A Retreat

Martin raised his hands in an evangelical fashion and smiled. When the chat didn’t immediately dissipate, he stood, still smiling.

Eva thought she detected a glimmer of impatience.

‘I want to start by saying thank you,’ he said, when silence finally prevailed amongst the gathered survivors. ‘Thank you to all six of you for having the courage to come to this remote spot and share your experiences of surviving some of the most infamous killers in this nation’s living memory.’

Not for the first time, Eva questioned her own decision to attend this retreat. She’d spent ten years trying to move on from her encounter with Harold Crighton, AKA The Hooded Howler, only to accept an invitation from Martin Baxter to hang out with the survivors of other notorious killing sprees by possibly supernatural killers. She had a desperate hope that hearing their stories of survival and how they had regained their lives might help her do the same.

‘I won’t lie, this first task will be a painful one for everyone,’ continued Martin, formerly a TV life coach, now specialising in helping survivors of serial killers, especially those of a potentially supernatural nature, navigate their way back to some kind of normality. ‘But you need to be open about your personal experience and to name your abominations.’

A murmured reaction rose from the six attendees, sitting around the spacious room on comfortable chairs and sofas, faces warmed by a roaring fire.

‘Eva, why don’t we start with you. Tell us your name and the name of your monster and how you survived.’

Eva sighed. Maye it was better to go first and get it over and done with. She was aware of the other five attendees — four women and one male — turning to look at her.

She cleared her throat and said: ‘My name is Eva Packard, I was nearly a victim of the serial killer known as The Hooded Howler.’

Much muttering and sounds that suggested recognition erupted from those around her.

‘He killed six of my friends before he came for me. We were all neighbours in a small town — the town where The Hooded Howler was born. The legend goes that Harold was abandoned by his parents in the forest and raised by wild dogs. When he reached his teens, he is said to have descended on the town with his pack to seek revenge on his parents, but was shot dead by his own father, along with most of his doggy friends. Years later, he somehow returned to avenge the seven pack members killed by his father. I was meant to be victim number seven, but I severed his head with a garden spade, buried it in the forest and threw his dismembered body in a lake, weighed down by a boulder.’

‘Thank you for sharing, Eva,’ said Martin.

‘Why Hooded Howler?’ asked the woman sitting across from Eva.

‘He wore a hooded cloak and howled like a wild dog when he attacked,’ replied Eva. ‘Sorry, I thought that was implied.’

‘Julie,’ said Martin, now smiling at the plump woman whom Eva had just offended. “Do you want to share next?’

Julie stood, unecessarily, and announced: ‘My name is Julie Redwell. I was almost a victim of The English Gent.’

‘He sounds terrifying,’ said Eva.

‘He forced me to have afternoon tea with him,’ continued Julie.

Eva couldn’t contain herself. ‘Seriously? Afternoon tea? How awful for you.’

Julie locked gazes with Eva. ‘I was tied to a chair, and five of my dead friends were propped up around the table with me. Some had been dead for several months, and they stank. There were maggots feasting on their wounds.’

Eva nodded. ‘That does sound pretty bad, actually.’

‘How did you escape him?’ asked Martin.

Julie took a deep, shuddering beath. ‘He was sitting across the table from me, dressed in his signature three-piece suit, nibbling on a little triangular sandwich and talking about the weather. There was a huge, blood-stained knife lying next to his plate. I had managed to free my hands from the rope he’d tied them with; I’d always been a bit paranoid about being tied up and had practised freeing myself from various knots over the years. I was starting to manipulate my ankles under the table to try and get my legs free, when all my dead friends started talking to me.’

‘What?’ exclaimed several of those gathered around the fire.

Julie took another deep breath. ‘Their gaping, bloody, maggot-filled mouths were moving, and these awful, choking voices coming from them. They were making small talk about each other and the neighbourhood, as if we really were enjoying a polite afternoon tea. That’s when I knew The English Gent had supernatural abilities.’

‘So, how did you kill him?’ asked Eva.

Julie shrugged. ‘I freed my legs, leapt onto the table, grabbed his knife and slit his throat. That silenced him and the corpses.’

‘Nifty work,’ said the only man in the room other than Martin; Eva thought he was called Ted. He looked like someone who worked in a library.

‘Was that enough to kill him?’ asked Eva. ‘Were you not scared he’d come back?’

Julie shook her head. ‘After I’d slit his throat, I cut off his limbs and heead, and sliced up his torso with a chainsaw I found in a shed out the back of his house. I put the various bits of body into separate bin bags and drove around town, burying them in about twenty different graves. I didn’t tell the police about that. I just told them I’d slit his throat and run.’

Eva was impressed.

Each member of the party had a similarly terrible experience to share. Their would-be killers included a zombie child, accidently resurrected by the survivor and her now long dead classmates; a malicious dream demon who haunted an entire town, murdering people while they slept; and a sewer-dwelling madman who could psychically control rats and use them to seek revenge on those he felt were responsible for his current status.

Finally, it was Ted's turn. He looked particularly nervous. ‘I’m not quite sure why I was invited to take part in this program,’ he said, kneading one hand with the other. ‘My killer wasn’t supernatural, as far as I know, although he killed a lot of people. The press dubbed him The Necktie Ripper, because he always murdered people wearing formal clothing by strangling them with their own ties, slashing their throats and then taking his victim’s tie as a trophy.’

‘How did you kill him?’ asked Eva.

‘I didn’t,’ replied Ted. ‘I managed to escape. I was wearing a clip-on tie, so it just came away in his hands when he tried to strangle me. And I ran.’

‘So, he’s still out there?’ asked Julie.

Ted shrugged. ‘As far as I know. That’s another reason why I don’t really belong here. You brave people all killed your monsters, I just escaped mine and left him free to kill again — although this was a year ago and he’s not murdered since, that we know of.’

Martin clapped his hands together to direct attention back to him. ‘I think you’ve all been incredibly courageous this evening. I suggest an early night for everyone and then tomorrow, after a hearty breakfast, we can go for a hike in the woods surrounding the centre.’

‘Why did you choose somewhere so remote for this retreat?’ asked Eva.

Martin smiled. ‘I live here most of the year. I enjoy the peace, and I think it works well for gatherings like this — no distractions. I believe people open up more when they are in the open countryside. Now, would anyone like a hot chocolate to take to bed with them?’

*

Eva felt uncharacteristically relaxed when she lay down in the single bed and turned out the bedside light. She guessed it was because she was surrounded by other people, people who would understand if she did wake up in the night screaming. This was exactly what happened around two hours after falling asleep. It was the usual scenario; she thought she heard the sound of The Hooded Howler’s gut-churning cry.

It happened so often, Eva knew the drill. She sat up, and turned on the bedside lamp and began box breathing: breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for…

The horrendous howling came again, and it was close.

Eva screamed and leapt from the bed, turning to face the window, wondering why she hadn’t drawn the curtains. She saw a clear sky lit by stars, and then a shadow passed directly in front of the glass. Another howl caused her body to contract into a painful spasm as panic gripped her. She tried to scream again, but her throat was closed, her chest too full of terror for her to even take a breath.

A shreik sounded from a nearby room, growing increasingly hysterical.

*

Julie was standing in the passage that ran between all the bedrooms. Her bedroom door was open, and she was pointing through the opening, face contorted with fear. Eva stumbled towards her, clutching her chest and trying to find her voice.

Doors opened along the passageway, and the other four survivors emerged, along with Martin, whose face bore a suitably concerned expression.

‘Julie? Is everything okay?’ Martin placed a hand on Julie’s shoulder, while the others, including Eva, hung back.

‘No, it's fucking not!’ shrieked Julie, still pointing. ‘There’s a fucking tea set on my bedside table.’

*

Eva was taken aback by Julie’s request to share her room for the rest of the night. Perhaps Eva had imagined the slight tension between them. Julie had dragged her mattress into Eva’s room and, despite everything, the two of them had fallen asleep fairly quickly, although Eva woke several times and heard Julie muttering to herself, her dreams no doubt plagued by The English Gent and afternoon tea.

They both got up soon after sunrise and wandered to the kitchen, where Martin was already preparing pancakes for breakfast. Ted was sitting at the large central island, sipping coffee and staring through the kitchen window. ‘It’s snowing pretty heavily,’ he said, his tone dismal.

‘So, was it you?’ asked Julie, standing in the kitchen doorway.

Martin turned to face her, frying pan clutched in one hand, a bowl of pancake mix in the other. ‘As I said last night, Julie, I wouldn’t do that to you.’

‘Julie sat on one of the stools that surrounded the island. ‘Who then?’

Eva took the stool next to Julie’s, nodding at Ted’s offer to pour her a coffee.

‘I guess it must have been someone’s sick idea of a joke,’ said Ted, also pouring Julie a coffee and pushing the mug towards her.

‘Who the Hell brings a tea set to a retreat for serial killer survivors?’ demanded Julie.

‘Maybe someone who did their research on who was coming,’ said Eva.

Julie looked pensive as she sipped her coffee. ‘So one of the other survivors is getting a kick out of scaring the shit out of the rest of us? What next, then? Zombie kids crying in the night, the mask of the dream demon mysteriously appearing on the end of Shelly’s bed — that’s her name, right, the one who claims she was chased around her dreams by a psycho?’

‘Yes,’ said Ted. ‘She’s pretty cool, actually. We chatted over hot chocolate in the living room after everyone went to bed. I think she still finds sleeping difficult.’

‘Pancakes, Eva?’ Martin was standing over her, proffering a plate of pancakes, drizzled in maple syrup.

Eva’s stomach churned. ‘No thanks, I’ll stick with coffee for now.’

A scream and hysterical babbling suddenly erupted from the far end of the passageway. Martin dropped the hot pan on the island and hurried to investigate. Ted followed. Julie stood and stared after them. ‘Now what?’

*

Angela, who’d vanquished the rat-controlling sewer dweller, and Becky, who’d survived the zombie child, were huddled together outside Stella’s room. Angela was sobbing, while the slightly more composed Becky comforted her.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Eva, as she and Julie approached.

‘It’s Stella,’ said Becky, who was dressed in a knee-length t-shirt and still had remnants of a face mask on her flushed cheeks.

‘She’s dead,’ wailed Angela, a petite, young black woman with a short, glossy Afro.

Martin appeared in the bedroom doorway, looking solemn. ‘I’m afraid Angela’s right.’

‘What the…?’ Eva pushed past Martin into Stella’s room, only just managing to stifle a scream at what she saw. Ted was sitting at the end of the bed, his head in his hands and behind him lay Stella.

The arms and legs of her corpse were twisted into impossible positions like those of a rubber toy; her back was arched as if in the throes of an agonising spasm, and her face was a mask of pain and terror, the eyes glaring blindly at the ceiling. Why had nobody closed them?

‘He finally got her,’ said Ted.

*

‘We need to get help, and we need to get out of here,’ said Eva when they had all gathered in the kitchen.

Martin raised his hands for calm. Eva wanted to slap him.

‘It’s tragic, but it’s obvious to me that poor Stella had a heart attack.’

‘Did you see her!’ Angela, who was standing by the sink, raised herself to her full five feet one, staring defiantly at Martin, who suddenly looked less composed. ‘And Eva heard her howling man last night, and Julie woke up with a tea set next to her bed. It’s pretty obvious to me that our supernatural slashers are all here, planning to take us out one by one.’

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions,’ said Martin, as a large rat ran across the kitchen.

*

Julie flung open the front door and began marching towards the Volkswagen van in which Martin had driven them to the cabin from the nearest town, around seven miles away.

‘Wait!’ called Eva, squinting against the snow that continued to fall. ‘Look!’

Julie didn’t hear her, but Becky was standing next to her, and she saw what Eva had seen. The tiny footprints of a child leading to the front door and away again.

‘They must be fresh,’ said Becky, her voice trembling. ‘He must have just been here, otherwise the snow would have covered his prints.’

‘Damn!’ Julie cursed and slammed her fist against the side of the van. ‘Someone’s sabotaged the engine.’

‘Seriously?’ Eva looked back into the living room and relayed the news to everyone else.

‘Shit!’ Ted was pacing the room like a caged animal, holding his phone above his head, as if he could somehow get a signal.

‘Ans there’s no landline?’ asked Angela, giving Martin another of her hard stares.

“I came here for solitude,’ said Martin.

‘Good for you,’ said Angela.

‘I needed it after everything that happened,’ continued Martin, standing in front of the glowing remnants of the fire. ‘After the sixth killing, I just wanted peace.’

‘What?’ Ted stared at him, and gradually Martin’s words began to register with everyone, including Julie, who had stomped back to the cabin from the wrecked van.

‘Yes,’ continued Martin. ‘I was the Necktie Ripper.’

Ted recoiled, slamming his back against the nearest wall.

‘I never achieved the same level of notoriety as my supernatural counterparts, though, which always peeved me. So, one evening while here, when the solitude got too much even for me, I decided to call on them all and ask for their assistance. I just used a simple Ouija board, and contacted each one of your monsters in turn, invited them to stay and get a second chance at killing their final girl.’

‘You brought us here so they could kill us?’ Eva, took a step towards Martin.

The sound of rats scratching and scuttling in the attic above grew suddenly loud, and someone was tapping lightly on a nearby window and calling for Becky.

‘Who’s for tea?’ asked a disembodied voice, and they all noticed a resplendent tea set laid out on the coffee table that hadn’t been there seconds before.

‘They get the pleasure of killing you,’ said Martin, ‘While I’ll take all the credit — little old me will be infamous for killing the final girls that escaped the world’s most notorious supernatural serial killers. And for finally finishing what I started with my final boy, Ted.’

‘Fuck you!’ Ted ran at Martin, fists raised, but Marin sent him flying backwards with just a flick of his wrist.

‘All the supernatural energy around here has made me a little special too,’ said Martin with a grin.

They heard small feet pattering across the kitchen, and the scuttling of rats had reached the passageway, the tea set began to vibrate and rattle, and from the nearby woods, howling rose.