“Well Robert Finlay, I guess we better have a little meet and greet.”
Thirty eight
The phone rang. It was John Winter’s number. The Captain quickly moved across the office to grab it. “Winter? Where are yo... OK, OK calm... John? John. John I’m telling you to calm down OK? Calm down and tell me exactly what happened. OK so you got to the house. Yes. Good, so that part went well. And where is he now? OK – and you used a silencer? What? Yes of course, I know you are proff... OK, OK John I’m sorry, carry on. Uh huh. Uh huh. OK. Oh. You turned it on? Good work.”
The captain waved at Church who was standing over Fisher at the computer, looking at a map with a small flashing light on it.
“Yup, yup, what?! Are you injured? What? OK. OK John I’ll send a clean-up team over now. And a car, yes. OK. OK. But John – don’t get pissed at them, they are just a couple of teenagers. We need the boy alive. What? No, she doesn’t have to be no.”
He put down the phone and sighed. “Everything OK?” Asked Church. Knowing full well the answer was in the negative.
“That was Winter. He found the kid and the sister as planned but they got away.”
“Got away? From John Winter? The same John Winter who bagged twenty five targets in the desert single handedly?”
“Apparently this kid is more in control of these powers than we thought.”
“So what’s the next move?”
“We chase him down. We convince him to come in.”
“How?”
The captain smiled and got up from his seat. “Follow me.” The other two men looked at each other, and rose to follow their commander out and down to the interrogation rooms.
*
The three men walked down a long white corridor with plain grey doors on either side. They stopped outside a door marked ‘Interrogation room 2’ and opened the door. Karen and Steve jumped as the door opened and straightened in their chairs. The two of them remained holding hands, but looked pensively at the three men approaching them from across the table.
The three scrapped back their chairs and sat down. The captain stretched out his arm and pushed play on the recorder at the far end of the desk. “Interview with Steven and Karen Cunningham commencing at...” He looked over at the clock on the wall. “Thirteen thirty five. Church, Fisher and Simpson in attendance.”
“Are we under arrest, sir?”
“No, no, of course not. You haven’t done anything wrong.” He smiled. “We just need some information on the whereabouts of your niece and nephew, Mr Cunningham. Steve. Can I call you Steve?” He leant on the table with his hands clasped in front of him, still smiling sweetly.
“Steve is fine.”
“Good, good. Now. All I need to know is where they are, and we can wrap this little mess up in time for supper. Can’t we now? Sounds good? Yes, so, Mr... Steve, where are they? Hmm? Where are Robert and Maggie?”
“I already told you people a thousand times – I don’t know. All I know is that you scared the living hell out of me and my wife last night, phoning me and telling me he was arrested, and now you’ve lost him?! We have had no legal representation, no phone call. We have been here all night and all day. Sir. I know my rights – and you have to give me some answers!”
“OK, OK calm down Steve. Just tell us what happened last night. Did your nephew attempt to make contact at all?”
“Like I said last night, and this morning, and every god damn hour after that. No. Now if I’m not under arrest...” Steve went to stand, motioning his wife to do the same.
“I’m afraid you can’t leave just yet. Mr Church?”
“Stephen and Karen Cunningham, I am charging you with aiding and abetting a criminal for the crimes of attempted bank robbery, destruction of public property, criminal damage to a police station, escaping from police custody and an RTA. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say may be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult with an attorney; who may be present during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you at no personal cost to you. Do you understand these rights?”
“Yes. Now can I use the phone?”
Thirty nine
Blake, Maggie and Bobby were sitting around Blake’s kitchen table. They were all drinking fresh brewed coffee and eating toast with peanut butter spread. After the excitement of the previous night, they had all slept soundly. Late morning sun was lighting up the room, and the mood amongst the three of them was buoyant. They were discussing what the next move would be. Bobby was theorising that the computer wipe out in the police station would remove all evidence, and exonerate him, but Blake was more sceptical.
“I just think that the more you run, the worse you make it for yourself. And besides, what’s to say they don’t have some online backup nowadays, you know, some off site server or cloud thing?”
“He’s got a point, Bobby.” said Maggie. “They still know your name. It’s only a matter of time before they find you.”
“Yes but, what will they do to me? I don’t want to be some kind of lab rat! No I think as long as I don’t use my abilities any more, I mean, what can they prove? It would never stand up in court. I mean, kid with the power of an EMP? Who’s gonna believe that? It’s too farfetched.”
“OK, how about this – We turn you in, but then you say nothing. They would have to let you go” said Blake.
“I don’t know – I still don’t want to go back there.”
“What about the fact he ran away?”
“So you panicked, you’re sorry, you’ll probably just get a rap on the knuckles for that. Honestly Bobs, I think it’s the right thing to do.”
“Hmmm. I don’t know. No. I’ve decided – they have nothing on me. If they find me they can’t do anything. I reckon it will die down on its own.”
“But you can’t ignore it Bobs – I still think you should think about it at least” said Blake.
“But what about this thing?” Blake and Maggie both looked at Bobby.
“What do you mean?”
“Well what do I do about this... this ability? I can’t carry on like this. Every time I get angry my fucking phone blows up!”
They all laughed, glad of the comic relief.
“Right, I’m going to take a shower.” said Blake.
“OK babe.”
Blake stood up and took the plates from the table. He scraped off the remains of breakfast and put the crockery in the sink for later, and then he walked out of the kitchen, towards the stairs.
Moments after Blake had left the room, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it” he shouted from across the hall. Bobby looked over anxiously at Maggie.
“Don’t panic – they can’t know we are here Bobs, just try to relax.”
They could hear Blake taking to another man with a deep, gruff voice. The conversation started to sound heated.
“No!”
“Step aside!”
“He’s not here!”
Maggie jumped up from the table and moved to the kitchen door. She leant in closer to try and hear better.
“Give him up” said the gruff voice. “He is coming with us. We know what he is capable of.”
Maggie couldn’t resist trying to sneak a peek at the scene by the doorway. She manoeuvred herself so she could see through the crack in the kitchen door. She was able to see the back of Blake. His arms were animated as he was talking. The man he was talking to was very tall and broad shouldered. The sun was coming in through the door, casting him partially in silhouette, but she could see deep set blue eyes and close cropped white blonde hair.
Then he looked over Blake’s shoulder, and straight at Maggie. As he did he took a step forward. Blake saw what was happening and turned around to look at the kitchen door.
Maggie then saw something else in the broad shouldered mans’ hand. It was a long shape pointing towards the floor. The sun was obscuring her view of it, but she knew what it was.
As Blake t
urned to face the now horrified Maggie, the unknown man raised the object in his hand, and pointed it at the back of Blake’s head. A silenced pop came from the object, and the end flashed once.
Blake reacted as though he had been pushed violently forward from behind. He landed with a sickening thump on the floor, and a large pool of blood started growing out from his cranium.
Maggie let out a scream of terror. “NO! YOU BASTARD! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!”
The man appeared to grin, even smirk at Maggie as he advanced over the threshold into the house.
For a while Maggie was frozen to the spot, unable to take her eyes off of the killer in the doorway. His eyes then slowly moved down to look at the body on the floor, and the bastard smiled again.
Maggie was sobbing as she looked down at her boyfriend splayed out on the floor. He was only a few inches from the kitchen door. Another second more and he might have made it around the corner to safety. But instead, he lay quiet and still in the hallway.
He looked so peaceful, almost as though he was asleep. She thought for a minute that he moved, he was still breathing, but then a pool of blood started oozing away from his head, dark red and glistening in the sunlight.
She had almost forgotten the man still standing over by the doorway, until she was snapped out of her trance by the click click of him cocking his gun.
Their eyes met again through the crack in the door. For a moment she looked straight into them. They were bright blue, unflinching, but somehow not human, the eyes of a man who was cold and ruthless, right to the core. She whipped around to face Bobby, who was standing up by the kitchen table, petrified to the spot. “Run!”
Maggie’s simple instruction jolted him into life. Maggie grabbed her phone and Blake’s car keys and ran towards her brother. “Back door! Go!” She grabbed bobby’s arm and the two of them ran out the back of the house towards the garden. She paused at the back door, looking over her shoulder to see if he was following. He was not. She stood and listened to try and determine where he was. After a moment she slowly eased the door open. It creaked as it moved, and she paused in fear as she tried to open it enough to squeeze through, without alerting her adversary as to her location.
Maggie and Bobby stepped outside. The sun was at the front of the house, so the back patio was in a cool early morning shade. A light breeze moved across the garden, rustling the leaves on the trees and making the skin on Maggie’s bear arms prickle with goose bumps. She started moving forward, turning towards the side gate. One foot in front of the other. Quietly, gently. Heels down first then rolling the soles of her converses over to her toes, transferring her weight as slowly as she could. Still holding Bobby’s hand, instructing him to follow her lead with a look. Bobby focussing on his sister, him shaking almost uncontrollably.
A sudden rustle from the side gate made them stop dead. They could hear something moving as slowly as them, getting closer with each step. Maggie could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and cold sweat running down the back of her neck. A twig snapped from around the corner, which made Bobby yelp with fright. As soon as he let out his sound, a cat darted out from the side of the house. As it saw Maggie and Bobby, it quickly changed direction, feet skating along the concrete, and darted under the fence, into the neighbours’ garden. As Maggie watched the cat make its escape, she felt a shot of adrenaline as the answer was presented to her. She eased her head as close as she could to the edge of the wall, took a deep breath, and as quickly as she could darted her head around the corner, and pulled it back again. Enough time to get a clear look around the side of the house, but pull herself back again in case the killer was waiting. The coast was clear. She looked back at her brother and squeezed his hand reassuringly. “The fence. Three, two, one, go” She whispered.
They two of them bolted for the neighbours’ fence, and in one swift move, vaulted the barrier like two prize ponies, ducking down as they landed and ran straight across the lawn and did the same at the next fence.
Once they had moved in this fashion about five houses down, they ran around the side of the building and out to the front drive. They gingerly walked forward towards the street, trying to get a glimpse of the house they had come from.
The view down the road was partially obscured by trees, but good enough to see that there was no one else there. They could see a dark red sedan car parked in the driveway of Blake’s house. Maggie had guessed right, and judged the number of fences to jump well, as almost directly across the street from them was Blake’s car. They had parked it further down the road due to gas main works outside Blake’s house. Something she was glad of now. She checked left and right one last time, and grabbing Bobby again by the hand, ran across the street towards the vehicle.
Maggie had still to pass her test, but had been having lessons for a few months now. Luckily Blake’s car was an automatic gearbox, so Maggie would be able to get it moving. Bobby clicked his seatbelt in as Maggie pulled away.
Maggie slowed as she passed Blake’s house. The front door was still ajar and she could see into the hallway. Blake’s body was gone, and a red stain was all that remained.
Suddenly the dark red sedan car reversed out of the driveway.
The car bounced onto the road turned and headed straight for them. Maggie held her breath as she watched it follow them in the rear view mirror. She hoped that he might not realise who they were as she gently picked up speed.
The car behind started accelerating too, getting closer and closer at an alarming rate. It didn’t slow as it got behind them, and rammed them, sending them swerving from side to side across the road. Maggie screamed, and Bobby gripped onto the seat tight, as Maggie saw the dark red sedan line up for another attempt in the rear view mirror. “Hold on, he’s coming again!”
Maggie and Bobby braced as another slam caused them to jolt forward in their seats.
“Go faster Maggie, go faster!” The first time Bobby had spoken since they started running.
“My foot’s to the floor!”
“OK. Hold it steady then” said Bobby as he undid his seatbelt, and started climbing into the back seat.
“What are you doing?!”
“Just hold it still.” His voice calmer now.
Bobby positioned himself on the centre of the rear seats, facing backwards, his hands holding on to the parcel shelf. He watched as the dark red sedan accelerated at them. Closer. Closer. Closer still. The calm was coming over Bobby now, he could feel his body relaxing, his pulse slowing. He could see the man with blonde hair behind the wheel, leaning forward intently. Bobby waited until he could see the whites around his piercing blue eyes.
Whuuuummm.
The dashboard of his car sparked, and plumes of blue smoke billowed up inside the car. The man let go of the wheel and wrapped his arms around his head to protect his face. The car swerved across the road, crashing into a line of parked cars with a violent screeching sound and came to a dead stop.
As Bobby climbed back into the passenger seat, his sister let out a sigh “Well done, Bobs, well done.”
As the car turned a corner, and headed out towards the city, Maggie began to cry.
Forty
Blake’s car pulled up a few houses down from Steve and Karen’s house. Bobby had been dozing off for about the last fifteen minutes, and stirred awake when the car came to a stop. “OK Bobby, we talk to Uncle Steve and Aunt Karen. Tell them everything. They will know what to do.” Bobby groaned and stretched. “They’ll help us.”
“Wait” said Bobby. “I think I have worked something out.” Maggie looked at her brother.
“I’ve been getting dreams. The same recurring dream ever since this all started. I think it is whatever is inside me. At first they were hazy, but now it is clear. It came from the bottom of the ocean.”
“The what?”
“The ocean. It was buried deep in a cave somewhere. Either a ship or a sub dropped anchor and disturbed it. I don’t know exactly.”
“So… what are you
saying? We have to go to the coast?”
“No, I think it needs to be out to sea.”
“What? Oh jeez Robert – so what now? We need a yacht or something?”
“I don’t know Mags; all I know is that I have a real strong feeling about the ocean.”
Maggie sighed and looked at Bobby. “OK, well, let’s just talk to Uncle Steve and Aunt Karen first.”
The twins held hands and walked along the street to the house. As they turned into the driveway they could see something was wrong. The front door was open and hanging at an angle by its top hinge. The two gingerly crept forward, not wanting to see what was inside. Bobby kept looking over his shoulder as they approached the door, fearful of the psychopath they left behind, and that he may suddenly appear, engine revving and horns blaring, ready to try to kill them once again.
Maggie led the way; hand out in front of her in a defensive pose. She gently pushed the door aside and stepped into the house. What she saw made her bring her hands up to her mouth in shock.
The place had been wrecked. It looked as though an army of burglars had come in and emptied every drawer, opened every cupboard, and strewn the contents over the floor. Vases had been smashed, lamps broken, and family portraits lay shattered on the floor. As they moved through the house into the kitchen they could see it was the same story in there. Every drawer had been wrenched out of its place in the cupboard, and was dumped on the floor, its contents strewn over the wasteland that once was the kitchen.
The pair stood numb for a while, trying to comprehend what they were looking at.
Bobby was the first to speak. “Where are Aunt Karen and Uncle Stevie?”
Maggie was fighting back tears. Tears of frustration and rage.
“I don’t know Bobby! For fuck sake!” Bobby recoiled at his sisters’ anger. She turned to face him square on. “You and your stupid friend Stuart! Why didn’t you tell someone when this all started?! All you have caused is nothing but trouble! I spend half my life worrying about you, making sure that you are OK, dealing with your moods, taking care of you like you are my own goddamn child. Stevie and Karen are the only two people who would take us in when Mum died. They cared for us as if we were their own children, but you are too stupid and selfish to even give a shit about them most of the time. You go off with your friends shoplifting and trying rob banks. I mean – Jesus Robert! Robbing a bank?! What did you expect was going to happen? And now this! Look around you. Look!” She pointed at the mess in the house behind her. “So no Bobby. I don’t know where our Aunt and Uncle are. But they are probably not fucking shopping!” She has real tears of rage in her eyes now. The burning sensation was making them red the more she screamed at her twin. “But let’s hope they are not hurt. Not harmed and ok.” She was crying hard now. Tears streaming down her face. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You did this. You caused all of this. If we ever get out of this I swear I will...” She couldn’t finish what she wanted to really say to him.
Pulse Page 14