by Farah Ali
Even Pretty Things Rot
Copyright © Farah Ali 2017
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
A Note to the Reader
Also by the Author
Sample from Web of Scars
Chapter One
‘Pretty girl. Aren’t you a pretty girl?’ A moist crooning in her ear. A clammy hand on her inner thigh.
Then Maura in a teasing sing-song whisper. ‘Ready or not, here I come.’
A snorting horse, stamping feet, skittish eyes, the pungent odour of manure.
A husky voice filtering through the mist. ‘Lila. Look. Are you ready to see?’
‘Mama?’ As always her heart leaps with a fierce joy.
‘Look, Lila. Look.’ Her mother’s voice echoes and fades into a chasm of darkness.
Lila pivots in the swirling fog and runs towards a speck of light. Bathed in sunshine she stands barefoot in long grass that pokes and scratches. Shielding her eyes she gazes up at the derelict farmhouse.
The windows are cavernous and black and watchful.
‘Lila. Can you see?’ A gruff voice. Relief washes over her. Papa is here.
‘Look.’ Firmer, angrier now.
‘What is it, Papa?’ Her lips form soundless words.
And now she is inside climbing the stairs, the hallway clock loud and calamitous.
Tick, tick, tick.
On the landing past her parent’s bedroom, past Maura’s bedroom, towards her own. Mould mottles the walls spreading black fingers towards her. Bloated flies swarm and she bats them away in disgust. They drop onto the faded carpet to thrash and die.
Tick, tick, tick.
Her fingers close around the brass knob and her eyes squeeze shut as the walls murmur and hiss.
She doesn’t want to look. She doesn’t want to see.
Lila removes her hand, paralysed by fear, a scream trembling beneath her chin as the door opens anyway.
Tick, tick, tick.
Blood. So much blood. Splattered across the wooden floor, across the walls, across her pink bedspread, across the bodies slumped nearby.
Maura is there, Mama is there, Papa is there—Mama sprawled over Maura as if to protect her, Papa against the wall, a hammer clotted with hair and brain by his feet, a revolver in his limp hand, part of his head blown away spraying the wall behind him.
Three pairs of glassy eyes swivel in her direction and Mama slides over Maura, jerking across the sheepskin rug towards her.
‘Lila. Look.’
Sticky fingers clasp her ankle and she flees. Moonlight returns and she huddles in the straw.
Horseshoes clopping, squeals, kicks hard enough to shake the stalls.
Tick, tick, tick.
A heavily breathing silhouette approaches. A disembodied voice calls her name. She shuffles into the corner and hides her face.
‘Come out, pretty girl.’
Tick, tick, tick.
Mama’s urgent hiss. ‘Look.’
Tick, tick, tick.
She turns. Layers of shadow peel away.
‘Lila.’
Ears flat, swishing tail, bucking. Rearing, a wild scream, a savage blow to the side of her skull.
Pain, so much pain. Blood pools around her head.
A deep sigh.
‘Oh Lila.’
Boots near her head, footsteps trudge away and darkness comes.
Look-tick-tick-tick-see-can’t-you-see-I-don’t-want-to-look-Lila-look-look-Lila-look-pretty-girl-look-pretty-girl-look-look-LOOK—
***
With a ragged gasp Lila jolted awake leaping from the bed and careening into the corner of the room. She slid to the floor and hugged her knees trying to ease the hammering of her heart. Tearing off her soaked t-shirt she crumpled it into a ball before tossing it aside.
The nightmare was familiar but the oily terror lingered. Still shaking she rose stiffly in the dark room feeling her way towards the bathroom, bumping her knee on the corner of a table hard enough to bruise. With a cupped hand she rinsed out the inexplicable tobacco taste in her mouth. She didn’t smoke, had never smoked, hated cigarettes, and yet whenever she had this dream her tongue was coated in the acrid substance.
Pausing, she tilted her head straining to catch the tail-end of a whisper.
Something bad is about to happen. Tick, tick, tick.
Shuddering, Lila roused and padded into the tiny kitchen, brushing past a silent bird cage, a range of antlers on the wall and a creaking rocking chair salvaged from a roadside.
It was three in the morning. Moonlight streamed through the curtainless window as she opened a drawer scrabbling for the turquoise she kept inside. Settling down at the table Lila clutched the rock in one hand and closed her eyes.
A bead of sweat rolled down to her navel yet her small nipples puckered in the cold air. Biting her bottom lip Lila sifted through the cacophony of images in her head, trying to sort between the recognisable and the foreign.
Something floated to the top.
She gritted her teeth, tensing as a riot of colours blossomed behind her eyelids.
Flowers. Lots of flowers. Undulating in the breeze. Pretty.
She smiled, relaxing.
Waves of soft, golden hair and a crown of flowers. She could smell them. Lila lifted her nose sniffing the air greedily. Her nostrils flared. She winced. The floral perfume masked a sickly sweetness. She switched to breathing through her mouth, but the nauseating smell permeated inside.
She frowned. Flowers growing in a patch of soil...but not in a pot, nor the ground...
Lila’s eyes flew open.
‘Oh no. Oh no.’
Her fingers uncurled and the turquoise fell to the scuffed linoleum with a dull thud. Lila clasped her head, yanking her hair, hoping her stinging scalp would clear the vision.
‘I don’t want to see. Don’t make me look.’
Blue-purple m
arbled limbs, eyeless sockets, a young face contorted into a silent scream.
Wailing, Lila fled, stubbing her toe on the corner of the wall, stumbling outside barefoot and half-naked, across the stubbly grass into night’s embrace.
Tick, tick, tick.
Chapter Two
Jack squinted at the glowing red digits next to his head and swore. It was three in the morning. He had to rise in a few hours, but hadn’t slept at all. Staring at the ceiling listening to the clicks of his eyelids he tried to will the insomnia away. Growling, he tossed the duvet aside and reached for his robe bashing into a cardboard box on the way to the kitchen. He swore again, rubbing his shin.
‘That’ll teach me for not unpacking properly.’
He poured cornflakes into a bowl and added honey and milk. Settling into his faithful chair he switched on a lamp in the sparsely furnished room, the cereal crunching between his teeth jarring in the silence, the stiff leather cold against his bare limbs.
After gulping down the dregs Jack set the bowl aside and leaned back clutching the armrests. Today would be his first official day in charge of Deerleap Hollow’s police station. There was a churning sensation in his lower belly and it surprised him. How stupid, I’m too old and jaded to have nerves.
Jack’s fingers drummed against the thick seam. He wanted a smoke. Or a drink. But he was determined to turn over a new leaf. To cut down on meat and watch what he ate. To exercise more. It was atonement in a way. There was a word for it, wasn’t there?
‘Detox. Detox in Deerleap.’
Swiping a hand over weary eyes Jack recalled his panel interview. The mayor, a large bearded man who chewed on an unlit cigar throughout, twinkled at him.
‘Are you sure you want to leave the city? I was born in Deerleap and love it with all my heart, but it’s a sleepy place. Sure you won’t be bored?’
And Jack, taking a deep breath and imbuing his voice with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, explained how he wanted to settle somewhere quiet and wholesome, how he’d grown tired of the grime and crime in the city, how he believed he could make a positive contribution to the isolated town.
One councillor, a petite woman with a sharp chin, an intense gaze and a thin reedy voice whose name he forgot immediately peered over her glasses, rustling the papers detailing his achievements and recommendations.
‘What about your family? What do they think?’
Jack balled his fists beneath the table. He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t have a family with me. I mean, I have a sister and my father back in the city, but not...not anyone else. And they’re happy for me.’
The police chief, Angus Brent, a striking man with a Roman nose and deep wrinkles around his eyes, twirled a pen between his fingers, studying him thoughtfully and with what Jack deemed to be genuine sympathy.
He knows. He knows I’m running away, hiding here. Knows what a mess I made of everything. Of course he does, but he hasn’t shared it. Thank God for that. Jack forced himself to maintain eye contact.
The other councillor, a short man with almost no hair, chuckled. ‘I don’t think he’ll be bored. Deerleap Hollow isn’t as innocent and boring as you would think, Inspector Montague. You just need to scratch beneath the surface. Actually, we’ve had our fair share of horrific crimes here. A bartender was stabbed to death by his wife and her lover a couple of years ago, and eighteen years ago a man killed his entire family, apart from one kid who survived, and then turned a gun on himself—’
Pointy chin interrupted in a loud voice, pushing her glasses up. ‘Well, you’re certainly qualified Inspector, overqualified in fact, and you have an excellent clearance rate.’
The mayor (Peter or Patrick?) leaned forwards, shooting the balding councillor a withering look from the side. Jack noted the reaction with amusement. They don’t like anybody talking down Deerleap. I’ll have to remember that. A place like this will be rife with politics.
Angus Brent, who Jack would report directly to, launched into an explanation of how the town worked. Jack listened with interest. He would have a lot of freedom, more or less free reign leading a tiny team consisting of one sergeant and three officers.
At the end of the interview Jack asked what had happened to the last Inspector. The four-person panel exchanged looks with downturned mouths. Angus was the first to speak.
‘You’ll find out soon enough so I may as well tell you. David Ash jumped off the hospital roof. It was a tragedy for us. He was a good man and a fantastic Inspector.’ The police chief sighed. ‘Ash must’ve had a lot of demons.’
Peter (or Patrick) waved his cigar. ‘It was a real blow to the community. He left three kids and a pregnant wife. So sad.’
Jack was lost for words. Great. I’m stepping into a dead man’s shoes.
As if reading his mind Angus adjusted his tie and said, ‘David will be missed, but Deerleap will welcome you with open arms, Jack. Don’t worry about that.’
The other three nodded solemnly and Jack shook their hands before he left.
And here he was six weeks later sitting in a dimly lit room in this small attractive house waiting for the sun to rise so he could go for a run before getting ready for work. He blew out his cheeks.
‘Did I do the right thing? Coming out here to the middle of nowhere? I mean, this place isn’t even on most maps.’
Silence was Jack’s only answer and he gazed out the window massaging his stubbly jaw. With an abrupt movement he rose, striding into the bedroom to change into his running gear. It was still dark outside but he had a lot of energy to burn and with sleep eluding him he might as well do something productive.
Closing the front door gently behind him Jack paused on the wooden porch to stretch. A wry smile lit his haggard cheeks as he surveyed the lamp-lit street. The rugged mountain served as a striking, almost frightening, backdrop, blanketed with shadows yet ever-present and watchful over the town.
His neat house was on a long road of identically neat houses each with a postage-stamp front garden and a swinging gate, all very prim and proper. The only abnormality was the pair of deer antlers on each door. Every single one. It had confused Jack when the attractive estate agent showed him around the neighbourhood.
‘What’s with the antlers?’ he had asked. ‘I also saw them on all the public buildings on my way here. For decoration? Or does it mean something, like a talisman?’
Adjusting her blouse Clarissa nodded. ‘Yes, like a talisman, more or less. What do you know about the history of Deerleap?’
‘I’ve done a little reading online. I know about the Ayal people and the massacre. And the curse. It’s uh...an interesting story.’ Jack coughed. He’d read about it on his laptop one evening certain it was all made up.
Shifting a glossy brochure from hand to hand Clarissa cleared her throat. ‘Such a horrid event. At least the conquerors got their comeuppance, I suppose. Imagine being doomed to fester inside the forest for all eternity—if you believe in all that.’ She giggled. ‘But that’s when the tradition began. It’s all superstition of course, but you’ll find antlers on every building in the Hollow. It’s been that way for hundreds of years. For protection. And I guess it’s a way to recognise and atone for past sins. We have a festival every year to celebrate and pay homage to the Ayal and the deer. We don’t hunt or cull them because of the covenant.’ She fluttered her eyelashes. ‘You probably think we’re crazy.’
Jack shook his head, but he did think it a little silly to be scared of ghosts and the hunting ban surprised him the most. Clarissa picked a bit of fluff from his sleeve and he stiffened, stepping away from her.
‘Not crazy. It’s quaint and quirky and I like it. After living in a city it’s nice to be somewhere with traditions.’
And he meant it. Deerleap Hollow was a relief. The neighbours were cheery-faced and welcoming and his fridge was currently stocked with their casseroles and cheesecakes. For someone who had spent years in an apartment block never bothering to learn his neighbour’s names it was
something of a culture shock.
The wrought iron gate squealed on its hinges and loping along the road Jack made a mental note to fix it, his spirit rising as he drew clean chilly air into his lungs. He jogged down the hill and turned left. Every house he passed was dark and he felt a stab of jealousy beneath the sternum. At this time normal people were in deep sleep, safe in the arms of their husbands or wives. He pumped his arms wanting to leave those pillars of smug domesticity behind.
After fifteen minutes of running alongside forest and pastures he slowed down passing an isolated lane. The trees were ancient and the canopy only allowed slivers of moonlight to filter through. Curious, he paused, staring down the narrow pathway before shrugging and walking through. Deerleap was his territory now and he wanted to familiarise himself with every part of the sprawling town.
He shivered as the breeze wicked away his sweat and rubbed his hands together, blowing his stiff fingers and glancing up from side to side. There was something oppressive about the way the boughs grappled with one another and the unnatural stillness was a little eerie.
Get a grip. You’ve faced down knife-wielding murderers and the scum of the earth and you’re acting like a fool over some creepy trees? It’s only this quiet because the birds aren’t awake yet.
In defiance he swung his arms, whistling then singing, throaty and full-bodied, completely out of tune. But the words to his favourite rock song died on his lips when he looked up and saw a white apparition swooping towards him.
The first thought (though he would deny it later) entering his mind was that he’d disturbed a vengeful ghost. This was rapidly replaced by images of a barn owl hunting prey, but as the figure charged nearer his jaw dropped. His fight or flight mechanism kicked in and he tensed, raising his fists, preparing for battle.
‘What the...’
Concerned, he lowered his arms. It was a woman, a young woman he thought, running as if her life depended on it. When she was only metres away he realised with a jolt that she was topless and barefoot.
Has she been mugged? Assaulted? Raped? Domestic abuse victim? He squinted, but nobody was chasing her.
