TORTURED: A Novel of Psychological Horror

by Matt Shaw

  Mike shot Ryan a look and walked over to his son. He took the box from him and started filtering through it. He took it over to where Ryan was seemingly rooted to the spot. He thrust it towards his gut and Ryan caught it before looking down at the contents.

  “Still think he’s innocent?” Mike asked.

  Ryan reached into the box and pulled out a handful of photographs. Seemingly hundreds of photos - all of which were of young women who appeared to be completely unaware they were having their photo taken and all of them captured, in the polaroid, going about their daily lives.

  “What the hell?” Ryan wasn’t talking to anyone in particular.

  “If he wasn’t guilty - why’d he have this? This isn’t the behaviour of someone normal.”

  Ryan threw the box of photos on the sofa and reached into his trouser pocket. He pulled his mobile phone out and unlocked the screen.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Mike asked.

  “What do you think? I’m phoning the police…”

  “The police?”

  “They need to come down here. They need to look around for themselves. What if we contaminate the evidence? What if we…?”

  “We’re not getting the police involved. You do realise we’ve broken into this house…”

  “….And found this.” Ryan went to dial the number. Mike stopped him by swatting the phone from his hand. It landed - screen side down - on the floor. “What the hell, Mike? We need to call them. If we touch anything we could ruin the whole investigation.”

  “There isn’t going to be an investigation. You really want the police to come here? We get in trouble for breaking and entering. He somehow talks his way out of it again…Do you want that? Keep going through the pictures,” Mike picked the box up and started to thumb through the photographs again, “have you checked to see if there is one of Claire in here? Or even Jen? People like this - they don’t deserve justice. We, the people, deserve it…”

  Ryan reached forward and grabbed Mike’s arm - stopping him from thumbing through the pictures anymore. “Wait!” He snatched the photographs from Mike and went back a couple. There, in the middle of the photographs, was a picture of Vanessa. She was stood outside the bank, unaware she was caught in the framing of a photo just as the other girls had been. Dressed to impress at work. “That’s my work colleague…”

  “Well - damn - I guess we best phone the police…” Mike taunted Ryan. He turned around to his son who’d just been watching the two of them arguing, “What else is there?”

  “I haven’t been looking.”

  “Well don’t stop. There must be more.” Mike joined his son in the search.

  Ryan hesitated for a moment and then helped - turning the place over in the hope of finding more than just photographs. Ryan figured he’d argue about calling the police after they found more evidence despite knowing, for sure, he had found the man the police (and media) were looking for.

  “What are you doing in my house?” a meek voice asked from the hall. All three stopped their search and turned to see Mr. Reynolds standing there, in the doorway, watching them. A large kitchen knife in his left hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Ryan shifted uneasily; embarrassed at being caught in Mr. Reynolds’ house and nervous as to his next move (and the fact that the man was standing a few feet away from him with a knife in his hand).

  Mr. Reynolds asked again, “What are you doing in my house?” Mike noticed he was shaking as though he wasn’t comfortable with the blade in his hand.

  “What are you doing with these?” Mike countered his question with another question and pointed towards the box of photographs. He didn’t take his eyes off the man although he did slightly step in front of his son. Mike didn’t think his neighbour would use the knife. He didn’t think he had the balls. The fact he was shaking suggested as much. The knife was there not for violence but rather to defend himself if the need arose. It didn’t matter though. Mike still blocked the path to his son. After all - it was better to be safe than sorry. Mr. Reynolds looked across to the photographs. His face reddened at the sight of them. He knew he’d been caught out. His hand tightened its grip on the blade’s black, plastic handle. Mike noticed that too. “I asked you a question.”

  “You don’t have any right to be in here,” Mr. Reynolds said. His voice was shaking as much as his hand but it didn’t make Thomas, Ryan or Mike any less nervous about the situation they found themselves in. Mike had broken into other homes, to snoop around, but - until today - he’d never actually been caught. Not like this.

  “You’re right,” said Ryan. He saw a potential way out of the mess. If he had thought about it in depth, a little bit more, he might have realized that it wasn’t a way out. It was a way of escalating the situation. “Maybe you should phone the police. Let them know we’re here,” he continued. Mr. Reynolds turned to him. The first time he’d properly looked him in the eye. These weren’t the eyes of a killer. These were the eyes of something else. Something Ryan couldn’t put his finger on. Not a killer though.

  “And then we can show them these pictures too,” Mike jumped into the conversation.

  “They’re not mine,” Mr. Reynolds snapped his gaze back to Mike and Thomas.

  “So the police won’t find your prints on them, or anything else in the house which shouldn’t be here?” Mike asked.

  “We’ll go,” Ryan pressed, “and forget the whole thing. You can go about your business and we can go about ours.” He moved - slightly - towards the door but Mr. Reynolds didn’t budge out of his way. He didn’t even make a hint as to move out of the way.

  “Like hell we will!” Mike raised his voice. His gaze was fixed upon Mr. Reynolds. He tried to back him -verbally - into a corner, “What are you doing with these photographs? What? Are they pictures of the girls you killed? What’s the betting we go through here and find a picture of your wife?” he continued. He moved slightly towards Mr. Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds responded by backing away slightly.

  “They’re not mine!” he continued.

  “Then why are they in your house?” Mike asked - taking the lead in the showdown.

  “You put them here.”

  “We put them here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now we both know that’s not the case.”

  “Mike, let’s just go. Now isn’t the time.” Ryan said.

  “Then when would be the right time? We leave and - before we know it - he’s moved out. Disappeared into the city, perhaps another city…Gone without a trace to carry on whatever the fuck it is he does.”

  “I work the night shift in a supermarket,” Mr. Reynolds said - his voice still shaky and meek. If he was the killer the press had reported about, he was doing an excellent job of keeping it hidden from them. The quietness in his voice, the shaking - he wasn’t coming across as a killer. He was coming across as weak. Pathetic almost. Ryan couldn’t help but think how he’d have reacted if he were in this man’s shoes; standing in his home confronting people who’d broken in.

  Ryan turned back to Mike, “I’m telling you - this isn’t right. Something feels wrong. We’ve made a mistake…”

  “Then how do you explain the pictures?” Mike snapped at him.

  “They’re not mine.”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Yeah shut the fuck up!” Thomas chimed in, peering around from behind his father..

  Ryan turned back to Mr. Reynolds, “There are intruders in your house. You need to phone the police,” he said. “The police can deal with this.” The perfect outcome for Ryan. He’d say he was coerced into helping Mike and Thomas - for fear of his family - and the police could investigate the nature of the photos along with anything else which may have been in the house. No one would get hurt though. At this stage, with the knife pointing towards him, that was the important thing.

  “He won’t phone the police,” Mike shouted, “because he knows he is in the wrong. He knows what he is. He invites the police into his hom
e and he’s shut down. Finished. No more. Prison for him.”

  “I haven’t done anything…”

  “No - of course you haven’t.” Mike laughed.

  “Then you have nothing to fear by calling the police. Call them. It’s okay.” Unlike Mike’s voice, Ryan’s voice was calming. Mr. Reynolds looked between the three men standing in his living room. The telephone was sitting on a small coffee table to the side of the settee. It was evident to see he wanted to use it. He wanted to phone for the police. He leaned, slightly, towards it. Mike seized the opportunity to make a dash for him - helped by the fact Mr. Reynolds was still looking at the telephone and there were only a few steps between the two of them. He hit him with his whole body weight and the two of them crashed down onto the floor. The impact caused Mr. Reynolds to drop the knife. Thomas cheered as he too rushed over to help his father. Ryan just stood there, on the spot, frozen. Part of him wanted to make a dash for the back door, part of him wanted to make a move for the phone and the other part of him was curious to see how this played out; the latter being out of morbid curiosity. Was this really the man the authorities had been hunting? He did have the photographs after all.

  * * * * *

  Jackie, Claire and Dee were sitting in the living room unaware of what was taking place a few houses away from them. The three of them sitting in silence as the end of a soap opera played out on the television set. All of them were watching the screen but none of them were really paying it any attention. Claire was thinking about where she used to live, and the friends she missed. Jackie was thinking about what the men were doing and Dee was wondering whether any of them would get away with what was happening. She knew it had always been the plan, on their part, to break into the house but now it was happening - and now she knew it was something they did regularly, she couldn’t help but wish she’d never become a part of it. Too late now, though. She knew she couldn’t turn back the clock.

  Kara and Jen came into the lounge.

  “Mum, I’m hungry,” Kara whined.

  “Dinner won’t be long,” Jackie reassured her. Her tone held no emotion. Dee couldn’t help but think she’d turned off from everything - including her daughter. Perhaps that was the way she dealt with what was going on? She simply switched off. The friendly woman, Dee met when Jackie first came around to the house, making up for the times she’d turned her emotions off. Overly happy to compensate for the times she’d switched off to the world around her when she needed to be more subdued. It was a theory.

  “Where’s dad?” Jen asked.

  “Just popped next door with Mike and Thomas,” Dee said. She knew she wouldn’t think of ‘next door’ as being the neighbour’s house. She’d just think they had nipped to their own home.

  “Why?”

  “Because they did.”

  “Can I go and see them?”

  “Not yet - they’re busy,” Dee told her.

  “Can we have a biscuit?” Kara asked her mother.

  “No, you’ll ruin your dinner.”

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “Well, I said, dinner won’t be long!”

  “Well how long?”

  “When your father gets back.”

  “When is he getting back?”

  “Why don’t you and Jen go and play upstairs,” Jackie said. Her patience clearly running out. She shot her own daughter such a look, Kara wasted no time in going back upstairs to the sanctity of her bedroom with Jen right behind her.

  “We didn’t get a biscuit though,” Jen moaned before the door was closed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “This is fucking crazy!” Ryan protested. “We can’t do this!” He was pacing the living room where they’d pulled the curtains shut - blocking out the outside world from what was happening within the now-darkened room. Mike was standing in front of Mr. Reynolds who was sitting on the corner armchair. Mike had hold of the knife now and - unlike Mr. Reynolds who was whimpering - he didn’t look out of place with it in his hand.

  “We’re already doing it,” Mike hissed. “Now you’re either part of the problem or you’re part of the solution. Which is it? Time to pick a team.”

  “The photos…They’re not mine…” Mr. Reynolds kept saying over and over again.

  “Shut up!” Mike shouted. He put the knife against Mr. Reynolds’ cheek. “Shut, the hell, up!”

  “Mike, think what you’re doing. This takes it way out of breaking and entering territory into something much worse…We need to phone the police. We need to let them deal with it.”

  “We’ll see what’s what when the boy comes back.”

  Mike was referring to Thomas. Whilst Mike and Ryan watched their neighbour, Thomas had been instructed to search the rest of the house for more evidence pointing to the crimes Mr. Reynolds was responsible for - not that, in Mike’s eyes, any further proof was really necessary. He had everything he needed, hidden in the shoebox, as far as he was concerned. The man was guilty and punishment needed to be issued.

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan told Mr. Reynolds. He didn’t know why he said the words. Perhaps to try and appease his own guilty conscience for what the man was having to go through.

  “You’re sorry? You think he’s sorry for the women he cut up? You read all the reports? You read what he did to them before he let them die? Did you? I did. Let me tell you - it made for some horrific fucking reading, you know?” Mike was ranting. Any chance of a sensible conversation with him was long gone. It was clear he only had one thing on his mind. Revenge.

  “We don’t know that he…”

  “The pictures! What more proof do you want?”

  “They’re not my pictures!”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Mike turned around and hit Mr. Reynolds in the face with the back of his hand, splitting his lip in the process. Mr. Reynolds winced in pain. “You know what - that felt good.” He hit him again; a clenched fist this time. The bridge of Mr. Reynolds’ nose split open to the sound of a satisfying (or horrifying) crack. Again, Mr. Reynolds cried out; a cry drowned out by the cheer of Mike and the voice of Ryan telling him to stop. Thomas walked back into the room. He was empty handed. He froze when he saw what his father had done. A sadistic smile on his face showed Ryan’s hope of the son talking the father down was out of the window. Mike turned to him, shaking the sting from his fist, “Well - what did you find?” he asked. Thomas shook his head. “Nothing?”

  “No.”

  Ryan didn't feel any relief. If anything he felt worse. So far all they’d found were pictures which was suspicious but hardly enough to condemn the man. If anything Ryan would have felt better had Thomas come back with reports of dead girls stashed in the rooms upstairs. At least then he wouldn’t have felt as guilty about what was happening. Guilt? So many mixed feelings ricocheting around his soul.

  The three of them stood in silence. Only the whimpering sounds of their now-hostage were audible. Mike slowly turned around to him, “You’re a piece of shit and you’re going to hell!” he said. “We know what you did to those girls. We all know. The fucking world knows. Been enough reports about it in the press. But you have a real chance to help yourself now. A chance to cleanse some of your twisted soul. And if I were you…if I were in your position - about to meet my maker - I’d take that chance of redemption. Confess…”

  Mr. Reynolds stuttered over his words, “I didn’t do anything.” His protests of innocence were met with a clenched fist directly to the same spot as the previous punch. He let out a wail of pain as his head jarred backwards from the force. Thomas laughed. Ryan couldn’t do anything. Stuck to the same spot. People like him - they weren’t built for scenarios like this. It wasn’t in their programming. His place was sitting behind the desk at the bank or in his home (wherever that may be) with his family.

  “What’s with the pictures? And, God help me, if you say they aren’t yours…”

  “They’re pretty….” he screamed.

  “What?” Mike wasn’t expecting that as an answer.<
br />
  “The girls. They’re pretty. I liked them…”

  “So much that you killed them?”

  “I didn’t kill them.”

  “You did. You cut them into tiny pieces and left them for people to find. You’re sick.”

  “No. I didn’t.” He was crying now. “I just took their picture. I wanted to ask them out. I wanted to see if they’d like me but I never could. I just took their picture…”

  “Are we going to find pictures of your wife in the box too?”

  “My wife left me. She said she didn’t love me anymore. She said she’d met someone else from her work…”

  “So you killed her!”

  “I didn’t kill her! She left me!” he wept. “I loved her.”

  “You killed her and you killed the girls in these pictures. Like his colleague at work.” Mike turned to Ryan, “What was her name?”

  “Vanessa,” Ryan said quietly.

  “I didn’t kill her. I didn’t touch her. I liked going there. I liked talking to her. I asked her out once but she said no…”

  “You’re lying!” Mike shouted.

  “I’m not! I just wanted someone to like me again. I just…” his words cut short by another punch to the face and another cheer from Thomas.

  “Stop it!” Ryan shouted.

  “He’s lying to us. Don’t you want to hear the truth from him?”

  “What if he’s not lying?” Ryan asked. His tone full of desperation.

  “He is!”

  “I’m not!”

  “Well…” Mike stood back a moment. “We’ll see…” He walked from the room.

  “What are you doing?” Ryan called out after him. He wanted to follow, to keep trying to talk him down, but he didn’t dare leave Thomas and Mr. Reynolds alone. The possibility of one hurting the other being too great and - at this stage - he wasn’t sure who’d be the one dishing out the hurt.

  * * * * *

  Jackie was making fresh drinks for her guests who were waiting in the living room - still not talking whilst the television played whatever programme was on in the background. Jackie was so lost in what she was doing, she jumped when the back door opened and Mike walked in.