Free The Monster Man of Horror House by Danny King Page A

after she was arrested whilst attempting to pawn my VC.
It appears she had all the correct documentation and everything, but the
proprietor… well, let’s just say he had reservations she’d come about the award
on the slopes of Monte Casino.”
    “The
police have her?” I shuddered, the blood immediately pooling in my ankles.
    “Yes,
and they have a few questions too. So now I’m going to have to travel to
Lincoln, avail myself to their sniggering inquiries and attempt to convince
them that I gave her the medal myself,” he fumed, leaving out the part about how he was going to convince them of
this – more less why . “Stupid useless
boy!”
    “I’m
sorry father, what can I do?” I submitted, already mentally packing my bags as
I paid lip service to my father’s tune.
    “Yes….”
my father growled. “What can you do?”
    I
let the question hang in the air for a few moments while I worked through my options.
As I say, most of them concerned getting the hell out of there just as soon as
my father turned his back. Evidently, my father had been working on a similar
strategy for when he asked me to:
    “Pick
up those socks would you. My arthritis is playing up again,” I complied, only
to catch a glimpse of silk flashing behind me in the reflection of my dear
mother’s picture. My instincts took over and without fully understanding why, I
dropped to the floor just as the snare cut through the airspace my neck had moments
earlier vacated.
    I
gasped as shock at my father’s attack, and even found time to call him a “dirty
bastard” before he was on top of me again, throwing himself at me as the tie whipped
free in his right hand. I lashed out with my feet, kicking him in the chest,
face and hands, anything I could connect with as I scrabbled backwards across
the room, but he was not to be dissuaded, slapping my shoes away and fighting
his way between my flailing legs.
    “No
father! No!” I shrieked when he pinned my torso down with one hand, while
stirring his tie with the other in an effort to form a lasso.
    It
was a bit extreme, my father’s reaction, and some might even say Victorian, but
I guess as soon as he realised I wasn’t the prodigy he thought I was, a quick
solution was called for. And when it came to murder, loose ends so often
knitted together to form noose ends.
    “Please
father, wait…”
    But
my father didn’t reply, he merely bore down on me with a murderous intent as he
concentrated on the task at hand and I have no doubt he would’ve wrung the life
out of me had my mother not come to my rescue once again.
    In
the struggle, I must’ve kicked the side of the dressing table, for the glass of
her picture frame shattered when it hit the floorboards. I sacrificed half my defensive
strength to reach into the shards and by some miracle found the glass dagger my
mother had thrown me. This in turn quickly found my father’s face and I slashed
it backwards and forwards until he tumbled away with his hands across his eyes.
    “You
tyke!!!” he hollered, now beyond fury, and he thrust his hand into the top
drawer of his dresser to pull out his old service revolver.
    Bullets
blasted out the plasterwork behind me as I threw myself at the door, and the
landing banisters suffered a similar fate, splintering to matchwood as he let
loose the rest of the barrel at his errant son.
    It’s
amazing the decisions you can make in the blink of an eye, but instinct once
again forewarned me that I wouldn’t make it to the front door if I ran down the
stairs – not even if I hurled myself at them headfirst – for my
father would have a clear shot at me, so instead I launched myself at the
nearest door, crashing through it a millisecond before my father’s final .45
did the same.
    As
luck would have it – bad luck that is – this door shielded a second
staircase, though this one led up to the eaves. There was only one way up and
one way down from the attic, so I’d be trapped once I was up there, but