Sinema: The Northumberland Massacre (24 page)

Moe had told his only other close friend, Jill, all about their relationship as it had developed, so Jill understood more than anyone the pain Moe had been going through since his partner’s death.

Content that Moe was sleeping soundly, Jill quietly closed the door with a soft click and returned to the sofa bed in the lounge where the big Cream Point Persian, Mister Flibble, was already asleep in the centre of the thick rumpled duvet.

The generous living room, decorated royal blue and cream, with vibrant green velvet curtains and potted yucca and spider plants, was lit by an Egyptian-style ceramic table lamp. Since the heating had turned itself off an hour ago, a chill was creeping in to the old house.

She tied her hair back into a ponytail then quickly undressed out of her wool leggings and sweatshirt. Shivering, she grabbed a large
Newcastle United
shirt on the arm of the sofa. There, she paused, standing bathed in shadow, in only a cotton bra and knickers.

It was Mister Flibble who had caused her pause for thought. The cat didn’t appear to be breathing, but in the poor light, it also appeared that there was a dark stain spreading out around him on the cream duvet cover.

“Flibbles?” she asked hesitantly, the football top held close to her bosom. Slowly, she stepped forward and reached down to touch the still cat.

As the tips of her fingers touched the fine, luxurious fur, something beneath the duvet twitched.

Jill jumped and a startled cry escaped her lips as a large form took shape squirming under the duvet. “What the hell?” What was mild concern turned to alarm. She drew her hand back to clutching the football shirt against her chest.

The movement pushed the cat onto its side and Jill caught a glimpse of a deep gash in its stomach. Then, slow and deliberate, a fully clothed Whitman sat up, the duvet falling away to his waist. The grin on his face was both jovial and insane at the same time. “Mister Flibble is flobbled, I’m afraid.”

Panic rushed up from the pit of her stomach, and yet, in her mind’s eye, Jill caught a strange, fleeting image of a macabre version of
Balamory
. A vision of Miss Hoolie popping up out of the bed, singing, ‘
what’s the story in Balamory
…
’

Whitman whipped the cover off, revealing a long bloodied hunting knife in his other hand. The twisted vision of Miss Hoolie, grinning like a maniac, with blood dripping off elongated incisors evaporated in a wave of terror. She started to scream, but Whitman was on her in a flash, knocking the breath and voice out of her. On the floor, he clamped one hand over her mouth as he pressed all of his weight upon her.

She could smell his hot breath, tainted with stale coffee, straining against her cheek. She thrashed about under his weight, her arms and legs flailing wildly, desperate to break free. Her bare foot struck the metal support under the sofa bed, tearing a wedge of flesh from her little toe, but in her blind panic, she felt nothing but a desperate urge to flee.

His grip seemed to ease slightly, offering her a flash of hope, but then he brought the soiled knife up to her head and, with one swift thrust, rammed it into her ear. Her muffled screaming and struggling continued for a moment longer in erratic twitches, before rapidly ebbing away. Her body sagged beneath him and went limp.

For good measure, Whitman forced the blade deeper still into the side of her head, scraping through bone and cartilage. Blood ran freely, dripping off her earlobe and the hilt of the knife. A mushy, squelching sound accompanied its steady advance, until the blade was fully submerged. Wisps of her soft, splayed hair rested on the back of his gloved hand. He gazed at the delicate ash-blonde strands for some time as her faint twitches finally dissipated, then, with great effort, he withdrew the knife and rose to his feet.

He grabbed a corner of the duvet that was half slumped on the floor beside one of Jill’s upturned hands and wiped the blade clean through it. It was a routine that he had gone through several times already throughout the night, and would do many more times yet. A smear remained on the blade, but he dropped it to his side without noticing and walked quickly into the hallway and to Moe’s room.

He made no attempt to be stealthy as he flung the bedroom door open and strode in. Moe Baxter was still fast asleep, facing him on his side, undisturbed by Whitman’s clunking footfalls, or the brief scuffle in the lounge.

Suddenly impatient, Whitman crossed quickly over to the side of the bed and knelt down in front of the sleeping man. The blade slowly rose to within millimetres of Moe’s flabby chin, the steel glinting briefly from the soft light in the hall. There was silence, save for his hushed snoring.

After blinking several more times, Moe’s eyes widened as they recognised the face in front of him. A fraction of a second after that recognition, he realised that he was in fact awake and it wasn’t some kind of twisted nightmare.

Whitman did not give him any more time to react. He thrust the knife into his wide, gaping mouth.

Perhaps we can frighten the ghosts of so many years ago
…
with a little
illumination
.

A groan lifted up through the dusty gloom. The cellar was in complete darkness, except for the tiniest sliver of dim light squeezing through the gap between door and floor at the top of the stairs.

A second groan followed, then the slow, scraping movement of boots on the concrete floor.

John Bryce sat up on the cold floor, his mind dazed and reeling. He tentatively touched his forehead and was unsurprised to feel a congealing gash, the main cause for his pounding head, no doubt. His body was aching and stiff all over from the numerous knocks he had taken on his rapid decent down the stairs.

The cellar smelled dusty and dank and forced an involuntary cough to escape his lungs. Pain erupted in his chest from its force; possibly a cracked rib. Clutching his sore ribs with one hand and leaning back on the other, he tried to make sense of recent events.

It took a few moments for his scrambled brain to reshuffle everything back into order.
Cody dead
…
blood-splattered walls
…
Anthony
.

“Anthony!” His voice was shrill and loaded with fear.

The cold and dust seemed to consume his cry. Silence was his answer.

After carefully standing, favouring a possible sprain, he edged towards the bottom of the stairs where the light switch was. His hand eased along the rough stone wall until it hit the plastic casing of the switch.

The vociferous click was a harsh, dead sound in the confined space. The single naked bulb in the centre of the room remained dark. He flicked it on and off a couple more times, but to no avail. “Shit,” he muttered in frustration. Fighting back the urge to cry out a second time, he remembered the torch in his pocket.

Praying that the fall hadn’t damaged the bulb, he fumbled to retrieve it and gingerly tried the switch. An orange beam struck the far wall, revealing shelves crammed with boxes of toilet rolls, cleaning products and an assortment of household items.

Sucking in a breath and holding it, he swept the beam across the room. It quickly fell upon an unmoving bare leg.

“Sally!” He rushed over to her, but stopped dead as the beam revealed the rest of his wife’s body. She lay twisted in a crumpled heap, drenched in blood and with wide staring, lifeless eyes. The colour rushed from his face and he felt a sudden urge to vomit. “
Sally
…” The repeated word was feeble, like the rustle of reeds.

The rising panic was impossible to stem. “Son!” Sweeping the beam further across the room, it fell upon, what looked at first like a small bundle of rags in the corner.

Bryce staggered forward, nausea flooding his head; threatening to spin him into oblivion. His knocks and pains were completely forgotten, all consumed by a desperate dread. As he approached, he saw tufts of hair poking from the top of the bundle, and an arm and a leg sticking out to one side.

Drawing closer, he realised, with utter disbelief, that the head and limbs were not attached to the torso. Anthony had been dismembered and the parts deposited unceremoniously in a pile in the corner of the room. A small chrome Dictaphone had been placed neatly next to the head, but the batteries had died, silencing the deception while the farmer lay unconscious.

Bryce dropped to his knees and threw up in front of the dismembered corpse of his son. His despairing cries were lost within the shrinking walls around him. Long after he had nothing left to vomit, he continued dry-retching, his torch and sanity discarded.

CHAPTER 10

There's a number on the wall for all of us,
angel
, and if tonight's the night they pick mine, so be it. After you,
sweetheart
.

The backdoor to Lisa’s flat opened with an audible click after a simple turn of the key that Lisa had freely given him. Whitman stepped into a narrow hall with a steep set of stairs in front of him. Gusting flakes of snow blew in behind, prompting him to quickly shut the door. In the darkness, he could make out the closed door at the top of the stairs that led to the kitchen. A thin strip of light pierced the darkness at the foot of the door. The kitchen light was on.

He ascended the stairs swiftly but quietly. At the top, he paused to listen at the door as dripping, icy water pooled around his feet. After a moment, he eased it open and crept inside. The kitchen was deserted, but the door to the hallway was open and the muffled sounds of a television could be heard from the lounge. Carefully picking his way through Haley’s usual discarded plastic animals, headless dolls and crayons, he crossed to the hall.

The lounge door was ajar. Peering inside, the room was lit only by a basic chrome
IKEA
standard lamp and the flickering images from the television. Ironically to Whitman (or perhaps, tragically to the occupant),
Halloween
was showing. Whitman paused to listen to Donald Pleasance’s haunting monologue to the cynical Sheriff.

“I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes ... the
devil's
eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realised what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply ...
evil
.”

Smiling to himself, he reluctantly drew his eyes away from the screen. The back of the sofa obscured whoever was lounging on it, but he could just make out two slender dangling feet kicking lazily off the edge. In the gloom, he could just make out dark toenail polish.

Whitman already knew who the babysitter was. He had met her several times. She was a cute high school girl; fourteen or fifteen, if he remembered rightly, but already with quite a figure on her. Kelly Mason, Paul Mason’s daughter, was Lisa’s regular choice of babysitter. She was a little introverted, with goth tendencies, purple streaks in her hair and nose and tongue piercings. A younger Lisa in the making.

Scarcely breathing, he eased the door open further then slipped into the room. He crept the short distance to the back of the sofa and peered over the top.

Kelly was lying on her front with her head resting on one arm, engrossed in the film. Good taste in films. Shame really. Her long, messy hair was splayed out around her, covering most of her
Jesus and Mary Chain
1992 Rollercoaster tour t-shirt (despite being a fan, Whitman recollected that tour being a particularly bad one. The naivety of youth).

As he stood, watching Kelly watch the film, a thought occurred to him. He had to clamp his mouth shut to stop himself laughing out loud. Slowly, he drew his hunting knife as he crouched down on his haunches behind the sofa. After taking a moment to judge where her midsection would be, he then brought the knife back and immediately thrust it forward with all his strength.

A startled cry, part shock and part pain, followed. He quickly withdrew the freshly bloodied blade and vaulted over the back of the sofa to land in front of the squirming girl. Another scream caught on her lips as she gasped for breath. She stared wide-eyed and terrified at the grinning intruder standing before her.

“Surprise!” Whitman said cheerily. With a wave of his knife hand towards the television, which splattered a few droplets of blood across the beige carpet, he added, “Who’d you expect? Michael Myers?”