Flare

Chapter 24

“Don’t seem right to kill them,” Jenny said to the rest of the group while Tom stood watch over us with the shotgun. We were sat on the verge while they went through our car, pulling everything out and spreading it on the grass nearby before splitting it between themselves.

I’d been watching in miserable silence as our food, water and medical supplies disappeared into bags and pockets, too afraid of the shotgun to try and argue with them, but now they were talking about our fate I began to listen carefully.

“You want to leave witnesses?” One of the men asked, his white shirt grubby and sweat stained. “What if they can identify us?”

Tom looked over at them. “Identify us to who? It’s not like there are any police about. I’m with Jenny, I reckon we let them walk.”

He turned back just as I was thinking about making a foolhardy grab for the shotgun. My legs had begun to tense but I settled back and pretended I was trying to find a more comfortable position. As far as I knew, Emily still had the pistol tucked in her waistband, but I had no idea why she hadn’t pulled it yet and I couldn’t exactly ask with Tom standing so close.

The woman with the makeup laughed nastily. “Yeah, but you’re always with Jenny. Under the thumb. What if they’ve got friends nearby, eh? What then? We’re clever, we’ll bury them in a ditch.”

Hearing them discuss our deaths so casually made me feel sick to my stomach. I looked over at Emily, hoping for some indication that she was about to leap into action while they were still focused on our gear, but she ignored me, watching the group carefully, eyes flicking from one face to another.

She’d barely said a word to me since we’d been stopped, instead concentrating all her attention on our captors, watching their every move.

As the group continued to argue, Tom stepped a few feet closer to them, the better to both listen and get his point across. They seemed split pretty much down the middle, the woman with the makeup leading the half that wanted us dead and buried, Tom and Jenny the half that wanted to let us go.

As soon as I judged Tom far enough away, I turned to Emily as casually as I could.

“What are we going to do?” I whispered hoarsely.

“I don’t know yet.” She spoke quietly but calmly, no fear in her voice whatsoever. I wished I felt even a fraction as relaxed as she sounded. “I think we’re best off seeing how this plays out. If they let us go, at least we’re alive even if they have got all our stuff. If they decide to kill us then they’re not leaving me a lot of choice.”

“Can’t you shoot him?” I said quietly, nodding my head towards Tom.

She shook her head. “This isn’t a film. I have to reach behind myself, pull the pistol out, take the safety off and aim at someone who has a shotgun pointed at us. How do you think that’s going to turn out? No, we need to wait until we’re standing at the very least, and if it does go bad I’ll need you to distract them.”

“Distract them how?”

“You’re a resourceful chap, I’m sure you’ll think of something. Now if you don’t mind, I want to hear what they’re saying.”

I switched my attention back to the group as the argument between Jenny and the other woman grew more heated.

“We can’t just go killing everyone we come across,” Jenny snapped, “we’re not murderers.”

“But stealing’s ok, if it suits you?”

“Well, yeah, it is. But stealing is only stuff. Murder is taking someone’s life. You can’t take that back once you’ve done it.”

“Well I say we shoot them and have done.”

“And I say I didn’t vote for you to be in charge, Sandra, and my bloke has got the shotgun.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Sandra pushed up close to Jenny, their eyes mere inches apart. The baby began to grizzle as he sensed the tension, and immediately Jenny turned away, soothing him with a dummy and soft cooing sounds.

“Fucking pussies, the lot o’ya. Don’t know why I bothered helping you in the first place.”

“Because it’s hard to rob people on your own?” Tom suggested, getting a dark look in return.

I cleared my throat. “There is another option,” I said, wilting slightly as everyone turned to look at me.

“Go on,” Tom said, gesturing with the shotgun for me to continue.

“You could let us join you.”

Sandra shook her head. “No, we’ve got too many people already. I say we kill them and be done with it.”

Tom half turned to look at her and I felt Emily tense next to me, one hand slowly moving towards her waistband.

“You want them killed,” he said, “you do it yourself.”

Sandra stormed up to him and grabbed the shotgun, pulling it from his unresisting grip. Hefting the unfamiliar weapon, she raised it to her shoulder but Emily was already moving, pulling out the pistol and aiming it in one smooth motion that spoke of years of practice.

Time slowed, every movement taking an age as I threw myself to one side, still watching as Emily’s finger tightened on the trigger, flame exploding from the muzzle as the roar washed over me, louder than I would have believed possible.

The bullet hit Sandra high in the chest, spinning her around as she fired in turn, both barrels spewing flame as thousands of tiny pieces of shot burst from the weapon, followed a split second later by the sound of metal hitting metal.

The front of the car shuddered as the pellets hit, tearing through the bonnet as if it was made of paper and burying themselves in the engine.

Time rushed back in, sound, smell and vision all returning to normal as if a bubble had popped.

Sandra collapsed, screaming incoherently, but everyone else stood frozen in shock at the sudden violence. Then, as if an invisible chord had been cut, they ran, all of them sprinting back down the road towards Woking, Tom looking back over his shoulder as he steadied Jenny who carried their child.

I got to my feet shakily as Emily flicked the safety back on and tucked the pistol away again. She crossed to the screaming woman on the floor, kicking the shotgun out of reach and then kneeling to look at the damage.

Gathering the tattered shreds of my courage I followed, looking over her shoulder at the gaping hole the bullet had made. Bile rose in my throat and I had to choke it back down again to stop from vomiting.

“Help me!” Sandra croaked, flecks of blood spattering her chin as she spoke.

“You should have thought of that before you tried to kill us,” Emily said, her voice flat, but she turned the woman on her injured side and grabbed one of the discarded rucksacks to use as a pillow.

I stood there, as useless after the action as I’d been during, still feeling sick but unable to look away from the huge pool of blood just inches away from my feet.

“Is she going to be ok?” I asked, and Emily shook her head.

“No, Malc, she’s not. She’s just been shot with a 9mm pistol from close range and the bullet went through her lung. She’s going to die.”

I had the sudden urge to shout at her then, to scream at her for being so fucking calm when she’d just inflicted such grievous damage on another human being. She’d delivered the news like a weather report, heedless of the fact that the dying woman could hear her, and in spite of the fact that same woman had been about to kill us I felt like I’d just witnessed a violation of everything I’d held dear for my entire life.

I’d never so much as hit another person in anger since school, my father having taught me that violence was a very poor way to solve anything. To see someone I liked and respected treating a death she’d caused with such disinterest was almost too much to bear.

A huge wracking cough burst from Sandra and she began to convulse, gasping and clawing at her throat with her free arm as if she could tear the blockage free. Blood sprayed out across the road and her back arched.

I stumbled away, horrified. I’d seen death before, but always at a distance, insulating me from the terrible reality. Suddenly it was right here in front of me, every awful moment etched forever in my mind.

Even Emily stepped back as Sandra’s back arched, her face a mask of pain and fear as her eyes bulged and the air was suddenly filled with the stench of faeces.

She scratched at her neck one last time and then lay still. I moved another few steps towards the verge before I lost my breakfast, throwing up for the second time in as many days, heaving until there was nothing left.

“How do you do it?” I asked without turning, wiping my mouth on the back of my arm.

“Do what?”

“Stop it from driving you mad, block the feelings out, keep going, all of it.”

“You don’t,” she said, and I turned to look at her, still standing over the body, staring at it as if engraving the moment indelibly in her memory. “You just do what needs to be done and you save the feelings for later. This may not be the world we want, but it’s the one we’ve got. You let your guard down for even a moment and it leaps up and bites you on the arse, they just proved that. Some might say that she got what she deserved.”

“And what do you say?” I asked quietly.

She shrugged and looked up at the sun.

“I say we’ve got a long way to go, and the sooner we get moving, the sooner we can find your little girl.”