by David Jester
Darren managed to catch sight of his attacker’s face and he thought he saw Eddie. He didn’t believe what he was seeing at first and struggled to maintain his vision as the blows continued to rain down, but he knew that hair, he recognized those angry eyes and that snarling mouth.
“Stop!” he yelled, but Eddie wasn’t listening and Darren was forced to cover his face to protect himself.
“Eddie! It’s me—” His words were cut short as Eddie grabbed him by the throat and squeezed. Darren pulled his hands away from his face and used them to claw at Eddie’s hand, to try to pry his fingers away, but his grip was firm. He looked into Eddie’s eyes, wondered why he wasn’t stopping, why he hadn’t recognized him. Eddie wasn’t even looking at him; his eyes were fixed on his own hands, on strangling the life out of Darren and on—
Darren’s eyes bulged when he saw the knife in Eddie’s free hand. He felt his body tense, felt every muscle awaken as his body prepared every reserve of energy it could find. Eddie was holding the knife above Darren’s squirming body, aiming for his chest.
“Eddie!” He tried to yell, but his voice struggled to splutter out of his throat, along with his breath. He tried to wriggle free, to buck and to kick his friend off him, he even landed a few knees on Eddie’s back, but Eddie didn’t move. His eyes were set on Darren’s throat and chest; his goal was clear and a few bumps and scrapes weren’t going to stop him from achieving it.
Darren tried to punch Eddie’s hand away, but as soon as he moved his hands from his throat, from attempting to pry away Eddie’s crushing fingers from his larynx, Eddie squeezed tighter and Darren moved one step closer to the abyss. He kicked harder, squirmed more, but his efforts seemed futile and he could only watch, staring into his friend’s eyes, and hope that he would realize and stop.
Malcolm watched the man scuttle along the floor like a rabid, vociferous feline. He was on his hands and knees, his clothes torn to asunder around him; his flesh looking like it had been picked apart by hungry vultures. Malcolm couldn’t see his face. He couldn’t see beyond his arched back—pointing in a painful arc towards the stuttering fluorescence above—or the back of his head, his long hair parted down the middle and seeped with blood and sweat.
He had followed him down the corridor after watching him slowly making his way out of a nearby cell. He hadn’t seen Malcolm and seemed oblivious to everything around him as he slowly dragged his way down the corridor, a trail of blood following him like the sticky remains of a snail.
The man mumbled as he crawled. “Silly fucking tosser. Thinks he could get the better of me. Ha! Prick.”
Malcolm was mildly amused by the madman on his hands and knees and walked slowly behind him, his curiosity getting the better of him. He didn’t want to turn back and go the other way, nor did he want to enter one of the cells that flanked the corridor. He could have easily stepped over the crawling man and walked away. He was in no fit state to run after him. But Malcolm was intrigued, and a little disturbed, by the scurrying gremlin in front of him.
“I showed him. Fucking cunt. Gave him a piece of my mind.”
Malcolm knew who he was referring to. After the man in front of him had crawled out of the cell, Malcolm had poked his head inside, carefully to peek around the corner to make sure that whoever was inside wouldn’t see him. The man inside the room wouldn’t have seen him if he had been standing in the doorway doing a jig. He was dead. His body had been ripped apart. His flesh had been peeled off his skin and thrown around the room; his face looked like it had been half-eaten by a dog that had sickened itself on the taste of flesh.
Malcolm had grown indifferent to the slaughter. Nothing he saw shocked him after what he had seen in the television room, nothing could haunt his nightmares like that image would. It sickened him, the scent of fresh death and the sight of torn flesh disturbed him, but he blocked it out. To save his sanity.
Taking one step at a time, he kept pace with the mumbling man. He was living his last, the trail of blood behind him was getting thicker, his breath was getting heavier and his words more incoherent. Malcolm felt an urge to help him, an altruistic urge that resided deep down and indicated that the thing in front of him was still human and still needed saving. He did his best to ignore that urge, concentrating on the atrocities back in the cell, on the massacre in the television room, and on telling himself that the thing in front of him wasn’t human. The thing in front of him wasn’t even an animal; animals killed for food and necessity, this man, this thing, killed for pleasure. He killed because something in his mind told him it was fun.
Malcolm had once dealt with a rabid dog at the animal shelter. It had bitten its owner and mutilated their cat before making light work of a couple of hamsters and then going for their child, scarring it for life. It would have killed the toddler if a brave and horrified neighbor hadn’t tackled it to the ground. The dog had been in the family for years; it was as much a part of the family as the child that it attacked. Then, one day, seemingly without reason, something inside its brain snapped and it went on a rampage. They still loved it, still thought of it as one of their children, and so they took it to the shelter, begging that something be done to rehabilitate it, to look after it. “He’s a good dog really,” the tearful owner had insisted. “Please don’t put him down.” The owner, had managed to get it inside a carrier, suffering a number of wounds in the process, and, as it sat in the waiting room, frothing at the mouth and trying to tear its way out of the kennel, the owner tried to convince Malcolm that it was a loving animal.
Malcolm had sympathized. He listened to the stories of when the dog was younger, when he was a sweet, caring, if a little hyperactive beast. But he had seen the dog, he had seen its handiwork, and he knew that there was no good in that animal. It was pure evil; whatever good had once been there was gone and wasn’t coming back. He gave the woman his promise that the dog would be re-homed, then he phoned the authorities, told them what the owner hadn’t, and they put the dog down.
He felt terrible for it. He didn’t sleep properly for weeks, but he knew he had done the right thing. He had seen inside the dog’s soul and he hadn’t glimpsed even the remotest glimmer of goodness.
“Fuck. Prick. Wanker. Ha! He got it.”
Malcolm felt the same way about the man at his feet. He hadn’t seen into his eyes, and he doubted he had a soul to look into, but he knew that this man, this cursing, bleeding mess, didn’t deserve to live. There was no good in him, nothing but violence, hatred, and evil.
That was the real reason he stayed in step with the scurrying, hemorrhaging beast; he wanted to make sure that he died.
Darren wasn’t sure if Eddie was going to strangle him or stab him through the heart, he seemed to want to do both. The knife was still above his chest and Eddie’s eyes were still staring gleefully at it, as if imagining the moment it went through his heart and savoring every thought of it, but at the same time, Darren’s lungs hadn’t had their vital dose of oxygen for a few dozen seconds. No matter how hard he tried to pry Eddie’s hand away from his throat, he was successful only in feeling a small relief from his crushing fingers. His breath wasn’t getting through either way.
He was feeling lightheaded and weak, he knew he didn’t have long left. He had no other choice. He freed his hands; they instinctively tried to move back to his own throat when Eddie’s grip tightened, but he kept them away. Eddie realized what was going to happen and he used that moment to end his dream and to satisfy his blood lust. He lifted the knife up and then thrust it downwards, aiming for Darren’s heart.
Darren threw his right hand in the way. The blade dug into the flesh and sliced straight through. It stopped when the handle of the knife connected with knuckle.
Darren screamed. The blade was poking a few inches through his flesh; blood was dripping down his wrist, onto his neck, and onto his chin. Eddie released his grip on Darren’s throat and Darren bucked out, successfully this time. He used his anger and his pain, used all the adrenaline that
coursed through him, to knock his friend off the top of him. Eddie toppled over and Darren scrambled to his knees. The anger and the insanity had been banished from his friend’s eyes, but Darren now felt that anger and madness running through him. He ripped the knife out of his hand, screaming as the white-hot pain screeched through him. He was huffing and panting, frothing at the mouth and grinding his teeth. He rolled onto his friend, spraying him with spittle as he breathed through his open mouth.
“Bastard!” he screeched. “Fucking bastard!” he waved his hand around, splashing Eddie with his blood. He held the knife to Eddie’s throat; it trembled unsteadily in his weaker left hand. He pressed it there until he felt the flesh tear, until he exposed a small cut and a small trickle of Eddie’s blood.
“Darren! Darren, it’s me!” Eddie said, staring up at his friend.
Darren pressed the knife tighter. “Really?” he spat. “Are you fucking shitting me?”
“I’m sorry,” Eddie pleaded. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you.”
Darren frowned, but felt some of his anger subside. The pain was still horrendous, the blood still poured freely, but he felt his heartbeat steady, felt his breathing slow.
“What the fuck?” he spat.
“I’m so sorry,” Eddie said. “I didn’t know it was you. I thought . . .” He trailed off, looking pleadingly into Darren’s eyes, the knife still pressed to his throat.
Darren stared at his friend for a few moments. He looked into his desperate eyes and remembered how they had been just seconds earlier, how they had seemed in a world of their own as they stared blankly back at him; prepared to kill him.
“Honestly,” Eddie said, his voice breaking.
Darren’s breath was steady, the adrenaline was taking care of the pain, but it was still agonizing. He saw something in Eddie’s eyes that he didn’t like, but he was his friend, had always been his friend; he knew that he wouldn’t try to kill him intentionally. They had their arguments, which had increased recently, but although Eddie had threatened to kill him many times, he knew he wouldn’t actually go through with it.
He released the pressure on the knife, pulled it away from his friend’s throat, and rolled off the top of him. He pressed himself up against the wall, holding his bleeding hand in his lap and watching as Eddie climbed to his feet, brushed himself down and then looked at Darren with an apprehensive smile on his lips. He looked at the knife still held in Darren’s left hand, at the blood gushing from his right hand.
“Sorry about that,” Eddie said.
Darren glowered at his friend. There was something disingenuous and rotten about his apology. He had just stabbed him, tried to kill him. Sorry hardly seemed good enough and the way he had said it, the expression he had on his face, wasn’t even a good enough apology for standing on someone’s toes.
“It’s okay,” Darren said, despite himself.
28
Malcolm carefully stepped over the body in front of him, turning to give him one last look, one last check.
The cursing animal had made it to the end of the corridor, a trail of his blood forming an expanding line, like a clogged artery, from the cell door to where he now lay; his face pressed against the floor, his arms and legs splayed out. He was still cursing to his last breath, right before his face lowered to the floor.
Malcolm crouched down, bent over, aiming an ear towards him.
He was still breathing, struggling to talk, mumbling like a drunk about to enter the abyss of unconsciousness. His words were unclear, indecipherable; Malcolm doubted that even he knew what he was saying.
Malcolm pressed his face closer when the breathing slowed and the words softened even more. He moved until he was an inch away from the top of his head, until he could smell the blood on his face and the musty stench that seeped from his unwashed hair.
“You!” His voice was louder than before, but still soft, still staggered. He looked shocked and Malcolm knew why. He could see it in his eyes. The man currently staring up at him thought he was staring into the eyes of his victim, the one he had butchered, the one who had injured him, and the one whose corpse and bodily fluids now decorated one of the clinic’s many rooms.
The man moved, a slight but unmistakable shift. Malcolm sighed but did not move.
“But . . . I . . . killed . . . you,” the man hissed.
Malcolm frowned. He began to move his head away, to give up on watching him die, when the man’s head suddenly snapped upwards. The back of his skull clattered with Malcolm’s mouth and knocked him backwards, he rocked on his haunches, scuttled backwards, throwing a hand to his face. The dying man’s head had knocked against his two front teeth; he had felt them against the hairy flesh and now he could taste the dying man on his lips and on his tongue.
He was looking at Malcolm now, his neck arched backwards, the rest of his body seemingly already dead, incapable of movement. His glassy green eyes locked onto Malcolm’s and his expression, initially filled with wry vengeance, changed into a look of bemusement.
“Who . . . the . . . fuck . . . are . . . you?” he staggered, each word carried on a single breath, each breath a countdown to his last.
Malcolm didn’t answer; he just stared at him, keeping his hand pressed to his mouth, stuffing the flesh of his palm between his lips, hoping to erase the taste of the dying man.
The man stared for a moment longer, then his bemusement turned blank, his neck muscles capitulated and his face fell. He was finally dead. Malcolm shook his head, checked his hand for any signs of blood, any cuts on his gums or his lips, and then stood up straight.
He looked down the stretch of corridor, lined with the smudged trail of blood that he had watched being created; he looked to the cell, where the fight that ended this man’s life had taken place. He pictured the atrocities there, the horrors inside; none of that made him sick to his stomach, but now, with the taste of this despicable, dead thing in his mouth, he felt like he had been poisoned.
Darren slowly removed his jacket and his shirt, making sure to keep his friend in his sights and the knife in his hand. The shirt was thin, flimsy. He handed it to Eddie.
“Rip that for me,” he instructed.
Eddie stared at the shirt and then at his friend. He nodded and tore the shirt in half. Darren held out his injured hand, still breathing heavily from the pain. Without a word and while Darren held the knife in his free hand, Eddie wrapped the torn shirt tightly around the wound, making a knot at the end. Darren’s hand was padded and he wouldn’t be able to move his fingers, but it would help stop the bleeding.
He sat against the wall, staring at his bandaged hand.
“So, where did you end up?” Darren said after a while, when the pain had subdued and his breathing and his heart rate had returned to normal, or as normal as they were going to get. “What have you been doing?”
Eddie looked suspiciously at Darren. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Did you find anything, a way out, some information on where the fuck we are?”
“Ah,” Eddie nodded. “No,” he said, bringing a look of bemusement to Darren’s face.
“I don’t think this is a rehab clinic.” Darren looked up and down the corridor, wary of another run-in with one of the psychopaths that seemingly wandered freely. “What exactly did your uncle say about this place?”
“You calling my uncle a liar?” Eddie snapped.
“What? No, I never—”
“You better watch your fucking mouth Daz,” Eddie said. “He’s family. Watch who you’re offending.”
“I didn’t—”
“What was that?” Eddie’s attention was suddenly diverted. He looked over Darren’s shoulder, down the corridor. Darren turned sharply, the knife held tightly in his hand, ready for use if he encountered more crazies who wanted to toy with him. He couldn’t see anything, the light at the end was flickering, as it seemed were most of the lights in the building, but there was no one underneath it.
“You see tha
t?” Eddie asked, looking alert, his attention still on the end of the corridor.
Darren turned to his friend and then back to the corridor. There was nothing there, he was certain of it.
“What?” Darren asked, his eyes still staring down the corridor. “You’re seeing things.” He stared for a moment longer, almost expecting something to materialize. When he finally turned back to his friend, he was surprised to see that Eddie had been gazing at the back of his head and was now gazing into his eyes.
Darren jumped and then tried to laugh it off. “What the fuck? You scared me. Giving me the evil fucking eye in a place like this, stop that shit, you’ll creep me out.”
Eddie didn’t look away, didn’t even blink. He continued to stare. Darren felt uncomfortable under his gaze. His eyes looked soulless, empty, and annoyed all at the same time. Eventually Darren looked away, turning his head and feeling uneasy, knowing that Eddie was still watching.
He turned back after a moment and found that Eddie had shifted closer; Darren could feel his breath on his face. He still wasn’t blinking. He wasn’t allowing a glimmer of emotion to cross his face.
“You better watch your mouth,” Eddie warned, holding Darren’s stare. “I ain’t gonna put up with that shit anymore.”
“What shit? What are you talking about?”
Eddie didn’t answer. He moved his face away from Darren’s and looked over his shoulder again, just for a moment, before swapping his intimidating stare for a faux grin. “Come on then,” he said, stretching his grin wider, a little too wide for Darren’s liking, it couldn’t have looked more disingenuous. “We better start looking for Mal.”
Darren stared at his friend for a moment, knowing that he was holding the knife tighter in his fist, keeping it closer to his body. “Okay.”
“You lead the way,” Eddie said, gesturing down the hall.
Darren shook his head, stepped against the wall, his eyes not leaving his friend. “No. After you.”
Eddie shrugged and started down the corridor, Darren watched the back of his head for moment, wandering what was going on inside that brain, and then he followed, making sure his knife was pointed towards his friend.