Frankie went back to Pen. He pulled a baggie from his pocket and bit a hole into it. Then he upturned it and sprinkled its contents onto her exposed stomach. It was more cocaine, Andrew realised, and Frankie was intently forming a long, thick pile onto Penelope’s body. He used the edge of the kitchen scissors to separate the pile into several messy lines.
Once he was done, Frankie looked up at his followers and grinned. “Well, dig in, gangsters.”
Andrew watched helplessly as the teenagers took turns snorting coke off wife’s body, holding her down by the feet and wrists to keep her from squirming. After a while she just gave up struggling all together. She let them have their way.
Chapter Fourteen
Davie shook his head. Unbelievably, Frankie, the twins, and Michelle had all sat down in a huddle on the carpet to watch television. Davie chose to remain on the sofa and watch over the women like he’d been told. Unlike the others, he’d not snorted any coke and was completely sober. Watching them all now, stoned and transfixed by a documentary about climate change, he was glad about it. Davie did drugs sometimes, just weed mostly, but he’d always stayed away from the hard stuff. Fortunately, Frankie had never tried forcing it on him; otherwise he’d no doubt have been persuaded by now.
“Let us go,” Rebecca whispered from Davie’s left.
Davie looked at her and found himself caught by her soulful, dark eyes. For a moment he forgot that she’d even said anything.
“I said, let us go. Please.”
Davie shook his head. “I can’t. You’ll get my brother into trouble.”
Rebecca huffed. “He’s already in trouble. Kidnap is serious.”
“He hasn’t kidnapped anyone. You’re still at home.”
“It’s still kidnap. He’s holding us hostage. Davie, please.”
Hearing her say his name sent a shiver down Davie’s spine. Girls like Rebecca didn’t usually talk to him, let alone speak his name. Skanks like Michelle were more the type of girl he was used to being around. He shook his head once again, but this time tried to express how much he regretted the situation. He wanted her to know that if it were up to him, none of this would be happening. “I hate all this,” he said. “I really do, but Frankie’s my brother. Family comes first.”
“What about my family?” she asked. “Do they mean nothing? Innocent people that never hurt anyone?”
Davie shrugged. There was no right answer he could give. Frankie was his brother and that was that. It might not be right, but it was true. He would just have to trust Frankie as he had always done. Things would work out one way or another.
“Look what they’ve done to my mother,” Rebecca told him.
Davie looked to his right and examined Andrew’s wife. She was sprawled back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, unblinking. A dusty film of cocaine particles covered her naked body and thicker clumps of it clung to the fabric of her bra. Davie had to tell himself not to stare at her breasts.
“Do you know that she’s a special needs worker?” said Rebecca. “She teaches kids from broken homes, just like you. She tries to help people just like you.”
Davie knew the role of special needs teachers well – he’d dealt with many – and could agree that they were generally very kind people. None of them ever really did any good, though. Kids like Davie and his brother, Frankie, never had any chance for anything aside from turning out just like their deadbeat parents. In fact, special needs teachers succeeded only in giving false hope. Davie didn’t waste his time with such things.
“Be quiet,” he said. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Fine,” said Rebecca, “but by doing nothing, you are just as bad as they are.”
Is that true, thought Davie. Am I…bad?
Davie scanned the room, observing his brother and his girlfriend as they kissed and groped each other on the floor. Then he watched Dom and Jordan, scratching at their balls and laughing at a television program that wasn’t intended to be funny. Finally, Davie looked back at Andrew, who looked right back at him, eyes swollen half-shut either side of his crumpled nose. Davie shook his head and felt nothing but a confused ache in his concussed skull. I’m not bad. I’m not like Frankie. But I’m not good either, am I? But what can I do different? I’m powerless!
Or maybe I’m just weak…
Davie stared at the television and tried not to think anymore. He had a feeling that the truth would hurt him too much.
Chapter Fifteen
Horror melded with disgust inside Andrew’s stomach as the teenagers cavorted on the floor. Under the influence of grade-A drugs, Frankie’s lack of inhibitions persuaded him to pull off Michelle’s jeans and tug aside her skimpy panties. He then proceeded to enter the girl right there on the stinking carpet, rutting like a monkey on the Discovery Channel.
How can anyone be so…decadent? Frankie truly has no conception of other people’s feelings at all, does he? It’s almost like the world is just an illusion that revolves around him.
Andrew turned his head away as Frankie began to climax inside the girl, his naked buttocks clenching in coitus as he ejaculated for what seemed like forever. The sound of him cumming was like a wild animal being butchered, but, from only two feet away, Dom and Jordan lay watching television as if they hadn’t even noticed.
“You disgust me,” said Bex from the sofa.
Frankie pulled out of Michelle and Andrew cringed as a sloppy wet sound emanated from between them. He quickly stood up and refastened his jeans, then laughed right in Bex’s face while grabbing his crotch and shaking it. “Just jealous because you want to piece of this, too, darlin’. Don’t worry, though, maybe later if you’re lucky.”
“Never going to happen,” she said adamantly.
Frankie’s joking demeanour suddenly soured at that comment. “Hey! Show me some fucking respect or I’ll forget all about my offer of leaving you in one piece.”
Bex chose to say nothing and Andrew was relieved. If she just kept her mouth shut then perhaps the only one to suffer tonight would be him. The irony was that watching his daughter’s torment hurt Andrew far worse than anything Frankie could ever do to him directly. By staying quiet, Bex would be doing Andrew a kindness.
Frankie glanced at Andrew then motioned to Pen on the sofa. She was in a tortured daze, fixated on an invisible spot on the ceiling. Frankie chuckled at her. “I think she’s lost the plot, mate? She this lively in bed?”
Andrew laughed a bitter laugh. “You’re evil! Hell would be too good for you.”
“Maybe they’ll make a place just for me. Some deep, dark abyss where I don’t have to put up with pricks like you.”
Andrew’s eyebrows raised. “I’m the prick. That’s a good one.”
“You getting lippy with me, old man? I already broke your nose; want me to break something else?”
“Go right ahead. What difference is it going to make?”
Frankie grinned as if he knew something that no one else did. Without warning, he turned around and smacked Penelope in her ribs. She cried out in shock and then pain, before crumpling to the floor in winded agony. Frankie held his fist up to Andrew like a trophy and winked at him. “You piss me off; I’ll take it out on her. Sound good?”
Andrew didn’t speak. He was in hell; one where he could do nothing but watch the people he loved suffer.
Maybe that’s what hell really is? Not being punished yourself, but having to watch others suffer for your sins.
“I said does that sound good?” Frankie repeated.
Andrew nodded.
Frankie clapped his hands together. “Good. Glad that’s sorted. Now, get up and fight me.”
Andrew wondered whether he’d heard correctly. “What?”
Frankie raised both fists in an orthodox boxer’s stance. “I want to see what you got, old man.”
“I’m tied up,” said Andrew.
“I know that, you fuckin’ mug. Dom will let you loose, innit.”
Dom heard his name and looked up
from the television, fuzzy-eyed and half asleep.
Andrew thought about things for a second and decided this could be his only chance to escape; the only real opportunity he might have of getting away and reaching help. He had to take it.
“Okay, Frankie. I’ll fight you.”
Frankie started throwing punches in the air, fighting an invisible opponent. “Dom, get him loose,” he said between an uppercut and an overhand right. “Use the scissors – but keep a hold of ‘em.”
Lest I drive them into your fucking skull, thought Andrew bitterly. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins in fearful anticipation. Fighting was a skill way beyond him and he had little doubt that Frankie would whoop him in short order. But standing toe to toe with a barbaric thug was not the plan. Andrew had other intentions.
Dom hacked at the duct tape around Andrew’s body. With each passing second, Andrew felt the bonds loosen, the circulation returning to his arms. Several minutes later and he was finally free. He hopped up, wincing as the pressure in his kneecaps caused them to click painfully.
Frankie stood in front of him with clenched fists, holding them aloft his chin like a seasoned pugilist. “What shall we say? Three-minute rounds? Or shall we just fight till a knock-out?”
Andrew took the opportunity, one last time, to try and reason with Frankie. “You don’t have to do this, Frankie,” he said. “You can just leave right now. No one blames you for any of this. Your mother has obviously failed you.”
The comment seemed to strike a chord with Frankie. His clenched fists lowered slightly. But then he spat onto the carpet. “Bitch has nothing to do with me.”
Andrew nodded. “I know and that’s a shame. No one deserves to be raised like that.”
“You don’t know shit! Not a thing, so don’t play the caring soul with me. People like you couldn’t give two shits about people like me.”
“Yeah,” said Michelle. “Just put his lights out, Frankie.”
Frankie nodded to his girlfriend and raised his fists again, ready to fight. He rang an imaginary bell, “Ding! Ding!” and then came forward.
With Frankie approaching like a viper ready to strike, Andrew made his own move. He dashed for the living room door.
“The fucker’s trying to do one,” said Jordan from the floor.
Andrew shoved through the door and barrelled into the hallway. He turned to his right and sprinted for the porch. His plan was to rush into the street and cry for help with everything he had. His neighbours may not come out to help, but he was sure at least one of them would call the police. This would all be over soon.
When he reached the porch, something that could only be terror seized him.
The front door was locked.
“Looking for these?” asked Frankie, jangling a set of keys in his hand. He was leaning out the living room doorway and looking at Andrew like a trapped animal.
Andrew was cornered inside his very own home. It may as well have been some dark deserted alleyway for all the safety it provided now. It had become a torture dungeon over the last few hours. He looked around and snatched at the first thing he saw, which turned out to be a golfing brolly. He lunged forward, holding the long, metal umbrella in front of him like a pike.
Frankie dodged back into the living room. “The fuck you going to do with that? Catch the blood that’s gonna be raining down when I’m done with you?”
Andrew considered the viability of his weapon and realised it wasn’t going to do any good – at least not enough to win a fight. The only option left was to keep trying to make a run for it – but to where?
Andrew eyed the stairs. With panic threatening to explode his heart, he made a break for it. Frankie tried to grab him as he passed, but he managed to fend him off by poking the umbrella into his face. The sharp point found its mark and caused Frankie to flinch back against the wall, clutching his eye.
“Fuckin’ dead man!” he shouted after Andrew. “I’m going to mess you up.”
Andrew rushed up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. Frankie continued shouting hateful threats from the floor below, rallying his drug-addled troops into battle. Andrew sped across the landing and headed for the only room he knew that had a lock: the bathroom. Once inside, Andrew slammed the door shut behind him and turned the lock to engaged. Then he dragged the wooden linen hamper across the tiled floor and used it as a barricade. He collapsed on top of it, placing his back against the door, huffing and puffing like a marathon runner. It would all be for nothing, though, Andrew quickly realised. The bathroom door was thin and wouldn’t hold out for long.
He was trapped.
In any other room of the house Andrew could have escaped through one of the windows, or at the very least cry out for help, but the bathroom had only a slim horizontal pane of frosted glass set high into the wall. Even if he broke the glass it was too small to get through.
Andrew leant his head back against the door and closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before Frankie arrived and started to kick his way inside.
***
“You’re a dead man,” said Frankie, thrusting another kick at the door.
The wood at Andrew’s back was already cracked, splintered, and weakening further with every blow. Andrew pushed against it, trying to brace the wood, but he already knew that it was a lost cause. Frankie was going to get through eventually.
Andrew checked out his surroundings; the bathroom now seemed alien to him. Once a room where he could relax, de-stress, and release the worries of the day, it was now his prison; a cage where he was the rat trapped inside.
Another kick struck the door and rattled the fragile woodwork of the frame. Andrew stepped away from the door and begun rifling through the bathroom’s wall cabinets, but he couldn’t find a single thing to defend himself with (unless toothpaste had recently been reclassified as a deadly weapon). The recently-renovated bathroom was a jewel of modernist design – which meant it was pretty much empty.
Andrew put his hands on the only thing that seemed even slightly useful and pulled. The chrome towel rail came away from the wall easily, the thin cavity wall offering little resistance. The quality of newer built homes did not compare to the industrious design of Victorian housing, but Andrew was thankful for it right now. However it was also the reason that a large, cracking dent was widening in the middle of the bathroom’s flimsy door. Frankie was going to get through soon and Andrew prepared himself for it; the option of running no longer available.
“You’re finished, old man,” Frankie shouted through the door, rage filling his voice like steaming liquid into a beaker. “Going to string you up and let your family watch you hang!”
“Yeah,” said a female voice that could only have been Michelle. “But I’m going to stamp on your head first, you pedo!”
Andrew could hear Dom and Jordan on the landing as well, but could not make out their words – it was just laughter mostly. It sounded like a party out there. The whole gang is here; ready to get their pound of flesh.
A desperate anger started to occupy Andrew, an instinct reserved only for when fleeing was no longer an option – a sudden spark of insanity that infected an animal inescapably cornered: the willingness to fight to the death. Andrew clutched the towel rail above his head and told himself it was a mighty broadsword. He pictured that his attackers were pillaging Vikings coming to take his land and women.
Frankie continued kicking at the door.
The wood splintered.
Cracked.
Caved.
Before the door gave way completely, Frankie gave one last hefty kick that splintered it away from the frame. It flew open, pushing aside the linen basket that lay against it. Frankie poked his head through the gap and grinned maniacally. “Hey man, what you up to? Guy spends too long in the bathroom and it starts to look a little…unsavoury. You know what I mean?”
Andrew huffed defiantly, still clutching the towel rail above his head. “Nice word. You learn that today? Here’s another one for
you – pussy!”
Frankie lunged into the bathroom.
Andrew swung the towel rail.
The blow connected with Frankie’s head. He stumbled backwards and the rear of his thighs struck the lip of the room’s bathtub. He lost his balance and tumbled right into the tub.
Andrew took advantage of the situation and made a run for it. But Jordan and Dom blocked his escape; twin slabs of granite extinguishing his hopes of salvation. Before the twins had chance to react, Andrew swung the towel rail again. The blow missed both targets and struck the battered frame of the doorway, but it was enough to make the twins flinch and step aside.
Andrew suddenly found himself facing an open doorway. There was no place he could think of running that would be any safer than the bathroom, but at least for now he was no longer trapped. He had options again.
Andrew was just about to race out into the hallway when something bit into his calf muscle; a white-hot jolt that travelled up his entire leg. He tumbled down to one knee, glancing over his shoulder to see what had pierced his flesh. He saw Frankie standing over him, grinning and licking blood from his flick knife.
“What are we going to do with you?” he said, and then stamped on Andrew’s face, sending him swirling into unconsciousness.
Chapter Sixteen
Davie sat in the living room listening to the ruckus upstairs. Andrew’s wife and daughter were sat beside him and both of them shuddered with every sound. “It will be okay,” Davie told them. “They’ll all be gone soon. My brother’s just having a laugh.”
Rebecca looked at him like he was an idiot. “A laugh? Are you insane? Someone is going to end up dead and you’ll be just as much to blame as your psycho brother.”
Davie shook his head. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Wake up, you dickhead. Your brother’s dragged you into this. You’re the one keeping an eye on us – that makes you one of the kidnappers. You’ll rot in jail unless you let us go right now.”
ASBO: A Novel of Extreme Terror Page 11