Read The Beating of His Wings for Free Online Page B

more grabbed Gromek’s legs until his panic-strength gave out and he collapsed onto the floor. Determined to get him away from the door and back to where Meatyard was being held they started to pull Gromek down the central aisle. While this was going on, Kevin Meatyard was loudly butcalmly listing what he was going to do to his captors when he got free:
    ‘I’ll shove you back up your mother’s crack. I’ll piss down your throat. I’ll fuck you in the ear.’
    Once they’d dragged Gromek in front of Meatyard, he was pulled upright with his back against the wall so he could get a good view of Gromek’s death.
    Without the kitchen knife the lunatics needed to think again. Naturally, anything in the ward that could be used as a weapon had been removed – but even though the bed legs were carefully bolted into place, they had managed to unscrew one. As he was still struggling, grunting and gasping one of the lunatics grabbed Gromek under the chin and yanked his head up to expose his throat so that two of the others could press the bed leg across his neck. A terrible muffled scream erupted from deep in Gromek’s chest as he realized what they were going to do. Terror again gave him unnatural strength and this, combined with the sweat pouring off his face, meant the man holding his chin lost his grip. Two more attempts followed as the watching Meatyard kept up his threats of hideous revenge – ‘I’ll chew off your plums and shove ’em up your winker’ – but even he fell silent when Gromek’s neck was arched back and the leg of the bed held across his windpipe with a man kneeling on each side. It wasn’t quick. The sounds were from out of this world – a wet choking and a crushing of breathing flesh. Cale was transfixed by Gromek’s hands, fluttering and quivering in the air, one of his fingers pointing and shaking as if telling off a child. After an age the shivering hands became taut for a moment, then dropped suddenly to the floor. The kneeling lunatics stayed as they were for a full minute and then slowly stood up. They looked at Kevin Meatyard lying pinned down with his back to the wall.
    As they moved towards him, Cale called out to them. ‘Be careful. Make sure you’ve got him tight. Don’t let him get to his feet.’
    But why pay attention to the warnings of a boy who’d done nothing but lie on his bed and retch for a couple of hours a day? They moved on Meatyard. The six lunatics who had a hold on him pulled him to his feet and, knowing this was his one chance, Meatyard took advantage of the momentum of the lift and with all his lumpen strength shook them free. Then he grabbed the astonished Little Brian in his arms and ran up the ward using the boy as a battering ram. He got to the door and turned to face them as the lunatics began edging around him in a semi-circle. He squeezed the boy around the throat and made him cry out in fear and pain. ‘Stay where you are or I’ll break his bloody neck.’ Then he backheeled the door, making it rattle and thud as if a giant was trying to get out. ‘Help!’ he shouted as he kicked it over and over. ‘HELP!’
    Now the lunatics were scared – if Meatyard got away they were done for. They’d planned to say the pair of them got into a fight over who’d have the girl first and that they’d killed Meatyard while trying to save Gromek.
    With Meatyard free and only the word of murderous lunatics against him they’d be shunted off to the madhouse in Bethlehem, where the lucky ones died in the first year and the unlucky ones didn’t.
    ‘Put him down.’ Cale pushed through the men surrounding Meatyard.
    ‘I’ll break his neck,’ said Meatyard.
    ‘I don’t care what you do to him, as long as you put him down.’
    It’s a truism that isn’t true that all bullies are cowards – and it was certainly not true of Kevin Meatyard. He was afraid,as he had every reason to be, but he was in control of his fear as much as any brave man might be – although