“Flames burn moth’s wings, Mickey,” he muttered under his breath.
Where the hell had that thought just sprung from? It hadn't come out of his mind, that's for damn sure. No bastard was going to burn his wings. Not the kids, not that part-time copper, nobody.
“Come on, man. Calm the fuck down.” Michael took a deep breath. Glad that Trevor had buggered off to the toilets. What would he have thought of him muttering and mumbling under his breath like some crazy drunken vagrant?
He snapped his eyes open. It just hit him that it wasn't only the little girl who wore that sullen, resentful face. They all had the same expression etched on their ugly mugs.
“How can you help someone who doesn't want your help?”
He slammed his hand over his mouth. This was so weird. Why the fuck was he repeating that sentence? Michael looked at his beer can, perched on the edge of the rocker and carefully peeled away his fingers. If anything was going to stop his erratic mouth from vomiting out crap then it would be the contents of that can. He decided there and then that he just needed to get as drunk as he could. Getting smashed out of his head followed by a full night's sleep sounded like the best tonic in the world about now.
He picked up the beer, feeling his blood pressure rising, when he discovered that he must have already drained it. To make the moment complete, there were no more full cans by his feet. That had to be wrong, they could not have ploughed their way through every single can already. Unless that sneaky little bastard sneaked the remainder into the toilets with him, preferring to drink alone rather than him badgering the man about Trevor's failed marriage? No, he discounted the idea straight away. Trevor was a lot of things but a sneak? No. Besides, Michael would have noticed. He pulled his aching frame out of the rocker, vaguely wondering if he had over did the muscles with the wood chopping.
He knew there were a few bottles of strong beer still in the fridge, left over from last night's house warming party. Good brands as well. He picked up the empty can and threw it onto the pile. Miles better than this watered down donkey piss that Trevor had bought.
A single spot of water bounced off the edge of his nose. What, so now it was going to rain on him as well? He thrust his head back, groaning at the sight of those dark grey clouds directly above his head. So much for the weather forecasters promising a beautiful day. This was unreal, he couldn't trust anybody's advice. He levered his new axe out of the tree stump and tramped along the dirt track, heading back to the farmhouse. He didn't want to leave that out in the pissing rain. Knowing the luck that he was having lately, he'd come back to find the handle rotting off and the head rustier that an abandoned tractor.
Speaking of being abandoned, where was that friend of his? It shouldn't take this long to empty his bowels. Trevor hadn't had that many beers. He pushed open the front door and stepped over the threshold. “Trevor?” he shouted. You done yet? Don't make me come up those stairs! He grinned whilst looking down at the axe gripped in his right hand. “Here's Michael!” he said, imagining the look of terror on Trevor's face if he did use this to break through the toilet door. The lad certainly would piss himself if that happened. That grin soon dropped from his face when he imagined trying to explain to Jodie what he'd done.
“Come on, man! This is cutting into precious drinking time.” He looked behind, just to make sure that Trevor hadn't used the other door. He sighed at the sight of that cloudless sky, and the sun beating down on his rocker. “Fuck you, weather.” Had he fallen asleep whilst sitting on the toilet? He shrugged to himself. Fine, whatever. He'd just have to drink those bottles of fine beers alone. Michael had no problem with that.
Still carrying the axe, he walked through the living room then paused by the sofa. From where he stood, he could clearly see the edge of the table, and the mountain of food that Jodie had prepared. That wasn't right though, she'd put it all away last night.
“Trevor, are you in there?”
The sound of water rushing through those old pipes just above his head told his exactly where his friend was. He sighed, reminding himself that he still hadn't got around to fixing the flush on that toilet. The notion that Trevor was raiding his fridge was too ridiculous for words anyway.
He leaned the axe against the wall and peered around the corner. “Okay, so I didn't expect to see that.”
Both of Jodie's new picnic tables as well as the black marble tops were crammed with white paper plates. Each plate overflowed with coin-sized, heart-shaped buns. Michael knew for a fact that Jodie hadn't baked all of these.
Some kind of house warming present from Fern? Seemed a bit extravagant. Still, while he was here, it seemed like such a shame to let all of these to go to waste. He didn't think they'd miss a couple. Besides, it didn't seem right that Trevor should have gotten that free éclair, and all he received for his good deeds today was a bunch a sullen faced stares.
He reached for the largest bun, precariously perched on the top of the nearest plate mountain and snapped his fingers back upon contact. “What the hell?” it felt as though he'd just touched a rotting toadstool. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, feeling the freezing cold slime coating his skin. Michael vigorously rubbed his hand on the front of his shirt.
“Trevor!” he shouted. “Do you know anything about these buns?”
The bun that he'd touched started to fold in on itself, before its structure totally collapsed into a shapeless wet mess. The colour changed from candy pink to a putrid shade of dark green. He stepped back in disgust, imagining what might have happened if he had eaten one of them. The stench of rot slammed into his nostrils, making him jump back even further. He cried out when his back crashed into the plates behind him, sending dozens of the tiny cakes cascading down the front of his pants.
Every one of them immediately melted when they touched the material, soaking his trousers with the same stinking glutinous mess now contaminating the buns in front of him.
“What the fuck is this shit?” he blurted out, reaching for a tea towel.
Michael blinked half a dozen times, aware that the tea towel had just fallen through his fingers. He couldn't move his legs. It's as if the liquid from the buns had soaked into his muscles and solidified. Michael opened his mouth to scream but only a quiet groan came out. The sensation had already spread up to his neck and down to the tips of his fingers.
He attempted to move his eyes when the sound of the living room door reached his ears. It felt as though the orbs were floating in glue. He couldn't even blink now. Please help me, Trevor!
The figure that shambled through that kitchen door, dragging Michael's axe across the tiles, was not his friend. The figure bent down, picked up one of the cakes and rolled it around in their hand. It kept its shape, just leaving a few crumbs and a couple of sugar granules in its wake.
“Hello there, Michael. You look a bit, stiff.”
With a strength pulled out from the depths of his very being, he shifted his eyeballs a fraction to the left, moving his gaze away from the door frame and onto his new guest. A large woman, wearing a brightly patterned, tattered summer dress was gently picking out the untarnished buns with her sausage-thick fingers. Michael guessed she was around fifty, although the woman could have been as young as 30 or twice that age, it was difficult to tell. Her grey hair was scraped back and tied up in a bright pink rubber band at the base of her skull. He had no idea who she could be or where she had come from.
Was she from the town? Christ, he hoped so, considering the only other option was that this vile looking woman was a remnant from Jodie's past. He so needed to speak, yet despite his earlier success in moving his eyes, no matter what he tried, there was no way he could even part his lips.
“You're sweating, honey!” She leaned a little closer.
Her thick cloying perfume drifted across, settling around his head like a cloud. He couldn't even hold his breath to stop the sickly sweet scent from invading his nose. Oh Christ, the rot was preferable to whatever she was wearing.
“It's best you don't struggle, Michael. You only injure yourself, and believe me, that's the last thing that any of us want here.”
She moved back over to the door frame and continued to separate the good buns from the bad ones. “This is all that's left of me, you know.” The woman uncurled her other hand, showing him the bun, now stuck in one of her creases. A couple of tears, rolled down her cheeks. “Just one fragment of my soul remains. Look at them all, Michael. We're just tattered pieces. There's even less of us now. The ones who sacrificed themselves to bring you here will not be forgotten.” She squinted, I just hope it wasn't in vain. I mean, you don't look that much of a warrior.”
She gently placed the tiny pink bun on top of another pile. “This isn't the real me, by the way. I'm wearing the skin of the vile bitch who tortured then slaughtered me in the depths of her hotel fourteen years ago. The fat bitch cut into me with a butter knife. Can you believe that? Have you any idea how difficult it is to cut anything with a fucking butter knife?”
She picked up the axe and ran her fingers up and down the smooth wooden shaft. “They told me not to do this, you know. The others like me, I mean.” She sighed. “God, how I miss eating buns.” The woman ran the tip of her forefinger along the edge, smiling at the sight of the metal cutting into her flesh. “They told me not to interfere, to let things run their course. After all, you were already here. It would be inevitable that you, your beautiful wife and your friends would end up at the hotel. They said that witnessing them all die would give you the strength to stop them, to finally break this circle of death.” She sighed. “To allow what was left of us to drift away.”
Michael thought he could feel the ends of his toes. His eyes moved a little easier in his sockets as well. He looked past this freakish woman, over at the door, hoping to Christ that Trevor hadn't gone back outside. Fuck, even if he had, how long would it take him to sense something was wrong, a minute? Five minutes? By that time, this big fat bitch could have already chopped him into bite-sized pieces. Knowing Trevor, the dumb bastards' probably fallen asleep.
“See, when they pushed me into the young girl, last night. All I could smell were the delicious aroma of fresh cooked food, and I kinda tripped up over my words.” She moved a little closer. “And then you came into the kitchen, Michael. I saw straight into your soul. I know what you did.”
The woman raised the axe over her head. He found enough energy and strength to finally open his mouth and to raise his own arm, but nothing he did was able to stop that blade from crashing down upon his head.
5
The scent of fresh cut grass took away both the stench of rot and the aroma of that large woman's overpowering perfume. Michael opened his eyes and wrapped his arms over his head. He turned over and stared at the bright blue sky, watching a few wisps of grey cloud pass overhead. He sat up, staring in utter confusion at the sight of a neatly trimmed hedge that backed onto a road. A grey range rover slowed down and he watched the side window wind down. Michael watched himself look past him, before turning around to speak to his passenger.
He spun around, stumbling over his own feet. There, just yards from where he stood was the dull grey stone building that caused him to slow down all those weeks ago. Back then, just as he did now, he felt the same oppressive vibe, coming from this place. He'd put that original feeling down to nerves, and promptly forgot about it. Now though, that sensation refused to shift. It wrapped itself around his body, like a cloak of despair. That terror of not being able to move a muscle was preferable to feeling like this.
Michael switched his gaze back to that car. Watching it speed up, then slow back down once it reached the next junction. The brake lights came on before it turned left, heading towards the town. This was their first visit here. He remembered parking the car by the side of the library before they walked, hand in hand, into the centre, looking for the estate agents.
So how the fuck had he woken up in the grounds of the bloody hotel? Michael didn't understand any of this, was he dreaming? Had he been dreaming and somehow sleepwalked four miles? No, that was too stupid to even contemplate.
What exactly what had happened to him? He sighed, of what was still happening to him continued to torment his mind. It stayed right on the surface, scratching away, burrowing through his fucking brain like a dog trying to dig up a bone. Michael felt like he was slowly losing his mind. He sat on the damp grass and put his hands back over his head. They felt right at home there, covering his hair, stopping that big, fat, horrible woman from slamming his axe into his skull.
He jerked his head up, his eyes catching the sun glinting in one of the top windows. Was that why he felt so vulnerable? After all, if it hadn't been for the feeling that concrete had been pumped into his body, that old bag wouldn't have stood a chance against him. Michael had no qualms about fighting women, especially ones coming at him with a big fucking axe.
Was this real? It certainly felt real enough. Then again, so did the last episode, right up to the point where he died. It came as a bit of a shock to him that right now, it didn't matter whether this was reality or just another product of his fevered imagination, he was going nowhere fast. All sitting here was achieving was a wet arse.
Michael pulled his arms away from his head, took one last look at that road beyond the hedgerow and slowly got to his feet. Both his knees cracked. He had to choke back a hysterical laugh at the sight of his axe lying in the grass. It wasn't there a moment ago. “sure, why not,” he murmured, reaching for the handle.
As soon as his fingers wrapped around the wooden shaft, he felt the world shifting again. Day became night, before becoming day again. He blinked, his eyes watering at the sky flickering like an old fashioned movie reel.
Michael stumbled, finding himself still on the grass, but the hedge was taller, and thick grey clouds hid any sign of the sun. He walked away from the hotel and leaned over the hedge, noticing the road was no longer tarmacked. The surface now reminded him of the car park in the museum. He stepped back when a light green saloon slowed down, before turning into the hotel's car park.
He'd seen that car before. At least one like it in the museum earlier. Michael watched a young couple leave the car and walk towards the open front door. His heart sped up when he saw that big, fat woman, stood on the doorstep, wearing a fake smile as well as another vile flowered dress.
She greeted the pair before stepping aside and ushering them inside. Michael groaned, just like he knew that the green car really was the same one that he'd seen in that museum, he also knew that those two would never breathe outside air ever again.
The world shifted again. The transition wasn't as violent this time, although he no longer had the soft grass to cushion his fall, the rough carpet now beneath his hard body gave him nothing but a few bruises.
“Here,” said a familiar voice. “You still might be needing this.”
He turned his head, frowning at the sight of Pamela Overton gingerly holding his axe by the base of the shaft. “Do I want to know what you are doing here? More to the point, where exactly am I?” Michael paused, he scanned the room and believed that he already knew the answer to the last part of his question. They were both standing in the hotel's reception room. The young couple who'd just climbed out of that green car, stood at the front desk. The young man bent over, signing the reception book as the fat woman looked on. The other woman looked around, her eyes scanned straight past him and Pamela as if they weren't there. The only other person in the room was a young boy sitting on an overturned metal bucket, behind the desk. Michael guessed that he was around eleven and judging from his bored expression, he wanted to be somewhere else.
“This is so weird,” she said. “I mean, I remember the torture. I remember everything that woman and her husband did to me, but I don't recall this moment.” Pamela walked over to the desk and peered up at the man. “God, those eyes. He used to say that he hated his eyes, saying they were too grey.” She looked at Michael. “Have you ever hear
d anything so silly?”
He didn't think it was silly at all. He didn't think that trilby on the man's head suited him, but he wasn't going to say anything.
“Wait, so you're her? That young girl, I mean, not that elephant looking at the man the way a drunk looks at a pizza?” Michael could see the top of the couple's car through the window by the door. What was to stop him from leaving right now? Taking the man's car keys and driving back to that farmhouse.
She nodded. “This happened over twenty years ago, Michael.”
“Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars,” he whispered.
“I was only twenty-three here.” She choked back a sob” Jesus, I was in the prime of my life. We were going to find a nice place to live, have kids and everything.”
Michael sighed. “What's your name, honey?”
Darleen,” she replied. Darleen Summers. My husband, Richard, is, was. three years older than me. We were on our way to visit his mother, up in Newcastle. It should have been an easy journey. It's only about four hours, as long as you stayed on the motorways. Neither of us took that knackered car of his into consideration. It was his pride and joy, you see. A 1962 Ford Consul Capri. He loved that car, almost as much as he loved me. Yeah well, to cut this short, the bloody thing broke down while passing a town close to this hotel. That should have been the end of it, you know? A quick phone call to the garage, and we could be on our way in a proper car while that heap of nuts and bolts stayed where it broke.”
He could see it now, just behind the girl's eyes. That masked annoyance. Michael also noticed how that fat woman's eyes never left that man's crotch. He felt a little sick, not wanting to know what she could be fantasising about. “Okay, so I'm getting it now. I'm here to stop this woman from murdering that couple?”
“Oh God. You can't go back in time, Michael. You're seeing something from fifteen years ago. That fat witch, and the rest of her family dined on me and Richard. You see that kid over there? He killed the woman. He's the one running this place now.” she stormed over to him. “He's the one who's going to do the same to your Jodie!”
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