Bad House (11 page)

He looked down at her and felt nothing except for relief that his headache had cleared. After a moment or two, she used her good arm to drag herself towards a piece of the shattered glass.

“Resilient little bitch, aren’t you?” he said, lifting up his booted foot and stomping hard on her lower-back. The air whooshed out of her and her arms and legs gave a funny looking little jerk before she was still again. “Now, I want to watch the film, can I trust you to be a good little girl and lie still while I do that?”

She didn’t move.

Have I killed her?
he wondered. No, if he looked really hard he could see her shoulders rise slightly every time she drew in a breath.

“Now, where was I,” he said, settling himself in front of the computer on the sofa.

God, he felt good. He hadn’t felt this good for ages. He had lived with a headache for so long, it was like it had become a part of him. But now it was gone, he felt like a whole new man. The truth of his situation hit him like a sledgehammer.

I’ve been fighting this since I moved here,
came the thought.
It’s so damn good to just let it happen
.

All those bad dreams, the constantly feeling ill, the supposed blackouts and memory lapses, that had been his way of fighting what the house was turning him into, his way of blocking it all out.

But you can’t fight forever, Ian my man.

Not only had his headache gone, but a pleasant feeling of euphoria settled over him, like the buzz he used to get from the first few drinks when he was in good company with good conversation. Smiling to himself, he pressed a few keys on the laptop so that the footage rewound three hours. If memory served him correct, that was roughly how long he had been ‘passed out.’

Now I’m going to see what I really did to Marianna
.

Although he had the distinct feeling that on some level, he already knew.

Sure enough, the point he had rewound to showed an empty living-room just seconds before he and Marianna had entered it.

Now he was watching it on the screen, he remembered.

“Oh boy, oh boy, oh fucking BOY!” he half-laughed, half howled, throwing his head back against the sofa and pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes.

When he looked at the screen again, Marianna was easing him down onto the sofa and Ian watched himself lying down. Marianna said something to him

(I’ll get you a glass of water)

and left the room.

His false memory had been of passing out.

But in reality he had sat upright and smiled at the camera. The Ian on -screen turned his gaze away from the camera and sat there staring at his hands clasped meekly in his lap, patiently waiting for Marianna to re-enter the room.

Ian watched the pc screen with bated breath, waiting for the action to start along with his on-screen, alter-ego. After a minute or two, Marianna appeared in the doorway. In her hand she was holding a pint glass of water. She said something, (
Oh, you’ve come round, we should probably call an ambulance,
if memory served him correct) and took a step into the room.

On-screen Ian sprang up from the sofa, and much like he had tackled Louise just now, he lunged for Marianna and threw her to the ground. The pint glass shattered on the wooden floorboards, most of the shards coming to rest by the door. He leaned down and flipped the unmoving woman onto her back and straddled her hips.

Ian watched himself ruck up Marianna’s skirt, yank her knickers to one side, unbutton his flies and unceremoniously drive into her. The rape lasted less than a minute, and when he was done he grabbed the nearest piece of shattered glass and slit the woman’s throat.

Calmly, he got off her and went over and sat on the sofa. Marianna was no longer unconscious. Her bare legs twitched and kicked, and she grabbed the jagged edges of her slit throat. Blood that looked black in the black and white recording pumped rhythmically over her fingers and pooled around her torso.

Ian watched in fascination, turned on all over again by the woman’s wide-eyed look of terror. The blood continued to pump out, saturating the woman’s clothes and surrounding floorboards.

Of course,
he thought happily when he saw what happened next.
Now I remember everything
.

On the screen, the pool of blood surrounding Marianna was diminishing. It brought back memories of his very first night here, when his spilled blood had woken up the house. And a few minutes ago in the bathroom. He smiled.

The house is drinking it
.

It looked as if the footage was being played backwards with the puddle of blood getting smaller rather than bigger.

At some point, Marianna’s body went slack and the violently pumping blood slowed to a trickle. Ian edged forward on the sofa, both on the screen and in real time. Now the girl was being
absorbed
into the floor.

It was impossible, but there it was, happening before his eyes. He was as amazed by it now as he was then.

I guess some things never get old
.

Her entire body had fused to the floor like melted plastic. Bit by bit, slow and steady, she was sucked into the floor. Her arms and legs were the first to disappear, her face and breasts the last. It was an arresting sight, like watching a beautiful woman sinking below the calm surface of a bath.

Just like that, she was gone, leaving no trace behind. No blood, no clothes,
nothing
.

The house is happy,
came the thought.

A groaning noise snapped him back to reality.

Louise.
He had almost forgotten about her. Pausing the image on the screen – which now showed nothing apart from him sitting serenely on the sofa and the empty spot where Marianna had just been – he went over to her.

Kneeling down next to her, he picked up a piece of jagged glass from the smashed pint glass he had used to kill Marianna earlier that morning, and held it up to the light. It was just so amazing the way the house sucked up every last drop of blood.

Below him, Louise whimpered, and he gazed down at her. He grabbed hold of her shoulders and grunting with effort, rolled her onto her back. She cried out in pain, but his heart was hardened to her plight.

You’ve done worse than this,
a little voice taunted him in his mind.
Much worse
.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not feeling sorry at all. “It’s just the way it is. The house must
feed
.”

Louise sobbed gently but persistently. “Please don’t kill me.”

“I have to. It’s just the way it is.”

“Is that what you said to your wife and kid? You’re a monster.”

Doubt permeated his feel-good fog.
Did I do that? Good. It was the right thing to do
.

Yet some part of his brain fought against that thought. The fierce headache pulsed into life again and he groaned in pain.

Louise struggled into a sitting position and stared beseechingly up at him. “It’s not too late, I’m sorry I called you a monster. You’re not a monster, it’s
the house
making you do this. Come on, Ian, let’s just go…”

Suddenly he was furious at her. He just wanted her to shut up, and God, his head was fucking killing, he couldn’t think straight.

Do it. Kill her
.

He brought down the sharp edge of the glass across her face and instantly the headache ceased. He sighed in satisfaction, a sense of deep calm enveloping him. Again and again he slashed her face until she was red and screaming. Her hands fluttered before her face as if that would somehow protect her but Ian slashed through those, too. Now her screams had turned wet and gurgling as she lay there dying from blood loss.

The house began to drink. The puddle that he was kneeling in lessened, then diminished completely.

He delivered the final cut to her jugular, and a deep rattling sound emitted from her throat before she lay still. A strong stench of shit filled his nostrils and he recoiled, more in surprise than shock.

There goes the sphincter muscle
…

When every last drop of blood had been sucked out her lifeless body and into the floorboards, her body fused to the ground.

Ian stood up and staggered backwards, still dizzy and euphoric from the after-effects of slicing her up. Just like Marianna had done before her, she
sunk
into the floorboards like the surface was nothing more than water. Then she too was gone, leaving no trace behind.

Ian sat back down on the sofa, and cradled his head in his hands.

Ian! Don’t do this! Please don’t kill us, oh God, why are you doing this?

Daddeee! It hurts. Please stop it Daddy, it hurts so much
…

“No!” he shouted, the voices of his wife and son screaming in his mind, deafening him, driving him
mad
. “I had to do it, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

And this time, he meant it because he was remembering
everything
. He hadn’t laid down on the sofa and slept after he had watched Holly and Jacob eating their dinner on the laptop screen. He hadn’t woken up and gone into the kitchen to have his wife and son walk out on him.

That was a false memory, a safety net to cushion his sanity. He had watched them eat their dinner on the laptop, then he had gone into the kitchen and hacked them to death with a pair of kitchen scissors left on the draining-board.

You’re hurting me, Daddy
…

Ian, stop, for the love of God
…

Daddy’s going to SLICE YOU UP!

Ian whimpered, rocking back and forth on the edge of the sofa with his head cradled in his forearms.

Everything else that had happened that night had been a feverish dream. Holly leaving and taking Jacob with her. The storm. Marianna’s impromptu, blood-bath strip-show in the window.

He looked up and saw himself on the computer screen, frozen in time on the sofa.

Only one more person’s blood left to spill
…

He knew what he had to do, it was the only thing left. It was over.

The buzzer to the front-gate rang out, making him jump. That had to be the police. Who else could it be?

The house was done with him, and he was done with the house. Getting to his feet, he wandered over to one of the free-standing bookshelves and picked up a metal nail-file that Holly had left there. Calmly, like it was the most natural thing in the world, he opened up both his wrists long-ways. Then he sat down on the floor and watched the blood seep into the floorboards. He knew that by the time the police arrived, he would be dead.

He would be
gone
.

I’m coming, Holly. I love you. I love you both
.

He was feeling so weak, so tired. He lay down on his back and felt the life leak out of him. Dimly, he was aware of heat to the right of him, and he lifted his head. Through his blurred vision, he saw that the laptop was ablaze.

Well, what do you know
, he thought, before his mind drifted off into blackness.

By the time the police broke into his house, he was gone.

The End.

Thank you for reading, dear reader, I hope you enjoyed the story. If you like what you’ve read then don’t forget to check up on my author page at amazon once in a while as I aim to release a new story every month.  If you’re interested in reading more from me, I have enclosed the first chapter of ‘Djinn’ below.

Thanks again and sweet nightmares to you all, Sam.

Djinn book description: 

Pam Wilkins hates her life. She doesn't have much going for her. Her boyfriend beats her, she looks like the back end of a bus and she's skint.

To top it all off, she cleans up other people's shit for a living.

While she's at work scrubbing a toilet, a Djinn appears in a puff of smoke and grants her six wishes. All she has to do to make her dreams come true, is commit the most heinous, atrocious acts imaginable.

Six wishes for six atrocities.

It's a no-brainer. Pam will do ANYTHING to get what she wants. But she soon discovers that the price she must pay is far higher than she ever imagined...

CHAPTER ONE

Somebody’d had a really evil crap in this cubicle. Pam Wilkins gagged, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her tatty cleaning jumper, careful not to let the yellow rubber glove she was wearing touch her face.

“Fuck,” she groaned, the bile rising and her tongue floating in mouth water.

Shit, she should be used to this. She’d been doing it for almost a year, which was a long time as far as cleaning toilets went. The job could be measured in something like dog years. One month felt like ten years so she figured she should
really
be used to it by now.

She took a step inside the cubicle of death and the door swung shut behind her. There was no way she was getting trapped in with that stench so she placed her plastic bucket full of cleaning products at the foot of the door to wedge it open.

That’s when the dull glint caught her eye under the door hinge. At first glance she thought it was a discarded copper teapot, but then she saw the shape of the thing was too elongated to be a teapot. She bent over to inspect it more closely. Yes, it was some kind of lamp, instantly making her think of Aladdin and The Lamp.

She picked it up, slowly turning it over in her hands. It was filthy, but under the dirt it looked like it might be made of brass. Were brass lamps worth anything? She didn’t know, but she would google it when she got in. Maybe it would be worth a bob or two on Ebay.

She picked out a yellow dustcloth from her bucket and gave it a little rub.

Smoke began to curl out of the spout.

“What the fuck?” she exclaimed, dropping the lamp.

It clattered to the tiled floor, the smoke continuing to rise. It billowed in the confined space, making her gag and her eyes water.

“What the
fuck
,” she repeated, coughing and spluttering.

Pam stumbled backwards, staring incredulously at the smoke that now filled the cubicle.

All that smoke, but no fire
, she thought, her mind whirring in confusion. How can that be?

The cubicle was
thick
with smoke. But the strange thing was, not even a curl of it escaped the cubicle, like there was an invisible barrier confining it there.

The smoke seemed to be clearing a little, and now that it was, Pam could make out a figure standing amidst it.

“Shit,” she proclaimed, rubbing her eyes, convinced she was seeing things.

But no, there was definitely somebody standing in the cubicle. A man, no less, judging from the tall, broad shouldered silhouette.

“What the fuck
is
this? Where did you come from?”

“From the lamp. You summoned me. I am here to do your bidding.”

“Yeah, and I’m the queen of fucking Sheeba. Did Wayne put you up to this?”

“No.”

Pam shivered. She couldn’t see his face as the smoke still swirled around his head, obscuring his features. How could the bastard breathe in all that smoke? She had pulled her pullover up over nose and
still
the smoke felt thick and frightening in her lungs. That aside, it was
the voice
that got to her. Despite the figure being obviously male, the voice sounded oddly asexual, falling somewhere between masculine and feminine. Not only that, but it didn’t seem to be emanating from the man himself. Like the smoke itself, the lilting voice hung in the air all around them.

It had to be a practical joke, the guy had to have a tape recorded voice in his pocket to make it sound like that. Or maybe there were speakers hidden in the toilet. Pam
hated
practical jokes, her life was one big joke enough as it was.

A distant part of her mind warned her that this was real. Who the hell did she think she was? She knew perfectly well she wasn’t even interesting enough to be the butt of a practical joke.

“Now listen here, you fucking psycho, obviously you’ve been loitering in the next door cubicle waiting to pull your little stunt, but I don’t want to play your sick games. I’m walking away, right now, and then I’m going to call the police.”

“Stay, Pam. I can give you everything your mortal heart has ever desired. I can make your every wish come true. I am the Djinn.”

“Fuck off.”

Pam was scared. It wasn’t right.
He
wasn’t right. How could he stand there in all that smoke and not be fucking dead? And now that the smoke was clearing, why could she still not see his fucking face? It was almost like he didn’t have one.

She turned to leave.

“Wait.”

The quiet command of his voice made her pause.

“Leave me alone,” she said, hating how frightened she sounded.

She remained rooted to the spot, not daring to turn around and face him yet also unable to turn and leave.

“Don’t be scared Pam, you have nothing to fear. I am friend, not foe. If you complete a simple set of tasks I can make all your dreams come true.”

Something compelled her to turn around.

He had stepped out of the cubicle where the smoke was rapidly clearing and stood less than a metre away from her. He was wearing a well cut black suit on his perfectly formed body.

She
still
couldn’t see his face. She rubbed her eyes, convinced she was losing her mind. But no, his features were a blur, like she was too pissed to focus. Except she wasn’t. It was Monday morning and she was stone cold sober. His hair might have been dark, but it was near impossible to tell. His head seemed to gently shimmer and sparkle, like the reflection off an ocean. It hurt to look at it for too long.

“What kind of fucking mask is that?” she asked, shielding her eyes.

“It is not a mask. Mortals cannot gaze upon my visage, my absolute, perfect beauty would destroy your mind. You would not be able to comprehend it.”

“What are you? Apart from conceited?”

“I am Djinn, the third sapient creature of God. There are humans, angels and those like me, the Djinn.”

“You mean a demon, right?”

Pam simply could not believe she was having this conversation. It was ludicrous, she was humouring a psychopath.

Yet as much as she hated to admit it, she believed his every word.

“No Pam, Djinn are not demons. Like you humans, we have free will. We can be good, evil, or benevolent.”

“And what are you?”

He didn’t smile, because he didn’t have a face, but she could hear the tease in his voice.

“Why, I am good, of course.”

She shook her head.  She had gone insane, it was the only logical explanation.  It was hardly a surprise, really. All the financial worries, her bullying boyfriend and generally shitty life had led her to this point.

“You’re not real,” she said, closing her eyes, wanting it to be true.

When she opened them again, he was still there. As she knew, deep down, he would be.

“Make a deal with me Pam. Six wishes in exchange for six simple tasks. You will live a long and perfect life of your choosing, at the end of which, I take your soul.”

“What, so you can torture me for all eternity? I don’t think so.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Pam. I do not wish to torture you, I wish to save you from hell. Do you really think you’re getting into heaven? With all things you’ve done in your life? Please.”

“How do you know what I’ve done?”

“Because I am not of this world. Because when you rubbed the lamp, I absorbed your memories, your very essence. I know everything. I know about the abortions, the hard drinking, the prostituting yourself.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, that was only like twice. And I only did it ‘cause I was desperate ‘cause the bailiffs were on my case.”

“No matter. It is enough to send you to hell.”

“If all this is true, then what the fuck do you want with my soul?”

“What good is a kingdom with no subjects? The third realm consists of saved souls, and the more souls I save from the eternal torture of hell, the happier I will be.”

“So you’re like, the boss of this place?”

“The collective Djinn are. Look, Pam, the politics of the third realm are of little consequence. Do you want to make the deal or not?”

“But why me?”

“Why not? My lamp, or that is, my vessel, had to materialise somewhere. It just happened to be here. I wouldn’t have come out if a good person destined for heaven had found the lamp. I am here to save a soul, and along came you.”

“Along came me,” she repeated wistfully.

Pam’s head ached with the most bizarre encounter of her relatively short life. Six wishes. Oh, the things she could wish for to make her life better. The things she could have and do so she wouldn’t wake up every day in misery…

He closed the gap between them and she shivered when he reached out to touch her arm. He steered her over to the long mirror above the sink and stood behind her.

“Look at yourself Pam. What do you see?”

Pam concentrated on her own face, ignoring the blurred visage of the man behind her. Pam had had a hard life. All the twenty six years of crap were etched on her prematurely lined, sunken face.

“I see sadness,” she said softly.

“I can take all that away. I can make you happy. I can make you beautiful. I can make you rich. Whatever you want.”

Pam looked at her bloodshot, heavily bagged eyes. At the prematurely grey streaked, lank, dark hair. At the double chin and hollow cheeks. At the yellow front teeth and the missing eye teeth. She was a mess. A big, fat mess.

She lowered her eyes in disgust. She was repulsive, she would give anything to be pretty.

Even sell her soul.

“Make the deal, Pam. We cannot proceed until you consent. I will make the first offer, and it will count as the first of your six wishes. Ten thousand pounds will appear in your purse if you complete the first of your six tasks.”

His voice or
its voice
was so soothing, so hypnotic. She couldn’t think straight, her head felt fuzzy like she had just awoken from a deep sleep.

A distant part of her mind warned that she had fallen under a spell. Yet simultaneously she didn’t care.

“What would I have to do for my first task?”

“All you have to do is drink out of the toilet you were about to clean.”

“
What
?”

“I think you heard me Pam. Six good swallows, and the ten thousand pounds is yours.”

“There’s a fucking
floater
in it.”

“So?”

“What if I refuse?”

The be-suited shoulders towering over her shrugged. “Then the deal is off. You go back to being the sad, fat, ugly, pathetic excuse for a human being that you are.”

“Hey, that’s harsh.”

“Yes, it is. And I’m giving you this golden opportunity to change your life. Drink the water, Pam. Take control of your own destiny.”

She turned around and stared at the face that wasn’t until it stung her eyes and she was forced to look away.

I can’t believe I’m even contemplating this. I can’t believe this is happening
…

When she glanced over at the stall softly shrouded by the wispiest tendrils of smoke, the porcelain bowl seemed to stare back her.

The mouth water was back again just
thinking
about it, her tongue curling up at the base.

“What if I do this? What would I have to do for the next one?”

“Each task is on a need to know basis.”

“But what if I do this, and not the next?”

“Then you forfeit everything, including the money for this task, even if you have completed it to my satisfaction. You finish with nothing and the deal is off. You go back to being the fat loser who scrubs toilets for a living and lets her boyfriend beat her.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, thank you. So do we have a deal?”

She hesitated for a second. “What if I get some disease?”

“That’s your choice.”

“Jesus.”

“Oh, come now, Pam. You’ve done worse.”

It was true. She had. But how did he know that?

Because he peered into your mind when you rubbed his lamp, remember?

“Jesus,” she said once more.

Fuck it, he’s right, I have done worse
.

She cast her mind back to the time Wayne had made her clean the rim of the toilet bowl with her tongue when she had burnt his dinner. So this would be a walk in the park, right?

Ten grand
, she thought.
I could sure use ten grand
.

In her head she was paying off the back rent and overdue council tax and the payday loan that seemed to have not so much doubled as quadrupled.