Cucumber Coolie (23 page)

He fast becomes aware of his surroundings. Of the stench of piss. The sound of piss hitting a urinal. The sound of whistling, the smell of an imminent kill.

He blinks. Looks ahead.

The surgeon, all in blue, is pissing into the urinal, clueless to James Scotts’ presence.

James Scotts inhales. He knows he doesn’t have much time. But what he does have is instinct. An animalesque ability to act fast when threatened. Like a cow protecting its calves, only a hell of a lot cleverer.

He steps closer to the surgeon. Searches the toilet for something he can use as a weapon. Cracked mirror. Sturdy looking sinks. Heavy door.

He gets even closer. The surgeon, with his ginger hair, keeps on whistling and humming and pissing, staring above himself into space.

James Scotts is just centimetres behind him now.

And he knows exactly what he has to do.

He lowers his hand. Reaches towards the surgeon’s ball sack.

The surgeon stops pissing.

James Scotts smashes his fist into his balls.

The surgeon lets out a confused scream. He tries to turn around, tries to look at James Scotts, but he is already on his knees and James Scotts is already holding his head into the clogged-up urinal, drowning him on his own piss.

He lets the surgeon struggle. Every time he does, he smashes his head against the urinal, a little harder each time.

It takes forty-six hard smacks for the surgeon to die.

And even then he is still twitching.

When James Scotts is sure that he is dead, he takes off the surgeon’s blue uniform. Ditches his own hospital robe on the toilet floor, and dresses up in it. There are a few splatters of blood on the blue uniform from the surgeon’s mashed up head, but there is nothing he can do about that. Besides, surgeons messed around with blood all the time. Nobody would even give him a second look.

He looks at himself in the mirror. Looks at himself, all smart, like an actor in a film.

For a split second, deep in his brown eyes, he sees something. A glimmer of humanity deep within. It is something that flashes itself before him from time to time. He’s had it all his life.

He wonders what he might be if he didn’t like killing. Whether he might be a surgeon, or a vet, or a scientist with two beautiful kids and an amazing wife and family.

But the thought of a normal life makes him feel uneasy. Because he is a killer. He always has liked killing. And sure, he’d wanted to be an actor-director all his life, but he just couldn’t get a break. Nobody really bought into his extreme snuff horror niche.

Well, at least they’d bought into him, at last.

At least he’d found the auteur within.

The real-life murder genre. Hopefully he could be respected as the Tarantino of his style.

And if he got out of this hospital, he could get to work on a sequel. Start a cinematic revolution.

He smiles at himself in the cracked mirror. His mind races with thoughts of his next act. Maybe he can carry on kidnapping people from homes. Or shit—maybe he could start murdering in public and videoing it. Murdering in popular locations, like the Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum. Every tourist’s nightmare.

He’ll have plenty of time to think as soon as he gets out of this hospital, as soon as he gets away.

He holds his breath. Steps over to the bathroom door. Listens outside for voices, for footsteps, for noise.

Quiet.

Excellent. Just what he needs.

He opens the door and prepares to turn right towards the staircase where the security guard ran through.

But something crashes into his face.

Something knocks him back before he can even process it. Something sends hot blood streaming from his nose, sends him flying to the floor, cracking his bald head.

His eyes blur over. Colours, black dots, all fill his vision. He winces, his back stinging worse than ever. He tries to see what’s above him. Tries to understand.

“Hello James.”

He blinks. Blinks, so he can see, so he can understand.

And when he does, he understands in a big way.

Blake Dent is standing above him, a red fire extinguisher in hand.

“Think it’s about time we had a proper chat.”

The toilet door slams shut.

FORTY-THREE

Standing above James Scotts, alone in a bathroom with a heavy fire extinguisher in hand, I couldn’t help but let my mind race about all the ways I could make him pay for Danielle’s death.

Off camera. My terms.

I watched him slide across the tiled floor of the bathroom. He was wearing a blue surgeon’s outfit, and for a split second I thought I’d made a horrible mistake.

But then I saw the naked surgeon, head caved in, and the blood covering the urinal, and I knew what had happened here.

An alarm was sounding through the hospital now. I could hear shouts and cries outside the bathroom, so I knew I didn’t have long with James Scotts.

But I had long enough to make him suffer. Long enough to do what I had to do.

“How d’you feel now, eh?” I said. I crouched down over him. A huge bruise had sprouted up on his right eye, blood dribbling down his chin from where I’d hit him with the fire extinguisher.

He smiled at me. Smiled with that bullshit grin that he always seemed to have.

And then he spat a loose tooth into my face.

I wiped off the phlegmy residue. Shook my head.

And swung my fist at him.

Although the punch stung my knuckles, I could feel myself deflating inside as James Scotts’ cheek cracked, as his head rattled against the hard, tiled floor. I could feel relief. Relief and release for Danielle.

And then I punched him again and again and again and with every shout, every cry, every splattering of blood, I felt better.

James Scotts didn’t speak at all during his beating. Which pissed me off, in a way.

“I want you to apologise,” I said.

He looked at me with his swollen, bruised face, still smiling away even though I’d knocked the majority of his teeth out. He looked like some kind of purple monster. Like a nastier Barney the Dinosaur. If that was possible.

I hit him again. Sent his head cracking into the floor. My knuckles ached, my stomach stung, but I was feeling better.

I was avenging Danielle.

Right?

No matter how many times I hit James Scotts, he just kept coming back up. Kept on coming back up with that twisted, messed up toothless grin. Back up with that fucking annoying face that just begged to be smashed to pieces.

“Apologise!” I shouted, hovering my knuckles over his face, the alarm blaring through the hospital, commotion picking up outside. “You owe her that much, you shit.”

He opened his mouth.

And he spat another stringy bout of blood into my face.

“Fu’ you,” he said, struggling to speak properly with no teeth.

I lifted my fist. Got ready to pound them into his face.

And then I saw Danielle. In my mind, I saw Danielle. I saw her smiling as she walked up to Groovy Smoothie. I saw her blonde hair rustling in the wind. I heard her laughter. Smelled her sweet perfume.

“Fu-in slu’,” James Scotts said, spitting away more blood. “Fu-in slu’.”

I could hear him. “Fucking slut,” he was saying. And I wanted to beat him even more for it. Wanted to beat him for all the horrible things he said he’d done to Danielle. Wanted to cause him a world of pain, all for Danielle.

But I saw Danielle reaching for my bruised knuckles. Saw her lowering my hand, telling me to let go.

I heard her whispering me to stop being a macho idiot in my ear.

I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want to listen. I wanted to beat him. I wanted to avenge her death.

Let go, Blake. Don’t let him win.

Another spit in my face. Another chuckle. Blood dribbled out of James Scotts’ mouth and all down his bruised cheeks, onto the floor.

Let him go.

I stood up. Took a deep breath. Felt my pulse easing off, steadying.

My hand, which stung like mad, was by my side. I was still standing over James Scotts, who was almost recognisable, but I had no desire to kill him, not anymore.

Because Danielle wouldn’t have wanted me to kill him. She’d want me to go back to Groovy Smoothie. She’d want me to drink a few pints in her honour at her funeral. She’d want me to be my stupid, clumsy, grumpy old self.

She wouldn’t want me to be a murderer.

I stood up. Wiped my knuckles on my shirt. Walked over to the toilet door, opened it up to find a crowd of people outside.

“He’s in here,” I said.

“Cowark!” James Scotts shouted, still struggling without his teeth. “Fu-in cowark!”

I turned around. Looked at him lying on the bathroom floor in a pool of his own blood, all alone.

“I’m not the coward,” I said. “A coward would’ve beat you into a pulp instead of rising above it. A coward would’ve taken the short term solution rather than the long term one. A coward would’ve given you what you wanted and put you out of your miserable little existence. Enjoy prison, you attention seeking piece of shit. Enjoy prison while I get on with my life. Enjoy the thought of me smiling again. Enjoy the thought of losing your little game. I hope they treat you nicely in there. You’re nothing.”

I stepped out of the way as a team of security guards and police officers approached. They barely even looked at me, despite my bloody knuckles and trousers. I just pointed inside the bathroom and they flooded in.

I stared into James Scotts’ eyes. Stared with all the hate in the world.

As the police officers lifted him off the floor, I swore for a split second I saw his smile falter, saw a twinge of fear in his eyes.

I knew at that moment that I’d made the right decision.

I knew at that moment, I’d won.

FORTY-FOUR

When they slam James Scotts’ cell door shut, he is relieved for a bit of peace.

His cell is windowless. All white, tiled walls. A little mattress thinner than a starving African kid on the floor. By the side of the bed, barely three steps away, a toilet. The seat is covered in damp, brown stains filling the bowl.

He sighs, sits on his mattress and leans back against the white tiled wall.

He can still hear the cries of his cellmates outside the door. Still hear them, all these nut cases, going crazy at one another. It’s a sound that will grate on him, sure. But it’s also a sound that will remind him he is alive.

And remind him that there are still lives out there to be taken.

He edges to the side. Leans on his pillow. His back aches from the gunshot wounds he acquired on the train stunt. Ah, the train stunt. He smiles. The good days. He’d had a blast that was for sure. A literal blast. Experienced some things people only dreamed about when they let their darkest thoughts, their darkest desires, play out.

He stares up at the white tiled ceiling. Inhales and smells warm piss. A smell he can get used to. A smell that reminds him of all the women he has killed. Of all the times they pissed themselves before, during, after they died.

And then he thinks of the smell of piss in that hospital staff toilet.

The staff toilet where Blake Dent won.

He tenses up when he thinks in those terms. Because yes, Blake Dent might’ve got the better of him. He might’ve won that battle. And that was highly, highly frustrating.

But he’d still taken things away from Blake Dent. Still taken things away from Blake Dent that he cared about. That was a mini-victory. A fair end result.

1-1, if it were a football match.

He closes his eyes. Listens to the crazy voices of the inmates. Feels the hard floor under the mattress digging into his back, and enjoys the peace.

He has all the time in the world to plan his next project.

All the time in the world to work on his next masterpiece.

And a prison full of crazies to audition for his lead roles.

He smiles.

FORTY-FIVE

I stood at the back of the church while Danielle’s sister read out some stuff about her life.

I didn’t like churches. Didn’t like that woody smell about them, or that feeling that you couldn’t even have a dirty thought without pissing off God.

Granted, on the day of my girlfriend’s funeral, I wasn’t having many dirty thoughts.

I was alone in the back row. The priest at the front of the church was reading out words, and then people were singing, but it was all jumbled up to me. I wasn’t processing a thing.

I was just thinking of Danielle. Thinking of the good times we’d had together, trying to stay happy for her.

It had been four days since James Scotts’ arrest. Since I’d walked away from his bruised, beaten-to-a-pulp body and left the police to deal with him. And I was still convincing myself that I’d done the right thing by not killing him. Sometimes, my mind taunted me—told me I was weak, told me I should’ve ended his shitty existence on that bathroom floor.

But I was just a guy who ran a smoothie stall. I wasn’t a murderer.

Okay. I
might
have killed in the past, if the job required it, or if I just felt a little pissed off. But I wasn’t a revenge killer.

James Scotts was rotting away in his cell now. The papers had moved on. Kids were talking about someone else—the next big news story—on social media. His time in the limelight was over.

That was the real victory. Because the spotlight was the very thing that attention-seeking bastard craved the most.

James Scotts was a nobody again.

After the hymns were read out, the coffin was carried outside. I kept my head down as the men carrying it passed. As Danielle’s dad, with his bald head, walked by with tears down his cheeks. With him were her ear-ringed brother, Peter, her spiky-haired friend, Elise. I knew I should be there with them. I knew I should be helping carry Danielle, because she was the number one person in my life.

But I simply wasn’t ready to forgive myself just yet.

I followed the crowd out of the church, into the yard, where birds sang from the top of headstones, and where the breeze pushed the smells of the countryside—cow’s arse—over the crowd. I stood beside the open grave. Stood beside, as the priest said some more things. More things I couldn’t quite wrap my head around.