by Ryan Casey
“Don’t…Don’t go,” Ashley muttered. Something wasn’t right about this. That girl wasn’t Grace. It wasn’t Grace, and Steve was falling for the bait.
“Grace,” Steve said, walking closer to his machete-wielding sister. He smiled at her. Smiled shakily as tears continued to drip down his cheeks. “Come home with me. Let’s…Let’s let Ashley go and go home. Put all this behind us.”
“Steve,” Ashley shouted as loud as he could, but that wasn’t very loud because of the intense agony in his chest and the stabbing sensation in his back. “Don’t…Just run…Just go…”
Grace continued to step back slowly towards the fire, Steve following her with his arms outstretched.
“Don’t go towards that fire, sis,” Steve said. He picked up his pace with his shaky legs as the heat from the crackling fire drifted in Ashley’s direction again, kissing his cold skin.
“Steve…” Ashley tried to shout, but his voice was drowned out by the loud crackling of the bonfire. “Please. Just—just run. Just—”
Grace stopped. She stopped about ten feet away from the fire, where it was undoubtedly searing, and she stared at her brother, directly at him with her vacant eyes, machete in hand.
“Come on, Grace,” Steve said, the light from the flames glowing against his torn white shirt and his greasy hair. “Come on. Let’s—let’s step away. Let’s—”
Grace turned her head up to the stars above. Her eyes rolled back into her head.
“Accept my great gift.”
Then, she looked back down, and she brought her machete flying across her brother’s outstretched arm.
Steve didn’t make a noise at first. He just watched as his arm fell to the ground, its stump still outstretched as it sprayed blood in Grace’s direction, in the direction of the fire.
He started to let out a scream when Grace brought the machete across his other arm, and then across one of his legs, sending him tumbling to the floor and slamming face first into the dirt below.
She crouched over her brother, muttering inaudible words, her eyes still turned up in her head, as she hacked at his body. She hacked at her brother’s neck, and at the leg she hadn’t severed, and at his lower torso.
She hacked at her brother, more blood spraying and splatting up towards her, covering her naked legs and her arms in more blood, splashing over her face, over her white cardigan.
Ashley watched with wide eyes. He watched as she finished cutting her brother into pieces. He watched as she laid his limbs out in a hexagonal pattern, surrounding his torso and neck in the middle. He watched as she lifted his arms, his legs, his head, and threw them into the fire, muttering words, saying things that he couldn’t hear and couldn’t understand.
He tasted vomit in his mouth as the smell of burning flesh hit him once again, like barbecued meat left cooking for too long. He thought he screamed at one point, too. Screamed at the top of his lungs, but it was worthless. She wasn’t listening. Nobody was listening.
He held his breath as Grace finished throwing her brother’s body parts onto the fire.
Then, she turned to Ashley with her blood-soaked machete, and her eyes rested firmly on him.
“My final lamb,” she said.
She started to walk across the dry grass.
“The greatest honour of all.”
Blood dripped down from the edge of her machete as she stepped closer and closer to Ashley…
THIRTY-FOUR
Ashley’s heart pounded as Grace got closer and closer to him. The crackling bonfire, which once again reeked of cooking flesh, glowed behind her, making her look like a dark silhouette. Not his Grace. Not the Grace he knew. Not the Grace he loved.
“Now’s not the time for fear,” Grace muttered as she got closer, holding her bloody machete in her bloody hands. Fifty or so feet away. Ashley could just about make out the clump in the grass where Steve’s torso had been left untouched—the only part of his body that hadn’t become victim to the fire.
Ashley edged back into the hard rock as Grace got closer, but this only made the ordeal all the more painful. He winced as he felt a stabbing pain down his back. His ribs must’ve been cracked. Or his shoulder blades. Or his pelvis and spine and—Fuck! More stabbing pains. More gasped breaths.
And all the time, Grace was just getting closer and closer.
He stopped trying to resist when he saw she was about six feet away. Blood was still dripping from the end of the machete onto the hard grass underneath her bare feet. Ashley looked up at the stars in the sky. As he listened to the bonfire crackling and Grace’s footsteps getting closer and closer, he stared up at the stars. Thought back to the time when he and Grace had gone up to the Lake District. News broke that Mars would be visible that night, so the pair of them just lay in a field on their backs and stared up at the stars.
They didn’t see Mars, or maybe they did and it was just too small to notice. But it was a happy moment. A series of happy moments that made up a collectively happy past.
A happy past that was just that: the past. Gone. Dead.
Ashley took in a shaky breath right to the bottom of his lungs. It wrecked to do so, but he just had to do it. He had to do it to give himself strength. To give himself the courage to look Grace—no, look at this thing in the eye. Because Grace was gone. Grace was long gone. He realised that now. He knew what that meant.
Grace smiled at, or through, him as she crouched down and slipped the sharp edge of the machete underneath the sharp ties on his wrists. Ashley held her gaze as well as he could, but there was nothing there. It was so distant. So glassy. What remained of Grace was gone.
But there had to be a fragment of her left inside. A fragment left somewhere behind those glassy eyes. Something to give him enough time.
“I understand you have to do this,” Ashley said, as Grace snapped away his right wrist restraint. His hands tingled with the feeling returning to them as Grace moved on to his feet. “I understand now. Finally, I…I understand.”
Grace smiled as she snapped the tie on Ashley’s right foot free, then the one on his left.
“My understanding lamb. The greatest sacrifice of all. An honour. Not a fear, an honour.”
Ashley tasted salt on his lips as he realised he was completely free, and Grace rose to her feet. She took a few steps back and, just like she had with Steve, she held one hand out, her machete dangling from her other.
“Come, my little lamb,” she said. “You’ll see the brightness of the stars yourself before long. You’ll be one with the universe in the greatest act of all.”
Ashley wiped his tearful eyes as he rose to his feet, his legs shaking like jelly. He winced with agony as the pain in his back and ribs got more and more intense. If he didn’t get to a hospital soon, he’d do even more damage.
But he didn’t need long. He just needed long enough. Just long enough.
He took a step in Grace’s direction, her smile hypnotising, her distant eyes alluring in a dark kind of way. He kept aware of her machete. Kept wary of it crashing down against his neck or his arms. He knew what to expect. And he knew what he had to do.
“Grace, I…I never got the chance to say goodbye.” More salty tears flowed down Ashley’s cheeks. The heat of the fire on his face intensified the closer he got, the glow stinging his eyes. “I…I never got to say goodbye when you fell. I never got to hug you or kiss you or say goodbye.”
Grace slowed down her walk. Her smile was still there, but it was faltering at the sides. He could see some vibrancy returning to her eyes as they got closer and closer to the crackling fire.
“I…I never stopped loving you, Grace. Never stopped loving that blonde hair or that pointy nose. And I—I never stopped leaving a little bit of the blind open for you, just the way you’d have liked it.”
Ashley saw something else in Grace’s eyes now. A definite look of recognition, as she kept on walking backwards to the fire, the heat g
etting remarkably intense, feeling like it was going to burn Ashley on the spot.
“I understand you…you have a greater purpose now. You have other things to do. But just one more hug, Grace. Just one more chance to say goodbye.”
Then, something remarkable happened.
Grace stopped.
Ashley hadn’t noticed any slush underfoot, which meant that they weren’t at the spot where Grace—the thing within Grace—had butchered her brother yet. Which gave him a slight glimmer of hope.
So too did the vibrant blue in her eyes.
“Come here,” Ashley said.
He held his breath. Took a step towards her, her machete wobbling as it was raised above her.
He wrapped his arms around her body, which was burning hot on the back from the heat of the fire. He held her. Let his tears dribble onto her shoulders, and she let him.
“You’re not Grace,” Ashley said.
He felt the body tense under his arms. Felt the muscles go hard in the unrecognisable body in front of him.
“Grace Wisdom died in that sinkhole a year ago.”
Then, Ashley lunged for the machete, knocked it out of Grace’s hand, and pushed her back to the ground.
His heart pounded as he staggered for the machete. He could see it right in front of him, just feet away. He threw himself at it, but he could hear her getting back to her feet, stomping through the dry grass towards him.
He held his breath. Gritted his teeth right through the pain in his back. And he threw himself on top of the machete, wrapping his hands around its slippery handle.
And then, the footsteps and the mumblings getting closer, he turned over onto his back and pointed the machete upright.
He heard the sound of Grace’s flesh being pierced before he actually processed it. A soft crunching sound, like peeling the skin off an orange. He held the machete there as her weight came down on it. He held it there as his tears dribbled down his cheeks.
He held it there as his girlfriend slid down it towards him, open-mouthed, wide-eyed.
“You aren’t Grace,” Ashley said, whimpering as this thing in the image of his girlfriend spluttered out blood onto his face. “You—Grace died. She—she died in that sinkhole. She’s gone.”
He could hear this dying avatar of Grace trying to speak. He could hear her coughing and whimpering with a hoarse voice, desperate to get some words out. He held his hands firmly on the machete as the weight of her slid even further down towards him, her blood dripping from her pierced chest and her spluttering mouth.
He didn’t look at her eyes as she tried to talk, tried to moan, the fire still burning an intense heat to his left. He looked past her blood-matted hair. He looked past her paling skin, up above at the stars, just like they had when they’d lain on the grass and looked for Mars.
He didn’t look at her eyes. He couldn’t look at her eyes. Just in case they weren’t vacant. Just in case they weren’t glassy. Just in case they were Grace.
He held that machete firmly in place even when Grace had gone still. Even when she’d choked up her last breath and spat it all over his face in a bloody, congealed mess. He looked past her. Looked past her at the stars as her warm body rested on top of him. Looked at the stars and imagined they were back there again, holding the machete in place until he was sure—absolutely sure—that she was completely still.
When he was sure, however long after that was, he pushed her body aside, which hurt his back and his shoulder and ribs but he was beyond caring. He pushed her aside, rose to his feet, and with his numb hands, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
He hit the first “9.”
Grace had died a year ago. She’d died a year ago. She hadn’t come back. The thing that came back wasn’t Grace, not really.
He hit the second “9.”
He hadn’t killed Grace. He’d killed the thing inside her. He’d killed the thing that was about to kill him. That killed Susan, and Steve.
He hit the third “9,” then he hit dial.
He didn’t remember the phone conversation. He didn’t remember what words he said, or where he said he was, what he said he’d done—anything like that.
He just crouched down beside Grace’s still body on the ground when the other end of the line had gone dead, and wrapped his arm around her.
He looked up at the stars. Felt the warmth still just about surviving inside her. He looked at the constellations peppered around the sky as the burning bonfire stung his face.
He held his arm around Grace. Stared up at the stars and saw them back together over a year ago again.
Then, when he heard the whirring of the sirens approaching, he closed his eyes.
THIRTY-FIVE
He’d only been locked up for two days but already it seemed like forever.
Ashley stared up at the grey ceiling above him. He could hear the steady hum of traffic driving past outside. Hear the clinking of high heels against the pavement. Hear the chatter of people on mobile phones, the singing of birds.
But that was outside. That was separate from him now. A distant memory growing ever more distant by the day.
He rolled over and winced as the paper-thin blue mattress dug into his back. He looked over at the door. The grey interlude in the otherwise freshly painted white walls. His new home. His home for however long they decided to keep him here. Before they decided to formally find him guilty of the murder of Miss Grace Wisdom. Of Mr. Steven Wisdom. Of Miss Susan Vickers.
He inhaled a deep breath. He could still smell the paint on the walls of this state-of-the-art police station. The paint on the walls of his new home, for however long it was going to be his home. The Preston Police Department were only supposed to hold a suspect for forty-eight hours. But he’d been arrested on Friday, and the forty-eight hours were forty-eight “business hours” apparently. Which meant that he was here until Tuesday at the earliest.
Whatever happened after that was anybody’s guess.
He yawned as he sat upright on the thin mattress pressed up against the white wall of the cell. He hadn’t got a wink of sleep since his arrest, not that he knew of. Not with that bright light shining down on him all the time. Not with no real knowledge of when it was, other than from the sun outside the barred window just over the barbed wire fences.
He hadn’t eaten much either. The taste of Saturday’s porridge breakfast was still lingering on the back of his tongue. He might get used to the changing of the days in prison, but he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to that bland, flavourless porridge. Not compared to the luscious apple and cinnamon one he and Grace used to—
No. Forget that. Forget Grace. Grace is gone. Grace has been gone a long, long time.
He tried to stand up and stretch his legs but he felt a sharp pain down his left side. He’d hurt his ribs pretty bad after falling off Susan’s roof, apparently. Fractured two of them. But besides a few cuts and bruises, the damage was minimal. Which meant that he was to spend as little time as possible in a hospital bed and get straight into a prison cell.
He walked over to the metal door and rested his hand on the cold, white-painted brick wall. At first, he’d felt a bit sorry for himself at being locked up. But the more time passed, the more logical the decision seemed to be. He’d been found surrounded by three dead, mutilated bodies, after all. He’d been seen climbing Susan’s roof—and no witnesses had seen him fall, apparently. So whatever Grace did to get him to that hill where the fire had burned and everything had ended, she’d done it well.
But despite all this suspicion, all this doubting of the legitimacy of Grace’s initial death, the scapegoating of Ashley, he kind of figured in a small, dark part in his mind that it was for the best. If he hadn’t done anything about the monster Grace had become, who knew what other hurt she’d cause? This way wasn’t fair, by any stretch of the imagination. No way was fair.
But Grace had died a year ago. A year ago tod
ay. Mr. and Mrs. Wisdom had mourned. Grace’s friends had mourned. Ashley had mourned.
He’d just put her back in the ground.
Back where she, rightfully, but painfully, belonged.
As Ashley leaned against the wall, he heard the echo of footsteps moving their way up the corridor leading down to the holding cells. He wasn’t sure if it was just him, but he got this gut feeling when he heard footsteps that it was for him, and usually, he’d been proven right. But what could this be? Lunch? A snack? Routine check? He’d lost track. He’d lost track, with the bright light, the white walls, the smell of freshly-laid paint.
He heard keys rattle on a chain and clunk into his cell door. A big round face appeared at the dirty window.
The face peered in, squinting at Ashley with its baggy eyelids. “Take a step back, Mr. Chester. Got a special treat for you.”
Ashley obliged. No point in putting up a fuss or fighting. He’d seen how that worked out on the TV shows where drunks got put in holding cells. Any sign of mutiny and they were pinned to the floor. With the sharp pain in his ribs, Ashley wasn’t anywhere near in the mood for fighting.
The keys rattled against the door a few times and eventually the door opened. The guard at the door was a big, chubby bloke with barely any neck on sight. He was a new guard. A guard he hadn’t seen before. At least that kept things interesting. Mixed things up.
“Afternoon, pal,” the guard said. He held out a pair of handcuffs in his colossal hands.
Ashley peered at them as the damp smell of this man’s sweaty body invaded the room. “What’s this?” he asked.
The guard smiled. Kept the handcuffs held out in front of him. “Got yourself a visitor, haven’t you? Don’t usually do Sunday visits, but…Well. You’re a special case, aren’t you?”
Ashley blinked a few times. He felt butterflies in his chest. A visitor? His first gut reaction was that it was Grace. But no. It couldn’t be Grace. Grace was the reason he was here. Grace was gone. Nobody came back from the dead twice.