The Dust: Book Two - Pursuit (6 page)

Lonny let go of the lighter and the flame disappeared. ‘Not a fan of tobacco?’ He enquired.

‘Naked flames and red hot embers don’t mix with big barns full of hay.’ Rossiter dryly replied.

Lonny looked at the huge barn and took the unlit cigarette from his mouth.

‘Remember, eat up and be on your way.’ Rossiter went to walk off.

‘Don’t worry squire, it will be as if we have never been here.’ He slid his cigarette back into the box. ‘And are you sure you haven’t seen or heard any groups of people travelling past?’

Rossiter turned around. ‘I have told you once, no I haven’t.’

Lonny smiled. ‘Just asking, squire, just asking.’

Suddenly, the silence that had replaced the suffocated whispering while everyone ate was broken when Alice came running from the barn clutching Rufus the teddy bear. ‘Uncle Charles? Uncle Charles?’

Rossiter, who was just about to vanish into the murkiness of the kitchen spun around to see what the hell the commotion was.

‘Uncle Charles, Lou has left her teddy bear here.’ She ran past Lonny Gold and the two boys.

Rossiter instantly looked at Gold,
had he heard?
Before he could silence his niece she shouted at him once again.

‘It must have been when Angel found us in the big barn.’

Rossiter looked over again and this time his eyes were met by Gold’s.

‘Get inside child.’ He said calmly to Alice.

‘But what about Rufus?’ She protested.

‘Get inside!’ This time Rossiter shouted.

Archie spat on the floor. ‘They have fucking been here boss, I just heard that little kid say it.’

Lonny Gold said nothing but walked silently towards Rossiter.

‘Now look I don’t have to tell you anything, I have no idea who you are or what your intentions may be.’ Rossiter tried to make himself appear as big as possible and stepped towards the advancing Gold.

Lonny Gold said nothing but instead caught Rossiter’s face with the back of his huge hairy hand, the rings cut deep into the skin and Rossiter stumbled back and fell onto the courtyard floor.

Iris tugged at Sarah’s arm when she could see the conflict unfolding. ‘We are in for trouble, go and grab your daughter.’

Sarah Hardcastle swiftly made her way around the group of women who as yet had noticed what was going on.

Charles Rossiter wiped the blood from his bottom lip; he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. ‘What the bloody hell do you think?’

Before he could finish his sentence Gold kicked him square on across the jaw. Rossiters mouth snapped together with a sickening crack fracturing two of his front teeth and he flew back smashing the back of his head on the hard stone. He cried out in agony.

Now all of the women had heard what was happening and a few of them cried out disgusted at the display of violence exploding from their makeshift rescuer.

Gold jumped on top of Rossiter and clasped his hand around his neck, blood seeped from Rossiter’s mouth.

‘You lied to me you little fuck, I don’t like liars.’ Gold squeezed even harder and Rossiter’s eyes began to bulge. Gold was now overcome with anger and the veins in his neck looked as though they were going to burst out of his skin.

‘Hey get off my dad!’ Shouted the young Henry Rossiter as he ran from the kitchen and jumped onto the back of Lonny Gold.

‘Jesus!’ Harry James instinctively ran towards the melee but stopped a few yards from the scuffle, he froze.

‘Get off him you twat!’ Came the shout from behind Harry James, it was Archie. He was swinging a piece of wood that had been lying next to the barn. The wood caught Henry Rossiter on the back of the head snapping due to the force and the boy fell off Lonny Gold and collapsed limply onto the flag stones.

More cries came from the women as they witnessed the vicious attack on the youngster.

Harry James turned towards them to keep them away.

Gold stood up and dusted himself down, he looked across at the young boy lying motionless on the floor and then at Archie standing over him with the broken wooden club. He coolly nodded at the boy in thanks.

Rossiter coughed as he started to recover from his partial strangulation. Gold then marched across towards him, grabbed a clump of hair on the top of his head and dragged him across the courtyard towards his son.

‘Right you fucking jumped up little cunt, you have one chance so listen very carefully.’

Rossiter broke free and went to tend to his son who was unconscious and bleeding.

‘I didn’t say you could do that.’ Gold again cracked the broken father once again across the face with his huge right hand, his nose crunched and blood poured from his nostrils.

‘Stop it!’ One of the women shouted but it went ignored.

Gold then hauled Rossiter up by the collar of his bloodied shirt. ‘You have one chance, think carefully before you answer. If you answer incorrectly your son dies.’

Rossiter started to cry. ‘No, no, not my boy please, not my precious boy.’

‘Precious boy.’ Archie sniggered. ‘What are you? Some sort of weirdo?’

Gold shrugged his shoulders at Rossiter. ‘You see, my good friend Mr Archibald Stanton thinks you lot are a bunch of inbred toffs.’ He smiled. ‘One chance my friend, that’s all you have or your boy dies.’

Archie tightened his grip on the shortened lump of wood he was wielding back and forth,
God he hated rich people.

‘The question is this.’ Gold pulled Rossiter close, so close their noses nearly touched. ‘Where are the woman and the little girl heading?’

Rossiter went to speak but Gold cut him off quick. ‘Think about what you are going to tell me.’

Rossiter gulped, he glanced down at his boy lying helpless on the floor in a puddle of blood, he then shivered. ‘I don’t know.’ He said quietly.

‘Ding dong!’ Gold shouted and let go of Rossiter. ‘Wrong answer.’ He then turned to face Archie with his thumb in the air, he then looked over to the women that were now all huddled together most of them open mouthed at what they were witnessing. Slowly but surely he turned the thumb downwards. ‘Kill the boy!’ He bellowed.

‘Noooooooo!’ Rossiter tried to get up but again Gold slapped him down.

Archie brought the wooden club down with a crack, then another and then kept on going over and over again laughing as blood spurted from the boys cracked skull onto his hands and arms.

Most of the women turned around screaming and wailing and one teenage girl was sick.

Harry James didn’t turn around he just kept his eyes fixed on the women and their horrific reactions. They were repelled by Gold and his young accomplice and if there was any show of force from Harry James’s boss then this was it. Things would never be the same again.

‘Oh my God!’ Janet, Rossiter’s sister ran howling from the kitchen. ‘What have you done? What have you done?’ She ran towards Archie but stopped just short and turned away.

‘Get over there.’ Gold pointed at her brother who was now clearly in a state of shock staring blankly at the body of his son.

Alice then ran from the house and Sarah Hardcastle broke ranks and grabbed the girl before she could see her dead cousin lying in his own fractured skull and blood.

‘Where is Mummy?’ She looked around but a few of the women crouched down around her to comfort her but most importantly block her view.

Lonny Gold walked over to Janet who was now hugging her brother. ‘Now it’s your turn Missy.’

Janet stroked her brother’s hair and turned to Gold. ‘What have you done?’

‘Where did the woman and the girl go?’

Janet not privy to the earlier altercation grimaced. ‘What woman?’

Gold was losing patience and now drew a hand gun from the back of his belt and pointed it straight at her. ‘The woman called Angel and the little girl with her. Where have they gone?’

Janet stuttered slightly. ‘They, they went this morning, early.’

‘Where?’

Janet now stared down the barrel of a gun, she swallowed hard. She didn’t care too much about living, she missed her husband and life without him had become tortuous and hard, but she had Alice to think about and it was her little girl that had kept her alive. ‘I honestly don’t know but by the men’s accents I would say south, Bristol or Somerset.’ Her bleary eyes then focused back to her brother Charles.

‘What do you reckon boss?’ Archie tried to brush the boy’s blood off his arms but all he managed to do was smear it and now it looked as though he had dipped his hands in red paint.

‘Truss these two up like chickens.’ He waved his gun at Janet and Charles Rossiter.

‘Throw them in the barn and then we will burn this place to the ground. No one fucks with Lonny Gold.’ He then searched for Harry James. ‘Get those women back in the truck.’ He blasted. ‘We move south shortly.’

Before the young boy could do so Sarah Hardcastle stepped out of the crowd and challenged Lonny.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ She barked. ‘You can’t just go around killing children and burning buildings. We may have lost the lives that we once knew but we must keep some order, some morality.’

‘Are you questioning me?’ Gold sneered, his eyes growing in size the vein in his neck rising once more.

‘You are acting like a law unto yourself, it’s wrong and you have no right, we need to maintain ethics, integrity.’

Gold grabbed Sarah Hardcastle by the throat and dragged her towards Archie.

The women started to front up and Harry James stepped back, his hands out.

‘Get them in the truck Harry or I will kill this bitch.’

The warning had some effect and the women stopped. Naomi Hardcastle started crying and screaming though. ‘Leave my mother alone.’

Harry James, who was now holding his air rifle with both hands pushed the small band of women back towards the truck.

Iris looked on and shielded Alice from the horror that was unveiling. ‘Get her.’ She said to the thin woman with the narrow eyes. ‘Get Sarah’s daughter.’

The thin woman ushered Naomi back to the group, they were then forced back inside the orangery.

Lonny Gold swung Sarah Hardcastle around like a rag doll and then marched her back across the courtyard and into the barn. He then pushed her to the floor.

‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ The red blood vessels in his eyes were now swelling, his anger exploding as if bursting over the top of an already boiling pan. ‘Archie!’ He yelled. ‘Have you finished tying those fuckers up?’ He looked around for the youngster.

Archie called back and a few seconds later he was in the barn next to his mentor. ‘All bound and gagged boss. Trussed up like hens as you asked.’

‘Do you want a little fun?’ Lonny Gold grinned at the boy. ‘You earned it.’

Archie looked at Lonny and then at the woman lying injured and fighting for her breath on the floor. He twigged what his boss was on about. ‘Oh yes please.’

Sarah Hardcastle also cottoned on and she started to plead. ‘No, no please, you don’t need to do this.’

‘Oh we do.’ Lonny replied. ‘You need to learn to shut your filthy mouth.’

‘Oh God please no.’ She could see Archie unzipping his jeans. Sarah tried to get up, there was no way she was letting that little grunt anywhere near her.

Gold took her legs away from under her and she crashed to the ground. ‘Stay down and open your legs like a whore.’ He growled.

‘Please I beg you, you don’t need to do this.’

‘Okay.’ Gold agreed. ‘We will get your daughter instead. A bit younger and a bit firmer.’ He turned to Archie. ‘Fancy the young 'un?’

‘God yes.’ Archie was nearing a state of frenzy.

Gold then knelt down next to Sarah and whispered in her ear. ‘And we will both ride her, me and the boy and when we have finished riding her she won’t ever get back up.’ He then kissed her on the cheek.

Sarah looked into Gold’s dead eyes, she said nothing, there was nothing she could say or do, there was no alternative.

‘Now be a good whore and open your legs for the boy.’ Gold glanced down and slowly she opened her legs.

Lonny looked up at Archie. ‘Go on then my young champ, claim your prize.

Lonny left the barn and walked over to his two bound captives and lit up the cigarette he had earlier put back in the box, he threw the spent match at the bound and gagged Rossiter.

Back inside the large barn three minutes of savage carnal bliss for Archie was a lifetime of hurt and anguish for Sarah. They both left the barn in silence, Archie adjusting his jeans and grinning at Lonny and Sarah three paces behind him looking ten years older than she had a few minutes earlier.

The women now all sat in the back of the truck in shock and they wondered what the alternative was to staying with this sociopath and his two lap dogs.
To try and go it alone and risk getting torn apart by the infected?
Every one of them was too scared to leave the truck, they were now prisoners of fear, the worst kind of prisoner there was.

Lonny Gold handed a flaming torch to Harry James. ‘Are they now in the barn?’

Harry James nodded, surprisingly Charles Rossiter and his sister had put up no fight whilst being tied up and moved to the barn, the body of the son was also thrown in limply next to them. Janet had made no reference to her daughter and perhaps she knew she would be signing her death warrant by asking for her. Maybe she was safer under the radar and with the women.

‘Archie, torch the house.’ Lonny then watched on as the boy threw petrol soaked rags in every window.

Harry watched too his mind racing with the events that had taken place in the early evening. Things had escalated out of control so fast, faster than his mind could really comprehend. Lonny then pointed to the animal sheds.

‘Burn them Harry.’

‘The animals boss?’

‘Yes the fucking animals. I want them all dead, I want the owners dead, most of all I want the whole place burnt to the ground erased from the map. No one, I repeat no one fucks with me and lives to talk about it.’

All three of them set about their business and soon Wisteria Hall was a blazing inferno.

Chapter Eight.

Amber Meadows pushed her hand through the hole in the wall she had created and felt around, it was smooth. Another crash from the landing made her turn around and she could see the shadows getting ever closer. Soon grandad and Elaine Smith, the woman with the stinky dog would be in the loft with her. Amber knew that wouldn’t be a good thing.