Before Her Eyes

by Jack Jordan

  ‘Isn’t she in hospital?’

  ‘Not any more. Call me if anything happens.’

  He ended the call, then tried Lisa’s phone, just in case she had switched it on, and cursed her as it went straight to voicemail.

  Outside the flat, multiple footsteps echoed up the stairs. Marcus looked down at Dane’s swollen face, ghoulish in the torchlight.

  ‘The paramedics are here now, Dane. We’ll get you out of these cuffs and cleaned up in no time.’

  There was no response. Dane had mercifully lost consciousness.

  ‘We’ll get her, Dane,’ Marcus said softly. ‘We’ll get her.’

  SIXTY

  Naomi sat tied to the chair by the fire, screaming behind the gag. Pain scorched all over her body. Josie had dragged the poker down her arms, across her chest and stomach. She had run it along Naomi’s ribs and scorched down to the bone. Every single wound pulsed like it had its own small heart. Naomi had cried for so many hours that there were no more tears to shed. The scent of burnt meat filled the air. It had taken her a while to realise the smell was coming from her.

  George had been quiet for too long. He hadn’t even woken to the sound of her muffled screams. He had left her alone with the madwoman.

  Josie sat in front the fireplace and took a gulp of vodka from the bottle as she shifted the burning wood with the poker. She had raided Naomi’s drinks cabinet just before the torture began. Naomi suspected that by morning, the cabinet would be empty and she herself would be dead.

  She would never forget Josie’s glee during the attack. She had breathed heavily through a smile, licked her lips, laughed loudly when Naomi squealed behind the gag, and poked the wounds with her finger to hear her scream.

  But as the hours passed Josie grew quieter, and through the pain and the blips of unconsciousness when it all got too much, Naomi figured out why. She had strayed from the killer’s pattern. The other victims hadn’t been burned or mutilated like this. Josie had screwed up. The police wouldn’t link this case to the earlier murders; they would look for another killer – for her.

  Josie had wanted Naomi to feel the pain she herself had been dealt. The burns singeing down to Naomi’s bones mirrored those Josie’s brothers had given her as a child. They were the same now.

  ‘Do you ever think of your mother?’ Josie asked. She sounded tired and distant. Maybe she had been crying too. ‘Your real mother?’ She stumbled to her feet and yanked the gag from Naomi’s mouth. The fabric left a dry fur on her tongue where the sock and muscle had stuck together.

  Naomi tried to find the strength to speak, but the screams had left her throat scratched and sore and the gag had leeched all the moisture from her tongue.

  ‘No.’

  Josie snorted. ‘Liar.’

  The vodka sloshed up the bottle as she tipped it to her lips, gulped twice.

  ‘What do you think drove her to do it? Leave you there in the middle of the night? Dane said he thought that’s why you’re so defensive and struggle to let people in. Not that I agree with him: you let him between your legs easily enough.’

  Naomi didn’t reply; she couldn’t. Her back was slumped and her head hung forward. She fought to keep her eyes open as her body longed to shut down and block out the pain.

  A stray sound rumbled up George’s throat, birthed from somewhere deep inside his torn-up lungs.

  Fight for him.

  The idea of moving her burnt limbs sent tears from her eyes to her lap.

  Fight for yourself.

  She began to pull at the rope around her wrists, hidden behind her back. She gritted her teeth as it sawed at her skin.

  ‘Was it drugs that made her do it? Money problems? Or was it you?’

  Naomi longed for the poker again. She’d welcome the scorching of her skin until it bubbled up in blisters. Anything but talk of her mother.

  ‘She probably couldn’t stand the sight of you.’

  The poker chimed against the rack as Josie hung it back up beside the fire.

  ‘You’ve really got to hate a kid to leave them alone at night like that and never come back. Anything could have happened. Did she ever try to contact you?’

  Naomi lowered her head until her chin pressed into a burn on her chest and a blister popped, oozing liquid down between her breasts. The pain was easier than showing Josie that her words had got to her, that tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘She didn’t, did she? Just shows you then. You were the problem. You destroy people’s lives.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Naomi whispered as she pulled her left hand against the rope until her fingers swelled.

  ‘Everyone’s crazy, Naomi. It’s all a game of who can hide it best.’ Another swig from the bottle. ‘I mean, look at you,’ she said, swallowing. ‘You would’ve killed yourself if Dane hadn’t stopped you. If only you had. It would have saved us all so much grief.’

  Dane had told Josie so much about her. Had he only spoken about her when asked? Or did he constantly bring her up, just as Josie said?

  ‘I pity you,’ Naomi said, her voice so hoarse that the words sounded like growls. ‘I pity you for wanting someone who clearly doesn’t give a damn about you.’

  Josie was quick to her feet and gripped Naomi’s jaw in one hand.

  ‘Shut your mouth.’

  ‘He’s seen you for what you really are; he must hate you just as much as you hate me.’

  The vodka splashed onto her burns and seeped into the broken skin. The pain was so agonising that she couldn’t even find the strength to scream. The liquid dribbled down her semi-naked body, rolling down her front and her back, all the way to her bound wrists, moistening the skin and the rope. She was sure she could hear it hissing on her wounds.

  Josie sat back down by the fire and threw the empty bottle to the floor with a heavy clonk.

  ‘You have no idea what Dane and I have,’ she said, her tone low and grave. ‘He’ll forgive me for hurting him, and one day he’ll thank me for getting you out of our lives. He doesn’t know it yet, but you’ve destroyed him. He’ll see the truth. I’ll wait as long as it takes.’

  Naomi pulled at the rope again and felt the instant release of pressure as one hand slipped free.

  ‘I could never bring myself to hate him,’ Josie whispered, her voice quiet as she faced the fire. ‘I wish I could, but I can’t. It wasn’t him who made him act the way he did. It was you. I can’t hate him for that.’

  Naomi freed the other wrist quickly, then bent down and untied her ankles from the chair legs, biting down on her bottom lip as the burns folded with her skin.

  ‘He’ll love me again, Naomi. I know he will. When you’re dead, everything will be right again.’

  Naomi lunged forward with her hands out and shoved Josie with all of her strength, launching her head-first into the fire. Sparks blasted out into the room and stung Naomi’s skin. The fire roared furiously around Josie’s body, and she screamed and kicked wildly against the flames, knocking the poker rack over with a clatter. She sounded like an animal, wailing with a mouthful of flames.

  Josie banged her head on the mouth of the chimney. As she fought against the fire, she swiped at Naomi’s face with her nails.

  Naomi’s legs buckled beneath her as her lungs filled with black smoke. Josie screamed in agony and twitched violently as the fire ate away at her, but she still found the strength to latch both hands around Naomi’s throat and squeeze.

  ‘Die!’ she screamed. Hot tears dripped from her eyes and fell onto Naomi’s cheeks.

  Naomi felt around her with her hands, wild and frantic as sparks and burning ashes fell on her. She felt the cool glass of the vodka bottle against her fingertips and grasped hold of the neck.

  The bottle smashed against Josie’s head. Glass and sparks exploded. Pinches of flame scorched Naomi’s skin and shards of glass caught in her hair. Josie groaned through gritted teeth and lifted her hands to her head.

  Naomi clawed the air in front of her and snatched
a handful of hair, hot and shrivelled in the palm of her hand. She dragged Josie to the ground and pulled herself on top of her, pushing her into the floor with her hips as she frantically searched the floor for the neck of the broken bottle, anything to protect herself. Her fingers found the poker lying on the floor beside the overturned rack just as the knife penetrated the flesh above her belly button.

  ‘Just die!’ Josie rasped.

  The blade felt cold inside her, even as the warm blood slipped down Naomi’s stomach. Her muscles clenched around it like pursed lips and retracted when the blade sliced into them. Tears slid down her cheeks as she took the poker in both hands.

  ‘No, Josie.’ She sniffed away tears. ‘I’m going to live.’

  She raised the poker above her head, screaming as the blade moved within her, and brought it down with the last of her strength.

  Josie loosened her grip on the knife; her hand fell limply to the floor. The knife dangled in the wound, pulsing with Naomi’s heart. Naomi gripped the handle and screamed as she eased the blade out. Blood coated her hands and dripped from her fingers. The knife fell to the floor with a clatter.

  The room was quiet. Wood crackled in the fireplace. Blood gargled in Josie’s throat. Naomi felt the poker standing erect in the air, shuddering from the blow, and followed it down until the warmth of Josie’s blood bubbled beneath her fingertips. The poker had plunged into her neck and lodged in the bone, choking her.

  She whimpered and covered her mouth. She could taste Josie on her lips.

  She lay and listened to the blood filling Josie’s mouth and her throat contracting around the poker. Josie’s pulse slowed against Naomi’s thighs. Her last breath was far more desperate than the rest, ripping at the air in one final bid to live, before rattling out again in a collection of sighs. Then she shuddered and fell still, with a final retch of blood spilling from her lips and dribbling onto the floorboards.

  The agony rushed back into Naomi’s body, pulsing at her burns, throbbing from the stab wound. She crawled across the floor with blood seeping from the wound and drooling along the floorboards, and reached up for the phone with one hand as the other buckled beneath her.

  She lay against the floorboards as the pain took over. She listened to the sound of the fire, the rasping breaths wheezing in and out of her own nostrils.

  Her head felt light. Her lungs filled with the smell of toasted skin and black smoke. Blood swelled in her abdomen. She closed her eyes.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Anything?’ Marcus asked as he approached Billy Edwards and Kate Finch, stationed outside Naomi’s house.

  The windows lining the street reflected the rising sun as though the houses were ablaze. When he sniffed the air, he was sure he could smell smoke.

  ‘No answer.’

  ‘Next time, kick the damn door down.’

  ‘Wouldn’t we need a warrant?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Not if you suspect harm.’ Marcus made his way to the front door and banged loudly with his fist. A dog barked from a distant garden. He banged again, then bent down to the letter box and peered inside.

  The room was dark except for the embers glowing in the fireplace. The smell of burnt meat hit him instantly. He grimaced, but continued to search for human forms in the room. He homed in on something in the shadows and followed it down to where smoke curled up from a blackened body.

  ‘Shit. Get an ambulance here.’ He stood up and stared up at the house, hoping to find an open window. ‘We need to get in there.’

  ‘We could rip the board off the window,’ Billy suggested as Kate pressed her phone to her ear.

  ‘It would take too long. Stand back.’

  Marcus looked at the white door, bathed orange in the glow of the rising sun, and launched a kick under the lock. He kicked again and again, until the lock splintered and the door clattered against the wall, marked with his shoeprints.

  He stood in the doorway to the living room and looked down at the woman’s body. A poker was lodged in her neck. The skin on her face had melted away, revealing strips of burnt muscle and the white of her skull. But there was just enough left for him to recognise her: it was Josie.

  ‘She’s dead,’ he said breathlessly as Billy appeared in the doorway behind him, blocking out the light. Marcus searched the wall and flicked the light switch. His fingertips were covered in blood. He wiped them on the back of his trousers and looked about the room.

  Naomi was lying by the sideboard with her eyes closed, in a pool of blood. She was just in her underwear, her skin littered with burns, just like Dane. He spotted the open wound in her abdomen, framed by congealed blood. A man was lying beneath the boarded window in his own crimson pool.

  ‘We need two ambulances!’ Marcus yelled.

  He darted across the room and landed on his knees. He felt for a pulse on her neck, pressing his fingers hard against the cold skin. It was faint, but it was there, like the ticking of a clock stitched deep beneath the skin.

  Billy was crouched beside the man, with his hand on his neck.

  ‘He alive?’ Marcus asked as he pressed down on Naomi’s wound. Fresh blood swelled between his fingers. The tear in her skin felt like lips sucking at his palm.

  Billy stared at Josie’s body as he waited for the beat of the man’s heart. ‘Just.’

  Sirens called in the distance.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Billy said, glancing up anxiously.

  ‘Not fast enough,’ Marcus replied, wiping sweat from his brow.

  ‘Shit,’ Billy whispered as he checked the man’s neck with both hands, his eyes wide and searching.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t feel a pulse any more.’

  ‘Take over here,’ Marcus said. He waited for Billy’s hands to replace his own on Naomi’s abdomen before darting across the floor on his knees. He listened for breath at the man’s mouth and looked down at his chest for movement. Nothing.

  ‘Where are the paramedics, Kate?’ he called towards the door as he laced his fingers together and began to perform CPR.

  ‘Here! I can hear them!’

  Marcus pumped his hands into the man’s chest and watched as his head lolled against the hardwood floor. Prising open his mouth, he breathed heavily and filled the man’s lungs. Stubble scratched against his lips. He pumped again, sporadically checking for a pulse. Each time he pressed his hands into the stranger’s chest, the pool of blood seeped further around him, coating his knees. He knew he had to keep going. Without blood and oxygen to his brain, the man would die. Keeping the blood flowing was the priority. He continued to work even when he felt ribs crack beneath his hands and sweat dripped into his eyes.

  He looked up to see a woman in green kneeling beside him. She had warm brown skin, and long dark hair held back with a band. She looked at him with kind eyes.

  ‘Take a break,’ she said. ‘I’ve got this.’

  Marcus pressed himself against the wall and heaved for air as he watched the paramedic push down against the man’s chest with all her weight, as another paramedic fitted a clear shield into the man’s mouth for her to breathe air into. Marcus wiped his lips with the back of his hand and eyed the room, taking in the smell of burnt flesh, the sour tang of blood, the smoke curling up from the body. Josie’s burns were worse than he’d thought. It wasn’t just her face and neck, but her whole body; the fire had eaten away at her until her clothes melted into the skin and crisped against her bones.

  Billy was looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

  ‘Did someone ask me something?’ Blots of white light were flashing in his eyes.

  ‘What are the injuries?’ the paramedic asked again, pumping her hands against the man’s chest.

  ‘Both victims have stab wounds,’ Billy said as he eyed Marcus’s heaving breaths. ‘The man was stabbed in the left side of his back, the woman in the centre of her abdomen. The third …’

  He didn’t need to say any more. Everyone in the room could smell the death on her, taste it with ev
ery breath they took.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the woman in green said. ‘We’ve lost him.’

  Marcus’s eyes darted to her face. She nodded to confirm, and he looked down at the blood dripping from his shaking hands. It hadn’t been enough.

  ‘You did everything you could.’

  Marcus sighed, bowed his head. ‘And Naomi? The woman?’

  ‘Not as stable as I’d like,’ the male paramedic said as he set up a gurney beside her.

  Marcus nodded and tried to stand, but his legs were weak. Blood dripped from the hem of his trousers. He was so exhausted that he could have slept right there in the corner of the room, surrounded by all the blood and death, but he fought his legs and made his way to the door.

  ‘Good work, Billy,’ he said, slapping him on the back as he stepped outside, leaving a bloody handprint on his high-vis jacket.

  The sun was higher in the sky. He squinted against the glare, raising his hand to shield his face, and saw that residents of the street had congregated outside the house.

  ‘Please go home, we’ve got this under control,’ Kate was saying. She turned at the sound of him and her face drained of colour. Marcus looked down and saw the blood coating his trousers and dripping onto the concrete path. His hands were smeared red.

  They all stood silently, staring past Kate at the open door, which revealed splashes of blood, the smell of cooked skin. Marcus eyed each neighbour in turn.

  ‘You could have done something,’ he said. ‘You could have helped her. But you didn’t. You left her.’

  They stared back at him, eyes wide and unblinking. One woman wiped away a tear. The man named Daniel, who had been the spokesman for the group before, was fixated on the blood soaked into Marcus’s trousers.

  ‘You believed the gossip, and now she’s fighting for her life and an innocent man is dead. If anything comes from this, I hope it’s a lesson for you all to have some fucking compassion.’ He turned at the touch of Billy’s hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m fine.’

  He sat on the kerb and buried his face in his hands.