Owner (Blood Brotherhood 2)

I push open the toilet door. That’s where irony says he’ll be. He’s not there. There’s nothing in there but three scraps of paper clinging to the loo roll.

I always thought that Craig’s place would be full of cool shit. But it’s really not. It’s full of disposables. Stuff that’s meant to be thrown away. Postcards taken from racks of destinations he never visited and stuck into mirror frames in a sad little attempt at decoration. This is the flat of a man who never knew what happiness should look like but tried to approximate it anyway.

There’s an old phone on the table. I pick it up and dial for help.

“Hello? Police? I’d like to report a missing person. His name’s Craig. What’s his last name? I don’t know. I just know him from work. He hasn’t been in for like a week. No, I don’t work with him. I know him from his work. He’s not there. What? Yes, I’ve heard of a holiday.”

Suffice to say, they're not taking me seriously. The woman on the other end of the line sounds like she couldn’t give less of a shit. Maybe even like she’d be happy if Craig was gone forever. There’s a total lack of sympathy in her tone, a sort of burned-out weariness.

“I’m sorry, what was your name? PC Pendragon, is it? Right. Well. I’m going to make a note of having reported this now, so if he shows up in the river or god knows where else, then I can point out that you’ve not bothered to follow up even a little bit. Alright, thanks so much, bye for now. Bye then!” I hang up. I like these old phones. Very satisfying to slam the receiver down.

I check Craig’s cupboards for food. Alright. Some noodles. Always good. I stuff them into my rucksack, taking as much as I can. There’s a couple of cans of baked beans. Got to get those. And a can of chicken soup. I take that just so I can enjoy the way it slides out all thick and congealed later.

THUNK

The front door opens. Shit. I’m going to have to explain to Craig what I’m doing in his house, and why I reported him missing. I’ve just become a version of Brad I never wanted to be.

I’m just about to call out, when I realize that whoever is coming through the door isn’t Craig. It is way larger. Way taller. Something in my gut tells me to hide.

I flatten myself against the kitchen cabinets, and from there I shuffle inside the pantry.

“Wo ist das shiesse?”

He’s speaking German. This means he’s not from around here.

Interesting, though, that I’ve run into the descendants of a second set of historically invasive barbarians in one day. The Germanic tribes don't get as much credit as the Vikings, but that’s basically a marketing issue.

“Ich habe keine Ahnung,” someone else replies. It’s a female voice. She sounds annoyed and somewhat bored. She also sounds like she’s on speakerphone. So the man is here alone, but with an accomplice elsewhere.

He starts tearing the house up. And I do mean literally tearing the house up. I can hear furniture being broken, doors being ripped off cabinets, drawers pulled out, all the contents thrown to the ground and rifled through. He’s snorting and snarling like an animal, scaring the shit out of me. He’s also getting closer.

I’ve not been this scared in a long time. Definitely not when the priests had me. As angry as they were, they didn’t have this kind of energy. This is a rage that will tear people apart as easily as kitchen cabinetry.

I plunge my hand into my rucksack. I have the hammer. That’s all I have to defend myself — and I do intend to defend myself.

He rips open the pantry door and I act almost before I’ve had a chance to think about it. He's a big, ugly bastard, his features twisted with the kind of fury that makes a man look more like an animal.

My hands are lifted high above my head. That's not the motion my instincts want me to make. They want me to curl up in a ball and beg for my life. But my arms are being pulled up. It’s almost like the hammer is acting on its own, using me as the tool rather than the other way around.

He looks at me. I look at him. He lets out a growl, reaches for me, and that is the last thing he ever does.

I bring the hammer down. Hard. Harder than I knew I was capable of hitting anybody. I feel the hammer hit his skull and I feel his skull break like an eggshell cracking on the corner of a kitchen counter.

There is a clap of thunder and the massive man collapses. There's blood fucking everywhere. Instantly. A pool of it spreading all over the messy floor, coming right up to my toes. I’m going to have to go through his blood to get out of here.