Robert Young - Gatecrasher

With his hands tied behind him he pitched forward, unable to balance and he landed face first on the coarse carpet.

Behind him the other man was desperately trying to get him back on his feet and moving back up, away from the door before he heard that pop-pop sound again.

Tyler swung himself in behind Drennan and followed him through the door.

The shots had come as a shock. He hadn’t expected that things would escalate so fast but almost as soon as his foot had landed on the door he had seen a huge figure of a man lumbering toward them and he had ducked back to the side to allow Drennan his clear shot.

The big man had slumped against the wall, eyes wide. They had been just as surprised to get visitors it seemed as he and Drennan had been to see a welcoming party. Drennan had obscured his view as he moved quickly into the house, gun raised still and trained on the first man but Tyler had caught a fleeting view of two other figures turning and scrambling for the stairs beyond but they seemed to stumble.

Perfect.

Drennan dropped slightly to the side, his aim moving to the two figures scrabbling at the foot of the staircase, and Tyler had a better view now and covered the big man on the floor with his own weapon. The two of them stepped along the hallway and everything seemed to be going their way already. One down, two to go.

Another two steps and he could hear the distressed, laboured breathing of the big man slumped against the wall. His chest was leaking blood profusely and he looked bewildered, as if he wasn’t quite convinced that this was really happening.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of movement off to the right of Drennan and another figure burst from a doorway and slammed straight into the surprised man. Tyler watched as they tangled, Drennan stumbling backward and tripping over the wounded man on the floor.

As Drennan fell over, the wounded man seemed to come to attention, suddenly aware that his attacker was now vulnerable. He used the momentum of Drennan’s fall to drag him to the ground where he rolled and shifted his bulk up on top of him.

Tyler raised his gun to aim it at the wounded man before he could pin Drennan down but there was no time to pull the trigger as the new figure turned away from Drennan and span to face Tyler.

The man rushed him and for the first time Tyler realised that he was armed; a huge kitchen knife gripped in his fist. He shifted the aim of the gun toward his attacker but the man slashed wildly with the knife and hot pain lanced up his arm as the blade flashed through his jacket and cut him.

Startled, he drew his arm away instinctively from the slashing blade.

And then realised that he had surrendered the advantage.

The knifeman was onto him all too quickly, the blade still flailing wildly in front of him and as Tyler tried to duck back away from him to avoid it the man pounced and the two of them staggered backward. Tyler had caught the knifeman’s wrists as he came and his gun was knocked from his fist. He tried to avoid falling to the ground and to hold the knifeman off, but as he did so the long blade stabbed at his face.

He had slowed the forward momentum of the knife and the wound was not deep but it had glanced across his forehead and opened a long cut. He felt blood running into his eyes and they blinked shut automatically.

Half blind, Tyler felt himself begin to panic and he tried to wheel away back toward the door, tried to remember his training. He felt the man’s hands pulling free of his grasp and he raised his own to his eyes, frantically trying to rub the blood from them to clear his vision.

In the distance he heard the pop of Drennan’s gun and for a moment he felt hope rise up. Maybe they were regaining control here. Maybe Drennan had just shot the knifeman.

The weight of the body on top of him was nothing like he’d expected it to be and Drennan was struggling hard to avoid being pinned to the floor by the injured man hauling his bulky frame on top of him as he lay prone on the threadbare carpet.

From beneath him he had seen Tyler stumble back in a struggle with the figure who had sprung Drennan and knocked him off balance. He’d been so intent on getting to the two on the staircase before they could regain their feet that he’d carelessly left himself open from the other side. Stupid. He felt battered but not cut however and was sure that the knife he’d seen glint in front of him had not made meaningful contact.

Shifting his body backward underneath the wounded man he tried to lift himself a little. With his weight mostly on his right side he was resting on his gun hand and was therefore not able to use it.

Seeing what he was attempting, the wounded man made a grab for Drennan’s right hand and lurched forward knocking him flat to the floor again. Drennan desperately jerked the gun away. He wondered how soon the two on the staircase would be up again and whether they would join the fight or if they would continue to flee in their panic.

His chest felt warm and was beginning to dampen already, even through his thick coat, as the other man’s wounds wept blood freely. He was amazed that the man still had the strength to fight but seeing the injuries and sensing that his opponent’s only real advantage was his weight, Drennan made his move.

Bucking his hips he managed to loosen himself a little from under the other man and he repeated this move quickly as he shifted his backside a few inches along the carpet. Once more he did it, shifting further and then once more and suddenly his upper body was free of the hulking form which now lay across his legs, still grasping at him. Sitting up, his arms free again, Drennan raised his hands in front of him and levelled the pistol at the man who stared at him over the dark barrel, his eyes blank, his mouth hanging open.

He squeezed the trigger once and put a round straight through the big man’s forehead.

As he looked up to see how Tyler was getting on he raised the gun at the knifeman and he noticed that Tyler’s face was smeared with blood, saw his hands wiping frantically at his eyes.

He hesitated just a moment. The knifeman was right in front of Tyler. If Drennan fired now, would he hit Tyler by mistake? Would the bullets pass through his target and into his partner’s body? But what else could he do?

Too late, Drennan fired.

Two shots to the head dropped the knifeman quickly and suddenly to the floor. As he fell away, Drennan sat staring at the black handle of the kitchen knife protruding from Tyler’s chest where it had been buried to the hilt.

Tuesday. 1.35 am.

Slumped in the corner next to this other young woman Sarah was so frightened she had begun to shiver. Campbell was gone and she was now left to the mercy of this vile looking man whose hands had wandered so repugnantly over her body. After the other two men had left with Daniel she had cowered away from him, pressing herself against this woman she did not know.

Pacing the room he had turned occasionally to glance down at the two of them, a look in his eye that made her blood run cold. She had not said anything to the other woman yet though she desperately wanted to, to make some kind of connection with her now that she seemed like her only ally.

Then suddenly a flash of memory came to her. It had been a few days ago. She had been walking along his road, looking for the right number to his flat and then seen him, some fifty yards further up, hurrying — being hurried, so he said — into a car with a man and a woman.

Sarah turned her head and suddenly she was looking at the face of the woman that had been there that day.

What the hell?

Before she could say anything or even think about it there came from the doorway noises that turned all their heads. Running, shouting, falling and a strange popping noise that sounded out of place but chilling nonetheless. The tall man went suddenly alert and stared at the door for a moment before striding forward and looking out and down the passageway. As they all stared and tried to focus their hearing the sounds continued to drift up to them; more footsteps, grunting, another popping noise.