Deadly Intent

by D. S. Butler

  He was a failure.

  The next sip of whiskey made him feel a bit better, the alcohol feeding his confidence. Technically, it wasn’t his failure. It was Ashley’s. She was the one who’d given up.

  He nodded and drained the mug. Yes, she was the failure, not him.

  This was a setback. A temporary one. Didn’t all the great scientists have setbacks at some point in their lives? Their achievements weren’t handed to them on a plate. He poured himself more whiskey.

  Grabbing the mug, he walked through to the kitchen and stood at the sink, looking out of the window. It was already hot out there. The small patch of green outside the terraced house had turned brown from a combination of lack of rain and too much sun over the past couple of weeks.

  The papers were full of stories about people struggling with the heatwave. Stupid. As soon as the rain started, the heat would be forgotten, and people would be moaning about the wet weather again. People were occupied by such trivial matters. Not him, though. He had a purpose.

  He set the whiskey-filled mug on the counter and scratched his arms.

  They were back.

  He ran to the spare bedroom and sat down at the dressing table. He pulled the microscope towards him, yanking off its black dust cover.

  He searched a drawer until he located a scalpel. Resting his arm on the dressing table, he pressed the metal against his forearm and slowly scraped his skin. He didn’t press hard enough to draw blood. Having the little critters in his bloodstream was the last thing he wanted.

  Carefully, he tapped the scalpel onto a glass microscope slide and put another piece of glass on top, trapping whatever he’d harvested from his skin in between the glass.

  His hands were shaking as he placed the slide under the lens. After two deep, calming breaths, he peered through the eyepiece.

  Plenty of skin cells, clumped together. Coloured fibres, probably from his jumper. And…

  Did something just move?

  He was sure he’d seen movement. Staring down through the microscope, not wanting to blink in case he missed it, he scanned all sections of the slide. His eyes began to water.

  “I saw you. I know you’re there,” he said between clenched teeth.

  After ten minutes, his eyes were fatigued and blurry. He flopped back into the chair, admitting defeat. This time they’d escaped him, but soon he’d harvest them and make a recording, so the medical profession would have to accept what he’d been saying all along. He’d discovered a new illness. A new parasite. His name would be remembered. Maybe they’d even name the little bugs after him.

  The thought made him smile.

  When you were absolutely convinced of something but no one else believed you, it was lonely and isolating. But one day soon, he would be proved right, and the doctors would have to apologise to him.

  He’d be magnanimous, of course, and smile for the press. They’d probably award him the Nobel Prize. He giggled. That would show them. That would really rile up the establishment. Maybe they’d even give him his own lab and research assistants.

  He carefully filed the microscope slide away and then tugged the dust cover over the microscope. Despite his lack of success yesterday, he felt more positive now. Giving up was not his style.

  He walked into the kitchen and poured the whiskey away.

  Today his primary task was finding another helper. He went into his bedroom and sat down at his PC. He went to the favourites folder and logged onto the forum, cureityourself.

  He smiled. Who would be the next lucky man or woman to help with his project?

  He’d prefer a woman. If things got violent, he didn’t want to take a chance against someone stronger than himself. He’d learned many lessons from Ashley. People weren’t prepared to help. They needed to be convinced, and that took time.

  It was unlikely he’d find anyone to take part in his experiment willingly, so he would have to be careful and a little cunning. Once, his research had been accepted by the medical establishment, he would give his assistants their due and make sure their work was credited, but until then, he would keep his research to himself.

  Another death would be unfortunate. But he wouldn’t flinch from it. For great achievements, sacrifices were needed.

  He glanced at the underside of his arm. The rash he had shown the doctor yesterday had completely disappeared. That was to be expected. He’d merely rubbed a stinging nettle leaf on his arm shortly before his appointment. Dr Wendy Willson had had no idea. And she called herself a doctor? Honestly, the whole lot of them were useless. It was scary how much faith society put in them, really.

  He scrolled through the recent posts on the forum and ran his tongue over his upper teeth as he focused on one post, titled: please help!

  He quickly scanned the post, his smile widening as he did so. This forum member would be perfect. He rested his hands on the keyboard and began to type.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tammy Holt lined up her glass of celery juice beside a bunch of dried flowers. She had to get the layout just right if she was going to post it on her Instagram feed. The harsh sunlight streaming in through the windows was causing problematic shadows. Tammy adjusted her position and the angle of her iPhone and snapped a couple of shots.

  She looked through them. Not bad, considering the angle of the sunlight.

  Usually, she preferred to post in the morning, but she’d slept late today, unable to find the energy to get out of bed before eleven. So technically, her celery juice was actually lunch.

  She scrolled through the apps on her phone, locating the one that contained her favourite filter. It desaturated the image just a tad and made the contrast pop. She looked critically at the finished result. It would do.

  She uploaded the photograph to Instagram with the hashtags cureityourself, celerycleanse and beyourowndoctor.

  Putting her phone to one side, she picked up the celery juice and took a sip. It was awful.

  She gulped down half of it and then stopped before she retched. Some of the crazy fads she had used to try and regain her health were ridiculous. There had been the raw food diet, the paleo diet, before she realised meat was the last thing she should have been eating, and the fruitarian diet. At least the fruit had tasted nice. But this celery juice was the worst.

  She wrinkled her nose. Celery was disgusting, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  She’d been feeling ill for the last eighteen months, and the doctors had been absolutely useless. They started out giving her a few creams for her skin rash, giving her strong anti-acid medication for the pains in her stomach, and had really splashed out by giving her an abdominal ultrasound that was inconclusive. It was ridiculous. How were they supposed to diagnose what was wrong with her without proper CT scans?

  Her illness had gotten worse over the past few months, but her GP had sent her home with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. At first, she’d been relieved to have a name given to her condition and thought now she knew what was wrong with her, she could go about trying to cure herself. That was before she’d looked into it.

  Fibromyalgia. Myalgia just meant pain. And the fibro part of the word referred to fibrous tissue. So basically the genius doctor had diagnosed her with muscle pain. She could have told him that. What was the point of all that university training if they never put it to use? Unless it was an infection, a broken arm, or a cold, doctors had absolutely no idea how to help their patients.

  She lifted the celery juice to her mouth again and almost gagged from the smell. She pinched her nose and swallowed down the rest of the juice. The celery cleanse was incredibly popular on Instagram and YouTube at the moment. There were so many reports of the concoction curing chronic illness, so Tammy was hopeful. Maybe natural foods would help where medicine couldn’t.

  Last night, she’d watched a video of a woman who’d drunk celery juice for thirty days, every morning on an empty stomach, and cured herself of acid reflux and fibromyalgia. If it got her the same result, T
ammy was prepared to drink the disgusting juice for the next thirty days.

  The nagging feeling she was doing this all for nothing wouldn’t leave her alone, though. What if this was it? What if she was destined to spend the rest of her life in pain and too tired to hold down a job, let alone go out and have fun like a normal twenty-three-year-old.

  Tammy roughly wiped away the tears that trickled down her cheeks. She’d lost count of how many times she’d cried over the previous few months. It never helped.

  She’d feel less alone if just one person she was close to understood how she really felt. Her mum was sympathetic enough, but she didn’t really understand. She called it growing pains, despite the fact Tammy was twenty-three and fully grown. Her sister was the worst. Just two years younger than Tammy, Julie was the healthiest person imaginable. She ran half-marathons for fun and had boundless energy. Her advice was that Tammy needed to get more fresh air and exercise.

  Just for one day she’d like to swap places with her sister. Tammy huffed. She’d like to see Julie go for a jog when she felt as bad as Tammy did. Most days it was a struggle getting out of bed. Taking a shower wiped her out for the rest of the morning.

  She hadn’t been able to hold down a job, and her diagnosis of fibromyalgia wasn’t enough to get her disability allowance, so she constantly tried to get someone to employ her. Usually, she was turned down if she made it to the interview stage, but on the rare occasion somebody thought she was employable, they soon dumped her when she took too much time off sick. She wasn’t an idiot and saw the way they looked at her when she went to sign on. She wasn’t missing an arm or a leg, she didn’t have cancer, so why didn’t she pull her finger out and get a job? That’s what they all thought.

  Tammy wished for just one day they had to walk in her shoes. Then they wouldn’t be so quick to judge.

  Her celery juice finished, Tammy walked slowly to the kitchen to make coffee. She knew the caffeine wasn’t good for her, but she needed it to get through the day. The artificial boost in energy was better than nothing.

  She took a quick look at her Instagram feed as she waited for the kettle to boil.

  Thirty-three likes already. Not bad.

  With a steaming cup of coffee in hand, she walked back to her bedroom, planning to spend a little time on the computer. Her mum was out at work, so if she felt like it, Tammy could go back to bed in a little while.

  She lifted the lid of her laptop and began to type in the web browser. After she typed the first two letters, the website came up as a suggestion because Tammy visited it so frequently. She clicked the link and sipped her coffee as she looked at the new posts on the forum.

  On the forum, she didn’t feel like a pariah. People understood what she was going through because they were experiencing the same thing. They all had an illness that wasn’t recognised by the medical profession and had no choice but to try and cure it themselves.

  She smiled when she saw she had three replies to her previous post. Her name on the forum was Fibromyalgiagirl. Last night, when she was feeling in a particularly bad way, Tammy had shared her feelings. She read her post again and tears came to her eyes. It was raw and honest, and it felt good to offload her feelings. Scary, but good at the same time.

  @Fibromyalgiagirl:

  Please help.

  I don’t know what to do. I’m at my wit’s end, and no one will help me. I’ve seen multiple doctors but now my GP refuses to refer me to anyone else, even though I feel terrible. I haven’t been able to work full time for over a year and I’m only twenty-three. I’m so tired all the time and my muscles ache. I feel like my life is over and nobody will help me. No one understands. I know something is wrong, but I don’t know what. I feel so alone.

  Beneath her response, @justagirl had written:

  I understand. Please don’t feel alone. We are all in the same boat here. Keep going back to your doctor. They have no right to turn you away.

  Then there was a response from @theestablishmentsucks:

  Typical doctors! I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Hang in there.

  The last post was from @lookingforacure:

  I’m so sorry to hear this Fibromyalgiagirl. I think I might be able to help. PM me.

  Tammy re-read the last message. This was a forum anyone could join, so she was a little nervous about using the private messaging service, but then again, what was the harm? She hadn’t used her real name, and lookingforacure certainly hadn’t used his or her real name. She wasn’t about to get her hopes up, but she’d be a fool to turn down the offer of help.

  She hadn’t private messaged anyone on the forum before, so it took Tammy a little while to figure out how to do it. Finally, she accessed the PM section of the board through the drop-down menu at the top of the website.

  Her hands froze on the keyboard. There was so much she wanted to say, yet she didn’t know how to put it into words. Staring at the screen, she felt like an idiot. If she shared too much, she might scare the person off. But she’d mentioned she had fibromyalgia, and lookingforacure did say they thought they could help.

  She took a sip of coffee and began to type.

  Hi lookingforacure,

  This is Fibromyalgiagirl. Thanks for offering to help. I’m sure my post must have come across as self-pitying, but sometimes it’s just so hard, you know? I’m doing a celery juice fast at the moment to see if that helps, but if you have any other ideas, I’d be very grateful to hear your advice.

  Thanks.

  She sat looking at the message for a moment, sipping her coffee with her finger hovering over the return key. What was she afraid of? She wanted help, didn’t she?

  She pressed the return key, and the message disappeared momentarily and then reappeared in her sent box.

  The coffee hadn’t helped much. She still felt like her brain was full of fog and she couldn’t process things properly. Maybe she needed more?

  In the kitchen, she fixed another cup of coffee and then grabbed a couple of biscuits. Perhaps the sugar would make her feel more human, or at least give her some energy.

  When she returned to the computer, she felt her mouth grow dry when she saw she already had a reply to her PM. She clicked on the message and read:

  Hi Fibromyalgiagirl,

  I’m so glad you messaged me. I’m a researcher and I’m close to identifying the cause of fibromyalgia. The doctors won’t tell you this, but it’s actually caused by a parasite.

  Tammy stared at the screen in horror. A parasite? Why hadn’t that been picked up by her doctor? She began to type a reply.

  @Fibromyalgiagirl: A parasite??? That’s awful. What do I do to get rid of it? Will the celery juice help?

  @lookingforacure: the celery juice can’t hurt, but it probably won’t get rid of the parasite completely. I know how you feel. I’ve been let down by the medical profession too. They’re useless, and they won’t admit there’s something wrong if they can’t diagnose it. I just wanted to offer my help. The parasite burrows through the skin so I’ve been taking some skin scrapes and treating them with different solutions to see what works. I’m pretty confident I’ve found a cocktail of vitamins that gets rid of the parasite in just seven days.

  @Fibromyalgiagirl: what vitamins?

  @lookingforacure: I use quite a few different ones as well as minerals. The parasites hate it :)

  I can’t give you the exact protocol because it’s part of my research. I hope you understand.

  Tammy shook her head. She needed this cure. Why wouldn’t this person tell her what they used?

  @Fibromyalgiagirl: Please, I’m desperate. Can you help me?

  @lookingforacure: Well, there might be a way, but I’m not sure you’d be up for it.

  Tammy started to type she’d be up for anything as long as it made her feel better, but then decided better of it. She didn’t know anything about this person.

  @Fibromyalgiagirl: Try me. I really want to feel better.

  @lookingforacure: Would you be
willing to donate some skin scrapes? It won’t hurt at all. I just need to scrape off the surface of your skin and look at the cells under a microscope. If I can see the parasite, I’ll give you the vitamin mix that will cure you.

  Tammy’s hands were shaking. She wanted to feel better, but in order for this person to get their skin scrapes, she would have to meet them, wouldn’t she?

  Would she be safe? Maybe they could arrange to meet in a public place. Or as they were a researcher, perhaps they wanted Tammy to go to their laboratory. She was desperate to accept lookingforacure’s offer, but she had to find out more about them first.

  @Fibromyalgiagirl: Are you a guy or a girl?

  @lookingforacure: A guy. My real name is Brendan.

  The fact he was a guy made her nervous, but he’d voluntarily given her his name. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

  Unless he was lying.

  Tammy gulped down her coffee, trying to clear her brain fog and find some clarity. This was important. It could be her one chance to feel better, and she couldn’t screw it up.

  @Fibromyalgiagirl: I’m Tammy. I guess we have to meet up for you to get the skin scrapes?

  @lookingforacure: Yes, we do. Look, I know this whole thing sounds a bit weird, so do you want to meet up for coffee later, somewhere public where we can chat about the protocol? I don’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.

  Tammy sat back in the computer chair. Surely, if he was up to anything dodgy, he wouldn’t offer to meet in a public place first, would he? She could go, and if something about him was off, she’d leave. What could go wrong?

  @Fibromyalgiagirl: That sounds great. Where should we meet?

  @lookingforacure: You pick. Your profile says you’re from London. So am I.

  Tammy smiled. That was lucky. She was glad he wasn’t in Edinburgh or somewhere like that. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to make the trip.

  The fact he was letting her pick their meeting place made her feel more confident, too. Surely a scammer wouldn’t do that.

  @Fibromyalgiagirl: The Costa Coffee Shop near Whitechapel station?