by Ryan Casey
“She cried out your name a few times. And another bloke’s, too. Daniel, I think he was called. Yes, she called for him more actually. An affair, maybe? A bit on the side?”
I bit my lip. Did all I could to avoid smashing this fucker’s head like an eggshell.
“And still, the parasite doesn’t act. All of this on camera. All of this on—”
“Fuck your camcorder,” I said.
I picked it up. Lifted it. Prepared to smash it into the ground.
When I felt the sharp pain in my lower left abdomen, I knew I’d let my guard drop.
I fell back. James Scotts wriggled from underneath me, a small blade in his hand. I clutched my ab. Felt the hot blood seeping from my skin. Felt dizzy with the smoke, the stab wound, everything.
James Scotts lifted the assault rifle. Smiled, his curly hair matted and sweaty. “If you won’t act, then I will,” he said.
He squeezed the trigger.
Two shots fired.
I closed my eyes and held my breath and…
James Scotts fell to the floor.
I stared at him as he lay beside me. Stared at him with the two gunshot wounds in his back.
“Everybody this way!” voices said. The police. They’d got him.
I watched as two of the officers picked up James Scotts, lifted him and dragged him away.
I watched as James Scotts smiled one final time before passing into unconsciousness.
And the camcorder watched me as my only shot at avenging Danielle’s death disappeared before my eyes.
FORTY-ONE
“How does that feel, Mr. Dent? Better?”
I leaned back in the hospital bed as a nurse applied some dressing to my stab wound. I nodded once, sharply.
“Glad to hear,” she said. She was so smiley, so airy, considering London had just been rocked by a bloody terrorist attack.
There was a screen just above the bottom of my hospital bed. On it, rolling news aired. Naturally, coverage was all about James Scotts’ attack on a Glasgow—London Euston train just outside the station. About the loss of life—twenty-one deaths, in total. Horrible, but not as bad as it could’ve been, was the news’ verdict.
I didn’t get that. It was just horrible. Twenty-one people had died.
I sipped at some water. It cooled down my hot throat, soothed my dry lips. The hospital ward was busy, packed with people who were crying, wincing with pain. Fellow train victims. I didn’t want to look at them. I didn’t want to see their wounds, or what they’d lost.
I wanted to know what had happened to James Scotts.
I’d seen him being dragged away by police. I’d seen his smile just before his eyes closed. But there had been no word on the news about his condition or his status.
I needed to know he was dead or behind bars. I couldn’t rest until I knew that.
“Mr. Dent? Someone on the phone for you.”
The smiley brunette nurse was back. I nodded at her, hesitant. Who could be calling me? Martha? Lenny? Ip dip doo, really.
I took the phone. Pressed it to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Blake? Is that… is that you?”
The voice was neither Lenny’s nor Martha’s. No, it was a woman’s voice, but it was soft and friendly. A voice I’d heard recently.
Danielle’s mum, Patricia.
My stomach turned as I tried to figure out what to say. “Patricia, I, er… I…”
“We heard about what happened. Down in London. Me and William have been going out of our minds trying to get hold of you.”
I frowned. Not what I expected. “You… you have?”
“Yes. I popped by your place earlier and couldn’t get an answer. And I thought it was odd, not like you. And—and then the local radio just said you were caught in the attack. Are you okay? Are they treating you well?”
Patricia’s first words echoed in my head. I had to be straight up and honest. “Patricia, I was in my flat earlier. I just… I couldn’t face you. I couldn’t face anything… anything Danielle related. I’m sorry.”
A slight pause on the line. I prepared for the barrage of insults that I probably deserved.
“That’s okay. It’s… it’s hard for all of us. Just as long as you’re okay now. You are, aren’t you?”
Patricia’s words were not what I’d been expecting. I felt my eyes welling up, and stopped them right away because I must look like some kind of wuss the amount of times I’d been crying lately. “I… I am, yeah. I’m… bit bruised. Cut my—my stomach. But fine.”
A gasp of relief from Patricia, a woman who I had no idea actually gave a frig about me. “Oh, good. Good. And—and the funeral. Don’t worry. We’ll organise it while you’re in your state. But… but please, Blake. Remember we’re all here. Here for each other. We… we’re family.”
I usually just nodded and grunted when people made remarks like that. But this time, I felt the sincerity in Patricia’s words.
“Thanks,” I said.
“No, thank you,” Patricia said. “For surviving.”
I couldn’t speak now. Too much of a lump in my throat. My eyes clouded up as nurses walked past, as curtains of other beds in the ward twitched open and shut. I blanked out the whimpers of pain, and I focused solely on Patricia. “I… I loved her.”
“We all did,” Patricia said. “She was a loveable girl.”
I wiped my eyes. Looked over at the door to the ward. There were some nurses outside. They looked strangely stressed about something. One guy, an Asian fella, was looking over his shoulder, standing like he’d dropped a smelly log in the toilet and didn’t want to take the blame.
“We’ll keep you in the loop about… about the funeral,” Patricia said, as calm and collected as ever.
I kept focused on these nurses. The crowd was growing. All growing around this door, looking agitated, raising their voices now.
I cancelled the call without saying goodbye to Patricia. Something I could apologise for later. I got a bad feeling about this crowd of nurses. They didn’t look organised. They didn’t look controlled.
They looked pissed. Majorly pissed.
I looked around the ward. All of the curtains were shut, except for a chubby guy beside me, but he was snoring away anyway.
I hooked my right foot over the side of the hospital bed. Shuffled myself to the edge, trying my best not to put any pressure on my stomach.
And then I dropped to my feet.
The pain was bad at first, but a few footsteps was enough to ease it. I got closer to these nurses. Closer to them as they chattered away in loud, crappy attempts at whispers. The sound of the rolling news went on and on about the train, the accident, the terrorist.
But still no actual news about James Scotts.
I stopped beside the ward door. None of the nurses had noticed me at all, they were so focused in their little argument. Almost as bloody inept as the police. I looked at them. Looked and tried to focus, tried to lock on to what they were saying.
And then I clocked on to what one of the nurses, a woman with blonde hair and long nose, said.
“He can’t have just disappeared.”
It felt like a punch in the gut. And bear in mind I’d already been stabbed in the gut, so the feeling wasn’t pretty.
He can’t have just disappeared.
I could only think of one person who’d cause so much fuss, one person who’d cause so much panic.
And they were right. He can’t have just disappeared.
That couldn’t happen.
I crept out of the ward. Crept past the nurses, head down, as they argued and bickered away.
“Well you were supposed to be watching him!”
“He’d been shot in the back—how was I supposed to know he’d just walk out?”
“Where’d security go anyway?”
I kept my head down as I walked down the dimly lit, blue-walled corridor. Screw bickering and arguing about this guy—I had to find him. This hospital was big. He couldn’t have g
one far, not with gunshot wounds in his back.
I had to find him.
“Sir, where do you think you’re going?”
The voice came from behind me, and although I couldn’t see over my shoulder, I knew it was directed at me.
I gulped. Turned around. Looked at them—looked at all their puzzled, curious eyes.
“Bathroom,” I said.
A ginger guy frowned. Looked at me like I was a kid who’d quite obviously stolen some sweets from the shop counter.
And then he smiled and pointed in the direction I was heading.
“Just down there on your right,” he said.
I nodded. Smiled quite naturally myself, relieved that the security measures really were weak in this place, even if it had resulted in the escape of a frigging mass-murderer.
I walked down the corridor. Held my breath as I passed the bathroom, not even looking over my shoulder to see if the nurses tried to stop me.
I reached some wooden double doors at the end of the corridor. Pushed them, and found myself in an empty, dusty stairwell. Grey walls, tinted windows, concrete steps, all adding to the dire surroundings.
I took a breath of the musty air, stinging my stabbed abdomen in the process.
It was only when I put my foot on the first step and the double doors swung shut behind me that I got the feeling I was being watched.
FORTY-TWO
James Scotts has never been a great fan of hospitals.
He creeps down the corridor. Winces with every move, his back wracking with pain. He looks left, looks right, keeps an eye out for staff, but they are all occupied. All involved in their own little worlds.
He is invisible, even though his face is all over the news.
It’s the smell of hospitals he hates the most. Reminds him of those months ago, when his wife gave birth to that little whingy shit of a kid, Sebastian. Thank God he is a million miles from him right now. Because there’s no chance he’d be changing any more nappies in his life, not again.
He has bigger things to worry about than smelly nappies.
He hears voices up ahead. Laughter, footsteps getting closer. He freezes. Holds his breath. Spins around and lowers his head, leaning against the wall like a run of the mill patient.
He watches the nurses walk past. Watches them as they smile, joke with one another.
This makes him smile, too. It means word hasn’t spread of his escape yet.
Good. He likes to surprise people.
He lifts his head back up. Carries on down the corridor, moving quicker now. He knows he doesn’t have all the time in the world to get away. He knows that at some point, probably in the very near future, word of his escape is going to leak out, and the hospital will be put on lockdown.
But that doesn’t matter. He’ll already be out of here by then.
As he moves further down the corridor, he notices voices getting louder. Hears the chimes of a nearby ward, the low hum of people chattering. He knows he has to be careful here. He knows he can’t be seen.
Like a predator in the wild, he assesses his landscape. Looks ahead. Looks for a door. Somewhere he can go through, make his escape easier.
He sees a surgeon in his blue uniform walk across the corridor. Into a door on the right.
Staff toilets.
He feels a smile twinge at the sides of his mouth.
He has his escape route.
He moves slower towards this door. Stays very aware of the voices from the ward on his left. He can’t look. He can’t risk looking. Looking will look suspicious in itself.
So he just moves towards the staff toilet door.
Moves towards his escape route.
When he gets to it, his heart racing and his stabbed back searing, he hears a huge bang at the end of the corridor. He can’t help but look up.
The moment he looks, he wishes he hadn’t.
A bulky security guard dressed all in black is jogging down the corridor. He isn’t looking at James Scotts, but he is heading in his direction. If James Scotts doesn’t act fast, he will be caught.
So he throws himself into the staff bathroom and presses his back up against the door.
He listens outside to the footsteps of the security guard. Listens to them getting closer, to the rise of voices as the guard informs them of James Scotts’ escape. He enjoys this. He enjoys the panic he is causing. Just a pity he isn’t catching this beautiful moment on video.
He fast becomes aware of his surroundings. Of the stench of piss. The sound of piss hitting a urinal. The sound of whistling, the smell of an imminent kill.
He blinks. Looks ahead.
The surgeon, all in blue, is pissing into the urinal, clueless to James Scotts’ presence.
James Scotts inhales. He knows he doesn’t have much time. But what he does have is instinct. An animalesque ability to act fast when threatened. Like a cow protecting its calves, only a hell of a lot cleverer.
He steps closer to the surgeon. Searches the toilet for something he can use as a weapon. Cracked mirror. Sturdy looking sinks. Heavy door.
He gets even closer. The surgeon, with his ginger hair, keeps on whistling and humming and pissing, staring above himself into space.
James Scotts is just centimetres behind him now.
And he knows exactly what he has to do.
He lowers his hand. Reaches towards the surgeon’s ball sack.
The surgeon stops pissing.
James Scotts smashes his fist into his balls.
The surgeon lets out a confused scream. He tries to turn around, tries to look at James Scotts, but he is already on his knees and James Scotts is already holding his head into the clogged-up urinal, drowning him on his own piss.
He lets the surgeon struggle. Every time he does, he smashes his head against the urinal, a little harder each time.
It takes forty-six hard smacks for the surgeon to die.
And even then he is still twitching.
When James Scotts is sure that he is dead, he takes off the surgeon’s blue uniform. Ditches his own hospital robe on the toilet floor, and dresses up in it. There are a few splatters of blood on the blue uniform from the surgeon’s mashed up head, but there is nothing he can do about that. Besides, surgeons messed around with blood all the time. Nobody would even give him a second look.
He looks at himself in the mirror. Looks at himself, all smart, like an actor in a film.
For a split second, deep in his brown eyes, he sees something. A glimmer of humanity deep within. It is something that flashes itself before him from time to time. He’s had it all his life.
He wonders what he might be if he didn’t like killing. Whether he might be a surgeon, or a vet, or a scientist with two beautiful kids and an amazing wife and family.
But the thought of a normal life makes him feel uneasy. Because he is a killer. He always has liked killing. And sure, he’d wanted to be an actor-director all his life, but he just couldn’t get a break. Nobody really bought into his extreme snuff horror niche.
Well, at least they’d bought into him, at last.
At least he’d found the auteur within.
The real-life murder genre. Hopefully he could be respected as the Tarantino of his style.
And if he got out of this hospital, he could get to work on a sequel. Start a cinematic revolution.
He smiles at himself in the cracked mirror. His mind races with thoughts of his next act. Maybe he can carry on kidnapping people from homes. Or shit—maybe he could start murdering in public and videoing it. Murdering in popular locations, like the Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum. Every tourist’s nightmare.
He’ll have plenty of time to think as soon as he gets out of this hospital, as soon as he gets away.
He holds his breath. Steps over to the bathroom door. Listens outside for voices, for footsteps, for noise.
Quiet.
Excellent. Just what he needs.
He opens the door and prepares to turn right towards the staircase w
here the security guard ran through.
But something crashes into his face.
Something knocks him back before he can even process it. Something sends hot blood streaming from his nose, sends him flying to the floor, cracking his bald head.
His eyes blur over. Colours, black dots, all fill his vision. He winces, his back stinging worse than ever. He tries to see what’s above him. Tries to understand.
“Hello James.”
He blinks. Blinks, so he can see, so he can understand.
And when he does, he understands in a big way.
Blake Dent is standing above him, a red fire extinguisher in hand.
“Think it’s about time we had a proper chat.”
The toilet door slams shut.
FORTY-THREE
Standing above James Scotts, alone in a bathroom with a heavy fire extinguisher in hand, I couldn’t help but let my mind race about all the ways I could make him pay for Danielle’s death.
Off camera. My terms.
I watched him slide across the tiled floor of the bathroom. He was wearing a blue surgeon’s outfit, and for a split second I thought I’d made a horrible mistake.
But then I saw the naked surgeon, head caved in, and the blood covering the urinal, and I knew what had happened here.
An alarm was sounding through the hospital now. I could hear shouts and cries outside the bathroom, so I knew I didn’t have long with James Scotts.
But I had long enough to make him suffer. Long enough to do what I had to do.
“How d’you feel now, eh?” I said. I crouched down over him. A huge bruise had sprouted up on his right eye, blood dribbling down his chin from where I’d hit him with the fire extinguisher.
He smiled at me. Smiled with that bullshit grin that he always seemed to have.
And then he spat a loose tooth into my face.
I wiped off the phlegmy residue. Shook my head.
And swung my fist at him.
Although the punch stung my knuckles, I could feel myself deflating inside as James Scotts’ cheek cracked, as his head rattled against the hard, tiled floor. I could feel relief. Relief and release for Danielle.
