The Spinetinglers Anthology 2011

by Nolene-Patricia Dougan

  She continued her munching, feeding him in, inch by inch. Each time licking the wound with that dark eel-like tongue so he didn’t bleed out. He felt the pain still even though numbness overtook him, paralysing his fight.

  Her consciousness entered him and he saw what she was, what she did for a living.

  He was the latest of many and certainly not the last. She had been around longer than he. All of her previous meals passed by in a flash, every face locked into a hideous death throe. He was to join them.

  She wasn’t born; she was created, put here for a purpose by the old gods. She checked on mankind. Kept the bad ones at bay. An overseer.

  She had reached his crotch now and it was here she paused. He looked into her milky yellow eyes and she into his. She was waiting for him to die.

  And she would.

  She wanted him to feel every last excruciating moment, something in her saliva kept him going, stopped him from bleeding to death yet kept the nerve endings brutally alive and awake, buzzing with agonising activity.

  It took hours.

  Then sometime before dawn, his heart gave in and stopped. Maisie continued her feast.

  Below him, hell beckoned.

  ***

  Once she had regurgitated the chewed bones, hair and anything else she couldn’t digest into a bin liner, including the basement key that she easily fished out from the mess, as it was the last thing on the pile. Maisie returned to her unnatural form and stripped off the rags that her clothes had become and washed herself down in the cold water that the Belfast sink provided. She dried off with the towel and changed into a fresh set of clothes that she kept in her back pack, brushed the meaty bits of Mr. Lupo from her teeth and combed her hair into her preferred punk rocker Joan Jett style.

  Once she felt vaguely human again, Maisie Mae logged onto Lupo’s computer and checked his contacts list in the hope of securing herself a fresh meal for the next night.

  The Final Reflection

  By Jeff Jones

  She glared at her husband from the kitchen doorway as he slouched in his armchair watching football. She’d wanted to watch a film on another channel, but as always what she wanted was irrelevant to Mark. In her left hand she grasped the steaming hot mug of tea he’d demanded whilst her right hand toyed nervously with the kitchen knife. She stood there quietly contemplating her plan whilst her conscience wrestled with her desire to be free of this brute. She’d thought about killing him many times before and had occasionally even planned it, but common sense, or perhaps fear, had always prevailed.

  Until the next time he hit her that was, and she usually didn’t have to wait too long for that to happen. A late dinner, the house not up to his exacting standards, looking at another man the wrong way or even just a bad day at the office, all of these had been used as a pretext to beat her. But not anymore, this time he’d gone too far. She accidentally bit down on her swollen lower lip sending a sharp pain coursing through her face. Stifling the need to cry out, she gently dubbed her mouth with the back of her right hand, careful not to drop the knife. The sight of fresh blood angered her and stiffened her resolve.

  Flexing her fingers gently she made sure that she had a firm grip of the knife handle as she stole across the plush carpet towards her husband’s back, desperate not to make a sound until she was right behind him.

  “Where the hell is my tea, Carol?” He suddenly shouted without turning.

  She froze momentarily, unable to speak with fear. If he turned now and saw her with the knife she would be in for a dreadful beating, or worse. Gathering her wits she edged further forward until she was almost in touching distance of the man she married and the man she despised above all others.

  “Carol?” His irritation was growing to a dangerous level.

  “It’s right here,” she stammered, terrified that he would pick up on her fear and react before she was ready.

  He stretched out a hand to receive the mug still without turning round or even acknowledging her.

  “It’s here, Mark,” she heard herself say, now standing right behind his chair.

  Without rising he turned to face her, his expression one of pure annoyance. It was at that second, from point blank range, that Carol threw the contents of the mug into his face. He instinctively jumped up and turned to face her, screaming with pain as his hands covered his scalded face. As the initial shock began to wear off he started to shout that he was going to kill her for what she had just done and Carol knew that there would be no going back now.

  He removed his hands revealing a badly burned and blistered face, which momentarily stunned Carol. In an attempt to grab her he suddenly lurched forward, but by the time he saw the glint of the knife in her right hand, it was already too late. He stumbled backwards a look of horror and disbelief on his face whilst his hands reached for the knife protruding from his chest. Carol watched, almost with a detached interest, as his blood seeped through his fingers and down his shirt at an alarming rate, until he finally slumped to the floor motionless. She started to smile but suddenly felt faint as if she were stumbling backwards, the scene before her drifting into a distant blur…

  She woke with a start, her breathing rapid and her fringe damp with perspiration. The bed covers were a mess, the pillows discarded in all directions, all evidence of another restless night. Forcibly trying to calm her breathing, Carol lay there wondering how long these nightmares were going to continue. It had been several months now since... since you killed him, she forced her mind to say. Will this never end? The final irony she realised was that Mark was still able to torment her even now he was dead and finally out of her life. The thought wasn’t a pleasant one, and in an attempt to focus on something else she climbed out of bed and went downstairs to make herself a cup of tea.

  A few minutes later she was on her way back to bed to enjoy her tea, a pleasure Mark would never have let her have, when her eyes fixed on the large mirror hanging on the landing wall outside her bedroom. She adjusted the mirror for what must have been the hundredth time in the last couple of days, determined that the latest acquisition to her home would hang just right. That had sounded perfect she realised as she took a sip of tea: ‘her home’ not their home. It had taken her months to get over Mark, to adjust to him not being around, but now she began to feel like she’d finally turned the corner. The house was hers, albeit rented. Slowly and deliberately, she’d started to refurbish it with things she’d bought with her own money, the latest of which was the large ornate mirror which now hung in the upstairs landing. Was it necessary? No. Was it extravagant? Certainly. Was it hers, and did it demonstrate that she was now her own woman, free of the dominating brute who had sought to control every aspect of her life? Definitely and to Carol Ryan, that’s all that mattered right now.

  She was about to adjust the lie of the mirror yet again when the blissful silence of the house, was spoilt by the telephone ringing downstairs. She considered ignoring it, but the persistent ringing indicated that the caller was in no mood to hang up. Somewhat irritated, she began to make her way downstairs her mood not helped by the fact that the telephone still rung with the ringtone he had chosen, her preferences not having counted for much if anything at all. She resolved to do something about that straight after she’d answered the call.

  She was virtually at the foot of the stairs when the telephone suddenly stopped ringing. Carol stared at the now silent handset for a few seconds, torn between finding out who had disturbed her this early in the morning and turning round to go back upstairs to adjust her mirror. To do both would only have taken a couple of minutes she realised, but some strange compulsion demanded that she return to the mirror and the caller be damned. Smiling, she turned and walked back upstairs.

  It took a few seconds for the sight before her to sink in, but when it did, she backed away her mouth and eyes wide with shock, not comprehending what she was seeing. Hanging on the wall in front of her was the mirror she loved but it was not her face that stared back in the r
eflection from the upstairs landing. In fact, she realised, it wasn’t her landing at all. On the mirror before her, where she should have been wincing at the reflection of a tired woman who had recently been widowed was a completely different scene.

  The room before her was somebody’s lounge, though she didn’t recognise whose. Here and there, items of furniture had been knocked over indicative that wherever this was it had played host to some kind of struggle. Her eyes flicked from left to right, desperate to make sense of what she was seeing or for a clue as to where she was looking at. It was then that she noticed something protruding from behind the sofa, though from that angle she couldn’t make out what it was she was looking at. Even as she began to wish she had a better view her perspective of the room began to change and she realised with a gasp that she could move around the room.

  Soon she found herself near the sofa and though every fibre of her being screamed at her not to look behind it, she willed herself to peer behind it. The sight before her caused her to quickly back away, her body soon coming into contact with the landing banister, though her eyes never left the grisly scene before her. Lying on the floor before her was the naked and mutilated body of a young woman. She had been stabbed many times in a savage attack and blood had sprayed up the walls and the back of the sofa, the rest pooling on the carpet beside her lifeless body. It was then that she felt the presence watching her. She couldn’t see anything but she knew that she wasn’t alone and was suddenly very frightened.

  A strong repugnant smell then assailed her nostrils and she suddenly felt very nauseous. With a desperate cry she clamped her hand over her mouth, managed to tear her eyes away from the dreadful scene before her and ran to the bathroom where she promptly vomited into the toilet.

  When she felt that she had nothing left inside her, Carol splashed her face with cold water and edged reluctantly back towards the mirror. Before facing it she briefly closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Confident that she was as calm as she could be given the shock she had endured, she opened her eyes and stared into the mirror only to find her frightened looking reflection staring back at her from her bland landing. She let out another deep breath, the tension in her shoulders easing slightly. She stared intently back willing the scene to change, kidding herself that she was ready for it this time if it did change, but her worried and tired reflection stared back silently teasing her.

  Beginning to question her own sanity, she slowly walked back downstairs, no longer keen to be anywhere near the mirror. She was tired, very tired, because of the recurring nightmares and it was just her eyes playing tricks on her, that’s all, but even as she struggled desperately to convince herself, she knew that it had really happened. She had really seen those images in the mirror and worse still she had felt a presence, felt its malevolence. She shuddered uncontrollably at the sheer terror she had felt when whatever it had been had turned to face her.

  After turning on the television she settled into her new armchair, his favourite chair having been discarded after she had slashed it to pieces, and took a large gulp of her tea. She casually flicked through the television channels finally settling on the morning news report where the presenter was summarising the latest depressing casualty report from Afghanistan. She took another gulp of her tea nearly choking on it as the image on the television screen changed to a photograph of a woman and above the pounding of the blood in her temples she thought she heard the reporter say she had been found brutally murdered. She stared intently at the photograph as the reporter described the murder scene, but there was no doubt in her mind; the woman in the photograph was definitely the woman she had seen lying murdered behind the sofa in the mirror a few minutes ago.

  Her eyes involuntarily glanced upstairs towards the mirror, but from where she was sitting she could not make out what was in the reflection. Her attention returned to the television where the reporter was finishing his report stating that at the present time the police had no leads as to the killer’s identity or motive. She muted the television and sat there trying to absorb everything that had happened that morning, the rational part of her mind still refusing to accept what her eyes took as the truth. She contemplated going to the police, but decided that they’d just laugh at her. Besides, the last thing she needed right now, she realised, was more police attention. She’d avoided prison by the skin of her teeth, a sympathetic jury acquitting her of the murder of her brutish husband and ruling that it was self-defence. Well it had been self-defence of a kind, she mused, just premeditated self-defence that’s all. She’d killed the cheating bastard and then made it look like self-defence, and she’d got away with it. No, she couldn’t go to the police – besides what could she tell them – that she’d seen the murder scene in a second hand mirror and that the killer’s spirit was somehow able to see her watching? Yeah, I’ll avoid prison but be put straight in the loony bin. No, she’d keep quiet she resolved.

  The next few days passed quietly enough. The news reports continued to report the police’s lack of progress in the murder case and Carol, for her part, tried to avoid looking into the mirror, stealing innocuous sideways glances instead, revealing nothing but the backdrop of her own upstairs landing. Until the fifth night that was. She was hurrying past the mirror when out of the corner of her eye something moving in the mirror caught her attention and she instantly knew it wasn’t her own reflection.

  Slowly, and very reluctantly, she had turned back to face the mirror and the scene that greeted her was one of sheer carnage. This time it was somebody’s bedroom but the horror it contained was much the same. Sprawled across the top of the bed lay a young partially clothed girl, a look of sheer terror and pain frozen on her face. Her murder had been every bit as brutal as the first one and the white sheet her body lay upon was rapidly turning red. Carol put her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream as the level of violence and mutilation meted out to this young girl by her attacker became apparent.

  Then without warning, the same noxious smell appeared and Carol suddenly shivered with the cold. Again, she couldn’t see anyone in the mirror except the poor murdered girl, yet she was positive someone or something was staring back at her and it wasn’t friendly. She could feel that she was in terrible danger and tearing her eyes away from the scene before her, she tore down the stairs and out of the front door.

  She drove around for at least an hour before finally deciding to go to the police and even as she heard herself telling the bemused desk sergeant why she was there, she knew that it was a mistake.

  She was politely shown to an interview room where she was coaxed by two detectives to tell her story, though the younger of the two female officers made no effort to hide her contempt. She obviously considered the whole thing to be a figment of Carol’s imagination, no doubt induced by the recent traumatic loss of her husband. The older detective, however, listened intently and took notes, though her neutral expression kept her true feelings well-guarded.

  At the end of the interview they had thanked her for her time and promised to look into it, though Carol was far from sure of their sincerity. Nor, in truth, did Carol have any idea how they were going to look into it, given that she couldn’t tell them who or where the body in the bedroom was or much less the identity of the killer.

  ***

  Two weeks had passed since Carol had swallowed her pride and gone to the police and she had not heard from them even once, not that she was at all surprised, so when the doorbell rang that morning the last person she was expecting to see was a police detective.

  “Good morning, Mrs Ryan, could I have a word please?” asked the plain clothes detective as she briefly flashed an ID badge in front of her.

  “Detective…?” Carol began.

  “Phillips, Detective Constable Yasmin Phillips. I interviewed you at the station a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Could I come in and talk to you for a few minutes?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” replied Carol, wonderi
ng what had happened to suddenly reignite this detective’s interest in her. She showed the officer into the lounge, nervously glancing up at the mirror as she did so, the glance wasn’t lost on the detective.

  “Tell me, Mrs Ryan, have you had any more premonitions in the mirror?”

  “Premonitions? I’m not quite sure that I’d call them that.”

  “Oh, really, what would you call them then?”

  “I don’t know, visions maybe. Some things I see have already happened and others haven’t. And no, I haven’t had any more. Anyway, why do you care? You weren’t exactly taking me seriously the last time we met.”

  The detective stared at Carol for a few moments, clearly unconvinced by her answer, but decided to let it ride for the moment. “Things have changed, Mrs Ryan.”

  “Really? Such as?”

  “Such as the fact that two days ago the body of a young girl was found exactly as you described. Every detail from the way she was laying, to the pattern on the bedroom curtains, was exactly as you described.”

  Carol nodded thoughtfully. “I haven’t seen anything about that on the news.”

  “No, nor will you. We’re trying to keep the whole thing quiet whilst our investigations proceed. So I ask you again, Mrs Ryan, have you had anymore premonitions, because if so you need to tell me about them right now?”

  Carol glanced down at the floor, swallowed hard and then looked the detective straight in the eye. “Two, I’ve had two further… premonitions.”

  “Really? You’d better sit down and tell me about them, Mrs Ryan, and don’t leave anything out because at the moment you’re about the only thing we’ve got going for us.”

  Carole gestured for the detective to sit down before seating herself opposite her.

  “I’ve had two since I last saw you, one a few days ago and one yesterday.”