Angels & Shadows

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Corporal Warner arrived at the Robinson’s house earlier than usual. He had slept well for the first time in a long while and was feeling particularly up-beat.  He approached from the garden calling Tini. When the dog didn’t respond and he found the broken piano wire, he immediately feared the worst. He took the pistol from his pocket holster and went forwards cautiously. Normally Tini would have known that he was there as soon as his car pulled up, something had to be dreadfully wrong. Rob raised his head above the shrubs and saw Tini lying across one of the biggest men that he’d ever seen. It was only when he got closer that he could see the carnage, both man and dog were drenched in blood.

As he ran over he could hear Tini whimpering pathetically. The only sign that the dog was able to show to acknowledge his master’s presence was the cocking of his ears and a soulful look in his quirky eyes as he looked up at him. Rob was horrified at the sight of Tini’s massive wound and he felt physically sick. It was heart-breaking. The dog had given everything and more than could have been expected of him. Rob ruffled Tini’s head in tender appreciation while his tears flowed freely down his cheeks.

“Good boy,” he whispered encouragingly, but the words didn’t even begin to commend the duty that the dog had selflessly performed.

He turned his attention to the corpse and recognised the immense black man immediately as Dada, one of the cruellest and most feared Shadows of them all, and across all time. Rob was amazed at the amount of mutilation that he had suffered. Dada had literally been hacked to pieces and his throat ripped out. Reassured that the Shadow was dead Rob concentrated on what he could do for Tini. He was impaled on Dada’s spear in what was clearly a fight to the death, and Tini was perilously close to that too.

Rob gently slipped the shaft of the spear out of Dada’s dead hand. He was careful to not disturb the wound and encourage more bleeding, then he gently lifted the impaled Tini to his car. Rob covered the dog with the car rug to protect him from the cold morning air and uttered some soothing words.

After dragging Dada’s lifeless body into the undergrowth to conceal it, Rob hurried towards the house, dreading what must surely have happened to Elizabeth and Ben. His heart was racing with the effort of moving Dada but more so because of his fear of what carnage was waiting for him in the house. Judging by the state of Dada, he must have inflicted some horrific injuries, or even death, on Elizabeth and Ben too, in what must have been the mother of all fights.

Rob entered the Robinson’s house through the shattered glazed panel and followed the blood trail, it was everywhere. A broad red smear zigzagged down the stairs where the wet stump of Dada’s left arm had steadied him. As he passed the open doors of both Ben’s and Elizabeth’s bedrooms he saw the pulled back covers and the familiar pungent smell of cordite stung his nostrils. He hesitated at the next room steeling himself for what he might see and entered cautiously.

When Rob walked in, Elizabeth had already washed Ben down and was putting a field dressing on a nasty gash running up his stomach. It took several seconds for Rob to take in the enormity of what must have happened in the room. It looked like a scene out of a Hammer horror movie. There were bullet holes and flesh everywhere and not a wall or a drape had escaped a blood drenching. A grotesque, severed hand was on the floor still grasping a gun, it was bizarre. Elizabeth was smiling back at him through a macabre dried mask of blood, only her eyes and teeth were still white.

Rob had seen some carnage in his active duty in Afghanistan but this was surreal. His head was spinning as he sat down next to Elizabeth, thankful to take the weight off his legs, particularly as he couldn’t trust them to keep him up. Elizabeth could see the concern on his face and she put her hand on his shoulder. She was strangely calm and controlled.