Hexad (3 page)

"And you continued killing these prostitutes?" I asked

"I did, but throttling them became mundane, so I started to resort to more creative methods. I once bashed a whore's face in so many times with a house brick that her brains spilled out all over the pavement, it was disgusting."

I sat, shocked at this man's confession
. Was it a confession?

He continued. "Well, after a while, the whores became boring and predictable, so, naturally, I moved on to alternatives."

"Naturally?" I asked

"Yes, real women, women with real feelings, real lives, real jobs. It’s easier than you think," he said. "Firstly, pick yourself a target, make sure they are single and, in most cases, a little desperate and naive. Follow them to study their habits. Where they work, where they socialise and who they socialise with. It doesn’t take too long before you start to see a pattern emerging."

"And how do you make contact with these women?" I asked.

"I was getting to that, Doc. Eventually, I'd follow them to a public place, say, a nice wine bar. If you pick the right women, they are usually alone. Approach them and get chatting to them, be nice, compliment them, gain their trust then just slip a little something into their drink, and you are well away."

An evil smile spread across his face.

"I have it down to a fine art now. The real trick is to ensure that you move about and don't leave any similarities. If you're really careful you won’t get caught and you can have some fun thinking up different ways to be creative along the way."

"Creative?" I asked

"Yeah, Doc, it’s no good just throttling them. I really go to work on them, cut them up, butcher them, and smash their faces in with objects. I once managed to nearly skin an entire woman using a scalpel and a set of pliers before she went into shock and died on me. I love when they scream, scream and beg. Believe me Doc, they all do."

My gaze didn't move away from him. His composure was as cool as a cucumber and he was giving nothing away. "So, why are you here telling me this?" I asked him.

"Because, Doc, I believe that you can actually help me."

I was a little taken aback by his response. Was this man really here with a genuine need? I have never dealt with a client who claims to have been a serial killer before, but I had taken an oath. "I do believe I can help you, Leigh. It’s my job to help people to resolve their problems."

He laughed and shook his head slowly. "No, Doc, I think you've misunderstood my meaning. When I say that you can help me, I was referring to how much you would be willing to pay me."

Upon hearing his statement, my heart thundered in my chest. "I’m sorry, Leigh, what do you mean? How much I would be willing to
pay
you?"

"Yes, Stuart. A man living your lifestyle can't be short of a quid or two," he snapped back.

"Just wait a… Hang on -
how did you know my name?
" I asked

"You told me," he replied.

"No, I didn’t, I introduced myself as Doctor Keane."

Again, he laughed. "OK, Stuart, you got me, a schoolboy error." He inched forwards toward me. His eyes stared directly into mine. "Talking of schoolboys,” he scowled, “how much would you be prepared to pay to keep Sam safe from my hands?"

I took a sharp intake of breath at the mention of my son's name.

"I would ensure that his last moments alive were spent in absolute agony, begging, crying, and screaming out your name. I would even be willing to film it, and send you and your lovely wife, Jane, a copy of the tape."

My body froze, unable to move, my throat closed up, leaving me unable to respond.

"Seems to me that you couldn't care less. You spend more time seeing to sickos in your office than spending them with your only boy. It was a great goal he scored earlier at football practice. And tell me, did he like the football shirt I gave him? A man as intelligent as yourself really should have taught him not to accept gifts from strangers."

I desperately thought back to the phone call, and my conversation with Sam. Somehow, at that moment, the fear I felt became a white hot rage, an anger that I'd never felt in my entire life.

"You bastard, if you…" I started.

Leigh shouted, his face red and full of venom, the veins on the side of his brow and neck protruded, and spit flew from his mouth.
"Now is not the time for threats!"

Quickly, he reached for his jacket on the arm of the chair. I looked around in desperation and grabbed the nearest thing I could find, my solid glass paper weight that sat on my desk.

Fast Food

Andrew Lennon

Peter woke with excruciating pain in his stomach. He rushed out of bed, taking giant steps to the toilet. Groaning, he plonked himself down on the toilet seat. He felt a repeated stabbing pain.

“Ughhhh, I shouldn't have eaten all that takeaway food.”

Peter sat, pushing and waiting for something to happen, but there was no movement. Just the continuous shooting pain.

Panic took over when he felt the pain move. It was no longer stabbing and pushing at his stomach. It was moving up. He could feel the strain inside his chest as the pain rose from his stomach, until water began to flood his mouth.

He dropped to the floor and turned quickly, ready to puke into the toilet bowl. He repeatedly spat water into the bowl. Waiting for something else to happen, the pain rose in his chest now, making his eyes water. A burning sensation seared his stomach as acids ascended up to his throat.

Come on, just do it!
Peter thought to himself, tears now streaming from his bulging eyes.

He pushed again, and vomit flew from his mouth, burning and leaving a foul taste. He began to lose his breath, it wouldn’t stop. More and more vomit sluiced out, the force held it together in one streamline movement like water running from a tap. After what felt like an eternity of choking, the vomiting stopped.

He sat on the floor with sweat dripping from his forehead, panting and trying to catch his breath.

“Oh no,” he exclaimed.

The pain was rushing to his chest again. He turned back to the bowl, bracing himself for the onslaught of stomach acids and bile attacking his insides.

The punishment continued, he pushed and heaved and growled horribly, animal like noises filled the room, until it began to come out. Peter started to choke, this vomit was something else. It was…solid. 

A long green, serpent-like
thing
was coming out of Peter's mouth. His eyes widened with terror. He was helpless, he could do nothing except watch as this continuously growing green thing made its way out of his mouth and into the toilet. The thing was so long it had begun to coil around the bowl, rising closer and closer to the top of the toilet.

Another pain, stronger this time, stabbed at Peter's stomach. He jumped to his feet and the long green thing finally dropped out of his mouth. It was mostly in the toilet bowl, but some of it was hanging over the side. He couldn’t tell exactly how long it was, but it was about two inches wide.

“What…in the hell is that?” Peter gasped, still recovering from the prolonged choking.

His thoughts were racing; there was nothing logical that he could think of to cause such a horrible thing come out of his mouth. Perhaps, somehow his vomit had managed to solidify and compact together before coming out? It happens with bowel movements, it could happen with vomit, right? Maybe the sheer volume of fat in the food he had been eating made it all join together? After a solid month of nothing but takeaway and junk food every day, it had to have some kind of effect on him, right?

Peter went to the kitchen to get a drink.
He needed something to take that horrible taste out of his mouth
. He gulped a glass of water. The taste was still there as he gulped a second glass down. The horrible taste was not going away. He decided that brushing his teeth would get rid of it.

More worryingly than the taste, how was he going to get rid of that vomit thing from the toilet?

There was no way he was going to be able to flush it. He’d have to scoop it into a bin bag or something, and that would mean touching it.

Maybe I have some gloves around here somewhere.

Making his way back to the bathroom, Peter was still holding his stomach. The whole ordeal had left him feeling very tender. Gulping water down so fast hadn’t really helped. If anything it had probably made him feel a bit worse. This made him worry. The last thing he wanted was to start puking again. He didn’t think he would be able to handle that.

He walked into the bathroom and grabbed his toothbrush. He stared at himself in the mirror for a moment.

“God, I look green,” he said to himself. “Almost as green as that thi…”

He looked to the toilet. There was nothing there.

Well, where the hell did it go? It couldn’t exactly get up and walk away.

Was it possible that he had imagined it, or dreamt it? No, he could still feel the tenderness in his stomach. But that just meant he'd vomited. It didn’t necessarily mean he had vomited the jolly green giant’s left arm. Maybe he was so ill that he'd hallucinated the whole thing? That had to be the explanation for it, nothing else made any sense.

“Oh well, at least I don’t have to clean it up now.”

He brushed his teeth and went back to bed, hoping to sleep off whatever horrible trip he was suffering.

Peter woke to something stroking his foot. Something soft and wet. He jerked his leg, sitting up and pulling his knees to his chest. There was something moving at the bottom of the bed. He could see the quilt rising and falling as whatever it was wriggled back and forth underneath. It changed its direction and moved toward Peter. Frozen with fear, Peter couldn’t think to move, or to lift the quilt. He sat still as the quilt was rising in his direction.

Something dark and green began to emerge from beneath the quilt. It wasn’t a snake, but it reminded Peter of one. It was long and green, and slithered out from the quilt in a serpent-like manner. Still frozen, he felt this thing start to coil around his neck. Peter couldn’t see any facial features. He couldn’t see anything to distinguish a head from a body. He could feel the thing tightening around his neck. Not enough to choke him. It was more like he was being massaged. He slowly began to climb out of bed and grabbed the thing at each end and then tried to pull it from his neck. It was too slippery, his hands slid straight off.

“Don’t make me cut you off!” he said.

Rushing to the kitchen, he pulled the cutlery drawer open. Empty!

Why am I such a messy bastard
?

Peter’s eyes searched the kitchen for a knife. The counter was littered with rubbish from leftover takeaway boxes and greasy wrappers. He began to throw the boxes from the counter in an attempt to find a knife underneath them. One of the boxes opened as it hit the floor. A leftover slice of pizza lay in the box, blue mould starting to form along the sides.

The green serpent like creature flew from Peter’s neck to the ground. A large sharp, pointed bone rose from the creature's mid-section. It stabbed at the pizza and pulled it back into its body. The pizza was gone. Slowly, almost casually, the creature slithered up Peter's leg and body until it had resumed its former position around his shoulders and neck.

It wants food
, Peter thought.
It doesn’t want to eat me, it just wants food
.

He rummaged through more of the boxes until he came across some old kebab meat. He left the box open on the counter.

“OK, go on,” he said. “You want it, eat up."

The creature again jumped from his neck. Its bone like pincer appeared, grabbing the meat and then disappeared again in one swift motion.

“Holy shit, you’re like some kind of cool pet!” Peter said. “Although, I made you, didn’t I? So you’re my…child? Oh crap, this is weird.”

The thing said nothing, it made no noise. It just enjoyed its new home, around Peter’s flabby neck.

After a while of rummaging through old takeaway boxes and feeding his new pet, eventually Peter had gotten through the lot. All the boxes were empty. A worrying thought crept into his mind. What was going to happen now that he had no food left to feed the creature? Would it try to eat him? It hadn’t done yet, but it had been feeding on all the takeaway food. How much did it need to eat? He hadn’t stopped to think about that. Would it just keep on eating forever, or would it get full and wait until the next day? He eventually came to the conclusion that this thing would somehow let him know when it wanted more food.

Having lived pretty much his whole adult life sat in front of the TV, eating takeaway food, which was paid for by the money left to him from his deceased parents, Peter had no friends. He had nobody he could call to tell about this thing, so he couldn’t think of anything else to do other than sit in front of the TV as normal and wait for this thing to let him know it was hungry again.

Hours passed by, the creature had shown no sign of being hungry again. It didn’t do anything at all apart from sit on Peter’s shoulders. For all he knew, the thing could be asleep. Getting hungry now himself, he decided that he would order some more food. It would probably be a good idea to order extra for his green tentacle friend. Having no idea at all how much to order, he thought it best to be safe and order too much. He picked up his phone and hit the speed dial for his favourite takeaway place,
The Fat Friar
.

He ordered two large mixed kebabs, two extra-large meat feast pizzas, a bucket of fried chicken, two cheese burgers, two chicken burgers and a garlic bread with cheese. Peter had no idea if this creature cared about variety, but he did, and he wanted to have some choice left after this thing had eaten its share.

When the delivery man arrived he gave Peter a very strange look. He had obviously noticed the green creature wrapped around his neck.

“New pet snake,” Peter joked.

“Cool,” the delivery man humoured him. “So, you live in this big place all by yourself?”

“Yeah, Keith,” Peter replied while squinting to read the guy’s name badge. “The Bridge Manor is all mine. Neat, eh?”

"Indeed it is. And it's Keitel, not Keith." He waited for a moment.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my vision isn't what it used to be. Too much TV, I bet." Peter laughed.

Keitel just nodded. "That's thirty-four sixty."

Peter paid the man, closed the door, and carried the mountain of food into the living room. He opened the containers and boxes and waited to see which the creature would choose first. The green thing slid down from Peter’s neck and slithered over to one of the pizzas. Lightning fast, its pincers stabbed each slice of pizza and slid it back into its body. Within seconds the entire pizza was gone.

Peter’s jaw dropped in amazement. He quickly realised that if he didn’t eat soon then there would be nothing left to eat. He shoveled one of the cheese burgers into his mouth, barely chewing it at all. Then he did the same with one of the chicken burgers. He took a little bit more time while eating a kebab. He watched curiously as the creature moved from box to box, dragging the food away with its pincer and devouring it so quickly.

When all the boxes were empty, the creature slid up Peter’s leg and swiftly took the kebab straight out of his hand. Again, the kebab was dragged into the body and it was gone.

“Where the hell do you put it all?” Peter asked.

The creature slid back down to the floor and started to move from box to box. It slid over each box to find that it was empty. Watching these actions made it clear to Peter that the thing was still hungry. He should have ordered more.

“There’s none left,” Peter said “You ate almost all of it, I didn’t even get much, and I had to rush that!”

Peter belched, he could smell the foul stench of the food he had tried to consume so quickly. The scent of the half chewed burger crept into his nostrils. The creature sprung from the floor and landed right on Peter’s face. Its pincer protruded from the top of its body and stabbed at Peter’s tongue. It was attempting to pull the tongue from Peter’s mouth, mistaking it for a piece of meat. The tongue would not move. Muffled cries came from Peter’s mouth as he tried to pry the thing away from his face. The thing still pulled at the tongue, again it would not budge. Instead the creature slithered into his mouth. Peter’s airwaves were completely blocked by the bloated green creature. He was choking to death, but even while choking he could feel the creature moving back to the place of its birth. Back to a place it would find food.

He woke up, disorientated and confused on the living room floor. Presuming that he had passed out through choking on the alien vomit, he felt stomach grumble with hunger. Rushing to the phone, he hit the speed dial to his favourite fast food outlet -
The Fat Friar
.