Defiled Earth and other tales Page 5

  “That’s entirely inappropriate, Allen,” said the Doc. “You’re on detention for that.”

  I’d made up my mind then and there, that if I could, I’d carry out my own consequences on Connor Allen.

  “That’s right,” said the dark internal voice, cutting through my swampy thoughts. “Cut that fucker’s throat. It’s the least he deserves.”

  First I needed to get my head straight.

  Sid and Joel half dragged me out of the lab, leaving behind the zoo that Doc Taylor’s lesson had become.

  I staggered to Nurse Morecambe’s room—the boys didn’t give me any help there.

  Nice one boys. I’ll get you back.

  They seemed kinda glad to leave me in her hands.

  “Now, what have you been getting up to this time, Ken?” she said in a voice she probably thought sounded motherly. It just pissed me off.

  “I dunno Nurse, my head feels funny.”

  She looked at me as if I was something she wanted to wipe off her shoe.

  “What’s this coming out of your ear? Hang on a minute, I’ll get some cotton wool and warm water. You’ll need cleaning up.”

  She sat me down in a chair and swished to the side of the room where there was a low-level cupboard. A sign on it read Medical Supplies. She started rifling through the contents.

  “Now where did I put that damn cotton wool?”

  It was right after she said this, that something clicked in my brain. My vision went red and that oily voice spoke up again.

  “It’s now or never Ken. She’s just like the rest. Treats you like shit then slags you off in the staff room behind your back. You know what to do.”

  And I did.

  I carefully took the scalpel out of my pocket and stood up. My left ear felt weird, so I rubbed it. When I pulled my hand away it was covered in the orange crusty fluid. A bit like that stuff you find on the fat of sliced, breaded ham. The sight of it started me laughing. A sort of childish snigger. It was like laughter was being puked up out of my mouth. I don’t know why, but I thought it was the funniest thing that I’d ever seen. I sounded like a retard; but then that’s what everyone thought I was.

  Nurse More Cum hadn’t heard me. She’d tipped out some boxes onto the floor, still looking for fucking cotton wool. She was crouched on the floor with her back to me, so she never saw me approach.

  Looking back, what I did next seemed so easy. Like I didn’t have no boundaries. No limits. There wasn’t any white shape pricking me to say This is wrong.

  With a lunge I grabbed hold of her hair and pulled the head back. Her throat was bared for me, all pretty and pink. Totally vulnerable. Just like I’d heard some of the teachers describe me.

  Before she had time to react I plunged the scalpel into her neck and gouged it across her windpipe. It cut through, releasing a fountain of blood from an artery – just like in a slasher film.

  She grabbed her throat and tried to scream, but all that came out was a gargling noise. She thrashed about the floor with her eyes staring at the ceiling, and her back arched as if someone had shot her with a taser. I couldn’t believe how stupid she looked. I was laughing so hard, loud enough so that someone musta heard. But no one came.

  Finally, she twisted over on her side and let out a choking noise. I think she’d swallowed her tongue because after that she just lay still.

  “I have to tell you I was trippin’ at that point. Fucking Hell, I even had a hard-on. A real diamond-cutter. One thing’s for sure, I wanted more of this. I looked at the scalpel in my hand and noticed the blade snapped off. I threw the useless thing to the floor.

  Another gobbet of orange stuff dripped off my face. I wiped it away with a sleeve, but fuck, there was a lot of it.

  “You liked that, didn’t you?” said the voice. “You gotta do it again.”

  It had scared me this morning, but now it seemed like an old friend.

  I yanked open a drawer and watched it fall on the floor. I was probably making too much noise, but I didn’t care. A heap of instruments and bandages strewed themselves across the lino and there, on top, was what I needed. A big pair of shears. I reckon they must’ve been used for cutting bandages or cloths. They had black handles and wickedly sharp blades. Yeah, they would do very nicely.

  I left the bitch where she was and looked out into the corridor. No one was around. I couldn’t believe my luck, but then it was still lesson time.

  My brain-itch was back with a vengeance now, as well as this humungous urge to cut someone. It was sweet to me, better than an orgasm.

  I pocketed the shears, tips face down. They ripped through the bottom, but I didn’t care as long as they were out of sight. I figured I had to look as normal as possible. This was kinda difficult with orange gunge spilling out my ear and nurse More-Cum’s blood soaked through my shirt and jeans.

  Students could be out of lesson as long as they had a note from the teacher, but the Doc hadn’t given me one.

  What was I thinking? Why should I care if a teacher turned up? They’d just turn into my next victim.

  I turned a corner into the Humanities corridor and immediately stopped. There, up ahead, strutting like he owned the place was Connor Allen. He usually skived off in the middle of lessons when he got bored. He’d give some lame excuse about needing the bog when really he wanted to link up with his mates and have a crafty fag.

  He turned into the gents without seeing me. This was my chance to pay him back for all his fucking put-downs. All the times he’d got everyone else on his side and made my life hell.

  I ran up to the door and stopped a moment. I felt a sniggering fit building up again. I shook my head to calm it down, which seemed to work, so I pushed the door quietly open.

  Inside, no one was using the urinals. The place stank of piss and tobacco.

  Allen was smoking in one of the cubicles. I could see a white cloud rising from the third one along. As I stood in front of the door and took out the shears, I felt a giddy lightness in my head. Last time I’d felt this good was when I toked on some weed at my mate Spiffy’s party the other month. But this was even better.

  Gone was the old Ken. The one who would bottle it up and slam his fist into a wall later. This was power—the power of knowing I could do anything I wanted.

  I bent down so’s I could see beneath the door. There, plain as day, were his expensive, blue Nike trainers. It was definitely him. He must’ve guessed someone was outside because he spoke up.

  “Who the fuck’s out there? This one’s taken, so you can just find your own bog to have a shite in.”

  I looked at the door and figured it was locked, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “Didja hear me, you queer?” he said. “If you don’t fuck off now, I’ll be out there to give you a good beating.”

  I didn’t want to talk to him.

  Just kill him.

  I let out an animal scream, aimed my foot at where the latch was, and kicked with everything I had.

  The catch must’ve been pretty weak because the door slammed open, whacking Allen’s knees so’s he twisted round and fell sideways off the bog. I reached in before he had time to recover and pulled his head up by the hair. He was still conscious, but his eyes looked kinda glassy. Musta’ banged himself on the sidewall when he went over.

  That was gonna be the least of his problems.

  I bent over and looked him straight in his weasel eyes.

  “Yeah, it’s me motherfucker. Didn’t expect that did you?”

  He groaned in pain but I was nowhere near finished with him yet.

  “I hear you’ve been putting it about, Allen. Slipping your dick into every Year Eleven pussy that’s going. Well, I think that kinda behaviour needs punishing. And I’m the one that’s gonna be dishing it out.”

  I brought out the shears and put them up close to his face. I could see his eyes nearly popping out of his head.

  “Nuh...nuh no, please,” he said. P
lus lots of other stuff I couldn’t make out because right then, the buzzing started in my head again.

  Above the noise, I heard the voice of the other Ken shout, “Give it to him, Ken. Give it to him real gooood.”

  I opened the shears a touch, drew back my elbow and thrust the points into his startled eyes. The left blade went into the corner of one, but the right struck home—bang into the pupil. Once again, it felt like I had super-human strength as I felt the blades go in deep. Right up to the handles.

  This time there was a lot of blood.

  I’d once been to an abbatoir. My mate’s dad ran it. I’d seen them cut a goat’s throat, halal-style.

  I think Allen bled more than the goat. He was making a god-awful racket and thrashing about with his arms, trying to push me away from him.

  I put my hand on his forehead for purchase and pulled the shears out again. More blood poured out of his face, along with something thick and jelly-like. Before he had time to do anything. I thrust them forward, this time into his throat.

  “Aaaach” was the sound I think he made. Priceless it was —which got me lauging all over again.

  I stood back and let him throw himself around the cubicle. I enjoyed every minute.

  It took him quite a while to die, but when he finally lay still he’d left smears of blood all over the walls and floor. Mrs Hetherington was gonna have her work cut out cleaning the bogs tonight.

  But I still wasn’t done. Allen mighta been dead, but he hadn’t finished his show for me yet.

  I busied myself for another few minutes or so, sitting him up on the crapper and arranging him in the position I wanted. Finally, I took a few snaps with my smartphone.

  I knew exactly what to do next to complete my revenge, but I needed to find me a computer. It was no good going to the library. I’d get stopped before I carried out my plan. Besides, Allen’s blood was all over me. I needed somewhere a bit more private, and I figured I knew just the place.

  I looked out the door and saw a teacher walking away. I ducked back in until he was out of sight. Once the coast was clear, I dashed down the corridor, snatching a look at the time on my mobile. It was near the end of the lesson so I was gonna have to be quick. Would my luck hold out?

  Well it did and it didn’t.

  I reached the Head’s office and found the door open and the room empty—like I knew it would be. Old Slaphead liked to be out on the corridors between lessons to keep an eye out and generally calm things down. Today was no different.

  I stepped in but not quickly enough.

  “Ken Wilcott—stop right there!”

  It was Mrs Branscomb, the Head’s secretary. She was in her room opposite, and had seen me enter.

  “I don’t know who sent you but you know you can’t just .... My God. Is that blood you’ve got on your clothes? What on earth’s happened to you?”

  I slammed the door shut and twisted the hitch lock after me. See, there’s lots of things you notice when you’ve spent as much time in the Head’s office as I have. Like the fact he has a lock, and that the password for his computer is the name of his pet Alsatian. Stupid cunt had written it on his notepad, which I happened to have seen.

  Mrs Branscomb was banging on the door and shouting at the top her voice for me to open up.

  At that moment an ear-splitting siren started up.

  I knew it wasn’t a fire alarm. I’d only heard it once before when we did a drill. It was a lock-down. Someone must’ve found Nurse More-Cum, or Allen—maybe both. I didn’t have much time.

  I slumped down behind the Head’s desk and entered the password to unlock his PC. Taking my phone out, I brought up the photos I’d taken and e-mailed them to his address using the 3G network. It only took a few seconds and there they were. It was a few more minutes of work to fiddle with the images and text in his graphics program, but I didn’t need anything fancy.

  By now I could hear more voices outside and more banging on the door. This time much heavier. Just a few more minutes, that’s all I needed.

  The head-buzzing and itching was worse than ever now, and orange slime was dripping from both ears onto the keyboard. I opened the e-mail program again and attached my finished work. In the recipients’ bar I entered ‘all staff’ and ‘all students.’

  I smiled, satisfied with my work and clicked ‘send’.

  I leaned back in Slaphead’s chair, put my hands behind my head and waited for the next round of fun to begin.

  ~ ~ ~

  A week later, Julie Prescott came to visit me at the secure centre. I’d been locked up there ever since the incident. She told me she’d been in the IT room with the rest of her form when the mail program pinged up a message. This was nice, she told me. She never got messages from anyone, but she groaned when she saw it was from Mr Best, the Headteacher.

  She decided to open it anyway. It had an attachment, so she clicked on it.

  A sharp gasp escaped from her mouth. The reaction was repeated all over the classroom as the Year Sevens accessed their messages. A few of them gathered round her screen to see what had caused the reaction. One girl and two boys fainted.

  Displayed across the screen was a shot of Connor Allen propped up on a toilet. Instead of his eyes there were just two bleeding sockets. His throat wore a red jagged smile. Blood gushed down the front of his shirt.

  That wasn’t the worst.

  The thing that woke Julie Prescott up every night for the next week was the sight of Connor Allen’s severed penis, hanging from the corner of his mouth. One kid read out my words written over the bottom of the image.

  “This is wat hapens to all fuck-heds that think with ther diks.”

  ~ ~ ~

  So here I am, banged up in this place.

  It’s not so bad. The walls are made out of cushion-like stuff. Just so’s I don’t hurt myself, I guess.

  Julie’s been my only visitor. I was surprised they let her in, but I was glad they did. I needed the company of someone my own age and I think it might have helped her a bit too. I like to think she had a chance to confront the thing which had caused her nightmares. Like it was therapy or something.

  The guard watched over us closely as she asked me why I did it.

  I couldn’t answer her. Couldn’t quite bring myself to say that the voice told me to do it.

  After the drugs wore off and they lowered my dose, the buzzing and itching stopped.

  The docs and counsellors see me every day, but me mam hasn’t been back since they locked me up.

  I don’t blame her. I must’ve looked a state, and the way I screamed at her probably made her think I wasn’t her son anymore. He’d been replaced by some loony, blood-crazed monster.

  The medics scratch their heads every day because I’ve not thrown a wobbler since. I can remember everything, and I’ve told them my story a thousand times, but I guess they think they might’ve missed something.

  They say the next step is to give me a brain scan. God knows what they’ll find, but the orange sauce has stopped leaking out of my ear and the itchiness has stopped. So maybe I’ve got over things.

  At least that’s what I thought until this morning.

  You see, the other Ken’s started speaking to me again. He said he’d never gone away. He’d just been biding his time. He gave me some good advice too. Said I’d find something useful in the Doc’s pocket when he looked in my ears this morning.

  He was right. I found a safety pin.

  I’m now thinking of all the craziness I could get up to with it.

  All it takes is a little imagination.

  ~ ~ ~

  Author’s note

  You may be asking a lot of questions at this point. Like ‘What’s with the orange stuff leaking out of Ken’s ears?’ Or ‘What happens when his dark voice gets so insistent that he can’t ignore it any longer?’ Well, the story is part of a bigger collection called ‘Mycophoria.’ In this future book, you get to learn that Ke
n’s little ‘wobbler’ isn’t an isolated incident in Cumbria. Similar patterns of psychotic behaviour spring up in the most unlikely of places: in the home of an OAP, an isolated farm, a microbiology lab, a pub and many others. What links these bizarre incidents?

  Now that’s something you’re just going to have to wait for, Real Frantic One.

  ~ ~ ~

  The wardrobe

  “You’re not in touch with feminist issues are you?” said the chairman. The tone conveyed its meaning as a question, but Deepak Mallinson knew it was a statement.

  Mallinson swallowed, and then adjusted his cuffs. “Look, Gerald, I’m as much in favour of women’s lib as the next man, but it’s hardly the central policy plank of our party is it? You’re all aware of my strengths. I’m the only realistic candidate for this constituency, and you know it.”

  The association members around the table shifted on their seats or looked at their notepads.

  There’s more life in a stuffed dodo, Mallinson thought.

  “Deepak,” said Marion, the party president, “Your CV and PR image are good. However, we’ve been let down by one too many mavericks in the party recently. Candidates who put mouths into gear before their brains—usually on prime time television.”

  Mallinson looked at the Party President with an obsequious smile. “Marion. Rest assured, I have no problem in toeing the party line. My latest remarks in the Standard underline my commitment to positive discrimination, and the need to increase our quota of women in the party.” As he said this, he observed her supercilious expression.

  Why aren’t you at home doing the ironing, bitch? he thought. Then the men could get on with the business at hand without your interfering, snipey questions.

  The secretary spoke up. “Quit giving him a hard time, Marion.” His blazer and cravat gave the impression he’d just stepped off his luxury yacht, (which everyone knew he had moored in the local marina). “Deepak ticks all the right boxes: he’s still in his thirties, a local businessman, experience in the real world, married with two children—and his Indian roots give us a welcome boost in the ethnic minority stakes.”