Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

He took the phone away from his ear, half-covered it with a palm and called out, “Grandpa! Phone.”

He paused another few seconds, rubbed the handset like one person was passing it to another, then put it back to his ear. “Hello, is Nikolov here,” he said in his terrible accent. He thought he sounded like an Arnold Schwarzenegger parody, more like bad German than anything. He needed it to dial it back.

“Mrs Blumenthal has considered your offer. You say it’ll keep? After all, it’s potentially a long time between rituals.”

“Of course. Stay in the box, keep somewhere cool and dry, no problem.”

“ How long will it keep?”

“Indefinitely.”

“And sixty for both, you say?”

“Yes, yes. Special, for your inconvenience. To show I’m so sorry.”

“Very well,” the man said. “I will come at noon tomorrow.”

“Thank you for your understanding. One other thing.”

“Another thing?”

“A small thing, nothing to worry about. The young man who answered the phone, my grandson. He will be here to complete the transaction. I will be organising trip, for our emergency. So sorry, but everything will be ready for you to collect. You give him the money, he gives you both, yes? All okay?”

“What’s your grandson’s name?”

“D… David.”

“David Nikolov?”

“In English, yes. He prefers David. That’s it. He’s a good boy. Well, a man now, I always think of the boy he vas.” Jesus, keep it simple, dickhead!

“Very well. We’ll see David tomorrow.”

Dace went and sat back in the lounge, almost vibrating. He’d done it! He would have sixty grand by noon tomorrow, nine hours before Carter’s deadline. No, better than that. He’d found eleven grand already and he’d get to keep that. He would be out of trouble with Carter and eleven grand up on the whole debacle. That made it all worthwhile.

Killing two people? Was it worth that?

And Baby, driving that wire through her eye in suicide. Was it worth that?

He took a deep breath. He couldn’t change anything that had already happened. He could only keep moving forward. He needed to pay Carter to save himself and his family, simple as that. And he had a little less than twenty-four hours to get organised. He needed to get those bodies down from the attic and put them in the boxes Nikolov had prepared. He looked down at his baggy Freddie Kruger jumper, saw it had brown stains on it, no doubt Nikolov’s blood. He needed to change. But he also couldn’t risk being seen coming and going from this place. He would need to stay until everything was taken care of, then slip away with the money, never to return. Let anyone find it later, or not. He didn’t care.

Bracing himself, he went back into Nikolov’s room. Already the stink of death was beginning to rise from the two bodies he’d stashed there. He lifted the old man, still rolled in the rug, up onto the bed next to his wife. Then he dragged the doona out from under them and laid it on top, then added a blanket he found in the wardrobe, covering them both as thoroughly as possible. He only needed to mask the smell of their decay until after the pick-up had been made the next day, then he’d be gone.

“You two got what you fucking deserved,” he said to the lumpen bed, and turned away.

Nikolov was taller than him, but not by much. His pants and boots were okay, and if there was blood on either, he couldn’t see it. He pulled off the Freddie jumper and stuffed it into his backpack with the rubber mask, then rummaged in Nikolov’s stuff until he found a black woollen pullover. He put it on. It was a little long in the body and the sleeves, but not ridiculous. It made him look smart enough.

He went to the bathroom, stripped everything off and had a hot shower, trying to feel vaguely normal again, then redressed. In the spare room, he lay the two boxes on the floor side by side and found their matching lids. Then he put aside a drill and screws to secure the lids on. He looked at his hands as he moved these things around and realised he’d need to take off the gloves when the buyer arrived, or he’d look suspicious. He’d have to be careful not to touch anything, or remember what he touched, when that time came.

He went back up into the attic and stood beside the corpses. He didn’t want to handle them but had no choice. He glanced back at the attic hatch and wondered how the hell to get them down. The hatch was large, but not huge. Maybe a fireman’s carry over his shoulder? They were young, and rail thin. Swallowing, he slipped his hands under the first one and carefully lifted her. She weighed very little and seemed stiff, rising in his arms like a plank of wood. As he turned, she sloshed gently. Dace froze, bile rising in his throat. He tipped the body left and right and felt some liquid shifting back and forth inside her.

“What the fuck?” he muttered, but tried not to think too hard on it.

She was too stiff to lay over his shoulder, but he managed to hold around the hips with one arm, pressing her against his body, and use his free hand to carefully descend the ladder. He kept his face away, though her cold, white flesh pressed against his cheek. She smelled musty, but spicy. Some almost enticing odour. He hurried to the spare room, laid her in a box, then returned for the other. In a few minutes he had them both down, the ladder folded back up and the attic hatch closed.

He stood with the drill in his hand, about to secure the lids, when he imagined the buyer asking to see the merchandise. It wouldn’t be an unreasonable request. He put the lids on loosely, and left, closed the door behind him. Now there were bodies in all three bedrooms of the house. What an absolute fucking nightmare.

It was a little after three in the afternoon and he was finished. All he could do was wait until noon the next day, in a house with five corpses. He desperately wanted to leave, go home, go anywhere. But he didn’t dare. So he went into the kitchen, found cleaning products and took care of the last bit of Nikolov’s blood on the floor and coffee table. He saw his kitchen knife just under the edge of the couch, forgotten where it must have been knocked in his struggle with the old man. He took it to the kitchen and put it on the table with his backpack, so he wouldn’t forget to take it when he left by the back door again after all this was over. He thought about going outside to feed the numerous guinea pigs, just for something to do, but even being spotted in the garden was too much of a risk.

He watched TV instead. As his hunger grew, he searched the kitchen again. He found some frozen fish fingers in the freezer compartment of the old Crosley Shelvador and grilled them, ate them with the last of the Wonder White bread. Time rolled on and he watched more TV. He discovered some half-decent whiskey, a Glenlivet 15, that was a little more than half full and he made the most of that. By a little after ten he was asleep on the couch.

He dreamed of the fall again, bodies twisting as they tumbled down, some thrashing their many limbs, some inert, seemingly already dead. He stood on a slick beach, watched the red hole in the sky vomit forth multitudes. He turned, saw more falling over the thick vegetation of gum trees. He saw a large curved back rise and fall in the trees, like a whale cruising the ocean. Sasha , his dream-self cried weakly.

He woke with a hangover a little after eight. The dream was gossamer, fleeting as consciousness returned. How could Baby have the same dream? Why did Nikolov want her to open herself to it? He shook his head. Some questions didn’t need answers. Maybe the answers would be more disturbing.

He found coffee grounds and a stove-top percolator in the kitchen and made strong coffee. He drank the whole pot, felt jittery but better for it. He was hungry again, but there was nothing else in the house except the guinea pigs. He didn’t feel like boiling up vegetables for breakfast, the only other option. He stood before the rack of roasted rodents, grimacing. They ate these in South America, didn’t they? Was it really so weird?