by Rob Parker
After a brief fumble for the light switch, having failed at first to remember where it was, Quint flicked it live and the house suddenly popped to life and brightness. No Wendy in sight. He took the stairs, remarking to himself that he hadn’t quite found that peaceful comforting hobby of his own yet—and he certainly hadn’t managed to assuage the stress. He’d merely upped sticks and started a new investigation.
Downstairs, he entered the open living space, but couldn’t find any sign of his wife. Their chairs were empty, the TV was off, no cup of tea sat half-drunk to suggest recent hospitality. He was confused, and went to the kitchen, flicking the light on as he entered. Nothing there, but even more tellingly, there weren’t any of the usual things he’d expect to find. He checked his watch, the gold retirement effort the constabulary had given him. Five thirty.
They always ate at six, hell, high water, rain or shine. Forty years of it. Yet there was nothing here to suggest that. No cans out, no vegetables prepped, no chopping boards with meat prepped and diced. Just bare counters.
Except the back door was open.
Quint had attended enough burglaries to make assumptions in his head, yet couldn’t make the leap to believe it. He’d been upstairs, surely he would have heard someone in the house? He checked the door. The lock was intact, the frame was spotless. Nothing had been forced or jimmied. He was confused, until he saw the light on in the potting shed, glowing softly through its windows. His chest eased, his heart fell back into place, and he smiled. Wendy really was enjoying it here. His wife was happy.
He walked down the path, smiling, with a spring in his step. ‘Hey, you! Stop-out! Leave those pansies alone and let’s get some tea going!’
He pushed the door of the potting shed open, and saw a sight he couldn’t make sense of. His wife, Wendy, was on the floor. Her blue blouse was soaked in dark blood that had dried in parts to a dull brown. A wooden handle was protruding from her neck—above which was a pile of gristle, bone, pink jelly, blood and chunks of grey hair. A scream left his throat, a noise he had no control over, nor had ever made before—as if the horror of the sight had unlocked a new vocal capacity.
The sound was cut off, as a sort of cage was thrown over Quint’s head. Short, small, like a budgie cage, but tight to his skin. It cut and scratched as it was pushed on. He tried to yank it off, but he suddenly felt a jolt of such explosive fierceness, his head and hands felt like they’d burst simultaneously.
As suddenly as it started, the assault ceased, and he found himself on his knees, his head, hands and shoulders in agony. He shouted again, and tried to pull the cage up and off over his head when, with a spasming jolt and a hiss, the shock returned. He clawed at the metal, which seemed to be exploding all around his head, but his hands exploded in a pain so severe he couldn’t fathom it.
And then it stopped again, and he lay on the floor, panting. He opened his eyes, and found himself next to the remnants of his wife’s head and, as the horror and revulsion hit, the assault started again. His brain began to separate from what was happening to him, such was the severity and agony of the experience, and in that brief numbness he realised that it wasn’t a cage at all that he was caught in—it was the spare roll of electrical fencing that he hadn’t got round to using yet. It was being turned on and off again, in some sort of sick torture.
This time, the pain and shock did not relent, and he found himself clawing maniacally at the coil, the hissing growing louder and a smell of sickly burning growing in his nostrils. Both of those things, he realised as his brain loosened him from consciousness, were down to his hands and face melting against the current surging through the very frame of the prison he found himself in, and, as he felt and smelled himself cook next to his savaged wife’s body, he pleaded for it all to end soon.
With a loud bang and a sudden dousing of darkness, the assault ceased. And as Quint dropped from the waking world for good, he could have sworn the last thing he heard was a sigh of disappointment, before the black hit at last.
43
Pam had the phone in her hand, ready to call the police, when the power cut struck, and the West home was plunged into a darkness that was cave deep, thanks to its suddenness.
‘Is everyone alright?’ Peter shouted from the hall and, at the kitchen counter, she replied in the affirmative. Just to be sure, she pulled the handset to her ear. No dial tone.
She went for her mobile, but as expected, no bars. That damn phone mast, slighting them all once more.
‘Jacob,’ she shouted, rounding the kitchen corner to move into the hall, guessing where she was going and doing a half decent job of it.
‘Power cut?’ he replied, from his bedroom, where he’d been sadly convalescing since he’d come home and found that his second guinea pig had disappeared.
‘Seems that way, do you want to come down?’ she said, and heard her son take the steps out of sight above her. ‘Take your time, don’t trip.’ She was trying to stay calm, but having heard the story Christian just told them outside, it was getting harder.
‘I’ve got a torch in my room,’ Jacob said, and turned around. ‘Be right down.’
As he carefully climbed back up the stairs, Peter appeared through the front door. She recognised his shape in the doorway, framed by the deep black-blue of the sky. ‘Lights out on the whole street. Streetlights too. And… there was a shout. A scream maybe. Just before it. I… don’t know.’
‘What the hell is going on?’ asked Pam, of herself, God, anybody listening.
‘We need to call the police.’ It was a male voice, owned by the person following Peter into the house. Christian. ‘That security guard said he’d go looking himself. Said he didn’t get reception either.’
‘Didn’t he have a radio, or something?’ asked Pam.
‘Said he carried it but didn’t have anyone to call. He’s the only security staff member on the site.’
‘Well this simply will not do,’ said Fletcher, another large figure entering through the doorway—one figure which Pam, frankly, could have done without. ‘When I agreed to live here, I was promised a round the clock security team. Not some old fart in a cabin.’
They turned into the kitchen, Peter guiding them. Pam caught up with Christian and took his arm. She wanted to tell him that everything would be fine, but what the hell was possibly fine about a baby going missing? And not just missing—taken. In the woods right here on their estate. It made her skin crawl.
‘Have you spoken to David?’ she managed, trying to keep the tremor in her own voice under control.
‘No, I…’ Pam, with her hand on the man’s back, could feel his shoulders quake. ‘I wouldn’t know what to say… I… I’ve fucked up so badly, I forgot to lock the car!’
‘It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault,’ Pam said, shushing him as she would one of her own children. One of whom was missing too. A teenage girl, and a female infant. Both missing. Was there a connection? She didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t let the thought race, so she clamped it off. Alice would just be out with her new friends. Surely.
‘Time for clear heads I’m afraid now, Mr Lyons,’ said Fletcher, as he took a spot at the kitchen island, once again like he was the man of the house and the belle of the ball in one big queasy go.
‘Fletcher, that’s not helpful,’ said Peter, and Pam was suddenly proud. That was the Peter she had fallen in love with. The one with backbone, and principle, amongst all the other qualities she had found so attractive.
‘On the contrary Peter, it’s exactly correct,’ Fletcher admonished.
‘Still unhelpful,’ Pam interjected, backing up her husband. The fact that they were on the same team suddenly buoyed her, flushed her with hope.
They would find their daughter. And they would help Christian find his.
‘Here we are,’ said Peter, as a small white light appeared from his midriff, casting deep shadows off everything in the room. The silhouette of the centre island tap stretched and span on the ceili
ng, same with the clawed hand of bananas, as Peter placed the phone face down on the table, using the torch on the back of the device as a mini lantern, which bloomed a soft glow around the kitchen, and settled.
That’s when she saw them, over by the fridge.
Two other men were in there with them. Or at least, she thought they were men. Pam screamed.
Grace had been walking Dewey on the entrance road to the cul-de-sac, coaxing a mile out of those shaggy old legs, when she heard the first scream. Both human and canine stopped in their tracks, and found themselves looking at each other—before they sprinted to the patch of houses on Broadoak, Dewey’s exhaustion immediately forgotten.
‘You heard that, didn’t you, Dew?’ she said, mid-stride.
They pounded the pavement until it narrowed and became easier for them both to run in the middle of the road, and round the shaded corner into Broadoak, where again, they paused, caught and confused.
Every light was off. The cul-de-sac was dead. The only light was from a silver car, down at the bottom between the biggest two houses, which had its door open, emitting the soft warmth of an interior light. The vehicle itself looked empty.
‘Well that’s a bit disconcerting,’ said Grace. Dewey huffed in reply, before they started walking. ‘Where do you think it came from?’
As they walked, and the houses shifted to meet her perspective, she could see that not one house had a light on. She fought unsettling waves of anxiety, and appealed to her sense of logic and cool.
But this didn’t feel right at all.
Dewey barked and abruptly picked up speed, straining at his lead.
‘Wait, wait,’ she said, and pulled him back. The obedient animal paused, even though, as they both knew, if Dewey wanted to go, he could just go and drag Grace behind like an urban water-skier.
He barked again, and looked up at Grace.
‘What is it, mate?’ she asked. They were stood outside the Fenchurch house, looking up at its vast darkness. Nothing about it was inviting, but Dewey was pulling towards it.
Grace was indecisive. The neighbourly thing to do was to check on them, make sure they were alright given the obvious power outage. And dogs had that innate sense when something was amiss.
But… Quint Fenchurch had been a right twat.
To her and to Dewey.
Yet the dog was straining on his leash, looking at the house expectedly, eyes wide with concern.
‘You really want to go and have a look?’ she asked.
Dewey humphed again, and pulled forward slightly to emphasise the point.
‘Jesus,’ said Grace with resignation, looking dubiously at that short, electric fence that now ringed the lawn. She unclipped the lead. ‘Just don’t shit anywhere. And don’t go anywhere near that fence.’
As soon as Dewey felt freedom, he was gone—but not to the front door. Instead, he took the side passageway, which led to the back of the house.
Grace panicked, and ran after him. If Quint Fenchurch saw Dewey off the lead and in his very garden, that would be that. And as she rounded the corner, she realised why Dewey was so excited—and her panic doubled. There was the growing odour of grilled meat coming from the back garden. The quaint little Fenchurches must be having a barbecue—and her giant dog was about to bound straight into it.
‘Dewey,’ she shouted. ‘Dew!’
Images appeared of her wolfhound crashing into their happy al fresco dining scene, snatching sausages like a ravenous scraggly grey horse with sharp teeth. They disappeared just as quickly—when she found the rear garden empty. It was dark, and the smell… wasn’t right.
Dewey was heading straight for the shed at the back, while Grace pulled out her phone to activate the torch app. Something was very wrong. And the darkness wasn’t helping.
As Dewey got to the closed shed door, she called him off with a firm command of ‘stop.’ The good dog sat on his haunches, looking at the door and whining.
Grace stood next to him, and gingerly tried the handle. A simple drop lock, she twisted, and it opened—as tendrils of smoke eagerly fingered through the opening gap, reaching into the cold night air. With it, came an unholy stink.
Grace felt a dread she had never experienced before, as if she was brushing alongside death, in perilously close proximity to her own frail mortality. She felt like prey.
Dewey pushed forward again, and she commanded him to be still once more.
She cracked the door open, and looked inside, pulling the torch light into the slight gap in the door frame to see the most unholy sight she’d ever witnessed.
Peter wanted to ask who they were, but found the question pointless. What he really wanted to ask was what they were. There was something altogether animalistic about the two men in the kitchen at Iron Rise. Animal and predatory.
‘We can work something out,’ he said, raising his palms.
They didn’t reply.
Their faces were cruel and off-kilter. A pair of Picassos come to life, certain things in the right place, other things slightly off or misshapen. Eyes so dark they were almost black, skin pale as emulsion. One was the size of a regular guy, maybe five ten or so, while the other was bigger by some way. Basketball tall. So tall, in fact, that his face was high in the shadow, almost at the ceiling. Wide in the shoulders, although lanky. Physically terrifying. They both wore filthy jogging suits, with the size emblazoned on the breast in black letters reading BIG.
‘Man,’ the smaller one said abruptly, in an unsure rasping gurgle, as if he was trying out the word for the very first time. He looked directly at Peter, the blacks of his eyes unnaturally wide and searching, so much so that Peter could make out no iris. The word chilled Peter to his very core.
The smaller one shifted gaze in a reptilian slide to Pam. ‘Woman,’ he said in that same hiss. Suddenly, Peter began to feel abject dread regarding the whereabouts of his daughter.
‘Man,’ said someone else, and it took Peter a second to realise it was Fletcher, stepping forward. ‘Yes, we are men. You and me, men.’
Ever the politician, Fletcher somehow could see an angle here and stepped forward to press the flesh.
‘Chaps, entering homes is a serious business, but I’m sure we can work something out.’ He brought up an envelope from his jacket pocket—the envelope that apparently contained Neighbourhood Watch approval—and, to Peter’s amazement, started pulling notes from it.
‘I’m sure reasonable fellas like us—’
His words were choked off by the huge behemoth, who grabbed Fletcher around the throat with a hand so big the fingers almost touched the thumb on the back of the politician’s neck. Fletcher couldn’t get a breath out, never mind another word.
‘Man,’ the big one said, in a voice that sounded like earth moving. A tectonic plate shift with words attached. He abruptly hoisted Fletcher up dangling him like a scarecrow effigy, raining a handful of notes which fluttered in the thin light—and slammed him onto his back on the kitchen island, bending the once proud tap out of place. The grip from his throat was released and Fletcher screamed in pain and terror—so much terror—before the big one pinned his shoulders to the countertop with splayed hands.
‘God, let me go!’ howled Fletcher, as Peter and Christian stepped forward.
‘Stop,’ Peter commanded, but a flash of metal in the torch light stopped him. A cleaver—their meat cleaver, new and unused—was being brandished by the smaller one—held out in a stark warning.
‘Man,’ the smaller one said again—then raised the long square blade high over his head, before crashing it down, burying it into Fletcher’s groin.
The scream that burst from the MP was otherworldly. ‘No man,’ the thing said. The cleaver went back up, then down again with a wet thunk.
Peter stepped forward, but Pam grabbed his arm, screaming. He was speechless. They were frozen. The horror of the assault just too… The gore. Watching a man being as good as quartered before their very eyes. Reduced to screaming for his life in vai
n.
As the strikes rained down, and Fletcher’s trousers were reduced to blood-soaked rags, the howls transformed from desperate to plaintive, and it reminded Peter of a badger he’d once hit with his car. Moaning, knowing its race was run, insides now on its outsides. At the end of the day, we’re all animal. Flesh, blood, bone, gristle, the chance nuisance of consciousness the only difference in the human case.
Christian started pushing Pam and Peter out of the kitchen, just as the big one let go of one of Fletcher’s shoulders, reached down to the gaping maw of what had once been Fletcher’s groin—and began pulling at the flesh, ripping it loose from the rest of the body.
The last thing Peter saw as he turned to run for his life, was the big one holding what must have been the remains of Fletcher’s manhood, which he then threw at the escaping party. Something hit Peter on the arm, soft like squashed fruit, but Peter didn’t allow his thoughts to venture any further as to what that might have been.
As they entered the hall, Fletcher’s howls decreasing with every step, Peter’s mind went to base functions and, following that, his parental responsibility. ‘Where’s Jacob?’, as he started up the stairs. All he could think about doing was putting a barrier between his son and those things in the kitchen—even if the obstacle was him.
‘In his room,’ replied Pam urgently, but her words were drowned out by the thump of footsteps coming from what felt like the back of the stairway. All three of them realised what it was at the same time. The big one, had worked out the geography of the house and was coming around the central column to meet them at the other side. They all began running up the stairs, when the big one stormed through the living room launching after them. They were in a standoff, the three on the stairs, and the one at the bottom—who was suddenly joined by the smaller one.