by Rod Glenn
“Y-y-y-yes!”
For a moment they both held their breath in the quiet darkness. Carol extinguished the torch and shoved it into her pocket. Their hearts were beating hard and fast, the pressure causing their ears to throb hotly, and seemingly loud enough to betray their presence. All became still and the seconds stretched out in front of them until …
The door handle moved with an audible click.
Sam gasped and, trembling, took another step back towards the open doorway. Carol, her legs suddenly feeling like jelly beneath her weight, stopped and thrust out a hand to the worktop beside her. Her fingers fumbled in the gloom for a weapon … anything. The candles in her other hand clicked together softly with the shuddering of her body.
The handle stopped moving.
Within the confines of his own head, Sam’s laboured breathing sounded like a freight train. He wanted desperately to shout out to Bryce, but his dry mouth refused to cooperate. Instead, his eyes hunted through the gloom, searching, like Carol, for a weapon of some kind.
As his eyes spied a knife rack in the corner, the door burst open with a piercing crack, causing both Carol and Sam to cry out and the former to scatter the candles and matches up into the air. The dark, looming figure who had shouldered the door open stepped inside.
Carol’s free hand grabbed an object and instantly hurled it towards the intruder as Sam made a desperate dash towards the knives.
The mug hit Wright with a glancing blow across the forehead, causing him to let out an involuntary yowl. “Police! Stop right there!” One hand held his baton defensively out in front of him as the other, with his torch, shot up to his injured face.
Mitchell pushed past his dazed colleague, similarly brandishing his own baton and torch, the beam dancing across the walls and the two frightened occupants.
As Sam grabbed one of the knives, Bryce and Jimmy rushed in from the hall. Carol had instinctively grabbed a second mug and held it above her head ready to throw.
With Bryce aiming the Bassett and Mitchell aiming a glaring torch beam at one another, and everyone brandishing weapons of one description or another, everyone paused for a few disquieting seconds, unsure what to do.
Mitchell broke the spell. “Detectives Mitchell and Wright. Northumbria Police CID.”
“Oh my God!” Carol cried out with a mixture of joy and relief. She cast the mug, skidding, back onto the worktop and, putting the hand to her mouth, said, “God, sorry!”
Rubbing his forehead, Wright said, “Don’t worry, love. Under the circumstances I’m not gonna do you for assaulting a police officer.”
Lowering the rifle, Bryce said, “It’s Whitman. The murdering bastard’s gone on a rampage.”
“Well, that substantiates what we were suspecting,” Wright said. “You’re the first survivors we’ve come across. And we’ve come across a lot of people.” He chose his words carefully.
“H-have you c-cordoned off the v-v-village?”
“Yeah, you cannat let this twat get away,” Jimmy added. “He’ll leg it if he sees the likes of you, like.”
Before replying, Mitchell gently pushed the door closed, applying a little force to squeeze it back into the frame. Then he turned to them with a concerned look on his face. “Things aren’t quite that simple.”
Placing the knife onto the worktop with a shaking hand, Sam said, “W-w-what does th-th-that mean?”
“Divvent tell us it’s just you two?” Bryce asked with more than a hint of anger. He looked from one officer to the other. Their faces were grim and revealed more than any words could.
“’Fraid so, chief,” Wright said, leaning against the refrigerator and pulling out his cigarettes and Zippo. Lighting one, he said, “Mobiles aren’t working and he took out the radio in the Lanny.” He didn’t think it appropriate to elaborate on poor Bainbridge.
“Took out?” Jimmy snapped, his voice crackling over the last word. “What is this wanker? Rambo? The fuckin’ Terminator?”
“Calm down, young’un,” Mitchell said. “We’re overdue by a couple of hours already, so questions are being asked and suspicion is being raised. I’m confident that additional units will already be on the way.”
“Confident?” Jimmy repeated, suddenly feeling quite sick.
“What are you a parrot?” Wright asked, taking a draw on his cigarette.
“Aye, soon to be a dead one. Deceased, passed on, ceased to be, stiff, bereft of life, off to meet my maker. An ex-parrot.”
“Bleedin’ comedian too.”
Ignoring the confrontation, Mitchell continued. “First, we need to know everything you know. We know bits and pieces, so hopefully you guys can fill in a few blanks.”
“Can I take one of ’em?” Jimmy asked with a nod to Wright’s smoking cigarette. With mild irritation, Wright offered the packet around and was even more irritated when both Bryce and Carol accepted too.
Between Bryce, Carol and Jimmy, the three of them hurriedly explained the recent events to the two officers, broken only by the occasional uh-huh or a brief request for clarification.
Once they had finished, Mitchell poured himself a glass of water at the sink and took a long, satisfying drink. Then, turning to the waiting audience, he said, “That information will help us a lot.” His eyes settled on Bryce’s rifle. “Now, I see you’re armed and, at this stage, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’ve got a permit for that. What we’re going to need is for you four to hole up here while we continue our search for Whitman and any other survivors.”
It was Carol who beat the others to it, crying out in desperation, “No! You can’t just leave us!”
“You’re safer here,” Mitchell said.
“He’s armed n’ all remember,” Bryce injected. “I assume you two aren’t?”
“Don’t worry about us, mate. We’ve got sharp sticks. He’s not gettin’ nowhere.” Wright flicked the stub of his cigarette into the sink and smiled; it said, ‘just let him fucking try’. He then took the glass from Mitchell and finished off its contents.
“You better take the rifle then,” Bryce said with marked trepidation.
Both Jimmy and Carol opened their mouths to protest, but Mitchell silenced them with a wave of his hand. “No, I wouldn’t be comfortable leaving you without a weapon. We’ll be fine – we’re working methodically house to house. We’re trained professionals.”
Mitchell turned to leave, saying. “Barricade this door when we leave and, if anyone comes knocking without announcing themselves, you have my permission to shoot first and ask questions later.” He stared at each one of them in turn to emphasise the point. “I mean it.”
Following Mitchell, Wright paused in the doorway to say, “Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.” Then he, too, disappeared into the night.
The four of them continued to stare at the door for several seconds, before Sam eventually walked over to the door and jammed it back into place. “P-pass a chair.”
Mother’s milk.
Larry’s Ford Focus had been transformed into a vaguely car-shaped snow sculpture. Crouched behind it, sheltering from the biting wind and concealed from view, Whitman had followed the two detectives and then lain in wait. As it became obvious that they were spending longer than necessary in there, his mind began to wander; perhaps to take his mind off the bitter cold and the stinging in his ears.
He started humming at first then, ever so quietly, he starting singing, “I feel so bad, I got a worried mind, I'm so lonesome all the time, since I left my baby behind on Blue Bayou.”
I'm going back someday, come what may to Blue Bayou,
Where you sleep all day and the catfish play on Blue Bayou,
All those fishing boats with their sails afloat, if I could only see,
That familiar sunrise through sleepy eyes, how happy I'd be …
The dining room was warm and the smells of the Sunday roast were causing the young boy to salivate and his stomach to grumble in anticipation. Roy Orbison’s voice was both
haunting and tragic as it drifted up from his mother’s Bush record player and radiogramme, set inside a veneered cabinet.
The young boy was sat at the teak dining table with his chin resting on his arms, a dreamy look lost in his eyes. His thick shock of dark ginger hair hung almost to the collar of his black t-shirt. He sat up as he heard his mother walking through from the kitchen. The front of his t-shirt had the faces of Adama, Apollo and Starbuck, set against a star-filled backdrop with the Battlestar, Galactica, leading the rag-tag, fugitive fleet on a lonely quest …
A woman in her thirties walked through. She had luscious red, curly hair flowing past her shoulders and wore an orange and green floral apron over bell-bottom jeans and a polo-neck shirt, tight across large breasts. She was wiping her hands on a London souvenir tea towel. “Nearly ready, sweetheart,” she said with a warm smile. “Your dad should be back from the club soon.”
His father spent quite a bit of time in the working men’s club, and quite a bit of time away working, but he didn’t mind, especially on a Sunday. He and his mother would listen to her old record collection – dozens of singles, LPs and Reader’s Digest Box Sets; The Swinging Sixties, The Fabulous Fifties, Golden Greats of the Fifties and Sixties, The Great Transatlantic Hits, Elvis Greatest Hits, Golden Hit Parade … The two of them would sit and chat while a whole host of favourites would tantalise tenderly in the background. Needles & Pins, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Teenager In Love, Poetry In Motion, Run around Sue, Oh Carol, Venus in Blue Jeans, With a little Help from my Friends, Blue Moon, Duke of Earl, Mr Tambourine Man, Groovy Kind of Love, Whiter Shade of Pale, Only the Lonely … the list was endless.
The warmth of the memory had temporarily abated the cold reality as he watched the two detectives leave the doctor’s house. His head and shoulders were now coated with fresh snow. Kneeling, unmoving in the foot deep snow, had soaked his jeans through, and, with the warm memory fading fast, the icy wet quickly crept back into his bones. But the wait had been worth it.
They had spent longer than usual in Larry’s house, but someone else slamming the door after the gorilla left confirmed it. It would seem that one or more of his missing flock were holed up in the doc’s house. That saved him a job. Thanks, fellas.
Whispering to himself, he said, “So, you’ve told them to sit tight and that help is on the way, while you two are going to be the heroes and hunt down the villain?” He thought about that for a moment. “The villain? That would be me, right? Well, I suppose that’s fair, given the circumstances. I can play the Joker to your Batman and Robin.”
Watching Wright and Mitchell walk back to Bell Lane, he mused, “Jack Nicholson or Cesar Romero? Tough call that. Nicholson’s was more sinister, that’s for sure, but Romero was mad as a box of frogs.”
“How about Jack Romero?” He considered, standing. “Mad and sinister.” After brushing the snow from his legs and shaking it free from his upper body, he followed the two detectives. Jack Romero, eh? A great name to use for the sequel. Could be misinterpreted as a reference to George A. Romero, the zombie maestro, but there certainly wasn’t anything wrong with that. In a low, but cheery tone, he sung, “Dan-a-dan-a-dan-a-dan-a-batman!”
The two shapes trudged doggedly along Bell Lane, shin deep in snow and hunched over against the raging elements. They kept their torches switched off, not wanting to register their presence to prying eyes. Shivering, Mitchell shielded his eyes against the driving snow with his torch hand and pointed ahead of them with the other, cradling his baton, saying, “We need to check everything on the Miller’s side.” He had to virtually shout for his colleague to hear him over the roar of the wind.
Wiping snow and icy water from his face, Wright nodded, wobbling his hood comically, then slowed to a shuffling crawl as they approached the junction with Main Street. “The shooter’s going to know that his time’s running out. He won’t have sat waiting for us to show our faces – he’ll be out looking for us.” Tilting his head back the way they had come, he added, “And them.” A strong gust whipped the hood from his face and fluttered his hair in short grey/black flames, drawn on the wind.
Wiping more melting flakes from his face, Mitchell said, “Yeah, could be anywhere by now. What are the odds of him cutting his losses and doing a runner, do you think?” He plucked a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped his red, dribbling nose.
“Zero,” Wright replied immediately, jamming his hood back onto his head and briefly shoving his numbed hands into his marginally warmer armpits to try to bring some feeling back to them. “This bloke is on a rampage – he wants everyone dead, and that now includes us. This maniac obviously doesn’t give a damn that we’re coppers or that more will be on the way. He’s started something here and he intends to finish it.”
Shoving the wet hanky back into his pocket, Mitchell muttered, “Wish we could’ve taken the rifle.”
“Woulda been bloody handy right now, aye.”
“But they need it more, right?”
Wright glanced at him, blinking snow from his eyes. “Bloody joking, aren’t you? But it was the only thing we could do, us being the good guys, and all that.”
“Oh aye, what was all that sharp sticks bollocks?” Mitchell asked with a half grunted laugh.
Chuckling, Wright said, “Dunno, shit just tends to pour out sometimes when I open my trap. Sounded pretty cool at the time though, eh?”
“Loony.” Squinting through the snow and the darkness, Mitchell regarded the silhouetted buildings across Main Street with suspicion. “Suggest we move further back along Main Street and cut across the road at the edge of the village. Then we can search everything that side from top to bottom.”
“Fine by me.” Feigning an optimistic tone, Wright added, “Maybe some of our esteemed colleagues might join us for a pint in the Miller’s by then, eh?”
“Aye, let’s hope they send more than one bloody uniform too!”
“Well, if some donkey at headquarters thinks we’ve just crashed or gotten ourselves stuck up here, they might well do. But, on the other hand, they’d be hard pressed to ignore the lack of radio or telephone contact, even with those eventualities.”
As content as he could be that no one was in view, Mitchell edged out onto Main Street and headed towards the church with Wright following close behind. Shapes and shadows seemed to dance just out of view, lost within the snowstorm, teasing and defying the blurred vision of the two officers. Several times one or the other would stop, raising their baton in readiness, only to realise that it was nothing but a swirling snow ghost. Even the wind appeared to collaborate, whispering not quite recognisable words astray amongst the buffeting frenzy.
After barricading the door with a couple of chairs, Sam and Bryce joined the other two in the living room. A single candle flickered on the coffee table in the centre of the room, offering a warm orange glow that seemed to take a sliver of the chill from the air. Sitting on the arm of a chair, his voice loaded with concern, Bryce said, “I should’ve given them the rifle.”
Slouched in the other armchair, Jimmy sat forward, saying, “Are you mad?” He scratched the back of his already angry red hand, wincing at the pain, but continuing nevertheless.
Carol was sitting on the sofa, with her legs tucked under her. She bit at a knuckle, before saying, “I’ve got to agree with Jimmy on that, John.”
Bryce shrugged, but the concern remained in his voice. “They’re out there searching for him and we’re in here. There’s four of us and we’ve got the place secured, so who needs the gun more, eh?”
Neither Sam, nor Carol could return his stare. Even Jimmy glanced down at his hands when Bryce turned his attention to him. He looked at the angry scratch marks on the backs of both hands, but after a moment’s hesitation, he looked up once more and matched his stare. He muttered, “They’re coppers; they’re trained for this sort of thing, like. It’s what they’re paid for.”
Too tired to get angry, Bryce said simply, “They’re not paid to get killed, son.
They have armed response units for this kinda thing. They’re out there armed with truncheons, man. Han’s got a gun – it’s a big difference. Kinda like fishing with hand grenades.”
“Well, they should’ve stayed with us then,” Carol said, resting her head on her hand. Her face appeared gaunt and exhausted in the orange glow. Fatigue was creeping in with the hushed, cosy atmosphere.
“They’re doin’ their job. They might not like the situation, but they’re still doing it. I got a lot of respect for that.”
“H-he’s gonna g-g-get them t-too, isn’t h-he?” Sam managed and regretted it immediately. Sitting next to Carol, he pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged his legs. He chewed on his bottom lip and glanced around at the others. They all remained lost in their own thoughts for a while.
Yawning, Bryce turned to him finally and shook his head with as much conviction as his tired brain could muster. “Nah, divvent think like that, mate. Just ’cause they haven’t got guns, that doesn’t mean they’re stupid – they’re gunna be bloody careful.”
Jimmy opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. For once, he felt a wisecrack might be inappropriate. Instead, he took a chunk off the tip of a jagged nail with his discoloured incisors and thought about soft, pure white powder, lined up on a spotless mirror, with a twenty rolled up beside it. Or better yet, hot, bubbling liquid in a tablespoon. The thoughts made his mouth salivate and sent a tremor through his aching, clammy body.
The silence became unbearable. Quite unexpectedly, Jimmy surprised himself by saying, “Steve was gunna pay us to burn down the car lot.”
The others turned to look at him, confused and surprised. “What are you on about?” Carol asked, but as the statement sunk in, it grasped her attention with both hands. She sat forward, waiting, frowning.