by Greg Chapman
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the dispatcher said.
Megan closed her eyes. “A girl… a girl’s tried to…” she said as the girl’s mother went to her knees and screamed her name. “A girl is dead…”
Megan knew she was right; the people in the street were going mad to the point of death.
~
Blue and red emergency lights painted the sidewalks and houses of Willow Street for the second time in as many days. As Ben stared at them he wondered if they would ever prevail against the black night.
He stood with his wife outside number 65 and watched the frenetic performance of paramedics and police officers as they went about their business, taking the body of the young girl away. The spectacle had drawn many people out of their homes; an audience to death, to one woman’s misery.
Megan had told Ben the woman’s name was Alice and the girl’s name was Amy. She’d followed Alice’s screams and been the one to call 9-1-1. That’s all the two of them had said to each other since he’d gotten back from The Gazette. Other onlookers whispered and pointed, not knowing the true value of silence when Death came calling. Ben observed them, and remembered the first time he’d covered a suburban death; a man who’d died from a heart attack in the middle of summer, slowly but surely letting his death be known. Not unlike the way the murder house had done. He recalled talking to the neighbours over their pickets fences as the flies had buzzed, and how quick they were to claim they knew all there was to know about the dead man.
Ben hardly knew anyone on the street where he lived, although he flinched when his eyes locked on to the familiar face of Carol Campbell. He knew her well enough. She looked right at him, eyes brimming with scorn. He avoided her gaze, opting to look at his wife, instead. “We should go,” he said.
“Aren’t you going to call the paper?” Megan’s voice was thick with condescension. “You called Jacob when they found that man murdered across the street.”
Ben sighed. “You want to do this now, in front of all these people?”
Megan faced him and in the blue and red light, her sorrowful face suddenly beautiful. “I didn’t even know who these people were until this shit happened to them.”
He reached to take her arm, but thought better of it. “Come on, let’s go home.”
They turned to watch as two police officers escorted Alice to a patrol car. She was hunched and sobbing. The red and blue lights started to move out of Willow Street, a colourful procession of tragedy.
“Where were you?” Megan asked, as they turned to walk back home.
“At The Gazette.”
She stopped and gave him a frown of disbelief,
“There was a guy there who knew something about the house.”
“Just… just… don’t talk to me…”
Silence followed them back to number 69.
~
Carol Campbell didn’t know what would tear her heart in two first—rage or grief.
The look on Alice Cowley’s face, having discovered her daughter’s body, left Carol reeling. Only moments before she’d been in Carol’s house screaming at Max, something about Zachary.
Carol had been resting when the confrontation began, and when Max had stubbornly refused to reveal the nature of the argument, she had run up the street to try and get the details from the woman herself. Now, Carol felt numb, while the death of the girl ignited new fears about her son and where he could be.
As the gawkers, including that unscrupulous Ben Traynor and his wife from across the street, finally began to disperse, Carol tried to recall whether she’d ever spoken to Alice Cowley. She was sure Alice and her daughter had lived down the street for as long as her own family had, but only occasionally had they shared looks and smiles. Apart from that, they’d had no contact. Carol wrapped her arms around herself and glanced at the darkened faces of her neighbours as they walked away. They were all strangers, complete strangers. Was it fear that kept neighbours apart, or apathy? Carol didn’t know, but since the discovery of the dead man in that godforsaken house, she now wondered who lived next door and what they were up to.
She began to walk home, preparing to grill her husband about his talk with Alice Cowley. She’d find out where her son was, if it killed her.
~
As the ambulance rolled by Number 74, Margaret Markham said a silent prayer for Alice and Amy Cowley. From the number of police cars and people milling about in the street, Margaret knew something terrible had happened at the Cowley house. Even with her failing eyesight, she knew by Alice’s Cowley’s screams that whatever it was involved her little girl.
It was the second tragedy to occur since the awfulness at the Kemper House, and somehow she knew the house was had something to do with it.
First the dead man, and now the Cowley girl. Its infectious nature was spreading, to claim lives young and old.
She left the window and returned as quickly as she could to her bedroom, to be by her husband Richard’s side. She found him listless, his skin hot and shining with sweat. If it wasn’t for the sharp intake of breath through his open mouth, she would have believed him already dead. She took his hand.
“Richard… darling…” she said. “I think… I think the Cowley girl… I think she’s gone. I need you to hold on.”
Richard managed to open his eyes. “You… need… to get away…”
Margaret shook her head. “No, I’m staying with you.”
He squeezed her hand, but there was no strength in his fingers. “That house…” his voice grated. “…it’s sick. It’ll make you… sick too.”
Margaret smoothed down her husband’s hair, the skin beneath like fire. His throat pulsed with hot blood. “I’m going to call Dr. Beck,” she said.
Richard didn’t respond and she realised he’d passed out again. She reached for the cordless phone and their book of phone numbers on the dresser, and dialled Dr. Beck’s surgery, only to realise that it was almost midnight. She put the phone back in its cradle, and immediately it rang, startling her. She answered it quickly so the noise wouldn’t wake her husband.
“Huh… Hello?”
The other end of the line crackled, like cellophane being crushed.
“Hello?”
Margaret wondered who would call at almost midnight: a wrong number, or a telemarketer? Their phone hardly ever rang at all, let alone in the dead of night. She was moving the phone away from her ear when a voice broke through the static.
“Margaret…”
Her heart quickened; it was Richard talking.
“Ri…Richard?” She looked at her husband lying unmoving on the bed.
“Margaret…” the voice said. “You need to get away…”
Margaret backed away from her husband.
“You need to get away…” the voice continued, “…because I’m going to kill you.”
The old woman dropped the phone and screamed, but not even that would wake her husband. Neither did the laughter coming out of the phone.
~
There were too many people out tonight, Darryl thought, too much noise.
He was glad the sirens and emergency lights had gone. Obviously, something had gone down at number 65, but he only cared because it distracted him from his work. Peace and quiet, his mother would have said, had she still been alive, peace and fucking quiet.
The night was his domain, his place of work, but he couldn’t work with all the noise. He scratched at the spreading whiskers on his chin. Stop scratching! his mother would have said.
Shut the hell up, you old bitch!
He was only itching to get back to work.
He left the garage, where he’d silently watched the goings-on and wandered out back to the old shelter. His playmate was quieter now, losing her resolve. It made him smile as he unlocked the combination lock—23-04-39—his dear mother’s birthday. Still, he didn’t want the girl to give him the silent treatment. He was going to have to give her a new reason to scream. After all, it was the only nois
e he had an appreciation for.
The shelter door creaked on its hinges, accompanied by another sound that caught his attention. Laughter, clear and distinct, rose out of the chilly night air, from the direction of the rose garden. Darryl frowned as he scanned the bushes, the thorny branches looking more like the tendrils of a heaving beast made of out shadow.
“Who’s there?” He closed the shelter door and locked it.
The laughter arrived again; Darryl recognised a male voice. He retrieved the pen torch from his pocket and shone it on the bushes. If someone was messing around in his mother’s garden, he’d snap their fucking neck.
“Get the fuck out of my yard!” He strode across to the lawn, shining the torch back and forth. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a shape running from the bushes towards the shelter. Darryl swung around the beam of light, but failed to keep pace with the silhouette. “Who the fuck is that? You get off my mother’s property or I’ll call the cops!”
The shadow laughed; it was a boy’s laugh, swirling around him in the air.
“Call the cops,” the voice said, “and they’ll know your little secret.”
Darryl dropped his torch. The beam cast light across a pair of naked feet.
The voice started to laugh again, and trailed along the garage wall and out into the front yard. Darryl experienced a sensation he hadn’t felt since his mother died.
Fear.
Chapter Thirteen
The sound of breaking glass woke Matthew at 3 a.m.
He rolled over and rubbed his eyes, trying to see in the dark, but it did little to shift the smog of sleep inside his head. He pulled back the covers and padded to the half-open bedroom door and listened. He saw nothing but the darkened hallway, cold and silent. His parents’ door at the end of the hall was closed. He began to question the authenticity of the noise, when he heard it again. A window was being broken downstairs, possibly in the kitchen; someone was breaking in.
Matthew stepped gingerly into the hall, wanting to see, but not wanting to. He glanced up the hall and tried to calculate the distance should he need to run and wake his mother and father. There was another tinkle of glass, followed by the distinct sound of one of the dining chairs scraping on the tiled floor. Matthew jumped and looked to his parents’ door again.
Why aren’t they rising? Can’t they hear this ruckus?
The boy clenched his fists, his fingers were ice-cold. Should he cry out to his father? Or would that only alert the burglar to his presence? Matthew decided it would. His only chance was to make a run for it to his parents’ door and wake them before the intruder had any idea he was awake. All he had to do was take a deep breath and run.
The stairs below him creaked, one at first, then another and another.
Shit, he’s coming up the stairs!
Matthew froze, his courageous sprint averted before it could even begin. His eyes locked on the top of the staircase and he saw the intruder’s shadow slowly rising to the top floor. He told himself to turn and run, to slam his bedroom door, to cry out for Mom or Dad.
“Who… who’s there?”
Fear was taking control and his bladder weighed heavy on his insides. The shadow crept closer, its steps heralding its ascension with creak after creak. Matthew took a solitary step backwards and reached for the edge of his bedroom doorway. “Stop…” he said. “I’ve… I’ve got a gun.”
The shadow reached the final step and stopped. Matthew saw the intruder’s hand on the railing.
What sort of burglar doesn’t wear gloves?
“You wouldn’t shoot your older brother now, would you?”
A sliver of confusion took hold of him.
The figure stepped into the upper hallway and Matthew froze.
“You haven’t even got a gun, have you, pussy boy?”
Matthew’s mouth and throat were so dry that his voice cracked. “Zac… Zac?”
The figure approached and put an arm around him; he smelled of the earth, and his eyes looked dead. “It’s me, pussy boy,” Zac said. “It’s your big brother.”
Matthew tried to slip from the embrace, but was held tight. Everything about Zac was wrong; the way he spoke, and the way he moved, with his back straight and expressive hands. “You’re back?” was all he could say.
“Indeed, I am. It’s good to see you… pussy boy.” Zac chuckled at the term he’d tormented Matthew with so often, but it was as if he was trying it out for the first time. Even stranger was the fact that his breath carried that same earthy smell.
“Did you… did you break in?”
Zac frowned in thought, then smiled anew. “Yes, I did, through the window in the kitchen.” He held up his left arm and revealed a long gash from wrist to elbow. It bled profusely. “I may have cut myself.”
“Jesus…” Matthew felt a cold sweat break out over his skin.
His brother leaned in close until their noses were almost touching. “You’re afraid, aren’t you, pussy boy? That’s what he calls you, isn’t it?”
“Wha… what happened to you?”
Zac’s mouth was vile. “Let’s go wake Max and Carol.”
~
Max Campbell dreamed he was suffocating. He was splayed out naked on the floor of a strange house, with a plastic funnel taped inside his mouth. Above him, a shadow loomed, about to tip the contents of a gasoline can down his throat.
“Father!”
Max awoke and felt something pressing down on his face. He sat up urgently and pushed the pillow away. He heard crying and laughing in the room, and struggled to discern the three shadows at the end of the bed.
“So glad you could join us,” one of the shadows said. It was holding the pillow.
“What the fuck?” Max said.
Slowly the shadows sharpened in the curtain-filtered moonlight.
Carol huddled in the corner of the bedroom with Matthew. The third figure was a boy who looked a lot like—
“Zac?”
Zac’s slimy grin shone. “Hello, Daddy.”
Max got to his feet, adrenalin rushing from his chest down to his forearms. “You little son of a bitch. Where the fuck have you been?” He took a step toward the end of the bed, eager to get a hold of his son. The boy was going to get a tanning.
“You know, you shouldn’t call Mother a bitch,” Zac said.
Max didn’t like the boy’s cockiness, not just his choice of words, but the clipped tone he used. He grabbed the boy by the shirt sleeve. “You shut the hell up and listen to me.”
Zac’s fist whipped out in an arc and caught Max under the jaw.
The big man staggered back onto the bed. He stared, wide-eyed, but was back on his feet a moment later with his fist raised. “Oh, you’re gonna get it now!”
He lashed out, but Zac dodged the blow and brought his fist into Max’s nose. The big man felt a sickening crack in the centre of his face, and blood poured into his mouth. A cascade of stars sparkled behind his eyes and dropped him to his knees. Through a haze of pain, he tried to conceive how his son could suddenly fight. Through the ringing in his skull, he heard the boy laughing.
~
“You really are a worthless excuse for a man!”
Carol couldn’t believe the words coming from Zac’s lips. She couldn’t believe what was happening, that her son had returned and was unleashing brutal punishment upon his father. But he was no longer her boy. The very moment he’d entered the room and pulled her from the bed, she’d known it to be true. She felt her other son’s hand pulling on her nightgown, heard his sobs of terror, and when she looked at him, she feared she was about to lose him too.
Zac laughed as he kicked Max in the ribs. She’d never seen Zac hit anyone before, and she’d never seen her husband go down during a fight. She’d never forget how, when they were courting, Max had “valiantly” knocked out another man’s front teeth for looking at her during a dinner dance, and now she was terrified of what he’d do to Zac if he ever got to his feet.
“Do you hea
r me, father?” Zac said as he looked down on his father. “You’re worthless!” Max’s right arm whipped out to grab his son, but Zac was too quick. He skirted away, and then promptly crossed the distance with a running kick to Max’s ass. The big man wailed and collapsed onto his side, clutching his groin. Zac looked at Carol, hysterical glee painted on his face. “I’ve got him crawling on the ground like a worthless dog, Mother. Do you see?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. He skipped around Max and kicked him in the face. The wound on his nose split even wider.
Max shrieked and spat blood all over the carpet and bedspread. “I’m gonna kill you!” her husband cried.
Zac let a long ropey trail of spit fall from his mouth, and onto his father’s head. “You’ll be begging for death soon enough Father, but all I can guarantee is there will be a lot of pain between now and then!”
~
Matthew squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears, but it did nothing to block out the sound of Zac beating his father to death.
Yet he was too weak not to look, and Matthew opened his eyes long enough to catch a glimpse of the brutality. Zac was relentless, overcome with violent nonchalance, taking great pride in punching, kicking and spitting on Max, only occasionally stopping to laugh at his handiwork.
His dad was in the foetal position, trying to cover his head and ribs, but Zac’s fists and feet managed to find chinks in his father’s protection, and extract a new chorus of agony. The carpet resembled a Jackson Pollock painting, but Max’s face was Zac’s true masterpiece. His brother kicked his father between the legs again and Max let out a gasping shriek. Matthew couldn’t take it anymore. Zac had to stop.
As if he’d heard his thoughts, Zac turned and smiled. “I’m only administering the same punishment Max used to impose upon you and Zachary.”
Matthew shook his head. “Don’t…”
Zac’s boot connected with the man’s mouth. Max spat out two front teeth. Zac motioned for Matthew to come forward. “Here, take your turn,” Zac said. “Give your father what he deserves.”
Matthew saw his father’s eyes beneath all the blood. They were filled desperate fear. He turned away.