BOX SET of THREE TOP 10 MEDICAL THRILLERS

by Ian C. P. Irvine

  "Thanks. Anyway, I am kissing her breasts now...I start to bite her nipples...at first little small bites, but then getting harder. She starts to moan, at first enjoying it. I get rougher. She asks me to stop. I don't. She pulls my hair. I stop. I am above her. I ask her to turn over. She turns over. I ask her to kneel up, she does. I slip on another condom, and enter her from behind. We start to make love again. We are both going for it, at first slowly, then faster and faster... her hips moving back and forward against mine. I reach out and grab her hair...I pull her head back slightly...her throat arched upwards... exposed..." Peter stops, coughs, and looks away. Some tears start to well up in his eyes, and he stretches across the table and places his other hand on top of Susie's. He squeezes her hand tightly, and turns and looks at Susie, directly into her eyes.

  "And then I reach under the mattress, pull out a sharp knife, lean forward and cut her throat from behind."

  Susie reacts instantly, pulling both her hands free from Peter and recoiling in shock.

  "You what?"

  "I cut her throat. From ear to ear. Her neck and head come backwards towards me and her throat opens up even more...blood spurts out covering the walls, pulsing... FUCK!!!!!"Peter starts to cry, his hands flying up to the sides of his head and pulling on his hair.

  "Susie...bloody hell...I killed her...," Peter pauses for a few moments to steady himself and control his breathing."...And then it all goes black...and the dream ends..."

  "It's a dream Peter. A stupid, fucking, dream. That's all. It's your drugs. Exactly like what the doctor said. Come on, you know drugs can do that to you! Maybe your drugs have some sort of LSD in them or something!"

  Wiping the tears from his cheeks onto the arms of his sweater, Peter looks up, and stares at Susie again.

  "There's one more thing, I haven't told you...the last thing I remember before it goes black and the whole nightmare sequence stops is that I am laughing. I am laughing my head off."

  .

  --------------------

  .

  Susie is silent. Peter is watching her, waiting for her to speak. He can see the cogs turning over in her mind.

  For a moment it looks as if she is just about to say something: she opens her lips, the muscles in her face move as if words are imminent, but then she relaxes again and no words emerge.

  "I think I want a coffee," she says, finally, rising from her seat."Do you want one too?"

  "No. I'm wired enough."

  Susie gets up and walks to the bar. Peter watches her, sensing that it has got less to do with the coffee, and more about just wanting a few moments alone.

  She returns a couple of minutes later, carrying a beer and a whisky, and another orange juice for Peter.

  "Changed my mind. I think I need a good stiff drink after all."

  She sits down.

  "The thing is," Peter says, speaking before Susie can say anything else. "...The thing is, the dream sequence is now always the same. And each time I run it in my mind, I see more detail. It becomes more real. It's really fucking scaring me Susie. I just want it to stop. To STOP!"

  "It will. It'll probably just stop one day..."

  "When?...And what if it doesn't?...Look, one last thing, then I'm done...See, I've started to write down notes from my dreams as soon as I wake up." Peter reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a notebook, opening it up and pushing it across the table to Susie. "...And last night, just after I'd dreamt it all again, and written it down, I wrote down this question...look..." Peter pointed to the note book.

  "Is this just a dream?" Susie said, reading the words aloud. She looked up at him.

  "Yes. What happens if this is not just a dream, Susie. What happens if this is real? What happens if this actually happened? Just like in Switzerland? Susie, maybe this whole fucking thing is not a dream after all? Maybe somewhere, someplace, a young woman has just had her throat cut and I have just seen it all happen in my mind?"

  "Stop. Peter, stop..."

  "No, one more thing, something that I thought just now, just as I said that last sentence...something, fuck...something new....Susie, if it did happen, if it is real, just like it was real in Switzerland and actually did happen in room 326 to that other poor girl, either I have become psychic and a clairvoyant who can 'see' things, or...or Susie, ...I was there! I was actually there as it happened!"

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  .

  .

  Willow Farm Commune

  Wales

  9.55 p.m.

  April 17th

  .

  .

  Big Wee Rab lay back on his comfortable bed. He was one of the lucky ones. For now, he had a room to himself. Normally, they would all have to share with another member of the commune, but the day before he had arrived, the man who used to live in the room had left to return to his life in London. Cured. On the straight and narrow. A reformed drug addict. Or at least, that was what everybody hoped for.

  Rab was a little bit of a sceptic.

  He had known lots of drug addicts. None of them had gone straight or had turned that magic corner and found the strength to live a normal, healthy, drug free existence.

  Once a druggie, always a druggie. At least, that's the way it was on the estate.

  On the other hand, he had only been here several weeks, but he could already see that the people who ran the retreat really cared. They actually cared.

  Although Rab had heard of angels, he had never believed in them until he had met Gavin and Stella. They ran the centre, the guiding lights of the community, who inspired and transformed the lives of everyone who came to seek sanctuary and reach out for help.

  Which is exactly what Big Wee Rab had done. After another sleepless night in his car, he had called Michael at the prison from a public phone booth, and had been given the details of the farm. Michael had promised to call ahead and arrange everything.

  When Big Wee Rab had driven through the gates several weeks ago, Gavin and Stella had come out to meet him in the rain and had hugged him and welcomed him like a long lost son. A prodigal son. The phrase sprang into Big Wee Rab's brain, a sudden flashback to the few days he ever turned up at Sunday School. He never learned anything, but occasionally they got a free lunch, and that was why his mum sent him along... so that Rab could get his free share of the five loaves and the three fishes. Or was it two fishes?

  Rab loved it at the commune. It was great.

  For a start he was warm. He had food. And people liked him.

  Nobody knew where he came from, and nobody knew what he had done, or if or why he had gone to prison. That belonged to their 'other lives'. They could talk about it if they wanted to, or they could keep it secret, put it in the past and forget about it. It was up to them.

  The commune was a rehabilitation centre to help people find themselves and discover a new way to live. It was funded by the lottery commission, and anyone who was admitted to the centre was allowed to stay for up to six months. Almost everyone on the farm had done time in prison, and been told about the commune by someone on the inside.

  Rab had only been there several weeks, but already he was thinking how nice it would be to stay forever.

  The work was hard though. And there was a lot of it. Everyone had to pull their weight, or they didn't get fed. What you had to do depended upon how fit you were, and what the rest of the commune thought you could or should contribute. If you didn't like something, you took it to one of the public meetings and you talked about it. Then everyone voted. You then did what everyone else said, or you had to leave.

  But everyone did what was asked of them. Everyone knew how lucky they were to be there.

  Rab knew that his life had changed the day he drove through the big white gates at the entrance to the farm. One of the others, a thief from somewhere down in Cornwall, had compared them to the pearly gates at the entrance to Heaven. Rab had liked that. As far as he was concerned, this was probably as close to Heaven as you could get.


  . .

  He had first seen the picture of Mr Wallace on the local BBC News. The reporter had been speaking in Welsh, and Rab had not understood a word, but he knew exactly what it was all about. The reporter had held up a picture of a medal, the same type of medal that Rab now had in his hand and was staring at, trying to read the words on it. He had asked Stella what was being said in the news clip on the TV, and she had translated it for him.

  Rab had heard of a Victoria Cross before. He knew that it was a really important medal, but he didn't know just how important until Stella had told him.

  The next day he had seen the same picture in a newspaper that someone had left in the big kitchen that they all shared. He had taken the page, and locked himself in the toilet while he read the story that went with it.

  And now, alone for the first time all day with 'lights-out' in five minutes, Rob had again taken the medal out from its hiding place in his dirty sock bag, and was staring at it in as close to reverent awe as Rab was ever likely to experience in his life. Each night before he went to sleep, he liked to hold the medal and think.

  'The old guy's a fucking hero!" Rab whispered to himself. Rab had never met a hero before. Not a real, proper hero. Not one that had fought in a real war and killed people and got a medal for doing it.

  Stella had said that all the Victoria Crosses were made from the metal of the same cannon, which was captured during the 'Crimean War'. An old cannon from a big war a long, long time ago.

  It was interesting stuff.

  This medal was bloody famous, everyone in Britain was looking for it just now, and Rab had it! Here. Right now. In his hands.

  In fact, Rab had realised, that the medal was now officially the most valuable thing he had ever touched in his whole life. And it was his. It belonged to him.

  "Lights out!", Gavin shouted from the end of the hall, and suddenly the Centre went dark. Phuff! Pitch blackness.

  It took a few moments for his eyes to acclimatise, and then Rab jumped out of his bed, hid the medal again, and climbed back under his very own duvet cover.

  Bloody hell, this place was posh.

  .

  Moonlight streamed into the room, and Rab closed his eyes. He was tired. He wanted to fall asleep, but there was a problem, and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep until he could think about what he should do. How he should solve the problem.

  For the first time in his life, Rab was suffering from a feeling that he could not explain. Every time he thought about the medal, instead of just feeling excited that he had got it, he thought of old Mr Wallace. He thought about him crashing out of Mr Wallace's flat, and knocking the old guy over. He thought about how pathetic the old man's possessions had been: there had been nothing worth stealing. The medal was the most valuable thing that he had had in that crappy little council flat that he was forced to call home. It was probably the most valuable thing in the old man's life. Perhaps the only possession that he had which he could be proud of.

  And Big Wee Rab had stolen it.

  For the first time in the past few years, Rab did not feel so 'big' after all. He didn't know how to describe it.

  Rab thought about the feeling some more. And then it dawned on him.

  For the first time in his life, Rab felt ashamed.

  Chapter Forty

  .

  .

  The Dome

  Edinburgh

  10.30 p.m.

  April 17th

  .

  .

  Susie had decided that things were getting too intense in the Standing Order. She needed some time to breathe and to think.

  What Peter had just said had scared the proverbial shit out of her. For two reasons. Firstly, because this was not a game: this was a serious conversation that they were having about serious matters, and what Peter was describing to her was not a scene from a video or television programme. This was something that he was seeing... repeatedly...within his own head. It was disgusting. It met her feel sick when she thought about it. But she knew Peter better than any other woman in the world. She had loved Peter...and a part of her after a few glasses of wine might admit, uncomfortably, that perhaps she still did. The thing was though, that Peter was not, and had never been a violent man. He loved people. He cared for people. He had loved her with all his heart, ...once..., and he was as big a gentleman as any man she had ever met. For Peter to be having these thoughts, to be seeing these scenes in his mind...this didn't come from him!

  Which led directly onto the second point why she was so scared.

  When Peter had suggested that perhaps he had actually 'been there as it had happened', that he had somehow 'seen it' as it took place, ...that had been the second time she had heard that idea.

  The first person who had thought that same thought was herself.

  But she had been too scared and worried to mention it to Peter.

  And now he had mentioned it to her, there was no avoiding it.

  Something really...something really fucking weird was happening.

  .

  Since the evening in his flat, when he had first shocked her by climbing and hiding in the tree-how was that possible? He had always been so scared of heights!- and when they had then googled 'Organ transplant and personality change'...since then she had been both fascinated and petrified by what she had learned.

  Together they had sat at his table, reading story after story on the internet about people who had received an organ transplant, and who had then started to adopt personal characteristics of the people from whom the organs had been taken or donated. The stories from the people who had received the organs were amazing. Incredible. Almost unbelievable. Which had obviously led to Susie asking herself, 'Were they real, or the stuff of urban legend?'

  After they had finished reading the articles, Peter and Susie had not talked about it together. Yet. They had both recognised that they both needed time to digest what they had learned, because if it was true, the implications were staggering.

  "How come we have never ever heard this stuff before?" Susie had asked herself that night as she drove home. "Was there some sort of conspiracy thing going on here?"

  The answer to that question was obviously no, because it had only taken her ten seconds to find out about it when she had typed her question into the search engine.

  The thing was, that nobody knew that this stuff was going on.

  It seemed too incredible to be true.

  The problem was, ...it seemed to be real!

  People were receiving organs from dead people, and then developing personal characteristics from the people who had died. In fact, some of the stories had gone way beyond just that. Way beyond.

  When Susie had got home from Peter's she had poured herself a large glass of Merlot, fired up her Mac, and started searching again by herself.

  She had spent the next three hours searching and reading. Learning. Discovering a mystery of life that no one could yet explain.

  By the time she finally went to bed she had probably read every reported case that had ever been recorded and made publicly available.

  Thankfully, there were not too many of them, but the cases that she did discover were all similar.

  Scary. Terrifying. But strangely reassuring. Reassuring that there was more to life than Susie had ever thought before. Reassuring that perhaps, just perhaps, this was the first evidence that she had ever read that proved there was a human soul which possibly survived after death.

  At least, that was one of the big questions that had come out online, and was now being discussed.

  And no one knew the answer.

  .

  --------------------

  .

  They walked in silence along George Street from the Standing Order to The Dome, a converted bank which was now Susie's favourite restaurant and bar in the city.

  They found a seat in the corner of the restaurant where they could drink without eating, and ordered a brandy and a juice.

  "Have
you heard of 'cellular memory'?" Susie suddenly asked Peter as he sipped his brandy and started to relax.

  Peter smiled.

  "So, you've been doing some independent research of your own, have you?"

  "What do you think? I'm a journalist. So are you. This thing that is happening to you has really got me spooked. And interested. Those stories we read together on your laptop last week were both amazing and scary at the same time."

  "I know... I haven't been able to stop thinking about them."

  "So, what do think about this idea of cellular memory then?"

  "That some cells of the body, in some way we just don't understand yet, actually form part of the memory mechanism for the whole body...that memories are not just remembered in the mind but throughout the whole body?"

  "I think it's something like that...here, wait, I took some notes...," and Susie reached into her handbag and pulled out her notebook. "The things we are interested in are called 'neuropeptides'. Scientists have discovered that these cells don't just exist in the brain as once thought, but can actually be found present in all the tissues of the body. The idea is that the neuropeptides somehow store memories which are then released in the new body once an organ is transplanted. The mind in the new body then somehow accesses these memories, and the organ recipient then remembers what the deceased donor experienced when they were alive... "

  "Yep, that's a pretty good description. I read that too."

  They were both silent for a second. Then Peter spoke.

  "It's almost as if we are both too scared to say what we are both thinking...so I'll do it for us both. I'll start." He took a sip of his drink, swallowed, and sat up straight in his chair, resting his open palms on the table with his thumbs pointing into the air.

  "Basically...", he started. "...Basically, it could be that the kidneys I have received have come from a murderer... And that somehow his memories, or the things he saw, are now resurfacing in my mind. In other words, I am beginning to see all the things he did."

  "Exactly," Susie said, reaching out and placing her hands in his.