MURDER CABINET- finale

THE MURDER CABINET

Rony Brown

FINALE

 

*** Karen

I have no idea how long I have been here. There is no day nor is there night. Everything has become one big blend of blackness. They beat me till I beg that they take my life. But just when I seriously believe I am going to breathe my last they nurse me back to health and start the process all over again.

Someone is at the door, no there are two voices. It is always worse when it is the two of them. They giggle about something. I hang my head. But I realize that it may be a good thing. Today, I will probably get to know if heaven and hell is real. Too bad I won’t be back to tell anyone.

They turn the light up. I see their faces for the first time. Wow! Is that the lecturer from that HIV class? Suddenly, I am filled with venom.

“What did I ever do to you?” I scream. Almost simultaneously, I receive this massive blow in the gut. I double over in pain as blood fills my mouth. I did not see it coming.

“Allow her. She dares to rudely my lecture with her cluttering shoes so she may go and flirt with my son!” A male voice reaches my ear. I forget all about the pain. I get on my feet, and like a raging lunatic my teeth is lodged perfectly between his pinna. I keep tearing at it with all I have got. For a second or two, everything is unreal. Then a guttural and primal scream shoot out from his throat.

Everything that happened next was a blur. All I can remember is hitting into the bar on which I was chained and blood simply oozing out from God knows where. I was writhing in pain. I found myself wishing I could peacefully die then, or mercifully black out. But no, pain in its full and unbearable force throbbed through the entirety of my being. And I was fully awake to bear every throb.

The sharpest of all slaps assaults my face. It stings. The pain from the hurl into the bar has dulled but I still cannot move. I feel totally numb. I must have lost a whole lot of blood.

“We were going to get rid of you today. But we are going to torment you for weeks. You thought you were begging for death then, right? This time, after we are done with you, you would wish you could kill your own self.” The menace in her voice did not frighten me one bit. Besides, how much more was I going to be able bare?

*** At Jim’s

“She is not dead!” Jim’s tone is stubborn. The others have lost faith and his is pretty shaky. But giving up is the last thing he is going to do. He keeps telling himself that unless he saw Karen’s dead body, Karen was not dead.

‘Karen, come back to me. I promise I’d never touch you again.’ Jim pleads.

Ever since his boss went MIA Jim has taken every opportunity to blame himself. Taking her place felt so wrong; so wrong that he has still not been able to move his things into her office. Jim had done everything in his power to make it right. He had spent almost half of the office’s budget for the year combing through the university. He has been on the field as often as he could searching together with his officers for his boss.  Now, his officers are beginning to whisper behind his back that he is obsessed. “Maybe,” he thought, “just maybe, it was time to back off.”

*** Karen

“We are going to make you torture anyone who cares for you. You are going to give them hope. Make them think that their sweet little thing may be alive. Then we will kill you and do things to your corpse. We will desecrate your corpse so bad that even your mother will not recognize your dead stinking corpse. So you’ll leave behind the people you care about to waste and fade from hoping you are alive. Even though you are dead, you would be twisting and turning in your grave if you are lucky enough to get one. Every time your loved ones mention your name, praying that once again you’ll return you will burn a little more in hell, bitch!  We’ll start with Jim.” She shrugged. “Looks like he has left you the most number of messages. Wish you could see how cute these messages are and how heart-wrenchingly beautiful they are. You must have meant the world to him.”

This big but stupid woman thinks she is tormenting me with her dull speech. But instead my heart surges with joy. I know that if I proceed to make even the smallest show of joy, I would kiss this golden opportunity good bye. So instead every look of terror I can gather rushes into my eyes and before I can plead mercy, she lays a cool finger on my lips.

She places the call and put the phone on speaker.

“Hello…”

He takes his time to respond. Already, I can feel him throwing silent orders to the junior officers.

“TTC. Note five zero dash two zero dash one sub cat UNC. passcode URG …”

“What are you doing?” The big woman is panicking

She grabs a knife and slices through my thigh. All the energy in me saps on in one painful scream.

“Jim, I’m sorry…” I manage to say before she smashes the phone.

*** At Jim’s

If her office had been a mess before he came in, it was now barely recognizable. He had clawed through her office looking through her haphazardly placed notes.

Every word of hers reverberated in his head. He knew the meaning behind every code.

Triangulate this call. The murderer is in my fiftieth notebook, the twentieth page and the first paragraph but she was uncertain. And she said it was urgent. She probably had less than an hour.

Then the scream…

Yes, he had been able to triangulate the call even before she had asked. But the area that he had to cover was so great that he was sure it be too late. Already, thirty minutes have flown by. He and his officers have been searching through his boss’s clutter and silently cursed himself as the second molded into precious minutes.

“I found it.” Some officer announces.

He takes the file hastily and skims through.

HIV lecturer?

“Get that guy. Erhm! Derrell. Get him from the holding cell, now!”

He is gracelessly dumped into a chair.

“Who is the HIV lecturer?”

“There are many” Derrell retorts.

“No, don’t fuck around or I will just have to vent all my frustrations on you. So let me rephrase. Who is the fucking HIV lecturer?” Jim veins are bulging on his forehead now.

“I think Karen only came in contact with one.” his eyes widened as though he had finally realized something, “My dad.”

“Take me to him”

It is at most fifteen minutes to the university and Jim is impatient. He has lost his control and is driving like a manic whilst shooting out commands and receiving information through his radio.

The HIV lecturer was at a lecture, they told him. Lecture theatre nine. He could here blood pumping into his ears. There were a thousand and one ways that he would love to kill this guy. But now he just had to contend himself with driving like a maniac. His siren hollered loudly and the road cleared for him and his officers.

Before long he was in the lecture theatre. He could not hold himself back. Jim threw a punch right into the lean lecturers face, knocking him out for a second or two. He cursed himself some more. Precious seconds were going to waste.

“Where is she?” He knocked him continuously to the concrete floor as the class suddenly ruptured into an applause.

“Somewhere you’d never find her.”

Before another punch reaches the lecturer’s face Derrell holds Jim back.

“I know the place.” Derrell says.

“You make me sick!” His father screams behind him as the cuffs are slapped on his wrists.

His desperation was almost tangible when he quite literally shoves Derrell into his car.

 In another five minutes he is in a semi secluded area and Derrell points him to the house. Jim kicks the door open and sees her; lying in a pool of her own blood. His boss. His Karen. He resists the urge to run to her side knowing that there was a female lurking in the shadows. He releases three warning shots into the air and the coward comes out with outstretched hands.

One officer cuffs her and Jim proceed to delicately carry Karen out into the light. His heart breaks when he finally sees the extent of her injuries. There was no way she was going to survive this one. It took more than strength for Jim not to break down and weep.

“Where is the darn ambulance?! Where the fuck…”

He freezes when feeble hands clutch around his.

She tries to say something. Instead blood gurgled out of her mouth. So she stops.

Smiles.

Then she breathes her last.

Jim is undone. He holds her limp body to his chest and weeps without restraint.