The Gated Trilogy

by Matt Drabble

  “I tell you what, Mr Pryor,” Tolanson said finally, “why don’t you just cut your throat and be done with it?”

  Pryor laughed loud and hard at the suggestion. He laughed right up until his hand started moving towards his own throat.

  “What the…,” he stammered as he strained against his own hand. “What the fuck are you doing? Stop it! STOP IT!”

  Debbie looked down in shocked horror and fascination as Pryor’s knife continued its slow upwards journey. The young man’s eyes bulged with terror as he fought to control his arm. The blade glinted until it plunged into his throat, slicing through the fragile flesh with ease. His face turned red with effort but the blade kept on jerking across his throat. Blood started to spurt through his fingers and he sank to his knees but the blade continued on its master’s path.

  Mercifully, the end came quickly as Pryor’s blood flowed freely and he collapsed into a red pool gasping for air through the freshly torn hole. His body kicked and jerked a couple of times and then lay still.

  “Such a waste,” Tolanson tutted, shaking his head.

  Debbie held her breath, praying that the two remaining men below would leave before the scream tore loose from her throat.

  She watched on as Tolanson suddenly sagged a little and his associate stepped forward to catch him. The vibrant politician suddenly seemed to have aged exponentially in a few seconds and now looked ancient. She zoomed the phone camera in as far as it would go and caught a close-up of his face. Tolanson had gone from looking a youthful, well-dressed, well-groomed professional to a decrepit, broken-down OAP at death’s door.

  “You should have let me,” the gorilla growled.

  “I needed the practice.” Tolanson laughed, a laugh which rapidly descended into a coughing fit. “Some days I really think I am getting too old for this shit.”

  Debbie watched on as Tolanson was helped from the warehouse floor back into the inner office space inside, leaving Donovan’s lieutenant lying in a pool of his own blood.

  Debbie sat for awhile until she was sure that they had gone and then she sat a while longer until she was sure that her legs would support her.

  She clambered back to her feet and turned the phone over in her hand. After making sure that the sound was muted she played back the recording. A part of her knew that she should try and leave as soon as possible, but she had to look again because she still couldn’t believe her own eyes.

  Pryor’s body was still lying on the floor below. His blood had finally stopped pumping and he was lying face down.

  She took another quick look around to make sure that Tolanson had left. When she was sure that she was alone, save for the recently deceased, she pressed play on her phone.

  The scene replayed exactly as she had feared it had. The politician had directed Pryor to cut his own throat and, despite the criminal’s best efforts, he had obeyed.

  Debbie had no idea what she had witnessed or how Tolanson had achieved his aim or even why, but none of that mattered, not right now. Her fledgling journalistic instincts were raging but her first responsibility was to Avery. Her best friend was unknowingly in league with a monster, or at least she prayed it was unknowingly.

  She shook away the slight doubts about her friend hard; there was no way that Avery would be mixed up with Tolanson if she had ever seen this side of him.

  She quickly called up Avery’s number and called. The phone went straight through to voicemail. She spoke quickly in low hushed tones.

  “Avery, it’s me. I just… I saw… I don’t know, the whole thing is batshit crazy but you have to know that he’s not what he seems; he’s… fuck, I don’t know what the hell he is but I need to see you now. It can’t wait.”

  She hung up quickly. She had no real idea what to say to her friend that didn’t make her sound crazy; she had to show her the footage in person and she had to do it now.

  “Fascinating little gadgets.”

  The voice shocked her into crying out. She turned and saw Tolanson standing behind her. The man must have had the feet of a cat to slip up behind her so stealthily. The walkway was metallic and every footstep of hers echoed, but Tolanson had simply sidled up to her without a sound.

  “May I?” he asked.

  She had no idea what he wanted but she saw that he was now holding a phone identical to hers. On closer inspection, she could see that he was actually holding hers as her hands were now empty.

  “I… I…,” she stammered, praying for divine inspiration but her mouth was dry and empty.

  “So much technology shrunk down into such a delicate flower,” he mused as he turned the phone over in his hand. “Such a powerful tool for the people.”

  “I won’t tell,” she pleaded. “I promise!”

  “Oh, I know you won’t, my dear.” Tolanson smiled. “I know.”

  Tolanson reached out a well-manicured hand and she flinched from his touch, which was icy cold. He took a firm hold on her arm and then she was airborne, up and over the walkway railing. The fall took an age and yet was over in flash. Contrary to popular belief, very little ran through her head until it splattered on the hard stone floor below.

  She was vaguely aware that she had landed next to Pryor’s cooling corpse. Her body felt broken and spongy. Her breathing was hitched and laboured in her chest as broken ribs poked her lungs.

  ----------

  “Who’s this?” McDere asked as he walked back into the room and pointed at Debbie’s cooling broken body lying on the concrete floor.

  “A nosy parker,” Tolanson grinned from up above.

  “Is she…?”

  Tolanson waited a few moments. He leaned over the balcony and sniffed the air like a dog. “Almost. No, wait… there she goes.”

  “What do we do with her?”

  “Let’s give Mr Pryor a little company; it would be cruel to send him on his way alone.”

  “Where do I put them?” McDere asked.

  Tolanson turned and tilted his head. “Not you, my friend - his ride’s here.”

  McDere turned as the rear warehouse door opened and a young man walked in.

  “Mr Wheaton,” Tolanson greeted the new arrival. “Time for a promotion I think. What say you?”

  Another of Donovan’s lieutenants looked at the two dead bodies lying on the ground, one of which was his boss and friend. His face creaked in fear but he fought hard not to show it. “Okay,” he finally responded.

  “Now tell me, my boy, are you a man to be trusted? Are you a young man with his eyes set firmly on the future?”

  “I dunno.” Wheaton shrugged.

  “Said like a true great thinker of your time,” Tolanson smiled as he made his way down to ground level.

  He walked over to Wheaton slowly and with no little menace. “Now, son, can you follow orders without questions?”

  “Where’s Donovan?” Wheaton asked looking around.

  “This is a chance for you to prove yourself, my boy,” Tolanson said, beaming broadly like a proud father. “To myself and to Mr Donovan; now, are you ready?”

  Wheaton wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box but a life on the streets had made him a survivor. If he was a dog, he would have been rolling on his back exposing his throat by now.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled.

  “Yes,” Tolanson corrected him.

  “Huh?”

  “Yes, not yeah; we’re not savages, after all, are we, Mr McDere?”

  McDere nodded along in agreement with a blank expression.

  “We have two problems here that need to be dealt with,” Tolanson said, nodding towards the bodies. “Any thoughts on the subject, Mr Wheaton?”

  Wheaton looked at the two bodies and his face went dull as he thought for a few moments. “You want me to get rid of the bodies?”

  “Bravo, Mr Wheaton!” Tolanson applauded. “An excellent notion, I wish that I’d thought of it first.”

  Wheaton’s head bobbed up and down like a praised puppy. “I’ll get on it.”


  “Now Mr Pryor needs to vanish. I don’t want him to be found; is that clear?”

  Wheaton nodded obediently again.

  “This young lady, however, renders a different problem,” Tolanson mused. “Here,” he said, holding out a small slip of paper. “This is a phone number to call. The man on the other end will be expecting you. I suggest that you follow his instructions as if they came from my own fair lips, clear?”

  Wheaton nodded a third time in agreement.

  Tolanson wandered back to McDere and they watched Wheaton together as he took out a phone and started to make calls.

  “You sure about him?” McDere asked.

  Tolanson would have normally stamped all over the slightest questioning of his decisions, but the truth was that he simply didn’t have the energy. He hid this fact from McDere. The man was undoubtedly loyal, but he’d had loyal subjects before who’d turned on him. This life was proving to be the most taxing on his strength.

  “Mr Wheaton will do a grand job, I’m sure; well, an adequate one at least. It’s always a trade-off, my friend: not enough brains and they will make countless mistakes; too many, and at some point they’ll start to think for themselves.”

  “And me?”

  “You, my friend, are a constant; you’ll sit by my side when I ascend the throne.”

  “I thought that you were going to be prime minister?”

  “It’s a metaphorical throne,” Tolanson explained as they walked back out through the front of the warehouse.

  “Is that a big one?”

  “A big what?”

  “A big throne - you know, a meta-whatsit one?” McDere asked as they disappeared into the shadows.

  CHAPTER 6

  A Brief Interlude Part 2

  10 years ago

  The Wilburton Village Hall was alive with a swarm of people. The local elections were in full swing and the village hall was the designated polling station for the area.

  Edith Rogers surveyed the booths and checked that the curtains were hanging just right. Each booth still had a plentiful supply of working pens but she checked each one again individually.

  She was a mature woman, as she didn’t like the term elderly or even old. She had been running the hall’s polling station usage for the past 30 years and took great pride in her position.

  The doors were due to close at 10pm sharp and she checked her watch again just to make sure that everything was running to her timetable; as usual, it was.

  She checked over her volunteers again and prodded Mrs Jones as the old dear had fallen asleep again. Wilburton was home to only 70 or so people but the polling station served a little over 2000 from surrounding villages. Every election the hall turned itself over to the art of democracy for the day, from dawn till dusk or thereabouts. The votes were cast and slips of paper collected. After the doors closed then the staff would set about the counting procedure. It was what she lived for and she loved the sense of participation within the voting process; it was a position that she took with the ultimate seriousness, especially this year.

  Normally, she considered herself a staunch supporter of the individual tasked with representing her constituency, regardless of party politics. Her late husband had been a firm Nationalist but she preferred to cast her vote on the individual candidate, which was why she hadn’t actually voted in almost 20 years. She wanted a politician who was approachable and willing to stand for his own people: a politician who would cut through the vast swathes of red tape and political correctness that was ruining the country. Finally, after all these long years, she had discovered that her faith had been rewarded.

  At first sight, Christian Tolanson had swept her off her feet - along political lines, of course; she was far too mature in the tooth for other such foolishness.

  She had first heard him speak at a church rally. He’d had an undeniable presence that belied his tender years, an old soul her mother would have called it. He was young and strong and willing to fight the good fight. He wasn’t a man to become corrupted by the machine; he would not wilt under the influence of those who sought to dilute this once great country. He was a man who would raise the flag and stand aloft proudly waving.

  “You okay, Edith?” A voice interrupted her. “You’re looking a little flushed.”

  “I’m fine,” she blustered, flushing a harder shade of red. “How are we looking?”

  “Almost done.”

  Mary Chase was a woman in her fifties but Edith still thought of her as a young woman who needed to be watched and supervised.

  “Percentage?” she asked the assistant, as she was so fond of reminding her.

  “Sorry?”

  “What percentage of people have not bothered to turn up?”

  “Oh, I see,” Mary mused, checking the clipboard that she held in nervous hands as Edith glared on. “Um…”

  Edith snatched it irritably from her hands and scanned down for the figure. “This can’t be right?”

  “Sorry, dear?”

  “This figure… it can’t be right.”

  “I’m sure it must be,” Mary answered.

  “It says here that everyone on the electoral register has voted.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Mary, I don’t think any district has ever had a 100% turnout for…, well, for anything or anyone.”

  Edith checked the figures again and then marched over to commandeer clipboards from the other volunteers. She checked the figures again and again and saw that it was true: everyone eligible to vote had indeed turned out and voted.

  “10pm, dear,” Mary called over.

  “Hmm?”

  “The doors, Edith. 10pm - time to close.”

  Edith went through the process of locking up, feeling that she was about to become part of destiny, a destiny of greatness the likes of which the country had never seen before.

  She knew now that she had been right to throw her full support behind Mr Tolanson. And while it might have been against some silly rules written by silly people, she had campaigned for him. She had tried to insist to anyone in any doubt which way their vote should go. Other people might call it bullying but she knew that the greater good should always take priority when the soul of a country was at stake.

  The boxes were taken from the booths and set out on the tables. All across the district there were other stations mirroring them tonight and The Daughters of Tomorrow would be serving their duty. She was proud to say that she had set up the organisation and even though they had to hide their involvement, this was war; Mr Tolanson had told them so.

  The Daughters were fighting the war from inside the beast, a beast that would seek to drag them all further into the filth and mire unless someone, an angel of a man, took a stand.

  Mary was fluttering around in the background again and Edith cursed the woman’s involvement today. She had been a last-minute replacement after Meredith Johnson had taken ill. She only hoped that whatever Meredith had was serious. The woman’s absence had threatened to upset a delicate balance and the last thing Edith wanted was an outsider in the station today.

  There were six of them in the polling station today - five Daughters of Tomorrow, and Mary. The voting ballots were to be sorted, packaged and then sent off to the counting location.

  Edith checked her watch again and saw that time was running away from them and they didn’t have much time left. The lorry would be here soon to take the boxes away and she didn’t have long to work.

  “Mary, dear,” she called to the other woman. “Why don’t you sort the tea out while we get on with it? I’m sure that the other girls are as parched as I am.”

  Mary looked like she was about to protest, but she wilted under Edith’s natural superiority.

  Edith waited until Mary was safely out of sight before she motioned for the other women to start.

  They worked quickly and to Mr Tolanson’s orders. He wanted a win, and a big win, but not enough of a landslide to raise suspicion. In her heart she was s
ure that if God was looking down then Mr Tolanson would have won the election easily enough without the need of any outside help. But as the great man had told them during many secret meetings, God was no longer looking after the chosen. The Devil now walked amongst the people with his lies and deception and mankind had lost their way. It was up to a leader like Mr Tolanson to show them the way back to the light, the shining white light.

  The other women worked quickly, sorting through the ballot boxes and ensuring that 75% of the opponent’s votes were cast aside and replaced with Tolanson votes that they had prepared earlier.

  Charles Wentworth was a wolf in sheep’s clothing according to Mr Tolanson and she trusted him implicitly. If Wentworth won re-election then the darkness would win again and they would all suffer. He was a poisonous evil that had seeped into their lives without them even noticing and now his festering roots were rotting her home. She had to lead her women to defeat him. She had to save the souls of those too infected to save themselves.

  They all worked quickly, mature fingers ignoring the stiffness of age and pressing on towards tomorrow’s dawn and the new day it would bring for all of them. This scene would be replicated all over the district tonight as The Daughters set to work saving the country from the dark frailty of its own people

  She was working so hard that she forgot about Mary, and the woman walked right up behind her carrying a heavy tray laden with refreshments.

  “Edith? What are you doing?” Mary asked, aghast at the scene before her.

  “Saving us all, Mary; now please don’t get in the way.”

  “You can’t do this!” Mary exclaimed.

  Edith sighed heavily and stood up from the table. She walked over to Mary who was still holding the tray, although now the crockery was chinking together as her hands trembled.

  She checked her watch again. “I’m sorry, Mary, but I really don’t have time for this.”

  She reached out and took the heavy teapot from the tray. With one hard sweeping motion, she cracked the pot against Mary’s head who then proceeded to drop to the floor in a shatter of cups and saucers.