The Abattoir of Dreams: a stunning psychological thriller

by Mark Tilbury

  ‘Come on, Mikey.’

  I followed Liam through to the other bar again, hanging onto his jumper. Liam flipped his Zippo and revealed a door with a large brass key protruding from its lock. He pulled it out and opened the door. ‘We’ll lock ourselves in the cellar and get pissed, Mikey. Go out with a fucking bang.’

  Go out with a headache, more like, I thought. I heard the copper’s boots treading on the broken glass. For some weird reason, I imagined the Giant in Jack and the Beanstalk. Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of Woodside scum.

  We made it through the door. Liam banged it shut. It took several attempts to lock the damned thing. Safe. For now.

  A loud thump, probably a truncheon, followed by a man’s deep voice. ‘Do yourselves a favour, boys, open the door.’

  Liam whispered, ‘Ignore him.’

  How the fuck was I supposed to do that? I followed him down into the bowels of the cellar, only the Zippo to light the way.

  Another thud. ‘Don’t make me break down this door.’

  We stopped by the wine rack. Liam shut the lighter off. ‘Better save the gas.’

  Great. Now, we were locked in a pitch-dark filthy cellar. Crawling with spiders and God knew what else. Not to mention coppers waiting outside to break down the door and kill us. I wished I could rewind my life, take it back to before we’d walked into that stupid church.

  ‘Someone must have followed us when we left the church,’ Liam said.

  I wanted to remind him again whose stupid idea it was to go in there, but we already had enough shit to contend with without getting into a fight. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I wonder how come it’s taken them so long to come and get us?’

  I didn’t have an answer to that. I just wanted to get out of there. My imagination conjured up an image of rats, huge yellow teeth dripping with saliva, waiting to sink their teeth into my leg. ‘We can’t stay down here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because we’ve got no food. Or water. Or light.’

  ‘There’s wine.’

  ‘I don’t want wine.’

  Liam flipped his Zippo on. ‘I’m going to have some.’

  ‘Tate? Truman?’ Carver’s voice this time, as menacing as that lopsided grin of his.

  Liam took a bottle of wine from the rack.

  ‘Can you two toe rags hear me?’

  ‘Don’t answer him,’ Liam whispered. ‘He’s only trying to scare us.’

  Carver didn’t need to bother on that front; I was already terrified enough to puke.

  Liam told me to hold the lighter while he pushed the cork through. He took a long swig, grabbed the lighter back, and plunged the cellar into darkness again.

  ‘If you open this door now, I’ll put in a good word for you at Woodside.’

  I heard Liam chugging the wine. And then, against his own good advice, he shouted back, ‘Fuck off, pervert.’

  My heart sank to the bottom of my feet, and right through the cellar floor.

  ‘How brave of you, Truman. A right regular little tough guy.’

  ‘That’s me.’

  I grabbed his arm. ‘Winding him up will only make things ten times worse.’

  ‘How can it? They’re going to kill us, anyway. We might as well have some fun.’

  ‘Fun?’

  ‘Yeah, fun, Mikey. I only wish I could see the look on his ugly chops right now.’

  ‘Can you hear me, Tate?’

  I didn’t answer him. I was too busy trying not to throw up.

  ‘You’ve only been back at Woodside for a short while, boy. I don’t think Mr. Kraft will look upon this too severely, if you give yourself up now.’

  And pigs might fly.

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Your promise isn’t worth a wank, Carver,’ Liam shouted. ‘You can stick your promises up your arse.’

  This response was followed by a series of heavy blows to the door. So loud in the silence. And then: ‘All right, if that’s the way you pair of clever Dicks want it.’

  Liam slugged more wine. He smashed the bottle against the rack. ‘I’ll stab the fucker in the face the minute he comes through that door.’

  I waited for the door to burst open, Carver and the bobbies to rush in and beat us to death with their truncheons, but nothing happened; just long rolling silence, broken only by mine and Liam’s heavy breathing.

  I sat down on the floor with my back against the wine rack. ‘We’re fucked.’

  Liam sat down beside me. ‘He must have gone.’

  ‘He wouldn’t just go.’

  ‘I can’t hear anyone.’

  That was somehow more threatening. ‘He’s up to something.’

  ‘But, what? It’s not like he’s going to tunnel beneath the pub and surprise us. He has to come through the door.’

  ‘Unless…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe he’s going to just leave us down here. Wait until we’re starving, or dying of thirst.’

  Liam didn’t seem to care too much. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘We can’t stay down here forever.’

  ‘No surrender, Mikey. No fucking surrender.’

  Time passed in vast black blocks. No activity outside the door. No banging. Just that awful empty silence. I thought a lot about how my life had turned out since my mother’s death. Rachel, Oxo, Woodside, Davies. One massive spiral leading down into this filthy stinking basement.

  I heard a rustling noise outside the door. Something scraping.

  ‘What’s that?’ Liam asked.

  As if I knew. ‘Maybe they’ve got one of those skeleton keys.’

  ‘I left the key in the lock. They won’t be able to…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen…’

  And then, I heard it. Water running. I scrambled to my feet, convinced he was going to drown us.

  Liam hauled himself up, using my leg as a post. ‘What the fuck’s he doing?’

  I strained my ears, trying to listen. Then, I smelled something. Faint at first, then stronger.

  ‘Petrol!’ Liam shouted. ‘He’s pouring petrol underneath the door.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  He threw his broken bottle on the ground. ‘We’re fucked.’

  The stench was overbearing. Nauseating. Creeping under my skin.

  ‘Can you pair of shitheads hear me?’ Carver shouted.

  ‘Don’t answer him,’ Liam said.

  Carver continued: ‘I’ve poured two gallons of petrol under the door. Can you smell it?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘So, here’s the deal, boys. You’ve got one minute to open the door. If you still want to play silly buggers, I’ll get the constable to light a rag, and put it under the door. Barbeque you alive. How does that sound?’

  ‘He’s bluffing.’

  I grabbed Liam’s arm. ‘I don’t think he is.’

  ‘It’s no skin off my nose,’ Carver said. ‘No one will shed any tears over a pair of runaways lighting a fire in a derelict pub cellar. They’ll just say you got what you deserved.’

  I was about to piss my pants. ‘Liam?’

  ‘Everyone knows what a nasty pair of scum you two are. The vicar at the church. Mr. Kraft. The shopkeeper you stole from. The witness who saw you walking around the back of the pub.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Liam shouted. ‘Fuck off and suck your own dick.’

  ‘You’ve got thirty seconds.’

  I couldn’t stand it any longer. I stumbled across the cellar and staggered up the steps. The stench of petrol made me feel sick and dizzy. I twisted the key in the lock. As I did so, the door flew open, hitting me in the face, and knocking me back down the steps. And then, the world went black.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I regained consciousness in the back of the police car. My head throbbed. Liam was sitting beside me, and we were handcuffed to each other. Two police constables sat in the front. At first, I couldn’t quite understand what was wrong with Liam’s face, but as my eyes grew accustomed
to the light, I realised that one side of his head was swollen to almost twice its size. His right eye was completely closed. Blood dribbled out of his nose and leaked onto his upper lip. His lower lip was swollen and cut.

  The copper in the passenger seat said, ‘I see you’re back with us, then?’

  I didn’t answer him. I looked at my best friend, beaten to a pulp, breath rattling in his throat. This was all my fault. But what choice did I have? I had no doubt Carver would have set fire to that cellar and let us burn to death. Enjoyed it, even.

  Liam looked at me with his good eye. ‘No… surrender.’

  I nodded. ‘Blood brothers.’

  He managed a weak smile, closed his eye and slumped sideways.

  ‘Why didn’t you just give yourselves up?’ the driver asked.

  I ignored him and looked out the side window. Fuck him.

  As we pulled up at Woodside, Kraft came lurching out of the building. In spite of the cold weather, he was sweating. His hands were swinging by his sides, balled into fists.

  The driver switched off the engine and yanked on the handbrake. He wound down the window. ‘We have the fugitives, Mr. Kraft.’

  Kraft peered through the back window, licked his lips, and returned his attention to the driver. ‘Where’s Mr. Carver?’

  ‘He’s on his way.’

  ‘We’ll wait until he gets here.’

  And so, we did. About half an hour. Kraft pacing up and down like a sergeant major, waiting for recruits on a parade ground. Carver pulled up in a small green car, with a blue light fixed to the roof.

  Kraft asked Carver where he’d been.

  ‘Gathering evidence.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘In case this goes to court.’

  ‘Court? Have you addled your brain? It will be dealt with in-house.’

  Carver treated him to a lopsided grin. ‘Just doing my job, Mr. Kraft. Just doing my job.’

  ‘Never mind all that. Get these two down into the boiler room.’

  Carver opened the back door. ‘Out!’

  We clambered out of the car like punch-drunk Siamese twins. At one point, Liam yanked on the cuffs and nearly broke my wrist. The two bobbies hovered around us, waiting for trouble, no doubt, but we were all out of fight. They escorted us through the reception room, along the dank, grey corridor, and down the steps to the boiler room. One cellar to another. At least this one had a light.

  One of the bobbies asked Kraft if Liam ought to be looked at.

  Kraft smiled. ‘Don’t worry about him. He’ll be looked at, constable. Very closely indeed.’

  Locked in the boiler room, sitting on the cold concrete floor, still handcuffed together, Liam turned to me, blood dribbling from his broken nose. ‘Another fine mess you’ve gotten me into, Stanley.’

  I tried to laugh. I mean, it was funny. Funny enough to split sides. But, I didn’t laugh. I cried. Sobbed until there were no more tears left inside me. And then, I slept. Had that weird dream about the kite trying to drag me up in the air with it again.

  Carver woke me up some time later. He kicked me in the side hard enough to knock the wind out of me. ‘Wakey-wakey, Tate. I need to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Sharpen up, you little shit.’

  I realised Liam was no longer next to me. And then, I saw him, handcuffed to a metal railing, hands pulled behind his back, forced to stand. If he so much as tried to crouch, his arms would be wrenched from their sockets.

  Carver pointed to a wooden chair in the middle of the room and told me to sit in it. I shuffled across the room, legs and backside as numb as a builder’s plank. I plonked myself down on the hard wooden seat.

  Carver made me put my hands behind my back, and then, he handcuffed them. He stood in front of me, running his fingers through his hair, studying me as if I was a bug in the science lab at school. ‘So, Tate, let’s hear what you’ve got to say for yourself.’

  What was I supposed to say? We ran away because we were sick of being treated like shit?

  ‘Well?’

  I shrugged. Pain scorched my shoulders and neck.

  ‘I want you to explain why you and that sorry sack of shit over there thought it was a good idea to go into a church and insult a vicar?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you think you’re clever?’

  ‘No.’ The truth. I was just about the dumbest kid on the Earth.

  ‘Don’t you have one shred of intelligence?’

  Obviously not.

  ‘Let’s recap what you’ve done, Tate. You’ve absconded from Woodside. Broken into a pub. Stolen from a shop. Disrespected a vicar. Started a fire in a pub. Is there anything I’ve missed?’

  I shrugged. A mistake. He slapped me on the side of my head. The sound echoed around the walls like gunfire. ‘I said, is there anything I’ve missed?’

  ‘No.’

  Another slap. This time on the other side. Something cracked in my neck. ‘You do know that you pair of imbeciles have burned that pub down, don’t you?’

  That stupid grin seemed to slip across his face in oil. I wanted to scream at him, tell him he was the one who’d burned down the pub. The one who’d set me and Liam up. But, what was the use? We were just two kids from a children’s home. The lowest of the low. Lower than a dog turd on the bottom of a shoe.

  ‘That pub is beyond repair, Tate. Where did you and Truman get the petrol from?’

  ‘We didn’t.’

  ‘No? I suppose it just turned up at the pub all by itself, did it? Came waltzing through the door and said, Hey, bozos, want to have some fun?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Damned right it didn’t, you lying turd. So, tell me where you got it from?’

  I didn’t answer him.

  ‘Which petrol station sold it to you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You do know it’s an offence to buy petrol under the age of sixteen, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What were you planning to do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Make Molotov Cocktails?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Throw them at the police when they came to arrest you?’

  ‘No.’

  This time he punched me, right in the middle of my forehead. My brain felt as if it had been shoved through the back of my skull. The chair tipped back, wobbled, and then fell forward.

  ‘You’re in such deep shit, Tate.’

  Tears leaked from my eyes. Carver appeared like smoked glass. He paced back and forth in front of me, glancing at me, stroking his chin, running a hand through his hair.

  He stopped and faced me. ‘Understand this, Tate; we’ll find out the truth, and you will be punished accordingly. So, whose idea was it to run away?’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘Not Truman’s?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure about that, Tate? You don’t look much like a leader to me.’

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get my vision back.

  ‘Do you hear that, Truman? Tate’s trying to protect you.’

  Liam didn’t answer. He hung off those railings, with his arms pinned behind him. He looked like a trapeze artist frozen in time.

  ‘I don’t think it will help you, though. I reckon that particular horse has bolted, don’t you?’

  Liam spat on the floor. An answer, of sorts. A tiny victory in this unwinnable battle.

  Carver turned his attention back to me. ‘You’ve also stolen from the school, haven’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you dare sit there and tell me barefaced lies, Tate. We found a teacher’s purse in Truman’s rucksack. Five pounds missing. Guess where that’s being paid back from?’

  I didn’t know. I just wanted him to go away and leave me alone. There was a terrible, high-pitched ringing in my ears.

  ‘From the coffers at Woodside. Kids will go hungry because of you. Do you hear me?’

  Barely. The ringing in my e
ars was getting louder. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, what sort of selfish shit does that make you, Tate?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for apologies, isn’t it? The damage has already been done.’

  I looked at the floor, away from those hypnotic eyes.

  ‘Your sort never learn, do they? Just carry on making the same mistakes over and over again. You’re nothing but a drain on society, Tate. A dirty, useless drain on this country’s resources.’

  ‘Fuck knows what that makes you, then,’ Liam said.

  Carver laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Truman. Your turn is coming. You keep it up and see what you get for your troubles.’

  Liam spat a glob of blood and snot onto the floor. ‘Fuck you.’

  Carver turned his attention back to me. ‘At least you had the good sense to open the door, Tate. Unlike that idiot over there, who reckons he’s some kind of hero. You might just get to live because of that.’

  I didn’t want to live. I wanted to die. Be free of this place forever.

  ‘Do you admit all the charges against you, Tate?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no point denying anything.

  Carver nodded. ‘I’m going to leave you two love birds to it. Things to do. I’ll be back later. Any funny business, Tate, and I’ll cuff you to the railings like that clown over there, is that clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He walked up the steps and banged the door shut behind him. The lock clicked, leaving me and Liam alone in our new prison.

  ‘Fuck him,’ Liam said.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. Do you know where my rucksack is?’

  ‘It’s down near the steps.’

  ‘Do me a favour. Go in it and take my book of poems out. Hide it somewhere. I don’t care about the rest of the stuff in there, but I want you to keep my book of poems.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But, nothing. I ain’t going to come out of here alive. I want you to take the poems, look after them.’

  I walked over to his rucksack, hands cuffed behind my back, tears streaming down my face.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I pulled the notebook out of his rucksack with my teeth. I hid it behind the boiler. I can’t tell you how difficult that was with my hands pinned behind my back. To make matters worse, I burnt my right ear on the boiler.