dEaDINBURGH: Origins (Din Eidyn Corpus Book 3) Read online

  dEaDINBURGH:

  Origins

  by

  Mark Wilson

  Somna

  2014

  London

  I follow her along Carnaby Street, the sound of her heels clacking on the concrete becoming a metronome, accompanying the pounding of my heart in my chest. It doesn’t irritate me, this monotonous soundtrack, but rather it acts as an overture, joining the other London sounds building in intensity, stoking my bottomless appetite.

  My Other giggles as he catches our reflection in the blackened windows of the Vans store. I shush him and he glares at me with undisguised contempt.

  “It’s my night, killer. It’s me who’s in charge tonight; don’t fucking forget who I am.” The vitriol drips from his sneer.

  That’s what he calls me, killer, like it’s a curse and reverence in one word. I nod once in reply. In deference. Now’s not the time. Besides, he’s right. It is his night. He’s in charge: he controls what happens, how it happens and to whom. These days, I’m just a passenger. No, that’s not right. I’m more of a tool for him to use to enable his insatiable urge to kill. Of course, I’m hardly one to judge having held those same appetites and compulsions all of my life. My Other merely… sharpens those instincts and gives me so many new, delicious ways to love my victims.

  Once, maybe two years ago, I moved through this world of stalking and loving and blood and joy alone. I’d killed dozens by then – men, women, teenagers – but no children. They didn’t make the urge beat and pulse the way older people did. They felt too… familiar. Too much like me. Too… human.

  My Other joined me after I’d killed a man in an alleyway in the Lanarkshire town of Motherwell. He was mildly drunk, his eight-year-old son skipping along beside him. Normally when my prey is with a child I walk away. I lose all compulsion to kill when a child is present, and I decided to return to stalking him another night, but as I turned to leave, I saw him land a heavy blow with his meaty hand to the back of the boy’s head. His son fell to the stony ground as I leaned in from a misty distance to listen.

  “Too fuckin’ noisy,” he barked down at the lad.

  The kid glared up at him from the ground. I caught the shadow of what looked like faded bruises around his angry stare.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Matthew.” The man raised his hand to threaten.

  His action did nothing to dampen the fire in the boy’s eyes. He stood, glared at his drunken father then lowered his head.

  The man nodded and continued walking, his son running ahead towards their home, no longer interested in skipping alongside the bully he called Dad.

  I’d taken him then, of course. As soon as the boy had left, my urge came rushing back on the crest of a hundred beatings from my own father. A thousand insults of eternal mocking about my obsession with footballers.

  He died very quickly – which was a disappointment – but cried and begged with shameful cowardice, which was wonderful, if too brief. I hadn’t had the opportunity to repay my own father for his love and this man’s death had proven an exhilarating substitute, and one that made a significant change happen within me.

  My Other joined me afterwards and has been my constant companion throughout life and death since. Initially he’d been unobtrusive, an observer. An ever-present facet of myself in many ways. Keen to offer suggestions, but largely a passenger. Over time, he’d sharpened my appetites.

  My kills had been careful in the past; after all, I’d killed dozens from all walks of life in many cities and countries. No police force had so much as linked any of my kills together. Once my Other began speaking to me, exerting his will, I became very creative.

  I used different methods of dispatch and never stayed true to a certain type of victim. I’d like to say that this was all my own inventiveness but, truly, my Other has had so many good ideas these past two years. More and more it’s made sense to just let him take control. To direct, to command.

  As she passes Merc Clothing, my victim’s heels screech a little, breaking the build-up of the moment for a split-second as she turns along Broadwick Street. Perfect.

  As my victim passes Mozzino, my Other hisses at me.

  “Now!”

  I check up and along the narrow little road and then rush at her. She’s in her mid-forties, very fit and much smaller than I am. Most people are. I place my hand over her mouth, pulling her head back sharply, so that her hair presses against my chest.

  Wrapping one beefy arm around her waist I lift her into myself and slightly to the side to avoid her kicking legs. Quickly I dart through the half-shut gates into a service yard, my Other laughing that sissing laugh. The one that reverberates around my head and makes my skin crawl. I ignore it. My Other is as excited as I am, maybe more so. He’s entitled.

  I put the woman in a choke hold and she passes out. My Other looks at her and smiles broadly, his face a twisted mirror of my own.

  As soon as she’s unconscious, I walk to the gates and close them firmly. Retrieving a canvas bag with a few implements suggested by my Other, I kneel beside her and begin placing my tools at her side. Sometimes I tie them and wait until they awake whilst I do this. The terror in my victims’ eyes as they see what toys I’ve thought ahead to bring for them is a wonder like no other. For her, she gets to stay asleep.

  My Other issues a series of instructions, making my hands his own. I simply obey. The pleasure I feel washing over me isn’t diminished by this act of near servitude. Quite the opposite is true. Surrendering myself to my Other’s voice, to his needs and his commands, amplifies my experiences to a plane I could never have achieved alone.

  Cut the artery. Remove the trachea. Crush the kidney in your fist. Kiss her.

  My Other laughs as he commands. I’m in the moment, entirely, when my mind starts to drift. I pull my attention deliberately back to the beautiful act of deconstruction I’m doing to this once hard-earned muscular body, but I can’t seem to stay focused. I think of the kills I’ve done since my Other joined me. So many. We’ve learned so very much together. Something feels wrong. Something is… not pleasurable. Something hurts.

  Dozens of kills flash before my eyes. Disembowelment, hangings. Arms severed, genitals eaten. Livers fed to stray dogs. Strangulations, beheadings, skulls caved in, eyes gouged. So many beautiful communions with my prey. My Other learning from me. My Other teaching me. Football – always football – my only other love. My Other loved Manchester Utd even more than I did. We enjoyed the history of the club, the greatest players. Sir Alex. All our heroes in red. We stalked one of our heroes, the hero actually, through the streets of Paris, but my Other cried out that we must not. He was special.

  I drop the gore-covered surgical scalpel and shake part of her intestine from my hands and turn to look into the face of my Other. His smile is toothy and wide. He looks different: I’ve never seen him so happy. I blink hard several times and smile back, mostly out of reflex. He smiles so rarely that it just seems the thing to do, to smile back.

  My eyes narrow and drop to his hands. He has a large kitchen knife from our bag. It’s dripping with warm, bright blood. Blood too fresh to be hers. My fingers feel around to where the pain lanced in my spine and disappear into the stab wound.

  I feel my Other slide the eight-inch blade into my neck, plunging it through the trapezius.

  “Why?” I gurgle, a clump of blood splattering from my mouth.

  My Other laughs.

  “Don’t need you anymore, killer.” His voice is a slap of sarcasm.

  I feel the blade being pulled out. It’s actually quite a pleasant sensation. Not unlike defecating. I fall to the ground, my face comin
g to rest on my victim’s open abdomen.

  “I’m proud of you,” I whisper with my last words.

  He laughs.

  He stands over the body of the killer and sighs. A sort of sadness passes over his being, only briefly but long enough for him to notice the desolation and be surprised by it. He hadn’t considered that he would feel a sense of loss. Still, he supposes, two years is a long time, and I have learned an awful lot from the killer. He absent-mindedly flicks the knife sharply to his right imitating samurai he’d seen in movies cleaning their katana.

  Cocking his head to the right he moves his eyes dispassionately along the bodies in front of him. The man at his feet, face plunged into the growing pool of blood of their victim. He coldly removes his own clothes. Standing in only his Spiderman underwear, he walks slowly to the gate, rearranging his face into one of a traumatised seven year old. With a final look over his shoulder, he whispers, “Goodbye, killer.” And slips through the gate in search of a policeman or Samaritan.

  Steven takes another long pull on his cigarette and jabs at the volume minus button on his remote. He nods towards the door.

  “Can you check in on him again, love?”

  His wife, Sharon, smiles at him, indulgingly.

  “If it’ll make you feel better, of course.” Sharon creaks quietly halfway up the staircase leading from their living room to the two bedrooms on the second floor. Pausing, he lifts one ear in the direction of one of the doors and listens.

  “All quiet, love. Turn that up a little, will you?” she asks, descending the stairs and taking her seat once more.

  Dermot Murnaghan speaks a little louder as Steven jabs the volume up button.

  “So it seems that Matthew Houston, the seven year old who disappeared two years ago on the night of his father’s murder, is settling in well with his aunt and uncle.”

  Dermot’s kindly face is replaced by the head teacher of Noble Primary School.

  ”Yes, we’re very pleased with Matthew. Despite his ordeal, he’s adjusted very well to normal life once again and is proving to be one of our brightest pupils.”

  Dermot nods sympathetically and looks into the camera as the footage from Noble Primary disappears.

  “After two years held captive by what appears to be Britain’s most prolific serial killer, young Matthew Houston’s bravery and spirit is an inspiration to the people of Scotland and Britain. Dermot Murnaghan, News at Ten, in absolute wonder at a genuinely heroic little man.”

  Steven jabs the red button, turning the image off.

  “He’s a special kid, isn’t he, Sharon?”

  He is, love. To have been under the control of that monster and fight his way free is amazing, but to have come home such a confident, assured young man, it’s a blessing, Stevie.”

  Steven nods his agreement. “He’s some boy. Only thing he’s asked for since he’s been back is a poster of David Beckham.” Steven’s face drops a little. “He’s a wee bit obsessed, is he not?”

  Sharon shook her head. “You were the same with football at that age. It’s good for him.”

  Steven smiles. “Aye, I suppose so.”

  Rising, he makes for the kitchen to brew another cup of tea for them.

  “Looking forward to taking him through to Edinburgh next week for the New Year fireworks?”

  Sharon smiles broadly.

  “Can’t wait, love.”

  Michelle MacLeod

  Chapter 1

  January 30th

  2015

  “Dad… DAD!”

  “Oh, sorry, love. What did you say?”

  Michelle smiled at her father, shaking her head slightly at his daydreaming. He’d been sitting in his chair reading and had drifted off, his thoughts meandering to and from who knew where. He’d been doing this more frequently of late. She nodded at the TV.

  “I was asking what you thought of this stuff.”

  Joe blinked a couple of times; long, slow, deliberate blinks. He reached under his reading glasses and rubbed at his eyes, bringing his thoughts back into the room. He looked over the top of his readers, taking in the comments of the man being interviewed on the evening news. He lifted his chin and gave his glasses a wee nudge back to the bridge of his nose and took in the information scrolling across the bulletin tickertape at the bottom of the screen.

  Finally he looked over the top of his glasses again, towards Michelle. As he so often did, he replied with a question of his own.

  “What do you think, love?”

  It was an old habit. He’d always been the type of father who wanted her to think independently, to form her own opinions. Joe was happy to discuss anything with his fourteen-year-old daughter, but still habitually tried to guide the conversation, as dads do, despite her being almost an adult now.

  “Daaad…” she protested.

  Joe allowed a grin to part his lips.

  “Okay,” he said, smiling more broadly, “old habits.” Joe coughed to clear his throat and sat up a little straighter in his chair, giving Michelle his full attention. He used his hands animatedly as he spoke.

  “I don’t see that they have much choice at this point, Chelle. The quarantine has been in place for five days now. They’ve sealed the entire capital in one big loop, following the city bypass around the area. It seems to have worked. In those five days, there hasn’t been a single recorded case of infection outside of Edinburgh. Seems they did the right thing.”

  Michelle’s brow furrowed.

  “What about the survivors, Dad? They’ve just left them to fend for themselves in there along with those… infected. Some people are calling them zombies.”

  Joe nodded.

  “Yes, but the UK government has said they’re working around the clock to develop a screening process, a treatment and a protocol for removing survivors from the city.”

  “A virologist from London speaking on the BBC news this morning said that process could take months. Maybe years. Will anyone even be left alive, let alone healthy by then?”

  Joe shrugged. “I wouldn’t have thought so, Chelle. But the alternative is allowing potentially infected people to transmit whatever this is to the rest of the country, maybe the rest of the world. We were damn lucky that the armed forces were able to contain it as quickly and effectively as they did.” Joe lifted his eyebrows. “It’s a bit of a miracle, really.”

  Watching his daughter mull it over, Joe supressed a smile of pride in her obvious compassion and her reasoning. After a few minutes she said, “There are people who want to go in there and try to help the survivors. Maybe set up a safe zone, or help treat the infected. Something. Anything.”

  Joe’s face darkened.

  “That’s admirable, but they won’t let anyone in or out of there. Edinburgh as we knew it is gone. It’s a metaphorical island, filled with disease and death and pain.”

  “And people, Dad. It’s filled with people who just need help.” Michelle’s voice cracked a little.

  “For the time being,” Joe said firmly. “It’s a dead city, Michelle.”

  They spoke for another hour, discussing possible solutions and possible outcomes, Joe playing devil’s advocate, arguing against each suggestion or plan his daughter proposed would help the residents of Scotland’s capital. Finally he groaned in protest at his cramped muscles and stretched his good leg out in front of his armchair.

  “Give me a hand up please, love?”

  Michelle nodded and took her father by both hands. Leaning back, she pulled him up out of his chair and quickly slid her hands under his right arm to support his weight, noting that he felt lighter than ever. Slipping her arm all the way around his waist, she told him, “You’ve been skipping meals again.”

  Joe didn’t bother to argue. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and leaned in against her, dragging his right leg as his daughter helped him from the living room into his ground-floor bedroom, once the family office. The leg wasn’t painful – only his pride hurt when his little girl helped him w
alk – but all of the once-busy relays of sensory and motor impulses were dead from his hip to his toes on the right side. He dragged his leg behind him when he walked with a pair of crutches, the muscles long-since atrophied and shrunken.

  Joe had gone through more shoes in the last five years since the accident than he had in the previous thirty. Refusing to entertain the notion of a wheelchair, he accepted that the toes of each right shoe would be left, smear by smear, on the pavements he still insisted on dragging his limp leg along. Joe could only feel so bad about the injury to his spine and the resulting loss of shoe and sensation. After all, at least he’d lived through the accident that had taken Michelle’s mother from them.

  Bouncing his rear end onto the bed, he reached out for his crutch and told Michelle, “Thanks, darlin’. I can manage from here.”

  “Okay, Daddy,” she said, but did a quick sweep around his room and to and from the en-suite. She fetched his nightwear and a few other items before sitting them on the bed next to him.

  Michelle lay a hand softly on his prominent right cheek bone and tried not to wince at how frail her father felt to touch.

  “I love you, Dad. See you in the morning.”

  Michelle leaned down and Joe kissed her gently on the forehead.

  “G’night my wee darlin’.”

  Joe brushed his teeth and washed, then dragged his dead leg into bed to read for the next hour, trying not to listen to the sounds coming from the front room and kitchen. Sounds made by his daughter readying everything they’d both need for the day ahead tomorrow.

  No matter how Joe admonished her, Michelle would lay out his clothes, breakfast utensils and plates and all of the items she anticipated he may require to make it through the day. Finally he listened to her ascend the stairs and creak into the room her mother and father had once occupied. Joe switched off his lamp and lay down as his daughter went through her nightly ritual of speaking to her mother. He buried his ears into the pillow beneath him and gave his girl her privacy. Whatever Michelle had to say to her departed mother was her business.