Buried Slaughter (8 page)

“Amen to that,” Harry Wilson said. His orange raincoat hood was tightened right around his head. Looked like bloody Kenny off “South Park”. “Don’t see why we have to work so late anyway. It’s slave labour, this.”

John smacked Harry on his back. “Nonsense. We work late because we promised we’d dig up whatever-the-hell this client wanted us to dig up. If we failed, no doubt they’d be on the phone to Davidson tomorrow to get his team to finish the job. What’s left of ‘em, anyway.”

“Think Mr. Davidson might have a couple of other things on his mind right now, boss,” Bob said. Bob wasn’t wearing a raincoat. The water from the torrential rain waterfalled through his black hair, soaking his clothes.

Bob was right. John had heard about the events at the Pendle Hill dig site. Poor bastards, out there doing their jobs and next thing they know, find themselves beheaded at the bottom of the ditch. The only thing that gave John comfort was the fact that his company hadn’t been approached to take that job. It’d make him seriously consider jobs before he took them. And sure‌—‌the job they were doing right now was a last-minute one, but the sum of money was ridiculously large. Too large to refuse.

Thunder sounded overhead as the rain seemed to get heavier and heavier. “Okay, let’s get this place covered up before all our hard work goes to waste. Bob, Harry‌—‌you two put that blue mat over the trench. I’ll handle the light.”

“Yes, boss,” Harry said. He lowered himself to the ground and started to unroll a large blue mat out in front of him.

John switched off the spotlight and dragged it towards the white van.

“Coulda given us a light warning!” Harry shouted.

John laughed. “Your eyes will adjust. Now hurry the fuck up back there.”

He grinned as he walked in the complete darkness towards the van. The moonlight wasn’t even so bright tonight, but there was something remarkable about being out in the dark in the middle of the countryside. His eyes were adjusting. All that light pollution of the city was nowhere in sight. Was beautiful, really. It really was something.

He opened the door of the van and the light came on, ruining the serenity of the scene. “There you go, boys. Bit of light for you.” He placed the spotlight on the back of the van and strapped it in. “Jesus, boys‌—‌what’s taking you so long? Don’t you fancy a McDonald’s?”

John squinted in the direction of the trench. He couldn’t really see it. But the guys were always fucking about with him; trying to scare him. He shook his head and sloshed through the grass in the direction of the trench. He’d have the last laugh here. He really would.

A bolt of lightning flashed in the distance. The thunder was deafening. Shit. He hadn’t heard thunder make such a sound before. The lightning must’ve made contact nearby.

“Come on, lads,” John said, getting nearer to the edge of the trench. “Lightning’s striking. Wouldn’t want you to fry now, would we?”

He stopped at the edge of the trench. He could see the blue mat that Bob and Harry had been folding out loosely dangling over the trench. Another bolt of lightning flashed, making John jump.

“Gotcha, boys. Gonna make sure you stay down here for this. Quit messing around, you lame fuckers.” He grabbed the edge of the blue mat and pulled it aside.

As he did, he tumbled back. There was a bright light shining from the trench. A flashlight that Harry or Bob definitely had not had beforehand. At least, not that he knew of. And it was shining right up at him, blinding his eyes.

“Je…‌Jesus, lads. What are you…‌what are you doing down there?”

It was as John’s vision started to adjust to the light that he realised there was no joke after all.

His heart raced. His throat went dry. “Oh shit…‌Just…‌Oh shit.” He turned to run away, but something stopped him. An invisible force gripped his heels and sent him crashing into the wet ground as he tried to throw himself away.

“Shit! Somebody! Please!”

As he dug his bitten-down nails into the dirt, he knew his screams were in vain. He had a sense of what was happening, but his mind still wanted to believe it was all a joke.

“Please,” John sobbed. He stuck his fingers right into the sloppy ground at the edge of the trench as the force pulled him from behind. “Quit…‌Quit playing around. Whoever it is, just…‌Please.”

Another bolt of lightning struck in the distance.

A hard thump crashed into John’s back, harder than anything he’d ever felt in his life.

He fell into the trench, his back stinging as it hit the ground.

“Pl‌—‌Please. Please, just…‌”

John looked to his side. He could see their faces as another bolt of lightning flashed overhead. But that’s all there was. Faces, detached from their bodies, blood dribbling from their neck.

And beside them, bones.

The silhouette grabbed the blue cover at the top of the trench.

“Please don’t…‌I’ll do anything. I’ll do…‌”

The last thing John Brabiner saw in the flash of lightning was the glint of a bloody sword, as the silhouette pulled over the cover and jumped back into the trench…‌

Chapter Eight

When Brian woke the following morning, he stretched out his arms and nudged into Hannah’s back. She was completely still, only her steady breaths in and out breaking the illusion of perfect serenity. A smile crept across Brian’s face as he held his eyes tightly shut. There was no feeling of dread in his stomach. No feeling of guilt. He had two weeks off work‌—‌well, suspended anyway. Two weeks to get his priorities straight again, and nothing was going to stand in his way.

He opened his eyes and looked around the room. A beam of sunlight peeked in through the gap in the middle of the cream curtains‌—‌something that Hannah always insisted on. An OCD kind of thing. Brian pulled the bedding from his body and edged to the side of the bed, hitting the digital alarm clock so that it wouldn’t wake Hannah. 6:09 a.m. He’d be able to get up, make some breakfast for when she rose and started whatever freelance work she had for the day. He didn’t really have much “making up” to do, but there was nothing like a bit of cooked breakfast as a gesture.

Plus, he had to make himself useful. Two weeks doing absolutely nothing and he’d go batshit crazy.

He plodded across the spongy floor towards the partly open bedroom door. Another of Hannah’s OCDs. Some shrink or another might have a dodgy theory about how she must feel “closed in” or some crap like that. And she’d lap that bullshit up. Which is exactly why she wasn’t going to a shrink any time soon, not on his watch.

Brian pushed the door slightly as he left the room. Hannah was still fast asleep under the covers, a half-smile on her lips. A warm feeling rose inside Brian as he stared at her dark brown hair and smooth skin. She really was gorgeous. He was lucky. So, so lucky.

He turned away and walked down the landing area and the stairs. The muddy-brown doormat that Hannah’s sister had bought them as a moving-in gift was already stacked up with the day’s newspapers for Hannah to scour and write a story about. Brian winced as he crouched down and scooped the papers up under his arm, barely taking any notice of the headlines. Stupid, really. All that free access to the Internet and she took out bloody paper subscriptions. Ah well. Something to burn in the garden, or wipe their arses with if loo roll ever ran too low.

Whistling as he staggered into the kitchen area, he plonked the pile of papers onto the side and made a move for the kettle. As he did, one of the papers tumbled from the top of the others, the interior spilling out and covering the floor.

“Fuck,” Brian mumbled as he turned back to the paper and lifted it up. Stupid free leaflets were a pain in the arse. He tried to piece the paper together again as the kettle roared to life. He was having second thoughts about getting up quite so early after all.

As he dropped the fallen paper back on top of the others, an image caught his eye. At first, he shrugged it off‌—‌dismissed it as yet another report about the Pendle Hill Massacre.

But this wasn’t Pendle Hill. It was somewhere else.

He pushed the paper to one side and opened it up so he could see the rest of the headline.

His skin crawled.

City Stunned by Copycat Killing.

And in the accompanying image, beside the forensic teams in their special coats, a van was embossed with the words
Brabiner’s Archeological Group.

The kettle clicked. The water had boiled.

Brian was completely still.

After a few seconds attempting to read the words on the paper, he tossed it to one side and made a break for the living room. He couldn’t take in anything he read right now. It just didn’t make sense. The Pendle Hill Massacre had all the characteristics of an isolated event. And Mr. Davidson of Davidson Archeological Contractors‌—‌he’d been convinced that Brabiner’s was dodgy in some way.

But now they were dead. The murderer had struck again.

Brian fumbled with the remote and flicked on the television. In a panic, he accidentally switched over to radio mode first time around. Cursing under his breath, he changed back to the rolling news, where the bold headline reinforced everything he’d read in the newspaper.

“…‌And three men were discovered at the bottom of a trench in what can only be described as ‘similar’ circumstances to the mass murder at Pendle Hill three days ago…‌”

The shots were of an area that looked similar to Pendle Hill but were at the other side of the forest. Large, barren grassland. Dark grey skies. It was another place Brian used to visit as a kid. A place where his mother used to order him not to stray too far in on his own.

Another creepy place where a murder had occurred.

“We’ll speak with our North West correspondent, Dominic Cocker, who is at the scene. Dominic‌—‌can you describe the circumstances for us?”

Dominic, a familiar face on North West television, had his eyes narrowed. He was biting his lip, and although he was already greying and balding, he looked like he’d aged a few years in the past day or so, as he stood with the forensics-laden backdrop of the murder scene behind him. “Sorry, I…‌Well, it’s another truly awful scene. And no matter what…‌no matter what anybody says, there are some harrowing similarities between the murder of these three men and the Pendle Hill murders.” His eyes widened. He looked in a world of his own. “The…‌It’s the bones. The pattern of the bones and the…‌the heads. It’s the‌—‌”

The transmission fuzzed away and reverted back to a studio shot of the dark-haired female presenter, who looked rather taken aback. “Okay. We…‌we must’ve lost Dominic for a moment there. We’ll try to bring you updates as we get them. In other news…‌”

“You okay, Bri?”

Brian jumped. His heart raced. Hannah was standing at the door, staring at him. He hadn’t heard her come down the stairs. “Sorry, Han, I…‌” He turned off the television in an attempt to distance himself.

“Don’t mean to disturb you,” Hannah said. “Just I heard the kettle boiling and…‌and then I heard the television.”

Fuck. He hadn’t even made her a brew. He’d come downstairs and now all he could think about were the images in his mind of the Pendle Hill massacre site. The decapitated heads. The bones, older than the heads.

And the bodies. Gone. Nowhere to be seen.

“Are you okay, Brian? You look a little pale.”

Brian tried to smile, but it was no use. He gulped. Took in a deep breath as the calm in his stomach gave way to dread and curiosity. “It’s…‌There’s been more murders. Just round the corner from Pendle Hill. Identical circumstances, apparently. And another archeological group.”

Hannah covered her mouth with her hands. “Another? But what…‌why would that happen? Who would do that?”

Brian rested a shaky hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I don’t know. I really don’t know.” He was telling the truth. He was out of his depth, cast out of the police. No matter how much he wanted to know what was going on, he didn’t. He couldn’t.

“Come on,” Brian said. “Let’s go have a brew.”

The pair of them sat down and had a cup of tea together in the kitchen. Hannah scanned each and every newspaper story of the new killings, whose victims included John Brabiner himself. Every now and then, she gasped and tutted. Brian didn’t even want to ask.

As he finished his final gulp of tea, which was bordering on cold, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at it‌—‌unknown number. Strange. He answered and lifted it to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Brian? It’s Wallson. Guessing you’ve seen the news.”

Brian glared across the table at Hannah, who was still fixated on the newspaper, and moved the phone away from his ear. He felt like he was cheating on her with an ex, or something. He couldn’t have her know he was on the phone to the journalist.

“Before you hang up, I want you to know I’ve found something. Something I think you’ll want to know about very much. Are you alone?”

Hannah raised her head and mouthed, “You okay?”

Brian nodded and held a hand out. “Erm, yes. Just give me a moment.” He covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “Work-related. Just let me take this.”

Hannah nodded and returned to reading the newspaper as Brian walked into the hallway, moving his hand away from the mouthpiece.

“What do you think you’re doing calling me?” he gasped. “Do you have any idea how much trouble I’m in?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” David said. “And you can put the phone down and we can finish talking right now and end this whole thing. That’s fine with me.”

“Thanks for the approval. That’s exactly what I was about to fucking do.”

“But before you do, just hear me out. This Harold Harvey fella you told me about. I had a few little birdies do a bit of digging. Or pecking. Or whatever the fuck birdies do.”

“And?”

David took a few moments before responding. He clearly knew he had Brian right where he wanted him. “Well, it turns out Mr. Harold Harvey made another last-minute booking recently. Offered a very large sum of money for a certain archeological dig company to do a bit of low-key work for him.”

Brian stuttered. He had an idea where David Wallson was going with this. “Harold Harvey hired Brabiner’s as well as Davidson?”