Fic: untitled, part 1/?
Sam Tyler raised an eyebrow as he watched Gene Hunt rapidly spoon a can of baked beans into a bowl, and then proceed to cover it in a liberal wash of whiskey. “Gov, that cannot possibly have any nutritional value whatsoever; in fact…” he was cut off by a loud snort.
“Nutritional value? You gonna make me sit through some tatty lecture ‘bout that newfangled four food type thing before you give me your report? Hell, I suppose I should be thankin’ my lucky stars you’re not reading me a riot act for drownin’ the poor bastards. Go on, Louise, let me know all about the Geneva Convention’s clause on the inalienable rights of tinned legumes.” Gene threw a slightly mischievous glare at Sam as he stirred his bizarre concoction around in the bowl and then began to wolf it down with a speed that somehow managed to surprise Sam. “You’ve got ‘til I’m done,” he added around a large mouthful.
“The, err, report just came up from Oswald - the eyes were the same as the first body, but it was the pancreas that was removed this time. Surgical precision, obviously performed with surgical tools…” Sam began, glancing down at the coroner’s report in his hands.
“So we know it was a surgeon? Likely some nutter that flunked out of uni on a medical course?” Gene scraped the last of his dinner into his mouth and ran the back of his hand roughly across his lips.
“Or a practicing surgeon, or a butcher,” Sam sighed, knowing that he wasn’t going to be allowed to read off any more of the report. He would likely end up pointing out details as they followed yet another impractical Hunt Hunch lead.
“Well, at least that narrows it down quite a bit. Obviously a man - no bird’s got the stomach for that sort of work. Chris! Ray! Peaches!” Gene stood and bellowed out the names as he grabbed his coat and headed out of the office. “Arse in line, Tyler, or Cartwright inherits more than just your favorite nickname,” he threw over his shoulder. Annie, Chris and Ray were already throwing on their own coats and heading towards the exit to CID, falling behind Gene like a row of ducklings. Sam suppressed a sigh and sprinted after them, nearly tripping on a pile of old dossiers that was lazily stacked against the side of one of the grimy desks.
“Gov, don’t you think we should study the case a bit more closely on this one? The wounds inflicted on both victims were very specific, not to mention the damage to the eyes - our best bet is to examine the coroner’s report in minute detail to determine exactly what implements were used in the inflicting of the wounds, and exactly why they were inflicted. The answers are going to give us an incredibly narrow lane of leads which…” Sam found himself cut off for the hundredth time that week. No, he thought, that day. That frickin’ hour, he decided, as Ray’s voice drowned his out.
“Narrow lanes of murderers? Hate to break it to you, but any nonce with a nice suit and a spare 50p could buy a scalpel, and serial killers don’t line up like pretty maids in a row for the ‘killing tools’ sale at Whitworth’s, you twonk,” Ray sneered slightly and crossed his arms across his chest, glaring across the Cortina as he climbed into the back seat, directly behind Gene and across from Sam.
“Yes, well, if you want to interpret the theory literally, as most slow-minded…” Sam added another tally to his cut-off list as Gene turned the key in the ignition and shouted behind Sam at Annie and Chris, who were still climbing into the car as he slammed the gear shift into reverse and laid his foot into the gas pedal.
“In or out, Chris, in or out! Cartwright, Love, will you secure his safety seat, please?” Gene shook his head as he wheeled the Cortina around in a tight circle, the motion sending Chris sprawling across Annie and Ray’s laps in the back seat. Sam gripped the handle above his window and swallowed hard.
“Gov, considering that I haven’t even briefed you in full on the details of the second victim, would you mind telling us exactly where we’re going at three times the legal limit, and on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!!!” Sam screamed the last bit as Gene swerved away from the on-coming car and banked hard to the left, landing them firmly between the lines of the proper lane of the main road. “Three inches, Gene, I swear, I should arrest you here and now!”
“Sorry, Gladys, one too many American films. Cartwright, do you happen to have a spare pair of knickers about you? Seems he’s soiled his.” Sam grimaced and settled back in his seat as they roared up the road, trying not to let his gaze drift to the speedometer. He gritted his teeth and waited for Hunt’s explanation, noticing via the rear-view mirror as Annie shoved Chris off of her chest and into an upright position in the backseat, sandwiching herself firmly between him and Ray. She made no show of noticing Chris’s strained and uncomfortable, ‘oh, I touched a breast’ expression nor Ray’s knowing smirk.
Gene launched into his explanation, “So, the likelihood that we’ve got an actual practicing surgeon committing these crimes is slim to nil, see, because what type of doctor goes about cutting into people just for souvenirs? And they’re obviously in practice, so a student’s probably out, too, right?”
“Right you are, Gov. Not a gentleman nor a kiddie, is it?” added Ray.
“Sycophant,” Sam muttered under his breath.
“Berk,” Ray responded under his.
“Gov, tell me you are not seriously ruling out the possibility of medical students or practicing doctors based solely on an impractical, out-moded, classist school of illogical thought.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, Sam thought. No, it was a plea. This was the 1970’s, not the 1870’s…
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. Butcher’s the most likely, isn’t it? And both bodies were dumped near Hurling Lane, and in a few minutes we’ll be outside the nearest butcher’s shop to it,” Hunt nodded matter-of-factly as he poured on more gas.
“I’m sorry, but we’re not seriously going to question every butcher in the city of Manchester, moving in an outwardly expanding radius from the area where the bodies were disposed of?” Sam’s eyes were wide in disbelief.
“Yeah, but I call it ‘which of the arseholes in abattoirs near the dump site is our killer.’ Sounds much more, oh, I dunno, ‘human’. Yeah, definitely more ‘human’ and less ‘robot poofter from the cave of the soup dragon,’” came Gene’s response.
“Well put, Gov,” added Ray. Sam glared at him, and Ray met his stare icily. Annie raised her eyes to the ceiling, trying to hide her exasperation.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t be looking for more academic types, Gov? The way that he’s removing bits, it’s almost like he’s taking trophies… Some type of obsession, or maybe even a scientist or an actual doctor who thinks he’s benefiting humanity, with experiments or the like,” Annie ventured a guess, setting Sam’s mind in motion.
“I always wondered how that dragon made soup out of string,” Chris furrowed his brow as the thought sidetracked him, and Sam’s eyes widened.
“Dragon… Red dragon… Hang on…” Sam started to leaf frantically through the files in his lap. Sam swallowed hard. “Red dragon…”
“Planning a holiday in Cardiff, are we, Dorothy? Perhaps you’d care to set that aside and help us with this case?” Gene jerked the car to a stop outside of a butcher’s shop. “Butcher’s more likely than actual abattoir employee, so we start here. Dump site’s practically in their back garden as is. Who knows, might get lucky right out of the gate, what with my impervious logic and razor sharp planning.”
An hour later, the Cortina was speeding back towards the station, leaving behind a trio of scowling and fuming butchers.
“Ought to bang at least one of the bastards up with obstruction, the surly twats,” grumbled Gene as the car phone crackled to life.
“870, respond. Alpha one to 870,” Phyllis’ voice was warped by a thin band of static that seemed to have a persistent, rhythmic beat.
Gene grabbed the handset, “870,” he barked gruffly.
“There’s been another body, completely different dumpsite, same MO. Uniforms already on the scene, body was actually dredged out of the Big Ditch near Pomona Docks…”
“Pomona Docks, be there in two shakes,” Gene spun the Cortina around again, hurling Sam against the doorframe and forcing Annie to swing into Chris’s shoulder. Chris broke out in a deep blush again and this time, Annie allowed herself a dejected sigh at the thought of her breasts digging into his shoulder.
Several near crack-ups, borderline hit-and-runs, ignored traffic signs and crushed bins later, they finally found the string of patrol cars and gathering crowd huddled around their latest corpse. A dozen constables were shouting at the crowd and waving off journalists and bystanders as the CID A-Team made its way to the body, the crowd parting smoothly for them in the wake of Gene Hunt’s rapidly paced and shove-happy stroll through the masses.
Annie gasped and turned, covering her mouth at the site of the body, and Chris gave a startled lurch that obviously meant he was struggling not to vomit. “Pair of girls,” Ray muttered as he walked up to the body next to Gene and Sam, Annie regaining her composure and following, while Chris stayed behind, looking longingly at the gathering mob.
“Look at the arms, Gov, it’s the same patterning. I’m telling you, that’s what’s going to solve this murder. I can’t think of anything that would leave wounds like that, can you? It’s almost… I don’t know, it’s so methodical…” Sam kneeled down next to the waterlogged corpse, wishing that he could have a pair of vinyl gloves. Hell, he’d take latex, at this point.
The body was a man, too old to be young and too young to be middle aged, not quite slender and not quite fair. His arms were laid at his sides, and each arm had a now-familiar pierced pattern running along it: a half-inch vertical cut, a half inch horizontal cut, a half-inch vertical cut, a half inch horizontal cut, the two cuts repeating over and over again, each a perfect half inch, each precise and penetrating completely through the flesh, like Morse code worked out in the man’s flesh. Mottled reddish bruises stood out against the sodden, sloughing skin, twisted designs of crimson and purple and rust intertwining about cracked and broken rib cages, snaking along lacerated thighs and buttocks… Lacerated…
“Gov!” Sam waved Gene over, trying to draw him away from Annie and Ray, who were also examining the corpse, although not as closely as Sam had. There seemed to be an unspoken competition between them, Ray daring Annie to move further into his territory, and Annie daring Ray to punish her for it. They seemed to be in a sort of stalemate, neither quite willing to meet the other’s challenge full-force. They didn’t move and Sam drew Gene to the side, and pointed at the neck, thighs, and buttocks.
“The other corpses, they’d been left out in fields, rodents had had a bit of a turn on them, yeah?” Sam tried to keep from shaking and refused to meet Gene’s eyes.
“What of it?” Gene asked, trying hard to mask his fury at the idea of so many corpses appear in his city.
“The coroner couldn’t conclusively determine whether or not any of the lacerations, other than the surgical cuts and the patterns on the arms, were due to rodent bites or not. Because they ARE bites…” Sam let his voice trail off as Gene stared more closely at the corpse. Sure enough, the shallow markings intermingling with the bruises on the thighs, neck, and buttocks were somewhat circular, and the pattern of tiny little cuts…
“Shit.” Gene didn’t appear to have anything else to add.
“The surgical marks on the back are the same - a patch of skin and muscle removed from lower back, one on each side, and I’m betting Oswald will tell us it was done after death occurred, but before rigor mortis could set in. The cuts on the front are different, though… Kidneys? Adrenals?”
“At least this one’s not done off like the first,” Gene shook his head, remembering the sickening site of the freshly castrated first corpse, maggots gleefully squirming in the pits of rotting, red flesh to either side of his penis. The second corpse had been a bit easier to take, with the frontal wound being a long slice in the abdomen.
“Sweetbreads,” Sam whispered, “Sweetbreads and oysters…”
“Excuse me?” Gene’s face seemed to bulge forward and his eyes widened in anger; it seemed to take all his control to make his next outburst a hissing whisper instead of a scream. “You don’t seriously think that this, this, this disgusting, pervert, bastard, murdering, sick, twisted, poof and prick and cunt of a soon-to-be beaten within an inch of his life-that-he-certainly-bloody-doesn’t deserve by me freak-of-nature is taking, is taking…” Gene’s head craned to the side and he gritted his teeth with an audible grinding sound as the color drained from his face.
“Exactly.” Sam couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Bloody Nora…” Gene walked back over to where Ray and Annie stood, reluctantly joined by a visibly shaken Chris. “Cartwright, you and Skelton get the press to back the bloody hell away from this until after the body’s been removed. Tell them they’ll get statements later. Not a word about ANYTHING!” His voice grew in volume and pitch as the order streamed from his mouth, and he turned to Ray, “Ray, make sure the body gets moved to the coroner’s immediately. I want the report on this one so fast you’d think Oswald was the killer himself.” Gene turned back to Sam. “Tyler. You and I are going to the morgue together. Now. Pull out your damned reports. Tell me it all, done up in full and all that shit.”
Sam nodded. “Right, Gov. We need to nab Hannibal here before this happens again.”
“Hannibal? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Gene glared inquisitively at Sam.
“Nothing, nothing, just… We need to get this one soon. And it can’t be a pin up. It has to be the real deal.” Sam still couldn’t take his eyes off of the corpse.
“For once, Tyler, I think that might be the one and only way. And I’m glad for once you agree that it has to be before fucking tea time.” Gene headed back to the Cortina, and, after a final glance at the corpse, Sam turned and followed, hands in his pockets and head bent low.
As the hearse and patrol cars came and collected the corpse, plods, and the remaining members of CID, Chris regained his voice long enough to turn to Annie. “The bloke with the elephants?”
“What?” Annie turned to him with a look of utter confusion reshaping the revulsion on her face.
“Nothing. It’s just…” Chris stared at the ground where the body had been found, speechless.
“It’s just sick-making, is what it is,” Ray interjected, and he pushed Annie and Chris physically towards the waiting final patrol cars, shoving them far more softly than he normally would have. The three CID members, as well as all of the uniformed officers and porters in attendance, were silent as they made their way back to the station.
As Sam read off the details of the other corpses, along with his full report on the first two dump scenes, Gene Hunt was also silent. Deadly silent. And Sam was too
preoccupied to be grateful for it.
For the first time in a long time, Nelson watched as the members of CID filed into The Railway Arms, every one of them silent. He remained silent himself, in response, and slowly poured out pints of bitter, glasses of scotch, and various other drinks of choice for the stone-faced men and women of A Division. Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler were at a small table in the corner, underneath the television that Sam had so expertly secured to the wall. It was switched off and as silent as the crowd. The silence seemed to hang in the air, a palpable force, no, a living force, breathing its foul breath on his customers. His friends. Nelson grimaced. Bad juju; definitely heavy, bad juju.
As the night wore on, drinks were downed silently and, somehow, more slowly than was normal. One by one the usual faces left the pub, retiring to their homes. Gene and Sam were the last ones in the bar, still sitting at their table, still silent. Nelson had never seen Gene this quiet before, and it was more than disconcerting. It was terrifying. He slowly made his way over to the table. “’Bout closing time, gentlemen, so’s how’s about I set you up wit’ a last one?”
“All right, Nelson. I’m gone. Tomorrow, Tyler, first thing. Just need to sleep on it. Get the ol’ Gene Genie juices flowing.” Gene slowly got up and moved away from the table, towards the door.
“None for the road, Mister Hunt, Mon Brave?” Nelson’s eyes widened as Gene headed towards the door.
“Not tonight, Nelson. Plenty tomorrow night, though. I fully intend to catch a monster, beat it to a well-deserved and bloody, pulpy death, and then drink the equivalent of the channel in whiskey. Now I’m going back to the missus.” Gene slid out of the door with none of his usual swagger, and Nelson swallowed hard. Something was wrong, and he had a feeling that it had to do with the recent string of murders. The papers and magazines had said little, only that three bodies had been found, all white males in their early to mid thirties, all murdered and dumped. No other details were given, none of the usual “heinous crime,” or “brutal injustice,” or “grotesque” or “foul” or other adjectives or epithets for murders he had become accustomed to hearing and reading in the news. The lack of description just made him fear that this latest murder actually was “heinous, brutal, grotesque, and foul” in a way that surpassed even other murders.
He slid into the chair next to Sam and offered him the near-empty bottle of scotch. “It really t’at bad, mon brave?” He braced himself as Sam looked up at him with hollow, bleary eyes.
“Nelson, people come up with disturbing shit. I mean, people do disturbing shit, but people can come up with even more disturbing shit and not do it, right?” Sam’s eyes widened into an all-too-familiar pleading expression, and Nelson shook his head slightly. He dropped the Jamaican tinge and settled back into his native Manc, leaning his head onto his hand and his elbow onto the table.
“People are capable of horrible things, Sam, because people are capable of beautiful things, too, and you can’t have the light without the dark. That’s why it’s good that there’s people like you and Mr. Hunt, people willing to go after the dark, to watch over the rest of us,” Nelson tried to meet Sam’s eyes, but the other man kept his gaze fixed firmly on the amber liquid sitting in his glass.
“It’s all the things that you’re afraid of, the creepiest story you ever heard and the most unnatural thing that ever really happened made into some famous story, to, to, to scare the shit out of you while you’re still some rookie on the beat and give you nightmares so your girlfriend thinks you’re as a big a pussy as Ray says you are because isn’t he the part of me that says I’m a pussy and then it’s the most horrible, horrible violation and it wasn’t there the first two times but now it is, the thing that you just sometimes wonder about, thinking maybe it’ll be good and nice and what if you just had the balls to try it and then you see it perverted and twisted from the most animalistic pleasure to the cruelest torture, like you said, the horrible and the beautiful are the same thing done differently but mixed with the creepy stories and everything that you ever heard about that made you afraid and all at once rolled up together and I know it’s not real but it really is because it’s all there is and it’s times like these that I wonder if I’m not going crazy because I had to think all this up and I just don’t know it…” Sam lifted his head and stared directly at Nelson, tears welling up in his eyes and slowly streaming down his cheeks, his lower lip wobbling and curling inwards.
Nelson stared back at Sam, concern and confusion in his eyes and voice. “You really never make sense, do you, Sam?” He took the bottle back from Sam and poured the last Scotch into the glass, then nudged it slightly towards the DI, who had resumed staring at the table and holding back the strangely haunted tears.
“I suppose I don’t. But then, I have to, because you do, right?” Sam looked pleadingly at Nelson and then lifted his glass, steadily drinking in the Scotch as if it were water, a move that Gene Hunt might’ve been impressed by.
“We’re all people, we’re all entitled to not make sense and to make sense, Sam,” Nelson tried to find the right words for any situation, but Sam was always a tough case. Maybe that was why he was Nelson’s favorite customer. “In the end, no matter how much dark there is, we can always make light, can’t we? Because we know what’s good, and what’s real, and what’s right, and we can only ever do what we can to protect that, right?”
“What’s real… Shit…” Sam sighed and slowly stood, and Nelson stood with him. “Sorry for keeping you open past time, mate,” he muttered as he slowly walked out, a bit more wobbly than usual.
“Sam!” Nelson very rarely called after anyone, especially when all he wanted to do was put on some music and head to bed. But Sam was always a different situation, wasn’t he? “Sam, remember, you’ll sort it all out, in the end. Because if you listen to your heart, you’ll know what’s real, and what’s right, and you’ll protect that. Because you’re a good man.” Nelson slipped back into his fake accent, “And now you be havin’ a good nigh’ mon brave, eh?”
“Thanks,” Sam barely whispered it as he walked out of the door. “What’s real…” he kept muttering it over and over again as he slowly walked back to his crazy, dingy little flat. Thankfully, the radios and televisions were all silent as he made his way along the street, muttering the details of the case over and over to himself.
“Corneal flash burns - welder’s arc eye thing… Why do they have to be blind? Why not permanently, then? Is he really eating… No, no, not that… And then, the beatings, okay, but the first two weren’t, and the third is definitely, definitely… Not just bitten, torn, and what makes those marks on the arms, and the blood tests, the corpses all…” Sam’s own voice was slowly drowned out by the electronic beeping that blared to life in his ears.
*beep… beep… beep… beep* no voices, no other sounds, just the steady, rhythmic beeping that seemed to surround him, to fill him, to… To hasten… Why was it racing like that? What…
Sam’s eyes went wide as a rather large hand clamped over his mouth, and a strange scent filled his nostrils, a hideous, acrid taste filling his opening and struggling mouth. Cloth, cloth covered in chloroform, no, what, how… The scent overpowered him, seemed to fill him, to become a great living thing, like the sorrow and anger that had filled the pub earlier, enveloping him and dragging him down, down, down into the rapidly fluctuating beeping sounds. His eyes streamed and he struggled madly, not grasping or kicking or even thinking, just flailing, and then there was nothing…
*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
*What’s happening? Page Dr. Baum, now!*
*Whaph! Whaph!*
*Pulmonary embolism… Shit, possibly aortic aneurysm*
*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
*Whaph! Whaph!*
*Should have began thrombolysis if post-traumatic embolism was detected*
*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
*Not for a marrow cell fat embolism in the chest, not with that clot sitting up there like that, not with…*
*Whaph! Whaph*
*beep. Beep. Beep…*
Sam was vaguely aware of a harsh light glaring all around him, coupled with a horrible, sterile antiseptic smell and strange bursts of sound, words that made no sense. There was a steady beating sound, no, not a sound, but yes, a sound… The lights began to die down, to fade away, and he became aware that the sound a smooth, hard surface… Bat? Something… Against his own ribs…
Sam snapped to consciousness as his body jerked forward with a sudden burst of force flattening against his ribs - not on the front or the back, but on the sides. He was dimly aware of the pain radiating outwards from under his arms as another beat brought a sickening, popping feeling, and he gagged as blood burst into his mouth, choking up a stream of the thick, coppery heat from inside, coughing and spitting it out, each wretch more painful than the rhythmic beating that had preceded it.
As he became fully aware of the world around him, he came to realize that his hands were bound above him, his body weight pulling painfully on his shoulders as he dangled, suspended by what felt like leather cords around his wrists. The motion had lengthened his torso as much as possible, pulling down his diaphragm and pulling up his ribs. The positioning and the steady strains of gravity were nearly as bad as the walloping his ribs had sustained, and he suddenly realized why the most concentrated portion of the beatings had been to the ribs. The entire body linked in to the core, to the abdomen and thorax, to the ribs, and any motion of the limbs with broken ribs was made more difficult. It was a form of hobbling.
Now that he had begun choking up blood, the beating had stopped, as had the sounds around him. Silence, except for the strangling hitches of his own choking and breathing. He willed himself to calm down, and became fully aware of the damage that had been done to his chest. He felt the strange, heavy feeling of liquid and knew that one of his lungs had been burst, was starting to fill with blood, and each breath brought excruciating pain and a slow bubbling fount rising in his throat. Just like the victims. Bruising to the chest, but only one side of the rib cage severely damaged. One lung intact, the other pierced by broken ribs. It could take days to die from a sucking chest wound like that, couldn’t it? Unless the blood moved to the other lung and you drowned on it…
Sam started to shake his head to rid himself of the thought, and then thought better of it as pain burned deeper on the more injured side. Slowly, he tried to open his eyes, and was met with just a blur. The lights, the flashes, that hadn’t been reality, that had been something else… The sound, that had been, what, what had they thought it was; an acetylene torch? Flash burns - reparable, temporary blindness. That had been the most puzzling thing. Why temporary if they were going to be killed… Sam tried to force his eyes open further, feeling tears fill them and bursts of pain at what he assumed was light. His right lung and eyes seemed to swell up together, coupled with the light that surrounded him, with the blood in his throat, gagging him, and he felt himself slipping away again. He willed himself to stay awake, to try to move, think, find a way out of this, but the darkness was overwhelming, and it was soon holding him again.
*Common with limb trauma like that*
*Couldn’t with that clot, look at the pressure on the MRI*
*Still say it isn’t a clot*
*Not aortic…*
*Need to go in…*
When Sam awoke again, he thought he heard humming. A little girl humming. Her. Her voice was somehow sweet, and kind, and yet it was so cold and robotic, like the sound of dead electronics. Like test pattern squeals on the telly…
“Welcome back, Sam.” It was definitely her. Sam never thought he would have been happy to be blinded, but now, he definitely was. Whoever it was that had killed those other men, whoever it was that had him now, they didn’t need to hear him talking to the girl with the clown. God, that awful clown…
“You should never have read that Stephen King book, Sam.” Her voice was slightly stern, like a mother scolding a child.
“Never liked them,” he managed to whisper, aware that while there was still blood in his chest, air was going through. How much, he wasn’t sure. He tried to think back to first aid training, but sucking chest wounds hadn’t really been something that they’d given much training for, nothing other than, ‘Staunch bleeding. Clear airway. Call paramedics. No CPR.’ Sam doubted that he could do any of those things himself, and he wasn’t even sure if this qualified as sucking… Did that mean the chest wall was pierced? Shit, he didn’t know.
The girl giggled. For a hideous, wretched second, he heard the clown giggle as well. He had never liked clowns. And he really never should have read that book, either.
“You know what’s happening out there, do you?” she asked, and her voice seemed so innocent, it frightened him.
“Something, the accident, they have to cut…” Sam began to speak to her, then thought better of it as pain burst forth in his chest.
“Very nasty. Not nice at all. But is it because of here? Or is here because of there? Was it the chicken or the egg, Sam? Are you there because of here? Or is here because of there? Is here because of you?” The girl giggled again. Thankfully, the clown remained silent. “Don’t you know, Sam? Was it the chicken, or the egg? Come on, Sam, you can tell me. I’m the only friend you have here, Sam.”
“No,” was the only response he could think of. She was definitely not what he would call a friend. Annie was. Chris was. For all his scorn and mockery and general misery making, in a sick twisted way, Ray was, too. And Gene… They were his friends. And they would find him.
The clown joined the girl in the giggles this time, and the shudder that coursed through Sam as a result brought more pain. He involuntarily opened his eyes and was met with the painful, bright white blur again, tears filling his eyes and streaming down his cheeks. He felt the blood bubble up in his throat and gagged again, feeling it spill out over his chin and then, thankfully, able to take a larger, albeit painful, breath.
“Oh, poor boy, why do you think you deserve this? Why did they? You created them just so that you could do this to yourself… Very conceited Sam. Just like with June. Very nasty boy, you are.” The girl was stern again, even angry. Had he ever heard her angry before?
“You still haven’t answered my question, Sam. Here, or there. Which came first? The chicken or the egg? You have to answer, Sam. You have to find out. It’s the only way. Or else it just goes on, and on, and on, and,” the girl dissolved into giggles again. The clown’s giggles drowned her out this time.
In the distance, Sam heard a door open, thick and metallic, like a storm door or some sort of loading dock door, sliding metal, thick and heavy. He thought he heard footsteps echoing on the floor, moving towards him in the blackness. He didn’t dare to open his eyes again as the sounds came nearer. He felt hot breath against his neck and didn’t dare to move, didn’t dare to think, and then he felt arms reaching up and along his own arms, roughly handling him and undoing the bindings around his wrists. There was no way he could run, not in the state he was in. He had no way of knowing which way to go, and he would never make it far with his chest as badly damaged as it was. Hobbling. That was the only reason for those particular injuries.
Sam felt hands reach around his torso and blackness burst around him within the blackness, brightness within the blinding brightness that hid behind his eyelids, pain within pain within pain, and somehow he willed himself to stay away. He felt his body being dragged upright, onto his feet, but he was not forced to stand. His left wrist was tied again, this time against some form of whole in a porous wall. Then his right wrist. He was tied to some form of cross, made of what felt like… Leather? No, not leather, not plastic, he wasn’t sure what it was. His arms were stretched out perpendicular to his body, a horrid mockery of a crucifix.
“Glass. You were wondering, weren’t you? Just sharpened rectangles of plate glass.” The voice was horridly familiar, echoing in his ears. He struggled to place it, he had to place it. He felt gloved hands now, and then a thin, piercing pain, ever so slight, across his chest. Glass? Sharpened rectangles of glass… He barely had time to register what was about to happen when the first piece entered the flesh of his arm, horizontal, running just under the lower bone of his arm. He was being pinned to the wall. Sharpened rectangles of plate glass, vertical ones pinning the flesh back, long horizontal ones sliding through the flesh under the bones of his arm…Each one seemed to scream his name. Despite the pain in his chest he screamed, and blood flooded his mouth, forcing him to struggle and gag. He felt another body press against his, its whole weight pressing him against the strange surface behind him, and then the shards continued. As did the screaming, and the blood, welling up as he was pinned, pinned like a butterfly to the wall by all of the spare flesh on his arms, welling up in his chest, filling his mouth and choking him.
“This is it. Exactly. What it should be.” The voice… He was vaguely aware now that he was being pinned into something, and that the pins could be adjusted from either side… He wasn’t against a wall at all, he was pinned to something hanging… And the voice.
“They won’t come. Didn’t make them to.”
The voice was his own.
All comments and criticism welcome and encouraged!
“Nutritional value? You gonna make me sit through some tatty lecture ‘bout that newfangled four food type thing before you give me your report? Hell, I suppose I should be thankin’ my lucky stars you’re not reading me a riot act for drownin’ the poor bastards. Go on, Louise, let me know all about the Geneva Convention’s clause on the inalienable rights of tinned legumes.” Gene threw a slightly mischievous glare at Sam as he stirred his bizarre concoction around in the bowl and then began to wolf it down with a speed that somehow managed to surprise Sam. “You’ve got ‘til I’m done,” he added around a large mouthful.
“The, err, report just came up from Oswald - the eyes were the same as the first body, but it was the pancreas that was removed this time. Surgical precision, obviously performed with surgical tools…” Sam began, glancing down at the coroner’s report in his hands.
“So we know it was a surgeon? Likely some nutter that flunked out of uni on a medical course?” Gene scraped the last of his dinner into his mouth and ran the back of his hand roughly across his lips.
“Or a practicing surgeon, or a butcher,” Sam sighed, knowing that he wasn’t going to be allowed to read off any more of the report. He would likely end up pointing out details as they followed yet another impractical Hunt Hunch lead.
“Well, at least that narrows it down quite a bit. Obviously a man - no bird’s got the stomach for that sort of work. Chris! Ray! Peaches!” Gene stood and bellowed out the names as he grabbed his coat and headed out of the office. “Arse in line, Tyler, or Cartwright inherits more than just your favorite nickname,” he threw over his shoulder. Annie, Chris and Ray were already throwing on their own coats and heading towards the exit to CID, falling behind Gene like a row of ducklings. Sam suppressed a sigh and sprinted after them, nearly tripping on a pile of old dossiers that was lazily stacked against the side of one of the grimy desks.
“Gov, don’t you think we should study the case a bit more closely on this one? The wounds inflicted on both victims were very specific, not to mention the damage to the eyes - our best bet is to examine the coroner’s report in minute detail to determine exactly what implements were used in the inflicting of the wounds, and exactly why they were inflicted. The answers are going to give us an incredibly narrow lane of leads which…” Sam found himself cut off for the hundredth time that week. No, he thought, that day. That frickin’ hour, he decided, as Ray’s voice drowned his out.
“Narrow lanes of murderers? Hate to break it to you, but any nonce with a nice suit and a spare 50p could buy a scalpel, and serial killers don’t line up like pretty maids in a row for the ‘killing tools’ sale at Whitworth’s, you twonk,” Ray sneered slightly and crossed his arms across his chest, glaring across the Cortina as he climbed into the back seat, directly behind Gene and across from Sam.
“Yes, well, if you want to interpret the theory literally, as most slow-minded…” Sam added another tally to his cut-off list as Gene turned the key in the ignition and shouted behind Sam at Annie and Chris, who were still climbing into the car as he slammed the gear shift into reverse and laid his foot into the gas pedal.
“In or out, Chris, in or out! Cartwright, Love, will you secure his safety seat, please?” Gene shook his head as he wheeled the Cortina around in a tight circle, the motion sending Chris sprawling across Annie and Ray’s laps in the back seat. Sam gripped the handle above his window and swallowed hard.
“Gov, considering that I haven’t even briefed you in full on the details of the second victim, would you mind telling us exactly where we’re going at three times the legal limit, and on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!!!” Sam screamed the last bit as Gene swerved away from the on-coming car and banked hard to the left, landing them firmly between the lines of the proper lane of the main road. “Three inches, Gene, I swear, I should arrest you here and now!”
“Sorry, Gladys, one too many American films. Cartwright, do you happen to have a spare pair of knickers about you? Seems he’s soiled his.” Sam grimaced and settled back in his seat as they roared up the road, trying not to let his gaze drift to the speedometer. He gritted his teeth and waited for Hunt’s explanation, noticing via the rear-view mirror as Annie shoved Chris off of her chest and into an upright position in the backseat, sandwiching herself firmly between him and Ray. She made no show of noticing Chris’s strained and uncomfortable, ‘oh, I touched a breast’ expression nor Ray’s knowing smirk.
Gene launched into his explanation, “So, the likelihood that we’ve got an actual practicing surgeon committing these crimes is slim to nil, see, because what type of doctor goes about cutting into people just for souvenirs? And they’re obviously in practice, so a student’s probably out, too, right?”
“Right you are, Gov. Not a gentleman nor a kiddie, is it?” added Ray.
“Sycophant,” Sam muttered under his breath.
“Berk,” Ray responded under his.
“Gov, tell me you are not seriously ruling out the possibility of medical students or practicing doctors based solely on an impractical, out-moded, classist school of illogical thought.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, Sam thought. No, it was a plea. This was the 1970’s, not the 1870’s…
“That’s exactly what I’m doing. Butcher’s the most likely, isn’t it? And both bodies were dumped near Hurling Lane, and in a few minutes we’ll be outside the nearest butcher’s shop to it,” Hunt nodded matter-of-factly as he poured on more gas.
“I’m sorry, but we’re not seriously going to question every butcher in the city of Manchester, moving in an outwardly expanding radius from the area where the bodies were disposed of?” Sam’s eyes were wide in disbelief.
“Yeah, but I call it ‘which of the arseholes in abattoirs near the dump site is our killer.’ Sounds much more, oh, I dunno, ‘human’. Yeah, definitely more ‘human’ and less ‘robot poofter from the cave of the soup dragon,’” came Gene’s response.
“Well put, Gov,” added Ray. Sam glared at him, and Ray met his stare icily. Annie raised her eyes to the ceiling, trying to hide her exasperation.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t be looking for more academic types, Gov? The way that he’s removing bits, it’s almost like he’s taking trophies… Some type of obsession, or maybe even a scientist or an actual doctor who thinks he’s benefiting humanity, with experiments or the like,” Annie ventured a guess, setting Sam’s mind in motion.
“I always wondered how that dragon made soup out of string,” Chris furrowed his brow as the thought sidetracked him, and Sam’s eyes widened.
“Dragon… Red dragon… Hang on…” Sam started to leaf frantically through the files in his lap. Sam swallowed hard. “Red dragon…”
“Planning a holiday in Cardiff, are we, Dorothy? Perhaps you’d care to set that aside and help us with this case?” Gene jerked the car to a stop outside of a butcher’s shop. “Butcher’s more likely than actual abattoir employee, so we start here. Dump site’s practically in their back garden as is. Who knows, might get lucky right out of the gate, what with my impervious logic and razor sharp planning.”
An hour later, the Cortina was speeding back towards the station, leaving behind a trio of scowling and fuming butchers.
“Ought to bang at least one of the bastards up with obstruction, the surly twats,” grumbled Gene as the car phone crackled to life.
“870, respond. Alpha one to 870,” Phyllis’ voice was warped by a thin band of static that seemed to have a persistent, rhythmic beat.
Gene grabbed the handset, “870,” he barked gruffly.
“There’s been another body, completely different dumpsite, same MO. Uniforms already on the scene, body was actually dredged out of the Big Ditch near Pomona Docks…”
“Pomona Docks, be there in two shakes,” Gene spun the Cortina around again, hurling Sam against the doorframe and forcing Annie to swing into Chris’s shoulder. Chris broke out in a deep blush again and this time, Annie allowed herself a dejected sigh at the thought of her breasts digging into his shoulder.
Several near crack-ups, borderline hit-and-runs, ignored traffic signs and crushed bins later, they finally found the string of patrol cars and gathering crowd huddled around their latest corpse. A dozen constables were shouting at the crowd and waving off journalists and bystanders as the CID A-Team made its way to the body, the crowd parting smoothly for them in the wake of Gene Hunt’s rapidly paced and shove-happy stroll through the masses.
Annie gasped and turned, covering her mouth at the site of the body, and Chris gave a startled lurch that obviously meant he was struggling not to vomit. “Pair of girls,” Ray muttered as he walked up to the body next to Gene and Sam, Annie regaining her composure and following, while Chris stayed behind, looking longingly at the gathering mob.
“Look at the arms, Gov, it’s the same patterning. I’m telling you, that’s what’s going to solve this murder. I can’t think of anything that would leave wounds like that, can you? It’s almost… I don’t know, it’s so methodical…” Sam kneeled down next to the waterlogged corpse, wishing that he could have a pair of vinyl gloves. Hell, he’d take latex, at this point.
The body was a man, too old to be young and too young to be middle aged, not quite slender and not quite fair. His arms were laid at his sides, and each arm had a now-familiar pierced pattern running along it: a half-inch vertical cut, a half inch horizontal cut, a half-inch vertical cut, a half inch horizontal cut, the two cuts repeating over and over again, each a perfect half inch, each precise and penetrating completely through the flesh, like Morse code worked out in the man’s flesh. Mottled reddish bruises stood out against the sodden, sloughing skin, twisted designs of crimson and purple and rust intertwining about cracked and broken rib cages, snaking along lacerated thighs and buttocks… Lacerated…
“Gov!” Sam waved Gene over, trying to draw him away from Annie and Ray, who were also examining the corpse, although not as closely as Sam had. There seemed to be an unspoken competition between them, Ray daring Annie to move further into his territory, and Annie daring Ray to punish her for it. They seemed to be in a sort of stalemate, neither quite willing to meet the other’s challenge full-force. They didn’t move and Sam drew Gene to the side, and pointed at the neck, thighs, and buttocks.
“The other corpses, they’d been left out in fields, rodents had had a bit of a turn on them, yeah?” Sam tried to keep from shaking and refused to meet Gene’s eyes.
“What of it?” Gene asked, trying hard to mask his fury at the idea of so many corpses appear in his city.
“The coroner couldn’t conclusively determine whether or not any of the lacerations, other than the surgical cuts and the patterns on the arms, were due to rodent bites or not. Because they ARE bites…” Sam let his voice trail off as Gene stared more closely at the corpse. Sure enough, the shallow markings intermingling with the bruises on the thighs, neck, and buttocks were somewhat circular, and the pattern of tiny little cuts…
“Shit.” Gene didn’t appear to have anything else to add.
“The surgical marks on the back are the same - a patch of skin and muscle removed from lower back, one on each side, and I’m betting Oswald will tell us it was done after death occurred, but before rigor mortis could set in. The cuts on the front are different, though… Kidneys? Adrenals?”
“At least this one’s not done off like the first,” Gene shook his head, remembering the sickening site of the freshly castrated first corpse, maggots gleefully squirming in the pits of rotting, red flesh to either side of his penis. The second corpse had been a bit easier to take, with the frontal wound being a long slice in the abdomen.
“Sweetbreads,” Sam whispered, “Sweetbreads and oysters…”
“Excuse me?” Gene’s face seemed to bulge forward and his eyes widened in anger; it seemed to take all his control to make his next outburst a hissing whisper instead of a scream. “You don’t seriously think that this, this, this disgusting, pervert, bastard, murdering, sick, twisted, poof and prick and cunt of a soon-to-be beaten within an inch of his life-that-he-certainly-bloody-doesn’t deserve by me freak-of-nature is taking, is taking…” Gene’s head craned to the side and he gritted his teeth with an audible grinding sound as the color drained from his face.
“Exactly.” Sam couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Bloody Nora…” Gene walked back over to where Ray and Annie stood, reluctantly joined by a visibly shaken Chris. “Cartwright, you and Skelton get the press to back the bloody hell away from this until after the body’s been removed. Tell them they’ll get statements later. Not a word about ANYTHING!” His voice grew in volume and pitch as the order streamed from his mouth, and he turned to Ray, “Ray, make sure the body gets moved to the coroner’s immediately. I want the report on this one so fast you’d think Oswald was the killer himself.” Gene turned back to Sam. “Tyler. You and I are going to the morgue together. Now. Pull out your damned reports. Tell me it all, done up in full and all that shit.”
Sam nodded. “Right, Gov. We need to nab Hannibal here before this happens again.”
“Hannibal? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Gene glared inquisitively at Sam.
“Nothing, nothing, just… We need to get this one soon. And it can’t be a pin up. It has to be the real deal.” Sam still couldn’t take his eyes off of the corpse.
“For once, Tyler, I think that might be the one and only way. And I’m glad for once you agree that it has to be before fucking tea time.” Gene headed back to the Cortina, and, after a final glance at the corpse, Sam turned and followed, hands in his pockets and head bent low.
As the hearse and patrol cars came and collected the corpse, plods, and the remaining members of CID, Chris regained his voice long enough to turn to Annie. “The bloke with the elephants?”
“What?” Annie turned to him with a look of utter confusion reshaping the revulsion on her face.
“Nothing. It’s just…” Chris stared at the ground where the body had been found, speechless.
“It’s just sick-making, is what it is,” Ray interjected, and he pushed Annie and Chris physically towards the waiting final patrol cars, shoving them far more softly than he normally would have. The three CID members, as well as all of the uniformed officers and porters in attendance, were silent as they made their way back to the station.
As Sam read off the details of the other corpses, along with his full report on the first two dump scenes, Gene Hunt was also silent. Deadly silent. And Sam was too
preoccupied to be grateful for it.
For the first time in a long time, Nelson watched as the members of CID filed into The Railway Arms, every one of them silent. He remained silent himself, in response, and slowly poured out pints of bitter, glasses of scotch, and various other drinks of choice for the stone-faced men and women of A Division. Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler were at a small table in the corner, underneath the television that Sam had so expertly secured to the wall. It was switched off and as silent as the crowd. The silence seemed to hang in the air, a palpable force, no, a living force, breathing its foul breath on his customers. His friends. Nelson grimaced. Bad juju; definitely heavy, bad juju.
As the night wore on, drinks were downed silently and, somehow, more slowly than was normal. One by one the usual faces left the pub, retiring to their homes. Gene and Sam were the last ones in the bar, still sitting at their table, still silent. Nelson had never seen Gene this quiet before, and it was more than disconcerting. It was terrifying. He slowly made his way over to the table. “’Bout closing time, gentlemen, so’s how’s about I set you up wit’ a last one?”
“All right, Nelson. I’m gone. Tomorrow, Tyler, first thing. Just need to sleep on it. Get the ol’ Gene Genie juices flowing.” Gene slowly got up and moved away from the table, towards the door.
“None for the road, Mister Hunt, Mon Brave?” Nelson’s eyes widened as Gene headed towards the door.
“Not tonight, Nelson. Plenty tomorrow night, though. I fully intend to catch a monster, beat it to a well-deserved and bloody, pulpy death, and then drink the equivalent of the channel in whiskey. Now I’m going back to the missus.” Gene slid out of the door with none of his usual swagger, and Nelson swallowed hard. Something was wrong, and he had a feeling that it had to do with the recent string of murders. The papers and magazines had said little, only that three bodies had been found, all white males in their early to mid thirties, all murdered and dumped. No other details were given, none of the usual “heinous crime,” or “brutal injustice,” or “grotesque” or “foul” or other adjectives or epithets for murders he had become accustomed to hearing and reading in the news. The lack of description just made him fear that this latest murder actually was “heinous, brutal, grotesque, and foul” in a way that surpassed even other murders.
He slid into the chair next to Sam and offered him the near-empty bottle of scotch. “It really t’at bad, mon brave?” He braced himself as Sam looked up at him with hollow, bleary eyes.
“Nelson, people come up with disturbing shit. I mean, people do disturbing shit, but people can come up with even more disturbing shit and not do it, right?” Sam’s eyes widened into an all-too-familiar pleading expression, and Nelson shook his head slightly. He dropped the Jamaican tinge and settled back into his native Manc, leaning his head onto his hand and his elbow onto the table.
“People are capable of horrible things, Sam, because people are capable of beautiful things, too, and you can’t have the light without the dark. That’s why it’s good that there’s people like you and Mr. Hunt, people willing to go after the dark, to watch over the rest of us,” Nelson tried to meet Sam’s eyes, but the other man kept his gaze fixed firmly on the amber liquid sitting in his glass.
“It’s all the things that you’re afraid of, the creepiest story you ever heard and the most unnatural thing that ever really happened made into some famous story, to, to, to scare the shit out of you while you’re still some rookie on the beat and give you nightmares so your girlfriend thinks you’re as a big a pussy as Ray says you are because isn’t he the part of me that says I’m a pussy and then it’s the most horrible, horrible violation and it wasn’t there the first two times but now it is, the thing that you just sometimes wonder about, thinking maybe it’ll be good and nice and what if you just had the balls to try it and then you see it perverted and twisted from the most animalistic pleasure to the cruelest torture, like you said, the horrible and the beautiful are the same thing done differently but mixed with the creepy stories and everything that you ever heard about that made you afraid and all at once rolled up together and I know it’s not real but it really is because it’s all there is and it’s times like these that I wonder if I’m not going crazy because I had to think all this up and I just don’t know it…” Sam lifted his head and stared directly at Nelson, tears welling up in his eyes and slowly streaming down his cheeks, his lower lip wobbling and curling inwards.
Nelson stared back at Sam, concern and confusion in his eyes and voice. “You really never make sense, do you, Sam?” He took the bottle back from Sam and poured the last Scotch into the glass, then nudged it slightly towards the DI, who had resumed staring at the table and holding back the strangely haunted tears.
“I suppose I don’t. But then, I have to, because you do, right?” Sam looked pleadingly at Nelson and then lifted his glass, steadily drinking in the Scotch as if it were water, a move that Gene Hunt might’ve been impressed by.
“We’re all people, we’re all entitled to not make sense and to make sense, Sam,” Nelson tried to find the right words for any situation, but Sam was always a tough case. Maybe that was why he was Nelson’s favorite customer. “In the end, no matter how much dark there is, we can always make light, can’t we? Because we know what’s good, and what’s real, and what’s right, and we can only ever do what we can to protect that, right?”
“What’s real… Shit…” Sam sighed and slowly stood, and Nelson stood with him. “Sorry for keeping you open past time, mate,” he muttered as he slowly walked out, a bit more wobbly than usual.
“Sam!” Nelson very rarely called after anyone, especially when all he wanted to do was put on some music and head to bed. But Sam was always a different situation, wasn’t he? “Sam, remember, you’ll sort it all out, in the end. Because if you listen to your heart, you’ll know what’s real, and what’s right, and you’ll protect that. Because you’re a good man.” Nelson slipped back into his fake accent, “And now you be havin’ a good nigh’ mon brave, eh?”
“Thanks,” Sam barely whispered it as he walked out of the door. “What’s real…” he kept muttering it over and over again as he slowly walked back to his crazy, dingy little flat. Thankfully, the radios and televisions were all silent as he made his way along the street, muttering the details of the case over and over to himself.
“Corneal flash burns - welder’s arc eye thing… Why do they have to be blind? Why not permanently, then? Is he really eating… No, no, not that… And then, the beatings, okay, but the first two weren’t, and the third is definitely, definitely… Not just bitten, torn, and what makes those marks on the arms, and the blood tests, the corpses all…” Sam’s own voice was slowly drowned out by the electronic beeping that blared to life in his ears.
*beep… beep… beep… beep* no voices, no other sounds, just the steady, rhythmic beeping that seemed to surround him, to fill him, to… To hasten… Why was it racing like that? What…
Sam’s eyes went wide as a rather large hand clamped over his mouth, and a strange scent filled his nostrils, a hideous, acrid taste filling his opening and struggling mouth. Cloth, cloth covered in chloroform, no, what, how… The scent overpowered him, seemed to fill him, to become a great living thing, like the sorrow and anger that had filled the pub earlier, enveloping him and dragging him down, down, down into the rapidly fluctuating beeping sounds. His eyes streamed and he struggled madly, not grasping or kicking or even thinking, just flailing, and then there was nothing…
*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
*What’s happening? Page Dr. Baum, now!*
*Whaph! Whaph!*
*Pulmonary embolism… Shit, possibly aortic aneurysm*
*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
*Whaph! Whaph!*
*Should have began thrombolysis if post-traumatic embolism was detected*
*beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
*Not for a marrow cell fat embolism in the chest, not with that clot sitting up there like that, not with…*
*Whaph! Whaph*
*beep. Beep. Beep…*
Sam was vaguely aware of a harsh light glaring all around him, coupled with a horrible, sterile antiseptic smell and strange bursts of sound, words that made no sense. There was a steady beating sound, no, not a sound, but yes, a sound… The lights began to die down, to fade away, and he became aware that the sound a smooth, hard surface… Bat? Something… Against his own ribs…
Sam snapped to consciousness as his body jerked forward with a sudden burst of force flattening against his ribs - not on the front or the back, but on the sides. He was dimly aware of the pain radiating outwards from under his arms as another beat brought a sickening, popping feeling, and he gagged as blood burst into his mouth, choking up a stream of the thick, coppery heat from inside, coughing and spitting it out, each wretch more painful than the rhythmic beating that had preceded it.
As he became fully aware of the world around him, he came to realize that his hands were bound above him, his body weight pulling painfully on his shoulders as he dangled, suspended by what felt like leather cords around his wrists. The motion had lengthened his torso as much as possible, pulling down his diaphragm and pulling up his ribs. The positioning and the steady strains of gravity were nearly as bad as the walloping his ribs had sustained, and he suddenly realized why the most concentrated portion of the beatings had been to the ribs. The entire body linked in to the core, to the abdomen and thorax, to the ribs, and any motion of the limbs with broken ribs was made more difficult. It was a form of hobbling.
Now that he had begun choking up blood, the beating had stopped, as had the sounds around him. Silence, except for the strangling hitches of his own choking and breathing. He willed himself to calm down, and became fully aware of the damage that had been done to his chest. He felt the strange, heavy feeling of liquid and knew that one of his lungs had been burst, was starting to fill with blood, and each breath brought excruciating pain and a slow bubbling fount rising in his throat. Just like the victims. Bruising to the chest, but only one side of the rib cage severely damaged. One lung intact, the other pierced by broken ribs. It could take days to die from a sucking chest wound like that, couldn’t it? Unless the blood moved to the other lung and you drowned on it…
Sam started to shake his head to rid himself of the thought, and then thought better of it as pain burned deeper on the more injured side. Slowly, he tried to open his eyes, and was met with just a blur. The lights, the flashes, that hadn’t been reality, that had been something else… The sound, that had been, what, what had they thought it was; an acetylene torch? Flash burns - reparable, temporary blindness. That had been the most puzzling thing. Why temporary if they were going to be killed… Sam tried to force his eyes open further, feeling tears fill them and bursts of pain at what he assumed was light. His right lung and eyes seemed to swell up together, coupled with the light that surrounded him, with the blood in his throat, gagging him, and he felt himself slipping away again. He willed himself to stay awake, to try to move, think, find a way out of this, but the darkness was overwhelming, and it was soon holding him again.
*Common with limb trauma like that*
*Couldn’t with that clot, look at the pressure on the MRI*
*Still say it isn’t a clot*
*Not aortic…*
*Need to go in…*
When Sam awoke again, he thought he heard humming. A little girl humming. Her. Her voice was somehow sweet, and kind, and yet it was so cold and robotic, like the sound of dead electronics. Like test pattern squeals on the telly…
“Welcome back, Sam.” It was definitely her. Sam never thought he would have been happy to be blinded, but now, he definitely was. Whoever it was that had killed those other men, whoever it was that had him now, they didn’t need to hear him talking to the girl with the clown. God, that awful clown…
“You should never have read that Stephen King book, Sam.” Her voice was slightly stern, like a mother scolding a child.
“Never liked them,” he managed to whisper, aware that while there was still blood in his chest, air was going through. How much, he wasn’t sure. He tried to think back to first aid training, but sucking chest wounds hadn’t really been something that they’d given much training for, nothing other than, ‘Staunch bleeding. Clear airway. Call paramedics. No CPR.’ Sam doubted that he could do any of those things himself, and he wasn’t even sure if this qualified as sucking… Did that mean the chest wall was pierced? Shit, he didn’t know.
The girl giggled. For a hideous, wretched second, he heard the clown giggle as well. He had never liked clowns. And he really never should have read that book, either.
“You know what’s happening out there, do you?” she asked, and her voice seemed so innocent, it frightened him.
“Something, the accident, they have to cut…” Sam began to speak to her, then thought better of it as pain burst forth in his chest.
“Very nasty. Not nice at all. But is it because of here? Or is here because of there? Was it the chicken or the egg, Sam? Are you there because of here? Or is here because of there? Is here because of you?” The girl giggled again. Thankfully, the clown remained silent. “Don’t you know, Sam? Was it the chicken, or the egg? Come on, Sam, you can tell me. I’m the only friend you have here, Sam.”
“No,” was the only response he could think of. She was definitely not what he would call a friend. Annie was. Chris was. For all his scorn and mockery and general misery making, in a sick twisted way, Ray was, too. And Gene… They were his friends. And they would find him.
The clown joined the girl in the giggles this time, and the shudder that coursed through Sam as a result brought more pain. He involuntarily opened his eyes and was met with the painful, bright white blur again, tears filling his eyes and streaming down his cheeks. He felt the blood bubble up in his throat and gagged again, feeling it spill out over his chin and then, thankfully, able to take a larger, albeit painful, breath.
“Oh, poor boy, why do you think you deserve this? Why did they? You created them just so that you could do this to yourself… Very conceited Sam. Just like with June. Very nasty boy, you are.” The girl was stern again, even angry. Had he ever heard her angry before?
“You still haven’t answered my question, Sam. Here, or there. Which came first? The chicken or the egg? You have to answer, Sam. You have to find out. It’s the only way. Or else it just goes on, and on, and on, and,” the girl dissolved into giggles again. The clown’s giggles drowned her out this time.
In the distance, Sam heard a door open, thick and metallic, like a storm door or some sort of loading dock door, sliding metal, thick and heavy. He thought he heard footsteps echoing on the floor, moving towards him in the blackness. He didn’t dare to open his eyes again as the sounds came nearer. He felt hot breath against his neck and didn’t dare to move, didn’t dare to think, and then he felt arms reaching up and along his own arms, roughly handling him and undoing the bindings around his wrists. There was no way he could run, not in the state he was in. He had no way of knowing which way to go, and he would never make it far with his chest as badly damaged as it was. Hobbling. That was the only reason for those particular injuries.
Sam felt hands reach around his torso and blackness burst around him within the blackness, brightness within the blinding brightness that hid behind his eyelids, pain within pain within pain, and somehow he willed himself to stay away. He felt his body being dragged upright, onto his feet, but he was not forced to stand. His left wrist was tied again, this time against some form of whole in a porous wall. Then his right wrist. He was tied to some form of cross, made of what felt like… Leather? No, not leather, not plastic, he wasn’t sure what it was. His arms were stretched out perpendicular to his body, a horrid mockery of a crucifix.
“Glass. You were wondering, weren’t you? Just sharpened rectangles of plate glass.” The voice was horridly familiar, echoing in his ears. He struggled to place it, he had to place it. He felt gloved hands now, and then a thin, piercing pain, ever so slight, across his chest. Glass? Sharpened rectangles of glass… He barely had time to register what was about to happen when the first piece entered the flesh of his arm, horizontal, running just under the lower bone of his arm. He was being pinned to the wall. Sharpened rectangles of plate glass, vertical ones pinning the flesh back, long horizontal ones sliding through the flesh under the bones of his arm…Each one seemed to scream his name. Despite the pain in his chest he screamed, and blood flooded his mouth, forcing him to struggle and gag. He felt another body press against his, its whole weight pressing him against the strange surface behind him, and then the shards continued. As did the screaming, and the blood, welling up as he was pinned, pinned like a butterfly to the wall by all of the spare flesh on his arms, welling up in his chest, filling his mouth and choking him.
“This is it. Exactly. What it should be.” The voice… He was vaguely aware now that he was being pinned into something, and that the pins could be adjusted from either side… He wasn’t against a wall at all, he was pinned to something hanging… And the voice.
“They won’t come. Didn’t make them to.”
The voice was his own.
All comments and criticism welcome and encouraged!