Slaughter in Barnaby Close
by Michael Cargill
Third edition
Cover artwork by Lee-Ann Donaldson
My other books are available from Amazon and Smashwords.
Diary of a Dork - Articles of Sarcasm and Irreverence
Shelter from Thunder
Shades of Grey
Comments can be emailed to me at mcargill79@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/MichaelCargillAuthor
Twitter - @MichaelCargill1
Website of satire - http://michaelcargill.wordpress.com/
Thanks to Lee-Ann Donaldson for her hard work doing the front cover. You can view her artwork on her website - http://lee-anndonaldson.com/
Slaughter in Barnaby Close
Published by Michael Cargill at Smashwords
Copyright 2011 Michael Cargill
Cassandra pulled down at the bottom edges of her jumper and looked at herself in the tall mirror in front of her. She wasn’t long out of the shower and her damp hair hung heavily down from her head and stopped just below the shoulders. She ran her fingers through it a few times and then grabbed a handful of strands to run under her nose. The smell of freshly shampooed hair wafted through her nostrils. She tossed it back behind her and then lightly pressed her palms down the back of her head and neck to smooth it out again.
Cassandra had always had a preference for having her hair long and an experiment with short, cropped hair lasted less than a day. She had agonised over it for weeks, looking through magazines for ideas and eventually plucked up the courage to book a morning appointment at a nearby salon. She got back home in the afternoon and had an excruciatingly long wait for her husband, Dave, to come home from work. He walked in through the door, came into the living room where she was sitting and did a double-take look at her. He stared at her for a few seconds and then collapsed onto the sofa in hysterics. In between guffaws he managed to blurt out “You look like a lesbian.”
Cassandra remained sitting down and closed her eyes whilst fighting back the tears. All that anguish, the build up and the worry of the past couple of months was all hinging on this moment. She had been desperate for Dave to come home and fall madly in love with her again. Instead he had waltzed in and smashed her fragile self-esteem to pieces again. She felt humiliated and mortified. She could smell beer on his breath and the stench began to make her feel ill. With his harsh, mocking words still echoing in her ears she got up and spent the next couple of hours locked in the bathroom. She had sobbed quietly to herself whilst Dave remained downstairs on the sofa, snoring loudly.
Twisting her waist once to the left and then once to the right she gave herself a quick critique and felt satisfied with her appearance. Sure, the old pair of jeans she had on may or may not have a faint wine stain near the bottom. The jumper may or may not have a small tear where Dave had once grabbed her in the throes of passion. But they were nice reminders of the fun the two of them used to have in times past. A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips, the shattered remains of a mischievous personality that had long been dulled by marriage and parenthood. Today she wasn’t going to be entertaining anyone. With Dave at work and the kids staying at their grandparents she had the rest of the day to herself. That left her with a few hours or so of peace and quiet and she was going to do nothing but laze around watching TV. There was a bottle of wine to finish off, a chocolate bar to make a start on and, if her memory served her correctly, maybe even a few scoops of ice cream left in the bottom of a tub in the freezer. A day dedicated to glorious self-indulgence that would come to an abrupt end once Dave came home. Over the years Cassandra had learnt to zone out once he started bitching and moaning about the fat receptionist where he worked, but it still managed to chip away at her mood.
She glanced out the window to her left and looked out across the front of her house. Only a large green van caught her attention. She had first noticed it a few days ago but had no idea who it belonged to. Not that she paid much attention to other people’s cars and vans anyway. A cat walked past the van and looked up at the windscreen. It hissed and then scampered away as if something had insulted it. Cassandra was once again reminded why she didn’t like cats very much. She loved dogs. She adored them in fact and as a child she had spoilt the family dog something rotten. As the dog aged and it’s health declined Cassandra did her best to stave off the inevitable. Over time the vet bills began to get more and more expensive and she was soon working overtime at her part-time job in order to help her parents pay for them. She never forgot the fateful day when the vet told them that the only option left was to have the dog put down. She was distraught and spent the rest of the week viewing the world through a veil of tears.
Dave was not fond of dogs so they compromised and got a goldfish. They had spent a fair bit of money on getting the right tank, a filter and eco-friendly organic nonsense for their new finned friend. However, despite the initial excitement, it turned out to be a huge anti-climax. Even the kids got bored of it after a while and it wasn’t much of a surprise when it was found floating at the top of the tank one morning.
Cassandra turned around and walked towards the bedroom door. She glanced back at herself in the mirror and then skipped down the stairs. It dawned on her that this was the first bit of time she had had to herself for what seemed like months. She began to hum to herself and was almost breaking out into a song as she picked up the remote control. She pressed the well-worn power button and stared at the TV. Nothing happened. Her humming turned to a groan. Her technical knowledge in these circumstance began and ended with the trusty old ‘remove batteries and reinsert them again’ trick. As far as she was concerned, it was the world’s greatest magic trick. Not even David Blaine could beat it, no matter how many weird stares he made at the cameras through a block of ice. If that didn’t fix it then she was flummoxed. She prayed to the Panasonic God that it wasn’t something that was going to ruin her day of watching nonsense. Then with a flash of inspiration that got her humming again she remembered that Dave was on another one of his Greenpeace save-the-planet drives again so everything was turned off at the wall. Despite his frequent lectures on the environment Cassandra just couldn’t bring herself to care much about it. She had two children and an increasingly boorish husband to worry about, why should she give a flying fuck about the ozone layer? She bent down to turn the TV on at the wall socket and she was startled slightly as it blared to life. She giggled in spite of herself and the room was filled with the reassuring sound of Jerry Springer’s voice. She stood back up and walked over to the sofa. She didn’t finish the journey.
Something slammed hard against her upper back and she let out a loud gasp. She felt something being pulled out of her and heard a sound that could have been someone poking meat with a knife. She spun around and was staring right into the point of a knife that was covered in blood and tangles of her hair. Before she could draw in another breath the knife was thrust deep into her chest and blood spurted out from her mouth, covering her husband’s face with red splotches. In a fit of frenzied rage he pulled the knife back out and repeatedly stabbed his wife again and again and again, all the while screaming the words “FATSO EATING CRISPS! FATSO EATING CRISPS! FATSO EATING CRISPS!”
Cassandra collapsed to the floor, her life and strength rapidly draining away to nothing. Blood covered the floor, the ceiling and anything else that had the misfortune to be anywhere near her. Adrenaline, shock and fear consumed her and in the last few seconds of her life she looked up and saw that Dave had a red necktie around his forehead. I bought him that tie last month, he said he liked it. He used it to tie my hands to the bedpost the other night. Then her world went black forever.
Dave stood up and looked down at the mess in front of him. There lay his wife, a loving woman who had blessed him with two beautiful children during two long and painful pregnancies. There lay his wife, a woman who had suffered a miscarriage and sacrificed so many things for the family over the years. That woman, someone who he had once worshipped and would sometimes cycle for half a day just so he could visit her at university, was now very much dead.
***
Meal times were usually civil and pleasant affairs in the Dawes household. Paul and his wife were proud and diligent parents. They had bookshelves full of books with titles like ‘How to Cope with the Terrible Twos’ and ‘Is your Child Safe?’. Anyone sifting through the Internet history of the family PC would be bored to tears with the constant references to Mumsnet and the NHS websites. Every sharp table corner or furniture edge had rubber covers securely placed over them.
It was an understandably huge shock to Paul when he saw his daughter pick up a knife, twist it expertly around in her hand and stab it straight into her younger brother’s eye. She did it in such a quick, smooth movement that Paul wondered if it was something that she had been practicing. She hadn’t even looked up from the jar of peanut butter that she had been gawping at. A thousand paranoid thoughts suddenly filled Paul’s head and his mind searched back through the years desperately searching for the failed parenting moments that caused his daughter to do this. In a nanosecond the Expert Parent Encyclopaedia part of his subconscious went into overdrive as it considered whether they should have sent her to an all-girls school. Would things have been different if they had removed the labels from the peanut butter jars so that she couldn’t obsess over every calorie and carbohydrate that might cross her lips? Was it true that red wallpaper could encourage violence?
Utterly stunned, Paul dropped the glass of orange juice that was in his hand. It bounced on the table and then fell onto the floor and smashed. In one, last desperate attempt at an explanation of what he was seeing his mind fell back onto what was usually a reliable question; what would Super Nanny off the TV do in this situation?
The piercing wail of an angry, screaming toddler brought him back to reality. The noise filled his ears until he thought they were going to explode. The two-year old threw his plastic dinosaur spoon down and his small hands grasped uselessly at the object sticking out of his face.
Paul began to stand up and looked over at his wife at the same time. Her eyes were wide open and staring as she raked a knife hard across his thighs and shouted “QUEUS AT THE POST OFFICE!” in a shrill voice. Paul bellowed in pain and shock, collapsed back down into his chair and grabbed hold of his thigh. It was oozing blood and his jeans were quickly becoming soaked thick with it.
“STOLEN SHOES IN THE PLAYGROUND!” his daughter cried out and brought down a mug of coffee hard onto the young child’s head. Yet another shrieking scream filled the room. Hot coffee splashed over the sides of the mug and the child clawed at his head in agony and confusion. His young and innocent mind flip-flopped from one emotion to another, desperate to understand why his sister had done this. It was mere minutes since she had been tickling and laughing with him.
Paul tried once more to stand up but stumbled and brought his bare foot down hard onto the smashed glass on the floor. He roared in anger and desperation as his foot slid away from him. He could do nothing as his face smashed down onto the table and he felt his nose break with a soft, sickening crunch. He fell onto the floor, dazed and bewildered.
Grunting in pain Paul pulled himself up onto the table with his hands and elbows. Blood was now seeping and gushing from his foot, his thigh and his nose. He looked up just in time to see his daughter, his sweet and darling daughter, pick up his only son with one hand and hurl him across the room. The child hit the wall side-on, his shoulder dislocating instantly. A sickening crunching sound could be heard as his fragile skull fractured and splintered against the wall. Barely conscious and close to death the child fell to the floor. Most of his small ribs were broken and he wheezed as he landed. A smiling teddy bear with the words ‘Hi Aaron! Hug me and be happy’ written on it was sat a few feet away from him. It was his favourite toy, the most beloved thing he had ever possessed. Aaron gurgled and smiled at it in recognition. His short life was being brought to an abrupt and painful end, but his last few living moments were filled with merciful happiness.
Paul was still struggling to pull himself up when his daughter suddenly turned around and looked at him. Her face was blank and unemotional. She looked at him with complete disinterest, her face so relaxed that Paul thought she had fallen asleep with her eyes open. She did nothing as her mother brought the point of knife down onto the back of his hand. It penetrated through the hand and the wood almost to the hilt. He was pinned down to the table, trapped and defenceless. Salt was thrown into his face and his eyes were suddenly useless and on fire. Something hard was slammed down on top of his head. His skull twice made a hollow echoing sound but then on the third and fourth blow the bone gave way and cracked right open. Hair and blood mingled with the exposed grey matter. The blade of a knife followed in seconds later, bits of brain splattering around as the knife was repeatedly thrust in and out.
Paul slumped down dead. His bodyweight wrenched at his pinned-down hand, bones and tendons starting to rip and snap under the strain. A foot stamped down hard on his shoulder and it came out of its socket with a muffled popping sound. The hand finally ripped free of the knife and flopped down onto Pauls head.
Mother and daughter looked at each other and said nothing. There was no hatred, no fear and no anger in either of them as they calmly sat down and resumed their lunch in silence as if the slaughtering of half the family was a normal, everyday experience.
***
Gary was in his back garden sweating heavily as he dug into the earth. He was a man who liked to busy himself with projects. Some projects he finished, some he didn’t. A discarded set of expensive golf clubs belonged atop a large ‘unfinished’ pile. He had initially thrown himself at the golf course, digging huge clumps out of numerous fairways in the process. In the end he decided it was too slow, too fiddly and too full of shitty old fat fucks for his sensibilities.
The digging that he was doing now was part of his latest grand project to install a pond. Given the effort and pain he had put himself through so far he hoped it wasn’t something that he would get bored of before it was completed. Each time he thought about stopping for a rest he was almost certain that he had dug through to the centre of the bloody planet. He didn’t understand how he could expend so much energy and not get anywhere. The divots and holes he created on the golf course made digging look easy. Maybe some of the fat wankers he had upset down the clubhouse were sneaking into his garden and filling the hole in when he wasn’t looking.
Of course, he hadn’t actually meant to upset them. He had tried his best to fit in and work on his swing and wear the right shoes and not belch too loudly and not make jokes about storing his balls in the correct bag. But fucking hell were they all a load of miserable bastards. A fair few closet racists as well. Making comments about Polish gypsies was fair game, it seemed. Making comments about wearing a golfing glove when wiping your arse was not.
He heard a noise behind him and he turned round to see Sarah, his fiancée, coming down the steps from the kitchen. She was carrying a tray of food in her hands and he was suddenly hungry. Gary had known Sarah for about seven years and they had now been together for five. She was one of the prettiest girls he had ever met. She had been part of a wider circle of friends that he only saw every so often and it had taken him a while to work up the courage to ask her out. He was thrilled and relieved when she agreed to go on a date with him and, other than a minor drunken transgression at a stag do a few years back, he had barely looked at another woman since then.
Even after all this time he still occasionally got a knot in his stomach when he saw her. Right now a knot was busying itself somewhere in his belly and it got bigger as she got closer to him. She was wearing a red linen dress that was cut off at the arms and clung tightly round her waist. It carried on down to just above her knees.
Sarah was sometimes an outrageous tease and knew exactly how to drive Gary wild. One of her favourite tricks - coincidentally it was also one of Gary’s favourites as well - was to forgo the use of underwear. Gary could usually tell when she did this as there would be a tiny change in the way she walked and a cheeky little twinkle in her eyes that he just couldn’t resist. More than once he had lifted up her skirt and had her right there on the floor. Or the kitchen table. Or whatever was handy at the time.
To Gary’s disappointment now was not one of those times but he was certainly glad to see her. Her smiling, happy face and burgeoning tray of food was a nice break from staring at mud and earthworms.
“Hey Gaz I brought you some lunch,” Sarah said as she approached him. Now that she was up close to him, she saw how hard he had been working. She had been worried that this latest scheme of his was going leave them with nothing but an abandoned hole in the garden, the discard remains of yet another ‘Gazza Proja’ as she like to call his projects. Not that she ever said it out loud in his company though. His t-shirt clung to his sweaty body and showed off his muscular frame. She would be the first to admit that Gary could sometimes be a bit of a gym bore. She didn’t think she would ever know her protein shakes from her electrolytes yet he had them memorised somewhere in that mind of his. However, the firmness of his chest under her hands usually made her forget about such things.
She was now considering taking Gary by the hand and leading him upstairs to the bedroom. Maybe they could spend the rest of the afternoon up there. Sarah opened her mouth but she didn’t get the chance to say anything as something sharp was slammed hard and incredibly painfully into her stomach. The tray she was carrying blocked her view so whatever it was she didn’t see it but the blow forced her to double up in pain. For a few seconds the air was filled with Coke, coffee and chip butty sandwiches. Plates and cups clattered down onto the grass and Sarah collapsed in a writhing, paralysed agony alongside them.
She looked up just in time to see a snarling Gary bring the edge of the spade down onto the side of her head. In those last few moments of her life, her eyes were filled with a mixture of confusion and betrayal as the only man she had ever really cared for smashed her face in with a rusty old spade. She didn’t live long enough to hear it but Gary was shouting “STEROID BENCH PRESSING PRICKS!” over and over again as he hacked away at her body. He then dragged her down into the hole he had been digging, pulled down his trousers and defecated on what was left of her face.
In the space of less than a minute Gary had gone from looking at Sarah with a mixture of lust and adoring affection to hacking her to death and shitting on her corpse. He bent down, picked up the red cloth that had been sitting on the tray and tied it around his head. He then disappeared into the house.
***
Tom was up in his bedroom playing around with his new USB webcam. He was having immense fun recording videos and his hard drive was rapidly filling up with clips of him making faces and jabbering on about his favourite Xbox 360 games. He had put his webcam on the window sill, facing out onto next-doors garden. He could see that the bloke next door was digging a hole but that wasn’t what he was interested in. Tom figured that if he was lucky he might get a glimpse of the woman sunbathing topless or something.
Flitting between Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and various other websites had caused him to forget all about next door. Some strange shouting about steroids brought his attention back to the real world. He looked out the window and was dumbstruck as he watched Gary hacking away at a motionless woman on the ground. Her red dress was ripped open and so in a sense Tom had got his wish at seeing Sarah topless in the garden. He watched in fearful silence as Gary dragged her into the hole, took a dump on her face and then walk calmly back into his house.
Tom remained staring out of the window for a while longer and then remembered his webcam was still on. He clicked around on his PC for several seconds to try and view what had been recorded. He was so focused on this one thing that he didn’t hear the sound of his bedroom door open. Tom remained blissfully unaware of the figure that had just walked in holding a knife.
The figure crept up behind him, raised the knife and screamed “RAAAAAAAAAR!”
Tom fell off his chair and down onto the floor. He flipped himself round to face his attacker and did a scrabbling backwards crabwalk until his back hit the wall... and then he relaxed. Slightly. The ‘attacker’ was just his older sister. His mean and nasty sister who took everything too seriously. She stood there laughing and pointing at him.
She fell backwards onto his bed, still laughing and said “You shit your pants completely that time you stupid dork!” She had a look of smug triumph on her face that Tom imagined would last a thousand years. She stuck her fingers up at him and mocked him. “Stop spending so much time on the computer and one day you might be able to get your own back. Not much chance of that though.”
Tom sat there for a few more seconds as his heartbeat slowed back down and he managed to splutter out a few words. “Lucy you have to... look out the... smashed in, hole and spade... did a shit on her but I recorded it.”
“What the fuck are you on about you retard? I got you so stop trying to make excuses for being such a dork all the time,” was her typically bitchy and unsympathetic response. Her voice had taken on that familiar aggravating tone that made Tom’s hand itch to slap her round the face. He was certain that his Dad sometimes got that same feeling as well. She got up off the bed and walked towards him, the big grin still on her face. Lucy paused as she looked out of the window. Tom saw the smile get wiped away in an instant as she took in the view from next door.
“Oh my fucking God what is that? What the fuck happened out there?” her voice was now starting to sound shrill and full of shock. She struggled to cope with what she was seeing. Blood, flesh, and a discarded lunch surrounded a hole that was filled with what could only be one thing. A massacre had taken place right on her doorstep. She had never felt so scared before.
Lucy staggered backwards slightly and plopped down onto the chair that Tom had been sitting in. She began babbling in shock and worry. Tears formed in her eyes. She looked towards her brother for answers. Maybe even a bit of comfort. Their parents were out and he was the only other person in the house.
“What happened? Did you see it?” she said in a hoarse whisper. All feeling of superiority over her brother had now vanished.
“No but I think I got a recording of it. Hold on,” said Tom and he got up and went to the PC. His hands were still shaking as he clicked a few buttons and then the video started playing. The pair of them watched in silence as the scene played out in front of them. They saw as Gary dug at the ground and then he stopped and looked behind him. A few seconds later a woman in a red dress came into the shot, a woman that they both admired but in very different ways. Lucy admired the woman’s beauty and outward sexual confidence. Tom just lusted after her in the way that any 14-year old boy would.
They watched as the woman came to a stop in front of the man and a short exchange of words took place. Tom and Lucy both drew sharp intakes of breath as the ferocious and unprovoked attack started and they watched the horror unfold. The woman’s face was hacked and hacked until it practically ceased to exist. It was just an unrecognisable mush. It all happened in the space of a minute and the man seemed to move with unnatural speed and strength.
“What the hell is he doing with that red cloth?” Tom asked. The video was now showing the man pick something up off the floor, tie it around his head and disappear out of the picture. His question went unanswered as it dawned on both of them that they had no idea where the man was now or what he was doing. Did he know that they had recorded him carrying out the attack?
“We need to phone the police and mum and dad. Oh God what is going on? Where is your phone?” Lucy stammered.
“Here, it’s fully charged for once.” Tom reached down and handed his phone to his sister. He was more than happy to let her take the initiative. He didn’t have any idea what to say and he didn’t think his parents would believe him anyway. Over the years had told so many wild tales and stories that most people just nodded and smiled at him whenever he spoke.
Lucy snatched up the phone and suddenly realised she had no idea who to call first or what to say. She made the decision to call her parents just so she could hear a familiar voice of authority. She recalled that the one time she had called 999 the experience had almost driven her to the point of insanity. A friend had been involved in a car accident and the emergency operator was asking her all kinds of questions. Was her friend diabetic? Was she pregnant? Was she taking medication? Was she breathing irregularly? Did she take the red pill or the blue pill? Look, just send an ambulance, send a blue-eyed coastguard who can’t tie his own shoelaces, send Al-fucking-Qaeda with a lunchbox full of cheese sandwiches but for the love of Christ Al-fucking-mighty stop asking me these stupid fucking questions you stupid fucking fucks
Lucy stood up off the chair and sat over on the bed. She felt something under her foot and when she looked down she saw that it was the knife that she had scared Tom with. The joke now felt like it had happened a lifetime ago and she kicked the knife away in disgust. Her fingers dabbled and swept over the touch panel of the phone. Dad was her first port of call.
Tom meanwhile had sat back down in front of his PC. He had an idea. A truly inspirational and amazing idea that filled him with narcissistic joy. Tapping and clicking away like an excited child he set to work uploading the gruesome video onto YouTube and posting the link to as many places as he could find. He thought for a few seconds and then settled on ‘Slaughter in Barnaby Close’ as the name for the video. Little did he know just how apt that title was and how much of an impact it was going to have.
***
John was sitting in the passenger seat of the car with his wife doing the driving. The way he looked at it was if she was going to drag him along on these shopping trips and then ask him to pay for it all, she can do the bloody driving. He was reading a newspaper but not really paying attention to anything inside it. He turned the page and was confronted with a sickeningly large advert that made him want to throw the paper out the window. Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister and current perma-tanned show pony, had a new book out. Well whoopy fucking doo. John wasn’t really surprised that Tony Blair had taken the time to write a book about himself. It was probably something the stupid twat liked to do each week. Surround himself with mirrors and Yes-men and write about how wonderful he was. Of course the cover was nothing other than a picture of the man himself. John had trouble deciding what was bigger; the man’s ego or his smug shit-eating grin.
He folded the newspaper in half, threw it onto the backseat behind him and looked over at his wife. They had stopped at some traffic lights and she looked back at him. The worried look on her face didn’t surprise John and he was wearing a similar one himself. She reached out for his hand. He gladly held it and squeezed it lightly. The phone call they had both had with Lucy on the hands-free was concerning to say the least. The signal had been bad at first and they got cut off from each other a couple of times. There was considerable stress and anguish as both ends tried to phone the other at the same time. The second time the conversation had been resumed Lucy had been in tears as she pleaded “Please don’t hang up on me again Daddy.” She hadn’t called him ‘daddy’ for a very long time and as she relayed over the phone what she had seen his eyes widened with worry.
John had heard the occasional clacking sound of a keyboard in the background so he guessed that the pair of them were in Tom’s room. When Tom came on the line he sounded remarkably calm, almost as if he was enjoying himself in fact. John wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not and when he heard Tom say “Oh wow, it’s had 150 views already!” he was stunned into silence. John and his wife looked at each other with a puzzled frown. They shook their heads and asked Tom to put his sister back on. John then reassured Lucy that they were on their way home and shouldn’t be more than about twenty minutes at the most. They were to just sit tight and wait for them to come home.
***
Dave was sitting bolt upright on his couch. Jerry Springer was now saying goodbye to the watching audience and the credits were starting to roll. His wife’s body was still on the floor where she had fallen. Blood and entrails soaked the carpet in a fashion that would shock even the most dedicated of butchers. Dave was covered in blood and the odd bit of flesh. His face was emotionless as he stood up and picked up his car keys. He turned around, stepped over his wife’s body without a second though and walked to the front door. He left dark red footprints all the way up the hall. The knife was still clenched tightly in his hand.
***
Back in Tom’s room the mood had improved slightly. Tom’s video was slowly making its way around the various corners of the Internet and he was now revelling in his new-found fame. He was well onto his way to becoming a legend on half a dozen different forums. Every time he refreshed the YouTube page there seemed to be new comments being posted.
“No-one has blamed the Jews yet,” he quipped.
Lucy looked at him and asked what he meant. Tom just shrugged and said “This is YouTube, some random always comes along and blames stuff on the Jews.” This answer didn’t really make much sense to Lucy but that was true for many of the things that Tom did and said these days.
Lucy was still scared and worried but her brother’s enthusiasm was infectious. While she struggled to understand why he was always so happy to spend so much time with what she could only describe as ‘fucking around on the Internet’, it allowed her to focus on something other than their psychotic neighbour.
Tom was feeling quite upbeat at the moment and was flush with the success of his video – it had attracted a lot of attention and he thought he was going to be famous, at least for a while. Some of his friends at school had seen it and word was getting round fast. He had even had positive comments from some of the kids in the year above him. He was used to them calling him a nerd or trying to steal his lunch money so it was a pleasant change from the norm.
Lucy sat back down on Tom’s bed and listened to him tapping away on the keyboard. Aside from the occasional “Wow, this video is going global.” exclamation from Tom the room was silent. She wanted to speak to her friend but her own phone was back in her room and she wasn’t comfortable with the prospect of a friend’s number being left on her dorky brother’s phone.
She got up off the bed, approached the open door and listened out. She could hear nothing and looked across the hall into her own bedroom. The door was wide open. It seemed to be screaming at her in silence. She crept across to her room and peered around every hiding place she could think of to make sure no-one was there. Feeling moderately satisfied that there were no serial killers anywhere in her bedroom she grabbed her own phone. For the first time in her life Lucy decided that she would prefer to call one of her friends whilst in Tom’s room. There really was some wisdom in the saying ‘safety in numbers’. As she walked out of the bedroom she glanced out of her window and saw two things that caught her eye. A green van parked outside one of the houses a few doors down and also a man with something tied round his head getting into a car. The van had been there for a couple of days now but she had no idea who it belonged to. She recognised the man as he lived just across from them. He had two kids and was often seen dressing up and playing out in the front garden with them so she didn’t think anything of it.
After the eerie silence of the hallway and her room, Tom’s teenage haven of Star Wars and Xbox 360 posters felt like a cosy, safe place. She sat back down on the bed and got the impression that Tom didn’t even know she had left. As if reading her mind Tom turned round and asked “Where did you go?”. Lucy just waved her phone at him and looked for her friend’s number in the address book. She thumbed down the list and tapped on the ‘Michelle Dawes’ entry.
***
In another house somewhere a mobile phone was ringing. It’s owner wasn’t in the same room as the phone but the ringtone was set customarily loud so it could be heard from a fair old distance. In fact it could probably be heard from the moon. The phone was in the bedroom and the owner was in the dining room sitting at the table with her mother. The room was a container of chaos and the usual friendly smells of a lunch or late breakfast – toast, peanut butter, eggs, coffee and orange juice – mingled with the stench of freshly exposed flesh and blood. A man with a dislocated shoulder and a torn hand lay on the floor, his skull cracked open. Against the wall a toddler lay motionless and dead. His glazed eyes stared across at a teddy bear and a contorted rigor-mortis smile was forming on his face.
Michelle Dawes stood up from her chair and went upstairs to the bedroom, leaving bloodied footsteps as she went. She looked at the phone and saw the name ‘Lucy Smith’ flashing on it. She picked the phone up, answered it and held it to her ear but there was no emotion or intention behind what she was doing – it was more of a muscle reflex action than a desire to speak to her friend. Michelle just stood there in her room with the phone held against her ear and didn’t respond to anything that an increasingly frantic Lucy was saying. Michelle then just put the phone in her pocket and slowly but purposefully rummaged through a couple of her drawers. She pulled out a red scarf, tied it around her head and went out of her room. She went back down the stairs, stopped at the bottom step and sat down. She did nothing but stare at the front door.
***
Lucy was now looking at her phone in bewilderment. Michelle usually answered her phone quickly and was nearly always the first one to speak. It was something she was quite famous for among her friends and it was often a battle for anyone else to get a word in edgeways once she got going. Yet this time she had taken an age to answer and then said nothing at all. Lucy had heard what could only have been light breathing and then the sound of the phone being put into a bag or a pocket. Nothing was making sense today. What is it with this fucking street they are all freaks and I cannot wait until my boyfriend gets back from holiday and we can move into our own place and I won’t have to live in this fucking shithole any more.
Lucy lay down on Tom’s bed, drew her knees up to her chest and decided to just watch Tom do whatever he was doing until their parents came back.
***
Their parents were still driving but weren’t far from home now. Bottles of wine clinked and rolled around the boot of the car as they hurried home. They were now only about two streets away when they saw one of their neighbours zoom past them in his car. He was wearing a red tie around his head but seeing as he once wore a cowboy hat to a street barbecue they held a while ago, despite the stifling heat of summer, they barely give it a second thought.
Just as they came to their road a large green van shot out, it’s wheels screeching as it turned the corner at a high speed. John’s wife had to brake hard and swerve to avoid it. Some glass bottles smashed against each other somewhere in the back of the car. The pair of them cursed at whoever was driving the van and then continued onwards. The smell of spilled wine started to fill the air.
***
Lucy heard a car pull into the driveway and sat up saying “I think they are back.” Tom just sat there on his PC, almost oblivious to everything. The sound of keys rattling in the front door managed to get his attention and the pair of them walked cautiously to the top landing.
“Tom? Lucy? You there? You all ok?” the comforting sound of their father’s voice rang out. Lucy ran downstairs and flung herself into his arms, relief washing over her. “I am so glad you are home, it was horrible”. John kissed his daughter on the head and did his best to soothe her. She was shaking like a leaf and her face was pale. It had been a long time since Lucy had felt so delicate in his arms.
Tom made his way downstairs and watched his mother lock the front door behind her. “Tom are you ok? What is going on?” She was trying to take her coat off and hug him at the same time so it was an awkward one-armed hug. For once Tom didn’t shrink away from his mother’s embrace. He had no watching school friends to worry about and, well, there was a dead body in next-door’s garden so he was quite glad that his parents were back.
After making sure everyone was alright the four of them went to Tom’s room. There was a tense moment as both parents demanded to know what the hell a large carving knife was doing on the floor. Lucy’s face flushed red with embarrassment as she recounted the prank she had played on her brother. Tom did his best to hold back a grin.
John saw the body before his wife did and said “Holy shit Mary, you won’t like this” and he was right. John stood there staring at the scene in morbid fascination but Mary couldn’t bear to look. She made a gagging sound in her throat as she sat down on Tom’s bed. She stayed there and held her head in her hands.
Tom was a fan of Batman and had a poster on his wall of The Joker writing ‘Why so serious?’ in blood. Mary had been a goth as a teenager and she had retained a liking of the macabre ever since, something that never failed to impress Tom. The pair of them had developed a game where he would do his best to try and shock her with pictures of gruesome art. He was a frequent visitor to heavy metal websites, not for the music, but for the album covers. Usually she had had a strong stomach but right now she did her level best to avoid looking at the poster. “This is awful, this is terrible. Who could do such a thing?” she said.
Mary had become quite friendly with her neighbour Sarah over the years. The pair of them had spent many evenings together, usually with a bottle or two of wine. They discussed everything from abusive ex-boyfriends at college to the best way to have sex without the kids being able to hear you. Mary disliked inviting Sarah round to her house, preferring instead to go round hers. Her excuse for this was she didn’t like the kids to see her drinking, but the real reason was that she didn’t like the way that John would sometimes look at Sarah.
Mary held back the tears but she knew they would be coming sooner or later at a time when neither the kids or John were around.
At Tom’s insistence John watched the video of the attack and he was stunned at the unprovoked nature of it. He couldn’t believe the sheer ferocity and speed with which it took place. He always got the impression that Gary was a strong bloke who had been in plenty of fights when he was younger but this was something else entirely. Gary was absolutely smitten with Sarah. Considering how attractive she was that wasn’t too surprising. As John had often told his mates at golf, she was the sort of woman you would crawl naked over a mile of broken glass for, just so you could throw stones at the bin lorry that took her dirty knickers away.
Although none of them had yet called the police the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance and it wasn’t long before they were loud and close. Then they were practically on top of them and flashing blue lights streamed in through the front windows. John and Lucy went into Lucy’s bedroom and looking out the window they saw two police cars pull up just outside their house. A total of six uniformed police officers stepped out of the cars and two of them spoke into their radio sets. Another approaching siren could be heard and then a police van pulled into the road. This van swung round past the two cars and then stopped a short distance away from them. Almost immediately a further six officers in riot gear jumped noisily out of the back whilst two more officers in regular uniform stepped out from the doors at the front.
An officer who had arrived in one of the cars looked up and saw John and Lucy standing at the window. He gave the pair of them a quick nod and turned his head to say something to one of his colleagues behind him. Now they were all looking up at the house. It made Lucy feel nervous and her hand crept into John’s. The first officer pointed down towards what John assumed was the front door and he nodded back and gave a thumbs-up in reply. Lucy felt intimidated by the lights and the black-cladded figures outside. She stayed upstairs as her father went down to the front door. All alone in her room she suddenly felt cold and put on a jumper.
The officer knocked on the front door just as John got to it and for a brief second John panicked when he couldn’t get the door open. Then he remembered that Mary had locked it behind her and he scrabbled his own key around in the lock to get it open.
“Hello sir, you wouldn’t happen to be the father of Tom Jennings would you?” the officer asked John.
“Er yes, yes I am. I take it this is about what happened next door?” John replied.
“Pretty much, yes. His video has caused quite the stir and I am surprised that the press haven’t got here before us. Have you had any journalists knocking on your door yet?”
“No, none actually. Do you want to come in and take a look at anything?” asked John.
“Yes it would be a good idea if I came in. Half the world has seen that video so there is no reason to assume that your neighbour hasn’t seen it as well. We will take a quick look around and make sure everything is ok.”
Two more police officers came into the house and introduced themselves. As they took a look around the house Lucy once again flushed red with embarrassment when the knife in Tom’s room was spotted. This time Tom stepped in for his suddenly all-too-shy sister and explained, with a hint of a smile, the trick she had played on him earlier on in the day. The officers listened to the tale and looked at each other with ‘what the hell is wrong with civilians these days’ glances. Satisfied the house was safe they told the family to lock their doors and stay inside.
Lucy’s bedroom window looked out upon most of Barnaby Close so the family assembled in her room to see what was going on. The officers in riot gear had knocked several times on their neighbour’s door but there was no answer. A battering ram appeared from somewhere and was used to smash open the door. Policemen poured into the house. Not too long afterwards they re-appeared escorting out a handcuffed Gary. The red cloth they had seen him pick up was still wrapped around his head. As he was put into the rear of one of the police cars, a helpful officer placed a firm hand on his head to make sure he didn’t bump it on the way in.
A bit further out the entrance to Barnaby Close was being cordoned off with bright yellow police tape and officers were knocking on the doors of the other houses. Most of the other officers seemed fairly relaxed and were leaning up against the vehicles and chatting. Then John noticed one of the others waving frantically at the rest of them. “Hold on, something’s happening,” he said.
There were a few shouts from some of the officers but they couldn’t be heard through the windows. John eased open a window and they overheard snippets of conversations from outside. None of it really made any sense. Lucy got an ominous feeling when she saw that several officers were now looking in through the downstairs windows of the house that her friend Michelle lived in. An officer bent down to look through the letterbox and then quickly drew back and swore loudly. There was more speaking into radios and banging on the front door of Michelle’s house but no-one answered.
The battering ram appeared again and Lucy once more let her hand creep into her father’s grasp. She feared the worst as her friend’s front door was smashed open. Men poured into the house. The four of them stood there staring out of the window wondering what was going on. A girl in a blood-stained white t-shirt and something red tied around her head was led out in handcuffs. Lucy was stunned and put a hand over her mouth as her friend was put into one of the cars. One of the police officers said something that sounded like “What the hell happened here?” and another one responded with “Dunno mate, whole bloody place has gone mental”. An older woman was then led out of the same house. She too was covered in blood and had something red tied round her head. She was put into the same car as the younger girl.
There was more talking into the radios and then the battering ram made a third appearance. The four members of the Jennings family couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Lucy spoke for them all when she said “Has the entire world gone fucking psycho or something?” She felt an incredible pang of guilt rise up in her when she looked at Tom and remembered the prank she had played on him. Tom felt her stare but he just looked at her, raised his eyebrows and shrugged. He turned his attention back to what was happening out of the window.
The police broke down a third door, went in and then came out again about a minute later. This time there was no-one being lead out in handcuffs but someone outside was heard saying “Another dead one in there, it’s a blood bath”.
Mary suddenly looked at John and grasped his arm, her eyes wide with alarm. She said “That’s Dave and Cassandra’s house. Didn’t we see Dave driving past us earlier? He was wearing a red band as well.” She made a circular motion with her hand above her head to emphasise the point. John just nodded and made a strange gurgling sound in agreement. The colour in his face slowly drained away and he tightened his grip on Lucy’s hand.
More approaching sirens could be heard in the distance. The whup-whup sound of a helicopter rotor soon drowned out everything.
Lucy burst into tears. Tom looked at her, considered something for a second and then put a comforting hand on her shoulder. It was an awkward bit of comforting, something he was completely unused to doing for his sister. Lucy was grateful all the same and hugged him.
John leaned forward and shut the window.
***
Excerpt from a local newspaper the next day:
More details have emerged about the events surrounding what has been nicknamed ‘Slaughter in Barnaby Close’. At least four people have been found dead and three have been arrested after residents of Barnaby Close turned on members of their own families for no discernible reason. The suspects have said very little whilst in custody and have spent most of the time in a “zombie-like state”.
The police have yet to establish any kind of motive for the murders and enquiries are still on-going. Local residents have described the affected families as being “Normal, law-abiding people in loving families.” Witness reports have emerged saying that a large green van was seen parked in the road for about a week prior to the killings taking place but neither the vehicle itself nor the owners of the vehicle have been identified or located.
One of the suspects, Dave Simpson, was last seen driving away from Barnaby Close on the same day that the murders took place and has not been seen since.
Excerpt from a local newspaper two days after the events on Barnaby Close:
A total of six bodies have now been discovered in Barnaby Close and four people have been arrested on suspicion of murder. Motives have yet to be established and police have so far struggled to get any information from the suspects at all. Detective Johnson, who is heading the investigation, has said that it “is one of the strangest cases I have ever seen.” The attacks that took place were “brutal and horrific, the victims stood no chance at all.”
Argon Water Supplies Ltd. have become involved with the investigation after it was discovered that the water drain cover for Barnaby Close may have been tampered with. A spokesperson for the company said “The drain cover is a new, tamper-proof design and cannot be opened without special equipment. We have checked our records and none of our engineers have been in the area recently so we are anxious to discover who may have had access to this drain. Preliminary checks on the water supply going into the houses on Barnaby Close have thrown up a few anomalies and further tests are being run”.
Police have still been unable to trace the whereabouts of the green van that was seen in Barnaby Close in the days leading up the murders taking place. Det. Johnson said “The green van does not belong to Argon Water Supplies and we are now treating whoever owns the vehicle as a suspect. We are looking at local CCTV footage in an attempt to trace where it went.”
Dave Simpson has still not been found.
BBC News ticker three days after the events on Barnaby Close:
Police say Barnaby Close water supply shows severe levels of tampering and contamination. All residents evacuated.
Comment on YouTube for a video titled ‘Slaughter in Barnaby Close’:
omg its the jews taking over
***
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Two examples of what is on my website:
Stray tyre rolls down hill; causes chaos but has time of his life
A stray, speeding tyre briefly caused chaos for the residents of a steep hill in Cambridge yesterday. The tyre, which “appeared out of nowhere”, said he had “the time of his life” during his speedy, uncontrolled descent down Crown Hill. “I am not as young as I used to be and I have to admit, the acceleration caught me by surprise a bit. But man what a rush. On the way down I saw a kid on a skateboard and I was like ‘Hey there kid on a skateboard, high-five me!’ and you know what he did? He high-fived me without missing a beat”.
Local residents described the event as “a right mad carry on” that was “totally out of character for the area”. Paula Able, who lives on Crown Hill, told us “I was mowing the lawn because it was a Tuesday. I always mow the lawn on Tuesdays and that tyre had no right to do what he did. I would’ve stayed in-doors if I had known that was going to happen and I called the police immediately”.
The free-wheeling tyre’s epic journey came to an ignomious stop when he hit a tree at the bottom of the hill. “I was disappointed and a little bit pissed off at the time but I don’t hold a grudge or anything. That tree has been there for years so there was no malice in it. I hit a stone on the way down and got some real air under my treads which was something I have never experienced before. Me, the tree and the stone had a right chuckle about it afterwards. The police were called but they were cool with it and said it was just one of those once-in-a-century type things”.
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