“No religious nutjob is going to stop me entertaining my friends.” Konstantin continues as Nate scans the room. Friendship was stretching it; at £1750 per ticket for a night of drug-intensified debauchery they were paying clients.
The evening had not begun well; after confirming that Josh was safe, and that the meteor that had hit the town wasn’t in the vicinity of Katy’s house, he’d arrived at Konstantin’s exclusive apartment twenty minutes late and without the requested number of bodyguards. He’d made a lame excuse, unable to tell the truth—that he could no longer afford to pay his staff and that their generosity had finally run dry.
He’d endured Konstantin’s barrage of abuse, and now, four hours later, he has a banging headache, certain that tomorrow will be the day he pulls the plug on M & M Penrose Ltd. Melanie had stripped all assets – conniving bitch! – and plunged him into a spiral of debt that he had little chance of escaping. What did it matter if he cut the last links he had to their past? His dreams of training Josh to be part of the family business, and have something to hand over when Nate retired – idiot! – were dead and buried, killed off when the boy’s mother raided the company’s profits and skipped the country. And now, here he is, forced to work for exactly the type of client he’d vowed never to take onto the books. Idiot! Stupid, bloody idiot! He grits his teeth as painful memories surface, and pushes them back down. Focus, arsehole! Just focus and get through tonight.
The doorbell rings, the buzzer shrill in his earpiece. Nate moves to check the security camera in the hallway. In the foyer, seven storeys below, three men hold invitations out to the security guard. Nate speaks into the microphone at his chin. “Check the invites, Dean. If they’re legit, let them in.”
Nate continues to watch the foyer as Dean processes the men, checking them for weapons. As they pass, he rubs his nose, and wafts at a twist of smoke that trails behind them. For crying out loud! Dean knows Konstantin has a no smoking policy. Minutes later, the three men enter the room and join the throng of guests. There is no evidence of the offending cigarettes, the butts, no doubt, stubbed out in the lift.
A waiter offers a tray of champagne-filled flutes, as unappealing to Nate as a glass full of piss topped by spittle. Sam had said it, ‘you can’t polish a turd’ and Konstantin was the biggest turd in the toilet. The first man shoos the waiter away.
Sam sidles close to Nate. “They seem on edge.”
A quick thrill rides through Nate; perhaps tonight won’t be so dull after all. “We’ll deal with any problems. That’s what we’re here for.” Eyes on the three men, he takes in Konstantin’s easy welcome. If there is something wrong, Nate’s client is unaware of it. He walks through the guests, standing only feet away from Konstantin, and scans the three men. Sam is right. They reek, and not only of unease.
Konstantin laughs and a grimace flashes across the taller man’s face, disappearing almost as quickly as it had appeared. Another, blond hair combed back and plastered down, clenches his fist. The light casts odd shadows, and their lips appear unusually dark. He contrasts them with another guest just feet away; his lips are dusky pink whilst theirs seem ringed with black. It has to be drugs! That would explain the odd behaviour, maybe even the smell.
A flash of colour as the tallest catches Nate’s gaze. Startled, Nate looks elsewhere in an effort to seem disinterested, but the shock of staring into the man’s eyes stays with him; his pupils had been red. A trick of the light; it had to be. He continues to scan the room, keeping the group in his peripheral vision, and listening. The flow of words is stilted, punctuated with expletives, and their tone is harsh. A deep frown has creased Konstantin’s brow. The men’s voices hold more than an edge of menace. All three talk, words of abuse falling over one another, a flood of stinking, verbal puss. The pulse at Nate’s temple begins to throb. Stay calm! He speaks quietly into his sleeve. “Would you like me to remove these guests, sir?” Konstantin nods.
A thin mist dances about their faces, and Nate gags as a thick reek of stagnant water, no, must be rotting, sulphuric breath, assaults his nostrils. The man has the worst case of halitosis he’s ever had the misfortune to inhale! He wafts at the thin cloud of smoke that hovers about his face. “No smoking allowed, sir.”
Smoke slides over Nate’s cheek, moving beyond his ear, and his skin is suddenly alive with prickles. What the hell are they smoking? Must be some drug he hasn’t come across before. The men ignore him.
“I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
A pair of red eyes glare back at him, and Nate notices with barely hidden disgust, that the irises are an opaque blue, the whites edging towards yellow, the cataracts of an old dog. Jesus! The man is rotten. He must have some sort of revolting disease that is turning his innards putrid. Hands twitch, and Nate checks his jacket, noticing the bulge at his ribs beneath the fabric. As Nate berates his own sloppiness, and it dawns on him that he’d watched Dean search the guest, the grimace on the man’s face is animated by a flicker in his eyes. With a sudden jerk, he grabs into his jacket, and draws out a blade. Nate grabs his lower arm, locks a hand around his elbow, and twists, simultaneously kicking behind his knee. The man staggers, unbalances, and drops to the floor.
The room fills with screams and crashing thuds that rise above the thumping beat of 70s disco pop as the other two men suddenly launch into the guests. As Nate twists the man to face the floor, yanking his arms behind his back, the stench of fetid breath is pungent. With a sudden twist, and immense power, the man throws Nate from his back and jumps to his feet. Nate’s head crashes against the wall as the violent guest turns his attention back to Konstantin.
Before the man has a chance to attack, a tall brunette, in an emerald green cocktail dress with a plunging neckline, reaches for the iron poker propped against the unlit fire. In a single, swift move, she grabs the poker, raises it above her head, and swings it down against the back of Konstantin’s head. It impacts with a dull thud. Her eyes glitter as blood spatters across her bare skin and sinks into the green silk of her dress.
As Nate staggers against the wall, pain ripping through his head, his skin crawls. The room is muggy with sweat, thick with the stench of shit and blood, and filled with a cacophony of grunts, screams, and snarling shrieks. Guests cower, trample over bodies, and force themselves through the crush at the doorway.
The waiter that had offered the visitors a flute of champagne, stands with tray in hand, a grim smirk on his face as he surveys the carnage. As a young woman pushes past, her face spattered with blood, he locks his fingers through her hair and slams the tray into her face.
Insane! This is insane. What the hell kind of drug does this to people?
Nate checks for Sam, locating him as he slams a heavy boot into the face of the DJ. “Sam!” His voice cracks with the effort of making it heard. Nate ducks a punching fist as Sam responds to his call. “Kitchen!” With another kick at the DJ, Sam jumps over a prone body, punches a woman as she lunges at him, and disappears through the door. Nate ducks, blocks, jumps, and punches his way across the room, pushing through the side door, down the corridor and into the kitchen. The room is empty. As feet pound behind him, Nate clips the lock to closed, and strides to a rack of pegs hung with striped aprons. A hidden handle opens the door to a small panic room. Sam is already inside.
“Jesus! Nate! What the hell?”
The door locks as the kitchen door slams open and feet thud across the tiles.
“What the hell?”
Nate stares across at Sam, checking his eyes and lips. Normal. No sign of black, or red, or the foul stench that rose from the men like gas from a sewer.
“Nate!”
Nate continues to stare, watching his friend, processing the last minutes, heart pounding.
“Nate!”
“Wait. Just wait.”
Outside the crashing stops, footsteps thud then dampen as they pass to the carpeted hallway.
“They’ve gone.”
Nate continues to watch Sam.
/> “I know what you’re thinking. I’m thinking the same.” Knife drawn, Sam points it at Nate.
Nate tightens the grip on his own.
“You feeling ... any different?”
“No,” Nate lies.
“You sure?” Sam is no fool, an expert in body language.
Nate comes clean. “The smoke. I think I inhaled some, it made me feel odd.”
Sam nods. “Me too. But you look ... normal ... like you’re about to shit yourself, but normal.”
Nate can only manage a nod, the tightness in his chest painful.
“Drugs. It’s got to be drugs.” Sam’s eyes don’t leave Nate’s. Each man eyes the other, scanning for any change.
“Got to be.”
Minutes pass as the stalemate continues. Finally, Sam sags back against the wall. The noise from the apartment has quieted to grunts, outside sirens pulse.
“I don’t feel like killing you. Do you want to kill me?”
“No.”
“I think we’re clear then.”
Nate takes out his phone, punches in the apartment’s surveillance code, and checks each room. Nothing moves. “I think they’ve gone.”
“Ten more minutes, until we can be sure.”
“Just ten, then let’s get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The toilet cubicle had become Ellie’s safe place as the violence on the plane had erupted into what sounded like a full-scale war. For hours, she had sat on the metal toilet seat, leaning over her knees, hands to ears trying to block out the screams that rose above the cacophony of shouts and banging, the scene in her kitchen now insignificant. At one point, as the numbness in her buttocks had given way to the pain of pins and needles, the noise had reduced and she’d stood, leant up against the door, and had her fingers on the lock, when a scream that made her gag had erupted from the cabin. She’d jerked from the door as footsteps grew louder, and sat back down on the metal seat, heart pounding, waiting for whatever was on the other side to begin beating at it again.
A shiver runs through her as she remembers the old woman’s foul obscenities shouted through the door, and her incessant thumping on its panels. They had only stopped when the woman herself had screamed, gurgled, and then quieted. Blood had seeped beneath the doorway and Ellie had pulled at the paper towels to stop it flooding the tiny compartment.
She opens the door to absolute silence and an empty space, surprised that the woman’s body has gone. The cabin lights are on and she picks her way through the blood, stepping on the driest smears. The walls are bloodied too, and she hesitates before pulling at the fabric divider, then peering through a narrow gap into the cabin, steeling herself for its carnage. She scans the rows of seating. The seats at the rear are empty, there are no bodies strewn across the galley, the bloodied faces and sightless eyes of her imagination are missing. She stares along the rows in confusion. Where the hell is everyone? Had she imagined it? Have they all been rescued and she left behind? She steps out into the galley and checks the row beside her. No, it had happened. The evidence is clear to see: blood smeared across the speckled cream walls, a hank of blonde hair, its follicles still buried within a chunk of scalp, lies on the floor. On the other side, a pair of broken, blood-smeared glasses sits on the middle seat, a book lies strewn against the wall, its pages spattered. The galley is a long and trailing smear of dark red, the flooring beneath only visible where it thins out. A double line has been pulled through the blood from one end of the narrow walkway to the other, possibly the heels of someone’s shoes: perhaps the man who had rolled his eyes at the paranoid redhead; or the blonde sat eating a packet of biscuits as the stewardess had gone through her safety instructions; or the teenage boy more interested in looking at the breasts of the woman sat next to him than the demonstration.
The overhead lights cast a yellow glow in the cabin and it carries the unmistakable stench of sulphur and faeces. Ellie covers her mouth and nose with her hand, smearing the tip with blood. She wipes at it with quick, rough movements, the stench of shit even stronger now. Outside is dark, though in the distance bright lights shine through rectangular windows and, on the ground, red lights create lines in the black. An airport. They’ve landed at an airport, so where the bloody hell is everyone? She listens, the echo of screams still fresh in her memory. No sound breaks the silence, no movement jars the stillness. A cool and fetid breeze blows across her legs. She takes another tentative step forward, then several more until she reaches the plane’s open emergency exit and teeters on the edge of a more than twenty-foot drop down to the tarmac. Brows knit. Where the hell are the steps?
Staring down at the tarmac, she decides to jump, and clasps the door frame, the tips of her shoes hanging over the edge. Her heels tack on the floor. She pulls back, stomach reeling, and removes her shoes; landing will hurt, but landing in four-inch heels will be disastrous! She takes a final look into the cabin then stares back down to the tarmac and takes a breath. Her fingers cling to the edges of the doorframe, resisting her push forward. In the distance a shriek pierces the night. She releases her grip and throws herself back against the wall, then inches away from the drop. Too far! It’s too far down.
As she moves back across the aisle and slumps into a seat, a thud from the back of the plane makes the skin of her scalp creep.
Click!
She twists to follow the noise, scanning the seats, galley, and dividing curtain at its end. Nothing moves. Her eyes flit from seats, to open doorway, to black tarmac, to the rectangles of light in the distance, and her heart pounds as something scratches. The noise is coming from behind the curtain. She swallows, jumps from her seat, and darts to the kitchenette. She scans the surfaces for a weapon. Nothing. Opening drawers reveals packets of plastic knives and forks, utterly useless against a violent attack. The curtain at the end of the galley moves, inching open. Ellie’s heart trips against her ribs and she pulls back against the counter. Quiet! Don’t breathe. Metal tings against metal as the curtain is pushed aside, followed by the light tap of footsteps. Taking shallow breaths through her nose, white noise fills her ears as the pulse at her temple throbs. The footsteps move closer. She has to see! Leaning forward, keeping her body hidden, she peers into the galley, and instantly pulls back. A child! Can’t be more than eight years old. She peers again. The girl, blonde hair in plaits, takes slow steps down the aisle. Ellie scans her face. The eyes are blue and bright, red-rimmed from crying, but perfectly normal. Her lips are pink. The relief is instant. The girl stops, takes a step back, and stares around the cabin. With a slow movement, Ellie steps into view. The girl screams and turns, running back up the walkway.
“Don’t be scared,” Ellie calls after her. The girl disappears behind the curtain. Ellie follows. The toilet door slams shut and locks. Just leave her, Ellie. The last thing you need is a kid to look after. Ellie takes a step back from the curtain. Perhaps she should leave her. Someone, the authorities perhaps, would find her. Sure, but what if they don’t? What if they’re all demented too? She knocks at the door. “Hey, I won’t hurt you. I’m not ... crazy, like them.” Silence. “Did you notice how they stink and their eyes are red?” The silence continues. “Well, mine are green and I can see that yours are blue, so we’re both still OK.” Shuffling. She waits a few minutes, listening to the child’s movements. Growing frustrated, she knocks once more. “I’m going to leave the plane now. If you want to come with me, you can.” Ellie waits, itching to leave the plane and find somewhere safe. The kid will have to stay put. “I’m going now. OK?” The door remains locked. She can’t force the child to come with her. Damn! She steps back into the galley and walks towards the exit. If the kid doesn’t want to come ... For God’s sake, Ellie! She’s just a kid. You can’t leave her. Turning, she walks back up the aisle with a quick step, raps at the door, and tries one final time. “Listen, I’m going now, but I don’t want to leave you here—alone. If you come with me, I’ll help you get home.”
A sob.
> “Please, come with me. I can help keep you safe.”
Still silence. One last knock. If the kid really doesn’t want to come out, then there is nothing Ellie can do. Ellie steps back into the aisle. The door clicks to open and the girl steps out.
“There’s no one else here. We’re the last ones to leave.” The girl stares back, searching Ellie’s face. She thinks back to the open door, and the ankle-breaking drop to the tarmac. Inspiration strikes. “Did you know there’s a massive slide on this plane?” The girl shakes her head. “It pops out of the door and blows up. We can slide all the way to the ground.” The girl’s eyes widen. “It’ll be fun. Do you want a go?” Ellie holds out her hand and waits. The seconds pass. Ellie’s thighs burn as she continues to crouch. Come on, kid! We have to go. She stands, but continues to smile, and, as she moves away down the corridor, the girl follows. As they reach the open door, a small hand slips into hers.
A large box, with a chunky, angular handle, sits as a block on the door’s interior. On a sticker, above the handle, ‘ABIERTA’ and ‘OPEN’ are printed in large red capitals. A red arrow shows an upward thrust. The sticker below contains more detailed instructions. Ellie grasps the metal handle. “Stand back.” She thrusts the handle upwards. A hiss erupts and the door slides against the side of the plane. The girl squeals, and Ellie gasps then laughs as the huge yellow slide pops out, unfolds in jerking movements, and inflates as it descends to the ground. Ellie’s voice is little more than a whisper. “Listen,” she says turning to the girl. “We need to be quiet.” The girl nods. Given that the girl hasn’t yet spoken, this seems a little unnecessary, but in the seconds that the slide had taken to unfurl, a sense of danger has enveloped her. Once they are outside, she realises, they’re vulnerable. “You ready?” The girl nods again and slips her arm around Ellie’s waist. “Good. I’m going to count to three, then we’ll jump.” She slides her own arm beneath the girl’s and they both step to the edge.
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