Stalkers

‘He’s not trying to kick it down,’ Heck said slowly. ‘This is a diversion!’

He scarpered back into the living room, just in time to see Trooper Kilmor’s head, shoulders and upper body protruding through one of the windows. Heck charged forward, ripping up one of the thistles growing through the layer of rubble. Kilmor shouted a threat, but Heck was already lashing him across his unprotected face. Kilmor shrieked and tried to drag himself backward. Heck lashed him six or seven times before he managed it, but then had to duck as the muzzle of the Uzi appeared in the aperture and blazed off maybe thirty rounds.

‘Shit, my eyes!’ Kilmor screeched. ‘The bastard’s blinded me!’

Now another voice was heard. It was Silver. ‘He hasn’t blinded you, you fucking pretend soldier! Get inside and finish them off like I told you!’

More shots sounded from the kitchen.

‘Lauren?’ Heck shouted.

‘It’s okay,’ she called back.

He rushed through. They were pistol shots from the Browning. Three more followed, and with each one a moonlit hole was punched in the back door.

‘He still can’t get in!’ Lauren laughed.

Another angry kick struck the planks, and then there was silence.

It was ear-punishing.

They strained to listen. Still they heard nothing, but Heck was certain this was only the prelude to a renewed attack somewhere else on the perimeter. He beckoned to Lauren, and they moved.

Aside from the living room, there was a second chamber adjoining the kitchen. This was long and narrow, and ran along the back of the house; it had probably been a dining room at some time. Again it was open to the night, but there were fragments of furnishing left in it: a few broken plant pots, a metal-framed table with a Formica top, the Formica itself having peeled away, leaving mildewed planks underneath. The door at the end of this room connected with the front of the house again. They progressed towards it, and halted there, glancing into the hall. Still there was no sound from outside.

‘Think they’ve given up and run for it?’ Lauren wondered.

Heck shook his head.

There was a sudden scraping sound, a scrabbling of loose stonework. They glanced upward — to see a squat, misshapen form balanced on the jagged apex of the outer wall.

‘Fuckers are trying to climb in!’ Lauren shouted.

They dived in different directions as Klim pointed his Browning down and fired, Lauren throwing herself back into the dining room, Heck running clear across the hall, past the cupboard in which his sister was still concealed, and back into the living room. Klim pegged another three shots at them. There were more screaming ricochets, but none of the slugs struck home, which perhaps wasn’t surprising given that, from his perspective, Klim was shooting down into a darkened interior.

He tried to improve his position, clambering across the open roof-space by its exposed joists, until he reached the top of the connecting wall between the hall and the dining room, which he perched on like some great, overweight ape. Heck stuck his head through the living room door, only for two more shots to be fired at him. He ducked back, but not before he was able to see that Klim was now directly above the staircase. If he hung by his hands, it was only a couple of feet to the topmost tread.

Lauren, watching from the dining room, had also seen this.

‘Heck, the bastard’s almost made it!’ she shouted.

Heck was helpless to do anything, other than grab a half-brick and hurl it up. It missed by some distance. Klim fired at him, but then swung down from his perch, and, as they’d feared, alighted comfortably on the top of the stair. He again took aim at the living room door, now with both hands, and pumped off three more shots. Each one blew out a chunk of the door-jamb behind which Heck was flattened.

‘I’m inside!’ Klim bellowed, alerting his confederates beyond the walls.

His eyes too were adjusting to the gloom. He turned towards the front door, and saw the heavy prop that had been used to shore it up. He squeezed off two shots at it. One of them struck, but the prop held firm. Klim ejected his spent clip and slid another into place — only for Lauren to seize the moment and come yelling up the stair towards him. He swung around to face her, but she’d picked up the Formica table and was using it like a shield. All he could see was the flat surface rushing up at him. He fired at it twice before it slammed into him, knocking him backward against the rotted banister, which split loudly. The spindles gave way, and Klim fell headfirst into the rubble below.

It stunned him, knocking the gun from his grasp. But he knew he had to regain his feet quickly. He did this just in time to see Heck ballooning through the dimness, another half-brick in hand. Klim blocked the blow by taking it full on his forearm, which made him squawk in pain. Heck clamped a hand on his throat and forced him backward. Klim grabbed Heck’s throat in retaliation. They wrestled together, but now Lauren came swinging down over what remained of the banister, hitting Klim in the back with both feet. It winded him, and his legs buckled. It was all the opportunity Heck needed. He swept down hard with the half-brick, catching Klim in the mouth. The second blow was even more vicious; it struck Klim’s left temple, crushing it inward like sodden cardboard.

A moment passed, and then the criminal fell sideways, his knees bending at one-eighty degrees beneath him. By his glazed eyes, he was dead before he hit the ground.

Heck and Lauren stood panting. Then Heck spotted a dark stain seeping down the front of her vest. ‘You’re hurt!’

She nodded and felt at the side of her neck. When she brought her palm away, it was bloody. She tried to smile, but it was weak, pained. ‘Just a flesh wound.’

‘Let me look.’

He stepped over Klim’s body, only for another noise to distract them. They spun around. It was just beyond the front door — a click followed by a metallic snap. Unmistakably the cocking of a firearm.

The Uzi.

The fusillade that followed was furious, and blew the door clean from its hinges. Heck, who was directly in the firing-line, was hit twice — once in the shoulder, once in the left forearm — and was flung down on top of Klim. Lauren wasn’t hit, but stumbled backward, suddenly lacking the energy or guile to run. Her strength draining out of her with her blood, she slumped down onto her backside.

The tall shape of Kilmor shouldered its way in through the smoke and splinters, Uzi levelled. Trickles of blood gleamed on both his cheeks. But his pearl-white teeth shone in a demented grin.

‘Time’s up, folks,’ he said simply.

Heck rolled slightly, but couldn’t move. Pain was spreading through his body like corrosive acid; he was entirely paralysed down one side. With deliberate slowness, the remaining Nice Guy raised the Uzi in both hands and took careful aim at him.

Only for a boom-like detonation to cut him virtually in half.

Kilmor’s body jack-knifed forward from the doorway, his offal spattering the whole room. Before he could hit the ground, a second thunderous report tore into him, slamming him against the closet door, which he slid slowly down, leaving a thick, crimson smear on its rotted woodwork.

The silence that followed hung heavy on air tainted with the mingled stenches of acrid smoke and burst-out bowels, and lasted for several torturous seconds.

When another figure finally stepped in through the doorway, he was the last person Lauren had expected. It was dark of course, and at first he only appeared as a silhouette, but then he moved into the moonlight, and there was no mistaking the smart, pinstriped suit and clipped white moustache of Bobby Ballamara. The sawn-off shotgun in his leather-gloved hands smoked from both barrels.

‘Better late than never,’ Heck said weakly.

‘You’re alive, aren’t you?’ Ballamara replied.

Another figure ambled in. It was Lennie Asquith. He too was armed, in his case with a sawn-off pump. He chuckled. ‘Had a rough night, detective?’

‘What the hell is going on here?’ Lauren demanded.

‘Sorry … didn’t get a chance to t-tell you,’ Heck stammered.