The Dying Place (23 page)

Alpha had risen to face her then. ‘Look, you all knew what you were signing up for. You all agreed – if things went that way, then that was just how it was going to be.’

‘Did you let him go?’ Delta was on his feet by then, with Gamma staring straight at him.

‘Let who go?’

‘The one we fixed. Did he really go home, or was that just what you told us? To keep us on board?’

‘Of course I did …’

‘Where is he then?’

Alpha shook his head, wanting them to stop it. Stop the questioning, the needling. It was all going the wrong way.

‘At home, last I checked.’

It had worked, once. One young lad released back into society. Changed. Better. Unable to identify any of them – Alpha had been sure of that. Even less likely to be able to point the police their way, anyway. He’d had no idea where he’d been kept for the four months it had taken to break him down and rebuild him. Four months of hard work, all leading to the point where they could send him back.

And it had worked. But that didn’t mean Alpha could risk sending him out there. Not then.

Not with those first boys.

‘Look. We know what we’re doing works. You saw how he was when he left. But we couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t have been able to tell people what had been going on. Sure, we made threats towards him. Towards his family. But realistically, how long could that have gone on for?’

‘You killed him …’ Gamma stumbled back and dropped into her seat. ‘You’re … you’re a murderer.’

‘No,’ Alpha said, slamming his fist down on the table. ‘What I did, I did for us all. Remember what the old man said to us. Collateral damage. In any war, it happens, and that’s what we’re in, understand? We’re fighting against these kids. We’re taking the streets back. But it takes time. Practice. I’m in it for the long haul. These first lot, these little bastards, they’re just the first in a long line of kids we’re going to be working with. But they aren’t the ones to send back. Not yet. We have to be tougher, stricter, harder. We have to grind them down more. So we can be sure. You all know that.’

‘You’re sick,’ Delta said, moving towards the door.

‘
I’m
sick?’ Alpha shouted at Delta’s back. ‘I’ve seen you with them, what you’ve done. You’re just as involved as us all. You enjoy it, George. I know you do. Hurting those lads gives you a thrill. A sense of power you’re not getting out there.’

‘For a reason. We all thought we were doing it for a reason. We didn’t want to kill them.’

‘Look,’ Alpha said, softening his voice and moving towards Delta. ‘I don’t get anything out of it, honestly I don’t. But it’s the only way, surely you can see that?’

‘We should have been told.’

‘I did it all for everyone, so no one had to worry.’

‘No,’ Delta had said, turning to face Alpha. ‘We should have been told, so we could stop you doing it.’

‘We have to go to the police.’

‘No. I’m not getting locked up for what he’s done.’

‘I can’t live with this, can you?’

‘If it stops now, we can.’

‘We just let them go? What if they know who we are? What if they saw us one time?’

‘Ever seen them without your balaclava covering your face? No. Don’t worry about that.’

‘They could still trace us.’

Alpha sat and listened to them go back and forth. Hoping against hope that they’d change course. Come back to his way of thinking. But it was no use. They had already gone. All his hard work, gone to waste.

They were talking about the little scrotes locked up in the farm building as if they were deserving of compassion. They weren’t. They were subhuman. Alpha knew that. He’d never had any doubt. He wanted to break them down, yes. Wanted to fix them. But, on that drive back, that kid, that little fucker who was only just eighteen, had shown him. Shown him that they couldn’t be fixed.

‘Wait. What are they doing?’

Alpha snapped back into the present, his attention taken by what they were all looking at; the small TV screen that had been set up in the kitchen, which showed the boys in the Dorm filmed on hidden cameras.

‘They’re doing something to the door.’

They watched as the four boys walked back from the door, going over to where one of the beds was, then Goldie, the oldest, pointing out where they should stand.

They watched as they lifted the bed and struck the door.

They heard the noise from outside.

Alpha grabbed his shotgun, motioning for the others to follow him. They moved slower than he would have expected.

‘Come on.’

They trudged out of the kitchen, Alpha leading the way, almost running towards the Dorm.

He reached the door first, waiting a few seconds for everyone else to stack up behind him.

‘Step away from the door,’ Alpha shouted, hearing nothing from within. ‘We’re coming in. Everyone by their beds.’

Alpha shot a look towards Omega. Frowned a little at the expression he received back.

‘On three …’

Alpha counted before snapping the lock back on the door, standing aside as Omega moved slowly and turned the key he’d been holding.

He opened the door, slow, precise. The hinges creaked as it moved inwards, darkness spilling out into more darkness.

‘Stay where you are.’

Alpha took a step forwards.

Goldie’s face appeared out of the gloom.

‘Think fast,’ Goldie said, before driving his forehead into Alpha’s face.

The others didn’t move quick enough, five versus four, but with Alpha already incapacitated, Goldie moved towards Omega, raising a fist towards him before launching a boot into his midsection.

Omega collapsed next to Alpha, the latter’s vision blurred by blood which was gushing from his nose but running upwards as he lay on the floor.

Alpha could hear the cries from the others as they hesitated, not wanting to shoot.

Idiots, Alpha thought as he shook his head.

‘Stop …’ Alpha gasped, choking on his blood. ‘Now.’

Goldie turned towards him, a fistful of Gamma’s hair in his hand, her balaclava already lost. ‘We’re just starting, mate.’

Alpha almost smiled, but instead concentrated on getting his bearings.

‘Quick, come on.’

Alpha looked towards the new voice. Saw Tango, laid out on the floor, looking unconscious.

Alpha’s hand gripped the shotgun which had slipped out of his grasp, turned to see the boys getting to their feet, pulling on each other to start running away.

‘Don’t, fucking, move,’ Alpha said, standing up and levelling his gun at the boys. They shared quick glances, weighing up their options.

The new lad moved first. Alpha didn’t flinch. Aimed and blew a hole in the boy’s back. Shifted the gun back to the other three as the first boy fell to the floor, lifeless.

‘It’s all gone,’ Alpha whispered. ‘All of it.’

The next two fell quicker.

‘One little piggy left,’ Alpha said, staring at Goldie.

‘You’re going home now. You understand what’ll happen if you tell anyone about what occurred here?’

A nod of understanding. Slow, deliberate. Alpha watched him, looked him up and down, satisfied. He took the scissors from the pocket near the knee of his cargo pants. Snipped the cable tie binding his ankles together, before motioning for him to get out of the van.

The lad lasted five seconds on the outside before his old nature returned.

Alpha stepped back to let him walk away. The lad had looked down the road, the streetlights illuminating his face. Looked back at Alpha, and then grinned.

‘Fuck you,’ the lad had said, and spat in his face. He ran then, took off at a sprint.

Five seconds to confirm what Alpha had already known. That they could
never
change. Not really.

It took him around a minute to chase him down. Less than a second to plunge the scissors into his neck.

That’s how the lad from Bootle had gone. On the side of a road in the north of Liverpool. Near the open fields between Crosby and Formby. Almost the middle of nowhere. Alpha had dragged his body into the woods there, burying it in a grave he spent an hour digging, hoping it was deep enough to never be found.

Alpha blinked a few times before wiping an arm across his face to clear his vision. Back in the kitchen, the bodies outside were already turning cold. The sounds were coming from in front of him, as the people he had shared the last year with shouted and bawled at each other. Desperation. Despair. The reverberations didn’t make sense. He couldn’t tell what they were saying any more. It was just noise. Not real sentences until he really concentrated.

‘We need to get out of here.’

‘I can’t believe they’re dead.’

‘We should untie this one. Just let him go.’

‘He knows what we look like.’

‘Our Father, who art in heaven …’

‘Stop fucking praying. It’s doing my fucking head in!’

Alpha tuned them out. The sound of his heartbeat became louder. Banging against his chest. The voice in his head. His own. Saying the same thing over and over.

Do it. Do it. Do it.

Alpha kicked the table back, raising the shotgun and standing up. He hit Gamma before she even had the chance to turn fully around. Alpha hit Tango square in the chest next. He turned and fired towards the door as Delta exited.

His heartbeat was the only sound as he took down Omega.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

God forgive them. God forgive me.

Darkness. Only darkness. No light, no escape. A hammer coming down towards him, then a wrecking ball. Pounding into him, knocking him off his feet in slow motion. Every bone cracking, every bruise, every organ shifted, all happening in turn so he could feel each one. Darkness, just darkness.

Goldie woke slowly, his eyes opening and closing like he was coming out of a deep sleep he didn’t want to wake from. Tight eyelids, as if they were crusted over. He opened one a crack, trying to work out what was happening He tried to move his hand to rub his eyes. Couldn’t move it. He tried the other hand and found the same result. Something was holding them in place, but he couldn’t feel a weight on them, no hard resistance. His mind was confusing him, acting without going over options first. Working on instinct. Move this, feel that.

His legs wouldn’t move.

Goldie’s mind was cloudy, like walking through mist or fog. Trying to find his way along an unfamiliar street when he couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of him.

His legs wouldn’t move.

The pain was there, in the background, waiting for its moment to hit him full force. For now, it was just throbbing away in the distance, his head doubling in size with every pulse.

Goldie blinked. Once. Twice. Opened his eyes fully and came to know where he was.

On the rack.

His breathing became faster, rhythmic. In, out, in, out. The pulsing pain grew in his head, becoming heavier with each breath.

Two fingers entered his vision from above him. Clicking. Together.

‘You with me?’

The voice came from behind him. Fragments of the events which had preceded the darkness began to crowd his mind. The noises from outside. The screaming.

Visions of blood, cascading in front of him.

‘Wakey wakey.’

Goldie tried to form words, but his tongue felt like it had been removed. Just a gargle of noise escaping his mouth. It was still there, numb pain when he moved his teeth over the swollen form inside.

‘You’ve taken quite a nasty knock to the head. Several, in fact. Probably best you don’t try and talk for a while. Stay awake though. I’ve heard that’s important.’

The noises. Banging around his skull, echoing and subsiding.

‘You know … it wasn’t my idea, this rack thing. Remember the old man? The one you and your shitty little mates tried to intimidate and scare? He was the one who began this whole thing. He suggested this as a punishment. For your crimes. Against him. Against us. Against our whole society. I remember the others didn’t like the sound of it, but they just got swept along on the wave of actually doing something for a change.’

He remembered the other boys, lads, men. Falling where they were hit.

‘It’s a shame he didn’t live long enough to see what he created here.’

It wasn’t like in films, but Goldie already knew that. He’d seen real violence before. Inflicted it.

Not like this. Never like this.

‘You … you kimmed em …’

‘Please, if you’re going to talk, try to enunciate. Yes, I killed them.’

‘Aye …?’

The form around him changed, moved. No longer behind him, now at his side.

‘Because it was time. It wasn’t working. Trying to help you boys was pointless. It was never going to work, was it?’

Goldie tried to speak, but the pain in his head was growing by the second. He could feel something dripping next to his ear.

‘You would have left here and gone back to the way things were before within days. You’re all the same. Nothing we did here would have changed that.’

Goldie shook his head but regretted it instantly. The pain which had been just below the surface now broke through. Exploding around him, filling his ears. He heard himself screaming but didn’t remember telling himself to do so.

‘Shhh … shhh …’

The pain didn’t subside, but Goldie soon realised the screaming was making things worse. Tears formed and then snuck out the corner of his eyes.

‘It’s not my fault. You all have choices. You decide to go this way and end up here. It’s your own decision to go down this path. I just can’t take it any more. It’s not right, what you all do. You make people scared to leave their houses. You frighten innocent people, you know that. All of you.’

The voice came closer.

Alpha. The man in charge. The only one Goldie had feared from the start.

Leaning over him as his eyes misted over with moisture, no amount of blinking clearing his vision, so that everything became blurred.

‘You know what the worst thing is? You don’t care. You don’t care who you hurt as long as you’re all having fun. Getting your kicks out of everyone else’s misery.’