by Matt Drabble
Suddenly, just as the gun’s hammer pulled back, a flash of movement leapt from the shadows and a man tackled Chambers, sending them both spinning to the side.
The movement had been far too quick for him to follow and now all he could hear was a muffled struggle beyond his field of vision. The dark canteen was growing darker around him and he couldn’t tell what was happening as his eyes closed.
A hard slap to his face woke him slightly again and his eyes struggled to focus.
“Jez? JEZ!” The second shout was accompanied by another slap, this one even harder.
He opened his eyes fully and saw Steve kneeling over him, his face almost white with fear.
“Ouch,” Sutherland said, his cheek stinging from the slaps.
“I thought you were dead,” Steve said, relieved.
Sutherland opened his mouth to try and speak but a painful coughing fit put paid to that.
“Don’t try and talk; the ambulance will be here soon,” Steve said soothingly.
“Chambers,” Sutherland managed with great difficulty.
“Don’t worry, he’s cuffed to a table.” Steve grinned.
Sutherland couldn’t speak and so pointed to blood streaming from a wound on his friend’s head.
“It’s nothing,” Steve shrugged. “I always knew that he was a prick, but I never thought he was crazy. Is this anything to do with your arrest warrant? Was he behind that?”
Sutherland nodded slowly as the truth was far too complicated. He pointed slowly to his own eyes and then over towards the slumped figure of Chambers, the inference being clear.
“Don’t worry, I’m watching him,” Steve replied, showing him the superintendent’s gun.
He waved his friend closer, and although it took everything he had left, he managed a few words.
“Whatever… you hear… whatever they tell you… just remember at the end… I tried to the right thing,” he croaked. “Make sure… that the girls know that,” he managed, thinking of Steve’s daughters and the closest thing to family that he had ever known.
He closed his eyes then and felt like he could sleep now. Perhaps it hadn’t been the great hero rescue that he’d envisaged, but the save had been made and that was all that mattered. Dimly, he was aware of Steve shaking him, trying to rouse him again, but the journey that he was undertaking now, he had to take alone and the sleep was far too deep to ever be wakened from again.
CHAPTER 32
THE FINAL ACT
Donovan shoulder charged the man with his one good shoulder, figuring that the guy was the greatest danger.
The young volunteer staggered backwards and fell over a chair. Never having been an observer of The Marquess of Queensberry rules, Donovan struggled forward and stamped down hard on the man’s groin.
The breath rushed from the guy’s body in a high-pitched hiss and Donovan grabbed one of the metal chairs as a makeshift weapon. He wasn’t able to use both arms, and as the folding chair was open, he couldn’t close it and swing it. Instead, he lifted the chair with his good arm just up high enough so that it was above the young man’s head. Knowing that the impact was going to hurt, he gritted his teeth. Then he jumped up a little in the air and slipped the chair under him before landing the chair on the man.
He had been aiming to land the chair somewhere on the guy’s chest to take him out of the fight, but his aim was off and just one of the thin metal legs plunged into the man’s eye socket. With his weight landing on the chair, the leg drove through the man’s eye, driving all the way to the floor and killing him instantly.
Somewhat shocked, he stood and turned to find the woman just in time to see her drive a knife into his gut. The leather jacket offered no protection now as the blade sunk into him with sickening ease.
He staggered backwards and tried to hold in his guts, but when he reached down, he found that the knife was still sticking out of him.
The young woman rushed forwards, screaming like a banshee, her hands stretched out and curled into talons. She drove him backwards and he had to fight from falling over, knowing that if he fell then she would land on him and finish him on the floor.
Her fingernails tore bloody groves down his cheeks as she sought to scratch his eyes out. He wilted under her attack as her craziness drove her on, augmenting her strength. She backed him up against a wall and now he could only hold one of her hands off at a time as his shoulder wound left him with only one hand to fight with.
He managed to get his elbow up under her throat as she tried to tear his throat out with her teeth like a rabid dog but now she was battering him with two fists. In a last-ditch attempt to stop her, he reached down and pulled the knife out that was still sticking from his stomach. The pain was immeasurable and he screamed loudly in agony as he felt his guts splash down onto his boots.
The knife handle was slippery with his own blood and he almost dropped it, but instead he drove it into the woman’s chest and shoved her hard backwards.
She fell to the ground and it may have been his imagination but her expression sort of cleared and her face almost looked grateful as she crashed to the floor.
His vision was blurring fast now as he staggered around losing blood. Two of the women had stabbed him bad, and he was having to use his one good hand to try and hold his stomach together.
He heard a moan coming from Mallory across the room.
“OH COME ON!” he cried out in annoyance as the first woman who’d attacked him started to stir.
He shuffled over to where Mallory was starting to come around. He stood over her and through the blood covering her face he could still see her hateful fury burning up at him. There was no way that she should still be moving, let alone a danger to him, but in spite of her injuries she was and he had nothing left to fight with.
Mallory was now sitting up under the TV and he saw with horror that somehow she had found his gun lying on the floor near her. The silver weapon glinted under the fluorescent lighting as she pulled the trigger.
The gun jerked in her hand and fired wildly over his head; once, then twice, the bullets flew over his shoulder but the third almost hit him.
Ignoring all logic that was screaming at him to run, he actually moved towards her. He used his shoulder against the TV and then his weight behind it to push the large screen off the table and send it crashing down onto her head, silencing her for good.
The phrase “Show’s over, bitch” ran through his mind, but in reality he was hurt, he was tired and the line just felt stupid. Instead, he slumped to the floor and tried to remain conscious.
There was movement from some of those still able to move across the room and he heard someone call the police. Normally he would have run from the sound of approaching sirens but now they just might save his life.
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Avery felt the debate swing quickly back towards Knowles with almost dizzying speed. Tolanson had been struggling for a while, but now he looked wild, like he was about to break. His face was deathly pale and he seemed to have aged a decade in the last 10 minutes. Knowles was hitting him hard and for some reason Tolanson had stopped hitting back. Now he just looked like he was about to slump forward and pass out on the podium in front of the studio audience and the millions watching at home.
The backstage area had quickly filled up with spectators as the great hope for the future started to crumble in front of everyone’s eyes. Tolanson had loosened and pulled his tie away from his neck as though it was starting to choke him. He was gripping the podium with white knuckles and his whole body was trembling. If Knowles had noticed that his opponent’s health was failing, he was beyond caring and continued to hammer away.
This was what they had hoped for, but now that it was working she felt afraid - afraid of what a desperate man might do.
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Tolanson hadn’t spoken for a while and even Knowles had finally noticed and had stopped punching an unarmed opponent. The moderator had tried to rouse him but he was beyond hearin
g the mewling of the insects now.
A deathly hush fell over the audience as all eyes were trained on him and he had nothing to tell them.
In his mind he knew that he had failed but in his heart he still couldn’t quite accept it. He had bet everything on tonight and used whatever power he’d had to get him this far, but without a fresh refill he had very little left.
His followers had failed him or perhaps there had been another player on the field. There had been no forgiveness for him, no last minute mercy from the man upstairs and no redeeming from those below. He was alone as he had been for most of his existence.
In spite of everything, in spite of all the evidence, he still couldn’t quite believe that he would fail. He dug down deep inside him and tried to reach for the power that he already knew was gone. The cameras were still trained on him and he flung every scrap of psychic energy that he could muster at the lens.
There was a small explosion emanating from him that for the briefest moment gave him hope that he would succeed against all the odds. The cameraman trained on him seemed to flinch as the wave hit him and the camera sparked before blacking out.
Tolanson slumped forward, exhausted. It had been a stupid attempt built on pride and blind hope and he instantly regretted it.
“Mr Tolanson?” a dim voice asked from what seemed like a million miles away as he drifted in the darkness.
“Mr Tolanson. Sir?” the moderator tried again.
He opened his eyes and looked out at them all. The faces of the desperate and the forlorn, so many like he had once been, lost and alone.
He supposed that he should feel empathy with them, but he didn’t. They only served to remind him that deep down he was still the little boy abused by his father’s hands so long ago. That anger and that rage still breathed through him like a dragon’s fire and he refused to become a victim again.
He looked up as the moderator stared at him across the stage with concern etched across his face.
Someone gasped from the audience and he was suddenly aware that his own face was slipping and for one puzzling moment he couldn’t actually remember who he was here.
His eyes looked out over the audience and he locked eyes with a man sitting bolt upright and staring straight at him. He didn’t recognise the man but there was something undoubtedly familiar about him, a smell, a taste, something that had graced his lips before. For a moment he smelled trees and earth - a forest? A woodland spread?
“Mr Tolanson?” a voice on stage to his right asked, and he looked over at the smartly dressed man and suddenly remembered what he’d been doing up here.
“Yes,” he murmured, half to himself. “Tolanson,” he said, nodding.
“Are you alright?” Knowles asked, his voice now thick with genuine concern.
“No, no not really, Prime Minister,” he admitted. “I thought that this would be going better by now if I’m completely honest, but you just can’t get the help these days I suppose. The old saying is right: ‘if you want something right then kill everybody and do it yourself’.”
Someone shrieked in the audience and there was a small swell of nervous laughter as the microphones were still live.
“I think that perhaps we should take a break,” Knowles announced, instinctively trying to take charge and starting to back away from his podium.
“No, Prime Minister. I don’t think that’s necessary.” He sighed heavily, rubbing his face. “I think that we’re done here.”
“You’re dropping out of the debate?” Knowles cried out triumphantly.
“Not just the debate,” he answered tiredly.
“You’re dropping out of the election?” Knowles crowed, unable to hide the glee from his voice.
“I’m done with everything and everyone,” he replied as he struggled to hold onto himself.
He looked down at his hands and saw that they were trembling like an old man’s. His vision was starting to blur and every bone in his body ached monstrously. His memories were starting to jumble together now and his mind was flooded with past lives.
The moderator rose and walked towards the centre of the stage to try and regain some kind of control given that they were still going out live.
“Gentlemen, please,” he implored as he drew close. “This is no way to behave,” he hissed quietly.
Tolanson looked up at the insignificant bug and stared deeply into his soul. He could suddenly see the loving father writhing on top of a young girl as she squirmed beneath him lost in a cloud of pain and shame.
“Linda,” Tolanson said to him.
“Linda is my daughter, what of her?” he asked quizzically, instantly dropping his gaze.
“She doesn’t like you fucking her,” he answered offhandedly. “It’s not what fathers should do.”
“I really don’t think that this is…,” Knowles started to bluster.
Tolanson shut him up with a swipe of his hand and the prime minister’s mouth sealed shut. He may not have the power to influence a nation through the cameras but he was not a completely spent force and one man in close proximity was still easily doable.
Knowles’ hands flew to his mouth in horror as he couldn’t open it and he waved frantically at some of his staff who rushed forward to try and help.
He turned his attention back to the moderator who was now backing away, his face flushed red with guilt.
“Really…, this is no way to behave,” he blustered.
Tolanson stared at the worm hard. There were now no barriers in his mind and his own memories were running rampant in his head as past lives collided. After all these years he could still feel the small abused boy that he had thought buried. A child lost and the innocence along with him.
He reached out a hand and fought through the fog in his mind. He squeezed his fist tightly shut and the moderator started to cough and splutter as his chest caved in from the inside. Blood spewed from his mouth as his organs were crushed and people in the front row of the audience got wet.
A shudder passed through the entire studio as they tried to comprehend what they were seeing.
He could now feel his bones contorting and shifting under his skin as his past selves tried to claw their way out fighting for life. He could only wonder what it looked like on camera, but the audience told him as people started to scream.
He sent a blast out across the audience and felt their obedience waver. He had held a whole town hostage to his will and now a handful of people were beyond his full control. Instead, he chose some of the prime minister’s security team but had to concentrate harder than ever to channel them in any way.
He sent the large burly men forward past the crowd to stand guard at the exit doors; no one was leaving here alive, not if he wasn’t. And all the while, the cameras continued to roll for the people at home glued to their TV screens.
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Lomax watched the whole thing start to explode and knew that all of this was inevitable. There had been no plan that he had been able to come up with that would have led to Tolanson being exposed with a zero body count.
He had tried to keep telling himself that there was no other way, that all of this was Tolanson’s fault, but it didn’t shift the weight of guilt from around his heart.
The studio audience now surged towards the exit doors, and on stage the prime minister was being ushered to safety. Exit doors were now blocked by large security men, obviously being held in place by the remnants of Tolanson’s will.
He stared down at the stage where Tolanson was gazing out with a faraway look in his eyes. The man, who had once lived like a god, now looked like a lost child. Any semblance of humanity, however, was ruined by the dying body of the moderator who was convulsing on stage and the panicking horde of people trying to flee.
Because of the security precautions of the debate, he had been unable to bring any weapons in with him and now he felt naked and vulnerable.
He looked up to see several of the prime minister’s detail now shoving audi
ence members back as they tried to leave. One particularly large man took out a telescopic metal baton and struck an old woman hard across the face, hard enough to split the skin and drop her instantly.
While the man had been striking the old woman, his jacket had billowed and Lomax glimpsed a holstered gun under his arm.
He used the commotion to run forwards into the pack as cameras and other electrical equipment started to spark and then explode down near the stage. Very quickly he could smell the telltale aroma of fire as part of the auditorium went up in flames.
Whatever energy Tolanson was spewing out now, he apparently had very little control over it and was leaking psychic power badly.
As he drew closer to the exit doors and the battle for freedom, he could see audience members swarming over the security team, desperately fighting to escape. The overhead sprinklers were now spraying water drawn by the rising flames which only added to the sense of mass panic.
He was thankful that Tolanson wasn’t able to control his pawns properly now as they hadn’t drawn their weapons. If Tolanson had proper control then he would have no doubt instructed the men to open fire on the crowd.
A brawny man went down under several smartly dressed women as they clawed at his face, driven temporarily insane by the primal fear of fire.
Lomax saw his chance and leapt forward, ignoring several clumsy blows from people who couldn’t tell friend from foe at this point. He crawled underneath the scrum and managed to drag the man’s gun from its holster.
He scrambled backwards on his hands and knees taking a few kicks in the process but clutching his prize.
Once clear of the battle for the exit, he found himself alone and walked down towards the stage.
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Tolanson felt the flames around him grow in size and intensity. The whole thing was eerily reminiscent of the night when Eden had burned around him. The kingdom that he had built had been destroyed by interlopers and he had always been sure that their actions had been guided by a stronger hand.
The rage built up again in him until it was boiling his brain. He had been on his knees, begging for God’s love, and had been spurned. Yet the big man somehow managed to halt him at every turn like it was some kind of personal vendetta. The whole thing was just so unfair.