“Oh, dear, I wonder where your friend is,” Ma says. “I hope nothing’s happened to her.”
The girl looks resigned rather than worried. Dismissively she says, “I’m sure she’s fine. She’s a bit like this, I’m afraid. Unreliable.”
“Oh, dear,” Ma says again.
The girl smiles, evidently touched by her concern. “It’s okay. It’s no big deal.”
“I hope you haven’t far to go?” Pa asks.
“No, not really. Fulwood Park. It’s only a bus ride away.”
Ma looks almost shyly at Pa. “We could give Veronica a lift, couldn’t we, Gerald? We go right through Fulwood Park.”
Pa looks a little doubtful. “Well, I suppose we could. But she might not want to, Phyllis. I mean, she doesn’t really know us from Adam. We could be anyone.”
Ma gives a silvery laugh. “Don’t be silly, Gerald. You’ll accept a lift, won’t you, Veronica?”
The girl looks wary. “Well, I don’t know ...”
Frowning at Ma, Pa says, “Of course you don’t. Don’t pressure the poor girl, Phyllis. You’re making her uncomfortable.” Turning to the girl with a look of apology, he adds, “Don’t feel as though you have to say yes, Veronica. We’d quite understand if you weren’t keen. Wouldn’t we, Phyllis?”
Ma looks a bit put out, like a child who feels she’s been unfairly reprimanded. Glancing at her, the girl says quickly, “Well, obviously I’d love a lift, but only if you’re absolutely sure ...”
Ma beams. “Of course we’re sure.”
Pa looks at the girl and secretly raises his eyebrows in a what-is-she-like? gesture, making the girl smile. “That looks as though it’s settled then,” he says.
They leave with the girl, Pa moving slowly, aided by his walking stick, Ma with her hand resting lightly on his back. They don’t look around to see whether anyone notices their departure. They know that even if they have been seen, witnesses will remember only false details: Pa’s spectacles, his walking stick. Aside from that they’ll recall only that Ma and Pa were a normal, middle-aged couple. Plain-looking and drably clothed. Nothing to distinguish them.
~ * ~
The night is cold. Ma thinks of the air like a thin, flexible sheet of ice closing over her face. The white vapour of her breath curls and dissipates, each exhalation a fragment of her life breaking free and instantly, irretrievably lost.
At least, she thinks, the girl’s young, sweet breaths, which are currently coiling in the air, are more limited than her own. This pleases Ma. It gives her a sense of longevity, of immortality almost.
“Here we are,” Pa says, gesturing down the dark street. He and Ma have parked their car around fifty metres from the pub, deliberately positioning it in the bowl of shadow between one glimmering street light and the next. Cloaked in darkness it is impossible to tell what colour the car is. Like its owners, it is drab and nondescript. Pa takes his key fob from his pocket and presses a button, and me car responds with a brief, complicit flash of its lights.
“You sit in the front, dear,” Ma says. “Then you can give Gerald directions.”
“Are you sure?” the girl asks.
“Oh, quite sure. Besides, I’ll be able to spread out a bit in the back. Put my feet up.”
They get into the car, Pa making a big show of easing his stiff leg into the footwell. Finally he’s settled, whereupon he hands his walking stick to Ma in the back, pulls his seatbelt across his round stomach and clicks it into place. Beside his bulk the girl, waiting patiently, seems child-like. She has taken off her backpack, which now rests between her feet like a sleeping pet.
“Are we all set?” Pa says, glancing at the girl and then at Ma in the back. They both nod and he starts the engine.
Ma knows the girl will be relaxed, unsuspecting. Like The Times crossword, and Pa’s spectacles, and his walking stick, she will find the interior of the car reassuring. It is clean and tidy, but not so pristine that it hints at obsession, at a need to control and dominate. There is a National Trust membership sticker in the top corner of the windscreen - symbolic of respectable, middle-class gentility - and a three-quarter-full packet of chewy mints in the shallow well between the seats.
There is nothing visible that is sharp, nothing that can be construed as a weapon. Ma and Pa are very careful about this. They make certain they are never in possession of any of the tools that they use on the girls. Even at home they keep the tools hidden, and restrict their activities to the basement. They pride themselves on their restraint, their attention to detail. It is thanks to their meticulous natures that they have never been caught.
They have been active for almost twenty-two years, and the light of suspicion has never once wavered in their direction. In the eyes of the world they are decent, law-abiding citizens. Good neighbours. Pillars of the community.
They make only one exception to their rule, and although it constitutes a tiny risk it is a necessary one. In a hidden compartment in the lining of her handbag Ma keeps a small hypodermic syringe filled with a strong, swift-acting anaesthetic. As Pa chats to the girl in the front seat, Ma takes the hypodermic from her handbag and removes the plastic cap that protects the needle. Then she leans forward ever so slightly, pushes the needle into the exposed flesh of the girl’s neck and depresses the plunger.
So swift and skilled is she at this that the syringe is empty before the girl reacts. By the time she jerks forward in her seat, clapping her hand to her neck as if stung by an insect, Ma has withdrawn the needle and is settling back in her seat. She catches a glimpse of the girl’s face as she twists, and relishes the brief expression of shock, accusation, and, yes, terrified realization in the girl’s eyes. Then those eyes lose focus and the delicate peach-coloured petals of the eyelids slide closed over them. The girl’s head nods forward and she slumps to one side in her seat, limp and compliant, her poise and vitality suddenly gone.
The anaesthetic affects the girls in different ways. The majority merely fall into a deep and abrupt sleep, though some lose muscular control to such an extent that they evacuate bladder and bowels. There was a girl four years ago who had an epileptic seizure, which almost resulted in Pa losing control of the car. And there were two girls who suffered such an adverse reaction to the drug that they died on the journey back to the house - a bitter disappointment for Ma and Pa, as it denied them their pleasure just when it seemed they were home and dry.
Steering the car with one hand, Pa reaches across and pushes the girl’s head down so that it is beneath the level of the window. Now anyone who happens to glance casually at them when they drive past will not see an unconscious girl slumped in the front seat.
“I want to take my time with this one,” Ma says. “I want to make her suffer.”
Pa laughs. “You really hate the pretty ones, don’t you?”
“I hate the ones who think they’ve got it all,” Ma retorts. “Who think they’re untouchable.”
Ma and Pa are both eager to start their night’s work, but Pa drives steadily, carefully. It wouldn’t do to be pulled over for speeding, or to otherwise draw attention to themselves. In truth they live nowhere near Fulwood Park, and now that the girl is unconscious, Pa takes a right, and then another right, until they are heading in the opposite direction.
They lapse into silence, but are occupied by thoughts of how they will use the girl. Of the implements they will employ to penetrate her. Of how loudly they will make her scream. Of how much they will make her plead.
Their house is neat, modest, unassuming. They live in a quiet neighbourhood, suburban, respectable. The crime rate is low and the local children are generally well behaved. Each house is equipped with a small garden front and back, and its own garage. The streets are sparsely populated at this time of night, and indeed, as they pull into their cul-de-sac, Ma and Pa see only a single figure ahead of them - a man hunched in a bulky overcoat, a dog trotting at his side.
Pa slows the car as they approac
h the open gate into their own drive and reaches across the girl’s body to snap open the glove compartment. He withdraws a slim black device the size of a mobile phone, points it out of the window and presses a button. Almost silently the door of the garage which abuts their house begins to ascend. Pa places the remote control in the well between the front seats and drives smoothly through the gate, up the drive and into the garage.
Even now Ma and Pa do not hurry. Though they are eager, their actions are rehearsed, methodical. Pa gets out of the car and closes the garage door with the remote control, before placing it back in the glove compartment. Ma waits until the door has descended far enough to conceal them from view before clicking on the light. Then, while she unlocks the inner door that leads directly into the kitchen, Pa unclips the girl’s seatbelt and lifts her out of her seat. He drapes her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, her body so limp that she resembles a rag doll. Her golden hair hangs between her dangling arms like a shimmering, silken waterfall.
Ma imagines burning off that hair with a blowtorch, continuing until the girl’s scalp is raw and bleeding. She imagines the girl’s flesh crisping like roasted pork, hot meat juices running down the girl’s face and into her screeching mouth.
She chuckles at the prospect, the sound low and throaty with lust. As Pa carries the girl into the house, Ma snatches up the backpack, locks the car and switches off the garage light. By the time she switches on the kitchen light, Pa is already halfway across the room. He knows the house so well that he has already sidestepped the kitchen table in the dark.
“I’ll take her down,” he says. “You put the kettle on.”
Ma nods. It is part of the ritual. Pa will take the girl to the basement and make her secure, then he will come back upstairs and the two of them will plan their evening’s entertainment over a nice cup of tea.
Ma fills the kettle and switches it on. She hums contentedly as she takes two mugs down from the cupboard and drops a tea bag into each. To Pa’s mug she adds two spoonfuls of sugar. It is a vice he has been unwilling to relinquish. It is because of him that she still buys biscuits - his favourites are chocolate HobNobs and bourbon creams. She worries about his heart, but at the age of fifty-six he is as strong as an ox. She thinks it is their joint hobby which keeps him young and fit. He does enjoy it so.
The kettle boils and she fills each mug three-quarters full. She pokes at the tea bags with a spoon, stirring them around. Hers she removes first. Pa likes his tea brick-red, just as his own father did, but Ma prefers hers the colour of sun-warmed flesh. She adds milk, then stirs the tea and drops the metal spoon into the sink. Carrying the mugs to the table, she wonders where Pa has got to.
A wriggle of alarm snakes through her. Surely he hasn’t started without her? She shakes her head. No, he would never do that, they have always done everything together. Even when Pa is having his way with the girls at the beginning, he knows how much Ma likes to watch. Knows how she likes to savour the terror and revulsion on their faces, to hear them begging him to stop.
Even so, this particular girl is prettier than most, and Pa has his appetites. Perhaps he has been unable to resist a quick dabble with his fingers, or with his tongue. Ma supposes that would be understandable, but even so, she feels a little disappointed, a little hurt, at the prospect.
She puts the mugs on the table and turns towards the kitchen door, meaning to go to the top of the basement steps and call down to him. But as she turns she freezes, her heart lurching with shock, her eyes widening with astonishment.
The girl - Veronica - is standing in the kitchen doorway.
She looks neither groggy nor dishevelled nor confused. On the contrary, she appears fresh and alert, her eyes gleaming. There is even a half-smile on her face, as if she enjoys the impact her unexpected appearance has made.
A myriad questions rush instantly through Ma’s head. What is the girl doing here? How did she escape? Where is Pa? How has the girl overcome the effects of the anaesthetic so quickly?
Ma wonders whether she should speak to the girl, lie to her, try to bluff it out. But there is something in the girl’s expression that tells Ma she knows precisely what has been happening, and why. And so instead of speaking, Ma wheels towards the knife block beside the electric cooker, her hand already reaching for the jutting black handle of the carving knife.
Ma doesn’t know how, but suddenly she is lying on the kitchen floor. It happens so abruptly that it is only in retrospect that she recalls being hit by a solid weight that moved so swiftly it might have been a car. Except that that is impossible. So what has happened? Has she been shot? Struck down by a sudden seizure or heart attack? Her ribs and back are hurting, her eyes are unfocused and she cannot move her arms. Then she blinks and sees that the girl is sitting astride her. Peering down at her with eyes that are glittering strangely, the girl’s golden hair softly caresses Ma’s face.
“You thought you were the hunters,” the girl said, “but you’re not. I am.”
There is a blur of movement and suddenly everything goes black.
~ * ~
How long Ma is unconscious for she has no idea. When she comes to she is no longer lying on the kitchen floor. It takes several moments for her vision to focus, and when it does the first thing she sees are stone walls and a stone floor. Her thoughts are so jumbled that she doesn’t immediately realize she is in her own basement. It is only when she spots Pa, in the centre of the room, strapped into the iron chair which they call The Throne, that she becomes fully aware of her surroundings.
Pa is slumped forward, groaning slightly, though Ma can see no obvious injuries to his body. There is no blood on his clothes, no bruises on his face. Yet somehow he has been overcome, restrained. How can this be?
It is not until Ma tries to move that the pain kicks in. As if it too has been sleeping, it awakens in her shoulders and back and ribs, threading glassily through her muscles, embedding itself in her bones, her joints. It swiftly rises to such a pitch that she cries out, and instinctively attempts to curl up, to draw her body inwards. But she cannot move. Her arms are locked in an upright position, her immovable feet planted firmly on the ground, a metre or more apart.
As the cramps set in, excruciating enough to reduce her cries to nothing but tortured gasps, she looks down and sees the shackles encircling her ankles. And suddenly she realizes she has been clamped to the wall, just as she in turn has clamped numerous girls to this same wall over the past twenty-two years.
She glances up, and although it is only a small movement it causes such agony to tear through her body that everything whites out for a second.
When her vision clears, seconds or perhaps minutes later, she sees the face of the girl swimming before her. At first she thinks it is an illusion, but then the girl speaks.
“You’ve been hanging there for a while,” the girl says. “I’m sorry it’s so uncomfortable. I think the dead weight of your body, pulling downward, has dislocated at least one of your shoulders.”
Ma tries to respond, to vent her fury, or perhaps simply to plead for release, but the pain has robbed her of her ability to speak. The girl’s face still swims in her vision. Ma sees regret there, compassion. The girl speaks again.
“I expect you’re confused. Wondering what’s happened. And I know you’re in pain, for which I truly apologize. I mean, all things being equal, you probably deserve it. But I’ve never gone in for that eye for an eye Old Testament stuff. Just because you like inflicting pain doesn’t mean that whoever metes out your punishment should get the same satisfaction from inflicting it on you. It’d be a pretty sick world if we all got gratification from the suffering of others, wouldn’t it?”The girl smiles, as if she’s made a joke. “A sicker world, I should say.”
Ma watches the girl as she crosses the basement and comes to a halt in front of Pa. The girl peers into Pa’s face, as if to check whether he is conscious, and then turns back to Ma.
“I ought to explain
who I am,” she says. “Or rather what I am. Because I can guarantee that you’ll never have come across anything like me before. And I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I don’t want you to think that I’m doing this because I like doing it, or even that I’m some kind of avenging angel, acting on behalf of all the girls you’ve killed. Although, having said that, I can’t deny that there’s a certain poetic justice to this situation, or that I don’t feel some satisfaction in knowing that you’ll never torture and kill another innocent girl. But as I say, that’s not my main motivation for what I’m about to do. You see, for me, this is all about survival!’
Ma is not sure whether she’s momentarily blacked out, because all at once the girl is standing directly in front of her once more. Earnestly the girl says, “What you have to understand, Phyllis, is that there are two kinds of serial killer in this world. There are those that choose to kill, like you and Gerald, and there are those that have to. And when I say ‘have to’, I’m not talking about people who are driven to kill by some form of psychological deviance. No, I’m talking about killing in the same way that you would talk about eating or breathing. I’m talking about killing in the sense that if you didn’t kill you would die. And I mean, literally, die. Because for some people killing is like oxygen, or food. For some people, there is no way to survive without it.”
Psychomania: Killer Stories Page 35
