Full Circle - Part Three - Chris's Tale (401 hits)
Category: Quotes & StoriesRating: 1 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Graeme Porter <graeme.at.tsd-ltd.demon.co.uk> (View user info) at 2005-08-15 07:04:41 EDT
Part One - Francesca's Tale - http://www.ubersite.com/m/72967
Part Two - Tony's Tale - http://www.ubersite.com/m/73042
It was more than a week before Chris was discharged from Homerton University Hospital. His condition had been stabilized in the ambulance on the way over there from the Jagged Edge, but he'd been unconscious for a full two days.
The bone in his nose was shattered; it would never set back the way it was before. The back of his skull had been fractured from the hard fall to the stone floor. The subsequent kicking had left him with 3 broken ribs and kidney damage, not to mention extensive and horrific bruising.
The most life-threatening condition was the internal bleeding; he'd nearly drowned in the blood that seeped into his lungs through a puncture wound caused by a splinter from one of his broken ribs. His right kidney had been rendered nearly useless.
And he was nearly blind - the smash to the back of his head had disrupted the occipital lobe. Thankfully, this effect was only temporary, and he regained his full normal eyesight three days after regaining consciousness.
What he was most thankful for was morphine; he had no doubt that without it, he would have suffered unimaginable pain. As it was, he'd was still feeling the pain even two weeks after being discharged, but only when he coughed, sneezed, or made any kind of sudden movements.
When he recovered enough to go back to work, he had already made up his mind. A beating that bad couldn't go unpunished, which is essentially what had happened; Tony was charged with Grievous Bodily Harm, and spent a month behind bars at a medium security prison. Chris, however, was still suffering the pain and distress four and a half weeks later.
He had nightmares about it. He was far too embarrassed to admit it; not to his family, nor his friends, but especially not some shrink, even one who specializes in crime-induced mental trauma.
And so the stalking began.
He would follow his victim, just out of sight. He didn't want to be seen, because he was sure that the police would again side with the real criminal, and he'd be put away for longer than Tony had been.
He found out about his victim's workplace, and watched.
He even started to refer to his victim as his Victim; he had to dehumanize, otherwise, he knew, it would really start to bother him. He had a conscience, after all.
His Victim's parents lived in a nice neighbourhood, and his Victim would visit them every Sunday afternoon.
His Victim shopped at a Tesco Metro supermarket in Bethnal Green twice a week.
Chris worked for BT as an engineer. He was based in a telephone exchange in East London, and it was his job to repair faults both at the local exchange and at customers' properties. Because of this, he had the use of one of BT's equipment and maintenance vans.
Several weeks after the stalking began, Chris knew where his Victim would be and when. The time was right. He signed out the keys for the van in the log book, locked the exchange door on his way out, and set off.
* * *
Francesca felt the biting chill of the January air on her cheeks as she walked out of the car park on Crondall Street on her way to the Kingsland Shopping Centre on Dalston Lane. She cursed the fact that it was so damned cold, and that she had to walk nearly a kilometre just to get from her car to the Foot Locker, where she worked. And back again in the evening. The car park at the Shopping Centre was always full.
AND she had to pay the damn congestion charge just to get from her flat to the car park - £5 every day; the cheek of it! If the public transport system were any good, she'd switch, but the buses were a disaster, and neither the Underground or over ground railways went near enough to her house to make it worthwhile.
She slipped on a patch of dirty ice she didn't see, and nearly fell. Cursing, she turned off Hoxton Street onto Falkirk Street. As she passed the block of flats on her left, a van pulled up beside her. The driver leaped out, and the last thing she saw before she was struck by the crowbar was the wild look in Chris's normally peaceful grey eyes.
* * *
Her body was found in the van, two days after it had been reported missing. The driver was nowhere to be found; as though he had just dropped off the face of the Earth.
She had been rendered unconscious by a savage blow to her left temple from a blunt object. The rust fragments found in and around the wound during the post mortem revealed that it was made of fairly old steel, probably a crowbar or piece of metal railing.
The rape had been brutal, and the rapist had broken her pubic bone. Her flesh had been badly bruised where he had kicked and punched her to within an inch of her life.
What had taken her life, though, was the coaxial telephone wire that had been used to choke her. The wire had cut deeply into her veins and windpipe, and if the killers' grip had been tighter, she would probably have been decapitated, or would have bled out. However, the pathologist concluded that the cause of death was asphyxiation.
When Tony found out, he collapsed, and was rushed to hospital. He really loved Francesca, and the shock of her death nearly killed him.
* * *
Chris's body was found hanging by the neck from a tree in Hyde Park. In his pocket was a suicide note, admitting what he had done, but without any hint of regret. The reason he'd given for his suicide was because of his fear of imprisonment, and that what he had done was to get even.
And what better way to punish someone he hated than to take away something he had loved?
User Reviews
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2005-08-15 07:16:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Good detail. It would be nice to see some dialogue next time around.