by Rod Glenn
“Be careful, Tam!” Big Joe shouted after him.
The door slammed shut behind him. Tam pulled his coat tight around his frail form as he shuffled through the deep snow. The icy wind whipped his thinning grey hair into a frenzy and blasted his ruddy, broken-veined cheeks. At the intersection with Miller’s Road, a dark figure was waiting for him.
Tam stopped, the wind rocking him unsteadily on his feet. He stared at the figure through rheumy eyes and smiled. “What do you want?”
Whitman moved closer to him to ensure that the old man would hear him clearly over the gusting wind. “What do you think I want, you miserable old bastard?”
Tam laughed; it was more like a cackle, bearing what stained teeth remained in his mouth. “Come for me now, eh?”
Drawing the knife from under his jacket, Whitman replied, “Let’s just say; there may be trouble ahead.”
Listen to the wind blow,
Watch the sun rise,
Run in the shadows,
Damn your love,
Damn your lies,
And if,
You don't love me now,
You will never love me again,
I can still hear you saying,
You would never break the chain …
The lights flickered as Big Joe locked the front door. Glancing up to the ceiling, he muttered, “Ah shite, that’s all we need.”
“I’ve never seen it as bad as this,” Lisa said from her slouched position on one of the bar stools. She was staring wistfully at one of the curtained windows, resting her chin in the palm of her hand.
Big Joe paused, listening to the low howl of the storm raging outside. “Aye, worst un I’ve seen in maybe twennie years.”
“Like that Day After Tomorrow film, eh?”
Big Joe had to think for a minute. “Aye, the one with the science lab thing in Scotland with nae one of them proper Scots and they all freeze tae death.”
“Yeah and that gorgeous one from Donnie Darko.”
“No my type,” Big Joe said, which made them both laugh.
A frown touched the edges of Lisa’s tired features. “God, I hope Han is okay.”
The landlord turned to her and offered her a reassuring smile. “Danae yae worry. Han’ll be fine. If he didnae get away from Rothbury in time, he’ll just have tae stay the night. I’m sure Graham and Lisa, or Cath or maybe Bill and Teresa would be able tae put him up fae the night. One of them are bound tae have a spare bed.”
Lisa lifted her head off her hand and returned the smile. “Thanks, Joe,” she said sincerely.
Scratching his stomach, Big Joe yawned and said, “Right I better get off tae bed before Martha starts wondering where I’ve got tae.”
“Don’t worry, she won’t.” Whitman was standing in the doorway which led to the kitchens and staircase. His dark clothes were wet, crumpled and torn in a couple of places. Darker stains were spattered across his chest, legs and arms, and several smeared spots of blood were visible on his forehead and cheeks, despite the moisture from snow and sweat. He was just finishing off a hastily hacked piece of homemade bread that he had swiped on the way through from the kitchen to satiate his grumbling stomach.
Big Joe and Lisa both performed a double take before recognising the panting, animal-like man lurking in the doorway, gulping down the remnants of some bread.
Big Joe frowned. “Han? Is that yae laddie? Yae look like yae been dragged through a hedge backwards.”
Lisa hesitantly stepped forward, against her instincts. Her voice filled with concern, and a trace of fear, she said, “Honey? What’s happened? Did you have a crash?”
Stepping into the room, towards them, Whitman said, “Everyone’s dead. I killed them.”
The simple honesty in his voice caused Big Joe to step backwards. He glanced nervously towards Lisa, before saying, “What yae talking aboot, laddie?” He grunted a half-laugh at the absurdness of it.
“I killed Moe and Jill, Tam, Sally and Anthony, the Reverend …” his voice trailed off as his eyes seemed to mist over momentarily. Then his fierce stare fixed upon Lisa. “Tess and Mandy too.”
Lisa staggered backwards with the force of his glare, using the bar to stop herself from collapsing to the ground. His words were laced with lunacy, but his rabid look seemed only to confirm them. “What are saying? Han? Stop it!”
Her distraught plea momentarily thinned out the red mist and tugged at something inside that caused his heart to skip a beat. Grinding his teeth, he strained to banish it into the murky depths.
Big Joe kept his eyes glued to this man who he had known for many months as a friendly and genuine man who now resembled a wild animal. Cautiously, he reached across the bar and took hold of a heavy glass ashtray. “This isnae funny,” he said as the ashtray slipped behind his back.
Whitman slowly, purposefully, closed the gap. His stare switched to Big Joe and a smile slowly crept across his face. “I’ve just killed your fat wife too.”
Big Joe’s heart pounded in his chest and his face flushed. “What?” A mixture of rage, fear and disbelief tugged the word in different directions.
Tears began streaming down Lisa’s cheeks as she brought her hands up to cover her quivering mouth. Her strength seemed to be seeping out of the soles of her feet as she sagged against the bar, her legs unable to support her. “Han …” The single word embodied her shattered dreams and utter hopelessness.
Whitman stopped, within a couple of yards from them. The knife that had been concealed up his sleeve slowly emerged into view, dripping with fresh blood. Casually, and with somewhat forced pleasure, he said, “I stuck her like a pig.”
That was enough for Big Joe Falkirk. He surged forward and, despite his bulk, crossed the distance with surprising speed and agility. Swinging the thick ashtray like a club, Big Joe bawled, “Bastard!”
Whitman stepped back and brought his own weapon up in a short upward swipe, tearing open Big Joe’s forearm and cutting his faded thistle tattoo in half.
The landlord cried out in pain, but did not break off the attack. With his uninjured arm, he shoved Whitman backwards, screaming a torrent of obscenities. His jowly face was crimson and his chest heaved and shuddered with the effort. With Whitman’s final words still reverberating around his seared mind, nothing else existed, nothing else mattered, but a primal need to kill.
Whitman stumbled into a low round table, but was surging forward again in seconds as Big Joe struggled to switch the ashtray to his good hand.
Through a finger veil, Lisa cried out, “No, please!” Tears soaked her cheeks and her shoulders shuddered in time with her sobbing. This could not be happening. This had to be some kind of insane nightmare. Her mouth worked, forming whispered words, as she prayed and begged that maybe it was just a nightmare, some terrible, terrible dream. But deep down, she knew in her heart that all the hopes and dreams of a future, as a family together, had been abruptly and absolutely destroyed.
Big Joe started to bring the ashtray down to connect with the top of Whitman’s head, but the younger, fitter man was much quicker. Whitman stuck the knife into the landlord’s fat stomach, causing a short, sharp gasp to escape Big Joe’s blue, snarling lips.
The ashtray clattered to the floor as Lisa looked on, fighting for breath as her throat constricted and her lungs tightened.
“Danae … understand …” Big Joe uttered, his face scrunched up with the pain.
Whitman leant closer to whisper in his ear. “You all have to die.” With that, he tore the knife loose, splattering blood across the bar and floor. As Big Joe staggered back a step, Whitman slashed him across the throat, opening up a gaping wound which pumped blood down his shuddering body.
Big Joe’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he keeled over against the bar. The solid cherrywood bar creaked with the impact from his shoulder and head, clinking glasses stacked on the shelves behind. With the front of his shirt awash, and the colour literally draining from his features, Big Joe slid face forward i
nto a crumpled, dead heap.
Lisa had backed off, now just whimpering softly. Her whole body was shaking uncontrollably.
Whitman walked over to her, smiling through a blood-splattered mask. As he approached, he said pleasantly, “How you holding up, princess?”
Cowering away with each word like they were sparking embers, the trembling grew stronger as she struggled to say, “St-stay away!”
Whitman feigned upset. “Charming! After all we’ve been through together.”
“Why?” she asked softly between snivels, barely able to maintain eye contact with this man, this monster. “I … loved you.”
He tried to touch the side of her face, but she recoiled away violently. He frowned at that, seemingly surprised at such a show of revulsion. “I love you too, Lisa. This isn’t about us.”
Lisa looked up through her streaming eyes, briefly wiping away clear snot oozing from one nostril. “Not about us?” The words came out shrill and choked. “You’re … murdering … EVERYONE!”
Whitman felt an overwhelming urge to make her understand. “Look,” he implored, “I didn’t mean for … us to happen. I’m sorry, okay?”
“Sorry?” She managed an abrupt, strangled laugh that sounded like the dying convulsions from a hanging man. She had backed off all the way to the locked front door. Whitman had moved with her, seemingly unaware that they had been moving at all.
“It’s nothing personal, Lisa, but I’ve got to keep emotion out of this.” His tone remained deeply apologetic. Continuing, he added, “If it’s any consolation, I made it quick for Haley because I cared so much about the two of you.”
The sobs stopped instantly and Lisa’s bloodshot eyes darted a look of utter horror at Whitman. One thing she had never contemplated – couldn’t possibly even imagine in the midst of her darkest fears – was … a sound rumbled in her throat that quickly began to build momentum. Her face that had, a moment ago, been stricken with fear and devastation, now contorted into unadulterated hatred. “My … angel … ” Her words were scarcely words at all, more like feral barks.
A flicker of concern fleetingly marred Whitman’s features, but then, raising the knife, he added, “And it will be quick for you too, my love.” As she surged at him with hands distorted like claws, he thrust the knife towards her already ruptured heart.
But now old friends are acting strange,
They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed,
Well something’s lost, but something’s gained,
In living every day,
I’ve looked at life from both sides now,
From win and lose and still somehow,
Its life’s illusions I recall,
I really don’t know life at all.
With hunched shoulders and knife dangling loosely by his side, Whitman walked behind the bar. A couple of glasses lay on the floor, dislodged from the shelves when Big Joe impacted against the bar. Stepping over them, he plucked a tumbler from the top shelf and moved in silence to the Jack Daniels optic.
He proceeded to empty several shots into the glass until it was nearly full. His hand was trembling ever so slightly as he brought the glass to his lips. It stopped an inch away from his mouth as he caught his reflection in the mirror behind the row of optics. His face was pale and sweating with smears of fresh blood drying on his cheeks and in his moist, unkempt beard. Dark, bruised rings encircled bloodshot auburn eyes.
He stared deep into the eyes that reflected back at him, studying them, venturing well beyond them. Tears welled up then dribbled down his cheeks. Suddenly his head began to spin and his legs felt like leaden weights. He slammed the glass down hard, spilling splashes of the whiskey on the bar. His hands covered his face as he sobbed uncontrollably.
Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer.
Despite having been closed for a couple of hours, the Duck & Bucket still had several patrons sat in the bar at various stages of inebriation. In addition to Geordie behind the bar, Simon and Kim were sitting with their son, Danny at one of the small round tables in the corner and Duncan and Loretta were sitting at the bar.
Chris De Burgh was singing hauntingly about a travelling spaceman on the jukebox.
And it hung in the sky like a star, just like a star ...
He followed light and came down to a shed,
Where a mother and a child were lying there on a bed,
A bright light of silver shone round his head,
And he had the face of an angel, and they were afraid ...
Downing the dregs of his pint of lager, Geordie said, “Anyone dry?”
Knocking back the rest of his pint, Duncan cheerfully said, “’Nother pint of Jarrow’s finest, barkeep and a white wine for the laaady!”
“Aye, two more here too, Geordie,” Simon said, referring to himself and Danny, who was looking pale and staring down at the three quarters of a pint still in front of him.
Kim glanced at Danny then turned to Geordie. “Don’t get Danny another – I’ll take him home in a bit. I’ll have a quick gin and tonic though before I go.”
“La la la la, la la la, la la la,” Duncan sang merrily along with Chris De Burgh, to Loretta’s mild amusement.
“I’m fine,” Danny slurred and carefully clutched his pint in both hands to help steady the pitching and drifting room.
Geordie grunted and shook his head. “Think your ma’s right there, Dan. Bedtime for you like, you fuckin’ lightweight.”
As Geordie worked the Rivet Catcher Ale pump, the lights flickered once and then died. With them, the music was also abruptly silenced, and the twinkling fairy lights on the rather small, skeletal Christmas tree in the bay window winked out. Looking up from the half filled glass, he glanced around the room swathed in darkness. “Bollocks.”
“This crap happens almost every year round here when the weather turns particularly bad,” the shadowy form of Duncan said, with mild irritation.
“You could’ve just told us to sup up, Geordie!” Simon shouted from the darkness. “This is a bit extreme!”
“Anyone know if Tess kept any candles or a torch anywhere?” Geordie asked, setting the pint aside and scrutinising the gloomy shelves below the bar. “Cannat see shite, man.”
“I think … I’m gunna … be sick,” Danny uttered through a salivating mouth, staggering to his feet in a hurry and knocking his stool clattering to the floor.
“Hang on, nee one move till I get some light on the situation.”
Kim fumbled for her son’s arm in the gloom. “Don’t worry, Geordie, I’ll take him to the toilet. Don’t want him redecorating in here.”
“Didn’t Tess used to keep some candles in the cupboard under the till?” Loretta asked no one in particular. “I’m sure that’s where she got them from when this happened in January.”
As Geordie fumbled around in the darkness, Kim helped Danny towards the toilets.
“I still can’t believe she’s gone,” Lorretta muttered, looking down at her nearly empty glass of wine.
Duncan groped for her hand in the darkness and gave it a squeeze. “Aye, it was a hell of a shock, pet.”
“Gunna be sick,” Danny muttered as he and his mother clumsily made their way through the gloom. “Gunna be—” His voice was cut short by a distinctive whoosh, followed immediately by a slicing of flesh and the briefest, soft gurgle.
Danny, suddenly a dead-weight, toppled, taking the much smaller Kim with him. She landed heavily on his stomach, confused and dazed. “Danny?” Feeling up his chest, her hands touched warm stickiness. Her voice shrill with fear, she repeated, “Danny!”
“Kim? Danny?” Simon called, standing up and squinting towards his wife’s voice. “What’s wrong?”
Duncan and Loretta both got to their feet too at the sound of Kim’s frightened voice, Loretta’s hand instinctively searching out Duncan’s once again.
“Found some candles!” Geordie said. “All of you just stay calm!”
“Kim,” a voic
e whispered in her ear, hot breath a mere inch away.
She screamed and instinctively shrank away. A disturbance in the air preceded a white hot explosion of pain in the back of her neck. She blacked out a moment before she died.
Panic wrapped its sharp grip around Simon. He cast aside a chair and the table and rushed in the direction of his wife and son. “Kim! Danny!”
Duncan forcibly detached himself from Loretta’s trembling hand and headed towards Simon’s stricken family. “Si, I’m coming!”
With a sinking feeling and a flurry of regrets for accepting the temporary job, Geordie hastily pulled out a candle and box of matches from the cupboard below the till. Quickly, but calmly, he lit up a candle.
As the darkness lifted a notch, Simon stopped short of stumbling over the bodies of his wife and son. They were lying together, seemingly embracing each other in death. Despite the poor, almost liquid light, Simon recognised the blood and stillness immediately. An agonised cry burst from his lips as he felt a presence to his left.
Duncan noticed the shadowy figure close in quickly on the distraught baker and cried out a warning. Too late.
The black form moved with unaccustomed speed and grace, seemingly floating on the air. Grabbing him around the face with one sticky glove, Whitman pulled Simon towards him and ripped open his throat with one fluid movement.
Duncan rushed forward with fists raised, but the sheer savagery caused him a moment of pause. Seeing the knife, he frantically glanced around for a weapon of his own.
“My God!” Loretta screamed as she caught a glimpse of dark fluid jetting across the room from the baker’s throat. “Simon!”
Setting the candle down, Geordie shouted, “Who the fuck is that?” Instinctively, he grabbed an empty bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale from a crate at his feet and proceeded to smash the base of it off the bar top. “You fuckin’ want some, do you?”