your hands! Do it now!’
She didn’t glance round to see if Sam and Xian Mei had moved into position on either side of her; she trusted them to have followed her instructions. She was focused only on the three men, on what they would do with their hands.
When the tattooed man twisted and reached for his gun, Purna shot him.
She did it without hesitation, blasting a hole in his back. There wasn’t a coin-sized wound and a trickle of blood like on the TV. Instead, a chunk of flesh tore away from between his shoulder blades, shattering his spine and causing blood to gush from him like a punctured water bag. He collapsed forward, his face smashing against the edge of the desk as his chair tipped over. When, a split-second later, the older man jumped up and clawed vainly for his gun, which had already toppled to the floor because he had stupidly knocked it over when he had moved his seat, Sam shot him in the stomach.
The scrawny man, meanwhile, snatched a handgun off the table beside him. The handgun had been hidden from view by the older man’s body, and the scrawny man actually managed to raise it an inch or two before a flare, fired by Xian Mei, exploded in his face. He screamed and went over backwards, but still managed to squeeze the trigger of his gun as he fell, the bullet dislodging a chunk of plaster from the ceiling. To ensure he wouldn’t be able to get off another lucky shot, Purna adjusted her aim, tilted the shotgun down and to the left slightly, and shot him through the heart.
The echoes of the gun battle seemed to reverberate in Sam’s ears for far longer than they should have done. It was only when they finally began to abate that Sam realized the room wasn’t as silent as he had thought. Huddled against the wall, Jin was sobbing hysterically, her hands covering her face, and the man Sam had shot was whimpering and clutching his stomach, his hands and shirt slick with blood.
As Xian Mei went over to comfort Jin, Purna walked forward, cursorily examining the two dead men and then looking dispassionately down at the wounded man at her feet.
‘Please …’ he whispered. ‘Please …’
‘Sorry,’ Purna said, her voice flat and dead, ‘but there’s nothing we can do for you. You can either lie here and die slowly in pain, or we can make it quick.’
The man’s eyes widened. ‘No …’ he whispered. ‘You can take me with you … Please …’
Purna shook her head. ‘We can’t carry you and you’re too badly wounded to walk. Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.’
‘Please …’ the man whispered again, his world suddenly reduced to nothing but a desperate desire to survive and a terrible fear of death. ‘Please … please …’
Purna sighed and slowly, wearily began to load her shotgun.
‘No,’ Sam said, walking towards her.
She looked up at him, her face expressionless.
‘No,’ he repeated, reaching out and putting a hand on her arm. ‘It ain’t fair you should do this. Not again. It’s someone else’s turn.’
She stared into his face, her eyes so deep and penetrating that Sam couldn’t help but think she could see all the way down into his soul. He turned away from her gaze, but was still aware of her eyes on him, and of the weight of the gun in his hand.
‘It’s my turn,’ he said quietly.
Chapter 12. MYSTERY MAN
‘OPEN UP. IT’S us.’
Purna and Xian Mei scanned the area like border guards, while Jin waited in the van and Sam thumped the door of the lifeguard station with his clenched fist. It was almost noon now and the sun was at its peak.
From here Banoi looked beautiful. To their left the stretch of powder-white beach edged a sparkling blue crystal sea, while to their right the lush vegetation rose towards mountains whose summits glowed a soft purple where they met the bright and cloudless sky. A warm breeze blew in from the west, kissing their skin and tempering the heat of the sun, and despite the chaos in town, the only sounds that disrupted the midday tranquility were the languid calls of exotic birds.
If not for the individual parts of a dismembered body scattered in bloody profusion further along the beach, it might almost have been possible to believe that the events of the past twelve hours were nothing but a terrible nightmare. Sam was about to thump on the door again when Logan’s voice replied, ‘Who’s “us”?’
Sam rolled his eyes. ‘Stop messing about, man. It’s dangerous out here.’
There was the heavy chunk of disengaging locks and the door opened. Grinning, Logan said, ‘Sorry, no hawkers, no traders and definitely no blood-drenched zombie killers.’
Sam matched his grin with a tired one of his own and said enticingly, ‘We got Twinkies.’
‘Oh well, that’s different,’ Logan said, and pulled the door wide.
The four of them trooped in, Purna immediately discarding her weapon — no longer the shotgun, but an HK G36 assault rifle appropriated from the police armoury — and slumping into one of the seats around the table. Jin shuffled in like an old woman with her head down, Xian Mei’s free hand (in her other she was also carrying an HK G36 assault rifle) round the younger girl’s shoulders. Sam, who had stood aside to let the women in before him, walked over to the table and dropped a big bag of pastries and cakes on to it.
‘We brought breakfast,’ he said. ‘They were all out of skinny muffins, so if anyone’s on a diet, tough shit.’
‘You, my man, have got class,’ Logan replied, closing and locking the door. ‘Hey, Sinamoi,’ he called. ‘How ’bout some coffee for our guests?’
Sinamoi was hunched over the radio, headphones on, twiddling dials, but at Logan’s words he looked up and grinned. ‘Sure. I make coffee.’
As Sinamoi bustled about, Purna squinted tiredly up at Logan. ‘
‘You don’t,’ he replied cheerily. ‘Added to which — if I could just raise a little personal hygiene issue here — you guys
Sam sniffed his sleeve and recoiled. ‘That’s not us, that’s zombie.’
Logan shook his head. ‘It’ll never catch on.’ Pointedly he looked at his watch. ‘So what took you so long? I was beginning to think you’d abandoned me and I was going to have to live out the rest of my days in this two-bit shack with no one but Sinamoi for company — hey, no offence, man,’ he called across to the lifeguard, who grinned yet again and raised his hand in acknowledgement.
Over cake and coffee, Sam, with Purna and Xian Mei butting in at regular intervals, told Logan their story. When he got to the part where they had encountered Jin, Logan gave a crooked smile and said softly, ‘I wondered when they were going to get round to you.’
Jin didn’t reply. She didn’t even raise her head.
‘Don’t say a whole lot, do you?’ Logan muttered.
Xian Mei said quickly, ‘She’s been through a bad time.’
To everyone’s surprise, Jin suddenly looked up, her eyes black and glittering. In a voice shaking not only with trauma, but also with barely suppressed rage, she said, ‘I was raped by three men. They killed the man who was trying to protect me, and then they beat me and raped me. And they kept beating me and raping me until I passed out.’
Silence followed her words. Logan looked away, shaking his head.
‘Shit, man … that’s … shit. I mean … that’s fucking awful, man … sorry …’ he mumbled.
Jin took a shuddering breath and said, ‘I used to have faith in people, you know? And faith in God too. Even after Mama died, I thought … I thought that the good in the world was stronger than the bad, and that eventually evil would be vanquished. But now —’ she shook her head — ‘that sounds so … so pathetic …’ Her voice tailed off and she lowered her head again. Xian Mei reached out and gently stroked her back.
