Andrew Lane - Red Leech

He shivered. No time for memories. He had a madman with a gun just a few seconds behind him.

For a moment he thought the window was bolted, or nailed shut. It wouldn’t move as he tugged it upward. It had to, he told himself. If this room had medical equipment scattered around then it wasn’t the madman’s bedroom, and there would be no point in sealing the window.

The madman’s window, he felt sure, would have bars on it.

He threw all his strength into tugging at the window and, with a squeal of wood on wood, it slid upward. Blessedly cool air washed across his face. He squirmed out on to the windowsill and looked around. No sign of Matty in the garden or on the road. No sign of anyone.

He looked down. The wisteria grew all the way down to the flower beds beneath. He could climb down easily.

And then what? If the madman entered the bedroom while he was halfway down then he was a sitting duck. The man could just shoot him in the head and watch him fall.

He glanced upward. The wisteria went all the way up to the roof, as far as he could tell, its tendrils infiltrating the mortar between the bricks of the wall, and there was a balcony, or a sill of some kind, running all the way around the edge. If — when — the madman came into the bedroom and across to the open window then his immediate reaction would be to look downward. If Sherlock was climbing upward, he might evade capture. At the very least, he would buy himself a few more seconds.

He stood on the windowsill and grabbed hold of the wisteria vines to one side with his right hand, using his left to slide the window carefully shut. His retreat was blocked off, but it might buy him a few additional moments of safety.

He extended his right leg out to the side, and felt gingerly with his foot for a point where two vines crossed and the junction would take his weight. After what seemed like forever he found something that gave a little under pressure, but would support him.

Nervously, he let the vines take his weight and scrabbled around with his left foot for another point of purchase. When he found one, he boosted himself up and reached up with his left hand for another vine to grip. Instead it found a gap between two bricks, He jammed his fingers in and it took his weight. Laboriously, one step after another, he hauled himself up until the window was below him and he was climbing towards the roof.

Brick dust fell past him and stung his eyes. He shook his head, eyes closed, to dislodge it. More dust and small bits of rubble pit-patted against his head and shoulders.

The wisteria lurched suddenly beneath him. His weight was pulling it out of the wall, dragging the tendrils from where they had infiltrated through gaps and nooks and crannies and were gripping the brickwork. He could feel his centre of gravity pulling away from the wall. He glanced down, and felt immediately sick when the ground seemed to eddy back and forth beneath him as he swayed. The vines in his right hand became loose, and he quickly scrabbled further up, looking for a firmer handhold. His fingers gratefully closed around a thick stem that appeared to be anchored in place, and he pushed upward with his right foot. His left hand closed around a flat tile on the edge of the roof. Thankfully he rested for a moment, getting his breath back.

From beneath him he heard the grinding sound of the window being slid up.

He froze, pulling himself as close to the wall as he dared.

Sherlock sensed, rather than saw, a dark figure craning out of the window and scanning the ground beneath. He held his breath, desperate not to make a single noise that might give him away.

Brick dust rained down on him from above. He felt the vine he was holding in his right hand begin to pull loose from the wall. He’d been holding on to it for too long — he should have transferred his weight off by now, but he didn’t dare.

More brick dust hit his eyes, making him blink.

His nostrils tickled. He wanted to sneeze, but he wrinkled his nose, clamping his nostrils shut.

The figure below him swung back and forth, its gaze scanning the ground like the beam of light from a lighthouse. Beyond, in the garden at the back of the house, Sherlock could see several wooden crates piled up. There were gaps between the slats and he thought he saw something moving behind them, but then his attention was forced back as the figure below turned around and looked upward.

At him.

“You insolent, cowardly cur!" he screamed, and fired the gun again.

The lead ball buzzed past Sherlock’s ear like an enraged hornet. He felt the heat of its passage singe his hair. Desperately he dragged himself up to the flat ledge on the roof, pulling his legs after him as the lunatic shot again.

Silence for a moment as he caught his breath. Sliding towards the edge, Sherlock glanced over.

The window was empty. The lunatic was coming up the stairs to get him.

Sherlock looked around desperately. The ledge he was on was just a few feet wide. The roof proper began then, tiled and rising up at a steep slant to a peak. Dormer windows punctuated the ledge every ten feet or so — presumably second-floor bedrooms, or storage rooms.

He had to find a way out, and quickly.

He knew he could never make it back down the wisteria vine, so he sprinted along the ledge to the first window. It was either locked or stuck in place. He moved to the next one, but it was the same. The third window was open a crack, but the wood had warped and it would not go up any further.

He made a move for the fourth window, but he suddenly realized that the madman with the gun was standing on the corner of the ledge, where it went around the back of the house. He had obviously found a way out before Sherlock found a way in.

He pointed the long barrel of the gun at the centre of Sherlock’s chest.

“Down, down to hell,” he screamed, spittle flying out of his mouth, “and say I send thee thither!"

Sherlock waited for the lead ball to hit him and send him plummeting off the roof. He wondered for a moment if the ball would kill him before the fall did. It would be the last experiment of his life.

Another man stepped around the corner of the roof, a burly man with pale hair and broken veins in his nose and cheeks. He grabbed the madman in a neck lock with his left arm while his right hand jabbed the needle of a syringe into the man’s shoulder. He pressed the plunger, sending whatever drug was in the syringe coursing into the madman’s bloodstream.

The madman sagged in his arms, the gun clattering on to the roof. He was still trying to talk, but his words were slurred. His eyes fluttered for a few moments, and then he was still.

The newcomer pulled the syringe from the lunatic’s shoulder. Clear fluid dripped out and the man slumped to the ledge. Straightening up, he gazed levelly at Sherlock.

“What’re you doing here, boy?”

“I was just looking for my football in the garden,” Sherlock replied, trying to sound younger and more vulnerable than he was, “when this bloke grabbed me and pulled me into the house.” He couldn’t help noticing that when the man had straightened up, he had brought the revolver up with him and was keeping it held with the barrel along his leg.

“And what did this gentleman want to do to you, once he got you inside the house?”

“I don’t know. I swear I don’t.”

The newcomer was silent for a few moments, thinking. The long barrel of the revolver tapped against his trousers.

“Get in the house,” he said eventually. The barrel of the gun swung casually up to cover Sherlock. “And take him with you,” he added, nodding towards the unconscious madman. “Drag him round the corner. There’s an open window there. Just slide him inside.”

“But—"