He would just have to try to make them believe him. After what he had seen in the last hour, Harry knew that they were in great danger – from a source he could not make sense of.
Harry was about to leave, when the back room presented him with another gift. This time his heart kept its rhythm. Perhaps he was becoming used to seeing the impossible. Lying on the floor was his wife, Julie. Her body and face were battered and bruised, bones splintered and askew. Just like what she had looked like after the car crash that had killed her.
Harry gazed down at the twisted forgery of his wife and allowed his heart to scream for a moment. The final image of his wife’s dying form had always stayed with him, but never had he confronted it face-to-face. Not since the night it happened.
Julie tilted her head towards him, broken bones scraping and grating against each other as she moved. “Harry…” She spoke in a condemning whisper. “Why did this happen to me? Why are you not with me?”
Harry ground his teeth. This wasn’t his wife. This wasn’t Julie. Whatever it was, it was defiling the memories of dead people. He owed it no explanations.
“You’re dead, Julie,” Harry said, stepping over the twisted body and heading into the corridor. “And I’m not afraid of joining you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Damien wasn’t sure why he had lied. Harry had made himself look a right muppet in front of Steph, but the fact was he was telling the truth. There had been flames outside, but they’d suddenly disappeared. Damien could have back Harry up, but had instead decided to leave him hanging.
Did the thought of Steph and Harry possible copping off together irritate Damien so much? He didn’t think he was so petty. Steph wasn’t like the usual girls Damien fucked. She was strong, with a mind of her own, and took control in the same way he did. He respected that.
But it was more than simple jealousy. Damien had gained a degree of pleasure from Harry’s frustration. Over the last few hours, Harry had shown himself to be an alright bloke. He may have been a deadbeat, but the geezer’s heart was in the right place. Maybe what pissed Damien off was the way Harry constantly played the part of the wounded soldier, always making people want to come up to him and ask if everything was okay. Oh, poor Harry, so full of pain and anguish, yet he still keeps going. What a guy!
Damien scowled. Harry had no right to make out like his problems were worse than anyone else’s.
He did lose his son though...
Damien shook his head and stood up from the cushion-less bench. He was beginning to lose sight of things. Tomorrow would be a new day and he would go back to not knowing any of these people.
Jess and Jerry were sitting nearby, with the dying polish kid who’d come through the window. Damien had chosen to stay near to the three of them just in case they needed help. He’d been impressed by the way Jess had glassed the old bird. Took balls.
As he stretched his legs, Damien continued to brood about Harry. Damien had things tough, too, but no one cared about his problems. No one ever gave a damn that his old man used to beat him black and blue growing up for no other reason that he felt like it. Trying to toughen you up, boy! Teach you to be a man. No one cared when the locally-feared, notorious gangster, ‘Big Jan’, had made Damien deal drugs at ten years old. No one will suspect a kid, his old man used to say, so get yourself on that corner and don’t come home till you’ve sold it all. And no one cared when Damien’s old man, ‘Big Jan’, had tried to pin an assault charge on him just to boost his street cred. People need to fear you like they fear me, Damien. Time to get a name for yourself.
The rage that ever flowed through Damien’s veins began to heat up. When his old man had gone down last year, he’d felt free for the first time ever. But it hadn’t lasted. Damien had been ordered to take over operations and report to his father in the nick via regular phone calls. Keep the money safe for me, Dame, for when I get out. Make me proud, son.
Yeah, I’ll make you real proud, dad! I’ll live up to the name of ‘Big Jan’.
Except Damien had never felt so small than when he was trying to be big like his father. For him, violence was an act, a well-rehearsed skill. There was no joy in punching a rival’s face, only emptiness. To his father it came easily. Like when he kicked the shit out of a local street dealer until he was a whimpering, bleeding mess on the ground. A kid no older than Damien.
Gazz Brown had been tough. He’d managed to knock Damien spark-out at a party and taken his stash of e. Damien’s father had not been happy – the supply had been his. Not happy at all. In a drunken rage, Big Jan – along with a group of ‘the boys’ – had taken Damien to go find Gazz. They’d found him round the back of the local supermarket, selling the e to the warehouse workers. Big Jan saw red – had gone red in fact. Like a wild bull, he had torn into the youth, cracking bones and shattering teeth, stamping and kicking long after the boy’s beaten body lay unconscious on the ground. It took almost ten minutes before the boys dragged him away, but by that time someone had called the Police. Somebody had to go down for it.
But not Big Jan.
Gazz ended up in a coma and Damien fessed to the crime. He’d gone to juvi for a stint, while ironically the fuzz got his old man twelve months later for Class A dealing. Big Jan went to Hewell Prison for 15 years just as Damien was getting out of kid’s knick. Upon his return, Damien had become feared on the local estate, viewed as a vicious, animalistic thug who had gone down for beating someone into a coma. His old man would have been proud.
But tonight was supposed to be the night when Damien did something to make himself proud. He was going to disobey Big Jan for the first time and do the right thing. Instead, he’d found himself trapped inside a rotten pub with a bunch of losers.
Losers like Harry, who only care about their next drink.
Finally it clicked. The reason Damien hated Harry so much was because the man cared more about getting wasted than anything else. Damien’s father had been no different, except it had been drugs instead of booze. Every time Damien looked at Harry, downing pint after pint, night in night out, he thought about how much he hated his father.
But Damien realised he had got Harry all wrong. Harry had been a good man and a good father, a bloke who cared so much about his family that, when they’d died, he’d just given up on life. Harry’s family had been his entire world – the exact opposite to Big Jan – and when they had died, part of him went with them. Damien finally understood Harry’s endless drinking.
And he could forgive it.
“I should apologise,” Damien told himself, “but first I gotta go take a piss.”
***
This is it! Nigel’s body teemed with excitement. Harry and Lucas were nowhere to be seen, probably in the cellar with the cripple. The grumpy shrew, Kath, had disappeared somewhere to clean the gore off her ugly face and Damien was at the other end of the pub with Jerry and the young girl, Jess. If he played his cards right, Jess would be dessert.
But first he had Steph with to gorge himself on.
I’m finally going to fuck her.
Nigel had watched with delight as everyone departed, except Steph who had gone toward the toilets alone. This was his chance. He would follow her in, knock her out cold, have his way with her, and then slit her throat with his trusty pen knife – sharpened to perfection. By the time he dumped her body outside in the snow, no one would be any the wiser. Nigel would plead ignorance of Steph’s whereabouts and, while everyone would fret and worry, that would be the sum of it. What else could they do but impotently panic? Only Nigel would know the truth.
First thing in the morning, he’d hop in his lorry and get the hell out of there as fast as the snow would flatten before his tyres. He would spend a few months in France maybe, enjoy some of the pussy on the South Coast. It was the easiest thing in the world. Raping and killing unsuspecting women had become as second nature to Nigel as taking a leak. Just another need to be taken care of. An itch to scratch.
Nigel eased open the
door to the men’s toilets, where he’d seen Steph enter. The door creaked ever so slightly, but the sounds coming from inside, of Steph gathering up supplies, drowned out any noise he made.
The toilets smelt of stale piss and the room was lit by a single candle Steph had placed on the middle of three sinks. She was at the far end of the small space with her back to the door, gathering up bundles of handtowels from a storage cupboard.
Perfect! She won’t even see it coming.
With well-practiced grace, that belied his lumbering appearance, Nigel struck his blow. He clocked Steph from behind, hooking his fist into the side of her jaw and knocking her cold. The clunky Dolphin ring on his pinkie finger gave the blow a little extra impact. Steph’s body flopped sideways, collapsing into one of the toilet cubicles. Her head hit the ceramic bowl inside with a resounding thump!
“Good, girl,” Nigel grinned, “helping Daddy like that. You’ve found us a room and got yourself ready.”
He knelt over Steph and fumbled at her clothing, squeezing her breasts through the material. He could barely see in the dark, but that only made it more exciting. He’d fantasied about this moment for so long that every touch of her flesh was enough to send small beads of ejaculate spurting from his swollen cock.
He rolled Steph onto her back and slid his eager, trembling fingers beneath the waistband of her jeans. Despite the perishing cold, the flesh of Steph’s belly and groin was surprisingly hot.
Steph murmured incoherently.
“That’s it, you little slut, cry out for your Daddy. He won’t help you.”
Nigel fumbled excitedly at the buttons on Steph’s jeans. He round his teeth in frustrations when they refused to pop easily. Taking a deep breath, he steadied his excited hands and concentrated. The buttons came loose one at a time.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
“That’s it, darling, let’s get you out of these clothes.”
Just as Nigel was about to start tugging down Steph’s jeans, he was alerted by a presence close behind him. He span around.
Then bit his tongue as something struck his jaw.
“What the fuck is going on here?” a voice demanded.
What the fuck indeed, thought Nigel as he unwillingly went to sleep on the piss-soaked floor.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Harry been on his way to the toilet when he heard the ruckus.
After seeing the apparitions in the dance hall, Harry had hurried downstairs to the cellar to regroup. The vision of Thomas Morris had reached out and struck Harry, but he was almost certain that was the extent of the physical threat. If it could have done any real harm then surely it would have done so. Harry had no clue what was going on, but there was no need to panic the others with what had happened just yet, at least until he could figure out what to tell them.
It turned out that Old Graham wanted to speak to him about a rather embarrassing matter. The old man had needed to piss badly, but couldn’t get up with his leg the way it was. Harry understood the predicament, and accepting responsibility, but at first didn’t know what to suggest. Then he spotted the half empty bottle of Famous Grouse that Lucas had brought down. He gave the bottle to Old Graham who immediately necked the rest of the contents. “For the pain,” he said. Then Harry had given him the old man a few moments alone to refill the bottle.
Now Harry was on his way to the urinals upstairs, with a candle in one hand and a whisky bottle full of geriatric piss in the other. He hadn’t expected to run into trouble again so soon after his last encounter, but something was definitely happening inside the toilets as he approached.
The men’s toilet was dimly lit by candlelight, and it was too dark to see clearly what was happening inside. There was some sort of scuffle going on. A soft wet thudding that was immediately recognisable.
Someone’s getting a beating.
Candle in hand, along with the whiskey bottle full of urine, Harry ran forwards, lighting the room in a narrow sphere as he moved. At the back, he found…Damien. And then he found Nigel. Damien was beating the bigger man to a pulp, like he was tenderising a piece of beef. His knuckles made soft whapping sounds as they bounced off Nigel’s swollen face. What upset Harry most, was the sight of Steph lying unconscious in one of the cubicles. As Harry swooped the candle towards her, he saw that her jeans were unbuttoned.
Damien looked up and noticed Harry, but it was too late to give an explanation. Harry smashed the whiskey bottle full of piss over Damien’s head so hard that it might have killed him.
Part of Harry hoped it did.
***
Beside the fireplace, Jess watched over Peter, with Jerry beside her. She watched her sleeping friend turn paler and paler, and could not tell whether it was down to the cold or blood loss. Most of Peter’s wounds were bandaged, but they wept constantly.
“You think he’s going to wake up?” Jerry asked, tugging Jess out of her thoughts. His usual exuberance was absent for the time being and he had remained quiet for a while. Jess wondered if he was thinking about Ben; trying to make sense of what had happened to his best friend.
Jess shrugged. “He woke up once before, so who knows. How are you doing?”
“Me? I’m cushty? It’s this one we need to look after.” He pointed at Peter. “He looks bad.”
Jess shrugged again. “I think he might have it easiest of all, being asleep. Right now, I want to know how you are. You know...after what happened to Ben.”
Jerry’s face crumbled like a moist sandcastle and, for a short moment, Jess thought he was going to cry. He didn’t, though. “It’s stupid,” he said, “but I miss him already.”
“That’s not stupid at all.”
“Feels like it. I just keep wishing it was me. I wish I was the one that was dead and Ben was still alive.”
“Now that is stupid.” Jess shook her head despairingly. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to be dead, would he?”
Jerry shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me. All I ever did was annoy him.”
“Then why did he always keep you around?”
Jerry looked away from her and stared into the fire. “Fate, I guess.”
Jess wasn’t sure she understood. “What do you mean, fate?”
Jerry rubbed at his eyes and somehow succeeded in making them look even more tired. “Ever seen the play, Blood Brothers?”
“No.”.
“It’s a film about these two brothers who get separated at birth. A mother has twins and can’t afford to keep them both, so she gives one away to the rich family that she works for.”
“Okay,” said Jess, still not really following, but willing to listen.
“Somehow, the baby boy she gave away ends up making friends with the son she kept – his twin brother. They have completely different upbringings, one rich, one poor, but somehow they become best friends. Despite everything, they’re really very much alike.” Jerry stared at Jess and this time she was certain he would cry, but still he did not. He smiled instead. “That’s like me and Ben. You get what I’m saying?”
Jess didn’t. But then she thought about it a little harder and ventured a guess: “You and Ben were…brothers?” Jerry didn’t answer her but Jess knew it was a hit and not a miss. It still didn’t quite make sense, though. “Did Ben know?”
Jerry finally allowed a tear to escape his eye. He blinked it away and it crept down his cheek. “We…we had the same dad, but I never told him that. My mom only told me when I was ten. By then I’d already been friends with Ben for three years.”
Jess was shocked. “Why did you never tell him?”
Jerry wiped the tear from his face, but did nothing about the new ones that ran down to replace it. “Ashamed, I guess. My mom told me it was just a one-night stand and that it was while Ben’s dad was still with his mum.”
“You kept it to yourself because you didn’t want to hurt Ben or break up his family. I understand.”
Jerry avoided looking directly at Jess as he spoke.
“Ben idolised his father; thought he was this great businessman. Truth is that the guy was a small-time jerk with more skeletons in his closet than Norman Bates, but if I told Ben what his father – what our father – was really like, it would only have hurt him. I didn’t want that. He was my brother.”
Jess felt emotionally winded by the story and had to remind herself to breath. What a beautiful sacrifice for someone to make, she thought, before hugging Jerry very tightly.
“What’s that for?” he asked her.
Jess pulled out of the hug and kissed Jerry’s cheek. “For being such a kind human being. I don’t think you realise quite how rare that is. Ben was lucky to have you as a friend, Jerry, and even more so as a brother.” Jerry whimpered. Jess patted him on the back. “Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you.”
Jerry wiped his eyes with the back of his arm. “It’s okay. Think I needed it. Clears my head for what really matters.”
Jess frowned. “And what’s that?”
“What do you think? You saw what happened to Ben. There’s something evil out there and it’s not going to stop till it gets us all. If Peter could wake up and speak, he’d tell us to get the hell out of this messed up situation.”
“Peter already did warn me,” Jess blurted out. “He said I needed to get away.”
Jerry was silent for a moment, then took a deep breath. “No one believed us about what we saw, and I guess we kind of just let it go because we were embarrassed, but we both know that we’re not crazy. There’s something out there that isn’t human, Jess. It killed Ben.”
“I know,” she said. “We have to get away.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Make sure it’s tight”
“I am!” Harry tugged the curtain ties around Damien’s wrists and felt them dig into the boy’s flesh. “Any tighter and I’ll cut his arms off.”
“Good,” said Nigel. “Exactly what the dirty little rapist deserves.”
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