by West, Sam
But of course, she could breathe because she was breathing; it was just the panic swamping her. Even so, she was conscious of her nostrils flaring like a frightened bull, and the room lurched more violently around her.
“Aren’t you going to greet your guests?” Jean asked in that new, deep voice of hers.
On some level, the deepest level that resided within her soul, she had seen Jim and Lucy, she just wasn’t quite ready to process this fact. But now, as her brain was forced to, she fully acknowledged their presence for the first time.
She wasn’t alone around Jean’s kitchen table; oh no, not at all.
Like her, Jim and Lucy were cuffed to the chairs by their wrist and ankles, the only difference being that they were unconscious. Their heads lolled forwards on their necks, their eyes closed above the silver tape that covered their mouths.
They were also naked, she noted in alarm. Lucy looked in a bad way; her skin waxy and deathly pale. Freya stared hard at her, trying to discern if she were dead or alive. When her chest wall rose slightly, Freya shuddered in relief.
Jean laughed, and Freya turned to look at the nice old lady who she worked with at Shortbread and Tweed. She stood behind Lucy at the other end of the table, leaning against the countertop next to the oven. She cut a nightmarish figure, and for the first time, Freya wondered if she was hallucinating, remembering the funny tasting wine before she’d blacked out.
I’m tripping because this can’t be right, no siree, it just can’t.
How could this man standing before her be Jean? It made no sense, but there the truth was, staring her in the face. Yet try as she might, she just couldn’t reconcile the woman she thought she knew with the stranger standing before her now.
‘Jean’ had been a sixty-something-year-old woman, but he was a forty-something guy.
Maybe it’s one of her sons, or a younger brother or a cousin or...
A psychopath. My letter writer.
“If I take off your gag, do you promise not to scream?” he asked in that deep parody of Jean’s voice.
Ever so slowly, she nodded. She was having a hard time taking him in; it hurt to look at him.
“Good. Because if you do, I’ll slit the fuckers’ throats, do you understand?”
Again, she nodded. He came over to her, and she tried not to flinch as his fingers grazed the side of her face.
Man’s fingers. How did I never notice how square and masculine they were before?
Without ceremony, he ripped the tape from her mouth. Her lips and the surrounding skin screeched in protest, then tingled as it recovered.
How could I not know that Jean was a man?
Because looking at him now, she had no answer to that question. He still wore make-up, but his mascara had run down his cheeks, and his pink lipstick had bled into the surrounding skin around his thin, wide mouth, giving him the appearance of a psychotic clown. His wig – a brunette up-do in a loose bun, streaked with grey – was curled on the countertop like a sleeping cat. He wore his real, light-brown hair in a buzz-cut.
Without the glasses and the hair, and without the permanent plaster over his Adam’s Apple, the lines of his face were blatantly masculine. He had removed the powder-blue cardigan, and the buttons of his shirt had popped open to reveal a hairless, muscled chest, over which he wore a sturdy, flesh-coloured bra stuffed with hosiery. He still wore the skirt and tights, though, which heightened his air of utterly fucking psychotic.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice croaky.
As terrified as she was, she could feel her head clearing with every passing second. Whatever he had put in her wine, it was slowly exiting her system. It wouldn’t pay to let him know that, though, so she slouched in her chair and let her head roll.
He perched on the table in front of her, legs crossed and hands gently clasped over his knees in the most ladylike manner.
“You want to know who I am, Freya? You destroyed my son’s life, and now I am going to destroy yours. I was going to do it gradually, prolong your suffering and watch from my front-row seat, but it would take a lot to shock a hardened bitch like you, and quite honestly, I’m not sure how much time I have left. As brilliant as I am, it never pays to stay in the same place for too long.”
It still didn’t answer her question, though. In her head, she ran through all the horror-figures from her past, yet as familiar as he was, she felt sure that she didn’t know him.
The sound of Jim groaning snapped her attention in his direction. His eyes rolled and his eyelids fluttered, his head cumbersome-looking and heavy on his neck.
“Ah, look, your boyfriend is coming round. How nice. I snatched him this morning when he was on his way to University. It was me texting you today, not him.”
“Jim,” she gasped, forgetting her plan to look drugged and helpless.
If he heard her, he showed no sign. Jean, or whoever the hell he was, hopped down from the table and went over to the oven and opened the door.
“Dinner’s ready, I do believe.”
He pulled out an oven tray, on top of which was a lump of roasted meat.
At first, her brain didn’t understand what her eyes were seeing. ‘Jean’ plonked the dish down in the middle of the table, and Freya stared at it in stark disbelief, her heart slamming painfully hard in her chest. A whimpering noise reached her ears and only dimly was she aware that the sound was coming from her.
The joint of meat was a human foot. As she breathed in the smell of roasted meat her nostrils flared, the back of her tongue curling up in disgust despite the pleasant aroma. To her horror, she didn’t know if her tongue was swimming in mouth water because she was about to puke, or because it smelled so damn good.
‘Jean’ laughed. “I think Lucy should get first servings, seeing as she was the one who brought along the meat.”
Scream, dammit. This place may be detached, but somebody will hear, they have to…
But she didn’t, especially when the man went over to a drawer and produced a long carving knife with a serrated edge. Casually, he wandered over to Jim and stood behind him, holding the knife at his throat.
“No, please,” Freya sobbed, “don’t hurt him.”
‘Jean’ regarded her thoughtfully. “You are full of surprises, Freya. I honestly didn’t think you were capable of love.”
Jim appeared to be coming round now, for his eyes were full of terrible recognition. His gaze latched onto hers, bright with unshed tears.
“It was a very brave thing he did, coming to the park with you like that and watching over you. And I’ll tell you this because I was watching him, he didn’t get off on your little show at all. You must have been touched by his blind acceptance of you, of his blind trust in your inherent goodness. This boy was a keeper, Freya, I reckon he would’ve spent a lifetime loving you unconditionally, helping you to heal.”
She recognised the truth of his words; words that cut her deeply. And just as she allowed the truth of them to sink in, he drew the knife across his throat. For a second, the insides of his neck were visible, a yawning gash comprised of smooth lines; all pale flesh, yellow fat, and the pink depths of his throat. Blood welled there after the delay, a shining red waterfall that silently spilled down his chest, pumping in time to his failing heart.
In that moment, her heart shattered. She let out an almighty howl, only dimly aware of him striding towards her, his fist raised to strike.
She didn’t know how long she had been out; it might have been seconds, it might have been minutes. The side of her skull pounded where he had struck her, and his voice drifted to her from a far-off tide.
“...did love you, Freya, he was your soulmate.”
The ringing in her ears eased off to a dull buzz, and hatred boiled in her guts, churning up bile and forcing the acid upwards. She could taste coppery blood in her mouth from where he had struck her and a molar had pierced her cheek. Daintily, she explored the wound with her tongue.
“Fuck you,” she gasped, tugging
at her hands and feet.
Jean threw back his head and laughed. Still holding the knife, he absently wiped his hands on his already blood-splattered skirt, and reached for the tray with Lucy’s roasted foot on it. As if he didn’t have a care in the world, he began to carve it, humming to himself in his distinct ‘Jean’ voice – the one she easily recognised from work.
He stopped humming to pop a strip of meat into his mouth, smiling as he chewed. The churning acid of her stomach was no longer just born of hatred, but of pure, unadulterated nausea, and she was powerless to stop the tide of vomit from rising upwards. The vomiting paralysed her, making her body jerk and spasm helplessly.
“Don’t want to waste that now, do we, dear? What lovely gravy it is.”
Only when she was done puking did she realise that Jean was holding the foot on the tray under her mouth to catch her vomit. Shuddering, she closed her eyes, wishing that she would just wake the fuck up from this nightmare.
“So as I was saying, Freya dear, I’ve decided to cut our adventures short. As brilliant as I am, I can’t pretend to be this old bat forever. My gut says it’s time to move on, so move on I shall. If only my son shared my survival instinct, instead of just the killer one.”
His son… Who is this man?
He was silent for a moment, and she could feel his eyes upon her. She refused to look at him, refused to give him the satisfaction of him seeing how scared she was, how much damage he had wrought by killing the only person she had ever come to love, only realising this fact as she had watched him die.
“I can’t believe you haven’t made the connection, yet? Can’t you see how much like my son I look?”
And then she did. In a heartbeat, she understood everything, and she raised her head to meet his gaze. He nodded, as if acknowledging the light of recognition in her eyes.
“Hooray, at last. Took you bloody long enough, I must say. The name’s Shane Bentley, father of Dale Bentley. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”
“You sick fuck,” she said, not caring right then if it enflamed him.
All traces of good humour disappeared from his eyes. “You’d better watch your mouth, bitch, I’ve got a temper on me, in case you didn’t notice.”
Keep him talking. Buy yourself some time.
Her mind was a big, fat blank as she groped for the right thing to say. “If this is true, why did you come after me? I’ve done nothing wrong, I was the victim. None of it was my fault.”
Her voice had risen to a shrill cry, and she fought herself back under control, forcing back the tears. She would fight this piece of shit all the way.
“But it was your fault, Freya. You have victim written all over you, despite your efforts to the contrary. You were meant to die at the hands of my son, it was only sheer fluke that you got away. Sheer fucking chance.”
“It was sheer fucking chance that led Dale to me in the first place,” she sneered.
“No! You are wrong,” he said, banging his fist on the table as he loomed over her, making her flinch. “Dale was meant to kill you, like he killed all the others.”
“But he didn’t, did he? I survived, because that’s what I do.”
She glared at him defiantly, unsure where this show of bravado had come from.
“Not anymore, sweetheart. Your time is up now. Me and Dale were never close, and out of respect to him I want to finish what he started. He chose you, Freya, don’t you see? I have to do this.”
She could see the intent in his eyes, knew that she didn’t have long left.
“If you and Dale were so close, then why is this the first I’ve heard of you? At the trial, they said he was an orphan.”
Shane let out a harsh-sounding laugh. “You thought my son was bad? Baby girl, you don’t know anything. The taste for blood is hereditary. I did some bad things as a young man, so much so that I was forced to fake my own death fifteen years ago. But I always watched over Dale from afar, was always pleased to see him follow in his old man’s footsteps. I’ve been hiding for fifteen years, assuming new identities when needed, disappearing when I wanted to. Because, sweetheart, I am the bogeyman. I don’t exist. Do you have any idea how easy it is to assume the identity of a little old lady and land a job in your place of work? Just buy some ID on the black market, invent some lame cancer story to make people feel sorry for me and cover up this,” he said, pointing to his Adam’s Apple. “So fucking easy.”
“But that’s impossible,” she gasped. “You would’ve been caught by now.”
“I am different, and I think you know that. I can hide in plain sight and I can disappear off the face off the earth. Look how I followed you without you knowing. I steal enough money to live how I want, where I want. I have hundreds of thousands of pounds stuffed in my mattress. I am invincible, unstoppable, I can do whatever I want and no one can stop me.”
His little speech left her breathless. It was impossible, and yet…
And yet not, she decided.
“But before you die, I think you should have something to eat first.” He picked up a strip of meat and dangled it in front of her face. “Open wide. It’s yummy.”
Instinctively, Freya clamped her mouth shut. There was no way that she was eating human flesh.
In that moment, she recognised her opportunity, and a new feeling bloomed in her chest; hope.
“No,” she gasped, not even having to try to sound helpless and pathetic, for that came quite naturally.
She thrashed her head from side to side, her lips pressed together in a grim line. As he tried to prise open her mouth, she ducked her head down as far as it would go, tucking her chin in as tight as she could against her chest and twisting her head to the side, praying that his teasing arrogance would ultimately be her saviour.
“Open wide,” he chuckled, leaning down and twisting his head sideways like he was peering down at a baby in a cot.
It was what she wanted, and she seized her opportunity. As fast as a striking snake, her torso unwound and she smacked her forehead into his, nutting him square between the eyes.
He staggered backwards, the backs of his thighs hitting the table edge before he came crashing down as surely as a felled tree. Freya rocked her chair the short distance over towards him and, with a huge grunt of exertion, she rocked the chair all the way sideways so that she – and the chair – landed with a heavy thump on top of him.
His body jerked at the sudden weight, then fell still.
By some miracle, the abuse of the knackered, old piece of furniture had caused the left armrest to become detached from the back of the chair. As she had landed on her right side with her back to him, she was able to slide her cuffed hand all the way along the detached armrest to freedom, and she wasted no time in reaching for the knife which had clattered to the floor next to Shane’s hip.
With a war-cry, she brought the knife down into the thick material of his skirt where she judged his cock to be. He made no sound, but his legs jerked like he had been electrocuted. The prick was still alive, but out-cold.
Through a red haze of fury, she brought the knife down over and over again in the area of his lower stomach and groin, only stopping when the area was a pulverised sea of red. His legs had long stopped jerking, but she didn’t stop until she was trembling all over with the difficulty of holding herself in such a position and she was thoroughly blinded by blood, sweat and tears.
Somewhere during this, she knew not when, she discovered that she had started to laugh.
It was time to concentrate her efforts on getting herself free. When she twisted her head round to check on Lucy, the laughter died on her lips. From this angle on the floor, she saw the leather-strap and bandages that bound the end of her footless leg and tears blurred her vision. She looked different than from how she had twenty minutes ago. Her pallor was pure white and even from this distance, Freya could see that she wasn’t breathing.
As she worked herself free, she didn’t even look at Jim. That part of her life was over. That par
t of her – the part that knew what it was to fall prey to the human emotions of love, compassion and trust – was dead.
By the time she was free, her tears had dried.
After Freya had showered off the blood, she had helped herself to some of ‘Jean’s’ clothes. They were too big, and ridiculously grannyish, but they would do for the short trip back to hers to pack a bag. In the rucksack she had slung over one shoulder was over four hundred thousand pounds in cash. She figured that would be enough to tide her over.
Outside, night had fallen, and she paused on Shane’s doorstep for a moment, breathing in the start of her new life. A whole new world had opened-up to her, one that brimmed with possibilities – one that had belonged to her all along without her realising.
She glanced at the rucksack, Shane’s words echoing in her head:
I am the bogeyman. I don’t exist.
The night belonged to her, and she to it. She, and she alone, was in charge of her own destiny.
She stepped out into the cool night, her journey only just beginning.
The end.
