The Chop Shop

by Heffernan, Christopher

  She pulled over onto the grass and turned the engine off. Darkness engulfed them.

  “Come on, it's this way,” Samantha said.

  They left the car there and walked on. An owl hooted from the trees, and their presence set off a driveway light. They hurried past, squinting.

  “How many people live here?” Michael said.

  “Not many. A handful, maybe. A few of these are second homes. Don't count on anybody coming to help us.”

  Gravel crunched beneath their shoes. Samantha jogged faster. The temperature felt like it had dropped below zero, and he caught a glimpse of his foggy breath. He broke a sweat despite the cold, and Samantha pointed to a house on the left. Michael unbuttoned the top of his coat.

  The house was cloaked by night, lit on one side by a street light thirty meters down the road. Samantha dropped her keys. She bent down, fumbling in the dark, and then swore under her breath.

  “They went down the bloody drain. I can't get them out.”

  Michael nudged her aside. He pressed his face to pane of frosted glass and looked through the door. It was darker inside than out. He rang the doorbell twice and waited. The owl hooted again, and he waited longer.

  Samantha sagged against the wall. She put a hand to her face.

  “Can we get in through the back?”

  “There's razor wire all over the fence,” Samantha said.

  “It's quieter than bricking the glass.”

  Michael jogged past two more houses. Wooden boards covered up the windows and front doors, and a vile stench escaped into the air. He turned into the alleyway and circled back around. His right hand caught a stinging nettle, and he grimaced, pressing on. Samantha followed behind.

  Razor wire topped all the fences. The moon revealed itself through the clouds, and the back gate was slightly ajar. He pushed it open, walking forward with his pistol raised in one hand. Rain had turned the ground to mud, and it squelched beneath his feet as he moved.

  The French doors were still shut. He felt the handle and found they slid open without resistance. That old tremble returned to his hands, and he wondered, reaching for his pocket torch, if he'd be able to shoot straight. “Don't turn the lights on. It's safer this way.”

  He flashed the torch about the room and saw a dining table and chairs. Sweat irritated his skin, and his finger twitched against the trigger guard, as he felt palpitations in his chest. The laminate flooring sent his steps echoing through the house.

  “Annie?” Samantha said.

  “Bedrooms?”

  “Upstairs.”

  They climbed the stairs. Shadows shifted at the edges of the torchlight, moving again with every shake of his hands. A floorboard creaked.

  “Annie? Where are you?” Samantha whispered.

  The bedroom door on his right was open, allowing him a view of the outside, where the curtains had been pushed apart. Michael turned the torch off. He motioned for Sam to stay back, as he crept across the room and slid the curtains shut. He flicked the torch back on.

  Somebody moved behind Samantha, and Michael tensed, jabbing his gun at the figure.

  “It's me, don't shoot,” the girl said. She came forward, nearly as tall as Samantha and dressed in her school uniform.

  “You scared me to death, Annie,” Samantha said. She hugged her sister.

  Michael sighed. “Don't do that; I nearly blew your brains out. What's happening?”

  “It's not safe. You know Rebecca, Sam? I went round to her house over there after school. He killed her father. Their phone line wasn't working so I came here.”

  “This guy, where is he?”

  Annie pulled away from Samantha, beckoning with a hand for Michael to follow.

  “Watch the stairs,” Michael said to Samantha.

  They went to her bedroom, and Annie stopped him. “Turn your torch off. My window looks out towards the house.”

  He did so. Her bedroom had a single window, like her parents' room. They walked over some clothes left lying on the floor and knelt beneath the window ledge. She passed him a set of bird watching binoculars.

  Michael moved to open the curtains, but she grabbed his wrist with a clammy hand.

  “Wait. Be careful; look for the middle house across the field. There'll be a single light on. It's him inside.”

  He pushed the curtain aside and looked out, and then adjusted the binoculars' focus with a finger. No lights. The row of houses silhouetted themselves against the night sky, one shade darker than the traces of cloud. A handful of stars shone beneath the moon. “I can't see it. There lights are off. How many people live around here?”

  “It's just my family and theirs. The other family moved away two weeks ago. Some of the others are owned, but people don't use them regularly, unless they're here on business.”

  “Where's your friend?”

  “Dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  Faint shadows drifted across the field as a cloud obscured the moon.

  “Because I looked out of my window and saw him cooking parts of her in the kitchen, okay? Is that enough evidence for you?”

  Something glinted in the top window, and Michael refocused the binoculars. “There's got to be somebody else around here. We set a drive way light off when we were walking up the road.”

  “That house is abandoned. Nobody bothered to turn it off.”

  Michael looked closer at the window. The curtains were split in the middle at the bottom, and something moved. He blinked, only for it to appear still again, and he fiddled with the focus, spinning the wheel back and forth, but it made no difference.

  “Did your friend like bird watching as well? She had her own set of binoculars?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Because he's looking at me from her bedroom.” He tossed the binoculars aside and pulled her away by the arm. “Let's go.”

  They ran out into the hall. “He's seen us. Come on, quickly,” Michael said.

  Samantha led them down the stairs, catching the bannister as she stumbled forward.

  “Wait,” Annie said. She ran back to her room.

  “Annie, come back,” Samantha said.

  Michael continued on to the front door. He raised his gun, opened the door and stepped outside. He looked left, and then right, but saw only darkness and the light far down the road.

  “Mike, give me a minute. I'm going to find something I can use to get my keys out the drain,” Samantha said. She moved deeper into the house.

  Her sister came down the stairs with a tabby cat clutched in her arms. It squirmed and tried to wriggle free from her hold, eyes glinting in the light.

  Michael shivered from the cold, and he felt his fingers begin to burn.

  “I can't find anything,” Samantha said. She put a clenched fist to her mouth, as if to stifle a scream.

  Michael bent down by the drain and pushed his torch against the grate. He saw the glint of the keys, tried to tug at the covering and found the rusted iron wouldn't give. “We can come back for the car later.”

  Gravel crunched beneath a set of wheels. The man came towards them on a bicycle, one hand gripping a suppressed submachine gun. He fired, and bullets blanketed the area, breaking glass and clay plant pots. Michael raised his weapon. A bullet struck the slide and blasted it from his hand. Pain jolted through his bones.

  He cried out, sinking to one knee, as the man ran out of ammunition. The man skidded to a halt on his bike. His face was obscured in shadow cast by his hoodie. He tossed the weapon aside and pointed a pistol at Michael's head, barrel lengthened by the suppressor screwed onto the end.

  A rock struck him in the mouth, and his finger jolted against the trigger. The bullet went wide, as he toppled and took the bike down with him. Annie picked up another rock. The man tried to untangle himself, but she was already at his side, yanking back his hood. She bashed the rock against his face.

  He convulsed at each blow, screaming, until a spray of blood splattered on Annie's face. She hit him
again and caved his skull in. Steam rose from chunks of exposed brain.

  Samantha lay on the floor, bleeding over the doorstep.

  “Sam? Sam,” Michael said.

  “I'm okay,” she said, with a tremble in her voice.

  Michael rolled her over onto her back. The blood came from her left arm. A bullet had struck her wrist and ricocheted up the bone, before coming out again at the elbow. Blue lights flashed in the distance. The cat ran across the road and into the trees, as they came closer.

  Michael followed the white stripes on the motorway, each one appearing in the headlight for a flash, before it vanished under the car. He closed his eyes for an instant, and then blinked as he jerked his head up, slowing down to widen the gap between him and the car ahead.

  Samantha sat slumped in the seat beside him. She looked out the passenger window so he couldn't see her face. Her left arm was wrapped in a bloodied bandage. “Hey, Mike? Thanks. I'm sorry it cost all your money.”

  She continued to stare out the window.

  “Don't worry about it.”

  “You're a terrible liar. I'll figure something out.”

  Police lights flashed ahead on the motorway, and the glare of floodlights blinded him. The car jolted. Once, twice and then a third time. He dodged the next piece of debris as his eyes adjusted to the light.

  Traffic slowed, and the queues followed the bend of the motorway, choked into a single lane by the police checkpoint. Michael pulled onto the shoulder and stopped short of the closest fire engine.

  “I'll be back in a minute,” he said.

  Samantha nodded. He stepped out of the car, pausing for a moment to take a breath of air. Police officers stood watch by the perimeter with their guns. They wore a different camouflage pattern to Assurer. Bits of metal, plastic and glass littered the ground, and he crunched a piece of tail light beneath his shoe.

  A lorry lay overturned beyond the emergency vehicles, and ruined cars surrounded it, some charred to a blackened finish. Workers collected up the remains. One of the policemen turned to him. The tinted visor on his helmet hid his face.

  “You look sick. Are you harbouring any infectious diseases? There are multiple outbreaks of Legionnaires in the area.”

  “No,” Michael said. He showed them his identity card. “What happened here?”

  The policeman leaned closer. “Different company, different contract, different jurisdiction. It means nothing.”

  “Forget it,” the other policeman said. “It's real. Look at the hologram and the chip. If I'm going to have to stand guard all night in the rain, then I want something interesting to do.”

  “So what happened here?” Michael said.

  “Traffic accident. Do you want the tour? Come on through,” the policeman said, gesturing to the lorry.

  The lorry had a red ABR logo on its side, and Michael nodded. The policeman beckoned for him to follow. They ducked under the security tape and passed through a wall of emergency vehicles.

  “A real traffic accident, or an arranged one?” Michael said.

  “A real one, I think. You saw the rain earlier? Much heavier, yeah? It got very foggy on the motorway. Bad combination. I guess the lorry driver lost control, ploughed into all these cars and then flipped it. Some of them caught fire. Come on, I'll show you.”

  Fire fighters cut off a mangled car door. The family inside had fused with the remains of the passenger seats, and the heat had shrunk their lips and left them with permanent smiles on their faces.

  “Toasted. There were a lot of witnesses; next time they burn their dinner in the oven, this is going to be the first thing they think of,” the policeman said.

  The nearest fireman tried to prise one of the corpses free. He pulled harder, clenching his teeth, and succeeded only in rattling the remains of the car. “John Smith here isn't going to budge; he's wielded to the fucking seat. We'll have to take the entire thing out. Get me the bolt cutters.”

  “Good luck trying to fit them into a crematorium,” the policeman said.

  “It's not a problem. We have machines that can crush the bones and anything else into small pieces for cremation, if somebody pays to recover them, otherwise, we just dump the mess into the lake and let mister fishy have his way. No point wasting time to incinerate them.”

  “Fish eat burnt people?”

  “Not normally, no. But these are some kind of mutant fish. They think it was a chemical spill, but I reckon some company abandoned genetically engineered stock in the bottom of the lake.”

  “That sounds crazy.”

  “Yeah, you should try fishing there sometime. Put a lump of meat on your hook, and it'll be gone before you can reel it back in.”

  Michael walked towards the overturned lorry. Crates lay smashed open across the motorway, and he saw dozens more inside the trailer. He bent down and picked up a plastic packet. CPUs, tiny heat sinks and micro cooling fans. The floodlights revealed serial numbers and the Eratech logo.

  He looked back, saw the policeman still talking, and pocketed four of the packages.

  “Nobody has come to collect this stuff?” Michael said.

  The policeman jogged after him. “Nope. You know, ABR have a factory off the motorway on the left here. The driver was probably delivering this stuff to them, at least until he crashed and killed a load of people, of course. I'm surprised some of their representatives haven't turned up yet to start giving us shit over getting their goods back.”

  Michael pointed to the pair of cars pulling up on the other side of the motorway. Men in suits stepped out into the drizzle of rain, and one of them put up an umbrella. “Looks like you spoke too soon.”

  He sighed. “For Christ's sake. You better get going; you know what these parasites are like. If you want to take some trophy photos, that's fine, but be quick, yeah? I've got to deal with them.”

  Michael headed back to the car. Samantha was leaning against the motorway barrier with her back turned to him.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  She turned around. “Yeah, just getting some air. These painkillers make me dizzy. Are we okay to go?”

  Michael touched the barrier with a hand, leaning forward. The cold metal sent a shiver through his body and stood hairs on end. A trickle of rain ran down the back of his neck.

  “What is it?”

  He pointed to a red light beyond the woods. “I think it's an ABR factory. ABR are owned by Eratech. Did you hear the news about one of their chemical plants getting lit up on the radio?”

  Michael pulled one of the plastic packets from his pocket. “That lorry was carrying hundreds of these. They're too small for computers, which leaves me wondering what they're for. See the pins? They don't fit anything kicking about in the shops or people's homes.”

  “Mike, I know where you're going with this, but I think it's a really bad idea. Maybe it's legitimate, or maybe it isn't, but if they find you snooping about there, they'll shoot you. Think about it; none of this is going to help your case, is it? What's any of this got to do with a gunman wiping out an entire household?”

  The rain began to fall harder, and he rubbed his eyes. A car drove past fast enough to kick up a spray of water.

  “Five minutes, okay? I just want to take a look. Here, keep these safe,” he said, passing her the chips.

  “Okay, but only because of tonight. I'll be in the car.”

  Michael glanced at the police checkpoint, saw them arguing with the company representatives, and jumped the barrier. His shoes hit the ground, then slipped, and wet grass carried him down. Bushes lashed and scratched at him. He rolled left before a tree met his groin. His trousers were soaked with damp.

  He pushed on, moving between the trees, grasping at hanging branches to stop himself from slipping. The red light drew him forward, and soon others appeared. He paused, resting against one of the trees. A searchlight swept across a field of tree stumps and muddy ground, and chain-fencing with an electric charge and concertina wire rose beyond.

&nbs
p; Snipers sat watch in their guard towers, and Michael hugged the tree closer, as he saw the bulge of thermal sights on their rifles. Hangers blocked most of his view of the compound. Two security teams mounted up in the back of a truck and drove out of the main gate, heading for the motorway.

  He began to turn back, only to stop. A vehicle, a little bigger than a dog, rolled past one of the guard towers on caterpillar tracks. Two technicians followed, and then it was gone.

  Voices drew his attention. Two silhouettes moved out of the darkness, backlit by one of the searchlights. They walked across the field, weaving between the tree stumps. A cigarette end glowed hot for an instant, fading until the security guard took another puff.

  The pair wore black combat uniforms. Bulbous helmets sat on their heads and body armour bulked out their torsos. They carried suppressed carbines. A rush of heat ran through Michael's body. He ignored the stab of fear and crouched down on one knee, still hugging the tree.

  A voice sounded from a radio, and the guards stopped and looked into the trees, but Michael couldn't hear the comms chatter properly.

  “Negative, everything looks clear here. What's the status of the crash?” the second guard said.

  The garbled voice responded on the radio. The other guard tossed his cigarette away and moved on with his colleague. Wet twigs broke under foot, boots squeaking on the grass. Michael felt another drop of cold rain slip from a strand of hair and run down the back of his neck.

  He glimpsed their silhouettes coming towards him with the next sweep of the searchlight. Michael shifted left, keeping the tree between him and the patrol, until he found himself with his back to the compound. He looked back, and the searchlight swept across the field again. A trace of light lit him up for a second, before the darkness returned.

  The patrol moved into the woodland. He crouched low and followed the sound of their footsteps, and he saw the embankment coming into view just beyond them. Their steps trailed off to the right. He waited several minutes to be sure, and then grasped handfuls of wet grass, as he clawed his way back up the slope.

  Samantha opened the door for him. “You're filthy. I hope it was worth it.”

  “Not really. I saw something, but I don't know what it was.”