by West, Sam
“OK, I’ll do it.”
“Good girl.” He reached into his pocket and handed her a small sheet of paper with an address printed on it. “You’ll find them there this morning. Get there before midday.”
Her hand trembled when she took the offered piece of paper.
“Who the fuck are you talking to?”
Pam whirled around and saw Wayne behind her in just his boxers, scratching his balls. Her head snapped back round to stare at the empty spot where the Djinn had stood just seconds before.
He’s vanished into the thin air?
She had no idea why that, of all things, should surprise her.
“You’re up early,” Pam stammered.
“I heard ya talking. Who the fuck were you talking to?”
“Just myself.”
She kept her arm behind her back and discreetly scrunched up the piece of paper and tucked it into her knickers, sliding it between her ample arse cheeks.
“What are you hiding behind your back?”
“Nothing!”
Wayne grabbed her arm and twisted it in front of her, prising open her hand to reveal her empty palm.
“I’ll ask you one more time. Who the fuck were you talking to?”
“No one, I was just talking to myself while I made the coffee and then I dropped the mug and got angry. I’m sorry I woke you.”
He glared at her angrily, the indecision stamped on his face. After a moment or two he dismissively waved his hand and turned to leave.
“Whatever, just keep it down you nutty bitch, I’m trying to sleep.”
He left her alone in the kitchen and her shoulders sagged in relief. She retrieved the piece of paper out of her arse crack and flattened it out as best she could. There were two addresses, both in Elephant And Castle and both ‘Prince’s Tower,’ but with different numbers. Pam figured they must live in a high rise, much like the one she lived in herself. It was only half an hour away on the tube, and she could go on the computer now and pull up a street map too see what it was.
She realised that she was shaking violently. Here she was, planning a murder. And not just one murder, but two.
Quietly, so she didn’t wake up Wayne again, she switched on the laptop and set about her second task.
A few hours later she was on the tube, just one stop away from the London borough of Elephant And Castle. She was wearing a black, baggy pullover and an old pair of black trousers. Blood wouldn’t show so much on black. The rucksack she had with her was so old and dirty she figured that any blood stains wouldn’t show on that either.
Inside it was a couple of knives from the kitchen and a pair of black woolly gloves to stop her leaving fingerprints. Not that her fingerprints were on file, but if she ever became a suspect, then she guessed she would be well and truly fucked if they did fingerprint her.
By the time the train pulled into her station, Pam was all set for her killing spree. Once outside, she examined her piece of paper with the scribbled down instructions as the people flowed around her stationary, fat, black clad figure like water streaming around a rock.
It was easy to find. She stood at the foot of the tower block, gazing up at the impossible height of it. Now she was here, she vaguely remembered seeing it on the news, or reading about it somewhere. It was notorious for being a crime hotspot.
And I’m about to bump up the stats…
She thought her tower block was rough. It was nothing compared to this concrete jungle. Her block was a paltry sixteen floors, this had to be over forty. Graffiti was everywhere. ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here,’ was scrawled on the wall next to the double fronted, glass and concrete door. The greyness of it all was suffocating.
No time to dwell, she told herself. She had a job to do. Her gaze latched onto the maze of doorbells. Now what was she supposed to do? Ring the doorbell?
Hi, remember me? The woman you mugged yesterday? Can I come in?
Yeah, right. Like that was going to work.
She was saved from her own indecision when a woman with a pram appeared the other side of the glass. Their eyes locked through the glass for a second before she opened the door.
“Hi,” she said, holding the door open for her. “You going in?”
She was a young Indian woman, minus the burka. Her dark brown eyes were world weary and held a fierce looking intelligence. The woman put Pam instantly on edge. It was like she could read her mind and was peering into her very soul.
“Yeah, thanks.”
The woman hesitated for a second and Pam thought she was about to say something more. She didn’t, and at last Pam was alone in the piss scented foyer. A narrow corridor snaked off ahead, and the lift and stairs were to her right. She glanced quickly at the steel framed plan of the place nailed to the wall. She wanted apartments fifty six and one hundred and seventy three. There were forty two floors with between three and five apartments on each level. She needed floors twelve and thirty six.
Shit, how am I going to do this? Do I take top or bottom first?
She decided on top. At least when she did the second one she would be that much nearer the exit.
The lift stunk of piss and she gagged when the steel door slid across, sealing her in. She pressed five and held her breath.
The door opened onto a dingy, narrow hallway that also smelled of piss, complete with yellowing, white paint peeling off the concrete walls.
Jesus, she thought. She might live in squalor and deprivation but this was taking it to a whole new level. The fluorescent tube lighting flickered ominously above her head and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
I can’t believe I’m doing this…
She pushed away the thought. She pushed away all thoughts of right and wrong. Of good and evil. Of her eternal soul, whatever the fuck that was.
Was there CCTV in this place?
She glanced around herself but couldn’t see any mounted camera anywhere. But that wasn’t to say there was no CCTV.
Besides, she could just wish the whole fucking lot away if it went wrong, couldn’t she? She shrugged of the misgivings as she approached her target, counting off the door number backwards as she did so.
Fifty eight, fifty seven…
Fifty six.
What if he recognises me when he looks through the spyhole and doesn’t open the door? What if he’s out?
She knocked on the door and stepped back, turning sideways so she was in profile and sweeping her hair over the side of her face.
After what felt like an age, when in reality it was probably less than twenty seconds, the door creaked inwards.
“Yeah? Who are you?”
She kept her face turned sideways, peeping at him through the curtain of lank, shoulder length hair. It was the black guy. He was wearing grey tracksuit bottoms and a tight, white sleeveless t-shirt that showed off his wiry, muscular torso.
“It’s me, Marjorie.”
“Who?”
“Marjorie. From number forty three.” The door began to close. “Wait!”
“What the fuck do you want lady?”
She pulled off the rucksack which was slung over one shoulder, and unzipped it.
“I have something for you.”
Her fingers wrapped around the hard rubber handle of the smaller kitchen knife.
“What?”
He sounded bored, not scared.
“This.”
She lunged for him, the knife held out straight in front of her. He didn’t know what had hit him. Or in his case, stabbed him. The four inch, flat blade of the knife which she mainly used for peeling potatoes because she didn’t get on so well with the potato peeler, went all the way in. The black handle protruded just above the waistband of his tracksuit bottoms and quivered slightly.
She seized her moment and pushed him back into his apartment, slamming the door shut behind them. He staggered backwards, his hands hovering over the knife but not actually touching it, his eyes wide in disbelief.
Pa
m pushed him to the floor. He landed on his backside with a thunk that she felt sure the people in the downstairs apartment might hear. Still, never mind. She doubted very much that anyone in this tower block reacted to much of anything that went crash bang wallop.
“Who are you?” he gasped through a grimace of pain.
“Don’t you recognise me?” she asked pleasantly.
Pam was shocked to find she was rather enjoying herself. Ever so slowly, the man shook his head.
She sighed deeply. “Where’s my lamp?”
She saw the light dawn in his eyes.
“How did you find me?”
“Never mind that. Just give me back my lamp you sorry piece of shit.”
The man groaned through gritted teeth, beads of sweat shining on his dark forehead.
“I’m bleeding out here, you gotta help me.”
“Like you helped me yesterday, you mean?” The man screamed and she nudged the knife with the tip of her black plimsoll, which only made him scream some more. “Shut up, you fucker, or I swear to God I’ll twist the knife and gut you like a fish.”
The man fell onto his side and curled up in the foetal position. His hands fluttered over the handle of the knife but he was blatantly scared to touch it lest he made it worse.
She found she was really getting into it. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she had some sort of control over her life. She was so used to being treated like crap by everyone she came into contact with in her day to day existence that it was amazingly cathartic to be the one in charge.
“Please, take what you want, just don’t kill me.”
“Then tell me where the fucking lamp is.”
“Robbie has it. Jesus Christ, it hurts so much.”
Pam didn’t doubt him. Blood pooled around his midriff, soaking into the dingy grey carpet. It was a lot of blood. She vaguely wondered if it would drip through the ceiling of the apartment below.
She smiled to herself. Now she was just being silly.
“Are you sure Robbie has it? And what apartment does Robbie live in?”
“One hundred and seventy three,” he said without hesitation.
He’s not lying about the apartment number so he’s probably not lying about the lamp either…
“And where is my ten grand?”
“I have five, Robbie has the rest. Jesus fucking Christ! Stop, please! It’s in the War Zone disk case by the TV.”
Pam quit nudging the knife with her foot and went over to his mini library of games for his Xbox, or whatever the hell it was. Sure enough, the money was in the plastic case. She tucked it into the front compartment of her rucksack and zipped it up.
“One last chance, lover boy. Are you quite sure you don’t have my lamp?”
“Yes.” He began to cry. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so, sorry. Please don’t kill me.”
In that moment he looked just like a little kid who couldn’t find his mummy in a busy shop and she almost bottled it.
Almost. She leaned down and did exactly as she had threatened; in one swift movement she pulled the knife upwards. It wasn’t easy going, it met with surprising resistance, but it sure did make him scream a lot.
The screaming was hurting her ears and she was worried the neighbours would call the police so she yanked out the knife and slit his throat.
Just like that, her assailant was dead. She stared impassively down at him.
“One down, one to go,” she said to his corpse.
The blood continued to pour out of the gaping cut in his neck and the odour of shit hit her nostrils. The bastard had crapped himself before he died.
“I’m coming for you Robbie,” she said, wiping the blood off the knife on a small, still white patch of the man’s t-shirt.
Pam left the apartment, closing the door quietly behind her.
Five minutes later she was on the thirty sixth floor. She was calm to the point of serene, her mind a blank when she stood before the door for apartment one hundred and seventy three. She rapped her knuckles on the door, and, like before, she stood back slightly and in profile with her hair over one side of her face.
The door swung inwards a few inches.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
She couldn’t see him but she recognised the voice from yesterday.
“Hello Robbie. I have something for you.”
This time she had the knife tucked into the waistband of her trousers at the small of her back. She was just waiting for her opportune moment, waiting for him to open the door a little bit more…
It all happened so fast. As she stood there readying herself for attack, a blazing pain ripped through her foot. She cried out and crumpled to the floor.
What the fuck happened, she thought through her haze of agony. The narrow hallway swam in and out of focus and took on a grainy, black and white quality.
Strong hands hooked under her armpits and she felt herself being dragged along the floor on her back.
She opened her mouth to scream but fresh pain ricocheted through her face, making her head spin. She was dimly aware that he had stomped on her face but all she cared about right then was the pain.
“Please,” she said, but it came out as an incomprehensible gurgle.
She could taste blood on her words as she fought to stay awake. The distant sound of a door slamming pierced her brain before the darkness claimed her.
She had no idea how long she had been out. Groggily, she opened her eyes. Her eyelids felt heavy and sticky, and when she went to move her arms which were unfathomably stretched high above her head, she found she couldn’t. The events leading up to this moment in her life crashed through her mind and she groaned in misery.
The pain in her left foot was the worst. Tentatively she wriggled her toe and lightning bolts of pain coursed up her leg. He must’ve shot her through the half closed door, and his gun must’ve had a silencer.
Her moans of despair sounded muffled, and she noticed then that she couldn’t move her mouth. When she peered down her nose she could just glimpse thick, brown tape covering her mouth.
Once she had sufficiently gathered her thoughts, and forced herself to breathe through the pain, she properly noticed her surroundings for the first time. She couldn’t move her arms because they were handcuffed to the headboard of the double bed on which she lay.
She was in a neat, tidy and very small bedroom. Robbie’s bedroom.
The bastard’s only gone and kidnapped me. Now what the hell am I supposed to do?
She lifted up her head to peer down the length of her body and her neck trembled with the effort. To her utter horror, she saw that she was naked. Her big breasts, the colour of uncooked pastry, flopped into her armpits and her ankles were separated by some kind of long, thin spreader bar of around a metre in length. Her mangled, bloody foot poked pathetically through the metal hoop, and was at least twice the size of the other one. Despite the pain she was in, she stared in disgust down at her thick wedge of dark pubic hair and the way the thick lips of her fleshy vagina were exposed for all to see.
She began to cry. Her humiliation at her nudity was, in that moment, far worse than the pain and the threat of death.
Her chest rapidly rose and fell with her panicked panting as she tugged with all her strength at the handcuffs binding her wrists. Her tits jerked and her flabby stomach wobbled with the effort.
“Now there’s a sight. What a pig you are.”
When she lifted her head she saw Robbie standing in the bedroom doorway. She groaned into her gag and thrashed her head from side to side. He approached the bed and sat down near her face. He was wearing baggy blue jeans and a tight white t-shirt with a sport’s logo emblazoned across the front.
Inside she shrivelled in mortification at him seeing her like this, and even though it hurt her foot like holy fuck, she drew her legs up and together so that her knees touched. But that was no better, now her arsehole as well as her pussy was on display so she dropped her legs back down to
the bed again.
“How did you find me? Who sent you?” he barked at her.
He leaned over to rip the tape free from her mouth, taking with it some of the not so tiny hairs that adorned her upper lip.
“Let me go,” she panted to his question.
He slapped her hard across her already sore face. Her head snapped sideways and she cried some more, snot bubbling in her nose.
“How did you find me? Did Kilburn send you?”
Pam had no idea what he was talking about and that scared her even more.
“Who’s Kilburn?”
He glared down at her, a myriad of emotions flowing over his face. Anger. Fear. Agitation.
She noticed how his knee was bouncing up and down and she wondered if he was a druggie due for a fix. Even if he wasn’t, this guy was seriously wrong in the head and she was in the deepest shit possible.
“Who’s Kilburn,” he repeated to himself, his leg bobbing manically up and down. “Who’s Kilburn, who’s Kilburn, who’s Kilburn.”
Pam stared helplessly up at him.
“I’ll tell you who Kilburn is,” he shouted at her. “He’s the head of the gang I don’t want nothin’ to do with no more. But you know that already, don’t you? Because when me and Vince mugged you yesterday, you described me to him and he instantly knew it was me so he sent you to kill me. He’d like that crazy shit, sending you to bump me off like that chick out of the 70s flick, I Spit On Your Grave because we used to watch that movie together all the time, and this is like, a message from him.”
“No,” Pam said when he paused to draw breath. “I don’t know who Kilburn is.”
“Oh yeah? How’d you find me then?”
Because a genie in a bottle gave me your address…
Her pause told him everything he thought he already knew, she could see it in his eyes.
Shit, I’ve got to tell him something, anything…
“I recognised you. I’ve seen you go into your apartment. I live here too, I live at one seventy.”