The Siege of Reginald Hill
Page 25
At which point Bane insisted [B: Quite rightly.] that I come home to rest for a while, for Baby’s sake, so I made him stay with Jane. Sister Mari took Luc home for the night. And I am lying down on the bed but there’s no way I can possibly sleep until I know if U’s going to be okay, so I started writing this just for something to do.
Oh no, I’m crying again. But this is like Snakey all over again! Lord, please don’t let U die! He put himself between me and that bullet just like Lucas once did! He was so brave, please don’t let him die! Please don’t let Jane be a widow! They’re so happy!
What if I just keep
23rd March—Easter Saturday (22)
I can’t believe I fell asleep yesterday!
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***+***
SOMEDAY
A prequel to the YESTERDAY & TOMORROW series
CORINNA TURNER
All proceeds go to Aid to the Church in Need
Ruth and Gemma have a Physics exam in the morning.
Becky and Alleluia are revising for their A Levels.
So it’s an absolute nightmare to be woken by the fire alarm in dead of the night.
But for them, and for 272 other girls from Chisbrook Hall girls boarding school, the real nightmare is just beginning.
Because ‘al-Qabda’ are taking them all away.
Whether they want to go or not.
Out NOW!
Scroll down or click HERE to read 2 sneak peeks!
SOMEDAY
SNEAK PEEK 1—GEMMA
I open my mouth to reply to Annabel… break off, eyes widening at the sight of a uniformed—armed!—soldier rushing up the stairwell.
“Outside!” he yells, in some sort of thick, inner-city accent. “Hurry up, everyone out!”
“Is there actually a fire?” gasps Annabel, her ridiculously long hair tumbling all around her again as she almost drops her hair tie. “Not just mice chewing wires again…”
But Ruth frowns slightly as she looks at the soldier—yeah, he’s not a fireman.
He sees our expressions. “There’s been a bomb threat. Out, now! Where is everyone else?”
“There isn’t anyone else,” Annabel says over her shoulder, taking off down the stairs as though… she’s just heard there might be a bomb in the building.
The soldier looks annoyed—yells after her, “Where are the younger ones?”
“Year seven are at an adventure training camp,” I reply, but I start down the stairs as well. Bomb threats are usually hoaxes but I’m so not risking it. Not the way things are at the moment. “Year eight, IT camp; year nine, French exchange; year ten, Venice, English trip. It’s just us and the sixth form.”
The soldier swears loudly, and starts herding us back down the stairs, giving me a push to hurry me along.
“Hey!” I protest. “If I fall and break something and you have to carry me, it’s going to take even longer, isn’t it?”
Ruth shoots the man another looks and trots on down the stairs, guiding Yoko with her, like she’s more scared of the soldier than of the bomb. And though I’d never admit it, I do kind of respect her opinion—at least on anything that doesn’t concern the divine Sky Fairy.
The man’s scruffier than any soldier I’ve ever seen—and since when do they dispatch armed men to evacuate civilians?
ALLELLUIA
“Quit shoving, would you?” I snap at the man who’s chivvying us towards the assembly point. “Think I wanna stay in there with a bomb, huh?”
“Hurry up,” he says.
That’s all he’s said since he met us outside the sixth form block and I’m sick of it.
“Jesus loves you too,” I tell him.
He smacks me across the head and I gasp in pain. Did this soldier seriously just hit me? Then I see the assembly point ahead and the words evaporate from my mind.
There’s a row of trucks and a couple of horse vans—horseboxes, they call them over here—pulled up in the parking lot, and more soldiers are forcing girls into them at gunpoint. Everyone looks scared—a few girls are crying. Lord, what is going on?
“Show us some ID!” Miss Trott is yelling. She’s the senior housemistress. “You are not taking these girls unless we see some ID! Where are the police? Where’s bomb disposal?” She grabs a soldier’s arm, “ID, now!”
The soldier un-shoulders his rifle and casually smashes the butt into Miss Trott’s face. She crumples to the ground in a horrible, boneless way. I jerk in a shocked breath—then grab Jill and Karen. “Run!”
I shove them towards the wood and dive at the soldier who hit me—after a moment of confusion, I’m rewarded by the sound of Jill and Karen’s running footsteps on the gravel path. The soldier shoves me away so hard I fall, tearing pyjamas and knee. Ow… Blood oozes brightly across my black skin. But Jill and Karen have disappeared into the dark.
The soldier swings back to me—my heart freezes in my throat, everything freezes as he brings up the rifle and cocks it, hate filling his angry eyes…
SNEAK PEEK 2—SAM
We’ve spent hours trailing through any bit of woodland that can be accessed by road and we’re scratched and footsore and frustrated. And hot. Of course we know ninety-nine percent of the searchers in the entire country won’t find anything and we’re being given the least likely areas, what with us being, like, the eighty-eighth line of defence or something—but I suppose we’re all hoping—and dreading what we might find, at the same time.
Movement up ahead... my mind snaps back to the job at hand, heart lurching in hope-fear. It’ll be nothing... it’d better be nothing, we’re all unarmed... Take more than this for them to issue live ammo to university students.
The biggest excitement of the morning approaches... in the form of a teenage boy riding bareback—and barefooted—on a black and white pony. He rides right on up to our fatigue-clad selves in a way that makes me pretty sure he’s heard nothing about the terrorists.
I can’t help asking, “Why aren’t you in school?”
“I don’t go to school. I’m home-schooled. Or...” He grins. “Caravan-schooled.”
“Oh, you’re a gyp... traveller, right?”
“Half. My dad’s a hippie. Traveller-wannabee, as my mum would say.”
“Right. Well... Have you seen any horseboxes or vans back there in the woods?”
He gives me a funny look. “You’re soldiers, right? Why are you looking for vans?”
“Yes, territorial army, strictly speaking—but we’re just university officer cadets. We’re looking for the two hundred and seventy-six schoolgirls who were kidnapped this morning. Or rather, the vehicles they were taken in, almost certainly abandoned, by now.”
The boy greets this with a nod. “So this is like a role-play, or something, right? That you’re doing for training? Is it okay for me to tell you where they are, then, or are you supposed to find them yourselves?”
“No, they’ve really been taken. By Islamist fanatics... Wait, are you saying you’ve seen some vans back there?”
“Yeah,” he says slowly, eyes very wide. Then he shakes his head as though to banish his shock and turns the pony, puts it to a canter, calling over his shoulder, “This way...”
“Wait!” I yell. “You need to wait for us. Those men are dangerous.”
He pulls the pony to a halt and looks us up and down. “And what are you going to do, spit at them?”
I try not to grit my teeth too hard. “We can at least make a cautious approach,” I tell him, then call to the others, “Okay, stay in your line but we’re following the pony. Double-time.”
When the boy finally slips from the pony’s back and throws his reins over a bush, we cat
ch him up. “This way,” he whispers, and glides off silently through the trees.
We follow, sounding like a herd of blundering elephants in comparison. But we soon come over a slight rise and there below us is a clearing...
My heart begins to pound. Three vehicles. Two white vans and a blue horsebox... God help us, it’s an exact match! I hesitate, torn. We’re under strict orders to call for armed backup if we find anything, but... I try the radio again. Nothing. No signal on my phone either. What have we got to report, anyway? There doesn’t seem to be anyone here. It may be nothing to do with the kidnapping.
“Wrexham, come with me,” I say softly. “We’ll circle the clearing and see what we can see. Everyone else, stay here. Tanner, you’re in charge. If someone shoots us, bug out and phone for help as soon as you can get a signal.”
I pick up a sturdy branch and move down the slope towards the clearing. A stick’s better than nothing, right? Henry Wrexham follows. The gypsy-boy has slipped all the way to the edge of the clearing and is peering from behind a bush. I’d better try and get him to stay back.
But as I move down towards him, I find that I can see the backs of the vehicles, and they’re all open, the roll backs up on the vans and the ramp down on the horsebox. A prickle of unease runs up my spine. Okay, so it’s really hot today, but it could just as easily be pouring rain. Why would someone leave their vehicles open like that?
The boy glances at me when I stop beside him. “Someone brought two really big vehicles up into this clearing sometime this morning,” he tells me softly, pointing. “You can see the tire marks. Looks like semi-trucks. Totally unsuitable for that track.”
Another cold prickle.
“Change of plan, Henry,” I say. “We’ll...”
But then a thin cry comes from the horsebox: “Help...”
ePub ISBN: 978-1-910806-03-6
ASIN: B01EAU6AT0
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-910806-02-9
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***+***
DON’T MISS
unSPARKed 1
DRIVE!
Carol’s scream assaults my ears, even as I’m bringing the gun round… I fire, hitting the raptor in the tail as it darts away… No time to check on Carol, I turn again…the pack matriarch is busy ripping the grille back from Harry’s window…
One gun’s enough, is it, Dad? Really? We have so had it…
IN DARRYL’S WORLD, THE WILDLIFE IS RATHER…
…WILD!
When Darryl’s Dad suddenly remarries, she and her brother Harry are taken completely by surprise. Their new step-mom is a glamorous fashion designer who’s never been outside the city fence in her life.
How will she cope with a life of dinosaur farming? Still, they try to make up their minds to be welcoming.
But first, Darryl’s Dad needs to get his new bride safely to the farm. And things don’t go quite to plan…
“A cross between Jurassic World and Mad Max! I read it 3 times in 2 days!” - Steven R. McEvoy, Top 1000 Reviewer
Scroll down or click to read a SNEAK PEEK!
***+***
DARRYL
I knock back my last swig of coffee, slip on my denim jacket, and pause on my way to the gun locker to check my reflection in the hall mirror. Shoulder-length brown hair brushed—and loose, for once—face clean, blue eyes...glum. But this has happened, whether I like it or not, so I might as well make a good first impression.
“Harry, get down here, we’re going to be late!”
The volume of Dad’s latest bellow up the stairs shows that he means business. Well, I’m ready, at least.
I thought my younger brother had come around to the ‘might as well make a good impression’ viewpoint as well, but there’s still no noise from upstairs. The fact is, when your dad comes back from a routine weekend market and supply trip to the city and announces that he’s got honest-to-God married, and that the woman—sorry, step-mom—will be coming to live with you, three weeks really isn’t enough time to deal with it.
Harry totally lost it. Screamed Lord knows what at Dad, then ran off to the nearest barn. I managed not to do any screaming, but I had to go up and shut myself in the turret for almost an hour, and talk to myself a lot. You know: Dad’s been alone a long time, Darryl; if he’s fallen in love that’s wonderful, isn’t it, Darryl; you want your father to be happy, don’t you, Darryl?
He totally sprung it on us, though. I guess he was so scared Potential Step-Mom—sorry, Carol—would come to her senses and decide that no handsome, propertied man of her own age was worth going and living OutSPARK on some farm. Carol’s a city girl, all right. When I finally managed to go back down and say something about being happy for Dad and try to show some interest in his new bride, he showed me a photo on his phone, and my heart didn’t lift. Just sank even further. Manicured Carol looked like she’d never got within a mile of the city fence in her life, let alone stepped outside it. A less likely farmer’s wife I had never seen.
Dad could tell what I was thinking, of course. Brain not completely scrambled by love. “I know Carol’s no farmer, Darryl my girl,” he told me, “but really, it doesn’t matter, does it? We’ve run the farm by ourselves all this time. She can run her fashion consultancy business from the house—I’m getting a faster Net connection put in. And we’ll run the farm, just as before. And you and Harry will inherit it, Darryl, no question. Carol has her own money.”
I reach the gun locker and place my hand on the scanner. Much as I hated to hear Dad talking about his will, it’s a relief to know the farm is safe. I could put up with a harem of step-moms if I had to, but if someone took the farm from me...
As I take my rifle from the rack I can’t help smiling at the thought of Dad with a harem of Carols. No, not Dad. We’re Catholic, you know. One spouse at a time. Carol’s ‘not religious’, apparently. I hope that won’t matter. Dad did say he thinks she’s ‘open to it’ so that’s something.
I throw my ammunition sash on and check the pouches. Three hold full mags, but since we’ll be travelling unSPARKed... I’ll add the fourth pouch. I put my hand on the scanner to open the ammo box and take a handful of HiPiRs, or Hide Piercing Rounds. Penetrate any hide up to T. rex, these will. Though for T. rex, I really would prefer a bigger gun. Much bigger.
“HARRY!” roars Dad, then heads over to me. “Whoa girl, wait up. Come on, put the rifle away.”
“What?” I turn an incredulous look on him. “We’re going OutSPARK, Dad.”
“Carol’s nervous enough about the trip as it is, let alone living out here. If we turn up looking like Rambo-family, she’s going to freak out. I’ll have my rifle. Leave yours here. Just this once.”
“But why have one rifle when you can have three?” I demand.
“Most people don’t take any weapons when they travel, Darryl.”
“City people. And sometimes when they break down or crash, they get eaten.”
“Come on, Darryl, just this once. It will make Carol feel so much better.”
His pleading tone is too much. I unsling my rifle from my shoulder and put it back in its place. “Alright. But we’d better not end up Raptor Food.”
“Of course we won’t.” He sounds downright cheerful with relief.
Footsteps on the stairs. I glance at Harry as I finish slipping the HiPiRs into the mag. No point leaving it half full. Harry’s changed out of the clothes he was wearing for early morning chores. Was he really dragging his feet, or was he agonizing over what to wear? He’s thirteen, three years younger than me, but very fair-minded, and I thought he was finally trying to get into a welcoming frame of mind, this last week. He helped clean the whole house from top to bottom without a word of complaint, anyway.
“You’ve missed breakfast,” says Dad. “Grab something to eat in the truck.”
“I’m not hungry,” mutters Harry. Yeah, definitely freaking out about meeting her, not sulking. He joins me by the locker and takes his rifle from the rack. “How
many mags are you taking, Rell?”
“None,” I sigh, putting the now fully loaded mag back in and adding my ammo-sash.
“Huh?”
“Apparently Carol’s nervy and Dad reckons three guns will scare her. So he’s just taking his.”
“What? But why take one gun when you could...”
“You don’t want to traumatize your new step-mom, do you?” says Dad, taking Harry’s rifle firmly from his hands and replacing it, taking his own out, then sealing the locker again. “Come on, in the truck, chop-chop!” He moves to the House Control and taps the usual commands. The light level in the hall plummets as the stainless steel shutters slide over all the windows and lock into place with a reassuring snick.
Heading for the front door, I check the ScreamerBand around my wrist, but the light glows green. Our fence has suffered no power loss; no alarms have been tripped since I came in for breakfast. All secure. I still scan the screens before opening the door—the yard is empty.
Pausing to listen as soon as I’ve stepped outside is second nature, I don’t even think about it. But the Hum is there, the soothing sound of our twin fences, of safety. The quiet noises of the livestock in their barns, behind their own steel shutters. Our mammal-stock gets some time out at grass each day, but never while we’re away from home.