by Ben Stevens
If there was security lighting, it wasn’t happening along this narrow area between the side of the house and the fence. All I had to do now was to find out whether this key still worked, and then –
Well, I’d come to that if I actually managed to get inside this old skinflint’s house.
I put the key in the lock. Still fitted. Still turned. Made a little bit of noise, but the wind was howling now and so that served to conceal exactly what I was up to. I opened the door slowly, carefully – could hardly believe it when the cobweb-covered ironing board, broom and other junk started to fall out, exactly as it had well over a decade before. No one had been in this cupboard since the first time I’d set foot in it – of that I was certain.
I stopped all the stuff from falling out and entered into the darkness. Old, musty smell strong in my nostrils. Walking carefully, in case my shoes sounded noisily on the bare floorboards. I pushed the next door in front of me very carefully, so it opened just a chink. The kitchen lay in darkness, but outside in the hallway or whatever it was there was light, and I could hear the faint babble of a television.
I made my way out of the cupboard, walking through the kitchen and into the wide hallway. There was a large staircase of dark, carved wood opposite me. The floor was also wooden, with a number of rugs laid down here and there. A grandfather clock situated against the wall just before the first stair ticked the time.
The sound of the television was coming from a room that also lay across this hallway. I moved cautiously towards it. A living room. The curtains drawn across the windows. A large and comfortable-looking old chair was situated with its back to me. A fire blazed in the hearth nearby. The almost antiquated television set lay beyond the chair, its screen facing towards me. Some fat woman was singing opera. Mr. O’Reilly (I guessed it was him sitting in that chair, though I couldn’t see) was humming softly along.
I was hurting pretty badly by now. I hadn’t had any sort of junk for hours, and I was starting to shake and get the sweats. So if O’Reilly had any sort of money hidden in his house, I’d be getting my grubby little hands on it soon enough. That was certain.
I made way silently towards the back of the old chair. Soon I was directly behind it, looking down at the old, thin man humming along with the racket emanating from the TV.
Then – I don’t know if he ‘sensed’ me, so to speak, but he stopped humming and lifted up his head and his eyes to look directly at me. His rheumy grey eyes filled with fear and he opened his mouth I guess to cry out – but in a moment I moved around the side of the chair and grabbed his throat with one hand. With the other hand I covered his mouth. Had this been even a slightly younger, fitter man he might well have been able to resist me and fight back – I was in such bad physical condition – but O’Reilly stood no chance.
‘Where’s the money, you old fucker – where?’ I hissed at him, making my eyes wide and manic. But he just shook his head, and moaned something behind my hand.
As I say, the curtains had been drawn across the windows. When they were opened, they were tied in place with ‘ornamental’-looking red rope. I thought quickly. I dragged O’Reilly out of that chair, pulling him towards the first length of rope, which I wrenched free from its gold hook.
I pushed O’Reilly down on his front, his face in the thick red carpet, and tied his hands behind his back. The second length of red rope I used to fasten his feet. He was crying now, trying to lift his face so he could breath. There was a strong smell of urine. With one knee in his back, I lowered my head to say into his ear –
‘I said, where’s the fucking money?’
‘Please, please, I don’t have any money here,’ he was babbling.
‘Lying old fucker!’ I said, and started slapping him around the back of the head with my hand. All the time I’m thinking about how I’d used to work my nuts off for this asshole as a high school student , which in turn reminded me that I’d once been a young guy full of promise, and not just another hopeless junky, all of which was serving to make me madder and madder.
I pulled him to his feet by his hair, then slapped his face hard so that he fell back down again. He was crying freely now, a big wet stain around the crotch of his old grey trousers. I was pretty sure these were the trousers he always wore when I used to work for him, the miserable old skinflint.
He started shouting ‘Help! Help!’ so I backhanded him across the mouth and then covered his lips again with my hand. But his house was bordered on one side by the small wood, and it was a two-three minute walk along the road before you came to the next house on the other side. So I wasn’t overly concerned that someone might hear what was happening.
‘Where’s the fucking money?’ I said in the most vicious voice I could muster, right by his left ear. I saw that it was full of wax; surprising he could even hear me, really.
‘No, no money, none…’ he was mumbling, his eyes fixed and staring.
It was then I realized two things: Namely, a) he had money stashed somewhere in his house, and b) it was going to take more than a backhander across the face for him to tell me exactly where this money was hidden.
There was an armrest cover on that old chair he’d been sitting upon. Well, actually there were two armrest covers, of course – but all I required was just one. I pulled it off, and realizing it was a little too large for my purpose as it was then managed to tear it in two. I stuffed one of the torn pieces into his mouth – it worked perfectly as a gag.
That done, I left him lying on the floor as I stalked over to the fire. There was a poker and I stuck it into the flames, letting it get nice and hot before I pulled it back out again. I’d left him lying in such a way that he could see exactly what I was doing; and now I turned back round to face him, the poker held in front of me. Steam was rising from the part that had been stuck in the fire.
‘Which eye do you want to keep?’ I asked him, extending the poker towards his face. He gave a slight squeal – about all the noise he could muster, what with that gag being stuffed in his mouth.
‘For the last time – where’s the money?’I said then, as I pulled out the gag with the hand that wasn’t holding the poker.
‘HELP! HELP!’ he commences yelling, so I quickly stuff the gag back in. Then I rolled him onto his back. I wasn’t quite serious about putting out one of his eyes – but there were other ways of persuasion I could employ, to get him to tell me where the money was hidden.
I lifted up his grey cardigan, white shirt and white vest, exposing his scrawny back with its knobbly spine. The poker was still almost white-hot and I laid it for a second or two on that back. O’Reilly writhed and squealed as best he could through the gag; I again put my lips close by his waxy ear and said –
‘I can keep doing this all night, and I fucking will do, until you tell me where you’ve got your fucking money hidden.’
And I put the poker on his back again, the flesh searing straight away. He writhed again; the pain must have been insane, but I wasn’t joking – I was gonna get some cash off him, or I was going to keep doing this until daybreak.
I thought maybe I’d convinced him by now I was serious. I removed the gag, and quickly warned him to shut the fuck up when he started sobbing and begging for mercy.
‘All I wanna hear from you,’ I said, ‘is where you’ve got some money stashed.’
‘I know you,’ he starts babbling. ‘I recognize you now. You’re the Williams’ boy; you used to work in my garden. Oh, please – ’
‘Yeah, and you used to pay me jack-shit,’ I spat, once again getting so mad that I prepared to stick the gag back in and get busy with the poker.
‘Upstairs! Upstairs!’ he called out. ‘Top of the stairs, first room on the right – there’s a big white cupboard inside. Open it, and look under the floor of it – you can lift up the bottom panel. Please, please, dear God, don’t burn me again…’
‘Better not be joking…’ I warned him.
The gag back in place, I left him choking and cr
ying on the living room carpet as I made my out into the hallway and then up that impressive-looking staircase. Emerging onto the long upstairs’ landing, I entered the room I’d been told. I didn’t turn on a light; there was sufficient light from the landing to see this large white cupboard. I opened it, and almost recoiled at the musty mothball smell emanating from the old suits and such hanging inside. What is it with old people that they’ve got such a hang-up about throwing old shit away?
Anyway, then I knelt down, and felt the floor of the cupboard. My fingers found the slightest gap running all around – a square section maybe two foot square. I managed to lift this part up and then I was almost crowing with delight.
Inside was a cavity stuffed full with bundles of banknotes!
I got them all out. I needed a bag or something. I quickly went back down and entered the kitchen. There were a few old shopping bags lying on a small table against one wall. I grabbed one and made my way back upstairs. I filled the bag till it was almost bursting. Still a few bundles remained. I stuffed these inside the pockets of my old jacket. I made my way back downstairs, entered the living room and walked over to where Mr. O’Reilly was lying very still.
‘All right, here’s what we’re going to do – ’ I began. Then I saw that the old man’s eyes were fixed and open, and a strong smell of shit was emanating from his body along with the rank odor of piss.
I didn’t need to make any further checks. This man was very, very dead.
I got out of that house fast. I’d not meant to actually kill the old bastard; I’d just wanted his money. I think I was almost in shock, because I only really ‘came to’, as it were, in the woods. I must have left the house the way I’d come in – must have done – though I couldn’t really remember.
But I had the money and now it was time to get real high. But I was hardly going to go downtown at this hour (or indeed any hour) carrying a shopping bag full of greenbacks. I’d just take one or two bundles of bills with me, concealed in my jacket. So I stashed this bag in a small, rocky opening that was beneath the roots of a massive tree. That would do for now; I’d come back and sort out a much better hiding place before morning broke.
Right now, I just really needed to get high.
Bad move…
Turns out I got so high with my new-found wealth that I’d absolutely no idea what I was doing – or, more importantly, saying. Apparently, I blabbed all about my adventures with the now-deceased Mr. O’Reilly to one of my ‘friends’ (whom I was also treating to whatever their fix was – there’s gratitude for you). This ‘friend’ in fact chose not to torture me into telling where I had all the loot stashed – but instead went quickly and quietly off to the nearest police station, hoping, no doubt, that by telling all about what I’d done they’d earn themselves a few favors, the next time they were caught doing something illegal.
As I say, though, I got so high that I don’t really recall anything. I only really ‘came round’ in the police cell, where I’d learnt that my prints had been found all around the corpse of Mr. O’Reilly. I was somewhat emotional, now stricken with guilt at having caused his death, and so I blurted out my confession.
Still, I might have got ‘off’ on a manslaughter charge. But Judge Timothy J. Green – we’ll end this part of the story as we started it – was determined that I was going to the chair.
‘Your counsel claims that you did not intend to kill Mr. O’Reilly,’ the pompous old bastard said at one point, sitting at his desk and controlling the courtroom like his own personal fiefdom. ‘But the jury may very well ponder exactly what the outcome of applying a heated poker to the naked back of a man in his late seventies, with a diagnosed heart condition, is likely to be.’
This blatant ‘leading the jury’ comment was not even challenged by the useless fucker of a defense attorney I’d been assigned. When I tried to take matters into my own hands, Judge Green just threatened me with being found ‘in contempt of court’.
Yeah, every which way that bastard of a judge was gonna see that I got found guilty of murder and so was sent to the chair. I’ve given just one example of how he set about putting it into the jury’s heads that there was no way I was gonna get off on a manslaughter charge. There were many such examples, all unchallenged by my attorney, who at one point even informed me with a weak smile that the stress of my trial was giving him diarrhea. That guy redefined the word ‘useless’, really.
Judge Green could barely conceal his smile of satisfaction when the jury found me guilty of murder. He read out the sentence of death almost with relish; you could see his pleasure at having another ‘dangerous young enemy of society’ entirely removed from existence. My mother sobbed, and was led outside by my father. (They’d attended the trial in the latter stages, and even came to visit me in my cell once, but we had little to say to each other. We all knew that I was no longer the person who had once been their son. They were now looking at, and talking to, a drug-addict who’d tortured a gentle, reclusive old man to death.)
My death-sentence passed, I was taken to the federal penitentiary. There I spent the next four years on death-row; in my cell most of the time, I was permitted one hour’s exercise in every twenty-four. I thought I’d be here for maybe twenty years – I’d heard plenty of stories about how long it took to get people executed – but I wasn’t much past my thirty-second birthday when I was taken to Ol’ Sparky and told to be seated. The wet towel went on my shaved head; my wrists and ankles were tied in position. A priest came in to hear any last words but I told him to get the Hell out. Cussed him down as a fraud and a charlatan – told him there was no afterlife or anything like that and that he should stop peddling his fairy stories to try and make poor bastards like me feel just a smidgen better.
Ha. Ha.
The only plus-point about this whole situation had been my last meal. Fried chicken, mashed potato and a root beer. As requested. I would have loved a six-pack of Bud’ and a carton of smokes to go with it – but that wasn’t exactly on the menu.
Just before they flicked the switch and let the electricity flow into my skinny body, I saw Judge Timothy J. Green’s face in my mind. The person I most hated in the world – even now, just a second or so away from death. He was the reason why I was being fried, instead of just serving a nice and easy ‘ten-to-life’ for manslaughter.
If I could ever get even with that bastard…
But what was I thinking?
I was dying.
I was dead.
I was in Hell.
3
Copying Hitler – and the X million other damned souls who’d been in Hell for ‘a while’ now – I got down on my knees as Satan’s winged form seemed to fill the entire red sky. Black smoke was continually being emitted from His scaly red body, His eyes glowing with a light that you could best (unsurprisingly, perhaps) describe as ‘unholy’. Two twisted horns emerged from either side of His head, and His laugh mocked all the doomed souls who commenced screaming and wailing, begging to be released from their eternal torment.
‘They don’t get it,’ complained Hitler under his breath. ‘There is no release from Hell. So you might as well just try and make the best of it.’
Like I’ve said already, I found the Fuhrer’s attitude to be, well – heartening. He may well have been an evil son of a bitch during his time as Germany’s leader – but now I couldn’t help but like the guy. Quite a lot, as it happened.
But as I dared to look longer at Satan, I realized something. He seemed slightly tired – a little haggard, even. He laughed and mocked all the damned souls, and the smoke and the glowing eyes and all the other theatrics were all very impressive, but… Well, if you’d have asked me, I’d have said that His heart just didn’t seem entirely in it – for want of a better description.
I had the sudden, ridiculous idea that He’d just been in Hell too long – and then wondered why I’d just thought that. This was Hell, right? Something with which Satan was kind of ever-so-slightly synonymous…
Still, I also had something else on my mind. Something I’d been thinking about for a few years now. Even Hitler sometimes noticed if I was a little withdrawn or pensive, asking me what was wrong – and it took a lot for Mr. Self-Absorption to ask a question like that.
I just couldn’t believe that I may have found a way to get up to that tiny cave and… Well – possibly escape from Hell, I guess. I mean: found a way that no one else in Hell’s entire history had realized. Surely I couldn’t be the first…
Surely…
But if someone had tried ‘my way’ already, I’m sure Hitler would have found out about it. He knew so much about everything here, even after just seventy-odd years spent in Hell.
But first I had to conduct a test. It took some time to steel myself for this, as I knew what would happen to me straight after. But, there was something I had to check for certain…
So working alongside Hitler one day (or night, or whatever time it was – that scorching red light never changed), I called out quite suddenly –
‘Jesus Christ!’
Hitler looked at me as though I’d gone completely nuts.
‘Are you an utter imbecile?’ he hissed, his icy-blue eyes now blazing. ‘You’ve already paid the price for blasphemy – and now you go and say such a thing once again?’
It was strange, the way he was looking at me. A mixture of anger and… Compassion? Almost like the Fuhrer kind of cared about me; like we were close friends or something…
However, I wasn’t actually paying too much attention to that sort of thing right then. What I was really focused on as all the other damned sycophants covered their ears and wailed, as Hell shook and the rock walls crumbled and so on – were those flying demons.
Yeah, it was as I’d thought, but needed to see for myself just once more. They bellowed and roared fit to burst – those words caused them pain. You could see that. Serious, serious pain. A few of those flying demons even looked set to drop out of the sky, trying to cover their pointy ears with their black claws.