Stiffed (25 page)

I take the cap off and hold it out to her.

‘He’s outside in the bushes.  We wrapped him in a sheet and put him in the van.  You can go outside and check.  He’s there.’

She takes the cap from my grasp and I close my eyes, waiting for the bullet to arrive.

She’s sobbing now, sucking in large gulps of air, barking it out again in noisy gasps.

I open my eyes.  She’s down on her knees, her hands on her face, the gun on the floor.
  I guess she knows in her heart that her brother is more than capable of killing her husband.  That he’d do it in the beat of a butterfly’s wings.

I snatch the cap back and dash to the door, crashing through it, flying down the four steps to the door
where Sally is hiding.  It seems that I’ve cheated death once again.  Maybe I was a cat in a different life.  Or a cockroach.  Aren’t they the things that survive nuclear blasts?

I hammer on the door.  ‘Sally, it’s me, Tadhg, open up.’

There’s no response.

‘Sally,
come on, we need to get out of here.’

There’re a couple of shots back towards the
ballroom.

‘Sally,
come on, open the fucking door.’ 

I’m
more than a little nervous standing here, my voice potentially attracting attention.

There’s a click as the key is turned and the door opens. 

Sally is ashen, the blood having drained from her face. 

‘
Come on, let’s go,’ I say to her, grabbing her by the hand, pulling her out into the corridor.

There’s a ping of a bullet hitti
ng a defunct light fitting.  Instinctively I duck and tug Sally towards the stairwell. 

‘You can run, Tadhg, but you can’t hide,’ Kate shouts after us.

Want to bet? 

We plunge down the stairs into the inky blackness below, the sound of gunfire accompanying us.

* * *

It’s so dark in the basement that you
can barely see your hand in front of your face.  At least it seems empty of clutter.  And it’s cool after the heat above.

I’ve made
Sally hold onto my shirt so I can use my two hands to feel my way forward.  She seems to be coming slowly back to life after being holed up on her own.

We’ve passed
two rooms on our right, but I want to get further into the complex and away from the dull light descending the staircase.  In theory it should be possible to traverse to the staircase we flew up when Redneck appeared.  I’ve no idea of the route, but I know we’re presently heading along the ballroom/swimming pool divide towards the reception area.  

So far there ha
s been no sound behind us, Kate having been seemingly distracted.  That or she’s afraid of the dark.  I should have taken Denise’s gun.  Instead, I’d snatched the Goddamn cap.  How stupid can you get?

How long have you got?  I’m not sure that even rates in the top five
most stupid things I’ve done today.  Or even the top ten.

We’ve come to a corner.  We turn right and pass over onto the left hand wall
, the little light we have disappearing to leave us in total darkness.  At the next opening, I duck into a room.  I think we could both do with a quick break to compose ourselves.

‘How are you doing?’ I ask.

Sally doesn’t answer.

‘Annabelle rescued Jason and Paavo.  Hopefully they’ve managed to get to safety.’

Still nothing.

‘I’m sure the emergency services are on their way.’

‘Huh.’

‘Sally? 
Come on Sally, you’re the Wicked Witch of the East.  The Ice Queen.  You can deal with this.  We’ll find our way out and tomorrow you’ll be laughing about it all.  Well, maybe not laughing, but, you know.’

There’s a short pause then:
‘Why do you keep calling me that, Tiger?’

‘Calling you what?
  The Wicked Witch of the East?’

‘
No.  The Ice Queen.’

‘
Well, you know, you can be … cold.  Frigid.’

‘Frigid? 
Frigid!’ Sally says, seeming to spark into life.  ‘What do you mean, frigid?’

‘Nothing, I meant nothing.  I meant to say …’
 

‘
Oh, I get it.  I was nineteen, Tadhg.  You were my first boyfriend, of course I was frigid.  I was scared stiff.’

‘
I wasn’t talking about then,’ I say, trying to back pedal, ‘I meant in general.  And anyway, how could you have been scared stiff of me?  I don’t think I even raised my voice to you.’

‘I was petrified
, Tadhg,’ Sally continues.  ‘Do you know how much pressure that is?  A young woman’s first time?  Wanting it to be special?’

This is
not the conversation I was trying to start, but sod it, it might be the only time we get to air and resolve this once and for all before someone puts a bullet in our heads.  Besides, it seems to be bringing Sally back to her usual argumentative self.

‘I was nineteen too, remember
,’ I say.  ‘It could have been a quickie in a storeroom and it would have been special.  Jesus, you used to flinch if I went to kiss you for God’s sake.’

‘Because I was scared.
  Like now.  Scared half to death.  Jesus, Tadhg, can you at least try and see it from my perspective?’

She’s let go of my shirt and I only know where she is because of her voice.

‘On our first date, you necked me like there was no tomorrow,’ I repost.  ‘You had your hand down the front of my pants.  You let me fondle and kiss your breasts.  Then nothing for weeks on end.’

‘I was drunk. 
I was in love.  I wanted to save myself for you.  For us.’

‘We were nineteen.  There’s not a girl on the planet who isn’t putting it out at nineteen.’

‘Well, I wasn’t.’

‘
Except for Party Man.’

We’ve reach the crux of it, the incident that has shaped our relationship for the last dozen years. 
The night where she got drunk and went off with someone else.

‘Jesus, Tadhg, I wasn’t just drunk, I wa
s paralytic.  I was barely conscious.  I don’t remember Party Man!’

‘You asked whether I wanted to join in.  Your panties round your ankles, him fucking you from behind.’

‘I never did, Tadhg.  Even drunk, I would have never asked for that.’

She’s right, of course.  She didn’t.  He did.  His face leering.  Over time I’ve put the words into her mouth.  It makes it easier that way.

‘He raped me,’ she says quietly.  ‘He raped me and you watched it happen.’

‘He raped you?’ I say incredulously.  ‘It looked pretty consensual to me.’

‘I was saving myself for you, you dumb shit.  That was going to be our special night.  Instead I drank too much; way too much.  I was drinking wine like 7-Up at a time when I practically got tipsy on 7-Up.  Whoever he was he took advantage of the fact that I was barely conscious.  All I have is indistinct, hazy memories, but there was no way it was consensual.’ 

She’s weeping now.

Oh fuck. 

Cogs and switches are whirl
ing and resetting in my mind; replaying that evening from a different perspective.  Sally giggly, flirtatious and high, slurring her words, wandering off to the toilet barely able to walk, then failing to return.  My mad, anxious hunt of the house.  Finding her in the bedroom being screwed from behind, her staring at me like I’m some kind of apparition.  A shy, goofy, scared, beautiful nineteen year old with traditional values, her skirt bunched around her waist, her panties round her ankles.

It had been a
gaze seeking help.  She was being raped and instead I stormed away.  I did nothing to protect her.  Then the next day I accused her of everything under the sun and walked away.  Now I know what all these references to being rescued have been about.  The first time she needed saving, I failed her.

Big time.

I reach out blindly, my hand brushing her arm.  ‘Look, Sally, I …’

She shuffles away.

‘Sally, I’m sorry … I didn’t …’

‘That’s your problem, Tadhg, you don’t think.  And you don’t listen.  I was in love with you.  I thought you were
The One.  And ever since …
it
happened, you’ve treated me like some kind of monster.  Like I ruined your life.  I’ve tried to tell you …’  She trails off, consumed with a grief that’s been slow burning for a dozen years.

‘Sally …’

‘I’m not an ice queen, Tadhg.  I never was.  I was just saving myself … for an asshole.’

‘Sally …’

Jesus, what the hell am I meant to say?  I am an asshole.  A fucking monumental asshole.  I let my girlfriend get raped and then blamed her for it.

Okay, forget about the town prize for the most stupid, moronic citi
zen.  Pass me up to state level; the national level.  Heck, pass me all the way up to the galaxy level.  I’m off the bloody charts on this one. 

I feel like a tsunami of guilt has just crashed over me
, crushing me under its weight.  I think I preferred it when people were shooting at me.

A few meters away in the dark, Sally is sobbing. 
It’s a wonder she has had anything to do with me in the last few years. 

Well, I failed to save her
back then.  If it’s the last thing I do I’m going to do my damndest to get her out of this fuckfest.

The only problem is, given our predicament
, it may well be the last thing I do.  That feels like a familiar refrain.

* * *

I’m not sure how long we’ve been standing in the pitch black, silent except for Sally’s sobbing.  It could be a minute or half an hour.  I’m roused from my stupor by a shuffling sound somewhere outside the room in which we’re hiding.

‘I know you’re down here, chickenshit.’

Redneck!

I creep to the doorway. 
A thin, golden light barely illuminates the exposed brick work.  He has a torch of some kind.

If we step out into the corridor he’s likely to mow us down with his Uzi.  If we stay in the room
there’s nowhere to hide.  We’re dead either way. 

At least we got to have our confessional chat.  I get to die buried under a
n ocean of guilt.

‘You’re a dead man walking, Red.  I don’t often enjoy taking a man’s life, but in this case I’m going to make an exception.’

He’s getting closer, the light ever so slightly brighter.  I could really do with Sally to hold her sobs.  She’s acting as a beacon.

I stand inside the open doorway, my back against the wall.  The only thing I can do is try to attack him as he enters the room.  Go after his damaged leg.

‘Sally?’ I whisper.  ‘Sally, I’ll get you out of this, but I need you to be quiet.’

My words have no effect.

‘I know you’re in there, chickenshit.  Now come out with your hands up.’

Does he think we were born yesterday?

He shines the weak light into the room.  Sally is off to my left, sitting on her haunches, her back against the wall, her hands over her face.

The muzzle of the gun edges into the room.

‘Give yourself up and the woman goes free,’ Redneck offers.

I stay silent. 

‘Okay, have it your way.’

He hobbles
gingerly into the room.

I stamp down
wards with all my might onto his damaged leg, catching him just above the knee and scraping down the side of his calf.

He cries out, accompanied by the rattle of the Uzi.  The noise is deafening in the enclosed space, my ears ringing.

I stamp down again and I keep stamping as he falls to the floor, tumbling on top of his torchlight, the room plunging back into darkness.  I’ve no idea what I’m stamping on.  I continue until I feel Sally grab me and pull me back.

‘Stop!
  You’ll kill him.’

That was kind of the idea.  Well, at least to stop him killing us.

‘Okay, okay,’ I mutter.  I drop to the floor and roll Redneck over, grabbing the small torch and the Uzi.  The torch is one of those small key ring ones and it’s attached to a set of car keys.  I point it down at Redneck.  He’s whimpering, but there’s no sign of any blood.  If his knee isn’t busted now then it must be bionic.  He’ll have a few bruises over his legs and torso, but he doesn’t seem in any danger of expiring.

‘
Come on, let’s go,’ I say to Sally, stepping over Redneck and passing through the doorway.

I walk a few meters before I realize she’s not with me.  I head back
to find her leaning over his prone body.

‘Sally
come on,’ I say, tugging on her shoulder.  ‘The emergency services can look after him when they get here.’

‘I was seeing whether he had another gun,’ she
explains.  ‘In case I want to shoot you in the back.’