The 13th Destiny_Heaven's Deadliest Sign

by Roger David Francis

  “Please stop, I swear Elsie, I’ll give you anything you want.”

  “Are you sure those handcuffs are locked on him, Mandy?” There was a pause and Arthur could hear Geoffrey gasping.

  “Don’t,” he begged.

  “Too late, Geoff, sorry. You’ve two timed me. Hold him down, Mandy, the knife’s slippery. Do as I say or you’ll be next.” Geoffrey screamed.

  Arthur didn’t want to imagine what Elsie and Mandy were doing to Geoffrey but he didn’t think Geoffrey would be having sex with anyone any time soon.

  Creeping now, satisfied justice was being done, Arthur made his way back into the shop, his waterworks forgotten. If he pissed his pants it would be a small price to pay; this was his chance now to get his own back on his hateful employer for sacking him. He almost laughed out loud and quickly covered his mouth with his hand. The vision of Geoffrey running screaming out of the burning shop, his pants down around his ankles, blood running down his legs, was priceless. No more than the beggar deserved. Maybe it was enough punishment. Arthur considered the thought, and then shook his head. No, the bastard had it coming.

  Every now and then a car would drive past, its headlights shining into the cafe. Arthur stood at the door, surprised his legs were trembling. He pulled out the large box of matches and lit one throwing it in the middle of the room. It fizzled out and died.

  The bloody floor was still wet, Arthur realised. He lit another match intending to aim it at one of the tables and then stopped, the match burning. He thought he could smell gas. Surely he was imaging it? Was there a gas appliance in the coffee shop? Oh, God, yes, he remembered it being installed. A gas fire in the passageway. The flame from the match seemed to be growing brighter, the smell of gas stronger.

  He must have accidently knocked the switch on when he kicked it with his foot. The enormity of what he’d done suddenly hit him and he had just enough time to realise he’d made the biggest mistake of his life before everything exploded around him.

  Tim tried to open his eyes but they were sticky as if they’d been pressed shut with glue. He wasn’t lying on his bed; it felt too hard and uncomfortable, nothing like his own soft mattress. The disinfectant smell wafting up his nostrils didn’t belong in his pine scented bedroom either. He tried to think back. Beth had visited him and he hadn’t been very nice to her, accusing her of causing his daughter’s death. Trent was the one responsible, not Beth, he needed to apologise to her.

  He tried again to open his eyes and this time succeeded just enough to make out a stark white wall in front of him.

  He remembered he’d staggered up to the bathroom after Beth had left, it seemed she’d been no more than a distraction. He’d leaned over the wash basin and shovelled handfuls of tablets and capsules into his mouth, gagging as he forced them down his dry throat. He could remember sliding down the side of the toilet and hitting his head on the tiled floor, not caring, knowing he’d be gone soon and none of it would matter anymore. And he’d been glad, welcoming the darkness.

  So had he passed out and was now lying in his own mess on the tiled bathroom floor, his attempted suicide no more than a cry for help? No! His mind rejected the thought. He’d meant it, he’d never wanted to open his eyes again and still be in this world.

  He thought he could smell vomit rising in his nostrils mixed with the disinfectant and the heavy stink of sweat.

  What a useless man he was. He hadn’t been able to protect Jackie from a man he’d known in his heart had been wrong for her, and because of his selfishness, putting his own need before hers, he’d caused the death of his beloved daughter and unborn grandchild. Now he couldn’t even carry out the simple task of killing himself without making a mess of it.

  No part of him wanted to still be alive. It was wrong and vile just breathing the air around him. He deserved to die, be with Jackie, but it seemed his body had rejected his wishes, vomited up the hundreds of pills he’d swallowed so he could go on living and suffering.

  His lips felt raw and swollen and he tried to force his tongue between them, pushing at the fleshy mounds to separate them. His throat was so dry he couldn’t swallow. A few inches away from him there was water but he couldn’t seem to move. All he had to do was roll over, get in a kneeling position and then he could use the wash basin pedestal to heave himself upright but the effort seemed like a remarkable feat to accomplish.

  Mixed with the vomit and sweat Tim could still detect the sharper more pungent smell of disinfectant. He felt like he wanted to cough but his throat felt like sandpaper from throwing up. Maybe, he thought, I’m really dreaming. I’ve passed out and banged my head on the bathroom tiles, rendered myself incapacitated, unconscious. I might lie here for hours, days even until someone finds me, or better still, I die. I’ll drift in and out of sleep and maybe with a bit of luck I’ll choke on my own vomit. It’s no more than I deserve.

  He felt scalding tears squeeze from his eyes but his arms felt useless and he was unable to lift his hand up to wipe them away.

  It was so quiet that when his mobile bleeped his whole body went into a spasm. Suddenly he was ashamed of himself. This wasn’t what Jackie would have wanted, he realised. She’d expect him to be strong, take control, deal with what had happened and grieve for her, not try and kill himself.

  He lay twitching, desperate now to answer the phone to get some help but his limbs betrayed him, refused to move. He was paralyzed from the cocktail of drugs he’d taken and he had no-one to blame but himself. The bleeping continued relentlessly and somewhere in the back of his mind Tim wondered why it didn’t stop, click into message mode. It was beginning to sound like a drill and his head was hurting.

  A voice, so close to his ear he could feel the warmth of breath on his cheek, spoke in a soft tone. “Don’t try to move, you’re in hospital, everything’s all right.”

  Hospital? That couldn’t be right. He was in his bathroom sprawled out of the cold tiled floor, why was the voice lying to him? Did they think he was stupid, that he couldn’t tell the difference between being in his bathroom and being in hospital?

  He tried to speak but could only manage a gurgling sound deep in his throat. He swallowed again and realised something was blocking his windpipe. It took him a few moments to understand there was a tube in his throat. Instantly he gagged to dislodge it and felt a hand move across his face.

  “Try not to do that,” a man’s voice said.

  Tim forced his eyes open a little further. The room was blurred but he could look straight up at the white ceiling, the large round light above him.

  “You were lucky,” Another, gruffer voice told him. “A neighbour called round and found you passed out in the bathroom. Been drinking, had you, thought you’d take a few painkillers for your hangover?”

  He sounded pissed as if Tim was no more than a drunken nuisance. Tim wanted to tell the man to take him back to his bathroom and leave him to die, but his rubbery lips wouldn’t form the words.

  He could see a bit better now, the outline of the two men in white coats shimmering in front of him, and he could feel the tube pulsing in his mouth and the machine by his head bleeping continually, monitoring his heart rate and blood pressure proving he was still alive.

  “We had to use a stomach pump,” The first man told him. “You’ll feel a bit queasy for a while but it will pass.”

  “You’ll live,” the second man grunted as if he was doing him a favour.

  They moved away and Tim could see he was in a hospital room, white ceiling, white walls, they made his eyes ache. A neighbour found him? He thought of old Mrs Benson who lived next door coming round with her freshly cooked hotpot, a sympathy call, and finding him on the bathroom floor. Why couldn’t she have minded her own business, ate the bloody hotpot herself?

  They thought he’d got drunk and overdosed and he was glad about that. They didn’t need to know he’d tried to kill himself. Now he needed to get out, go back to his house and decide if he wanted to finish the job, do it properly next t
ime. I am weak, he thought, but so what? Being strong and taking control wouldn’t bring his daughter back.

  He shifted uncomfortably, the bed felt incredibly hard as if he was lying across a piece of wood. Slowly he put his hands down to his side and his fingers touched what felt like hard plastic.

  “My back,” he croaked.

  The nicer paramedic loomed over him. “It’s in traction at the moment, just a precaution; it looked like you fell backwards.”

  Tim nodded causing his head to throb. There was something he had to do but he couldn’t make his brain work properly, little balls of fuzzy cotton wool were swirling around inside it. He was aware that the two paramedics had left him alone, no doubt a nurse would be along shortly to take his temperature, probably inject him with painkillers but he couldn’t wait for that, there was somewhere he had to be.

  The urgency of his mission was becoming clearer.

  He had to get to the mortuary.

  It suddenly seemed the most important thing in the world. Fate had led him here and he needed to say goodbye to his daughter. She was close, he knew it. The rain was pattering down on the window and to Tim it sounded like Jackie calling to him.

  The pipe going down his throat was hurting now so slowly he began pulling it out. It wasn’t difficult but he couldn’t stop gagging. Fortunately because he’d had his stomach pumped there was no vomit left to fill his mouth. He wasn’t strapped down as he’d first feared and his back felt okay. He carefully began sliding his body to the edge of the bed. Wriggling his toes he slipped a leg out from under the blanket and stretched it out feeling the cold floor under his foot. He still felt okay, a bit lightheaded but that was to be expected. As he stood up he swayed but managed to stay upright.

  Looking down at himself he was thankful when he saw he was still wearing his own clothes, drifting around the corridors in a hospital gown would have looked a bit suspicious. Tim didn’t know where his shoes were but that really didn’t matter. He went to the door and opened it a few inches.

  It seemed quiet. In the distance he could hear a trolley being wheeled along and the murmur of voices. With no hesitation he slipped out of the door and made his way along the corridor to the two lifts behind the glass doors.

  Fortunately there was no-one around so he chose the first lift and pressed the basement button. He had no idea where the mortuary was situated but common sense told him it was most likely to be somewhere on the lower levels of the hospital.

  The lift was cold and practical. Nothing adorned the plain walls, no funny little signs to cheer the patients up when they were being wheeled up to the operating theatre.

  Stepping out of the lift he shivered. The temperature had dropped ten degrees and he wrapped his arms around himself for warmth. Behind him the lift jerked and slowly purred upwards leaving him alone.

  The basement wasn’t well lit but there was enough of the dim overhead light to see where he was going. He began walking.

  Maybe I’m imagining this, Tim thought suddenly. I’m really at home lying on the bathroom floor and my subconscious is telling me to wake up and go to the mortuary to view my daughter’s broken body. It’s the right thing to do. I need to start behaving like a man not a coward. It’s time for me to face up to what’s happened.

  He stopped and closed his eyes.

  “Come to the wrong place, Sir?”

  In the sickly light the tall man with the walking stick seemed out of place in the basement. He should have been wearing jeans, his shirt sleeves rolled up, like Tim imagined a hospital maintenance worker to look. Instead he was wearing a dark suit. He seemed to be in the wrong place too.

  “I think so,” Tim replied. “I was looking for the mortuary.”

  “Oh, you won’t find it down here.” The man waved his stick around. “One floor up. Still, it’s not as if it matters being late. I don’t think anyone in the mortuary is going to tell you off, do you?” He gave a dry chuckle.

  Tim wasn’t amused. He didn’t need small talk he was on a mission. He felt a flash of irritation as the man carried on speaking until the words he was saying penetrated his brain.

  “You’re wasting your time though, Tim, you daughter’s already been embalmed and shipped off to the funeral parlour. I watched them do it. Tricky it was, her face was a right mess, but you knew that, didn’t you? Nasty things, car accidents.” The man’s face suddenly lit up. “Or was it an accident? That’s a worrying thought, isn’t it?” He appeared to be smiling through a mouthful of large yellow teeth but his eyes were hard and cold.

  “I need to see my daughter,” Tim stuttered.

  “Of course you do, Tim, but like I said, you’re too late. The best thing you can do is go home and forget about it.” He laughed, a harsh dry sound. “You still have something to do, plenty more pills left for you to take. Now your stomach is empty, there’s more room for them to do their job. What do you say, Tim?”

  Tim realised his mouth had dropped open. How in God’s name could this stranger know so much about him and his family? The man began tapping his walking stick on the floor as if he was impatient for Tim to be gone.

  “I don’t understand,” Tim said. His head was full now of cotton wool and the man in front of him was opening his mouth wider than was physically possible, stretching it until it touched his ears. He appeared to be chuckling but the noise he was making was more like a rusty nail scratching down a piece of glass.

  “Oh, I think you do.” The man said without moving his lips.

  Tim heard the words and saw the man’s hand reach towards him. He flicked his hand into Tim’s face, snapping his fingers. “Wakey, wakey, you’re a long time dead.”

  Tim flinched backwards and closed his eyes. He fell against the wall and slid down beginning to heave. He felt his fingers scrabbling on the tiled floor and heard himself moaning. He drew his legs up and let out a small scream as a searing pain cut into his brain.

  A cool hand touched his forehead and a soft voice said, “Dad, it’s okay, I’m fine now, don’t do this to yourself.”

  Tim turned his head and looked into the face of his daughter. She was just as he remembered her, the sparkling eyes, the same sweet smile. She was sitting next to him on the bathroom floor stroking his brow.

  “Oh, Jackie, I’ve had a terrible dream,” Tim wept, “I thought you were dead.” He sat up staring into his daughter’s beloved face. “I’ve been so lonely without you.”

  Jackie smiled. “I am dead, but it’s okay. I’m home now and I won’t leave you, I promise. You’ll never be lonely again; I’m here to stay now.”

  Tim tried to hold her gaze but then he saw that her hand was holding a walking stick and there was something wrong with her face, it was changing, turning into the old man in the hospital basement. He was grinning, his large yellow teeth gleaming.

  “Did you hear what I said, Tim? You’ll never be lonely again; I’m here to stay now.”

  Chapter 21

  Miss Lavinia Danvers was in a quandary. She’d decided she liked Beth but the girl seemed to have got herself caught up in a bad situation. Lavinia had watched through her net curtains the comings and goings in Beth’s house. The frantic woman from down the road whose husband had been killed, Beth’s next door neighbour dying of a stroke, the young girl from the grocery shop disabled for life, and Beth herself winning on a scratch card. What had the poor girl got herself mixed up in? Lavinia was beginning to think she might have got off lightly.

  Seeing her dead friend Jenny had been a shock but something she could handle and she had after all wished for it. True, she’d thought she was being clever, tricking the old lady, but it was troubling nevertheless that her wish had been granted almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Shandra must be a very powerful spirit indeed to be able to pull that off, Lavinia decided. So what was the old woman up to? Lavinia knew a little about the paranormal but this seemed outside of that. Why the star signs? Did they really have any significance or were they a red herring for someth
ing darker going on.

  Like devil worship and witchcraft. Thanks to the internet those two subjects had become a lot more popular as hobbies for bored people who had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

  It was an obvious conclusion to believe Shandra was working for a higher power. Lavinia had no problem accepting that the world was a much stranger place than most people believed. They were happy to go about their daily business without giving such matters much thought, but Lavinia knew better.

  She had an absolute belief in the spirit world though to her annoyance she wasn’t physic, Jenny had been the first ghost she’d ever encountered. It was enough though to solidify what she’d always believed, that there were as many spirits roaming the earth plane as there were mortals. So what was all this about? Lavinia wondered.

  She’d been restless ever since Jenny’s visit. Every time she walked into her living room she expected to see her late friend sitting in the chair. She couldn’t even bring herself to watch television in the room now for fear of Jenny appearing. She would have to sit on the floor anyway because she’d pulled down her huge collection of books from the large oak bookcase and stacked them up high on the settee and armchair. There wasn’t an inch left to spare for anyone, including a ghost, to sit comfortably.

  It hadn’t made her feel any better though and a small part of her was a little surprised that she wasn’t embracing the situation with a bit more enthusiasm. She’d always thought it would be fun to be haunted, now she wasn’t so sure. This morning she’d woken up to find both her arms scratched. Three deep lines cut into her flesh on both arms just above her wrists. Sometime during the night while she slept it had happened without waking her up. If Jenny was capable of that, what else was she capable of?

  Maybe she should contact an exorcist. The thought sent a thrill of fear through her and she wasn’t sure if it was excitement or panic she felt.