WPC Walker hed met Bullock a year earlier at a social gathering. The man was a lecherous bastard who thought all women were fair game just because he lived in a big house, drove a flash car and had a wallet with a bigger bulge than his underpants.
Tracy had been standing at the bar trying to grab the barman’s attention when she’d felt a hand squeezing her backside.
“What you having, sweetheart?”
Turning to the voice, the first thing she saw was the wad of notes that Bullock was waving toward the bar tender, instantly catching his eye. The barman quickly poured Bullock a whisky before asking Tracy what drink she would like. As he sipped at his drink Bullock continued waving his wad in front her face – clearly hoping that as the liquor wetted his whistle so the crinkling of twenty-pound notes would wet her knickers.
PC Jones pulled up next to the white van with Bullock Property Developments printed on its side. The two officers strode up to the front door, both ringing the bell and knocking on wood to signify their urgency.
The pattern of their morning continued as it became clear that no-one was home.
“Fuck’s sake!” Jones muttered under his breath. “So, what do you reckon? One more try at the sales office? Maybe the woman had just nipped out for something – she might be back by now.”
“Might as well go and see. Come on.”
*
The traffic had been good to her and Lisa arrived in Lydmet less than an hour after waking from her chilling dream. In spite of the fact that she had never, as far as she could recall, been to the town before, she easily found the new apartment block, parking her old Fiesta outside the main doors.
As she stood outside the entrance, deciding how to get in, she heard a muffled ‘thunk’ as the door unlocked itself for her.
*
“Shit!” WPC Walker pointed to the woman entering Chillingworth Mews, “Beep the fucking horn! Quick!”
PC Jones slammed his palm against the steering wheel, blasting the police-car’s horn as he sped into the building’s car-park. The blaring noise fell on deaf ears, the woman walking on through the entrance, the door closing behind her.
“Bollocks!” Jones banged his forehead against the steering-wheel in frustration.
“Never mind,” chuckled his female colleague, “come on – let’s see if the sales woman’s back yet.”
30
Roger was helpless, pinned to the wall by electric cables as he waited for Lisa’s arrival. Somehow, the force within Chillingworth Mews had combined its own powers with his, sending out a message to Lisa, stretching across the miles to fnd her. And Roger had sensed that the message had been received.
As he heard tentative footsteps on the staircase, the echoing footfalls carrying through the open apartment door, he felt the noose of flex tighten around his throat, cutting off his ability to shout out any kind of warning. At the inevitable sound of Lisa’s fingers on the handle of the bedroom door, Roger felt those childhood butterflies jittering in his belly once more. But, unlike the games of hide and seek with his father, where the nerve induced insects had flitted about, fuelled by excitement and benign fear, the bugs that festered in him now were bloated and misshapen creatures; born of dread.
“Roger?”
His heart leaped at the sound of her voice, the memories of his love for her overwhelming him as if suddenly released from some dammed up cerebral reservoir. He desperately tried to call out to her; to tell her to run, but the words were choked off before they even reached his throttled larynx.
He wept, knowing he was powerless to help her, and, as he heard her fingers fumbling at the door handle, the mutated butterflies in his gut proved too overpowering, the contents of his bladder splashing to the floor at his feet.
“Are you here?”
Lisa stepped into the room, pausing with a strangled gasp as she spotted the bodies of Sam and the sales woman on the floor.
LISA…
The voice seemed to shake the room, bouncing off the walls as it echoed inside her skull.
“Roger? Is that you?”
HELP ME…
She marched forward, ignoring the carnage and the stink of death, her mind focussed only on thoughts of Roger, desperate to help the man she loved. The bedroom door slammed shut behind her.
Lisa reeled at the sound, screaming as she saw Roger held fast against the wall, coloured wires embedded in his face, thin streams of blood trickling down his cheeks where the copper strands had penetrated his flesh.
Roger’s eyes bulged, his jaws mouthing silent syllables as he tried to speak to her, to force the words out - nothing but gargled spit flecking his lips. He watched Lisa’s face with dismay as her gaze dropped to his exposed crotch, the pool of piss on the floor soaking darkly into the crumpled jogging trousers that gathered at his feet.
WELCOME, LISA!
She twisted around, desperately searching for the source of the voice as the cables that had been hanging loosely around Sam’s lifeless corpse snaked across the floor towards her. The wires quickly wrapped themselves around her body like creeping vines, pulling her towards the wall, her feet kicking and flailing as she tried to fight them. Within seconds she was pinned against the plaster, a single cable peeling off to drag Sam’s body out of the way before it arced back towards Lisa, looping itself snugly around her throat.
The cable around Roger’s neck pulled his head up sharply, forcing him to look directly at Lisa, held against the wall opposite. Her face was a wet mask of shock, confusion and panic.
TRADE!
The flex around his neck loosened its grip a fraction, allowing him to answer.
“No trade…”
Roger’s response was the same as before but this time delivered with far less
