Rottenhouse (21 page)

Off you go then,
chum. Don’t forget to write and send me a postcard
the rat squeaked as it scurried once again across
the kitchen floor.

Lifting the phone, the handprints
marked the journey Simon would have to take like sadistic
breadcrumbs in a forest of the dead.

‘
Jeezus.’

Simon shone the light on the wall once
more, read the one single all encapsulating word NONCE and shivered
when he saw the O was a skull and crossbones and then moved the
light back to the stairs titling the phone so that it engulfed the
entire hell begotten stairway.

‘
If I die here,
Ratman, I’m gonna come back and haunt you.’

The floorboards creaked and cracked
like old men’s bones getting out of hard backed chairs as he walked
upstairs, following the brownish handprints.

5

At the top of the stairs the hallway
lead off to the right as too did the handprints though now the
brownish marks were fading and becoming hard to see. Upstairs was
much like downstairs in so much as it was blackened with soot,
charred where the flames had taken hold and smelt stale. But the
fire hadn’t been all consuming up here. Perhaps the fire brigade
(if they even had one) managed to temper the flames before they
tore this place apart. Even so, it was still a wreck and completely
unsalvageable.

Simon reached the top of the stairs and
like a Marine in some far off war zone he turned quickly and aimed
the torchlight down the small, narrow hallway. There was nothing
there but fallen paintings and wreckage. Was Simon a little
disappointed? He supposed that he was. It was the same
disappointment you get when watching motor racing and there isn’t a
crash. A part of you is happy that there were no accidents, but
another part of you is a little put out that bits of metal weren’t
shredded and tyres launched into the sky. So for what it was worth
Simon was a little disappointed that whatever it was that he was
looking for wasn’t charging at him with an axe or chainsaw or a
glove covered in homemade knives.

Using the light he followed the
handprints across the hallway and into the only room whose door was
open. The groaning floorboards were replaced with squelching as
water oozed from the wet carpet below Simons feet. With each
footfall a fresh whiff of stale water floated up and hung around
him like a fog. Instinctively he placed his arm across his mouth
and nose but it did little to mask the smell coming from the
floor.

Entering the bedroom, his heart racing
a little too fast, there was a flash of lightening which lit room
almost on perfect cue. There was no bed, no furniture what so ever,
and all that remained was an old dirty sheet hanging from the light
fitting.

Removing his hand from his mouth and
nose Simon’s senses were then overwhelmed by the stench that filled
this little room. His vision swirled as it overtook him and seemed
to swallow him up. Another flash of lighting lit the room and
Simons shadow on the side wall was matched with the one from the
sheet hanging from the ceiling. He choked a little, gagged, but
didn’t vomit much to his relief.

‘
What is that
smell.’

He shone the torch around the edges of
the floor. Rain began to patter on the roof in small fat drops and
what had been a soft breeze now started to whistle through the gaps
in the walls and windows. Still the stench went on and it wouldn’t
be long, Simon thought, until it sucked the life right out of
him.

Whatever it was he thought he was going
to find wasn’t here.

He shone the light one final time
across the far wall and the handprints were there again. He moved
over to them taking care not to tread too heavily. There were two
handprints, clearly one was a left hand and the other was the
right. It was as if whoever the hands belonged to, Simon was
starting to believe they were the hands of Mr Johnson, had placed
them palms down on the wall and there was a smear of blood just
above the splayed hands and stepping back Simon imagined a man,
hands pressed against the wall, his head against it and by the
looks of how clear the prints were he was like that for some time.
Was the man screaming, crying for his life and for forgiveness?

Another flash of lightening made Simon
look down and see a frayed piece of rope laying on the floor next
to an overturned chair that looked like it matched the one in the
kitchen. The rain outside became heavier and the wind picked up
making the house mumble in disgust.

‘
Time to go, Joe.’ And
Simon turned, brushing the manky sheet hanging from the
ceiling.

There was another lightning flash but
this time it was followed quickly by a monstrous crash of thunder
that shook not only the house but Simon too. The rumble went on for
some time, the sound hitting the valley walls and reverberating
like a drum. Simon reached the bedroom door and was about to step
out when the sound of something swaying, something stretching; like
wet rope tied to a mooring, forced him to freeze. The shake he had
lost returned.

Stood there, frozen to the spot, he
imagined in those brief moments all sorts of horrific ways in which
that stretching could be the prelude to his own death. But when it
didn’t come and there was no follow up Simon presumed it just the
making of the wind and rain and the storm. But then the smell came
up again and this time Simon recognised it from his time in the
morgue.

‘
Hang on. Why was
there a sheet hanging…’ Simon turned around and manoeuvred his
phone so that it pointed the light back into the room and up at the
ceiling where the sheet hung. Again, as if on cue there was another
flash of lighting and a deep roar of thunder. The room was engulfed
in white strobe and Simon’s torch app was made moot. It wasn’t a
sheet that was hanging from the ceiling. What hung from the
ceiling, eyes wide with a mouth forced into a perpetual scream, had
once been human but was now a charred mess of features. Simon
dropped his phone and the world went dark.

6

If I die, I’m going to haunt you
Ratman.

Bar-Ba-Ra!

Bar-Ba-Ra!

Bar-Ba-Ra!

Nothing.

Simon came too in what looked like a
hospital ward. It was an old hospital, rotten, abandoned, left to
the wilds. He was sat in a chair. Correction, he was tied to a
chair; tightly, with restraining leather belts wrapped around his
wrists and his feet. His head was being kept in place by a thin
metal band that squeezed his forehead tighter and tighter with
every breath. There was a smell in here too, sickly sweet like
marzipan. Though under that was another stink, just a whiff, but
enough to tell Simon that he wasn’t alone.

An empty gurney on rusty wheels was
across from him. Next to that was a drip that held two blood red
sacks of liquid upon its hooks. Long, clear tubes came out of the
sacks and at their ends were giant needles the size of baseball
bats. Behind the gurney was a window, dirty glass from years of
neglect hid the world beyond and green creeping vines poked through
gaps like fingers.

‘
There’s something I
need to show you.’ A female voice said from behind him.

Simon couldn’t answer for now there was
a leather belt wound around the lower half of his face and it
pushed a filthy smelling rag into his mouth. Breathing heavily
through his nose he tried to scream but it was useless.

‘
There’s something I
need to show you.’ She said again, only this time her voice was
closer. Much closer.

Simon gathered his strength together
and dug his ankles into the floor and pushed his aching back into
the chair in an effort to try and brake free. It was another
useless gesture.

A hand fell upon his shoulder and
remained there. ‘Don’t struggle, it only makes them harder.’
Concern dripped into the female voice but Simon didn’t trust
it.

‘
That’s it, Simon.
Well done. It will be okay.’

The hand left his side but stroked his
bare skin making his hairs stand to attention. Simon tried to look
again but his vision became blurred the more he looked to either
the left or the right.

The girl coughed, deep and hard
spitting whatever it was she had brought up onto the floor. Simon
heard it splat against the brownish white tiles and was
repulsed.

‘
Would you like to
see me?’

He tried to nod, though he didn’t know
why and was surprised when his head moved ever so slightly up and
down. Surprised and terrified.

‘
I’m not very
pretty.’ Much like the smell her voice was sickly sweet and there
was something rotten underneath. Simon knew that the voice was
being faked, it was too sweet, too girly, and it was hiding
something.

There were tiny, wet sounding
footsteps, then from Simons right a girl he recognised walked in
front of him. She had wet brown hair, long and wild. It was pulled
forward in dark twisting strands sticking to her pale face. There
were eyes under that hair, dead insect eyes reflecting back the
image of Simon tied to an old desk chair. Her mouth, lush red lips,
now dry and flaking, was open in a perpetual scream. Her nose was
missing replaced instead by just a single hole where some off
coloured liquid oozed. Inside her mouth there were no teeth and her
tongue was cut out so only half of the pink muscle remained and it
bled profusely. The girl was wearing a tatty strait jacket though
it didn’t seem to mind her. The leather bindings ended just below
her waist, just covering her womanhood, and then Simon had to close
his eyes when he saw that a dark reddish brown liquid dripped down
from between her legs.

‘
I knew you would be
disgusted by me. I can see it in your eyes. It’s not my fault, it’s
theirs!’ The girl said, though her mouth didn’t move and it seemed
as though the voice came from everywhere much like music from a
pair of headphones. And she was young, perhaps not even eighteen
yet, but that voice was fake.

‘
You’ve seen me
before. Haven’t you? In that picture under the stairs and in your
bathroom in that house at the end of the road. I was very pretty
then.’

Something licked Simons face, something
small and furry and it squeaked in his ear; all a dream, Simon,
it’s all a dream from when you fell, the squeak told him and Simon
knew it was little Ratman. And he was right, he was dreaming. All
of this was a dream. Simon tried to scream himself awake but the
rag stuffed in his mouth made it impossible.

‘
You are theirs until
they let you go. Don’t struggle, Simon, like I said, it only makes
them harder.’

The girl took a few steps backwards and
manoeuvred herself so that she climbed onto the gurney, which was
more like a bed turned into a wheelchair, and lay herself upon its
filthy mattress.

‘
Now it’s time for
them to do what they have to do and leave me alone. You have to see
this, Simon.’

The young girl who Simon recognised
from his previous nightmares opened her pale bony legs and spread
them wide. From her vagina the thick liquid slopped out like puss
from an abscess and the skin that surrounded it was horrifically
shaven and badly bruised. Simon once again tried to scream himself
awake and heaved so hard that his vision blurred. But it was no
good. His only saving grace was that he could close his eyes and he
did so, shutting them both tight much like a child would when they
were receiving a surprise present.

‘
Not a chance,
Sausage.’ Lucy said from behind him and he felt her hands pull
through his hair and force open his eyes with her fingers. He tried
in vain to shut them again and his eyes watered but it seemed to
Simon as though Lucy had both grown in strength and gained extra
sets of fingers.

‘
You are going to
watch this and you is going to like it.’ Lucy said and then went
silent.

Bobbie moaned then. A moan that
reminded Simon of the same sound he heard from behind the garage
door.

‘
A man’s work is
never done.’ Mr Rowling said as he appeared from Simon’s right hand
side. The old man was naked apart from a pair of slippers and a
flat cap. His skin hung from his bones like wet curtains and blue
veins stuck out like railway tracks. His penis was erect and bobbed
up and down as he walked toward the girl laid prone on the gurney.
He came to a stop at her side and stroked her face and hair
admiring Bobbie like a proud father would.

Unable to look away, Simon watched Mr
Rowling grab hold of the two giant needles and then with a great
intake of breath and effort he lifted his arms and stabbed the
points into Bobbie’s large, dead eyes.

Simon tried to scream and even if the
rag hadn’t been in his mouth he was sure that the scream from
Bobbie would have drowned out anything that he could have produced.
Her screams were massive, bestial, and they tore away Simon’s brain
removing all though. From between Bobbie’s legs the trickle of
blood turned into a flood and it quickly poured over the gurney and
onto the floor. Bobbie was still screaming as Mr Rowling walked
around, cupped his hand under her vagina and then poured the blood
over his throbbing erection.

‘
Be silent child.’
Lucy said like a caring mother and when Bobbie stopped whining,
‘Good girl. Good girl.’

It was then, when the room had fallen
silent, that Mr Rowling pulled the girl forward so that her legs
were hanging over the gurney. With a cold, heartless smile he
thrust himself deep inside of her causing blood to spray into the
air and across his face and chest.

As Mr Rowling raped Bobbie, Simons eyes
rolled up into their sockets, and before he passed from this
nightmare into the real world he once again felt the little furry
something lick his face.