by Ian Woodhead
He opened his arms and allowed his latest bit on the side to embrace him. At fifty eight, Ethel was two decades his junior, that age gap didn’t really bother Edward but he knew that she dwelled upon it. She’d casually mentioned Edward trading her in for a younger model a couple of times, she’d tried to make it sound like a joke, an offhand quip but Edward wasn’t fooled, the poor woman meant it.
Of course, he’d just kissed the tip of his nose, smiled whilst stroking her hair and explained that there wasn’t anyone else and he’d never see any other woman. Some of that had been true. He’d already gone through all the other available regulars who went to their bingo, Ethel was the last one.
She snuggled into the side of his neck and sighed, and then she gently nibbled on his ear lobe.
“I think you’ve entered the wrong toilets, young man.”
Ethel struggled out of his embrace and traced a line down the front of his shirt and with painted nail.
“I’ll show you where they are, if you like.”
Her finger rested on his crotch. Edward caught his breath when Ethel cupped his groin and squeezed.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he growled. Edward grabbed her shoulders and pulled the woman back into his embrace. “Let’s go back on the coach; nobody will disturb us on there.”
She frowned, “But it’s locked.”
Edward shrugged and patted his trouser pocket.
“Are the keys in there, Edward or are you playing with something else?”
“You have a dirty mind, woman. I bribed our driver to look the other way.”
She giggled, “I’m going to stuff my knickers down the side of Harold’s seat, how much money are you willing to bet that he finds them and puts my underwear in his jacket pocket?”
He kissed her on the nose then hurried over to the door and placed his ear against the wood. The captive audience were clapping; the young man must have finished another number. “I’ll meet you on the coach.” he whispered. “Give it a couple of minutes before you follow me out.”
He opened the door and slipped back into the room, just as he expected, his coach party hadn’t noticed. Then he glanced toward the bar and noticed the barman staring directly at him. The man smiled and nodded.
Edward returned the greeting and casually padded over to the main doors. He wasn’t worried about the lad suspecting, in Edward’s experience, the younger generation didn’t think that anyone over the age of forty still had carnal desires. He walked through the vestibule, opened the main doors and stepped out into the night air.
“He probably thinks that my genitals fell off decades ago.” Edward chuckled to himself and took out the keys.
That young man probably had a few girls chasing after him too. He must have a girlfriend; Edward wondered if she was pretty. The young girls were wasted on lads his age, the prospect of Edward finding a teenager to share his bed were very slim, which was a shame, One night with Edward and no teen boys would satisfy them ever again. What Edward would have given to swap bodies with that barman. He chuckled to himself again. Oh lord, what a combination that would be. With his experience and charm combined with the boy’s good lucks and stamina, no girl within a five mile radius would be safe.
Edward unlocked the door and climbed onto the coach, “My dick really would fall off after a few weeks,” he muttered, “but what a way to go.” He walked down the aisle, toward the back.
He watched his latest squeeze left the club. The way she just stood there, looking all forlorn and pathetic, doused the fire in his loins.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered. “That’s what happens when you drool over imaginary teenagers, Edward.”
He opened the door and helped Ethel up, she may not have a firm strong body anymore but she certainly knew how to please her man. Deep down, he knew that even if the impossible did happen and somehow Edward did manage to hook up with a randy teen girl, she’d probably just lay there like a sack of potatoes.
Ethel brushed her hand against his crotch and frowned, “There doesn’t appear to be much life down there, Edward. Isn’t your soldier happy to see me?”
Could he see a hint of mockery in her pale blue eyes? Oh yes, it was there alright, laughing at the annoying fact that he couldn’t get it up. He silently sighed and realized that he had but one option left.
Edward closed his eyes and tuned Ethel’s whining voice out. He took his mind back to 1964 and to Margret Brown.
That demure secretary had been his first extra-marital entanglement and by far the best. The packing firm where Edward had worked at the time employed their office staff on a temporary basis. Margret was just one of many faceless individuals who passed through the company. She always kept her mousey, brown hair tied back in a tight bun, with little make-up and wearing loose fitting dull coloured clothing, the woman effectively faded into the background. She wasn’t much to look at. It fact, she wasn’t anything to look at, those clothes covered all her feminine curves. The woman was plainer than blank paper.
Edward soon discovered how wrong he’d been to judge dowdy Margret by appearance alone. He also discovered that the woman had plans for him. What started out as a drink after work, turned into a torrid affair that lasted nearly two months. It only ended when Margret had to move away due to her husband getting a job abroad. She’d taught him a lot in those seven weeks they’d been together and he vowed never to forget her.
“Let’s see if I can suck some life into him.”
It wasn’t Ethel getting down on her knees but Margret. Edward whimpered when she pulled down his zipper and unfastened his trouser button. Margret’s supple tongue could bring him to the verge of climax several times before eventually allowing him to explode into her mouth. No other girl had come close to matching her skill, least of all, Ethel. Her idea of a blowjob involved sucking on his root as hard as possible as if she was trying to extract honey, using a thin straw.
He felt her pushing his cock into her mouth, Edward then made the mistake of opening his eyes. His mental image of Margret bringing joy to his manhood retreated back into his dusty archives. Harsh reality slapped him in the face. That haggard woman working hard to revive his softening penis was the best he would ever get.
Ethel still had her eyes closed. In between the slurps, the occasional dramatic moan escaped her lips. She have thought that it turned him on but in truth, Edward just thought that it made her sound like she was on the toilet. The woman had put on way too much make-up again, the cracks around her mouth looked like sun-baked mud, oh God, this wasn’t fucking fair, and why couldn’t he have another woman with a firm body and smooth skin? Fucking Ethel was like doing the dirty with sharpei dog.
He sighed, he may as well throw in the towel and go back into the club and finished his drink, God, and this was embarrassing. It had been years since he’d last experienced a failure to perform.
“Ethel, stop.”
Now he would have to go through all the rigmarole of comforting the woman and explaining to her that none of this was her fault, despite the fact that it was. He put both hands on her head and moved his hips back.
“I’m sorry sweetheart but I’m just not in the mood.”
The tears in her eyes had already begun to flow. Edward gently lifted her up and put his arms around her shoulders.
“Please don’t cry it’s not your fault. You’ve done nothing…”
He stopped in mid sentence and stared at the front of the coach. A large black man had his face and hands pressed against the windscreen.
“Who the hell is that?”
Ethel spun around and stifled a scream. Edward pulled her back along the aisle when the man edged along the outside of the window toward the open door.
“Get behind me,” whispered Edward.
She shook her head and breathed deeply, “Calm down, Edward. It’s just the club’s doorman. Nothing to worry about, love, he’s probably just doing his rounds.” She looked at Edward’s crotch and giggled. “You make yourself decent while I
deal with him, I’ll tell him we’re just getting my purse or something.”
The man had already reached the door; Edward knew immediately that something wasn’t right when he heard the man moaning. Ethel appeared to be oblivious to the danger.
When she was close enough, the man lunged at her. His body fell on hers, forcing the scream out of her lungs. She twisted to the side then raked his face with her nails, he responded by grabbing her index finger and pushing it into his mouth. Edward growled and launched himself at the man when he heard her bone crunching between his teeth.
Edward’s left boot connected with the man’s shoulder, he didn’t even flinch. “Get off her, you bastard!”
Thick, crimson fluid from Ethel’s mutilated hand sprayed across the floor. Edward rushed forward, intending to grab the man’s hair but slipped in her blood. He crashed down, his knee smashing into the woman’s face. The man’s clawed hands darted forward and fastened over Edward’s ears; the man effortlessly lifted him off her body and dragged his head closer to the man’s gaping mouth. Edward clawed four furrows down his cheek then pushed his other hand between his head and those teeth.
The excruciating pain shooting through his system when the man squeezed his hands into fists caused him to black out for a second, when he came to, the last thing he saw before the man’s teeth clamped around his jugular, was Ethel slowly crawling toward his outstretched hand, moaning very softly.
Chapter Fourteen
Mark Thomson squeezed his wife’s hand tight when the killer showed his next victim his knife, his special blade with exactly twelve notches cut into the razor-sharp steel.
“Bloody hell, Mark,” said Cheryl angrily, “leave it out will you? You’re cutting my circulation off.”
“Sorry,” he replied, grinning. “I got a little carried away with myself. This is the good part, you see. The part I told you about.”
Cheryl sighed, “Well quit your yapping and let me watch it.”
He sat back on the sofa, smiling. He’d done it, after all these years he’d finally managed to persuade his wife to watch a horror film with him and by the sound of it, she was getting into it too. Channel four were currently halfway through showing a selection of seventies horror nasties. After the movie ended, they were showing an interview with the remaining cast members. He doubted that Cheryl would wish to sit through that as well so he intended to download the programme in the morning.
He’d already mentally picked a few of his favourite movies from his extensive DVD collection that he intended to share with her in the coming weeks. Mark had been tempted to add a couple of extreme horror movies from Korea onto that pile too but decided to leave them for another day. He had no wish to traumatise the poor woman.
The killer thrust his blade deep into the woman’s stomach, predictably, the last two buttons on her blouse magically fell off, exposing a rather generous helping of booby goodness. Mark watched Cheryl’s reaction and waited for the snide remark about this being nothing more than soft-core porn for hormonal teenage boys. She didn’t even make one sound. How fantastic was this?
The killer looked up when a door slammed shut downstairs. He stopped sawing off the dead woman’s head, padded into the hallway and looked down the stairs. He shrugged and re-entered the bedroom. Of course, the audience never saw him actually doing the deed with his knife, which, in Mark’s opinion was a real shame. A scene like that could have elevated this movie into the ‘A’ list of horror cult classics.
“Who’s downstairs, Mark?”
“Hush up,” he said. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Cheryl punched his arm. Oh boy, was his wife going to be surprised in a moment, he couldn’t wait.
The television picture abruptly disappeared and was replaced with static. Mark jumped up, “What the fuck?”
Cheryl dug her hand down the side of the sofa and pulled out the remote. She methodically searched through all the channels. Everyone showed the same picture.
“Well, this is bloody annoying. “
“Is the telly bust?”
“For your sake, Mark, you’d better tell me that you have that film on DVD.”
He kneeled down in front of the television and pressed play on the DVD player. The opening title of his latest purchase appeared on the screen. He pressed stop and turned around. “Sorry, love but that film didn’t even make it to video; I’ve got the sequel upstairs though.”
Cheryl sighed and went through the channels once more. “I was really getting into that too. Now what do we do?”
They both looked toward the ceiling when something crashed into the floor above their head.
“Is our Trevor upstairs?”
His wife nodded whilst absently pressing random buttons on the remote, he watched her frustration mount at her failed attempts to remove the static. He ought to ring the company up, the problem would be at their end, and Mark could guarantee that.
He jumped as something crashed else to the floor in Trevor’s bedroom, shaking dust off the light fitting.
“What the bloody hell is he doing up there?” he said, looking at the ceiling whilst walking toward the phone, hung up by the kitchen door.
“Helen’s with him.”
“They sound as if they’re having a bloody wrestling match.”
“I’ll go have a word with them,” said Cheryl, smiling. “While I’m gone, find out what those idiots are playing at.”
Mark nodded back, knowing it was pointless to inform her that he had already got that covered. She’d just given him one of her rare smiles, which meant trouble.
“Then you can make us both a nice cup of tea.”
He watched her storm out of the room before picking up the remote and having a go himself before ringing them up. Mark couldn’t decide whether her pissed off mood stemmed from the TV dying on them or that Mark didn’t have that movie on DVD. Not that the reason really mattered, it didn’t take that much to ignite Cheryl’s volatile temper anyway.
Mark’s eyes drifted back toward the ceiling, “You’d better have a good reason for the noise, laddo,” he muttered. “Otherwise, she’ll blast the wax out of your ears.”
He threw the remote on the sofa and picked up the phone. The ceiling shook once more, it really did sound like they were wrestling. Mark fully expected to hear even more noise any minute now.
Trevor had inherited his father’s looks and love for horror but he’d got his temper from his mother. Since reaching seventeen, those two locked horns daily. Their continuous verbal clashing ceased to be amusing several months ago.
A panic shrieking blasting through the floor froze Mark’s blood. Oh crap, that came from Cheryl. Mark rushed out of the room, the phone dropping through his fingers. He skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stairs and gazed up; he saw nothing out of place.
“Cheryl? Are you okay, love?”
He raced up the stairs when she failed to reply, Mark feared the worse, what if he’d had an accident? That would explain the scream, Cheryl wasn’t good with any sort of injury, and she even had a fit at the sight of a cut finger. His mind conjured up graphic images of his son lying in a pool of blood after falling out of bed or Helen slicing through an artery after messing with one of Trevor’s craft knives.”
“Jesus, Mark. Give it up,” he muttered.
He reached the top of the stairs and hurried toward his son’s open door. His brain could not process the information his eyes showed Mark when he looked into his son’s bedroom.
This could not be happening.
Mark’s rational mind slipped down a gear as he watched his own son, bite out chunks of meat out of a ragged crater in the side of Cheryl’s neck. Helen lay slumped in the middle of the bedroom floor. Judging from the multiple holes bitten into her neck and shoulders, Trevor must have practised on her first.
His mind re-appeared and calmly informed Mark that Helen falling off Trevor’s top bunk was the noise they first heard.
She had to be dead. Nobody could possi
bly survive those horrendous wounds.
“Trevor?”
He forced his foot across the threshold. His son lifted up his crimson-coated chin, regarded him with dead fish eyes before dipping his head back into the hole.
Mark’s rational mind flew once more, when Helen opened her eyes and crawled toward his foot. He screamed and stumbled back onto the landing then ran down the stairs. He spun around when he reached the bottom and whimpered at the sight of the three of them wobbling about on the landing like newborn foals. They gazed down at Mark and moaned.
When Helen took a single tentative step toward the top step, he darted through the living room, noting that the TV still showed static. Mark burst into tears at the sight of the empty phone cradle then remembered that it had slipped through his fingers when his wife first screamed.
Oh fuck, he had no idea where he stood when he dropped it. Mark panicked when the sound of moaning reached his ears, they were coming after him! He turned and ran through the kitchen.
“I need help,” he panted.
Mark pulled open the door and rushed out into the dark street. All the streetlights on his side of the road were off. He grabbed the side of the bus stop outside his garden gate and groaned when he spotted Mrs. Edmonton, his neighbour from across the street.
The old woman had paid Mark £30 for replacing several broken roof tiles last Wednesday. She had explained that her son, Dominic had an intense fear of heights. Now, Mrs. Edmonton sat under the only working streetlight, against her garden gate, chewing on a child’s foot.