The Knowing: A thrilling horror fantasy Read online

  “Suit yourself,” the driver said. “’ow was Tussauds?”

  Steve shook his head.

  “And ’arrods? You must have gone to ’arrods. They used to sell elephants, you know. Don’t know ’ow they got them in the lift. Then that foreign geezer went and ruined it.”

  Dale was ready to flip his lid all over again, but the cab’s radio intervened in the nick of time. It was a news bulletin that declaimed in a serious voice: “We interrupt this programme ... attempt on the Prime Minister’s life earlier today ... Londoners are warned not to drink bottled water.”

  Fortunately, the cab driver was able to execute an emergency stop without incurring any casualties.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The dark-clothed figure returned to the table and tentatively touched the outside of the cauldron. As usual, it was a few degrees warmer than the room itself, which meant it was ready for action.

  Although cauldrons weren’t remotely alive, they absorbed energy from their surroundings. And being matt black, they were near-perfect black bodies. In a warm environment, the furnace black surface could become too hot to touch. In fact, cauldrons had been known to hop of their own accord as a result of the metal expanding. Any imperfections in the construction could also cause a cauldron to make a screeching noise similar to nails scraping on a blackboard. There’d been productions of Macbeth where a cauldron left under bright lights had upstaged the actors with its antics.

  The other hazard with employing a real cauldron in the play was due to issues with Shakespeare’s text. It was reputed that Christopher Marlowe had left the witches’ chant on his desk so that the self-styled ‘Bard of Avon’ would gleefully espy it, hide it in his doublet and hose and then appropriate it as his work. Although Will couldn’t have known it at the time, the line ‘Double, double toil and trouble’ initiated the summoning of a befuddling hex. The naughty Christopher’s intention had been to terminally confuse his thespian rival so that he’d be rendered incapable of scribing any more plays.

  What Mr Marlowe couldn’t have anticipated was the subsequent popularity of the work, which meant that countless audiences had been subjected to the heinous crime of attempted witchery. All that came to a head when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attended a performance in Drury Lane, London. Neither of the Royals were amused by what they witnessed and the Prince Consort died shortly thereafter. The Times reported the cause of death as “the direst affliction of typhoid fever”. The Queen considered that “a nonsense and a whitewash” and stuck to her view that witchery wasn’t to be trusted and represented a threat to her commonwealth. She was right, of course; a misdirected befuddling hex could cause horrendous stomach cramps and would never have been picked up at any 19th century post mortem.

  As Prince Albert discovered rather too late for his good health, an actress unaware of her witchery abilities and an authentic cauldron made a lethal combination. If the opening line was misquoted as well – substituting ‘hubble’ for the first ‘double’ – all hell could break loose. The British Shakespeare Society rightly preferred that ceiling plaster and chandeliers didn’t fall onto unsuspecting audiences, so their advice was to stick with replica cauldrons and screen out actresses with long noses, pointed chins or disfiguring excrescences.

  Dress was another issue. While a trio of hags helped the verisimilitude of the witches’ scene, productive incantations were due to the innate skill of the witch. Pointed hats and musty rags for dresses only leadened the lily. The other consideration was the number of witches. No one could understand why Christopher Marlowe had decided on a trio, but that had stuck in the public consciousness like a boil that refused to burst. In fact, in the case of the divination hex, anything more than a single witch was overkill. The fact that a certain Ceri Edwards from Pontypridd, South Wales, had attempted the divination hex had spread like wildfire through the community. The cheek of it! Still, she’d get her comeuppance soon enough.

  But back to the present. The cauldron on the table still hadn’t moved a millimetre or screeched the slightest squawk. In fact, apart from a few dry runs it had lain pretty much dormant since 1872. That explained the shards of glass on the floor and the pockmarked tabletop. Simulating multiple energy streams was never straightforward. It had only been a tiny orb, but the slight wobble in the alignment had sent it careering around the room like a mad thing. But there was one picture that had remained unscathed and his gaze seemed more intense than ever. “Soon,” the figure said to the room. The sound of someone screeching at the top of her voice brought her back to the here and now.

  “Coming, Mother.” Christ, the cow could be such a witch! She giggled at the thought of it and said three Hail Marys.

  “Lieutenant, are you telling me you’ve got nowhere with the case?” Chief Scanlon said, his feet up on the desk. The odour of dog excrement emanated from his right sole. Dale couldn’t identify the breed, but it enjoyed a rich diet. He’d brought in a mixed selection of oxynuts, but air freshener would have been more apt. In any event, the box remained unopened. The chief seemed to have embarked on a ‘get healthy, get dirty, get hard’ campaign and Dale wasn’t in the mood to reciprocate. His nuts might have been niggling, but he wasn’t getting a message about the case in question, or, in fact, any fucking case. Impotent would be another way of putting it: The Mighty Thor without his goddamn hammer.

  The good Greek doctor had been dead right about EM radiation being different back home. Perhaps he should pay a visit to a friendly nuclear facility for a quick top-up of the waves that kept his ‘knowing’ in business. On second thought, that’d definitely agitate his nuts. He’d also been niggled by Steve’s insistence on paying Joseph junior in Two Rivers another visit. Steve’s excuse was that the kid wanted to show him something, but Dale suspected an ulterior motive. Relationships sucked – or cops were habitually paranoid. Both, probably.

  “Sorry,” Dale said, wishing to hell he could tear his acutely aware senses away from the chief’s feet. “I guess it’s just one of those things: sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. A bit like your urological problem, in fact.” Dale honestly had no idea where that insight came from. It had just said ‘howdy’ to his frontal lobes without so much as a by-your-leave. Somehow Ma Bell had been bypassed and he’d received the information pre-filtered. Was that the knowing finally waking up? he wondered. One thing was certain, though. ‘Hard’ was missing from the chief’s campaign and Dale could see that hurt.

  “What?” Chief Scanlon spluttered. “I mean, who the fuck told you?”

  Dale guessed he thought his wife had been telling tales. If he said she hadn’t, the chief would probably head downtown to shoot his specialist. If he said she had, although she hadn’t, their marriage would be over and the entire precinct would pay for it. So, he decided to let the chief stew. “Dunno,” he said. “It just came to me.”

  Chief Scanlon put his feet where they ought to be. He paced round his office for a circuit or two. His shoes squeaked. Dale felt sorry for the carpet. The neighbourhood roaches were probably already packing their rucksacks for an overnight stay, meal included. The chief eventually settled his butt on the edge of the desk. A view of his expansive belly was almost an improvement on his feet. The chief sighed and put his hands out, palms up, ready to equivocate.

  “Okay, you got me, Lieutenant.” The chief looked defeated. “The fact is our sex life has been on the rocks for years.” He ran both hands through what remained of his hair. “Jeez, I know I’m big, but you oughta see the size of her!”

  Dale could well imagine Donna Scanlon’s ample proportions. “I’m sorry to hear that, Chief,” he said, doing his best to look sincere. Unfortunately, the chief’s wife’s body had morphed into a blubbery beached whale in his imagination, and he’d had to stifle a giggle – which Chief Scanlon had just noticed.

  “Anyhow, that’s my problem.” He crossed his arms and looked Dale straight in the eye. “Look, Lieutenant, I’m just not getting the minor affliction that you’ve brought
back to our fine city. Couldn’t you have chosen a stick of Blackpool rock, for Chrissakes?”

  Dale disagreed on both counts: it was an ability rather than an affliction – albeit unreliable and frequently irrelevant, even when it was working – and he’d never thought of Kansas City as being particularly ‘fine’. Give him the beautiful, rolling Northern Plains and he’d agree with that description. But KC was way too functional in the worst possible way. And the chief’s geographical knowledge had to be even worse than his if he thought Blackpool was anywhere near London.

  “You’re right, Chief. You’ve hit the nail on the head. You’d better finish what they started in the UK. You can put the cuffs on and take me to the cells. I’m a danger to everyone.”

  “Don’t be a smartass with me, Lieutenant,” the chief said, the veins on his forehead standing out like worms. “I’m trying to understand, for Chrissakes!” He cracked his knuckles and emitted a long, audible breath with way too much garlic. “Okay, Dale, take me through what happened in the UK, but try sticking to the important stuff.”

  Dale also sighed, but he couldn’t say whether it was with relief or resignation. “The big stuff? You mean, predicting the end of the world and that sort of thing?”

  The chief glared and raised his right index finger in fair warning. Dale’s wind-up routine took some getting used to.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll give you the honest-to-God truth,” Dale said. “It started as soon we got off the airplane. I had this excruciating pain in the nuts and – ”

  “Nuts?” Chief Scanlon asked. “You mean ...” He pointed at his amply upholstered nether regions.

  “Yeah,” Dale replied bitterly. “But I was also getting these weird jumbled up ideas, kinda like Twitter on steroids, if you know what I mean.”

  The chief harrumphed; his pet hates were social media and baseball players abusing drugs, so Dale knew he’d be sympathetic. He nodded for Dale to continue.

  “I got checked out in an ER to make sure it wasn’t something physical. Would you believe it was all free and they didn’t even charge me for a scan? Jeez, I don’t know how they make a profit.” The chief cracked the knuckles on his other hand. “Anyhow, the next day we visited Trafalgar Square. You oughta pay it a visit. Impressive statues. Awesome stone lions. Great architecture. Too many fucking pigeons, though.” Chief Scanlon had extracted his cell from his pants’ pocket and was checking for texts. It was a sign to cut to the chase. Dale felt sweat beading on his upper lip. It was like returning to ground zero. Perhaps Steve had been right about post-traumatic stress. He grasped the edges of the seat. “That’s when I saw them,” he croaked.

  “Them?” the chief asked, his fingers caught mid jab above the cell phone’s screen.

  “The kiddies,” Dale said, the Marshall’s kitchen nightmare returning like the umpteenth sequel of Nightmare on Elm Street.

  The chief’s porcine fingers remained frozen.

  “The triplets in the Marshall case, their mouths open, trapped in the stroller, trying to scream ... oh fuck,” Dale blurted.

  Chief Scanlon put his cell on the desk. “Go on,” he said. “I’m listening.”

  Dale shook his head, trying to erase the image. “I don’t know how, but I saw them as clear as day. Then this family appeared out of the blue with the same kiddies in a stroller. They started hollering their heads off. It felt as if they were screaming at me for not saving them. And then there was the siren and the squad car and I was running ... and running ... and too goddamn late to prevent them from being carved up by the fucking SUV ... and there was just so much blood ... and their shattered bodies on the sidewalk ... oh shit ...” Dale put his hand over his mouth and rushed out of the chief’s office.

  At least the restroom had been vacant. He’d thrown up yellow bile. Schoolyard taunts of ‘scaredycat’ resulted in similarly vivid vomiting. Why the hell couldn’t he stand up to whatever his fucking ability was doing to him? For all the patient explanation the doctor had offered, it’d had as much impact as pissing in a gale-force wind. He splashed water on his face and watched it trickle down the drain. He found the gurgle strangely comforting. It reminded him that he’d skipped breakfast. His mom had been insistent on brushing his teeth herself. She knew how to scrub. He tongued his gums for any sore spots.

  Dale glanced up and saw his face shining unhealthily in the overhead lights. His cheeks looked sunken and he had bags under his eyes. What the hell did Steve see in him? The more he stared, the less he recognised his features. His hair had gone dark and was receding fast. Something was going on with his mouth: it had turned mean and pinched, like the worst sociopath you could imagine. His eyes had become small and close set. They blinked at him, slowly and menacingly. Oh fuck! I know the face!

  Dale dashed out of the restroom, narrowly missing the chief. He was carrying the box of oxynuts. “Are you – ” the chief spluttered.

  “I know who it is!” Dale yelled, as he entered the Violent Crimes office. “I saw the fucker in the mirror! He’s gonna kill again!”

  Faces that he knew well regarded him uncomprehendingly, their voices cut short mid-sentence. Dale slammed himself onto the chair in front of the nearest workstation. He was dimly aware of Chief Scanlon drawing up a chair alongside. “That’s okay, Dale, take your time.” He didn’t find that reassuring, as time led to the inevitable where serial killers were concerned. And this one tortured. For a brief moment of amnesic madness, Dale couldn’t remember his password. Thankfully, there was a limit to the number of permutations on Steve’s birthday. Jeez, his birthday was next week and he hadn’t bought him a present!

  Problem was, Dale couldn’t place the man’s name. He’d seen the face somewhere, but that was all. He’d start with a Google search. People littered the internet with their identity clueless about what they were doing. Someone else would be checking for a criminal record. He jabbed at the keyboard, trying to stop his shaking fingers from hitting the wrong keys. ‘THOMAS BIGNEW’ was how the name had sounded to him when he heard it inside his head.

  “I’ll check to see whether he’s got a Triple-I,” the chief said. He entered the name to search the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, then surrendered to the temptation of the oxynuts. His and other hands dived in. They watched the progress on the screen while they chewed the pastries.

  Dale scrolled through the images associated with the name until his eyes glazed over. Fuck-all matched. Shit. Where the hell had he come across the man’s face before? Chief Scanlon still had his eyes glued to the screen and drummed his fingers on the desk. He sure knew how to irritate. Dale sighed and reached across for his all-time favourite oxynut. As taste sensations went, Genovese pesto still rated the best. He opened his mouth ready for the rush of basil and pine nuts.

  “That name could be Polish,” someone said from behind. “Try spelling it ‘T-O-M-A-S-Z Z-B-I-G-N-I-E-W’”.

  “Yay! Give the man a p⃞ czki!” a female voice said.

  Dale and the chief exchanged a look. “Let’s try it,” Chief Scanlon said. He stabbed at the keyboard with fingers stained by beetroot pesto.

  “Christ! That’s him!” Dale said as he scrolled the first page of images from the search. He felt multiple sources of hot breath on his neck as people crowded around to view the screen. The air-con compensated by wafting a cool breeze across his thinning crown. It was awesome to be reminded of one’s failings at moments like this. The photo was small and in low resolution, but it was definitely the individual he’d seen blinking at him in the restroom mirror. The image showed him smiling, evil and calculating, like an undertaker from hell sizing up a body. An icy coldness shivered its way up Dale’s spine.

  “Sexy,” the female voice said.

  “Yeah, you’d be right up his dark alley,” a male voice said.

  “Dickwad,” the female voice said beneath her breath.

  Dale clicked on the image. No, that can’t be! He’d been redirected to the website for the City Prosecutor’s Office just a
block down the street. The page heading read: ‘Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys’.

  “You’re kidding me,” the chief said.

  “If only. That’s him,” Dale said with a certainty to his voice that bore no similarity to how he felt inside. A dash to the restroom loomed again. He wondered what colour it’d be this time.

  “You’re absolutely sure?” the chief asked, drumming his fingers even louder.

  “As fall follows summer,” Dale said. But, as he registered how fucking annoying the tapping was, something bizarre was happening inside his head. It was as if someone was using a cell phone to spy inside a closet and he was the camera. He saw latex-covered hands pull away a partition and extract a pair of shoes. Were they his hands? A sudden splash of light revealed trainers spoiled by multiple dark dots. It didn’t require much imagination to determine the origin of the stains. His dad would have beat him soundly if he’d messed up his shoes like that. For Chrissakes, dude, show me your hands! I need to know!

  “Well, Lieutenant?” the chief seemed to be saying from a distance. His voice sounded different, as if it was being speeded up and then slowed down. Somewhere between Darth Vader and Looney Tunes. Darn unpleasant, whichever way you heard it. At least the tapping had finally stopped.

  “He’s got killing shoes,” Dale said, returning with a jolt to the present. “It’s a bit like Dexter and his glass slides, but a whole lot messier. They’re covered with blood spatters and he hides them at the back of his closet ready for his next slaughter.”

  Blood had drained from Chief Scanlon’s usually ruddy face. Their colleagues’ fruity expletives bounced around the office like buzzards scouting for carrion.

  “How the fuck do you know that?” the chief said. He’d spoke it so deliberately it seemed he’d have preferred not to ask. The chief was the sort of man who’d still use ‘d’you’ officiating in a marriage ceremony.

  Dale shrugged. “I’m there ... or, at least, I think I’ll be there.”