Hope Dies Last

by Deborah Finn

  Martin looked at him, square on. “You’re really old school, aren’t you? This is a smart phone, you stupid fucker. I press this button to upload it to YouTube and that recording goes to millions.”

  Martin could sense Ben’s delight, his innocent celebration that his dad had scored a victory. He couldn’t look at him; couldn’t let him guess that he was bluffing, because then he’d know how little hope there really was.

  “That’s not clever, Martin,” Gallagher said. He grabbed Ben’s hair and pressed the blade hard against his throat. Martin could see blood trickling from beneath the blade. “You better give me the phone,” Gallagher said.

  “No, Dad don’t,” Ben cried, and the blade pressed harder on his throat and his body made little convulsive jerks.

  Martin’s hand clenched on the phone. He wanted to smash the fucker, he wanted to kill him. What could he do? Shit! He should have thought this through. The bastard had a knife to Ben’s throat, and his only weapon was a fucking phone. There was no choice.

  “OK. I’m putting it down.” Martin stepped forward slowly and put the phone down on the ledge.

  He could hear Gallagher breathing hard. “You back off,” he told Martin.

  “OK. I’m stepping back.” Martin moved back a little into the shadows.

  “Ben,” Gallagher said. “You be a good boy and pick up that phone and hand it to me.”

  He pushed Ben forward and inched up behind him, the knife still to the boy’s throat.

  Martin looked at the phone and calculated the distance. Could he grab hold of Ben before Gallagher used the knife? Perhaps, but Beth...?

  Martin narrowed his eyes, trying to penetrate the gloom. As Ben moved into the pool of light around the phone, he saw Gallagher’s hand holding onto the back of his shirt collar. The knife was no longer at Ben’s throat. Martin crouched down, bending towards his son. Ben looked up.

  “Dad?” he whispered.

  “Beth, PULL!” Martin yelled.

  And then everything happened very slowly. Martin saw the tug on the rope. He saw the look of surprise on Gallagher’s face as he was pulled off-balance, the rope slowly untangling from his wrist. He saw Gallagher still holding Ben’s collar. He saw them falling towards the river together, and then Martin lunged forwards.

  He crashed into Ben and Gallagher together, so they went sprawling onto their backs. He heard the knife clatter along the ledge, then there was a grab on Martin’s neck and Gallagher’s forehead smashed across the bridge of his nose. The pain almost blinded him. It knocked him back against the wall.

  And in that moment, he saw Gallagher twist around, scrabbling to grab Ben’s bare legs, to drag him over the edge of the ledge and down into the water.

  “No!” Martin cried, throwing himself forward, landing on top of Gallagher, grappling for a grip on his throat. Gallagher twisted and thrashed beneath him, and slowly Martin moved him further and further towards the edge of the ledge, until he felt the weight begin to give way beneath him. Gallagher was half off the ledge. Martin pressed on his windpipe, shoving his head down towards the water. Gallagher’s legs thrashed until his feet caught against the wall. He pushed hard against the wall, and they were tipping. They were falling and Gallagher had hold of Martin. The mad bastard was going to put them both in the water.

  “Dad!” Ben shrieked, and Martin felt his little hands grabbing at his shirt.

  “Let go, Ben!” But it was too late.

  Martin hit the water and sucked in a choking lungful. He sank into the blackness. He scrambled frantically. His head broke the surface. He tried to shout Ben’s name but the coughing was too much before the water sucked him down again, dragging him along. And then he smashed into something. His head was ringing from the impact. His hands groped the surface of the obstruction. Rough and slimy. It was a tree, he realised. The trunk of a tree, washed in here and lodged diagonally across the channel. He tried to grip it, but the rotten, slimy bark ripped off in his fingers. He was going to be pulled under it. But just before his head sank beneath the water, he heard Ben, his voice was above hi.

  “Dad?” he was calling. Ben was on top of the tree! Thank god.

  Martin reached up, clawing for a handhold, but it was gone. He was underwater again. He thrashed his way to the surface, and sucked a lungful of air. He started swimming, fighting the current, swimming into it and sideways. If he could get to the side, he could drag himself back upriver to Ben. He kicked and thrashed against the water. His muscles were burning. He was being pulled along, but he was making progress, he was sure of it. And then the current suddenly eased. He was at a bend in the river, an eddy at the side. His breath was coming in ragged sobs. He must be close to the side. And then his fingers touched the brick wall. He ran his hands over it, scrambling to find a hold, and there was one: a missing brick in the wall, a handhold to pull himself along.

  Martin’s arms were shaking and for a few seconds he held himself against the wall to rest, breathing hard. But he couldn’t rest long. He reached forward, fingers raking out the crumbling mortar, gripping and pulling himself onward, towards the tree, back to Ben. Hand over hand, he moved back. The current was stronger as he turned a bend in the river. It was pulling on his body, trying to move him back into the stream. Cramping needles of pain shot through Martin’s fingers.

  “Dad!”

  It was Ben. He sounded close now. But then there was another voice. Gallagher’s voice.

  “Ben, pull me up,” Gallagher said.

  Gallagher was near Ben, he was in the water, by the tree.

  It was like a jolt of electricity down a central line to the heart. Martin raced for the next hand-hold. He’d been too slow. He’d wasted time. He used his feet against the wall, kicking himself along, recklessly jumping for the next hold. His hands ripped against rough masonry. But now at last he could see the tree; it was a deeper blackness silhouetted against the darkness of the tunnel.

  And on the tree, he saw Ben. His little body was wrapped around the tree, his hands grasping onto puny branches. All he could see of Gallagher was his hands, reaching up from the water. He had hold of Ben, and he was pulling him down.

  “NO!” Martin roared. “Hold on, Ben! Hold on!”

  Something flew through the air and landed in the water near Gallagher. A rock. For a moment, Martin floundered in the water.

  “Get off him!”

  It was Beth! Martin couldn’t see where she was. But she was alive. She must have been washed against some obstruction on the other side of the tunnel.

  Martin dragged himself along the last couple of yards, until he reached the tree.

  “I’m here, Ben,” he shouted. He grabbed a branch and started pulling himself away from the wall, moving along the length of the tree trunk. “Dad’s here, Ben. Dad’s here.”

  Branch by branch he moved, until there were no branches, nothing to grab hold of, just the slimy bark that had failed him before. Ben was ten feet away, and there was Gallagher’s hand gripping onto the belt of his trousers.

  “Martin!” It was Beth. “Martin! He’s got him!”

  It was enough. Martin surged from the water, right up, grabbing onto the trunk, dragging himself up onto the tree. Gasping for breath, he scrambled forward, and he grabbed Ben’s arm just as Gallagher pulled him down. He felt a sickening wrench and heard Ben scream. He grabbed the other arm. He had him! And there was no fucking way he was letting go.

  “Dad!” Ben wailed. Martin could hear the pain. He was probably dislocating his shoulders. He blocked out the thought and pulled. He pulled hard, and slowly Ben came to him. Martin’s breath was heaving as he hauled Ben up. He laid him over the tree trunk, wrapping an arm around him, and he allowed himself to collapse forwards onto the tree. And then he saw Gallagher’s hands, still gripping on to the tree.

  Martin found one of the rocks that Beth had thrown lying there on the tree trunk. He picked it up and crawled forward to Gallagher’s hands. He looked down and saw the ghastly face in the water. Martin l
ifted the rock and smashed it down onto Gallagher’s right hand. He heard the crunch of bone, but still the bastard didn’t let go. He hammered at the grasping hand, until finally the hand released its hold. Gallagher was dragged along the tree trunk, and then the left hand reached up to grab a branch. The fucking bastard just wouldn’t give up and die.

  Martin scrambled back along the tree trunk, watching that hand, watching out for a grab that could pull him back down into the water. He gripped the rock, ready to bring it down. He could smash this hand too. He could end Gallagher now. He paused. He wanted the man dead, but still he hesitated.

  And then another rock came flying through the air. It was Beth, still fighting to the end. She was right. What was he waiting for? Martin raised his hand to smash the rock down on Gallagher’s hand. He looked into the river and saw his face, grey and greasy. And then his face contorted, as if a spasm of electric pain was running through his body. His eyes opened wide, as if to take in everything out of the darkness, as if in that moment he saw it all; the life that had brought him to this death. And then his hand slipped from the tree and instantly the water snatched him, pulling his unresisting body into the black depths and away.

  THE END