The Dead Yard (38 page)

She breathed in air to scream.

I knew I had to kill her in the next second.

I jumped up and, in midair, two-handed, thumped her hard on the top of her skull—so hard that
the violence of the contact shook her brain and the impact pressure wave retarded back, surfing
off the blow itself, and crashed into the bonded silicon of the bottle, shattering it into a
hundred micro pieces, like a goddamn fragmentation grenade going off. Fucking Christ. Glass
everywhere. Tiny razors cast into life in the dead black air, spraying in all directions. Some
caught me and even Peter at the far side of the hut. Like darts into a clay-board. Sonia’s scalp
a minefield of little particles of glass. Glass in her lips and eyes and bottle fragments stuck
in her forehead.

"Huuuhhhh," she said and clattered to the smokehouse floor. The holes immediately giving way
to the steady progression of blood, oozing inevitably out from the myriad of wounds. In a second,
Sonia’s head looked as if it had been dipped in red paint.

I listened to the outside.

Nothing.

I turned her over.

It looked bad, but I knew it was still all superficial, not life threatening, not immediately,
anyway. She began shaking, flitting in and out of awareness, as if she was having an epileptic
seizure. Most of the glass still embedded in her face, some falling out. She hadn’t yelled, but
that wouldn’t last forever.

I was unsure of what to do. Tie her up? Gag her somehow? Maybe use the rope they’d tied me
with. A piece of glass could cut off a long strip; I could bind her arms behind her back and—

I’d hesitated too long.

She partially regained consciousness, began whimpering loudly, and with trembling hands tried
to pick the bottle fragments out of her face.

This was a goddamn nightmare and I had to finish it. I grabbed the sheared-off bottle neck and
slammed it across the line of least resistance in her throat, nodding grimly as it ripped through
the epidermis and into the carotid artery. But it just wasn’t sharp enough. I pushed and pulled
and the blood vessel remained intact.

"Jesus."

I tossed the bottle neck and quickly found another fragment that looked sharper. I grabbed her
hair, held her, and slashed the edge across her throat, lightning fast, before she seized that
final chance to cry out. This time I cut the artery and the blood poured out in a long oxygenated
red spout. I stood back, away from the curve and flow.

I looked outside the hut, checked on her, and in thirty seconds she was dead.

Thank God.

Ok. I had to move fast now if we were going to live.

I stepped over Sonia, limped to the other side of the smokehouse, and took the blindfold from
Peter’s eyes.

"Who, what?" he said.

I rummaged among the set of keys Sonia had brought, found one that looked like a padlock key,
lifted the chain that tied him to the wall, put the key in the lock. It turned. I unlocked
him.

No hugs, or thanks, or elation, because he was staring at the offal that had once been Sonia’s
neck and now resembled the stringy remains from an abattoir. A carpet of blood around her,
seeping into all the corners of the smokehouse and out the door.

"You did that? What did you do? What did you? Oh my God, you—" he began to say, his voice
rising with shock and a screechy panic.

I cut him off, putting my finger on his lips and forcing his mouth closed.

"You better chill the fuck out, sonny boy. If it looks like you’re going to get us both
killed, I’ll top you before you do. So keep your voice down. Get me?" I said severely.

He nodded.

"Good."

He didn’t seem capable of helping, so I took the padlock and chain and unwrapped it from the
wooden support beam and released him. He rubbed his wrists, groaned, looked at me and again at
Sonia.

"Did you have to kill her?" he asked.

"I had to stop her giving the alarm, it was the only way," I told him.

"Could we have tied her up or—"

"Enough," I said and gave him a shut-the-fuck-up stare.

I scanned the hut and spotted my boxer shorts and trousers, which had been thrown in a corner.
I grabbed them, pulled them on, and searched for my artificial foot, but it wasn’t there. In a
burst of petty malice they’d probably tossed it or burned it on the log fire.

I thought for a sec. It was going to complicate things. The best I could manage was either an
undignified hop or a shambling limp.

Test both ways of locomotion. I limped from one side of the smokehouse to the other. Hopped
back. I moved slightly faster with the limp.

"What do we do—" Peter began, but I stopped. Someone outside.

"Sonia, did you drop something?" a voice yelled from the house. Jackie. I ran to the door,
opened it a crack. He was standing at the cabin in pajama bottoms, slippers, and a leather
jacket. He was holding a gun.

I looked at Peter.

"When it goes down, it’s going to go down fast. You wait here and keep a lookout; when you
think you have a chance, run for the woods. Don’t come back. Just keep going. We’re about ten
miles from a town called Belfast. It’s on the coast, so I think it’s east of here. Do you know
where east is?"

"Where the sun comes up."

"That’s right."

"Keep going and call the police. You remember my name?"

"Michael Forsythe."

"Right, get them to call the FBI and tell them to get here as fast as fucking possible. This
is Gerry McCaghan’s cabin. Say that back."

"Gerry McCaghan. What are you going to do?"

"I’m going to have to stay here and fight them off. They’ve taken my prosthetic foot, so I’m
not running anywhere. I’ve got to keep them at bay somehow," I said.

"I’ll help you, I’ll stay here and help you, two of us against the rest of them is going to be
better odds. I was in the army cadets. I’m not completely usele—"

I put my hand on his shoulder.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I’m from the fucking midnight school and I’ll do better if I don’t
have to worry about you. And I need you to get the peelers out here to save my bloody skin.
Literally," I said, looking at the hole Touched had gouged last night.

"What do you want me to do?"

"You’re going to have to take off. Fast. If they kill me, remember they’ll be like mad dogs to
track you down."

"Maybe we could talk to them, maybe we—"

I stood firmly on one foot to get balanced and then slapped his face.

"Listen to me, Gandhi, we’re going to kill them or they’re going to kill us. That’s the way
it’s going to be. Your job is to live. To get out of here and live. Ok?"

He nodded.

I walked to the door crack.

Jackie had started coming down the path, muttering to himself, trying to keep the wet snow off
his slippers. Not as cautious as he should be. Not by a long way.

"Ok, Jackie’s coming. Don’t say or do anything."

I found my shredded T-shirt, pulled it on, grabbed a piece of toast from the floor, wiped the
blood off it, ate it, and sipped what was left of the coffee in the spilled cup.

"Sonia, are you ok?" Jackie asked when he was a few feet from the smokehouse. When there was
no answer he hesitated, lifted up his gun.

"Sonia?"

Come on, Jackie, come on in.

He looked back at the house and at his gun to make sure it was loaded.

"Sonia, are you ok?" he asked.

Come on, Jack.

"Sonia?" he asked for a final time, his face nervous, his eyebrows scrunched up.

When again there was no reply, he stopped and backed away. I knew he wasn’t going to enter
now. He was going to go and get Touched. He was suspicious, afraid. Maybe the famous Michael
Forsythe had pulled something. Maybe Sonia had had a heart attack. Maybe the police had shown up.
Whatever it was, it was out of his league and was a job for Touched.

He turned his back and began walking to the cabin.

My best chance.

I picked up a large piece of glass. I opened the door and ran on bloody stump and bloody foot,
through the wet snow, and leapt on his back.

My left hand struck out in the silence and curled around Jackie’s mouth. My right stabbed the
glass into his gun-holding arm.

I pulled hard with my left hand, turning his head sharply to one side, trying to break his
neck. A schism of emotions as his face met mine. A terrified look. He was unable to speak. Snow
blur and he hit the ground with a thud.

I couldn’t break his neck now but at least he’d dropped the pistol.

We rolled in the snow, his eyes wide, his limbs fluid, and the piece of glass now moving
towards his throat with such speed that he probably wondered if there wasn’t some sorcery in it.
And Jackie in such a state of petrification he didn’t even have the wit to bite the hand covering
his mouth. The piece of glass jerking fast and with it a swishing noise. It moved almost by
itself like a cobra as it cut and recut his throat.

"Jesu—" he tried to say but the smoking pain and the satanic look on the man killing him froze
the word. A deep puncture below his Adam’s apple. A slash at his jugular vein.

And finally, attempting at last to save his life, he punched me with a left jab.

I was so beyond the pain that it didn’t even register that he was hitting me until he did it
again.

I remembered the gun, saw that it was only a few feet from us, and cracked my elbow into his
bleeding throat, knocking the wind out of him. He made a grab at me but I head-butted his face so
violently that it must have driven the cartilage in his nose a half inch into his brain.

In a last desperate play he thrashed out, knocking away the piece of glass and almost shoving
me off him.

But it only upset me for a moment.

I reached for the gun, got it, held the revolver by the stock, and with the butt hit him on
the side of the head, three quick times.

"Bluhhh," he said and slipped into unconsciousness.

I couldn’t shoot him, but I had to kill him right this second. I couldn’t be exposed like this
for much longer in plain view of the house.

I turned him over, slid beside him, rolled him, and wrapped my arm around his throat. With his
neck in the crook of my elbow and my left hand pulling hard on my right wrist, I squeezed the
remaining fight out of him. He woke for a moment before the end, thrashing, gasping. I drove my
knee into his back and finally something suddenly snapped. His body went limp. But to be sure he
hadn’t just passed out I picked up the glass again and cut deep into his throat, the rough blade
breaking the skin apart and scooping out flesh like a bad piece of fruit.

When I was finished, it was much worse than Sonia.

The personal must have slipped in because Jackie’s neck had been severed in a huge gash that
left him partially decapitated, his head hanging to his body only by the tissue around the
spine.

Not so good.

A waste of effort.

I wasn’t going on a rampage like a PCP freak. I had to do the minimum effort to stay
alive.

I lifted Jackie’s gun, spun the chamber, and checked the mechanism. A .22 Smith & Wesson
revolver, a lovely little gun, just like the piece I’d had once in New York City.

Sweet.

I stood and limped back to the smokehouse. Peter was standing there, aghast.

"Now’s your chance, fucking run for it and raise the alarm," I said.

"Are you hurt?"

"Are you still here? Get moving. Follow the old railway line. It’s bound to go somewhere."

"I don’t—"

I slapped him on the side of the head.

"Go, you fucker," I ordered.

He ran out of the smokehouse in the direction of the woods, kicking up snow, shambling,
limping, but moving. I watched him disappear between the trees. I sat down and took a breather,
found the other bit of toast, ate it. I reached outside, grabbed a handful of snow, and swallowed
it. It was cold in my mouth. Welcome.

Now what?

There was only one course of action. They had shotguns and were professionals. Touched, at
least, was strong and fit and probably a competent tracker. I couldn’t delay. A frontal assault
on the house while I still had surprise.

Kill Touched, get his gun, and maneuver Gerry and Kit into a position where they had to
surrender.

Simple.

I grabbed another handful of snow, bit into it.

I crawled to Jackie’s body and looked at his watch. Seven a.m. They were all early risers in
this family, but yesterday—Christ, was it really only yesterday?—Gerry had slept late. And
Touched was bound to be knackered after two days of torture. And they’d been wasted in the wee
hours.

I reconsidered my options. If only Jackie and Sonia had been awake and the rest were sleeping,
that might have changed things. Maybe I could make a run for it into the woods, after all. Or,
better yet, maybe I could even steal one of the cars.

Yeah.

It wouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes to check it out.

I grabbed a pile of snow and threw it on Jackie’s body, shoveling it on top of him as best I
could. If someone did have a quick peek out one of the bedroom windows, I wanted them to think
all was normal. I stepped back. It wouldn’t do for a close inspection but it might fool them from
a distance.

I limped to the snow-covered Mercedes-Benz, tried the door handle. Unlocked. I opened it and
got inside. I looked for keys. I checked the glove compartment and the sunshade and the drinks
holder.

Nothing.

But wait a minute. Holy shit. It was Sonia’s car, maybe the key was on that big bloody key
chain she’d been carrying back at the smokehouse. It probably bloody was.

I got out of the car and closed the door.

"Where is everybody?" Touched suddenly shouted from inside the cabin. "I need me coffee."

His voice somewhere on the ground floor.

Goddamn it.

By the time I ran to the smokehouse, got the keys, and limped back to the Mercedes, he’d be
standing at the cabin door with his pistol ready to shoot me down. It would be a fair fight, but
only until Gerry heard a couple of shots and appeared at one of those upper windows with his
shotgun. And with me pinned in the broad, from up there he couldn’t miss.