After applying the dressing to Peter’s damaged, oozing eye and securing it around the back of the boy’s head, Harry moved on to the other wounds. He unbuttoned Peter’s supermarket work shirt to get a clearer look.
Jess slapped a hand across her mouth.
At first, Harry wasn’t sure what he was seeing. He unclasped the final button on Peter’s shirt and pulled the fabric away. A film of glistening blood covered the boy’s chest and stomach, flowing from deep channels scored into his flesh. As Harry took it all in, he realised that the gashes weren’t just random injuries.
“Someone’s carved words into him.”
Jess looked like she could throw up at any moment. “W-what does it say?”
“Hold on.” Harry pulled a couple of alcohol wipes from the first aid kit and ripped them from their packets. He rubbed at Peter’s wounds, clearing away as much of the blood as he could, fighting away fresh tides that sought to replace it. Slowly, the words became clearer.
SEnD…
Out…
ThE…
S…i…N…N…e…R.
“Send out the sinner?” Harry said the words out loud, hoping his brain would come up with some interpretation that made sense.
“What does it mean?” Jess asked.
“I have no idea,” Harry replied – and he didn’t. In fact, Harry had no understanding whatsoever about the kind of monster it would take to carve words into someone’s chest. He took a deep breath and let it out. “Maybe we should go get the others.”
Jess agreed.
They dressed as many of Peter’s wounds as they could and left him sleeping on the sofa, then joined up with the others who were still attending to the shattered window. They’d managed to stack two tables up against the broken glass and reinforce them with chairs. The long curtains had been pulled around the whole thing and the billowing gust had been reduced to a whistling breeze.
“Good job,” said Harry, genuinely impressed.
Those at the window turned around. Each of them looked shaken and out of breath, even Damien. Kath was the only one that didn’t appear to be bothered. Harry watched the woman, sat on a nearby chair, pick at her nails as though she had not a care in the world.
“Harry Boy. How’s the nipper?” asked Lucas, appearing suddenly.
Harry rubbed at his eyes and let out a sigh. “Not good. Someone’s made a real mess of him, blinded him, and cut words into his chest.”
Damien overheard this and stepped away from the window. “Someone carved words into him? That’s harsh, man. What’s it say?”
Harry shrugged. “Something about sin.”
Steph slid another chair up against the barricade, reinforcing it further. She turned to face Harry. “Sin? I don’t understand. What exactly did it say?”
“God knows,” Harry said. “Just the words of a psychopath.”
Jess spoke up. ”It said, send out the sinner.”
“The fuck that mean?” Damien demanded. “Does someone in here know what’s going on out there?”
Harry pointed his finger at Damien. “Calm down. It probably doesn’t mean anything. We just need to stick together and everything will be fine. No one needs to panic.”
Damien snarled. “Point your finger at me and I’ll break it off. I ain’t panicking, I’m pissed off. It’s obvious that this is personal. Whoever’s running around out there, like Freddie-Krueger-on-acid, has a grudge against someone in here.”
“Nonsense,” said Harry.
“Maybe not,” Lucas chimed in. “You don’t use a human being as a meat-memo-pad and hurl them through a window unless you’re trying to send a wee message. Maybe what’s happening tonight is all down to one person.”
A silence fell over the group as they scanned one another suspiciously, trying to work out who was ‘the sinner’.
Harry wondered if it was him.
Chapter Seventeen
Nigel Sutcliffe had sat and watched the unfolding situation for the last half hour. He’d retreated to the outskirts of the group to try and gain some insight into what was happening. Things had started out strangely enough that evening, if only for the unnatural weather, but when the lights blinked out, things got even more bizarre (culminating with a body flying through the window like an extra in a Bruce Lee movie). None of that particularly bothered Nigel though. What did bother him was all this talk about the ‘sinner’.
He sat, shivering, on a stool by the bar, listening and watching as the others argued incessantly about what the injured boy’s chest carvings meant. Who was the sinner, they demanded, and who was it outside? Nigel decided it was a conversation he was better off avoiding because he knew that he indeed was very much a sinner. In fact, sometimes, he felt as though he was born a sinner.
But was he the sinner?
Maybe it was worry over nothing. Nigel didn’t care what happened to his immortal soul. All that mattered to him was how much pleasure he could find in this life. The skinny bitch he’d screwed and murdered in Amsterdam last week had been a particular highlight. God how she’d screamed. Especially when I went in the back door. He smiled at the thought.
His reminiscing was interrupted by the arrival of Steph at the bar beside him. She handed him a beer and said, “It just about defrosted in front of the fire.”
Nigel thanked her. “Just what I needed. Things are a little crazy around here tonight, huh?”
“Tell me about it!” Steph swigged from her own bottle. “I feel like I’m in a horror film. Still haven’t decided on an emotion yet, but I’m stuck somewhere between dazed and terrified.”
Nigel put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed; his pinkie ring slid over the fabric of her delicate blouse and stirred deep emotions within him. The gold ring featured a dolphin insignia at its centre and was his most prized possession: a memento of his first victim, a twelve-year-old blonde, pretty, with chubby cheeks like a prepubescent Drew Barrymore. He’d bitten it off her finger as she wailed and squirmed in the back of his lorry. He’d worn the dolphin ring ever since, enjoying the way it felt on his penis as he masturbated over his dying victims.
“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,” he reassured Steph. “I think whatever’s going on tonight is personal.”
“Personal? You mean ‘the sinner’?”
The word made Nigel swallow a lump in his throat. “Whoever’s out there causing trouble obviously has it in for one of us; but you know what I think?”
Steph shook her head.
Nigel pulled his hand away from her shoulder, already missing the warm throb of her flesh. He picked up his beer and took a deep gulp before placing the near empty bottle down on the bar. “What I think is that this is a tiff over drugs. The only people I know sick enough to smash a kid to pieces and lob him through a window are smack-heads…and guess what? We just happen to have our very own aspiring drug lord right here with us.”
Steph looked across the room at the others then looked back at Nigel. “You think this is all about Damien?”
Nigel shrugged. “He’s the biggest sinner I know. Beat some kid into a coma last year, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” Steph admitted. “I heard that too, but whether or not it’s true…”
“Well it’s certainly within his nature from what I’ve seen tonight. He’s been glaring at Harry all night, plus he threw a punch at the Irish fella.”
Steph looked over at Lucas. “What do you make of him?”
“Lucas? It’s strange how he turns up for the first time on a night like this. Maybe he’s the eyes and ears for whoever’s outside. Could be a drug lord looking to come into the area and put Damien out of business. Maybe they’re making their move tonight because they’re hoping the snow will keep the police away.”