Clifton Falls (6 page)

could do was grit her teeth as glass tore away her facial flesh. Charmaine’s body was sliced to pieces as the creature eventually
tossed her onto the ground. The blood spluttered, draining out of
her torn carcass. It was a miracle she was still breathing, but she
would rather be dead than think about what was to happen next. She lay on the grass, too weak to move after losing so much
blood. Her eye wound still seeped dark juice as it blackened one
side of her face. Thin lines of crimson water streamed down the
shredded patches of her body before dripping onto the green,
carpet-like surface, changing it to red.
The zombie picked up a shattered piece of glass and stood next
to Charmaine’s head. All she could do now was pray for a miracle
to happen, or for a quick execution, as there was no way she wanted
this to go on any longer.
Her mouth filled with blood like a well full of water. It didn’t
matter how many times she spat the liquid out, the gash in her
throat would produce more.
The zombie studied its catch, satisfied with what it’d done. It
then knelt down, almost touching Charmaine’s head with its distorted knees. She tried wriggling her body to escape, her undamaged eye catching the evilness in the monster’s features as the razor sharp weapon was raised. Suddenly, without warning, it came crashing down, spearing into her head. The zombie pushed
the glass until all of it was embedded.
The grass became a river of blood. The life fluid streamed from
her body, but the flow finally stopped after a few more seconds.

EIGHT

Mary Smythe was busy with the daily chores around her house so wasn’t to know what was happening in her garden at this time. The soil covering the grave of Vincent’s dead mother was shifting, developing a hole big enough to push fingers out of the ground. A shady, grotesque looking figure tried releasing itself from the burial place that’d been its home for the last six months. This creature was no angel.

The garden had a twelve foot high fence around it so the only way the neighbours could see this thing rise would be if they were looking out of their bedroom windows; they weren’t. The fencing to the right had an escape route caused by the constant scratching and biting by the next-door neighbour’s dog, Bruno, who liked to bury bones in Vincent’s garden.

Bruno was there at this moment, busy shifting the earth to plant another bone, but the dog stopped as it became aware of this strange, macabre character rolling onto the grass. The animal shuffled along to investigate, sniffing around the emerging figure. It didn’t appear to be frightened by the monster’s appearance. The corpse climbed to its feet, gawping at the dog. The animal’s head turned to one side as the monster pointed an index finger at it. A friendly, whining sound spilled from the mutt as it closed in even more. The creature widened its insect infested mouth and tried speaking to the animal, but no proper words were heard. This startled the zombie. “Brrrrrrr,” it moaned.

A large array of creepy crawlies fell onto the grass, forming piles when the monster moved. The animal sniffed the recently fallen, scattering insects, but made no attempt to bark, or alert its owner to the intruder lurking in the garden. The dog’s behaviour was weird. Bruno would always acknowledge a stranger’s presence to its owner and sometimes went as far as showing fangs to them, but not this time. The animal definitely identified the creature as still being human. It looked beyond the body mutilation to see the old lady who’d fed it scraps from her kitchen.

The monster bent down, presumably to stroke the dog, so, with tail wagging in an excited fashion, the Doberman sat, ready for the dead woman’s hand to touch its fur. It panted and whimpered in an increasingly pleasurable way, but was Bruno going to taste those oven-baked biscuits again?

Both sets of eyes connected as the zombie’s hand touched the animal’s neck. Bruno was in for a major shock as the zombie’s bony fingers tightened rapidly around its throat. There was no reaction, no retaliation, and no biting to come from the animal. Even whilst choking, Bruno never thought that this innocent, frail old lady would hurt it on purpose. The zombie’s hand squeezed tighter as Bruno’s eyes remained focused. The dog seemed to be hypnotized. It wasn’t because it mistook this thing as being Vincent’s mother it was because the pet was under a spell that it wasn’t able to escape from.

A breathless squeal escaped from the animal’s mouth. The poor dog’s tongue rolled out to its maximum length while its eyes clouded over for the last time. Bruno let out one final breath. The dog’s eyeballs rotated backwards, turning white before its body collapsed in a heap.

The zombie stared at the animal for a few seconds as flashbacks from the past cluttered up its vision. It wasn’t just Bruno who remembered something, but the desire to feed sucked up the good memories, replacing them with horrible, cruel, new thoughts. The evil side was here again. This beast had to, needed to taste flesh, and that’s what it was going to do.

The animal’s head was lifted. The monster tore flesh and fur from the neck, but after a quick chew spat the pieces out again. Its facial expression indicated that maybe animal meat wasn’t the best of choices to fulfil its desires. For this hunger to stop yearning, a human had to die very soon.

The zombie turned, facing the house, but did it actually know where it was? Or was it just instinct?

Inside the house, Mary had finished tidying up and was sitting watching Trisha on the television. It was one of her favourite programs so all daily activities would come to a halt as soon as it was on. It would take something major to happen before she left her seat at this time.

The zombie sluggishly walked to the edge of the garden. It noticed the tool Vincent had left lying on the ground, the rainrusted blade on the Stanley-knife still showing. Fascinated, the creature reached down and picked it up, turning it around in its scrawny, right hand. As it did so, a sadistic, twisted smile was produced. It made its way to the house where it found the door unlocked. It was very easy to open, as the catch was broken. The mother-in-law brushed against the door handle, released the catch and slowly entered the kitchen. Its eyes constantly scanned everything in the room, but after a few seconds, the redness around the pupils glowed bright with rage. The zombie wasn’t happy at the décor surrounding the newly designed kitchen. This was proof that the female way of thinking was still there, somewhere. Suddenly, the creature’s eyes stopped scanning, locking onto the door separating the kitchen from the living room. The zombie moved toward it.

Mary was none the wiser to what was happening in the next room, but that changed when she heard something fall from one of the shelves. Was this the something major that would distract her attention away from her favourite show? Mary rose from her seat, heading for the door, but as she reached it, the door was thrown open, knocking her downwards onto the living room carpet. The zombie barged its way in. Mary managed to gain an upright position rather quickly for someone of around sixty years of age and made room between herself and the creature.

The zombie raised its right arm to attack but had that look of pure sadness again. It sensed a connection between itself and the human but again, something inside the regenerated brain ordered the zombie to kill. It was infected with some kind of kill anything and everything virus. It had one motive, massacre before being put back into the ground.

Mary saw the Stanley-knife being waved in the air as she stared glumly at the mystery person. The staring lasted about thirty seconds, but neither of them budged an inch.

She now noticed the gruesome figure’s eyes switching their attention from her to the television screen. The zombie acted like it was annoyed over something it was watching. Underneath the flaking, stinking mass of filth that covered the zombie’s face and body were small reminders that Mary too recognised this figure.

“Maaaaaaaaaaaaa,” the beast groaned.

It couldn’t be Vincent’s mother, could it?
she thought, as the zombie repeated the slobbering, spoken word.
“Mary. Is that what you’re trying to say?”
The rotting corpse shrugged its shoulders and sighed. It then eyed up the room, moved over to a shelf, grabbed the pad and pen that was on it, and wrote down some words. Mary seemed baffled, but waited for the final outcome. The pad was held out to her. “Oh, right. He is, isn’t he?” she said, after reading what the zombie wrote.
The written words read: “Man on the television is a lying cheat. He definitely cheated on his wife and the other woman is having his baby.” Mary smiled and agreed.
She’d allowed herself to be distracted inside some kind of a shocked, daydream moment. This was a big mistake because now her guard had come down.
The zombie skimmed the knife blade across her left cheek, leaving a graze. Mary was now left in a state of shock and couldn’t think straight as the zombie moved in for the kill. “Who are you? What do you want?” she shouted, hurriedly spraying out the shaking words. “You look like my husband’s mother, but you can’t be, she’s dead. Who the hell are you?”
Mary was now covered in a blanket of fear as crazy thoughts about her mother-in-law overloaded her brain.
What the hell had happened?
she thought.
The small gash seeped blood. She moved, heading for another door, but the spluttering snarls that escaped the zombie’s mouth froze her before she could achieve this. Desperately, she faced the intruder. She pushed an armchair between her and the monster for protection, hoping to keep the mad freak at arm’s length. She needed to think fast, but her brain remained tangled with the increased pressure of recent thoughts. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she began to shake. What could she do? She could risk going for the phone but it was too risky to try. The zombie would be on her like a leech to the skin before she could make a call.
The monster became impatient with its prey, so a disintegrating left hand gripped onto the piece of furniture. It was shook from side to side with a lot of force until loosened from Mary’s grip. She screamed. The noise bounced off the walls around her as the armchair was sent spinning.
Mary began to lose her nerve, stupidly trying to push past the monster in order to flee back through the kitchen, but the beast slapped a hand onto her trailing right arm like a bear trap closing in on its victim. It launched her lightweight body into the air, sending her crashing against the television set, smashing it against the wall. This wasn’t a good sign for Mary because another one of her favourite programs was on soon and it looked like she would miss it.
The frightened woman heard faint thumping against the wall as the screeching voice of the neighbour shouted his disgust at the racket coming from her house. The last few words to enter Mary’s eardrums were: “Keep the fucking noise down.”
Mary stood up again, but on this occasion remained dazed. The zombie lashed out with the blade again, leaving more stinging cuts on her face. She was left with blurred, watery vision. Mary pleaded with the assailant to stop but felt helpless trying to protect herself. She’d no idea where the beast was going to strike next. She swung her fists to hopefully catch the creature with a lucky punch but an abnormal hand reached out, gripping her jaw. Mary’s body was pushed backwards until her head smacked loudly against the wall above the fireplace. The blade closed in again but this time didn’t slash her, instead, it slowly rested on the tip of her nose, allowing Mary to feel the coldness of the rusty blade against her skin. If there was a time when she wanted to see her husband, this was it. Mary couldn’t stop herself from urinating on the carpet as she cried and pleaded for her life. Fear had a way of making this happen.
With a swift movement of the blade, the knife sectioned away the edge of Mary’s nose. Blood gushed down over her mouth and chin before eventually soaking into her blouse. She sobbed frantically now. The agony was too much for her. She remained stiff and crying. The zombie gazed at the fountain of red stuff, producing an evil smile just before its ferocious, tasteless teeth crunched into the rest of her nose. The zombie seemed satisfied with this meal.
The excited creature licked blood away from Mary’s face. She felt the roughness of the shrivelled tongue as it brushed away the red juices from the wound. The zombie let go of her, but the bitten off feature was crunched between its teeth. Mary watched in horror. She collapsed to the floor in extreme agony and fainted. The zombie smiled again, taking advantage of the situation. The sadistic fiend moved in to feast on her before she could recover.

NINE

The crazy, mad killer staggered along the country lane with fresh blood soaked into the crusty mud patches of the worn away clothing, giving the beast more colour. It wasn’t bothered where it went. It was now on a journey to anywhere.

An engine roared in the distance, increasing as the seconds ticked by. The monster’s head lifted slightly, its one good eye scanning the vicinity for the direction of the sound, but a bend in the road prevented the creature from seeing the large, Volvo truck heading in its direction. The noise grew louder, unsettling the zombie. It wasn’t sure of what it was going to do next, so turned around in an attempt to escape. The driver blasted the horn repeatedly as the truck neared. This confused the zombie even more. It placed its hands on its head, turned around again and faced the vehicle.

The driver shouted. “Get out of the fucking way.”
The zombie remained like a statue, not processing what the man said. The lorry braked, screeching along the road, the tyres imprinting black transfers into the previously quiet, country lane. The truck crashed into the zombie with extreme force, exploding the body on impact. The head severed from the neck and landed in the path of the moving, front wheels, while dismembered pieces of body splattered against the windscreen, leaving chunks of flesh, body organs, and blood on the machine’s bodywork.
Pure shock hit the driver. He was lucky not to have lost control of the truck. As soon as it settled to a stop he climbed down and headed for the carnage. The sight made the man’s stomach feel very unsettled and he was close to being violently sick. Upon moving away from the splattered mess, returned to his vehicle and contacted the police. He remained in his seat after the call, staring into space while waiting for someone to arrive.
Five minutes passed before any police personnel arrived. Wayne and Jason were the officers assigned to this case.
“You must be the driver of this vehicle?” Jason asked, as the driver walked over to him.
Jason was in his early twenties, clean-shaven, dark blonde hair, stopping just past his ears. He had the attitude problem of a hyperactive, spoilt brat, but did his job and Wayne liked working with him. Being a young Constable, he was in charge of writing details down on his notepad.
“Yes. My name’s Frank. I was driving along this road when I saw a person standing in the middle of it.” He watched the reaction of the other men’s eyes, hoping they believed him. “I tried telling the person to get out the way, but they didn’t move. I braked, but it was too late.”
Jason took this opportunity to look at the black skid-marks left by the truck, knowing the man was telling the truth about slamming on his brakes because the proof was right there.
Frank’s nerves took over. Wayne moved closer to him, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. Jason interrupted the other men, raising his pen as if to ask a question.
“So, exactly where’s the person you knocked down?”
“Everywhere,” replied Frank.
“What do you mean everywhere?” Jason snapped.
Frank pointed out that when he hit the body it was torn to pieces, and apart from the bits stuck to the front of the vehicle, the rest had landed in the grass verge by the side of the road. Jason jotted down the information and followed the path.
Wayne, a Sergeant, who was in his early thirties, with dark brown, short hair, and a much larger body-frame than his partner, stayed with Frank. Both concentrated closely on Jason’s footsteps.
Jason’s left boot stood in something sticky so he stopped to take a closer look. Chunks of clotted tissue had left a trail of red colouring so he followed it until reaching the spot where the answer waited for him. Yes, he could see that something registering human remains was there.
“I’ve found something and it doesn’t appear to be very pretty. I’m taking a closer look to see what it is.”
“Okay, you do that,” said Wayne.
Jason couldn’t believe his eyes at what he saw. Arms and legs lay on the grass, showing clear signs that the person had been brutally murdered and not run over as Frank had explained. He began to wonder if Frank was lying, and his story had been concocted to hide the fact that he was a killer. Jason always thought the worst in other people. According to him, all strangers were murderers. He changed his thoughts after a few more seconds because the body pieces looked so far decayed that nobody could have killed this person within the past few hours, in fact, not even within the past week or so. Jason was completely puzzled.
“I think we’ve a slight problem here,” he shouted to Wayne. The other men concentrated even harder on Jason’s actions. “You said this body stood in the road just before you knocked it down with your truck. Is that right?” the disgusted constable asked Frank.
Frank nodded to confirm his answer.
Wayne stepped in. “Jason, what’s your point to all this? You know what happened, so why all the questions?”
“I think you’d best come over; take a peep. You’re going to love this.”
The other men moved closer to Jason. Once there, also saw the sickening sight by the roadside.
“My God, you definitely hit them,” Wayne said, as a sick taste built up in his throat.
“Take a closer look if you would, Wayne. You’ll see that this body wasn’t killed by the lorry because it’s been dead for over a week.”
Frank was at the point of fainting when he heard those words. Wayne stared at the carnage in more detail, agreeing with Jason. “You’re right. So what do you think happened then, Jay?”
Wayne knew the facial expressions Jason put on, and could see from this expression that the young constable had his ‘Sherlock Holmes’ head on at this time. Jason turned, glaring at Frank again. “I’ll tell you what I think, shall I? This man murdered the victim and stored the body in the back of his truck. This quiet, country lane was the place where he wanted to dump the body.” He pulled a serious face as taunting fingers pointed at Frank. “Dumping it wasn’t the answer because he might still get caught, so, ran it down until it was unidentifiable before phoning the police with this bullshit story.”
Wayne couldn’t tell if Jason’s judgement theory was an honest one, or, if he was just winding the truck driver up. Frank became more worried. “But I’m telling you the truth, officer. That person was walking when I hit them.”
He was on the verge of pleading now.
“Have you been drinking, sir?”
Jason was either very serious about arresting this man or was playing a good game at making Frank think he was, but Frank couldn’t cope with the constant questions.
I’m no killer, but how am I going to get out of this mess
? he nervously thought.
“I haven’t had a drink, officer.”
This was the moment when Jason cracked up with laughter. “Sorry, bud. I couldn’t resist taking the piss. We know this person was already dead but you swear you ran them over. It’s just a little freaky for me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Frank was speechless toward Jason’s voice now, so Wayne stepped in. “Okay, Frank, this is what I want you to do. We can’t really achieve a lot here so I want you to drive to the police station. It’s about two miles from the junction at the end of this stretch of road. You can’t miss it because it’s signposted from there. Wait for us to return. If anybody asks why you’re there just tell them you’re waiting for officers Wayne Strong and Jason Ball to return from the scene of the accident.”
“I’ve got it,” replied Frank, pleased to be able to focus on the clear instructions.
He returned to his vehicle and started it up again. The windscreen wipers were turned on to erase the left over debris from the glass before the truck drove off.
Wayne and Jason looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and laughed. Wayne took control of the situation, ordering Jason to contact the station for help in closing off the stretch of road.
They drove further down the road in search of more clues to this case, but the car suddenly halted after another thirty seconds. To the side of the road appeared another vehicle. “Could be connected,” said Jason. “Let’s check it out.”
He phoned headquarters again, passing over the number plate reading of the empty vehicle. A voice from the other end acknowledged that the car hadn’t been stolen but wasn’t registered to anyone from the local area. The owner was a Miss Charmaine Pratt who lived in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.
The police vehicle pulled up alongside the deserted, mystery car. The officers noticed that the doors were shut, but after closer examination spotted that the driver’s side window had been smashed with dried blood patches formed around it. The men were now on extreme caution alert. Wayne remained by the police car while Jason concentrated on discovering why the window had been completely shattered, but stopped suddenly after moving to the other side of the vehicle, his face now pale with shock. Wayne studied his partner’s actions, thinking this was very peculiar. “Jason, mate, what’s up with you? It looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Jason never replied, just remained frozen. Wayne decided to take a look so moved over to the other man, whose eyes were still transfixed on the same location. He followed the direction of Jason’s eyes until his own rested on the sickest sight he’d ever witnessed in his lifetime. There, below the men was the remains of a torn to pieces human. The chopped up corpse was bad, but this fresh one was a lot worse to view. Wayne collapsed to the ground as Jason snapped out of his trance.
“Hey, man, are you okay?” Jason asked, lifting Wayne up.
“I’m fine. I just felt a bit faint.” Wayne stared back toward the carnage on the roadside. “Who fucking did this? I’ve never seen anything as grotesque.”
“There’s some strange shit going on today. First we find a dead body that was presumably walking around, and now this. What’s going to happen next?” Jason asked.
He phoned headquarters for the third time and reported on the findings, but was worried about how the chief would react to the news. He needed to make it sound real but would the Chief Inspector actually believe what was going on in Clifton Falls today?