“B-But Mum, shouldn’t we hear what they are planning first? I mean, if they think of a way out of this…”
Jenny glared at him.
“You know what you have to do,” she said. “You have a lot to make up for, Jake. Don’t let me and your brother down.” She looked to the door. “Now go.”
The Plan
1.
“Why the hell did you lie?” stormed Frank. He paced back and forth in the living room, sweat pouring down his face. “Why the hell did you tell him we had the damn mana?”
Eleanor sat calmly on the sofa, watching him rant with cool, ancient eyes.
“What was going through your head?”
“Frank,” she said quietly. “If he knew we didn’t have it, he’d have killed us immediately. I have no doubt of it. The mana is all he wants and as long as he thinks we can provide it, he won’t touch us. If he knows it’s gone, we’re nothing to him, annoying flies getting in his way to be swatted aside.”
“So what good came from this?” demanded Frank. “We were dead before and we’re dead now.”
“At least,” said Eleanor, “it bought us an hour. I don’t think he’ll bother us till our time is up. It gives us time to think of something.”
Frank stopped directly in front of her.
“Because of you,” he shouted, “we all have one hour left to live. You had to talk to him, didn’t you? Had to get your answers, you selfish old bitch-”
“That’s enough,” said Joe from the other side of the room. “Don’t speak to her like that!”
“I’ll speak to her how I fucking want, McGuire. This is still my house.”
Anne stood up from the sofa and stepped in front of Frank.
“This is my home too,” she said firmly, “and I’ll not have you shout at Eleanor like this. We’re wasting time here!”
Frank leaned down towards Anne until their noses where almost touching.
“Honey,” he said. “Get out of my way.”
Anne stood completely still, her eyes locked with his.
“Get-out-of-my-way,” Frank repeated slowly, his voice so low that it growled out of his throat.
“No,” said Anne. “I won’t.”
“Bitch,” he cried, grabbing her top. “Ungrateful whore!” He slapped her across the cheek with his other hand.
“No,” shouted Joe. He shot across the room at Frank, slamming into him as Anne fell to the floor clutching her face.
Both men toppled backwards, all flailing arms and legs. Joe landed on top and drove a knee up into Frank’s stomach. Frank grunted, the air knocked out of him, and cried out from a sharp blow across the face. Joe grabbed him by the shirt.
“You coward,” he screamed into Frank’s face. “You fucking coward!” He shook Frank. The teacher’s head bounced off the floor.
Joe felt hands grab him by the shoulders and he allowed himself to be pulled off.
“Stop it,” cried Anne, pushing him away. “Just stop it!”
“Wife beating scumbag,” muttered Joe. He walked to the corner of the room, panting.
“This is wasting our time!” said Eleanor.
Frank sat up with blood trickling from his nose. He dabbed it, and after inspecting the red smear on his fingertips, pinched the bridge. He grinned at Joe, baring his teeth.
“Stop it,” said Anne again, glancing between them. The side of her face was tinged a deep pink.
“He shouldn’t have hit you,” said Joe.
Anne fixed her eyes on him. “Please, just stay out of it.”
They all turned to the doorway at the sound of Charlie and Bronwyn running down the stairs and into the living room.
“What are you doing down here?” asked Anne. “Back upstairs, quickly.”
“Jake Dean told us to come down here,” said Charlie. “He said it was safe.”
Bronwyn shook her head. “Not safe.” She looked to the window. “The bad man’s still there. He’s scary.”
Anne crouched in front of the children.
“Then why didn’t you stay upstairs?”
“The bad man’s scary,” whispered Bronwyn, “but Jake Dean’s scary too.”
Charlie looked around his mother. “Dad? What happened?”
Frank wiped away more of the blood that poured from his nostrils.
“This? Oh, I just walked into a door.” He glared at Joe.
“C’mon, you two,” said Anne. “Come and sit on the sofa with me.”
She sat down, and the two children quickly joined her. Bronwyn jumped into Anne’s lap, pulling her arms around her small body. Charlie sat beside.
“Hello again, Mrs McGuire,” he said.
Eleanor ruffled his hair. He giggled.
“They should be locked back in the bedroom,” said Frank, back on his feet. “Where it’s safe.”
“In less than an hour, nowhere will be safe. I want them here, with me.” Anne gave Bronwyn a squeeze.
“Speaking of which,” said Eleanor, “the clock is ticking and we’re yet to decide our best course of action. That is, if we can behave like adults and get on.”
“As long as he keeps his hands to himself,” said Joe.
“Please,” said Anne, looking to Joe. She shook her head and nodded down at Bronwyn sat in her lap.
“What is there to decide on?” said Frank. “We can’t beat him and the one thing he wants is gone. There’s nothing we can do!”
Jake silently entered and sat in the armchair.
“Why did you send my children down here?” asked Frank when the boy stayed quiet. “Don’t you think you should have asked us first?”
“He’s gone,” said Jake coldly. “It’s safe down here, at least for a bit. I just thought they’d want to after being stuck in that room all morning.” He smiled sweetly at them.
“Don’t you ever think?” said Frank.
“Be quiet, both of you,” said Anne. “It doesn’t matter. What does is thinking a way through this.”
The room fell quiet.
“My priority,” continued Anne, “is getting these two to safety. I don’t care if it means hiding them where he can’t get them or getting them away completely. He cannot be allowed near them.”
There were a few nods of agreement.
“But we need to stop him,” said Jake. “Even if we do get the kids away, what about the rest of us?”
“How many more times?” cried Frank. “We can’t stop him!”
“Maybe we can,” said Eleanor. “Something he said has been playing on my mind.”
“Huh,” snorted Frank. “I can’t wait to hear this…”
“Our problem is not that we can’t beat him, we can and we have. We survived several attacks from the Prowlers and that pet of his, and he came out worse than we did. We
can
beat him! Just every time we destroy a group of Prowlers, he manages to get more to replace them. Going back to the chess idea, we can’t defeat him if every time we take one of his pieces, he puts more on the board.”
“Then where are they coming from?” asked Anne. “It’s like he can magic them out of thin air.”
“They can’t just appear,” said Eleanor. “They come through the door, the door he came through to get here, the door that leads to his City. We just have to find it and close it. At least that would improve our chances.”
“But then we still have to confront him,” said Anne.
Eleanor patted her hand.
“Yes, dear. I’m afraid we do. He won’t leave us alone until we either give him the mana or he finishes all of us. The hardest thing will be finding the door. Now, I’ve had a little time to think about this. At the time of his…arrival, we were all in our separate homes, so there’s no need to search the houses. Also, the door has to be close by. It would be reckless for him to bring God-knows-what creatures from a distance away for the risk of being seen. It has to be around here somewhere.”
Everyone was quiet. Eleanor looked at Joe, now perched on the arm of the sofa, staring into space.
“Joseph? Are you okay?”
He blinked and turned to her.
“I think…I think I know where it is.”
2.
“It was the night of the first attack. You,” Joe nodded at Jake, “and your brother came home on the bike. I watched you through the bedroom window. Just after you passed, the road…it did something.”
“What, Joseph?” asked Eleanor, hanging on his every word.
“It…moved. One second it was normal, the next, like a swirling pool. It moved like it had melted or something. Then it went back to normal. At first, I thought it was just my tired eyes, playing tricks. But now, after all this…”
“He’s right,” said Jake. “Adam saw something too. He swerved on the bike and nearly sent me flying. He said the road had shifted. He was having a headache thanks to that red-haired bastard. I put it down to that at the time.”
Frank walked past them all to the window and looked through one of the peepholes.
“Well, the road looks fine to me,” he declared, turning back and crossing his arms. “No door, no moving tarmac, nothing.”
“Maybe you can only see it at certain times of the day, or only when he’s around, or…I don’t know,” said Joe. “But it’s there.”
“What are you all talking about?” asked Charlie.
“Nothing, honey,” said Anne. She put her arm around him.
“Frank?” asked Eleanor. “Can you please humour me with this? I need your advice.”
He burst out laughing.
“Me? You want my advice? Now I know I’m going crazy.” He checked his watch.
“If we are to close this door,” asked Eleanor, “how would we do it? You seemed to understand more of the practical side of what he discussed.”
“Jesus…well…”
He walked back to the other end of the room and fell into the empty armchair. It had been vacant since The Collector’s visit.
“He said that everything was acutely balanced, energy wise,” said Frank. His tone had soothed slightly, and Eleanor attributed this to him talking physics, something he had concept and control over. “That says to me his systems are in equilibrium. If that’s true about this doorway, a large and sudden influx of energy might be enough to force the balance far enough one way and destroy it, thus closing the door.”
“A sudden influx of energy?” asked Eleanor. “Like…an explosion, say?”
“Yes,” said Frank, “if it’s big enough. But I don’t see how we can do such a thing. Unless, maybe the car…”
Eleanor shook her head.
“The Prowlers have slashed your tyres. It’s going nowhere.”
“There’s my car,” offered Joe, sitting up. “We could use it if it’s not too badly damaged. If we drove it at this doorway, would that be enough?”
“If we need an explosion,” said Eleanor, “we’ll need…more.”
“There’s petrol in my garage,” said Jake, “a few cans full. We use them for the bike. That might work.”
Joe stood in the middle of the group.
“Right then. Jake and I can get the cans, load the car full and drive it at his doorway if we can. We jump out, the car blows, no more doorway. Agreed?”
Jake nodded, full of enthusiasm.
“They’ll be onto you in seconds,” said Frank. “Think
he’ll
just let you walk out and do this?”
“Leave that to me,” said Jake. “When we get to the garage, I’ll get my bike. I’ll be a decoy while Joe gets on with it.”
“And while all this is going on,” said Joe, “the rest of you should run. They’ll be distracted by us, so get out the back and over the fence. Run as far as you can and don’t look back.”
“No,” said Eleanor. “Joseph…”
“We have to protect these kids,” said Joe. “I want to protect
you
. Go with them.”
“I’m not leaving you to deal with all this alone, Joseph.”
Frank stood up. “He won’t be.”
He walked up to Joe and extended his hand.
“A truce, McGuire. We can’t go on like this, and I can’t let you attempt this on your own. I’m sorry for acting like a jerk all night. It’s just been hard for me to deal with.” He lifted his hand higher. “Let’s end all this.”
With his face frowned in confusion, Joe took the hand and returned a firm shake.
“Thank you,” said Anne. “Thank you so much, Frank.”
“I realise this isn’t the time for petty squabbles or trying to be the big man,” he said. “This is about survival.”
Anne picked up Bronwyn and stood, wrapping her free arm around Frank’s neck and squeezing him tight.
Frank smiled.
3.
Jake knocked at the bedroom door.
“Mum, it’s me.”
He waited, but heard nothing. He slowly opened the door and peered inside. His mother was awake and sat on the edge of the bed by the window. She watched through a thin gap between the nailed-up boards and the window ledge. Streaks of tears glistened down her cheeks.
“Mum? Are you all right?”
Jenny wiped her face with her hands and nodded. She sniffed.
“Yes, I’m okay. Just watching, always watching…” she turned from the window. “We must only have about forty minutes left. Have they come up with a plan?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought they would,” she said. “Let’s hear it.”
“They sent me up here to tell you to get ready. Joe, Frank and me are going outside soon. I’m to distract him on the bike while those two blow up his portal…or something like that.”
“Good,” said Jenny. “Very good. Make sure he comes after you. Leave them to do whatever they want, gives you the freedom to do whatever
you
want to do.”
Jake entered the room and sat down next to his mother.
“Mum,” he said, his voice trembling slightly, “I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking.”
She grabbed him by the arms.
“Don’t do this, Jake. If you let doubt creep in now, he’ll kill you too!”
“But Mum-”
“But Mum nothing! You can do this and you will, when the time is right…”
With a groan, Jenny got up from the bed.
“Go back down and tell them I’ll be ready soon. And remember, they are not to know a thing.”
4.
“Please, Joseph. Think about this!”
Joe, sat beside Eleanor on the sofa, took her thin and wrinkled hand and wrapped it in his own.
“I don’t need to think about this,” he said. “It’s all about to hit the fan, and I want you as far away as possible when it does. Hopefully we’ll be too much of a handful, and you’ll all get away clean.”
Eleanor squeezed his hand.
“But I don’t want to go,” she pleaded. “I want to see. I want to know…”