Even Pretty Things Rot: A dark, heart-pounding psychic thriller

by Farah Ali

  Alma didn’t respond. Norma slapped her, hard, her homely face suffused with disgust and sorrow. ‘You’ve killed Mother and Father, how could you? I’m going to tell everyone what you did.’ She grabbed her wrist. ‘But first we need to get out of here.’

  The slap woke Alma from her stupor and she quickly weighed up her options. If they escaped the fire Alma would be in serious trouble. She’d deny it of course, say it was an accident, the police would probably believe her, but Norma would know. Norma would poison the town against her and never let her forget, the rumours would dog her for the rest of her life. No one would ever marry her, and worse, Bert would hate her. In the beginning Alma had flirted with her sister’s boyfriend to annoy her, but now she saw her kind, loyal future brother-in-law as the only one who could rescue her from her mundane existence.

  And at that moment the cruel, avaricious part of Alma reared its ugly head and she made a terrible decision. She had never loved, nor had she been particularly fond of her parents, especially her father who was almost seventy. It had disgusted Alma when her forty-seven-year-old mother had proudly announced her pregnancy, never bonding with her little brother. As for Norma, the sisters weren’t close, Alma had always hated the way their parents favoured her plain, boring sibling even though she herself was so much better looking.

  Alma took one last look at Norma comforting Simon then bolted out of the attic, locking the door, lingering a little to ensure the latch was firmly in place. Ignoring Norma’s pleading screams Alma ran downstairs spluttering as the fire and smoke consumed everything in their path. The wail of sirens in the distance spurred her on and she ran into the nearest bedroom towards the window.

  But Alma never made it out—the satiny material of her long pyjama legs had worked their way beneath her feet and she slipped, banging her head on the bedpost, knocking herself unconscious. By the time the firemen stormed the house Alma had suffered severe burns and all her hopes and dreams were lost forever.

  The tale was told. Frightened, Lila lowered her eyes unsure how Bert, silent and immobile in the fading light, would react.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Alma approached Bert tentatively laying a hand on his arm watching him carefully as he stared at her rough discoloured fingers.

  ‘It’s all lies, love. Horrid, scandalous lies.’ But there was a tremor in her voice and her words rang hollow, even to Lila.

  ‘Your parent’s remains were found by the basement door. What was left of Norma and Simon was found in the attic,’ said Bert raising shell-shocked eyes, his voice clogged as if he had a cold.

  ‘Yes, but so what? It’s nothing, she’s trying to distract us that’s all,’ Alma said, attempting a smile.

  Bert continued as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘The firemen never said they were locked in, but if the door burned away nobody would have known. How...how could she know about the attic Alma? It wasn’t mentioned in any of the newspapers and she’s from Deerleap, how could she find out about where the bodies were found? How could she know so much about your family, unless—’ He gripped Alma’s shoulder and she winced.

  ‘Norma wanted you to know, Bert,’ interjected Lila. ‘She wanted you to learn the truth. She says her soul can’t rest until Alma is brought to justice.’ Lila was lying, she hadn’t spoken to Norma at all, but she wanted to whip Bert into a frenzy.

  ‘Shut up you,’ hissed Alma. ‘Bert, it’s not true, I didn’t do anything wrong, I’m the victim here.’

  ‘Did you start the fire? Did you lock Norma and Simon in the attic?’

  Alma managed to pull away. ‘No, I swear on all that’s holy, it’s not true.’

  She backed away as Bert advanced, head down, his shoulders rounded like a bull. Alma spotted the roll of surgical knives displayed on the grass and picked up the largest one, pointing it at Lila, then at Bert.

  ‘TELL ME THE TRUTH,’ roared Bert.

  Alma quailed, perhaps noticing for the first time how menacing her husband could be—her ears ringing with shock for he’d never raised his voice to her before. Her mind raced to come up with an adequate lie but she couldn’t think coherently, couldn’t think of a way to placate him. How could the day have ended up like this? Not once in all the long years since the fire did she think her deeds would come back to haunt her. Afraid and angry, and ultimately confident in her ability to control Bert, Alma took a gamble.

  ‘Okay, all right Bert, it’s true.’ Her good eye filled with tears. ‘But I only did it because I loved you, don’t you see? It was all for you, you were too good for Norma, she’d have just brought you down. The fire got out of control, that’s all.’

  Bert’s whole body sagged and his cheeks quivered. ‘You killed them? You locked Norma and your baby brother in the attic?’

  ‘I just panicked, I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, I wasn’t thinking properly, you don’t know what it was like, all that smoke and confusion, I think about it every day.’ She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘Haven’t I suffered enough? Look at me, Bert.’

  And Bert did, almost blinded by tears.

  ‘You have to forgive me and forget about the past. I was young and stupid. We’re together and we love each other, that’s all that matters, don’t you think? Come here, love.’

  Lila’s stomach clenched as Bert raised his arms and took an instinctive step towards his wife.

  For a moment, Bert wavered. He loved Alma, more than life itself. But Norma rose up before him. Kind, gentle Norma and the future they would have had together. He saw them living in a nice smart house with five boisterous children around them at the dining table. A normal life. He looked at the cabin he’d built in the middle of this godforsaken forest and thought of his menial job scooping ice cream in Deerleap. He thought about how he’d devoted his life to Alma’s happiness, never once putting his own needs first. Not to mention all those young women he’d helped murder for her. And for what? To spend his life with a woman who’d murdered her own family in cold-blood, who’d sentenced his first true love to a horrible death?

  Could Norma see him, did Norma know what he had become? Gasping, he clutched his head.

  Alma’s face shone. ‘Let me hold you, Bert. Everything will be all right. You’re overwrought.’

  Bert looked at his wife, really looked at her. And for the first time he saw Alma for what she was—not a victim, but a monster in a pretty dress. His despair rode the crest of the wave and smashed against the rocks. His fingers curled as he lunged towards her.

  ‘You have to pay for what you’ve done, you BITCH!’

  Alma screamed. She still had the surgical knife in her hand and held it out as Bert closed the gap between them, panting in terror. Bert grabbed her and she plunged the blade into his arm. Bert howled and struck her. Alma flew onto the grass, her wig tumbled off as she rolled, still clutching the knife, stabbing Bert repeatedly in the calf as he came for her. He hobbled away clutching his bleeding leg.

  ‘Now I see you Alma, now I see. You’re as ugly on the inside as you are on the outside.’

  It was the cruellest thing he could have said and it sent Alma over the edge.

  ‘NOOOOOOOOO!’

  With a screech she attacked him with renewed vigour, stabbing with one hand, clawing with the other. She stabbed his shoulder and almost got his neck but Bert managed to grab hold of her wrist, bending it back until she shrieked and let go of the knife. Now she kicked and punched, spittle foaming on her lips as Bert held her at arm’s length.

  ‘I’ve always despised you and I never loved you Bert, you were just a means to an end, I only wanted you because I couldn’t stand living in that house with horse-face Norma and the rest of those peasants. I’m glad they’re dead, glad you hear me! I’d do it again if I could. And you want to know the truth?’ Alma grinned maniacally. ‘Your beloved Norma begged me to unlock the door—she was still alive when she burned to death, I heard her screaming.’

  Wounded, and nearing the end of his endurance, Alma’s words snapped w
hat was left of Bert’s self control. With a surge of adrenaline he swooped down, picked up the knife and in one swift movement sliced Alma’s throat. Her hands flew up to the slit as she tried to stem the gouts of liquid streaming from the wound. Her good eye widened and she stared at the man who had shared her bed for so many years.

  ‘Bert...’ Blood bubbled from her mouth and she collapsed bleeding out on the grass.

  Bert staggered, his hand clamped to his side, watching Alma die.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Lila, kneeling with her hands tied behind her back and the noose around her neck, watched the events unfold with feverish trepidation. Alma was dead, for that she was glad, oh so glad, but she was still at the mercy of a man almost out of his mind with grief. At least he would dispatch her quickly, she thought. She froze, not sure whether it was wise to draw attention to herself now.

  Bert stood over Alma’s body, swaying, staring at nothing, the knife loose between his fingers. As the sun disappeared entirely he came to with a start, looking around him as if waking from a dream. His eyebrows snapped together when he saw Lila and she blanched, shutting her eyes as he trudged over with the knife raised...

  The tightness around her wrists eased. She looked up in astonishment. Her hands were free. Cautiously she slipped the noose over her head, but remained kneeling, prepared to beg Bert to spare her life.

  Bert sighed, his fleshy lips drawn downwards. ‘Is Norma at peace?’

  Swallowing, massaging her throat, Lila nodded. ‘Yes. She wants you to know she’s happy with Simon and her parents. She misses you and loves you.’

  ‘I want to be with her so bad.’ He pressed two great fists to his eyes and sobbed.

  Slowly, wincing at the stiffness in her body Lila rose. Hesitating, she touched Bert awkwardly on the arm. ‘Norma says you did the right thing. She can rest easy now and she’s waiting for you.’

  Lila looked towards the trees knowing Jack was out there somewhere, injured and trapped. She considered making a run for it—she was weak but Alma had stabbed Bert many times and surely he was too injured to give chase. But he knew this part of the forest much better than her and she couldn’t afford to get lost as dusk gave way to night.

  But she had to try—Jack’s life depended on it.

  She backed away, hoping he wouldn’t notice until there was a large distance between them. Bert wiped his running nose on his bleeding arm and looked straight through her.

  ‘Take my rucksack. It’s still on the other side of the cabin. It’s got torches, water, rope, a first aid kit...’ he trailed off. ‘The land is mean around here.’

  Stunned, Lila could only goggle at him. Was this a trick?

  He pointed. ‘Your Inspector is in a cave about a couple of hours from here, to the east,’ Bert continued in a weary, toneless voice. ‘There’s a splintered tree that was struck by lightning—you’ll know it when you see it. You better hurry he’s in a bad way. Keep heading east, you’ll get to Deerleap.’

  Bert looked back down at Alma, his mouth working. He showed no interest in Lila and she staggered past the flower beds, dizzy with euphoria, past Pari, past the tree Bert had tied her to, grabbing the black rucksack on the ground and pulling the straps over her shoulders.

  Before she plunged into the shadow draped trees she looked back one last time and saw Bert carrying Alma up the steps into the cabin. Lila’s eyelids fluttered and she caught the scent of smoke and burning wood in the air.

  She understood. Taking a deep breath, Lila fled into the forest.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Jack alternated between trembling and burning up. It followed a pattern—he would shiver uncontrollably for five minutes then sweat for ten. He felt wretched, more wretched than he could ever remember, even worse than when he caught meningitis as a child. At least his mother and father had been there to hold his hand and he’d lain on a soft, clean bed as the illness battled against his immune system. But it was like hell in this dank cave with rocks poking his back and his splintered bones punishing every movement with razor-sharp shooting pains.

  Worse was the way the dark had come for him, closing around his body like burial cloth. Jack, with a sort of morbid fascination, watched the patch of sunlight near his feet diminish until it extinguished altogether. To him the light represented Lila and her death sunk him into a quagmire of sorrow and guilt. He prayed Bert had taken mercy on her and she hadn’t suffered.

  Oh God, please let it have been quick. Grief tightened around his heart as he waited, with increasing desire, for death to claim him too. Ideally Jack would go to sleep and not wake up, but he knew there was a lot of misery to endure before he could succumb. He wasn’t hungry at all but he would have sold his soul for just a drop of water to ease his parched throat.

  When the noises began he forgot about his thirst. Some he recognised, like the hooting of an owl, the bark of a fox, or the secretive rustling of rodents, the odd snapped twig, but others made the back of his neck prickle. On numerous occasions Jack was sure he heard human laughter and shrieks, mutters and growls, and hissing whispers that sounded uncannily like his name.

  Some came from above, where he had fallen into Bert’s trap, but the ones that made Jack clamp his teeth together in sheer terror emanated further down the cave, in that narrow corridor rendered invisible by the night where the stone jutted downwards leading deeper beneath the forest.

  Jack tried to convince himself he was hallucinating, but he couldn’t shake off the very palpable sense of being watched and talked about. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his hands against his ears. I’m imagining it. I’m injured and it’s affecting my brain. There’s no such thing as ghosts, it’s just folklore, stories the people of Deerleap tell their children to keep them from going into the forest and getting hurt, that’s all.

  Soon his hands dropped into his lap and he fell into an uneasy doze.

  ‘Hey Jack. How ya doing?’

  With a jerk Jack woke, howling as he ignited the rotten pain in his broken bones and squinted in the darkness. Uncomprehending he stared at the softly illuminated man leaning against the cave wall opposite him. The man, with buzz cut sandy-hair and a lantern jaw, smiled at him as if they were old friends, his waxy skin stretched taut across his cheekbones.

  Jack swallowed, wrapping his arms around his chest. The temperature had dropped several degrees since he’d fallen asleep.

  ‘Is this a dream?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I...I know you...don’t I?’ Jack recognised the face, but maddeningly he couldn’t think where from. The hot ache in his leg didn’t help.

  The man cocked his head, waiting patiently.

  ‘Are you from Deerleap?’ asked Jack.

  The smile twisted a little. ‘Yeah, that’s right Inspector.’

  The emphasis on Jack’s title made him think of the photographs in the corridor at the police station. Jack gaped.

  ‘David Ash?’

  A hollow smile. ‘Yep. I prefer to be called Inspector Ash, but you can call me David.’

  Jack ran a hand over his grimy face. ‘This is insane. I’m seeing things. You died. You’re dead.’

  David grew stern. ‘Now that’s not very polite, is it Jack? Can I call you Jack?’

  Nodding Jack stared at David. ‘I thought you...committed suicide. You...you walked off the top of the hospital.’

  David threw his head back and laughed giving Jack a view of the three silver fillings in his upper molars. ‘Come on Inspector Montague, do I look dead to you?’

  Jack had to admit he didn’t. In fact apart from a soft glow and a yellowish pallor he thought the man didn’t look too bad.

  ‘So all this time you’ve been hiding in the forest? Why? What about your wife and kids?’

  David pulled his legs up resting his palms on his knees. ‘More or less. I live here now. It’s not too bad, there’s a lot of us living here so I’m never lonely. As for my family—’ he shrugged. ‘I heard the bitch has already mov
ed on...with a friend of hers, can you believe it? That’s my reward for all my hard work and now my kids are calling another man Daddy.’ He exhaled, shaking his head in disgust. ‘That’s why I left in the first place, you know? She was always whining, so ungrateful, never happy with anything.’ He snorted. ‘Women. Ah well, that’s life. You were married weren’t you Jack?’

  Jack nodded, not liking the lack of warmth in David’s hungry shark eyes and his own growing unease. It didn’t make sense. Even in Jack’s pain-riddled state he knew what the man opposite him was saying made no sense. Living in the forest? What about the smashed up body buried with lots of pomp and ceremony before Jack had arrived in Deerleap? What about the video footage of the Inspector walking off the hospital roof? The autopsy report? He decided to bring it up.

  David rolled his eyes. ‘It was a cover-up. Obviously. I was good friends with the mayor and the police chief. I wanted a fresh start and they helped me. It didn’t take them long to replace me, did it? But I’m not offended. Now I’ve met you, I like you.’

  Confused, Jack swallowed hard. Lila had warned him about something when they were in the forest searching for Abigail McNally’s body. What had she said? He rapped his knuckles against his forehead but the memory fled.

  David’s black eyes never left Jack’s face. When he spoke his voice was gentle and full of commiseration. ‘You’re suffering aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I want to help you. Inspector to Inspector. What do you say?’

  Jack, unable to shift the nagging sensation he needed to remember something important, stared. ‘Can you get me out of here? Help me back to Deerleap? My leg is messed up,’ he choked off a sob, not wanting to show weakness in front of his predecessor.

  ‘Of course I can, my friend. Why do you think I’m here?’

  ‘How? We don’t have any rope.’