by Ken Preston
With a squeal of metal and plastic, the handle ripped free of the oven door and Nick sprawled sideways. Michael lifted his head, his long teeth making a sucking noise as they slid out of the open wound. Using his uninjured leg, Nick raised his foot and kicked Michael square in the face. The little boy’s head snapped backwards and hit the edge of the table. While he was still stunned, Nick kicked him in the head again, his shoe connecting solidly with the boy’s temple.
Michael fell over, face down on the bloody carpet. Battling an urgent need to stand up and start stomping on the kid’s head until he was sure he was dead, Nick pushed himself up onto his knees. He was bleeding profusely from the open gash in his thigh. He knew he had to get a tourniquet around his leg, or some kind of compression on the wound, before he lost too much blood.
Michael began stirring, his tiny fingers curling up into fists. The detective curled himself up into as small a shape as he could and dragged his cuffed arms under his backside and underneath his knees. The next part was going to be awkward, as he had long legs. But he needed to get his hands in front where, even though still cuffed together, he had more opportunity to use them. He folded his right leg up as far as he could, his knee under his chin.
It wasn’t enough, his foot couldn’t fit through the gap between his arms.
Michael stirred again, a low, guttural moan growing in the back of his throat.
Straining every tendon in his arms and shoulders, his upper body curled up and his knee almost touching his shoulder, Nick waggled his foot. The heel of his shoe was caught on the cuffs, just an inch or two away from slipping over them. Screaming in frustration against the tea towel tied to his mouth, Nick wrenched his arms forward and his leg up, his foot suddenly springing free.
Now he had his cuffed wrists between his legs. The wound in his left thigh was still flowing with scarlet blood, and the whole leg felt like a dead weight. There was no way he could lift that leg in the same way.
Michael pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, and shook his head. His sodden hair flicked from side to side, scattering drops of blood and sweat around the stinking cabin.
With his arms cuffed between his legs, Nick was just as helpless as when they had been behind his back. He was dizzy and sick, and too weak to fight back.
But he did have a little more freedom in his arms. He was able to loop his left arm over his left knee and bring his cuffed wrists down to his ankle. As Nick lifted his useless leg up and bent it at the knee, bringing his ankle around towards his groin, Michael slowly turned around and gazed at him.
A fierce awareness returned to his eyes.
The policeman pulled his cuffed wrists under his foot with relative ease, so that he had his hands in front.
Michael continued staring at him, as though aware that his prey had a little more power on his side now than he had before.
Pulling the dripping tea towel off his face, Nick sucked in a lungful of stagnant, stinking air.
He fumbled with the towel, ripping it from around his neck and balling it up. He pressed it against the wound in his leg with both hands. Keeping eye contact with the boy all the time, he continued taking deep breaths, trying to release the tightness in his chest.
The little boy growled, baring his red stained teeth at his victim. He seemed wary of making a move.
Nick edged backwards towards the door. His hand slipped on the blood slicked floor as he pushed himself awkwardly along, hindered by his wrists still cuffed together. When he got to the steps leading out onto the deck, he had to brace his good foot against a wall to help leverage himself up.
And all the time he kept his eyes locked onto the little boy, squatting in the corner, watching his every move.
Bit by bit, Nick bumped himself up the wooden steps, until his back was resting against the door. Once outside on the deck, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. The idea had been to escape, but he didn’t know if he had the strength to stand up and climb off the boat. At least he would be out in the open, where he could be seen by a police search party.
If they were coming up this far.
Nick reached up, stretching his arms painfully above his head, and fumbled with the door, searching for the catch. Joe Coffin’s little boy continued staring at him, his eyes narrowed down to slits.
Fucking hell, what happened to this poor kid that turned him into a psychotic little monster like this?
His hand found the door handle, and he pulled it. The door swung out and Nick fell backwards, his head cracking against the hard, wooden deck. Cold rain hit him in the face, blurring his vision.
Lying on his back on the deck, slick with water and blood, the detective realised how helpless he was. His legs were still inside the cabin, his left thigh pumping blood. By dragging himself this far, he had only opened himself up to the boy.
Confirming his worst fears, Nick heard the scuffling of claws from within the cabin. Before he had a chance to even think about moving or defending himself, Michael was on top of him. Long fingernails, more like claws, dug into Nick’s stomach and chest. The little boy’s contorted face appeared in his blurred vision, lips drawn back in a red snarl.
Nick raised both arms, trying to protect himself. The little boy ripped at the flesh on his arms, a blur of dark movement, like an imp from hell. Every tear in his skin registered in his head, every bite of those sharp teeth piercing his soft flesh. He could feel his warm blood gushing from the rips in his body, running onto the narrowboat deck, and mingling with the rainwater.
Nick gave up trying to defend himself, the boy was too crazed, too wild, and just too fucking strong to be held back. The policeman rolled over, both hands on the deck, and tried pushing himself away. His hands slipped on the rain and blood slicked surface, and his right hand found the handle of the discarded Samurai sword. His fingers closed around it, and he lifted the weapon and swung it wildly at the boy.
The blade connected, and Michael’s snarls turned into a gurgle. Nick kept on hacking at him, the sword making wet smacking noises as it slashed at flesh and bone. In the dark and the rain the boy was nothing more than a physical shadow, a monster. Sobbing, Nick swung the sword at the shadow, the blade slicing through skin and muscle. Finally the shadow stopped fighting, and keeled over and hit the deck with a wet slap.
Nick, panting wildly, tried crawling away from the mutilated body but there was no room on the narrowboat. He closed his eyes and stifled a sob.
“Oh, fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Nick opened his eyes again, suddenly gripped with the fear that Michael Coffin was climbing to his feet once more, his mouth open and hands outstretched.
But the little boy lay still, blood oozing from the slashes in his body and the criss-cross pattern of wounds over his face.
Great fucking job, Archer. You just managed to kill a four-year-old kid.
But it had been him or Michael. Nick hadn’t just been dealing with a sulky child having a tantrum, he’d been fighting for his life. The kid had bitten him and scratched him, he was like a wild animal, like a thing possessed. What was Nick supposed to do, offer him a jelly baby?
Even so, did you have to slash him to ribbons with a fucking Samurai sword?
The detective closed his eyes, and then immediately snapped them open. It was no good. Every time he shut his eyes he was seized with a sudden terror of Michael climbing to his feet and leaping on him, to finish him off for good.
Maybe he’s not dead. If he’s still alive, and help comes soon, we can get him to a hospital. Everybody will see then, how wild he is, how totally vicious and mental and bug-eyed crazy he can be. Everybody will understand why I had to defend myself with that sword, when the boy attacks the doctors and nurses, and tries taking a bite out of a few people.
Nick hauled himself over to the boy, and shoved his fingers up under his jaw, trying to find a pulse. There was nothing.
The policeman rested his forehead against the little boy’s chest. He was so tired. He
just wanted to curl up into a ball and wait for a rescue party.
No. They find you here, slumped over the body of a child and covered in his blood, they’re going to arrest you. How the hell are you going to explain that the kid was a fucking crazy monster? All everyone is going to see is a defenceless little four-year-old, all cut up like sheets of coloured paper in a child’s craft lesson.
And what about Coffin?
Nick sat up straighter.
If Joe Coffin found him here, with his dead son, he wasn’t going to hang around and wait to hear any excuses. It didn’t matter that Coffin knew exactly what his boy was like, that he’d had to defend himself from a frenzied attack, too.
No, as soon as he saw his son’s bloody corpse lying on the deck he’d just go into a blind fury, and Nick would be a dead man.
Beyond the small pool of light cast by the glow of the narrowboat’s windows, Nick could see nothing. There was no sign of his colleagues approaching the narrowboat along the towpath yet.
He cursed them and their stupidity, but at the same time he was grateful.
If he acted fast, he might just get away with this.
Nick clawed at the little boy’s shirt with both cuffed hands, pulling him up to a sitting position. The child’s head lolled forward, and there was a spurt of blood from a wound in his neck. The boy was light, but Nick was weak from loss of blood, and he couldn’t stand up.
The side of the boat wasn’t too high, though, and Nick was able to brace Michael’s body against it and push him upwards. With a good shove, the boy teetered on the edge of the boat, his arms hanging limp from his sides.
And then fell over the edge.
Nick heard the splash of water. He wanted to drag himself up, peer over the edge of the narrowboat, check that Michael’s body had disappeared from view.
But he was too weak.
He remained slumped on the blood and rain slicked deck, and closed his eyes, waiting for someone to find him.
* * *
Joe Coffin stared into the yellow and red flames, the heat from the bonfire scorching his scarred face. The sharp stink of burning flesh filled the cellar, lit by the glow of the flames chasing shadows across its damp brick walls. Black, oily smoke rolled across the ceiling, like storm clouds gathering in a time-lapse movie. Coffin squatted on the floor beside the pit where Abel Mortenson’s carved up remains were being consumed by fire. Down here there was still some oxygen left, enough that Coffin could stay a while longer, and watch his family’s killer burn up.
Jacob Mills had been kept prisoner here and drained of his blood by the killer the newspapers had tagged the Birmingham Vampire. What the newspapers hadn’t realised was that Birmingham’s serial killer was a real vampire. Coffin had sliced him up with a chainsaw and then doused the pieces in diesel. He had set them alight, and now he was watching as the fire consumed the monster known as Abel Mortenson.
Coffin flexed his hand, rotated his shoulder. Pain spasmed through his arm. Where Abel had chewed on his shoulder, the muscles and ligaments were still painful, and lacking in strength. Coffin was going to carry the scars of their first encounter for the rest of his life. But they would serve as a reminder that Coffin had killed the vampire at the end, and so thoroughly destroyed his remains he was never coming back.
Coffin retreated from the edge of the pit as the heat grew in intensity. His skin was oily with sweat, and his lungs felt scorched. As he trudged outside, an immense weariness flooded through his system. The rain was cool on his face and shoulders.
Emma Wylde was sitting on the wet grass, under the large tree in the overgrown garden. Her clothes were soaked, her hair plastered against her head, and she was shivering.
“Hey, we need to get you somewhere warm and dry,” Coffin said.
Emma didn’t reply. She had her arms wrapped around her knees, and her head bowed.
Coffin squatted down beside her, wiped blood and rainwater out of his eyes. When he reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder she flinched and pulled away.
Coffin dropped his hand by his side.
“You’re in shock,” he said. “We need to get you somewhere safe, and out of this rain.”
“This is such a fucking mess,” Emma said, her teeth chattering.
“Aren’t you listening to me? We need to move, the cops will be here soon.”
Emma looked up at Coffin. Strands of hair were plastered over her face, and flecks of blood dotted her cheeks and forehead. She stared at him with eyes round and wide and dark.
“And then what? Are you going to kill them too? And then the others, back at Angels, right? That’s a lot of killing, Coffin, but I suppose that’s what you do best, isn’t it?”
“You weren’t complaining earlier,” Coffin said. “Fact is, you even helped me out.”
Emma hugged herself tighter. “So much fucking blood.”
“You’re in shock, we need to get you out of here,” Coffin said, and closed his hand around her forearm.
Emma twisted out of his grip. “We shouldn’t have done this. I helped you murder someone, I’m a killer, just like you.”
“You can’t kill a monster like that, he was already dead.”
Emma shook her head and turned her face away from Coffin.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Coffin growled. “Surely you knew it would end like this. That bastard is never coming back now, he’s never going to hurt anyone again. And that’s because of me, because I chopped him up and burnt the pieces.” Coffin grabbed Emma by the chin, his large hand swallowing up the lower half of her face, and twisted her head around to face him. “You’re the one who asked me for help, Emma. You think you’d still be alive if your boyfriend got here first and tried slapping the cuffs on him?”
Coffin laughed, let go of Emma, and stood up. He towered over her, rainwater running in red streaks down his T-shirt.
“That bastard would have eaten your boyfriend alive, and then he would have raped you, before ripping you open and drinking your blood. So, yeah, you’re right. Killing is what I do best.”
Coffin tilted his head up to the dark sky and let the raindrops run over his face. After the heat of the fire in the enclosed cellar space, the cold had been good on his skin, but now he could feel it seeping into his bones. Much longer out here freezing cold and wet, and his teeth would be chattering too, just like Emma.
He lowered his head and looked at the woman on the ground, hugging herself tight, head bowed once more.
Turning his back on her, Coffin stepped through the gap he had made in the fence, and onto the canal towpath.
Behind him, Emma raised her head and watched Coffin as he climbed through the hole in the garden fence. Then she struggled to her feet and followed him.
The narrowboat sat on the dark canal water, its windows glowing with light. The warm, cosy looking appearance was ruined by the streaks of blood splattered against the windows. Coffin stepped on the slick deck, the boat rocking slightly under his weight. Archer was sitting propped against the boat’s side, his eyes closed, wrists cuffed in front of him. His shirt and trousers were ripped open, slashes of red covering his body, and there was a nasty wound in his leg still oozing blood.
Coffin bent down and peered into the cabin. Apart from the girl’s corpse lying on the table, it was empty. The rope he had used to tie Michael up with lay in coils on the blood soaked carpet.
Coffin kicked Archer in the side.
Archer flinched and opened his eyes. They widened when he saw Coffin standing over him, rain pouring down his face.
“Where’s Michael?” Coffin said.
Archer coughed. His head lolled on his shoulders, and his eyes drooped.
“The party’s over, Coffin,” he said, his voice slurred. “You’re going down for the rest of your fucking life, and you know what? I’m going to come and visit you every single fucking day, and look at your ugly mug, stuck in prison.”
“Nice speech,” Coffin said. “Where’s Michael? What happened
?”
“What the hell do you think happened? He fucked off down the park to play with his friends.” Archer shivered, and his eyes closed momentarily.
Coffin squatted down in front of Archer, looked at the wound in his leg.
“They’re on their way, Coffin,” Archer whispered. “Not just looking for two missing women, but one of their own, who’s not responding to calls on his handheld. You’d better get moving, you don’t want to be leaving here with a police escort.”
Coffin stood up, turned around, looked down the towpath. No sign of any coppers yet. He twisted around and looked in the opposite direction. Apart from a growing orange glow, flickering in the darkness as the fire began consuming Number 99, there was nothing.
Coffin noticed the Samurai sword lying on the narrowboat deck. He picked it up. Rainwater ran down its bloody edge and over his hand.
One quick thrust through Archer’s chest, and that was him out of the way. Coffin could disappear, get cleaned up, nobody would ever know he had been here.
Except Emma.
That’s a lot of killing, Coffin, but I suppose that’s what you do best, isn’t it?
Lights, flickering between the trees, in the darkness. A search party making its way along the towpath.
In the distance, the growing wail of a siren cut its way through the night. A fire engine, summoned by reports of smoke seen billowing from the house on Forde Road, no doubt.
“Joe.”
Coffin spun round. Emma was standing on the towpath, white face framed by her lank, dirty blond hair. Her arms hung by her sides, and she looked exhausted and defeated.
Coffin dropped the Samurai sword over the edge of the boat. Watched it sink from view. He followed it, lowering himself into the cold, dark canal water. He could hear voices now, approaching. A dog barking. Torch beam lights growing stronger.
Coffin swam to the opposite bank of the canal and hauled himself out.
He paused for one quick glance back at Emma, still standing on the towpath, watching him.