Steph yanked the wheel left, the tyres instantly protesting. Her house sat at the far end of this street and as she raced toward it, I saw no other traffic or movement along its length. She slowed the cruiser just enough to swing its huge nose into her driveway, slamming the car to a halt. Tomato cop wasn’t expecting such a sudden stop and his head snapped forward, his nose striking the back of her chair, then bouncing back as the car jolted to a halt.
“Aaahh, FUCK!” he screamed, grabbing his face with one hand, the other steadying himself, but Steph paid no attention. She had her door open even before the car had fully stopped, now already bounding up the stairs two at a time.
“STEPH?” I yelled, but she ignored me. I climbed out of the cruiser and scanned the front of the house. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, yet I had a growing feeling of dread, like I knew something was out of place but couldn’t tell what. I looked across the fence at Mrs. Wong’s house, standing silently on its elevated stumps. I was about to follow Steph up the stairs, but then froze as something held my gaze, looking strange in the old lady’s front yard. She had a tall hedge that shielded her house from the street, one lone pine standing tall and thin in the centre of her front yard. A thick, round bush was growing to one side of it and it was there that I saw something that shouldn’t have been there. A pair of men’s brown leather shoes.
10.
I bolstered myself over the fence. I was lucky as it only stood as high as my waist, so swinging a leg over it didn’t aggravate me too much. When I was over, I stole another glance at the house, now seeing the front door ajar and the window curtains drawn. I looked back at the shoes and saw that one lay empty, its sole flat on the grass. The other one had a foot in it, the leg only visible from the calf down, the top half disappearing into the bush. As I neared the bush, I could already see the blood dripping from its leaves, thick wads of it adorning the bush like Christmas tinsel.
“Who is that?” a voice asked from beside me. It was the young officer now standing behind me. As we neared the feet, he bent and grabbed the legs of the man, then began dragging him out. I recognized him instantly, his face setting off alarm bells in my head, alarm bells that exploded when I heard Steph.
“JUDE!” she cried from her porch. I turned to look and her eyes met mine. Even from the distance between us, I saw her face react to the sight of the man lying at my feet. She was running in an instant and hurdled the fence easily.
“STEPH, WAIT!” I yelled, but there was no stopping her. Richard Lovett was lying dead at my feet and that meant Lightman had been, or still was, inside this house. His throat had been bitten, a neat hole sitting where his Adam’s apple should have been. And as if that hadn’t been enough, Harry had also pushed his fingers into the man’s eye sockets, popping both eyeballs like jellies, their oozy insides weeping down the dead man’s cheeks. Ants had already begun to sample the eye nectar and were busy scurrying about his face as the young cop lost his breakfast.
I ran as fast as my legs would carry me to the stairs, already hearing the opening of doors from inside.
“Jude? Jude honey?” I heard Steph whisper. I ripped the front door open and ran inside as it thudded against the wall. I managed to take three steps, the living room door standing open on my left. And that was when I heard her scream. A long and painful shrill that sent gooseflesh all over my body, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end in an instant.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath and followed the sound of the hysterical crying, preparing myself for the worst.
11.
It isn’t often that you sigh relief when confronted by a dead body. They are all sad, confronting and tragic, when you realise that it means the end of a human life. But seeing Mrs. Wong at that moment and not a young 7-year-old girl, was such a relief.
Steph was standing over the dead woman, grabbing her hair and crying hysterically. I went to her, put my arms around her shoulders and pulled her away from Mrs. Wong, pulling her out of the room. She resisted, still frantically calling her daughter’s name, with no answer in return. As I managed to persuade Steph into the living room, I heard the approaching ambulance. She was inconsolable, her words low and repeating, over and over.
“Jude, no, no baby. Jude, no.” After the ambulance officers realised there was no helping the late Richard Lovett, or the very dead Mrs. Wong, they attended to Steph, first trying to calm her, then finally sedating her. They placed her on a stretcher and loaded her into the back of their van, her voice now almost inaudible as another patrol car arrived. It was Chief Richards, looking grim and confused. He gave Steph a once over before they closed the door, bent and whispered something into her ear then patted her shoulder. Then as the ambulance left with Steph now safe in the back, he turned to me.
“Jim, I need to know what the fuck is going on.” When I didn’t answer him immediately, my eyes
