Hinton Hollow Death Trip

by Will Carver

  That determination she had to be more physically active began to dissipate after six steps. I can do that. As I said, I can increase your apathy. She could feel her chest tightening, like somebody was standing on it.

  The final nine steps seemed to stretch off into the distance, but Dorothy eating-her-way-to-heart-failure Reilly still had enough gumption to lift those weary and heavy legs, one at a time, as she plodded towards the summit. And she only stopped once more with three steps to go.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  She probably could have done with some respite for her efforts. She was trying, at least. This had gone on long enough. Eating wasn’t bringing her mother back to life, it wasn’t tearing Bobby away from his new girlfriend and it certainly did not make her feel less alone. She was trying to change, make an effort.

  Instead, she had me behind her, pulling at the elastic waist of her trousers as she tried to propel her weight forward.

  Then she threw up at the top. Into the plant pot next to her front door. A neighbour’s light flickered on and she rummaged quickly for her keys to avoid any kind of confrontation or concern. She pushed through the door, shut it behind her and leant against it. I was just outside, listening as she tried to draw in air with those short, sharp breaths.

  She dropped both shopping bags onto the floor then collapsed to her knees. The stabbing in her abdomen forced her to hunch over. She thought it was because she had just been sick, because she felt exhausted from climbing the stairs to her flat.

  It wasn’t. It was because of me.

  Me. And the fact that her coronary arteries were narrowed by fatty deposits as a consequence of her diet and lifestyle.

  A NOTE

  10,000 steps a day is not a target.

  It is your minimum requirement.

  This had happened to her before. Not the sickness or the abdominal pain, but the chest constriction. It usually lasted for a few minutes. She just had to find a way to calm herself down. Dealing with a symptom rather than the cause.

  She sat with her back against the wall and tried to slow her racing mind. I sat with her. Her breaths grew longer and deeper, and the pain eventually evaporated.

  Dorothy Reilly, sick on her breath, was thankful for the let-up, the let-off, and decided that she had earned a reward. With her back still pressed against her hallway wall, she reached her left hand towards one of the shopping bags and pulled out a bar of chocolate. She ate it and felt happiness for about six seconds.

  Just one more…

  I knew that a slightly heavier push from me could have more impact the next time I saw her.

  SMASHED/BROKEN

  Three minor misdemeanours seemed an adequate start. You can’t always tell where that first touch of evil will lead a person. There are people who remain unaffected. There is something inside them that can be worked with but the good in them far outweighs the possibility of any corruption. I find this less and less. Everything moves so fast now that the general population are easy to manipulate because they’re so confused by trying to keep up.

  Annie Harding was at home, drinking red wine, flicking through a decorating magazine while her husband drank the other half of the bottle and zoned out to the television. Their daughter was upstairs asleep. I could have given her a nightmare but I didn’t.

  I sat downstairs with the Hardings for a while and watched their odd lack of interaction. The house was neat. Too neat. The furniture had mostly been upcycled with a Paris Grey chalk paint and was accessorised with a vengeance. Everywhere, a splash of colour. Each fleck, some faux personality.

  Ordered.

  Too ordered.

  Perfect.

  But too perfect.

  And the room was too quiet.

  So I waved a hand over both of them and waited to see what would happen. Not enough that one might kill the other or that anything would get heated enough to awaken their child. A prod. A nudge. That’s all it took.

  The worst I could do that night was to make them talk. Make Annie ask her husband some questions about working late and what he’s been doing and where he’s been going and who he’s been talking to. I had squeezed her insecurities and let her run with it.

  Suspicion is fun to play with.

  The discussion was pointed but not heated. Annie was calm.

  Too calm.

  I couldn’t tell where it was going to go, if anywhere at all.

  Then she laid down her magazine, swigged the last mouthful of her wine, stood up, went to the front door, put on her shoes, grabbed the car keys and a large rock from the front garden and drove off.

  Her husband had to stay at the house because he couldn’t leave the child. But I followed her. I did not feel I had done enough for her to leave her family.

  Annie Harding drove her car into the centre of Hinton Hollow that night, she waited at the traffic lights on the crossroads though no cars seemed to be travelling through in any direction, and she pulled over at the florist, exited the car and threw that giant rock straight through the glass front.

  This would be the first window that she would break.

  HOME

  ‘How old are you, Henry?’

  ‘I’m sorry but I don’t know you, and I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.’

  ‘Did your mummy tell you that? Is she the one who put you on the train?’

  The kid was not scared at all. Four grown adults around him, over a hundred miles from home and he refused to disobey his mother’s instructions. The old woman was not threatening but she was becoming increasingly frustrated by the boy’s lack of cooperation.

  ‘Henry,’ – she kept using his name because she thought it would present a veneer of familiarity – ‘I’m going to have to call the police because we don’t know where you live and we need to know how to get you back. Do you have a train ticket?’ Then, aside, she says, ‘Why has nobody checked our tickets?’ The three men shrug.

  I could interject, get the old lady angry, start an argument somewhere else on the carriage to put some fear in that kid with a label around his neck but, sometimes, I watch. To see if things really are worse than ever. Part of me has to respect Henry’s mother. What she did was crazy but I’m intrigued to know how it might turn out.

  The elderly woman was good as her word. She borrowed a mobile phone from the man opposite and spoke discreetly to the police, explaining what had happened.

  ‘Okay, Henry, the police are on their way. They are going to meet us when the train stops again. Are you hungry? Do you need a drink? It’s about ten more minutes away.’

  He shook his head but I knew that he wanted both food and drink.

  THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT LITTLE HENRY WALLACE

  He is polite.

  He is brave.

  He does what his mother tells him.

  He is so good that I have nothing to work with.

  They sat in silence until the train hissed to a stop. The man opposite Henry Wallace kept his head down the entire way so as not to make eye contact with the eight-year-old, who looked only straight ahead.

  ‘Okay, Henry, the police will be waiting on the platform.’

  He shook his head at the kind, old lady.

  ‘Come on, boy, up you get, we’re only trying to help,’ the man with the phone chipped in. Henry scowled at him.

  The woman put her hand out as though to hold off the man. She sat back down and told them all to leave and that she would stay with the boy until police came aboard. I waited with them as people got up and moved on with their journeys. I watched her. She wanted to put a hand on the child’s knee, to reassure him. She stuttered and thought better of it. It was the right decision.

  I didn’t like the way the man with the phone had become so angry so quickly. The boy was so fearless. I made a note to visit that man again. From the look of the blood vessels in his cheeks, it would not be too difficult for me to push him into one more drink, one more time.

  When the police arrived I
left them to it and went back to find Detective Sergeant Pace burning something in his fireplace and packing his bags for home.

  HOW’S ANNIE?

  How did I appear to you in those first three stories? Was I a pig’s scream or a bloodied anus? Or was I Darren? Was Darren evil? I think, if I had not shown up, he would have treated an animal in that way at some point, anyway. I was a catalyst. Selfish, really, but this is my project.

  I need a win.

  What about Dorothy? To her I am breathlessness. To Dorothy, I am Type 2 Diabetes. I’m a punch in the gut and a weight on her chest. I hardly did anything to sixty-percent-body-fat Dorothy. If I pushed her too hard, we would be talking about a death on my preliminary sweep of Hinton Hollow. And that is not the plan.

  Detective Sergeant Pace would not travel home to that.

  And how’s Annie? What do you think Evil looks like to her? How does it appear to Annie Harding? Is it an image of her husband bending the local florist over their marital bed? You think she sees this reflected in the shop window, and that’s why she has to break the glass? I left before she was arrested. Before she was questioned and could come to no reasonable explanation for her actions.

  Before the town began to talk.

  G o s s i p.

  I am not murder or adultery or stealing. I do not dishonour your father or your mother. I do not covet your neighbour’s house, wife, slaves or animals. I am not a Lord’s name, taken in vain. This is a list of the things that people do.

  I am not people.

  I am not a person.

  I’m trying to explain what I am, what Evil is. Is it making you angry yet? Because, from here, things get horrible. I really get to work, go to town – so to speak. So you can turn back now and there will be no hard feelings. I know that I said it was your last chance before, but this really is it. I mean it.

  Once we hit day one, you will see the evil in this world.

  People die and they cheat and they kill and they steal and they break windows and they cut themselves and they lie to one another and they keep secrets and they make bad decisions and they disappear. And I move around bringing these things about. I appear as an impossible choice and a shadow and heart failure and a cloaked demon and the darkness of the woods. I can make people act in a way that does not seem like themselves, but there is no acting, the behaviour is always in there somewhere.

  I don’t want to ruin it. But the guy doesn’t always get the girl. The sick do not always heal. Order is not always regained after chaos.

  This is it.

  Last chance to turn back.

  Take a minute to think about it.

  THAT WAS NOT A MINUTE

  Still here?

  Well, here it is.

  Welcome. I am Evil.

  And this is the small story of how I took five days to destroy Detective Sergeant Pace and the town of Hinton Hollow.

  The town would recover.

  The detective would not.

  DAY ONE

  Where you will encounter:

  Childhood sweethearts

  A town elder (or two)

  Our detective’s girlfriend

  The Brady family

  and an Ordinary Man.

  THINGS ARE BLEAK

  You may think that the events that took place in Hinton Hollow over those five days were awful. Too much, maybe. Unnecessary, even. The problem is that to be good is now too easy.

  Because average is now good.

  It used to be that you had to be Mother Teresa to be seen as virtuous. Now, another driver letting you pull out in front of them when they could have sped right past, is seen as altruistic. Benevolent. It can make your day.

  The bar has been set to its lowest level.

  The behaviour that was once expected is now revered. Manners and politeness and giving your time/energy/support, these simple ideals are seen as going beyond the call of duty.

  You call your parents on the phone once a month, they are so pleased that you remain in contact with them. You offer a friend a lift to the airport and they don’t know how to accept your offer because it is far too generous.

  Average is now g o o d.

  And that makes doing something good, easy.

  Which makes being Evil difficult.

  And that’s who I’m supposed to be.

  Things are bleak out there. You probably think that’s what I want from the world. But, you see, with everyone so depressed and downtrodden and disconnected and disassociated, the world is an evil place. It means that I have no choice but to be worse, if only to balance things out.

  INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS

  Let’s jump straight in.

  There are many people to be introduced and each of them have their own part to play in the downfall of the town, but the thing people remember from that first day is that a kid died.

  The incident with Jacob Brady is the part that stands out in this dark week of Hinton Hollow history. That’s what they still don’t talk about. There’s the bench and the brass plaque and the flowers and the anniversaries and the missed birthdays.

  The problem is that nobody else was there.

  The two Brady boys, Michael and Jacob.

  Their mother, Faith.

  And the man with the gun. The Ordinary Man.

  They’re the only ones who can piece the parts of the incident together. They saw the same scene, the same events, from different angles, from different perspectives. They had different lives and different histories – some of them not particularly long. But I was there, too. I had to be.

  I saw everything. The darkness, the innocence, the decision.

  SOMETHING I HAVE LEARNED FROM HUMANS

  Your entire life can change in a moment.

  Let me show you how they each saw it and you can piece things together yourself.

  Once you have heard from each of them, I’ll have something to tell you.

  THAT DAY IN THE PARK: MICHAEL BRADY

  Faith Brady stuffed the trainer into Michael’s backpack and they finally left the school grounds. Nobody else was around. She carried both boys’ bags in her right hand to begin with. Jacob held her left hand while Michael walked slightly ahead, his heels scuffing against the concrete of the school playground.

  ‘Pick your feet up, Michael, come on,’ his mother instructed. She wasn’t telling him off, he knew that. He did as she said.

  ‘Can we go in the park on the way home, please?’ asked Michael.

  ‘We’re already running late because we had to look for your shoe.’

  That was not an answer.

  Michael looked at his younger brother, who took his cue.

  ‘Oh, please, Mummy. Just for a bit.’

  Faith Brady looked down at the five-year-old boy by her side, then at the seven-year-old a few feet ahead of her, and she smiled. Michael smiled back. She knew what they were doing. Ganging up on her. Running a routine to get what they wanted. She thought it was funny. Cute, even. Brothers should stick together like that. She let it go.

  ‘Sure.’ She rolled her eyes comically as though she had no choice. ‘But just for a bit, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ they responded, in stereo.

  Michael didn’t look back but he was smiling.

  Jacob let go of his mother’s hand and ran forward to catch up with his brother. His hero. Michael ruffled the back of his brother’s hair when he arrived at his side, congratulating him on a job well done.

  After exiting the school grounds they had a road to cross but it was residential and the flow of traffic was light at the most, particularly after the school had emptied.

  ‘Hold hands and wait,’ Faith called to her boys from behind.

  The two boys did as they were told. They held hands and stopped at the edge of the pavement, looking both ways until their mother reached them and tapped their backs to signify that it was safe to cross.

  Once on the other side, the boys released their grip and sprinted to the wooden fence on the outskirts of the park.<
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  ‘Not too far ahead, boys. Wait for me.’ Their mother was still smiling. Her sons didn’t always get on, that’s normal, but she loved their bond, and Michael was a real help with Jacob on those days when everything seemed too much.

  ‘Maybe we should ask if we can go in the woods,’ Jacob suggested in a hushed voice. Smirking. Scheming.

  ‘What about the monster?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t know about the woods monster? Maybe you’re too young,’ Michael teased.

  ‘Ha ha, Michael. There’s nothing in the woods. Nice try.’ Jacob looked over at the trees and didn’t know whether he believed himself or his brother.

  ‘Ask Mum,’ said Michael, then he ran off further down the path.

  Jacob stared at the woods for a moment and told himself that there definitely was no monster.

  Michael stopped suddenly on the stony pathway and crouched down to see something on the ground more closely. A large black beetle lying on its back, its legs in the air, motionless.

  ‘Jacob, come and look at this,’ he shouted.

  His little brother came bounding towards him with all the enthusiasm of a puppy.

  ‘Ah, Michael, that’s cool. It’s massive.’

  ‘I know. Touch it.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘I’ve already touched it,’ he lied.

  Jacob squatted down next to the beetle and pointed a finger at it. Edging it slowly closer so that he could prod it with his fingertip.

  Just a little closer. Go on…

  Michael was ready to scare his brother. Prepared to make a sudden movement or noise as he got a few millimetres from touching the dead bug. He did this kind of thing to him all the time. He was smiling.