The Left Series (Book 4): Left In The Cold

by Christian Fletcher

  “Spot!” I cried out.

  Batfish moved quickly towards him and ruffled his head.

  “Shh,” Chloe hissed.

  “Did you take him?” Batfish growled, in an accusing tone.

  “No,” Chloe gasped. “I saved him. I saw him in Mo’s room earlier. I think he was planning to do something horrible to him.”

  I thought about Mo’s conviction for animal cruelty, as expressed in his employment file. The printed text hadn’t gone into any great detail of his crimes but they obviously had to be pretty horrific deeds.

  “What about our guns?” I asked.

  “I didn’t see any guns in his room but I wasn’t really looking for anything else,” she whispered. “I crept into his room when I saw him leave to go downstairs. I took the dog away and I’ve been trying to find you since. I hid him away and I hoped you’d come this way.”

  “How long have you been tracking us?” I asked.

  Chloe looked a little sheepish and glanced away into the darkness. “Since you left the recreation room,” she admitted. “I saw Mo leaving the room after he saw you and I thought he was probably going to check on the dog in his bedroom. He’ll know he’s gone and he’ll be looking for him now.”

  “Well, he’s not having him back,” Batfish spat. “Not at any cost.”

  “He went to prison once for animal cruelty,” Chloe said.

  “I know, I read his file,” I sighed.

  “You read those employment files?” Chloe gasped. “Don’t tell any of them you’ve read them.” She clutched her hand over her face and her eyes were wide in shock. She was behaving as though I’d committed a cardinal sin. “I read those files a while ago but I don’t think the others realize they exist, otherwise they would have destroyed them.”

  “The reports in those files don’t exactly inspire confidence, do they?” I muttered.

  “What are you planning on doing now?” Chloe asked me.

  Batfish glanced up at me as she stroked Spot. I guessed she was hoping I’d make a decision.

  “Well, Gera is still missing and we need to carry on searching for him but I think we should go up to Mo’s room and see if he’s got our guns and ammo in his room. Can you show us where it is, Chloe?”

  I knew by her reluctant expression she didn’t want to lead us to Mo’s room. “Ah, okay but I won’t hang about. I don’t want him to know it was me who told you about the dog and where his room was.”

  “That’s okay,” Batfish said. “You’ve probably saved Spot’s life by bringing him here. Thanks.” She untied the leash from the chair and gripped the loop tightly.

  We left the small room and Chloe led the way back to the Great Hall. Somebody had built up the fire and the air was warmer and smelled of wood smoke. A few lit candles burned in the corners of the room, projecting an orangey glow.

  “I’m going to take him back up to our bedrooms so Cordoba and Wingate can keep an eye on him,” Batfish said, pointing down to Spot. “He’s had enough traumas for a while.”

  “Okay, do you want us to wait for you?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I don’t want to be prowling around the castle on my own. You never know who’s going to jump out on you.”

  Batfish departed, heading for the tower bedrooms. Chloe and I stood in silence for a few moments. I reached for my pack of smokes and offered her one. She shook her head and I continued to light up.

  “You know Maddie won’t stop until you go with her,” she whispered, as though the walls were listening. “She’s like a black widow spider, you know.”

  “Don’t worry, Chloe,” I sighed, exhaling cigarette smoke. “I’m not planning on hanging around long enough to fall into her web.” Chloe seemed to be a little afraid of Maddie and was probably exaggerating her conduct.

  “She and Alex used to be a couple,” she blurted, as though she was confessing some great secret. “That’s why she ended up here.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled.

  “Maddie went off to America with her band and Alex told me she came back to Scotland because she did something terrible out there. She knew she was going to get caught eventually but then the virus broke out and she got away with it.”

  My senses pricked up. I thought Maddie was slightly odd but didn’t think she was capable of committing any serious crimes. “What did she do?”

  “I don’t know, Alex wouldn’t say.” Chloe changed her stance and the pitch of her voice changed to a pleading whine. “Can I come with you guys when you leave the castle? I hate it here. These people terrify me.”

  “Sure, I don’t see why not,” I said. Although another member of the crowd would be a burden, I couldn’t exactly refuse her.

  She smiled and her eyes brightened. “Ah, thanks, Brett,” she cooed. “I’ll go and pack my stuff when we’ve found the guns and your friend, Gera.”

  I sighed, wondering what the rest of my group would say about our newest member.

  Batfish returned a few seconds later, holding her handgun at her side.

  “All right, let’s go,” she commanded.

  We stomped up the staircase and through the dining room. Mrs McMahon was preparing the table and stopped and stared as we marched by. She flashed me an evil glance and I locked eyes with her for a few seconds.

  “I could do with some help here, Chloe,” she called after us.

  Chloe ignored Mrs McMahon and we continued onwards, trudging through the empty recreation room. I guessed the other residents were keeping a low profile after all that had occurred. Some were guilty, some were innocent but they could all go to hell, as far as I was concerned. The place and the people were far too weird for my liking.

  Chloe led the way up the spiral staircase to the tower bedrooms and pointed to a door on the right side of the landing.

  “That’s Mo’s room,” she whispered.

  I hoped Maddie wasn’t going to appear and ruin our little surprise visit on Mo. Batfish rapped on the door. Chloe backed away into the shadows around the landing.

  “Maurice? Mo? Are you in there? Listen, you better give us our guns and ammunition back or we’re coming right on in there,” she yelled.

  We received no form of reply or heard any sounds from inside the room.

  “Shall we go in?” Batfish asked.

  I nodded. “Let’s try the door.”

  Batfish rattled the handle but the door was locked.

  “Stand back,” I commanded and delivered a hefty kick, slightly below the handle next to the jamb. Surprisingly, the door gave way and swung inwards.

  I drew my M-9 and padded inside the room first. The whole place stunk of a combination of unwashed bed sheets, body odor and rotting flesh. Flyers and posters of muscle cars and scantily clad women peeled from the mold infested walls and a narrow single bed was shoved against the wall in the corner of the room. The thing that horrified me most was what sat on top of the two tables, standing side by side in the opposite corner.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  A dismembered cat lay across a blood stained newspaper on the table to the right and a live rabbit scurried around a cage on top of the table to the left. The rabbit’s eyes had been gouged out and numerous lacerations and burn marks were streaked over its body.

  “Ah, Jesus,” I gasped, doing my best to hold down the rising bile in my stomach.

  “That guy is sick,” Batfish rasped, with a disgusted scowl on her face.

  “Oh, I didn’t notice that when I came in here to get the dog,” Chloe whined, standing in the doorway behind us. “He was tied to the bedpost on the other side of the room. I got in and out as quick as I could but I thought it smelled horrible in here.”

  I briefly scanned the rest of the room. A few shelving racks contained a few car and porn magazines but there was no sign of any of our weapons and ammunition.

  “He’s not here, let’s go,” I groaned.

  “Wait,” Batfish called out, moving to the animal cage on the table. “We can’t just leave that poor thing in her
e.” She opened the cage and carefully lifted the rabbit out and put the poor creature onto the floor. Its nose twitched and it scurried along beside the wall, turned through the open door and disappeared into the shadows.

  “You know it probably won’t live that much longer?” I said. “The poor bastard had no eyes.”

  “At least it won’t die at the hands of that fucking freak,” Batfish spat.

  We hurried out of the disgusting room and I pulled the door closed.

  “We could try Trevor’s room,” Chloe suggested. “He might know where Mo is.”

  I looked at Batfish and she nodded.

  “Okay, we’ve got plenty of time now,” she groaned.

  Chloe knocked on the door next to Mo’s. “Trevor?”

  Again, there was no reply from the room. What did these people do with their time and where did they go?

  Chloe tried the handle and the door opened a crack. “Trevor?” she called again, opening the door wider.

  Batfish and I both recoiled in shock at the horrific sight that met us and Chloe emitted a loud scream, holding her hands to her face. Trevor sat upright on his bed, leaning with his back against the wall. His trousers were pulled down around his ankles and his face and chest were coated with blood. The handle of a switchblade protruded from his left eye socket, with the blade deeply imbedded into his brain.

  “Fuck, what’s going on around here?” I spluttered.

  Batfish lurched forward and closed the door.

  “Okay, I think we should leave the castle, right now,” she garbled, running her hands through her hair.

  Chloe breathed heavily in rasping gasps, shaking in panic.

  “We still have to find Gera,” I said.

  “He’s probably dead, Brett,” Batfish croaked. “I just want to leave.”

  “We can’t just go without him,” I groaned. “What if he’s locked away someplace?”

  I glanced back at Maddie’s door, expecting her to burst out of the room at any moment. Was she capable of stabbing Trevor to death? Or was it Rory? Mo? Alex? Davie? Mrs McMahon? I couldn’t understand the motive behind his obvious murder. Had somebody flicked through the employment files and found out about Trevor’s shady past?

  “Let’s get away from these rooms,” I said, trying to find a compromise.

  I led the way down the spiral staircase, my legs shaking with every step. Chloe sniffled in heaving gasps behind me. Batfish followed at the rear, turning around to glance back up the staircase every few steps, presumably checking for anybody pursuing us. The events since we’d been in the castle spun around in my head. Things seemed to be getting crazier every minute we stayed inside the building.

  I heard more crying and wondered why Chloe had started to blub so heavily as a delayed reaction. Then I realized the wailing wasn’t coming from behind me but drifting up from the level below us. I stopped on the staircase when we were at the recreation room floor. Below us was the dusty storeroom with the cellar beneath, where Davie had locked up Batfish, Wingate and Cordoba.

  “Come on, Brett,” Batfish scolded. “What have you stopped for?”

  “Listen,” I hissed. “Can you hear that?”

  We stood in silence on the staircase and heard an eerie sobbing, like a child.

  “It’s coming from down below us,” I whispered.

  “Aw, come on, Brett. Let’s leave it, okay,” Batfish pleaded.

  I was torn. I really didn’t want to go down into the dark store room but somebody could be hurt down there. What if Mo or Davie had pushed someone down the staircase?

  “Let’s just see who it is first,” I said.

  “Brett!” Batfish growled, through gritted teeth.

  I carried on clambering down the steps. Chloe and Batfish cautiously followed, a few paces behind. I still had my gun at the ready in my hand and Batfish illumined the steps with her flashlight.

  “Don’t forget the broken steps at the bottom,” I said, as we approached the foot of the staircase.

  The sobbing ceased immediately after I’d spoken and I heard a scrabbling noise as though somebody was crawling away from us across the floor.

  “Who’s there?” I called out into the blackness and jumped down the last few wrecked steps.

  Somebody sniffled and I heard more scraping noises. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my flashlight, then quickly turned it on. The beam picked out a dirty, emaciated figure hunched on the floor, pressing themselves against the stack of chairs I’d moved earlier.

  “Who the hell is that?” I gasped.

  The figure curled into a ball, hiding their face from the flashlight beam. All I could make out was an unkempt mop of sandy colored hair, a filthy, light blue hooded top and torn dark blue jog pants.

  Batfish and Chloe touched down into the storeroom floor behind me. I glanced back at them and then gestured towards the sniveling figure. I pointed both the flashlight and my handgun at the coiled human shape beside the chairs.

  “Somebody’s down here,” I hissed.

  Chloe stared at the figure and took a couple of cautious forward steps.

  “Jimmy?” she whispered. “Is that you, Jimmy Sloane?”

  “Who the hell is Jimmy Sloane?” Batfish asked.

  “He lived here for a while. I think he used to work here but haven’t seen him for ages,” Chloe explained. “I thought he’d left the castle.”

  She took another pace toward him and bent forward slightly. “Hey, Jimmy. Don’t be scared. It’s me, Chloe. You remember me?”

  The figure turned his head slightly towards us and we gasped collectively when the flashlight shone over his face.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The grimy figure, who Chloe had told us was named, Jimmy Sloane, was covered in splatters of sticky blood over his face and down the front of his hooded top. Tears and snot trickled through the blood spatters on his cheeks. His brown eyes stared into the light, amongst the mess over his face.

  “Jimmy, what’s happened to you?” Chloe gasped.

  “I don’t think it’s his blood,” I sighed. I’d noticed streaks of blood on his right hand and up his sleeve. “I think it was him who stabbed Trevor,” I said quietly.

  Jimmy turned his face away, sobbing once again and rested his head on his arms, which were wrapped around his knees. I exchanged anxious glances with Batfish. We didn’t need this extra complication.

  “Did you kill Trevor?” Chloe asked, in a soft tone.

  Jimmy nodded his head slightly amongst his arms. He muttered something inaudible from beneath his limbs.

  “Why? Why did you do it, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy turned his head to the light, his red eyes squinting against the flashlight. I lowered the beam slightly so it wasn’t shining directly into his eyes.

  “He made me do things with him,” Jimmy spluttered. “Horrible things I didn’t want to do. He’d made me do those things for a long time. I couldn’t take it anymore so I stole the knife from Mo’s room and stabbed him with it.”

  “Why didn’t you say something to the rest of us?” Chloe asked.

  Jimmy sniveled but composed himself a little more to speak. “He was doing it to me long before you came here. He used to abuse me and Shona. That’s why she killed herself. I’ve been trying to hide away but he caught me in the kitchen when I was taking food. He said he’d tell Alex and have me thrown outside with those horrible creatures if I didn’t do what he said.”

  I felt sick. Trevor not only was guilty of viewing indecent images but of full blown mistreatment of this young man and that young girl, who had taken to hanging herself rather than face more exploitation at the hands of her abuser. I’d been shocked when I first saw Trevor’s body and the way he was killed but now I understood why Jimmy had finally snapped and taken his revenge. With no law and order or court system to protect the innocent, people like Trevor were free to commit their vile crimes without fear of prosecution.

  “Chloe,” I whispered. “Let’s get him out of here and get
him cleaned up.”

  She nodded and crouched over Jimmy and took hold of his arm to try and help him up.

  “These two are called Brett and Batfish,” she said. “They are good people and they are going to get us out of here.”

  I flashed Batfish a worried glance. It looked like Chloe had just invited Jimmy along for the ride. Another burden. Batfish gave me a slight shrug, as if to say ‘what can we do?’

  “We’ll take you to the wash room and get you cleaned up,” Chloe said. She turned to face us as she helped Jimmy to his feet. “The log fires heat the water tank but our wash room is basic. The water pumps around the whole castle on its own system, so Alex has told me. I’ll take you there with Jimmy.”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  Chloe and Batfish climbed the staircase with Jimmy between them. I led the way, still with my M-9 by my side. I didn’t know what the hell this place was going to throw up at me next.

  Chloe took the lead when we reached the upper level and she bypassed the recreation room and the dining area through a narrow walkway, beyond the spiral staircase. She seemed to know the castle passageways avoiding the main thoroughfares and I realized she must have used these routes to keep tracking us while staying hidden in the shadows.

  I shone my flashlight inconspicuously around, trying to shine the light on Jimmy for a better look at him while he walked in front of me. He was small, skinny and looked both underdeveloped and malnourished. I’d have guessed he was around fourteen years old. I couldn’t remember seeing his name amongst the employment files in the office but I was curious to know if he was an ex-criminal as well.

  “What work did you used to do here, Jimmy?” I asked, trying to take his mind away from the horrific act he’d recently committed.

  He sniffed, wiped his nose on his sleeve and turned his head slightly. “I used to be a caddy. You know? Helping the golfers around the course with their golf clubs. Basically, carrying their bags for them and handing out the clubs they asked for. It was a good job, so it was. I used to get plenty of good tips from the rich guys who used to come and play here.”