GAME OF CONSEQUENCES: Zero Hour, is a new Horror/Thriller novel by 21st Century Writer/Author Marcus De Storm, which is due for release in Paperback Only at the end of this year (2022).

1 The Rat That Died

Happy New Year, Malcolm

Birmingham’s skyline became ablaze with the most spectacular display of coloured lights and fireworks that brought in the New Year. With high spirits and celebration filling the streets, it was to be seen as the perfect end of what was to be dubbed: The shittiest year ever!

Below the limed lights, opal dims and cascading sapphire neon’s of The Old Lodge B&B, there sat a lonely twenty-something-year-old man in a darkened living room looking out of his weathered windows into a deserted street. His mind deep in thought of what the New Year was to bring, if anything.

For Malcolm Thomas, the New Year was thought to be the continuation of what he had left behind in the past, not of new beginnings, not of a reset, and certainly not as a time to rejoice a furthering to better fortune or riches in life. For Thomas, it was an open door that would lead him through into a painful construct of being the little person, the skivvy, the slave to a nation that would soon crumble into the dusty depths of hell by no other than the Governance!

On the broken-down TV set with an intermittent flickering screen, a news reporter wished all their viewers a Happy and Prosperous New Year. His fake smile angered Thomas, bringing to the boil a rage that was so deeply fueled with fury that not even he had enough strength to force it back inside and stop the poisonous intentions to escape dark and twisted thoughts that had burned deep in his mind – he snapped!

A knock on the door brought him to momentarily shake himself from the temporary eclipsed madness that had surged through his veins at such great speed, that now he could feel nothing; no conscience, no pity, no emotions. He felt nothing inside which would better him to be compliant with empathy, sadness or even remorse.

  ‘Who is it?’ He called through the door.

  ‘It’s Steve, you’re Landlord,’ came the reply, one which for Thomas was the very start of his New Year’s problems.

Having failed to meet the rent for three months now, due to the ongoing problems he was experiencing at work, as well as his home life, he tried hard to talk the Landlord out of wanting him to open the door.

  ‘I’ll have your money by the end of the week,’ Thomas shouted.

  ‘It’s not about your rent, Malcolm. I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year, that’s all.’

This was a rouse, Thomas thought. This was something that was said to up the Landlord’s chances of gaining entry to his home and acquiring the lost money he had not received from him. It was New Year’s Eve, the turn of the advent, which spelt the end of his tenancy to a roof over his head. If Steve was able to enter, then there was nothing stopping him from being able to throw him out onto the streets! It was a fight between his better nature and the anger inside him that began to crack, slowly at first, then at a speed he found hard to control.

  ‘I’ll have the money for you … at the end of the week, Okay?’ Thomas tried again to defend his statement as much as a promise to the fact.

  ‘Like I said, Malcolm, I just wanted to wish you Happy New Year, that’s all. Come on, open the door and have a drink with me. You do drink, don’t you? Of course you do, everyone drinks this time of year!’

The voice of the Landlord was now becoming deep threaded in his mind; the tone heightened, the voice more demanding to that of any normal suggestion. Malcolm was worried.

  ‘No,’ Thomas replied rushing to the spy hole set in the door and looking out to see Steve, his Landlord, holding a bottle of champagne and swaying from side to side drunk. ‘I don’t want to drink, Steve … please, go away.’

It could have been noted that in any other circumstance, Thomas and Steve would have sat down together having a drink to each other’s health for the year ahead, if not for the fact of Steve’s bullying tactics only a few days previous. An occurrence he didn’t want repeating.

Told by a neighbour that Steve had informed the police of his intoxicating medicine problem, he was arrested, taken to the police station and kept in a cell overnight until they finally allowed him home. His medication was given to him by a well-known and highly respected doctor for a very rare condition, one which, if not treated by the pills he was prescribed, could well have aided him in his death. Of course, Steve was unknowing of his condition that he became worried about his other tenants in the building, but for Thomas, the damage had already been done.

  ‘Don’t be a cunt, Malcolm!’ Steve shouted, his unsteady legs buckling to bring him banging against the door.

Malcolm was scared suddenly, his heart skipping a beat, head thumping with a crushing pain that had him grab out at the handle and pull open the door for Steve to fall drunkenly into his darkened hallway. At first, there was an exchange of lost looking glances between the two men, and then, with a final downward glance at Steve, Thomas blacked out.

The Evil Men Do

The following morning when Thomas awoke from his bed, the first thing he noticed in the air was the smell of blood; the cordial tincture of copper that lingered a sweetness that alerted his mind to the fact that something was amiss. Staggering from the bedroom to the bathroom to look in the mirror above the sink, he found it to be that of his own blood from a nose bleed. The hardened blood clinging to his nostrils refusing the blocked stream from making its way down any further, though his instinctive reaction brought him to mess about squeezing and pressing the outer sides of the sore skin to check for swelling or breaks.

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ He found himself questioning his reflection.

He hadn’t had a nose bleed since he was attacked in the street a few months earlier by would-be muggers, two men who fled empty-handed, but alas managed to get a couple of kicks in while he was taken to the ground. It was now that Malcolm thought, had he fallen? Had he been outside without knowing and been attacked, again?

Looking around the bathroom for a clean towel to soak under the cold water tap and bathe his nose, what Thomas came to see was a sight that had him turn away, curl up with a curdling sick feeling and finally direct a long projectile of vomit that missed the toilet bowl completely; the large chunks of both digested and undigested food hit, splashed and splattered across the toilet seat, onto the wall and back into his face that stopped just inches from the waterline. This was not good.

After a couple of minutes, even though his better half begged him not to look around and see the sight again, he brought himself to turn slowly with his eyes closed at first, to see a bloodied wall near the bath; a series of spatters had lashed against the magnolia painted tiles, each one longer and shorter than the other, but all leading down into the ceramic bath that had the arm of a man dangling over the edge. On the wrist was an expensive-looking watch, one which in his mind’s eye he recollected from the flashing vision of Steve, his Landlord. Was this Steve?

Forcing himself to stand Malcolm supported his heavy bodyweight by holding onto the side of the sink with one hand and steadying himself with the other by grabbing out at the toilet seat that was soaking wet with sick and bile. At first, he slipped, losing grip and falling back into a sitting position, before he gave it one more try and finally came to his feet to see further into the bath.

  ‘Fuckin’ Hell!’ He gasped, just as he felt the swirl of his stomach once again making its way up through his gut and into the base of his gullet. For now, he had stopped the upsurge, but only just.

This was a bad situation. Steve was the Landlord, he had a routine, and of that routine, whether New Year or not, he would be missed by a lot of people, including his wife, Brenda, who only lived two floors above in their residential flat.

Looking down at Steve’s bludgeoned dead body, Malcolm noticed that he had been hit on the head, several times, maybe, judging by the wide cuts that parted his hair in long grooves. More serious was his face, smashed to an almost unrecognizable state that he didn’t know if it was Steve or not, but for the watch that lay strapped to a grey still wrist.

  ‘What the fuck did I do last night?’ He whispered to himself.

Nobody could answer that question except for Malcolm alone, because only Malcolm would have the knowledge locked away somewhere in his mind. He had to do something. He had to do something about Steve’s body.

Taking from his shirt pocket a mobile phone, he scrolled through his contacts to find a name, it didn’t matter what name he was to stop on, as long as the person was someone he could trust. But then, who could he trust? Everyone over time had jilted him, betrayed him, bullied him, used him and even subjected him to taking a course of action that led him to this very point in time. Eventually, however, he came to one name in the phone book that stood out from all the others, his old friend from college, Jack Bromen.

Pressing the call button, he waited for the dialling tone to end and with luck, the voice of his only friend in the world to answer. It connected.

  ‘Jack,’ Malcolm whispered into the phone, ‘it’s me, Malcolm, could you come over to my place?’

Jack was a twenty-something heroin addict who found doing anything for free a total waste of time, unless he was offered something of value, however, he would have hung up the phone right there and then.

  ‘Malcolm? Malcolm who? How the fuck did you get my number?’ Jack blasted.

Malcolm calmed him with a sequence of reminders of who he was until finally, Jack remembered him. But this was not the hardest part of the reason he’d contacted his old friend, he now had to coax him into calling over to the flat where he was sharing a bathroom with a corpse!

  ‘Can you … can you come over, Jack? Please?’ Malcolm begged.

Jack was tired from the night before. ‘No fucking way, you slag! Do you know what time it is?’

Malcolm had no idea what time it was, but he knew that it was light outside and, very soon there would be people coming knocking at his door asking if he’d seen Steve. It was this questioning that would put him in a very awkward, if not incriminating position in which to answer.

  ‘I have a dozen Hash Brown’s and three grams of Smack all ready to be caned, and it’s all yours, Jack, if you come round to my flat, right now. What do you say?’ He found himself clutching onto the deceit of bribery and corruption of Jack’s dirty drug habit.

Of course, Jack wasted no time in getting ready, cycling the several miles through the quiet hung over town and banging on Malcolm’s door like he was some cop looking for a killer. It was with the haste of a true Junkie, that he made it just in time before Steve’s wife came walking down the stairs and made her way out of the building.

Absence Of Memory

Having cleaned himself of all the blood and puke from his hands and face, it was welcoming Jack into the flat that had Malcolm on edge, to a point of holding himself together pretty well. There was the very close call with the doormat soaked with Steve’s blood that nearly had the unsuspecting visitor slip on his arse, though a quick-thinking excuse of spilt drinks put this to rest.

  ‘So, Malcolm, where is it?’ Jack’s first words came to pass.

The collusion about the drugs was forgotten for a moment, to be replaced by the mindset vision of Steve’s body laying smashed, broken, twisted and contorted in the bath.

  ‘Where’s what, Jack?’ He replied with a stray gaze toward the bathroom.

Jack being Jack didn’t miss this. ‘It’s in there, isn’t it?’

Stopping his old friend from walking into a slaughterhouse that he would have to deal with by any means necessary, Malcolm rushed in front of him and turned him around to face the kitchen. It was now time to break the news that he had no idea what the reaction of his friend was going to be.

If he could explain what happened the night before, then maybe Jack would help him. But, if he was too calm in telling the truth, for which Malcolm had no idea what the truth was, then Jack would become a problem for both him and the situation.

  ‘I … erm … well, I think you should sit down, Jack!’

  ‘Oh, right, yeah, sure I’ll sit down’

  ‘Over here. Here’s good, right, Jack?’ Malcolm proposed showing him to a chair nearest the window.

The two of them sat down facing one another, while Malcolm rubbed his hands together nervously. Jack himself, was a little highly strung from not having had a hit for a good twelve hours, but he was composed in a manner that convinced Malcolm that he could get the whole thing off his chest. And with a deep breath taken in, Malcolm began.

  ‘Last night, I think, I’m not too sure … I blacked out and shit happened!’

Malcolm wasn’t making any sense at all, not to Jack, not even to himself.

  ‘Hey, we all did some crazy shit last night, Malcolm, I’m sure. It was New Year’s Eve, for fucks sake!’ Jack laughed out loudly. ‘Listen, we’ve all got to let our hair down now and again, Bro, we wouldn’t be human if we …!’

  ‘I think I killed Steve!’ Malcolm blurted out suddenly.

Jack sat and looked at his old friend with a paused shock that had Malcolm search his mind for a way, method or solution if Jack was to get freaked out or become nervous enough to phone the police.

  ‘Who in the fuck is Steve?’ He asked sitting forward in his seat.

  ‘My Landlord, he came round last night for a drink … or that’s what he said he was calling around for, but then, at the front door, I just blacked out. I can’t explain it. This morning I found him in the bath all smashed up and shit! You have to help me, Jack!’ He tried to explain.

Jack was quiet all of a sudden. The silence was becoming too deafening for Malcolm to handle, too quiet to just sit there doing nothing, saying nothing that could keep the fear from breaking through the awkward silent void.

  ‘Are you tripping right now, Malcolm?’ Jack asked, staring into his eyes and trying to find some signs of a narcotic high.

Malcolm was not so happy with the response. He was expecting a nod, or confirmation of sorts that would reassure him that he would help. But he got nothing but a judgmental stare that questioned his truth and that was something that Malcolm had not been expecting.

  ‘Fuck you, Jack! Are you going to help me, or what?’

Putting up his hands to calm his friend, Jack shook his head to adjust to the news that his friend was stood confessing to a murder. It was a big thing to take in, especially as he had now become a part of that murder by calling around to the crime scene. No matter how anybody would look at it, he was an “Accessory to the fact” and with it, he would receive a longer prison sentence than Malcolm if the police found out. He was fucked!

  ‘No, fuck you, Malcolm, you call me up and trick me into thinking I’m coming here for a smoke and toke, when all along, you just wanted to fuck my life up getting me involved in your shit! Hang on … where’s the body?’

Malcolm pointed toward the hallway behind him, his outstretched trembling hand having his friend turn in his seat to look, even though there was nothing to see from there. Turning back to Malcolm, he looked him right in the eye. He was thinking hard.

  ‘Okay, alright, at this very moment in time all I know is what you’ve told me, right?’ Jack gasped. ‘I haven’t seen anything of … who was it?’

  ‘Steve, my Landlord, Jack, come on stay with it, man!’ Malcolm cried out.

Jack searched his head. ‘Okay, so as far as the cops are concerned, I’m just a Dude who you called to come round, right? Right, Malcolm?’

The situation was becoming tense. What exactly was it that Jack was trying to tell him?

  ‘I called you around because you’re more experienced with these things …!’

Jack couldn’t believe his ears. ‘What the fuck! What’s that supposed to mean, man? I don’t fucking kill people, Malcolm!’

Malcolm was becoming nervous. In his mind he was regretting making the call to Jack, maybe he had made a big mistake. Jack was a drug dealer who had reportedly been through the whole works of experiences; beatings, stabbings, shootings, even on an occasion he had been blown up in his own house from a disgruntled rival dealer. Had he got it wrong about his friend?

  ‘We need to move the body … like as soon as possible, Jack,’ Malcolm put to him, only to receive a single birdie sign.

  ‘You’re fucked up, man, I’m going home and never want to see you again, do you understand, Malcolm? If I see you again, I will kill you and believe me, nobody will ever find your body!’

This was it, just as Jack had told him, it was how he wanted Steve so that nobody would ever find his body again. All he had to do was find out just how Jack would do such a thing.

  ‘Seriously, you could do that, Jack?’

  ‘You’d better fucking believe it, man, I’ll bury your body so deep … hang on, you’re not thinking of … fuck me, you are, aren’t you?’

Malcolm panicked. ‘No, I was just … come on, Jack, just tell me how to get rid of the body, that’s all I want. Once you tell me, I swear, you’ll never hear from me again, I promise.’

After thinking about it for a few minutes, Jack gave a long, loud sigh, his head shaking from side to side hinting to Malcolm that he was actually planning out his next move. It was starting to get busy outside, people were going to work, coming home, running up and down the stairs of the building to their homes. It was this, and the thought of being caught that set Jack alight with fear, rather than the actual thought of ridding the body from the flat without being seen by anyone.

  ‘Okay, Malcolm, listen very carefully, you need blankets, rope and plenty of disinfectant, right?’ He finally conceded to help.

Malcolm nodded his head with a raised smile. ‘Right, Okay. Thank you, Jack, you won’t regret this, I promise.’

  ‘Don’t you dare fucking thank me! Thanks to you, I’m now a part of this shit, and for this, it’s going to cost you a lot more than a thanks. Wait here until I come back tonight with a van …!’

  ‘Whoa! No, you can’t do that, Jack, you can’t just fuck off and leave me here on my own. What if Steve’s wife comes knocking at the door while you’re away and asks to come in?’

The suggestion didn’t help, neither did Jack reassuring Malcolm with his word, because as far as Malcolm was concerned, he was the one who had killed Steve, not Jack. All he wanted to do was get the corpse out of his home and get it as far away as he could get it.

  ‘You do understand, that if we try and move this body now, today, while it’s daylight, we will get caught, right? The best time to move it is when it gets dark – the darker the better.’ Jack explained the risk.

Nodding his head, Malcolm disappeared out of the room for a couple of moments before returning with a pile of bedsheets and pillowcases. It was the pillowcases that confused Jack the most.

  ‘What the fuck are these for?’ He asked, taking a hold of one and holding it up in front of Malcolm.

  ‘The small parts, maybe! Look, I don’t know, I’ve never cut a body up before, so you’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little unprofessional here!’

Jack was beside himself. ‘I didn’t say anything about cutting up a body! Are you out of your fucking mind?’

Just as the night before, Malcolm was starting to feel the same zeal as he did when Steve came knocking at his door. The feeling of anger was rising up through his body, begging his thoughts to do things that he didn’t want to do; to shut Jack up, to silence him – to have done with it all and kill him, too!

  ‘I think we should both calm the fuck down here, Jack, because I can tell you now, I’m not feeling too good you calling me crazy, man!’ Malcolm spoke in a soft tempered manner.

Jack looked at him, his face showing a slight perturbed hint of worry.

  ‘Crazy, Malcolm! No, you’re not crazy, you’re just fucking stupid! Who the fuck kills their Landlord in their own home, huh?’

Regardless of the circumstances or facts, the death of Steve was brought on by the cruel intentions drawn out over several days of bullying. In conclusion to Malcolm’s mind, it was the final ebb of attitude that sparked something that triggered his blackout, and subsequently, leading to killing him. It didn’t matter where Steve was at the time, it could have happened in any location: Steve’s flat, the pub, at the shop down the road, anywhere.

  ‘Shut up, Jack, please?’ Malcolm warned taking the blankets and pillowcases into the bathroom.

Tools Of The Trade

Following Malcolm into the bathroom with caution, Jack watched his friend kneel down at the side of the bath while staring at the body that he couldn’t quite make out. But, another few steps forward and Jack started to see the spatters of blood across the wall, while another step forward, he saw the arm that had Steve’s watch attract his attention.

  ‘Are you sure … are you sure he’s dead, Malcolm?’ Jack stuttered.

Turning to face him, Malcolm nodded with certainty. ‘He’s definitely dead, Jack! You would be too if half of your brains were making their way down the plughole, I guess!’

Jack felt sick. ‘Cheers for that, Malcolm.’

Taking a hold of Steve’s arm by the wrist just above the watch, Malcolm began to think strange thoughts, of how cold the skin felt, whether it had started to fill with riggourmortis, and when it would start on its journey to begin smelling from corpse rot?

  ‘Corpse Rot!’ Jack said.

Malcolm turned to face him. ‘What?’

  ‘You just said Corpse Rot! What the fuck is Corpse Rot?’ Jack cried out as he got closer to both his friend and the dead body.

Malcolm didn’t realize that he was thinking out loud, he was just thinking of the little things that could be avoided by acting quick enough to lessen the chances of being caught.

  ‘Corpse Rot is the condition of the body when it enters the decomposed stage of death. If the body is left long enough, it will start to smell …’

  ‘Fuck me! You’ve done this before, haven’t you?’ Jack gasped with panic.

  ‘Seriously, Jack, you’re going to flip out now? Pull yourself together, man, and go get me the saw from the toolbox in my bedroom, it’s by the bed?’

Without question, Jack left the bathroom to rush into the bedroom where he scanned around the room. The initial welcome was normal, just a basic bedroom for a young bachelor living on his own; single bed, bedside cabinet, lamp, cool bedspread that matched the curtains, wallpaper split half and half around the walls. No signs of a killer here, however, he thought to himself.

Finding the toolbox where Malcolm had told him to find it, he opened it up to see the saw wrapped in a cardboard cover.

  ‘Did you find it, Jack?’ Malcolm shouted.

Taking a moment to think, Jack found it hard to concentrate on any other matter than to get himself out of this shit! He was twenty-two years old, too young to do hard time in prison.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve found it.’ He shouted, making his way back to the bathroom.

  ‘It’s best we start with the smaller parts first … that way we can … Jack!’

Seeing that his friend was standing transfixed on Steve’s body in some catatonic state, Malcolm was becoming concerned for him. Maybe there were no hard experiences Jack went through like he told everyone? Maybe they were all for show, to make him a part of his altered persona of being one of the city’s “No shit” drug dealers?

Snapping out of his mind fall, Jack blinked several times before focusing on Malcolm, the sudden return to reality bringing him to pushing the saw into his friend’s waiting hands.

  ‘Thank you,’ Malcolm said climbing into the bath and crouching down over Steve’s bloodied body. ‘Feet first, I reckon.’

This was too much for Jack, his stomach giving him no warning as to the fast-rising puke that filled his mouth, puffed out his cheeks to suddenly erupt a long exploding stream of undigested food and drink all over the bathroom wall. It was the first time he had seen a dead body, the first time he’d seen Steve clearly, except when he was alive just a few months ago.

  ‘I can’t do this?’ He whispered, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket and turning to Malcolm. ‘I can’t do this?’

It was understandable. Not everyone had the stomach for this kind of thing, not even those who had done it a dozen times before, or as a job.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ Malcolm asked a very bewilderment of Jack.

  ‘Does it look like I’ve fucking eaten?’ He rasped angrily, pointing at the mess on the wall in front of him. ‘How can you do this without feeling sick, man?’

Shaking his head Malcolm looked down, took a hold of Steve’s ankle and began to cut through the skin with the unsheathed saw. ‘I lost my Kebab this morning … just after seeing the body … it’s over there by the toilet if you want to inspect it?’

Jack’s glance toward the toilet was short, his wincing at the dried-up meat chunks bringing him back to stare at Malcolm in the bath cutting up the dead body as though he’d done this kind of thing before. Had he done it before? Whatever the answer he would receive back, it wouldn’t really matter for the fact that the mere thought was enough to bring a strange, niggling thought to his mind: Would Malcolm kill him?

  ‘I need something strong to take the edge off my nerves, man, have you got anything, Malcolm?’ He asked looking at the bathroom cabinet.

  ‘No, I haven’t, sorry,’ Malcolm stopped sawing the leg to answer.

Walking from the bathroom into the kitchen, Jack welcomed the fresh air, though it wasn’t exactly fresh, but it was without the stench of death. This was good. This was the placement – most probably the only place in the apartment – where the odour of murdered flesh had so far failed to reach.

Feeling his stomach rumbling from the forced emptying of food, he looked around for something that would tame its loudening sound and, in time stop him from feeling weak when it came time to move the body parts from the apartment to wherever it was safe to take them from being found. Eventually, however, the body would be discovered.

Checking the cupboards he found very little that would be easy to make or prepare for a quick fix of sustenance or energy, if Malt Loaf and Crème Crackers were acceptable as nutritional?

  ‘Do you want some Malt Loaf?’ He found himself shouting through to Malcolm while unwrapping the heavy fruit block from its wrapper.

  ‘Toast!’ Malcolm shouted back.

Jack didn’t understand. ‘You can’t toast Malt Loaf! It’s not bread.’

For a few minutes, there was this deafening silence that surrounded the whole flat, right up to the moment when Malcolm came to stand in the kitchen doorway with his hands, face and light parts of his clothing all covered with blood. Jack just stared at him, at the bloodstains that had this provoking urge to set him off being sick again, but for the control he found to stop it succeeding.

  ‘Toast would be better Jack, it will soak up all the stomach acid!’

Again, Jack didn’t understand. ‘It’s Malt Loaf, Malcolm, not fucking bread. How can you make toast without bread?’

Walking over to a small Bread Bin that was next to the kettle, Malcolm pushed it open and took out a loaf of white bread.

  ‘Do the whole loaf, the smell might hide the stink in here … open some windows, too, let some fresh air get in,’ Malcolm said placing the blooded saw down on the table. ‘Are you alright, Jack?’

Jack was far from alright. So far that morning, he had become a part of a murder he didn’t commit, thrown his guts up over the crime scene, and now, as well as casually making something to eat, he was witness to his old friend cutting up the murdered body like it was a normal thing to do. But, it was all of this that had somehow rewired Jack’s whole being. He was numb. Unlike any time through his life, it was this moment when the first signs of ‘Survival Instincts’ kicked in. Random thoughts of fear, while at the same time, his calculating problem-solving skills soothed his fear.

  ‘Yeah, sure, everything’s peachy, Malcolm. Do you want jam on your toast?’ He replied dreamily. ‘Have you finished?’

Malcolm held up the saw. ‘Jam will be fine, and no, not yet, this saw is blunt! Must be with the bones being dry … hey! Are you using that bread knife?’ he said plucking the knife from his fingers.

This was surreal. All of this was a nightmare that had no means to an end for the two young men. Jack had already tucked himself into a state of flux, while Malcolm, too, his falling into some adapted condition took him into a state that demanded him to carry out the deed before he could be offered any other soothing or relaxing alternative.

  ‘I’ll need it to butter and jam the toast, other than that, it’s all yours!’ Jack answered turning to the bread bag and taking out all the slices before preparing them three slices at a time under the grill.

  ‘Once the parts have been … I mean, once this is done, we can think of a way to get them out of the flat, Okay, Jack?’

Jack was turned away from Malcolm, his face twisting at the very thought of the chopped up body parts that he would have to lend a hand bagging up the pillowcases and wrapping sheets. It would be this that he knew he would have a problem with, unlike Malcolm, who he still believed deep down had done this kind of thing before – he was sure of it.

  ‘We could have just wrapped the body in a carpet and taken it to the tip, don’t you think, Malcolm?’ He said, not taking his eyes from the browning bread under the grill. ‘Isn’t that how they do it in the movies?’

Malcolm gave out a burst of sudden laughter. ‘That’s how they do it in the movies, Jack? And, exactly what happens when they do it that way? They get caught, that’s what happens, Malcolm. No, the only way to do it, is to cut the body into pieces, that way, we can get rid of the parts bit by bit …!’

Turning around quickly, Jack stared at his friend. ‘Bit by bit! What the fuck do you mean, bit by bit?’

Malcolm had the idea of driving around the town, maybe the city, too, while throwing each piece of Steve out of the window of his car. The separated parts would more than likely be lost, eaten by Farrell animals, or discarded by people as something other than human remains from a murder. Of course, Jack was not convinced it would be so easy. There was the fact of fingerprints, dental records, hair fibres, not forgetting DNA.

  ‘You’re right, Jack, I’m going to need something to get rid of Steve’s ID!’

  ‘What do you mean, Steve’s ID?’

Standing from his chair Malcolm left the kitchen for a moment, returning with a long wood-handled chisel in his hand, checking the bladed end for its sharpness.

  ‘Just the tool, it’s a little Old School, but it’ll do the job, don’t you think?’

Jack looked at the chisel, while at the same time he had hundreds of thoughts flashing through his mind as to what Malcolm meant.

  ‘A chisel!’ He gasped.

  ‘For the knuckles! We take off the fingers and toes, that way they’ll never be able to get prints. I’ll use the pliers for his teeth, of course, unless you want to do the honours?’ Malcolm revealed his sick plan for the chisel.

Again, Jack felt sick. Already he could feel the rancid bile making its way up into his throat, burning its intensity against the walls and nodes of his stomach and taste buds that made his mouth water by itself. As well as this, he was quickly becoming nauseous; light-headed and dizzy by the thoughts of his friend taking each step to rid the evidence.

Turning to the grill, Jack saw that the toast was starting to burn, but with quick reflexes that he had no idea where the ability to do so came from, he pulled out the tray and put it down on top of the cooker. He only just made it before the bread became uneatable.

  ‘That was close!’ Malcolm remarked taking a hold of the bread knife and butter dish on the side. ‘How much jam do you want?’

Jack shook his head, reaching out his hand and taking the knife and butter from him, to finally finish off the toast himself. Unfortunately, all he could think about was the bloodied hands that had handled them, but felt, for some reason relieved that his friend had not touched the toast, too.

  ‘It’s alright, I’ll do these … why don’t you go and … you know?’

There was no need to explain what it was that he meant to Malcolm, he already knew that Jack was talking about taking the fingers from the body and making sure that there was no further trace of Steve.

  ‘Good thinking, Jack, why don’t you give me a shout when it’s ready?’

Jack nodded while watching Malcolm walk out of the kitchen to return to the bathroom and carry out the sick deed of dismembering the hands, feet, and pulling out the teeth of what made up the Landlord’s identity. Once this was done, it would only be a matter of the police arresting them for murdering someone who could not be named. This did not make him feel any better, however.

Nobody Can Blame You

When Jack had finished toasting the loaf of bread, he buttered and jammed every last piece before putting them on a plate piled high. The door of the crockery cupboard still open, he turned back to close it and would have, if not for seeing something that begged him to take out. It would have been safe to say that sometime during Malcolm’s stay at the flat, he’d had an infestation of vermin. The box of Rat Poison displaying a rather large rat on the front seemed to call out at him, speak to him, telling him to take out the box and make use of it – but how?

Returning to Malcolm in the bathroom, Jack stood with the tray of jam on toast and two cups of freshly made tea. Upon noticing him standing there, Malcolm looked up from what was now only half of Steve laying in the bath, his bloody torso and head showing through the long white bed sheet that he had covered him with, while soak stains made it possible to see that the legs and arms had been removed, hacked, cut and sliced from the rest of him.

  ‘Ah, food,’ Malcolm cried out excitedly. ‘I’m starving.’

Handing him the tray, Malcolm put it down evenly across the sink, lifting from it one of the cups of tea and taking a good sip of the hot liquid. It was when finding the drink to his satisfaction that he then grabbed a slice of the toast, eating into it with a savouring look of delight. Jack was just stood in a state of wonder, while occasionally turning to the remains of the body.

  ‘I think I’ve lost my appetite!’ Jack gasped holding a hand to his mouth.

  ‘Surely not, Jack, come on, you can manage one slice of toast, can’t you?’

Jack felt forced to take a bite of the jammed toast that Malcolm held out to him, but found only the will to turn away with an almost stubborn shake of his head while sealing his lips shut.

  ‘No, I can’t … and I don’t know how you can, either? It looks like …’

Malcolm was in a toying mood. In some way he was enjoying seeing Jack having trouble eating the food. ‘Blood!’

Jack nodded. ‘I’ll go and make myself some Crème Crackers or something that I know I can keep down, if that’s okay with you?’

Malcolm chuckled to himself. ‘It’s okay, more jam on toast for me, I guess, unless Steve wants some, too?’

Picking up the other cup from the tray, Jack left Malcolm to his snack.

Having returned to the kitchen he sat down at the table with his drink, turning the cup slowly as he drifted into a deep trance of thought; his rekindling of before he arrived at the flat. His life none the simpler of avoiding the police and authorities, but certainly simpler than what it was right now – a Fugitive! An accessory to murder!

In hindsight, if he had ignored the call from Malcolm, he would never have made the trip over and become involved. But then, if he had never taken the call, he would never have known that his old friend was capable of killing another human being. Sure, there were people he knew who killed others, but they didn’t broadcast the fact or go into sordid detail of how they ridded the bodies of their victims, not like Malcolm.

Time was marching on. Soon the afternoon would bring more heat to the flat that had all of its windows opened by Malcolm, allowing the tempered air from the flat to escape and the hot summer heat enter and circulate around a place that needed to be kept cool. It would only be a matter of time before Steve’s body parts would start to stink the whole flat out, and from this, it would be just a matter of time before someone became suspicious and called the police to investigate.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing, Jack?’ He whispered to himself quietly.

Finishing off his drink of tea, he decided to go sit in the living room where he could at least look out of the window and see what the real world outside was doing. The kitchen, with such a small window and a view of only fields and nothing else, Had his mind wandering to all kinds of different places, except the places that mattered the most to keep him alert. Jack was lacking focus.

As the living room was the closest to the bathroom, it wasn’t hard to hear Malcolm working on the body, while to make it more grossed out, it was obvious by the thwacking of the hammer to chisel head, exactly what he was doing and to which part he was doing it to. The impact sound of hammer to chisel, bone to ceramic, it echoed each finger and toe, until eventually it stopped.

Finding that staring out of the window seemed to do the trick of drowning out the frequent sounds, Jack began to focus on one of the far off bedroom windows facing him, it having its own reason for distracting him from anything else burning his curiosity. It was only a few seconds later that he discovered the reason why, and that was of a young woman dressed only in a towel that she had put on from having a shower, or bath.

  ‘What the fuck!’ He whispered to himself, quickly looking around the room to make sure that Malcolm hadn’t crept in without him knowing.

Hearing the sounds of his friend again cutting through the quiet air, he returned to his observing the bedroom window, but the woman had gone. With more emphasis on looking at the window, he soon discovered that the woman had returned from somewhere in the bedroom to show herself at the window, only this time she had no towel – she was completely naked!

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ he heard himself say, bringing himself to snap out of the moment, or whatever it was that was aiding him to stare up at her.

  ‘Jack!’ Malcolm shouted suddenly.

As if the woman heard his friend shout, she looked down straight at him sitting there in clear view of her bareness, to give not an objection or that of a scared or embarrassed reaction, but to walk casually closer to the window and slowly close the curtains with an unusual friendly wave. Jack smiled. It was a moment that stayed with him a good while.

  ‘JACK!’ Malcolm now shouted louder, making him spring up from his seat and rush into the bathroom.

  ‘What? What is it?’ He demanded.

Malcolm pointed down at the bath that was almost empty but for one small pillowcase that looked as though it had something round or oval-shaped wrapped up inside it.

  ‘I need a hand,’ he replied, wiping the blood-stained sweat from his brow.

  ‘With what?’ Jack asked moving closer.

  ‘I can’t steady the head enough to take out the teeth, you’ll have to steady it for me, while I get the pliers in there and pull them out.’ He said waving him forward.

Jack examined the floor for any objects before kneeling down and leaning his arms into the bath to take a hold of the cloth-covered head, while his friend took the pliers and began to pinch, twist, push and pull at Steve’s teeth one by one. The sound alone had Jack gerging with the feeling to throw up, and each time he did, Malcolm would stop, until he became tired of his friend’s actions and told him to go make another cup of tea. Jack was thankful, though he never said it.

Back in the kitchen, again, Jack filled up the kettle and switched it on. The whole day had been taken up by Malcolm slicing and dicing his Landlord, while he kept his distance from the whole thing. His life was messed up and fucked no matter how he looked at it; good only to be a street dealer, and having nothing to show for his education, there was nothing that he could do, except find a boring dead-end job, or sell drugs, as he already was doing. Here in the city, it was all he could do.

The wait for the water to boil was informative to a point where he jogged his memory of the cupboard, and in particular, the big box of Rat Poison that stood out at him.

Looking out two fresh cups, he took a hold of the poison and took it from the cupboard, looking at the label at the rear and reading it to himself while making the drinks. Unnoticed was the shop receipt that fell from under the box onto the side where here, out of sight it stayed. It was amazing what exactly made up the formula that killed the rats, or so he thought, as the poison he held didn’t cause any pain to the vermin animal that ingested it. Obviously, the company had this sick idea by putting this on all their labels, that people of a very obvious stupid nature would actually believe it. Fortunately, Jack wasn’t stupid, and he knew that no matter what they put on a label, it was all bullshit.

Having finished making the drinks, he put away the Rat Poison, just as a very suspicious Malcolm came walking through the kitchen door with Steve’s head in one hand and his teeth in the other.

  ‘What are you doing with the poison, Jack?’ He asked.

Jack shrugged his shoulders. ‘Nothing, I was just reading the label, that’s all. Did you know that according to the company, the rats don’t feel a thing? Can you believe that shit?’

Malcolm wasn’t impressed, he was cautious and curious as to why Jack would want to take the box from the cupboard. And, when he sat down at the table to have his cup of tea, it was when he demanded Jack swap his tea with him, that Jack understood why?

  ‘Well, fuck me! You think that I was going to … Unbelievable, man, I’ve been in this flat five minutes and you think that I’m going to try and kill you or something, is that it, Malcolm?’

Jack couldn’t believe it.

  ‘I don’t know, are you?’

When both men sat down at the table, it was Jack who slid his drink of tea over to Malcolm, until Malcolm nodded his head from side to side with an inclination that maybe that was what Jack wanted to think. Maybe he was meant to let him see him with the box in his hand so that the thought was there, that it was poisoned? Maybe, it was a rouse to call his bluff?

  ‘I tell you what, Malcolm, why don’t I drink both of them, and then that way, you can watch me die in agony? I’ll make you a fresh cup, too, so you don’t have to die of thirst waiting for me to die!’

The suggestion was childish, as Malcolm let Jack know.

  ‘No need,’ he conceded, taking a hold of his cup and starting to drink the contents. ‘I’m going to need your help loading these parts into my car.’

Jack nodded. ‘No problem, we’ll have to wait until it gets darker.’

They were both in agreement of waiting until later to finish the job of getting rid of Steve, and in the meantime, they would clean up the flat to leave no trace of Malcolm’s handy work. Now it was just a simple case of waiting until nightfall.

  ‘So, what happened … I mean, have you remembered what happened when you blacked out last night?’ Jack asked, making small talk between the time they had.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Malcolm said, ‘I was talking to him through the door one minute, and the next, I was waking up to the smell of his blood.’

Jack was looking confused in the fact that his friend told him that he had made it to the door and answered it, that Steve was inside the flat at the time before he lost all memory and blacked out.

  ‘Do you know what triggered it?’ He asked taking another sip of his tea.

Malcolm went to answer him, but for a second showed signs of discomfort in his stomach. His fidgeting on the chair brought Jack to ask him if he was alright, only for Jack to pass it off as cramps from bending down and working on cutting up the body in the bath.

  ‘I guess it doesn’t matter anymore why, just that I won’t be bullied by him again. In a way I feel sorry he’s gone!’ Malcolm exclaimed.

  ‘Bullied you!’ Jack was shocked.

  ‘Yes, Steve and I go back a long way. We used to be friends at school until something happened one day that changed him. It started with …’

Again, Malcolm was getting a twinge in his stomach, the acknowledgement of pain showing clearly on his face to Jack. A moment later and the pain faded for him to continue.

  ‘You were saying, it started with …?’ Jack asked him to carry on with what he was saying.

  ‘It started with these jibes about how I had been the teacher’s pet and then progressed to mouthing off to other people about me. I caught a rare condition after leaving school, something that doctors claimed could not be cured, and so, they put me on medication to keep it from getting worse. When I moved in here, Steve reported me to the police, saying I had a stash of drugs that I was dealing to the whole town … as if!’

Glancing over to him, Jack noticed that he was sweating profusely and that his hand was nursing his stomach as if he was in pain. To Jack, Malcolm didn’t look good at all – he looked ill.

  ‘Is Steve married?’ Jack asked, taking the remote for the television and changing the channel. ‘Kids or anything?’

Malcolm nodded, his words silenced by a sudden surge of pain that crept up on him unexpectedly. ‘He’s married, yeah, but as far as I know, he has no kids, that I know for sure.’

The pain in Malcolm’s stomach was becoming more unbearable until he eventually stood up and staggered almost drunkenly to the living room and laid down on the sofa where he felt a great release from its grip. He was hurting, though the relaxed horizontal position seemed to make it feel a lot better from sitting up. Jack’s help in lifting his legs up and onto the cushions went with a simple thanks, as well as a request for a glass of water from the kitchen. Jack obliged, rushing out of the living room to bring the water that his friend was in urgent need of taking.

  ‘Here,’ Jack said handing him the water, ‘it should make you feel better. You look like you’ve got a fever, man?’

Malcolm was burning up, feverished with a temperature that was getting hotter than cooler.

  ‘I must have caught a bug or something!’ Malcolm whispered.

  ‘Maybe it’s something else, you know how it is these days?’

Malcolm turned weakly to face Jack. ‘What do you mean?’

Jack pointed the remote at the television and switched it off, and then stood in front of Malcolm with a distant look in his eyes. Of all the times that he had seen his friend, he had nothing but pride to show him. Jack had become an outsider, he knew that, with the dealing of drugs being his only way of making it day in, day out. For Malcolm, his leaving school had been pebble-dashed with many regrets, sorrows and could have’s in a whole build of ways.

  ‘It took a lot to get Steve to give you this place. Admittedly, he can be a big pain in the arse sometimes, man, but he had a good side that not many people saw. When you were put on the meds, I told him that you would be having problems, as you have, right? Well, anyway, Jill, his wife, she hated it when Steve was at war or disagreement with his friends and tenants. Many times I remember her kicking his arse for one thing or another, but never once did she really hurt anyone, not that I am aware of, anyway,’ Jack said to a weary Malcolm, who was trying to comprehend what it was he was telling him.

  ‘You know Steve?’ He managed to speak out.

  ‘Me, yeah, everyone knows … or at least should I say, everyone knew Steve when he was alive, that is. Don’t get me wrong, when Jill first met him and took him home to see the family, not one of us was keen on him, because of his reputation around the city. But, after a year or so, everyone came to like him, love him, respect him, even me. As my Brother-in-Law, it was hard not to like someone who had managed hard to shrug off the old person who was an arsehole, and become a man with compassion.’

Malcolm was shocked, though his body was showing no signs of it, only the eyes that flicked from one place to the other in the flat like they had a mind of their own or something. Jack’s words were sinking in slowly, but fast enough for him to know that he was related to the man he had killed.

  ‘He was your … Brother … !’ Malcolm struggled to get his words out.

  ‘Yes, well, no. He was my Brother-in-Law, the husband to my sister, Jill, who will be sad to find he’s left us, Malcolm. Hopefully, there is a silver lining in all of this though, and that is that you died alongside him after taking him away from us. It wasn’t you’re tea that had the poison in it, Malcolm, it was the jam, and there was enough on that loaf of bread to kill a fucking army of rats… I have to admit, it took longer than I would have expected to work on you!’ Jack confirmed Malcolm’s fears of him being his Brother-in-Law of Steve, and the Brother of Jill, his wife – Jack’s sister.

Attempting to sit up, but for the excruciating pain around his whole body, Jack rushed over to the sofa to steady Malcolm, advising him to lay back down so that he didn’t feel it as bad.

  ‘I … I have some … something for you!’ Malcolm struggled with his words.

Jack was surprised by the fact that his old friend would have anything for him, considering he’d just poisoned him without having the slightest idea.

  ‘What is it Malcolm, what have you got for me?’

Looking down to his trouser pocket, he nodded weakly for Jack to take what was inside. And with caution he did, discovering a single key that had a double diamond symbol on the top of it. Judging by the size it was for a strong box or something that was personal.

  ‘Take it. Take it all …it was yours … !’

The rat poison had taken its time running through Malcolm’s body for the simple fact of him being bent over the whole time he worked on Steve’s body, had he been standing while cutting away at the limbs and joints, then the story would have been different. Now, however, it had taken its toll on his body, killing him in less than two hours with just a quarter of the packet being used to do the job that Jack had set out to do.

  ‘Sleep well, my friend. Sleep well.’ Jack said patting him on the arm before standing to his feet and looking at the key. ‘Now, what lock do you open?’

Going through the flat with a fine toothcomb to find the lock that the key would open, Jack eventually came across a jewellery box in the wardrobe of Malcolm’s bedroom. The encrusted diamante glistened in the seeping dregs of the sunset that shone through the window and onto the brass lock that Jack used the key to unlock, and unlock it did to show several jiffy bags of heroin and an ample roll of cash.

  ‘Jackpot!’ Jack cried with excitement.

Putting the small bags into his pockets, he locked the box back up, placed it back where he had found it and returned the key to Malcolm’s pocket before making his way out of the flat and into the twilight. He had done it. He had paid back Malcolm for killing his sister’s husband, and lived to see another day …