From Dark Places (9 page)

“Lovely, thank you, mother,” he smiled as he took his cup. She smirked, the children had left home years ago and he still called her that.

“How’s the project?”

“Fine, fine,” he slurped. “What’ve you been up to?”

“Just pottering.” She watched him over the rim of her cup, his overalls were filthy.

What on earth does he do in there all day?

“When will it be finished?”

He saw her eyes flick to the shed. “Oh, a while yet, love.”

“Are you going to tell me what you’re building?”

He smiled enigmatically and shook his head. “A true creator never reveals the work until it’s ready.”

She pursed her lips, turning from him to glare at the shed. He spent hours a day in there, yet she was banned from it. She’d heard about men and sheds, even laughed with her friends about it, but they knew what their husbands did in theirs.

She appreciated the fact he’d taken early retirement badly and needed to keep busy, but why did he have to be so mysterious?

“That arrived earlier,” she said, pointing at the box.

His fingertips wriggled as he saw it. “Fantastic,” he beamed.

“Another part is it?” she asked. “Or a new tool?”

“Yes,” he said and gulped down the rest of the tea. “Back to work, mother.”

He pecked her on the cheek, grabbed the box and hurried out again. She watched him fumble with the padlock then dive inside.

The clock ticked loudly, performing a duet with the dripping tap.

She didn’t notice the shed door until she stood drying the mugs. It hadn’t shut properly. Usually he was so careful, but the contents of the third box must have been spectacularly exciting for him to have forgotten all else. She threw on a jacket, slipped on her gardening shoes and stepped outside.

The noise got louder as she snuck down the garden path, her breath pluming in the winter air. Whatever he was building, he was doing so with gusto. All she wanted was a glimpse of this world-revolutionary lawn mower, or micro-light aircraft for pensioners or whatever he hammered away at all day. Just one peek and she’d leave him to it, until he was ready to unveil his grand creation.

She sidled up to the door and peered through the crack. The first things she saw were his overalls and padded jacket in a heap on the floor. Biting her lip, she saw their son’s old tape deck, from the days before CD players, and a stack of tapes next to it. She squinted to read the labels on them. One read ‘drill’ and another ‘sanding wood’. She realised all of the hammering noises were coming from its speakers rather than the main part of the shed.

Something was definitely amiss.

She smelt old engine oil and her eyes fell on a plastic tub full of the stuff just by the door, a filthy rag next to it.

He’s been coating his hands before coming up to the house, to make it look like he’s been tinkering away, when the whole time he’s been…

She risked opening the door a touch more.

The larger gap revealed her husband climbing into a blue dress, already clad in a girdle and petticoat. Gob smacked, she pushed the door further, seeing a DIY clothes rack on casters full of women’s clothing and a shoe rack. The box, which had sat on the kitchen table an hour earlier, rested on a tiny dressing table with a wig poking out of it. In front of him, a full length mirror, reflected back her gawping mouth.

He turned to face her, one leg in, one leg out. For a second he looked panicked, but then that fell away when he finished stepping into the dress and zipped up the side. It gave her time to take it all in and finally close her fly-catching mouth.

“Bernard,” she said softly, shaking her head. “What are you doing?”

He stood straight, raised his chin and looked right at her. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen him look her in the eye like that, the last time he’d looked so at ease; his usual tension and false cheeriness gone.

“Come up to the house you, silly bugger, it’s freezing out here,” she said, as she came over and embraced him. “I’ve got a necklace that’ll set off that dress nicely.”

THE VICTIM

“Over here!”

She froze at the sound of the voice, shielding her eyes from the bright shaft of light slicing through the dark alleyway. She couldn’t move, it hurt too much. All she could do was lie still and focus on her breath. In. Out. In…

A man ran down the alleyway towards her, a torch held in front of him. “Oh Jesus,” he managed to say. She heard the torch clatter to the ground, scuffed footsteps moving away, followed by violent vomiting.

“What?” his companion yelled from the street nervously.

“You’d better stay back.” He wiped his mouth and turned to face her. “My God—are—are you ok?”

She nodded slowly. “Stay back,” she said when he took a step closer.

He nodded and stopped where he was. “I’m— I’m not going to hurt you.”

She watched his eyes scanning the area around her, taking in the blood.

“Stay away from me!”

“It’s going to be ok.” He crouched down to bring his face level with hers. “My name is John. Are you hurt?”

She considered the question carefully, aware of the aching but not wanting him to see that as a reason to touch her. “No—It’s not my blood.”

“What’s going on?” the other man’s voice called. “Is he there or what?”

“I think so.”

John looked at the shredded clothing less than a metre away from his feet and resting a knee on the ground, pulled a mobile phone from his pocket. Speed dial connected him almost instantly and a bright ring-tone echoed from a dark corner.

“Jesus.” The ringing stopped. “He’s dead.”

She heard swearing.

“What the hell happened?” called back the man at the entrance of the alley. She could just make him out, putting something into a large holdall and zipping it up.

“Are you police?” she asked nervously.

John shook his head. “No. But we can help. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

She nodded quickly. “Don’t touch me.”

“Ok.”

He reached out and retrieved the torch, this time using it with more thought, shining it just to the right of her face, giving him enough light to see her features. She felt uncomfortable. The glare made it hard to see him. From the motion of the torch, she could tell he was looking her over.

“Oh sweet Jesus!” he gasped, the beam resting on her lap where a severed hand lay like a trophy from a botched waxwork museum robbery.

She shook.

“Come on, let me take you some place else.” He stood up and offered a hand.

“No!” she yelled, drawing back. “Don’t come near me!”

“John, for Christ’s sake what’s going on?”

John ignored the question and knelt back down. “What’s your name?”

“Anneka,” she replied, only when she was certain he’d keep his distance.

“Anneka, we’re looking for our friend, and it looks like—well you might know what happened to him. Can you tell me?”

Nothing would make him leave, she realised. After some thought she said in a low voice, “I was walking home, something grabbed me and pulled me into the alleyway...”

John nodded patiently. “Go on.”

“I don’t know what it was, but…” she frowned. “I don’t want to talk to anyone about this, just leave me alone.”

“You’re worried I won’t believe you? I will, trust me, I will.”

She studied his face and bit her lip. “I don’t think it was a person at all. Perhaps an animal? But here, in the city?”

“It attacked you?”

She stared at the wall, just past him. “It was about to. Then this man came running and it attacked him instead. I—I don’t remember much more… I shut my eyes. I just stayed in the corner. Then you came.”

“Ok—just hang on a second, I’ll be right back.”

He stood up and went to his companion. She couldn’t believe he just accepted what she’d said with no questions or scepticism. Both he and his companion were so strange. She listened carefully to their conversation, trying to determine what made her so nervous about them.

“Mack’s dead, all right. If we’d got here five minutes earlier… Jesus.”

“What killed him?”

“I don’t know. Werewolf maybe?”

“Oh crap. Not another one.”

“Yeah, I thought we’d got rid of the last of the pack.”

“Revenge kill, maybe?”

Anneka strained to listen in.

“I think she saw it all,” she saw him jerk a thumb back at her. “But she’s in shock. She’s barely with it. Mack’s hand is in her lap and she won’t let me near her.”

The companion leaned to the side, looking past John into the alleyway, shining a beam of torchlight towards her. She closed her eyes and willed them to go away.

No more men tonight, please,
she thought.

“She looks pretty calm to me. You sure she’s in shock?”

“Bloody hell, Pete, she’s just seen a bloke shredded in front of her, what do you reckon?”

This time they both turned and looked at her. She stared back, letting the tears well and her lower lip tremble.

“I reckon she’s coping just a bit too well.”

 “What do you mean by that exactly?” John asked.

“Nothing. I’m just creeped out, you know. We can’t hang around here forever; the police are bound to turn up at some point. How much of him is left?”

John shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll go and have a proper look. You stay here.”

He walked towards her, clearly trying not to make any sudden movements. Even though this man seemed odd, she couldn’t help but warm to his gentleness.

He surveyed the area around her. “Anneka, I’m really sorry to ask this, but did it take his body when it left?”

After a beat she nodded. “I think so.”

The other one seemed to find some courage and came up to stand next to John. “Hi,” he said awkwardly, not knowing how to greet a stranger in these circumstances.

“Garou,” John whispered to him, but she could hear it. “Must be, it took the body to prove the kill to the pack.”

“And left the hand behind,” Pete looked away. “God, I hate my job. This sucks. What do we do with her? We can’t just leave her here.”

“We could take her with us,” John whispered back. “Make sure she’s okay, see what she wants to do next.”

“You’re not thinking about recruiting her are you?”

“Maybe.”

“Look at her,” Pete said and she closed her eyes again, knowing what was coming. “She’s too fat. No way she could hold her own in a fight.”

“She survived this.”

“Only because Mack got in the way.”

John sighed. “Fine. But we can’t leave her here.” He came back over to her. “Anneka, we’ll take you to a hospital, okay?”

She shook her head. “No. No hospitals. Can’t stand them.”

“Well, can we at least take you home? You can’t wander around like that.”

She looked down. There was so much blood and it felt sticky against her skin. But she didn’t want them to know where she lived.

“John,” Pete whispered. “She might remember more tomorrow. Give her your email address.”

“Will do.” He turned back to her. “I’m going to come and help you up, ok?”

He approached slowly and cringed at the sound of his boots making contact with the slick of blood pooled in front of her. It covered her too, soaking the clothing from her waist downwards. Before he reached her, she pulled her coat across her front. It made the hand in her lap tumble onto the ground in front of her and she picked it up hurriedly.

John grimaced. “Why don’t I take that?”

Reluctantly she passed it to him. His friend rummaged in his holdall, producing a plastic Ziploc bag, dropping the hand inside and sealing it. It was carefully placed in the holdall and she sighed.

Gone for good now, no doubt.

John took her hands and pulled her, with no small effort, to her feet. Now upright, the pain was almost unbearable, but she clenched her teeth and took a deep breath to control how much she showed.

“You want to go home?”

She nodded. She felt so heavy; she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to walk. John wrapped her arm around his shoulder and supported her enough to make it out of the alleyway.

The streets were deserted, but the three of them kept in the shadows, making their way slowly to a 4x4 parked around the corner. She accepted the help to climb into the car, relieved she could actually fit through the rear passenger door.

She gave an address a street away from her house and decided to worry about whether she’d be able to manage the walk once they had left.

John waited to see if they were tailed, and once clear, fished a piece of paper from his pocket and wrote something on it. He twisted in his seat to pass it back to her.

“That’s my e-mail address. If you remember anything else, or if you just need to talk about what happened, drop me a line and we can arrange to meet.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, too distracted by her body to formulate a more intelligent response.

“You soppy sod,” Pete whispered to him. “We’re not counsellors you know?”

“Shut up. Can’t you at least try to remember what it is that makes us human?”

The car filled with a tense silence lingering all the way to their destination. John helped her out onto the pavement, noticing the way she winced when she moved.

“You sure you don’t want us to take you to a hospital?”

She shook her head. “I’ll be fine, really. Thanks for the lift.”

“Ok—take care now.” He smiled and she felt herself attracted to him again, but dismissed the thoughts as soon as they surfaced.

No way anything could happen between them. Anything nice, anyway.

She stood watching the tail lights grow smaller and thinking sadly of the hand in the bag, gone for good. She belched loudly, easing the pain a little, and slipped her own hand underneath her jumper to rest over the slit-like mouth in her stomach.

Men were so much harder to digest. With the hand lost what on earth was she going to have for supper?

She noticed the piece of paper in her other hand and smiled as she began lumbering home. Poor trusting fool, she mused. Perhaps he would taste as sweet as his words, and hopefully better than his friend did.