Hideout by Jack Heath (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

tongue, tears in your eyes. Freeze me to keep me hot. What am I?

I rip off my shirt and stuff it into the pipe, muting the sound. I shoot a glance towards the house.

For a second, there’s no sign that anyone heard or cares. But then the back door creaks open.

I flatten myself against the dead grass. I’m so filthy that from fifty yards away, I hopefully look like just a rise in the dirt.

A flashlight clicks on and sweeps across the yard. It tickles the tips of the grass blades above my head.

The light clicks off.

Someone says something from inside.

‘No,’ says the person in the doorway. Sounds like Cedric. ‘The Pedo must have had a nightmare.’

Laughter from inside. The door shuts again.

I rise slowly, wondering what to do. Four minutes before Thistle gives up on me and sabotages the tyres of our getaway vehicle. I should just go. Leave this guy to his fate.

But Thistle wouldn’t do that.

‘Goddamn it,’ I mutter, and grab the shovel from the vegetable patch.

No time to wonder who’s down there. No time to feel bad for not figuring it out sooner. I frantically stab at the ground. With one arm, I can’t lift the dirt—I can only drag it aside. This is going to take hours that I can’t spare.

But I get lucky. The shovel gets tangled in a sackcloth sheet. Apparently I’m not the only one who buries things this way.

I grab the sheet and pull it aside. Dirt cascades onto a coffin, buried barely a foot down. I guess Donnie was too lazy to dig any further.

Left him in Huntsville State Park under six feet of dirt. No one will ever find him.

You hear that, Donnie? Six feet.

I expected an old-fashioned pine coffin, but it’s steel. No expense spared. No way to punch through it from the inside. Wires trail out one side to a battery pack in a Ziploc bag. I don’t touch them. Cutting off the feed may trigger an alert.

The muffled screaming continues unabated. If whoever is in there keeps this up, I’ll have to knock them out with the shovel and drag them to the car.

I wedge the side of the shovel into the seam and lever the coffin open. A foul smell sends me reeling. Inside, a gaunt man in priest’s robes is surrounded by granola bar wrappers, empty water bottles and a puddle of his own shit. He’s as bald as a skeleton, with sallow skin, yellow fingernails and scratch marks all over his throat. Now that the coffin is open, I can see the fish-eye lens cameras built into the lid.

When the fresh air hits him, the man stops screaming and starts gasping. It sounds like a paddling pool being pumped up.

‘Stay quiet,’ I say.

He looks up at me, his one-armed saviour. His voice is hoarse. ‘Are you real?’

‘I’m real. Get up.’

‘I didn’t hurt those kids.’ His bloodshot eyes meet mine. ‘Never, never.’

‘I don’t care.’ I grab his hand and pull him out of the hole. ‘Come on.’

He’s very weak, staggering around like a newborn calf. His muscles have atrophied.

‘Hurry,’ I say, even though it probably doesn’t matter. We’re already two minutes late. Thistle and the others will be gone, marching on a doomed mission through the woods. This asshole has cost us our chance of escape. But I keep dragging him towards the woods, because I don’t know what else to do.

He’s whimpering and gibbering, trying to tell me something, but half the words sound made-up. He could be protesting his innocence or confessing his sins. I wonder if he’s a real priest, or if the Guards just dressed him like that for the subscribers.

The dogs behind the fence see us and go crazy, scream-barking and running around in circles, their collars jingling. I keep pulling the priest along, desperate to get him out of sight.

As we reach the safety of the trees, he collapses.

‘Get up,’ I snap.

He tries, but his limbs quiver and he hits the dirt.

I heave him up. Put his arm around my neck. The smell is horrifying. Holding him leaves me without a free arm to keep branches out of my face. Scratches accumulate on my cheeks.

When we’re barely ten yards into the woods, I hear the back door open again. Someone has come to investigate the barking.

The priest is half limp. ‘Keep moving,’ I whisper, ‘or we’re dead. You understand?’

He doesn’t seem to hear me. He’s dead weight. But I can’t leave him. Not now.

‘They’ll put you back in the ground,’ I say.

That gets his attention. He looks at me with wide, yellow-rimmed eyes. ‘Oh, please, God, no! Don’t!’

‘Not me, them. Shut up and run.’

Cedric’s voice from the backyard behind us: ‘Shit!’ Then, louder: ‘Hey! Come quick! The Pedo’s loose!’

I hobble faster through the shrubbery, twigs lacerating my feet. The priest stumbles along as best he can. We’re maybe a hundred yards from the car, but it’s slow going.

The door bangs again.

‘I fucking told you to bury him deeper,’ Cedric is saying.

Donnie’s voice: ‘This isn’t my fault. He must have had help.’

Fred, grimly: ‘Check the slaughterhouse.’

Eighty yards to go. My teeth are clenched so hard they’re on the verge of cracking. Flashlights sweep around behind us. I think we’re out of their range, for now. I try to move quietly, but the priest’s breathing sounds like a hacksaw. I want to cover his mouth, but he seems so sickly that he might suffocate.

‘Shh,’ I whisper.

Donnie is back: ‘Shit—they’re gone!’

Fred: ‘Who is?’

‘All of them. Goddamn it!’

‘How?’

Kyle: ‘I … I must not have locked the door.’

In real life, a punch doesn’t sound like in Hollywood. You don’t get that deep, baseball-bat-into-a-phonebook thud. With knuckles on cheekbone, you only hear a