Berserk (19 page)

At least, for now. Tom was under no illusion; there would be a reckoning, a time when he would have to go to the police and tell them everything that had happened. Between now and then, however, he had to do whatever he could to move on.

He jumped the gate and went behind the hedge to where he had left Natasha. A snail had crawled onto her face in the few minutes she had been in the grass, and Tom flicked it off and stepped on it in disgust. The subtle crunch of its shell beneath his shoe felt good. He picked her up, chains and all, and was she slightly heavier than before? He could not really tell; the fight and its emotional recoil had drained him.

“Natasha?” he said again, but if she heard him she chose to remain silent. He stood there for a few moments, looking down into what was left of her face, trying to discern any form of expression there. But her living death was expressionless; everything she felt or thought was shown only on the inside.

He placed the girl on the back seat of the BMW and covered her with Mister Wolf’s jacket. Back at his ruined car he carefully bent Jo’s knees, hating the cool feel of her skin and the way her legs already seemed to be growing stiff.

“Jo,” he said, feeling everything, able to say nothing. “Jo.” He closed the door.

He ran back to the BMW and opened the boot. It was filthy inside, strewn with old sacks and dried grass and leaves, but he found what he was hoping for in one corner: a toolbox. He undid the straps holding it in and emptied it in the boot. Then he shook his head, cursed himself and hurried over to the prone man.

he thought.
Got to get everything right!
Got to get the order of things right. There’s always order in things – the right order, and the wrong – and if I get this wrong now then I’ll be caught, and there’s no way my story will be believed. I’ve got a bloodied gun, my dead wife, a child’s corpse and this pistol-whipped killer lying in a country lane. What story could the police concoct from this? And what about the Army, or whoever it was this bastard worked for? Got to get this right. Jo, in the car. Mister Wolf, beside the car. Then Natasha’s chains. Then Mister Wolf again.

Then the gun.

Dragging the man across the road was harder than he had expected. Whatever strength had come to him had drizzled away again, and he grunted and huffed as he pulled Mister Wolf by the legs. The man mumbled something as they approached the ruined car, and Tom stood over him again with the gun pointing at his face. But the mumbling stopped, the breathing became harsh and uneven, and Tom lifted him into a sitting position against the car.

That done, he returned to the BMW and started rooting through the spilled tools. All the time he kept an ear open for any approaching vehicles, wondering just what he could do if someone came along now. There was surely some believable story he could come up with given time, but right now he was not in the mood for creating stories. Right now, he simply wanted to leave.

He found a pair of bolt croppers. They were old and rusty, but still the blades had been kept sharp and oiled, and the action was smooth. He leaned into the car, uncovered Natasha and got to work on the chains. He wanted to cut them as little as possible, because he had need of them. It took four broken links before he was able to unwrap the chains totally from Natasha, taking care not to pull off parts of her body as he extracted a few sections that were buried deep within her rotten clothing. Finally the last length came away. “You’re free,” he said, and from somewhere far away he heard a sigh.

Mister Wolf was still leaning against the ruined car, unconscious. His chin rested on his chest, dribble darkened his shirt, and blood dripped from the wound at his temple. Tom thought he saw him breathing, but he did not want to move close enough to see for sure.

It was time to find out whether his plan would really work.

The chain was long enough to wrap twice around the man’s head and the steering column of Tom’s wrecked car. Tom joined the chain at the base of Mister Wolf’s neck with two of the broken links, using the bolt croppers to squeeze the snipped ends together. He supposed that the man would be able to work the chain around and perhaps pry the snapped links apart, but he would not be able to see what he was doing, and it should take a long time.

Someone would have found him by then.

Lastly, the gun. Tom cleaned it as well as he could with his shirt, found the button that ejected the magazine, then placed the unloaded weapon on the ground beside Mister Wolf. He pocketed the magazine, then stood back to survey his work, frowning. He knelt again, grabbed the gun, lifted the man’s hand and curled his finger into the trigger guard, laying it onto the trigger.

Shit, he had no idea what he was doing! In the movies this would work, but this was not a bloody movie. He was not quite sure whether it was real life, either, but whatever it was he had to get going. Whatever he had done here would be found soon enough, and while Mister Wolf answered questions with the police, he and Natasha would be gone.

“Gone for Steven,” Tom said, standing, glancing into the car at his dead wife, remembering the birth of their son. Jo had been screaming, and Tom had been crying so much that he could barely see. “Gone for Steven, Jo.” Damn. She had died without even knowing there might still be a chance.

Something touched his crotch.

“Move and you lose them.”

Tom dropped the bolt croppers and looked down. Mister Wolf had raised his head, lifted the gun, and now he was pressing it into Tom’s scrotum.

“No bullets,” Tom said, revealing the tip of the magazine in his pocket. But something prevented him from moving; he had never touched a gun before, and he had no idea how they really worked.

“Your name? What’s your name?” Tom looked down. The man was frowning, right eye swollen half-shut and thick with blood, face pale, and his head was swaying from side to side as if it hurt to hold it up.

“I’m
Tom
!” He had no idea what he was doing. Stalling for time? Trying to start a conversation with this killer pressing a gun into his balls?

“Huh?” Cole looked woozy, and his head dipped down to his chest, then up again. The gun never moved a millimetre. “Shut the fuck up, Tom,” he said. His voice sounded stronger. His left eye focussed on Tom’s face and stayed focussed. “Where is she?”

“I told you, I hid her back—”

“I’m tied up with her chains, shithead.”

Damn!
Tom pursed his lips and looked along the road.
Please come now, please come now, someone, anyone, please please I don’t want to die like this, with my balls blown off for the birds to come and take away
. . .

And then Natasha woke up.

* * *

Tom squeezed his eyes shut as he felt her worm inside his mind, her presence fresh and seemingly renewed. She rooted around, finding things. She felt vibrant and . . . alive!

Only one bullet to dodge, Daddy?
she asked.
Well then, he’s in pain, dizzy, and I’ll be able to give you one chance.

“What . . .?” Tom said, but Cole suddenly cried out in pain and pushed the gun harder into Tom’s balls.
Here it comes,
he thought.

* * *

Cole squeezed the trigger. For the first time in his life he was actually looking forward to killing someone. His head hurt like hell, his temple felt weak and mushy, and the headache meant he could barely even open his one good eye. The piece of shit deserved to die.

He squeezed.

“What . . . ?” Tom said.

Natasha came. She erupted from Cole’s subconscious, throwing open the doorways of his deeper mind, gushing up into the foggy streets of his awareness, shouting and screaming and raging like the insane berserker she was. There was no sense or meaning to her outburst, though he read the hatred it contained. He could not make out any single words, but her mockery and derision was obvious in the scream, driving into and filling his waking mind with such loathing that he could only shrink back under its assault. She gave him the violence she had always possessed. He tried to curl into a ball. He dropped the gun and grabbed his head in both hands, ignoring the pain from his temple, feeling the sticky blood there and wishing the wound would vent Natasha from his mind.

“Get out,” he whispered, because he had little strength for anything more.

Get out get out get out!
she screeched, whining like a little girl who knew far too much.

“Leave me,” he said.

Leave me leave me
. . .
Mister Wolf, fuck you, you can suck my ass, fuck you Mister Wolf, you’ll lose, you’ve already lost!

“No,” Cole said. And with a monumental effort, fighting through the agonies of his body and the torture in his mind, he opened his eyes, saw the gun lying next to him and reached for it.

A wavering, fuzzy shape grew smaller in his vision as Roberts fled.

Cole screamed, aimed the gun and fired.

* * *

Cole fell away from Tom, dropped the gun and curled into a ball.

Daddy, it’s time to run,
Natasha said, her voice calm and considered.
One chance, Daddy. He’s got one round, and you’ve got one chance.

Tom stepped over the groaning man and headed for the BMW. His balls ached, he felt sick, the painful glow radiating up from his groin and stomach almost bending him double.

Quickly!
Natasha said.

“I’m moving.”

“Leave me,” Cole said from behind him, and Tom glanced over his shoulder, wondering what she was doing to this killer’s mind. Something horrible, if his expression was anything to go by. Something that gave him pain. Tom was glad.

“No,” Cole said. He raised himself on one elbow and grabbed the gun.

Run Daddy, dodge, fall, he’s going to
—

The shot blasted out, startling Natasha deeper into Tom’s mind, and he sensed her own profound shock as something punched him in the back and sent him sprawling across the tarmac.

Shot,
he thought,
I’ve been shot.
There was no pain, no real sensation other than being winded, and he hoped that this was as it had been for Jo, this shocked numbness before death.

Death
. . .

“I’m dying,” he said.

Daddy!
Natasha gasped, and he could hear her tears.
Wait
. . .
it’s not that bad. Stand up. Stand up now!
Her voice changed on those last three words, losing their childish lilt and taking on something of age and experience, something that spoke of power and adaptability. And fury. She was enraged.

Tom groaned, pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, stood. From the BMW he heard the squeak of leather as something moved inside.

* * *

Natasha screamed in his mind, a long, loud, incoherent exhalation of pure rage. Cole had heard this before, years ago when the berserkers were at their fiercest, mad and hungry and craving the feel of living flesh between their teeth. Then they had been contained at Porton Down, and their psychic abilities had never been so strong. Now, Natasha had changed.

He tried to crawl away but could not escape his own mind.

Cole screamed, but he could not hear himself. He fumbled on the ground for the bolt croppers, closed his hand around them and blindly snipped at the chain. The broken links fell away. He crawled across the road and into a ditch, the terrible effect of Natasha’s scream lingering. Instinct drove him on, arm over arm, pushing with his legs.

It seemed like hours before the roar started to fade. But by then Cole was lost to the world, unconscious, prowling the dark places of his mind for somewhere to hide from this monster that pretended to be a little girl.

When darkness found him and took him away, he was glad.

* * *

Tom pulled himself upright against the car, still waiting for the pain to kick in. At least he could stand.

Come here,
Natasha said.

He looked into the rear seat and saw the bundle that was Natasha. It seemed to have moved. Her arms had separated slightly from her body, and the face had turned toward him. There was still no expression there – no signs of anything other than the death-mask he had seen before – but her attitude had changed. Whereas before she was a mummified corpse, now she was something that seemed to crave its erstwhile animation. He stared at her face, tried to remember just how he had placed the body on the seat, and then the signs of movement were obvious.

Here,
she said again, a young girl’s voice, yet the command impossible to ignore.

Tom leaned into the car, and that was when the pain came. He groaned, froze, hoping that lack of movement would quell the fire that was growing in his lower back. But it did not. Stoked by his spasming muscles the agony roared louder, and Tom thought,
I won’t remember this pain, it’s nothing, it’s a signal, the damage is done and there’s nothing worse going on now, it’s a signal that’s all, a signal, and oh fuck it
hurts!

Quickly!
Natasha said, and though his eyes were closed Tom sensed slight movement again.
Lie down beside me.

Tom slumped across the car’s back seat. He felt Natasha’s corpse against his chest and tried to pull back, but he had no strength, and he lay there with Natasha pressed between himself and the seat.

Closer,
Natasha whispered.
Closer, Daddy.
Even through the pain he heard a quiver to her voice.

Eyes squeezed shut – not so much because of the pain now, but because he no longer wanted to see what was happening, what was moving, why he could hear the squeak of leather – he felt a stab of pain in his chest. And then there was slight movement there, as if he were being tickled by a feather, and darkness came to calm his pain.