The Butcher Box Set
Page 33
Robyn
Robyn couldn’t believe what she was seeing. James had managed to incapacitate his entire family in one fell swoop. She had to do something. She could see Bart was attached to the boy and pulling strings like a puppet master, but she had to find a way to get through to James or to save the family before it was too late.
She moved forward and, like a demon, Bart’s head twisted one hundred and eighty degrees to look at her, his eyes entirely red.
“Stay out of this, whore,” he said, except it wasn’t his voice.
It was too rough, deep and gruff to be Bart’s voice. It was something else, something else masquerading as Bart.
A demon.
Pure evil.
Perhaps Bart had been possessed himself. Maybe that was why from a young age he had committed such vile acts. It didn’t matter now. Robyn had to stop him.
She bit her lip and moved forward regardless of the warning and, before Bart could attack her, she slapped her ghost hand through Sylvana’s face, waking her up.
Bart jumped her and started to strangle her, pushing her to the floor.
_____
Sylvana
Her mouth tasted horrible, and her tongue was thick, as though it was swollen. She opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to get her tongue to form words. Her brain felt as if a heavy fog had replaced her mind; she couldn’t think straight. She wasn’t sure where she was or what she was doing there, but her arms hurt.
She tried to raise her head, but it felt heavy, like a bad hangover. She blinked a few times and, when she finally managed to get her eyes open, she saw before her the most bizarre sight she could have imagined. James was tying up a boy who looked just like him. Charlie was bound, crying through a sock ball, a little away from them, and Diana lay on the floor in front of her.
Sylvana shook her head again, and it felt like the air was charged with aggression. She could sense that something bigger was happening here.
She swallowed hard and said, “James? James, please. You don’t have to do this.”
James glanced at her and finished with his brother. Getting up, he crossed over to her and kicked her in the stomach. “Shut up you, stupid whore,” he growled, going to fetch his katana.
The little boy that looked like James was sobbing, clearly scared of what was going on.
“James, please, why are you doing this?” Sylvana prompted.
James returned and knelt in front of her. “Because I want to. Don’t you get it? I don’t have to do this; I want to do this.”
Sylvana shook her head. “No, you’re such a good kid.”
“You don’t know me.” James spat in her face and stood up. “You have no idea who I am. You want a goody-two-shoes? Look at Charlie or Clinton, the perfect little angels my parents managed to produce.”
Diana groaned softly, and Sylvana glanced at her. “James, please, don’t do this.”
“Shut up!” James shouted. “Shut up and stay still or you’ll be my first.”
Sylvana chewed on her lip, looking around for any possible way to escape.
_____
James
He didn’t know where the Dark God had gone now in his need, but he could still feel his presence around; he just couldn’t hear his instructions. James wasn’t sure if he should wait or if he should continue with the plan. The air felt electrified, and he felt aggressive for no reason. He looked at Clinton crying pitifully on the floor and wondered if he should start with him. No, perhaps Charlie, because she made the most noise. Or Diana while she was still out.
What he did know was that Sylvana had to be absolutely last.
James went over to his baby sister and held his katana up
“Time to go bye-bye, Charlie,” he said.
“James, no!” Sylvana screamed. “Don’t do it!”
James lunged forward and stabbed Charlie through the heart. As he withdrew his blade, his baby sister slumped forward on her little chair, and it tipped over. A pool of blood formed around her body like a hellish halo.
“Oh, my god! Oh, my god! Oh, my god!” Sylvana screamed.
_____
Robyn
He was winning, that much was clear. He was too powerful to overcome. She could feel her energy draining away, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she disappeared forever, unable to fight him any longer.
It was Sylvana’s screams that brought her back to spiritual consciousness. She looked over and saw Charlie lying in a pool of blood, and the sight of the little girl, dead at the feet of her older brother, sparked the necessary rage Robyn needed to fight back.
He wasn’t expecting it.
He expected to win.
She pushed against him, gripping his fingers and prying them from her neck. She got up, lifting as though rising from the dead all over again, and heat came off of her that she had never experienced before.
Bart’s eyes widened, and he stumbled back to get away from her, but Robyn wouldn’t let go of his fingers.
“You killed her,” Robyn said, her anger rising along with the heat. “You killed that beautiful innocent child.”
She screamed, and everything in the house shook, causing James to look up from where he was about to stab his brother.
_____
James
It wasn’t the Dark God causing this. It was as if an earthquake was happening, but only to their household belongings. The ground itself didn’t shake, but everything in their house did.
He looked around frantically. “God?” he called. “God?”
“James!” Robbie called as he walked through the front door. “Oh, my god, James, what are you doing?”
James spun around and swung his katana at Robbie, but Robbie was faster and quickly disarmed his son.
“My god, James, what have you done? What have you done?” he screamed as he saw Charlie. He let go of James and ran to her, checking for a pulse. “You’ve killed your sister.”
James reached for his katana again and ran towards Robbie, screaming, but Robbie grabbed his hands - both hands were clenched around the katana - and roughly ripped it away.
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked.
Robbie picked James up and sat him on a chair, taking some of the cable ties and tying him to the chair, before rushing to free Clinton, Diana and Sylvana.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Sylvana. I own this house,” she explained, sitting up and rubbing her head. “I am here because of a letter your wife sent.”
Tears flowing, Robbie asked, “What happened? What did he do?” He knelt by Diana and shook her lightly. “Baby, wake up? Baby, please wake up.”
He rocked back and forth as he shook her, as though trying to comfort himself.
Sylvana stared briefly at Charlie’s lifeless body and hugged herself. “I’m going to call the police.”
She went out the front door and opened her phone, dialling the police and waiting for an answer. As she waited, she looked inside the house, and it was as though she saw things, a different reality superimposed on what was there. She saw Robyn, the girl from her childhood, battling Bart. They appeared and disappeared as though one minute they were there and the next they weren’t. Sylvana didn’t even notice the operator asking her what the emergency was as she watched Robyn push Bart back with rage evident in every shove. She wrapped her arms around his ghostly neck and started to strangle him.
“Uh, help,” Sylvana said into the phone, completely mesmerized. She managed to give the address before dropping the call.
_____
Robyn
She knew where the rage came from. She knew it was from all the victims, everything they had been through because of him, everything they had lost out on because of him because he had decided to become a killer. She could feel the energy leaving him. She could feel he was weaker. She knew she was winning, but she also knew that this was it, this was the end. She could feel the other victims in the house come to her now, see their silhouettes surrounding her
and giving her the energy she needed to win, she could taste their anger at the thought that such a small innocent child had been murdered in their very midst for simply existing in the wrong space and time.
_____
Sylvana
Sylvana couldn’t take her eyes off the two spirits locked in battle in front of the stairs. Robyn was glowing bright white like an angel, and it seemed, the more she strangled Bart, the whiter she glowed until Sylvana was squinting to see them.
With a loud shriek that made all the glass, from the windows, from the picture frames, burst into a thousand shards, both Robyn and Bart dissipated into dust particles, and the air was clear.
Sylvana took a step back, shaking her head in disbelief, before she missed the step and fell backwards, striking her head with a sick crack on the concrete.
_____
Epilogue
Charles
“It’s good to have you back,” Charles said, kissing the hand he held in his hands. He watched as Sylvana opened her eyes, blinking several times.
“What happened?”
Charles kissed her hand again. “We can talk about it later.”
“No.” Sylvana stubbornly tried to sit up, and Charles had to place both his hands on her shoulders to stop her. “Is it true? Is the little girl dead?” she asked.
Charles bit his lip and gave her a short nod. “Yes, it’s true. Killed by her older brother, I can’t believe it. I know it might sound horrible, but I’m so thankful that it wasn’t you at the end of that blade.”
He stood up from the chair he was sitting on; he was right beside the hospital bed. He could see she was in a lot of pain from the hit to her head. The bandage wound tightly around her skull probably didn’t help with the dull throbbing ache he was sure she felt.
“When you were outside you lost your footing and hit your head pretty bad,” he explained, pouring water from a jug beside her bed into a glass. He popped a straw into the glass and held it for her so she could take a small sip.
“What is going to happen to the boy?”
“He’s been sent for psychiatric evaluation, and then he’ll probably be tried and sentenced to an asylum of some sort. He was really loony. Kept talking about some Dark God.”
“Hmm,” Sylvana hummed and rested her head back.
“Sylvana.”
“Yes, Charles?” she asked.
“When you’re out of here, I’m selling that house.” He took her hand in his again.
Sylvana smiled. “Yeah, I think I can let it go now.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, it was a guardian angel, I guess.”
Charles smiled. “You get some rest. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
_____
Other Books by this Author
HORROR TITLES
The Kiara Books
Ensnared
Liberation
The Butcher Books
Tatum
Kallista
Sylvana
The Asylum Series
Asylum I
Asylum II
The Watcher Series
Watcher
The Watched - Coming Soon
To Watch - Coming Soon
The Demon Cat Khristmas Specials
Killer Kitteh Khristmas
Merry Meow - Coming soon
Jingle Fur - Coming soon
Stand Alones
The Culling
#RIPJohn - Coming Soon
Belladonna - Coming Soon
Buried - Coming Soon
Hex - Coming Soon
Shh… - Coming Soon
The Priestess - Coming Soon
The Reaper- Coming Soon
The Witch in the Woods - Coming Soon
FANTASY TITLES
A Spacehiker Adventure
Unlikely Hero
Hidden in Plain Sight - Coming Soon
Homeward Bound - Coming Soon
MURDER MYSTERY TITLES
Bullseye - Coming Soon
Stones - Coming Soon
GENERAL FICTION TITLES
Balancer Books
Neutral Ground - Coming Soon
Holy Demons - Coming Soon
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hailing from Johannesburg, Southern Africa, Sian B. Claven has enjoyed stories for all her life, whether she was reading them or making them. She has written for as long as she can remember, but Ensnared is the first book she decided to publish. Moving towards writing more for a horror genre, when Sian isn’t thinking of ways to terrify people, she enjoys writing science fiction stories, poetry and rather long and gushy birthday wishes. When she isn’t working on her writing you can find her knitting, scrap booking, reading, or playing Xbox. Sian was previously a reviewer for The Blithering Bibliomaniacs and clearly doesn’t know what the words rest and relaxation mean, at least not in the traditional sense.
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