by Ryan Casey
Funny what lengths a pathologist can go to when you’ve blackmailed him for shagging corpses.
Professional pride was a very, very powerful thing.
He throws the towel to the side of the gloomy bathroom. Looks in his eyes again. He looks fresher. Readier.
He smiles. He is almost handsome.
He can hear Subject C shuffling around. Maybe he will get a few struggle-shots. They will make the film even more enjoyable. Even more exciting, horrifying.
He is going to be Preston’s biggest movie star.
Blake Dent might be Preston’s “hero,” but every hero needed a villain.
And James Scotts was going to make himself famous as the man who toppled the power balance. And every second of it was being documented on video. The film of a generation.
IMDb 8.9/10 would be nice.
He takes a few deep breaths. Walks into the open room where Subject C is. The second she sees him, her head shaven and her cheeks bruised and cut, her eyes widen.
He lifts the camcorder from his side. Twiddles with his vocal modifier to check it is still attached.
“Hello, Danielle,” he says.
He opens up the camcorder. Hits record. Walks towards her.
“I don’t believe I’ve introduced you to my hose yet.”
TWENTY-FOUR
I stared across the cellar at what was in front of me and let the entire bloody reality of everything sink in.
James Scotts was in the middle of the cellar.
He had a rope around his neck. His skin was pale, his eyes glassy.
Only they were glassier than they should be.
They were waxy.
“Holy shit, hun. Holy… holy shit.”
I stepped closer towards the wax model of James Scotts’ hanged body, as Martha clearly tried to get her head around this whole craziness too.
“So… So James Scotts. The—the suicide hubby. He’s—he’s—”
“He’s Hose, yeah,” I said. I rubbed my finger against the smooth wax of James Scotts’ fake body.
James Scotts’ fake body, which hung in the cellar of chief pathologist Damon Watts.
Martha joined me. She plucked away some of the wax with her long fingernails. The cellar stunk of wax, like a giant candle had dripped all over the place.
“So… So Damon. He—he brought James Scotts here?”
“James Scotts is alive. He’s out there. He’s Hose. I don’t think this wax model of James Scotts was ever even at the mortuary, or at the station.”
“But how does someone get away with that?”
I shrugged. Walked around the back of James Scotts’ waxwork body. “You know the local police, Martha. Security checks aren’t their forté.”
Martha sighed. Shook her head. Truth be told, it was weird for me too. Absolutely batshit crazy.
But I had no doubts that James Scotts was Hose. That the note intended to point me towards José’s Waxworks.
That, somehow, it was then supposed to lead me here.
Following the breadcrumbs. I hoped to God I didn’t have many more to follow.
Unless they were made of chocolate.
“Why would he do this, though?”
“James Scotts? Why would anyone do anything like this?”
“Not James, no. Damon Watts, the pathologist. Why would he do anything for a nutbag like Scotts? He’s… he had a job. A good secure job, not that seeing to dead bodies is my cuppa.”
I finished circling the wax model of James Scotts. Crazily impressive piece of artwork. James Scotts was clearly a talented guy. “Sometimes people aren’t all what they seem on the outside. They’ve got skeletons in their closet.”
“Well hello Mr. Philosophical. Since when did you go all Sigmund Freud on me?”
I looked at my watch. 3.15. “Since Dani got kidnapped, probably.”
Martha didn’t have a wisecrack response to that one.
I got back to the bottom of the stairs. I hadn’t felt without stress for a hell of a long time now. But weirdly, right now, I felt like a weird weight had lifted off my shoulders.
Sure, I wasn’t at the end of the journey yet. But at least I’d found the path.
I just had to get to the end of it in the next ten hours and forty-five minutes.
“We should get Lenny down here,” Martha said. “Get the police to—”
“The police will find it,” I said.
Martha looked at me. Narrowed her eyes. “Blake, hun, this is it. We’ve got the answer to who kidnapped Danielle, right here. We can get him.”
“We can report him and we can put out APBs or whatever the bloody British equivalent is, sure. But then we piss Hose—sorry, James Scotts—off. I break the rules of his little ‘game.’ The second I involve the police again, he’ll kill Danielle. Just like that.”
“So you’re just suggesting we sit around and do nothing?” Martha said. Her voice echoed against the cellar walls.
I smiled at her. “Not nothing, Martha. Definitely not…”
I stopped talking when I heard the cellar door creak open.
“Quick!” I said.
I rushed over to the other side of the cellar. Threw open the rusty metal door of a locker, stepped inside it. Martha did the same with the one beside me.
I heard footsteps coming down the stairs as I edged back inside the tight squeeze of a locker. There were vents that I could see through, and I hoped to shit the police officers couldn’t see through them in turn.
Martha and I, we couldn’t be caught here. We couldn’t be found, not now. Not with what we had to do.
Not with what I knew I had to do.
“But have you ever seen Captain America 2? Hands down the best Marvel film,” the first officer, a chubby short haired-ginger, said.
“Uh-uh,” the black female officer behind him said. “None of that Captain White America shit. What’s with all the Avengers being white anyway? That not racist or… Holy shit.”
The pair of them stopped their chitchat and stared at the waxwork model of James Scotts in front of them.
“Wait, isn’t that…?”
“That’s the dude who topped himself, right? The one with the kid? All that videotape shit?”
They rushed over to him.
“But if he isn’t… shit. He’s solid!” the guy said.
“What’you mean solid?”
“He’s… he’s like falling to bits.”
The woman frowned at him and touched him.
Her face dropped.
“Shit. This ain’t no real man. He’s… like, wax and shit.”
I held my breath. Held the metal opening to the locker real tight. I couldn’t budge. This locker was barely big enough to fit me in. Any twitch and… bam.
The two officers called in their findings. Shit. Gave me and Martha little amount of time to get out of here. If the officers left this place at all.
I listened to my watch ticking away.
Time was running out.
“Holy shit. Right there.”
When I heard the male police officer’s voice, I knew right away I was screwed.
He was looking right at me. Beady, piggy eyes stared right at the opening of the locker.
I kept still regardless. Kept still, held my breath so much I went dizzy, as he got closer and closer.
I thought about what I was going to say. What my excuse for being here was going to be. How the hell I was going to get out of this one without idiot Lenny to bail me out.
The officer stopped right in front of the locker. I could smell the cheese and onion crisps on his breath.
“This Megan Fox poster is damned hot,” he said.
He yanked something—a poster—off the front of the locker and walked away grinning and whistling.
“Filthy bastard, Molfer,” the other officer said. “Absolute dirt.”
The pair of them disappeared up the stairs of the cellar, switched off the light when they got halfway.
Martha and I, compl
etely enshrouded in darkness, didn’t speak until we were absolutely sure the door had creaked shut.
And then: “Can we budge yet? Having boobs and being stuffed in a tiny locker maybe wasn’t a great idea after all.”
I pushed open the locker door, and so too did Martha. Martha panted. Brushed herself down.
“So, you were saying…” she said.
I took a few deep breaths of the waxy, damp air. Cleared my mind, as I listened to the sounds of footsteps in the house above, the sound of my watch ticking.
“We aren’t going to the police.”
“Oh yeah. That idiocy. Swear you get more stupid the—”
“But I’m not sitting around and twiddling my thumbs. I’m setting some rules of my own. Playing James Scotts’ game by my rules.”
I walked across the tiled floor. My speech might’ve sounded smooth if I hadn’t bumped into James Scotts’ wax doppelgänger on the way.
“Your game? Your rules? What you spouting, babe?”
I turned around. Squinted at Martha in the dark, and wished it was light so she could see how damned action hero I looked.
“What do you say to making a viral video?” I asked.
TWENTY-FIVE
“No way. There’s no frigging way you’re not cutting that bloody part where I stutter.”
Martha grinned as she clicked around on my MacBook Pro. We were both lying on my lounge floor after recording the video.
The video that would hopefully change things.
The video that would turn the tables.
“Babe, it’s only got to be the message that counts. Doesn’t matter if you mumble from time to time.”
I sighed. Shook my head, as I battled to select the chunk of footage that I’d stuttered in. “Reckon Invisible Children said it’s only the message that counts when they spent a billion on that Joseph Kony stuff?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, hun. You’re hardly an international superstar. Now come on—give me help with a title here.”
I listened to the sound of my watch ticking away. I knew it must be around 4.30, which gave me nine and a half hours to save Danielle, but I wasn’t keeping track anymore.
I was playing my own game. A game that James Scotts was gonna have to deal with, whether he liked it or not.
And sure, there was no guarantee that what I was doing was going to work. But it was better than running around and wasting hours chasing his cryptic little clues.
“Alright, let’s watch it back now. One final time.”
Martha tutted. “Jesus, you’re obsessed. You look fine, hun. It’s a public appeal, not a beauty pageant.”
“Would you trust a YouTube star who looked like a greaseball?”
Martha shrugged. Clicked away on the MacBook touchpad. “Fair point.”
She started the video again. The video opened with me sitting on my kitchen stool. That was bloody hard enough in itself—I hated those stools. Got right up in my ass.
“I thought about writing a script, but I figured the best way to speak would just to be honest…”
“Jesus,” I said, as I watched myself. “I sound like I’m reading a bad wedding speech.”
“Definitely not being my best man.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
I continued on the video.
“… At two a.m. this morning, my girlfriend, Danielle, was kidnapped by the killer going by the name of Hose. This is Hose’s third kidnapping, but I am determined to make sure that Danielle doesn’t become Hose’s third victim…”
“You’re good, y’know?” Martha said. She jabbed me in my arm. “Should go into news reading when the smoothie trade goes AWOL.”
“Shh!”
“… As you’ll know from information leaked to the press, Hose doesn’t like the partners of the abducted going to the police. But with the information and the footage I’m about to show you, I don’t think I am going to the police. I’m asking for your help…”
I held my breath. The next part was where people were gonna have to show a bit of faith in me.
“… I believe that James Scotts, husband of the first victim, is Hose. Now I know I sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist, but I have my evidence. First up is this picture, a wax model of James Scotts found in chief pathologist Damon Watts’ basement…”
I went on to explain the situation with José’s Waxwork Route, with Damon Watts on Jared’s CCTV, and with his fingerprints on the fifty pound notes handed over for Ecstacia.
“I can’t order you to help me. That’s not what I’m doing. But I can, and I will, ask you to help me. I need to know if anybody has seen this man…” Cut to James Scotts. “This man is not dead. He is alive. He is Hose. Any word on his whereabouts, or whether you’ve seen him with Damon Watts at any point, please call me on 07572 474927. And don’t call the police. I wouldn’t want to break Hose’s little rules.”
The clip ended with me thanking any potential viewers, followed by a full recording of the tape Hose had sent me. I struggled watching him jab the Ecstacia syringe into Danielle’s neck. But I didn’t feel worthless anymore.
I felt like I was acting.
Like I was actually doing something.
“Ready to upload?” I asked Martha.
She scratched her head. “I, er… I think I deleted it. I empty Trash to get deleted stuff back, right?”
I lunged over to the Mac to stop her emptying Trash.
She chuckled. “Just kidding, you fool. Uploading as we speak. Got copies going out to all the local and national papers and news sites, too. Blake Dent, you’re about to become YouTube famous again.”
I stood up and walked over to my kitchen. My back was aching. In fact, I was aching all over. It felt like I hadn’t slept in forever, my mouth tasting of stale coffee even though I hadn’t drank any. Jesus, today had been the longest day ever.
And I still didn’t know how it was going to end up.
“So what do we do now, bossman?” Martha asked. She got up from my lounge floor, too, and walked over to me. “Seeing as you’re on the reins all of a sudden.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose and tried to figure out what other productive shite we could be doing. “Um… I suppose there’s José’s Waxworks. Could do worse than checking out James Scotts’ studio. Find it hard to believe he’d leave no clues around there. Something we could go on.”
Martha nodded. “Be good to get a good look before the police figure out to go there, anyway. Hey, you do realise you technically are involving the police with all this viral video shit, right?”
I shrugged. “Not actively. The police can involve themselves if they want. I’m not breaking any of James Scotts’ rules.”
“And what makes you think he’s a man to stick to the rules?”
I smiled. “Like you said. He’s a game player. Shall we get going?”
Martha nodded. She wandered over to the lounge and picked her leather jacket from the floor. “Probably best to check it before the police. Shit, not looking forward to seeing old sugartits on reception again, though.”
“I’ll find a way to charge myself past her.”
Martha held up her breasts. “A pound a suck! A pound a suck!”
I grinned and shook my head. Felt weirdly relaxed.
Martha crouched down and clicked around on my Mac.
“Is there a reason you’re using my computer without my permission?”
She clicked on the touchpad a few more times. That was getting annoying—I had tap to click on for a bloody reason. “Just checking if there’s anything on YouTube. Anything from the papers.”
I looked at my watch. “It’s twenty five to five, Martha. That video’s been online five minutes. Give it an hour at least.”
I turned to my front door. Grabbed the handle. Opened it.
“Wait…”
I sighed. Even though I was all for Martha’s support, “wait” was hardly the word I wanted to hear when every second counted. “What?”
&
nbsp; Martha was staring at the Mac screen. Her eyes were wide. Her jaws were loose.
My heart picked up. I felt knotting in my stomach. Had something gone wrong? Had… had I broken the rules without realising?
“Martha?” I walked towards her, my legs weak. My mouth cried out for menthol. “What is it?”
She looked at me. Looked at me with wide, bloodshot eyes.
And then she smiled.
“It’s gone Twitter viral, hun. It’s… Look.”
I shook my head. Couldn’t believe what Martha was saying. “What you on about? You’re having me on, right?”
I crouched down. Looked at Twitter.
Holy shit.
There was a full page of tweets. Tweets like, “If you watch anything today, please watch this.”
Holy crap. A tweet from Gary-bloody-Linger, top football pundit: “Pass this on to everyone you know. #SaveDanielle”
“I’ve… it’s gone viral,” I said.
Martha smiled. Placed a hand on my back.
“If anyone has ANY information on the whereabouts of James Scotts, PLEASE HELP! #SaveDanielle”
“Fuck Hose. Blake helped us once. Let’s return the faith. #SaveDanielle”
“It’s… it’s working.”
TWENTY-SIX
It is only when James Scotts finishes a thrilling session with his prized hose and Subject C’s neck that he discovers Blake Dent’s a viral video sensation again.
He sees it when he sits down with an ice cold glass of water in one of the rooms next to where Subject C is. Sees it totally by accident, and almost spits out his water when he does.
BBC News. Front page. Breaking News.
Kidnapped Woman Sparks Nationwide Manhunt.
He clicks. Clicks, more because he is curious about what is hidden between the lines. Intrigued to hear how the media are talking about him—whether they are giving him the respect, the adulation, he deserves.
When he sees Blake Dent’s viral video that has garnered over a hundred thousand retweets from celebrities and the general public in a matter of minutes, he doesn’t feel so thirsty anymore.
His cheeks heat up. He tries to gulp, but he can’t shake the lump in his throat.
Blake Dent is playing with him. Fucking with him. Blake Dent isn’t supposed to be the video star. This is supposed to be James Scotts’ time.
