Picture You Dead

56

Saturday, 2 November

Shaking uncontrollably, heart pumping, Archie closed his eyes, waiting for the explosion, the whuuuuumpppp, the flames, the searing pain.

Nothing happened. Time stood still. Time was frozen.

Finally, he looked down through blurred eyes and saw to his astonishment the cigarette was extinguished.

‘You like movies, Mr Goff?’

Barely able to speak through his fear, the stench of petrol fumes making him dizzy, Archie looked up at the two men and croaked, ‘Some.’

Both twins nodded approvingly. ‘We like movies, too. But we like the ones best that have their research correct,’ the one with the ring said. ‘There are so many movies where petrol is ignited by a cigarette, but you see, as you may perhaps know yourself, Mr Goff, as an intelligent man, the ignition temperature for gasoline is way higher than the heat a cigarette can generate. Which means that the movie makers have simply not done their research. Pretty crap, eh?’

Archie nodded dubiously. He was thinking about his daughter. About that ring in the box inside his jacket. About Isabella and the trip ahead with her. What did he need to do to convince these psychopaths to believe him?

Please don’t let it end here.

Please.

There had to be a way out of this.

Fear coiled and unspooled and coiled again in every cell of his body.

Money? he thought. The universal motivation. ‘Look, please, how much do you want? I... I can give you back the money. I’ve – I’ve got most of it. I’ve—’

He screamed as a cigarette burned into his skin, then he screamed again as he felt something clamp to his scrotum, then another cigarette burn. He felt clamps on his nipples. Drenched in perspiration, he cried out again just as his body convulsed with electric shocks.

‘Please,’ he yelled. ‘Please—’ He was stopped in mid-sentence by an agonizing pain in his left arm, as if someone had stuck a sharp knife all the way up inside the skin and muscles. He cried out again, but the sound jammed somewhere inside his constricted gullet.

Neither of the men had done this. They were both still standing in front of him, looking at him. Frowning now.

The pain shot up his left arm again, even more excruciating, but this time only a tiny gasp jetting from his mouth. The men blurred as a volcanic pain erupted inside him. It felt like his entire chest was being clamped in a vice that was tightening, crushing his insides.

Images of Isabella’s face floated in front of him.

Heard one of the twins say, ‘He’s ill.’

‘Isabella!’ he whispered.

The last sound he ever heard was the voice of the twin with the big red ring saying, loudly, ‘Shit.’