by Jacob Rayne
Caleb let out another pained cry.
Now or never, she thought and struggled to her feet. Caleb seemed to know what she was doing though and he shoved hard in the small of her back. She shot forwards, slamming her head into the tiles above the bath and landing in a crumpled heap in the water.
Her teeth snapped shut on her tongue like an enamel bear trap. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth and nose. Her head and stomach spun like she’d been on a waltzer. She spat out shards of broken teeth and blood that turned small patches of the bath foam red.
She turned to look for Caleb and let out an anguished cry when she saw that he was headed for the TV on the window sill.
‘No,’ she cried out, knowing what he intended.
She hurled the beer bottle with all of her might, knowing it was her last resort. The bottle went straight through the window, letting the cool night air flood in.
She knew she was done for if she couldn’t get out of the water and forced every muscle in her body towards this common goal. She got to her feet, swaying like a boxer on the wrong end of a hiding. The residue of the foam she had tipped into the bath lay on the bottom of the tub and she slipped on it as she desperately struggled to climb out.
She landed in the water with a force that tore the breath from her. Her arms and legs twitched weakly like those of a helpless turtle on its back.
Caleb turned to face her, the TV which was still plugged into the mains held above his head like a trophy. The grimace was gone now, replaced with a grin that in equal parts scared and repulsed her.
Then the TV was flying through the air towards her. She noted a brief, dazzling flash as the TV landed in the water, felt a pain as it slammed her midsection, then started to convulse as the current burnt her alive.
12
The next morning Marsha woke to the sound of someone braying on the front door. She was startled by what the policeman on the doorstep was telling her – that Cynthia and Guy had been murdered in their home last night. Since she had been in the process of initiating legal proceedings against the Walkers, they were prime suspects for the crime.
The policeman introduced himself as Officer Wells, invited himself in and took a seat on the settee.
‘Can you vouch for your whereabouts last night?’ he asked Josh and Marsha.
‘Yes, we were in bed early last night,’ they both said.
The policeman nodded, as though he had been expecting this. He pulled a photo out of his pocket like it was his trump card. Slammed it on the table face up and watched their reactions.
‘Fucking hell, what is that?’ Josh exclaimed, feeling like he was about to hurl.
Marsha went one better and brought up a mouthful of bile upon seeing the colour photo of Cynthia’s charred, screaming corpse. Her eyes had melted and were dripping down her blackened face. Her teeth were bared in a horrific grimace.
Wells noted their response and decided that they either didn’t do it or were extremely good actors.
‘Someone threw a TV into her tub,’ Wells said, the note of grim relish in his voice impossible to miss. ‘If you have any information about who could have done this it would be greatly appreciated.’
Josh debated for a second then said, ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea who would do something like this.’
Wells sighed as though he had known this would be the response. ‘Well, if you happen to think of anything that might aid me in this investigation, then please feel free to give me a call.’ He handed Josh a card with his contact details on, then left the house.
After the cop had gone, Josh went up to wake Caleb. The child was sound asleep, so Josh got to take a good look at him before he woke. He looked so peaceful, his little chest gradually rising and falling, his exhalations soft sighs that caressed the morning air.
Josh moved in to pick up his sleeping son, but stopped when he noticed something unusual on the bed sheets. It looked like… no it couldn’t be… was it a blood stain?
He moved in closer. Caleb stirred as Josh’s hand depressed the mattress of the cot. He looked up at Josh with a puzzled expression on his face.
‘Sorry, big guy,’ Josh smiled. ‘Time to get up.’
Caleb yawned and stretched his arms out to his dad. Josh lifted him out of the cot, carried him downstairs and asked Marsha to feed him.
‘What’s wrong, daddy?’ Caleb asked.
‘Nothing, son, why?’
‘You seem a little edgy.’
‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.’
Caleb watched him curiously for a second then turned away.
Josh felt a prickle of unease, as though Caleb had read his mind and knew that he suspected his son had been doing something he shouldn’t have been.
‘I’m just going to get a shave,’ Josh said.
He rushed up to Caleb’s room and approached the cot. Now he slowed, wanting to delay the shock that he instinctively knew was on its way to him.
He bent over the cot, noting the single crimson drop that looked like a blood stain. He pulled back the blanket and saw the tiny bloody handprint on the sheet underneath.
Josh gawped at the bloody handprint for what felt like an eternity, his mind struggling to process a rational explanation. The hand was exactly the size of his son’s. But where the hell had the blood come from?
With a jolt, he came up with an idea that was too horrible to consider.
He was startled out of his thoughts by footsteps on the landing. He turned to see Caleb standing in the doorway, watching him intently.
‘I thought you were having a shave, daddy?’ he asked, a smile on his face.
‘I d-don’t have any razors, so I was just giving your room a quick tidy.’
Caleb nodded, the smile still playing across his lips. ‘See anything interesting?’ he asked.
‘No. Just the usual,’ Josh lied. His son’s intense stare was making the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He felt his skin crawling. There was something wrong with the way Caleb was watching him, as if he knew the thoughts that were struggling to materialise inside his father’s head and planned to put a stop to them before they became solid.
‘Well come and play downstairs then,’ Caleb said. Josh left the room, pulling the door shut behind him. Caleb’s eyes seemed to bore into the back of him as he walked down the stairs.
It was a relief when he had to leave to go to work, although he was becoming increasingly concerned about leaving Marsha alone with their creepy bionic son. He drove around the corner from home and called Laverick.
‘We’ve got a big problem, Doc,’ he blurted.
‘Hmmph?’ Laverick still sounded half asleep.
‘Cynthia was murdered last night.’
‘What?’ Laverick sounded startled by this revelation.
‘Someone chucked her TV in the bath with her. Just before they did that, they murdered her son.’
‘Shit. Who would do something like that?’
‘Well I don’t know for definite.’ Josh cast a glance around the car, as if he suspected Caleb would be there watching him. ‘But I found a bloody handprint in Caleb’s cot this morning.’
Laverick seemed less shocked than Josh would have liked at this suggestion. The silence hung on the air between them like a vast invisible swarm.
Josh broke the silence. ‘A cop came round this morning. I managed to send him away, but that was before I found the bloody handprint.’
‘Shit,’ Laverick hissed. ‘We’ve got to get rid of this cop. We can’t have him sniffing around my lab.’
‘Not my problem,’ Josh smiled, glad to finally have the upper hand with the smug doctor.
‘Well it is, Mr Walker. Because if they find out it was Caleb they will destroy him.’
Josh had no idea what to say to that. He felt like a tight rope walker who’d just had the safety net torn out from beneath him.
‘So I suggest you help me get rid of this cop or we will both lose something that is very dear to us.’
> ‘Are you suggesting we kill a cop?’
‘How much do you want to keep your son?’
‘More than anything, but I need you to make sure he doesn’t go on any more rampages.’
‘I will do that, if you send the cop to me. I’ll take care of the rest.’
‘Ok. But I want your word that you’ll fix Caleb.’
‘Yes. You have my word.’
After Laverick had left with Caleb, Josh spent the rest of the day trying to come up with a plan that didn’t involve setting Officer Wells up.
When the sun sunk below the horizon and he still hadn’t come up with anything useful, he called Wells and told him that he remembered Cynthia had mentioned something about a strange doctor who had been stalking her.
Wells lapped it up. Josh felt sick at the deceit and also the thought of the grisly fate to which he was sending the unwitting cop, but he forced that back when he thought of losing Caleb.
Worse than his pain would be the effect on Marsha. She had already lost Caleb once, she could never come to terms with losing him a second time. He swallowed hard and continued his story.
‘And our son has gone missing,’ Josh added, sniffing to make it sound like he was crying. ‘Cynthia said that this doctor was doing unnatural experiments with kids.’
‘I’ve heard about this guy,’ Wells said.
Despite himself, Josh smiled. Wells had blundered right into their trap.
‘Cynthia told us that she had had a private investigator follow this doctor guy. The address he dug up was 117 Cedar Walk.’
He heard the sounds of the cop scribbling this information down. ‘You sit tight, Mr Walker. I’m going to check this out for you. We’ll get your son back and we’ll bring this son of a bitch the punishment he deserves too. I’ll be in touch.’
I hope you won’t, Josh thought.
Wells hung up the phone, tore the post it loose from the pad and jammed it into his pocket. His partner was on the phone. He mouthed, ‘Got a lead on the bath case.’
His colleague furrowed his brow.
‘I’ll tell ya later,’ Wells said.
He keyed the address into the GPS programme on his phone and set off for the house. It wasn’t far.
The house was in darkness. The size of it was a little unsettling – the house was a normal terrace end with extra rooms sprouting in every direction like rampant tumours. The curtains in the front room were open but he could see no signs of life inside.
Shivering as the cold wind blasted against him, he scanned the street, checking to see if anyone was watching him. It seemed every light in the street was off, so he shoved his flashlight into his pocket. The sturdy metal handle would make a handy weapon too, should the need arise.
He approached the window of the front room, cupped his hands against the glass and peered through. Dim outlines of the furniture in the room revealed themselves, but it looked as though no one had been in the room for days. Everything was clinically tidy, to the point of OCD.
Feeling uncomfortable out in the open like this, he furtively glanced around again before creeping round to the side of the house. He winced when the garden gate squealed open, thinking he may as well have just shouted that he was looking for a way to break in.
No one answered the squeal, but still he felt a wave of nausea overwhelm him. He edged round one of the extensions that had been carelessly grafted onto the house with no regard for aesthetics or building regulations.
He tried the window on this part and found that it was deadlocked. He’d make far too much noise and mess getting in there, so he moved to the next part of the extension which jutted out into the garden at a drunken angle.
This window too was deadlocked, so he continued to the far end of the house. The back door was covered with a metal shutter, so that was out. He continued to the far corner of the house and found a small window in what appeared to be a toilet.
Wells smiled when he saw that the window was open slightly.
‘Gotcha,’ he muttered, taking a thin metal lock pick out of his pocket and using it to tease the window latch up. He pulled the window open, and carefully climbed inside.
13
After a second’s debate Wells decided to leave the window open in case he needed to make a hasty getaway. Always best to give yourself an escape route.
He drained his nervous bladder in the toilet that occupied the room he’d entered then stopped still, his ears straining to hear sounds in the seemingly empty house.
He heard nothing, so opened the door and moved into the hallway.
The house had corridors and rooms leading off everywhere. Wells knew how Hansel and Gretel felt wandering off into the forest, clueless to where they were headed.
He shoved this unease aside and opened the nearest door, frowning as he saw the padlock hanging open on its hasp. The room hidden inside was pitch black, thick blackout curtains smothering even the merest hint of light.
He flicked the torch on and cast it around the room, catching a huge pile of toys which looked very much like they had just been thrown in without a second thought.
Over in the corner, he saw a tiny form. His breath felt stale in his throat as he approached the figure which lay on a small mattress. He squinted into the gloom, the light not quite bright enough to reveal the figure to him.
Closer inspection revealed a child no more than two years old but he could tell that it wasn’t the kid he was looking for. The pale chest rose and fell slowly. The kid’s face was wrong somehow, distorted like he had been severely beaten and the bones had yet to properly heal.
Wells thought about waking the kid, but he seemed peaceful in his slumber and he didn’t want to startle the poor bastard.
He crept out of the room and into the next part of the house, heading towards the original structure.
He shoved open the next door to find himself in what looked like a converted garage. The grey breezeblock walls made the scene seem boringly normal, but then he saw the tiny wooden boxes lying on the work benches that filled the floor space in the room.
His torch beam reflected back at him as it caught a gleaming piece of metal. He was puzzled as to what the metal was until he got closer. The small wooden box was pitted with dry soil and water marks that ruined the mahogany finish. The polished brass he had seen was a handle.
It took him a second to realise that he was looking at a child’s coffin.
The top had been smashed open and jagged spears of wood still poked out of the lid. He could not see inside until he moved right up to the bench and shone his torch down through the hole in the top of the coffin.
He almost retched at the sight and smell that greeted him.
A baby, no more than two months old, was curled up in the box. Wires and circuit boards with red LEDs were crudely grafted to the back of its skull, the left side of its chest and its belly. The infant’s face was twisted in an agonised grimace. Parts of it were black and rotting. Flies crawled across the decaying skin. Other parts were still intact but with a waxy pallor.
The smell of death clung to his nostrils. He looked away and spat on the floor, feeling sickened by what he saw. But worse sights waited to greet him in the darkness.
There were ten of the miniature coffins in all, each of them containing a partially rotten and altered body. The ages seemed to range between new-born babies and one year olds.
Wells was appalled by what he saw. He wanted to take a flame thrower to the place and incinerate these obscenities. The child inside the final coffin he checked seemed to be the oldest, and this was the one that frightened and sickened him the most.
The baby inside was long dead, its skull and some of its skeleton revealed through the parchment thin skin that had wasted away onto its bones. What looked like a miniature car battery was screwed to the crown of its head with the bare minimum of finesse.
This time he did retch and he spat bile into the coffin. His heart almost leapt out of his chest when the tiny body moved.
He was close to taking the torch and stoving in the obscene skull, but something brought him to his senses. A bird squawked inside the coffin, scared away from its meal, and flew across the room to hide in the shadows in the far corner.
Wells clutched his hand to his chest, feeling relief flood into him at the realisation that the baby hadn’t moved.
Just as he began to relax, the baby let out a distressed cry. One of its eyelids flickered slightly. Its right arm raised slowly, reaching towards him. The poor fucking thing was alive.
He ran out of the room, no longer wanting to witness the atrocities held within.
The rest of the rooms had more coffins. He had no desire to explore further, he just wanted to find the kid and the doctor then get the hell out of here.
The thought of going back to the car and tear-arsing it back to the station came to him but he couldn’t leave the kid in the hands of the psycho who was conducting these macabre experiments.
He reached the house proper and found himself in what looked like a normal front room. There was a small TV in the corner and bookshelves against the far wall. A few photos sat among the books.
Wells took a quick look and recognised Laverick in one of them, his arm round the shoulders of a small boy who looked on the wrong end of the mortal coil.
He saw a couple more of Laverick with similarly ill-looking kids.
He was carefully studying each of the photos when the sound of crying from upstairs made him spin and head out into the hallway. His torch beam played over the floor at his feet as he set off up the stairs. The crying was coming from one of the rooms to his right on the upstairs landing.
That’s got to be the missing kid, he thought. He held the torch in an unsteady hand, sending the light flashing around the stairs wildly. He tensed his arm ready to attack with the torch.
His eyes quickly flicked across the landing, seeing nothing but dusty floorboards and unpainted walls, before he turned his torch to the door from behind which the crying was emanating. It was soft sobbing, almost like the person crying didn’t want to share their sorrow with the world outside their door.