Dancing With Devils
Scott Webster
Published by Scott Webster
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locale are purely coincidental.
Dancing With Devils Copyright © 2019
ISBN: 978-1-072940-16-6
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter One
All I could hear were screams, echoing in the moonlight. Huge, orange flames filled the night sky as they raged uncontrollably; the blaze gently met the skyline without so much as making a disturbance to the vast cosmos. As peaceful as it met the night sky, it was causing anarchy on the ground.
Tears and wailing projected loudly and contended with the crackle of the flames. A child could be seen from outside, on the second floor, banging on the window. She couldn’t be heard but it was clear she was begging for help, begging for the mercy of God.
“Open the window,” I mouthed into nothingness. I couldn’t be heard because I could barely breathe myself. I looked down at my blackened hands, as a kind soul raised a breathing mask to my face.
The motion of her small hands hitting the glass was frantic at first but started to slow. The room she was in got brighter, and naturally the blinding light of fire took over.
A sudden crash from the glass as the window blew out. One could only assume the flames enveloped the girl as nothing could be heard aside from the sighs of defeat from the men firing the hoses into the flames. They’d said the fire had the hallmark signs of arson. Someone meant to hurt these kids?
Few people made it out, and when they did, they joined the choir of coughing, crying, and spluttering. I scanned the area and could see the bodies of children scattered across the area, some had jumped from the higher floors of the building in panic, to meet a swifter end. Adults who had made the same jump lay next to them; some weren’t moving. One was, I recognised him, and he was screaming in pain, his tibia bone protruding through his trouser leg. It must have been a bad landing, but he was breathing. The servicemen ignored his plight, focussing more on the children in need. Serves him right, I’d call it karma even.
Suddenly, a serviceman carried out the lifeless body of a girl, arms and legs heavy in the night, neck falling backwards; I looked on helplessly and watched it happen as if in slow motion. Everything went silent. I started to zone out and couldn’t hear anything anymore. I recognised the youthful face of the girl being brought out. It was the one from the window who had been banging minutes earlier. What a terrible waste… someone started this fire, but why? A nearby nurse’s guttural scream as she witnessed the little one’s arms flailing helplessly echoed in my mind and jolted me awake.
Silence.
The sound of the world outside couldn’t be heard, much like the sudden inception of audio disappearance in the night. The room was dark, with the slightest break of light edging through the top of the curtains. The soft buzz from a digital alarm clock gently simmered from the residual power in the misty light next to my dingy, unclean bed. The timer flicked to 06:00 and with that sudden click, the silence disappeared and a nasally tone echoed to the corners of the room.
“Good morning, I’m Colin Hargreaves, it’s six o’clock on October 7, 2019, overcast skies and continued rain expected in the area today–”
With a thud, I made sure I couldn’t listen to him for one more second. The sound of my hand crashing on the alarm clock always seemed to perk me up when he opened his mouth. Something about Colin Hargreaves irritable voice spurred me into action. How on Earth he ever found a career in radio, I’ll never know. Like nails down a chalkboard, his high-pitched squeal telling me what day it was, reminded me of an old teacher of mine. Contrary to the usual quip of having a face for radio, he strangely didn’t have a voice for radio.
Whatever he had on the producers, I wanted to know. Perhaps something seedy? Perhaps he witnessed the manager commit a crime? Perhaps he was naturally a charming guy with the skills of a dark, handsome lothario? I felt myself smirking at the silliness going on in my mind. Maybe I will take a sabbatical Mr Hargreaves. Maybe I’ll use my hard-earned time to investigate, detect, and find out. Saying that, I am not one to take a busman’s holiday.
Eyes half open and adjusting to the faint light breaking into the room, I exhaled loudly. I couldn’t stop thinking all night. I barely slept a wink and when I did, I frequently went back to that night. Seventeen children and three adults died that fateful evening. I hated sleepless nights. Every second felt like a minute, every minute like an hour, until I was living the night like a speck of dust, irrelevant to the passage of time.
It’s always when I get anxious that I re-live the memory. I wish I could even explain what happens in that mindless black hole where my mind battles itself. If not foolish questions and scenarios, it’s fire and death. Anxiousness seems to find a way into my being, much like the dim light in my bedroom, where even the smallest of cracks is taken advantage of; nothing could keep it out.
I studied the room and thought to myself what a hovel it was. It was never like this before... I could even see stains on the sheets and for the love of me, have no idea what they could be. I don’t remember the last time anyone, or anything, was in this room to make those stains and I wouldn’t ask my colleagues in forensics to try and decipher the origins for fear of crippling embarrassment.
Wait… I just stopped for a second. Interestingly, my mind was silent; maybe Hargreaves does have his uses, as I was distracted for a beautiful minute; only I felt every second and they were gone before I knew it. Beforehand, I was thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. I was thinking about the depravity of the human race and the next experience I would have of it. It’s strange really.
The good we can do and the evil at the same time. Such beautifying, conflicted, and complex creatures, yet so ugly and simple at the same time. We are all walking, talking contradictions, and part of me loves it. I can stare evil in the face and still try to see the good in it. After all, like Yin and Yang, one can’t exist without the other. The synergetic equilibrium and balance that one brings to the other is without a twisted doubt, beautiful.
I’ve spent my life trying to understand both sides to that dangerously enticing coin. I swear that in my mind, and as a true empath, I feel it in every fibre of my body. When I was growing up, I would feel everything around me, from everyone else. I was always hypersensitive to thoughts, feelings, and pain. It’s one of the reasons I worked myself into my current job.
The twisted elation I get when I walk into a crime scene and see, or feel, what happened. Some of my colleagues call me crazy, they say that I see things others wouldn’t; and I’ve put some very dangerous people behind bars as a result.
No other job would give me the means to get close to the more depraved side of
that coin I spoke of, and it eccentrically excites me. I tried some dead-end jobs in college and only felt the stupidity of some of the people around me. Not being involved in such inanity was one of my main motivations to get into this line of work; as well as trying to understand that darker side of our nature, of course.
Most of all, truth gets my heart pumping. I loved to study and assess every crime to find the truth behind it. Three elements could make up any truth: the who, the what, and the why. One of the few mysteries in life to me was that flame-fuelled evening. I didn’t know why with that one.
Proudly, I can say that very few people could face the evil I have. I’ve become accustomed to it throughout life and sadly, was moulded by it from an early age. In some respects, I can say it made me stronger and more resilient; not invincible though. I’m happy to serve and protect the innocence of those who can be spared ever having to see it. The ultimate altruism. Maybe I do have a twisted, yet selfless view on life. Like that irritable friend everyone has, I just know how to take it and darkness, you’re my friend.
“So, when is the rain expected to stop, I hear you say–”
God damn it. I hit snooze instead of stop. Hargreaves again. Though it was a suitable encore to thud the silence out of that voice once again, so I felt doubly better about the morning. Interesting point on the radio. It has been raining for a while now. Six days so far. I find rain soothing, it’s my favourite type of weather. If it rained that night, maybe more people would have lived through it?
My eyes started to open. Ten minutes past six in the morning. I’ve never been good with earlier mornings, I’m more drawn to the night. Night is when the magic happens. Shadows creeping, corrupting, and ultimately keeping me in a job. A mildly stereotypical view of the world to assume that only the demons come out at night, but it’s generally true.
My eyes started to get heavy again. I heard the awful sound of the vibrating of my phone against the wooden nightstand. Why is everyone against me having even a moment of shut eye?
I barely slept last night anyway. I feel as though I was conscious for most of it.
Still dressed from the night before, I’ll admit that I practically fell into bed from sheer fatigue to be robbed of the reward of slumber. Shamefully, I only unbuttoned my shirt from the top, then gave up before collapsing. I had to sort myself out. The bed stunk and the sheets hadn’t been changed in weeks. The pillow was wet with my drool and I didn’t even care. Well, I did, but just couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. I used to care.
Remember when I said we were complex, yet simple? As much as I wanted to be tidier and sleep in a clean bed, my anxiety made me think I didn’t deserve it. My mind made me refrain from actually doing it. Or maybe that was an excuse and I was in denial. Maybe I just didn’t want to actually do it.
I will admit, for someone so attuned to the thoughts and feelings of others, I could see what was happening right in front of me but lost control. I became engrossed in the job, lost in case after case, where a murder I was assigned just stayed open, and the trail went cold. I tried to connect dots, to figure out the motive, but nothing fit. Instead, I became obsessed with the anomaly.
Every case made sense; I just hadn’t found all the pieces yet. Arianna struggled with it all. She tried to reel me in and keep me grounded but that drug, that obsession, kept me intoxicated and blind to the damage I was doing to the woman that cared about me the most. I pushed away the one person that mattered the most to chase that invisible high that kept me in love with the darkness.
My quest for truth and need to understand felt like nature’s joke. The mental jest of someone so in tune with the perpetrators and the victims, and I wasn’t in tune with the thoughts and feelings of my own wife.
My anxiety hit an all-time high when Arianna left. I hated being without her. I get lost in my thoughts, and much like last night and the hundreds of nights beforehand, couldn’t sleep. When the Sandman makes me drift off, anxiety warps my dreams. I either dream of that fiery night, or I’m just standing in an empty room with no doors or windows. I call that my anxiety dream; where I feel like I’m that girl wrapped in flames. In the dream, the walls stretch and the louder I scream, the faster it happens until sound disappears and has nowhere to go because the room is so large; I become smaller and smaller and disappear into nothingness.
Arianna’s last words came to the forefront of my mind. Just a mere two months before, resonating:
“I can’t do it anymore. If you can’t trust me, Sebastian, you deserve to be alone.”
A harsh truth. She uttered those words to me as she walked out the door and told me she needed some space. Sixty miles away seemed like quite a lot of space. I wanted to chase her but the damage was done. She was right. I pushed her away.
The job gets tough sometimes, and whilst I could talk about certain cases here and there and offload and keep her close; this one particular case hit me hard. I seem to attract the worst people in the world because I was assigned the murder of a child born out of rape. By sheer coincidence, we shared the same name.
The mentally unstable father, Arthur Henderson, had been released after seven years for the rape. He was a twisted man and was only caught because the victim, Jessica McColm, in a moment of clarity through the attack, placed her phone in his jacket pocket. When help finally arrived, and the seed of evil deposited in her, the police were able to find Arthur through the wonders of technology. They used the ‘find my iPhone’ feature and tracked her phone to his car, which indirectly led them to him.
Arthur was what you could call a serial criminal but with his superior intellect, always found a way to commit crime without leaving a shred of evidence. He has a fascination with Norse Gods, Demons, and feels he has a right to spread bile and pain. He was cold, calculating, and so fucking good at keeping himself out of the limelight it made me sick. Arrogantly, he was like me intellectually; he just walked a different path in life.
I fully believe that if not for Jessica’s retort with the phone, he’d have gotten away with the rape too. But alas, prison gave Arthur all the time needed to reflect and ultimately plot his revenge. He was a mighty bear caught in Jessica’s simple rabbit trap but could only be put away for the crime he was caught for. When he was in prison, even the hardest of men were terrified of him. I was enthralled. I needed to understand him because I was going to be the one to catch him and put him down.
Arthur later tracked Jessica down; unaware she had kept little Sebastian for religious reasons. How I wished his mother’s God intervened that night. That poor boy suffered an unimaginable end. Arthur welcomed him into the devil’s playground that night.
In fact, I’m sure that Satan himself would have bowed out at the twisted acts that followed. Sebastian was mutilated, tortured, sexually assaulted, and disembowelled. Everything and anything a mother would kill to protect their child from, Arthur made sure to do it. What’s worse is, he knew it was his own flesh and blood; but like a predator in the wild, it was a weakness that had to be eliminated.
Arthur strapped Jessica to a chair, forced her eyes open with tape, gagged her, and made her watch as he tortured, sacrificed, and raped the boy. Arthur taunted Jessica and mocked her religion by saying he was purifying her because she gave birth to the son of the devil, who he had deemed shouldn’t walk the Earth.
She watched, tears rolling down her face, muffled screams that eventually became silent like the room in my dream. I want to believe that Arthur’s original intent was just to repeat his past misdeeds with Jessica and to make her feel pain as he reasserted his dominance, yet his motive suddenly changed upon finding the boy.
I’ll never forget that night. I stood at the door, mouthed, “Three, four, five,” and entered a trance-like state before walking into what I can only describe as Room 101 in Hell’s basement. This was the part of Hell where all the really twisted stuff is dumped and written out of existence.
Immediately upon walking into that room, I was overcome by a wave o
f emotion and felt the pain in there. For an impromptu murder, it had a coldest, calculated feel to it. Almost artistically, blood painted the walls and left the outline of the boy’s mother on the wall like a scene out of a cartoon. Burnt out candles were dotted around the room in a pentagram shape, as if to mock Jessica’s religious roots further and fitting his description of the boy being the son of the devil.
What broke me the most as I studied the bloodied room was the image of blood spatter covering a family photo of Jessica and little Sebastian; with pure love and huge smiles on a sunny day, was the dissimilarity and contrast of the evil in the room. What that little boy went through, I couldn’t even begin to imagine, committed by the man that donated his DNA. I refuse to use the ‘F’ word when describing him, though a selection of other appropriate f-words might suffice. It left a scar on my soul looking at that crime scene. A hole in that child’s stomach as his entrails were pulled out and hung; no one should ever see. Frankly, it was the most malevolent sight I’ve ever laid eyes upon.
In my mind, as I explored that crime scene, I could hear the gothic symphony of a child’s banshee-like screams, mother’s tears, and muffled cries for mercy. That’s one of the only reasons why I have learned to appreciate the newfound silence and solitude in my life.
Some of my colleagues couldn’t even go in, some of them were being sick, which only served to disrupt the scene. The Chief was on scene and had tears in his eyes. He was on the phone to his wife, asking to put his daughter on the phone to say he loved her; and his daughter is an adult herself. A hardy, older gentleman reduced to a quivering wreck. Even the press held details back to prevent mass panic.
The case had me fired up. I went days without sleep, hoping to find a thread of evidence that I could utilise before the trail grew cold. I was quite literally scrambling for any information, or clues as to his whereabouts. I turned every fucking rock I could searching for him and got lost to the madness. It’s how I ended up pushing Arianna away. I dared not utter a single word of what went on in that room because we had been trying for a child for such a long time that I didn’t want her to be put off.
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