Murder Game

by Emmy Ellis

  He came to a halt, his face wet, his chest rising and falling as his lungs struggled to cope with the amount of air he’d been taking in. Coda was on the ground, a dark stain at her throat marring her usually perfect coat. He didn’t want to accept what he was seeing so glanced away, willing whatever god was out there to make her coat white again by the time he looked back.

  He turned to stare at his dog again.

  The stain was still there.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” His voice had sounded broken, as though he hadn’t used it in an age, his vocal chords full of holes, eaten by malicious rust.

  Down on his knees, he cradled Coda’s head on his lap, stroking her soft fur and registering, but denying, the fact that she was stiff, cold, and stank to high heaven.

  She’d been this way for a while.

  Jesus Christ, she reeked.

  He slid her head off his lap then wiped his eyes and cheeks with the backs of his hands. He’d been right in his assumption she’d been taken—right to think she’d been killed. How he’d known that he wasn’t sure, but at the time, he’d known. Gut instinct, whatever. Her barking had pissed the wrong person off, and they’d had enough, had taken matters into their own hands, ridding the street of the nuisance they thought Coda to be.

  I should have fucking taken her to work with me. Should have—

  Pain lanced his brain. He shot forward onto Coda, a clump of her stinking fur filling his mouth. Moving his tongue to try to spit it out, he gagged, screwing his eyes shut not only to cope with the agony in his head and heart but the revulsion of what was in his mouth. At the same time he chastised himself for feeling that way about something to do with Coda.

  He lifted his head, the fur mercifully gone, and cupped the back of his skull. What the fuck that had been he didn’t know, but it hurt like buggery. His hand came away wet and warm, and he stared at it through the night, making out a dark tarnish on his palm and fingers.

  Blood?

  “What the…?” he whispered.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it, when something of yours is taken away, Robert.”

  He frowned, recording who had spoken but wondering why he should be out in the woods. Robert made to stand and found he couldn’t. His body was too heavy. His eyelids went the same way, a starburst of colour flicking and flacking in front of him—or in his mind, he couldn’t decide which.

  “What the fuck are you doing out here, Michael?” he slurred out, his speech the same as Whiskey’s was earlier.

  “Doing what I should have done a long time ago. Making sure you never touch my wife again.”

  Robert’s stomach finally revolted at the stink and the pain. Coke came up, landing on Coda, further ruining her coat and creating a larger stain that meshed with the first. He mumbled sorry over and over.

  “Sorry isn’t going to cut it,” Michael said.

  Robert sucked in a breath, his lungs refusing to accept it, evicting it as a harsh whoosh that grazed his throat. “Wasn’t…wasn’t talking to…to you.”

  “I knew you were a bastard. Had to be to leave a dog alone for so long.”

  “Not as bastardish as you. Killing my dog.”

  “Oh, I didn’t kill her. But I did see her at the top of the lane and drag her in here.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “As are you. Stealing a man’s wife. Not a good move, Robert. Or should I call you Vicky?”

  Oh, God, he knows about the texts.

  As if fate wanted to join the game, Robert’s text alert went off. Michael wrenched it from Robert’s pocket, the glow from the front panel as he swiped it alive giving a surprising amount of light.

  “He still isn’t back, apparently, Robert. Me, obviously. Sort of nice in a way to see I was right, that you have her as Sarah in your phone. Mind, you haven’t got anyone to hide her name from, have you? Not like her.”

  Robert was whipped round onto his arse, Coda at his back, the wind rousing her fur so it tickled the skin at the base of his spine. He raised his head to look up at Michael, seeing his silhouette haemorrhaging into the surrounding darkness as his phone went to sleep and plunged them back into total gloom.

  “Get your jeans off,” Michael said.

  It took a few seconds for what he’d said to lodge in Robert’s brain. “Like fuck I will.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll do it for you.”

  By the tone of Michael’s voice, Robert thought it best to do as he’d asked. Buy some time while he thought of how he could get the hell away. He struggled for what seemed hours to tug them down to just below his arse, and he sat with his skin getting damp and his balls shrivelling.

  “That’ll do. You made a meal of that. Arms aching or something?” Michael queried.

  They were, insufferably so. “Yes.”

  “Good, then you won’t be able to retaliate when I do this.”

  Michael shoved him backwards, and before Robert could react, the man had Robert’s dick in his hand.

  Oh, shit. No, not that…

  “I must point out, Robert, that I don’t enjoy touching you this way. I’m just glad I’ve got gloves on.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket and withdrew something.

  And swiped it across Robert’s cock.

  Pain like no other careened through Robert. He opened his mouth to scream, but Michael stuffed something soft inside it. The unmistakeable taste of blood suffused his tongue, and he gagged, knowing what was in his mouth yet not wanting to believe it. Warmth jetted onto his inner thighs, pumping along with the agony, and he’d say he’d pissed himself but that would have been a lie.

  The tail end of that thought reminded him of Sarah—I’D SAY I SHOULD BE STRONG AS FUCK THEN, BUT I’D BE LYING—and he bit back a sob, refusing to let this fruitcake of a man see him cry.

  Oh, Christ. Oh, God, this hurts so bad. And he’s going to go home to her after this. What if he kills—

  Robert almost blacked out from the excruciating pain.

  “You,” Michael said, “will fuck no more. What was it like to shag my wife, eh? Suck my wife’s tits?”

  Even if he could answer he wouldn’t have. Robert retched, saliva pooling around the mass in his mouth. Michael bent down and stuffed it in further, wedging it into Robert’s throat. No breathing room. Robert tried to bite Michael’s fingers, to move, to lift his hands so he could rip that thing out, but nothing happened. His body jerked in his attempt to breathe, to fill his lungs with life-affirming air.

  “No answer, Robert? No, I didn’t think there would be. So all that’s left for me to say is: suck on that, you wife-stealing motherfucker.”

  Aww, Christ, Sarah. I’m sorry. So bloody sorry…

  Michael was right. Sorry wasn’t going to cut it.

  But Michael’s blade had. Robert’s throat was flayed open, and he blithely acknowledged that blood gushed down his chest and a thin river of it pooled in his belly button.

  Michael pinched Robert’s nose, the feel of his gloves soft on his skin, the brief scent he’d caught bringing on a strong memory of Sarah’s leather jacket.

  After that: oblivion.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Michael flung himself off Robert and fell onto his arse, feet firmly on the ground, knees bent, elbows behind him, bracing. He panted, the malevolent dregs of anger lingering like the dog’s bad smell. He stared at the man before him, and the realisation of what he’d done hit him, a huge sack of stinking shite that had his stomach turning belligerent on him. He heaved, some primal instinct telling him not to vomit. He’d got the gloves right, and only then because they’d been in his pocket and he’d slipped them on as he hadn’t wanted to touch the mutt.

  The clichéd What have I done? moved through his mind, sluggish, a wet, slimy, slow-as-fuck writhe of cold dissention against the killing of another man. He scuttled backwards—

  CRAB, LIKE A BLOODY CRAB

  —and the fact that he was bloody wasn’t lost on him. That throat had spurted one hell of a lot of fluid, something he hadn’t expected b
ut at the time he’d let instinct control his actions.

  It was cold out, but God, it was getting colder. Or was that shock setting in? He had an idea it was, and while his teeth chattered, he shuffled back some more. A metre or so separated him and …the man who’d stolen his wife—his name’s Robert, Robert—but it wasn’t far enough. Energy drained out of him, and he obscenely wondered if that was how Robert had felt after Michael had smacked him on the head with a sturdy tree branch.

  He held Robert’s phone up, taking off his glove then swiping the screen, pointing the glow towards man and dog. Robert was arched backwards over the animal, his torso a carpet of glistening red with a tapering channel to his navel, where it had puddled then overflowed, a somewhat sad, meandering streak dribbling from it down one side. His groin—what a God-awful gash—was an explosion of mess, red on every bit of skin, burgundy overflow soaked up by denim. A pink sheen shimmered on the zip teeth, and although the blood had stopped running, it seemed as though it hadn’t. The flesh undulated—Robert’s eyes, they must be playing him up. The backdrop of the dog, its head sticking out to one side, its arse the other, the tail a curve resembling a fuzzy smile, made for a sickening tableau.

  Michael heaved again.

  The phone’s glow diminished. He put his glove back on. Wiped the phone screen with his sleeve.

  “Mustn’t be sick. Please, don’t let me be sick…”

  “You will be if you keep staring at him.”

  Michael shot to his feet, galvanised by terror, a yell of fear barking out of him. He whipped around, seeing someone standing there, a shape that didn’t show either sex. The voice though, that had definitely been—

  “Wondering what to do now, are you? Wondering how you’re going to cover up what you’ve just done?”

  Michael nodded, knowing he probably couldn’t be seen. If he hadn’t just spoken to himself, he might have been able to run out of the woods, the shape none the wiser as to who he was.

  Shit.

  His extremities went mad on him, arms waving, legs jolting at the knees. Uncontrollable shivers juddered his body. The resultant ripples of movement ended in his head to hammer out a dull but fervent tattoo. He reminded himself of a marionette, with a kid orchestrating the damn strings, one who laughed at the insane patterns his body was making.

  “I can help you there, but in return for that, you need to keep a secret for me.”

  Michael didn’t answer—couldn’t, his mouth wouldn’t comply—and found himself going into analytical mode, much like he had to at work. There were pros and cons to every situation, every decision, and quick-sharp, he went through his options.

  Run home, try to get in without being seen, shower with his clothes on to rid himself of blood. Dispose of the clothes somehow. Continue life as normal, hoping, during every second of every day, that this wouldn’t come back to bite him in the arse. Pretend, pretend, pretend, looking over his shoulder, his gut a monkey-wrenched twist of constant nerves. Waiting for the day there was a knock at the door and an officer stood there ready to arrest him. Or question him—and that would be soon once Robert and the dog were found. Denying all knowledge, saying he’d been on the way home from work at the time—your car’s parked outside Mo’s, you prick—and hoping forensics didn’t find anything to do with him out here.

  Or go along with this…shape, yes, he’d tell himself it was just a shape; if he did that he could go about as though the shape wasn’t who it was. Denial, that was one way to go. He could trade secrets knowing that each of them had something on the other, that neither would speak out through fear of condemning themselves to life in prison.

  “There’s a limited time you can think about this, you know,” the neighbour said. “I have a schedule to keep, so if you could hurry up about your decision, that’d be great.”

  “What’s…what’s your secret?” If he knew, it would help him make his mind up.

  “Ah, and there’s the stumbling block. You have to agree, not knowing what my secret is; otherwise, you could go home, blame this on me after cleaning yourself up, and I’d take the rap. And I would—couldn’t get out of this one if I tried. Unless, of course, I blamed my secret on you.” The pause in speech was frightening. Laden with ominous foreboding. “No, that wouldn’t work for me, I’m afraid. Blaming my secret on you would still mean them poking their noses into my life, and really, I could do without that kind of crap. No, it’s a trade or you also become my secret.”

  What the fuck did that mean? Muddled as to what had actually been implied, Michael tried to work it out. A slither of wind wended past, casually flicking his fringe along the way, infiltrating his suit jacket and sneaking into the gaps between his shirt buttons. He shivered, his teeth chattering again, and knew when he was beaten.

  “I’ll do it,” he said, willing his teeth to behave. “I’ll be in with you on this, but I don’t want to live constantly worrying about whether you’re going to turn on me. I can’t…I didn’t mean to kill him. I just…I saw him in the street earlier and it—“

  “Save it for now. You’ve done me a favour.”

  A favour? That was the last thing he thought he’d hear. How was killing Michael a favour? Confused, he clenched his fists, feeling like a kid again, indecision, morals—that was hypocritical now—and every other emotion waging a war through his system. A bloody, wretched war that might well end up with him as a fatality.

  “Fuck, I…” He lifted his hands to cup his face, clamping his jaw so his sodding teeth stopped dancing. “If you have a schedule,” he said through his teeth, “then we’d better get to it.”

  Decision made, he felt better—kind of. He’d deal with the whys and wherefores after, when he had time to think properly and could digest everything without his mind pitching him into panic.

  “Come with me,” the shape said, taking a pinch of Michael’s suit sleeve between finger and thumb and leading him to the log. “I’m glad in a way. That you’re here. I’m tired, and doing this a few nights on the trot has wreaked havoc with my muscles. Go to the other end of the log and help me shift it.”

  Doing what a few nights on the trot?

  Michael didn’t question. He rolled the log backwards as he’d been instructed, seeing nothing but a darker mass where the trunk had been.

  “Now we need to get him and the dog.”

  Michael followed the shape back to the corpses, hesitating to touch Robert when the shape bent over and clasped the man’s ankles. His mind went blank, erasing everything that had happened. He stared blindly, his eyes glazing, his pulse ramping up to a faster tempo.

  “Well? What are you standing there for? I’m helping you clean up your mess, and all you can do is watch me? Jesus Christ, talk about ungrateful.”

  Michael snapped out of his fugue, and everything came tumbling back. Smacking Robert on the head, his intention at the time to just beat the bastard up. Cutting off his dick, his intention at the time to—No, he’d put that Stanley knife in his pocket beforehand. He’d known exactly what he was going to do.

  He took hold of Robert’s wrists, the skin still warm, and told himself the man was just asleep. Yes, that was it, he was sleeping, dead to the world.

  Oh, God… Dead. Dead, dead, dead. He’s fucking dead?

  “Move to the side, away from the dog so we don’t trip, Michael.”

  He obeyed, carrying the body to the log, the weight giving him a sense of being on a ship as it swayed between them.

  “Watch it. You might not have realised, but there’s a fuck-off big hole there. One step back, and you’ll be in it along with everyone else.”

  Everyone else?

  “Now move to your right. That’s it. This one has a specific place ready for him.” The shape sniffed. “Right, drop him in.”

  Together they swung Robert a little then let him go. The thud—the crump—as his body landed was a sound Michael never wanted to hear again. He imagined the body had folded in on itself. He stood there shaking, wishing this nightmare w
as over, knowing it never would be.

  “The dog?” the shape said.

  They repeated their previous task, and this time it wasn’t a thud but a dull, diluted noise reminiscent of fist on face.

  “Give me his phone, Michael.”

  He did, glad to have handed it over, parting his lips to say it wouldn’t work with gloves on. He was startled by his relatively normal thought. Self-preservation kicking in? His mind already starting the process of smothering his memories, killing them until they no longer existed?

  The shape swiped the phone, highlighting the visual of a hand in a glove. Did he wear the kind that could be used on phone screens? The beam was directed at the hole, swung across in an arc so Michael could just about see what was inside. Robert was four-fifths along, an empty space on one side and a mound of earth on the other. Something was on top of the mound. Several somethings, a scattering of them, black-and-white with ebony marbles for eyes and dark grey tusks for mouths.

  “Magpies?” he asked in a whisper.

  “They get on people’s nerves. Always chittering. I thought I may as well get rid of some along with the people.”

  “People.” He hadn’t asked it as a question—he didn’t need to. That mound of earth said it all. “I don’t want to know who they are.”

  “No, best you don’t. The fact that they are there is enough. I’ve killed, you’ve killed. Even stevens.”

  The casual way in which the shape had said that gave Michael the creeps—more so than what he’d done to Robert. The words had produced an eerie calm, and, coupled with the birds, the meticulous planning that had gone into this, he realised he hadn’t known the shape at all. They’d lived in the same street for years, spoken every day, and he didn’t know them.

  He groaned, wanting to cry and feeling absurd for it. But it would be understandable if he did, wouldn’t it?

  “Those birds mean something, you know.”

  “Do they?” Michael croaked.

  “Yes. Two for every body. Two for joy. The saying? One for sorrow, two for joy, three for—”