The Chain(92)

“Wait here,” Pete says and goes through the door.

A dozen smoke alarms begin ringing. It’s an old house but it’s been remodeled, and in one of those remodelings a sprinkler system has been installed to protect the artwork the grandchildren have been collecting. Rachel has never been in a home that has its own sprinkler system and she’s shocked when cold water starts pouring down on her. She has no idea what’s happening.

Pete pops his head around the doorway. “No one there now. We should go. Those paint tins are going to start exploding in a minute.”

“Which way?” Rachel asks, coughing.

Pete has no idea. “Room by room. Stay behind me. Check my blind spots,” he says.

Pete forges ahead but he wonders if he can last much longer. He’s having trouble breathing. Adrenaline is putting off the collapse, but that won’t work forever. Hang in there, Pete, he tells himself, until you get Kylie safe.

The house has been haphazardly extended so that now it’s a maze of rooms and corridors and alcoves.

A hallway.

A room.

A big TV, a sofa, hunting trophies.

Another door.

Dining table, chairs, artwork.

A distant scream.

“Kylie!” Rachel yells.

No answer.

Back to the hallway.

Pete kicks open another door and swings his weapon into the corners of a kitchen. “Kylie! Stuart!” he says.

Nothing.

The house lights flicker as smoke from the garage fire fills the entire ground floor. Water is still dripping from the sprinklers and pooling at their feet. The smell is pungent, sour, Neolithic.

In a downstairs bedroom, Rachel spies Kylie’s coat but no Kylie.

The lights fail and come back on again, a dim, yellow goblin glow.

The bedroom connects to another room.

Pete eases the door open and looks inside.

Empty, but they can hear footsteps outside in the hallway. Rachel points to the door and puts her finger over her lips. Pete takes his remaining flash-bang from his pocket, violently tugs open the bedroom door, and throws the grenade into the corridor.

Another loud explosion and a burst of white light followed by machine-gun fire. Pete waits until the shooting stops and then in one clean, fast movement he goes out with Rachel, swinging right as Rachel swings left.

There, in front of her, at the end of the hallway, a man is reloading an assault rifle. The old man again. Not one of the twins. His hair is white; his stance is remote, tough, confident. He’s the one that Olly calls Grandpa and Ginger calls Red.

Rachel raises her shotgun.

She remembers what she was told at the range: wait until your target is close or your target flees. But this man is not running toward her or running away from her. He’s just standing there at the end of the long corridor.

He finishes reloading. He looks at Rachel and raises a long black gun.

Rachel pulls the trigger.

Her aim is off.

The wall to her right erupts in fire. The kick takes her in the shoulder. The man yells, drops his gun, and staggers into a room next to him. Pete turns, checks that Rachel’s OK, and goes down the hallway after the man, but he’s gone.

Pete picks up a dropped MP5. A perfect weapon for close work. He clears the mechanism and shoulders it.

“I think I’m out of ammunition,” Rachel says. Pete hands her the nine-millimeter and she sets down the shotgun, which has served its Chekhovian purpose.

The house’s lights finally go off and stay off.

The darkness is nearly complete.

Darkness. Smoke. Pools of dank water.

What can they do but forge on by iPhone light?

They come upon a big open-plan living room. Dozens of hunting trophies on the walls, and not just local animals—antelope, cheetahs, lions, a leopard. Predators and prey together.

Fear is coursing through her, but fear is a liberation too. Fear releases power and is the precursor to action.

Pete is drenched with sweat. “Are you OK?” she asks.

“Fine,” he replies. He feels the opposite of fine but the MP5 is comforting against his shoulder, there’s nine left in the magazine, and he still has his trusty .45. All good.

“Mommy!” a distant voice calls from somewhere outside.

They slide open a set of glass doors and find themselves in the snow. It’s blowing hard from the north and swirling about them in an icy wind.

“Over there, I think,” Rachel says, pointing to a series of disused farm buildings. There are footprints in the snow heading toward the closest structure.

They follow the prints toward the entrance to an old abattoir. This had presumably been a working slaughterhouse once but now there are gaping holes in the walls and roof, and ivy covers everything.

They kill the phone lights and go inside.

They’re immediately hit by the stench of blood, putrefaction, and rot.

Broken glass litters the floor and crunches under their feet.

It’s hard to see; the only illumination comes from the flickering lights of the house erupting in flames behind them.

Wind howls through the ruined walls and the roof.

Rachel jumps as she almost collides with a sow hanging from a ceiling beam. The pig’s lifeless dead eyes are level with her own.

Adjusting to the dark, she sees other animals on hooks—pheasants, crows, a badger, a deer.

The abattoir is on two levels with a small set of steps between them.