Bloody, Brawling Business CH4

 

Scarlet’s remnants were falling through the gaps in Newton's fingers, slipping away, bit after bit. She was disappearing and Newton needed somewhere to keep her memory safe.

  He rounded the corner of Scarlet’s street, double checking the address on her phone. He was lucky she had it saved in her maps. Paul had yet to give it to him, probably in an attempt to keep him from what he was doing right now. 

  He looked to his right at the houses next to him and halted. He didn’t even need to check the number plated next to the two massive doors at the front. The building past the gate in front of him was no doubt Scarlet's mansion of a house and Newton wasn’t a stranger to her beauty of a car parked in its driveway. (maybe describe the car). 

  Newton took out Scarlet’s keys and tried to unlock the gate. The key went in and stopped as he twisted it. Taking it out, he turned it around and tried again. Why’d she have so many? He thought and he fumbled with the keyring and tried the next. 

  Five keys in, the lock allowed him to turn it. It clicked and he pushed into the gate which wailed and swung ajar, allowing Newt to step through onto Scarlet’s property. He locked it again and went straight up the steps to the front doors which he managed to unlock on the first try. 

  Warm air hit him as he entered. The heater must’ve been running all this time. There was a coatrack next to the door which Newton held on to, supporting himself as he took his shoes off. 

  He kicked them onto a mat in front of him on which lay a pile of sneakers, each in an odd position on top another, each in Scarlet’s favorite red, the one that was reflected in her name. 

  Newton could imagine Scarlet picking up two random sneakers, and putting them on, not bothering to consider whether they’re a matching pair or not, so long as there was one for the left and one for the right. 

  Across from the shoe mat was a thin table which stood against the wall, supporting a three legged mirror, a clear glass bowl and a phone charger. Newton plugged in Scarlet’s phone, dropped her keys in the bowl and moved into the living room. 

  Scarlet had once told Newton that functionality and comfort always beat vanity. He was glad to see that she’d lived by this rule. Her living room had a long couch with three wrinkled cushions which faced a raised flatscreen TV mounted to the wall. In front of it where a low coffee table should’ve been, was a regular table, standing tall and close with enough space below for the knees. 

  The table top had marks all over from hot plates and the rug below was stained from what looked like many spills. From this, Newt could already tell that the dining room had been the most useless room in Scarlet's house. 

  Sure enough, the dining room was tidy. Twelve chairs were tucked neatly under the long table. The curtains were drawn and a set of white candles stood tall, their wicks uncharred, over the spotless, pale tablecloth. 

  The dining room opened into the kitchen which, in spite of her nature, Scarlet had seemed to keep pretty tidy. Newton found some clean plates in the top cupboard. He took one and topped it with four slices of bread from a loaf which he found laying on the bench. He found cheese and corned beef in the fridge and brought them out along with a half eaten slice of mud cake which he finished off while preparing his sandwiches.

  When he had finished, he opened the dishwasher to find it crammed with too many dirty items, so he turned it on and instead, dumped his plates in the sink.

  Newt fell asleep on Scarlet’s bed midway through his exploration of the house. He woke up to quiet. As he lay, his first thoughts were on how different it would’ve been if Scarlet had brought him here herself. 

  They’d probably still be awake since yesterday, tired but not allowing each other to sleep, her playing a joke on him every chance she could and him keeping her awake with made up stories of her in horrible situations, meeting horrible ends. 

  Newt felt weighted to the bed. He never thought he would face a reality like one of those tales. Only now he realised that he’d made humor of what was a nightmare to come. 

  Newton left the bedroom with a damp pillow case in his hand, he brought it down to the laundry before emptying more of the fridge and continuing on with his exploration of the house. 

  Scarlet’s house had four guest rooms, all on the second floor, she had a games room with a foosball table, dart board and a gaming console. There was a small table with tiny chairs, colours scratched all over it. Next to it was a cabinet. Newton was surprised to find art supplies inside because the Scarlet he knew was no artist. A messy stack of papers lay next to a jar of coloured pencils. 

  They were kid's drawings consisting of objects scribbled in bright colours. Written in massive wonky letters at the top of one of the pages was a name, Clara? Mr Ruggot's daughter? 

  On another page was a drawing much better than a lot of the rest titled ‘Auntie Scarlet’ in much neater writing. The drawing featured Scarlet, her fingers through the eyesockets of a red skull, holding it like a bowling ball. Clara must’ve had an active imagination as well, thought Newton. And she seems to admire Scarlet. So why has Scarlet never mentioned her?

  It troubled him, biting the back of his mind as he wrapped up his expedition of the house. Scarlet was the closest person to Newton, so he took it for granted that he was also the closest person to him. But now it seemed that she’d lived a life too secret to tell him, yet others knew people who she wasn’t as close to, people like Paul who could completely shake off her very death. Was it dangerous? Was Scarlet keeping Newton in the dark for his own protection.

  As silly as it sounded, the facts were that Scarlet had been secretly helping people, and those people didn’t want anyone to know why. She’d invited them into her home, the same home which she’d denied Newton’s many requests to visit. Would that also have been to protect him? If so, why’d she leave the place to him in her will?

  Newton dismissed the idea. Scarlet wasn’t leading a dangerous life which she’d hidden from Newton for his own safety. He’d explored her whole house and hadn’t found a single cause for concern. Her whole house except one room that is.

  Newton paused with his hand on the door handle. He allowed the cold metal to bite his palm as he came to accept the fact that once he was done with this room, there would be nothing left of Scarlet’s house to discover. He exhaled and pushed into the handle. It resisted. 

  Newton looked at the keyhole. It was pretty big. There was only one on the key chain that would match that size. He took it between his fingers and slotted it in. It did not fight as he twisted it. Click! Newt pushed on the handle and this time it gave way. The door opened into a dark concrete stairwell. 

  There was no light switch in sight so Newt pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight setting. The concrete was dusty against his bare feet as he made his way down the steps and into a large cellar. Newton scanned the perimeter of the cellar with his flashlight. There were shelves along the walls, all with labelled boxes. 

  Newton moved along the shelves reading the labels of each box closely, ‘Fire stuff’, ‘tools’, ‘old books’. Newton stopped when he got to a box labelled Clara R. He picked it off the shelf. After putting it on the ground, he opened the top and shone his phone light into it. Inside he found some old toys and a notebook. 

  He picked out the notebook and read, “The diary of Clara Ruggot.” Newt instantly put the book back. He wasn’t going to read a girl’s diary. What did he care anyway, she wasn’t Scarlet. His light passed over the wall behind the shelf as Newt went to put the box back. He stopped. He withdrew the box and placed it on a lower shelf. Passing the light over the wall again, he noticed a hole, a key hole. 

  His tour of the house wasn’t over yet. He grabbed the shelf in front of it and jerked, pulling the whole frame a little towards him. After a quick succession of many more jerking pulls, the shelf had come back enough for him to go around it and look at the wall in its completion. 

  There was a crack next to the key hole which stretched up, across and back down surrounding it. It was a door built right into the concrete. Newton got the keychain out of his pocket and, with one hand, fumbled, trying to get hold of one with a similar size and shape to the key hole. 

  It took him a couple of tries but he ended up getting the right key and unlocking the door. There was no click, it was more like a long, piercing scrape, followed by a clank which confirmed his success. The door instantly swung towards him and he needed to dodge out of the way before it squished him into the shelf which was still too close. The shelf’s metal legs screeched along the floor as the heavy door hit it. 

  The door’s opening was on the other side so Newton had to push it partially closed to squeeze between it and the shelf. In order to stop it bashing into the shelf again, Newton guided it back open until it was stable against the shelf before heading inside. 

  The hidden room was significantly colder than the rest of the cellar. Newton could see his breath in the phone light which was directed ahead of him at the only thing the room had to offer. It was a long trunk, closed but there didn’t seem to be a lock. Was thankful that he didn't need to go back for the keychain which was still in the lock of the door.

  He approached the trunk, ready to conclude his search of Scarlet’s house. He started to lift the lid of the trunk. The last thing he would possibly ever find in Scarlet's house was… Newton dropped the lid shut and dropped his phone. It hit the floor on the light’s side, leaving Newt in darkness. He couldn’t move. The room instantly felt colder. 

  The last thing that Newton would possibly ever find in Scarlet’s house burned into his vision. He could see its grey and sallow skin wrapped tightly around its skeletal frame. Its eyes reflected light as a darkened yellow and its lips a deep, cloudy sky blue. 

  It was the first time since her death that Newt’s mind wasn’t forcing him to think about his memories of Scarlet. Instead it was creating its own fabricated visions of Scarlet, not as Newt knew her, but as someone who would kill a young man and hide his body in her basement.

  Newt had to force himself to think back, find anything about the Scarlet he knew that made sense of what he’d just found. The key to the room was on her keychain and the trunk had no lock, so she definitely knew about it. And if she didn’t kill the guy, why would she hide his body in her basement?

  Scarlet was an advocate for moral justice. She did believe in things like capital punishment but she also adored mercy and redemption. She’d always lean to forgiveness when someone was remorseful or made a mistake. Newton had experienced that side of her countless times. So if the man really did something worthy of death, worthy of punishment inflicted by Scarlet, then he’d need to have been a very bad person who was not willing to change, someone who’d cause great distress for others out of selfishness, or hate or even for fun.

  That person would then deserve death, Newton thought. He wasn't going to accuse Scarlet of unjust murder based on this one thing that he’d found. But if she really was the one who killed this boy, she would’ve had a good reason. 

  Newton’s phone buzzed on the floor. The screen lit up, presenting him with a face that he’d not thought of in a while, but a face which he hated all the same, but maybe Ferdinand had heard what was going on. Maybe he was calling to check on Newton, comfort him, to apologise.

  Newt picked up his phone and left the room, closing and locking the concrete door behind him. He answered the phone as he made his way up the dusty steps and exited the cellar. 

  “Hello?” said Newton.

  “Newt! Hey, how’s it going?” answered Ferdinands’s voice.

  “Not good, still mourning.” Newt said.

  “Mourning?” 

  “My sister died. Remember the last time I called you, needing your help?”

  “Yeah, you needed to get to the hospital, I think. You weren’t sick or anything though. It was someone else wasn’t it? I’m sorry I couldn’t help, I was busy.”  

  All Newt’s hope to forgive had left Newton, to have someone who cared again. It was too much to bear. Scarlet was the only person who had ever and will ever care about him. 

 “So did you get there without me? Was everything good?” Ferdinand continued after a long pause.

  Newt realised he’d been expected to speak. suppressing the anger in his heart, he kept his voice away from his emotions as he spoke. “Yeah… Well no actually, my sister died before I got there, and I ended up having a fight with my parents, so now I’m out of the house.”

    “Ha ha-”

  Newton was about to throw his phone across the room. He’d had enough with Ferdinand. He was a great example of someone who Scarlet would’ve been just to put down. He was someone who was diseased through and through.

  “Looks like we’re both in the rough,” Ferdinand continued. “My parents kicked me out too. I’m homeless as wel-”

  “Don’t compare our situations!” shouted Newton.

  “What?” said Ferdinand.

  Newton took a breath to cool the bubbling blood inside. “I’m not homeless. I’m perfectly cozy at my sister’s place. She left me her mansion.”

  “Sounds like you have a lot of space. Do you mind if I come and stay over for a while,” Ferdinand said, taking the bait.

  “I’ll send you the address," Newton said before instantly hanging up.

  Newton knew that Ferdinand would try to worm his way in as soon as he heard about Scarlet’s house, so he mentioned it. Newt instantly sat down and started brainstorming. He was going to kill Ferdinand, but how.