Matt Hilton - Slash and burn

I was mulling that thought over when I heard the roar of an engine. Instinct made me snatch at the SIG beneath my shirt-tails and I came close to drawing and firing at the clutch of men on the back of the pick-up truck. Instead I merely hung my head and concentrated on keeping hold of my grocery sack. Anyone who'd looked me in the face was already dead. I doubted any of the men on the back of the pick-up would see anything more than a guy on his way home from the store.

As they passed I took a look at the men on the back. They were young hot-bloods. If they weren't hunting me through the woods they'd likely be sitting round swilling beer and heckling the local cops. The two inside were older, but they had the same look as their younger friends, only a little more grizzled and world-weary. Not one of them looked my way.

The thought of following the vehicle to wherever they were heading skipped through my mind, but the feasibility of following on foot was laughable. The image they portrayed, I guessed that they were familiar faces in town, so I decided to wait. I could always ask around later.

Then I saw the two dark SUVs coming towards me.

The first SUV was banged and scraped all along the side: the one I'd barged out of the way when breaching their roadblock.

The second of the vehicles would still contain the blood and brain matter of the two I'd shot and I wondered who was so desperate that they'd drive such a vehicle back. Of course, there was at least one man who didn't have a ride: the big guy I'd pistol-whipped, then stolen his truck.

The second SUV was slowing as it neared me. The man had never seen my face, so I wasn't concerned that he was slowing down because he'd recognised me. Maybe he was simply looking for someone to vent his frustration on. Adjusting my bag of groceries, I quickly dipped a hand under my jacket and pulled free the SIG. Concealing the weapon behind the bag, I continued walking.

The SUV was almost parallel with me now. It was now travelling at a crawl and the driver had sent it over the central markings so that it headed directly for me. My pulse picked up exponentially. My finger tightened on the trigger.

'Hey, asshole!' a man shouted at me from the passenger window. 'You gonna move your fuckin' ass? Can't you see we're trying to pull in?'

Two things were apparent in the split second it took to relax the tension on my gun's trigger. I was standing at the entrance to an alleyway and the man shouting at me wasn't the same one as I'd brained with my gun barrel.

If it was possible, this man was even bigger and more powerfully built than the man in the woods. He had his hair shaved up the sides and back with a crest of hair on top like a grown-out Mohawk. He looked pissed at my inconsiderate blocking of the road and he'd twisted his face into a mask of rage. When he glared at me I saw that there was something unusual about his eyes. A touch of the David Bowie look.

'Don't make me get out this truck,' the giant shouted at me. 'Move your fuckin' ass!'

I gave him a weary nod, stepped up on to the kerb. I watched as the SUV swung into the alley, my eyes on the driver now. I'd only seen his face in darkness, and a relaxed state of unconsciousness, but there was no doubting that the driver and the man I'd knocked out were one and the same. Judging by the dark stain on his jacket the cut on his skull was still bleeding.

As he gave the SUV throttle and drove down the alley, I moved off the kerb and watched the vehicle's progress. The alley ran between two tall buildings. Even in the darkness I could make out a loading dock about a hundred yards down. The SUV stopped, brake lights flaring, and the big man with the mismatched eyes got out. He reached for something that I guessed was a padlock. His curses were discernible even at that distance. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a roller shutter forcefully thrust upwards.

Serendipity.

I put down the bag, held my SIG against my thigh, then walked along the alley.

When he'd wakened from his enforced slumber, Larry Bolan should have been apoplectic with rage. However, surfacing from the thick cloud of confusion with his brother patting his cheeks, he found he was only mildly annoyed. Some of the turnaround in his mood had to be down to the fact he was still alive, but even more to the fact that he would get another chance at killing this man. A bullet in the dark would have been too painless. This way he got to do it with his hands.

'Your head's split wide,' Trent remarked, helping him to his feet.

Larry touched the cuts on his skull. 'Tell me about it.'

A rifle cracked almost by Larry's ear and he flinched from the noise. Looking towards the trail, he caught a glimpse of tail lights as the Grand Taurino sped round the curve.

Larry looked at the tall youth with the smoking rifle.

Without warning, he grabbed the boy's throat between his massive fingers and squeezed. The boy was lifted off the ground, toes scrabbling for purchase on the dirt.

'The hell you doing shooting at my wheels, Jeb?' he roared in the youth's purpling face. Then he tossed Jeb aside and the gangly youth cartwheeled into the nearby bushes. He landed awkwardly on his back, twisted among branches.

Larry and Trent stomped down on to the road. Looking in the direction where their vehicle had disappeared, they both stood in silence. Behind them, the rest of their friends dragged Jeb out of the undergrowth.

Larry turned and looked dispassionately at the dazed youth. 'You OK, Jeb?'

Jeb nodded in confusion, wiping at scratches on his forehead.

'Be thankful I'm not in a bad mood,' Larry told him. Then turning to the group of men surrounding him, he warned, 'Any of you motherfuckers mess up again, believe me, I'll rip your fucking heads off.'

The men all nodded in acquiescence.

'Any of you idiots got a phone with a signal?'

One man handed over his phone. 'One bar only, but it might be enough, Larry.'

'Go get the fucking cars,' Larry told the men. 'We ain't achieving nothing standing round here, are we?'

The men scattered, and only Trent was with his brother as he reported in to Huffman.

'How did he take it?' Trent asked when Larry hung up.

'In his usual way,' Larry said. 'He's bringing in some help for us.'

'We don't need help.'

Larry touched the tender spots on his head. 'No,' he said.

Before they returned to town, they backtracked up the hill. They laid out the four dead men in the living room of Imogen Ballard's house, then Trent got busy with a can of gasoline off the pick-up. Flames fought back the flurries of snow falling on the disintegrating A-frame.

Sending the others ahead, Larry and Trent commandeered Tom-Boy's SUV.

'It's full of shit,' Trent complained as he surveyed the blood and tissue sprayed through the interior.

'It'll clean up back at the shop,' Larry said.

As was the norm, Larry drove.

They caught up with the others at the pass. Trent got out the SUV armed with his can of gasoline and doused the Ford Explorer. Then there were two fires raging on the mountainside.

Good job it's winter, Larry thought, otherwise Trent'd probably burn the entire forest down. Trent's growing fascination with flames was another thing that concerned Larry about his strange sibling.

Trent grumbled all the way to town, brushing at drips falling on him from the roof.

'I ain't cleaning this fucking thing,' he told Larry about a dozen times before they reached Little Fork.

Larry didn't bother arguing. His head felt like someone was beating it with a hammer and all he wanted was to get back to their workshop where he could find something to take away the pain.

They'd left the snow up in the hills, but it was still a gloomy night. Not too many people out on the streets. The others continued on, but Larry slowed the vehicle as they approached the back alley that led to the workshop where they'd customised the Dodge. A guy with a bag of groceries was standing in the mouth of the alley, watching them warily.