3 [Thrillers] #1: The Borstal

3 [Thrillers] is my fifth book, three thrilling novellas about humans pushed to their limits, willing to do the unthinkable to get what they want. It hits Amazon's Kindle Store this week...

Number one, The Borstal, takes place in an impoverished communist country where the power-hungry government rules its citizens with terror. A girl and her brother are thrown into a dangerous institute for taming criminals and hardening its inmates into the next generation of soldiers. Their struggle for survival turns into a lust for revenge, as their story is told in two parts: the oppression of the borstal and the tragic events that led them there.

Here's chapter one...

Jenn shivered as she pulled off her vest and dropped it into the sack. The soldier nodded at her, expressionless.

“Underwear too.”

She glanced down at her scrawny pink body and her cheeks burned. The threadbare white knickers were the only thing she had left, although they barely offered any concealment thanks to the worn patches that riddled the surface. For a moment she hesitated, then her fingers tugged at the thin material and slipped them down to her ankles. She lifted her feet one at a time and snatched the knickers up and threw them at the soldier, who caught them one-handed and dropped them into the sack.

Jenn glared at the officer as he strode down the line, collecting the clothes of the other kids. Boys and girls huddled shoulder-to-shoulder, naked and terrified. Many had their heads bowed or eyes closed, while others tried to cover their privates with their hands. None of them glanced around or dared to talk with their neighbours. Jenn guessed that she was one of the eldest gathered at thirteen years old, although a muscular boy further down the row looked to be a year or two older. Her brother Daniel was also far from the youngest at ten. Some of the others were shockingly young, perhaps only six or seven.

Jenn twisted around and stroked Daniel’s hair, and he wrapped his arms around her. When he glanced up, tears had run down his cheeks and carved through the grime that coated his skin.

“I wanna go home,” he whispered. She forced a smile, then grabbed his hand and squeezed. Her skin had goosepimpled in the frozen air and the soles of her feet were already numb and filthy against the rough stone floor. Somewhere to her right, she heard one of the others start to wail. A boy around the same age as Daniel tried to back away from the soldier as he thrust the sack out. The kid was still wearing his raggedy underwear, his arms wrapped tight across his chest. He shook his head furiously and begged to be let go, but the solider signalled to two other guards, who strode over and grabbed the boy. Jenn watched as the kid fought back, but in just a few seconds they had him stripped. One of the guards pulled back and lashed his palm across the boy’s face, stunning him into silence. A tiny girl whimpered as the crack of the blow echoed through the room, but she fell quiet when the soldiers threw the boy to the ground and glanced around the room.

“Good,” said the soldier with the sack. He threw the bundle into a corner and grabbed a large white container from the wooden table, the only furniture in the room. “This is a skin rub. Pass it down the row and take a handful each, and apply it all over your body. This is to stop disease from spreading.” He unscrewed the lid and passed the tub to a girl with short black hair and freckles stood at the end of the row. She lifted it to her face and sniffed. Her face creased, but she pushed her hand inside and scooped out a clump of clear jelly before passing to the next kid. The container came quickly down the line, until Daniel had it in his hands. He peered inside and his nose wrinkled.

“What’s this stuff?” he whispered to Jenn. She shook her head, then reached in and dug her fingers into the thick gel. She brought out enough for them both, then handed the tub off.

“Just put it on.” With a grimace she slapped half of the gel into Daniel’s palm, then smothered the rest over herself. Her skin tingled at its touch.

When they were all coated, the soldier tossed them each a pair of yellowing boxer shorts and a near-see-through vest and swung open a large rusted metal door. They were ushered through single-file into another room. This one was smaller but still mostly bare, with dark stone walls dripping moisture and just two naked bulbs dangling from the ceiling, throwing out enough light so the children could see each other’s terrified expressions. Two dentist chairs stood in the middle of the room, each manned by another guard. Jenn eyed them up, her muscles clenched tight.

“Two at a time, into the chairs,” the first soldier said. At the front of the line, the girl with freckles hesitated, her arms crushed over her chest. “Come on, quick!” the soldier barked at her. She shot him a pleading look but stepped up to the nearest chair, easing herself back. The older boy followed to the next seat and jumped in, letting out a deep breath. As soon as they were seated, the guards pulled out electric razors and began to shear the hair from their subjects. In less than a minute they shoved the pair away, their naked skulls glowing beneath the bulbs.

When it came to Jenn’s turn, she balked at the cold embrace of the chair. As she shuffled back to settle into the plastic cover, the guard grabbed her chin and yanked her back and the razor’s dull metal blades sliced across her scalp. She bit her lip and kept silent, thick locks of her auburn hair tumbling down her shoulders and resting on her belly. Afterwards, she hugged Daniel close and stroked his head, the tiny grains of stubble rough beneath her fingers. Her own head was chilled but she didn’t dare touch it.

Everything afterwards was just noise, bright lights, distant voices. Jenn never let go of Daniel and she didn’t look up until they were led inside a square room with a low ceiling. Nine bunk beds were lined up only two feet apart from their neighbours. Five of them were already occupied with a mixture of boys and girls dressed in brown uniforms, and Jenn felt their eyes boring into her. She stared back, fighting the urge to twist away.

“Take a spare bed,” their escort said. “You’ll find your uniforms at the back. Lights out in twenty minutes.” The guard strode back out through the doorway, little more than a hole in the wall as there was no door attached. Jenn saw that the girl with freckles and the older boy had also been left behind. The girl’s gaze met her own and a flicker of a smile stretched her lips, although her eyes were misted.

“Come on, D,” Jenn said, squeezing her brother’s shoulder. They pushed through the narrow gap to the back of the room, past a makeshift washing line that stretched from wall to wall. Trousers and shirts dripped water onto the floor, where the murky liquid disappeared into tiny cracks in the rock. A small pile of unused uniforms sat on a wooden crate in a heap. They grabbed whatever looked like it would fit and slipped into their new clothes, shuffling aside so the other two could also get dressed. Jenn cringed as the rough material bristled against her skin and itched her. Her shirt was too tight, biting into her chest, while Daniel’s trousers were far too short for him. Both of them fared better than the older boy. He was so tall and broad-shouldered that he couldn’t find a big enough shirt to fit. Even his vest was stretched to breaking point. Eventually he gave up with a grunt and threw the uniform back on the pile.

The others had drifted from their bunks and surrounded the four newcomers, staring silently. Jenn held Daniel close and glanced around. Four boys and a girl, all around her age.

“What happened to your face?” one of the boys asked her, a tall but scrawny kid with missing teeth. She raised a hand to her cheek and felt the rough gouge marks with her fingertips. The grooves ran all the way from her hairline to her chin, devastating that half of her face. They were still tender and touching them caused a jolt of pain to shoot down to the bone.

“Just an accident,” she replied. The boy with missing teeth snorted.

“Looks terrible. Was it one of them?”

“Them? You mean the guards?”

“My first day here, they broke my ribs, three or four of ‘em. Every breath for a week hurt like hell.”

“Why’d they do that?” the girl with freckles asked. Her voice was thin, trembling.

“Ahh, something I said about their mothers and pigs.” Toothless kid smirked. “My name’s Josef.”

“I’m Fran,” said the girl with freckles. She flashed that same forced smile, but Jenn thought the girl would burst into tears at any moment.

“Is it really as bad in here as everyone says?” Jenn asked. Josef laughed and stroked his chin.

“If they say it’s a dirty, crowded dung hole run by sadist dogs, then yes. But take my advice, don’t let them know it. When they shove a plate of rat meat in front of you, eat it like it’s the best beef you ever tasted. If they beat you, just smile and thank them. At first they make it harder, they try to break you, but their patience is like paper, very thin. They give up too easy. Move onto someone weaker.”

“They can’t all be like that,” Fran said, eyes stretched wide. Josef shook his head.

“Some are good. The ones who lived in places like this when they were our age, mostly. They understand, they try to make life tolerable. If only there were more like that.” He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back and whispered. “But this place is run by the state, never forget that. All they’re interested in is producing strong little troops for their training camps. When you turn sixteen, you leave here and go to the camps just like every other niento in the country, and then you’re theirs for real.”

Daniel pushed his head into Jenn’s side, and she stroked his neck. Josef glanced at them both, one eyebrow raised. “So you two, what you called?”

“I’m Jenn, this is Daniel.”

“How’d you end up in this dump? Parents dead?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” Her tone was harder than she’d planned. Josef chewed on a knuckle then nodded.

“Fair enough. But I’d get that face checked by the doc, looks pretty bad.”

“I already cleaned it up, but thanks anyway.”

“Okay then.” He peered over at the older boy who’d climbed into the nearest available bunk. The only free ones were up on top, and the ceiling was so low that it practically touched the kid’s chest when he breathed in. “What about you, muscles? What’s your name?” The new boy slowly turned his head and glared at Josef, then resumed staring at the ceiling. Josef shrugged with a smile. “Fine, be like that. But you’ll want to find a shirt from somewhere. The guards like to beat on anyone who doesn’t take care of their uniform.”

The other kids introduced themselves and Jenn struggled to remember their names, but tiredness fogged her mind and ached her limbs and the introductions were interrupted by a piercing bell that rang out from the corridor. Everyone slipped into their beds and Jenn led Daniel to an adjacent pair of free top bunks, helping him up into his before she clambered into her own. She had to shuffle sideways onto the stiff mattress to keep from smacking her head off the ceiling, and when she lay on her back, the callused yellow plaster was less than a foot from her nose.

“I’m scared, Jenn,” her brother whispered, and she leaned over and forced a reassuring smile.

“Me too, D. But we’ll figure out a way out of here, okay?” Daniel stared at her, then nodded and pulled his blanket up to his chin. Outside their dorm room, the chatter of the other children faded and just seconds later the lightbulb fizzed and died, leaving them in darkness.

Despite her exhaustion, Jenn found sleep impossible. The slightest sound made her twitch, not helped by the persistent hacking cough of one of the other kids, and her mind kept peeling back through the past few days, grasping every little thing that had happened to them. She cursed the state, she cursed the soldiers, she cursed the whole rotten country. And when she chose a face to focus her hate, it was the face of General Uhtrif.

You can buy 3 [Thrillers] later this week, and check back on Sunday 14th for news of a special deal...