Sourmouth

by Cyle James

  Riley continued onward, his hand periodically touching the wall as he walked to ensure that it was still there. Finally he hit one of the walls and had to make a turn leftwards before continuing on. The further he went along the more junk he found like an empty rack to hang clothing on and piles of old children’s clothes sitting in moldy old cardboard boxes. There was nothing particularly sinister to be found. At least until he stumbled into a metal cabinet.

  “What do you think is in it?” Violet asked as she peeped out from behind her husband’s torso to better see the object.

  He reached out and fingered the latch on the door, “I’ve got no clue. But it does seem to be unlocked”.

  “Just open it. It’s just going to be somebody’s tools”.

  With a pull Riley pulled open the door and held the candle up to what was inside.

  “Well...they’re tools alright,” he muttered as he strained to look closer.

  Shelf after shelf laid various instruments, delicately lined up and free from rust and dust. It was clear that whoever owned them took great care of them. What some of them were was what was in question. Some of them were obvious like the multiple knives that were no bigger than ones used to skin fish. Or the large leather paddle studded in steel rivets and its accompanying nine tail whip and flog. There was a collection of binding implements from leather straps to simple bits of rope. It was the assortment of oddly medical-looking equipment that threw the couple for a loop. There was a metal wheel with sharp spines alone the edge and a round circular metal frame with spikes that protruded inward. There were a handful of similar devices that looked the same with equally confusing purposes.

  “I think we found the playpen of the drifter in that attic room,” Violet said quietly as she backed away, oddly as if she was trying not to be found out.

  “There’s nothing to suggest that this belonged to...” he started to reply before he was cut off by a shrill scream from his partner.

  “Violet!” he yelled into the dark as he spun around with the candle, frantically searching for her in the dark.

  “I’m fine. I just tripped on something,” she called out from somewhere below. Her voice was clearly filled with embarrassment rather than pain.

  “Are you alright?” he asked as he made his way into the center of the basement, stumbling into the feet of his wife who seemed to be on the floor.

  “I’m fine. I backed up and clipped into something and fell on it. Happily it’s a cushion or mattress and not a table saw”.

  Riley bent down with his knee to the mattress and stuck out the light, trying to check up on his wife. Violet sat there with her face disheveled and her cheeks rosy with embarrassment. Her clumsiness was almost cute. But it was then that he got a better look at what they were on.

  It was a queen sized bed, bare from linings and any sort of dress. What was on it were various stains of browns, reds and yellows far too old to identify. To both ends of it were even more restraints, positioned entirely to bind hands and feet. Just to the side was a collection of various lubes and a box of condoms. It was absolutely clear the sole purpose of the bed and the basement as a whole.

  “I think you should grab my hand and get off of that thing as fast as you can without touching it or even looking at it,” Riley said with a grimace.

  Violet couldn’t help but look over her shoulder to see what her husband was rattling on about. It was only a few moments before she let out another scream, this time in disgust. Without even thinking she placed her hands down on the bed and pushed off to get up as fast as she could.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she yelled at her husband.

  He grabbed her by the crook of her elbow as he tried to avoid grabbing her by her filthy hands and headed in the direction that he thought were the stairs. Luckily his guess was right as he kicked the bottom step a bit too hard. It was a short sprint upwards towards the light before they were back on the main floor in the living room of the house.

  “The fuck?” she cried out as she urgently wiped her hands on her jeans repeatedly to try and get off the invisible germs that she thought were attacking her in full force.

  “The last thing I thought we’d find down there was a kinky sex dungeon,” Riley said as he made his way over to the grocery bags that sat on the counter in the kitchen.

  “Sex dungeon? Who says that it still isn’t the drifter’s slaughter prison?” she asked as he made his way back to her with one of the bottles of water that they had bought.

  He tossed her the bottle which she tore open in a fever before pouring it over her hands to try and get them clean.

  “There’s nothing to say that there’s anything evil about that basement aside from our overactive imaginations,” said Riley.

  “Were we seeing the same thing down there? How do you explain all of those crazy murder weapons and torture devices?”

  “Again, maybe they weren’t torture devices. Or at least they might not be murder weapons. It could all be kink stuff for platonic sexual use. It was basic S&M material from what my virgin eyes could tell. Just because someone was into the kinkier side of getting down and dirty doesn’t make them evil,” he tried to explain to deaf ears.

  “You do realize that you’re most likely trying to rationalize the sex habits of a serial killer, right?” she stated with obvious aversion on her face.

  “I’m just not convinced that the basement means anything other than what it appears to be. And unless we find tufts of wolf hair caught between some of those restraints I’m failing to see the connection between our fabled Sourmouth and that sex dungeon. So can we do me a favour and just drop the topic until we can come up with something more conclusive?”

  Violet groaned in annoyance, “Fine. Whatever. Just don’t expect me to go anywhere near that basement again”.

  “And what about the attic?” he questioned.

  “What about the attic?”

  “Didn’t you want to search for clues? Find out more about this great mystery?”

  “Forget about that attic. I can’t handle any more of this house. I think we need to take a break from the place,” she answered as she paced back towards the front door, grabbing her coat off of the floor.

  “Take a break? And do what?”

  “Let’s do our searching elsewhere. This house is ancient, isn’t it? There has to be someone in the neighbourhood that’s seen a thing or two about the owners. Or the drifter that came along and killed them with an axe”.

  Standing by the door already in her coat it was clear that she was fully intending to leave with or without her husband.

  As hard as he wanted to sulk, Riley realized that it was no good to fight her on the matter. If she didn’t want to be in the house at the moment then she surely wasn’t going to remain in the house. So with a losing sense of reluctance he grabbed his light windbreaker and headed towards the door.

  “In the very least you’re going to be the asshole asking everyone about their life stories,” he said as he shut the door behind him when they reached the porch.

  “It’s not their lives I’m interested in. It’s whether anyone in this house has lost theirs”.

  Chapter 7

  The Tylers started off in a walk as they headed towards the closest house down by the edge of the water to the left of Poyam’s. But when they arrived at their destination it was clear that it hadn’t be used much more than the one they were currently in. It was another five minutes of trotting through the long slippery grass around the perimeter of the lake before they found another house to investigate which also looked to have been vacant. Downtrodden by the lack of neighbourly spirit they returned to the house to get in their rental car for the sake of warmth and ease. When they left base camp it was still warm enough that their jackets sufficed in keeping them from freezing. But once the sun had been down long enough that they forgot that it had just been daytime the temperatures instantly plummeted.

  With a proper mode of transportation they rode the tight
paths around the lake, looking for a sign of life aside from the random assortment of animals that continually tried to get run over by their car. After ten minutes of exploration, the Tylers went around the bend of an almost hidden back road where they spotted another couple lounging on the deck of their cabin. Given that these were the first people that they had seen up at Killarney Lake, it didn’t take much thought as to whether or not they should stop to ask a few questions. With a quick diversion onto the side of the road they turned around and headed to the house, pulling into the strangers’ driveway with a slow sense of purpose.

  From within the car they could see that the couple were both white and must have been in their sixties. The man was spindly, wearing beige slacks far too high on his body and had far too little hair to pull off the haircut he was sporting. The woman was at least three times the size of her husband and looked like she should have been the cover model for the magazine “Southern Cooking With Nothing But Butter”. And in spite of the Tylers’ surprise visit, the couple’s lazy-day demeanour didn’t seem to vanish from their faces.

  Riley put the car into park and stepped out to meet his wife at the front of the vehicle. On the porch the old man tipped his Stetson and nodded his head upwards in recognition of their presence.

  “’Ello there, children. How can we ‘elp you?” the woman called out in a thick accent reminiscent of the Midwestern States’ inflection.

  “Hi there. We’re here visiting from Seattle. We’re staying in one of the houses down by the docks and we were wondering if perhaps you knew anything about the owners?” Riley called out as the couple stood their distance from the porch as not to seem like they might be a threat.

  “And what would you be wanting to know about these owners that you can’t ask them yourself?” the man said in a quick rat-a-tat style in the same drawl as his wife.

  “Nothing in particular but everything we could get from you would do,” chuckled Violet nervously.

  “And whose house did you say youse were staying in?” the man asked.

  “Poyam’s. Not sure if that’s the last name or the first. But we rented it yesterday and haven’t been able to get in touch with her again to ask ourselves”.

  The wife made a grandiose motion with her arm like she was waving in an airplane, “Well come on in out of the cold then. We never have guests here, so it’ll be a nice change of pace to have a little bit of youth in the house”.

  The woman’s husband grunted as he stood up without bothering to try and question his wife’s decision. His grim expression of acceptance was that of a man who had long ago learned not to put up much of a fight over the little things.

  The Tylers happily bounded up the steps of the house and into the front door where they were greeted by the warmth of the fireplace burning in the background. The old couple’s house was in much better shape than the one that they were renting. It was clear that not all of the houses in the vicinity had been built at the same time, nor been kept in the same condition. The couple’s house, while slightly tacky was well preserved. There were brass statues strategically located on almost every available surface; a greyhound statue on top of the 30 inch CRT television, a stallion statue in the middle of the rectangular tarnished oak dinner table, a statue of Elvis on top of the end table with a Christmas Story memorabilia leg lamp strategically placed beside it. The walls were a faint yellow from years of a bad smoking habit with small white dots from a wallpaper underneath that formed intersecting patterns that tried to confuse the eyes. In the living room was a ratty black leather reclining chair and a large three seated couch with a plastic covering that Violet thought you only saw in movies that were making fun of old people.

  “Please, have a seat,” said the woman doing her best Vanna White impression with her arms towards the sofa.

  The Tylers took their place side by side on the couch, followed by the woman on the end with the man taking his place in his leather chair. Almost as fast as she sat down the woman jumped back up like she had been bitten and ran off towards the kitchen.

  “My name is Samuel and the chicken with her head chopped off is my wife Diana. And who might I ask would you two be?” the husband said paying no mind to where his other had run off to.

  “I’m Violet and this is Riley, the child that I often take care of”.

  The jest got the slightest smirk from the man.

  “I know a thing or two about babysitting,” said Diana as she returned with a small platter of desserts stacked on top of each other three rows high.

  “Those look delicious. Are they some sort of brownies?” Violet asked as she picked the biggest one off the plate.

  The woman laughed in a way that made her chest heave, “No, no, no my dear. These are Nanaimo bars. They’re layers of chocolate on top of wafer crumbs with custard butter icing as the filling. It’s a British Columbia thing, rather popular here in Canada. Though I had never even heard of them until I moved here”.

  “Where did you live before? I’ve been trying to place your accents,” said Violet.

  “Calgary,” the husband stated, “We had a farm. Sold it and moved out here where we could retire with winters that weren’t as harsh on our bones”.

  Riley finished selecting his piece just as his wife started making pleasured grunting sounds over her mouthful of food.

  “How did you make the move from Calgary to Vancouver?” Violet asked almost inaudibly.

  “I had family here. All throughout my life I’d come and visit at least once a year, staying in this very house. Eventually I inherited it. When it was time to make a change it was a no brainer”.

  “Enough about us though. Let’s get down to the gossip, shall we?” Diana said gleefully as she sat on the couch.

  Her husband made another grunt that sounded somewhere between agreement and aversion.

  “What do you know about, Poyam? Did she ever live in that house? All that we know is that she inherited it,” Violet asked as she nibbled on her bar.

  Diana shook her head, “I don’t know much about her honestly. We’ve only been living here full time for a few years. But she’d come around every few months to check up on the place. I can’t say for sure what she’d be doing. But she’d come, stay for a few hours and depart. From what a few of the other neighbours have told me, she doesn’t like to interact with anyone. According to what the neighbours say, her family was always like that even back in the day. But my husband knows her a lot better than I do”.

  “When I was a child I was about the same age as Poyam. We didn’t really have much interaction with each other aside from passing glances or group games. A few of the kids around the lake would get together and play. Swim. Catch. Act as children do. From my memories, which sometimes can be a bit foggy, she was a normal enough girl. At least when we were really young she was a normal girl. But soon the other kids and I started noticing strange things going on with her. Bruises. Cuts. She’d say that she fell or walked into things. You know the excuses. It wasn’t until we were all older did we realize that her father, a real terror of a man, was beating her”.

  Samuel pulled out a pack of cigarettes from the inside corner of his chair and lit one up before continuing.

  “It would go on like that for years. Decades from what I could tell. I went from being a wee lad running around in my underwear, to being a teenager checking out the skirts, to being a young man too cool to be jumping into the lake. But no matter how much time went by, Poyam always seemed to have a busted lip or a broken wrist or welts running across her arms. I believe she later went blind from complications she suffered from some of the nerve damage he had inflicted on her. Her nightmare never stopped no matter how old she got. I remember feeling guilty that I never did anything to help her. But what can you do for someone who doesn’t want help? When you can’t know for sure what was going on because they refuse to tell anyone?”

  Violet had completely stopped eating her dessert and just held it somberly in her hand half chewed, “How com
e nobody else tried to help her? If everyone knew or at least had their suspicions then why not get the police involved? Throw her father in jail or something?”

  Samuel took a long drag before answering, “This island is a small community. That in itself is a problem when it comes to issues like this. To make matters worse, she’s native. The white police can’t be bothered, as the natives often prefer to police themselves in their reservations and bands. It was always a very well-known secret that no one talked about or did anything about. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was also raping her. Not to be too macabre, but the logic is sound on the topic. That someone capable of inflicting that much physical pain to a loved one, someone that he’s supposed to take care of, wouldn’t be above sexually abusing her. There was no mother in the picture for as long as I was aware. No other family to step in and save her. It was just Poyam and her father in that house for decades. It’s a wonder that she didn’t go crazy”.

  “There’s no evidence that she didn’t lose her mind,” his wife interjected.

  “So did this just go on until Poyam was an adult and her father just...died of old age?” asked Riley.

  “As far as I’m aware, the abuse continued well into her late thirties. I didn’t visit here much around then so I can’t say for sure. But I do know that her father didn’t die of old age. In fact he died pretty much how you’d wish someone like that would die. He was mauled to death by some sort of animal. He was torn to shreds. From the way the coroner described it, there was barely enough left of him on the floor in pieces big enough to be identified. As far as the police could tell, an animal broke into the house late at night, crept up stairs and slaughtered him in his bedroom. All the while Poyam was asleep down the hall”.

  Violet’s mouth was agape. Her mind was reeling from everything that they had just been told. To the old couple it was all just old tall tales and island gossip. But to the Tylers every word made things worse. Suddenly everything seemed to click together. The little closet-sized room underneath the attic must have been Poyam’s room once upon a time. A poor innocent child locked away with barely anything but her tormented thoughts. Even worse was the thought that the house belonged to a torturing rapist who found it suitable to keep his own dungeon in the basement. And even once she was able to get the horrid images from her mind of the little girl in immeasurable pain, Violet couldn’t stop thinking that not too long ago there had been body parts splayed about where she and her husband were currently sleeping. And that the deep slashes that decorated the room were that of a bloodthirsty animal, an animal more than likely named Sourmouth.