House of Straw

by Marc Scott

  Suddenly, Poppy felt something strange inside her head. She knew that she should be searching her mind for those colours, but a small voice in her head told her that she didn’t need to, that this girl was right, she couldn’t hurt her, it was a voice of reason. The two girls never lost eye contact for those few seconds, as their standoff reached its crescendo.

  Kayleigh began to wriggle around on the floor. She was conscious of the impending danger to her friend. Her arm began to slide across the restaurant carpet to reach for her bag. She knew that this was going to end badly. She needed to grab her phone to call the police. She had all but reached her target when she found the sharp heel of Poppy’s new boot crushing down on her fingers. Kayleigh let out a scream of agony and rolled away from the feet of the monster that towered above her. Bree wanted to do something to help her friend, but could not move with the edge of the bottle still nestling beneath her chin. Poppy smiled as a tiny ripple of blood seeped out of Bree’s neck, trickling slowly down her visitor’s throat and onto her designer top. Bree tried again to reassure her sibling that her intentions were good ones. ‘I just want to talk, Poppy. I can’t walk away from you, we are sisters.’

  Poppy’s eyes began to twitch as mixed signals raced through her head. ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘We are not sisters, I am not your fucking sister!’

  Suddenly, everyone’s attention was drawn to the side, to the place where the couple sat with their baby. There was a muffled sound coming from beneath their table. ‘Emergency services, emergency services, which one do you require?’ The man stared, first at his wife, still clutching their small child tightly to her bosom and then at Poppy. He did not know what to do for the best. He froze, he did nothing.

  Poppy’s gaze returned swiftly back to the front. The girl was still there, she hadn’t moved. The edge of the bottle had drawn more blood on Bree’s neck, not a deep cut, but enough to send another stream of bright red fluid racing down her neck. The voice beneath the table could be heard again. ‘Emergency services, can I help you?’

  As she stared down the neck of the bottle at the small traces of blood sliding down her sister’s throat, Poppy heard the voice of reason once more, but this time it was not in her head, this time it was to the side of her. ‘Just go,’ Danny said. ‘Don’t do it, Poppy love, just go, it will be alright, I promise you everything will be OK.’

  Everyone was staring at her, waiting for Poppy to make her next move. They didn’t have to wait long. She gave Bree a telling stare, as if to let her know that this was all her fault, but also to serve as a warning that she meant what she had said, she wanted nothing to do with her. Lowering her arm, she placed the broken wine bottle on an empty table behind Kayleigh’s outstretched body and made her way towards the back entrance. Both Matt and Chantelle took several steps to their left to give her a wide berth, the large Geordie lad clearly still stunned by her actions. Before she left, she looked over at Danny, still rubbing the back of his head and offered him a half-smile. The restaurant owner nodded gently as if to let her know that he thought she was doing the right thing. Nobody moved a muscle as she grabbed her jacket and bag. Her audience looked on, hoping that this performance did not merit an encore.

  When she had tightened her jacket, Poppy stepped behind the bar and grabbed a large bottle of vodka, Grey Goose, the expensive brand. If this was going to be her Armageddon, she thought, then she was going to go out in style.

  She exited the restaurant through the same door she had come in, saying nothing at all. As soon as the frozen spectators at her floorshow heard her vehicle leaving the car park, the restaurant came back to life. Matt and a the two elderly patrons rushed over to help Kayleigh while Danny put a reassuring arm around Bree to comfort her. The diner at the table called for the police as his wife comforted their child. This was the first and last time they would ever visit Chez Blanc.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Poppy sat ashen-faced behind the steering wheel of the Omega. Her hands were still shaking. The car had travelled for less than twenty minutes to find this familiar location, but she did not know why. She began to rock backwards and forwards. A weird kind of fuzziness was unwinding inside her head again. Small voices, some she recognised, others she didn’t, were telling her that they were angry with her, that she should have finished that girl off. Her face screwed up tightly as the noises in her brain grew louder. She suddenly found herself mimicking the words of her unwanted visitor at the restaurant. ‘I am your sister, Poppy, I only want to talk, Poppy. You will not hurt me, Poppy, you are my sister, Poppy.’ The angry voices grew louder in her head as she thought about Matt’s betrayal. She imitated the northerner’s apology. ‘It is not what it looks like, Poppy, it is not what it looks like.’ She closed her eyes for a few seconds and then a few more, but the tormenting sounds would not go away. Some familiar voices were back now too – her school friends from her birthday party, the American woman from the prison, Mrs Houghton. They were laughing, they were all laughing at her. She looked to her side, slowly raising her head to see the window of her flat. Those shapes were dancing all over the closed curtains, like a puppet show of silhouettes. He was in there, that bastard was up there in her flat. The voices told her that he was laughing too, laughing louder than anyone.

  Poppy opened the bottle of vodka perched on her passenger seat and took a large swig, followed by another. She could not remember driving back to the flat. It was as if her car had used some sort of spiritual guidance to get there by itself. She looked back up at the lights in her living room. She didn’t want to go in there, she wanted to drive away, far away, but the noisy demons in her head were calling out to her. They were telling her she had not finished, not yet. They were demanding blood, they wanted vengeance for her.

  The turbulence grew inside Poppy’s head as she took another large mouthful of alcohol. Maybe, she thought, if she just got drunk, really drunk, she could wake up and none of this was happening, it was all just a dream, a terrible nightmare. Poppy’s head sank into her hands as she tried one final time to rid herself of the torturous voices in her brain, but they were going nowhere. If anything there were more of them and they were getting louder now. Joe Manning was in her head now, sitting in his big chair with a bible in his hand. ‘You are a sinner, Poppy Jarvis, an evil sinner!’ he said, as he began laughing, laughing very loudly. ‘You will burn in hell.’ Neddy was standing behind Joe’s chair. He was pointing at her and sneering, so was Meghan Masters and Mr Donovan, they were all mocking her. Where are the colours? Poppy thought. There are no colours. Poppy screamed out loudly at the ghosts that surrounded her. ‘Go away! Go away!’ But the gathering crowd of monstrous characters from her past simply found her shouts amusing and laughed louder.

  Poppy reached for the bottle and took another gulp of the stolen Grey Goose. Her attention was drawn back to her flat. He was up there, she knew he was up there, laughing. She closed her eyes one final time but could find no safe sanctuary from those dark thoughts inside her head. Screwing the top firmly on the stolen bottle of alcohol Poppy threw it in the footrest of the Omega and left her car. Opening the boot of her vehicle she looked down and saw the tyre iron. She heard another voice, it was shouting at her. The tyre iron, it was screaming up at her, ‘Take me, I will do the job, I will fuck that bastard up for you!’ She didn’t need telling twice, she reached inside and grabbed the rusty tool from beneath the punctured tyre. It was heavy, she thought, heavy enough to crack his skull open. Her head began to spin and the blood in her veins pumped faster as she made her way to the stairs at the back of her flat. A couple of drunken revellers called out to her as she passed the takeaway beneath her home, but she was in no mood for conversation.

  Poppy climbed the stairway to her flat. There was no plan in her head, just a stealthy determination in her walk, as if her feet were being guided to her target. As she reached her front door she was met with the terrible stench of rotting food and stale cannabis. She turned
her key gently to open the door and crept into the living room. She stood in complete silence for a minute or two, stalking her prey. He was fast asleep on the sofa. Half a dozen empty lager cans and a half-smoked joint littered the carpet in front of him. The television was blaring out in the corner of the room. It was showing a documentary on untamed wildlife, maybe a fitting background for the scene that was about to unfold. There were silver wrappers on the table sitting alongside some Rizlas and a small bag of weed. A half-eaten sandwich kept this assortment company.

  Her boyfriend was in a deep slumber. Barely nine o’clock and he was dead to the world. A small grunting sound, like that of a snoring boar, escaped from the head of the large-framed body sprawled out below her. The voices in her head began to guide Poppy. She could hear them echoing around inside her brain. She needed to punish Cameron, she needed to hurt him, to hurt him badly. One tiny voice was still trying to reason with her, trying to get her to abandon this act of revenge, but that voice stood alone and was soon drowned out by the others. Poppy closed her eyes for a few seconds. Maybe she could still find the sun, it would shine again. Maybe the calm lake would return to comfort her, to make these evil thoughts disappear. But there was nothing there now, just darkness, a void. All she could feel at that moment was the scalding water he had poured on her neck and the aches and pains that had been left from his size ten feet.

  As the voices became louder, the lava in her volcanic temper slowly began to rise again. In an instant Poppy lifted the tyre iron high above her head and brought it crashing down with an almighty force onto Cameron’s cheek, the blow cutting deep into his skin. His head moved sharply, but before he knew what was happening the weapon had been raised and lowered again, this time catching the side of his temple. He was dazed, he was disorientated, he felt the pain, but he was still half asleep. Suddenly he let out an ear-piercing howl, like that of a wounded animal as the third blow cracked against the side of his face. Cameron rolled off the sofa onto the floor, desperate to escape the onslaught. Poppy moved swiftly. Standing directly over him, she yanked back the rusty metal tool and unleashed it again, this time catching the back of his skull. Cameron screamed again, his hands moving frantically from side to side and then upwards to protect his face. But it would be in vain. A further blow landed fully onto the side of his cheek, carving a deep gash just below his eye. The six-foot brute was now fighting for his life. His survival instincts kicked in and he rolled up into a ball, his blood-spattered hands now desperate to protect his head. But Poppy wasn’t finished. The voices in her head were screaming at her now, egging her on. That burning venom inside her would not let her stop. Once again the hefty iron bar was hoisted high above her head, this time catching the lampshade and sending it spinning around above Cameron’s body. Poppy brought her weapon crashing down, but this one missed, the metal bar bouncing back off the floor. Blood began to seep out through the wounds in Cameron’s face as Poppy lifted the weapon high again. Her next blow seemed to be twice as hard as the previous one, maybe trying to make up for the fact she had just missed her target, the crushing blow landing across her boyfriend’s unprotected ribs, the impact causing him to let out a wild scream and a cry for mercy. ‘Stop, you bitch!’ he said, his voice both weak and muffled. ‘Fucking stop now!’

  Poppy’s eyes were still full of rage. The screams of little Callum Baxter and the last breaths of Billy Keyes joined the orchestra of voices echoing through her brain. She raised the weapon for one final time and looked down at her pathetic boyfriend, cowering like a small child. His sorrowful eyes were open, they seemed to be begging for mercy. Trickles of blood were dripping from his forehead. Some of the voices in her head were telling her that he was beaten. He pleaded with her again. ‘Stop!’ his voice much fainter than before but his words still audible. ‘Stop, you fucking bitch!’ But this was not over for Poppy, not yet. She raised her other hand to grip the weapon tightly and stood over her prey, like an executioner wielding an axe at a medieval beheading. Poppy let out an almighty scream as her final blow came crunching down onto Cameron’s skull. He barely mustered enough energy to cry out, choosing instead to swallow the excruciating pain he felt.

  Poppy surveyed the damage caused by her savagery for a few seconds, before throwing the bloodstained weapon against the wall of her flat. Looking down at this giant of a man she had maimed so badly, sneering at him as he groaned in agony, she felt nothing, no pity, no guilt, nothing at all. Why should she? When she looked at the blood-soaked sleeve of her jacket, she noticed her hand. It wasn’t shaking now. She felt neither good nor bad, she simply felt nothing at all. Poppy reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of notes, the balance of the money she had strived so hard to gather to clear her rent arrears. It meant nothing to her now, this was no home for her anymore. One by one she ripped each £20 note into tiny pieces and showered it over Cameron’s body, like confetti, bloodstained confetti. When the last of the notes had been shredded, she looked down at the messy bone-chilling bloody work of art she had just created. She nodded and laughed to herself. It was a masterpiece, she thought, she was proud of her creation!

  Poppy turned slowly and headed for the door. Her task was complete, there was no need for her to stay. But as Cameron’s groaning faded, he managed to muster a few words aimed at his former partner, thoughts he may have wished he had kept to himself. ‘Fucking bitch!’ he muttered, his faint voice barely recognisable. ‘I will find you and I will fucking kill you!’ Without any hesitation Poppy turned around and launched herself back into the fray, swinging back her right leg and bringing it forward at great pace into the head of her boyfriend, almost like a footballer dispatching an accurate penalty kick. Her shiny new boot caught Cameron full on the side of his head with a sickening thud, spreading his nose, like mashed pulp, across his face, and silencing that foul mouth of his once and for all.

  As she left the flat, pulling the tatty brown door closed for the last time, Poppy could make out the cast of familiar voices in her head. They were cheering loudly, she could hear their applause, she had done well.

  When she climbed back into her Omega, she could sense that the voices in her head were fading. Small glimpses of several bright colours began to appear in front of her. She picked up the bottle that was rolling around in the footrest of her car and swallowed a large mouthful of vodka. There was a sense of tranquillity, a sense of newfound freedom. She realised that whatever happened now, she was free from him, free from his violent tempers and his heavy-fisted abuse. She did not know whether Cameron was dead or alive and in truth she did not care. This was not a time for contemplation, this was a time for celebration. Poppy raised the vodka bottle and looked up at the window of her flat, as if she wanted to toast her new-found freedom. Those shadowy images were still dancing on those tatty curtains. ‘Good riddance!’ she said with a wry smile on her face. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish!’

  When she started her engine, she had no idea of her destination. Maybe the spiritual sat nav which had led her back to her flat would decide her destiny.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The twittering of a few wild birds was all that could be heard at the picturesque setting in the heart of the Surrey countryside. A small but welcoming breeze brushed through the tops of the sycamore trees as the sun began to climb in the sky above. The silence was broken by the shouting of two overexcited youths, as their bikes raced past Poppy’s stranded car. Her eyes peeled open, very slowly. They felt as though they had been stuck together with glue. She winced and closed them tightly as the piercing sunlight blinded her vision, pulling her bloodstained jacket over her head to block out their lethal rays. A few seconds later she was awoken by the sounds of the young boys again. They seemed to be riding backwards and forwards past the Omega, as if they were trying to goad her.

  The side of Poppy’s head began to ache as she tried in vain to return to her slumber. She rolled her tongue around the inside of her cheek. There was an evil taste in her mo
uth, it made her gag slightly. Looking down onto the floor of her car she saw the empty vodka bottle lying next to some chocolate bar wrappers and an empty cigarette packet. It was small comfort to her, but she knew now why she was feeling as if she had been on the losing end of an argument with a baseball bat. She tried to close her eyes again but the noisy duo on their bikes had returned, their high-pitched laughter a clear sign that they thought their tormenting behaviour was somehow amusing. Luckily for them, Poppy was not in any fit state for confrontation.

  Poppy finally gave up any hope of peace and quiet. She sat upright in the back seat of her car and put her hand across her face to block out the powerful sunbeams. Her eyes were weary, she could feel a throbbing inside her head, a slow thud, banging away like a huge bass drum. It seemed to be getting louder, echoing around inside her brain. She knew that all this pain she felt had been self-inflicted. The excessive alcohol she had consumed and the headbutt she had delivered to the girl in the restaurant were the cause of her torment. She reached down for the cigarette packet. It was empty. ‘Shit!’ she said in a muffled voice that was struggling to leave her mouth. Her head slid down onto the back seat of her car as the images of the previous night’s events slowly returned to haunt her. She wanted to put those thoughts out of her mind. She really didn’t want to face up to the reality of her actions, not yet, not while she was feeling so fragile.

  Looking through the windscreen of her car, Poppy watched on as the two mischievous young cyclists finally rode off into the distance. She thought about lying back down, but something inside her aching head told her that she needed to get into the fresh air. She looked out of her side window, across a small section of grass leading to a stretch of water that was no more than fifteen feet from her. Despite the fact that she was barely able to focus, she recognised it instantly. It was the lake, she was back at the lake. In the background she could see the familiar shape of the pavilion with its long white fence. The sun was bouncing off its large shiny windows. To the right of her, just across the water, was the small jetty. She could make out a few small rowing boats swaying gently on the lake, patiently waiting for their passengers.