The Lover's Children




HARKNESS

"That's fucking it!" Flinging the pizza away, stamping forward, I swing and punch. My fist smashes into her face and she yells. Blood spurts, hot on my hand, but too late I see she's by the cutlery drawer. The bread knife stabs toward me, but I slam my hand against her wrist, knocking the knife from her hand.

Grabbing her by the hair, I swing her around, crashing her face forward against the wall. She doesn't even seem to notice, screaming and twisting back at me, but gripping her by the hair again, backhanding her, I knock her to the ground. "I'm gonna split that brat of yours into so many pieces you won't know it from fucking dog meat!"

Scrabbling back to the cupboard, I fling open the door but...

Cheap plastic containers...

Paper cups...

Kitchen roll...

Where's the fucking kid?

Then I see it. To one side, near the door, behind my view as I came in, another of the cupboards. Dish towels and sponges and cleaning crap are scattered over the floor, tumbled around a cabinet door, tape wrapped tight around the handle, tying it to the next door. The kid's screeching comes from inside.

I launch myself toward the door, but the bitch comes at me, screaming like a banshee, this time swinging a broom handle like it's some sort of club.

It crashes into the side of my face, and still she's coming at me, streaming blood from her nose, teeth bared, and nails clawing for my eyes...

*****

MICHAEL

The short hall is narrow and won't take us side-by-side. Slightly ahead of me, Klempner charges in, following the screams of fury and pain ripping through from beyond the door directly ahead of us.

It's a standard churn-them-out-by-the-thousand interior door. As we charge forward, the door bangs in its housing, something slamming against it from the other side.

From beyond, a crash, shrieks of defiance, something smashing.

The howl of a child's fear...

Another screech, fury now. "Don't you go near her, you bastard!"

A scream a male scream...

"Bite me, you fucking bitch? I'll knock your fucking teeth out!" Another scream, this time a cry of pain and fear and the crack of knuckles on flesh.

Klempner wrenches at the handle, but nothing happens. Cursing, he barges at the door, shoulder first, his body weight behind the charge. It gives, then slams back into the frame. Klempner Ooofs!, rebounding from the timber. "Something's blocking it," he snarls.

"Let me." With a look to freeze the balls off demons, he stands back, letting me at the door.

For the form of the thing, I try a push, but he's right. The door's not locked. There's something behind it, blocking it closed. "I'll push. You try to get your boot in the gap..."

The screaming and chaos from beyond the door falters...

"What are you armed with?"

"My knife."

"No gun?"

"I was expecting to spend my day raising a marquee."

My shoulder behind it, I heave and Klempner jams his toe into the gap. Another heave and, fragile veneer cracking, the door gives a little more, something screeching on the other side, the tortured screech of forced movement.

As I heave again, he has his eye to the gap. "It's a settee..." he says.

A settee?

?

"... Keep shoving. It's trying to slide."

Jamming my boots against the skirting, body and thighs behind my shoulders, I heave once more and slowly, screeching all the while, the settee shifts and the door

opens...

and as the gap is just wide enough, I squeeze though...

... to a shambles of a space, empty of people, with only a door swinging wide to the outside beyond and the panicked wail of a baby.

A table lies overturned, one wooden leaf wrenched from its hinges. Slatted wooden chairs lie on the floor, seats smashed, broken, backs cracked. The remains of a mug lie shattered in one corner. Curved glass shards are all that remain of drinks glasses. Bizarrely, a pizza slice is stuck to the wall, tomato streaking across the paintwork, dripping to the floor.

The scents of sweat and fear...

...

and beer and whiskey...

And it stinks of gin...

Blood spatters in a wide arc across one wall, oval splatters, dotted and dripping, continuing onto the floor. A print in blood is impressed onto the paint, quite clearly part of a human face, a female face. Below it, an ugly pool, red expanding over the linoleum, glinting white in places.

There's no sign of either Mitch the Surgeon.

Close by somewhere, a baby's screams ratchet up a notch, vibrating through the

room...

My pulse races...

Vicky or Mitch?

Then from behind me, pounding footsteps coming up the hall. Charlotte bursts into the room. Chad's right behind her. Beyond them I see lights flashing amber and blue. Uniforms in blue.

"Charlotte!" Gesturing wildly somewhere in the direction of the screaming, I yell at Charlotte. "Vicky!"

Then I charge out, following the trail of blood.

*****

KLEMPNER

Michael heaves at the door, his full body weight behind his shoulders. From beyond, screaming; Vicky's muffled, but Harkness and Mitch are both loud and clear. She's

putting up a good fight.

But she can't win...

Her cry, pain...

Then his, rage...

My throat tightens...

Michael smashes into the door again...

From the front, sirens, wailing in, drawing closer, growing louder...

Abruptly the adult screams and yells fall quiet...

The slam of bolts being drawn...

...the voices recede...

... A brief clatter of...

...boots on timber?

then silence, save for Vicky's muffled shrieking...

Michael charges the door again, but

reversing back out of the hall, I sprint a circle around to the back of chalet. Police are arriving in droves, cars squeating up, lights flashing blée and amber. As I round the chalet,

uniforms are piling out behind me. A van screeches up, but I'm already gone.

The rear door of the chalet swings

open, a trail of blood drips over a small wooden deck to short-mown grass, then across leaf litter leading

into the woodland area. Moving at a run, follow scattered leaves marking where something has been

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Behind me, the shrill mee-maw of incoming sirens. The screech of tires and brakes.

Ahead of me, voices...

I don't see them but Mitch is screeching like a fishwife.

"Shut up, bitch. Shut the fuck up..."

No... Keep screaming...

"... Fucking bitch! Fucking, fucking bitch! I'll fucking finish you. You think you can

come back at me. Me? I'll show you what it means to fuck with me. You and that

fucking husband of yours."

"My husband's going to gut you."

Too fucking right...

But Mitch's voice rips with pain. Her words are slurred. Muffled almost.

Then, with an abruptness that clenches my gut, she falls silent.

From behind me, police charge in, dozens of them, crashing through bushes.

Harkness can't miss them.

Perfect diversion...

But where are they?

*****

CHARLOTTE

We squeal in on two wheels. A skinny figure in bottle-bottom spectacles windmills an

arm along a line of wooden holiday huts. "That way!"

At the end of the line, the last of the huts stands with the door swinging open, the

lock smashed. From inside, a baby's hysterical shriek.

Brakes screeching, the car's still moving as I fling my door and sprint inside...

and at the end of a corridor shimmy past a semi-blocked door...

... to find Michael in a living room, the back door swinging. "Charlotte!" Then, flinging an arm to point somewhere behind an upturned couch.

"Vicky!" he yells, then bolts out of the door. From behind me, police stream through

the house then out again, following him.

A hand claps on my shoulder. Chad. "They're following your Mom. Let's get your

sister." His head swings. "Where on earth...?"

The couch is huge, the L-shaped kind that fits the corner of a room. Overturned, it lies haphazardly, one corner jamming across the door from the hall, its main bulk blocking off a kitchen area. From somewhere behind, comes the wail of my little

sister.

Chad shoves at a corner. Leaning into the thing, he blows out his cheeks. "Fuck me, but that's heavy. Jenny get the other end, we'll shift it between us. Let's flip it back over, then we can get behind."

Clumsily, between us, holding onto spongy armrests and ungrabbable corners, we

muscle the thing back upright, then out of the way. Brass feet screech against the walls and floor.

Chad grimaces as he gets his shoulders behind a last push. "What the hell's it made of?"

"And how did it get like this?"

He clicks his tongue. “You hear these stories about people in a desperate situation. Responding with strength they don't normally have."

"Like the one about that woman who lifted a car when her little boy was trapped underneath?"

"Exactly like that... There! That should do it."

A space cleared behind, Vicky's screams grow abruptly louder. The sound comes

from inside a kitchen cabinet, two doors taped and cable-tied tightly together so they can't open. More cable ties lie scattered over the counter and floor.

Chad mutters, snatching at drawers, opening one after another, scrabbling through

cutlery before producing a pair of kitchen scissors. "Easy enough to cut through', he comments, "but only if you have a blade in your hand..."

"And if you don't have my Mom trying to rip out your throat to stop you..."

the

The cut ties drop apart and he slices open the tape, peeling it from handles in layers. And there, locked inside, lying on a dish towel,

screaming into the dark, my litel. no

sister. Red-faced, streaming tears, she shrieks her protest. Picking her up, I hold her close, rocking her. "Shhh... It's alright, Sweetie... Everything's alright."

"Jenny..." Chad's tone is urgent.

"It's fine..." I hug Vicky to myself. "Go after them."

He charges out, following shouting and cries of alarm from somewhere in the

woods.

And another figure stampedes into the room. "Charlotte?" My Master: breathless, red-faced and streaming sweat. "Master..." I point through the back door and he too pelts out. And finally, rocking my little sister, trying to calm her, to comfort her as well as

myself, my sobs break free.

*****

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