“I could hear the poor dog from almost 500 fucking yards away, ‘scuse my French. When we broke through the trees and stood at the edge of the clearing, the gully opened up maybe fifty or so yards in front of us. It’s quite deep, maybe twenty feet in some places. And there he was, doing his freaky shit.” He took another swallow, his hand visibly shaking.
“Take your time,” Steph said, sipping her own coke.
“He had that poor dog pinned to the ground, tied to stakes that he had hammered in. The poor mutt had no chance. That fucken creep’s face was covered in blood. He was biting chunks out of the dog’s leg and shoulder. Biting chunks and chewing them.” He was almost yelling now, his anger raw. He had to put the bottle on the table, the shaking almost uncontrollable. Steph’s face was grim, as I was sure mine was. My heart felt like it was beating in my temples again, adrenalin making my stomach feel like it was doing cartwheels.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I picked up the nearest stick I could find and almost ran down to him. He never heard me coming, never knew I was there until the first swing connected with his head. It almost sent him sprawling, his goofy expression never leaving his face. I could have sworn the fucker was smiling at me. Then I swung again and this time his good eye closed as he went ni-night. Graham already had a pistol which he got from his car when he got me, and now he used it to put the poor animal out of its misery. Then we noticed the smell. At first, I wasn’t sure where it came from, but then we looked around a bit and that’s when we found it.” He paused again, finishing his coke in two large gulps, then holding the bottle in his hand, looking at it, as if trying to read the fine print. He suppressed a belch into the back of his hand as we waited patiently for him to regain his composure, both too dumbstruck to speak. Steph took out her cigarettes and I saw that her fingers were also shaking.
“It’s OK, Richard. Take your time,” I said, trying to sound in control, but I noticed my voice was a little shaky.
“Could I bum one of those?” he asked Steph. “I quit, but, under the circumstances. Just don’t tell my wife, she’ll kick my butt.” He took one, Steph lit it for him and he inhaled deeply.
“We saw a large sheet of tin lying on the ground some way off. At first, we figured it was just some junk, there’s a shit load of it down there, old car bodies and stuff. But then we heard movement from beneath the sheet. We walked over to it and Graham lifted one side. There was a hole dug underneath it, maybe 7 or 8 yards wide and almost as deep. In the bottom of it, were animals, some alive, but most dead. We counted 6 dogs, 12 cats and a goat. Of them, only 1 dog and 4 cats were alive, and those should have been dead. He had been eating them alive, their skins matted with blood. Their faces were all skinnier than you could imagine, probably all starved, eyes sunken into their skulls. The dog was trying to chew on one of the cats. They all had wounds that were weeping blood, pus and God knows what else. And then there were the maggots. It was like their wounds were alive, crawling with those filthy things in some tangled, writhing mass. I can still hear the noise when I close my eyes, like a fucken nightmare. I wanted to kill him, Steph. Right then and there, I wanted to grab Graham’s gun and shoot the son of a bitch. But, of course, I didn’t. Instead, Graham jumped in the hole and put the animals out of their pain. Then he went back to fetch a shovel and when that bastard came to, we made him bury the animals. We stayed there for almost three hours and made him fill in the hole, watching as he panted and groaned, covering his evil one shovel load at a time.” I was stunned into silence, my mouth dry as a dust bowl. I looked at Steph and could see her mind in overdrive, looking down at her fingers, each hand firmly grasping one of her legs.
“Did you report this?” she finally asked.
“Yup, but guess what? Rademeyer didn’t want to hear it. Said he wasn’t going to waste valuable police resources on a retard culling the town’s vermin problem.”
“He said that?” I asked, again shocked. Richard nodded, his fingers closing around a pencil so tight, I heard it begin to splinter.
“And now that retard is working at the school, hanging around kids,” he said. “I fired that freak and warned him that if I ever saw him again, I would end his miserable life. I saw him down the main street a couple of times but was glad when I saw him cross the street to avoid me.” Steph rose to her feet and held out her hand. Richard shook it, then held it out to me.
“Thank you, Rich. I appreciate your help,” she said as she headed out the door.
“No problem, Steph. Anytime.”
11.
“That crazy fuck,” she said as we headed back into town.
“Still keen to talk to him?” I asked, but again she shook her head.
“No way. We need to
