Diary of a Teenage Murderer

by Emlyn Hall

he increased his pace and his eyes ahead trying desperately not to look. But the urge was too great.

  The man had started to rise from the bench, his lips pulled back revealing a set of jagged teeth covered in what appeared to be blood. His mouth fell open as he stood fully upright and he let out an almighty screeching scream that boomed out across the Downs and made Peter jump straight out of his skin. He allowed himself to panic and burst immediately into a run. He was still heading downhill and quickly reached a very quick pace, too quick. His feet tangled and he lost his footing and he fell forwards. Over and over he went for a good 20 seconds until he came to a rest. Ignoring the cuts and scrapes he leaped immediately back to his feet and looked back. There was nothing. The bench where the man had been was empty. He was alone again.

  He composed himself and began walking quickly. As he walked he began to assess the injuries he had sustained in his fall. He was bleeding from the nose and from a cut above his left eye; both his knees were stinging and he could not move three of the fingers on his left hand. He was pretty certain that he had broken them. He decided that he needed to seek some treatment so headed south and into Brighton. He reached the Royal Sussex early in the evening and waited in accident and emergency to be seen. After a two-hour wait he was seen by the triage nurse who booked him in for an X-ray on the suspected broken fingers. He went through to the X-ray waiting room, took off his coat and placed his backpack on the plastic chairs, then went through to the toilet to clean up a little.

  The warm water felt great in his hands. He ducked his head and splashed the water over his face. He stood and froze.

  The man was standing behind him. He reached forward and grabbed Peter’s chin with icy fingers, lifting his head up and with his other he slowly but powerfully dragged a barber’s razor deep through the front of his throat. The last thing Peter saw as the blood flooded out of his open neck was the man leaning forwards, sinking his teeth into the side of his face. Then nothing.”

  We were all silent. I think the story knocked us all for six!

  Then Martin said, “I remember reading about that.” We all looked straight at Martin, horrified.

  “What are you talking about?” Sasha asked.

  “It was about two years ago,” Martin continued. “A backpacker was found murdered in the Royal Sussex. His throat was slashed and he had a huge bite mark on the side of his face. Google it if you don’t believe me.”

  “I thought it was just a story,” said Jack. “My dad told it to me.”

  Fortunately, none of the smartphone owners had enough of a signal to be able to confirm the horrible story, which was a good thing as I am not too sure that I would have been able to sleep knowing there was a jagged-toothed razor-wielding murderer on the loose in the South Downs.

  As the fire died down we all retreated to our tents and Sasha and I fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Saturday, March 11th

  Well to say that today didn’t go according to plan is an understatement. The early morning tent sex was amazing, the communal campfire breakfast was lovely, the day out fishing was as unproductive as I predicted, but fine. But the evening was anything but fine and certainly not something I had predicted.

  We arrived back at the campsite after our rather fruitless fishing expedition to find a scene of absolute carnage. All of the tents had been slashed and raised to the ground. The rucksacks and sleeping bags had been scattered all around the clearing and some of them were still smouldering from where they had been placed on the fire earlier. There was a strong smell of urine from the area, which suggested to me that whoever had done this had clearly decided that slashing and burning was just not enough and that pissing over the remains was also essential.

  Who though? Well, that was just about to become very clear.

  As we started the lengthy clean-up process and sent Dawn and Karen off to get a pack of black bin liners from the same off-licence that we popped into on the Friday evening, Todd, followed by five of his friends, walked into the clearing.

  My heart stopped. I found out later in the day that the reason that Bobby hadn’t managed to join us was because he had been intercepted by Todd and his goons on the way to the station. Apparently, they had managed to drag him down a lane and beat several shades of shit out of him until he confessed to where the camping expedition was heading and exactly who was going to be there, Christ knows how he found out we were going camping. So there they were.

  “We have unfinished business,” said Todd very menacingly to me. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a huge knife. My heart went from stationary to about 200bpm in a second. I reached down to the ground while maintaining eye contact with Todd and picked up a steel tent pole with a nice pointy end. I definitely wasn’t planning on going down without a fight.

  “Martin, get everyone out of here and get help,” I said calmly.

  Martin said, “No, we are all staying with you.”

  I shouted as loud as I could, “Get everyone out, and get Sasha away from here, now!” He got the point and started to reluctantly turn everyone away to leave. And so I was stood there, one versus six. I didn’t fancy my odds at all, especially against that knife. It was more of a machete than a knife and I knew that he was planning on using it.

  We stood facing-off for what in reality was probably only 10 seconds, but seemed like an ice age. And then it happened. The ginger tosser’s gigantic brother broke their line and lunged at me. I managed to shuffle left and put a decent front kick into his leading right leg. He spun like a top and I whacked him hard with the pole across his ear and cheek as he dropped. He landed almost at my feet and I stamped on his jaw so hard that it took him out of the equation completely.

  One versus five, still not great odds, but it was a start and certainly a lot better than a second ago, I thought.

  They all rushed me. I was definitely going to take a beating here, no two ways about it. But before they got to me I managed to land a stinging blow to Todd’s hand making him drop the sword of a knife he had in his hand and recoil in pain. I got one decent punch in and a good kick to someone’s knee before I was bundled to the ground. Once down the blows rained in, I was kicked, punched, stamped on, spat on but thankfully not stabbed. The last thing I remember was seeing one of them picking up my camping stove and coming towards me, raising it above their head. Then it went dark.

  I woke up in Hayward’s Heath hospital at around nine o’clock in the evening with a pounding headache and blood all over my hands and T-shirt. Sasha and my mum were at my bedside and seemed over-joyed that I had come round. Despite the headache and a few aches and pains I didn’t actually feel that bad at all. The extent of my injuries:

  • one concussion – check

  • one severely bruised left eye – check

  • one heavily bruised femur – check

  • one bit of ligament damage in my left index finger (where they tried to peel my fingers away from my head to give me a bit more punishment I guess) – check

  • one very bruised and sore back! – check

  With all the kisses and cuddles I received from my mum and Sasha I almost received a few more lip and cheek injuries. The doctors have decided to keep me in overnight just to be on the safe side (apparently quite common after someone has played football with your head), but truth be told I feel pretty good considering what could have happened.

  Mum popped off for a cup of tea and Sasha filled me in with the bits I missed. After I was knocked unconscious, Martin returned with the campsite owner and managed to stop the group from giving me an even more savage kicking. Martin had also called the police from his mobile and they arrived pretty sharpish by all accounts and arrested all six of the scumbags. Apparently the police brought Todd into Hayward’s Heath hospital too with a suspected fractured thumb. Ha ha, nice. 1 – 0 to me I’d say! I have nothing broken.

  Sunday, March 12th

  I was visited by the consultant just after a very runny scrambled egg breakfast a
nd given the green light to go home. But why he felt the need to poke my thigh so hard I will never know, sadistic if you ask me.

  At home, getting up the stairs was interesting, but once I was in bed with a good dose of painkillers in me I felt just fine. Martin popped over after lunch and we watched a bit of crappy Sunday TV and reflected on the action-packed Saturday. Sasha called round at around 2pm and Martin, not wanting to play gooseberry left us ‘to it’. Dear diary, again I’m afraid I will have to spare you the details, but when Sasha left, I felt much better… ‘Twice’.

  Sasha left at around five and I just about managed to finish my dinner before the police came round and took a statement from me. I gave them the blow-by-blow account and they seemed genuinely impressed by my bravery, but did comment that I should actually have ‘legged it’. Let’s just hope they throw the book at Todd and put him in a young offenders’ prison. It would be great to have him out of my hair for a little while so I can concentrate on my studies and maybe even go back and fore to school unchaperoned.

  Other than that I have pretty much been stuck here in bed all day. The painkillers are quite strong and I am a little drowsy, but otherwise OK. I did actually want to go into school tomorrow, but it’s a big no no from the folks. Hopefully I will be back in on Tuesday.

  Ah well, back