Stuart MacBride - Flesh House

Bloody hell.

And then a scream for help.

Oh shit... Logan pulled out his little cannister of pepper spray and charged through the curtain into a low room: chest freezers on one side and—

He didn’t even see the blow coming.

INTERIOR: A low-ceilinged room lit by three flickering fluorescent lights. The walls are panelled with rough wood. Camera pans hard left, jiggling, the lights leaving hot yellow streaks as the autofocus catches on: DS McRae is slumped back against a chest freezer, blood on one side of his head. A man crouches over him, dressed in a butcher’s outfit and wearing a rubber mask of ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The man has a knife in his hand pressed against DS McRae’s throat .

VOICEOVER: Oh God...

[the Flesher stares at DS McRae for a moment, head on one side, then lowers the knife]

VOICEOVER: Oh God, oh God, oh God...

[the Flesher stands and turns to face the camera]

VOICEOVER: Oh God...

[picture shakes as the cameraman backs up, then turns and runs]

VOICEOVER: [panting and swearing — the sound of fabric rubbing against the microphone]

Alec ran for it, too scared to feel guilty about leaving Logan behind. Back through the curtain, puffing already — why did he have to be such a fat bastard?

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God...’ Shut up! Shut the fuck up and RUN!

He could hear the Flesher coming after him, closing the gap.

OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod...

Alec burst through the door back into the basement and slammed into a box of crappy romance novels. He went sprawling — the camera flying out of his hands, clattering against a pile of mating bicycles. The light blinked out, leaving him in darkness.

OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod...

He scrabbled to his knees, fumbling forward, trying to find the stairs, trying to find the way out before—

The door under the stairs opened, spilling pale yellow light into the crowded basement. The Flesher was here...

Alec bit his lip and tried not to cry.

Keep low. Don’t make a sound.

A creak, the sound of a foot scuffing the floor: the Flesher moving between the stacks of boxes and mouldy debris.

Quiet. Not a sound. Don’t even breathe.

Something brushed his leg and Alec flinched, staring terrified into the gloom. Oh God, please don’t let it be...

A pair of black eyes glittered back at him — teeth, claws, naked pink tail.

RAT!

Alec screamed.

He scrambled backwards, kicking out. Fucking rats! Jesus fucking... There was someone behind him.

OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod...

Alec looked up into that lifeless rubber face. ‘Please...’

The Flesher grabbed him by the collar and dragged him, kicking and screaming, back through the door and into the darkness.

‘Unnnnnnnnngh...’ Logan rolled over onto his side and threw up on the hard dirt floor.

‘Are you OK?’ Faulds stood back, nose wrinkled against the smell.

Logan coughed, spat out a bitter mouthful and struggled to his knees; Jackie dragged him to his feet then held him upright, her body warm against his. ‘What the hell were you thinking, charging in here on your own like something out of bloody Die Hard? ’

His head was swimming. ‘She was screaming for help. What was I supposed to do?’

‘My God...’ Faulds had opened one of the chest freezers. ‘It’s full of meat ...’ He pulled out a chunk of frozen breast, the areola pale purple in its clear plastic vacuum pack.

Jackie let go and wandered over to the far wall. ‘There’s some sort of grave in the corner... “Here lie the mortal remains of Catherine Davidson, beloved companion. Died 14th September 2001.” What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

Logan closed his eyes for a moment, then peered out at the low room. The whole place had been lined with chipboard — the wood swollen and peppered with mildew. A large stainless steel butcher’s table sat against the opposite wall, a set of knives displayed above it on a pair of magnetic strips. The curtained-off entrance Logan had rushed through lay open, showing the dirt tunnel back towards the house. Another pair of curtains partially hid an opening beside the butcher’s table, and a third pair hung at the far end of the row of freezers. ‘Where’s Alec?’

They found him behind curtain number two. It was a kitchen — the walls covered with the same grimy wood, the floor with chunks of faded carpet. A pair of red Calor Gas bottles sat in the corner, hooked up to a spotless gas hob and oven. 1970s-style work surfaces and cupboards lined the room in shades of dirty cream and faded mahogany.

The whole room reeked of blood and garlic.

Alec was hanging upside down in the middle of the room over a tin bath full of dark red, his skin so pale it was nearly translucent. He was still warm.

Faulds swore, then turned on Logan. ‘Why the hell did you bring him down here? He was a civilian!’

‘I didn’t know...’

‘Do you have any idea what the BBC are going to do to us? It’s going to be a PR disaster!’

‘Alec, you silly, silly bastard...’

A circular hole sat in the top of Alec’s head, dripping pink and grey gloop into the bathtub full of blood.

‘How could you let this happen?’

‘I didn’t let anything—’

‘No? Well you managed to save your own—’

‘I ate her mince, OK? That’s why.’

‘What?’ Disgust pulled at Faulds’ face. ‘Whose mince? What the—’

‘There is no Jimmy Souter — he doesn’t exist. It’s Elizabeth, it’s always been Elizabeth. She fed those kids human flesh and they got to live.’ Logan turned his back on the cameraman’s dangling corpse. ‘When she made lunch yesterday, I ate the mince...’

He pushed through the curtain and back into the butchery, feeling sick again.

The third curtain — the one beside the chest freezers — was all roses and birdies, faded to a greasy, mottled gray. Logan took a handful and ripped it down.

It was another tunnel, stretching away beyond the soulless light of another fluorescent strip. Less than six feet down, two sets of metal doors were sunk into the wall, as if someone had buried a pair of offshore containers. One blue, one red: the paintwork pockmarked with rust.

Logan hauled the red doors open on groaning hinges.

Definitely a container. The metal box was about the same size as Logan’s bathroom, with a set of rusty bars running down the middle, empty except for a mattress, a duvet, a chemical toilet, and a set of pulleys bolted to the ceiling.

The blue container was a different story — instead of the pulleys it had an A-frame made up of scaffolding poles. The floor was spattered with dark red droplets that glittered in the gloom. A pile of black clothes were thrown in the corner. The red container smelled of disinfectant, but this one stank of fear and blood.

Jackie stepped carefully inside, her black shoes making sticky noises as she worked her way across the floor and picked up a chunk of fabric. ‘It’s a police uniform.’ She went hunting through the trouser pockets, coming out with a small leather warrant card holder. She flipped it open and swore.

Logan stood in the doorway. ‘It’s Munro, isn’t it? She was a vegetarian...’

‘Fucking hell!’ Jackie kicked the container wall — BOOM — the echo was swallowed by the dirt corridor. ‘Fucking, bastarding hell!’ Another kick.

‘OK, OK. Enough.’ He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out into the tunnel. ‘How long did it take you to get here? When Alec called? Ten minutes? Fifteen?’