The Hit

by Melvin Burgess

  “What are you doing?” begged Garry. The massage felt almost nice. Nothing could have been more terrifying.

  “Quad or para?” asked Christian suddenly.

  “Eh? Well, para, you know? Hands and elbows, but no knees and toes,” said Garry, twisting around to look at him and parroting a phrase his mother used to use when he first had his accident twenty-five years ago.

  “Quad,” said Christian. He grabbed hold of Garry’s head and forced it forward. While Garry squirmed helplessly under his grip, Christian raised the knife, took careful aim, and brought it down with a dull thud into the back of his neck. The blade sank in up to the hilt in the gap between two vertebrae beneath the skull. A thin stream of blood rolled down under Garry’s collar, and he let out a muffled squawk. A shudder ran through his body. He twitched a few times and then ceased to move. Christian let go of his head, which lolled at an odd angle onto his chest, and stood back to survey his handiwork.

  This particular cut was something he’d been working at for a while. It was a tricky one to get right. He picked up one of Garry’s arms and let it flop down like a piece of limp celery. So far, so good. But the guy was being too quiet. Christian bent down and looked into his face.

  “How’s it feel?” he asked.

  Garry blinked at him but didn’t say a word. Not good. Christian was going for a C4, severing the spinal column in between vertebrae 4 and 5. Quadriplegic, but the victim could still breathe — if you got it right.

  He tipped Garry out of the chair and peered into his face. It was changing color. Shit! He pushed him over onto his face and fumbled at the neck, trying to count the vertebrae below the head. The bastard had a fat neck. Christian hated fat necks. He had miscounted, done a C3 instead of a C4 and disabled his victim’s breathing as well. Silently at his feet, Garry was suffocating.

  Bugger! Disgustedly, Christian kicked at the limp body. This was the third time he’d got it wrong. It was infuriating.

  He shook his head, popped the bag of pills into his pocket, and headed off. He needed more practice. Next time for sure.

  Behind him, unable even to struggle for breath, Garry watched as Christian wiped his expensive handmade shoes on the doormat, so as not to dirty the streets outside with the cheap crud from the grubby carpet. The door opened and closed; his murderer gone. Garry turned red, then blue, then white, and died with a murmurous gurgle some ten minutes after Christian had left the building.

  TUESDAY MORNING AND ADAM WAS SITTING IN THE KITCHEN, happily tucking into bacon and eggs. The food was perfect and so was everything else. The day awaited his attention, the sky blowing grubby white and gray clouds across a pale blue sky solely for his enjoyment. Lizzie was in the shower — and he was in love.

  Best of all, he was no longer a virgin. Adam grinned at the ceiling. Sex was great. He loved sex. It was, without doubt, the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him, and he’d done it with the most wonderful person he’d ever met. If he’d been any happier he’d have just melted away with sheer joy.

  Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie. “I love you!” he shouted out over his shoulder, and he heard her shout back, “I love you!” from the shower. How lucky was he? Maybe they’d go and do it again in a moment. And again, and again … Wouldn’t it be great just to put on some music and spend the day in the flat? Staying in bed, doing it, chatting, relaxing, doing it again … maybe go out for a drink later … ?

  But he couldn’t. There wasn’t time. He had to get on with the list.

  Overnight, things had sorted themselves out in Adam’s brain. That was Death for you — each day was fresh and new — the next twenty-four hours opened up like a whole new life spread before him.

  He whipped out the list and scanned it.

  Fall in love. Done!

  Sex with Lizzie. Done! Get her pregnant. Yeah, well. Worry about that later.

  Loads of sex with loads of girls. Several of them at once. He felt guilty about it, but he knew he was going to check out that website, regretit-forgetit.com, to see how many bites he’d had. Lizzie would understand, one day.

  Drink champagne till I can’t stand. Done!

  Do cocaine. Something to look forward to.

  Drive a supercar around Manchester.

  Kill someone who deserves to die.

  Do something so that humanity will remember me forever.

  Die on the Himalayas, watching the sun go down.

  He’d work on those later.

  Get rich. Leave my parents and Lizzie with enough money so they’ll never have to work again.

  Too right. He needed money to make the rest of the list happen. That was today sorted out. He was going to get rich.

  He’d done three out of ten already and it was only Day 2! Heroic. And more than that. Look at this flat — it was huge! He could have put “live in a fabulous place” on the list and he’d have achieved that as well. Everything was modern, every luxury you could think of. Jacuzzi. A sauna. Yes, you heard right — a sauna. And the view — you could see halfway across Manchester. This was living! The food he’d just eaten had tasted better than anything he’d ever had before. That was Death, his best friend Death, heightening his senses, making everything so much better, so much more real.

  Lizzie came in wearing a robe and sat opposite him. Adam jumped up and kissed her. Dreams. He was going to make them all come true.

  “You know these protests,” Lizzie said.

  “Yeah.”

  “How about going to have a look? Everyone’s talking about it. It sounds like something might actually happen this time.”

  Adam frowned at her. “But it’s not on the list, is it?”

  “Leaving something behind you is. This is big, Adam. The government could be overthrown. The way you are, maybe you could do something to help it. Legacy, you know?”

  Adam thought about it while he took a shower. Yeah, legacy was on the list. Some act of bravery or something, so he wouldn’t have lived in vain. But how do you make a life count? Six days left. A thrill of fear shook through him and he found himself leaning on the tiled wall, gasping for breath. Fear; it took him by surprise every time.

  And Lizzie, going into the bedroom to get dressed, paused to listen in on the mind of a man with all his youth and love and energy to burn up in six short days, heard Adam murmuring, singsong under his breath, “… don’t think it don’t think it don’t think it …” and she knew that the day wasn’t going to be spent planning the overthrow of the state. Who would bother to vote, if they knew there were no more tomorrows?

  She sat down on the bed and sighed. If it were up to her, they’d have spent the whole day just lying in bed, then gone to the protest in the evening. Romance, excitement, and falling in love. It could have been wonderful. As it was … well, the sex had been OK. It was like Sarina had said — it was something that would probably get better the more you did it. But it wasn’t ever going to get like that with Adam. So she felt … but then, what did it matter what she felt?

  Adam banged in on her and grinned.

  “Guess what?” he said. “We’re going to rob a bank!”

  * * *

  There was a huge HSBC smack in the middle of town — no one would expect them to take that out. Adam would get a Death-powered stranglehold on one of the clerks, force them to let him in, open up the safe, and make off with the cash. Easy.

  It took Lizzie a good fifteen minutes to change his mind. There was a reason why no one would expect them to take on the big HSBC — it was like an armed fortress, for instance. Plus the fact that the Zealots were putting all the major banks and companies under attack. There were police everywhere, and armed guards all over the building. The center of town was the last place to try to pull a heist.

  Adam came up with another plan — Booze R Us on Wilmslow Road, back in Fallowfield. While the revolution was going on around the corner, the smaller places out of town would be relatively unprotected.

  Lizzie wasn’t exactly happy about it. She knew that sh
op. The till and the booze were behind glass and you had to tell the shop assistants what you wanted. They got it for you and you passed your money through a mail slot–sized gap under the glass. You couldn’t get anywhere near the cash.

  “There’s a back entrance,” said Adam. “Whenever someone on the staff wants a smoke, they go out that way and leave the door open. All we have to do is take them out, stroll in, and help ourselves.” He grinned. See? All you needed was the nerve and commitment to do it.

  “So why do they go to all that trouble to keep people away from the booze and the till, and then leave the back door open?” Lizzie wanted to know.

  Adam had the answer to that. He had the answer to everything. “Because the system was designed by security consultants, but it’s operated by monkeys. Simple. No problem. Loaded!”

  They caught a bus on Oxford Road and then walked around the back of the shops to stake the place out. They only had to wait a few minutes before the back door opened up and a tired-looking guy with limp black hair came out. He lit up his cigarette, leaning up against a wall by the door, which, as Adam had said, he left open.

  “Let’s go,” hissed Adam.

  Lizzie glared at him. She felt sick with fear. “You owe me,” she hissed.

  Adam grinned back. “I won’t live long enough to be able to pay you back. Just go! You’ll get a share of the proceeds, won’t you? Let’s go-go-GO!”

  He stepped forward. Lizzie followed him, and they both ambled casually toward the shop assistant. Not casually enough. Maybe it was the way they were walking — maybe it was the way Lizzie had pulled her woolly hat down over her eyes so she couldn’t be recognized that made her look exactly like a robber. Either way, the assistant seemed to know at once that they were up to no good. He was edging toward the door before they were halfway toward him. Adam sped up. The assistant jumped inside and slammed the door shut.

  “Run!” yelled Lizzie, scooting backward, but Adam hadn’t given up yet. He threw himself at the door — and he was in luck. The assistant was still fumbling with the lock and it flew open under his weight. Lizzie came running in after him and found him in a storeroom, piled high with crates of booze, crouching over the terrified man, who was cringing on the floor.

  “Don’t hurt him!” she said.

  “I’m not,” hissed Adam. “Get in there — quick.”

  She edged her way to the door at the front of the storeroom. On the other side was a short corridor leading through to the shop. She glanced back; Adam nodded and she made her way forward. Behind her, Adam forced the man flat onto his stomach. He felt so strong he could do anything.

  “Stay still,” he hissed, “and no one gets hurt.”

  The assistant pressed his face to the floor and nodded. Inside, Adam could hear Lizzie banging about.

  “I can’t open the till!” she yelled. Then: “Agh! Ads, there’s someone else here!”

  “Not my name, you idiot!” Adam yelled back. He hauled the assistant to his feet just as Lizzie came charging out. At the same moment, an alarm began ringing. Cursing, Adam pushed both Lizzie and the assistant into the shop. There, cringing by the counter, was an old guy, over sixty, gray hair, balding …

  “Shit, Lizzie, it’s someone’s granddad, we’re not going to be scared off by this,” snarled Adam furiously. He shoved the first assistant into the older man and grabbed them both by the hair. He was so full of adrenaline, he could have wrestled a rhino to the ground.

  “Open the till!” he yelled.

  “No,” squeaked the old man.

  Adam banged their heads together gently.

  “OK! OK! OK!” the old guy yelled. He reached over and pinged the till open. There it was — the lovely money. Adam reached in, snatched a handful, and kissed it. He scooped the rest of it out, then turned abruptly and dashed out, with Lizzie on his tail.

  They ran and ran, the clanging alarm fell away behind them. No one gave chase — they were in the clear. After five minutes they slowed down and ducked into an alley to get their breath back and count the loot. They’d done it! How cool was that? Adam pulled out a big, fat roll from inside his jacket. He counted it up: one thousand pounds. Not bad. He shook the notes in Lizzie’s face. “We can blow this lot, then we’ll do another one. We know how now,” he boasted.

  Lizzie nodded, but really, she felt dreadful. Yesterday she was living at home being bored. Today, she had run away from home, had sex for the first time with her boyfriend who had taken Death, was being hunted down by a pervert gangster — she hadn’t even bothered mentioning that to Adam — and here she was, committing a major crime with a prison sentence hanging over her if she got caught. She was out of breath, sick with fear, and emotionally exhausted. It was all too much. She started to sniffle.

  Adam put his arm around her. “Aw. What’s up?”

  She looked at him. What’s up? Didn’t he even know? She started to cry uncontrollably — great gusts of tears, crouching there in the alley, while Adam waved the thousand pounds under her nose to try to cheer her up.

  “Come on, Lizzie! We pulled it off! Hey — guess what?”

  Lizzie shook her head.

  “Did you see that guy’s face when I banged their heads together?”

  Lizzie looked up. Her lip wobbled. Adam nodded at her. Come on, come on, come on! Please, Lizzie, just feel good. Do it for me! To his relief, gradually she started to smile wryly and then wheeze with laughter.

  “He looked like he was going to piss himself, didn’t he?” said Adam. “And how about that kid when I made him get on his knees? I reckon he thought I was going to make him pray!”

  Yeah, hilarious! Lizzie began to giggle, although whether it was hysteria or true comedy, she wasn’t sure. They laughed and laughed, had to hold each other up but ended up rolling around on the ground anyhow. Finally, snorting and giggling, they made their way to a bus stop to catch a double-decker into town. The fun bit was, the bus took them past the shop they’d just robbed. It was even more hilarious. There were police cars, cops stopping people going in and out. It was great. They’d made fools of everyone.

  The bus rolled on its way down Wilmslow Road into town. Past the Curry Mile, past the Whitworth Art Gallery. Adam and Lizzie checked on their phones to see where to eat, what to do, what was on. They were halfway there when Adam realized they’d stopped for too long and peered out the window. There was a cop car next to them. He stood and looked out. There was another police car pulled up in the road right in front of the bus.

  He knew at once. “They’re onto us,” he hissed. He leaped out of his seat and ran for the stairs. Lizzie stood up — then sat down again. Adam was fast, he might be able to escape, but her best bet was to hide here among the other people on the bus. And — Adam had given himself away …

  Adam almost fell down the stairs. At the bottom, the door was shut. He ripped it open and jumped out — right into the arms of the police.

  “I’m guessing you must be the guilty party,” one of them said. A couple of them grabbed hold of him, pushed him over, and pressed him down into the road.

  “Spotted on the bus laughing your silly heads off,” another said, and they all laughed.

  It was hopeless. Adam was surrounded, facedown on the pavement, his arms pinned behind his back. He peered sideways and up: handcuffs. Once they were on, he was screwed.

  He twisted suddenly and managed to get on his back. You have to try, right? He jackknifed — shoulders on the ground, striking up with his feet — and caught one of the policeman square on the chest. The man went flying. Adam flipped down, got his feet under him, and he was hurtling off as fast as he could, vaulting over the hood of a car and away up the road. He ran — ran and ran and ran, the cops hot on his tail. One of them was a bit overweight — he didn’t stand a chance — but the other was young, long-legged, and fit. Even with Death in him, Adam was losing ground.

  He was going to get caught — he had to do something! He dropped suddenly to the ground and curled up into a ball.
The policeman banged his foot smack into his back and went flying. But that foot caught Adam bang in his kidney. He jumped up at once and tried to carry on, but he was crippled with pain. He staggered up the street, his legs buckling under him. The policeman was back up already. He’d skinned his hands and his face on landing and looked dreadful, covered in blood — but his wounds were just skin deep. He caught Adam easily, spun him around, and shoved him down face-first on the road again.

  “You little shit,” he hissed, and punched him hard in the kidney. “Unavoidable injury sustained during capture and detention.”

  The other police came running up. They dragged Adam to his feet and marched him off to the police car.

  They had Lizzie, too, standing there in her black woolly cap. Except, when he got close, it wasn’t Lizzie. It was some other kid, a bit younger than Adam, with the same kind of clothes as Lizzie, looking anxiously at him as he was marched up.

  “Tell ’em, mate,” the kid said. “It wasn’t me, was it? Your mate must have got away.”

  “Sorry, Al,” Adam said. “They got us.”

  The kid stared at him as it sank in. “You bastard,” he squeaked. “Hey, he’s lying, honest, he’s lying, it wasn’t me …”

  The police led them off to the waiting cars. “It’s a setup!” the kid yelled, but the police just pushed him down into the car. Adam went in another one, and they drove off. Before he got in, Adam managed to glance up and saw the white face of Lizzie in the upstairs windows of the bus as it pulled away.

  At least she’d got away with it. But as for Adam — that was it. He was going to get tested for Death, locked up, remanded with no bail. They only needed one week. He was going to spend the rest of his short life behind bars.

  * * *

  The cell was a metal box — welded metal walls, metal door, metal floor, a metal bunk, and a metal toilet in one corner. A small square of glass about twelve inches thick let in a thin gray light, drowned out by a bright neon tube that was locked above him in a tough metal cage. It stank of piss and shit, and would have held a dinosaur, let alone one miserable boy. They left him there to stew on his own for half an hour — then, without warning, the door burst open and two big policemen stormed in, shouting and swearing, screaming threats in his face. For a few minutes the cell was full of loud abuse; then, just as suddenly, they went out and left him alone, leaving him shaken and more scared than ever.