by William Cook
She had seen this same pistol before – a year ago she had felt the cold steel barrel pressed against her temple in the woods down by the river. It was no less frightening to her now, but all she could feel was a deep sad emptiness inside. She was frightened because she knew there was no other way. She was scared that her Daddy would kill her Mummy just as he had killed her in the woods. She remembered the stillness of the forest as he led her deeper into the tall trees, the pine needles crunching under his big boots as he walked ahead. The river had whispered to her as she followed her father – ‘Run, Anne. Run . . .’ But she hadn’t run, she had done as her father instructed and closed her eyes, as she stood on the lip of the shallow grave he had prepared earlier for her.
Then there was nothing for a while, just blackness. She remembered the world revealing itself again to her – only this time it would remain different, like it was late afternoon in a light fog all the time. She had trailed the path back out of the woods and returned home. The first thing she did was find her mother sitting at the kitchen table, a large glass of brown water in her hand. Anne tried to hug her mother but it was no use – she couldn’t see or feel her and that was when Anne realized that her world was not as it once was. Her mother had cried and cried for what seemed like days as Anne witnessed the stream of police and neighbours searching the house and surrounding neighbourhood. On the third day they had given up the search and her father had been taken to the police station for ‘questioning.’ He’d returned that evening with a smug smile on his unshaven face and had told her mother that ‘Anne was lost. She has probably been abducted and we should prepare ourselves for the worst.’ Her mother had crumpled to the floor and wailed into the night, until her father came down the stairs and shut her up with a punch to the mouth. She had listened to her mother whimpering as the father pointed out the ‘positives’ of the situation. Now they didn’t need to ‘feed another mouth’ or ‘worry about looking after her.’ She was gone. But, of course, she wasn’t.
And now she stood next to the prone body of the man who had once been her Daddy. Now he was nothing but a monster and she knew he would only get worse. She thought of her mother, now reduced to a mere shadow of her former self – bloodied, beaten, humiliated . . . and pulled the trigger.
Anne’s mother stood in the bedroom doorway, her mouth agape as she took in what she saw in front of her. Her husband’s lifeless body lay sprawled across the bed, head turned in her direction, his face twisted in a weird grimace, a small black hole in his temple and a large splash of dark blood on the wall behind the bed. The smell of gunpowder and burnt flesh hung heavy in the air. She stepped forward into the room and slowly crossed the floor to stand next to the window, not taking her sight off her dead husband as she did so. She stood there trembling as she took in the scene, trying to work out what had happened. The revolver was sitting neatly in the shoebox, the lid next to it on the bedside table. Next to the shoebox was a picture in a frame. It was her most treasured memory of her daughter, Anne. The photo showed the two of them, her holding the small child in her arms, both of them smiling back at the camera with the river in the background and a picnic blanket set out on the grass next to them. The picture had been thrown in the attic along with Anne’s other belongings not long after she’d disappeared. Beverly had protested, but her husband’s reply had made her cease to question anything he did after that. She picked up the picture and clasped it to her chest
‘Anne, I miss you so much my darling. Please forgive me. Please . . .’
She stood like that for a long time, cherishing the memory of her daughter as the noon sun filled the room. She placed the picture down carefully and took one of her husband’s t-shirts from the over-flowing laundry hamper. She picked up the gun with the t-shirt wrapped around her hand and carefully placed it in her husband’s clawed fist. Making sure not to disturb anything else, she took the picture and closed the bedroom door behind her. She made her way to the kitchen and began pouring herself a very strong brandy before thinking better of it. She upended the bottle and poured the remains into the sink before calling the police.
She sat on the front steps in the warm sunlight, waiting for the inevitable approach of sirens and looked at her daughter’s picture. Her long fingers traced the smile on her daughter’s face and then fluttered up to the raw scars that lined her own. She knew that the scars would fade in time, but also that the scars inside would remain with her forever, but somehow she was ok with that. For the first time in a year she felt as though her child was with her again. For the first time since she was married, she could taste freedom and, ultimately, hope and she knew that she would be once again with her precious Anne when all this was over.
Singles’ Night
Moe Trappman sat on the rickety chair next to the open window, on the fourth floor of the skid- row rooming house. He sat silently, letting the warm breeze gently push against his gnarled face, as he watched people passing by on the street down below. He pretended to cock the trigger on his imaginary pistol, levelling his thumb and forefinger at pedestrians and lining them up as they went about their business. "POW", he mouthed. "POW, POW, POW," he repeated to himself. He quickly tired of playing around and resumed scanning the classifieds in the newspaper. He checked the 'Woman Wanting Man' singles columns and circled different ads with a red pen, numbering each one in order of eligibility. One particular ad caught his eye, it read:
SINGLES NIGHT - Downtown Mission
Join us for a night of fun and refreshments
meet other singles in your area
Drinks and Introductions start at 7pm
Downtown City Mission Church
Lower East Side, 6336 Tenement St
Moe reached across to his unmade bed and removed a worn scrapbook from under the filthy mattress. He carefully laid the book in front of him and lovingly ran his fingers across the cover before opening it. Pages and pages of similar clipped newspaper ads and classifieds covered in red crosses spread out before him as he leafed through the book, searching for a blank page. He reached across the small table and unhooked a small black back-pack from the hook on the back of the only door in the cramped room. He lay the bag on the table and took a large sheathed hunting knife from inside the bag. Moe slowly drew the gleaming blade from the leather sheath and tested the keen-ness of the blade on the back of his hand, watching as the tiny hairs effortlessly fell to the table as the razor-sharp steel passed across the surface of his skin. He carefully cut the ads from the newspaper and laid them out on the blank page, saving the middle section for the slightly larger City Mission Singles Night ad. Moe laid his left arm on the table and with the tip of the knife-blade, counted the marks on his scarred forearm. He rested the sharp edge on the clear flesh at the end of the row of scars and then quickly but deftly, dragged the blade toward himself, dreamily watching the deep red fluid run freely from the wound. Carefully, he placed each of the newspaper clippings on the blood pooled on the table and then stuck them on the scrapbook page using the blood as a makeshift but effective glue.
Moe moved the table so that the afternoon sun would hasten the coagulation process as the ads cemented their place in his 'scrapbook of death', as he liked to call it. He lay on the bed and lapped the remaining blood from his forearm as he forced himself to rest, in preparation for the mission ahead.
Moe opened the graffiti-stained door and entered the old run-down hall attached to the side of an equally decrepit church. The Mission hall was dimly lit but seemed clean and tidy inside. Moe spied the group of people mingling at the far end of the hall, he adjusted his tie and ran a hand across his oily hair to straighten it. He had his best thrift shop clothes on and had spent nearly half-an-hour spit-shining his old leather shoes. As he walked towards the group he felt his anxiety levels rise and the subsequent surge of the 'X-factor' as it enveloped his fear and boosted his confidence levels. By the time he reached the table laden with cheap beverages and snacks, his charm levels were fully charged and he was ready
for the hunt.
A stooped man who didn't look a day under ninety, smiled feebly at him and motioned for Moe to register his details on the clip-board that he offered. Moe wrote down the address of the primary school two blocks over and signed himself in as 'Ted Kurten'. He scanned the group of people, counting fifteen, six of which were female. The odds were against him but 'Ted' liked a challenge. The motley assortment of people hovered around the refreshments table and then fanned out to talk with each other, some made no pretense at conversation and preferred to study the gables on the high ceiling. The men looked like a mismatched collection of truckers, bums, and middle-aged business men. The women didn't look much different.
Moe tried to catch the eye of a few of them but it seemed as though no-one wanted to talk to him. He overheard snippets of conversation and realized that most of the group knew each other on first name terms. Moe pretended to put a donation in the mission charity box on the table and helped himself to a plastic tumbler of cheap cask wine - he needed something to bolster himself against the indifference in the room.
"Sooooo, how are you my lovely?" asked the deep-voiced trans-sexual who tapped him on the shoulder and now stood before him.
"Fine thanks," said Moe, engaging in a few sentences of small talk, now fully aware of the pretty red-head who sat on a chair on the edge of the throng, sipping wine from her tumbler.
'Ted' managed to escape the camp advances of the man-woman and took a seat next to the shy copper-head.
"Hi, my name's Ted" said Moe, extending his hand towards the petite woman. She visibly blushed, obviously impressed with his charm and replied, "Hi, my name's Virginia." And with that introduction. the hunt began in earnest for Moe.
As the night progressed, he subtly spiked Virginia's wine with the hipflask of Gin he'd brought with him and long before the rest of the group had dispersed, Moe had successfully steered the drunk redhead out of the hall and down the avenue in the direction of the river.
"Hold on," slurred Virginia, "where are we going, Ted?"
"I thought we'd have a drink down by the river, it's real pretty this time of night", said Moe, somewhat taken aback by the redhead's direct question.
"No, no, no, that'll never do big boy," she said, seemingly no longer shy and drunkenly provocative.
"Mmmm, what did you have in mind gorgeous?" questioned Moe, not sure what she was playing at but curious nonetheless.
"Come back to my place, it's just across the street there" she said, pointing to a run-down brownstone apartment block.
Moe hesitated for a second before deciding that going back to her place was probably a better idea than taking her down by the river. As they crossed the street, he reached around and cupped her small breast as he pretended to steady her. She made no attempt to resist him and Moe felt a familiar urge stir in his groin. He licked his lips with expectation and walked her towards the graffiti covered entrance of the apartment building.
Inside the dark foyer, Moe's mind was working overtime. In between vivid explosions of blood-drenched flashbacks his senses were bouncing off the walls. Trash covered the wooden floorboards and obscenities were scrawled over every available surface. The sheathed knife tucked down the back of his jeans rubbed against his every step, as if pushing Moe to unleash its cold fury on the whore. The stench of decay was overpowering and Moe was sure he could identify the distinctive coppery scent of warm blood in the air. His heart-rate quickened as Virginia led him forward into the dark hallway next to the towering staircase. She tightened her grip on his sweating hand, he could feel her tiny but sharp fingernails digging into the soft flesh of his palm.
Moe couldn't believe how quiet and dark it was inside the building, the thought occurred to him that the place was abandoned. They came to an old steel door at the end of the dark hallway, Virginia tugged an old latchkey on a chain from around her pale neck and inserted the key in the archaic lock. Moe's heart was pounding in his chest and cold-sweat cooled his top lip and the base of his skull. The door opened with a deep creaking noise, Virginia pulled him forward into the darkness and slammed the door shut behind him. He didn't have time to react before she gave him a deft shove between his shoulder blades and sent him hurtling headlong down the stairs into the blackness below.
Moe felt the first sharp step split the skin across the top of his shoulder in an explosion of white-hot pain, as it gave way beneath his own weight and the first bone broke with a loud snap. He continued to tumble down onto the jagged steps below, bones cracking, blood splashing for what seemed an eternity until the star-burst explosions in his brain ended abruptly as his skull smashed into the bottom step.
Moe heard the voices before his vision returned in a haze of blood. His head vibrated with pain as he realized he could only hear out of his left ear. He blinked his eyes and tried to move his limbs but could only muster the strength to groan. A dull yellow glow above him materialized into a dim light-bulb as his eyes slowly focused on his surroundings. He was in a large concrete boiler-room, bare except for a massive steel heating unit with arteries of pipes leading up into the shadowed ceiling and the tenement apartments above. The room was damp and the walls were barely discernible amongst the dark shadows.
He tried to move but could feel nothing below the neck and started to worry that he was paralyzed from the fall. The voices from the shadows grew louder and Moe became aware of a number of dark figures now looming over him from his prone position on the cellar floor. He tried to scream but instead licked the back of the dry rubber ball, firmly wedged in his mouth and secured with duct-tape.
He began to make out the faces that hovered above him - some wore masks, others leered back at him. Moe thought he recognized one of the figures, a well-endowed woman with three days’ worth of stubble on her face - the Lady/Man from the mission hall! He quickly picked out some of the trucker-types, a couple of the bums, and there she was - walking towards him, dressed in a black-PVC bodysuit and slapping a riding crop on her thigh with each step, her long red hair tied behind her head in a pony-tail. She stepped over him with a sharp stiletto and straddled him as if she was going to defecate. Moe tried to move but could only blink his eyes rapidly.
SLAP!
The riding crop whipped across his face and he immediately lost the sight in his right eye. Pain burst into his brain as he felt hot fluid bubble from his eye-socket and run down his cheek, pooling underneath his bruised skull on the concrete floor beneath. What was left of Moe's burst eyeball, hung by a thread, pulsing as it congealed on his bloody cheek.
The pain from his eye wakened Moe to the severity of his situation. He realized that he could feel a lot of pain now, all over his broken body. He tried to raise his arms despite the numb pain emanating from any small movement he made. SHWACK, stung the crop, as it sliced easily through the exposed flesh on his chest. Moe tried to scream but could only howl inside his skull as the pain from his cut nipple burned deep. He was now aware of being completely bound and the cold floor on his bare back, worst of all he was struggling to gulp back the complete humiliation of having his sex revealed for all to see. He knew the ugly scars that covered his shriveled genitals had repelled the women he'd met over the past two decades and he was more worried about the exposure, than the fresh cuts being inflicted all over his upper torso by the sadistic redhead. She paused for breath and wiped the sweat from her pale forehead with the back of her blood-spattered hand. A terrible smile stretched across her demure face.
He started to lose consciousness but was still all too aware, as one of the trucker-types pulled a pair of long-nose pliers from his hip-pocket and bent down past Moe's field of vision. Then another shape lent over him, a dark silhouette in red mist holding a glinting scythe, and then the deep voice of the transvestite boomed in his ear, 'Your pecker's mine creep'. Moe finally succumbed to unconsciousness as he watched the ginger-one slowly draw his own hunting knife from the sheath, obviously savoring the glisten of the sharp blade in the dim light. Blackness swelled and consumed
his mind, as he started to feel strips of flesh tear from his groin and his limbs being tugged like someone was sawing a hardwood branch off a dead tree.
Home Front
I ceased breathing, mid-breath. My heart flapped in my chest like an epileptic bird. Time stood still: the cold night air, cooled my stubbled cheek, the interior of the house was washed in antiseptic moon-light, bleached with one of the coldest nights this winter. I listened to the nuances of this dead house I knew so well. This big grand house that now stood so empty, the sounds of a family going about their business now silenced forever. Except I wasn’t alone now, as I held my breath in the back of my wardrobe, straining my ears for the sound of the intruder entering my bedroom. Despite my racing heart, I remained calm, steady – as I had been conditioned to be.
Moments before, I had heard the distinctive metallic clang, as the aluminium fly-screen was torn from the downstairs bedroom window. The creak of weight being placed on the sagging first-step of the staircase. That was enough to quickly drive me from my bed, as silently as possible, to the feeble sanctuary of my half-empty wardrobe. The clumsy steps belied his presence (for it was a ‘he’ – too heavy and plodding to be female) was now at the top of the landing – as heavy as myself by the sound of his movements. I took another breath of stale air and silently foraged on the shelf above my head for the shoebox. My hand rummaged across unopened Christmas presents gathering dust, old clothes that hadn’t been worn for a year, until finally I found the shoebox. I heard his deep breath on the other side of the wardrobe, like he was smelling me through the wall as he stood in the hallway.
