White Walls and Straitjackets

by David Owain Hughes

  Steve’s hand went for the bedside lamp, but he pulled it back when heard the noise again, and this time noticed the branches scraping against the bedroom window. He laughed hard, and exhaled loudly – fuck, he was excited now. Excited and burning with anticipation to get out into the night, to see what he could find out there to spook him even more.

  Standing in the bathroom doorway, naked, with the lights out, he eyed his silhouette in the long mirror. Along with looking at his inky body, he tried making out the shapes behind his form in the glass. His insides going cold at the unsure answers he was providing to himself. Were there shapes shifting in the shadows? He loved this game.

  Finally he put the light on: pissed, washed his hands, cleaned his teeth and went back to the bedroom. There, he threw on a loose pair of jogging bottoms, a plain black hooded top, and proceeded down the hallway where he put his running shoes on, picked up his camera from off the hall sideboard, and put it in his pocket. He was out the door by 02.22, and lightly running down his street in Llwynypia.

  As Steve jogged effortlessly to the end of his road, he wondered about where he would go tonight. Last night he had gone up to the old hospital – a gothic looking building, with horribly, harsh looking stonework; a fortified place. All it had missing was machine gun towers and barbed wire running along the tops of the walls.

  He’d sneaked into it through a smashed window at the back of the place, and found the mental ward: a maze of five wings that had got him stewing in his own orgasmic juices, as he’d meandered down the hollow, ghostly hallways, finding rooms filled with lots of nice things to take photos of to place in his scrap book.

  Chairs and beds with their restraints still attached to them; padded cells with fingernail marks in the soft, white walls. Steve had also found some old surgeon tools strewn across the floor, amidst broken glass and other debris.

  The thought of that old place now, and the way in which it overlooks the small town of Llwynypia from its mountain perch, chilled Steve – in a good way.

  “Yes,” he said aloud, standing at the corner of his street with nothing moving, or a sound coming from anywhere. I’ll head on up to the old abattoir in Treorchy tonight, with a quick detour to the woodsman’s house. Now what was his name? Norm? he thought.

  He took a crumpled bit of newspaper clipping out of his pocket, and held it up to the light, and read the headline: Wacko Woodsman Jailed For Slayings. Steve read a bit further down, and came across the killer’s name – Norm Jenkins.

  “I knew it was Jenkins,” he said aloud, folding the clipping up neatly and placing it back in his trouser pocket.

  Jogging out of his street, he crossed onto the main road. A sound of an engine approached him from behind. He turned to look. It was a van parking up the opposite side of the road. The interior lights winked out, and the driver appeared to be just sitting there. Watching.

  Steve turned, and ran a short distance before turning off onto another street – Tyntyla Avenue. He looked back over his shoulder to see the driver of the van standing by the bonnet, unmoving in the shadows that engulfed them.

  Steve walked the length of Tyntyla Avenue, which had no streetlamps. No light could be found in any of the houses, and the windows looked like hungry voids, wanting to swallow him up.

  Coming to the last house on the left, he removed the camera from his pocket and started taking pictures of the house with, Police: Do Not Cross, lines strung up everywhere. The small flicks off Steve’s digital camera lit the street in mini bursts.

  Satisfied with what he had seen on the outside, he decided to cross the forbidden lines, and proceeded up the concrete steps that led to the front door. Once there, he ripped the yellow plastic warning signs off, which reminded him of party bunting, and tried the handle. Locked. “Shit!” he said.

  Putting his camera away and looking about him, he picked up a sizable plant pot, and rammed it into the corner of the glass in the door. The window cracked, split, and then the whole pane collapsed in on itself, causing a thunderous sound of smashing.

  Steve stood listening for a while. Hearing nothing, he continued to break in, by hopping through the opening he had caused in the door.

  Inside, he pulled out a small flashlight. Nothing powerful that would draw suspicion to him, just something that would get him around inside. He stood there, drinking in the presence of death and the slight hint of wasted flesh.

  “The kitchen first,” he said to himself, his skin and insides cold with excited fright.

  He ambled down the hallway on tiptoes, keeping his ears peeled for any danger that should arise. The place could be filled with squatters, he thought to himself.

  Entering the kitchen, Steve searched for the ‘chest freezer’ that had been mentioned in the article, but couldn’t find it, much to his annoyance. Instead of backtracking, he went through another door, which led him to the utility room.

  Steve swished his light around, and found the freezer at the corner of the room, in between the washing machine and airing cupboard. “Gotcha!”

  He walked over to it with the flashlight trained on the lid. This had smudges of red across it. He opened it on a three count. Flies came at him, and the stench made him gag. When he had controlled himself, Steve took photos of the blood-spattered insides. The word “beautiful,” escaped his mouth, as he feverishly snapped away.

  Finished here, he went back through the passageway, poking his head into the living room as he went, and started climbing the stairs to the next floor. Now he wanted to see the bedroom where the murders had taken place. He hoped to find a grizzly scene.

  At the top of the stairs was an old looking wheelchair. Must have been his dead wife’s, Steve thought, taking a few snapshots of its rusted frame. He nudged it out of his way, with an elbow, and proceeded down the landing to the master bedroom, where he kicked the door wide.

  He wasn’t disappointed, as his flashlight exposed a blood-drenched mattress, which would have once been white. Slender streams of blood had found their way up the wall behind, and to the side of the bed. The curtains were crisp dry and stiff looking.

  Steve clasped the torch in his mouth, and soon his camera was clicking away, as he reeled photos off. Then the light found something on the bedside table. A book. Steve picked it up, and read the cover – Taxidermy for Dummies.

  At precisely 03.00 AM – Steve was walking briskly down Tyntyla Avenue, back to the main road. He noticed the van had gone. Once there, he turned right, and started jogging for a short while, before taking a left down an S-shaped walkway. A shortcut down to Ystrad park.

  At the bridge at the bottom, he stopped jogging, and decided to walk. The only sound came from the river underneath, swishing and splashing, cutting a slice of life through the still of the night.

  Over the bridge and through the gates of the park, Steve came to a meander. Some of the streets lights were out along the path and the wind rattled the steel fence that boxed in the rugby pitch. The clattering drove chills through him, which caused every fibre of his body to tingle.

  The swings’ chains jangled with one another, and interlaced into a lover’s knot. Leaves, rubbish and other bits of debris blew about in the wind which was picking up – what if someone is in the trees or bushes watching me, waiting to pounce on me and rip my guts out? Steve thought, then laughed. Fuck all like that happens around here. Then he remembered Norm Jenkins. Ah, one off, he thought. One off.

  A shrubbery to his right rustled, he thought he saw a pair of beady eyes peer out at him. He hunched down low to get a better look, but there was nothing there. Steve shook his head, and looked again. Nothing.

  As he continued up the dim path, he thought he could hear footsteps coming from behind, he turned to see, or so he thought, a figure dash behind a tree. The darkness is making my vision disjointed, he thought, as a bolt of shivering cold tore through him. He smiled at the tree, and wondered if there truly was someone standing behind it.

  “I seen you,” he whispered.

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nbsp; Passing the sports centre, and coming to the end of the park. Steve picked his pace up. making sure to take well timed glances over his shoulder.

  Need to get up to Treorchy, and back home before six, he thought, or I won’t be able to fit my shower in before work.

  Crossing over Ystrad’s railway bridge, and down into the sports field, Steve dropped his pace again, slowing to drink in the atmosphere of the huge open area. Far over to his right was a wood, where anyone or anything could be lurking. He’d heard rumours that people had gone missing down by the river – that something lived in the lake. He laughed at that thought – just kids’ bullshit. Plus, he’d been down there a few times over the past few years, since his obsession with the night had started, and he’d found nothing.

  Making it to the far end of this stretch, Steve was soon on Gelli Industrial Estate, where six nights ago he had seen someone unloading, what looked like, dead bodies out of a 4x4 jeep. Or maybe a Land Rover. The person hadn’t spotted Steve, as he’d looked on in awe, wondering if he should go down there and have a better look. Take photos.

  But he’d decided against it. Believing there was only innocence going on. I could have a look now? No, no, no. I don’t have the time. But there is always tomorrow night?

  Happy with that thought, Steve shrugged and jogged the length of the industrial estate. All the units were quiet tonight, as they always were at this hour. Passing T-tyres at the end of the business estate, Steve lightly ran through the town of Ton-Pentre, passing his local pub, The New Inn, as he went, he took a right which led to the Maindy – a stretch of road engulfed by a wood. The trees acted as a ‘tunnel’, over the road, with a walking path situated on the left-hand side.

  One morning coming over the Maindy, Steve had found a naked body swinging from one of the trees by its neck. It had said in the papers the following day that it had been ‘gang related’. The photos Steve had taken looked great in his ‘Album of the Night’.

  Dead bodies in the trees are not all this piece of road has to offer, Steve thought. Oh no. Over the years it’s gained a reputation built on ghost and media stories. My personal favourite, he thought as he jogged, is the one of the phantom motorbike passenger.

  Hmm, how did it go again? Oh yes, that’s it. Supposedly a biker comes along this road late at night, and stops to pick up a hiker. When the biker stops to let his passenger off, he’s disappeared from the back of the bike and into thin air! Steve chuckled, thinking how much that story used to scare him.

  Then he thought of the Tommy’s Bend story. How a man, by the name of Tommy, got into a horrific car smash on this road, and had his head torn from his shoulders in the process.

  People say that Tommy roams the roads, looking for his head at the dead of night. Every night.

  At 03.46, Steve reached Treorchy, and was standing outside the abattoir, which cut a haunting sight: shrouded in cloud, with the moon reflecting through the scant mist, lighting up the old building in a milky glow. A shiver sliced through Steve. He suddenly had the urge to take a piss.

  The windows were covered by sheets of steel, matching the huge sliding door. The old red bricks chipped and haggard from years of abuse by the wind and rain; some of the slate was also missing from the roof. An ‘auction’ sign hung above the door. Soon the place would be bulldozed, and turned into flats. This Steve knew, because it was his bank that was dealing with the place.

  Then his camera was flickering away.

  “Hmm, doesn’t seem to be a way in around the front here”, he said aloud. So Steve crept around to the back. There he found a small hole in the corner of the building, where some bricks looked as if they had been pulled free.

  Fuck, he thought, looks like someone has been messing with the place. He scanned the rubble by his feet, and picked out a small, heavy lead pipe that was hidden in the stone.

  Mmm, nice and heavy. Anyone fucks with me, and they’ll get this wrapped around their skull.

  Steve swished the weapon back and forth in front of him. He was happy with the whipping sound it made as it tore through the air.

  Just before he crawled through the narrow hole in the wall, a cat’s cry from somewhere close by seized him to his spot. Hunkered down in a squat, Steve looked about him. He thought he saw someone standing under a lamplight in an alley opposite him. Icicles of fear pricked his bladder.

  He stood up to get a better look, almost falling in the process, and found the alley empty.

  “Jesus, I’m losing my mind!”

  Crawling through the narrow space, Steve was met by a deathly stink of rotted meat. He retched his guts up in the rancid darkness. But that didn’t deter him, and he continued though the gap, until he could stand up.

  He got his flashlight out, and quickly scanned the room he was in: it was made up of a discoloured white-tiled floor, and sides. Most of the floor was smashed and cracked. The white would have made it easier for them to see the blood to wash it off, Steve thought. In the centre of the floor was a huge culvert, filled now with dead leaves, twigs and other bits of scrap. A few rusted hooks hung from a low ceiling bar in front of him. A couple of them still had what looked like dried blood on them.

  He couldn’t help but push a few of them, enticing horribly squeaks and groans from them.

  His digital was soon at it again, hungrily flickering away at the sights it beheld.

  “Breathtaking,” he whispered, as his skin prickled.

  Happy with what he had seen in this room, he went out the door at the far end, and was now standing in the main room, which, to his disappointment, was empty. Totally void of anything. He continued his search of the building, finding an office of sorts. He entered.

  The room was a disaster zone – a filing cabinet tipped over, spewing bits of its contents onto the carpeted ground, which had stationary strewn across it. A desk turned over, and a smashed lamp lay useless in the corner. Steve didn’t bother rifling through the exposed paperwork.

  Going back out into the main room, he swept it again with his torch. His beam fell on a men’s room. Should be interesting, he said.

  It stunk of piss and shit. Someone had even scrolled on the walls in their own excrement – I HAVE SWINE FLU! Steve took a picture of it, and the stained overalls that hung on coat rusted pegs, before the smell became too overpowering. He quickly exited, and pocketed his camera at the same time, breathing in deep lung full’s of clean-ish air.

  Suddenly a voice boomed through the darkness, making Steve jump. “I’ve been watching you, butty,” the voice rasped.

  He fumbled his flashlight, catching it before it hit the floor. He held the pipe out in front of him, and made circles where he stood, his light scanning every nook and cranny.

  Steve kept his mouth shut, just in case the person knew him, and told people what they had seen Steve doing.

  “I know you can hear me. So I’m only going to tell you once, take your pictures boyo, and fuck off, before I ‘ave ya!”

  Steve dropped the pipe, ran for the hole, and scurried out of it. He heard a deep laugh fill the dark behind him, and even outside, he could still hear the harsh bellow. He didn’t hang around once out of the place – he ran for home; his heart thundered as he went whooping off into the night.

  05.35 A.M. Steve was back in his bedroom; daylight was starting to seep through the window. His bed looked like a good place to be right now, with its ruffled duvet, and un-fluffed pillows, but he had to be at work by six-thirty.

  He peeled his top and joggers off his moist body, and dumped them at the side of his bed. He removed his pants, added them to the pile, and took his towel off the radiator as he headed for the bathroom.

  All he could think about whilst he soaped himself was looking at the photos he had taken that night, and how he would have to wait until his mundane shift was out of the way first.

  Then he thought about the van driver, and the person that had been supposedly ‘watching’ him in the old slaughterhouse. Had it been the same person; had there even bee
n anyone in the old abattoir? A figment of my imagination. Was I hearing things? Just like the thing in his attic. He closed his eyes, and let the water soothe him.

  I need my pills, he thought. I need to phase out the daydreams. I can’t tell what’s real on these runs anymore, and it is starting to taint my…fun. But isn’t that more fun, he mouthed to his reflection in his shaving mirror, not being able to tell reality from non-reality? He grinned.

  Steve left the bathroom with a clean pair of pants on; the towel in his hands, and his hair dripping wet. As he entered his bedroom, he leapt back against the door in total shock at the lump in his bed making a tepee out of his duvet.

  “Wh…what…what the fuck?” he said, scanning the landing and the rest of his room – no-one.

  Dropping the towel, he reached out with quivering hands. Steve clutched the duvet, and counted to three in a whisper.

  “One…Two…Three…”

  He ripped the duvet off the bed, and exposed a doll, decked out in cowboy garb. A black miniature Stetson on its head, with matching coloured jeans and shirt, complete with chaps and spurred boots. A bandanna wrapped around its face, covering its mouth and nose, making its beady black eyes more eerie under the veranda of shadow caused by the rim of the hat.

  “Those eyes”, Steve muttered, “I saw them in the p…p…park. In the bush!”

  Etched into the face covering was a name in red letters – Harry. Harry’s arms poked out in front of him, training two six-shooters on Steve. At Harry’s left side was a sheathed Bowie knife, a lasso hung from his right.

  Steve stood up, and looked about him for the doll or puppet’s owner. Whatever the hell it was.

  “Is this some kind of fucking joke…?”

  The radio alarm clock kicked in, jolting Steve afresh.

  Come crawling faster

  Listen to your Puppeteer

  You’re life melts rapid