Kill All Kill All

by Craig McNish

  “We cannot make the jump” she was told by her brother. “It is too far and we will without doubt be badly hurt. Even if one of us was to simply turn an ankle on landing, it would still give Mills plenty of time to catch up with us. And we cannot expect young Lizzie here to jump twenty feet to the ground from an open window.” Jane knew that he was right. She looked to the door, watching the hinges shake under Mills' prolonged attack.

  “Then there is no other choice but for us to fight.”

  *

  Bancks had tethered his horse a short way distant and was now standing beneath the oak tree, which looked not so majestic when devoid of its foliage. He leaned against its trunk, trying to catch his breath from the dash along the track that led from the main road up to the farm. He had been disappointed not to be greeted by Jane on his arrival, but felt sure she would arrive soon and so he vowed to wait as long as it took. There had been no great amount of snow this last day so while it still lay thick on the ground, the more-travelled roads would mostly be clear and passable. For this small mercy, Bancks was indeed grateful. With no pocket watch, he could only guess the time to be somewhere around ten. There was no doubt it was an extremely cold night, but he paid little attention to the temperature and instead concentrated his gaze toward Brass Farm, continuing his lone vigil to await the presence of his loved one.

  Mills had gone quiet, and Jane had started to wonder if he had simply given up and thought it wiser to flee before her mother and father returned. Her silent question was given a more thunderous answer when the attack on her bedroom door was renewed, but this time it was not with fists; three strikes gone, and on the fourth the tip of an axe blade showed itself. Again she screamed, and her brother looked to be more scared for his life now than ever before. Jane doubted there was to be any reasoning with Mills now. Even the promise of leaving here with him would likely be seen as a trick and might infuriate him yet further.

  “Brother, are you certain we will not be able to safely make the jump from the window ledge?” John Brass looked out to the ground below, then shook his head.

  “The snow is nothing like deep enough to be of use for a safe landing” he said. “We would not die, but could quite easily sustain lots of scrapes, or possibly even a broken leg. And if we did, what then? That leaves lying helplessly in the snow while Mills beats us to death with his axe and in no state to even try and defend ourselves. If Priscilla has heard the racket – and surely she must – then she will have gone to fetch help. The best plan would be for us to stay here and hold off Mills until her return.” But Priscilla Farrowe had heard nothing; having worked ceaselessly for fifteen hours, she had retired to her quarters not long before Jane had encountered Mills at the top of the staircase and immediately fell into a deep slumber that the loudest of noises had not managed to break. But this was something the four upstairs could not possibly know, and Mills seemed hardly to care even if she did, for he continued to strike the door with his axe and the wood was beginning to splinter more freely now.

  A few hundred yards distant, Bancks could hear the occasional noise that would sound like a man hammering wood, but he was tired and cold and put it down to his mind playing tricks on him. Maybe in an hour he would chance going up to the farm and trying to call out to Jane by her bedroom window, but not yet. When he had left the Cutter home, the discussion was less heated but still a solution had not been found, and Bancks thought they would be a good while yet. He feared not the return of John and Margaret Brass, only the loss of Jane's love. She will be here soon, he told himself over and again.

  “Brother, the door is about to break!” Jane cried. She expected his help, but he seemed not to know what to do. There was no time to be lost; Jane crawled along the floor and over to the door, where she placed her arm through a gap to form an extra bolt. She hoped that if Mills concentrated his attack on the upper door, the lower part would hold and he would not gain access to the room. But a good portion of the wood had already broken free, and Elizabeth had gazed into Mills' wild and violent eyes, unable to avert them until shaken and then dragged away by her brother.

  And then, the unthinkable. The door, having no further strength remaining, while Mills appeared to be getting stronger by the second; just a few more blows and Jane felt a pain in her arm she never thought possible. She withdrew it, and by its shape could immediately tell that it was broken. Getting to her feet, Jane's first thought now was for the safety of her young sister. She pulled Elizabeth to her side and pulled the bedclothes around them.

  “There will be no more offers of mercy” Mills declared, his eyes looking around the Brass children one at a time. His axe was held in the right hand, pointed towards the floor, and even though his words were spoken more calmly now, Mills was still a most formidable and terrifying sight to behold. “When I first came here to Brass Farm, it was my intention to work hard and be humble, but your ways have been such that deserve no reward of my friendship. I have been treated as though I am less than nothing. Only Miss Elizabeth has shown herself to be anything of a true friend to me. You would have done well to learn from your young sibling, but now it is too late.”

  “You are nothing but a fool – an imbecile!” John Brass shouted in retaliation. “You think I could not hear you counting each strike of the door with your hatchet? You talk with yourself often – I have heard it many times. And the people of the town know it, too. We cannot all be wrong, Mills. Why, it amazes me you are still free to walk the streets and were not shut away in a madhouse many years ago! You have made a lot of bad choices here today, and my father will make sure you pay highly for them.”

  In a fraction of a second, Mills was across the room at Brass' throat. With his hands clasping ever tighter around the windpipe, Brass managed to free himself by bringing his knee into Mills' stomach five or six times. When the grip was released, Brass threw a punch that caught Mills full on the left cheekbone. The area immediately showed signs of starting to swell and would no doubt leave a large and unwelcome bruise. But Mills collected himself quickly and launched himself at Brass again, the two now tussling on the floor.

  “Take...Lizzie...and...leave!” He called out to his sister. But she could not comply with such a request; it was impossible for her to run off and hide while her brother took a beating or even worse. The words were repeated, and Jane could see that he was losing strength now. He would not be able to stave off Mills' attack for much longer. Where was the help that was so badly needed?

  In the blink of an eye, Brass was fortunate enough to swing the tussle with Mills to his advantage. Now Mills was laid on the floor, and Brass was sat on his stomach as he throttled the life out of him. Jane wanted to go and aid her brother so they might finish Mills off more quickly, but Elizabeth was so scared and clung to her sister, with no amount of pleading able to change the young girl's mind.

  “Press hard on the front of the throat, brother!” Jane called out. “Show him no mercy, as he was to show us none and be quite happy to kill us all!” Mills was finding it a chore to breathe now, and his grip on John Brass' hands to try and pry them away was not as strong as it could have been. It was then that something extraordinary happened, and all of John Brass' hard work was about to come undone.

  “Look at that!” Elizabeth said, pointing at the window. On the outside sill, there sat the most enormous crow that Jane had ever seen. It was moving its head to and fro, as though trying to see into the room and who was there, before tapping its beak on the window three times. Both John Brass and Mills had paid the comment no mind and continued with their fight.

  A minute later, a second crow appeared and did exactly like the first. Then a third crow, and a fourth. When the fifth had made an appearance, John Brass could contain his curiosity no longer; his eyes were directed to the window, his mind taken away from the problem at hand. Mills did not wait to take his chance; grabbing a hold of his axe near its head, he smashed it into the side of John Brass' head. There was an instant crunching of bone, and the left
side of Brass' face was now sunken to a frightening degree. Blood ran from his left ear, and straight away he fell backwards and rolled to the floor, clutching at his face, howling with the pain. But Mills spared him no mercy, just as he had said he would not; the metallic head of the axe was brought time and again into John Brass' head, but from all sides.

  “Maybe I can knock some sense into that stupid head of yours!” Mills yelled as he continued with the blows unabated. John stopped moving now; he was surely unconscious or perhaps even dead. Never knowing such terror than she did right now, Jane wrapped her undamaged arm around Elizabeth's small waist and made for the door. But Mills was up in a flash; he got to the exit before she did and blocked the way of escape. Mills was panting heavily, but the exhilaration of the kill he had just made had the faint glow of light in his eyes dancing in delight.

  “Your brother showed me not the tiniest bit of respect, not ever, and now he has paid for his insolence with his life. So, Jane Brass, I offer you this one final chance to save your own soul. Will you leave this place with me, here and now, and agree to be my bride?”

  “After what you have just done to my brother, not a chance would I ever think of marrying you, even if you were the last man alive. If I am to pay for my decision with my life, then so be it; I have no chance of overpowering you, nor being able to run away from here. I thought help might have arrived by now, but I was wrong. So do what you will, Andrew Mills, but I want the promise of just one thing.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Elizabeth has never said a single bad word against you. She has harmed you in no way at all. Please, spare her life. I am ready to die as consequence for my own actions, but not my sister. She does not deserve to be hurt because of the wrongdoings of me, my brother and my father, whatever they may have been. Do you agree to let her live?” Mills looked at Elizabeth, cowering under the bedclothes. She had been his only true friend in all his time here.

  “She lives – for now” said Mills. “But you, Jane Brass, are to die the most horrendous of deaths that one could ever imagine. Every word, every look you have ever given me that has caused me pain will be repaid by a blow from my knife. For one so captivating to look at, I am going to make those fair features so repulsive that one would not want to keep their eyes on them for more than a second. But I am not a truly barbaric human being, as maybe your brother is...was. And so I will make this less of an ordeal for you by ensuring you are not conscious while it lasts.” He took two steps towards Jane before a gurgling, spluttering sound from across the room brought him to a stop. John wasn't dead! Badly injured most definitely, but still alive! Jane could have cried with joy.

  “Excuse me one moment, Miss Jane” Mills said politely, before drawing his knife from inside his trousers. He stood over the slightly-moving figure of John Brass groaning on the floor, took a firm grip on his knife and drew the blade swiftly across the throat of the downed man. A gush of blood poured from the wound, with the final dying breaths of John Brass causing some it to spray upward onto Mills' trousers, shirt and across his face. And then Brass was silent again.

  “Your brother is no more, and you will soon follow.” Jane stood up at the side of the bed, knowing there was no way now that she could change her own fate. She just prayed it would be over with quickly and that she would feel no great pain.

  *

  “How can you possibly not have the money to pay? I thought business was grand.” John Brass was sat at Robert Cutter's dining table, shaking his head. He swirled the last of his brandy around the bottom of the glass before gulping it down and setting the glass to one side.

  “It has been a success for as long as I care to remember” Cutter said in retort, “but some recent decisions have cost me dearly, I fear...”

  “What decisions?”

  “Well first, I should tell you that they were not my decisions, but William's. It has always been my intention to bring him into the business, and so what better time than when he is due to take your daughter as his wife? After all, he will need to be accustomed to earning a good wage so he might keep them both in fine living. So I have been teaching him parts of how to trade and by god he must have been paying attention, because he came up with the most ingenious of plans almost right away.”

  “And what would that plan be?”

  “I'm sure you are aware that shipping goods overseas for sale is not cheap” Cutter started. “William said he had an idea that would save us a lot of money, so naturally I was intrigued to hear it. Instead of the usual cargo ships, he said, why could we not export goods to the Americas and Australia on transportation ships instead? There was always room on those vessels, and the captain would be more than happy to take them for a few pounds, thought William. And so I approached three captains and all said they would be more than willing to do as I asked – for a small fee, of course.”

  “Of course” said Brass. “But are you out of your mind, man? Moving expensive cargo on ships laden with criminals? They have no insurance for carrying such things, for god's sake! And how might that cargo be taken ashore without being seen, having to pay the necessary taxes? I find it hard to believe you would agree to take part in such a hare-brained scheme! So might you tell me what happened to seemingly decimate your fortune so drastically?” Robert Cutter looked sullen, forlorn – probably embarrassed greatly.

  “I invested much of my fortune in many different products for exportation; wood, wine, nails, fine cloth – any number of different things. The captains of each of the three ships assured me they had done such things many times and always with success, so the cargo was loaded onto their ships and they sailed between five and six months ago.

  “The first ship was headed to the Americas. Not far from land, it was caught in a cyclone; the ship was badly damaged and eventually sank just a few miles from shore. Many of the crew and some of the transported prisoners managed to make it to land, but the cargo was lost and, I daresay, irretrievable. Even if it were to be hauled to the surface, it would still be ruined and of no use to anyone.

  “The second ship, which was to set sail for Australia, should have arrived over three months ago, yet no word has been heard on its whereabouts. It is speculated that the crew mutinied and a course set for one of the Pacific Islands, but that cannot be known for certain. What is certain is that the boat has disappeared, along with a lot of precious cargo and a large sum of my money.

  “The last ship had Van Dieman's Land as its destination, and I have it on good authority that the captain of the vessel decided to claim the cargo as his and sold it for a fraction of its worth. It is due back in Portsmouth inside the next week, and I would have travelled down there to make sure I got what I was due, but with all finances gone and no way to force the captain into paying without putting myself at risk of a jail sentence, I am made to believe that the cargo or the money I invested in it ever existed. I should have known something like this would happen, but it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. And there you have it; that is my story whether you choose to believe it or otherwise, but I simply do not have the money to pay Ridgway what he is due.”

  “Of all the ridiculous tales I have ever heard, there is still none that top what you have just told me” said Brass to Cutter. “How a successful man could be persuaded by a boy with no business knowledge to pour the major part of his fortune into such a scandalous plan is beyond me. Forgive me for saying this, Cutter, but I think you need your head examined, sir! Well, this changes many things...”

  “What do you mean?” asked Cutter, dreading what Brass might say next. He had yet to ask, but was depending on his friend to give him financial support.

  “Well for starters, it means that Jane was right. She came to me just a few short days ago and told me a story I believed was nothing but lies. She told me Mills had given her a message, passed on from George Bancks; he knew you were in debt to Ridgway and asked Mills to make sure Jane knew about it – he knew I wouldn't want my daughter marrying a man of
few means. I told her not to be so insolent – I struck her across the face, man! And for telling the truth! I should never have doubted my Jane, for she is such a bad liar that I can see it in her eyes if there is ever an untruth leaves her lips. When I get home this evening I shall be begging her forgiveness.”

  “And what of the wedding?” Elinor Cutter asked dubiously.

  “Well I would have thought that was obvious, my dear Elinor – it would be impossible for your son to marry my daughter now, after what I have learned here at this table.” Elinor raised a hand to her mouth, while Robert Cutter knew in his heart this would be the only outcome once the truth was known. Even Ridgway was feeling some sympathy for the man, but that did not mean he could pass up on the money he was owed.

  “But William is a kind and handsome young man – he will provide for Jane” said Elinor. John Brass was unable to stop himself from laughing at Elinor Cutter's assertion.

  “With no money, no work experience to speak of and certainly not a head for business, how do you propose he might do that, exactly?” And for that remark, Elinor Cutter had no reply. It was Ridgway who spoke next.

  “Mister Cutter, while it is a shame you have fallen on hard times, there is still the matter of a debt to be paid. Your losses were no fault of mine, and I should not have to bear the cost of a bad business decision made by your boy. If I am to start letting people get away without paying their dues, I will end up in the same position you find yourself now. I have worked too many hours to let that happen. So if you are unable to pay with cash, I will accept the amount of the debt in goods.”