The House of Wood (20 page)

“I won’t be a minute. But when
I come back, I’ve got lots of games for us to play. What do you
think?”

“S-sounds good.”

“Awesome.”

I watched him leave the room.
This time I didn’t waste a single second, trying to guess what he
was doing. Once I heard his footsteps enter the other room, I
bolted.

My knee smashed against the
coffee table as I ran past. Blinding pain shot up through my leg.
The jerry can toppled over with a loud bang. It must have echoed
through the silent house. I stopped to listen out for any footsteps
heading towards the living room. Nothing. There was no time to
lose. Ignoring the pain, I grabbed hold of the door and yanked it
hard, not expecting it to open first time. A rush of cold wind
blasted me in the face, filling my lungs with clean air.
Freedom.

Just as I was about to shoot
down the porch steps, heavy hands grabbed me around the waist and
pulled me back in. The door slammed shut.

“You’ll catch your death out
there,” Justin said. “We don’t want that now do we?”

I kicked and screamed, trying
to wriggle loose of his arms. He was strong. He lifted me off the
ground with ease and carried me towards the kitchen. The strength
he possessed seemed unnatural. I wondered if he had been taking
drugs, a performance enhancer, steroids, something like that. It
was the only possible reason that my brain could cope with, as to
why he had changed so much.

He slammed me down on to one of
the wooden chairs. I’m surprised the legs didn’t buckle out beneath
it. I scratched at him, bit him, tried anything I could to get
free. All he did was laugh it off. He knew I couldn’t hurt him.

“I like it rough,” he sneered,
taking out a piece of rope that was tucked in to the waistband of
his jeans.

I spat in his face. “Let me go.
I want to go home.”

He wiped the spittle off his
face. “This is home now. You’re never going anywhere again. Like
the rest of them, you’ll be staying here with me.”

“The rest of them? What’re you
talking about?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,
sugar pie. Now you hold still while I tie you up. We’re gonna have
ourselves a party.”

First he bound my ankles with
the course straw rope and then tied my hands behind my back, so
that I couldn’t move on the chair. The material scratched and bit
in to my skin, leaving red friction burns. I couldn’t take
anymore.

“Please,” I sobbed. “Let me go,
I promise I won’t tell anybody. Nobody has to ever know about this.
I can keep a secret. I swear I can, just let me go.”

His hand came flying across my
face in a wild swing. There was a loud slap followed by a burning
sensation as he struck me. Blood trickled from my bottom lip. I
spat out a tooth.

“Close your fucking pie hole,
whore. I do hate a woman that does nothing but whine. Here I am,
trying to provide you with a damn fine, entertaining evening and
you throw it right back in my face. Peachy, ain’t it? Just as
ungrateful as all the rest. There’s just no pleasing some
people.”

He left me sitting in the chair
and walked over towards the fireplace.

“Look at the damn mess you’ve
made in here. There’s lighter fluid all over the floor. I’m going
to make you lick that up like a dog later.”

He picked something up by the
door. At first I wasn’t sure what it was. Again he had his back to
me, so that I couldn’t see anything. He crouched down by the
fire.

“I found my toy,” he said,
talking more to himself than to her. “It was out in the back room.
It’s funny how things are always in the last place that you look,
but then again, I guess they would be. Why would a person continue
looking when they’ve found the object? Some sayings just don’t make
sense. Take for example this one. A watched pot never boils. What
the fuck does that mean? It just makes no damn sense. Wouldn’t you
agree?”

“You’re crazy.”

“I think we’ve established that
already.”

I tried to crane my neck to see
what he was doing down by the fire. But I couldn’t see. His broad
shoulders blocked my view.

“Take, for example, this poker.
I’m watching it and it’s getting hotter. Prime example of how lame
that saying is.”

Poker? Why would he need a
poker? I wondered.

He came back over towards me,
placing a chair right in front of me and sitting himself down on it
backwards. He folded his arms over the back of it and leant his
chin on them.

“So, what shall we do
first?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well that there poker, it’s
gonna take a good few minutes to heat up fully, so until then, what
would you like to do?”

“I’d like to go home.”

Tears coursed down my cheeks. I
didn’t care if he thought I was weak, or what he thought about me.
The opinions of a mad man don’t matter. Nothing mattered to me,
except staying alive. But I wasn’t even sure I was going to be
capable of that. I was almost resigned to my fate.

“W-what are you going to do to
me?” I asked.

“Why all the tears? Are you
afraid of me?”

“Yes.”

His eyes darkened over. He
lowered his head keeping them fixed on mine, as he sucked in the
air through his teeth. “That’s sensible.” He stood up. “Because you
should be.”

I closed my eyes, unable to
bear anymore. I wanted it to end. Listening to his footsteps walk
back over to the fireplace, whistling the Davy Crocket tune again,
I realised what he was going to do to me. As much as I wanted
everything to be over, there was no way it was going to be quick,
or easy. Torture is one of the most inhumane things a person can do
to another human being. It strips away their dignity, the very
thing that makes them a person. Only a monster could do that. And
that’s what Justin had become. A monster.

He came back over to me,
breathing on me. I could smell his putrid breath and burnt hand, as
he got close. The inside of my eyelid had turned an orange colour.
I could feel heat. My eyes slowly opened. The poker was only an
inch away from them, the red hot metal making them water.

“Did you know that eyeballs
explode when they’re exposed to high temperatures? Now I’m thinking
that’s probably a myth, but I’ve always wanted to try it out.”

“No, please,” I screamed.
“Justin, please don’t. Do you remember, you said you liked my eyes?
You said they were pretty. Wouldn’t it be better to leave
them?”

He stopped to think about it
for a second. “Hmm, they are your best feature. I guess I’ll have
to have some fun elsewhere.”

His hand lifted up my skirt,
revealing my milky white thighs. He brought the burning metal down
against them.

My body writhed in agony, as I
let out a high pitched scream. The pain was excruciating. At first,
red hot and then freezing cold as the nerve receptors in the skin
began to fire and die. He did one thigh and then the other. The
smell was like nothing else in this world. It was like a cross
between burnt chicken and a slaughter house. I thought I would pass
out from the pain. Eventually it goes numb. Everything goes numb. I
still can’t wear short skirts now.

I felt him pull the poker
away.

“Nah, that’s boring. How about
here?”

Before I could ready myself,
the sharp tip of the poker jabbed through my shoulder. I almost bit
my tongue off as my jaw clenched shut. His laughter was ringing in
my ears. This time I was sick. I’m surprised the chair didn’t fall
over, as my body was racked with spasms. He pulled the poker out.
There was no blood, only a small trickle oozing from the newly
punctured hole. The heat had cauterised the wound. He clearly had
no plans to kill me quickly.

“This seems to have cooled down
a little. I’ll be back.”

He left me sitting on the
chair, semi-conscious. I don’t recall much about what happened
next. Eveything’s a little hazy. All I can remember is suddenly
feeling the ropes slacken around my wrists. Somehow, I’d been
saved. I’d been given a second chance to escape.

Ignoring the pain as much as I
could, I untied my ankles. As I looked up, I could have sworn I saw
the young girl from the picture in the kitchen window. I blinked to
clear my eyes and the vision was gone. It must have been my
imagination playing tricks on me after everything my body had been
through. I blocked it from my mind and focused on my escape.

Justin was still crouched down
by the fire. I crept over to the sink. He’d been stupid enough to
leave out the bread board when he’d made me a sandwich. It was
something I could use. I picked it up and made my way towards the
living room. My eyes blazing with deadly intent. I’d make that
bastard pay for everything he’d put me through. He would feel every
tear, by the time I was done.

Three steps.

I’ll make him pay.

Two steps.

Sick fuck.

One step.

I brought the hard wooden
surface of the chopping board down across the back of his head with
my uninjured arm, the other burning with pain. He hit the floor
with a thud, sending the red hot poker skidding away from him. A
primal scream tore from my throat. Harder and harder I smashed his
head with the board. My lungs were burning with the effort. Still I
continued. Bits of brain matter, skull and blood sprayed through
the air like a gruesome fountain.

I don’t know why I stopped, but
I did. My chest heaving in rapid bursts. I wiped blood from my face
with the back of my hand, slinging my weapon to the floor. It
landed with a crash. But there was also a splash.

The lighter fluid had spilt
from the Jerry can on the floor. It was everywhere. A huge puddle
of it had started to form and now it was beginning to soak in to
the carpet, the furniture, everything. It was around my feet,
Justin’s body was laying in it, Jesus, it had even managed to
stretch to the front door. I didn’t realise just how much liquid
one of those cans could hold. It was then I recognized my
mistake.

The puddle was inching towards
the poker. I ran.

The heat singed the back of my
heels as the living room went up like a raging fireball. The flames
followed me, stretching towards the clean air in the hallway,
grabbing at anything it could feed on. I couldn’t breathe, where
the air had been sucked out of the house by the fire. I didn’t stop
moving, just ran. My only other escape was the back door.

I flung myself in to it, but
bounced straight back off. I could hear the fire roaring behind me.
It wasn’t going to take long for it to spread.

I stood up and pulled at the
door. It didn’t budge, just sat there mocking me and my feeble
attempt at trying to open it. I felt so weak. I wanted to collapse,
but knew I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to live. I pulled harder and
harder, but it didn’t even rattle in the frame. I was trapped.

“Rachel, oh Rachel. Come back,
sugar pie.”

I couldn’t believe it. Justin
was standing in the doorway, wreathed in flames. It wasn’t
possible. He’d been in the middle of the room when it ignited. He
should’ve been dead, burnt to a crisp. But there he was, his dark
eyes stared at me with murderous intent.

“You’re not going anywhere.
I’ve told you a thousand times already, no one ever leaves this
house. Even if you get away, I’ll follow you. You’ll never be rid
of me, Rachel. You may as well give in.”

“Screw you.”

He lurched down the corridor,
howling, bouncing from wall to wall, as he spread the fire deeper
in to the house. He lunged at me with his burning hands, but I
managed to dodge, shooting up the stairs, my only escape route
blocked off. There was nowhere left to run except up. Thinking
about it now, it probably wasn’t my best move.

I felt a tugging at my ankles.
Justin had grabbed hold of my foot through the stair rail. The fire
was crawling up his arm. I must have had lighter fluid on my shoe
because it burst in to flames. I kicked it in to his face and
scrambled up the rest of the stairs.

I wasn’t thinking straight.
Where the hell could I run to up here, I thought. I felt like a rat
caught in a trap.

“I’m coming to get you.”

I peered over the banister.

“Peek-a-boo.”

He grabbed me and began to
close his hands around my throat. The heat was unbearable. I could
feel it licking at my skin, wanting to consume me. I was going to
pass out. I could feel it, the edges of my vision starting to go
black. I had to do something. Fast.

Out the corner of my eye, I
glimpsed an old rocking chair. I could feel his grip tightening. I
stretched for the chair. Any second and I’d be dead. My fingertips
scratched at it. I pushed him backwards trying to give myself some
room. I reached it with one hand. It slipped from my fingers.
Everything was going dark, but I gave one final lunge.

The chair swung in an arc
towards his head, bringing it down as hard as I could. Again and
again I hit him. Still he struggled. I gave it one more try.

The chair shattered across his
shoulders, knocking him unconscious. At least that’s what I hoped.
Hot air filled my lungs as I took deep breaths. Acrid smoke was
beginning to climb its way up through the floorboards. I ran in to
the child’s bedroom and shut the door, trying to block out the
smoke. I used everything I could think of. The wardrobe, rotten bed
sheets, even my own hoodie. But still it seeped through.

Shutters banged. Outside it
sounded as if the birds were going crazy, beating their wings
against the house. No doubt they were scared by the fire. So was
I.

Justin’s words echoed through
me.

You’ll never be rid of me,
Rachel. You may as well give in.

I was trapped…

Chapter
Twenty

“Is that it?” David asked, his
eyes narrowing. “Surely that can’t be all?”

“That’s it,” Rachel replied.
She was getting tired of his constant questioning. “The flames got
out of control and then the fire department arrived, the end.”