Neighbourhood Watch

by Lex Sinclair

  His thoughts were broken off by the sound of his name. Sark blinked and stared at a uniform. ‘They want you to go inside, sir,’ he said. The officer could have been no older than twenty-eight, Sark observed. Twenty-eight seemed like a lifetime ago for him today.

  Sark sidled past two officers unrolling the yellow crime scene tape, stepped over the threshold and into the flat, instantaneously fighting the nausea at the acrid scent of the dead body assailing his nostrils, shrouded in a white sheet, waiting to be taken to the morgue.

  He was handed a dirt-free white envelope.

  Detective Inspector Sark... it read.

  He looked up at the other officers and forensic experts, who were all facing him, watching them deliberately avert their gazes elsewhere.

  ‘How’d they know my name?’ he asked, wishing he hadn’t. It was an asinine question. Evidently no one in the room knew how his name and job title was on the envelope. The only way he was going to solve that mystery was if he opened the damn thing - which he did. He crumpled the envelope up in ball in his taut fist, unfolded the sheet of paper and read the handwriting. The white sheet had two splotches of blood at the bottom left corner, which no doubt belonged to Reeves’. Sark gritted his teeth. Then he read...

  Dear Inspector Sark,

  If you are reading this letter, then you have discovered your friend and colleague’s rotting shell, lying on the carpet in the bedroom. Yet you feel safe and secure, because there are many other people busy working around you. You are also wondering what kind of sick, twisted mind would do such a thing to all those people... especially Reeves’.

  For now you are safe; however, that could all change if you choose to interfere with our important work. You cannot stop us, nor can you catch us, because unlike you, we can move like the wind, disappear without trace and still be alive long after you are gone from this mortal land.

  Right now, you’re thinking to yourself ‘This person is insane, if he believes what he’s writing’. But I am not. I am merely stating facts. Whether or not you will accept them into your tiny imagination is another thing entirely. Still, it does not change what is the lucid truth.

  I will put your mind at rest and inform you that the other three residents of Thorburn Close that went missing are also dead; just like your partner and the delightful Mr. and

  Mrs. Sheldon. Their hearts beat wonderfully in our chests... and so will yours if you continue to pry. Also, I suggest your investigation team stop searching for clues which aren’t there, because they are, quite frankly, wasting their time.

  Remember... We move like the wind, and disappear without a trace and will be alive long after you are gone from this mortal land.

  Take this warning seriously, Detective Inspector Sark. Walk away from this case and you will not suffer the same fate as the other unfortunate victims.

  Yours Sincerely,

  The Acolytes of Doom...

  P.S. The day is coming for the dead to rise...

  At long last Sark raised his head, wiping beads of cold sweat from his brow, seeing flickering blue specks in his vision.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he heard someone say.

  He regarded the chief homicide inspector. He hadn’t heard nor seen him entering the room. ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Sark lied.

  ‘What did the letter say?’

  Instead of explaining what he’d just read, Sark handed the folded piece of paper to his superior, imploring himself not to totter or faint with everyone watching him. A lot of these officers respected him. If they saw him keeling over, he’d feel terribly embarrassed and they’d think he was losing his grip. Maybe he was, he thought.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ the chief said, baffled.

  Sark snatched the sheet of paper out of his grasp and looked at one side with no writing on it and then turned it over and saw that that side was also empty.

  ‘What the fu -’ Sark’s eyes bulged out of their sockets. ‘Where’s the piece of paper I just gave you?’

  The chief frowned. ‘You’re holding it.’

  ‘No! I gave you the sheet of paper with the perp’s handwriting on, telling me that we’d never catch them; that they were elusive, and that if I didn’t want to end up like my partner then I should not go any further with this investigation... They called themselves the Acolytes of Doom, I think. I’m not sure. But, basically, they were saying that they were not human, and that they’d live for ever... or something like that.’

  Everyone in the bedroom had stopped what they were doing and was staring with concerned, transfixed expressions, scarcely able to believe what Sark was saying, his cheeks flaming a rose-red with increasing agitation.

  The chief raised both his hands slowly in a surrendering gesture. Then he rested a hand on Sark’s shoulder. ‘Take it easy, okay? You’ve had one helluva shock -’

  Sark shrugged his hand off him. ‘Goddamn it! Why won’t you believe me?’

  ‘There’s nothing on the paper. Your name is on the envelope, sure. But there’s no writing on the paper itself. It’s weird, yes. But they did it to freak you out, that’s all.

  They must’ve known that you and Reeves’ had worked together for years and were close. That’s why they did it. It makes sense in a roundabout way when you think about it.’

  Sark’s whole face flooded with blood beneath the surface, as he pointed his index finger at his superior and said through gritted teeth, ‘I did not imagine what I just read. You got that? I’m not freaked out. I’m really fuckin’ pissed off, that’s what I am. I especially get pissed off when I get told I’m losing my mind, when I’m not... I know what I read. I didn’t make that up, and it’ll sound absurd but - the writing must’ve somehow erased itself.’

  The chief inspector sighed. ‘You’re right... it does sound absurd.’

  ***

  Joe put two bags of toffee-flavoured popcorn and the six-pack of Diet Cokes in a Tesco’s shopping bag for the game later on that afternoon. Then he went outside and picked up the decorative stones off the lawn and put them where they belonged, alongside the driveway. On the third or fourth handful, he raised his head and saw that same beautiful woman he’d seen the other day walking her daughter home. He dropped the handful of stones in their rightful place, and then crossed the road to get acquainted with his neighbour.

  She was carrying a heavy flowering bucket filled to the rim of clear water, sprinkling the pots around the front of her home. The soil soaked the water up greedily. Then she’d move on to the next one, until it was empty.

  ‘Hi,’ Joe said, getting her attention.

  The attractive lady swept loose strands of black hair out of her eyes, standing up straight, smiling at him. He hadn’t realised until right then, how beautiful his neighbour really was. She had deep, dark brown eyes and a warm smile that lit up her entire face.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ she said, drying the palm of her hand against her grey blouse before proffering it. ‘You must be our new neighbour, right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Joe replied, shaking her hand. Her touch was soft, gentle. ‘I just thought I’d come on over and introduce myself. My name’s Joe Camber.’

  ‘Naomi Shepard... I have been meaning to come over to welcome you, but I’ve been busy with stuff. You know how it is?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I mean, just unpacking my belongings and shifting furniture here, there and everywhere has nearly crippled me; not to mention how it all seems never-ending. I never knew I owned so much crap, until I moved.’

  Naomi laughed. Her laugh was genuine, pleasant. ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ she said. ‘Is it true, you were a world champion boxer?’

  Joe nodded. ‘Yeah, I used to be. I’m officially retired now.’

  ‘Tell me to mind my own business if you want - but how come you moved here. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong. But I thought you’d be li
ving in a mansion somewhere in the countryside.’

  ‘Well, I used to live in a mansion for the last four years of my career. Then my heartless ex-wife got kind of ruthless in the divorce proceedings and ended up with it. And because I’m single, I don’t need a big place; all I wanted was a roof over my head and some peace and quiet.’

  Naomi stared at the ground. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ask -’

  ‘Hey, no! You only asked, and it’s not as if it’s top secret. Lots of people break-up these days; it’s just I really thought she loved me for me, not for my fame and fortune. But there you go. The hardest lessons are the lessons you learn best from, I guess. Don’t you agree?’

  Naomi brought to mind her own failed marriage with Brian and nodded in complete agreement.

  ‘Anyway,’ Joe said, interrupting her reverie. ‘I live at number seven. You’re quiet welcome to call for some sugar or for a chat, or whatever it is neighbours want to borrow these days.’

  Naomi beamed at him. ‘Okay. I might just do that.’

  ‘Well, it was nice meeting you, Naomi.’

  Joe turned on his heel and headed back across the road, feeling much better that he’d plucked up the courage to talk to the woman he fancied and that she’d had a great personality to match her good looks, too.

  He finished off picking up stones, then went inside and did some shadow-boxing for twenty minutes, without a break. Ten minutes later, he locked the front door behind him and entered Hugh’s cosy home an hour before the England versus Wales match was due to kick-off.

  ***

  Martha Clark was sitting in her recliner watching a DVD of the Twilight Zone, remembering when it was televised in the eighties, when the doorbell rang. She hit the pause button on the remote, sat upright in her chair, tense, wondering who that could be at the front door. Martha wasn’t used to having unexpected visitors call at any time, especially on Saturday afternoons. Homer leapt up from the rug by the fireplace and darted towards the front door, yapping at the top of his voice. She supposed she’d better go and see who it was.

  Aided by her walking stick, Martha wobbled her way down the short hallway to her front door and immediately recognised the person, obscured behind the frosty glass panel. However, what unnerved Martha when she finally got the door open was the sight of her dear friend and neighbour looking as though she’d seen a ghost.

  ‘May I come in?’ Sherri asked in a hoarse voice.

  ‘Of course,’ Martha said, stepping backwards, pivoting slowly and then heading back into her warm, cosy living room.

  Sherri followed her, closing the front door shut. She sat down on the floor opposite Martha, who’d returned to her recliner, but no longer looked at all comfortable. Sherri was still clutching the library book she’d been reading in a white-knuckled grip like it was the most important possession she owned.

  Martha noticed this, and asked in a soothing tone, ‘What’s that you got there?’

  Sherri seemed to ignore the question by asking one of her own. ‘Do you still have your psychic gift?’

  Martha frowned, all of a sudden not liking where this conversation was inevitably headed. ‘I wouldn’t go as far to say that I’m psychic, but I do get the odd sighting of peculiar things every once in a blue moon. But, as you are aware, I have to make some sort of physical contact with an individual to be able to see the future or past. Why?’

  Sherri shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Well, clearly it does, hon. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now asking profound questions, would you?’

  ‘It’s to do with this book I’ve been reading,’ she said. Then Sherri explained to her Martha what she’d read and backed it up by showing the elderly lady old black and white photographs of their town, where apparently the bodies were buried.

  Once she’d listened intently to everything Sherri told her, Martha sighed, leaned back in her recliner and mused. Then said, ‘I would’ve thought the bodies were either dug up when the foundations were excavated or they were never here in the first place. Either way, I really think you’re worrying over nothing, dear.’ But that wasn’t what Martha believed herself. Her intuition informed her every day now, the feeling growing stronger and stronger that something foreboding was coming to their quiet little cul-de-sac.

  ‘Oh, really?’ Sherri said, the cords of her veins surfacing on her neck. ‘Well, how come Hugh has been telling everyone that one of the investigating police officers was found dead this morning?’

  Martha gaped; then closed her mouth, saying, ‘That was most likely something separate. It’s just a coincidence. Don’t go getting yourself overwrought about nothing now.’

  Sherri contorted her face. ‘Oh, come on, Martha. For God’s sake! What’re you talking about, “a coincidence”? I suppose you reckon that all those disappearances and dead bodies are not related, either. Or are you just in denial?’

  Martha shrugged. ‘What do you want me to say? Yes it’s all definitely, unequivocally linked - that there is something beyond our comprehension going on. That someone is going to come along and snatch us out of our homes and take us away where we’ll all come face to face with our own worst nightmares and die.

  ‘If you wanna know the truth, I have been getting a tingling sensation racing up and down my spine and through my arthritic bones, but I don’t know yet what it means. Has it got something to do with the story you just told me? I don’t know. I hope not. But I don’t even know what you’re suggesting, so how can I possibly know how to answer any of your ridiculous questions?’ That said, Martha was finally out of breath. She even had to tell herself to control her breathing before she got high blood pressure.

  Guilt coursed through Sherri seeing her older, fragile friend agitated with her for arriving at her home and offloading her worries on to her.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ Martha said. ‘It’s just that I could read palms and see things in my younger years; but that doesn’t mean I’m an oracle of any kind. I don’t know what’s happening to our peaceful town, lately. All I know for sure is that it isn’t our town that’s going mad, it’s the whole world. People are losing their jobs, homes, and are rapidly getting angry about it. In some respects, I don’t blame them. So, perhaps it’s some serial killer, taking out their aggression on people like us who’ve got nice homes and are financially secure. What do you think?’

  Sherri was lost for words. Martha’s question was a very good one. One she didn’t think she’d be able to answer.

  ‘I had this ludicrous thought that, maybe, maybe... Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Go on, tell me,’ Martha urged.

  ‘It’s insane - but I thought what if the four evil monks had-’ she stopped, not wanting to say any more, because what sounded daft in her head, would sound ten times worse aloud.

  ‘You were thinking that perhaps they’d risen from the dead to act out their vengeance on us, because we’re living on their burial ground. Yes?’

  Reluctantly, Sherri nodded. ‘I just let my imagination run away with itself.’

  Martha nodded once. ‘It is outlandish and far-fetched. But I also think you were so disturbed by the material you’d been reading your mind conjured the worst case scenario in your overactive imagination.’

  ‘But you said yourself, you felt something foreboding lurking nearby, waiting to pounce on us.’

  ‘Yes, I did; although, those weren’t my exact words, if I recall. Nevertheless, I get those feelings every once in a while. It doesn’t mean that what I’m feeling is directly related to me or you, or our neighbourhood. It could be related - and most likely is - related to someone I’ve never met, alone, suffering in silence. Or something along them lines. And, anyway, how’d you suppose the dead returned to life? Once you’re dead, there ain’t no coming back!’

  Sherri
laughed. ‘I know. I know. What you’re saying is spot on. I don’t even know why I was so keen to tell you.’

  ‘I think your subconscious wanted you to tell me, so I could reassure you that what you were suggesting was impossible. Not only that their spirits have long gone from this world. No, I think you were hoping I’d tell you you’ve got nothing to worry about so you could clear your own mind, without doubt.

  ‘Now, how about a cup of strong coffee and some biscuits? You look like you could do with something inside you.’

  ‘Thanks, Martha.’

  ***

  Hugh took the carrier bag full of Diet Coke cans and put them in the fridge, not before taking two cans for himself and his guest. He came back into the living room and handed Joe his fizzy drink.

  ‘Got some bad news, continuing our conversation earlier on, if you’re interested.’

  ‘No thanks,’ Joe said. ‘I really could do without listening to more bad news. God knows I’m still recovering from my own personal problems.’ He could see Hugh looked rather disappointed. He’d wanted to tell him what he’d heard. ‘I’m only kidding, Hugh,’ he lied. Tell me. I’m all ears?’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. Fire at will.’

  ‘My friend said he saw a body in a black bag being wheeled out of his neighbour’s house. It doesn’t look as though it was just a rumour, after all. Whether or not it’s related to what we were discussing, I honestly don’t know.’

  Joe took a sip of his Coke, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and said, ‘Well, it’s not for us to concern ourselves over. Although, if it does and we’re given temporary accommodation elsewhere, then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, won’t we? Meantime, let’s watch the game.’

  By the time Michael and Jake made an appearance the topic had slipped into the backs of their minds... for the time being, at least.