TBK: The Butterfly Killer

by A. P. Butler

  Two doors either side a large crucifix upon the wall opposite me were my only options. One leading to a cupboard full of shiny golden goblets and plates, no doubt their mythical messiah would be so proud of the wealth amassed by his cult of murderous convicts. The other door led to an entrance hall of what appeared to be an old parish rectory, its walls covered in artistic renditions of an anaemic Hebrew, perfectly trimmed beard and loving eyes, a far cry from the reality of such a spiteful Reich. As I stand I’m suddenly struck by a great sense of déjà vu; the front door’s the same as I’d been dragged through almost two decades ago. The door frame still holding onto its forgotten narrative, with rounded edge beneath master lock, as a thousand tiny hands had worn away timbers edge, dragged from one purgatory to another.

  The geography of this old rectory now unravelling its secrets, upstairs I race, towards the priest's private room, I remember finding it as a child before the abuse started. If I were right he’d still have the antique swords upon wall, maybe even the old service revolver in the top drawer. My search proves to be fruitless, none of the rooms contained an office, just tidy bedroom after bedroom, nothing to use and no chance of escape. There’s no way I could just walk out the front door, not with Evan still alive; he had to die before I could make my escape. The kitchen now my only option, I was going to have to dance with little Evan far enough into his own abyss that he would gladly take his own life, a fitting punishment to the barbaric cruelty of rape.

  The long blade of a carving knife held firmly in my hand; I crept silently back down into that torrid little hell. Evan still sitting upon his chair of enlightenment, his mind awash of childhood horrors, the aroma of vomit, which now pooled at foot scratched at my nostrils introducing its acidic pungency to me. He didn’t take his eyes off the tiny screen as I approached, blade ready to slide deep into chest should he give me reason. Lilly then cooed upon hyper-sensed ear, “He’s broken Elizabeth, his abyss has devoured him, a little nudge is all that’s required.” Her Plan was cruel but fitted his crime; not even Ubel rejected her notion. With knife in hand, I sat atop of one of the little rusty cages. Evan only noticing my return as the cage I sat upon creaked a little underweight, his eyes still crying a thousand river’s of pain, all spirit now stripped from him.

  My familiarity with his pain too great, I remembered the first time the little girl's voice visited me, how she tore my world apart, and how the nightmares hounded me still. It was evident his own abyss transfixed Evan, the longer he stared, the more of him it would strip away. He no longer had the look of a powerful sentient being; now a soulless shell stared back at me. This look I’d seen all too often, children who couldn’t handle the pain wore this look. A look that always came prior to a slash of wrist or a plea to others to end it for them. Many took their own lives to escape the abuse, many just never survived the pain of parental rejection.

  “Do you remember the pain, Evan?” His face winced as another haunting memory flashed its disturbing presents in front of him. “Remember when they would touch you?” This time his face and body answered my question, slowly he started to curl forward, his shoulders and head dropping, knees starting to fold as foetal protection grew within. “Did they make you taste them? My tight little Evan-a-Boo.” Using the same haunting words my little voice had set upon me, to cut him, no weapons were needed, words and memories would triumph in this conflict of the mind. With each word I cut another string holding him from plunging into his abyss, “How you took them both, my tight little Evan-a-Boo.”

  His stomach twitched as he struggled to battle nausea once more, no bile to evict, just convulsion to endure. “Let go, Evan, you’re a rapist, the same as they are now. Never a man, just the molesting monster they made you into.” Whispering at his soul for hours, each word a deeper cut, each memory a step closer to his suicide. Not a single word left his lips as I bombarded him with seeds of hate, his grasp on reality and life slipping away faster as the darkness within clawed at him, pulling him deeper into destitution and despair. “End the pain now little Evan, let the ghosts go. You don’t have to fight them anymore; absolution is waiting.” His eyes betrayed him first, I could tell he didn’t have the courage to fight back, his abyss had stripped him of all will.

  His body relaxed, feet falling to the floor, a look of certainty flashes across ashen face. A single hand dropped down to side, then swept behind returning in a flash grasping tight upon an old service revolver. Without hesitation or thought he swung the barrel up taking position in mouth, his eyes locked upon mine with a look of lost submission. A loud clap of thunder sounded out as flash of cordite exploded from either side of the cylinder, his head jolted back as blood, brain and skull flew from him. The rear wall now decorated a beautiful glossy shade of crimson, he fell lifeless upon the white throne and lap of Lady despair. Eternal gaze now locked in heavens embrace, searching for his redemption, a final act of absolution for a life stolen decades ago.

  Instantly I felt a wave of pleasure splash around me, like the welcoming waters of the warm Caribbean sea, lapping at my body as they had many years ago. As yet I didn’t know how the two priests were locking away the haunting memories in the abused, but this castle of Evan’s mind was all to easily breached. In silent contemplation I sat, Evan’s blood congealing with vomit, scratch marks adorned the wall behind, as fragments of skull slowly descended.

  -2-

  “Hello, again my dirty fucking Little-Boo.”

  The cold haunting little voice cut deep. She was back once more, this time her words cut deeper, as I sat alone in the subterranean purgatory of my childhood hell, the very room I’d suffered the worst of my abuse. Breath freezing as it leaves my mouth, wisping its sombre dance out in front of me, as a billion tiny crystals of ice run free. Hair jumping to attention as pulsations of fear run upon arm and back. Her tiny icy fingers, sinisterly playing with my hair. The cold halitosis of her breath gently dancing across face and ear.

  “Remember the day they took little Hannah?”

  “How she screaming as they tore her from you.”

  “How the young boy had grown, how he touched her so.”

  The whole torrid scene now unfolds in front of me, as if I were still twelve, still incarcerated in my cage of abduction and abuse. The two priests holding Hannah, as a young Lance no older that seventeen now molesting her with sinister smile riding high upon devil’s face. Her screams and pleas for amnesty falling only upon the ears of the damned. Only quiet from the many young whom suffered with me in their own confining steel cells of captivity, each one a victim, each one a story never to be told.

  “How she cried out for sister as they pushed down the lid.”

  “Muffled sounds of distress from inside confining chest.”

  The image of Hannah as she struggles against them as they force her into a large travel trunk, she doesn’t stand a chance, the two of them pushing her down while Lance fires fist after fist into her bloodied face and stomach. The trunk slams shut, I can hear the metal clasps locking down, ensuring her entombment.

  “As tail of trunk hits foot of step, dragging her upstairs away from you.”

  My heart now racing, I can see cuts and bruises upon my arms of youth as I reach out in front of me, through the rusty old bars of my confinement. Powerless to help, I scream at them, but they hear nothing. My words dissipate before reaching them as if an invisible force were fending off any sense of morality, any flight of humanity.

  “Arthur congratulating Lance with his first new toy.”

  “How her screams grew distant as you let them take her, you dirty little whore!”

  This haunting cellar unlocks more harrowing memories from my château of torture as if the guards have retreated from the insidious advances within. Before I only half wanted to believed the lies told to me, from the mouths of tortured men. But now I knew - Hannah didn’t die, I now knew - Lance had taken her, to continue her torture, his right of passage as they said. It was all true, every sordid detail was correct,
now I knew I had to end it, I couldn’t allow it to continue. This place needed to burn, the two men still alive that caused such hate and misery needed to burn.

  There was no god, no heaven or hell, but I was about to create hell on earth for them both to experience. With satanic seed now inside, Evan’s parting gift now also fated to termination. No way of knowing if I’d become infected by his child, but I’d no intention of raising the bastard child of a rapist. Never did I want children, my demons too strong, too emotive to withstand, a child in my arms would become a monster of tomorrow, another monster humanity did not require. Only one special gift I had to offer the world, vengeance, self-destruction my only recourse.

  -3-

  The front door swings open swift and quiet. The view I’m confronted with not what I expect. A gravel driveway, Evan’s Audi A3 sitting serenely in the dark, behind it sits the menace of a looming village church, its spire reaching high into the sky. The crucifix crowning the spire only visible as the dark sky galleons clear the moon. Smaller skiffs raced past upon dark night above alerting of another winter's storm was fast approaching. Evan must have put his key’s somewhere, Christ I hoped they were with his suit and other belongings he wore this morning.

  His suit bag and backpack slumped over the large armchair in the front sitting room. A small cosy little room with a red brick feature wall, its centrepiece an oversized fireplace. Brass crosses nailed either side of another anaemic Hebrew proudly looking down from above the fire, its spiritual connotations all too evident. Evans keys not among his belongings; they must be upon corpse below. The thought of entering that destructive little world once more grew shivers from within, but I needed to get free, to hunt the bastards from my past.

  Before I faced my childhood hell once more I checked the house for a fire-starter, anything would do, a liquid I could dowse my memories in. The garage was full of unused exercise equipment, old bikes and a lifetime's worth of nothing. My search would be futile in here; I could hardly close the door from the kitchen behind. As I turned to leave, I saw an old saggy grey plastic container of antifreeze stuck on the end of an overcrowded, bowing shelf. Grabbing hold of it released an enormous black spider, forcing it to run up the wall, its web ripping apart with crackling frequency as I gathered the container. Upon the front was the warning message I’d hoped to see, ‘This product contains methanol highly flammable.’

  The screw top was almost welded on as I struggled to open it. The kitchen held the answer once again, an extensive collection of cooking knives all magnetically hanging from a strip next to the twin plate, large red AGA. Next to which was a large bottle of Hennessey cognac sitting behind a set of candles with a lighter attached, all held together by a large red silk ribbon with the words ‘God is great’ running along it in virgin white.

  Standing as far away from Evan’s corpse, surrounded by a pool of congealed blood and vomit I patted down his jeans. His keys not now the only firm part of him, Riga Mortis had begun its advance. With a breath held deep and scrunched face, I slid my hand further into his cold pocket, fingers fishing for metallic salvation. With tight grasp around the electronic fob, I thanked a god I neither believed nor admired, securing them within my own denim. It was only then I noticed his phone laying upon the ground, almost consumed by vomit. Wiping the tiny screen free of liquid bile down corpses cold leg, I pressed the home button with hope. The silly man-child hadn’t set a passcode. Scanning through the messages I find a novel to my demise, they knew all along, like they said. Every plan in meticulous detail, from both sides they’d staged my execution.

  The knife sliced into the old grey plastic container with ease, spitting out the obnoxious fluorescent green alien blood it contained. With great energy I danced my way around this room of lost souls, pouring a mixture of ageing antifreeze and fine Hennessey cognac as I went. Prodigal son of Ubel sang firestarter at request, its lyrics and intent danced with me as hand in hand we doused this place down. My delight allowed a few swigs of the cognac, only to be spat out over doors and cage alike. The last of the poison poured over Evan before I let out the last of my anger, screaming words of blasphemy to a god I despised as empty glass bottle exploded off wall.

  The lighter flint sparked the hissing gas into life as the flame flickered in front of me. All my demons from my past dancing in those flames before me. A pristine black cassock wrapped symbolically round a gilt cross became my flaming spear of clemency, saying goodbye to my past as I tossed the burning deity back into its own inferno of guilt and remorse.

  The flames lapped up through the windows as I drove down the narrow lane away from my childhood prison, the tempest of night now high as the winds aided their advance. As each flame broke free, another part of me was released, I could feel the demonic little girl's presence fade, each crack of pane another sword to her heart. Each crackle, a scream of exorcised possession as they became evicted from their keep. Once again Lilly, Ubel and I had faced the fallen angel from our bottomless abyss, conquering our phobias, crushing our abuser.

  The Wise Monkey’s of Paris

  The crappy handbrake of Evan’s A3 was floppy and loose, much like the clutch pedal and steering, as I abandoned it in yet another empty, dimly lit faceless car-park somewhere in the Northwest of the spiralling metropolis of London. Not bothering to find a special place this time, nor anywhere I’d used prior, just any old place that was close to a tube station. It was only a ten-year-old, grey A3, more damaged than I so that it wouldn’t look out of place in a suburban car park. His car stank no better than he did now, a damp, mouldy smell with strong overtones of burning.

  Eventually, I arrived home, to Pimlico in the early hours of this morning. For hours I’d driven, my journey only forty-five minutes, but I needed to drive, to feel free for a bit. The overpowering stench of stale damp gym kit, body odour and burning I’d not noticed while driving this morning, but I did now. The sun was just breaking through the trail ends of the grey topped, black-hulled tugs, from last night's gale, when I finally abandoned the car. A quick wipe down inside and out, lock the doors, dropped the keys down a nearby drain, then off towards the nearest tube station.

  The Metropolitan line was as quiet as the roads had been for the first few stations, with each station the commuters came, the closer to central London the more I was consumed by another busy day in the city. As the tube carriage filled, so did my senses with fresh aftershaves and delicate perfumes. Ubel, too tired to observe the few sights that offered themselves to his objections, only occasionally would he spit out a phrase or comment. Lilly and I, as cold and tired as the departed, the way commuters leant away I think we emitted the same ungodly aroma too.

  Stations came and went, as people jumped on and off, I had to change at Baker Street then Green Park, both swarming with life like a fisherman’s net. By the time I walked through the welcoming brick arches of Pimlico station Ubel was fast asleep, I could hear the faint sounds of his snoring in the distance. Too tired, too emotionally drained was I to shower or eat when I finally closed the front door to the quiet little street of my sanctuary. At last, I felt safe, as if my fortress was sacred once more. All external threats now either dead or for the moment at least, believing I was contained. My head plunged into the soft, inviting coolness of the pillow as my dreams instantly took command.

  -1-

  “Quick Elsbeth, someone’s at the door!” Ubel barked, waking me up with gravely panic. A loud metallic banging rang throughout the house as the brass flap of letter box smashed shut. My eyes fired open, all senses now on red alert, critical condition. My heart the only other sound in the room. Frozen under the bulletproof protection of duvet, I face the door, iris hidden beneath pupil, anticipating, waiting, expecting. Footsteps then the small metal gate swinging shut behind, causing me to leap from my feathered fortress, rushing to the window.

  Peeking from behind the transparency of curtain, as conspicuous as a Nazi at a bat mitzvah, I caught the gaze of the innocuous but welcoming post-woman smili
ng back at me. Falling back against the wall I exhale a huge sighing breath of anxiety and relief, my heart dropping back to green alert, non-critical. My childhood prison I may well have escaped, but I was still a scared young girl hiding behind the veil of a strong, independent woman.

  “Ubel you are such an ass at times,” Lilly shouted, Ubel, retaliated with a comical little speech about fighting them on the doorsteps, substituting a few choice words, adding new obscenities, the remainder of his soapbox moment almost entirely plagiarised from Mr Churchill.

  Breakfast was a strange affair, I thought I’d started the cleansing flames of retribution last night, but it seems I’ve slept through the whole of yesterday, god I can’t even remember what day it is. The last few months have been exceptionally stressful, a turbulent sea of emotions. Normally I’m not so easily affected by my emotions, at least I wasn’t. The fire at the old rectory, apparently a grade one listed building, was already on the news, parishioner after parishioner sobbing at the loss of a village and British icon. A knowing smile grew as I looked forward to their investigation, the iminent discover of many a remains of what was a child abduction, rape and trafficking headquarters. Not that the parishioners will care, easier to turn a blind eye, the spirit of Pontius very much alive in the hearts of the faithful.

  The Christian propaganda machine had jumped into action, Bishops and Cardinals all scurrying around diverting media attention from the shallow grave of abuse hiding beneath the surface. Ubel and Lilly’s argument was in full flight when I announce our departure for Paris. “We need to find Raymond and commence his excommunication you two.” Ubel let out a huge roar of happiness, simply because we would soon be indulging in his favourite activity, torture and murder. Lilly happy to be returning to Paris, she did attempt to appeal to my compassion, suggesting a little vengeful fun, and a quick kill, as it was Arthur Cain and not Raymond that abused us the most. Ubel detonated at such an idea, and their argument exploded back into life once more. According to the news reader, nobody saw anything sinister prior to the fire; It would appear the eyesight of many a local require immediate ophthalmic attention.