Action: Pulse Pounding Tales Volume 2

WHEN THE DEVIL CATCHES UP By Lee Hughes

Alice Cotton danced under the name Savannah and showed tits and pussy at the 'Shhh! Club' five nights a week. The music started up and she got her hips on the swivel, inching closer to the punter, waiting for something as simple as a smile. Savannah unhooked her bra and tossed it onto the seat beside the man. He was making her feel a little uncomfortable. His gaze remained on hers, not straying, not even to have a gander at her tits, nor did he seem eager to see what she shaved. She moved closer, close enough so her mouth was nearly at the hole of his ear. “Don't you like the music?”

Harry gave a shrug after giving her question a moment's worth of thought. He conceded to himself that music had never had any importance in his life like it had for some. Couldn't remember any big moments that had been accompanied by a soundtrack. Days just happened, shit just happened and all of it was out of tune. Real life was tone deaf, gunshots carried no melody and blood possessed no beauty, it spilled with the damage of an oil slick, tainting all it came into contact with. Harry kept his eyes locked to hers. She had her breasts out and was making them jiggle. He took a turn at her ear as she had done at his. “Turn around, I want to see your ass.” The request tasted sour on his tongue. She smiled, at least he wasn't just sitting there catatonic any more. She turned, bent over and gave her backside a cheeky little wiggle. Harry took in the sight of her ass, said, “Thanks.” tipped a tenner and left.

Savannah had been about to slip out of her thong when she heard him say something behind her. She looked back and saw him fishing a note out of his wallet and gently putting it down on the table before walking out of the private booth to melt into the crowd. She grabbed up her bra and headed off to find another punter, the night was still young and there was good money to be made. Mickey, one of the bouncers cut Savannah off in her tracks. “Savannah, Mr. Thompson wants a quick word up in his office.” The bouncer shouted so as to be heard over the deafening music.

“Know what it's about?” She asked, just as loud.

“He just said he wanted a word is all.”

She put her sultry walk on stand-by, like a taxi turning the 'For Hire' light off. She cut through the club to the private door that led up to Thompson's office. Once in the corridor and with the door closed the thumping music was barely audible, the quiet was always a welcome sound. Savannah rapped on the door.

“Come in.” It was Thompson's voice. There was no mistaking the noise that he called talking, he sounded like a wet and squeaky fart. Thompson was sat in his leather, high-backed office chair. He smiled at her. He was one of those men whose mouth always seemed too wet, verging on a perpetual drool. “Take a seat.” He nodded to the plush sofa. Savannah took the offered seat, but sat in a way that made it clear she wasn't planning on letting herself get comfortable. “Is something the matter?”

He shook his balding head. “With your work? No. You pull more than your weight and you’re popular with the clientèle. I just got given this note.” He held up a piece of folded paper. “I like to know what's going on in the world of all my girls, it's in my…” He paused, licked fresh spittle from his lips before finishing with, “…and your best interest.”

“I'm not following,” Savannah admitted.

So Thompson elaborated. “You'd be surprised how many fuck-heads hand over notes for you girls to the waitresses, bar staff and even to security. I like to make sure there's no liabilities and such, so I have a little read of them…”

Savannah couldn't contain her outrage and interrupted him. “That's an invasion of…”

He held up his hand. “Nothing’s private in my club. Now, do you want to tell me just what the fuck the 'Foundation of the Kingdom's Rise is?”

Savannah had been on the verge of telling the sleaze just where he could stick his fucking job but hearing that name caused her tongue to freeze and shrivel on the floor of her mouth. She was still muted in shock as she pried herself up off the couch and strode over to Thompson's desk with a hand held out. Thompson saw the look on her face and without a word passed over the note. With the slip of paper pinched between her thumb and forefinger she started to tremble, so much so that it took her some time to work the note open. Her eyes ran over the words, each syllable like a pothole, each one jolting and threatening to break the suspension on her mind. She more staggered than walked back to the couch, lowering herself down on to it. She looked at Thompson. She'd built up an act of being bolshy, forged a protective barrier between herself and the world. She'd made herself Alice Cotton, known at work as Savannah, now after reading that note she was back to being Alice Henley, a girl she thought she'd left behind, to wither and die as the years grew larger between them. All those years, all those walls, torn down and destroyed by a scrap of paper and a few well-chosen words scribbled upon it.

Torn down.

Torn.

That single word reverberated about the interior of her skull. She put the word to good use and tore up the note before sprinkling the offending flakes of paper on the floor.

Thompson broke the silence. “Savannah, look, no one's going to do anything to you. You're under the roof of my house, my protection, okay?”

She looked up and a tear fell in suicide from the gallows of her eyes.

Thompson came out from behind his desk. “Who wrote the note?”

Her eyes found the carpet and began dissecting the weave as she decided to open the wound all the way, make it gape, make it bleed, there was nothing else for it.

“A man called, Noolan.”

“You see him about the place?”

“No.” She was certain of that. Noolan's face was one that she would never forget. Even the name made her remember the stink of his breath and the noise of his ragged pant as he climaxed.

“So, someone else must have dropped it off for him. Can you think of anyone that's been about tonight that seemed odd, or anything?”

Immediately she thought of the man that hadn't smiled and had just wanted to have a look at her ass. “There was one bloke.”

“Who?”

“My last punter acted a little shifty.”

Thompson took her over to the bank of live camera footage. “Which booth were you in?”

“Eight.”

Thompson punched a couple of buttons and started re-winding. “Him?”

“Yeah.”

Harry sat in the confines of the hired car, watching the people entering and exiting the club. After seeing the birthmark on the lap-dancer's behind he'd seen all he needed to. She'd said her name was Savannah; Harry knew her real name, Alice Henley. He thumbed through the contacts on his phone. He couldn't manage a greeting, the voice of the other end got in first. “Hey, glad you called, got some great news on the Shale's case.” Billy's familiar voice bled through the speaker.

Harry kept his eyes on the club's entrance. “What?”

“It's not a snuff movie, just some cheap effects with the throat cutting, she's alive and well and about to get some more cock in another film.”

“That's good, I think.” It was good that the girl wasn't in some shallow grave or roadside ditch.

“How're you getting on?” asked Billy.

“I've found Alice Henley.”

“You sure it's her?”

“Birthmark just where her mother had said she'd have one.” The only photograph he had of Alice was over ten years old and it shared nothing in common with the woman who called herself Alice Cotton-slash-Savannah.

“Nice. So what're you gonna do now?”

“I passed over a note for her.” Harry knew that it wasn't the most tactful way to let her know that something sinister from her past was hunting her down, at least with a note she could read it and it could sink in, then if she wanted his help she could call his number, or if she wanted to see him then he'd be sat in his car outside the club until closing.

“And if the note doesn't find its way to her, or she ignores it, then what?”

“If she ignores it, that's her call, she's not a kid any more, but if it looks like the note never made it to her then I'll just have to do a face-to-face.”

“Keep me up to date.”

“Yeah, will do.” He watched a couple of the doormen talking, one of them pointed towards him. “Look, I've gotta go, looks like the note made it to her, there's some interest in me.” Harry didn't wait for a reply; he ended the call and started to roll down the window as one of the doormen started across the road towards his car.

“You the one that left the note for, Savannah?” He looked the atypical hard bouncer, all shoulders and neck, with a shaved head puckered with scars.

Harry nodded.

“She wants a word with you.”

Now that was what Harry wanted to hear. He got out of the car, locked it up and followed the bouncer back across the road. They jumped the queue and Harry found himself back in amongst the noise and the bodies. He followed where the bouncer led. Out through a door, down a corridor and into a large storage room.

There wasn't much in the room apart from himself, three hefty-sized men and a small rattish man with slick-lips and no sign of Alice. Harry chided himself; he should have seen this coming. The wet-mouthed man pointed to a wooden chair in the centre of the room. “Sit.” His voice sounded an octave too high to belong to someone who should be heeded without question.

“Where's, Alice?” Harry felt a hand on his back, which shifted to a shove, forcing him deeper into the room and closer to the chair. Harry turned around slowly. The menace that had pushed him was wearing a well practised dark scowl, it probably worked on some pissed up little runt that got a bit handsy with the dancers but it did nothing to make Harry's legs go shaky. Harry was just kissing the six-foot-one mark and there wasn't much in the way of bulk about his body, most referred to his build as spindly, others regarded him as rangy and raw-boned topped off with a wiry strength. He decided for the moment to take the path of least resistance and sat down to give the ratty-man his full and undivided attention.

The ratty-man asked. “Why'd you write the note?”

“You must have read it, pretty much self-explanatory.” That remark earned him a cuff to the back of his head. Harry spun in his chair to see one of the goons looking pleased with himself. Ratty-man spoke again, drawing Harry's attention back. “So, you're not even trying to deny it, talk about being only half the hat.”

Harry shook his head. He'd had dealings with paper gangsters before. They'd own a club, or two, and have hired hoodlums to get the dirty deeds done and then play king of the castle. “All I want to know is where Alice is.”

Ratty-man let free a much-faked laugh. “What, so you can, and I quote, 'chop you up like the filthy cunt that you are, no one leaves the Foundation of the Kingdom's rise.' Doesn't exactly read like a love letter now does it?”

Harry blinked; pretty sure he hadn't written anything even remotely resembling that. “I didn't write that.”

“You just said you did not a moment ago.”

“I wrote a note, but that wasn't it.”

Ratty-man shrugged. “Doesn't matter a fuck. I don't like my girls threatened or harmed. And when someone comes along who wishes to do either, then I like to send a message out to any other misfits who might have the same kind of daft ideas.”

Harry didn't want to hear any more diatribe, he hadn't the luxury of time, not after hearing what had been in the other note for Alice. “Whatever, just tell me where Alice is, I don't have the time to sit here explaining.” Harry made to stand up but found a set on hands on his shoulders forcing him back down. Playtime was over, now it was time to do some schooling. He hadn't expected to be beaten in getting to Miss Henley first. It had been a massive job just tracking her down to where she worked; there'd been layer and layer of false identities along the way to thwart all who might attempt to track her down. Harry had been doing the job too long, knew all the tricks that folks used to stay a ghost and had managed to catch up, nothing was going to make him come second. Harry reached up and grabbed the hands that held him in place. He thrust those hands outwards with a quick and unexpected release of strength. The owner of those hands found himself quickly off balance and his head came face first to meet with the top of Harry's head. There was a crunch as the bridge of the man's nose concertinaed and Harry felt a rush of warm blood flood around and about the hairs on his head. Harry released the hands, stood, grabbing the chair as he did and swung it upside the nearest bouncer's skull. The bouncer pulled a few funny faces before the lights in his eyes went out and he crumpled to the floor. Without missing a beat Harry closed up the space between himself and the final bundle of biceps, knee'd him square in the balls, grabbed the man by his ears as he started to double over, helped him on his way south and collided his knee into the bloke’s face. Harry pushed the fellow over, but it wasn't necessary as the man was completely oblivious to which way was even up. Harry spun to confront Ratty-man who was the only one not unconscious or holding an injury. “I'm asking just once, where is she?”

Ratty Man looked to his men, then back to the man who had sparked them all out, managing through his shock to find some words. “I had her driven home whilst she got some stuff together to leave town for a bit.”

Harry slammed shut the door and was already speeding up to thirty miles per hour before his seatbelt had even finished doing its clickety-click. He'd gotten the address from the ratty-man whose name he now knew to be Thompson. He'd thrown it into the sat-nav and reckoned if he stuck to the speed limit he would get there in about twenty minutes, so he ignored the law and gunned it. Thompson had given him both Alice's and the driver's mobile phone numbers. He tried both, splitting his concentration three ways, the road, the sat-nav and the phone in his hand. Both of the phones rung out, Harry knew that was a bad, bad sign and put his foot down a little harder on the go pedal.

It was shy on eight full minutes when he screeched to a halt outside of the three-storey townhouse that had been converted into flats. Alice lived in flat 2; he thumbed the button and counted to ten. At the count of ten he had received no answer so he ran his hand over all six buttons and told the first person that answered through the intercom that he was the police and without being asked anything else he was buzzed in. The door to flat 2 was wide open. He looked up the stairs to see some curious faces peering over the bannisters, all of them rubber-necking. Harry pulled out his wallet, flipped it open and shut it just as quick and hoped that action was enough. He ventured over the threshold and heard a groan coming from a room at the end of the hallway. It sounded weak, but masculine. Harry stopped at the first door and peeked around the doorjamb to see a tidy and unoccupied lounge. He continued on, straining to shut out the man's moans so he could hear anything else from the flat. Harry dipped his head into the next room. It was small, neat and empty; he also noticed there wasn't a single toothbrush in the holder above the basin. The next room turned out to be the bedroom, there was nothing neat about it. A suitcase lay open on the bed, it's contents of clothes looking half consumed and half puked out at the same time. She must have been throwing together whatever belongings she cared about as quickly as she could. Harry mused that it hadn't been quick enough. He backed out of the bedroom and walked the rest of the hallway knowing what he would find in the kitchen The groaning was coming from the driver who was slumped on the floor in the far corner, a trail of slick blood telling tales of where he had been shot to where he had crawled to. The driver had been over at the counter pouring a scotch, more than likely whilst Alice was gathering up her stuff. The bottle now lay on its side having bled out just like the driver was doing. Noolan, or one of his cronies must have been hiding out, caught the driver off-guard and plugged him. The gun had to have had a silencer, reckoned Harry, seeing as there wasn't anything other than nosiness from the rest of the tenants. The driver's eyes were closed; he was holding his stomach like he had a bellyache. It was only his mouth that moved, the machine within broken and only offering up moans and groans, his dying body's audio reflex, nothing more, or less. The man had clown-mouth where the blood had bubbled up and over the dam of his lips. Harry grabbed a fresh dishtowel from the rail and went down on his haunches before the man who was working through the Cheyne-Stokes' pattern. He pulled the man's non-responsive hands away, slipped the towel to his gut and then replaced the hands back. It was a pathetic gesture, but one that Harry couldn't help but make. He stood up, he had things to do. He looked at his hands that were now slick with crimson and decided to head to the sink to rinse the stains away. Three steps from the sink, he turned to the sound of silence. The uneven exhales and inhales had frozen, death had come and silenced the driver's world. Harry was about to embark on the final step to the sink when the quiet was broken by, “Hey, officer, someone's slashing the fuck outta your tyres!”

Harry abandoned his ablutions and left the kitchen at full pelt. He hadn't expected the bastards to still have been about, otherwise he wouldn't have taken his time. Leaving her flat he felt the eyes of the rubberneckers still there, gandering away. He ran out the cruddy foyer and down the garden path. He was too late; all he saw was a white transit van spinning its wheels. Sense told him he had no chance of catching it, his personal self-esteem told him he had a good chance if he started getting his legs on the go right that moment and not a second later. He passed by his car, it was going nowhere, two flat tyres and a cheap knife sticking out of a third, the fourth would have been too no doubt if one of those nosy fucker's hadn't done the only decent thing of the night. He managed to catch it up, but only as much as to grab at the handle of the back door before it got away from him. The door had been locked, stayed locked and grew small very quickly as the van powered on to the end of the road. He spun around, the other tenants of the flats had emptied out on to the road and were watching, no doubt the best thing they'd seen since Jeremy Kyle that morning. He heard a put-put-put, turned and saw a pizza scooter pulling up on the other side of the road. He made towards the lad who was busy trying to free a dustbin-lid sized pizza from the warm-satchel on the back of his pretend-hog when a more throaty, proper engine made a racket that wrecked the quiet of the night. The car made a noisy halt at the kerb. The door burst open and a figure got out with movements that announced urgency. Harry took in the man and took a step back, blinking, not understanding what sort of practical joke his brain was playing on him. The man that was heading up the path towards Alice's building was the spitting image, a proper carbon copy of the man that was dead inside from lead poisoning.

The doppelgänger saw the blood on Harry's hands and knew instinctively that he was somehow a part of the night's tragic comedy of errors. “My brother?” was all the man said as he made to move past Harry.

Harry placed a hand on the man's chest, letting amazement disperse and the severity of the drama take hold. “He's dead.” The brutal truth was what was needed, Harry knew it, though it didn't help much.

The man grabbed Harry's hand and pushed it to one-side, his only purpose now seemed to be entering the property and finding it all to be true. Harry called after the man. “He's dead, and the men that did it, the cowards, they're getting away. Right as we speak, they are drifting through post-codes.” That made the man stop, stare up at the house; he was but three steps away from being inside and closer to his dead twin. He turned around; there was wetness in his stare and ferocity in the set of his mouth. “Are you sure he's dead?”

“I've seen enough of it to know it.”

The man started back to the car, his steps morphing from earnest strides to nigh on a sprint. Harry took to the hoof after him and made a move for the passenger's door.

“Where the fuck do you think you're going?” asked the man.

“You even know what you’re chasing, vehicle, or man?”

“Get in.”

Harry opened the door and dipped inside the vehicle.

Harry barely got the door shut before the driver got some heat pissing its way through the engine like wildfire. The driver turned to Harry. “Which direction?” There was a junction a little ways up. Harry had seen the van take a right. He told him and the man took that corner like tread on a tyre was something infinitesimal. He had the engine earning its keep, switching with skill up the gears and handling the road like he'd tamed it himself. Half a minute of traffic dodging and law breaking and they saw the white van up ahead, a good few lengths of car away. Though it was night the driver knew how far to keep back so as not to become something suspicious in another man's rear-view mirror.

Harry couldn't help but state some of the obvious, even though the bloke was showing more than a passing proficiency. “Ease up, don't want them to know we're this close to them.”

“I've not got my hazards on, nor am I beeping the fucking horn. This is my car, this is my chase, this is my…revenge.”

“And they've got a woman in the back of that van, who, just like you hasn't asked for any of this shit to happen.”

The driver took some deep breaths and kept any retorts from spilling from his head.

“Thompson didn't tell me much, just that my brother might be needing some help and that one of the girls from his club was involved. Care to tell me some more?”

So Harry started to share his knowledge on Evan Noolan. The driver nodded in all the right places and kept his own council until Harry had finished. The driver shook his head. “Think he's planning on killing the girl?”

“I think it's pretty much a given, she's the reason they lost their messiah.”

“That part of it isn't my war, but I'll help you get her back, then I will do my own thing.”

Harry looked at the man, his face looked as though it was carved from stone. Harry himself had known violence and death in abundance and this man's features had been chiselled over the years by destruction and Harry knew that there was nothing, no words that would alter the course of what was in the man's mind. “You got a name? I'm Harry.”

“Not one that you need to know.”

“Fair enough.” Harry didn't bother trying to make any more conversation. He just watched the roads that they were taking, wondering where the van was heading. He cottoned on as they made their way through the heart of Lancaster. He broke the silence with. “I think I know where they're heading.”

“Where?”

Harry chastised himself. He should have guessed a good few miles back. The van was en route to Heysham, the van was heading back to the place that had born the madman and tailored his diseased mind. It made sense, the family farm back on that small island, the place that Noolan knew best. “He's going to the ferry, Noolan's going home.”

“You sure?”

“Certain.”

The driver started tooling about with the sat-nav. The woman's voice kicked in and the driver eased off the speed. No need to get made if they had a destination.

“Gonna need your name if you’re wanting to get on this boat.”

The driver mulled it over. “Ernest Jones, don't ever fucking call me Ernie, or Ernest.”

Harry used his phone to book them two tickets and the car onto the ferry. He shook his head as the final carriage fee was displayed on his phone. “They should be calling themselves the Steam Racket.”

The driver ignored the attempt at humour and asked. “What's security like at the port?”

“Same as anywhere I guess, probably have a sniffer dog doing laps of the car deck, anything like that in the car?”

“No, but there's two shotguns and a couple of nine millimetres in a hold-all in the boot, think they'll sniff them out?”

“Doubt it.”

“Good. You figured out a plan?”

“I figure I've got about thirty miles to think of one, something else has been bothering me.”

“What?”

“How Noolan and his mental cases caught up with her the same time as I did.”

“You found her, what's so surprising that they did?”

“Yeah, something just isn't sitting right.”

They joined the queue of cars waiting to board the ferry; it was pretty much bumper to bumper considering that it was half-two in the morning. Harry could see the van up ahead, a good two dozen hunks of wheeled metal were idling in-between. The driver turned, looked at Harry. “Looks like the thirty miles is up, we just going to start breaking shit when we get on the boat?”

“No, there won't be any law on the boat, but whatever goes down during the sailing you can guarantee that there's be a welcoming party of flashing blue lights waiting for us when we dock. But there is one thing in our favour, if this is like any other 'roll-on-roll-off' ferries then drivers and passengers aren't allowed on the car decks whilst the boat's in transit. My thinking is that they'll have Alice in the back of the van, drugged to fuck no doubt to keep her quiet for the duration of the journey. But they'll have to go to the passenger decks.”

The driver was following Harry's train of thought and drove them clear of the line of traffic and did a full circle of the terminal before re-joining the queue.

Harry had never been bothered by darkness, but the confined space was making him a little edgy. He just hoped that the crossing was going to be mild, being stuck in the boot of the car in high seas wouldn't make for the most comfortable of journeys and he knew he had to stay secreted until they were a good few miles out to sea. The driver had given him the spare key fob so he could open the boot with the push of a button. The driver had said he'd keep close to the hatch-doors that led to the car decks to make sure no one disturbed him whilst he got Alice out of the van. He heard the engines rumble to life and before he knew it he could feel the slight roll of the sea as the ferry made its move away from the harbour. He didn't have a nautical bone in his body so he had no idea how fast these ships could move, he'd take a gamble and stay confined for half an hour before finding out whether his plan would be fruitful or turn out to be sheer lunacy.

At the half hour mark he thumbed the key-fob and the boot opened. He kept it held low, giving himself just enough of a gap to have a gander and make sure there was no one else mooching about the car decks. He opened the boot a little bit further, only enough for him to slip out and kneel down, peeking around three-sixty. There was just him and row upon row of cars and vans. He groaned. He hadn't imagined that there could be so many white transit vans wanting to get to the small island; he counted six. He grabbed one of the handguns from the holdall, the driver had taken the other. The shotguns would remain where they were as they weren't the easiest of weapons to conceal. He grabbed a large flat-headed screwdriver that he reckoned would work as well as a key to get into the van. He kept low, in case he had missed some lone worker. He found the van with the number plate he had memorized, that and there was a stain of shit-brown blood about the handle where he had tried in vain to grab at it and get it open.

He stabbed the business end of the screwdriver into the small gap and wrenched the door open. It made more noise than anticipated but there were no calls of alarm. Harry pulled the door further open and got his second shock of the night. It cleared the loose ends up in his head but those valuable few moments whilst it happened threw him into danger. The woman ran at him, throwing herself out of the back of the van. Harry didn't have time to grab at the hand that wielded a curved knife. He felt the cold steel slip through his skin, slicing flesh and then scraping bone. He yelled, twisted his body and used the weight of the woman to send her flying to the floor. A hand went to his wound, once again the night had given him red hands, this time it was worse, it was his own claret. The woman was gathering herself up, eyes of the maniac were bulging, lips the contorted spaghetti-mess of the fanatic. Mary Henley, mother of Alice. Noolan hadn't caught up with Alice, Harry had delivered her on a plate. Had let her mother hire him to find her and he had kept her up to date, so much as to inform her that he was almost positive that he had located her just that morning. He chastised himself for being a fucking idiot. He hadn't even thought about checking out her background. He still had some faith in humanity, but that was bleeding out of him, just like the liquid from his shoulder. Mary, what a fucking misnomer of a name, there was nothing biblical about the lunatic before him. With his good hand he drew the gun from the waist of his pants.

She actually laughed before telling him off. “You pull that trigger and the sound will be for all to hear.”

“Least Alice will be safe.” There was sense to his thinking. He'd have a full-on shit storm to clean up but there were circumstances where he might get away with it lightly.

A third voice joined in, coming from the dark depths of the van. A figure came through the gloom. Harry had seen the photographs to know it was Noolan, older, with grey about his head, but still that wild-eyed predator who made up his own religion so that he could delve into perversion after perversion. “I think you need to put the gun down.”

“That ain't gonna happen,” promised Harry, training his gun slowly over to Noolan but ready to swing it back and let loose its wrath the moment that Mary decided to try and cut away at him some more.

Harry saw that Noolan was armed as well, the murder weapon that had killed the driver, still sporting its silencer. Harry knew that if Noolan was fast enough he could drive a bullet into him and fell him and no one would be any the wiser. Noolan smiled watching that realisation sprout like pox over Harry's face. Noolan stooped at the lip of the van and stepped down, keeping his gun on Harry at all times. “You served your purpose and delivered our errant Alice back into our fold.”

Harry looked to the mother, not fathoming how she could subject her daughter to more of the man's attacks. It seemed as though she understood his unspoken question. “And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”

“But she's your daughter?” Harry was incredulous, she had a knife levelled at him and Noolan had the gun.

Noolan added somberly, “As she is of my flesh and blood also.”

“What?”

Mary grinned as though inside she was beaming. “The Lord gave me his seed and blessed me with a child.” Then her face slipped its fresh serenity. “A child who grew up to be ungrateful and a child that destroyed our world with blasphemy.”

“And now that Father is going to take the ungrateful daughter to task.”

Harry raised the gun higher, deciding that even if it meant getting shot or put in prison for wiping these two abominations off the face of the earth then that was a price worth paying.

Noolan grinned. “I can see it in his eyes, he wants to kill us.”

Mary added her grin to the visual tune of their insanity and said, “Want me to show him how strong our beliefs are?”

“He needs a lesson.”

Mary moved forward, making stabbing gestures in the air. Harry judged she had the best part of two steps before she would be in striking difference. He proved to himself once again that gunshots carried no melody and fired a round into her thigh. It dropped her, she rolled on the ground, the knife discarded as she howled in a mixture of anger and pain. Noolan didn't hesitate and fired two quick rounds. One hit Harry right where he'd been stabbed and had never felt this dizzying echelon of pain. The second bullet buried itself into his side. He joined Mary on the ground, rolling over to be on his good side and fired off a shot that put out the rear brake light in the van. He decided not to try again in case he accidentally put a slug into Alice; he could see her crumpled body bound and unconscious in the back. Noolan closed one eye and trained a better aim. Harry knew he was lining him up for a head shot and his life was now measured in moments, but he was no coward and kept his eyes open and looking at his murderer. Harry was glad to have kept his eyes open. He looked to Noolan's left. Noolan couldn't help but be intrigued at what the condemned man saw. Noolan cast a glance. It was only a quick gesture; there was nothing that Harry could've done in that heartbeat to turn this crazy scene around. Noolan offered him another chance when he had to take a second look, one a bit longer this time. “You're dead! I killed you.”

The driver was stone-faced. Harry thought the man was going to explode with the wroth that was clearly running riot through his every fibre. Noolan turned the gun away from Harry and pointed it at the driver. “I killed you once, I can kill you again!” Noolan started yanking on the trigger aiming to empty the weapon as quickly as possible. The driver was quick with his gun and fired some of his own. Harry took this chance and put a couple into Noolan's back whilst the driver sent one into Noolan's face that took away most of the left side. Noolan collapsed to the floor; everything that was wet within him was flowing out, from piss, to blood, to the bile in his perforated gut. Mary was crawling snake-like on her belly towards her fallen lover; the noises she made were pitiful. The driver walked over, no mercy in his eyes as he double-tapped her. Harry wouldn't have executed her like that but he was glad of the quiet. The driver moved to him. “Think we made enough noise to know we're not gonna be able to sneak away from this.”

Harry made it to his knees. “Help me.” The driver helped Harry to stand. He allowed the driver to guide him over to the van. Things were getting dark inside his mind. He wanted to know that the girl was alive, or all of this had been for nothing. No, not quite nothing: Hell had acquired two more beasts in the sable hours of the morning. Harry could see the slow rise and fall of Alice's chest, she was alive, that was the main thing. He turned; there was the sound of a commotion. He looked to the driver. “Go on, get lost, you've done your part.”

“It's a big mess.”

“It's a fucker of a big mess. Gimme your gun.”

The driver wiped his prints off it and passed it over. Harry smeared it with his own blood and put it in his pocket. “Do me one favour, yeah?”

“What?”

“Put the radio on in the van, I wanna hear some music.”

The driver nodded, climbed up, stepped over Alice, reached through and turned the radio on before nodding to Harry and disappearing between the cars. Harry closed his eyes and listened to the music, ignoring the shouts as workers came to investigate the volley of small explosions that had broken up the normality of the twilight sailing, listening to the music until either it was the song or himself that faded out.

BIO:

Lee Hughes would never describe himself as a ‘literary god’ or a ‘wordsmith extraordinaire’, because he is far too humble to do that. However, he is much admired as a teller of wild tales in mainly the noir and horror genres, and has a legion of fans. He has been widely published in webzines, anthologies and collections, and also completed a stint as horror editor at the award winning webzine ‘Thrillers, Killers ‘N’ Chillers’. Lee is currently working on his next novel, and can be found at http://www.LeehughesWrites.blogspot.com