The Scheme

Nineteen eighty nine, a number, another summer; sound of the funky drummer ubiquitous on the radio. Gordon Harper drummed his fingers against the wheel in time to the tune. It was a nervous staccato, no doubt about that. As he sat parked on Casgairt Road he wondered if he should just bolt. He'd a couple of grand left in his savings, and could be on the next flight to Chilé or Singapore, could be anywhere but here. He threw his cigarette butt out the window and immediately lit another. This was going to be a bad job, that became apparent as soon as Skinny's name was mentioned. When Dunkie mentioned that nutter he should have said “I'm out.”

He didn't. No, he didn't want to look like a shitebag in front of the big boys. If he had any real stones he would have told Dunkie to take a fuck to himself. Instead he was sitting with a fucking shotgun under his seat waiting for that nutjob Willie Barr. Total... Fucking... Nightmare!

Once more he sucked on the cigarette like a dehydrated man trying to suck an ice-cube through a straw. He drummed his fingers on the wheel again and looked at the time. 7.24. p.m. Fucking Barr was nearly half an hour late. Harper decided that if he wasn't here by half past, he was calling the whole thing off, pleading ignorance and blaming Barr. He sat there watching every second tick by, each moment throwing up a new paranoia.

Tick. What if this was all a setup and Dunkie wanted him dead?

Tick. What if Skinny had got word of the plan?

Tick. What if the guys in the flat were tooled up?

Tick. What if the cops were watching the place?

Paradoxically, with every second that went by he felt a little more hope that he could escape the potential futures he imagined. By the time the clock hit 7.29 he'd already concluded he was off the hook. Just as he was about to turn the key and drive back home the passenger door opened. For a second he saw the arm, the hand, the pistol and for that second knew he was dead.

Except there was no pistol. It was a hand, pointed like a gun. Willie Barr's face replaced it and he had a shit-eating grin.

“Haaahaha. Evenin' Harper. Did ye think ah wisnae comin'?” Barr said, wiping the greasy ginger mop of hair from his eyes. He climbed into the passenger seat and planted his arse heavily, testing the limits of the vehicle's suspension. He was a bear of a man was Barr, Six foot dead and about twenty stone of solid muscle.

“If a thought ye wurnae comin' ah widnae be here wid ah?” Harper said, it was all front, he was shitting himself.

“Pish. Ah bet you've been sittin' here gaun tae yersel “Ah'll gie that fucker tae hauf past then ah'm oot.” 'int ye?” Barr scoffed.

“Well let's just say yer right oan time eh?” Harper replied.

Barr smirked and pulled his hair into a pony tail. “Right. Aw professional an' shite eh? Fine, whit's the joab Gordon?”

Harper could not believe it. “Whit? Did nae cunt tell ye?”

“Naw, Dunkie just telt me tae meet ye doon here cause we wur gonny skelp some of Skinny's pricks.” Barr shrugged.

That was Willie Barr all over. He thrived on causing trouble. Granted the job was simple but it was liable to be dangerous, Harper would have thought someone might have mentioned the details to Barr, but then it didn't matter Barr was all about the violence. Harper sighed. “Right. Well, we're gaun' tae a hoose doon in Ruchie, where, accordin' tae Dunkie, Skinny's got some valuable stuff stashed away at the address. We're gonny steal it an' wreck the place. Nae witnesses.”

“Good.” Barr said to that, giving a satisfied nod. “Let's dae it then. Ah want tae get back hame fur the snooker highlights.”

It took extra effort for Harper to turn the key and push his foot down but once he had he resigned himself to the fact that the job was on.

The drive was the longest 20 minutes Harper had ever spent. Barr kept talking shite about his violent and sexual exploits from the previous weekend, most if not all of which were exaggerated for his own benefit. Harper had known plenty of guys like that and had come to the conclusion they were all arse-bandits in denial. All that bragging, to what end? Who were they trying to convince? His mind was on other things so he let Barr ramble on giving him encouragement with bawdy cheers and the occasional variant of “good, that fucker needed a tankin'”

When Harper drove into Trinidad Avenue he slowed the car and immediately Barr stopped his bullshit. “This us Gordo?”

“Aye” Harper replied and pulled the shotgun from under the seat, it was wrapped in two plastic bags.

“Ah'll take that.” Barr said, reaching over.

“Nae chance.” Harper replied, pulling the gun away from Barr's reach.

“Look ya fanny, huv you ever fired a shotgun?”

The fact was he hadn't. He'd never fired any type of gun other than one that sprayed water. He didn't argue and handed the gun over.

“Aye, ah thought not. Here you can take this.” Barr said and pulled out a large machete. “Trust me, people see ye wavin' that thing aboot, they're gonny shite it, even if they ur tooled up.”

Harper took the horrible weapon and felt its weight and grip in his hand. If felt satisfying there. “Fine.” He said. “Let's boost.”

The flats on Trinidad Avenue had been gutted out and renovated three years before in a laughable attempt to make the place look less like a slum. That worked until they moved all the previous residents back in. Now the place looked as bad as it ever did, only with fading dirty pastel pink walls rather than pebble-dashed ones. They climbed up the end stairs of one of the blocks to the second floor and walked down the verandah to the end flat. Barr said nothing, just gave a look expressing “This it then?”

Harper nodded. Barr returned the nod and listened at the front door for a moment before he thumbed the bell. Several seconds later the door opened. A lad Harper recognised from his old school stood behind it, Ronnie Gill. He was scowling at Barr for a second before he saw the shotgun at his face. His face changed, not to a look of terror, he didn't have time for that. Rather it looked like a ripe tomato, bursting open. Blood spattered all over the door, and all over Barr. The explosion from the gun was deafening but Harper definitely heard the tiny clatter of the shattered tooth spinning on the cold concrete at his feet.

Barr jumped over the body before it had fully landed and stormed into the house screaming like some mad prick from a Hollywood action movie. Harper felt dazed by the blast, stunned by the casual, pointless murder of a bloke he'd played Subbuteo with as a child but he knew it was too late for regrets. He charged in after Barr, carefully avoiding his old school chum's headless corpse.

The hallway inside looked as if it had been wallpapered with butcher's aprons. There was a small table with a phone on it that had been toppled over. Barr had the shotgun raised and was making for the first door on the right. He booted it open and fired instantly and then sped into the room. Harper could hear muffled shouting becoming clearer as he walked in behind his partner in crime.

In the kitchen room was two lads from Skinny's crew. Harper knew one of them as “Guido”, a thin lad with slicked back black hair, like a teddy boy. They were so scared they were bricking themselves. The other one, the fat one was trembling with his hands raised.

“Where the fuck is it?” Barr said. Neither he nor Harper actually knew what “it” was, but that didn't matter. “Guido” was desperately pointing in the direction of another room. Harper turned at just the right moment to feel something ping his ear and whiz past his sight. As he kept turning he saw another on of Skinny's thugs about three feet away pointing a gun at him. Without warning the guy's skull split down the middle and Harper felt his arm shudder violently as the blade in his hand finally clashed with the collarbone of his victim. He almost dropped the knife at that point, not through shock but through pain of impact.

Barr still covered both guys in the kitchen. Both had their hands on their heads. Harper's hearing began to come back.

“The hall, Gordo, doon the fuckin' hall!” Barr was barking.

Harper nodded and moved past the second corpse in the hall and heard another two blasts from the shotgun. Barr had killed the guys in the kitchen, four dead in less than five minutes, this was a catastrophe. Without much pause he was out in the hall with Harper who was now reloading the shotgun. Harper pointed with the barrel at the room on the left at the end and then nodded, stuck his foot against it, pushed and fired both barrels. He walked into the room and Harper followed. There was another kill, some guy in a band t-shirt, now a bloody rag. He was slumped over a lime green sofa like he'd failed an attempt at the Fosbury flop

There was no one else, that was the last of them and so both Barr and Harper focussed on the large crate in the centre of the room. This was “it.”

“Right get that hing open Gordo.”

“Why me?”

“Cus you've goat the machete ya fanny, prise the fucker open, let's see what wis so important.”

“Dunkie just said to lift it.”

“An ahm sayin' open it, right?” Barr insisted, threateningly.

“Aye awright, awright, fuck sake man.”

“Hurry up, the filth will be hear toot sweet.”

Harper did as he was ordered and managed to budge open the lid. As he slid it off he gave a small laugh and said. “Fur fuck sake.”

“Whit?”

“Check this oot, it's a fuckin' doll.” Harper responded looking into the crate. True enough he was looking at a life sized figure of a child in bonnet and frilly Victorian clothing, lying face down and limp inside the dusty crate.

“Don't talk shite.” Barr growled as he marched over and looked inside the crate. He glanced at Harper in disbelief and then back at the doll. “Is this some kind o' fuckin' joke?” he hissed, his anger increasing. He reached in and grabbed the figurine by the arm and yanked it.

The doll lolled over onto it's front, it's pale porcelain face was ghastly. Both the eyes and the mouth had been stitched up and it was obvious that what had looked like porcelain was actually some kind of varnish or lacquer covering old, eroding skin. It was a child, a long-dead little girl, preserved and made to look like a doll as if treated by some deranged taxidermist. Both Barr and Harper recoiled in disgust and fear as if expecting it to wake up and lunge at them with a demonic howl. It did not. Both were instantly relieved but still horrified.

“Seen some fucked up shit in ma time but this takes the fuckin' biscuit. Some cunt needs tae put Skinner doon, he's wan sick fuck.” Barr hissed

“Says the man who just killed four people for nothin'” Harper thought to himself. Instead he only said “Aye. Let's pack this up and scoot eh?”

Barr gave an earnest nod.

Luckily having heard gunfire the residents of the block had wisely decided to hide and so no-one, as far as either of them were aware, spotted the two of them leaving the house and dumping the crate in the back seat. They both jumped back in the front and were off before they could even process the full series of events they'd just committed. Harper was stunned and couldn't think properly “Where to?”

“Fur fuck's sake, Dunkie's, ya dobber, see if the prick knows what the fuck this is all aboot.”

Harper nodded, it was exactly what he was thinking he wanted shot of the body as quickly as possible, if the cops caught them with that they were fucked. Gangland slayings were one thing, even had a certain cachet in some circles. Dead little girls were not tolerated, not even by prison inmates. If they ended up in the pokey they'd be mincemeat. He floored the pedal and aimed for Mental Dunkie's.

The two drove in silence, coming down from their adrenaline high. Harper could feel Barr seething, burning furiously with suppressed anger and hoped he'd be out of the way before the nut-case exploded. As he drove he reconsidered getting the next flight out of Glasgow to anywhere, he knew he was out his depth, just like he knew Big Skinny was a monster but he hadn't realised in either case just how much. His mind latched onto the image of the dead doll child and he shuddered.

If fact, the car shuddered.

“Whit the fuck wis that?” Barr asked.

“Dunno, relax, we're nearly there.”

“Don't tell me tae relax ya wee cunt.” Barr barked, running all the words together.

Harper said nothing in response, he just focussed on the road. Five minutes and they'd have that thing out of the boot. There was a noise coming from the engine, a tick tick ticking noise that grew louder and deeper with every second. It reminded him of the old grandfather clock that they used to have at the end of the office corridor of the psychologist his school forced him to go see. He wondered if it was his imagination playing tricks on him. He'd been apprehensive about those visits just as he was apprehensive about this whole scheme.

“Whit's that tickin'? Is your motor about to gie oot?” Barr asked.

“Dunno, jist re... look were almost there, couple o' minutes.”

Luckily the car did not give up on them and he screeched it around the last corner off Prospecthill Road. Barr was out of the vehicle before Harper had removed the keys. He hit the button to open the back and Barr started dragging the crate out. “Gies a haun Gordo.” he demanded.

Harper once again did as he was told. He could still hear the ticking noise, it was louder, much louder than it had been before. They lifted the crate together and carried it to the red front door of Dunkie's close. Barr thumbed the intercom button.

“Whit?” Came Dunkie's angry voice.

“It's Willie Barr, we've goat yer goods, open the door, ya fuck.”

The buzzing noise from the door's entry system was quickly followed by a click and Barr shouldered it and the two of them were inside. The door closed behind them and Harper felt some relief but the ticking noise continued. It was coming from inside the crate. He lifted the lid but the dead child was still in there, just a dead child.

Dunkie came out in a bathrobe and a smile. “Willie, Gordo! Whit did ye find at that flat?” and then upon hearing the ticking. “Whit's that? Some rare clock or something?”

“See fur yersel' ya stupid cunt.” Barr said, half scoffing.

Dunkie frowned, even he knew not to get on the wrong side of Willie Barr. He walked over and looked inside. “Whit the fuck?”

“You tell us.” Barr demanded.

“Ye think ah knew it wis that? That auld cunt Shadrac telt me it wis something valuable, priceless he said.”

“Aye well gie the fucker it, I'm gone.” Barr said.

“Ye canny lea' it here.” Dunkie said.

“Jist watch me. Deid weans man, that shit is well ootside ma fuckin' pay grade.”

“Where's that fuckin' tickin' comin' fae?” Dunkie asked, increasingly irritated.

“Your problem, no mine.” Barr said. “I'll be back fur ma cash wance you've sorted aw this pish oot.”

At that he unlocked the door and said “c'mon Gordo, let's get the fuck away fae this weird shite.”

Just as Barr went to pull the door open the ticking noise was replaced with chiming of bells. Deep sombre bells that rang through the close resonating against the walls and inside of the three men's skulls. All three stood there as the sound stopped after six strikes, no one said anything because from the crate a dreadful croaking voice said “grandfather?”

Harper put his hand over his mouth, Dunkie backed away from the crate, Barr pulled open the front door and yelled. It was an animal noise, filled with bewilderment and terror. There was no outside. No streets or lamps or cars or trees, just a long corridor with black walls, ceiling and floors. At the end of the stretch was a grandfather clock, ticking away.

A dreadful noise, like someone cracking their knuckles over and over came from the crate and the doll's hands grasped the edge of it. Barr ran into the corridor in sheer terror and Dunkie tried to run into his house but stopped as he opened the door. Harper could see his home was gone, replaced with the very same corridor Barr had ran down and was still running down.

From somewhere a ticking insect voice so alien and malevolent that it chilled Harper's blood uttered the words “Wake up Hattie, new friends to play with.”

The dead child dressed as a doll giggled as it climbed out of the box. Harper was almost mad with fear, he could feel his heart thumping in his ears, his hands were slick with sweat and his eyes could not stop looking at the putrid doll thing as it chuckled and creaked while clambering from the crate. Dunkie had ran up the stairs to the second floor. Barr had somehow been turned upside down and was being swung against the walls of the black corridor, smashing back and forth like a pendulum suspended by an invisible wire. Each thud taking more and more of his shape and skin with it until his brain poured out and spattered.

The doll plopped onto the floor on all fours. It groaned as it stood up, dusted itself off and looked up at Harper with its tightly stitched eyes.

“Time to play.” It said.

“Time to play” echoed the dark ticking voice of the grandfather clock.

“Time to play.” Both voices repeated, as if one.

And Harper, in the last seconds of his sanity, began to cry as he felt the tiny cold hard hands of the dead child grab at his trouser legs and begin to climb.