Rottenhouse

by Ian Dyer

  He ignored the front room, the back room too, something told him that what he wanted to find wasn’t in there and the floor boards continued to creak as he made his way into the kitchen. Something scurried in the dark corners and Simon jumped back against the doorframe. Light from his phone pointed to where the sound came from but found nothing but the remains of a family kitchen. That same something, or maybe another something scurried with what sounded like knives for claws across the floor and Simon aimed the phones light in that direction. Beyond the table and chairs and fallen ceiling and loose cupboards and blackened pots and pans was nothing but dead shadows hiding things, scary things, and Simon started to second guess his choices and ponder getting the mother truck out of there.

  ‘Rats. It’s just rats you schmuck.’ And as if it heard him the scurrying beasty squeaked back, Simon was sure that he glimpsed two little beady eyes hiding behind an overturned frying pan.

  ‘What’s here? What am I looking for?’ He said as he shone the torch light across the room. Everything was black, though smears of a strange brownish liquid leaked from corners or cupboards and from the shattered electrical fittings. He took a few steps, for some reason he held onto the door frame, and shone the light on the back wall of the kitchen. Written in large white paint that had gone grey and streaky was one single word: NONCE. The O was replaced with skull and crossbones. Drips of paint had run down the walls and the light followed them down and down. A chair was overturned next to the wall, something had been smashed and what looked like a large carving knife was dug into the floorboards; the light from the phone glinting from the still strangely shiny steel. Next to the knife was a hand print, but it hadn’t been made with white paint, it was dark and brown, like the brownish goo that seeped from all over the kitchen. With a shaking hand, so much so that he had to remove the other from the doorframe and double clutch the phone, he followed the hand prints along the floor and back out of the kitchen.

  Simon shook his head in disbelief, ‘What a surprise.’ As the hand prints moved from the floor up to the bannister and headed off, up the stairs, and into another gloomy place where Simon really didn’t want to go. Behind him, the rat – he hoped it was a rat – squeaked a couple of times and he was sure it was saying go on, Simon, man up. Go see what’s up there. Go on.

  ‘Shut up you little furry bastard. Let me think.’ But what was there to think about? He had come in here for a reason he couldn’t quite remember, let alone justify, and now was looking at what was quite possibly another scene of yet another murder in this tiny little village. From where he stood he could see the front door, the orange street light and Mr Rowling’s car. They were only a handful of steps away, so leaving this place wasn’t an issue. What was an issue was that he wanted to know what had happened here and seeing those hand prints going up the stairs meant that whatever had happened here went on up there.

  Off you go then, chum. Don’t forget to write and send me a postcard the rat squeaked as it scurried once again across the kitchen floor.

  Lifting the phone, the handprints marked the journey Simon would have to take like sadistic breadcrumbs in a forest of the dead.

  ‘Jeezus.’

  Simon shone the light on the wall once more, read the one single all encapsulating word NONCE and shivered when he saw the O was a skull and crossbones and then moved the light back to the stairs titling the phone so that it engulfed the entire hell begotten stairway.

  ‘If I die here, Ratman, I’m gonna come back and haunt you.’

  The floorboards creaked and cracked like old men’s bones getting out of hard backed chairs as he walked upstairs, following the brownish handprints.

  5

  At the top of the stairs the hallway lead off to the right as too did the handprints though now the brownish marks were fading and becoming hard to see. Upstairs was much like downstairs in so much as it was blackened with soot, charred where the flames had taken hold and smelt stale. But the fire hadn’t been all consuming up here. Perhaps the fire brigade (if they even had one) managed to temper the flames before they tore this place apart. Even so, it was still a wreck and completely unsalvageable.

  Simon reached the top of the stairs and like a Marine in some far off war zone he turned quickly and aimed the torchlight down the small, narrow hallway. There was nothing there but fallen paintings and wreckage. Was Simon a little disappointed? He supposed that he was. It was the same disappointment you get when watching motor racing and there isn’t a crash. A part of you is happy that there were no accidents, but another part of you is a little put out that bits of metal weren’t shredded and tyres launched into the sky. So for what it was worth Simon was a little disappointed that whatever it was that he was looking for wasn’t charging at him with an axe or chainsaw or a glove covered in homemade knives.

  Using the light he followed the handprints across the hallway and into the only room whose door was open. The groaning floorboards were replaced with squelching as water oozed from the wet carpet below Simons feet. With each footfall a fresh whiff of stale water floated up and hung around him like a fog. Instinctively he placed his arm across his mouth and nose but it did little to mask the smell coming from the floor.

  Entering the bedroom, his heart racing a little too fast, there was a flash of lightening which lit room almost on perfect cue. There was no bed, no furniture what so ever, and all that remained was an old dirty sheet hanging from the light fitting.

  Removing his hand from his mouth and nose Simon’s senses were then overwhelmed by the stench that filled this little room. His vision swirled as it overtook him and seemed to swallow him up. Another flash of lighting lit the room and Simons shadow on the side wall was matched with the one from the sheet hanging from the ceiling. He choked a little, gagged, but didn’t vomit much to his relief.

  ‘What is that smell.’

  He shone the torch around the edges of the floor. Rain began to patter on the roof in small fat drops and what had been a soft breeze now started to whistle through the gaps in the walls and windows. Still the stench went on and it wouldn’t be long, Simon thought, until it sucked the life right out of him.

  Whatever it was he thought he was going to find wasn’t here.

  He shone the light one final time across the far wall and the handprints were there again. He moved over to them taking care not to tread too heavily. There were two handprints, clearly one was a left hand and the other was the right. It was as if whoever the hands belonged to, Simon was starting to believe they were the hands of Mr Johnson, had placed them palms down on the wall and there was a smear of blood just above the splayed hands and stepping back Simon imagined a man, hands pressed against the wall, his head against it and by the looks of how clear the prints were he was like that for some time. Was the man screaming, crying for his life and for forgiveness?

  Another flash of lightening made Simon look down and see a frayed piece of rope laying on the floor next to an overturned chair that looked like it matched the one in the kitchen. The rain outside became heavier and the wind picked up making the house mumble in disgust.

  ‘Time to go, Joe.’ And Simon turned, brushing the manky sheet hanging from the ceiling.

  There was another lightning flash but this time it was followed quickly by a monstrous crash of thunder that shook not only the house but Simon too. The rumble went on for some time, the sound hitting the valley walls and reverberating like a drum. Simon reached the bedroom door and was about to step out when the sound of something swaying, something stretching; like wet rope tied to a mooring, forced him to freeze. The shake he had lost returned.

  Stood there, frozen to the spot, he imagined in those brief moments all sorts of horrific ways in which that stretching could be the prelude to his own death. But when it didn’t come and there was no follow up Simon presumed it just the making of the wind and rain and the storm. But then the smell came up again and this time Simon recognised it from his time in the morgue.

  ‘Hang on. Why wa
s there a sheet hanging…’ Simon turned around and manoeuvred his phone so that it pointed the light back into the room and up at the ceiling where the sheet hung. Again, as if on cue there was another flash of lighting and a deep roar of thunder. The room was engulfed in white strobe and Simon’s torch app was made moot. It wasn’t a sheet that was hanging from the ceiling. What hung from the ceiling, eyes wide with a mouth forced into a perpetual scream, had once been human but was now a charred mess of features. Simon dropped his phone and the world went dark.

  6

  If I die, I’m going to haunt you Ratman.

  Bar-Ba-Ra!

  Bar-Ba-Ra!

  Bar-Ba-Ra!

  Nothing.

  Simon came too in what looked like a hospital ward. It was an old hospital, rotten, abandoned, left to the wilds. He was sat in a chair. Correction, he was tied to a chair; tightly, with restraining leather belts wrapped around his wrists and his feet. His head was being kept in place by a thin metal band that squeezed his forehead tighter and tighter with every breath. There was a smell in here too, sickly sweet like marzipan. Though under that was another stink, just a whiff, but enough to tell Simon that he wasn’t alone.

  An empty gurney on rusty wheels was across from him. Next to that was a drip that held two blood red sacks of liquid upon its hooks. Long, clear tubes came out of the sacks and at their ends were giant needles the size of baseball bats. Behind the gurney was a window, dirty glass from years of neglect hid the world beyond and green creeping vines poked through gaps like fingers.

  ‘There’s something I need to show you.’ A female voice said from behind him.

  Simon couldn’t answer for now there was a leather belt wound around the lower half of his face and it pushed a filthy smelling rag into his mouth. Breathing heavily through his nose he tried to scream but it was useless.

  ‘There’s something I need to show you.’ She said again, only this time her voice was closer. Much closer.

  Simon gathered his strength together and dug his ankles into the floor and pushed his aching back into the chair in an effort to try and brake free. It was another useless gesture.

  A hand fell upon his shoulder and remained there. ‘Don’t struggle, it only makes them harder.’ Concern dripped into the female voice but Simon didn’t trust it.

  ‘That’s it, Simon. Well done. It will be okay.’

  The hand left his side but stroked his bare skin making his hairs stand to attention. Simon tried to look again but his vision became blurred the more he looked to either the left or the right.

  The girl coughed, deep and hard spitting whatever it was she had brought up onto the floor. Simon heard it splat against the brownish white tiles and was repulsed.

  ‘Would you like to see me?’

  He tried to nod, though he didn’t know why and was surprised when his head moved ever so slightly up and down. Surprised and terrified.

  ‘I’m not very pretty.’ Much like the smell her voice was sickly sweet and there was something rotten underneath. Simon knew that the voice was being faked, it was too sweet, too girly, and it was hiding something.

  There were tiny, wet sounding footsteps, then from Simons right a girl he recognised walked in front of him. She had wet brown hair, long and wild. It was pulled forward in dark twisting strands sticking to her pale face. There were eyes under that hair, dead insect eyes reflecting back the image of Simon tied to an old desk chair. Her mouth, lush red lips, now dry and flaking, was open in a perpetual scream. Her nose was missing replaced instead by just a single hole where some off coloured liquid oozed. Inside her mouth there were no teeth and her tongue was cut out so only half of the pink muscle remained and it bled profusely. The girl was wearing a tatty strait jacket though it didn’t seem to mind her. The leather bindings ended just below her waist, just covering her womanhood, and then Simon had to close his eyes when he saw that a dark reddish brown liquid dripped down from between her legs.

  ‘I knew you would be disgusted by me. I can see it in your eyes. It’s not my fault, it’s theirs!’ The girl said, though her mouth didn’t move and it seemed as though the voice came from everywhere much like music from a pair of headphones. And she was young, perhaps not even eighteen yet, but that voice was fake.

  ‘You’ve seen me before. Haven’t you? In that picture under the stairs and in your bathroom in that house at the end of the road. I was very pretty then.’

  Something licked Simons face, something small and furry and it squeaked in his ear; all a dream, Simon, it’s all a dream from when you fell, the squeak told him and Simon knew it was little Ratman. And he was right, he was dreaming. All of this was a dream. Simon tried to scream himself awake but the rag stuffed in his mouth made it impossible.

  ‘You are theirs until they let you go. Don’t struggle, Simon, like I said, it only makes them harder.’

  The girl took a few steps backwards and manoeuvred herself so that she climbed onto the gurney, which was more like a bed turned into a wheelchair, and lay herself upon its filthy mattress.

  ‘Now it’s time for them to do what they have to do and leave me alone. You have to see this, Simon.’

  The young girl who Simon recognised from his previous nightmares opened her pale bony legs and spread them wide. From her vagina the thick liquid slopped out like puss from an abscess and the skin that surrounded it was horrifically shaven and badly bruised. Simon once again tried to scream himself awake and heaved so hard that his vision blurred. But it was no good. His only saving grace was that he could close his eyes and he did so, shutting them both tight much like a child would when they were receiving a surprise present.

  ‘Not a chance, Sausage.’ Lucy said from behind him and he felt her hands pull through his hair and force open his eyes with her fingers. He tried in vain to shut them again and his eyes watered but it seemed to Simon as though Lucy had both grown in strength and gained extra sets of fingers.

  ‘You are going to watch this and you is going to like it.’ Lucy said and then went silent.

  Bobbie moaned then. A moan that reminded Simon of the same sound he heard from behind the garage door.

  ‘A man’s work is never done.’ Mr Rowling said as he appeared from Simon’s right hand side. The old man was naked apart from a pair of slippers and a flat cap. His skin hung from his bones like wet curtains and blue veins stuck out like railway tracks. His penis was erect and bobbed up and down as he walked toward the girl laid prone on the gurney. He came to a stop at her side and stroked her face and hair admiring Bobbie like a proud father would.

  Unable to look away, Simon watched Mr Rowling grab hold of the two giant needles and then with a great intake of breath and effort he lifted his arms and stabbed the points into Bobbie’s large, dead eyes.

  Simon tried to scream and even if the rag hadn’t been in his mouth he was sure that the scream from Bobbie would have drowned out anything that he could have produced. Her screams were massive, bestial, and they tore away Simon’s brain removing all though. From between Bobbie’s legs the trickle of blood turned into a flood and it quickly poured over the gurney and onto the floor. Bobbie was still screaming as Mr Rowling walked around, cupped his hand under her vagina and then poured the blood over his throbbing erection.

  ‘Be silent child.’ Lucy said like a caring mother and when Bobbie stopped whining, ‘Good girl. Good girl.’

  It was then, when the room had fallen silent, that Mr Rowling pulled the girl forward so that her legs were hanging over the gurney. With a cold, heartless smile he thrust himself deep inside of her causing blood to spray into the air and across his face and chest.

  As Mr Rowling raped Bobbie, Simons eyes rolled up into their sockets, and before he passed from this nightmare into the real world he once again felt the little furry something lick his face.

  7

  There was something licking his face and Simon instinctively jarred away from it and swung his hand at whatever it was.

  He touched something wet and fur
ry, it squeaked, and then there were tiny rushing footsteps as it fled. Simon opened his eyes and was enveloped in darkness and stink. Squirming, he shuffled backwards on his hands and heels, hitting the wall hard, dropping little chunks of plaster into his hair and lap. Panting, not fully remembering why he was sat on the damp carpet, Simon scrabbled for his phone picking up random bits of detritus that were slimy to the touch.

  But there was nothing there. Either the phone had run out of battery or the app had closed down. In this total darkness, a thick black fog that consumed him, he was unable to see where his phone had landed when he fell. And he did fall. He remembered that. He fell because once again he lost consciousness for what seemed like the millionth time this weekend. Simon knew why he fell but he couldn’t bring himself to think about it. Didn’t want to think about it even though he could still hear the rope stretching somewhere in the gloom. The dream he had had was still swimming up in his head though it was fragmented and becoming fuzzy. Two images stuck with him and would continue to hang in there like an old painting. The first image was of the girl, Bobbie, and her dead eyes as they stared back at him. The second image, and strangely the one that haunted him more than anything that had happened in that terrible scene was of Mr Rowling and his erect penis: how he stood there, all proud with his flat cap and slippers whilst his old cock stood to attention covered in blood so dark it was almost black. Simon was unsure that he would ever get that later image out of his head.