Fatal. Jacqui Rose

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       13

      ‘You saw her, but you thought it was okay to let her go?’ Salvatore stared at Stefano Greco – an old schoolfriend who’d worked for his family for the past ten years – with unadulterated hatred.

      ‘I didn’t, Sal, I fired and then she ran off before I managed …’

      Standing by the door of the tiny whitewashed chapel of the convent, Salvatore raised his voice, pacing agitatedly. ‘She’s a kid and you had a fucking semi-automatic in your hands. Do the math, Stefano … What did she look like?’

      ‘Blonde … no, maybe brown hair … I dunno, Jesus. I didn’t see her properly, Sal, but look around you, everyone’s dead, she might be dead already, we don’t even know if that girl was her.’

      Salvatore smashed an iron bar into Stefano’s face and listened to his piercing scream as one of his cheekbones splintered in two.

      Panting, Salvatore crouched down level with the writhing figure on the floor. Fear knotted Stefano’s insides, suddenly aware that he could easily lose control of his bodily functions, such was the terror he felt.

      Salvatore snarled, ‘But we don’t know it wasn’t either, do we? And now it might be too late. If it was her, we need to go and find her. My orders, Stef, were to kill everyone on sight.’

      Stefano trembled in pain. ‘Sal, Mi dispiace.’

      ‘You’re sorry?’

      With fear dancing in his green eyes, Stefano nodded. ‘Sì! Sì!’

      Licking his chapped lips, Salvatore picked up a taper and lit one of the candles in the rack outside the chapel. He made a sign of the cross before watching it burn along with the dozens of other tea lights flickering in the warm breeze. He smiled.

      ‘Do you know what these are for, Stefano?’

      Nervously, Stefano mumbled, ‘Sì, they are the candles for the dead.’

      Salvatore drew his eyes away to look at Stefano. ‘That’s right, and I lit that one for you.’ Then, without missing a beat, Salvatore whipped out the gun he had tucked away in his trouser waist and placed the nozzle onto Stefano’s nicotine-stained teeth before casually pulling the trigger.

      Wiping away the blood and pieces of flesh from the front of his clothes, still wearing his clown mask, Salvatore addressed his brother. ‘Bobby, put his body in the car and clean up his mess, we don’t want to leave the cops a calling card. Then take some men and search down by the river. I’ll take the others and go up into the woods. If you see anything, even a fucking racoon, you shoot it dead. You hear me?’

      He stopped to point his gun at the congregated men, adding, ‘You understand me, guys? Whoever she was, you bring that girl’s head back to me, unless of course you want to end up like our good friend Stefano. Now let’s go!’

      Racing through the trees and across the meadows, Alice tried to shut out the bloody images in her head. She tried to think of something good, like her mother, like her friend Isaiah, but it was impossible because she could still hear the screams, still smell the blood. The scent of death seeped out of her pores and she was scared, terrified and couldn’t think straight.

      Running as fast as she could, drenched with sweat and not knowing where she was going, she just knew she had to keep moving. Alice focused on getting away, but the problem was, even though she knew the area so well – had explored every corner of it – suddenly every tree, every bush, every pathway looked the same. She couldn’t remember anything.

      The lake house was on the top of the hill, she knew that, but which track to take she couldn’t remember. She was lost and if she wasn’t careful she’d end up back at the convent where the demonic clowns were. Where the blood was. The thought of it made her suddenly gasp and she could hardly catch her breath, but a noise from behind sent her scrabbling forward. Seeing a clump of bushes, Alice threw herself underneath it, squeezing her eyes shut as the tears rolled down her face again.

      ‘Alice! Alice! It’s no good hiding, honey. We just want to talk to you.’

      The scrub was vast, allowing Alice to scramble backwards on her stomach, her skin snagging on sharp thorns and bushes, but she didn’t make a noise. Ignoring the pain and blood trickling down her face, Alice saw six … seven … eight clowns all walking in her direction.

      ‘Alice!’

      Shaking, Alice glanced behind her. She looked across to one of the meadows, a thought coming to mind.

      Creeping backwards, Alice kept low to the ground, watching out for any branches that might snap and make a sound. Nearing the fenced meadow, Alice nervously glanced about. Breathing deeply, she tried to steady her nerves and racing heart.

      She burst out of the shrub, ran along the edge of the field and made her way to the small copse, whispering a name, quietly and softly so as not to spook him. ‘Mac! Mac!’ A few seconds later, the convent’s retired pony ambled into sight.

      ‘You’re going to get us out of here, aren’t you, boy?’

      Opening the gate as silently as she could, Alice walked into Mac’s paddock and grabbed his head collar from a wooden post.

      Wiping the sweat from her hands, she gently approached Mac and slid the noseband over his white muzzle, all the time talking softly as she guided it over his ears.

      ‘There СКАЧАТЬ