The Midnight Hour (13 page)

She’d been here before, but this time she
had
to escape!

Crashing through the door into the foyer she stumbled, falling, rolling, her shoulder jarring painfully. She cried out as the chain snapped towards her, barely missing her head.

In the light of the drinks machines she struggled to her feet, her trembling legs aching with the effort. Sweat glistened on her breasts, her bare stomach, her thighs and yet she felt cold. A cold sweat. She had only ever read about them before. She didn’t like the feel of it.

For a moment she glanced towards the office door and thought about the phone inside. But then the memory of the trail of blood, of Mr Jenkins’ body, returned. There had to be another way to escape.

She heard footsteps, running, scrambling towards the door she had just come through. Any second they would be here, be on her. She would be dead!

Her heart racing, she twisted one way then the other. There had to be somewhere to hide, somewhere to run. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Why Richard? Why the one person she had feelings for? She thought of all the times she had stood in the foyer, casting furtive and eager glances towards his counter.

The counter!

She ran for it, driving her legs hard, pounding her feet into the carpet. Pushing, almost falling. They were just the other side of the door. She expected to hear it crashing open at any moment.

She flung herself behind the counter, her knee jamming into the ground first, her body following, shoulder first, the same shoulder she had jarred before. She clenched her teeth to stop herself crying out as she struggled into a squat behind the popcorn machine, ready to spring up and run if she had to.

The door from the auditorium opened surprisingly quietly, gently. No one rushed in. Instead, after a short pause, two figures stepped cautiously through into the foyer, walking slowly, almost strolling.

In a strange way it was more frightening.

They’re not worried about me running away and escaping. They know I can’t. They know I’m trapped!

She tried to slow her breathing. It sounded far too loud in her ears. Surely they would hear her? Her head pounded. She could hear the blood rushing through her veins. She felt certain her heartbeat alone would give her away.

Where were they? She could not hear any movement now. She dare not move, not even to turn her head. Where had they gone?

She shivered, more from fear than the cold she felt. It couldn’t be long before they found her.

“Richie! Here!”

The voice shattered the silence. Behind her!

She turned with wide, frightened eyes, to stare at the man who stood almost within reach of her. He was young, perhaps in his late teens. Probably not much older than she was. But the face, the smile, the leer, they were so much older. Older and cruel.

She shifted, ready to run, and felt the tug of the chains on her wrists. The trailing end was looped around his ankle, the last link beneath his foot. She remembered how it had whipped towards her when she fell, how it had almost hit her. It was a slight hope, but hope nonetheless.

With a scream of desperation and anger she pushed her feet down into the floor with every bit of strength she could find. Her legs straightened, her body lurched away from the man in a graceless but powerful dive.

She landed hard on her stomach, her chin thumping into the ground, her jaw clamping shut, biting her tongue. She tasted blood in her mouth.

She rolled and twisted, never stopping the movement.

The chain snapped taut, tugged at her wrists, bit into her flesh, and for a moment she thought she had not been strong enough or fast enough.

Then it gave, it slackened as the trailing chain whipped after her, tightening around the man’s ankle, pulling his foot from the floor.

He staggered, cried out in surprise, lost his balance and fell.

His head hit the glass of the old fashioned popcorn machine, shattering it. Some part of his falling body hit the ‘on’ switch and the popcorn began to pop.

She closed her eyes as shards of glass flew for a moment, before tinkling to an almost musical stop. When she opened them the only sound was the
pop pop pop
of the popcorn, tumbling out of the broken machine.

The body slumped at a strange angle, the head and shoulders inside the machine. A sharp, jagged piece of glass jutted from his throat, blood pumping and mingling with the popcorn. The legs still twitched.

She barely caught her breath before she was lifted to her feet by a fist wrapped in her hair. It felt as though it was being torn from its roots as she struggled to get to her feet fast enough.

Richard pushed her back against the wall, growling and spitting at her like a wild animal.

“Your kind always think you’re too good for someone like me. Yet you parade around in your little uniform, teasing me, tempting me. Bitches like you are all the same.”

She tried to shake her head, tried to find a voice in her fear to tell him he was wrong, that she had dreamed of him asking her out. That she had
wanted
him for Christ’s sake!

“Richard…” Her voice broke. She coughed, trying to clear it. “Richard I…”

His fist thumped into the bare flesh of her stomach and the breath exploded from her. She doubled over, gasping for air, feeling as though she would never be able to get enough into her lungs.

He grabbed her shoulders, pushed her up and back, slamming her into the wall again. The back of her head cracked against the light switch.

All through the foyer, overhead fluorescent lights hummed and buzzed into life. Flickering, stuttering into a bright, even glow.

And she saw the stranger.

He stood in the middle of the open floor, his long black raincoat almost reaching the floor, his long black hair tumbling messily down to his shoulders. He stood with his feet apart, his hands in his coat pockets. His face was lean, gaunt almost, his mouth thin and unsmiling, his nose long and sharp, his eyes…. his eyes held hatred and anger and evil!

She opened her mouth to scream, to shout, to say something, anything to warn Richard about this stranger, but he slapped a hand over her mouth and pushed her head back into the wall again.

“No more Crystal. Bitch Crystal. Your time has come.”

She barely heard his words for the stranger had begun to move, striding purposefully and silently towards Richard, towards her.

His right hand slid out of his pocket and the fluorescent lights glinted off the long, serrated blade he clutched in his gloved fist.

There was a moment of surprise, of stunned horror in Richard’s eyes as the blade flashed in front of his eyes before it was drawn quickly and sharply across his throat.

Crystal screamed as the blood spurted into her face. She spat it from her mouth as Richard staggered backwards, fingers trying to stem the unstoppable flow.

He turned and faced the stranger, puzzlement replacing the fear in his eyes.

The stranger plunged the blade deep into Richard’s stomach and twisted. He pushed the younger man away and laughed as he fell to the floor, the blade still protruding from his body.

The stranger raised his head and stared at Crystal, and at that moment she knew she was looking into the eyes of true evil. The
real
killer from the papers.

She tried to run, but without any apparent effort he was on her, turning her around, pushing her face against the wall.

This is not fair! Not fair! How many killers can there be in one small town?

She began to cry, knowing this was the end. That this time there was no escape.

She waited for the feel of cold steel sliding into her body. Waited for the pain.

It never came.

She felt the man’s gloved hands at her wrists, was surprised when the chains fell away from her, freeing her.

She was turned around and shoved, not too harshly, out into the foyer.

She stumbled slightly, regained her balance. She rubbed at her wrists, at the broken skin, the rawness. She looked at the stranger, down at Richard almost at her feet, back to the stranger.

She knew he was going to kill her, just like he’d killed the others. It was impossible not to see the madness, the cruelty in those eyes. So why didn’t he just get it over with? She trembled, feeling her legs grow weak beneath her. This was worse than running, worse than hiding. Facing her killer. Waiting and wondering. Knowing it was coming. Not knowing exactly when or how.

“They would have blamed this on me.”

His voice was deep but not booming. Surprisingly soft. Nevertheless it made Crystal jump, a small scream escaping before she clamped a shaking hand over her mouth.

“The police would have added your name to my list of victims. That wouldn’t be right.”

“I don’t understand.” Her voice wavered and cracked as she spoke, her throat dry, her tongue feeling large and alien in her mouth. “You’re letting me go? Because someone else was trying to kill me? Someone who isn’t you?”

She adjusted her bra and zipped her uniform back up. It was difficult, her fingers felt clumsy, uncoordinated, but that one act made her feel less vulnerable. Stronger. Safer.

“I’m letting you go. You will be my victim when
I
choose, not when trash like this choose.”

This guy is mad. But he’s letting me go. Get out before he changes his mind.

She flinched at the pain in her stomach as she turned, pain from Richard’s fist. Her whole body ached and trembled and yet she felt more alive than she had ever felt.

But what’s to stop this maniac from choosing me as his victim tomorrow night, or the night after? And what about all those other girls out there? Any one of them could be next. Can I just walk away from that?

She stopped. She closed her eyes, no longer holding back the tears that ran down her cheeks.

Damn it!

She turned. She reached down and pulled the knife from Richard’s stomach, closing her ears to the sliding of metal on skin, her eyes to the fresh well of blood that followed the blade.

She lunged forward with a scream of terror and rage, her eyes wide, her lips drawn back from her teeth in a feral snarl.

Full of the joy of being alive and the determination to
stay
alive, she plunged the serrated blade deep into the startled killer’s throat.

FROZEN FOOD

Rick Bolger turned the knife, feeling the hot blood spurt over his hand. He pulled the blade free of the fat and muscle, mostly fat he guessed, and plunged it in again, and again. Each time he twisted it. Each time a fresh well of blood, another cry of pain from the man on the alley floor beneath him.

He deserved it. Big fat man in a business suit stopping for a piss among the trashcans, a haze of alcohol almost visible around him, should have had some more cash on him! Rick had no time for credit cards and chequebooks. He needed cash. A well-off bastard like this should have had plenty.

“Twenty dollars!” He dug the knife in again, twisted. This time the man made no sound. His body moved loosely with the turning of the blade. “Twenty fucking dollars!”

Rick pushed himself up, the pressure of his hand on the man’s chest forcing more blood from the holes he had made. He wiped the blade on the man’s sleeve, saw the watch and took it. As he admired it on his wrist he noted the time.

“Shit! Gotta go. Don’t want to be late for work.”

It felt strange saying that. He’d never had a real job before and didn’t really want this one. But it was one of the conditions of his parole. Anyway, he didn’t want to disappoint Dolores.

Apartment 304 was all that Veronica Wilson had left. It sustained her, it comforted her. In a way it
was
her, or she was
it
. At times she felt confused as to which of them was the living, breathing one. On dark winter mornings she could not deny that the apartment felt more alive than she did.

Dusty curtains could not hide the streetlamp outside her window, threadbare patches doing little more than filter the light to a sickly green, speckled with drifting dust motes. She lay in the double bed watching, waiting for something to happen, knowing it never would. Knowing that ahead of her lay another day of pottering alone from room to room. She was too old to change.

Five years since Ronnie succumbed to the lung cancer brought on by his one indulgence, his daily packet of cigarettes, and she still slept on her side of the bed, never straying over that imaginary middle line. Still afraid she would wake her husband before the 6:30am alarm. There were times she could almost see him lying there, in the dark, if she didn’t look too closely.

She would not leave the apartment today. The apartment was all she needed. Husband dead. Children grown up and gone, rarely visiting. Thanks to the internet, which Ronnie had installed before he died, she could get everything she needed delivered. There was no need to leave the apartment, and she had no desire to.

Her spirits lifted as the bulb within the cobweb shrouded shade pulsed for a moment with the dullest of glows. The first time such a thing had happened, well over a year ago, she had worried there was an electrical fault, but none could be found by the uncouth electrician hired by the landlord to check it out. Now she believed it was the apartment talking to her, responding the only way it could, through the wires.

It was reminding her. Today was special. Today was worth living for.

Today was delivery day.

The thought gave her the energy she needed to push herself out of bed. Slowly. Stiffly.

Online shopping had been her saviour. She no longer had to face the crowds that scurried about the city streets like rats, chattering and pushing and sweating. She no longer had to risk meeting the neighbours; Mrs Simmons from across the hall, squinting and probing and nosey; Mr and Mrs Clark in the apartment next door, friends of Ronnie’s but overflowing with sickening, smothering pity since he died; The man three doors down, old and smelling like a public toilet, peering round the edge of his door at people walking past, leering out of his window at the girls on the city street, probably a child molester or murderer. And there were others, people she barely recognised but heard through the walls, the floor, the ceiling. She no longer had to wait in queues to be served by an overly made-up teenager more interested in chewing gum and talking to her friend on the next checkout than serving her customers. Online shopping had saved her from all that. She browsed, she clicked, she paid. And today they delivered.