Sinema: The Northumberland Massacre (13 page)

Whitman opened his mouth to comment further, but decided against it. Instead, his mind wandered back to that Saturday evening in the woods with Mandy. He saw her dead face turn towards his with those red, evil eyes.

Shaking the vision loose from his mind, he stood up and headed back to his room.

A Nightmare on Miller’s Road.

A thick soup-like fog oozed through the shadowy streets of Haydon, obscuring the moonless sky. Whitman stood rooted to the spot on the damp grass beneath the Haydon Oak, staring at the Miller’s. The pub was in darkness, as were the surrounding buildings. Glancing about nervously, he noticed that the whole village was shrouded. Had there been a power cut?

As he waited, a solitary howl lifted above the gloom, causing his heart to quicken its pace. There was a lonely desperation in that canine cry.

Distorted by the creeping fog, Whitman thought he saw shapes moving behind the blackened windows of the SPAR and the Post Office. His pulse quickening further still, he noticed similar figures in other windows. As his mind struggled with this vision, new shapes appeared in the yawning darkness of open doorways.

A big, bloated form appeared in the doorway of the Miller’s. His instinct was to run, to get far away from this foreboding place, but his legs refused to oblige. They seemed set on facing whatever demons awaited him.

The figures stepped out of the shadowy doorways and started to move towards him from all directions, shuffling with a slow awkward determination. They were human and he recognised them, but the way they walked – that stiff shamble – disturbed him. Something wasn’t right about these people.

As they grew closer, he recognised Big Joe, but as his face took shape, he realised that the retired soldier had no eyes, just empty black sockets. His face was drooping, as if melted, with a glistening, waxy sheen.

Tam Wellright was lumbering along beside him, but he, too, had no eyes, along with a gaping bloody tear where his Adam’s apple should have been. A bloated tongue lolled over thin, quivering lips.

Terror rose up into Whitman’s throat like hot bile, but no sound escaped his lips. His body trembled from more than just the damp, slithering cold that seeped into his very pores.

At once, he regained some bodily control. He spun around to see more villagers approaching, mere feet away. John Bryce, his eyeless, severed head held by matted hair in one hand, Carol Belmont, naked with her stomach ripped open, cradling her intestines like a baby. They were grey and most definitely dead. Then the stench struck his nostrils like a head butt to the nose. The reek of death and decay; the stink of all that is rotten was too much. Spasms kicked at his stomach, causing him to retch noisily.

Still spinning, he stopped abruptly with Lisa right in front of him. Like the others, her eyes were hollowed out voids. Her pallid, rotting skin clung to her face like folds of muslin, yet her lips were luscious and ruby red. She held a bundle of bloody, torn rags in her cracked and bleeding fingers.

With a blank, dead expression, she outstretched her arms. A sick, crawling revulsion sent a shiver through him, causing him to gag once more, as he took the package against his own will. Holding it in one arm, he peeled away the top layers of sticky, rank material to reveal a maggot-infested rotting foetus, complete with bloodied ginger hair and a shrivelled, blackened penis.

TAP TAP.

“Yours,” Lisa uttered with a hoarse whisper, without moving her engorged lips.

TAP TAP.

Finally, a scream rose up from the pit of his stomach as the rest of the villagers closed in around him. Lisa’s dead face offered a hint of a smile as she allowed the others to engulf his squealing, flailing form.

TAP TAP.

Whitman awoke with a scream anchored to his lips, gasping for breath. His face and chest were glistening with sweat and the balled up sheet felt damp to the touch. His chest heaved with a desperate effort to draw gulps of air into his lungs and his whole body trembled uncontrollably.

The room was silent and in darkness. A quick, wild-eyed glance towards the folding travel clock on the pine bedside table revealed that it was two seventeen AM.

TAP TAP – a light knocking on the door disturbed the stillness.

With considerable effort, Whitman heaved himself out of bed and padded, barefoot across the rough carpet, to the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s me, you divvie,” Lisa whispered through the door, suppressing a giggle.

With a nauseating, repulsive feeling still stuck to his skin like a feverish sweat, the thought of being in anyone’s company was a welcome relief. He swung the door open and pulled her immediately to him.

Surprised and excited by his immediate response, she embraced him fervently, kissing him hard on the lips and running her hands down his naked body.

Kicking the door closed with a flick of his foot, he lifted her diminutive body off the floor and flung her onto the bed, which offered a creaking protest.

Laughing, she yanked her tight t-shirt over her head, revealing her small breasts then quickly unbuttoned her jeans as she kicked off her heels.

Anticipating what was to come, he grew hard as he approached, much to Lisa’s delight. Gripping her jeans at the thighs, he wrenched them off in one fluid motion.

Her thong followed, leaving her naked and breathless on his bed. Whitman descended upon her, licking her inner thighs and tracing a line towards her exposed mound.

She moaned, gripping the sheet in her slender fingers as he delicately savoured her sweet taste and greedily breathed in her musky aroma.

She cried out softly and gripped his head between her thighs.

Slowly, he progressed up her body, kissing and tasting every part of her. Moving to her stomach and across her breasts, lingering at her hard nipples. Her chest then neck followed as he worked up to her eager lips. Then the tip of his erection brush against her.

Clawing at his back, Lisa begged him to enter her.

Their mouths touched and his tongue slipped inside her. She could taste herself on his lips and it only served to fuel her desire.

As he eased inside her, she moaned further still and drew him in deeper. He buried himself all the way into her, until they were pressed tightly together, clutching each other like they would remain forever entwined. Then, slowly and deliberately, he withdrew almost to the tip.

She quivered, her mouth trembling and her body arching, as he slowly penetrated her once more.

They moved together unhurriedly for several minutes, savouring every second of their joining, before their needs grew beyond control, forcing urgency into their thrusts.

They came together, kissing and moaning, their bodies glistening and intertwined.

Holding each other, they tenderly kissed and whispered like forbidden lovers. After maintaining the embrace for some time, Lisa gently and reluctantly slid from under him and started to dress in silence.

Whitman sat up to watch her, resting on one elbow. The bed suddenly felt empty without her. Slipping the jeans over her bare bum, she shoved her knickers into a pocket and said, “I wish I could stay, but I’ve got to get back to Haley.”

Whitman smiled affectionately. “I understand. Thanks for your company – I really needed it.”

Lisa paused with one shoe on and the other in her hand. She looked closely into his eyes and tears started to well in her own. “Are you the real deal?”

Whitman matched her stare with a growing intensity, before saying, “Yes. Yes, I am.”

A Slovakian exporter, Larry, his wife and her lover.

After a brief rattling of keys, the front door swung open to reveal Larry Herring in shorts and a sweat-soaked
Northumbria University
t-shirt. He stretched both calves several times on the raised stoop, before stepping inside.

The modest two-up two-down was in silence. Janet was out shopping and Kerris was in school. Larry had taken the morning off from the surgery to deal with several chores. One such chore was a brown jiffy bag package that had arrived in the post that morning to his private post box in Rothbury.

Grabbing the package from the foot of the staircase, he strode through to the modern functional kitchen. Popping the package on the simple glass-topped patio table, he crossed to the refrigerator and retrieved a carton of grapefruit juice.

As he poured himself a drink, his eyes wandered back to the package. It was silent and unmoving, but something appeared to trouble the doctor when he glanced at it.

The post mark was Bratislava, Slovakia.

After gulping down the juice, he trotted upstairs for a shower.

The cool shower refreshed and invigorated his tired limbs from the five mile run, but the cleaning ritual was perfunctory, his mind ensnared by more important issues.

He dressed in combat pants and a
Led Zeppelin
t-shirt, denoting the 30
^th
June1990 Knebworth Festival reunion. After slipping on some sandals, he padded back downstairs and headed straight for the package.

Pulling up a chair, he sat and turned the package over in his hands several times. The troubled frown returned to his features as he examined every inch of the innocuous looking parcel.

After what seemed like an age, with a slight tremor in his fingers, the doctor ripped open the taped seal. He eased one hand inside and rummaged through shredded packing paper until his fingers touched upon a slim, cylindrical object.

Holding his breath, he withdrew it. The small vial was all but empty, apart from a few of drops of clear liquid in the bottom. There was no label and no instructions or accompanying letter.

Still not daring to breathe, Larry carefully held the vial up to the light between thumb and index finger. It could have been a drop of tap water or Evian or dragon’s tears, but Larry knew exactly what it was. He had been waiting for it for three weeks, and many months more in actually sourcing a trusted, anonymous supplier via various websites, chat rooms and forums.

Larry had never listened to the gossip hounds when it came to the whispers of his wife with Steve Belmont, but then there had been that fateful night when he had returned early from the pharmaceutical conference at the Gateshead Hilton. That night he was supposed to be staying overnight to catch up with a colleague over a few drinks on the Quayside. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Jim Pembroke had left early on hearing news of his mother being rushed in to South Tyneside District Hospital with a suspected heart attack. She had died early the next morning.

He had called from the hotel before leaving, but there had been no answer. Probably down the Miller’s or round nattering to Loretta, he had thought.

February had been a cold and wet month and that evening had been no exception.

The blue Ford Focus splashed through the muddy puddles that had collected on Main Street throughout the day and evening. The rain was still falling, but had lost most of its earlier fervour, allowing Larry Herring to reduce the windscreen wipers down to their lowest setting. The absolute darkness was only pierced by the odd scattered light from a veiled window.

It was closing on ten PM when he turned onto Bell Lane and then into the car park behind their home.

He climbed out, feeling weary, but relieved to be home. After popping the boot to retrieve his holdall and Berghaus jacket, he walked quickly around the side of the house towards the front door.

As he reached the side window, he noticed the light on and two figures caressing in the lounge. His heart skipped a beat and the hairs suddenly stood rigid on his arms and the back of his neck.

Peering through the slim gap in the curtains, Larry witnessed, with utter horror and disgust, Janet and Steve naked in the middle of his living room. They were both standing, kissing and touching each other’s sweaty bodies, with Steve’s hard on brushing against his wife’s naked thigh.

Then, as if it could get any worse, it did. He saw his wife kneel down in front of that prick and take it into her filthy mouth.

His head suddenly began to swim, as if he had stood up too quickly after having several too many brandies. Staggering away from the window, a wave of nausea swept over him. Instantly, he emptied his stomach of the beef stroganoff, brandy and coffee that he had consumed earlier, onto the gravel path.

His quiet sobbing and retching went undetected for several minutes as the gentle rain continued to fall on his back and around him.

After wiping his mouth with a Hilton Hotel napkin, he composed himself, then walked casually back to the car. He threw his bag and coat back into the boot and turned the engine on.

He sat there with the motor idling for several minutes as the windscreen slowly misted, his expression blank, haunted.

Then, after switching on the fan, he eased it into gear and turned the Focus carefully around in the small car park. He then drove without a word out of Haydon and back to Gateshead.

Tears streamed unchecked down his face periodically on the long drive back, blurring his vision and twice almost sending him into a ditch. But he made it back, checked in, threw his bag into the room and went straight to the bar. He stayed there till eight the next morning, having gone through a full bottle of Hennessy XO at fifteen pounds a glass.

He finally drove back to Haydon at midday with a thumping head and probably several times over the limit.

Janet greeted him with a hug and a kiss, trying to force her tongue into his mouth, but Larry broke it off before she could manage it.

Remaining inhumanly calm, he managed to ask about her evening with even a little amiable smile on his face. And this year’s Oscar goes to
…
Doctor Larry Herring for his loveable-dickhead-arsewipe role in the ‘Janet and Steve Affair’.

She had lied, of course. Had a couple in the Miller’s then back to the house for a quiet night in front of the telly. Did you, dear? Ah, that’s nice
…
bitch. And Kerris asleep upstairs, was she? No more nightmares? Good
…
whore.