Sing Me To Sleep

by Chris Simms

  She knew exactly what it was.

  The man had now been winched high enough to get a knee on the brick-lined rim. He held the bundle out. Reluctantly, a policeman took it. Without looking at it properly, he laid it on the wiry turf and backed away.

  All eyes went to the man in the overcoat. After sending an uncomfortable glance in Laura’s direction, he crouched down and tentatively lifted the corner. A collective jolt passed through the group and Martin Flower’s legs suddenly folded. He sat down in the long cold grass and started to claw at his dog collar, only stopping when his shirt was torn open. Moaning weakly, he turned in the Laura’s direction.

  But she was already striding away, shawl now pulled over her head. A veil.

  As she picked her way across the unkempt field she couldn’t stop checking the periphery of her vision, even though she knew the woman’s body – and the canary’s – were safely locked within a mortuary. For all she knew, they’d been incinerated already. She hoped they had.

  But, like how the last finger of snow nearby hinted at the recent storm, a sense of her still persisted. Laura trudged swiftly forward and Lantern Cottage came into view. The vile chimney parodying the human form proudly stood above the slightly sagging roof. Even though chipboard now filled all the windows, she found herself checking them, half-expecting to see the woman’s silhouette in the room Owen and her had shared.

  The room the woman had once dreamed of being a nursery for a child that never was.

  I will have the thing demolished, Laura decided. Torn down, razed, obliterated. Let the turf reclaim it and sheep pepper the ground where it once stood with their shit.

  Her hire car was parked alongside the emergency services’ vehicles. As she climbed in, she glanced at the clock. Almost two hours before her train left for London. Plenty of time to nip back to the village. She wanted to see Doctor Ford’s reaction when she told him of the discovery. Why should he enjoy the comfort of having it broken to him gently by someone else? He should have been here – in person – to see the remains brought up. When Martin Flowers had rung him yesterday to explain what was happening, the doctor had promised he’d come.

  As the car approached the cottage, she refused to look at it. She liked to think its hold on her was broken. But, as she neared the front porch, she wished she’d locked the car doors before setting off. What if the thing was there, staring out? Worse: what if it came lumbering onto the road?

  The solitary building slid slowly past and the lane in front seemed to narrow where the thick hedge reared up on each side. As she entered its eternal twilight, her mind wandered to Molly. All being well, the young girl was due back in another couple of weeks. How, Laura wondered, do I explain that she must come to visit me down south? That I never intend to return to this place?

  The nose of the car dipped as it began to descend the short, sharp slope. The red of berries in the twisting undergrowth stood out. Behind them, the evergreen foliage merged into a dark and fecund wall.

  Just beyond, in the field on her left, was where Owen died. The thought – the realisation she was so near to the spot, the tragedy of him having got so close to home, the cold and lonely way he’d left this world – caused her vision to dissolve. She had to apply the brakes, and as she did, something bulky moved in the hedge beside her car.

  Laura’s heart wrenched in her chest.

  No. Not her, please, not her. As she blinked rapidly to clear her sight, a large form separated itself from the screen of leaves. A badger, old and grizzled and stiff of limb. It stepped down the bank and paused to regard her with contemptuous, piggy eyes. You’re right, Laura thought. I don’t belong here. No one belongs up here. This is your place.

  Before she got to it, the door to the GP’s surgery opened with a ding. A woman, mid-twenties, struggling with a buggy. Laura grasped the door handle to stop it swinging back and the mum passed with a nod of thanks.

  Laura was wondering whether to continue straight to Doctor Ford’s room when the low, urgent words being spoken from behind the reception hatch to her right began to register.

  ‘Doctor Hedley went over to his house to check about half an hour ago. She called the ambulance from there.’

  ‘And he hadn’t rung asking us to cancel his patients?’

  ‘No, there were three waiting before I thought something wasn’t right. His eight o’clock had been sitting there for twenty minutes.’

  Laura realised that, by remaining just inside the door, the receptionists couldn’t see her. They had no idea she was there.

  ‘He’s never off sick. Well, maybe twice in all the years I’ve been here.’

  ‘Precisely. I tried to ring him: no answer. When I let Doctor Hedley know, she drove over. It’s awful. Some kind of breakdown, she said. He won’t even speak– ’

  The bell above the door made Laura jump as someone opened it. The receptionists’ conversation stopped and one leaned forward to look through the hatch. She saw Laura and the welcoming expression left her face.

  ‘Excuse me?’ The voice came from behind Laura.

  She turned to see an elderly gentleman. ‘Sorry.’

  The receptionist continued to stare, her lips thin and tight, as Laura slipped back out.

  Doctor Ford’s house was located on a cul-de-sac off the road leading towards the A6. Laura spotted the ambulance immediately. There was an estate parked with two wheels on the pavement beyond it. A sign on its roof said Doctor.

  Pulling up in front of the neighbour’s house, she wondered what to do. From what she’d overheard, he was unwell. Too unwell to let him know what had been at the bottom of that ventilation shaft? The answer quickly became apparent as the front door opened.

  He was in a wheelchair with a blanket tucked in around his torso and legs. Straps had been fastened across his chest and thighs. She could see his toes poking out; he was wearing socks. She realised his eyes were closed. But there was nothing serene about his face. The skin of his eyelids was bunched, the lips twisted back in a grimace. Was he in pain?

  As the paramedics negotiated the front step, the wheelchair had to be tipped forward. No part of the doctor moved. He was totally rigid. The knuckles of his hands were white where they clutched the armrests.

  The sight of him made Laura uneasy. What had happened? Something traumatic enough for him to try and shut out the world. Deny its existence. She found her eyes sweeping the surrounding gardens. The feeling of disquiet suddenly grew stronger. It wasn’t that thing, Laura told herself as she put the car into reverse. Don’t be stupid.

  Yet, as she turned back on to the main road and started accelerating up the hill and away from the little village, it was with a profound sense of relief.

  Epilogue

  Six weeks later

  ‘Race you!’ Molly Maystock jumped from the swing and ran towards the seesaw. She liked to run. Since her operation it had got easier and easier. Since arriving home from America, she could already run from one end of the playground to the other and back again.

  The brook that cut through the middle of the park chattered noisily to itself. Dusk had closed in and orange light shone down from the lamp posts dotting the pathways. The bell of Oldknow church began to toll, noise funnelling down the valley and through the village. Six rings. It would be time to go in soon.

  Jemma caught up with her and they reached the see-saw together. Giggling, Molly took the end of it nearest to the line of trees. Her friend sat down on the other end and, for a moment, they resembled a pair of frogs, knees bent in readiness to spring.

  Molly glanced back over her shoulder. ‘What was that?’

  ‘What?’ Jemma asked.

  The succession of notes came again. High and floaty.

  ‘That,’ Molly stated.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Jemma looked intrigued as she climbed off the see-saw. Molly’s end sank back down to the ground. ‘Was it in the trees?’

  Molly stood up and turned round. ‘I think so.’

  The gaps between the dark
pine trunks were very gloomy. It looked a bit scary in there. The sound came again. A cheerful sound. The girls looked uncertainly at one another.

  ‘Shall we go and see?’ Jemma asked.

  One of Molly’s knees turned inward as the toe of her foot rotated against the tarmac. ‘I don’t know...’

  The bursts of song were now coming faster. An enchanting trickle.

  ‘Fairy music,’ Jemma murmured, edging closer to the low fence at the playground’s edge. ‘It might be fairies.’ She looked back at Molly. ‘Come on.’

  Molly watched her friend start to climb over. She began to follow.

  ‘Molly! Time to go in!’

  She stepped back. Her dad was standing at the main gate, beckoning with one hand.

  ‘Jemma, you too. I told your mum we’ll walk you home.’

  The other girl looked disappointed as they crossed the playground together. When they reached Steve, he gave them a questioning smile. ‘What were you up to, anyway? Playing hide-and-seek or something?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear the fairy?’ Jemma asked. ‘It was singing.’

  Steve shook his head. ‘I can hear the stream. That’s pretty noisy.’

  ‘It was over in the trees,’ Molly said.

  ‘Really?’ Steve was turning his back on the playground. ‘That’s nice. And is it still there now?’

  The two girls listened for a moment.

  ‘No,’ Molly said. ‘It’s stopped now.’

  ‘Good.’ He’d already set off for the nearby houses. ‘Because it’s almost time you two were asleep.’

  The End

  Pecking Order

  Rubble lives alone in a caravan and works on a battery farm. There, he spends his days disposing of sick and injured chickens. But all the while, he dreams of another life. A life of adventure in the army.

  One day, a mysterious visitor arrives and witnesses the child-like relish Rubble takes in killing. Soon, Rubble is employed on a secret – and very sinister – project.

  But Rubble is being cruelly used. And the only way he’ll realise it is with the help of the only person he confides in: a fortune-teller working on a premium-rate telephone line.

  In this chilling thriller, one thing quickly becomes clear. Life can be brutal.

  Pecking Order - Chapter 1

  With a sound of two twigs snapping, the chicken's legs broke in his hand. The bird transformed from a hanging bundle of limp feathers to a screeching mess and his fingers instantly uncurled. It dropped fifteen feet to the sand-covered ground where it began flapping round in tight circles like a clockwork toy gone wrong.

  'Grab them when I lift them upwards!' shouted the man in shit-splattered overalls, standing on a narrow ledge on the lorry's side. 'If you don't,' he carried on with a note of triumph, 'they swing back and that happens.' He nodded towards the ground but his eyes remained locked on the younger worker.

  'Yeah, sorry,' the teenager replied, disgustedly peeling silver scales of chicken skin from the palms of his hands.

  Despite his heavy build, the man clambered nimbly along the stack of cages welded to the lorry's rear until he was directly above the stricken bird. With its ruined legs splayed uselessly off to one side, it continued its futile revolutions, the repeated cries from its open beak merging into something that resembled a scream.

  He dropped from the side of the vehicle and landed with both boots on the bird's outstretched head and neck. A thick squirt of blood shot out from under one heel and all movement immediately stopped. The only thing to disturb the silence that followed was a pigeon cooing gently from amongst a copse of beech trees nearby. The man stepped back, revealing a pulp of bone mashed into the loose sand. Then, relishing the appalled attention of the audience watching from the shed above, he swung back a stubby leg and booted the carcass high into the air. A handful of reddish coloured feathers detached themselves, one catching in the current of air blowing from the extractor fan mounted on the shed's side. The feather tumbled away, up into the clear blue sky.

  With arms that seemed a little too long for his body, he climbed back up the wall of cages, each one bristling with beady eyes, jagged beaks and shivering combs.

  'It's simple - keep them hanging upside down and they don't move,' said the man, reaching into another cage and dragging two squawking birds out by the legs. Once their heads were hanging downwards in the open air they immediately went still and he lifted their passive forms to the open door. This time the youth successfully grabbed the legs, and before they could start swinging back, he whipped them inside the shed.

  'You'll be doing four in each hand by lunch - now out the way,' said the man perched on the lorry's ledge, another brace of birds already dangling from his arm. Though no one said anything, something about the over-enthusiastic way the older man gave out directions reminded everyone of the playground: a schoolboy, prematurely invested with authority by his teacher.

  The youth got off his knees and, with a bird in each hand, turned round. Immediately in front of him inside the shed was a tier of empty cages, six high. It stretched away in both directions, the dimness inside making it impossible to see right to either end. The walkway he was standing on was made of rippled concrete and barely wider than his shoulders.

  Coating it was a mishmash of shell fragments, feathers and dried yolk. He had to struggle round the person next to him, banging one of the chickens against the wall. Once past, he set off into the shed's depths.

  Away from the fresh air at the open door the temperature suddenly picked up and the sharp smell of ammonia dramatically increased. His way was lit by a string of naked bulbs dangling at ten metre intervals from a black cable running just above his head. A thick sandy coloured dust clung to everything. Even the top of the cable was covered in it like powdery snow on a telephone line. The bulbs themselves were almost completely obscured - only the bottom third of each was exposed, and the yellowish light they gave out made him squint. In the gloom above, the residue had formed into web-like loops, which curled from the roof, the occasional strand brushing the top of his head. It seemed like a living thing, a kind of airborne mould that made the very air thick and heavy. He imagined that, if he stood still long enough, the spores would settle on him, and eventually he too would become wrapped in its cloying shroud.

  To his right the small conveyor belts running along in front of each cage clanked and whined, the moving surface transporting pellets to scores of cages that would soon be stuffed full of birds. Set into the ceiling above him was the occasional fan, blades lazily revolving. Their motion served only to circulate the warm air, carrying the dust into every crevice and onto every available surface.

  He walked to the first gap in the steep row of cages, turned right and then immediately left into one of the central aisles. In the gloom ahead of him a dark form crouched. As he walked up to the person he had to step over a lump on the ground. Looking down he saw the tips of feathers and was shocked to realise it was a dead bird. From the layer of powder almost engulfing it he guessed it had been lying there for quite some time. Now in front of the person, he held the two birds out.

  'Cheers,' said the woman emotionlessly, taking them from him and shoving them upside down into the open doorway of the nearest cage. The birds began clucking in protest, and one started flapping its wings. 'Get in,' she said aggressively through clenched teeth, forcing them forward with the flat of her hand. Inside what was little more than a hamster's cage, two other birds were already jostling for a firm footing on the wire mesh floor. He watched as one wing fluttered at the side of the door. With a final shove she got them inside, breaking several feathers in the process.

  Swinging the wire door shut she announced, 'Home sweet home.'

  Pecking Order - Chapter 2

  Out in the bright sunlight the rust-coloured feather rose upward through the air, carried on the light breeze blowing between the two elongated buildings. It drifted along for a while and then gradually began to lose height. Finally it settled on the ground,
just in front of a weathered pair of brogues. The leather creaked slightly and a thin, angular hand picked it up.

  'Who,' said the man, gently rolling the shaft of the feather between a skeletal finger and thumb, 'is the man giving instructions?'

  'That's Rubble,' replied the farm owner. 'I don't need guard dogs or anything with Rubble living here. He's my walking, talking Rottweiler.' He spoke a little too fast, trying to impress.

  'Where did he get a name like that?' Other hand running through a wiry beard that was shot through with flecks of grey.

  'Oh, it's short for Roy Bull. Rubble just seems to fit him better somehow.'

  'And he lives here, on the farm?'

  'Yeah, in a caravan at the bottom of the lane down there.' He pointed to the copse of beech trees, where an occasional glimpse of white showed between the gently shifting leaves. 'He's just a child really - in terms of IQ. But he certainly likes killing things - chickens, foxes, rats, mink. Even cats, some villagers believe. And if I hadn’t pulled him off the animal liberation woman last year, he’d have probably done her too.’

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17