“I need numbers. I wanted them all dead,” Edward spat through gritted teeth. Drops of blood landed on the floor from where the knife had hit his face.
“Why not kill them sooner?”
“I also needed leverage.”
“They’re coming for you, hostages or not,” Elizabeth pointed out. “And now you’ve got me, anyway.”
Edward’s eyes glazed. They seemed to get darker. Something more sinister was ticking over behind his weathered and beaten exterior.
“Yes. I’ve got you now,” he said with icy assertiveness.
Dr Wells lifted herself off the wet, blood-spattered floor and rested on her forearms.
“Is this how it’s going to end?” she asked.
Edward didn’t answer the question directly, for he had spotted that Elizabeth had dropped her mobile a few feet away, under the sink. Intentionally or not, the phone was not only switched on, noise was also coming from it.
“I know you’d called Tom just before I got to his place.”
Dr Wells swallowed her nerves. “What did you do to him? My appointments with him were because of him. They had nothing to do with you.”
Edward motioned to the teeth on the floor near them.
“They aren’t both from Simon,” he reminded her. Before he could elaborate, muffled voices could be heard coming from her abandoned phone.
“They’re out, I think.”
“Hostages times three are safe and heading to the exfil point.”
Fuck, he thought.
“Bring three ambulances around from the rendezvous point. They need a full escort from the SFOs.”
Edward lifted a fire extinguisher out of its cradle at the side of the room. Then he stepped forward. Gripping it in both hands, he lorded it above Elizabeth’s head.
“Two priority two casualties: GSW to the thigh, one suspected hand injury. One times priority three; appears physically unharmed.”
Edward advanced.
“Now Edward, don’t. You had your whole life ahead of you. Where’s the boy who loved to write and lived to love?” She broke down, succumbing to the knowledge her fate was sealed.
“No family. Terminal illness. Betrayed by my boyfriend and now by you!” His voice swelled with a natural anger. He hoped the goons on the other end of the line were eavesdropping now.
“You have a family, Edward. Your HIV has always been manageable. Tom was looking out for you. I bear you no ill will.”
“No, don’t give me that!”
“Don’t, Edward. It doesn’t have to be like this.” She whispered more softly as she shed tears. “Please, Edward.”
Disinterest written across Edward’s face, he thrust the fire extinguisher down onto her phone with virulent wrath. Daylight passed between the soles of his shoes and the tiled floor, where he jumped into the air to generate momentum. Then he swung the shell square into Dr Wells’ skull. This impact was sufficient to stun her; her raised arms were useless as she recoiled from its power. She shuddered and her arms shook violently.
“I’m sorry Edward,” she gasped in that unedifying voice adopted when one is forced to plead for their lives. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more for you. I let you down. But please, stop this. You’re killing me.”
“Go to hell,” Edward seethed. The second blow drew blood. Dr Wells’ nose exploded and the vessels in an eyeball ruptured. The third hit knocked her out. Her head slammed onto the vinyl floor with a dull thud that reverberated around the swamped room. The fourth strike smashed the teeth from her now broken jaw. More blood flowed. Her eyes lolled to the back of their sockets. One of Elizabeth’s loosened teeth hit the floor, adding to the trophies Edward had scooped from his earlier victims: his boyfriend and his bully.
Five, six, seven. Edward was no longer encumbered by his psychopathic urges; rather, he was now acting out the shameless fury that had fomented in his psyche for six years or more. He let go of the metal cylinder, allowing it to drop square onto her face. Her forehead had caved in, her eyeball was deflated, her lower jaw now wrapped around the extinguisher. Her nose had lost two of its three dimensions.
“Breach-breach.”
“Affirmative.”
It was Edward’s turn to take flight from the consulting room, leaving the tragic psychiatrist prone and unmoving on the floor. Mutilated, she had given her all to save others, only to be afforded a great indignity at the last.
XXXVII
Edward ran into the waiting area outside Elizabeth’s office and raced towards the main stairwell. Before he could get past the security doors, he caught a glimpse of shadowy figures approaching the landing. A quick succession of pops, then a climactic bang forced Edward into an adjacent ward. Shouts and a blast deafened him as he tumbled into the room. Tear gas seeped into the room and sparks hailed from the fluorescent strip lighting, destroyed by a flash-bang.
At the far end of the ward stood a fire exit. Edward didn’t wait for an invitation. Drenched head to foot from landing in ankle-deep standing water, he sprinted to the door and breached it at the same moment a team of firearms officers broke into the ward. More pops rang out as he tore up the stairs, not down them. He didn’t know what he was doing. He couldn’t be sure what twisted reality this was. No matter; he bounded up the fire escape regardless.
Come on, he willed himself forward. His legs were molten. Was this yet another depraved nightmare? Urgh, as he felt a familiar pang of nausea frothing in the pit of his stomach. His bowels were on the brink of giving way.
On the top floor, he tripped over his two left feet and burst onto another corridor. He was bent double, the hurt taking over his body, disorientating him. A short way up the corridor, he barged through a door and into a disabled bathroom.
“Police, stay there!”
“Police! Show us your hands.”
The shouts came from tactical entry officers behind him, as near as made no difference breathing down the erect hairs on Edward’s soaking wet neck.
He panted and slammed the bathroom door shut. He found it increasingly tough to get air into his lungs. Air was being forced out quicker than he could take in oxygen. He was a mess, an horrendous excuse for a human being. His hands gripped either side of the sink until his knuckles matched the enamel white of the ceramic basin. Shaking, he resembled a frail pensioner at the altar.
This isn’t helping, this isn’t making me feel any better about dying. Legacy or not, nothing’s changed – I’m still scared.
His mouth was dry and his whole body trembled. It was difficult standing upright. The sink proved indispensable in keeping him erect.
Gnnrghh. More pressure to keep hold of that shredded forearm. Nrrff. Can’t breathe. Feel sick. Take control of your body, damnit. A familiar feeling of foreboding enveloped him. He threw off his top and peeled the straps off his body armour, breaking free of its shackles.
This is bad. It hurts. He stared at himself in the mirror, not out of vanity but out of necessity. His vision blurred and everything doubled. Regardless, he could clearly make out a gunshot wound on his left shoulder where a marksman’s round had embedded. A layer of blood, extending far from the entry wound, had dried and already formed crusty scales over his fair skin. Molten blood continued to seep from his body and drift and drip off his hunched torso, into the sink and onto the floor, four feet below.
Djoof. Ack. It hurts, he thought. A solitary tear meandered down his pale and clammy cheek. He had aged about two decades in the space of twenty-four hours. The haunted face that peered back at him in the mirror possessed sunken, soulless eyes, bloodshot from a lack of sleep.
From the back pocket of his trousers, he recovered a tattered photograph, half the size of a postcard. It was him, with his parents Dwayne and Linda Kreus. The picture had been taken on a road trip to the coast of Wales when he was seven years old. They were all smiling, with arms wrapped around each other’s back. They had only ever known happy times together.
“I miss you, so much,” he whispered, qui
et as a ferret scurrying over silk. He could not believe his body had any more water left in its tank, but the tears welled up anyway and stung his bloodshot retinas.
He wanted the innocence of ignorance that came with youth. Alas, he had chosen the wrong path. All the shit that life had thrown at him, he had let his immaturity and irascibility prevail. But these were his mistakes to own; he could not do anything about them now, even if he had wanted to.
Regret relinquishes the soul.
This was to be his legacy: he’d lost control of his bowels, he’d wet himself too; he’d sliced up one arm and been shot in the other; there was acid reflux in his throat from the tear gas; one of his eardrums was ruptured from the stun grenade; scars and stitches covered his body, detailing his medical history over the years like rings in the bark of a tree trunk. He was white from the cold and wet from the sprinklers.
He’d lost a beautiful and protective boyfriend; he’d lost a knowledgeable and caring therapist; he’d lost his doting parents. He was all that was left in his family’s gene pool and now the curtain was falling on that. Oh sure, he’d shot up a school and a hospital too, but what did that achieve? Was he so stupid as to ignore the consequences?
Well, apparently so. The sensible, wise part of his brain – the part Edward would have listened to last – must have been the final part of him still processing information. His psychopathic side had given up the ghost. His demons had upped and left. Their job was done. Sick fucks.
The anger returned for one final display. He nutted the mirror in front of him but chickened out and only made partial contact. His second attempt caused a crack to form; the third head-butt broke off some chunks of glass. The fourth shattered it completely.
Stepping back clumsily to admire his handiwork, his vision turned monochrome and the pain in his head exacerbated. Suddenly, the prospect of dying seemed enticing. That did the trick. All things that had made him the villain protagonist had finally switched off the lights on their way out.
Edward imagined he was about to dive into a tranquil blue lagoon, perhaps the same body of water on whose banks he had got to know Toshy so intimately.
He gulped down one hefty influx of air.
Just let it take me away.
Arms wide apart, he gurned. The photograph, now caked in a crimson film, floated and flittered to the floor. His mind was shutting down, the last synapses in his brain firing off. His mind was at last on empty. He was free.
He was. Free.
Falling backwards, Edward Kreus landed flat on the hard floor.
Thud: skull on linoleum. A twitch, then a jerk, then a seizure.
More thuds: fists on the bathroom door. There’s someone to see you.
From this point, the last vestiges of consciousness had vacated into the ether.
Perhaps dying is not so bad after all.
Acknowledgements
I'm not a professional author. This book has been ten years in the making, from when I was going through a difficult spell in my late teens. Much of the dialogue, especially between Edward and Dr Wells, is effectively thought exercises that I've played through my mind to help me when overwhelmed by life and anxieties around my own mortality.
Please do let me know what you think. Positive or negative; typos, plot flaws, grammatical inconsistencies, get in touch. With any luck there won't be too many, but I can't lay claim to being a true author without taking on board what you, the readers, have made of it.
I'd like to mention the following books. The inspiration for some of the motivations and dialogue in my book was sourced from various passages contained in them:
- Let's Talk About Death Over Dinner by Michael Hebb (Orion Books, 2018);
- Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Wellcome Collection, 2015);
- Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari (Vintage, 2015);
- The Conspiracy Against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti (Hippocampus Press, 2010).
I'm grateful to Roisin Heycock (c/o Reedsy.com) for giving one of my earliest drafts a thorough appraisal. I owe a great deal of appreciation as well to Peter O'Connor (Bespokebookcovers.com) for his lovely cover design. For the sake of budgeting and pride, I haven't taken advantage of any further professional editing services. I taught myself how to perfect the style of novel writing, primarily using the sage advice of Steve Alcorn (c/o Udemy.com).
I am of course indebted to the unconditional love and support offered by my small, close-knit friends and family. Most of them don't have a clue I've written this. Should make for an interesting dinnertime conversation in the future perhaps.
Above all, I'd like to thank you once more for giving this book a try, and (hopefully) having the patience and imagination to see it through to the end. Every copy of this book read is another validation of my love for creative writing. I can't say there will be any more books written by me (cue stifled sighs of relief), but just knowing I've put a self-published, feature-length novel out there into the public domain means the world to me.
Thanks again, and take care x
About the Author
Born and raised in Sussex, I've had a love for creative writing since I was in primary school. I ended up pursuing degrees in Biomedical Sciences and Cancer Research instead. I tried a PhD in Medical Sciences, but gave up after three years because I couldn't hack it.
I now live in Devon, working for a provider of mental health support services. My spare time is devoted to interests in writing, keeping fit, exploring and cooking - like any good Millennial. I love Brighton & Hove Albion, peanut butter, and quality time with family. I would love even more for the day when I no longer fear death.
email: [email protected]
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