ASBO: A Novel of Extreme Terror(73)

“To call who?”

Andrew booted Dom in his side. “Who the f*ck do you think? Frankie! Call him and say that if he doesn’t leave the hospital right now to meet me then I will slice your throat like a chicken.” It felt wrong to use such vile threats, but also quite liberating. Andrew liked the way the words felt sliding from between his lips.

“Okay, okay.” Dom made the call on a small black phone that he plucked from his jeans. He waited a few moments until someone on the other end answered. “Hey, Frankie. You got to come get me, man. That motherf*cking psycho has me at knifepoint. I’m lying here in the mud like a sucker and he’s going to slice me like he did Jordan if you don’t come get me.”

There was silence in the woods for almost a full minute while Dom listened to Frankie’s reply. The whole time Andrew stood and watched, Dom’s face seemed to grow grimmer and grimmer. Eventually, Dom finished the call and put the phone away. He looked up at Andrew with a shocked expression. “Nigga put the phone down on me.”

Andrew had a bad feeling. Why would Frankie do that to his friend? “What did he say?”

Dom shook his head and seemed mortified. “He said I should deal with my own shit and if I was a man I should take you out for what you done to my brother.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow at him. “Want to try it?”

Dom put his hands up. “No man, enough, okay.”

“Did Frankie say where he is?”

Dom nodded and seemed like he didn’t want to answer. “The hospital. He said he’s just waiting for the coast to clear. There’re pigs about”

The barmaid must have done as I asked her and called the hospital. Thank you, Steph.

The police would buy Andrew some time. He could still make it to the hospital if he hurried back to his car, but first he needed to find out exactly where he was standing.

“What is this place?” he asked Dom.

“The woods at the back of Brockhill Farm.”

Andrew knew it. It was a rural plot of fields and woodland on the edge of town; a mile away from the nearest built-up area. Great place to murder someone.

“I ought to leave you here to die,” said Andrew, looking down at the cowering teenager at his feet. “But you’re too pathetic to waste my time on.”

Dom seemed to recover some of his lost confidence. Obviously he’d been expecting Andrew to kill him and was relieved to hear otherwise. “This shit ain’t over, man. I respect you letting me live right now, but if Frankie doesn’t finish you then I will.”

Andrew laughed at him. “I beg you to try. Then I’ll have a good excuse to send you to your brother. Right now, though, it wouldn’t be right.”

It was likely to be a very bad idea to leave Dom alive, but Andrew would be in jail soon, anyway, and unreachable for quests of revenge. Besides, he couldn’t just kill someone cowering at his feet – he couldn’t be the type of killer that would make him. Dom’s brother was dead and hopefully that was enough retribution to allow Andrew to sleep at night. An eye for an eye.

Andrew left Dom lying in the dirt and crunched his way back through the rain-soaked woods, trying to get his bearings by looking for the snapped twigs that marked the direction they’d come from. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before he saw the lights of his car in the distance, lighting up the rain as it fell in thick sheets.

With the engine still running, the keys would be inside, so Andrew wasted no time in heading for the driver’s side and hopping inside. He slammed the door shut beside him and looked out of the windscreen. Dom crawled around up ahead, but made no attempt to stop Andrew. The youth still seemed battered and beaten and as though it would take some time before he even had the energy to get up again.

It wasn’t clear which direction the road would be in, so Andrew decided to manoeuvre the car around, between the trees, until he was facing in the opposite direction. He set off in a straight line, hoping that it would turn out to be the route Dom had taken them in on.

The automatic wipers switched on as rain bombarded the windscreen and Andrew had to squint to see. There were trees everywhere and it was a real effort to avoid them all. Several times Andrew had to brake sharply and make erratic steering movements. The uneven, bumpy ground didn’t help much either and the tyres barely kept their grip in the sliding mud.

But eventually the trees began to thin and then, finally, open out into a clearing. The car hit a water-logged field and the steering got heavier. Andrew clutched the wheel tighter and leant forward to examine his surroundings. The field stretched down a hill and was lined on all sides by a wooden-post fence. In the distance were the easily distinguishable lights of a house.