A Home by the Sea (A Supernatural Suspense Novel)

by Saunders, Craig

  ‘Touch it,’ said Frank.

  ‘What? No! I’m not touching it.’

  ‘You afraid?’

  ‘I’m not afraid. It’s gross. It’s...it’s wrong.’

  Frank shook his head. ‘Dippy, you’re such a pussy. It’s just a fucking cat.’

  In some ways, the swear was more shocking that the cat. Looking back Paul understood that his brother had pushed him, pulled him, everything shy of forcing him to touch the cat. But it had been the same. The same.

  ‘I don’t want to, Frank. Don’t make me.’

  ‘I’m not going to make you, but you’re going to do it anyway, because it’s cool.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Look,’ said Frank, and twisted his fingers inside the cat. The cat yowled, and it’s back legs kicked out. ‘Touch it here and you can make it dance.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Paul, crying. The cat didn’t have a look he’d expected. It seemed to him that the cat looked sad.

  ‘Do it or I’ll tell dad what you did.’

  ‘What? I didn’t do anything!’

  ‘I’ll show him Bess. Tell him it was you. You’re just a kid. He’ll believe me.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. I’ll tell.’

  ‘Touch him or we’ll find out.’

  And to his shame, Paul did it. He cried, and he was sick afterwards. He touched the cat inside and watched the cat’s back legs dance while it screamed in pain and threw up all over the cat.

  ‘I’m telling,’ he said. It didn’t matter. It was wrong and he was wrong. He knew, even at eleven years old, that what he’d done was so wrong. The worst thing he’d ever done. He could feel sweat on him, the taste of sick in his mouth, and the cat...

  The cat was dead.

  *

  ‘Shit,’ said Paul, his tears thick and fast and his bile rising again.

  Frank was on him fast, too fast for Paul, still just a child, not even a teenager, to run. Frank was holding the little paring knife their mother used to peel the potatoes, but that knife was sharp. He held it up under Paul’s throat.

  ‘If you tell anyone. Anyone. Not just mum and dad, but anyone at all. I’ll find out and I’ll fuck you up like Bess. Got it?’

  Paul couldn’t nod, couldn’t swallow.

  ‘Uh,’ he said.

  The whole time he couldn’t take his eyes of the cat, tailless, with a spike from his dad’s shed through its belly.

  That was the second time.

  Frank got better with practise.

  When Paul finally confronted his brother, trying to save Irene from him, he threatened him.

  ‘Leave her alone, Frank,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell everyone what you did back then. I’ll fucking tell everyone,’ he said.

  Franklin laughed. ‘Little brother, you think that’s the worst I’ve ever done?’

  *

  Marc took a call on his mobile that he never expected. It was Saturday morning and he was on the way to Beautiful Brides to open for the day.

  ‘Is that Marc? Marc Jones?’ said a woman he didn’t recognise.

  ‘Yes, who’s this?’

  ‘You don’t know me, but I’m Irene’s aunt. Her mum said...she said if there was an emergency, I was to get in touch with you. I tried your home number...I got your...partner? I didn’t know if I should call you, too...’

  Irene had fallen off the map, as far as everyone but her mother was concerned. Marc was the first point of contact outside of Irene that her mother had, in emergencies.

  Marc slowed to a stop in a passing spot on the narrow road.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I can’t get in touch with Irene. I’ve tried, but I don’t know if I have the right number. I tried last night but I couldn’t get through. I don’t know...’

  ‘It’s alright,’ said Marc. ‘Calm down and tell me what’s wrong. Is it Maureen?’

  ‘She died last week,’ she said.

  Oh, shit, thought Marc. Poor Irene. He didn’t know Maureen, and his first thought was that he was being selfish, maybe, not to spare a thought for Maureen, but first and foremost he was worried about Irene and how she would take it.

  On top of her stalker, the mysterious man that was threatening her, this was just too much. He pulled on his hair and put his head down so his forehead was hovering over the steering wheel.

  The woman, he’d forgotten her name already, was still talking, but nothing was sinking in.

  ‘I’ll call you back, OK? I need to go to see Irene, let her know. I’ve got your number now,’ he said.

  ‘OK. I’m Sally,’ she said.

  Of course he hadn’t noted her name, because she hadn’t told him before. He was shaken, though. Shaken badly. He just didn’t have the first idea of how to break the news to Irene after so much loss.

  ‘Thank you, Sally. I’ll talk to Irene.’

  Poor, poor Irene.

  He hung up and swung the car around in the tight spot and headed for the boathouse instead of the shop, in a cold sweat, his stomach churning.

  *

  Sam began crying while Irene’s mother was on the phone.

  ‘Hold on, Mum.’

  She picked up Sam and began feeding him. Some women had trouble breast feeding, but she’d taken to it straight away, and Sam was latching on just fine. She felt that instant of release, that let down, as he began guzzling, making satisfied noises in the back of his throat.

  ‘OK, Mum,’ she said, watching Sam feeding and feeling urgency build in her, even though she now knew there was no way her...what? Stalker? No way he could be Frank...and yet...who else would it be? It didn’t make sense, but it felt right.

  ‘So,’ said her mother. ‘He got his cellmate to cut out his organs. Are you sure about this?’

  But Frank had been dead right from the start, thought Irene. And she remembered her dream, Jonathan leading her by the hand to show her the corpse, the dead man, breaking into the shop.

  Urgency, dogging her, but she knew she had to hear it. It was still early, but she needed to get off the phone. Call Marc.

  ‘I need to hear it,’ she said, though all of a sudden she wasn’t so sure she did, and still torn two ways.

  ‘He cut out his liver, his heart, his kidneys. Ate his eyes. Cut out his heart.’

  Irene felt bile in her throat.

  ‘Jesus,’

  ‘More like the devil,’ her mother said, and laughed, which seems cold and callous, somehow, even for her.

  ‘Yes...what happened to his cellmate?’

  ‘Got transferred to a psych ward. No one to cut him up. You see, he wanted to join Franklin in the afterlife, but Franklin would never have let him join. He was a queer. He fucking hated him. Wasn’t really a death pact, either.’

  ‘Mum?’

  Her mother laughed again. Mid-laugh something changed and she knew she wasn’t speaking to her mother anymore.

  ‘I’m unbound now,’ said a man’s voice she knew so well, one that sometimes haunted her dreams.

  ‘What? Mum...’ she said, still clinging to the illusion, not even beginning to think what it meant. Chills raced up her spine, starting at the base and right into her head so she couldn’t think anymore.

  Because it just couldn’t be. None of it could be real.

  ‘Your mummy’s dead, honey. Dead and done. I’m free. Free. Do you fucking understand? I’m coming for you, Irene. I haven’t forgotten. You took my brother. Now I’m going to take everything away from you. Everything. That queer, David? He’ll be dead before this call is over.’

  She didn’t know how, or why, or what was going on, but she screamed into the phone. ‘Fuck you! Fuck you!’

  She hung up, slamming her phone shut.

  The phone rang again, straight away, and she threw it across the room, smashing it, making baby Sam scream.

  Then she roared in frustration, because she had no way to get to David and Marc, and because that fucking monster was in the shop.

  She picked up Sam and rocked him o
n the way down the stairs. She picked up her keys and forgot she had no car, just the boat.

  ‘Fuck!’ she shouted again, the word echoing around the lobby.

  ‘Come on, Sam,’ she said. ‘There’s a phone at the dock.’

  She pulled on her coat, quickly, desperately frightened now, and opened the door to take her boat across the bay, but she didn’t have to, because Marc was right there, and he was crying.

  *

  ‘Jesus, Marc. I’m so glad to see you,’ she said and threw herself into his arms.

  ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ he began, and she just knew it was terrible news. The phone call replayed in her mind. The dream. The monstrous man, the dead man...Franklin back to life.

  ‘David’s dead, isn’t he?’

  ‘No. Why would you think that? Honey, I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘It’s your mother.’

  Irene sobbed, just once.

  But she knew, didn’t she? She knew, when her voice changed and she was speaking to Franklin. Of course she was dead.

  Yes. She knew that too, now. She couldn’t deny it any longer. She didn’t understand it, but she knew the truth of it.

  Franklin was back and there was no doubt in her mind that he’d done it...done what he’d been trying to do all along. Done all the things the police had said at the trial, all the things they’d never known, things she’d never known. Things he did to Paul’s body after he’d killed him.

  ‘I know. She’s dead. Marc...’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Irene. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Marc, shut up,’ she said, because she felt how short time was. ‘David’s in danger.’

  And she knew where the danger was, too. Not just Franklin, but some power held in the mannequin. It didn’t make sense, she didn’t know how she knew, but she knew well enough not to doubt it.

  Jonathan’s spirit had shown her. The dream had been true. All of it, right down to the fact that her baby would have been a handsome toddler, and good looking boy, and a fine man.

  Franklin coming back, the mannequin...somehow the two were connected. Like the mannequin was a focus for him?

  No. Something...something else. But it was important. It had all started with that cursed thing.

  ‘Marc, you’ve got to know...I spoke to mum a few minutes ago...’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Marc, shaking his head. ‘Honey, she died last week.’

  ‘What? Last week?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Marc again. He didn’t know what else to say.

  ‘I know it wasn’t her,’ she nodded. ‘I knew it wasn’t her. It was him. Frank.’

  ‘Frank’s dead, too, though.’

  ‘Frank’s back. Don’t ask me how. Don’t. I don’t know, OK? But Marc, what did you do with that mannequin?’

  ‘I threw it out the back...’

  ‘The mannequin, Marc...it’s dangerous. I’ll explain on the way...’

  Marc shook his head. ‘Irene, I don’t understand.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Trust me, OK?’

  They climbed into the boat, baby Sam wrapped up warm and up against her in his sling, so she could smell his hair even in the sea breeze.

  Marc drove from the back. Fast as he could, trying his mobile on the way...but nothing. Nothing at all.

  *

  David pushed the key into the front door to Beautiful Brides and opened it wide. Something subtle he couldn’t put his finger on told him Marc was in the shop...a smell...a hint of body warmth, something.

  A second later he held his nose, because it wasn’t body odour, it was decay.

  ‘Marc?’ he called, but his husband didn’t answer. It wasn’t like Marc. Even if he’d been on the phone, waving his hands around like he always did, he would have said something. Put his hand over the receiver, shouted out.

  ‘Hi, love...honey...’ all the names people in love call each other, and sometimes the names they call each other when they’re pissed off, too.

  ‘Marc? I need to speak to you...’ but nothing. David checked the small staff toilet, kitchenette, at the back of the shop, and the tiny office. Marc wasn’t in.

  Call Irene, he thought, pulling his mobile out.

  He turned to go outside, to get a signal, and realised there was someone there.

  A man stood between him and the doorway. He had his arm around a mannequin, an old scarred wooden thing that he’d seen Marc working on. He didn’t know where the man had come from because the little bell above the door hadn’t rung.

  There was something wrong with the man, the way he was standing.

  And the mannequin...there was something wrong with it, too. And that smell.

  David, fear rising, tried to make his throat work, form words. But his mouth was suddenly dry, because he sensed death in the room. He was a stranger to death, but now he was here...there was no mistaking it.

  The mannequin, too. It wasn’t scarred when Marc worked on it. Now there was something scratched into its chest.

  ‘Hello,’ he said to the man. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice cracking as he spoke, ‘but the owner’s out for a minute.’

  ‘I’m unbound now,’ the man said.

  A funny, jarring note hit David. Like when you see or hear someone insane out and about on the town. Like that, but worse, because the man...the man smelled of death.

  He could read what the mannequin said now.

  SAM

  He turned and screamed. Some shambling wreck of a man walked toward him, a patchwork corpse. A flap of his face was hanging down, and his lip had rotted and fallen off. He wore a name tag, and David, even in his terror, could read that the man was a doctor.

  ‘David,’ growled the monster, and as David tried to run the man behind hit with something hard and he went out.

  *

  Marc parked his small car in the narrow street where the house he and David nestled between the other houses. All were painted bright colours. It was a good street, never any trouble, though sometimes people coming out from the pubs in the centre of town took to pissing in the little alleyways that led to the small back gardens.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said to Irene.

  ‘No way,’ she said, unbuckling her seatbelt. She held Sam. Against the law, and dangerous, but in the rush to reach the mainland and David she hadn’t thought to bring the carrier.

  She pushed open the door and was out of the car before Marc.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Come on.’

  Marc walked fast to the front door and pushed the key in. As soon as the door was open he knew Marc wasn’t there. But in the way that he had to double check a door was off, or the hob was off, if someone asked him, even if he knew he’d done it, he had to double check, because Irene shouted out ‘David!’

  ‘You check downstairs,’ he said, taking the stairs up two at a time. No sound of the shower, no sign of David being in. Usually he would have music on, or the television. Marc was more of a reader, but the noise never bothered him, same way as people who live together get used to using the bathroom at the same time, or a small kitchen. They just revolved around each other.

  ‘He’s not down here,’ Irene said.

  ‘Not up here, either.’

  ‘The shop?’

  Marc nodded. ‘I don’t know...maybe he’s looking for me. I didn’t have time to tell him. I wanted to get to you...’

  ‘I know. Come on, let’s go.’

  ‘No, honey,’ he said. ‘We’re here now. It’s too dangerous. You’ve no carrier.’

  ‘No, I’m coming.’

  ‘No you’re not,’ said Marc. He hardly ever denied Irene anything. She was his friend, but she was his partner in the shop, too. He’d never go against her, because of the friendship, but in this he was unshakeable.

  ‘I’m going. You’re staying here.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I told you, but you’re not getting it. He knows where you live. He knows where I live.’

  ‘You’re safer here than
in the car,’ he said, remembering why she’d lost Sam’s twin in the first place. He couldn’t risk it, and he wouldn’t let her.

  ‘Lock the door,’ he told her. ‘I’ll be back.’

  ‘You can’t...’

  ‘There’s some other explanation, Irene. There’s got to be.’

  He locked the door. Stood outside for a moment with his eyes closed, thinking things through. It couldn’t be that a dead man had come back to life. Part of him thought that maybe this was some kind of trauma, coming out in Irene. But then he remembered the word carved into the mannequin.

  ‘No,’ he told himself as he slid into the driver’s seat of his car. ‘No.’

  She wasn’t insane. She wasn’t having some kind of illusions because of grief.

  David was in danger, and he had to trust in his friend, like he always had, and always would.

  He pulled out into the light traffic and swung the car toward the shop, and hopefully, David. Unharmed.

  *

  David came around in the tiny office of the shop and cried out in terror again, but he didn’t pass out. God, he wished he could, because the crazy fucking monster was looming over him, grinning, and up close he stank, stank like the rotted corpse he was.

  The man’s face was falling off. Rot had taken him. The eyes were rheumy and yellow, and a maggot crawled out from his cheek. Flies buzzed around the room, then returned to the man’s neck, where the fed on his putrefying flesh.

  ‘I ate Franklin, you know,’ said the man.

  Terror and bile rose in David’s throat. He felt sick from the stench and the fear both.

  ‘Please...whatever you want...I...’

  ‘You’ll do anything?’ said the man.

  David tried to get up, but he was bound tight in the office chair. He pulled with all his strength, but he wasn’t a strong man and the bonds were secure.

  ‘See, David, husband of Marc, friend of Irene...I’m going to take all of you. You know who I am?’

  ‘Please...no...I won’t...I won’t tell anyone,’ said David, but thinking, he’s dead, he’s dead.

  ‘I’m Franklin, you fucking stupid queer, and I’m death walking. And no, you won’t tell anyone.’