National Emergency

by Jobling, James

  “Let him go or I’ll blow her fuckin’ head off!”

  Instinctively, Ethan loosened his grip on the boy, taking a delicate step forward. His mother was sobbing, shaking her head from side to side. She looked like a slobbering St. Bernard. Ethan silently wondered how many more tears her eyes could produce.

  “Let her go,” Ethan said.

  “Put the knife on the table.”

  Ethan defiantly shook his head. “Let her go first.”

  “I said put the fuckin’ knife on the table!”

  “No!”

  “Now!”

  A loud crack exploded in the room, instantly followed by a blinding flash. Ethan balked backwards, clashing with a hard-backed dining chair, falling on his backside. His mother screamed high-pitched and, as it became evident the youth had fired a warning shot into the ceiling, Ethan mistook raining plaster for bloody sputum. He jumped to his feet and tossed the steak knife on the table. It glided across the polished surface and clanked against the candlestick holder, which had somehow remained upright throughout Ethan’s collision.

  “Next bullet goes in the back of her nut,” the youth warned.

  “I dropped the knife. I did what you wanted.”

  “Now let him go.”

  Ethan nodded. He couldn’t ignore the bonfire of hatred smouldering inside of his pounding heart, yet he had no other choice than to release the young boy, who scampered around the table, cockily readjusting the collar of his T-shirt as he went.

  Nice going, arsehole; your mother and best mate are about to be killed because you got your arse handed to you off a fucking ten-year-old boy!

  “Where’s the safe?” the acne-plagued youth demanded to know, skulking around the dining table, slipping the serrated blade of the steak knife down the back of his jogging trousers.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Ethan forced the words out of the dry chasm that was his mouth.

  “You’ve a safe, right?”

  “What?”

  “You’re minted, apparently. Don’t trust banks.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “Your brother. Just before I blew his fuckin’ brains out!”

  Ethan forced back a sob. “You bastard!”

  “And then some. Now where’s the safe?”

  “Is that was this is about?”

  “I won’t ask you again.”

  “You killed my brother! You killed my stepfather! You killed my fucking dog!” Spittle lathered the yob’s face. “You killed them all for a fucking robbery!”

  “If it’s any consolation, you’re about to join them. Now where’s the safe?”

  “You people are sick!”

  “I’ve heard it all before.”

  “No, I mean you may be sick. There’s an infection spreading throughout Britain tonight. It’s all over the news. People like you are being turned into—”

  The yob lunged forward before Ethan could finish, aiming the Beretta against Ethan’s sweaty forehead. The stench of broiled gunpowder made Ethan’s eyes water

  “Go on then!” Ethan blared. “Do it! What are you waiting for? Come on, shoot me, you fucking pussy!”

  The door behind him unexpectedly smashed open, and another lout barged into the room. Ethan’s heart lurched like a chained Rottweiler when he saw Karris get dragged, kicking, screaming, into the dining room. The yob holding the Beretta stepped back as his comrade brutally forced Karris against the table.

  What the fuck? Where’s Lincoln?

  “Karris,” Ethan croaked. “Karris, are you okay? Have they hurt you?” Before she could answer, he turned his attention towards the fucker with the gun. “Let her go. I’ll tell you where the money is. You can have all of it. Just let my wife go. Please!”

  The punk that had yanked Karris into the room turned towards Ethan, glaring, eyes sceptic, dissecting the builder from beneath the peak of his baseball cap. He was wearing cargo shorts and a blue polo T-shirt with the collar erect. A pair of trainers were laced to his feet, looking like they probably cost more than Ethan’s house. “What’s all of this bollocks that he’s jabbering about an infection?”

  “Bullshit, mate. No worries.”

  “It’s not bullshit!” Ethan bellowed. “I wish to God it was!”

  “Ain’t heard anything. What about you, Kieran?”

  “Nah, bro,” the one apparently called Kieran answered. “I haven’t heard nothin’.”

  “I’m telling the truth!” Ethan roared.

  “We don’t fuckin’ believe you, mate.”

  “Stretch, get him to tell you where this fuckin’ safe is so we can go!”

  “For fucks sake!” Ethan cursed at the top of his lungs. “I don’t know all the facts, okay? All I’ve heard is an infection of some kind has spread across England – maybe even the whole world – tonight. Like I said, I don’t know much about it.”

  “Sounds like you don’t know shit!”

  “Have you vomited?” Ethan whirled around, staring directly at Kieran. “Had a high temperature? Have you been lethargic? Did you choose to kill two people tonight or did you become overwhelmed to kill them before they killed you?”

  “I ain’t been sick,” Kieran said. He kept engaging and disengaging the safety on the Beretta as he paced back and forth.

  “Yeah, you have.”

  Kieran glared through eyes as wide as saucers at Stretch.

  “We’ve all been sick,” Stretch said. “I’ve been throwing up pigs in blanket all day.”

  “It’s just the nutty bhang we smoked—”

  “Look, if you let my wife go,” Ethan said, purposely cutting Kieran off, figuring he would have a better chance of negotiating with the comically named Stretch, “then I will do everything in my power to stop you from going to jail. You’re sick. You have no control over what you’re doing. Please, just let my family go. We can work something—”

  “I’ve had enough of your shit!” Kieran bellowed. He pulled back the hammer on the Beretta and aimed the muzzle once more at Ethan’s head. Karris whimpered like a badly-treated puppy. Ethan glared directly into Kieran’s soul; the pad of the youth’s finger brushed against the stiff trigger.

  Ethan sidestepped Kieran, grabbing the gun by the barrel, wrapping his fingers around it, yanking Kieran forward at the same time and blasting his elbow into the boy’s nose. He heard Karris yowl feverishly, heard Kieran grunt in pain, heard the cartilage snap, heard his mother mumbling “nmn” “nmn” “nmn” into the black tape covering her mouth. Strong hands gripped his shoulders and pulled him backwards, wrenching him away from Kieran as though he was a car wreck connected to a tow truck. Ethan’s hands covered his head as a volley of lefts and rights lashed him.

  Bryan strained every muscle in both of his arms trying to break free of the entrapment of the chair. He screamed for Karris to unfasten him, but the gaffer tape transformed his pleas into frenzied panic. Belinda was crying, mascara, snot, lathering her face, looking like pond water algae. Ethan tried to reach for her, but Stretch clung to him, biting, clawing, leaving Ethan with no other choice than to turn and wrap his arms around Stretch’s skinny waist, interlocking fingers, tossing the scumbag over the table. He landed on his back with a loud crash.

  Ethan turned and grabbed a handful of Kieran’s greasy mop, yanking him away from the Beretta, spinning him, smashing the joint of his knee into the fucker’s stomach, bringing an elbow crashing down as though it was a priceless chandelier from a classic 80’s sitcom. Kieran collapsed to the floor and Ethan turned like a medieval killing machine, snatching a glimpse of the ten-year-old boy charging forwards and roaring … before reflex thwarted morals and Ethan punched the boy under the chin with a perfect uppercut. The boy went down and didn’t move again.

  Now on a perfect roll, Ethan turned back to Kieran, grabbing his ankle just before he could crawl to the Beretta, forgetting all about the steak knife, though. Kieran jerked it free, carving at Ethan’s forearm as though it was a juicy hog roast, slashing, tea
ring, jaggedly ripping open Ethan’s arm, blood pouring free. Ethan roared like a grieving lioness, falling away and landing on his back, clamping his good hand to the wound, temporarily stemming the flow, aware that only a nurse with a degree in embroidery would be able to stitch it back together.

  Stretch scrambled around the table towards Ethan, but Bryan managed to push himself away from the table. The chair he was still connected to smashed Stretch in the ribs, slapping him up against the wall. The wooden legs snapped, though, forcing both men to the floor. Bryan, at an obvious disadvantage because his hands were still coupled to the chair, managed to find a sprinkling of that good luck he had always been blessed with and he landed on top of Stretch. The gaffer tape was torn free. Teeth quickly sank into the carbuncle of flesh that Stretch’s deltoid offered; biting down, drawing blood, not stopping, teeth sinking further, white pearls turning red.

  Kieran spun Ethan around and threw a punch, which the builder was quick to duck. Ethan charged forwards, the curve of his shoulder smashing the youth in the stomach. Groping fingers wrapped around the youth’s throat, squeezing. Kieran still had plenty of fight left in him, though, and he grabbed Ethan in a chokehold of his own; both men crushing the other’s oesophagi, squashing air from deflating lungs.

  “Take your hands off my son!”

  The words were more heroic than Eliot Ness calling up his Untouchables or Yul Brynner hiring six Magnificent gunslingers; more passionate than the Duke kissing Maureen O’Hara in a rain-scorched graveyard; more defining than Charlton Heston screaming “you blew it all up!” to a hint of liberation poking out of the shoreline.

  Ethan watched—mesmerised—as a blood-smeared Harold Singleton staggered into the doorway, Beretta gripped in one shaky hand, and aimed the gun directly at Kieran.

  “Take your fucking hands off my son!”

  CHAPTER 22

  Ethan managed to coax a smile onto his face.

  Belinda sobbed loudly as the wraith of her broken heart returned in time to stop her youngest son from being murdered in front of her eyes.

  “Harry,” Ethan whispered, hands still clasped around Kieran’s throat. Bryan rolled to one side, hissing for Karris to untie him. She didn’t move. She didn’t even hear him.

  Kieran ignored the bleeding relic in the doorway and renewed his efforts to try to get the better of Ethan.

  “I said take your hands off my son!” Harold shouted. He staggered unsteadily into the dining room, one hand holding the Beretta, the other clutching the bloody crater engraved in the back of his skull. It looked as though someone had dyed his Hawaiian shirt dark red. “I won’t tell you again, you little shit!”

  Ethan stared into the two hate-fuelled eyes of Kieran and could not stop the cocky grin from widening and spreading across his stubbly features. “Well, you heard the man.”

  “No, Ethan,” Harold snarled. “I’m talking to you.”

  And it was then that realisation crept up on Ethan like a Greek army sneaking towards sleeping Trojans. Ethan swallowed hard when he noticed the Beretta was pointing directly at him.

  “Take your hands off my son, Ethan.”

  The words were fucking dreadful.

  “Your son?” Ethan’s voice sounded like air trapped in a clogged pipe. “Son? He’s your son?”

  “That’s right,” said Harold, limping into the room, walking as though he had space boots on. With a trembling hand, he aimed the Beretta at Ethan, holding his other hand out to Kieran. Horrified, Ethan watched as the youth was plucked free from his grasp. He saddled up beside his father, obnoxiously brushing Ethan’s fingerprints from the front of his coat. “They’re both my boys.” He nodded his head towards Stretch, who was still on the floor, his back against the wall, a bloody spot on his chest courtesy of Bryan’s gnashing fangs.

  “Who’s he then?” Ethan asked, nodding towards the unconscious boy. “Let me guess: your fucking love child?”

  “Jordan? Oh, no, he’s not mine; he’s my nephew.”

  “What’s going on here, Harry?” Ethan shook his head, refusing to believe what he was hearing. He looked over to his sobbing mother. “What does he mean, Mum?”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes. Karris crossed the room, removing Belinda’s gag and snapping the adhesive tape, freeing her hands. She rose unsteadily to her feet, standing like she was on the deck of a fishing boat caught in the perfect storm.

  “Hey, princess,” Harold chuckled, glancing over the table to Belinda. “Sorry you had to find out like this.”

  “Oh, Harold,” she sobbed. She pushed a freed hand through her shoulder-length hair, a combination of sweat and hair lacquer making it look as though she was wearing Something About Mary hair gel.

  “Harold, darling, these are very bad people.”

  “Belinda, love, they are just misunderstood.”

  “Misunderstood?” Ethan placed his hands on the table, hanging his head in disbelief. A bloody handprint smeared the smooth oak. “Harry, they almost beat you to death.”

  “I know,” Harold laughed, glancing over to Kieran. “You did go a little too far.”

  “Dad, you said make it look convincing.”

  Harold smiled that crooked grin. “How can I argue with that? Where’s your sister?”

  Belinda howled; her voice a monochrome of raw guilt.

  “She didn’t make it. They killed her.” Kieran pointed an accusatory finger across the table at Belinda. “She killed her.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, boy?”

  “Leanne’s dead, Dad! She stabbed her!”

  Harold reeled against the wall, lowering the Beretta as the news of his daughter’s death soaked into his concussed brain. He rubbed a grubby hand across his bloodshot eyes, swiping away tears. A puddle of blood painted his shadow a vivid red. “You…” his voice broke, failed him. “You… killed my little girl?”

  “Your precious little girl,” Belinda screamed. “Your bastard boys killed my son!”

  “Thought they’d killed you, too,” Ethan added.

  “No such luck,” said Bryan.

  “Shut up!” Harold roared. “I’m talking to her!”

  “Tough shit,” said Ethan. “Why don’t you tell us about tonight, Harry?”

  Harold disregarded Ethan with a wave of the gun. He turned towards Kieran. “You sure she’s dead?”

  Kieran nodded. “Fuckin’ died in my arms, didn’t she?”

  “Did you get the safe?”

  “Not yet. Little pussy was about to tell me where it is before the shit hit the fan.”

  “Did you check the garage?”

  Ethan stepped directly in front of Harold. “Check the garage for what, Harry?” He looked from Harold to Kieran, Stretch to Jordan. The penny finally dropped.

  “You goddamn son of a bitch,” Ethan said, smiling humourlessly. “You… goddamn son of a bitch. Tonight, it was a setup from the start, wasn’t it? You were in on it from the beginning, right?”

  “What do you mean, Ethan?” Karris asked from over her husband’s bloody shoulder.

  “It’s a setup. The whole thing’s a fucking setup!”

  “What?”

  “Tell them, Harry,” Ethan said, walking around Harold’s unconscious nephew, stepping right into his stepfather’s face. “Tell them how everything from you pretending to be knocked out to us believing you were dead was all a setup.”

  “But I don’t understand,” Belinda croaked from the back of the room. “What has any of this got to do with Lee?”

  “Nothing,” answered Ethan. “It’s got nothing to do with Lee or any of us. It’s about money. It’s about the money in my safe. The weekly takings, right?”

  “Needed to make it look convincing,” Harold explained, pulling out a chair and slumping onto it. Blood trickled down his face, beating rhymtically against the dining table. “Nobody was meant to get hurt. That’s the truth. You were meant to get a little… scared, that’s all.”

  “How long have you been planning
this?” Belinda asked. She was crying again into another handkerchief. “How long have you been planning to rob my son?”

  “I’ve had my eye on this place for a few months. Could never get close to it, though. You know what your mother’s like; can’t keep her bloody mouth closed about anything. She told me you had a safe somewhere in here. I never had an opportunity to find out where, but then the riots began and—”

  “You thought you’d hit the jackpot.”

  Harold nodded.

  “Harold, I need you to listen to me,” Ethan said. “I’ve got something to tell you, something really important.”

  “Go on.”

  Ethan smiled mockingly. “There is no safe. Not here, anyhow. Do you think I’m fucking stupid? I mean, do you really think I’d keep a safe full of money in my house with you lurking about?”

  “He’s lyin’,” Kieran said. “He’s gotta’ be!”

  “Am I? Well go ahead, tear this place apart. Rip the fucking floors up. You won’t find anything.”

  “Where is it then?” Harold growled. “Where’s the safe?”

  “Nathan’s house. It’s at my business partner’s. Great idea, wrong house.”

  Harold kicked back the chair and jumped to his feet. “Doesn’t change the fact my little girl’s dead.”

  “That whore killed my son!” Belinda shrieked, pounding her chest as if she was an enraged primate. “I’m glad she’s dead! Her body’s back there, in the lounge! I hope she rots in hell!”

  Harold Singleton roared unintelligibly, pointing the gun at his girlfriend, pulling back the trigger, firing. Ethan kicked out half a second before the bullet propelled from the chamber, knocking the Beretta aside. The racing bullet went wide, crashing through the dining room window and shattering the glass. Rain and wind swept into the room.

  Harold lost his last dregs of self-control and pistol-whipped Ethan across the face. The blunt end of the Beretta made fierce contact with his mouth, loosening his front tooth. Ethan was thrown to the ground, blood spilling from smashed lips and, as Bryan stepped forward, Stretch and Kieran both jumped him, dwarfing his body with their own, forcing the lawyer down onto the floor, pinning him beneath their combined weight. Belinda screamed uselessly.