Killer Tease

by Danny Hogan

  ‘Yeah, we’ve been waiting for you,’ added the barmaid with a snivel.

  ‘Shut up, OK,’ said Jolene. ‘Eloise, please, it doesn’t have to be like this. These girls really want to hurt you. You can just leave. Never come back. I’ll make sure no one knows.’

  Eloise glared at her for a second. ‘And what about you, do you want to hurt me? Did you want to hurt me?’

  Jolene’s eyes fluttered before she responded. ‘I was so stupid Eloise, I was…I’ll tell you before this lot now that I’ve always been jealous of you. I’ve set you up so many times over the years, Eloise, and you never knew.’ Jolene’s lips quivered and tears began to stream down her face. ‘I am so, so sorry.’

  Eloise was getting tired of all the crying. She stood her ground. The girls were looking at her and smiling meanly, except for Jolene. She pulled off her coat and flung it behind the bar.

  ‘Know this,’ Eloise began, ‘after today, none of you will ever dance again; that’s a promise.’

  Jolene wiped the tears from her eyes and made an effort to compose herself. ‘All right, Murphy, you want it this way. But remember the rules; not the face. You stick by it, we’ll stick by it.’

  The mean smiles disappeared. Perhaps they had been expecting Eloise to fill with fear or even look a little worried. She was smiling now, a big, viscous smile and occupying her space like an angry viper. This was a dream come true for her, twenty-to-one; good odds against this lot. For the second time that day she produced the hatchet and said: ‘Yeah.’

  There was a stand off, giving Eloise ample opportunity to let the rage build up. Most of the time she fought to control it, even taking medication for years in an effort to keep herself on an even keel, but now she just let it come.

  Lulu Mae huffed a mound of white powder off of a table, her head flying back.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for this,’ she said, wiping her nose with her forearm, and tore towards Eloise, clawing and screaming pathetically.

  The bouncer, the pony-tailed man and Jez had only tasted what she had to offer; this lot were in for the full show. These little girls had no tradition, their whole past, present and future bought for them. Eloise’s kind had been around for centuries, it was in her Celtic blood as much as drinking. Many, many years ago when warriors fought toe-to-toe with sword and axe, they had a word for people like her. Berserker.

  Lulu Mae was nearly on her. Eloise sent the hatchet though her cheek, her mouth and out of the other cheek in one powerful swing, sending blood and teeth everywhere. That was that bitch out of the running, as well as five other girls who fled screaming into the distance at the sight.

  Jolene winced and back-pedalled rapidly, getting behind the gang of quaking girls who remained.

  Eloise wasn’t about to wait for them to build up courage and flew at them, hacking widely. Her first shot smashed a knee and smacked into another’s jowl. The next shot caught someone plum in their liver and lodged there, necessitating head butts and kicks to the others trying to get near her.

  Eloise was in her element. She was their nemesis, the agent of righteous retribution on their sorry hides, and they were only making it worse for themselves by squealing like swine.

  Some of them seemed to find their courage. They started getting angry and attacked Eloise. All they got for their efforts were smashed legs, necks and faces. Despite this, the barmaid even managed to stab Eloise in her side with a small pocket knife. Eloise took her arm clean off and opened her face like a bag of crisps.

  Most of them, however, including the five who had fled, were now cowering in a far corner. They were huddled up in a pitiful state, sobbing crazily and pleading for their lives.

  Eloise kept her promise and ensured none of them would ever dance again.

  When she had finished, the bar that had looked so luxurious resembled a badly kept slaughterhouse. Pale bodies and limbs were everywhere and blood covered every surface.

  Jolene stood before her, heaving and huffing, with vomit down her flashy gown.

  ‘You’re a fucking psycho, Murphy, you need locking up, girl.’

  Eloise answered with a hatchet to the knees.

  Jolene let out a blood-curdling cry as she dropped to the ground.

  ‘Please, please,’ she whimpered.

  Eloise snatched her by her blonde hair. All the things over the years that Eloise had blamed herself for, all the things that had held her back had been partly, if not all, Jolene’s fault. So much wasted time.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t touch your face,’ Eloise said, raising the hatchet.

  ‘No,’ shrieked Jolene as the hatchet bore down.

  Eloise felt a huge weight being lifted as Jolene’s scalp came away in her hands. Old School.

  She looked down at her foe who was as pale as paper and jerking around the floor in some kind of fit. Blood jetted and sprayed from her exposed skull.

  ‘Can you hear me, Jolene, can you?’ Eloise wiped away the spittle that had gathered at her mouth. ‘If you live through this you tell them Hammerstein done it, all right?’ Eloise gave the spasming body a kick. ‘If you don’t I’ll come back for you.’

  Before Eloise ascended the stairs leading to Hammerstein’s office she made two phone calls and then legged it up.

  The stifling atmosphere in the corridor aggravated her and drove her on rather than hindered her.

  Booting the door open, Eloise was once again in the cavernous office, but she was not prepared for the sight that met her.

  Hammerstein was waiting there, with open arms. He had been smiling but quickly stopped when he actually saw her.

  Covered in blood spatter, her features twisted by years of hatred, one hand wielding a meat-encrusted hatchet, in the other Jolene’s gory scalp; she must have been a sight.

  Eloise saw the safe in the corner, its jaws open and half full of crisp notes and a bag next to it brimming with cash. He was planning to do a runner.

  He could see what she was looking at. ‘Don’t,’ he said, piping a tear, but then became angry. ‘My son, your cat. Far more than a fair trade, wouldn’t you agree? But leave me my money, d’ya hear?’

  He was a weak, scrawny little man with nothing to him. A knee from her well-toned leg to his nuts was enough to send him to the floor and out of the game with enough time.

  As she filled the bag with cash until it could hold no more and secreted as much as she could down her top and about her person, she looked over to him, wheezing and spluttering on the floor. At one point he appeared to be crawling towards his books.

  ‘You’ll find no answers there,’ said Eloise.

  In the safe she found the original copies of the pictures and a USB pen. She thought about destroying them. But the fact that it had not been her fault took the venom from the images. Besides, they would serve a purpose yet.

  Heaving the bag across her shoulders, she walked over to Hammerstein, bent down and pressed the hatchet and the scalp into his chicken claw-like hands and smeared him with as much blood as she could. She then stamped on his groin for good measure.

  She walked over to the globe and wrenched it open. Pulling a bottle of water from it, she doused herself to get rid of the gore. And then took a quick swig of Bombay Sapphire for good measure.

  She noticed a book on the shelf, The Right of Man Over the Fairer Sex by N. Reg Mother, pulled it out and flung it at him.

  ‘There you go.’

  As she passed through the corridor she thought about forcing the doors open and freeing the poor souls the bouncer had told her about, but she decided not to. It would look much better this way.

  When Eloise entered the bar she was surprised to see Jolene still twitching and gurgling on the floor, the blood from her skull now pouring out more calmly like it was on tap.

  The others were all still lying around the place, the lucky ones letting out the occasional moan. If she had had time she would have pulled out one of the chairs and plonked in the middle of the room. Their sorrow was like music to her. B
ut she didn’t have time.

  Dashing out of the bar, she pulled her collar up and walked briskly down West Street towards the sea just as a multitude of police vehicles descended from all angles on the entrance, their sirens howling.

  17

  Of all the watering holes in Brighton, Chequers in Preston Street was Eloise’s favourite. She considered it her front room and liked the fact that it was small and dark and most people had a tendency to walk right past it. It was here that she used to sit and have a drink and chat to the manager while she prepared to bump and grind at the Engine Rooms. It seemed fitting that this would be her choice of venue to sit with a cold mango juice, chock full of ice, and watch the news reports of the story that was gripping the nation transpire on the small TV in the corner.

  ‘Look at the face on him,’ said the manager as he polished a glass and stared at the TV, smiling.

  On the screen, Napoleon Hammerstein, covered in claret, was shrieking himself hoarse, protesting his innocence to reporters as burly police officers bundled him into the back of a waiting pie wagon. There was a brief but hideous glimpse of a woman, who Eloise knew to be Jolene, being hurried by stretcher into an ambulance. All manner of tubes and gizmos were attached to her heavily bandaged head and distributing red gunk, keeping her alive.

  The next image showed a lavish white mansion, with columns, somewhere in Sussex and, standing in front, an abused looking woman with the caption: “Mrs. Hammerstein” who was wailing like a banshee as she looked on at an army of police and bailiffs charging into her home.

  ‘Did you hear about this?’ the manager asked Eloise.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Eloise.

  ‘Talk about comeuppance, he was a right greedy bastard and whoremonger too by all accounts. As well as all that nastiness they found in the bar, they said earlier that they found fifty live women upstairs and a further hundred who had shown evidence of being starved or battered to death. What a psycho.’ He turned and looked quizzically at Eloise. ‘Here Murphy, how come you’re not drinking? That’s not like you.’

  ‘I’m driving,’ she said, draining her glass. She picked up her heavy bag and left.

  Outside, seagulls swooped peacefully overhead and the street was full of people idly going about their business.

  She crossed the street where her prize was waiting for her. She stopped, removed her sunglasses and took in the classic beauty that was the Cadillac Eldorado she had bought from a collector in Hastings earlier that morning. It was black and shiny and had a white leather interior. All other features were expertly chromed and it boasted white-walled tyres. Everything about it lauded excessive dimensions.

  She aimed the monster down towards the seafront and drove the round about way to get to the Laines.

  Parking in one of the car parks, she walked to the vegetarian restaurant that provided Hunter Steadman with a day job.

  He came running out and flung his arms around her. They embraced for a long while until he gently broke away and said, ‘All that trouble yesterday that they pinned on that banker, eh. I don’t know about that but whoever was responsible they would have to be one hell of a nutter.’ He reached up and tufted her hair.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be gone for a while, but take care of yourself, OK.’

  He looked serious and a little sad. ‘Where you going?’

  ‘I don’t know, but you know I’ll come back for you.’

  ‘You’d better, and for the love of Christ girl, will you stay out of trouble, for me, please?’

  They embraced again and shared a delicate kiss on the lips. He was as perfect as man could get, just such a shame he was on a different bus, Eloise thought.

  As she approached the seafront in the Eldorado, Eloise couldn’t help but feel a little proud of the attention she was getting. She aimed the beast down the Kingsway and entered the slow, early evening traffic.

  Maybe Charlie had been right without even knowing it, maybe it was time to change and do something. But what? Eloise thought for a moment. That was something to consider, but what was for sure she decided, was that she was going to give the fighting a miss from now on. She had won, but everything hurt so much more these days. A twinge in her side and the wind making the plates in her face go cold bore testament to the fact that she was no longer invincible, like she used to feel.

  As she drove past the cinema she thought about maybe catching a film. But decided against it; she’d had enough of that place.

  making her way along the seafront she saw someone she recognised meandering aimlessly up the road, with a look of disbelief on his face as he gazed at the pavement in front of him.

  She pulled the car up at the roadside, got out and stretched. A seagull was perched on a wall in front of her and observed her closely with his bloodshot eyes.

  I’ll give up fighting tomorrow, she thought as she followed Johnny down the road.

  The End