Stiffed

by Kitchin, Rob

  I close the door and lock it, then I steer Sally into the en-suite bathroom.

  ‘Sally, I want you to listen to me. I’m going to leave you here, okay? I want you to lock the door behind me, come into the bathroom and lock this door as well. Then I want you to lie down in the bath and wait for me to come back. Don’t open the door to anybody except me. Nobody.’

  She stares back at me vacantly.

  ‘Sally!’ I shake her, trying to get through.

  She nods her head.

  ‘I’ll be back for you once I’ve got Jason and Paavo. I won’t be long.’

  ‘I don’t want to die, Tadhg.’

  ‘You’re not going to die. Just lie in the bath and wait for me. I’ll be back to get you, I promise.’

  I turn to head back to the corridor.

  ‘Tadhg?’

  I glance back at her.

  She shakes her head. Whatever she was going to say has gone.

  I exit the room and wait until I hear the key turn in the lock. She should be okay for five or ten minutes and it’ll be easier to move around without her.

  The door into the pool area isn’t locked. I push it open and step cautiously outside. The air is thick and muggy, the sky starting to turn a darker shade of blue, the first stars twinkling. I stand and listen, but it’s eerily quiet. I think I preferred it when there were shots being fired. At least then I had some idea as to where the bad asses were.

  I creep, crouch-walking along the edge of the swimming pool, through the tufts of high grass and scraggy shrubs. The water in the pool stinks of stagnant water, musky and muddy, like freshly exposed compost. If anybody is staring out from the ballroom, or from the bedroom corridor, or the level above, then I’m a sitting duck. It’s not a good feeling. On the sphincter scale it’s way up there, hovering at around ‘guts about to turn inside out.’

  As I get near to where Jason and Paavo must be in the ballroom, I can see a pair of legs sticking out from behind a small bush, the torso hidden.

  Oh shit!

  I edge forward, my gaze switching right and left, wondering who the legs belong to and where his attacker might be. As I reach the body I can see it is Juan lying on his back, his head at an odd angle compared with his shoulders. His eyes are glassy, staring up at the sky. His dreams of a new life with Kate and a million dollars had disappeared with the crack of his neck.

  A couple of feet in front of him, the door into the ballroom is ajar. I edge forward and peer in. Jason and Paavo are no longer there. Fat Barry is slumped over the bar counter, a pool of blood has spilled over its surface, dribbling down its front to the parquet floor. Over by the door from which I originally peered into the room Cowboy is lying prone, a puddle of blood surrounding his head. Juan’s shot in the mall might not have killed him, but it seems that Fat Barry or somebody else has finished the job.

  I’ve no idea where Jason and Paavo are. Maybe Annabelle freed them, or maybe somebody else has taken them into captivity, but the priority now is to get back to Sally and for the pair of us get the hell out of here. Whilst everyone else is armed with an assortment of firearms, all we’ve got is frayed wits and they’re near their end.

  An arm circles my torso, trapping my arms by my side, the attacker’s free hand clamping over my mouth.

  FUCK!

  My heart is beating like a pneumatic drill, trying to force its way out through my ribcage. My guts are no longer about to turn inside out, they have done. I try to thrash my way free of the vice grip, but I’m held firmly in place.

  Double fuck with bells on!

  ‘Tadhg, it’s me,’ Paavo whispers in my ear. ‘I’m going to let you go, okay?’

  I nod my head.

  He removes his hand from my mouth, then his arm from my torso. I turn to face him.

  He’s got a black eye and a crooked nose and he’s holding a handgun. A big one.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he whispers.

  ‘I’ve been better. Where’s Jason?’

  ‘With Annabelle. I think that fucker broke Jason’s arm.’

  ‘What are you still doing here?’

  ‘Looking for you and Sally. Where is she?’

  ‘She’s safe. Locked in a bedroom over there,’ I point along the side of the swimming pool.

  ‘Freeze, motherfuckers,’ Barry White growls.

  Paavo shoves me to the ground and dives the other way, letting two shots fly.

  ‘Get out of here,’ Paavo orders. ‘I’ll deal with this fucker.’

  ‘Paavo,’ I hiss, backing towards the door into the ballroom.

  ‘Just go,’ he orders.

  ‘Paavo, he’s already kicked your ass twice. Once in John Philips’ café and once when he caught you earlier.’

  ‘But now we’re even,’ Paavo shows me a pistol. ‘And it’s payback time.’ He scurries off using his elbows and knees, almost horizontal to the ground.

  It seems I’ve officially re-handed the role of John McClane back to Paavo. It was a role for which I was hopelessly mis-cast. I’m not sure Paavo fits the bill much better. He might have had army training, but he was a cook for goodness sake.

  There’s a hissing pop and the window behind me cracks around a small hole.

  Barry White is still using his silencer.

  I back quickly through the door. The window is hit again and shatters.

  Fuck!

  There’re two more loud bangs outside, the noise echoing around the walls, which I assume is Paavo returning fire.

  I rise to my feet and dash the length of the ballroom up onto the stage and in behind the scenery. I pause to catch my breath.

  There’s three down – Juan, Fat Barry and Cowboy – which leaves Barry White, Denise, Redneck, Kate, and possibly Young Barry, if his siblings picked him up before turning round. Pirelli, The Rock and God knows who else might be in the mix depending on how fast they get here. All of them are armed.

  Then there’s Sally, Annabelle, Jason, Paavo and myself, only one of whom has a weapon. Sally is practically catatonic with fear and Jason has a suspected broken arm. The priority has to be to get Sally out of the building and hidden and then to return to help the others escape.

  I start towards the door leading out into the corridor where I’d left Sally.

  ‘Going somewhere, Sugar?’

  I turn slowly on my heels.

  Denise steps out from behind a piece of scenery, pointing a small gun at my chest. Her face is streaked in tears.

  ‘We meet again, Tadger.’

  ‘Tadhg.’

  ‘Whatever. Put your hands on your head.’

  I comply with her request. This isn’t good. Like Sally she appears to verging on hysteria, only she has a gun. Slapping her face is likely to end with a bullet exploding out the back of my head.

  ‘Have you seen what that redneck fucker did to my baby brother?’ She points down at Cowboy.

  I nod my head.

  ‘First that Kathy bitch runs off with my husband, then some pencil dick redneck kills my baby brother. I’m having the day from hell. Now give me the Goddamn cap.’

  ‘Look, Denise, there’s nothing in the cap,’ I try and reason, suddenly feeling quite calm. I’m probably about to die, but it no longer seems to matter. I’ve been trying to outrun death all day and it’s finally caught up with me.

  ‘That fucker down there told me about the cap before I blew his fucking brains out. Do you want me to blow your fucking brains out, Tadger?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then give me the Goddamn cap!’

  There are shots out towards the lobby area.

  ‘Look, Denise, about Junior, I know where he is.’

  ‘Do I look like a fool to you, white boy? Give me the Goddamn cap.’

  ‘Your brother, Leroy, shot him. Blew his brains all over my hall wall. I was there.’

  ‘You’re lying. This is your last warning, Tadger.’

  I take the cap off and hold it out to her.

  ‘He’s outside in the bushes. We wrapp
ed him in a sheet and put him in the van. You can go outside and check. He’s there.’

  She takes the cap from my grasp and I close my eyes, waiting for the bullet to arrive.

  She’s sobbing now, sucking in large gulps of air, barking it out again in noisy gasps.

  I open my eyes. She’s down on her knees, her hands on her face, the gun on the floor. I guess she knows in her heart that her brother is more than capable of killing her husband. That he’d do it in the beat of a butterfly’s wings.

  I snatch the cap back and dash to the door, crashing through it, flying down the four steps to the door where Sally is hiding. It seems that I’ve cheated death once again. Maybe I was a cat in a different life. Or a cockroach. Aren’t they the things that survive nuclear blasts?

  I hammer on the door. ‘Sally, it’s me, Tadhg, open up.’

  There’s no response.

  ‘Sally, come on, we need to get out of here.’

  There’re a couple of shots back towards the ballroom.

  ‘Sally, come on, open the fucking door.’

  I’m more than a little nervous standing here, my voice potentially attracting attention.

  There’s a click as the key is turned and the door opens.

  Sally is ashen, the blood having drained from her face.

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ I say to her, grabbing her by the hand, pulling her out into the corridor.

  There’s a ping of a bullet hitting a defunct light fitting. Instinctively I duck and tug Sally towards the stairwell.

  ‘You can run, Tadhg, but you can’t hide,’ Kate shouts after us.

  Want to bet?

  We plunge down the stairs into the inky blackness below, the sound of gunfire accompanying us.

  * * *

  It’s so dark in the basement that you can barely see your hand in front of your face. At least it seems empty of clutter. And it’s cool after the heat above.

  I’ve made Sally hold onto my shirt so I can use my two hands to feel my way forward. She seems to be coming slowly back to life after being holed up on her own.

  We’ve passed two rooms on our right, but I want to get further into the complex and away from the dull light descending the staircase. In theory it should be possible to traverse to the staircase we flew up when Redneck appeared. I’ve no idea of the route, but I know we’re presently heading along the ballroom/swimming pool divide towards the reception area.

  So far there has been no sound behind us, Kate having been seemingly distracted. That or she’s afraid of the dark. I should have taken Denise’s gun. Instead, I’d snatched the Goddamn cap. How stupid can you get?

  How long have you got? I’m not sure that even rates in the top five most stupid things I’ve done today. Or even the top ten.

  We’ve come to a corner. We turn right and pass over onto the left hand wall, the little light we have disappearing to leave us in total darkness. At the next opening, I duck into a room. I think we could both do with a quick break to compose ourselves.

  ‘How are you doing?’ I ask.

  Sally doesn’t answer.

  ‘Annabelle rescued Jason and Paavo. Hopefully they’ve managed to get to safety.’

  Still nothing.

  ‘I’m sure the emergency services are on their way.’

  ‘Huh.’

  ‘Sally? Come on Sally, you’re the Wicked Witch of the East. The Ice Queen. You can deal with this. We’ll find our way out and tomorrow you’ll be laughing about it all. Well, maybe not laughing, but, you know.’

  There’s a short pause then: ‘Why do you keep calling me that, Tiger?’

  ‘Calling you what? The Wicked Witch of the East?’

  ‘No. The Ice Queen.’

  ‘Well, you know, you can be … cold. Frigid.’

  ‘Frigid? Frigid!’ Sally says, seeming to spark into life. ‘What do you mean, frigid?’

  ‘Nothing, I meant nothing. I meant to say …’

  ‘Oh, I get it. I was nineteen, Tadhg. You were my first boyfriend, of course I was frigid. I was scared stiff.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about then,’ I say, trying to back pedal, ‘I meant in general. And anyway, how could you have been scared stiff of me? I don’t think I even raised my voice to you.’

  ‘I was petrified, Tadhg,’ Sally continues. ‘Do you know how much pressure that is? A young woman’s first time? Wanting it to be special?’

  This is not the conversation I was trying to start, but sod it, it might be the only time we get to air and resolve this once and for all before someone puts a bullet in our heads. Besides, it seems to be bringing Sally back to her usual argumentative self.

  ‘I was nineteen too, remember,’ I say. ‘It could have been a quickie in a storeroom and it would have been special. Jesus, you used to flinch if I went to kiss you for God’s sake.’

  ‘Because I was scared. Like now. Scared half to death. Jesus, Tadhg, can you at least try and see it from my perspective?’

  She’s let go of my shirt and I only know where she is because of her voice.

  ‘On our first date, you necked me like there was no tomorrow,’ I repost. ‘You had your hand down the front of my pants. You let me fondle and kiss your breasts. Then nothing for weeks on end.’

  ‘I was drunk. I was in love. I wanted to save myself for you. For us.’

  ‘We were nineteen. There’s not a girl on the planet who isn’t putting it out at nineteen.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t.’

  ‘Except for Party Man.’

  We’ve reach the crux of it, the incident that has shaped our relationship for the last dozen years. The night where she got drunk and went off with someone else.

  ‘Jesus, Tadhg, I wasn’t just drunk, I was paralytic. I was barely conscious. I don’t remember Party Man!’

  ‘You asked whether I wanted to join in. Your panties round your ankles, him fucking you from behind.’

  ‘I never did, Tadhg. Even drunk, I would have never asked for that.’

  She’s right, of course. She didn’t. He did. His face leering. Over time I’ve put the words into her mouth. It makes it easier that way.

  ‘He raped me,’ she says quietly. ‘He raped me and you watched it happen.’

  ‘He raped you?’ I say incredulously. ‘It looked pretty consensual to me.’

  ‘I was saving myself for you, you dumb shit. That was going to be our special night. Instead I drank too much; way too much. I was drinking wine like 7-Up at a time when I practically got tipsy on 7-Up. Whoever he was he took advantage of the fact that I was barely conscious. All I have is indistinct, hazy memories, but there was no way it was consensual.’

  She’s weeping now.

  Oh fuck.

  Cogs and switches are whirling and resetting in my mind; replaying that evening from a different perspective. Sally giggly, flirtatious and high, slurring her words, wandering off to the toilet barely able to walk, then failing to return. My mad, anxious hunt of the house. Finding her in the bedroom being screwed from behind, her staring at me like I’m some kind of apparition. A shy, goofy, scared, beautiful nineteen year old with traditional values, her skirt bunched around her waist, her panties round her ankles.

  It had been a gaze seeking help. She was being raped and instead I stormed away. I did nothing to protect her. Then the next day I accused her of everything under the sun and walked away. Now I know what all these references to being rescued have been about. The first time she needed saving, I failed her.

  Big time.

  I reach out blindly, my hand brushing her arm. ‘Look, Sally, I …’

  She shuffles away.

  ‘Sally, I’m sorry … I didn’t …’

  ‘That’s your problem, Tadhg, you don’t think. And you don’t listen. I was in love with you. I thought you were The One. And ever since … it happened, you’ve treated me like some kind of monster. Like I ruined your life. I’ve tried to tell you …’ She trails off, consumed with a grief that’s been slow burning for a dozen years.
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  ‘Sally …’

  ‘I’m not an ice queen, Tadhg. I never was. I was just saving myself … for an asshole.’

  ‘Sally …’

  Jesus, what the hell am I meant to say? I am an asshole. A fucking monumental asshole. I let my girlfriend get raped and then blamed her for it.

  Okay, forget about the town prize for the most stupid, moronic citizen. Pass me up to state level; the national level. Heck, pass me all the way up to the galaxy level. I’m off the bloody charts on this one.

  I feel like a tsunami of guilt has just crashed over me, crushing me under its weight. I think I preferred it when people were shooting at me.

  A few meters away in the dark, Sally is sobbing. It’s a wonder she has had anything to do with me in the last few years.

  Well, I failed to save her back then. If it’s the last thing I do I’m going to do my damndest to get her out of this fuckfest.

  The only problem is, given our predicament, it may well be the last thing I do. That feels like a familiar refrain.

  * * *

  I’m not sure how long we’ve been standing in the pitch black, silent except for Sally’s sobbing. It could be a minute or half an hour. I’m roused from my stupor by a shuffling sound somewhere outside the room in which we’re hiding.

  ‘I know you’re down here, chickenshit.’

  Redneck!

  I creep to the doorway. A thin, golden light barely illuminates the exposed brick work. He has a torch of some kind.

  If we step out into the corridor he’s likely to mow us down with his Uzi. If we stay in the room there’s nowhere to hide. We’re dead either way.

  At least we got to have our confessional chat. I get to die buried under an ocean of guilt.

  ‘You’re a dead man walking, Red. I don’t often enjoy taking a man’s life, but in this case I’m going to make an exception.’

  He’s getting closer, the light ever so slightly brighter. I could really do with Sally to hold her sobs. She’s acting as a beacon.

  I stand inside the open doorway, my back against the wall. The only thing I can do is try to attack him as he enters the room. Go after his damaged leg.

  ‘Sally?’ I whisper. ‘Sally, I’ll get you out of this, but I need you to be quiet.’