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room. One of them was swinging a long-handled axe; the others were carrying
sawed-off shotguns. Marmie screeched at them, 'Get out! What do you want? Get
out!' and gathered the children close, but the men took no notice and strutted
into the room, systematically kicking over tables, tugging down pictures and
overturning chairs. They were faceless and menacing, like malevolent puppets.
'What do you want?' Marmie breathed, her voice choked with fear.
The man with the axe came up and regarded them with expressionless eyes.
'Who are you?' Marmie demanded. 'What right do you have to come bursting into
our house?'
The man said nothing, although Marmie could hear him breathing harshly behind
his mask. The other three men circled around behind them and stood with their
feet apart, arrogant and stiff, holding up their short-barrelled shotguns as
if they were symbols of authority. Marmie glanced nervously over her shoulder
at them and then back at the man with the axe.
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'There's no money here,' she said, her voice trembling but firm. 'You can have
my credit cards if you want them. There's a gun there; it's jammed but you can
have it. Just take what you want and leave us alone. Please. We're on
vacation, that's all.'
The man with the axe beckoned to one of his associates and pointed to Mark.
With his finger he made a throat-cutting gesture across his own neck.
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Marmie screamed, 'No!' but another man stepped up behind her and gripped her
arm, so tightly that the sleeve of her dress tore. He pressed the muzzle of
his shotgun to the side of Marmie's head; its roughly filed-off edges dug into
her temple, and it was then she suddenly realized that these men in their
bland ice-hockey masks had come not for money, nor for shelter, nor for
anything else she could possibly offer them. They had come to kill, and that
was all. Because who would travel twenty miles through the forests of the
Laurentide Provincial Park, to a cabin that stood by itself, armed with
sawed-off shotguns and disguised with masks, but killers?
Marmie said, 'I beg mercy of you.' Her voice was proud and clear. Issa
whimpered and covered her face with her hands, but John stared at Marmie as if
amazed that she was not able to protect him from these intruders. Mark looked
up at the man standing over him and with a strangely hypnotized sense of
obedience, stood up and followed him to the other side of the room.
The man with the axe pointed to the arm of the sofa; his colleague forced Mark
to kneel so that his head was resting on top of the arm, like an executioner's
block.
Marmie half rose and said falteringly, 'You can't do that. Listen, that's my
son. He's only eleven. Please, if you have to kill somebody, kill me. But not
my children. Please.'
The man with the axe stared at her. Then he looked around at his colleagues,
but it was clear that he was in charge and that the others had no say in what
he was about to do. None of them spoke. They could have been deaf and dumb for
all Marmie could tell.
'Listen,' she insisted, 'my husband is a very rich man. If you leave us alone,
if you save our lives, I will personally guarantee that he pays you very well.
Just leave my children alone and I will personally guarantee you a million
dollars. I mean that. A million dollars. And you can take me as hostage to
make sure the money is paid.'
The man with the axe said nothing but grunted when
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Mark tried to raise his tousled head from the arm of the sofa. His associate
forced Mark down again.
'A million dollars,' Marmie repeated. 'No tricks, no police tip-offs, nothing;
I guarantee it with my own life.'
The man with the axe lifted the axe head up, licked the ball of his thumb and
ran it down the edge of the blade to test its sharpness. Blood mingled with
saliva; the axe must have been as sharp as broken glass. It was impossible for
Marmie to tell whether the man was smiling or scowling, but she had the
uncanny feeling that he was actually amused and that he was going to kill them
and enjoy it.
She felt that she had to go on talking. The longer she talked, the longer her
children would live. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she could barely
speak, but she knew that her children's survival depended on her. Randolph
wasn't here - Randolph was way off in Memphis - and she cursed him for having
left them in this isolated cabin on Lac aux Ecorces when they could have been
safe and sound at home, eating barbecued ribs, watching television and
worrying about nothing more important than what they were going to wear for
the Cotton Carnival.
'You could be wealthy men, all of you,' she said, hoping to appeal to their
sense of greed. After all, why had they come to kill her except for money? 'I
could make each of you a millionaire; four million dollars, to be split four
ways. I know the company could stand it, and I know my husband would be only
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too happy to pay it. Please, think about it, one million dollars, in cash, for
each of you. No questions asked.'
With terrible disinterest, the man with the axe raised his weapon high above
his head. For one split second, Marmie thought: This is a nightmare, I'm
dreaming this, it can't be real. If I hit myself, I'll wake up and we'll be
back in Memphis, opening our eyes at dawn at Clare Castle, nestling up to
designer sheets, with the fragrance of flowering azaleas drifting in through
the shutters and the maids singing as they mop up the tiled patios outside,
preparing for us to come out to breakfast.
But then the nightmare became real and the axe whistled down. Mark screamed
like an animal when the axe blade cut only a third of the way into his neck.
Most of the force of the blow had been cushioned by the arm of the sofa. All
the same, his carotid artery had been severed and bright red blood came
spurting. The man with the axe had to hit him again, and yet again, and then [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]