by William Cook
She tidied up the room as best she could, finding her clothes in a cupboard next to the bench beneath the steps. They were sitting neatly folded on top of a pile of similarly stacked clothes in a box. Cassandra’s hands trembled as she pulled her clothes on over her bruised and battered body. The stack of clothes in the box numbered many, as did the contents of the box that sat in the shadows behind the first one. She knew that the bodies in the freezer were few compared to the real body count left behind by the Creep. She pocketed the small automatic pistol and smoothed the cover of the cot bed before climbing the steps once again.
In the kitchen, Cassandra helped herself to a bowl of cereal and some yoghurt she found in the fridge. She ate ravenously and before long could eat no more as her shrunken belly filled to capacity. She took a glass from the pantry and drank three cups of tap water before carefully sitting on a stool at the breakfast bar. The adrenaline dissipated as her hunger faded, and it hurt when she sat down as the pain returned to the various junctures that covered her bodies in welts and wounds. A desktop calendar sat next to the empty fruit bowl on the counter. She looked at the clock on the kitchen wall and noted the date before checking the calendar once again. A sob broke from her parched lips as her emotions spilled out along with the tears that had been waiting to come for so long. She had left her family home two weeks ago to the day, sitting in the back of the creep’s cab, thinking she was on her way to the airport.
The calendar had a series of pen marks and notes indicating ‘away’, ‘return’ and ‘party.’ Cassandra’s rage began to escalate as she realized the implications of what she was reading. Three more days and the Creep would return home from wherever the fuck it was that he had gone. Three more days and the Creep would return to ‘party’ and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what he intended to do to her. Her heart leapt in her mouth as a solid thump came from beneath her feet, and then another as Caligula threw himself against the steel door in the cellar below. The thumps were shortly followed by a series of whimpers, as the dog seemed to understand the futility of his failed escape attempt. She noticed the large feeder in the corner of the kitchen and understood how the dog had remained on its own in the house for so long. She wondered how many of the other girls lay afraid in the darkness of the cellar below as they listened to the beast padding about in the house above them. She considered dumping the remains of the trash-bin-sized feeder into the cellar for the dog but thought better of it. Cassandra looked at the phone on the wall and seriously considered calling her father to come and get her. She thought about ringing the police but she knew that she couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she’d done what she had decided to do.
Three days passed slowly and Cassandra made full use of the Creep’s house and supplies. She drank an expensive bottle of Moet she found in the drinks cabinet, she watched all the expensive pay-per-view channels she wanted, she ran the hot water down the drain for hours on end. These were small, juvenile things to do, but it filled in the time and made her feel better as she waited for the inevitable return of the Creep. On the second day she discovered the false bottom in the bureau drawers in the master bedroom. Another steel briefcase, much like the one that held the stun-gun she now religiously carried, lay in the hidden space. She pulled it with effort from the bureau and set it on the king-size bed. After retrieving a large knife from the kitchen she managed to jimmy the locks and raised the lid. Cassandra blinked, having never seen that much money before in her young life. The briefcase was lined with wads of cash, she counted one bundle and realized there must be thousands of dollars along with the handfuls of gold jewelry stuffed into the pocket in the lid. Under the cash she found the creep’s journal and on the back page she found the list of names along with the locations and addresses of the young women he had butchered. She counted to twenty and had to stop as tears flowed freely down her bruised cheeks. The enormity of her situation and the girls’ that had gone before her, hit home as an inescapable black cloud of sadness seemed to envelope her. She checked the pistol in her pocket and smoothed the bed-cover before hefting the briefcase out of the bedroom and to the backdoor. The sun had dropped behind the row of trees that bordered the rear section and night crept across the lawn towards the house. She waited a few more minutes until the shadows of the evening dulled the day’s harsh light and then opened the door.
The smell of the grass and the cool air on her skin made her feel better than she had felt in a long while. She relished the soft touch of the lawn on the soles of her small feet as she crossed the lawn while the night closed in around her. The lower branches of the conifers caressed her shoulders as she walked beneath the trees. A clump of bushes behind one of the trees provided cover as she secreted the briefcase underneath, throwing handfuls of leaves and plant debris on top for good measure. As she returned to the rear entrance of the house she paused in the middle of the lawn and looked up at the night sky, now resplendent with a scattering of stars, as she took a deep breath of the fresh air. She had no idea what time the Creep would return, or even if he would return, and she decided that if he didn’t show tomorrow she would call her father and tell him everything.
She went through a mental checklist in her mind as she prepared for the return of the creep. The house was exactly as she had found it when she had escaped from the cellar, minus a bottle of expensive booze and the briefcase filled with cash now hidden securely in the tress behind the house. She had spent the afternoon removing all traces of her presence in the house and now she needed to rest. She went inside and locked the door behind her before lying down in the makeshift bed she had made in the bottom of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom. She left the door open a crack and listened for the dog below. Earlier that afternoon she had heard Caligula’s furious barking as the dog seemed to grow more enraged with each passing hour. He had stopped pounding the door between the cellar steps and the furnace room but she could tell he was pacing back and forwards in the dark, as his barking travelled from one side of the house to the other. She prayed the dog would shut up and eventually he did. She wondered if he had died of hunger and hoped that it would still be alive. She loved animals and hated part of herself for what she had done to Caligula, but she knew if she hadn’t that she would be the one who would be dead. She tried to shut her mind off as she wished for sleep but most of all she wished that things would work out and that she would wake before the Creep returned.
The trundling rattle of the garage door awoke her. She listened in the shadows of the wardrobe as the Creep slammed the door of his cab. She flicked the safety off and pulled the short shaft of the automatic, chambering a round, as her father had shown her how on the firing range. She heard the internal garage door slam as the Creep’s footsteps tapped across the kitchen tiles. A burst of laughter filled the other end of the house as something made the Creep laugh out loud.
Fucking psycho, she thought, as she readied herself and peered from the crack in the door.
“Honeeeyyyy, I’m home,” called the Creep in a sing-song voice.
“I’ve come to PAAAAARRRRRR-TAY!”
She heard him throw his suitcase on the floor in the living room with a thud and then the dog began to bark in the cellar below. She watched him pass the doorway to the spare bedroom as he removed his trousers, a slightly confused look on his face. A whistle rang out as he called the dog.
“Caligula!” he shouted. “Caligula! CALIGULA!” as the dog continued to bark below.
Cassandra heard him enter the master bedroom and the trapdoor slap the carpet as he opened the hatch. She exited the wardrobe and headed out into the hallway, the automatic raised in front of her as she prepared to turn into the doorway of the main bedroom. She hesitated for a minute, quickly running through her plan in her buzzing mind. Ideally, she wanted the Creep in the main section of the cellar where she had been held captive so she could lock him in with his crazy dog. There was no way he could escape, once he was behind the industrial-strength steel door that separated the small room at th
e foot of the cellar stairs from the larger furnace room. She drew a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart. She could just slam the trapdoor shut and pile heavy furniture on top of it but then she remembered all the tools he kept down there and knew that he would more than likely escape. She steadied the pistol and reassured herself that she had the upper hand; she was armed, had the element of surprise, and she could now hear soft foot-falls as he made his way down the stairs. The dog started barking again, this time sounding enraged beyond measure, and she knew that it was now or never. If he opened the door and let the dog go, she knew that it would end terribly. With one last breath she steadied the pistol in front of her and entered the master bedroom. The cellar entrance gaped darkly in the carpeted floor. Cassandra crouched slightly and approached the trapdoor; she could hear the furious scratching and growling as Caligula ripped at the steel door in the cellar below. She leveled the firearm at the hole in front of her and prepared to enter, unable to see the Creep below from the angle where she stood.
Cassandra turned as the Creep launched his naked body at her from behind the bedroom door, knocking the wind out of her and sending her tumbling backwards towards the hole in the floor, the pistol flying uselessly over her head and bouncing off the bedroom wall and onto the bed. As she fell through the hatch opening, for a split-second she saw the Creep loom above her, his face a twisted mask of hate, teeth bared and veins standing out in his neck as did the angry red erection lunging from his groin. She hit the top step with her foot and managed to pirouette and sort of hop, skip and pounce, down the remaining steps before clumsily landing on the cot-bed below. The Creep flew down the steps above her and landed square on his feet, his balls nearly slapping the concrete as he squatted with the force of his landing. Cassandra catapulted herself off the end of the bed and dove between the staircase and the concrete wall, cowering behind the stairs as she watched the Creep approach from the other side.
“Come here little Piggy,” he whispered between his clenched teeth.
She backed as far into the shadowed corner as she could, losing her footing briefly as she tripped over the box of clothes that she had left on the floor previously. He lunged forward and tried to grab her, spit bubbles frothing at the corners of his smiling mouth. She managed to kick out and caught him in the knee with a square hit.
“You fucking CUNT!” he spat at her.
“I’m gonna cut you all the way up the middle you little bitch. I’m gonna make you suffffffferrrrrr . . .” he continued, as he slowly stalked her.
She could smell his bad breath and body odor envelope her as he inched closer and then she remembered. As his clawed hand gripped her thin neck, her searching fingers closed around the thing in her jacket pocket. As his other hand groped between her legs she rammed the stun-gun directly into his face and depressed the trigger. Blood burst from his broken nose and a strangled scream escaped his lips before he arched his back. She followed him to the ground, mashing the sharp steel tips of the stun-gun into his sizzling face. Blue sparks blistered his skin as she ground the weapon deep in his flesh, the crackle of the gun echoing off the cellar walls. His body convulsed on the ground beneath the stairs, his feet kicking the box of clothes across the floor, as she shoved the stun-gun with all her strength into his twitching groin. No sound escaped his lips this time and the smell of cauterized flesh stopped her violent attack as quickly as it had started.
Cassandra backed away from the Creep; she saw the rise and fall of his bloodied chest and quickly swallowed her fear and fatigue. She crossed the room and leant against the furnace-room door where Caligula scratched and growled. She opened the door and pushed her weight against it as the dog leaped for the gap, the frothing muzzle moved up and down the crack in the door, teeth scraping against the doorframe and spittle flying everywhere. The door pushed against her and her feet began to slip as the dog launched itself at it again, its solid head pummeling the exterior as it tried to gain entry. Seizing the opportunity, she swung the stun-gun towards the gap as the dogs’ muzzle broke through, the arc of blue electricity shooting from the twin steel tips of the gun and blanching the beast’s wet black nose. It was as if someone had switched the dog off, as it slid down the doorframe, a slight convulsion shimmying it into an unconscious heap on the floor.
She opened the door wide and dragged the dog into the dark corridor before doing the same with the twitching body of the Creep. She restrained herself from killing them both then and there; from smashing their skulls in with a hammer, or hacking their heads off with one of the sharp knives that hung on the pegboard in the cupboard. Instead, Cassandra vomited the meager contents of her stomach onto the floor before backing out of the furnace-room. She didn’t bother looking at the naked and bloody Creep, lying next to the massive Rottweiler who was nearly the same size as its deranged master. Instead, she secured the bolt in the door with a large padlock and lay down on the cot before falling into a deep, exhausted sleep, dreaming of nothing but blackness.
The sounds of Caligula barking and the Creep screaming terrible screams woke her, as the dog fed for the first time in three long days. She waited until the final screams had dwindled to the muffled noise of the dog growling, as it muzzled its way deep inside the wound in its master’s eviscerated gut. She emptied paint and turpentine over the cupboards and the cot-bed before climbing the cellar steps for the final time. She took the candles that she had found in the pantry out from under the cushion on the sofa where she hid them earlier. She arranged them down the hallway and in the living room before heading out the back door and retrieving the briefcase from the trees. She locked the back door and then began lighting all the candles that she’d carefully placed around the house. She checked the tape around the windows that she’d secured the day before and turned on all of the gas hobs on the stove in the kitchen. She picked up the set of car keys sitting on the bench.
Closing the garage door behind her, she pressed the automatic garage door opener and put the briefcase in the passenger’s seat of the cab. The cab was a brand new Lincoln Town Car and she figured the Creep must’ve bought it on his recent travels. She turned the key in the ignition and the engine purred to life. As she drove down the long tree-lined driveway, she took a look in the rear-view mirror at the plain-looking house as it sat there against the trees. She slowed at the driveway exit and wondered whether she should’ve called her father, or at least rang the cops. Glancing down at the briefcase on the seat next to her, she knew that she would not be able to do what she was committed to do if she had picked up the phone.
She had decided she would fly somewhere far away – somewhere sunny and remote and she would buy a stack of envelopes and stamps at the airport stationary store. She would have a holiday until the visible scars had vanished and she would spend that time going through the Creep’s journal, writing names and addresses on the stamped envelopes, stuffing them full of equal shares of the thousands of dollars in the briefcase at her side, and she would drink a toast to all of them with the most expensive Moet the Creep’s money could buy. And with that thought, she stepped on the gas and steered the cab towards the interstate highway. She felt good for the first time in a while. She knew her dad would be upset when she told him that University wasn’t for her, but she knew that she would make him smile when she told him that she had decided to embark on a career in law enforcement instead. Her bruises were nearly gone now but she knew that some of her wounds would never heal. As she entered the flow of highway traffic, behind her in the leafy suburbs the Creep’s house seemed to swell at the front, almost bulge, as the gas reached the nearest candle and exploded in a massive ball of flame. The billowing smoke drifted high into the blue sky, as if climbing its way to the heavens, the flames twisting and turning in the inferno below.
The Pale Stranger
Harper felt like shit. His throat was dust-dry. His hair was falling out in clumps and the wounds that covered his shoulders and neck, festered and pulsed with each shallow breath he took. His m
uscles and bones ached as he pulled himself up to a sitting position. For a brief moment he thought about his wife and children, fast asleep in the comfort of their own beds in their apartment. His hunched back rasped against the rough brick wall as he coughed a mist spray of blood from between his broken teeth. He felt bad, really bad, and he knew he was beyond human help and that his once comfortable existence was no longer a reality.
His eyes ached as his vision adjusted to the darkness of the deep alley-way. Three days he’d slept in the bottom of a dumpster, covered in the filthy residue of human waste, hidden from the harsh sunlight that burned his skin and blinded him with its ferocious glare. Three nights he’d ventured from his hiding place to prowl the alley – despite feeling hopelessly lost with the madness that filled his fevered brain, a new instinct kept him from heading out onto the street, wary of the bustling throng of late night revelers and night-stick-swinging beat cops.
He missed his wife and kids but there was no way he was going to let them see him like he was. A small part of him held onto the faint hope that he would recover. That things would improve – that he would be able to change and become the man he once was not so long before now. In his heart of hearts, Harper knew that his life was beyond repair. The gnawing hunger that filled his every waking moment had nearly consumed him. He was thirsty.
The animal that had attacked him had left him for dead: bleeding and broken, a husk of a man. He’d been on a week-long bender before it happened and had exhausted all means of procuring alcohol and crystal meth. With no job, no home, no friends and no money – he hit rock bottom. When the tall man offered him one-hundred-dollars for “a moment of his time,” Harper’s addled mind provided no logical reason why he shouldn’t go with the pale stranger. He’d met some weirdos in his time. Hell, he’d even sucked dick for cash, but he’d never been this desperate before. He had a thirst that wouldn’t quit and all he knew was this suit was going to give him the green to chase his demons. And so he’d followed him into the alley and that was all he could remember.