by NS Thompson
“Did you fuck him for your drugs, heh?”
She tried to turn her head away.
“Or did you give him your daughter? My daughter? Did you let him fuck her?”
“He’s alright,” she mumbled. “He looks after us. He buys us stuff.”
“Have you seen this, Sandy?” I pulled the amateur porn out of my pocket and threw them on the desk in front of her. I held a torch to her daughter’s face and pushed her head close with my other hand.
“I don’t wanna look. Don’t make me look,” she mewled.
“What sort of screwed up mother does that to her kid? Sandy? She was twelve years old.”
“My mother made me do it, from when I was ten,” she sobbed back at me, her face now pressed against the filthy paper full of the evil photographs.
“Dr John borned me,” she whined. “He borned both my babies. He’s okay. Sarah likes him. You don’t understand.”
“No…I don’t.” My breath was crashing like waves in my throat. “What the fuck do you mean – “he borned you?” what is that?”
She looked at me as if I were mad.
“At the hospital…you know…” she drifted off again. It became clear to me suddenly that she meant he had been the doctor to deliver her of her babies and her from her own mother. I fought the urge to vomit. What sort of monster was this man?
“What’re you gonna do?” she sounded frightened now.
“We’re going to get Doctor John down here to apologise to us for killing our daughter.”
She struggled against my hand and wrestled out from my hold. The chair, on wheels, pulled away from me. Her eyes were wild.
“He never done that. You fuckin’ liar. He loved us like family.”
I threw the mini-magazine at her.
“Is that how you treat family, Sandy? He did kill those girls and you know it.”
“No. Never. He loved Sarah.” She had snot and tears pouring down her face, the eye-liner and mascara leaving train tracks down her cheeks. She was rocking like an autistic toddler, the magazine in her filthy lap.
“You will ring the doctor’s mobile telephone now. I’ll dial the number. Tell him you want to talk to him about Sarah. Tell him to meet you at the surgery in one hour. Do not tell him that you are already here. Do you understand me?”
She shook her head, wobbling it from side to side like a dash-board dog.
“No, I don’ understand what the fuck you’re talkin’ bout.”
I showed her the scalpel. It glistened in my torchlight. She froze.
“You will do exactly as you are told Sandy or I will kill you. I will slit your throat from ear to ear.”
“You’re fuckin’ mad. You killed my baby, did’n ya?” She was shaking.
“No, Sandy. John killed them and he will pay for that. Do as I tell you. Exactly. You will do this for Sarah!”
Her mouth was dry and she ran a frantic purple tongue over her lips and around the inside and outside of her gums. She was suddenly not so comfortable with her nakedness.
“Just fuck me an’ let me go. I won’t tell any one.” She was not understanding me. She was not listening.
“One more time, Sandy. I will ring the number and you will tell John to meet you at the surgery in one hour. Tell him you’ll knock on the back door.”
I put the scalpel to one flabby excuse for a breast. Her reflexes were slow but she nodded her head.
“Yup, okay. Can I go then cos Jared’s got my baby at the caravan? I gotta go to him. I said I’d be back at ten an’ I’ll be late an get a bashin…fuckit!’”, she picked up the phone and I leaned forward and pressed the speed dial that read – J.M’s mobile.
The stupid bitch managed to mumble her way through, saying she needed to talk to him about Sarah. One hour. Surgery. I had him on speaker phone and heard the tremor of concern in his voice. He had a voice that was covered in slime.
“Fine, Sandy. Have you been talking to anyone else about Sarah?”
I pressed the blade a little deeper into her breast.
“Aggh. No.” She hung up.
“There, you fuckin’ demented prick. Now let me go. I don’t want nothing to do with this shit.”
She picked up the magazine and ripped it in two and threw it back on your desk.
I looked down at little Sarah Moorebank’s innocent face pressed into a grown man’s crotch, her mouth splitting at the sides and felt lights all around me. I felt hot and clammy. It was Sarah’s spirit enveloping me. She was making me powerful. I was filled with electricity. I heard thunder roaring in my ears.
“No Sandy, you’re not going anywhere.” I said as I reached down and pulled her head back by her scarecrow blonde hair and wiped the blade across her throat. It was as smooth as butter. A thin line of black began to gape and bubbling blood frothed out over her chest. Her eyes burst with surprise and just as quickly, dulled, like a light with a dimmer. I dropped her like a rag doll and she slumped to the floor. Naked. Cold. I stepped back to stop my shoe from being touched by the growing pool on the carpet and turned off my camera.
I could feel Sarah’s loving embrace, thanking me. I said aloud, hoping she could hear me from wherever she was. “You are almost free, Sarah. I would have freed you a long time ago, if I had known.”
I walked out into the waiting room and sat down in the dark. I cried. I was overcome with the pain of having had a child that I never knew. I should have known. I should have been there to protect her. My soul was cleansed by the whore’s death and I knew that once John Myer had been taken care of, I would have my badge of honour. Sarah could then and only then, rest in peace.
I left the whore’s carcass where it lay. The same spot you rest your feet every week-day, Grace. Sandy Moorebank was directly responsible for my daughter’s death. She had been trading Sarah for drugs and had sold her soul to a monster with an M.D after his name. Life is all about balance. Ying Yang. Tit for tat. Eye for eye. Karma. I was realigning things. Bringing things back into balance. I knew I had more work to do. The power surge I had ridden had left me exhausted.
I went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face.
My face was pale and my eyes red from crying but I had a job to do and had to get on with it.
I took the camera into the doctor’s consultation room. I got out the morphine vials and found a large syringe in a drawer. I ripped open the sterile packaging and withdrew the plunger. I emptied four vials into the syringe – 200 milligrams and readied the shot, somewhat awkwardly. My hands had a slight tremor in them.
I doubted that Dr Death would take too long to appear. He would have his own agenda and if I was any kind of soothsayer, I predicted that he would want to get to the surgery ahead of Sandy to prepare to dispatch her himself. She was the link to his crimes. He had obviously convinced her of his innocence in her daughter’s death but Sandy knew of his sexual activities and although it was in her best interests to keep her mouth shut, she was a junkie and not to be trusted.
How ironic that the bastard had been the first medical person on the scene down at the look-out. Constable Michelle Hokitika had called on him first and he had beaten the ambulance. As a doctor, I’m surprised he didn’t finish the job with Sarah’s cousin but from all accounts she was further into the bush, obviously having got away badly injured. In the dark the doctor had lost her or may have been disturbed and I guess he was sure that the girl would not survive from the injuries he had inflicted.
John Myer would not be expecting Sandy or anyone else to be inside the surgery. I had the element of surprise on my side.
I set my camera up in his consultation room, on the examination table.
I went into the small bathroom just by his desk, considered washing the scalpel, decided against it and began my wait. I didn’t have to wait long. Dr Death, long considered the most unpunctual of professionals was early, for a change.
Fifteen minutes later, I heard his car pull into the driveway.
I held my breath. Af
raid. Nervous. With a thump in my chest I was afraid he would hear. I only had one shot with the syringe. The scalpel felt slippery in my left hand.
I heard him at the door. Open and then shut. Heard the beeps as he put his own code into the alarm.
I prayed that he would come directly to his office. The lights were off in reception and Sandy was a still, dead shadow that I hoped he would miss.
The light came on in his office and I peered through the slightly ajar door. He went straight to his drug cabinet, turned away from me and so I launched myself at his back and reached up, plunging the syringe into the side of his neck, punching the stopper all the way to the hilt. He reeled back and fell to the floor, grasping at the syringe that stayed jutting out of the side of his neck like a strange Frankenstein bolt. He looked up at me and his eyes snapped open like those of a challenged Great White Shark.
“You fuck!” he seethed and struggled to his feet. I jumped forward and kicked him in the chest and he flailed back into the bottom of a trolley. He was disoriented and I had that in my favour as he was a much bigger man than I.
As he got to his feet, still off balance, I grabbed the small fire hydrant off the wall and swung it under his chin with all my strength. He fell back to the floor and was stunned almost into unconsciousness. The syringe fell out of his neck to the floor. The drug was already working as I could see his movements winding down into a fluid slow-motion. He groaned and moved onto his side, in a sleepy roll. I was panting and shaking, sweat had broken out all over my flushed face. He was trying to get up and I panicked and dropped the scalpel, grabbed the monitor of his computer, tugging and pulling it off the desk and with an almighty heave I threw it at him, getting him in the side of his chest. I’m sure I heard ribs cracking. The keyboard and mouse trailed behind it across the floor but the plugs from the hard drive had pulled away leaving the black tower intact on the desk.
“James…” he gurgled.
“Don’t speak my name, you pervert.” I screamed at him. I ran back to the desk and returned with the magazine in two pieces. I rubbed them on his face.
“There Doctor. Can you smell the little girl’s fear. You like that smell, don’t you?”
He tried to shake his head. His face was turning grey and he groaned.
“My heart…”
“You don’t have a heart, you arsehole. That was my daughter.” I spat on him. “She was a baby, you monster. You killed my daughter and I am going to kill you.”
I kicked the computer away and pushed him onto his back with my foot.
His face was contorting in pain, like the famous Munch painting, “The Scream.”
I stood back a pace and stared at him. His body was convulsing and jerking and his hands had come up to clutch at his chest.
He was having a major cardiac infarction. I had to laugh.
His eyes were squeezed tight. I had wanted a long confession for my camera but he just died there on the floor in front of me.
I did not attempt resuscitation.
I put the scalpel in his hand on his chest and left the building.
Perhaps there is a God after all.
Are you proud of me Grace? You should be.
Home 11:52 pm
I can’t sleep. Every pore in my body is vibrating. I am reborn.
I have just read through the files. Yours was fairly mundane. You were an asthmatic but it appears that you haven’t had an attack for some time. You had a routine blood test a month ago and that seemed normal. I was very upset to see that you had let Dr Dead give you a Pap smear. That makes my skin crawl. You took off your panties and spread your legs for him. He was your boss, for Christsakes. You ate lunch with him occasionally. You should have gone to another doctor for that! I bet he thought about your pussy every time he talked to you. Weren’t you embarrassed? I’m very disappointed. That was a very wanton thing to do. At least the test came back all clear.
There’s another entry for this week. Are you sick? I can’t read the doctor’s scribble. You haven’t appeared to be…..what’s Fosomax? I can just make that out?
Just googled it. You were prescribed an iron supplement. Maybe you are just feeling a bit run down.
Now for Sarah’s file. She had the odd infection over the years. Antibiotics. The one glaring entry was for cystitis. No prizes for guessing how she came to have that. I’m looking at the bastard doctor’s scribblings and imagining his dirty fingers all over those little girls. Sarah must have hated him and lived in absolute terror.
I pushed all that aside and flicked through the WIFE’S file. What a cracking read it makes. It’s a mystery how the woman is still in one piece. She’s had so many operations you might imagine she’d be coming apart at the seams. Tonsillectomy. Appendectomy for what turned out to be a healthy appendix. Gall bladder removal. Cat-scans. Adenoid surgery. The amount of pathology tests is unfathomable. Strangely all come back with the same thing – nothing abnormal detected. This is one sick lady but the illness clearly lies above the neck. Dr Dead has written to a psychiatrist about Amanda Cox, indicating that he believes she is suffering from Munchausen Disease – an acute form of hypochondria.
The rest of it helped to make me very sleepy.
I now feel drained and awash with exhaustion. What a day.
Sunday 9th August
I woke up ravenous and cooked up a feast. A quick trip down to Marty, the butcher and then I was back in the kitchen sizzling sausages and bacon and frying eggs. How decadent. It’s been a long time since I cooked bacon. I keep a close watch on my cholesterol levels. I get them checked at the medical centre in Bowral every six months or so. But hell, I feel like my balls have dropped for the first time. I feel like a new man emerging from a pale shell. This is a real man’s breakfast. Dig in!
I threw the three medical files into the fire. There is nothing I need from them anymore and I have no intention of returning them so that you can use them as ammunition against Amanda Munchausen. That’s just a cheap ploy that wouldn’t work.
I’ve showered four times since touching those beastly people last night but I can still smell them on my skin.
Are you having a lazy Sunday, Gracie? I hope you are doing a whole lot of soul-searching. Think about your boys. Your future. Think about who you really are and what you really want out of life. Make the right choice. Everything is feeling so much more right to me now. Last night was an epiphany and I realized that to have something truly good and beautiful in my life, I had to cut out all the cancerish trash – all the evil out of my life. I had to excise all the Moorebank germs and exorcise demons like Dr Death.
Sometimes there is perfect symmetry in the world. That’s as close to magic as you’ll ever get. When you are living life “on purpose”, doing what you are here to do, everything falls into place like a perfect jigsaw puzzle. I may not have gotten a chance to be a father to Sarah during her life but I have proven to be the best father in her wake. For her memory, I have avenged her death.
I am coming to see you tonight. I miss you. I needed you here with me today, to hold me and tell me everything is going to be alright. You will be the first to find the bodies of the evil, murdering creatures on Monday morning. I hope your stomach is up to it.
Babylon is so appropriately named, don’t you think? It is a hothouse of debauchery. It is full of whores. I think there is a spirit of evil lurking like a black cloud above the township. I want us to leave this town. Pack up the kids and go somewhere warm and sunny. You won’t have a job after tomorrow, so what have you got to lose? I’ll let you break the lease!
The sublime beauty of the way events unfolded last night is evidence that I did the right thing. I have left no trace of myself in the surgery. No fingerprints. It will be blatantly obvious to everyone that Sandy broke into the surgery, somehow knowing the code (perhaps John had given it to her) and she had rung him on his mobile, blackmailing him. That is her style, after all. He has raced there on a Saturday night and come in and had a raging fight with her. She
has injected him with morphine but he kills her in the chair and then promptly goes to his room and has a heart attack. That’s the short version. Her nakedness and the rest of it will be open to interpretation. It will be clear from the horrible magazine that the doctor killed the little girls and Sandy had it figured. But rather than go to the police like any normal person, she has decided to make some quick cash out of the murder of her daughter.
I will be a free man and I carry not one iota of guilt. Sandy was the bilge at the bottom of this ship. She was scum. And Dr Dead was the pirate Captain of the leaking vessel.
I want you by my side, Gracie. I want your children…our children…to grow up in a rose garden not a mess of weeds. You are being choked by a black-headed bush and I must free you. You have shown yourself to be strong. You can do it. He will not leave his wife. You are beginning to accept that. He wants you as a sick, secret concubine, a classless courtesan and I know you are not willing to accept that role any longer. You are a queen. You deserve to be treated like one. Pearls before swine, my dear.
I have watched all the footage of last night. It is disturbing and violent and gut-wrenching. But it is part of my story.
I know I can count on you to nurse me through this. I am not a bad man. I could not have done these acts without the beautiful halo of light that carried me through it. You will understand and be proud of my strength. I had to prove myself to be a strong, powerful man and I have done that. I have banished weakness and spinelessness. No one will ever walk over me again. I feel completely empowered.
3:30p.m.
Is it the anticlimax of avenging my daughter’s death? Is it guilt? I don’t know…..but something is seeping into every pore of my body, making me feel nauseous and faintly uneasy. You know that ominous feeling that sometimes hangs over you? That feeling that something terrible lurks just around the next corner?
