by Simon King
6.
As the teeth kept snapping at the throat of the dog, the blood continued to flow, slowly trickling towards the creek where the running water accepted it with little complaint. It slowly mixed with the clear waters, first tinting it with brutish horror, then succumbing to the flow and disappearing as quickly as it arrived.
The blood was slowing a little when I first looked up and saw the kid staring at us. There was a moment where our eyes met and a part of me was sure the boy would scream and run for help. Our eyes continued to lock together for what felt like too long as blood continued to run over my fingers.
He was an average looking kid, wearing bib overalls and a worn straw hat. I sat up, unsure of whether he would scream out, but when I beckoned to him, he slowly stepped forward.
“Hey, kid,” I said, sitting up a little. “This isn’t yours, is it?” I asked, suddenly wondering whether Loui had just devoured the best parts of this kid’s pet. But he just shook his head, staring at me with a curious expression. He didn’t look frightened, not even bothered. He just looked like a kid who was intrigued with the sight before him.
“That’s Bob, Mr Maxwell’s dog.” He slid down the embankment, strangely unfazed by what he was seeing.
“Who’s Mr Maxwell?” I asked, watching as the kid slowly stepped closer.
“Lives down near the main road. My dad knows him.”
“Your dad?” I asked. “Who’s your dad?” I said, sure I knew the name this kid was about to say.
“Bill Higgins.” It was, confirming what I already knew.
“You’re Bill’s boy? Your Clancy, aren’t ya?” He nodded, still slowly walking towards me. He was only a few feet from me now and I never expected what happened next.
Like a jack rabbit out of his warren, my own legs suddenly kicked off with furious speed. It caught me completely by surprise and before I knew it, was kneeling over Clancy with one hand wrapped around his throat.
Loui had suddenly taken control, his teeth bared less than an inch from the kids face. There was horror in the boy’s one good eye, the other looking as if it was milked over or something.
“Loui, don’t,” Eddie suddenly screamed, coming forward just enough to let us know his presence. “You’ve had your fill for today. Let him go.” Clancy’s face was turning bright purple, his lips tightly pressed against his teeth.
He was trying to speak, but the fingers around his throat refused to let the words through. I could feel Loui’s grip starting to release a little, his lips returning to a more normal colour.
“I hated that dog. Stupid mutt always woke me up in the morning.” He coughed a little, his voice raspy as he began to rub his throat. Loui let go completely and receded back into the darkness.
“I’m sorry for that. Loui loses control sometimes,” I said, sitting up a little and offering to help him up.
What happened next, astonished me more than anything else up to that point. It happened so fast and without any warning. Neither me nor Eddie ever saw it coming and were left staring in awe as much as the kid did when he first saw us.
Clancy rose to his feet, walked over to where good old Bob was lying dead on the creek bed, lent down and took a bite from the dog’s throat. He didn’t look back at us until he had taken 3 complete mouthfuls of flesh from the dog.
When his eyes did finally look back around at us, his face was covered in blood, but not enough to wipe the smile from his face. A smile I would come to see a lot more in the events to follow.
7.
Meeting a 12-year old kid with a similar taste for blood was one of the strangest happenings upon my return to Cider Hill. But I would discover more about the young kid in the coming weeks, things that sent one of us into a near feverish rage.
It was Loui that took a shining to the kid. Clancy would often drop by the house, sometimes bringing a rabbit or a stray cat he’d managed to find. He enjoyed killing things with his teeth almost as much as us. But it was the stories he would tell once the killing was finished, that truly made an impact.
He attended the same school as I did and it sounded as if nothing much had changed since the time when I had graced its corridors. Clancy was isolated, teased and made to feel like an outcast. Because of his appearance, having one blind eye, the kids took it on themselves to make the poor kid’s life a living hell. Much the same as they did when I attended.
But it wasn’t just the kids. Like Mavis Toomey did with me, some of the teachers would also make nasty comments, speaking their venom to a kid that didn’t really understand their intent. You see, James, Clancy wasn’t just a kid with a bad eye. He was also a little slow.
From what I gathered, there was some sort of issue during his birth, something about the cord being wound around his neck during labour. It affected him some, making him just a little slower than other kids.
But he had a heart of gold. He was just a kid needing friends, like anyone else in this world. And that’s what saddened me the most. It was me, all over again. And I couldn’t stand idly by while the town destroyed him. The time had come to make it pay, not only for me, but now also for Clancy. It was time to unleash Loui.
8.
I wanted to make sure Clancy was onboard with what was about to happen. I could have gone out and let Loui loose without saying anything, but the killings would have had no meaning to Clancy. By involving him and revealing my intentions, the deaths would have some closure for him. They would finally show him that people deserved to reap what they sowed. And Loui was about to teach them how to harvest.
He sounded excited when I told him. This grinning kid with an eye beaming with hope and excitement. It was as if I offered to take him fishing on a big ship in the middle of an ocean. He voiced his concerns to begin with, but once I assured him that things would be fine, he came onboard a hundred percent. I doubt anything could have kept him away.
As we began to plan for our main event, I thought it only appropriate that the first victim should be one we both had something in common with. It was a teacher that I had, who was now working in one of the local shops.
The funny thing about this first victim was that I was never credited with his murder. He was just another one of the many disappearances that occurred during that tumultuous period in history. The late 20s and early 30s were often seen as a time when many people moved around, sometimes for work, other times for more personal reasons.
Maxwell Templeton was a man who had a drinking problem, was a compulsive gambler and didn’t regard women and children as being equals. In other words, he was a drinking, gambling womaniser that slapped his wife and kids around as he saw fit. And not just his own children, but other kids as well.
When I was still in school, Maxwell was one of the 5th grade teachers. His own children attended school and I felt sorry for them whenever their father would discipline them in full view of other people. He didn’t care, despite several of his colleagues openly telling him to stop.
He once had a crack at me, telling me that my mum should have taken more care not to let the cum run from her arse. Of course, the insult went straight over my head, until it was explained to me later by one of the other kids.
But while his comment remained with me, it was what he’d done to Clancy that put him firmly in my sights. The prick had raped his mum, then beat Clancy up who happened to walk in while the act was taking place.
Maxwell owned a store by this time, Clancy’s mum working there as an assistant. The kid had dropped by after leaving school early because of a sickness, walking in on the pair. It was also Maxwell that had given Clancy his blind eye, slapping him so hard that he cartwheeled into a glass cabinet.
The sad part was that Bill, Clancy’s father, had disappeared the previous year, leaving his wife and 3 children to fend for themselves. It was believed that he’d run off with one of the local waitresses, but I know all about rumours that exist about husbands and fathers who up and leave overnight. I know only too well about them.
9
.
I don’t know what happened to Bill, but I do know what happened to Maxwell. It’s funny how you guys were only too happy to pin the women that I attacked on me, yet the men I made disappear never had so much as a mention. Is it that difficult to believe, that I also may have let Loui loose on the male population of Cider Hill, James?
While you had my number at 14 for the killings back in the 30s, I had the number closer to 30 not including Royce or my dad, all beginning with Maxwell Templeton. He would be the first in a long line of Loui projects. But he would also be one of the few that Clancy directly joined in with, a true protégé for Loui to shape.
10.
Chloe Cartwright worked at the Silver Lantern for her boss, a seedy and despicable creature that often tried to have his way with her. It was Clancy that told me about Chloe and how we could use her to lure Maxwell out to wherever we needed him.
It ended up being as simple as a note left on the counter for Maxwell, asking him to meet Chloe out near the old gravel pit, an abandoned mining site on the outskirts of town. Of course, this Chloe had no idea that she had invited the creep out to the pit, herself home in bed with a cold.
She was a friend of Clancy’s older sister and also happened to live next door. Once I heard of her sickness, I knew it would be the perfect way to lure him to the mine. It was such a perfect place, surrounded by high cliffs on 3 sides that would shield the screams from the town. There were several mine shafts in the area and it was down one of them that I intended to throw whatever Loui left behind.
I knew how voracious his appetite had become and given the built-up rage that sat stagnated inside him, wasn’t expecting him to hold back. When this party started, there would be little to do but sit back and watch.
11.
Clancy dropped the note on the counter while Maxwell was somewhere out the back of the store. It was almost closing time and there weren’t a lot of people around at that moment, most already home to prepare for the evening meal. Turns out, that was exactly what Loui was doing as well.
I suggested we make the rendezvous time around 6. Dusk would be almost completing its handover to the nightshift and it would also give Clancy plenty of time to get back to the pit. It was a couple of miles from the store, but I knew he was a good runner with plenty of stamina. I’d watched him chase wildlife around my own property plenty of times to know he was agile on his feet. I didn’t really want to begin without him, but knew if he wasn’t there, I’d be unable to stop Loui.
Turns out that Clancy was as keen to end Maxwell as we were, practically sprinting the whole way up the hill. I could hear him crashing through the trees a good half hour before our guest of honour was supposed to show up, giving him a prime front row seat.
12.
If there was one thing Maxwell Templeton was, it was punctual. Especially when it concerned having his dick fondled by a woman, or in this case, a girl of 16. It seemed that he didn’t really mind the age of his conquests, as long as he could claim the victory.
His car rolled into the gravel pit as the sun’s final blaze blinked out, the deep sapphire shade of night rapidly washing over the sky. The half-moon was already about a third of the way across the sky, hanging just high enough to cast dimly-lit shadows across the lot. The open-cut gravel pit sat in the shadows on the other side of the vacant land, an abandoned tractor rusting near the spot where the ground dipped down into a slush of mud and rocks.
The car that laboured up the steep gravel track backfired a couple of times as it neared the crest, sounding like gunshots. I hoped it wouldn’t attract unwanted attention, knowing how well sound travelled across the valley below. But the town was sitting on the other side of the hill, which meant the pit blocked the exhaust coughs from that direction.
He swung the car around the lot in a great arc, no doubt hoping for his headlamps to find his victim in the ever-darkening shadows. But the trees we had chosen to hide behind made for great shields, large enough for us to disappear behind. I’d managed to find a discarded suitcase during my own walk up here, which I’d set down near the edge of the clearing, less than a dozen yards from where we sat.
The suitcase had a fading-red flower pattern on it and I hoped it looked feminine enough for Maxwell to assume that Chloe had brought it with her, maybe to run away with him. I don’t know whether he quite bought the ruse, because as his headlamps lit up the suitcase, his tyres skidded to a halt, illuminating the case and everything behind it, including the trees we were now sitting behind.
Clancy looked at me almost panic-stricken, like he was about to charge back through the undergrowth.
“He’s seen us,” he hissed in terror. I held my hand up for him to calm, grinning a little to show that we were perfectly fine. I didn’t need to speak, the kid perfectly frozen against the bark of his hideout. He was a skinny kid and the bulky gum he’d chosen was giving him more than enough coverage. He could have stood and twirled a few times and still not have been seen.
The car continued to rumble as it sat idling behind the lights. Maxwell must have been questioning the situation, wondering why his girl wasn’t standing by her case. The seconds passed with incredible slowness and I began to wonder whether he was going to step out or remain in his car.
Either way, he was toast. It was a short sprint from our hiding spot to his open window and I was confident I could cover the distance before he had a chance to take off. But just as I was beginning to make my move, Maxwell finally took the plunge.
13.
The engine suddenly quit and a second later, the driver’s door swung out. He must have paused again, maybe smelling something odd in the air, but his dick betrayed him one final time, probably eclipsing whatever doubts he had in his other head.
Whatever kept him stalling, finally receded enough as he slowly stepped from his car. He stood behind the lights for a moment longer, then stepped a little away from the car.
“Chloe?” he called into the darkness. I couldn’t have written it better myself, but something suddenly broke free further along the tree line, capturing his attention as the animal crashed through the thick foliage. He turned a little and stepped further from the safety of his car.
Without giving me the slightest heads up, Loui suddenly ripped control from me, sprang to his feet and sprinted towards the fat lump of a man still staring out into the shadows. He must have missed the distinct difference between the animal and us, never turning towards our advance until it was much too late.
Loui launched us into the air off a small boulder and we practically flew the last few feet towards the frozen figure. He had a brief moment to look up at whatever was now descending towards him and that was it.
We landed like a giant infant, Loui wrapping our legs around Maxwell’s middle as the momentum took him a few steps backwards. Our weight forced him down to the ground, the fat tub stumbling into the dirt as Loui closed his teeth on the soft flesh of neck. Maxwell had barely enough time to scream before the familiar warm gush of blood hit our cheeks. It felt wonderfully soothing, the sweet taste filling me with a kind of buzzing.
It still felt strange to be nothing more than a passenger in your own body, but when that taste of coppery sweetness hit my insides, it made everything else disappear. I was like a kid sitting on a ride, being fed popcorn as the entertainment was brought right to my lap.
Maxwell tried his hardest to struggle against Loui’s assault, but I think he knew there was little hope of escape. I still sometimes wonder what went through his mind during those final few moments. Did he think he was just a random victim of whatever attacked him? Did his victim set him up?
None of it mattered as another surprise suddenly occurred, this one something I secretly hoped for. Clancy suddenly knelt down beside us. In all honesty, I’d completely forgotten about the little squirt, too caught up in the excitement of the moment. But there he was, a look of delighted puzzlement lit up on his face.
Loui paused to look at the kid now sitting beside him.
Without saying a word, Clancy looked down into the eyes of a terrified man who was feeling his life spilling from his throat. The kid spoke a single word, then knelt down and tore another hole into the fading Maxwell.
“Die.”
14.
Although it felt much longer, it was all over in less than 15 minutes. Loui continued for a few more minutes after feeling the final spasms. The blood had stopped flowing and everything started to feel much colder. Clancy had torn a few strips of flesh but had already stood aside, giving Loui time to finish his urges.
We sat in silence for a few moments after finally stopping. I think it was a little reflection, time to really let the event sink in. When it was over, I picked the corpse up and walked it into the trees. Clancy didn’t follow, remaining with the car as the lamps lit my path up.
I walked for several hundred yards, the moon just lighting the ground up enough for me to sidestep a few of the mine shafts that littered this area. When I was sure we’d gone far enough, I carefully shuffled towards one and dropped the sack of shit into it, listening as it tumbled down into the darkness, hitting the bottom with a flat thump and echo.
As I walked back, I kept my eyes peeled for a suitable piece of wood. There was plenty to choose from and it didn’t take long to find one. When I returned to where Clancy and the car were waiting, I started the engine again and drove the car back the other way, lighting up the waterhole that sat at the base of one cliff. I knew that it was where one of the open-cut mines had once sat. But time had filled it with a thick soup of water, mud and abandoned hardware.
I stepped out from the car, careful to keep my foot on the clutch. I grabbed the small branch I found on my return and now wedged it into the gas pedal, pushing the other end into the leather of the seat’s backrest. The engine was screaming and without pausing, pulled my foot off the clutch and rolled away from the car as the steering wheel tore from my grip.
