Spinetinglers Anthology 2008

by Nolene-Patricia Dougan

  “But, how do you account for the fact that an ambulance crew and all attending medical staff failed to notice that he was alive?” Mason interrupted. “Although the cause of death may have been speculative at that time, the fact remains that one of them surely would have noticed something.”

  “I don’t know!” John spat. “Do you think I haven’t thought about it? God, I’ve been jumping through hoops for months, trying to figure it out.”

  “Of course,” Mason whispered, “I’m sorry, John, please continue. You were telling me about Michael Latham.”

  “I put him on the examination table and began the visual assessment. He had no unusual marks or wounds, nothing to suggest impact or penetration.” John paused, staring at the floor. The silence seemed to draw everything into it. “It was when I turned away to get my scalpel for the visceral examination... he spoke to me.”

  “He actually spoke to you?” Mason leaned forward.

  “He said, ‘No.’”

  “Did you see his mouth move? Were his eyes open?” Mason stared.

  “I wasn’t looking at him when it happened. I turned to him, but he was just lying still. I thought it must be some kind of joke or something. I touched his face. It was cold. I pushed it from my mind and carried on. Anyway, if it had been some kind of sick joke, it would end as soon as the scalpel came into play. I put it over his left collarbone, to incise across the chest. I waited for a moment, to give him a chance to come clean.” John paused again.

  “And then?” Mason pressed. There was no answer. “John, you’ve got to tell me what happened. It’s the only way I can help you.” John looked up. Tears streamed from his eyes, his mouth distorted, fighting back pain.

  “Well, what do you think happened?” He sobbed quietly. “I pushed the blade into his skin, about half an inch, and... he screamed.” John gulped loudly. “God, how he screamed. I fell back against the instrument trolley. I’d never felt so sick. I grabbed a paper towel to stop the bleeding, but there was no blood, just his voice begging me to stop, and the screams. Then I did something stupid... I put my hand over his mouth.”

  “Why?”

  “To stop him screaming. It was absurd I know, but I kept telling him. ‘You’re dead. You have to be quiet, and let me do my job.’ But he wouldn’t listen. He begged and cried and pleaded. I carried on through the madness of it all. I had to work with one hand over his mouth. It stopped in the end, when I opened a hole into his ribcage. You can’t scream with collapsed lungs. He managed another ten seconds or so, probably held on with parallax breathing. But, in the end, he died...”

  The screen went blank, and there was silence in the theatre. Mason spoke from the lectern.

  “So, there is John’s version of the events surrounding the initial presentation of his delusional state. As you can see, he has a very clear memory of the details surrounding the case. He was able to recall dates, times, and chronological order accurately and consistently, even though we went over the same incident several times during the interview. Apparently, according to John, it’s like losing your virginity or remembering where you were the day Elvis died. You never forget your first murder.” Uneasy laughter flickered through the audience, as Mason walked to centre stage.

  “So, let’s get back inside his head, shall we? By normal standards, John is enjoying a privileged lifestyle. The question is then, how far would you go to protect that lifestyle? John now believes wholeheartedly that he is a murderer and that he will soon be discovered. His immediate priority, therefore, is to conceal his crime. This is the act of a rational person. He invented a feasible cause of death and filed the appropriate documentation, cleaned up the crime scene, and carried on as usual. It is normal procedure to record post-mortem examinations as they occur, since the officer carrying out the examination is unable to take notes at the time. Transcripts are then produced from the recordings. In all of the cases, where John claims to have committed murder, these recordings were missing. The point that I’m making here is that by hiding his crime, John is behaving in a logical manner, even though the initial premise that prompted his behaviour is completely absurd. I’d like you now to watch this next clip, recorded two months after the first one that you saw. John’s drug regimen and therapy schedule are in your notes.”

  The screen flashed into life, showing the same room as before. John, although somewhat slimmer than in his first appearance, and now wearing blue jeans and a pale grey, cotton shirt, seemed very relaxed.

  “So, how are you today John?’” Mason asked.

  “Not bad, Robert,” John half-smiled. “Looking forward to a little time out of the grounds, I think.”

  “Are you anxious at all, about going outside?”

  “No, not really,” John shrugged. “It’s all been a bit of a nightmare. The sooner I’m back to normal the better.”

  “Good. When do you see yourself going back to work?”

  “Well, as soon as possible, but I won’t be going back into the autopsy business. I don’t want to risk a relapse. Perhaps it was just nature’s way of saying that I’m not cut out for it after all. There’s plenty of other lab work I can do. I won’t starve.”

  “So, it’s just out for the day initially, is it?” Mason prompted.

  “Yes. I did a supervised trip last week. I’m out on my own at 9 AM Saturday and back here for 7:30 the same evening. I plan to make sure that the house is clean and secure, and then visit some close friends.”

  “Good,” Mason smiled. “I’ll see you when you get back, and we’ll talk about how it went.”

  “Thank you,’” John grinned.

  The screen went blank.

  “It seems odd, doesn’t it, that after such a remarkable level of mental trauma, John is here just a few weeks later, behaving as if nothing’s happened.” Mason moved closer to the edge of the stage, as if drawing the audience into his confidence. “Let me offer you a single piece of advice that will set you up for the rest of your career. Never, ever, underestimate the intelligence or resourcefulness of a patient. I have to admit that I was fooled. I was arrogant enough to believe that I had all the answers and John, realising this, led me to believe that I had helped him.”

  Mason walked to the lectern, and once again, the screen flashed.

  Groans rang out across the auditorium, spattered with gasps of shock. Some students turned their heads away, while others put hands to their mouths. Some just stared in disbelief.

  The screen showed John unconscious, naked, and laid out on a hospital trolley. A gaping incision reached across his chest at the collarbones, exposing yellow adipose tissue, and the contrasting blood-stained whiteness of bone. A second cut extended down from the top of his sternum to his pubic bone. Coils of blue intestine poked through at intervals, hanging off his midsection, like fat leeches.

  One young lady left her seat and ran for the door.

  “Oh, God, I’m so sorry!” Mason whined. “I should have told you, I should have warned you.” He pressed a key, and the picture vanished.

  Mason sighed deeply and composed himself.

  “He left the hospital as planned on the Saturday morning. He was in intensive care two hours later. By tremendous good fortune, the friend that he planned to visit had decided to meet him at his house. How he survived this atrocious self-injury, I’ll never know. This is when he had the colostomy. He’d managed to irreparably damage his bowel with a craft knife.”

  Mason took his handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped small beads of sweat from his forehead.

  “Most criminals never get to this stage of adjustment. They just evade capture until the last possible moment. In John’s case, he’d already owned up to his imagined crimes and was ready to make amends with society. His problem became then, that society didn’t believe him to be guilty. On the contrary, instead of making him pay for his grotesque behaviour, it patted him on the head and said, ‘There, there, don’t worry, we’ll make it all right.’ John’s burden of guilt, therefore, increased
, to the point where he felt that he had to make atonement on his own behalf. To him, nothing short of suffering the same fate as his victims would suffice. But, he couldn’t do that under the supervision of the hospital staff, so he wilfully subdued his symptoms and behaved obligingly, as if he were cured. Then, of course, as soon as our backs were turned, well, you’ve seen the rest.”

  He turned once again to his lectern, speaking as he operated both mouse and keyboard.

  “I have a final film clip for you to see. It occurs six weeks after John’s self- harming episode. He was rapidly losing the will to live at this time. Most of his day was spent sleeping, and he ate very little. There was virtually nothing that anyone could do to lift his depression. Despite the extended drug therapy, John’s emotional state had continued to decline.”

  The screen flashed, showing the interview room. John sat back in his chair, occasionally wiping the tears from his eyes with the sleeve of his gown.

  “My memory of the event isn’t clear. I remember being dropped off at home. I went inside, it smelled a little damp, you know what it’s like when you leave a house unheated for any length of time.” He sighed deeply. “Anyway, I put the heating on and then went to make myself a coffee. I was in the kitchen when she called.”

  “By she, you mean Susan?’” Mason interrupted.

  “Yes,” John sniffed. “I just froze to the spot. She was calling me into the bedroom. I don’t know why. I followed her voice, it sounded frail but so insistent. I couldn’t ignore it. That’s when I saw her, just standing there.”

  “You actually saw her?”

  “Yes. She looked like she did when I killed her. She was naked. Her skin was pale- blue, and she had the longitudinal cut. Her breasts were peeled back off her ribcage, hanging down around her sides. Her abdomen was wide open, and she was struggling to gather up her entrails in her arms, and push them back inside. They were sliding through her hands. God, she looked so desperate. She just kept looking at me. She was crying, and her face held such sorrow. How could I cope with that, with Susan haunting me?”

  “You believe that she’s haunting you?”

  “They all do. They turn up in the night or when no one else is around, and they just stand there. Sometimes, they shout and curse me and tell me they’re waiting for me. I beg them to go away, but they never listen. In the end, I knew what I had to do. I have to join them, to suffer like they did. I have to earn their forgiveness...”

  The screen went blank.

  “I don’t think he ate again voluntarily, after that interview.” Mason mused. “What you see now is a result of the following four months of self-neglect.” All eyes turned to John, who remained unmoved. The saliva that strung from his mouth glistened in the spotlight.

  “Susan Holland had suffered a catastrophic stroke in her sleep, at the age of twenty-four, and she was, as I said earlier, the last case that John worked on before his collapse. Since he didn’t have the time or the inclination to hide the case records, we do have the tapes available, but I warn you, it’s not easy listening.”

  A low hiss filled the theatre. There was a muffled click.

  “The date is February 6, 2004. It is 12:35 in the afternoon, and I am Doctor John Dante, presiding over the post-mortem examination of Miss Susan Holland, a female Caucasian, in her early twenties, who was pronounced dead this morning from unknown causes. The initial visual assessment gives no firm indication, and there are no signs of impact, ligature, or penetrative wounding. There is no exceptional discolouration or staining of the skin, and no inflammation.

  In the background, a metallic rattle suggested a wheeled trolley, replete with tools.

  “I’m about to commence the visceral examination, making my first entry at the subject’s left collarbone.”

  “No.” It was the faintest of voices, but recognisably female.

  “I... er... I’ll gain access to the...”

  “No! What are you doing? I don’t want to die. Please!” The scream that followed obliterated any other sounds. The recording crackled, as the noise compressed and distorted the speakers with overload. The cry ended abruptly, choked off in a muffled gargle.

  “The longitudinal incision will... oh, God! You’ve got to keep still! I can’t work if you won’t keep still!” More screams pierced the auditorium, some stifled as if she were screaming down her nose. “It’ll be over soon, I promise. Please be quiet. If anyone hears you, I’m done for. Please, I’m so sorry.” There were rattles and bangs that suggested a monumental struggle and the sound of metal hitting a hard floor, and still, the screams of protest went on, perforated with choked whimpers and pleading.

  “... Peeling aside the skin to expose the sternum.” A high shriek tore through the room, followed by spasmodic coughing and then a sigh, the kind of sigh that empties a body of everything. “There are no signs of peritoneal attachment or lung infection, and the myofascia appears to be... to be...” There was a pause, followed by the harsh clatter of steel, and the slow and rhythmic sobbing of a man destroyed.

  Click!

  There was silence in the theatre. One man moved out of his seat to sit in the aisle, with his head between his knees, as Mason strode out to centre stage.

  “We’ve come to that part of the proceedings where I ask for questions....” Several hands shot into the air, “But, since the first one is so obvious, I’ll take the liberty of asking it myself.” The hands went down again. “Why, if Susan Holland is dead, can we hear her voice on the recording? Well, according to the boffins in the university audio visual department, John is the source of both voices. Absurd as it may seem, if we distance ourselves emotionally from the content of the recording and analyse it as merely a collection of sounds, it becomes apparent, with the use of the right equipment, that the voices never actually overlap. Although I have to admit, it is pretty convincing. John is, of course, completely unaware that he’s playing both roles.”

  A hand went up at the back of the room. Mason nodded in acknowledgement.

  “I’ve no wish to appear cynical sir,” a tall student with an Indian accent stood up to speak, “but it seems to me that a great deal of effort has been spent to discredit the patient’s account, and absolutely none at all to gather any evidence that Doctor Dante may actually have been telling the truth. Is it possible that we are guilty of making the facts fit our expectation of them?” Mason appeared momentarily shocked that someone could, so unsubtly, accuse him of having a blinkered, scientific approach.

  “Yes, of course it is,” Mason shrugged, “and having known John in the past, I would rather believe him to be delusional than have to admit to the only possible alternative, but it’s a matter of behavioural context. What you see here before you,” he gestured toward John, “is the result of the burden of guilt. Any man who is truly capable of the acts that John claims to have committed, would not have felt the guilt that John felt and would, therefore, probably be still at large. I’m not saying that John’s account of events cannot be possible. What I’m saying is that the guilt he exhibits is the one major piece of behavioural evidence that serves to undermine his delusion. That is why I find it inconceivable that John is the murderer that he claims to be. Now, are there any other questions?”

  “What’s your prognosis?” A small voice asked from three rows back.

  “John’s condition is terminal.” Mason murmured, walking back to his lectern. He pressed a few keys, and an electroencephalograph trace appeared on the screen. “The EEG trace that you’re seeing is being taken as we speak. If you look in your notes, you’ll see a similar trace taken, two weeks ago. I’d estimate the drop in signal amplitude to be approximately 12 percent over that period. What this means is that the electrical activity in John’s brain is slowly dying away. If he continues to attenuate at this rate, I’d say that he’s got about three weeks, maybe a month, but the one saving grace is that he won’t know that it’s happening.” He moved back to centre stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be the first to admit th
at I’ve made mistakes in the handling of John’s case. We are all human, and I’m sure that you will make your own mistakes as your careers progress, but these things are forgivable in most cases. The important thing is that we learn from them.”

  A dull, buzzing noise filled the room.

  “And, thus, the mighty dinner bell brings us soundly down to earth.” Mason smiled. “Take your notes with you, and make sure that you read through them. There’s a lot to take in.”

  As the students filed noisily out of the lecture theatre, Mason knew that many of them would end up knowing far more than he did, for that was the nature of progress. But, however much they discovered, within the complete span of human behaviour, it would still amount to nothing at all.

  Mister Thompson pushed John’s chair slowly along the stark, off-white hospital corridor, thinking about nothing in particular.

  “Did you hear that, John?” Susan Holland hissed into his ear, as one of the large wheels ran over her trailing gut. “It won’t be long now.”

  A Taxing Journey to Hell

  by Steven Deighan

  1

  “You know why I’m here.”

  Those words echoed in Steve’s mind for that better part of Tuesday morning, but the image of that guy standing at the front door... it didn’t quite add up. He could vaguely remember seeing the guy’s face and that white shirt and short tie before, but couldn’t exactly remember where and when.

  “You didn’t pay your fare, mister,” he had continued.

  Steve had simply stood there, looking at the stranger. It was a nice day, not unusual for the beginning of June, however, and it was warm. Steve’s wife called to him from the kitchen, asking who it was at the door, but he quickly replied with something about the postman (which was a stupid reply, seeing that the man’s taxi was parked out in the street)