Compulsion

by Shaun Hutson

  “I’m just being realistic. I’m just repeating what the doctor said.”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Come home. If there’s any change in his condition you know they’ll phone you.”

  “You mean if he dies?”

  He sighed again.

  “Ronni, he’s not going to die.”

  “How do you know that, Andy? The doctors don’t even know.”

  “Well, sitting here staring at him isn’t going to help, is it?”

  “Go home, Andy.”

  “You can come back again later. You need some sleep. You’re not going to be any good to your dad if you’re ill too.”

  “Take the car. I’ll get a taxi home.”

  He ran a hand exasperatedly through his hair.

  The door opened and a nurse entered. She moved quickly and efficiently around the bed, checking machines, adjusting drips. She even pulled open James Connor’s eyelids and shone a penlight into each eye. Her name badge proclaimed she was Dawn Atkins. Her blonde hair was tied in a ponytail that swept back and forth as she moved around the bed, occasionally stopping to mark the chart she held.

  “Is he going to be all right?” Ronni asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” the nurse told her. She stopped and looked at Ronni, noting the dark smudges beneath her eyes.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “It feels like a long time,” Ronni confessed.

  “I’ve just been telling her she should get some rest,” Andy interjected.

  “Your husband’s right,” the nurse said, touching Ronni’s arm.

  “He is your husband, isn’t he? You can never be sure these days.” She smiled and Ronni returned the gesture.

  The nurse was a year or two younger than Ronni, but she exuded an air of authority that was comforting.

  “I don’t want to leave him,” she insisted.

  “Go home and rest. That’s what your dad would want you to do, isn’t it?”

  Ronni nodded.

  Andy was already at the door.

  Ronni leant forward and kissed James Connor’s cheek.

  “I love you, Dad,” she whispered close to his ear.

  Andy held the door open and she walked out.

  “I told you it’d be best if we went home,” he said.

  Ronni pulled her coat more tightly around her and walked purposefully down the corridor in the direction of the lifts.

  As they emerged into the hospital car park, the first hint of daylight was beginning to force its way into the sky.

  A cold wind whipped across the open space and Ronni shuddered as she slipped into the passenger seat.

  They drove home in silence.

  THE WRITING ON most of the envelopes was in biro.

  All different colours.

  Different hands.

  Some was in pencil. One or two even in fountain pen.

  The envelopes were not sealed.

  They bore no stamps or postmarks.

  As Gordon Faulkner stood looking at the mass of white rectangles scattered over the floor of Shelby House’s main entrance, he realized that the mail had been pushed through by hand.

  He picked the envelopes up slowly, counting them.

  “Someone’s popular today.”

  The voice made him turn.

  Donald Tanner was making his way down the hallway, nodding in the direction of the envelopes.

  Faulkner didn’t answer. He merely continued picking up the unmarked mail.

  “Late anniversary cards for Harry and Janice?” Tanner wondered, bending to help Faulkner.

  He too saw the scribbled words.

  No names.

  Just the address.

  Not even that in some cases.

  Just SHELBY HOUSE written, sometimes in capitals, but mostly in a variety of scripts and vivid colours.

  Faulkner continued sifting through the letters he held.

  Tanner also picked up a handful and began counting them, “Twelve,” he announced finally.

  “Twenty-six,” Faulkner said, looking at the wedge of paper he held.

  “Bring them through to the office, will you, please, Don?”

  “Who are they for?” Tanner pondered.

  “More to the point, who are they from7.”

  The two men looked at the piles of envelopes for a moment longer, then Faulkner reached for one and opened it.

  There was a single sheet of paper inside.

  He unfolded it.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he murmured, staring at the scrawl before him;

  I Hope You Die Of Cancer.

  “What is it?” Tanner wanted to know.

  Faulkner reached for another of the envelopes, opened it, took out the single sheet and read it.

  Fucking old Bastards!

  Tanner also opened one of the envelopes and glanced at the sheet of paper inside.

  Get a Tumor you Fucking old cunt!.

  The colour drained visibly from his face.

  “Just leave them, Don,” Faulkner told him, but already Tanner was ripping open another.

  Roses are red violet are blue you’ll soon be dead and we’ll piss on you.

  Faulkner opened two more.

  Die of a Heart Attack Cunt!

  Tanner’s hand was shaking as he read another.

  You will all Die Soon.

  Faulkner reached for the phone.

  “You CAN’T GO into work today.”

  Ronni fastened her blouse, then sat in front of the dressing-table mirror and began combing her hair. She could see Andy’s reflection there, gazing at her as she forced the knots and tangles from her brown tresses.

  “You told me I couldn’t do anything for Dad, Andy,” she replied.

  “I might as well go to work. It’ll keep my mind occupied. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

  He merely stood watching her.

  “You’re being bloody silly,” he said finally.

  “I didn’t tell you to go to work, I just said there ‘ “Was nothing I could do for my dad. I know what you said.” She began applying eye-liner.

  “You haven’t slept,” he reminded her.

  “What about you? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work too? After all, you haven’t got anything to worry about, have you, Andy? He’s my father, not yours.”

  “Thanks a lot. I was just thinking about you.”

  She put on a little lipstick.

  There was a long silence, finally broken by Ronni. She turned to face her husband and when she spoke the edge had left her voice.

  “I really think it’s best for me, Andy,” she told him.

  “If I’m at work I’ve got things to do. If I stay at home I’ll just sit here worrying all day. Besides, there are people at work I can talk to if I want to.”

  “What about me?” he demanded angrily.

  “Why the hell can’t you talk to me? I’ll take the fucking day off to be with you.”

  She got to her feet and crossed to him, touching his cheek with one hand.

  “Don’t shut me out, Ronni,” he said.

  “Not now.”

  She kissed him on the forehead and turned towards the bedroom door.

  It was then that the phone rang.

  Ronni felt her heart hammering against her ribs.

  She bolted for the landing, then hurried down the stairs.

  Please, God, don’t let it be the hospital. Don’t let him be dead.

  She snatched up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  She recognized the voice at the other end immediately.

  Gordon Faulkner sounded uneasy.

  At least it wasn’t the hospital.

  Her heart slowed its pounding a little.

  “Ronni?” he said.

  She didn’t reply for several long moments as she calmed herself down.

  “Ronni?” he repeated.

  “I’m sorry, Gordon,” she murmured.

  “Miles away. I thought you
might be somebody else.”

  “Is something wrong?” he wanted to know.

  “Yes, there is, actually. I’ll tell you when I get in.”

  “Perhaps I should wait until you get here, then.”

  “Have you got a problem there?”

  “I don’t know what we’ve got.”

  “What are you talking about, Gordon?”

  “Something’s happened.”

  “Like what?”

  “It’s easier if you see for yourself.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she told him and hung up.

  Andy was standing at the top of the stairs.

  “Something’s happened at Shelby House,” she told him.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “Can’t they manage without you for once?”

  “I’m the supervisor. It’s my responsibility.”

  “Everything’s your responsibility at that place.”

  She was already reaching for her coat.

  “We’ll talk when I get home,” she told him, snatching up her handbag.

  “No we won’t,” Andy said quietly.

  She closed the front door behind her.

  Andy wandered back into the bedroom and watched her climb into the Fiesta, shaking his head at the shattered windscreen and dented body work The engine sputtered protestingly a couple of times, then reluctantly started.

  She drove off.

  “THIRTY-EIGHT LETTERS.”

  Ronni sat at the desk in the office at Shelby House, the open envelopes all around her. Sheets of paper bearing vitriolic statements lined up like accusations.

  “It took someone a long time to do those,” Gordon Faulkner added.

  Ronni glanced at another.

  You will Die Screaming.

  She shook her head.

  “Who else has seen these?” she wanted to know.

  Donald Tanner had been joined in the office by George Errington and Colin Glazer.

  “Just us,” Errington told her.

  “I don’t want anyone else to know about them,” Ronni said.

  “They could frighten some of the other residents.”

  They did a pretty good job on me,” Colin Glazer offered.

  “Who’d do something like this?”

  “Someone with plenty of time on their hands,” Ronni said, again surveying the expanse of letters.

  “But why?” Tanner wanted to know.

  Ronni had no answer for him.

  “What do you want to do about it, Ronni?” Faulkner enquired.

  “We should phone the police,” she murmured.

  “I think we should tell the others,” George Errington said.

  “They’ve got a right to know.”

  Ronni shook her head.

  “It’ll only worry them, George,” she said wearily.

  “Leave it for now. Just keep it to yourself.”

  “And when the police turn up?” Glazer demanded.

  “What do we say then?”

  “Perhaps that’s a good enough reason not to call them.”

  “If someone was prepared to go to this amount of time and effort, who knows what they might do next?” Tanner interjected.

  “Do you want the police here, Donald?” Ronni said challengingly.

  “Do you want the other residents to know about these?” She gestured to the obscenities.

  “I want something done,” Tanner said defiantly.

  “This is sick.”

  The door of the office opened and Alison Dean walked in. She looked at the five people crammed into the small office then at the piles of mail.

  “What’s going on?” she muttered.

  These were pushed through the door last night,” Faulkner told her, handing her two or three of the letters.

  Alison scanned them.

  “Thirty-eight of them to be exact,” Ronni added.

  “My God,” murmured Alison. She handed the letters back to Faulkner.

  “Are they all the same?”

  “Same tone, yes.”

  “Hate mail. Threats,” Glazer said.

  “Could they have been meant for one person?” Alison mused.

  “Someone’s not going to send thirty-eight nasty letters to one person all at the same time, are they?” Errington snapped.

  “So they were meant for all of us?” Tanner asked, his face pale.

  “For the time being I say we wait,” Ronni offered.

  “Until what?” Tanner rasped.

  “Until one of the threats is carried out?”

  “And if we call the police, what do we tell them?” Ronni demanded.

  “Show them the letters,” Tanner insisted.

  “They’ll know what to do. They’ll catch whoever sent them.”

  Just like they’re going to catch whoever put my father in a coma.

  “And if they catch them, what will they do to them?” Glazer sneered.

  “Nothing. They’ve got more important things to be worrying about than a few bloody letters sent to an old people’s home.”

  “Colin has a point,” Errington admitted.

  “Leave the police out of it,” Glazer continued.

  “I agree with what Ronni says. We shouldn’t let the others know about this.”

  “And what if it happens again?” Tanner wanted to know.

  “Then we’ll deal with it,” Ronni said flatly.

  “What do we do with these?” asked Faulkner, picking up one of the letters.

  “Burn them,” Ronni said, angrily screwing one into a ball.

  A heavy silence descended upon the room and Ronni was aware that all eyes were trained on her.

  “Well, I’m keeping some,” Tanner said finally.

  “I want something to show the police if I have to.” He gathered five or six of the obscene notes and folded them up, sticking them into his pocket.

  “We’re all agreed then,” Ronni said.

  “None of this leaves the room? It’s between us.” She looked at each one of them in turn and they nodded. Tanner held her gaze, then finally he too agreed.

  Errington and Glazer wandered out of the room. Tanner opened his mouth to say something, then decided against it and followed his companions.

  “Jesus Christ,” murmured Gordon Faulkner.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Ronni. Not calling the police.”

  “I’ll take responsibility, Gordon,” she told him.

  “Goes with the position, does it?”

  She eyed him angrily.

  “Your shift’s over, isn’t it?” she wanted to know.

  He nodded.

  “Then go home,” snapped Ronni venomously. She began gathering the letters into one large pile.

  Faulkner frowned, then walked out of the room leaving the two women alone.

  “Are you OK?” Alison asked, watching as Ronni snatched up each new piece of paper.

  Ronni paused for a moment and sniffed. The knot of muscles at the side of her jaw pulsed.

  Then the tears came.

  Painful and unstoppable.

  “WHY DIDN’T YOU say something earlier?” Alison Dean wanted to know.

  She sat close to Ronni, one arm around her shoulder.

  Ronni was cradling a mug of tea in both hands and staring straight ahead.

  “What was I supposed to say?” she said softly. “Excuse me if I seem a bit down today, but my father was beaten unconscious last night. He’s in a coma and no one’s sure whether he’ll live or not”?” She wiped more tears from her cheeks, surprised that she even had the capacity for further weeping. She wondered if it was possible for tear ducts to dry up.

  “You should have seen him, Alison,” she murmured, still staring straight ahead.

  “He looked so helpless.”

  “And the police haven’t got any idea who might have done it?”

  Ronni shook her head. She reached into her handbag for a tissue, muttering under her breath when she realized she hadn’t got o
ne.

  Alison handed her one from her pocket and Ronni dabbed at her eyes.

  “If he’d been here it wouldn’t have happened,” she said, angrily.

  “I always said I wanted him here. If he had been.. .” She allowed the sentence to trail off.

  “Instead of being beaten up, he’d have got one of these sick letters,” Alison reminded her.

  Ronni sucked in a weary breath.

  Alison was sifting through them, shaking her head every now and then.

  “I can’t believe Gordon didn’t see anyone push these through,” she said quietly.

  “It must have taken some time.”

  “Whoever did it, did it during the night, Alison, you can’t blame Gordon for that. I’d just like to know why they were sent.”

  “There’s lots of sickos out there, Ronni, you know that.”

  “But who gets a kick out of terrorizing old people? What’s the point?”

  Alison had no answer for her. She merely continued looking through the abusive notes.

  “I don’t think you should be alone here tonight,” Ronni said finally.

  “You’re doing the night shift, aren’t you?”

  Alison nodded.

  “I’ll stay here with you,” Ronni offered.

  “I’ll be fine. Besides, you’ve got more important things to think about.”

  “I’m going to the hospital this afternoon. I’ll come back here when I’ve seen my dad.”

  “Ronni, there’s no need.”

  “Those letters’ she nodded in the direction of the sheets they probably are some kind of sick prank, but I don’t think any of us should be alone until we find out for sure.”

  “I won’t be alone. The residents are here. I appreciate your concern, Ronni, but everything’ll be fine.” She returned to Ronni and took the empty mug from her.

  “What will Andy say if you stay here?”

  “It doesn’t matter what he says.”

  “You look so tired,” Alison said softly.

  “You should never have come in today.”

  “It’s just as well I did.”

  “Well, you don’t need to stay here with me tonight,” Alison continued.

  “Yes I do,” Ronni protested.

  “And I’m going to. For the next few days we’ll all do the night shift in pairs. Just in case.”

  Alison nodded and turned to leave the room.

  Ronni waited until she reached the door, then called her name.

  The other woman turned.

  “Thanks,” Ronni said.

  “For what?”

  “Just thanks.”

  Alison smiled and stepped out of the office.