The final part of Delbert, sorry it has taken so long, I have been very lazy recently but am determined to make this a regular thing again, see above message for more Anyway enjoy, this complete piece, along with my other stories and a couple of so far unseen pieces shall be available to download from Amazon Kindle very soon.
Delbert’s right leg was broken. It jutted out just under the
knee at a violent outward angle. He drugged the broken limb behind him with an
impressive speed for a man on one good leg. The pain had been at lot better
than what he had thought a break would be but it hurt like a bitch nonetheless.
There was little blood which he was grateful of as the sight of his own claret
liquid would have knocked him out again.
He pulled his body across the reception area, each step
causing more pain for his leg, his breath becoming weak and raspy.
He held the hatchet with a terrifying strength.
Delbert made his way into the kitchen, pushing the big
swinging double doors wide so as to avoid them clamping shut on his leg as he
dragged it in behind him. He turned left when through the double doors and
rummaged through the closest cupboards, searching through empty whiskey bottles
in search of some sweet liquor. When he couldn’t find any he became agitated,
throwing empty bottles to the floor in frustration. The glass shattering on the
floor spraying shards across the kitchen.
Finally he found a half full bottle and yanked it out of the
cupboard, more empty bottles flying for freedom as he did so. Delbert twisted
the bottle top off and drank the strong brown liquid quickly and loudly. He
barely breathed as the whiskey burnt his throat. It slapped over the sides of
his lips and spilt onto his shirt. When he couldn’t bare the burning sensation
in his throat he slumped forward and breathed deeply. His head was already
beginning to swim and the pain in his leg died down almost to nothing.
Delbert breathed steadily, calm washing over him. He stood
on one leg, body slumped over the counter with his head lain down on the cool
surface. His breath fogged up the shiny worktop as he breathed.
Grady stared at the walls. From here he could see the white
washed far wall, the only empty one in the entire kitchen. He could see the
door he had entered from with the porthole style window, through which he could
see the roof of the reception area.
He twisted his head round to face the opposite side and saw
much of the same, a white wash wall, cookers, pots, knives, dish washers.
Nothing of interest. He then twisted his entire body around to lean against his
back and his eyes scanned the rest of the kitchen, more cookers, more knives,
more pots, on this side there was another two doors, one to the restaurant and
one to Ullman’s office. The second door was just swinging closed.
Grady was up in a shot, barely recognising the pain in his
leg. He stormed towards the door, hatchet in hand. He swung his arms out as he
stalked his prey, the hatchet catching the pots on the hooks and sending them
flying across the room, clattering on the various metal appliances. The sound
echoed through the kitchen.
Within ten seconds Grady had made it across the kitchen and
burst through the swinging door, his family were at the radio, desperately
trying to contact anyone. His girls were crying in fear and they were all
shaking.
“Hello Julie dear,
trying to contact your boyfriend are we?” Grady loved the power he had over
them.
“Delbert...” Julie cried. “Delbert please, let me explain,
it isn’t how you think... Please Delbert, baby, this isn’t you.” The tears
streamed down her face, she was frozen in fear and had stopped trying to work
the radio.
Delbert swung the hatchet down onto the radio, it flashed
and crackled in a horrible electric storm within the room and then died. “Tell
me out it is then dear. Tell me all
about it!” Grady swung the hatchet across the desk, sending the lamp and books
that were upon it to the floor. The girls screamed and Julie blubbered more and
more. “Because what I think it is... is that you’re a cheating bitch!” Delbert
stalked the around the desk as he talked. “These brats aren’t even mine! Are
they!” Delbert roared the words at her like a proud lion. They were in front of
the desk and he was behind I now. Despite the break in his leg Delbert moved
with grace and capability.
Delbert place his index finger on the blade and ran it along
the length of it, slowly as to not cut himself. “Julie, Julie... Julie.” He
smiled at them, almost the family man he had been again. “Run.”
He barely gave them time to process the words before he
leaped across the desk at them, his broken leg sticking out to the side made
him look like a hurdle jumper. The three Grady girls turned and ran out of the
reception area, however the two girls separated from their mother as Grady went
to chase after her. Julie ran off up the grand stairs whilst the girls headed
in the opposite direction.
Delbert had all intent on following his wife, she was the
one that had to go after all but a sound of pain from the girls made him change
his mind.
Mary and Claire had fallen to the floor, a floor board had
been poking up and one of them just hit it at the wrong angle at too fast a
speed which had sent them flying to the floor in a bundle.
“GIRLS!” Grady said with a smile that suggested a loving
father. “Come here.” He held his arms wide with the hatchet faced in a deadly
position, ready to strike when it got into range. Delbert ran towards them, the
adrenaline taking over from the pain of his leg.
Mary and Claire struggled to get to their feet but the
managed to just as Delbert approached. They ran screaming together, the hatchet
burying itself into the space they had occupied two seconds before hand.
Anger filled Delbert, he wanted this to be over. He saw red
and suddenly his body was stronger than it had ever been. Grady roared at the
girls who had ran off into one of the various bars of the Overlook. He stalked
after them, like a predator hunting its prey.
***
Julie collapsed in a flood of tears on the first floor fire
escape stairs. She was out of breath and ashamed that she had let the girls get
away from her. She had no idea where they were but could only assume the worst.
How could this happen to her. Why would Delbert do this. The drink had always
been cruel to him but it never this bad, a few beatings but nothing she
couldn’t deal with. And what had he said? Her boyfriend? She could only presume
he had gone off in a jealous rage, fuelled by alcohol. And now this...
She heard a scream bellow out. It echoed up throw the cold
stairwell and pierced her ears with a terrifying sinking blow. Julie leaped
down the stairs, running to find the source of the scream. All was silent
besides the slap of her bare feet on the cold, hard concrete. The tears that
lay on Julie’s cheeks quickly dried from the heat of skin as she ran towards
the nearest bar; the source of the scream. She dreaded what she would find
there, she couldn’t bare to think that it was her fault. The scream was because
she had let the girls out of her grasp, she knew it. There was something
heartfelt and saddening in the scream, she feared the worst.
As Julie entered the bar, she slowed, fearful for herself as
well as her children despite her mothering instincts to protect her children.
Her fears were quickly confirmed.
***
Delbert had cut into their soft young flesh like warm
butter. He had broken the bones like twigs, the power that he had channelled
through his arms into the small hatchet blade had been almost super-human. Some
deeply suppressed cave man like mad man replacing his usual physical self giving
him the power to destroy his little girls bodies. Mary had been first, her head
split open and blood oozed out of it, staining the rug beneath it. Claire was
next, after cowering in the corner and begging her father to let her go Delbert
had slit her neck open.
“Daddy, daddy no,
please!” she had cried. Then she screamed as she died.
Delbert hadn’t even paused before he killed them. The plan
was coming together and soon he would be alone with the red head girl. Murder
was easy. He had read books when he was at school which said that criminals had
deep set guilt after they committed murder. But Grady felt no guilt, nor
remorse, only pleasure and excitement. Finally he would have revenge on his
wife for he cheating ways. Cheating
bitch!
Delbert paused and looked around. He could hear her running
to him now, he could hear her coming after him, coming to save her bastard
children. Delbert glanced down at the hatchet. It was stained red and as he ran
his finger along the blade found it to be blunt. The bones of the girls must
have dulled it. He would need something else for Julie, something a little
more...special. The footsteps were getting closer and faster but Delbert had
already found his weapon. He slumped over to the bar and toppled clumsily over,
the pain in his leg returning. The bar was empty, apart from a shotgun hung
decoratively over the bar. When he had seen this on his first look round the
hotel he had presumed it to be deactivated and it was only two days ago that he
had found otherwise. Whilst on the prowl for some whiskey he had stumbled
behind the bar and found shotgun shells on the shelf underneath one of the beer
taps. They must have been left there by some hapless guest who had been hunting
in the surrounding mountains. Some how the gun had been mistaken as an ornament
and hung up.
Delbert yanked it off the hooks and leant against the bar as
he loaded the shells into the gun. It was a double barrel shotgun so Delbert
loaded in two shells and cocked it. He ducked down just as Julie was entering
the room, she hadn’t seen his hiding place.
Delbert poked his head over the bar. Julie had collapsed at
her dead girls bodies and was crying into their bodies. Her shoulders moving
dramatically up and down, her sobs filling the otherwise silent room. Her hands
covered her face and Delbert saw this as his moment to strike.
He moved around the side of the bar and crouched under the
portion of the bar the allowed staff members in and out. He crept as close to
his wife as he dared and lined up to take the shot. He felt as though he was
hunting duck, having his wife in the guns sites seemed natural, as if it was
something every man would do. Fancy going
on a wife hunt this weekend? Delbert chuckled in his head at the thought of
a sport replacing the popularity of fishing.
“Julie,” he whispered to himself. She didn’t stir from her
sobbing ball that she had formed. “I loved you and you betrayed me.” His finger
felt for the trigger, ready to squeeze. “Good-bye.” Julie turned to face him as
he pulled the trigger. Her head toppled backwards under the force of the shot,
blood filling the space of air where her face had been. Julie crumpled on top
of her little girls, her blood mixing with theirs to form a thick almost black
pool the trickled through the cracks and splits of the wooden floor.
Grady was sent flying backwards due to the force of the gun.
He thought he felt his right shoulder dislocate as the gun ricocheted into it.
He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
THE NEXT MORNING.
Delbert Grady rolled over onto
his knees and tried to stand. His head was killing him and the pain of the
night before hit him like a brick. He quickly found it impossible to stand and
instead crawled over the bar and used that as a leaning post to help him to his
feet.
He had done it. He had killed his
family, his cheating wife cheating bitch was
dead and his brats were gone. The
hotel, indeed the world was silent. The sun was on the rise and cast orange
light into the bar. The crumpled bodies of his deceased family lay neatly in
the corner, a happy coincidence that they died somewhere out of the way.
“Hello?” Delbert called out into
the silence. Nothing responded other than his own muffled echo. Where was the
red head, he asked himself. Grady stood shakily to his feet and shuffled out of
the bar, the smell was already becoming too much and the heating had gone out
in the bar and he could already feel the cold creeping in.
Progress was slow but eventually
after much clambering and shuffling, pain and shrieks, Delbert made it back
into the room he had originally met the red haired woman in. The smell in there
was worse than of the recently dead bodies. The smell of sick hung poignant in
the air. The taste of the rancid vomit as he breathed in was worse than the
smell. Despite it, Grady sat down at the base of the bed and waited. Surely she
must turn up eventually, he reasoned, she had found him here before, she’d come
back here again.
Delbert waited. He was unaware of
true time, a mix of pain of his leg and the smell of vomit caused him to clack
out several times. When he came to he was unsure whether he had passed out at
all. Delbert waited. He grew hungry but reasoned that he would wait until she
came before he went to eat. Delbert waited. The day grew to a close and he was
left to sit in the dark. Delbert still waited. Alone, cold and in the dark
waiting for the woman with red hair to come and make what he had done to his
family right.
THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.
She still hadn’t come. Delbert had woken up for the fifth or
sixth time that night and each time he had grown more worried for the girl with
red hair. She should have found him by now. What if something had happened to
her, what if she had left him here, alone thinking that he had gone without
her. The wind sliced through the silence and sent a chill of fear down
Delbert’s neck.
He could wait no longer, he would go looking for her.
***
Delbert sat next to the pile of slowly rotting bodies that
were once his family. He was crying. He cried for what he had done to them, he
cried for the death of his girls and he cried for the disgusting state he had
left them in. He cried for Julie, he had loved her so. The gun lay next to him,
stained with the blood that it was placed upon. Delbert cried.
“Hello Delbert.” A voice from the dark corner of the bar
room. The voice of the red haired girl. “She wasn’t cheating on you, you know.”
“I know!” Delbert bellowed, more towards his wifes’ body
than to the girl. “I know.” Almost a whisper.
“And you killed her Delbert. For me.” Delbert could hear the
satisfaction on her voice, it buried deep inside him with a sickening pain. The
pleasure she got from torturing him was the same he took from killing his
family. He could sense it. “Silly boy
Delbert. You’re all the same you men. Easy to...” She paused for a very long
time. “Manipulate.” She said. The final word seemed to come from inside
Delbert’s own head.
Delbert carried on crying, he didn’t care for the woman, he
wanted his wife. But she was gone. Gone because of what he did. And his baby
girls! He remembered holding them in his arms when they were born. So small and
delicate. Chopped to bits. They were gone now, all gone.
With shaky hands and a heavy heart Delbert Grady picked up
the gun which had killed his wife and angled the but of it towards his head. He
rested his chin on the cold metal casing of the barrel and closed his eyes. He
felt guilt and remorse. He felt ashamed.
“Good-bye Delbert Grady.”
