Slaughterville

by Rod Glenn

  Slapping the arm of the chair in time, Sam continued with gentle enthusiasm, “Wherever I may roam.”

  All four, with even Bryce cracking a smile, continued, “On land or sea or foam, you will always hear me singing this song, show me the way to go home.”

  Sam actually managed a laugh. Despite everything they had been through, and were still going through, their desperate heartaches were fleetingly forgotten. Joined, and strengthened, in song.

  “Didn’t know it was foam, like,” Jimmy said, smiling. “Learn summit new every day, me old twat of a da used to say.”

  Persisting solo, Sam continued, “Boom, boom, boom, sh—” A hammering on the front door abruptly cut him off.

  Through the darkness, four sets of eyes darted between one another.

  “The coppers?” Jimmy asked tentatively.

  “Well, whoever it is they’re knocking instead of breaking in, so that’s got to be a good sign,” Bryce said.

  The knocking grew louder and more urgent. “Open the door!” It was Mitchell’s voice, strained, but unmistakable.

  “Christ!” Carol cried.

  Bryce jumped to his feet, followed quickly by the others. “Jimmy, come with me. You two wait here; just in case.” He grabbed the rifle and headed for the door.

  Catching him at the doorway, Jimmy whispered harshly, “Just in case what?”

  “Just … in case, alreet?”

  Sam and Carol gathered in the centre of the living room, furtively glancing from window to door as Bryce and Jimmy disappeared into the hallway. Their eyes met briefly and they both saw a reflection of their own fear.

  As Bryce reached for the front door, Mitchell’s voice shouted again. “For Christ’s sake hurry, man!”

  Bryce quickly unlocked the door and disengaged the chain. Mitchell fell into the hall even as the door was still opening. Bryce caught him, dropping the rifle in the process with a loud clatter.

  Jimmy dropped to his knees, scrambling for the gun.

  “Wright dead,” Mitchell gasped. “I’m hit … back.” He was soaked, exhausted and shaking violently. Wind and gusting flakes swept into the hallway with him.

  Bryce drew his hand away from the detective’s back and discovered that his palm was smeared with blood. “Jesus, divvent talk, mate. We’ll get you inside.” Struggling to be as gentle as possible, Bryce hoisted one of Mitchell’s arms around his shoulder, causing an agonising cry from the detective. Then he helped him through to the living room with the detective’s drenched boots dragging along the carpet, all strength utterly spent. After re-locking the door, Jimmy followed, holding the rifle in trembling hands. He was breathing hard and the shock had brought the tremors back with vehemence.

  As Mitchell was set down on the sofa, he managed, “Whitman … on his way.”

  Sam and Carol exchanged horrified glances.

  “Fuck,” Jimmy spat, pacing the room from window to door. “Jesus, man, if they cannat fuckin’ sort him, what chance have we got, like?” The tremors were intensifying by the moment, turning him into a chattering wreck.

  “Calm down,” Bryce said, his tone even. “Anyone know any first aid?”

  “M-m-my cer-certificate’s a c-couple of years out of d-d-date, but yeah, I’ll do m-m-my best,” Sam stammered. The thought of occupying his mind was extremely appealing and he rushed forward to assist.

  “I’ll help,” Carol added, moving with him.

  Bryce backed away as Sam and Carol stooped over the stricken man. Turning to Jimmy, he ordered, “Give us the rifle, son. Now.”

  Jimmy looked at it, reluctant to lose the sense of security that it offered, however tenuous it might be. “I—”

  “Just stop right there, boy, and hand it over.” Bryce stepped closer.

  Jimmy considered, for a second, attempting to hold on to the weapon, but as Bryce reached him, he offered it willingly. He dug into his coat pocket for his lock knife. “Suggest you two tool up, when you’re finished with him,” he said, flicking open the blade.

  “Tool up?” Bryce repeated, shaking his head. “Who do you think you are? Edward G. Robinson?” He checked the magazine was fully loaded then looked back at the wired young man and added, “This isn’t the movies, son. This is real life. This is Haydon.”

  Jimmy stared at him and, maybe it was the fact that the drugs were all but out of his system, but Bryce’s last words garnered new meaning. There was a truth in those words that he had not been able to comprehend for so many years. Slowly nodding, he said, “Aye … this is Haydon.”

  Mitchell cried out as his jacket and shirt were hastily ripped off and cast onto the floor. Sam clumsily applied pressure to the bullet wound in his back as Carol gently held the detective in place, whispering, “Shh, it’s okay, you’re going to be okay, pet.” She glanced up and caught Sam’s eye. A look passed between them, but neither of them said a word. Sam turned back to the bleeding wound.

  The sound of breaking glass upstairs stopped them all in their tracks. For a second nobody could breathe.

  “He’s-inside-the-fuckin’-house!” Jimmy cried, the words rushing out as one. He thrust the knife in the direction of the door, the blade twitching at the end of his outstretched arm.

  “We’re gunna take him; here and now, Jimmy,” Bryce said and his lips curled into a thin smile. “You with us, son?” He stepped closer, looming over him, and gripped his quivering shoulder in his strong grip. Their eyes met. “For Haydon.”

  Jimmy’s eyes were wild and his body continued to tremble from a massive dose of fear and adrenaline, aggravating his usual tremors. But, through taut, dry lips, he managed, “Aye.”

  Sam and Carol had eased Mitchell into a recovery position on the sofa with his shirt tied into a makeshift bandage over one shoulder and under the other. Both were now brandishing kitchen knives and looking expectantly to Bryce and Jimmy.

  “You two stay here; we’re going upstairs to finish this.” Bryce cocked the rifle and shoved aside the door to the hallway. Jimmy half-heartedly followed, his shaky knife seemingly leading him on.

  “Shouldn’t we all be sticking together here?” Carol called after them, fighting to maintain some composure.

  Forcing his face to one side, to speak more clearly, Mitchell muttered, “Drawing you out … Stick together.” The colour had rapidly drained from his face and his lips had a blue tinge to them.

  Carol stared down at Mitchell’s contorted face, his eyes tight shut against the pain. Her jaw dropped open and she turned back to the open door. “JOHN!”

  Bryce paused with his foot on the first step of the staircase. He glanced at Jimmy behind him, then back up the stairs. He opened his mouth to shout back towards the living room, but closed it again without making a sound. Slowly, cautiously, he began ascending the narrow and steep staircase.

  Jimmy watched him for a moment, his heart pounding like an earthquake and his legs welded to the spot, but then, after a further moment’s indecision, he shadowed the farmer’s footsteps.

  A rising panic gripped Carol as her eyes darted around the room, the knife following her eyes in short, jerky movements.

  Sam bent down to touch the side of Mitchell’s face one more time, before moving over towards Carol who had drifted into the middle of the room again. “D-don’t w-w-worry. J-J-John’ll get him.” His eyes and his trembling demeanour suggested a very different alternative.

  Bryce reached the top of the stairs and popped his head onto the landing, looking both left towards one bedroom and the bathroom, and right towards the second, smaller bedroom … Kerris’s room. The landing was in darkness and the three doors were all closed. He had checked the upstairs a couple of times, so he was already familiar with the layout. Nothing seemed amiss.

  He stepped out onto the landing, with Jimmy close on his heels. “Watch our backs,” he whispered, turning towards the young daughter’s bedroom. Jimmy followed, keeping an eye on the other two rooms past the stairs.

  Courage is not the towering oak that sees
storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.

  Turning wildly on the spot in the middle of the living room, Carol thrust a hand up to her moist forehead, rubbing frantically at her throbbing head. “This is insane! He’s just one man!”

  Sam gently touched her shoulder. “Yes, e-exactly.” He offered her a pathetic attempt at a smile then quickly returned his eyes to alternating between window and door. There was terror in his own eyes, but one thing had sprung to mind to focalise his thoughts; Natalie. Her killer was upon them, but he would not succeed; for Natalie’s sake.

  As Sam’s eyes turned away from the window for the umpteenth time, it suddenly imploded with a thunderous roar of smashing glass. The brick that had caused the devastation sailed through the fragile barrier and struck Sam in the side, near the kidneys. He doubled over in agony, crying out. The kitchen knife dropped out of his hand.

  Carol appeared to turn in slow motion, her face twisted with horror. Seeing Sam bent over in pain tipped her over the edge. Screaming and wielding her knife, she ran at the destroyed window. The curtains were flapping wildly in the gusting wind and flurries of snow blew in onto the glass-peppered carpet.

  Casting the curtains aside, she glared out into the tempestuous night and screamed, “WHITMAN!” It was a rage-fuelled, animal cry.

  Still bent over and clutching his side, Sam gasped, “Carol! Get back!”

  Carol stepped back, turning back to Sam. At the same time, the blade of the hunting knife shot through the gap in the curtains and cut through the air at neck height.

  The blade sliced the side of Carol’s neck, releasing a spray of blood across the living room, then withdrew as quickly as it had appeared, offering the briefest glimpse of a gloved hand. Screaming, she staggered back from the window, clutching her wounded neck.

  Sam bent down to retrieve his discarded knife, grasping it weakly and then staggered over towards Carol. He held the knife out in the direction of the window and grabbed her arm with his free hand. “G-get out into the hall!”

  “Stick together,” Mitchell whispered from his prone position on the sofa. His voice was distant, dreamlike.

  “Carol! Sam!” Bryce shouted as he rushed into the room, rifle in hand. Jimmy was right behind him, but stopped in the doorway.

  Pointing to the window with his kitchen knife, Sam said, “He’s t-toying with us.”

  Bryce reached them and gingerly looked at Carol’s wounded neck. “Doesn’t look too deep, pet. Divvent worry.” She looked back at him, but her eyes failed to focus on his. Instead, she looked down at her hand, smeared with her own blood.

  “This wanker is really pissing us off, like,” Jimmy said from the doorway.

  “He’s gunna pay,” Bryce muttered, staring at the curtains as they continued to bristle in the wind. Several droplets of blood had spattered across the curtains and carpet. Carol’s blood. Images of Sally and Anthony flickered across his mind’s eye. Their blood spilled on the cellar floor. Their mutilated corpses discarded in the cold dark. Butchered at the hands of Hannibal Whitman … a man who dared to call him a friend to his face.

  Bryce started walking towards the window. There was inevitability in his stride that was impossible to ignore.

  “Bryce?” Jimmy asked from the doorway, concern temporarily overriding fear.

  “Han!” Bryce bellowed as he approached the window. “I’m coming for you, Han!”

  “John! No!” Sam shouted and lunged for him, ignoring his own knotted pain.

  Without pausing, Bryce dove through the window. His silhouette seemed to hang in midair, framed by the billowing curtains for an instant, and then he was enveloped by the swirling night.

  “No!” Carol cried, taking an unsteady step forward. Her free hand seemed to be drawn to the ragged hole, beseeching.

  Two gunshots rang out above the roar of the wind. Everyone held their breath, but the only reply was the unrelenting, lonely cry of the storm. The wet curtains perpetually flapped and snow continued to blow in through the shattered opening. The temperature in the room had dropped like a stone, making the occupants shiver and revealing their panting breaths.

  Jimmy stood in the doorway, making no attempt to abate his trembling limbs. Bryce was gone, probably dead. The copper was dying or maybe even dead already, Carol was hurt and Sam looked like a lost puppy. “What the fuck are we gunna do now?”

  “Boo.”

  The voice was whispered close to Jimmy’s ear. He recoiled so violently from it that he cracked his head and shoulder off the doorframe, yelping in pain. He fell, staggering into the living room, cursing and twisting to see the source of the voice. Since the start of the nightmare, Han Whitman had grown into something of a mythical beast in that time. Jimmy was suddenly desperate to catch a glimpse of this person; this monster. He didn’t actually expect to see the Whitman as he had previously known him. He expected some drooling, hairy creature with blood-dripping jaws. When the wolfbane blooms and autumn moon is bright …

  Han stepped into the doorway behind him, smiling like Sylvester with Tweety Pie in his grip. He was dressed in his torn, black clothing which was drenched through and splattered with stains, but it was Whitman and he was still very much human. “Why don’t you build a fire and sing a few songs?” he said with a chuckle.

  Carol and Sam both spun to stare in horror at the voice of the very man of their nightmares. His face was pale and dripping wet, but his auburn eyes glowed with the intensity of burning embers.

  “Cumbiah’s always a popular choice.”

  Shaking off the throbbing pain in the side of his head, Jimmy fixed his stare on Han, and at the pistol he held in his hand, pointed predominantly in his direction. “Wanker,” he muttered under his breath.

  Mitchell stirred for the first time in a while on the sofa. He laboriously lifted his head and twisted his neck in Han’s direction. “You,” he rasped, “are under arrest.”

  “You,” Han mimicked, “are dead.” The barrel of the Walther switched from Jimmy to the prone detective in one sudden movement and discharged with a twitch of the wrist. The gunshot struck Mitchell in the centre of his back, punching a coin-sized hole and spraying a fine mist of blood into the air. The detective’s head slumped back down onto the sofa and he stirred no more.

  “NO!” Carol screamed, renewed tears streaming down her face. Her knife dropped loosely down to her side.

  “Bastard!” Sam chorused. Stepping in front of Carol, he waved his own knife towards Han. The gesture was vaguely threatening in a desperate sense.

  Jimmy quickly scrambled to his feet and he, too, raised his knife towards their attacker. He drew in a deep gulp of air in a futile attempt to contain his shattered nerves. His whispered voice was lost in the gusting wind. “Haydon … Haydon …”

  As Han watched with mild amusement, Carol stepped to the side of Sam and finally raised her own knife. Seeing Sam and Jimmy’s defiance reinvigorated her own. Through clenched teeth, she too muttered, “Haydon … Haydon …”

  The three stood together, two men and one woman, each with a knife held out in front of them. A drug addict, a drunk and an IT manager. The three blades twitched and trembled, but maintained their aim directly at Han. Their eyes betrayed their terror, but the clenched jaws struggled with determination.

  “Three Musketeers, eh?” Han said and snorted.

  “There was four actually, dickhead,” Jimmy corrected, his face set into a scowl that was a fraught attempt to hide his fear.

  Han nodded, but his smile disappeared beneath his thick glistening beard. “Not anymore.” Leaning casually against the doorframe, he added, “To be honest, I’m knackered after all this running around. You certainly didn’t make this experiment easy for me, I can tell you. You can be happy with that, at least.”

  “E-experiment?” Sam asked, frowning.

  “Yep, to see if I could beat the record.”

  “The record?” Carol injected. “Number of murders?” She was shaking her head, strugglin
g to understand – to even remotely begin to comprehend – what this madman was saying.

  Keeping the pistol aimed at the group in general, Han sighed, then said, “Something like that, but I can’t be bothered to go into a Bond baddie-style monologue, as I said to Steve Belmont before I shot him, so let’s just crack on, eh?”

  “Fine,” Carol said as evenly as she could muster. “Screw you.” Her knife had lowered towards the floor, but now she yanked it back up with renewed determination.

  Straightening up, Han said, “I may have deserved that.” A thought suddenly occurred to him, frowning, he added, “Oh, just one more thing, where’s Janet?”

  Jimmy and Carol fired confused looks at one another. “You losin’ track of who you murdered already?” Jimmy asked with a snort of disgust.

  Han opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it as fast. Larry, you old dog. Good for you! After a moment, dismissively, he said, “Never mind then.” His aim settled on Sam and then he added, “Okey-kokey pig in a pokey.”

  With a quick glance, Jimmy followed the barrel of the gun to Sam. One simple thought occurred to him in the blink of an eye. He deserves life more than me. As Han squeezed the trigger, Jimmy lunged to one side, snarling, “No!” The bullet struck him, instead of its intended target. He dropped to the ground, clutching his bleeding abdomen with a mixture of shock and pain contorting his face.

  Both Carol and Sam were shouting his name and surging toward him, but he was only vaguely aware of it. Instead, he looked down at the bullet wound that was pumping his lifeblood out onto the carpet. He was surprised that after the initial blow that felt like a kick from a hobnailed boot, the pain wasn’t too bad. A throbbing not unlike stomach cramps.

  “Jimmy, you never cease to surprise,” Han said, shaking his head. The smile had returned to his lips. “You found a bit of backbone – well done!”

  Carol and Sam crouched down beside him as Jimmy turned his attention to Han and spat, “Wanker.” His spittle was discoloured with spots of blood. “Always wondered what it’d be like to get shot with something other than a needle, like.” He even managed a weak smile.