The Dungeon & Christmas With the Executioner Page 10

  Strickland was good, the Boy admitted. The older man moved so quietly, he probably believed he made no sound at all. If it had been anyone else listening, they may have agreed. But it wasn't anyone else listening. It was Bedlam Boy. And he could hear the first drops of water hit the kitchen floor as the freezer defrosted, or a spider wrapping a bug in sticky silk in the corner of the window. The mouse scurrying for cover as the owl dropped from above, the crackling yawn of underfloor heating pipes adjusting to the drop in temperature, the rustle of Strickland's trousers as he inched downstairs, the hushed, soft creak of shoe leather. The Boy didn't need to see Strickland at all.

  His grin returned when the toe of Strickland's shoe scuffed the tiles under the guard's body.

  Then the louder thump of the corpse being turned over.

  One. Two. Three.

  Even with a wall between him and the stun grenade, Bedlam Boy screwed his eyes shut, pushed his hands over his ears, the cold, hard soil in his fists blotting out all sound. The grenade registered as a punch to his skull and sternum.

  He shook his head and scraped away the dirt, then danced into the hallway.

  For to see my Tom of Bedlam, ten thousand miles I'd travel

  Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes, to save her shoes from gravel

  Strickland's eyes were open, but he saw nothing. He held a gun in each hand and, as the Boy skipped across the tiles to meet him, he started firing. Even blind, deaf, and—surely—in fear for his life, his actions remained logical. This was no wild reaction of a cornered animal. Strickland, despite the evidence to the contrary, still thought he was in control. His shooting pattern covered three hundred and sixty degrees. Anyone coming close stood a good chance of taking a bullet or two.

  The Boy ducked and rolled as the gun in Strickland's right hand swung in his direction, standing up after the bullets passed overhead. One of them embedded itself in the doorframe, the other continued towards the gate at the end of the drive, stopped by a tree on the far side of the road.

  In the facility where Tom Lewis had learned to walk, and—to a fashion—talk again, he spent hours slumped in front of a television. There was a recurring trope in certain movies and series. A moment when a hero faced the villain, but gave away any advantage they held. If the villain was unarmed, the hero would throw away their knife or gun. Mano e mano. The villain might have killed innocent people, set off a bomb that maimed children. Tortured kittens. It didn't prevent a kind of twisted nobility in certain heroes from levelling the playing field for their final confrontation. On TV, the good guy always won.

  Good guys are idiots.

  Bedlam Boy head-butted Strickland, his hard, broad forehead snapping the bridge of the Executioner's nose, decimating the cartilage behind. Blood ran down the man's face as he staggered back a single pace. This was Strickland's only concession to the injury. He processed the information and acted on it with incredible speed. Bedlam Boy didn't expect an immediate response from his deaf, blind opponent, and didn't move fast enough to avoid the right hook that came back at him. He leaned away as the fist hit his jaw, riding the punch.

  The Boy stopped singing for a moment, dancing back and touching his face. The punch rattled his teeth. His cheek went numb, and he tasted blood. When he looked at Strickland's knuckles and saw the gleam of brass, he smiled. At close quarters, with a dangerous opponent, you gave yourself every advantage. Well. He had an answer to that, and it was quite an upgrade on knuckledusters.

  Strickland came after him hard and fast, pressing the advantage he thought his punch had granted him. The Boy danced back, watching the Executioner blink the after-effects of the stun grenade away. He would be able to make out shapes by now, but he was disorientated. It would take a few minutes before he regained his sight. He'd be dead by then.

  Both of the Executioner's guns clicked on empty chambers. He dropped one into his jacket pocket, snapped back his left hand, and threw the other gun. Another smart move; unexpected, and, considering his semi-blindness, accurate. The Boy twisted sideways to avoid it, turned the twist into a pirouette, and slashed with the blade on his wrist guard, aiming for Strickland's jugular. The older man had been in enough life or death confrontations to have developed reactions so fine they looked like a sixth sense. He flinched, and the razor-sharp steel caught his cheek, opening up a gash before slicing away the top half-inch of his left ear. He didn't acknowledge the pain, dropping to a crouch and sweeping his legs into the space where his enemy stood.

  Bedlam Boy jumped Strickland's legs and unleashed a kick of his own. There was no avoiding this one. All the Executioner's experience didn't prevent the sole of a size twelve foot connecting with his chin hard enough to send his head snapping back, his skull hitting the tiles with a smack.

  In half a second, the Boy landed on his chest, knees pinning Strickland's arms to the floor. He held the blade on his left arm against his enemy's throat, and the man became still, knowing any move might be his last.

  The Boy spoke, despite knowing Strickland was deaf. A touch dramatic, but he didn't care. He had waited a long time to say this.

  "You murdered my father. You shot my mother in the stomach and left her for Winter to burn alive."

  Strickland didn't need to understand the words. He guessed what the Boy would say. "You want revenge, Tom? Is that it?"

  Bedlam Boy couldn't help but be impressed by Strickland. The man showed no fear. It was over, and he knew it. Even defeated, he wanted to talk. Perhaps he thought he would talk long enough to regain some vision. Or, perhaps, he wanted to ask for forgiveness. The Boy was intrigued enough to let him speak.

  "Revenge is childish. Pathetic. Irene understood the risks. She played the game, Tom. She played it better than most."

  Hearing his mother's name on the Executioner's lips made the Boy press down harder. A crimson line appeared on Strickland's throat, but he kept talking.

  "Your mum would be disappointed in you, Tom. Revenge is stupid. Unproductive. When she killed someone, it was just business. Although I suspect she enjoyed it more than most. I know how that feels."

  Bedlam Boy stared down at the man who'd butchered his family two decades ago. His words made no sense. Why try to desecrate his memory of his mother?

  He leaned close enough that the Executioner felt the breath on his face.

  "No more lies."

  The Boy sat up and stared at the Executioner. Every time the man tried to speak, he dissuaded him by pushing down, allowing the steel's edge to deepen the cut. Strickland blinked away the water produced by his eyes as his sight returned.

  They stayed like that for a few minutes. Sirens screamed in the distance. Bedlam Boy wondered if the explosion had been powerful enough to rouse a neighbour, or if Winter had called it in, hoping the police would catch his enemy for him. He waited. The sirens came closer, and the first faint, regular strobes of blue light played on the walls. Strickland's eyes strayed towards it, then back to the ceiling. Again, the Boy had underestimated the man. The Executioner could see. His blank stare was feigned.

  The Boy smiled down at Strickland.

  "You don't understand. There is only revenge. Nothing else exists. I am revenge."

  He leaned forward and drew the blade briskly across Strickland's throat. Blood arced out of the gaping wound, but the Boy didn't move away. He squatted on the dying man and watched the arterial spray spatter the wall.

  This had been no epic battle, no heroic confrontation between foes. The man dying underneath him had killed men, women, and children for decades. Tom Lewis's parents had been tied to chairs when he'd shot them. Bedlam Boy's only regret was allowing Strickland to land even one punch. He wasn't interested in torturing him, making him suffer. No punishment matched the Executioner's crimes. He just had to die.

  Back in the kitchen, the Boy washed the ash from his face, then scrubbed Strickland's blood from his hands and neck. He opened the rucksack and tossed out the oxygen tank, removing the rolled-up jogging bottoms, sweatshirt, and wool hat
, putting them on. He had left fingerprints and physical evidence everywhere, but it didn't matter. Tom Lewis, or Tom Brown, had no criminal record, and his fingerprints weren't in any police database. Any investigation by the authorities might eventually include him as a possible, if unlikely, suspect. By then, it would be too late. Winter would be dead, and it would be over.

  The question of what came afterwards, what happened when all four names on the list were crossed out, was not something Bedlam Boy had considered. When Winter died, everything ended. Perhaps that meant returning to the darkness that spawned him. A concept of the future relied on the concept of a past, and, with Winter gone, there would be no past.

  The final piece of clothing in the rucksack was a high-vis vest. The Boy left it in there, along with a GPS device, and jogged out into the garden. He ran alongside the lake, following Winter's earlier route, before diverting into the woods.

  It took him two minutes to locate the tree he'd identified months earlier, climbing it, then crawling out along the branch that crested the ten-foot, barbed-wire topped fence. The tree wouldn't help anyone trying to get into the grounds, but no one had considered its usefulness to someone trying to get out.

  A helicopter approached from the south as the Boy dropped to the ground and rolled. A spotlight from the chopper swept across Winter's house, the noise of its rotors covering the sound of car engines as the police approached from the north.

  When he reached the road, Bedlam Boy put on the high-vis vest and started jogging. They wouldn't be looking for anyone in particular yet, but the nearby roads might attract a patrol car or two. Sure enough, as he jogged along the pavement, a police car slowed as it got close, headlamps picking him out. Although a little late to be out jogging, a man on the run was hardly likely to be wearing luminous clothing.

  The Boy gave them a polite nod and a smile as he passed. It was Christmas Day, after all.

  Author’s Note

  Thanks for reading. You’ll find the final Season One episode of Bedlam Boy here: Bedlam Boy 3

  For the occasional email about my books, news on Season Two, and an exclusive, free, Bedlam Boy story, visit The Las Vegas Driving Lesson

  Thanks for supporting independent writers - I appreciate it.

  Ian

  Books by Ian W. Sainsbury

  Thriller

  Bedlam Boy 1

  Bedlam Boy 2

  Bedlam Boy 3

  Psychological Thriller

  The Picture On The Fridge (Winner of the 2019 Kindle Storyteller Award)

  Science Fiction

  The World Walker (The World Walker 1)

  The Unmaking Engine (The World Walker 2)

  The Seventeenth Year (The World Walker 3)

  The Unnamed Way (The World Walker 4)

  Children Of The Deterrent (Halfhero 1)

  Halfheroes (Halfhero 2)

  The Last Of The First (Halfhero 3)

  Fantasy

  The Blurred Lands