Page 15 of Pure Killers

My gun fits into my other hand. I take the steps slowly, imagining that my very breathing is making an echo, then imagining that what I’m hearing is someone else’s breathing. Along the outer wall of the stairwell, large windows let in some faint light. The rain has started to ease.

At the top, a grated walkway stretches ahead, separated from the floor below by a metal rail on the outer side. On the right, it branches off into offices. Those giant pipes continue to trace the other side of the walkway, and the roof is low enough that I could almost reach up and brush my fingers along the roughened surface. Old, dusty skylights magnify what little light is coming from the sky, lending eerie shadows to the place. The grate creeks loudly under my steps, making me still and hold my breath.

I’ve flicked my flashlight off before I even process that I’ve heard a noise. Waiting in stillness with only the reverberations of my heartbeat for company, waiting as my eyes adjust, is torturous. All I can do is picture what could be coming at me in the dark. The minute stretches out. Then, just as I was thinking, I imagined the noise too… I hear it again.

At first, I think it is an animal. But animals don't like Crennick Row any more than humans do. And then, when it comes again, a cut-short, muffled sound, it’s distinctly human. My heart rate picks up, jolting strong and fast in my chest. Slowly, I take another step.

If I thought I was sober before, I'm proved wrong by the abrupt clarity that comes to me now. I shouldn’t be here. Dirk is going to kill me. I’m already on thin ice as his partner. I can feel it sometimes in the way he looks at me when we’re talking about our case, about Needler. He wonders if it’s worth it, too, if Tregam isn’t better off without our efforts.

I should turn and run back out to my car. But my feet keep taking me forward. I see light ahead, off to the right, where the floor turns solid and widens out in front of double doors. At the corner, I see light around the edges of those metal doors, orange, like firelight.

The noise is more distinct now. A voice, high and broken, but indistinct, as though through cloth. It comes again, louder, almost a squeak. Then a gargle. Then there's another, this one clearer, too soft for me to make out from where I stand pressed to the corner, peeking around to my right at those doors.

Something scratches the cement floor to my left, almost at my elbow. I've spun back around, torch beam on and gun lifted in reflex.

A rat is caught and momentarily stunned in the beam of my light.

I sigh. Of course, rats will live anywhere. My imagination is getting carried away. The rat squeaks and then darts into the darkness through a slightly ajar door. As I step closer, away from the corner facing the double doors, I see it’s some kind of abandoned rec room. Something on an old fold-out table catches my eye, and I step in, my boot crunching on broken glass. A different rat disappears into a cupboard with the door hanging off.

Still unable to make out what’s on the table, I step closer, squinting. There's a bundle of grey cloth. And a picture frame, a pile of photographs. I'm reaching for them, registering the vague image of bare bodies in those pictures when I see the spikes. They're about the length of my forearm, and of a clean, shiny silver that stands out, reflecting light among the rust and dirt of this place. The spikes are narrow, never wider than my finger, the tips so sharp they could only be used without breaking by someone who's practised with…

Needles.

The scream makes me jump and take an unsteady step back, glass and something else snapping loudly under my heel. The sound takes longer to trail off this time. I spin for the door, hands shaking as I raise my torch and gun.

The Needler. He's here. And he's got someone right now, in that other room behind the closed doors. I turn back, snatching up the top photograph, shining my torch directly on it. The picture is of a death mask, plastered over the face of a dead teenage girl. The Masker, the killer we thought Needler would choose. I drop the photo. Breath coming fast, I lift my gun and step towards the hall.

I need to calm down. To listen.

I hear that muffled scream again, and nothing to cut it off.

There's no other voice, no Needler, not anymore. Which leaves the question… If he's not with his victim… where is he? My radio is in the car. I know I need to get to it, to call Dirk or anyone. I know I should never have come here alone in the first place. But by the time I get out, and back over the wall, Needler could be gone, and Masker could be dead.

I'm hyper-aware of every breath I take as I step out of the room and round the corner to face the short hall again. The screaming has dulled to whimpering. Slowly, I approach. The hair on the back of my neck prickles. He could be watching me, waiting, approaching in the dark. The urge to swing around, shining the beam of my torch into every shadow, is almost too strong to resist. But no, once you start doing that, reacting with panic, it only compounds. Then you lose what little defence you might have had.

Keeping my eyes and my aim on the doors, I move up to them, forcing slow caution in each step.

They don't sit perfectly flush, and through the gap, I can see light. Other shapes hide in the flickering orange glow, and I bring the gun down by my side, bringing my eye against the gap.

There, right in direct sight from the door, in the middle of a large room lined with defunct electric boxes and operating consoles on the walls, is the victim. He's naked, tied to a metal table. His face is streaked with white plaster that has smeared down his neck and chest. A brown cloth gags him. But he's alive enough to be writhing and making those muffled screaming noises.

Other small tables, chairs and anything else that offers a surface are arranged around him. On them are pictures. Victims of the Masker, their death masks white and painted in garish makeup. Which makes the man on the table, Masker, our mild Cocooner copycat.

I'm momentarily stunned, mesmerised by the ritualistic scene. I don't know what to do. If I save the Masker and try to bring him in, what’s stopping him from attacking me and escaping? Or the Needler from attacking both of us?

The Needler. My eye against the gap darts around, checking the sides of the room. But there's no one else in there.

The hair on the side of my neck tickles softly.

“Does this…”The darkness on the very edge of my peripherals takes shape. My breath freezes in my throat, my body at once glued to the spot and fighting the sharp primitive urge to run as fast as I can. If I run, he'll chase me.

“…seem like a nice place to be?” The words are spoken close by my ear, deep and tinny like they're coming through a helmet.

The indecision breaks. I pull sharply back from the door and swing around. My wrist jars as a strike sends the gun sliding across the floor. Behind me now, I’m distantly aware of the man on the table screaming through his gag, having heard the commotion and possible rescue. I still have the torch. My instincts tell me I’m going to end up like him, trussed to a table.

“Uh-uh,” the deep whir of the voice warns. I see him then, a line of yellow light glinting off the metal mask. His chin and jaware clean-shaven, and black is smeared over his lips and chin like poorly applied lipstick, obscuring the shape of his mouth. His eyes are white glints within the mask and the black smudges around them too. Between the yellow light and the shadows, his eyes could be brown, green, or hazel.

It's not the warning lilt to his voice that stills me, but the slight prick below my breast. I look down at the narrow metal spike pressing to my shirt inside my jacket, the sharp tip catching on the fabric. He's standing close, towering over me and holding the angle of the spike low, directed to drive straight up into my heart. Staying still, I look back up. On his throat, a strap holds a small round disc to the side of his Adam’s apple- the source of his voice alteration. Otherwise, he wears dark clothes, long sleeves, pants, and boots. He’s big and lean. I can see how he overpowers them.

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