by Stuart Keane
What the fuck is going on around here?
The theatre was closer now, its light illuminated the whole street. From this distance, Kathryn could see that the letters above its entrance had gaps around them, and whatever lettering that had been there before had been ripped off. Chunks of miscellaneous glass letters still remained.
The glass doors of the theatre were shattered, one was hanging off its hinges and another lay three feet away in the street, bent in half and buckled at the hinges. The interior of the theatre’s foyer had a plush red carpet and the marble walls were faultless. Green graffiti had been plastered all over the pavement outside the establishment. Six posters, three either side of the main entrance, were all advertising Z-list celebrities posing as fabled pantomime characters. These had all been defaced with obscenities:
BG WAS ‘ERE!
SUCK MY PHAT ONE!
BD + JK 4EVA!
DON’T LIKE MY GRAF? DIAL 01892 EAT MY BALLSACK!
CUNTZ R US!
PANTO IS GAY!
Kathryn couldn’t help but smile at the profanity. Such uneducated words, and in some ways she could almost have felt sorry for the people responsible. The theatre had been defaced so badly, Kathryn hated to look at it, so she turned round.
Behind her was a tall, nondescript building. Its front had a huge head-height wall with a set of steps heading up to a glass door with a card reader beside it. The building had many windows, none of them lit up, apart from one. About three storeys up, one window had light shining from the room within.
There was a person staring out at her.
The face was there for a split second, then it was gone.
Kathryn shivered.
You’ve got to be shitting me!
Kathryn backed off from the building and headed back to the theatre, and the road leading off from it. She imagined the road made a complete loop back to where the freaky monkey stood on the pavement. She would find out in due course.
The sound of a car’s engine broke the silence, which was not unusual for a night like this, in a town like this. Unless the town was deserted, of course, and in that case, you have to start worrying.
It was a rough noise, that of an engine that had never seen an MOT. She didn’t know much about cars, but she knew a shit engine when she heard one. Her neighbour always liked playing at being a mechanic late at night, and Kathryn was reminded of the many times she had wanted to stave his head in with a shovel. This noise had the same effect on her. It set her teeth on edge, made her want to scream.
A jeep shot into view, from behind the theatre. Heading straight towards her. The road beside the theatre was separate to the main road and was several inches up an incline. A ledge provided a makeshift ramp. The jeep shot across the gap onto Kathryn’s road. It clanked down as its suspension adjusted after its sudden jump from the ramp.
Kathryn was standing in the middle of the deserted road, exposed, unprotected. The vehicle was still about forty feet away, but Kathryn was caught off guard. She didn’t move, didn’t know what to do.
The jeep stopped, straight ahead of her.
The occupants of the jeep saw her.
There were four of them, all male, and all half naked.
The driver wore a mask with metal spikes protruding from its top, and a red bandana round his forehead. His hands were gloved in black and his arms were heavily tattooed. His scrawny torso was also tattooed and he looked as if he was in need of a good meal.
The passenger next to him had long, greasy black hair which plastered to his scalp, despite the wind rushing through it. His face was covered in acne and his left ear was missing. He smiled, displaying decaying teeth and gaps. His bony body was also tattooed.
The two men standing up behind them worried Kathryn more.
One was a huge black man, his body ripped to shreds, perhaps caused by years of steroid overuse. He had a khaki cap on his head with a gold badge on it. He was naked apart from a tiger stripe thong he wore around his bulging genitals.
The other was a huge white guy, Kathryn guessed that he could be Russian, judging by the shape of his nose and the bone structure. There was a huge Russian flag tattooed across his saggy chest. He wasn’t ripped, he looked saggy and hairy, but he must have been at least six and a half feet tall. And probably four feet wide. He had a buzz cut and an eye patch.
Both men carried assault rifles.
Kathryn didn’t know very much about guns, all she knew was from her ex-boyfriend’s knowledge on the subject. He had been heavily into movies, and would always try to impress her with his knowledge. Sometimes he did impress her, at other times she just wanted him to shut up and cuddle her. Rarely did she show her emotion until the day she ended their relationship. She had cried herself to sleep that night. She had been adamant that she wasn’t going to France with a loser like that on her arm.
She was wishing she had listened to his talk about guns now.
An AK-47, or something, she tried to remember. Was that the name? It had brown handles. And it looked fucking scary.
And all the men were staring at her, grinning.
Four half-naked psychos were squaring up against one woman.
A strong woman, not a stupid woman, mind.
But a woman who was outnumbered.
One of the men aimed his gun and fired. The sound didn’t register with Kathryn at first, all she thought was: GUN. She dived to the ground. A split second later a bullet sparked off the asphalt where she had been standing a second earlier.
That was close!
Get the fuck out of here!
Kathryn was up and running before her mind had processed the intention. She ran towards the building that had the multitude of windows in it. She fell over a body lying on the pavement just in front of the steps. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Back on her feet she sprinted past the wall, up the steps two at a time, and came to a rest at the locked door.
Shit!
Didn’t think that one through, did you!
The jeep’s tires squealed as it started to come after her.
She would be dead now, she realised. She had been exposed the whole time running towards the door with no cover from anything other than shadow, and not much of that. She had fallen over too. Now she was at the door, and she had no way in. The card reader denied her escape.
FUCK!
The jeep went past, turned round and came back again, circling the road in front of the building. Taunting her.
The fuckers!
But why aren’t they shooting at me?
Kathryn looked around for anything to use as a device to lever open the door, or to smash the building’s windows, anything would do. Smashing it wouldn’t be such a good idea, for then they could follow her inside. Mind you, she thought, the door didn’t look as if it would stand up to those rifles anyway.
Moot point there, Kathryn.
The jeep circled around again, staying in sight, the four occupants whooping loudly, guns pointed in the air - they were guarding her. Kathryn wasn’t going anywhere.
The body!
Maybe, could it be used somehow?
Kathryn ducked down, making herself small, and scooted to the tree in front of her. She watched the jeep circle and head off towards the park she had emerged from.
She ran down the steps, two at a time, and jumped. She landed just beyond the wall, using it for cover. The body was two feet away. She looked for the jeep. It was still making its way slowly towards the park.
They knew she was trapped. She wasn’t going anywhere.
This has got to work!
The odds of this body being that of an employee of the organisation occupying this building were about sixty per cent, she reckoned. His suit was lavish, not the clothes of someone working at the theatre or the hotel, and he was too close to the steps to be simply passing by on the wide pavement. Besides, who visits a building with a card lock unless they work there? It only happens on rare occasions.
The body was male, m
iddle aged, and had a hole in his face where, to judge by the rest of him, she was sure there used to be attractive features. She could see the pavement through the hole, his left eye gone. His suit was blue and blood-spattered. The jacket hung loose on his body, his frame too small to fill the material. Maybe he had been expecting to get fit by visiting the gym? Fitness needs regular workouts, she thought, it doesn’t happen overnight, my friend. And it never will for you now.
Kathryn looked for the jeep and saw that it was beginning to turn around.
GO!
Kathryn was out on the path and beside the corpse within a second. She lifted his jacket and patted him down, first his suit pockets, then the inside one.
The jeep was coming back. She could hear the men laughing.
NOTHING!
She slipped her hands underneath the jacket and checked his trouser pockets and then his other ones. She felt flabby flesh beneath the clothes.
Urgh!!
The jeep was speeding up, getting closer now.
NOTHING!
Leave it, she reasoned, you’re a dead woman!
She rolled the man’s body over. It wasn’t easy, shifting a dead weight never is, but she rolled it over nonetheless. As she rolled him past the point of no return, momentum took the corpse further than she expected, and it slapped against the pavement, nearer the road. The head squelched on the kerb, maggots tumbled from the rear of his skull and scurried across his torso.
The jeep was twenty feet away. She heard one of the men cock his rifle.
Then Kathryn saw it.
Attached to his waistband below his jacket. A small plastic card, attached to a string pulley so that he would never drop it.
OF COURSE!
Kathryn grabbed it and pulled. It wouldn’t come any further, held there by the restraining tie.
There was the sound of two more rifles being cocked.
Huh?
Looking up, she saw that all four of her assailants had pulled rifles out and were ready to fire.
She yanked the card hard. Still wouldn’t come away.
“Hereby I decree you the holy bitch!” came a shout from the jeep.
“Holy, ahahahaha, she’s gonna be full of holes! I get it!”
“Fucking dipshit.”
Kathryn yanked hard, and the tie snapped, sending her flying backwards onto the steps.
The corpse erupted in a cloud of viscera, sinew, blood and maggots, as hundreds of heavy calibre bullets hammered into it. The body convulsed violently, its dead arms flapping like a spastic chicken, as a pool of blood formed beneath it. A maggot hit Kathryn in the face, and she quickly knocked it away. Blood followed and splattered her face and chest. A piece of brain landed on her foot.
Kathryn didn’t even have time to vomit. She jumped up, shaking her foot free of the offal, and sprinted back up the steps.
The firing was still going on, until all four firearms clicked uselessly, having used up their ammunition.
All four men were still screaming like maniacs. One shouted: “Did we get her?”
Kathryn reached the door and fumbled with the card in her hands. Blood made it slippery, but she wiped it on her top and managed to swipe the card reader. The red light turned green and there was a loud decisive click. She pulled the door open and fell through into the corridor beyond. The door closed behind her automatically.
Backing up, her rump against the wall, all she could hear was four psychos screaming.
The screaming was in anger this time, not because of pride or machismo, or whatever they fucking called it.
The jeep drove off. Then all was silent.
She was safe now. Locked in. Alone.
Kathryn vomited.
She laid her head on the floor. Her eyes closed.
***
That was fucking brutal!
Hardcore shit!
I knew she was good.
That’s okay, little subject, you can rest now, you did well. Phase Two is just ahead, but don’t worry, it just got interesting now. Time is money, but I can spare you ten minutes. I don’t want you being any less than a hundred per cent for the next phase. A lot depends on you getting there.
After venting his thoughts, the second man popped an E into his mouth and washed it down with bourbon. He placed his glass down next to his open sachet of E tablets which had spilled onto the desk.
He tapped his keyboard and watched his screen light up to show four different room interiors. The entrance hallway where his subject lay on the floor, next to a pool of her own vomit, was one of them. So was an IT room, a locker room and a vast interior occupied by a huge round table. Tapping a second key brought up every room in the building, a total of thirty seven separate interiors.
He sat back and waited.
Soon.
THIRTEEN
Francisco worked fast.
The new shirt he’d put on felt tight, unpleasantly constricting his adrenaline-pumped body. The sweat from his pores soaked the material immediately. He had changed his trousers so that he now wore full length cargo-bottoms with deep pockets. Unbuttoning these, he placed the gun’s magazine clips in them, three in one pocket, and two in the other. He stuck the Beretta in his waistband and tied his hair back with a rubber band. He slid the strap for his samurai sword over his shoulder and across his chest, so that the blade sat neatly along his back. Muscles rippled against his shirt, he could feel the blood rushing around his body, like fire coursing through his veins.
Leaving the bedroom, he headed for the stairs. Maintaining his footsteps so he didn’t make any noise, he reached the bottom in little more than twenty seconds. The gun and sword were heavier than he thought.
CRASH!
His television shattered against the wall ahead of him. Glass, plastic and wires showered him, most harmlessly, while some fragments cut the exposed skin of his forearms. Francisco fell back on the stairs, partially to use the handrail for cover, but mainly as an instinctive reaction to the shock and fear. Putting his arms over his head, he glanced through the gaps in the handrail, looking for his attacker. He felt blood seeping from his forehead.
A dark figure stood in the archway leading to his dining room. Francisco frowned. From his position he couldn’t see if the intruder was armed or not, but he assumed he was safe for now, otherwise he wouldn’t have the chance to look at his foe. He would already be dead.
“What do you want?” he called out.
The figure stayed silent and didn’t move. Francisco swore he could see the person flexing his huge arm muscles. He tried a different tack:
“Take whatever you want, just don’t hurt me, okay?”
Still silence, and again the figure remained motionless. Francisco stood up and walked out onto the living room floor, hands in the air. Play it innocent, he thought to himself, don’t let on that you have a gun, and definitely don’t let on that you’re up for a fight.
“It’s all yours, okay? Just…”
“Drop your weapons,” ordered his intruder.
The cool gravelly voice alarmed Francisco, it sounded as if his foe had gargled with barbed wire. It alarmed him more that the man knew that he was armed at all. Especially when his weapons were concealed behind him.
“I don’t know what you mean, I’m…”
“Drop your weapons or I’ll gut your wife and fuck your kid.”
“Wha—”
“Drop your weapons, or I’ll gut your wife, probably open her up along her Caesarean wound, using a pair of rusty garden shears. Maybe I’ll use a scalpel dipped in salt, to see how she screams, eh? And your kid sure is pretty!
“You wouldn’t.”
“Just try me. Go on, I dare you.”
Francisco remained silent, scared. His heart pounded in his chest. He felt like vomiting and crying all at once. Reaching down to his waistband he pulled out his Beretta and dropped it on the floor in front of him. The carpet ate up its weight as it landed with a dull thud.
“Now the sword!”
“Now walk over here slowly, keep your hands up, and remember, I think your kid is gorgeous.”
Francisco felt his guts lurch with that comment. What did he ever do to deserve such a fucking sick psycho in his living room, talking about his daughter in that way? No amount of unemployment or family disappointments could ever result in this behaviour on the karma scale. It just wasn’t right. How did this guy know about his ethnicity in the darkness? He could understand if he had turned on the lights, but he hadn’t. His wife wasn’t Asian either, so he couldn’t have assumed his ethnic origin from that. Maybe he had seen photos?
Francisco reached the intruder and just stood there.
He buckled under the force of the punch that rattled his ribs and drove the air out of him. He fell to his knees. He coughed.
“Take that as a lesson. No one lies to me, okay? Now get the fuck up.”
Francisco stood, it took a lot of effort, as the punch had caught him completely unawares. His enemy grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him out of the living room, into the dining room and through to the kitchen. The lights were blazing, and Francisco had to cover his eyes. In one smooth movement, the intruder pushed him down onto the floor and walked across the room. Tears formed in Francisco’s eyes as the lights stung him. He sat up in a crouched position, leaning against his refrigerator, and waited for his eyes to adjust.
He heard whimpers, perhaps betraying someone’s fear, two voices, both female, one sounding older, the other seemingly a child’s cry, that of an infant too young to even comprehend what was happening in front of her. The human voices were muffled, as if they were obstructed by something, words were incomprehensible, the noises were mere reflexes and totally incoherent. He could hear two totally different types of creaking sounds. Francisco began to cry, finally. He tried to compose himself, but failed. Before he even took his hands away and looked forwards, he knew what he was going to see.