by Fleet, Ricky
“What’re you doing?” whispered Paul.
“If you say one more word, I’ll leave you here!” Matt hissed.
Summoning every last ounce of courage, he ignored his dry mouth and sweat soaked forehead. Never in his life had so much rested on a single, near impossible task. Taking a steadying breath, he needlessly closed his eyes and concentrated. Arms twisting, he felt for the object. Moving slowly enough to be nearly motionless, the fingertip touched the firm edge again. He couldn’t quite get the distance to pin it down and slide it towards himself. A single flick with his fingernail would be their only chance. If it went wrong, their salvation would ping away like a tiddlywink. Gently scratching at the protective tape, his heart nearly stopped when he found the line where he’d cut. Breath held, Matt tried to hook the nail on the miniscule lip of adhesive strip. Catching it just right, the thin blade started to lift slightly. Losing his nerve, Matt lowered it back to the carpet.
Whatever you’re going to do, do it now. You almost had it, said his logical voice.
But what if you drop it? You’ll be violated by a red hot steel dick, said the other.
“Fuck this!” he muttered.
Finding the raised lip of tape again, he counted, one, two, three, and pulled. It sunk into the semi rigid carpet and pinged away, hitting the outer wall of the trailer. The almost inaudible plink was their death knell. Matt’s body sagged. He’d failed. His men were doomed. He’d never see his family again. They would spend the rest of their days, however short, wondering why he never came looking. Saying a final goodbye to their memory, he leaned sideways towards the protuberant bar, ready for death.
Chapter 26
“What happened?” whispered Paul.
Matt ignored the question and placed his temple against the sharp bar. Logically, the softer skull should make it easier to penetrate. It would hurt, of that he was sure, but far less than having a red hot poker shoved up his arse. Shifting slightly to get better leverage, his hand brushed against something on the crusty rug. Could it really be? Expecting it to be nothing more than a trick of his tortured mind, it didn’t immediately sink in when he picked up the blade. It was solid. Reassuringly so. Turning it over in his hands, he peeled the wrapped tape.
“What’s that?”
The crinkling seemed extraordinarily loud in the silence of the trailer. The Gypsies had carried out some rudimentary soundproofing, probably to deaden the terrified screams of previous victims. If Matt could only get free, it would provide excellent concealment to the next stage of his plan. Still ignoring the questions, he flipped the razor and hissed in pain as the corner opened up the pad of his right thumb. Feeling the trickle of blood as it fell from the tip, he switched hands. The last thing he needed was to drop their only chance of survival from crimson soaked fingers. Holding it tightly, Matt twisted his hands and painstakingly searched for the curve of the bonds. A couple of mistakes opened up more small wounds, but eventually he pressed it to firm hemp. Back and forth he pushed the blade, hearing the faint twangs of splitting threads. After what seemed like an hour, the frayed cord broke, releasing most of the tension around his aching wrists. Holding tightly to the blade just in case, Matt started to flex and wiggle his hands.
That’s it, nearly there!
Whatever loop was still holding strong fell away, and he nearly cheered in jubilation. In reality, they were still trapped deeply within the camp. It was unknown if they would make it ten feet from the substitute prison, much less out of the camp to freedom. Reigning in his runaway elation, he quickly cut the duct tape at his chest and legs. Finally undoing the ankle ropes, he sat back and took slow, steady breaths.
“What’s happening?” Paul pressed, hearing strange noises and grunts from his friend.
A hand clamped over his mouth, nearly eliciting a scream of shock which Matt had expected.
“I’m free. Now shut the fuck up while I cut you all loose.”
“Loose, loose, I’m going to be loose, just like a goose!” sung one of the men merrily.
“Shut up, you fool!” Matt whispered.
“Up? Yes, up, fly, like a goose, that’s loose. Fly, fly away! No more fire, no more burning.”
Matt crawled over to the prisoner. “Shh, we’re going home! Now shut up!”
“Home, in the dome, of Rome. We’ll fly like a goose, that’s loose!” babbled the man, growing louder by the second.
Pushing away the terrible misgivings, he felt for the man’s face. Clutching him by the chin and back of the head, Matt wrenched sideways with all his strength. An awful crunch rebounded from the aluminium roof.
Laying the head down gently on its broken neck, Matt whispered, “Sorry, brother.”
“You had to do it,” Paul commiserated. “He’d have brought them all running.”
“Is everyone else cool?” asked Matt in the darkness. Gill, Yanni, and Scott had been the ones gibbering in the blacksmith’s. One of the three now lay dead. Hearing the answers, Yanni and Gill confirmed that they had come back to the land of the sane. How long that would last was anyone’s guess. Realistically it would’ve been sensible, if not downright necessary, to snap their necks too. A relapse at the wrong moment would kill them all. Matt knew he couldn’t do it. Not after the horror they had already been through.
“Hold still. I’m going to untie you,” he said, loosening Paul’s bonds.
Five minutes saw the remaining men freed. Gathered in the pitch black, Matt ordered them to stand still and keep quiet. Moving with care, he placed each foot down slowly to check for creaks in the thin undercarriage. Reaching the first window without being exposed, he peeled back the lining a fraction of an inch. It was as he expected. The burning fires were dying down and most of the travellers had returned to their homes. A pair of guards at the door snoozed, shotguns lolling in their laps. They were obviously confident that anyone inside the camp wasn’t escaping. The arrogance of their captors might be their salvation. Repeating the process around the whole caravan, the single entrance was the only thing being guarded.
“What do we do now?” whispered Ryan.
“We try and get the fuck out of here. They locked the door, so we need to pray the windows aren’t sealed shut.”
“And if they are?”
“Then we kick the door down and take as many of them with us as possible before they blow us to hell. I don’t know about you lot, but I’m not dying screaming with a poker up my arse.”
“Ok, let’s try it. The back window is the biggest.”
“What do we do about the guards?”
Matt thought about it for a moment. The chances of extracting nine burly men from a thin walled tin can without making any noise was close to zero.
“I’ll need a volunteer. Once two of us are out, we crawl under the caravan. I’ll cut the throat of the first guard. I’ll need the second man to grab the gun away and keep his guard quiet until I can finish him too. We’ll only get one chance, and if we fuck it up, we’re as good as dead.”
“I’ll do it,” Paul volunteered.
“Good man.”
Unclasping the window latch, the Perspex opened without issue.
“Here’s how it’s going to work,” Matt whispered. “I’ll need one of you to hold the window fully open. We can’t put any weight on the walls or the window frame, they’ll creak like a bastard. That means the others will have to lift me and lower me through the opening. Now I’ve been on a diet recently, so I don’t want any wisecracks about being too heavy.”
Ignoring the quip, the men prepared themselves. Turning Matt around, two men grabbed him by the legs while another two took an arm each and wrapped them around their necks. Lifting like he was a priceless vase, they slowly edged towards the window, feeding feet out first. To any observer, it would look like he was doing the worlds slowest dive in reverse through the window. The men holding his legs were forced to retreat, placing every pound of weight on the two holding his upper body. Hearing a grunt of pain, hands shot from the sha
dows to take any available tether and minimise the strain. Grasping his coat in multiple places, they managed to spare some of the burden. One hand searched for his hair until a low growl warned them off. Slowly but surely they lowered until his boots touched firm ground. Sighs of relief were implausibly loud, likely lent more intensity by the knowledge they were surrounded by murderous hostility.
“Now you,” Matt whispered quietly, holding out his hands.
They repeated the manoeuvre, but with someone on the outside to help Paul down, it went a lot smoother. Dropping into his embrace, Matt reeled away from his playful smooch.
“It’s not the fucking time!”
“Sorry, I’m just relieved.”
“We can celebrate once we get the hell out of here. We go underneath the trailer, slowly. We’ve got to be sure to get the guns away or they can just fire a warning shot. Once we have them secured, we’ll need to cover their mouths until I can finish them off. Ok?”
“Why don’t we just knock them out?”
“Because we’ll be coming at them from a kneeling position. Not to mention that they’re Gypsies and used to getting knocked around. No, we need to incapacitate them long enough for my razor to work. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
Matt knelt down and crawled into the deeper darkness. Even the scant moonlight couldn’t penetrate into the black void. Shuffling forward with exaggerated care, they felt unseen bugs rupture under their weight. Paul started to feel an itch on his hand, and it quickly spread to his whole body. He could imagine the spiders, millipedes, louses, all skittering over his skin. They would crawl and burrow, getting into his ears and mouth! In panic, he started to brush at his sleeves, desperate to be free of the invading insects. So many, all over him! A spider’s web caught in his hair. Reeling at the contact, his scalp tingled with imagined legs. Matt’s rough hand settled over his own, reassuringly firm as it squeezed in support.
Matt could feel the simmering tension bubbling away in his gut. It was no surprise that their terror at the preceding hours had manifested in such a horrible place. Darkness and fear of what lay within it was primal, but if Paul went berserk, he would doom them all. As the seconds passed, the tremors in his dim-witted friend slowly subsided. Thank God! A broken neck would be like an alarm bell to the men sat dozing five feet away. Paul patted the back of Matt’s hand in thanks and proceeded forward.
An unseen bug crawled from Paul’s hair and down his face. Tensing and ready to scream, he concentrated on the men in the caravan above who were counting on him. Seemingly uninterested in any of the orifices of his nose, mouth or ears, it dropped away and was gone.
The crackle of burning drums had masked their approach perfectly. Matt considered the plan one last time and knew it had to be this way. As brutal as he was, the thought of murdering someone in such a sneaky fashion went against everything he stood for. It was in his nature to face his enemy, to beat them in a fair fight. No chance of that here.
Paul tapped him on the shoulder and his ghostly arm pointed out a toppled whisky bottle underneath the right hand seat. Judging by the growling drone of the snores, the traveller was three sheets to the wind. Indicating they should swap places, Matt circled around and moved closer to the left hand seat. The fog of drunken surprise might buy them a couple of valuable seconds and Paul seemed to understand this without the need to convey the words. A foot from the edge, the weak firelight was like brightest sunlight. As soon as they moved an inch further, anyone walking around would see them clearly.
Holding out a hand, Matt held up three fingers. Paul took a silent breath and watched as the digits dropped. Three, two, one, clenched fist. Jumping to his feet as quietly as a cat, he grabbed the saliva streaked open mouth of the drunk. At exactly the same moment, Matt clamped his meaty fist over the sober Gypsy’s face, drawing the thin blade across the windpipe. A stricken wheezing burst from the wound as the man awoke in agony, trying to pry the vicelike grip away from his face. Two more swipes cut inches deep, severing muscle, tendon, and carotid arteries. Leaving him to flop and bleed out, the powerful Scot went at the drunkard like a butcher, hacking away until the throat was a mess of ragged gashes.
Matt watched the spreading pool of blood with macabre fascination. I’m damned to Hell, he thought, imagining the gloating laughter of Lucifer echoing in the corridors of his mind.
“We need to hide them. We’ll just have to hope they don’t notice the blood,” whispered Paul. Taking charge and showing an unseen intelligence, he scooped dust and layered it on the spreading pool as much as possible.
Their victims twitched, still barely alive. The spatter of blood and choking gargles was a melody compared to the matriarch’s joy as she tortured his friends. Pushing them into the shadows, Paul heard the jingle of keys and pulled them from the sober Gypsy’s pocket.
“Matt, we’ve got to go!” he hissed, unlocking the caravan door. Retrieving the guns, the prisoners gathered around and waited for guidance.
Coming out of the fugue, Matt felt the taint spreading through his soul no less than the crimson fluid trickling from the shadows towards them. He was no stranger to murder, but not like this. He would dream of that feeling for the rest of his life; the sensation as blade cut through weak skin and flesh, the inaudible scream gurgling through an open trachea.
“Matt, for fuck’s sake!”
“Sorry. Let’s get out of here.”
“Which way?”
Looking around, they seemed to be in a trailer close to the centre of the small village. The black heart of the camp. Dozens of the small mobile homes stretched away, shrouded in gloom. In the distance, the main gatehouse could be seen, the fires high and guards watchful.
“We have to cross the pit,” he muttered.
“Oh shit,” whispered Paul.
“You’re joking!” moaned Yanni, a little too loudly. A firm glare from the Scotsman quietened the complaint instantly.
Back in control, Matt led them through the concealing shadows. To their rear, the sounds of shuffling and reanimated gurgling could be heard.
It should provide a distraction at least, he thought.
Picking up the pace, they were lucky that the camp slept so soundly. There were no sentries walking the narrow alleys between the homes, no more blazing beacons to see by. Only the occasional snatch of luminous moonlight between the drifting clouds.
Holding up a hand, the men ducked down and waited. The massive bank of earth rose into the sky ten feet past the trailers they were hiding behind. Due to the massive circumference of the protected camp, the concentration of sentries was heavily diluted by distance. A scream from inside the grounds caused the searchlights of the torches to rotate inwardly from around the whole perimeter.
“They’ll know in seconds we’ve escaped. We have to go, now!” Matt ordered and they broke from cover.
Scrambling up the steep bank, they reached the top without a cry of challenge or cracks of gunfire. The slope on the other side of the makeshift wall was even steeper, with the bucket marks of the digger evident in the compressed soil.
“We go on our asses. Dig in your heels and hands at all times. One slip and… well you know what’ll happen.”
Excited groans could be heard from the pitch black trench, as if they knew their kin hunted within the walls.
“Go!”
Matt sat on the frozen lip and knew how crazy this was. In the summer, with more pliable mud, it would have been risky. Here, with the ice hardened ground, it was as close to suicide as it came. His heart sank when Yanni and Tucker let their fear win. Moving too quickly, their heels slipped and they commenced sliding down the ramp. Twisting around, they clawed frantically at the near smooth surface. Unable to find purchase, the descent gathered pace until, with a disbelieving yelp, the men disappeared from view. A heavy clang of bone on metal carried from the hellish moat and Matt prayed that it had knocked the victim senseless. A solitary voice cried for help, then fell silent as vital organs were stripped
from the soft body. Luckily the bedlam within the grounds concealed the tortured death, and the others continued moving.
“Dig your boots in for fuck’s sake,” Matt ordered, slamming his heel into the hard packed soil. It only indented slightly, but it was enough to provide a semblance of traction.
Gill lost his grip, scuffing down on his rump and dropping from sight without a word. Even at the sounds of tearing meat, he didn’t scream. Whether it was the returning insanity, or a brave stand to try and protect his friends they would never know. Matt knew which one he thought it was and said a prayer of thanks to the dead prisoner.
“What do we do now?” asked Paul, peeking from the edge. A six inch shelf lined the pit, allowing them to stand precariously at the rim. Spaced every four feet, thick steel supports were holding apart the wood and metal plates of the support system.
“We shimmy across the poles.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“You can stay here if you want, but I’m going home.”
Lowering himself carefully, Matt grasped the steel tube and gritted his teeth. The frozen metal stung painfully, leeching the heat instantly from fingers. For a second he considered pulling his sleeves down to spare the icy needle feeling. The lack of solid grip could be fatal, he decided, dropping fully into the air and hanging from the crossbeam. The tingling rapidly became an awful burning feeling and he knew every second of hesitation brought him closer to losing sensation in the strained extremities. Kicking out, every swing was agony, and he was certain he was leaving skin behind on the steel. Another unidentified yell of terror bounced around the pit as someone lost their grip. Giving full vent to the agony of being devoured alive, the beams of the wall watchers swung in their direction.
“Down there!” cried a furious voice.
The cracks of shotguns and rifles shattered the night. Matt ignored the whines and pings of bullets and buckshot ricocheting from their handholds, focusing instead on the opposing bank four feet away. Summoning the last of his strength, he swung a leg up and hooked the muddy rim. A pepper of shot tore into the calf, causing him to shout in pain. Picturing his wife and boys, he forced the screaming discomfort away and hoisted himself to the solid ground. Twisting around while the man searched for more cartridges, he held out a hand. To nothing. Everyone else was gone, either shot, or falling in panic.