by Matt Shaw
“How’s it going?” she asked. “You’ve been longer than usual.”
Mike smiled. He put his arms around his wife and gave her a hug before kissing her on the lips, “We found him, baby. We found the sick son of a bitch. All this time, right there. Just as Thomas said…”
“You’ve found him?” She smiled.
Mike released her from his grip and walked to the cupboard in the corner of the kitchen. “That’s right, baby. He has pictures of the girls collected together in a shoebox. Sick, son of a bitch had the box in his living room - in plain sight of anyone who’d come by.” He reached into the cupboard and pulled out a bag. Sticking from the top of it was a hammer.
“What are you doing round there?” Jackie asked when she noticed the bag.
Mike flashed her another smile, “Getting a confession before passing sentence!”
Jackie didn’t know what to say and Mike didn’t wait to hear what it would be. He simply walked out of the door, closing it behind him, as though what he was doing was perfectly normal and acceptable. It hadn’t been the first time he’d broken into a house - to snoop around - but it was the first time he’d passed out punishment on the individual. The strange thing was Jackie didn’t have the words to say to him. She didn’t know what to say. Yet she didn’t seem to mind what he was doing. In fact, she took the news as though it were something as every-day as her husband going off to fix something around the house. She guessed this was because he was fixing a fault with the house. Not their house admittedly. But the fact a killer was living a few hundred yards away from where they lived - definitely a fault to be dealt with. A few more seconds as his news sunk in before she smiled to herself. She didn’t run into the other room to tell Claire and Dee though. She thought it best to keep it to herself until the task was done. She returned to making the drinks, proud of her husband. He was keeping the family safe and also saving a drop in properly value. After all - if people found out this was the neighbourhood where all the murders took place - property prices would plummet.
By the time Mike got back to Mr. Reynolds’ house all hell was breaking loose. He heard the shouting as he crossed the back garden, from the fence to the broken door. The voices belonging to his own son and Ryan. Of course one of the voices would belong to Ryan. As for the sound of Thomas’ screeching - Mike couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. This must be what their other neighbours could hear when Mike and Thomas were having one of their arguments.
He hurried through to the living room where Thomas was blocking the doorway - stopping both Ryan and Mr. Reynolds from leaving.
“What the fuck is going on?!” Mike barked.
“They’re trying to leave, dad!” Thomas backed up, letting his dad through. The very act of Mike walking through pushed Ryan and Mr. Reynolds back into the living room.
“What is it with you?” Mike asked Ryan.
“Me? Look at what you’re doing!” Ryan shouted.
“Keep your fucking voice down. We don’t want anyone coming round.” He looked at Mr. Reynolds, “Sit!” Mr. Reynolds did as he was told without hesitation.
“I don’t deny he’s not strange, I’ll give you that, but he isn’t the man being hunted for the murders. He isn’t. Come on, look at him. He has made absolutely no move to try and get away or fight us…Nothing. He’s just…Fucking weird!”
“I told your wife we caught him,” Mike lied. His voice was calmer now. He hoped the words would offer some form of comfort to Ryan. A little sign that what he was doing was okay. Acceptable even. “You know what she said? She said good.”
“What?”
“She was happy. I told her what we were doing. You think she was upset? You think she reacted like you did? No. Still happy. She thought we were doing the right thing. For the sake of the neighbourhood and our own families. More than that though - we’re making things better for society. We’re getting rid…”
“Getting rid…What the hell are you talking about?”
Mike put the bag of tools onto the table, next to where he’d dumped the knife earlier, and opened it up. He took the hammer out and handed it out to Ryan who didn’t take it, “We’re getting rid of the trash. One way or the other - this is how it plays out. He confesses and we deal with him fast. He drags it out…Well we drag it out too. We do as he did to his victims.”
“What?”
“We torture him.”
“Are you messing with me? Is this some kind of sick joke?” Ryan turned to Mr. Reynolds, “Are you in on this? Some kind of sick welcome to the neighbourhood prank…Something to see the type of family we are?” He could tell by Mr. Reynolds’ expression that he had no idea what was happening or what was going to happen. He turned back to Mike, “Very funny. You got me. I believed you. You tricked me. Boy - don’t I feel stupid now.” He laughed but it was more out of nervousness as opposed to finally getting the ‘joke’.
Mike smiled at him. Ryan smiled back - he foolishly thought this was the end of it now. Mike proved to him it wasn’t. It was just the start. He smashed Mr. Reynolds in the kneecap with the hammer. Mr. Reynolds screamed out in pain and reached for his leg. Thomas laughed, as did Mike. Ryan screamed out too having also felt the pain despite not actually receiving the blow himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mr. Reynolds was weeping, still clutching at his knee. Mike was still standing next to him with the hammer in his hand. Thomas and Ryan were standing close to the living room door - neither one of them knowing what was going to happen next. In fact no one did. Other than Mike. This was his show now.
“Why did you kill the girls?” Mike asked Mr. Reynolds. “Is it because they turned you down? You asked them out, they said no and so you killed them brutally…Made sure you did it in an ugly fashion? You take away their beauty with violent acts? Make sure no one will want them? Am I close?”
“I didn’t kill them.”
“Nope. Not the right answer.” Mike made a sudden move forward and grabbed Mr. Reynolds’ still shaking hand. He forced it down onto the small coffee table and kept it held there. Mr. Reynolds was screaming already - the knowledge of what was coming nearly as painful as the act itself. Mike raised the hammer high in the air and brought it down hard into the middle of the sweaty hand. A crack signalled that it was broken. The force of the hammer broke the skin and blood trickled out. The area, around the rip in the skin, already purple. Mr. Reynolds screamed again. “I can keep doing this all day. Just tell us why you did it.”
“I didn’t!”
Mike hit the man’s hand with the hammer again. This time straight onto the fingertips, which also broke upon impact. Another scream.
“You’re going to have to tell us the truth if you want this to stop!”
“I just took pictures of the girls. I liked them. I took their picture. I didn’t do anything else.”
“Liar!” Mike hit him again. Another hard blow, which sounded off with another satisfying crack. Another scream from Mr. Reynolds.
“Just tell him for God’s sake!” Ryan yelled at Mr. Reynolds.
“I didn’t hurt anyone. They hurt me!” he screamed. Mike let go of his hand and Mr. Reynolds snatched it back. He held it against his chest with his good hand. “I didn’t hurt anyone,” he said again, “they hurt me. She walked out. She left me. The others, they didn’t want me either. No one does.”
“So you kill them!” Mike shouted.
“No I didn’t! I’m not a murderer!”
Mike slammed the hammer down on the man’s second kneecap. He screamed out in pain once more. Tears streamed down his face as the pain was almost too much to bear.
“Please stop!”
“Is that what they said?” Mike him hit again. Another scream.
“Just fucking tell him!” Ryan said again - if only to make the pain stop for the man he wanted him to say something, anything. Even if it were a lie. “Just tell him! Something! Anything!” The amount of pain he was taking, without spilling anything, it was easy to see how he�
�d have managed to fool the police.
“I’m not a killer!”
Mike stepped back and dropped the hammer to the floor. Ryan audibly breathed a sigh of relief. “Son,” Mike said, “fetch me out the hacksaw.”
“What are you doing?” Ryan asked. He still couldn’t move from where he was rooted to the spot. Everything was too much for him to take in. That wasn't the case for Thomas though. He was relishing the whole experience. As per his father’s request, he hurried across to the tool bag and pulled out the hacksaw. He handed it to his father who took it with a friendly wink - a little sign, to his son, that he was proud of him.
“Make things easier for yourself,” Mike told Mr. Reynolds, “just tell us why you did it. Tell us why you killed the girls.”
“Please - I didn’t - I didn’t kill anyone,” he stuttered. He was starting to look pale. Ryan wasn’t sure how much more pain the man could take yet he knew there was going to be a lot more issued before he was released (one way or the other).
“You expect us to believe you’re just some fucking pervert going about taking pictures of girls he fancies? Collecting little mementos of girls who’d knocked him back? We don’t buy it. The police wouldn’t either, if we called them. Not that you’ll ever know what they think. They’ll never know of this. They’ll never know of what happened to you…” Mike reached forward and grabbed Mr. Reynolds’ battered hand from the grip of his good hand. He placed it on the table and held it there with his own hand whilst he lined up the teeth of the hacksaw blade - right where the fingers connected to the hand. Ryan wanted to call out. He wanted to tell him to stop but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything. He knew there was no point. He turned his back on him and closed his eyes. “Last chance. Tell us why you did it. Help us understand. Maybe we’ll understand. Maybe we’ll carry on your fine work. Convince us. Why did you do it?”
“I’m just a dirty pervert,” he stammered his words out, “I just take pictures of girls. I take the pictures and I keep them in a shoebox,” he started to cry again, “and then - occasionally - I’ll masturbate over them…”
“You’re fucking disgusting…” Mike pushed down with the hacksaw. He pulled back with his arm. The teeth tore straight through the flesh and into the bone. A sound, reminiscent of cutting wood, echoed through the room. Mr. Reynolds screamed the house down. “Shut him up!” Mike ordered anyone else in the room. He didn’t care who it was. Thomas stepped forward and clamped his neighbour’s mouth shut with his hand quieting his scream. Mike continued sawing. It didn’t take more than a few seconds before the fingers dropped to the floor with splashes of blood. It was only then that Ryan gave any thought to D.N.A evidence and the worry of what they were going to do with the body if they followed this through to the end as Mike had suggested. “You can make all of this stop,” Mike said, “just tell us why you did it!” He suddenly started slapping his neighbour in the face, “Oh no…Wake up…Don’t pass out…You’re not allowed to pass out…Tell us why you did it and I’ll let you sleep…”
Ryan turned back to face the carnage. He nearly threw up at the sight of the bloodied hand missing its fingers. “Mike - it’s one thing to break into someone’s house but this…How the fuck do you think we’re going to get away with this? You’re taking things too far. Please stop. Stop whilst we can still put things right…” He knew there was no putting things right. Things had gone too far the moment they’d broken in the house. As far as Ryan was concerned - they were already heading for a prison sentence (a thought which made him feel sick to the stomach knowing he’d be leaving his family behind), the question was now how long they were going to spend there. At this rate - most of their lives.
“All he needs to do to make this stop is tell us. Don’t you want to know what happened to your colleague? Don’t you want to know what happened to her and where she is? I do believe they haven’t found her yet. What was her name again? Vanessa. Was that it? Don’t you think her friends and family deserve to know what happened to Vanessa? This motherfucker - this cunt - he’s the one who knows what happened. He’s the one with the information.” He turned back to his son, “Hold his mouth shut again.” Thomas did as he was told. Mike took a hold of his good hand and forced it onto the table despite a brief struggle from his neighbour. He lined up the hacksaw again. He laughed as he started to saw away - he didn’t care about the prospect of prison. He knew there was plenty of time to worry about that (and fix it) after the event. For now, he just wanted to enjoy what he was doing. All the time his thoughts telling him he was in the right despite the atrocities he was committing. He was protecting the neighbourhood, his family and society. He was in the right no matter what anyone else thought.
“Stop it!” Ryan grabbed the knife from the table and dashed forward with it. Thomas jumped back, as did Mike but Ryan didn’t go for either of them. He plunged the knife into Mr. Reynolds’ throat. If the man was going to die - he’d rather it was over and done with quickly. He couldn’t let Mike and his son continue torturing him. They didn’t care why he had killed the girls. At least, Mike didn’t. He was just looking for an excuse to torture the man himself. Was that why he broke into people’s homes? Some dark desire to find someone bad enough to warrant hurting? It didn’t matter. Ryan couldn’t allow it to continue. With the knife in Mr. Reynolds’ throat, he fell backwards onto the sofa. His eyes transfixed on his neighbour as he struggled to breath around the knife poking from his throat. Bubbles of blood spilling from his mouth as he gasped. Mike and Thomas were just as transfixed with the final death throes of Mr. Reynolds. Unlike Ryan, the pair of them were smiling. A sick satisfaction at witnessing his death. A death which came fairly quickly as he breathed his last.
“What the fuck did you do?” Mike snapped. Now the man was dead, he was angry at Ryan’s interference. He had denied him his pleasure and denied Mr. Reynolds what he deserved.
“I put him out of his fucking misery!” Ryan snapped back. He didn’t move though. He was fixed to the sofa, unable to take his eyes off the dead body. In Ryan’s eyes - they were all just as bad as Mr. Reynolds. They’d become what he was perceived to be. A torturer. A murderer. But what they had become was worse and the truth of the situation was played, on the television set, in the house two doors down.
* * * * *
Dee had gone through to the kitchen to help Jackie who seemed to be taking her time with the drinks. She’d left Claire in the living room with the television playing. It was the News. Breaking News no less. Reports were coming in stating they’d found the murderer. Claire hadn’t paid much attention to the start of the report and only managed to pick it up halfway through. Something about DNA evidence found on a parcel the killer had sent to the bank. Prints which lead the detectives directly to the culprit. They’d gone around his house and kicked the door down. They’d found him red-handed, literally. Standing with the corpse of another dead girl. Claire screamed for her mum to come and see what was on the television. Both Dee and Jackie ran through and were both left, dumbstruck, by what they saw; video footage of the guilty man (some unknown man with only one minor prior) being lead to a police car. He was smiling directly at the camera and boasting he’d killed more than Art. Boasting he was Britain’s most prolific serial killer. The report ended and all three women just sat there. No one knew what to say. No one knew how to break it to the men who were busy going through the neighbour’s house (so Dee and Claire thought). Jackie was panicking slightly more. She knew the full extent of what was happening in the next house. And she knew there was very little she could do about it now. Her husband (in fact both of them) wanted their neighbourhood and family to be a safe place to live and yet - unwittingly - they had become the problem.
“We need to tell Mike!” she said. A slight crack in her voice. Before either mother could do anything to stop her, Claire jumped to her feet and ran from the room exclaiming that she’d go and tell them. When she realised what was happening - Dee chased after her daughter, followed by Jackie who knew what
the girls were about to run into.
“No! Wait!” Jackie called out as she ran after them.
EPILOGUE
A neighbour from across the road had phoned the police. They’d driven home from work and pulled into their drive, just as they did every day, and had heard the screams of a man coming from across the road. At first they didn’t think much of it until the screams continued. By the time they had walked across the road, to investigate, they realised all was not right in the house. The screams were loud originally but, by the time they reached the front door, they could hear they were being muffled - as though something held over the screaming person’s mouth. They didn’t even wait to get home before they phoned the police. They pulled their phone out immediately and dialled the number.
The police didn’t take long to get there and - when they did - they were confronted with a horrific sight. Three men and three women - all in a panicked, excitable state - standing in the same room as the homeowner. Mr. Graeme Reynolds. A knife sticking out of his throat. The fingers on both (bruised) hands cut off. Two bloody patches on his knee-caps. A bloodied hacksaw on the floor next to a hammer and the back door hanging off its hinges from where they’d seemingly forced entry.
As the police lead the six of them out of the house in handcuffs they stepped over a mobile phone with a cracked screen. A message flashed up on the screen. A message Ryan would have received earlier had he phoned his boss back as his wife had instructed him too.
“Hi Ryan, just wanted to inform you…Detective Andrews phoned. They ran some tests on the parcel. The hands didn’t belong to her. They belonged to another girl who’s been missing for a couple of days now. I mean, I know it’s not good news but at least it’s not Vanessa, right? Gives us some hope. Not just that - they think they’ve found the man too. They said there were another set of prints on the box. Someone who’s known to them. That’s all they said but - could well be over now ,hey! Anyway, call me. I need to know if you’re coming in tomorrow. We’ll just put today down as a holiday day, if you want?”
