Cabal by Clive Barker

ear,’ he went on. ‘And now you’ve got your prints all over it. You should have worn gloves, like me.’
    The thought of what the blade had done appalled her, but she wasn’t about to drop it, and stand unarmed.
    ‘Of course, you could always blame Boone,’ the Mask was saying. ‘Tell the police he did it.’
    ‘How do you know about Boone?’ she said. Hadn’t Sheryl sworn she’d told her paramour nothing?
    ‘You know where he is?’ the Mask asked.
    ‘He’s dead,’ she replied.
    The sewing-box face denied it with a shake.
    ‘No, I’m afraid not. He got up and walked. God knows how. But he got up and walked. Can you imagine that? The man was pumped full of bullets. You saw the blood he shed –’
    He was watching us all the time
, she thought.
He followed us to Midian, that first day
. But why? That was what she couldn’t make sense of;
why?
    ‘– all that blood, all those bullets, and still he wouldn’t lie down dead.’
    ‘Somebody stole the body,’ she said.
    ‘No,’ came the reply, ‘that’s not the way it was.’
    ‘Who the hell
are
you?’
    ‘Good question. No reason why you shouldn’t have an answer.’
    His hand went up to his face and he pulled off the mask. Beneath was Decker, sweaty and smiling.
    ‘I wish I’d brought my camera,’ he said. ‘The look on your face.’
    She couldn’t wipe it off, though she hated to amuse him. The shock made her gape like a fish. Decker was Curtis, Sheryl’s Mister Right.
    ‘Why?’ she demanded.
    ‘Why what?’
    ‘Why did you kill Sheryl?’
    ‘For the same reason I killed all the others,’ he said lightly, as though the question hadn’t much vexed him. Then, deadly serious: ‘For the fun of it, of course. For the pleasure. We used to talk a lot about
why
, Boone and me. Digging deep, you know; trying to understand. But when it really comes down to it, I do it because I like it.’
    ‘Boone was innocent.’
    ‘
Is
innocent, wherever he’s hiding. Which is a problem, because he knows the real facts, and one of these days he might find someone to convince of the truth.’
    ‘So you want to stop him?’
    ‘Wouldn’t you? All the trouble I went to so he could die a guilty man. I even put a bullet in him myself and he still gets up and walks away.’
    ‘They told me he was dead. They were certain.’
    ‘The mortuary was unlocked from the
inside
. Did they tell you that? His fingerprints were on the handle; his footprints on the floor: did they tell you
that?
No, of course not. But I’m telling you. I know.
Boone is alive
. And your death is going to bring him out of hiding, I’ll bet on it. He’ll have to show himself.’
    Slowly, as he spoke, he was raising the knife.
    ‘If it’s only to mourn.’
    Suddenly, he was at her. She put the blade that had killed Sheryl between her and his approach. It slowed him, but he didn’t stop coming.
    ‘Could you really do it?’ he said to her. ‘I don’t think so. And I speak from experience. People are
squeamish
even when their lives are at stake. And that knife, of course, it’s already been blunted on poor Sheryl. You’ll have to really dig to make some impression on me.’
    He spoke almost playfully, still advancing.
    ‘I’d like to see you try though,’ he said. ‘I really would. Like to see you try.’
    Out of the corner of her eye she was aware that she’d come abreast of piled plates mere inches from her elbow. Might they offer her time enough to get to the door, she wondered? In knife to knife combat with this maniac she’d lose, no doubt of it. But she might yet outwit him.
    ‘Come on. Try me. Kill me if you can. For Boone. For poor, mad Boone –’
    As the words became laughter she threw her wounded hand out towards the plates, hooked them round, and flung them onto the floor in front of Decker. A second pile followed, and a third, china shards flying up in all directions. He took a step back, his hands going up to his face to protect himself, and she took the chance