The Village King
Authors: Eddie McGarrity
Tags: #Action, #Adventure, #Mystery, #Thriller, #Suspense, #Science Fiction
The Village King
by Eddie
McGarrity
Copyright
© Eddie McGarrity 2012
Contents
C
louds
tumbled across
a grey
sky. Stephen pulled back his hood and allowed a light rain, the first for
weeks, to patter on his hat. A few drops trickled down his neck. He kept his
attention on the old farmhouse. Daylight was leaking away and a warm glow
spread out from the window. Careless, he thought, of them to light a fire and
not post a lookout.
On his way out he had looked the
place over; abandoned, burnt out, and unused for months, maybe years. Now,
three days later, on Stephen’s way back in, the house was in use again.
Unlikely to be the owner, he thought, who was probably long gone, more likely
it was someone like him. Stephen lifted a scope to his eye. It was a small
monocular, a Luger model he’d taken off a guy near Berwick, not far from where
he crouched. It fitted neatly in his hand and gave him the spotter detail he
needed without resorting to binoculars.
There was no movement from inside
the building. Parts of the roof were still intact and the glow was from a
sheltered part of the house. Stephen stowed the scope in a chest pocket and
started to move back but stopped the moment he heard movement.
It was still pretty far away but
he dared not move. He was in a hollow about 250 metres from the farmhouse, well
back from the single-track road which led up to it. At the top of the road were
four figures. When they came nearer, Stephen could see it was two men and two women.
The women’s hands were tied and they were being pushed down the road.
The group were about 50 metres
from where Stephen crouched and he felt his throat tighten. The women had their
heads bowed. They wore only light clothing, miserable in the rain, and their
hair lay matted and dripping. Their feet were bare. The men were dressed, like
Stephen, in good quality green outdoor gear. One of the men had a shotgun.
Stephen fished out his scope again, and eyed the group, but couldn’t make out
if the other man was armed.
Stephen kept completely still as
they passed by and finished their journey to the farmhouse. He was in a small
fox-hole and knew they wouldn’t spot him in the darkening air. The man with the
shotgun called out to the farmhouse. Another man, dressed the same, came out to
meet them. He laughed in surprised delight when he saw the women.
One of the women recoiled but she
was shoved roughly in to the doorway. The second woman, shorter than the
others, scrambled after the first and the whole group entered the farmhouse.
Stephen saw movement in the room with the fire. Shadows flitted across the
window frame. The men laughed and spoke to one another but Stephen couldn’t
make out what they were saying and there was no sound from the women.
He waited for a couple of minutes
until he was sure they had settled then he pulled back from his fox-hole. It
was filling with water and he was glad to be on the move. He thought of Ellen
and Jack.
Bollocks
. Stephen looked at the farmhouse again.
He approached the farmhouse from the dark side. Rain
continued to fall and he could still hear men’s voices from inside. Nearer to
the building, the ground became firmer, and Stephen padded up to the wall. From
his previous visit he knew there was an open doorway up ahead and he silently
approached.
He had stowed his overcoat and
bag half a kilometre north, on his intended escape route, and had doubled back,
hugging the eastern facing coastline. All he had was his Glock 26 pistol and
large hunting knife. They would have to do. The pistol was fully loaded with 10
rounds. The short handle fitted neatly into his hand. He had readied a round
before approaching and he now leaned his finger on the trigger. He stood by the
open doorway and waited for his breathing to normalise. He was panicking and he
needed to calm down. Storming houses was not his specialty.
He found a moment of calm and
then entered. He kept the pistol pointed up like he’d seen in movies and used
his left hand to feel his way round the darkness. He was in a kitchen. The
appliances lay blackened and ruined amongst fire debris. Beyond the kitchen had
been the hallway, and beyond that was the room with the fire and the men. He
could hear their voices and their occasional laughter.
Rain poured into the hallway through
the ruined roof. Stephen was grateful for it masking his footsteps as he
treaded through the kitchen. Entering the hallway, his heart pounded. He kept
his back to the wall just before the room with the men in it. Across from there
was a cupboard. His senses shook when he realised two faces were looking at
him.
It was the women though he saw
that one of them was only a child. She lay frightened in the older one’s arms.
The woman, who Stephen now saw was of a similar age to him, still had her hands
tied. She had hooked her arms around the girl for warmth but she held the girl
closer now. They were both terrified.
Stephen pointed to himself then
behind him, as if into the room, and shook his head. The older woman tensed. As
if calculating something, she looked down at the girl then back at Stephen. She
unclenched her fist and held out three fingers, which Stephen took to mean
there were three men in the room. He nodded and then readied himself.
His eyes were beginning to adjust
to the light. He was about to step into the room when one of the men suddenly
lumbered out of the room. Stephen shrunk into the corner.
The man, filthy and bearded,
belched and leered at the two women. “Alright, girls. Nearly time.”
The man stopped when he felt
Stephen press the pistol into the back of his neck and leaned his finger on the
trigger again. Stephen pushed harder and the man moved a little to the side.
Stephen gambled a corner of his eye into the room and saw the two other men
chewing on some food and ignoring the doorway. Before he could think of what to
do, the first man roared and twisted round to grab Stephen’s arm.
Stephen fired. The man howled and
Stephen guessed he had only wounded him. He shouldered the man aside and
stepped into the room. The man on the right had reached for the shotgun but
Stephen was already preparing another shot, had his pistol steadied with his
left hand, and had his feet planted. He dropped the man easily with a shot to
the chest. The shotgun went off. As the man fell, the barrel lifted and it
fired again. The third man, on the left, had jumped back into the corner, and
held his hands up in fright.
“I’m not armed,” he shouted.
“Don’t shoot.”
Stephen turned back to the first
man. He howled and rolled about on the floor, clutching his neck. Blood poured
out of a wound. Stephen put a bullet in his head at close range then moved back
into the room, sensing behind him the first man had gone still. He covered the
man in the corner while he checked on the man with the shotgun. He lay gurgling
on the floor, not moving.
Keeping his eye on the man in the
corner, Stephen reached down and lifted the shotgun. The small fire crackled
and burned. Stephen said, “Any more shells for this?” He held the shotgun up
into the air.
The man in the corner was shaking
with fright. Stephen repeated the question and stepped closer. The man recoiled
but he whimpered something, gesturing to the opposite corner. Stephen was
relieved to see it was a pile of canvas bags. He hadn’t even checked that
corner for people.
He angled his head towards the
door. “You can come through now.”
The women scrambled out of the
cupboard and came into the room, frightened and shivering. “Sit down by the
fire,” Stephen said to them. “Warm up for a bit.”
Warily, the older woman moved
nearer the fire. She dragged the girl, who kept her face hidden behind a
curtain of hair. They crouched down next to the shotgun man who had stopped
gurgling and lay silent. The woman found a small knife and began working at the
girl’s bonds.
“I wasn’t going to hurt them,”
the man said. “It was their idea.” He sat into the corner and his hands, though
still raised, were shrinking back towards him.
Stephen wondered how he was going
to do this. He needed whatever was in those bags but he couldn’t risk taking
his eye off this man. He put the shotgun down next to the bags. The woman had
freed the girl and was now working on her own wrists. She had a hungry fire in
her eyes, and Stephen didn’t trust leaving the gun with her either.
He stepped up to the man in the
corner and crouched down opposite him. Stephen could see he was young behind
the beard, and genuinely scared. “What’s your name, son?”
The man’s voice was shaky.
“Phil.”
“How many of you are there,
Phil?”
Phil frowned and he looked
confused. Stephen asked patiently, “Are you expecting anyone else to join you?”
Phil shook his head quickly.
“Just three of us.”
“And who are they?” Stephen
gestured to the dead men.
Phil shrugged. “Just some guys.”
Stephen thought there was something in the shrug which suggested Phil was glad
to see the end of them and he hoped he wasn’t just imagining it.
The woman and the girl tucked
into a small pot of food which had been warming on the fire. The girl in
particular wolfed into it. She must have been starving, thought Stephen.
“What’s your name?” Stephen said
to the woman. The girl put down her food and moved behind the woman.
“None of your fucking business,”
said the woman. She spoke through a mouthful of food, unmistakably an Edinburgh
accent. She swigged down some water from a canteen and passed it to the girl
who drank deeply.
Stephen was suddenly angry.
“Really? I just pulled your arse out a pantry.”
“We never asked you to,” the
woman said and wiped her mouth. “Just gimme the shotgun and we’ll be on our
way.” She reached over and tested the cloth of a coat which had been discarded
on the floor near the shotgun man.
Stephen glanced at Phil. He
seemed more frightened of the turn this conversation had taken than of Stephen.
Phil swallowed and looked at the floor. He was hugging his knees.
Stephen sighed. “And where are
you headed?” The woman shrugged.
When Stephen made eye contact
with Phil, the younger man realised the question was meant for him too, so he
said, “We just knock about here.”
Stephen sighed. He began to
relax, finding himself coming down from the fight. “There’s a village further
up the coast.”
“So?” The woman glared at him.
The girl rested her head on the woman’s shoulder and gazed listlessly into the
fire.
“So move yourself.”