Gripping Thrillers

by Iain Rob Wright

  Damien’s eyes widened, and his eyebrows lowered into a scowl. “The fuck? The hell you do that for? You don’t fuck with a man’s family–with women.”

  Frankie waved a hand dismissively. “Shit went down. That’s all there is to it. You’re one to talk, anyway, man. You fuck people up all the time.”

  “Business,” said Damien. “I don’t fuck up innocent families. Did this guy even do anything to you?”

  “No,” said Davie. “He never done nothing to nobody.”

  Frankie turned to Davie and growled. “Will you shut the hell up!”

  “Sounds like your little bro has a conscience,” said Damien. “Good for him. You both need get the fuck out of my house now.”

  Frankie stood up. “What? Why you being like this?”

  “Cus you’re a fucking mug, an amateur. Now piss off–and leave the pieces behind. I ain’t gunna risk you shooting up some more innocent families.”

  Frankie didn’t hand the gun over; he pulled the revolver on Damien and cocked the hammer. Davie wondered how his brother even knew how to do that.

  Damien’s face was unflinching, unlike Frankie’s which was twitching madly.

  “I hope this dude fucks you up,” Damien said. “Makes you a little bitch again like you used to be when I met you in the nick.”

  Frankie stepped forward and shoved the barrel against Damien’s forehead. His whole arm was shaking, but Damien was still unflinching. “Not another word, Damien, or I’ll end you right now.”

  Davie stood up and moved beside his brother, trying to attract the attention of his demented stare. “What’s he talking about, Frankie? What happened in the nick?”

  Damien directed his gaze to Davie casually, unbothered by the gun against his forehead. “Your big bro never tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “When I went down for a little stretch–for dealing and shit–they sent me to the same nick as Frankie.”

  Frankie thrust the revolver forward, jarring Damien’s head back. “Not another word. I’m warning you.”

  Damien continued anyway. “Your big tough bro here was the prison bitch for a whole year. Fell in bad with the top dogs when he arrived–mouthing off and acting like a gangster before he even knew the score. Spent the next year getting it up the shitter by half the guys on G Wing.”

  “Bullshit,” said Davie. “You’re talking bollocks.”

  Damien winked at Davie. “God’s honest truth, little man. When I arrived, my dad’s rep was enough for me to be one of the top dogs straight away. I put a stop to all that stuff–shit stabbing’s really not my thing. Your brother was so grateful that he offered to do anything for me in return. Just so happened that I needed some help shifting gear when I got out. The rest is history.”

  “Is this all true?” Davie asked Frankie, who seemed like he was going to go off like a firework, veins bulging through the hot redness of his skin.

  Frankie sniffed back a nose full of snot and recovered himself. “Guy’s full of it. He did me a few solids during our time together, that much is true. In fact, the only reason he ain’t dead right now is because I owe him.”

  “Owe me big time,” Damien added. “Big time.”

  Frankie nodded. “Lucky for you, I honour my debts–but consider us even.”

  Damien smiled from behind the gun barrel. “Fair enough. Say goodbye to your supply though. You find out who your friends are when you’re not holding all the time. Tell Dom and Jordan to come see me in The Trumpet. Maybe they can take your old job.”

  “Whatever,” said Frankie. “Come on Davie. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Still pointing the revolver at Damien’s face, Frankie backed out of the room. Davie followed after him, shell shocked by what he’d just heard. There was every chance that Damien was just making shit up to mess with Frankie. But if it were true…

  Then Davie’s big brother was messed up for a reason.

  “Hey, Davie,” said Damien as they went to leave. “Don’t end up like your brother, yeah?”

  Davie said nothing, just left the room with Frankie. Together they navigated the long hallway towards the front door and let themselves out. The cold air of the afternoon hit Davie in the face like a punch, making his teeth ache.

  “Getting cold,” he said, rubbing at his shoulders.

  Frankie shrugged. “Other things to worry about right now.”

  “No shit,” Davie agreed. Yet somehow he couldn’t help but think about the weather. He had a feeling that there was going to be a storm of epic proportions.

  And the first drops of rain had just fallen.

  22

  Officer Wardsley and Officer Dalton had refused Andrew’s request to locate Frankie for him–they didn’t want him taking the law into his own hands–so now he was sitting at his wife’s bedside wondering what to do. It was approaching 5pm, the morning having come and gone in a whirlwind of grief and emotion. Bex was yet to wake up, but the Doctors had assured him she would do so soon–that her body was just taking the opportunity to rest. Pen’s condition was less optimistic.

  Her surgery had ended a couple hours ago, and she was now lying deathly still. Stitches and gauze covered her throat while a drip entered the artery of her right arm, supplying her body with whatever it was that the Doctors thought it needed.

  “I’ll make this right,” Andrew whispered to his dying wife. “I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done–for what they’ve done to you and Rebecca.”

  Pen said nothing.

  He sat for a while and listened to the silence, wishing beyond all hope that the woman he loved would sit up and say something. It wasn’t going to happen, though–might not ever happen.

  Tears fell from his eyes and stained the thin white cotton sheets that covered his wife’s injured body. “I failed you, Pen. It’s my job to keep you safe. How can I ever forgive myself? If you die, how will I go on? I’ve loved you since the day we met. Life wouldn’t make sense without you. Please don’t go.” He leant forward and laid his head against her stomach. He could hear her heart pumping–slow and steady–the pause between each beat a balancing act between life and death. “Please don’t leave me, Pen. Our daughter needs you.”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said a young blonde nurse, entering the room, “but your daughter has just woken up.”

  Andrew’s stomach churned, and he had to swallow back a mouthful of stomach acid.

  What the hell would he say to her? A kid shouldn’t have to deal with something like this.

  Andrew got up, kissed his wife’s forehead, then followed the nurse out of the room. Both Penelope and Rebecca had been moved once their surgery concluded and were now in separate parts of the building. Pen was in ICU under constant watch, while Bex was in the convalescence ward. They were on separate floors, and it took Andrew five minutes of marching through a maze of corridors to reach his daughter’s room.

  Although obviously weak, Bex smiled at him as soon as he entered the room. his heart ached at the sight of her. Dark-brown hair matted her forehead, and her usually rosy complexion had turned ashen. She looked like a zombie from one of the films she loved to watch.

  “Hey,” Andrew said as he placed himself down on a cheap plastic chair beside the bed. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

  “Like I got stabbed with a pair of scissors.”

  Andrew grinned, happy that his daughter’s sense of humour had not been damaged despite everything. “Arts and crafts never were your strong point, Bex.”

  “How’s mum?”

  He had hoped the question would wait, that his daughter would not remember events so much as to realise that she was not the only one who’d been injured. Telling Bex that her mother might be dying would not be good for her own recovery.

  But he couldn’t lie to her, not his own daughter.

  “She’s bad, sweetheart. The doctors have told us to wait and see, but right now she’s not responding. Her surgery went okay, though, which is a good sign.
We have to hold on to the positives.”

  Bex looked her father in the eyes and wore an expression that seemed to hold more sadness than should have been possible for such a young girl. “Why did they do this to us, Dad?”

  Andrew shook his head and looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. Really, I don’t.”

  “They would have killed us all if you hadn’t done something.”

  Andrew sighed. “I got you both stabbed!”

  “It would have been worse if you’d done nothing.”

  “I might not have gotten the chance if Davie hadn’t tried to put a stop to things first.”

  Bex looked concerned. “You think he’ll be okay? What if the others blame him?”

  Andrew shrugged his shoulders and winced at the pain that shot through his ribs. “To be honest, the only people I’m concerned about are you and your mother. Davie still sat and watched Frankie torture us. He did what was right at the end, but it wasn’t enough.”

  “Don’t be angry, Dad.”

  Andrew looked at his daughter. “Don’t be angry? Are you joking?”

  She shook her head wearily. “If you’re angry, then you’re just letting them get away with even more. Of course I want them all arrested and sent to prison… for-like-ever… but I won’t let them inside my head. They don’t deserve to change who we are, Dad. You’re not an angry person, so don’t let them make you one.”

  Andrew couldn’t believe his daughter was so willing to move on. Would she feel the same way if the doctors came in and told her that her mother was dead? Would she let anger into her heart then? Andrew understood what his daughter was saying, but it was too late to put aside his emotions–anger had already infested his soul and taken root. There was no going back to the man he was before. That mad was dead.

  He needed to change the subject, for dwelling on the subject was already making his heart grow heavy with rage. “Should I go home and get you some things, sweetheart? What would you like?”

  Bex smiled at him, but seemed trapped in a constant state of drowsiness–as if she could not escape the fringes of sleep. “That would be nice,” she muttered. “Can you pick me up some magazines from the shop? Then I just want my iPod and my… phone.”

  Andrew thought about his own phone. He had not called work in days and would probably not have a job to return to anymore. He put such worries aside, for now they seemed utterly unimportant. He gave Bex a warm smile to match the one she had given him. “I’ll go home now and get them for you. I won’t be long, but you try and get some rest in the meantime.”

  Bex nodded and already seemed to be falling into a deep sleep, so he exited the room quietly and went out into the corridor that was bustling with staff and patients. An old man ambled past, trundling a drip-stand behind him, and said, hello. Andrew said it back to him and was surprised that pleasantries were still within his capabilities.

  Andrew went up to the nurse’s station and asked a question. “Is there somewhere I can find a taxi?”

  The nurse nodded. “There’s a small taxi rank on the east-side of the car park. Can’t miss it.”

  Andrew hadn’t seen it when he’d entered the hospital, but then he had not been paying attention to such things. His plan was to catch a taxi home, get Bex’s things, then immediately return via taxi as well–he wasn’t up to driving with his nerves the way they were.

  The corridor on his left had an EXIT sign, so he took it. It led through to a waiting room, and then straight out into the car park. Before he left, he noticed something and stopped. His heart rose up into his throat, filling his mouth with the taste of copper.

  Sat in a nearby waiting room, looking extremely sorry for himself, was one of the twins–Jordan, if Andrew wasn’t mistaken. The bite wound on the boy’s perspiration-soaked face was glistening with pus and blood. Infection had set in, and the boy looked in a great deal of discomfort. Andrew was glad.

  But it wasn’t enough. Jordan would recover and put the whole thing behind him like it had all been one big giggle.

  Andrew moved to the rear of the room behind Jordan, so that the youth would not see him. Of the options available, none seemed clear. He could call Wardsley and Dalton, but had little faith that they could do much other than hold the boy for a day or two. The twin’s parents would probably turn up and have him released. The other option was to attack the son of a bitch right now–to wring the little bastard’s neck–but that would result only in his own arrest. Andrew took a seat and decided to wait and think.

  Twenty minutes later, a nurse called out a name: Jordan Ebanks. Andrew watched the boy get up, and then slowly followed after him, making sure to stay several steps behind. The nurse took Jordan into a consultation area that contained two rows of adjustable gurneys inside curtained surroundings. Jordan hopped up on one of the beds, but then the nurse pulled the curtain closed and Andrew lost sight of him.

  He crept forward and tried to look inconspicuous by nodding hello to anyone who noticed him. Putting his head down, he hurried over to Jordan’s cubicle and stopped just outside of it. He listened to the conversation coming from inside.

  “How did it happen?” asked the female voice that belonged to the nurse. “Looks like a bite mark.”

  “Got jumped by some nutter, innit; think he was a crackhead or something. Must have thought he was a zombie or summin cus he took a chunk outta me.”

  Lying little shit, Andrew thought. Why don’t you tell her what really happened?

  “Well,” said the nurse, “if that is what happened, then you should inform the police.”

  Jordan sucked at his teeth. “Don’t deal with the pigs, sweetheart. I deal with my biz’nis direct, if you get me?”

  The nurse ignored the boy’s bravado and carried on with her job diligently. Andrew assumed she had heard such nonsense before and paid it little mind. “I’ll get this bandaged for you,” she said, “but then you’ll need a course of general antibiotics. If it gets any worse, you’ll need to come back.”

  “Sound,” said Jordan. “I’ll make sure I ask for you, sweetheart.”

  “If you wish,” replied the nurse, unable to sound any less-interested. “I’m just going to get a doctor for your prescription, then I’ll come get you dressed up.”

  “I like getting undressed better,” Jordan quipped, but the nurse had already exited the cubicle.

  Now that the boy was alone, Andrew found himself frozen. He hadn’t thought about what he would do next, and without a game plan, he allowed his instincts to take over. He slipped inside the curtain and faced Jordan.

  The boy’s bloodshot eyes went wide. “Jesus Christ! The fuck you doing here?”

  “You put my entire family in hospital. Where the hell did you think I’d be, you moron?”

  “Man, you must be outta your mind, frontin’ on me!”

  Andrew took a step closer, a snarl on his lips. “You almost kill my family, yet you can flirt with the fucking nurse like nothings happened? You think I’m the one who’s out of my mind? You’re a monster.”

  “Hey, that shit was Frankie’s deal. I was just along for the ride, blud, you get me?”

  “Well you won’t have a problem telling the police what happened then?”

  Jordan’s sickly face turned sour. “I ain’t saying shit to no one–especially the pigs. Frankie’s my boy, and I don’t know what you’re talking about anyway. I ain’t seen him in weeks. If someone took it to your family then they must’ve had it coming.”

  Before Andrew had any chance to realise what he was doing, he’d thrown a punch at Jordan hard enough to knock the boy right off the bed.

  “Motherfucker!” Jordan sprang back up to his feet immediately, lashing out at Andrew, not with his fists, but with a blade that he had suddenly produced from somewhere. “You lost your mind, whitey?”

  Andrew didn’t retreat. He rushed forward to meet the boy and managed to get both hands around his knife-arm. A struggle ensued that sent the pair of them stumbling against the gurney. A
ndrew had the advantage of leverage, and managed to get above Jordan and forced him down against the bed. The knife pointed straight at Andrew’s face, but it got no closer. In fact, it began to move away. The tip of the blade twisted and shook, gradually pointing itself in the opposite direction. Towards Jordan.

  Jordan’s strength began to falter, and the knife moved faster–perhaps it was the infection making him weak. Andrew realised that weapon was now under his control.

  But what exactly did he want to happen? What the hell was he doing?

  Despite his weakening struggles, Jordan still found the gall to spit in Andrew’s face. “Fuckin’ white-boy. You and your family are dead.”

  Andrew pushed down on the knife, applying all of his remaining strength and weight until the tip entered Jordan just below his bottom rib. All of the aggression disappeared and was replaced by the whimpering cries of a child. “P-please man… please don’t. Don’t!”

  But this was no child in front of him. It was a monster.

  Andrew pushed the knife in further and twisted it.

  He watched the life drain from the Jordan’s eyes.

  He twisted the knife again. The last glimmers of life disappeared from the boy’s eyes and his body slumped against the gurney.

  Andrew peered down at the blood on his hands and could barely acknowledge what he’d just done. To murder a man was something impossible to him, yet he had just done it. Even more disturbing was that he didn’t care about it one bit. In fact, he felt good about it. Not happy exactly, but at least satisfied.

  Andrew felt the hairs prick up on the back of his neck. There was a presence behind him. He spun around to find the nurse standing behind him in shock, her mouth hanging wide open while her eyes fixated on the dead youth laying on her gurney.

  “I’m sorry,” Andrew told the woman, “he deserved it.”

  Then he ran.

  23

  Andrew managed to sprint right through the hospital and out into the car park without anyone stopping him. Other than a few funny looks, no one even seemed to notice him. Now that he was outside, he decided to slow down and disappear casually into the night.