Chillingworth Mews: A supernatural horror novel

by Anton Palmer

  FUCK IT!

  The language was pure filth to her ears but the syllables of the sewer only served to amplify her desire. She hastily discarded her dressing gown, nightdress and underwear, running her bony fingers between her thighs, luxuriating in the warm wetness she found there. As if the sex hormones coursing through her blood had turned her body-clock back by fifty years, Margaret squatted like a twenty year old, positioning the bulb holder on top of the lamp between her legs. Oblivious to the gore encrusted remnants of filament and broken glass, she lowered herself down and greedily took in all the length she could handle.

  Staring at her wedding photo, her eyes fixated on the face of her departed husband, she rode the wooden phallus. Memories of their honeymoon flooded her mind as liquid pleasure mixed with blood flooded her vagina. So lost was she in her memories of Robin, so swamped in the waves of the orgasm building inside her that she failed to hear the click as the trip-switch in the fuse box flipped back up, turning the current back on.

  26

  Roger closed the front door and turned back to the prone figure at his feet. To his right, he spotted a white, panelled door which he assumed led into the garage, the wide, up-and-over exterior door to which had been hard to miss as he’d approached the house.

  Opening the door, he groped around the inside wall, two banks of flourescents sputtering into life as he flicked the lightswitch his fingers had been searching for. A shiny black BMW sat on the pristine, white concrete floor, the lights in the ceiling gleaming off the vehicle’s sleek, polished curves. Wooden shelves lined the garage’s every wall, each crammed with every kind of tool imaginable – an Aladin’s Cave of DIY, or a treasure trove of torture – depending on your intentions.

  Despite his profession, Bullock was not a big man and Roger easily dragged his slumped body into the garage and over to the wall opposite the exterior door, propping him against it. He scanned around and quickly located a claw-hammer and a box of nails, pounding several of the sharp steel points through each of Bullock’s palms, fixing him securly to the edge of the lowest shelf on the wall behind him.

  Admiring his handiwork, Roger waited.

  It took a few minutes, but evenutaully the pain signals firing through Bullock’s nerves reached his numbed brain, the property developer beginning to stir, and Roger grinned as he looked around for the tool he would need next.

  Earlier, at the pub, he had felt the pain suffered by Chillingworth House as its floorboards were ripped up, plaster and intererior walls knocked through, electrical wiring and plumbing – the building’s very innards – wrenched from its flesh of bricks and mortar, and he wanted to make Bullock suffer the same excrutiating degradation.

  Scouting around the well ordered garage, he eventually found a collection of several crow-bars propped up in a corner, rust stains covering most, hinting at their age. He selected one at random, passing it from hand to hand, testing its weight and balance until a sickly groan alerted him to Bullock’s waking.

  Roger paused – he felt sure it would only be a matter of seconds before the muted groans turned into screams. Sure enough, less than a minute later, Bullock’s brain was alert and fully aware of the agony in his hands. The garage echoed with hysterical shrieks and cries as the property developer tried to understand what was happening to him, his brain too overwhelmed by pain to make any sense of his situation.

  Roger stepped slowly from the corner, dragging the crowbar along the concrete floor. Bullock, his face screwed tight with torment failed to notice his attacker’s approach until the sound of shattering glass shocked his eyes wide open.

  The BMW’s windscreen was criss-crossed with web-like cracks, a small hole clearly visible on the driver’s side. Bullock stopped screaming and stared in disbelief at the damage to his car, his pride and joy.

  “What the fuck have you done to my car?”

  It was as if he cared more about the vehicle than his own flesh and bones, any pain of his own momentarily forgotten with the shock of seeing his beloved ‘beemer’ vandalised.

  “I’ve finally got your attention then…”

  Roger stepped in front of the car, tapping the crowbar against the side of his right leg.

  “I’ll smash it up some more – unless… you can take this crowbar from me.”

  Bullock tried to stretch his arms forward to grab the tool, screaming as the nails in his palms held him firm, fresh blood pouring from the puncture wounds - the realisation that he was pinned to the wall finally hitting home like a sledgehammer to the guts.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Bullock screamed at the stranger with the crowbar, “Why are you doing this?”

  “Revenge! For a…client of mine.”

  The property developer’s eyes widened with disbelief. Sure, he’d pissed off any number of people over the years - short-changing them on land deals, cutting corners on building jobs, promising big bribes to certain planning officers and then reneging on the full amount - but none of those who he’d screwed over was likely to go to these sort of lengths.

  “How much?” Bullock’s voice started to crack as the pain in his hands flared once more.

  “How much, what?”

  “How much are they paying you? I’ll double it…treble it even!”

  Roger laughed. “I don’t think so…it’s not about money – it’s more of a personal thing - your atonement for the pain and suffering you caused my client.”

  “What fucking client?”

  “Chillingworth House.”

  “What? But I bought that place from the council, for a fair price – all legal and above board.”

  Bullock couldn’t comprehend what Roger was getting at. The purchase and redevelopment of Chillingworth House was one of the few deals he had done in recent years that actually had been totally legit. Ok, some of the locals had objected to the redevelopment, but he had done everything he could to appease them: keeping the original shell and reusing as much of the wood and roof slates as possible. Surely to God none of the townsfolk, no matter how obsessed they were with the old building would be this angry at him?

  “Who?” he asked again, “Who could possibly be this pissed off over that?”

  Roger shook his head. “You don’t understand… You can’t understand – my client is Chillingworth House - the building is alive!”

  Bullock stared at Roger as if he were some deranged fucking lunatic.

  “You tore it apart and it felt pain. You ripped out its guts, crushed its limbs, bled its life-force dry - and now… well, now it’s your turn.”

  Roger bent down and tore at the property developer’s expensive shirt, hooking his fingers between the buttons to rip the garment from his victim’s torso. With the builder’s upper body now exposed, he placed the chisel end of the crowbar under Bullock’s seventh rib on his right side. He wanted to keep well away from the heart – as with Bob, death was the end game but suffering and torment was the name of the game - keeping his victim agonised, but alive, for as long as possible.

  Pushing hard on the tool, he wriggled the blade until it finally burst through Bullock’s flesh, dark red blood flowing from the wound as Roger carefully pushed deeper.

  Bullock let out an agonised howl as he made a futile attempt to edge his torso back against the brickwork behind him and slide his body away from the crowbar.

  Roger paused. He was unsure how far he could go without piercing a lung and already he could feel a soft resistance against the tip of the crowbar. He tried to think back to his biology lessons at school, but, like most of the kids in his class, the only lessons he paid any real attention to were the ones about sexual reproduction – his fourteen year old self sitting uncomfortably, with a half a hard-on, as he stared at artist’s renderings of spread-wide female genitalia.

  Wasn’t there a layer of muscle between the ribs?

  He was sure there was – inter…something muscle…

  That was what the tool-tip was currently pressing against, he was certain, which meant
he could thrust a little deeper and hook the end of the crowbar under the flat rib bone.

  Slowly pressing harder, he felt the muscle give and he angled the tool upwards, the end of the crowbar grinding against the underside of Bullock’s rib. Roger pushed down slowly on his end of the bar, forcing the business end to drive the rib forward. He felt the bone give a little, the cartilage that connected it to the sternum allowing some degree of movement, and, as he pushed a little harder he could see the rib itself, moving under Bullock’s skin, pressing outward like some alien parasite that was ready to hatch.

  Bullock’s head was tipped back, eyes rolled up to the whites. His breath hissed with short, stifled gasps as he tried to withstand the pain, unable to scream or breath deeply, any inflation of his lungs just amplifying the agony.

  Roger continued pumping at the crowbar until he heard a muffled crack, a splinter of bone suddenly bursting through the property developer’s chest wall, spongy red marrow clearly visible at the rib’s shattered end.

  Bullock’s face blanched at the sight of the white bone sticking out of his chest, his stomach instantly convulsing under a wave of nausea. Vomit spilled from his mouth, the smell of good whisky and bile filling the air, the contractions of his gut pushing his shattered bone even further out from his chest wall.

  Giving his victim no time to recover, Roger repeated the exercise on two more ribs, Bullock’s torso saturated with glistening red as his pounding heart forced hot blood from his gaping wounds, the developer finally slipping into the merciful embrace of unconciousness. Roger gazed down at the slumped form: Bullock’s dead- weight pulling on the nails through his palms, stretching out the bleeding puncture wounds like stigmata; the three ribs bursting through the builder’s chest, blood and marrow dripping from their shattered ends.

  Those were your ripped up floorboards – now for your smashed out bricks…

  Roger retrieved the claw-hammer he had utilised earlier and swung it towards the unconsious developer’s jaw.

  He stopped, a fraction short of impact…

  The bastard was out of it.

  Chillingworth House never got the luxury of sleep. Chillingworth House was wide awake, fully alert throughout every atrocity wreaked upon it.

  Roger pulled down his jogging pants and fumbled his penis from his underwear, emptying his beer filled bladder over the property developer’s face and chest, bringing his spluttering victim back to the land of the living.

  Bullock gagged and choked, blinking hard against the acidic liquid that stung his eyes, his vision regaining a degree of focus just in time to register the hammer arcing towards his face.

  The first blow shattered his front teeth, several thousand pounds worth of dental work instantly reduced to pulped stumps. As Bullock spat splintered enamel and blood into his lap, Roger forced the claw end of the hammer into his shattered mouth, hooking the claws into the gums of his lower jaw. He yanked hard, ripping teeth from their sockets and gums from the bone. Dark blood poured from Bullock’s lips, dribbing onto his soaked chest - his will to live, along with his sanity, slowly slipping away.

  Roger had plans to tear the property developer’s bowels from his belly, to pull his plumbing from his flesh, but he could see that his victim was way too far gone to appreciate the irony. Gripping the hammer tight he smashed it into the top of Bullock’s skull, hitting him over and over until bone gave way to brain and brain gave way to mush.

  27

  Along with the pounding in his skull, Steve’s lower back throbbed painfully, his lumbar region sore and stiff as he swung his legs to the floor. The new sofa they had chosen for their living room, while quite possibly being - as the brochure pronounced - the epitome of stylish, contemporary living, was as uncomfortable as fuck to sleep on. As he sat and rubbed his temples, memories of the previous evening suddenly came flooding back…

  The cracks in the wall.

  The discarded toolbox.

  His wife fucking the handyman…

  Anger quickly rose within him and he stormed into the bedroom, eager for round two.

  The bed was unmade, Sam nowhere to be seen. Steve headed for the kitchen - finding it devoid of life. A bowl of half-eaten cereal sat in the sink and he assumed Sam had left for work already, obviously keen to be out of the door before he woke up. His teeth ground together as he realised the row he had geared himself up for would now have to wait until that evening.

  In the meantime, the handyman would no doubt be sneaking back for his toolbox…

  Steve contemplated throwing a sickie and lying in wait for the bastard. He was feeling pretty fucking rough and so would not be lying if he did call in sick…but, deadlines were looming in his office and there had been gossip in the canteen recently about a possible restructure.

  Restructure.

  The one ‘R’ word which inevitably led to another -

  Redundancies!

  Steve was still weighing up the pros and cons of taking the day off when his thoughts were interupted by a knock at the door.

  The fucker!

  Steve yanked open the door, right fist already swinging, but instead of the maintenance man, it was the woman from the sales office who nearly got her nose broken.

  “Shit!” He quickly pulled his punch. “I’m so sorry – I was expecting someone else.”

  The sales woman took a step back, her initial shock at the incoming ball of knuckles quickly subsiding as she took in the sight of Steve standing in the doorway wearing nothing but his white boxers.

  “Oh…hi, Steve, “ her face flushed beneath her make-up, “sorry to call so early. Umm…did Jonny – the handyman - come round and sort your floorboard out yesterday?”

  “Oh, he came round alright. Did fuck-all about the floorboard - but cracked the shit out of my bedroom wall as he fucked my slut-wife senseless!”

  Jonny? The man was approaching retirement age and wasn’t exactly Casanova – even she wouldn’t go there to fulfill her needs…

  “Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like Jonny.”

  “All I know is that when I got home from work yesterday, my whore-wife was in bed, the wall behind the headboard was cracked to shit, the squeaky floorboard still fucking squeaked and ‘Jonny’s’ toolbox was dumped on the bedroom floor - as if he had left in a fucking hurry.”

  Slut-wife. Whore-wife.

  Clearly ‘trouble in paradise’ - the words were like music to her ears.

  “Well…the funny thing is – nobody’s seen hide nor hair of Jonny since yesterday morning. You say he left his toolbox here but didn’t do the job?”

  She gently pushed through the doorway, desperate to know if the slut-whore-wife was in residence.

  “Perhaps Sam knows what time he left? Is she…here?”

  “Nope, the cheating bitch has left for work already.”

  The sales woman’s eyes lit at the confirmation that she was alone with Steve, swallowing hard as she steeled herself to take the opportunity presented to her. “Well…I can’t do the job with the squeaky floorboard-“ she took a step closer to Steve, looking him in the eyes as she spoke, “but there is another job I can do for you…”

  She grabbed his crotch, skilfully unbuttoning his fly while dropping to her knees.

  What the fuck is she doing?

  Steve’s initial shock was immediately quashed as he felt her warm, wet mouth wrap around his flaccid penis, the woman retracting his foreskin, her tongue expertly working at his exposed glans.

  Oh, Christ…she is good!

  Sam was useless at blow-jobs, only ever taking him in her mouth if he begged her to – never volunteering to pleasure him of her own accord. Even then, he could tell she wasn’t into it, her lack of enthusiasm, quite literally (or not), sucking all the enjoyment out of it. The sales woman, on the other hand, was slurping away for all she was worth, moaning her pleasure as she slid her lips up and down his rock-hard shaft.

  Fuck it! , he thought, if his wife could fuck the janitor, he could fuck this middle-ag
ed trout.

  Momentarily slipping himself from her hot maw, he led her through to the bedroom, lying back on the end of the dishevelled bed, directing the woman to kneel between his legs to continue her ministrations. With his eyes closed, he tried to remember the last time he’d had a blow-job as good as this…

  *

  Sam’s car indicators flashed orange as she pressed the ‘lock’ button on her key-fob.

  Driving to work, her head pounding as bad as ever and the memories of Steve’s behaviour the previous evening tumbling over and over in her brain, her levels of concentration were poor. Several times her vehicle had wandered across the white lines in the centre of the road, oncoming traffic blaring at her, and, after a near miss with a truck, she had pulled sharply into a lay-by to calm herself down.

  Despite the important meeting she had scheduled, she decided to phone in sick – in her current state she would be of no practical use anyway – and turned the car around, heading back home. Hopefully, the handyman would call in to finish fixing the squeaky floorboard and she could persuade him to call in again, after Steve got home, to explain why he had left his toolbox behind the day before, and why the wall was all cracked.

  Entering Chillingworth Mews, the door closing smoothly behind her, she headed up the stairs to her apartment. As she approached, she noticed the front door was ajar.

  Perhaps the handyman had turned up, she thought. Now she could try and get to the bottom of what happened yesterday and hopefully be able to straighten things out with Steve.

  As she stepped into the hallway, expecting to hear sounds of hammering or other tools, her ears instead picked up the sounds of sexual pleasure: female moans and deeper, male groans.

  Groans that she recognised.

  Bastard!

  She was immediatley gripped by an intense rage, storming into the bedroom, her anger filled eyes greeted by the sight of the sales woman’s head bobbing up and down on Steve’s crotch. The sight sickened her to the core but it was the noises the pair were making that finally tipped her over the edge: her husband’s gutteral groans of unadulderated pleasure tearing out any sense of rationality from her mind.