The Last Weekend

by Julie Morrigan

  As they were herded towards the outbuilding, JacktheRiffer was punched in the small of the back by Helmand and he fell to the ground. As he tried to get up, he was kicked in the side and the stomach.

  ‘Leave him!’ shouted Glasgow. ‘You know the rules; don’t damage the merchandise!’

  ‘There’s no real damage,’ said Helmand. ‘He might run a bit slower, but so what?’

  JacktheRiffer scrambled to his feet and followed the others into the barn. Glasgow and Helmand followed them in. In the centre of the floor was a large steel-barred pen. The door was opened and then, once they were all inside, it was closed and padlocked, and the men left the barn.

  ‘Are you okay?’ said Mayfly.

  ‘More or less,’ said Indigo.

  ‘They referred to us as “merchandise”,’ said JacktheRiffer. ‘What do you think that meant?’

  ‘Nothing good, you can be sure of that,’ said Indigo. ‘God, this is a fucking nightmare!’

  ‘Except we can’t wake up,’ said Mayfly.

  ‘You’re prey,’ said a voice, and the group looked to see who had spoken.

  A man emerged from a pile of blankets in one corner of the pen.

  ‘What do you mean, “prey”?’ said Indigo.

  ‘They charge money to people to let them hunt and kill you,’ he said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I’ve survived two hunts. Both times, the people I was sent out with were all killed.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘The last one was three days ago. They let us out on Friday evening. There were men with guns …’

  ‘Jesus,’ said JacktheRiffer. ‘And they hunted you?’

  ‘Like we were animals.’

  ‘That’s pretty much what was done to us at the house,’ said Indigo.

  ‘Where are you from?’ asked Mayfly.

  ‘Inverness. I was living rough. This van came round, supposed to be from some homeless shelter, but it was a con. They gave us drugged coffee. Next thing we knew, we were here, wherever here is.’

  ‘And they killed your companions?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘I … I’m not sure. A week and a half? Two weeks? We were kept drugged for the first few days.’

  ‘How did you survive?’

  ‘Survival training. And I was in better shape than the others. I hadn’t been on the streets as long. I could run and hide. They were … they were too slow.’

  Valerie gasped. ‘Well, that doesn’t bode well for me.’

  ‘Were both hunts on a Friday?’ said JacktheRiffer.

  ‘I reckon so, but you can’t bank on them having a fixed schedule. What about you four? Where have you come from?’

  Chapter 43

  ‘You were careless,’ Glasgow said to Sunderland and Helmand, as they sat around the kitchen table. Basra was also there.

  ‘Aye, you’re right,’ said Helmand. ‘I didn’t expect they’d have got free. They caught us by surprise.’

  ‘We were lucky; it could have gone completely tits up.’ Glasgow’s phone rang and he paused to answer it.

  ‘That was Slayer,’ he told them when the call ended. He wants to bring a couple of pals over this evening to finish off the survivors.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Basra. ‘How did he like the house party?’

  ‘Loved it, absolutely raving about it,’ said Glasgow. ‘You should see the shit he did up in the attic. Real fucking creepy stuff.’

  ‘We’ll all be seeing it later, when we go to clear the bodies out,’ said Sunderland.

  ‘We left him with a kill to finish off,’ said Helmand.

  ‘Yeah?’ said Basra.

  ‘Aye, woman had hurt her ankle. Couldn’t run, so we threw her back through the door for him.’ He grinned at Sunderland.

  ‘How many did he kill?’ said Basra.

  ‘He started with eleven,’ said Glasgow. ‘One killed himself and we’ve got three left, so that’s seven he bumped off at the house.’

  ‘Seven! That’s a good count.’

  ‘Aye, well, he paid enough for the privilege,’ said Glasgow.

  ‘The woman I picked up at the airport should make up for the fella who did himself in, and we’ve got George to put out with the group tonight, as well,’ said Helmand.

  ‘Third time unlucky for him, I reckon,’ said Sunderland. ‘We’ll put a bounty on him, see if that gets him done in.’

  ‘It took a bit of organising, this weekend, but it’s been a nice little earner,’ said Basra. ‘We really need to do something like this again.’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Glasgow, ‘but we’ll streamline the process. None of that fannying on, like Philip did. The important thing about the killing sprees at the house is the situation they’re in, not the mindset of the people. We didn’t make all that much extra as a result of them paying us, most of it went on the selection process.’

  ***

  ‘Let me see if I’ve got this right,’ said Indigo. ‘The hunts are held in the evening, and the last couple, which you were in, were both on a Friday.’

  George nodded. ‘We got sent out at dusk, but they make us wear boiler suits with hi-vis stripes on the arms and targets on the back, and they wear helmets with lights on, so the fact that it’s getting dark doesn’t necessarily help.’

  ‘And hiding is what’s kept you alive?’ said Mayfly.

  ‘So far, but they’re talking about putting a bounty on my head next time out. I doubt I’ll survive another hunt. They’ll be after me, in particular.’

  ‘We need to take the initiative, somehow,’ said Indigo. ‘Seize control.’

  ‘That didn’t go so well last time we tried,’ said Valerie.

  ‘I know, but what else can we do? If we try, we might fail and some of us might get injured or killed. But we might succeed. And if we don’t try, we’re all dead anyway.’

  ‘How many hunters are there, George?’ Mayfly asked.

  ‘Both times I’ve been out there were three, and three staff as well.’

  ‘We just saw four people,’ said Indigo, ‘so it sounds like there’s another organiser. That means there’ll likely be seven of them and there are five of us. They’ll each have an assault rifle and we have nothing.’

  George nodded. ‘That’s about the size of it,’ he said.

  ‘Even if I got a gun off one of them, I wouldn’t know what to do with it,’ said JacktheRiffer.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Indigo.

  ‘I can help there,’ said George.

  Four pairs of eyes turned to him.

  ‘I used to be in the army. I can handle weapons.’

  ‘Fantastic,’ said Indigo, ‘that’s a great help.’

  ‘You’ll be fine with them. There’s a fire handle on the side – pull it all the way down. That’ll set them on semi-automatic. We don’t want the kick to catch you out if they’re on full auto – you could end up spraying us with bullets and cutting someone in two. Short bursts, that’s the ticket.’

  The barn door rattled and Glasgow came in carrying a cardboard box.

  ‘All of you, up the far end, now,’ he said. They all moved to the end of the pen furthest from the door. He opened it up and dumped the box on the floor. ‘There you go, chow time. Make sure you eat something; you’ll need your strength for tonight.’

  ‘Why, what’s happening tonight?’ said Valerie.

  Glasgow grinned at her. ‘You’re all going out on a hunt.’ He locked the pen and went out, then locked the barn door behind himself, too.

  ‘Tonight!’ said Valerie. ‘Oh, lord!’

  ‘Come on,’ said George, ‘practical things first. Let’s see what food we’ve got.’

  ‘I’m not sure I can face food,’ said Mayfly.

  George looked at her, then at the others, in turn. ‘Never pass up the chance to eat. Food is fuel, and you have to give yourself the best chance of survival.’

  ‘He’s right,’ sai
d Indigo. ‘Come on, let’s eat.’

  Outside, they heard the roar of an engine and a vehicle driving away.

  ***

  ‘You have to remember, they won’t expect us to fight back,’ said George. He bit into a cheese sandwich.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Indigo. ‘We’ll have the element of surprise.’

  ‘We’ll need a bit more than surprise to pull this off,’ said Valerie. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be much of an asset, for a start.’ She shuddered.

  ‘Do you really think we can get the better of them?’ said Mayfly. ‘There’ll probably be seven of them, all armed to the teeth, and there are five of us with nothing.’ She took a drink from a can of lemonade.

  ‘I won’t pretend it’ll be easy,’ said George, ‘but I think we can do it.’

  ‘How? Do we wait until they set us loose and then run like hell?’ said JacktheRiffer.

  George shook his head. ‘No, they’d cut us down as soon as they realised what we had in mind. We need to catch them by surprise when they come to let us out. Get the guns off them.’

  ‘How?’ said JacktheRiffer again.

  ‘When they come to get us, the hunters stay outside and one of the organisers sometimes does, as well. So, while we’re in here there’ll be five of us and either two or three of them. That fourth fella, the one you saw, must stay somewhere else. The main man, Glasgow, usually opens up the pen. Helmand goes and gets the boiler suits and Sunderland either stays outside with the hunters or comes in here and stands and watches.’

  Indigo nodded. He paced, deep in thought, eyes on the floor. Then he looked up. ‘Here’s what I think we should do,’ he said.

  ***

  They had just a few hours to prepare. Indigo drilled them relentlessly in what they had to do. George explained to them how to shoot a rifle. Despite the fact they were busy, the afternoon and early evening seemed to drag. Finally, at around seven o’clock, loud music started to blare – ‘The Eye Of The Tiger’ – and the barn doors creaked open.

  Chapter 44

  The group looked at each other, then at the three men who had entered the barn. Sure enough, Glasgow opened the pen and stood back to let them out. Helmand, the driver, headed towards the back of the barn to get the boiler suits. The third man, Sunderland, stood between the pen and the barn doors.

  Mayfly and Valerie walked out of the pen together and veered close to Sunderland. As they drew alongside, Valerie faked a stumble and she and Mayfly barged into him; he shouted in surprise and they all staggered backwards together.

  ‘Careful!’ barked Glasgow. He was so busy watching the women and Sunderland stumbling about that by the time he realised Indigo and JacktheRiffer were in the process of throwing a filthy blanket from the pen over his head, it was too late. Indigo kicked the legs out from under Glasgow and he hit the floor, hard. JacktheRiffer grabbed hold of the rifle and kicked him repeatedly until he let go of it, and he and George headed for the back of the barn to get Helmand.

  Mayfly knelt on Sunderland’s gun arm to keep him from raising the weapon. Valerie rammed a torn piece of blanket into his mouth to keep him quiet and then sat on him. Indigo took Sunderland’s weapon and clubbed Glasgow in the head with the stock, then attacked Sunderland in the same way.

  ‘Tie them up,’ he said, and Mayfly and Valerie tore strips of blanket to truss up the unconscious men.

  The volume of the music meant that Helmand was oblivious to the chaos behind him. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and gathered up an armful of boiler suits. As he turned to walk back up the barn, he discovered George was right behind him – too close for him to get his rifle up to either shoot or club the man with it. George took advantage of Helmand’s surprise to punch him repeatedly until he went down, then he wrestled the weapon away from him.

  With both JacktheRiffer and George pointing guns at him, Helmand had no choice but to do as he was told; he picked up the boiler suits he’d dropped and walked to the front of the barn.

  Mayfly and Valerie opened the barn door a crack and kept watch on the hunters outside while Helmand and George dragged the two unconscious men into the pen. That done, George clubbed Helmand, tied him up and locked the door on all three organisers.

  ‘They’re getting restless out there,’ Mayfly said.

  ‘How many of them are there?’ asked Indigo.

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Okay, let’s get the boiler suits on.’ He passed them out and they each climbed into a grubby garment.

  ‘Right. Are we all ready?’ Indigo looked round at his companions.

  ‘As we’ll ever be, I reckon,’ said JacktheRiffer.

  ‘Okay, let’s go.’

  The women left the barn first and a whoop went up from the hunters.

  ‘About bloody time!’ one of them shouted. ‘What the hell was going on in there?’

  The three men followed, close together, bodies concealing the rifles they carried.

  ‘That’s him,’ said one of the men, pointing at George, ‘kill him and you get a free hunt.’

  ‘You’re fucking dead meat, mate,’ shouted the second man.

  ‘I want that fucker,’ the third shouted, and Indigo saw the man was pointing at him. ‘I nearly got him at the house, but he got away.’

  A chill ran down his spine as he realised he was looking at the man who had terrorised them all weekend, who had killed Reaperman and the others.

  ‘Down!’ shouted George, and all five dropped to a crouch. George, JacktheRiffer and Indigo raised their rifles and started firing at the hunters. The idea was to wound, rather than kill the men – they wanted to expose the whole horrific operation and make them face justice – but in the confusion the man who’d called George ‘dead meat’ took a bullet to the throat. He fell, choking and gurgling, as the other two raised their rifles and turned them on George, JacktheRiffer and Indigo. They were too slow; George shot the one who’d said there was a bounty on his head in the knee and he fell, and then Indigo managed to hit Slayer in the arm, spinning the rifle from his grip. It hung from the strap over his shoulder. Finally, George silenced the music.

  ‘Put your weapons down,’ Indigo commanded. ‘Put them down and move away from them.’ The man who’d been shot in the throat lay silent and unmoving. The other two men put their weapons on the ground and moved back. The one who’d been shot in the knee shuffled backwards on his bottom, his leg dragging uselessly over the ground. He was white with shock.

  JacktheRiffer gathered the three guns up, returned to where his people stood and handed the weapons to the women. ‘Now,’ Indigo said to Slayer, ‘you help him to his feet and the two of you walk into the barn.’

  Slayer glared hatred at Indigo. Despite his own injury, he managed to get the other man to his feet and, leaning heavily on one another, they walked into the barn ahead of Indigo. George and JacktheRiffer grabbed an arm each and dragged the dead man into the barn, and Mayfly and Valerie brought up the rear, checking all around as they went, in case anyone else was coming. Once they were all inside the barn, they pushed the door to, leaving it ajar just a crack so they could keep watch.

  The three men already in the pen were still out cold; Indigo opened the door and pushed the two hunters inside.

  JacktheRiffer looked at Slayer. ‘You, you cunt,’ he said. ‘You killed my woman and my friends.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ snarled Slayer. ‘You’re nothing, none of you. Scum!’

  JacktheRiffer roared with rage and launched himself at the man. He pounded him with his fists until he fell, then started kicking him. When he’d finished, Slayer laughed, even though he was bloodied and battered. ‘Is that it?’ he said. ‘Is that all you’ve got? No killer instinct. That’s why I’m top dog, the alpha male. I’d finish the job.’

  Indigo caught JacktheRiffer’s arm as he raised his fist to beat the man again. ‘Leave it, mate,’ he said. ‘We have to check the house. He’ll still be here, later.’

  ‘Caz …’

  ‘I know, man, I know.
’

  Slayer looked from one to the other and sneered at them. ‘Pathetic!’ he said.

  Indigo clubbed him with the rifle and he fell, prone. The man with the bullet in his knee was already out cold. He was losing blood at a steady rate. The two hunters were tied up, and the dead man was laid in the corner and covered with a blanket. That done, the pen door was locked again.

  ‘Come on,’ said Indigo, ‘we know there’s at least one more man. Let’s get into the house and see what’s what in there.’ He took off the boiler suit. ‘Leave these here,’ he said, and the others removed their own suits and dropped them on the floor.

  ***

  ‘We need to be watchful,’ said Indigo. ‘We don’t know for certain how many people are in the house, but we have to assume they’re armed.’

  ‘How do you want to do this?’ said JacktheRiffer.

  ‘Let’s you and I walk round the building first, see what we can see,’ said Indigo.

  ‘We can’t delay for too long,’ said George. ‘Whoever’s in there might wonder why there’s no more shooting out here.’

  Indigo nodded, and he and JacktheRiffer slipped out through the barn door and set off at a crouch, rifles at the ready. They stayed in the shadows, close to the walls of the lodge, peering in windows as they passed them. A short while later, they slipped back inside the barn.

  ‘There’s just two doors,’ said Indigo, ‘front and back. The front door’s not locked; we couldn’t try the back door because there’s a bloke sitting at the kitchen table, reading the paper. He’s the only one we saw inside.’

  ‘So, there’s at least one, but there might be more,’ said George.

  Indigo nodded. ‘George, you come round the back with me and we’ll deal with him. Jack, you watch the front door and wait until we come through and open it.’

  ‘What about us?’ said Mayfly, indicating herself and Valerie. ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘Stay here, where it’s a bit safer.’

  ‘No chance! We’re all in this together.’

  Indigo sighed. ‘Okay, you go with Jack.’

  ‘I think we should go in the front as you go in the back,’ said JacktheRiffer.

  ‘I’m not sure—’