Michael Marshall - The Straw Men

'Actually, that's pretty good.'

The sliding sound stopped.

Nina pushed with everything she had. Her body slumped forward out of the chair. She was awkward, locked up, and toppled forward, crashing down onto the glass table in front of her. She knew she'd screwed it up, but she now could see the shadow over to her right.

Davids nodded. 'Ah. There you are.'

She hauled her hand up and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times.

There was only one shot in return, and it didn't hit her.

She waited a moment that lasted for ever, waited for the second shot. It didn't come. She pulled a

knee forward, pushed herself up, turned. On the floor six feet away was a body. Now that she was moving, the prospect of further movement

seemed almost credible, albeit bathed in a stunning white light of pain.

She planted her feet and tottered forward.

An old man with grey hair lay on the floor, he wasn't yet dead. She stood over him, bent at the waist.

Harold Davids looked back up at her.

'You make no difference,' he said, and then was silent.

Nina wasn't listening. She was looking at something that lay near the reception desk. Couldn't quite

make out what it was, so took a few steps forward. It was a small drum. It had cable on it. Cable that had been linked to a set of connectors built into the

reception desk, and that then went out the door.

The start of a new world.

She leaned on the desk and looked over, but there was no sign of anything that would act as a trigger.

It had to be triggered from somewhere else.

She made it as far as the parking lot before one of her legs gave out, dropping her hard onto the asphalt.

The new pain, along with the splattering of frigid rain bouncing back up into her face, was enough to cut through her confusion. She started to crawl toward the car.

I pulled Zandt back from going in the front door of the house. He was almost impossible to influence by now, but I knew we shouldn't go in the front way. I'd already stopped him from going back to pick up some of the bones, had to pull the man's head into mine and shout Sarah Becker's name, to remind him there might still be someone to find alive. It didn't really matter whether she was dead, not by this stage. She was just someone we had to find. I'd changed my mind by now. We were going into the house. Whatever happened. If the man was there, so much the better, but we had to walk the path to the end.

I pushed Zandt round the side of the house, where we found another door. It was locked. I wished Bobby was with us. He would have been able to open it quietly. I couldn't, so I warned Zandt with a hand sign and then just kicked it open.

We ran in. Nobody was there to meet us. We swarmed left up a half-staircase toward the front of the house, to where someone would have been waiting for us behind the main door. There was no one in the room, just a big old chair with its back to the door, and a fancy bureau in a strange mottled wood. We ran, covering each other, through a layout that was now familiar. Hesitated in the back reception. It was dark and quiet and cold. But not utterly silent.

From above we heard a sound. A thumping sound, muffled and distant.

We headed back around, through the kitchen, toward the central staircase. Upstairs there were four bedrooms, rugs on the floor. Nothing there. Bathrooms. Nothing. Study. Nothing. But still this sound from somewhere.

Back into the first bedroom. The sound was louder here. But now it seemed like it was coming from downstairs. Back into the second bedroom: the sound was quieter in here, but still sounded like it was coming from downstairs. I spun on the spot, gun waving, knowing that any moment someone was due to appear out of the shadows, that no one would have left a trap like this and not want to be there for the springing of it.

Zandt ran back into the first bedroom, dropped to his knees on the floor. 'It's coming from under here.'

'We're on the second floor,' I hissed, but then I heard the sound again and knew he was right.

We pulled the rug aside. Floorboards. A small hatch built into them. Zandt bloodied his fingers levering it up.

Underneath, the face of a girl. Pale, gaunt. Her forehead was livid purple from banging it up against the floor above her, for God knows how long. She was alive.

Sarah blinked. Deep in her mind it felt as if someone had lifted her head, raised it just enough that water was no longer going in her nose. Her mouth moved.

Zandt put his hand down and stroked her face. He said her name again and she nodded, barely able to move her head. Her eyes were red and swollen. Zandt bent close. She tried to speak again, and I could just hear a croaking whisper.

'What's she saying?'

'Watch out for knocking wood.' Zandt bent forward and pressed his forehead against hers, as if he was trying to pour warmth into it. The girl started to cry.

I jammed my hands under the lip of the boards at her neck and pulled. At first they didn't move. 'He's nailed them down,' I said. 'Jesus wept. Help me, Zandt.'

They came up, but slowly and one by one. The girl tried to push, to help, but she was far too weak and if she'd been able to do anything from her position she would have done it long ago.

When the last two splintered off, Zandt reached down, slipped his hands under her back, and lifted her up. He hauled her over his shoulder, and that's when she saw my face and started screaming.

Nina had to stand up. She knew she had to stand. She couldn't reach the handle from down here, let alone open it, never mind climb in. She had already noticed, from her very low vantage point, that the cable Davids had been rolling now stretched right the way across the parking lot and into the other building. The building where Bobby presumably lay. And she knew it would go out into the rest of the compound, that this was the final defence and perhaps more than that.

She rested her head on the asphalt again. Her right arm, the arm that had stood her in such good stead all these years, that had done all the things she had asked of it, was now on strike. It was a part of someone else, someone who wasn't on her side and was not listening to what she said. It alternated between feeling like a washing glove full of Jell-o and a claw made of charcoal. This was probably not a good sign.

Nina swallowed twice, raised her head. The ground underneath the car looked dry, drier at any rate than everywhere else. It was possible she could just crawl under there and rest for a while. That's a good idea, her body said, that's a very, very good idea. Even her right arm seemed to come to life at the prospect.

So she rolled onto her right elbow and lunged up with her left hand. The flash of pain spiked her mind clear for a second, and then suddenly she was on her feet. She fumbled at the door with her left hand,

couldn't work it, tried with her right — and was amazed that it did what she wanted. The door opened. She fell forward, tried to pull herself into the driver's seat. Couldn't do it. Pushed herself back onto

her feet, grabbed the wheel and stepped up. This time when she fell at least it was on the seat.

She dragged herself more or less upright, pulled the door shut. Scrabbled for the keys.

They weren't there.

'John, listen to me,' I said. 'She's sick. She doesn't know what she's saying.'

Zandt backed down the stairs away from me, his gun steady in front. Sarah was sheltered behind him, her arms looped tightly around his waist, both for protection and to hold herself up. She stumbled, nearly fell. Zandt had to turn to catch her, putting an arm around her shoulders and clamping her body to his. She had stopped screaming now, but only because her voice had dried to a rasp. The noise was still there inside her own head.