Shatter the Bones

by Stuart MacBride

  Pale light seeped through the glass pane above the front door, picking out just enough detail in the dark hallway to make the path from the bedroom to the bathroom reasonably safe. Nothing worse than standing on something sharp in the dead of…

  His letterbox was open. He could see a vague glow around the edges. And then it went dark. Logan glanced up. The light still shone through the glass above the door.

  He started forward.

  There was something sticking through the opening – a pale shape that swelled and drooped as he watched.

  ‘What the hell?’

  It was a condom. A big, ribbed condom. It was getting bigger. Why was there a—

  He froze as the familiar sour-sweet pear-and-vinegar smell of petrol hit him. ‘Don’t you bloody dare!’

  The condom gave one last droop, then fell. It hit the hall floor and bounced, petrol squiring from the open end, up the walls, across the carpet, into the coats. Logan snatched his hands over his eyes as a jet slashed across his naked chest.

  ‘Fuck!’

  The letterbox creaked open again and a book of matches poked through.

  Logan backed up. Backed up some more. Nearly fell over the unit they kept their keys on. ‘SAMANTHA!

  A scratching noise.

  The bastard was trying to light a match.

  Scratch. ‘SAMANTHA! WAKE UP!’

  Scratch.

  The smell of petrol was getting stronger, the liquid starting to evaporate in the warmth.

  Run into the kitchen, grab a bucket of water… He was covered in bloody petrol. When the hall went up, he’d go up with it.

  ‘SAMANTHA!’

  Scratch.

  Logan hauled open the bedroom door and nearly fell inside. Slammed the door shut again.

  ‘God’s sake … do you know what time it is?’ She was sitting up in bed, one eye scrunched shut, the other squinting at him. ‘What’s so—’

  ‘Someone’s trying to burn—’

  A loud crumping WHOOOMP. The bedroom door shoved hard against Logan’s back. Blinding yellow light. Heat. Darkness.

  * * *

  Cough. There was something rough, scratching at his cheek. Logan blinked. Tried to shake the ringing sound out of his head. It thumped into a solid wall of wood. Ow…

  Someone tugged at his arm, the motion scrubbing his face against the carpet. Pressure on his back.

  ‘LOGAN, GET UP!’

  Orange light flickered across the skirting board. Why was he lying on the floor?

  ‘LOGAN!’

  The pressure on his back eased.

  Samantha knelt next to him, tattoos dancing across her pale skin in the shifting light. He looked up and she was naked, struggling to lift the bedroom door off him. He forced his arms under himself and shoved, fighting his way to his knees.

  ‘Don’t just sit there!’ She shoved at the slab of wood. ‘Help me!’

  He shook his head again, but the ringing wouldn’t go away. Poland – it was just like Poland, huddled in a junkyard flat, the flames the rubble the death and destruct—

  A sharp, stinging pain flashed out across his cheek. ‘Logan!’ She slapped him again. ‘Ow! Cut it out: I hear you.’

  ‘Then help!’

  The room was filling with smoke, thick greasy clouds of grey-black, lit with that horrible crackling glow. It was roasting in here, literally, sweat beading on his arms and petrol-soaked chest…

  He glanced around the side of the detached door. It was like sticking his head in an oven, a wall of hot air that made his skin tighten. The paint on the back of the door was blistered and steaming. Flames filled the hallway outside, the carpet crisping and popping, sending out gouts of choking smoke. The coat-rack crashed to the floor, burning jackets and scarves flashing like fireworks.

  ‘Jesus…’

  Samantha shook his shoulder. ‘Do you want another slap?’

  ‘What? I was just—’

  ‘Then help me get the door back in place!’

  Easier said than done. The blistered paint on the other side was too hot to touch, so all they had was the handle and the little rack Logan had bought from B&Q to take dressing gowns. He took hold of it, dragged in a deep breath, and stood. Smoke closed around his head, the heat making his skin itch. Like instant sunburn. He kept his shoulder to the warm wood, inching his way forward with his eyes closed.

  Clunk. It hit the wall.

  Shuffle sideways, breath screaming in his chest, ears nipping and painful as he forced the thing back into the empty doorway.

  Logan ducked down again, still leaning against the door. Gasped in a breath. A cough rattled through him, deep heaving barks that made spots swim past his eyes.

  ‘Move!’

  He staggered back and Samantha shoved the chest of drawers against the door, pinning it in place. She backed off a step, staring. ‘What the fuck happened? Bomb?’

  Logan sank onto the carpet and coughed till he gagged. ‘…petrol … through the … the letter—’ More coughing.

  A pair of jeans smacked into his chest. ‘What are … are you…’ The rest of his clothes rained down on him.

  ‘We’re naked and the bloody building’s on fire: get dressed.’ Logan hauled on a stripy jumper. No point bothering with socks and pants. He wriggled into the jeans. ‘Where’s my shoes?’

  Samantha hauled on a Sisters of Mercy T-shirt. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘It’s not my fault, OK?’ He crawled across the floor to the bedside cabinet and wrenched out the top drawer, sending all the garbage he’d stuffed in there over the last God-knew-how-many years spilling out across the smouldering carpet and grabbed his phone from the mess.

  Something crashed against the wall behind him.

  Logan spun around. The wardrobe was tipped forward, its top edge had taken a gouge out of the wallpaper, and Samantha was hauling one of the doors off.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘This shite was expensive…’ She dragged out a black leather jacket, then the corset she’d bought online, then three pairs of thigh-length leather boots, then a black ball gown.

  ‘Everyone’s gone bloody mental.’ The phone bleeped at him. No signal. ‘Fucking thing!’ He switched it off, then on again… this time he got a single bar. Dialled.

  ‘Hello?’

  He could barely hear the woman on the other end. ‘Emergency Services, which—’

  ‘Fire brigade!’ He rattled off the address, then made her repeat it back to him.

  ‘Right, you need to stay calm. I want you to get some wet towels and use them to block any gaps between your door and the floor.’

  ‘We’re trapped in the bloody bedroom – where are we supposed to get wet towels from?’

  ‘Well… You could get some jumpers or bedding or something and use that instead?’

  ‘Brilliant. What do you want me to do for water? Pee on them?’

  ‘I’m only trying to help.’

  Samantha poked his shoulder. ‘Time to go.’

  He looked at her. ‘Fire engine’s on its way.’

  ‘Do the math – how long’s it going to take them to get here?’

  ‘Five, ten minutes maybe?’

  ‘And set up the ladders, and get everything sorted. And we’re round the back – how are they going to get a fire engine anywhere near us?’

  He risked another glance at the steadily lowering layer of smoke. Three feet from the floor and still falling. ‘We’re fucked, aren’t we?’

  ‘Probably.’ Samantha crawled over to their makeshift barricade and pulled three of the drawers out. Then dragged them over to her pile of clothes by the window.

  Logan hung up on the emergency services woman. Then scrabbled over.

  A loud bang and a crash sounded from somewhere on the other side of the bedroom door. The TV exploding, or something like that.

  She grabbed him by the neck, hauled him close and kissed him. She tasted of charred plastic and ozone. ‘You still owe me dinner – so no getting ki
lled, understand?’

  ‘You ready?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘Nope.’ He grabbed the windowsill and hauled himself up to a crouch. Reached through the smoke for the security catch and snibbed it open. Then hauled. The window creaked, then juddered open. Ancient wood and layers of paint squealing in protest.

  It was like switching on a vacuum cleaner – the difference in air temperature hurling smoke out into the night. Outside the bedroom door, the crackle of flames built to a roar: the updraft feeding the blaze.

  Samantha popped up beside him and stared down. ‘Oh … shite.’

  That was the trouble with living in a top-floor flat, the ground was a long, long way down. Three storeys of vertical granite, and then the flat roof of the building behind.

  She ducked back down and hurled her ball gown and corsets out of the window.

  Logan looked from side to side – maybe they could climb onto the roof? Haul themselves up on the guttering. He reached up and gave it a tug.

  A chunk of rusty black came away in his hand. Samantha’s boots went spiralling to the flat roof far below, followed by the contents of all three drawers. Pants, bras, and stripy stockings, drifting down like lacy snow.

  She coughed, wiped a hand across her soot-covered face, leaving a slightly cleaner patch. ‘You want me to go first?’

  ‘Where? There’s nowhere to go.’

  ‘Fine. You can follow me.’ Samantha bit her bottom lip. Took a deep breath. Coughed. Then eased a leg out over the windowsill, keeping hunched down so she was beneath the level of the whirling smoke.

  Logan grabbed her. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘Downpipe. We get to the one from the kitchen and we can climb down.’

  ‘You’re fucking mad !’

  She nodded back towards the bedroom door. Flames were licking through the gap around the eviscerated chest of drawers. ‘You want to stay and take your chances?’

  No he didn’t. ‘Hold on…’

  Logan hauled the duvet off the bed. Sweat dripped from his forehead, he could feel it trickling down his back as well. He wrestled the fitted sheet from the mattress’s grip, then twisted it up into a loose rope. ‘Tie this around you.’

  ‘It’s not long enough, how am I supposed to—’

  ‘In case you slip on the way to the bloody pipe. Just do what you’re sodding told for once.’

  ‘Your face is a mess, by the way.’ She took the end of the sheet and twisted it around her wrist.

  ‘Right…’ Samantha eased her bum from the windowsill, lowering herself down onto her elbows, then down again until her arms were wrapped around the granite ledge.

  Logan braced himself against the wall, knotting both hands into the sheet, holding tight. It was crappy climbing technique, but the thing was too short for anything else.

  The heat was getting worse, the air thick and choking.

  She looked up at him. ‘You let me go, and I’ll kill you.’ Then she started edging her way along, making for the cast-iron downpipe that ran from the kitchen down to … whatever the hell it drained into.

  A siren wailed in the distance, getting closer. At least that was something.

  ‘Fuck…’ A lurch and Samantha let go of the ledge with her left hand, reaching out for the black pipe.

  Please let it be in better condition than the guttering…

  She grabbed it, wobbled for a moment, then stared up into his eyes. Licked her soot-blackened lips. ‘Don’t drop me.’

  Logan tried for a smile. ‘I won’t.’

  A nod, then she let go of the window ledge.

  And didn’t fall to her death. Oh thank God. ‘Fuck this is high up.’ Samantha eased herself down about a foot. Then another, until the fitted sheet was stretched tight. ‘Let go.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t be a dick, you have to let go, or I can’t go any further.’ She was right.

  He tossed the end out of the window. It dangled from her arm, stirring back and forward in the updraft – cool air dragged up the side of the building by the heat of the fire. Right. He could do this. No problem. Just ease out onto the ledge. No need to rush. All the time in the world.

  This was stupid.

  Stay in the flat. Stay put and wait for the fire brigade. Logan glanced back over his shoulder. The smoke was even thicker, and flames weren’t just licking around the edges of the chest of drawers, they were eating it. A groan, then the bedroom door shuddered as something crashed against it.

  The ceiling was caving in.

  Oh God…

  He clutched at the edge of the window, swung his legs out over the void. Three storeys straight down to a flat roof. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He reached out with his left leg, feeling for the downpipe.

  Above his head the smoke was shot through with shards of flame. The roar of the fire nearly deafening.

  He lowered himself down, armpits level with the sill, battered right arm aching, the scars in his left palm throbbing, the ones across his stomach stretched and taut. Where the hell was the bloody pipe?

  Samantha had managed it, and she was a good six inches shorter than he was!

  Her voice blared through the fire’s din. ‘Left, you idiot!’ Clunk. His shoe touched something. OK – good, fine – he could do this.

  No he couldn’t. ‘WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO?’

  ‘There’s a wee ledge, about six inches below your left foot.’ Jesus, fuck, Jesus, fuck, Jesus, fuck…

  He could feel it. Little more than an inch wide. A minimalist decorative feature on the backside of a tenement building. Now all he had to do was let go with his left hand, and grab the pipe. Just like Samantha had. No problem. Easy.

  ‘Don’t just bloody hang there!’

  OK, deep breath. Three storeys wasn’t that high. Not really. Just about forty, maybe fifty feet. Shite.

  He shoogled over as far as he could and reached out with his left hand. Arm flailing about in the air. And then he grabbed the pipe.

  Oh thank God.

  Now all he had to do was let go with his other hand. Five, four, three—

  A crash sounded in the room, the smoke swirling above him.

  Logan let go of the ledge and snatched at the downpipe, holding on tight, face ground into the rough granite surface of the wall.

  Not dead.

  Something went BOOM and the kitchen window exploded outwards, showering him with shards of glass. A gout of flame billowed out into the night.

  He looked down. Samantha was about four feet below him, edging her way down, using the brackets that fixed the pipe to the wall as hand and footholds. It was all OK. They’d made it. Just a bit of a clamber and they’d be safe.

  Logan’s vision clouded. He blinked, feeling warm tears seeping down his cheeks.

  Don’t let go.

  He inched down a little, feeling for the next bracket. Everything was OK.

  He looked down. Just in time to see Samantha looking up at him. She smiled, her filthy face streaked with clear trails. At least he wasn’t the only one.

  ‘You all right?’

  Samantha’s smile became a grin. ‘Told you.’ She eased down another foot. ‘This dinner you owe me, it better be a—’

  Creak. The pipe juddered. Her eyes went wide. ‘Oh…’

  A clang, a little tearing noise, just audible through the flames.

  The section of downpipe she was holding on to lurched to the right, the bracket fell, disappearing into the darkness. She scrabbled for the length of pipe still attached to the wall, but her fingers grabbed empty air.

  Chapter 37

  ‘Logan…?’

  It happened in slow motion: her fingers scrabbled at nothing as the section of pipe she was climbing burst free of its rusting support brackets. Then she was falling, arms pin-wheeling, legs running on an invisible treadmill. Mouth open in a perfect ‘O’, the whites of her eyes shining from her soot-streaked face.

  Bits of broken pipe tumbled end over end around her. The tail of the fi
tted sheet fluttering from her arm like a pennant.

  Then back to full speed again.

  She slammed into the flat roof, three storeys below, and went straight through it. A cloud of orange-grey dust burst into the air, hung there, then drifted up the granite wall, pulled by the temperature gradient.

  ‘SAMANTHA!’ Logan tried to flatten himself to the building, feet dug into the last bracket before the pipe came to an abrupt end. ‘SAMANTHA!’

  The fire engine’s siren was getting closer, its wail joined by the familiar weeeeeeow of a patrol car’s siren.

  ‘SAMANTHA!’

  * * *

  Sick spatters into a pink plastic bowl. Jenny hunches her back and retches again, adding to the mess. Happy Meals don’t look so happy after they’ve been eaten.

  The room’s all gloomy, just a nightlight plugged into the wall socket so the monsters can keep an eye on them.

  She spits, closes her eyes, and rests her thumping head on the rim of the bowl. Her tummy feels as if it’s been punched. Much worse than when she had to lose weight for the television people.

  No one wants to see a Fat Little Girl on their TV screens, darling… She reaches for the bottle of water lying on the floor beside her, pulls the little nipply top up with trembling fingers, and takes a gulp. It tastes sweeter than strawberries.

  Mummy’s lying on the mattress, flat on her back.

  Jenny knows she’s not asleep. She can tell because of her breathing. Mummy’s lying there, staring at the roof and wishing Daddy was here.

  Daddy would make everything better.

  Jenny rubs a hand across her mouth and wipes the slimy mess on her jammies. Rinses her mouth out with water and spits it into the bowl. Puts the lid on to keep in the smell. Then closes her eyes, grits her teeth, and pulls herself upright using the bed as a climbing frame. Wobbles on her burning feet. Bites her top lip and squeezes back the tears.

  Brave Little Girls don’t cry.

  But she wants to. She wants to so much it hurts more than her missing toes.

  Jenny climbs up onto the mattress and cuddles in next to Mummy, one arm wrapped around Mummy’s tummy, her head resting in the soft crook of her arm.