‘Maybe she got on the bus to escape your stalking.’ Dean said, as he turned on the air-con.
‘Listen, Jones,’ Ross said, with a smile, ‘why don’t you just get yourself an inflatable girlfriend. They stick around a bit longer than the co-eds.’
‘Please help,’ Leighton repeated, his voice more strained this time.
‘Shut up,’ the cop in front said, and made a mock yawn. ‘You’re getting boring, old man. There’s no need to go on and on.’
‘Yeah,’ said his partner, turning around. ‘Maybe you should just sit back, and - Oh shit, shit! Pull over, Ross!’
Ross glanced in the rear view mirror to see Leighton’s rapidly darkening face, and his head lolling on his chest. His eyes had rolled to white slits in his face, and saliva was pouring from his mouth to form a vertical puddle on his pale blue shirt.
‘Fuck,’ Ross shouted. ‘He’s having a goddam seizure or something; we can’t have him die while in custody. That would be all we need.’
The cruiser came to a stop at the roadside, and both police officers climbed clumsily out of the vehicle. There was no noise from Leighton as he was dragged out of the rear seat by Ross.
Almost as soon as he was out of the vehicle, Leighton’s legs gave way, crumpling beneath him, and he tumbled backwards on to the dusty roadside.
‘Dammit, Dean, help me out here!’ Ross called to the younger officer.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘You hold him upright, and I’ll get his cuffs off - and keep a look out for cars. Anyone stops, we say he’s D&D. Okay?’
‘Sure,’ Ross said, and crouched over Leighton, pulling him to his feet. He was a dead weight, and the police officer struggled to hold him upright, while his colleague moved behind him to unlock the steel handcuffs.
Leighton performed the action so swiftly the officers barely knew what had happened. While Ross was busy unlocking the cuffs, Leighton let out the breath he had been holding, and let his half-lidded eyes fall on Ross’s side arm, about four inches in front of him. As soon as one hand was free, he let if fall forward, and pulled the Beretta from the holster.
Throwing his head backwards, Leighton smashed it into Dean’s nose. At the same time, he saw sudden horror spread across Ross’s face, and shot him in the foot. He then spun around and threw the dust he had gathered when he was on the floor into Dean’s face. Seizing the moment, Leighton stepped behind him and slammed his foot into the back of Dean’s knees, forcing him to fall forward on to the ground.
He pushed the barrel of the pistol to the back of his head.
‘Okay, young buck, I want your gun and your car keys, and I want them now!’
40
The stocky man, who had pulled a kicking Vicki onto the bus, threw her into the first seat behind the driver, and sat alongside her, blocking her in with his body. The dull reek of sweat emanating from his body was almost overwhelming.
Moments earlier, the bus had jolted to a stop, and Vicki had tried to wave it on again. Twisting one arm up her back and gripping her throat with the other, he had hauled her on to the bus, and thrown her into the first available seat.
‘What was that shit about back there?’
Vicki said nothing.
‘I asked you a fucking question!’ he persisted.
The man suddenly grabbed her head, tearing out some strands of hair, and twisting her face towards him.
‘I just changed my mind about the bus ride,’ Vicki said quickly. ‘I had just realised I’d left my purse at home.’
‘Sorry, our tickets are non-refundable, honey, everyone completes their journey.’
He chuckled as he released her head, and began stroking her leg. Vicki moved instinctively away from him, and towards the window. In response to this rejection, the large man sighed impatiently, and slapped her hard on her face.
‘Now, you play nice, or you’ll get another tap, okay?’
It was in that moment Vicki almost fainted. She had caught glimpse of a thick, gold chain, hanging like a glamorous noose around the neck of the man. Upon the chain, several rings of various sizes and shapes had been threaded. The third one from the end was a small gold band studded with garnets - it was the ring she had bought Laurie for her twenty-first birthday.
‘Did you fucking hear me?’
Vicki nodded, her skin red and stinging.
‘Good, now, take off your jeans!’
‘Okay,’ Vicki said. ‘Just don’t hit me again.’
As she undid the top button of her jeans, the large man began moaning and rubbing his crotch.
‘I’ll hit you often as I want, honey.’
Vicki shuddered as she leaned forward to untie her shoes. Undoing one shoelace, she then slipped her mother’s pistol from her sock, and undid the safety catch. Sitting upright, she pointed it at the large man. His expression darkened, and he made a raging lunge for her.
Vicki fired the gun directly into his stomach, sending a mist of blood on the face of the elderly man in the seat opposite. The force of the shot knocked her attacker off the seat and on to the aisle, where he sat like a sullen child. The bus, which had swerved momentarily causing angry horns to blare, resumed its course.
‘Somebody kill this bitch!’ he screamed, as blood oozed through his fingers.
A clear polythene bag was immediately thrust over Vicki’s head from the seat behind, and some type of cable looped around her neck. Within seconds, it was pulled tight, choking her, while she sucked desperately at the plastic shroud. She was already beginning to see spots form in her field of vision, when she realised what she needed to do.
Twisting her body to the side, Vicki pointed the gun at the back of her seat and fired three shots in succession. The powder from the blast scorched the skin of her back, etching it into her skin like a sweeping tattoo.
The cable around her neck tightened for a second, then grew loose. Vicki pulled it from her grazed throat and gasped for air, as she ripped the mask off. Glancing to the aisle, she saw the large man on the floor was holding his bleeding stomach with one hand, while struggling to open a butterfly knife with the other. Beyond him, the elderly man was trembling, as he fiddled with a rubber mouthpiece and large metal gas bottle.
Turning desperately around, she saw two dead men in the seat directly behind her. One had taken a shot to the face and a smear of blood, brain, and bone rose up on his headrest, like a grotesque thought bubble; the other had fallen to the side, and was now blocking the aisle. Beyond him were several grunting passengers, clambering over the corpse in a desperate attempt to reach her.
Vicki knew she had seven bullets left in the clip – not enough for all the attackers. Time seemed to slow to the syrupy pace of nightmares. For a moment, she considered turning the weapon on herself, but then she remembered what Leighton had told her: they will stop, if they are caught, if they burn themselves out, or if they are killed. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard her friend Laurie Taylor’s laughter, rich and sweet. These inhuman creatures could not be allowed to continue, or disappear back into the concealing folds of society.
From somewhere out in the real world, she heard the distant swelling wail of a police siren.
‘Fucking kill her!’ the large man screamed again in rage and pain. In the moment it had taken Vicki to consider her limited options, he had opened the knife and thrown it at her. It flew through the air and the blade sunk deep into Vicki’s right bicep. A bright flash of pain tore through her entire arm and she almost dropped the gun. Instead, with the knife still fixed in her flesh, she used her trembling left hand to cup the weapon, and took careful aim at him.