Blind School

by John Matthews

The wire-frame elevator rose steadily up the side of the building carrying Tommy, Milford, Jed and Stevie.

  Fifty floors high, only its first few floors were complete, the rest a steel and concrete floor skeleton. Its sides were completely open.

  ‘My, oh my.’ Milford remarked, taking in the view. ‘You can see the whole city from up here.’

  Tommy closed his eyes, shuddering. He could hardly bear to look, was terrified. His nerves were racing, so the vibration of his cell-phone in his shirt pocket didn’t register for a second.

  Milford stared at it as it rang, smiled lopsidedly.

  ‘Got a new Sim-card, huh?’

  At the other end of the line Ryan muttered urgently, ‘Come on, Tommy, pick-up!’

  Ryan strained his ear, could hardly hear the ringing tone above the blaring siren as they sped along. Sat with him in the back of the car was a Blind School op-agent with Jules Mentinck in the front alongside another agent driving.

  Milford took the phone out of Tommy’s pocket and pressed END CALL. ‘Somehow don’t think you’ll be needing this any more.’

  He threw the phone over the wire-frame and it sailed down the dizzying drop.

  Jed and Stevie exchanged another uncomfortable glance: they’d seen some wild, unpredictable moods from Brad before, but nothing like this.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The police presence at Frank Lyle's farmhouse was formidable: five squad cars, three SWAT trucks and a helicopter circling.

  A swarm of agents busily searched Lyle's farm and outbuildings while Ellis and Josh Eskovitz confronted Lyle in his farmhouse. Ryan and Jules Mentinck hung in the background.

  Ellis Kendell stared at Lyle from only a foot away, gesticulating so sharply it looked as if he was about to hit him.

  ‘So where have you got her, Frank?’

  ‘Don't know what you're talking about, I –’

  ‘You can cut the crap. We know every last detail of how you did it.’ Ellis reached out and ripped the jacket and protection vest from Lyle.

  From Ryan’s perspective, the aura of Abaddon suddenly appeared beneath. Ryan glared at Lyle and nodded to Ellis.

  Ellis hooked a thumb towards Ryan. ‘You see this guy, like the girl, is a

  'watcher'.’

  Lyle smiled tightly. ‘What would be the point in telling you? You're probably too late in any case.’

  Ellis looked round sharply as one of his agents walked in.

  ‘Nothing in the outbuildings or tell-tale in the fields,’ the agent said. ‘Found these though in the glove compartment of one of his vans.’

  The agent handed across two cell-phones with their buttons super-glued. Ellis eyed them curiously, unsure of their significance.

  Ellis took out his communicator and buzzed through to the helicopter circling above.

  ‘Anything from your view?’

  The pilot raised his voice to be heard above the line static and the rotor. ‘Nada. He's got nine or ten acres here, with two fields recently ploughed and also a vegetable patch and an orchard. She could be anywhere.’

  ‘Okay. Keep circling. Let me know if you see anything out of place. Anything.’

  Ellis’s jaw set tight as he clicked off, the decision made. He turned to Lyle and pulled out his gun, aiming it only inches from Lyle’s face.

  ‘Where, Frank? Where? I don't have time to play your fucking games.’

  ‘What?’ Lyle smiled crookedly. ‘And give up your last chance of finding the girl? We also both know the other reason you won't pull that trigger.’ He looked to one side for a second, distracted as the other agent moved in with a taser-like gun. ‘The first place Abaddon will head for is you.’

  Josh Eskovitz frantically checked the readings on his containment gun.

  Ellis looked down at the floor for a moment, bit his lip. Then looked back squarely at Lyle.

  ‘Yeah. Only trouble is – that's the second time today someone's pulled that bluff on me. And that's one time too fucking many.’ He shifted his gun a fraction and blasted Lyle's shoulder.

  Lyle was thrown back, almost stumbling, clutching at his bleeding shoulder. Startled at the audacity more than horror on his face. Ellis pointed the gun at Lyle's head.

  From Ryan’s perspective, Abaddon’s aura faded and flickered for a moment, and Josh was looking at his taser readings again as he held one hand out, desperately pleading.

  ‘Don't, Ellis. Don't!’

  But Lyle quickly recovered from the shock, and Ryan saw the Abaddon aura holding firm again.

  ‘Nice Mutt and Jeff routine you got going there,’ Lyle said. ‘But maybe you should take more notice of your partner. Kill me and you'll never find the girl in time. Or maybe that's what Abaddon wants. You lose the girl and he gets you. Double whammy.’

  The three way stand-off was electrifying. But after a final stare down, Ellis looked away. He knew Lyle was right, but that didn’t make it sit any easier. The second time his bluff had been called: he felt totally defeated.

  But Ryan was bristling with burning anger in the background. They couldn’t possibly let it rest there, let this monster win! He looked round desperately, eyes falling on the shovel Lyle had left by the wall at the side of the room.

  He leapt across and picked it up. Within two paces was upon Lyle, swinging wildly.

  ‘Where, you fucker, where?... where... Where?'

  And with each where, he smashed the shovel into Lyle's injured shoulder, careful not to hit his head and knock him out.

  The pain of the blows to Lyle’s shoulder was excruciating, but he was also off balance with the surprise of the attack and stumbled sharply back. Something worrying too in the boy’s eyes that he hadn't seen in Ellis Kendell’s. He held one hand up defensively as the shovel swung at him again.

  The blow knocked him off balance, and he only caught a glimpse of the stone coffee table in his side vision as he fell towards it. He would have reached out to break his fall, but with his shattered shoulder he couldn’t move his arm that side.

  The bone-jarring crunch as Lyle’s head connected with the edge of the table reverberated through the room.

  As Lyle’s eyes flickered with a last shred of consciousness and a trickle of blood ran from his ear, suddenly the readings were right.

  Josh Eskovitz moved in and drew Abaddon from him – Lyle's body convulsing wildly with the shock. As Lyle's body finally settled back, prone, lifeless, Ellis shook his head.

  ‘Not good, not good.’

  Any chance of them finding out where Lyle had the girl were now gone. He looked morosely at Lyle’s body; it was a moment before he was hit with a fresh thought. He turned to Josh Eskovitz.

  ‘How many girls now gone missing in the area?’

  ‘Seven, if you count the girl missing now four days. Eight with Jessica.’

  Ellis took out his communicator, patched back to the chopper.

  ‘That orchard. How many trees in it?’

  ‘Oh, a good thirty or so.’

  ‘And any that look freshly planted?’

  The pilot lapsed into thought for a second.

  ‘Yeah. Now you mention it. There are some look a lot smaller than the others. Just saplings.’

  ‘How many of those?’ Ellis clenched a fist at his side in expectation.

  Another pause as the pilot checked the orchard below.

  ‘Eight.’

  Ellis nodded towards Josh and Ryan. ‘Think we might have it!’

  They raced out towards the orchard.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tommy Rawlton was on a long scaffold plank fifty floors up halfway out the open side of the building, with Brad Milford, Jed and Stevie stood on the other end of the plank.

  Tommy held a scaffold-pole crossways to keep balance as Milford prodded him further out with another pole. Tommy was terrified and Milford's pals were now seriously worried.

  ‘I just love those old pirate films,’ Milford said. ‘Walking the plank while sharks circle below for their next meal.’ He prodded aga
in with the pole. ‘Errol Flynn... Johnny Depp.’

  A strangled whimper rose from Tommy's throat. ‘I... I can't keep balance out here much longer.’

  ‘Sure you can. If a circus guy can keep balanced on just a thin wire – certainly you can on a big wide plank like this.’

  But as Tommy swayed uncertainly, almost losing his balance, Stevie piped up hesitantly:

  ‘Come on, Brad. It's enough. Let's go.’

  ‘Don't you go wimping out on me now.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘Besides, if you step off the balance goes and he falls anyway.’

  But Jed was also rattled, had had enough.

  ‘Yeah, Brad. He's got the message not to mess with you again. Let him come back in now.’

  Milford turned with an icy glare, lashing back with his elbow to Jed’s jaw.

  ‘He'll come back in when I say so!’ Milford snapped.

  But with the jolt, Jed stumbled off the plank, and Milford also partly lost his balance.

  The plank shifted precariously – and suddenly fearful that he was going to fall, Tommy leapt desperately for the building edge. Though in righting his sudden imbalance, his pole swung wildly the other way, catching Milford on the shoulder.

  Tommy made the edge, just, his stomach connecting first and taking half the air out of him; but he was past the crucial balance point and scrambled desperately the remainder and swung his legs up.

  Milford wasn’t so lucky. With the pole hitting him as he swayed precariously, he lost his last grip on balance.

  A suspended moment as he frantically wind-milled to get his balance back, then a caught-breath gasp turning to a curdling scream as he fell.

  Brad sailed inexorably down as his friends looked on in horror, and halfway down Berith emerged from him, swirling up to desperately try and reach a new victim.

  But Milford rapidly passed that thirty-yard point, and Berith fell short eight feet from the three boys before sinking back and fading into the ether.

  Marisa Culverton walked as if in a daze, the words still burning through her mind: My, if the rumours are true about me offing the old man – then little bro would be a sheer, personal pleasure...

  To the bedroom side-drawer where Joseph always kept his gun, then back along the hallway to the study door where she’d heard those words.

  She should have trusted her initial instinct: a mother knows her sons. She might have been able to save Joseph’s life, and now John was under threat too.

  The agents visiting Alex had left only moments ago, thought not from anything said between them from what she’d discerned through the closed door. It appeared to be a phone call received which had made them leave in such a rush.

  Marisa raised the gun as she opened the study door, though it wasn’t until she took a step closer towards Alex that he finally seemed to register her presence.

  He looked at her and the gun with an incredulous smile, as if it was unreal, a joke. Then he saw the burning intent in her eyes and his smile quickly faded. He held a hand up.

  ‘Mom, no... no. You've got it wro –’

  Marisa fired twice, watched him fall.

  Then she moved in close and coolly, dispassionately put another bullet through her son's head.

  Alex's fish-cold eyes stared back at his mother in disbelief, and a second later Hezekaal lifted from him towards her.

  John Culverton didn’t hear the two shots from where he was. He was too far away at that point, swinging his car in through the mansion's main gates at the end of the sweep driveway.

  It was a fine, sunny day and he looked smug with himself at that particular moment: not only had he cheated death, but also managed to turn it round on his adversary.

  He was still smiling with that thought as he pulled up in front of the house.

  Thirty feet away in the study, Hezekaal hovered by his mother Marisa for a moment, unable to find a place there – then swirled swiftly outside as John Culverton got out of his car.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Darkness.

  Only the sound of fractured, laboured breathing inside the cramped coffin space.

  Then suddenly it stopped.

  Ellis, Ryan and Josh Eskovitz frantically dug at the ground with the help of another two agents.

  The freshest-planted cherry tree they’d ascertained was four along. They’d taken the shovel from Lyle’s farmhouse and grabbed additional shovels and a pick-axe from his outbuildings.

  They desperately hacked at and shovelled the earth and had gone almost two foot down before the hollow thud of hitting wood bounced back at them.

  Not a full grave, not shallow, Ellis considered: just enough weight of earth to prevent the coffin lid being pushed off if opened.

  They leant in and frantically shovelled and scraped away the remaining earth.

  Josh Eskovitz wedged the pick-axe underneath the lid and prised it open, and Ryan’s breath caught in his throat as Jessica came into view.

  But she wasn’t moving. Her eyes didn't register the fresh light breaking in and she looked a pale shade of blue.

  ‘Jessica!’ Ryan screamed. He leant over and started shaking her, tears streaming down his face. ‘God's sake, Jessica. No... no!’

  But she remained lifeless, no response. Not even a faint eye-flicker. And as he realized she wasn’t breathing, he leant fully over, clamping his mouth over hers, desperately pumping her chest in between bursting fresh breath into her and repeated pleas:

  ‘Jessica... Jessica.... Pleeaaaase!’

  No response.

  ‘Jessica!’

  A desperate, heart-rending scream now which cut across the orchard and the fields beyond.

  Ellis and Josh looked on pitifully, touched by the raw emotions of the scene as much as their sense of inadequacy, powerlessness. They’d done everything they could, but still it hadn’t been enough – they’d got there too late. Abaddon had won in the end: another for the bottomless pit.

  ‘Jessica!’ But amidst the flurry of the next few chest pumps and mouth-to-mouths, something in Jessica did finally stir.

  A flicker in her eyes and sudden body-jolt followed by a cough. Then a succession of coughs and a deep retching gasp as she sucked in her first air.

  She coughed and gulped, coughed and gulped, her eyes flickering as she fought to focus.

  Ryan gently stroked her cheek, but for a moment all she could see was the swirling terrifying image of Abaddon before it finally faded and she saw Ryan clearly.

  She blinked and smiled uncertainly at him, and as he pulled her into a shuddering embrace, her own aftershock and wave of relief hit.

  She hugged him back as the tears started to stream, whispering softly:

  ‘No more secrets... no more secrets.’

  As Jessica was taken away by medics in an ambulance with Ryan riding along with her, Ellis surveyed the scene.

  The helicopter had headed away a moment ago, but more squad cars were arriving and the first of the forensic units.

  More still would arrive over the following hours and he knew would be probably camped out on Lyle’s farm for days as they dug up and examined the other bodies.

  Ellis looked bleakly towards the other seven cherry trees.

  At times the battle made him feel weary, because he knew it was one they could never win; they could only stem the tide. The timeless battle of good against evil, yet the odds were stacked against them because only a small group could see that evil for what it was, what lay behind it.

  Josh Eskovitz came alongside him and, as if reading his thoughts, commented, ‘We did our best.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed; a weary monotone. He pulled his eyes from the cherry trees and started back towards his car, appearing a curiously isolated figure despite the crowd of police and forensics milling around. ‘We always do.’

  THE END

 

 

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