The Monster Man of Horror House by Danny King Page A

out past farmlands
until the girl started to shift uncomfortably in her seat and asked me where we
were going.
    “Away
from here,” I simply replied. “As far away from here as we can get.” I was
admittedly a little sketchy on the details, but then this was because I was
simply too swamped with raw emotions, although I should’ve perhaps tried to
phrase my intentions a little better as my passenger’s alarm bells were now clattering
ten to the dozen. I guess getting picked up by some poetic fruit loop is a
scenario working girls live with every day and some even prepare for it,
because all at once there was a straight razor at my throat and a threat of
violence in my ear.
    “You
stop this car this instant, Jack, or I’ll cut you a new grin,” she suggested, although
she hadn’t entirely thought through the strategy.
    “If
you cut me,” I told her, “I’ll as likely crash this car and there are deep
drainage channels on both sides of the road.” The girl took a moment to check
and saw the moon flickering off the icy surface of the parallel waterways. Now
the weather was still freezing, the ice might’ve supported the weight of a
person, but it wasn’t about to support the weight of a careening Morris Oxford.
“We won’t be found until the next time they’re dredged, whenever that may be,”
I added, which was perfectly true. These channels had claimed dozens of lives
over the last forty years or so and some of the dead took years to emerge from
the silty black waters.
    “Stop
this car!” she screamed, the straight blade now trembling in her hands.
    “I’m
sorry, I can’t,” I said. “I have to get you away from here. It’s for your own
good.”
    “You
fucking psycho bastard!” she cried. “I mean it, I’ll carve you up!”
    I
turned to her, my eyes no longer on the road. “I wish you would. You’d be doing
me a favour.”
    Seeing
she’d blown herself out, I decided not to elaborate on the evening’s itinerary any
further and risk provoking a last ditch reaction, instead I gambled on the
uncertainty of silence. We drove on like this for several more miles, me
holding her life in the balance, her holding mine, until a short way ahead the
road turned at a sharp right angle, over a stone bridge and away from the
ice-covered conduits. The girl saw this and she saw that I saw it too. She
must’ve taken it for a “now or never” moment because the blade quickly jammed itself
back into my gizzard before the road found the channels again, but I didn’t yield.
Instead I drove on, into the night and towards the place I’d picked out to dump
her.
    “I’m
going to count to three…” she warned me, the edge of her Sweeney comb already drawing
droplets I could ill afford to spill. “One…”
    “It
won’t save you,” I told her.
    “Two…”
she continued.
    “Do
it, and you’ll be dead within days,” I promised.
    “Three!”
she declared, but before she could swipe me a new fag hole, I turned off the
road and pulled up at our final destination – Fenwold Country Railway Station.
    The
girl tried to slash me as I stopped but I grabbed her wrist and held on for life,
limb and the upholstery.
    “I’m
not going to hurt you,” I finally got around to telling her. “You’re safe here with
me. Open the glove box and see for yourself.” I even demonstrated my sincerity
by letting go of her wrists, affording her a free swipe across my kisser if she
so desired, but the flicker of hope I was offering was too tantalising to
dismiss. “Open it,” I urged. She hesitated for a few moments before reaching
for the latch and pulling open the glove box. Inside was an envelope full
pounds, shillings and pence and a clean white handkerchief.
    “They’re
for you,” I told her, and she fingered the envelope without taking her eyes
from mine to find there was close to a hundred pounds inside.
    “What
is all of this?” she demanded, shoving the blade back into my face. “What do
you want from