted at the spraypaint-covered sign at the end of the street, hoping to make out the name of the road they had just turned into.
`It's like a bloody maze round here,' she grumbled to her partner, PC Marco Glover. `Don't know how you can tell one road from another.'
Glover grunted and nodded as he slowed the patrol car down and coaxed it gently over a speed bump.
`You get used to it,' he said. `Believe me, you'll spend plenty of time down here. It only took me a few weeks to get my bearings on this beat.'
`Get much trouble down here?'
`Virtually all the trouble we get starts down here,' the grey-haired policeman sighed wearily. `Every town has an estate like this. It's a dumping ground. It's where the scum and the unfortunate end up, and the scum don't think twice about praying on those folks who can't look after themselves. And even if the trouble doesn't start here, wherever it kicks off it's usually people from round here who start it.'
`Nice,' Culthorpe muttered as the car clattered over another bump.
`Not really,' Glover mumbled. `Right, here we go, Acacia Road . Sounds okay but...'
`...but it isn't,' Culthorpe interrupted, finishing her colleague's sentence for him. The car stopped. She climbed out and looked down the length of the desolate street. Ten or twenty years ago this might have been a decent area, she thought. Today, however, it was anything but decent. Unchecked weeds sprouted wildly between the cracks in the pavements where overgrown and unruly front lawns had spilled over the remains of collapsed walls and fences. The battered wrecks of old, half-stripped down cars sat useless outside equally dilapidated houses. Uncollected and overflowing black sacks of rubbish had been dumped in piles waiting for a council collection that would probably never come. Acacia Road was a grey, dead and depressing scene. Culthorpe's throat was dry. Not long out of training, an uneasy mixture of nerves, adrenaline and trepidation filled her stomach.
`Which number was it?' Glover asked as he walked around the back of the car to stand next to her.
`Forty-six,' she
replied. `Come on then.'
The male officer began walking down the road. Culthorpe followed, checking the numbers on each one of the dark, shell-like buildings as she walked. They passed number four (which, as it was between numbers twenty-two and twenty-six, was most likely actually number twenty-four) and increased their speed. Thirty-eight, forty, forty-two, forty-four and then they were there. Number forty-six. The number had been daubed on the wall in off-white emulsion paint next to the boarded-up window in the front door. From the end of the path they could already hear the argument taking place inside. She noticed the remains of a large piece of furniture in the middle of the overgrown lawn. The front bedroom window had been smashed and a pair of thin, grey curtains blew out in the early morning breeze like a dirty flag. It didn't take a genius to work out what had happened.
`What gets me,' Glover moaned as he forced open the garden gate (the bottom hinge was broken and it scraped noisily along the ground) and began to walk up the path, `is the fact that these people are even awake at this time. You know, most of them are usually off their faces on booze or drugs and they don't open their eyes before mid-afternoon. Bloody hell, these people shouldn't even be awake yet, never mind having a domestic before eight o'clock in the bloody morning.'
`Probably still up from last night,' Culthorpe suggested.
`You're probably right,' Glover agreed. `Bloody dirty bastards. More bloody trouble than they're worth...'
Culthorpe smiled to herself. Glover was a far more experienced officer than she was, but even after just a couple of days working with him she had already learnt to read him like a book. As he got closer to an incident and became more nervous, she'd noticed, he started to swear. She, on the other hand, became more controlled and focussed as dangerous situations approached. It was the idea of conflict that she didn't like. Once she was actually there in the middle of the trouble doing something about it she could handle herself as well as the next man. In fact, she could usually handle herself better than the next man.
