Duplicity (12 page)

He then coughed and raised his arm to point to the ceiling. Joanie followed his direction and yelled out in disbelief and shock at the sight of a naked man thrown over a large cream coloured pipe.

“What the fuck have you done to my daddy?”

Most of the skin from his torso and legs was missing, yet his face had frozen showing a picture of serenity, as though the vile defilation of his body had been of no consequence.

“I skinned your father after I killed him, Joanie.”

Henry grinned again; on this occasion, Joanie saw his teeth now resembled a mouth full of broken glass.

A veil of crimson dropped over her vision. She shrieked and ran at the man when the bastard dared to wave at her one more time. Joanie couldn’t halt her momentum as Henry dived out of the way. She collided against the car, her shin cracking into the car’s bumper. She ground her teeth at the fire-like agony that detonated up her leg. Joanie turned around, sensing the man rushing her. Through tear-blurred vision, she saw him almost on top of her. Joanie lashed out, her fist catching the side of his face.

Henry just grunted and shook off the strike as if it was of no concern and continued to move closer. Joanie ignored the pain lancing down her ankle and booted the man as hard as she could between his legs. Henry grunted again and acted as though the pain didn’t even register.  He leaned forward and rabbit punched Joanie between the eyes. Her head snapped back, it felt as though a professional boxer had just hit her. His fist flew towards her one more time. She jerked her head to the side, hearing the windscreen shatter.

There was no way that she’d be able to beat this fucker. She pulled her body off the car, turned and limped towards the edge of the building, whimpering. Joanie grabbed the metal bar that stopped her from tumbling down onto the pavement below and turned around. He hadn’t finished with her. The man charged her. She waited again, watching him run towards her. At the last second, Joanie dropped to the floor, Henry banged into the barrier. Joanie jumped up and pushed him. The man toppled over the edge.

She heard his body crashed into the ground below. Joanie looked over at the body of her father. “I’m so sorry, daddy.” Joanie turned and leaned over the barrier wanting to shout out in triumph. Dark rivers of his blood pooled out from below his body. There was no chance that he’d been able to survive that. The bastard was dead.

“It’s over.” She muttered. She just needed to find out what he’d done to her mum. Before she could turn away, Joanie caught movement down below from a nearby building. She needed to get away from here, before anybody saw her.

Joanie went completely numb when a single figure peeled away from the shadows and slowly walked out onto the main road, looking up at Joanie.

“No, this isn’t fucking happening!” another Henry walked over to the sprawled body. He crouched down and brushed his fingers through the blood. He then stood up, licked the mess off his fingers and looked up at Joanie. The man waved then pointed towards the building where he’d just walked from.

Joanie shrieked as another two more Henry’s dragged out her struggling mother.

“Leave her alone!” She cried.

The three men all waved at Joanie, before diving onto the woman.

Chapter Fourteen

Albert closed his eyes; he counted to five before flicking off the light. The total absence of light still could hide the atrocities in the room. He quickly slammed the door shut then locked it.

He felt his
lost treasure’s
arms slowly snake around his torso, her contact helped to suppress the shakes, threatening to turn Albert into a pile of jelly. The woman pressed her face into the back of his head. The oh so familiar smell of that fucking perfume once again assaulted his nostrils.

“Hush, my baby. I don’t want you to be scared. You are doing just fine, my darling.” She whispered.

He felt his head nod up and down; Albert ran his rough fingers along her slender arms and listened to the woman moan with pleasure.

“You’re not scared, are you?”

“Did you have to kill them all?”

His shaking only increased at the images of the atrocities that she’d just performed in that room. Albert was fucking terrified. Those sweet arms betrayed a hidden strength. It had taken the woman just moments to transform that room into a charnel house.

“You need to clean yourself up, Albert.”

Albert nodded again, vaguely wondering just at what point in their relationship, that they had swapped roles. He dropped the key in his pocket, noticing for the first time that wet scarlet gore, covered both his hands. His
lost treasure
released him and moved to one side.

“Come on, Albert. Let’s get you looking gorgeous again.”

She turned and glided along the hallway, singing to herself. The woman turned around, “Do you think I have a pretty voice? When we get back to your apartment, I can sing to you, if you like.” She winked. “I think you’ll like that.”

He followed, hurrying to catch up with the woman. He watched her sway from side to side, showing off her fantastic figure underneath that tight, light blue summer dress. His mind then slipped a gear when he saw that she didn’t have a single fleck of blood anywhere upon her, that dress looked as though she just taken it out of a wardrobe. His mind slipped another gear when Albert remembered that she was wearing a yellow dress before she entered that room.

Albert decided not to dwell on the subject. His poor brain had enough to cope without any added anomalies. The turning point in his
lost treasure’s
behaviour had happened just after she had killed Frankie. She had become more animated, less clingy, and somehow much more human. He had yet to miss the old version of his
lost treasure
, her constant demands for sex was wearing him out. Somehow though, he doubted that his self imposed celibacy would stay strong for much longer. His brain, battered by her pure savagery should be pleading him to just turn and run from this monster, to run until the strength in his legs failed him; yet just gazing at that gorgeous shape sway from side to side as she walked just made him hard for her again.

“Come on, Albert.” He whispered. “Sort yourself out.”

He stopped and removed his gaze from that vision of beauty and looked back at that locked door. Sure that he’d heard one of them move. Albert groaned, he ran across to the doorway on the over side, he dropped to his knees and vomited. “I’m so sorry.” He said, wiping his mouth. “I didn’t want anyone to die.”

“Albert, come on! We need to get you cleaned up. She glided over to him and picked Albert off the floor. She looked down at the semi-digested food splattered against the woodwork and sighed. “You poor baby, what you need is a nice soak. I can scrub your back for you, that’ll help you feel much better.” She purred.

He could not believe it that despite everything that this fiend had done, his body still responded to the sound of her sultry voice.

“I see that you’d like me to sort you out and clean you up.” She said, grabbing his head and giggling. “We’d better hurry up as well. According to you, we don’t have too long.”

Nobody else was due to arrive for at least another hour when the first of the night crew started their shifts. According to his
lost treasure
, that gave them plenty of time to complete her jobs. He’d pressed for more information but she just smiled and winked.

His
lost treasure
gently dragged him away from the door, he continued to stare, wondering how he’d react if that door handle moved.

They had found most of the employees lounging about in the staff room. As a general cleaner, his kind were dissuaded from using the facilities in there, the staff only seemed to apply this unofficial rule to him though. This discrimination used to bother him, until, that is, his
lost treasure
appeared in his life.

The five women had all turned around at the sound of Albert coughing. He framed himself in the doorway, taking his time to stare at them all one by one. Their casual disinterest and scorn soon turned to surprise when the woman squeezed past Albert and sauntered over to the nearest woman.

Albert had known Julie Hardy for most of his life. They’d gone to the same school together. He fucking despised the bitch and he knew that her feeling for him was of equal intensity. His
lost treasure
threw him a single wink before placing her arms on Julie’s shoulders. Everybody in the room, including Albert, cried out in horror as the woman began to change.

He couldn’t tear his gaze away as her beautiful smooth skin stretched and tore as hard, rough, ridges and bumps push up. The combined shrieking broke him out of his reverie and as instructed; he jumped out of the room and slammed the door shut, locking the creature in with the women. He slid down the door, feeling the thumps as the women slammed into the other side.

It had taken the woman just moments to silence them all. He’d heard her scratching on the other side of the door, asking him to let her out. The janitor had just sat there, tears running down his cheeks, until she’d lost patience and pushed open the door herself, flinging him to the other side of the corridor. He stared in horror at the carnage while she merely licked her lips and politely asked the janitor to take her to where the other staff members would be. Like an obedient dog, he’d taken her to every one and watched in silence as she casually slaughtered them all.

“Are you okay, Albert?” she asked. “You’ve started to shake again.” The woman pulled him into his apartment and placed him beside his bookshelf. “I won’t be a minute.” She said, kissing him on the forehead. “You’d better get these clothes off you, Albert; you’re starting to smell a bit.”

His
lost treasure
padded into the bathroom, he gazed down at the front of his gore soaked clothing and started to cry, there was no way that he couldn’t bring himself to touch it. “I can’t do it.” he whispered. “I just can’t.” His numbed mind cleared just for a second and Albert saw a picture of himself in that soaking hot bath. She was nowhere to be seen but that was okay, because next to him, stood a three quarter bottle of Jack Daniels.

He turned towards the kitchen, smiling. His saviour was just in there, hidden away at the back of the cupboard behind a box of cornflakes. His
lost treasure
could go do whatever the hell she needed and he could stay here, behind a locked door and drink himself to oblivion.

Grinning, Albert hurried through the living room, he kept his head facing forward, not wanting to look into the bathroom. Already, his fevered mind was showing him pictures of the woman bending over, testing the water and wriggling her pert bottom. The man stopped dead at the sight of movement inside his kitchen. Had she moved? He spun around, Albert could see into the bathroom, but he could hear her humming a tune.

“Hello?” He hissed. “Is there somebody in there?”

Albert screamed out in shock when a large man, wearing a dark brown suit, burst out of the kitchen. It took a few moments to realise that this bedraggled middle-aged man was the home’s deputy director. His eyes swivelled like ball-bearings not focusing on anything. That soon changed when Albert’s bloodied hand caught the handle of a china cup and it fell from the dresser and smashed onto the pine floor.

The man’s eyes found Albert. He looked up and down, taking in the janitor’s appearance and roared. Albert then saw he had one of his knives wrapped tight in his podgy hand.

He found himself lying in a heap against the wall, confused and dizzy. He shook his head to clear the nausea and saw the deputy director running out of his apartment with his
lost treasure
just behind him. The woman growled and leaped forward, wrapping both her hands around his thick neck. He staggered forward, trying to rip the woman off but she held on with the tenacity of a terrier.

She then slammed her forehead against the top of the man’s skull and he dropped to the floor. The woman grabbed his hair and slid the groaning body along the tiled floor and back into his apartment.

“Albert, stop staring, it’s rude.” The woman dropped the man and shut the door. “Go, go get in your bath.”

“Albert? Oh Jesus, Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to die.”

His
lost treasure
sighed she walked back over to the man and kneeled down by his head. “I think you’ve said enough.” She said, grabbing the side of his head and slamming it against the floor. Just like Albert’s china cup, the man’s head cracked open.

“I won’t tell you again.” She growled.

He shuffled back until his reached the doorway. Albert closed his eyes and turned around, not wanting to see the contents of the man’s head spreading out across his floorboards. It took him a few minutes to undo the slime smeared buttons but eventually, he succeeded. Albert felt a perverse sense of accomplishment when he finally removed the last piece of his clothing.

It took a moment to realise that the woman had filled the bath with cold water. He looked back towards the open door; he shook his head and climbed in. The cold water helped to clear his mist shrouded head. The man closed his eyes and slid down, submerging his head.

The distorted sounds of his
lost treasure
dealing with the director reached his ears, he dare not raise his head, Albert didn’t want to ear the woman chewing on the man. He slowly began to count, when he could no longer breathe, he’d open his mouth and allow the water into his body.

The sounds stopped and so did his ability to hold his breathe for any longer. He readied himself then opened his eyes, to find the woman’s face just inches from his own. He opened his mouth to scream and panicked as the cold water rushed down his throat. Albert found his body lifted out of the water.

“The water’s not very warm.” She said, seemingly unconcerned that Albert couldn’t stop coughing. “I should have used hot water.” She patted him on the back. “Doesn’t matter though, we can still use it to clean you down.”

Albert took a deep breath and for the first time, he wanted to wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze out her monstrous life. She undressed and climbed into the bath and sat down in front of him.