The Straw Men 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead, Blood of Angels. Michael Marshall
another slow look around, I understood the way the vegetation had changed. One of the trees I had used for a marker had fallen down in the intervening years. Some time ago, too: the remains were moss-covered and rotten. I reoriented myself and headed into the gully.
The sides were steep and slick with leaves, and we were careful on the way down. When I reached the bottom I turned left and took us along the slight incline.
‘We’re nearly there,’ I said, pointing up the way. About two hundred yards ahead, the gully banked steeply to the right. ‘I think it’s just around that kink.’
Bobby didn’t say anything, and I assumed that, like me, he’d become absorbed into the experience. Forests are one of those things that you lose for a while, until you have your own kids and start to appreciate certain things again, see them reborn through a child’s eyes – like ice cream and toy cars and squirrels. I spent some time considering if this had something to do with why I liked hotels. Their corridors are like routes between trees, their bars and restaurants like little clearings for assembly and eating. Nests of varying size and prestige, all held within the same structure, a private forest.
The Upright Man’s manifesto had gotten into my head more than I’d realized.
‘Somebody’s watching us,’ Bobby said.
‘Where?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said, glancing up at the sides of the gully above us. ‘But he’s up there somewhere.’
‘I don’t see anyone,’ I said, keeping my eyes forward. ‘But I’ll take your word for it. So what do we do?’
‘Keep walking,’ Bobby said. ‘If it’s him, he’s either going to wig out or stay put and make a decision on whether to come talk. He sticks his head far enough above the parapet, I’ll go after him.’
We covered the last hundred yards quietly, resisting the urge to look up. At the turn in the gully the floor rose sharply, and we scrambled up a couple of feet.
And there, in front of us, was the Lost Pond. Maybe a hundred yards by sixty, steeply banked for the most part, but with a couple of muddy little beaches. A few ducks floated in the middle, and trees overhung much of the shallow water. I walked up to the edge and looked into it. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing myself as I was when I was fifteen.
‘You know where the hide was?’ Bobby asked.
‘All I know is that he was planning one. He mentioned it twice, maybe three times. Not to hunt. Just somewhere to hang. Ed was a bigtime loner.’
‘Plus a pervert, maybe?’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No one comes out here to make out. It’s kind of spooky at night.’
He looked around, checking out the terrain. ‘If I was going to put up a shelter, I’d do it over there.’ He pointed at an area of trees and thick brush that extended over the slope on the west side of the pond. ‘Prospect- and refuge-wise.’
I led the way round the pond, peering ahead to where Bobby had indicated. Could have been my imagination, but it did look as if an area in the middle was thicker than the rest, as if materials had been gathered and heaped up.
It was then that the first shot rang out. A sharp crack, following a whiz and then a whine.
Bobby yanked me back from the edge of the pond and started running. Another shot swished through the leaves a couple of feet above us. When we were behind the trunks I twisted my head round, trying to see where the shots were coming from.
‘What is with this guy?’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Look over there.’
I pointed at the thicker area of undergrowth. A head was now poking out of the brush – the head of an old man, one who was nowhere near the place the shots were coming from.
‘Shit,’ Bobby said, a gun now in his hand. Two men in fatigues were running down the side toward the pond. Another man in denim was approaching from the other side.
‘That’s the guy from the bar last night,’ I said. ‘The one who boxed us in.’
The men in khaki had reached the opposite side of the pond. The larger of the two dropped to a kneeling position, and fired directly at the stand of trees: measured, unhurried shots. The other was heading fast round the other side of the pond, banking it high to get round the top. Denim man was also shooting.
‘Who the fuck are these guys?’
‘Bobby – one’s heading around toward Ed.’
‘I’m on it,’ he said. ‘Let’s have some cover.’ He sprinted off. I pulled my gun, stepped out from the side of the tree, and started firing.
The kneeling man executed a neat roll to the side and slipped behind the remains of a large fallen tree. I cut sideways through the trees. I was shooting into cold and slanting light, flickered across my face by the uprights of twisted trees, half my mind on avoiding roots so I didn’t go flying. Within ten seconds there was a cry, and the denim man spun around and fell onto his back.
Bobby was ploughing into the undergrowth ahead, firing at the guy coming down the rise, having cut up around in the high ground. The man was ignoring Bobby and me altogether, despite the fact that Bobby was firing at him; he was concentrating on shooting at Lazy Ed’s shelter.
I stopped, steadied, and fired.
The first bullet hit him in the shoulder. One from Bobby followed half a second later, and the man was punched backward against a tree. But he kept shooting, and still not at us.
I fired again, twice, getting him plumb in the chest. Bobby had stopped running too now, and three shots of his followed. The man disappeared from sight.
I took a step forward but Bobby flapped a hand back at me, indicating that I should stay where I was. He moved ahead cautiously.
‘Ed?’ I called. ‘Are you okay?’
Suddenly the man in khaki came into view again. He’d slid a little way down the hill, under cover of the undergrowth. As Bobby and I watched, astounded, he pushed himself to his knees, still holding what I now saw was a machine pistol.
Before I could think of moving, the man started firing again. He was dying in front of our eyes, but he had time to put maybe another fifteen shells into the undergrowth. He didn’t consider taking us down. It was like we weren’t even there.
Then he slumped forward onto his face and was quiet for ever.
Bobby turned on his heel and doubled back, reloading. I ran forward, kicked the dead guy over to check, and shoved my way into the undergrowth.
Right in the middle were the remains of a hide. A loose collection of weathered wood, dry brush, twisted old branches. Unless you were looking for it, you’d probably think it was natural, at most the remains of something from long ago, rather than something a man had put together for shelter because he just liked sitting out in the woods and looking down at a pond. Lying in the middle of it was Lazy Ed.
I knelt beside him and knew that he wouldn’t be leaving the forest. You couldn’t count the holes. His face was least affected, though one ear was gone and you could see the bone.
‘What’s going on, Ed?’ I said. ‘What the fuck is happening? Why is someone killing all of you?’
Ed swivelled his head an inch or so, looked up at me. It was hard to see the man I’d once slightly known, among the wrinkles and burst blood vessels.
‘Fuck you,’ he rasped, quite clearly. ‘You and your fucking family.’
‘My family is dead.’
‘Good,’ he said, and died.
There was nothing to find in the shelter. A few empty cans, a stash of tobacco, a half-full bottle of very cheap tequila. I thought about closing Ed’s eyes and then didn’t. Instead I