The Sight
By
Nick B

 © Nick B 2008

My God that Gabi works damned quick :)
Don't know what I'd do without her though...

"you can’t know what it’s like to have a child like that…"

---

Adrian looked at his friend. He didn’t need a doctor to tell him something was horribly wrong.

Ian however, obviously did. He was shivering and looking decidedly grey, but the worst part was his penis. It was covered in what looked like open sores; red, raised angry-looking ulcer-type things that were festering, suppurating and obviously very painful.

Even after ten days, the bite marks had not reduced in size, let alone healed or even scabbed over. They had in fact got quite noticeably bigger–angrier and Ian had not been able to stand it being covered.

At Adrian’s insistence, Ian had put ointment on it, but it seemed to have no effect at all. In fact, now, after nearly two weeks, Ian was in such bad shape that Adrian was toying with the idea of carting him off to hospital, whether he wanted to go or not–and as of five minutes ago, he didn’t.

Despite only having rudimentary knowledge of medical matters, Adrian saw his friend’s injuries as being the cause of his current predicament.

“We’ve got to get you to a doctor,” he said. “Better still, the hospital. I’m afraid that you’re going to get worse if we don’t.”

“Don’t even dare to think about it,” Ian had said angrily, his voice dry and rasping. “Anyway, how would we bloody explain it?”

‘Never mind explaining it, if you don’t get it looked at soon you may not live to regret it,’ Adrian thought.

He went to check the women: they were in almost as poor a state as his friend and whilst it was more than his life was worth to let them go, he did give them some soup, before scurrying back to Ian’s side in case the big man noticed he was gone.

He felt sorry for them, almost as sorry for them as he was for his friend.

Sure, he knew they weren’t going to get out of this alive, but they weren’t supposed to suffer like they were at the moment. He had never envisaged them being left down in the cellars under the shops in Waterloo Street like they were now, with no food or water–that had never been the plan, but that bitch had to go and complicate things by biting Ian’s willy.

Still that didn’t mean he had to be inhospitable.

Anyway, having given them each some soup–not much, but they did seem awfully grateful, he could turn his attention back to Ian.

I’ve got to do something…

He cobbled together a plan. It was risky, but in his opinion, risk was the least of his problems and if it worked, Ian might live and they might be able to get out of this awful predicament relatively unscathed.

The alternative was…well, he didn’t want to even consider that.

Apparently some kid had seen them when that dark-haired bird had had to die and that meant that with a witness hanging around, it was probably better that they didn’t.

Keeping a low profile was one thing, but trying to keep such a profile with Ian as he was, was not the best of ideas, so he decided to go ahead with his plan–take his chances and see what happened. What was the worse that could happen?

No-one knew where they were, despite this so-called witness and if–and only if–the plan went well, he could take care of Ian and the witness in one fell swoop.

---

The two policemen sat on guard outside Darryl’s room in the hospital, each on a chair in the corridor. Sergeant Ron Cummings had said they needed to be prepared for the worst, as many people had been swayed by the printed opinions in that less-than-reputable rag of a newspaper. He had had two officers on duty twenty-four hours-a-day since then, but so far, nothing untoward had happened.

In Ron’s opinion however, it was better to be safe than sorry.

The two officers stood when a man in a white lab coat approached, pushing before him a small trolley, loaded with medical paraphernalia.

“Can we help, sir,” said one.

“Ah yes,” he replied. “I have medicine for the chap in that room.”

“And you would be?” asked the copper suspiciously.

“Ed Spencer. I’ve got the job of medications tonight” said the man, holding his name tag out for them to see.

“You’d best go in then.”

Spencer nodded, smiling amiably as one of the two policemen opened the door to Darryl’s private room then stood aside to allow him to enter, closing the door quietly behind him once inside.

Darryl was awake and looking sullen.

“Good evening,” the doctor said urbanely.

“Who are you?” asked Darryl, without looking up, his tone surly and not in the least bit welcoming. The doctor didn’t flinch or even bat an eyelid.

“I’m Ed Spencer,” the man replied. “I’m here to give you a shot.”

“But I’ve already been given all the drugs I’m supposed to be taking. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.”

“Heard? Heard what?” the man asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Darryl, getting yet more antisocial.

“Look, I’m just doing what I’m told. It’s just one shot then I can be off and leave you to your own devices. I can see this isn’t a good time, but this is a hospital and I am the nurse who's supposed to administer. You are the patient and…” he removed a small vial from the trolley and held it up between his thumb and index finger for Darryl to see. “This is a vial containing a drug, some of which I am about to give you–or I’m in big trouble.”

Darryl didn’t look at all impressed, but acceded.

The man picked up a syringe and a needle; popped the cap from the plastic casing and fixed the needle to the syringe.

He pushed the needle into the small vial and drew off a quantity of the clear liquid, flicking the syringe with his forefinger afterwards and squirting a minute amount to remove any air that had remained inside.

He placed the syringe back on the trolley, picked up some surgical alcohol, some cotton wool and swabbed the area just in the crook of Darryl’s right elbow. He was about to flick the area to raise a vein when the door opened.

“We’re going to have to ask you to wait here until we get back,” the policeman said.

The nurse froze; Darryl’s wrist in one hand and his other reaching for the hypo. “What’s the problem?”

“Something’s happened on one of the lower floors. We just don’t want to leave our man here unattended.”

“I won’t let him out of my sight,” the nurse assured.

The policeman smiled and closed the door again.

Doctor Spencer flicked the skin to raise the vein then pushed the needle in, gently squeezing the plunger of the hypo until it would advance no further.

“At least, not until he’s in the back of the van…” he said quietly, grinning.

Darryl looked very confused, looking at the doctor as he flopped backwards on the bed.

---

It was a weird state of affairs as Darryl seemed to bounce along amidst a wealth of rattles and squeaks, not quite able to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds at a time. Things that he would normally have worried about just seemed to slide like water off the proverbial duck’s back.

Something had happened, but for the life of him, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The “it” part seemed to be so tantalisingly close, yet just out of reach.

So much seemed to be going through his mind that he found himself flitting, butterfly-like, from one subject to the next, never quite alighting on any one of them.

The subject of his mother and grandmother came up a number of times and sometimes it made him laugh while sometimes it made him feel sad. He knew that there had been an altercation and he had been absolutely furious at one of them, but he couldn’t seem to remember which or why.

There was something else. Something about his grandfather, though it wasn’t Padraig.

Do I have more than one grandfather? he wondered, giggling slightly as he rolled sideways and landed up with his face against something cold and decidedly gritty.

He pushed himself back into a sitting position as further bounces, jiggles and squeaks filled the dark space and whilst he knew he ought to be scared, worried or even concerned about where he was, he couldn’t bring himself to concentrate on any of those at all.

His attention moved to the doctor. He seemed so familiar, but somehow, the “where do I know him from?” seemed to elude him.

Suddenly the motion stopped and again, he rolled sideways in another fit of giggles as his face hit the cold gritty surface. A door opened and the doctor was standing there, but this time he didn’t have his white coat on.

“Don’t I know you?” Darryl asked, trying to focus on the man, who appeared to be at a very odd angle.

“You should,” the man replied. “Now it’s time to get you out of here.”

“But I’ve only just got here.”

“Yes,” said the man calmly. “And now it’s time to go somewhere else.”

“Good,” Darryl replied, struggling to right himself. “This place is awfully dirty and squeaks a lot.”

The man blinked a coupled of times, his brow furrowing and then, shaking his head, he grabbed Darryl’s arm and pulled him towards the door.

“We should have brought that wheelchair with us,” he grumbled. “You’ll have to hop or something.”

Darryl giggled again at the thought.

“Just stop that. You sound like a girl,” the man said irritably.

Darryl couldn’t help it and giggled again.

They struggled through a place that sounded like a long tunnel, but it couldn’t have been as there were cars parked down either side, but then, in what appeared to be the darkest recesses at the back and behind a large pile of tea chests and packing cases was a warren of corridors and doorways.

Something seemed familiar again, though it passed and soon Darryl was wrinkling his nose as they moved into a yet darker area where there might have been other people, but he wasn’t at all sure. It didn’t smell nice though.

The man let him go and stood, huffing and puffing as Darryl swayed for a few seconds, then dropped on his backside, chuckling away to himself.

“Perhaps I overdid the Vallium,” the man observed.

“Warsfatpp?”Darryl said quietly, before beginning to snore gently.

---

Ron’s arrival at the hospital wasn’t a fun affair–especially for the two coppers. Darryl’s disappearance wasn’t taken well by their superior.

“What were you thinking?” he asked.

The two officers didn’t know what to say, choosing instead to look at their feet as they scraped a speck of dust back and forth.

“In our defence, Sarge, we weren’t to know, were we?” one said. “And you weren’t here.”

Ron shook his head. “I can’t be here twenty-four hours a bloody day, can I?”

“But, Sarge. The man looked like a real nurse, I mean, how were we to know?”

“But you shouldn’t both have gone, should you?”

“No, Sarge,” they intoned in unison.

“You might as well go back to the station. There’s nothing for you here to protect now is there?”

Shame-faced, the two coppers left the scene.

Ron now had the awe-inspiring job of informing Darryl’s mother, and Gawd help him when that feisty grandmother of his finds out what has happened.

---

Darryl’s sleep, though drug induced was troubled. His mind constantly showed him images of the doctor, only here, he wasn’t the doctor. It showed him scenes of his grandmother and grandfather–neither of whom he thought really existed before that very afternoon and on top of that, he saw images of Annabel and Jennifer.

The place he was in seemed so familiar too–ringing warning bells and all sorts, yet for the life of him, he couldn’t recall why.

The next morning however, some of it at least started to fall into place, while his head felt like it was decidedly “out of place”; thumping and generally feeling like it had grown two sizes during the night and didn’t fit properly in his skull anymore. His mouth tasted foul and had been taped over and the smell was starting to sting his eyes.

On top of all that, his hands had been bound behind him, he had memories that he wasn’t sure were real or even his and despite the lack of light in the area, he was sure he wasn’t alone.

If only I could think straight…

Muffled whimpers emanated from the darkness and as time dragged by, he started to figure things out.

He was sure that he was with the remaining girls and if his hearing wasn’t playing tricks, there were three.

But there should be four.

He could hear from different areas of the space he was in, the sounds of sobbing, sniffing and other noises. Although he wasn’t completely sure, he could only detect three. Had the fourth died?

Maybe that was the one I saw being taken away… he thought.

He felt sick to his stomach.

So much for the bloody “Sight”, he complained, thinking that he had had no warning of the fourth’s demise. He didn’t even know which one of them it was.

He dimly remembered the night he went back to hospital. He had seen a girl being dragged into the back of a van in an alley that he thought may have been off Waterloo Street, but that was about all he could bring to mind–apart that was that when he saw her, she wasn’t dead.

The trouble was, he was thirsty and whatever he had been given last night was causing his head to ache. It didn’t seem to be getting any better, not helping his ability to think straight at all.

The biggest thing that kept rapping on his memory cell was something he had heard or perhaps he had just dreamed: he should have been a girl all along.

He kept having what he could only term as flashbacks from the day before. His mother and his grandmother were in a heated debate over him, but he was sure his grandmother kept referring to him as “her”.

He had to keep blotting it out of his mind as he was sure it was making his head hurt more.

---

Ian was getting worse.

He now had a fever and despite Adrian having shot a shit-load of drugs into him, nothing seemed to be making any difference.

Hijacking that doctor who was about to make his rounds in the hospital seemed to be bringing his plan to fruition and the fact that that call to the two cops while he was in the kid’s room, just made it look so much like it couldn’t fail.

So why wasn’t anything working?

“I got that kid–the witness,” he told his friend.

“Uhhh?” Ian replied, weakly.

“I said, I got that kid. He’s with the women under the shops. It all went so easily. I was in and out of the hospital in no time.”

Ian didn’t answer. His eyes looked glassy; unfocussed and Adrian was worried sick.

Perhaps I should give it a couple of days… he thought.

His relationship with the big man was strange to say the least.

He didn’t like the idea of the women at all; he’d much preferred it if Ian and he could have enjoyed themselves together, but Ian didn’t seem to see things that way–the way that he did.

In fact Ian didn’t like the idea of queers at all. Not that Adrian was queer or “gay” as it was now being termed. No, Adrian wasn’t queer, but sometimes he wondered what it would be like to have Ian hold him close and on the odd occasion when the sores weren’t obvious, he did wonder what it would be like to take Ian’s large tool in his mouth or…

He could feel his own tool stiffen at the thought.

No!

I’m not like that…

---

Darryl had no more than the merest inkling of the passing of time in that horrid place.

He would have thought he would have got used to the smell or the discomfort, but no.

His backside was sore from not being able to move much. He would liked to have laid flat, but his arms were in the way and he had terrible trouble moving as his legs were weak or immobilised.

Usually, his dressing would have been changed by now and he worried after that too.

Not as much as that argument between his Gran and his mother.

He still couldn’t believe that two people who had not seen each other in over sixteen years could have got so nasty towards each other; could have stood toe-to-toe and yelled–well argued so heatedly anyway–in front of Ron and Annabel and it was this that made it all seem so surreal.

He wasn’t a girl and he knew this, but without a working…well, you know…he wasn’t much of a man either.

He had never really fitted in as a boy. Mostly, it was just a case of him being him and nothing more, but there was more to being a boy than that, just like there was more to being a girl than the clothes, the hair and the makeup.

That all sounded rather a lot compared to scabby jeans, grubby t-shirt and Dunlop Green Flash or Converse All-Stars, but the idea of being attractive or even as his Gran had said, “pretty” appealed. He didn’t know why, but it did.

As a boy, he didn’t have much of a chance to be much. He was small for his age, not very masculine in his looks and was easy prey for bullies, but as a girl, he could be so much more. His sense of identity was blurred.

He really didn’t know whether he was one thing or the other and until the accident, had no idea about what he wanted. Now, his grandmother and her family had apparently given him something that made him think–made him wonder–about what was what.

Being a boy was hard and thus far was something he had not got used to. Being a girl would be hard too, but it would be hard with direction, which was a hell of a lot more than he had now.

Somehow, the discomfort he was suffering didn’t seem nearly so bad as he drifted off to sleep.
 
 
The next day he awoke cold and stiff.

His backside was sore and best part numb, partly due to the fact that he had had to urinate in situ and he shifted to try and redistribute his weight. It was no good and he gave up without much of a fight.

His head still hurt, or was at least as uncomfortable as his rear end and whether it was the lack of food or water, or the fact that he had been leaning against a brick wall for all that time he wasn’t sure, but there was a horrible buzzing in his ears.

He still wasn’t thinking straight. His mind was apt to go off at tangents and his memories were a still little blurry or skewed. The memory of his mum and Gran arguing wouldn’t go away and now it was tying together with the thing about his grandfather too.

No, it wasn’t Padraig, it was his mum’s dad–Reginald, or granddad as was preferred.

According to the argument, Darryl’s Gran accused his mother of thinking more about what her father wanted than what was right for Darryl. He distinctly remembered something about his mum saying “you can’t possibly know what it’s like to have a child like that…” and the conversation suggesting that he had been born with both.

Surely that’s not possible…

Once again, the thought was relegated to that “surreal” shelf in his mind.

“Please mum, get me out of here,” a voice said from the darkness.

He looked around.

There was nothing. He had been in that one place for hours–at least a day, perhaps longer and he had heard nothing. He also had reason to suspect that like him, the others there hadn’t had their mouths taped over and had been rendered unable to speak other than in muffled mumbles or groans.

They certainly hadn’t made much noise. Judging by the way he felt and the fact that they had been kept like this for weeks, not just a day or two, he would have thought they would have said something by now.

He could feel the despair in the voice; in the atmosphere and worried that if something didn’t happen soon, these poor women would be scarred for life, if they weren’t already.

Closing his eyes, he tried for all he was worth to call for Mariella.

---

Ron Cummings needed some idea of where to start the search. He had left Gemma Groves white and shaking at the loss of her son. Suddenly, the woman who had stood up to the diminutive grandmother looked like a frightened schoolgirl. He was loath to leave her on her own, but under the circumstances, he knew his place was out there looking–if only he had some place to start.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright, Mrs. Groves?” he asked.

She took a while to answer as she stared into the nothingness that was the loss of her Darryl. “I think so,” she said at last.

“I’m only a phone call away–and don’t worry, we’ll find him,” he said reassuringly. “I’ll see myself out.”

She didn’t seem to register his leaving and as Ron stepped out into the bright light of the outside world, he wondered whether they would find him and if they did, would he be alive?

Had it not been for the skills or abilities of the lad, they would have squat right now; probably still chasing their tails in ever decreasing circles and he felt somehow responsible for the young man’s involvement, even though in reality, he knew he wasn’t.

---

Adrian woke up to find Ian worse than ever.

“You have to come with me,” he said, struggling with all his might to get the bigger man up.

Unlike before, there was no struggle and Adrian was sweating profusely when he managed to get his friend to the van. He propped him up as best he could and opened the door, heaving his friend into the back. From there, it was a white-knuckle ride to the hospital.

Opening the door to the van, he ran into the hospital calling for help.

In moments, Ian was inside, connected to a drip and heading somewhere within the bowels of the big medical facility.

Adrian remained patiently in a waiting area for the better part of the day for news of his friend.

“He’s in a pretty bad way,” the doctor had said. “It looks like septicá¦mia. How long has he been like this?”

“It’s been a couple of weeks, doctor, but he just wouldn’t let me bring him in. What do you think has caused it?”

“I don’t know for certain, but it looks very much like the wounds on his penis.”

“I knew it!” he exclaimed. “I told him we needed to come in.”

“Do you know how he came by the wounds in the first place?” asked the doctor.

“No,” Adrian replied, without even turning a hair. “Can you treat it?”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to keep him in for a couple of days and we’ll run some tests. I’m sorry to say that at the moment, it doesn’t look very good for him. His penis is extremely badly damaged and he’ll be lucky if he gets to keep it at all, let alone whether it will ever work again. Perhaps it would have been better news had you brought him to us sooner. In the meantime, I suggest you go home and maybe give us a ring in the morning.”

It wasn’t good news… well it was better for Ian. He now had half a chance of surviving, which was more than he had before, but it wasn’t good for their plan.

He stormed out of the hospital and jumped into the van, a look of grim determination on his face. It was that bitch’s fault. She was the one that caused all this, but it was that kid that had made them have to lie low. If he had just kept his mouth shut …

Back at their hideout in Bedford Square, it all felt so weird knowing that Ian wasn’t there. Adrian didn’t quite know whether or not he had done the right thing, but it was not a question of right and wrong, it was a question of life and death.

Right now, the question wasn’t so much whether his friend would live or die, but whether the kid should be punished for making things so difficult.

He closed the front door and walked down past the neatly mowed lawn of the square, along the sea front and right on Waterloo Street. It was about a ten minute walk, but it helped him to clear his head; helped him to reconcile the fact that Ian may not pull through.

---

Darryl had no luck in getting his Gran. Maybe the timing was wrong or maybe he had heard the voice of that girl before and not just in his head. The buzzing had stopped and he now had no idea whether that was good or bad.

He knew that the women with whom he was–albeit in a very detached manner, had been poorly looked after and probably were extremely weak. It was likely too, that they were spending more of their time asleep, which may well have explained why he wasn’t “hearing” them if The Sight had returned.

What was certain was the amount of effort he was expending trying to contact Mariella; it was exhausting,

He was about to try again when he heard what sounded like someone approaching.

A small beam of light preceded the approaching man. Darryl struggled, trying to reach out with his mind to see whether or not he could detect whether this was going to be good or bad, but he felt or “saw” nothing.

Then he was there, the smaller of the two men. In these surroundings and without the impeding drugs to cloud his mind, he knew that this was the man who cut Suzie Croft’s throat.

“You’re going to pay,” he said, shining the light right into Darryl’s eyes.

Darryl could say nothing, even though he tried. The duct tape that covered his mouth was far too well stuck for it to be easily removed.

“I’m going to do to you what you caused for him.”

What did I do?

Darryl couldn’t see what was behind the light and had no idea what was about to happen, but he could see the man approaching. He didn’t need any “third eye” or paranormal ability to know from the man’s voice that what was going to happen was not going to be good.

“You know Ian’s in hospital don’t you?” said Adrian. “You’re the reason for that too. You’re the one who saw us when I slit the throat of that bitch that nearly bit Ian’s cock off. If you’d only kept your mouth shut, none of this would be happening now.”

Adrian knelt down beside Darryl, who was now struggling against his bonds. His natural instinct was to try and get away, but with one leg weak, the other plastered and not much help, and his hands taped firmly behind his back, there wasn’t much he could do.

“Oh shit! He’s got a knife,” a voice called through the pandemonium in Darryl’s head.

“It’s no use you struggling. I learnt my lesson on that score with that dark-haired bitch!” Adrian chortled and grabbed Darryl by the top of his left arm, dragging him back close to him.

“Let’s see now,” he said lifting the front of the hospital gown. “Oh look, that’s so sweet. It’s a shame you’re going to lose it.”

It was all over in a second.

The knife was plunged downwards once, then again and again. Pain flashed through Darryl’s body like a red hot poker and tears poured from his eyes as he tried helplessly to escape the stinging blows.

He called out with his mind “help us. For God’s sake, help us!” trying as he did to picture the entrance to the place where he was being kept and after calling out for the third time, everything went black.

---

The last ambulance left with lights flashing and a squeal of tyres.

“You heard him too?” asked the diminutive woman.

“I did,” said Ron and I’m glad that I knew who it was, but I don’t think I could have ignored it anyway.”

“That’s my Darryl!” said the woman, beaming. “Do you know how he is?”

“Multiple stab-wounds is all I know for sure. I just don’t know how he faired. I’m surprised we didn’t find this place before though. That was one brave kid.”

---

The End?

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