Rottenhouse (10 page)

‘
Have a good
night?’

‘
I didn’t think you
were awake. Yeah it was okay.’ Simon said. ‘Just tired, been a long
old day.’

Lucy slid over from
her side of the bed, her warmth embracing him. She was wearing her
winter nightie; the one Simon called her
Keep Out the Cold and Keep Out the Cock
nightie. He hated that bloody thing but tonight he was happy
that she wearing it as he had no real urge to put out any moves, if
you could call them that. Lucy placed her right arm over him and
she moved her hand down his chest and under his pants taking hold
of his already semi hard penis. From deep within Lucy came a soft
moan as she stroked it.

2

There was no kissing. It was hard,
fast, as if they were two teenage lovers going at it for the first
time. Simon was on top, thrusting hard, giving it as much as he
could. He would look down, opening his eyes so as to see Lucy’s
pert tits wobble up and down. But he didn’t look down for long.
Seeing them do that and the way in which she bit her lip always got
him off. Simon had known a handful lovers, most of them, in a
strange way, were ugly lays. They just didn’t look good on their
backs or on top or on their side. But Lucy. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, she
looked hot. Hot to trot! Simon had to control himself; breathing
hard and concentrating like a brain surgeon would during surgery
with a scalpel and an open skull in front of him, so as not to
climax early when he looked at her. Some nights he would win that
battle, others he wouldn’t. Tonight, when the fates seemed against
him and the tiredness started to eat away at his concentration he
realised that he was lasting longer than he would have thought. Not
losing rhythm and looking down again, his eyes accustomed to the
dark so much that he could see Lucy and she was looking at him.
Straight back at him, with a blank washed out gaze that seemed far
off. Dead; as if there was something in the way of her getting
off.

But she couldn’t be dead, he could hear
her breathing and her soft moaning as he pushed deeper inside of
her. He looked away and then back down.

Dead eyes.

And it wasn’t just her eyes that seemed
lifeless; it was as if he were screwing a thing, a lifeless thing
that was as limp as a rag. Most of the time, especially when the
love making had been fired up by her, Lucy was insatiable. She
would do all sorts. There was no real carnal position left
untouched, she grew her nails specifically so that she could
scratch at Simon’s skin, that’s the type of girl Lucy was. But
tonight, there was nothing. If it wasn’t for the heat being
generated it felt to Simon as though he were screwing a corpse. But
as always, no matter what men go through; be it trauma, death,
disease, loss, torment, hunger, thirst, mental disorders, loss of
limb, you name it, they always find a way to release the substance
kept in their balls and tonight was no different and Simon climaxed
inside of Lucy breathing hard and slobbering over her neck as his
juices mixed with hers.

He eased himself off of her. She
grabbed a tissue and placed it down there (this aint no Hollywood,
Simon thought) and they both rolled over.

For a moment Simon thought he had
imagined the whole thing, that this was some weird dream or that he
had kicked the tyres and lit the fires and had, without knowing it,
forced himself upon her.

‘
That were
good,
Simon
. Right
proper good.’

And then Simon passed out.

3

The leak. They bleed. They don’t stop
once they started.

The Working Man’s Club reception room
loomed large around Simon as he floated through it. He was alone
and he was naked and cold. The reception was dark apart from a
small light that was shining down the dark stairs that led to the
basement. It hovered there like a wisp in a fairy tale forest, its
white glow shifting in pulses.

I don’t want to go down there. I don’t
like what I will find down there.

From his left, behind the closed doors
where Simon had heard men playing snooker, he heard the hard
thwacks of the truncheon as it beat some other poor soul within an
inch of their lives.

Chairman’s Justice, he thought to
himself, and then shook the thought away.

Simon kept floating on. Toward the
basement stairs he didn’t want to go down. The light that lit his
way moved as Simon got closer and now it was hovering above the
painting that was hung on the wall below the first flight of
stairs. Simon floated down them. He couldn’t stop himself. He knew
this without trying. There was something pulling him down. A
gravity with sticky fingers and it came from the painting. He
reached the concrete floor and saw that the stairs continued on
down to his right; into a darkness that screamed of eternity.

Then he stopped. The paintings gravity
released him from its grip and Simon floated on the spot. His bare
feet didn’t touch the floor but he could tell it was cold. The air
was cold enough so that as he breathed he could see his own breath
form as vapour. Not wanting to, he looked at the painting and as
much as he tried to look away he couldn’t. As much as he tried to
scream he couldn’t. The painting was of a forest clearing. The
trees surrounding it were giant brown lifeless hulks. The ground
beneath them was scorched dry by the bright yellow sun that was
painted into the right hand corner. There was a heat coming from
that sun. Simon could feel it upon his cold pale skin. In the
centre of the painting were two men. Both wore black cloaks and
were shrouded by a dark green, putrid glow. One of the men held a
scythe, its blade covered in rust and blood. The other man held the
same wooden truncheon that that Chairman had held aloft that very
evening. Looking down he saw that the painting had a bronze plaque
nailed into its rotten wooden frame. It read:

Chairman’s
Justice

They Leak. They
Bleed. They Don’t Stop Once They Started.

There was a movement from within the
painting and now the two men were separated from each other. What
separated them were two crosses made of wood. Crucifixes carved
from roughly hewn timbers. Upon them were two men. One of them
Simon recognised as poor Stevie Johnson; his skin flayed almost to
the bone. On the other crucifix a man burnt to a cinder.

From Simons right, down the eternally
dark stairs, there came a cry. A child’s cry.

Simon’s breath became short and fast
and he could feel panic starting to take him. He tried to move away
from the head of the stairs that led down into that eternal
darkness but it was to no avail. Then a voice was in his head. He
didn’t know who it was it said, ‘It’s in the painting. What you
think is what happened.’

Simon looked back to the painting even
though he didn’t want to. Again he tried to scream but he could no
more do that than he could walk across the ocean. The burnt man
that had been on the crucifix was gone as too was the crucifix that
bore him. In its place was the garage, only this time the door was
wide open, beckoning him to come in and he could see that it wasn’t
oil that came from within it, it was blood that oozed from its
concrete and metal core. Simon leant in, his naked form almost
touching the hot painting. Peering in, past the oozing blood he
could see a metal table. No not a table. It’s a…it’s a…the word was
on the tip of his tongue. Not a table, no, it’s a bed. A metal
framed bed. No, it’s not that either. It’s a… it’s…

A gurney! It’s not a table, it’s a
gurney, and on the gurney, handcuffed to it, with fear left like a
smear upon her dead face and with skin torn from her body and her
ribs open as if to welcome some demonic surgeon was what was left
of Bobbie. Blood dripped from her; it dripped from the walls and it
dripped from the ceiling. It was as if her blood would soon drench
the scorched earth with its deep crimson filth.

A crying child screamed from deep down
again, though this time its cries seemed closer and then the
screams turned to a soft wailing voice. The child’s voice said
sweetly, ‘Yup, you’re gonna love me some day. I’m not going to
leave until I see your face.’

I want to wake up! I want to wake
up!

The crying child screamed and now it’s
once solitary outbursts were joined with many, many more.

They all said as one, ‘IM GETTING
CLOSE, YAKNOW.

‘
IM NOT GOING TO
LEAVE UNTIL I SEE YOUR FACE!

‘
I’M GOING TO WAIT
HERE FOR YOU.’

They then cried for something; like Mr
Rowling had searched for something they were crying for something.
They wanted, hunted, for something. Like Mr Rowling had wanted,
hunted, for something.

Whatever gravity that was holding up
Simon let go and he fell hard onto the concrete floor. It was cold,
ice cold, and made worse now that the warmth of the painting was
gone. He tried to get up but whatever gravity had held him up now
seemed to be holding him down.

The baby’s screams and cries were now
joined by another sound. It was the sound of the rushing river. But
this was no river made of water and stones and mud and Simon saw
that the blood that had been pouring out of the garage was now
pouring from the painting and down the walls. He couldn’t breathe
such was the shock of it. His body was hot beguiling the cold that
seeped from the floor and into his skin. He sweated from every
pore. The blood was now halfway down the walls. It was thick and
red and had an oily skin that made it shine on the white wisp glow.
The cries from below intensified into one ungodly crescendo. Now
that Simon was sat arse first on the concrete floor he could no
longer see if there was anything down there but he knew there was.
Like he knew that there were birds and knew that there were bugs
under rotten logs and the subtle movements he saw down there made
the realisation the more terrifying and just as the blood reached
the floor he saw that his feet were dangling over the edge of the
stairway. They were prone to whatever it was that was moving down
there. Their pinkness a deep contrast to the blackness that hung
there like a hole in both time and space. Instinctively he went to
move them, but it was too late.

And Simon screamed himself awake as a
small child’s hand gripped his right foot and tried to drag it and
him down with it.

3

Simon awoke with a start, snapping his
legs up to his chest fearing what the children would do if they
took him down there.

4

His adrenaline kicked in almost
instantaneously, and he soon realised that it had been a dream. All
of it. There was no painting, no gurney, and no screaming children.
Just him and the mottled sunlight coming through the window.

‘
Shit me.’

It was then that he saw that he was no
longer in bed and that he was totally naked. Simon was on the
floor; the hard shaggy carpet itching on his bare arse. He was sat
with his knees up to his chest; his arms wrapped around them and he
was rocking back and forward like a man that has seen his own
future. A cold sweat was on his pale skin. Swallowing, though it
felt as if he could be sick at any moment, he heaved himself up and
got back into bed, the sheets were still warm and he huddled under
them. Picking up his watch from the bedside table he saw that it
was a 5-45. Just as he was about to close his eyes the white light
blinked a couple of times on his phone.

Grabbing it he saw that he had gotten
another message from Kyle:

Hello? Come on mate. Call me, text me,
whatever.

No joke. Need to talk. #fucktard

‘
Whatever.’ Simon said
and put the phone back and as he drifted back off to sleep he
wished that he wouldn’t dream anymore.

Thankfully, that wish came true.

Well, for now anyway.

The Big Boy is Coming
Out

1

It was 11 in the
morning when Simon woke up. Though he hadn’t slept all that well he
felt refreshed, ready for what today would bring. Lucy wasn’t next
to him; she was an early bird no matter what the situation was and
she often woke before him and made her way downstairs. For her,
that time in the morning, where there were no distractions, was a
great time to catch up on work.
The
finance world never sleeps, Sausage,
she
would say,
best deals are found at the
weekend
.

He still didn’t fully understand what
she did. It involved buying stuff from company A and selling it to
company B or C or even D sometimes. There could be times when what
she bought lost value, then it would be stored and sold when the
profit margin reached a higher level. There were all sorts of
financial technicalities and big words involved (one of his
favourites was Bottom Feeder. Though Lucy didn’t class herself as
one it sure seemed that that was the one sure fire way to make
money) though what it boiled down to, or what his simple mind
boiled it down to, was buy cheap, sell high. Simples.

Simon got out of bed, stretched, and
got dressed. He left the bedroom and went into the main bathroom.
We all have our sanctums of peace, it just so happens that Simons
was the toilet. Locking the door behind him he freshened up, washed
his bits (remembering how the sex had been the night before but not
thinking too hard about it because he just didn’t want to think
about who or what he had had sex with) and grabbing his phone from
his pocket, flicking and touching his way to the BBC News app, he
sat upon the toilet and read the stories of the day whilst taking a
dump.