Looking Good Dead

85

‘Tom!’

The sudden, hushed urgency in Kellie’s voice made Tom look up. Shit! The rectangle of light had appeared again at the far end of the room. Someone was entering, a tall, thin man in black. The eastern European.

Tom dived to the floor, on top of the Palm to smother the light. Quickly, groping with his hands, he found the PDA, located the power button and pressed it in hard to switch it off. Had the man come to empty the bucket? Tom wondered, a little irrationally. He pulled his arms tight to his sides and squeezed his legs together, faking the original position he had been trussed up in as best he could. He lay still, watching the torch beam steadily jig across the floor towards them.

Then it was right in his face.

‘Mr Bryce, I take you upstairs now. We make you and Mrs Bryce movie stars!’

Tom, quaking with terror, was thinking that any second now the man was going to see that his cords had been removed. He must see that, unless he was blind!

‘What do you mean, “movie stars”?’ Kellie said, her voice cracking with fear.

The man swung the beam onto her face. ‘We enough talk! Maybe you like quick fuck? Mr Bryce, you like watch me sex your wife for you?’

Tom’s terror suddenly switched to fury. ‘Touch her and I’ll kill you,’ he said.

The man rounded on him and shouted imperiously, ‘ENOUGH TALK I SAY!’ He stabbed the beam of the torch right into Tom’s face. ‘YOU QUIET. YOU ARE NOT THREAT ME!’

Then the man knelt down. Tom heard the sound of tape ripping and realized what was coming next. Blinking hard, he could see the man was leaning over him. He could smell cologne on him, a sharp, masculine tang.

Tom stiffened.

He knew he had just one shot at this, that was all. He hadn’t thought it through, he just had to do it.

The man was holding a wide strip of gaffer tape between his hands. ‘You close mouth,’ he said.

‘Can I just blow my nose?’ Tom asked.

‘No blow!’

‘I’m going to sneeze!’

And in that moment he detected the hesitation, just the briefest wavering by the man. It was enough.

He sprang sideways, rolling over once, grabbing the bucket with both hands and lifting it, then turned and found the torch beam straight in his face. Kellie was safely to the left, well out of range. With all his strength he hurled the contents of the bucket straight at the flashlight beam.

He felt a few sharp pains on his hands like stings, droplets of the acid, but barely registered them as his ears filled with a terrible, piercing scream of agony.

The torch fell to the floor. Tom could just see the man staggering back clutching at his face. Had to get him! He had to grab him before he got out of reach!

Had to.

Tom lunged, launching himself forward in a full rugby tackle, aware there must be some acid on the floor but beyond caring. This was his only chance. Somehow, his arms almost leaving their sockets, he just managed to grab the man’s right ankle before the chain snapped tight against his own, jolting him to a halt. Then, with a strength he did not even know he had, he yanked the ankle back towards him.

The man fell back across him, writhing, screaming, howling pitifully, clawing at his face with his hands. Kellie was screaming also.

‘Tom! Tom! Tom!’

‘HELP!’ the Russian cried. ‘HELP, YOU HELP, YOU HELP, PLEASE HELP!’ Then he just started bellowing in agony, clawing at his face, at the same time writhing, trying to wriggle away from Tom.

The man had come to get them, which, Tom realized, meant he must have the keys to the shackles. He seized the torch and cracked it down with all his force on the back of the man’s head. There was a tinkle of glass and the light went out. The man was silent, motionless, and for an instant the only sound in the room was the ghastly hissing coming from the man’s head, accompanied by a new smell, a vile stench of burning flesh and hair. Tom retched; the acid seeming to fill the air with an invisible caustic haze. He could hear Kellie coughing too.

He found the Palm, switched it on and rummaged in the man’s jacket pockets. Almost immediately he found a small chain with just two keys on it, and pulled it out. He stood up, shaking from shock and fear, not knowing if someone else was about to appear at any second, knelt and using the light of the Palm found the keyhole. But his hand was shaking so much he could not get it in.

Jesus, come on, please!

Finally it slipped in. But it would not turn. It must be the other one, he realized. Somehow he got the second one in straight away; turned it. The lock sprang open, and seconds later he was limping across to Kellie. His hands were really stinging now, but he had no time to think about that.

Crouching beside her, he kissed her and whispered, ‘I love you.’

She was staring at him, wide-eyed, near motionless with shock. He unlocked her ankle shackle, then started working on the tight knot on the cord binding her legs. His hands were shaking again; the knot was so tight, so damned tight. It wasn’t moving. He tried again. Then again. ‘Are you OK, my darling?’

She said nothing.

‘Darling?’

Nothing.

Then, in a tone that sent a shiver rippling beneath every inch of his skin, she said quietly, ‘Tom, someone’s coming into the room.’

He looked up. Straight into a torch beam coming from the doorway. Then he heard the chiding voice of the obese American. ‘You are one silly boy, Mr Bryce. Very foolish indeed.’

The beam swung away from Tom’s face, around the room. In seconds it would find the Russian on the floor. Tom, his nerves jangling, made a snap decision; he had no idea what the outcome would be, but it could not be any worse than waiting here, crouched down, for the American to come over.

He sprang up and ran at the doorway, aiming straight for the man in the puce shirt standing in it. He just ran, head down, screaming at the top of his voice, ‘YOUUUUU HIDEOUS BASSTAAAARRRRD!’

He vaguely took in that the man was trying to pull something from his pocket. Something black, metallic. A gun.

Then, running flat out, he struck the American full in the stomach with his head. It felt like hitting a massive cushion. He heard a winded gasp, felt a sharp jarring pain in his own neck, and a moment of blackness. The American tumbled backwards, and Tom fell with him, hitting the floor with his head between the man’s legs.

Then a hand grabbed his neck from behind, a hand that felt cold and hard, more like a metal pincer than human flesh. It released his neck and a split second later grabbed his hair, jerking his head painfully up, then pulling him right over onto his back, thudding the back of his head down on the floor and holding it pinioned there.

Tom looked straight up into the stubby barrel of a handgun, and the eyes of ice behind it.

The man was stocky and muscular, with gelled spikes of short, fair hair and heavily tattooed arms. He was wearing a white singlet, with a gold medallion on a chain which was almost touching Tom’s face, and he smelled of sweat. As he stared down expressionlessly, he was chewing gum, mashing it with small, intensely white incisors that reminded Tom of a piranha fish.

The American was staggering to his feet.

‘You want I kill him?’

‘No,’ the American gasped, puffing and wheezing. ‘Oh no. We’re not going to make it that easy-’

Suddenly Tom heard a commotion a short distance away. A male voice shouted, ‘POLICE! DROP YOUR GUN!’

Tom felt his hair released. He saw his assailant turn in shock, then without any hesitation raise his gun and fire several shots in rapid succession. The noise was deafening; Tom’s ears went numb for a moment and his nostrils filled with the reek of cordite. Then his assailant, and the American, vanished.

An instant later he heard a different voice, English, cry out, ‘I’ve been hit. Jesus, oh Jesus Christ, I’ve been shot!’