Town of Fire Page 13

  “Yes, but I think perhaps she’s tired. We’re all on edge.”

  “The last days have been awful. Thankfully, David managed to get home yesterday so I feel much safer now. Perhaps it was him that Amy saw. I did ask him to see what all the noise was about.”

  Movement catches Sarah’s attention and then Maurice slinks around the corner, and slides around Megan’s legs. “Oh, Maurice, there you are.” Megan bends to stroke the cat as he flicks his tail in the air, jumps up onto the fence and disappears back home.

  Sarah sighs as the door closes. That was the end of that drama.

  “Come and sit down.” Gabe cajoles as he reaches for the roller blind over the large kitchen window overlooking the lawn.

  “No! Don’t. We need to see out.”

  “But there’s nothing out there, and besides, we’ve got lights on in here so if there is someone out there they’ll be able to see in and not the other way round.”

  “What if there is a thief though Gabe? When I talked to Sam earlier he was saying there’d been an increase in crime since the blackout.”

  “True. Brian Alton had his strimmer and electric lawnmower stolen from his garage and Trev lost the tools from his van.”

  “We’re out of town here. Easy targets.”

  “Which is why we’ve got safety lights and lockable gates.”

  “Which aren’t working because of the blackout. We need to be more vigilant. People are taking advantage of it.”

  Gabe looks back through the window to the dark grass beyond. “If it’s dark outside and we have light inside they, if there is anyone out there, can see straight in.”

  “OK. Close the blind. I’ll close the curtains.”

  “Oh, and check the front door is locked.”

  Khaled crouches beneath the wide kitchen window, a yellow glow lighting the interior, casting shadows against the wall cupboards. An eerie pantomime had played out as faces appeared at windows, figures ran and stumbled, doors banged, cats wailed, then all was quiet.

  Khaled limps his way to the front of the house. This will be easy. The door is old, wooden with two frosted glass panels. The paint shines a dark grey in the light; the glass seems thin, not the reinforced glass of a modern door—easy to break. A small porch surrounds the door, covered with roses and honeysuckle. The sweet scent wafts around him. Hamsa reaches for the door’s handle as a light moves on the other side of the frosted glass.

  Gabe pinches Sarah’s bottom and chuckles as he turns to run up the stairs. “Coming,” he shouts in response to Joe’s call. His wife was such a worrywart. Sure, the last few days had been difficult, but it wasn’t all bad; the crisis had also brought them together. Since all the electronic devices that filled their lives had so spectacularly failed he felt closer to the kids and they’d had more conversations in the last few days than in the entirety of last month. Plus, it was almost like having an adventure: having to survive on what they had, use their own ingenuity to get through each day; him and Sarah working together to keep them all alive. Nevertheless, he’s hopeful that the electric comes back on in the next day or so.

  As Gabe steps into Joe’s room, he hears the hard tap, tap of Sarah’s footsteps across the kitchen floor soften as she moves into the carpeted hallway. Joe is already in his bed, duvet pulled up against his cheek. Gabe sits the jar of light on the dresser and moves to the curtains to pull them across.

  “Dad, leave them open.”

  Movement catches his eye. A figure, barely visible, no more than a silhouette moves from the shadows and onto the front porch. Another follows and, as Gabe turns to warn Sarah, a third joins them.

  Gabe runs to the top of the stairs. Sarah, keys in hands steps to the front door. “Get up here now,” he hisses.

  “Now!” Khaled hisses. Hamsa pushes the handle down. The door opens a fraction then stops as a force pushes it closed. Someone is on the other side. Hamsa leans into the wood, shoulder pressed up hard and pushes. A grunt and the door gives but doesn’t open. He growls, pushes with all his force.

  “Sarah!”

  The pressure releases and the door slams open. A figure, a woman, twists away and makes for the stairs. Khaled lurches and grabs for her; his fingers grasps the back of her blouse. Pain shoots through his leg and he stumbles. Released, the woman scrambles up the stairs. Khaled regains his footing as she slips but disappears into an upstairs room before he can right himself.

  Hamsa barges past Khaled. “You should have let me go first.”

  Khaled bites his teeth together. No one spoke to him like that. “Keep them upstairs,” he spits back. “I’ll check down here.”

  The downstairs rooms checked and found empty, Khaled makes his way upstairs. His footsteps are muffled on the soft carpet. They were here, cowering in some corner, waiting for him to find them. He won’t disappoint. He counts the doors that lead off the greyed-out landing, and listens. All is quiet apart from the faint scuffle of movement. He jabs his finger to the room at the end of the corridor. Each limping step to the door is excruciating. He twists the door knob and pushes. It opens a few centimetres before butting up against something heavy.

  “They’ve barricaded themselves in. Let them stay here until we are ready.” Pain makes him unsteady and he staggers to the bannister. “First we look for food. You,” he jabs a finger at the boy. “Stand guard at the bottom of the stairs. Watch for any movement.”

  Moving back down the stairs, Khaled locks the front door, walks through the kitchen, and locks the back door. In the kitchen he takes three knives from the block next to the hob and lays them on the table.

  The house is silent but for the clack of cupboard doors being opened and closed.

  “They have nothing!”

  “They must have something!” Khaled pulls out a kitchen chair and sits with a thud. The pain in his head throbs, his hair is caked with blood, his face smeared. He takes the jar of light sitting at the table’s centre and holds it above his damaged leg. The cloth is wet with blood. He tears at the fabric. A shard of metal sits gouged into his calf, and a gash nearly ten centimetres long sits at its side. The shard glints in the light.

  He calls for the boy then rips at the trousers to expose the sharp metal.

  He holds the light above the wound. The blood glistens. “Take it out.”

  The boy shuffles back and grunts. “That needs a doctor.”

  “Pull it out.”

  “But-”

  “Now!” The boy, startled by Khaled’s barked instructions, knocks against the chair. “Careful,” Khaled seethes as the movement sends pain stabbing through his leg.

  “You sure?”

  “Just do it.”

  The boy takes hold of the shard. Pain shoots through his calf; Khaled grits his teeth and growls. The boy releases the shard. “Don’t play with it—pull it.”

  Reaching for the metal again, Jay holds it firmly between his fingers and tugs. Khaled growls as the metal tears at the wound and rips at the flesh. As the pointed tip appears, relief is instant.

  “Got it!” The shard is an almost perfect triangle dark with blood. “That must have hurt.”

  “Shut up!”

  Blood clots at the edges of the wound, but flows from its centre.

  “Look for bandages. I need something to tie this up—and hurry.”

  Five minutes later, Hamsa steps back into the kitchen as Khaled pulls at the cloth, tightening it around his calf then ties a knot. A large sterile dressing sits beneath the white bandage, the wound cleaned with the antiseptic wipes Jay had found in the first aid kit. Hamsa checks through the cupboards looking for supplies. Khaled sits at the table sipping a glass of sugared water, and listens. The front and back door are locked and the family upstairs, cowering. The only thing that has stopped Khaled’s bloodthirst, stopped him from running up to their room, ripping the door open, and slaughtering them where they stand, is the pain in his leg and the need to refuel. The group that had run them off the road would be sniffing around very soon, if
they weren’t already, and Khaled needs to conserve his energy. He takes another sip of sugared water.

  The family were organised. The kitchen was clean and tidy and even the shoes were lined up neatly in the hallway, but there was no food. They’d checked every cupboard, every drawer, the fridge and even the freezer but the cartons were drooping with wet, the food spoiled. They had found some packets of dehydrated rice and pasta along with some sauces. These were now in the rucksack taken from the peg in the hallway. There were also teabags and coffee granules but no way of making a warm drink. Also in the rucksack was half a bag of porridge oats. A bottle of water had been shared between them.

  “What now?”

  Khaled sits for a moment, cradling his glass of water and stirs in another teaspoon of sugar. “We go back to the intersection. We can radio for reinforcements from there.”

  “Reinforcements.”

  “Yes, reinforcements. I’m not letting these pigs get away with killing our brothers. They need to be taught a lesson.”

  Hamsa nods and takes another sip. “I want to cut the head of the old man.”

  “The old man?”

  “The one who looks like Thor.”

  Khaled snorts. “He’s not old. Only about fifty, perhaps less.”

  “That’s old.”

  Khaled sighs.

  “What about you? Which one do you want to kill the most.”

  Khaled snorts with derision as the faces of the men and women who’d fought him rise in his memory and tug at his rage. Her face is the one that he keeps coming back to. “I want the girl.”

  “The girl with the crossbow.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what will you do to her?”

  “Everything.”

  Sarah holds a hand over Joe’s mouth, his tears wet against her fingers. His body shakes. A floorboard creaks. “Did you hear that?”

  “They’re outside the door,” Gabe whispers. “Two went downstairs but there’s still one on the landing.”

  Sarah’s heart beats hard, a sharp tap, tap, tap against her ribs. Though her hands tremble with fear, a deep rage is whirling in her belly, a deep anger that wants to rip the men to shreds. How dare they come into her house? How dare they terrify her children? Joe pulls at her hand.

  “Don’t make a sound, Joe. Promise?” He nods his head in silent agreement. As she hugs her to him, he buries his head against her breast, shuffling his body tight to her side. How dare they! How dare they scare her baby like this. “Which way did Amy go?”

  “She went into her bedroom.”

  “They didn’t find her,” Sarah whispers back. “We would have heard if they had.”

  “Please don’t let them find her,” Joe whispers. “Please, God, please don’t let them find her.”

  “Shh!” Sarah soothes. “She’s a smart girl. She’ll stay hidden.”

  “What do they want?”

  “I don’t think they want us. They would have broken down the door if they did.”

  “Looking for food then?”

  “Probably, and something to drink. It’s what I’d do.”

  “You’d never do this.”

  Footsteps clatter up the stairs and Gabe raises a finger to his lips. They wait in silence. Whoever was out there wasn’t bothered about being heard now. Raised voices babble on the landing.

  “Arabic,” Sarah says with confidence. She doesn’t understand what they’re saying, but she’s heard it spoken; holidays to visit her father in the middle east, whole summers spent in the Gulf states, had familiarised her with the guttural words. She wished now she’d taken the time to learn the language. The footsteps clatter again then disappear down into the kitchen. Sarah listens as kitchen doors slam and drawers are pulled open. “They’re looking in the cupboards.”

  “Food.”

  “They won’t find much; we’re out of about everything.”

  “Maybe they’ll go then,” Joe suggests, squeezing his arms tighter around Sarah’s waist.

  “Maybe so.” But will they be satisfied to leave empty-handed?

  The house becomes quiet with only the sound of deep and muffled voices from downstairs. Gabe stands. Sarah reaches to grab the waistband of his jeans to pull him back, but drops it, and instead holds Joe tighter. A floorboard creaks under Gabe’s weight. He stops, waits, then steps up to the window.

  “Someone’s outside.”

  Chapter 23

  Trailing them had been easy, even in the dark. They capered across the field, black against the grey of the wheat, and when the field rose to meet the horizon they were creeping silhouettes that disappeared through the hedgerow and into the garden of one of the isolated houses that sat between the town and the next village. The homes were vulnerable. The men would know they were being hunted. The people inside unlikely to be prepared for an attack.

  Soft lights glow in the kitchen as Jessie scans the house and front garden. A man appears at the window of an upstairs room.

  “We’ve been spotted.”

  “The face is pale—must be the owner.”

  A window opens slowly. The man leans out. He mouths his words in a stage whisper and jabs at the ground. “Men. Downstairs. In the kitchen.”

  Jessie puts a forefinger to her lips, then signs ‘OK’, and ‘stay put’.

  Taking the lead, Bill steps onto the driveway and crouches next to the low shrubs. The downstairs window to the left of the house flickers with light. Two figures sit hunched at the table. Sipping from glasses, animated in conversation. Laughter! The animals are laughing! She crouches low. “What are they saying?”

  “I’m not sure. My Arabic is weak at best. He cocks his ear to listen. Jessie questions the deepening frown.

  “What?”

  He remains silent. Listening.

  “For crying out loud! What?”

  “He’s talking about what he’s going to do to a woman.”

  “And?” She shrugs her shoulders.

  “He’s talking about what he’s going to do to you.”

  “To Jessie?” Alex questions.

  “Me?” Cold prickles at the back of Jessie’s neck.

  “Yes. And the other one keeps talking about ‘Thor’, which I guess is me.”

  “They can talk all they want-”

  “They won’t touch a hair on her head.”

  Bill pulls Jessie away from the window and they move towards the front door. In the distance a car’s engine hums. The vehicle moves slowly. The road remains dark, headlights switched off.

  “Uri?”

  “I reckon so.”

  “We need to put these men out of action.” Alex raises on his haunches to look inside the window once more then turns to Bill. “Taking them back to the town was a mistake.”

  “It was, Alex, but Sam had the best intentions.”

  “Best intentions have screwed us over.”

  “We’re here to put that right. This time no prisoners. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “Jessie?”

  “Agreed.”

  The car’s engine stops. A door opens but doesn’t close.

  Noise catches Khaled’s attention. It wasn’t the family in the bedroom and it wasn’t Hamsa standing guard at their door. It came from the room above his head. “There’s someone else in this house.” Khaled sits his empty glass down on the table. Movement catches in his peripheral vision as a figure runs past the window. He grasps for the kitchen knife, scrapes back the kitchen chair, and runs to the stairs.

  How could he have missed it? The pain in his leg has made him sloppy—it isn’t a mistake he’d make twice.

  In the bedroom, the noise of movement comes from inside the cupboard. He reaches for the door handle and stops as noise from outside catches his attention. A car. It’s engine hums then dies. They were here. He would have to act quickly.

  Coat hangers jangle.

  He pulls open the door and punches with a broad fist. Knuckles hit bone. A body slams against the wall. He twists
his fingers into long hair, and pulls. With a scream, a girl appears from the dresses and coats hung in the cupboard.

  “Shut it!” Khaled’s fingers tighten through her hair. “Stupid bitch. Shut it.”

  He drags her across to the landing to where Hamsa screws up a sheet of paper and stuffs it at the base of the bedroom door. He rips at a packet of firelighters and stuffs them between the newspaper. Its content spill as Khaled pushes the girl to the top of the stairs.

  “Make the fire.”

  Hamsa pats at his jacket pocket and shrugs.

  Khaled grabs the jar of light from the window sill and pulls the girl. He passes the jar to Jay. “Light it.”

  Jay looks from Khaled to the girl.

  “Light it! Now.”

  Jay takes the jar. The girl kicks Khaled’s damaged shin. He yells in pain. His grip loosens and the girl pulls away, staggers into Jay and knocks the jar from his hand. It rolls to the carpet. Khaled lunges, grabs the girl and yanks her back. The bedroom door opens.

  A man, his face full of rage, appears and a woman’s voice screams from behind. “Amy!”

  “Stick him, Hamsa,” Khaled orders as he yanks the girl away from the door, a knife held firmly against her throat. Hamsa lunges as the man’s boot is kicked into his stomach. The boy staggers back, rights himself, then raises his arm and stabs the knife down at the man. It hits home, piercing his chest. The man staggers back as the woman screams and Khaled drags the girl down the stairs. Smoke curls from the papers. “Jay, close the door. Set that lot on fire.”

  Hamsa joins him at the base of the stairs. “Three outside and a car waiting in the lane.”

  The girl bucks. Khaled yanks at her hair and slices at the skin across her neck. She grunts and quiets. “Take care of them.”

  Hamsa disappears to the back of the house. The heavy scent of burning paper mixes with the noxious odour of kerosene as the firelighters ignite.

  The girl squirms.

  Jessie reaches for the bolt in her pocket as the front door smashes open. It knocks against the fretwork porch that frames the pretty entrance and rose petals float like confetti. A young girl, blonde hair bunched up by clenched fingers, is pushed forward. A knife sits at her neck and blood glistens at her throat. She whimpers as the hand pulls her hair higher and forces her to step to the edge of the porch. Her fingers clasp the man’s hand, desperate to pull the blade from her skin.