Once they were outside, Jill made sure she and Nick stayed together this time. The ground between the garage and the cinema was soft, wet, and very muddy. Two deep furrows carved out by vehicles using the road, and running the whole length of the alley, overflowed with rainwater. Facing away from them was a large tow truck, itself, sunk half-wheel-deep in the furrows.
Nick pulled at the long grass and weeds at the side of the garage, looking for the junction box, while Jill climbed up to the trucks door trying to open it. She jumped down to where Nick stood and had to shout over the noise of the wind.
‘It’s locked; keep looking.’
‘Right,’ shouted Nick. ‘So, what’s the story with you and Gregg, then?’
Jill frowned. ‘There isn’t a story. I’m helping him, and he’s helping me! It’s a kind of mutual agreement, okay?’
‘Well inside just now, you were willing to stand between him and a bullet. You obviously brought that blood back for him. That seems to be an awful lot of mutual on your side, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I did it because we need Gregg, and not just us, those girls need him too!’
‘Just asking,’ he said, walking further along the alley.
Jill stood there whilst the rain ran in rivulets over her face, and for that moment, she was deep in thought pondering what he’d just said regarding the bullet, the blood, and the awful lot of mutual.
‘You coming?’ he called.
Jill snapped out of it. ‘Yes, yes I’m coming,’ she said, more to herself than to Nick, and realised he’d implanted something in her mind; something she could have well done without. But it was too late for that, the thought was there now.
Just before turning the corner to the rear of the garage, Nick stopped. Jill saw him looking up whilst sheltering his face from the rain. When she reached where he stood, he pointed out a small wooden box, about the size of a loaf of bread attached to the side of the garage, and about fifteen feet from the ground. The front of the box had only a loose piece of tarp draped over it, which the wind blew aside every few seconds.
As Jill walked backwards toward the cinema wall to gain a better look, she saw a smaller, square-shaped object inside the box. ‘I think that’s it, Nick, but how do we reach it?’
Nick went around the rear of the garage to find something to stand on, or to climb up. He returned a minute later carrying a six-foot iron scaffolding pole.
‘This is all I could find,’ he yelled, holding it vertically on the ground.
Jill frowned, knowing the pole was nowhere near long enough to reach the box. ‘And what would you like me to do, Nick, dance around it for you?’
Nick’s imagination seemed to wander for the slightest of moments. Jill could almost see in his face the images of her with the pole.
‘Er, no,’ he said, refocusing his mind. ‘I was thinking more of you climbing onto my shoulders; you should be able to push the switch with it then.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘No, come on, I’m serious, climb up me, I can take it.’
Jill shook her head, knowing this was only going to end in disaster. Dancing around the pole didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. ‘Okay, lean against the wall, and try not to move!’
With the pole standing next to him and his back pressed hard against the tin wall, Nick interlocked his fingers and Jill began her assault on the summit. Between them they struggled, between them they grunted, and eventually between them, Jill managed the top. Nick grabbed the pole and after passing it to her, he gripped her ankles.
Trying her best to blink away the rain beating against her face, Jill reached up with the pole but found the angle was all wrong. She couldn’t see the switch in order to poke at it.
‘Nick, you’re gonna have to move away from the wall a couple of feet, okay?’
‘Say what?’
‘I said; move out a bit, just a couple more feet.’
He gripped her ankles tighter and, as unsteady as he was, took a couple of steps forward. ‘Can you see it now?’
‘No, take another.’
Nick could only take a step half the length of the ones he’d just taken, and was now standing on the edge of the first flooded furrow. Jill had the pole inside the box, but had to wait for the wind to catch the tarp. And Nick, not having the wall to lean against any more, started to wobble back and forth.
Looking very unhinged at the hip, Jill’s wobble was more exaggerated than his, more of a lurch than a wobble. ‘Jesus Christ, Nick. Would you stand still?’
‘Say what?’
‘Stop dancing around.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Well open your legs a little.’
Jill felt the sudden drop, only two or three inches, but the swaying seemed to have settled. When the tarp finally moved, she had the end of the pole on the switch and stabbed at it. There was a definite clunk.
‘Okay, I think I got it,’ she shouted, dropping the pole beside him.
Nick instinctively swivelled to his left at the bell-like dong right next to his ear and began to stammer sideways. Not wanting to topple off, Jill flicked her legs forward and landed sitting on his shoulders. At the same time, she gripped his hair with one hand, allowing the other to flail around like a rodeo cowboy’s.
Sitting with Nick’s face buried deep between her thighs, she felt his overly powerful vocal vibrations tunnelling deep into her crotch. She gripped his hair with her second hand and pulled his head away from her. Nick’s screams then became audible as both of them toppled into the flooded furrow.
Nick was the first to surface. ‘Well,’ he shouted, spewing out muddy water, ‘if we weren’t fucking wet before,’ he said, fingering about in the puddle for his glasses. ‘We sure as hell are now!’
Jill came up coughing and spitting out muddy water also, but she was more concerned with whether or not they’d succeeded in their task. And besides, she’d been getting wet since the rain started, so this was just a minor inconvenience. ‘Come on; let’s go see if it’s worked,’ she called, getting up and helping Nick to his feet.
They ran past the tow truck and rounded the front of the garage with Jill leading the way. When she got there, she banged hard on the shutter shouting for Gregg. Nick picked up his red plastic container along with the pump-handle he’d tossed to the floor earlier, and when the nozzle entered the container, he pressed the handle and it started to fill.
‘Yes, ha hah,’ shouted Jill, jumping about.
Gregg stood at the side where the shutter controls were situated. ‘Great, good work you two. Now, Nick, get your van back here so we can get it unloaded.’
Jill was wringing out the corners of her wet poncho when she looked up. ‘Unloaded?’
‘Yeah,’ said Nick, screwing the cap back on the container. ‘We’re gonna give our friends up at the town hall a little something to think about.’
‘You’re giving them a fireworks display?’
‘They’re going to be the display.’ Gregg said. He leant in to Jill lowering his voice. ‘Will you go with Nick, just to make sure?’
‘To make sure what, Gregg, he comes back you mean?’
‘Well would you come back if you didn’t have to?’
Again the earlier implanted thoughts from Nick raced around Jill’s head. Did Gregg really think she was staying under some kind of duress? Staying because she felt she had to?
‘I don’t have to come back, Gregg. I choose to,’ she said, then smiled at him.
Without their seeing, Nick picked up his camera. ‘Say, chee-eeezzz,’ he sing-songed.
They both turned, neither one of them expecting the blinding flash that followed. ‘Put it down, Nick,’ said Jill, ‘we‘ve work to do.’
Nick pulled out the Polaroid and removed the chemical strip, and after leaving the new photograph and his camera on the empty oil drum, he and Jill left for his van half a mile away.
When they’d gone, Gregg looked under the shutter at the remains of Sheldon; he wondered what fate had in store for him. He couldn’t return to the life he lived and loved only yesterday, and staying in Martinsville, well, that wasn’t an option he could even consider. He was about to hit the down button when something in the photograph Nick just snapped, caught his eye. It prompted him to look a little closer at the image.
As Nick had taken the photograph, someone was in the background, and that someone was disappearing down the shaft in a blur. Now there was another one of them out there; only this one must have heard all they’d said, including the plan to blow up the town hall.
Without thought of a flashlight, he bounded down the steps and into the tunnel. If anyone was there to take pot-shots at him, he’d have to take that chance. He couldn’t risk them finding out about their plans.
Gregg stopped at the intersection with the main tunnel and listened. There was rapid breathing, and only a few feet away from him, almost in unison with his own. The sound came just off to his left, he looked, but the black of the tunnel allowed him nothing. If he reached out he’d be able to touch them, he was sure of it. He took a tentative step forward only to hear his quarry take off once again.
Whoever it was, was fast, the slapping of feet hitting the wooden floor seemed to move away from him at a tremendous rate. He’d no idea they could move that fast, it was no surprise to him now why he couldn’t lose them in the woods. When he reached the right turn at the Chambers tunnel, he saw a single bare foot alight the final step. But a single bare foot wasn’t what he’d really expected to see, not in these wet tunnels.
As he raced towards the shaft of light coming from Chambers, he heard screaming from inside the room. The steps flew underneath him three at a time, and on his last leap, a vision of a young girl kneeling on the floor between two of the hanging corpses, greeted him. Her head was pressed against her thighs, with her arms wrapped over the back of it.
From her size, he guessed she was no older than thirteen or fourteen. The flies were still present and going about their busy ritual of removing the decaying flesh from around them, and the stench of ammonia was still as thick as smog in the room, but Gregg didn’t seem to notice either of those inconveniences this time.
He tenderly reached out for the girl, but his touch only caused her to scream louder. Gregg knelt to match her height and lifted her gently from the floor; he then held her, tight, and close. At first she struggled trying to pull away from him, but his soothing tone seemed to calm her.
‘Shush, shush, its okay, you’re safe now,’ he said, and repeated these words over in a soft voice, hoping they would quieten her fully. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ he said, again.
Gregg’s actions and soft words seemed to assure the young girl he was more her saviour, than her executioner. She cried and sobbed heavier than he’d ever felt anyone sob in his arms before. Rocking her to and fro and repeating the soothing words. ‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ and, ‘you’re safe now,’ eventually settled her down.
He tried putting a small amount of space between them, just to check she was unharmed. But the young girl clung to him like a terrified child clinging to its mother. And as far as Gregg was concerned, that too was okay, for he’d found Alicia Vincent.
