by Mark Ayre
Gina hated being disturbed but did always answer. Afraid it would be an emergency involving her daughter or husband.
She always answered.
Across the street, Kayla still watched. Unable to make out her expression, Will imagined eyes touched by sympathy. What a sucker, she’d be thinking. What a loser.
Annoyed by these imagined thoughts, Will turned away, preparing to leave. Because if she saw him drive away, she’d know he trusted his wife. There was nothing wrong with his marriage.
Except, his arrival in the first place indicated otherwise. Plus, he’d already confirmed the car was Gina’s. If he wasn’t going to knock on the door and confront a possibly confused, possibly guilty Paul, he had to call the police.
His phone was in his hand. Without dialling, he slid it in his pocket. If there was a chance his wife might be inside, he couldn’t have the police bursting in. Couldn’t have them rush upstairs to find the car was visiting rather than stolen.
He thought of Quincy Abram. Police detective in this town since before Will was born. Heart of the community and loved by all. If Quincy found Heidi cheating, Will wasn’t sure he could bear the sympathetic look on the kind sixty-something’s face.
Sick with anxiety, Will made his way down the drive. Not because this felt like the right course of action, but because he could think of nothing else.
On the porch, he paused. Overcome by self-doubt, he wondered what he would do if someone knocked on his door late at night. Surely, he would answer. It was impossible not to answer a knock at the door if you were in, if you heard.
Hands resisting the call to become knuckles, Will raised his arm to the door. Afraid of what he might find if he had the chance to go inside, he forced himself to knock and tried to knock with force.
Because his first attempt was feeble, barely audible, even to him, he tried again. This second attempt was too rough. It hurt his hand, and he almost tripped over his feet, retreating. As though the door had punched him and might again.
The light in the bedroom was on. Unless Paul was afraid of the dark, Will wasn’t rousing him from sleep.
Almost certainly, though it couldn’t be Will’s wife, Paul was with someone. If they were in the midst of passion, might that deter them from coming to the door?
Occasionally, Edie visited friends and stayed overnight. When the stars aligned, his wife would give him the look, entice him to bed.
It had never happened, but Will tried to imagine how it would play out if someone had knocked on the door, late at night, with them beneath the sheets, making the most of their alone time.
Without doubt, they would answer, in case it had to do with Edie.
That wasn’t helpful. Will doubted Paul had children. If Paul did, they’d probably moved out.
Will wasn’t sure on what he was basing that.
After a few minutes, Will started to shiver. Again, he knocked.
Could he hear movement upstairs, or was that the product of his imagination?
Forgetting, for a moment, that Kayla might be watching, Will crouched in front of the door and pushed the letterbox. Through the small gap, he saw a narrow, featureless corridor off which was one closed door and the bottom of a flight of stairs.
For several seconds, all was still.
The only item in the hall was an out of work doorstop. Black, dog shaped. Perhaps a Jack Russell Terrier.
Remembering Kayla, he began to withdraw his finger. To stand. Casual. As though peeping through letterboxes was neither unusual nor unacceptable.
Before he could, someone shouted, “No.”
Gina?
Or his imagination again?
Ready to be sick, he pressed his face closer to the letterbox as a door slammed and someone seemed to dash across the hall.
While he was preparing to say something, not knowing what that something might be, there was a cry and then a roll of thuds, thuds, thuds.
Before they came into view, it was apparent someone was taking a quick, uncontrolled trip down the stairs.
Then came the someone, tumbling too fast for Will to tell who they were.
With a crack, they came into the hallway, slid along the wood flooring, and came to a halt halfway between the bottom stair and the front door.
They must have missed the dog doorstep by an inch. That might well have saved their life.
Breathing as if he had raced down the stairs, and had done so on foot, rather than falling, Will stared at the body.
Common courtesy suggested he should say something. He was peeping into someone else’s home. That someone was no doubt the still man. As he didn’t know what Paul looked like, he couldn’t be sure.
Although it meant battling a dry throat, Will prepared to call to the man, to see if he could rouse him into consciousness.
With slow, controlled steps, unafraid of which might have become of the falling man, someone descended.
It took an age for them to come into view.
Only as this person appeared did Will realise he was still staring through the letterbox. If he didn’t pull back, they would see him watching.
They saw him watching.
Their eyes met.
With a shake of her head, Gina said, “Oh, Will. You shouldn’t have come here.”
Six
If she had stopped to consider the matter, she would have decided it was unlikely the bodies would rise from the bed like zombies. That they would stumble across the room, seeking to devour her brain.
In her repulsion, she fled the room as though this was precisely their intention. As if they had the means to accomplish their goals.
A second’s glimpse of the bedridden bodies had first shown Mercury her mother and Dom. Entangled, they appeared engaged in a perverse, post-life affair. Knowing Mercury ended their lives, this could be their method for visiting upon her a fitting punishment.
Tricks of a guilty, desperate mind.
In the hall, as though keen for her to see the truth, Mercury’s mind dwelled upon the bedroom scene. Those pressed together bodies would enter the reel of images she could never escape. Along with her mother and Dom. With the headless man in the woods.
For now, the bed took centre stage. In review, the bodies were revealed as an adult and child. The latter no older than ten. Ready for bed, her pyjamas had been pink and white. They had matched the sheet on which a monster had dumped her body.
Long hair on the adult indicated a woman. Mercury had catalogued too few details to be sure.
Even to double-check, she couldn’t face retracing her steps.
This place was corrupt, diseased. What were the chances those who sat downstairs didn’t know the situation in the child’s bedroom?
Killers resided on the ground floor.
Unwilling to risk her life; unable to save those already lost, Mercury returned to the bedroom in which she had begun. Pulling wide the curtains, she observed the street.
Ordinary. The homes were semi-detached. Each had a driveway with space for one car. The average number of vehicles per house was roughly 1.5. The overflow clogged the road. Streetlamps lit empty pavements. All the curtains on the street were closed. Few lights shone behind the drapes.
The window was locked. Even if it wasn’t, there was only a tiny ledge beyond and hard patio below. It was one floor. There was a chance she wouldn’t break anything, if she dropped well, rolled into the landing.
It wasn’t a good chance.
Even if it were a risk she was willing to take, she would have to smash out a pane. Downstairs, the crash of shattering glass would alert the killers to her presence. Before she could clear the ledge of the shards that might otherwise shred her stomach, they would be upon her.
Maybe she wouldn’t need to sweep the glass. She wasn’t sure she could die.
Afraid to risk it, unsure she would make it through in any case, she turned from the window and moved back into the hall. Toilet, murder bedroom, and her temporary room all faced onto the house’s front,
looking over the street. There was nothing but sheer face that side, even if she could find a point of escape.
Perhaps she would have more luck at the back.
Rendered fearless by her guilt and misery, stepping into the toilet had been easy. As had entering the little girl’s bedroom. If seeing the bodies had not allowed fear to blossom once more in her system, it had at least admitted unease. As a result, at the next unopened door, she paused.
Downstairs, the whispering had stopped. With the light still burning, Mercury could not bring herself to believe the occupiers had fallen asleep.
If they soon called it a night, they would not curl up on the sofa, but climb the stairs, whereupon they would find her lurking.
Merciless as they had shown themselves to be, she did not fancy her chances in a confrontation. With limited options, she overcame her considerable unease or minor fear and opened and entered the next room.
Mercury had woken in the master bedroom. Here was the second largest.
It belonged to a teenage boy or openly gay girl. Even in the dark, clear to see were the well-endowed ladies who lived on the walls. Their sultry expressions promised much. Lust manufactured in a photography studio. Disappointment lay in the poster-owner’s future, should they expect such an expression on the face of a woman met at school, or down the shops.
Either the teenager had an inordinate amount of clothing or had failed to notice the corner wardrobe. Sheets, balled at the bed’s foot, suggested the latter. Like breadcrumbs, scrunched T-shirts, jeans and underwear (boys boxers and a lack of bras were suggestive of a gender) led to a window. Two steps from where she had entered a laptop sat open, begging a foot to crush its screen or crunch its keys.
On the bed lay a pleasing lack of bodies.
With some care, Mercury picked her away across the room and went for the window.
Outside a wooden fence ringed a small garden in need of love. Grass too long, flowers too dead, leaves moulding by the back door. The window was locked. Even if it hadn’t been, here was another sheer face. No way to reach the ground and be sure you weren’t going to break something.
The final room was tiny. A box filled with boxes. The windows were locked. As in the teenager’s room, there would have been no access to the ground if they’d been wide.
Downstairs lay her only hope of escape.
Mercury had not attempted to search the body room. Possibly, those windows were open. A bush at ground level might have offered a safer route to ground.
Even if a ladder had been provided, Mercury could not have faced another moment with those bodies.
At the stairs’ peak, Mercury could hear nothing. Below, light trickled into the hall from under a doorway.
Apprehensive, wondering what she would do if confronted with one or more murderers, Mercury took the first step.
Which creaked.
Mercury’s heart stopped. For over a minute she remained stationary, waiting for her heart first to start, then settle.
Not every step creaked. About a quarter did. Mercury took each with the weightless touch of a ballerina. When a sound rose from beneath the soles of her feet, she waited sixty seconds. Listening for footsteps below, for the opening of a door and the emergence of a maniac.
She had no idea what she would do if someone rushed her.
Five stairs creaked before the bottom. Never did Mercury hear footsteps. The door didn’t burst open. No knife-wielding animal appeared to confront the escaped prisoner.
At the foot of the stairs, Mercury came face to face with another horrifying sight.
On the wall, like a sick joke: a full-length mirror.
In it, the slim woman in the skimpy underwear and tight top was a source of disgust for Mercury. Though she hadn’t chosen to wear the clothes, nor was it her choice to be here, she hated herself.
In that mirror, she saw the woman who had murdered Fran, her mother, and Dom, her lover. It took all her self-control not to smash the glass.
Once done, she could take a shard. Bring it to her wrist and—
Someone moved.
In the small hall beyond the mirror were two doors. One into the living room, one to escape.
In the living room, someone muttered. Another someone laughed. At least two men sat mere feet away. Only a wall and thin door protected her from their knowledge.
More words. Mercury didn’t stop to listen, but tiptoed around the mirror, past the living room door, to the front.
Frosted glass prevented her from seeing the street beyond. It didn’t matter. If she passed this door, she could flee. Inches of wood separated her from freedom.
And a locked door.
While remaining soundless, she was as vigorous as she could be with the handle, as though it might not be blocked by a bolt, only stiff.
What next?
Removing the need for Mercury to waste energy devising a solution, the living room door swung wide. Putting her back to the exit, Mercury saw a weathered, leathery face. A man in his fifties with greying hair. Belt undone, his fingers worked at his fly’s zip.
Seeing Mercury, his eyes gleamed with excitement; his bored, dry look spread into a happy smile.
This glee and devotion reminded Mercury of a meeting in the woods. Before killing her mother, Ian, a man corrupted by a possessed being, had crawled towards her, even while melting in his blood. With the last of his strength, he had stroked her ankle. Before he went into the light, he had needed to touch her, one last time.
“You alright?” the leathery faced man said.
“I need to leave,” she said. Somehow, her voice was steady.
Leathery did not bat an eyelid. With a shrug, he returned to the living room.
“I’ll get the key.”
Over his shoulder, Mercury spotted the messy teenager. Pale skin marred by acne. A bone structure too narrow to look natural. Mercury imagined he looked at the posters the way he was examining her. Where the older man looked dopey, the teenager looked crazed.
“Dad,” he said. “Did you ask her?”
Stumped, the father stopped and stared at his son.
“What?”
Shaking his head in annoyance, disbelief, the teenager swept across the room. At the divide between living room and hall, he stopped. As the front door was locked, and Mercury had no intention of returning upstairs, she didn’t move.
The boy said, “How do you want it?”
His tone was impassive, as though he were a robot. His eyes danced with excitement and glee. Any second, he might burst with joy or rage.
Sensing this was a test, she searched for an educated guess at the right answer.
After two seconds, the boy said, “Hesitation. You must be Mercury.”
In the living room, the teen’s father clicked his fingers. “I remember. Good thinking, Sammy.”
Rolling his eyes, Sammy said, “Mercury, could you come in here please.”
Upon seeing these two, it had been apparent they had killed the girl and woman who lay in the bed upstairs. As Mercury looked at the eyes of the men, a more horrifying thought appeared.
“Were they your sister and mum?” she asked Sammy.
“Yes,” he said, as though she had asked if he liked chocolate. “Please come in.”
“Why?”
The impassive look faded. Sammy’s smile joined his eyes in crazy town.
“It’s our common friend Heidi,” he said. “You two are going to chat.”
Seven
Dismissing her peeping husband, Gina leaned over Paul. With a steady hand and outstretched index and middle fingers, she pressed the flesh of the still man’s exposed neck. After several seconds, she straightened and sighed.
“Weak,” she said, nudging Paul’s shoulder. “But still beating.”
Will had witnessed his wife’s joy and her misery. Her fury and her humour. A bag of emotions, blindfolded, Gina would choose a new feeling, and wear it until it wore her out. Then back into the bag for more.
Neve
r, in fifteen years, had she sounded so cold, so cruel. Daily, Gina could run through a cavalcade of emotions, but at her heart burned a kindness that could not be stemmed by any tragedy or outrage.
Or so Will had thought.
“What’s going on?” he asked through the letterbox. “You said you were working late.”
“A lie,” she said, as though announcing she would be cooking chicken for dinner, even if he would prefer beef.
Again, she checked Paul’s pulse. This time, she saw no need to pass comment.
Rising, she came and swung open the door.
“I supposed you’d better come in.”
By the time Will had shaken the daze and stepped over the threshold, Gina was in the living room, moving towards the kitchen.
“Drink?”
Will dropped to his knees by the prone Paul. Though he had watched his wife, heard her proclamation, he searched for a pulse.
Weak, as Gina had said. Running a hand around the man’s head, Will sought wet patches. Only a lump presented itself. Though Paul lay at an odd angle, there were no signs of serious damage.
From the kitchen, “Oh, he has Prosecco. Fancy a glass?”
If Will tried to puzzle what had happened to his wife, he would go mad. She must have treated his silence as assent. A few seconds later, he heard the pop of a cork then bubbles pouring into a flute.
During his final year at school, Will had done first aid training. When Edie was five, he and Gina had attended a course aimed at children but with much that applied to adults. On both occasions, the instructor had demonstrated the recovery position.
Nearly a decade after the latter course, Will feared memory failure as he twisted Paul to one side. Was that how the instructor had positioned the mannequin? When he practised on Gina, did she end in this shape?
Somewhere, a piece of paper certified him as first aid trained.
A flute in either hand, Gina returned into the hall. Will’s fingers were in Paul’s mouth.
“Once you’re finished, wash your hands,” she said. “Then join me in the living room.”
A thrill of horror raced through his heart. So different to Gina was this woman, he could almost pretend she had been body-snatched. The handwashing comment was familiar, spoken to Edie many times.