Four McLaren Drive (Part 2)
By Predulus
Tue, 04 Jun 2019
- 538 reads
4 comments
Smiles and hope
What are you doing?? he thought, as he grabbed his umbrella and got out of the car. He felt there were a number of odd things about the man and girl he’d taken to number “4” that evening, and he just wanted to make sure she was alright, he told himself.
His old Nikes were fully waterlogged by now. “Held together with smiles and hope”, Linda had said. They made a loud, high-pitched squelching noise as he walked up the muddy drive towards the parking area. So much for stealth, he thought. His collapsible umbrella did little to keep him dry, as the angled rain hit his legs and back.
Finally Max reached the bottom of the stone steps. He stood under the stone archway for a few moments. He took a deep breath .. Come on man, just get back in the car and go to the next job, he said to himself, and yet he couldn’t make himself turn around. Taking one last deep breath, he passed under the stone arch and walked up the steps.
Max just wanted to make sure that Valerie was alright, but he wanted to do that undetected, with no fuss. When he’d done that, he would quietly sneak back to his car and head off into the night. The old Nikes were making the “quietly” part difficult, so he walked extra slow, on tip-toes, trying to minimize the noise. The rain had stopped now, so at least there was that, he thought. He collapsed his umbrella and dropped it on the ground.
Max approached the house, keeping low as he crept. In the darkness, he could barely see the ground under his feet. There were two windows at the front of the house, lit with a dim dancing yellow light. He was sure now that the light was from an open fire. Stepping ever so slowly and carefully, he went over to the wall of the house, next to one of the windows. He slowly leaned over and peeked in the edge of the window, hoping to see Valerie. What he saw froze the blood in his veins.
It was a large room with a fireplace at the far end, and in the middle of the room, a group of people stood around a long dining table. The people wore black hooded-cloaks, with the hoods up, such that their faces could not be seen. The cloaks were hemmed with bright crimson. Some of the figures were very short - they must be children, Max thought. In the gaps between some of them, lying on the table, Max could make out the shape of a woman, lying face-up, naked on the table. What the fuck… Max whispered. He could hear a low rhythmic chanting sound coming from the cloaked figures. Standing at the head of the table, a tall figure stood with his hands raised. They were bony, but clearly a man’s hands, and Max knew that this was the man he had dropped off earlier in the evening, “Xavier”.
The man’s hands were level with his shoulders. He slowly raised them higher in the air, and as he did so, the chanting became louder. The man reached into one of the sleeves of his robe and drew out a dagger. Max’s mouth dropped open and he thought he felt his heart stop. He’s going to KILL her, he thought.
Without thinking, Max started banging on the window with his open palm. Immediately the chanting stopped and every hood in the room turned towards the window. The man with the dagger pointed at Max, shouting something to the group of cloaked figures. They sprang into action, and so did Max.
He sprinted away from the house, back into the darkness towards the steps. He could hear the front door open and people shouting, as they started chasing after him.
One of Max’s Nike’s was losing a sole, making it hard to run. He slipped on the muddy ground and fell. He cursed and sprang back up, ripping off his shoes. He made it to the steps and started running down them, trying his hardest not to slip again. The first of his pursuers had reached the top of the steps. Max jumped the last two steps in panic, landing hard on the ground and falling. He groaned in pain but sprang back up, just as the rain started again.
Max started running towards the road. His feet were landing on stones, but with the adrenalin surging through his system, he barely felt them. He made it back to the road, and started running down McLaren Drive towards his car. The dark figures were not far behind him. He reached his car and felt for his keys. Again his blood went cold, as the realisation hit him. His keys were not in his pockets. He fumbled, checking his pockets again, madly, while at the same time looking back at his pursuers. Shit, shit shit, he thought, before having a sudden brainwave.
“Spare keys!”, he said, dropping to the ground and reaching under the back of the car. The container wasn’t there. “Oh shi-”, he started cursing, just as something hit him hard in the back of the head. Then there was just blackness and silence.
If your Snark be a Boojum…..
Max wondered what that strange sound was, why this bed was so hard, why the light was dancing on the ceiling. And his arms - he couldn’t move them. His head was hurting. In a flash, it all came back to him. He realised he was inside the house now. He looked about, and saw the cloaked figures standing around him. They were chanting rhythmically like before. He was manacled to the table.
“What are you doing - let me go!!”, Max screamed at them.
A man stepped forward and stuffed a gag in his mouth, tying it around his head. “You do it,” the man said, pointing to the shorter figure at his side. A girl’s hands emerged from the long sleeves and reached for the dagger that was sitting on the table. Max knew who it was. He screamed at her to stop, but only muffled sounds came.
“Let him see your face.” the man said.
Valerie pushed back the hood of her robe and beamed, raising the dagger with both hands. The man was also raising his hands, and as he did so, the chanting got louder and faster. By the time his hands were right above his head, the chanting had become frenetic.
Valerie looked into Max’s terrified eyes and sang, smiling, “Enjoy your riiiiide!!”.
She swung the dagger down hard.
Outside in the darkness, a cat’s scream echoed loud in the distance.
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Comments
Horror isn't my cup of tea
Permalink Submitted by Insertponceyfre... on
Horror isn't my cup of tea but this story is a great debut! Well paced, you keep the suspension at just the right level and the little peripheral details - like the keys, the old trainers and the grumpy partner are all done beautifully. I hope you post more soon, but when you do, please think twice when you choose the age rating - this one definitely wasn't Pg. Welcome to ABCTales!
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Welcome to ABC Tales!
Welcome to ABC Tales!
I too liked the detail in this, and the way you connected the beginning and end of the story with the shoes and keys. The structure works well, with the chapter headings - particularly effective online, as it's often difficult to read long chunks of text on a screen. I thought that the snark and boojum reference, though apt, came a bit out of nowhere. Is there any way you could use other quotes from the poem as chapter headings, to give it a bit of continuity? Or refer to the poem earlier in the text?
I do agree with insert about the age rating - PG usually alerts parents that while the story is not generally unsuitable for children, certain kids might react badly to it, or there might be things that individual parents might not want their child to read. I would say that this is definitely an adult theme!
Looking forward to reading more of your work.
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