Something goes CLANGKiGKiGKiG under the hood and I know we’ve only got one chance at this. I grip the steering wheel even tighter and say a prayer to the God of Dying Automobiles.
“Shoot out the tyres!”
“But I — ”
“Just fucking shoot them!”
I check my rear-view mirror to see if Jack’s doing what he’s told, and that’s when I notice the big cloud of grey smoke billowing out the back of our car.
“Oh, Jesus. .” Jack winds down his window and sticks his arm out. There’s a hard CRACK and a flash of light as the Glock fires.
Up front I see a little round hole edged in shiny metal appear on the back of the Winnebago. CRACK and there’s another one, slightly higher and to the left.
“I said shoot the tyres!”
“You think it’s so damn easy, you try it!” CRACK.
The Winnebago starts to pull away from us. The guy driving must have finally worked out someone’s shooting the shit out of his motor home. I go to stick my foot down, but it’s already flat to the floor. And our Ford Crown Victoria’s getting slower.
The engine isn’t going CLANGKiGKiGKiG any more, now it sounds like a waste disposal unit eating a brick.
“Shoot the damn tyres!”
Another three shots, all wide of the mark. The Ford’s knackered engine makes one last painful grinding noise and gives up the ghost. I can hear bits of crank case pinging loose and bouncing off the bodywork. Steam gushes out of the radiator, all the warning lights come on, all the gauges go dead, and I got no steering.
The car hisses its way to a full stop in the middle of the road. Steam billowing out the front, smoke billowing out the back.
And all Jack and I can do is watch the Winnebago drive away.
FUCK!
Chapter 12
The back of a filthy Winnebago
The motor home’s full of muffled screaming. Laura’s trying to push herself as far away from the mess as possible, but the noose round her neck makes it impossible. All she can do is keep her eyes tight shut and try not to be sick. With the gag rammed deep into her mouth she’d probably choke to death.
After a while the screaming settles into sobbing, and then whimpering.
And then something like terrified silence.
It might be an hour later, or it might be two, but at long last the Winnebago leaves the main roads and turns onto gravel. But instead of coming to a halt, it just keeps going, the little stones making a white-noise sound beneath the wheels as they drive and drive and drive. .
They must be miles from anywhere by now.
The Winnebago slows, turns and then lurches from pothole to pothole. Finally it stops.
In the darkness Laura can hear the other girls taking scared breaths. This is it.
The Bastard isn’t singing any more, he’s swearing as he pushes through from the driver’s compartment and turns on the light. The carpet glistens dark red in the washed-out plastic glow, littered with jagged shards of white and clumps of grey.
The muffled screaming starts again.
One of the girls is slumped forward. She’s tied up against the motor home’s back wall and the top of her head is missing. Blown off by whatever idiot was shooting at them out on the Interstate.
Laura looks away. Tells herself she’s not going to be sick.
The Bastard stands there with his mouth open and his eyes like burning coals as he stares at the dead girl. “HOW DARE THEY!”
He storms through the Winnebago, yelling, “SHE WAS MINE!” and when he reaches the girl with no top to her head he kicks her lifeless body. “MINE!” He kicks her again, “MINE!” and again and again, making the whole motor home shake. “MINE! MINE! MINE!”
And in between the yelling and the sound of his foot slamming into the corpse, Laura can hear the other girls screaming behind their gags.
Then the Bastard falls to his knees and cries. Cradling the woman’s half-head against his chest, sobbing that he’s sorry and they had no right to take her from him.
He sits back and wipes his eyes with a bloody hand, leaving dark scarlet smears across his cheeks. Then he pulls out a pocket knife and cuts through the cable-ties holding the dead girl in place. Drags her out of the Winnebago’s side door.
Two minutes later he’s back, and someone else is cut free. The girl whimpers as he drags her away. Then the next one. And the next, until there’s only Laura left.
He stands looking down at her, his face like sadness carved in stone. “None of your shit, understand?”
Laura nods, the motion stopped midway by the rope around her neck.
The Bastard pulls out his knife again, and holds it against Laura’s throat. “Now I gotta go out and get me another girl. You play nice or I can just as easy make it two.”
He raises the blade and saws through the noose, then he cuts the cable-ties that go through the rings on the floor. But her wrists and ankles are still bound, the gag’s still stuffed in her mouth.
“There we go,” he says, putting the knife back in his pocket, “I knew you could be a good girl.” The Bastard strokes her hair, smiling. “My good girl. We’re going to — ”
He doesn’t get any further, because Laura head-butts him in the face. SMACK!
By the time he hits the blood-soaked carpet, she’s struggling to her feet — not easy with both ankles cable- tied together.
Weapon. She needs a weapon.
He groans, lying on his side under the table, arms wrapped around his battered head.
WEAPON!
There are drawers on either side of the stove. Hands tied behind her back, Laura fumbles for a drawer handle and yanks the whole thing clean out of the unit. It clatters to the floor — dish towels. Laura swears behind her gag and tries the drawer on the other side. This time it’s cutlery, stainless steel glinting dully in the thin light. Forks, spoons, knives that look so blunt they couldn’t saw their way through a milkshake, scissors. .
She squats down and feels for them, not wanting to take her eyes off the Bastard. He’s still groaning as her fingers find the round handles of the scissors, and fumble them into place. No way she can cut through the plastic holding her wrists together in time. She goes for the cable-ties around her ankles instead, forcing the open blade of the scissors between her skin and the plastic. Then SQUEEZING.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. . and then all at once, snip. She’s through.
She stands, eyes darting to the Winnebago’s door then back to the Bastard. She can’t stab him with her hands tied behind her back, but there is something she
Laura takes a big step forwards and kicks him in the stomach. Shouting at him through the gag. Another kick — going for his nuts, but The Bastard curls up in a ball and her bare foot slams into his thigh instead.
If she still had her stilettos on she could stamp on his ugly fucking head till it went right through his skull into his sick fucking brain. But she hasn’t, so she hammers her foot into the hands covering his face, hoping to break a finger, or his nose.
And then she turns and runs.
Out through the door and onto the hard-packed dirt of a farm track. The dawn’s early light is just enough to make out the shape of a rickety old house. Some barns, knee-high grass, the corpses of long-dead cars.
Laura runs down the road, trying to ignore the jabbing pain of stones as they dig into her feet. Behind her, she can hear the sound of a dog barking. Raising the alarm. She speeds up.
