Scott Andrews - School_s Out

I pulled Matron behind me and dashed for the stairwell. We feel through the door and it closed behind us. We'd made it unseen.

It was only when I stopped inside the door that I realised I had run along the landing. Adrenalin is a great painkiller, but I knew I'd pay for that later. I could hear footsteps coming up the stairs below us; someone taking the back route to the fire. Matron and I flew down the flight of stairs and flung ourselves through the door of the next floor down, just in time to avoid being seen.

My leg buckled underneath me, and Matron helped me along the corridor to the San, which was almost directly beneath the burning dormitory. Smoke was beginning to seep through the ceiling from above.

"We don't have much time," I said. "Someone will be coming to get me to safety soon. They can't find you here and they mustn't suspect that I can walk yet. Help me into bed." Matron did so, and her hands came away from my leg covered in blood. She gasped.

"Lee, you must let me see to this, you could be crippled."

"No time. Now take the gun and go. Run. Find somewhere and hole up. This school isn't safe for you any more and I can't deal with Mac if he has you hostage. So go, please."

She hefted the Browning. Then she popped out the clip, checked it was loaded, slammed it home, cocked the gun, chambered a round and slipped off the safety catch. She knew exactly what she was doing. How the hell was a boarding school matron so familiar with a firearm?

"I'm not going anywhere." She was breathing hard and even through the bruises there was no mistaking the look of fury and determination on her face.

"And what are you going to do?" I demanded. "Shoot them all? You don't stand a chance. There are six of them, not to mention Mac, and after what they've done do you think they'll hesitate to shoot you? This school needs you – I need you – to be safe, so that when we finally get rid of that fucker you're there to help us pick up the pieces."

Her eyes burned with hatred, but I could see she was beginning to hesitate. I pressed my advantage.

"If you go after him now you'll be dead within the hour. Or worse – locked up again. Please, just run."

She hesitated, her hand upon my arm. If I'd been in her shoes I don't know if I'd have been able to beat down the desire for vengeance, but somehow I got through to her. I looked up at her ruined face and saw tears of frustration welling out of her swollen eyes.

I had so much I wanted to say to her but this was not the time.

"Please, Jane, just run. Be safe."

She leaned down and kissed me gently on the lips.

"You too," she said, and ran out the door.

I thought she'd make straight for freedom, but once again I'd underestimated her determination. In fact she took refuge in a deserted classroom until the early hours of the morning and then crept out to implement her plan.

The boys were sleeping in five dorms of about ten each, and each dorm had one officer sleeping there as well, as a deterrent against night-time escape attempts. But the four girls who had taken shelter at the school slept in their own dorm, along with the old aunt and one grandmother. They were unguarded and in a different part of Castle to the boys.

Under cover of darkness Matron snuck in, woke them, got their bags packed and provided armed escort as they slipped silently out of the school and into the night. Although prepared to forgo her revenge, she nonetheless ensured that no other girl or woman would have to endure what she had.

When I found out about Matron's night raid I couldn't help but smile. She was certainly audacious. I didn't want to think about where she and the girls were going or how they'd fare. All I knew was that they were safer elsewhere, and were one less factor I had to consider when it came to planning Mac's downfall.

However, I needed Matron's medical skills more than ever; my leg was wrecked. The stitches had split, the wound was oozing blood and the pain was unspeakable. I started to worry about things like gangrene and amputation. I did the best I could to sort myself out with antiseptic, fresh stitches and dressings.

Have you ever stitched your own wound? I don't recommend it. Once I was finished I lay back and hoped for the best. With any luck I'd be able to stay off it for a while now, and would be able to let it heal.

The big question now was what would happen to Bates. We got our answer the next morning, and it was worse than anything I could have imagined.

Behind the main school building were two sports pitches and a cricket square, all ringed by woods. The school had favoured rugby over football, and there were huge H-shaped rugby posts at either end of each pitch. Mac had a detail of boys cut down one of the rugby goals, dismantle it and reassemble it in the shape of a cross, which lay flat, ready to be re-erected using one of the vacated postholes.

He was going to crucify Bates.

"We can't let this happen," said Norton, urgently, when the truth became apparent. We were sitting in the San staring out of the window at the ghastly construction and all it represented. "If we let him do this then… I don't know what. But it ain't good."

"And how do you suggest we stop him?" I replied. "He has a cadre of permanently armed boys who are fiercely loyal. At first through stupidity and now, after what they did to Matron, they're as guilty as he is and they know it. He owns them and I don't think they'll hesitate to shoot any one of us dead if Mac orders it. Not now."

Norton nodded. "I've asked around, as discreetly as I can, but no-one saw anything that night. I can't find out which boys went into that room."

Alone in the San, my mind focused by the pain, I'd had plenty of time to dwell on what had happened to Matron. "Come to take your turn?" she'd asked. At first the implication of that question made me sick with horror, but then, as the long night wore on that disgust turned into a deep burning pit of anger, a fury I didn't know I had it in me to feel. It changed me. It made things simple.

"Then we assume they all did," I said. "Every one of those bastards is responsible for what happened to Matron, and every single one of them will pay for it. They crossed a line when they went into that room. He initiated them."

I was actually grateful for being bedridden, and that gratitude made me guilty. Had I been expected to participate I would have either gotten myself killed trying to prevent it, or been forced to take part at the point of a gun. I knew this, but still I felt that I should have been there to protect her, that I could have done something, anything.

"They're like him now," I went on. "He's made them that way, and we mustn't underestimate any one of them. They're loyal and stupid and, we now know, capable of pretty much anything. We have to be so careful. Play the long game."

"Bates won't be around that long."

"No," I admitted, matter of fact. "He probably won't be."

Norton looked at me askance.

"So we do nothing? We just let them do this?"

I looked at the cross and considered my options.

"No. No, we don't. But I can only see one course of action that doesn't get us crucified too. I don't like it, and neither will you."

All the blood drained from Norton's face as I told him what I wanted him to do.

"Coming to join the party?" asked Mac, as he pushed the wheelchair to my bedside. "I promise you, son, it's gonna be massive!"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, sir." I smiled my most feral smile and for the first time it didn't feel forced or fake. I felt like a hunter, felt that ruthlessness, that focus, that calm.

"Attaboy, Lee." He playfully punched me on the arm and then helped me into the chair. I didn't bother disguising my discomfort and pain; if my plan didn't work and I had to resort to plan B, I would need Mac to know just how bad my leg really was.