Hollow House

by Greg Chapman

  One reporter asked if the victim’s identity had been determined, which Ben knew was a completely useless question when the CSI team had only just taken it away. All Baltzer confirmed was that the victim was male. Another reporter, a leggy brunette from Channel 5 asked about the cause of death, which was essentially the previous question, asked in a more ridiculous way. Baltzer was clearly annoyed—or distracted—rubbing the tip of his nose with a finger, repeatedly wetting his lips. Ben knew the detective was a smoker, and the man’s urge for a cigarette was almost palpable.

  The press conference was about to end. It was time to strike.

  “Detective, I have a question.” Dozens of faces about-turned to gawp at him. Ben saw the recognition in Baltzer’s face.

  “Yes, Mr. Traynor?”

  Ben thrust his Dictaphone forward and pushed through the crowd. “It’s clear this is a homicide investigation. I mean, otherwise, you wouldn’t be here, right?”

  Baltzer’s mouth became a thin line of contempt.

  Ben pushed on. “Were there obvious signs of foul play or that someone had broken into the house?”

  The detective shook his head. “There are no signs of forced entry.”

  “So, the house was locked?”

  The media contingent resembled a crowd watching a tennis match.

  “As I said, there were no signs of forced entry. Now, if that is all, I have an investigation to oversee—”

  Ben nudged closer. The reporters were all looking to him now, and he loved that feeling. “Was the house locked from the inside or the outside?”

  Baltzer cleared his throat. “Two officers had to force their way into the house, and the deceased was found inside.”

  “So, did the dead person lock themselves in or was it the killer?”

  It was as if Baltzer was suddenly aware of the cameras. He licked his lips for what must have been the twentieth time. “We’re still trying to ascertain that.”

  Ben asked the right question while he had Baltzer fazed. “Can you give us more details on why the body can’t be identified?”

  TV cameras pressed in, and the sound of pens scratching into notebooks intensified. The detective stood taller, donning the mask of the seasoned investigator. But Ben saw the truth in his glossy eyes, even as he stared into the nearest camera. “That’s all I can say at this time. Once we know more, we’ll let you know.”

  Ben forced his way to the front. “Wait, Detective, I have one last question.”

  “Mr. Traynor, I don’t have time for this.”

  “No seriously,” Ben said. “If the person in the house was in fact murdered, then the killer’s still at large, right?”

  The reporters turned back to Baltzer, reinvigorated.

  “How can the people living in Willow Street—or in West Plains for that matter—feel safe? And can your department handle another murder case when it’s already stretched thin looking into the missing women?”

  Baltzer swallowed. “I’d like to ask the people of West Plains not to speculate at this point. This is a police matter and we’ll be conducting interviews with the residents of Willow Street over the next few days. However, I ask anyone who might have information on this matter to come forward and contact the Homicide Division. Thank you.” Baltzer retreated beneath the crime scene tape, back toward the house that was so full of mystery.

  Ben didn’t have all the answers to his questions yet, but one thing he knew for certain—he had to speak to his neighbours before Baltzer did.

  ~

  Carol Campbell peeked between the curtains and watched as the media pursued the police officer, throwing a barrage of questions at the man’s back. She had no idea what he had said, but something very wrong had gone on inside the house next door.

  They really are vultures willing to invade people’s God-given right to privacy, all for the sake of a so-called story.

  Admittedly, the events occurring next door certainly fit that category, and she expected the media would likely remain outside for quite a few hours, maybe even days.

  She leaned forward to get a better look at the officers moving around the front of the neighbouring house. Large standing floodlights beat down on its facade and bled into her home as well. She saw the men in the blue overalls and masks.

  They look so alien.

  An icy shiver rode the length of Carol’s spine. She couldn’t believe someone had died mere yards from her house, but even more unbelievable was the fact that someone had lived in that house at all.

  She backed away from the window and strained her memory for any clues about her neighbour. She tried to picture whether she’d ever seen them. The only flickers which came to mind were of the house itself, all dark and dank, fleeting glimpses which only served to frighten her. She pitied the poor soul who’d died there, but what sort of a person locked themselves away, estranged from all human contact? It was time to calm down. She plunged a hand inside her dressing gown pocket, searching for her cigarette lighter, and made a line for the back porch.

  There was a knock at her front door. Her heart almost stopped.

  Tip-toeing back to the curtain, she scanned the porch to see who was there. It was a man, tall and wiry, clad in a drab coat and denim jeans, waiting impatiently at her door.

  He doesn’t look like a policeman, but then, when was the last time a policeman had come to call?

  Given the circumstances, she decided it best to answer. She opened the door, keeping the safety chain securely in place.

  The man offered her a wry smile through the gap. “Hello there.”

  Carol glanced into the street, to see if anyone was watching. “Uh… hello,” she said.

  The man offered his hand through the gap. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Ben Traynor, I live across the street at number 69.”

  “Oh, hello.” She laughed nervously.

  Ben Traynor withdrew his hand and scratched at his close-cropped hair. “Well look, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” He turned and nodded at the vultures on the footpath. “I mean, with what’s going on and all.”

  “I’m fine.” She couldn’t help but wonder why she’d never seen this man before, but then she didn’t know anyone was living next door, until the police found a body inside.

  “It’s just terrible isn’t it?” Ben said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Ben pointed at number 72. “The dead man next door.”

  Carol unlatched the safety chain. She opened the door a little wider. “Oh, yes, just awful.”

  “Did you know him at all?”

  “Him?”

  Ben smiled. “Your neighbour, did you know him?”

  Her eyes widened. “Me? Oh, no. A man, was it? Well, that’s a surprise; I thought the place was empty. Like condemned or something.”

  Ben nodded, and Carol thought he was only half-listening to her. The man seemed pre-occupied. But then he took a step closer, suddenly secretive. “The police are saying that the guy might have been murdered.”

  “Murdered?”

  “Yeah, I overheard the detective telling the reporters. No one knows who the dead person is, the police don’t even know yet. I reckon it’s because the body’s been all cut up.”

  “Oh, my God.” Carol covered her mouth and tried to protect herself behind the door.

  Ben’s eyes narrowed and his voice lowered. “The media asked if there was a killer on the loose. They wanted to know if the neighbourhood was safe, and do you know what the police guy said?”

  She shook her head. Her whole body was trembling. “What?”

  “He said they didn’t know where the killer was.”

  The pounding of her heart made her feel giddy. She retreated from the door, and didn’t realise that Ben had entered her house until she felt his hand on her elbow.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think I need to sit down.”

  Ben led her to one of the chairs and sat alongside her. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I just wanted
to make sure you were okay and aware of what was going on.”

  Carol took a long deep breath. “Well, to tell you the truth… I am a little worried now. I didn’t think that my neighbour had been murdered. When I smelled that smell—well, of course I knew what it meant—but I still had no idea.”

  Ben patted her hand. “What’s your name?”

  “Carol.”

  “Well Carol, I wish I could have met you under different circumstances and that’s the truth of it.”

  She fought back tears of distress. “It’s terrible. I’ve lived here with my husband and two boys for so many years. Max is my husband. He’s at work at the moment and the boys, Matthew and Zac are at school.”

  Ben nodded again.

  Carol could see now he was genuinely interested in her.

  “Must be scary though with all that happening right next door while you and your family were sleeping?”

  She conjured the house and its darkened rooms, a body all cut to pieces. “It’s like… something out of a nightmare.”

  Ben stood. “Well look, I’m sorry to trouble you. I just thought you should know.” He said his goodbyes and left, closing the door on his way out, leaving Carol with thoughts of blood and death.

  She watched him leave and was taken aback by the casualness of their conversation. Strange that Ben didn’t seem as worried as she was.

  ~

  Ben strolled away from Carol Campbell’s house with a wide smile on his face. He stopped at the kerb and reached into his pocket to retrieve his Dictaphone. He pressed the STOP button. The spools ceased turning.

  It was time to turn Carol’s fears into a front page story.

  Chapter Five

  The morning’s excitement witnessed and curiosity sated, Darryl Novak returned home to indulge in more familiar habits. He pondered the sensations he’d experienced outside the Kemper House as he made himself a rich, mocha latte in his favourite coffee mug. He’d thought there’d been something familiar about the smell coming from that bleak house on the corner. He had to admit, at first he thought the police had come for him. But he knew how to cover up a bad smell. He had skills honed with regular practice; skills that meant he would always go undetected. There’d never be any bad smells coming from his house, no sir.

  The Kemper House had always had an ominous air about it, and occasionally, Darryl wished he lived inside its walls. The house was indeed strange, but stranger still was his reaction to the woman he’d almost collided with outside number 69. She wasn’t his “type” at all. He slurped some more coffee and felt reinvigorated, putting the feelings down to too much sun. He frowned; his mother would have said he had “too much sin on his mind.”

  Pushing his mother’s jibes down, Darryl carried his steaming coffee outside to the backyard bomb shelter. His mother had the shelter built when he was a child. She’d been so anxious about the apparent threat of the Cold War that she’d had to “protect her boy.” Darryl clenched his jaw, as his mother’s methods of “protection” washed over his subconscious; scolding him, spitting at him, locking him in his room, and when she was very angry, cursing him for ever being born.

  He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Mother wasn’t around to do those things to him anymore. Her house was his and the bomb-shelter, well, it was his man-cave of wonders now. The very sight of it made him lick his lips in anticipation. He couldn’t wait to venture inside and indulge in all the “filthy sins” his mother had forbidden him to do when he was young and virile.

  Here, the cloying smell of death from the neighbouring house had lost its edge, which Darryl was grateful for, as it reminded him of the dirty work that was an unavoidable part of his extracurricular activities. Making a mess was all part of the fun, but he’d never enjoyed cleaning up, afterwards. He guessed it was a trait which lingered from his childhood. His mother would have certainly said so—if she were still alive.

  He crossed the well-manicured backyard, stopping briefly to admire a dazzling white orchid curling from a pot mounted to the fence. It was a thing of beauty, untainted, unsullied. Nature could be so beautiful when it wanted; it didn’t need to wear too much make-up or fishnet stockings to emanate a sense of beauty. Nature was honest, unlike the so-called fairer sex.

  He reached the shelter door and studied the large rusting brass lock that protected his current most-prized possession. He rifled in his pyjama pants pockets with his free hand and produced the key. As he slipped the key into the lock and turned, he spilled some of the coffee. The liquid scalded his arm. He cursed loudly and almost splashed himself again. The pain plucked his anger like a harp string, and for a moment he thought he was about to lose it.

  No, save it up Darryl. Don’t waste it, now.

  The shelter door creaked on its hinges, the sound echoing down the stairs into the blackness beneath. Taking a deep breath, and then a slurp from his mug, Darryl closed the door and ventured down the staircase into his den. The darkness closed in, painting his senses in black. He waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust, savouring the smell of his coffee, and the cool touch of the air. Somewhere, a tap dripped, but none of these sensations were as sweet as the woman’s sobbing. Darryl followed her music, treading softly in his slippers along the narrow corridor that lead to the main room of the shelter.

  The structure was a solid concrete bunker that could withstand a nuclear bomb blast. Walls so thick a woman could shriek for hours and not a single sound would escape the room. He stood in the doorway and reached up to pull the chain to turn on the light. Incandescent light the colour of piss bathed the room, casting razor sharp shadows onto the walls and floor.

  The whore knelt in the room’s centre, naked, arms stretched above her head, wrists bound by a steel loop which connected to rusted chains in the ceiling. Her face—which Darryl had painted crudely with stitch-marks of red lipstick and black mascara eyes—oozed terror despite the glare. The red wig he’d put over her ebony locks shimmered in the artificial light.

  “You fucking keep away from me!”

  Darryl chuckled and took another sip from his mug.

  If only mother could see me now, neck-deep in sin.

  He ran his gaze over his captive’s naked form, admiring the rose and butterfly tattoos curled around her arms and chest, nipples erect against the damp air, black mascara tears encrusted on her cheeks and stitch lipstick smudged with blood from where he’d bitten her. His cock stirred in response, but he wasn’t primed yet; he had to make her beautiful.

  “Did you want some coffee?”

  “Fuck you!” She spat at him.

  Darryl smiled and flicked his wrist, soaking the woman with the contents of the mug. The mocha latte splashed across her face and hair. She shrieked and writhed, the scalding liquid turning her face a vivid red. As she squealed in agony, Darryl observed the burning drips as they trailed down her abdomen, leaving bright red snakes of pain, all the way to her pubis.

  Darryl’s “Raggedy-Ann doll” moaned and tried to shake the excess coffee from her fake hair. Some of it spattered over the real Raggedy-Ann doll that sat on the workbench in the corner. It made Darryl smile to see the only toy his mother had let him play with, subjected to such a “sinful” visual display.

  Aroused, he reached in to his pyjama pants and pulled out his cock. He began to stroke himself before his captive. Slumped and whimpering into the concrete floor, she never saw him ejaculate, but he knew she would have felt its hot caress.

  “Bet you feel all sexy now,” he told her. Satisfied with himself, Darryl left her in misery, with a promise that he would return. Her screams followed him all the way up the stairs into the light of what he knew would be another glorious morning.

  ~

  Amy sat in her counsellor’s cramped waiting room and stared at the blank screen of her phone, desperately wanting it to turn on.

  The phone had inexplicably shut down once again, after another Facebook comment from Persona Non Grata, despite the fact that her phone had a full charge. Sh
e told herself she needed to make sense of the stranger’s comment, but deep down she knew it would only feed her anxiety. Frustrated, Amy put the phone back in her bag and waited.

  She’d had a dozen sessions with Dr. Ruskin, but each one felt like the first. She looked at the painting on the wall, above the receptionist’s desk. The artist had depicted a flock of ducks flying in a V-shape through a cloud-filled blue sky. She caught herself smiling at the thought of being able to soar. Her expression faded quickly. Freedom was a lost cause while her every word and thought were being tested and prodded, as if she were a frog about to be dissected in a school science class. All because of the day she had tried to be free of her cage of misery.

  The shrill tone of the receptionist’s desk phone brought Amy back to earth and she watched the cheery-faced woman offer her a fake smile.

  “Dr Ruskin’s ready for you now.”

  Amy rose and walked the familiar ten paces to the counsellor’s door. She knocked, and was invited to enter.

  Thankfully, the counsellor’s room had space to breathe. Amy liked its ordinariness, with its beige walls and white ceiling. The rug on the floor, bearing countless concentric circles in its weave, was the most colourful thing in the room. She detected a hint of lavender in the air. But what she liked most about Dr. Ruskin’s office—there was no trademark couch for the patient to lie on. In its place were a pair of matching stools, with plush leather seats, which she found to be surprisingly comfortable. She sat on one of the stools just as Dr. Ruskin entered the room.

  “Good afternoon, Amy.”

  The doctor wore a smile on her plump face, but carried her clipboard and had put her greying hair into a tight bun.

  Was the good doctor about to get serious?