The Monster Man of Horror House Returns: Monster Man, #2

By Danny King

John Coal is the local oddball. Old, crotchety and solitary but otherwise harmless. At least, this was how his neighbours saw him. But not anymore. Thirty years of hiding in plain sight have been lost in one night when John unwittingly reveals a side of himself that few people see — and live to tell the tale.

 

And now he must run, away from the quiet suburbs, and as far from other people as he can get. The police are hunting him. The army are hunting him. Even the zoos are hunting him. But John is an old hand at evasion and together with Rachel, his vampire ward, they head north, away from civilisation and into the wilds of the Scottish Highlands.

 

Here, a new home and a fresh start await them. Or so they think. But John cannot escape his past any more than he can escape his curse. Evil will find evil and for John and Rachel the dangers have only just begun.

 

Werewolves, vampires, ghouls and ghosts, the dead and undead await you in a second anthology of horror tales, as told and lived by John Coal —

 

— the Monster Man of Horror House.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Danny King
• Release date: Nov 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393170747

Danny King

Danny King is an award-winning British author who has written for the page, the stage and the big and small screens. He lives and works in the city of Chichester and can be found on Facebook at 'DannyKingbooks'.

Book preview

The Monster Man of

Horror House Returns

(book 2)

Copyright © 2020 Danny King

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photocopying or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Front cover picture:

‘Grey concrete stairs’ by Francesco Pagglaro

Courtesy of www.pexels.com

Design by the author

First published in Germany by Luzifer-Verlag 2020

1.

Rude Awakenings

In any neighbourhood , in any town, there’ll be a scary old house. It’ll be overgrown, run-down, uncared for and forgotten. And more often than not it’ll be occupied by a scary old man who will more or less fit this same description.

This was how I’d spent the last few decades of my life – hiding in plain sight. Few people took any notice of me. Fewer still cared. I was simply old John Coal, an ordinary and unremarkable old man with a bit of a limp and one finger less than most people had. As long as I didn’t bother my neighbours, they didn’t bother me. It was an unspoken understanding that the people of my street and I were perfectly happy to honour.

Unfortunately, nobody can escape their past forever...

There are many drawbacks to being a werewolf. The loss of control with the rising of the moon. The unstoppable murderous rampages that ensue. The innocent lives snuffed out with the snapping of one’s jaws. And of course, all the bloody trousers you get through. But perhaps the most annoying thing was waking up the next morning, far from home and with no idea of how I got here, cold and naked as the day I was born. This was how I found myself the morning after Tommy’s father had deigned to call upon me.

It took me a moment to recall the events that had led up to his visit but when I did my face turned white beneath the encrusted streaks of scarlet.

Oh dear, was all I could think to utter. What else was there to say? Knocked out and left for dead, I’d had no time to lock myself into my reinforced and soundproofed basement before my transformation, which was what I normally did. It was how I had protected myself and all those around me for the last thirty-odd years. And yet here I was, the morning after the night before, unfettered and free.

What had I done?

Until now, few people had taken any notice of me around town. And despite having only the foggiest recollection of the last few hours, I couldn’t help but feel that was all about to change.

The first thing I had to do was find some clothes. Not the simplest of tasks when I had come to in the middle of heathland, under a gorse bush with only a selection of thorny sprigs to conceal my modesty. Hauling myself out proved an eventful experience but fortunately, the frosty November air had gone some way to numbing my wrinkly blue skin.

There were no sounds or signs of life outside the bush, just a few swooping starlings and a faraway jet chalking a puffy vapour trail across the crisp blue sky. Despite what you might think, I have no more sense of direction in my human state than anyone else. I might be able to track a stag across 100 acres of open countryside as a werewolf but as a human being, most days I couldn’t find the corned beef in Aldi. I simply headed in the direction of the fewest gorse bushes and hoped to encounter a washing line before I encountered the washerwomen that went with it. Alas, no one was hanging out their washing at this time of the year so I had to make do with a plastic bag and a discarded traffic cone to shield me from the autumnal elements. Not ideal in the circumstances but this was the problem with today’s society. Forty years ago the hedgerows were strewn with fly-tipped crap but today the countryside was so clean it was almost sickening. How was a werewolf meant to clothe himself after a night on the hoof? It was almost something I felt tempted to take up with my local councillors – if indeed, I’d left any of them alive after last night. There weren’t even any scarecrows anymore, an outlet I had acquired more than a fair share of my wardrobe from in days gone by. But no, they were gone too.

On the upside, there were recycling banks, which were often remotely located and stocked to the gills full of freshly laundered clothes. But they were near impossible to get into. Still, I had to try and so that’s where I found myself later that morning, standing in a lay-by on the A134, fishing through the flap of a bright green metal container with a branch in one hand and a traffic cone strategically poised in the other, as I attempted to retrieve something to wear.

The traffic buzzed by with the odd sympathetic hoot but, by and large, no one attempted to halt my larceny. I guessed Thetford had bigger problems to contend with this morning.

In spite of my best efforts, the goodies inside the clothes bank remained tantalisingly out of reach. I snapped off two branches and jammed open the flap trying, yet only succeeded in pulling out several pairs of children’s football boots (all size 1) and a cardboard box for a Samsung flatscreen that someone had thoughtfully stuffed into the wrong bin despite the correct recycling bin standing conveniently adjacent. All very frustrating and yet no worse than my usual shopping experiences.

I was about to give up when a voice behind me asked me if I was alright.

I’d lived in Thetford long enough to realise that being asked if I was alright was not a phrase to be taken literally. It’s difficult to nail down its precise meaning but it translated loosely as and just what the fuck do you think you’re doing, sunbeam?

I turned around and saw a man standing next to a large white van holding several bags of empty bottles. Six foot wide and almost as tall, he had tattoos where most other people wore clothes and more hair on his knuckles than his head. I quickly scanned his inkwork and deduced he supported Peterborough United Football Club, was a fan of all things English (including, but not limited to, fluttering flags and bulldogs wearing Union Jack waistcoats) and boasted either three sons called Mickey, Terry and Carl or a trio of homosexual lovers named likewise.

I’m cold, I replied, which was true if not exactly the whole story.

You’re English? he said in surprise, not a reply I had been expecting. I thought you were one of them fucking Bulgarians. Always in these bins, they are.

My new friend didn’t look like a man who held much truck with Bulgarians. Or anyone else for that matter, naked or otherwise.

Bulgarian? I said, somewhat confused.

Yeah, you know... from... he said, with a casual waft of the thumb over his shoulder.

Bulgaria? I ventured.

No. Well, yeah, I guess. No, I mean the camp down the road. All them immigrants down there. Scum! he spat, as though the very words brought a bad taste to his mouth.

I’m from King’s Lynn, I assured him, although by the way his lips curled up I could sense he had little sympathy for anyone from King’s Lynn either.

Where’s your clothes? he asked. I’d been wondering when he was going to get to that.

Well, you wouldn’t believe it but... I said.

I won’t bore you with the particulars of my tale but by the time I was finished with him, he liked Bulgarians even less and was ready to tear the arms off the first foreigner he encountered for what I claimed they had done to me.

Me – a poor old Peterborough United supporter just like him.

I wasn’t particularly proud of the lies I had spun him but by playing to his prejudices I gained a sympathetic ear, an orange wine gum and, more importantly, something to wear. Gary (or ‘Gaz’ as he preferred to be called) dug around in the back of his van and sorted me out with a dusty pair of work shorts, a tatty T-shirt, a luminous safety vest and some old boots that not even a shoeless Bulgarian would consider wearing in the middle of deepest darkest January. I returned the favour by helping him deposit several hundred empty beer bottles into the appropriate slots and bid him adieu as he went upon his merry way.

Mind how you go, he said without even the flicker of guilt over not offering me a ride into town. And watch yourself. Apparently, there’s some mad fucking animal running around on the loose out there somewhere. One of them fucking horrible Bulgarian gypo dogs, I’ll bet, he said, pulling away with a squeak of the tyres and a clatter of the exhaust.

Once again Gaz was wrong. That mad dog was no more Bulgarian than he was. Technically speaking, it came from King’s Lynn too.

2.

There Goes The Neighbourhood

Wearing a luminous safety vest and carrying a traffic cone, I was able to walk all the way up the main road and into town without anyone batting an eyelid at me – or indeed, going to any undue lengths to avoid running me over.

When I arrived in town it was clearly not the same one I had left behind the night before. A sea of blue lights filled the High Street and dog handlers and armed police ran this way and that as I walked by them all without having a snout or gun barrel raised in my direction. In fairness to the police, it wasn’t me they were looking for. And yet, it was exactly me they were looking for. They just didn’t know it yet. And I intended to keep it that way for as long as possible.

Keep off the streets. All residents are advised to remain inside and keep their doors and windows locked until further notice, a Police Inspector was saying as he stood on the back of a police van and directed a few lone souls through a loud hailer. He glanced at me as I ambled past and so I held up my traffic cone as if to ask where do you want this? The Inspector dismissed me without so much as a glance so I continued on home, past rows and rows of ambulances and a press pack of news-hungry reporters.

From what I could make out, no one knew where this mad beast had come from and no one knew where it had gone but it had torn through my neighbourhood like a cannonball through a kindergarten. There were six confirmed fatalities that the authorities knew of but thankfully no wounded to treat, otherwise the town really would have had problems come the next night.

My street was cordoned off by armed police. Five of the six victims were residents and one had been eaten completely, bones and all, which I felt awful about until I found out they were talking about me.

Nothing left of the poor old duffer, just a load of blood up the walls. Can you believe that? the policeman on duty told me as I stood by the fluttering yellow tape and looked at all the white forensic tents thy had erected in my street.

Oh yes, I’ve heard that can happen, I replied, only too happy to confirm his version of events. The policeman looked at me quizzically and asked who I was. Traffic sent me down. They’re taking up the whole street apparently.

The policeman regarded my traffic cone but wasn’t wholly convinced.

Nobody’s told me anything. And I’m not supposed to let anyone through, he said in such a way that I could almost hear the full stop at the end of his sentence.

Suits me, I shrugged. I’ll go and get some breakfast then. I made him a gift of my traffic cone and trudged away as nonchalantly as I could fake.

Of course, they were never going to let me through a police cordon with only a traffic cone for an ID but I had to get back to my house somehow. It was vital, a matter of life and death in fact, so I slipped around the corner and kept an eye on him in the hope that he might leave his post for five minutes for a sneaky fag. Unfortunately, for me, if not his lungs, he never did. But watching closely I saw my way past him.

Police forensic teams combed the area looking for evidence and DNA and seemed to have backstage passes to everything. I had a flash of inspiration and hurried across town to B&Q. In the painting and decorating department, I picked up a white paper coversuit, a dust mask, some disposal latex gloves and a charity box off the customer service desk to help pay for all the aforementioned. I got dressed in the car park and walked back through town hoping I looked like something out of CSI: Miami rather than DIY SOS and happily the policeman duly agreed, lifting the yellow tape to admit me to the scene.

I passed another dozen white-suited investigators crawling across the tarmac on their hands and knees before I got to my house. Here too, more crime scene investigators were swabbing bloodstains off my carpet, snapping photographs of my belongings and measuring the scratch marks that now adorned my walls. I nicked a ruler and a plastic bag off a fold-out table in my front garden and headed inside.

Could it be a lion? I heard one of them say.

Certainly some kind of big cat, her colleague replied.

They plucked a few tiny strands of hair off the doorframe and very carefully placed them in a clear evidence bag. I feared they were likely to be disappointed when they examined them as any evidence of my transformation disappears come the next morning. Those strands had almost certainly come from that fluffy tartan shopping basket I’d spent the last forty years bashing my door with.

There were more investigators in my basement, some picking through my possessions, others photographing what they found. There were more gouges down here too, lots of them, especially across the back of my reinforced steel door. It seemed they had a fair idea of where the beast had come from if not what it actually was. But my basement seemed to offer some tantalising clues.

And then there was the question of Rachel’s coffin.

They found her buried beneath a mountain of old newspapers and had tried in vain to prise it open. Fortunately for me – and indeed them – they’d had no luck. They had unscrewed all the screws and worked their crowbars in the gap but try as they might, they simply could not prise the lid free. Nobody could work out why this was but there was a perfectly rational explanation for this. Rachel was inside holding it closed. She knew she would be in big trouble if they got to her so she was holding on, waiting for either mine or the night’s return to come and save her.

I’ll take it from here, I told them as I pushed my way through. I’d said this more for Rachel’s benefit than for theirs so that she heard my voice and would help me when the time came.

Rachel, as I might have mentioned, was a vampire. She had been turned when she was only a child and despite being almost a hundred years old, still looked barely twelve. She had come to me asking for help some thirty years earlier. She’d been addicted to killing but had grown unhappy over time. This can often happen to lost souls. Death is a necessity for some creatures but it can weigh heavily on the conscience so I had done what I could for her. I’d forged six silver screws from a crucifix I’d borrowed from Lincoln Cathedral and kept her locked away while I’d worked on her rehabilitation. See, Rachel needed blood to live but she didn’t need to kill, and I always hoped that if I could make her see things this way I could finally set her free.

It had been a long and patient process but for thirty-odd years Rachel hadn’t killed anyone. Neither of us had for that matter – until last night. Oh, the smug look on her face. I could almost see it now and I felt duly shameful in response.

Who are you? You’re not one of my team, a female investigator finally twigged, pulling me to one side and demanding to see my credentials.

Everyone turned to look at me and a photographer snapped my picture but seeing as I was still wearing my all-in-one paper suit (only £3 – that’s seriously good value) and white dust mask I looked no different from the Inspector next to me. A tad less eyeshadow perhaps but there wasn’t a lot between us.

Now listen, if I help you out, do you promise to be a good girl? I asked, much to the inspector’s astonishment.

Get the Sergeant down here at once. This lunatic is trespassing on my crime scene, she barked in reply.

I mean it, I’ll leave you here if I have any nonsense from you, do you hear me, girlie?

The female inspector blinked at my impertinence and one of her assistants laughed but I hadn’t been talking to her. I had been talking to Rachel.

Don’t kill them, I warned her. Just stop them from interfering. It was daylight outside and a vampire’s worst nightmare was to be tracked down to her resting place during the hours of daylight. I could help Rachel get out of here but my help came at a price.

An armed police officer appeared at the top of the stairs and asked what the problem was.

Remove this mad man immediately before he contaminates this whole place, she demanded and Rachel waited until the officer was almost upon me before flinging back the lid to catch everyone by surprise.

Oh John, she smiled excitedly, her fangs fully engorged and gleaming against the electric lights. What a naughty boy you have been.

3.

Goodbye Thetford

Rachel and I were a hundred miles away before anyone went looking for the Inspector and her team. They found them in my basement, incoherent but alive, babbling something so unlikely that their rescuers put their incapacity down to carbon monoxide poisoning. Rachel had laid them all out before anyone could scream and, true to her word, had not spilt so much as a drop of their blood. We lured a dozen more crime scene officers and policemen down into the basement to clear the street outside and when we were done, she retook her place in her coffin and I hauled it upstairs. She only needed a child’s coffin so I was able to manage it on myself but even so, it would have been easier doing this at night when Rachel wasn’t lying inside the bloody thing.

A police van sat waiting with its keys in the ignition and the policeman I’d spoken to earlier very helpfully lifted the crime scene tape for me to drive through.

We dumped the police van just outside of town and, with the assistance of a Heckler & Koch I’d borrowed from one of the officers, hijacked our way north to leave a trail of discarded vehicles and shaken victims in our wake.

Come the nightfall we were across the border and into the wide open countryside of the Scottish Marches. We’d put half of England between ourselves and the police but this was where things got tricky. You see, with the coming of the night, my hold over Rachel was no more. And with the coming of the moon, my hold over myself was even less so. It could have been carnage for the poor folks of Broxburn, Dunbar and West Barns, a vampire and a werewolf off the leash and not a Van Helsing in sight. But for once in her deceptively long life, Rachel saw the benefits of actually listening to me instead of going on a killing spree and we were able to use the cover of darkness to disappear, leaving no tracks for anyone to follow.

I’m fast and strong come the moon. I’ve no need of a vehicle and I can cover a huge distance if need be, even with a coffin strapped to my back. Rachel, likewise, is quick and moreover, she can influence me when I’m in my transformed state so that by the time the sun came up, we were a further three hundred miles north and safely ensconced in a hay barn somewhere east of Inverness.

Here we rested for a time, with Rachel breakfasting on several chickens and a rat while I borrowed a pair of boots and a rain mac I found hanging on a hook by the door to tramp into town.

You are coming back, aren’t you? Rachel asked as I was leaving.

Of course, we’re family, I assured her, before closing her lid and shoving her under several bales of hay in the corner of the barn. As long as no one went poking around in there with a pitchfork you couldn’t tell she was there. At least not by looking. But later that morning the farmer had no luck bringing his cows into feed. Something had spooked them and they refused point-blank to go anywhere near the barn for their feed no matter how hungry they got.

It took me just over three hours to walk into Inverness. No one stopped to offer me a lift despite the pouring rain and I arrived in town just before lunchtime looking like a corpse freshly risen from the grave. There were plenty of places to eat but I wasn’t hungry. In fact, I hadn’t been hungry since waking up yesterday morning. I must have gorged myself in Thetford and now I wouldn’t eat for days. A toilet-clogging rest stop was on the cards but as far as food was concerned, you couldn’t get a sausage past my lips if you tried.

The other effect my rampage had was to rejuvenate me. It’s a curious thing with werewolves. We’re not immortal like vampires. We grow old and can eventually die. But a successful hunt can slow the ageing process like you wouldn’t believe, reverse it even if we kill enough, something I’d not done in almost thirty years. I’d allowed myself to grow old. I’d wanted my cursed life to end but now, thanks to my impromptu street party, I’d turned back the clock and was young again – or at least, not quite as old as I had been before. My hair was still grey and my face still marked with lines, but my eyes sparkled blue and my body felt stronger than it had done in... well, longer than I could remember.

The first thing I did was go to the bank. I’d remembered to collect my wallet when I collected Rachel and I now drew out enough to clothe myself and hire a car. Like most old recluses, I’d amassed a considerable nest egg over the years. In fact, I’d amassed about ten nest eggs over the years, all in different names and bank accounts and none of them traceable to me. It pays to stay one step ahead of the authorities, particularly when they were still looking for me in connection with the infamous Fens Strangler murders from way back in the 1960s. Nothing to do with me, of course. All my late father’s handiwork I’m afraid, but I was still in the frame for it. It’s marvellous, isn’t it? Most parents leave their kids a house or a few dusty old photo albums to remember them by but not my dad. No, he left me a death sentence and an unflattering reputation as a serial killer to dog me for the rest of my life. I guess the authorities would probably just lock me up these days instead of hanging me but still, all things considered, I’d rather my father had left me out of it altogether and bequeathed his legacy to some other sucker.

Unbelievable isn’t it, the estate agent said, scarcely able to tear his eyes from today’s newspaper despite my sitting opposite him and kicking his desk for the last three minutes. They say they’re in Scotland now.

Do they? I replied flatly.

They say they could be heading this way.

Is that so?

Some old bloke and a young girl apparently, with machine guns.

Some old bloke you say? Like me, perhaps? I suggested, just to get his attention.

The estate agent lowered his newspaper and gave me the once over. I was now freshly washed and pressed, having thoroughly abused a bar of