by steve higgs
Uttering a few choice words of frustration, I threw the dead phone into my handbag and ran to the back door. I couldn’t call the chief inspector, but the drive there would only take me ten to fifteen minutes at this time of day. I could show him the evidence myself.
Incredibly I was in the carpark and rooting around in my bag for my keys before I remembered that my car was dead. I skidded to a halt, slapping myself on the forehead.
What was I going to do now? Use the office phone instead of your mobile? Cursing myself for my stupidity, I turned to go back inside.
Then, an odd little giggle stopped me short. I couldn’t see the person who made the noise, they were obscured by the corner of the building. A sense of movement to my right was all I got as a warning before a burst of pain exploded in my skull. Someone had hit me though I didn’t know with what and I was falling, an odd sensation of the ground coming up to meet me as my consciousness was replaced by a fuzzy feeling of blackness.
Then, just as my vision shut down, that odd little giggle again.
Swamp Monster. Monday, December 5th, no idea what time.
I couldn’t work out if I was having a dream or not. Trying to focus on what I could see didn’t make any sense, the images wouldn’t align properly and that made me question whether I was asleep. Then pain hit me, flashing behind my eyes and forcing me to close them again.
‘Oh, my, lord,’ I whispered to myself. There were strip lights above me, bright bars of blinding white light that bored into my eyeballs to set my brain on fire when I opened my eyelids. I tried to roll over, but my limbs didn’t want to respond to my commands.
‘Don’t bother,’ said a familiar woman’s voice to the accompaniment of a giggle. Where did I know the voice from? Oh, yeah. Outside the office, just before someone hit me over the head, the odd little laugh. It sounded deranged. Carefully, slowly, I opened my eyes just a fraction so I could squint between my mostly closed lashes to see where I was. There wasn’t much to see.
The cold penetrating my right side was coming from a concrete floor. I was lying on it with nothing to separate me from the freezing stone. I tried to move again but my limbs didn’t feel like they were connected to my body or my brain didn’t feel like it was connected to anything. Something like that. Speaking wasn’t much better. I could move my tongue, but my teeth felt unfamiliar in my mouth and the words were garbled. ‘Where am I?’ I asked the unseen person, though I wasn’t sure they would understand the noises I made.
Then hands grabbed my shoulders to roll me over and pull me across the concrete. I caught a glimpse of the person but there was something wrong with my eyes because it didn’t look like a person. As they stepped back, I learned that my eyes were not playing tricks on me. I was, in fact, being manhandled by the swamp monster.
‘You’ll want to watch this part,’ it said. Tempest likes to say that it is always some idiot in a costume when actually it has regularly proven in the past to be several other things instead. Today though, he would have been bang on the money.
It wasn’t even a good suit. I could even go as far as to describe it as rubbish. I could see a pair of feet sticking out the bottom of the giant monster feet; they were wearing a pair of Adidas hightop running shoes. It looked rubbery and fake and generally unconvincing. The hands of the monster suit were not articulated. Rather, they were big floppery things that articulated at the wrist to fold out of the way so the person in the suit could stick their own hands out. Don’t get me started on the head piece.
I was having trouble keeping my head up though, it lolled forward a bit so I needed to look out of the top of my eyes, almost staring through my eyebrows to look in front of me. The monster was dragging something across the floor, but I couldn’t quite see what it was.
‘What did you give me?’ I asked. Speaking made my head burst with pain again so I didn’t repeat it even though it sounded wrong in my ears.
‘Did you catch that?’ a new voice asked the monster. Both voices were female and definitely familiar. I was struggling to put a face to either though. Then it said, ‘Oh, it can’t see. Give me a second.’ Hands clamped my head, making it pound once more as she tilted my head up and used the wall to hold it in place. ‘That’s better.’
Then she crouched in front of me and I saw who my captor was. ‘Hello, Jennifer,’ I tried.
‘Dude, you are making no sense at all. How much did you give her?’ she asked over her shoulder while continuing to look in my eyes.
‘The same amount we gave everyone else,’ came a reply from somewhere.
‘But dude she’s half the size.’ Then the giggle again.
In response Jennifer got a noise that sounded like Michelle couldn’t give a damn. Jennifer checked my head wasn’t going to move then stood up. As she moved, I discovered she had been blocking the view beyond with her body. Now, sitting opposite me I saw Chief Inspector Quinn. He was naked from the waist up and clearly half frozen from the same cold I felt. Oddly he had gloves on his hands which triggered me to think about mine. I shifted my eyes downward. Though I felt groggy and sick, I could move my eyeballs around. I looked at my hands; I had gloves on. They were not mine. I looked back at Chief Inspector Quinn. He looked at me but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t bound but he wasn’t trying to resist either so whatever they had given me, they must have given him as well. Somewhere inside my fog-filled brain, I knew what it was. I just couldn’t name it.
It had been the chief inspector the monster had been dragging across the floor and a spark connected inside my head. ‘Michelle.’
‘I think she just said your name,’ said Jennifer.
‘Who cares?’ replied the monster. ‘And I told you; it’s a guy not a girl.’
‘Looks like a girl,’ Jennifer argued.
‘Check the undercarriage if you don’t believe me.’
‘Eww, no thanks.’
Then the monster came into view again and approached me. I couldn’t tilt my head up to see it and couldn’t get my eyes to look up at an acute enough angle to see its face, but I guess Michelle knew that because she came down to my level. Her face was masked inside the monster suit which covered all of her hair and came under her chin to cover her throat. She studied me for a moment, staring at me as if curious. Then she slapped me. As hard as she could using the back of her right hand against my left cheekbone and as my head exploded in pain, I registered the blow to my cheek as well.
‘That was just to make sure you were paying attention,’ she said with a little laugh. ‘You see, each time we kill one of the guys,’ she said the guys with speech mark finger held aloft. ‘We tell them why. It’s just our thing. It’s such a wonderful cliché to reveal the master plan that we felt it would be gauche to not follow tradition. In a moment, the chief inspector is going to receive injuries much akin to those inflicted on the previous victims. The bites, the bruising. Not the worst bites though, the ones where we tear off bits of flesh, we save those for in the water just before we drown them. They can’t be post-mortem, you see. The coroner would know the difference.’ She looked into my panicked eyes and raised a hand to stroke my hair. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get to watch us torture him. In fact, maybe we should get on with it. I can tell you the rest while we get creative.’
Michelle gave my cheek one last, tender pat, then left me propped against the wall and disappeared from sight. When she returned a few seconds later she had a set of teeth in her hands. No, that’s wrong. She had a pair of jaws with teeth in them. When she saw me staring, she said, ‘You like these? I picked them up on eBay. I think they might have been a movie prop from some old sci-fi horror movie or something. I’m not sure they were designed for cutting flesh per se, but they sharpened up real good.’
Then she thrust them at Chief Inspector Quinn’s back and snapped them closed on his flesh. I had to watch as he screamed in pain, the almost inhuman noise escaping his lips despite bracing himself for it.
Then, from the left, Jennifer came running with somethin
g in her hands and swung it like a bat. Only once it struck home and she stepped back did I see what it was; a plastic monster hand. That was how the bruises had come to be on the victims. Just as CI Quinn recoiled from the blow, Michelle bit into his shoulder with the teeth again.
I had to watch while they went at him for what felt like ten minutes but was probably no more than two. Quinn kept falling over and they kept sitting him back up. They got bored with that after a while though and just let him flop forward while they continued to attack him.
It was awful. And I could only assume they were making me watch because I was next.
Jennifer kept taking a run up to deliver her blows and was slightly out of breath when she smiled at me and dropped the tool on the floor. ‘Were you expecting the same?’ she gave me the chance to reply then giggled because she knew I couldn’t. ‘We can’t mess with the ritual. The guilty ones get drowned by the swamp monster. It’s a fun name, isn’t it? The press are so inventive.’ I could tell she was being sarcastic but there was nothing I could do about it. ‘Anyway, you will be spared all of that fun, we’re just going to strangle you and dump your body. You dress like a slut and you’re a freak, a transsexual, transgender…’ she waved a hand in my direction. ‘I don’t even care what you are; it’s weird. So, we decided we could leave your body and make it look like you were into some weird sex game and it went too far. Michelle’s idea of course. She sees so much of this stuff so can just replicate something she read about in another county.’
Jennifer giggled again and mimed hearing me ask her a question. ‘What’s that? Why? Why are we killing all the nice policemen?’ As she screamed her answer, she ran at Chief Inspector Quinn’s inert form and kicked him hard in his exposed ribs. ‘Because they deserve it. Just like Ian deserved it. He beat me, you know?’ Jennifer shoved her face back in front of mine. ‘He beat me and put me in hospital and told me I could never leave him. So I asked Michelle how I could kill him in a way that no one would ever tie it to me. She helped me get rid of that pig.’ Another giggle escaped her lips. ‘I wanted to take pictures when Michelle held him under. His face was such a picture; he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe the woman he had degraded and beaten could ever rise against him. But I got to watch the air in his lungs run out and the light fade from his eyes. It’s a memory I will cherish forever.’ She finished with another giggle.
‘We need to get moving,’ echoed Michelle’s voice from somewhere unseen.
‘Oops,’ Jennifer giggled again. ‘Just enough time left to finish the story though, I think. You must be wondering why we went back to killing recently. It’s addictive. That’s why. I wanted to do it again ever since the first time. The raw power of it. Ooooh!’ She grinned and wriggled with her eyes closed like she was having an orgasm. ‘It took a while to talk Michelle into it, but I knew who I wanted to target; those pigs that made me feel guilty about killing Ian. They had me in a cell for weeks, accusing me, trying to get me to admit that I did it. Trying to prove I could have manhandled that enormous brute into the water by myself. They deserve it as much as he did, and Quinn was their leader.’ She ran and kicked him again, twice for good measure. ‘I told you I didn’t do it. He was so smug and knowing, like he knew it was me and it was only a matter of time until he worked out how. Well, I showed them. He’s the last one. Then we have to find some new targets.’
‘No,’ snapped Michelle. ‘I told you, this is the end of it. I agreed to this because they are all misogynistic pigs. They treated me as if I was there to bring them tea. Quinn was the worst; he stole my ideas and passed them off as his own. He has to be the last one. If we keep going, they will work out that we are putting them into the lake via a feeding river and will catch us. Now, come on, we have to go.’
‘Yes, Michelle,’ Jennifer replied dutifully, then leaned in close so she could whisper to me. ‘She’ll come around. This is too much fun to give up.’
Still drugged, I watched as they lifted the chief inspector into the boot of an old Volvo. They took no care at all, swinging his body and then releasing it so he struck his head on the frame of the car and landed with a hard thump. An arm hung out and I thought Jennifer was going to slam the boot lid down on it until Michelle shoved it in at the last moment.
Then I realised that in order to have watched them load the car, I had to have turned my head. I had managed to turn my head. Did that mean the drugs were wearing off? I turned it back as I saw them come for me. Roughly grabbed under my arms and around my ankles, they carried me to a different car I hadn’t seen. It was in front of the Volvo, its boot open again to receive me. Michelle, who was holding my arms, dumped me on the floor though.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Jennifer.
‘I need to get this stupid monster suit off. I can’t drive in it and we need to gag this one. She’ll get her voice back before her body starts to work and I don’t want her yelling in the boot to draw attention.’
Jennifer dropped my feet. ‘I don’t see why you don’t just up the dose. Then you wouldn’t run the risk of them coming around.’
Michelle was behind me somewhere, struggling with the costume and swearing in her efforts to get it off. ‘How many times have I told you this? If the drug is too potent, the coroner will find it when he does the autopsy. It needs to be almost out of the person’s system when we kill them.’
Jennifer sighed. ‘Yes, Michelle.’ Then she giggled as Michelle grabbed my head to force a silk scarf between my teeth. She yanked it roughly as she tied it behind my head, little flashes of light dancing in front of my eyes from the pain.
‘Now she’s ready,’ announced Michelle and they picked me up again, threw me into the boot of the car and slammed it shut. All was dark.
Outside, I could hear their muffled voices. Then they fell silent and I heard an engine start up. It must be the Volvo because it sounded distant. Then the engine of the car I was in rumbled to life. I heard the parking brake being released and suddenly I was moving. I had no idea where I was going but I knew they planned to kill me.
I had to get control of body and put up a fight when they tried to get me out again. They wouldn’t be expecting it, but though I could now move my head from side to side, that was all I had. I could just about manage to flop my arms a bit.
I was going to die and there would be nothing I could do about it as the life was squeezed out of me.
Familiar Territory. Monday, December 5th unsure of time
Tracking where I might be or how long I had been in the boot of the car proved impossible. I had no idea where I was when they put me in the car or how long had passed since they took me. All I knew was they intended to kill me when the car reached its destination. The car stopped occasionally, at junctions or for traffic lights, I assumed, but I heard no other car noises around me and no light penetrated the boot so it either had a tight seal, or the lack of traffic noise meant it was the middle of the night.
This was bad because it meant no one would be looking for me. Probably not even gran. Gran would assume I had gone out or was working late. She most likely planned to tell me off for not calling but wouldn’t think to report my absence until I failed to show the next evening.
When I felt the car take a slow right turn and begin bumping along uneven ground, I knew we had to be getting close to where they were taking me. Try as I might, I still couldn’t get my limbs under control. They were better than they were, and I would be able to put up some kind of defense, but it wouldn’t be much.
The car stopped with a final lurch and unwanted terror gripped me when the engine shut down.
Silence. Nothing but the sound of my own labored breathing until I heard a car door open a moment later. The girls were being stealthy in their movements, quietly pushing the doors closed instead of slamming them. Then there was noise right next to my ear and the boot opened once more.
It was full dark out and we were under a canopy of trees. Michelle and Jennifer were distinguishable only by the moonlight f
iltering down between the branches. They both reached in to grab me, Michelle going for my arms as Jennifer tried to grab my legs. I was ready for them though, pushing off the floor of the boot with my shoulders as I flailed my arms and legs to block them. I shouted to get them away or attract attention but it just came out as a, ‘Blaaargh,’ noise because of the tight gag in my mouth.
They both burst out laughing. ‘That was pathetic,’ giggled Jennifer. Then she reached behind her back to pull a kitchen knife from somewhere. Light glinted off the blade as she held it up. Exchanging her smile for a sneer, she pointed the knife at me. ‘Do it again and part of your death by weird sex game will include you getting feminized.’
‘She means it,’ added Michelle. ‘You should have heeded the warnings. I really thought that burning your car and your girlfriend’s house would deter you. Actually, the intention was to kill you, but I figured we might as well burn the car as well because then if you did survive, you might get the message. Now, I’m going to reach in and grab your arms. If you resist, Jennifer it going to stab you in the balls. Do you understand?’
I nodded.
‘I couldn’t see that. Did you just nod?’ asked Michelle. ‘It’s dark here, man. Look, I’m reaching in, behave or get stabbed; the choice is yours.’
I knew what I needed to do. I needed to get their flesh under my skin so a crime lab would be able to find it and identify my killers. I needed to bite them or scratch them or something, but Michelle was too clever for that. The gloves on my hands prevented me from scratching them at all and the gag in my mouth stopped me from talking but also provided a nice accessory for their sex game gone wrong ending.
