Warhol's Prophecy

Rob hauled himself tentatively upright, his head spinning.

He already felt sick from the wound in his arm. It felt as if his shoulder was on fire. A dreadful numbness had begun to envelop that arm as far down as his elbow. He could barely move his fingers. He ran his tongue over the edges of his teeth, then spat blood.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Rob asked.

Walker grinned. ‘Hailey asked me the same thing,’ he said.

‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If you’ve hurt her, I’ll . . .’ Rob snapped.

Walker pushed the 225 towards his face.

‘You’ll what, Rob?’ he said flatly. ‘You’re hardly in a position to threaten me, are you?’

‘So tell me why?’

‘You saw all the photographers out there when you arrived, didn’t you? Local newspapers, nationals, television? Can you imagine what they’ll make of this? It’ll be all over the media tomorrow. You won’t be able to pick up a paper or turn on a television without this being mentioned. And, the funny thing is, the media made it happen. They love things like this: Dunblane, Hunger-ford, now this. They won’t let things rest, you see. They’re always talking about how we mustn’t forget these tragedies. But what never occurs to them is that by constantly dragging them up, by always reminding people who it was who carried out these atrocities, they’re giving other people ideas. They offer us immortality, Rob: immortality to anyone who wants it. But they take no responsibility for what they encourage. It’ll be like a feeding frenzy once they get here. And they’ll all want to know the name of the person who did this.’ He made an expansive gesture with his hand designed to encompass the dozens of bullet-riddled corpses scattered around the room. ‘And we’re talking about dead celebrities too? It’s a media dream!’

Walker smiled.

Rob tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry.

‘You did this just to get your name in the papers?’ he croaked.

‘You could say that,’ Walker told him.

He pushed a chair towards Rob. ‘Sit down,’ he instructed. ‘You too, Becky.’

They did as they were told.

‘Drop the guns.’

The voice came from the bullet-riddled main doors.

All three of them turned.

Hailey stood at the top of the small flight of steps.

She was holding the Steyr in both hands, clumsily aiming it at Walker as best she could.

‘The police will be here in a minute,’ she said. ‘It’s over, Adam. Put down the guns.’

‘Come in, Hailey,’ Walker said, smiling. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

117

‘MUM.’

Becky’s mournful cry echoed around the devastated ballroom.

‘It’s all right, babe,’ Hailey called back, taking a step forward. ‘It’s all right now.’

But it wasn’t all right.

Far from it.

Hailey was shaking, the Steyr trembling unsteadily in her grasp.

Christ, it was heavy.

She looked at the scene before her. The bodies, the blood.

She smelled the coppery odour and the stench of excrement. Her ears were still ringing from the savage fusillade of gunfire.

She saw Becky clinging to Rob’s leg, her face glistening with tears. Saw the wound in Rob’s arm, blood still trickling over his hand. He had blood on his face, too.

Behind them stood Walker.

No, this was anything but all right.

‘What are you going to do, Hailey?’ Walker demanded, watching as she moved a little closer, the automatic still pointed towards him.

‘Let them go,’ Hailey said. ‘You’ve done what you came to do.’ She almost stumbled over the outstretched leg of a corpse.

Hailey looked down and saw that it was a young woman, no more than thirty.

Eyes open and gazing blankly at the ceiling.

A bullet hole in her left breast, another in her hand.

There was an engagement ring on that shattered hand.

Hailey tore her gaze away – back to Walker and her family.

‘Rob,’ she called.

‘Rob saved Becky,’ Walker interjected. ‘Wasn’t that good of him? Just like I saved her that day in the shopping centre. Just think, if she’d never got lost, we’d never have met. That must have been fate.’

Hailey continued moving closer.

‘Now put the gun down before you do something stupid, Hailey,’ Walker ordered.

She shook her head.

‘Are you going to shoot me? he asked scornfully. ‘You’ve never fired a gun in your life. Do you know what kind of recoil you get on those automatics? And it’s heavy, isn’t it? Why don’t you just put it down?’

Walker raised the Sig and pressed it to the back of Rob’s head. He did the same with the Scorpion, resting the barrel lightly against Becky’s skull.

‘Even if you manage to shoot me,’ Walker said softly, ‘even if you kill me with the first shot, my muscles will spasm. My fingers will tighten on these triggers. And that’s if you even manage to hit me. If your aim is off, you could hit Rob or Becky. If I were you, I’d put the gun down. For all our sakes.’

She hesitated, slowed her pace.

Stopped no more than ten feet away from him. Hailey glared at him with hatred in her eyes.

‘If you kill them, then I want to die,’ she said angrily. ‘So then I can shoot and it doesn’t matter, because I swear to God I’ll get you.’

‘Fighting talk,’ Walker said mockingly.

Rob stood still, the metal of the gun barrel cold against his scalp.

He could feel Becky clinging to his leg, and he reached out with his free hand to touch her cheek.

She clung tighter.

Think! What the fuck do you do?

He closed his eyes so tightly that white stars danced behind their lids.

THINK!

The table close to him was relatively untouched. A half-drunk bottle of champagne still stood on it. So, too, did a plate of food . . . knives, forks, a broken glass.

He leant against it, steadying himself, as a wave of nausea swept over him.

Hailey looked at him in concern.

‘He’s losing blood,’ Walker said. ‘Put down the gun, Hailey.’

‘You’re going to kill us anyway,’ she rasped. ‘Why not just do it?’

‘If I kill you, who’s going to tell people what happened here tonight?’ Walker grinned. ‘No, someone has to survive.’ His smile broadened. ‘And I’m going to let you choose who that is.’

Hailey frowned, the Steyr wavering.

‘Do you understand me?’ Walker continued.

Hailey took a step closer, her heart hammering against her ribs.