It's Grim Up North (Book 2): The Island Read online

  ‘Shit, sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m not here to hurt you. I need you to come with me.’ On hearing my words he calmed a little and warily let me cut his bindings, but not before I warned him that any funny stuff would have consequences that involved the large kitchen knife in my hand and his ball sack. He nodded in agreement to my conditions and I helped him to his feet. Before guiding him out of the kitchen I checked Damien’s bonds. The little weasel-faced fucker was still giving me the dirties. I didn’t trust him at all and made a mental note to keep an eye on the little prick. Understandably he was pissed off that he’d been caught by us, and a day of being tied up in a coal house would fray the best of tempers. Mostly, I guessed he was still embarrassed about the pant pissing incident from the day before. He was still wearing the now dried item of clothing. I can’t imagine it was very comfortable sitting in wet clothes all day and stinking of piss. If he hadn’t been so quick to throw the dirty looks my way, I’d have probably found him a change of pants, told him that it wasn’t such a big deal and that a very close ‘friend’ of mine had the same problem in the bladder department.

  I took Josh up into Andy and Bobby’s bedroom and showed him to the window.

  ‘Fuck, it’s Sonny, one of the Cooper brothers,’ he hissed as he backed away from the glass.

  I’d had a feeling he was going to say something like that. Gippa had sent one of his lieutenants to search for their missing people.

  ‘Who’s the other guy?’ I asked.

  Josh tentatively stepped back towards the window. ‘I think he’s just one of the soldiers.’

  The new visitors spread out a little and started walking towards the house. Bum-fluff boy was sporting a sawn-off shotgun and pointing it menacingly from the hip to wherever he looked.

  ‘Check the doors,’ bellowed Sonny.

  ‘Locked,’ came the reply as we heard the shutter covering the front door rattle on its hinges.

  ‘Check them all,’ bellowed Sonny even louder.

  Where the fuck was Darren? I ran from Andy’s bedroom and into mine and scoured the rear area of the house through the window, looking for any sign of him. From this position I had an unobstructed view of the lighthouse and boat shed, but I couldn’t see any clues as to where he was. The reason being, if Darren didn’t want you to see him you wouldn’t.

  Andy popped his head into my bedroom and hissed for me to get away from the window, as they’d started heading for the back of the house. In the space of three minutes he looked to have aged by ten years. His greying hair seemed to be growing whiter by the second.

  ‘Check the back doors,’ came the now familiar deep, raspy, bellowing voice of Sonny.

  After a minute of rattling came the much higher-pitched voice of Bumfluff. ‘Locked.’

  ‘Go and check the lighthouse and the shed, I’m going to have a look at the back of the island.’

  Fuck!! The plan wasn’t working. Gippa had sent one of his lieutenants for a reason. To do a thorough job. When Sonny saw the boats we’d hidden, he’d know for a fact that something was up and I had no doubt that he’d tear the place apart looking for the person who’d tried to trick him. A man that size wouldn’t need a lock pick to open the doors on the island. A man that size would rip the doors off. Then, belatedly, I remembered the three dead bodies that had been hastily covered by an old tarp. Panic gripped my heart like a vice.

  I ran around the house like a mad man trying to find the gun Darren had given me the night before, or the rifles that we’d taken from tattoo boy, Adam and is mate, but to no avail.

  I’d have to smash a window upstairs and drop down and find a way to take them out. Who was I fucking kidding? Me take them out? With what exactly? All I had was the knife I was still gripping tightly from releasing Josh.

  What if I could get outside and steal their boat and draw them away from the island? I immediately saw the flaw in this plan. Were they going to swim after me? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  I ran back into my bedroom to watch the nightmare unfold. Sonny had nearly made it to the back of the island while Bumfluff was busy messing around with the padlock on the boat shed. I then stood open mouthed, as a scene I’d performed in two days previously played out in front of me. Bumfluff bent down and examined the arc-shaped gouges that had been created in the cement floor by the opening of the large boathouse doors. I swear, to this day, I saw a light bulb appear above his head and then switch on when he took a closer look at the very old padlock. He’d figured out that the chain going through the hole in the garage door was just for show. Slowly he put his hand through the hole following the chain to the nail it was hooked on. Instead of the face of triumph I’d expected from him, I was rewarded instead with a face of pure shock and excruciating pain.

  The door flew open and slammed into Bumfluff’s face, knocking him a few steps backwards. Out of the shadows and into the light came Odinson. In one hand a bloodstained machete in the other hand, a hand. Yep. A fucking hand. Darren had sliced it off Bumfluff as he was scrabbling around in the dark hole of the door.

  Darren frisbied Bumfluff’s hand into Bumfluff’s face, stepped forward and stabbed him straight in his wide open screamless mouth. The force pushed him over. Darren matched his decent to the floor and drove the machete through and out the back of his head with the palm of his hand, nearly cleaving Bumfluff’s head in two. The point of the long blade pierced the ground several inches deep. Like a samurai warrior Darren stood up, flicked the majority of the blood from the very large knife and re-sheathed it without looking.

  The speed with which he despatched Bumfluff was astounding. From hand going into hole to machete going into sheath had to be no more than three seconds. I shit you not. Bumfluff didn’t even have time to scream. To the side of me Josh, Andy and Bobby stood aghast at the violence and ferocity they’d just witnessed.

  I looked to the back of the island and saw that Sonny had found the boats.

  ‘Runt!!! Come here!’ he screamed. His voice sounded like a blender full of nuts and bolts. I’m sure I felt it rattle the windows in their frames.

  No reply from Bumfluff made him even angrier.

  ‘RUNT!!!!’

  Chapter 20

  Darren calmly stepped over Bumfluff’s corpse and made his was around the boat shed towards the back of the island, shouldering his AR15 and aiming it directly at Sonny. This had all been planned by Darren. He’d obviously taken the gun he’d given me from the house while I was sleeping, because he knew I’d panic and fuck up his plan. Clever.

  The shock on Sonny’s face was a sight to behold, but the anger and fury it soon changed to will haunt my dreams for ever more. He was by far the scariest person I’d ever seen. Even scarier than Darren, and that’s saying something.

  What was said between those gladiators on that day will probably never truly be known, but what happened next was absolutely fucking epic.

  After a minute or so of conversation, Darren slowly lifted the sling of his rifle over his head and dropped the weapon to the floor. Next to go was the Glock 17 from Darren’s chest holster and then the machete. He then reached around to the nape of his neck and pulled out a large black knife. The same one he’d used to dispatch Adam and his associate hours before.

  Sonny had been mimicking Darren and had ended up with a small pile of weapons at his feet and a large knife in his hand too.

  I can vaguely remember Bobby saying, ‘What the fuck is he doing?’ And then hearing Andy chastise her for her use of language.

  Now, I’ve watched a lot of movies in my time. Lots of zombie movies as you know, but I’ve always been partial to a bit of martial. Yep, kung fu. I knew it wasn’t real fighting, I just enjoyed the spectacle of it all. The choreography, the lightning-fast moves and blocks, the superhuman reflexes. I loved everything about it. No one could fight with such precision in real life. It just wasn’t possible. Well, my thoughts on that were about to change.

  Sonny had obviously goaded Darren into hand-to-hand combat. I imagine he mention
ed to Darren that he wouldn’t be so brave without his gun. Darren wouldn’t have fallen for this ploy and was not stupid enough to relinquish his gun to settle a pissing contest. No, I imagine Sonny had either talked about the women back at his camp or maybe guessed we had a woman with us and had threatened her in some way. Either way, the last thing that the behemoth of a man had expected was for Darren to drop his weapons. The look of shock on Sonny’s face was testament to this. This was probably the first man he had ever met who had accepted his challenge and had done so without batting an eyelid. The fight had been won before it had even begun.

  They started by circling each other. Slowly weighing each other up. It truly was a mismatch of David and Goliath proportions.

  Sonny had size and strength on his side, while Darren had speed and cunning on his.

  The first move was made by Sonny. He charged like a raging bull, knife pointed at Darren’s face. Darren simply stood his ground and then, like a matador, sidestepped at the last millisecond and sliced down with his blade across the back of Sonny’s knife hand. The knife skittered across the grass while Sonny stopped and cradled his now useless and ruined hand. He roared in frustration and alternated his glare between his opponent and the knife on the grass.

  Darren looked positively bored with proceedings and nodded towards the knife, signalling Sonny to pick it up. Sonny picked up the knife with his good hand and started circling again. He wasn’t going to charge in this time, he was going to get in close quarters and try to overpower the weaker man with his strength and ferocity. When they were around four feet apart Sonny made the first move again, this time slashing wildly at Darren. Now this is where it all gets a bit fuzzy for me. I know what I saw but for some reason my mind refuses to believe it. Every blurring slash that Sonny made was parried by Darren with his knife. And every parry was followed by a quick slash of his own, on and around the arm of Sonny.

  Now parrying, even with a sword, I imagine would be hard enough, never mind with an eight-inch blade. After thirty seconds of this futile attempt by Sonny to draw blood he stepped back breathlessly. A dumb confounded look appeared on his face as he examined his blood-soaked arm and the multitude of cuts and slices upon it. He slowly looked up at Darren and his noticeable lack of any injuries.

  The rage returned to Sonny’s face as he tossed his knife away, outstretched his arms, charged and tried to grasp Darren into a bear hug. Again, Darren moved like lightening and with two quick slices severed all tendons and arteries on the insides of both of Sonny’s elbows. This time Sonny roared with pain and fell to his knees in shock, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. After looking down at the fatal injuries he looked back up towards the victor. Darren got down on one knee and looked Sonny straight in the eye and said something to him before burying his knife in the top of Sonny’s head. The look of anger on Sonny’s face before the killing blow suggested Darren had said something really, really cool.

  After cleaning his knife on Sonny’s beard, Darren walked over to the house and opened the door for us.

  We all came out and stood around Darren with our mouths open waiting for him to say something.

  ‘What’s for breakfast?’

  Chapter 21

  While we made breakfast, Darren un-hogtied Damien and let him and Josh sit at the table with us to eat. Josh had earned the right to eat with us for all of the information he had given us about the compound and Sonny. Damien, however, hadn’t, but Darren was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the prisoner set-up. I was sure Josh would update Damien about the battle Darren and Sonny had had. I hoped this may strike the fear of God into Damien and stop him from doing anything foolish and also make him think twice about giving everyone hacky looks.

  After breakfast Josh and Damien were allowed to help Bobby and Andy tidy up. Their first rung on the ladder of trust. Darren and I went to dispose of Sonny and Bumfluff.

  ‘What shall we do with tattoo boy and his friends?’ I asked.

  ‘I threw them in the sea at dawn this morning as the tide was going out. They’ll be half way to Denmark by now,’ he replied dispassionately.

  ‘Fuck me Darren. You’ve been a busy bee today,’ I stated.

  ‘The six p’s Carter son. The six p’s,’ Darren reminded me, as he walked over to the boathouse to get Bumfluff.

  The tide was out when we carried Bumfluff to the back of the island and threw him off. He met the rocks down below with a crunch. Sonny, however, was a different matter. He was well over fifty metres away from the cliff. There was no way we could carry the big fat fuck. We had three choices: roll him there, cut him up in to pieces or drag the chubby bastard with the tractor. We decided that using some of our precious fuel to complete that task would be worth it. The last thing I wanted to do was cut him up and see the insides of that whale of a man. We’d probably find a fucking licence plate in his stomach.

  The awful thing was, we did see the contents of his stomach after all. The overall weight of the man was too much for his body to bear and when he hit the rocks below he literally exploded from the force of the fall. I added to the mess by spewing my ring and my breakfast at the sight of the explosion.

  ‘That’s just nasty,’ Darren said as I was wiping my mouth on the back of my sleeve.

  ‘I know, that’s the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen too,’ I replied.

  ‘No, not Sonny exploding. That was awesome! It was you being sick on the poor fucker, that’s what was nasty, mate. Just nasty,’ he said as he turned back towards the house. ‘Poor Sonny.’

  Chapter 22

  It was still early morning when we returned to the house. Darren thought it best to lock Josh and Damien in one of the bedrooms upstairs while we discussed our next course of action. Josh must have described the demise of Sonny to Damien because the dirty looks stopped and were replaced with a look of timidity and respect whenever he saw Darren.

  ‘What’s our next step?’ asked Andy when Darren returned to the kitchen after depositing the boys upstairs in the front bedroom and locking the door.

  ‘Nothing’s changed,’ Darren replied. ‘We’ve still got to acquire weapons. I don’t think we can afford to wait till night to go and get them either. I’ve a funny feeling when Sonny and his friend don’t return by nightfall, his big brothers will come looking for him regardless of the dark.’

  ‘Big brothers?’ I said, surprised.

  ‘Yep, Josh just told me, Sonny was the youngest and smallest of the brothers,’ he replied.

  ‘They’re bigger than Sonny? No fucking way.’ Bobby added.

  ‘Bobby! Language,’ Andy chided. Darren and I were obviously rubbing off on her.

  Darren left the room and made his way down to the new boat on the beach. We were becoming something of a marina with all the seafaring vessels we’d acquired. A search of the boat revealed nothing of value so he went about unscrewing the small motor from its transom. He then carried it over to the hidden Zodiac and switched motors. I went down and gave him a hand to carry the heavy motor from the Zodiac over to the speedboat and we hooked it up.

  ‘It’s ghillie time mate,’ Darren said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Chapter 23

  Once we were suited, booted and painted, with our bugout bags on, we were ready to go.

  I was surprised that Darren had decided that Josh would come with us. The reason for this was that he feared a re-enactment of the beach drama we’d had the night before. He wanted Josh in the boat, waiting and ready to go in case we needed to get out of there fast. He trusted Josh for some reason and I, for one, trusted Darren’s judgement and intuition. However, Andy thought it was a very bad idea and that we should lock him and Damien both back in the coal room.

  Darren dismissed this notion and reminded him that the boys had been accosted and imprisoned by Gippa and that we were nothing like ‘that fucking tyrant’. The only thing the boys had facing them if they returned to Gippa was a life living in a shed. The boys should be given a chance. Andy reluctantly agreed bu
t insisted that Damien should still be secured in the bedroom until we got back.

  As we were casting off, Darren told Andy to keep a low profile and to get Bobby in the lighthouse with him, to watch the approach from the mainland. If anyone came they were to barricade the lighthouse door, dig in, use Sonny and Bumfluff’s guns and hold out until we got back. Darren reassured Andy that with the speedboat gone anyone looking for Sonny would most likely bypass the island and look elsewhere. This was a lie of course, but Darren knew about these things and didn’t think Gippa would start getting worried until darkness fell. He shouted to Andy as we pulled away that we’d be back in around three or four hours. He told me this would give us ample time when we returned to implement Darren’s plan to dispatch Gippa and his henchmen. What that plan was, was a mystery to the rest of us but I had faith that whatever he did have planned would work flawlessly.

  Chapter 24

  When we were clear of the island Darren opened the boat up and kept it as close as he could to the shoreline, which was at most no more than twenty metres. The high tide and the low displacement of the boat meant the likelihood of running aground or hitting unseen rocks would be low. While Darren steered us in and out of the small coves as we travelled north, Josh and I watched the sky for drones. The threat from the destroyer still loomed over us.

  Finally, we approached our destination. The natural harbour of Boulmer. It had been the smuggling capital of the north in its day. Now we had to smuggle ourselves in past the residents there. We hoped that the occupants of the small village had shuffled off and Boulmer had become a ghost town.

  A quarter of a mile away from the harbour Darren switched off the engine. The speedboat had oars and pop-up rowlocks for them to sit in in case of engine failure, which we put to use. This would lessen the chance of alerting anyone or anything to our presence as we went ashore. After around twenty-five minutes we arrived at the beach. We quickly unloaded ourselves and our kit, then pushed the boat back out to sea with Josh in it. Darren told him to row out and wait at the mouth of the harbour for us. We would signal him on our approach when we returned. At that point Josh was to row as fast as he could back to the shore to pick us up.