Compulsion

by Shaun Hutson

  The other occupants of the basement moved towards the staircase.

  George Errington accepted a helping hand from Donald Tanner as they climbed.

  At the top of the steps Fuller paused, then switched off the lights.

  The basement was plunged into almost palpable darkness.

  Fuller heard the sound of muted sobbing from the subterranean room.

  He stepped into the light, then turned and locked the door.

  RONNI COULD BARELY open her eyes.

  She rolled over in bed and groaned.

  Sunlight was streaming through the window of the room and she waved one hand at it as if to force it away.

  She lay on her stomach, face buried in the pillow, wondering why the alarm wasn’t still sending out its electronic signal.

  It took her a moment or two to realize the alarm hadn’t woken her.

  She blinked myopically and reached for the clock.

  The hands of the timepiece swam before her. She had trouble conentrating on them.

  When she finally managed to bring them into focus she thought she was imagining what she saw: 11.05 a.m.

  It was impossible.

  The clock must have stopped during the night.

  She shook it.

  “Oh God,” she murmured and hauled herself out of bed.

  Why hadn’t Faulkner woken her?

  Had she been that tired she hadn’t heard the alarm? Or had she merely forgotten to set it the previous night?

  Questions tumbled through her mind as she hurried to get dressed.

  Why hadn’t one of the residents woken her or at least come to check on her?

  Who’d given them their breakfast?

  Who? Why? What? When?

  Faulkner should have woken her. She appreciated his concern that she needed to sleep, but this was not the place to do it. She was supposed to be in charge. It was hardly the kind of example to set.

  Ronni splashed her face with water from the sink in the room and swiftly brushed her teeth, then she ran fingers through her hair and hurried out into the corridor.

  As she moved down the corridor towards the stairs she heard a sound from Faulkner’s room.

  The door was open slightly and she paused.

  The sound was unmistakable.

  It was the low, rasping sound of guttural breathing.

  “Gordon,” she called.

  There was no answer.

  Ronni pushed the door slightly and repeated his name.

  Still no answer. Just the rattling breaths.

  “Gordon.”

  She stepped into the room.

  Faulkner was lying on his side, eyes closed, one arm dangling over the edge of the bed.

  What the hell was going on here?

  She walked across and shook him gently.

  “Gordon. Wake up,” she said, more urgently.

  He grunted, then opened his eyes. He looked at her, but there was no recognition there.

  She spoke his name once more.

  “What’s going on?” he said, clearing his throat.

  “Look at the time,” she urged, pointing towards his watch.

  “Oh shit,” he mumbled.

  As he sat up he touched a hand to his forehead.

  “My head’s killing me,” he announced.

  “Then take a tablet. I’m going to check on the residents.” She turned towards the door.

  “Wait a minute,” he said.

  “Have you just woken up too?”

  Ronni nodded.

  “We must have overslept,” she told him.

  “Both of us? Shit.”

  Ronni hurried down the stairs in the direction of the day room. As she walked in she saw Colin Glazer sitting reading.

  The television was on, but the sound was turned down.

  “Morning, Ronni,” he said cheerfully before returning to his book.

  Eva Cole was engaged in some embroidery.

  Ronni looked at both of them almost in bewilderment.

  “Where’s everyone else?” she wanted to know.

  “Mr. Errington’s in his room, I think,” Eva announced without looking up.

  “Helen and Barbara went for a walk in the grounds as the weather’s so nice. I think Mr. Tanner went into town.”

  “Jack and Harry are out in the garden doing something or other,” Glazer added.

  “What did you do about breakfast?”

  “Helen and I cooked it,” Eva informed her.

  “That was all right, wasn’t it? We didn’t want to disturb you.”

  Ronni sucked in a deep breath.

  “Look, I’m sorry this has happened, it ‘ Eva cut her short.

  “Don’t apologize, Ronni,” she said.

  “We all know you’ve got a lot on your mind and we had things to do anyway. No harm’s been done.”

  Ronni managed a smile. She hesitated a moment, then headed out into the corridor.

  Faulkner was hurrying down the stairs.

  “Is everyone OK?” he asked.

  “Fine. I don’t even think they missed us.”

  “I’ve never slept like that before,” Faulkner confessed.

  “Me neither. You’d think we’d been drugged.”

  They both laughed.

  THE SUNSHINE DID little to help Ronni’s feelings of sluggishness.

  As the day wore on and the heat from the blazing orb grew more intense, she found herself feeling uncomfortably drowsy.

  Faulkner too complained of similar feelings and, despite several cups of coffee, the malaise continued.

  Halfway through the afternoon, Faulkner even took a walk to a nearby shop and returned with two large bottles of Coke and four cans of Red Bull. The result of drinking this amount of caffeine-laden fluid only led to frequent trips to the toilet, not the rush of energy Ronni had hoped for.

  The residents, she noticed, all seemed remarkably high-spirited considering the events of the last few days. Whether it was merely a collective mask she didn’t know, but even Harry Holland seemed happy enough.

  Ronni cleaned rooms (all except the double room that had belonged to Harry and Janice Holland Harry had asked her to allow him to do it and she’d readily agreed) and Faulkner used the buffing machine on the hall and the corridors.

  Shelby House and its residents enjoyed a day like any other. Indistinguishable from so many before and, Ronni expected, more to come.

  It was almost five in the afternoon by the time she rang the hospital.

  Putting off the inevitable?

  She discovered that her father was still stable, but there had been no improvement. An operation to remove the blood clot seemed inevitable.

  When she put the phone down, the weariness she’d felt all day seemed to intensify.

  Ronni sat at the desk in the lower office for a moment, gazing at the piece of plywood that had been put over the broken pane.

  She wondered if there’d be any more trouble tonight.

  As she stared, motes of dust turned lazily in the rays of sunlight. The sound of the clock in the room seemed thunderous, the ticking reverberating inside her head.

  She yawned and got to her feet, preparing to make her way outside once more.

  The sun was on the wane. The air would start to grow cooler soon.

  Perhaps then she could shake off this maddening lethargy.

  Perhaps.

  All day long they heard movement above them.

  Footsteps mostly.

  In the late afternoon they heard a low rumbling sound, but could only guess what it was.

  Blind in the darkness of the basement and sightless again inside their tape blindfolds, they sat and listened to the sounds.

  It was difficult to make out individual voices. Sometimes sound was amplified by the cavernous subterranean room. Sometimes it was simply swallowed by the empty air.

  Like Brown before her, Donna had been forced to wet herself and she now sat uncomfortably in sodden knickers, still firmly anchored to the chair.r />
  Brown himself cried softly more than once, his moods alternating between fury and helplessness.

  Twice he even attempted to bang the chair legs on the floor, tipping himself back a little, then crashing forward. But he realized that if he toppled backwards he’d more than likely smash his head in on the stone floor and gave up that idea.

  Donna flexed her toes and her fingers, trying to loosen the ropes, trying to slip free, but it was useless.

  She was aware of her two companions in the blackness but -gagged as they all were they had no way of communicating.

  Thompson sat as still as he could. Thinking.

  Thinking of a way out of this place.

  Thinking what he would do to the old fuckers when he finally got free.

  He’d kill them. Gut them like he’d gutted that dog.

  Take his air rifle and press it into their mouths or eyes. Watch the terror on their wrinkled faces as he pulled the trigger.

  Use his knife to castrate the old men. Hack the old balls from beneath their wizened, useless cocks.

  He might stuff one of the severed bollocks into the mouth of the old woman with the white hair.

  He had no idea what time it was when he, too, finally succumbed to the demands of his own bulging bladder. The warm urine spilling over his thighs was momentarily pleasant in the cold basement. However, when the fluid began to cool and the soaking cotton clung to him he felt his anger growing.

  The pleasant smell of freshly laundered linen was replaced by that of stale piss.

  Thompson wondered who would be the first to shit themselves.

  It was only a matter of time.

  The three of them sat helplessly in the basement.

  Waiting.

  “TELL us WHAT his name is.”

  Jack Fuller stood a foot or so from Graham Brown and pointed in the direction of Thompson.

  Brown shook his head.

  “His name,” Fuller repeated.

  “I’m not telling you.”

  “Why? Why are you protecting him? We know your name. We know her name.” He nodded towards Donna.

  “Why not tell us his?”

  “Do you think he’d protect you?’ Harry Holland asked, then shook his head slowly.

  “If we tell you, will you let us go?” Donna interjected.

  “You keep your fucking mouths shut, both of you,” snarled Thompson.

  “So, you can speak?” Fuller smiled, moving nearer to Thompson.

  “Why don’t you tell us your name?”

  “I’m not saying a fucking thing to you.”

  Fuller moved closer, careful to avoid the puddle of urine around the base of the chair.

  “You’ll stay here until you do,” he told him.

  “Fuck off. You’re the ones who’ll be in trouble with the police when they find us. This is kidnapping.”

  A chorus of chuckles greeted the remark.

  “Three fit, able youngsters break into a home for the elderly.” Fuller grinned.

  “For the second time. The first time, they hang a dead dog in a wardrobe and cause one of the residents to die of a heart attack. Before that they smash windows, send threatening and abusive letters and spray graffiti on the walls. In order to protect themselves, the old people are forced to fight back. They do this by capturing the youngsters who’ve been terrorizing them. How is that story going to sound to the police? Who are they going to sympathize with?”

  Thompson glared at the older man.

  “But we don’t need to involve the police in this, do we?” Fuller said softly.

  “What are you going to do, then?” Thompson said defiantly.

  “Well, even if the police come and we tell them that story and your names and they take away all the evidence, they’ll still do nothing.” Fuller turned and walked back to his watching companions.

  “We wouldn’t do it again,” Brown blurted.

  “If you let us go, we’ll never bother you again.”

  “Shut up,” hissed Thompson.

  “No, you shut up, Carl. I’ve had enough of this.”

  Colin Glazer smiled.

  “Carl,” he said quietly.

  “Hello, Carl,” Fuller said, looking straight at Thompson.

  “So, we’re halfway there. What’s your second name?”

  “You fucking arse hole Thompson yelled at Brown.

  “Disgusting,” Helen Kennedy murmured.

  “Do you want to go?” George Errington said to Brown.

  “Do you want us to let you go?”

  Brown looked at the older man warily, then at Donna and Thompson.

  Finally he nodded.

  “Tell us his last name,” Errington continued.

  “You tell them and you’re fucking dead,” Thompson rasped.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m warning you. I’ll fucking kill you.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Graham,” said Donald Tanner.

  “He can’t hurt you. Look at him: he’s helpless.”

  “What’s his second name?” Errington persisted.

  Brown tried to swallow, but his throat was bone dry.

  “He can’t hurt you,” Eva Cole added soothingly.

  “Tell us,” Glazer intoned.

  Tell us now,” Fuller added.

  Donna could only look helplessly back and forth at the two youths.

  “What’s his name, Graham?” Errington said again.

  “Tell us and we’ll let you go. We know you were just doing what he told you to do.”

  They’re lying,” Thompson shouted.

  “They won’t let you go.”

  “He threatened to kill you, Graham,” Fuller reminded the younger boy.

  “Are you going to listen to him?”

  Tell us his name,” Harry Holland said.

  Brown sniffed back tears.

  “It he stammered.

  “Shut up!” Thompson roared.

  Tell us.”

  “His name ‘ “Shut your fucking mouth!”

  Tell us his name.”

  “I fucking mean it. I’ll kill you.”

  Brown was almost at breaking point.

  “You need treatment for that wound on your head,” Fuller reminded him.

  “The quicker you tell us, the quicker we can help you.”

  Tears began to roll down Brown’s cheeks.

  Tell us.”

  The voices seemed to thunder inside his skull.

  Tell us his name.”

  Brown’s body began to shudder uncontrollably.

  “Carl Thompson,” he wailed.

  “His name’s Carl Thompson. Now please let me go.”

  Fuller looked at Thompson and smiled.

  “I’m sorry, Carl,” sobbed Brown. He looked at his companion through a mist of tears, but saw only fury in his expression.

  “Will you let me go now?” the younger boy persisted, looking at the row of faces before him.

  “Graham Brown, Donna Freeman and Carl Thompson,” murmured Errington.

  “You said you’d let me go,” Brown gasped, sniffing loudly.

  Fuller ignored his entreaties. He walked towards the youngest boy and brandished a strip of gaffer tape before him.

  “You said you’d let me go!” cried Brown.

  Fuller slapped the tape in place.

  The cries trailed away into muted sobs. Mucus, running from both nostrils, trickled over the tape, mingling with the tears still pouring down the boy’s cheeks.

  “What about you, Donna?” Fuller asked.

  “Do you want us to let you go?”

  “But you won’t, will you?”

  “Do you think you deserve it?”

  She licked her cracked, dry lips and lowered her gaze.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

  “You’ve done enough already.”

  Fuller sealed her mouth once again.

  “You won’t get away with this,” Thompson snarle
d, but for the first time some of the venom had left his voice.

  “Get away with what?” Fuller asked.

  “You don’t even know what we’re going to do.”

  Thompson strained against his bonds, but the rope only cut more deeply into his wrists and ankles.

  “Our parents will come looking for us,” he said, attempting to inject as much menace into his tone as possible.

  “How can they?” Errington wanted to know.

  “They don’t know where you are. No one does.”

  “They certainly wouldn’t think to look for you here,” Tanner echoed.

  “They’ll find us,” Thompson insisted none too convincingly.

  “We’ll see,” Fuller murmured.

  “But not before we’ve finished.”

  1 COMPULSION

  “Finished? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Fuller advanced with another piece of thick gaffer tape.

  “What are you going to do?” Thompson shouted.

  Fuller stuck the tape in place and stepped back.

  The three captive youths looked on silently.

  Brown was still crying softly.

  Donna stared almost imploringly at the faces before her.

  Thompson strained once more against his restraints.

  “When you break the law you have to pay,” Fuller told them.

  “There are lessons to be learned. Things that have to be done. The police won’t do them. They won’t punish you. So we have to. The people you wronged to begin with. You have to learn. There’s a price to pay for what you’ve done.”

  As he spoke he reached inside his jacket.

  When Thompson saw what he was holding, he began to shudder uncontrollably.

  THE GUN LOOKED large in Fuller’s fist, but he gripped it with assurance as he moved towards the captive youths.

  The fluorescents in the ceiling reflected off the polished metal and Thompson could smell the distinctive odour of gun oil.

  The weapon was old, but had obviously been well cared for.

  Fuller hefted it before him, allowing the terrified trio a good look.

  “Smith and Wesson .38 calibre revolver,” Fuller told them calmly.

  “I took it from a dead Japanese officer the day we were liberated. He’d stolen it from a British paratrooper when they captured him. Airborne troops and commandos carried these pistols. I took it because it didn’t belong to that Jap. And I took it to remind me of what I’d been through. Every day of my life I’ve cleaned this gun. And every time I clean it, I thank God I’m alive. That I lived through the camp. We all suffered during the war. We’ve all suffered since. When we came here we thought we’d all live out our years in peace.” He considered each of the faces before him.