The Bad Game

by Adam Millard

  Angela shook her head. How long had she been out for? Hadn’t it crossed anyone’s mind that she might have needed an ambulance? Part of her was angry about that, but she knew why Ted hadn’t made the call. He was the on-site first-aider, had spent a few years working as a health and safety adviser to large industrial companies. He must have known she would come around and that the wound at the back of her head was superficial. Best not to waste anyone’s time, especially those good folk over at James Paget University Hospital.

  Making her way towards the bar, propped up by the landlady on one side and the landlord on the other, Angela needed a drink. She wasn’t usually much of a drinker, but it was amazing how a traumatic event could give you a craving like no other. Ted and Deirdre helped her onto a stool, and she sat there for a moment getting her bearings.

  “Peanut?”

  When she looked, Hard-Hat was holding his snack out for her.

  “Don’t be daft, mate,” Ted told Hard-Hat. “Angela’s more of a pork scratchings girl.”

  “Can I get a drink?” Angela said, fingering the tender lump at the back of her head and wincing as she did so.

  “Pity we don’t have more staff,” Ted said as he stepped behind the bar.

  The irony was not lost on Angela.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Subject: Douglas Grice

  Age: 8

  Gēmuōbā Level Achieved: Seven

  The caravan rocked gently as the wind and rain swept through the park. The storm had come from seemingly nowhere, the good old British summertime once again proving unpredictable. The downpour beat a steady drumbeat upon the roof of the caravan; it was almost therapeutic.

  “Well, this is just beautiful,” Justin Grice said, staring out into the gloom and the rain dripping down the exterior windows. “Always happens. Should’ve known better.”

  “Ah, it’s just a shower,” Anna Grice said, removing a saucepan of beans from the hob. A strange burning smell filled the caravan, reminiscent of those old oil heaters you used to be able to buy, before they were deemed unsafe for use in such tight spaces. “Don’t be so grumpy.”

  Justin turned, a frown etched upon his face. “I’m not grumpy,” he said. “I just wanted this to be a nice family holiday. Is that too much to ask for?”

  Over at the table-cum-bed in the corner, with his back to his parents, Douglas Grice didn’t hear a word of the argument. In front of him was a piece of A4 paper. Several crayons were scattered across the table, and more than a dozen had rolled off and were now lying on the caravan floor or on the tiny bench seat beneath the window. His thick-framed glasses had been removed and placed next to his Transformers pencil-case. He wasn’t an artist—had never professed to being one—so the strange etchings he had made on the paper in front of him were rudimentary, to say the least.

  Red triangle.

  Blue dot.

  Black pentagram.

  All overlapping to create a solitary piece of art. Douglas would have been pleased with it, however he had no clue what it meant, or why he had drawn it, and therefore it frightened him. Especially the pentagram, which looked like something you would use to summon ancient demons or centuries-dead witches. Douglas knew a thing or two about witches, had recently completed a project at school about the Pendle Witch Trial.

  As he sat there, wide-eyed and drooling, the crayon in his hand—tan, he thought it was called, or perhaps sand—moved across the page, adding to the shapes already set down. In his head, strange music repeated itself over and over, and though he had heard it that very same day at the arcade, he was now clueless as to where it had come from and why it sounded so familiar.

  “Dougie?”

  Triangle, dot, dot, pentagram.

  “Doug, your mother’s talking to you.” Justin wasn’t in the mood for his son’s reluctance to engage. Autism aside, the kid was generally well-behaved. You just had to know the best way to deal with him, and after eight years of ‘dealing’ with Douglas, Justin reckoned he had it down to a tee.

  Dot, dot, triangle, beep-beeep-beep-thrum…

  “Great,” Anna said, placing the beans-on-toast down next to the tiny sink. She cast her husband a weary look, imploring him to take over, to bring Douglas out of his reverie.

  Justin sighed. It was bad enough that the weather was ruining their holiday—their first holiday in years—but now Douglas was off in his own little bubble. Justin made a mental note not to bother next year. They would have more fun staying at home. At least there Douglas had his own room. “Okay, but after he’s gone to bed, you and me are going to have some quiet time together.”

  Anna grinned. “Quiet time?”

  “Maybe not so quiet,” Justin said. “Although, we’ll have to try to be.” He motioned to Douglas across the caravan; the boy still hadn’t acknowledged them. His scribbling had become more frantic. You could hear the crayon scratching back and forth across the page over the incessant beat of the rain on the roof. “Douglas, it’s time to eat,” Justin said, turning away from his wife and walking towards his son. “You’re going to have to tidy up your crayons and—”

  The words caught in his throat as Douglas suddenly snapped around. At first, Justin thought he was seeing things, that somehow the rain dripping down the outside of the windows, coupled with the spotlights scattered around the caravan site, was casting strange shadows across his son’s face.

  Evil shadows.

  But when Anna screamed behind him, he knew that what he was seeing had nothing to do with the rain, nothing to do with the light, or a trick thereof.

  Douglas’s eyes were black, dripping what looked like blood at the corners. His mouth was wide open as if his jaw had dislocated. His tongue, black and inhumanly long, lolled from one side of his mouth. He hissed, an awful sound, and thick dark drool seeped from his maw.

  Justin was frozen; his wife had stopped screaming and had fallen silent, a hand covering her mouth, as they both tried to comprehend what they were seeing. It couldn’t be real, could it? It was some sort of prank, something that Douglas had been working on to put the frighteners up his family. He was smart like that.

  Justin finally managed a step forward—though part of him was justifiably reluctant. “Dougie?” he whispered. Any second now, Douglas would explode with laughter. Haha! Fooled you, Dad. It’s just molasses and contact lenses! Haha! You’re so eeeeeeeeeeeeasy! As Justin moved closer to his son, who was still making that awful noise and dribbling black ichor all over the caravan floor. “This isn’t funny, Dougie.”

  Anna’s hands now covered her mouth and nose. A terrible stench had filled the caravan—like burnt animal hair and raw sewerage—and it was all she could do to not throw up.

  When Justin was no more than three steps away from his son, he stopped, for he could see clearly that this was no elaborate prank, no clever wind-up by his autistic son. Something was very wrong with Douglas.

  “Son, I want you to listen to me very carefully,” Justin said. Outside the storm worsened. “We need to go to the hospital, okay? You’re not well, and we—”

  For someone who wasn’t well, he moved too quickly. Douglas leapt up onto his chair and pushed off, launching himself bodily toward his father, who could do nothing about it. He slammed into Justin, knocking him back into the built-in wardrobe. With his feet wrapped around his father, the boy was like a bull rider and the caravan, such a compact space, had been turned into a claustrophobic rodeo.

  Anna screamed again as her husband and son crashed into her. She went down, felt the weight of Justin’s boot come down on the side of her head. Then it was gone, and she rolled onto her back just in time to see Douglas clamp down on Justin’s nose with seemingly razor-sharp teeth. Justin howled—actually howled—as his nose came away completely, leaving a perfect and bloody hole in the middle of his face. He looked like something from one of the Harry Potter movies, Anna thought.

  “Fuuuuuuuck!” Justin screeched, punching Douglas in the temple to try to remove him, but the boy was unyie
lding, had his hooks in too well. Douglas brought his arms up and placed a hand on either side of his father’s head. The pressure was immediate; Justin almost blacked out—and wished he had for what came next. The boy roared and pressed as hard as he could. One of Justin’s eye popped from its socket. Anna screamed, watching the horror unfold from the discomfort of the caravan floor. She screamed even more when her husband’s head began to collapse in on itself between their son’s (he’s no fucking son of mine!) vice-like grip.

  Justin involuntarily dropped to his knees, his light already extinguished and his face a mess of tattered flesh and protruding bone. As he toppled backwards, Douglas climbed off and turned to face his mother. If there was anything remaining of their son in this fucking monster, Anna couldn’t see it.

  She screamed one more time.

  Douglas made sure it was the last noise she ever made.

  *

  Subject: Heather Watson

  Age: 11

  Gēmuōbā Level Achieved: Three

  “You should have seen it, Dick!” Pat said as she poured herself another large brandy. “The way she was just… lying there, and that poor dog, too.”

  Dick Gurley had heard nothing but the story of the dead girl in the dunes since the police left over an hour ago. Quite frankly, he’d had enough of it. Pat was driving him up the wall, and if she kept on drinking like that, she was only going to get worse as the night wore on.

  “They’ll find whoever did it, though, won’t they, Dick?” She was shaking; her wedding ring chinked annoyingly against the side of the glass in her hand. “The murderer, they’ll find him?”

  Dick put his newspaper down—she wasn’t going to let him read it in peace, it seemed—and made his way across to the drinks cabinet, where he set about concocting something potent and probably dangerous. “All depends,” he said as he made his drink. “We don’t know if she was raped, yet.”

  “Dick Gurley!” Pat gasped. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”

  Dick turned around, cocktail shaker in hand. “It’s probably the best chance they have of finding this guy,” he said. “I know it sounds sick, but those morons rely on DNA for everything these days, and if that poor girl, God rest her soul, hasn’t been defiled, well… I don’t fancy their chances of catching the fucker.”

  Pat shook her head in disgust and settled into her armchair. A ball of wool and a pair of needles sat beside the chair, but she wouldn’t be knitting anything tonight. She was too shaky, too scared, too angry with her inconsiderate husband to start work on a new cardigan. “That could’ve been me,” she said, solemnly.

  Over in the corner, Dick frowned and gave the cocktail shaker a jolly good thrashing. When he was done, Pat continued:

  “An hour or so, the police reckoned she’d been dead,” she went on, gazing into the distance, her eyes already glassy from the brandy. “If I’d walked Spanner earlier, an hour earlier, that could have been me lying there.”

  “I highly doubt it,” Dick said, decanting his drink into a Martini glass. “You’re not the victim type. One look at you and our killer would have buried himself in the sand.”

  Ignoring her husband’s crude remark, Pat continued with utmost sincerity. “I could have been dead… I could have been murdered, Dick, and Spanner, too.”

  Spanner, Dick thought. Where had that little shit got to? He wasn’t in his usual place on the hearth. In fact, Dick couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen the scruffy little bastard.

  “That’s the last time I ever walk through those dunes, I can tell you that for nothing.” Pat sipped at her brandy, but Dick was no longer interested in what his wife had to say—not that he had been to begin with. He was more interested in the Yorkie and its absence. He placed his drink down on the counter and walked across the living-room. Pat was still muttering on about something or other. He heard the word ‘rape’ and ‘me’ and shuddered as he made his way into the hallway.

  “Spanner?” he said, reaching for the light-switch. He flicked it on, there was an unhealthy-sounding dink! and only darkness responded. The light from the living-room behind went out, and Pat made a guttural noise that was more manly than anything Dick had ever mustered.

  “Dick!” Pat called. “What have you done? The fucking light’s blown.”

  Dick sighed. “I can see that, dear,” he said. “Must have been the one out here, blown all of them.”

  “Go and check the fuse-box,” Pat suggested. “And hurry up. I don’t want to be sitting around in the dark, not if there’s a killer on the loose.”

  “I hope he gets you,” Dick muttered as he felt his way along the hallway, his hands brushing past paintings and photographs, knocking them askew.

  “What did you say?” Pat screeched from the darkness behind.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Dick replied. “Just be quiet for a minute, will you.”

  “Just sort the fuse-box out,” Pat said, for she always liked to get the last word in. On this occasion, Dick allowed her to win. As she sat there in the darkness, brandy glass rattling in her left hand, she wished she had a cigarette, just to steady her nerves. It had been a traumatic afternoon, what with the poor dead girl and then the police and all their questions. One of the coppers—DI Meadows, or some such—had regarded her warily, suspiciously, and not at all like the victim that she, too, was. Meadows had had that haunted look about his countenance, one which suggested he’d seen enough horrific things to last ten lifetimes. It was an aspect, Pat thought, which one acquired over a long period of time. One minute you were a police cadet, all fresh-faced and ready to go, the next you looked as if you’d witnessed the holocaust first-hand. DI Meadows had looked almost suicidal.

  “Dick?” Pat called, though if he was at the fuse-box in the basement, he wouldn’t have heard her. She sipped at her brandy, shaking her head in the dark, trying desperately not to think about the dead girl in the dunes and the way her twisted and bloody body had looked almost as if it had washed up from the ocean itself.

  Dick reached the bottom step of the basement and grunted. There was a terrible smell down here, like spoilt meat and gasoline. It stuck at the back of his throat like peanut-butter, and it was all he could do not to gag.

  The basement was dark, though not as dark as the hallway upstairs. The solitary window, and the streetlight beyond it, offered just enough light to see by. Years’ worth of accumulated tat and old stock filled the basement, its corners and edges limned by the incandescence seeping in through the sole window.

  Which was open!

  “Goddammit!” Dick grumbled. It wasn’t the first time someone had managed to prise that damn thing open. For some reason, opportunists believed there was something worth stealing from the bowels of the BEACH CAFÉ, when in fact the most they could hope for was a decades-old Christmas tree or a box of old vinyl records (The Carpenters, Billy Joel, Roy Orbison). They would be doing him a favour by taking some of that dusty old shit away, but unsurprisingly, on the three or four occasions they’d gotten into the basement, nothing had ever been taken.

  Still, it wasn’t nice to think that someone was in your personal space, riffling through your shit, no matter how worthless it was, and Dick was angry. He kicked his way through boxes, which clattered and toppled all around him, and arrived at the fuse-box with the vein in his temple threatening to burst without further warning.

  Sure enough, the whole thing had tripped; every switch was in the down position. He flicked them all up, and then finally the red one furthest to the right. Upstairs, Pat yelled something incoherent and applauded.

  “Yes, yes,” Dick grumbled. “I know, I fixed it, whoopeedoo.”

  The basement light hadn’t come on, however, as Dick had not switched it on as he passed it on his way down the stairs. So now he had to make his way through the swamp of boxes and felled junk in the gloom in order to reach the steps. But first he had to close that window.

  He was halfway across the basement when a sound to his left stopped him in
his tracks. At first he thought it was a cat, mewling, perhaps in pain. He pictured it, buried beneath the sea of boxes—crushed half to death, only eight-and-a-half lives remaining; though he knew that was bullshit.

  Meeeeeeeeeeaaaagggghhhhh…

  “What the fuck?” That didn’t sound like any cat Dick knew. And what was with that stench? It was getting worse; in fact, it was so overpoweringly trenchant now that Dick could hardly breathe.

  Something moved across the basement, left to right, so quickly that Dick could barely keep up with it. Boxes fell, glass shattered, and cardboard rustled. Shit, the intruder was still there in the basement! Dick hadn’t considered that possibility when he’d spotted the open window, and now, well, now he was standing in what was essentially a cluttered crypt while the burglar ran rings around him.

  Dick wasn’t a fighter. He’d managed to get three quarters of the way through his life without so much as a scuffle. “There’s no reason for anyone to get hurt down here,” he said, voice cracking, into the dark basement. “I’m just an old man. Take what you want and get out.”

  Eeeeeeeeaaaagggghhhh…

  This time, the noise came from behind him, just a few inches from the back of his head. As he spun, he found himself staring into the eyes of a devil.

  More precisely, a devil wearing the skin and flesh of a young girl.

  Dick Gurley’s heart exploded in his chest (the doctor said it would! Remember, Dick?) even before the girl tore his throat out with her bare hands. And as Dick went down into the vast array of shit and debris that had once meant something to either him or his wife, he felt something still-warm and furry next to his head. It whimpered in either pain or confusion, Dick didn’t know which. There you are, Spanner, he thought.

  Blood sprayed down over the torn cardboard as if mimicking the rain on the promenade outside.