SEVENTH OF MANY: By Lee Hughes
Monday, June 21st, 2010RESURRECTION CONTESTANT
He worked by lamplight.
Charles was good at jigsaws which was most opportune as the skull was in scores of pieces. It was delicate work requiring nimble fingers. He worked the pieces of cranium over and around the brain that he’d reshaped, having softened it with chemicals to return it back into a state where it would be comfortable within its brainpan. The limbs were already in place. The bones were fused, the flesh knotted, and the seams of skin finely woven with catgut.
The face was a pain to rebuild, most of the body’s original peel had become spoiled beyond repair, and Charles had needed to get by with whatever he could muster. It was now a hodgepodge of human dermis and pig-skin. The task needed to be completed before dawn appeared and pilfered his mantel of privacy.
Charles hoisted his craft-work up into the rear of the pushcart. He shared the country road with no one; it was rarely used, particularly at night. The gates protested as he shouldered them open. Most town-folk would be too superstitious to plod through the beat-less heart of the graveyard in the sable hours, and that was if they had reason to merit such a trip. Charles wasn’t superstitious and he had a great need for the errand. He had another hour, two at the most before the early light would give away his entertainment.
*
The work was made short by the grave being vacant from its midnight raid. He restored the ravaged and re-worked mess back into its casket. He plagued it with all the necessary components dictated by the repulsive recipe and forwent the nailing of the cover, for such an act would remove the sport to come. With the final shovel of earth in place and a little dance to level down the loam he was finished. Daybreak had arrived, yet it was frail and scarcely illuminated the muck on his cheeks and the sweat on his brow. Charles strode away from the grave, he gave one final look over his shoulder and smiled, tonight, he couldn’t wait for tonight.
The day grew long and the shadows deepened as though bowing to the coming of their mistress, the night. By lamplight he kept his vigil on the time. He would head off a little after eleven; decent folk would be long abed by that hour. It would give him ample time to be in place ready for another midnight hour.
Charles worked with the shovel to remove some of the dirt and then found a place to sit, watch, and wait.
The loose soil began to undulate. Waves of it rippled as what lay beneath its depths reached to swim free. Charles smiled and watched as a deformed hand broke the surface. Its brethren joined it. In earnest the hands displaced the soil allowing the ruined head to broach the air. It screamed, whilst Charles smiled.
The face twisted in anguish, its maw opened, its lips looking like nothing more than trampled grass. It cried out in a guttural groan for mercy as it finished excavating its own freedom. It attempted words, the outcome retarded by damage. “Pleush, pleush!”
Charles smiled as he shook his head.
The thing groaned again. “Hoer mamy timsh?”
Charles liked the weight of the axe in his hand and made towards the abomination. Charles thought of his garden. It was his wife’s pride and joy. He could see her there spying out the weeds whilst cheering on the blooms, and Little Alexis with the ribbon in her hair picking flowers whilst singing a made up song. His mind re-focused, it fastened to the garden gone to ruin, no flowers to pick, the flowers were dead, and his flowers were dead too.
It was the garden where he had found the scene of the slaughter on his return from his tailors shop in the town. His wife’s dress tattered, her face thrashed and her body very much dead. His daughter lying amongst the flowers with the blood from her small throat busily turning magnolias into roses. Charles heard movement inside the cottage. His fury swelled as he bore down upon the door.
Bold as brass and with blood stained hands Robert Sheldon the local drunk and known thief was rooting through drawers. Charles managed a feral noise and ran at Sheldon. Robert Sheldon, a big man in his own right turned and actually smiled at the small tailor charging towards him. Sense bled back into Charles’ raging mind before it was too late and he reached out and grabbed the bread knife from the table without breaking his stride. The grin on Sheldon’s lips slipped for a moment and then returned as a sneer.
Charles dove forward. Sheldon reached out and grabbed the knife arm. They went to the ground. Sheldon’s strength immediately showed. Charles knew the knife wouldn’t be his for long. He delved with his free hand into his waistcoat pocket where he always kept the small tin case. With fumbling fingers he worked the tiny clasp and felt the contents become loose. Charles felt his ownership of the knife was nearly over. He grabbed the freed objects, wincing all the while and then thrust his hand and its contents up into Sheldon’s face. He’d wanted to connect with an eye and that’s what he managed. He pulled his hand back. There were half a dozen pins stabbed into the flesh of his palm.
The pain didn’t matter. The satisfactory howl from Sheldon urged him on, revitalizing his strength. For where Charles only had a few pins piercing his flesh Sheldon had over a dozen trespassing in and around the white of his eye. Charles freed his wrist from Sheldon’s grip and rolled over. Sheldon spilled from him and raised both hands to his pin-cushioned eye. Charles stood and took a few steadying breaths. Sheldon stared at him with one hand hiding the ruined eye, the other wide open and wild. “Go on, do it, but remember, you can only kill me once and I killed two of yours.” The drunk actually giggled. Charles sent the knife out and buried it as deep as it would go into the bastard’s chest.
He’d buried his wife and daughter in the graveyard. Sheldon was interred there also, but over on the far side, where the poor folk lay in eternal slumber. Charles’ grief at his loss remained hidden for days beneath a blanket of anger. It was Sheldon’s parting words of Charles only being able to kill him the once. Charles couldn’t accept that, he wanted to kill him over and over again.
*
The monstrosity pitifully shied away as Charles raised the axe. It repeated itself. “Hoer mamy timsh?”
Charles brought the axe down and grunted, “This is the seventh of many.”
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©2010 Lee Hughes
Lee’s fiction has appeared in, or is due to appear in the following print anthos, Cern Zoo: Nemonymous 9, Howl, Don’t Tread on Me, 365 Days of Flash, No One Can Hear you Scream. Also on eZines such as Thrillers, Killers ‘n’ Chillers, Microhorror, The New Flesh Magazine, Daily Tourniquet, FlashShot, Twist of Noir, Powder Burn Flash etc. You can find out more at www.LeeHughes.net or www.LeeHughesWrites.Blogspot.com.
