Out For Blood 15

Continued from OFB 13.

Both Vicky and Jill heeded what Mr Rob had said and remained silent for the twenty minute journey. During which Jill hadn't noticed any signs of life before they reached their destination. No houses, no major roads, not even a single streetlamp. They didn’t even pass another car or truck the whole journey. As they reached the outskirts of town she saw a sign in the headlights, the last part of the sign had been altered and Jill didn’t like what she saw, red letters had been painted around the numbers and it read…

Welcome to Martinsville.

Population: D 2 E 1 A 9 D

The patrol car pulled up in front of a wooden building, Stencilled on the wall between a window and a door were the words,

“Martinsville Police Station and Courtroom”

It was a single storey building that had bars on the outside over both of the windows, and covering the door was a steel gate. A small porch light was on lighting up the doorway, but no lights were on inside the building. The other buildings she could see from inside the car showed no signs of life either. But then again it was 2am.

Mr Rob got out and unlocked the barred gate that covered the door; he then went inside and switched on the lights. He was away for five minutes before he returned to the car and opened the trunk; he then picked up the body of the man they had run over and took it inside, he returned to the car and transferred Vicky and Jill inside also.

There were two adjoining cells in the room, each one no more than ten feet squared against the back wall. He cut their wrist restraints with a small pen-knife he had on a bunch of keys and pushed them into the cell on the left as you looked at them, locking the door behind them.

There was a wooden bench attached to the back wall that ran the width of the cell, the other three sides of the cell were bars. A long hatch in the ceiling had been boarded over with what at one time must have been shiny metal, now most of it was rust coloured. There was a door to the left of the adjoining cell and a sign on it read,

“Courtroom”

To the right of the door was a notice board with different things pinned to it, the largest being a map of the town. Under the window left of the entrance door was a small cupboard with a glass vase resting on it. On the right hand wall was a window with a small writing desk below, loose papers were scattered over it and there were two pens, one lying flat on the papers and the other in a pen holder. To the right on the cell wall behind them, but on the other side of the bars was a door, above the door hung a clock; the time was 2:10 am. The sign on the door read,

“Washroom”

The centre of the room was dominated by a large desk, and Mr Rob was now sat there. The stray boot sat in front of him next to a black telephone, some loose papers were scattered around the desk and something that looked like a cattle-prod lay to his right. The only other item on the desk was the bunch of keys, one of which fitted the cell door.

There were two things in the adjoining cell; in the centre of the floor were rusty ring-like shackles bolted to it, four in total. Two were close to the door about a metre and a half apart, and two more a couple of metres towards the back of the cell, around two metres apart.

Above all this was another long hatch in the ceiling. This hatch however was not boarded over, but it did have two bolts, one on either side holding it shut. 'Why weren’t we put in that cell?' thought Jill. But the most worrying thing in the adjoining cell was the body of the man they had killed. It looked like a large ventriloquist doll had just been dropped there. Vicky and Jill sat looking at it, closer to each other than they had ever been before.

Mr Rob took off his hat and rested it on his desk; his hair was dark and cut Marine style. His whole face was pock marked, Jill thought as a teenager he must have had the worst case of acne there ever was. His eyes had black oversized pupils, with what little white there was heavily veined and bloodshot. In the light his uniform looked worn and old, and sweat stained his underarms.

‘Don’t these people ever wash?’ she thought. Just then Jill felt a buzzing in her pocket, and remembered the dead mans cell-phone she had picked up. Mr Rob was looking in their direction, so she couldn’t just pull it out and answer it.

The station door was pushed open and young Billy walked in carrying a shoe box, Mr Rob turned to face him. Billy placed the shoe box on the desk and simply said, ‘S’all there was sir!’
‘No luggage or bags?’
‘Burnt em’.’ he said, then walked back out.

Vicky recognised the shoe box immediately; she had bought a pair of running shoes two weeks ago, the ones she was wearing at the moment. When she got to her car after leaving the shop she put them on to see how they felt to drive in, then put the pair she took off into the box leaving them in the trunk. She had meant to throw away the box and the old shoes when she got home but… out of sight out of mind. As the saying goes.

Mr Rob took the lid from the box and still wearing his gloves began to lift things from it.
Vicky got to her feet. ‘Where’s my car?’
Mr Rob did not answer; he just carried on slowly emptying the shoe box.
‘And why has my stuff been taken out?
Again Mr Rob did not answer; he picked up a pink flip-open cell-phone.

Vicky saw it and remembered she had left it in the glove box because it dug into her when she wore tight jeans. He opened it out and it played a short tune, only four or five notes long riding up the scale. “Diddle-de-diddle-de-dee” He closed it again and it played the same short tune but moving down the scale. “Diddle-de-diddle-de-dee” As the tune seemed to amuse him he did this two or three times, although a smile was far from forming.

He then placed it into the palm of his right hand where it looked almost lost; he raised his hand to the side and smashed the cell phone down onto the edge of the desk shattering it into small pieces.
Vicky quickly moved to the door of the cell. ‘You fuck! You ugly fuck!’ she shouted.

Mr Rob stood slamming the palms of his hands onto the desk.

The sound shook Jill from the bench and she shouted. ‘Vicky no! Don’t give him a reason.’

At this Mr Rob sat down and glared at Vicky as she backed up to the bench. He took his gun from its holster and pointed it at her. When she had sat he placed the gun on his desk and carried on with emptying the shoe box.

‘Don’t give him a reason to come in here Vicky; as long as these bars are between us, we’re relatively safe.’

Mr Rob stood then and made his way to their cell door, reaching through the bars and looking at Jill he held out his hand. Vicky looked at Jill puzzled at what he was meaning.

‘Want me t’come and get it?’ he said pushing his face into the bars.
Jill stood and walked over to Mr Rob, she reached into her jeans pocket and past him the dead mans cell-phone. As soon as she placed it into his hand it began to buzz again. Mr Rob smiled, and then looked at the small illuminated window, it read L. K. He placed it on the floor, and with a huge foot he slammed down on it crushing it almost to dust.

‘Where’d that come from?’ asked Vicky.
‘It was his.’ she said pointing at the corpse in the next cell.
‘We’re not coming out of this alive. You know that don’t you?’ said Vicky biting at the nail of her thumb.
‘Don’t talk like that, you’re scaring me.’
‘I’m scaring you?’ scoffed Vicky. she half whispered nodding in his direction. ‘What about Herman fucking Munster out there?’

Even though their situation seemed dire, Jill managed a genuine smile at Vicky's remark and Vicky couldn’t help but smile back.
‘See, as long as we can still smile, we’ll be okay.’ said Jill.

Jill switched her gaze from Mr Rob to the body in the adjoining cell after she heard what sounded like the sudden snap of a twig underfoot, then thought she saw something twitch. Vicky saw nothing, her feet were on the bench and her forehead was resting on her arms and she was looking at the cell floor.

Mr Rob then pulled a set of keys from the box; he didn’t notice the key to the car was not among them. The key fob was a photograph of Vicky and Jill on one side and Vicky's mum and dad and Brother Nathan on the other.

He opened the small pen-knife and prised the photo holder open; he flicked out the photographs with the pen-knife then pulling a lighter from his pocket he set fire to them and dropped them into the waste paper bin at the side of the desk.

Jill looked at Vicky who was still staring at the floor. Jill was glad for that. Another twig snap, Jill looked again over at the body, she couldn’t be sure but she thought something was different, something had changed. Something had moved.