The House on Hell Hill

“I’d stand back if I were you lot,” said Jorg Albertz as the crowd grew bigger at the bottom of Lawwell’s staircase and while they all gazed up into the darkness above to see where David Longmuir had gone on the end of a noose, another two dropped down and caught Ralph Topping and Jim Spence.  “Michty!” cried Spence as he disappeared into the gloom.
“Told you,” said Albertz and everyone stepped back from the stairs and gawped at Lawwell, looking for an explanation.

Meanwhile Tom English and I had taken advantage of the confusion to sneak off to find somewhere safe to hide up until it was all over.  We’d found another set of stairs in the east wing and had crept up those, down a hall and into a bedroom only to discover a hole in the floor – this was where Jack Irvine had crashed through the floor on a bed, we were right above the party!
“You’re right above the party,” said a voice from the shadows and I nearly puked from the fright.  We turned and there was Souness sitting calm as you like in the corner, the long cold metal of the silenced Walther PPK aimed right at us.  “Souness!  You terrible cunt!  Tom’s just soiled himself, you scary bastard!” I cried, forgetting myself for a moment.
“Aye, and the suit’s rented too,” whimpered Tom, shaking the piss off his left foot.
“What are you doing up here anyway and what’s with the great hole in the floor?” I asked, moderating my tone having just remembered there was a sociopath sitting pointing a gun at us.

“It was me who punched Jack Irvine through the floor of Lawwell’s bedroom,” said Souness, a mischievous glint in his eye.  “I caught him on the bed, didn’t know he was there, took us both quite aback but before he had time to withdraw from Angela Haggerty I’d knocked them both through the floorboards.  Haggerty was buried in the sheets when they hit the next floor, disturbing Lawwell’s little shindig so no one noticed her slipping out amongst the dust, debris and confusion.  No one that is, except Tom Devine who couldn’t believe his luck and sneaked her off to another room to punch her in the face with his cock.”

“But why are you here?  This is a Celtic party, in Lawwell’s house, if you’re found here you’ll be strung up” said Tom.
I’d like to shake the hand of the first man to try,” sneered Souness as he holstered his pistol and stood up.  “I’m here with Albertz, there’s someone here we’d like to meet but these sudden deaths have forced us to change our plan.  You two can stay around if you like but I’d watch my necks if I were you, nobody’s safe in here.”

 

We realised just how right he was when we sneaked back downstairs to join the safety of the crowd and found it severely diminished.  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Oh Spiers, you wouldn’t believe the varied and fiendish methods something is using to despatch us, this house is evil.  We even lost Stewart Regan and who knew that man would go down without a fight?”  This was Keith Jackson who was shaking in his cowboy boots and glancing over his shoulder every few seconds.  “There’s something demented at work in here, that seems to be expending an extraordinary amount of time and energy in order to destroy us!"
"Now you know how it feels," smiled Albertz.
“Get a hold of yourself Jackson,” growled Lawwell, sticking his thumb in Keith’s eye.  “There’s nothing in this house that I don’t already know about and believe me, there’s nothing in here that I’m afraid of.  No, if anything, this mysterious force should be scared of me!” and he turned quickly as if expecting to meet the our mysterious stalker and lashed out with his horse whip but all he did was catch Neil Doncaster across the cheek sending him reeling against a wall and as Doncaster put out his hands for the wall to stop his trajectory, the damn thing opened and swallowed him before closing.
“Fuck!  Did you see that?  The wall just ate Neil Doncaster!” screamed Jackson.

“Then it won’t have to eat again for at least a week,” chortled someone at the back then the hole in the wall opened again briefly, burped, and Doncaster’s wig came flying out.

“Well you don’t see that every day,” chuckled Albertz, picking up the wig and sniffing it.  “I suggest we get out of this hall and into the billiard room; we’ve lost too many out here, maybe the billiard room will be safer.”  So we filed off, the few of us who were left of what was once a swinging party and shuffled into the billiard room which worryingly was in darkness.  Albertz was last to enter and he closed the door behind him and switched on the light.  Someone screamed.  Then everyone screamed and there was a mad rush for the door and just before I was caught up in the chaos and dragged out of the room by the panicked rush, I saw what had scared them all: Tom Devine was naked, nailed to the billiard table, his arse in the air with a cue sticking out of it.

 

Of course if they’d given me a chance I’d have explained to everyone that this was just a normal night for old Tom.