Ruin

by G G Garcia

  Demi felt strangely attracted to him. He was good looking, not stunning, and seemed like a nice guy. Maybe the fact that he wasn’t drooling over her, like the other two, made him more attractive.

  I hope he’s not gay. She smiled to herself. I’ll make more of an effort to speak to him once we get going again. If he asks for my number or friend requests me, I’ll accept it.

  Paul sighed, “I’ll go and see if she’s okay.”

  Caring as well. Demi watched as Paul stepped out into the driving rain.

  She eventually was going to see how her friend was herself, but Paul had beaten her to it.

  “Careful out there!” Tony yelled at the driver. “That thing’s still out there.”

  “That thing?” Paul laughed. He was now getting soaked and decided to leave his driver’s door open. “Ya mean that deer that ran by Carol.”

  “Who the fuck is Carol?” Demi asked.

  “It’s what Paul calls his car,” Craig groaned.

  “We don’t know for sure if it was a deer,” Tony called out from the car.

  “Well, what else could it be?”

  “Um...”

  “It must have been an animal of some sort,” said Paul and then mocked Tony, “Unless it’s the hitchhiker with the yellow raincoat.”

  Paul continued to chuckle and the sodden male went over to Emma, who seemed to have stopped vomiting.

  She stood up and looked to her side, and smiled at Paul.

  “You okay?” he asked her.

  “I didn’t even drink that much.” She wiped her mouth and brushed back her wet blonde hair.

  “I think I saw ya take a couple of smokes from that spliff at the party,” said Paul, trying not to sound like her father. “Maybe ya been sick due to a mixture of that and the car journey.”

  “Maybe,” she sighed.

  Paul looked around and although the sky was slowly brightening up at a snail’s pace, he could hardly see a thing, apart from what was ahead, but that was down to the car’s headlights.

  He looked up to the gloomy sky, the rain assaulting his face, and laughed, “We better get back inside before we get pneumonia.”

  “Of course.”

  She turned on her heels and they both began to make the short walk over back to the car, but three steps had only been achieved and the pair of them stopped.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked Paul with a quaver in her tone. The pair of them were looking into the darkness, opposite the pub, and with their backs to the Vauxhall Corsa.

  Ignoring the rain, Paul gazed into the darkness. “I think so.”

  “What does it sound like to you?”

  “Like ... runnin’. I can hear growlin’ as well,” Paul said in a whisper.

  They both stood, frozen with fear that had swam through their frames, not caring about the relentless rain. Now the confused passengers from inside the car were telling the two to hurry up and get inside.

  “I think we should get back to the car,” Emma said, but neither of them did.

  The sound of feet slapping the concrete was speeding up and getting louder, and both Paul and Emma gasped when the shape of a man could be seen hurtling towards them.

  Emma was the first to be attacked.

  Chapter Five

  Melvin continued to peer out of the window and had seen nothing else after the figure that went by before. He was sure it was a man. Maybe he was running from someone. Had he been attacked?

  Melvin scratched his hair and was now alert. He was never going to go back to sleep now. Worse, was that he would have to spend the day with his annoying wife whilst sleep deprived.

  It’s going to be a testing day, he thought.

  His ears twitched when a sound could be heard. More screaming? He opened his window and could clearly hear the screams from a female in the distance. It sounded like it was coming to the left, in the direction of Stafford Road, near the pub.

  “What the...?”

  The screams died and Melvin decided to shut his window. He had no idea what was happening, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He kept the lights of his house off and went back to the sofa.

  So far, there had been two screams and a man had ran past his house a few minutes ago. Was that enough to call the police? He decided not to take any action.

  Melvin decided to go upstairs and try and sleep again. He didn’t feel sleepy, but he knew tiredness would catch up with him by the afternoon.

  He entered his room and could see the shape of his wife in the dim area. He crept into the bed and pulled the duvet over his body. He was wearing boxers and a creased T-shirt, and lay down with his eyes gazing up at the ceiling. His wife was still snoring, and a two second long sound of flatulence leaving her back passage made Melvin screw his face in disgust.

  For fuck’s sake. Maybe I should just put my pillow over her face and be done with it.

  In the first years with his wife, they would have non-stop sex, anywhere they could. Sometimes they’d be watching TV and she would give him a cheeky nudge and tell him that she was going upstairs to slip into something more comfortable, which was the sign that she was up for a bit of hanky panky. These days, the only comfortable thing that he wanted his wife to slip into was a coma.

  He continued staring and could hear the heavy breathing to his left. He looked to the lump under the duvet and just couldn’t relax.

  He reached over and gave her a nudge. This is what he sometimes needed to do on a night so she would shut up for a few minutes, and then the snoring would start again. Even when he did nod off, sometimes her snoring would be so loud that she would wake him up and the whole process would start again. He would nudge her and then nod off once more.

  A few weeks back, he had forgotten himself, and was half sleeping when he turned and punched her in the back. She woke up, winded, and unable to breathe. She fell out of bed, crawled along the carpet for a few yards, and desperately tried to get her breath back. Melvin denied any knowledge of what happened, and had convinced her that she must have fallen out of bed and knocked the air out of her lungs.

  “This ain’t happening,” Melvin moaned, and sat up.

  He could hear the sound of more running out at the front, getting louder and louder, forcing Melvin to quickly get to his feet and head to his bedroom window. He peered out and could see the area getting lighter. He turned his head to the left and could see a male sprinting away from the pub. This was a different individual to the one Melvin had seen before. The running man was only twenty yards away from their house and appeared to be in a panic. He seemed to be running away from someone ... or something.

  “Don’t come here,” Melvin whispered. “Don’t you fucking come here.”

  He stepped away from the window, the rain beating down, and took a few steps back, waiting for the individual to go by his house. He turned around and could see the outline of a canvas picture hanging above the bed. Years ago, it was a black and white picture of an eerie forest, but the picture was quickly removed after the catastrophe that hit the Leslies. It reminded them of the terrible night/early morning that occurred on the second day of November, twenty-one years ago.

  Melvin snapped out of his daydreaming. His heart made little shudders against his ribs and he gasped once he heard his door being banged.

  “Holy shitballs.”

  Chapter Six

  The male had appeared from the darkness and jumped at Emma, like a hunted stag, knocking her over, and he was now on top of her. The man was dressed in black trousers and black shirt and his clothes were soaked. Emma’s screams pierced the early morning as her crazed attacker buried his head in her neck. Paul Newbold was the first to react, jumping on top of the man that was attacking her, but the deranged individual was strong. Paul had his hands around the back of the man’s neck and tried to drag him off from the screaming female.

  He then grabbed the dark hair of the attacker and pulled as hard as he could, eventually pulling him off. He wrapped his arm around the aggressor’
s throat, then jumped and wrapped his legs around him and fell back as if he was participating in a wrestling match. The two men fell to the floor, the rain still beating hard, whilst Craig, Tony and Demi remained in the car, staring in shock. All three inside the vehicle were failing to process what was actually happening.

  “Give me a hand!” Paul screamed out at the remaining three individuals in the vehicle, and Tony was the first to step out.

  “What do you want me to do, man?”

  “Anything! I can’t hold him much longer!” Paul called out to Tony.

  The crazed man was snarling and thrashing about, sometimes catching Paul with the back of his head, and didn’t seem to be letting up. Tony ran over to the maniac and kicked him in the stomach. The attacker was silent for a few seconds, vomited, and then continued to thrash about as if he was being electrocuted, with Paul still trying to keep a hold of him.

  “Fuck it!” snapped Tony, and went to the boot of the car. He opened the boot and took out a tyre iron. He ran over to where Paul and the other crazed individual were, and raised the metal, but Tony hesitated.

  “Just do it!” Paul snapped.

  Tony rained two blows to the man’s head and this seemed to have stopped his movement. Paul was hesitant on releasing the man, but Tony looked at the face of the attacker and then looked at Paul and gave him a reassuring nod.

  Soaked to the bone, Paul stood up and looked at the individual that had attacked Emma. He looked just like an average guy. He had dark hair, was wearing dark clothes, and was a bit chubby around the face.

  Each one of them was wondering what the fuck that was all about, but they all remained silent. Demi and Craig finally stepped out of the vehicle and the three males helplessly gazed at Emma.

  “Jesus Christ in Heaven.” Demi went over to her friend, crying, and crouched over her.

  Demi threw her head to the side and screamed at the males to help her, but Paul knew Emma was done for. Emma was still alive, coughing and spluttering, but her throat had been so badly mutilated that Paul and the others knew that she only had seconds to live. She lay with Demi crying over her, and they could see the rain, washing Emma’s blood to the side of the road.

  “We need to get help!” Demi screamed.

  Paul was the first to walk over to her and crouched down next to Demi. Emma had stopped moving and both knew she had passed away. Her throat had been torn out, and Paul guessed that the carotid artery had been ripped away, which would have caused massive blood loss and no chance of survival.

  The rain was dying off and Paul put his arm around the sobbing Demi Mason, a young woman he hardly knew.

  “What else can we do?” she sobbed.

  “There’s nothing else we can do.”

  “Oh, Emma.”

  “We better call an ambulance,” said Paul, and then looked over to the man that was responsible for the attack, lying at the side of the road. “Better call the police as well, for him.”

  “I’ll do it,” Demi sniffed. She stood up, reluctant to leave her friend, despite the fact that she was gone.

  Paul gave Demi a small smile. “I’ll stay with her.”

  “What’s happening?” Craig called over.

  Demi went into the back of the car and Paul told Tony and Craig to get back inside the vehicle. As soon as the emergency services had arrived, Paul was going back home.

  “What about him?” Tony pointed over to the male attacker, Emma’s murderer.

  “He won’t be goin’ anywhere,” Paul said. “Not with two blows to the head with that tyre iron.”

  “Oh, shit!” Tony cried. “Do you think I’ve killed him? I can’t go to jail, Paul. I—”

  “Just get back in the car. Try not to think about that now.”

  Paul went to the boot of the car and looked for a sheet to cover Emma’s body, but there wasn’t one. He took a glance to the side and gave his friends a wink as he walked by. He could see that Demi was in the back being comforted by Craig, and Tony had returned to the front passenger seat, clutching onto the tyre iron. Paul headed back over to Emma, whose body was fifteen yards from the vehicle.

  His friends sat inside his car, doors closed, and Paul gazed at Emma’s body, baffled about what had just happened. He crouched down and whispered a prayer. He wasn’t a believer, but it seemed the right thing to do.

  He looked up to the murky heavens and was pleased that the rain was dying. The front passenger door opened and Tony stuck his head out.

  He said, “We’re all trying the emergency services, but we can’t get through, man.”

  “Just keep tryin’,” Paul called over.

  Paul looked to the side of the car and his eyes widened. He waved his hand frantically at Tony, telling him to shut his door. Tony had interpreted this correctly and now Paul stood as he could see the same person that Tony had hit, twice with the tyre iron, getting to his feet.

  “For fuck’s sake.”

  Paul didn’t know whether to run or not, as he certainly didn’t have time to get back to the car. He pointed over at the man and gestured to the three people inside the vehicle to get their heads down.

  There was now a stand off.

  Paul and the crazed individual were staring at one another. The man twisted his neck and shook his head and began to snarl, making Paul’s heart gallop to a frightening pace. The individual adjusted his feet as if he was about to run at Paul, but Paul was the first to react. He began to run away from the vehicle, heading down the Stafford Road. The attacker predictably followed, and Paul Newbold ran like he had never ran before.

  He passed the pub and ran up the hump of the bridge. He looked over his shoulder and could see that his pursuer was gaining on him. As soon as he went over the hump, he went into a cluster of bushes and held his breath. The insane chaser ran by him and continued to run, slapping the tarmac with his clumsy feet.

  A smile stretched over Paul’s face and decided to give it another minute before returning back to the car, for safety reasons and to get his breath back.

  Once that minute was roughly up, he stepped out into the road and looked to his right, where the thing had ran down. The road was clear and Paul guessed that the deranged person had either entered Little Haywood or continued along the road that bent to the right, further up.

  As long as he’s away from me, I don’t care.

  Paul approached the Wolseley Bridge and stopped once he was at the peak of the hump. Now that the rain had stopped, the only sound he could hear was the River Trent flowing underneath him. He looked to his right and could see one solitary house on the right hand side of the winding road. He knew there were more further on, as he had driven down the Wolseley Road on a few occasions whenever he went to Stoke or Trentham Gardens.

  He looked to his left and could see the Wolseley Arms pub on the left side of the road, near where Stafford Road merged with a road that led into Paul’s hometown called Rugeley. He never even thought to try the pub when he was being chased, but with it being four or five in the morning, he was certain that he wouldn’t have got an answer from the owners, and he would have probably have gotten the same fate that poor Emma received.

  Now that his panic had diluted, he was beginning to think why someone would do such a thing. It didn’t make sense. It was like something out of a zombie movie. Although this nefarious individual who attacked Emma was quick and he seemed to breathe like a normal person, his actions were insane and unbelievable.

  Paul then looked in the distance, past the pub, and could see his car sitting on the Stafford Road, many yards from the establishment. He wondered how his friends were getting on.

  Were the police on their way? How were they going to explain this one without the police laughing in their faces?

  A man from out of nowhere attacked a female, tore her throat out, was then hit twice over the head with a tyre iron, got back up, and then gave chase to Paul. It seemed ludicrous. It was ludicrous.

  Paul then scrunched his eyes, as he looked beyond his
car, further up the road. He could see something, now the young day was getting lighter. He narrowed his eyes to focus better, and could see, what looked like, a large moving dark shape.

  “What the fuck is goin’ on?”

  As the shape along the road advanced and was closer, he now could see that it was a crowd of people, around thirty yards from the car, running towards the vehicle. This baffled him, and had no idea if they were people running away from danger, or they were volatile, like the man from before.

  “Oh, please, guys,” he muttered, thinking of his friends. “Stay in the car. Please, stay in the car.”

  He watched as the crowd neared his car, fearing the worst, but released a relieved breath out when they ran by his vehicle, apart from one. The one individual had decided to stop and stick around. The crowd continued along the Stafford Road, whilst Paul looked on in shock, and then they went by the pub and continued ahead, heading into Rugeley.

  Except one.

  The crowd had disappeared, past the garden centre, and were moving along the Rugeley Road, but two had dispersed from the crowd. One was by his car, where his friends and Demi were, and another, that was at the back of the crowd, had stopped running altogether. It was a female, and she seemed out of breath. She then looked up at Paul and growled like she was infected with something. She was around thirty to forty yards away, by the pub, and now was sprinting towards Paul.

  Paul Newbold felt sick with nerves and quickly turned on his heels and ran like hell, heading to the house. He thought about hiding again, but wasn’t entirely sure that it would work this time.

  He reached the front door and started banging it. He knew it was early and that the door probably wouldn’t be opened in time and he would have to sort out the female himself, but to his delight, the door did open within seconds and Paul fell inside.

  *

  “What’s happening?” Demi cried, as all three watched Paul Newbold running. He then disappeared to the left, behind the pub, with his pursuer twenty yards behind him. “Where’s Paul going?”