Blood Men: A Thriller

“Shit,” the first guy says, and he’s staring at me now. “Okay, buddy, you’re volunteering.”


“I’ll do what you want as long as you don’t hurt anybody else,” I say.

He offers a short, cold laugh. “No, you got it all wrong. You didn’t volunteer yourself, you went ahead and volunteered that pretty little thing next to you.”

“Don’t,” I say, and I step toward the man coming toward me and put my hand out in a stopping gesture. He doesn’t even slow down. He comes in around my arm and hits me with the gun in the side of my face, hard enough to knock me down.

“Eddie . . .” Jodie is pulled to her feet.

Things are out of focus. I’ve fallen onto my side. I get my hands onto the ground and push up. There are two Jodies. Twelve gunmen. They pick up the bags of cash and head for the door. Nobody else is moving. Nobody else is helping. The twelve men turn back into six, they’re at the door and they have Jodie with them. I figure if the police are only two minutes away they’re probably driving and the Friday lunchtime traffic has brought them to a crawl.

“Eddie,” Jodie screams, reaching toward me, and it takes two of them to drag her through the door. I get to my feet, wobbling left and right somewhat. I stumble over my feet and trip myself up, hitting the floor hard with my palms. They toss the bags of money inside a van and five of them climb in right alongside it. The sixth guy keeps holding my wife.

I get outside. Nobody follows me. There are people on the street, but they’re all ducked down behind parked cars and huddling in shop doorways. Shopwindows painted over with Christmas scenes have faces pressed against the glass. The kids in the hoodies are popping their heads up from behind a row of motorbikes and pointing cell phones at us. I can’t hear any sirens or see any police. Cars have stopped about twenty meters away in both directions. The guy pushes Jodie toward me. She cries out and stumbles. She reaches out for balance and I can tell she’s going down, she’s going to hit the sidewalk.

He raises the shotgun. He points it right at her. He doesn’t even hesitate, just pulls the trigger. Shoot her in the back, Jack.

“No,” I scream, but the word is lost over the explosion. My wife hits the road. The shooter jumps into the back of the van and closes the door. The driver accelerates hard, the engine revs loudly and smoke drifts up off the tires. I reach my wife as the van turns the corner, running a red light and leaving us alone.





chapter four


Keep her alive, Clive.

I have no idea why I keep thinking of the song Jodie sang this morning, perhaps the last song she’ll ever get to sing, steam from the shower thick in the air, the penguin radio launching out classic songs from a classic hits station. The words are in my head but they don’t even feel like mine, as though somebody put them there, an English teacher or a bad comedian having reached out somehow and implanted them.

She’s dead, Fred—and don’t worry, you’ll be hearing from me soon.

I scream for help but the only thing people are brave enough to do is step out from whatever hole they hid in and point cell phone cameras at me while others make calls. I try to hold the blood inside her, but it keeps flowing.

“Jodie, oh God, Jodie, it’s going to be okay,” I say, and I roll her onto her side so I can see her face while keeping pressure on her back. There is so much blood. Way too much blood. It’s seeping between my fingers. It’s like water. I need more hands. More help.

I need a miracle.

Jodie’s eyes are open and she turns them toward me but focuses beyond me, somewhere a thousand miles away.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say. “I promise.”

“My shoes hurt,” she says, and she smiles, and she keeps staring past me and a moment later I realize she’s no longer seeing anything at all.

“Jodie . . .”

There are too many holes in her, I can’t stem them all. Her face is pale, except around her nose which has been broken and flattened when she fell. Blood is smeared there, there’s a deep cut in her upper lip where it’s been sliced by her teeth.

“Please, please, Jodie, don’t do this, don’t do this,” I say. “Don’t leave me alone.”

But Jodie is doing this.

“Jodie, please,” I say, but my words are only whispers now.

People move closer to get a better look, to get a better angle, a clearer photo. Nobody offers to help. Maybe they can see there is no point. Nobody has come out of the bank—either they’re in too much shock or maybe they’re trying to save the manager and the security guard. Sirens appear in the distance and get louder, and soon they appear, police cars and ambulances, all of them too late. The safety they bring with them allows more bystanders to come forward and watch and point and revel in the drama. Two paramedics rush over to Jodie, each of them carrying a case of lifesaving tools.

“Out of the way,” one of them says.

“She’s . . .”