Home Intruder: An Extreme Horror Novella (6 page)

The scream dropped dead in her throat when she saw what her captor was doing.

“Make a sound and I swear to God I’ll stamp down and smear his brains over the tiles.”

The bastard was stood over her husband, his black-booted foot grazing the side of his head and his hand resting jauntily on his hip, reminding her of some old-fashioned photograph of a hunter on safari with a dead lion at his feet. He pointed the gun at her.

Jaz didn’t cry out, as much as she longed to. Maybe whoever was at the door had seen her flick the light-switch. Maybe they’d had the brains to call the police and they would be rescued.

Oh God, please let there be a way out of this nightmare
…

The air in the kitchen felt charged, and neither she nor Jason spoke. Ed and Linda were still out cold. Perhaps mercifully for them, she thought, wishing in that moment that she too were unconscious.

No, I don’t wish that. I’ve got a life-line here.

She lay unmoving on the floor, praying with all her heart and soul that the doorbell would sound one more time.

It did. She bit down the sob of relief, the almost impossible-to-resist urge to cry out.

The letter box creaked open, making both of them jump; her in hope and him in horror.

“Hello?” a familiar voice called out, drifting into the kitchen through the opened letterbox. “Is anyone home?”

“Fuck,” Jason muttered, his foot still hovering over Ed’s skull.

Jaz kept her gaze averted and her expression neutral. This was just too good to be true.

Come on, come on,
she silently willed, desperate to cry out, not knowing how she was stopping herself.

Boko,
came the clear thought
.
Never in a million years did she think she would be so pleased to hear his voice.

“Hello?” he called again, banging heavily on the door.

“Fuck,” Jason said, then turned to Jaz. “I’m going to deal with this. Don’t cry out, you know what will happen if you do.”

He left her in the kitchen and slammed the door behind him.

“Ed,” she whispered frantically, wasting no time in dragging her aching body across the floor towards him.

The faintest
woompf
sound that she instantly recognised for what it was twisted in her heart; it was the sound of the gun being fired with the attached silencer.

Her hopes were dashed with it. Boko had been shot dead, she felt sure of it.

“Ed, for God’s sake, wake up.”

She groped above his head towards the kitchen sink and grabbed the tea towel off the draining board. Holding it to the bullet wound in his abdomen, the tears fell freely.

“Don’t you dare die on me,” she whispered, “don’t your dare.”

It wasn’t fair. They had their whole lives in front of them, but now he was dying.

And you will too,
she thought in cold certainty.

She heard the front door slam shut and she winced as if she had been struck. The kitchen door swung inwards.

“I didn’t say you could move, bitch.”

The nuzzle of the gun kissed the temple of an ashen-faced Boko.

He’s alive. But the gunshot
…

“Linda’s boyfriend has decided to join us. Isn’t that great? I’ve never done a foursome before.”

Jaz checked him over for blood. He wasn’t bleeding, as far as she could see. He was crying though, like that big fat coward she knew he really was.

“He shot Jow, oh God, please let me go.”

Jaz glanced past them down the hallway. Sure enough, the body of an old man lay crumpled in an unnatural position on the ground before the front door. Jason must have shot him, then dragged him inside the house.

Jow. That old guy from the pasty shop
…

The sight of the dead body honed her senses in a way she didn’t expect. Instead of renewed terror she decided there and then that she and Ed were
not
going to die tonight.

Keeping her hands to her husband’s wound, she lifted up her gaze to Jason. There must have been something in her eyes he hadn’t seen before, for he grinned at her in a way that was nearer a snarl.

“Like that now is it? Very well.” He nudged Boko’s temple with the gun, making him cry out and stagger forward.

Jaz noticed how Boko had barely even glanced at his unconscious girlfriend on the floor. Or ex-girlfriend. Whatever. Jaz could not give a shit about either of them. The man was so scared in fact, it didn’t even seem to register with him that she herself was naked. And she had the feeling that was extremely unusual for Boko.

The bastard’s terrified.

He’s not the only one.

“Sit down Boko, palms flat on the table, there’s a good boy.” Boko did as instructed, sobbing the entire time. “Very good. Now, Jaz, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, it’s your turn to play. But now we have an extra person that has joined the game, so your choices are altered. Would you rather cut off your husband’s cock, flay Linda, or hold Boko’s hand down on the electric hob for thirty seconds?”

“What the fuck is this shit?” Boko said between sobs.

Jaz regarded him dry-eyed, coolly going over the options in her mind. Linda was unconscious, and God willing she might remain so during the ordeal. Searing Boko’s hand, however, would arguably be over much quicker, cause less permanent damage, and, more importantly, be a damn sight easier than skinning someone.

“I’ll take Boko’s hand.”

“What? You fucking bitch! You can’t do that!”

“Would you rather I flayed your girlfriend?”

He didn’t answer her. “Just let me fucking go,” he bellowed.

Linda stirred on the floor, and all three of them turned to look at her. She mumbled something incoherent, and hauled herself up onto her elbows.

“Boko?” she slurred, staring up at her ex with bloodshot, dazed eyes, her forehead swollen and dented from the knock it had taken against the table edge.

Boko went to stand up. “Enough of this fucking shit…” he started to say.

Jason aimed the gun at his head. “Don’t be fucking stupid. What’s a little bit of scorched skin between friends?”

“Please don’t hurt me,” Boko said, his gaze darting frantically between Jason and Jaz.

The bastard couldn’t give a shit about Linda,
she thought angrily, her decision only concreting further in her mind.

Jason casually wandered over to the electric cooker and turned on the front right element, the gun trained on Boko’s head all the while.

“Wos going on?” Linda groaned, now sitting upright and ineffectually clutching her torn clothes to her naked torso.

“Don’t fucking do this,” Boko continued to babble. “Just let me go, I promise I won’t say anything.”

“C’mon, over here,” Jason said, flicking the gun at him in a come hither gesture. Boko didn’t move. “Now, fuckwit! You too, Jaz.”

Snot bubbled in the man’s nose and he continued to whimper and plead pathetically.

Jaz glanced down at her unconscious husband before joining Jason by the stove.

I love you, baby. I’ll do whatever it takes, I promise.

“Good girl. Come on Boko, don’t be so pathetic. What would you rather, a little war wound on your hand or a bullet between your eyes?”

Boko came over snivelling. Jason nodded at her and she knew it was up to her now. Without hesitation she grabbed Boko’s wrist and planted his hand, palm down on the element. Boko let it happen. He must have known, subconsciously or otherwise, that he had no real choice.

Jaz actually
heard
his skin sizzle, like sausages on a hot grill. His howl of pain turned high pitched and inhuman. It made her head swim but she did not let go. The smell of cooked meat assaulted her nostrils - so savoury that, to her horror, it made her mouth water. She held on for grim life as smoke curled up from his hand. He lurched sideways, leaning heavily on her. It suddenly occurred to her that his hand was welded fast to the element.

The macabre moment felt like it lasted for hours when in reality it couldn’t have been more than ten seconds.

“Okay, you can let go now,” Jason said over the screaming that was beginning to sound like an old-fashioned kettle on the boil.

She didn’t have to be asked twice and staggered backwards, her bare rump connecting with the table edge. With an ear-splitting scream, Boko wrenched his hand free. Most of the skin was left behind on the element and sizzled away like spilled dinner. He held his trembling hand up to his face and screamed afresh. The heat had cauterised the wound, leaving behind a blackened sheen. White bone could be glimpsed beneath the ruined palm.

It was too much for Boko. His eyes rolled back in his head and he went down with surprising grace for a big man, like he knew he was passing out and was able to control his landing.

Because of the drama by the stove, none of them noticed right away that Linda was upright and hobbling down the hallway towards the front door.

“Hey bitch, where do you think you’re going?”

Linda had reached the end of the hallway, not that she could go anywhere. Not only was the door locked, but it opened inwards and Jow was blocking it anyway.

From the way her bare shoulders trembled, Jaz could see she was crying.

“Get back here now, Jesus Christ, these bitches are running wild.”

He laughed as he said it and a steely resolve overtook her. It had surprised her how easy it had been to do that to Boko’s hand. And she liked Boko a lot more than she liked Jason Jacks.

She kept her glaze lowered so he wouldn’t see the hardness in her eyes. Linda approached them, still clutching the remains of her bra and top to her chest.

“You lied to me. You said that you were going to make it so that me and Ed would be together,” she said, stepping over her unconscious (ex) boyfriend like he didn’t exist.

“I wasn’t lying, baby. You’ll be together forever. In death, that is. Oh come now, don’t look so angry. There is another way to be with him. If you kill Jaz, then he’ll be all yours.”

Her eyes looked glazed with madness. “Yes. Mine. I love him so much.”

Jaz bit down the tears. Not of fear anymore, but of sheer frustration. She was so fucking
tired
of this.

“So ladies, what I would like you to do is this. A fight to the death to win the love of the object of your desires.”

“And if we refuse?” Jaz asked, keeping her gaze lowered.

“I think you know the answer to that.” He made a cutting motion across his neck. “Bye-bye Ed.”

“I’m in. Let me at the bitch,” Linda said.

“The fighting spirit. That’s what I like to hear.”

Bring it on, you cunts
.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Jason had handed them both a knife each from the kitchen drawer. They were roughly the same size and meant for chopping vegetables, not killing people. Jaz stared blankly down at hers, turning it over slowly in her hand.

“This is to the death, ladies, winner takes all. Are you ready?”

Without warning Linda lunged for her, the knife slashing into the air, missing her nose by millimetres. The torn top and bra had been discarded, and her large breasts swung heavily with the sudden movement. Jaz easily ducked to one side. Linda was older, fatter, and had suffered a blow to the head. She almost pitied her.

Almost.

Linda lunged for her again and this time Jaz grabbed her wrist and twisted the knife out of her hand. When it clattered to the floor, Jaz kicked it away. She grabbed the surprised woman and spun her round, pushing her down, face first onto the table.

“Please don’t make me do this,” she said to Jason, whilst holding the struggling woman’s face on the table like her husband had done before her.

“I’m not making you, you have a choice, remember?”

A choice. Some fucking choice.

The kindest thing she could think to do was to fist her hair and bring her face crashing down onto the table-top. Unlike when her husband did it, Linda didn’t pass out. Instead she crashed to the floor in an ungainly heap and Jaz kneeled next to her.

Linda moaned and struggled to sit up. Without thinking too deeply, Jaz yanked back the woman’s head, exposing her throat. The knife cut easily through the skin, opening up a deep gash from ear to ear.

The look in Linda’s eyes was one of sheer surprise. She made funny gurgling sounds and uselessly clutched the gaping wound. It took a second or two for the blood to spill through the slit, but when it did, boy, did it flow. It pulsed in thick waves, bubbling in places, and poured over her breasts. A red river instantly soaked her jeans and pooled at her knees. With a final gurgle that might have started out as a scream, Linda fell forwards, flat on her face.

Shakily, Jaz got to her feet.

Dead. She’s dead.

She expected to feel terror. Or remorse. Or at least
something.
But no. She glanced over at her husband, gratified to see the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

Still alive. Where there’s life, there’s hope….

Shame the same couldn’t be said for Linda.

“You’re a tough one, aren’t you? I never thought you had it in you, I must say.”

Neither did she. And the last thing she should do right now was let him see that.

She began to sob. They weren’t crocodile tears, not as such, they were born of the evil she had witnessed and partaken in that evening. Yet her heart was as hard as stone. There was no fear in them, just duplicitous, female guile.

“Don’t waste your tears on Linda, she doesn’t deserve them.” Jaz hugged her chest and tried to make herself look as small as possible. “So it is on with the game, sweet Jazmine. You must now make another choice. Would you rather slice off your own breasts or your husband’s cock?”

“I would rather…” Her words trailed away into sobbing.

She noticed that the knife he had been holding was dumped on the worktop behind him. That left only the gun to deal with.

“Yes?”

“I would rather…”

With a war cry she covered the short distance between them, knife outstretched. The element of surprise was completely on her side when she rammed him. The knife drove home, just above the waistband of his jeans. He made an
oomph
sound when the air left his body in a rush, and she grabbed the hand holding the gun, bashing it hard against the metal extractor fan above the cooker.

The gun fired, a dull thump that broke the sound barrier and made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. She repeated the action and the gun dropped from his splayed fingers.

Without a second’s hesitation, she dragged the knife upwards with all her strength and he fell to the floor. Jaz clung on in a deadly embrace, going down with him, twisting the knife some more as they fell.

He landed on his back with Jaz straddling him. Jaz looked down at him, and at herself. She was soaked in blood, and probably not just Jason’s who was rapidly bleeding out over the kitchen floor.

“Why?” she asked, watching in fascination the way the blood frothed in his mouth when he gasped for air.

He mouthed something, but no sound came out. She leaned in closer.

“Speak up, cunt. I can’t hear you.”

“Because…” he whispered.

She leaned in closer still.

“Because I can.”

His body went slack beneath her.

“Ed,” she gasped, clambering off him, stepping over Linda’s body to get to him. “Ed?” His face was cold to the touch and there was no pulse at his neck. “No! God, please, no.”

Her hands fluttered uselessly over his body, before settling on the bullet wound in his side. She was kneeling in his blood but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything.

“Wake up, wake up,” she cried over and over, cradling his head in her bloody lap.

She felt hands on her back and she flinched.

“He’s dead. I’m sorry.”

Jaz howled in pain and Boko held onto her as she rocked her dead husband’s body.