Matt Hilton - Blood and Ashes

Stay in the red zone.

The thought struck at the same time as bullets singed the air around me. Caught off-guard, I stumbled and fell, rolling to avoid another volley of rounds churning the mud next to my body. A bullet struck the rifle and knocked it out of my hands. I let it lie and scrambled away, then came to my feet again and threw myself across the boardwalk and against the wall of the cabin, looking for targets as I snatched out my SIG. Movement flickered across the way and Gant rushed out from his hiding place in the cabin opposite. Gant fired as he ran causing me to jump for my life away from the bullets cutting into the wall beside me.

I fired in return.

One bullet was all I had left and it had to count.

Too many variables affected my aim, primarily the fact that Gant was moving while I was flinching from the bullets scoring the cabin wall next to my body. The bullet went wide and didn’t even slow Gant’s charge.

Well, this is it, Hunter. The thought echoed through my mind. This was the place I was going to die, a muddy, stinking hole in the middle of nowhere, just like I’d always imagined it would be.

My next thought: you’re not dead yet.

With my left hand I tugged out the 12-gauge and swung it on the advancing man, giving him both barrels.

The shotgun boomed like a canon.

Gant’s legs were thrown from under him and he went spread-eagled in the mud, his gun sliding away from him in the filth. In the mist above him I could see a distinct red haze.

Go to him. Finish the bastard once and for all.

I heard Beth howl.

Then another voice, feeble but close by.

Glancing at Don Griffiths, I saw him roll over on to his back. There was a large red stain on the front of his coat, another near his left hip. Don craned up so that he could see me, and his face was white.

‘The little ones, Hunter, check that my grandchildren are OK.’

Without further debate I raced to the cabin door and into the gloomy interior. Across the way Millie was shielding the two children, their eyes and mouths wide ovals. That was all I’d time to take in before something looped over my head, encircled my throat and was drawn tight. Blackness edged my vision immediately, followed a second later by the agony of savagely twisting flesh. A knee jammed into the small of my back.

Absurdly I thought: at least I’m not going to die in the mud.

Both my guns clattered on the floorboards. Empty, they were a hindrance, but that wasn’t why I dropped them; I simply lacked the strength to hold on to them any longer. I lifted my fingers to the loop around my throat, tried to dig my fingers under the constricting coil, but had no hope of that. My killer knew exactly what he was doing.

I sagged, strength failing completely as pressure built within my skull. This was how the rooster-crowing man must have felt as I throttled him to death in the Seven-Eleven car park.

My mind was a scarlet sea now, waves crashing against the insides of my skull. The scarlet darkened to black.

Suddenly I was face down on the floor with no memory of drifting from one place to the other. No transition occurred between space and time, just as if my body had been jumped to this new position by the click of a magician’s fingers. Gagging and retching, I sucked in life-giving oxygen. My throat was a circle of fire. I coughed and spluttered then heaved in a great gust of air.

Instinct made me grope for the KA-BAR, my only remaining weapon, but my fingers were crushed to the boards by the sole of a boot. I still didn’t have the strength, let alone the presence of mind, to fight back, and could only growl out in pain as the bones of my recently broken hand were ground under the pressure. A hand groped at my clothing and snatched the KA-BAR out of my grasp. Thankfully the pressure on my hand was relieved and finally I rolled over on to my back to blink up at my captor.

My eyes were streaming with tears, but even so I recognised the pompadour sticking out from the top of the young man’s head.

He gave me a lopsided grin. Then he said, ‘You, my friend, are under arrest.’

‘You’re fucking kidding me! You’re a cop?’

The young greaser shook his head as he kicked away the shotgun and lifted my SIG from the ground. He waved it loosely in my direction. ‘Nope, I’m FBI. Special Agent Vincent at your service.’

Taking in the black leather, the jeans, the pompadour and his spare features, I snorted at the young man. ‘Tell me your first name is Gene if you dare.’

Vince’s lip turned up. ‘ “Be-Bop-A-Lula”? Ha, you made the connection, right? None of those skinhead assholes would have had a clue. They think I’m called Vince Everett, but, no, my real name’s Stephen Vincent.’

‘Vince Everett? You were taking a risk calling yourself that. Any Elvis fan knows his movie characters.’

‘Sounds like you know your music history,’ Vince said. ‘Gant and those other idiots had other things on their mind.’

‘So have I,’ I said, nodding over at the Griffiths children staring back at us.

Vince nodded in confirmation. ‘I’m with you, buddy.’

‘Hunter.’

‘Hunter?’

‘That’s my name. Joe Hunter. You said I was under arrest. That’s generally a cop’s next question, isn’t it?’ I massaged my throat, worked my aching fingers. Vince’s heels had taken skin off the knuckles. The garrotte still hung limp in his hands. ‘Strange equipment you carry, Special Agent.’

‘Just part of the cover, man.’ He stuffed the garrotte out of sight.

Gave me the opportunity to roll up on to my haunches.

‘Stay right there, Hunter. I don’t want to shoot you after all this.’

I shrugged. ‘Mind showing me some identification?’

‘Left it in my other jeans, I’m afraid.’ Vince looked over at Millie and the kids. ‘Everything is OK now. Relax. You’re going to be safe.’

‘You attacked me,’ Millie said in a small voice.

Vince straightened up a little, inhaling. ‘You didn’t give me a chance to explain, Millie. I was going to introduce myself when you threw that goddamn cat in my face. Well, after that, things just went a little haywire, didn’t they?’

‘You had that noose with you. You were about to strangle me.’

‘I was just keeping up the act. One of Gant’s people was outside watching. I was going to pull you away from the window with it. Get you out of the way.’

‘The girl with the spiky hair…’

‘Sonya Madden,’ Vince confirmed. His eyes pinched as he said the name.

‘Speaking of whom, what happened to her?’

Vince turned and saw that I’d come silently to my feet. He flinched, and lifted the gun. My hands were raised, a sign for Vince to relax.

Vince said, ‘She died. Or more rightly, you killed her when you made me swerve into that goddamn cabin down on the road.’

I lifted my eyebrows, pursed my lips. ‘I would’ve preferred it if that hadn’t happened. But she was shooting at us at the time.’

‘You’re pleading self-defence?’

I nodded at the children. ‘I was trying to save their lives. Seeing as the FBI was conspicuous by their absence.’

‘First opportunity I had I called for back-up. They’re on their way here now.’

‘So in the meantime it was down to me to do everything I could to save these children.’

‘Hell, you went through them like a one-man army.’

I just looked at the young man.

Vince stared back into my eyes, and said, ‘The thing that concerns me is that you don’t look like you give a good goddamn about any of them. Jesus, Hunter, how many of them have you taken down?’

‘I lost count,’ I admitted. ‘Not that I’ll put that on record.’