Free Close Range by Nick Hale Page B

boarded up but the woodwas rotting. One board dangled from a single nail. Jake gave the door a stiff yank and it gave way.
    He quickly checked left and right, then went inside. He found himself in a room with a simple table and what looked like the remains of wooden hanging closets, now worm-eaten, lined up side by side. The vestry. He laughed to himself: this was the room where Abri and the others had been changing the other day. He tried not to think about
that
too hard. There was a door back into the main part of the church, and against the opposite wall were a couple of steps leading up to another doorway. Jake crossed quickly and found it was a second entrance to the spiral stairwell, dimly lit through lead-framed windows.
    Jake sat on the steps and opened up his laptop, plugging his mum’s camera into the USB socket. He found the files and copied them to his hard drive. Since it would take a few minutes to download, Jake thought he’d quickly check on his mum. He went to peer through into the nave. Hayley was still snapping away. Marissa was close by her, watching like a hawk. Jake finally noticed Granble himself, standing in the shadows to one side at the back.
    His laptop gave a muted beep – the files had finished copying. Jake closed the door slowly and went back to his computer. He opened a batch of six photos. They were theshots his mum had taken at the airport. There was nothing wrong with them, which meant the electronic files were undamaged. Jake skipped past, embarrassed.
    Those were some photos I’d have been happy to lose!
    Next were the candids of the models in the street. There were some of them buying coffees, laughing at a joke, sitting on the kerbside. Just like three girlfriends out having fun. Well, three impossibly hot girlfriends. Seeing Abri again made Jake’s mouth go a little dry.
    There was one shot where she leant against a wall, looking to one side, like she was waiting for someone. Jake couldn’t help but zoom in on her face. Perfect bone structure, almond–shaped eyes, lips slightly parted …
    But then something else caught Jake’s eye. Further down the street, in the same shot, Sienna was speaking to someone. A guy, sitting on a moped. He didn’t look like a model. Maybe Sienna wasn’t as icy as she pretended. The pair were almost out of shot, and slightly blurred. If he hadn’t zoomed in, he would have missed them.
    There was a noise – a soft
woomf,
and a camera flash came through a crack in the door.
    Then a scream cut the air.

11
    J ake put down the camera quickly and stood up. He heard raised voices. Shouting in Italian, and his mother’s voice, panicked. ‘What’s happening?’
    There was another flash, and the same strange noise, like a muffled explosion.
    Jake ran to the door and put his eye to the crack. If there was one thing St Petersburg had taught him, it was to assess the situation and not run in blindly.
    Smoke filled the nave in a billowing cloud. Through the fog, Jake saw his mother lying draped over a pew. Beside her Marissa was on the floor on her back. Granble was on the floor, a hand thrown up over his mouth. Jaap crawled on his hands and knees along the central aisle. Then he, too, collapsed.
    Jake ran out into the church, towards his mother’s body.
    ‘Mum!’ Jake shouted. But something was wrong. The airscorched his throat and his eyes streamed with tears. His legs felt weak and numb, like he was dragging himself through thick mud.
    Ten metres short of his mother, Jake tripped, and put out his hand to stop himself. His brain felt like a wet sponge, his head spun with dizziness and he thought he was going to be sick. He fell sideways, and his head thumped into the cold stone. He fought to keep his eyes open, but he couldn’t lift his neck.
    Stay awake, Bastin.
    As he lay there trying not to breath, two figures appeared through the smoke. They were dressed in black fatigues, and wore gas masks. They moved among the bodies steadily. Jake wasn’t