by Matt Drabble
He walked away slowly through the deserted police station parking lot. The night was in full effect; the darkness had taken hold with icy fingers and would not let go of its bony grip until the morning light. He stumbled across the asphalt surface; his legs barely had the strength left in them to carry him home, but he knew that he had to stay away from people. He was a danger to anyone that his eyes caught sight of; whatever the voice was, it could only see through his eyes.
“Excuse me?” A soft voice called through the darkness, “Hello?” It persisted as he tried to walk away.
“Where do you think you’re going big boy?” the voice suddenly piped up.
Duncan had been dismayed to find that the voice seemed to be getting stronger and required less and less rest between their demonic sessions. Unwillingly he turned and saw the girl from the deli counter at the supermarket. She was even lovelier in the flesh and his heart sank before he could throw his thoughts about her in the vault and slam the door.
“Well now, Duncan’s got himself a little crush has he?” The voice chuckled meanly.
“Leave her alone,” he hissed inside his head, “You’ve already nearly killed her once tonight, surely that’s enough for one day.”
“I just wanted to make sure that you were alright,” the girl said kindly.
Up close he could see that she was a little older than he had first thought. She actually looked closer to his own age. Her cherub face was now framed with beautiful thick blond hair that hung in waves around her face. Her eyes were a deep blue and her cute cheeks were peppered with freckles. She looked light and fragile as though a stiff breeze might blow her over.
“I’m Primrose by the way. I heard about the prank at the supermarket, I’ve seen you in there before, but you never struck me as a nutter,” she laughed.
Duncan began laughing and found worryingly that he couldn’t stop. Over a week without proper sleep and a domineering voice inside his head would do that to a man, he thought and the voice agreed. It was only when he realised that she was staring at him with apprehension in her beautiful big worried eyes that he managed to stop.
“Sorry,” he muttered, “It’s been a long few days.”
“Are you OK?” she asked with genuine concern.
Duncan opened his mouth to tell her that he was fine when he found himself dangerously close to tears.
“Ask her out,” the voice said.
“What?” he replied incredulously.
“Hey I’m not a monster,” the voice said.
“Oh really, you just happen to go around killing people for jollies, that sounds pretty much like a monster to me.”
“Oh fine, hey I was just trying to help,” the voice pouted, “If you don’t want my help I’ll just shut up.”
“Oh God I wish you would,” Duncan spat furiously. He suddenly realised that the girl had been looking at him strangely the whole time he had been having an internal argument.
“Looks like she’s changing her mind about you being a nutter,” the voice said happily.
“Sorry,” Duncan said to her, “Just wool-gathering I guess.”
“Look I don’t want you to think that I’m forward or anything, but would you like to go for a drink with me sometime?” She asked.
Duncan could only stare back at the picture of cuteness asking him out, “Really, me go out with you?”
“Oh hey, there’s no need to be rude, I only thought that you might like to,” she said taking his inference completely the wrong way around.
“Say yes,” the voice said.
Duncan could only stare on in disbelief as she stomped away.
“Say yes or I’ll give her a stroke,” the voice prodded him.
“Yes, YES!” He shouted after her.
----------
It was nine months later; Duncan and his new bride had moved in together at her apartment. It was large and spacious with glorious views out across the ocean. He had sold his parents’ house and banked the money into a joint account for them both. Their life had been gloriously happy; she loved him and he was the luckiest man in the world - well almost. He still had the voice to contend with, but he had grown to believe that it was a relatively small price to pay. The voice in fact had helped him greatly during his clumsy wooing attempts. The voice gave him strength and confidence that he never knew he had. The voice had told him what to say and how to say it; it had been his very own demonic Cyrano de Bergerac, and the courtship had been successful.
He was now working mainly from home as a freelance graphic designer and he got to pick and choose his assignments. He had put together several album covers for moderate to successful bands and his reputation was growing. His work was dark and almost Lovecraftian. His mind was full of long tentacles reaching out of the blackness; great hidden monsters that lurked just out of sight threatening to destroy a man’s sanity with only a glimpse of true forms. He had grown into a compromise with the voice; an understanding that would allow them both to survive and thrive. Once a month he headed into London’s murky inner city dwellings, to streets that ran with dark promises of cruelty and malice. The voice was in charge for those days; he would lock his own mind away in the vault. He would only dare to emerge when the soft sounds of crashing waves and the call of the seagulls drew him home. When he returned, the only remnants of the voice’s expeditions would appear in his work. Shadows and red slashes of death would flourish and the ghoulish metal bands would be grateful. The only trouble was that the voice had now been absent for the last two months. Normally he would feel its junkie fingers scrabbling around his mind ready for another excursion into depravity. Only in the deepest darkest corners of his vault did he realise that he had begun to miss the voice. As depressing as it seemed, it had been his oldest and closest friend. The voice had missed one monthly appointment and that was now drifting towards two.
“Primrose, is that you?” he called when he heard the apartment door open and then close softly as someone entered. He stood puzzled by the absence of her gentle voice rising to greet him.
“Prim, is that you?” He tried again.
He walked across his home office space warily; his wife had been to the doctors this morning, as she had been feeling a little under the weather for the last couple of weeks. She had dismissed his concerns saying that it was just a bug going around at work, but he had nagged her into going. She had finally agreed this morning just to put his mind at rest. She had made the appointment and he had fully intended to go with her - as much to make sure that she went as for support - until work had intervened.
“Prim?” He called again growing frantic. What if it was really bad news? What if the doctor had found something? “PRIM!” He shouted, panicking. He rushed out of the room to find her in the kitchen waving a bottle of champagne at him.
“Pull out a glass,” she grinned “But just the one, I’m not allowed,” she said rubbing her stomach, “At least for the next nine months,” she laughed and flew into his arms.
He awoke later that night as gentle hands prodded and probed him; he was shaken from a deep sleep and suddenly sat bolt upright. “What is it?” He panted, “Is it the baby?”
“No relax, everything is fine, it’s just time.”
“Time for what?” He asked half listening, just relieved that her health wasn’t in danger.
“He said that I can tell you now.”
“Who said? Tell me what?” He snapped grumpily, “You’re not making any sense.”
“No, not that way,” she said. “That won’t work, we’d never get enough and how am I supposed to get hold of that much anyway?”
Duncan suddenly heard his wife holding a conversation without him, “Prim,” he said fearfully, “Who are you talking to?”
“Huh?” She said turning to him.
“Oh God, is it him?” He whispered terrified, “It is, isn’t it, but how is this even possible?”
She turned to him as though talking to a child, “How do you think genius?” she said cru
elly, “He’s inside me now, inside our baby.”
“No,” he stated firmly as he began rocking forward on the bed, his knees drawn up to his chest in primal comfort.
“Yes, only this time we are going to do things properly,” she said, with a voice that wasn’t quite her own.
Duncan looked deeply into his wife’s eyes and couldn’t find her there; her once cute and pleasant face was now harsh and cold.
“Now I’m in much deeper than I could ever get with you Duncan,” the voice said, “No more battling, no more bargaining, no more compromise,” it laughed deeply and hollow. “Now I wear the pants,” it said looking down at the feminine form, “Well of sorts.”
“And when the baby’s born?” Duncan asked, his mind shot and his heart broken.
“I’ll rip my way out of this bitch and tear the guts right out of her,” the voice spat.
When the police broke down the door after some twenty minutes - after being alerted by neighbors who had heard the screams - they found Duncan Murray sitting in a pool of blood and gore. The first officer through the door was young and new to the force and he had promptly emptied his stomach contents over the crime scene. His older and more experienced partner had led the younger man outside to maintain a perimeter and seal the scene. The older officer was a sergeant and had seen much in his twenty year career, but even he had found the scene too disturbing and had taken early retirement not long after. He found himself having to secretly visit a psychiatrist after the events of that evening. He’d had to pay for it out of his own pocket, as it wasn’t the done thing on the force to admit that you needed such help. He had seen a lot of brutality in his time, as well as his fair share of bodies that had suffered varying degrees of sadistic violence. It wasn’t just the murdered woman that stayed with him, and it wasn’t just the blood or the violence that woke him in cold sweats for the rest of his days.
The coroner had told him a couple of days later that the poor woman had been pregnant. The man, Duncan Murray, the husband and father no less, had torn that woman’s body apart. He had ripped her stomach to shreds, cleaving the organs free and discarding them across the floor. Until the day he died he would remember that man’s distant monotonous voice.
“He’s in here somewhere,” the man had said looking up with pleading eyes that were quite mad. He was holding handfuls of bloody gore that were once the insides of his wife.
“He’s in here somewhere.”
5.
BLACKWATER HEIGHTS
“Jesus Christ!” Martin exclaimed when they were both standing safely outside of Duncan’s room.
“Right,” Jimmy chuckled with a crackle of life in his eyes.
“I think I read about that guy in the papers. I think it was just reported as just a guy that went nuts and killed his pregnant wife.”
“What else could it be?” Jimmy smiled.
“Hey, I’m not saying for one second that I believe him, but he was so calm and matter of fact about the whole thing. Aren’t you shocked by his story?”
“Oh I’ve heard Mr. Murray’s tale many times before,” Jimmy answered coolly. “I’ve heard all of their tales. That’s why I thought that you might be interested in the most fascinating of them, you know, for your book.”
“Hey, I’m not saying that I’m not interested, it’s just kind of a lot to take in. I mean I’ve never been around people, you know, like that before.”
“They’re people too you know, just people with more interesting stories to tell.”
Martin watched as Jimmy’s eyes twinkled; he could swear the elderly janitor was having a grand old time. He couldn’t tell if the older man was delighting in sharing the asylum’s tales or delighting in shocking him with them.
He looked down at his watch; unbelievably he was still only two and a half hours into his shift. His heart sank involuntarily as he realised that the night still had plenty of time to shock and terrify him. Not to mention the fact that Jimmy seemed in no mood to stop now.
“Do you need to take a break?” He asked hopefully.
“Oh I’m as fit as a fiddle my boy,” Jimmy smiled “Come on, I still have such things to show you.”
Martin followed as Jimmy shuffled off down the long gloomy corridor. They were soon engulfed in the shadows of the limited night lighting levels. The large windows barely let any illumination through their bars as the world outside was currently encased in a thick fog that the moon could not penetrate.
Suddenly Martin stopped dead in tracks; there was a strange tapping sound coming from somewhere above. “Jimmy,” he hissed, not knowing why he was whispering, “Jimmy.”
The elderly custodian turned back grinning, “I’m sure that’s just the pipes. It’s an old building, you’ll soon find that this building will talk to you after dark. The wind can whistle through the gaps and sound like whispers in the night.”
“For a minute there I thought that it might be…” Martin left the thought hanging.
“Horace and his tapping cane? Not to worry Martin I’m sure that Horace doesn’t rise this early in the evening,” Jimmy smiled as he walked away.
“How long have you been here Jimmy?” Martin asked as he hurried along the corridor to catch up.
“Some nights it feels like forever,” Jimmy said with an odd inflection in his voice.
Suddenly he seemed older to Martin; the bare light of the overhead fluorescents caught his face and aged it terribly, and his back seemed stooped as though it carried the weight of the building on it. The inadequate lighting created dark hollow shadows under his eyes and they sank deeply into a fleshless skull.
“Come,” Jimmy rumbled through a low growl, “The night’s wasting,” he said as he opened the next room.
6.
TWO BLIND MICE
Dr Samuel Dietz stood in his office overseeing the new arrival. His personal space was large and luxurious; there was no expense ever spared at the institute, especially when it came to his own comfort. The Heaven’s Reach Institute for the Blind rested amidst the verified air of snow covered mountain tops. The roads were only accessible for around nine months of the year and it was cut off from the world for the remaining three. The mountain roads became too dangerous for even snow born vehicles to attempt. There was a helipad at the rear of the institute for emergency usage if medical necessity demanded evacuation. Otherwise Dr Dietz was God of all he surveyed and his word was gospel.
The institute could home up to 17 permanent residents, but there were currently only five, with four other members of staff. His guests paid a modest fortune for the privilege of staying at the institute. Dietz knew that many of his business’ inhabitants were from wealthy families who had neither the time nor the inclination to look after them. He offered a solution to their problems, one that tucked their burdens far away from sight and guilty consciences.
He looked out of his office window that framed the beautiful mountain view to the car below. It would be the last weekend that he would be able to accept a new resident, as the weather had already worsened considerably and the roads would be impassable come Monday. In fact he’d had to pay the driver considerably over the odds to make the trip today, but his prize had been worth the expense. Sarah Conner had certainly merited the costs involved in bringing her to him. She stood below, arching her back to alleviate the stress of the long drive. She was a Nordic beauty set within her perfect environment. She was naturally blonde with piercing crystal blue eyes and cheekbones that could cut glass. Dietz ran his hungry eyes over her limber frame; she was a woman of extraordinary physical and financial splendor; she was perfect for his appetites. His selection and admission process were flawless and only the best and brightest were ever chosen. He paid a lot of money to an army of researchers and investigators to find his prey and it was a sound investment. According to her file her family were distant and none too interested. The bulk of her estate was held in a trust under her own name and inaccessible to anyone else. Her psychological profile indicated a perf
ect blend of vulnerability and loyalty, with an underlying lack of a father figure and a desire to please. The only slight problem was her beauty which seemed hauntingly familiar. He knew that his own weakness had almost cost him everything not so long ago, and he had sworn to himself that he would never allow his own dark desires to put him in jeopardy again.
His plans were mind numbingly simple in origin, but brain twistingly difficult in practice. He would select those most vulnerable to his own blend of medication and psychological manipulation and become the one figure to which they owed everything. Set within his isolated walls he would become their sole purpose for living; he would plant himself deep into the roots of their lives and become the one thing that they could not live without. After that, it was a simple case of having their wills altered and for him to become their sole beneficiary. He had been pulling the scam on the elderly during his previous life as a residential home owner. But, it had become more and more difficult to manipulate those whose senses and functions were failing as their minds drifted away and could no longer remember the hard work that he had put into them. He had toyed around with the idea - which he still thought was a solid one - before settling on a residential home for the blind. He made sure that his patients were vulnerable, often unsure of themselves, and emotionally under-developed.