The Sight
By
Nick B

 © Nick B 2008

Thanks to Gabi for doing that voodoo that she do . . .

“There’s so much . . .” Darryl whispered, shaking his head. “So very, very much . . .”

Chapter 11

In the blink of an eye, the scenery changed.

They were in now another room about the size of the average lounge, with a large bay window looking out over the street, but Darryl recognised nothing as the bright sunlight was piercing compared to the darkness that they had just left and he was still having trouble focussing.

It smelt dusty and mouldy; like it hadn’t been lived in or even aired for some considerable time. Darryl’s eyes adjusted to the brilliance and he went across to the window.

Outside was a bustling road. Two bus stops below had several people completely standing in the sunshine, unaware of the horrors that were about to befall his strange companion. Over the road, a solicitor’s office added one more note of realism to this strange situation and also recognition to the area.

The door banged open and there was a muffled cry.

“Hey! Be careful!” said someone from outside the door.

“Shut up!” said another. “If you weren’t such a weakling I wouldn’t be carrying her now would I?”

The voice was familiar and belonged to a man who it transpired, was about five-ten and was carrying Suzie. Darryl couldn’t be sure but it seemed like he was probably the same man who had been carrying the torch back in that dark, smelly place they had just been in.

The man didn’t seem to care about being gentle either, carrying her over his shoulder and catching her head on the door frame as they entered the room, causing another cry of anguish.

Shocked at the scene, Darryl turned to look at the other “Suzie”, who grinned back in a rather unnerving or even disturbing manner. In the daylight, she looked even more hideous than she had before and he was oddly pleased that the men couldn’t see what he could.

The man dropped, or rather threw Suzie to the floor and dusted his hands off.

“You’re right Adrian. She is a little ripe isn’t she? Go find out whether the water is on. I think we need to give her a bit of a hose-down.” Adrian–the smaller one, nodded and went out.

Darryl studied the man who had brought Suzie in. He had no idea what he had planned just by looking at him, but he knew how it all ended, he was sure from the look of Suzie that he didn’t want the gory details.

The only trouble was he knew he was going to get it–in Technicolor ®.

The man poked the prone figure before him with his foot and rolled her onto her back. Darryl could see that she was suffering and was surprised that she didn’t cry out.

“How does it feel to be the first?” he asked, in a truly derisive tone.

“Fuck you!” she spat.

All the man did was chuckle. “Yes and Adrian too. Don’t forget him.”

“I’d rather die,” she said through clenched teeth, sneering back at him.

Just at that moment, Adrian came back into the room.

“The water’s on, Ian, but there isn’t any heater, so it’s a bit cold,” he informed his friend.

“It isn’t for us, dipstick,” said Ian with forced patience. “It’s for her, now take her to the bathroom and bring her back–clean.”

Adrian grabbed Suzie’s arm and with great effort, hoisted her to her feet, muttering and cursing at Ian.

Suzie was not impressed and struggled, but even though Adrian was the smaller of the two, he was more than capable of preventing the bound Suzie from getting out of hand.

Ian busied himself by staring through the dust-encrusted window while the dead Suzie and Darryl looked on.

“This is it,” Suzie informed him.

“What?”

“Watch.”

There was a loud splash and a thumpthumpthumpthumpthump as Suzie ran at down the stairs.

“Ian!!” shouted Adrian.

Startled, Ian turned on his heel to head out of the door and straight into a naked Suzie.

“What have we here?” he asked, grabbing her arm.

“Ow!” she squealed.

“Now I’d have thought you’d have had more sense,” he said quietly and slapped her hard across the face, followed by one from the opposite direction, scratching her across the cheekbone with the ring on his left little finger.

Tears flowed copiously down Suzie’s cheeks as she refused to cry, staring at Ian instead with a look of defiance.

“Feisty little shit, aren’t you?” he asked, grinning. “Try this,” he said and punched her in the face sending her toppling backwards on to the stairs.

“FUCK YOU!!” she cried, trying her best to cover herself.

“I thought we had already established that,” he said, grinning.

Adrian slopped and squelched his way down the stairs, looking daggers at Suzie.

“What the hell happened to you?” asked Ian, looking at the dripping Adrian with a look of mild curiosity.

“I cut the tape off her arms to get her clothes off and she tripped me into the bath,” Adrian replied.

“Bloody idiot. Didn’t it occur to you to just cut her clothes off? She won’t need them again anyway.”

Suzie looked anxiously at the two men, obviously wondering what that last statement meant, but Ian grabbed her arm again, dragging her kicking and screaming along the landing and down another flight of stairs out of Darryl and Suzie’s sight.

“I thought you said . . .” Darryl began, just as the scenery changed again and he found himself in what looked like a cellar.

The only light seemed to be coming from one of those grated windows just below ground level, although that didn’t amount to much thanks to decades of built-up street grime and mould, all green and disgusting-looking.

The smell of mildew and other unsavoury things–which Darryl preferred not to think about, accosted his nostrils and the dust appeared to be inches thick. Age old bric-a-brac was scattered across the stone floor, on tables and dilapidated shelving, all of which had seen better days–much better days.

“What is it with these two and dark smelly places?” Darryl asked rhetorically.

Suzie shrugged shaking her head and the two of them returned their attention to the sight before them.

Throwing Suzie to the floor, Ian pulled on a small string suspended from the ceiling, and an un-shaded light lit up with a click. The poor excuse for a bulb, fly-blown and yellowed, did its best to shed some light on the miserable scene that was slowly unfolding beneath it.

Ian started to unbuckle his belt and undo the top button of his trousers, pausing before drawing the zipper down, to reach instead into the inside pocket of his leather jacket.

“Insurance,” he laughed, taking out a large knife and twisting it this way and that, causing what little light there was to catch on the highly polished blade. Then he stabbed it into an old worn pine table that was so thick with dust, it looked like it was covered in grey velvet.

Suzie looked at the knife–a smaller version of the one used by Mick Dundee, but no less sharp–then back at her captor as he dropped his trousers round his ankles and proceeded to push his underwear down too.

“Come here–bitch!” he demanded.

Suzie started to rise, shaking noticeably.

“Don’t bother getting up, I think you’ll do better on your knees,” he advised, grinning insanely.

“Now, get those sweet red lips round this . . .”

Suzie steeled herself as she advanced and kept an eye on the knife. Meanwhile, the other Suzie spoke quietly to Darryl.

“I thought there’d be a way I could get the knife away from that big idiot, poke him with it and get away,” she said.

Darryl was sickened, knowing as she moved slowly through the dust, across the floor on her knees, towards that disgusting phallus, that whatever it was that happened was very close to happening and he couldn’t take it.

He couldn’t face seeing Suzie in pain, couldn’t bear the thought of them doing what they did that left her as she now was. He wanted to do something about it; wanted so bad to be able to stop it and let everything go back to the way it was.

There was a scream and Darryl grimaced, opening his tightly shut eyes just enough to be able to squint through and was absolutely shocked at what he saw.

Ian’s dick was in Suzie’s mouth and it was he who was screaming.

“Arghhhhhh! Gerreroffome!” he shrieked.

Darryl realised that Suzie was biting and biting hard. Ian’s arms were flapping around uselessly as he tried to either slip out backwards or do something to make her let go, but it seemed that she had her teeth sunk deeply into his flesh and any movement whatsoever on his part caused considerable pain.

Darryl smiled a grim smile as he saw that thin trickle of blood flow from the corner of Suzie’s mouth and he knew that she was giving as good as she got– at the moment anyway.

His satisfaction though was short lived.

Ian did not stop yelling. Tears were flowing down his face and it was Adrian who had to stop things.

He wrenched the knife from the table-top and grabbed Suzie by the hair. Ian let out another blood-curdling scream as Adrian reached with the knife under Suzie’s neck. With his eyes closed and a look of grim determination, he drew the knife towards him.

“NO!” shouted Darryl and ran forward to try and stop Adrian from taking Suzie’s life, but was completely ineffectual. “Stop!”

His hands could not make contact with either of the men or Suzie either as she slipped gently off Ian’s tool to the floor, her eyes staring out blankly as the last spurts of blood shot from the gaping wound in her neck and through Darryl over the dust-covered stone.

“Can’t you do something?” he shouted at the other Suzie. She just ignored him, or couldn’t hear as she stood over her own body, watching the pool of blood get bigger and bigger…

“There’s so much . . .” Darryl whispered, shaking his head. “So very, very much . . .”

---

“What’s wrong, Darryl?” a voice asked gently.

“She’s dead,” he replied, his face as white as the linen on the bed; his eyes blankly staring forward, not even appearing to register the person beside him. “Dead–I saw her. There was so much blood. It was everywhere.”

“Who’s dead, Darryl?”

“Suzie Croft,” he replied.

“It was a dream, a bad dream,” said the voice soothingly, but Darryl wasn’t having any of it.

“It was no dream, I was there. It was awful.”

The nurse ran from the ward and into the Sister’s office.

“I think our young man witnessed a murder. Worse still, he may even have committed it.”

“What?”

“The Groves boy,” the nurse said, clearly agitated. “He’s just said he saw Suzie Croft get her throat cut.”

In moments, the ward Sister and the nurse were back at Darryl’s bedside. He was still mumbling something about Suzie Croft, about the blood. He seemed unable to stop focussing on the blood.

“I think we’d better call the authorities.” Sister said, darkly and left the nurse looking worried by Darryl’s side.

---

It didn’t take long for the police to arrive, and when they did it was pandemonium. The nurse was questioned at great length and it attracted attention from others in the hospital too.

One such was Annabel. The buzz that surrounded the ward was too much to ignore, but once she found out what had happened, she went to a phone immediately.

“Is that Detective Cummings?” she asked.

The phone call was over in less than two minutes and shortly afterwards Cummings passed through the main doors to be met by the junior doctor, Annabel Carter.

“What the hell’s happening?” he asked as she led him through into the body of the hospital.

“I don’t know. I think Darryl’s had one of his visions and the ward Sister took it that he was there in person. Now everyone thinks he’s the one who killed Suzie Croft,” she said as they strode purposefully towards the lift. Annabel pushed the button to call it.

“That’s absurd,” said Cummings. “He was here when that happened.”

There was a soft “ding”, the doors to the lift opened and the two stepped inside.

“What’s happening now, you said there was a police presence?”

Annabel pressed the button for Darryl’s floor. “I don’t know about presence, more like a reunion.”

“That bad?”

“You’ll see.”

A moment later, Annabel and Ron stepped out to see several uniformed policemen strategically placed up and down the corridor. The ward Sister didn’t look particularly impressed.

“This is a hospital,” she fumed. “If I’d have known you were going to go this far Chief Inspector–”

“We can’t afford to take any chances, Sister.”

“But he can’t walk for God’s sake. Where could he possibly go?”

Ron and Annabel walked down the corridor and turned left into Darryl’s ward. A tall police constable was about to bar his way, but without so much as a change in pace, Detective Sergeant Cummings flashed his warrant card.

“This is Doctor Carter,” he said authoritatively and the young policeman stepped aside.

“Hi, Darryl,” said Annabel.

“Thank God!” Darryl exclaimed. “This place has gone nuts. You have no idea how nice it is to see a friendly face . . . Well two. Hello Sergeant Cummings.”

“How are you doing?” Ron asked.

“Not too bad. I’m afraid I got a bit wound up over seeing Suzie Croft’s death. I think this lot think I’m involved, but I’m not–honest.”

“You don’t need to convince us, Darryl. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and have a word with the Chief Inspector,” Ron said smiling and with that, left Annabel and Darryl on their own.

Detective Chief Inspector Rawles was still in animated discussion with the ward Sister, who was threatening all sorts of trouble if he didn’t do something to greatly reduce the number of policemen in and around the ward.

To Rawles’ delight, Cummings turned up just in the nick of time.

“Ah, sir,” he said. “Could I have a word?”

“Yes, Sergeant. Would you excuse me please Sister.”

The ward Sister rolled her eyes and turned away.

“What is it, Cummings?” he asked, all semblance of camaraderie disappearing very quickly indeed.

“I think you might be making a mistake here, sir,” he said in sotto voice.

“Oh?” said the superior officer. “How so?”

“Well for a start, Groves was in here when Suzie Croft was murdered. There’s no way he could possibly have been there.”

“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved,” said the inspector stubbornly.

Ron tried to regain his composure. If Rawles could possibly pin this on Darryl, it would be a quick end to the whole affair, but as much as Cummings would like to have seen Rawles hoist by his own petard, it would never have got that far.

He had had the television on before he left and as he was about to leave, the reporter on-screen was already telling the story of how the police had got a positive lead on the murder of Suzie Croft and the abduction of the other women.

He was just about to turn the set off when the badly blurred and poor quality picture of Darryl leaving the ambulance flashed up on screen.

“The police don’t know whether this new suspect is directly involved . . .” the newscaster intoned.

“Shit!” he exclaimed.

I can assure you, sir, Groves is no way involved.”

Rawles rolled his eyes. “Not still trying to convince me the boy’s psychic are you?”

“No sir, just that he cannot have been involved in the murder of Suzie Croft or the abduction of those women and if we continue to involve him, it is likely to put his life and possibly the lives of those around him in danger too–both here and home.

“He’s already been featured for a second time on the television news this evening, thanks to that bitch Sandy Townsend and people are starting to make up their own minds. To many, he’s already guilty.”

Ron could see his words were getting through, so he pressed on.

“Psychic or not, the moment the Crown Prosecution Service hear that he was in hospital at the time of the murder and for some time prior to that, we’ll be laughed out of court. I’m just thinking ahead, sir. You understand.”

“Perhaps you’re right . . .” Rawles said, then thought for a moment. “I’m putting you in charge of keeping an eye on him then, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir,” Ron acknowledged and went back to the ward. On the way, he passed the Sister.

“I think you can breathe a sigh of relief now, Sister. You’re getting your ward back.”

“Not before time,” she said and laughed.

---

Darryl and Annabel were deep in conversation when Ron returned. She was asking him question after question about Jennifer and however he managed to do it, he answered each and every one. By the end of it, Annabel had eyes like saucers, leaking copiously, but she was smiling.

“I don’t know how you do it and I don’t want to know,” Ron said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“I don’t know either,” Darryl chuckled. “At first I thought it was just coincidence, but now I can tell when I’m just thinking and when the thoughts are more, shall we say, informative.”

“How do you cope?”

“I very nearly couldn’t, seeing Suzie the way she was,” he said shuffling into a more upright position. “It was like some gory horror film–really gruesome. I did see where it was though.”

“Where?” Ron asked, taking out his notebook.

“Church Road. There are two bus stops outside and I think it’s above a shop.”

“I know you’re not going to like this, but can you tell me what happened?”

Darryl spent the next fifteen or twenty minutes going over everything that happened and Ron scribbled furiously in his notebook. When it got to the bit where she bit his . . . thingy, Ron couldn’t believe his ears.

“She did what?!”

“Bit him.” Darryl repeated, nodding to emphasise the deed. “He was shrieking like a scalded cat.”

“Good for her!” beamed Ron. “But that’s interesting. He’s going to have to get treatment somewhere and we’ll be waiting.”

“Well, I wish you luck.”

“Thanks. I think I had better be off. Let you get some rest, but don’t worry, I’ll leave someone here to keep an eye on you.”

“Rest? I don’t know if I’m going to be able to after that.” Darryl answered wryly.

“Well try. It’s the only way you’ll get out of here.” Ron said, getting up and slipping his notebook back into his inside pocket.

“Now you come to mention it,” Darryl said, yawning theatrically. “I do feel a bit sleepy.”

---

To be continued . . .