The Gated Trilogy

by Matt Drabble

  The messages were a mixture of work calls and personal. Her mother was scolding her lightly for having not seen her in a couple of weeks.

  The woman had passive aggression down to a fine art. There were calls from media outlets all wanting interviews with Tolanson, but not enough - not yet. The campaign was gaining traction but not quickly enough for her liking. What she needed was a splash, something to wake the rest of the party up.

  Tolanson’s crew were a tight knit bunch and their almost fanatical devotion to the man made her a little uncomfortable. It shocked her how quickly she had taken to him herself, but her strong feelings always faded slightly on the rare occasion that she managed to return home.

  She slugged back half a glass of the warm wine and then slammed the glass down hard on the counter as the answer machine ran onto the next message.

  “Shit!” she hissed angry at herself.

  “Hi, Avery. I was just checking that you were okay; we missed you at the party last night. I tried to call your mobile but the message box was full. I guess you must be too busy these days.”

  Debbie’s tone was light-hearted but Avery knew that her best friend was hurt. They had been close friends since school, inseparable for much of their adult lives, and yet she had clean forgotten Debbie’s birthday.

  She was pondering how she could make it up to the woman as her eyes wandered over to the window.

  Her apartment was on the third floor and overlooked the street. Across the road was a streetlight and under it stood a man. On instinct she found her hand flashing out and hitting the light switch nearby, plunging her into darkness.

  It wasn’t a particularly sinister scene but something about the man caught her attention hard.

  He was wearing a long trench coat pulled up around his neck against the cold and an old-fashioned fedora hat. The outfit alone should have been cause for mirth, but looking down at him she couldn’t have felt less like laughing.

  The man remained motionless, and although she couldn’t see his eyes and he couldn’t see her in the dark, she just knew that he was watching her. Her breath caught in the back of her throat and she stared down at the man, suddenly feeling strangely guilty.

  They held a locked gaze for what seemed like an eternity. The spell was only broken when the phone on the wall beside her rang and she almost screamed in shock. She turned and reached for the phone but when she looked back at the street the man was gone. Her mother was soon talking at high speed in her ear and the man started to fade from her mind.

  ----------

  Tolanson lay down on the mattress. His room was barren of any other furniture. He didn’t need the trappings of a normal life; he had his destiny and that was more than enough.

  He closed his eyes and allowed the peace to wash over him. Even with his considerable abilities, he had limitations. He was no longer a god - his bones ached and he could bleed. This particular meat suit was going to have to last him a long time and he couldn’t afford to damage it beyond repair.

  The world now was a chessboard to him and he had to move his pieces carefully. He could infuse those around him with the sort of love normally reserved for a deity, but distance faded such emotions.

  He hated to sleep because when he did he lost control and the remnants of his past existences crept in. The one thing that he craved was order; he had to be in power, and in his dreams he succumbed to fear and anger.

  He closed his eyes for a few minutes, trying to rest in a shallow slumber, but soon he had drifted off into a deep sleep and found himself drowning once again.

  ----------

  McDere stood guard as the great man rested. He was under strict instructions to remain outside no matter what he heard and soon the hallway was filled with screams of pain and rage. His first instinct was to rush in and help. He hated to hear the man he worshipped suffering, but he still remembered the only time that he’d broken his orders.

  Tolanson had been sleeping and had started to cry out. McDere had rushed in, afraid of what he’d find inside. To his relief the man had been merely thrashing about on his bed suffering nothing worse than a nightmare. He’d run to the bed, but as he’d reached it, he’d suddenly noticed that Tolanson was actually hovering about six inches above the covers. Tolanson had suddenly flailed out an arm and McDere had found himself suddenly airborne. His large frame had crashed into the wall with sickening force, leaving a large crater in the plasterboard. It was a miracle that he’d managed to crawl to the door without further injury. Tolanson’s flapping arms had created a raging tornado inside the room and McDere could see why the man insisted on emptying any sleeping chamber of all furniture.

  He considered himself a blessed man, ordained by God to serve his emissary on earth. Tolanson was on a holy mission and McDere had been chosen, anointed in the fire of God’s power, and he would serve as Tolanson’s fist of fury to those who sought to oppose his master. The pathway to the kingdom of heaven was littered with evil obstacles and it was his job to smash through them.

  The room that he currently guarded was in a luxurious house that had caught Tolanson’s eye one day. He had simply knocked on the door and been invited in. McDere couldn’t quite remember what had happened to the previous owners - that part of his memory was clouded - but he assured himself that he only knew what God wanted him to know.

  He leaned against the door and listened closely. After all these years he had grown used to the signs and he now knew that Tolanson would rest easy for the rest of the night. Whatever demons had tried to disturb the great man had now been fought back into the shadows.

  One of the gifts bestowed upon McDere was that he no longer required sleep or food. His body operated on God’s love and that power fuelled fire into his veins.

  He dropped to the floor and started doing pushups. He had several hours to kill and his regime of physical fitness was fanatical, but his body was a weapon and it had to honed. There were times when he exercised that his mind drifted; it was during this time that brief moments of doubt crept in. There were dark memories of pain and hurt that caused him doubt, but in his heart he knew that these were only false promises of truth. He had only ever done God’s work and those that he’d hurt had truly deserved God’s wrath.

  Soon the sweat was starting to pour from his forehead as his muscles strained against his shirt. He had to be ready when his master awoke - ready for anything.

  CHAPTER 4

  KISSING BABIES

  “Run it by me again,” Avery demanded to a chorus of frustrated jeers from the room.

  They had been camped out in the office for hours now and the room was starting to smell of sweat and irritation.

  “How many more times do we have to go over it?” Gerald cried out.

  “As many times as I deem necessary,” Avery answered coldly.

  The large conference table was littered with papers. The avalanche of statistics and polling data was about the size of a small rainforest and none of it was telling her anything good. They still weren’t making enough headway for her liking and the leadership vote was closing in fast. Tolanson only seemed to have eyes for the general election that loomed on the horizon, but that wouldn’t matter a damn if he wasn’t first elected leader of the Progression Party. The man already assumed himself a ‘general’ while in reality he was still just a ’private’.

  “Our tracking has him still 9 points down to Buttler,” another voice spoke up.

  Avery had yet to learn the names of everyone on her staff. So many of them seemed to come and go during the campaign that it made little sense to waste memory power on putting names to faces.

  “We need an issue,” she mused. “We need something to get his name out there, a national issue that gets his face out there. Look here” she said searching through the mountain of paperwork until she found the one sheet she was looking for. “We’re way behind with public recognition… look!” She pointed. “We’re lagging behind on Strong Leadership, on Name Recognition, on National Defence.”<
br />
  “We know, we know,” came the frustrated reply from around the table.

  “So we need a red button issue!” Avery snapped.

  “What’s all the commotion?” Tolanson asked as he entered the room unnoticed.

  In a flash everyone leapt to their feet including, to her own amazement, Avery.

  “Just the latest polling data, Sir,” Avery answered him.

  “And how are we doing?”

  The office fell silent as everyone started to find something of great interest on their shoes.

  “It’s not good, Sir,” Avery finally told him. “And we’re running out of time. Buttler still has the backing of most of the big hitters in the party. He brings in big donors, and money talks. Maybe if we had more time we could close the gap, but at this late stage… I don’t know,” she finished.

  “What were you saying about a red button?”

  “An issue, something big, something flashy, something that grabs national attention and links it with your face.”

  Tolanson stood motionless for a few moments and nobody spoke.

  “Leave it to me, everything’s going to be fine,” he finally responded and for some reason Avery trusted him implicitly.

  ----------

  Mike Donovan looked out across the table. The faces around him were a mixture of scowls and challenges. Hard glares from hard men greeted him and as usual he had to put down any threats quickly.

  One of his favourite movies had been The Untouchables and he loved the De Niro baseball scene.

  He stood up and pushed away from the table, using the aluminium bat as an unneeded walking stick. He moved slowly, exuding menace with every step.

  The club below was pumping out a thudding baseline as the girls danced and the men leered, the heavy music making the office floor tremble. Donovan liked owning the strip club as it played into his fantasy of being a crime boss like Tony Soprano; much of his inner monologue was derived from Hollywood prose. “Teasers” was the only place in town where you could get a private dance and a whole lot more besides if you had the cash. He ran a successful business-come-brothel but the boys in blue knew better than to start poking their snouts in around here.

  “Maybe I wasn’t clear,” he mused aloud as he wandered slowly around the gathered group sat at the circular table.

  The men were all young and hungry, dangerous people who lived on this side of the law where they made their own rules and Donovan enforced them.

  “Maybe it was my fault?” Donovan asked rhetorically. “Perhaps I left too much room for interpretation. I mean, it must have been my fault, right?”

  The room stayed silent as Donovan started to swing the baseball bat gently under his arm.

  “80% - isn’t that what I asked for? I’m pretty sure that I said 80%. I mean, I was there when I said it, wasn’t I? And yet here we sit with a market share of around 65%. It just doesn’t add up so it must be my fault.”

  “Boss… I tried to tell you that you weren’t giving us enough time,” Peterson started.

  Donovan felt a small stab of regret. Peterson was alright and it would be a shame to lose him, but business always came first.

  The bat whistled through the air before thudding dully into the back of Peterson’s head. Bone shattered beneath the aluminium which clanged against Peterson’s skull. Blood spurted out onto the boardroom table and Peterson slumped forward.

  Donovan continued to swing the heavy bat downwards until the man’s head was a bloody pulp on the pristine white cloth. His arms ached from the effort but the effect was welcome.

  The rest of the table had all leapt backwards in shock and horror at the sight of their comrade’s bloody body lying motionless.

  Donovan leant on the bat, his own face splattered with blood and bone fragments. “Anyone else?” he enquired, but the room remained silent. “80%, gentlemen; that means I want Johnson’s club down by the docks and Dixon’s over in Waterside both in my hands by next week. Any questions? Then get the fuck out.” He smiled pleasantly as he noticed a new man standing in the doorway of the office.

  “You have an interesting managerial style,” the new man said once they were alone.

  “Whatever works, right?”

  “Whatever works.” Tolanson nodded agreeably.

  “I’ve paid this month’s money already,” Donovan said a little too quickly for his own liking, but the politician scared him, not that he’d ever admit it to anyone of course.

  “I know, but I’m afraid that I require a little more from you, Malcolm.”

  “Jesus! You’re bleeding me half to death already!” Donovan exclaimed before he could stop himself.

  One minute he was spitting defiance, the next he was spitting blood. Tolanson moved without him ever seeing it. One second the politician was on the other side of the office; the next, Donovan was spinning through the air until he slammed into the wall hard enough to make his head ring.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he gasped as Tolanson lifted him up effortlessly by the throat.

  His legs kicked uselessly in midair as Tolanson continued to lift him up. His throat was being crushed by inhuman strength as Tolanson’s eyes blazed with fury.

  Donovan knew that the man was going to kill him and the light started to fade, but then the iron grip was gone and he slid down the wall coughing and spluttering as he desperately tried to breathe again.

  “My apologies, Malcolm,” Tolanson said in a friendly tone. “I’m afraid that my temper does so run away from me at times.”

  “No problem,” Donovan croaked as he tried to massage some feeling back into his throat.

  “I understand your predicament and I sympathise, Malcolm, I truly do,” Tolanson said sadly. “But ours is a greater undertaking, I promise you. Ours is a mission from God, a holy journey to do his work, Malcolm, and such glorious work it shall be.”

  Donovan felt the man’s words wash over him and his fear started to be cleansed by a renewal of purpose. When Tolanson had first approached him several years ago, Malcolm Donovan had just been a street punk. He’d been a young man with dreams and ambitions but no way of moving up the ladder. The old men who ran his corner of the world were not going anywhere anytime soon and he’d been stuck in the trenches with no possibility to lead. It had been Tolanson who had shown him the light, the way to advance; it had been Tolanson who had cleared the path for him to walk, fight and murder his way to the top. Everything he had he owed to Tolanson.

  “I’m sorry,” Donovan said with feeling.

  “The sheep may wander from the herd, Malcolm, but the shepherd is ever watchful and always tends to his flock, my child.”

  Donovan felt the aura of love wash over him and now there was no fear, only a single-minded devotion. He’d kill for this man and he’d die for him too.

  “I need something from you, Malcolm - a little job that should be right up your particular alley.”

  “Like with that St James bloke?”

  “Something along those lines, yes, but only a little more subtle,” Tolanson nodded. “The Progression Party leaders little accident was most welcome and now the door is open for me, but I need another obstacle removing.”

  “Anything,” Donovan responded, eager to serve.

  ----------

  Andrew Buttler walked the trail. He shook more hands than he could count and listened to party supporters prattle on about their dull lives.

  His people had told him that the polls had him up on all challengers but he wasn’t a man to take chances. The Progression Party needed a new leader and he was the man to fill those shoes.

  He was a tall man with a military stance and a ramrod straight spine. His body was trim and his eyes a steely grey. He was determined to bring back a sense of order to the country and to offer the Progression Party its first serious leader in their history.

  The docks were a part of his constituency that he avoided as often as possible. The whole area was a rundown shithole and he knew that any photograph of
his presence there would only remind the voters of his failure here. He always thought that failure was too strong a word. After all, how could he be judged to have failed the docks when he had never even tried? The only thing higher than the crime rate down here was the unemployment rate.

  “You sure about this?” he demanded towards his campaign manager.

  The man was a weasel but he knew how to win.

  “It’s a perfect photo op, Sir,” Ian Woods responded in his usual toad like manner.

  “And you’re sure that the place has been cleared?” Buttler asked nervously as he fiddled with the expensive watch on his wrist. The damn thing probably cost more than the average person down here saw in a year.

  “Security is tight. We’ve cleared out the homeless that normally sleep near here. There’s a tight ring around the podium and we’ve stocked the crowd with our people. It’ll be fine, Sir.”

  “You’d better be right,” Buttler said as he started to walk towards the gathered crowd.

  They’d left the vehicles about half a mile away. He wanted the cameras to see him striding into the worst part of his district, not cowering behind bulletproof glass.

  He grabbed and shook the several outstretched hands as he moved through the crowd towards the podium, which was set out with the docks behind as a backdrop. There were large colourful banners hanging above the makeshift stage proclaiming his name for all to see. It all seemed a little too gaudy for British politics but this wasn’t about taking the leadership race; that was already in the bag - this was about the upcoming general election. He had to start his campaign early and begin winning over the country as the first Progression Party candidate serious about law and order.

  “How’re Tolanson’s numbers?” he asked Woods quietly as he continued smiling and waving to the enthusiastic crowd.

  “He still doesn’t have anything close to a challenging number. Forget that kid. No way does the party choose him to lead us.”

  “Don’t underestimate him. I saw him at a rally once, giving a speech about… shit, I can’t remember what it was about, but he had a roomful of Nationalist supporters eating out of his hand by the time he was done.”