Chapter 9.

The DVD looped and the bodies remained still. The DVD looped and the bodies remained still.

Chapter 10.

Thomas pulled the sheets back, swung his legs unsteadily to the floor and sat upright, it was 7:30am and the alarm was still screaming.

As the sleepy haze started to clear, the stark realisation of just how bad the hangover was. He turned his head gingerly to the right and saw Janet sprawled naked across the other side of the bed.

He remembered most of the evening, the moving in conversation, the beer, the curry, the red wine, the ice cream, the brandy and then things started to get cloudy. He remembered leaving the curry house and going onto the Kings Arms for a couple of follow on drinks, but then not a lot more. Thomas was not a big drinker, 3 pints was usually his limit, but they were celebrating moving in with each other and it's fair to say that on this occasion he may well have over done things a little.

One thing was for sure though, they had definitely had s.e.x he was certain of this as the condom he had used was still well and truly attached.

He carefully pulled himself free of the 'glued on' dried sheath and began gently waking Janet. Janet reluctantly opened her eyes, smiled and them immediately turned her head and spectacularly threw up over the side of his bed.

It took Thomas 15 more minutes to search through Janet's phone and find the numbers for her school and for the baby sitter and announce her non-attendance and arrange for the very p.i.s.sed off babysitter to take Billy to school. Janet went back to sleep immediately after the projectile vomiting incident, so Thomas wrote a brief note explaining what he had done, got himself dressed and rushed off to work.

The brisk February morning air did little to shift Thomas's cloudy head and he arrived just about on time feeling worse than when he left. A quick gla.s.s of water and Thomas rushed off to teach his first lesson of the day.

Tuesday was Thomas's least favourite teaching day and getting though it while feeling like c.r.a.p was not going to be easy.

His very full teaching day comprised of the following cla.s.ses: Period 1 Year 7 set 3. Thomas often compared teaching History to this bunch as a little like trying to turn a light on with a raw sausage. The cla.s.s was comprised with a subtle mix of children with severe learning difficulties, behavioural issues and a sprinkling of those with very difficult home lives.

Period 2 year 8 set 1. These were a lovely cla.s.s, bright, enthusiastic and motivated. Basically everything you don't want when you have the hang over from h.e.l.l.

Period 3 Year 11 set 1. These were Thomas's favourite cla.s.s. A lovely bunch of students who were an absolute pleasure to teach, they loved his lessons and he loved teaching them.

Period 4 Year 9 set 2. Not a particularly bad cla.s.s, but the main problem with teaching them was Carl Donnelly. An obnoxious kid with a real att.i.tude problem. Thomas sent him out almost every lesson for one or more of the following: hitting other students, swearing, answering back, not doing work, graffiti, eating or throwing things.

Thomas spent a lot of time on the phone to Carl's dad after the lessons, but to say that his dad was unsupportive was putting it lightly. He was often aggressive and always rude and condescending.

Period 5 year 11 set 2. This was Thomas's least favourite cla.s.s of all. The cla.s.s comprised of 16 p.i.s.sed off kids who opted to do either Geography or business but couldn't as the cla.s.ses were full with the heads of departments first choices. None of them wanted to study History and every 1 hour lesson felt as if it lasted a week.

As Thomas correctly predicted, the day was awful. Thomas made most of his cla.s.ses copy in silence while he sat at the front feeling sorry for himself, sweating profusely and smelling more and more like a pub as the day progressed.

The lowest point of the day was during period 4. Carl was being his usual obnoxious self and decided that halfway through the lesson he would start spitting little saliva covered b.a.l.l.s of paper at the girl sat directly in front of him. Thomas caught sight of Carl mid-projectile and reluctantly got up from behind his desk to confront him.

"Carl, put that down and get the h.e.l.l out of my cla.s.sroom!" Thomas blasted.

"Who the f.u.c.k are you shouting at you posh w.a.n.ker!" Was the immediate and brutal response.

"Right that's it, get out, get out now!" Replied Thomas "f.u.c.k you, I ain't going nowhere, what are you going to do?"

"You are pathetic, pathetic!" Replied Thomas. "Is this the attention you wanted? Do you not get enough attention at home is that it? You are a pathetic and stupid little boy and I will waste no more time with you!"

"f.u.c.k you, w.a.n.ker!"

With that, Thomas asked the cla.s.s minus Carl to stand and line up outside. They did so and he took them next door to finish off the lesson. He sent a student to get the Deputy Head and sat back down to allow his blood pressure to return to normal and reflected on the conversation. He knew he could have handled it better. He knew he would have some explaining to do.

The deputy head arrived within 5 minutes, p.i.s.sed off that he had been torn from his desk. The deputy heads name was Ryan Parris. Parris was a short, thin and disheveled man in his late 40's with a bright red bulbous nose. It was his bright red bulbous nose coupled with his diminutive structure which earned him the affectionate nickname papa smurf. It was no secret that 23 years teaching at the same school had somewhat warped papa smurf's outlook on life. He was an aggressive little man who was feared by staff and students alike.

"Mr. Mc Cann." Bellowed Parris as he stormed into the room, "Do you mind telling me what is so important that it is worth disturbing me? I am a very busy man, or perhaps you were not aware?"

"I apologies for disturbing you Mr. Parris." Began Thomas, "But I'm afraid I have had to move the entire cla.s.s due to the behavior of 1 pupil. It's Carl I'm afraid, he has sworn at me and been completely disrespectful. So much so that he even refused to leave my room when instructed to do so."

"I see Mr. Mc Cann, unable to control your students." The cla.s.s chuckled as Papa Smurf said this. He walked further into the cla.s.sroom and stood directly in front of Thomas, beckoning him to lower his ear to hear what he had to say in private.

"How long have you been b.l.o.o.d.y teaching son? Get a f.u.c.king grip on things. I will see you in my office at the end of the day and we will have to have a little cha..." Papa Smurf stopped mid-sentence, looked down towards his feet and then fixed Thomas with one of his more menacing glances. "Have you been drinking boy?"

"No sir, of course not I would never drink at work. I was out celebrating with..." Papa Smurf cut him off mid-sentence.

"We will discuss this later sunshine. Don't worry, I will take the troublesome little boy away. That is, as long as you are sure you can handle the rest of these 12 year old children?"

"Of course sir, thank you for your support." Replied Thomas scarlet red with a mixture of embarra.s.sment and rage. A few of the cla.s.s began sn.i.g.g.e.ring as Papa Smurf disappeared around the corner of the door, Thomas shot them a deadly look and they silenced and quickly returned to their worksheets.

Thomas wished that he had remained in bed with Janet, he still felt like s.h.i.t and had a b.o.l.l.o.c.king from Papa Smurf to look forward to.

Chapter 11.

Black and white, then colour, then black and white.

Warmth and calm, a feeling of gentle pressure, a silence.

His eyes opened and instantly stung. Colour burst its way through his pupils and sparked his retina to life with colour. The chlorine of the pool followed, burrowing its way in fast to the cornea and triggered the waiting latent nerve endings. He found himself in a dimly lit pool, visibility was poor. In part due to the low level of light and in part to the strong chlorine presence which forced the eyes to narrow unseeing slits. He did not know who he was, he did not know where he was. He did not know. Black.

The pressure in his head told him that he was deep and the bubbles leaving his mouth showed him which way was up. With the coordination of a new born baby he began to scramble, he needed to breathe. G.o.d he needed to breathe.

Where was he? What was he doing here?

Why couldn't he see the surface yet?

His arms thrashed around in desperation trying to get some propulsion upwards. His eyes burned and his chest ached. The blur in his vision began to clear and he started to regain focus. Above him he could see the source of the light that gently bathed his oxygen starved body. A tiny circle, probably only big enough for one person to pa.s.s through. 'Where was he?'

Above him he could make out that the tiled walls of the pool he found himself in narrowed into the circle of light, much as if he were stuck in some kind of bottle shaped swimming pool, 'but why?'

He drew his eyes to his horizon and screamed. He screamed in the laborious and ineffective way that being surrounded by water allows. Bubble containing an ineligible dialect left his mouth and tormenting rose rapidly towards the circle of light. Adrenaline ignited his body like a wave of electricity that burned through his every nerve. He wanted to close his eyes, but he was too scared for his body to allow that. On the walls of the bottle shaped pool were hooks, huge horrible, rusty cruel looking hooks that lifted unforgivingly upwards.

It was not the hooks that induced the panic attack and spent the last of his precious air from the very corners of his screaming lungs, it was what was on them. Bodies, dead rotting bodies. There were hundreds of hooks, each adorned by its own body. One pierced though the stomach with its entrails flowing down and hanging in front of another impaled through its eye. One pierced through the spine with the hook protruding proudly complete with pathetic rotten hands clutching in a gesture that could only have been executed in a pathetic attempt at stopping the cruel impaling. All were hanging down, rotting slowly against the unyielding hooked tiled wall.

The eyes stared back, the teeth all broken with the force of clamping together in agony. Features were contorted, soft tissue swaying in the ambient current. He starred in horror, frozen in time and then it happened. The hooked body nearest to him screamed. A huge scream emanating from the bodies impaled chest that started shrill and high and started to drop in tone until the ba.s.s made the water vibrate. The body lunged forward, teeth grit, eyes rotten but searching and sad. The fleshless fingers caught hold of him and began the pull. Slowly, but inevitably he was dawn closer frozen in fear. A huge cracking noise exploded from the wall as a huge hook began to grow out of it. He swung his knees up quickly in panic and desperation, knowing the impending fate. He thrust his naked feet towards the abdomen of the grabbing and rotting body. The grip broke as his feet sank through the rotten flesh of the belly cleaving the body into two. His feet continued on with momentum, struck the wall and he propelled off and away as the bodies legs and lower digestive tract fell away and into the darkness below.

He remembered the air. He remembered he needed air. Another wave of adrenalin crashed through him and he unfroze from the fixing unholy glare of the twisted and shattered body. Up he went. The screaming stopped. Arms and legs thrashing, chest now burning. 15 meters. Up he went. His eyes became bloodshot, his vision began to blur. 10 meters. Up he went. He began to breathe in, water crashed into his trachea and raced mercilessly into his lungs. His head swam, he felt drunk. Up he went. 5 meters. The circle of light was right above him, he reached for the edge and lost consciousness.

Black.

Chapter 12.

Howard reached his front door and was still trembling as he turned the key. He climbed the stairs to his flat above the record shop, flicked on the lights, poured himself a large whisky and slumped onto his brown leather sofa.

'What the h.e.l.l is the matter with me?' thought Howard.

It was fair to say that Howard's episode at the traffic lights had frightened the living s.h.i.t out of him. All sorts of possibilities were racing through his head: 'Do I have a brain tumor? Was it aliens? Is my blood pressure up? Did one of those f.u.c.kers spike my drink? Did I fall asleep and dream it?' To name just a few.

Howard lay the drained whiskey gla.s.s on the coffee table and reached forwards and retrieved his red fender guitar. He leaned back into the soft rea.s.suring coolness of his brown leather sofa and began to play. Howard was no musician, but he could happily piece a few chords together and often spent his evenings warning the fret board and humming along to a few of his favorite old rock songs. There was nothing Howard loved more than to quietly strum a few chords alone, and whenever he did he remembered his dad and afforded himself a smile or two.

Howard strummed slowly and changed chords at a leisurely pace, slowly but surely his heart rate dropped back to normal and he began to yawn as tiredness started to take hold. He leaned the guitar against the coffee table, pushed the nagging thoughts to the back of his head and fixed himself a Horlicks to help send him off to sleep.

Howard set the hot cup of Horlicks on his bedside table, climbed into bed and flicked the TV on. The news was the sedative Howard needed, he slumped back into his bed and began sipping his drink. After a few sips Howard could feel himself drifting off, he placed the cup back on the bedside table, curled up in a ball and fell into a deep and relaxed sleep.

Howard's eyes sprang open.

Tap tap tap.

He spun his head to the left and searched for the familiar red digits of his alarm clock, he found none. He reached for his lamp, located the switch and clicked it on. Nothing.

'Must be a power cut.' Howard thought to himself. He began shuffling himself up on his pillows and froze midway in horror as the TV burst to life. White noise thundered out of the speakers and hurt his ears. The static buzzed around the screen creating strange ever changing shadows across the room. He reached for the remote control, located the volume b.u.t.ton and depressed it. Nothing. He checked the lamp and the alarm clock. Nothing.

Tap tap tap.

Howard's heart raced faster and faster, his eyes came up on him in fear as the TV static began to move. The volume increased, Howards nose began to bleed. Howard jumped as a hand appeared and slapped with an almighty thud on the inside of the screen. The hand was grey in colour and covered in deep lacerations, the red from which shone out from the black and white of the surrounding static. The hand began frantically scratching at the inside of the screen as it trying to crawl its way out. The decaying fingernails began buckling one by one as they repeatedly struck the screen. The TV rocked, the light flickered faster and faster across the walls and Howards face. The volume increased, the banging got faster, Howard grabbed hard at the sheets, frozen in fear. A yellow eye embedded in a brown face with the texture of tree bark sprung forwards, the hand hit the screen and it cracked. Black.

Howard's eyes sprang open and he gasped for air, it was morning. He looked left, 7:51 flashed harmlessly at him from the alarm clock. He reached out a shaking hand and effortlessly clicked on the bedside lamp, sat up and began trying to calm his breathing.

His forehead p.r.i.c.kled as sweat beads began to seep from his pores and swell into droplets which gathered on his eyebrows and ran down his nose, a welcome distraction. He raised a hand and drew the back of his hand across his brow, he dried it on his shabby old rolling stones T shirt that he often wore to bed and returned it to dry his nose. As he pulled his hand away from his nose he instinctively knew that something wasn't right, something felt unusually warm. He pulled his hand away and looked down, blood and lots of it.

He could feel it pumping high up in his nose with no sign of stopping, he traced his eyes down from his hand to his chest, he was covered in blood, the bed clothes were covered in blood. He leapt out of bed and landed unsteadily on the floor, his head swam, 'f.u.c.k, just how much blood have I lost?' He thought through the adrenaline fog. Blood continued to stream from his face and began pitter pattering on the awaiting brown carpet. He rushed to the bathroom pulling off his rolling stones T shirt as he went. He reached the sink and spun the cold tap to life, filled his hand and plunged his face in and began wiping the blood away. The sink quickly became red as the blood relentlessly continued to pour. 'This is ridiculous!' He thought, 'I am going to have to call an ambulance quickly!' He looked up and into the mirror.

Behind him stood a huge grey man of nearly 7 foot, naked, skin hard and as textured as tree bark, a wide mouth set in a menacing grin, thin lips pulled up unnaturally high revealing a set of hundreds of needle like teeth, yellow eyes that pierced the very soul of Howard.

The mouth opened and a sound of static white noise burst out, a hand that moments earlier had been tapping on the screen circled in front of Howards face and with unG.o.dly strength wrenched his head to the right violently exposing the left hand side of his neck. Before he could react the teeth were drilling their way in with vicious speed and the screaming mouth closed like a vice around Howards neck, blood jet out as the grey demonic face recoiled pulling apart flesh and sinew exposing the shining white of Howards spinal cord. Howard felt no pain, just horror as he starred transfixed into the yellow eyes.

His legs failed him, his vision started to blur, the mouth spat the retrieved flesh to one side and started to open to deliver a second bite. Blood dripped from the foul teeth, the yellow eyes shone with menace. Blood gushed out of the gaping wound. The second bite struck.

Black.

Chapter 13.

Tap tap tap.

The DVD looped and the bodies remained still.

A loud crack of splintered wood send a shock wave of sound through the air, into the dark rhythmically flickering room and fell dead upon the dead ears of the 3.

The front door swung open sweeping over the small pile of ignored mail which was happily collecting there. The fresh February air rushed in and began diluting the terrible stench it met, seeping aimlessly from the gap beneath the door.

"h.e.l.lo?" Called detective Stevens, "h.e.l.lo? This is the police, is there anyone here?"

Stevens had already made a mental note of the milk bottles that the postman had missed that very morning and added the scattered mail to the bottom before refocusing his attention to the task at hand.

Stevens took a step through the large Victorian door, wiping his feet instinctively on the worn out old 'welcome mat' and avoiding the mail as he went in with an extended step and knew instantly that there was indeed someone at home.

The door concealing the bodies waited patiently as detective Stevens walked slowly up the tiled corridor.

Tap tap tap Stevens was followed in by 2 other officers, the first one through the door was a newbie to the force and his inexperience was evident as he stepped straight onto the pile of letters clumsily and skidded forwards only just maintaining his balance despite the grabbing pull of the Earth. Stevens stopped immediately, turned and shot off a look of utter disgrace fuelled with genuine anger. Stevens despised incompetence. He hadn't always done so, but 17 years of doing things by the book and following precise protocol can change a man. It had certainly changed Stevens.

Stevens was a very much respected detective who by rights should be working in a position of much higher responsibility. But the simple fact was, he didn't want anything else. He loved his job, he was married to the job. He was married in the real world too, but as we all know, you can only hold down one marriage at a time. Stevens was still married, but Mrs. Stevens left him a long time ago.

Stevens reached the door and paused. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lightly powdered latex glove, snapped it on in one slick stroke and gently turned the handle.

Light poured into room, stench poured out. Stevens's instinctively raised his hand to his nose in disgust. He de-gloved his hand and reached into his belt pocket and retrieved a small, well used tub of Vicks and proceeded to line his top lip with it before handing it backwards for his colleagues to use.

"You will need this fellas, it seems whoever is in here has been in here a little while." This was not the first time Stevens had walked in on death, in fact it was not the first time this week. As an investigative officer in the London Metropolitan Police, it was safe to say that Stevens had seen it all. Stevens entered the room.

Despite the new addition of light from the corridor the room was still very poorly lit, the subtle orange glow from the low wattage bulb in the ceiling was not enough, Stevens whipped out a torch from a housing on his right hip and clicked it on. He swung it to the left of the door and hit a wall clad in retro wallpaper, a light switch already in the on position, Stevens double checked it and confirmed that it belonged to the source of orange light emanating from the ceiling in the middle of the room. Stevens swept the light across the wall and met a large flickering TV encased within a shelf unit full of books and photos. The beam pa.s.sed on and reached the back wall, a methodical and well-practiced flick to the right and the beam began tracing a path back towards Stevens, all carpet. Flick right, the beam moved away, carpet then the edge of a rug then carpet. Flick right, towards, carpet, rug, edge of coffee table, side of brown leather chair. Flick right, away, carpet, more brown leather chair, dead body, coffee table with beer cans.... Back to the dead body.

Stevens had been completing paper work earlier that morning when the call came in. A neighbor had reported that the house in question had recently been a hive of activity with various people coming and going and then nothing. Nothing for 4 days except a steady supply of uncollected milk bottles. Ordinarily Stevens would have called in a patrol car to have done a sweep past the address, but the endless paperwork was starting to drive him mad and he was itching to step away from the desk.

The address was known to Stevens as a place where some minor drug dealing took place, but it was such a small scale affair that a professional blind eye was turned. Stevens put out a message for some support for the house check and quickly checked the files to get a few details before setting off. A few taps on the computer and a small folder of information appeared: 76 Oakburn Rd, Tooting. Stevens clicked open the folder. The house was owned by a Mr. T Mc Cann, aged 83. Further reading showed that Mr. Mc Cann no longer lived at the address and was now in a care home in South Croydon. Apart from a few details relating to alleged drug dealing supplied by local residence that was it. Simon booked out a car, collected the keys and rookies and set off.