Maniac Gods Read online

  Maniac Gods

  Rich Hawkins

  Also by Rich Hawkins:

  KING CARRION

  Further reading by the Sinister Horror Company:

  THE UNHEIMLICH MANOEUVRE – Tracy Fahey

  WHAT GOOD GIRLS DO – Jonathan Butcher

  BURNING HOUSE – Daniel Marc Chant

  MALDICION – Daniel Marc Chant

  MR. ROBESPIERRE – Daniel Marc Chant

  INTO FEAR – Daniel Marc Chant

  DEVIL KICKERS – Daniel Marc Chant & Vincent Hunt

  CORPSING – Kayleigh Marie Edwards

  FOREST UNDERGROUND – Lydian Faust

  DEATH – Paul Kane

  THE BAD GAME – Adam Millard

  MARKED – Stuart Park

  TERROR BYTE – J. R. Park

  PUNCH – J. R. Park

  UPON WAKING – J. R. Park

  THE EXCHANGE – J. R. Park

  DEATH DREAMS IN A WHOREHOUSE – J. R. Park

  MAD DOG – J. R. Park

  POSTAL – J. R. Park & Matt Shaw

  GODBOMB! – Kit Power

  BREAKING POINT – Kit Power

  Visit SinisterHorrorCompany.com for further information on these and other titles.

  PRESENTS

  MANIAC GODS

  Copyright © 2018 by Rich Hawkins

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Edited by Daniel Marc Chant & J. R. Park

  Interior design by Daniel Marc Chant & J. R. Park

  Cover design by Vincent Hunt

  Published by The Sinister Horror Company

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  MANIAC GODS -- 1st ed.

  ISBN: 978-1-912578-05-4

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank my family and friends for supporting me in this weird struggle we call life. Shout outs go to Adam Nevill, David Moody, Gary McMahon, Gary Fry, Tim Curran, Philip Fracassi and H.P. Lovecraft for inspiring me through their great work (check out their books at all good online bookstores).

  Also I’m much obliged to Dan and Justin at the Sinister Horror Company for publishing my insane scribblings and being genuine good guys.

  Lastly, I say thank you to Adam Millard, who took a chance a few years back and published my first novel. I’m honoured to call him a fellow writer and a friend.

  This book is dedicated to William Hawkins.

  ‘Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.’

  – Friedrich Nietzsche

  PART

  ONE

  PROLOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  The girl stood at her window, watching the rain in the night, and saw the thin man in white robes slump to his knees on the road outside. Within the shadows thrown by the streetlights, he put his hands to the bronze mask upon his face and bowed his head. She thought he was crying, and wondered what he was crying about in the middle of the road beyond the front garden of her mother’s house.

  She wiped condensation from the window, breathed softly through her nose to keep the glass clear, and wiped her damp hand on her opposite sleeve. Droplets pattered against the other side and ran in vertical trails down the glass, turning the street outside into abstract smudges and smears. The man became no more than a forlorn ghost waiting for her in the downpour and the keening wind.

  The girl squinted, watched the man while her hands pinched at the edge of the windowsill and the walls of her bedroom creaked as cold draughts rushed through them. She was vaguely aware of the sound of her mother switching on the shower in the bathroom down the hallway.

  Aside from the erratic trembling of his shoulders the man didn’t move, and for a moment the girl thought he was merely a product of her imagination, an illusion in the rain, until he raised his head towards the window where she stood, and took his hands from his face and gestured for her to come outside to see him. She stepped back from the window, surprised at the warmth of his smile within the mask he wore.

  The voice inside her head was gentle and friendly. It was the voice of a kindly grandfather who loved his children and would never hurt any of them. Come outside, dear one. Come outside and be joyous with me in the rain.

  Her hands shaking at her sides, she turned away from the window and left the darkness of her bedroom, passing into the pale light of the landing. She stepped quietly past the door to Mum’s bedroom and went downstairs. The man’s voice was in the wind, circling the house, low and wordless but comforting.

  Pulling on her coat, she opened the front door and stood at the threshold as rain lashed the doorway around her. She squinted against the building storm. She swallowed, felt her throat working, and looked out at the man in the street. She couldn’t stop the brief mile that curved her mouth.

  The man spoke inside her head again, warm and honeyed, encouraging her forward, and she complied and left the house to walk down the garden path. She went out to him, leaving behind the shelter of the house. The rain on her shoulders, on her head, and then on her face when she looked up at the sheer black sky.

  She shivered in the cold and stopped before the man in the road, returning the smile he gave to her. Their proximity revealed the full vision of his bronze mask.

  She told him her name.

  The man held out his hands and looked down at them, the smile fading from beneath his wet mask, his eyes glassy with sudden confusion and something like awe. Then he looked up at the girl and told her to come closer. And when she did, he put his dripping hands to her face, and she felt such warmth from his touch that she began to cry.

  The man spoke to her, said her name, and comforted her. The rain went away and there was nothing but the warmth.

  She only screamed once when the man’s hands reached inside her head and found her thoughts and little dreams.

  I

  CHAPTER ONE

  Albie Samways woke from a restless sleep on the sofa and remembered fragments of troubling dreams. He screwed up his face at the sour taste in his mouth and the nausea in his throat. Rubbed his stinging eyes until they felt better. There were three empty cans of cider and two discarded crisp packets on the coffee table. The air of the living room smelled stale, with a low mustiness in the corners.

  He squinted and turned away from the overhead light, which seemed overly bright and glaring. His head thumped from dehydration and the sudden spike of adrenaline that had hit him upon waking. The television was muted, showing some old film he remembered but couldn’t name. Something about planes and trains, he thought. There was only the sound of heavy rain falling upon the house.

  He picked up his phone to check the time, saw it was near midnight and that he’d missed three calls from Kathleen while he’d been asleep. The last call had been thirty minutes ago. Shaking his head and stifling a yawn, he deleted the notifications until he came to the icon for a new voicemail. He checked the number. Kathleen, again. He exhaled, scratched his face, considered ignoring the voicemail, until he realised that people only usually call late at night when they’ve got bad news to share, and his face suddenly flushed hot and panicky with concern over Milly’s safety. The separation from his daughter over the last year had only made him worry more about her wellbeing. She was prone to nightmares and sleepwalking.

  Albie dialled the voicemail service, put the phone on loudspeaker, and waited. His hands weren’t entirely steady as he listened. A muscl
e twitched beneath the skin of his face.

  The voice message began with three bursts of static, spaced evenly apart, followed by a low whine and then something like a jumble of distant, slowed-down voices that seemed barely human. Guttural half-words and grunted barks that Albie couldn’t discern. The faint screech of some animal heard from far away, blended with sounds like radio waves reflecting off the ionosphere and fragments of lost transmissions in barely-heard choruses. The slamming of doors. The snatch of a boy’s voice singing a sad song while dogs barked and bayed.

  Albie’s eyes watered and the back of his hands and neck prickled. He swallowed to produce some saliva in his dry mouth.

  The voices continued for several seconds before they were cut off by what sounded like the clumsy knocks and bangs of the phone being moved around. Then there was just ambient noise. He thought he heard quick footfalls in the background. He held the phone closer to his ear, and when Kathleen’s voice rose from the silence, all slow and unfocused like she’d taken a heavy dose of medication, he could only sit and listen, one hand at his face, his mouth open.

  ‘Albie, listen to me. Albie, listen.’ Her voice dropped away, lost in a sound of rushing wind, and then returned again. ‘It is open. It is all open in the thin places, and there is nothing to be done…’

  The message ended immediately afterwards.

  Albie returned the call and waited, but no one answered, and on his fifth attempt the line went dead and that was that.

  II

  CHAPTER TWO

  He pulled on his boots and thick coat and went out into the rain, leaving the lights on in the house. He locked the front door and climbed into his car, trying to keep a lid on the panic in his chest. Acid frothed in his stomach and made him feel weak and insubstantial, like an ageing puppet on thinning strings. The hurried walk from the door to the driveway had left him soaked and dripping. His breath was mist in the close confines inside the car. The rain scattered against the windows, a constant rattle, muffling the thoughts in his head.

  He turned up the demister to remove the condensation from the windscreen, and moved the heater dial to red. He flicked on the headlights. The engine started on the second attempt and he took the car onto the road, putting his foot down and moving through the gears until he passed beyond the speed limit.

  He’d considered calling the police, but a nagging thought told him he’d be wasting their time because probably Kathleen had just drunk too much, and it would be embarrassing for everyone involved. Not to mention that he was over the legal alcohol limit to drive himself. He kept telling himself that Milly had put her mum to bed and everything was all right. Milly was a good girl and knew how to deal with Kathleen’s rare relapses. Most likely no one had answered his calls because Kathleen had put her phone on silent after calling him. It was the simplest explanation, and he clung to it and tried not to think of anything else.

  And he repeated it in his mind, to comfort himself during the long drive to his ex-wife and daughter, while the rain grew heavier and obscured everything but the few metres of road ahead of him.

  X

  He drove for over two hours, from Somerset into Hampshire, and by the time he’d reached the outskirts of Penbrook his eyes were aching and the back of his legs burned with cramps. A dull pain pulsed behind his forehead. The rain had been continuous all the way down here, pushed by the harsh winds that swept across the roads, and even now as he entered the north edge of Penbrook he kept his hands tight upon the steering wheel as the car was jostled and pushed. He steered around occasional potholes and cars parked at the roadsides.

  He’d only noticed the lights on in the first house moments after he’d passed it, and was surprised that someone was still awake. A factory worker recently home from a night shift, maybe, or just some night owl like himself.

  But as he went deeper into the village, he saw that lights were glowing from windows in most of the houses he passed. The flickering of pale radiance from televisions in living rooms. He tried to glimpse any movement or activity within the houses, but it was difficult to do when he had to keep his eyes on the wet road and the rain.

  While taking a bend in the road, he almost swiped the side of a Vauxhall Corsa parked clumsily at the kerb.

  The streets were deserted. The overhead streetlights seemed to dim.

  As he neared the village pub, which was lit from within, he slowed the car to a crawl and craned his neck to see through the front window of the building. And in those few seconds all he saw were empty seats at the bar and the jittery lights of a fruit machine.

  He kept driving.

  III

  CHAPTER THREE

  Albie stopped the car outside Kathleen’s house and killed the engine. In the sound of falling rain upon the roof, he took a moment to slow his breathing and wipe the beads of sweat from his forehead. He exhaled through his teeth and prepared himself. Winced at the broiling of digestive juices and cider dregs in his gut.

  It was always hard coming back here, now that this place wasn’t his home and he was supposed to stay away except when he came to pick up Milly for their weekends together. A tremor passed through his hands when he took them from the steering wheel. He looked around at the houses veiled behind the downpour and the dark. The lights in the windows did not waver.

  He hesitated before leaving the car, and then walked towards the house. He cringed in the rain as he opened the garden gate and took the path that bisected the lawn. Kathleen’s car was on the driveway. The lights were on in the kitchen at the front of the house, and in Milly’s bedroom directly above it, a lamp issued its soft glow; the curtains in the window were drawn open, and he half-expected to see her peering out at him, but she wasn’t there.

  The front door was ajar, letting rain into the house.

  He hesitated again, swallowing the unpleasant knot in his throat, shifting on his feet as he laid a nervous hand on the door and slowly pushed it open.

  ‘Kathleen?’ His voice was flat and meagre in the rain. The darkness pressed at his back, and a feeling of being watched from the street behind him couldn’t be denied. ‘Milly? Anyone home? Hello?’

  When no one answered he stepped through the doorway and into the kitchen. A sense of bittersweet nostalgia made his heart wince. So many memories. Good times and bad times.

  He was careful not to slip on the rainwater pooling on the linoleum. He looked around, blinking rapidly, suppressing the urge to cough, and listening for any sounds in the house. But all he could hear was the constant rattle of rainfall and the creaking of the walls.

  He was alone in the kitchen. All the doors on the wall cabinets were hanging open, showing boxes of cereal, a loaf of bread, packets of biscuits, multipacks of crisps and snacks. A Tupperware pot of rice and one of pasta. Cans of soft drinks. The appliances on the worktops were in place and untouched. Everything was in order.

  He eyed a framed photo of Kathleen and Milly taken at a theme park two months before he and Kathleen had separated. He’d been cut out of the picture.

  There were more photos, but he didn’t look at them.

  X

  He searched the downstairs rooms, but there was no sign of Kathleen or Milly. He looked out into the back garden and found it empty. The only sign of any disturbance in the house was an ornament that’d been knocked onto the carpet in the living room. He picked it up and put it back on the mantelpiece above the gas fire.

  He climbed the stairs to the narrow landing and announced his presence to anyone waiting for him in the rooms. A little voice in the back of his head scolded him for not taking a sharp knife from the kitchen. His feet scuffed on the carpet. The house made low sounds. Pipes scraped in the walls. The central heating switched on with a vague ticking.

  In Milly’s room he looked around at the posters of pop singers and film stars on the walls. Her teddy bear, which she’d had since her first day in the world and kept for sentimental reasons, lay upon her bed with dull eyes and splayed limbs. The room smelled of his d
aughter, and he kept expecting her to appear out of thin air and tell him there had been some terrible misunderstanding. He said her name to the silence.

  The bathroom was empty and all in order, pristine surfaces gleaming from the new lightbulbs overhead.

  In Kathleen’s room, he found her mobile phone broken into several pieces on the bed they used to share. For a moment there was a vague taint of what could have been ammonia in the air, but it went away and then all he could smell was the damp reek of his clothes. By then he was panicking and his breath seemed to thicken in his throat and tighten within his chest. He leaned against the wall to steady himself as he called their names again and again, until his voice grew coarse and his eyes watered.

  Then he went back through the house and searched once more, breathing hard and trembling, dazed with exasperation and confusion. There was no sign of a hurried departure, or even any sort of departure, like they’d just walked outside into the rain and left the house behind. Their coats were still on wall hooks by the front door. Nothing made sense.

  Albie returned outside, hoisting the hood of his coat over his head, and hurried to Norris Witt’s house next door. The rain was incessant and spat at his face as it was pulled by the wind. Thunder crackled in the middle distance, the sound of shifting mountains.

  The lights were on in Norris’s house. Albie knocked on the door and waited, then knocked again. After a few minutes, when there was no answer, he went to the nearest window and peered inside the living room, expecting to see Norris asleep in his armchair in front of the television.