by Rod Glenn
Natalie wound her window down a fraction to let the smoke from her cigarette escape in bluish plumes. “No, let’s go to Haydon. We can get a room at that pub we stayed in last year and then head out in the morning.”
Sam shook his head. “W-what about D-Dad? I-I-I need to get t-to him t-t-tonight.”
With her cigarette hanging out of her mouth, Natalie turned in her seat and grabbed his hand in both of hers. Her tone was kind, but firm. “No, honey. Your dad wouldn’t want you to risk your life. We can get some rest then head out first thing. It’s for the best, honey.”
A particularly strong gust of wind buffeted the small car, causing chunks of the thick snow piled on the bonnet to blow across the windscreen, fleetingly obscuring their view of the dark, wintry road.
As the wipers cleared the view one more time, Sam glanced ahead of them along the road, stretching into what appeared to be nothingness. A quiver crept across his shoulder blades. Reluctantly, Sam nodded and briefly sagged back in his seat.
It didn't work out, so I took a souvenir … her pretty head.
Angry, cold and drained, Bryce trudged across the thick snow-covered courtyard to the farmhouse. The poor light and the storm obscured old footprints easily, not that his weary disposition would have spotted them in any case. The cold and wet seemed to have seeped right into his bones, flaring up all his old aches and pains, picked up over the years from a tough farming life. It certainly hadn’t been an easy life, having started helping his father from an earlier age than Anthony was now, but he would not have changed it for the world.
As he drew nearer, the lights from the house offered improved illumination, so he turned off the torch and popped it in his pocket. He left the long over/under barrel of the shotgun broken over his arm. Grumpily, he pondered on how he would need to strip it down and thoroughly clean and oil the barrel, hinge and action after the beating it had taken from the elements. In actual fact, he didn’t mind cleaning his guns at all, finding the process quite therapeutic, especially accompanied by Bob Dylan straining across threadbare lyrics with his teeth-kicking, iconic sound. But his mood was such, that even the thought of a normally uplifting chore darkened his mood still further. The first thing he was going to do was fire up a smoke to help ward off the icy chill.
The front door was unlocked, as it generally was when someone was home. Stomping his snow and mud-caked boots on the welcome mat, he swung the door open and called, “Sal, I’m back. Didn’t get the bugger though.”
As he stepped into the hall his blood ran as cold as his extremities. Glancing to his left towards the kitchen, he saw the floor and walls awash with swathes of congealing blood. Lying sprawled, amidst the expanse of crimson, was one of the dogs; it may have been Cody, but he couldn’t tell for sure because of its head hanging off and facing away from him, partially submerged in the sticky mass. Its coat, too, was drenched across the back and hind quarters. It seemed an impossible amount of blood from a single dog. His hall had been turned into an abattoir while he had been running around in the snow chasing ghosts.
As the horrific scene began to sink in to his numbed mind, a wild panic swept over him. Then, registering just above the pounding of his heart, he heard soft crying coming from … the cellar.
“Sally! Anthony!” he cried with an anguished tone, one notch from hysteria. Reacting, rather than thinking, he dashed to his right and around a short corner to the wide open door of the cellar. Cracking shut the shotgun, he stood at the top of the stairs, staring into the darkness down below. The fear of what he might find down there caused a moment of hesitation. They could have been … they could be ... The crying continued; it was Anthony.
“Son! I’m coming!” Bryce started forward, but his boot clipped a low wire strung across the crest of the opening. He stumbled forward into the darkness, his shocked cry paving the way.
There was a rapid series of thumps, in harmony with the cracking and creaking complaints of the staircase, followed quickly by a thunderous crash, and the distinctive blast of both barrels of the shotgun discharging.
The force of Bryce’s boot on the wire pulled the cellar door shut with a slam and half a dozen six foot logs piled behind it crashed down in front of the closed door.
Da dead Ron Ron Ron.
The howling wind buffeted the sash windows, causing several draughts between the cracked and rotting frames to flutter the curtains like restless spirits. Ron Foster sat slouched on the sofa, a can of lukewarm Red Stripe atop his rounded stomach and his chin resting on his collarbone. The sound of a distant chainsaw emanated from his nostrils. The white t-shirt stretched over his portly frame was stained with several blotches of beer.
The television showed the muted picture of a panel of self-important guests sat heatedly debating some topic or other. A ticker bar across the bottom of the screen revealed telephone and text details for viewers to add their own views on the subject, now revealed as western manipulation on the Middle East. The simple pendant light fitting lent a dimmed orange glow to the cosy room.
Erika Foster shuffled into the room in a floral dressing gown. Her eyes were bloodshot and sunken into purple hollows. Patches of cracked, angry skin had erupted on the backs of her hands and around her neck. She stood just inside the doorway for a moment and absently scratched her concealed thigh. She looked down at her husband with what, at first, seemed like impatience, but then her features softened.
She moved quietly over to him and gently removed the can from its perch. Popping it down on the coffee table, she then placed a tender kiss on his forehead. She managed a weak smile and stood up to leave.
“Touching,” Whitman said from the doorway. Encumbered with thick clothing and equipment, Whitman appeared to fill the entire doorway. The smile on his lips was friendly enough, but his stance was coiled.
Startled, Erika knocked the coffee table, sending the half full can of lager careening onto the carpet, spilling its frothing contents across the floor. Her husband grunted and stirred.
Whitman tutted and shook his head slightly. “That’ll stain if you’re not careful.”
“You!” With recognition came venom. “You did have something to do with our Mandy’s disappearance!”
Ron groggily raised his head and blinked. “Wha? Eri?”
Whitman sighed and nodded grudgingly. “Yeah, yeah I did.”
The admission stunned Erika into horror-struck silence and caused Ron to sit up, rapidly shaking off any drowsiness.
“Sorry, but yes, I followed Mandy into the woods and murdered her. I chopped her body into a dozen pieces and buried her out there.” There was no passion in his words, just a faint impression of relief. It actually felt good to finally put Mandy’s long-suffering parents in the picture and out of their misery. Hopefully it would ease their passing.
The words were not matching his body language or his tone. Ron stood up clumsily, saying, “Fuck you talking about?”
As the truth of his words sunk in, Erika burst into tears. Vehemently, she shook her head, uttering in a low, rasping voice, “No, no, God no, it’s not true.” She covered her streaming eyes with shaking hands as her mouth continued to work soundlessly.
Ron stood staring at Whitman, his mouth wide and slumber forgotten. Struggling to force the words from his disbelieving mouth, he stammered, “You … killed … my daughter?”
Whitman shrugged. “Someone had to be the first. Consider Mandy the lucky one.”
Ron raised white-knuckle, clenched fists and, with the tone of a wounded bear, snarled, “I’m gunna rip you apart!” With that, he launched himself, cursing at his child’s killer.
“Ron!” Erika cried, wrenching her hands from her half-blinded eyes.
Whitman casually lifted the previously unseen knife from his side and thrust it deep into Ron’s sizeable stomach. A loud oof rushed from his shocked lips, but with a deep determination, fuelled with hatred, he managed to grip Whitman’s shoulders with vice-like pressure.
Spraying spittle throu
gh his clenched jaw, Ron screamed, “You murdered my Mandy!” He shoved Whitman back into the doorframe, jarring his back. Encircled by a dark patch rapidly spreading across his t-shirt, the knife slide out of his stomach and caused him to instantly double over in an agonising spasm.
In spite of the temporary sting in his back, Whitman reacted immediately. He raised the dripping knife into the air, his face set with resolve.
Her feet betrayed her, remaining anchored to the spot, but Erika managed to shriek a warning at her husband. Ron had a moment to glance up from his bent over position in time to see the knife descending towards him.
The blade barely faltered as it entered through Ron’s upturned eye, smashing through the fragile bones in the back of the socket and penetrating the brain. His body dropped to the floor with the suddenness of a massive brain haemorrhage. The weight of the body dragged the knife clutched in Whitman’s tight grip with it.
He had to shove a wet boot against the dead man’s neck to wrench it out with a wet sucking sound. Blood and fluid spurted forth from the gaping wound as the blade tore free, darkening the pastel-green shade of the carpet and spraying the wall and sofa. A fleeting vision of the Bryce hallway, complete with family portrait, doused with dripping gore, sparked across his mind’s eye.
Erika had gawped, petrified as her husband was butchered in front of her and now, his blood drenched their living room carpet. She fell to her hands and knees, retching violently. “Ronnie,” she managed feebly between teary gasps.
Whitman carefully stepped over Ron’s dead, bleeding body to tower over Erika as she continued to retch dryly. He chewed his lip for a moment as he watched her body judder with each painful seizure. Then, almost out of sympathy it would seem, he bent down to touch her back. It was a kindly gesture that she barely registered, as the unrelenting sobbing wracked her body.
With a sigh, he slid the crimson blade under the kneeling, hunched-over figure and brought it to her pale, gulping neck. She made no attempt to stop him; in fact if she had been capable of coherent thought, she would have welcomed it. With one swift movement, he opened her throat wide and watched as her body toppled over with a strangled gurgle caught on her lips.
Reverend end.
The church of St. Bart’s was shrouded in darkness as Reverend Dunhealy walked down the central aisle towards the altar. He rolled an unlit cigar between his thumb and forefinger in thoughtful contemplation. The low moan of the wind whistled through the eaves, sounding like a lonely wolf calling from a distant hilltop.
Four six foot stained glass windows, depicting St. Bartholomew, St. Oswald, St. Matthew and St. Mark, gazed down upon him. St. Bartholomew, looking forlorn with long flowing beard, Oswald, with proud, angular features, Mark’s rounded, cheerful face and Matthew, wise and craggy.
A noise behind him caused him to stop abruptly and turn around. He stood, motionless, his breath caught on the cold air in front of him, and his temporarily forgotten cigar dangling down by his side. “Is anyone there?”
Shadow and movement to his side. The Reverend turned, irritated. Standing below St. Oswald, complete with halo encircled crown and sword pointing to the ground ahead of him, he noticed a figure bathed in shadow.
Squinting to try to recognise the figure, he asked, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, Father.”
“No, it’s—” The Reverend stopped. Hesitantly, he ventured, “Mister Whitman?”
“And then some,” Whitman muttered. His silhouette did not betray the smile that had crept across his face.
Reverend Dunhealy’s frown turned to concern. Taking a step sideways towards the altar, he said, “You shouldn’t be in here. I would be happy to see you during normal hours.”
Whitman stepped out of the shadows, his face grinning and ghostly white against his glistening black clothing. “I have the devil in me, Father.” His tone and expression were deadly serious, but inside he fought to suppress a snort of amusement.
Maintaining eye contact, the Reverend sidestepped further towards the altar and raised his arms, the cigar dropping to the floor and skittering under one of the pews. “Stay away from me,” he commanded sternly, but the tremor in his voice betrayed his failing confidence.
“You look like an angel … walk like an angel … talk like an angel,” Whitman sung melodiously, just above a whisper as he strode towards the now terrified vicar.
The words seemed almost spellbinding at first as he continued to back away slowly, but then the Reverend seemed to shake off the hex and quickly turned and ran for the rear door beyond the altar.
Whitman gave chase, still singing, louder now. “But I got wise … you’re the devil in disguise … oh yes you are!”
As the Reverend fumbled at the door, Whitman caught up, grabbing him by the shoulder and spinning him round to face him. The lanky vicar was an inch or two taller, but Whitman’s wide frame more than made up for the height difference.
Despite the short distance, the Reverend was breathing heavily and his dog collar suddenly felt as if it were strangling him. His wide, fearful eyes, combined with his wild ginger hair, lent him a mad professor look. “Who are you?”
Whitman gripped him by both shoulders and leaned closer, their faces almost touching. “Don’t you recognise me, Reverend?” The final word was spat out in a snarl.
The Reverend struggled to widen the gap between their two faces, then his eyes fixed upon the few small spots of dried blood on his cheeks.
“Oh my God,” he uttered in a weak, faraway voice.
“Wrong one, preacher.” Whitman released one shoulder, his stare still fixed upon the Reverend’s eyes.
Sensing an inner struggle, Dunhealy drew strength from it. Quickly, he beseeched, “Let us pray together, my child. We can—”
The hunting knife sliced through his tunic, as if it were air, and buried deep into the soft flesh of the Reverend’s stomach.
“N-no, please,” Dunhealy whispered, his face contorted from the unexpected fire in his stomach.
“Shhh,” Whitman said soothingly to him, maintaining eye contact. Tightening his grip on the hilt, he started to saw slowly across the Reverend’s body, accompanied by a wet slicing noise that reminded him of carving a particularly rare roast beef joint. A gut wrenching splash followed as the Reverend’s intestines spilled out onto the stone floor.
The Reverend’s mouth worked, forming low murmuring sounds. His eyes stayed fixed on Whitman’s, but the fear and pain were gone, only a look of sadness remained.
Whitman let go of him and withdrew the drenched knife. Still staring at his attacker, Reverend Dunhealy slowly slid down the door. It was only when he crumpled onto his haunches and keeled over that eye contact was finally severed. His head smacked unceremoniously off cold stone. Entrails lay in a pile at his feet, with creamy yellow, fleshy cords leading from the pile to the Reverend’s butchered corpse.
The Reverend’s gaze had somehow fixed on the stained glass window depicting St. Bartholomew with three flaying knives on his cerulean robes. “Well, at least I didn’t skin you alive,” Whitman said genially, with a brief glance towards the saint. Slowly regulating his breathing, he added, “Or cut your heart out with a spoon.”
Whitman continued to stare at the lifeless body, seemingly lost in thought. He cocked his head to one side, scrutinising the dead priest, from his permanent gaze, to the pile of steaming entrails on the floor. Then, with a brief shiver brought on surely from the creeping damp of his clothing, he shook off the trance and slipped the knife back in its sheath. “Next,” he said, at once cheery again.
Icy snow crystals stung at Jimmy’s red, dripping face as he shuffled through the ankle-deep snow towards the door to his bed-sit. He was soaked and shivering, with thick green snot running from his nose to congeal in the week old stubble on his upper lip. He was too drained to bother wiping it away anymore. The cold had sapped every bit of strength from his aching, malnourished muscles.
The village appeared to be completely bereft
of life, with just a solitary orange glow from a bedroom window from across the street to act as a beacon on such a stormy night. He hadn’t seen Main Street, so he assumed there would be a few people still revelling in the Duck and the Miller’s at least, but here, there was nothing but the howling wind to keep him company. He thought for a moment of the warm and laughing people in the pubs, toasting each other and wishing each other a happy Christmas. The thought made him feel intolerably lonely, and chilled him to the core.
The sack was unmoving as he dragged it unenthusiastically along behind him, having stopped briefly to wring the necks of the four birds. It was a chore that he never had quite gotten the stomach for, despite having done it many times before.
As he reached the door, he fumbled with his numb hands to retrieve the key from his cold and wet jeans. Cursing as his alien hands refused to cooperate, he then noticed that the door was already ajar.
Too weary to care, he shoved the door aside and struggled into the dark musty hallway. There was no sound coming from his landlord’s flat on the ground floor, so after shaking some of the excess snow free from his jacket, he trudged as quietly as he could be bothered upstairs.
The door to his bed-sit was still broken so he nudged it aside and staggered in.
Without even troubling to push the door closed behind him, he slung the sack towards the kitchenette, shrugged out of his jacket and boots and collapsed onto the bed. His eyes closed and sleep embraced him almost immediately.
Life was good to me ’til now.
A quiet snoring drifted up from the king-size bed positioned against the fire breast wall of the spacious, decadently furnished bedroom. Three layers of complimentary voiles draped across the window, silk scatter cushions were splayed, top and bottom over the burgundy bed covers, and plush, crushed velvet wallpaper hung on every wall, broken only by paintings and photographs of cats (mainly Persian), and wall-hanging brass candle holders. The darkened room was hushed except for the rhythmic sounds emanating from the sleeping figure. Above him, on the fire breast wall, a sizeable oil painting adorned centre stage, depicting Moe Baxter on an opulent gold and jewel encrusted throne, stroking a fat Persian cat on his lap.