by Fleet, Ricky
“Five meters, sonny,” Bert chuckled, coughing up a torrent of blood.
“Get down,” Denise yelled, tackling the two women and the yellow hound. They fell sideways behind an antique dresser.
Secreted in Bert’s favourite pullover, the two stolen grenades detonated. Dean became several individual pieces that painted the walls and ceiling with claret. Cob and Jeff were shredded by the razor sharp slivers, their tattered bodies blown against the stonework. Deafened by the explosion, the cowering ladies couldn’t hear the tinkle of shattered glass as every window disintegrated. The blast wave surged up both chimneys. As the void refilled with air, smoke and soot were forcefully dragged down, gushing into the room like the mouths of dragons preceding ignition. Instead of a twin inferno, the expelled logs and embers in the black wave sat atop the rugs, starting smaller blazes of their own.
“We need to go!” shouted Denise, feeling the vibrations of her words but not the sound.
Gloria stared up in mute shock.
Honey shook her head, turning around in a circle.
Sarah jumped to her feet, shrugging free of Denise’s restraining hand. Jumping over the debris, she fell to her knees at Bert’s body. Torn in two, she ignored the horrendous damage and stroked his cheek. Even in death his lips formed a half smile.
Pulling Sarah to her feet, the retired police officer yelled in her face. “We’ve got to go!”
Sarah heard nothing, only ringing.
Together, united in grief and soot, they ran.
Honey licked Bert’s face once, whined, then followed.
Chapter 33
Holding tightly to Bert’s full holdall, Sarah followed close behind Denise. Most of the blankets had been abandoned as soon as their hearing returned slightly and the furious shouts of Fred got closer. Running up the main staircase, the second floor put them one below that of the entrance arch to the old keep. Enraged cries seemed to come from every direction. The rest of the prisoners were inside, searching. Doors slammed. Antiques smashed. Manic laughter haunted their every step.
“We’re nearly there!”
Passing the looted castle store, they raced down the passageway. A prisoner stepped into view from one of the other staircases. Denise’s gun sent him scurrying back out of sight. As they passed the dark stairwell, the man had tripped over his own feet. Tumbling down, the solid treads broke bones. Amusement at his injuries were short lived at the realisation they were out of time. The men had swarmed through the castle like a virus.
Reaching The Lady’s Chamber, the mannequin in her luxurious dress stared at them in her mirror. A spiral staircase led both up and down, tight and steep. It had been designed to favour the defenders, curving in a clockwise direction so the attackers had to do battle left handed. Opening up, the arch led directly out into the necessary passage from the original castle.
“Check everyone’s safe,” ordered Gloria, covering the gloomy tunnel with the shotgun. Satisfied they were alone for the moment, she snapped open the gun and slipped the red cartridge into the chamber. Four remained, and she would make them count.
Sarah bolted out into the light. The massive steps leading up to the imposing structure were empty. “Who’s up there?”
Stephanie moved out from cover and waved down.
“Is everyone with you?”
“Only some of the children,” she called.
“What do you mean some of the children?” demanded Sarah.
“Holly refused to stay. She went back with Clarissa to look for you. I’m so sorry.”
“How could you let this happen?” Sarah shrieked. “You were supposed to watch them!”
Stephanie’s face crumbled and she started to cry.
“She’s learned to be headstrong from us. You can’t blame Stephanie.”
“They’re going to be caught by those animals. Can you imagine what they’ll do to Holly? I’ve got to go and find them!” Sarah was frantic.
“Where are Zack and Alina’s group?” called Denise.
“They haven’t made it either,” she sobbed.
“I’ll go with you,” said Denise.
“No.”
“Then I’ll come, dear,” offered Gloria.
“No. I need both of you up there with the others. If the worst should happen, keep the kids safe until Kurt gets back.”
“But…” spluttered Gloria.
“Promise me?”
“I promise.”
Denise nodded sadly.
“Thank you. Now go!”
Honey started to follow her mistress back into the castle.
“You go with them too, girl. You’ve done enough fighting for today.” Sarah scratched behind her ears, a spot she adored. “I love you, you furry beast. Go! Find Gloria!”
Whipping her head back, she saw the teacher halfway up the soaring staircase. Bolting after her in pursuit, Honey was alongside the older lady in seconds.
“Good girl,” whispered Sarah, heading back into the fallen sanctuary.
Chapter 34
“What happened to Sarah?” asked Pea.
“She went back in to look for Clarissa and Holly,” explained Denise.
“I told them not to go,” she replied, wiping away fresh tears.
“They did what they thought was right. We just need to wait a few minutes and hope they find each other.”
“Denise, what do you want to do with the doors?” asked Stephanie.
Giving Pea a quick hug, Denise left her with the other children. “How do you mean, sweetheart?”
“They’ve been fixed open to stop the tourists messing around with them.”
Two thick brackets were bolted through the stone, holding them securely open. Gloria remained watchful on the battlements above, and Denise could make out her shadow on the steps below from the afternoon sun. Rust and time had weakened the metal, but it was still solid enough to stop any movement. Checking the thick hinges themselves, they were in a better state of repair, but only marginally. Tucked below the guard post above, the rain had never touched the doors. Moisture in the air was another matter, as testified by the orange flecks around the sturdy pin.
“Pea, can you and the others see if we have anything strong enough to break this?” asked Denise.
The blonde girl ran over, took one look to ascertain the tool required, then ran off. There was very little to search in the ancient watchtower. The fifty yard wide lookout had lost its roof centuries ago. The original stone floor had crumbled, leaving only mud to walk on. Below in the dungeons, the castle stored non-essential items. The dank, black cells were nothing more than three stone walls now, the doors crumbling to dust long ago. Lighting equipment and cables were neatly stored in waterproof boxes, ready to be hung for any festivities. Ladders and other equipment filled another. As Pea surveyed the goods, the torch caused shadows to loom and dance. Afraid, alone in the gloom, she imagined they were the ghosts of the long dead prisoners. A pair of cages in the floor itself were covered with safety grates.
“They’re oubliettes,” explained Stephanie, causing her to start.
Shining the torch at the teacher, she returned the beam to the vertical shaft at her feet. “Oobly what, miss?”
“Oubliettes. Horrible things. You needn’t worry yourself. How’s the search coming along?”
“I found these?” said Pea, holding out a pair of tripods. The central metal pole was fairly robust. Trying to bend it over her knee, it moved not an inch but sent a stabbing pain up her leg.
“These might just work,” said the teacher.
“What were they used for, miss?” asked Pauline, aiming the torch down through the steel.
“Do you really want to know? It’s quite graphic.”
Pea’s face pleaded. It would help keep her mind off of Winston and their current woes.
“This type were designed to be some of the worst,” said Stephanie, joining her. “The word derives from the French word to forget.”
“They kept people down there
?”
The smooth sided stone shaft stretched down about fifty feet. “They forgot about people down there. It’s only wide enough to stand in. You couldn’t kneel. You couldn’t sit. You could only sleep when exhaustion made it possible to ignore the discomfort of being wedged tightly between the stone.”
Pea was horrified. “When would they be let out?”
“For exercise you mean?”
“Yeah. Or to use the toilet.”
“They went to the toilet down there, there was no being let out. People would die in filthy squalor in the darkness. Sometimes you were thrown in one where there was already a dead body. Can you imagine? Trying not to stand on the rotting body. Surrounded by flies. In the darkness.”
Stephanie was loving playing the teacher, even if the content was a little ghoulish.
“Any luck?” called Denise down the steps.
“I think so!” Stephanie replied. “Pea found something we might be able to lever them open with.”
“Ok, great!”
Pea was enthralled by the vile torture devices. “I want to put those men down there. They deserve it.”
“Let’s hope we get the chance, darling. Now let’s try your tripods, shall we?”
“We’ve got company!” called Gloria from atop the wall.
Stephanie and Pea came at a run, the solid iron tripods in hand.
“Sarah and the others?” Denise asked.
“Not unless she’s grown a beard, dear,” said Gloria.
“Stay down, Gloria. We know they have rifles.”
“Hiding as we speak,” she replied.
The mood dropped and the fear spiked amongst the survivors in the tower. Denise took up position with her back to the guardhouse door. Stephanie and Pea snapped off the plastic brackets and the support legs, leaving the thick pole intact.
“Do we have time?” whispered Stephanie.
“We’ll make time.”
Snatching a glimpse through the archway, the two men were moving slowly.
“Where’re our friends?” demanded Denise.
“Safe!” replied one of the men. “Now come on down and you’ll be safe too.”
“Fred and George don’t want anyone hurt. You have our word.”
“Forgive me if I tell you to go and fuck yourself,” Denise shouted in response.
Pea inserted the steel and was yanking on the strut for all her worth. The L shaped bracket started to loosen, until the rusted bolts came away completely. Little remained of the shank that had been buried in the stone but rust.
“Try the door,” said Denise, darting across the opening to take cover on the other side. Neither of the men were armed with guns, only knives. She didn’t want to chance a sniper was keeping a watch from the dark niches behind the creeping intruders.
Straining against the aged oak, nothing happened.
“Shit! Gloria, would you mind giving them a warning shot? But keep your head down.”
“I’ll go one better than that, dear,” she said from above.
Denise heard both men gasp before the crack of the shotgun shattered the day. The gasps were replaced by thudding as someone topsy-turveyed down the stone steps. Then came the cries of the wounded prisoner.
“I said to keep your head down!” Denise shouted.
“Desperate times and all that,” came the reply.
There was no one watching or they would have taken a shot back at the crazy teacher. Looking around through the arch, the man on the right had taken the buckshot in his shoulder. The fall had broken his good arm and one of his legs. Fearing another shot, the uninjured man took the steps two at a time, leaving his friend to wail and gibber. No honour among thieves, she thought.
“Steph, get the others and try to close that door. Pea, come over here, sweetheart. Break that bracket just like you did on that one. Stay low.”
“Ok,” replied the teenager, ducking and scurrying across the opening. The angle of the steep steps gave her cover, but there was no point taking any chances.
Nearly the whole class crammed around the seized door. Taking hold of anything they could, they grunted and pulled. With an awful grinding squeal, the hinges gave way. Slamming it shut, Stephanie pulled them all back out of harm’s way.
“Nearly… there!” groaned Pea, straining against the slightly stronger metal of the second hinge.
Denise slipped the empty gun in her waistband and added her own weight. The pole started to bend, then folded in two.
“Damnit! Pass me the other one,” said the youngster.
Stephanie held it at arm’s length, and it was just as well she did. A bullet tore through the wood an inch above her limb, sending slivers flying. One loose shard stuck in her forearm, causing her to drop the bar.
Seeing blood, Denise feared the worst. “Were you hit?”
“A splinter, that’s all,” she hissed.
Pea carefully retrieved the fallen pole and commenced working again.
“Gloria, can you keep your head down now, sweetheart? They’ve brought their big boy toys.”
Denise took the half folded second tripod and added her weight to the task. With both of them straining, the stone cracked and the bolts and fixings both came away.
“Good work!”
Stephanie turned to the students. “Crawl across as low as you can. They can’t hit you.”
“Ok, miss,” said Anthony, leading the way.
Joining Denise and Pea, they wrestled with the second door. In comparison to the first, the hinges gave up with little fight and they carefully closed it against the stone jamb, mindful of the watching gun. No shot came, which either meant the gunman was out of bullets, or he had an appreciable level of discipline to not waste shots. If it was the latter, that was a whole new level of threat to anyone watching the approach.
“Anthony, can you get the bolts?” asked Stephanie.
The teenager was almost scraping his belly as he shuffled across the ground. Denise couldn’t blame him for his caution. The heavy duty sliding bolt dropped into the holes in the floor, securing the oak doors.
“It’s good, but it’s not good enough,” said Denise, spying the three levels of wrought iron brackets set into the stone. Slipping the pole across the eight foot opening, she let it fall into the central pair. A solid length of timber would have been better, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“The rest of you, can you go and see if there’s something we can drop into the other brackets? If the bolts give, it will buy us some time.”
The students eagerly complied, crawling below the line of fire and heading off on another search.
“They’ll need to be occupied,” warned Stephanie. “It was hard enough on them when we were safe and it was only the dead to contend with.”
“Can I count on you to come up with something, sweetheart?”
Stephanie gently touched her arm. “Of course. Leave it with me.”
Denise surveyed the gatehouse and decided it was secure enough. The twin doors opened into a narrow, left handed alcove, designed to force any attackers into a bottleneck of sorts. In the event of a breach, they would face swords and arrows in the confines before making it into the old keep.
It was better than nothing.
Climbing the stone steps, Denise joined Gloria who had already fashioned a looking glass of sorts with the use of a pocket mirror and the kitchen knife.
Crouching behind the battlements, she asked, “Any movement?”
“Only our injured friend writhing on the ground. No one seems in a hurry to come and help him.”
The shrill cries had faded to inarticulate groans. Taking the mirror, Denise angled the glass to look. Blood saturated the four lower steps, dark and wet.
“I think you hit his artery.”
“I think so too,” said Gloria, quietly.
Her conscience was weighing heavily. The lives she had taken were necessary, of that she was in no doubt. The whole of her family might have, even now, been suffering under th
e whims of the prisoners. Beaten. Raped. Killed. She had no choice. Quite how that excuse would play at the pearly gates, only time and passing over from the mortal realm would tell.
“Can you see our shooty friend?” asked Gloria.
Denise moved from the archway at the foot of the stairs, to each window. Several were open, which wasn’t helpful. A muzzle flashed, swiftly followed by the crack of the shot. It missed the mirror, gouging a chunk of masonry from the angled embrasure.
“First floor, second window.”
It confirmed her opinion about the shooter. He was watchful and skilled, if not a bit rusty. The bullet’s impact was only three inches off, which would have still meant a fatal wound if he had been aiming centre mass on a living person.
“Shall I fire back? It might spook him?”
“Don’t waste the shell. It wouldn’t do any damage, and if my hunch is right, he’ll be moving position now anyway. He knows I saw him.”
“Is he trained?”
“Possibly. Or he might just have common sense and experience from watching movies. The target was fairly big, and the distance only about eighty yards. It wasn’t a difficult shot.”
“A skilled amateur?”
“That would be my guess.”
“What do we do now?”
“I’d give anything to have a portcullis like the main castle,” Denise complained.
The housing level above their head was empty, the thousand year old barrier long since returned to dust. Runner notches sat within the thick stone walls, ending at an eight inch wide letterbox opening where the reinforced portcullis would have dropped through.
Staring down through the slit, Denise had an idea.
Chapter 35
“Thank you for joining us,” said Fred.
The Baron’s Hall was freezing. Chill winds whistled through the fragments of glass held in place by the twisted, patterns of window lead. The small fires from the explosion had been extinguished, but the stench of blood, shit, and burned fabric pervaded the frigid air. Their home. Their sanctuary. The place they had fought and bled for, was gone. Sarah struggled against the men that painfully gripped her arms.