Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel (28 page)

A knife. And a place to use it.

He couldn’t use his house now, because he shared it with the girl. He’d love to use his knife on her, open her up and see what she made of that, but he needed her. She kept him safe, made him invisible.

So the house was out of the question. Another place then. Somewhere there would be a hidey-hole that would suit his purposes. Somewhere isolated, where screams would go
unheard, and his comings and goings unnoticed. Would he be able to find anywhere like that in this crowded world?

He chose to believe he would, and with a smile to a pair of sweet young things, he turned around and headed back to the little house Toby’s – his – sister had rented. It wouldn’t do to upset the wee thing too much too soon. There would be plenty of time for that. Hitching his jeans up on his hips, he followed his feet back to his new home.

Dust swirled and kicked up its heels in a shard of cold light. Tobias saw it there, and smiled, shrugging deeper into his coat and pressing his lips against the wool of the collar so that his breath warmed him. In seventy years, the weather in the city hadn’t changed at all. He supposed it wouldn’t have. At least when he’d been incorporeal, he hadn’t noticed the heat, the chill, the dank winds, the sudden blush of hot weather. But then, he’d noticed hardly anything, swimming in a hazy half-life.

It would do. Better than that – it might well be as perfect as he was ever likely to find. Life flowed through his veins, the beautiful rush of life, and he’d found the place. Isolated – or as isolated as it was possible to get in a city, especially, he’d discovered, in a twenty-first century world.
He nudged a bit of broken brick with his booted foot. Tully had let him use her computer, so far the only new-fangled device he actually approved of, and he’d hunted around on a map called Google until he found this place. He’d magnified every house that stood alone in the area, and finally his persistence had paid off. An abandoned house. Still standing, Still mostly waterproof, and best of all, it had a basement, and down there, he’d hit the mother-lode. There was still furniture down there, among the cobwebbed items, a bed, with a mattress that smelled of mildew. That was all right though, even if the smell took him right back to the soft room, and the dank canvas between his teeth.

Smiling, he stood straighter, and decided his lair was ready. Surprisingly, he had money. Tully, turning out to be even more useful than he’d expected, showed him how to use the little piece of something called plastic, feeding it into a machine which in turn spat out notes of legal currency at him. He’d used some to buy a little stove and kettle, a tin box t
o keep tealeaves in. Some teacups like his mother’s and a couple spoons, and he was happy. He liked to be able to offer tea to his guests. None of this was as comfortable as he’d enjoyed in his previous life, but everyone had to make allowances once in a while. At least he was alive.

He whistled while he walked, back into town, past the docks, a large ship anchored there
, rust staining its flanks like blood. On impulse, he turned into the pub, a big old building that had stood there on the main road since he wore his original skin. It smelt of old beer and urine, and he sniffed appreciatively. The stench of men. Outside, the day had smothered itself in a mist of fine vapour, but in here he stepped into a warm sulphuric fug. They were burning coal in the open fire with a big gate welded in front of it. Wouldn’t do for a drunken sailor to take a stumble and roast himself alive. It had happened in his time. He’d sat just over there, buying drinks for a handsome but painfully shy young man, sizing him up, caught in a painful net of desire, already imagining him with the knife opening his skin. But it didn’t do to act too swiftly. They would leave the crowded bar later, one at a time, keeping to the shadows, him first, waiting at the end of the street, in the darkness of a doorway, rolling and lighting a cigarette, stamping his feet to keep the circulation flowing, and attempting to warm his hands over the measly red glow of his cigarette. Young and handsome had come down the street ten minutes behind him, Tobias had almost given up on him, but he’d come, slightly unsteady on his feet, and he’d pulled him into the darkness of the doorway with him for a moment, feeling the hard muscles of the young body leaning against him, let his hands roam for just a minute, then it was out into the night, back to his place, walking side by side into the darkness, not touching, but both their minds on the glow of bare skin by lamplight, Tobias already seeing the dark red of blood. His mouth watered.

‘Toby!’ The voice called him from his memories – the one
s he kept hidden even from the real Toby – and he came to, blinking and disoriented.

‘Toby, it really is you!’ Out of the pub’s well-maintained gloom, something flung itself at him and his arms were full of
soft flesh and perfume.

Then he was held at arms-length and examined like a fish on a hook. ‘You look great,’ the woman said, though she frowned slightly as if
she’d never seen him looking great before. But she tucked herself under his arm. ‘I’m sorry it’s been so long. Matt and I…we heard about your…troubles, and well, I hope you’re feeling much better now.’ She led him further into the gloom as she talked, and let him go to stand in front of a table where a young man looked at him curiously.

‘Hey Toby,’ the beauty said. ‘Good to see you. Been a while.’

‘Too long,’ the girl said, perching on a stool and arranging long legs under the table, patting a third stool, obviously wanting him to sit with them.

So far he hadn’t said a word to them. He didn’t know who they were. He’d tried a couple of times to access Toby’s memories, thinking it would be helpful to be able to navigate in this year of our lord twenty fourteen, but the boy’s mind was fractured, too broken to use. Sometimes he heard the odd scream from the kid, but he didn’t mind that. Why would he? He liked it when they screamed.

He wondered if the young man across the table from him was a screamer. Silly question. They all were if you cut them enough.

The girl though – he would bet hard currency on her being a screamer before you even started the cutting. What would he give to bring both of these two back to his little house, offer them a little tea, spiced with something extra nice, and then let them come to on the bed, hands tied, legs splayed, ready for a little game he called slice and dice. Licking his lips, he could taste their blood already, see the bright burst of art
erial spray when he finally finished playing with them – though by that time there usually wasn’t enough blood left to create much of a gushing.

He had to bring these two back to his place. He had to get up close and personal with them, introduce him to his best friend mister knife. How was he to do that though, when he didn’t even know their names?

Clearing his throat, he put on a smile. He’d practised smiling with his new face in front of the mirror. It was a nice face, open and unlined. A face not just a mother would love. He would be able to do a great deal with a face like this, and he started now.

‘How have you two been?’ he asked. ‘What are you doing these days?’ He had also taken care to note the cadences and phrasing Tully used when she spoke. It was hard, but he tried to copy it. Wouldn’t pay to have his lamb skin taken from him from a careless baring of wolf’s teeth.

But these two didn’t notice anything, or if he sounded different, perhaps they would be too aware of his stay in the nut barn to make any mention of it. The girl fondled her glass, running a finger up and down the condensation that coated the side.

‘Oh, you know,’ she said, and he could have reached over and wrapped hands around her skinny white neck and squeezed. No. He did not know.

Fortunately, she wasn’t finished. ‘Uni’s good. The drama school is putting on some piece of rubbish play this year, but it’s okay. I’m still learning lots, I mean.’ She wrinkled her little nose and gave a charming shrug. ‘I think I might have a part in an indie film for over the summer. That’s where the future lies, you know? Independent films. These guys are good too, experienced.’

She was going to go on for a good while, he could tell. Funny how so many people were walking around outside asylums, when they were quite obviously marvellously narcissistic. He turned to the boy and practised his smile again.

‘What about you?’ he asked, heart thumping. ‘What are you doing this year?’

‘The usual,’ he got in return. ‘Working hard.’

‘Playing hard,’ the girl broke in with a giggle. She wrapped an arm around her lover and stuck a tongue in his ear. Tobias wondered why the young man put up with that. But then, she was a fine physical specimen. Sex was obviously important to him. He supposed it was to every red-blooded young male. Although for him, blood was better than sex. Blood was everything.

And this one would be hard to snag. Although he was looking at Tobias with a wonderfully frank curiosity.

‘You look different,’ the boy said after a moment, when the girl had subsided to sit on her stool and suck on the straw poking out of her drink.

Tobias frowned. He should look exactly right. ‘I’ve lost some weight,’ he said.

‘No.’ A shake of the head. ‘That’s not it.’

For once, Tobias didn’t know how to play it. He’d decided both of these two were going to end up playing with his knife, but he was out of practise, and out of his element. How to get what he wanted?

‘I’ve been in the loony bin,’ he said, looking the man straight in the eye. ‘It’s a transformative experience.’

A gasp from the girl, but a slow, appreciative curl of the lips from him. Tobias matched his smile. ‘I could do with a drink,’ he said.

‘Matt – get us all another.’

Finally, a name. Matt. Short for Matthew, likely, but he liked the name, and whispered it to himself. Matt got up from the table and dug in his front pocket. Tobias watched him, knowing his hunger was probably showing, but unable to help himself.

‘What’ll you have, Toby?’ Matt asked.

How fortunate to have such similar names, and Tobias had wondered if it had been an issue in the ease with which he’d caught the boy and taken him over. One of the issues. But he disliked the name Toby. It was infantile.

‘I go by Tobias, now,’ he said.

The girl perked up at that. ‘Oh, I know what you mean!’ she shrilled. ‘I got to thinking that
Lara was too babyish, and that that maybe I should pick something more sophisticated, you know?’

He turned to her, more out of politeness than actual interest. But at least he had her name now. ‘What did you settle on?’ he asked.

She passed her glass to the waiting Matt. ‘Oh, nothing in the end. I’m kinda used to Lara. Matt says it suits me and it’s a good name.’

Tobias nodded. ‘
Lara of the D’Urbervilles. That’s who you remind me of.’

‘Who’s she?’

It was Matt who answered. ‘I didn’t know you’d read any Hardy,’ he said, still standing beside the table, his crotch disconcertingly near Tobias’ gaze, which took an effort to lift to the young man’s face.

Tobias gave an unconcerned shrug. He was aware he was supposed to have been an engineering student, and thought he could probably hold his own in a brief and
very vague conversation on the subject, since he’d worked on the train engines, though that was back in the glory age of steam, but he smiled. It seemed he’d caught the interest of his little fishy.

‘I’ve had a lot of time to catch up on some reading,’ he said, looking straight into Matt’s eyes. They were a startling blue-grey, rimmed by a fringe of dark lashes. Tobias moved a hand under the table, and pressed on the bulge in his jeans.

‘Hardy is one of my favourite writers,’ Matt said. ‘I must have read Lara of the D’Urbervilles three times at least.’

Little fishy was sniffing the bait.
‘So do you go with the majority view that Lara was a product of her society, helpless to do anything but make mistake after mistake?’ Tobias had been an avid reader in his past life. He believed in feeding body, mind, and soul.

Matt was hooked. ‘Don’t you?’

A head shake. ‘No. I think she brought it on herself. She wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, was she?’

Lara
beside him at the table groaned, and pulled at her hair. ‘Guys! Books are boring. You’re boring me. Matt, go get the drinks already.’

Matt flushed, and glanced at Tobias, before turning fo
r the bar.  Lara was rolling her eyes.

‘I keep telling him, all that book talk will make him a very dull boy. I like movies better, of course.’ She smiled and played with her hair. ‘But then, I would, wouldn’t I? I’m an actress.’

Tobias decided that if he had to do these two one at a time, the girl would be first. And he’d cut out her tongue so she couldn’t talk anymore.

‘A great many movies were books first,’ he sa
id. Tully and he had watched a large number of movies on her computer over the last few weeks. They’d been fascinating, and more than anything had made him feel quite at home in this new century. Not because he preferred the medium to the printed word – though it was running a close second – but because the level of violence and desperation they showed him made him feel right at home. The twenty first century was the age of the monster.

Lara
was sulking, fiddling with her hair, twirling it around a finger. He sat still, then gave in and twisted around to watch her lover at the bar.