“You ever seen anyone in such a state before?” Lucas asked.

Harry conjured up images from his memory but quickly stopped himself.  “No, I haven’t,” he lied.  “I’ve never seen injuries like it before, which is why I’m not sure if he’ll last the night.”

“Well then,” Lucas replied, “perhaps we should be worrying more about whom – or what – did this to the lad.  There’s someone out there looking to do us all harm, and we’ve got enough on our plates with just the weather.”

“I agree,” said Steph from the other side of the bar, still assuming her job role was valid (in a way it probably still was).  “I don’t like any of this.  I feel like we’re cut off from civilisation.  The phones are dead, the electric’s off, we’re freezing our tits off, and we can’t go outside because some madman is knifing people up.  I don’t even want to think what the rest of the country is like.  I’m starting to get really freaked out.”

“We don’t know there’s a madman outside,” said Harry.  “Perhaps Peter made an enemy and they’ve got what they wanted just by hurting him.”

Nigel posed a question that made Harry’s logic falter.  “Why throw him through the window?”

“Yeah,” said Steph.  “If they wanted to kill Peter they would have been better leaving him to freeze outside in the snow.  Throwing him through the window makes it pretty obvious they were trying to frighten everyone in the pub.”

Lucas put his beer down on the bar with a clink!  “Maybe it was a message for the sinner,” he said.

“More talk about this bloody sinner,” said Nigel, banging down his own beer on the bar.  “Why are we buying into this nonsense?  If someone is crazy enough to carve words into someone’s chest then I think it’s fair to say they’ve lost a certain amount of marbles – probably an entire play set.”

“You’re probably right,” Harry admitted.  “How would we even know who’s a sinner and who isn’t, anyway?”

“Exactly,” said Nigel, seemingly satisfied.

Steph pushed another recently-thawed beer over to Lucas, who was about to finish his current one.  “We already spoke about that,” she mentioned.  “Nigel seems to think that it’s all about drugs, and that Damien is the one they want.”

“Well, well, well.  Is that right, now?”  Damien entered the bar area from a room in the back.  Old Graham was stood behind him and seemed to be cringing.  Harry cringed too when he realised that Damien had just heard the accusation.

Damien stepped through the hatch at the side of the bar and ambled over to Nigel.  “So you think I caused all this, do you?”

Nigel shifted on his stool.  “I didn’t say that.  I…I was just talking to Steph about who could be out there and…and…”

“…and you thought you’d blame everything on me?  Why’s that then?  Is it because you think you’re better than me?  That I’m just some fuckin’ mug?”

“No, I just thought…”

“You thought shit!”  Damien snarled, tensing up like a wild animal.  “You’re a dead man.”

Nigel got off his stool and backed away.  Lucas leapt up too and stood between the two.  “I had your word,” he said to Damien.

Damien stopped his pursuit of Nigel and looked at Lucas.  “What are you talking about, you stupid Mick?”

Lucas put a hand on Damien’s neck and pulled him in close.  “I had your word that you’d behave – at least for tonight.  The only reason Nigel is looking to blame people is because he’s afraid.”

“Hey,” Nigel protested.

“We’re all afraid,” Lucas continued.  “If you’re not then my hat is off to you, but the rest of us are.  And when people are scared they run their mouth.  It’s nothing personal, just what people do to try and make sense of things.  Stops their minds floating away with them.”

“Yeah,” said Nigel.  “I don’t know what’s going on tonight.  I was just talking shit.  I figured that because you’re a tough guy, you’d have some tough enemies.”

Lucas released Damien from his grip and stepped away.  Harry wondered if Lucas had done so to allow a fight to happen, but all seemed okay when Damien remained in place.  The young lad seemed to be thinking something over.

“You better keep your accusations to yourself from now on,” Damien told Nigel, “because I’ll tell you something: I’m bloody cold tonight, and kicking your arse would be a nice way to warm up!”

Harry was glad that, yet again, Damien had been reigned in.  In fact, he started to wonder whether the thug was as unreasonable and bloodthirsty as people made out.  He considered giving the lad the benefit of the doubt.

At least for now.

“Can we get a beer for Damien?” Harry asked.

Damien shook his head.  “I’m good.  I found that old drum in the basement, Steph, but I need help dragging it up.  Then we should be able to start a decent fire and get some goddamn heat in here.”

Harry raised an eyebrow.  “Really?  That’s great.  I’ll come and help you.”

Damien nodded and walked back through the hatch, disappearing through the narrow door behind the bar.  Harry followed him into the rear corridor and then down the stairs into the cellar.  At the bottom, he found Damien and Old Graham waiting next to a rusty old drum that appeared to have been dragged out of a cluttered corner (if the trail of candle-lit debris was anything to go by).  The cellar was a mess, with mounds of rotting wood and cardboard promotion stands for various beer companies making up several piles around the small square space.

“You going to help or not?” Damien asked, tipping the drum onto its edge.

Harry hurried over and grabbed the barrel’s rim, while Old Graham kicked away any obstructions that covered the route to the stairs.  Turned out the old man was quite spry for his age.

“After three,” said Harry.  “One…two…three…”  He and Damien heaved, and began rolling the drum along on its edge, heading for the bottom of the stairs.  It was empty but still substantial in weight; Harry felt his hands chafing under the pressure.  “How are we going lift it up the stairs?” he asked as they neared the bottom step.

Damien laughed.  “Back giving out on you?  We’ll just lift it, step by step.  Piece of piss.”

The two of them stopped at the stairway and righted the drum back onto its base, dropping it down with a Wong!  “Okay,” said Harry.  “You ready?”

“Ready for what?  A bit of lifting?”

Harry shook his head, unwilling to get into a pissing contest.  He turned to look at Old Graham.  “Maybe you could gather up some of this cardboard so we can use it for the fire?”

Old Graham nodded and got to work.

Harry signalled to Damien and the two began to lift.  They hoisted the drum onto the first step with little effort, and then again onto the second and third.  By the fourth, Harry was starting to lose his breath.  “Can we stop a sec,” he said.

Damien shook his head.  “Can we bollocks!  Come on, I’m freezing.  Maybe if you didn’t drink so much, you’d have more stamina.”

Harry felt his pulse quicken as he fought the urge to slap some respect into the cretinous little sod, but decided to let his actions argue for him.  “Right, come on then!”  He tried to sound full of vigour, despite the tightness in his chest.  “Last thing I want is for your delicate little body to get cold.”

Damien snickered but didn’t rebuke.  The two of them continued hoisting the steel drum upwards.  They scaled the fifth step and then the sixth.  The seventh and eight were hard work but they managed to shift the deadweight up using their feet underneath to kick it upwards.  With two more steps left, Harry looked forward to finally releasing the drum at the top.  His shoulders burned with fire while his lungs had started to cramp up.  Damien was right; a year of constant drinking had left Harry in the physical state of a man twice his age.  He felt ashamed.

Just two more steps though and it’s done.  You can make it.