11.
Four hours after their shopping trip had begun, Patrick and Jack’s limo pulled up outside Patrick’s house.
“I just need to grab a few things, that’s all,” said Patrick. Jack had been protesting about their detour and he groaned at the prospect of the big night out being delayed. Patrick promised him that he would only be a moment and he closed the door on the car. He went to his front door and clattered the key into the lock and let himself inside. He was carrying a bag with him that he had brought from the shop where they had bought their new suits from. He was wearing the suit now and their old clothes were inside the bag. He stood in his kitchen for a moment feeling strange and alien in what had been his home for the last six years. He felt so much different that he had done before he had gone to the solicitors and found out about his new found wealth. He could go and live wherever he wanted, but there was a bigger part of him that needed to hang on to this house. It was the only thing in his life other that Jane that had been consistent. This was his safe place, a place where he could shut the worries of the world outside. He was torn between the idea that his worries might be over and the fact that having such a large wealth could bring with it a new set of problems. He guessed that he would find that out tonight when they were out and about. There were two things that he needed to come home for. One was his Zippo lighter that he had forgotten to take with him that morning and the other was the set of keys for Layton House. He was terribly afraid of going up there and seeing what was within those walls but he had an idea that if he was drunk enough that he would likely do anything. He was giving himself the option of perhaps going up there tonight when they were on the darker side of the sobriety scale. He found the lighter on the kitchen table and the new set of keys were on his key hook next to the front door. He put them both into the inside pocket of this suit jacket and went back out of the front door. A big part of him wanted to just go back inside and have a cup of tea and spend the evening alone, but there was still the possibility of new adventures this evening and he couldn’t let Jack down at all. His heart was set on them having a good time together, so fuck it, that was what he was going to do. He supposed that in a few hours he would be so drunk that he wouldn’t give a shit anymore anyway and that thought gave him a lot of comfort.
He got back into the car where Jack was looking at him with a disconcerted look on his face.
“Dude, we are running late now,” said Jack.
“Listen, it’s always good to turn up late. Why don’t we check our phones, see if there was any response to the message you posted?”
Jack shrugged and fished his dead phone out of his pocket. Patrick did the same and they both pushed the power buttons on their respective handsets and waited for the screens to power up. Jack ordered the driver to take them to the Millstone, which was about a ten-minute drive across Newtown. They were both silent for most of the trip, each of them lost in their own thoughts about what was going to happen in the next few hours.
“Fuck me,” said Jack suddenly. He had his phone in his hand and was staring, wide eyed and open mouthed at the screen.
“What is it?”
“Have a look at your phone,” said Jack, grinning like a loon.
Patrick held up his handset and his jaw dropped. There were around two thousand messages on his phone including friend requests. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing it was like a bizarre dream. He had never been so popular in all his life. It was the very thing that he had craved for so many years and now it was actually happening. There was a little cynical voice at the back of his mind that was telling him that none of them were interested in him but more likely they were just interested in the money. There they were clamouring for a piece of his good fortune. That voice was telling them to fuck themselves. He had earned it with the life he had been served and he wasn’t sharing it with nobody. The other part of his mind that housed his forgiving and gentle nature was telling him that he should stop being such an arsehole and to be more humble. He could keep these people at a reasonable distance if he wanted to and he could help the people that really needed and deserved it. He decided that he was going to put all that bullshit aside for now and just enjoy the moment. He put his phone back in his pocket. Jack was tapping the screen adding as many people as he could before they got to the Millstone. They were rounding the last corner at the top of the hill where the Millstone was located and they were both left speechless again. There was a crowd gathering outside of the battered old pub and what looked like a news crew. The crowd caught sight of the approaching limo and began to cheer and as the car pulled over outside the pub the cheers intensified. The driver got out and began to make his way round to the door next to Jack.
“Oh shit, this is just like being famous eh buddy? Let’s go and meet our public.”
Patrick’s heart was thudding like a bass drum. It was partly due to fear and mostly due to excitement. The door of the car was pulled open and the roar of the crowd intensified. Jack got out and began to talk to the news reporter that had made his way to the front of the noise. Patrick took a deep breath and heaved himself out of the car.
12.
Mask had felt the rage rising again. He thought that he could keep it under wraps for a while by sticking some of his kitchen knives into his forearm. It worked for a little while but he could still feel that cauldron of unease and fury bubbling away inside him. His God was talking to him. His God needed more souls to judge. He had taken the mask down off its hook and had placed it on the coffee table in his rancid living room. The voice of his God seemed to come directly from the mask, telling him all he needed to know and all he needed to do. It was asking for souls. It was telling him he needed to fuck and kill. The order he did it in really didn’t matter, but it had to be done right now. It wasn’t even dark yet, so he had to be a little bit tactful. He tried to think of who he could get to fulfil his needs, perhaps a prostitute of some sort? Hell, anyone would do right now just to keep his God at peace. His mind focused on a woman who lived three doors down from him. She had a husband who went off to work for three days of the week. He knew that for sure because she had been on his hit list before he had been to see Richard Hurst. He was hoping that the visit might have cured him but his God was still around. Perhaps not as strong as it used to be, but it was still there. He had thought about getting rid of the mask, but he just felt so much safer knowing that he had it. When he wore it, it made him feel so much more powerful and took away his overwhelming feeling of being vulnerable. The mask was his power and he could never part with it. His God was telling him to go and knock on the woman’s door. He thought that her name was Vanessa, but he wasn’t one hundred percent on that. He had stolen her post a few times and had seen a few different names on the various letters, but that was the most common one.
He stood up and grabbed his long coat off the back of the living room door. He marched his way out of his front door and straight down the hallway to Vanessa’s place. He knocked on the door and waited for a moment. He was certain that she wasn’t home until he heard a rattling of door chains and locks and the door popped open. She must have been in her mid-forties and she had the most amazing breasts that Mask had ever seen. She always kept them in a good push up bra and a low cut top so they were always on display. She frowned a little when she opened the door and then he saw her face relax when it was someone that she knew.
“Hello there,” she said a little furtively.
“Hello, I was wondering if you could help me with something. I don’t really know who else to ask,” said Mask politely.
“If I can yes, what is it?”
“It’s a bit embarrassing really, but I have bought my girlfriend some new clothes and...stuff and I wanted a woman’s opinion on whether or not she would like them.”
The door opened fully. “Aww, that’s so sweet. Sure I will, you wanna bring them over or should I come to you?”
Mask tried to smile as best he could, it didn’t come naturally to him,
looking more like a grimace of pain than anything else.
“Why don’t you come over to mine, I have a good bottle of wine we could share as my way of thanking you.”
Vanessa shrugged and poked a cigarette into her mouth. “It’s a little early for me but what the hell, you only live once right?”
Mask led the way and his God told him that yes, you do only live once, but for some of us that life would be ended sooner than you think. Another smile broke out on his face, this time it was more natural.
He opened his door and allowed Vanessa to go first. He shut the door behind him and then looped a punch at the base of Vanessa’s head. She let out a loud bark and then fell to the floor. He turned to the mask hanging on the hook and took it down. He put it over his face and he felt the power of his God within him again. All his fear and anxiety faded, now he was strong and he knew what to do. Vanessa was writhing on the floor and clutching at the back of her head. She would be fully awake again soon. He nipped into the bedroom and grabbed his elasticated ropes from under his mattress. The blue ropes had taken on a dark colour from the blood that had been spilled on them. If the police ever caught up with him they would find a number of his victims’ blood samples on these ropes, but the police wouldn’t come, his God told him so.
He went back into Vanessa and knelt on the middle of her back, she made another strangled braying noise and he gripped her hair. He bent down to her ear.
“Keep it down you stupid little bitch or I will cut you up,” he whispered and then slammed her head into the floor. She began to cry silently her chest twitching with the force of her sobs. He liked it when they were afraid and at his mercy and his God liked it too. He began to pull her hands behind her back and tie them together with the ropes. She began to sob louder, a pathetic whining moan that began to hurt his ears. He stood up and pulled her to her feet by the ropes and her hair. She half screamed this time and he slapped her across the face as hard as he could. She let out one more yelp and then she clamped her mouth shut, gritting her teeth as hard as she could. Her cheek began to turn red and swell up and a thin trail of blood started to run from her left nostril. He clamped a hand around her throat.
“You listen to me you fucking dirty little bitch, you are going to pay for being such a slag. God is going to judge you, but he tells me that you are going to make sure that I get my sin out of my body and into yours before you go, you got that?”
“No no no noooo....” she said and he punched this time, straight in her mouth. Deep furrows from her teeth were etched into the back of his hand. They welled blood, and he watched it for a moment, almost hypnotised. He looked for Vanessa and saw that she was on the floor, spitting out blood and what looked like fragments of her newly broken teeth. Her eyes were rolling back in her head and she was still making a low groaning noise. He was going to have to cover the noise of this one, and he turned on his television. The local news was coming on and he turned up the volume just loud enough for it to blend in with the groaning noises that she was making. He dragged her across the floor so that she was lay flat and he pulled his knife from inside his coat. He cut her black leggings at the crotch and saw that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. His God told her that he shouldn’t expect anything less from a woman like this. He shook his head and stood up so he could remove his coat and unzip his fly. He lay down on top of her and pulled one of her knees up. He began to push himself inside her and she began to buck and struggle underneath him. He still had the knife in his free hand and he raised it up and plunged it into her throat. She began to make a horrible gargling noise and blood began to froth out of her broken mouth. He came to a climax just a moment before she finally stopped moving.
He lay on top of her body, breathing hard. She had put up a fight, but that had made it a more satisfying kill. God would deal with her now, just as it should be.
He was about to get up when something on the television caught his attention.
“....twenty-seven-year-old Patrick Hurst arrived at his local pub the Millstone Inn. He is now one the richest men in England having been left a fortune by his father Richard Hurst who died in an accident at his home earlier this year. Patrick, who is a school teacher at Newtown Primary is being described as one of the luckiest men in the world. We asked him how it felt to be taken from humble school teacher to millionaire.”
The picture was suddenly filled with the pale and slightly frightened face of Patrick Hurst.
“Uh...Well, it’s all a bit overwhelming to tell you the truth. I hope that I can contribute something positive to the world and not just be thought of as just another rich kid....I think, I dunno. It’s all still new to me and I guess I just need time to adjust.”
Mask began to chuckle. “Oh Patrick, don’t worry, your time will come. It’s not for the world to judge you, my God will do that and I will bring you to us. You will pay for what your father did,” he said and he laughed to himself. He looked down at Vanessa’s dead body, with his knife still sticking out of her neck. He was going to put things right in this world and he would keep going until his God judged all the sinners, especially Patrick Hurst. It would soon be time, he knew it. He laughed again and then he felt himself getting hard again. He decided to spend a little more time with Vanessa before preparing her for disposal.
13.
It had taken Patrick and Jack a while to even get inside the pub. The place was absolutely packed to the rafters with well-wishers and hangers on. After the first hour, Patrick began to relax and enjoy the attention rather than shy away from it. That could have been the fact that he had downed at least four pints of strong beer. He was surrounded by a mob of people all wanting to know about his inheritance, and most of them were girls wearing the smallest acceptable amount of clothing that he had ever seen. Jack was surrounded too. He had wasted no time in declaring the fact that he was a millionaire too and he was loving the attention. He had his arms around two girls, one on each side and he had been plying them with drink the whole time he had been around them. Patrick had swiped his card at the tills and left the account open for people to drink fee all night. Lizzy had been sceptical at first. She had seen both of them in this pub for such a long time, sometimes scrabbling around for change at the end of a night when they were both short of money. She had taken him in the back room and he had logged onto his bank account on his phone right in front of her. She had seen the balance of his account, more than six million for that particular one and she had gasped, her hands going up to her mouth. She had told him that she had always fancied him and that she only went with Jack as a consolation prize. She had rubbed his crotch while he had kissed her, shoving his tongue down her throat and tasting the mild minty flavour of the gum she had been chewing. He had taken her against the door which led back into the pub, lifting her slender frame up and plunging himself into her with a ferocity that he had never exhibited with any other girl he had been with. Jack had been right about her being slack, but the pleasure of it was so great that he thought to himself, as he ejaculated into her, that he would come back here again for more of the same. Afterwards she had pulled her tight jeans on again and kissed him on the cheek. She led him back into the bar and then swiped his card for him. She had taken a few rum and cokes for herself and continued to serve drinks on Patrick’s coin for everyone.
Patrick wondered whether or not he should tell Jack about what had happened, but he decided to keep it to himself. There was never any justification for mowing another man’s lawn, even if that lawn was only mowed when the other grass had already been cut. He excused himself from the group that he was with and decided to head to the toilet. He waved at Jack who tipped a finger at him and them carried on talking to the girls who were giggling and looking at him like he was the new coming of the messiah. He pushed his way through the massive crowd, high fiving and shaking hands with everyone that he came into contact with and eventually found himself in the toilets. There were a few drunk people in there, one of them leaning his head against the wa
ll whilst he urinated. His knees kept on buckling and then locking again as he waged his own personal war against gravity. Patrick went to the lone cubical and locked himself in. He needed a moment to get his head back together. The noise and bustle of the pub was becoming overwhelming. He put the lid of the toilet down and sat for a moment and took some deep breaths. It was a different world he was living in now, one that he was going to have to adjust to in order to survive. He played over in his mind the sex he had with Lizzy, now that had been good, but it had left him with the feeling that it wouldn’t have mattered who it was that she was fucking as long as they had some coin in the bank. A part of his mind was telling him just to go with it and enjoy it, but that wasn’t the sort of person he was, not really anyway. He would have to reign that shit in before he went and got someone pregnant, and then he would be in deep trouble. He stood up again and loosened his tie. He had decided that he was going to be a little bit more responsible from this moment on. The money wasn’t going to turn him into a shallow fuck machine. He unlocked the door and walked briskly out of the toilets, ignoring anyone that was trying to make conversation with him whilst they still had their dicks in their hands. As he was coming out of the toilets, he almost bumped into two girls. He offered an apology for his clumsiness and then looked into the face of the girl that was nearest to him. He had seen her before; he was sure of it. He never forgot a face but he couldn’t remember the context of which he had seen it. He pointed a finger at her.
“Hey, I know you from somewhere, but I’ll be buggered if I can remember where,” he said.
“Oh, Mr Hurst, how can you not remember? You did make me two cups of tea after all,” she said.
His mind groped in the dark for a moment and then a light dawned.
“W.P.C. Phillips, right?”
Duet Page 22