Brolin moaned and rubbed his head as he awoke. He gasped as a flash of pain seared across his scalp and he tested it with a tender prod. His fingers came away clean, but boy, did his head hurt!
‘Are you OK, Mr. Brolin?’ asked a woman’s voice.
He froze. He hadn’t heard the name in a long while.
Brolin looked up at the woman who’d spoken. She was short and plump and wore a blue calico dress. He recognized her from the train.
‘Are you talkin’ to me, ma’am?’ he asked tentatively.
‘Yes, Mr. Brolin.’
‘I’m afraid you have me confused with somebody else, ma’am,’ he lied. ‘My name is Smith.’
‘That’s not what the killer said,’ a man chimed in. ‘He said it so we all could hear. He said you were Brolin. Said he’d know you anywhere from that bullet scar he put in your hide.’
Brolin sighed and climbed to his feet. He wobbled for a moment, then gathered himself as he leaned on a timber pew.
‘Where is Stall?’
‘Oh, so you do know him then?’ the man asked. His voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘Figures. Killers should know other killers.’
Brolin’s brown eyes grew cold. He looked directly at the man, who promptly took a step back. He was thin and dressed in corduroy trousers with a matching coat.
‘I asked where Stall was?’ Brolin said through gritted teeth.
‘He’s outside somewhere.’ It was the woman who answered him.
Brolin turned his attention to her. Unlike the man, she showed no sign of nervousness.
‘In case you hadn’t noticed,’ she continued, ‘we’re locked in a church.’
Brolin took in their surroundings and noticed that the eyes of nearly everyone in the room were turned to him. Some seemed a little apprehensive but most, he guessed, were curious. He shook off their looks and continued to assess their predicament.
The church was dimly lit. The sunlight that managed to sneak through the cracks in the boarded-up windows was ineffectual in providing much illumination. Many passengers sat on the long timber pews. The space appeared spartan, and lacked the usual accoutrements of a place of worship.
A murmur of voices hummed around the enclosed space, mingled with the sobs of a few. A stifled cry of pain sounded and Brolin saw the doctor tending to a wounded man.
His eyes found the family he’d seen on the train. They were seated on a pew towards the front of the church, the man held his wife while the little girl rested her head on her mother’s back. Brolin felt his anger surge back when he remembered the body of the small boy as it lay in the street.
He turned back to the woman.
‘What happened while I was out of it?’
The woman went on to tell him of the events that had unfolded while he was unconscious. Brolin frowned. Why would Stall refrain from killing him? With what he knew of the killer, from their first encounter up until now when he’d shot the train passengers, it didn’t make sense that he should still be alive. He couldn’t work it out. Unless …?
‘Fire!’
That one word had an immediate effect on everyone locked up in the High Point church. Brolin pushed his way through the crowd of people who’d turned to look to where the cry had come from. The cacophony of anxious voices rose as fear gripped everyone.
Brolin looked at the twin doors of the main entrance. Smoke swirled beneath them and filtered through the tiny gaps in the doors. He put his shoulder to the oak doors and pushed. They barely moved.
He drew back, then hit them with force. Again with hardly any effect. The rattling sound from the other side told him all he needed to know. Stall and his men had chained the doors shut.
Brolin looked behind him and shouted at a group of men who were standing and watching his ineffectual efforts.
‘Give me a hand. The doors are chained shut.’
His words brought more gasps and cries of alarm from the other onlookers but also spurred the men on to come to his aid. Six stepped forward and put the combined weight of their shoulders into the drive at the doors.
The doors snapped back against the chain but it held fast. Though rusted, the iron links were still strong. Another attempt produced a similar result.
‘Get something we can use to prise it open,’ Brolin ordered.
Two men moved through the crowd to a pew and proceeded to break it up. When they had finished one man scooped up a long piece of four-by-two. They figured that if they could prise it into the small gap between the doors they might be able to lever them open.
‘Look! Over there!’ This time the cry came from a woman.
Heads turned and the horror of their situation redoubled when they saw a new source of smoke.
‘Oh my God! There’s another over here!’ a man cried.
So that was it, thought Brolin. Stall had set multiple fires, knowing the old church would burn to the ground rapidly and take all inside with it. He’d almost killed Brolin once. By hell, he wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to succeed this time!
‘Everybody spread out. Check the walls. See if you can find anything - any gaps.’
The crowd dispersed as people went to search along the walls of the building to look for any means of escape. The church was filling with smoke and people began to cough as the acrid fumes burned their throats and lungs.
‘I can’t find anything,’ a man shouted.
‘Me neither,’ cried another.
A loud crack sounded through the smoke and Brolin turned to look at the source of the noise at the main doors. Despite the thickness of the piece of timber they’d been using, it had snapped neatly in half.
‘Oh no,’ he heard a young lady cry in despair. ‘We’re going to die. Burn to death.’
‘The hell we are!’ Brolin uttered softly. The snap of the timber had given him an idea.
‘You men,’ he bellowed, ‘come with me.’
The men followed him across to another pew.
‘Pick it up and carry it over here.’
The men lifted the pew and followed Brolin to the nearer side wall. He heaved another pew out of the way, clearing a passage for them.
He pointed at a place on the wooden wall, then ordered them:
‘Hit it there. Use it like a battering ram.’
The six men now swung the pew back then brought it forward, using all the strength they could muster. It crashed into the wall with a loud bang. The wall trembled under the assault but remained intact.
‘Do it again.’
Back, forward, bang.
‘Again.’
Back, forward, bang.
‘Again.’
This time a loud crunch greeted their ears as the pew came apart in their hands.
‘Damn it!’ Brolin shouted. ‘Grab another.’
They cast aside the shattered fragments and picked up the pew that Brolin had pushed aside. They went at the wall vigorously once more.
Brolin looked away to check on the progress of the fire. The main doors and the rear wall and roof were well alight. Smoke hung thickly in the air and the erstwhile passengers had squeezed themselves into one small area near the altar.
There came a groan of tortured timber, a loud crack, then a beam near the entrance gave way and a section of the roof caved in. Small roof slats, well alight, and hot chunks of smoldering wood fell to the floor in amongst the pews.
The fire had spread fast as it fed on the church’s tinder-dry wood. Brolin turned back to the fatigued men. He rushed across and pushed one of them aside so as to lend his own weight to the makeshift battering ram.
‘Come on!’ he roared at them, then he coughed violently as he inhaled a lungful of blue-grey smoke.
More roof caved in and crashed to the floor. Frightened screams echoed throughout the smoke-filled room as the passengers huddled ever closer together.
Three more times the pew hit the wall and achieved nothing. The wall remained an immovable barrier, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle between them and freedom. Brolin looked up and saw the orange-red flames as they reached out across the roof, giant tongues the seemed to inhale the dry wood. If the wall didn’t give soon they would all die.
‘Come on, you son of a bitch, break!’
The fear of imminent death spurred them on. It was a final, desperate plea. Then at last the planks splintered as the pew struck the wall. It had made only a small dent but it was enough to give them hope.
With renewed vigor they hit the wall again. This time the damage was more pronounced. They rammed at the wall over and over again until daylight shone through a narrow gap of a fallen plank. Brolin let the pew go and rushed forward. He drew back his leg and with the sole of his boot he kicked at the other damaged wall planks until he’d created a space large enough for people to squeeze through.
‘Go!’ he urged the passengers. ‘Everybody out through here.’
A steady stream of frightened people squeezed through the gap, out to the sweet fresh air. The wounded were helped out after the women and children and were followed by the men.
Once the seemingly last person had made his way out Brolin looked back to make sure everyone was safe. He noticed the lady in the blue calico dress still lying on the floor of the church. He hurried to her side. She was semi-conscious from smoke inhalation.
Brolin tucked an arm under her and used all of his strength to lift her to her feet.
‘Come with me, ma’am,’ he encouraged her. ‘This ain’t no place to hang around.’
He got her to the opening where the air was clearer and sweeter, then guided her through the gap. Once she was safe Brolin followed her out into the fresh air.
With a groan and a crash, the inevitable collapse occurred and the church roof came down, showering dust, sparks and debris in all directions.