HOPE . . . because that's all there ever is.

by James Crow

  ‘Not if it catches me first.’

  The door opened an inch. A bloodshot eye stared out, flicked from Rose to the girl and back again. Rose didn’t wait for an invitation, she pushed on in, pulled the girl inside, closed the door. Whittle, in vest and shorts, a tea towel over one shoulder, an artist’s paintbrush tipped with red paint in one hand, looked sweaty, red-skinned, wore a half-smile that twitched. He eyed the girl up and down in a way that Rose didn’t like. She got straight to the point, ‘I need to borrow your car. Urgently.’

  ‘My car?’ Whittle licked his lips. ‘I don’t have a car.’

  Rose’s heart sank into her wet boots.

  ‘That’s you,’ the girl said. Behind Whittle was the carving he’d shown Rose the beginnings of the day before. Life-sized: a bloodied wooden post with a naked man sitting on top, real rocks tied to his ankles with rope, the man’s face agonised. It looked like Whittle.

  ‘Ah, I could not sleep. I’ve been up all night finishing the thing. I was just adding the final touches.’ Whittle brandished the red-tipped paintbrush. ‘Although perhaps it is not the best thing for a young lady’s eyes.’ He pulled the tartan throw from the back of the sofa and slung it over the carving. Only the carved legs and the hanging rocks remained visible. ‘You are both soaking wet. What is so urgent and who is your pretty young friend?’ Whittle shrugged on his bathrobe and tied it loosely.

  ‘I’m Bethany Black,’ the girl said, ‘as you well know.’

  Whittle looked away at this, then to Rose, before his eyes shot back to Bethany. ‘It’s good to meet you, Bethany. I’m Derek – Derek Whittle.’

  Rose thought about his bricks, about what the girl might be seeing.

  ‘Many shades of purple,’ the girl answered her thought, ‘with occasional lonely peach-coloured ones, that soon blaze into reds and blues . . . and then back to purple.’

  Whittle chuckled at this, ‘Very poetic,’ he said, looking both puzzled and . . . guilty was the word that came to Rose’s mind.

  ‘We need a car,’ Rose repeated, ‘it seems . . . it seems . . .’ But Whittle wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at the cup in Bethany’s hands, ‘. . . the site manager . . . he, well, I found a spy camera, in the smoke alarm, he fitted it yesterday, in the bedroom . . . I wonder if –’

  ‘A camera you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rose said. ‘My guess is there’s also one in yours. The site manager is a pervert, Mr Whittle.’

  ‘Derek, please.’

  ‘Derek, yes. As soon as I found the camera, I packed the car to leave and discovered two flat tyres, punctured with a knife.’

  ‘Really? You are joking?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘And the girl? What’s that you’ve got there, my dear?’

  Bethany stepped forward and showed him the cup. He looked inside, took a step back.

  ‘It’s a lucky cup, but not lucky for everyone.’ Bethany returned to Rose’s side.

  ‘It’s not just the camera in the smoke alarm and the flat tyres, Derek. It’s . . . the other cabins. I’ve seen. . .’ Rose wasn’t sure how much to divulge. Whittle had a leer about him, like a wolf salivating over a lamb. ‘We need to go. Sorry to have disturbed you. Come on, Bethany.’

  ‘Wait!’ Whittle stumbled around the sofa, went quickly to the big window, and drew back the curtain to rain so thick it looked white. ‘Look at it out there. At least wait until the rain stops. Let us get the girl out of her wet dress and I’ll get us all a brandy.’

  A clatter from the kitchen spun Whittle around. One of the dining chairs had fallen to the tiled floor.

  Rose gasped, and so did Whittle.

  ‘She’s here,’ Bethany said.

  ‘Who is here?’ Whittle glanced around the room.

  ‘The wood spirit.’

  A creaking sound. The rocks hanging from the wooden man’s ankles were swaying in their rope cradles. Whittle backed away from the carving. ‘What in God’s name?’ He looked to the girl.

  ‘It’s Elizabeth. I can feel her mind. She can feel yours. She knows you as I do.’

  The swaying rocks came to a sudden stop and the tartan throw slid to the floor. Whittle whimpered and sidestepped around the sofa. ‘You know me? That is not possible. This child is clearly not thinking straight.’

  Whittle had a point, Rose thought over her thudding heart. And anyway, who the hell was Elizabeth?

  Elizabeth is the wood spirit’s name, Rose.

  Rose startled. The girl’s voice was inside her head, loud and clear. Jesus!

  Sorry, Rose.

  ‘Not thinking straight,’ Whittle repeated. He dabbed his face with the tea towel from his shoulder.

  ‘We can’t stop here,’ the girl said, ‘this isn’t a good place to be.’

  Rose knew she was right.

  ‘I can see what he’s done, the bad things in his past, and I can see the things he wants to do to me.’

  Whittle stared at the girl, a mix of fear and lust on his sweaty face.

  The picture frame on the wall above the fireplace popped off its hanger to the floor with a crack and a tinkle of glass. Rose yelped, so did Whittle.

  ‘Elizabeth does not like him,’ Bethany said.

  ‘And she’s here?’ Rose felt the hairs on her neck bristle.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘She’s faint – like a ghost – and she’s right behind Carl.’

  ‘Carl?’

  ‘That’s his real name. Elizabeth is sucking his bricks.’

  Whittle dropped the paintbrush, ran his hands through his hair, wiped them on his bathrobe.

  Rose still suspected she might wake from a Valdoxan-induced nightmare any second. ‘We’ll be on our way. Come on, Bethany.’

  A sudden scraping sound and the fallen chair slid through from the kitchen area. Rose moved out of the way, taking Bethany with her. The chair bumped up onto the carpet and righted itself at Whittle’s feet.

  ‘Elizabeth wants you to sit down and . . .’ Beth looked to the ceiling, nodded, then finished the message, ‘and shut your filthy mouth.’

  ‘Holy Mother of God.’ Whittle kicked the chair over, crossed himself and muttered a prayer.

  We need to get out of here, Bethy, Rose thought.

  That’s nice.

  Nice?

  You called me Bethy.

  2

  Hauntingly beautiful: the rousing crescendo of Ravel’s Bolero punctuated with cannon-blasts of wall-shuddering thunder, while kneeling thigh to thigh with your blood and sweat-soaked lover. Oh, yes, so hauntingly beautiful.

  ‘Oh, Bobby, why have we never done this before?’

  As the track started up again, Bob pulled Caro’s slick body close to his and, still on their knees, they writhed together in oily smoothness, bite wounds burning; together they kissed and nibbled, Bob’s stiff-as-steel cock trapped tight between her legs.

  Bob pushed his fingers through her matted hair, gently kissed his lips to her eyelid, to her precious cheek, scraped his teeth down her shivering neck. ‘Where now, Caro?’

  ‘You choose, Bobby love. You choose.’

  Her hands were in his hair now, guiding him, the taste of her blood a fiery soup. His mouth paused at her nipple, his teeth tugged hard, then broke through skin and flesh. She threw into spasm, cried a melancholy cry, and she held him there by the head, panting, nails opening his scalp. ‘Stand up,’ she breathed, releasing his head from her grasp.

  Bob chewed, swallowed, and as he got up to his feet, Carol shuffled forward on her knees, took hold of his cock in both hands, kissed it, gave it a hard suck. Bob moaned, his hands on her head. She ran her tongue down the length of him, pressed her lips to his balls, kissed there and there and there. When Bolero’s crescendo rose once more, she sucked the skin of his ball sac into her mouth. When the first cymbal crash came, she bit through.

  Bob’s legs almost went from under him. She pulled away, slowly chewed, swallowed, spat blood to the floor. She placed
a hand to his waist, steadied him. Bob closed his eyes to the pain, winced when she touched the small hole, grunted when she stroked it, shuddered when she pressed her lips against it, cried out for sweet mercy when she pushed her tongue inside.

  The hand at his waist took his hand, found the open wound on her breast; she gripped his index finger and forced it through the opening.

  Bob couldn’t remember breaking free; his head was spinning, but he had broke free, blood from his balls dripping to the floor. And now Caro was telling him to bite her a new hole, one big enough to screw. ‘What a crazy high that would be, eh Bobby?’

  ‘But where, Caro? Where would be safe?’

  ‘Could you bite through my chest, Bobby love? You know, close to my heart, so close you can feel my heart beating against your cock.’

  Her hands were wrapped around his cock. A cock so hard, so tight with blood. She sucked the end into her mouth. Bob pushed into her throat, fucked it a little. ‘It would need to be a big hole, Caro.’

  She pulled her mouth free, kissed the end of his glistening cock. ‘Do it, Bobby. Bite yourself a hole and fuck your lover’s heart.’

  Bob pulled Caro to her feet, licked her bleeding breast.

  Caro moaned. Moaned again as his teeth found flesh.

  Screamed as his teeth bit through.

  A low roll of thunder, the patter of rain.

  A knock on the door.

  Both of them looked up, stared towards it and the knocking came again.

  ‘It’s me. Pete. Is everything all right in there?’

  Bolero reached its end.

  The door handle rattled.

  ‘We’re okay!’ Bob shouted.

  ‘I need to see proof of that. I heard someone scream. You could be under duress in there, aye.’

  Bolero started up again.

  ‘Duress?’ Carol hissed. ‘Get rid of him, Bobby.’ She kissed his bloody lips, disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door.

  Knocking again. ‘Sir? Are you under duress, sir?’

  Bob threw his bathrobe on and tied the belt. He went to the door, holding an arm over the tent pole in his robe, slid the bolt free, opened it an inch. The site manager’s grinning face was right up to the gap. ‘We’re fine,’ Bob said. ‘Just, you know, having some fun.’

  Bob registered that the man had no coat, that the decorative patterns on his soaked-through white shirt were blood sprays and not some fancy design, but he wasn’t quick enough to close the door. The halfwit barged in and Bob’s backside hit the floor, his hard on springing free.

  ‘I’m Pete, did I tell you that?’ The man offered his hand. Bob took it, was pulled effortlessly to his feet.

  ‘We’re okay here. Everything’s okay,’ Bob said, covering himself up.

  ‘You don’t look okay.’

  The fool was eyeing the blood on Bob’s face, his chest, legs, the floor. Blood everywhere.

  ‘Just having fun,’ Bob said again, backing off a double-step, adrenaline pumping, right fist clenching. Never a fighter, but Bob felt empowered; he guessed eating your lover kind of upped your game a smidgeon.

  ‘I’m here to save you,’ the halfwit said with a smile, rainwater pooling at his boots.

  ‘We don’t need saving, thanks.’

  ‘You need saving, all right.’ He reached behind his back and pulled out a two-foot long blade. ‘You know what this is, aye?’

  Bob knew what a machete was. He took another step back, raised his hands.

  ‘It’s your fucking saviour.’ The halfwit laughed, looked to the rug on the floor between them, to the patches of blood. ‘Where’s the girl?’

  ‘In bed, and she’s fine . . . aren’t you fine, love?’

  The bedroom door cracked open, Carol’s face appeared.

  ‘Not that old hag, the little girl, the one you lust after.’

  Bob’s fist swung. The halfwit was quick, blocked the swing and grabbed Bob’s wrist. His grip was strong. Bob’s mind blazed.

  The halfwit laughed, raised the machete.

  ‘Please! No!’

  ‘Please?’ Saliva ran over the halfwit’s lip. His grip on Bob’s wrist tightened.

  Bolero raised its tempo. Carol begging, sobbing, Leave my Bobby alone. Rain gusted through the open door, lightning blinked and thunder immediately followed. Bob’s hand was turning purple under the halfwit’s crushing grip. The halfwit’s hand was draining of colour, from red to grey to black, skin crinkled into lines. Unseen fingernails pushed into Bob’s flesh – a searing pain.

  ‘Can you feel me?’ the halfwit grinned. A tug and Bob’s wrist was free.

  To see his own hand impaled on a huge claw, to see two funnels of blood, spurting from the stump of his wrist, framing the halfwit in a crimson V, to feel the cold blue pain, was enough to drop Bobby to his knees and bring him a vision of his mother’s smile, along with the realisation that death was imminent.

  The halfwit’s ungodly claw gave a flick and Bob’s severed hand shot free, flopped against Bob’s chest and dropped to the floor. In a whirr, the machete left the halfwit’s hand, spun through the air and smashed into the CD player. Ravel was replaced by hysterical gasping: Carol, retching for breath, begging to be left alone; a blur of white shirt and flame-red hair and Carol screamed.

  Bob wanted to make eggs for Caro. He made it to the sofa on his knees, pulled himself against it – don’t fall, don’t pass out – Caro, Caro. She screamed for him, screamed for him to help her. Caro. The walls leaned this way and that way, and the blood was leaving Bob’s wrist at an alarming rate, blood that spray-painted the sofa and the floor. Bob edged forward the extra inch needed to see into the bedroom. The halfwit had his back to him, facing Caro on the bed, Caro’s legs splayed wide, Caro screaming, Caro’s legs jumping; an eruption of blood and flesh hit the ceiling. Caro’s legs went still.

  Laughter now, coming from deep within, a last laugh, a death laugh – Bob knows this – no more to come. His body shivers with it, bloody vomit flies from his mouth. He sinks against the sofa, slides to the floor. Someone appears in the doorway: a small and beautiful angel, Bethany, sweet Bethany in her yellow dress, come to love him with her smile; a smile feels sad when your life ebbs. She steps inside, dragging one foot behind her. In her hand, a pick, its curved metal head glistening with rainwater. Bob thinks that despite his life blood leaking from his wrist and the hole in his balls, it’s quite a miracle that his cock is still standing proud, and quite the turn-on that the girl is staring at it.

  Lightning flashes, framing the beautiful girl, a gift from Heaven.

  She comes towards him, dragging that foot, raising the pick.

  ‘I love you,’ Bob says, and the pick comes down.

  3

  A far-off scream had them all looking to the window when the lightning struck. The brilliant blue thunderbolt was so close, its bang so loud, the force of it shattered the big front window and threw Rose and Beth to the floor.

  ‘My God,’ Whittle was getting to his feet, pieces of glass dropping from his robe. The lightning had struck the silver birch, its middle was aflame.

  Still clutching the lucky cup, Beth got to her feet, helped Rose up.

  ‘A sign from above,’ Whittle said. He backed up to the door, their exit now blocked, his eyes fixed on Bethany.

  ‘A sign of your demise, I should think,’ Bethany said.

  Rose wanted to shush her, but couldn’t. Rose wanted to ask Whittle why he’d lied about his name, but couldn’t. Rose wanted to wake the fuck up, but knew she wouldn’t.

  ‘It’s all right, Rose.’ Bethany passed her the lucky cup and she gladly took it. The eye inside looked wet, alive. Rainwater, of course. ‘Carl thinks you should go now,’ the girl said, ‘and leave me here with him.’

  Whittle’s eyes flashed between the pair. ‘Yes, you should go, leave the girl with me.’

  If they made for the door, he would stop them. His stance was tense, ready to pounce, to grab, and the thought of him grabbing Beth made Rose fee
l sick.

  A splitting crack from outside, followed by a whoosh of branches as the birch’s flaming middle gave way and the top half of the tree fell across the pathway with a wumph and a shower of sparks that steamed as the rain extinguished them.

  ‘This is a predicament, Rose,’ Beth said. ‘He’s a strong man, with a strong grip. He likes to hurt people, especially children. Boy or girl, he’s not fussy.’

  ‘Must you think out loud, Bethany?’

  ‘I prefer Beth, or I do like Bethy.’

  Whittle chuckled. ‘A sweet name for a sweet child.’

  ‘I know what you did,’ Beth said. ‘I also know your intentions.’

  Whittle’s face dropped. ‘What I did?’

  Rose tugged Beth’s arm. Cold rain gusted through the shattered window.

  ‘He’s worried,’ Beth said. ‘He thinks he’s done for. And he’s right.’

  ‘Listen, Roseanne,’ Whittle took a step towards her, ‘whatever is going on out there, we need help, and we cannot all go. You must go, cut through the trees to the road, head north and you will soon come to the shepherd’s house. Call for the police and stay there. I will guard Bethany with my life until help arrives. Trust me, Rose, for us all to go out there would be suicide.’

  Suicide? Rose found herself almost believing him; the coward within looking for an easy way out. She checked herself; she couldn’t leave without Beth. Composure, Roseanne, do it fucking calmly, take fucking control. ‘Carl, Derek, whatever your name is, we’re leaving now. Me and Bethy. Kindly open the door.’

  Whittle lifted into the air, seemed to hover there for a second, looking down at his dangling legs, then he slammed against the door and dropped to the floor. He started sobbing, fingers scrabbling at his hair, his eyes, his ears, his nose.

  ‘It’s Elizabeth,’ Beth said.

  ‘You can see her?’

  Beth nodded. ‘Her fingers are inside his head.’

  4

  There wasn’t much free space left to cut. George was a mesh of red. If Beth was here, she would probably announce how many little cuts she’d made – four thousand three hundred and eighty-seven – or some such.