Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

Rich jerked awake in the motel bed, heart racing, gasping like he’d sprinted a mile.

“Fuck me dead,” he muttered, trembles setting in throughout his body. He was damp with sweat, the sheets clinging to him. A desperate urge to piss became suddenly evident and he lurched up.

As he came back from the bathroom, the dream fading, he saw a weak orange light behind the microwave. He frowned. That hadn’t been there when he went to bed, he remembered noticing how dark it was. His head was thick with the beer, that halfway state between still drunk and the possibility of a hangover. He went back to the bathroom and downed a tumbler of water. Then another. He came back and the light was still there, a soft glow. He moved nearer, leaned over the microwave to see, wondering if perhaps some light had activated on the back of the thing. Maybe he could unplug it.

The light came through a small hole in the wall, a centimetre or so in diameter. Did that mean there was something in the wall or someone in the room next door? Rich stared for a moment, then curiosity overcame him. He pulled the plug out and lifted the microwave aside as quietly as he could, placed it gently on the floor. Then he crouched to peek through. There was a corner of white linen obscuring about a third of the hole. He realised that was a pillow on the bed next door. A similar bar fridge with a microwave on it sat against the far wall, the entire room an exact replica of his. He assumed all the rooms were largely identical. A man walked past the end of the bed and Rich startled backwards, then slowly looked again. The man headed to bathroom, a tap ran, the clink of a glass, sounds of drinking. The walls were thin, sound carried clearly. The man returned and sat heavily on the end of the bed. He was not especially tall, but he was broad, a blue King Gee work shirt stretched taut across his back and rounded shoulders. He sat there, elbows on his knees, unmoving. Was he waiting for something?

Rich crept back to his bedside table and checked his phone. 2.10 a.m. Maybe the man had just got off a long shift and was doing that thing where the mind flatlines and you have to sit motionless, too tired to even go to bed. He wished the man well and started to climb back into bed when car tyres scrunched on the gravel of the drive outside and a bead of light briefly lit the edge of his curtains, then winked out. Car doors opened and slammed, several footsteps sounded, then the door to the next room opened and shut. Muffled voices came through the thin walls, talking low and somehow menacing. Then one cut through, louder, panicked.

“I wouldn’t, Mr Carter! You know I wouldn’t!”

There was a sharp slap and Rich immediately saw an open palm meeting a cheek in his mind’s eye. That sound couldn’t be anything else.

Go to bed, Rich , he told himself. Leave the light off, get into bed, ignore everything .

“Mr Carter, please!” Another slap, this one meatier followed by a rush of exhalation. Gasping sobs, more menacing voices, too muffled by the walls to make out clearly.

Despite himself, Rich crept forward on hands and knees, then straightened enough to lean against the fridge and look through the small hole.

“Get a chair for Daniel, please, Stephen.”

The broad man in the King Gee dragged out the chair from under the desk and a young man, surely not older than 20, was sat heavily into it. He had shoulder-length dark hair and wild eyes, his cheeks wet with tears. He looked up in terror at someone Rich couldn’t see.

“Mr Carter, please!”

“Please what, Daniel?”

The man moved into view. He was probably somewhere in his late-forties, maybe fifty, heavyset, but not bulky, black hair slicked back like a 50s rocker. He wore jeans and a black shirt with mother-of-pearl press stud buttons and metal tips on the collar. His face was hard, icy blue eyes over a lantern jaw. He held an old, stained Akubra in one hand. He leaned down to stare hard at Daniel.

“Please what?” he asked again.

“Please don’t hurt me, Mr Carter, I done nothing wrong, I promise.”

“That so? Then why were you seen drinking with the Stinson brothers?”

Stephen pulled the young man’s arms back and used zip ties around his wrists, securing them behind the chair. Are they going to rough him up? Rich wondered. I shouldn’t watch. Go to bed. But he kept looking.

“Not drinking with them, Mr Carter. Same pub is all. I don’t usually go in the Vic, but Sal wanted a steak and says Clooney’s steaks are shithouse and insisted on the Vic and I thought it meant no harm so said yeah. We had dinner there and the Stinsons was in there, yeah, sure, they were, and I said hello, of course I did. Just courtesy. But I wasn’t with them, not drinking with them.”

“But you stayed after your steak, didn’t you? You and Sal.”

“Yeah, a little while, had a couple more beers, usual thing, you know same as Clooney’s only Sal insisted on the Vic this time.”

“You’re beginning to repeat yourself, mate.”

Daniel dragged in a ragged breath, staring up at Mr Carter, seemingly lost for words. Carter stared back. Stephen moved around the other side of Daniel’s chair and Rich saw his face. Eyes too wide apart, broken nose, flattened like a career boxer’s, dark stubble up almost under his eyes. He lifted the King Gee work shirt and unbuckled his belt. Daniel became suddenly aware of his presence and turned to look as the big man slid his belt from the loops on his waistband.

Carter grabbed Daniel’s chin, twisted his face back, his fingertips making white circles, he was gripping so hard. “Never mind Stephen, son.”

Rich grimaced, swallowing hard. What was Stephen going to do? Rich leaned back, started to turn away, but couldn’t tear his eyes from the scene. He slowly drifted close again as Carter said, “Those Stinson cunts have cost me dear, more than once. You know that.”

“I do, Mr Carter, of course–”

“Shut the fuck up. The thing is, I have reason not to trust you. I haven’t forgotten New Year’s before last. No, I said shut the fuck up, we’re not talking about that now, I’m simply illustrating a point. I wanted to trust you, Daniel, I really did. You seemed to be doing so well. Then you’re drinking with the fucking Stinsons in the Vic like you’re a wet-behind-the-ears fucking teenager. You should know better.”

“I wasn’t drinking with them, Mr. Carter, just in the same pub. I told Sal we shouldn’t but she kept on about the Clooney’s steaks being crap.”

“I suggest you stop bad-mouthing Clooney’s, Daniel.”

The steak was pretty good , Rich thought absently. Maybe this Sal wanted to get Daniel into trouble. He half-smiled. This was better than the British cosy mystery he’d watched earlier. Was that big fella, Stephen, going to whip Daniel with his belt?

Carter put his hat on the desk and pulled out a knife. Daniel stiffened. All good humour drained from Rich in an icy torrent. Stephen stepped behind the chair and his belt went over Daniel’s forehead. He pulled it taut above Daniel’s eyebrows and hauled back, the young man’s head pressed into Stephen’s large but incredibly solid-looking belly.

“I suggest you hold very still,” Carter said, leaning forward.

“No, no, no, please, Mr Carter!”

The knife had a 10cm or so blade, sharpened on one side, and a bright green plastic handle.

“I said hold still!”

Carter put his free hand to Daniel’s throat and squeezed. Daniel gasped and gagged, eyes bugging. Carter put the point of the knife to Daniel’s left eye, just below the brow, and drove it in. Bile shot up into Rich’s throat, sour, as he watched. Daniel screamed, high and shrill. Carter dug with the knife, his expression one of concentration as blood sluiced down Daniel’s cheek. He thrashed and writhed in the chair, heels drumming against the tiled floor, as Carter drew the knife around, the young man’s head the only still part of him, locked into place as it was, his arms secured to the back of the chair.