He swivelled Kevin, lifting him off his feet and setting him down again, so he could watch Tyler catch up and the three of them approach the steps. He whispered again into Kevin’s ear. “If you have a phone, just take it out of your pocket and leave it with your brother’s.”
Kevin wrenched it out and let it drop.
He eased the pressure on his cheek. “Just stay calm. This will all be over if you do exactly as you’re told.” He’d initially told him he’d shoot his mother and brother in the face if he didn’t stop crying, and he’d responded appropriately.
The women and teenager turned at the top of the steps.
“Go into the dining room and stand by the mantel. Don’t be tempted by any impulse to escape.”
“I’m not going anywhere without Kevin,” Mrs O’Doole’s voice trembled behind her defiance.
“You are. Back to the dining room or I shoot both your boys in front of you.”
“Mom...” said Tyler, although Mimic was unsure whether it was a caution or just a child’s demand for her to make what was happening stop.
Mrs O’Doole gripped him firmly by his arm and moved him towards the steps. Beth Jordan followed. What was turning over in that brain? He’d be watching her closer than anyone else.
Mimic watched their three heads disappear below the edge of the bank and then marched the boy across to the handrail. “Walk slowly in front of me; don’t run, or I’ll put a bullet in your spine and then one in your brother and Mom.” He released the boy’s clammy body.
Kevin looked as if his legs might give out as he gripped the wood and descended. Mimic watched the adults looking back at his progress as they moved slowly down the side of the lodge. “Eyes front, all of you. Dining room mantel.”
When Mimic reached the bottom of the steps, the others had turned the corner. He’d have to be wary of an attack here. The adults knew it would be their last opportunity. “Kevin.”
The younger boy immediately halted and Mimic secured his arm around his throat and pushed the barrel back into the circular impression in his cheek. “Walk.”
They hit the corner but Mimic saw the adults had already entered the dining room via the double-glazed door. Perhaps they still thought they might be able to plead for some of their lives to be spared. That wasn’t going to happen. Killing them was the least of his worries, and the sooner he got started and had space and time to think about how to dispose of the bodies, the better. He briefly looked out across the river and sniffed in the clean air.
“That’s it, one more step.”
When he saw the other three standing in front of the mantel, Mimic released Kevin. He ran to his mother and she wrapped her arms around his head as he crooked it into her shoulder. He was taller than her, and Mimic allowed the awkward hug a few seconds before stepping into the room, keeping his gun pointed at the boy’s back. He dragged the door shut behind him. He wouldn’t need the suppressor. Their isolation meant concealing the shots wasn’t going to be necessary.
Chapter 68
Beth looked directly down the barrel of the gunman’s revolver for the third time.
“Why are you doing this?” Mrs O’Doole’s eyes were firmly closed.
The gunman wiped at the corners of his mouth with his Starbucks napkin and pocketed it. “Everyone down into the cellar.”
The two boys started crying then, but a series of solid knocks immediately halted them. All five of them were suddenly holding their breath.
“Not a word,” he warned them, narrowing his eyes as if it would focus his hearing.
They waited for further sound. The knocks on the front door came again. Silence. Then pounding, heavy footsteps. Somebody was walking down the side of the lodge. The gunman swivelled to the double-glazing and waited for their arrival. “Any noise and I shoot our visitor and then the kids.” He didn’t even turn to them as he issued the threat.
Beth recognised the man who appeared on the deck outside. It was the grey-whiskered resident of the property she’d visited further up the track. He was dressed in fishing gear.
“Help you?” the Gunman said cordially as he slid the door open a crack. He kept his revolver hand behind his back where they could all see it.
“Name’s Ned Hollis. I’m staying at Flathead Bend. Just a heads-up; were you expecting a visitor here last night?”
“There’s a bunch of us assembling here. Family vacation. Why?”
“We had a girl come onto our property last night. Said she was looking for a woman and two young boys. My wife directed her here. Just wanted to know if she arrived.”
“Yeah. She did. Safe and sound.”
“It would put our minds at rest. If she was just an opportunist thief trying her luck around the area...”
“As I say, she got here last night,” the gunman said firmly.
“What time was that? Pardon me, but I’d like to make sure we’re talking about the same lady.”
The Gunman was briefly struck dumb. “Let me think, now.”
“Just to confirm... this was a young lady with a shaved head. We didn’t know–”
“Tell you what. Beth!” the gunman called her as if she might be in another room. He turned. “Oh, here she is. This your night caller?” He angled his body towards her, using his empty hand to gesture her to the door. “Beth, you scared this man half to death.”
As she reached the double-glazing, the man smiled warmly. “I wouldn’t say that. Just gave us a rude awakening is all.”
Beth tried to return the man’s smile but found the muscles around her lips had seized up. “Sorry again.”
“No trouble; I won’t disturb you good folks any longer.”
“Thanks for stopping by. Appreciate it.” The gunman was already sliding the door shut. He returned his attention to his hostages, training his revolver on them while they all listened to Ned’s waders clumping slowly back around the side of the lodge.
“OK, everyone down into the cellar.” He motioned them towards the hall. Kevin started to weep again as the O’Dooles complied. He gestured Beth to follow.
She fell in behind them, wondering what the hell she could do, but knowing that the barrel was pointed at her back. As soon as they were in the cellar, they were out of time.
Kevin clung onto the edge of the door and she could see his knuckles whiten.
“Kevin.” Mrs O’Doole tried to lift him away.
“No delays. We can do this up here if you want. Mh? Or I can give you some options downstairs.”
Beth knew there was only one option and they were about twenty paces from it.
Chapter 69
Marcia O’Doole put her arms around Kevin’s shoulders, her own sobs threatening to break through. She smelt the shampoo scent in his hair as his body shook in her embrace, and whispered into his hot ear. “Take my hand, Kevin. I won’t let go of it.”
“There’s no time for this. Move him downstairs.”
She ignored his instruction, screwed her eyes shut against it and gripped him tighter. “Got to be brave now.” Attack was pointless. How could she disarm him? But she knew he wasn’t going to let any of them walk out of the house alive and that this moment was the last she’d have to protect her sons.
Maybe if she launched herself at him, Beth Jordan would follow suit...and then maybe the boys. Perhaps the four of them could overpower him, even if he pulled the trigger.
“Do you want me to move his fingers from there?”
She didn’t want to open her eyes again. Wanted to be suspended in this moment. But now was the time to act. Marcia tensed herself and opened them. She saw their executioner first and then the deer head.
Mimic saw it a second after the pain of its antler piercing just below his waist. His back arched against it and he fell onto his side. While he’d been distracted by the kid clinging to the door, the little fucker Tyler had dropped behind him and swiped it off the wall.
“Run!” Tyler yelled.
Mimic felt the sharp edge of something strik
e the wound already in the top of his skull, and the room flashed yellow then black as his brain momentarily disconnected. Sound was briefly muffled, but he maintained a grip on the gun. Sharp nails dug into the back of his hand, but the new pain was no match for the cold burn below his spine. He swung his free fist at whichever woman was trying to prise the revolver out of his fingers and rolled onto his back. He waved the gun at anyone who might be stood over him.
“Mom!” Sounded like Kevin.
“Out the back!” Tyler again. Like he was underwater.
“He’ll catch us out there.” Beth’s voice was the same.
“He will if we don’t go now!” Mrs O’Doole’s vibration in the soup.
Mimic used the barrel of the gun to shakily push himself up, the yellow film clearing as the sharper sounds of their frantic footsteps crashed back.
“Upstairs!” Beth again. Clear as day.
They were running back past the dining room doorway and scrambling up the stairs before he could rise properly. Mimic looked down at the benign features of the deer head and the blood on one of its antlers. He staggered out into the passage and walked past the cellar door to the foot of the stairs in time to hear an upstairs door slam and lock.
Beth had been right. He would have used the suppressor and gunned them down as they climbed the steps or ran along the jetty. Even if they’d made it into the water, he could easily have picked them off. They were safer locked away from him, for now.
He didn’t have to panic. When he’d arrived and used the upstairs bathroom, he’d ascertained there weren’t any telephones or computers up there, no way of them communicating with anyone outside the lodge. Tyler and Kevin’s iPhones were outside, and Mrs O’Doole’s was safely in his pocket.
They’d done him a favour. He could now consider how to deal with them as a group without being distracted. Now he didn’t have to hold a gun on two unpredictable adults and two teenagers; he could focus on the easiest way to dispose of them.
He slowly climbed the stairs and heard something heavy sliding across the floor as he reached the bedroom door they were behind.
*
Beth and Mrs O’Doole shunted the old chest of drawers as flush with the door as they could. The room was in darkness as the wooden shutters were closed over the window.
Beth dragged Mrs O’Doole low and hissed at the boys. “Get down on the other side of the bed.”
The boys took cover between it and the window just as a shot rang out and the handle splintered, wood flakes and dust flying. Beth and Mrs O’Doole crouched in the cover behind the drawers and put their body weight against it, panting as they waited for him to try and bulldoze his way through.
No attempt was made, but as they exchanged eye contact, both their jaws remained clenched in readiness.
Chapter 70
Mimic lowered his gun arm and stepped back one pace from the door. That should keep them immobile for a while, and he intended to exploit it. He quickly slid his shoes off and hooked them up with his free hand before padding downstairs in his socked feet. Stepping on the sides of the steps meant they only creaked slightly as he made his way down them and back into the kitchen. Not knowing where he was in the house would keep them afraid.
They wouldn’t unlock the door for a good while, but he had to check any other exits they had. He left his shoes on the counter and quietly opened the back door. He limped a few paces along the deck and noticed a small utility hut further along the riverbank. Perhaps there were some tools there that might be useful.
The pain at his waist intensified with each step. He stopped to put his fingers gingerly against the wound and felt a jolt as he touched it. His mouth filled with saliva as he looked at the blood caking his fingertips. Little shit. He wiped them on his claret shirt.
He turned the corner and slunk down the side of the lodge, stopping at the next corner to look upwards at the windows to the bedrooms. They were all covered with white slatted wooden shutters, so no attempt had been made to open them... yet. There was no drainpipe beside any of them, so if they did try to exit that way, they would have quite a drop to the concrete and probably break their ankles. The bank that the steps were cut into was too far from the lodge to jump to it.
Maybe they’d try to tie some sheets together and climb down, but he’d let them know they should reconsider that. Mimic aimed his gun at the slatted window and put three bullets into it. He could hear them scream as the bullets pierced the wood and glass.
He strolled back around the house and into the kitchen. There was a stack of thick pancakes on a plate. He peeled one off and it was still slightly warm. He stuffed it into his mouth. They were good and rich. Mom obviously used extra eggs in the batter. His head throbbed as his jaw pumped. He tentatively touched the tender area on his scalp and winced.
Mimic turned things over while he painfully ate two more pancakes, and then went down to the cellar.
Chapter 71
Beth strained her ears for sounds of movement in and around the lodge over the rapid breathing in the room. She was still crouching with Mrs O’Doole at the base of the chest against the door, both of them on their knees. Directly after the potshots at the window, Tyler and Kevin had come over to their side of the bed and were lying on their stomachs next to each other. Three rods of daylight penetrated the wooden blinds and distressed glass, and Beth watched motes of dust rapidly moving through them.
Mrs O’Doole swallowed loudly and whispered. “I haven’t heard him come back up the stairs.”
“We didn’t hear him go down them, either. I don’t think we should move until we know where he is.” Her throat felt bruised when she spoke, and the tenderiser wound Mrs O’Doole had inflicted still pumped under the flow of adrenaline.
“Who the hell is he?” She looked squarely at Beth as if she were responsible for his presence. “I heard what he said to you in the cellar. I came down because Kevin said he was sure he was the man we saw collapsed in the park and I’d called an ambulance for the morning we left.”
“He’s been murdering every person who used their phones to record the crash site.” It felt like the first time she’d made eye contact with Tyler. He looked down at the carpet. “I came here to warn you.”
“Why is he killing them?”
“I wish I knew. But you’re the last people left.”
Mrs O’Doole closed her eyes briefly, as if silently remonstrating with herself.
“Maybe he’s gone.” Kevin hissed hopefully. The imprint from the gunman’s barrel was still in his cheek.
“Don’t be a cock. He’s not going to let us leave.” Tyler growled
“Tyler.” Mrs O’Doole shot him a barbed look.
Tyler realised his big-brother default setting wasn’t helping matters. “Maybe if he thinks he can’t get to us, he will, though,” he added lamely.
But it was too late. Kevin looked petrified.
“If he can’t get through the door then the window’s his only other way in.” Beth nodded towards it.
Tyler and Kevin started to raise their heads above the mattress to take a look.
“Keep down,” Mrs O’Doole snarled through her teeth.
“The shutters are sealed.” Beth could still see the hooks in place.
“Until he shoots off the locks.”
“He’ll need a ladder to get in. Is there one around?”
Mrs O’Doole rolled her eyes up briefly. “The cellar.”
“If he tries that, we’ll at least have warning and can pull these drawers away and escape down the stairs.”
“And go where?” Mrs O’Doole raised her eyebrows. “He’ll meet us coming up the side of the lodge or use us for target practice if we try to swim for it.”
“We could split up,’ Beth said. “Some of us could try getting back onto the track while the others jump in the water. He can’t chase us all at once. It might be the only chance we have.”
Mrs O’Doole lowered her voice. “I’m not letting the boys out of my sigh
t. Besides, he could chase anybody to the track and still have time to return to the jetty before we’d gotten to the other side.”
Beth looked up at the ceiling. Over the bed, next to a smoke detector, was an attic door. “Can we get out through there?”
Mrs O’Doole followed her gaze. “There’s no window in the roof. It’s just for storage.”
“Is that the only door to it?”
“No. The second one is over the landing.”
“And that’s the only other one?”
Mrs O’Doole nodded.
“What about Dad’s hunting rifle?” Tyler interjected.
Beth turned to him and then looked back at his mother.
Mrs O’Doole didn’t reflect the hope in the three sets of eyes suddenly on her. “It hasn’t been fired for a long time. And we don’t have any ammo for it.”
“Um. We do,” Tyler said, semi-contrite.
Mrs O’Doole narrowed her eyes at her older son. “I threw the ammo away.”
“We found some of Dad’s old stash at home and brought a box the last time we were here.”
“You’ve been firing that thing unsupervised?” Her whisper could barely contain her mortification.
“You didn’t really think we were fishing, did you, Mom?”
Mrs O’Doole’s gaze panned to Kevin, and he looked shamefully down at the carpet.
“I don’t believe this. What did I tell you, Tyler?”
Beth held up her hand. “Forget the discipline. Where is it?”
“Locked up in the gun cupboard in the back den.” He avoided his mother’s glare.
“You’re sure?”
Tyler nodded. “It’s the only one in the rack.”
“At least we could use that to defend ourselves with. Who’s got the key?”
Mrs O’Doole fumbled in her jeans pocket and extracted a bunch. She started looking through them. “It’s missing.”
Tyler produced his own set and held up the key for Beth.
“Tyler. I should...”
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