by Jacob Rayne
The kid twitched as his blood ran down onto the next step.
Josh put the sickening image out of his mind and continued up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, a dark landing greeted him. Doors seemed to veer off in every direction. Unholy noises came from behind a couple of them.
He followed the bloody smears to the third door on the right. As he grabbed the handle, he felt a stinging pain in the back of his leg. He turned to see a kid with pincers for hands digging the blades into his thigh.
He bellowed his rage and thrust his elbow back, shattering the kid’s jaw with an audible crack. The kid fell, but kept moving, using his pincers to drag himself across the landing towards Josh.
Josh aimed a kick at his head, wincing at the nauseating crack as the kid’s cheek splintered, and hurried into the room.
Laverick lay in the middle of the floor, his throat laid open in a hideous crimson grin that still spewed blood. His right eye stared glassily up at the ceiling, his monocle jammed edge-first into his other eye.
‘I believe you’re looking for this,’ a voice said from the corner of the room.
Josh started, he had been so intent on inspecting Laverick’s corpse that he hadn’t realised there were others in the room with him.
He turned to see Martin, Laverick’s son, holding aloft a black device that looked identical to the one that he and Marsha had used to control Caleb.
‘Yes, I am,’ Josh said. ‘Give it to me and I won’t hurt you.’
Martin let out a low, ominous chuckle.
The laugh was taken up by a horrid high-pitched giggle. Josh spun and was deeply disturbed to see a small boy with an unhinged jaw laughing away like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Now that he had chance to look, he saw others in the room, godless things that should never have been given the semblance of life.
He cursed Laverick and his unnatural experiments. A kid that had a fully-developed upper body but no lower body – the torso ended with a faded yellow knob of spine – was dragging himself towards Josh, a grimace of hatred on his face. A little blonde girl with no eyes, just empty sockets, blindly searched for him with a pair of butcher’s knives.
He knew his chances of leaving the room were slim, especially with his injured leg, but he refused to go down without a fight.
He lurched forwards, again cursing his son’s efficiency with the scissors, and swung his knife at Martin’s face. The blade opened a deep wound on the boy’s brow. Blood oozed down his cheeks. The boy didn’t react, other than to hurl himself at Josh.
The knife seemed to move by itself and it impaled deep into Martin’s gut as he charged forwards. The kid’s blood was warm on his hand. Josh wanted to puke then take a shower.
He shoved the twitching child to the floor and bent to pick up the device.
Instantly, one of the kids was on him. He lashed out, managing to get a lucky punch in. The kid flew back, unharmed, and came back for round two. The dummy kid laughed further when the little girl hurled one of the knives. It stuck in Josh’s shoulder, making his arm go numb. Blood pattered on the floor beneath his feet.
The kid with no legs slashed at Josh’s legs with a scalpel blade, scoring deep gouges in his shoes that came through to cut his feet. Josh cried out and kicked down at the kid, managing to smash his knife hand. The kid cried out in pain and despair.
Josh kicked out again, feeling something break beneath his boot. The kid let out a wet cry. Josh leant his weight back to stomp the kid’s head into patty, but one of the other kids hurled himself onto his back, knocking him forwards. He felt warm blood soak into his shirt and wheeled to try to throw the kid from his back.
The girl with the knife thrust it out towards him, sinking it deep into his abdomen. He screamed, spewing blood as he did so.
The kid on his back sunk its chubby fingers into his throat and started to crush the life out of him. The walls of the room began to close in, the darkness around his peripheral vision seeming to bleed into the rest of the room as his eyes started to fail.
In sheer desperation, he threw himself into a roll. He landed hard on the floor, but the unexpected movement flung the kid from his back. He heard the sound of gushing liquid as the kid landed neck first on the knife which was pointing up on the floor.
Dimly aware that the kids were already starting to close in again, he struggled to his feet and lashed out with the rolling pin, putting a brutal compound fracture in the arm that reached for him.
The blonde girl lashed out with her knives, carving a bloody furrow across his belly. He gritted his teeth against the pain and tried to ignore the terrifying feel of his blood running from his wounds and soaking into his clothes.
He swung his good arm again, smashing the blunt end of the rolling pin into the blonde girl’s jaw. It moved a full two inches to the right and clicked out of place.
He hit her again then lurched past her, swinging behind him to knock away the kid that had grabbed his arm.
His breath clawed its way into his throat. Panic transformed his view of the house. He knew he was at the top of the stairs, but his bulging eyes distorted the distance he had to go before he reached the top step.
He slipped, skidding down the stairs headfirst, feeling every bump on the way. He felt sure he’d broken one of his legs as it was twisted behind him at a horrid angle. The pain that came from this even dwarfed the agony of his many stab wounds.
The deformed children raced down the stairs towards him.
He pulled the device from his pocket and quickly tapped ‘Last resort’ onto the menu screen before quickly typing Caleb’s name and date of birth into the password box.
A smile twisted his lips as he heard a small explosion from the boot of his car. His elation dwindled when he saw the kid with the dummy mouth standing guard by the front door, a gleaming hatchet in his hands. The laugh he uttered drove Josh to the brink of insanity.
Josh realised he didn’t have the strength to fight him off, so he turned to the doorway to the right. He’d have to go deeper into the house, see if there was another way out. He got to his knees, crying out at the pain as he started to drag himself towards the living room.
The children were close behind him. Martin was walking perfectly well, the slick ropes of intestine hanging from the gaping wound in his belly seemingly not a cause for concern.
The blonde girl was moving erratically but was still intent on finding him.
Even the kid with the pincers was still moving, his shattered skull seeping blood and tiny lumps of brain.
Josh realised he was wasting his valuable head start and tore his eyes from the ominous digital children who were hell-bent on murdering him.
He slammed the living room door shut and braced it with a chair under the handle. It wouldn’t give him long, but it would do.
A kid lunged from the corner behind the fire place, breaking a stout lump of wood across Josh’s stomach. The blow worsened the gushing wounds in his belly and brought him to his knees.
The kid’s remorseless face stared down at him. Behind him, tiny feet and fists were already starting to crack the door.
He shoved the kid hard, sending him back onto the fireplace where the back of his head cracked against the marble hearth.
Josh didn’t wait to hear what the response was, just dragged himself forward into the kitchen. He wanted to reach the back door and crawl back to the car, but he knew he would never have the strength to do so. The back door seemed like it was miles away.
Instead, he rushed to the gas stove and turned the knobs up to full blast. The gas hissed out, filling the kitchen. He wedged a chopping board on the knobs to allow the gas to flow without his hand on the controls. There was a deafening crash as the kids battered down the living room door.
The wounds in his belly sapped his strength and he fell to his knees. His blood began to pool beneath him on the kitchen floor. The smell of the gas filled his nostrils. His head spun from blood loss and fear.
&nbs
p; The kids were in the living room now, he could hear their feet pounding the wooden floor on their way to him.
The majority of his remaining energy was spent pulling a pack of cooking matches from the bench.
He lay, panting, on the floor, his blood warm and sticky on his back and legs.
Martin was the first of the kids to enter the room. Josh could hear the others were there too. He hid the matches behind his back, not wanting to give away his intent until the kids were all inside the room that he hoped would become their tomb.
The blonde girl followed Martin in, the knife in her hand dripping blood.
The dummy kid came, his shrill laughter still issuing from his clacking jaw.
The pincer kid came, as did the kid with no legs. Their eyes crawled over him. The kids who weren’t armed pulled a knife each from the knife block and approached Josh. They could see he was dying, there was no need to hurry. The hissing of the gas that slowly filled the kitchen didn’t register in their ears.
Josh waited until the nearest kid was almost close enough to touch him then he struck the match. It didn’t light so he struck it again. The match snapped in his hand.
One of the kids let out a cry as it saw what Josh’s plan was. Josh cursed and pulled a second match from the box.
This one too failed to ignite.
He dropped it and picked out a third match.
Martin was almost upon him, the eight inch butcher’s knife held above his head as he ran in. Josh flicked the third match.
The flame flickered for a second then Josh’s whole world was an inferno.
16
Marsha cried out as the explosion took off the roof of the house. The fireball billowed out into the street, taking the windows and lumps of brick and wood with it.
She ducked as bricks bounced off the car. She didn’t know if Josh had escaped, but she guessed it was unlikely given that his leg was so badly damaged.
Her first thought was to see what had happened to Caleb. If Josh had been killed then she could have Caleb. At least one of her boys might be ok. One was trying to kill the other. She could at least have one of them, couldn’t she?
She opened the boot to see Caleb convulsing. Thick, dark blood oozed out from the corners of his eyes. It looked like he was crying blood. His mouth moved silently. She heard quiet hissing and popping sounds inside his skull. His eyes stared at her, seeming to beseech her to help him.
Tears blurred her vision of him, but it was obvious he was dying. Thick trails of blood started to run down from his nostrils and ears now.
Marsha’s body shook in time with her son’s as she cried for him. No mother should have to lose her child twice. It was heartless. Caleb let out a pained sigh, gave a final twitch, then fell still. His skin already felt tight and cold.
Marsha screamed her despair. She cradled her dead son for the second time, unable to believe he had been taken from her again.
While Marsha cried for her dead son, a group of distraught little figures shuffled out from the wreckage. Most of the digital children had been vaporised in the explosion, but the eyeless little blonde girl had survived, as had the dummy kid and the boy with the callipers.
Marsha looked down to see the tiny faces peering up at her.
The little girl’s empty eye sockets seemed to pull her in, the burnt flesh on her face dripping like wax from a melted candle. She smiled at Marsha who grinned in reply.
‘Mama,’ the little girl cried.
‘Ma-ma,’ the dummy kid echoed. His body was a seething mass of charred flesh, blackened except for the occasional bloody gobbet that stuck out through the charcoal husk. His arms were held out to Marsha. Fresh tears glistened in his lidless eyes.
The little boy with the callipers had escaped most of the flames, but he was wailing for his fallen kin.
‘Do you need help?’ Marsha asked.
‘Mama,’ the little girl repeated, holding her arms out.
‘Ma-ma,’ the dummy kid sobbed, tears rolling down his cheeks.
‘Help us, mama,’ the calliper kid said.
Marsha beckoned the kids to her and held each of them, crying at the sorrow and pain each of them felt.
She took her new children home and washed the dirt and soot off them. She rubbed lotion into their burns and held them as they cried about their experiences in the house.
She already loved them as if they were her own. They weren’t perfect, but they were hers and she would die before she would let anyone take them from her.
Bonus
Read on for a taster of Becoming… the first full length novel from Rayne of Terror, available Summer 2014.
Becoming…
There are places in this world which are magnets to evil and violence. Peth Vale, the large, secluded house on the hill on the outskirts of Marshton town, is one such place.
There is probably a similar place in most towns, a place that parents forbid their children from visiting, where those same children will cower, yet dare each other to enter.
Peth Vale is variously known as: ‘A portal of evil,’ ‘Hell’s gates,’ and ‘The Murder House,’ depending on which of the superstitious locals you were to ask.
Rumours say that the house is haunted, and it may well be: enough lives have ended here to justify that claim. Others say that blood stains the land the house stands upon, a curse forever to be repeated.
Some of the more imaginative locals have reported hearing screams and depraved laughter from Peth Vale during Marshton’s long nights.
You may dismiss this as urban myths, bogey man stories, but, on the days before today, their ears have not deceived them: the screams and laughter have been real.
This is not the first time in Peth Vale’s short history that the house has been a site of horrific violence. It will doubtless be the last too, but those are stories for another day, for it is with one particular spate of horrors that we are concerned.
Peth Vale, which sits in expansive gardens, is currently ablaze; the fires illuminating its many windows making them look like blazing, infernal eyes. The air is thick with petrol fumes and smoke, which rise from Peth Vale’s roof in a huge black column.
The house continues to burn, the flames which crackle and consume its frame helped by a light southward breeze.
The air soon fills with sirens, as the police arrive at the scene and cut the hefty chains that secure Peth Vale’s iron gates. The gates creak open, allowing the crime scene team to flood into the grounds of the burning house.
What they find there brings more than one meal up and out of the stomach of its host, to lie, steaming, in the damp grass. Peth Vale’s paved side yard is awash with blood, some of it mere hours old. Two trails lead across the patio, ending near a row of dirty white tiles.
A fingerless, decomposing hand sits in the corner of the patio, among the dried blood. A severed noose hangs from one of the trees, the loop from it lies a few feet away in the grass, blood drying on the thick strands of rope.
One of the officers follows the twin trails of blood, past fresh blood splatters, towards the swimming pool. The water is filthy, with a red tinge to it.
Just visible through the murk are black cylindrical forms at the bottom of the pool. The smell from the stagnant, bloody water causes the policeman to gag and lose his supper.
The police drain the water from the pool and start to drag the black, weighted tarpaulins out, storing them on the pool’s edge before they are unwrapped.
There is a corpse inside each one, most of them horrifically mutilated. They all look as though they have died very recently.
By this time, the fire brigade has reached the scene. They are too late; Peth Vale is beyond salvation.
‘Best thing for it,’ states one officer, who is in the midst of discovering his second Peth Vale crime scene.
Two firemen venture into the burning building and drag out one more body. This is the worst of all. Although badly burnt, the body is still recognisable as being female. The hea
d has been severed and the skin removed. Arguably, it is this body that has the most significance to this tale.
It will take the police all night to catalogue the crime scene, then transport and identify the bodies.
By the time this is done, they will already have apprehended their main suspect, allegedly a death-masked, merciless killer seeking bloody revenge on all who have wronged him. But there is more to this tale than first meets the eye.
And that is the end of the story, years after this all began.
Instead of observing the police’s interrogation of their suspect, let’s hear the events which led to this bloodbath. Let’s hear about the real killer and his becoming…
Part One – Hunted
Becoming: To come, change or grow to be
Chapter 1
The dying October sun was shedding the last of its blood onto the dark clouds above Marshton town as Rhonda Williams pulled her car onto the driveway of her detached home.
Cursing, she realised that the bin men had recklessly left the bin across the bottom of the drive, in such a way that she’d have to get out and move it before she could park up. Raindrops spattered the windscreen as she opened the door.
‘Just great,’ she hissed, putting one of her work files over her head to shield it from the concussive force of the falling rain while she hauled the bin back to its usual position by the back door.
As she dusted the stale dirt from her hands, she noticed that the kitchen light was on. ‘Lazy little bastards,’ she hissed, realising that her son, Mark, and her sixteen year old daughter, Hannah, were home and hadn’t been arsed to put the bin back. ‘How many goddamned times do I have to tell them?’ she muttered as she got back into the car.
She parked the car in front of the garage and got out, again sheltering under the file as she used the light from the boot to search for the correct key. With it in hand, she pulled the bag of shopping from the boot and moved to the door.