Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel (37 page)

And then he knew. It wasn’t him. He was only watching. Someone was pressing a knife to his sister’s throat, her head thrown back,
fingers tight in her hair. Someone was digging the knife point under her skin, letting her blood out, watching it, drawing the knife along her throat, doing it surprisingly gently, not doing it deep, just drawing a line, a red line, a line that bled. And that someone bent his head – Toby’s head – and licked the blood from Tully’s neck.

Toby was
watching. He tried to loosen his grip on his sister’s hair, but the hand stayed tightly wound. He knew it was his fingers holding onto it, but he couldn’t make them let go. The taste of blood flooded his mouth and he wanted to gag, but he swallowed instead and moaned, tipping his head back and feeling a wide grin stretch across his face. Then he was pulling his sister towards the car, slamming her face against the boot, once, twice, until she slithered limp from his grip, a woman-shaped heap on the gravel at his feet. He sniffed, touched a finger to the knife, and wiped away a splash of blood, licking at his finger.

When he opened the car boot and lifted Tully from the ground, let her tumble inside, then
pushed at her to fit, closed the boot lid down on her, that was when he started screaming, and heard only laughter.

There wasn’t any way she could grope around in the darkness under the bed, find the phone charger and plug the phone in. She pushed at the buttons anyway, maybe she’d been wrong, maybe the battery wasn’t flat after all, she’d just been mistaken, pressed the wrong thing, and now the phone was going to light up, give up the numbers on her contact list.

But she couldn’t call on this phone anyway, and her new one was – where?
Back at the broken house. Out of reach. She put down the dead phone and pushed it away, tightened her grip on the knife instead and listened.

He was right outside her door. She could feel him there, leaning against
the door frame, listening just the same as she was. Except he wasn’t holding his breath. She could hear him, breathing deep and slow, sucking the air in through his nose as if he was sniffing the air, as if he could smell her, and her scent pleased him.

But no, surely that wasn’t the case. He didn’t know she was there. How could he? Sure enough, a moment later, she heard him move away, the floorboards creaking under his weight, and she allowed herself to breathe again, light-headed in the darkness under her bed,
fighting the urge to sneeze and sob and scream.

There were more noises, from the kitchen, this time, and she squeezed her eyes shut, hoping he wouldn’t notice the missing knife. It was slick in her hand, fear making her palms sweat, her fingers cramping around the handle. She lay there, tracking his movements around the house, trying to, except he was quiet, prowling, hunting her.

The car was outside. She shifted her weight, moved an inch towards the edge of the bed. He would have left the keys in the ignition, maybe, but if he hadn’t, there was one of those magnetic boxes by the back wheel on the passenger’s side. It had the spare key in it. She could get out of the house, grab that, get in the car, drive away. Drive to the police station. Or no. Go to the old women’s house. They’d help her.

She’d knock on their door and they’d be frightened at first, of course they would, a girl covered in dried blood turning up on their doorstep at dawn, a crazy story on her lips. But the story wouldn’t be crazy to
them, that was the point. Why had she not talked to them earlier? Why had she turned around and come back home yesterday without talking to them?

But she would talk to them this time. They’d crowd around the fireplace, and she’d tell them how the spirit they thought they’d banished hadn’t passed over at all, hadn’t gone towards the light,
hadn’t met long lost relatives on the other side. Had, in fact, bypassed the whole divine afterlife, and had instead made himself quite comfy inside her brother. Her brother who was too sick to resist, who was easy pickings, unable to defend himself. She’d tell them all that, and then they’d tell her what to do. She bit down on another sob and wiggled a slow inch closer to the door.

The bedroom door ricocheted off the wall and the ceiling light snapped on, sending Tully scrabbling away from the edge again. She gripped the knife tighter and bit her lip, pressing her teeth deep into her flesh to stop from crying out. He’d known all along. Since that first moment leaning against her bedroom door. He’d been able to
smell her, just like she’d imagined. He’d smelt the blood on her – of course he did, it was blood that he’d spilt. She tightened her grip on the knife, and her heart pulsed and bulged behind her ribs.

A hand swept away the comforter from the side of the bed, and she was staring at her broth
er’s face. A face just as familiar to her as her own. She’d been looking at that face since the day she was born. It was so similar to her own, a masculine version of herself. She loved that face as much as she loved life.

But the smile playing over its lips wasn’t Toby’s. It wasn’t Toby groping under the bed for her with a hand bent into a claw. Toby wasn’t licking his lips as though thinking of all the delicious fun to come. Not
her brother. Someone else, someone else wearing a Toby suit.

Now, she had to get to the door, had to make it outside to the car, had to do it quick, quicker than she’d ever run. She couldn’t afford to lie here under the bed, frozen, paralysed,
unable to do little more than suck air into her lungs.

The hand snatched at her sleeve and missed, and that was enough to break her out of her stupor. She squirmed away, out from under the bed on the opposite side, got to her feet, and ran for the door, out into the hallway, careening into the front door, scrabbling at the lock, twisting it first one way, then another, looking around behind her, seeing him coming.

The door opened and she fell out into the early dawn darkness, the grim shroud of the day wrapping itself around her with clammy arms, slowing her down. The gravel of the driveway bit into her bare feet and she whimpered as ran, making for the road now, knowing there was no chance of getting away in the car. Maybe if he really had left the keys in the ignition, but there was no guarantee of that, now, was there? There was enough time to imagine her cringing away from the car windows, helpless in there, even with the doors locked, and then he tackled her.

She went flying, knife spinning from her hand, legs out from under her. He spun her around and let go, and she landed on the sharp stones, winded, gaze startled, landing on him looming over her.

His hand was in her hair, she’d tried to twist away, get to her feet, run again, but his hand was in her hair, holding on, jerking her to her feet and she screamed, hoping the neighbours would hear her, but knowing she hadn’t screamed loud enough, there didn’t seem to be enough air in her lungs to scream loud enough, they’d just think she was an owl, on the wing early in the morning, hunting a mouse before going home to bed.

She was the hunted one. Turning, she stared at him, stilled a moment. Toby? Was he in there? She thought for a moment something flickered behind his eyes, something familiar, but they were cold again, just as cold as before. A stranger’s eyes. She struggled against his grip.

Now there was a knife at her throat, and she could feel the sharp prick of its point as he pressed harder and broke through her skin. Her neck was cold, there was a line of ice drawn on her neck, and then the heat of his breath, the wetness of his tongue and he licked her neck, licked up the line of blood and tipped his head back and she watched him, forgetting to scream, too shocked to scream as he closed his eyes and swallowed her blood.

She had to get away. This man was crazy. Crazy on a whole different level. But the knife was at her throat again, and there was nothing to do. He dragged her over to the car and slammed her face against it. After that, there was nothing but blackness and the echo of screaming.

It must all have been a dream. Waking in the blood-soaked room, fighting with the knots tying her
by wrist and ankle to the bed, the long, stumbling walk home through a midnight forest, then waiting under her own bed, knowing he was coming closer…

All a dream. Because here she was, right back in the room again, bound by the wrists and ankles. She tested them
; pulled first one hand, then the other, but they held tight.

‘There’s no point to trying to get away this time
.’ The voice was right by her ear, close enough for hot breath to tickle the fine hairs on the nape of her neck. She froze.

‘I’m out of practise,’ it continued, only pretending to be her brother’s voice. ‘Otherwise, you would never have got away. But what can I say? I’ve the perfect excuse – until your dear friend yesterda
y, it had been fully seventy years since I’d last killed.’

Tully couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. ‘What have you done to my brother?’

A deep-throated laugh. ‘Oh, he’s still here. But he’s a very sick boy. So he’s in the asylum, and believe me, if you weren’t crazy the morning they dragged you off to that place, you were by dinnertime.’

‘You’re the crazy one.’ She had to keep him talking. If he was talking to her, he wasn’t cutting. She didn’t want the cutting to start. She’d seen what sort of mess that made.

‘So they all told me. That’s why they stuck me in that place. I would rather have been sent to prison.’ The voice hardened.

She’d hit a sore spot. ‘They were right. I don’t know what sort of crazy you are, but you’re the biggest nut job I’ve met.’

‘Nut job? I don’t believe I’m familiar with the term. Where I come from, it’s very pleasantly termed
criminally insane.’
The voice moved, farther away. ‘Do you know what they do to the criminally insane in those places?’

Of course she didn’t.
She pressed her lips together and refused to ask. The conversation frightened her. Suddenly, she just wanted it over with. Hoped he’d dig the knife deep early on and that none of it would take long.

‘I’ll tell you, shall I? Seems the least I could do, since your beloved brother is busy being rehabilitated there at the moment.’

‘How could he be?’ There were rustling noises, but Tully turned her head away from them.

‘Because, like I said, he’s in here. Tangled up in my memories, and believe me, the hospital you had us put in is nothing like the one he’s been a prisoner in the last few months.’ Hot breath on her cheek again and she flinched. ‘He’s being raped as we speak. You know what strait jackets are good for, don’t you? Let me tell you. Keeping you bent over and still while
a great loathsome assistant rams his syphilitic dick up inside you and justifies himself by telling you how he heard you had a particular liking for boys.’ The breath was still against her face. ‘I love boys, and plan to play with many, once you are out of the way, but he, my dear, the one who is currently pushing your brother’s face into the bed while he slaps away behind him, he was no boy, no pretty boy, not at all. Not like your brother.’

Tully opened her eyes, and stared at her brother’s face. He stood up and smiled at her
.

‘I’m getting you ladies out of the way, I am. Then I think it might be Matt’s turn to take tea with me here. His skin will be like silk under my knife. He will taste divine.’

Shaking her head, Tully glared at him. ‘You won’t get away with it.’

‘Of course I will. Do you know how long I got away with it last time? Twenty years. Twenty years of my own little tea parties. No one knew. No one missed any of my lovely little boys and girls. Not until I got careless one day, and that was all on me.’

She licked her lips. ‘It’s not like that anymore. The police will find out about you. Lara will be missed. I will be missed. It’s not like years ago or whatever. The world has changed so much, and you’re not going to be able to get away with it. You won’t last a month doing this.’

‘A month is much longer than
you have. And I will learn. I’m a fast learner and I did not spend all that time waiting for your brother for nothing. I will not be caught.’ He stood up and moved away from the bed, hands going to the buttons on his shirt, fine fingers plucking at them, taking the shirt off, folding it neatly and placing it on a bench at the far end of the room. Tully struggled against her bonds.

He removed his trousers, stood in front of her in boxers and socks, looking down at himself, smoothing his hands over his skin. When he looked up and saw her watching, he grinned.

‘With a body like this, it will be easy to tempt close those I want to spend time with.’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing can stop me.’ Hooking his hands in the waistband, he drew down the boxer shorts over his hips and took them off, folded them, and added them to the pile of clothes. ‘Don’t want to get these messy,’ he said, and she cringed at the explanation. The socks joined the pile.

Tully turned her face away from the sight of her brother’s naked body. She bit down on a sob and stared at the wall. The blood had soaked in, drying to a black stain.

The first cut was under her breast. He licked up the blood and chortled, dipped his head to the welling liquid, and she felt him fasten on to her, sucking on her.

‘Toby!’ she screamed. ‘Toby, if you’re in there, I need you!’