Paul Johnston - Maps of Hell

The figure, which I now see is dressed completely in black, levels a compact machine-pistol at me and empties the magazine in a burst of sound. My dive behind the kitchen bar saves me, though I feel a heavy blow on one of legs. Then I see a round object bounce off the surface of the bar and drop by my legs. Grenade. I grab it and toss it back. There is a loud explosion and more dust comes over me in a wave. My ears are ringing. All I know is that my lover is in the bedroom and at least one of the intruders will also be there by now. I grab my blade and go round the end of the bar. A badly mutilated body is motionless on the floor. I don’t waste time with the helmet and keep going.

But before I reach my bedroom door, a figure in black backs out, hands in the air. When the point of the swordstick pierces the leather biker’s jacket, the intruder stops abruptly. I look beyond and see my blonde lover. She’s naked and is holding a a ridiculously small pair of nail scissors.

I stare at her, my hearing gradually returning.

“What’s that, Matt?” she asks, catching sight of my blade.

“I could ask you the same question.” I slip the catch from the strap on the figure’s neck and wrestle the helmet off. The intruder is a shaven-headed black man whom I don’t recognize. I hear police sirens coming near. The occupants of my block aren’t used to explosions at night.

“Watch him,” I say to my lover. I go back to the prone figure and pull off the helmet. Another man, this one white and very dead.

“Who put you on us?” I shout to the other guy.

He doesn’t reply. I know he won’t ever reply. The Soul Collector will have made very clear what she’ll do to his family if he talks. She’ll also have deposited a large sum in a secret account for when he gets out of jail.

Afterward, when the police have finally gone, I sit with my arm around my lover’s shoulders. We’re drinking twelve-year-old malt whiskey, but it isn’t doing much to fill the emptiness we’re feeling. Sara Robbins will never let us live an ordinary life. Sooner or later I’ll have to get her off my back for good.

Although my ears are still ringing, I can hear the seagull knocking from time to time on the spare bedroom window.

Death has flown away by night. But I know she’ll be back…

When I came round, I insisted that I do some more driving. I’d had enough of what my memory had been dredging up, not least because I couldn’t be sure how much of it to believe. I preferred to concentrate on the road.

Mary fell asleep and I carried on southward. I didn’t know how long she was out.

“Where are we?” she said, yawning.

“Southern New York, not too far from New Jersey. I just saw a sign to West Point.”

She smiled. “Did that mean anything to you, Mr. Englishman?”

Strangely enough, it did-one of the seemingly irrelevant pieces of knowledge my haphazard memory had clung on to. I must have watched too many trashy war films.

“Listen, Matt,” Mary said, “you really need to get some sleep.”

I nodded. My arms were tight and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.

“It’ll be dark in an hour or so. We should be able to find an out-of-the-way motel.” She smiled at me. “We can make an early start in the morning.”

“We don’t have to do anything,” I said. “I can hitch to Washington from here easily enough. You should get back to Sparta.”

She gave a bitter laugh. “No, thanks. I’ve had enough shit from the law.”

That caught my attention. “Really? That sounds a bit unusual for a primary schoolteacher.”

Mary shot me a chilly look. “Curiosity killed the cat and all her kittens, Matt.”

“Pardon me. I was just trying to get to know you better.”

“And what would be the point of that?” she demanded. “You’re making it very clear that you don’t want me around.”

I sighed. “It isn’t that, Mary. This is going to get dangerous.”

“Like it hasn’t been already. Those weren’t blanks Stu was firing at us.”

“All right, all right,” I said, raising a hand. “We’ll talk about it when we stop.”

An uneasy silence prevailed. It was Mary who broke it.

“If you must know, those Texan assholes weren’t the first men to take me around the back of the houses.” She kept her eyes away from mine.

I recalled what Mary’s mother had said about her daughter’s emotional fragility.

“I’m…I’m not good at…at relationships,” she said. “But sometimes I have…needs. I go to the bar and get hit on. I like it till it gets to the point where I have to…I have to get to it…then I can’t go through with it.” She let out a long sob.

I stretched out my hand, but all that did was make her cry even more desperately.

“You see?” she stammered. “You’re no different from the others. I suppose you think I’m just some screwed-up neurotic.”

I touched her shoulder. “No, I don’t. I couldn’t have got away without your help. Why should I have negative thoughts about you?” I framed what I said as carefully as I could. “Look, we need to break the journey. Let’s find somewhere to sleep soon. We’ll both feel better in the morning. Then we can decide what we’re going to do.”

The sobbing stopped and Mary looked across at me, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. She smiled weakly. “Thank you, Matt. I knew as soon as I saw you that you were different from the others.”

I couldn’t argue with that. It would have been amazing if she’d ever encountered a partial amnesiac toting an assault rifle and two Glocks before. But I needed to be careful and not encourage her too much.

There was a sign for a motel not long afterward. The place was set back from the road with dense trees to the rear and not many vehicles parked outside.

“You’d better stay here,” Mary said, rummaging in her bag. “I’ll see if they can live without ID and pay in advance by cash.”

I watched her go toward reception and then got out of the pickup, my hand on the Glock in my belt. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. I checked the area. There was no sign of anything suspicious. I watched Mary come out of the building, telling myself to be careful with her. I wished I’d specified that I wanted a room on my own, but I didn’t have the means to pay for one and didn’t want to antagonize her.

As she got closer, I saw she was holding up two keys. I gave a sigh of relief.

“We’re in the corner rooms over there,” she said, pointing to the far left of the building.

I drove the pickup over, parking it as far from the lights as I could, and front end out so we could make a quick getaway if necessary. We took the food inside and ate in the room Mary had taken. Mine was right on the corner.

“Right,” I said when we’d finished the potato salad and cold cuts. “I’m going to have a shower and then crash out. I should be awake by daybreak. We’ll get going then.”

She nodded, watching me as I went to the door. “Is that it, Matt?” she said, with an uncertain smile.

“What?” I played dumb. “Oh, sorry. Thanks a lot, Mary. You saved my ass. Good night.” I closed the door behind me and went to the pickup. I reckoned having the assault rifle in my room was safer.

I was still wet from the shower when Mary made her move. There was a soft knocking on the door. I groaned and wrapped a towel round my waist. She was a good-looking woman and I’d have happily frolicked with her if there hadn’t been two problems-one, the blonde woman I loved and, two, the fact that Mary was emotionally fragile. Reluctantly, I took the chain off and opened up.

She slipped past me before I could react. I turned and saw her on the bed. She’d been wearing only a towel, too, but now it was on the floor. She was lying with her legs raised and slightly apart. The breasts that I’d suspected were spectacular turned out to be so. But it was her face I couldn’t avoid, an expression that was a mixture of desire and anxiety. For all her physical allure, Mary was a sad spectacle.