Chapter Twenty-Three
I wasn’t too happy about the dark now, it was a stupid superstition, but ever since I heard the ‘V’ word I had been dreading the night. I could’ve kicked myself for being so gullible, these were code words, every company used them. Especially when the company was involved in what Project Forty Five seemed to be. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I was determined to find out.
That’s why I was tiptoeing out of the office, comfortable as the square of floor I had been given to sleep on was. I was armed with only a Spanish phrase book and my own patience, which was short at best. If I could find out more about Alex I might be able to understand exactly what Project Forty Five did, maybe he had confided in Maria.
I couldn’t do what Lisa would, use threats and lies to get the information I wanted, but I could be kind and gentle, maybe try and ease her pain somehow. That disgusting liquid seemed to work for that, I didn’t approve of taking medication that was left on a street corner, but Robert had said they were going to give her proper medical attention when they got to a secure location, I guessed they were taking her to France.
When I approached the van, out of place amongst the beautiful but battered cars. Old though it was, the van hadn’t been built with any of the skill and grace of the American cars. It stood out under the dim street, ugly and boring. Across the way a restaurant’s peeling paint glittered and the cobbled streets almost looked wet with the starlight, I looked up and saw a giant moon. I sighed as I shivered, trying to chase the childish thoughts from my mind, picturing all the things I had seen like a horror moving playing only in my head.
A long glance all around me, staring deep into the alleys jutting off from this road, before I slid the key into the lock and turned it as quietly as I could.
Robert really shouldn’t have kept the key with the van’s logo on it, it was a giveaway and a stupid mistake for such a secretive organisation. Lisa had taught me how to take things from under people’s noses without them even noticing, of all the things she had been in her past life, apparently pick-pocket was another one of them. I felt a little stab of guilt thinking of Lisa, I had gained some of my humanity back since the meeting with Robert. I had decided that maybe I did care about her, just a small bit.
Instead of throwing the door open I slid it back slowly, trying to create as little noise as possible, I glanced out every so often onto the dark streets, just to check. There were no screams from behind the doors, which meant two things, either she had been given a dosage of that liquid, whatever is was, or she had been moved. I thought the second unlikely given the secrecy and how her stretcher was bolted to the van. At least that meant she would be lucid, even if the van did stink.
Of course it was pitch black inside as I crawled in, but I wanted to wait until I was sure there was no one else around before I used my torch, even the tiniest light would show through the cracks in the door. The van didn’t smell at all, well, it smelt faintly of damp, but not of open drains stuffed with week old food. I wasn’t sure whether to be thankful or not.
My right foot stuck to the floor as I moved in my crouched position, ‘Maria,’ I called out softly. There was no answer.
The floor was wet, I could feel something soaking into my trousers where I was kneeling. I started to feel a cold panic slide over me, something wasn’t right here. There was one thing I knew for sure, Maria wasn’t here. There was so smell, no screams, and for some reason I felt alone. I reached a hand down to steady myself and I felt something squelch under my fingers. It felt like a soft mushroom, or soggy bread, it was warm.
My heart jumped into my chest, I snatched my hand away from the floor and wobbled trying to balance on my toes. I didn’t want to do it, because I already knew what I would see, but that horrible dark curiosity took over me and even though I should’ve been running in the opposite direction I didn’t, I took out my torch.
I instantly regretted it. I shone my torch up the walls of the van, they were smeared with blood. The whole floor had been flooded with blood and it dripped steadily from the roof, there didn’t seem an inch not covered. I shone the light on my hand, the golden beam glistened over the deep red, too red, almost purple. I looked to my left and saw what I had put my hand into.
It was a human chest, or what was left of a human chest. The ribcage had been punched in, shards of bone lay scattered over the floor, floating in the dark puddles. I shone the torch over the rest of the body with a shivering hand.
Robert Thompson’s face was frozen in shock, his mouth hung open and his eyes were wide and staring, dried blood stuck to his moustache. My hand was shaking so much everything I saw came through in hazy shapes. I swung the torch as I began to feel dizzy from the blood, through the funnel of light with its undefined edges I saw the stretcher, Maria was gone. But in her place there was a leg, blood dripped steadily onto the floor. I swung the torch back to the body, the flesh under Robert’s knees was torn, there were teeth marks in the skin.
I found myself hyperventilating and staring at my bloodied hands with eyes that were hurting as they strained in their sockets. The torch shone on Robert Thompson’s open chest and I felt my mouth fill with bile. I leaned into the bloody river and vomited, the stinging in my throat was strangely real and reassuring. It almost controlled my shaking.
I took a moment crouching in all this filth and death to slow my breathing. I closed my eyes and turned off the torch, regulating those deep rasps. Just as I was pulling myself together a flash ran through my mind, a mouth dripping blood in a deep snarl. I snapped my eyes open and my knees wobbled. I held the torch close to my body and tried to calm down. As I held the reassuring light against my chest I realised that I didn’t really know what could be crouched in the darker corners of the van, had I shone the torch over everything?
The sense of helpless stillness passed me over at that thought and I immediately turned to the door. I started to claw at the edges of the van. I felt drops of blood on my neck as I saw Robert Thompson’s beaurocratic sneer, his giant moustache twitching, his chest ripped open.
I fell head first onto the hard pavement, gasping for air as the concrete scraped along my cheek leaving a ragged scrape. In the darkness I saw my jeans blackened with blood, already beginning to dry. I bent close to the wheel and tried to hold back another stream of vomit.
Footsteps were approaching and from somewhere close and I held myself low, keeping against the side of the van. There were more than one set, more than two. All wore heavy-duty boots bashing furiously against the pavement like an army marching. The street was deserted apart from me and that old brass statue still mocking me, the steps echoed out like thunder.
There were four men, and they were dragging someone with them. The person they were dragging was screaming and twisting against the strong hands that held both her arms firmly. She was wriggling like a worm on the hook and speaking in a sharp pleading voice. Each man looked unimpressed and blank, all four wearing a grey suit embroidered with the same garlic symbol. Behind the marching group car lights shone brightly over the scene as a slow moving four by four crept behind them like a monster.
The woman was Lisa. My first feeling was annoyance, she had found me again somehow. But as they got closer I saw how scared her eyes were and how hard she was straining against the men dragging her. I grew some sympathy for her, after all Robert Thompson had spoken about her as if she were a large threat, and I knew she didn’t have anything to do with this mess except for Angelica’s sake.
I still didn’t move to help her, even though that twinge of sympathy was worsening. The car behind them came to a slow stop that somehow made me shiver, I thought it was the way the headlights flashed like eyes. Lisa saw the blood on the pavement and in the heavy glow her eyes looked like a wild frightened animal, darting around, wide and thickly veined. I had never seen her so utterly devoid of control in a situation.
I stayed crouched close to the ground, pressed into the van’s side. I hardly dared to breathe, anything which could scare Lisa that much was not something I could confront easily. She was still kicking out, her legs flailing in every direction. The men had glazed expressions, they weren’t answering her shouted questions or responding to her in anyway, they just kept dragging her
The doors of the van were thrown wide open. The blood spilled onto the pavement in a dull splash, trickles of it crept into my hiding place as I shifted my hands away. Lisa screamed, a desperate, hollow sound. The men spoke then, they shouted in coarse and guttural French, making hard vowels on every word.
One man’s voice sounded out louder and fiercer than all the others. Lisa pleaded with him but none of the men paid her any attention. Heavy hands pushed Lisa to her knees and she screamed again. Now was time to do something, ideally, I should’ve done something the moment I saw her, I should’ve charged in and saved her. But I hadn’t, and no matter what I thought about her, she had never lead me intentionally into danger.
When I finally sprang to my feet the man were shoving Lisa’s face close to the blood. I saw Robert Thompson in the full glare of the headlights, ripped apart and mutilated. The blood on the van’s sides had dried to the consistency of treacle and was slowly oozing down the grey metal.
‘Hey,’ I shouted lamely, uncertainly. The four men all turned to face me in what seemed like one singular movement. The lights almost blinded me and I swayed weakly on the spot, also experiencing a head rush. A narrow pistol was pointed at my chest and I realised I couldn’t be the hero, there were four of them and they seemed heartless. The blood pounded past my ears.
‘Fucking P.V.R,’ he spat at my feet. He spoke like a dirty chimney clogged with ash, his deep accent was so thick and buried in tar. He lit another cigarette as one of the four men clicked open the four by four’s expansive boot.
‘This is your fucking God.’ The body bag hit the floor with a heavy smack.
* * *
Of course they found us in the end. We ran, I can assure you we ran until our feet were bloody, but they found us, and they dragged us right back. Lisa didn’t know what she was running from, and I think her need for answers made her cave in without a fight in the end. She would sit on that plane with gritted teeth. a corpse by her feet and a teenager screaming in pain were mere inconveniences to her if they meant that somewhere in this whole unhappy mess she would find the truth.
The only truth I was interested in was the mind numbing shock of what Angelica’s slow smile could still do to me, even in the body of another girl. So when she smiled and squeezed my hand I was helpless too, but I hated myself for it.
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