by David Haynes
“Just stop talking, Jim. This isn’t a post-mortem.” She half-turned to Peter, and shouted, “For God’s sake, go!”
Her screech jarred Peter from his stunned silence and he jumped.
“Okay, okay, I’m going.” He started for the patio doors but took one look back at Stokes as he passed.
“Compulsive viewing eh?” Stokes retched again.
“Teeth, there’s teeth stuffed in there.” Ina’s voice stopped Peter in his tracks.
“What? What’re you going on about?”
“Teeth, they’re little teeth. Here, take a look.” She moved to one side and Peter stepped forward cautiously. He stooped over and craned his neck.
Stokes roared with laughter. Both Ina and Peter were now stripped to the waist. Their insides were on show to him now. His little hole was nothing compared to how exposed they were.
“Jim?” He heard Ina’s voice but he couldn’t stop laughing.
“Oh shit.” Peter sounded pathetic now.
“They’re my mementos,” Stokes managed to cough out.
A bomb detonated in his side and forced him forward. He needed to get out of this chair. He needed to get on with whatever he’d been doing before these two cretins had started interfering with him.
“Leave me alone!” he shouted and tried to stand.
Peter’s hand pushed him back into the recliner.
“Look.” Ina took her fingers out of the hole and offered one of the teeth up to Peter. Stokes saw his own blood hang limply from Ina’s fingers before it fell into the water bowl.
“Put it back,” he screamed. “Put it back, it’s mine.”
Another explosion of pain erupted as her fingers reached inside him again. “Where did these come from?”
Stokes tried again to force himself upright. He managed to bat away Peter’s hand briefly before he was shoved back down again.
“They’re mine, put them back inside me.” He was angry now. He turned to Peter. “You take your hand off me or I’ll break it.” He spat the words out.
“Where did you get them, Jim?”
Ina held the one she’d just extracted up to him. It was still as beautiful as ever.
“They’re taking me away, bit by bit, tooth by tooth,” Melody whispered into his ear. He could feel her breath on his flesh and it calmed him.
“I won’t let them, sweetheart. I won’t let them.”
“What? Who are you talking to?” Ina was standing now but she held the tooth between her fingers and raised it to her eyes. She was fleshless down to her knees, they both were.
Stokes grabbed Peter’s thumb and twisted it back and away with what little strength he still had. Peter stepped back and gave Stokes the opportunity to stand.
“Give it back, give them both back and leave.” Were they still trying to help him? He really didn’t know but if he didn’t get what he wanted, he didn’t care. He was having those teeth back and putting them where they belonged again. One way or another.
He took a step toward Ina who backed away. “Now.” He spoke calmly but he was enraged.
He couldn’t see Melody but she was there, right behind him. “They don’t want to give them back. They want me for themselves but I want to stay with you. You’ll look after me, won’t you?”
“I will, I promise, don’t worry.”
He reached out to grab Ina’s hand but Peter knocked it away. Peter grunted and held his thumb close to his chest. The thumb wasn’t broken but it was probably going to give him some grief for a while.
“I just want my things back, we both do. I’ll hurt you again, Peter.” He turned to Ina. “Both of you.”
“Jim, this isn’t right. You’re ill.” Peter walked to Ina’s side. “You need the doctor.”
Stokes stepped forward. “What I need is my things, they belong to...” He stopped.
“Who, Jim? Who do they belong to?” Ina stepped forward to meet him. Her voice was urgent.
“You’ll have to take them, they won’t give them back,” Melody cried behind him.
He leapt forward and took hold of Ina’s hand. A brief scuffle broke out with all three of them pulling at each other before Stokes fell back smiling. He had at least one of the teeth back. He stared at it for a moment and then ran it down his torso before pushing it inside the hole.
He cried out as he tried to push it back in but Ina had cleaned the wound so well that it wouldn’t stick. The others had already been accepted by his body and had been absorbed into his flesh, or at least were starting to. He fumbled with it but his hands were slick with blood and it dropped to the floor. It wobbled for a second before dropping through a crack and falling into the cellar.
Stokes dropped to his knees and pounded the floor. “I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you both,” he snarled.
He jumped up and flew at Peter, sending them both to the floor. Somewhere, someone was screaming and somewhere else, someone was laughing but he was too caught up in his own rage to know who was doing what.
He raised his fist and smashed it into Peter’s gut. He heard Peter grunt as the wind was forced from his body. This rendered him completely vulnerable. Stokes crouched above him and raised his fist again. It didn’t look like a human beneath him, it looked like a zombie or a science experiment. It wasn’t a real person. But all those veins and arteries were pulsing and his voice was real.
“Do it, Daddy, do it again.”
He’d heard similar words before. In a different life, when he’d been a detective and the lines were solid and unbroken, when he knew what he was doing.
“Do it!” Melody was standing beside him, looking down at the form which was somehow Peter Gauchment’s face and body but couldn’t have really been him.
“I can’t Melody, I can’t do it.”
He rolled off Peter and looked up just in time to see the head of his own hammer an inch away from his face. As it hit his forehead, a bright flash of light sent a star-burst across his eyes. The flash was accompanied by screaming, but this time there was no laughter. And then everything went black.
15
Willis came back from the brink slowly. There were people arguing above him. Was he in hell? If he was then he was exactly where he belonged. Stokes was mad, there was no doubt about that but he’d spoken about the girl. He’d said the name, Melody. He’d actually said her name. God, his face hurt and he could taste blood. He’d had a good beating but why wasn’t he dead? He hadn’t seen Stokes’s eyes until they were on top of each other but the man had the look of someone for whom murder wouldn’t be a leap, it would be the next and obvious step.
The voices above were familiar, too familiar...
*
“What have we done? What have you done?” Peter Gauchment collapsed onto the dirt and wailed.
“Her demons finally turned on her,” Willis replied. “She must’ve...”
What? What exactly had her demons done to her?
Throttled her? No, that was down to him, a man of the cloth.
Kept her prisoner for an eternity until she’d actually become what they all feared? No, yet again that was him.
Turned their backs on her? No, no, no. That was all down to dear old mum and dad over there. One of them scratching around in the dirt like an animal and the other... Well, she was just as cool as ever. Mrs Perfect with her perfect Mother’s Union smile and hand-knitted cardigan buttoned up to her outwardly-prudish neck.
“She must’ve had a heart attack or...”
“Well we can hardly call the coroner, can we?” There it was, that calmness that verged on disdain; an utter lack of empathy for her own daughter. Where did that come from? Who has that within them and still manages to behave like a normal human being?
He’d killed her. Even after she’d stopped choking and coughing he’d held onto her throat, squeezing and grimacing. Even after he’d known she was nothing more than a lifeless rag-doll, he’d squeezed her neck until the fragile bones crunched and creaked in the darkness.
; He’d poured every single drop of self-loathing into the murderous act of strangulation. Each and every tormented suicidal thought had flowed through his fingers and into her body. It was as if his own twisted mind was killing her and not his hands. He squeezed until he could neither feel his arms or the delicate and broken neck of the little girl. And then he released her.
“Our daughter, this is our little Melody.” He watched Peter scoop the girl up in his arms. Her neck lolled to the side but the filth would hide the bruises. It would hide his fingerprints, engraved not only in the dirt, but in the soft flesh of her neck.
“Help me.” He turned to his wife. It was a pathetic gesture but it went ignored. She simply stared at her husband.
“Help you do what, Peter? She’s gone.”
The torchlit incredulous look which spread across Peter Gauchment’s face spoke of confusion, of pain and of hatred, of pure contempt for his wife. And then in the same instant they were all gone again as he looked down at the little girl in his arms.
“Help me?” He turned and looked directly at Willis. One man pleading with another for help when he has nowhere else to turn.
“We must bury her.” It was all he could think to say. “We must bury her here.”
“Like a dog? No, I shall take her to...”
“Peter, be quiet!” Ina’s voice was loud yet controlled. “We must.”
“You are a heartless creature and I hate you for it. I will always hate you.”
For once he agreed with Peter. She was the most cold-blooded person he had ever met.
“I know. I have always known that, husband.”
He watched Peter lower his daughter to the dirt and kiss her bald head.
“We’re all in this together and we share an equal portion of the blame. We will never speak about this again. We will never speak about her again. Peter and I are moving here soon and you’ll be living here, Edward. We will forget.” She turned to her husband. “We will all forget.”
*
“We will forget,” Willis mumbled into the darkness. “I have never forgotten.”
The truth was that he had never been able to forget, even if he wanted to. He’d never quite been able to obliterate from his mind the crunch of her bones as he broke her neck. But there was something he’d seen in the dark voids of her eyes which had stayed with him through the sleepless nights in the psychiatric hospital… something far worse. He’d seen her soul and he’d seen the savage mess he’d made of it. A soul which should look like wispy clouds against a beautiful blue sky on a perfect summer’s day looked like a sack of soot. And within that dirty, grimy bag was the face of a corrupt and faithless priest who thought more of his own salvation than that of a little girl. It was the last image she’d seen as he killed her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and crawled to the place where they’d buried her. He gathered up a handful of the soil and held it to his mouth. His own soul was, at best, a sack of dog crap. He didn’t deserve to be alive, none of them did.
Scretch, scretch, scretch.
Ah, she was here again.
“Is that you, Melody? Are you here?”
Scretch, scretch, scretch.
He pushed his hand against his lips and opened his mouth. Some of the looser soil fell into his mouth. A flesh-bag full of crap, that’s all he was. He pushed more of the dirt into his mouth and tried to swallow. Rat shit was one stage lower than dog shit and that was what he deserved. He grabbed another fist full and forced it into his mouth. He bit down and felt his weak teeth buckle and snap as they hit a pebble. No matter, he would swallow them down too if he had to.
He heaved and coughed but he would complete this task. If Melody’s soul was a dirty sack of soot then he would defile his own body and soul by this act of self-murder. If there had ever been any doubt about his next destination, this would seal the matter and ensure he would spend eternity lying in hell’s cesspool.
Scretch, scretch, scretch.
He filled both hands with soil and crammed them greedily into his mouth. He coughed again but this time the cough didn’t clear his throat, it couldn’t. He gasped for air, he tried desperately to draw air into his lungs. Now the time was here and even though he wanted to kill himself and end his torment, something inside, something deep, deep down still clung to life. His arms reached forward but for what? There was nothing there, nothing except for a little girl coming out of the darkness toward him. She smiled and waved and he reached for her. Her smile was a picture, just like a girl he’d once known.
He tried to call out but there was no oxygen left in his body. It was her, it was Melody and she’d come to welcome him. Had he been wrong all along? Were his efforts to be rewarded?
She stepped forward. What was this? Where was the smiling little girl? Where had she gone?
Scretch, scretch, scretch.
Her mouth, her mouth? She wasn’t smiling, was she? She was grinding her teeth together. Grinding them into sharp little points and showing them to him. And now she was coming toward him with those fangs showing and rats spilling from beneath her teeth, thousands and thousands of baby rats tumbling from her mouth and their teeth were like little needles.
This was wrong. It hadn’t been his idea, it had been theirs, all theirs. He wanted to beg for forgiveness, he wanted to tell Melody that he’d only been trying to help her. He’d just lost his way somewhere along the line and... The first rats were upon him now, biting at his lips, forcing his gasping mouth wider and wider apart until they could climb inside him.
Then, as they descended deeper and deeper inside him, they gnawed and chewed at his guts, turning them to mush. The little girl looked down at him and laughed.
“Have you done the right thing, Vicar?”
Scretch, scretch, scretch.
She pulled two of her teeth out and rubbed them together. It was a lovely sound.
16
His body was being dragged across the dirt. Jagged little pebbles picked and nicked at his flesh but he barely felt them. He barely felt anything anymore, not even the gaping hole in his side.
Stokes opened his eyes but the skin on his face fought against the simple action. It felt like there was probably an ostrich-sized egg decorating his forehead.
There were candles in the cellar, or were they just painful impressions left by the hammer blow? The cellar looked more spacious under the candlelight but less friendly somehow. The way he felt at that moment, he didn’t really care.
“Is that Willis?” He heard Peter’s panic-stricken voice shaking.
“Yes,” Ina answered bluntly.
My, she was a cold fish. When he’d first met Willis at the gathering, he’d said Ina was something else. He was right, she was as cold as ice.
They held a leg each and pulled him farther into the cellar.
“Is he okay? Did you know he was here?”
“He’s dead, Peter. Now, don’t you dare throw a wobbly on me just because the man you hate is dead. That would be hypocritical, wouldn’t it.”
There was silence for a moment before Peter spoke again. “Did Stokes kill him?”
“Probably.” She was all business now. Gone was the Women’s Institute poster girl and in her place was a cold-hearted monster.
Had he killed him? He remembered Willis coming into the cellar and the man grovelling in the dirt but he didn’t recall killing the man. Had he wanted to, though? Things were all over the place now. Life and reality had become skewed.
He closed his eyes again and felt his body being pushed up against the wall, right next to Willis.
“Jesus, his mouth is crammed full of soil. It looks like he choked.”
“Look like we’ve got an extra hole to dig then, doesn’t it.”
“Ina, we have to stop now. Things have gone too far.”
“Too far? Things have gone too far? What about when you agreed to put your daughter in a hole, was that too far? What about when you said we ought to keep her down here until she wasn’t a danger anymo
re, was that too far? Or how about when you helped dig her grave, just here? Was that too far, Peter? Was that too far!” Ina was clearly in charge and the rage in her voice illustrated it perfectly.
Peter groaned.
“We need do nothing. Willis broke in, a violent struggle ensued and Stokes killed him. Both of them were ill, Peter. Willis had a history of lunacy and this man, well I think the massive dose of blood poisoning will kill him soon anyway.”