McAuley's Butchery

What happens when an old butchers shop becomes the Little Antique store that a whole town refuses to enter?

It was a normal store front.

 

Granted it looked to be a hundred years old and hadn’t been looked after. The original paint was falling from the wood in flakes, the sign above read in large black letters:

 

‘McAULEY’S BUTCHERY”

 

But it had not been a butchery in a long time. Now it housed bits and bobs, trinkets and treasures, little antiques waiting to be rediscovered again. But no one ever would. Everyone knew better than to go into the little antique store on Burrows street. Everyone knew of the terrifying old man who lurked just behind the window, watching whoever passed his little building, with those eyes that never looked quite right, they looked… dark. Foreboding even.

 

Everyone who was local knew. This is a fact that the Dennar family wish they had known of beforehand. But they didn’t, otherwise we would have no story to tell.

 

The Dennar family, Matt, Jessica and their teenage son Josh, had moved to our quaint little town of Oxwall a week before the incident took place. Nice enough family, they didn’t know how to listen very well, but they were nice. Each one of us had warned them. From the moment they arrived in the town. Of course they had asked about antique shops, that's all these city people come to our little country towns for. That and to cause trouble. So when they did ask we were prepared, telling them about everything but the little butchery on Burrows street. We tried our best to hide Oxwall’s dirty little secret, but humans are curious people, they dig and they search and they uncover things that shouldn’t be uncovered.

 

A week after they arrived, the Dennars walked past McAuleys on Burrows street and turned in, making a deadly detour. All of us stared, all of us watched and waited for something, anything to happen. But nothing did. We watched the three of them walk in and the door closed behind them. The last thing that we all saw was the little old man. He sat in his usual place, staring out of the window before turning away, his eyes following the family as they stepped further into the Bermuda triangle of Oxwall. His body disappeared into the shadows and from there, we had no information of the happenings within the little shop.

 

Slowly but surely, more and more people arrived at the scene, watching the little shop intently but none of us daring to cross the road and get closer. We knew the dangers.

 

The most eerie thing of all was the silence. We would be able to explain it if there was screaming, or yelling or even just to hear someone talking. We could justify calling the police or barging in guns blazing. It was an old building, the walls weren’t soundproof and the door was far from solid anymore. Yet we heard nothing. Almost as if the building itself exuded a dark, quiet feel into the air. A barrier that stopped us from hearing anything. It’s protecting itself.

 

 

 

 

Or was it the old man himself? There never was something quite right about him. It could have been the twisted look as he stared out at passers-by. Or that his eyes were never quite alive, half living, half dead, they obviously still worked but they were lifeless. They were dead. They were glazed over and colourless, but still seemed to stare directly into your soul. Maybe he was the one who made the silence, covering his own devilish acts with the eerie sound of nothing. But we couldn’t be sure. It could have been him, or the building, or a culmination of the two. One thing was for sure, the Dennar family were never to leave the shop.

 

So we all went about our lives, wandering off and going about the day, giving up hope of ever seeing the nice family again. One by one people walked away and allowed their eyes to leave the little shop. I stayed longer than most, waiting for something, anything to happen. But it didn’t. So after an hour of waiting there, all alone, I left too, heading back home to forget them and forget the shop once again.

 

Hours went by, soon turning into days, and before anyone realised what had happened it was weeks. Nothing was heard of from the little shop on Burrows street, no new people came poking around and life was business as usual. The grocery shop had a special on apples, oil prices went down before going back up again, much to the commuters dismay, and winter was rolling in meaning everyone started buying the ski jackets from the clothing store on the main road, no one buys the ski jackets from the other clothing store. Everything was normal, everyone was normal.

 

Until we all heard a deafening scream coming from Burrows street…

 

We all ran to the scene, all desperate to discover what had happened. The butcher dropped his knife, the grocer let his perfect orange pyramid fall to pieces as he ran out and I dropped my coffee on the street, bolting to the little antique shop. It was a first, nothing had ever come out before.

 

We all arrived at the shop, still staying on the opposite side of the road as a little girl stood on the footpath, screaming her head off and pointing towards the little shop. I bent down a held her tight, looking her over to see if she was hurt. She was fine, just absolutely terrified. Our heads turned to follow her line of vision as we saw the gruesome sight in front of us. Blood… Blood covered the windows of McAuley’s, a thick coating, partially dried on and coagulated, partially still dripping. The door looked as if it had been ripped to shreds by claws, only barely clinging to the hinges now most of it was a pile of rubble and kindling on the ground. But the biggest difference of all, the most bone chilling part of the whole scene before us… the old man wasn’t sitting in the window. The old man wasn’t sitting anywhere. He was gone.

 

None of us could say anything, we were stunned and terrified and for the first time, we all knew that there would be an end to this towns dirty secret. But we also knew it wouldn’t be a good one.

 

As if on cue we heard creaking and our heads snapped from each other back to the door, or what was left of it. It was slowly being pushed open from the inside. The creaking getting louder and more ominous with each drawn out second. Behind the door we saw a tall figure standing there, hunched over and breathing heavily.

Once the door was completely hanging open, one shaky step at a time the figure stepped out and into the light. Before focusing on the figure, our eyes dropped to the ground behind him. A body was revealed, eyes wide open and lifeless, face splattered with blood. The body was the old man, the old man who we always feared. The old man whose gaze caused even the toughest in town to shudder as they walked past. He was dead. All of us stepped back in fear as the figure got closer and closer, his foot now dropping from the sidewalk onto the road as he continued to come towards us.

 

The shaggy mop of brown hair, the tattoos half concealed under the tattered rags that were his clothes, it was the Dennars son. It was Josh, he had gotten out. We all began rushing towards him, hoping to help him walk but before our feet left the sidewalk he held his hand up, stopping us in our tracks. His head lifted slowly as we saw a toothy, deranged smile plastered on his face, a soft but maniacal laugh escaping them. As we began to see his eyes there was something off, something not quite right.

 

His eyes were never quite alive, half living, half dead. They were glazed over and colourless but still seemed to stare directly into your soul.

 

And then he spoke, he spoke with a voice that wasn’t his own.

 

“I am Free”