The One Percent (Episode 2): The One Percent

by Heller, Erik P.

  I also had the pistol—safety on—tucked in my waistband.

  I swung the door open carefully. Although we hadn’t been gone for more than five minutes, I was keenly aware that was all it took for one of those bloody things to put in an appearance.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when all the doors were still closed downstairs.

  I had a quick hunt around to see if I could find a key to the garage, or a set of car keys anywhere downstairs but no luck. The only keys were a bunch in the back door, so I locked it and took them out of the keyhole just in case we came across any locked doors, but most of them looked like padlock keys to me and judging by the rust on some of the keys, they were old padlocks that never got unlocked.

  Upstairs was completely clear. No dead bodies lying around in bed, no dead dog still faithfully guarding its master, no nothing. Although I had no real idea why that gave me the creeps. OK I knew we were out in the sticks and all that but surely if a dog has a lead, you would use it. We’d left the dog food behind when we’d raided the place, so I knew there was a dog who lived there but there was no sign of anyone. Whoever had lived there had gone out, with the dog, left the back door unlocked, and never returned.

  “Well, that just leaves the cellar.” Lucy said.

  “I have no desire to go exploring a pitch-black cellar that may or may not have a host of the undead wandering around in it.”

  “Don’t be such a wuss, Frank. Come on, she reached into her pack. I lifted this from the shop.” Lucy held out a wind-up torch. It was big—a dozen LED bulbs. I flipped open the handle, gave the thing a good wind for thirty seconds then turned it on.

  The door was still locked obviously, so it took another minute to finally find the right key on the fob I’d taken from the back door.

  Once the lock clicked open, I turned the old-fashioned doorknob, and slowly pulled it open keeping my shoulder against it in case something hideous plunged through, but there was nothing there. I shone the torch down into the stairwell and at the bottom, there was another door, and at the same time a faint smell of putrescence filled the air. I should have just stopped there, locked up the door and ignored it, but something took me down the steps. I got Lucy to stay at the top in case we had any visitors, so I could run back up quickly.

  Before I got to the bottom of the stairs, I could see a small sign stuck to the door. ‘Jamie’s Den: Keep Out’.

  From the smell, which I had to try to mitigate by holding my sleeve over my mouth, I thought Jamie might be behind the door, but if he was then maybe the dog was down there too, desperate to get out.

  I knocked on the door first and pressed my ear up against the MDF that made up the door frame. I couldn’t hear anything other than a very faint scratching sound which could just as easily have been the blood whistling through my ears in time with the pounding beat of my heart.

  There was a padlock on a clasp holding the door closed so I fiddled with the keys again until I found the right one to undo it, then, wisely I thought, I leaned against the door again intending to have another listen. This time the door moved, swinging away from me and with a jerk I started to fall forwards down the last four steps that the door had blocked off. I just managed to grab hold of the frame work before I fell headfirst down and steadied myself enough to stumble down three of the four steps.

  “What the hell is that smell, Frank, it’s disgusting,” Lucy said from upstairs. I couldn’t answer because I’d had to clamp my hand against my mouth and over my nose. The other hand was wiping the tears from my eyes. It was a hideous smell, but I couldn’t see anything to say what it was. I couldn’t actually see anything with my watering eyes. Whatever it was, there was no movement other than the scurrying of something small I’d disturbed with the light, so I didn’t feel under any kind of threat at all.

  Eventually I managed to control my tears and use the torch to have a look around the room. I very nearly threw up on the spot.

  “What’s down there, Frank?”

  “Don’t come down here, Lucy.” My words came out as a mumble, and I’m sure Lucy must have misheard, because she came down a couple of steps then retreated, her hand over her mouth.

  The scene in the cellar was like something out of the worst horror film you could imagine. I’m not going into the grimmest of the detail of it but strung up on a metal bar that ran around the room were four women. All four were young, I think. All four were filthy and naked. Each of them was tied by the hands to the bar above their heads and they had a piece of rope looped over their heads like a dog lead around their throats. Each arm had a short piece of rope tied around them at the wrist, each leg had one at the ankle. On the, floor a bucket was positioned between their legs.

  In one corner of the room stood a filthy bed with stained covers. It was wooden framed and had rope burns over each of the four finials of the frame.

  As far as I could see all four were dead. I couldn’t see any damage to the bodies although all four had black, bloated tongues protruding from their mouths.

  “Frank? Are you OK?”

  “I’m OK,” I said, managing to get past the rank smell which as far as I could tell was coming from the buckets. I didn’t really want to go looking in one of those.

  Although I thought they were dead I also couldn’t face the thought of leaving any of those four poor women to die if there was any chance at all of them being alive. I didn’t even think for a minute about what we would be able to do for them if they were alive, but nobody deserves to die in circumstances like that.

  Slowly, dreading the idea that one of them might open their eyes to display the milky pupils of a Groaner, I moved around each of the women, feeling for a pulse. Neck and wrist, I tried on all of them but there was nothing there.

  They were all dead and it seemed they had been for a while.

  As I turned away from the last of them I could see something pasted on the wall, newspaper clippings. I knew what they would be before I got close enough to read them. Reports of missing women from the local area who had seemingly vanished into thin air. I tried to match up photos to the bodies hanging there, but in the poor light, and with their bodies in the condition they were in it was impossible.

  “Oh. My. God.” I heard Lucy gasp out the words.

  I stepped back around to where she was standing just inside the door and tried to stand in her way, but she dodged around me to walk around the room. She looked back around at me after the second woman and I pointed out the clippings.

  She took a minute to look at them, turned to look at the women, and hurled all over the bed covers. I was only just managing to hold mine in too, so I sympathised with what she had done.

  “Those poor women,” she said, once she had finished.

  I couldn’t think of anything I could possibly say that would be any more meaningful than what Lucy had uttered.

  “We should go,” I said eventually. “We should get out of here.”

  “Are we just going to leave them here?” Lucy said. I could see tears in her eyes in the light from the torch.

  “What can we do for them?” I asked.

  “It just seems wrong that’s all. Undignified.”

  I couldn’t see how struggling with their bodies was going to make what had evidently happened to them already any more dignified.

  “We can’t, Lucy. All we can do is leave them in peace now. I don’t think disturbing them will make things any better.

  I don’t know whether just the gentle touches I’d given her caused it but as we stood watching there was a slight cracking sound and the body of one of the women suddenly detached from the arms, leaving them hanging, while what was left over flopped to the floor, knocking over the bucket in the process causing a gust of foetid air to waft toward us. It was so thick I could almost taste it.

  The sudden movement made Lucy squeal and I very nearly crapped myself, feeling my already pounding heart ramp up to another level.

  I grabbed Lucy’s arm which made her squeal again unt
il she realised it was me and pulled her steadily to the stairs.

  “Go up. I’ll lock it all up again and be up in a moment.” I didn’t want to spend another second down there if I could help it.

  “It’s sick,” she said, “fucking sick. What sort of person does that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “and I don’t want to find out either.” I snapped on the padlock and ran up the steps maybe three or four behind Lucy.

  She disappeared around the corner and I heard her running outside, then she screamed at the top of her voice. I heard a man’s voice, but I couldn’t make out what he said. I didn’t think it was him, but I hoped with everything I had that it was David.

  I slowed down as I got to the top and eased myself out of the cellar. I couldn’t see Lucy, but the front door was open, and I could hear her muffled cries from outside, so I took careful steps that way and pulled out my pistol. Remembering to knock off the safety catch, I stepped outside into the bright, morning sunshine. I could still smell the stench from that hellhole cellar. It was a stink I would never forget.

  I could see a tall, rangy figure struggling with Lucy. He had hold of her from behind, his arms wrapped around her, one across her chest, one around her middle.

  Lucy was kicking and screaming like fury. She was making a hell of a racket, which I didn’t blame her for, but would soon be attracting the wrong kind of attention. I almost wished a Groaner would come along and take the stranger’s attention away. Or bite him. Or something, so I didn’t have to deal with the situation myself.

  But there wasn’t, and although David had come running, he’d left his gun behind. It meant that I was up. The man was somehow managing to hang onto a rope lead that was looped around the neck of a small tri-coloured Jack Russell that was having to work hard to avoid the stomping feet pounding around him.

  “Come here, my lovely,” the man said right next to Lucy’s ear. “I’ve got somewhere nice you can stay if you stop struggling. Somewhere safe.”

  Lucy screamed again, and I winced at the sound. “You think I’m going down in your cellar, I’d sooner die first you bastard.” Lucy was proving feistier than I first thought but she was physically outmatched by the man, who was taller, evidently stronger, and able to control her relatively easily.

  David was yelling now as he headed across the yard full pelt. The man sneaked a look around at him. He didn’t appear to be fazed in the slightest. He leaned down, undid the lead, pointed at David, and said, “Mungo, hunt.” The dog headed straight at David, yapping and barking, snapping at his heels when he got close enough. David, to his credit kept coming forward, but in a slow and haphazard way as he dodged the dog.

  The dog never bit, just harried David mercilessly. All the time, the noise around there was getting louder and louder.

  “Who’s this then, darling? This your boyfriend? Maybe I’ll take him down there too. Watch you two while—”

  “He’s my brother, you sick fuck. Get your hands off me.”

  She stamped down hard on his foot, but he must have been wearing safety boots because he didn’t even wince.

  OK, I had, admittedly, been fairly useless up to that point, but now, I’d seen enough, and heard enough, to convince me that this was the Jamie whose den I wish I’d never seen the inside of and which would haunt me in my dreams forever, I thought.

  “Jamie?” I said quietly, bringing up the pistol to level it at him.

  He spun around with Lucy still in front of him and at the sight of the gun, ducked down so most of him was hidden behind her. Ever the gentleman.

  “Who the hell are you?” His looks were weird. All of his facial features seemed to be pushed right into the middle of his face, moon-faced I guessed you’d call it. He was though, well-built, and lean. Gym-honed muscle I guessed.

  Lucy had started freaking out, she was yelling at me to shoot him, but I couldn’t, not from where I was, and with him holding Lucy in front of him. The chances were that I’d have an equal risk of missing, hitting her, or hitting him. That wasn’t the kind of odds I could work with.

  “Nice den,” I said.

  “Frank, just shoot him, please.” Lucy yelled.

  “I can’t, Lucy. Not with you in the way. Please try not to make a lot of noise. Nobody but the undead will come. It’s just us. Understand?”

  Lucy looked at me angrily for a moment, then reality dawned. She stopped struggling, a look of disgust on her face every time Jamie breathed in her ear.

  “You’ve been down there, have you?” Jamie asked.

  “Oh, yeah. You left these in the back door.” I tossed the keys in the air and let them fall back into my hand.

  “Shit.” Jamie swore, but it seemed like it was more at his own carelessness than the fact I’d seen his den, and I wasn’t happy about that. He seemed callous to the suffering those women must have gone through. That is one thing I cannot abide. Call me an old fool, and out of step with what were modern mores, but in my book, you do not hurt women. I’m sure someone somewhere would say that was patronising and patriarchal, but to me, it was just not right.

  “You can have these back. All you need to do is let go of Lucy there,” I said, trying to keep a note of calmness in my voice.

  “Oh, Lucy, huh. That’s one of my favourite names, I’ve been looking for a Lucy for a long time,” he breathed across her face, but Lucy simply cringed and didn’t struggle, keeping her eyes on me. I was frantically trying to send her mind messages telling her to duck, but she looked more puzzled than anything else.

  “Why did you kill them, Jamie?”

  “What,” David yelled, still dodging away from the dog.

  “Yes, Jamie’s got a nice little den in his cellar. Four women. All dead. Listen, Jamie. We’re likely to be here a while, trying to sort this out. Any chance you could shut your dog up? If it attracts Groaners, we’ll all probably end up dead including him.”

  Jamie looked across at the dog. “Mungo, quiet.” The dog sat on the tarmac, not taking its eyes off David for one second like he was a giant lump of meat with added juicy bones. “What are Groaners anyway?” he asked, then suddenly seemed to get it. “Oh, the undead,” he said. “Nasty buggers, them, mind. They got my mum and dad.”

  “Why did you kill them?”

  “Who?”

  “The four women in your den.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “They’re all dead, Jamie.”

  “Wouldn’t know. I haven’t been down there in a fortnight. I got a bit fed up of ‘em. Nasty stinking little bitches. Once I couldn’t screw ‘em any more I lost interest. They all dead, are they?”

  “All four, yes. Now, can you let Lucy go? I’m not going to let you take her into the house, Jamie.” I was staggered that he had just left them down there for two weeks. The man was a monster. I’d already decided that

  “Why? Are you f—”

  “No, Jamie. She’s my friend, and David’s sister. Now let her go.” I was desperate for Lucy to get out of the way. I just needed one shot somewhere on him to put him down, so we could get our things, and go. He could take his chances with the Groaners.

  I could see Lucy trying to make eyes at me. Once I’d worked out what she was doing she mouthed the words ‘after three’ to me. I was afraid he would catch on and use Lucy as a hostage to get away.

  I nodded quickly when he glanced at the dog. It was growling at something behind David in the distance. I took a step back, so I could see, and all I saw was a group of six or seven Groaners heading vaguely in our direction.

  “There’s Groaners coming, Jamie. You remember what they did to your mum and dad? They’ll do that to you if you don’t let her go and run for it.”

  He leaned forward to try and see them coming, looking worried.

  Lucy yelled, “Three,” at the top of her voice and kicked back with one foot against Jamie’s shin and twisted herself away from him at the same time.

  I took the shot.

  Jamie yelled out in pain and spira
lled away from Lucy, one hand clamped against his shoulder where I’d shot him, and shock stopping him from moving.

  “Quick, Lucy, grab your gun and let’s get out of here,” I shouted. “How many, David.” I turned and took a couple of steps to try and see what we were up against.

  Behind me, I heard a noise. The snick of the shotgun Lucy had been carrying locking into place.

  By the time I turned around, Lucy was standing over the prone figure of Jamie, staring down the barrel of her gun which she had pointed at Jamie’s head.

  “Leave him, Lucy. Let the Groaner’s have him.”

  “No way, Frank. He let four women die in that shithole down there. I want him to be looking at a woman’s face before he dies.”

  She kicked him hard in the ribs.

  He grunted and opened his eyes, stilling when he saw both barrels pointing at him.

  “This is for those four women, Jamie.” She filled his name with such hatred I wouldn’t have believed it was the same woman I’d met just the day before.

  Jamie looked at her with vile hatred in his eyes. “You fucking little bitches are all the same. You—”

  There was a violent boom and flash of fire from the gun barrels and I watched as Jamie’s head disintegrated and splashed out across the ground, glistening blood and brains, spread out in the morning sunshine, ready for the flies and other insects to start its long, slow reduction to bones and dust.

  I stood, mouth agape, while Lucy fell to her knees sobbing.

  David had turned to see what the noise was and was staring mindlessly at the sight of his sister, kneeling before the man she had just killed, who was lying on the ground before her.

  Mungo stood as David approached his sister, and all I could hear right then was the scratch of his claws on the ground as he trotted over to his master.

  He stood and looked at the mess on the floor, and I could see his nose twitching and flaring as he stood. Slowly, he approached, staying out of reach of Jamie’s cooling, dead hands I noticed, and walked around to where Jamie’s head used to be, then he cocked his leg, and peed on what was left of his face, bright yellow liquid trickling over the grotesquely misshapen flesh until it joined and mingled with blood pooling on the floor. He took one more sniff and came over to stand next to me.