Стюарт Макбрайд - The Coffinmaker’s Garden

The funeral urn from the barn. The one Gordon Smith had been talking to.

That’s why he was whispering down the phone at me: he was in the basement. I swapped the mobile into my bandaged hand and yanked the .22 out again.

‘Do you ever go to the pantomime, Mr Henderson? You should: it’s one of the finest theatrical traditions we have in this country, certainly the purest . People think it’s silly, with its dames and its principal boys and its call-and-response, but it has rules and conventions, traditions and truths that stretch back into antiquity. They connect us with the fairy tales our ancestors told as they cowered in their caves in the night.’

‘Where are you?’

‘After all, what is life if not a pantomime?’

I hung up and turned again, torch sweeping around like a lighthouse. The gun following it. ‘COME ON YOU BASTARD, LET’S SEE IF YOU’VE GOT THE BALLS!’

A laugh slithered out in the basement. ‘He’s behiiiiiiiiiiind you!’

Something hard and heavy cracked across my shoulders. I staggered forwards, stumbling over Shifty, the phone flying out of my ruined hand to bounce against the nearest boxes. Its torchlight swinging and tumbling — then thump, it hit the floor, beam shining straight up into the dusty air.

A line of sharp-edged grey whistled towards my head, shining bright as it passed through the LED beam — hooked, like a hockey stick, but longer. More solid looking. And coming in fast.

I got my arms up just in time for it to crack across them instead of my face. Sending me crashing over backwards against the stairs.

The gun hit the ground and skittered away, came to rest with a dull metallic clank.

‘Don’t you play shinty, Mr Henderson? It’s a great game. Very physical. Keeps you fit!’

Another whistling crack and the stick battered into my arms again, hot and numb at the same time, the muscles howling, bones creaking. Wooden steps groaning against my spine.

DO SOMETHING!

Smith loomed out of the darkness, pausing above Alice’s phone so the torch caught him from below. Lit like a monster in an ancient film — his lined face slashed with shadows, eyes glittering in the hollow of their sockets, Santa beard turned into something a lot less wholesome. ‘It’s a shame we don’t have more time, Mr Henderson, I’d love to stay and play, but the house is hungry .’

Another rumble, and this time the cracking noise didn’t stop, it built and grew, thin and cold, snapping and pinging. Concrete and brick giving way, then: WHOOOOOM ...

The back wall disappeared. One moment everything beyond the torch’s beam was utter darkness, and the next a pale grey light snarled into the basement — borne on the wings of a howling wind. Sucking the air from the room, sending it spiralling out into the night, as what was left of Leah MacNeil vanished into the North Sea.

Waves booming and roaring right outside that ragged patch of grey.

Gordon Smith leered in his DIY monster-light. As if he wasn’t already horrific enough. ‘Time to say goodnight, children.’ Edging closer, shinty stick in one hand, Joseph’s cutthroat razor in the other.

I scrabbled backwards, up the bottom couple of steps. And something bumped against my shoulder. Something about the size of a thermos flask with silver handles. Cold and smooth against my palm as I grabbed it. ‘Oh no it isn’t.’

‘That’s the spirit !’ The razor’s blade glinted in the narrow torch beam. ‘OH YES IT IS!’ Lunging for me, cutthroat sizzling through the angry air.

I lunged too — left arm up to block it, right swinging hard.

It was like being punched in the bicep. And then the impact of Caroline’s urn, smashing into his head, shuddered up my arm.

‘Ungh...’ Smith reared away from me, a silhouette against the angry storm. ‘Don’t...’

Another push, swinging the urn like a baseball bat.

Thunk .

The crunching thump of old cardboard boxes collapsing under someone’s weight.

Bouncing the urn off Smith’s head must’ve loosened the lid, because it popped off, and a vortex of gritty grey swirled its way through the torchlight, en route to the gaping hole at the end of the basement.

‘CAROLINE!’ Banging and crashing through the junk.

I snatched up the phone and swung the torch around.

There was Smith, on his hands and knees, scraping dirt and ashes from the concrete floor. ‘No!’

Where are you, you rotten...?

There — lying on its back, against the leg of a mouldy old teddy bear. Matt, black, and deadly. The phone went back in my bandaged hand and I snatched the gun up again.

Let’s see how Evil Uncle Abanazar did with a couple of bullets in him.

The basement shook and that ragged slab of grey got bigger. Chunks of the upper floor raining down at the far end, tumbling away into the hungry waves.

‘What have you done?’ He was still on his knees, scooping up handfuls of dust.

I tossed the urn to him. It hit the concrete and bounced with a hollow ringing poonk .

‘WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?’ Reaching for it.

Three limping steps and I was close enough to jam the .22’s barrel into the back of his right knee. ‘It’s after midnight, Smith. Time to turn back into a pumpkin.’ And pulled the trigger.

It was as if someone had slammed a claw-hammer down on a sheet of metal, the sound echoing off the roof before being swallowed by the howling wind.

Must’ve come as a shock, because Smith didn’t start screaming till I stuck the barrel into the back of his left knee.

Another hammer blow.

The room rumbled. The ice cracked. Another chunk of basement vanished.

Definitely time to go.

Gordon Smith stared back at me in the thin beam of the phone’s torch, eyes wide, mouth wide — full of teeth and agony. Both hands wrapped around his knees, blood pulsing out between his pale fingers. Tears streaming down his face. He was saying something, but whatever it was, the storm was louder.

Back to Shifty.

‘God’s sake, man, you weigh a bloody ton...’ But I got my shoulder under him, hauling and shoving and struggling his fat bloody arse up the wooden steps, heaving him onto the living room floor. Rolling him clear of the trapdoor, so I could slam it shut. Wind whistling through the gaps — pulled down by the air roaring out through the basement.

Probably gilding the lily, but in case a double kneecapping wasn’t enough to keep Gordon Smith where I’d left him, I put my shoulder to Helen’s multigym and pushed .

Teeth gritted, putting my back into it...

The entire thing crashed into the floorboards with a wood-splintering crunch, completely covering the trapdoor with about a ton of metal.

Yeah, Smith was going nowhere.

I grabbed a handful of Shifty’s collar and dragged him backwards out of the room, legs aching from the effort, along the hall and out the front—

Bloody thing was locked .

Another booming rumble and the sound of rending beams and cracking mortar drowned out the wind.

Was there time to get him all the way down the hall and out through the kitchen?

He had the keys on him.

Great — why don’t I stand here like a bloody moron, going through Shifty’s pockets WHILE THE BASTARDING HOUSE FALLS DOWN!

‘AAAAAAARGH!’ I turned him around and hauled his lardy backside down the hall, sweat prickling in the cold air, breath huffing out great plumes of steam. ‘If we get out of this alive, you’re going on a massive diet.’

His body slid better on the kitchen linoleum.

Out the kitchen door, and into the thundering rain and screeching storm.

My trainers dug into the wet grass, slipping and skidding through mud, pulling with both hands now. Fire and broken bottles slashing through the severed joint where my finger used to be, scarring their way up my arm. Every single step setting off a fresh explosion of flame in my bullet-hole foot.