Black soul rose by John Jones... - HTML preview

Sam

On his way home that evening, he was trying to think of ways to kill Brett and Kieran without making it look like murder. It had to look like suicide or accident.

His mind was taken off it when he entered the house and overheard raised voices out back. His father was talking to his mother, but it wasn’t quite arguing.

More him trying to plead a case.

“It was just a debt. I was clearing a debt, and now I just need twenty quid”.

“I can’t afford it. I’ve got to pay the window cleaner”.

“Oh come on, it’s just twenty quid. That’s me debt sorted”.

“Sorry but I can’t…”

“Oh fuck ya then. If I end up dead in a ditch somewhere, it’s your fault”. Austin then came into the hallway where he saw Sam.

“Good day in school?” he asked sarcastically, “don’t care, get out of my face”.

“What happened to good old-fashioned fatherly affection?” Sam said. Tabitha then appeared and started going through a coat hanging up beneath the stairs.

“Mother,” Sam said rather loudly, “don’t you be giving him twenty quid”.

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She took out her purse and removed a twenty-pound note, handing it towards Austin.

“Mother no,” but Austin grinned and took it, then clouted Sam on the head.

“Shut it you little brat. Ta love”. He then left the house.

“Bet you he goes and puts a bet on”.

“No he said it was for a debt”.

“Really mother. You just let him walk all over you. I’m going to follow him,”

Sam left quickly and spotted his father turning a corner up ahead. He hurried to get within a reasonable distance, and managed to get about fifty metres behind, but Austin was so focused, walking quickly, that it seemed he had tunnel vision.

Sam followed him for around twenty minutes, which is how long it took for Austin to reach and enter a betting shop just beyond the outskirts of the village on the fringe of the next town.

“Fuck,” Sam muttered. Brett and Kieran needed to be removed, and now it looks like Austin did as well.

He walked slowly home, to find his mother out back tending to bedding plants.

He stood in the doorway.

“Just to let you know mother. Have a wild guess where he went?” he didn’t bother to wait for her reply, simply went back into the house and saw his tool bag by the front door where Austin dumped it every time he came home from work.

Working for a roofing firm he guessed he would have plenty of tools in there.

Sam looked inside, and amongst the cut resistant gloves, the jigsaw blades, the spanners, he reached in and took out a box-cutter knife. The tip looked blunt and rusty, but he could snap it off and push out the rest of the knife which was steel, sharp, and vicious.

He put it back. There was no point in hiding it.

Sam was in his room when Austin came in hours later. He was talking, but it was clear it was to himself.

“…who does she think she is? ...looked at me like…stupid fuckin..!” Now he was drunk.

74

Wonderful, Sam thought, lying on his bed. Well at least when he goes to sleep it will probably be deep. Tabitha was in her bedroom. Whether she was awake reading, watching television or fast asleep he did not know.

All was silent there though, but not from downstairs where Austin was clattering around the kitchen, still talking to himself, but Sam couldn’t hear what he was saying. Drunk people never made sense anyway.

That’s how fires start, Sam thought. Drunk people coming home and trying to make food.

He knew he would have to wait, and did. Austin managed to rustle something up and went into the front room, still muttering to himself. However, after around ten minutes, all was quiet down there, and Sam waited another ten minutes before going to the top of the stairs. The hall light was on.

Silence.

He crept down, to find the front living room door open, and could see that Austin was slouched in his armchair, asleep, a half-eaten microwaved chip sandwich in one hand.

He walked across to the tool-bag and removed the red-handled box-cutter knife and put the blade out to around three inches.

One thing he never did years ago was experiment as to how long it took for someone to die from having their throat cut. Now he would find out. There was a clock on the wall and it showed 01.15am.

Austin was well away in dreamland, or in some sort of unconscious void. It didn’t matter, Sam knew he would stay there and go much further, into the afterlife.

He approached behind him. With his father’s head being slumped slightly forward, his throat was semi-protected, so his hair was gripped and head pulled back, Sam knowing that should he snap awake, the blade would be sent across his throat in a second, but it wasn’t a second. It was several.

There were slight guttural noises coming from his throat as he unconsciously breathed, and Sam reached over and pressed the angry blade against his jugular vein.

Small cut or deep slice he wondered.

A small cut would take longer, and his vocal cords would still be working.

Chances are he would waken and scream, alerting the neighbourhood.

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No, it needed to be deep and ripped across the whole throat. No chance to scream. No alerts. He would die faster.

So he did.

The blade sunk into his throat, skin tearing easily, and he viciously cut deep across the flesh and veins, quickly creating a ragged gash which gouted blood, spilling and splattering down his front. Sam stepped back quickly, not wanting any blood on him, although he had some on his hand. He left the room and closed the door, leaning back. After a few moments he heard gurgling and choking, hissing, movement, clattering around, thumping.

Sam watched the clock and thought there was nothing like having your throat cut to sober you up. Clearly the blade had ripped his vocal cords.

More banging around in there, something smashing. He looked to the top of the stairs to see if his mother had wakened, but there was nothing.

Then there came a slump, and then silence. The clock said four minutes. That’s how long it took.

He waited another minute before slowly entering, to find blood had soaked the carpet, soaked the armchair, and even spattered the television. His half-eaten chip sandwich was also saturated on the floor.

Austin was lying dead beneath the window, blood still seeping from the wound.

This had to look like suicide, but he would need to walk in the blood to put the blade in Austin’s hand, so he took his shoes and socks off, then walked across and crouched to place the blade in his right hand.

“Got yourself into a gambling debt you couldn’t pay off. Took the easy way out”. Sam said with a slight smile, stood up, stepped across to his shoes and socks, and carefully put them on, leaving no footprints as he left the room and went back upstairs.

He slept easily that night.

However, in the morning, he was awoken by Tabitha’s shriek.