by West, Sam
Atwood got to his feet, heading for the door that led into the adjoining, smaller office that was the domain of Fay the secretary. Paul had nothing against Fay; she’d always been nice enough to him. She was a plain girl – probably around his age – with mousy hair and a border-line weight problem.
He left the room, pulling the door to behind himself. Acting on pure impulse, Paul sprang to his feet and leaned over the desk, yanking open the drawer that Atwood had just been in.
Bingo!
A speedy shuffle through the messy drawer revealed exactly what he had been searching for – an opened utility bill with ‘Mr J. Atwood’ written across the front, with an address that wasn’t for I Can’t Believe It’s True!.
It has to be his home address.
He also grabbed the little black book, and, having nowhere to put it, he shoved it down the front of his underpants. The edge of the book scraped against his cock and he reached down there to sort it out, only just snatching his hand out in time when Atwood re-entered the room.
“Your wages,” he said, handing him a brown envelope. “And your thank-you bonus.”
Paul only just managed to shove the letter into the pocket of his black, work-trousers in time, and he accepted the pay-packet with a murmured thanks. “I guess this is it, then.”
But Paul could tell that Atwood wasn’t really listening; he was already on the other side of the office and reaching for the doorknob. Paul hadn’t even left the office yet and he was already forgotten.
“Thanks again,” Atwood said, holding open the door.
“Aren’t I even going to stay the rest of the day?” he asked pathetically.
“There’s no need. Goodbye, Paul, it’s been a pleasure.”
The bastard! The complete and utter fucking cunt bastard!
It was so unfair. He liked this job. He liked the hustle and the bustle of the crowded, tourist attraction. He liked watching the toing and froing of the people, it was so nice to actually feel like he was a part of something.
And he particularly liked watching the women. Oh yes, he liked watching them.
“Goodbye, then,” he said, still hoping.
But hoping for what, he wasn’t sure. A kind word, perhaps? Or Atwood changing his mind?
Yeah, sure. Fat chance of that…
You’ll get yours, you cunt.
And just like that, Paul found himself cast out, the office door firmly shut behind him. Fay the secretary smiled sadly at him as he walked the walk of shame through her territory.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes shining with sympathy behind her glasses.
“Yeah.”
He looked away, unable to meet her eye as he shuffled past her, his face burning in shame.
She knows what a failure I am. She probably heard me getting fired. Anger mingled with the embarrassment. Fake, fucking bitch. I bet she’s laughing at me, really. I bet they all are.
Beyond the office lay the rest of the staff quarters, which was situated in the basement. To his left was a door which led to the vast stockroom, and before him was the staffroom. Thankfully, this morning it was empty. He couldn’t face anyone right now – not that anyone actually ever spoke to him.
At the end of the staffroom were two doors – one led upstairs to the front desk, the other out into the ‘Chamber of Terror’. Whoever was on ‘scare duty’, got to go through that concealed door in costume and jump out on people. They were even allowed to threaten people. Nothing too obscene of course, just something playful, like, ‘I’m coming for you, blondie,’ or, ‘I’m gonna getcha’. Paul had wanted to say things much worse than that, but he had restrained himself. He had been the model employee, or so he had thought.
It’s so unfair. The only time in my life I play by the rules, and I get fucking sacked for it.
Paul was sad he would never get to do that again.
His hand hovered over the door handle that led to the stairwell and front-desk, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn it, instead opting for the other door.
One last walk through paradise.
It was only quarter to ten, and Paul found himself alone in the Chamber of Terror. People were only allowed down here at hourly intervals to ensure that the electronically animated displays weren’t playing to an empty audience. Ten O’clock was when the first wave of people were due.
It was almost crap with the overhead, fluorescent lights switched on and no spooky music or sound-effects. The macabre displays looked like just that; displays. Dismally, he wound his way through the body-bags that hung from meat-hooks from the ceiling. He punched one, and it was as heavy as a punchbag. It swung slightly, the blood-drenched plastic looking as about as real as a set of Dracula fangs bought from a lame joke shop on Broadgate’s seafront promenade.
Yet he still loved it, so, so much. It had been his dream fucking job.
Yeah. Had is the word.
I might as well just kill myself.
The thought was sure and true. Throughout his entire life, he had lurched from one pile of steaming shit to the next. Abused by those who were supposed to care for him. Let down by every single person he had ever known.
I can’t run forever. I don’t want to keep on running. The buck stops here.
A female voice startled him, snapping him out of his black thoughts. It was coming from round the corner, in the direction of the Broadgate Butcher, his personal favourite display. ‘The Broadgate Butcher’ – a real life serial-killer from the early 1900s – was a life-size, entirely realistic, animated waxwork of a man repeatedly chopping through the severed thigh of a woman who lay screaming on her back on a butcher’s table. Lit up in the dark against the stone wall of the basement, it was genuinely creepy with the thunk of the axe coming down and the woman’s screams.
Paul crept closer but stayed hidden around the corner, stepping over the rope that cornered off the ‘heads on sticks’ display and tucking himself against the stonewall. He recognised that voice. Bloody Louise, the fucking slag with the stupid, oversized, squashed tits that had got him fired. He strained his ears to listen…
“I’m in the Chamber of Terror, by the Broadgate Butcher. Can you come down? Great.”
The mobile phone beeped, then Louise fell silent.
Who the hell was she talking to?
He held his breath, listening for what Louise would do next.
If she comes round here, I will just die of embarrassment…
He heard her sigh, her heels clicking on the stone floor twice, then a rustling sound. He could easily imagine her leaning on the fake stone wall next to the display, waiting for the mysterious person to arrive.
He didn’t have to wait long to find out who it was. Less than a minute later, another familiar voice joined hers.
“I can’t be long,” the female voice said in a breathless rush. “I just told James I was pooping to the loo.”
Fay? Well, this is strange. What the fuck are those two tarts cooking up?
“Heaven forbid you should upset your fancy man.”
“Will you shut up? He doesn’t even know I’m even alive, anyway.”
“Have you even seen his wife? She’s gorgeous.”
“Thanks, that makes me feel so much better.”
“I just think you should be going after younger guys, not mooning over someone old enough to be your father.”
So that fake bitch has a crush on her boss, thought Paul with interest. I guess it makes sense.
“Whatever. Did you just drag me down here to talk about our boss, or is this about tonight?”
“Of course it’s about tonight. I just don’t think we should be seen hanging out together today at lunchtime and stuff, you know, just in case.”
“But we’re getting together after work,” Fay said. “Can’t this wait?”
“No, I’m too excited. So I called Mike just now, and he says that Ryan can’t wait to come to the party.”
“But you’ve tricked Ryan into coming. He thinks there’s going to
be a party here, he’s going to be so pissed off when he finds out it’s just the four of us.”
“No, he won’t. Will you stop being so bloody ungrateful?”
“But you had to trick him into coming, you know he wouldn’t want anything to do with me otherwise.”
“Will you stop? I mean seriously, does it matter? He’s coming, he’s gorgeous, and he’ll be all yours.”
“And he’s too young for me. He’s only nineteen, I’m almost six years older than him.”
“What’s six years? No one would think twice if the age-gap was the other way round. You owe it to all the other women in the world to seduce him. Plus you’re like totally in love with his dad, so this has to be the next best thing.”
Paul couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The slag of a secretary and the bitch of a receptionist were going to break in to their place of work and hold an illicit party... with the boss’s son, no less.
What a coup. But the question was, what was he going to do with this information? He listened intently to the rest of their conversation, hanging off their every word:
“I guess it could be fun,” Fay said.
“It’s gonna be so cool, totally the best party ever,” Louise gushed. “Well, gathering, I suppose we should call it, ‘cause you’re right about that, four people hardly constitutes a party. I’ve got myself a copy of the keys for the place and we’ll just let ourselves in and disable the alarm. I mean God, this is too bloody easy. Atwood doesn’t even have any surveillance system in his office, all the equipment is in the office off the front desk. I look at that shit every day, hell, I know exactly how to erase footage, I’ll just wipe it for the entire night. And there are no cameras in the Chamber of Terrors anyway, they’re all on the first floor where the tills are.”
“Yeah, I ‘spose. Are you going to disable the door round the back, or shall I?”
“I’ll do it, if you want,” Louise said. “It’s a piece of piss to disable the fire-alarm. We’ll just make sure it’s unlocked from the inside when we lock up tonight, no probs.”
Paul guessed they were speaking about the door on the first floor, nestled between the African fertility statues and ‘The Matchstick Town’, which was, as the name might suggest, a town made entirely of matchsticks.
“God, I can’t believe we’re actually going to do this,” Fay was saying.
“I know, exciting, isn’t it? Come on, we should go back upstairs, I only said I was nipping out for a fag. You should go back the other way, through the staffroom.”
Paul panicked. Oh shit, the fat bitch is going to see me.
Instinctively, he dropped to his knees and lay down on the floor, his body tucked up against the wall. Hopefully, from this angle, he would remain unseen. With any luck, Fay wouldn’t have a reason to look down and to the right on her way past.
He held his breath as her high heels clip-clopped past him, his heart slamming hard.
He let out a shaky sigh of relief as he listened to her retreating footsteps, his mind reeling with the magnitude of this new, valuable information.
He got up, and the hatred that washed over him was so strong, it rocked him on his feet.
“Fucking bitches,” he muttered under his breath. “Fucking cunt-whore bitches.”
Sweat dripped into his eyes and he wiped it away, counting down the seconds to give each of the bitches a chance to settle behind their desks once more.
Sure enough, by the time he walked into the main lobby through the double doors that led down to the Chamber of Terror, Louise was sitting behind the long desk that wrapped around the back wall.
Ignoring her, he made for the open-doored, wide entrance of ‘I can’t Believe It’s True!.
“Have you seen James today?” she called after him.
He froze on the spot, his heart pounding painfully hard. Slowly, he turned around – just his luck that the queue at the desk was non-existent on this blustery, late March morning.
“Why’d you ask?”
“Just making conversation,” she said, her saccharin sweet smile firmly in place. “Are you on a break? It’s very early to be on a break.”
An image of grabbing her by the ears and twisting her head until her spinal column snapped slammed into his mind.
God, that would feel so fucking good.
“Have a good day, Louise,” he said, a fake smile as wide as hers firmly fixed in place.
Because it sure as fuck is going to be your last.
It was with some satisfaction that he saw her smile drop. He watched her get to her feet and enter the small office that housed all the surveillance equipment, and he knew she was just doing so to get away from him.
You can run, bitch, but you can’t hide.
Paul turned away from her and exited the tourist attraction, the lyrics of some dance track playing on a loop in his head:
“I’ve got a feeling, tonight’s gonna be a good night, tonight’s gonna be a good, good night. I’ve got a feeling…”
The wind buffeted him as he walked along Broadgate promenade, humming to himself.
CHAPTER THREE
Half an hour later, Paul sat on the edge of his single bed in his crummy bedsit on the fourth floor, gazing out to sea over the busy main-road through the bay-window. The churned-up sea and sky were the colour of dirty grey socks and the first rain spots splattered against the windowpane.
The building he inhabited – on the ground floor of which was a sleazy joke-shop – was next-door to the amusement-park, ‘Dreamworld’. Except it hadn’t been ‘Dreamworld’ for over fifteen years and right now was a very noisy building-site as they were rebuilding the iconic amusement-park.
But he barely noticed the view, the weather or the drone of heavy machinery. Absently, he toyed with the breadknife, lightly running his fingertip over the serrated edge.
You can’t run forever, a little voice whispered in his head.
He looked around his bedsit, as if seeing it properly for the first time. The heavily-stained carpet was long-faded, the pattern of which indeterminable with the passage of time. Damp climbed the faded, peeling floral wallpaper, and the furniture looked as though it had been pulled out of a skip. Which, of course, it probably had.
Next to him on the grey, come-stained duvet, was the address book he had stolen off Atwood. He opened it up and smiled to himself.
This was just too fucking easy.
Under ‘C’ for Claire, was a mobile number and he pulled out his battered, ‘pay as you go’, and quickly tapped it in.
He closed the book, lost in thought.
Am I really going go through with this?
Still holding the knife, he walked the short-walk over to the bathroom. Like the kitchen, it had big, square, carpet-tiles on the floor and they depressed him every time he looked at them. But hey, it was a cheap rental that he had found in the back of the local free paper, and beggars couldn’t be choosers. He only had ten grand left in his suitcase, and even though it seemed like a lot, he knew perfectly well how easy it would be to breeze through it if nothing more was coming in.
Sighing heavily, he gripped the rim of the grimy sink, staring at his reflection in the toothpaste-splattered, oval mirror.
Why does nobody like me?
For the first time in his life, Paul had actually tried to fit in, to be normal. He had lied through his teeth to land this job and he was so sure he could make a go of it. To go straight.
I was only ever nice to the cunts, he thought sadly.
He stared at his face, trying to ascertain what it was about him that just turned people off. He wasn’t ugly, not by any means. He would even go so far as to say he was good-looking. His eyes were a piercing green, his features symmetrical and conventional. He was six foot, slim, and spent twenty minutes each day doing basic body-weight exercises to keep in shape. He was a pale-skinned blonde, and dyed his floppy hair black because he thought that being blonde made him look ‘soft’.
No. My hair ain’t the problem.
It was his eyes. When people saw him, they just knew. His gaze repulsed people because they saw through him. They saw the murderous, vicious, twisted bastard that he really was, and there was nothing he could do to hide it.
I can run, but I can never escape myself.
“Fuck it. Fuck them all,” he told his reflection.
He placed the edge of the knife at his jugular and grinned at his reflection.
All I have to do is slice. No more pain. No more running.
He lowered the knife, his gaze never leaving his gleaming green eyes.
“Baby, you ain’t right in the head,” he said, and laughed.
He thought of Claire and her hot mum, and his cock leaped in his underpants. He cupped it through his trousers, squeezing himself.
Oh yeah, tonight I’m gonna fucking show those bitches who’s boss.
He closed his eyes for a second, imagining how they would feel, naked and slippery with blood, writhing and screaming beneath him.
When his eyes snapped open again, he was grinning widely.
Yes, tonight was going to be the night of his life. But first, he had to prepare and he knew exactly what he had to do. Or more precisely, what he had to buy. Not having a car was a pain in the arse considering the amount of trips he needed to make to the hardware store today, but at least the nearest B and Q was in comfortable walking distance.
He reached under the bed for his suitcase of money. He opened it, lightly running his fingers over the ten grand’s worth of notes.
Smiling, he remembered how he had obtained this money. Sick of his life up in Lancaster, he had broken into a rich cunt’s house and emptied the fucker’s safe before blowing out his and his wife’s brains. He hadn’t raped the wife though, as much as he had wanted to. He’d gone in clean and left no trace. The perfect crime.
His smile fell, suddenly overcome by a rush of sadness. Here he was, on the run from the police, no bank account, no car, even his surname was plucked at random out of the phonebook… He was untraceable, he didn’t exist.
“I am the invisible man, incredible how you can see right through me,” he sang tunelessly, then burst out laughing.