Accidental Don. Episode two...

The predators didn't smile, though both of them had reason to. It was their “down time”, time to relax, to do a bit of what made them both happy.

Neither man knew the other in any real sense. A chance encoutner online and a discovery of shared interests, they'd made quite a formidable team over recent months.

Their prey didn't smile. He had no reason to. It was time to find somewhere to bed down.

He'd been homeless for the last six months. Now too old for child services he'd been helped to find a place of his own, a tenancy on a flat in an area where no one wanted to live. A lady had helped him fill in some forms to cover his rent and to provide him with whatever meagre benefits he was entitled to. He was very grateful, his future was bright.

Briefly.

He struggled to find work, eventually giving up and cultivating a habit, his days becoming filled with pot and Playstation. When the lady at the benefits office had told him he was to be sanctioned for not making enough of an effort to cease his parasitic existence he'd not cared. When the letters began arriving to inform him he'd have to leave his flat after complaints from the neighbouring properties he'd ignored them. When the baillifs arrived he'd fought them and, once he'd been released from the short spell in prison that followed, he'd hit rock bottom.

Now his days were split into three sections of equal length, each ending in brief relief before the next began and each new section bringing with it the dread of what might come next.

The first of the sections was what you and I call 'morning'. After finding a place to stash his sleeping back and the little holdall that contained his world he would begin his day in earnest, walking around the city centre and wishing he'd never been born. He would find a place to sit that was close to a Gregg's or a Pound Bakery and wait for the do-gooders to take pity on him.

Then would follow the second section. Walking the streets to keep warm and longing for the days when eye contact with another human being wasn't a thing of the past.

And wishing he'd never been born.

If he managed to survive the first two sections, as he had thus far invariably done, then began the search for somewhere dry to settle down for the night. If, like today, he'd been given a few pounds by the pitying people passing by he'd buy a huge bottle of white cider to numb the pain of his worthless existence and to help him forget his fears, maybe even get some sleep. Sleep that brought with it dreams of happier days now gone and, upon waking, the pain of loss afresh.

If he hadn't the funds, he stole the cider.

The prey trudged slowly up the staircase at the back of the building, pausing at the second flight to relieve himself. When he reached the fourth floor he heaved open a heavy, now redundant, fire door and slipped into the darkness of the derelict mill by the train tracks.

He waited a moment in the doorway, looking around and letting his pupils adjust to the low light provided by the silvery moon that leaked in through the tiny, cracked windows lining the high walls close to ceiling level. Dust motes danced in the cold beams that slowly crept across the floor. Metal lockers lined one wall, many of them having fallen or been pushed over and now lying door side down. 

Rubble was piled here and there and an atmospheric soundtrack was provided by a combination of the trains that trundled in and out of the nearby station and that nights rain running through, and spilling from, the ramshackle remains of the cast iron Victorian guttering that ran down the inside of the old structure.

Perfect.

He unfurled his sleeping bag and climbed in, pressing his back into the corner of the huge room as he pulled a few copies of that day's Metro newspaper from his holdall. He separated the pages and stuffed them inside his clothing.

The hiss of the plastic bottle being opened brought a smile to the prey's lips, as to the lips of those predators silently searching the building for the young man with the pretty mouth...

...that none would miss.

____________________

Slowly, young Donny became Donald the butcher.

Initially, he'd wanted to sell the family business but potential buyers were thin on the ground. He'd seriously contemplated shutting the shop and selling the property at auction before disappearing with a back pack for a life lived under open skies in far flung, exotic lands.

But there was Harry to consider. And Susan. And Jeff, Tommy, Trevor and Jill.

Between them, Harry and Susan had given Donald's family thirty years of service. The other members of staff had given another couple of decades. Harry was in his fifties, he'd never get another job. Susan had teenage boys to provide for. They were people, with mortgages, rent, bills, children, commitments...

So Donald asked Harry to run the shop, the business could easily afford a manager. It made perfect sense.

The shop could also afford to pay for the therapist Donald began seeing. The therapist taught the young Donald some coping strategies which enabled him, three or four years after his parents' deaths, to successfully butcher his first lamb. He didn't enjoy it, but under Harry's careful tutelage he became proficient enough to be able to carry on in Harry's role at whatever point in time Harry could no longer.

Then came Sally, and Sally brought life.

Life to Donald in the form of a happiness like he'd never known and, with some input from Donald, a new life to the world. Their daughter, Milly.

Donald couldn't have been happier, and that happiness was set in stone.

____________________

Nestled in a sleeping bag of his own within a coffin sized cardboard box that had once contained a piece of cadaver sized machinery, he squinted in the gloom and watched the boy settle in.

He'd heard the predator's prey pissing on the stairwell and had silently watched as he'd climbed into his nylon cocoon for the night. The boy was a drinker, the stench of his cheap alcohol affronted the nostrils of the unseen man in the box. He'd been on the streets long enough to know the drinkers couldn't be trusted, he'd wait for the boy to pass out and then go find another home.

He heard laughter. An unusual sound in these parts, the man in the box furrowed his brow and held his breath.

The predators didn't need to be quiet. They swung wide the fire exit and strode through.

Unremarkable men of average build, one approaching and one having passed middle-age, strode in. The first of the two whistled.

“Whit-woo, what a gorgeous apartment.” His companion sniggered.

The youngster sat up and frantically began trying to wriggle out of his bag, spilling his cheap booze as he did so. The first of the two men sprang into action, dashing forward and aiming a kick at the kid's face. The blow connected, though not as solidly as the kicker would have liked, and sent the young man's head backwards where it connected with the bare brick of the old mill's thick, solid wall. Both predators laughed, whooping like wild animals and kicking rubble.

The predator that hadn't yet kicked the kid strode over. Their prey was on all fours. Unconsciously, he touched himself and ran a tongue across his dry, cracked lips.

The young man's head was still swimming from the assault as the smiling predator tore the hat from his prey's head. He grabbed a handful of the young man's hair and dragged him to his knees. He was in control, it was time to enjoy himself.

“You could've run the fucking hoover around,” he laughed as he fumbled his erection out from his flies, “it's filthy in here.” He and his fellow predator chuckled.

“Yeah,” The kicker sniggered as he fumbled with his smart phone, trying to turn on the camera, “Filthy. You're a dirty boy.” Both men spluttered more laughter.

“Why bother? You didn't wipe your fucking feet anyway.” Came the unexpectedly sarcastic reply, though not from the dazed and frightened boy about to be raped by the old man.

The old man lost the erection he'd harboured since first he'd spotted their prey, fishing his bags out from behind a rusting skip with weeds growing through it, as he watched the blow land.

The blow he'd watched land had landed on the skull of his partner in crime, a devastating blow that ended the perverts life in an instant. The phone clattered to the floor as the new cadaver slumped slowly to his knees before toppling forward, his face making a wet splat as it broke his fall. His fellow predator's eyes widened, transfixed by the wet, scarlet wound that oozed from beneath already matted hair. He released the young man who immediately scrambled away into the corner.

“Who the fuck are you?” The predator turned prey demanded as he fumbled a wicked looking knife from his pocket.

“I really don't know, these days.” The figure stepped from the shadows, dropping the length of cast iron down spout he'd recently used to make the world a better place. The echoing racket it created as it struck the floor made both old and new prey jump.

It was a tramp, thought the pervert with the knife. A dirty, fucking vagrant.

“Come any closer and I'll fucking stab you. You don't fucking know me, I'll chop you up, you fucking...”

“Shush, shush, shush, shush.” The man from the shadows held up both of his hands, though continued to advance slowly, “there's no need for all that.” He paused, “You know, I think I do know you, actually.”

The pervert with the knife squinted. He was confused. He hadn't encountered resistance before, always careful to select victims that looked weak and alone. He was discovering he didn't deal well with resistance, he needed a way out. He was a rapist, maybe a paedophile (He'd never asked their ages, he just hoped they were as young as they looked) but he wasn't a murderer. He didn't know how to fucking fight, let alone use a knife for anything other than buttering toast or changing a plug. A way out, anything, any straw to grasp on to...

“Who are you? How do you know me?” He'd keep the tramp talking while he found a way out of the situation.

“Let me be frank...” The tramp from the shadows began, “Oh, but would you mind putting that thing away first?” He gestured toward the pervert's penis.

The pervert's hand was half way up his back almost as soon as he'd glanced down at his rapidly shrivelling privates. The pain forced him down on one knee before a further twist was applied that dislocated his shoulder and forced him to let go of the knife. Bony, gnarled fingers wrapped around his throat, squeezing hard. His eyes bulged, his chest felt as if it would explode, the pain from his torn and twisted shoulder raged throughout his every fibre. He saw stars twinkling briefly on the periphery of his vision, then the world faded from gloomy grey to red as he got some respite from the agony and panic when, finally, the rapist of lost children lost consciousness.

____________________

It was Harry's turn to look after the shop.

As Donald had become more proficient in the art of butchery and as Harry's body had continued to age, the running of the shop was now split between owner and manager. On Monday, Wednesday, Friday and every other Saturday Donald greeted his customers with a smile from behind the counter while his one-time mentor took the helm for the remainder of the week.

Harry's turn to open up and, as had happened on several occasions over the last year or so, Donald was now driving at breakneck speed toward his shop having been called by Susan when Harry had failed to arrive.

Donald owed Harry so much. Without Harry Donald's life would have fallen apart after the death of his parents. Donald loved the old man the way he'd never loved his father.

He'd ignored his aging mentor's forgetfulness, pretending not to notice it. It was never anything major and the old man could still twirl a cleaver and chop a chop as well as any man on the planet.

Donald had urged Harry to see a doctor on the morning after he'd found his father figure crying in the rain and staring at the house in which he'd lived, back when he was still a young man. Harry promised he'd make the appointment, but he kept forgetting.

“Harry IS here, daddy, look...” His daughter pointed at the smiling figure of the old butcher and waved back at him.

“Hmmm , yes.”

Donald had had no choice but to take Milly with him to open up. Her mother was visiting her parents, an infrequent expedition that both would rather not take but that only Donald could really get out of. Milly had been given the choice of visiting “Granddad Misery Guts” or staying home with Daddy.

“You okay, Harry?” Donald enquired once the cash drawer had been filled with change and the door unbolted.

“No. No, I don't think I am.”

Donald put a hand on the old man's shoulder.

“It's going to be okay, Harry. I'll help however I can.”

The old man looked like he was about to cry when Milly skipped through the multi-coloured ribbons and lightweight chains that separated the back of the counter from the heart of the shop in place of a door..

“The paper shop's open, daddy.”

“So what?” He smiled back.

“Just saying. I didn't have any breakfast this morning.”

“They don't sell breakfast cereals in the sweet shop.”

“No, but they sell, um, like...”

“Like Opal Fruits, they're one of your five a day, you know?” Harry interrupted, his sorrow re-buried deep within.

“What are Opal Fruits?” Milly tugged at the old man's cuff. He continued...

“Strawberry bonbons, chocolate oranges, bacon flavour fries...”

“I don't like those, Harry.”

“Well, I'll just have to eat those myself then.”

“Do NOT tell your mother.” Donald laughed as he fished a fiver from his wallet and handed it to the old man, who in turn passed it to the seven year old.

The little bell pinged as the door opened and did so again as it closed behind the giggling girl holding the old man's hand. The pair stopped at the kerb by the flashing, yellow beacon and Milly demonstrated her road safety skills, looking right, then left, then right again before stepping onto the zebra crossing. Milly glanced over her shoulder as she crossed the road with the old man and smiled her most beautiful smile for her Daddy.

Donald smiled back at her from behind the counter and used his thumbs to indicate his pride in her ability.

He was still indicating his pride when the van struck first the old man and then his daughter.

Harry was tossed high in the air, landing head first on the hard tarmac almost exactly where he'd been stood when the collision occurred. Mercifully, he never knew what hit him.

The little girl was dragged beneath the van, her right leg becoming trapped in a wheel arch and resulting in her being practically snapped in two. She was aware of the pain, though couldn't comprehend the situation, and she screamed as she died.

A scream that didn't die with her but that would forever live on, bubbling away just below the surface of Donald's conscious thoughts. The terror in her voice, that one word screamed over and again, more and more quietly until it was just a rasp.

“Daddy.”

Donald knew right then that he'd never be happy again.

____________________

He awoke, slowly.

He was aware of the pain in his shoulder, but other than that there was nothing but a stinking, hot darkness. He wriggled in the tiny space, immediately panicking.

The predator was lay on his side, his hands tied behind his back. Rags filled his mouth, secured in place by a gag. He moved his head and his face brushed against, what? Fur? Wet fur?

His ankles were tied too, what the actual fuck?

He wriggled hard, his heels striking the metal walls of whatever confined him and creating a dull thud that echoed in the space outside. Where was he?

Then he remembered the tramp. The vagrant that had, had...

The surviving predator wanted to scream for help. He angled his chin upwards in an attempt to free himself of the gag and in doing so his chin brushed against the wet fur. No, not wet fur, it was hair. Sticky hair that smelled like pennies and earth.

He realised what it was. 

Blood. The blood of his dead hunting partner. 

Locked within the same metal coffin as he, what remained of the back of the dead man's head, matted with blood and sprinkled with skull fragments, brushed against his face. 

He recoiled (as much as any man can recoil when bound and gagged and locked in an overturned, metal, factory locker along with the corpse of another man) in horror.

He vomited. The contents of his stomach erupted, under pressure, from any gap they could find. It oozed and spluttered from around the gag and exploded from his nostrils. Acids burned his sinuses and his tear ducts. He tried to take a breath. He thrashed as much as his confines allowed. He silently screamed in terror. Every fibre of his being convulsed and burned until...

Pop.

For one, brief moment as his oxygen starved brain struggled to find him a way out of the predicament in which he found himself, he suddenly realised nothing mattered. It was all going to be okay. An epiphany of epic proportions.

Then, simply death.

Episode three.