Next, he pulled out a roll of white gaffer tape and showed it to Lennon before setting it on the ground. Then a disposable lighter, the kind with a long flexible nozzle, the kind people use to light barbeques. Finally, a large can of lighter fluid. He brought the nozzle to his nose, inhaled the petroleum smell.
“I know I said I’d make it quick for you, big man, but, I mean, look at the state of my face. Look at the way you left me. Fair’s fair.”
Lennon coughed again then let out a low groan.
“So what are you waiting for?” he asked, his voice gargling low down in his throat.
“Ah, sure there’s no rush.”
“I’ll ask that a different way,” Lennon said. “Who are you waiting for?”
The Traveller stood upright, leaving the items lined up on the ground, all except the pistol which he held along his thigh.
“You tell me, big man.”
“Montgomery,” Lennon said. “He’s with you, isn’t he?”
The Traveller smiled. “Is he?”
“I think so,” Lennon said, no surprise or anger in his voice, but a flat acceptance. “I think he’s out there looking for Ellen. Or maybe he’s found her and that’s why you showed yourself. That’s what we’re waiting for, for him to bring her here. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Maybe,” the Traveller said. “Maybe not.”
Another fit of coughing erupted from Lennon, and he had to push with his legs, force himself back against the gate to keep from crumbling to the ground. He brought his left forearm to his chest, his fingers grabbing at his clothes. His right hand remained down low, out of view.
“What’ve you got there, big man?” the Traveller asked.
“You want to see?” Lennon asked.
“Yeah, I do.”
The Traveller raised the Glock, brought his left hand up to support it, aimed at Lennon’s forehead, but Lennon dropped like a sack of wet clothes. A flash from his hand, a roar that filled the cave. Something punched the Traveller’s left shoulder, knocked him off his feet. He squeezed the Glock’s trigger as he fell, saw the first round spark off the iron gate. The second hit something with a wet thump, and Lennon groaned.
Before the Traveller’s back hit the ground, he heard metal against stone, knew that Lennon had lost his grip on the weapon. Gut shot him, he thought. He’s dead. But it’ll be slow, painful. Good, he thought.
The pain in his shoulder bloomed, and the Traveller screamed at the roof of the cave, the sound of his own voice swelling between the walls along with the fire in his shoulder.
“Cunt bastard fucker bitch whore’s son!”
He rolled to his side, propped himself on his right elbow, the Glock scraping against the ground, got his knees under him, then up, hissing through his teeth at the pain. Lennon lay there on his side, his back still against the gate, reaching, reaching, reaching for something.
The Traveller crossed the ten feet between them, the Glock aimed at Lennon’s head, his left arm hanging useless by his side. Everything in his being urged him to put the bastard out of his misery right now, just get it done, empty every single round out of the clip into the fucker’s head, leave it a mass of pulped brain and bone.
No. Not after all this work. He had imagined this moment for years, how it would go, how much the cop would suffer for what he’d done. No chance the Traveller would throw that all away now purely to satisfy the anger of the moment. He had a deeper, wider anger that demanded it be quenched.
He squinted at the ground, struggling to find Lennon’s pistol in the last dregs of light seeping through the gate. There, he put his foot on it, kicked it away.
“I got you,” Lennon said. “You killed me, yeah, but I got you a good one, didn’t I, you bastard?”
The Traveller raised the Glock once more, his finger squeezing the trigger. Only an ounce more pressure, and he’d be rid of Lennon forever. But it wasn’t good enough. Nowhere near good enough. He lowered the Glock and kicked Lennon hard in the stomach.
Lennon screamed, and so did the Traveller. The effort of the kick had made his arm swing, grinding bone against bone.
“Bastard fucker cunt shit bastard!”
A low, creaking laugh came from Lennon, like the cackle of a magpie.
“You still . . . have a way . . . with words, haven’t you?”
“Go fuck yourself,” the Traveller said. “And let me tell you something, you piece of shite. Yeah, Montgomery’s with me. And he phoned me a few minutes ago to tell me he has your girl. You were absolutely fucking right. And you know what?”
He kicked Lennon again, and once more, both of them screamed.
When the tide of pain had ebbed, the Traveller said, “You know what? I’m going to cover that little bitch of yours head-to-toe in lighter fluid, and I’m going to set her on fire. And you’re going to fucking lie there, and the last thing you’re going see is your daughter burnt alive. And then it’s you, you cunt, you’re going to burn too, and when you’re nothing but a heap of charred meat, I’m going to piss on you, I’m going to—”
“Hey.”
The voice from behind. Montgomery’s.
“Dad!”
The girl’s.
The Traveller closed his eyes, savoured the smouldering pain in his shoulder, the buzzing between his ears. He opened them, smiled down at Lennon.
“Here we go,” he said.
17
Lennon tried to lift his head from the cold damp cave floor, but it was too heavy. He could see the forms of two people from here as he peered between the Traveller’s ankles. Dark out there, the weakest of light making it this far from the mouth of the cave, a dim sliver from behind him. But he knew who it was: Ellen and, gripping her arm, Montgomery.
His heart sounded in his chest, limping, its gait as crooked as his own. I’m dying, he thought. And he didn’t mind. But Ellen. He knew his heart would give up long before the wound in his stomach finished him. It would cease beating, his chest falling silent, before it could pump the last of his blood from the wound.
But Ellen.
“Montgomery,” he said.
The Englishman came closer, Ellen with him. Tears in her eyes. And fear.
“Montgomery,” Lennon said, louder. “I know you can hear me. What is he paying you?”
The Englishman ignored him, spoke to the Traveller.
“Get it done,” Montgomery said. “We need to get out of here.”
“What’s the rush?” the Traveller asked, still staring down at Lennon.
“Jesus Christ, man, I heard the gunshots from the bridge. There’s two cops dead in a patrol car no more than half a mile away from here. This place will be swarming in a few minutes and there’s no way out. Unless your getaway plan is swimming to fucking Scotland, we need to get this over with. That poor bastard’s dead already. Just finish it and let’s go.”
Lennon raised his head an entire inch from the ground.
“What’s he promised you, Montgomery?”
“For Christ’s sake, shoot him,” Montgomery said. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“Let them come,” the Traveller said.
“What?”
As Montgomery’s face went slack with disbelief, Lennon let his head fall to the cave floor. He felt a surge of spiteful glee as the Englishman realised, finally, who he was dealing with.
“Let them come,” the Traveller said again. “I don’t care. This is all that matters, having this piece of shit cowering at my feet. And look at it. Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it just fucking gorgeous?”
“You’re insane,” Montgomery said.
Lennon laughed, then pulled his knees up as his midsection ignited in pain.
“You’re only just getting that now?” he asked between gasps.
The Traveller grinned, giggled. “He doesn’t know me at all,
does he, Jack?”
“Christ,” Montgomery said, “you do what you want, I’m going.”
He shoved Ellen against the cave wall. She fell, folded in on herself, arms around her knees.
Good girl, Lennon thought. Make yourself small.
The Traveller looked back over his shoulder at Montgomery. “So you don’t want paid, then?”
“My contract’s with Laima Strazdienė, not you,” Montgomery said. “I’ll get paid no matter what you do. You stay here if you want, let them come and get you. I’ve done my job.”
He turned and walked back the way he’d come.
Lennon knew what was coming, even if the Englishman didn’t.
“Montgomery,” the Traveller said.
The Englishman stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
Fool, Lennon thought.
Montgomery’s head rocked with the force of the bullet, a dark mist puffing from the wound. He stood for a moment, locked in place, as if his body couldn’t fathom what had happened to his brain. Then he folded down into the ground, an empty vessel, spilled onto the stone and sand.
Ellen cried out, fear and sorrow roped together in her voice.
Lennon wished she hadn’t seen that. Then he remembered she had seen much worse.
Somewhere far away, above the echoes of the cave, beyond the rumble and crash of the waves, Lennon heard a high wail. A siren, rising and falling. The Traveller tilted his head, the remains of one ear angled back to the cave’s mouth. He stood silent for a moment, locked in place by the sound.
Now, Lennon thought.
He kicked out, his foot arcing behind the Traveller’s, catching his heels, dragging his feet from under him. The Traveller cursed and cried as he stumbled back, arms wheeling. He landed hard on his back, his head connecting with the floor, a dull thud. The pistol in his hand spat, and grit and stone fell from the cave roof.
Ellen remained on the ground, locked in place. Lennon called her name. She hesitated for a moment, then reacted, scrabbling across the cave floor, reaching for the revolver. As the Traveller cursed, she grabbed it, aimed, cocked the hammer.
“Shoot him,” Lennon said. “Do it now.”
18
Ellen’s finger curled around the trigger. In the dimness of the cave, she could barely make out the Traveller as he rolled onto his right side, grunting as he dragged his useless left arm behind. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, his gun cradled in his lap, and turned his head to look at Ellen.
“What are you going to do with that, love?” he asked.
“I’ll shoot you if I have to,” Ellen said.
She saw his smooth skin crinkle as he grinned.
“Oh, will you, now?” he said. “If you were going to shoot me, you’d have done it already.”
“I don’t want to,” Ellen said, “but I will.”
He looked down to his lap, shook his head.
“Ah, fuck it,” he said.
He lifted his pistol, the long barrel of the silencer seeking out her father. She made no conscious thought to pull the trigger, the twitch of her finger causing the revolver to buck in her hands. In the same moment, the Traveller’s pistol flashed, and through the ringing in her ears she heard both men cry out. The Traveller fell sideways, onto his good arm, and remained there, coughing, groaning, cursing.
Ellen crawled towards her father, the revolver scraping on the ground as she went. Lennon looked no more than a bundle of rags piled against the foot of the gate. As she reached his side, she saw his eyes open, searching for her. She saw the wounds in his stomach and in his upper chest and knew he was dying. He tried to say something, but she couldn’t make out the words above the sound of the Traveller’s curses and the approaching sirens. She leaned down, her ear close to his mouth.
“Finish . . .”
“What?” she asked. “What?”
“Finish him.”
Ellen turned, saw the Traveller get to his knees, the lighter in his limp left hand, the can of fluid in the other. His thumb worked the trigger on the lighter, but it lacked the strength to strike it. Movement behind him distracted her.
The shadows, rippling, forming. So many of them, heads and legs and arms, raising their hands, pointing. The Others, free now, the proximity of death setting them loose.
“They’re coming for you,” Ellen said.
The Traveller looked up from the lighter, still trying to spark a flame.
“I don’t give a shite about them,” he said, each word a guttural cough. “I’ll be dead before they can put the handcuffs on. So will you and your bastard of a father.”
“Not the police,” Ellen said. “The Others.”
He looked up from the lighter.
“What are you talking about?”
“Years ago,” Ellen said, “when we were in the prayer room in the hospital. I told you about them. You remember.”
He shook his head. “No. No, I don’t remember. I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” Ellen said.
The shadows moved closer, more than she could count, all pointing at him.
“Shut up,” he said, trying once more to ignite the lighter. “Shut your fucking mouth.”
“They’re coming for you,” Ellen said. “They’ll take what they’re owed.”
Among the shadows, the thin man, taller than the rest, coming closer than them all.
“Shut the fu—”
The lighter caught, and the yellow flame illuminated his grin. His face contorted with the effort of raising the lighter. Behind it, he raised the can of fluid, the nozzle aimed at her.
“Finish him,” her father said in a voice so low she couldn’t be sure if she heard him at all.
As Ellen brought the revolver up, she saw an arc of orange and blue flare towards her. She pulled the trigger as she fell back against her father, felt the gun buck in her hand, felt the sear of the flame.
Through the heat and pain, she saw the can in the Traveller’s hand burst open, and for a moment the air around him turned a glowing blue. Then a small sun blossomed, swallowing him in its furnace.
She saw the Others, their savage pleasure burning as hot as the flame reflected in their faces. Among them, the thin man stared at her.
“Run,” he said.
The revolver fell from her fingers as flame danced along her blazer sleeve. She launched herself past the screaming ball of fire, past Montgomery’s body, towards the mouth of the cave. As it came into view, the world beyond was lit with pulsating blue, a siren wail drowning out the screams from behind her. She pulled the blazer off, threw it aside.
Ellen hit the ground outside the cave and a car skidded to a halt, feet from where she rolled, trying to smother the flames that ate her shirt sleeve. A policeman came running, pulling his jacket off, throwing it over her, slapping the flames out.
Before the pain fully revealed itself, she heard the screams echo from inside the cave. When the nerves in her seared skin finally forced the signal to her brain, she screamed too, joining the Traveller’s final chorus.
19
Lennon watched the fireball writhe, listened to its agony. The burning liquid crawled across the cave floor, inching closer to him. The walls of the cave danced in blue light and he knew they had come, that Ellen was safe.
He wept, mourning himself. Mourning the life Ellen had ahead of her, the years he would miss. The revolver lay an inch from his outstretched fingers. He gritted his teeth against the pain and rolled his body to close the distance.
The Traveller’s screams ebbed away, and he became still. The river of fire came closer.
Lennon wrapped his fingers around the revolver’s grip. He pulled back the hammer, put the muzzle between his teeth. He closed his eyes and thought of Ellen. As he applied pressure to the trigger, he asked God to forgive his sins.
It hardly hurt at all.
20
Ellen sat at the table in her Aunt Bernie’s kitchen, listening to her talk with Father Coyle as if she wasn’t there. Her aunt and the priest each had a steaming mug of tea in front of them, a plate of biscuits at the centre of the table.
“We didn’t want her to go to the funeral, but she kicked up such a fuss.”
The priest gave a placating smile. “He was her father, after all.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” Bernie said. “He never would take the paternity test.”
“Whatever a test might have said, one way or the other, he was a father to her.”
Bernie bristled. “Was he? She never should’ve gone to live with him in the first place. You know he put a gun in my face when he took her from me?”
Another pained smile. “I heard about that, yes.”
“Nothing but a bastard who turned on his own.”
The priest gave Ellen a glance, ashamed for her.
“Maybe we should be mindful of what we say, we don’t—”
“I’ve heard worse,” Ellen said.
Bernie shot her a warning look, was about to speak, but the doorbell interrupted her.
“Christ, who’s that now?” she said, getting up from the table and going to the hall.
The priest spoke to Ellen now. “How are you holding up?”
Ellen picked at the dressing that covered her hand to her elbow. “Okay. They don’t really want me here, but I don’t care. I’ll leave when I’m old enough.”
“Don’t want you here? Sure, didn’t they fight your father tooth and nail for custody of you? Bernie’s your mother’s aunt, isn’t she? You’re her family.”
Ellen shook her head. “They wanted to take me from my father, to punish him. They never wanted me.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Father Coyle said.
Ellen couldn’t keep the smirk from her mouth. “You don’t believe that, but you believe all your Jesus bullshit?”
The priest’s face paled. “Now, there’s no call for that.”
The Traveller and Other Stories Page 21
