Stalkers

by Paul Finch

  ‘Keep going,’ he gasped. ‘Just keep going.’

  ‘They can’t afford to let us live,’ Lauren said.

  ‘Don’t worry. We’re not the ones who are going to die here today.’

  But even before they reached the house on the ridge, they saw skeletal spars where its roof should be, windows that were now empty sockets.

  ‘It’s derelict!’ Lauren wailed.

  ‘Just get inside. We’ll defend it somehow.’

  It had once been a farmhouse, but now was a gutted shell. They managed to force open its front door, though the hall passage beyond was partly blocked by rubble. Not only had most of its roof collapsed, but a lot of the upper floor had come down as well. Lauren laid Dana on a mound of bricks, while Heck forced the door closed behind them and tried to wedge it with a fallen beam.

  ‘There’ll be a back door too,’ Lauren said.

  ‘Go and sort it!’

  She hurried off, while he cast around for a weapon, though all he could initially find were lumps of useless rubbish.

  ‘Heck, there are windows in here!’ Lauren called.

  Heck veered right into what had formerly been the living room. Again it was knee-deep in wreckage: smashed furniture, bottles, cans and a dirty mattress. Grass and thistles grew deep in the detritus. However, the windows were not as big a problem as he’d feared. The building being very old, they were small and set in deep embrasures, and most of them were barred.

  ‘These are easily defensible,’ he shouted back.

  There was a grating of stone and a bang as Lauren forced the back door shut.

  Then he heard voices outside. They were low and mumbling, but he could discern the guttural tone of Shane Klim and the smoother, more modulated voice of the black guy, Trooper Kilmor as Silver had referred to him.

  ‘Any knives in there?’ Heck asked, as Lauren re-emerged from the kitchen.

  ‘Nothing. Not even any units. It’s been stripped.’

  ‘Okay, let’s keep it down for a sec, and see what they do.’

  ‘We know what they’re going to do — they’re going to try and get in!’

  Stressed and weary, Lauren’s voice rose shrilly, and though he tried to shush her, it was too late. A Browning pistol was thrust in through one of the smaller windows, and fired indiscriminately around the living room. The reports were deafening, bullets careening from wall to wall. They dived and covered their heads, but out in the hall Dana began to moan with fear and confusion.

  Heck scrambled to his feet, grabbed a plank, flattened himself against the wall and aimed a blow down at the hand. It was withdrawn at the last second, the plank meeting empty air.

  ‘Shit!’ he hissed.

  There was a crunch-crunch-crunch as feet padded around the exterior of the building.

  ‘What are the kitchen windows like?’ Heck asked.

  ‘Like these, small. But someone can get in if we don’t guard them.’

  ‘So what are you waiting for?’

  She nodded and darted into the kitchen. He hurried back to the hall, where Dana was conscious but very groggy.

  ‘Mark … Mark, what’s happening …?’

  ‘We’re in a fix, Dana. But I promise I’m going to get you out of it.’

  His eyes were attuning to the starlight, and he now saw a staircase. It led up to nowhere, its topmost section having fallen away with the upper floor. But beneath it there was a triangular door. He opened it on a narrow closet-space. Taking Dana’s hand, he lugged her unceremoniously to her feet.

  ‘Mark … what’re you doing?’

  ‘Get in here, quick.’

  ‘What? No, I won’t …’

  ‘Dana!’ he hissed into her ear. ‘There’s going to be a fight, and if you don’t find a hiding place you’ll be caught in the middle of it. And I can’t have that on my mind as well as everything else. Now for once do as you’re told.’

  She might have been dazed, but she knew her brother well enough to know when he was being deadly serious. She nodded dumbly and, stooping down, allowed herself to be pushed into the under-stair cupboard. Heck closed the door quietly.

  There was a sudden massive impact on the other side of the building.

  ‘Heck!’ he heard Lauren shout. ‘Heck!’

  He scrambled back through the living room, and turned into the kitchen. Lauren had blocked the back door with lengths of wood, but a full-scale attack was now being launched on it. Heavy blows landed one after another, possibly with the flat of a foot, but no obvious progress was being made.

  ‘Surely he realises he can’t kick it down?’ Lauren whispered.

  ‘He’s not trying to kick it down,’ Heck said slowly. ‘This is a diversion!’

  He scarpered back into the living room, just in time to see Trooper Kilmor’s head, shoulders and upper body protruding through one of the windows. Heck charged forward, ripping up one of the thistles growing through the layer of rubble. Kilmor shouted a threat, but Heck was already lashing him across his unprotected face. Kilmor shrieked and tried to drag himself backward. Heck lashed him six or seven times before he managed it, but then had to duck as the muzzle of the Uzi appeared in the aperture and blazed off maybe thirty rounds.

  ‘Shit, my eyes!’ Kilmor screeched. ‘The bastard’s blinded me!’

  Now another voice was heard. It was Silver. ‘He hasn’t blinded you, you fucking pretend soldier! Get inside and finish them off like I told you!’

  More shots sounded from the kitchen.

  ‘Lauren?’ Heck shouted.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she called back.

  He rushed through. They were pistol shots from the Browning. Three more followed, and with each one a moonlit hole was punched in the back door.

  ‘He still can’t get in!’ Lauren laughed.

  Another angry kick struck the planks, and then there was silence.

  It was ear-punishing.

  They strained to listen. Still they heard nothing, but Heck was certain this was only the prelude to a renewed attack somewhere else on the perimeter. He beckoned to Lauren, and they moved.

  Aside from the living room, there was a second chamber adjoining the kitchen. This was long and narrow, and ran along the back of the house; it had probably been a dining room at some time. Again it was open to the night, but there were fragments of furnishing left in it: a few broken plant pots, a metal-framed table with a Formica top, the Formica itself having peeled away, leaving mildewed planks underneath. The door at the end of this room connected with the front of the house again. They progressed towards it, and halted there, glancing into the hall. Still there was no sound from outside.

  ‘Think they’ve given up and run for it?’ Lauren wondered.

  Heck shook his head.

  There was a sudden scraping sound, a scrabbling of loose stonework. They glanced upward — to see a squat, misshapen form balanced on the jagged apex of the outer wall.

  ‘Fuckers are trying to climb in!’ Lauren shouted.

  They dived in different directions as Klim pointed his Browning down and fired, Lauren throwing herself back into the dining room, Heck running clear across the hall, past the cupboard in which his sister was still concealed, and back into the living room. Klim pegged another three shots at them. There were more screaming ricochets, but none of the slugs struck home, which perhaps wasn’t surprising given that, from his perspective, Klim was shooting down into a darkened interior.

  He tried to improve his position, clambering across the open roof-space by its exposed joists, until he reached the top of the connecting wall between the hall and the dining room, which he perched on like some great, overweight ape. Heck stuck his head through the living room door, only for two more shots to be fired at him. He ducked back, but not before he was able to see that Klim was now directly above the staircase. If he hung by his hands, it was only a couple of feet to the topmost tread.

  Lauren, watching from the dining room, had also seen this.

  ‘Heck, the bastard’s a
lmost made it!’ she shouted.

  Heck was helpless to do anything, other than grab a half-brick and hurl it up. It missed by some distance. Klim fired at him, but then swung down from his perch, and, as they’d feared, alighted comfortably on the top of the stair. He again took aim at the living room door, now with both hands, and pumped off three more shots. Each one blew out a chunk of the door-jamb behind which Heck was flattened.

  ‘I’m inside!’ Klim bellowed, alerting his confederates beyond the walls.

  His eyes too were adjusting to the gloom. He turned towards the front door, and saw the heavy prop that had been used to shore it up. He squeezed off two shots at it. One of them struck, but the prop held firm. Klim ejected his spent clip and slid another into place — only for Lauren to seize the moment and come yelling up the stair towards him. He swung around to face her, but she’d picked up the Formica table and was using it like a shield. All he could see was the flat surface rushing up at him. He fired at it twice before it slammed into him, knocking him backward against the rotted banister, which split loudly. The spindles gave way, and Klim fell headfirst into the rubble below.

  It stunned him, knocking the gun from his grasp. But he knew he had to regain his feet quickly. He did this just in time to see Heck ballooning through the dimness, another half-brick in hand. Klim blocked the blow by taking it full on his forearm, which made him squawk in pain. Heck clamped a hand on his throat and forced him backward. Klim grabbed Heck’s throat in retaliation. They wrestled together, but now Lauren came swinging down over what remained of the banister, hitting Klim in the back with both feet. It winded him, and his legs buckled. It was all the opportunity Heck needed. He swept down hard with the half-brick, catching Klim in the mouth. The second blow was even more vicious; it struck Klim’s left temple, crushing it inward like sodden cardboard.

  A moment passed, and then the criminal fell sideways, his knees bending at one-eighty degrees beneath him. By his glazed eyes, he was dead before he hit the ground.

  Heck and Lauren stood panting. Then Heck spotted a dark stain seeping down the front of her vest. ‘You’re hurt!’

  She nodded and felt at the side of her neck. When she brought her palm away, it was bloody. She tried to smile, but it was weak, pained. ‘Just a flesh wound.’

  ‘Let me look.’

  He stepped over Klim’s body, only for another noise to distract them. They spun around. It was just beyond the front door — a click followed by a metallic snap. Unmistakably the cocking of a firearm.

  The Uzi.

  The fusillade that followed was furious, and blew the door clean from its hinges. Heck, who was directly in the firing-line, was hit twice — once in the shoulder, once in the left forearm — and was flung down on top of Klim. Lauren wasn’t hit, but stumbled backward, suddenly lacking the energy or guile to run. Her strength draining out of her with her blood, she slumped down onto her backside.

  The tall shape of Kilmor shouldered its way in through the smoke and splinters, Uzi levelled. Trickles of blood gleamed on both his cheeks. But his pearl-white teeth shone in a demented grin.

  ‘Time’s up, folks,’ he said simply.

  Heck rolled slightly, but couldn’t move. Pain was spreading through his body like corrosive acid; he was entirely paralysed down one side. With deliberate slowness, the remaining Nice Guy raised the Uzi in both hands and took careful aim at him.

  Only for a boom-like detonation to cut him virtually in half.

  Kilmor’s body jack-knifed forward from the doorway, his offal spattering the whole room. Before he could hit the ground, a second thunderous report tore into him, slamming him against the closet door, which he slid slowly down, leaving a thick, crimson smear on its rotted woodwork.

  The silence that followed hung heavy on air tainted with the mingled stenches of acrid smoke and burst-out bowels, and lasted for several torturous seconds.

  When another figure finally stepped in through the doorway, he was the last person Lauren had expected. It was dark of course, and at first he only appeared as a silhouette, but then he moved into the moonlight, and there was no mistaking the smart, pinstriped suit and clipped white moustache of Bobby Ballamara. The sawn-off shotgun in his leather-gloved hands smoked from both barrels.

  ‘Better late than never,’ Heck said weakly.

  ‘You’re alive, aren’t you?’ Ballamara replied.

  Another figure ambled in. It was Lennie Asquith. He too was armed, in his case with a sawn-off pump. He chuckled. ‘Had a rough night, detective?’

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’ Lauren demanded.

  ‘Sorry … didn’t get a chance to t-tell you,’ Heck stammered.

  Seeing how badly hurt he was, she crawled over to him. ‘You okay?’

  ‘No worse than you.’

  Ballamara kicked at one of the corpses. ‘So this is them?’

  ‘How did you get here?’ Lauren asked him.

  ‘With some luck,’ he replied. ‘We almost lost Heck at the service station. Had to drive past, and come back on the southbound carriageway to make it look like we weren’t following him. Took a while to trace him down here. If we hadn’t been on the car park when the shooting started …’

  ‘But how did you …?’

  ‘I called them,’ Heck said. ‘From the motorway.’

  ‘But they checked your phone records, I saw them.’

  ‘I used another phone.’ Heck winced as his pain intensified. ‘Took it off the little bastard I potted down in Hampstead …’

  ‘We’ve got to get him to hospital,’ Lauren said urgently.

  ‘And you, by the looks of it,’ Asquith sniggered.

  ‘Get someone,’ Ballamara told him.

  Asquith nodded and moved away, slipping his own phone from his pocket.

  ‘There were only two of them?’ Ballamara said.

  ‘There’s one back on the canal boat, too,’ Heck grunted. ‘He’s dead as well.’

  ‘Hey!’ Lauren suddenly shouted, stumbling to her feet. ‘What about Silver?’

  Ballamara looked mystified. ‘Silver?’

  ‘Their gaffer!’

  ‘Lauren, wait!’ Heck said.

  But Lauren had already grabbed up the Uzi, pushed past Asquith and staggered out through the front door.

  ‘Lauren, you’re in no fit state …’

  ‘He’s not getting away!’ came Lauren’s fading voice.

  ‘Help me,’ Heck gasped.

  Reluctantly, gingerly — as there was barely a part of Heck that wasn’t sopping with blood — Ballamara offered him a hand, and pulled him to his feet.

  ‘You’re telling me there’s another one left?’ the gangster said.

  Heck didn’t answer. Nauseated with pain and shock, he had to grit his teeth and was only able to get out through the farmhouse door and along the side of the building by leaning on the wall. When he reached its northwest corner, he peered down the moonlit slope, and saw Lauren hobbling after a stocky shape waddling along by the aid of a stick towards a silver-grey vehicle parked behind a low stone wall.

  ‘Lauren,’ he breathed, watching intently.

  There was a rattle of gunfire and a strobe-like flash as she fired into the air. ‘Stop where you are!’ she called. ‘Stop or you’re dead!’

  Heck held his breath as he watched the figure in front of her come to a stumbling halt a few yards short of the wall. Lauren fired into the air again. The figure slowly turned. Even from this distance, Heck fancied he could see that its arms were raised.

  Theoretically, there’d be no problem. Lauren was also an ex-combat soldier. She had a gun in her hand, and even if she hadn’t, even with that flesh-wound, she ought to be more than a match for this crippled opponent. But there was something about Mad Mike Silver … they barely knew him, yet Heck felt instinctively that he was evil to his bones, and clever with it.

  ‘Lauren!’ Heck tried to stagger after her, but even cautious progress sent him dizzy.

  The two distant figure
s were now very close to each other. Heck heard Lauren shouting further instructions — instructions with which Silver apparently wasn’t complying. Lauren shouted again; a different tone. Heck’s hair prickled as he saw the two shapes suddenly slam together in a fearsome tussle. There was a smack of fist on bone, only to be followed by what sounded like a ripping of flesh and a piping, half-choked squeal. Desperation gave Heck extra strength. He was halfway down the slope, picking up speed. But one of the two shapes had now slumped to the ground.

  ‘Lauren!’ he sobbed.

  The other figure climbed over the wall, rounded the vehicle to its driver’s door and slid inside. The engine rumbled to life. The headlights came on, spearing along the darkened road. As Heck approached, it rumbled away, dust swirling behind it.

  Lauren was seated on the grass, her back against the wall. He dropped to one knee beside her. She smiled at him feebly. One bloodstained hand was clasped to her chest.

  ‘Missed … missed the fucker,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Don’t talk,’ he said, moving her hand aside.

  Beneath it, a gleaming, fist-sized bauble was visible against the fabric of her bloodied vest, apparently fixed in place. With a thrill of horror, Heck recognised it as the skull head of Mike Silver’s walking stick. By the looks of it, it was actually a sword-stick, about a foot in length. The bastard had drawn it and run her clean through with it.

  ‘I thought you said we weren’t the ones who are going to die,’ she whispered.

  ‘Don’t talk, just try and relax.’ Heck turned and screamed: ‘Ballamara!’

  ‘Relax? … that’s a good one. I can’t move anyway.’

  ‘Lauren …’

  ‘We got most of them, at least? Those bastards who hurt Genene …’

  Heck nodded, helpless. The light in her eyes was fading even as he watched.

  ‘You’re going to get that last one, Heck?’