“Are you hungry?” Kees asked her.
“Very. Are you?” she smiled, eager to see what such a rich man would have to choose from in his fridge.
“Famished,” the old council member smiled.
They went into the spacious kitchen where he directed her to sit down at the table while he orchestrated his wicked plan. On the clock above the doorway the pointers indicated that it was shortly before 4:30am.
“Do you eat meat?” he asked her.
“Of course. It’s my favorite,’ she smiled, looking about the place, wondering where her host’s wife was.
“I like you already,” Kees laughed.
“Where are your wife and your children?” the girl asked with her head lolled to one side.
“Oh, my dear, I am too old to still have my children living here. And my wife died years ago. I live alone. My driver lives out toward Holy Zuid, so he drives home every night,” he explained, while slamming an oven pan with beef roast on the table.
She shifted uncomfortably, “So… so, we are alone, you and I?”
“Yes, just you and I, having dinner together,” he answered, sounding as harmless as he could. He went to get a carving knife, adjusting his grip on it, because he would not be using it to carve the roast.
Kees turned and there she stood right in front of him. All he felt was the prick of the needle and the subsequent coursing of its contents filling his veins. Within moments Kees fell to his knees, his limbs heavy, and his motor skills compromised. He was paralyzed when she started carving the roast. The girl propped him up against the kitchen cupboard while she cut the meat into large cubes, occasionally slipping a chunk into her mouth.
“Hmm, my compliments to your cook, Meester Maas!” she praised. Her voice was less innocent now, lower in tone and sounding much older. Now that she annunciated differently Kees realized that she could be much older than he judged… and she was. When she was done she brought the delicious dish with her and crouched next to him on the floor. She pried open his mouth and started stuffing him with chunks of meat. Kees could still barely chew and swallow, but she kept feeding him. His throat was swollen from the coarse meat lodged in his windpipe as his eyes grew wider in horror. The old witch could not cough or struggle while his oxygen eluded him from the obstruction in his throat. His chest burned, unable to expand and fill his lungs with air.
“You and your peers, meester, your days are numbered. You are no better than the evil horde you bred in your racist regime of psychos,” she said. “Lilith is a Hebrew myth, you fucking imbecile! What a Nazi joke you are, sporting a Jewish figure in your garden!”
The girl laughed with no small amount of ridicule and mockery at the council chief, hardly paying attention to his discoloration as his tongue began to protrude.
She got up and walked to the window, pulling a cell phone from her raggedy pocket and dialing a number.
“This is Unit 8. Kees Maas — exterminated.”
She ended the call, and walked out of the house into the meager light of dawn where the horizon bled red to announce the rising of the sun.
Chapter 8
After Nina signed the papers for her new house, Gretchen opened a bottle of wine for them to celebrate as the evening neared. They had not yet explored the place and since the rain did not show any signs of subsiding anytime soon, the two had made a soaking-wet, short trip to the local supermarket for food and decided to spend the night there before returning to Edinburgh to start arranging for the movers to haul Nina’s possessions to Oban.
It was good to be in the country setting of the small tourist destination where she grew up, but Nina could not help but feel that something was amiss in the town. It was not as if she knew anyone there anymore, but those who had seen her at the house treated her differently without a doubt.
“You are imagining it, Nina,” Gretchen said as she poured the wine. The dark red liquid bubbled as it tumbled into the crystal like an unruly tide coming in.
“I am not. They are still out there, staring at the house. Gives me the fucking creeps,” Nina complained. She felt very uneasy seeing a few people stopping in their tracks and watching the front door.
“Look,” Gretchen passed Nina her glass, “you are alone in a strange village… ”
“You mean, unlike living in a vast anthill like Edinburgh?” Nina retorted.
“You are being paranoid. I bet you the house has a reputation for being haunted or something that represents some local urban legend and nobody can believe that someone actually moved in here. I’ve seen it a million times before with small towns. People are superstitious,” Gretchen theorized, ignoring her friend’s sarcasm.
Nina swallowed half of her helping in one gulp. Through the living room’s bay window she watched the dark shapes come and go, their figures stretching and morphing as the raindrops slid down the glass she looked out from. Some would reluctantly leave because of the stormy weather, but soon they would be substituted by others. At one time she counted fourteen figures standing on the pavement in front of the house.
“Look at that. Explain that,” Nina insisted, pointing back at the window, but Gretchen decided to dismiss the matter and get drunk.
“Have you been through the whole house yet?” she asked Nina.
“Briefly, but not every room,” Nina replied, her mind elsewhere. She played with her fingertip on the rim of the wine glass, suddenly wondering what had become of Sam. Vividly she imagined his face, his naughty dark eyes and his dimples, and what snide remark he would have if he knew she owned an old house. Her chest and tummy filled with warmth for a moment, recalling his touch and the closeness they once had.
“Hey!” Gretchen’s voice jerked Nina back to reality. “It’s going to be night soon. Let’s go check out your castle, my queen.”
Nina nodded. In truth she was quite surprised that she was not feeling as excited about her property as she initially thought she would be. Was she afraid of something? No, she figured, she just missed her familiar life in Edinburgh. She missed Sam, much as she hated him now, and Purdue…
“They’re gone. See?” Gretchen said, peeling back the drapes and looking to the street. “Weather finally got the better of them. Freaks.”
Nina looked around for her phone. She had no idea what she would find and she wanted her cell on hand if anyone was looking for her while she was upstairs or in the basement — anyone… like Sam.
The house smelled musty, as expected. But there was an underlying odor that bothered her senses. It smelled like stagnant water, or the green obscurity of a garden pond. With this salty, damp weather it was to be expected that the place would smell unless it was aired out and it had been standing shut for some time before she liberated it from its purgatory. The house was built from old rock and mortar, like a lot of the castles and fortresses in the Highlands. Nina was just grateful that the previous owners did not spoil it with paint.
Gretchen was like a child in a candy store.
“Look at this! It looks like a shrine!” she exclaimed from one of the rooms ahead of Nina in the corridor.
“I’m not sure that that is something I want to hear, Gretch,” she replied, glass in one hand and phone in the other.
She entered the first guest room. Like the others, it was void of any furniture, but had curtains hung on the windows. The wooden floors were a bit battered, but it was nothing a little TLC and a restoration crew could not fix. Gretch stood in front of a magnificent piece of wrought iron work as tall as the ceiling.