by Max Hardy
Saul pulled himself slowly across the floor, still gasping for breath as he headed towards Rebecca, looking at her stunned, quaking body, watching her lips start to quiver as the realisation of what she had just done started to overwhelm her. ‘Rebecca, keep calm!’ he shouted.
‘John, what’s happened, is Rebecca alright? Is Fenny alright?’ Eve asked, trying to bend her head to get a glimpse of the floor.
‘Rebecca stabbed Dessie. She’s in shock. Bentley looks beaten up but I can see him breathing. I’m crawling as fast as I can. Where the hell is Adam!’ Saul wheezed.
‘He will be on his way. Look after Rebecca, calm her down.’ Eve instructed with authority.
Bentley stirred, groaning as he forced the heavy dead weight of his sister off his chest. Dessie rolled onto her back, the knife blade forcing itself further out of her chest. She lay there, lifeless eyes staring vacantly at the cage her father was in. Bentley turned on his side with effort, blood pouring from every orifice in his face, pain searing into every difficult movement. He lifted his head with effort and looked through already puffing eyes to the cage where Coleen lay curled up foetal in the corner.
‘I am so sorry Coleen.’ he apologised, dragging himself closer to the bars of her cage. ‘I had no idea that they were going to do this. I thought they were taking you away to a better life. Not this hell. You are safe now. The bitch is dead and the bastard is locked up. My bitch and my bastard. I should have known.’ he said, shaking his head disconsolately, ‘I should have fucking known.’ She didn’t look up, she didn’t even move, just stayed tightly curled in her protective, quavering ball.
With one last stretch, Saul reached out and grabbed Rebecca’s shaking arm and pulled her towards him. ‘It’s alright, you did what you had to do, just breathe.’ he said reassuringly, feeling her body fall into him with relief, feeling the outpouring of emotion as she cuddled tightly into him, feeling a maelstrom of tears roll down her cheeks.
Bentley turned his head toward the cage his father was in. He was lying still on the bottom of it, watching his son intently, occasionally glancing over to the dead Dessie, a look of anguish apparent every time he did, a look of animosity appearing when he looked back at his son.
‘What the hell have you done, you sick bastard.’ Bentley scowled towards his father.
‘I just finished the job their spineless partners didn’t have the balls to follow through on. They weren’t proper women, who looked after their men, not like Desiderata. If they were, they wouldn’t have needed a beating. Same as your mother, if she were any kind of wife, rather than a whore who would drop her pants at the sniff of another man, then things might have been different.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about? Are blaming her for this! So if she hadn’t fucked another man, you wouldn’t have killed twenty six women?’ Bentley spat furiously, his body shaking with rage.
‘Trust you to side with her, you dirty disgusting little urchin. I’m sure all you miss about your mother is listening to the sound of her fucking coming down the pipes under the stairs, while you lay masturbating.’
‘Fuck father, can you hear yourself. You’re half naked, your daughter fucks you. You kill people and you think you have the right to belittle me!’
‘Dessie was right, we should have killed you. She wanted to play with you, but I would never let her. More fool me. You were a waste of space and a good waste of fresh meat.’
‘Fresh meat again, what the fuck does that mean.’
‘Look at your sorry little friend over there, weak and worthless: and armless. We take a piece at a time. Dessie likes to play when we take it. And then we fry, or roast, or boil or casserole the meat and we all have it for supper. But it’s wasted on you. The flesh and blood of those made in the image of our lord is lost on you.’
Bentley’s face, already battered and bleeding froze in terror, taking in the words his father had said. He looked into Coleen’s cage, at her amputated arms, then over the floor, to Eve’s discarded hand. He wretched, his stomach convulsing in disgust.
‘We eat them! You keep them alive, taking a bit at a time off them and then we eat them? I’ve been eating human flesh. How long have I been eating human flesh?’
‘Your mother was the first. It was especially pleasing when we fed you her vagina in a stew. Coleen was your last.’
‘And all because a woman wouldn’t do what you wanted her to? Where the fuck does religion come into this father. Where the hell does it say anything about this being a good fucking thing in the bible?’
‘Flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. We take it every week.’
‘Fucking figuratively, yes, not bloody literally.’
‘You can’t reason with him Fenny. He has taken his religion to its extreme and there is no way back for him.’ Eve’s voice came floating down from above, breaking the intensity of the conversation with its conciliatory air.
‘But the world should know what he has done in the name of his faith. The world should know the atrocities he inflicted on all those poor women. You can help with that. You can expose him.’
Bentley moved his prone body onto its side with a pained effort and then forced his torso off the ground, sitting up. He grabbed the side of the autopsy table and used it as a support to pull himself up from the floor, until he was standing over Eve. He took the metal post from between her knees and then started to undo the bindings, setting her free.
‘You want me to tell the world what he has done and then kill myself, is that it? Just like your other nutters?’ Bentley asked as he helped Eve sit up. He took off his blood stained, filthy Mac and wrapped it around her shoulders, covering her nakedness.
‘No, I don’t want you to do that at all. The other Angels left this earth because they were ready for the next experience, not because they wanted and end to this one. You might want to do it for yourself, for your own peace of mind.’
Bentley laughed hysterically, his body convulsing with the guffaws. ‘You are some kind of clown, make no mistake about that. What peace of mind could I ever have knowing that my father and sister are killers? That they tortured and mutilated dozens of women. That they killed my mother and fed her to me. That I have been a party to their cannibalism. That I helped bring each and every one of those women to this table. Thank you for showing me what I was too blind to see, but there will never be peace of mind.’
Bentley looked at Eve with sorrowful tear filled eyes, the anger of the revelations being subsumed by the guilt of the part he had played in them. He started to shake his head gently, looking around the room. Looking down to Saul comforting Rebecca on the floor. Looking over to his father staring at him without even a modicum of remorse. Looking at Coleen, naked, mutilated and terrified. Looking down at his dead sister, the bloody blade of a knife sticking ten inches out of her chest. Tears rolled down his cheeks, his mouth shivering with the intensity of his emotions. He turned to face his sister’s body.
Eve looked into his eyes and looked at his body position, her face filling with dread as she reached out an arm quickly to grab him. ‘Don’t do it Fenny.’ she shouted.
‘Sorry Eve, I’m not ready for the next experience, I just want to end this one. Look after Jackson for me.’ he tearfully whispered, letting his body fall forward, the full weight of his huge frame impaling him on the knife sticking out of Dessie’s chest.
Chapter 40
Is it courage or cowardice? To have nothing left to live for, to have everything you have ever believed in and have ever loved taken away from you, to be left bereft and alone, in a world where there is no one left to love you, no matter how warped the love. Is it courage or cowardice to end your own life? I look over at Bentley’s still twitching body while I walk into the rickety rooms in my own mind, the ones with the Russian revolver pointing at my head, the ones which hold everyone I have lost. The ones with the empty childhood, locked in a lonely room, nothing but the sound of my own voice for company. The ones where I have never known the love
of a parent. In so many ways I have lived every single emotion that flashed across Bentley’s face as he fell to his oblivion. I don’t think he knew the heart of a loving parent either. Perhaps we are not as alone as we think.
Eve throws her legs over the side of the autopsy bench and hops lightly down, smarting in pain as she does. She kneels beside Bentley and feels for a pulse, sadness bubbling into her expression, telling me there isn’t one. She looks up to me and smiles mournfully.
‘How’s Rebecca doing?’ she asks me as she stands and walks towards us.
Rebecca lifts her head out of my chest as she hears the question, her face smeared with tears, her eyes puffy and red, but lucid.
‘I’m not the one who has lost a hand. How are you?’ Rebecca answers as she reaches out and pulls Eve into us, wrapping her arms around her back. I join in the embrace, join in the tears and join in the relief that she is alive.
‘It’s just a flesh wound.’ she answers dismissively, pulling back from the embrace, her features turning from empathetic to authoritative in the blink of an eye.
She looks at Rebecca sternly. ‘Can you do me a favour? Coleen is still highly traumatised in that cage, can you try and get through to her and calm her down. Here, cover her with Bentley’s coat.’ Eve instructs, passing Rebecca the coat, leaving herself naked.
‘John, I need you to search the room. Somewhere in here there will be trophies. It’s what he teaches them. They all keep trophies.’ she orders me, rising and walking over to the caged Pastor Bentley before I have time to answer.
She looks down, totally unconcerned about being naked in front of him. ‘I was wrong. I don’t think you have a fear. I thought it was Dessie. I thought you would fall to bits when she died. He taught you well. But tonight, the world will see what you have done old man.’
‘So be it. Perhaps I am ready for the next experience.’
‘That’s just it old man. You don’t get that choice. You will be kept in a prison for the rest of this life and have to suffer an existence with no experiences at all.’
Rebecca opens the cage and I see her trying to coax Coleen out, gently stroking her arm to reassure her. I look around the room to see likely places to search and walk towards the line of cupboards. I open one, which turns out to be a freezer. It’s just about empty apart from a blue bag which looks like it has a forearm inside of it. Coleen’s forearm? I shudder as I open the next one: the shudder turning into a wretch.
In the cupboard there are dozens of transparent Tupperware containers all filled with a cloudy liquid. In the cloudy liquid I can see fingers and palms and thumbs and severed wrists. Their trophies are severed hands.
‘I think I have found them.’ I call out. Eve walks over to me, her snake tattoo ululating on her stomach as she sways with each stride. She crouches down beside me, grabs a container and takes the lid off, sniffing the contents.
‘Formaldehyde.’ she says, picking the hand out of the liquid. ‘She examines the fingers closely, noticing a few pubic hairs caught in the nails. ‘Different coloured pubes. These aren’t just trophies. I think they used them over and over again on their victims.’ she shakes her head disconsolately.
‘Who is he, this man you keep referring to. Is he the person in the pictures with the killers?’ I ask her, studying her countenance as she answers.
‘Every faith has its extremists. Even the extremist groups have uber extremists within them; someone who will go that one step further. He takes the things we believe in, living a life without fear, and embraces the absolute chaos of that. He is the man that makes murderers: and he was one of us. Do you have the time?’ she asks, quickly changing the subject, her eyes visibly doing a spot check on where things are in the room.
‘It’s eight fifteen.’ I answer.
‘Adam, time for you to come in.’ she says, looking directly at me as she does, but not talking to me. She smiles, leans over and kisses me on the lips and then stands and walks over to where Rebecca is helping Coleen out of the cage.
What was that? Has she got some kind of communication device on her? If she has, how long has it been working? Could she have called for help at any time? I hear footfalls coming from outside the door and a few seconds later Adam walks almost nonchalantly into the room carrying a large holdall which he drops onto the top of the autopsy bench. ‘Is everything under control?’ he asks Eve, smiling toward me as he sees me looking at him.
‘All under control. Did you bring the spare clothes as I asked? Coleen needs them. What about the GHD? Have you mailed off the final video to the BBC?’
‘Yes, got them both here.’ he answers, pulling a pair of jeans and a T-Shirt out of the bag and passing them over to her, along with a small syringe. ‘The video is timed to be sent at 20:45 so we are now on the clock. We will only have fifteen minutes until the police and press arrive after that.’
Eve grabs the syringe and without any warning sticks it into Pastor Bentley’s arm through the bars of the cage. ‘The start of your journey into oblivion old man.’ she says. He scowls back, opening his mouth to reply, but then flops unconscious.
Eve turns back to Rebecca and helps her dress Coleen. I watch Adam unpack the bag. I watch him take out a black metal spring loaded box. I watch him take out a black and white Pierrot outfit. I watch him take out a bag of makeup. And my mind starts adding up. At nine o’clock tonight the fourth mass murderer will be revealed. That’s in forty five minutes. Where is the Angel who is going to expose him? Why did Eve ask Bentley if he wanted to expose him?
Adam walks over to me, seeing the cogs of my mind wheeling in my animated face. ‘What’s troubling you John. Plan B worked. Bentley showed us where he was keeping Eve and Coleen. We have rescued Eve and Coleen and Pastor Bentley has confessed to his crimes.’
‘Yes, I know. What I don’t know at the minute is whether it was really Plan B, or we have been part of Plan A all along. Eve has some kind of microphone. She has been talking to you. If she has been talking to you, then you must have known where she was. If you knew where she was then perhaps her kidnapping wasn’t coincidental, perhaps it was planned.’ I throw the thoughts of my cogs out to him, my frustrations creeping into the words.
‘Perhaps John. But does it change the outcome. Does it change what you have learned from the experience?’
I don’t answer his question. I don’t answer it because I am distracted. Coleen is now dressed and Rebecca is leading her to the wooden seat at the other side of the room, away from Eve, but that isn’t what has distracted me. What has distracted me is Eve. She is getting dressed. She is pulling on the legs of the Pierrot outfit. There are no other Angels here. There have been no other Angels involved in discovering what Pastor Bentley has done, only Eve. Which can mean only one thing.
I push past Adam, who raises his hands conciliatory and steps out of my way. I slam my hands down hard onto the top of the autopsy bench, on the opposite side to Eve, facing her, my mind full of fear as I stare at her, willing her to speak.
She looks at me steadily and with an understanding patience as she continues to get ready, strapping the boxed up wings onto her back. Adam comes alongside her and helps to position the release straps on her arms.
‘Aren’t you going to stop her?’ I implore him, my frantic gaze darting back and forward between them both. Rebecca must have heard the panic in my voice because a split second later she is alongside me.
‘What is it John?’ she asks as she strokes my arm affectionately.
I look into her open, questioning face as my mind screams agony, not wanting to speak the truth that they know. ‘She’s putting on the wings Rebecca. Eve is the person who is going to expose Bentley tonight. Eve is the person who is going to commit suicide.’
Rebecca physically slumps and I reach out a hand to steady her as the fear in my mind starts to dance in her eyes. She looks over as Eve pulls her Pierrot outfit up over the wings and starts to fasten the buttons down the chest.
‘It was always going to
be me. Now is my time. I have done everything I had to do in this life and I am ready for my next experience.’ Eve says with a serene calmness in her tone.
‘But you can’t, we’ve only just found you again. There must be so many experiences left to live for!’ Rebecca exclaims as she pushes herself closer and hugs me tight, her fingers digging into my skin.
‘Last night was our beautiful and memorable goodbye. It was my last time with you, it was your first time together. Please, and I know this will be hard, but try and be selfless. What you feel right now is only natural, it is your needs and your desires controlling your mind. You have to learn to control them and to remove them. That will come in time.’
I can’t control them. I feel cheated. I have lost her once already and I do not want to lose her again. All I feel is betrayed. All I feel is played.
‘Are we just pawns to you, playthings in a fucking plan? A means to an end. Dispensable. Is that what we are? Was this always about Bentley, was your reason for living to expose him and now that it’s done, fuck the rest of us?’ I can’t keep my feelings in, I just don’t understand.
‘John, I only ever had one purpose in my life and I couldn’t be happier that I have fulfilled it. My one purpose was to make sure the two of you met. My one purpose was to make sure you got to know each other. Do you want to know how important the two of you are? I have heard you ask if you are pawns, knights, kings or queens. Well, I am the queen in our family and all three of you are more important than me. I would gladly give my life a hundred times over for the two of you and your son.’