The Butcher Box Set

by Sian B. Claven

  Creepy was the only way Kalli could describe the empty arcade. Arcades were meant to be busy with the noise of excited children and the bleeps and blops of the various games. This relic of a fun house was dead silent, not even the games whispered out anymore, and without any children in sight it felt like something out of a horror movie.

  The ancient owner was busy behind the counter, checking bowling shoes and rearranging prizes. She watched him for a moment, observing how shaky his hands were and how he squinted to see what he was doing.

  She approached the counter, taking out her notebook as she walked. She unhooked the pen from the spine and flipped open to a fresh page.

  “Mr Salsone?” she asked, standing close to the counter.

  “It’s too early to be asking for change for dollars, little miss. Go buy a soda and they’ll give you change for the games.” He hadn’t even looked at her, so clearly this was a common issue, and simply continued with his task.

  “Mr Salsone, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m not here to play arcade games.” Kalli watched him intently. “I’m here investigating the death of Kyle White. Do you remember him? He used to hang around here a lot before they found his body.”

  “Zombies Now.” The crooked man said, hunched over a box of prizes.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Zombies Now. I’ll never forget how much Kyle loved that game. He played it every single time he came in here even though it didn’t pay tickets. He just liked it.”

  The tone he spoke in made her uncomfortable. His voice was haggard and raspy, like someone who had smoked way too much the night before, and every now and then he would give a chesty cough, take out a stained handkerchief and wipe at his mouth.

  “You described a person you saw with Kyle the weeks leading up to his death.”

  She was trying to coerce him into telling her his version, rather than recite his own statement to him. She wanted discrepancies; she wanted to know what he left out.

  “Yeah, that’s true. Older fella, dark hair and a bit of stubble. Thought he knew Kyle ‘cause he was certainly excited to see him whenever he walked in. Never spoke to him though; he never came to the counter.” Another chesty cough, another wipe of his mouth, and he moved to rearrange the smaller prizes on display on the counter.

  “Mr Salsone, is there anything else you remember about him? Anything you may have recalled afterwards?” She didn’t want to insult him outright.

  “You don’t think I wouldn’t have told the cops if I did remember anything?”

  He had stopped to look at her now and she couldn’t help the shiver that passed through her. The years had not been kind to him, neither had smoking and drinking. He didn’t have whites in his eyes anymore, they were yellow and you could see the small arteries quite clearly. He had bushy white eyebrows and white hairs sticking out his nose and ears. His skin was sallow and wrinkled and what little hair he had on his head was grey. His large hook nose looked dirty, but Kalli suspected he just had bad skin care.

  “Well? Do you think I wouldn’t call them or what? Why are you so curious about that little lad’s death anyway?”

  “I’m conducting my PhD thesis on a string of murders that occurred in and around our town.” She quickly produced the letter from her supervisor and the Dean of her department, as well as her ID. “And I don’t want to leave any stone unturned.”

  He appeared to read it, but he didn’t squint, therefore Kalli assumed he didn’t particularly care, and continued. “I wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything left out by the police investigating the murders then. I just have a few more questions, please.”

  He handed her papers back to her, wiped his mouth and nodded. “Alright then, what do you need to know?”

  Kalli slid a reprint of the artist’s sketch towards him. “Do you still stand by your description of the suspect? You don’t have anything to add?”

  He didn’t touch the picture. In fact, he seemed to pull away from it. “I’ll tell you what I told them cops all those years ago. I didn’t get a good look at the guy ‘cause he never approached the counter, but he had stubble and dark eyes. He seemed friendly enough to Kyle; heck, I even thought it was his older brother. How was I to know he didn’t have one?”

  “Older brother?” Kalli asked. “You mean, not an older man, but maybe an older kid.”

  “What older kid is going to kill another kid and cut off his head?” Mr Salsone asked. “It had to be an adult.” He wrung his handkerchief in his hands, suddenly nervous. “No kid could do that.”

  “But you thought it was his older brother. This description looks more like a man in his thirties, but by saying something like that you’re implying it could have been someone younger.”

  They were interrupted by a few chesty coughs this time and Kalli waited while Mr Salsone gathered himself.

  “Mr Salsone, please, this is so important for my thesis.”

  He took a raspy breath and placed a weathered hand on top of the glass counter. “Yes, he could have been a teenage boy, an older one mind you, but he could have,” he finally conceded.

  Kalli had what she wanted and nodded, speaking her thanks and bidding him farewell before rushing out of the arcade.

  As soon as she arrived home she set the kettle on. While the water boiled, she ran upstairs and sat at her computer in her newly converted study. She spent the next hour researching the surrounding high schools, the printer to her left just spitting out photo after photo of the boys who attended there, getting their pictures from the year books and various other school sites available.

  It wasn’t easy; not all schools had loaded their older yearbooks online yet and she had to shoot off several emails to some of the high schools to request copies be emailed to her. She wouldn’t be getting those today.

  Once she had printed all she could find, she gathered them and stuck them up one at a time while checking if they matched the description. If they were the wrong race or hair colour, she discarded them. Once done, she scanned them, counting how many she had gathered. She had just over one hundred and fifty pictures stuck up on boards across the room. It wasn’t great, but it was a start.

  Her stomach rumbled and she remembered her forgotten kettle. She had wanted to make some coffee, but her stomach was now asking to be fed. She went downstairs and opened the fridge, staring inside to see if anything appealed to her. She looked at the time and decided that now was as good a time as any to take a break and head out to find some food.

  She threw her jacket on and reached for her car keys, but they weren’t there. She looked around and saw them lying on the table in front of the window in the lounge. She couldn’t remember putting them there, but shrugged it off as being distracted. She walked over and retrieved them, and as she looked up she froze. Staring at her from the house next door was Robyn; simply staring at her, nothing else.

  A car backfired and Kalli glanced out the other window before turning back to Robyn, but she was gone. She gave herself a mental shake and strode out, her grumbling stomach pushing out any other thoughts or cares she could have at that moment.

  After driving around for what felt like forever, Kalli finally decided to stop at the local pub and grill for supper, just to keep things simple. She walked in and the noise hit her before the smell did.

  There were pockets of people all around the pub, some sitting, eating and talking, while others lingered around drinking, while yet others played pool in the corner.

  It wasn’t a five star restaurant, but it would do. The smell was surprisingly good. Burnt sausages and fried eggs were just some of the aromas that hit her nose and made her mouth water.

  She pulled up a high chair at the bar and inspected the wood in front of her before resting her elbows on it. She waited patiently for the bartender to notice she was there, all the while scanning the chalk menu on the wall.

  “What will it be, honey?” he asked, coming over and wiping the bar with a dirty rag.

  Kalli tried not to thi
nk about the rag. “I’ll take a burger and fries and a beer.”

  “Coming up. Hey, Lou,” he called over his shoulder, “give me a burger with fries.” He walked off to get her beer.

  She looked around again and noted the lonelier of the patrons were all seated at the bar, either staring into their glasses or at the TV mounted on the wall in front of them. The loners were an older crowd, older than her, and they seemed oblivious to the youthful and jovial banter going on behind them.

  The chair to her left slid out and bumped hers, and she turned to view the new occupant, surprised by the sight of an unshaven Smith taking the seat. His eyes were red and swimming, and the glass of alcohol he held slopped around dangerously.

  “Hey, Clive,” he called, “Give me another one.”

  He stared at his glass.

  Kalli was sure he didn’t even know he was sitting next to her until he said, “I feel damn rotten and ashamed.” She looked around to see who he was talking to, but he continued, “About your sister, Kalli. I feel damn rotten and ashamed that I was never able to find out who killed her.”

  Her stomach knotted; this was the last situation she wanted, a drunk, guilt-ridden cop woefully spilling his guts to her. Her chest tightened, her hands got sweaty and her hair stood on end. She didn’t do people well anymore and the anxiety she had spent years of therapy trying to cope with now came back with crippling force.

  “She kept saying she saw this Skeleton Girl and the way she described her it sounded like one of the victims of the Butcher murders. I didn’t piece it together; I was still new to the job.”

  He gave a mighty belch and wiped his mouth on the back of his jacket sleeve.

  “But my partner remembered it and pulled up the old case files. I just didn’t get how she could know so much detail about Robyn … that was the victim in case you haven’t gotten there yet,” he explained, taking a moment to pause and drink deeply from his glass. “Where was I?”

  He stared at her, but if he was expecting an answer she wasn’t in any way ready to give him one.

  “Oh, yeah, she described that victim Robyn and my partner suspected her of foul play, you know, but we couldn’t figure out the how or why and still we suspected her, well, he did. I thought she was just a sweet kid with the worst of luck.”

  Another deep drink and he still hadn’t realised that Kalli hadn’t said anything.

  “He thought she was making it up, about seeing Robyn, but I don’t know, Kalli,” and his eyes met hers again. “I don’t think so ‘cause I’ve seen her. I’ve seen Robyn. I thought if I ignored her long enough she’d go away and she did for a while, but since you’ve been back …”

  The bartender placed her beer and food in front of her and a glass of amber liquid in front of Smith. Kalli shivered slightly and thought about seeing Robyn in old Mr Wild’s house when she went to get her keys. She should have known then that an anxiety attack was coming. She was clearly hallucinating, as was Smith, and his sudden drunken appearance by her side and his confession of guilt was just the trigger required to send her spiralling out of control. She closed her eyes, ignoring the rest of his drunken babble, took a few deep breaths and calmed herself.

  She wanted to say to Smith that she had seen Robyn too and that it was just the mind tricking the person into thinking they saw it, as a way of coping with the grief and guilt, but she knew Smith was way too drunk to be reasoned with. She opened her eyes and sipped her beer, signalling the bartender over.

  “Sorry, can I get this to go?”

  He nodded and took the plate away.

  Kalli stood up and placed a hand on Smith’s shoulder, saying, “I forgive you,” before she went to where the bartender was ringing up her bill.

  After paying, she left, ignoring the sight of Robyn in the mirror that lined the wall between the shelves at the back of the bar.

  Chapter 5

  The Butcher

  It had been months since he had been able to stalk a new piece. Every part of his body was aching, as though his skin was on fire. The itch drove him to madness and he didn’t know what to do about it; the fear of being caught was ever present. They were still looking for Kyle White’s killer.

  Animals did nothing for him anymore. They didn’t even soothe the itch that burned him from the inside out. He had tried everything from new ways of killing them to skinning them, and sometimes even eating them raw. Nothing satisfied him. Nothing satisfied the itch.

  He would spend day after day sharpening his knife, praying for an end to his torment. Sometimes, he would test the sharpness of his blade by slicing his arm. Sometimes, he wanted to go deeper, so it could all end, but something always held him back.

  The weeks came and went and before he knew it the leaves were turning to the golden reds and browns of autumn, and his sleepy little neighbourhood began preparing for Halloween. There would be several house parties hosted by the older students while their parents took younger siblings trick or treating. He had been invited to a few, but wasn’t sure if he could endure forced social interaction when he was suffering like this.

  Halloween was on a Saturday this year and the morning dawned crisp. He spent the whole day with his family putting up decorations and preparing for the trick-or-treaters who would come by later. He kept to himself, mostly, only engaging in conversation when he was asked a question or to do something.

  His family didn’t pay him much mind; he would go through these phases of being quiet and withdrawn and they accepted that it was part of who he was.

  His older sibling handed out candy to the kids who came over, while he sat at the living room window, watching their gleeful bodies bouncing up and down as they received their bounty, and then moved on to their next target.

  One boy specifically caught his attention. He arrived with a group of friends and waited patiently for his turn to receive candy before he followed his friends. They debated about what they had been given and one of his so-called friends pushed him to the ground and took candy out of his little bag. They all called him a sing-song name - “Stupid Face Stanley! Stupid face Stanley.” They then ran off laughing while little Stanley, wiping his face, tried to gather what candy he had left. He smudged the make-up on his face; he was meant to be Frankenstein’s monster, but he looked more like a miniature green alien.

  Stanley walked off in the opposite direction and, as he watched the boy go, his itch intensified.

  He got up quickly, not bothering to tell his sibling he was leaving. He exited out the back door and went around the house, walking in the same direction as the dejected Stanley. The boy’s slumped figure was just ahead of him, heading towards the edge of town, where the forest surrounding their homes started.

  It was secluded. It was perfect.

  Stanley clearly wanted to be alone in his misery.

  From this distance it was hard to make out details about the boy. It was dark and the street lights did little, but he didn’t care. The itch needed to be satisfied before he was driven insane.

  Stanley took a small right-hand path and made his way into the forest, defeated and dejected. His shoulders shook slightly and it was clear he was crying. This poor boy needed to be put out of his misery and The Butcher was going to do that for him.

  He didn’t approach immediately; they could still be seen from the main road. He paused at the path and glanced around, making sure there were no eyes keeping watch. The wind was picking up and carried the sounds of happy children trick or treating. A fine drizzle started to fall.

  Satisfied that no one had seen him following Stanley, he took to the path before he lost his target. The wind whipped his hair back and forth as he moved as quietly as he could, and he had to wipe his face periodically when the drizzle became a soft patter of rain. He panicked a little, for he couldn’t see Stanley anywhere. Trying not to slip as the forest floor transformed into a bed of muddy leaves, he sped up.

  He stopped abruptly, shaking slightly with hands clenched tightly. He couldn’t believe h
e had lost the opportunity to satisfy his itch. He almost felt like crying, like Stanley had been, and the frustration nearly broke his heart.

  Then he heard the wailing.

  At first he thought it was the wind blowing through the trees, but when he strained his ears he could make out the broken voice of a blubbering boy not far from where he was. Excitement filled him again and he made his way towards the sound.

  Stanley sat atop a large rock, hugging his knees, his face dripping green make-up. He didn’t notice he was being approached from behind.

  His eyes trained on the boy, he carefully climbed the rocks. Sure of his success, he stretched out his hand, ready to grab the boy by his hair, but something must have alerted him. Stanley suddenly turned and his bright eyes filled with fear as he took in the stranger reaching for him.

  Stanley screamed and scrambled up.

  He lunged for Stanley, grabbing for him. Stanley tried to fend him off, but he was much bigger than the boy - they started to grapple. He tried to get Stanley into a headlock, but the boy kept wriggling out of his grasp. The rock they were wrestling on was slippery and it was hard to keep a grasp on Stanley and maintain his balance, especially since Stanley was higher up than he was.

  He needed to get the upper hand, and needed to get Stanley in a firm clench so he wouldn’t get away. Stanley had seen his face, he could identify him; there was no going back now.

  The wind howled more fiercely, as though egging the two of them on, and the rain beat down harder, stinging skin. He had Stanley by his wrist and held on desperately. He slipped down the rock again and adrenaline coursed through his body. He pushed Stanley back, using the little weight the boy had as leverage to get higher up on the rock. Both were on top now, and he was stronger. He moved to put the boy in a headlock, but again the boy wriggled away.