The Monster Man of Horror House (32 page)

“Stop
there! Stop this minute” came the cries from the Matron on duty, but I didn’t
falter a stride. I took the stairs three at a time, throwing myself around the
banisters and ever upwards until I crashed through the top floor landing doors.

“Stop
him! Stop him!” the Matron was screaming off somewhere behind me, and two burly
orderlies jumped to their feet to tackle me before I could get anywhere near
the children.

“Oi,
come here you!”

“Stop
right there!”

But
I was in no mind to stop for them any more than I had been for the Matron and I
rushed along the corridor kicking open every door I came to.

“I
know you’re in here. Out now! Out!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, pulling a
large silver crucifix from my bag and scouring each dorm with it. The kids
screamed as I burst into their rooms and the orderlies made a lunge for me, but
I pulled my dad’s old Webley from my bag and shot a couple of rounds into the
ceiling to warn them back.

“Get
back. I mean it!” I told them, gun in one hand, crucifix in the other and looking
half-deranged like every orphanage’s worst nightmare.

“Put
the gun down and let’s talk,” the nearest orderly pleaded, changing tact
slightly, but I told him the kids were in danger and if they didn’t get out of
my way another child would die before this night was out.

“No
one needs to hurt anyone,” the orderly urged, backing me into a corner until I had
no choice. I lowered my gun and shot him in the foot, dropping him immediately
and sending the other orderly sprinting for cover.

“Sorry
mate,” I told the orderly who was now squirming in a pool of his own making.
“No time to explain but I’m here to help.”

I
had no doubt the telephone was glowing red hot downstairs, so I kicked my way
through the remaining doors while the second orderly put himself between me and
Matron as she evacuated the children I past. Every room I came to I would hurl
the screaming child I found within back to the orderly, who in turn would shepherd
them back to the Matron. I could tell neither the orderly nor Matron understood
any of this and both were frantic at the thought of what I might do, but as
long as I was just handing them kids instead of exorcising them they were happy
to let me continue my quest until the men with big butterfly nets arrived.

I
reached the final couple of doors and put my foot through the second from last
to find an eight-year-old girl standing in the linen cupboard next to an open
window. There was no expression to her, she seemed to be in some kind of a
trance but she was dripping blood from open wounds that ran up and down her
arms, splattering the crisp clean sheets around her.

“Come
with me sweetheart,” I said, reaching out for her, only to become aware of
something falling out of the ceiling at the last possible moment. I looked up
just in time to feel the pinch of ten angry claws clamping around my face and I
hit the floor before I could react.

“She’s
mine!” Rachel screamed, wrenching me into the shelves with enough force to
bring them down on top of me. I scrambled out of the piles of linen and shot
Rachel in the back with the revolver to get her attention, making the orderly and
Matron outside turn and flee. Rachel snapped away from the window and scowled
her nastiest scowl at me, which turned nastier still when I held out my
crucifix for her appraisal.

“Get
out of here!” I demanded, climbing to my feet and advancing towards her. “Leave
this place at once and never return. You are forbidden from entering these
walls for as long as you are sheltering with me. Do you hear me?”

I
wasn’t sure any of this was cutting any mustard with Rachel but she seemed
suitably outraged and threatened to chew all sorts of shapes into my head if I
dared to presume to talk to her that way again.

“I
mean it,” I reiterated, closing in on Rachel as she spat and hissed at my
challenge. “Release the girl or your time with me is over.”

The
little girl in question was still none the wiser to any of this, but she was slowly
being backed closer and closer towards the open window as Rachel retreated from
my Sacrament. I knew I only had seconds before she was out and onto the
railings below, so I got tough with Rachel and pulled out a well-thumbed copy
of
Peter Pan in Scarlet
from my bag.

“This?
You see this?”

I
threw it onto the floor and shot it straight through the cover with a single round,
scattering loose pages about the linen cupboard and putting a rather large hole
in Barrie’s plot.
 
 

“Nooo!”
Rachel reacted, spinning the girl around and jamming her claws underneath her
chin. She would’ve torn her head clean off in retaliation too had I not quickly
dug
Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
out of my bag to remind her there were three more beloved books up against the
wall here.

“I’ll
destroy them all if you hurt that girl!” I promised. Rachel had clearly never
been stood up to like this before in all her life and she didn’t like it much.
She roared her indignation into my face then hurled the girl aside in a fit of
pique and scampered up the wall and out of the door.

I
chased after her back down the corridor and in and out of the rooms as she
raced around the ceiling bringing down lightstrips and ceiling panels onto my
head. The Matron and orderly had evacuated the rest of the floor, hauling away
their wounded colleague to leave Rachel no one else to take her frustrations out
on – no one except me that is. And as I had a gun to Peter Pan’s head she
could only vent her frustrations at me for fear of losing all that she held
dear. This was a new and unwelcome experience for Rachel, powerlessness, and
she took it out on the fixtures and the fittings of the final bedroom, hurling beds
and mattresses clean across the room in a childish show of might that left the
place looking like a pillow fight in a poltergeist’s bedroom.

“We’re
going home now!” I demanded. “Come on, back to the car this instant!”

Rachel
curled up her lip in disgust. She seemed totally blinded by her own rage and
her physical appearance changed to match her mood. Her eyes were milky with
blood and her teeth engorged to stand clear of her mouth like a row of pincers,
while black veins popped in her neck and face to distort her pale skin even
further. She was no longer the little girl I knew and [sort of] cared for, she
was an unspeakable spawn of Satan, a vile slug on the petal of mankind. I kept
the crucifix between us at all times as she stalked me around the walls,
suddenly unsure of my untouchability.

The
sound of footsteps approaching on the stairs outside caught both of us
off-guard and I looked out of the window to see a dozen blue flashing lights in
the grounds below. The cavalry had finally arrived, although as far as they
were concerned I was very much on the side of the Indians. Worse still, my
momentarily lapse in concentration let Rachel pounce. She flew across the room
to swipe the crucifix from my hand and slammed me headfirst through several MFI
wardrobes and onto the floor.

I
ended up on my back with her fangs just inches from my neck, wondering how I’d
been so naïve as to think I could rehabilitate a remorseless killing machine
such as she, while at the same time marvelling at the strength she held within her
tiny frame. She kept me pinned to the lino as if she were made of concrete and
screamed her dissatisfaction into my face.

“You
are nothing! You are a worm-riddled mongrel of no consequence whom I have
honoured with my kinship. Do not for one moment assume you are my keeper. You
are my pet, no more, and I have the power to snap your filthy neck as soon as
look at you, you mangy half-breed!” she bellowed, peppering my face with
spittle and spite.

Voices
now sounded in the corridor outside demanding I showed myself and we had but
seconds to spare before we were discovered. Rachel snarled at these further
interruptions and snatched me up off the floor as if I weighed no more than a
coat, running for the sash window at the end of the dorm and jumping us both through
it and out into the night.

Glass,
wood and screws showered the police cars below, but Rachel and I didn’t land
for another thirty yards, crashing to the ground in the woods beyond and disappearing
into the shadows before anyone knew where to look for us. By the time the
police caught up we were long gone. They scoured the woods with torches and with
dogs but found no signs of any intruders, just a few broken branches twenty
feet up and a page from the J. M. Barrie classic
Peter and Wendy
.

It
was just the latest in a long line of unexplained and unexplainable events to
befall Colchester Children’s Home.

Though
it was not to be the last.

vii

It didn’t escape my attention that Rachel’s feelings had focussed on the books
themselves, rather than the stories contained within their pages. It hadn’t
occurred to her that she could’ve easily tossed them all on the fire and sent
me out for new copies the next day. The way she saw it, these books had brought
her a great deal of comfort and happiness, therefore these books had become
very dear to her. It was an affection that belied an innocence behind the
malice. Likewise it didn’t occur to her that she could’ve easily found someone else
to read them to her if she’d tried. Like the books, I’d become [almost] as
precious to her, though that didn’t stop her from dragging me through every thicket
in the park as we circled the cops to sneak back to the car. Rachel laid out
the policeman we found snooping around it, but to my surprise she didn’t kill
him. I think she only abstained because she realised this would’ve turned up the
heat on us unnecessarily, but it was still a welcome relief. Instead we drove
home without breaking any more laws and without saying a word to each other for
the entire journey. It was Rachel’s first teenage tantrum and I would wear the
scars from it for the rest of my life.

*

Having been a teenager once I knew what tricky, unpredictable and proud
creatures they were so I made most of the running when we finally sat down to “talk
about it”.

I
apologised for shouting at her and I apologised for making her feel stupid and
I apologised for failing her and for not considering her feelings and for night
turning into day and for just about everything else I could think of until
Rachel eventually cracked.

“I
shouldn’t have called you a mangy mongrel,” she conceded and I waited for the
rest of it, but that was it. That was all I got. The attacks, the maiming, the
killing and the terrors she’d inflicted on the orphanage, they didn’t count for
anything. She was only prepared to apologise for a name I couldn’t even
remember her calling me. Still, I accepted it as graciously as I could but
refused to let the other stuff slide until she’d at least acknowledged some of it.
Finally she did.

“I
didn’t ask you to drive me to a kids’ home, did I? You drove me there and you pushed
me out of the car knowing what I was like, telling me to collect food when
there was young blood on the wind and then shouting at me when I had one of my
episodes,” she snapped. “You’re meant to be looking after me. You put me in
that situation and now you’re having a go at me. Well fuck you!”

Believe
it or not she was right in a bizarre sort of way. I had presumed too much of
her and I had got complacent. I should’ve researched my locations better and
not under-estimated her capacity for malevolence. She was a savage and out of
control predator, after all, not a Girl Guide on bob-a-job week. I had let my
guard down and been caught out as a result.

“I’m
sorry Rachel, you’re right. I didn’t think. I should’ve been more considerate,”
I admitted, quelling the fires that burned behind her eyes a little until she
was ready to bare the real pain in her soul.

“And
you didn’t have to ruin my books,” she sniffed, catching me out by even
shedding a tear or two. “They were mine. You had no right.”

I
completely agreed and said I had gone too far, shooting holes in a couple of
old paperbacks just to stop a killing spree, and I promised not do it again. “I
guess I just wanted to show you how precious that little girl was to me, just
like your books are to you,” I told her, which Rachel had trouble understanding.

“Precious
to you? You didn’t even know her. How could she be precious to you?” she asked.

“All
life is precious to me,” I replied. “Particularly those who cannot defend
themselves. It’s my human side I guess. And I know it’s in you to feel it too,
so I’m sorry if I upset you, I just wanted to show you how I felt.”

Rachel’s
eyes narrowed. I sensed she thought my feelings were about as important as
evacuating ants during a forest fire but she didn’t elaborate on the point.
Instead she drew the conversation back to her books and went on about how far
she’d come with them and how much they’d been helping her understand who she
was and all the rest of it until I stopped her in mid self-analysis by telling
her I knew where I could get my hands on more copies.

“Where?”
Rachel demanded to know.

“Better
yet, why don’t I go and get them for you?” I suggested, buggered if I was going
to hand her my head on a plate as well as my library card.