by Lex Sinclair
Mollie’s face was flushed. Her nerves jangled with anticipation of what may or may not transpire. She had been watching way too many cop movies for her own good, she thought, trying to see the humorous side.
She gave the rugged inspector the okay signal with her thumb and index finger, wishing she too had been licensed to carry a firearm. Then she took a deep breath and stood directly behind the broad back of her fellow officer who wore an abundance of aftershave.
Inspector Jones hesitated on the threshold, not because of trepidation but to wait for his eyes to adjust to the absence of light all of a sudden. Then when his eyes had surveyed the cosy (if cramped) interior, he entered slow and meticulously. He could feel Mollie’s warm breath on the nape of his neck stirring the tiny hairs, crawling up to his scalp. His piece of weapon followed his line of sight, not the other way round, tracing every niche in the open living room with an en suite, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom.
As he edged to the centre of the living room area, he pivoted gracefully, as lithe as prowling cat. The cottage was far too small to keep more than one or two persons. The kitchen with marble worktops and red brick walls and arches was too narrow to serve dinner. To his right the bedroom door rested against the wall, revealing an immaculately tidy bed. To his left the bathroom door stood wide open. The transparent shower curtain offered a black porcelain tub. He moved further into the cottage and checked the diminutive bedroom. Empty.
The whole cottage was empty.
Sighing inwardly, Inspector Jones turned to face the constable. He was grateful that there hadn’t been any need for him to use his .45. Nevertheless, as he gestured for Mollie to take her leave, he had got no further into solving the case, until he saw the green neon light on VCR flashing incessantly, like a silent bleeper going off.
‘Hold up,’ he called out.
Mollie retraced her steps, anxiety mapped out across her features. ‘What is it?’
‘Probably nothing,’ the inspector replied. But I got check out that VCR before we go.’
‘What if the reverend returns? We don’t have a warrant to go snooping around his home, you realise.’
He studied her face with an ample amount of make-up and mascara applied to simply be going to work. Had it not been for the black windbreaker and bottoms with Police emblazoned on the back he would swear that she was either going out on an important date or to a nightclub with friends.
‘Well, keep a lookout and tell me if you see anyone coming.’
Mollie frowned, evidently not approving of the inspector’s methods but well aware that she didn’t have the authority to refuse. Reluctantly, she stepped back outside and stood next to the patrol car rocking slighting in the gale force winds buffeting her windbreaker and mussing her strawberry-red hair.
Inspector Jones didn’t waste any time. He turned the TV on then grabbed the remote. He saw the PLAY button down the bottom in a small cluster alongside STOP, RE-WIND and FASTFORWARD. The TV was already on the video channel, which made this task a lot easier for him. He had his own VCR but they tended to vary, and as he was short on time and wasn’t “technically speaking” permitted into the reverend’s home without permission unless he obtained a warrant then he considered it a stroke of fortune. He depressed the PLAY button and watched as the blue screen with the letters VCR in the top corner disappeared. It was instantly replaced with a camera shot showing a news spokesperson grasping a microphone facing the camera in front of a smashed beyond repair yellow Fiat that had careened head first into a rock wall on a country road shrouded from the sporadic sunshine of the overarching Yew trees and fir trees and the foliage.
Using the remote control he turned the volume up so he could hear the report.
‘... in what apparently appeared to be a terrible - although frequent - automobile incident that ended the life of a young woman with everything to live for has been declared by the Chief of the police as an official murder case. And since this morning’s report, the University of Gloucestershire, where Janice Stevens was studying Law, it has now been discovered that her roommate, Sofie Lackberg, has not attended her morning class and has been reported by fellow students as “being off campus for several days now”. Police are now treating the missing person’s case of Sofie Lackberg in relation to that of recently deceased, Janice Stevens. The two were described as “Inseparable. More like sisters than university friends.” This is breaking news for the BBC.’
‘Is it fuck!’ Inspector Jones retorted, incredulous at what he was seeing.
He gasped when he saw the two men in police uniforms give each other a high five, smiling in pure joy at a job well done. Then the camera cut off.
Shaking his head in utter disbelief at the hoax, Inspector Jones grabbed the remote in sweaty hands and hit the REWIND button, hardly believing and hearing what had unfolded on the screen that had fooled Sofie Lackberg, who had been telling the truth all along. Every single detail; not the slightest bit embellished.
He depressed the PLAY button for the second time and watched, clenching his hands into taut fist, growing increasingly irate with every passing second.
‘In what appeared to be a fatal collision evolved into a murder case when officers at the scene spotted the driver’s throat had been slashed. However, it has now been confirmed by the county coroner that the cause of death was not from the crash itself (although that too might have caused her death later on) but from the wound that severed the throat of this young woman whose family have been notified.’
The female reporter and the two men posing as police officers were evidently part of this satanic cult Sofie had told him about in the hospital, which he’d silently scoffed at. Now he felt bad for wanting to disregard her when all along she’d induced such horror he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if her hair had gone white due to shock.
Sofie had told him about how Reverend Ward had brought a supposed qualified doctor out to tend to her injuries only to know the reverend and joke with him about how the old man had groped a feel and fantasised about doing unimaginable things to her while she lay unconscious on his mattress after slamming her head on the dashboard.
Exhaling explosively, Inspector Jones hit the STOP button, returning to the blue screen with the letters VCR in the top right hand corner. Then he leaned forward and pressed the EJECT button the machine, which made a whirring noise then spat the cassette tape out. He grabbed it. This was the concrete evidence to make an actual case and prosecute the local town’s reverend and the other members of this malevolent faction.
He knocked the TV off and then rose from the Persian rug he’d been kneeling on, knowing whatever happened he’d contact his chief and show him the evidence, after having it confirmed by the BBC that there was no record of them filming and reporting such a story. Controlling his temper, Inspector Jones released his taut fists, wanting desperately to physically hurt these perpetrators for contriving such an awful set of circumstances for their immoral and unacceptable beliefs.
The fresh air as he exited the cottage and closed the door behind him cooled the fiery rage boiling inside him like a cauldron. Constable Mollie Jenkins glanced at him over her shoulder, relieved that he’d emerged before anyone came by putting them in an awkward situation. However, when she saw the palpable anger in the otherwise calm and nonchalant inspector her senses tingled.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
Inspector Jones’s eyes met hers and for a moment Mollie’s bladder nearly broke. Then he lifted his right hand clutching a video cassette tape and said, ‘This is tangible evidence. This and the blood trail; the smear on the carpet in the church and Sofie’s injuries and detailed account proves undeniably that she is being hunted by a group of devil worshippers... and I’ve just aged five years in one day.’
‘What’s on the tape?’
The inspector had to compose himself to stop from raising his voice
and taking his anger out on the worried, inexperienced uniform standing next to the patrol car, hair whipping to and fro obscuring her face.
‘The report Sofie told us all about. The one concerning Janice Stevens’ yellow Fiat when Reverend Ward - not Reverend Stewart - had captured her and brought her here, was a goddamn fuckin’ hoax!’
Perplexed and anxious clouded Mollie’s thought process. ‘What d’you mean “a hoax”? I mean, how can you tell?’
‘Mollie take the fuckin wax outta your ears, love. The BBC informed that they have no record of filming or writing any article in this area regarding a university student’s body being discovered in a wrecked yellow Fiat. Also when the pretend reporter finishes speaking to the camera, she smiles and the police officers behind her celebrate a job well done. Now you tell me that ain’t a fake!’
He strode towards the passenger seat with a purpose, yanked the door open, got in and slammed the door shut. Startled, Mollie hastened to get in behind the wheel before she got shouted at for wasting time. It wouldn’t be a wise decision to get on the wrong side of this six foot two, broad shouldered ex- amateur boxer who had just lost his placid demeanour.
The ambience in the car was heavy with the inspector’s rage.
Lips trembling, Mollie asked, ‘Whad’ya wanna do now?’
The inspector’s breath gushed out of his nose. ‘We’re gonna wait for that son of a bitch bogus reverend cocksucker Ward comes home.’
‘But, if what you’re saying is true and he sees the car over the rise, he’ll use one of the lay-bys to turn around to avoid us.’
‘Then we’ll give chase,’ Inspector Jones spat.
‘Or we could call dispatch and tell them what you’ve found. With that tape and the blood trail and the stain on the carpet, plus the locked vestry, Superintendent Dylan will call out an alert to the reverend. He can’t have gone far. We’ll pick him up and detain him down at the station. Or at least question him about the cassette tape and the locked vestry. Obviously, something’s not right.’
After musing it over for a couple of minutes, Inspector Jones reluctantly nodded acquiescence to what the female uniform suggested.
14.
How she arrived in the back seat of a police patrol car winding its way down the steep incline, she didn’t have a clue. Nevertheless, she was here now and when she noticed the female uniform expertly manoeuvring the vehicle round the tight blind-sighted bends, her trepidation abated drastically.
The inspector and the female officer who’d come to visit her in ICU to ask her questions had evidently come to fetch her from the hospital (although she had no recollection of being dispatched) and were now taking her to a sanctuary for her own protection while they apprehended the members of the cult. At least, that’s what she hoped. Had she been arrested, she would have been wearing handcuffs. Instead she couldn’t see or feel any part of her anatomy. It was as if she were a ghost.
She listened intently to the two officers of the law discuss how the local authorities were now on watch for the Mercedes belonging to Reverend Ward. Nevertheless, what she heard next shocked her to the core.
‘Sick, twisted maniacs would do this?’ Mollie asked.
‘People that you don’t want to come across. Sofie was right, they’re obviously very powerful. To be able to have members paradoxically working for the church is the greatest insult. But from what little knowledge I know of devil worshippers, that’s what they do.’
‘How’d you mean?’
Inspector Jones gazed at a cassette tape he which rested in his lap. ‘They do everything they can to insult Christianity or Catholicism. Sofie mentioned about the story at the beginning of the century; how those monks nailed their leader - what’s his name - Brother John, to an upside down cross. They perform orgies during a Sabbat and make blood sacrifices. I even heard of devil worshippers reading the Lord’s Prayer backwards, mocking the words and their meaning, jeering and laughing at people who had faith, calling them naïve. But making someone pregnant so they can give birth to their lord is a new one on me. I’ve never heard anything about them doing such things like that. But this tape -’ he held up the cassette ‘- is proof that Sofie wasn’t lying. I just can’t fathom if she’s still a virgin how she could be pregnant. But then, if you told a true believer in God, they’d believe it. Because it is the same as what they believe happened to the Virgin Mary all those thousands of years ago.’
The hedges right alongside the car’s left hand side were mere inches from the window. Some of the little twigs which protruded scraped the glass as they shot past.
Sofie sat in the back seat dumbfounded by everything she’d endured and was still learning, doing her utmost to make sense of it all. First there was the Virgin Mary who gave birth to the lord of light. Now there was the Virgin Sofie, who the devil worshippers wanted her to give birth to the lord of evil.
‘Yeah, but you don’t believe all those religious tales, do you?’ Mollie asked.
Inspector Jones turned his head in her direction. ‘Why not?’ he said, perplexed at Mollie for being so dismissive with the evidence they’d found. ‘It’s no harder for me to believe that two loving people who married in the house of God for reasons unknown can’t conceive, and then for a young teenage girl whose only had sex once to become instantly pregnant. It doesn’t seem right that Sofie hasn’t been raped and is still a virgin, I admit. But the fact is she’s with child. Which contradicts the first fact somewhat, unless of course a miracle has occurred - which until someone proves otherwise, clearly has.’
Silence descended creating an uncomfortable sensation in the car’s interior.
By staring through the windscreen between the driver’s and the passenger’s seat, Sofie could see they were approaching a junction and would soon be on the main road heading into the local town’s business district.
Then all of a sudden a strange high-pitched ringing threatened to perforate her ears as it got louder and louder, reaching a deafening crescendo. In front of her, she saw the police woman growing increasingly frantic, jamming her foot down on the brake pedal. The speedometer went from 35 miles per hour to 45 miles as they rolled down the steep incline. Inspector Jones looked alarmed when he saw the female uniform screaming and losing control of the vehicle. He leaned over and tried to turn the steering wheel so that the patrol car would drive headlong into the hedges or do a spin that would ultimately bring them to a halt. But beside Mollie Jenkins shaking violently, fighting the gear stick, which made an awful choking sound, refusing to budge from third gear into first which would decrease their accelerating speed drastically.
The main road with the post box and the traditional red telephone booth next to a bench rushed up to meet them. Whatever happened next was out of their control. Sofie could feel the trip-hammer of her heart climbing into her throat as she turned her head to the left and saw a heavy goods vehicle carrying heaps of hay come hurtling right at her, filling her vision and then smashing with the most hellish impact into the side of the patrol car.
The windows on the passenger side exploded. Shards of razor sharp glass pelted at Inspector Jones shredding his rugged features into an unrecognisable bloody pulp. Sofie even watched in horror as one jagged piece flew like a dart in the air and struck him in the eye. A gush of translucent liquid sprayed from his iris followed by his anatomy getting knocked sideways, crushing the vehicle into half its normal size, killing him instantly. Mollie Jenkins ducked as the shards of glass and other debris pelted her but couldn’t avoid being head butted by her fellow officer. Her cracked into the driver’s side window. The pressure of the vehicle being crushed into a rectangular cube snapped her slender neck where her head balanced against the spider-web glass it had a second ago collided with.
Sofie now watched from the bank next to the phone booth as the heavy good’s vehicle’s wheels locked, blue acrid smoke billowing from the tyres t
hat had left a good portion of rubber on the road in its wake. Then, another ten yards or so along, both vehicles screeched to a halt. Engines hissed like angry snakes. A mockingbird which had being singing a pleasant chirpy tune in the afternoon sunshine flapped its wings, taking flight.
From inside the splintered windscreen of the police patrol car, she saw arterial spray dripping off the glass. The massive indentation in the passenger side had split the middle-thirties inspector in two; not to mention the desecration of his rugged good looks.
She now found herself back inside the car, leaning over the back seat. Inspector Jones’ anatomy couldn’t be seen from beneath the waist, and Sofie feared that the bodywork had severed him. Mollie’s broken neck sagged from the weight of her motionless head that hadn’t moved from the driver’s door window. Rivulets of blood raced each other to the bottom. And then in the midst of the carnage that had been induced by some unseen force far too powerful for either of them to overcome, Sofie saw the cassette tape (or rather, what was left of it) crushed and as flat as a pancake. The reel inside had been shredded right down the centre, blotches of crimson mess soaking into the flimsy material. It looked as though someone had gone at it with a pair of scissors after driving over the cassette several times. All that remained was broken plastic and tape along with freshly dead bodies and other debris, beyond recognition.
Understanding much better now that she was with child, Sofie knew that the thing inside her had shown her this incident as if she were there in order to induce the devastating incident in the first place. No way was this a coincidence. No way!
Had that cassette tape reached the chief of police, she would have been permitted to have an abortion and then placed in a sanctuary where she’d be safe from the members of this unholy, immoral cult that was far more powerful than she’d first believed.
What the contents of the tape were Sofie still didn’t know. However, that was no longer imperative. The only two people who, although sceptical, had decided to investigate in spite of the implausible yarn she’d spun them, were now dead with the only shred of proof that what she was saying was the undeniable truth.
