But things had changed when Frankie slashed Pen’s face. The pain of seeing his wife’s beautiful face disfigured found a way past his barriers and struck right at his heart. A pressure grew inside his chest that threatened to explode his very being. As quickly as it had arrived, the fight fled out of him.
Frankie approached with a new weapon–one he hadn’t yet used to torture anyone. He held the pliers at arm’s length and snapped them shut menacingly. “Time for your dental appointment, sir.”
Andrew sighed and let his head drop to his chest, mentally preparing himself for another helping of agony. He sent his mind to a meditative place of calm indifference that offered a sliver of emotional sanctuary. It was a place inside of himself that he’d not known existed before this night. Pain and suffering had forced it into existence, rending itself into his psyche out of necessity and survival.
“I’ve never done a root canal before,” said Frankie, “but I’m sure it’ll go alright. What do you think?”
Andrew said nothing. If he did then the animal might hurt his family some more. Whatever happened, he could take it–or at least tolerate–as long as it was done only to him.
Frankie grabbed Andrew’s lower jaw with his grubby fingers and yanked it open. “Dear, oh, dear. That’s some very bad tooth decay you have there. I think we’re going to have to get those teeth out ASAP. Every single one of them.”
The twins and Michelle gave a cheer to that as if it was the most exciting thing they had ever heard. Andrew wondered if it was the drugs that made them this way, or if they’d been born wicked. They weren’t human beings, they were baying dogs–hyenas.
Frankie shushed everyone into silence and started his procedure. Andrew spluttered and coughed as the pliers entered his mouth. They scratched against his tongue and clinked against his teeth, sending aching shudders down to their roots. Suddenly, the steel tongs clamped down on either side of a molar and Andrew felt the tooth crack beneath the sudden pressure. Agony exploded thorough his lower jaw and gradually travelled upwards to consume his entire face. His vision blurred as the pliers twisted side to side, yanking and wrenching the tooth away from the gum, millimetre by excruciating millimetre. Despite coming extremely near, Andrew didn’t lose consciousness. He was still awake to see Frankie make a successful extraction and hold the retrieved molar in front of his audience like a grizzly trophy.
Andrew’s mouth filled with hot, salty blood, so much that he thought he might choke on it. He spat endlessly to keep his mouth clear, and the sight of all the blood seemed to cause a massive grin to stretch across Frankie’s twitching face.
“That shit is gross,” said Dom from a couple of meters away. “I could puke.”
“Pull another one,” Michelle screeched. “Do another before he passes out.”
Frankie took the molar from the pliers and examined it between his fingers. He showed it to Andrew too, waving it a couple of inches in front of his nose. “Mind if I keep this?”
The question disturbed Andrew. It was the type of thing a serial killer would do, keeping a memento from his victim’s body. The notion of dying tonight was becoming more and more a reality to Andrew, but so was something else: if Frankie was going to kill him, he wouldn’t stop there–couldn’t stop there. Pen and Bex were witnesses that this monster could not afford to keep around. If Andrew didn’t get free, Frankie was going to kill his family.
“Time for the next tooth,” said Frankie clicking the pliers open and shut. Blood still dripped from the implement.
“STOP IT!”
Andrew leant sideways and glanced around Frankie. What he saw was Davie, standing up beside the sofa and facing down his brother.
Frankie shook his head. “What the fuck, Davie?”
Davie’s eyes narrowed beneath the bandage around his forehead. His slim shoulders were rigid, tense. “I’m done with this, Frankie. You’ve hurt these people enough, and I can’t take any more of this.”
Andrew couldn’t see Frankie’s face now his back was turned, but he could tell by the unmoving body language that he was dumbfounded by his little brother’s sudden outburst.
“What’s your problem? This goddamn pedo ran you the fuck over.”
“It was an accident,” Davie said a decibel below a shout, “and it happened because I was running away after what you did to that girl at the chip shop. If you hadn’t taken me along, I wouldn’t have got hit by no car.”
“You keep your mouth shut about that. You want me to get pinched?”
Davie shook his head, exasperated. “You’re already going to get pinched. You’re planning on killing people.”
“So what?” said Frankie. “Shit happens. Long as we’re smart, no one will pin a thing on us.”
Davie seemed incredulous. “Us? Us? I want nothing to do with this fucking mess. This is all down to you and your shit-faced mates.”
“Hey man, that’s not cool,” said Jordan from the floor.
“No,” Frankie agreed. “Not cool at all.” He walked forward and prodded a finger into Davie’s chest. “Now you chill the fuck out, little bro, or things are going to end bad for you.”
Davie didn’t move an inch. “I love you, Frankie, but if you carry on hurting these people, I ain’t your bro no more.”
Frankie was silent for a while as he seemed to consider his next words. “You sure you want things to go down like this?”
Davie nodded and stood firm, not breaking eye contact for a second.
Andrew sat and watched from the armchair, hardly able to breathe as he waited for an outcome of this familial confrontation–it seemed his life might hang in the balance. At least, if anything, he’d judged Davie correctly–the boy was nothing like his older brother.
“I let them go; I go down,” said Frankie. “You want that?”
Davie sighed. “Course not. You’re my blood.”
“So what then? What would you have me do, Davie? You seem to be the one with all the answers, so enlighten me.”
He shrugged. “Just leave. They won’t say anything.”
Frankie laughed his head off. “You shitting me? Course they will.”
“Not if you threaten to send someone round to finish the job. Just like the kid in the bathtub–nothing gets said to the police, and everything stays cool.”
Everything will not be cool, thought Andrew as he looked across at his catatonic wife, bleeding from her butchered face beneath a bald head. This isn’t going to end with you just walking away scot free. No way in hell.
Frankie took some time to think about things. Andrew did some thinking of his own. If Frankie did leave, then the first thing he would do was call the police. But if Frankie stayed, then he would certainly commit murder. If it was the latter outcome, then Andrew wasn’t going to go down without a fight. The agony of his tooth extraction had reawakened his senses to the point that they were on high alert. If he was going to save his family, it would be now.
“I’m sorry,” Frankie told his brother earnestly. “I can’t leave things now. My business isn’t done. Got to take this thing to the end.”
I’ll end it for you right now, you son of a bitch.
Andrew leapt from the armchair and barrelled into the back of Frankie as hard as he could. The body tackle sent Frankie forward with enough force that he flipped clear over the room’s coffee table and landed awkwardly on his shoulder, crying out. Like angry bees, the twins were on Andrew in an instant.
Andrew lunged aside as Dom attempted to tackle him. The teen missed and went tumbling into the TV stand headfirst. Without thinking, Andrew swung his leg viciously and connected with the boy’s ribs, enjoying the crunching sound it made. Michelle attacked next. The wicked little harlot screeched at him like a medieval war maiden and came at him with a pair of scissors. Andrew had no time to consider the ethics of hitting a girl, so threw the hardest punch he could produce. Lips and teeth mushed beneath his colliding fist and Michelle flew backwards, already unconscious on her way down to the floor.
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Next up was Jordan, and his attack was far more effective. He came at Andrew with his arms wide, embracing him in a crushing bear hug and ramming him into the nearest wall. Andrew lost his breath as his cracked ribs impacted against the hard plasterboard. Unable to free his arms, he did the only thing he could think of. He bit Jordan in the face as hard as he could, teeth slicing through the succulent flesh and causing a high-pitched, agonising scream. Jordan’s struggling just made Andrew bite down harder, and he didn’t release his grip until a fatty chunk of flesh fell away in his mouth. He spat the morsel onto the ruined carpet and pushed the shuddering teen away from him.
Andrew felt as though he was outside of his body now, controlling his rage-infected limbs from far away as they coursed with murderous intent. After being captured and subdued like an animal, he was finally free–and all he wanted now was to see the blood of his captors flow as freely as his own.
But before he had a chance to sow his vengeance and free his family, he found himself, once again, powerless. Frankie stood in front of the sofa, a knife to Bex’s throat. She was still bound and gagged, but Andrew could tell by his daughter’s eyes that she was terrified.
“Just let her go, Frankie, and I’ll let you walk out of here alive.”
Frankie cackled. “You’ll let me walk out of here alive. It’s you that’s a dead man.”
Andrew shook his head. “Shoes on the other foot now. I’m going to rip you apart first opportunity I get. Best chance you’ve got is to run.”
Frankie stared at Andrew as if he were insane. “You for real? I’d kill you before you even got close to me. I’m Frankie-fuckin-Walker.”
Andrew shook his head. “You’re just a sad little boy who probably got raped in prison. We should all feel sorry for you–but you made a huge mistake when you took it out on my family. You’re a dead man.”
Davie entered the conversation, standing between them both. Jordan was still screaming in pain and rushed into the kitchen to tend to the ripped-open wound on his face. His brother Dom lay on the floor rubbing his shoulder gingerly. Michelle was still unconscious. Davie put a hand up to Andrew and Frankie, like a referee at an out-of-hand boxing match. “Let’s just keep things calm, okay? If you stay where you are, Andrew, we’ll all get out of your house right now.”
“Like fuck we will,” said Frankie, still holding Rebecca at knifepoint.
Davie turned to his brother. “This has gone tits-up, bro. We need to bounce.”
Frankie stared at his younger brother and eventually let out a sigh. “You’re right. This is an epic fuckin’ fail, man.”
Davie nodded. “Let’s not make it any worse.”
“Okay. Dom, get up off the floor and fetch your brother from the kitchen. Get Michelle up and carry her useless ass out of here.” Frankie looked at Andrew, narrowed his eyes. “You come after me, gangster, and I’ll put you down for good. Then someone will come and sort your family out for good measure. Same thing will happen if you go to the police. You get me?”
Andrew said nothing. He didn’t need to involve himself in worthless banter with a degenerate like Frankie–he could see through it all now. The police would get a call the moment he left, and if anyone came after Andrew’s family afterwards, they would be made to regret it. There was a beast inside of him that had been created and let out.
“Let my daughter go and leave.”
It wasn’t Andrew who spoke. It was Pen. She’d stood up from the sofa and was clutching the scissors in her hand. No one had seen her grab them, but in the ruckus that had erupted, she would have had every chance to take them.
“Let her go,” Pen repeated, pointing the scissors at Frankie’s face. “Now.”
Frankie sniggered. “Or else what, you bald bitch?”
“I’ll kill you.”
Andrew called out to his wife and tried to calm her down. The situation was nearly over, and she didn’t need to do this. “Honey, come over to me. Everything is going to be okay in just a minute.”
But Pen wasn’t listening. She had a haunted look like she was somewhere else entirely, somewhere where only she and Frankie existed, with Bex in the middle.
“Listen to your husband, sweetheart. You ain’t going to be doing nuffin’. Come near me and I stick your whore daughter.”
Pen let out a roar and rushed at Frankie with the scissors, her face contorted in a witch-like grimace of utter hatred and malevolence. Frankie spun to meet her head on, holding Bex in front of him as a shield. Their bodies collided, and the scissors disappeared in the tussle.
Andrew’s heart froze, along with every other muscle in his body as he stood there in terror. The next several seconds passed like an eternity, until Frankie pushed Bex against her mother and stepped away, snarling. Andrew saw the blood immediately. Then he saw the scissors jutting out from his daughter’s stomach as she fell to the floor in shock. Pen looked down at Bex and let out an inhuman wail; then she lunged at Frankie, aiming her sharp fingernails at his remorseless eyes.
Frankie struck out with the knife, and Pen stumbled right into it. There was no sound as the blade entered the soft tissue of her throat, and for a moment, Andrew wasn’t sure if the injury was as real as it looked. When blood spurted high enough to coat the ceiling, the reality of the situation became undeniably real.
“Stupid bitch,” said Frankie, looking down at her. “Dom, Jordan, go get Michelle, right now. We’re leaving.”
Andrew dropped to his knees, oblivious to the escaping youths that had made his life a living hell before destroying it completely. The only thing that existed in his life right now was Penelope and Rebecca, and both of them were dying on the living room floor.
19
“Shit man. This is bad. Why the hell did you do that, Frankie?” Davie struggled to keep up with the others as they ran deeper into the estate, passing by rows of houses that became progressively smaller and unkempt as they left the better areas. Usually he would have been faster than the lot of them, but his throbbing concussion meant he could manage no more than a lolloping walk.
Frankie slowed down and allowed Davie to catch up. “Bitch had it coming,” he said. “She came at me like a nutcase, you saw it.”
“I saw you drive a knife into her neck when you could have just as easily punched her.”
Frankie shrugged. “It’s done now. No point stressing about it.”
Davie reached out and grabbed his brother’s jacket, dragging them both to a stop. “You’re tripping, bro. The police will be after us all within the next two minutes. There’re two women bleeding to death because of you!”
Frankie huffed. “Because of us.”
Davie shook his head, dismayed by the suggestion that he was to blame for any part of this. “What the hell did I do?”
“You distracted me enough that Andrew could take a shot at me. Everything went tits-up after that. If you’d just kept your gob shut, then everything would have been okay. I was just about to let them go, little bro. Figured I’d scared them enough to get the message.”
“Bullshit,” said Davie, hoping there was zero truth to his brother’s words. “You told everyone you were going to kill Andrew.”
“Course I did,” said Frankie. “I wanted him to shit himself. I weren’t gunna do it, though. You think I’m a complete muppet or what?”
Davie shook his head. He was feeling dizzy again and couldn’t wait to find his way to bed. Were his actions really the cause of what had happened? Davie wasn’t sure he could live with himself if they were. He stared at Frankie and concentrated on his brother’s reactions. “You were really just going to let them go?”
Frankie put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and looked him dead in the eye. “I swear, man. They were at the point where they would never have said shit to no one. The pigs wouldn’t have ever known. Now though…”
“What are we going to do?”
Frankie patted Davie on the back and got them both moving again. Up ahead, the twins and a groggy Michelle w
ere waiting for them. “We’re going to go see a mate of mine and lay low for a while at his gaff. We’ll get our stories straight and decide what we’re going to do then.”
Davie nodded. “Okay. Who’s this mate? Can we trust him?”
“Yeah,” said Frankie. “It’s him I’ve been dealing product for. Well his old man really, but he’s in the nick for a stretch.”
“Maybe, we should just go home instead. Get mum to tell the police we’ve been home all night.”
“You really want to rely on that drunk bitch to keep a story straight?”
“I suppose not.”
They caught up with the others at the end of the street just as they passed by a group of shops and a grotty old pub called The Trumpet.
“My mate lives a few blocks up,” Frankie told them all. “It’s pretty late, so he should be in. Mind your manners though because this guy would kill you as soon as look at you. In fact, he’s the only geezer in the world that actually scares me. ”
Everyone nodded their understanding. Then they got going again, heading through the paved jungle of the housing estate and disappearing into the night.
Frankie knocked on the door and shushed everyone. The house they were standing at was bigger than most of the others on the street, with a long driveway and an overhanging porch that had a light that lit their approach.
“He going to be mad?” Davie asked, trying to fight away the feeling that things were somehow getting worse, not better.
“Maybe,” said Frankie, “but once I tell him the deal, he’ll understand. Last thing he needs is his best dealer going away for a long stretch.”
A light came on in the hallway. It shined through the frosted glass of the PVC door, and after a few seconds of clinking sounds of deadbolts and chains being unlocked, the door opened up. Blinking out at them through sleep-fuzzed eyes was a shaven-headed youth about the same age as Frankie. The lad was well-muscled and wearing nothing but a pair of designer boxer-shorts.
Gripping Thrillers Page 27