Shutter House

by Rick Wood

The niggling voice at the back of Amber’s head told her to stop trying to find a hiding place. Told her to think about the long-game.

  If she hid, she’d eventually be found.

  It may be in minutes, it may be in hours, it may even be in days.

  Somehow, sometime, he would find her.

  She needed to find a way out. Use the time Luke had given her effectively in finding an escape.

  She hoped Luke had beaten this guy, that for once his violent streak had an upside. That he had protected them both and that she needn’t find a way out and that he would appear any moment declaring himself the victor and assuring Amber that she needn’t worry anymore.

  But for her part, Luke had given her specific instructions.

  Get out.

  Get help.

  Only, there was no out…

  There was no help…

  There were only walls and expensive furniture and heavy doors and the body of her eldest brother laid out on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

  The stairs.

  A creak.

  She didn’t move. Kept completely still.

  Listened.

  Footsteps, treading lightly down the stairs. Wanting to stay hidden.

  But whose footsteps were they, and who were they staying hidden from?

  Normally, she could recognise footsteps. If she was sat in her own living room, she would know who was coming down the stairs by the sound of the feet on the steps. Her mum would always have two hits on each step – first her foot, then the base of her slipper.

  Gray’s steps always sounded chaotic. There was no rhythm to his steps. There’d be a few in quick succession, then a few more, like he was always falling.

  Luke’s steps were heavy. Stomp, stomp, stomp. You could hear Luke’s footsteps coming from the garden.

  That was why she was so confused now.

  She couldn’t recognise the step. It was being deliberately light, intentionally soft – and there was no way she could distinguish between the creeping of the man and the creeping of Luke.

  She waited, hoping that the owner of the light steps would reveal itself.

  One part of her told her to run. That it could be the man, that she could be in imminent danger, and she should flee.

  The other part told her it could be Luke. That she should run from her immobile stance and jump into his arms, thankful that he was still alive.

  The steps left the stairs and placed themselves on the floor beside Gray’s body. A tut announced itself – either at the disgust of seeing their brother, or the inconvenience of a body that hadn’t cleared itself up yet.

  The steps approached.

  She pressed herself up against the wall, flattening out, keeping herself unseen, inches from the door frame.

  The steps approached the doorway where they paused.

  Waiting.

  Looking for something, maybe. Listening. Trying to hear whether Amber was near.

  She wanted to turn around and throw herself into Luke’s arms, to hold him tight and tell him she loved him and beg for him to help her get out of this hell house.

  But what if it wasn’t Luke?

  A hand reached around the door frame toward Amber’s head.

  Amber wondered what it was doing, then she realised she was covering the light switch. With as much stealth as she could manage, she ducked silently out of the way and allowed the hand to flick the light switch, to illuminate the room in artificial light, revealing a grand dining table on one side and a pristine kitchen on the other.

  She stared at the hand for the brief moment it passed her eyes.

  It had a suit blazer. A white shirt. Cufflinks.

  It was not the tracksuit of Luke’s attire.

  It was not Luke.

  She closed her eyes, pressed them together, holding her breath to avoid making even the slightest sound.

  The owner of the hand stepped in, pausing after a few steps. Hands on hips, he looked around.

  Amber covered her own mouth to stifle her breathing.

  She watched the back of his head, praying that he did not turn around.

  41

  He knew she was there.

  He was not an idiot.

  This was all part of the thrills.

  The chase, the taunting, the playing. The moments where you give them hope, just before the moment where you take it away.

  He stepped into the kitchen, listening to the stifled breaths behind him. If he wasn’t so attuned to such muffled whimpers he wouldn’t have heard them – as it was, the small cries of a hiding woman were a ringing bell to him, except a lot more pleasant to listen to.

  He opened a kitchen cupboard, took out a glass and placed it beneath the tap.

  Mixing with the sounds of the water rising in pitch as the glass filled, were the small patters of gently creeping feet upon the tiled surface of a kitchen floor.

  She was trying to edge out of the room.

  He grinned.

  He wondered how he should do this.

  Should he let her hope for a little longer?

  He gulped down the pint of water in mere seconds. This was thirsty work, and his head was aching from the mild pounding he’d had to receive. He rubbed the back of his neck, worrying that he had pulled a muscle.

  He finished his large gulp of water with a satisfying “ah”, dropped the pint glass in the sink, and placed his hands on the side, looking at the girl’s reflection in the metal surface of the tap.

  Despite the shape of the tap distorting her, she was still looking quite pretty. She looked young, probably younger than she was – he wouldn’t have been surprised to find out she was still at school.

  He’d never killed a girl that young before.

  He wasn’t that kind of murderer.

  He despised paedophiles. They disgusted him. They were the gutter of the world of torture.

  That didn’t mean anything would change with the girl, though.

  She may look young, but he was certain she wasn’t.

  Young girls don’t have this kind of fight in them.

  Young girls just close their eyes and don’t know what’s happening.

  Her reflection contorted and displaced as she pushed herself around the doorway, gripping the wall, treading so lightly she thought she hadn’t been noticed.

  He turned and strode, not in the way of the girl, but in the other way, across the long length of the kitchen to another door, a door that he unlocked and entered.

  He entered the library, paced through the music room and the television room, walking a full circle around the ground floor in the opposite way to Amber.

  He paused by the door way, watching, Gray still deceased at the base of the stairs.

  He saw her creep from the kitchen, along the wall, toward the stairs, thinking she was safe.

  Thinking he was still in the kitchen.

  Thinking she wasn’t being watched.

  Thinking there was no one about to step out, reveal themselves, and begin the end of her life.

  42

  Amber didn’t move.

  She could feel her breathing getting heavier, but she silenced it as best she could.

  He didn’t falter or flinch, so he mustn’t have heard it. He couldn’t have.

  He took out a glass and filled it up.

  He had blood all over his skin.

  On his hands. On his face. On his neck.

  Was that Luke’s blood?

  My God, where is Luke…

  Did this mean this guy won? That Luke was dead?

  He didn’t have to be dead.

  Luke could be incapacitated. Prisoner. Handcuffed, bound, shoved somewhere Amber could later discover.

  Or was this just denial all over again?

  The man slammed his glass down and gave a relieved “ah.” He dropped the glass in the sink and leant his hands on the side.

  He seemed to stare at the tap. Dementedly staring, fixed by it, as if the tap was about to move or dance or do s
omething.

  Amber had an image of him ripping the tap off, turning to her and using it to beat her to death.

  She couldn’t wait any longer.

  She placed one foot on the floor, careful to soften her gentle step on the tiles, then shuffled along, slowly and steadily creeping out of the room.

  Her eyes never moved from the back of the guy’s head.

  She was worried he’d turn around. People can always seem to tell when someone is staring at them. At any moment he could turn around, lock eyes with her, and any chance of survival would be over.

  Having made it out of the room, she crept along the wall until he was out of sight.

  She paused, breathing out the breath she was holding.

  The relief was halted by the reminder that all she’d done was move a room away from him.

  She was still only yards away.

  Yards away from a sadistic, twisted killer.

  And, as if she needed a reminder, Gray’s body still lay absently on the floor.

  Should she go search for Luke’s body? To make sure?

  Then what?

  If he was alive, what would she do?

  If he was dead, what would she do?

  She moved toward the stairs, stepping over Gray as if she was getting used to the sight but she wasn’t, she couldn’t, she refused to let herself be used to it.

  She mentally insisted that the sight of her dead brother would always horrify her, would always give her nightmares – she refused to believe anything else.

  She would not get used to his corpse.

  But Gray’s pale face and wide open mouth had remained in place for almost an hour now, stiffening.

  “I know,” came a gentleman’s voice.

  At first, Amber felt relief. She believed it was someone come to help her. The voice was just so well-spoken and so kind that there was no way the owner of such a voice could harm her.

  This was it.

  Someone had found a way in. They had heard the screams, or they were just passing by, a post-man maybe, or even better, a police officer.

  She even felt herself smiling, felt her breathing calming, such was the delusion her defence mechanism.

  Even as she looked into his face, it didn’t register.

  The blood splatter across his bruised cheek, the crusted blood on his neck, and the bloody grin beaming back at her.

  Then it registered.

  And she screamed.

  Boy, did she scream.

  Loud. High-pitched. Piercing.

  Even the man flinched – but in a mocking way. The way you would when your baby has just dribbled their food down their bib, and you say silly you as you wipe it up for them.

  She turned and ran.

  He kicked his leg up, smacking it into hers, sending her legs sprawling in the air before landing on Gray’s cracked spine.

  She scrambled her feet off the body, not just out of fear, but out of an instinct not to touch the corpse, not to affect it in any way.

  She pushed herself to a crawl, then pushed herself to a stumbling run, and scrambled her way back through the room and through to the kitchen.

  She looked over her shoulder.

  He wasn’t following.

  Why wasn’t he following?

  If anything, this unnerved her more than if he was chasing her.

  Now, she couldn’t see him.

  It was as if he knew something that she didn’t.

  43

  As soon as she ran, he turned and strode mercilessly back through the television room, the music room and the library, returning to the door he’d used to sneak out of the kitchen seconds ago.

  He did not enter it – no, he simply locked it to avoid chasing her in circles, then walked back on himself once more.

  Past the library full of books he’d never read.

  Back through the music room with piano that was just for show.

  Back through the television that only showed news he didn’t care for.

  Past the body he’d clean up later.

  When were those fucking pigs arriving?

  Sort it later.

  Back through the kitchen to find her standing in front of the door he’d locked, pulling on its handle then punching her body into it.

  She looked at him and didn’t move.

  Wide-eyed.

  Pale faced.

  Mortified.

  The sight gave him an erection that convulsed under his increasing pulse.

  Both of them, like a stand-off in a western, stood, staring, waiting to see what the other did.

  Well, Amber was waiting to see what he did.

  He was just enjoying her confusion. Savouring her terror. Relishing her fatal indecision.

  “What do you want?” she questioned, so faintly he barely heard it.

  “You’ll have to speak up, my dear,” he answered, trying not to grin so hard.

  “I said, what do you want?” she repeated, this time with more assertion, though it was fake assertion.

  He took a step forward.

  She tried to take a step back but just ended up flattening against the door.

  My God, she is so scared.

  He could have done anything and she’d panic. He could sneeze, laugh, sneer – any movement would make her cry or scream or beg for mercy.

  Never had someone been so under his control, so easily manipulated, so completely stumped by fear.

  It felt good.

  It felt so fucking good.

  “Amber, is it?” he asked.

  She turned her head, figuring him out, wondering what his game was.

  “Well?” he said, prompting an answer.

  “Yes…” she whispered.

  “Your brothers, they… They really loved you.”

  “What?”

  “I said, your brothers, they loved you. Wouldn’t shut up about you the whole time.”

  She still didn’t move.

  Still.

  How could someone remain so motionless?

  “Did you kill Luke?”

  He chuckled.

  “Are you going to come away from that door any time soon?” he asked.

  “Did you kill Luke?”

  “Amber, my darling – what do you think?”

  Her head dropped, her eyes closed, her body shook. Everything crushed her. She looked like she was huddling to shelter from heavy rain, yet the droplets were still falling upon her like bullets and there was nothing she could do. Her face curled up into a really ugly grimace, like every feature was morphing toward her nose.

  He was starting to get bored.

  In a moment of sudden inspiration, she leapt to a nearby kitchen draw, opened it and immediately found a sharp bread knife.

  Ah, wonderful. Just as she was starting to get boring, she made it a bit more exciting.

  “Don’t come anywhere fucking near me!” she shouted.

  It was like a museum of emotions. One moment she was quiet and timid, then inconsolable, then angry. He wondered what would come next – horny?

  Sighing, he pulled out a seat at the table and sat down. He rested his head on his hand, one finger pointing up his cheek, his right foot upon his left knee.

  And he watched her.

  Sat, waiting for the entertainment to begin.

  “I mean it!” she insisted, pointing the knife at him. “I fucking mean it!”

  “Amber, do I look like I’m coming anywhere near you?” he said, raising a hand to remonstrate how stupid she was being.

  She just held the knife forward, edging closer to him, albeit with the intention of being closer to the door.

  “How do I get out?”

  He said nothing. Just watched her.

  “How do I get out?”

  Yawned.

  “I said how do I get out?”

  Still watching. Keep on watching. Watch watch watching.

  “Just answer me, how?” The toughened resolve she had somehow found the first three times she had asked had gon
e, and the final request was more of a crying plea. “Please, lift these shutters. Let me go.”

  “Is this honestly your approach? You’re going to plead with me to death?”

  “I’ll stab you!”

  “And then what? How will you get out then? You’ll starve in here. Maybe not straight away, there is food – but not enough. All you’ll have is you and the other bodies to keep you company.”

  She flinched.

  “What, you think you’re the only ones?”

  She flinched again.

  “No, you don’t, do you?” He clapped his hands joyously together. “You wily dog, you’ve seen them! Haven’t you? Sheila and Eve, upstairs.”

  “Sheila is the girl on the news…”

  “Yes. Yes, she is. And Eve is just a whore, if that helps. Albeit, a very good whore, in the way that only really expensive whores are – but a whore, nonetheless.”

  “You’re sick. Crazy.”

  He shrugged.

  “Is that supposed to offend me, Amber? You think there’s anything you can do here that would surprise me or work against me? You think I haven’t heard the pleas or the threats, or that I haven’t witnessed the sight of some little girl holding a knife that shakes so hard she’ll probably do more damage to herself than me?”

  He stood.

  She held the quivering knife tighter.

  “Don’t you come any closer!”

  “Amber, please,” he said, coming closer. “We’re past this now, don’t you think?”

  “I will stab you! I mean it!”

  “I’m sure you do.” He stepped forward, reaching his hand out. “But I’m getting bored of this now.”

  She backed away until she was up against the door once more. She tried it, finding it locked, then tried it again, then tried it once more.

  And she says I’m the crazy one?

  He reached a hand out, his palm open.

  “Give me the knife, Amber.”

  She held it out to him.

  He approached.

  “Give it to me.”

  She refused.

  His hand approached her wrist.

  “Give me the knife.”

  She lunged and he caught her and he smacked her wrist against the fridge so hard the knife went clattering into somewhere unknown.

  His hand clasped around her neck and he knew he could just end it all here but that was not what he wanted.