One Night by Malla Duncan Page B

of Galina’s
existence; Jake was a lone hunter after revenge; and I hadn’t told anyone where
I was going. After all, it was just one night…
    I had played the game wrong. Wally
was back on top.
    ‘Stand up!’ He commanded. He was
trembling slightly, a nervous excitement, his grin anticipatory. He opened the
door beside the fireplace. A stairway wound into the dark.
    Fear hit me like a physical pain in
the chest.
    ‘We can’t go in there.’
    ‘I don’t care who I shoot first.’
    He said it with such casual
indifference that I knew he was fully capable of carrying out the threat. My
stomach somersaulted. I had the sensation of falling into a bottomless pit. I
took the first step, Galina behind me. Wally followed. There was a click and
the stairway lit up. We turned a corner into the dank, fusty dimness of a
cellar packed with boxes, old bits of electrical equipment and mounds of old
video tapes and DVD’s.
    Wally flicked a lever. Part of the
opposite wall crunched open. I couldn’t see where wall and door connected but
beyond the opening dim illumination spread into a cave-like area squared and
blocked by partitions that did not reach the ceiling; a maze of small interconnecting
rooms with shabbily built walls and what appeared to be purposeless
passageways. Despite the convoluted horror of it, I was struck by the lonely
years it must have taken to build something that would have rationale only in
the dark reaches of an unsound mind. And I knew where Matty Bunting had been
hiding.
    ‘You can’t keep us here.’ Terror fogged
my brain.
    ‘Plenty of room.’ The pride in his
voice was nauseating.
    ‘People will come looking for us.’
    But I knew this would take time. It
would take Mr Marse at least three days before he kicked up a fuss about my not
turning up at work. And of course, who would know to search here, miles away,
in the Witch’s Wood? When Mona didn’t arrive at work, they would look for her.
Perhaps they would come to the cottage where she spent every weekend, would hopefully
find her body – and my suitcase. Then – then they would search the
woods…
    But that could be weeks away.
    A furry face with trusting brown
eyes slid into my mind.
    Sticky! Oh, Sticky!
    Perhaps that was the catalyst: the
thought of Sticky waiting patiently for someone to come, his lonely distress
compounded by the slow pain of hunger, bewilderment and fear. Suddenly, I
didn’t care what Wally Bunting did to us; what I couldn’t bear was the
disastrous effect it would have on faithful, loving Sticky.
    ‘You sick bastard,’ I screamed.
‘You can fucking die, you arsehole!’
    I flung myself forward, grabbing
the gun. I surprised myself as much as Wally. He staggered back. His hand
slipped from the trigger. For a split second the gun became a bar between us.
He shoved me back. There was a flurry of movement. Galina’s hands closed around
the gun beside me. The two of us pressed back against him. He lurched. But his
weight was pure beef. He forced us both back. We stood in a sweating,
struggling mass, the gun pointing upwards.
    Wally slipped. One foot scooted out
behind him and he fell to his knee. Both Galina and I lost our hold. But Wally
didn’t. In a flash, he swung the gun back to position, focused, aimed, fired.
    There was a thudding sound like a
mallet hitting a pillow.
    A high-pitched scream tailed to a gurgling
note of astonishment and ceased abruptly.
    I turned my head. Galina’s prone
form lay across the floor, her eyes turned wildly to me. Blood patterned like a
bib across her chest, pumping a soggy mess under her collarbone.
    A scream like shattered glass ripped
from my throat.
    Wally, possibly shaken by the
result of his hair-trigger reaction, seemed momentarily confused.
    I took my chance and leapt at him,
landing my full weight on top of the gun. The gun clattered downwards, but
Wally held on. He was on one knee. I sat on the gun. To shift me, he would have
to release one hand. As he did so, I