Kill All Kill All

by Craig McNish

  “Michelle Roach!” Mills yelled at the iPad he had grabbed hold of, giving Roach cause to drop hers at the sound of his voice. “I know not how you carry out such a trick as to speak with me through this thing that I am holding, but now you know exactly with whom your idle conversation is attempting to draw out of this place! You have just seen of what I am capable, and that is only the tiniest fraction of what I will do should you try another ruse! If this thing that I hold allows you to see what I am doing here, then you will watch this and know that I am not a fool!” Hawkins and a few others gathered around Roach, unable to take their eyes off the screen as Mills conversed with Cutter. When Mills had stopped speaking, Cutter looked terrified but complied with whatever request her captor must have given. This quickly became apparent when the iPad was placed so as to show the coffee table in the centre of the room, with Cutter being forced to kneel down and lie her head upon it, looking directly into the camera.

  “Oh fuck...” Roach whispered as Mills took up position at the opposite side of the table, to Cutter's left side and also facing the camera. A shimmering light appeared and dissipated quickly, leaving an axe in Mills' grasp. The detective felt a warm stream of water running down her leg as Mills raised the axe above his head, closing her eyes as he brought it down rapidly.

  “If you try and trick me again, Miriam Cutter's severed head will be tied around the neck of her horse and sent down the pathway to you. Tell Charlotte Cutter to be here by six and not one second later, or her mother dies.”

  “But you said eight earlier!” Simpson protested.

  “Then you should not have tried to get the best of me, sir! Unless you wish to see Miriam Cutter die, her daughter will be allowed to arrive here no later than six. If she does not, then I will vent my fury on any living being who crosses my path!” The transmission ended when Mills' axe blade smashed into Cutter's iPad. Hawkins surveyed the scene around him; it was calmer now, but closed groups still discussed what had just happened and what they could possibly do next. The pressure weighed heavily on Hawkins' shoulders to find a solution, and with only three and a half hours remaining before Mills' deadline ended, there wasn't a lot of time to do it. The one thing he did remain thankful for was that Rachel Lomas was nowhere to be seen.

  *

  Jane Parkes stopped her idle channel-hopping when a news program from an American station was showing reports from a young English reporter by the name of Rachel Lomas. The words were almost tripping over themselves to get out of Lomas' mouth so didn't make a great deal of sense, but the pictures being played said it all.

  “Oh my god!”

  Parkes watched in wide-eyed horror as a massive amount of crows – over a hundred easily, she guessed – attacked a group of what she assumed to be police officers trying to gain access to the farmhouse. She too was quick to spot that not all of the group were suffering from the onslaught, and also noticed at the periphery of the scene a few lone birds swooping down on one woman in particular from a group of three, though why she did not know. It seemed they were being very selective in their attacks, almost as if they were going to great lengths to avoid hurting the innocent.

  The innocent. What did that mean, exactly? To Parkes it just seemed the correct term to use at that moment, but now she started to think that it did have greater meaning. There'd been no mention from the reporter about deadlines or potential executions, luckily because Lomas had no idea any threats or demands had been made, but it was obvious to Parkes that Mills was exerting his growing force and she knew it was time to get involved again. It was her who had brought him here so she was the one who would have to send him away. She had no idea how, but it had to happen soon.

  Parkes took a minute to look at something on her computer, then grabbed her coat and keys as she bolted for the door.

  *

  “You okay?” Hawkins asked an ashen-faced Roach. She didn't speak, but nodded rapidly a few times. Her hands were still shaking. Hawkins looked at her for a few seconds before leaving her alone to calm down, heading off to find the rest of his team and hopefully come up with a plan B. It was close on three o' clock; they had maybe two hours at best to find a solution and work it through before it was put into practice. There was no doubt in the detective's mind that Mills would make good on his threat, and he had no intention of letting that happen. There was a knock on the incident room door; it was opened and a WPC who was posted at the cordon popped her head around the gap.

  “Detective Hawkins?”

  “What is it, Constable?”

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but there's a lady here who says she has to speak with you. I told her to wait by the cordon until I spoke with you first.”

  “Did she give you her name?”

  “Yes sir. A young lady by the name of Jane Parkes.” Hawkins looked directly at the WPC, a little shocked to hear the name.

  “Parkes? What the hell is she doing down here? Okay, bring her down, would you?” The constable gave an affirmative response and went to acquire her target. They returned a few minutes later and Parkes was shown inside. Hawkins didn't even have a chance to speak before she started to ask questions.

  “I've just seen the news report. What the hell is going on up there?”

  “I wish I knew.” Hawkins shrugged his shoulders and collapsed into a nearby chair. He was exhausted. “I get a radio call from the CO of the entry team to say they've encountered a situation and to stand by. Next thing I see is this massive black cloud of birds chasing my men back across the field, away from the farmhouse. I'm amazed none of them were killed, truth be told. Then Mills starts saying about how he wants to speak to Charlotte and...”

  “Charlotte? Who's that?” Parkes interrupted.

  “Miriam Cutter's daughter – they're the current tenants at the farmhouse. So then Mills tells us that because of what we did that Charlotte has to be there for six pm now and not eight, like he first asked. And if we don't send her up there in time then...” Hawkins slammed the side of his open hand down on a table. “Off comes her head.”

  “Oh shit. And you think he would really do it?”

  “No doubt in my mind” Hawkins said with great certainty. “I could see it in his eyes when Roach was talking to him.”

  “Hang on a minute. You've talked to Andrew Mills face to face?”

  “In a sense. We had a webcam connection, talked to him through that. Our plan was to keep him distracted long enough to get our entry team inside, then put Charlotte on and say she was upstairs in her bedroom. Hopefully we would lure Mills up there and lock him in long enough to get Miriam Cutter to safety and bring in reinforcements to subdue Mills and take him into custody.” Parkes cocked her head slightly as if to say that it hadn't been such a bad idea. Then she had an idea of her own.

  “This webcam connection; can you get it going again so I can speak to him?”

  “Mills put an axe through Cutter's iPad so I doubt it.” Parkes shivered visibly when Hawkins told her this.

  “Can I see the footage you have from your webcam conversation? I assume you recorded it all?”

  “As evidence” nodded Hawkins. “But I don't see how you're going to find anything useful from it, and we're already on borrowed time.”

  “Please, just humour me. I've been up close and personal with Mills for longer than anyone so might be able to find something in there that can help you. There might be a clue, like there was in the news footage.” Hawkins found his interest aroused.

  “What clue in the news footage?”

  “You haven't seen it? Well out of the five guys running back from the house, two of them were left alone almost completely. And in one shot towards the end of the report you can see just at the edge of the screen in the background that one woman from a group of three who were standing talking was being attacked by a few crows. The birds showed no interest at all in the other two.”

  “And this helps us how?”

  “Something Mills told me, while we were together” Parkes st
arted. “When he was in prison, one of the guards – Laxe, I think he said his name was – told him that crows can remember the faces of their enemies, and even get reinforcements to help them fight back. I remembered that after I saw the report and checked on the internet – it's true.”

  “I still don't see how this helps us any...”

  “The crows only perceive certain individuals as a threat” Parkes reiterated. “In the same way that Mills recognises in us people he knew from his own time, so the crows must be the same. Maybe if you were to draft in officers from outside the area they would go unrecognised and be able to gain entry to the house unscathed.” Hawkins didn't look convinced.

  “Assuming you're right about this recognition thing; even if I had the time to being in more distant officers it's still only a guess. I need facts I can work with, not theories, urban legends or old wives tales.” Parkes felt put out by the quick dismissal of her suggestion but thought it better not to argue her point. Maybe a sarcastic truth would work better instead.

  “Well considering your detection skills didn't pick up on the selective attacks by the crows which is there for all to see, maybe there's something in the conversations you had with Mills via webcam that's staring you in the face as well. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh pair of eyes, not years of skill and deduction accrued by a dedicated police detective.” Parkes added that last sentence in an appeal to Hawkins' ego, and it worked.

  “Okay” he said. “I'll sit you down with Roach. Tell her what you see that we apparently missed.”

  Only two hours seventeen minutes remained until Mills' deadline when Hawkins got a call from Detective Roach to say she wanted to speak with him urgently. With his mind devoid of ideas, he could only hope they had found something that would put them on the front foot very soon. As he approached, he could see the two women chatting and Roach making various notes. Hawkins hoped the news they had was good, but didn't feel optimistic.

  “Any luck?” He directed his query at Roach.

  “I'm not sure how much of it will be any good but we have found a few things, boss.”

  “And?” Now Hawkins was looking to Parkes for answers. She looked over her notes briefly before she spoke.

  “I think we have a way in” she declared. “I've picked up on things that make me believe Andrew Mills isn't the pure evil we make him out to be. We can still get through the good in him, I know it.” Hawkins held up a hand indicating that Parkes should stop talking.

  “I could have swore you told me this was urgent when you called, Roach. Believe me, I feel like swearing – a lot. I thought you were going to give me at least one lead I could follow up, but this sounds like nothing more than a bad Hollywood horror movie, for fuck's sake!”

  “Exactly right!” Parkes shouted, catching Hawkins off guard. “It's an act, and not a very good one. I can understand how someone like you might take it at face value, Detective Hawkins, but I'm a student of drama and as such always analyse performances of others. Acting isn't just about delivering a series of lines; things like expression and movement are also very much to the fore. I've watched this footage twice over and I'm convinced that Mills is trying to break free from the grip of evil. Let me show you.” Hawkins took a seat to the right of Parkes, with Roach still sat to her left. Both watched and listened carefully as Parkes started to deliver her own opinion.

  “When Mrs Cutter is talking to you” she said to Hawkins, “see how she keeps glancing out of the corner of her eye? Now, Detective Roach showed me the room plans Charlotte drew up, and based on her seating position it isn't Mills she's looking at. You mentioned bad actors; the really poor ones have been seen at times in movies doing this because they're looking for a prompt, their next line. So Cutter is trying to give the impression she's calm but can't stop herself looking for a prompt. Mills would have to be staring her in the face to even notice but it seems he was sat here.” Parkes indicated a chair on the room plan a few feet away. “He doesn't feel the need to interject in any way so obviously feels no kind of threat is imminent.

  “She seems genuinely confused when you start talking about the weather but see how her lower jaw starts to tremor just a minute later? She's relieved when she finds out help is on the way and stops glancing one way and quickly looks in the other. Now she's wondering how they're going to deal with Mills, where they'll enter the room from and is she going to get hurt in the process.”

  “Go on, I'm listening...”

  “Then Mills starts talking with Detective Roach, and his face gives so much away it's untrue. See how he's caught so off guard when he has the iPad shoved into his hands? Now for the most part he looks a bit flustered and embarrassed, but see how the side of his mouth curled slightly? He's not happy about being put in the spotlight – that is the real Andrew Mills. And see how his eyes flashed red for a fraction of a second? There's the anger reasserting itself.” Parkes played the section back a couple of times, pausing on the change in eye colour. Roach was astounded; she was concentrating so hard on not messing up at the time it had gone completely unnoticed.

  “Mills isn't looking for any kind of prompt at all, simply because he doesn't need one. As himself, he feels comfortable in his surroundings with no reason to suspect anyone will harm him, but when the evil takes over he feels powerful and maybe even invincible so knows no fear. His expression there is soft, quizzical – that's the benign Andrew Mills.

  “Detective Roach did a brilliant job of keeping Mills in control of his own body, but watch this...” Parkes held up a finger. “There! Did you see it?”

  “See what?” Parkes frowned when Hawkins answered and replayed the section of footage again. For less than a second, Mills appeared to tense his body before it relaxed again. Not only that, but his voice was also a fraction deeper and slower than previously.

  “That tensing of the body was reminiscent of pain, not unknown but certainly not expected. You have that before the change in voice pitch and now it's not Andrew Mills any more. It's whatever's inside of him, controlling his body and mind.” Even Hawkins could easily see when Mills pricked up his ears a few moments later.

  “He's heard something?”

  “From outside the house or inside his mind, yes. It was just before the crows attacked – we checked the timeline. So he has some kind of telepathic link with the crows outside and made them do what they did. I know that sounds ridiculous but see how his mouth moved there? No words came out that we could hear, but if I had to guess I'd say it was some kind of command for the crows to attack. Or it could be that he wanted to shout out some kind of warning but his voice was suppressed. But even that didn't stop him trying to fight back.”

  “What do you mean?” Hawkins was still having his doubts but his own well of ideas had run dry. He owed it to Parkes to at least hear her out.

  “Mrs Cutter had calmed down significantly by the time she gave the iPad to Mills and had no reason to believe your plans had gone too far awry; help was still coming and she would be free soon. So when Mills told her he was about to cut her head off she should have either broke down in tears and begged for her life, smacked him in the head and kicked him in the nuts to try and incapacitate him or just bolted for the exit. Those would have been logical responses.

  “But they talk for a few seconds and while he has definitely asked Mrs Cutter for her help to set up the iPad so you could all see what was going on, it seems Mills told her he had no intention of going through with the execution. She puffs out her cheeks and gets things prepared far too quickly; it's relief and she wants it over ASAP. I know you can see her shaking a bit when she kneels down but that's just the bad acting you mentioned. She's never going to win an Oscar for that crying performance, is she?” Parkes smiled wryly, and as Hawkins studied the images he could see there was a definite truth in what the girl was saying. He'd told all of his officers to start thinking outside the box and here he was, doing just the opposite. Hawkins suddenly began to feel ashamed of himself, and Parkes still wasn't fini
shed with her commentary.

  “We were lucky on this part that Mills decided to get right in the camera's face or I'd probably have missed it completely. There are two things that really stand out when he makes the demand for Charlotte to return to the house” Parkes said, pausing the playback. “Watch carefully and see if you can tell what they are.” Playback was resumed and Hawkins kept his eyes focussed on the screen.

  “So what did you see?” Parkes asked eagerly.

  “It's more what I didn't hear that leads me to believe you could be right with everything you've said” he told a puzzled Parkes. “He literally shouted that last line into the camera directly – there was no way Cutter couldn't have heard it. I don't have kids but I would bet that any parent hearing their child should be turned over into the hands of a killer would be yelling something like 'don't do it!' or just start screaming like a baby. I can't even hear if she's crying.”

  “Well I have to admit I didn't think of that” Parkes said sheepishly, “but if you look at the shape of his mouth when he says 'six' you can tell he was trying to say something else. Looks like he was forced to say something he didn't want to. The thing that really concerns me though were the red lights...”

  “Red lights? I didn't see any red lights...”

  “Because you weren't looking for them. This is going to sound strange but you were trying to see his words – 'visualise what he was saying' might be more accurate. In other words, you were concentrating so much on what he had to say you never thought to look for anything else. It was simply a case of listening for his demands and trying to work out how to counter them. But communication also includes body language – expressions and gestures. The whole of the time he's delivering that final demand and the threat to go with it, there's a red light in his eyes. It's not as fierce as I've seen it, but it was twinkling in the same way a star looks like it shimmers in the night sky. I only used the pocket magnifier Detective Roach gave me but couldn't believe what I saw. I know you'll probably laugh when I say this but I could swear down that light was in the shape of a bird. I'm not finished...” Parkes said when Hawkins opened his mouth to say something. “You'll see a whole lot more if you look down into his throat, just before he moves away from the camera and throws his axe at the iPad.” Parkes found the relevant piece of footage and paused it in precisely the right place.