Rottenhouse

by Ian Dyer

  So much had happened in so little amount of time it was overwhelming as much as it was completely unbelievable. It was like the summer rain showers Simon had played through when he was a boy. Back then the days had seemed eternal and amazingly hot. The afternoon clouds would build in the distance, blotting out the sky far off on the horizon. Those fluffy white clouds would get blacker and blacker until they dragged themselves overhead; carried on the soft slow wind, and then would release their wet cargo usually mixed with the odd flash of lightening and rumble of thunder for good measure. The rainfall would be quick and intense and fat rain would soak the ground causing drains to overflow, roads to flood and gardeners to whine about the state of their cabbage patch. But then, as quick as the rains had come they would stop, and the clouds would lift and sun would burn its way through and all would be as it was except for the smell that hung in the air like a fog, the smell that no one could describe but Simon always thought of it as what he thought electricity smelt of if it were mixed with a bit of tree sap. The only difference with what was happening now compared with the showers of his youth was that they disappeared after a few hours, his issues here ran much deeper than that, and he knew that some of them would take years to drain away, if ever.

  It seemed a massive issue yesterday when Lucy had told him about her previous name and he remembered how confused, angry, disillusioned perhaps, he had been by the confession. What had happened since made that confession seem piecemeal; a single rivet in Titanic’s steel hull. He should have done more he supposed, could have done more to stop Stevie being beaten and then butchered. He could do more to put that cantankerous old coot downstairs in his place. But really, could he? Did he have it in him? No, was the simple answer. It was alien to him to confront, to be all up in someone’s space, and to tell them how to go about their business and how best it was to live their lives. How the hell was he supposed to bring any sort of normality to a place that seems to thrive on ripping itself apart?

  2

  Simon didn’t venture downstairs for some time. He tried to go back to sleep but it was no good. Each time he closed his eyes he could see the axe that Lewis had been wielding; its shiny sharp end covered in all sorts of fresh gore. Simon got out of bed, unable to relax, and ran himself a fresh glass of water from the sink. Changing his clothes, burying the ones he had taken off deep in his suitcase, Simon headed downstairs. Just as he left the bedroom and headed down the hallway the phone in his pocket began to vibrate. Pulling it out he wasn’t surprised to see that it was Kyle calling him. The picture that flashed up was of Kyle dressed as Princess Leia in her slave garb from Return of the Jedi. It had been taken back in their college days and it always made Simon smile; not only was it a man dressed in a metallic bikini, it also reminded him of the fight that Kyle and another man dressed in the same Slave Girl garb got into over who had the best looking fake tits. That day, as well as many others good or bad seemed so long ago. Simon could barely remember what had happened a week ago let alone ten or fifteen years ago. The phone continued to vibrate and Kyles face, all smiles and skin and fake boobs jumping out of the bikini top, continued to hover on the front screen of Simon’s phone. Today, sadly, that photo didn’t bring a smile to Simons face and as much as Simon wanted to answer the phone, he couldn’t bring himself to slide his finger along the black bar at the bottom of the screen saying ANSWER in red writing. He just didn’t have the energy. The phone stopped vibrating and Kyle disappeared. A missed call alert was all that was left. Simon put the phone back into his pocket as he walked down the stairs. Heading towards the kitchen the familiar voices that had been floating around the house like ghosts had vanished and it left the house quiet. Even the clocks ticking seemed muted as if it feared to be any louder in case it broke the silence and incurred the wrath of some yet unseen monster. Looking from the bottom of the stairs into the kitchen he could see that the room was empty and the rest of the doors leading from here were closed all except one which led out of the house and into the garden. The back door was ajar, a slit of light slicing through like the last beads of light before a solar eclipse. Simon considered going back upstairs; no one had seen or heard him coming so who would notice if he went back upstairs and back to bed? For some reason he felt scared, fearful of being near Mr Rowling, and didn’t to want face him, though the thought of seeing Lucy made butterflies flutter in his belly like they always did.

  Standing on the last step of the stairs Simon took a step back wanting to turn around, then second guessed himself, and finally with heavy feet stepped down onto the hallway carpet which was old and itchy; his heart was racing but not knowing why.

  Because you know he’s done stuff like that himself, don’t ya! Old Bob Rowling the axe swinging maniac has lumped off a few limbs in his time but now that he seems to be the Chairman’s right hand man, like Tonto was to The Lone Ranger, or Goofy is to Mickey Mouse, he doesn’t need to dirty his hands anymore. He’s the orchestrator now, not the organ grinder and that’s what’s scares you, isn’t it Simon? That guy out there, the father of your future wife, has secrets. Loads of em. Like you have photos, he has secrets, and like you have those special photos so too does he have special secrets and they are both more disturbed than you could possibly imagine

  Simon jumped as the clock clanged its brass bell and rang out five-o-clock with five long and drawn out bangs.

  See, even the clock had you spooked, you great ninny! That was Kyle’s voice; Kyles low monotonous voice.

  Simon reached the door leading to the garden, went to pull it open when something made him stop and he really didn’t want to go out there. What would he say? Oh, hey Mr Rowling, Lucy, you two okay? Yeah, great. Well I’m not. No, Mr Rowling, that’s right, I’m far from okay. You wanna know why? Good. Well I shall tell. Sitting comfortably both of you? Good. Then where shall I begin…

  Simon’s heart leaped out of his chest and his hand fell to the door handle almost slamming it shut when his phone vibrated in his pocket.

  Vurrrt Vurrrt

  Vurrrt Vurrrt

  Vurrrt Vurrrt

  Vurrrt Vurrrt

  ’Piss off, Kyle.’ Simon said to his trouser leg pocket.

  Simon opened the door, walked through a hot, muggy conservatory; which was barren of any furniture, and out into the rather small garden.

  Mr Rowling’s garden was a sun trap at this time of day and Simon got the sudden yearning for either a cold can of lemonade or a pint of Cider with ice in it.

  Mr Rowling’s garden was sparse and it smelt of lavender. It wasn’t exactly massive, not what you would expect surrounded by all this land, but then again, when compared to city gardens what Mr Rowling had could be deemed as a luxury in the realms of the green fingered folk. The lack of flower beds, planting areas or anything that required attention showed that Mr Rowling cared little for green fingered folk. There were two things in his garden; the first was a table and a set of four chairs; wooden but clean and tidy. The second was a shed that sat at the end of the garden on a concrete base. It was of average size, again made of wood, and again, was clean and tidy. Either these things were well looked after or they were new.

  Sat at the table were Lucy and her dad. He wasn’t surprised to see Mr Rowling still wearing trousers but was slightly put back to see that the jumper had been removed revealing a beige polo shirt. They each had a glass of what looked like lemonade next to them, which made Simons throat tighten.

  ‘Oh, hey sleepy head. Feeling better?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks. Still a bit groggy, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.’

  Mr Rowling hadn’t looked up but he was smiling. Lucy smiled too and lazily pointed to the large jug sat on the table.

  ‘Lemonade?

  ‘Yes, please. My throat feels as dry as a desert after all that heaving.’

  Lucy went about pouring him a fresh glass.

  ‘Take a seat, Simon. You look dead on feet.’ The old man pointed Simon to a chair opposite Lucy so that Mr Rowling would be at the he
ad of the table, as it were.

  Simon obliged and sat down feeling better now that the weight was off of his feet. Lucy slid the glass over to him and Simon drank half of it down in a single gulp. Mr Rowling watched him intently, holding his own glass whilst his other hand hung down and fiddled with a couple of blades of long grass.

  ‘Still okay to go out tonight, Si?’

  Yep,’ Simon stifled a burp then, ‘Excuse me. Yeah should be okay. Though I may only have a couple.’

  Somewhere close, small birds were twittering a soft tune and Simon could hear the stream rushing by. Images of the axe and the body tried to force their way into his consciousness but he was quick on the draw and stopped them in their tracks. Somewhere in the valley there was a large crack, like a single gunshot. Simon sat bolt upright as something large hit the ground in the woods beyond. It appeared that Mr Rowling either hadn’t heard it or had ignored it.

  ‘Don’t tell me old Chopper John is still at it?’

  ‘Aye.’ Mr Rowling answered taking a sip of his lemonade. He seemed completely disinterested.

  ‘Living in hut then, like he was before?’

  ‘He’s the lumberjack and that’s the lumberjacks hut. Where else would he live?’ Still disinterested but he had it within him to try and show how grand his intellect was. Lucy went to answer but quickly closed her mouth when she realised the same thing that Simon did. She looked at Simon and raised her eyebrows as she drained her glass.

  The echo of the tree falling lifted and the stream could be heard flowing over yonder. Mr Rowling must have seen Simon notice this and said, ‘Shame you had tasee that, Simon. Wouldarather you’d have gone back to house with Barbara like I asked, but still.’

  Simon was getting used to Mr Rowling’s blank, expressionless face. You had to look in his eyes to see what he was thinking, to understand what he was really saying. Simons internal translator wasn’t the latest model, was a few years old, and in need of some desperate maintenance, but it did the job none the less and held up to some of the hardest scrutiny. It was having trouble with old man Rowling though, but he could deduce what Mr Rowling was really saying.

  When Simon didn’t answer Lucy spoke up, ‘Can’t believe he’s dead. I used to hang around with his sister when we were little. Sure; a few times we tried to dress him up as a girl.’ Lucy fiddled with the bits of material that made up her belt on her shorts, ‘Who would do such a thing?’

  Simon shook his head. Mr Rowling sighed heavily but didn’t say anything. He really was looking distant, as if lost in thought, deep thinking about an ancient problem that seemed to have no answer.

  ‘Nice of Lewis and Mr Pickering to help out. His poor mother.’

  Simon choked and spat out his mouthful of lemonade back into the glass. ‘Help out? Nice of Lewis and… You even know what happened after you left?’

  Lucy sat back in her chair. ‘They took the body back to his mother. Didn’t they?’

  ‘Only after they…’

  ‘Don’t think that’s for ladies ears, Simon.’

  ‘What?’ Simon blurted out and turned his attention to the old fella. Mr Rowling sat forward and placed his half empty glass onto the table. ‘Simon, please. Barbara saw enough. What with the body and the knife and all that. Best leave what happened alone.’

  In all the years that Simon had been with Lucy she had never been one to shy away from the facts, no matter how horrific they were. She almost revelled in them. Anytime one of their friends hurt themselves she wants to know how it happened, where it hurts and what it looks like, which was why he was taken aback when she had thrown her guts up when she found the body of Stevie. If ever she was told that she wasn’t allowed to see anything or be told anything; be it gruesome, private or just plain non-consequential, she dug deeper until whatever it was was known to her. There was nothing he could hide from her, and when he tried to keep things under the Lucy Radar; birthday presents, Christmas presents, holidays, parties, that kind of thing, she had a way of getting it out of him one way or another. So when Simon was about to fight her corner Lucy said something he’d never thought he would ever hear her say.

  ‘I agree with Dad, Simon. Best I don’t know.’

  That shut him up and Simon wanted to smash the glass over the head of Mr Rowling when he saw that smug smile plastered across his face. For a brief moment he imagined throwing himself across the table and grabbing Lucy by the collar and shaking her violently what the hell are you saying, Luce! When have you ever let anything stop you from knowing everything? Even if what you need to know matters not a jot to you, you have to know. You have to dig and dig until the nugget of information is pulled out of the poor sucker you have latched onto. There was something stopping her being herself, he could see it in her expressions, the way she sat, the way her eyes looked right through Simon and out into the fields. She was different. Changing.

  Changed, Simon. She has changed. Reverting to how she was when she was a girl. Changed to suit the environment.

  Simon didn’t know what to say, the words having been taken from him and he sat in silence, his arms hanging down, his fingers being tickled by the long grass. He looked at first to Mr Rowling, but he was back to fiddling with the grass, and then to Lucy who was of no use to him. It was as if she were two people now. Occasionally, like this morning out in the valley, she had been Lucy – his Lucy – the one he had fallen in love with. The same Lucy he had met in a pub, him wearing an old pair of jeans and a black Pulp Fiction t-shirt (the one with Uma Thurman on the front, her laying on her belly looking right at you; all seductive with that straight black hair and red lipstick; cigarette in one hand and a gun nestled below her chest) whilst Lucy was wearing a short, figure hugging red dress, she too with straight black hair and red lipstick. She wasn’t smoking a cigarette nor did she have a gun nestled below her chest but when he had seen her, standing out from the crowd holding a glass of wine, he knew that she was going to be the woman he was going to someday marry.

  Simon now felt like a fifth wheel. Whatever they had been talking about prior to his arrival seemed as though it was not going to start up again. Among his friends Simon had many things to talk about, even with Lucy, he found small talk easy. But Lucy’s father made things hard. He was so obtuse and even in silence he could still bring a conversation to a halt.

  His phone vibrated again and for some reason, like when you are in a library and you try and whisper to your mate but instead you shout your mouth off with excitement, it sounded louder than it should have.

  Lucy looked up. ‘That your phone?’

  ‘Kyle. He’s text me a few times now he’s left a voicemail I think.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘Probably another one of his stupid jokes. Guy is an idiot sometimes. Better check though, just in case.’

  ‘Suppose.’

  Simon took out his phone and saw that he was right; the voicemail icon was flashing and with Kyles being the only missed call his detective work seemed sound. ‘Excuse me.’ Simon said, and he stood and walked down to the end of the garden pressing and holding 1 on his phones keypad to quick dial voicemail.

  As he walked away he heard Mr Rowling say, ‘What is voice mail, Barbara?’ She then went on to explain.

  The computerised womanly voice on the end of the phone asked which option he would like to choose: One for new messages Two for old messages Three to record a new message greeting, Simon choose option 1 and listened intently.

  3

  Hey fucktard. Why you not return my texts? Too good for me now that you is thinking of settling down? Too good now that you have your own house and business? Anyway, just been told by that prick Marcus that you is selling some of your shite and that he’s got first dibs on the good stuff. Now come on, Si. We’re best buds. If you is selling up bits to pay for the wedding or whatever then A – tell little Miss Red Dress to calm the truck down and B – let me see it first, especially your guitars man. Come on buddy, really, Marcus first? Weddings can be pricey things Si-baby
and I know Red Dress has you wrapped around her left tit. I aint proud of this but man you have some good stuff, so, before that lard arse gets there, I want that Red Rock Rose Ibanez, I want the valve amp and a few of the pedals – especially that phase shifter; I love that bad boy. If your selling everything then I definitely want that R2D2 projector man, that is the most awesome thing I have ever seen and I need it in my life. You know I is good for the money. Marcus, he don’t appreciate the finer things in life. Anyway. Have a nice time away. Don’t crap yer pants when you ask old man Rowling for her hand. I’m sure he won’t axe you to death when you ask him. But then again, it is a bit red neck up there. I’ve seen American Werewolf, Slaughtered Lamb, or whatever that pub is called. Speak to you later. Don’t go on the moors alone fucktard.

  Then the line went dead.

  4

  Simon hadn’t noticed that he had been listening to the call with his head up against the rough timber of the shed at the end of the garden. He put the phone into his pocket without looking, almost dropping it onto the grass. His head was spinning a little but not as much as it had prior to him being sick earlier. Simon had that gut wrenching feeling you get when you go over a bridge at speed or when you know something bad could have just happened and you narrowly avoid it. Kyle was a prankster, since the day Simon had met him Kyle loved playing a joke; a jolly jape, a harmless bit of tom-foolery. Occasionally they went too far, like when Kyle had encased a friend’s car in cellophane, or when he organised for a For Sale sign to be put up outside a neighbour’s house, or when he put glue on a toilet seat, or pretends to be dead. You name it; he has done it.