The Spinetinglers Anthology 2011 Read online

  Miss Butter Eyes smiled at this. A gap showed on her front two teeth. Christ it was cute. He quivered a little, hoping he didn’t let it show.

  “I can drop you back off home later if you want, save you getting drenched. I don’t mind at all.”

  “Hmmm, okay. But I do really want to meet Shane.”

  “Jump in then, before you get even wetter.”

  Miss Butter Eyes opened the door and tossed in her backpack as he flicked the switch for the window, it’s drone cancelling out the rush of the rain outside. Once she was safety inside the car the doors locked automatically.

  “You want to phone your Mum and Dad, tell them what’s happening? You can borrow my phone if you want.”

  “Mum and Dad’s dead. I live with foster parents now.”

  Lupo handed over his mobile to her.

  “All the same, ring them and let them know your safe.”

  She took the phone and said with a weak little smile, “thank you.”

  He watched the screen light up and she began to dial before putting the phone to her ear. No signal. She tried the number again.

  Lupo smiled patiently. He had switched the phone to flight mode before she got into the car, no incoming or outgoing calls without turning it off and back on again, then entering the four digit pass code.

  “No signal?” He queried innocently.

  “Looks that way.”

  “Probably the weather. Never mind, you can use the house phone when we get back. It’s only a ten-minute drive. There’s a bottle of Coke in the foot well that Shane bought earlier, you’re welcome to have a drink if you’re thirsty.”

  “Thank you,” the young girl reached around blindly into the dark of the foot well, her fingers found the bottle. She twisted off the cap and brought it to her lips, supping back the sugary fluid. Too easy.

  He pushed his eyes to the side, away from the dangers of the slick road to watch her neck move, gulp and pull the liquid down her delicate, pale throat.

  “So you got a name Miss Butter Eyes? Or do me and the missus just call you Butter?”

  The girl removed the bottle from her little lips with a smile, “Maisie Mae.”

  “Maisie Mae?” He repeated it a few more times in his head, somehow, from somewhere in the distant corners of his mind, a sing song nursery rhyme entered his head.

  “If you ever meet a girl named Maisie Mae…”

  He smiled again, for his own pleasure this time. Unconsciously tonguing an ulcer on the side of his mouth brought him a tingle of pain. He bit into it. Nibbled away at the wet, ulcerous flesh, bringing the taste of copper blood into his mouth. His thick fingers gripped the wheel in frustration as he turned onto a straight, leaving the lights of town behind. The safe lights.

  God he was ready for this.

  “We live just a little ways out of town. Not far now.”

  She smiled once dreamily then turned back to looking out the rain-splattered window. He kept on watching her, only for a moment, didn’t want to scare her too soon. Back home, everything was ready. It would be perfect, a most excellent night of succulent delights, he had already decided that he would take his time with this beauty, not rush it; savour it. It hadn’t taken long this one. The quickest by far. She seemed quite eager to meet Shane, the distraction had held.

  “Just round this next corner,” he assured her.

  She offered a tired grunt, barely moving her head from off the cool plane of the window. The Coke ploy had worked. It had really knocked her out quick. He hadn’t long.

  He upped his speed and arrived home faster than he thought possible. The empty farmhouse greeted him with a single lighted eye from the bedroom; kept on, along with the radio at half blast, to deter any would be intruders.

  A nervous sense of anticipation over took him as he rushed round to her door and helped her to her feet and out of the car.

  “Looks like Shane is up in his room, you go straight up if you want.”

  Through glazed eyes she tried to focus, she wanted to reply but the drug had its grip on her. Good. Not a struggler this time. At first he preferred them to lay back and be quiet while he got on with the job, they could scream all they wanted later. He checked over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t followed as he led her towards the house.

  With his giant hands, Lupo fumbled the key in the lock, tried it twice. Wouldn’t turn. Cursed then turned it the other way, kicking it open and pushing her inside. Nervous excitement was getting the better of him.

  “SHANE! SHANE, SHE’S HERE!” He shouted theatrically up the stairs.

  Miss Butter Eyes smiled, a spider silk thin line of dribble hung from her young pink mouth that sent him wild inside with expectant animal lust. The hungry and baying beast inside him salaciously suggested that he lean in and lick it off her burning hot teen lips, taste her essence, while a throb swelling up in his pants told him to adjust himself

  Now he had her in artificial light he could see she wasn’t older than thirteen, fourteen at a push. Electric pink streaks through her jaunty, punk rocker black hair cut confirmed her childishness, she had on one of them studded black leather belts with a skull and crossbones buckle, that would look good as a leash, pulled tight around her slender neck while he…

  Enough, he thought cutting off his fantasy mid flow, he had to get her downstairs first, where it was safe.

  “You okay?” He asked, her eyes didn’t catch on to his, and instead she stared vaguely at the floorboards at her feet.

  “Tired,” she whispered, almost a guilty confession.

  “You should lay down. I have somewhere for you to sit, rest your tired feet I’ll help you then I’ll go get Shane.”

  “Sounds good to us but…” she swayed on her feet, lurching towards the wall, sensing that she was about to cause herself harm, Lupo thrust forward in a parry, catching her under the arms.

  “WOAH! You nearly hurt yourself there Missy Butter Eyes. C’mon I’ll show you something cool in the basement.”

  Without any effort or unnecessary noise, Lupo lifted her over his shoulder and carried her towards the doorway under the stairs. With a tug of a grimy, yellowed and well-used piece of string, the worn smooth wooden stairs became duly illuminated. Lupo took the first two steps, carefully turned as to not bang Maisie Mae’s head on the bare brick wall, and locked the door, leaving the key in the lock. He turned and started his descent only to feel the girl stretch, slightly slowing his descent. He turned back to see her fingers weakly grasping the door handle to the outside world.

  “Phone…” she managed to say, an effort that seemed to sap at her energies.

  “The phones downstairs,” he assured her with a wicked laugh that echoed into nothing; He jolted forward, pulling her free from her last handhold.

  The basement he kept clean. No spider webs, no dust and certainly no DNA, he wiped everything down after each ‘trip’ including the dentist chair.

  Years ago he spied it at an auction and simply had to have it.

  Lot 27, he remembered with fondness.

  It held a power, the steel framework, the patches of torn leather; it commanded something, not an evil, not a respect, no not demanding in any way. A pull, yes a pull. It wanted to be used. It had a purpose. And the second Lupo decided that he would place the highest bid for that worn out dentist chair, he knew what its purpose would be.

  He got it cheaper than he would have paid for it, dragged it home like a prize kill and cleaned it down with bleach to remove the remnants of its previous purpose, covering the torn parts with shiny black duct tape and installing it lovingly in the centre of his basement, surrounded by five hi-definition digital video cameras attached to the exposed ceiling joists.

  Aside from the dentist chair covered in a fresh, thin clear sheet of polythene, was a large wooden wardrobe for his ‘things’ and a desk with a glowing laptop awaiting his command. This was all he needed to document the evening’s proceedings.

  In the corner beneath the wooden basement steps
sat an antique Belfast sink for cleaning himself up afterwards before he headed back upstairs.

  He removed her backpack and slung in the corner, then Lupo gently lay Maisie Mae in the dentist chair and pulled off her pink hooded top over the top of her head like flayed skin. The t-shirt clung tight to her lithe teenage body, a slight promise of tiny breasts hid beneath the Fall Out Boy logo, something stirred happily at the promise of her soft pink peaks. He like them small, not flat, not an ironing board. Just a hint of womanhood was all he needed to get his kicks. He ran a hand over the fabric above, pausing deliberately and teasing himself. He smiled and moved on to her face, stroking away the pink and black strands of hair that had become glued by a nervous sweat to her forehead. One eye was closed; the other struggled in a losing battle to stay open.

  Give in, he willed.

  “It’ll be easier on you in the long run. If your nice to me, I mean really, really nice, I might give you another shot in an hour or two so you don’t wake up halfway through like that last silly bitch. Ruined my flow. Mmmm, maybe I will, Maybe I won’t. We’ll see how rambunctious you get eh?”

  “Phone…” Maisie repeated the last thing she said.

  “No phone home Eee Tee,”

  Lupo loved to tease. He’d been like this at school when he’d tear through girls’ bags, eviscerating the contents, spilling their secrets on the corridor floor. One time he found a pack of sanitary towels amongst the spillage, so held the girl down and stuck them all over her face. His friends laughed, egging him on. He took it further, reaching under her dress and pulling out the one she wearing. She screamed and he felt half disgusted, half turned on by the sight of that smear of thick maroon blood. The girl screamed louder, managing to wiggle free she launched a kick to his crotch; fuming, Lupo mashed the tainted towel into her face, polluting her shy look with her own mess. He threatened worse if she told anyone, she cried and ran home, a week later dying of embarrassment, by downing three bottles of aspirin and one of daddy’s bottles of Jack Daniels.

  Bending down he picked up his latest roll of duct tape and pulled out a piece the full length of his arm span, wrapping it tight around the wrist above her clenched fist. Fixing her solid to the dentist chair, so she became an extension of its being. He repeated this for the other wrist, although this fist seemed a lot more relaxed. He put it down the drugs reacting with different sides of the brain. He left her legs free as he needed to get in there later.

  Lupo headed over to the computer and started his program. Each of the five cameras flickered to life. All his own design; God, he was some sort of a genius. The cameras were now rolling, one in front, one behind, one left, one right and one directly above Maisie Mae’s face to capture every last moment of detail.

  Each of the five angles had now opened up in different windows on his laptop in nipple sharp high definition. Every second recorded straight onto his hard drive forever and ever with the other hours of footage he had collected over the years. He and the others traded films over the net. Sometimes watching somebody else do it was just as exciting. Some even paid for the privilege. Paid well indeed.

  In the face on angle, Maisie Mae opened her eyes fully and stared straight at him through the screen.

  Lupo whipped his head round almost straining his neck in the process. Her head lolled lazily to one side, she had dribbled again. He turned back to the screen to where it still proved true.

  Maybe his eyes had played tricks.

  With the program compiling the images megabyte by megabyte and the cameras witness to everything, Lupo wandered back into shot. He stroked Maisie Mae’s forehead again, wiping the sweat onto his fingers, he brought the moisture to his lips and licked the absorption off of his guilty fingerprints.

  She tasted different from the rest, and not good different. It wasn’t salty in anyway. Not the sweet pungency of youth that he would happily drink up all day from every crevice and orifice. Not poison. Not even distasteful, just wrong.

  He spat what was in his mouth onto the floor.

  This taste unsettled him.

  So much so he headed over to the sturdy Belfast sink and washed his hands and dried them softly on the towel. Then he squirted washing up liquid on them and cleansed himself once again. He filled his mouth with cold water and swilled out his bitter mouth, repeatedly spitting to flush out the taste that had settled on his numbing tongue. Then he swallowed a bit to wet his whistle. The taste of diseased and stagnant water still remained in his throat somehow.

  He went back over to Maisie, this time taking the towel with him, dabbing away the offensive seepages from her brow.

  Time to get on with it.

  He kissed her; the bad taste had gone now, it made him happier to forget the image that had materialized in his head.

  “You may notice that I haven’t taped your mouth shut. The reason for this is I really don’t mind you screaming. The walls and ceilings are acoustically insulated and the nearest neighbours are half a mile away. I’m not expecting visitors any time soon, so please, scream all you want. In fact, I encourage it.”

  She murmured.

  “Now, I’m going to get a beer, then we’ll get started, okay?”

  She groaned this time.

  Lupo lumbered back up the stairs to the doorway and reached in the dimness for the key in the lock. His fat searching fingers felt smooth brass and no protrusion, just an empty key-shaped hole. The key had gone, must have fallen out when he closed the door, keys do that sometimes.

  He tried the door anyway.

  Locked, as he expected, but not hoped.

  Lupo span on the spot and headed back down the steps to the basement.

  Miss Butter Eyes was wide awake.

  She stared straight at him.

  The second thing he noticed was her free hand raised in front of her face, a sticky bangle of torn tape stuck to her wrist and a shiny brass key in her fingers. Maisie Mae smiled, and then dropped the key into her mouth and down her once delicate throat.

  Lupo surged forward like a late train, his thick arms poised to grab her. With a single swipe she knocked him down to the concrete floor, scraping his arms and elbows across the harsh surface as he skidded.

  Impossible.

  The second band of tape ripped just as easily as the little girl raised her arm with no effort at all. On his back, Lupo scurried towards the wardrobe, he had tools in there.

  Maisie lifted her top and tossed it to the floor, revealing a tight pink bra.

  “I’m not expecting any visitors, so please, scream all you want,” he heard himself say, but his lips hadn’t moved. Maisie’s had, she had imitated his voice far too perfectly.

  “In fact, I encourage it.”

  Lupo let out a terrified little shriek as she advanced in a slow and deliberate strut. With probing fingers he reached inside the bottom drawer of the wardrobe and yanked out the battery powered angle grinder. The sight of this did nothing to deter her, though it brought a measure of comfort to Lupo as he started it up, the blade whirled deafeningly to life.

  “I’ll… I’ll cut you…” he promised with a trembling shout.

  Maisie Mae smiled; the once innocent baby blue had flushed from her eyes, now replaced with a complete yellow ball, no pupil, just pus yellow. Rotten butter yellow.

  Miss Butter Eyes.

  Now he got that one.

  Her smile had changed too, her mouth had somehow got bigger to accommodate her arsenal of perfect and pointed teeth.

  Like frightened prey, he struck out with the grinder, Maisie snatched it by the blade, mangling her fingers then tossing it behind her where it skittered around noisily on the floor before losing power and turning itself off.

  From the wound where her hand used to be, a new one emerged, fingers thicker than his arm impossibly sprouted forth, clean talons like forged Samurai blades.

  Inside her, Lupo could hear bones cracking, stretching and reforming. Her face and jaw seemed to bubble beneath the skin, all trace of youthful beauty di
ssipated.

  Lupo had definitely lost his Mojo now. If anything, it shriveled inwards to his gut. The sight becoming too much for him, Lupo pushed himself to his feet and ran. The thing that was once a little girl didn’t even reach for him, not even an eyelid batted. When he rushed up the stairs and battered on the door, he knew why.

  No escape.

  He had reinforced this door himself. It could be burning on one side for six hours and it would still hold strong. The only things that would get through the heavy barrier would be a few sticks of dynamite or a chainsaw.

  He remembered the grinder at the bottom of the stairs, he started to descend in order to retrieve his only means of escape when the Maisie Mae thing rounded the corner to block his passage.

  Her shoulders had broadened in the brief time they were apart, popping off her pink bra with the ongoing strain of new muscle. Her mouth had doubled yet again and every tooth glinted yellow and splinter sharp. Her head seemed too big for her body, the black and pink hair now sporadic across the back of her big head. Her jeans and shoes had ripped away, revealing tree trunk like legs covered in coarse black hair.

  She advanced, lurking up the stairs towards the useless drum of his heartbeat.

  Lupo cried and fell back against the door; his pitiful legs kicking out like a petulant child. The Maisie Mae thing grabbed at his legs with her thick fingers, pushing them together (he had no choice for her strength was incomparable) and started greedily feeding his feet into her gaping maw. Lupo tried in vain to free himself, screaming louder and louder, hoping by some chance that the neighbours would somehow hear him and save him from this monster.

  With a unsatisfying crunch, Lupo watched as the ungodly thing that was once Maisie Mae bit off both his feet.

  This time, Lupo shrieked so loud he tore something in his throat. Something warm and slid down into his gullet. He screamed no more.

  His feet dropped off and disappeared down into her oesophagus. He could manage to utter nothing but a slurping and breathy gasp. He raised a fist, or at least in his mind he did.

  The thick dark tongue flicked suggestively over the stumps as she swallowed, drinking him in.