Behind These Walls

by Paul Anthony Williams

  Well something smells about this one...something definitely smells iffy indeed..so go check it out and get the scoop for me, I need photos...witness statements....see if that Detective Mallows can give us anything.” replied Jonah, Michelle’s pain in the ass Editor.

  “Ok....I will see what I can do and what I can find out.” Michelle replied as she gathered her thoughts above a wave of tiredness wafting across her. She put down the telephone as she walked over and finished off her strong coffee, before gathering her keys and leaving the apartment to make her way to the crime scene.

  Michelle entered her car and slowly began to drive off into the distance, it must of been the wave of tiredness that she had been under, as she never noticed the dark shadow lurking outside her apartment....watching her as she drove away out of sight.

  The shadow lurked forward and began to prise away at the door, the lock-picking tools soon made quick work of the door. The door was opened and closed within a heart beat, and the shadow sneaked into the apartment.

  The shadow kept away from the windows, just enough to close down the blinds. Once they were closed he moved towards the desk full of paperwork, his eyes flickered across the first few sheets that lay before him. The shadow moved his hand towards the desk light...he flicked the light on.

  From the gloom, the features of Hal were now more visible, as his eyes hungrily surveyed the files before him. His eyes transfixed with each page...after page after page, he examined each and every minor detail.

  “My, my....haven’t we been busy my dear....I am very blessed that you have been following me all this time...but I need to see where this fraud was born...” I replied as my eyes scanned across the most recent files.

  My eyes filtered through the various reports until one caught my eye, it was of a couple of murders from a child’s home. The victims had been a couple of staff who had been both savagely stabbed and bludgeoned to death, though the child who committed these crimes was not named in the reports due to being legally too young to be paraded for the parasites of the press..

  I knew this was where my hunt for the ‘fraud’ would begin and possibly the identity that he was using now. I placed the report into my coat pocket and investigated the apartment around me..

  The apartment was kind of pokey and small in my view, the signs were all there for me to see...the still smoking cigarette butts in the ash tray showing a hardworking woman who has to deal with stress on a daily basis...

  The fridge filled with various bottles of wine, and from various countries, but I think this was another example of Michelle dealing with stress after a long day’s work rather than she being a connoisseur of the grape.

  Clothes cascaded here and there around the bedroom, showed me she was too busy and was always in a rush here and there due to the hectic lifestyle her job took upon her.

  Framed small pictures from her youth, some pictures of family and friends but I suspected she didn’t see them much and felt she had crawled into a world of her making and form...so much she had become too dependant upon it’s safe comforting arms that she no longer required the ‘real world’ beyond that front door unless it was work, I could see Michelle quite happy living behind these walls forever....unless I did something about it, I smiled as I made my way towards the front door to the apartment. I would return to be the saviour of Michelle later but for now my mind was fixed purely upon this so called fraud that had stolen my name.....

  Michelle arrived at the café to see the police tape and police presence still around the building, she slink her way towards a nearby officer...

  “Hold it there Michelle....you know I can’t let you in here!” the officer responded before Michelle could utter a single word...

  “Oh come on Tommy! You know I need to see this...come on you know you owe me!” replied Michelle.

  “Oh wait....do you think this is about your Dark Poet killings?...this is just a normal ‘run of the mill’ botched robbery gone seriously wrong.” Tommy replied.

  “So its still a story to me...so just me a few details to nibble upon then.” asked Michelle.

  “Ok...ok seeing it’s you and not that boss of yours Jonah....” replied Tommy.

  “This morning approximately 5:00am the young waitress who works here arrived to find the back entrance forced in and the owner Mary Condell was apparently found stabbed and possibly raped, though forensics haven’t admitted that rape was involved though the safe has been opened and a certain amount of money has been stolen....that is all I am saying at the moment. All we waiting on now is the repairman to fix up the rear entrance and we can clear the scene and carry on the investigation at HQ.” explained Tommy.

  “Gee, thanks Tommy that will do!” Michelle replied planting a kiss on Tommy’s cheek, the male officer started to blush....

  Michelle began to walk away from the crime scene, as Tommy turned away from her and looked towards the opposite direction. Michelle quickly and quietly snuck in behind Tommy and made her way towards the rear entrance of the café.

  Michelle walked softly down the dark alleyway that led to the rear entrance, the air was filled with a mixture of aromas...from rotting food from the dustbins to the faint ripples of urine drifting across the chilly morning air....maybe feline or dog piss thought Michelle or maybe even good old drunk piss. She eventually arrived at the rear entrance...

  “Good...it’s clear of police this side.” Michelle said, as she walked up to the open doorway that led into the café.

  She glanced into the doorway...she could see the heavy police presence at the front of the building, and there was none about within the café so she sneaked into the shadows, as she made her way towards the back office.

  Michelle entered the office and immediately saw where the dead body of Mary Condell had been, the dried blood crusting within the threads of the carpet and the odour of death wafting through the air that surrounded Michelle. She bought out her mobile phone and clicked upon the camera app, she began to take photos of the crime scene and surrounding areas and features...

  She then began to move towards the kitchen taking pictures where the body had been dragged to and from the kitchen, again dried fragments of blood lay scattered here and there...

  “Somebody tried to clean up after themselves...but still left a few breadcrumbs scattered about...” Michelle said herself.

  She walked into the kitchen... chrome city was in full view, a smart clean modern kitchen with full accessories and equipment in tidy compartments, every item was in it’s rightful place...

  “Who ever works here...keeps it definitely tidy as well as spotless.” Michelle mumbled to herself, as her phone was working overtime taking countless photos and relevant pictures of the surrounding areas...

  She placed the phone back into her pocket...

  “That takes care of the photos....now to get out of here before I am caught...” she replied making haste towards the rear entrance.

  She stopped for a brief moment as a sly smile trickled across her face...something inside her, something deep inside her made her enjoy the carnage that had occurred, she snapped out of it and made a quick exit from the building...

  She managed to slip out and back down the alleyway, just as a big van with ‘Smythes Door Repairs’ emblazoned upon the side began to reverse the opposite exit of the alleyway towards the rear entrance of the café. Michelle snuck past Tommy, who still was oblivious to her presence and made it back to her car...before driving off back towards her apartment...

  I drove up to the aged old building, the years had not been kind to the St. Lantos Children’s Home....the brickwork was decrepit and windows were either smashed or cracked. I stared at the building for a few moments...picturing images of the ghost of the past running through the corridors...

  “Excuse me....you Mr. Smith?” the voice said to me, as my vision was broken by a stout looking man wearing clothes that were too small for his stature and weight, as a middle bulge of fat heaved against the fabric of his tight fi
tted shirt as I raised a smile and gave out my hand to shake...

  “You must be Mr. Jennings, I am grateful that you have allowed me to enter the building with your supervision of course..” I replied smoothly and with just a twist of charm.

  “Call me Jack....and it’s not problem as this old place will be torn down next week for new housing to be built, so it is not a problem at all.. I believe you are searching for a lost child who was attending this very Home a few years ago?” Jack replied..

  “Why yes, the years I am interested in are between 2005 and really up to the present day.....and please call me Hal.” I said with the charm turned up to ten..

  “I suppose we could try the reception area first, though we may have to dwell deeper into the actual wards for precise documentation...if there is as you can see the building has not coped well over the last few years, vandals and decay have stripped the soul from this place.....some even say it is haunted, though I do not believe such poppy cock.” Jack explained.

  “Shall we go inside then?” Jack asked, as I nodded in agreement and we both made our way into the old building....

  As we entered the building, a gasp of stale air emerged as the tired front door creaked open...the vast sea of cobwebs flittered in the newly introduced breeze and our feet crunched upon remains of the broken windows. We ventured towards the reception area as Jack turned on his torch to light the way through the dim and darkening building.

  “There should be some documents in here...but probably like I said the main stuff will be on the wards.” replied Jack, as we entered the reception area...

  The room was a sea of grey fragile cobwebs and cluttered office furniture decaying and rotten with age. The two men gazed around the room and their surroundings, in the far corner of the room illuminated by the light of the torch stood two old grey filing cabinets which were rusted with time. They approached the cabinets and as Jack shone the torchlight upon the first cabinet, I pulled upon it’s drawer...

  A decade of dust rose into the air as I jerked open the old drawer, inside was a few tired looking files with a thick crust of dust laying upon them. As I pulled out one of the files, the dust fell like dead skin falling from a decaying body...the dust particles floated to the floor as I opened up the file. Jack had found a nearby switchboard and flicked on the old electric system on, as the slightly dull lightbulb flickered into life above my head.

  “Is that better!” asked Jack as he peered towards me.

  “Thanks! That’s much better.” I replied...my mind was 50/50 whether to kill him after I finished here or maybe I would let him live one more day....oh decisions, decisions... I chuckled to myself as I continued to examine the files...

  The files dated back to the early 1980's up to the date when the home finally closed in the late 2000's, there was a selection of troublemakers listed but one name seemed to appear more often than the rest...Karl Summers..a young orphan whose mother had died a yer after his fifth birthday.

  The name was nothing to me but then I looked at the mother’s full name Jessica Summers and then it hit me...could this be the woman I had sexual contact with and the very night I accidentally choked her to death after a sex game gone wrong...

  I remember the body slumping to the floor and those cold dead eyes staring back at me....I buried the body near that old tree beyond the sea of lavender where we had first met...but she had no child when we first met and we had sex countless times, could this boy be my son?

  Could he be this killer?

  Could he have inherited my desire to kill?

  The file had a last address that the boy was sent to from the home...

  Slight problem...it was the police station for attempted murder..

  I was going to need Sam Mallows....

  Chapter Seventeen: The Voices

  “Need to sleep.....but cannot sleep, her eyes still haunt my dreams!” Karl groaned at himself as he opened the letterbox and removed the bundle of bills and junk mail, but then one letter caught his eye.

  ‘For the Attention of Karl Davis’ emblazoned in black ink with such delicate skill from the writer, he carefully opened the note and began to read the contents. It wasn’t long before the voices in his head broke his concentration and he began to argue with them, forgetting for the moment about the note.

  “The bitch got what she deserved....and so did you, you raped her good and proper and then sliced the fat piggy up good....you can still smell the bacon!” cackled the second voice that resonated from within Karl.

  “But I didn’t mean to kill her!...it was an accident.” cried out Karl.

  “Yeah just like it was an accident when the bloke who murdered your mommy! But the only difference then was you had no anger...no darkness inside you and then after that moment I was born to look after you...and protect you!” explained the second voice.

  “But the deaths we have done....and the blood....so much blood has fallen.” gasped Karl as a couple of tears slowly trickled down his cheeks...

  “Oh man up! You are a pathetic worm Karl Summers, you should have died in the womb!” the second voice from deep inside Karl boomed, as the tears that were being wept now dried and crusted and a dark smile was cast across Karl’s face as a wild chuckling emitted from within him...

  “Seems like you are too weak to carry on and now it is my time.....my time to rid the old and inject something new and unknown into the mainstream!” cackled Karl whose second voice was now in control of Karl’s faculties.

  “Please stop....this has got to stop....please!” whimpered Karl, but it was too late...the second more dominate voice had now pushed the weakened original into the background.

  “What we need is to bring the old back and inject a bit of the present day into it...let us finish what the Dark Poet started!” Karl sniggered as he returned the clippings back to their rightful place upon the wall before him...

  With each piece of paper placed upon the wall the sniggers turned to belly laughs and then into evil cackling, as the rain crackled upon the glass of the window and flickers of lightning in the distance erupted overhead....

  Away from the depressing towering city, across the many stretching fields and and lowly deserted wood the dark foreboding sight of the Asylum peeked through the rustling trees as the wind raged and battered upon the old tired brickwork. The vines crept across the front of the building, as a newly fitted window was installed where the Warden’s office was situated.

  The Warden sat with his newly bandaged side staring out into the gloom of the night, the pain from his wounds racked his body with severe pain...a leaving gift from the Dark Poet himself.

  The Warden limped towards his desk....the fall had severely damaged vital muscles in his leg and now had been left with a heavy limp in his right lower region, he grimaced as he lowered himself upon the chair behind the desk....

  “Damn you Hal!...damn you to hell and back!” the Warden grumbled as he tried to ease the right leg into a position that didn’t pain him so.

  “Why didn’t you kill me there and then?”

  “Why force this hell upon me....I should have killed you years ago.” replied the Warden as he poured himself a whiskey from the bottle that lay within the drawer, he gulped down the strong spirit as it nulls the aching pain shooting up from his leg and side of his body....

  “Damn and blast it!” cried out the Warden, as a shocking pain rifled all the way up his leg, he whimpered slightly as his fist pounded the desk top trying desperately to fight the pain resonating from within.

  Away from the Warden’s office, down a few selective dark and damp corridors which led to the north wing. At the end of the corridor lay Kirsten dwelling within the confines of her cell, and she was plotting as her fingers ravishingly flickered through the pages of the book given to her by the Dark Poet.

  Her eyes were fixed to every lovingly written word and seductive sentence, she could feel her fingers slowly drifting from the page towards her tight panties and with the single thought within
her mind...being ravished by Hal the Dark poet as he held her down and forced himself into her body and her soul.

  She climaxed several times at the thought of the desire she wanted....needed from him, and once she calmed her quivering body she returned to the book and quietly hummed to herself as she began to put her plan together piece by piece....as she turned the page to find a key hidden within the book and a set of instructions....

  As the gentle echo of pages being turned trickled through the air of the cell..the moon had become clear from the cover of the dark clouds and the stars began to appear one by one in the night sky above the Asylum....

  “Jesus Hal!....you don’t want much do you?” Sam Mallows replied on the phone as he stood outside the Police Headquarters smoking a cigarette...

  “I have a name and now need a where, but that information is in the Police Headquarters Records Department and I can hardly just walk straight in!” I replied on the opposite end of the phone.