Recoil

4

The first one banged something hard on

Standish’s head.

He crumpled.

A big black guy rushed past me and I heard a dull thud followed by two double-taps. The rope released suddenly and I fell forward. My face bounced off Standish’s. Blood and grey stuff oozed from the side of his head.

‘It’s OK, Nick.’ The way he growled it in that fucking Glaswegian accent of his, it still sounded like a death threat.

I pushed him away. ‘No! No!’ I spat the words into Standish’s face as I pulled the cord from my neck and got it round his.

I started pulling.

Standish’s eyes were open and vacant. His face was swollen.

I thought of Bateman, and I thought of all the kids lined up on the airstrip with a smile on their faces, and all the kids we’d killed back at the mine, and what had been left of the kid’s face I blew off at the river.

Sam’s hands pulled at my shoulders. ‘It’s all right, it’s over. He can’t be any more dead than he is.’

He started to lift me off.