Apocalypse Cow (26 page)

‘Lock yourselves in the car,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth, palming the keys to Lesley. ‘If he comes out of the house instead of me, drive away.’

‘Who says you get to be the hero?’ Lesley asked, jabbing him in the back.

‘He’s my cousin.’

‘You’re just being sexist, sending the women to the car,’ Lesley hissed. ‘I know Tae Bo. I’ll kick his head off.’

‘Tae Bo isn’t a martial art,’ Mary replied. ‘And I don’t want you to kick his head off. He’s still my husband.’

Terry raised the plank of wood, and issued a backward bump with his behind to encourage Lesley and Mary, who
were
crowded up against his back and peering over either shoulder, to get a move on.

‘This isn’t helping,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Can you please go to the car?’

‘What about my dad?’ Geldof asked, deciding to join in the mutiny against Terry’s clearly uninspiring leadership. ‘We need to get him.’

‘Don’t worry, son,’ said David, who had crept forward several paces during the bickering and was scissoring the knife and rolling pin like a demented Dalek. ‘I’ll take good care of your dad.’

Geldof seemed to take David’s comment as a threat to eat his father and, no doubt anxious not to lose a second parent in quick succession, bumped past the bodies blocking his way to run full tilt at the much larger man, windmilling his arms. David’s beer belly absorbed the force of the puny charge with ease, and in one quick motion the boy was spun around and had a kitchen knife pressed against his throat.

Terry lowered the plank of wood and raised his other hand in a placating gesture. He was all out of ideas until his gaze fell on Geldof’s pelt of ginger hair, which had the colour and texture of many a small rodent. He suddenly recalled David’s Achilles heel, and realized he had an ace up his sleeve.

‘Look, David,’ he said softly. ‘This is getting out of hand. Do you really think you can do this again? It’s just like the hamster.’

It was as if a switch had been flipped inside David. He too looked at Geldof’s hair, his face now slack. He dipped his cheek and rubbed it against the top of the boy’s head.

‘Oh, Hammy, I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I was just so hungry.’

The edge of the blade drooped from Geldof’s neck, and
David’s
eyes, misted with fresh tears, took watery prominence in a face now painted with misery.

Terry edged forward, feeling certain the crisis was now over, but Geldof did not seem attuned to the change in the atmosphere. He grabbed a generous handful of David’s crotch and squeezed with all his might. David dropped the knife, allowing the boy to squirm free and run past the living room. The twins appeared from where they had obviously been lurking behind the door, outrage at the treatment of their father evident in their clenched fists and twisted features. They converged on Geldof, but the boy did not flinch or slow down. He kicked Tony in the shin, and then pulled Malcolm down by the hair to administer a swift knee to the face. While his style was a little girly, Terry was impressed. Geldof disappeared from view up the stairs, calling for his father.

David was bent double, clasping his family jewels. The rolling pin and knife were abandoned on the floor, and Terry hastily kicked them away before glaring at the twins, who were still looking rather shocked at the unexpected thumps delivered by Geldof.

‘Are you going to give us any trouble?’

They shook their heads and retreated into the living room.

Terry turned to David, who had sunk to his knees to massage his gonads, crying with the pain of his injuries. ‘Come on, mate, it’s OK. Let’s just get going.’

Just as Terry was about to grab David by the arm and haul him to his feet, the wind chimes hanging above the front door began to tinkle. Underneath the high-pitched tinging came a bass rumble, which grew in volume and intensity until it was thrumming right outside the house.

‘Is that the army?’ Mary asked.

The engine noise died and, as if in response to Mary’s question, a voice blared through a megaphone. ‘I’m addressing the al-Qaeda operatives currently taking refuge inside number fourteen. Come out with your hands up and you won’t be harmed.’

Terry recognized the voice instantly. It was Brown.

He leaned around the kneeling David and ducked his head into the living room. Through the net curtains, he saw Brown’s hateful face poking over the fence. He was obviously sitting atop a high vehicle. Terry hoped it wasn’t a tank. He retreated through the doorway and motioned for everyone to stay where they were.

‘You have thirty seconds to comply, or we will open fire. Thirty, twenty-nine …’

While Brown continued his countdown, Terry backed down the hallway.

‘What do we do?’ Lesley asked, her eyes bulging.

Terry weighed up the options. If they gave themselves up, they were dead. Simple as that. Fleeing through the front door was out, as they would be heading straight into the lion’s mouth. If they went through the living room, Brown would see movement and guess they were trying to go out the back way.

‘Panic?’ he suggested as the certainty they were about to perish gripped him.

David chose that moment to get to his feet and shuffle into the living room, wiping his face with a chubby forearm. He headed straight for the window.

‘Get back here!’ Terry hissed, chancing another glance round the corner.

David ignored him. He pulled the net curtains aside and
slid
open the window as the countdown reached single digits.

‘There are no bloody terrorists in here,’ he said, his voice choked with emotion. ‘And it’s about time you showed up. For the love of God, take us to one of those camps and give me some fucking meat!’

The counting broke off. There was a brief silence before Brown shouted, ‘He’s got a gun! Open fire!’

‘Get down!’ Terry bawled at his cousin.

It was too late. Splinters of wood flew from the fence and shards of glass exploded into the living room, followed closely by the deafening mechanical chatter of the gun. Heavy-calibre bullets burst David open like a ketchup-filled balloon. The fire kept his dead body on its feet for a few seconds, sending it backwards in a jittery moonwalk, until his legs were cut from beneath him. He flopped to the floor, a shredded, lifeless rag.

Terry had just enough presence of mind to pull his head back into the hallway as bullets fizzed past, visible only as a swarm of deadly blurs. Ceramic gods stationed around the room, including the blackened statue, exploded into tiny fragments. The whine and concussive impact of the bullets drowned out every other sound, including the wide-mouthed screams of the twins, who were cowering behind the sofa, staring pleadingly in Terry’s direction as the machine-gunner strafed across the room towards them. He looked away, ashamed of his own cowardice but knowing that to go over there would be certain death.

He clamped his hands over his ears, trying to drown out the sound of the bullets thudding through the sofa. After what seemed like an eternity, the firing stopped, leaving only a high-pitched whine and the thudding of his runaway pulse in his ears. Terry forced himself to look into the room. The boys
were
sprawled on the carpet, their faces blessedly turned away. White stuffing floated in the air, slowly settling to the ground and instantly turning red in the pool of blood seeping out from their still bodies. He turned his gaze to the pulpy mess that had once been his cousin, and quickly looked away.

Terry was dimly aware of Mary trying to scrabble past and run to her dead children. He held her back, receiving a flurry of scratches on his face and neck for his pains. His hearing returned slightly, the whine overwhelmed by the inhuman screech emanating from Mary. He clamped a hand over her mouth, the fear that the racket might help the gunner pinpoint their position overriding the guilt he felt at such an insensitive action.

Lesley’s face was ashen, her nostrils flaring wildly, as she asked in a wavering voice, ‘What do we do?’

There comes a time in every man’s life, even in the life of a gruff, manly action hero such as Bruce Willis, when he forgets he is supposed to talk in a deep voice, and lets out a falsetto squeak that makes a choirboy seem like Barry White in comparison. For Terry, this was that moment.

‘Back into the cellar,’ he squeaked.

They kept low as they dragged Mary, who had gone limp, down the stairs. Terry crossed to the barred window. The chunky tyres and green bodywork of a military vehicle were visible through the bullet-tattered wood. Terry had seen enough episodes of
The A-Team
to guess it was probably some kind of technical with a heavy machine gun fitted on the back. Unfortunately this wasn’t
The A-Team
. People had died horribly, and they were next.

Brown’s sharp, hairless skull was just visible above the fence, like the fin of a shark breaking water.

‘Are you still alive, Terry-rists?’ he called mockingly.

‘Why is he bothering to call us terrorists?’ Lesley asked.

‘He needed to justify opening fire,’ Terry replied, his voice wavering. ‘In case any of the neighbours are watching.’

‘We know you’re in there,’ Brown continued. ‘You left your terror-mobile parked outside. Surrender and you’ll get a fair trial.’

The car
, Terry thought with the helpless fury that only the realization you have done something completely stupid, and avoidable, can prompt.

They had left the professor’s bright yellow bug parked in plain view instead of covering it up or dumping it. He had brought death down upon David and the boys with his stupidity. They might as well have painted a big sign on the roof proclaiming to passing satellites, ‘We are hiding here. Please kill us.’

He thumped the side of his head three times. ‘You stupid fucking tube!’

‘Be like that then,’ Brown called. ‘We’re coming to get you.’

Boots thumped to the concrete on the other side of the fence.

Terry scampered around the cellar in a desperate circle, hoping the movement would prompt his frozen brain into finding an ingenious escape plan. Coming down into the cellar had been an idiotic idea, born in a moment of panic. Now they were trapped. The stairs to the hallway were the only entrance, and the only thing they could use to barricade the door was the wine rack. Somehow, Terry suspected that IKEA hadn’t designed it to withstand automatic weapon fire. They would have to head back up the stairs and make a run
for
it. There was little chance of survival, but it was better than waiting to be picked off.

Terry had one foot on the stairs, motioning urgently for Lesley to follow, when shouting and cursing broke out above. Gunfire rent the air, sending Terry diving to the cold steps and his sphincter into spasms. It took him several seconds to figure out the fire was not being directed at him. He raised his head and glanced over at the window. The fence was shaking with multiple impacts. The engine rumbled into life, and the tyres peeled away. Then Terry saw why.

The rats were back, swarming in pursuit of the departing army vehicle, like a seasonal river coursing across the desert plain. Once they were past, Terry took his chance. ‘Let’s go. Now.’

As he hurried to the stairs, his gaze fell on the Bob Geldof cut-out. He grabbed it with one hand and took hold of Mary’s upper arm with the other. The distraught woman was a dead weight as they dragged her upstairs and out to the gate. He signalled to Lesley to wait as he stuck Bob Geldof’s head out into the street. When it wasn’t shot off, he tossed the figure aside. With Lesley holding one arm and Terry the other, they staggered with Mary towards the car, looking up and down the street for any more rats.

‘Geldof, are you there?’ he shouted at the upstairs window.

The window slid up and James, dishevelled but back in the land of the living, stuck his head out.

‘We’re here,’ he said. ‘Coming down now.’

Terry cast a longing glance at the BMW parked outside the next house, knowing it would be a safer option. But they didn’t have time to go into the Alexanders’ house, particularly since Mary was in no fit state to indicate the location of the
key
fob, so he clambered into the VW and slid the key, which he had snatched from Lesley on the way out, into the ignition.

What seemed like an eternity later, Geldof and James flew out of the gate and leapt into the car.

Terry fired up the engine just as a rogue pocket of rats, apparently tired of chasing the armoured vehicle, scampered back around the corner and bore down on the car. The front runners clambered up the tyres and launched themselves at the windows. A massive specimen flattened itself against the windscreen, scraping the glass with its teeth, as Terry put the car into reverse, taking the opposite direction from Brown, and hit the accelerator. The car veered to the right, losing traction on the rug of dead rats Brown and his men had shot to pieces, and sideswiped a Mercedes. Metal screeched on metal as Terry kept the pedal to the floor. Suddenly they were free of the frictional pull and the car picked up speed. Rats now covered the street in front of the house, weaving in and out of vehicles as they chased their new prey. Terry screeched around the corner backwards, put the car into first and accelerated away. The lone rat still clung on, its bloodied buck teeth gnawing at the glass. Terry turned on the windscreen wipers. The rodent was swept off and trailed behind the speeding car like a discarded cigarette butt.