by Lex Sinclair
Christ! I’m really dying!
The voices were getting louder, again. The thing in the cubicle cringed.
‘This is it!’ A boy’s voice exclaimed.
Then the creature heard the ‘click clack’ of footfalls on the tiled floor. His heart accelerated.
‘It’s dark in here,’ a girl’s voice said.
He was momentarily blinded by the fluorescents strips overheard that had been flicked on.
‘That’s better,’ said another voice.
Shit! How many of them are there?
They talked quietly for a while about what would be the best route for them to take. Then one of the boys announced, ‘I’ll be out in a minute, I just need to piss.’
‘That’s a little bit more information than we needed,’ the first girl’s voice said.
The boy laughed.
Oh shit! He’s bound to notice I’m here.
In the men’s toilets there were only two urinals, two toilets, a washing basin and a separate tap, which was specifically drinking water. If the boy tried to open the cubicle and found it was locked, he might try and talk to him, or worse, wait outside and ask him for some directions, not knowing what was lurking behind the cubicle.
The door opened, and then the wet thud of footfalls crossed the room to the urinal. When the boy on the other side door finished and the water was sucked into the grated mouth of the drain, he done his zip back up and went to the washing basin to clean his hands.
Maybe he won’t notice? He hasn’t so far, the creature thought, crossing his rigid fingers.
The water ceased gushing out of the tap, followed by more footfalls. Then they stopped all of a sudden. The creature looked down, gaping at the white Nike trainers on the other side of the cubicle, right outside. The boy was standing about two feet away, and all that kept him from being seen was the locked door.
He jumped when the boy rapped on the door and said, ‘Excuse me. Is anyone there? Sorry to disturb you - but I just wondered if you could put my friends and me in the right direction...’ The boy waited. Then he added in a shaky tone.
‘Hello? Hello!’
The creature’s heart beat so fast he thought it would explode at any second.
The white Nike trainers moved out of his peripheral vision. However, he didn’t hear footfalls cross the room and exit the toilets. He must still be there.
‘Look, I know someone’s in there,’ the boy said. ‘I apologise if I scared you.
But could you just answer me? You’re kinda freakin’ me out, not saying anything.’
The creature didn’t know what to do. If he replied the boy would know for definite that someone was occupying the cubicle. If he remained quiet, the boy would probably grow tired of waiting and leave with his friends. He hoped.
He almost fell off the toilet seat when a, louder, deliberate knocking rattled the door on its hinges.
‘Hey! Are you all right in there?’
Please go away, the creature prayed. But the knocking persisted. Then it halted, and he didn’t know what frightened him most the knocking or the deafening silence that followed. The cubicle door alongside the one he was in, creaked open. The toilet seat lowered. The creature knew in that instant what he must do.
***
Paul stood in the foyer of the log cabin studying the map with Rachel and Louise while they waited for John to come out of the john. ‘He’s taking a long time,’ Louise said, breaking the silence.
‘He’s probably taking a shit,’ Paul said.
Louise shook her head and rolled her eyes, not the slightest bit amused by Paul’s vulgar vernacular.
A high-pitched scream from inside the men’s room made them all jolt. Louise was about to say something when they heard the glass smashing from the same room. Rachel gasped.
‘What the hell - ’
‘Paul, you’d better go and see what’s wrong,’ Louise said, her voice quavering.
Paul shot her a terrified glance that said he didn’t like the sound of that idea - but being the only other male, he didn’t have a choice.
Hesitantly, he crossed to the men’s toilets door, glanced over his shoulder at the two girls and then eased it open, guessing that John had more than likely fallen over or had cut himself.
It was far, far worse.
Paul began breathing in short, ragged breaths at the horrifying sight before him. He had never seen so much blood. It was all over the porcelain, tiled flooring and alabaster walls. The stench and sight of spatters of arterial spray caused his last meal to swim into his throat. He managed to keep the solids down and stumble across the room, not knowing where to look. He glanced at himself in the mirror for a split second above the washing basin - he was as white as the walls had been. The draught blew in from the shattered window above the urinals, as though a gaping mouth was breathing on him, making his spine to tingle and the hairs on the nape of his neck to rise.
What the hell?
Had John smashed through the window to the outside? That didn’t seem likely. His friend may have played a lot of pranks on them - mostly on the girls - but he knew when to stop.
A long congealing streak of faeces and blood stained the floor and walls from the urinal to the cubicle, where a door had been smashed in two pieces, leaving splinters jutting from the frame. Paul closed his eyes for a moment, wanting to believe above all the other tornado of dreadful thoughts that he was imagining this situation, and that it wasn’t actually real. The blood-stained room began to swirl. He couldn’t bear to look any more. He counted to ten in his head, thinking that what he saw couldn’t possibly be true, and when he looked again there would be no crimson mess anywhere. His mind refused to accept the images before him; that he must be having a hallucination or something.
However, when he opened his eyes again, the awful sight had not changed.
On feet that felt like they had been cemented into the ground, he gradually made his way to the cubicle with the smashed door, when his feet skated out from underneath him and he crashed to the floor, grunting.
Paul blinked away the stars in his vision, and then his mouth dropped open at what he stared at. The walls seemed to close in around him, fast. His heart slammed against his ribcage.
John’s body lay sprawled out on the floor beneath the toilet bowl where crimson liquid spurted and ran down the crevices in the tile floor from the severed stump where his head had once been, like a tropical fountain. In all the wild confusion, Paul failed to notice a black cockroach clicking its heels in haste towards a crack in the skirting board against the far wall.
A loud, guttural shriek startled the girls waiting nervously and the wildlife outside in the forest.
27
The creature fled into the darkness, which concealed him, amidst the towering pines away from the log cabin, and was actually able to see and hear the hammering in his chest against the bow of ribs, strips of flesh peeling off his skeleton as he ran.
Killing had never been so exhilarating, he thought as he ran, weaving in and out of the sentry of trees. He hadn’t wanted to harm the boy, but he gave him no choice. The boy simply wouldn’t leave him be.
He heard more distant screams, shrill, higher-pitched, probably girls.
They must have discovered the decapitated head of their friend staring up at them above the toilet when they lifted the lid. Soon there would be police surrounding the forest and the log cabin, concealing the area with crime scene tape. The creature desperately needed to get away as far as he could now before it was too late. Fortunately for him, the only eye-witness to his presence was dead. He had to stay hidden, though, at least for the time being. The cottage was a no go, as it would most likely be the one of the first places the police would search. Nevertheless, he had to find a good hiding place before the sun came up or he was doomed.
***
Derek was in the pub cleaning the tables when the front door burst open and gave him a start. But that was nothing to almost jumping out of his skin when he saw Paul collapse to his knees on the welcome mat, panting forcefully for breath, pale-faced.
‘Jesus!’ Derek cried. ‘What the hell happened?’ He darted over to Paul, who tried to get his breath back so he could speak.
When Paul’s heavy breathing eased, he finally managed to tell him what had happened. Derek went straight to the phone and dialled 999 without any hesitation whatsoever. He told the operator what he’d been told and that he required an ambulance and police services... then he returned to where Paul had fallen, lifted him up from under his arms and dragged the young man, plonking him down in one of the booths under the strain.
Rachel and Louise entered, trembling all over - the same terrified look in their eyes as Paul. Tears streaming down their wan faces.
Derek poured them all an ample glass of whiskey each and then said, ‘I’m going out there to see for myself.’
‘No!’ Rachel shouted. ‘He’ll kill you, too.’
Derek rested a hand on her shuddering shoulder and said, ‘I need to see for myself. I’ll just take a quick look and come straight back. Whoever did it, is probably long gone by now, anyway. You just stay here. The police will be here as soon as they can, ‘kay?’
Rachel seized his arm and sobbed, ‘Be careful.’
He nodded, concurring. ‘I will.’
Derek ascended the staircase to his bedroom, grabbed the shotgun from under the bed, loaded it, and then stuffed a handful of spare bullets in his shirt pocket, evoking what had happened only a few days ago. There could be only one thing out there capable of decapitating a person so quickly and effortlessly, he thought.
He knocked on Rhian’s door. Rhian answered his call after hitting the Off button on her Hi-Fi system. She stood motionless, staring at the shotgun by his side, scared. ‘Where’re you going with that?’ she asked, pointing to the weapon.
‘There’s been some trouble,’ he said. ‘I need you to go downstairs and stay with the group. Make sure they don’t leave.’
Rhian’s eyes grew big and round. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I haven’t got time to explain. I gotta go.’
‘Dad!’ she caught hold of him.
‘I have to go.’ He broke away from her, hurried downstairs and out the back door, following the trail into the pitch black forest.
Rhian made her way into the bar and saw the three campers shivering and weeping together. She went to the other side of the bar and fished out a box of Kleenex. Then she approached the booth, handed them the box before sitting down beside Paul, who seemed to be far away. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked no one in particular.
Rachel and Louise continued to weep and Paul stared out of the window, his face like stone.
‘Will someone answer me? Please.’
‘John is dead...’ Rachel managed, her mouth cotton dry.
‘Who’s John? Was he with you earlier on?’
Louise nodded.
Rhian leant back against the upholstery. This whole day had been a very bizarre day from the moment Rhian had woken and first heard of the ominous death of her dad’s best friend - although, her dad still wasn’t a hundred percent sure the ghastly thing he’d seen had been Charles - and it was getting a lot worse by the hour, it seemed.
‘John’s my boyfriend,’ Rachel said, snivelling. ‘Or at least he was my boyfriend.’
Rhian felt tremendous sympathy for the group, especially Rachel. She could hardly believe that it was the second death (depending on whether or not Derek was right about Charles) she’d heard about in the vicinity of her isolated home on the same day. And now her dad was outside, too - hunting down the killer.
‘How did he die?’
Rachel burst into another fit of tears and uncontrollable shuddering.
‘Sorry,’ Rhian said.
‘His head had been ripped off,’ Paul said, in a trance-like state, keeping his firm gaze on the window.
Rhian stared at him slack-jawed. Louise used a tissue and wiped her eyes and cheeks - which were stained in mascara tracks - dry.
‘And this happened, just now... outside?’ Rhian probed.
‘Yes,’ Louise replied.
‘Who would do such a thing?’ Rhian blurted. Then her mouth gaped when an answer to her own question flooded into her consciousness, drowning all her other confused thoughts. Her dad had gone outside, armed with a shotgun, because it had to be the walking corpse, (or what looked like a corpse) that may or may not be Charles.
What if he kills, Dad, too? she wondered.
‘Have you called the police?’ Rhian asked.
Louise told her that they were on their way.
So why the hell did Dad have to go outside, armed and ready? What is he trying to prove? Maybe he thinks he can catch the creature he talked about before it fled, like earlier.
‘It’s a full moon tonight,’ Paul said in a distant voice. A hunter’s moon. But he didn’t have the strength to utter that.
Rhian faced the window and gazed skyward and saw that the moon was full and shiny, casting a dim glow on the mountain. She didn’t quite fathom why Paul had said that, or what it meant. He’s probably just in great shock after what he’s seen. So would I be, and anyone else who had seen what they have.
‘I’ll get you all another drink,’ she said getting to her feet and crossing to the bar, wanting to do something to keep her mind occupied.
As she headed towards the booth a distant blast went off somewhere nearby.
She dropped the whiskey bottle to the hardwood floor, smashing it to smithereens around her feet.
‘Ohmigod!’ Rachel cried.
Rhian stood in the centre of the room, unmoving. The sudden blast which broke the stillness outside sounded very much like a gunshot. Louise started to hyperventilate. Rachel held her close, looking sallow.
‘It’s a full moon tonight...’ Paul said for the second time in the same tone.
***
The front door of the pub burst open. Rhian plunged into the night, sprinting for the trail that led into the deep forest. She flicked the torch on she’d got from the sideboard in her bedroom, shining the yellow glow in front of her.
Rhian had to know if her dad was all right. Who had been shot? That was the million pound question. The sense of foreboding crept up her spine like a snake to the back of her neck, wrapping itself around her, squeezing at her throat, cutting off her air supply.
She came to an abrupt halt when she heard a barely audible dragging of feet on pine needles and then on scraping the bark of a trunk nearby. She whirled, scanning the area surrounding her assiduously and wondered if it had just been her tattered mind playing cruel tricks on her, like it did earlier when they went to Charles’ cottage and she and her dad thought they’d heard a noise. The dragging sound seemed to have stopped, so she crept forward a few paces. Then it started again.
Rhian focused all her concentration, gazed skyward and saw something too grotesque for her mind to accept as tangible. Paralysed with absolute fear, Rhian opened her mouth, incredulous. She rocked on her feet. Her muscles numbed to the marrow. Then she fainted.
The wailing sirens, faraway, grew louder as the police approached. The hideous creature carried the corpse to the top branches where it balanced the body, prior to climbing back down to where Rhian lay, unconscious. It ascended the towering pine tree, using its bat-like wings, with ease and graceful agility, then watched as the police patrol cars and an ambulance appeared from the other side of the mountain on the rolling hilltops over the serpentine road.
Stars sparkled like diamonds strewn across the night sky, as the purple mist evaporated into thin air. Blue and red wa
rning beacons illuminated the mountains, but the forest remained for ever dark.
28
4 Months later...
Tom put the phone down with a numb hand, stunned. His mouth was cotton- dry. He desperately required a strong drink in his shocked, dull state.
Kate wobbled into the room, holding a glass of orange juice, struggling to carry the extra weight bloating her stomach, adding increasing pressure to her back. Tom regarded her listlessly, and then averted his gaze. ‘What’s wrong?
You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
He didn’t answer immediately. She slumped down on the sofa and groaned.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, feeling as though he was speaking to her from a great distance of time.
‘Yeah. My back’s a little sore, that’s all.’
‘I got some really bad news,’ he said, swallowing hard.
Kate frowned and shifted in her seat. ‘Go on. What is it?’
‘Charles has gone missing - presumed dead.’
Her face cheeks flushed a rosy red; tears began to brim. She buried her head in her hands and sobbed. Tom mentally cursed himself for saying anything... although she had a right to know. Charles was her friend, too.
‘How can they presume he’s dead if they don’t have a body?’
Tom sat down beside her and held her in his arms. ‘Well, remember the pub - The Travellers - where we first met Carlton and Charles?’ Kate nodded. She would never forget that day when they had been snowbound if she lived to be hundred. ‘The police found a camper’s body, decapitated, in the log cabin we were headed to that day,’ Tom went on. ‘Also, two days later they found two bodies hanging upside from the treetops. They had been skinned alive. I mean, skinned alive. Christ Almighty. Can you imagine that?
