Scott Andrews - School's Out Forever

“Good girl,” said my captor. “Now, which way to the main gate?”

“I only got here today, I’m not sure. I can’t direct you. I could probably walk you there, though.”

He tightened his grip. “Not good enough.”

He fell silent, thinking it over. As he did so the bushes rustled and another man, the parachutist, joined us. He was dressed entirely in black, almost invisible. It was only when I saw his thick leather gloves that I realised that both men had fallen out of the sky. My captors shared a brief, whispered conference.

“All right,” said the new guy, also a Yank. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re gonna walk us to the gate. We’ll stay in the shadows, but we’ll be watching you. If you try to shout out or run, you’re dead.”

To illustrate the point he pulled out a handgun and slowly screwed a silencer into the barrel.

“Joe’s a really good shot,” added the man holding the knife to my throat, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “You should remember that. Now go.”

He withdrew the knife and released me. I knelt there for a moment, composing myself, then I got up and walked back to the path, brushing the dirt from my knees. So much for karaoke, I thought, as I stood in a pool of orange light, rearranging my dress and getting my bearings. I didn’t doubt the ruthlessness or ability of the men who were threatening me. Plus, they’d bloody parachuted here. I’d not seen a contrail in two years, so that implied all sorts of things. I decided to play along until something clever occurred to me or an opportunity presented itself. Which it did almost immediately.

“There you are,” boomed a voice to my left. I turned to see Sanders striding towards me wearing shirt and jeans, a bottle of lager in his hand. “I wondered what was keeping you. Lost?”

I nodded. Shit, would they just kill him? Sanders walked up to me and held out his arm. I slipped mine through his and said, “Let’s take a walk.”

He seemed unsure, eager to get back to the singing, but his guard was down, he wasn’t expecting trouble, and a woman wanted to spend time with him. He smiled. “All right,” he said. “But there is no escape, sooner or later you get to hear my Ace of Spades .”

“I’ve already seen your ace in the hole, Sanders. It wasn’t all that.”

“Hey!”

As we began walking, I caught a tiny flash of movement out of the corner of my eye, a shift in the shadows, black on black. We were being stalked.

I gripped his arm way too tightly and increased the pace. He gave me a curious look and I tried to signal with my eyes that something was up. But it was dark and he was slightly drunk. Sanders the soldier was off duty, this was Sanders the boozed-up Motörhead fan. I wondered how long the two Yanks would allow this to continue before they got trigger happy. I needed to stall.

“Let’s take a walk to the medical centre,” I said. “I want to look in on Caroline.”

“Okay,” he replied, giving my arm a squeeze of sympathy.

“It’s by the main gate, isn’t it?” I asked, slightly too loud.

“Um yeah, it’s this way,” he answered.

He led the way and we walked in silence for a minute or two. I caught no hint of our pursuers. They were good, whoever they were.

“You look beautiful,” said Sanders as we passed a row of silent tanks.

“Well, thanks for the clothes and stuff,” I said, lamely.

“You’re welcome. You wear them well.”

For the love of Mike, Sanders, you dope.

We ambled on a bit more, then I had an idea. If I pulled him into an embrace the gunmen would know I was up to something. But if he pulled me close they wouldn’t be sure, and I could whisper in his ear.

“Well,” I said, as if suddenly shy, “I’m only wearing them for you.” I moved my hand along his forearm and laced my fingers through his. He looked down at me, surprised, as I stroked his thumb gently with my index finger.

“I’m honoured,” he said, smiling but a little awkward.

“You should be. It’s not every day I make such an effort.” Oh this was painful. I was spouting bad dialogue from a Meg Ryan movie.

“You don’t need to make an effort, Jane.” Now he was at it.

I moved fractionally closer, so our thighs brushed together as we walked.

“Look, I can’t keep calling you Sanders. What’s your proper name?”

“Neil.”

“Neil, I want to make an effort for you. Last night was… special.”

“That’s a relief. It’s been a while. I was, um, married. Y’know, before. My Chrissie.”

No, this is supposed to be a seduction, you twit. Don’t get drunk and maudlin.

“Kiss me,” I whispered urgently as we walked around a corner into the road that led to the medical centre. He kept walking. He hadn’t heard me. Oh, fuck this. I never was much of a femme fatale. I dug my fingernail into his palm, hard, and he stopped, baffled.

“Kiss me,” I whispered again. Finally the great lunk wrapped me in his arms and stuck his tongue down my throat. We were lucky — the men following us must have thought he’d done it on the spur of the moment. They held their fire. Sanders tasted of Grolsch and Marlboro, which brought back hazy memories of another life.

As soon as I was able, I broke the liplock and hugged him hard. Then I whispered in his ear: “Two men. Silencers. Bushes. Main gate.” He stiffened and then relaxed, on duty again. He disengaged, wrapped his arm around my waist, and we continued walking. He didn’t seem to be looking around, but I was sure he was trying to get a bead on our stalkers.

“Y’know, Jane, you’re a piece of work,” he said, slightly too loud. His acting was pitiful, I only hoped the darkness would compensate.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Once you turned the corner, after you left the school, I really thought you’d fall in with a bad lot.”

Ah-ha, I thought, so that’s why he was never recruited by MI5. I rolled my eyes.

“Yes, but I had you to keep me on the straight and narrow, didn’t I?” I improvised. Then, as we turned the corner on to the road that led to the main gate, I fell to my left, rolling off the pavement and on to the grass verge. Sanders turned and ran to his right. I heard the soft phutt phutt of a silenced automatic, and saw a tiny muzzle flare from the spot Sanders was running towards (“rush a gun, flee a knife” said Cooper, in my head). He held out his hand as he ran, smashing his lager bottle on a lamppost and then bringing it up to use as a weapon. The gun fired once more, then Sanders vanished into the undergrowth, which rustled and shook.

I heard a cry of “stitch this!” and a grunt.

I leapt to my feet and ran for the main gate, forgetting that I was wearing heels. My right ankle went from under me and I sprawled on to the concrete, scraping my knees and hands. I reached down to undo the straps and as I did so the other Yank was on me, straddling me, rolling me over on to my back and bringing his knife down to my chest. I grabbed his descending arm with my right hand as my left continued to fumble with the strap on my shoe and pulled, releasing the catch. Then I grabbed the sole, brought my arm up and plunged the heel of my shoe into my attacker’s ear as hard as I could.

He toppled slowly to his right, falling into the road. I got up, reached down, and pulled the shoe. It came out with a wet sucking sound. Waste of a perfectly good pair of shoes.

The camp was quiet, no-one aware of the struggle that had taken place. I needed to raise the alarm. I looked over my shoulder, and saw that the bushes Sanders had run into were still and silent. I got my bearings — I was right outside the medical centre. There were bound to be people in there, I was about to run and start banging on the door when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I yelped and spun around, swinging my shoe as a weapon. Sanders caught it in his great paw and I sighed.