Paul Finch: Stalkers

‘I don’t think they’ve sussed us,’ he said. ‘But it won’t be long. You seen Dana at all?’

Lauren pointed to a door at the opposite end of the cabin.

Heck opened it, and saw a small, luxurious bedroom. Dana was on the bed. She was wearing pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt, but she seemed to be out cold. He approached nervously. Her hair was disarrayed, but there were no visible signs of harm. Her pulse at least was strong. He smelled at her breath, which was tainted with something faintly chemical.

‘Gamma hydroxbutyrate,’ he said grimly. ‘The date-rapist’s drug of choice. I hope to God they haven’t …’ A belated thought occurred to him. He spun around to face Lauren.

‘If they did I didn’t notice,’ she said, before he could ask. ‘Not that we can rely on that, a set of dickless bastards like this lot. Heck, what the fuck are we going to do?’

‘There must be another way off this boat.’

There was one other door in the bedroom, but it only connected to a dressing room filled with gaudy clothes. Heck cursed as he padded back down the main cabin. At the far end, he opened the exit door a crack and listened. The conversation was clearer, but still sounded as though it was taking place on the deck above. He risked a peek. A tight stairway led up, but alongside it there was a recess in which several coats and rain-slickers hung. He climbed into a pair of waterproof pants, threw a slicker over his shoulders and zipped it. He’d have grabbed one for Lauren, but she’d now stripped Hobbs’s body and was pulling on his khaki vest and trousers.

‘No exit this way,’ Heck said. ‘We’ll have to go through one of these windows.’

There were six in total, three down either side of the cabin. As he’d already observed, there were steel shutters on each one, all fastened with padlocks.

‘Don’t suppose they’ve been daft enough to leave a key lying round?’ he asked.

‘No. But they’ve left us these.’ Lauren picked up one of Hobbs’s flensing knives. ‘This is sharp enough to stick up a gnat’s chuff.’

‘Can you make it work?’

‘I can try.’

They chose the window farthest from the exit, and on the starboard side of the cabin, which they guessed was the one against the canal bank. Lauren worked feverishly. She couldn’t do anything about the padlock, but the shutter was part of a steel frame, which had been screwed into the wooden bulkhead. It was these screws that she went for. Initially nothing happened. She pumped sweat as she strained and twisted the knife. When the point of its blade snapped off, she had to try the other knife, but the first had loosened the screw sufficiently for it to finally give way. With the frame’s grip on the bulkhead weakened, and pulled out a little to weaken it further, the second screw came more quickly and the final two were almost easy. Behind it was a curtain, and then a glass window with a movable panel. Lauren flipped the catch and slid the panel open. Beyond it lay the canal bank, the tow-path and a mass of darkened foliage.

Heck had now brought Dana in from the dressing room. He was carrying her, but she was stirring slightly.

‘If we can get her walking,’ Lauren whispered, ‘it’ll save us a lot of trouble.’

‘Depends how long she’s been out for. It can take hours to recover from a stupor like this.’ He patted Dana’s face a couple of times, but she stayed under the influence.

Lauren shook her head. ‘I’ll go out first. You pass her up to me.’

Once she’d got out onto the bank, she crouched and listened. Their captors were congregated down at the far end, talking quietly. There were no other night sounds.

‘Okay,’ Lauren breathed.

With much struggling, Heck passed Dana’s comatose form through the aperture, at which point she moaned loudly.

They froze.

There was no response.

They continued at speed. Lauren threw Dana over her shoulder in a fireman’s lift, but remained crouched. From this angle, it was difficult to see over the top of the boat to where their captors were. What position were they actually in? Were their backs turned? These questions remained unanswered. It was going to be another big gamble. Heck slid up onto the bank beside her.

‘We’ve got to dash to the undergrowth,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘It’s only a couple of yards, but we’ll be fully exposed.’

He nodded, sweating hard. ‘You want me to take Dana?’

‘I’ve carried bigger, heavier fellas than your sister out of the battle-zone, Heck. Don’t worry, I can handle it.’

They counted down from five to one, before rising to their feet and scurrying towards the bushes. At first it seemed as though they’d made it. But when they entered the wood, it was impossible for leaves not to rustle and branches not to thresh.

‘Hey!’ came a gruff shout from behind. It sounded like Klim. ‘ FUCK !’

Dana was coming round and no longer a dead-weight, but carrying her between them wasn’t easy. When they broke out of the trees, they were at the foot of a long, sloping pasture, with the outline of a house on the ridge at the top. Shouting loudly, they stumbled uphill towards it. Heck and Lauren were both shoeless, the stones and twigs cutting and bruising their naked feet, but fear dulled the pain. They were halfway up when a shot rang out from behind. They ducked as what felt like a high-speed wasp whined past Heck’s ear.

‘Keep going,’ he gasped. ‘Just keep going.’

‘They can’t afford to let us live,’ Lauren said.

‘Don’t worry. We’re not the ones who are going to die here today.’

But even before they reached the house on the ridge, they saw skeletal spars where its roof should be, windows that were now empty sockets.

‘It’s derelict!’ Lauren wailed.

‘Just get inside. We’ll defend it somehow.’

It had once been a farmhouse, but now was a gutted shell. They managed to force open its front door, though the hall passage beyond was partly blocked by rubble. Not only had most of its roof collapsed, but a lot of the upper floor had come down as well. Lauren laid Dana on a mound of bricks, while Heck forced the door closed behind them and tried to wedge it with a fallen beam.

‘There’ll be a back door too,’ Lauren said.

‘Go and sort it!’

She hurried off, while he cast around for a weapon, though all he could initially find were lumps of useless rubbish.

‘Heck, there are windows in here!’ Lauren called.

Heck veered right into what had formerly been the living room. Again it was knee-deep in wreckage: smashed furniture, bottles, cans and a dirty mattress. Grass and thistles grew deep in the detritus. However, the windows were not as big a problem as he’d feared. The building being very old, they were small and set in deep embrasures, and most of them were barred.

‘These are easily defensible,’ he shouted back.

There was a grating of stone and a bang as Lauren forced the back door shut.

Then he heard voices outside. They were low and mumbling, but he could discern the guttural tone of Shane Klim and the smoother, more modulated voice of the black guy, Trooper Kilmor as Silver had referred to him.

‘Any knives in there?’ Heck asked, as Lauren re-emerged from the kitchen.

‘Nothing. Not even any units. It’s been stripped.’

‘Okay, let’s keep it down for a sec, and see what they do.’

‘We know what they’re going to do — they’re going to try and get in!’

Stressed and weary, Lauren’s voice rose shrilly, and though he tried to shush her, it was too late. A Browning pistol was thrust in through one of the smaller windows, and fired indiscriminately around the living room. The reports were deafening, bullets careening from wall to wall. They dived and covered their heads, but out in the hall Dana began to moan with fear and confusion.