Scott Andrews - School's Out Forever

Kate met James’ eyes and she saw all the hope vanish in an instant, replaced by total despair. Spider reached into his jacket and pulled out a huge hunting knife, shiny and sharp. He turned and walked over to James and caressed his cheek with the sharp edge, tenderly.

“I like you, James,” said Spider.

“I, I like you too, Boss,” James stammered.

“You have kept me amused far longer than most lovers, but I don’t think you do like me. Not really,” replied Spider, who was now standing close to James, pressed up close to him. “I think you are scared of me. And that is how I like it. The one thing my lieutenant and I have in common is that we both know there is no enjoyment to be had from fucking someone who is not scared of you.”

Kate found her voice at last. “Stop this. Please,” she said, rising to her feet. “He’s done nothing wrong. It’s me you’ve got the problem with, Spider. There’s no reason to hurt him.”

“What do you think, James?” asked the Serbian, standing behind the terrified young man, chin resting on his shoulder, knife pressed up against his temple.

James had nothing to say.

“Do you think I should kill you? Or perhaps your sister?” There was no reply. “Petar wants her. You know what he would do to her.”

Tears began to stream down James’ cheeks but still he stayed silent.

“You still need me to examine the new shipment of girls,” said Kate, desperately.

Spider shook his head. “Once I learnt of your betrayal I diverted that container. To the bottom of a river.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” said Kate, using the only bargaining chip she had left. “I know the policeman who’s running the operation. I can lead you to him.”

“Do you mean DI Cooper?” he laughed. “We know all about him. What else you got?”

Kate had nothing else.

“Thought so,” said Spider.

Then he pushed the knife through the thin bone plate on the side of James’ head, straight into his brain.

SHE DOESN’T REMEMBER what happened next. All that survives is a sound; a low keening that goes on forever and ever. The second the knife went in, the world went black and her mind stopped creating memories.

The woman who gradually became aware of her surroundings however many hours later was a different person. Someone as yet unnamed. Someone at whose very core nestled a cold, hard knot of calm determination and resolve. Someone with only one thought in her head.

Vengeance.

THE WORLD CAME to the woman a piece at a time.

First it was the faint smell of burning hops. Then the sound of her own breathing. She floated in a dark void, examining the smell and the sound for a long time before her body began to send back signals that told her she was lying on a bed. Then there was a taste of stale wine and bile. Finally, she opened her eyes.

The world looked… different. The room was monochrome — black walls, white nurse’s outfit hanging from the white hook on the inside of the door, shiny grey buckles on the straps that adorned the sturdy black wooden cross, white trolley with black implements strewn across it — whips, dildos, clamps and catheters. But even despite the lack of colour, the woman who awoke on that bed (and was it a waking, truly? Had she been asleep or just comatose? Had she really opened her eyes or had her optic nerves instead rebooted themselves after a long shutdown?) somehow knew that even had the room been painted in fluorescent colours they would have seemed muted.

The way she saw the world had literally changed.

The bed springs creaked as she sat up. She had been expecting a headache, but her head was clear and her senses were sharp. There were no windows in this dark place. The only illumination came from four uplighters, one in each corner of the room.

She stood up and checked the door, knowing it was locked but determined to be thorough. She then turned to assess the room, methodically cataloguing its contents in her mind searching for a means of attack or something she could use to defend herself.

She noted the absence of panic, but did not think it worthy of further examination.

The trolley offered the best hope, but there was nothing there that could be of genuine use. The cat o’ nine tails lacked the sharp stones that would have rendered it really painful, and she did not think beating a man around the head with a giant black rubber cock would do anything but provoke laughter.

Perhaps if she pushed the trolley itself at whoever entered, it would unbalance them long enough to give her an opening. But when she tried to move it forwards the wheels squealed alarmingly and refused to move.

She made no further progress before she heard a key turn in the lock. She stepped away from the trolley and into the only really clear area in the centre of the room. If she was going to fight, this was all the space she would have to do it in.

The door opened and the giant stepped inside. The woman who was no longer Kate abandoned all thought of fighting.

He closed the door behind him, not bothering to lock it. He knew there was no way she was getting past him.

She stood there, impassive, as he removed his jacket and hung it on the hook, covering the nurse’s outfit. He then removed his shirt, revealing an acreage of tattooed chest that was twice the woman’s width from shoulder to shoulder. He hung the shirt over the jacket.

He stepped forward and reached out his huge right hand, wrapping the fingers around her throat and lifting her off the ground with a single outstretched arm. He brought her face close to his as she choked. She felt his warm breath on her cheek as he examined her closely. Then he relaxed his grip and she collapsed in a heap at his feet, gasping for air. He turned his back on her, stepped to the door and removed a huge bayonet from the inside of his hanging jacket.

“Stand,” he said. The woman did so.

He stepped forward and inserted the bayonet under the bottom of her t-shirt. He ripped the blade upwards and the cloth parted before it like butter meeting a hot knife. The bayonet was so sharp, she thought, you probably wouldn’t realise you’d been stabbed until you looked down and saw the hilt sticking out.

The blunt edge felt cold against her skin as it rushed up from her belly to her throat.

When the t-shirt had been split from waist to neck, it fell off her. She stood in her bra, facing this enormous man, knowing exactly what he intended to do to her, and still she felt no fear.

She remembered the dojo, she recalled the moves she’d been taught in a draughty hut in Camden, and she knew that all that training was useless. If he came at her with some momentum, she could perhaps have used it against him. But the room was too small; he had no need of speed. If he had been smaller, she could have tried to throw him from a standing start, but she hadn’t been able to throw Sanders who, big as he was, was slight in comparison.

Her best chance, she realised, was the bayonet.

“Rush a gun, flee a knife,” Sanders had told her. “If you run at a person who’s trying to shoot you, you force them to fire quickly and without time to aim properly. You have a better chance that they’ll miss you than if you turn and run. But a knife is different. It’s only lethal in close quarters and once you’ve got a hand to it, it can move both ways. You’d be amazed how many stab victims are killed with their own blades.”

The woman focused all her attention on the blade. This man was too strong to wrestle with, but even so she had a slim chance of turning his weapon against him. To do that she had to know exactly where it was, how it was angled, where it was pointed at all times.

He reached down and unbuckled her belt, pulling it out in one fluid movement, cracking it like a whip, and tossing it over his shoulder into the corner.