We’re being hunted.
“Then who is it?” asked John, almost shouting.
Still sitting on the ground, Patrick pointed a trembling finger past them towards the trees and moaned. “Him!”
Adam turned and saw that horrible chalk-white face again. It stared at them from amongst the trees, its body cloaked in shadow. Its face glowed like a white-hot coin. Sunken eyes and a hollow, toothless mouth. Yet the face was strangely familiar – a spectre from his nightmares perhaps?
Is it here for me? Is this my judgement finally catching up to me?
Adam gripped his metre ruler and stepped towards the creature in the woods, intending to end whatever this was right now. Even the worst torments were less than he deserved, and that fact caused his fear to evaporate. Calmness took over his mind as he realised all his agony could be over in a second if he only gave in.
I see their faces every second, and it never hurts any less. My whole life is pain.
So why fight?
The white face seemed to smile, its cavernous mouth stretching wide, but it didn’t move or show any urgency at all. It remained in the shadow of the trees, watching him.
“I’m right here.” Adam put his arms out wide. “Just leave these people alone.”
The face stared back at him, emotionless. Adam thought he saw a slight movement in its eyes, but it could have been the flickering shadows cast by the swaying branches.
“What is this?” Adam demanded. “What do you want?”
The face tilted slightly, like a curious cat looking at a mouse. Then it shrieked and rushed out of the woods.
Adam screamed, his determination extinguished by the sudden shock of the demonic creature rushing towards him.
I’m about to die.
Maybe that’s what I want.
But he knew he wouldn’t be going to the same place as his wife and son. They wouldn’t be waiting for him.
I’ll never see them again, no matter what.
Hands grabbed Adam and he screamed louder, but he didn’t open his eyes or fight. It was too hard to summon even an ounce of strength, so he decided to just let it happen. His feet slid in the mud and he fell backwards. Suddenly he was being dragged.
But it felt wrong.
He was being carried in the wrong direction – backwards instead of forwards. The sound of panicked voices erupted around him. Door hinges creaked and the air changed. The rain no longer battered his skin.
He opened his eyes and saw Tasha hurrying to close the fire exit inside the storage room. Costa was bleeding again, slumped against the wall and clutching his head. John was glaring at the young man, cheeks red with fury. “Where the hell were you? We almost died out there.”
“You don’t know that,” said Tasha. “We still don’t know what this is.”
John pointed at Costa. “There’s a maniac with a gun out there and we couldn’t get back inside because of you. Where were you? That thing almost got a hold of Adam.”
“I was unconscious,” said Costa, wincing as he probed the back of his head. His fingers came away bloody. “Betty and I heard gunshots. We tried to come outside to help but someone jumped us in the entrance. I got hit from behind. M-Maybe they were hiding in the toilets.”
Patrick looked around like a startled whippet. The nail had been removed from his hand, but he was now dripping blood. “Where’s Betty?”
Costa shook his head. “I don’t know. When I came to, she was gone.”
“You were supposed to protect her.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. You lot were hammering at the back door, so I came as fast as I could. I-I fucked up.”
Tasha put a hand on his arm. “No, you didn’t. This is a messed-up situation.”
He rubbed his head again. “Yeah, but it’s always me that seems to end up bleeding.”
“That’s a good point,” said John, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Costa. “That’s twice you’ve been attacked now. In fact, you’re the only one who has been.”
Tasha pointed at John’s blood-covered loafer. “You’re hurt, too, John.”
“Because of an accident. Not because I was attacked.”
Adam didn’t like where this was going. They couldn’t afford to turn on each other like this. He got back to his feet, using his metre ruler as an aid. Somehow he had kept hold of it. “You stepped on a nail planted in the ground, John. Whoever hurt Costa, hurt you.”
John glared at Adam, breathing in and out slowly. After a moment, he turned and limped into an area of space at the back of the room. “Heads will roll when I find out who’s behind this.”
Tasha pulled a chair off of the nearest stack and placed it down beside Costa. “Sit down and rest. We’re all in one piece thanks to you opening the door, so don’t beat yourself up.”
“We need to find Betty,” said Patrick, fondling his hand where the nail had pierced him. “She needs us to find her.”
Costa shook his head and sighed. “She made it as far as the front entrance. That’s all I know.”
Adam studied the fire escape, wondering if that white-faced creature was still out there. Was Betty out there somewhere too? Or is she still in the building? He turned to Costa. “You said you think someone might have been hiding in the toilets?”
Costa nodded. “It’s just a guess. I don’t really remember exactly what happened. It’s all fuzzy.”
Tasha rubbed his back. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m going to check the toilets,” said Adam.
John frowned. “Earlier, you were the reluctant one. Now you’re taking the bull by the horns? What’s changed?”
“A lot,” said Adam. “Out there, I felt sure, just for a minute, that I was going to die. And it didn’t scare me. I’ve had it coming for a long time, I guess. It felt like a relief.”
Patrick’s face fell in horror. He let go of his wounded hand and marched up to Adam. “Don’t speak such nonsense. A terrible thing happened in your life, yes, and you may well hold yourself responsible, but you were ill, Adam. You were an addict.”
I was a selfish piece of shit who thought he could do whatever he liked and to hell with everyone else. Deep down, that’s still who I am.
“I’m tired, Patrick. Tired of waiting to get what I deserve.”
“You are not a bad person, Adam. I won’t allow you to contemplate killing yourself.”
Adam laughed. “Kill myself? You think if I had the guts I wouldn’t have done that already? How many times do you think I thought about hanging myself in my cell last year?”
Tasha flinched. “You were in prison?”
Adam swallowed a lump in his throat that might have been shame. Everyone there knew he’d served eighteen months in prison for manslaughter after killing his family, but he forgot that Tasha was new to the group.
I hate that look on her face. The surprise followed by fear, like I’m going to suddenly lunge and attack her.
Adam had met Patrick via the prison’s Alcohol Support Scheme (or ‘Ass’ as most of the inmates referred to it). “I went to prison for killing my family,” he said, unable to look Tasha in the eye. “My wife’s family wanted me to get life, and I pleaded guilty, but the court took pity on me – said I was clearly suffering enough. Eighteen months, that’s all they gave me. A year and a half for killing my wife and child.”
Is that all they were worth?
Tasha shook her head and huffed. “Jesus, man. Can you get off the pity train?”
Adam flinched. “W-What?”
“I get it, you’re a piece of shit who probably deserves to die, but can you deal with that another night? We kind of have bigger issues right now.”
Adam wanted to launch across the room and throttle her. How dare she be so callous? But she was right. Like an old glove, he had slipped into self-pity with practised ease.
I don’t have the right to feel sorry for myself. It doesn’t help anyone.
“I’ll check out the toilets,” he said. “
Let the guy with the death wish take the risks, okay?”
“Unacceptable,” said Patrick. “We are all going to get through this together.”
John sighed. “The session’s over, Patrick. Let’s assess our feelings later. Adam, I’ll go with you.”
“We’ll all go,” said Patrick.
Adam shrugged. “Okay then.”
More the merrier.
“Just call us the booze patrol,” said John. He limped for the door and threw it open, then stepped out into the hall. Adam and the others followed after him.
It was past midnight. Time was hurtling by.
Will John’s family be worried enough to call the police yet? What time was he due back? Half ten? Eleven?
It would have been nice if their meetings were in the afternoons, but the point of having it late at night was to keep its members out of the pubs. The irony was that serious alcoholics drank at home.
Their semi-circle of chairs still lay in the centre of the hall, and Kevin’s large body still rested beneath the fuzzy brown blanket. The way the night was going, Adam half expected it to rise up and attack them.
All this night needs is a vampire or a werewolf and we’ve got ourselves a full-on creep show.
Each of them pulled out their phones and activated their torches, but without Betty’s they were one down and the hall was darker than before. Old blood stained the floor, an echo of Costa staggering in with a sliced arm. The poor kid had got it worse than anyone else tonight – and he was an ex-soldier. Whoever was doing this meant business.
Is it even a person?
That face…
Adam had never believed in the supernatural, but tonight, trapped during a dark rain-soaked night, he seriously began to consider the possibility that the ghostly white face outside was more than a man.
Jesus, what am I thinking?
“Looks all clear,” said Patrick, his torch trembling in his bleeding hand. “Anyone see anything at the windows?”
“No,” said Costa. “Nothing. Christ, it’s raining even harder than before.”
Adam peered through every window, one by one, and then shook his head. “That thing could be anywhere.”
“Then why are we expecting to find anything in the toilets?” said Tasha. “If the shooter – ghost, or whatever – was in there, they wouldn’t be any more because they were outside shooting at us, right?”
“What if we’re dealing with more than one person?” said Patrick.
Tasha slid her broom handle along her palm and chewed on her lip. “Yeah, like in Scream?”
Patrick frowned. “I never saw it.”
“Are you shitting me?”
John grunted, clearly irritated. In fact, since getting back inside he hadn’t been himself at all. John never lost his cool; at least not in the group. “Okay,” he said, “should we check the toilets one at a time or split up?”
“We don’t split up,” said Costa frantically. “That’s a bad move.”
“Okay, fine, then let’s go in the men’s.”
Tasha shrugged and pushed open the door on the left of the entrance area. The familiar pissy smell of urinals floated out, but it was the least of anybody’s concerns. Tasha didn’t go inside, she only held the door so that everyone else could enter. Adam went in first. He rounded the first toilet cubicle and adopted a fighting stance with his metre ruler, but nothing faced him except a narrow wire window set high in the wall and a row of sinks. To the left were three urinals. To his right were two cubicles. The only place anyone could hide was inside the cubicles.
“Anyone need to take a shit?” asked Tasha from the rear of the group.
Adam grimaced. “Nice.”
He shoved open the door and swung his metre ruler into the space. Nothing was there. Just an empty, surprisingly clean toilet bowl and cistern. Everyone behind him let out a sigh of relief.
“This is so stupid,” said John. “What do we expect to find?”
“Tonight,” said Adam, “nothing would surprise me.”
“Well, hurry up and check the other toilet. It stinks in here.”
Adam moved over to the other toilet cubicle, confident it would be as empty as the other. He nudged open the door and gave a half-hearted swipe with his ruler. Once again, it hit nothing but air, and the only thing that immediately presented itself was an unusual smell – like copper pennies. The toilet’s lid was down, concealing whatever contents might lie within.
There was blood on the toilet bowl.
Just a drop.
“Is that blood?” asked Costa behind him.
Adam nodded slowly. “Is it yours? Did you come in here after you were attacked?”
“No, I haven’t been in here all night.”
“Then the blood belongs to somebody else. I’m going to lift the lid.”
Everyone fell silent. Even the shuffling of their feet and anxious breathing stopped. Adam placed the ruler in the cubicle’s corner and reached for the lid. A drop of blood on the bowl meant nothing. It could have been there all day from something as simple as a nosebleed or sliced finger. Except the blood didn’t look old. It gleamed and caught the light. Still wet.
Heart pounding, Adam decided to just get it over with. He grabbed the edge of the toilet seat and flipped it up, opening the twin hinges at the back. The seat hit the cistern and settled in place, leaving a clear view of the contents inside the bowl.
What is that?
With only the glare of the mobile phones behind him, the thing inside the bowl was not easily identifiable: a pale lump wedged inside the toilet’s neck, just below the waterline. It wasn’t somebody’s shit, at least, but it shouldn’t be there, whatever it was. It was something bad. The lumpen feeling in his guts told him so.
Grimacing the entire time, Adam reached into the bowl and fished out the object. The cold toilet water made him shudder with disgust. The soft, saggy feeling of the object made him even sicker. Before looking at it, he turned around so that all could see. Then he raised it for inspection.
Everyone screamed. Even John.
Adam threw the body part away in horror. It hit the tiles at his feet with a splat.
“Oh, my God!” Tasha covered her mouth. “It’s Betty’s.”
Adam stared at the severed hand lying on the ground between them and knew it to be true. If the saggy, tissue-papery skin didn’t make it obvious, the eye-catching ruby ring did. Somebody had cut off Betty’s hand and tossed it into the toilet.
But where’s the rest of her?
Adam leant over the sink with the cold water running. He hadn’t been sick, mainly because his stomach was empty, but he wasn’t in any fit state to move for the time being either. He took deep breaths and let the sound and smell of the fresh water calm him.
That’s it, just listen to the innocent trickling of water. Focus on nothing else.
Everyone was panicking around him, but they gave off only a low, buzzing murmur. How did you react to a situation like this? Kevin was dead and Betty was missing – except for her hand, which was lying on the tiles in the corner of the room.
Some psychopath butchered her.
We are in serious trouble.
No, just focus on the sound of the water.
Adam wanted more than anything to just wake up. It was exactly how he’d felt after his wife and son died. He had sat in the police station, his mind in a daze as investigators bombarded him with question after question. He had barely been able to reply. It felt like he’d somehow left his body and was floating above the room. No matter how much he had wished it, he had never woken up. And he wasn’t going to wake up now either. His life was just one long unbroken nightmare.
“What’s our next move?” John’s tone had changed once again, and he was no longer loud and irritable. He sounded sullen and defeated.
“We still haven’t found Betty,” said Patrick, sucking at his bleeding hand between words.
“At least not all of her,” said Tasha. “I don’t think we can help her
any more.”
Adam turned away from the sink. “She might still be alive, but we can’t afford to search for her if it means putting ourselves in more danger. Costa, we’re under fire here. What would you do if you were still in the army?”
Probably something involving grenades and air strikes, or sending in the SAS. All things we don’t have.
Costa pulled a face. “Shit, I don’t know. I would have a combat rifle in my hands for one thing. All we have is a broom handle and a wooden ruler between five of us.”
Patrick was clutching himself. “But you learned more than just how to shoot at people, yes? We have to do something or we’re all… I don’t even think I can say it.”
“Dead,” said Tasha. “We’re being stalked by a monster or a slasher or – I don’t know what – but it’s clear that we’re not walking out of this place without a fight.”
“I saw the face,” said Patrick, closing his eyes as if trying to will the images out of his head. “It’s real. The most gruesome, horrible thing I ever saw.”
“It was just a man,” said John, leaning against the wall with his injured foot up. “I watched it run across the garden towards Adam. It was slow and stiff, not a monster or the goddamn abominable snowman, but a real-life, planning to kill us, maniac. Someone here must know more than they’re letting on. All this madness must be for a reason.”
Tasha tutted. “Most nights I barely leave my flat. When I do, it’s to grab a bottle of wine and some crisps. I’m no angel, but as far as I know I haven’t pissed off any bedwetting serial killers.”
“Any secret admirers?” Patrick asked. “I counselled a man once who used to spend hours every night drinking outside his ex-girlfriend’s house, watching her through the windows. He eventually ended up in prison for assaulting a man he saw leaving her house late at night. Turned out to be an electrician fixing a light switch. Some people are beyond help.”
Adam nodded. Ain’t that the truth.
John sniffed and looked away. “What a wonderful attitude for a counsellor to have.”
“Being realistic is as important as anything else when trying to help people. Why waste time on someone beyond treatment when there are those who might benefit more?”
Gripping Thrillers Page 6