The Winter House

by P. R. Black

  The coast was clear. Vonny was safe.

  ‘Decision’s made, old son,’ Seth muttered to himself, a voice borrowed from his father. ‘Got to see it through now. No doubt, my man, no doubt.’

  They had a wheelbarrow. He grabbed it from the storage cupboard set into the utility room next to the kitchen, then brought it around to the shed. One of Vonny’s purchases, part of a frenzy at a garden centre sale not long after they’d won the raffle. ‘I can’t wait to put in bedding plants!’ she’d said. ‘You know how long I’ve wanted a garden?’

  ‘Some fertiliser you’ve got, now,’ Seth grunted. He turned the corner, and the shed came into view. It looked naked in the moonlight, just a sliver poking through the clouds. Then he gasped aloud.

  Where was Skull’s body?

  Seth dropped the wheelbarrow handles then charged forward, yelping in panic. No… you daft git, Seth, the body is still there of course, face down, same position. ‘No one’s coming back from that, dimwit. Even if he was a zombie, he’s out the game. One in the head for both of ’em.’

  It was absurd, but, looking around, Seth realised the beauty of their situation, relatively speaking – he was up to no good, but he was out in the open, under a huge sky, and not overlooked, with no houses anywhere nearby. Totally secluded.

  Except for anyone they had waiting. A lookout. Did they have a lookout?

  Seth didn’t think so. Surely the lookout would have gotten involved once Skull fell out of the door, missing the back of his head. Either that, or he might have run. He wouldn’t have been waiting, after all that. In the dark. For Seth to walk through the woods in the middle of the night. Surely.

  ‘Shut up,’ he hissed.

  He had formulated a plan but hadn’t completely thought through the details. First things first: get the bodies moved.

  He was loath to touch that lump of flesh that, not too much earlier, had been walking, talking, breathing, and thinking. There was a horrid sense of gravity about the body, as if it had been squashed, or dropped from a height. Like a pressed flower.

  Seth winced as he grabbed Skull by the shoulders. He did not look at the ruined face – just a hint that what remained of it was completely covered in blood, a bubble of it breaking on the tip of the nose. As he shifted the body, back straining, the arms crossed over, casually, in a disturbing simulacrum of living, breathing animation. The limbs had begun to stiffen, and a terrible stench told him that the corpse had voided its bowels. He grew angry at the body as he shoved it into the barrow, legs dangling, head on one shoulder. Grimacing, Seth picked up the shredded remnant of the Skull mask, and threw it in on the dead man’s lap. Then he covered the body over with bin bags, and carted his load into the woods, the path tricky. Seth was reminded of a wayward shopping trolley that wouldn’t behave whichever way he pushed it. He cursed it, regularly, then grew silent as the trees closed in. Low-lying mist threaded through the boughs.

  He turned on the head torch. In many ways he wished he hadn’t. If there’s a lookout in here, I’ve practically turned on the Bat-Signal for him.

  And then what?

  Seth kicked out at the leg that trailed over the wheelbarrow. ‘Dickhead. Your own fault, wasn’t it? You had it coming, and you got it.’

  The concept rang round Seth’s mind as he trundled along the path, with every single stone, pine cone and puddle an added irritant to a tricky journey.

  He came to it, soon enough. The remnants of the cabin where they’d found the tarts ’n’ vicars calendar, the keys, and the map; pulling it down was one of the last things the builders had done.

  Just leave it there, lads. Pile it in the middle of that clearing. I fancy a bonfire. Always wanted one.

  Vonny had complained, but he’d insisted, and for once, he’d won. There’s no danger, he’d said. Probably won’t catch light properly. Stink the place out for days. Might blind passing microlight pilots. Serve ’em right.

  The pile of timber was a deeply forbidding shape in the darkness – intersecting beams and planks, old nails and splinters, dead wallpaper and fixtures, as high as his head. Was there a suggestion of the old tarts ’n’ vicars calendar, or the girlie magazine – a pattern break in the grain of the wood in that pile? The metal and wiring had been removed; only things that could burn were left behind. It was a scowl in the gloom, an aggressive but carefully crafted pile. The workmen had piled it up so that it would burn well without getting tangled in the thicket or setting the trees alight. They’d even formed a corona for rocks as a firebreak, just in case anything went wrong. The even consistency of the pyre – a macro version of the kindling you might use at the centre of your barbecue coals – also made it easy to shift the timber out of the way.

  Seth heaved out a beam or two, then leapt back in fright as something ran out. Something small, furry, and too swift to discern in the darkness.

  ‘Four-legged bastard,’ Seth cursed.

  Then he giggled. He giggled a lot. He was still giggling as he heaved the body into the gap. Then he began to lift beams and planks back on top.

  He had an unsettling view of the Skull mask, staring right at him through the beams.

  Seth wheeled the barrow back to the shed and started the process again. He opened the door, tormenting himself with the notion of the Devil leaping out at him. But the Devil was on the floor, stone dead, toes pointing upwards like a cartoon stiff.

  ‘Oh, this bastard’s heavy,’ Seth said. He grimaced at a black trail of blood along the floorboards, but that would have to wait until he’d dealt with the main event.

  Couldn’t worry about forensics, now. Seth had seen all the shows. He knew that a centimetre of cruddy matter – Christ, less than that; less than you could see with the naked eye – would be enough to put him in jail. For murder, Seth, the big one, not manslaughter, like if you’d called the cops, like Vonny said. And there was probably acres of evidence available for microscopic scrutiny now, an invisible explosion that would show up under the gaudy UV effect of the black light; spread all over the shed, the lawn, the front of the house, inside the house, and now trailing all the way up to the pile of timber in the woods.

  Take it easy. No one knew these punks were here. Someone asks, deny everything. Worry about it all later. You’ve got this. Move the stuff in the next couple of days. Get Vonny away from here. Check into a hotel. After that, if need be, put the place up for sale, and fuck off out of it with the cash. Everybody’s happy.

  But when he heaved the Devil-faced corpse onto the wheelbarrow, dread overrode reason. When the body tilted backwards, the head slammed against the barrow, and the yellow goat’s eyes glared at him, and just like that, Seth began to cry. Huge, big, pathetic tears, dripping off his face and pattering onto the grass. He slapped himself. ‘Get it together! Finish this. Finish it.’

  Seth took the shotgun, and loaded two shells. He slid it into the bag, making doubly sure the safety catch was still on.

  He carted the body into the woods, glancing at the low moon in the clouds. Still a long time till dawn. He didn’t dare get the flames going in the dark. For one thing it would be suspicious in itself – maybe too much so for his neighbours, who after all had had the knowledge that a murder-suicide took place, right here, before the old place burned down. So, no – he’d have to wait till daylight, come what may.

  It might take until then, anyway.

  Murder-suicide… that plagued him, as he wheeled the barrow along the steps, sweating freely. Which tree had Grainger’s second son dangled from? Maybe his shade still swung there, a slow, creaking revolution on one of the longer, sturdier branches, eyes wide open to glare at Seth as he passed. Perhaps it would point at him, slowly, accusingly. Or the hands could creep around his throat, right now, as he had to duck his head to avoid the trailing fingers of a lower branch.

  ‘Shup up with that shit!’ He said it loud enough to startle some birds. He stopped, wiped his forehead, and took a moment. He took out a bottle of water – then paused as he unscrewed th
e cap. I had a dead guy by the armpits with these hands, he thought.

  Seth tilted the bottle over his face, letting it soak him, cooling his forehead and the back of his neck, despite the cold. Then he drank the rest.

  The Devil was more troublesome to load into the pyre. Big bastard, this, Seth thought. Juicer, surely. A heap of trouble. But I killed him. Acknowledging this, several paradoxical things occurred to him. A repellent burst of pride, like a kid winning a schoolyard fight; and then shame. Really, they’d beaten him up. For all Seth’s bulk and his rediscovered bar-stool-swinging prowess, it had been a simple matter for the masked men. He’d barely landed a glove on either of them. Hit the floor, went down twice. In front of Vonny. He’d cheated. ‘I brought a knife to fistfight,’ he said, with no acknowledgement of his own joke, for once. ‘Or was it a gun to a knife fight? Christ.’

  No. He’d taken action. Two guys had held blades to their throats. Threatened to kill him and Vonny. But they’d failed – fatally. They underestimated him. Seth had outsmarted them. And now they were over. ‘And things are going to get worse for you, too, lads.’

  Once he’d piled the last of the timber over the Devil’s face, he stood back, letting the torch beam play over the surfaces. There was no sign that there were bodies in there, now – but he couldn’t be sure of that until daylight. Pray to God no dogwalker comes through, no one from nearby wanders off the pathway…

  Then he heard twigs snapping regularly, somewhere up ahead. Seth’s head snapped up, and his jaw clenched shut. Panic flooded him, then rage. ‘Hey!’ he yelled, instinctively.

  There was someone moving through the trees. He could just make out progress being checked, a course being reversed, then a flight through the parallel lines.

  ‘You fucker!’ Seth bellowed, snatching up the shotgun. Then he gave chase.

  31

  Quick and spindly – a spider darting across a bookshelf. That’s what Seth thought as he pursued the third man through the forest. He cradled the long barrel of the shotgun across his chest, careful that the barrel was pointing away from his face. That’d be just perfect. Trip on a rock, pull the trigger, that’s the end. They’ll say it was murder-suicide. Maybe this place is cursed.

  ‘You – wait there!’ Seth bellowed, the only words that made sense amid a spewing geyser of abuse. ‘I have a gun. Don’t fucking move!’

  For a horrifying moment, Seth lost sight of the pinwheeling arms and legs. He knows this place, whoever it is. All was still and dark. As if his quarry had vanished into thin air. Then the absconder’s luck ran out. Seth discerned a flicker in the branches of an oak.

  In any other circumstances he’d have dismissed it as a startled bird, but something took over in him then. A rekindling of the relationship between predator and prey.

  Seth wasn’t particularly light on his feet, but they knew what to do. He made barely a sound as he crept up on the crackling-skinned oak with the twisted bough, beneath a tangle of roots emerging from the ground like a creature spilling its guts. The tree had been warped over time, bent almost back on itself to compete with the corona of spruce trees round about it. If you were nimble – and this fucker was nimble – you could scamper right up there and hide in the branches.

  Seth got close, then said: ‘Come down out of there. Right now.’

  What am I going to do? Shoot him? Shoot another person? The last two had been simple matters. Them or us. Vonny’s life had been in danger. He’d acted instinctively, but he’d done the right thing. They would have killed Seth and Vonny. Perhaps they’d killed Dan Grainger.

  There was no sound from the tree. Seth raised the shotgun to his shoulder and braced his feet, like Clive from across the way had shown him. He aimed at the centre of a tangle of branches where it was just possible to make out the shape of a head and shoulders.

  At the last moment, he dragged the barrel to the side, then fired.

  The sound exploded in the night air, the barrel jerking high, the rifle flying out of his hands. Pine needles exploded in one of the trees to the right of the oak.

  Aside from the creaking cry of a bird, there was no response. Then the figure in the tree dropped to the ground.

  It was a kid – a gangler, wearing an anorak. He had a flask in his hands, which he dropped to the ground with a tinny rattle. The moonlight on his face was probably unnecessary. He had a pair of binoculars dangling from his neck.

  ‘Please don’t shoot,’ he squeaked. ‘I’m sorry about your wife. I didn’t mean to frighten her.’

  ‘What? Who the fuck are you?’ Seth lowered the gun. He hadn’t reloaded; but even so, something in him relaxed. There’s no chance this kid was with Skull Face and the Devil.

  ‘I’m Crispin. Like the snack. Please don’t shoot me. I’m here for Sadie. Sadie’s an owl.’

  ‘You’re birdwatching? You’re a birdwatcher?’

  ‘I’m a birder, definitely. Look, I’ll show you. I got pictures of her. She’s a barn owl.’

  The boy swung round a very large, very expensive-looking long-lens camera from the back of his neck. The display came on. ‘I got a great shot of her over the tops of the trees. I don’t know where the nest is. She’s a great hunter, the best I’ve seen…’ As if he was a child wandering out to the teacher’s desk with homework he wasn’t quite sure about, he stumbled forwards, his face never leaving the camera.

  ‘Stop where you are,’ Seth said, catching his breath. He grabbed the camera and lifted it from around the boy’s neck. The youngster’s dark eyes flared wide; he looked on the verge of tears.

  ‘That cost hundreds of pounds. My dad won’t buy me another one! He told me!’

  ‘How do you work this? I want to see your pictures. Calm down.’

  ‘Just the buttons, marked left and right. Are you out hunting?’

  ‘Yes.’ Seth flicked the images back and forth. ‘Don’t worry, I only shoot rats. This the owl?’

  ‘Yes – that’s a great shot. I’m proud of that one.’ The image Seth presented to the boy was an admittedly beautiful shot. It wasn’t obvious that the bird with its wings spread wide in silhouette was an owl; the pine trees it swooped over in the night were garlanded with silver. The entire cache on the camera was shot after shot of birds. There was one image of the owl on top of the bonfire; Seth zoomed in on it.

  ‘That one’s quite blurry – it could have been better,’ the boy said. The hope in his eyes as he looked up at Seth was pathetic.

  ‘Sure. Not your best.’ Seth flicked through dozens of shots, all of this bird in flight, until he reached daylight. Nothing else; just that one shot. ‘Do you mind if I go back and delete that one?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Look, I’ll level with you.’ Seth looked one way, then another, a conspiratorial gesture from a cartoon show. ‘You know this bonfire? I’m not sure it’s legal. I’m going to put a light to it soon, and I don’t want anyone getting too nosy about it.’

  ‘Don’t you live here? I mean, the new house – it’s yours, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, but… regulations, you know? They’re a pain in the arse at the best of times. I can’t be completely sure whether or not I’ll get sued. Bloody councillors, mate, you know?’

  The boy nodded, sagaciously. ‘That’s what my dad said when he was building his extension.’

  ‘Extensions! Don’t tell me about extensions.’ Seth flicked the viewing screen onto the bonfire shot. He hit delete. He was given the option: Delete? Y/N? Very much Y, he thought, hitting the central button.

  Seth smiled and handed back the camera. ‘You not got school tomorrow? I thought you had another week of term before Christmas.’

  ‘Yes. My dad said it was OK. Well, he would. He doesn’t know I’m out. Don’t tell him.’ The boy snatched the camera and placed the strap around his neck. It rested awkwardly against the binoculars.

  ‘Hey, it’s a deal – you don’t tell anyone about the bonfire; I won’t tell your dad about sneaking out. Now, you’d best get home and
get some sleep. Because you know this is my land, right?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘That’s good. So, you know you’re not allowed?’

  ‘Your wife said it was all right.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That it was all right to come and take photos of the birds. She said – just the other day.’

  ‘Yeah, that sounds like her. Well, between you and me… It’s not really all right to sneak over here in the middle of the night. Even if you’re just being a birder. Some people might get the wrong idea.’

  ‘I didn’t see anything really,’ the boy stammered.

  ‘What do you mean, “see anything”?’

  ‘She had on an overcoat… It was a total accident. I wasn’t spying on her…’

  ‘What?’ Seth frowned. ‘I think you’d better fuck off, son. And the next time you want to see some birds, you come to my front door, and you ask – politely.’

  ‘Sure. Thank you.’ Then Crispin ran – again, that weird gait, and that uncanny way of threading himself through the trees. Then he was lost to the night.

  Seth sagged, breathing heavily. He had travelled beyond stress, nerves, shaking and anxiety. He wasn’t exactly numb, just completely burned out, all adrenaline gone. He was empty. Good God, I might have shot a kid for absolutely nothing. Would I have done it?

  There was no answer to that. He drank in the silence. He was tired, now. The night was still pitch-black, and icy cold. There was frost on the grass, and filigreed across the tree bark.

  He would go back to the house and check Vonny. Then he’d get the petrol for the ride-along lawnmower. Then he’d get scrubbing.

  Miles to go before I sleep, he thought, trudging back through the forest with the wheelbarrow.

  *

  He gave the combination knock. Vonny didn’t answer.

  ‘You asleep in there? Come on, it’s me!’

  Still no answer. He knocked again, tiredness and stress combining to inflame his temper. ‘Open the door, for God’s sake!’