The Caretakers (2011)

by Adrian Chamberlin

  “Yes’m boss,” Paul saluted. He placed his hands on the stack and pushed it towards the refrigerator. He pushed too hard and the top tray flew off the stack. It hit the heavy steel door of the refrigerator and flipped over, scattering the sealed packages of food on the floor. The cellophane on two of the boxes split, and juice from the peeled tomatoes inside splattered on the floor. Paul grimaced at the red splatters on his overalls.

  “You dozy, pissed up little twat!” Connie bellowed. “Pick ‘em up, now!’ Leaving the key bunch in the door, he turned, picked one of the packages - a six-portion pack of fish pie - from the crate and slammed it onto the drainer unit. He pierced the cellophane lid with the six inch steel point of the temperature probe and checked the temperature.

  “Finished, Bamber? Right, stack ‘em in the fridge.’

  “Can’t,” Paul mumbled. “Locked.”

  For fuck’s sake. He’d forgotten about that. “The fridge key’s on the bunch in the door. That’ll fit it.” He tapped the probe to stabilise the reading. Odd. It should read between one and three degrees Celsius above freezing. Instead the digital display was alternating, changing rapidly between 21 and 12. Just like today’s date, he thought.

  “Well done, Bamber,” he growled. “You’ve knackered the probe.”

  “Well, just make the temperature up - oh, hello. Breakfast time, is it?”

  Connie followed Paul’s gaze, to the inner door leading to the dining room. The door that was now open and framed Jason Franklin’s figure.

  * * * * *

  For a while Jason stood motionless. The shock of seeing two strange figures in white had frozen him, because he knew he had seen them before. Years ago.

  He saw a man in his late forties, stocky and thick set, brandishing a sharp, pointed object at a younger man who knelt on the floor amid a pile of spilled food packages. Both were dressed identically in -

  …white…

  - white overalls, flimsy looking affairs that couldn’t possibly keep out the cold, complimented by thin paper baker’s caps. No, these were the delivery men from the cook-chill unit, on their rounds stocking the fridge up. Jason started to relax -

  - white robes, spotted with blood. Blood from the offering…

  - and the younger delivery man on the floor, thin to the point of lankiness, looking up at him curiously through his thick glasses. “Oh. Breakfast time, is it?” He had one of the cardboard cook-chill boxes in his hand. Something red and bulbous slithered under the plastic lid.

  …red, slithering out of the offering’s chest. Gathered up by the white-robed figures and reverentially placed in a box…

  The younger man looked alarmed now. Jason’s fear was replaced with black rage, making the younger man’s eyes widen in fear, magnified by the thick glasses he wore. His gloved fingers involuntarily tightened on the box he held. The cellophane lid split along the side and the peeled plum tomatoes slithered onto the floor, the thick juice staining the cotton gloves scarlet. Jason Franklin sank to his knees, dug his fingernails into his thighs and shrieked.

  …the box dropping to the floor, the steaming heart plopping onto the cold flagstones of the chapel’s cellar…the white robed figures looking up from their work, eyes widening in alarm behind their masks. Eyes that narrowed, the realisation that this intruder had witnessed their grisly duty. Had to be silenced…

  The younger man stood up in alarm and took a step backwards as his older companion advanced with the temperature probe. Jason’s eyes focussed on the glinting steel point coming his way. His shriek became a scream that thundered around the tiled walls of the kitchen. A scream of fear, believing he was in danger; a scream of recognition, knowing that the scene playing out in front of him was the same now as it was then, years ago as a child, when he had stumbled upon the appeasers of Andraste.

  …the knives point to him, steel edges glinting in the dim candlelight. A face appears above it, the frowning features of one he recognises creasing up in a mixture of relief and anger. Anger that their sacred duty has been witnessed: relief that it is only the eight year old who has witnessed them. “Go back to bed, Jason. Now. This is all just a bad dream. You’ll wake up, everything will be gone. Go back to bed…”

  Jason’s eyes flutter. He almost falls under the calm, hypnotic tones of the Scotsman he calls father. But as his head dips, his glance falls onto the ravaged body of the offering. It’s impossible to tell who it is, if it’s a man or woman, or even human. No recognisable appendages to call arms or legs, the skin removed and folded reverentially on the side is coloured a mottled black-red from the heavy bruising. The neatly sawn stump of what he imagines to be a neck draws his gaze, refuses to let him go. He wonders whose head sat on top of that neck…

  “Jason!” Louder, harsher tones. “This isn’t happening. Back to bed, NOW!” Jason looks away from the body, stares at…

  …the older delivery driver. “Back to bed, Jason! Now! Sam’ll have your bollocks for breakfast if he knows you’ve been up and about.”

  Jason blinked. Sam? Who’s Sam? He blinked again. For a moment, his father’s face was replaced by another’s, that of a stocky, florid faced man with wide, frightened eyes. But only for a moment. Jason knew that his father would never allow fear to show on his face. He looked down at the floor.

  Strange, the flagstones seemed to have changed to some shiny ceramic material, green squares like tiles. But the blood spilled on them, the inverted box and its unspeakable contents…

  Memory flashes of a small, frightened boy leaving the cellar in a daze, going back to bed and forgetting all that had occurred until years later. He shook his head frantically. No, that hadn’t happened. That wouldn’t happen. If he meekly turned his head away from the blood and organs on the floor, walked away with his father’s orders booming in his ears, he would never be able to live with himself. He’d witnessed murder, for God” sake! How could he walk away from that?

  If he stood his ground, showed the same strength of purpose and lack of fear as his father…who knew? Perhaps a sea change would occur. Perhaps he would find a new respect for his son. Perhaps the beatings and the intimidation would stop. All he had to do was stand his ground. Remember the exploded chest, the surgically tucked and folded stump of the neck. It was difficult, with the body gone, but if he shut his eyes firmly he could envision it.

  “What the hell is he doing?”

  Jason ignored the coarse words. Hardly fitting language for men who belonged to the country’s oldest centre of learning. But then, mutilation and murder were hardly fitting subjects for a degree course, were they?

  He had to stand up. The stench of plum tomatoes…no: not tomatoes, blood, was overpowering. He calmly got to his feet, eyes fixed on the white-overalled figure holding the weapon.

  “No more father. No more!” With a cry that had been stifled in his soul for the last decade - only now allowed release - he lowered his head and charged.

  * * * * *

  Connie Teague fought to take in what was happening. It had all been so sudden. Jason Franklin appearing at the door like a ghost, uttering screams that only the seriously mentally disturbed could make, calling him father…father?…and now this. The event he had secretly feared ever since he had started to make food deliveries to the Phoenix Unit. Jason Franklin, Fulbourn’s most celebrated and most feared guest, had finally lost it completely and was heading straight for him.

  It was the realisation of his darkest fear that stilled him, made him forget the nimble footwork that had enabled him to out-manoeuvre his opponents in the ring. He even forgot about the temperature probe in his hand.

  Jason’s head struck him in the chest. Not hard enough to bring anything more than a slight grunt of pain to Connie’s lips, but enough to make him lose his balance. He fell backwards, his left arm clutching at the drawers of the kitchen unit, and he managed to stop himself falling to the floor. The temperature probe hit the floor.

  Jason was carried forward by his own momentum. He overbalanced and
stumbled into Paul, who was making small panicky noises and had by now completely sobered up. Jason landed heavily on the packages of food, the tomatoes squelching and bursting beneath him.

  Connie forced his fear into a tight ball and swallowed it, imagined he was back in the ring; that the man in front of him wasn’t a sectioned mental patient, just another unfortunate - or stupid, it came down to the same thing - challenger who thought he could take on Connie Boy.

  “Come on, bastard!” He pushed himself away from the unit, angled himself towards Jason, fists clenched and formed into a defensive stance. Jason stared at the tomato juice running down the grouting in the tiled floor and shrieked.

  Connie’s fists lowered in surprise. What the fuck is running through this kid’s mind…and where the hell is Sam Dawson?

  “Paul! Get on the blower, tell them we’ve got a problem!” His eyes flicked back to Franklin. Jesus, he was just sitting there now! Slumped on the floor, legs spread wide, gazing stupefied at the liquid on the floor. Paul was immobile, standing motionless by the door. Like the bloody dummy he was.

  In the single second it took for Connie’s eyes to move from Jason to Paul and back again, Jason Franklin acted. A feral expression of pure hatred on his face, he slid over to Connie’s feet where the temperature probe lay. In one fluid, graceful motion, he grabbed it and shot to his feet.

  Connie had one brief image of a huge steel ball shooting towards him, as though someone had shot a ball bearing at his eye.

  * * * * *

  The force and momentum of the blow was so great that Jason Franklin found himself with his thumb stuck in the orbit of Connie’s eyeball. The six inch steel probe, along with its plastic pommel, was buried deep inside the driver’s skull. The body thrashed and writhed as though huge bolts of electricity were coursing through it. It jerked backwards, collapsing on the floor and tearing the probe from Jason’s grip.

  He stood watching the body judder and writhe for a moment. He cocked his head to one side, looking at the strange white box attached to the killing knife he had wrested from the other. He looked around him. The cellar of the chapel was deathly silent. The other Fellows seemed to have fled the scene. He couldn’t blame them. They had seen him kill his own father, John Franklin, the feared head porter of All Souls. Frightened of the head porter, they would surely be more terrified of the man who had killed him. He looked at the now lifeless, still body and felt a surge of satisfaction. It was far from over, but it was a start. The Elder would be pleased.

  Then he was aware of the presence of another. To his right, backing away to the doorway leading out of the cellar, he saw one of the white-clad murderers. He noticed the red stains on the robes and growled. He was glad to see fear in the retreating man’s eyes.

  “It ends here and now. No more killings for Andraste. Tell the College Council that. My father won’t be able to get you the offerings anymore!” He kicked the lifeless body triumphantly.

  The other stared back at him, bleary eyed and squinting. Of course, this one wore glasses, didn’t he? He looked too young to be involved in this. In fact, too young to be a Senior Member of the college, almost his own age…

  Jason shook his head. No.

  The face was changing now: the lips forming mute pleas, bony hands raised to ward away the steel probe. Changing into the face of David Searles.

  Here was the real focus of the evil. No matter that rumours circulated, telling of Searles’ reluctance to assume the duties of the Council leader. He was Master of All Souls: he participated in and led the ritual. He was the leader. He was guilty.

  Jason examined the sharp point of the probe. It was slimy with blood and optical fluid. It had bent slightly when he pulled it out of his father’s eye socket, but not too badly. It was still straight enough to enter another eyeball.

  Searles put up less resistance than his father. Lying on the floor, arms pulled over his head in a vain attempt to ward him off. Jason wondered if it was fear that paralysed Searles into defencelessness - or if the Master of All Souls secretly welcomed his imminent execution. A purging of his sins. It didn’t matter.

  What did matter was what Searles said to him just before the six-inch tip rocketed through his right eyeball and pierced his brain.

  “Not me, Jason. Not your father…”

  It was only when Jason extracted the probe that Searles’ words sank in. Not your father.

  The cellar walls lightened, changed texture. Heavy, rough stone turned to pristine white wall tiles, gleaming in the light from the fluorescent strips overhead. The bodies of the two white-clad Fellows remained where they lay, but their faces changed. No longer Franklin and Searles.

  The offering they had been tearing to pieces was no longer there, and the offal they had been boxing up resumed its sweet aroma of peeled plum tomatoes.

  To Jason Franklin, this smelled as bad as the coppery odour of freshly spilled blood pooling around the booted heels of the deliverymen. This was the gut-churning stench of realisation. Proof that he had been wrong.

  Proof that he had murdered two men. The steel probe felt cold and slimy in his hands. He threw it away with revulsion and howled his agonised guilt to the open door.

  Perhaps it was awareness of the cold seeping in through the open door, or the smell of exhaust fumes now mixing with the stench of blood. But now he knew the means of his deliverance was at hand. The Elder had not lied to him.

  But what a way to go about it, he thought miserably. To kill two guys who were only delivering food.

  But then…was it really his fault? The white overalls had triggered a deep-rooted memory within him, made him relive the sight of the propitiation room in the chapel of All Souls.

  Yes, he told himself. That was the memory that had needed to surface, needed the right trigger. Longhurst had set it in motion with the word “cellar” at their last meeting. And the two delivery men - wearing similar overalls to those worn by the Council when they appeased Andraste…and the words from the younger man, almost the same words he’d heard in the cellar…no wonder he’d thought he was back there.

  The acrid smell of the van’s fumes brought him back to the door. He hardened himself. What’s wrong with you? If you hadn’t been given this opportunity these two would have died anyway, in less than twelve hours along with the rest of humanity! You’ve got a job to do, Jase.

  He cast one last, guilty look at the dead delivery men and opened the door. The van blazed its headlights at him in greeting.

  It wasn’t the grandest of getaway vehicles. A 1989 Ford Transit van with a Luton box conversion. Rust spread like ivy along the sills. The Hubbard chiller unit made a stuttering sound, and judging by the black smoke belching from the exhaust it looked like there was little life left in the van.

  Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. He uttered a quick prayer of thanks to The Elder and pulled open the door.

  He swung his lithe body into the cab and gingerly placed his bloodstained hands on the steering wheel. It had been a long time since he’d driven, and never anything as big as this.

  The gearstick shuddered violently in its neutral setting, in time with the rattling of the poorly maintained engine.

  He checked the fuel gauge, saw the needle pointing to FULL and smiled. His smile broadened when he saw the fuel card on the dashboard. Because not only did it mean the acquisition of all fuels and oils for this elderly van, the silver embossed words below read PETROL only.

  An old, old van. One that ran on unleaded.

  That was great. Petrol would burn much easier than diesel.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The contents of the box were piled on the coffee table in the Lotson’s living room. All except for the sheaf of colour photos scattered across the floor. The tree lights reflected off the glossy photographs, festive green and red light providing an incongruous illumination to the horror.

  Andy’s hands shook as he read the letter Freeland had written. Behind him, he could hear Phil’s son playing with Jasper,
the collie barking in delight as Nick flashed the torch around the carpeted floor of the hallway. Kelly and Rob were sitting at the breakfast bar, in the kitchen, their voices low.

  Andy resisted the temptation to look in their direction. The last time he had seen Kelly look so terrified was fifteen years ago, when he’d saved her in the bar of All Souls. She’d seen the pictures, read what Phil had read. Andy closed the door.

  Mr Lotson

  If you have followed my wishes you will be sitting at home reading this. By which time I will be dead. I’m sorry, but I simply cannot live with the guilt any longer. I know what awaits me on the other side and I know I deserve it, and it is infinitely preferable to what will happen when December the 21st draws to a close. Because we will all be in Hell then, everyone of us. Guilty and innocent alike will suffer when Andraste breaks through.

  “What’s Andraste?” He could see why Freeland had insisted Phil get the box last night, though. It was just gone six in the morning. December the twenty-first had dawned. There were less than eighteen hours until midnight.

  “Read on,” Phil said in a shaking voice. He looked terrible, even worse than when he’d answered the door to Andy and Rob. He’d been up all night reading and examining the contents of Freeland’s archive that he’d begun to read on the journey back from London. It wasn’t just the black rings under his eyes or the grey, pallid complexion that disturbed Andy so much. It was the look in his eyes. That look spoke of the death of hope.

  And that is the terrible irony of the whole matter. The Fellowship of All Souls have been carrying out the ritual for centuries, and before that the ritual was performed by another fellowship, a secret band whose existence history has never recorded. All with the same intention - to prevent Andraste returning. They were not evil men. Their intentions were honourable, but misguided. They have been deceived.