She fixed on the left hand, the one holding the handle of the pot, and focused her newfound energy, determination, passion, anger, and aggression on it. Threads of dark red ran from under the sleeve of the floral gown along the path of his veins and began to permeate the surface of the skin beyond the black.
The toffee was beginning to spit. Tiny bubbles splashed and popped to the rim as if looking for a way out, then dropped back.
He wasn’t much of a cook.
“Almost done, Mu-there.”
“Please, please don’t.”
“Shushhh. Smells good.”
He tapped the wooden spoon against the brim of the pot loud enough to signal the end of the cooking process, and put it delicately down on the countertop.
“Please, please, please, don’t.”
“Shushhh, I said, Mu-there.”
He lifted the pot off the gas hob but before he could turn to the making of his toffee pop, the boiling molasses emptied itself over him with the action of a fisherman striking a nibble on the end of a line.
He dropped the pot but it never hit the floor.
Sardis’ eyes blinked open. She looked up from where she sat in the living room, and turned toward the screaming to see her host on the kitchen floor scraping at his neck and chest, ripping at the flowery frock, his face obscured by the blond wig hair.
Suzanne had her back next to him, helpless, yelling, knocked to the floor like a domino when he backed into her and struck the chair. Dark brown splotches and streaks stuck to her nightdress like dirty watermarks.
Sardis had the pot handle in her left hand, held upright like a metal-based racket. A flush of heat dripped down in the pattern of candle wax over her arm, the leftover treacle labouring to blister her skin. The pot fell to the floor when she swiped at her arm to stop the burn. The syringe flew away and pinned itself to the foot of the sofa. She tried to block out the pain as she lifted herself out of the chair to rush him, nails poised with one thought, to protect her mum.
Her feet wouldn’t carry her and stayed put, toppling her forward onto the hard surface of the wooden floor. She rolled over, clutching her stomach where the syringe had stabbed deep, plunging the blood back into her, spreading a bruise about her navel before breaking free to leave the needle imbedded like a renegade sword to stab at whatever else it could find. She struggled to her knees, saw the third hanging from her thigh and snatched it free with combat doggedness. She lumbered to her feet, needing to get to him before he rose to his. She stumbled toward him holding the syringe in a tight fist, like a dagger.
Eamon lay on his side on the tiled floor, hunched in a ball with his back to Suzanne. Long hair surrounded his mask as he got to one knee and planted the other foot to the ground.
She plunged the syringe down, piercing the back of his neck through the fabric of the floral frock dress, between the shoulder blades. But he didn’t fall and flail back to the floor as she expected, as had happened when the blade came down on the man reaching for the remote control, the glass of red wine falling from his limp hand.
Now his hands waved around where he stood, grappling blindly at the air above his head. He caught her hair, gripped, and yanked her. She lost her footing on the slippery syrup and went reeling toward the table, knocking the back of her head as she fell. His Holliday bag tumbled to the floor. A brown bottle and the knife, the one with the broken tip, spilled out. Both lollipops rolled from the table top and clonked to the ground.
Sardis looked at her mum. None of the tarring spillage was visible on Suzanne’s front but she was cringing with pain and fear.
A shadow crossed over Sardis. The shard of needle sank deeper into her stomach when his full weight pressed down. He wrapped one hand around her slender neck, soon joined by the second once he reached behind for the syringe in his neck, pulled it free and tossed it over his head. He stared down at her, raging behind the mask. It was her first glimpse of his face, at the mask. She wanted to close her eyes, but couldn’t. They bulged with the force of his thumbs pressing in on her throat.
The mask was grotesque. The eyes were open and the teeth—that were as near a match to hers as she had ever seen—exposed. The mask was ill-fitted and stretched, as if it had undergone plastic surgery. The mascara on the face had run, drawing black smears down the cheeks. She knew he meant it to be her, his version of her, but there was as much similarity in the features of the mask as there was in the taste of his attire. The flowery frock just looked wrong, three-quarter-length sleeves and crumpled up at the waist with jeans showing underneath, the frame too big to be a woman, eerie and terrifying.
The girly voice was gone, forgotten about, the game, too, prematurely over. “You little fuck nitwit bitch.” He pressed hard on her throat, then eased to allow her one more breath. “You’re going to die now. But listen to what I am about to say. I want you to die with one thought in mind: When you’re gone I’m going to fuck your lifeless body, right here, right in front of your mother. And then I’m going to kill her, slowly, and oh so very painfully.”
He pressed back in on her throat. Sardis grabbed on his wrists to relieve the pressure. It was hopeless. She let go and clawed her nails into both arms, dug deep, and dragged them back down to the wrists.
“Eeeeahhhhhh! Fuck, fuck, fuck, motherfucker!” was the only clue to his pain.
Blood poured down both arms, submerging his thumbs in a well at her neck. He released his grip. It was only meant to be for a second so he could wipe the irritation from his arms. Sardis’ head came up from the tiled floor, her mouth open in rage, the underneath of his right arm hanging in the air above her. She snapped. The teeth snagged the skin and she bit down hard.
Eamon tore his arm from her grip and looked at her.
Sardis was shaking her head back and forth as if she’d failed to make a kill, savage-looking, blood all over her face. He battled for her arms and pinned them to her sides using his thighs as restraint. He looked at the gaping wound in his arm. Then he caught sight of the tea towel once hung on the back of the char, now within easy reach. He grabbed it, looked at Sardis, then back at the towel, then back to Sardis again. A wry smile contorted the mask.
“Swings and roundabouts,” he said. “Open wide for me, please.” It sounded like he was back at work. He was. “Let me see.”
Sardis glared back, pulling a face like a rabid dog, holding on to the piece of flesh between her teeth as if it held some kind of fuck you intrinsic value.
“Swallow it,” Eamon said.
Sardis’ doggedness refused the request.
Eamon wrapped the tea towel around two fingers and forced the rag into Sardis’ mouth. Bit by bit he fed it to her. Images of his mother, on the second best day of his young life, exploded in his mind. And he liked it.
The pain in Suzanne’s neck, shoulders, and back was lost and numb to how she felt on the inside. Her heart nearly burst while she pleaded to deaf ears and watched the wet freckles of eel-like trickles run over her daughter’s bloated face. Her daughter was dying in front of her.
The door to the veranda burst open. Someone filled the space and a gunshot nearly deafened her. The bullet ripped through the cheek of the mask from ear to mouth. Eamon’s hands flew from Sardis’ throat. He twisted sideways and rolled to the floor. A streak of blood advanced, spilling out the track the bullet made.
Sardis struggled to breathe, frantically moving the towel from her mouth, clawing and kicking at the ground, headed back in the direction of the living room.
54:
“For he knows not what he does.”
Hunt watched tentatively, pointing the smoking gun at Eamon who, like a stinking hobo, backed himself into the corner and lay back up against the cupboard with hair straggling and stuck to the mask in places. He was breathing heavily beneath the mask, staring at Hunt, not saying a word, taunting.
&
nbsp; Hunt remained fixed on him. “I don’t know why you’re looking so smug.”
Eamon didn’t attempt to reply but kept the stare, menacing.
“Tony, make sure they’re okay and get them out of here. Take them to the car and call for backup. Make sure they send more than one ambulance. But tell them not to rush the second one. I want you to wait with them outside and I’ll watch over whatever the fuck this thing is.”
His words were spoken with the same military exactness his eyes had shown when loading his gun. To question him would have been futile, only wasting time.
The lady duct-taped to the chair was in shock, but still very much alive. Sardis, as Tony knew her from the paper and the photo found back at the house, was coming around, sitting up, simultaneously coughing, clutching her stomach and rubbing her bloody neck.
He looked around the kitchen for something to cut the tape. There was a knife on the ground with the tip severed down by the far leg of the table, evidence, not to be used. He searched a top drawer, found a pair of scissors and approached the woman. Sardis was now by her side. The tape to where she sat had been ripped to tatters and she was helping her free.
Tony was reluctant to leave Marcus alone, afraid for what a good man could do. Marcus wasn’t saying anything, just looking at Eamon, the monster behind the mask. They were staring at each other.
His analytical mind kicked into gear and he wondered if Newton’s third law of motion could apply here: When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body. Could the same apply to emotion? Was Marcus going to exert a force equal in magnitude to the emotional force brought upon him by the body who now sat opposite? Or was it a simple case of the good looking after the bad until the backup arrived? Should there be anything to worry about?
Tony knew the very nature of evil better than most—the Thirteenth Zodiac. The way it confuses and deceives, not always appearing to be what it seems, distorting thoughts and obscuring motives. The way its loyalty rests only with itself and unless the digging is deep, the reality of the beast is seldom seen.
Tony decided he had done enough digging to last ten lifetimes. It was time to put the shovel down. He helped the two women out through the living room, leaving Marcus and Eamon together and alone.
It was still dark and deathly quiet outside the cottage when he got them into the car. Both women needed reassurance and looking after. Only when he heard the sound of the sirens approach did he leave them and go back into the cottage.
There was a smell of burning fabric and gun smoke when he came back through the front door. If more shots had been fired he hadn’t heard them. And when he cautiously passed into the living room and stood under the arch to the kitchen he saw that Hunt stood where he had left him. Eamon hadn’t moved either, still propped up with his back in the corner. But he didn’t look the same.
He was sitting in a puddle of his own urine and wandering blood. His jeans were soaked, unbuttoned, part pulled down. Tony knew Hunt hadn’t done that. It was likely at some point he had regressed back to his childhood as a scared and helpless little boy trying to please the abuser. The mask and wig had been ripped off, leaving a sticky residue around the edge of his face. Sweaty hair stuck to his scalp. Coagulated blood ran across one cheek to his mouth. Two of the “lollipop sticks” were cradled in both blood-soaked arms as if carrying twins (Marcus probably staged that). The knife, the one with the severed tip, had moved. Now it was lying beside Eamon’s thigh. Had it been out of his reach?
Residual gun smoke floated about the light overhead, and that smell of burning fabric? Masterson’s face was pale and dazed and he was bubbling noises from deep within his chest. To say he didn’t look well was an understatement. Both knees had been shot. Beyond medical help, this man, the Thirteenth Zodiac, with a damaged mind needed clinical care. Tony didn’t think he was going to get any.
“You kneecapped him?” Tony asked, looking at Hunt, not really expecting an explanation.
Hunt’s eyes held his, calm, to express his solemnity. A sardonic smile stiffened in the corners of his mouth. “What can I tell you, Tony? I was looking at this here cushion and minding my own business.” Marcus lifted his right arm, wearing the smouldering cushion like a glove, a silencer of sorts. His arm barely held a wobble. “Then he went for that there knife. I had no option but to shoot him. Lucky shots, I suppose. He won’t be running anywhere, anytime soon.”
Two paramedics made themselves known from the hallway before entering the kitchen through the living room.
Marcus directed them with a nod of his head to where Eamon slumped. “He’s all yours. Let’s get out of here, Tony, and let them do their jobs. We’re done here.”
They both left.
Hunt kept the cushion with him.
A swarm of activity had enveloped outside. It was as if half the police force of Farnham had descended on the small cottage. Hunt began a briefing the first flow of officers. The news people hadn’t arrived yet but it would only be a few short minutes before the road was blocked by a hive of activity.
Tony approached one of the two paramedics wheeling Eamon Masterson out to the ambulance, strapped to a stretcher. An oxygen mask was over his mouth, the bottle secured under one of the straps. The wheels buckled through the stones, rattling him. The second man opened the ambulance doors.
“Is he going to make it?” Tony asked.
“It’s him, isn’t it, the guy who’s been dressing up and killing all those people?” Tony’s expression gave him a definite answer. “At this point it’s touch and go; he’s lost a lot of blood. We’ll do our best to look after him with what we have on board. Cutbacks, don’t you know.”
No one wanted to help this damaged mind, not even the ones trained and conditioned to do so. Tony watched the trolley roll into the back of the ambulance and the doors close. A police car escorted the ambulance out the gate in less of a rush than might be expected on any other rescue. The flashing lights illuminated the overhanging trees to look like ice tendrils en route to the nearest hospital. Maybe Newton’s law did apply, emotionally, to everyone.
The monster that had held the city of Farnham in terror, and the world in thrall for almost two decades, Eamon Masterson, lay motionless in the back with eyes closed. And there, beneath his lids in the confines of a conscious mind, the Feeler had become a Feeder. The same shapeless tentacle that had pressed and caressed his mother in soothing circles at the time before her death now scavenged at the recesses of his mind with minute bites to ever so slowly devour a sanity that had long since passed.
55:
“Peace time.”
Sardis and Suzanne had their wounds and burns treated in the back of the second ambulance. Sardis was lying on a stretcher. Suzanne refused to leave her side.
Sardis reached out and they held hands. Her voice was hoarse and cracked when she spoke. “He’s gone, Mum, I just felt it, We’re going to be okay; they’re all going to be okay.”
Suzanne bent over her and kissed her daughter on the forehead. “I know, sweetie, I know.”
Tony and Marcus stood by the car with hands in their pockets, watching the activity of the people going about their business. Marcus took something from his jacket pocket, shook it to rattle, and threw it out over the front wall, aiming for the trees beyond.
Tony watched the brown pill bottle fly. “Well,” he said.
“Well?” Hunt said, turning to him.
“Well,” Tony repeated.
“Well,” Hunt agreed, “I’m retiring.”
“Good.”
“It is good.”
“So am I,” Tony said.
“Good.”
“It is good.”
Both men smiled and gave a nod to the new dawn.
About the Author<
br />
John Salmon was born in Dublin, Ireland, 1969. In 1991, he packed up all his worldly belongings and moved to Dubai, where he worked as a crewmember for a prestigious Airline. In the ensuing thirteen incredible years of socializing with the world’s population, he met every conceivable personality type, including the weird, the wonderful, the fascinating, and the not-so-nice.
In 2003, he completed a Post Graduate Degree in Human Resource Management through distance learning from the University of Leicester. He doesn’t play the guitar very well, and can’t dance, but he knows people and can tell a good story. So he does.
John is continuing to write in the sunny southeast of Gorey, Co., Wexford, Ireland. He can be contacted by email at [email protected], but you must be nice.
The Ice Scream Man Page 42
