The Hounded

by Simon Butters

  ‘In here,’ she ordered.

  Again, I was to obey. She led me to the small bathroom and pushed my head down into the hand basin. She was forceful, like she was bathing a dog. Hot water gushed over my scalp. I recoiled. The pain was searing.

  ‘Too hot?’

  Something in her voice made me think she already knew that. She turned on the cold tap to bring the temperature down a little. She washed my hair in punishing movements and my head bounced off the side of the basin more than once. I tried my best not to cry out, even when she struck me right on my black eye. I took her blows without complaint. I realised for some reason she needed to hurt me. I shouldn’t have come over. I deserved this. Eventually, her movements began to soften and I could feel her anger slip away. She tried to hold onto it, I could tell, but it drained out of her like the shampoo in the sink.

  ‘Bet that’s the first time in weeks you’ve washed,’ she muttered.

  The accusation held. She was right, but it had been more like months.

  ‘Sit here. And stay still.’

  Another order, but the intensity had gone out of it. Eliza placed a seat for me in front of her bathroom mirror and cut my hair. Her movements were fluid. She began to relax, unfettered by anger. She was somewhere else, I could tell. Her body was going through the motions, combing and cutting, but her mind had gone to that other place. I longed to go on that journey with her but I knew that was impossible. She suddenly looked up and our eyes connected in the mirror. She quickly finished up and grabbed a tube of face cream.

  ‘Wash your face with this. Every day. It’ll help with the pimples,’ she said bluntly.

  She tossed me the face cream and walked out to the bedroom. I had been cleansed. The haircut was good, stylish even. She knew what she was doing, that’s for sure. She was much better at it than I was. I washed my face with the pimple cream and could feel the tiny particles grind away the grease and oil from my skin. It was like rubbing popping candy on your face. I’d never had a feeling like it before. My face tingled with excitement and I could feel the zits scurry back in fear. Their days were numbered.

  ‘Thanks,’ I offered.

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘I mean it. Nobody’s ever done something like that for me before.’

  ‘Don’t get used to it. I’m not your mother.’

  ‘Have you met my mother?’ I joked.

  She hadn’t. Nobody from school ever came round to meet my mother. But she’d heard the stories. Everyone had. The woman from the ghost house was a local legend. She’d steal your babies and feed them to the house. And her son was a zombie. She’d taken his brain out as a child and kept it in a jar of jelly above the sink. That’s why he’s so mental. Of course, it was all just an urban myth. Still, I had to accept my own behaviour: if I were a normal, confident kid stories like that wouldn’t have taken hold. But I wasn’t any of those things. There was a soft, almost inaudible, knock on the door. Eliza instantly looked tense.

  ‘What do you want?’ Eliza snapped.

  The door opened a little and Eliza’s mother peered through the small gap, as if she was protecting herself from possible attack.

  ‘Your father’s home from work. He’d like your … friend to stay for dinner?’

  She phrased this almost as a question, hoping Eliza would accede to the request. The door softly closed and Eliza sat frozen, her eyes boring into the wall.

  ‘I should go,’ I told her, attempting to ease her mind.

  ‘No. He knows you’re here. He’ll want to meet you.’

  The table was laid like I’d never seen before. White linen. Silver cutlery. Matching china plates. Folded napkins. There was even a lit candle in the middle of it all. I never thought people actually ate like this. Busy sounds of electrical appliances whirled about in the kitchen. Rich aromas wafted through. The smells teased me, threatening my head to explode.

  I was placed next to Eliza who dutifully sat with eyes on her plate, saying nothing. Her father held court at the head of the table and placed himself under a simple wooden crucifix on the wall. The austerity in that house suddenly made sense: they were religious people. Eliza’s father wore a suit and tie and his light grey hair was neatly clipped. He had a broad smile papered to a crisply shaven face. He had the relaxed ease of a man in control of his domain. He appeared cheery enough, a bit like that doorbell. But his eyes never left me. I knew that meant trouble.

  ‘Doreen tells me you live in my street?’ he chimed amiably.

  His street? I thought. What did he mean, his street? Our house was the oldest living relic around. It was a fossil, sure, but age garners respect, right? If anything, this was my street, I thought.

  I simply nodded my head.

  ‘That’s great,’ he said. ‘So you two know each other from school?’

  He sat forward, hands on his chin, smiling. He certainly seemed interested in how we met. He gave me the impression he wanted to be friends. Yep, this meant trouble.

  I nodded again. He hadn’t yet asked me about my black eye. Neither of them did. I thought that was odd, as if they knew I had something to hide.

  ‘Strange. Elizabeth hasn’t spoken about you, Mont­gomery. Montgomery? That’s actually your name?’

  Again, all I could muster was a nod.

  ‘Am I meant to do all the talking here?’ he joked. ‘Come on, I like the name. I half thought of naming Elizabeth something extraordinary like that. Maybe Cleopatra? Or Clytemnestra? What do you think?’

  He eyed Eliza with this. She just gave him a cursory nod, as if she’d heard this type of good-natured jibe way too often. I smiled, thinking that’s what he expected of me.

  ‘What? You think that’s funny, Monty?’

  He was still smiling but I could see this was no longer a joke. He was goading me. I didn’t know what to do. Capitulation seemed like a safe option.

  ‘No sir,’ I said.

  He suddenly laughed, sounding overt and strained. It was a honking bellow that was way too loud in such close quarters. He was trying hard to appear sociable yet I could see the cracks seeping into his veneer. He made my skin crawl.

  ‘Sir? You don’t have to call me, sir! We’re not that formal here. Call me Derek,’ he said magnanimously.

  I simply nodded again, deferentially. Derek and Doreen? I thought. What wonderful symmetry. They were in tune, twins in alliteration. I wondered what our names would sound like together. Monty and Eliza? Eliza and Monty? Despite my hopes, we just didn’t sound right. We had no simple-sounding connection. Our names were discordant, as if we were not meant to be.

  The smells from the kitchen became more intense but I didn’t care, I wanted to get the hell out of there. Eliza’s mother entered carrying a platter with the biggest roast beef I’d ever seen. Roast potatoes and pumpkin surrounded it. She also laid out green vegetables and gravy that made my mouth water. I couldn’t take my eyes off the food. It was a revelation. Derek grabbed a long knife and sharpened it over the beef. The sound of the knife scraping backwards and forwards seared the air. The whole time, he stood grinning at me.

  He might be a middle-aged accountant but this man was one step away from slicing me up instead of that beef. He dissected the meat and the food was dispensed with precision timing. Eliza and her mother dutifully placed just the right amount of everything on each plate and passed them around the table. Maybe the good china and silverware didn’t come out all that often, but these people certainly ate formally every day of the week, that much was clear.

  ‘Monty was just agreeing with me Doreen,’ her father said. ‘I could have chosen a much better name for Elizabeth.’

  She smiled politely, looking at little confused.

  ‘Well, at least Eliza can thank you for being sensible Mrs Robertson,’ I offered.

  Silence.

  All of them stared at me, shocked. I had that out-of-body feeling again, unsure if what I’d just said was English, or some language thousands of years old. There was a clink of cutlery
and my strange outburst was seemingly forgotten.

  They said grace. I’d never said grace before, so I just watched and listened as they thanked God for allowing them to eat one of His cows along with some of His vegetables.

  I never thought much about a god. The idea struck me as absurd, really. After all, so many people from so many tribes had so many different gods. How could you tell if one was any better than the other? Most people grew up believing in the god their parents believed in, and that was enough for them. But what if you had a really stupid god?

  I recalled my history teacher. He told us a story about some Polynesian islands and their cargo cults. These Pacific tribes watched the white settlers sit around and do almost nothing to survive. They didn’t tend animals. They didn’t hunt. They didn’t even try to plant a crop. All they did was sit at a desk and pray to some strange box with a long wire hung out the door and, a few months later, a ship would come with all the cargo they needed to survive. Presents would be unloaded. Food. Timber. Furniture. Wine. Their prayers had been answered! Of course, those white folks were simply calling home on the telegraph line. But the tribal guys thought they must have talked to God. And God had sent them cargo. The weird thing is, this happened in loads of islands all around the same time. The islanders had no way to spread the idea of a cargo cult, it just happened simultaneously in every place where white people ordered stuff on the telegraph. So they worshiped cargo. I stared at the crucifix on the wall.

  ‘You appreciate the Word?’ Derek asked.

  ‘Huh? No, I was just thinking how stupid it was.’

  Eliza laughed, but caught herself and quickly passed the gravy. Derek stared at me coldly. I had made a fatal mistake. You don’t insult someone’s religion lightly, I knew. Wars had been fought for less.

  I ate the food quietly. Bile instantly rose in my throat but, each time it did, Eliza looked to me reassuringly. She understood what I was going through and her simple ­presence was enough for me to go on.

  The taste was all I hoped it would be. The beef was soft and salty, the potatoes were crisp on the outside and creamy in the middle, the gravy was thick and flavoursome. I’d never had a meal like this. Ever. It was the most I could ever remember eating yet, to look at my plate, you’d think I wasn’t hungry. I’d just taken one bite of each thing.

  ‘Don’t be shy. Eat up!’ Derek chimed.

  He really did sound like that doorbell. Perhaps he’d go out in the middle of the night to press it? He’d hum its ding-dong greeting over and over and mimic the sound, perfecting it. I could’ve sworn he appropriated that happy tone so he could disguise his own dark core.

  The bile rose again. A hunk of beef jagged in my throat. I knew I wouldn’t last the distance. I gagged. My face went all puffy. My eyes watered and I suddenly ran from the table, holding my mouth. I think my plate fell behind me as I left; the sound of broken china was accompanied my Mrs Robertson’s pained gasp. She loved her good china, I could tell.

  I vomited in the bathroom up the hall. All that fantastic food was washed away. I sat on the edge of the bath and held my head. Shame returned to chip away at me. I wanted to flush myself down that toilet too.

  I wanted to squeeze through the pipes, burrow deep underground, and take my rightful place with all the other excrement down there. Eventually, I’d be washed out to sea. Maybe I’d hit some swimmer in the eye, give him the fright of his life? Eliza knocked and came in.

  ‘Maybe you’re not ready. Maybe neither of us are,’ she said.

  She reached around the back of the vanity and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She turned on the bathroom fan to extract the smoke as she lit up. Eliza sat beside me on the edge of the bath, blowing the smoke up into the fan. She always looked so cool.

  ‘Your father’s a nice guy,’ I said, barely hiding my sarcasm.

  ‘I told them you’ve been feeling sick,’ she explained.

  I had failed her. Again. I just wanted to run and hide.

  ‘It’s getting dark,’ she said. ‘You can go now.’

  I was almost at the front door when Eliza’s father appeared, coming at me from the shadows. He stood in front of me and blocked my escape. I turned to look for witnesses to the beating I was about to receive. There were none. Eliza had gone back to her room, and her mother was in the kitchen, attempting to glue her china back together.

  ‘I don’t like you,’ he snorted.

  His doorbell chime had evaporated and all that was left was raw animal instinct. I tried not to show fear. I tried not to run. Still, he could sense I was afraid.

  ‘You’re a rude boy,’ he said. ‘You come into my house. You eat at my table. I want you to show me some respect!’

  He was trying to keep his voice down but his venom was clear.

  ‘Doreen’s very upset,’ he muttered.

  ‘I didn’t mean to break the plate,’ I whispered.

  ‘This isn’t about the damn plate!’

  He looked exasperated with me now and sighed. He wiped back his clipped hair, attempting to calm himself. As his hand rustled through that low-clipped hedge, hot sparks of electricity leapt off his scalp, like angry little lightning bolts.

  ‘Doreen isn’t Mrs Robertson. Do you understand? Elizabeth’s mother died two years ago.’

  His eyes were thin points. There were so many emotions in there, all hidden, but grief didn’t seem to be one of them.

  ‘Cancer is a terrible thing, Monty. It makes your body waste away. The pain is excruciating to watch. It was a very hard time for us. But you have to live life. You have to move on. Doreen’s been very good to me.’

  I was a total idiot. My wise crack about Eliza’s mother, calling her daughter Elizabeth, would have come across quite the insult. It all made sense. The framed pictures in the hall were all recent. There wasn’t a single picture of Eliza as a child. Some small part of Eliza’s pain was revealed to me then. She was incapable of telling me this herself. She’d left it up to her father.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘What was her name?’

  I don’t know why I asked this, but it suddenly seemed very important. Derek looked at me as if I was truly an imbecile. He shook his head, perturbed by my insolence.

  ‘Rose.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Dog!’ I howled at the night.

  ‘Dog!’

  The backyard was empty of life. The bramble of roses hid many shadows. I peered in but could only see blackness. Nothing resembled the creature. I pushed my way through, hunting, clawing through the thorns.

  I’d never felt this kind of rage before and the energy that rushed through me was intoxicating. It was more nourishing than any food. I quickly found myself in the middle of that thick undergrowth. Thorns stuck my skin. My arms bled. My scalp dripped with blood. I scrambled all the way to the deepest core of that bramble but found nothing. I looked out through that twisted vine, to the world beyond. I was the shadow creature now.

  ‘Coward,’ I muttered.

  It had known all about Eliza’s mother.

  Alias: @The Full Monty

  Date: Tuesday April 15, 4.13AM

  Have you ever killed anything before?

  @Gutentag

  I was of wondering when you would have the courage.

  @The Full Monty

  Stop fooling with me. Just answer the question.

  @Gutentag

  I am for disagreement. You are the fool being.

  @The Full Monty

  Very funny. So, have you ever killed anything?

  @Gutentag

  Only one thing.

  @The Full Monty

  Yes?

  @Gutentag

  It was nothing. A dream.

  @The Full Monty

  Tell me!!!

  @Gutentag

  You.

  *

  I started the chainsaw. It filled the crisp morning air with rage. The sound was deafening, liberating too. I revved it hard. The mechanical roar gave perfect voice to my fury.

/>   We had had this old chainsaw for years. My father used it to cut wood for the fireplace when I was a kid. These days, we’d all forgotten the comfort of an open fire and just slipped on an extra jumper to protect from the winter chill. The old chainsaw hadn’t been started in a very long time. After countless, frustrated pulls on that ripcord, the frightening machine had suddenly roared back into life. Resurrected, I guess.

  I took to the roses. I cut. I sliced. I chopped and hacked them down until there was nothing left but a line of dull grey stumps. I found no dog. The murder lust left me.

  I looked deeper and realised the roses were originally planted in rows. There, like an archeological dig, was evidence that someone had once loved those roses. That dark bramble was once a neat promenade of colour. It was once a place of order and joy, a place where lovers strolled arm in arm. I killed the chainsaw and kicked at the stumps. They were surprisingly easy to dislodge. It was done.

  I turned towards the house and saw my mother watching me, her mouth open in horror. Scared, I guess. What did she think? That I’d take to her next, and hack her to pieces with that chainsaw? It would be a fitting revenge, I thought. After all, I could plead my case to the courts. I was a poor only child, I’d tell the judge. I was malnourished and left to fend for myself fighting over bin scraps with the local sewer rats. The court would understand. The verdict would be simple. They’d place me in a nice foster home and I’d have all the food and kindness I could desire.

  My mother turned away and disappeared inside. I put the chainsaw down and followed. I found her in the lounge and sat in front of her. She had no choice but to see me.

  ‘I tried to kill something,’ I told her.

  She sucked in her smoke and disengaged. Her perpetual meditation removed the world from her sight. It washed away the pain of existence. All that was left was the inhalation, the exhalation. I wanted to feel that pain for her. I wanted to understand what it was that hurt so much. But her feelings were elusive as that smoke.

  ‘Did you find it?’ she asked.

  She was there after all. Excitement rushed through me.