Luke Delaney - The Rule of Fear

‘Jesus Christ,’ he pleaded quietly as the adrenalin began to flow through his body, snapping him from the nightmare and allowing his training and experience to force his mind and body to act. But as he reached for his radio to call for an ambulance, a man came screaming from the house – his clothes and hands covered in blood, a kitchen knife held aloft above his head as he ran full pace straight towards King.

Without thinking, his instinct to save the girl made him turn his back on their screaming assailant – his own body becoming a human shield as he felt the first punch land on his shoulder. Only he knew it was more than just that – it was the knife being buried deep into his body. There was then a far more intense, violent pain as the knife was ripped from the muscle before he felt another punch, this time lower in his back, close to its centre, before once again the pain of the knife as it was torn from his body.

He screamed in pain and anger, the primeval response to fight for his life superseding all other emotions as he instinctively knew he had to react or die. He spun fast, brought the truncheon down hard on the madman’s kneecap, but it had no effect. It was as if the man hadn’t even felt it as again he plunged the knife towards him, only this time King was able to deflect it away as he pushed himself powerfully from the ground, launching his shoulder into the madman’s midriff, driving him backwards until they both lost their balance and clattered to the ground. The man took the brunt of the fall as the knife fell from his grip and skidded away across the pathway.

King didn’t hesitate in seizing the initiative, ignoring the pain and nausea sweeping through his body as he raised his metal truncheon and smashed it down over his attacker’s head, splitting his skin to the bone as blood instantly poured from the wound, but in his wildness the man didn’t even try to protect himself. Instead he clawed and grasped at King’s face until his hands found his throat and wrapped around it, constricting his breathing. Over and over again King brought the truncheon down on the man’s head and across his face until finally the man became human again and released his grip of King’s throat to use his hands to protect himself. But still King rained down the blows, all thoughts of reasonable force banished to another time until the man underneath him was nothing more than a moaning bloody pulp.

Near exhaustion, he rolled his attacker onto his belly and stretched his arms out to the nearby metal railing and handcuffed him to it. The fight for survival over, he instantly felt close to passing out, drawing in long deep breaths to steady himself, but he knew he had only minutes, if that, before his injuries overcame him and when that time came he would welcome it – a blissful escape from the pain and sickness into darkness, but not yet. He had to check the girl. He had to check the house.

He staggered to his feet, but could only manage a crouching walk as he crossed the short distance to the motionless girl, although it seemed a mammoth trek to him. He kneeled next to her and first touched the base of his own back where all he could feel was a warm oily liquid. When he looked at his hand it was soaked in the darkest red blood he could ever remember seeing. He shook the image away and pushed the fingers of his other hand firmly into the side of the girl’s neck, feeling for a pulse from her carotid artery. After a few seconds he found it – weak, but there – enough to spur him into tearing the bottom section of her dress clear and using it to press hard on the only wound he could find – a deep knife stab in her abdomen. He placed the little girl’s own hands across the desperate bandage to provide some weight and breathed a sigh of relief as the bleeding seemed to slow, although he knew that her only chance of survival was to get her to an A&E unit as fast as possible. Suddenly he remembered his radio – pressing the transmit button, he steeled himself to speak.

‘Officer needs urgent assistance and an ambulance on the hurry up at 15 Gillett Avenue.’ He waited for the response from Control.

‘ All units, officer needs urgent assistance at 15 Gillett Avenue. Repeat, officer needs urgent assistance at 15 Gillett Avenue .’ The female voice was then instantly followed by a cacophony of voices and call signs accepting the call to urgent assistance before Control spoke again. ‘ 914, are you injured at all? ’

He managed the smallest of ironic laughs as he looked at his bloodstained hand before answering. ‘Yes,’ he spoke into the radio. ‘Two, maybe more stab wounds.’

‘ Where have you been stabbed? ’ Control demanded.

‘In the back,’ he stuttered, his strength failing, giving him the urgency to press on. ‘I have to check the house.’

‘ Wait till we get back-up to you, 914 ,’ Control insisted. ‘ Stay out the house until we can get you some assistance .’

‘I can’t,’ he told them. ‘She said “They’re inside”. I have to know.’

‘ Wait for back-up, 914. Stay clear of the house .’ But King wasn’t listening any more as he dragged himself to his feet and stumbled towards the doorway and the darkness beyond.

He steadied himself against the frame, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness, trying to blink the increasing amounts of sweat away before staggering inside, moving from room to room, quickly scanning each, but finding nothing. Somehow he knew the horror still waited for him – somewhere, until he finally, almost crawling now, made his way back to the front door and the foot of the staircase that looked like a mountain. As he reached out to grasp the bannisters he saw the bloody handprints for the first time. They reminded him of the sort of prints young children made with paint, but the marks on the wall opposite had no such childish innocence as a long trail of smeared blood led his eyes back to the summit of the carpeted cliff.

The way ahead warped, constricting and elongating as his injuries threatened to overwhelm him, forcing him to his knees as his eyes tried desperately to close and surrender his body to blissful unconsciousness, but from some depths of humanity, a spirit to help his fellow man drove him on. It forced him to breathe in deeper than he’d ever done before and steady himself against all the pain, shock and blood loss as he literally began to crawl up the stairs one by one – each effort making him grimace and call out, begging for the strength to conquer the next step until somehow he found himself at the peak – on a hallway floor covered in thick, plush carpet where he collapsed, fighting to stay in the world.

If he stopped now he knew he’d at best pass out, so he pushed himself from the floor and sat with his back supported by the wall as he panted uncontrollably, fighting the nausea, his face ashen white, his lips turning grey as the blood flowed steadily from his body. He should have stopped and tried to shore up the wounds in his back, but he wasn’t thinking straight any more, trapped as he was in a spiralling nightmare where nothing looked real or made any sense. Summoning his last remaining strength, he got to his feet, hunched and buckled, but at least he was walking.

The first door he came to was only slightly open, with the terrible telltale bloody fingerprints smeared on its panels and frame. He took one deep breath, sending searing, burning pain through his back, but with it came a moment of clarity as he carefully pushed the door open and stepped inside. The air rushed from his body when he looked at the bed and saw the body of a girl no more than twelve years old lying face up on the bed, her unseeing eyes staring at the ceiling, arms crossed across her chest as if someone had posed her – tried to make her violent death appear peaceful. Only a parent would take such care after death. He thought of the man he’d beaten almost to the point of killing him. He was convinced that the life of the girl on the bed had been taken by her own father.