Club27 Page 19

  Huge metal alters towered high, enough metal containers to start a hundred cults.

  ‘This is very drug deal gone wrong in here.’ Bishop looked around, hoping not too see a tiny red dot, he checked the floor, then himself, then the other three. There wasn’t anything, which he thanked god for. He wasn’t going to be tripped up, his eyes darted around faster than his Ferrari. Nobody was there, Cameron didn’t know if this was good or incredibly bad. Something seeded in his stomach, it told him this was probably the bad one.

  There was silence, nobody could talk even if they wanted too, something held their words inside them like a child holds onto a balloon.

  ‘Two riders were approaching, the wind begun to howl.’ Cameron muttered under his breath, these words meant something inside his head.

  ‘Across the watchtowers. Princess kept the view.’ Ben finished. The second he heard the words Cameron spoke his mind filled in the blanks the rest of the group knew what he was talking about.

  ‘It’s scary sometimes you know.’ Steph commented.

  ‘Perhaps we should have rustled up some weapons.’ Mary added. Cameron felt around behind one of the crates, between the huge person sized gaps, he pulled out a metal pole.

  ‘I don’t think that will do much.’ A voice came from the lids of one of the huge fortifications, followed by the rings of somebody with some weight behind them running across the gonging buildings made from discarded lockers. It sounded like Chris.

  Cameron pulled the metal pole across the side of one of the many shipping containers, it made a chime like a kid running a stick over metal fencing.

  ‘Warriors come out and play.’ He said loudly in hopes of bringing the two out.

  ‘You won’t tempt us out that easily. You think were idiots?’ Chris said, now from a hugely different part of the yard, he small size and light feet meant he could get from place to place with little noise.

  ‘No I just love that movie.’ Cam replied.

  ‘Oh, we know, we’ve been to your manor, you never said your dad had a mansion Benji.’

  ‘I fucking hate that name.’ Ben muttered.

  ‘We turned that place upside down, couldn’t find anything worth taking.’ He was behind them now, to their back right.

  ‘Is this what this whole thing was about? Money?’ Bishop yelled to the skies.

  ‘Not really, is what a little bit, but mainly it was about fun.’ Chris cackled at the end of his sentence.

  ‘Cool your tits joker, if you actually expect me to believe that then you’re as dumb as dumb as Ben says you are.’ Cameron shouted to where he thought the voice had come from. There was no anger in his speech, he simply wanted to be heard.

  ‘Pick up a rock or something and through it in his direction.’ Ben spoke to the girls, quite enough that he wouldn’t be heard by Chris.

  ‘This kid actually an idiot?’ Cameron asked Ben.

  ‘Yeah, Brian must have told him to do this. Buy him more time.’ Explained ben. There was a clatter and a rock flew through the air. It had come from Steph.

  ‘Sorry, I thought I saw him.’ She apologised.

  ‘Keep at it.’ Smiled Ben, Brian had his idiot and they had theirs. The difference was Brian was using his idiot as fodder. Nothing but an irritation to the group, like a rash, but the rash is on your back and there is no chance of you reaching it.

  Another rock flew, Ben, Cameron and Steph turned now to face Mary.

  ‘Sorry, I believed I heard something.’ She said sweetly. Mild paranoia had gotten to the girls. Perhaps that was Brian’s plan, to set their nerves on edge enough they’d be easy takings.

  ‘Okay, stop running for one second.’ Cameron said stepping forward, there was a clatter of shoes, as if the running had stopped abruptly.

  ‘Can you explain why you killed two of my friends?’

  ‘Two? The moustache man is dead?’ the voice came from the heavens.

  ‘Yes, Simon is dead. He had a name, and a walking issue, and possibly a long dead boyfriend if the aids epidemic still wipes out that kind of person.’

  ‘He means gay.’ Steph whispered to Ben in case he didn’t understand.

  ‘I guessed.’ He nodded.

  ‘And if you say for fun, I swear to god you’d wish you ended up on your mums back.’ Bishop shook his finger in the air, pointing at where he thought the voice was coming from.

  ‘To be honest, money was up there. Cash in king, and you’re the princess of rock and roll, you got to have stacks of it right. Be mainly it was that brat there.’ Ben knew Chris was talking about him.

  ‘Bet he didn’t say we went to school together?’

  ‘We went to school together?’ Cam asked.

  ‘No, me and Ben, the son of Cameron Bishop, the prince of rock and roll.’ Chris explained

  ‘Are they calling me the Prince of rock and roll? That’s an awful name.’ Cameron asked.

  ‘We didn’t go to school together.’ Ben stated as a fact.

  ‘Wrong! We spent years n0ot even in the same school but in the same class.’ Something tumbled from the top of a crate, debris of some sort.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ The kid said.

  ‘Maybe let him explain.’ Mary piped up.

  ‘Yeah, shut up. It was two thousand and three. Everyone was talking about how good you were as Gabriel, a little angel they said.’

  ‘Eight, we were eight! That sounds like a stupid reason to start shooting people.’ Ben had some quick math.

  ‘Yeah and I thought this was about me.’ Cameron Chimed in.

  ‘It is, if he wasn’t your son, he wouldn’t have the voice of an angel, that’s what my Mum said, I was a donkey.’

  ‘You’re a little all over the place here. The donkey is very important in the Bible. Other comforting statements.’ Cameron barked.

  This time a large rock tumbled from the top of the tower, without thought or care for himself Cameron tossed the steel rod he’d found. It spans like a pin wheel, making perfect circles in the sky. There was a grunt that would leave a bruise, then a great thud. Cameron had caught Chris in the chest.

  ‘That’s not cricket.’ Mary said, she’d heard her husband use the term millions of times, all with varying levels of success, sometimes things were cricket and other they say simply just looked like it. Mary could defiantly say that wasn’t the sport.

  ‘Fuck me that’s got to hurt.’ Ben spayed, his father gave him the eye, the eye which says do not swear. Ben simply replied with a half grin as if to say sorry, it quickly vanished.

  ‘Jesus!’ a voice said behind a stack of crates, as the group pottered around the pile, what looked like a giant stick insect wearing a black puffer vest, lay rolling around on the floor. His arm looked broken, only to Mary, the other three simply guessed being Chris rolled around none stop screaming.

  ‘My fucking arm, it’s fucking broken!’ this gave them the idea that Chris could be quiet badly injured.

  Suddenly, to Chris at least, he seemed to feel very light, his body rose from the dirt and discarded packing material as if he was lighter than air. His new centre of gravity seemed to pivot around the collar of his vest. Chris’s eyes opened for a second and seemed 9ddly close to another pair, they were hazel with fleck of grey.

  ‘Benji.’ He winced between the waves of pain. Benji had pulled him up like a human grappling hook, inches away from his face, Chris’s body went limp. Ben craned his arm out to give Cameron an easy space to talk to him.

  ‘Hey man,’ Cameron put on a cheery voice, it was false and fell away in seconds as if it was a mask Bishop just couldn’t pull tight enough.

  ‘Brian, where is he? Is he here in the lot?’ Bishop softly threatened. It wasn’t aggressive, he hadn’t the energy for that, but there was intent in his words, and Chris wasn’t willing to find out what he intended.

  Then something broke, it wasn’t Chris’s neck, although the thought had crossed Ben’s mind, it wasn’t even anything physical, it was Chris, himself,
he began giggling insistently. Something inside his head had snapped.

  ‘You said you wanted to wash the blood from your hands.’ He softly giggled to himself, his eyes silhouetted like this did in Japanese cartoons.

  ‘Yeah, and in my head, they were, the blood is on Brian’s hands now.’

  ‘I said he wasn’t exactly stable. This is why he was never allowed in the army, he was a basket case.’ Ben had seen Chris go into one of these little tremors before, where his mind went blank and quickly filled full of black sludge.

  ‘This isn’t getting us anywhere. He’s a man possessed. Drop him and let Brian find him.’ Mary had stepped up now. Ben looked at her, so did Cameron, Steph had given up looking at anyone.

  There was a ding, another gong echoes through the hall ways of dirt and corrugated steel.

  ‘Brian’s here.’ Steph said, she’d spotted moment before but wasn’t sure if it was a person or a plane, now she knew how people could get confused between birds, planes and superman, when the world is falling down around you, your mind can play tricks on you.

  ‘It reminds me of Mary when she does her thinking face.’ Bishop commented, half ignoring Steph, being she was the groups idiot. Mary punched him solidly in the arm.

  ‘Brian’s here, he’s somewhere over by the gates.’ Steph said again, a little louder, this timer turning to face the group, and Chris who had grown a very red and saw looking spot on the lower part of his cheek. It moved gently up, to the temple, Chris still giggled and talked on, but nobody now was listening to him. He obviously didn’t know.

  ‘I think Brian’s already found him.’ Ben softly said, at this second Chris grasped his meaning and began to struggle to get loose. His struggling became a loose rag of a body. Then a boom, cycled through the air, amplified by the hollow crates.

  This is the whole thunder and lightning effect. Bullets can move at near the speed of light, sound cannot. The whole thing of hearing a gun and quickly dodging it is a complete myth, created by people who draw people catching bullets or allowing them not to bounce of their chest. This bullet didn’t bounce of Chris. He did catch it though, right in his head.

  ‘He had it coming, he had it coming, he only had his self to blame.’ Steph said softly.

  ‘Is that Chicago?’ Ben asked.

  ‘You’re not the only one who can reference things right, it’s not your thing.’ She was trying.

  Chapter 20

  ‘Well that was easy.’ Cameron commented, his son still holding up the body, he seemed oddly taller than him now, taller then he looked before. Cameron shook it off, his son was the same height as him, if not a little shorter. There’s something a little overbearing the day you child exceeds your height.

  The rag doll which was once a guy called Chris, some people would say friend but the four-people dotted around were not those people.

  ‘Well you have you answer.’ Mary said to Bishop, he did, his answer was lame, he was hoping for something a little more amazing then Chris hating his son, because he could sing. Loads of people could sing.

  ‘That’s only one answer, and let’s face it, it was a fucking shit one, not being the brains of the operation, that’s to right.’ Bishop wiped a dot of what he hoped was rain from his face, it wasn’t rain, it was thick and didn’t wipe of just smudged.

  Ben dropped the body with a clunk, it lay in an odd rictus on the floor, no ones left arm could bend like that.

  Ben had been given training, once the body didn’t have a personality, have life, it was no long a he or a she and became an it. Like a coffee table or an ugly lamp. Chris’s body was an ugly lamp indeed.

  Steph hadn’t been given such training.

  ‘You can’t just leave him here.’ She was a nurse still, she had a duty to care for the living, and she personally extended it to the dead.

  ‘Why isn’t he shooting at us.’ Mary asked, the only one actually thinking.

  ‘He’s playing with us.’ Ben knew this was something gunmen did, they changed themselves during combat. How many people can they kill with a single bullet. How long can they hide even when people knew they were out there. Ben had done these things himself.

  They all stood in silence, hoping whatever Brian was waiting for, was them to move.

  ‘You’ve got blood on your hands Bishop.’ The strong voice bounced around the cages. It was Brian. Cameron looked at his hands. The sludge he’d rubbed from his face was thick and red. Chris’s blood.

  ‘It was metaphorical blood.’ Bishop yelled back, hoping his voice would carry.

  ‘Well now it’s not. It’s all too real.’ The echo chamber made it difficult to pin point the voice was coming from as if it came from every direction.

  ‘I’m not counting this one, this is you kill, this time I know you’re here and I know you did it.’

  ‘But why did I do it? Chris was my friend, not one of yours.’

  ‘You’re a right royal prick sometimes Brian.’ Cameron had a yelling match with a collection of reverberations. Each line repeating and repeating.

  There was tinging across some of the roofs, like somebody running on tin sheds in heavy boots. Obviously, Brian thought he’d been found and thought it best to move position, Cameron thought to himself.

  ‘This is getting real fucking boring now.’ Cameron yelled, he rarely let the other three talk, and never once even looked at the limp body on the floor as he stepped around it.

  ‘when you find a new place to hide, do me a favour, shoot one of us.’ He yelled again, this time the three immobilised Bishop, grabbing him and restraining him, Steph clamped her hand over his mouth so he was unable to speak. His muffled words poured from Steph’s knuckles, she hoped he’d not bite down on the soft part of her hand, like she’d seen on a cop show once.

  His feet kicked and his arms cycled hoping to free himself from the group.

  ‘Are you trying to get us killed?’ Ben asked pushing down the legs of Bishop, hopes of stopping them, Cameron’s legs lay flat for a second, they were slightly raised and seemed to be at an unconfutable angle. Cameron stopped moving from a second, he looked at Ben, raised his left leg again and dropped it back down. It clinked like metal hitting metal. Bishop did it again, the heel of his foot clinked once more, without a word all four of them looked to the point where Cameron’s feet met the ground. Three black banana lay on the floor.

  ‘Are they guns.’ Asked Steph naively.

  ‘Two glocks, a semi, forty-five. Who carries a forty-five. Like they look cool, but there’s really no need.’ Ben was cut off, for a second, but an important second, the forty-five had vanished from his hands. Mary played with the gun between her hands, it seemed like the only logical fit. A glock vanished, then the other, leaving the only man who’d know what to do with a gun was left without one, really, he didn’t need one, Chris, Brian and Ben all had the same level of training, well Ben and Brian had.

  ‘I expect he had a sniper,’

  ‘Why isn’t he shooting at us.’ Cameron had pulled himself up at this point.

  ‘I’d say it’d be up there, I Guess.’ Ben pointed at the large crates where Chris had tumbled from.

  ‘Can anybody climb?’ Steph asked, she seemed to be the only one listening. Ben gave a little smile to her. Then he vanished, for a few seconds at least, there was a tearing sound. Then Ben reappear, clutching something black, a blob of black cloth that somehow seemed heavy and light all at the same time. He pulled it over Steph’s head. She seemed a little snug in it, it held tight to her chest, loosened up around the waist them bobbed up and down around her wide hips. The vest fit like a glove, if gloves had six fingers and you had the standard five.

  ‘Nobody has answered my question, why isn’t anybody listening to me.’ Asked Cameron, who’d taken up a golfer pose, but instead of looking for a where his ball had gone, was instead looking for his mentally unstable killer had gone, somehow, he was harder to find then a lost ball in the green.

  ‘He’s shoot at us at one point.’ Be
n said with a sigh, he was just glad the shooting had stopped for now.

  ‘At that point, I’ll need you, Mary, to do your mind thing, where your eyes roll to the back of your head and you do stuff.’ Bishop had the fear up him, Mary had considered slapping him, if he wasn’t making so much sense.

  ‘the you work out where he is from where the bullet lands.’

  ‘Do they let you watch many cop dramas during being frozen?’ Asked Ben.

  ‘It’s hibernation, and yes actually.’ Mary answered with a gentle nod, nobody should be gently nodding while being shot at, but that was half the issue, nobody was getting shot at. Even Mary had gotten worried by that. This maybe the only point in history somebody hoped somebody else would shoot, not hot anybody, not take someone down just fire a gun, miss and allow them to find them, okay maybe not then.

  ‘Look at you four.’ A voice echoed.

  ‘Oh, he’s back.’ Bishop commented.

  ‘You’re like the Scooby doo gang. Four people riding around aimlessly, trying to demask a bad guy.’ Brian spoke softly but had put himself in a pinpoint position that his voice would travel.

  ‘Hey, fuck you man. You can’t reference Scooby doo, that show was never popular.’ Argued Bishop.

  ‘This is it. He’s going to try and shoot one of us.’ Ben commented.

  ‘How do you know.’ Bishop shot. There was a second of silence then Steph, who was stood safe and sound on both feet suddenly found herself laying on the ground three foot from where she was standing, rolling around screaming as if she’d been shot. She had been shot but due to her vest, it would leave little more than a bruise and a tender spot for a few days. She rolled around on the floor.

  ‘For fucks sake.’ A noise echoed through the grounds, the thunder was back, it cycled around.

  ‘He has done that on purpose, the movement of young Stephanie will make it very difficult to pin point his location.’ Mary pointed out.

  ‘not necessarily.’ Ben interjected. He held Steph but the shoulders, she stopped rocking and gazed into his eyes.