by Richard C Elder
a (very) Bloody Mary
Billy Williamson
stands in the hallway of his home staring at the midnight street through one of
the grubby panes in the front door. The wrought iron gate separating his garden
from the world is closed. He frowns and reseats the NYC baseball hat, gets it
sitting square across his broad skull. The privet hedge either side of the
gateposts is a mess, growing wild as weeds. Trim it first thing in the
morning, soon as the frost lifts. He turns and looks up the staircase; it’s
barely visible in the gloom and muddy orange light percolating through the
glass, but he could climb it with his eyes shut if he had to. Ten steps up, turn
to the left, three steps more.
Barney stands on tread number ten, his eyes black
and round as marbles, staring down at Billy. Light floods the landing when the
bathroom door swings open. Barney snuffles and dips his head before turning away
to climb the top treads. The light dies at the clack of a switch. Slippers scuff
across carpet and the woman says, ‘Off the bed, you little shit.’
Billy sighs and gives the hedge a last look. Am I
getting forgetful, or what? A rocket explodes above the roof of the house
across the road, and he grins at the expanding ball of emerald green
diamonds. Another streaks into the sky, orange sparks blasting from its
tail; a crackling, blinding storm of blue-white magnesium stars arc through the
air when it detonates.
He
climbs the stairs, taking his time for there’s a dull throb in the middle of his
chest.
Janice - his wife for the past forty-three years -
is at the far side of their bedroom, her back to the door. She’s sitting on a
thickly upholstered stool at her faux oak dresser. There’s a free-standing
vanity mirror in front of her and a table lamp to one side. She dips her
fingertip into a small pink glass tub, scoops out a knob of moisturiser and dabs
it over her face. Leaning close to the mirror she spreads the cream over grained
skin, her features glowing sickly yellow in the light from the low energy
bulb.
Standing just outside the doorway, Billy murmurs,
‘You finished in the bathroom?’
She freezes mid-knead, her eyes swivelling in their
sockets at the sound of the voice. The room is dead silent. Stretched out on the
floor beside the radiator, Barney raises his head and looks at Billy. Janice
turns, slow as treacle running off a cold spoon, the stool creaking like a worn
hip beneath her. Tortoise shell varifocals crammed onto her face, she peers into
the murk at the far side of the bed. She can see the shape of a man, a big
square-shouldered man, standing motionless, his features no more than hints of a
nose and mouth, grey blotches-on-black.
Leaping to the bed she pulls a large black-handled
kitchen knife from under the pillow and holds it high above her head, the tip
glowing like a distant star. Her voice is shrill with adrenalin and shock. ‘Stay
where you are you bastard or I’ll stick you! You hear me? Don’t you bloody
move!’ Snatching her phone from the bedside table she taps 999 and screams her
address, that’s there’s a maniac in her bedroom, to get here NOW, RIGHT
NOW!
She stands her ground, the bed, the blade and her
gown the only things (she sleeps au-naturel) between her and the
intruder. Glancing at Barney she decides when, if, she gets out of this
she’ll tie the useless mutt into a sack, fill the bath and toss him
in.
Billy steps into the room and touches the light
switch. Janice retreats a half step, squinting in the glare, tightening her grip
on the quivering knife. ‘Cops are on the way,’ she growls, her brow furrowed
deeper than corduroy, blue eyes glittering. She jabs the knife in his direction,
keeps the threat real.
‘It’s me. Jan, it’s me,’ says Billy as he takes off
his baseball hat, rolling it into a tube then pocketing it. Nodding at the
knife, he asks, ‘And when did we start doing that?’
Janice stands slack-jawed, speechless for once in
her life. Barney gets to his feet and trots across the laminate flooring, his
nails click-click-clicking as he makes his way to the landing to stand
beside Billy. The pair of them look at her, waiting for something, anything, she
might care to offer as an explanation for the mad-ass behaviour they’ve both
witnessed.
She lowers the knife to belly level, keeps the blade
pointing at him.
‘You’re dead. A year dead, you boring, limp-dicked
old bastard,’ she hisses, her face twisted into a sneer. ‘You’re dead and bloody
buried, and you’re going to stay that way.’
She runs across the bed, the mattress rebounding
below her naked feet, dark-green quilt rucking and twisting like wind-lashed
ocean. The ceiling light is a cable car in a hurricane, hurling shadows from one
side of the room to the other. Billy’s legs turn to lead as he tries to get out
of her way, but she’s coming at him like a cheetah, teeth bared and moving so
fast she’s almost a blur. The blade skewers him and Billy gasps like his heart
has stopped, then gasps again, incredulous; there’s no pain, no impact driving
him back to the bannister, no struggle with a madwoman. The knife and Janice
pass through him like he’s nothing more substantial than steam.
A
brief cry followed by heavy thuds has him spinning round, peering over the
handrail. She’s lying at the bottom of the stairs, face down on the gold and red
hall carpet. Her breadstick left forearm is snapped in two, the right trapped
under her. Barney whimpers and looks at Billy; both of them race to the
hall.
‘She’s alive, Barney,’ says Billy, kneeling beside
his wife.
Her eyes flicker then open, her breathing deepening
as she moves her head from side to side and wiggles her toes.
The pain in his chest is back, sharper than before.
He rubs the front of his coat, yelps as his knuckles sizzle. There’s a palm
print staining the grey denim. No, not a stain: it’s luminous and glowing with
heat. It’s a small palm, thumb pointed upward to his throat, fingers splayed and
covering his heart. The middle finger is unusually short.
Janice moans and rolls over, panting like a dog. A
couple of deep breaths then she sits up and gets her feet under herself. Pushing
her heels into the carpet, she slides up the wall. A protruding shard of bone
drags across the wallpaper, pulls grunts from deep in her throat. Blood paints
her forehead, nose and cheeks from a gash in her scalp. The knife’s still in her
white-knuckled fist, her skinny forearm a minestrone of raised blue veins and
tensed muscle. She slashes at his throat but all she cuts is air. She stabs at
his stomach and almost overbalances when the blade and her fist meet no
resistance. As blood sheets down her face an eerie blue light fills the
hallway.
Billy jerks a thumb over his shoulder, says, ‘You
pushed me down the stairs. You murdered me.’ He fills with pain. Pain and
sadness. Sadness and regret. Whatever he is.
She laughs in his face; bloody saliva flies from
thin lips drawn back to expose tiny sharp teeth. Leaning forward till they’re
almost nose to nose she whispers, ‘Go haunt a bloody graveyard,’ then clamps the
blade between her canines. Scrabbling fingers find the night latch. She unlocks
the door and pulls it open an inch. The blade zings as she trails it from her
mouth, gets it settled in her hand. ‘Piss off out of my house,
freak.’
Billy’s face contorts, the lips thickening, teeth
elongating, his pupils expanding to black saucers set in green orbs. Sulphurous
breath streams from his nostrils, swirling round her face, burning her skin.
Hell looks her in the eyes.
Police constable
Laura Engles has her gloved hand on the rusting wrought iron gate. Her colleague
- constable Evelyn Simmons - is a few steps behind, talking on her radio,
confirming their arrival at the address where an intruder has been reported. The
cobalt strobes on the roof of their car hurl sheet lightning across the faces of
the houses lining the street.
The blast from a firework rattles windows, and
Simmons curses under her breath. The job’s hard enough without
pseudo-gunfire.
Engles looks back and mouths, Okay? Simmons
gives her a thumbs-up. Engles pushes open the gate just as the front door is
wrenched open, crashing against the wall and smashing several panes of glass. A
woman bursts from the house, her face a glistening scarlet mask. She’s running
at the policewoman, the knife flashing ominously in the strobe, yelling,
‘YOU’REDEADYOU’REFRIGGIN’DEAD!’
Fast as a gunslinger, Engles draws her Glock pistol
and snaps off a shot which drills into Janice’s throat, smashing through two
cervical vertebrae. A cloud of bone chips, fat and gore follow the bullet which
zips through Billy’s face before punching a hole in the kitchen door. Janice
nosedives onto the concrete path, bounces and rolls to the side, ends up lying
on her back on the lawn. The knife slips from her fingers into silvered grass;
three strangled breaths and her chest sinks, never to rise again. As her vision
fades to black she sees Billy drift past, his gaze fixed on something beyond the
confines of the garden. Then Barney appears, his dachshund face seeming to smile
before he too walks away.
On the southern shore
of Belfast Lough lies Ballyholme beach. It’s a sandy sheltered crescent almost a
mile wide. At its western end stands Ballyholme yacht club. The dinghies in the
yard are protected from the frosts and rain under bright-blue plastic
tarpaulins, their halyards tap-tap-taping against bare masts in the
freshening northerly breeze. To the east lies a low peninsula of fractured black
rock topped with whin bushes and coarse, salt-scalded grass.
Billy stands at the midpoint of the bay, just out of
reach of the wavelets sliding over the hard-packed sand. A sprinkle of tiny
lights are shimmering on the lough’s distant north shore, at the far end of the
broad silver path laid on the sea by the full moon. It’s Whitehead, a seaside
town he visited every summer as a child with his parents.
A
solitary cloud rises like smoke from the horizon, climbing toward the moon. His
heart lurching, Billy gapes at the sky, blue-black and endless, the moonlight
obliterating all but the brightest stars. He finds the cloud again. Its shadow
falls on the brilliant pathway, a distant smudge tarnishing the silver. As the
cloud climbs higher the shadow accelerates toward the beach. Billy looks down,
sees Barney at his side.
‘That’s it, boy. Time for me t...’
The shadow sweeps over them and the beach is plunged
into darkness. The cloud soars and the light returns. Barney whimpers, turning
in circles, leaving scratches in the sand. He lowers his head and searches for
scent but finds nothing. The wind strengthens, bringing with it colder air. He
can’t stay any longer.
A
final look, just to be sure, then he lollops away, headed for home.
