So far, Gregg, Jill, and Nick, seemed to have drawn a blank regarding any useful input on how to get the kidnapped girls out of the town hall. They had ideas, but none without risking capture or the possibility of death themselves.
Nick was sitting at the side of the heater cleaning his camera lens with his damp handkerchief. Jill removed the “Ziplock” holding her pony-tail in place, and was drying her hair in front of the heater. And Gregg paced the floor, staring at it, muttering something to himself, something Jill couldn’t quite hear.
She watched him take stunted steps back and forth. It troubled her not knowing exactly what he was feeling, she guessed at agitation, or anxiety. And if that was the case, she had a notion that what she kept under her T-shirt was the only thing capable of allaying those feelings. But she couldn’t blatantly pass it to him in front of Nick.
‘Hey, Nick. Not gonna get one of our friend out there?’ she said, pointing to where Sheldon lay.
‘What?’
‘Sheldon, you, photograph?’
‘Sure am, just making sure the lens is clean first,’ he said, putting the camera cord over his head, and then stood pressing the up-button.
When he’d ducked under the shutter, Jill hit the stop button and walked over to Gregg. ‘Here,’ she said, pulling the bag from under her T-shirt. She looked him in the eye but couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Gregg looked down at the bag of imposing dark-red liquid in her hand; he didn’t see it as food though, or nourishment for that matter, he saw it as a threat. A threat to his way of life, a threat to all that felt to him as acceptable, and this wasn’t acceptable, this wasn’t normal, this wasn’t-
‘You don’t have to take it,’ Jill said, interrupting his thoughts. ‘And even if you do … you still don’t have to use it.’
Gregg moved his head to the right to see Nick from the back of his knees down and happily snapping away outside. Again he looked at the bag; the urge for him to physically reach out and take it felt beyond his control. And before he’d realised what just happened, the bag was in his hand.
Jill raised her eyebrows. ‘I truly hope that was the right thing I just did.’
Gregg still couldn’t believe that without any influence on his part, his hand had actually taken it from her. Not only that, it was now tucked securely in his jacket pocket. And stranger still was his anxiety level, it seemed to have dropped on the promise of things to come, was he already that addicted to something he hadn’t even tasted, save for the flavour of his own?
He placed his hands on Jill’s shoulders and said, ‘Like you said, Jill … because I have it, it doesn’t mean I have to use it.’ Gregg wasn’t quite sure if that shallow attempt at reassurance was for his benefit, or for Jill’s.
‘Can I say something … in case you do choose use it?’
‘Sure, go ahead.’
‘If you drink what’s in there … there may be no turning back.’
‘I realise that. But thanks for the sentiment.’
‘You could always bite him,’ she said, moving her head backwards to where Nick stood.
Gregg looked again at Nick’s legs. ‘Far too much cholesterol, and besides, he’d probably give me indigestion, anyway.’
‘Yeah, but looking at him, there’s got to be at least a months supply of blood sloshing about somewhere in there.’
‘And it would probably take me another month, just to burn off the fat content.’ Gregg lifted his head. ‘Okay, Nick,’ he shouted. ‘It’s time to get our heads together.’
After taking one final snap of Sheldon’s remains, Nick ducked under the shutter closing it after him. He placed his camera on the oil drum and was about to turn when a gunshot rang out from across the street. Some of it hitting the bottom of the falling door, and some of it hitting the floor at Nick’s feet. One piece of shot penetrated his right shoe, obliterating part of the toe area.
‘Arrrrgh,’ he yelled, rolling about the floor.
Once the shutter stopped, Jill and Gregg ran to him, both kneeling at his feet ready to tend to his wound.
‘Is it bad? No, don’t tell me, it is though, isn’t it?’ he babbled.
Gregg pulled off the shoe and the very damp sock beneath to find Nick had only four toes on his right foot. The strange thing was, there wasn’t any blood, but his big toe was definitely missing. Jill looked inside the damaged shoe. She held it up-side-down and began shaking it, but nothing fell from inside. And not wanting to pick up the sock to check inside it, she stamped on it instead, luckily, that was just as empty.
Looking down at his foot, and then at the damaged shoe, Nick began to laugh.
Jill and Gregg looked at each other puzzled. ‘What’s so funny?’ Jill asked.
‘I lost that toe last year at a Fourth-of-July fireworks display. One of the big ones went off prematurely; it knocked over part of the display rigging and crushed my toe. I had to have the damn thing removed.’
Another shot rang out puncturing the shutter half a dozen more times, thankfully, on this occasion, hitting no one. Nick grabbed his shoe and sock, and then he and Jill scurried beside the empty oil drum at the side of the shutter.
Gregg ran into the office to look from the window, hoping to spot the sniper, and the only building with the correct trajectory for the shots fired was the schoolhouse. He looked a little closer at the building; above the large main door one of the windows was open just a couple of inches. The sniper had to be somewhere behind that window.
Whilst he stood watching for the slightest sign of movement, he again ran his dry tongue over the front of his teeth, his thoughts immediately turning to the red liquid weighing so heavy in his jacket pocket, and the even heavier consequences of him using it.
He had to do something to distract himself from thinking about the bag, about the blood, and about the pleasure. Because that’s just how it was beginning to feel for him, somewhere deep inside, something stirred; a child’s enthusiasm the night before Christmas; a boy’s anticipation at watching his father pulling out a set of car keys on his sixteenth birthday.
Gregg leant back and looked through the crack of the open door, hoping for more distraction. He studied Jill and Nick. Jill was sitting on a small wooden box close to the heater; her head hung low, her elbows rested on her knees, and her almost dry hair frizzed, Gonk-like. Nick stood by the oil drum; he was peeling the strips off his new Polaroid photographs, which, after studying and smiling to himself, he put inside a damn plastic bag.
This again reminded Gregg of the plastic bag he carried. He turned his attentions back to the schoolhouse for some other form of distraction from the raging thirst he suffered. He knew it was getting worse, tightening its grip over him; he just didn’t want Jill to know how much of a grip it actually had. Strange, he’d only known the girl a few hours, yet he felt close to her, close enough that he didn’t want to let her down.
Still looking out over at the schoolhouse, Gregg felt a twinge in his shoulder, a tightening where he’d been shot earlier, not painful, but enough to make him curious. He slipped his arm from his jacket and lifted the now, brownish-red stained sleeve of his T-shirt.
Previously, when he’d touched the wound in the garage, he felt what could only have been the crust of a week-old scab, and understood why Jill was so adamant about keeping Nick from seeing it. Fresh, still-wet blood, and an aging scab just doesn’t go together, and Nick would have no doubt questioned it.
Looking at it now, the scab was still there, but near black and flaky, and because it felt loose, he picked at one of its corners, peeling it back. The satisfying sensation of it tearing away from his flesh, felt like he was removing a super-glued band aid from his arm. The new skin beneath was pink, and when he touched it, it felt soft, like the skin of a freshly bathed newborn.
Gregg put his arm back into the sleeve and pondered his situation. First, his mangled body, which, according to Jill, miraculously repaired itself, although, all he remembers is seeing headlights and waking up back inside that cell. Then, and less than two hours ago, he’d suffered a gunshot wound that’s already totally healed. So if he looked at it from an optimist’s point of view, there actually was a positive side to all of this, and if it wasn’t for the more sinister aspects of his condition, he may have come to terms with it, come to appreciate what he had.
He began to wonder if Larry had tried to contact him. It’d been almost twenty-four hours since he left the office, so he must know something was wrong. Larry must know he was in some kind of trouble. He usually does.
Larry had told him in no uncertain terms, not to go down to Lynchburg, not to bother with so-called psychics. “There never was, and there never will be any such thing as a true fortune teller.” He'd say, along with his usual, “Psychic my ass!”
And now Gregg was looking forward to telling him just how wrong he was, something that didn’t happen all too often. In fact, he couldn’t remember another instance of “I told you so”, not where he was the one doing the telling. Payback time Mr K, payback time. Oh, and by the way … your partner’s a vampire. That ought to go down well.
His attention again turned back to the sniper, and then a thought occurred to him. There was still a passageway between the schoolhouse and the garage; either he’ll eventually use it to get to them, or they’ll have to use it to get to him.
The latter being the worst of the options, getting in was the easy part, getting back out at the other end without having your head blown off, now that would be the tricky bit. He thought about closing and locking the hatch, but that would get them nowhere. He wanted the sniper to come to him, and sooner or later, that’s what he’d have to do. But they had to be ready for that when it happened.
‘We need to watch the tunnel entrance,’ he shouted, ‘can you handle it, Jill?’
‘I’ll do it,’ Nick said, getting up.
Nick made his way over to the hatch taking out the gun Gregg gave to him earlier. He sat on a short pile of used tyres by the side of the oil truck and waited. If anyone pokes their head out of that hatch, he’d have a perfect view of them. One shot from the gun, and the next from his camera. Or should he try it the other way round?
He sat, he watched, and he waited, and he waited, and he waited. After a few short minutes of no activity at the hatch, boredom set in, his attention began to waver, and he started to look about. Wide, steel shelves were against the wall to his right, most of which were empty. Those not empty, held old engine parts and worn-out tyres. A few rusted tools lay haphazardly scattered on the floor next to a small steel grid.
The sides of Nick’s mouth dropped and his eyes narrowed in curiosity. Getting up from the tyres he knelt before his find, and after brushing away the dust with his hand, he blew it totally clean. With a slight head tilt, he read the words moulded into it.
“Fuel Shut-off Valve”
Of course, if there’s no one around they were bound to shut the fuel off. Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner? Picking up a small, rusting screwdriver, about the size of an average pencil, he cleaned away the dirt accumulated around the seam of the grid. Then, forcing the screwdriver into the small crack, he began to pry it open.
He managed to create a gap of about half an inch when the screwdriver twisted and slipped from his grip. Its chamfered edge dug into the palm of his left hand causing him to cry out. Jill came around the side of the oil truck and Gregg soon followed.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked.
‘What’s all the shouting for?’ said Gregg.
Nick held out his injured left hand. ‘I was trying to get this open,’ he said, gesturing toward the grid.
‘What is it?’ asked Jill, trying to unsuccessfully pin the frizzy Gonk behind her ears.
‘Read the words, it could be our ticket out of here.’
She did, and then looked at the bent screwdriver he’d used. ‘And you tried to open it with that tiny thing?’
‘It was the nearest thing to hand.’
Gregg looked at Nick’s injury and felt a sudden surge raging up from the pit of his stomach, it hit the back of his throat like the arid wind of a desert sandstorm, drying out what little moisture there was. Still looking at the wound, he wilfully rolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth, and then licked his top lip. Halting his actions, he stopped to look at Jill, but she was still looking at Nick’s hand.
‘I’ll go see if there’s a bandage in the office,’ he said, making his excuses.
Whilst Gregg went searching for a bandage, Jill looked around for a safer implement than a penny screwdriver to pry open the grid. She came back with something resembling the head of a pitch fork. Poking one of the prongs under the gap created by Nick, she leant her weight on the foot-long handle, and, after a couple of jerks, it yielded.
Nick, who leant against the tyre of the truck, reached over with his right hand, and wrapping his fingers into the larger gap, managed to pull the grid open. Inside was a circular red tap, an arrow pointing to the left indicated open, another pointing to the right, indicated close. Reaching in, Nick tried to turn the tap anti-clockwise, to the open position.
It was either fully open, or seized up completely. He tried turning the tap clockwise, to the closed position, and it rotated with relative ease. The valve was open all along.
‘Well that’s fucked us up,’ he said, kicking the grid shut.
‘What were you planning on doing anyway?’
‘I was planning on getting some gas to fill my van, ready to get us out of here.’
‘We’re not leaving without those girls, Nick.’
‘That’s if they’re still alive.’
‘We won’t know that until we try, and we are going to try.’
Nick pushed up off the floor and got to his feet. ‘Well let’s hope you’re right about that,’ he said, looking at his injured hand.
Jill took hold of his sleeve. ‘Come on, you need to get that dressed,’ she said, practically marching him towards the office.
Standing in the office with the door not quite closed, Gregg pulled the bag of blood from his pocket. He looked at it, started kneading it, massaging it between his fingers. He wasn’t sure if he felt guilt or fear, or perhaps he felt a bit of both, either way, he felt particularly uncomfortable about the decision he was about to make.
Raising the bag, he placed one corner of it on his tongue, then, closing his mouth over it, he felt the blood pushing past his lips as it rushed to the bottom. With the tough polythene sheets now trapped between his teeth, all he had to do was bite.
He felt the muscles in his jaw gradually begin to tighten; only he hadn’t instructed them to do so. It felt like he had no choice, like it was no longer his decision to make any more. Resisting the almost uncontrollable urge to puncture the bag and drain it of its contents, he was about to take it from his mouth when …
