Sinema: The Northumberland Massacre

by Rod Glenn

  In sleep, Moe had managed to find an inner calm that eluded him in waking hours of late. It had been aided with several vodka martinis and a couple of sleeping pills, but the result was the same.

  There was a faint creak from behind the door. After a moment of silence, the brass doorknob turned slowly and the door eased open a fraction. Jill Fairbank eased her head round the door to check on her boss and friend. He appeared to be sleeping peacefully for the first time in weeks. She paused in the doorway for a while, watching him. He had been through so much. It had not been well known, and most of those who had known had scoffed, but Moe and Tess had been involved in a meaningful relationship for several years.

  He acted the camp clown at times, but he was a warm, sensitive man who had grown a deep love and respect for Tess over the years of their friendship. The village gossip had always suggested that it was just a thinly veiled attempt to hide his homosexuality, but, contrary to popular belief, Moe had never had those tendencies. He had, however, remained a virgin until much later in life, and over the years had developed deep anxieties towards intercourse and the opposite sex.

  It had been Tess who had finally stripped away those years of apprehension. She had done it out of friendship at first, insisting that, as friends, she would help him with what had become a huge issue in his life. But out of that joining, they had connected on a much deeper level and a full relationship developed.

  Moe had told his only other close friend, Jill, all about their relationship as it had developed, so Jill understood more than anyone the pain Moe had been going through since his partner’s death.

  Content that Moe was sleeping soundly, Jill quietly closed the door with a soft click and returned to the sofa bed in the lounge where the big Cream Point Persian, Mister Flibble, was already asleep in the centre of the thick rumpled duvet.

  The generous living room, decorated royal blue and cream, with vibrant green velvet curtains and potted yucca and spider plants, was lit by an Egyptian-style ceramic table lamp. Since the heating had turned itself off an hour ago, a chill was creeping in to the old house.

  She tied her hair back into a ponytail then quickly undressed out of her wool leggings and sweatshirt. Shivering, she grabbed a large Newcastle United shirt on the arm of the sofa. There, she paused, standing bathed in shadow, in only a cotton bra and knickers.

  It was Mister Flibble who had caused her pause for thought. The cat didn’t appear to be breathing, but in the poor light, it also appeared that there was a dark stain spreading out around him on the cream duvet cover.

  “Flibbles?” she asked hesitantly, the football top held close to her bosom. Slowly, she stepped forward and reached down to touch the still cat.

  As the tips of her fingers touched the fine, luxurious fur, something beneath the duvet twitched.

  Jill jumped and a startled cry escaped her lips as a large form took shape squirming under the duvet. “What the hell?” What was mild concern turned to alarm. She drew her hand back to clutching the football shirt against her chest.

  The movement pushed the cat onto its side and Jill caught a glimpse of a deep gash in its stomach. Then, slow and deliberate, a fully clothed Whitman sat up, the duvet falling away to his waist. The grin on his face was both jovial and insane at the same time. “Mister Flibble is flobbled, I’m afraid.”

  Panic rushed up from the pit of her stomach, and yet, in her mind’s eye, Jill caught a strange, fleeting image of a macabre version of Balamory. A vision of Miss Hoolie popping up out of the bed, singing, ‘what’s the story in Balamory …’

  Whitman whipped the cover off, revealing a long bloodied hunting knife in his other hand. The twisted vision of Miss Hoolie, grinning like a maniac, with blood dripping off elongated incisors evaporated in a wave of terror. She started to scream, but Whitman was on her in a flash, knocking the breath and voice out of her. On the floor, he clamped one hand over her mouth as he pressed all of his weight upon her.

  She could smell his hot breath, tainted with stale coffee, straining against her cheek. She thrashed about under his weight, her arms and legs flailing wildly, desperate to break free. Her bare foot struck the metal support under the sofa bed, tearing a wedge of flesh from her little toe, but in her blind panic, she felt nothing but a desperate urge to flee.

  His grip seemed to ease slightly, offering her a flash of hope, but then he brought the soiled knife up to her head and, with one swift thrust, rammed it into her ear. Her muffled screaming and struggling continued for a moment longer in erratic twitches, before rapidly ebbing away. Her body sagged beneath him and went limp.

  For good measure, Whitman forced the blade deeper still into the side of her head, scraping through bone and cartilage. Blood ran freely, dripping off her earlobe and the hilt of the knife. A mushy, squelching sound accompanied its steady advance, until the blade was fully submerged. Wisps of her soft, splayed hair rested on the back of his gloved hand. He gazed at the delicate ash-blonde strands for some time as her faint twitches finally dissipated, then, with great effort, he withdrew the knife and rose to his feet.

  He grabbed a corner of the duvet that was half slumped on the floor beside one of Jill’s upturned hands and wiped the blade clean through it. It was a routine that he had gone through several times already throughout the night, and would do many more times yet. A smear remained on the blade, but he dropped it to his side without noticing and walked quickly into the hallway and to Moe’s room.

  He made no attempt to be stealthy as he flung the bedroom door open and strode in. Moe Baxter was still fast asleep, facing him on his side, undisturbed by Whitman’s clunking footfalls, or the brief scuffle in the lounge.

  Suddenly impatient, Whitman crossed quickly over to the side of the bed and knelt down in front of the sleeping man. The blade slowly rose to within millimetres of Moe’s flabby chin, the steel glinting briefly from the soft light in the hall. There was silence, save for his hushed snoring.

  “Drop your cock and grab your socks!” Whitman yelled, drill sergeant style, in the hairdresser’s face.

  Moe made a grunting noise and his eyes blinked open. “Wha’?”

  “Hey, Moe, how ya doing, big fella?” Whitman said merrily with a broad smile. “Christmas has come early, dickhead.”

  After blinking several more times, Moe’s eyes widened as they recognised the face in front of him. A fraction of a second after that recognition, he realised that he was in fact awake and it wasn’t some kind of twisted nightmare.

  Whitman did not give him any more time to react. He thrust the knife into his wide, gaping mouth.

  Perhaps we can frighten the ghosts of so many years ago … with a little illumination.

  A groan lifted up through the dusty gloom. The cellar was in complete darkness, except for the tiniest sliver of dim light squeezing through the gap between door and floor at the top of the stairs.

  A second groan followed, then the slow, scraping movement of boots on the concrete floor.

  John Bryce sat up on the cold floor, his mind dazed and reeling. He tentatively touched his forehead and was unsurprised to feel a congealing gash, the main cause for his pounding head, no doubt. His body was aching and stiff all over from the numerous knocks he had taken on his rapid decent down the stairs.

  The cellar smelled dusty and dank and forced an involuntary cough to escape his lungs. Pain erupted in his chest from its force; possibly a cracked rib. Clutching his sore ribs with one hand and leaning back on the other, he tried to make sense of recent events.

  It took a few moments for his scrambled brain to reshuffle everything back into order. Cody dead … blood-splattered walls … Anthony.

  “Anthony!” His voice was shrill and loaded with fear.

  The cold and dust seemed to consume his cry. Silence was his answer.

  After carefully standing, favouring a possible sprain, he edged towards the bottom of the stairs where the light switch was. His hand eased along the rough stone wall until it hit the plastic casi
ng of the switch.

  The vociferous click was a harsh, dead sound in the confined space. The single naked bulb in the centre of the room remained dark. He flicked it on and off a couple more times, but to no avail. “Shit,” he muttered in frustration. Fighting back the urge to cry out a second time, he remembered the torch in his pocket.

  Praying that the fall hadn’t damaged the bulb, he fumbled to retrieve it and gingerly tried the switch. An orange beam struck the far wall, revealing shelves crammed with boxes of toilet rolls, cleaning products and an assortment of household items.

  Sucking in a breath and holding it, he swept the beam across the room. It quickly fell upon an unmoving bare leg.

  “Sally!” He rushed over to her, but stopped dead as the beam revealed the rest of his wife’s body. She lay twisted in a crumpled heap, drenched in blood and with wide staring, lifeless eyes. The colour rushed from his face and he felt a sudden urge to vomit. “Sally …” The repeated word was feeble, like the rustle of reeds.

  The rising panic was impossible to stem. “Son!” Sweeping the beam further across the room, it fell upon, what looked at first like a small bundle of rags in the corner.

  Bryce staggered forward, nausea flooding his head; threatening to spin him into oblivion. His knocks and pains were completely forgotten, all consumed by a desperate dread. As he approached, he saw tufts of hair poking from the top of the bundle, and an arm and a leg sticking out to one side.

  Drawing closer, he realised, with utter disbelief, that the head and limbs were not attached to the torso. Anthony had been dismembered and the parts deposited unceremoniously in a pile in the corner of the room. A small chrome Dictaphone had been placed neatly next to the head, but the batteries had died, silencing the deception while the farmer lay unconscious.

  Bryce dropped to his knees and threw up in front of the dismembered corpse of his son. His despairing cries were lost within the shrinking walls around him. Long after he had nothing left to vomit, he continued dry-retching, his torch and sanity discarded.

  CHAPTER 10

  There's a number on the wall for all of us, angel, and if tonight's the night they pick mine, so be it. After you, sweetheart.

  The backdoor to Lisa’s flat opened with an audible click after a simple turn of the key that Lisa had freely given him. Whitman stepped into a narrow hall with a steep set of stairs in front of him. Gusting flakes of snow blew in behind, prompting him to quickly shut the door. In the darkness, he could make out the closed door at the top of the stairs that led to the kitchen. A thin strip of light pierced the darkness at the foot of the door. The kitchen light was on.

  He ascended the stairs swiftly but quietly. At the top, he paused to listen at the door as dripping, icy water pooled around his feet. After a moment, he eased it open and crept inside. The kitchen was deserted, but the door to the hallway was open and the muffled sounds of a television could be heard from the lounge. Carefully picking his way through Haley’s usual discarded plastic animals, headless dolls and crayons, he crossed to the hall.

  The lounge door was ajar. Peering inside, the room was lit only by a basic chrome IKEA standard lamp and the flickering images from the television. Ironically to Whitman (or perhaps, tragically to the occupant), Halloween was showing. Whitman paused to listen to Donald Pleasance’s haunting monologue to the cynical Sheriff.

  “I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes ... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realised what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply ... evil.”

  Smiling to himself, he reluctantly drew his eyes away from the screen. The back of the sofa obscured whoever was lounging on it, but he could just make out two slender dangling feet kicking lazily off the edge. In the gloom, he could just make out dark toenail polish.

  Whitman already knew who the babysitter was. He had met her several times. She was a cute high school girl; fourteen or fifteen, if he remembered rightly, but already with quite a figure on her. Kelly Mason, Paul Mason’s daughter, was Lisa’s regular choice of babysitter. She was a little introverted, with goth tendencies, purple streaks in her hair and nose and tongue piercings. A younger Lisa in the making.

  Scarcely breathing, he eased the door open further then slipped into the room. He crept the short distance to the back of the sofa and peered over the top.

  Kelly was lying on her front with her head resting on one arm, engrossed in the film. Good taste in films. Shame really. Her long, messy hair was splayed out around her, covering most of her Jesus and Mary Chain 1992 Rollercoaster tour t-shirt (despite being a fan, Whitman recollected that tour being a particularly bad one. The naivety of youth).

  As he stood, watching Kelly watch the film, a thought occurred to him. He had to clamp his mouth shut to stop himself laughing out loud. Slowly, he drew his hunting knife as he crouched down on his haunches behind the sofa. After taking a moment to judge where her midsection would be, he then brought the knife back and immediately thrust it forward with all his strength.

  A startled cry, part shock and part pain, followed. He quickly withdrew the freshly bloodied blade and vaulted over the back of the sofa to land in front of the squirming girl. Another scream caught on her lips as she gasped for breath. She stared wide-eyed and terrified at the grinning intruder standing before her.

  “Surprise!” Whitman said cheerily. With a wave of his knife hand towards the television, which splattered a few droplets of blood across the beige carpet, he added, “Who’d you expect? Michael Myers?”

  She burst into tears as she forced herself upright, clutching the oozing wound in her side. Pressing her back against the sofa, she held out one hand, imploring. “Please, oh please, no!”

  “Say hello to the real boogeyman.” With a sneer curling his top lip, he launched himself upon her.

  The struggle was brief. He stood up from Kelly’s still, bleeding body and considered his handiwork. He was breathing heavily and sweat dribbled down his forehead and cheeks. The young girl’s chest had been stabbed repeatedly and her head slumped to one side, a tortured look of horror frozen into her features. The blue fabric of the sofa was awash with the pooling dark stains of Kelly’s blood. The position she had naturally fallen into was a vivid reminder of Mandy’s after his first, virgin assault. A flash of burning orbs caused him to blink momentarily.

  Not wishing to linger over the teenager’s body or the memories it ignited, he walked out of the lounge without looking back. He headed instinctively for the box room (which was only marginally smaller than the main bedroom). This door too, was slightly ajar. He paused with one bloodstained, gloved hand on the doorframe.

  A look of uncertainty flickered across his sweaty face as he continued to draw in deep breaths. He stared at the door for what seemed like an age, a frown burrowing dark lines into his features. All this killing was turning into quite a chore, but that was not what stayed his hand. An image of Vanessa formed at the back of his mind; her dreadfully sad look unmistakable and undistorted by time. The spectral image seemed to waver, and suddenly, in her place, Lisa was staring at him, her look of horror enough to draw the hairs up on his arms. Her black, gaping maw formed soundless words, pleading. As the vision faded, he glimpsed her eyes turning flame red, and her mouth contorting with rage.

  He drew a long, shaky breath, then planted his palm firmly on the door and pushed it open.

  Haley was sleeping soundly in her bed, tucked tightly into a Little Mermaid duvet cover. The soft, rhythmic sound of her breathing was melodic in the deathly silence.

  “Come on Tam, if yae wanna lock in, get yourself along tae the Duck,” Big Joe said to Tam’s slumped form on the edge of the bar. There was still good humour in his tone, but it was starting t
o wear thin. He folded his arms over the top of his big stomach. After a moment, the old timer grunted, stepped shakily down from his stool and made a poor attempt at straightening his overcoat.

  Lisa trudged through from the lounge, yawning. Flashing Christmas tree earrings dangled from her lobes, but her demeanour lacked the cheer the novelty earrings suggested.

  “Git yourself away, lassie,” he told her.

  Leaning against the bar, she stifled another yawn and said, “Do you mind if I wait for Han? I was hoping he’d be back by now.”

  “Nae botha,” Big Joe replied with a shrug. “Where’s he been the neet? He missed Martha’s minced pies.”

  “Said he had a couple of people to see in Rothbury – research for the book.”

  “Lucky he’s got that jeep of his, with this foul weather.” Big Joe watched Tam as he slumped back against the stool, mumbling to himself. Shaking his head, he said to Lisa, “I’m sure Martha’ll make a fresh batch tomorrow.”

  Lisa rubbed the back of her aching neck and nodded, too tired to respond.

  Tam finally struggled back to his feet and muttered something that might have been a goodnight while he wrapped a moth-eaten scarf around his scrawny neck. He shuffled precariously to the door and left without another word. Snow had been gathering up against the door and flakes blew in as the old man forced his way out into the storm.