Стюарт Макбрайд: Now We Are Dead

Shadow Scumbag grabbed at him, hauling Tufty down as he tumbled to the kitchen floor — the pair of them bashing into the tiles. Arms and legs. Elbows and knees. Rolling over and over.

Two quick jabs to the ribs had Shadows grunting again.

They thumped into a cabinet, setting the contents ringing.

Back out onto the floor.

Fire shredded across Tufty’s wrist as Shadows sunk his teeth in. ‘AAAARGH!’

They rolled back the other way and BANG , right into the fridge, knocking the door open. A thin cold light spilled out across the room.

He was big, hairy, ugly. Scarlet streaming down his face from a newly squinted nose. Teeth bared, stained pink with either his own blood or Tufty’s. Bitey sod. ‘KILL YOU!’

A thick fist whistled past Tufty’s face.

Oh no you don’t!

He grabbed Shadows by the scruff of the neck and shoved his head into the open fridge, slamming the door on it over and over and over again, making the bottles and jars inside jingle and clink. Pats of butter and yoghurt pots cascaded out to thump and spatter against the floor all around them.

One more slam and Shadows went limp.

Tufty dragged him out of the fridge and shoved him onto his front. Hauled out his cuffs and grabbed the guy’s wrist, pulling it up behind his back. ‘You are comprehensively...’

There was that tingling again.

He twisted around. Too slow.

Just enough time to make out a fat bald shape in the fridge’s ghostly glow before hard yellow lights exploded, wiping the kitchen from view. Didn’t even hurt when his head bounced off the cool smooth tiles.

Fat fingers reached for him, and the world slowly disappeared...

Mnnnghfff... DUNK . Everything snapped up, then down again. DUNK . Up, then down. DUNK . Up, then down.

The alarm-clock was ringing, time to get up.

DUNK .

Or was it sirens?

DUNK .

Wait, that was... What was she doing on the stairs?

Roberta opened her mouth, but all that came out was, ‘Unnnngggghhhh...’

DUNK .

And why was her leg...? Someone was pulling her down the stairs by the leg.

What?

A blurry figure oozed into focus. Jack Wallace. He smiled at her. ‘Oh, we’re going to have so much fun! ’

DUNK .

DUNK .

DUNK .

And it all went black again.

Sleepy sleep. Warm cosy sleepy—

‘AAAARGH!’ Tufty jerked upright. Or almost.

His head moved, but the rest of him stayed exactly where it was: tied to a chair with his hands held tight behind his back. And from the feel of it, those were handcuffs. How did...?

Oh. Right, Shadows had a bald fat friend.

He blinked. Shook his head. But that only made things swoop and swing around from left to right and back again. The floor pitched and heaved. The ceiling rocked. The walls lurched.

Tufty screwed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth till the ferry-in-a-force-nine-gale subsided. Peeled one eye open again.

Oh crap.

It was a fancy-looking living room, with a collection of standard lamps, a pair of brown buttony leather sofas with matching armchairs, a fireplace with flowers in it, golfing trophies on the mantelpiece above. Happy family photos. An upright piano. A set of rusty old golf clubs in an elephant’s-condom leather-and-fabric bag. A huge Middle-Eastern rug surrounded by polished wooden floorboards. Like he’d woken up in a photo shoot for a boutique hotel.

They probably weren’t going to get five stars, though. Not with what was going on in the middle of the room. Three wooden dining chairs were arranged in a triangle. The blonde woman from the photographs — that would be Steel’s wife, Susan — was gagged and tied to the one on the right, glaring out. Nostrils flaring. Steel was tied to the one on the left, hanging limp against her ropes. And lucky-old-Tufty was the pointy end furthest from the fireplace.

Jack Wallace was leaning back against it, sipping from a tumbler of deep amber liquid. The glass looked weird in his black leather gloves, but the smoky scent of whisky oiled its way through the air anyway.

Baldy McFatface was on one of the sofas, nursing a dram of his own.

A third man, vaguely familiar — maybe one of the guys from the security footage of Wallace going to the pictures? — poured a good stiff measure into another tumbler and passed it to a ruinous wreck in a bloodstained shirt.

Bright red leaked from the wreck’s nose, ears, and mouth, dripping onto the tea towel he held in his other hand. That would be Tufty’s old friend Shadows then. Which explained the fridge-door-shaped dents in his ugly-shaped head.

Tufty nodded at him. ‘You want to put something cold on that. Like the fridge freezer.’

Shadows knocked back a mouthful of Steel’s whisky, winced, then glowered at him through puffy squinted eyes. Oh, right: no glasses — those got all broken in the kitchen.

Diddums.

Wallace snapped his fingers. ‘Richard: gag him.’

The vaguely familiar one put his tumbler on the piano and marched over, grabbed a handful of Tufty’s hair and yanked his head back.

Needles and pins dug their way through his scalp. Then a chunk of fabric was jammed into his mouth. Held in place with another bit — tied around the back.

Now everything tasted of fusty towels.

‘OK, I think it’s about time we got this party started!’ Wallace gulped down his drink and stuck the empty on the fireplace. Flexed his gloved hand as he marched across the rug and slapped Steel, hard.

Nothing.

Still unconscious.

‘Shall we try that again?’ Harder this time — the whole chair rocked with the force of it.

She surfaced, coughing and spluttering. ‘Gnnn...’ Scarlet dripped from the side of her lips.

‘Welcome back, sleepyhead! Did you have a nice snooze?’

She shook her head. Blinked. Then snarled — yanking herself back and forward against the ropes holding her to the chair. Going nowhere. ‘GRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAA!’

Wallace grabbed a handful of her chiffon top. ‘You really thought you could get away with it, didn’t you? What you did to me.’ A laugh. ‘Told you one day I’d tear your little world to pieces. Well, today’s the day!’

Steel’s voice was sharp as a prison chib. ‘Get out of my sodding house!’

‘All those months, locked up with dirty paedophiles and rapists.’ He gave his mates a little salute. ‘No offence, guys.’

‘If you’ve hurt Susan...’ Steel’s eyes bugged and she struggled against the ropes again. Still nothing doing.

What they needed was a plan. Something clever. Something that ended with everyone currently tied up changing places with everyone currently not tied up. And Jack Wallace kicked in the balls three or four times.

Think.

Had to be something...

Ah ha! A plan!

Breaking the chair would do it! Break the chair and the ropes wouldn’t be tying him to anything. They’d slither right off. Wriggle his arms down over his bum and get his hands back round the front again. Leap free and... do something heroic.

Like punch Wallace in the throat. Then kick Baldy McFatface in the knee. Open-palm thrust to Vaguely-Familiar Richard’s nose — shattering it — and they were done. Shadows was too busy scowling and bleeding to put up much of a fight.

Free Steel and Susan.

Oh, Tufty you’re our hero.

Medals. A parade. And a promotion.

Yeah, definitely a plan.

Come on, Tufty: they’re all depending on you!

He took a deep breath, shrank into himself, then bounced back. Hard and fast. LIKE — A — NINJA!

The ropes creaked. The chair creaked.

Come on, damn it: break!