Chillingworth Mews: A supernatural horror novel

by Anton Palmer

  “Are you hungry, slut? There’s too much just for me.”

  Laura stared, wide-eyed, at her abductor.

  Was he going to eat her breast?

  Was he offering to share with her…to make her eat her own tit-flesh?

  Her mind couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. It was just too sick…too unbelievable…

  He was fucking with her, surely.

  Wasn’t he?

  But somewhere, deep down, she knew he wasn’t. He’d done fucking. She’d delivered herself into the hands of a twisted sicko. The kind of perverted monster she thought only existed in horror movies.

  She was suddenly aware that Bob now had a knife in his hands.

  A carving knife.

  The sort of knife that was designed to serve up a Sunday lunch to happy, smiling families, sat around the dinner table, awaiting succulent slices of roast beef to complement their Yorkshire puddings and gravy. But this knife was destined for a meal of a different kind and the wicked glint from the steel blade flashed with its eagerness to fulfil its master’s perverted desires.

  Bob dabbed his fingertips against her nipple - temperature testing. The flesh had clearly cooled enough to touch as he discarded the filthy tea-towel and grabbed her with his unprotected skin. Pulling the nipple upwards, he pushed the edge of the carving knife against the rim of her areola and began to slowly slice through her flesh, as if cutting the top off a boiled egg.

  Laura screamed at the sight of her nipple as it came away, Bob holding the morsel in front of her, taunting her for a few seconds before slipping it between his wet lips and swallowing loudly.

  “Mmm…delicious,” he exclaimed, sucking his greasy, fat fingers for maximum effect. “Let’s try a toasted-soldier…”

  He picked up a strip of the buttered toast and dipped it in and out of the exposed hole in the top of her breast. A wave of yellowish liquid – hot, melted fat - spilt over the ragged, bleeding rim, some clinging to the toasted-soldier like runny egg yolk.

  Laura squirmed, physically and mentally, retching bile into her throat, as she watched him fold the toasted bread into his mouth and eat it. He took a second soldier, repeating the process, wiping around the edges of her wound, mopping up a little of the blood that flowed like lava down the sides of her breast.

  “You want some, slut?”

  He dipped another piece of toast into the liquid before pushing it towards her mouth. Laura sucked her lips tight and turned her face away from him. Bob clamped a hand around her injured tit and squeezed, a flood of ‘yolk’ and blood surging from the wound. As she screamed, he jammed the toasted-soldier into her mouth, forcing it in with his chubby fingers.

  “Swallow it, bitch!”

  He squeezed her tit a little more, giving her another reminder of the pain she would suffer if she spat the morsel out.

  Laura closed her eyes and swallowed. Hot vomit rose in her gullet, meeting the food halfway. She swallowed harder, sending both down to her churning stomach.

  “Good girl…wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Bob fumbled in a drawer and, pulling out a spoon, inserted the implement into the hole in her breast, scraping around inside before offering the spoonful to her. He lifted her head a little, gently probing her closed mouth with the metal tip of the utensil.

  “Come on, slut. Open wide for Daddy…”

  Laura clamped her lips tighter, shaking her head from side to side forcing Bob to crush her mangled breast in his hand once more, ramming the spoon into the resultant scream. Gagging and choking, she swallowed her own liquefied flesh, and her mind was suddenly back home…in a high-chair; her mother smiling as she fed her little girl…

  “Open wide, darling…here comes the aeroplane…” The infant Laura swallowed the food.

  “There’s Mummy’s good girl. There’s a good Laura-Loo-Loo.”

  Laura-Loo-Loo…

  Fresh tears flooded over her cheeks as she realised she would never see her mother again. That the woman herself would very soon have her own heartbreak and anguish to endure…

  I love you, Mummy!

  Your little Laura-Loo-Loo loves you!

  She repeated herself over and over in her head, tuning out her torment as Bob spooned the last scrapings of her hollowed-out breast into her mouth before jamming the spoon deep down into her throat.

  Laura-Loo-Loo loves you…

  The blue teardrop fell from Roger’s fingers as the contact with the past was terminated, his hands flying up to his throat, the choking, metallic tang of a spoon still stuck in his windpipe. Airless, gasping seconds passed before his brain caught up with reality, the taste in his throat, along with a burning agony in his chest, diminishing.

  Laura’s mother still lay on the bed, her red eyes gazing up at him from the grief-soaked pillow.

  Tears poured from Roger’s eyes.

  What could he tell her about her daughter’s final moments?

  He bent towards her and, gently wrapping his arms around her, he lifted the heartbroken woman to a sitting position. Sharing eye contact for the briefest of seconds, he hugged her tight against him, pressing his wet cheek against hers, the pair of them sobbing like babies.

  “Laura-Loo-Loo loves you very much…” he whispered in her ear.

  They were the only words of comfort he had to give.

  Laura’s mother broke their embrace and stared at him, her wet eyes telling him that they were the only words she needed to hear, before she ran to the bathroom, locking herself in, alone with her grief, her anguished sobs now louder than ever.

  Roger picked up the third largest teddy-bear from the row, intending to dispose of Laura’s secret at his earliest opportunity so that her distraught mother could never find it, would never have her memories of her lost daughter tarnished. Carefully rearranging the other toys to hide the gap, he exited the room. He paused on the landing for a second and listened to the woman crying in the bathroom before quietly descending the stairs and heading for the front door.

  He had barely put the bungalow behind him before the pain in his guts returned. This time, however, it was a milder tugging, a gentle reminder that he still had a job to do.

  14

  “Caught you!”

  Steve turned away from the bedroom window as Sam stepped up behind him, triggering the squeaky floorboard as she walked.

  “So,” she laughed, “what’s the score?”

  She pushed in front of him, trying to block his view of the schoolgirls and their short, thigh-flashing, PE skirts. “I’ll be glad when you’re back at work and those poor girls are safe from your perverted ogling.”

  “Don’t knock it, babe. My ogling does have its advantages…”

  “Such as?”

  She groaned as she heard him unzip his fly.

  “Watching all these fit, sweaty girls has got me nicely warmed up for a quickie.” He nuzzled her neck as he lifted her dress, allowing his erection to probe at her panty-clad butt cheeks.

  “Sorry, baby...wrong time of the month.”

  Steve nibbled on her earlobe for a few seconds, pressing himself against her, before whispering, “Since when has that ever stopped me?”

  Without waiting for her reply, he slipped her underwear down over her curves, allowing the flimsy item to fall to her bare feet. He winced slightly at the sight of the stained sanitary towel stuck to the gusset as Sam lifted her feet out, kicking the garment to the side.

  “I knew you couldn’t resist me, babe.”

  He glided into her blood-slicked vagina, pumping slowly as he kissed her shoulder, one eye glued firmly on the schoolgirl's hockey game.

  A loud knocking came from the front door.

  “Ignore it, baby…” Despite her earlier protestations, Sam was enjoying herself.

  The knocking came again. More insistent this time.

  “Oh, for fuck's sake…Just a minute…” Steve yelled. He began thrusting faster, the pair of them moaning as their excitement grew to a peak, the hockey game forgotten.<
br />
  “You’ll have to clean yourself up, babe. I’ve got to answer the door.”

  Steve zipped himself up as he padded out of the bedroom towards the front door.

  “Thanks…” mumbled Sam under her breath as a glob of blood-stained semen dribbled from between her thighs, splashing onto the dark knots of the squeaky floorboard beneath her.

  “Hi, Steve. I do hope I’m not disturbing you…”

  Steve frowned at the sales rep, “Well, we were just in the middle of something actually…” He followed the woman’s eyes as her gaze dropped to his loins, his semi-soft erection straining against the partially unzipped fly of his jeans.

  The woman blushed as she caught his drift.

  “Ah, well…I just popped by to tell you that someone will be round on Wednesday to sort out the squeaky floorboard.”

  “Oh, right…we’re both back at work on Wednesday and won’t be home until the evening.”

  “Oh, that’s not a problem. Just drop a key into the sales office before you go and he can let himself in.”

  Steve reluctantly agreed and shut the door, quickly heading to the bedroom to wipe himself off properly. Sam was just coming out of the ensuite as he entered the room, a wad of white toilet tissue in her hand.

  “Who was it?”

  “Just that woman from the sales office. Apparently, someone’s coming round to fix our squeaky floorboard on Wednesday.”

  She laughed, waving the toilet paper. “Not if they knew what was on our squeaky floorboard…”

  “Why? What’s on it?” Steve shouted from the ensuite as he cleaned himself up.

  “A load of your spunk…oh!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s gone…”

  Squatting down, she examined the floor, brushing her fingertips over the grainy surface - the floorboard was as dry as a bone.

  It was as if the blood-streaked semen had just soaked right into the wood.

  15

  The house stood at the end of an overgrown lane. Dilapidated and in need of some serious TLC, the building looked at first sight as if it was abandoned. Its garden was a tangled mess of briars and weeds, a cracked concrete path struggling to define itself amongst the dandelions and tufts of grass that sprouted from every nook and cranny. Only the beaten up black van parked outside, the early afternoon sun glinting off its wing mirrors, gave Roger confirmation that he was at the right place.

  The sight of the van flashed a sudden memory.

  Laura’s memory.

  His fists clenched - anger rising, hatred surging, as recollections of the torment he had vicariously endured came flooding back. He wanted to make this hideous excuse of a man – this Bob - suffer. He wanted to torture the foul creature for hours, to make him endure the agonies that Laura - and possibly many other young women – had suffered at his filthy, perverted hands. With loathing leaking from every pore, he snatched a length of wood from a rotting gate and strode up the broken pathway to the side of the house.

  He banged hard on the flaking kitchen door, the wood rattling in its frame. Bob answered almost immediately, a look of curious confusion on his face. Roger assumed the guy probably didn’t get many visitors. Standing in the doorway, dressed in stained grey jogging trousers and a grubby, off-white vest, his belly protruded from the upper garment, hanging like a greasy, stretchmark-strewn apron over the waistband of his pants. In one hand he held a bacon sandwich, tomato ketchup dripping onto the filthy linoleum floor as he stared at his visitor, slack jaws still chewing. In his other hand, a thin roll-up dangled from fat, yellow fingers, a wispy plume of grey smoke curling up a bare arm.

  Bob swallowed his masticated mouthful and prepared to speak. Barely a fragment of a syllable escaped his greasy lips before Roger smashed the piece of gate into his face, sending him crumpling to the floor, blood pouring from a gash at his temple where a rusty nail protruding from the wood had gouged his skin. Roger stared at the unconscious figure on the kitchen floor, he himself momentarily stunned at what he had just done. He hadn’t thrown so much as a punch in anger since his school days, and even those were half-hearted efforts, usually missing or at least having little impact on his target. He hefted the piece of wood in his hand with a degree of pride swelling warmly inside him – hitting Bob had felt good and Roger felt sure he would enjoy inflicting even more pain on the murdering bastard.

  Stepping over Bob’s immobile form, Roger bolted the kitchen door behind him. The table where Laura had been attacked stood in front of the grimy hob, the lengths of rope used to secure the victims dangling at each corner. A groan from the floor startled him and Roger turned to see Bob beginning to stir. He swiftly hit him again, the piece of gate catching the fat man across the jaw, the blubbery body immediately going limp once more. Roger was suddenly worried that he may have inadvertently killed him – not that Bob’s death was a problem as such, despatching him was the ultimate goal after all – but the perverted creature didn’t deserve to die so quickly and painlessly. He crouched down and felt for a pulse, probing Bob’s flabby neck attempting to find the tell-tale throbbing of his carotid artery. Satisfied that he was still alive, Roger pondered how to get him onto the table. He had never been one for physical exertion or going to the gym and he doubted his ability to lift Bob’s dead-weight bulk. As he looked around for anything that might assist, his gut suddenly exploded with pain. He twisted back toward his prone victim, the agonising clawing in his bowels immediately subsiding a little. Roger understood enough by now to realise he was being told to get on with it. He crouched at Bob’s head and reached under his warm, sweaty armpits, recoiling a little at the touch of his flesh before he attempted to lift. He squatted on his haunches, biceps straining with the effort, but to no avail. Bob was just too damned heavy for him. He contemplated leaving him on the floor but almost immediately shook the thought from his mind – the plans he had for the fat bastard required him to be prone on the kitchen table, arms and legs secured against any movement or escape. He wanted him in the same position that Laura (and who knew how many possible others) had been in when they had suffered and lost their lives at Bob’s hands.

  Roger suddenly sagged at the knees and clasped his palms tight to his ears as an ocean of chanting voices filled his head. The words were unfathomable, their intensity climbing then falling as if being drowned out by a raging storm, but their tone was clearly one of encouragement, cheerleading his efforts and, as he pulled once more at Bob’s flabby arms, he found that the multitude in his head was offering much more than mere support as their incantations bolstered his strength and he easily lifted the slumbering bulk off the floor and onto the wooden table.

  The voices faded and, with Bob still unconscious, Roger took a closer inspection of the lengths of rope at each corner of the table, trying to figure out how to tie his victim down. Each length hung from holes drilled in the table legs. Two further holes were drilled into the table top at each corner – it seemed a simple matter of passing a length of rope up through one hole, over the victim’s arm or leg and down through the second hole. Roger guessed that in order to secure the bond tightly, it would need to be passed back through the hole in its respective table leg before being knotted.

  He removed Bob’s clothes and got to work securing him to the table, before filling a pan with water and placing it on the hob.

  He waited for Bob to wake.

  16

  “Good afternoon, Miss. Can I help you?”

  The sergeant behind the desk looked to be counting down the months to his retirement: thinning grey hair combed back over his head and a paunch testing the seams of his uniform. Years of fresh air ‘on the beat’ had reddened his cheeks, giving him a jovial appearance.

  Despite the officer’s friendly demeanour, Lisa couldn’t calm the nerves that trembled at her fingers. This was the first time she had ever set foot inside a police station and she couldn’t help but suddenly feel guilty of…something…

  She took a deep breath and step
ped up to the desk.

  “I’d like –“ she had to pause for a second and force the words out as her nervousness constricted her throat, “to report a missing person.”

  “I see. In that case, I’d better take some details down.” The sergeant tapped at his computer keyboard for a few seconds before lifting his gaze back to Lisa. “I’ll take your details first, Miss, if I may…Name?”

  “Lisa. Jenkins. Lisa Jenkins.”

  “Address?”

  She gave him her address and postcode details.

  “And your relationship to the missing person?”

  “He’s my partner.”

  “Partner…hmm, is that business partner or life partner?”

  “Umm…life partner?” She’d been hoping that Roger would be her life partner, but now – she didn’t know what to think or what to hope for. Tears began to well in her eyes and she sniffed them back before carrying on. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  She continued answering the sergeant’s questions, filling him in on the details of how they’d woken the previous morning and everything seemed fine but then Roger had suddenly run to the bathroom and retched a few times before getting dressed and rushing out of the house.

  “Did your boyfriend take his wallet, keys, mobile phone?”

  “No. He left them all on the bedside table.”

  “Hmm…when he left the house – did he take a vehicle or was he on foot?”

  “On foot. We only have the one car – mine – and he doesn’t drive it. He was involved in a bad car accident eighteen months ago, nearly lost his life. He…doesn’t like cars anymore...”

  “An accident, you say. Is he fully recovered now?”