No More Heroes-#1 Dystopian Thriller Heroes Series

by Roo I MacLeod

‘Marvin and I broke into Cooper’s house in Old London Town and stole them.’

  Again my old school friend had stood up to the plate. ‘Who’d have thought Marvin had that in him, eh?’

  ‘You need to get the boy home,’ she said as she stood. ‘I’ll meet up with you at Blacky’s. We need to find the other bag.’

  She put her arms around me and drew me close. Her warm body had a light fragrance of moss, of earth and burning wood. Not a smell many girls could pull off, but I inhaled her scent deep into my lungs and it revived my spirits.

  Harry moved in the trolley, muttering in his sleep and our embrace broke as we turned to the boy dozing beneath my coat. She kissed me on the cheek and disappeared, absorbed by the trees, the bushy tail of Wolf following her path.

  ***

  I took a break in our trek at the open sewer by Harry’s house. My leg hurt and my arm throbbed from the shot I took back at the school and meeting up with Tilly bothered me big time. When we left the Black Hat dead in her house I promised no harm or danger to her son and so far that hadn’t gone so well.

  I smoked a cigarette watching over the boy happy he breathed and showed no visible signs of harm. His right trouser leg looked as if it had been through a shredder, but once he felt fit I’d take him shopping for new kit.

  I flicked the cigarette into the dark and shook Harry from his slumber. He giggled and slapped at my hand. I gave him a serious poke in the ribs and he woke with ‘Oi!’

  ‘We’re home kid and you need to get out of the trolley. I’ll carry you the rest of the way, eh?’

  I hitched him up onto my back and we crawled out of the viaduct and took the narrow laneway leading to Tilly’s street. The small rusted gate squeaked as the front door swung inward and Tilly stood framed in the porch light.

  ‘So how are my two heroes?’

  ‘Mum.’ Harry hobbled toward Tilly and threw his arms around her. ‘We tried to rescue you, but Ben said you’d be cool like coz we were sortin’ bad men and then it all got silly like, with the bad guys shooting and all. You know Ben said you’d be cool he did.’

  ‘Cheers Harry,’ I muttered taking a step back toward Tilly’s gate.

  ‘But we got the bad guys big time, Mum. It was brilliant. Tyson shot a couple and Ben did the main man, didn’t you Ben?’

  My shoulders slumped with energy draining from my body.

  Pride ruled Harry’s actions and he wanted to retell and rejoice the events. He didn’t understand the danger of his tale as he still suffered from the adrenaline and the anesthetic. I’d wanted to talk to him and suggest the last couple of hours should be our secret, but he needed to sleep. I figured a Punkster understood the art of keeping your mouth shut

  Tilly remained at the door, her hand on Harry’s head, rubbing his wavy locks and tapping a foot on the carpet. ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘Way past his bedtime and a day late.

  ‘And what’s happened to his leg?’

  We looked at Harry’s right leg. The trousers had a cut running the length to his crotch and a large thick white bandage wrapped around his thigh. Harry touched the bandage and smiled at his mother. On the basis of the smile I believed we might survive.

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘How’d you get the bad guys out of our house?’ Harry stepped back, but kept hold of his mother’s hand. She pulled him inside the house, but remained with her feet spread across the doorway. Harry wriggled in her arms. ‘Did you have to make a run for it?’ he said. ‘Did you have to fight that bloke in the sling?’

  ‘Settle down,’ she said.

  ‘But how’d you get away? We saw that bloke guarding you with the gun.’

  Tilly looked at me, her expression demanding I explain Harry’s words. ‘We saw you through the kitchen window. Harry saw the man sitting at the server with the gun. We couldn’t work out how to get you out, so we drew them away from you.’

  ‘My little hero,’ she said, ruffling her boy’s hair. ‘They weren’t nice, but they didn’t hurt me. They just tied me to the chair in the cellar, with a promise of a party when they returned. One man in particular, wearing a sling, wanted that party to be personal, but it turned out all right.’

  ‘How’d you get free?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Wynona helped with the ropes, but I’d already broken the chair and climbed the stairs.’

  ‘Wynona’s cool, like.’

  ‘Yes Wynona is wonderful. She is batting for the good guys.

  ‘So I’ve been sitting here waiting for my heroes to return not realizing you understood the danger I faced. I’ve been worried sick thinking my son is hurt, abducted or killed and I should do something, like set up a search, call the police or anything.’

  She pulled Harry close to her, bending so her head rested against his unruly locks. ‘A call might’ve been helpful.’

  ‘You don’t have a phone,’ I said.

  ‘Wynona has a phone, but she couldn’t tell me anything concerning my son, only to trust Ben Jackman, because he’s cool.’

  She straightened and faced me. ‘So I tidied up and waited for someone I cared about to come home and rescue me.’ She smiled at me. ‘Alas, it would seem we are short on the ground for heroes, this season.’

  ‘I think I’ve been shot,’ I said. Blood covered my arm, but the throbbing had stopped an age ago.

  ‘Wow, Ben,’ Harry said. ‘Are we going to have to get Old Doc to cut your bullet out too? He let me keep mine.’

  I evaded Tilly’s eyes, grateful she stepped back from the door and allowed me entry. Tilly helped Harry into the chair by the fireplace. A load of coal glowed red in the hearth. She disappeared to the kitchen and returned with a clean cloth and antiseptic.

  It took an age and a load of bitching before my coat and underclothing pulled back from my arm. Tilly swabbed the arm clean of blood and struggled to find a wound matching Harry’s trophy on his leg. She screwed the lid back on the antiseptic and placed it and the cloth on the kitchen server.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  Tilly loaded her reply with sarcasm. ‘Bleeding to death, I imagined. Took bullets for the team and lucky to be alive, I figured. Not likely.’

  We both looked at the dried blood on my arm. ‘Hurt like a bitch, it did.’

  Tilly pulled Harry to sit beside her, the two of them looking at my arm. ‘Harry,’ she said, ‘promise me you’ll grow up like a man. You will walk a fine line, but you won’t whine about a scratch and it’ll take a bullet to put you down.’

  I looked at Harry, hoping he kept his mouth shut. Please Harry, let me leave with a slither of dignity.

  Tilly unraveled the bandage about his leg to reveal a bloodied square of gauze. ‘So what’s this for, Harry? Did you have a fall?’

  Harry pushed his mother’s hand away. ‘It’s all right.’

  Harry understood my life faced ruin if Tilly removed the gauze.

  ‘Harry?’ she said.

  ‘It’s just a scratch,’ I said. ‘We got the Doc to fix it up.’

  ‘What Doc?’

  ‘Old Doc, down at the Camps.’

  ‘How many times, Harry, have I told you not to hang around there?’ She turned to face me. ‘Who’s Old Doc?’

  Tilly and Old Doc went way back because he spent his begging money in the Old Poet Public House. Most afternoons ended with Tilly attaching her boot to his arse somewhere near the footpath and informing him not to come back until sober. Tilly didn’t need to know Old Doc operated on her child.

  ‘He’s the medic they use down at the Camps,’ I said. ‘He’s old for sure, but he’s good and he looked after Harry, eh?’

  ‘So he’s not that old bastard pissing up against Sylvia’s shop wall? The beggar I bar most afternoons at the Poet?’

  I wanted to tell her Old Doc had performed a delicate operation with aplomb and Harry sat in her chair safe and healthy. She didn’t need to bang on about him. Alas, my hesitation pricked her interest.

  ‘You let that old prick, that alcoholic flea bag, touch
my son?’

  ‘Do you want a beer, Ben?’ Harry offered.

  Man, I so wanted a beer. I wanted a lot of beers and more.

  ‘The beer’s all gone.’ Tilly stood up from the chair and Harry slipped back, the massive furnishings swallowing his small body. ‘Last time I saw you I was off to work, helping Ivan out as Nab has disappeared. I hoped work might help me forget bopping that hideous man snorting at my kitchen server. You told me you were going to Marvin’s house to talk to his mother. That’s the last I heard from either of you. At what stage did you not think it appropriate you check in with me as to the well-being of my son?’

  She walked away, entering her kitchen to take a swig of her beer. Harry yawned again and struggled to keep his eyes open. From inside the fridge she brought out a bottle of wine.

  ‘A bit early I know, but do you want one? Otherwise there’s vodka.’

  I wanted the vodka, but I took the glass of wine she offered and, tried to sip at the drink, but ended up sculling the glass.

  ‘Nice,’ she said. ‘You want the bottle?’

  We stood looking at each other. Harry cried out in his sleep and we both jumped. ‘He’s all right, Tilly,’ I muttered. His eyes remained shut. ‘We made sure of it.’

  ‘What am I going to find beneath that piece of gauze?’

  ‘Just a graze and a couple of stitches. Tilly, the boy’s all right.’

  ‘Yeah mum, I’m cool.’ Harry sat up in the chair, yawning long and wide. ‘Old Doc got the bullet out, but it was cut and go like, wasn’t it Ben. They was talking about cutting it off, but Old Doc saved my leg.’

  Shit.

  Tilly grabbed the antiseptic and the cloth and swabbed at her child’s leg as she peeled the gauze off his wound. A dozen ugly black stitches stared back at her.

  ‘My son has been shot.’

  ‘Tilly, I promise you, I had no idea he was there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the handover.’ She wasn’t happy. ‘I organized for Cooper to hand you over for the bag. Me and Weismann organized for an ambush that meant we didn’t need to be dealing with Cooper ever again.’ I turned from her glare. Man, she did anger like a pro.

  ‘And there were guns?’

  ‘Yeah, but it was an ambush, Till. We had the upper hand. We won. We kicked arse.’

  ‘And my child was shot.’

  ‘Yeah, but I didn’t know he was there. I told him and I told Weismann I didn’t want Harry anywhere near the meet.’

  She sat back on her chair, pushing her child to the side, wrapping her arm around his small shoulders. ‘So are we safe now?’

  I leant back against her fire place, my arm resting on the mantel piece. ‘I should think so.’

  ‘So you’re not sure.’

  ‘I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but the main characters are out of the picture and no one can trace this problem back to us.’

  ‘To you. Trace it back to you. This is all about you. And you could’ve saved me, but left me with the Black Hats. That man wasn’t very nice.’

  ‘Cooper was in a hurry, for fuck’s sake and I had stuff to organize. I had to get the Punksters in place. Well, I had to offer them the gig and that was a scary ploy because if they’d said no, I was knackered. And then there was nothing to stop them robbing me.’ Tilly wasn’t listening.

  ‘I had to leave you here; I needed to convince Cooper he had me in a corner, because I was desperate to save you. So long as he figured he had the strong hand, a full house, so to speak, then he wouldn’t be expecting me to stitch him up. As it is, I think it’s all turned out well.

  ‘I sent Wynona.’

  She picked up her glass of wine and took a delicate sip.

  I’d been attempting to convince myself I’d worked to a plan. My gaze kept roaming to the street, fearing another black sedan parking and a troop of Black Hats running at the house with guns drawn. One car drove away from the school and Black Hats survived, but they witnessed a mugging by a gang of street kids with guns. Cooper the main man, the man with the knowledge of my ambush lay dead at Ostere Primary School.

  ‘Can I get something right?’ Tilly said.

  Her arm embraced her child as he snuggled into her body. He shivered and stroked Tilly’s leg. ‘You employed children to sort out your problems?’

  ‘I offered them a business deal with all options explained. And Weismann, their guardian, decided to proceed with my plan. I mean, I wasn’t the only adult making this call. And Tilly, you’ve met them. They aren’t children, but feral animals. They were up for it.’

  ‘A child could’ve been killed? My Harry got shot.’

  ‘They understood the risks. Weismann agreed Harry shouldn’t take part, but Harry made his choice.

  ‘Tilly, there’s a war out there, all right? Weismann and his kids are working to bring down the Man. The Projects are working with Weismann and we should be happy tonight, because the good guys won. It’s all good.’

  We fell into silence and I yawned long and loud. I needed to get back to Blacky’s and sort Pete out and I wanted to walk my town, tread the streets and find some vodka. And maybe curl up on the sofa after stoking the furnace and sleep.

  ‘There were guns?’

  ‘Tilly, let it go. It’s over. These kids pillage and riot and threaten our lives. Our city is burning because of them. That’s what these poor innocents do in a night. They don’t just rob houses, they trash them and if any householder gets in the way they aren’t polite about the intrusion, eh? Let’s not spend too much time pondering the plight of these tykes who have a leader called Tyson.’

  ‘It’s all good, mum,’ Harry mumbled, his eyes closed, his finger in his mouth. ‘Tyson rocks.’

  ‘He’s a good kid,’ I said. ‘He’ll be all right.’

  Tilly ruffled her child’s hair and gave him a kiss. She closed her eyes and rested her head against Harry’s tousled mop.

  ‘Listen, I’m out of here. I’m knackered, but I want to get out and get a feel for how safe the town has become. My guess is our problem is solved, but it would be handy to know for sure. I also have a problem with big Pete the Nose. He’s under lock and key, I hope, but someone’s got to sort him out. I’ll come back later and check in on the boy.’

  ‘In two hours I’ve got to be at work. Don’t come back here. Please. You need to lay low.’

  ‘No, it’s all cool now, Till.’

  ‘Ben, I want you to lay low.’

  She opened her eyes, a weary gaze settled on me.

  ‘Ben you’ve exploited children and used my child as cannon fodder to sort out your problems.’

  ‘That’s unfair. The Punksters are feral.’

  ‘And Harry?’

  ‘You mightn’t like to hear it, Till, but Harry is a main man in the Punksters. He rides with them. He knows the Camps, eh? They call him Brains. Yeah, for sure, they call him Brains. He has his own Punkster name and Harry introduced me to Weismann. You can’t be laying all of this shit off on me. It isn’t fair, eh?’

  Harry stirred in Tilly’s arms and reached up to cuddle in closer. ‘You all right, mum?’ he muttered.

  ‘He’s safe. He survived. We won and we should be celebrating.’

  ‘You won and you used us to achieve your victory. Listen, Ben, it’s so late and I’m dog-tired and I’ve got to do the early shift at the Poet. I need to sleep, but that won’t happen any time soon. Why don’t you piss off, lay low for a while, please? Let me hold onto my son and feel blessed he and I are still alive. Give me a call in a couple of days.’

  Chapter Forty

  Buried but not Forgotten

  Birds chattered in the trees bordering the allotments as I skirted the slagheap behind Blacky’s old, disused car park. Dark still ruled, but dawn nibbled hard at the edges. I offered the main man of the Feral Clan a smile as I passed their fields. He smoked a fat butt and leaned on a hoe, watching life at Blacky’s.

  The donkey scratched his flank against the rough wooden wall. The furn
ace blazed and the goat gnawed on a plastic chair. Tommy stood by the furnace, the large handles of the bellows in hand, his face aglow from the heat. Pete sat on the sofa, his arm about the shoulders of a small sleeping child. The Feral Man pointed at Pete and grunted. Ominous rumblings in his chest accompanied the shaking head as he turned back to the forest, shuffling though a brood of chickens pecking at the dirt.

  ‘How we doing?’ I said. I kept away from the goat and offered the donkey a scratch on its nose. Tommy smiled and saluted. Pete wrenched his arm from the child and sat up straight, his hands in his lap.

  ‘Who’s your friend, Pete?’

  Pete pulled the child against his body, his small dark head falling against his chest. He brushed the hair off the child’s face and offered me a smile. As the child inhaled Pete pulled his old checked coat over the child’s shoulders.

  ‘I got a new badge, Ben,’ he said.

  I looked across at Tommy. He stopped pumping the bellows and sat on a pile of magazines. ‘Are you all right? How’s the arm?’

  He held out his bandaged limb and nodded.

  I pointed at the child. ‘Is he all right?’

  Again he nodded.

  ‘You need to lose him because me and Pete got to talk and we don’t need the child being found in our company.’

  ‘What am I going to do with him?’ He dug out a fresh cheroot and bit the bottom end and spat it into the fire. ‘I mean where am I going to take him, you know? It’s not like we got a police station anymore.’

  ‘Just take him to the town square. There’s got to be someone around who’ll give a damn if a child is wandering the streets unsupervised. There was a vigil going on earlier. And a soldier in a jeep. Even the vicar was there, giving it all to some suck song.’

  I looked at the shirt in Pete’s hands. ‘Give me the shirt, Pete.’

  He clutched the garment to his chest. I gave it a tug, but he kept hold of it. I threw my empty flask to him, knowing he’d give the shirt up for a drink. The shirt had a piece of fabric cut from its front. I pulled the child forward and took Pete’s crusty coat from his shoulders. The child remained asleep as I dressed him. I wrapped his small coat about his shoulders and let him lay back against the sofa. Pete shook the flask, his tongue hoping for a random drop.