29 November 2007
Fyte drove away, unhurried and unworried. There was a tune playing just out of reach in his mind. What was it? It was something happy and poppy, a song he’d once danced to with a girl. The weather was bleak, the road bleaker, the surroundings bleakest of all – but in the exhilaration of the moment Fyte actually contemplated singing.
A grin hit his face. God, it was so fucking easy.
He’d picked the old man up without a problem, taken him out of the way to deliver the message. There was one dead old man now. His smile ripped wide with a razor – letting others know to keep their mouths shut. Fyte had laughed as he did it, and then shot him between the eyes.
Now, he turned left, then right, out of the industrial estate and back to the civilised world. But whereas they were going home, he was heading back to the rental place and then to bin the fake ID and all hint of this job.
What should he do tonight? Drinks were a certainty, then he’d score from his dealer, and then maybe some girls. Yes girls – more than one. What the hell was that song? There was another junction, a brief wait at traffic lights, then he was free – just a boring guy in a boring car driving home on the boring main roads. He’d even worn a suit to fit in.
He swung the car round and grinned, all smiles and delight – even though he had a sudden vague sense there was something wrong.
There was a dampness at his feet. He looked down, the shadow of the day meant he couldn’t see too well, but it was as if there was fluid at the floor of his car.
What the hell could that be? Oil? Petrol? No, there was no smell. Brake fluid? He wasn’t an automobile expert, but surely there wasn’t that much brake fluid in a car.
Fyte stared at it, his gaze leaving the road ahead and sinking to his boots – glad they weren’t his loafers. It was a rental car, so maybe there was something in the back that had burst and spilt and was now flooding his feet. But what? And how come he hadn’t noticed it earlier?
The honk of a car horn surprised him and he squelched his foot down to the accelerator – he’d eased up, but it was too fast a road for that.
He couldn’t bring attention to himself.
Maybe he should pull over, but he was in the middle lane and there was nowhere to stop. Besides he couldn’t be parked at the side of the road when some curious police officer came along to ask questions.
What the hell was it?
That fluid kept coming. There was a viscous liquid pumping into his car from somewhere – but where from? What the fuck was it?
It was difficult to pick out in this light – but it was thick, it was sticky, it was red.
As he jerked to a halt at a roundabout, he recognised it – his car was filling up with blood. It was surging in. Already it was over his ankles, lapping to his knees.
Where was it coming from?
Was it the old man’s? No. He wasn’t cut when he was in the boot, and besides the old man didn’t have this much blood in him.
Was it his? No. He knew his body too well, would have felt it if he’d had a shaving nick – he certainly couldn’t be bleeding this profusely.
Then whose was it? A thought burst through his mind that it was the blood of all his victims, that it had come to drown him. But how could such a thing be possible?
He had to get rid of the car. Fuck the rental place, fuck the fake ID – he’d ditch it at the roadside and take his chances with the CCTV. Jesus! It was above his knees now, it seemed to be spurting out of two-thousand slices in the upholstery.
There were two lanes of traffic between him and the roadside, and he swerved across them – not taking care, panicked as the blood reached his groin, concentrating on getting out.
Fyte looked up, there were jagged cuts across the ceiling and the blood was dripping down on him. The fucking windows were bleeding.
It reached his waist, it splashed all over him. He struggled to breathe, the stench was over-powering – a stink of staleness, of life itself gone rotten. Redness flowed in fast. Half of him was already submerged, the rest was literally dripping with spilt blood.
He had to get off the road, get away from people as fast as possible. He had to lose these stained clothes, sneak home naked through the side-streets.
His neck craned back, looking quick at the traffic speeding past him. It was dusk, rush-hour, lots of vehicles. Of course they were going to notice something out of the norm, but they weren’t going to know what and by the time they thought to care they’d be half a mile away.
Fyte closed his eyes and scooped his hand into the blood, it was sticky and body-warm. He grabbed his stuff from the passenger seat, equipment he’d need, papers that might identify him – blood washed off, that was something he knew.
It swelled around him, like a dreadful ocean. His fingers reached to the handle. He looked over his shoulder at the approaching traffic and poised himself to run.
He pulled it, but nothing happened.
The door was jammed shut.
The gasp of air came warm into him, the gasp of air came with a splash of blood. He was trapped. The motorists whizzed by, nobody noticing anything – the evening was too dark, their cars too fast. He was fucking trapped.
It was pumping faster now – and the passenger door was also stuck and the sun-roof wouldn’t budge. The redness rose, consuming him, and all he could do was scream. Fyte knew the blood would be pouring through his mouth before that scream stopped.
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