by Shaun Hutson
Outside the wind battered against the windows as if trying to gain entry, its banshee wail rising as Hacket glanced around the room, his gaze eventually coming to rest on yet another door.
It was like a maze inside the house.
He moved towards the last door and peered through it.
This time there was light beyond.
Beyond and below.
He realised that he was looking down into a cellar, lit from overhead by banks of powerful fluorescents.
Of Curtis there was no sign.
Only the drops of blood which spattered the stairs leading down into the cellar.
Hacket waited and watched, backing off slightly when he saw the doctor struggle into view, still carrying the blanket covered form. He finally laid it on a trolley and stepped back, wiping his hands on a paper towel which he then screwed up and tossed into a bin.
Hacket was mesmerised by the tableau before him, his eyes fixed on the blanket-swathed shape.
The wind continued to scream, its cries masking Hacket’s low breathing.
If not for the wind he might have heard the heavy footfalls on the wide staircase, descending slowly from above him.
Eighty-three
She knew she was going to die.
It was just a matter of when.
But the inevitability of it made it no more acceptable and her fear grew by the second.
Sue Hacket sat on the chair in the classroom looking at her captor.
Ronald Mills glared back at her, the knife held in one hand, the .38 laying on a nearby desk-top.
She had been surprised at how easily he had gained access to the school, pushing her before him, expecting alarm bells to sound when the main door was eased open. But only silence had greeted her wish. There had been no bells. No panic.
No rescuers.
Mills had dragged her through the deserted school, up and down corridors, up a flight of stairs, finally pushing her into a classroom, hurling her towards a chair.
Then he had pulled some rope from his pocket and tied her to it, pulling so hard on the hemp that it had cut into her wrists and ankles. She could see blood running onto her feet when she glanced down. It looked black in the gloom of the classroom.
‘I suppose you wonder who I am,’ he said, speaking the first words since he’d brought her to this place.
She tried to swallow but her throat felt constricted.
‘Well, don’t you?’ he hissed.
She nodded.
He moved towards her, the knife pointing at her face. He touched the point to her cheek, drawing it gently, almost lovingly, towards her eye.
She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth against the agony she knew must come next.
He pressed the point of the knife against the corner of her eye.
‘Open,’ he whispered.
She couldn’t. Her eyes remained tightly shut, as if the thin flesh of her eyelids would protect her from the razor-sharp point of the blade.
‘Open your eyes,’ Mills snarled.
Sue opened them slowly, tears beginning to form, to trickle down her cheeks.
‘That’s better,’ he said, smiling. ‘I mean, don’t you want to see the face of the man who killed your daughter?’
She felt her stomach contract and her body felt as if it had been wrapped in a freezing shroud.
She stared at him through tear-filled eyes, the knife still pressed against her cheek.
‘Now we’re going to sit and wait,’ he told her, trailing the knife down towards her mouth where he ran the tip across her bottom lip. ‘Sit and wait for your husband.’
Eighty-four
Hacket took a step forward as he saw Curtis reach for the corner of the blanket. From his position at the top of the cellar steps, Hacket was hidden from the view of the doctor but still able to see what was happening. He looked on, his heart thudding against his ribs.
Curtis took hold of the blanket and pulled it free.
Hacket had to stifle a gasp.
Lying on the trolley was a man, he guessed in his mid-forties, dressed in a pair of trousers and a shirt, both of which were spattered with blood.
The long doubled edged stiletto blade still protruded from the dead man’s right eye.
As Hacket watched, Curtis took hold of the blade and pulled, removing it from the eye with infinite care. He laid the knife on a table beside him, wiping some blood from it with a towel, then pulled off his own jacket and hung it on the back of a chair.
That simple task done he returned to the body and, using all his strength, turned the body over so that it was lying on its stomach.
Blood from the ruptured eye dribbled onto the trolley.
Curtis then pulled another, smaller, trolley towards him and Hacket could see the dozens of medical instruments laid out upon it. As he watched, the doctor reached for a scalpel; then he carefully pushed the hair away from the neck of the corpse and pressed the point of the scalpel to the nape of the neck, close to the base of the skull.
The razor-sharp blade cut effortlessly through flesh and muscle. More dark blood spilled from the incision.
Hacket gritted his teeth as he saw Curtis reach for a larger blade.
Hacket couldn’t see but, from the vile sawing sounds which came from below he realised the blade had a serrated edge.
Curtis worked expertly with the tool, finally removing a piece of the occipital bone about two inches wide and three inches long. He discarded it into a metal tray close by.
Even from his high vantage point Hacket could see that the base of the victim’s brain was exposed, and it took all the willpower he could muster to prevent himself vomiting. He gripped the door more tightly, hiding behind it, part of him wanting to run, to be away from this scene of butchery, the other telling, forcing him, to remain. Mesmerised by what he saw.
Using a pair of what reminded Hacket of pliers, Curtis cut through the spinal cord.
The snap of breaking bone echoed around the cellar like a gun-shot and the head of the man on the table seemed to collapse forward now, unsupported by the brain stem.
Hacket watched as blood oozed from the open skull, some of it covering Curtis’ hands as he worked, but he seemed oblivious to the crimson weepings.
He reached for a small pair of tweezers and another scalpel, pushing the twin prongs deep into the thick greypink tissue of the brain, seizing something within its bloodied folds.
Curtis smiled as he gently gripped the pituitary gland between the prongs of the tweezers. One swift nick and the gland came free. He held it before him like some kind of trophy, admiring the swollen, dripping gland for a second before dropping it into a jar filled with clear fluid.
Hacket could stand no more.
He spun round and bolted back through the doctor’s office, his only thought now to be away from this place, to tell the police.
To tell his wife.
Sue. Sue. What had Curtis done to her?
Hacket slipped on the carpet, fell but dragged himself upright again, not caring if Curtis heard him. He crashed through the door and out into the corridor, heading for the reception then the hall beyond.
If he could reach his car.
He heard footsteps behind him, heard Curtis hurtling up the cellar steps.
Hacket wrenched open the door which led out into the hall, glancing back, convinced that he could outrun the doctor. He was half-smiling when he blundered into the hall.
He collided with the figure.
It stood before him, blocking his path, barring his way to the front door.
Hacket had but one reaction as he looked at the figure.
His eyes bulged madly in their sockets, he fell back and, as he did, he screamed until he thought his lungs would burst.
Eighty-five
‘I don’t understand,’ Sue Hacket said, quietly, tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Why are you doing this?’
Ronald Mills picked a piece of the scab from his left hand and rolled the hardened flesh betw
een his thumb and forefinger.
‘Why did you kill Lisa?’ Sue persisted.
‘Does it matter?’ he asked, smiling, thinly. ‘It’s done now.’ He moved closer to Sue, touching her shoulder, gripping it firmly for a second as if he were about to begin massaging it. Instead he pushed the knuckle of his index finger into the hollow beside her collar bone, digging hard until she winced in pain.
‘She was pretty, your little girl,’ Mills said. ‘And so quiet too.’
Sue could not fight back the tears as he began to rub her neck, stroking his hand somewhat clumsily through her hair.
‘When I went into her bedroom she didn’t make a sound,’ he continued. ‘Not even when I climbed onto the bed beside her.
‘Please,’ Sue said, softly, not wanting to hear.
‘I asked her what her name was and she told me. Lisa. Such a pretty name.’ He began to tug on Sue’s hair then allowed his free hand to slide down the front of her blouse towards her breasts.
‘Stop it,’ Sue sobbed.
‘She started to make a noise when I got out the knife,’ Mills said. ‘I thought she was going to cry then. That was why I had to put my hand over her mouth.’
The tears were pouring down Sue’s face, dripping from her chin, some falling onto the back of Mills probing hand. He gripped one of her breasts hard and squeezed until she groaned in pain.
‘She tried to scream when I used the knife on her,’ he said, softly, his erection now throbbing against the inside of his trousers. ‘But I kept her quiet.’ He smiled. ‘I pushed the knife into her throat. You should have seen the way her eyes opened up. It was like there was some kind of spring inside her head. I pushed the knife in and she opened her eyes wider. The further I pushed the wider they got. I thought they were going to fall out of her head.
Sue was sobbing uncontrollably now, Mills’ hand still roughly kneading her breasts.
‘And when I fucked her,’ he sighed, wistfully. ‘She was so tight. So beautifully tight.’
‘You’re fucking mad,’ Sue wailed, her exhortations dissolving into racking sobs.
‘Am I?’ he asked, stepping back slightly. ‘Could a madman have done what I’ve done? Tracked you and your husband to this place, planned revenge the way I have done?’
Sue merely shook her head, her cheeks burning, her eyes blurred.
‘I’m going to kill your fucking husband,’ he told her. ‘Do you know why?’
She continued to cry.
‘Do you?’ he roared at her.
‘No,’ she yelled back, her body shaking violently.
Mills took a step forward, the knife held before him. He pushed it beneath Sue’s chin, pressing just hard enough to puncture the skin. A tiny dribble of blood ran down her neck.
‘Because he killed my friend. The only friend I ever had. Your husband killed him. Made him fall under a train. And I saw it all. I saw what he did and now he’s going to pay.’
‘Haven’t you done enough to us?’ she sobbed.
Mills smiled crookedly.
He began unbuttoning Sue’s blouse.
‘Done enough?’ he hissed, a slight smile on his face. ‘I’ve only just started.’
Eighty-six
Hacket was sure that his sanity had gone.
He was mad, that was the only answer.
A sane man would not have seen what he saw now.
He pushed himself back along the floor as the figure took a step towards him.
The teacher tried to pull himself upright but it seemed as if all the strength had drained from his body. He felt his bowels loosen, and the hair at the back of his neck stood up sharply. He shook his head slowly, wondering now if he was truly encountering madness.
The figure which faced him was not like those of a nightmare. No mind, however diseased, could conjure up an image like that which now confronted the teacher. No nightmare could be that bad.
It was fully six feet tall, about fifteen stone, perhaps more. A large man. Man? Hacket’s tortured mind corrected itself. The monstrosity which stood before him was no man.
Supported on two legs the torso seemed much too broad, too heavy to be carried on even limbs as thick as those Hacket saw.
Its skin was pale, darkened only on the forearms by black hair. And there was power in those arms. Hacket could see each muscle clearly defined. Hands like ham-hocks swung from arms which looked a little too long, not quite simian but only a few steps removed. The torso seemed to widen as it reached the chest, and here, beneath the gauze-like shirt which the figure wore, Hacket could see several bulging growths. One on the right breast, another on the left shoulder.
It was the head which caused him to moan aloud as he stared at it.
Head?
Not one but two. Joined at the temple.
Four perfectly formed eyes fixed him in a freezing stare.
The mouths opened simultaneously and, had Hacket been in a position to reason, he may well have realised that the body was controlled by just one brain. The scalps were bald, graced only with fine whisps of gossamer like the hair of old men.
A growth the size of a fist swelled from the right cheek of the left head. Another from the other cranium. The flesh around the eyes was puffy, almost liquescent, as if it were filled with fluid waiting to burst. The growths looked like massive boils, replete with pus and ready to erupt.
The figure took another step towards Hacket who had managed to drag himself up onto his knees into what looked like an attitude of prayer.
He watched as the figure advanced, its piercing gaze never leaving him. His mind was still reeling, but somewhere inside the madness a note of reason told him that he was looking at a Siamese twin. Two bodies supported by just one pair of legs. Two entities in a single body.
The twin reached for him, one powerful hand lifting him to his feet.
‘What do you want?’
The two mouths moved in perfect unison, the words not slurred and laboured but crisply spoken, eminently understandable. Coming from such a monstrous source it made them sound all the more incongruous.
Hacket could not reply. His entire body was shaking.
A door behind him opened but he was scarcely aware of it.
Curtis dashed into the hall, slowing his pace when he saw that the teacher had been stopped.
The doctor nodded and the twin hurled Hacket to one side.
He crashed heavily against the wall and lay there as Curtis stood over him.
‘You’re trespassing, Mr Hacket,’ said Curtis, calmly. ‘You realise that?’
‘What the fuck is going on here, Curtis?’ Hacket gasped, his gaze drawn once more to the other figure. ‘What is that?’
The twin moved forward angrily but Curtis stepped in front of it.
‘That, Mr Hacket,’ the doctor said, angrily. ‘Is my brother.’
Hacket laughed uncontrollably. Was this the beginning of madness, he wondered, his eyes beginning to fill with tears. This was the laughter of the insane.
Curtis looked on impassively.
Hacket wiped his eyes and glared up at the doctor.
‘One of your fucking experiments don’t you mean?’ he snarled. ‘The product of your treatment. The same treatment you gave to my wife. Is that what she’ll give birth to?’ He pointed at the twin.
‘I ought to kill you now,’ the figure said, quietly.
Hacket swallowed hard, stunned once more by the figure’s voice.
‘Kill me like you killed that poor bastard in your cellar?’ he hissed, looking now at Curtis. ‘Who is he? Why did you kill him?’
‘Call him a donor,’ said Curtis, smiling.
Hacket looked vague.
‘I couldn’t expect a man of your limited perceptions to understand, Mr Hacket. Perhaps I at least owe you the privilege of some kind of explanation. Although I doubt it will mean much to you.’
Curtis glanced at the twin. ‘Bring him.’
Hacket rose, but as soon as he was on his feet the other figure grabb
ed him, one powerful arm snaking around his throat the other hand clamping onto the back of his head.
‘If you try to struggle,’ the figure said, softly. ‘I’ll break your neck.’ As it pulled him backwards, Hacket felt the heavy growths on its chest rubbing against his back.
Curtis set off for the cellar, followed by Hacket and the twin.
‘Time for you to learn, Mr Hacket,’ said Curtis, smiling. ‘You should feel honoured.’
‘And when I have learned?’ Hacket said, struggling to speak because of the pressure on his windpipe.
Curtis didn’t answer.
They began to descend into the cellar.
Eighty-seven
The stench from the body made Hacket feel sick, but held as he was by the twin he could not pull away. Instead all he could do was gaze helplessly at the corpse, his eyes drawn to the gaping hole in the back of its skull, and also to the small gland which still floated in the jar of clear liquid.
‘From death comes life,’ said Curtis, smiling, gesturing first to the body then to the gland. ‘To coin a cliché.’
‘What are you talking about, Curtis?’ asked Hacket, wearily.
‘I’m talking about hope, Mr Hacket. Something which you and your wife didn’t have until I came along.’
‘What have you done to her?’ Hacket rasped, trying to pull away but finding himself restrained by the powerful hands which held him.
‘I’ve done what she wanted me to do. I’ve given her hope. Her and dozens of women like her over the years. Women who couldn’t have children. Women who now, because of me, are mothers.’ He lifted the jar. ‘And all because of this.’
‘What is it?’
‘The pituitary gland. Source of the body’s growth hormones. I’ll try to keep this simple Mr Hacket, otherwise I’ll end up sounding like some kind of mad doctor.’ He smiled. ‘They belong in bad horror films.’
‘And you belong in prison you murdering bastard,’ Hacket snarled. ‘What about that poor fucker lying there? What about him? Where’s his hope?’