Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller (53 page)

Ray Bishop kept low. He whispered the dog’s name.

The shepherd held up, its ears perked. Its old eyes searched the darkness. It backed off, fearful of that which it could not see.

He whispered again. “Here, Beaks.”

The dog angled its head as its old master revealed himself.

“Here, boy. Got somethin’ for ya.”

He held out an open palm that offered a small rock.

The dog backed off another step.

“Here, you stupid
mutt.
”

Beakers seemed to cower as he hesitated. Then, with a whine that was sorrowful and fearful, finally stepped forward as his master coaxed him.

“Good boy.”

Ray led the animal behind the shed. He dropped the rock. Beakers sniffed at it, pawed it the once, and then, before he could raise his old head, before he knew what was happening, let out a small yelp as the knife pierced his thick fur and buried itself deep into his back. The knife came out—it made an unsettling
flurttt
sound—as quickly as it had gone in, came again … and again and again and again. The Voice came, too, yet from where no one could know, and as it took hold, took steps, Ray Bishop, blood splattering his face and his clothes and his hands, didn’t know he was grinning.

~ 36

He heard the creak of the back door. Heard his son calling for the shepherd. He drew the knife from the carcass and kept low. He could feel that rush coming in one titanic wave.

“Come on, boy,” Ryan said. “Here, Beaks.” He whistled.

Ryan stepped down into the yard. He saw the fresh doings from his dog, then he looked up and about. He started for the doghouse.

Ray Bishop clenched the knife.

Ryan stopped short, about halfway along. He turned about.

“Beaks? Where are you, boy?”

It was the last thing he said.

Ray Bishop sprang from the darkness and was on his son before the boy even moved. The knife struck Ryan in the back of the neck and rammed through his throat. It came ripping back, and blood spewed from the wound.

Ryan clutched his throat. He staggered. He tried to turn, but his legs caved. He collapsed to his knees, his hands trying desperately to stem the warm red liquid seeping through his fingers.

Ray Bishop stood in front of his son. He was a fright, a bloodied freak show. The knife, and the crimson mix dripping from it, glistened from the light in the window.

His boy looked up at him with fading eyes. Ryan tried to speak, but when his mouth trembled open, a river of blood flowed from it.

“Had no business watchin’ me, boy,” Ray Bishop whispered. “I shoulda killed you then.”

Ryan Bishop held out a hand … then slipped to the ground in a heap. He clawed feebly at the earth.

His father spat on him. Got down on one knee.

“Like I always said … good for nothin’.”

~

He dragged his son—his son, still alive, still fighting the end—and laid him up beside the shepherd. He raised the knife.

But the Voice told him
No.
There was no time. The boy was already dead, it said, there was still much to do—

The back door again.
Her.

She called for Ryan. For the dog. She waited a spell, then went back inside to her dishes.

Ray Bishop grabbed the gas and stepped quickly to the house. He was almost giddy, wasting no time in dousing the walls. He prepped both sides of the place and then made his way round the back. His heart began to thrum, his scar twisting with his grin.

The fireworks had begun.

~ 37

The fire ran wild surprisingly quick. It seemed to claw at the old wood of the farmhouse like an animal. He checked the rear window. Bitch was still at the sink. He slipped inside and set the gas down silently, and just as he stepped into the kitchen, his wife turned. She froze at the horrific sight of him, his expression cold and crazed, the blood from the shepherd seemingly everywhere on him. The plate she’d been drying slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor, and all she could muster was a dry and silent
NO
when she saw the knife.

His daughter called from upstairs, asking what all the noise was.

Ray Bishop stepped forward, and Lynn Bishop screamed.

She tried to go around him, but he blocked her path. He forced her back, and she snatched a knife from the dish rack behind her. She whipped round in one desperate motion.

Lynn held the knife with a trembling hand.

“
I swear to God, I’ll kill you, Ray.
”

“
Ma?
” Lee had made her way to the top step.

“
GET IN YOUR ROOM! GET INSIDE AND LOCK THE DOOR!
”

“
MA?
”

“
DO IT!
”

The girl hesitated. And then she ran, her hard footfalls pounding through the old ceiling; a door slammed shut. You could hear something heavy scrape along the floor above.

Ray Bishop held up his knife. “Put it down, baby. Don’t make me hurt you.”

Lynn saw the flames through the window.

“What have you
done?
”

He took a small step, and she sliced at the air. He backed off. He stabbed at her, and she slipped back against the woodstove.

Ray Bishop took another step forward.

“
RYAN! RY
—”

Lynn stared at the bloody blade.

“
Oh my God, omigod
—”

Ray moved on her, and he paid the price. The knife—
hers
—felt oddly warm as it pierced his left shoulder. It stuck there, deep and agonizing, and he pushed her away with the force of ten Ray Bishops. She struck the woodstove hard and groaned. He was on her then, calling her bitch, calling her
cunt,
punching her in the face as hard as he could. She tried to put up her arms to block him, and he kicked her. He sliced her right forearm, and she screamed.

“
How’s it feel, bitch?
”

Lynn was sobbing, tears rolling down her cheeks. She tried to get up, but he shoved her down. He gave her a wicked backhand, her head whipping back. He kicked her square in the side, and she doubled to the floor. He kicked her again, this time in the head, and kept
on
kicking, until she was nothing but a whimpering piece of meat.

“You fucking
whore,
” he said. “You fucking whore.”

Blood dribbled from Lynn’s arm and her nose. She could barely speak.

Ray turned—the smoke was quite thick suddenly—and saw that the room had caught fire. The drapes were flames.

His eyes grew to marbles.

The gas
—

He grunted as he yanked the small knife from his shoulder and threw it down. He moved quickly and snatched the can. He stepped back into the kitchen. Just long enough to pour gasoline on his wife.

Ray Bishop headed for the stairs.

~ 38

Kain was nearly halfway to Lynn’s place, the thought of facing her creeping up on him like some kind of monster. He wondered if it would always be this way: running from Brikker, running from life. He had no idea what he might say to her; he just couldn’t find the words.

He rubbed his temples. The headache was growing like a tumor, grilling him.

Tell her the truth. Tell her how you feel.

He wanted to … God, he did.

He stopped in his tracks.

The sky was on fire.

~ 39

Ray Bishop stood at the top of the stairs. Firelight flickered from below. He could hear the fire growing, its muted rolling thrum a curiously pleasurable sound.

A sound of certainty … a sound of taking steps.

His eyes narrowed. The corridor looked oddly different now, familiar, but not. It was dim and uninviting. It seemed more like the end of a long journey, the final road to whatever beckoned.

Slowly, he stepped along the hardwood, stopping at the open door of his son’s bedroom. Flames clawed at the window; already the fire had spread round the front of the place. The lively firelight colored the room with dancing yellow ghosts and swirling streams of orange-hued shadows.

The bed was unmade, slept in for the last time. He eked a small grin and closed the door quietly.

He passed the second room, the door shut, and stood in the doorway of his old bedroom. He moved inside. The room, like the corridor, seemed vaguely familiar; it was more like a dream. At the window, he drew the curtains back and glanced outside. No sign of the drifter; no sign of anyone. He took one last look at the guesthouse—he knew now it would be his last—and then stepped from the room. He closed the door behind him.

Smoke began to rise up the stairs. With deliberate steps, he met his daughter’s door and set the gas down. He closed the knife and slipped it into his back pocket. He listened.

Sobbing.

He put a hand to the knob. Locked.

Ray Bishop stepped back, then rammed his shoulder into the door. It broke easily, tearing from the jamb, but met stiff resistance from the dresser shoved up against it. His daughter screamed. He drove again, and this time, the dresser budged a few inches. He stabbed a hand through the opening and started to push on it, and howled. He fell back, cursing the pain, cursing his little girl. He had a serious welt across his wrist from the wire hanger she’d whipped him with. He kicked at the door in a fit.

The girl pushed back on the dresser, but this time, he burst through. The front legs collapsed on the fragile unit, and it tipped forward, landing on her. She managed to free herself as he struggled with the door, and in another few seconds, was on her feet and scrambling for the window, screaming.

He forced the door wider, driving the dresser clear. She was halfway out the window when he snared her by the nightshirt and yanked her back in. Her head struck the frame, and she cried out. He spun her about, the blood on his hands staining her nightshirt. He pummeled her, driving her down, and when he struck her with a solid backhand, her head whipped sideways and met the wall. Her legs caved, and she crumpled to the floor in a daze.

He wasted no time; the Voice would not squander its chance. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the bed, and he threw her on it. She tried to fight, and he choked her to the point of submission. He moved over her and snatched the lamp from her night table, and with a terrifying grunt, yanked the cord from the socket. Then he ripped the cord from the base and hog-tied her like an animal.

He rolled her onto her back. She looked up at him then, eyes wide, brimming with tears. And then Lee-Anne Bishop closed them without a sound.

Ray Bishop wavered—there were horrific scars on her flesh, and suddenly there was something there, growing in the back of his mind, telling him
NO
—but then it was gone as the Voice crushed it. The words went off like a firecracker inside his brain, and there was a moment when he thought he was about to die, the pain as wicked as a gunshot to the head.

He rubbed his eyes. Things had suddenly gone blurry.

Gone crazy.

He leaned in close, ran a hot tongue along her throat. He nibbled at her; gnawed at her. Kissed her. He tore into her nightshirt, pawed her breasts with his bloodied fingers.

Pain rippled through him, and he screamed. He rolled to the floor, and the knife that his bitch wife had buried in the back of his right shoulder sank deeper into him, sending him into a shriek. He looked up and saw her standing over him, trembling in fear, and before she could back away he snatched her by the ankle. He drew her leg up from under her, spilling her to the floor. She rolled to all fours and tried to get up, and he was on her like a wildcat. He tackled her onto her side and clawed a hand to her throat. She stank of gasoline and smoke. He would kill her now, kill her at last, and he choked her as hard as the Voice made him. It was a strangely arousing experience, striking him semi-erect, yet the moment was fleeting, for when she kneed him in the groin he doubled, groaning from the new throb between his legs.

Lynn crawled toward the doorway and made it to her feet, but that was all. Ray drove into her with his shoulder, knocking her out of the room and into the wall across the corridor. He kept on her, striking with fury, the rage of his fists knocking her senseless. He snared her by the throat and dragged her to the stairs, and without hesitation, shoved her. She tumbled end over end like a rag doll, flopping into a heap at the bottom, unconscious. The fire would have her.

He struggled to rip the knife from his shoulder, but it was buried just where he couldn’t reach. It burned like a red-hot poker. He nearly caved from the agony, but the Voice screamed its lust:
FINISH IT.

Without thought, without pain, he marched through the smoke and snatched up the gas. He backtracked along the corridor, spread the fuel around, and watched it seep down the stairs. He turned about and made his way back, and stood in the doorway to his daughter’s room. She was still on the bed struggling to break free, but the cord held her. She spotted the can and began to scream.

Calmly and deliberately, as if tearing down an engine part by part, the mechanic poured gasoline all around the bed. On the drapes. On the walls. He moved beside his daughter and stood over her. He soaked her in gas, and she screamed again. He drowned her with it. She began to choke, coughing up mouthfuls of fuel.

He emptied the can on himself.

He looked down at his little girl. Waved a hand to clear some smoke from her face. Her entire body trembled, her eyes spilling with fear. Only a silent scream escaped her.

“
Burn her,
” he said, the words coming easily. As if someone else had said them.

His eyes went black.

Ray Bishop took out his matches.

~ 40

Kain had never run as fast in his life. The sky seemed to grow brighter with each drum of his heart. From where he was now, still a quarter mile distant at the crossroad, he could see flames engulfing the farmhouse. Reeling, he doubled his efforts, and as he finally headed up the drive, legs close to buckling, searched in vain for Lynn and her family. He staggered as he screamed their names at the top of his lungs, but the roar from the conflagration drowned him out.