by John King
Ruby was laughing. Hysterical perhaps. But he did not think so. It was almost as if she was mocking him. As if she knew something he did not. No. It was the onset of hysteria and to be expected. She had brought all this upon herself. Picking up the old man’s watch in the hospital corridor and tormenting him with her hidden knowledge. But the best was yet to come. The old man and his watch. He could not wait. Moving on. Turning Ruby’s head towards the screen. He thought he saw anger in her eyes. She really was evil. The mute groan of the speakers. The naked masses. Moving the dice to the arm of the sofa. Finally holding up Mr Dawes’s watch. Ruby’s sugar daddy perhaps. Was she having sexual relations with the fossil? The last skinhead mounted the girl as the others urinated on her torso. She breathed air but was dead. Ordinary men had destroyed an ordinary girl. The common people were no better than dogs. He smiled. Waiting for the documentary to reach its peak. The fourth rapist sliding into the gaping wound. Pumping faster and faster as the girl lay beneath him. Broken. All the while her mind ticking. Much the same as Ruby. No doubt planning a method of escape. Attempting to lull him into a false sense of security.
He licked Ruby’s ear and felt her flinch, ever so slightly. He told her how he had leant in close to her beloved Mr Dawes and explained the situation. That he was old and alone and unloved and Mr Jeffreys was here to help him escape the mortal coil. Of course, as this was judgement day there was a price to pay. It was only fair. After all. So the old chap suffered from a fear of the ocean? One of the night staff had said as much. Well. The old sea dog had caused so much strife with his union activities that it was only right he should be buried at sea. Far from his homeland. Having helped bring the country to its knees with all those years of vindictive industrial action. Unwarranted strikes an assault on the very meaning of democracy. It was men such as Dawes who had destroyed the will of the people. Challenged a paternalistic system that had at one time ruled the world and cared for its subjects. Without union interference the health service would be privatised by now. How many man-hours had been lost to the petty prejudices of jumped-up communists? These men hated the people. Bullied and manipulated and exploited their basic ignorance. Refused to respect their betters, more educated men who had constructed a system that worked. It was impossible to quantify the damage the likes of Mr Dawes had inflicted on society. Thousands of cowardly clones in flat caps. Jugs of bitter. Chips and gherkins. Not an original thought among the lot of them. No experience of life away from the shop floor.
Dawes had turned towards Jeffreys and told him to fuck off. He had been shocked. Such language truly obscene in an elderly man. Who should have known better. Perhaps the dosage had not been strong enough. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and, leaning over the dying man, pushed it into mouth. Stretching the jaw. His customer resisted. Clenched his mouth as best he could. But Jonathan was far stronger. Something snapped and a tooth fell on to the man’s chest. The tooth a surprise as Jeffreys assumed he was wearing dentures. He picked up the tooth and held it between thumb and middle finger. It was in fairly good condition. He thought about taking it for his collection but saw the watch and claimed that instead. Slid the broken tooth back into the mouth. He found swearing offensive. It was no way to treat a professional who was only trying to help. He had kept talking and seen the spirit die within Dawes’s eyes. The man entering the tomb Jeffreys was so cleverly creating. Stuck in the hull of a sinking ship that came to rest on the ocean bed. Too deep for a rescue attempt. A dark world with a lack of oxygen. His fellow sailors dead. Rotting around him. Dawes forgotten. Claustrophobia gripping him as the ocean bore down on the creaking ship. Every second potentially his last. Waiting for the hull to crack and the sea to pour in. Mr Jeffrey’s hand on Dawes’s wrist. The slender fingers of the younger man encircling mature bone. The filed nail of his thumb pressed the tip of his index finger. He increased the pressure on old brittle bone. If he wanted he could snap the arm. But he was no sadist. Physical cruelty was crass. Violence repulsive. He was helping a communist, an atheist, a Bolshevik who bowed down to Vladimir Lenin. Trotsky. Stalin.
Mr Jeffreys looked over at the documentary and realised that the last skinhead had nearly completed his act of desecration. The girl unable to fight any more. Apparently. Another level of fear emerging as she saw something the viewer did not. He had seen the documentary before and knew that a dog was waiting in the wings. The ultimate degradation in a horrific display of callousness. Was nothing sacred to these men? He ran fingers over the blade of the knife as the fourth man finished with a barbaric roar. Withdrew. What sort of subhumans performed such acts? It was not pleasant viewing, but necessary. To understand what was happening behind the closed doors of the terraces through which he drove on his way to the hospital. These were the streets where Ruby lived. It was time Ruby realised the truth about her patients. Put childish things behind her. Understood that there was no goodness in the people she seemed to love. The neo-Nazi Steve Rollins. The lesbian witch Pearl Hudson. The deviant Daniel Rafferty. The communist Ron Dawes. Everything she held dear was rotten to the core.
He shared Ruby’s disgust at the brutal rape and knew that the dog would tip her over the edge. She was soft and he was helping her to become strong. It was more honest this way. This was how terminations should be carried out. With the same drama as a court of law. A theatrical building of tension. The only ingredient missing was the gratitude of an appreciative audience. But Ruby was a fine physical specimen. Simple. Yet aware of her surroundings. She was no withered shell cursed with a barely functioning mind.
He adjusted the volume so that the documentary was clearly audible. Faced Ruby and prepared to terminate her life. Waited for the bark of the Alsatian. The beast roared out through the speakers and came on to the screen. It was frothing at the mouth. Confused. Moved into position. The girl in the documentary suddenly found the strength to resist, but held down she did not have a chance. She would soon be demeaned even further. It was the ultimate perversion and terrible to witness. He saw the panic in Ruby’s eyes as the dog was forced forward. Girl and dog trying to escape.
He moved close. He would let Ruby witness some of the act and then neatly slit her throat. Hold her as she bled to death. She would take the memory into eternity. He peered into her tormented soul. Understood her sorrow. Raised the knife and felt his nose explode with pain, sight blurred from a vicious headbutt. The pain shot through his head and he was sure the tart had broken his nose. He was standing now and trying to regain his composure when the nurse’s foot flashed into his groin, the base of her shoe making him bend forward, a second kick toppling him over on to the couch. He felt nauseous and vomited. Remained still for a few minutes as he waited for the pain to subside.
Nurse James had spent her energy. He knew that. Yet he was tired. Worn out. He could hear nothing. He clutched his chest for some reason. Noticed how the sofa was specked with blood. This was unacceptable. He was filled with indignation that the nurse had assaulted him. She would certainly pay for this impudence. The pain should ease but it did not. He felt weak. Blood began to soak the fabric. He tried to sit up and finish his work but was surprised to find that his body did not respond. He struggled for a minute before slumping back. Realised that the knife was embedded in his chest. Rather near to the heart.
It took Ruby time to realise where she was. There was no wake-up alarm, no easy rhythm stirring her blood, moving across a regular heartbeat, no sweet pillow talk from a tired DJ, just this vicious buzzing in her ears, temple, right between and behind her eyes, her whole head hurting like nothing she’d ever felt before, much too much drink, too many pills, a fine needle piercing the bone and sliding deep into her brain, injecting nasty thoughts like she’d never had before, real sick stuff from an insane asylum, physical perversion and mental cruelty, a vision of hell.
Everyone had nightmares, dreams that left you sad for days after, but this was different, sadistic and evil. She felt diseased, riddled with poison that was going to get stronger and turn into a giant
tumour. When she tried to move her legs they were cramped worse than in winter when the blankets slipped off and the cold got in, she even listened for rain on the tiles, wind against her window, heard nothing but the static in her head, and she tried to curl up in the foetal position, tight as she could, rubbing her calves to get the circulation going, moving her hands down, everything about her aching, slow motion like she was inside and outside her body, a date-rape capsule in a glass of lager, being set up, seeing things happening now but unable to do anything to stop them.
When her back brushed something hard she imagined she was small again, Ben fast asleep on the bed, the feel of his fur as she stroked him, happy days she never wanted to end, and she could see his smiling face and twitching nose, he was always interested in what was happening, time mixed up, shot through with special medicine, all sorts of magic potions, black and white magic, good and bad trips, different doses. She knew she was older and Ben was in heaven running after a ball, Dad standing at the gates of a park, smiling, Ruby on a swing in the playground, and she missed her daddy, waved to him, but she was grown up so it had to be Charlie, and she was pleased, for a second, her neck bent at a funny angle, realised she was sleeping on the couch, A couch, the nightmare coming back and turning to reality as she looked towards the window of her flat but instead saw a wall and two framed pictures of flowers, and she sniffed for the smell of baking bread and cooking coffee but only smelt polish, and must, the room stuffy, listened for voices in the street down below and heard nothing, just an internal roar as her eardrums got ready to pop.
She pulled herself up and felt the pain race through her body, looked at the lump next to her and jumped as she saw the face of Mr Jeffreys staring right back, his eyes open, but empty, smooth featureless skin so white he looked like he was on his way out of the mortuary, his blood siphoned off, drained of colour and life, Ruby tumbling forward on to the floor, crawling away on all fours.
She tried to stand up but couldn’t, afraid Jeffreys would grab her, all sorts of sickness in her mind, put there by a perverted mass murderer who wanted her dead, raped for ever and ever amen, he was a killer of the weak and defenceless, the majority of people who trusted each other, and the din in her head separated into mental confusion and fuzzy static off a TV set, she remembered the gang rape, choked, didn’t understand how anyone could be like Jeffreys, leaning over her, leering, a knife in his hand, excited at the thought of a dog raping a girl, and she’d felt the strength slowly coming back into her as he told her his stories, and when she heard the dog barking she thought of Ben, stronger now, and there was no way he was ruining her memories, perverting every single thing in her life, ruining the goodness, butting and kicking Jeffreys before she blacked out.
Why hadn’t Jeffreys killed her though? Why wasn’t he on her now? She looked back and saw him properly, the handle of a knife sticking out of his chest, his skin so white and his shirt so red. She leant forward and puked up on the carpet, waited a minute, sobbing now, pulled herself upright using a chair and staggered away, found the kitchen, leant on the electric stove, new and unused, then went to the bathroom, leant over the sink and stuck two fingers down her throat, was sick again and again, taps running, filled a glass with water and drank it in one go, kept refilling it till she was full, spewing out water and bile.
She thought again and took no chances, locked the door and sat on the floor for a long time, leaning against the bath, shivering as she remembered everything he’d said, how he’d killed those four people she’d known, all the others she didn’t know. His words were deep in her brain, pumping in and out of focus, mental rape like maybe she could never wash the filth out again.
She imagined herself pissing blood, the worst period pains she’d ever felt making her double forward, a great fire-engine flood of rich artery corpuscles that flooded the bowl and spilt over the sides, turning pink as it flecked the marble, and there was real marble in this bathroom, not the usual stuff, and she was standing and turning around and reaching for the handle, flushing it away best she could, so the toilet sparkled, like she did after a poor soul had finished shitting their lives away in the hospital, reduced to shit and vomit, rotting guts spewing the poison out of their bodies, the smell in her nostrils like it had been stored, she never knew she thought about all this, just saw the good in people, in situations, smelt the fragrant smells never mind if it was cheap air-freshener, like Jeffreys would say, and she was always looking on the bright side, every cloud had a silver lining, all the other sayings you picked up over the years, nursery rhymes that stuck in your head and songs off the TV commercials when you were a kid, pop tunes when you were a teenager and changing from a girl into a woman, and she felt the wet around her ankles, had kept on peeing on the bathroom floor and just didn’t know what to do, where to run, who to turn to, there was no way out, the flood was right around her moving up from the floor, she was pissing everything away, her blood seeping under the door, clogging so the room was filling and she was going to drown in her own body fluids, couldn’t understand where the blood was coming from, wished she was a little girl again, wanted her mummy and daddy.
Eventually Ruby stood up. Her head still ached but the nagging pain in her belly was easier. It was difficult to think straight but she was getting stronger, coming back fighting, and she stretched out her arms and legs, rotated her shoulders trying to loosen the muscles. She eased the door open and stood still looking across the room. It was massive, open-plan, with lots of furniture and big rugs scattered around, a four-poster bed, a steel kitchen with a dining table, the glass cases with the objects he’d talked about. It was a beautiful place, with so much space, but it was dead, like something out of a catalogue, a showroom with no character, no personality. She walked over to the cabinets and looked at the things set out like antiques in a museum, holy relics in a church. She was in a daze, staring at a toothbrush, a diary, a slipper. On and on. There were well over a hundred objects.
Jeffreys was a nutter, no doubt about it. She looked back over to the couch and saw that he hadn’t moved, was well and truly dead. He’d said this place was a gallery, but the air was stale, more like a museum, but without the flavour of age. It was quiet, just the static on the TV in the background, and she went over and grabbed the remote control, turned it off so the buzzing stopped, but it kept going right there in her head, and she thought for a second and pushed rewind, had to see if the video was real or something she’d dreamt, drugged and confused, it was hard to believe any of this was true, clicking play for a glimpse of a screaming girl and a scared, rabid dog, Jeffreys had said it was a snuff movie, exaggerating the word snuff, like it was beneath him, and she supposed it was, her heart thumping, she turned it off, tears in her eyes, went over to the window.
She stood there looking out at the river, knew she was in London, the sound of traffic in the distance, outside what seemed like a compound when she went to another window and opened the blinds, then the glass. Light flooded the room, the sky blue, the sun on her skin telling Ruby she was still alive, and she breathed the fresh air deep into her lungs, feeling stronger all the time, realised it was early in the day, that she’d been in this place all night.
She went to the couch and looked at the body of Mr Jeffreys, wondering if he really was official, or a liar, some sort of split personality, and she could see that he was a manipulator all right, with no feelings or humanity, the only emotion he had was hate. She didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t any more, would never trust anyone again, but she couldn’t think about it now, knew she had to get out and find a train station, head for home where she could buy some rolls and fill the hole in her belly, sit in a hot bath and scrub the evil off her skin, and she believed in evil now, there was no mistake about the things he’d said, the way he’d planned it, the pleasure he must’ve got from seeing people die, from having the power of life and death. He was a maniac. And she thought about how he’d wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her head, pressing his f
ingers into the bone so a couple of times she thought her skull was going to crack, museum skulls in her mind, the bone fragile and pressing on her brain, she was going to buy a scrubbing brush and scrub and scrub at every part of her body, shave her head and scrub those fingerprints off her head, she hated him now, he was a fucking pervert, a gutless wanker preying on people who couldn’t defend themselves, real slime. Ruby jumping as Jeffreys’s eyes shifted and looked straight at her.
She moved back, to the window, waited, ready to fight, fists clenched, angry, but he didn’t move and she guessed he was paralysed. When she was composed again she went over, ever so slow in case he was faking, conning her just like he’d conned so many people over the years, but she knew by the amount of blood and the paleness of his face that he was weak, finally reaching down and feeling his pulse. It was hardly there, and she knew he was almost dead, that this was his last minute on earth.
Ruby sat back down next to Jeffreys and thought about what he’d said, how heaven could be created, hell conjured up by a guide, and if he believed it then maybe it was true, for him, so then she could send him somewhere horrible if she wanted, but it was rubbish, he was playing God, bitter and twisted enough to get some sort of thrill out of imagining a person suffering, dying not enough for Jeffreys, the ultimate control freak, and for her dying was the worst thing, life was beautiful, every single second precious, and she knew at times she’d wished her mum would slip away in her sleep, maybe even wondered about euthanasia, but it was different, there was nothing merciful about what Jeffreys had done, and she looked at him and he was pathetic, there was nothing noble in this man, he had no class, he was alone and unloved, and maybe it was his choice and maybe it wasn’t, was a person born wicked, she’d never believed that, she knew he was nearly gone, and all the evil things he’d said were suspended so she just saw a dying man, someone’s baby newborn and gasping for breath, clinging to its mother, an innocent soul misled and moulded wrong, a child who was confused and unhappy and fading fast.