Apocalypse Hill (Apoc Hill Miniseries Book 1) Page 8

  He made to push himself up with his broken hand and the sharp pain made him yell and snapped him out of his train of thought.

  What time was it?

  He checked the clock; he’d been out for almost three hours. Bill grabbed the pill bottle off the bedside cabinet and swallowed a few, his hand now swollen and red. He carefully placed it back into his makeshift sling and eased himself up onto his feet.

  Well that was that.

  No use putting things off any further. Time to call the police over, get someone to retrieve Paul’s body and figure out what on Earth he was going to say. He knew he wasn’t crazy. He knew he’d had no choice, that the pollen had done something to the boy. Affected his brain somehow, turned him into some kind of maniac, but he felt pretty sure that wasn’t going to be an easy sell. You’ve already seen what it did to Paul, and he isn’t the only one. It’ll spread, and spread, unless...They had plenty of the stuff littering every surface outside, maybe botanists and other scientists were already examining the strange matter now. Perhaps… perhaps the man in his dream was right, and Paul wasn’t the only person that had been affected? It’s never just one person. Not in this kind of story. Why would it affect just Paul? That wouldn’t make sense. Unless it wasn’t the pollen at all, of course. He could have been on drugs. You see that a lot, a bad batch of some party pill or other, leads to a nice guy who wouldn’t say boo to a goose trying to eat his best friends face off.

  Bill headed downstairs for the landline, lifting the receiver and hitting 999. He held it to his ear, but just got the busy tone. He tried again, this time it rang, but then cut out. A third time: no dice. Dropping the receiver, he felt a little prickle run up the back of his neck. He headed through to his office in search of his mobile phone, finding it shut away in the drawer of his writing desk. He dialled 999. Nothing. He scrolled through his contacts and found the direct number of the local station; he’d been a frequent visitor over the years, chatting to the local boys in blue, even doing a few ride alongs, had helped him flesh out a story or two. Added extra colour and meat. He hit ‘Call’, the line seemed to stutter, but then connected. It rang unanswered for thirty seconds.

  The line cut dead.

  Bill lowered his phone, his neck prickling more than ever. He shook his head; this whole situation was just getting to him. I mean of course it was! Fuck it, he’d just killed a man. No, not just a man, someone he knew. Knew well. Liked. Loved even. The fact he wasn’t curled up on the floor gibbering and dribbling was a miracle. Something was wrong with the phone network, that was all. Communication satellites gone temporarily on the fritz. Maybe someone let Cali drive that space station up there and she’d backed it into one of the things. He laughed out loud at that, but didn’t like the way it sounded. That wasn’t his laugh, it was high, and stuttering. He sounded insane.

  God damn it.

  He knew what he had to do next. He had to go round to see Aileen; tell her he’d found her son. Tell her what had happened and what he’d done. Tell her that her son, her only child, was dead. That he’d killed him.

  He had to go and confess.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Aileen’s place was a four minute walk, but today those four minutes stretched out like someone had slowed down time. Every footstep in the dirt, kicking up a mixture of brown dust and yellow pollen, sounded like a bass drum in Bill’s head.

  Hey Aileen, funny thing, I actually bumped into Paul. Told him you were looking for him, just like you said. Then I killed him. I killed him, Aileen. I beat his skull in and left his corpse on the water in my little rowboat. Hope this doesn’t sour things between us.

  He was a murderer and he was making funny in his head as he walked on down the road to break a mother’s world into shards. No wonder Kate walked out on him and Cali all those years back. Self obsessed arsehole, that’s what she always said when her blood was hot. Well, he couldn’t deny it. Not at the time, at least. All he’d cared about was his writing. Was about making a name for himself. Me, me, me, mine. But then he wasn’t the one who walked out. Wasn’t the one who turned his back on their child, cut her out of her life like a tumour that needed to be removed. Gotten over. Moved on from and forgotten. He’d tried to keep Kate in the loop on Cali’s life for a while, but she wasn’t interested. Didn’t want to see her, didn’t want to visit. Wanted to put them and Apoc Hill far behind her. He knew she’d been funny on the place, and that feeling had grown into a hatred that Bill just could never get to the bottom of. It had always seemed so crazy, so inexplicable. The Lake District, Apoc Hill, it was breathtaking, a miracle. How could she not have adored a place like this? The fresh air, the natural beauty? This was a special place, a magical place. As Bill looked around now he thought that perhaps Kate had been right all along. Last he checked she’d started a new family with some other man, back in London. Two kids. Cali never seemed much interested in finding out, was too angry. He could hardly blame her.

  He didn’t think Kate was a terrible person. Couldn’t think of her like that. We all have a strong seam of shitty in us, as far as Bill was concerned. And regret, too; heavy with it. He knew Kate must feel that regret like a branding iron each night as she laid her head on the pillow and tried to make herself believe that she only had two children.

  He looked up almost in surprise to see himself stood outside Aileen’s house; just like with his own, it was powdered in yellow. With lead-heavy boots and an empty chest, he approached the door. He moved to knock, but then saw it was open a crack. He looked again; there was blood on the doorframe. Not a smear or a splatter, a handprint.

  That’s a lot of blood, son. Is it yours?

  ‘Oh, Paul.’ A cold trickle iced its way down his spine. He pushed the door inward, he was sure there was no need to knock. There was no one who was going to answer. Bill stepped across the threshold and immediately that metallic tang caressed his tongue, only this time it wasn’t his own bleeding mouth. The taste of death hung heavy in the air. ‘Oh no, Paul. No.’

  There was a knife on the floor in the corridor. A carving knife. The polished blade was half-stained in blood dried dark. A foot poked out from behind the door leading into the living room, it was a man’s shoe, brown leather. Bill looked through the crack to see Simon, Aileen’s husband, face down on the floor. His shirt was a torn rag, white flesh exposed, and his neck had been torn out. Bill noticed that his other foot was bare, the shoe and the sock missing. Had they somehow come off in the struggle? Had he hopped around comically, his shoe flying off as Paul attempted to pull out his windpipe? Would that have crossed his mind as he fought for his life? The absurd, comical indignity of it all?

  Bill nodded once at Simon, and moved on. He found Aileen upstairs in the bathtub, her legs hanging over the side, blue dress hitched high so that her underwear was on show. Bill found himself pulling it down to try and make her look less exposed. There was a hammer sat beside her, bits of her hair and flesh stuck to it. He tried not to look at her face. What was left of her face. He sat on the toilet and rested his face in his good hand.

  Before he knew it he was crying like a baby.

  ***

  An hour passed, maybe more, and Bill still found himself sat in Aileen’s bathroom, trying not to look at a woman who he could’ve fallen in love with once, if he’d let himself. But after Kate… people change. People leave. He’d rather be alone than go through that again. Than risk that kind of deep down hurt.

  He had to try the police again.

  He stood and rested a hand gently on Aileen’s foot, sticking out and up from the bathtub. He wondered what she’d thought as her own beloved son had come at her with that hammer. Had she had time to think? To register anything beyond surprise and confusion, before the life was knocked out of her? Perhaps it had felt like a surreal nightmare, as her own flesh and blood murdered her for no good reason. She saw the hammer coming towards her and just waited to wake up.

  ‘Sleep well, Aileen.’ Bill left the bathroom. Why had he said that? He did
n’t believe in an afterlife. She hadn’t gone anywhere. She wasn’t asleep. She was meat and bones and memories. Just meat and bone now. A playing piece taken off the board. Hammer takes Mum, checkmate.

  Bill found the landline in the kitchen, somehow he knew before he put the receiver to his ear that the call wouldn’t go through. He tried two more times, then put the receiver down.

  Something bad was happening.

  Something worse than bad.

  Not just Paul and this house, this crypt; this wasn’t the whole of it. This was just what he’d seen so far. He knew it. Felt it deep. The world had tilted slightly off its axis and the everyday had been replaced with something horrific. It was the pollen. That yellow sky that had begun to stretch over from Apoc Hill itself as he had sat sinking beers on his porch. Had to be. The Hill with Mary’s house sat at its feet…

  It was like the sane everyday had sprung a leak, and the crazy was gushing in.

  Bill was so far in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the dog as it padded in and then sat, watching him think. A low growl caused Bill to look up and see the animal; it was Aileen’s dog. Large and black. She called it Bruno, or Brutus; something like that. A big gentle dope of a dog; wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  ‘Hey there.’

  Bruno or Brutus had something in his mouth. Bill peered at the object, partially hidden in the dog’s jowls. It was a shoe. The dog had a bloodied brown shoe in its jaws. It dropped it to the floor, a string of red drool stretching, then breaking as the shoe hit down. The dog’s black coat was sprinkled with yellow, and its eyes… Bill began to realise that perhaps Paul hadn’t worked alone. He’d had a partner. Old Brutus or Bruno here, the big friendly dope, maybe he’d been the one to tear out his master’s throat. To chew on his windpipe.

  Bill thought he was probably in a lot of danger.

  ‘There, there… doggy.’ He began to try and slowly sidestep his way towards the back door, his eyes always on the dog, which followed his progress. Bill hoped very much that the back door wasn’t locked.

  Brutus or Bruno began to growl again, a low rumble that seemed to radiate from someplace deep.

  ‘It’s okay, it’s okay boy,’ said Bill; the dog’s growl intensified.

  Bill reached out his good hand, trying to stop it from shaking. Failing. Finally his fingertips touched the door handle, he closed his hand around it and took a step closer. Brutus or Bruno (it was Bruno! He remembered now. She’d had the dog for years, always walked it past his place on her way to Dearnewater, how could he forget that? He must have heard her call that dog’s name a million times) flinched and jumped to its paws, its claws scraping across the wooden flooring. Bill’s heart missed a beat as he froze. Bruno pulled back his lips in a grimace, exposing large teeth, drool flowing red with Simon’s blood. It didn’t growl now. Not exactly. It was worse than that. Then Bruno reared up onto his hind legs, as though this was the most natural thing in the world. It stood like this, eyes shining yellow and it hung its mouth wide, screeching at Bill.

  Bill offered up a silent prayer to a deity he didn’t believe in that Aileen hadn’t locked the thing, then pushed down the handle and pulled back (the door swung open!), Bill leapt through and slammed the door behind him as the sound of Bruno’s claws gaining traction on the floor filled the air.

  ‘Fuck! Fucking hell—’

  The door shook as the dog crashed against it, almost causing Bill to tumble over on the back porch. Bill could see the thing through the glass (thank God they’d invested in toughened glass!) the dog, on all fours once more, slammed against it again and again,but even with its weight, the door didn’t give. The dog stopped, breathing raggedly, and fixed its yellowed eyes on Bill’s.With a snort, Bruno turned and headed deeper into the house. Bill knew in a second where he was going. He was heading for the front door. The front door he’d left open.

  He wouldn’t be able to outrun the beast to the next house, and if he did, who’s to say anyone would be home or he’d have time to get inside before the dog sunk its teeth into his calf and brought him down like the slow, lumbering old wildebeest he was? No, he had one option here. He needed to wait until Bruno was out of the house and in the back garden, its prey in his sights, then he could jump back into the house, close the back door, and make for the front door like the devil was at his heels. Perhaps he was. Get to that door and shut the beast out.

  He tried to slow his breath as he strained his ears to hear Bruno’s approach. He heard the muffled crash of the huge dog barging the front door as it exited the house. He had to wait now, if he made his move too soon the dog might hear, turn back, catch him before he made it to the front door. Not till you see the yellows of their eyes!

  Where was the thing? It should be here by now! Or should it? How long had that been? Maybe it had simply ran off—

  —Bruno exploded round the corner, its bark a devilish screech, teeth desperate for flesh. Bill felt so slow. Too slow. The dog was so fast and Bill moved like he was underwater. He pushed the back door open and stepped within, his foot catching on the doorframe causing him to tumble in. Bruno’s cry reached a new pitch, he was close now! He was going to get to him, going to get to him, going to get to him. Bill rolled onto his back, saw a flash of black enter the frame just as he kicked out, connected, and the back door slammed shut. Bruno hit the door headfirst. Bill heard a whimper of surprise, quickly turning to rage as the dog realised he’d been thwarted. Lucky old man. Stupid, slow, lucky old man.

  Bill scrabbled up onto his knees and turned the lock in the back door. ‘Up! Get up!’ He grabbed the door handle and pulled himself up, turning back into the house (he could hear ol’ Bruno catching on now, stopping its frustrated hammering against the back door and heading back to the front at the hurry up. He wasn’t no dummy), Bill ran. Through the kitchen and into the corridor: at the end the front door was wide open. He wasn’t going to make it. He wasn’t going to make it. Too old, too slow, already had all his allotted luck for one day. Time to say bye-bye to that windpipe. His side began to scream, when had he last ran like this? Keep going, keep going—the door was just a few yards away, he could hear heavy feet bounding closer—give me two more seconds, two more seconds, that’s all, two more seconds—Bill reached the front door and he pushed, but Bruno had his head over the threshold already. Bill shoved, the door wouldn’t close, wouldn’t slice through the snarling obstruction like it was made of butter, stupid flesh and bone.

  Bruno was strong, he shook, he raged, he twisted; there was no way Bill was going to win this battle. No chance. Bruno was going to worm and force his way in. Into his house. Kill the intruder in his home. Make Bill and Simon a matching, neckless set. Bill only half-registered what and why he was doing it as he leapt away from the door, away from his barricade attempt, and found himself face down on the corridor’s carpet, a yard away from the bloodied carving knife he’d noticed on the way in. Bruno didn’t reach him immediately, he’d been taken by surprise by his sudden release, bursting forward and tumbling over himself in his hurry and fury. Lucky, lucky old man. Bill grabbed the knife in both hands, the sharp complaint of his broken bones failing to register, adrenalin acting as painkiller, and turned onto his back, knife up, just as a black, snarling cloud fell over him—

  Cali!

  —the dog landed on top of him, heavy and hot, drool dripping onto Bill’s face. It lay still for a while, then twitched, its back legs kicking, before seeming to sigh gently and letting go. Bill opened his eyes, surprised he was still able to do so. The carving knife was buried up to the hilt in Bruno’s head. The dog had landed on it, the blade had pierced the jaw by the neck and then proceeded to be driven right through and into the brain by the dogs own weight and momentum. Blood ran slick over Bill’s hands as they gripped the knife handle so tightly that they might turn it to dust. With an effort, Bill levered dead Bruno off him. The dog landed with a heavy thud beside him, its yellowed, dead eyes still open and looking at Bill.

  ‘… Bad…bad dog…’
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  Bill kicked the door shut to hide the view from any passersby, then lay a while trying to regain full control of his aching old body. A body that only half-believed it wasn’t a corpse. Old Bruno should’ve ended him. Should even now be tearing at his dead flesh with his sharp teeth, spilling his blood on the—

  ‘Bill?’

  He sat up sharply and shuffled back.

  ‘What-where did—’

  Bruno was gone, in his place was a woman, curled on her side, one arm reaching out to him, eyes wide, fingers splayed, imploring…

  ‘Help me, Bill; please help-’

  Bill knew who it was: ‘Mary? It’s Mary, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m trapped, Bill, please—’

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I’m damned, Bill… damned! Please, come, help me!’

  Bill felt the ice in his heart; felt it spread across him so he shivered and his body shook, ‘This isn’t right, this isn’t real; can’t be real—’

  ‘Help me!’

  And then she sagged and she wasn’t a woman anymore.

  She was a dark hump.

  A dog’s corpse.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Bill found a set of car keys in an ugly green glass bowl that sat on a little cabinet behind the door. He closed the house up as he left, then climbed into Simon’s car. It smelt of peppermint and leather. He thought about Paul, his body still in the little wooden boat on the water, gently rocking back and forth. How long since he’d killed him? Bill wondered if the boy had started to smell. If flies had taken up home yet.

  Bill was driving towards Apoc strip, to report directly to the police station himself. As much as wanting to report what had happened, to officially let someone know about the… whatever it was that was going on. About the death. About the murders. About his hand in them (tally so far, one man, one dog), to get someone in authority on the case, Bill really just wanted to talk to someone. This whole situation was sending him off-balance. Like he could imagine driving and driving and never seeing another sane person, just an endless parade of the dead or the crazy. Hey there sir, good to meet ya’, I’m running a local census here, only one question, won’t take up too much of your time, if I could just ask which group you feel best describes you. Are you either A) Crazy. Loopy. A kill crazy maniac, or are you perhaps over in B), very, brutally, dead?