by W W Walker
With her eyes closed, Constance nodded, looking as if she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She’d had enough.
Constance placed her hand on Marigold's knee. “The cat,” she said out of earshot of the others. “I saw the cat.”
Marigold had forgotten. She’d put that picture of the hanging slaughtered cat out of her mind, believing, hoping, that it had been just an apparition, a trick of the torchlight, in that most horrific night, when her imagination played tricks on her mind like she’d never known before. So, it wasn’t all in her head. The cat was real. “Where?”
Constance’s throat constricted as she gulped. She struggled to utter the words. “In the bed.”
“What?” Gladys stared at her, her mouth distorted, as if she’d had a stroke. “What are you talking about, love?”
Before she could explain, their heads swung about as Eva made an announcement. “Listen, everyone,” she said, standing up. She was still trembling. Someone had put a sweater around her shoulders. She stabbed her arms into the sleeves and took a handkerchief from the pocket. She blew her nose, squeezing her eyes shut as she forced the memory of their ordeal into the white linen. “I think we’re in a pickle here,” she said.
Everyone listened, happy that someone other than themselves were in the limelight.
“Here’s the deal,” she said, stuffing her handkerchief up her sleeve. “We have reason to believe that there’s a prowler in Seaview.”
Everyone muttered something, but the statement that stood out from them all was Tammy’s. “We don’t know that for sure.”
Constance stood up. “I know there is,” she said plainly. “When we saw the Butlers the first time, they didn’t have a dead cat in their bed.”
Jade looked confused by the whole matter. “What does that mean?” she shouted. “A dead cat!? Who cares about a cat?”
“It wasn’t just a dead cat,” Constance explained, patiently. “It was slaughtered. Its innards ripped out…”
“Don’t be disgusting,” Jade yelled. “I can’t believe what you’re saying.”
“Believe it or not, that’s up to you, but we know what we saw.”
She stood in the centre of the room, amid her peers, and tears rolled down Jade’s face. She was scared. Really scared.
“Look,” Eva said. “It may not be as bad as we think it is. The killer may have gone now.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Constance. All eyes turned to her. “I think he’s still here.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because the cat was put into that bed after the power went out. He couldn’t have gotten through the gate.”
“Anyone could climb over that gate,” Jade said, her eyes wide, hoping that someone would agree with her.
“Actually, that’s not true. Someone tried it once. It’s like a damn jail cell with spikes on the top and it’s about 10ft high.”
“Nine,” said Constance.
Marigold got to her feet by steadying herself on the arm of Gladys’ chair. “I think we have to assume that there is a killer in Seaview, and we need to stay together until it’s safe, maybe until the men come back or the power comes on so that we can use the phone and call the police.”
Constance rose to her feet, looking like she’d had a revelation. “I think I know where he is,” she said slowly, surprising even herself as she remembered the small glow of light when she came back from the beach. “I think he’s hiding out in the empty house at No.3.”
Everyone stared at her, shocked that she would even suggest that an intruder would be hiding among them, watching them.
Marigold looked at the women one by one. Then, she said slowly. “We need to find Kiki and Rhianna.”
Tammy was about to rush from the room when Eva stopped her. “Where are you going?”
She shrugged her off. “To get my brother.”
“I’ll come with you.” She said it but she wasn’t sure if she meant it.
“No, it’s all right. He’s just next door. I’ll go over the gardens. Bring him back here.”
“In his wheelchair?”
Tammy shook her head and snarled at her. “Yes, of course,” she spat.
Eva looked embarrassed. She always seemed to be putting her foot in it with those two. She wished Tammy would just ease up. She was so sensitive.
She watched her leave and locked the door behind her. Then she went upstairs to make sure all the windows were shut. She’d already checked the garage and then bolted the inner door. No one was getting in that house, not if she could help it.
When she was upstairs, checking the windows, she had time to think about Jack, wondering what he was doing right then. They were probably at dinner now, celebrating their successes on the golf course. She wondered if he was thinking about her. Had he tried to phone? And if he had, what would he have thought when he got no reply? Would he be worried about her, or worried about Jade, his wife? She liked to think it was her. They had connected in a way that couldn’t be explained. Perhaps they were meant to be together.
She went into the spare room, where he had slept the night before. She had already stripped the sheets, but she wished she hadn’t. She could have smelled his aftershave on them, that musky aroma which had stirred her senses at the party last summer when he’d kissed her.
As she sat on the side of the bed, Jade came into the room carrying a candle like she was Florence Nightingale. “What do you want?” Eva spat, annoyed at Jade for disturbing her most intimate thoughts.
“I came up to use the loo. Someone else is in the downstairs one.”
“The toilet isn’t in here.”
“I know where it is.”
“Of course you do, seeing as you’ve been here all damn day.”
“Why do you hate me so much.” The candle illuminated her face, highlighting the flaws.
“You know why.”
“Because of Roger and me?”
Eva’s head rotated like it was on a spike. “What?” She stood up and confronted her.
Now the two women were head to head with a burning candle flickering between them.
when she heard the kerfuffle, Marigold grabbed the torch and ran upstairs. She could smell burning, which was the most worrisome of all. At the top, on the landing, Eva and Jade were wrestling as flames rose up from an artificial rubber plant in the corner.
She went quickly into the bathroom and grabbed a jug that held plastic flowers. She dumped them in the bath and filled up the vessel with cold water. She grabbed a towel and left the tap running over it in the sink as she darted from the bathroom and back out onto the landing. As the women screamed and pulled each other’s hair, Marigold doused the flames rising from the plant, then she dashed back to the bathroom and grabbed the sodden towel. Finally, she threw it over the plant and extinguished the fire. She felt like a hero, but all that heroism was wearing her out. She’d like to lie down and take a nap, but the two women were still cursing and screaming in a mass of entwined limbs. She went between them and separated them “Stop,” she screeched.
They did.
Eva pushed Jade away and offered her one last stab of the foot. Jade was crying.
“What on earth are you doing?” Marigold shouted. “As if things aren’t bad enough.”
“She’s been sleeping with my husband,” Eva yelled, still on the floor trying to regain her composure.
“Okay, but you can sort this out another time.”
Eva looked up at her. “You knew.”
Marigold shrugged. “My Wilbur walked in on them at my anniversary party.”
“What?” she screamed, looking daggers at Jade.
Jade sniffed and tossed her hair behind her head. “I’m not staying here listening to this,” she said as she walked down the stairs with as much dignity as she could muster.
Chapter Thirty-nine
He couldn’t have timed it any better. He had been in the process of creating an illusion, but now the trick he had up his sleeve
was about to become a whole lot better than he’d planned.
He saw her come out of the house. She was blonde and attractive, which made the experience twice as gratifying.
He was standing on the edge of the cliff, on the left side of the headland, at the bottom of the garden at No.4. She had just come out of the Lang’s house where all the women were hiding.
Earlier he’d watched the whole thing, when Eva and the blonde had walked along the eight, looking for their friends. They’d crossed the road to No.7, where they bumped into Constance, the same woman he’d seen going down to the beach just thirty minutes earlier.
Like rats in a trap they all went next door to the Butlers’ where, they’d run out screaming five minutes later. It was the funniest thing he’d ever seen, and he had to pat himself on the back for thinking about putting the cat in the bed with two old people, nice and snug-like, three in a bed, mixed with semen and blood. It was things like that which made him the man he was today.
And when he saw them scarpering back to the house at the top of the headland, he was reminded of his father, who always said of his father. Quote: ‘He made me the man I am today.’ Drake was only ten at the time, and when he thought about it afterwards, he had the sense to deem it inappropriate when he told him the story. This is what he said:
Quote: ‘You would have loved my old man. He was a coal miner and good at it too. Worked the mines till the day he died and never complained once. Highly respected in the community where I grew up. Those were the good ol’ days when everyone knew their place. No one stepped out of line, thinking they were better than anyone else. Our mother was a hard worker too, but our old man used to beat her good. ‘It was the only way of keeping her in line,’ was what he used to say. I’ll tell you this little story, Drake. When our old man came home from the mines one day, he brought one of his mates with him. He owed him, see. And father never wanted to be in debt to anyone, so he paid him in kind (wink), you know what I’m saying? (laugh). Yeah, he got our mother to pay his debt good and father, by way of keeping an eye on the situation, watched. (wink). The women never complained in those days, son. They did what they were told, no mistaking. Anyhow, after the debt was paid (wink), the three of them went at it and made me watch. I was just a young’un then, but I always remembered what happened that day. It shook me up, truth be told, but I soon got over it. Our dad said it was a good lesson learned and that’s why, Drake son, I always say it was my old man who made me the man I am today (wink).
Yes, it had been a good idea putting the cat in the bed. Now, the women would be terrified that they were going to be next, hung up and gutted alive.
When he saw the blonde walk over the gardens to house No.4, he knew she was coming to find the man in the wheelchair.
That’s when Drake got a little bold.
“Hey,” he called as she stumbled around in the dark with just the moonlight to guide her. The wind had dropped a bit, but it still whistled about and now the rain was coming, starting off light and then turning to torrential in the blink of an eye.
“Hey,” he called again over the sound of the rain and the wind. She spun about to see where the voice had come from. She saw him next to the cliff and she was squinting, finding it hard to make out what she was seeing. Then the wet and the light from the moon reflected upon the wheels of the chair.
Her mouth fell open as she saw it totter at the side of the cliff. She was a brave one all right. Next minute she was pacing towards him, screaming, before he let go of the chair.
As the contraption rolled over the side, the blonde reached the edge and he gave her a little push too. It didn’t take a lot, she looked like she was crying as if she’d just lost her best friend.
Drake laughed when he glanced over the side.
There on the rocks below were the broken pieces of the wheelchair and next to it the broken body of the blonde.
Chapter Forty
Kiki was sobbing. Beneath her, Ty could hardly breathe. He was dying, she could tell, and he was in such terrible pain, that his brow creased from agony even in unconsciousness. She wanted to get off, to allow his chest to breath, but she couldn’t shift her weight. She was tied up like a trussed chicken and she knew who was responsible, which made the whole thing even more terrifying.
Drake Fisher! The man they had let go that week from Phillips. She could hardly believe it when he’d gotten down on the floor to look her straight in the eyes. His face was as she’d remembered, except he had a madness about him she’d never seen before, apart from that time when Tyrone was nearly mowed down by the forklift Drake had been driving. The whole factory had come to a standstill when Tyrone got up and confronted the driver, Drake Fisher.
“You did that on purpose,” he’d yelled.
Drake had jumped down from the cab and looked him square in the face. “Two words,” he’d said. “Hardhat and Unions.”
That was when she saw that look on his face, which had sent shivers up her spine. Drake Fisher wasn’t someone you stood up to. She could see that in his eyes then and she could see it in his eyes now, and that chilled her to the bone.
“Why have you done this?” she said with a trembling voice. Her cheek was touching Ty’s. Her face was cold but his was hot like he had a fever.
“Just thought I’d come visit,” he said. He reached up and stroked her hair. He took his hand away and even in the darkness she saw it stained with blood. “You fired me.”
“It…it wasn’t my decision. It came from up above.”
“Like God?” he smiled.
“No, I mean higher management.”
His face was repulsive. He was pale but he had blemishes on his skin, and hairs on his chin and under his nose, undeserving of the term stubble. They were just hairs, like thin tufts of grass. But it was his eyes, like the windows to his damaged soul that defined the man he was. There was no need to look further. The eyes said it all.
“How long are you going to keep us here? Will you let us go? What are you planning?” She had so many questions rattling around her head, she didn’t know which to ask first, let alone digesting his answers.
“Don’t know…don’t know…you’ll see,” he said in response.
“Please, please let us go. My friend needs a doctor.”
“Don’t you mean he needs doctoring.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes. Doctoring, like altering. He’s not a good person. Not good enough for you.”
“I don’t…”
“You and me, Kiki Cutter. That’s what I’m saying. You and me.”
Rhianna could hear him, but she couldn’t see him. She was blind, oh god she was blind.
The man had taken her from Tom’s house, guiding her out roughly when she couldn’t see and she couldn’t stretch out her arms to feel her way. She had no choice but to stay as close as she could to the man, hoping he would take her somewhere safe, somewhere she could get her breath back, regroup, form ideas in her mind…just to establish what was happening to her. And what of Tom? Where was Tom?
Stumbling in the dark, each time they came to a step, he kneed her on the back of her leg. She knew he was the same height as her, just by the toxic smell of his breath against her face. And he was hard. She felt him against her, rubbing his pelvis against her. Repulsed by him, she tried to get away, but he was too strong.
He took her outside and then they walked a distance before she heard another door open and he pushed her inside a room. She didn’t know where she was. She was on a hard floor, like wood, and it was cold in there. Her hands were tied in front of her, so she could only use the tips of her fingers to feel. She heard him behind her as he closed the door. His steps sounded hollow, and so did her voice when she spoke, as if they were in an empty room. “Who are you? What are you going to do? Where’s Tom?”
He answered each question as she’d asked them. “My Little Drake…you’ll see…Gone.”
Chapter Forty-one
The women of Seaview sat
in darkness. It was ten o’clock at night. The power was still out, the rain was lashing down, three women were missing, and they were all terrified.
They’d arranged the furniture in a semi-circle around the fireplace, and upon the hearth all their candles burned. Around them, outside the comfort of the armchairs and sofa, was blackness, where nothing moved except for the occasional draft making a curtain blow gently as if someone had whispered their breath upon it. Beyond the bricks and mortar, the rain came down in vertical sheets, like a shop display of hanging carpets. The wind blew strong so that nothing could stand erect and even the moon had hidden its light, cowering, like they all cowered.
The silence inside was deafening. They’d already sung their songs of fear. They had already flung mud, made accusations, stamped and stomped their feet, raised their voices like shrill fishwives, poked their fingers, waved their hands in the dense, morbid air. Now they were silent, like witches watching their brew.
The party was over.
Not speaking, they stared at the flames of the low burning candles. No music played, not even The sound of silence, no cocktails filled glasses, no snacks enjoyed.
“Someone say something,” Jade said.
No one did.
And as they stared at each other’s faces, or simply nowhere, or at the flickering flames, out of the blue came a rapping on the window.
They all jumped in unison.
Marigold shot up from her chair. “It’s probably one of the girls,” she said hoping it was Kiki.
She threw back the curtain, but there was no one there.
“Someone open the door,” she called.
Constance was about to get up when Eva placed a hand on her arm. She shook her head as her eyes widened in fear. “We don’t know who it is.”