by Shaun Hutson
Close to their prey.
The light from the hurricane lamp cast thick shadows over the room in which the figures sat. As each one moved, its silhouette looked as if it were about to detach itself. Find a life of its own and leave the room. The room was quiet apart from the clanking of cutlery on tin cans. The assembled group didn't need plates, they ate straight from the tins, huddled around the hurricane lamp like vultures waiting for someone to die. They ate in silence.
In one corner a rat scuttled along a rotting skirting board.
One of the men in the room twisted round and flung his empty can at the rodent, smiling as it scurried out of sight.
Phillip Walton chuckled to himself and then belched loudly. He glanced round at his companions. They were all roughly the same age as him. Early to middle twenties. All were dressed similarly, too. Jeans, T-shirts or sweatshirts, boots or trainers. One of the girls was barefoot, the soles of her feet as black as pitch. Walton succeeded in catching her eye and he smiled.
Maria Chalfont returned the gesture, finished what she was eating and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Mark Paxton was picking at the head of a large spot which swelled on his chin. He eventually succeeded in bursting it between his thumb and forefinger, sniffing at the yellowish pus before wiping it on his jeans.
Paul Gardner licked the inside of the tin of meat, careful not to cut his tongue on the ragged edge. Then he too tossed it aside.
In the next room, Jennifer Thomas was defecating into a bucket already full to the brim with urine and faeces. When she'd finished she wiped herself clean with a piece of cloth then draped it over the slop bucket and wandered back to join her companions.
Michael Grant waited until she had seated herself, then turned to the wall beside him, a long-bladed machete gripped in one powerful fist.
The wall was covered by photos, some from newspapers and magazines, others taken with a camera. Some poster size, others little larger than passport photos.
Film stars. Pop performers. TV personalities. Sportsmen and women. Politicians. Businessmen.
The wall resembled a collage of the rich and famous, assembled by some insane fan.
Grant leaned close to one of the photos, an actress in a well-known soap opera and spat at it, watching as the sputum rolled down the wrinkled paper.
'Rich scum,' he said. 'All of them.' He smiled, running the tip of the machete very slowly across the pictures.
Over one of a pop star.
'Parasite,' he whispered.
Over a poster of a model.
'Whore.'
And a politician.
'Liar.'
'There's so many of them,' said Jennifer Thomas.
'We've got time,' Grant said.
'The papers have called Jonathan a madman,' Mark Paxton said, prodding his face for more spots, finding a larger one and rubbing it.
'Anyone who doesn't conform to their ideas is a madman, so they tell us,' replied Grant running his eyes over the photos once more. 'But who is to say what's mad and what's normal? Is this normal?' He gestured angrily at the photos.
'Are the lives these bastards and whores lead normal? No. What do ordinary people know of the kind of wealth that they have? Ordinary people, people like us; we'll never know what it's like to have that kind of money to abuse.'
'You grew up in a rich family,' said Phillip Walton, brushing his long hair back over his shoulders. 'So did Jonathan. You know what it's like to have money.' It was almost an accusation.
'Why do you think I left home?' snapped Grant. 'Seeing what money could do to people. Making them soft, idle. I didn't want that happening to me too. Jonathan escaped that way of life too. And all of you, you know what wealth can do. How it can turn ordinary people into grasping, self-obsessed scum. Why are any of you here?'
'The rich are parasites,' said Jennifer Thomas.
'They deserve to die,' Maria Chalfont echoed.
'They're fucking useless. All of them,' hissed Walton.
'They exploit the poor,' Paul Gardner added.
'Bollocks,' snarled Walton. 'Exploitation has nothing to do with it. You sound like a politician trotting out his clichés. This isn't a fucking political war, Gardner. It's not as if we're a bunch of revolutionaries, that's not what Jonathan wanted.'
'No, he wanted the destruction of the rich,' intoned Paxton. 'Whoever they are.'
'What will we do if Jonathan's convicted?' asked Jennifer Thomas, picking the dirt from beneath her chewed nails.
'You mean when not if,' Walton said.
'We carry on in his place,' Grant told her. 'It's what he wanted. It's what was planned right from the beginning. We carry on until we've exterminated every rich bastard we can. Trash like this.' He struck the wall with the machete, carving a photo of a politician in half.
'I don't understand why the public think so much of them,' said Maria Chalfont.
'Most people want money,' said Grant. 'They don't realize how it fucks up their lives. How it changes them. They live out their own fantasies through these parasites.' He slapped the wall with the back of his hand. 'They watch them on TV, read about them in the papers and they think they're something special. Something different. We'll make them realize they're not.'
'Everyone's equal in death,' chuckled Walton.
Paxton milked the pus from another spot and nodded his agreement.
'So, who's next?' asked Gardner, scanning the photos before him.
'It's not important. Any one of them will do.' Grant smiled, his dark eyes flicking back and forth. He raised the machete and pressed it against a photo of a man in his early forties. A man with a blonde girl beside him.
He pressed the razor-sharp point into the photo of Frank Harrison.
Nine
The dog heard the sound first.
Or perhaps it wasn't the sound which alerted it but something deeper. It sensed a presence. The animal, a cross-breed which was more alsatian than collie, got to its feet and padded across to the bedroom door sniffing the air as it moved. It whimpered slightly, raised one paw and scratched at the paintwork.
Bob Chamberlain sat up in bed, blinked myopically and fumbled for the lamp at the bedside. As he switched it on, pale light flooded the bedroom and he winced, rubbing his eyes.
The dog continued to whimper and paw at the door.
Chamberlain was about to ask what was wrong when he heard something.
The noise came from downstairs.
He swung himself out of bed with a speed and athleticism that belied his sixty-three years, reaching below the bed for the gun. He pulled out a Franchi over-under shotgun and checked that it was loaded.
There was more movement below him. Stealthy and furtive but nonetheless he heard it.
Someone was in the shop.
He'd owned the gun shop for close to thirty years now, taking over the business when his father had died. He'd only had two break-ins in that whole time. The first one had been kids, no more than sixteen. Two of the little bastards. Bob had sent them on their way with a clip round the ear. He hadn't called the law. That wasn't the way in the East End.
People looked out for themselves. If you had a problem you dealt with it, you didn't call the Old Bill. The second break-in had been more serious. Bob had been attacked in broad daylight by a couple of black blokes who'd hit him with a metal bar but, despite sustaining a bad cut to his forehead, he'd still managed to fight the buggers off, had even managed to reach his shotgun and aim it at them. It had taken all his self-control not to put some buckshot in the black bastards as they'd fled. Now he hefted the Franchi before him and moved slowly towards the door, careful to avoid the floorboards which he knew creaked. If there was someone in the shop, he didn't want them to know he was up there. Bob glanced at his watch.
3.22 a.m.
He reached down with one hand and patted the dog on the head then gripped its collar as he eased the door open with his foot and stepped out onto the landing. He stood for inter
minable seconds listening to the sounds which drifted to him on the stillness of the night. He heard footsteps below him, heard one of the cabinets which held the pistols being forced open. Whoever was down there obviously didn't care whether they were heard or not. Bob smiled grimly. The bastards would care when he got down there.
He began to descend.
He moved without undue haste, gripping the dog's collar to prevent it rushing away. There was a door at the bottom of the stairs which led to his kitchen and a small sitting room. Beyond that was the shop.
As he reached the door he eased his grip on the dog's collar, patting its head to calm it. But the animal was already scrabbling at the door, anxious to be let loose on the intruders.
'Steady Bitsa,' he whispered to the cross-breed. Bitsa seemed an appropriate name he'd thought, it had bitsa this and bitsa that in it. He smiled to himself. The dog was powerful and eager. Whoever was in the shop was in for a bloody surprise.
Bob paused for a moment and, as he did so, silence seemed to descend.
Had the intruders heard his approach?
He swung the shotgun up across his chest, as if seeking reassurance from the weapon.
Sod them, he thought, his face hardening. If they'd heard him, too bad. Perhaps they'd have the sense to get out while they still could.
He kicked open the door.
'Take them, Bitsa,' he hissed and the dog went hurtling through the kitchen and sitting room, swallowed up by the gloom. It was barking and snarling loudly as it reached the shop itself.
Bob prepared himself, listening to the frenzied barking of the dog.
Then silence.
He swallowed hard and edged forward into the sitting room, aware for the fast time of the numbing cold which seemed to have filled the building. It caused his skin to rise in goose-bumps and the hair at the nape of his neck stiffened.
And there was a smell too.
A rank, fetid odour which made him wince. But he pressed on towards the shop, eyes fixed on the open door which led into it.
In the sodium flare from the lights outside he could see that two of the gun cabinets had been forced open, shotguns and rifles removed, pieces of broken glass scattered over the floor.
The stench and the cold intensified but Bob's anger seemed to make him oblivious to these considerations and, wielding the Franchi before him, he advanced into the shop furiously.
`Right you bastards,' he shouted, swinging the shotgun up to his shoulder.
With his free hand he slapped on the lights.
Darkness.
Nothing happened. The shop remained unlit.
Bob's heart began beating faster as he caught sight of the motionless form of Bitsa lying in the centre of the room.
Its head was surrounded by a spreading puddle of blood, its body still twitching slightly.
The bottom jaw had been practically torn off, it hung from the battered skull by just a tiny network of muscles and ligaments.
Bob took a step towards the animal, his attention suddenly wandering, his concern not for the weapons which had been stolen from him but for his dead pet. Bitsa had been a big dog. Whoever had killed him had done it quickly and with incredible power.
Whoever ...
The hand closed on his shoulder and instinctively he spun round.
It was at that point that the lights came on.
Bob found himself staring into the face of the intruder and as he did his heart increased its speed, its pumping became uncontrollable. He felt white hot pain stabbing at his chest, spreading with incredible swiftness along his left arm, causing him to drop the shotgun.
He opened his mouth to scream but only a low croak came out as the intruder pulled him closer, gazing into eyes which were bulging wide with pain and shock.
And horror.
The intruder was dressed in a two piece suit, filthy, covered in dust, holed in three places across the chest. And, in those holes living things moved. Creatures which writhed and twisted and slid over one another, exuding a noxious liquid. And, where there should have been eyes the intruder sported two more of these holes, holes which were nothing more than seething pits filled to bursting point with parasitic forms. And yet it could still see. Could still look at Bob who now felt as if his head was exploding. The pain in his chest and arm grew, spreading up his neck until it felt as though his upper body had been filled with red hot lead, as if his blood had been transformed into molten metal.
He tried to back away but his legs buckled under him and he dropped to the floor, the pain searing through him, unbearable.
Blood from his dead dog splashed his hand as he tried to drag himself away from the intruder who merely took a step closer, looking down on Bob with something akin to fascination.
Bob tried to suck in a breath but his throat had constricted. His chest felt heavy, his head was spinning. He rolled on to his back, eyes still bulging wide, the whites suddenly reddening as two blood vessels burst and his left eye turned crimson.
And, above him, the intruder peered down through those pits of writhing, reeking shapes, one of which fell and landed on Bob's heaving chest. Then it merely stepped over him and strode from the shop leaving Bob alone again.
The pressure inside his chest seemed to grow ever greater until at last the inevitable happened. His heart simply burst.
Bob Chamberlain lay still as his sphincter muscle opened and allowed his body to empty itself.
The stench of excrement filled the air, mingling with the other, stronger, smell.
The stench of decay.
Ten
The smell of so many flowers was overpowering.
Carter coughed as the sickly sweet scent settled around him like an invisible cloud. The priest paused in his endless ramblings and glanced across at him but Carter merely nodded for the man to continue. For all the effect the words were having, the cleric might as well have been speaking a foreign language.
Carter stood with his arms by his sides, immaculate in a black suit. The slight breeze ruffled his hair and rustled the lower branches of the tree above him.
Birds sat silently peering down at the small gathering below them, wondering what these black creatures were doing. One finally flew off, the movement scattering leaves, sending them to the ground, drifting lazily. One landed on top of the coffin beside a huge wreath of red carnations which carried the tributes:
`To Jim
An ace among Kings
Love Ray'
Carter took a step forward and brushed the leaf aside, careful not to disturb the other floral tributes which covered the lid of his brother's casket.
Everyone in the small gathering had sent flowers of some description. From the small bouquets sent by other members of Harrison's firm, right up to the massive white cross of roses which the boss himself had offered.
He stood beside Carter as the flowers were removed and the coffin was lowered slowly into the ground.
Carter sighed. It all seemed to have happened so quickly.
He'd been discharged from hospital two days before and, on returning home, had been visited by Harrison who'd informed him that all the arrangements for Jim's funeral had been made. He, himself, would pay for everything. That, he'd said, was only right. He'd pay for the coffin, the flowers, whatever was needed.
The cost wasn't important. Jim had been a good boy. One of his best. Harrison's appraisal of his brother's character had done little to relieve the pain which Carter felt. A pain which, after the death of his father, he had not thought he would ever experience again. But now, standing at the graveside, he felt that same hurt and it was all the more acute because of his realization that he was now completely alone.
He had no one.
He glanced briefly across at Tina who was looking down at the grass beneath her feet.
No, he had no one.
When the time came, the priest approached him and led him towards the graveside, allowing him to peer down at the polished coffin.
Persuading
him to throw in the first handful of earth.
Carter felt, for one ridiculous moment, like a child who had won some kind of fairground competition.
`Go on, sonny, you can be the first one to throw dirt on your brothers coffin. Go on, just get a handful and throw it in'.
He bent and scraped up some earth, hesitated a second and then dropped it in.
Bullseye, he thought as the dirt hit the brass nameplate.
Anything from the top shelf.
Carter smiled to himself. Perhaps he was going slightly crazy. Perhaps the pain-killers that the doctors had given him were making him high. Or perhaps he merely couldn't stand the solemnity of the occasion any longer. Fuck it, he thought, stepping back. Jim was dead and all the weeping and wailing in the world couldn't bring him back to life.
Harrison stepped forward and added his own handful of earth to that already scattered on the coffin lid.
The gang boss stood with his back to Carter who looked across at Tina once more and found that, this time, her eyes were on him.
They exchanged a brief glance, aware of Harrison's men all around them. They could afford no tell-tale flicker of emotion in those fleeting looks. She gave him a thin, brief smile and he nodded almost imperceptibly in return.
The other members of the firm filed past the coffin, one or two of them crossing themselves.
Jim had been well-liked by his companions and Carter was gratified to see that there were almost two dozen of them present. Each moved dutifully past the grave, head bowed in reverence until Carter was left alone on one side of the yawning maw. The priest looked at him and then turned to Harrison but the gang boss merely shook his head, motioning for the priest to leave the graveside, to leave Carter alone.
Tina hesitated for a moment but Harrison gripped her hand and guided her away.
She chanced a quick look back as they walked to the waiting cars and saw Carter standing close to the grave looking down into it, as if in silent conversation with his dead brother.
With the wind whistling around him, he stood for what seemed like an eternity, gazing down into the hole, fighting back tears of both rage and grief.