12 Steps

by Iain Rob Wright

  “Will do.”

  Nobody had seen or heard anything in almost twenty minutes, which was a good sign, but he still had a bad feeling about this. Yet the thought of waiting inside and letting others take the risk was unpalatable, even for him.

  He turned to take one last look around the hall, desperately hoping a better idea would present itself, but none did. He noticed Betty had used the blanket to cover Kevin’s large unmoving body instead of wrapping it around herself. Apparently, she would rather be cold than leave a corpse on display.

  She’s doing it for Kevin.

  Giving him his dignity.

  Tasha pulled open the front doors and stared out into the darkness. It was still raining hard, and the muted drumming turned to a hiss as it splashed against the tarmac outside. Moonlight flooded into the foyer and cast a silvery glow that made Tasha look like a ghost.

  “Hold on,” said Adam. “Wait for the rest of us.”

  “You see anything?” asked Patrick.

  Tasha lifted her broom handle in front of herself like she was about to take a swing, but she shook her head. “Looks all clear. You ready?”

  “I suppose it’s now or never.” Adam stepped out into the foyer with her and spluttered as the rain hit his face. “It’ll be hard to see two inches in front of our noses out there.”

  “Same goes for anyone who might be hiding outside,” said John.

  “Let’s get this over with,” said Patrick.

  And so the four of them stepped across the threshold, leaving the cold, dark foyer and entering the freezing, pitch-black night. The rain lashed at them angrily, warning them to go back inside. But they soldiered on. Tasha went to break off alone, but Adam grabbed her arm. “Stay close. Last thing we want is to lose each other in the dark.”

  “Is anybody out here?” Patrick looked around, holding his window opener like a tightrope walker’s balancing pole. “Adam, do you see anything?”

  Adam squinted and tried to see through the sheets of rain. He saw the swaying trees that lined one edge of the car park, and he could make out the main road at the opposite end, but nothing else. Where was the chalk-white face? Part of him wanted to see it again, just so he knew he wasn’t going mad. Part of him wanted to see a maniac holding a knife because it was better than doubting his own sanity. But there was nothing out there with them. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Okay, good,” said John, patting his metal chair leg against his palm. “Let’s hurry and get to our cars then. I’m getting soaked out here.”

  It felt liberating to be outside, but in a terrifying way – like reaching the summit of a rollercoaster. The urge to run screaming was prominent in his thoughts, and the further from the hall he got, the more Adam felt like a sudden fall lay ahead.

  Slowly, their cars came into view. The seven vehicles were all parked together, side by side. First in line was Betty’s little red hatchback. Its round headlights looked like big bug eyes in the dark. Next was John’s sleek Range Rover. Its colossal bulk blocked the view of whatever vehicles lay on the other side of it, but Adam knew it was his Citroen next in line. He could almost feel the warmth coming from its dashboard vents and the glow of the interior lights. Sanctuary – and he was almost there.

  John pulled out his keys and pressed the fob. Adam had seen him unlock the Range Rover before – its wing mirrors extending, lights turning on like an alien spacecraft coming to life – but this time nothing happened. The luxury SUV remained unlit and still.

  John grunted and pressed at the fob again. “What the hell?”

  Adam looked around, suddenly feeling exposed. Still no sign of anything out there with them, but it didn’t feel anywhere close to safe. While John cursed at his vehicle, Adam wasted no time and hurried over to his own car. He tucked his metre ruler under his armpit and pulled his keys from his pocket. He pressed a button.

  The Citroen didn’t respond.

  Adam examined the plastic keys on his fob. The little open padlock was the one he wanted, and he thumbed it several times. Nothing happened.

  John grunted. “Why won’t it unlock? Come on, damn you.”

  Adam had a sinking feeling in his guts. “My car won’t unlock either.”

  “Or mine,” said Patrick, clicking frantically at a liveried white van that belonged to his wife’s cleaning company. Costa’s nondescript grey Honda sat on the other side of it.

  Adam stepped closer to his Citroen, trying to work out why it wasn’t obeying him. Everything seemed fine until he noticed the slightly raised bonnet. Acid rose in his throat as he reached out and lifted it up. At first, he saw only a normal engine block, but then he realised something vital was missing. The battery. “Somebody has tampered with our cars.”

  Patrick lifted the bonnet on his Range Rover and cursed when he saw something equally amiss. “My battery’s gone. Who’s doing this? I’ll ring their necks.”

  Adam turned to Tasha. “How about your car?”

  She lifted the bonnet of a small white BMW and inspected the engine. “I don’t really know what I’m looking at, but my car is dead too. How did someone get to our batteries without setting off the alarms?”

  “I don’t like this,” said Patrick. “Oh, Lord, I don’t like this at all.”

  Adam couldn’t stop looking around. The rain hitting the tarmac made it seem like the ground was dancing. The trees swaying made it feel like they were being watched by silent giants. They were vulnerable out there – caught on a rainy night on a quiet stretch of road. Deers in headlights. It was all wrong. Very wrong. “We need to get back inside. Right now.”

  “No way,” said Tasha. “I’m not running. Let’s get to the road and flag someone down.”

  Adam checked his watch – almost eleven. “There might not be another car go past all night.”

  “He’s right,” said Patrick. “There’s nothing here but a few cottages and a garden centre. Everyone uses the bypass.”

  “Okay, fine,” said Tasha. “Then let’s just walk to the nearest house and use their phone.”

  Rain dripped from Adam’s hair, and he wondered if he could walk and get help, then decided he would run ten miles if he had to. “Okay, let’s make for the road and get help. Maybe we can even get a signal.”

  Thunder boomed.

  The windscreen of John’s Range Rover shattered. Everyone turned to look at it, but no one spoke. No one understood.

  John frowned. “Was that a—?”

  Thunder boomed again.

  The windscreen on Betty’s hatchback shattered.

  Thunder boomed a third time.

  Adam’s windscreen shattered. He ducked down in the gap between his Citroen and John’s Range Rover. “Shit, somebody’s shooting at us.”

  The others leapt into the gap to join him, scurrying towards the back of the vehicles where the car park met the adjoining woods. Adam tried to peer across the tarmac but could see nothing except the trees lining the main road on the opposite side.

  John shuffled up beside Adam. “This is insane. Why is someone trying to kill us?”

  “They’re not trying to kill us,” said Tasha. “Three shots and three windscreens blown out. Whoever’s doing this is playing games.”

  “But why?” John’s usually calm voice had become loud and insistent. Was he panicking? Of course he was.

  Another boom and another sound of a windscreen shattering.

  “We need to get back inside,” said Adam.

  Patrick laughed manically. He was no longer holding the window opener because he’d dropped it on the ground before ducking between the cars. “And how do you suppose we do that?”

  Adam looked around, searching for inspiration. “We go through the woods. They wrap right around the car park and behind the community hall. The trees will keep us hidden and we can make it back in through the fire exit in the storage room.”

  “That door doesn’t open from the outside,” said Patrick. “Betty was always getting locked out before she quit smoking.�
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  “So we bang on the door until Costa hears us and lets us in.”

  Tasha was nodding. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s go.”

  Adam edged along the side of his car until he stepped onto the wet, grassy verge. There was a slight ditch ahead, so he took a deep breath and rushed across the narrow section of open ground, then threw himself against the nearest tree. It was a thin, spindly thing, but he gripped it like a life jacket. Soon the others joined him, scrambling between the thickets with their cumbersome, makeshift weapons.

  It was even darker beneath the trees, and Adam had to put his hands out in front of his face to feel where he was going. Wet leaves and sharp branches slapped at him relentlessly. He beat back at them with his metre ruler. Everyone followed behind, which put pressure on him not to get lost. It was too dangerous to stick closely to the car park, but if they went deeper into the woods, they could lose sight of where they were going.

  “Where do you think the shooter is?” asked Patrick in a whisper.

  “I didn’t see anyone,” said John. “They must be hunkered down between the trees at the side of the road. It’s quite a distance to hit every windscreen first time.”

  “You think it’s some deranged sniper?” asked Tasha. “Patrick, did you ever have any messed-up soldiers in your group? Sometimes they come back and lose their shit, right? PTSD?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” said Patrick, slinking around a knot of thick roots, “but I’ve helped counsel many members of the military in the past. Many do indeed have problems, but that doesn’t make them insane.”

  “Best theory we have so far though,” said John from the back of the line. “You must be a nutter to join the army in the first place.”

  Adam tried to imagine a soldier in the bushes aiming at them through a scope. This had to be more than a crazed squaddie with a grudge. He couldn’t say why, but he felt sure of it. “What about the face I saw? The white face at the window? Costa saw it too.”

  “Fine,” said Tasha. “It’s the ghost of a crazy sniper.”

  John huffed. “You believe in ghosts?”

  “Hell yeah I do, but we can discuss it later. I think I see the back of the community centre up ahead.”

  “You’re right,” said Adam. “We’re coming up on the garden.”

  “Used to be a smoking area,” said Patrick. “Used to have more cigarette butts than vegetables. Thank God for vaping.”

  “I don’t feel like thanking Him for anything,” said Adam. “Come on.”

  They hurried through the trees, panting with both fear and exertion. Was the shooter aware of their mad scramble through the woods? Or were they still fixated on the gap between the cars? Either way, the end of the woods came up on them fast, and suddenly they were back out in the open, hurrying across a small vegetable patch towards the rear fire exit.

  “Oh, Lord,” said Patrick. “Oh, Lord, we made it.”

  They beat across the mud and grass, dodging carrots and tomato plants, and splashing in the expanding puddles. Something darted into the bushes – just a rabbit or maybe even a rat – and then the way ahead was clear.

  We made it. Back to square one, but we made it.

  John cried out in agony.

  Adam skidded to a halt, almost twisting his ankle in the wet mud. He turned and saw John limping and moaning in pain. He had dropped his metal chair leg in the mud. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I-I stepped on something.”

  Adam hurried over and got the man’s arm around his neck for support. He studied the ground and noticed a wooden board half-buried in the weeds. Several long nails protruded from it. “Shit, are you okay?”

  John gritted his teeth. “Hurts like buggery. Just get me inside.”

  Adam helped John to the fire exit, where Patrick and Trisha were already banging on the door and calling for help. “Costa! Betty! Open up!”

  Tasha put her fingers in her mouth and wolf-whistled, then went back to hammering at the door. “Hey, hey, let us in! Let us the fuck in!”

  “Why aren’t they coming?” said Patrick. “They must hear us.”

  Adam threw down his metre ruler and joined in, banging hard enough to make his heart rattle in his chest. No way was the racket they were making going unheard. Betty and Costa must hear them.

  The shooter too.

  If they had slipped into the woods without being seen, they had certainly just blown their cover. Whoever was attacking them would know exactly where they were. If the fire door didn’t open in the next ten seconds, they were screwed.

  And maybe we don’t even have that long.

  “Why aren’t they opening?” Patrick started kicking the door. “We’re going to die out here.”

  “Calm down,” said Tasha. She was the only one still with a weapon, the broom handle in her left hand. “No one is dying.”

  “Calm down?” said Patrick, madness in his eyes. “There’s a madman shooting at us.”

  “He’s not shooting right this second, is he? So calm the fuck down.”

  As much as Tasha was trying to ease the situation, Adam agreed with Patrick. There had to be a reason Costa and Betty weren’t opening the door, and it could be nothing good. Had something happened to them?

  How can it have? The shooter is out here terrorising us?

  Adam picked up his metre ruler and looked around for threats.

  “We’re dead,” said Patrick. “We’re going to die.”

  “Shut up!” said Tasha.

  “We’re going to die!”

  “Shut up!” Tasha shocked everyone by shoving Patrick hard in the chest. It took him so much by surprise that he tumbled backwards and slipped in the mud. He hit the ground. For a moment he froze, until slowly he turned his head to look at his hand. Sticking out of the meat between his thumb and index finger was a long, rusty nail.

  “Oh my God. Oh, Lord. It hurts. It hurts.”

  Tasha covered her mouth, mortified. “I-I’m so sorry.”

  Adam scanned the garden, paying closer attention. The muddy grass and sparse bushes seemed to glint in dozens of places – sharp nails sticking up out of the ground. “Booby traps,” he muttered. “The garden’s been booby-trapped.”

  John turned away from the door, limping. “What?”

  Adam shook his head, staring in disbelief as he spotted even more nails half-buried in the ground. “This has all been planned out. It’s not some random psychopath out here trying to screw with us.”

  We’re being hunted.

  “Then who is it?” asked John, almost shouting.

  Still sitting on the ground, Patrick pointed a trembling finger past them towards the trees and moaned. “Him!”

  Adam turned and saw that horrible chalk-white face again. It stared at them from amongst the trees, its body cloaked in shadow. Its face glowed like a white-hot coin. Sunken eyes and a hollow, toothless mouth. Yet the face was strangely familiar – a spectre from his nightmares perhaps?

  Is it here for me? Is this my judgement finally catching up to me?

  Adam gripped his metre ruler and stepped towards the creature in the woods, intending to end whatever this was right now. Even the worst torments were less than he deserved, and that fact caused his fear to evaporate. Calmness took over his mind as he realised all his agony could be over in a second if he only gave in.

  I see their faces every second, and it never hurts any less. My whole life is pain.

  So why fight?

  The white face seemed to smile, its cavernous mouth stretching wide, but it didn’t move or show any urgency at all. It remained in the shadow of the trees, watching him.

  “I’m right here.” Adam put his arms out wide. “Just leave these people alone.”

  The face stared back at him, emotionless. Adam thought he saw a slight movement in its eyes, but it could have been the flickering shadows cast by the swaying branches.

  “What is this?” Adam demanded. “What do you want?”

 
; The face tilted slightly, like a curious cat looking at a mouse. Then it shrieked and rushed out of the woods.

  Adam screamed, his determination extinguished by the sudden shock of the demonic creature rushing towards him.

  I’m about to die.

  Maybe that’s what I want.

  But he knew he wouldn’t be going to the same place as his wife and son. They wouldn’t be waiting for him.

  I’ll never see them again, no matter what.

  Hands grabbed Adam and he screamed louder, but he didn’t open his eyes or fight. It was too hard to summon even an ounce of strength, so he decided to just let it happen. His feet slid in the mud and he fell backwards. Suddenly he was being dragged.

  But it felt wrong.

  He was being carried in the wrong direction – backwards instead of forwards. The sound of panicked voices erupted around him. Door hinges creaked and the air changed. The rain no longer battered his skin.

  He opened his eyes and saw Tasha hurrying to close the fire exit inside the storage room. Costa was bleeding again, slumped against the wall and clutching his head. John was glaring at the young man, cheeks red with fury. “Where the hell were you? We almost died out there.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Tasha. “We still don’t know what this is.”

  John pointed at Costa. “There’s a maniac with a gun out there and we couldn’t get back inside because of you. Where were you? That thing almost got a hold of Adam.”

  “I was unconscious,” said Costa, wincing as he probed the back of his head. His fingers came away bloody. “Betty and I heard gunshots. We tried to come outside to help but someone jumped us in the entrance. I got hit from behind. M-Maybe they were hiding in the toilets.”

  Patrick looked around like a startled whippet. The nail had been removed from his hand, but he was now dripping blood. “Where’s Betty?”

  Costa shook his head. “I don’t know. When I came to, she was gone.”

  “You were supposed to protect her.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. You lot were hammering at the back door, so I came as fast as I could. I-I fucked up.”

  Tasha put a hand on his arm. “No, you didn’t. This is a messed-up situation.”