Lets Drink To The Dead Read Online Free Page B

them rich. He promises it, for both of them. And he’ll do all he can to work off his debt.
     
     
    J UST AFTER DAWN and Yolly creeps downstairs, having dressed on the landing. He walks stiffly, sore; Mr Fitton took things out on him, like he often does, but it didn’t do him much good; Yolly’s too old for his tastes now. And so Mr Fitton hurt him because of that.
    Out back of the butcher’s shop the last embers still glow where Mr Fitton burned the bags of stuff from Mr Walsh’s house. He goes outside and looks to see that it’s all been burnt up. There’s nothing left. Good.
    Yolly goes back inside. He’s pinched Mr Fitton’s keys. He unlocks the gun cabinet and takes out Mr Fitton’s twelve-bore. He puts shells into his pockets and two in the shotgun, snaps the breech shut and goes back upstairs.
    The butcher’s shop is under the railway viaduct. The ceiling rattles faintly; a train’s coming.
    Yolly steps in through the door. “Mr Fitton?” he says.
    “What?” The greasy bulk in the bed stirs, rolls onto its back. Piggy eyes glare at him. “What the bloody hell are you...?”
    Yolly cocks the shotgun.
    “Yolly.” Mr Fitton tries to sit up, voice wheedling. The train goes overhead, its roar shaking the room. “Yolly, lad–”
    Yolly fires the left-hand barrel and blows apart the sheets over Mr Fitton’s groin. The grimy white sheets are red. Mr Fitton’s screaming, fingers clawing into the ragged, spurting hole that Yolly’s made. Yolly puts the gun to his shoulder, aims and fires the second barrel into that scream. It cuts off; Mr Fitton snaps back against the headboard and most of his head splashes up the wall and onto the ceiling. He stays sat up but sags, like a great big pudding collapsing.
    The train passes on. Yolly’s ears hum. The room stinks of shit and gunsmoke. He breaks the shotgun, discards the shells, goes out.
    Next he takes Mr Fitton’s van out to Saint Matthias’. He parks across the road and watches and waits and smokes three of Mr Fitton’s cigarettes until he sees Father Joseph come out of the parochial house and approach the church doors; then he gets out of the van and goes up the path after him. “Father Joe?”
    The priest turns in the doorway; he hates being called that. “What?” And then Yolly takes the shotgun out from under his coat and gives him both barrels, blowing him back through the doorway and halfway down the aisle before he hits a pew and clings on. Yolly walks through the doorway and up the aisle, reloading as Father Joe’s knees buckle and his guts slide out onto the floor. The priest turns and looks at him and opens a mouth full of blood; Yolly shoves the gun muzzle into it and fires. Father Joe falls forward with a lower jaw and fuck-all else attached; his blood goes all over Yolly and spreads across the aisle floor. Yolly doesn’t care; it doesn’t matter now.
    Yolly reloads again as he goes out of the church; not that he plans to use the gun again, but to scare off anyone gets in his way. He’s got one more thing he’s promised to do.
    Someone starts screaming as Yolly gets back in the van. It doesn’t matter. He’s not going far.
    He drives quickly out of Kempforth on Dunwich Road North, then turns off onto Dunwich Lane. The abandoned farmhouse, where the Shrike was waiting yesterday. He goes inside with the shotgun on the off-chance, but of course the Shrike’s long-gone. He’s beyond Yolly’s reach, like the Policeman; he doesn’t know where to find them. He looks up the wooded slopes above the house. Ash Fell, it’s called. Someone told him that once.
    Yolly fetches the two cans of fuel from the van and splashes them around the house. Burn it down, deny it to the Shrike. No more kids from Kempforth will be that bastard’s prey. Or even Yolly’s.
    There’s a price for everything. Redemption, sometimes, most of all.
    One can’s still about a third full; Yolly empties it over himself, then sits on the kitchen floor and fumbles out