The Devils Harvest: The End of All Flesh. (18 page)

I felt like shouting for him to piss-off. Or say it’s too late come back tomorrow. But Kemp was like dog with a bone; once he was up to something he wouldn’t quit until he had achieved it.

I left the chair and the body in the kitchen. Then I proceeded to roll up the carpet from in front of the fire and take it into the kitchen, throwing it down beside the dead woman. One last thing, with a couple of dishcloths I shuffled a long on my hands and knees cleaning up the blood trail. I then dropped the cloth into the coal bucket and shut the lid.

Then I noticed my shirt was saturated with blood too. Shit! I took it off and threw it next to the carpet, and took off my socks too. I composed myself while washing my hands in the kitchen sink. Then I got a handful of water and soaked my hair and sprinkled some over my shoulders and down my back.

Ready. Well, ready as I would ever be.

A thousand things ran through my mind. I pictured myself being led away handcuffed. People pointing, whispering, saying,
“For him to be able to write books that twisted there had to be something wrong with him.”

“Coming,” I hollered loudly.

I opened the front door and started looking around trying to find him. The cold air hit my bare torso like a kick in the chest. Kemp appeared from around the corner. Just in time, he would have been standing around the back if I hadn’t called him.

“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Cain.”

No he wasn’t.

“That’s perfectly ok, Mr. Kemp.” He hated being called Mr. and not stating his rank. “I was having a bath,” I said lamely. He could obviously see I was stood in just my jeans, no socks or top, and my hair was dishevelled and wet. Whether it looked convincing or not was another matter.

“I was just checking everything was alright?” He peered over my shoulder. I moved slightly to block his view.

“You must have heard by now about what had happened?”

“Yes. Tragic and very upsetting.” I lied. I had seen my fair share of dead bodies. Had only moments before been scooping up slippery intestines with my bare hands.

“Mind if I come in?”

Yes, I do.

“Please,” I said stepping aside slowly. My eyes scanning the room to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Also eyeing all the heavy objects I had littered around, just in case I had to smack him across the head. At least in England the worst a policeman carried was a truncheon and pepper-spray. I wouldn’t be dealing with a cop with a gun.

He walked past me, eyeing the whole room. I could tell he was itching to ask where some of the items had come from, or even to see the rest of my house. But he was too proud to say so. His eyes rolled slowly over everything. Possible trying to remember everything so he could check them against lists of stolen antiques.

“Is it possible we could do this tomorrow down at the station?”

He pulled his eyes away from my furniture and gave me a cold stare.

“Why not. It’s late. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”

Then why the fuck did you?
I wanted to shout in his fat freckly face.

I went to walk back to the front door, glad to be rid of him.

“Mind if I get myself a glass of water to take one of my tables?” He asked calmly. He started to make his way to where he believed my kitchen was.

“Please let me,” I said pushing past him. “Tap or bottled?”

He gave me a long cold stare. “Tap will be fine,” he said. “I don’t want to rise above my station now do I?”

Cheeky twat!

I headed into the kitchen, pushing the door open only a fraction and squeezing through. The chair was directly behind the door, blocking it slightly.

I could hear him wandering around the front room. Poking here and there no doubt. I could hear tinkering as if he was lifting a lid off a pot. I could just imagine his eyes wide, hoping to find some kind of drugs or anything illegal hidden away.

“Interesting trinkets and stuff you have,” he finally called.

I could hear he was stood over to the left of the room, besides my Chinese collection of artefacts. One small section of wall, with a traditional, raised ends Qiaotou’an alter table perched up against it. A large wooden carved picture with the six Chinese main medical areas carved into it, hung above the table. The six influencing effects that affect the organs of the body and the bodies Qi – spirit, as well as effecting the person’s blood and essence. I could just hear Kemp whispering the six areas: Dampness, wind, fire, cold, dryness, and summer heat.

Also a sign was hanging above the picture with the word Naixin wrote on it; meaning,
all in good time
. And below that a small statue of a Chinese god Yi – the Divine Bowman. Who supposedly is the god of luck? It was bright red, or hongse, which is Chinese for red. Red being the Chinese colour for luck. But I simply had it because I liked the figure, which I had brought in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. And next to Yi was my favourite figure – Taishan, who was one of the Ten Judges of the Chinese ten hells, who writes in the
Register of the Living and the Dead
. He was painted white, because that is the Chinese colour for death and funerals.

And below that, carved in Soapstone from Qingtian, which was south of Fuzhou, was the word Loaban, meaning boss, which my first wife had brought me when we spend two days there.

Yes and collectively more than you earn in a year,
I felt like shouting at him.

“Thank you,” I called back.

As I was about to head back out, the kitchen door started to open slowly. His ginger head popped through.

“Sorry did you say something?” His eyes drinking in the kitchen. Luckily he was not in far enough to see behind the door he was leaning on. The partially naked woman sat staring blankly up at the raftered ceiling. Bucket full of her own intestines resting on her lap. Blood pooling around her dirty cut feet.

I walked towards him, holding out his drink, my hand shaking slightly. He backed up to let me into the hallway.

That was way too close for comfort,
I thought.

“What happened over there? He asked while he sniffed the water to check I hadn’t put a Rohypnol in it. None of his supposed tablets were produced. His eyes were fixed on where my carpet was only moments before. I noticed how empty the space looked, a single chair facing a fire with no rug, with a dusty outline of where the rug sat.

“Nothing much.” I tried to keep my voice flat and not raise it while trying to speak too fast. “I fell asleep yesterday and spilt red wine all over the side of the chair and the Turkish rug.” I suddenly remember the red shoes that beyond all explanation still sat untouched in the burning fire.

He’s eyes were fixed on me and luckily not on the fire. Also the remaining chair was blocking most of the fire from view.

“Red wine can be a devil,” he said.

“The devil?” I uttered.

“No, a devil, not the devil,” he corrected.

“Sorry, just a little tired that’s all.”

“Hmm,” he muttered. “What time will I expect you at the station tomorrow?”

“Um, between twelve and three?”

“Fine.” He turned and headed for the door. I noticed he was leaving red footprints.
Shit,
he must have stood in the sticky pool that was gathered on the kitchen floor. Luckily he didn’t look down, but walk purposefully through the front door towards his patrol car. My overgrown path soaked up what was left on the soles of his shoes.

I stood at the doorway, door held, blocking the red prints, waiting for him to climb into his vehicle. Not wanting to close the door until he was finally gone. Not trusting that he wouldn’t find another reason to disturb me. Finally his car disappeared down the long drive, his red taillights looking like demonic eyes in the night.

I slammed the door shut and leant against the cold wood. Shit! I had just had a policeman in my house, standing inches away from a dead body. I was now trembling all over, while I slid down the door, to come to rest leaning on the cold wooden surface.

Playing With Your Food

A
fter Kemp had left I had to dispose of the disemboweled woman’s body. Not wanting to drag her remains through the front room and then having to clean up the dripping blood, I forced the back door open with my shoulder – after putting more clothes on – buckling the frame in the process. The door would need some attention. I would sort it out in the morning, it just needing a hard whack with the hammer and a good plaining.

In preparation of what was to come I had dug another three holes besides the others the day before. I now simply tipped the body into the shallow grave, rug, bin, plate, blood soaked dishcloth, intestines and all. It made a disgusting slopping sound when the bin upturned.

After filling the grave in, I got a bucket of hot soapy water and washed the blood from the tall back leather chair. Luckily it was red leather; oxblood colour they call it; I would hate to think of what sort of stains would have been ingrained into it by now. Once this was all over I would replace them both. I wouldn’t be able to sit in them again after everything I had witnessed.

Thinking about it I would move out, I couldn’t live in this house with all the tormented images I had seen.

I didn’t bother with a shower; I had showered enough to last a month. I stripped down to my birthday suit and had a quick wash over with a flannel, before crawling under the blankets of my welcoming bed. It was coming up to two in the morning. I always looked forward to sleep, escape into the dream world, one of the only places you could control what happens. If only life could be so simple. Some of my best work comes from of my twisted dreams.

I slept soundly.

Dreams – as some believe – represent the subconsciousness trying to sort out the events of the day, creating semantic memories. Only the first part, when we first climb into bed, is what we control, simply daydreaming, or NREM. Soon, once the body relaxes and starts shutting down, only then does the real dreaming start. REM, or rapid eye movement, is the first sign of deep sleep.

Sigmund Freud once called dreams the
Royal road to the unconscious.

I don’t give much credit to dream analysis, with trying to explain why certain objects mean different things. To give you an absurd example, in one dream dictionary I once looked up online I picked a random word to see what it meant. Hamster:
to see a hamster in your dream, may represent underdeveloped emotions, or it may also indicate that issues of sexuality are unimportant to you.
What the fuck? Of course hamsters are renowned for being emotional despondent and sexually inadequate?

But the scientific study, or the technical term oneirology, into the activity of the brain while we sleep, does interest me. Interestingly enough, the brain is more active while we sleep than when we go throughout our waking day.

What all this means, I have no idea. But it goes someway in trying to explain what I dreamt that night.

I dreamt I was chasing officer Kemp around a large open field. He ran screaming, with blood oozing from wounds on his back. He had given up trying to hit me with his truncheon and was now concentrating on running as fast as he could. He was whimpering and giving unmanly screams in the process. He would have run faster if he wasn’t constantly looking over his shoulder to see how far away I was. I could have caught him at any moment; I was playing with him, teasing him. After all it was my dream, my rules and my fun.

I couldn’t quite picture where the dream was taking place. It was a large open field with a car park near by. Possibly one of the Hay-Tor rock car parks.

Kemp ran to his car, he stood beside it fumbling with the door handle. The fat bounced on his large frame from his panting breath which billowed in the cold night air. He now sat inside with his eyes constantly searching for where I could be. He wiped blood and sweat from his face, while trying to push the key into the ignition.

His hands were shaking badly, having dropped them once already. Tears of pain and fear rolling down his cuddy freckly cheeks. His normally perfect uniform now all torn and covered with his blood and sweat, and plastered in mud.

As he looked up again he was startled as he noticed my face pressed hard against the driver’s side door window. He let out a bellowing cry of anguish, fingers still fumbling trying to turn the key, trying to escape. He wasn’t looking so smug now, as my tongue began to lick over the window, leaving a mixed trail of saliva and his blood.

I tried his door. Locked. I ran around the car trying them all. All locked apart from the boot. The car roared to life and started to wheel-spin on the gravel. I lifted the boot and jumped in, the movement of the car slammed the boot shut, locking me in and shaking me around like dice in a cup.

The patrol car raced along, screeching around the corners, tossing me from side to side like a piece of luggage. I could hear his breathing, still heavy and panicky. I was also panting hard from running around chasing my quarry. I listened to his almost incoherent mumbling. I decided I wanted to play more. Rest over. I didn’t like the darkened trunk that had a strong mixed smell of oil and antifreeze. I leant on my back and with all my strength pushed the back seat with my powerful legs. It ripped free and collapsed onto itself.

I could hear Kemp screaming, trying to turn in his seat to see what was happening in the rear. He thought he had left me behind. I could just imagine the spittle dribbling from the corners of his mouth, the bottom fat lip quivering like a jelly in an earthquake, eyes blurred by tears and stretched wide with fear.

I climbed through slowly, enjoying the look of shear panic reflecting in his eyes in the rear view mirror.

Not so smug now are you, you ginger prick!