The Fog - James Herbert [114]
‘Gen’men,’ he said, looking along the table at the two rows of empty seats. ‘I wish to perprose a toast.’ He climbed on to the black leather chair, then on to the table, his boots making ugly scratch marks on its smooth surface. He raised the bottle high. ‘Fuck the Chairman!’ he shouted and took another swig from the bottle, nearly choking when he began to cackle with laughter.
Looking down, he saw the deep impressions his boots had made on the table and again went into fits of laughter. He dug a heel hard into the wood and was pleased with the result. He did it again with his other heel then clomped his way to the end of the table, stopping and turning to study his trail of scars. He lifted the bottle to his lips and drank, then threw it at the picture of the previous chairman which hung nearby, and, with one final whoop of exhilaration, ran back down the length of the oak table and jumped over the leather chair towards the huge window behind it.
He was well past his prime and his jump did not have much momentum, but half his body went through the glass and its weight toppled the rest over the edge behind him. He couldn’t see the ground as he fell, all he could see was a soft, yellowish grey blanket ready to receive him.
McLellan and his family slept soundly. Outside his house, in the normally quiet Wimbledon street where he lived, was pandemonium. His neighbours were in combat, using bottles, pokers, anything that came to hand; scratching at each other’s eyes, tearing at each other’s throats. They kicked, they punched, they pulled the clothes from one another. No one knew why and no one bothered to ask themselves; they were too far gone with the madness.
McLellan was lucky for they ignored the sign he’d left on his doorstep which said: PLEASE HELP. HAVE GIVEN FAMILY OVERDOSE TO KEEP FROM HARM. PLEASE HELP. He knew when he’d chalked the message on to his child’s toy blackboard it was a slim chance, but there had been little choice anyway. Better to die in their sleep than be at the mercy of a dreadful madness.
So far, they had been left undisturbed and their neighbours were too intent on killing each other to break in and search them out. They slept on.
Irma Bidmead, the old woman who had loved cats yet sold their bodies for vivisection, was already dead. The cats she had fed and housed still gnawed away at her cold flesh mixed with bits of material from the garments she had worn. They had clawed and scratched at her eyes first, then when she had been blinded and weakened, they had sat on her face and smothered her. When her feeble struggles had ceased, they had begun to eat her.
Now they were full, eating out of greed, not hunger, but later they would go out and seek younger, more tender flesh. It wouldn’t be hard to find.
Chief Superintendent Wreford laughed at the rantings of his wife. He had locked her in a bedroom cupboard and sat on the end of their bed watching the door as it bulged when she tried to force it open from inside. Her moans had a peculiar rasping tone to them, for earlier that morning he had climbed the stairs from the kitchen holding a kettle full of boiling water in one hand. He had stood over his wife and poured the contents of the kettle into her upturned, open mouth. Her snoring had always sickened him.
Then, as she had screamed and screamed, he had bundled her up in the bedclothes and locked her away in the cupboard.
Soon now, her struggles would grow weaker and he would let her out. She would see the joke when he explained it to her and if she didn’t, if she began to nag at him like she had in the past, well, he would show her the kitchen knife he held in his lap. He had seen what you could do to a person with a kitchen knife; he had seen many pictures of victims at the Yard. They were funny those pictures; fascinating what you could do to a human face. You could make the lips smile permanently if you wanted to. He would show