by Shaun Hutson
“It won’t go on for ever, Janice. What’s been happening will stop.”
“Who’s going to stop it?”
Ronni wished she had an answer.
“Harry said that the police couldn’t do anything. Is that right?”
“They’ve got no suspects. They don’t know why the attacks have started.”
“Do they know why Barbara’s dog was taken?”
“They still say they’re not sure that she was. She might have just run off.”
“You know that’s not true, love. Molly would never run away. The poor little thing’s like us. She’s got nowhere to go. They have taken her, haven’t they?”
Ronni sighed wearily.
“It looks like it, Janice, but don’t say anything to Barbara will you?
She’s upset enough already.”
There was a long silence finally broken by the older woman.
“Is there any news about your dad?” she wanted to know.
Ronni shook her head.
“There’s no change,” she murmured.
“He’s no better.”
Janice reached out and touched her hand.
“And no worse either,” she said, a hint of mild rebuke in her voice.
Ronni managed a smile.
“I’ll say a prayer for him tonight,” Janice told her.
Thank you, Janice.”
The older woman got to her feet.
“I’m off to bed now,” she announced.
“Harry’s still downstairs watching the television. At least I’ll get the chance to read in peace for a while before he comes up.”
“Do you feel OK, Janice?”
“Just a bit tired, love. But then I think we all are, aren’t we?” She made her way towards the office door and closed it gently behind her.
Ronni got to her feet and glanced out of the office window once again.
Still nothing moving in the grounds.
She hoped to God it stayed that way.
NORMALLY, WHEN SHE entered, Janice Holland would put the main light on. For once she hesitated, reluctant to illuminate the first floor room so brightly.
Instead, she crossed to her bedside table and switched on the lamp. It gave off a comfortingly dull yellow glow. More importantly, it made her feel less exposed. She closed the curtains quickly, not wanting to dwell before the windows any longer than she had to. Once the curtains were safely drawn she couldn’t resist peeking between the swathes of material, straining her eyes to see into the darkness beyond.
The wind had been building gradually during the day and now she watched the branches of the trees shaking. Trembling as if they were afraid.
Janice knew how they felt.
She crossed to the small sink, spun the tap and filled the glass with water, then she took the bottle of Trinitrin from her cardigan pocket and slipped one under her tongue. She studied her own reflection in the mirror above the sink before washing the small tablet down with water.
Earlier in the day she had felt a little faint on more than one occasion, but hadn’t mentioned it to Harry. He would only worry, she reasoned, and considering the catalogue of incidents over the past few days she wasn’t surprised she felt a little under the weather. But the Trinitrin kept her on an even keel. She had little or no discomfort from the angina as long as she remembered to take the tablets.
Janice shivered, surprised at how cold it felt inside the room. She crossed to the radiator and found that it was on a high setting already. She bent down carefully and adjusted the thermostat, moving it to maximum. Harry would complain if it was cold when he came to bed. The chill played merry hell with his rheumatism.
She paused and looked at the Waterford crystal clock, running one finger over the perfect glass. It was a truly beautiful piece of work and she had given it pride of place in this room she and her husband now called home. They couldn’t have wished for a finer gift from the other residents of Shelby House. It had certainly been an anniversary to remember. Janice felt sad that the happy memories of that wonderful day had been overshadowed by the events that had occurred since.
Nonetheless, she looked fondly at the clock once again before turning to the wardrobe to retrieve her nightdress.
She pulled the first door open. As usual, it squeaked loudly on its hinges. She made a mental note to get Harry to oil them.
She opened the other door.
The dead dog was hanging from a piece of electrical flex.
Janice recognized it as Molly immediately.
She tried to suck in a breath, but couldn’t.
Her eyes were riveted to the body of the little terrier.
The flex had been fastened so tightly around its neck it had almost severed the head.
Molly’s bloodied tongue lolled lifelessly from one corner of her mouth.
Both eyes had been gouged from their sockets. Only empty black craters choked with congealed blood remained.
The animal had also been eviscerated. Its stomach walls hung open like reeking, fleshy curtains. Remnants of its intestines bulged through the rent like corpulent worms.
And now the stench hit her. A wave of putrescent air that clogged in her nostrils and sent her reeling back.
Red-hot pain clutched at her chest, pain that seemed to force the breath from her. It tightened as surely as a screw until Janice felt as if someone was sitting on her sternum exerting more and more pressure.
White stars danced before her eyes and she felt as if she was falling.
She put out a hand to stop herself, but it was impossible.
Janice crashed into the table that supported the clock and the crystal timepiece went flying, shattering on the ground.
She hit the floor hard, the pain in her chest now intolerable.
Tears rolled from one eye and she tried to suck in enough breath for a scream. Any sound to alert someone.
She wanted Harry.
The body of Molly swayed gently back and forth in the wardrobe and Janice found her tortured gaze drawn to it.
She finally let out a strangled gasp.
As she lay there, she heard footsteps hurrying towards the room.
Then, there was only darkness.
RONNI HAD HEARD the noise as Janice Holland crashed into the table. Now she burst into the room and saw the older woman lying on the floor, eyes half open, a thin ribbon of mucus running from one corner of her mouth.
“Oh my God,” she gasped and immediately crossed to her.
As she did, she saw the gutted dog hanging in the wardrobe, the shattered clock and other ornaments scattered across the floor.
Images crowded in on her from all sides until her own head spun.
She grabbed Janice’s wrist and felt for a pulse, digging her fingers almost savagely into the pliant skin.
If there was one there it was very weak.
Ronni pinched the older woman’s nostrils shut and pressed her mouth to Janice’s, trying to breathe her own life back into the woman.
After three breaths she pumped the frail chest; listened for a heartbeat, felt for a pulse, then repeated the actions.
And now she heard footsteps on the stairs.
Alison Dean reached the landing first and hurried into the room.
She screamed when she saw the remains of the dog, the sound reverberating inside the room.
“Phone an ambulance!” Ronni shouted.
“Quick!”
Alison stood transfixed, her stomach contracting as she gazed at the dead terrier displayed there.
“Alison.” Ronni repeated, still massaging Janice Holland’s chest.
“Get the ambulance, now!”
Her companion nodded and reeled out of the room, bumping into Harry Holland and Jack Fuller, who were behind her.
Holland hurried inside, shaking his head when he saw his wife sprawled so helplessly on the floor.
“No,” he gasped and dropped to his knees beside her, clutching one of her hands. He watched as Ronni continued to work fran
tically at resuscitation.
Jack Fuller was staring at the dead dog.
Helen Kennedy appeared in the doorway and put a hand to her mouth as she saw what was happening.
Ronni tried again to find a pulse.
“Please, God, no,” whispered Harry Holland, kissing his wife’s hand. He never took his gaze from her face.
Ronni could find no pulse.
“Don’t go,” Holland begged, tears welling in his eyes.
“Janice, please don’t go. Please.”
Jack Fuller was on his knees beside Ronni now. He also felt for a pulse, running his fingers over the sunken veins in Janice Holland’s neck. He shook his head imperceptibly.
“She’s gone, Harry,” he said softly.
“She can’t be,” Holland wailed. He looked at Ronni, shaking his head imploringly. Then, he stooped forward and kissed Janice’s forehead.
“My darling,” he whispered, his body shuddering.
“Don’t go. I love you.”
Tears were coursing down Ronni’s cheeks. She put an arm around Holland’s shoulders and felt the agonized spasms racking his body as he continued to kneel beside his wife.
Helen Kennedy crossed herself.
Jack Fuller bowed his head and looked first at the shattered remnants of the crystal clock scattered across the floor, then at the dead dog.
He felt a cold breeze and wandered across to the window.
Paint had been scraped off the outside of the frame close to the lock.
In the distance, a siren blared.
No ONE SLEPT that night.
Once the ambulance had taken Janice Holland away (on Ronni’s instructions, Harry had been accompanied by Alison Dean) the remaining residents had gathered in the day room.
Ronni herself had told Barbara Eustace about her dead dog.
There had been more tears, as she’d expected.
Eva Cole now sat with the wheelchair-bound woman, holding her hand, occasionally squeezing her arm comfortingly.
Helen Kennedy sat with them, head bowed.
Colin Glazer and Donald Tanner wanted to bury Molly in the grounds of Shelby House, but Ronni refused to let them leave the building until morning.
“Aren’t you going to call the police?” Eva wanted to know.
“What’s the point?” snapped Jack Fuller.
“They won’t do anything if they come, will they, Ronni?”
“They don’t care about us, do they?” George Errington added, looking over his thick glasses.
“I don’t know what they could do, George,” Ronni said.
“What they’ve done so far,” Donald Tanner spat.
“Nothing.” She wasn’t slow to catch the vehemence in his tone.
“What’s it going to take to make them do something?” Tanner continued.
“Janice is dead. Barbara’s dog was butchered. Are you going to wait until one of us is strung up and cut open before you do anything?”
“Don’t blame me, Donald,” Ronni protested.
“I agree with you. The police should be doing something. I’ve tried to get them to help us, but they won’t.”
“Perhaps you haven’t been trying hard enough,” snapped Fuller.
“You’re supposed to take care of us, aren’t you? Doesn’t that include making sure we’re not subjected to things like this?”
“What do you expect me to do, Jack? What can I do? What could I have done to prevent any of what’s happened in the last few days?”
Fuller merely shrugged.
“Why did they kill Molly?” Barbara Eustace asked plaintively.
“I wish I knew, Barbara,” Ronni said, softly.
“The bastards are laughing at us,” Errington hissed.
“Because they know there’s nothing we can do to stop them,” Colin Glazer added.
“Us or the police,” Fuller offered.
“I asked the police for help,” Ronni said angrily.
“They refused.”
“Then ask them again,” countered Errington.
“They won’t do anything,” Ronni protested.
“They don’t care,” Glazer snapped.
“That’s why.”
“Look, I’m as scared as the rest of you,” Ronni said, looking around at the array of faces before her.
“But I don’t know what I can do.”
“I’m not scared of them,” Fuller asserted.
“I am,” Helen Kennedy offered.
“Then they’ve won. If we give in to them, that’s it.”
“Jack, this isn’t the army now,” Ronni told him.
“It isn’t some battle of wills between us and whoever’s doing this.”
“Then what is it?”
“The police think these are more than likely kids. It’s some kind of sick game to them.”
“A game that involves slaughtering dogs and killing people,” rasped Tanner.
“You should know how we feel, Ronni. Look what happened to your father.”
“My father’s got nothing to do with this,” she said dismissively.
“Any one of us could end up the same way as him. At least he’s still alive. Janice is dead,” Errington said angrily.
Ronni met the older man’s gaze and was surprised at the fury in his eyes.
“It isn’t Ronni’s fault,” Eva Cole interjected.
“Someone has to help us,” Errington snapped. The police won’t. Why can’t she?”
“If there was anything I could do, don’t you think I’d have done it by now?” Ronni retorted.
“I’m doing my best. We all are.”
“Well, it isn’t good enough,” Errington told her.
“Harry Holland’s lost his wife. Try telling him you’re doing your best when he gets back.”
“I wasn’t to blame for what happened to Janice.”
“For God’s sake, stop arguing,” Helen Kennedy said imploringly.
“Why do you think they hung Barbara’s dog in the wardrobe?” Fuller wanted to know.
To frighten us,” Eva Cole answered.
Fuller shook his head.
“They could have left the body anywhere. In the drive. On the lawn. They could have thrown it through a window. But they didn’t and I know why. I know why they hung it in Janice’s wardrobe. And so do you.” He jabbed an accusatory finger at Ronni.
She looked on expectantly.
“Jack, they did it to frighten us. Eva’s right.”
“No,” Fuller rasped.
“They did it to prove they could get inside Shelby House.”
Silence greeted his remark.
Ronni swallowed hard. She wanted to disagree with him, tell him he was wrong, but something at the back of her mind wouldn’t let her.
“You know I’m right,” Fuller persisted.
His words hung unchallenged in the air.
“Who’ll they pick on next?” he demanded.
THE PHONE CALL came at 11.26 p.m.
Ronni reached wearily for the receiver and pressed it to her ear.
Could it be news of her father? More pain?
“Hello, Ronni.”
She recognized Alison Dean’s voice immediately.
“How’s Harry?” Ronni wanted to know.
“The doctor here examined him. He said he’s OK to come back to Shelby House. He’s hardly spoken a word since we left Janice.”
“When will you be back?”
“I’m putting him in a taxi. He should be there in about half an hour, he ‘ “You’re doing what? There was a long silence at the other end of the line.
“Alison,” Ronni snapped.
“What do you mean you’re putting him in a taxi?”
“I can’t come back there, Ronni. I’m sorry. I did warn you. I ‘ Again Ronni cut her short. Tine,” she said flatly.
“Collect your stuff tomorrow. No, better still, I’ll get Andy to drop it round your house. It might be better if we didn’t see each other for a while.”
; “Ronni, I’m sorry.”
“Forget it, Alison. I’ll call Gordon. He can cover for you.”
“If there was any other way ‘ “I said forget about it. I don’t need you here.”
“Will you tell the residents why?”
“Why you’re running out on them? Yes, I’ll tell them. You’re scared.
Well, we’re all scared, Alison, but you do what you have to do.”
She hung up. For long moments she kept her hand on the receiver, trying to control her emotions.
Anger, fear, disappointment: all of them whirled around inside her head.
She felt the same kind of helplessness she’d felt when she’d first walked into the Intensive Care unit and seen her father so beaten and battered.
She told herself she had to remain in control; the residents relied on her. She had to be strong for them. They were starting to look shell-shocked.
One or two of them had returned to their rooms. The others were still gathered in the day room.
Safety in numbers?
The remains of the little dog had been cut down and sealed in a black dustbin bag. They would bury it in the garden in the morning. Ronni had locked the door of the Hollands’ room after tidying up as best she could. She had gathered the pieces of the shattered clock and put those in a smaller bag. Now she sat at the desk and prepared to dial Gordon Faulkner’s number.
She needed someone else with her for the remainder of the night.
Just in case.
When he finally answered his phone she told him briefly what had happened.
He promised he’d be there within the hour.
Ronni placed the phone gently back on the cradle, then posted herself at the window of the office, gazing out into the gloom, trying to pick out the headlights of the taxi carrying Harry Holland. Or the single beam of the motorbike Faulkner now rode since his car had been trashed.
She watched for headlights.
Or whatever else might be moving around in the darkness.
Again she checked her watch, her hand shaking slightly.
The light of morning was a long way off.
SHE KNEW SHE should have gone home.
Gordon Faulkner had been telling her so all morning.
He had told her before he’d helped bury Molly’s body in a shallow grave in the gardens of Shelby House, helped by Jack Fuller and Colin Glazer, watched by a weeping Barbara Eustace.
He’d told her again afterwards.
Finally, she’d succumbed to his entreaties.