Hideout by Jack Heath (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

sharp tap. Just the same, the sound stops me in my tracks. I’m trembling, like my voltage has been turned up.

I’ve wanted to eat people before, but this might be the first time I’ve wanted to kill someone.

The priest squirms, his arm around my neck like a python. ‘What?’

Somewhere behind us, keys are jingling. Why are they locking the slaughterhouse now, after the prisoners have escaped?

‘What?’ the priest says again.

The rusty gate squeals, and I realise my mistake: the Guards aren’t locking the slaughterhouse. They’re unlocking the dog run.

Fred sounds suddenly friendly. ‘Go, girls! Go get ’em! Go!’

The two boxers bark hungrily.

‘Run!’ I whisper.

We stumble through the dark, the priest still wrapped in his soiled robes, me half naked and half the man I used to be. Fast, heavy breaths and the pounding of paws on dirt echo through the forest. The dogs aren’t after us yet—it’s like they’re doing a perimeter check or a victory lap around the house. But the sound is getting closer.

I’m ignoring the cameras now, just blundering right past them. It doesn’t matter if they see us. What matters is getting as far away from those dogs as possible.

But if we escape, the dogs might find Thistle and her group instead.

I falter, missing a step, and the priest almost falls off my back. Maybe I should be letting them find us, so she survives.

Or maybe I should abandon the priest. Let the dogs tear him apart, while Thistle and I both escape.

I take a second to wonder how Thistle would feel about sacrificing a stranger to save her own life. Then I keep carrying the priest through the forest.

Excited barking from somewhere behind us. The dogs have found our trail. It wouldn’t be hard, given the smell the priest has left in his wake. The dogs will be on us any second.

But I can see the pick-up through the trees. No sign of the other prisoners, but even if they’ve punctured the tyres like I told them to, the priest and I can hide inside the cabin for protection from the dogs.

I can hear whispers. The Guards must be catching up to us.

I let go of the priest, dig the keys out of my pocket and push the button on the remote. The lights in the pick-up come on as it unlocks.

The other prisoners scramble out from behind it. Thistle is with them, her handbag over one shoulder and a phone in her hand. The bag must still have been in the tray of the pick-up, where Donnie dumped it. I told Thistle there was no phone service out here, but she would have tried anyway.

Seeing her gives me a surge of energy—desperation and relief all mixed together. I drag the priest out of the woods. ‘What are you still doing here?’

‘Finally! She wouldn’t let us leave without you,’ Hailey snaps. Then she sees the priest. ‘Who the hell is that?’

‘One more prisoner,’ I say. ‘He was buried in the backyard. Had to dig him up.’

Thistle looks at me, shirtless and weak, then at the priest and his soiled robes. ‘Holy shit.’

I laugh, and then realise the joke wasn’t intentional. I toss her the keys. ‘Dogs are after us. Get in quick.’

Everyone piles into the tray, except Thistle, who gets in the passenger side and slides over to the driver’s seat. She leaves the door open for me and starts the engine.

‘I’m not coming,’ I say.

She stares at me. ‘What?!’

‘I have to get Kyle out of here,’ I say.

I don’t know why I can’t abandon him. He’s committed abduction, false imprisonment, torture, assault, mail fraud and probably a whole host of other crimes.

But Thistle seems to understand immediately. ‘What about the dogs? And the Guards?’

‘I’ll think of something. Just go.’

‘You heard him!’ Hailey yells from the back. ‘Go!’

Thistle doesn’t. She rummages through her handbag, pulls out the can of pepper spray and throws it to me. ‘Use this.’

I love you, I want to say. But, ‘Thanks,’ is all I have the courage for.

‘You too,’ she says, which doesn’t make sense unless she’s telepathic. Then she stamps on the gas and screeches away down the gravel driveway.

I turn back to face the woods. I can’t see the dogs yet, but I can hear their paws, their snapping jaws, their ragged breaths.

I look down at the pepper spray. I’ve never used this stuff. The can is no bigger than a deodorant stick, black, with an orange button on top. It feels light. Almost empty, maybe.

But a little should be enough. After the FBI developed pepper spray in the eighties, US Army scientists determined that it was too toxic to use on civilians. The FBI approved it anyway, which paved the way for other agencies to use it. It turned out that the head of the FBI less-than-lethal weapons program was taking bribes from pepper spray manufacturers. He was jailed, but the damage was done. Pepper spray was already being used by hundreds of other agencies.

When I look back up, the dogs are already here, racing out of the darkness towards me, teeth bared for the kill. I raise the spray can. It’s hard to hold it with only four fingers.

The faster of the two dogs streaks across the dirt, crossing the last six feet in a terrifying leap. I take aim with the spray can and push the button, just as the dog’s huge paws hit my chest, knocking me over backwards.

I hit the dirt so hard that the air explodes out of my lungs. The first blast from the spray can shoots uselessly up into the air, but the dog takes the second one right in its slavering jaws. It makes a sound like a whinnying horse and scrambles backwards, sneezing and whimpering. Eyes shut, it