The Alex King Series A BATEMAN (summer reading list txt) 📖

seemed to help. She knew she was tired and had had little more than naps for the past few days as she had travelled. The journey, adrenalin and fear had taken their toll. Her body needed rest. Her head lolled, her chin touching her chest, waking her with a start. Each time she raised her head, she almost dropped back to sleep.

Caroline slapped herself across the cheek. Hard. She felt the sting, but the sensation was nulled, quickly overcome. She could not succumb to this. It felt so unnatural, like no bout of tiredness she had ever experienced. She knew what had happened. Knew that the coffee had been spiked, contained a barbiturate of some description. Perhaps ground-down sleeping tablets, possibly something stronger. She slapped herself again, powered through her lethargy and rolled off the bed. She clawed at the floor, her fingernails digging into the gaps between the unfinished wooden floorboards, breaking and tearing away as they provided little purchase. She did not feel any pain, dug her toes in and pressed on, the bathroom offering sanctuary from the fate of what she believed would happen next.

She could hear the solid footsteps on the landing outside. She crawled onwards. Used the edge of the open door to pull herself inside the bathroom. Her eyelids were closing, and she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, something to hurt her, to snap her consciousness back, put her equilibrium back under her control. She could hear the rattle of the lock outside. The key in the padlock, the rasp of the bolt. She rolled onto her back, heaved her leaden legs up and kicked the door closed. She could not rest there. She could feel the darkness washing over her, her eyelids heavy and unforgiving.

“Hey?” The voice whispered, muffled. She envisioned him peering through the darkness, his frame illuminated by the light behind him. “Hey, you?” Sharper now, louder.

Testing.

She knew what he wanted from her. She kept her feet pressed firmly against the door, arched her back, but had nothing to press against, provide purchase against the door. If he barged the door, she would simply slide backwards. She fought with all her might, battled the ebb in consciousness. Her eyelids heavy. She looked in the gloom, looked for something she could use, but he had taken all the wash things from her. If only she had something she could use… a wedge, something to jam the door with…

“Hey!” Loud, followed by a footstep as he entered the room. “What are you doing in there?”

She had it. The large wingnut she had removed from the leg of the dresser. She had anticipated its use as a knuckleduster. But now, it just might…

She slipped her hand under the linen dress, hooked it out from her bra. She could barely keep awake, let alone sit up straight, but she fought through it, bit at her cheek again and then at her lip to shock her system, to stem the drift downhill towards sleep. She half rolled, half sat up, pressed the wingnut under the gap, close to the door jamb. She pressed hard, part of the wingnut digging into a thin gap between two floorboards, the other half digging into the underside of the door. She fell back down, her head knocking on the floor. Her eyes, heavy now, no more resistance possible, caught sight of the handle moving, the door edging marginally inwards. It caught. She heard a curse; the sound of the door being kicked at. The door resisted, she prayed it would hold, but could do no more, as she entered a still, dreamless sleep.

31

 

King prioritised the targets. The hunters-come-snipers each leaned on their bolt-action hunting rifles. They would be slow to reload, their powerful scopes would be too close to fire accurately back at King, and in the low-light conditions afforded by the yellow moon, they may not make out King at all. The rest of the men had formed into two groups. The events in the pool were gruesome, and men thrown into this conclusion as voyeurs tended to watch shoulder to shoulder, rather than stand alone. Whether they took comfort or shared bravado watching such things in company, King did not know. But he had witnessed behaviour such as this in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Even from the most battle-hardened ISIS fighters. Likewise, the perpetrators of these acts found both the will and the desire to continue the brutality, possibly feeding off the audience.

Men were always bigger men when weaker men looked on.

King glanced at the selector lever. It was all the way down to single-fire mode. That would do. The trigger was light, and he would fire once at each target. For they were targets now, not living, breathing men. He aimed, breathed steadily, then fired.

The first three men dropped without so much as a single man looking at the source of the noise. King switched his aim and dropped two of the snipers for good measure, then turned back to the remainder of the group. He fired twice more, missing one man and hitting another. He moved to his right, just as someone managed to fire a pistol back at him. King fired at the muzzle flash, saw the man drop and then cursed himself as he remembered the three men tending to the casualties. He spun around and fired at the two figures on the edge of the patio. A double tap at one, a single shot at the other. The weapon dry-fired and King threw the AK47 down and reached for the AK74 on his back. He flicked the selector down and brought the weapon back on the main body of men. They had reached the point where they would either stand and fight, or scatter. King hoped they would stick around. He wouldn’t have enough rounds for a pitched battle over various arcs