The Serpent (2)
Elizabeth fought literally for her life, but within a minute, having used her store of oxygen at a much-increased rate, her movements began to slow and lose their energy, and after ninety seconds she blacked out. Gerald continued to pull on the twine for another three minutes, until every muscle in his upper body screamed for release from the flood of lactic acid flowing through them. He tied the twine as tightly as he could around Elizabeth’s neck, then let her drop sideways onto the bed. After saying another short prayer, he stood, took his coat from the peg and pulled it on, leaving the flat without looking back at the harlot. The job had been done, and done well. 28th January Gerald looked into his bathroom mirror, and what he saw surprised him, purely in an objective way. His face was now virtually covered in sores, most fresh, with some scabs around his mouth and nose. His hair, thin since childhood, was now parting wide at the top of his head, never to rejoin. Along the broad band of scalp now visible, he could see several fresh sores, weeping into his hair. In his bed this morning, when he had left it, he had found the dusting of flakes of skin and scab which had become a regular occurrence over the past couple of weeks. He seemed to be shedding his skin at an alarming rate. God was setting a severe test, and his determination to prove himself equal to it only increased as the symptoms grew more severe. He had so far rid the World of, as accurately as he could remember, twenty-two of the temptresses of man, and he took this as a sign that God, whilst putting him through this ordeal, nevertheless was allowing him to maintain sufficient health to carry out his job. His health had been concerning him for some days now, again purely from the point of view of being able to complete his divine purpose. He had felt a distinct weakening, a lack of energy, so he supposed that his allocation of sacrifices was almost complete. He hoped that God would allow him just a few more, before finally calling him to His side. He had been fervently praying for that several times a day for the last week. His hands were now deeply infected, and wept pus constantly. Although he did not realise it, he had contracted septicaemia. He was now wearing gloves over the bandages, partly for the original reasons of anonymity, partly to avoid the acute pain whenever he touched anything with them, and partly to stop himself covering everything in sticky pus. His feet were almost as bad as his hands, but they were not so much of a problem. All his work was done with his hands. They had to be in reasonable shape to allow him to continue. He thought he had probably damaged them quite badly the other week, while garrotting that heathen whore down Curzon Street. The twine had bitten savagely into his palms, and had left red welts that had not healed; had, in fact, become more and more inflamed and infected from then on. His feet had become infected only during the last few days, but with the constant chafing on his heels and toes from the hard, ill-fitting boots he forced himself to wear – sockless – they had quickly reached the same level of infection as his hands. Now he hobbled around, in permanent pain, although he would neither relinquish his unforgiving footwear, nor seek medical help. Adding to his worries, he was also running a temperature, and had been sweating almost continuously for the past three days. This is a severe test indeed, Lord. 2nd February Helen Porter left St. Thomas’ Hospital at three thirty a.m., almost dead on her feet, after a gruelling eighteen-hour operation. A tall, elegant woman, with the classic combination of auburn hair and green eyes, she knew, because she was told so often, that she was the pin-up for most of the male medical students in the hospital, not to mention a few of the female ones too. It had been remarked upon more than once that her surgeon’s gown fit her so well that she must have been the model for that particular cut. Whilst she never denied enjoying the attention, she also made it abundantly clear that she would much rather be respected for her work than admired for her looks. At thirty-nine, she had been a surgeon for over thirteen years, but had never lost that adrenaline rush when an operation had been successful, never lost that crushing sense of remorse at each failure. This was what she lived for, could not envisage any other life. Tonight, or rather this morning, she had left her assistant to perform the closure, suturing the young man’s abdomen back together after his liver and kidney transplant. The operation had gone well, and she was, although bone-tired, as satisfied and content as she always was after such a job. Reaching her car, she saw movement in the bushes lining the hospital car park. As she disengaged the central locking and opened the rear door to put her case on the seat, Gerald pushed out from the bushes and grabbed her from behind, one hand around her mouth, the other around her waist, and started to pull her back into the bushes. “’And the Lord said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’ Genesis chapter three, verse 13.” Helen immediately thrust an elbow back into his ribs. Unaware of the movement, Gerald had no time to move away or even brace himself, and was winded by the sharp jab. He continued to hold grimly onto Helen, although he stopped moving towards the shrubbery. For the first time, a flicker of doubt in his own omnipotence passed through his mind as he felt his muscles, once stronger than any woman’s ability to fight him off, begin to let him down. He decided he had better get the job done as quickly as possible, while he still had the strength to complete it. Letting go of Helen’s waist for a second, he reached into his coat pocket and brought out the knife with the eight-inch blade, which had often been the chosen tool of his trade. He reached around Helen, intending to slit her throat, but she raised an arm up to her neck and took the weakened swipe on her forearm. The sharp knife sliced through coat, sweater and blouse, to carve a shallow but bloody track across her arm. Her yell of pain was muffled by Gerald’s bandaged hand, but the pain seemed to inject into her an additional urgency, and at the same time energise her. She reached up to Gerald’s knife hand, grabbed his little finger, and pulled back hard. The finger dislocated at the second joint with an audible click and, for the first time, Gerald felt the true magnitude of the pain, rather than the objectiveness with which he had felt the MRSA-induced agony. He let out a high-pitched shriek of which he was enormously disgusted, but Helen hadn’t finished. She wrenched herself completely out of his grasp, turned and kicked him hard between the legs. Gerald crumpled to the ground groaning, screwed himself up foetally, and rocked back and forth. “Get up you bastard”, shouted Helen, the volume of her voice raised by the adrenaline pulsing through her. “You evil whore-bitch”, whispered Gerald hoarsely, his attention firmly focused on the excruciating pain from his swelling scrotum. “If you don’t get up I’ll finish you off, you pathetic little shit”, she snarled, pegging her voice back in its volume, but allowing it its full content of venom. Slowly, Gerald rolled onto his knees, then pushed himself up off the tarmac, still bent over and clutching his genitals. “Right, I’m taking you back into there,” she pointed at the hospital Casualty Department, “and then I’m calling the Police. If you try to get away, I’ll make that first kick feel like a love pat. Got it?” Gerald nodded meekly, starting to regain some coherence in his thoughts. He had to get away, somehow. At the moment, the bitch was not holding onto him, obviously thought he was still in the grip of the agony she had put him in. He began stumbling towards the Casualty Department, with Helen following close behind, ready to grab him if he made a run for it. As they reached the doors, Gerald feigned a stumble. As Helen closed up on him to grab him, he turned and punched her in the stomach. Already weak, and weakened further by the recent fight, his punch carried little of its former weight, but it was sufficient to buy him the few seconds he needed to make his escape. As Helen straightened up to catch hold of him, Gerald was already running into the darkest part of the car park, to become unseen as soon as possible. He ran full pelt, ignoring the blasts of pain that exploded from his feet up his legs with every pounding stride. He heard Helen cursing him, but did not hear her following him, and, after a minute or so, turned and found he was alone. He could still make out the brightly lit entrance to Casualty, but could not see any figures, and assumed she had gone inside. Miserably, painfully, he limped back to his flat, ashamed to raise his head, knowing that, for the first time, he had failed his God. He had assumed correctly; Helen had decided not to chase him, and had gone into the Casualty Department, where she was treated for shock, and where her knife wound received sixteen stitches. She was off work for two weeks. 21st February “It’s number twelve,” the elderly Mrs. Thomson told the paramedics as they followed her slowly up the stairs. “I haven’t seen him for weeks, and the last couple of days there’s been an awful stink coming from his flat.” As they approached the door to the flat, the paramedics could smell it for themselves; a nauseating odour of rotting and corrupt flesh. One they knew only too well. Steeling themselves for what they were sure was going to be a corpse in some decay, the reached the door. As protocol dictated, they first had to knock on the door. “Mr. O’Donnell”, shouted Bob Martin, the senior of the pair. A veteran of twenty years service, he didn’t think there was anything left which could shock him, although he was surprised constantly. One thing which neither shocked nor surprised him, however, was being the butt of many a good-natured joke about his unfortunate name. He was not the kind of man to let such a thing bother him, which was probably just as well. “Mr. O’Donnell, could you let us in please? We’re paramedics, we’ve just come to see if you’re alright.” No answer. Turning to Jackie Burnham, his partner, he shrugged resignedly. “Oh well, suppose it’s the old break-and-enter again.” She nodded, smiling sympathetically. Of the four years she had been in the service, the last three of them had been with Bob, and she looked on him almost as the father she had never really had. She took his bag off him, and gently eased Mrs. Thomson back away from the door as Bob walked back to kick it. Well practised at it as Bob was, the kick was perfectly aimed, and the thin door stood no chance. It splintered around the lock, leaving it in place, the rest of the door swinging back sharply then rebounding. Bob held it open and pushed through into the flat, fighting against the tsunami of foetid air that rushed to take the opportunity to escape its prison, as though it was sick of its own smell. Moving through the darkened flat, the curtains all drawn and lights off, he could not at first see the source of the overpowering odour. Then, peering over at the bed, he saw a huddled form which he initially took to be merely the bedclothes, but which he quickly realised was a man. Or at least, it used to be a man. He rushed over, one hand over his nose and mouth, found a pulse point on Gerald’s neck, and received his surprise for the day when he realised the man was still alive, though barely. He was unconscious, and as Jackie opened the curtains, they could see that he was suffering hideous gangrene in all his limbs. His hands and feet had virtually gone, only black gelid stumps remaining. Quickly, Bob slipped an oxygen mask over Gerald’s nose and mouth, and Jackie ran back out of the flat to fetch a portable drip, from which they would administer a unit of saline to combat the dehydration, and a unit of blood plasma to replace the white blood cells lost through the septicaemia. Bob placed plastic bags over Gerald’s ruined hands and feet, then, while Jackie intubated him with the saline and plasma, Bob ran back to the ambulance to fetch the stretcher. Eventually Gerald was transferred to the stretcher, carried to the ambulance, and rushed to St. Thomas’ Hospital Casualty Department. He was taken straight through to Resuss., where it was quickly recognised that the gangrene had been brought on through septicaemia, which itself was a result of MRSA. The staff were all quickly advised, and Gerald was isolated from the rest of the department in order to contain the contagion. He was stabilised with cross-matched blood transfusions, more saline and plasma. When his pulse had steadied and strengthened, he was transferred to the intensive care unit, and the surgical team was contacted to assess his limbs and decide on the amputations which would be required. * Helen Porter was paged at eleven-thirteen, and called to ITU to assess a case of gangrene. She had been back at work for only four days, and her arm was still causing her some discomfort, although the shock of the attack had largely left her, even though her nightmares occasionally jogged her memory. Entering ITU, she was shown to an isolation ward, and informed that the patient was suffering from MRSA. Pulling on surgical gloves, she entered the ward, walked up to the bed, and drew breath sharply. Realising that this was the very man who had attacked her, she fought an almost overwhelming urge to throttle him then and there. But the urge was overcome, because she was a woman of medicine, who had committed her life to saving lives, not taking them. Even so, the feelings of hatred and anger remained, below the surface professionalism, as she looked at each limb in turn. The gangrene was well advanced up both arms and legs and had, unfortunately for the patient, reached the knees and elbows. She had little choice but to amputate all four limbs, leaving only stumps to which prostheses could potentially be fitted. She wondered whether for this man, as wretched and worthless as he undoubtedly was, death would not have been the kinder option. * The first operation was carried out the following day, which removed both of Gerald’s arms. In his weakened state, it was not thought safe to keep him under anaesthetic long enough for Helen to perform all four amputations, so the legs would be removed in a week’s time. Gerald awoke from the anaesthetic the following day, and, a few hours later, Helen visited him on her rounds. She slipped into the isolation ward, closing the door behind her, and sat on the bedside chair. “Good morning Mr O’Donnell. How are you feeling?” Her voice was cold, devoid of any compassion or even interest in his health. She stared directly at him. Gerald at first didn’t recognise her. “Where am I?” he croaked. “What’s happened to me?” “You’re in hospital, Mr. O’Donnell,” she explained, “and I’m afraid we’ve had to amputate your arms, which had become gangrenous.” The light of recognition dawned in Gerald’s mind. “You…you, whore,” he spluttered, trying to sit up but failing due to his lack of leverage. “What have you done to me, you Devil’s spore?” “Calm down now Mr. O’Donnell. As I said, I have had to amputate your arms. Unfortunately there was no other choice. And I have some more bad news I’m afraid. Your legs are also highly gangrenous and will have to be amputated. The operation is scheduled for next week.” She realised that not once had she said the word ‘sorry’ during her explanation, an explanation which would normally be filled with sorrow and apology. But in this case, she felt none, and this coloured her selected vocabulary. “You can’t do this to me. You can’t just chop off my arms and legs like this you…you…bitch.” “I’m afraid there is nothing else we could do, Mr. O’Donnell. Now, I really must be getting on. I’ll come and see you after your second operation.” 28th February True to her word, Helen called in on Gerald shortly after he had emerged from the anaesthetic of the second operation, which had robbed him of his two remaining limbs. After the usual professional pleasantries, she then went on to tell him of an interesting fact that had occurred to her as she had been removing his legs the previous day. “You know, Mr. O’Donnell, when you attacked me and tried to kill me, you spouted some rubbish from the Bible about women being sinful and so on. Well, you might know this already, but it’s quite an interesting tale, so I’ll tell you anyway. It’s the story of how snakes came to have the form they have now. It seems that God, after punishing both Eve and Adam for eating from the Tree of Knowledge, punished the serpent even more severely, by removing his limbs. I dug out my old Bible the other night, and read the passage. Out of interest, it’s Genesis chapter three, verse 14. ‘And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.’ Don’t you think that’s rather ironic, Mr. O’Donnell?” Gerald did not speak. Inside he seethed with anger and disgust at this evil harlot, but for some reason could not express himself. Trauma had eventually caught up with Gerald, robbing him of one further faculty, the power of speech; one final irony, since God had also struck the serpent incapable of communicating with man; a fact which was not lost on Helen, as she stood and left Gerald to his internal Hell.
Go to part: 1 2
Copyright © 2000 Simon King |