“LET ME OUT OF HERE!”
Reggie turned to the bathroom window. It was a tiny square, one that wouldn’t open more than a couple of inches. Reggie pulled and pushed, trying to make something happen.
“C’MON!”
The screaming stopped downstairs.
Reggie gasped. He leapt at the bathroom door and pressed his ear against the wood. Nothing. He tried peering through the keyhole but couldn’t see a thing because of the damn key blocking the view.
The music stopped next.
The house was absolutely quiet.
“For Christ’s sake,” Reggie said, giving the door another hard kick. He was about to start yelling again when he heard someone walking upstairs.
“Who’s there?” he said. “Morgan? Is that you?”
There was a faint thump on the other side, like someone leaning against the door.
“You alright in there Reggie boy?”
“What did you do to my family?”
A pause.
Reggie felt like his brain was melting. “For Christ’s sake Morgan!” He hit the stubborn old oak but his strength was fading. It had all the impact of a fly crashing into a castle door.
“What do you think I did Reggie?”
“Stop it,” Reggie hissed. “For the love of God man, please just stop it. What the fuck did you do to…?”
“Don’t beg Reggie. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Tell me you cocksucker! What did you do to my family?”
“Just games Reggie,” Morgan said. “Relax, will you? It’s just games. Nothing to worry about.”
“What does that mean?” Reggie asked.
“That’s what my mum used to say to me,” Morgan said. “After she let me out the cupboard under the stairs. Just games Carter darling, just games. Nobody got hurt honey because it’s just games…”
“Where’s Terri?”
“…well by then I’d be half-insane with silence sickness. But she was always nice to me after and I could do anything I wanted for the rest of that day. Listen to as much rock and roll as I could take, and I could take a lot of it. Watch anything on TV, eat junk food, whatever man.”
“Where are my family?” Reggie said. The blood was pulsing through him. “Morgan. Where are my daughters? My wife? Please just tell me that they’re okay.”
“It was because of my dad,” Morgan said. “Before he left us Mum was pretty normal, at least as far as mothers go. Then he ran off with a younger model and oh boy, she flipped. She cracked man. Those first few months after he ran off were super dark times in the Morgan household. I didn’t think she’d ever come back but with a little help from me and my brother, she did. But she wasn’t the same person. That much was clear. She’d devoted her life to the old man and now he was gone. All their friends had really been his friends. They were gone too. Mum needed something to fill that void or she’d have nothing to live for. A purpose. Meaning. My brother Graham was a gifted sprinter and well, she latched onto that. That’s putting it mildly. She decided that he was going to be the one. He was going to be the one to save her. His success in athletics, and we’re talking Olympic fucking gold here, would represent the phoenix rising from the ashes. Her redemption story. All that bullshit, you know?”
“Please Morgan,” Reggie said. He could taste the foul wood as he pressed his face against the door. “My family. Are they…?”
“They’re fine.” Morgan said.
Reggie made a strange whimpering noise. “Where are they?”
“Living room.”
Reggie fell flat onto his back, one hand pinned to his chest. His hair was soaked with sweat. As he stared at the ceiling he heard voices downstairs. It was Fern and Ellie – they were squabbling about something. Usually that was a source of irritation but today for Reggie Ward, it was like balm on an open wound.
He decided there and then. He was going to kill this man.
Somehow.
“I made you dance Reggie,” Morgan said, laughing on the other side of the door. “You said you wouldn’t be my monkey and I turned you into my monkey. All that noise downstairs – it was a set up. It was all for you man. It worked too. That was one hell of a show you just put on.”
Reggie was still staring at the ceiling. “I nearly had a heart attack for Christ’s sake.”
“What sort of guy do you think I am?” Morgan said. “The sort of guy who’d hurt a woman? Two girls? C’mon man, that’s next level scumbag shit. The only woman I ever hurt, I did it because she hurt me first.”
Reggie kicked the door from a lying down position. “Bastard! You fucking bastard.”
Downstairs the girls were still squabbling. Terri was pleading with them to shut up.
“Sibling rivalries huh?” Morgan said with a choked laugh. “Funny, I don’t remember arguing with my brother Graham that much. And I had good reason to hate him, seeing as how Mum gave him all the attention.”
“Let me out,” Reggie said. “You’ve had your fun at my expense. Now let me out.”
“Fucking glory-seeking parents,” Morgan said. “My dad was gone, she’d lost her looks. Shit. What else did she have? She worked her job during the day and everything else was about turning Graham into an Olympic champion. Graham didn’t even want to be a runner. Still she was getting him up at five every morning for training. Didn’t matter if it was in the heart of winter. Didn’t matter if it was pissing down with rain or snow. And after work, she’d drag him down the track until nine o’clock at night. Graham hated it. No girls, no social life – it sucked. All she let him have was running.”
Reggie’s head was buried in his hands.
“Let me out.”
“Graham never stood a chance in the pros,” Morgan said. “He knew it, I knew it, but not Mum. She didn’t want to hear that shit. That was her only hope and God help anyone who put a question mark over it. Which is what I did. I was the bitter, talentless younger child who was always quick to remind her that her dreams were delusions. That’s why she’d lock me in the cupboard under the stairs – best way of shutting me up.”
A pause.
“I look like my dad too, which probably didn’t help things.”
Reggie sighed. “Did you kill your mother?” he asked.
“Guilty,” Morgan said.
“How?”
“I locked her in the cupboard under the stairs.”
Reggie frowned. “And that killed her?”
“Not quite,” Morgan said. “Setting the house on fire, that’s what did it.”
Reggie sat up straight. He crept towards the bathroom door and peered through the keyhole. It was still a dark blur on the other side.
“Let me out of here Morgan,” he said. “Please.”
“I’m hungry,” Morgan said. “But I’ll be back soon Reggie, I promise. And when I come back we’ll figure this thing out.”
Reggie hit the door. “Let me out!”
Morgan didn’t reply. There was only the familiar creak of the old staircase.
Part II
The Visitors
Chapter 8
Morgan walked back into the living room.
“Where’s Reggie?” Terri yelled over the music. Where’s Reggie?”
Morgan looked at her. Both Terri and Fern were visibly drained after their Oscar worthy acting performance. Their skin was a pallid grey, their eyes hollow. They were two lifelike mannequins on the couch, ropes fastened around their wrists and ankles.
He signalled at Ellie to stop the music. The chords were sluggish. Once inspired progressions had fizzled out into lazy run-throughs. There was a pinkish glow on Ellie’s face, an indication of how much effort she’d put into the music.
Morgan walked over to a second door connecting the living room to the hallway.
“Some water? Food?”
He looked at Ellie.
“Glass of water Ellie?” Morgan asked. Something to eat?”
She shook her head. Then she pointed at the couch.
“Can I sit down b
eside them?”
“Why not?” Morgan said. “But when I come back it’s one last jam for the road alright kid. I’m juiced but there’s always room for a little more. Now ladies. I’m leaving this door open. Not so much as a whisper when I’m gone and Ellie, if you even think about touching those ropes, well don’t. Okay?”
Morgan walked to the kitchen. It was a large space, rustic, with green countertops and a red tiled floor. Some of the tiles were badly cracked. The countertops were cluttered with reusable shopping bags, and there was a teapot, cereal boxes and a microwave oven all crammed into the corner.
Morgan pulled the fridge door open.
He stared at a mixture of fruit and veg on the top shelf – bananas, apples, strawberries, blueberries and lots more.
“Bananas in the fridge,” Morgan said, shaking his head. “Who the hell puts bananas in the fridge?”
He saw a stack of Tupperware boxes on the middle shelves. God only knows what was in them. There were six beer cans, along with two unopened cartons of almond milk tucked into the side of the fridge. Morgan took note – at least one of those beers was leaving the house with him. Probably more than one.
Morgan closed the door, his stomach growling.
“Where’s the bread?” he mumbled. “There has to be a…”
Morgan bolted back from the fridge as if he’d discovered a severed human head inside.
There was a noise outside.
He squeezed down on the Glock handle.
“Oh shit.”
Footsteps.
Somebody was in the back garden.
Morgan stared out of the kitchen window. He was exposed and vulnerable. His body was stiff, the blood in his veins icy cold.
It couldn’t be Reggie out there. The door was the only way out of the upstairs bathroom. Morgan recalled the window up there. It was like the window of a doll’s house and even a scrawny prick like Reggie Ward couldn’t squeeze through it.
One possibility remained.
The police.
They’d discovered the van or somebody else had. Maybe it was one of the country bumpkins stupid enough to live in the desert or somebody else passing through, taking the same shortcut to the M2 that the dead van driver had opted for. Whoever it was had stumbled upon the aftermath of the crash. They’d reported it and now the cops, having discovered that the Sprinter was minus one convicted murderer, were searching the quiet lands for Carter Morgan.
“No,” Morgan whispered. “Not now for God’s sake.”
He was ten minutes away from climbing into the SUV and driving south. Ten minutes from disappearing off the face of the earth and never having to endure the sound of a cell door slamming shut again. No more solitude. They couldn’t take this away from him. He’d been looking forward to the journey back to civilisation – it was the little things, like sitting behind the wheel of a car again. Morgan hadn’t driven a car since his teenage years, when he’d ran with a local gang who used to ‘borrow’ the neighbourhood’s swankiest vehicles for joyrides and doughnuts in the supermarket car park.
“Fuck fuck fuck!”
Morgan tiptoed over to the kitchen window. He peered out onto the back garden, expecting a horde of special unit officers wielding semi-automatic rifles to start shooting.
He kept the Glock close, but tucked beneath the window frame, invisible to anyone in the garden.
Empty.
There was no one out there.
Morgan stood there for a few minutes, waiting. When nothing else happened he whistled a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat off his face. There was even a nervous laugh or two. He’d imagined it, that’s all – the footstep on the grass. It was nothing more than a bird or some other quiet lands animal trotting over the…
“JESUS!”
What was that noise?
Something was going on at the front of the house.
His insides lurched. Wielding the Glock, Morgan charged through the hall and stormed into the living room, barely glancing at Terri, Fern and Ellie, who were gathered together on the couch.
He froze, staring through the large rectangular window that overlooked the front garden.
A convoy of cars filed into the Wards’ driveway. They were parking up in various spots outside the house. Morgan watched in horror. So many cars – big SUVs like the Wards, as well as hatchbacks, mini-vans and more, all pulling up one after the other, taking whatever space was available.
Morgan shook his head. Were they unmarked police cars? That many unmarked cars?
Panic was setting in. Was it the undercover agencies out there? Had they been called into the manhunt for the escaped murderer?
Morgan pushed a clump of sweaty blond hair away from his eyes. He pressed his back against the wall and crept across the outskirts of the living room, approaching the window in a way that he wouldn’t be spotted from the garden.
He peered out from behind the curtains.
More cars. Others still, sat further back on the fuchsia-lined dirt track that spiralled up from the road.
“How many cops do they need?” Morgan said. His eyes bulged in horror. “Look at that for God’s sake, they’ve got every man and woman in law enforcement out there. I didn’t realise I was such a big deal.”
Was this real? Or was it a hallucination, some sort of delayed side effect of the silence sickness?
“Our visitors have arrived,” Terri said.
Her voice was icy cold, almost metallic.
“What did you say?”
Morgan stared at the woman. Outside he could hear car doors opening.
He turned back to the front.
The car parked nearest to the house was a sleek, jet-black BMW. Like the Wards’ SUV, the vehicle looked brand new, fresh out of the showroom. When the driver’s door opened an extremely tall, bearded man of about fifty, dressed in a long black coat, stepped out. His eyes were glued to the house.
The man took a step forward. He’d noticed Morgan at the living room window.
Slowly, he pressed a finger to his lips.
“What the hell’s he doing?” Morgan whispered. “What is this?”
The bearded man maintained that strange finger-to-lips pose for about ten seconds. Then he dropped it. He turned elsewhere, as if scouring the building’s exterior for a glimpse of something familiar.
Morgan pulled down the metal lever. He opened the window about an inch and a half.
The bearded man heard it. He turned back to face the house, his long coat swaying behind him like a cloak
“Hello,” he called out in a deep, gravelly voice. “I’m looking for some friends of mine.”
Morgan felt the cool air seeping in through the open window.
“Wrong house man,” Morgan said.
“Excuse me?”
“Wrong house. No one like that here.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Sure I’m sure. This is…”
“HELP US!”
Morgan jumped back from the window. He looked over in horror at the couch where Terri was wriggling around furiously in her seat as if a poisonous snake had just crawled down her back.
“JOSEPH. HELP US!”
Ellie, the only one without ropes around her arms and legs, bounced to her feet and ran towards the window. She was waving her arms in the air.
“HELP!” she screamed. “HE’S HOLDING US HOSTAGE! ONE MAN. HE’S GOT A GUN.”
Morgan reached over and grabbed Ellie before she could get to the window. He put the pistol to her temple and both Terri and Ellie stopped screaming.
“Stupid fucking bitches,” Morgan hissed. He threw Ellie back towards the couch, still aiming the Glock at her head. “Don’t you know how to play it cool?”
The Ward girls looked back in silence.
“Start talking,” Morgan said. “What the hell is going on? If that’s not the police out there then who is it?”
“You should have run,” Terri said. “We told you to run so many times and you didn’t list
en. You didn’t listen to us.”
“Who are they Terri?” Morgan barked. “And what do they want?”
Terri was smiling. “They want to come in.”
“What?”
“It’s like we told you Morgan,” she said. “We’ve got visitors. Looks like they’re a little early too.”
Morgan peered out behind the curtains.
Most of them, bar a few drivers, were out of their cars. They stood on the driveway and on the front lawn, a silent mafia in scattered groups. They were staring at the house, as if waiting for someone to come out and greet them. Despite the large number, Morgan thought them an unremarkable crowd. They were of all ages, sizes, shapes and colours, and dressed in ordinary clothes – dark jackets, jeans and shirts. Morgan would have walked past every single one of them on the street without a second glance.
“So you’ve got visitors,” he said, looking back at Terri. “Whoop-de-fucking-do. Tell me more Terri. Who are they?”
“No,” Terri said. “I won’t tell you. Let’s see if you can’t figure it for yourself.”
Morgan’s face was a mask of confusion. “What? Why are they just standing there like that?”
“Right now,” Terri said, “they’re thinking about killing you and how best to go about it.”
“Nice,” Morgan said, stepping back from the curtain. “Alright I give up. Who’s out there?”
“You haven’t figured it out yet?” Terri asked.
Morgan pointed the gun at the couch. “I’m running out of patience with this fucking family,” he said.
Terri revelled in a cool, tight-lipped smile. Ten minutes ago she’d been at the end of her rope. Now she was positively glowing.
Morgan felt control slipping away. But he had no idea why. There was still a gun in his hands wasn’t there?
“It’s not your fault,” Terri said. “You’re just a dumb brute Morgan who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. We did try to warn you. Didn’t we? We told you about the visitors.”
“Visitors,” Morgan said. “There’s that fucking word again. Yes you told me about the visitors, now tell me who the fuck they are!”
“There’s probably close to a hundred people out there,” Terri said. “One hundred people, gathered in the quiet lands for some as yet undisclosed reason. Now what if I told you they were all silence huggers like us? Every single one of them. What would that mean? What would we be doing out here Morgan? Hmmm? Are things starting to become clearer yet?”
The Dystopiaville Omnibus: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Horror Collection Page 9
