After Darkness Falls 2 - 10 Tales of Terror - Volume Two

by Matt Drabble

  He headed down into the cellar and stepped around the prone figure of the newcomer. He collected up the tools that Stacey had used and steeled his stomach as he first wiped the handles and then cleaned the blades and grips. He knew that the police would easily identify the tools as the murder weapons but he wanted to make sure that no trace of his girl would remain. He set about the task, methodically ignoring the panic in his heart and concentrating only on being thorough.

  He did two checks around the cellar and then a third just to be sure. He was about to leave when he suddenly wondered why he was being so prissy about the job. A further search of his surroundings turned up petrol operated lawnmower and he soon found a green jerry can against the wall. He splashed the liquid around the cellar floor and up the stairs leading back into the house. He poured the remainder of the petrol all around the lounge, gagging on the smell but making sure that he was being accurate and disciplined.

  He was pouring a careful line alongside a dark oak antique cabinet when he noticed the framed photographs sitting on top. The silver frames were tasteful and looked expensive. As he ran his eye along the line of photos, he saw that the images depicted showed Taylor in various poses with various people. The first one was of a married couple on their wedding day; the bride looked radiant but Taylor looked anything but. The next showed Taylor with two children, arms linked with hugs and happy faces that only a father could offer. Jack’s heart sunk as the remainder showed Taylor and the man who was now lying beside him in the basement. These ones showed the men together in various sunny locations, their arms wrapped around each other and in these Taylor looked truly happy with no forced smiles.

  Jack felt the panic rise in his system as he started to pull open drawers in the cabinet and started to root around in the man’s personal effects, no longer caring about leaving fingerprints, and throwing discarded paperwork aside. It didn’t take long to find the divorce papers accompanied by increasingly bitter letters from his ex-wife declaring that he was a “pervert” and that he would never see the children again.

  Jack looked back at the photographs and clearly saw the timeline of a man denying his own self, marrying out of some misguided sense of duty, fathering two children, before finally coming to terms with his own sexuality.

  Perhaps Taylor had thought that he and Stacey had been sent by Taylor’s ex-wife, hence the apologies. Jack didn’t know just how he could have followed Stacey so blindly. He had gone on her word and nothing more, desperate to redeem himself in her eyes and his own. That desperation had colored his thinking and he had indulged his primal side, caring little for rationality.

  He had no proof that Taylor wasn’t the man that had abducted Stacey and yet he knew it just the same. Whatever Stacey had been thinking, he had no idea. Had she made a mistake? Had she genuinely thought that Taylor was the man? He didn’t know.

  The crushing reality of what they’d done came crashing down and he started to cry for the two men lying in the cellar below, guilty of nothing more than loving each other.

  He left the house without lighting the fire, climbing into the dead man’s car alongside his sleeping wife. He did a quick mental calculation as to where the nearest police station was and then pulled out.

  The drive would take about 30 minutes or so and after a while he reached out and turned the radio on out of habit. The station was on a break but the second that a presenter’s voice spilled out over the airwaves again Stacey sat bolt upright in her seat, straining against the belt.

  “That’s him, oh dear God, that’s him, that’s the man!” Stacey suddenly roared in the car with a voice that bordered on hysteria.

  She heard the “man” on the radio at least another dozen times or so during the ride to the police station. They weren’t always male voices; some were women and some were even children. One was a weather presenter, another a celebrity and the last had actually been the Prime Minister on the news bulletin just as Jack drove into the police car park, sobbing uncontrollably.

  TALE 6.

  “DIFFERENT SHIT, SAME DAY”

  Mac checked around carefully to make sure that the soft pops hadn’t drawn any unwanted attention. Once he was satisfied that he hadn’t been observed, he quickly unscrewed the silencer and deftly slipped the gun back into his jacket.

  He was dressed to fit in with his surroundings under the railway bridge in the sort of spot downtown that even he wouldn’t have felt comfortable without being armed. He wore a filthy tramp’s outfit that he had carefully stolen from an encampment last week as the bums slept. The coat was long and covered in a multitude of stains that reeked and his trousers were held up with a tatty piece of rope around his waist. His hair was an expensive wig that was one of many that he owned and fell about his face in lank lumps, obscuring his features.

  He easily passed for one of the faceless shadows that lived beneath the eye line of the passing public as they averted their gazes so as not to feel that troublesome stab of pity or guilt as they hurried by.

  The outfit and the look were essential for his latest job and he had been living rough for almost two weeks now to make sure that his presence wouldn’t be noticed, and his disguise was generic enough so that he wouldn’t be missed.

  With another quick look around to assure himself that he was alone, he bent down and grabbed the body’s ankles, pulling the man he’d shot deeper into the darkness.

  The body in question was one Thomas Vickery, a pillar of the community and all round nice guy who seemed to have at least one hand permanently doing good of one sort or another. Thomas ran, among other things, a mobile food charity that dared to creep into this part of town handing out sustenance to the needy. Thomas seemed like an all round good guy; it was just unfortunate that Little Jimmy Glock had been indulging in his infamous short temper when Thomas had wandered by and witnessed it.

  Little Jimmy Glock, not to be confused of course with Big Jimmy Glock, had all of his father’s power and influence, just unfortunately with none of the older man’s brains. Mac was strictly self-employed but a lot of his freelance work came via the Glock family. In a world of wannabes, Big Jimmy Glock was the real deal: an old school gangster who did things right and kept civilian casualties to a minimum. Mac always knew that whenever he worked a Glock job the info was flawless and the payment was on time. The only ripple in this ocean of calm was that Big Jimmy Glock had appeared to have finally met his match in Father Time. The old guy was now teetering on the edge of retirement and his son, Little Jimmy, was desperate to push the old man off the cliff.

  Mac knew that his days of working Glock contracts was drawing to a close as there was no way that he was going to start doing jobs for Little Jimmy. The man was full of testosterone mixed with ambition and misplaced confidence. The son had fallen as far from his father’s tree as it was possible to fall and Mac wanted nothing to do with him. Little Jimmy was a car crash waiting to happen and he was going to bring everyone down around his ears before he was through.

  A case in point was the situation that had led to poor old Thomas Vickery’s early demise. Little Jimmy seemed to spend most of his life in one of his father’s many clubs, playing the showman and throwing around the weight of his surname. Little Jimmy was a prick when he was sober but toss a few drinks down his neck and a fistful of the white powder up his nose and he was unmanageable.

  Billy Weston had been assigned to drive Little Jimmy around on the night in question and while Billy was a reliable guy, he was young and flustered easily. Billy had got lost driving Little Jimmy home, going round in circles until Jimmy had lost his patience and pulled a small silver revolver that he liked to flash as it made him feel like a big man. Mac was well versed on men who felt a compulsive need to constantly assert themselves, all mouth and no trousers as his old man had used to say. Well, apparently Little Jimmy had flashed the gun carelessly without realizing that the safety was off and in a flash Billy’s face had been splattered on the windscreen. If that wasn’t bad enough, Thomas Vicke
ry, the patron saint of smelly tramps, had been driving past and had witnessed everything, including Little Jimmy stumbling from the car and puking his guts up on the pavement. Vickery had gone to the police who had been eager to pinch Little Jimmy who was a constant pain in their collective arses. Big Jimmy had used every ounce of pressure and influence that he had on the force to find out their witness and the impending charges against his son, securing both at the expense of a lot of called in markers.

  “We go back a long way, Mac,” Big Jimmy had said to him as they’d sipped an excellent fine malt in his private office a couple of weeks ago.

  “We do,” Mac had agreed quietly. He barely spoke unless he had to and he knew that Big Jimmy had called him in for something special and was building up to it slowly.

  “Jesus Christ, I don’t know why he’s such a screw up, Mac, I really don’t. That bloody kid has had the best of everything and yet he can’t seem to tie his own shoelaces unless someone else shows him how first.”

  Mac hadn’t disagreed.

  “But he’s blood, Mac; that’s the one thing that I can’t change. He’s blood and everyone’s watching to see what I do now. If I let him swing for it, which is what he deserves, then they’re going to say that I’ve lost it, that I’m done and the next thing I know I’ll be fighting them a war on all fronts.”

  Again, Mac didn’t disagree.

  “But this guy Vickery, he’s a civilian, Mac, just a guy going about his business, feeding the sodding homeless no less. The cops turn a certain amount of a blind eye to us but only up to a point. As long as the bloodshed is limited and only amongst ourselves then they keep out of it as a rule. But this guy! Man, it’s going to bring a whole heap of shit down on us all Mac, I don’t mind telling you,” Big Jimmy said, leaning back heavily in his chair as it creaked under his weight.

  “Sounds to me like you’ve already made up your mind,” Mac said quietly.

  “God help me,” Jimmy whispered. “Do it Mac; do it quick and clean, no pain if you can help it. I don’t want the poor old bugger to suffer.”

  Mac had taken the job at a serious increase to his usual fee. He could see in Big Jimmy’s eyes that the writing was on the wall and that the man had precious time left on the throne. Mac would take the job to whack Vickery, civilian and all. He would take the increased fee and get the hell out of town before Little Jimmy took over and ran the place into the ground, souring it for all of them.

  He pulled Thomas Vickery’s corpse across the broken ground, straining more than usual as his own signs of increasing age rang out in his muscles. It would seem that none of them were immortal.

  He’d stuck to Big Jimmy’s words and Vickery hadn’t suffered - just a look of shock on his face, illuminated by the flash of the silenced gun as Mac had emerged from the shadows. The first bullet caught him in the heart and as he fell and Mac had put two in the head for safety.

  Wearing his tramp’s disguise he’d allowed Vickery to spend a few nights coaxing him out of the shadows like a stray cat before he’d taken him. Mac was always careful; it was what kept him in the game for as long as he’d reigned whilst others fell. He wanted to make sure of the man’s patterns and his own surroundings. The area was off limits to the usual tramps as several of them had been mugged of what meager possessions they owned by a bunch of crack heads who had been seen in the area. Once Mac had been sure of his location and of Vickery’s route he hadn’t let himself be seen, until tonight when he had finished the job.

  Mac checked his watch. The crack heads would be around soon and he wanted Vickery’s death to be blamed on the youths. Big Jimmy had assured him not to worry about the autopsy as he had a man on the inside that would take care of it, leaving him to finish Vickery quickly and efficiently without having to worry about the method.

  Mac knew that the crack heads wouldn’t be able to pass up the opportunity to rob a guy lying face down in front of a fire, thus shedding their DNA onto the body. The rest would be a simple round up job by the police and a quick result would be assured. Everyone would be happy; well, everyone apart from Vickery, that was.

  He dragged Vickery over to the lean-to tent that he had set up. He made sure that the man’s appearance was that of someone sleeping and not lying dead. The worm that baited the hook had to be enticing.

  Once he was happy with the scene, he left quickly as the sound of approaching angry stomping shoes echoed through the underpass. He left the youths to their prize and hoped that Little Jimmy might finally appreciate his father’s efforts to save his useless ass.

  ----------

  The next morning Mac woke early, roused by the shrill ring of the telephone. He grabbed it groggily and swung his legs out of bed, sitting on the edge yawning loudly. “Hello?” he answered into the black plastic receiver.

  “Mac? What the hell happened last night?” Big Jimmy’s voice barked from down the line.

  Mac’s face crinkled in puzzlement. “What do you mean? I did the job as you specified.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Bullshit?”

  “My cop says that Vickery was at the station bright and early, going over his testimony with the CPS,” Big Jimmy announced. “I do hope that after all these years Mac you’re not planning on joining the queue of circling vultures who think that they can take the piss; that’s no way for a business arrangement, dare I say friendship, to end Mac,” Jimmy said coldly.

  Mac had to take a second to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming. He clearly remembered putting three bullets in the guy and checking his pulse as he always did, no matter how unnecessary it seemed. Vickery had been dead when he’d left him for the elements to devour. “Jimmy, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I left Thomas Vickery dead last night exactly as you ordered. Are you trying to tell me that the man got up after I left and wandered into the police station this morning?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Mac. Is it possible that you hit the wrong guy?” Jimmy asked, his voice thawing a little.

  “When have you ever known me to miss a target?” Mac scoffed. “You come to me when you want something done and done right, I’ve never let you down Jimmy, you know that.”

  There was a long pause and Mac felt a sword of judgment wavering over his head.

  “Look, I don’t know what the hell happened; Mac, all I know is that Vickery is still walking upright and I can’t have that. We go back Mac, a long way, so I’ll give you 24 hours to get it done. I don’t need to tell you what happens after that.”

  Mac stared down at the phone as the line went dead. Big Jimmy didn’t have to say what happened next. Mac had been the one to clean up someone else’s mess on more than one occasion. If you screwed up a job for Big Jimmy, then another cleaner was called and you got swept into the trash along with the original target.

  Mac took a deep breath. He didn’t know just who Jimmy would send to clean him as he was normally the one to do the cleaning, but he put that on the back burner for now. He found it impossible to believe that he had made a mistake, either with identifying Vickery or with the job itself. He had put Thomas Vickery down last night and there was clearly something else going on here. Big Jimmy was still the big dog in their business but even he had to play by the rules or else it would be the Wild West on the streets. Jimmy couldn’t just hit Mac even if he wanted to. He had to have a reason as Mac worked for other families who wouldn’t be best pleased with Big Jimmy for getting rid of a valuable asset.

  Mac started to wonder just why Big Jimmy might want him out of the way. Surely after all these years it couldn’t be about the money that he was now owed? Maybe Big Jimmy wanted to circle the wagons around his son. Mac was the only one left with information about little Jimmy’s outburst after all. It certainly made more sense than him making a mistake on a job and meant that his own retirement plans might have just suffered a wrinkle.

  He dressed quickly and slipped a small .22 revolver into an ankle holster as an accompaniment to the .44 tucke
d under his shoulder. Normally, he wouldn’t have risked leaving the house armed but with Big Jimmy’s ominous words ringing in his ears he didn’t want to take the chance.

  He drove over to Vickery’s address and parked a little way down the street from the man’s house. He felt stupid parking outside of a dead man’s home but he still felt like he had to check just to be sure.

  He was feeling pretty dumb right up until Vickery walked out of his house. Mac stared on in disbelief as the man walked along the street, seemingly without a care in the world despite being shot dead only hours before. It took a few moments before his senses returned and he shook the confusion from his mind.

  Vickery was on foot and Mac climbed out of the car and started to follow him from a safe distance. One of his greatest attributes in his line of work was his ability to stay almost invisible to those around him. He was a man who virtually cast no shadow and often had to introduce himself several times to people that he had already met before.

  He stayed a fair distance back from Vickery but always kept the man in sight. The street was busy with shoppers and Vickery stopped several times to stare into various windows. Mac, as always, had done his research on the target and knew Vickery’s size and movements to such an extent that he was sure he was following the right man. Vickery hadn’t been listed as having any siblings but Mac knew that an identical twin wasn’t completely out of the question.

  Vickery took a right and headed through the park. It was long past the time for most people to be at work now and only those without jobs were out and about. There were several dog walkers and quite a few mothers pushing babies around.

  Mac watched as his quarry headed through the woodland centre of the park. Here, the ground was uneven and the baby pushers tended to stay away. He slipped his hand into his pocket and felt for the small retractable blade secreted there. He would have preferred to use a gun but it would have attracted too much attention with its booming echo as he hadn’t brought a silencer.