Falling Into Nettles

Nigel Heard sat at the end of the bar almost every night at The Dog & Master. He got blind drunk every night then staggered home to get an ear bashing from the missus. Nigel wasn’t happy with the wife at all, in fact, he wouldn’t care if he got back and she was dead. Laying in her own filth. In fact, that would cheer him up something good.
Alison had been married to Nigel for a thirty years, each day ticking away at a slower pace than it should have. She was sick of the marriage too, maybe more than Nigel. They were in love at some point, just not anymore. Maybe it would get better. that was what echoed through both of their minds. The reply that they both got was 'yeah right’.
It wasn’t an unhappy marriage, just an uneventful one. The bedroom was for sleeping. Physical attraction was dead and buried, along with being nice, or even social. They hadn’t had a conversation in years. At least not one about Nigel’s drinking or Alison’s nagging.
Nigel hadn’t told his wife anything about his private life for nearly three years. Not that she was complaining however, she couldn’t care less. She was always happier trying to find something on the telly or playing bridge with their next-door neighbour. In those (nearly) three years Nigel got a secret, a very big secret. And that secret was Lizzie Taylor.
Lizzie Taylor, run of the mill prostitute, give her a round of applause ladies and gentlemen. Nigel used to joke about going down Forest Road, where you could ‘get a tug and a suck for a few bob’. And even though the saying was crude, it was true. That was Nigel’s first choice from the menu, so to speak.
Now, love is a word that is played around with too much these days, but that’s what Nigel felt for Liz. He knew it was wrong to love a hooker, floozy, prozzy (take your pick). But it happened anyway. He felt like a man with Liz, not like a piece of shit like when he was with Alison. The name Alison made Nigel want to scream, but the name Liz made him want to faint, cry, and laugh it the same time. That was love.
Now, men cheat all the time. But when the man loves his mistress, that’s when things go wrong. And things only get worse when the mistress is a prostitute! And one other thing fucks the whole thing up too, that’s the fact that the mistress see’s the man as just another Customer. Those things just make an affair into a giant peace of shit.
Liz had other customers that had been there just as long, even longer, than Nigel, but something about him was...weird. She could tell when he first pulled up in that stupid brown camper van. The beard put her off, and he looked about fifty. But he was paying, so she got past it.
She had heard him say that he loved her before; she heard it all the time. It was something men said in that one moment of lust and ecstasy. She didn’t know that Nigel actually meant it! She would have stopped seeing him if she knew that.
Nigel told Liz everything, the wife, the marriage, the fantasies, the nightmares, the childhood, the Nigel. He always talked to Liz, not like her other customers. The rest of them were in out, paid and pissed off. Nigel said he liked talking to her, and to be honest, she liked to listen. It made a change from the grunts of some middle aged man not getting Any.
There was one fantasy though, that Liz drew the line on. It involved something bad. To bad, something that shouldn’t have been thought, let alone said. If he ever brought it up again she told herself that she would leave Nottingham, move to somewhere nice. Maybe Liverpool?
That's what she wished she had done. She had done it anyway. The blades, the blood. It was all in the head of a twisted man with a sick fetish. She wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for the money. Thousands. He had paid her thousand to do what she did. She used to have a policy to do nothing above the norm.
And it was a little more than the norm. No, it was a hell of a lot more than that. It was something that people had nightmares about, the kind of thing that could make a grown man cry if he even saw it being done.
It was bad. Boy, was it bad.
Liz didn’t think that Nigel knew how bad it was, he felt so much about doing it that he felt it was a normal day to day thing that so many people to behind closed door. But if people got caught doing this behind closed doors then they would find themselves behind closed bars.
Nigel somehow had convinced Liz. It was the money. She knew that, and he had made her take more coke than she usually could handle. Drug her up, then fuck her up.
The nightmares scared Liz too, if Nigel slept at her house then he would shout, scream, in the night, he had always screamed the same things; every night was like a chapter in a book, a new addition to ‘My Life’ By Nigel Heard.

No! Daddy, please! Daddy!

*          *          *

Alison was sat at home; she was the same age as Nigel, fifty four. They were Childhood Sweethearts, sure didn’t feel like it. The love died years ago. Was there ever love there? She had her feet on her ‘poof’ and was watching TV. She was wearing a flowery apron and her grey curled hair was tied up in a bun. The TV show was some shit about selling houses. She was waiting for Nigel to come home.

Thinking about what she could moan at him about now.

The marriage was always a disaster waiting to happen, the thing was a sham! When Nigel proposed Alison had had to hold back her giggles, if she started she wouldn’t have stopped and he would lose his temper, like he did when...
The night he proposed was an ordinary day, nothing special, but Nigel thought it was. He booked a restaurant, and then a night at a fancy hotel. Nigel said something odd when he came back that night. Not many cards. What the hell did that mean?
All was revealed when they had finished their dessert; Nigel had smiled at Alison and had looked behind her toward the kitchen. Then, the slow sound of guitars. Quietly from behind her, a familiar tune. She had heard it so many times before. The music, getting closer, then singing. Mexican accents. What have you done!
Then Nigel joined in, then the restaurant was singing along, all for her. All for no reason. How could he have got the date wrong? The restaurant was onto the third line of Happy Birthday To You, but Alison’s birthday wasn’t for two months, two months today.
Alison had to go along with it, she put on the worst smile ever, it probably looked like she was in pain or choking. Then Nigel had stood up and got on one knee.
Will you marry me? Yes. Thanks, but remember in about twenty odd years something will feel wrong, and sex will be out of the window, then everything will just go downhill. There’s nothing you can do about though! Too scared aren’t you Alison? You shouldn’t have married a Heard, you know the family history!

Alison was dozing, her head slowly tipping forward, then jerking back up. She had turned all the lights on, maybe they would help her stay up. They TV was loud, next-door had knocked about it twice already. Cheeky bitch.
What time was it? Ten past midnight, the pub closed at one, she just needed to stay up till then. Could she do it? Her eyes ached, they were so heavy. It was like someone was pulling on them. She thought more than once about getting some tape and forcing her eyes to open, but thought better of it.

The show ended. Alison picked up a magazine on the side table next to her. As she did she picked up a mint and sucked on that. As she opened to a story about a marriage going wrong, the door knocked, echoing through the hallway. She tutted and headed for the door, slamming her magazine down in anger.
It would be that fucking bitch from next door! She used have parties and they were fucking louder than the TV, if she moaned then she’d get a piece of my fucking mind, I’ll tell her to take a flying fuck at a-
The door swung open as Alison yanked it, it almost fell of its hinges when it slammed against the hallway wall. There was already a deep hole where the handle had hit the wall so many times in the past years. She peered out into the dark, stormy night. When had the storm started? Who cared...?
There was no one there, the doorstep was empty, but someone was there, well, someone had been there. There was a mat outside of the door that had ‘WELCOME’ written in bold green letters against brown straw. The mat was wet, but there were two clear foot prints, they were heels. There was a triangular wedge at the front, and a small square at the back.

Who had been there?

Alison found herself getting scared, and it wasn’t the fact that someone had knocked and ran off this late, it was the devotion. Someone had stood out here, judging by how wet the floor was, for at least an hour, maybe two. They had the commitment to debate whether to knock or not, and then they had ran.

But who?

Alison shut the door quickly, the lock was turned and the bolt was on. No ones getting through that. Suddenly, a knock at the door. The same knock, two that were loud and echoed.
“W-w-who’s there?” Alison stuttered, she had never been so scared in her life. She unbolted the door silently, if the person behind it knew the door was open, maybe they’d force themselves in. They might kill me! Or worse.
Silence went on, the rain beating heavily on the mahogany coloured door from outside. Wait; if someone was there wouldn’t they block the rain? Alison turned the handle, and opened the door in one swift movement. Something was there.

*          *          *

Alison looked in the mirror. I look gorgeous! Her mum was to the left of her, and her sister to the right. They were smiling, and were they tears in her mum’s eyes? This couldn’t get much better! Then the price tag came into view.
The one big word ‘BARGAIN’. It could get better, two-fifty, reduced from eight hundred. The day wasn’t going to be a disaster after all, in three months, two days, one hour and three minutes she should be walking down the aisle, her Uncle giving her away. Jeremy Cox had died just before Alison had been born, cancer. Smoker.
The dress was ivory, it was elegant and showed off all the curves in all the right places. It was not a big or baggy dress, in clung to her perfectly, stopping at her knees to show off her then-good legs. Her shoes were ivory too, they fit in with the dress perfectly
Alison was beautiful.
She was a woman.

*          *          *

Nigel plunged into his pocket, searching through the cave of wonders. Past Tissue Mountain, there goes the Road Sign for Keys, next stop, the Red Tree, sticky and dusty in its half-eaten wonder. And the end of the road, Mobile Phone.

He pulled out his phone and unlocked it sloppily; he was almost too drunk to see. Almost. He had already planned his night, when the pub closes phone up Liz for a visit, then try and find somewhere else to go instead of going to that shit heap of a house.
There! He managed to find the name ‘Plumbers Co.’ in his phone, that was his codeword for Liz; he didn’t need Alison knowing about her, that would be another thing on the pile of ‘Why You Suck by Alison Heard, Revised by the In-Law, Patty Cox’.

The dialling tone only rang once, and Liz answered.

“Hello Nige, you alright?” She sounded sad.
“I’m fine baby, just fine, you keeping well?”
“Sure am hon, want me for anything?” She was sad.
“I can think of a few things”
“Oh Nigel, stop!” She giggled, it was too fake.
“Well, do you want to meet somewhere?”
“When?” She sounded uncertain.
“Now baby, when do you think?”
“Gee, I wish I could Nigel, but I’m kinda in the minute of something right now” Something was wrong with Liz, Nigel could tell even through the booze. He didn’t like asking though, probably women’s trouble.
“Couldn’t you make room for me?”
“Sorry Nigel, call me tomorrow if you can” What the hell?
“Ok, I’ll talk to you soon. Love you”
“Bye Nigel” What the fucking hell! If you can. What did that mean? She hadn’t said that before. At least not like that before. Was she up to something? Only one way to find out, getting to Liz shouldn’t be a problem, she lived not far from the pub. He wasn’t that drunk, he could drive there.

*          *          *

Alison stood in the doorway for a while, just staring. What was it? A bomb? She leaned down and picked up the brown box slowly. There was a note on top; her name was scrawled on its back. She pulled it off and unfolded it; she began to read it under her breath, the rain beating on her face painfully.
“Dear Alison, you need to see this. L.T.” Alison carried the box through her hallway and into the kitchen, where she set it down on the table. It wasn’t a bomb, that would be stupid. So what was it then?
Alison pulled away the tape and opened the box. Inside was something that was strange to see in a box with a note attached saying ‘you need to see this’. It was a pair of handcuffs, a whip, a candle, the full bondage package. Why did she need to see this?

She had seen this stuff before; the wedding night was a disaster. Nigel had been grinning most of the time when they were watching the hotel movie. Then, when the credits rolled he had gone under the posh four-post bed and got out the brown box. Similar to the one on Alison’s table, but not the same one.
Nigel had pulled out some rope, a blindfold and a whip. Alison was sighed, then started laughing. Nigel had took offence, slammed the stuff back into the box and threw it out the window. The window wasn’t open either, it was shattered as the box broke through it, glass flew outwards and then fell towards the ground below.
Alison had screamed, it made her jump.
Then Nigel had stormed out of the room, and Alison only saw him again three hours later when she found him unconscious and covered in vomit. Empty pill bottles everywhere.

Your husband was lucky to pull through Mrs Heard, he took a lot of pills. You must’ve pissed him off something bad!

Alison forgot the memory again and the kit out, and then saw a photo book. This was where her marriage fell to pieces right in her hands. She picked up the book and pushed the box away, giving her room to set the album in front of her.
Dare she open it? Of course, she was too curious. She opened the blue leather cover and it made a slight creak. It hadn’t been open in a while. The first page was an A4 piece of paper with a list written on it.

It was a list of the contents of the box, the same handwriting as on the note. L.T.? That mystery was to be solved later, now it was the photo album. Alison found herself crying, why? She had no idea. She could feel the sting of them in her eyes, being tired made it worse.
She turned the first page, and saw what was probably the most disturbing thing in her life. There were pictures of bodies, mutilated bodies, they had missing limbs, horrible wounds, insides were outsides and outsides weren’t really on any side. That wasn’t it though. It wasn’t the bodies, it was the heads. They were all the same person. Someone had stuck the head of someone on all of these bodies.

Alison Heard. Deceased at least four times on this page, fuck knows how many more.

She looked at herself in the book, who had done this? Oh come on, you know who did this. She turned the page, more bodies. She flicked faster and faster and then stopped at one page near the back.
Please. Please don’t be what I think that is. Dried Semen. Someone had done the dirty over pictures of bodies with her head on it. This was wrong, Alison found herself gagging. She forced herself to look through the rest of the book, the last picture was the one that certified who had done this.
Nigel was on the picture, smiling, the album was in front of him and he was holding a glue stick, adding heads to the bodies. He was naked, and he was clearly happy to be doing what he was doing. Alison felt herself about to retch; she ran to the sink and vomited into the plug hole.

Something was wrong with Nigel. Horribly wrong.

*          *          *

Nigel was in the car struggling to stay awake. He was just three turns away from Liz’s house, hadn’t hit anything yet. The drive was smooth, the roads were empty and Nigel felt good as he revved the engine and went at top speeds for his shitty little car.
His mind always trailed when he was drunk. Moved onto things that should have been forgotten, things in the past, things that haunted him every night. He never understood why it was him it had happened too, why he was the victim. He was only seven at the time.
Nigel ran through the hallway, toy train in his left hand, pen in the other. He ran the pen against the wall and was drawing a bold wobbly line that started in the kitchen and went all the way to the front door.
His dad, Brian Heard was a writer. He sat in his office nearly twenty-four seven, only emerging to get another pen, more paper or to order a pizza. Brian was a very strict father; he looked like a man who could batter you black and blue.
Nigel’s mother, Pamela, had died in child birth, he blamed me.
Brian always had a pen behind his ear and a notepad in his pocket. Just in case I get any ideas. It seemed like a good idea. He had worn the same glasses for the whole time Nigel knew him, the golden rimmed round ones with thick lenses.
He had a greying moustache and it would often get chunks of pencil in it where Brian had chewed on his tool.
The day that he caught Nigel drawing on the wall was when something snapped. There was a tug of war battle going on in his head. He saw his own son drawing on the wall without a care in the world, and the tug of war match began. Two options, get angry or explain nicely.
The two sides pulled, each one with equal strength. Brian stood in the middle of the stairs, Nigel staring back with the pen still pressed against the wall, ink slowly gathering around the nib.
Then the rope snapped, two options fell down. One rose from the mud, its arms grasping for solid ground, pulling itself up and standing in all its glory. Covered in mud, holding a sign. The sign was simple, it was a picture of a cast.
Brian had snapped, he had lost it for a few minutes; everything was just a red mist. He had ran down the steps and Nigel had tried to get away, but it was no hope. The tight grip of his father’s large hand on his shoulder, yanking him toward him.
Nigel had screamed, Brian didn’t care, he had raised his open hand and had bought it down o the boy’s face. It was red from the first slap, but the hand came down again, and again, and again. Nigel had screamed until Brian had threw him into the door, that was when he lost consciousness.
That day started it all. His father seemed to get stressed from writing, and then come down and bruised Nigel for no reason. He learned to hate his dad, and vowed that he would get revenge. He never got his revenge. He just got to watch his dad suffer through the agony of an embarrassing death. Alzheimer’s got him in the end.
Nigel cried for his father when he saw how bad he was. He was delirious; he spoke in numbers, and never recognised Nigel. Are you my doctor? Nigel wouldn’t have wished this on his worst enemy. The change was slow, at first his father had slowed down. He had got the disease when Nigel was nineteen. He had never met Alison.
The disease slowly got worse, Brian forgot things, when he wrote (which was rare) he would write the same thing over and over, and then be pissed when he realised he was getting nowhere. The disease got to its worst when Nigel had found out he was forgetting to eat.
That killed him in the end. Brian had wasted away and died in his sleep. That’s what Nigel presumed anyway, he was sitting at his table with his eyes closed, an empty mug in front of him.
He wouldn’t have wished this on his worst enemy.
But Brian Heard was more than that to Nigel, he was Satin himself, in the flesh and in the form f someone who is supposed to protect his offspring. Not break their ribs!

Now, Alzheimer’s is one of the worst things to witness happening to a family member or a friend, Nigel realised he had done wrong when his dad did finally die. But no one but Nigel knew he had the disease. He had locked his father in his house.
No doctor, no help, no wonder he died in such a degrading way. Nigel hadn’t even called anyone when he found him dead. He found him there, and he cried for him. That was it, he left the house, locked the door, posted the keys through the letterbox and left him to go home.
Two years later, Alison came into his life and his father was forgotten, the body was found, a post-mortem showed starvation, but microscopic examination of brain tissue had shown signs of AD, so it was written down as exactly what happened.
Nigel told the services he didn’t visit his dad anymore. So many lies, so many bruises.

Nigel looked around; he was nearly at Liz’s place.
There it was. The semi in Hucknall. It was on a main road, the blue car was in the driveway. She called her car Sonic, like the hedgehog. The house looked nice from the outside, inside it wasn’t that good looking. The garden was overgrown and weeds were growing across the path, crawling across, they looked like they would grab peoples legs, screaming at them.
Don’t go in! Terrible things happened in there!
The door was blue; the golden knocker always glimmered, no matter what the light was like. The windows were double glazed, but filthy. Liz had stopped paying the window cleaner months ago, she tried to pay in her own way, but it turned out that Jordan the Window Cleaner was gay.
Nigel pulled up on the kerb and stumbled out of the car, and began to stagger toward the door. It was open, as usual and he walked into the hallway. This was the only part she kept clean, so if anyone came knocking they didn’t know about her secret lifestyle. Unless they were a potential customer.
He headed for the living room, she should be there. Maybe she had a customer? No moans, no customers tonight. He opened the door and thought his house was paradise compared to this shithole. Police would have a field day in here.
There were three tables and one sofa. That was the only furniture. It was pathetic. On one of the tables were three bags of coke, and some already lined up stuff on the edge of it. There were empty beer cans everywhere; now and then there was a vodka bottle with a few drips left.
The only thing that wasn’t here was Liz, she never went anywhere special, she could be sleeping. Nigel thought that was the best bet, and walked up the stairs, he tripped twice but still managed to get to the top.
The bedroom was first on the left, the door was open and Nigel saw where Liz was. Or at least, where she wasn’t. The chest of drawers had every draw open; one of them was upside down on the carpet. A pair of pants was still hooked on its handle. The pink silky ones Nigel bought.

Nigel sat in Doctor Martin’s room, and finished telling him all about the abuse he suffered as a child, and the death of his father. Of course, not the one detail. Doc Martin just jotted down in his pad, then said something.
“You have a short temper, don’t you Nigel”
Nigel nodded.
“And I will say this in the strictest confidence, do you harm yourself or your wife?”
Nigel thought about it. Could he tell him about the time he had broken her leg? They way she had tried to blame him for breaking the kettle? The way she had ran upstairs? The way he had grabbed her shoulder? The way he brought his open hand down on her again and again? The way he had pulled her down the stairs? The way she broke her leg and had to have stitches in her head?
“No. I don’t”
“Okay then, if you don’t then I would like to warn you about the possibilities of the hatred you felt for your father turning into something that could potentially be harmful to you and others around you Nigel. When people feel hate, and it is never expressed it can cause mental health problems later on in life, and this is a strong possibility in your case. It could come out in one big blow, or small bursts”
Nigel had small bursts all the time, all those blades, all that blood. Nigel only had one big blow-out, when he threw Alison down the stairs. It wouldn’t happen again.

Nigel walked inside the bedroom, and saw that the cupboard was empty too.
Then something, a note, on the bed. He picked it up, he was shaking now. Something was wrong and he knew it.

Nigel, I have to get out of this, I told Aliyson, she has the photos. You scarred me too much, she had to know. I’ve left Nottingham, don’t come after me. Lizzy T.

This was wrong, she couldn’t just leave. But she had. Nigel refused to accept it. It was bullshit; she wouldn’t dare show the photos...would she? Somewhere inside of Nigel said she dared. And she had.
Nigel had a plan, he knew where to find Liz, and he knew where his wife was. He was going to bury his secret tonight, leave no witnesses, leave no one that knows. That meant just two people on his list. And he actually made a list.
The two people were Liz and Alison, well that didn’t take much working out. It seemed easy, get home, then to the train station. Well, he thought it was going to be easy.

*          *          *

Liz was sat on a bench in the dark station. The train wasn’t coming till morning, it was quarter past one now, just seven hours to go. There was only one train tonight, due in about forty minutes. The bench was cold, it was metal and had a plaque that was made out to some old bloke that had founded the station. No, he didn’t find anything, it wasn’t built when he got here!
Liz was thinking about her life, and how it had come to this. Running away from a mad man that made her take pictures of him masturbating over mutilated bodies. A man that had made her brake the law.
Help me or just be one of them!
She felt sick, something about this was way too wrong.
I mean, she knew it was wrong, but something felt wrong, telling Alison had been a big mistake. And purposely leaving her door open so Nigel could get the note? Was that a bad idea too? Suddenly she felt scared. As if someone was in the night, running toward her, coming from the shadows and from the badlands.
Maybe someone was, maybe it was Nigel, coming to get her and take her away. Mutilating her body and getting a kick out of it. It was wrong to stay with him for so long, she could tell he had fallen for her, but the money was too tempting, and between her and Nigel, the sex wasn’t half bad compared to the other customers she had either.

*          *          *

Nigel was in the car, digging his nails into the steering wheel, he was mad now. There was a thin line between love and hate, and that note just made the line fall apart, it was gone, and it aint never coming back. Not for a long time anyway. It was just like a tug of war match.
The hatred he felt for his father, rising from the mud. Just like Brian Heard’s stress.
Nigel was headed for his own house, he already knew what he was going to do. He wasn’t going to kill Alison. Not yet. He just needed to get her somewhere where he could keep an eye on her while he went to the station. I hope Liz is at the station, if she isn’t I’m fucked.

The house was there. Nigel was sobering up, but everything still felt like a dream. He opened the door, the house was dark and silent. There was just one light on, it was in the kitchen. The table lit up and Nigel saw the photos, they were the ones alright.
He walked slowly down the hallway, reaching the kitchen door. No one inside? Just need to check.

“Alison? Honey?” Nothing. Silence. Creak. Wait, that was something. Someone was behind him. Move Nige, move! For fucks sake MOVE! Nigel moved, he jumped forward into the kitchen and headed straight for the cutlery draw.
The knife. The lovely new sharp knife. It was a kitchen knife, about eight inches with a black handle. This should do the job nicely. Nigel picked it up and turned to the door. Alison was there.
“Hey baby, how ya doin?” Alison stared at her husband is disbelief. How can he be so mellow?
“Stay the fuck away from me you sick freak!” She shouted the word freak, and found herself crying. The tough façade wasn’t working.
“Oh honey, that’s not very nice!”
“And you call this nice?!” She pointed towards the photos, she didn’t dare to look at them, she might be sick again.
“You were never meant to see this Alison”
“Well I did, now get out of this house or I’m phoning the fucking cops!” Shit, why didn’t I do that earlier?!
“You wont even get within two feet of the phone before this knife is in your back!”
Alison tried him, she turned and ran to the living room, the phone was on the wall behind the door.

Nigel remembered back when he was a kid, and they used to do ‘stunts’. They all purposely hurt themselves for fun, but Nigel never did it. He was always to scared. The one he remembered most was falling backwards into nettles. That petrified him. He would never do that one.

Alison got within two feet of the phone.

Nigel lunged with the knife.

Alison fell.

Nigel stepped over the body; he had reached into his pocket and got out some duck tape. This must be a dream...or a nightmare. Alison could feel the cold metal in her back. She closed her eyes and let what happened happen.
The next thing Alison remembered was darkness. She could only see a thin line of light in front of her. She couldn’t move her hands; they were tied behind her back. Her mouth had duck tape over it and the knife wasn’t in her back anymore.

The closeness, the feeling of confinement. She wasn’t a claustrophobic, but this was horrible, the feeling of being trapped, no way out. Just like the time he had hidden in the bedroom cupboard when Nigel had come home drunk.
He had phoned her fifteen minutes before getting home telling her she was going to die tonight, she was scared. She believed that he would kill her, run to the cupboard, drag her out and strangle her. But he came in shouting, came upstairs and passed out on the bed. Really devoted to his cause.

The journey to the station took fifteen minutes. It was the worst fifteen minutes of Alison’s life. Wait for what’s to come baby, see you in hell! She could hear Nigel singing to music, merrily! He was happy about this, no remorse.
There was something sharp digging into her arm, she tried to shuffle to get out of its way, but it didn’t help. She was going to die tonight. She knew that for a fact. And you know what? She was right.

*          *          *

Liz was nodding off when she heard the car pull up. Somehow she knew it was Nigel before she saw him. But she didn’t expect to see the other thing. When she saw Nigel she was stood up, and he was stood too.
In one hand he had a knife, glittering with crimson blood. Slung over his shoulder was a body, whoever it was, they were alive. Their legs were kicking about furiously. Somehow Nigel was able to hold the person with just one hand. The madness gave him strength.
“Hello Liz, this is my wife, Alison” Liz stiffened, he had finally lost it. The craziness was in his eyes, once a shade of blue, now a shade of red.
Nigel just dropped Alison, she smacked the cold concrete floor hard, breaking her nose when she did. Her apron was covered in blood where in the boot of the car she had rolled in her own blood. Now her nose was misshapen and bleeding too.
“I’m leaving Nigel, just please, leave me alone, go away from this place”
“Sorry Liz, need to say one last goodbye, then I’m gone”
“No, I wont let you, I let you get away with murder! You bought me into this! You told me when we did it for the first time it would be the last. Does Alison know about those bodies? The truth?”
“Not yet, she’ll find out soon though”
“They were people he killed! He paid me to help, he forced me to help, or he said he’d kill me too. I thought it was going to be the once, but he made me do it again. And I’m sick of it, I can’t sleep at night, the smell of blood is unmistakable in my house!”
Alison was crying harder now, making muffled screams at what she was hearing.
“Oh, you ruined the surprise baby. They were nobodies anyway, just loners that live in council flats. They won’t be missed. How many was it, thirteen? Tonight I’m going to make it fourteen”
“What?” Liz was crying slightly now
“We’re going to do my favourite routine. With Alison”
“No! Just leave now, move away, I wont tell anyone”
“No, it’s gone too deep now. Tonight I end it. We end it.” Nigel was grinning.
“No”
“What did you just say to me?”
“I said no!”
“Now now Liz, you know what happens when I don’t get my own way. I get mad” Nigel held the knife by the handle, it was pointed down. He dangled it lightly over Alison’s screaming body. She had shuffled on her back and she could see what Nigel was doing.
“Leave her out of this!”
“Will you do the routine?”
“No!”
“Your choice” Nigel shrugged then dropped the knife. It fell and landed in Alison’s chest. She let out a blood curdling wail and then wriggled around, screaming under the tape. She was slowly getting weaker, the thrashing around she was doing was nothing compared to when they had  first turned up at the station.
“You’ve lost it Nigel!”
“Is that another no?” He kicked Alison in the head, she screamed again.
“Stop, I’m not going to do the routine!”
“Then you, her and me are all gonna die in this station tonight honey bunny” Nigel grinned and picked up his knife. He kneeled, still with a grin. Alison screamed loudly as the knife was pulled from her body.
Please make this quick.
Nigel didn’t. He grabbed her by her hair, all the while staring at Liz. He dragged her over to a bench and picked up one side. The legs were black metal,  this is going to hurt. Alison was thrown under the legs, and Nigel simply let the bench go.
One leg hit Alison in the face, the other just below her chest. Nigel was still grinning. He kneeled closely to Alison’ face.
“See you in hell, baby” He slapped her face lightly twice, she tried to scream, but any noise she made was still muffled by the tape.
Nigel did what he did in one movement, he jumped into the air and landed on the bench. He watched Liz’s face as the bench killed Alison. The sickening crunch, the sound of something deflating, the final scream of Alison. Liz heard and saw it all.
Blood was everywhere, all over Alison and splattered against the wall the bench was against. It was pooled around her and still slowly growing. The moonlight made the blood a shade of ruby. Liz should have ran.
He would have got her.
Liz watched Nigel stand up; he was slowly strolling toward her. She saw something that sickened her, Nigel had an erection. She began to sob; she knew that this wasn’t going to be a quick death. It would be like Alison’s, gruesome and without dignity.

Then, a sound, it was heaven to Liz. A train. She backed to the edge of the track and thought about everything.

Liz was eighteen when she became a prostitute, she wasn’t a virgin, far from it, but she needed the money. Her friend Mandy was an escort, she made it sound so sophisticated, free meals then just make it look like you were having fun.
The job turned Liz to drugs, alcohol, even murder. All for money. Liz looked at herself in the mirror everyday and hated what was looking back. She had become the opposite of the lawyer with a husband and kids she had dreamed of when she was a teenager.

Her life was wrong, she hated it. She wasn’t about to die under the hands of a psycho killer.

Liz watched the train emerge from the tunnel. Nigel was just a few feet away now; she could smell the blood and sweat on him.
Nigel grinned at he lifted the knife, ready to strike. Liz was the mouse, he was the cobra. This was the end of it all.
Liz looked at the tunnel, the train was just emerging. If she did it now, she would still die under the hands of this man. Just a few more seconds and she could be rid of Nigel. She would be at peace.
The train was there. It was in the right place to let it all happen quickly, no waiting. Nigel bought the knife down, it struck Liz in the arm. She screamed and then did what she had to do.
Liz let herself fall backwards. The train hit her before she hit the track.

*          *          *

The police arrived not long after the train had hit Liz. They found three bodies, Alison couldn’t be identified yet, not even through dental records. Liz was unidentifiable too, she had literally been pulled apart when the train hit her.  The train wasn’t stopping, it was a cargo train that was an A to B trip. The third was Nigel Liam Heard, he was found with a wallet and credit cards. He was found slumped against a phone box next to the tracks, the glass window on the phone box had been smashed and he had cut hits own throat with a shard of glass.

Nigel had got rid of the two people that knew is secret, there was just one more person that knew.

Himself.

Nigel fell backwards.

He landed in the nettles.