Numb: A Dark Thriller (11 page)

16 YEARS AGO

The blood was leading the way, his feet always a few inches behind the last scarlet splash on the concrete as it dripped from the injured hand held up against his chest.

He was going to die. Was sure of it. He’d lost so much blood and although he felt no pain he was growing weaker and weaker with each step he took – that much he
could
feel. He was also beginning to shake, like all the sugar and salt was leaving his body and he was growing faint and light-headed. He worried if he might black out before he could get help and be left alone by the side of the road, helpless and dying.

Oh, God, this is it!
Riley thought as he kept running.
I’m dead...!

It was late and the streets in this part of the city were quiet. He’d come across no one in the last five minutes; no one to offer him help or give him a lift to hospital. He hadn’t even passed a fucking phone-box where he could call an ambulance. Thirnbridge General was four miles from where he was. He’d be long dead before he got there on foot. That’s why after the fight he’d headed east instead of west, only half a mile to where he was now. This was his best chance.

Riley kept pressure on the wound with his undamaged hand and tried to ignore the warm, slick blood oozing out of the split skin. Luckily, the detached house he sought was just up ahead. There were no lights on but that didn’t mean anything. It was after midnight. They were probably in bed.

He hurried up the garden path and rang the doorbell.

Come on!
he screamed in his head.
Please be in, you have to be...

He rang again. Then knocked loudly.

Please be in....

The hallway light suddenly flared into life and Riley breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Then he suddenly became much weaker, as if his body was ready to give up and stop its fight now that help was so close in coming.

From the other side of the door a man said;

“Who is it?”

“It’s me!” Riley shouted, looking at the blood that had now formed a small puddle near the step. “Quick, you have to let me in!”

“Riley?” the man said.

“Yes, please open up. Dr Carter, I’m dying.”

The door opened quickly and the middle-aged man stood silhouetted in the light of the passage, dressed in a dressing gown and slippers. His greying hair was out of place and judging by his puffy eyes he’d just woken up.

Carter leant forward, looking at the blood covering Riley’s hands. He calmly asked to see the wound and Riley held out his hand.

“A knife?” Carter asked as he looked at the thin slice through Riley’s palm that stretched diagonally from the base of his fore-finger almost to his wrist.

Riley nodded.

“I got into a little trouble and this kid pulled a knife out,” he babbled. “He was going to slash my face but luckily I put my hand out to block it. You gotta help me, Dr Carter. It’s bleeding so much. I was only a few streets away and thought it would be quicker to come here than to hospital.”

Dr Carter shook his head.

“Wait there a second,” he said and disappeared back inside. When he returned he carried a thick white bath towel which he wrapped around Riley’s hand and told him to hold tightly. Then he ushered him inside to the kitchen. He pointed to the dining table and told Riley to sit at it.

“Why did this kid attack you?” he asked as he collected a small tin box from a cupboard beneath the sink.

Riley shrugged. “It just kind of... happened.”

Carter then filled a dish with warm water and carried both that and the tin over to the table. He sat down opposite Riley and began to flush the wound with the clean water.

As the blood washed away Riley saw for the first time how deep the cut was. It reminded him of the belly of a gutted fish. Carter then dried it by patting it with kitchen roll and then opened the tin. He removed an antiseptic wipe from a sealed packet and began to clean the wound again.

“At your hospital check up last year your grandmother told me that you’ve been fighting a lot since you’ve left school,” he said without taking his eyes of his work.

It was true, Riley couldn’t deny it. He
had
been in a few scrapes since leaving school. But that was just a part of growing up, wasn’t it? Plus, over the last few years he’d gained a reputation, and you had to live up to a reputation, especially on occasions like tonight when three idiots jump you when you’re not expecting it.

He’d been on his way home from the pub by himself and they must have been waiting for him, out for revenge. He recognised one of them as a lad he’d had a fight with last week when he’d caused some trouble at a friend’s birthday party. Well, it was hardly a fight. The lad had been legless and had started harassing a couple of girls. Riley had asked him to leave them alone. He had told Riley to fuck off. Riley had dragged him outside. The lad went to hit him so Riley hit him first and knocked him clean out. He’d thought that would be the end of it until tonight when the lad had come back with two of his friends.

The first one had caught Riley with a sucker punch as he’d rounded the corner. Nothing major. Just a misjudged punch that had glanced off his cheek. But then the second one had then joined in, throwing wild shots at the back of his head. Riley had put his guard up, composed himself, and then retaliated.

It’s much easier to fight when you don’t have to worry about getting hurt and his two attackers were taken care of pretty quickly. But just as he’d thought the danger over, the third one (the drunken prick from the birthday party) appeared and slashed at Riley’s face with the flick-knife. Luckily for Riley (and unluckily for the other lad) he managed to get a hand up in time to block the attack and defend himself. Now all three of his attackers would be nursing either broken noses or fractured cheekbones or concussion and he had a gaping slit on his hand and no doubt the threat of another revenge attack looming over him. Great!

Sometimes, he didn’t know why he bothered fighting.

What good did it do in the end?

“Normally I would send you straight to casualty,” Carter said when he finished cleaning the injury. “But the wound’s pretty clean and not deep enough where any tendons have been damaged. Make a fist.”

Riley did, forcing a little more blood out.

“A few stitches should do the trick,” Carter said. “I don’t think you’ve lost enough blood to warrant a transfusion – even though it might have looked a lot. How do you feel?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Riley said and giggled.

“Very funny. I mean how do you feel inside?”

“Alright now.” He did. He guessed it had just been panic that had made him feel so weak and shaky.

Carter pulled out a hypodermic needle. Then he fumbled in the tin box and pulled out a small container of clear liquid. He plunged the point of the needle through the top of the container and sucked up some of the liquid.

“What’s that for?” Riley asked.

“Anaesthetic,” Carter replied. “To numb the area before I stitch it.”

“You’re forgetting who I am,” Riley said, smiling.

“Humour me. It’ll make me feel better if I give you a little shot of this.”

Riley shook his head and said, “Save it for someone who needs it. Seriously, just stitch it up.”

Carter paused. Looked at the wound and then let out a sigh. Then he put the hypodermic down and pulled a surgical needle and thread from the tin box.

“Hold still,” he said.

Riley didn’t flinch once throughout the procedure.

Carter had stitched the wound and had begun to dress it when Riley heard footsteps in the hallway, followed by a lady’s voice.

“Robert, who was that at the door?”

June Carter appeared in the kitchen a few seconds later. She was a small, plump woman with a rosy complexion. She had a friendly, warm face and was the kind of woman you imagined would smile and say hello to a complete stranger should she pass them in the street.

Riley smiled and said, “Sorry if I woke you.”

Mrs Carter tried her best to hide her shock at seeing the blood soaked bath towel on the floor and said, “That’s alright, son. You hurt yourself?”

“This is Riley,” Carter told his wife. “He’s a patient of mine.”

“Oh yes. The lad who sends you a card and a bottle of whiskey at Christmas. Nice to finally meet you. How did you hurt yourself?”

“He fell over and cut his hand on some broken glass,” Carter said before Riley could answer.

“That was silly of you,” his wife said.“Yes, it was,” Riley replied.

“Hopefully he’ll not do it again.” Carter winked at him as he fixed a safety pin to the bandage. “But he’s fine now. You go back to bed. You haven’t been too well today.”

Mrs Carter nodded as if in agreement but then asked Riley, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Oh, no thank you. I’ve already woke you-”

“Milk, sugar?” she asked on her way to the kettle.

Riley grinned, knowing that refusing again wouldn’t be worth it.

“Milk and one please.”

A few minutes later June Carter placed the hot drink on the table along with a couple of biscuits.

“Right, I’ll leave you two to it,” she said. “Nice to meet you, Riley.”

“You too. Thanks.”

When his wife had gone back upstairs Carter cleared away the implements and threw the bloodstained towel in the bin.

“Your wife’s very nice,” Riley told him.

“Yes, she is,” Carter said. He sat back down and began to scribble something on a small white notepad.

“Is she okay? You said she hasn’t been well today.”

“She has bad diabetes. Sometimes she’s quite ill.”

Riley suddenly felt selfish for imposing his problems on them. Maybe he should have just gone to hospital...

“Anyway,” Carter said, forcing a smile, “How do you feel now?”

“Absolutely fine now. You’re a good doctor. I’ll definitely see you again.”

“I hope you mean at your next check up and not another visit of this kind. You have to take care of yourself, Riley. You’re special, but sometimes that isn’t a good thing.”

“I know,” Riley said. He’d heard this umpteen times from Carter and other specialists over the years. “I’ve got to watch for infections and things. ‘Hidden Dangers’ as you like to call them.”

“Exactly.” Carter tore off the first sheet from the pad and handed it to Riley. “Get these antibiotics first thing in the morning. Take two three times a day for a week – just in case.”

Riley nodded. He’d had so many pills over the years he was probably immune but, what the hell...

“Right, I best get going. My grandma usually waits up for me. Well, she falls asleep in her chair and I wake her up when I get in.” He stood up and offered the doctor his hand. Then he laughed and offered the doctor his other, un-bandaged hand which Carter proceeded to shake. “Thanks again. You’re a life-saver.”

“You can save me the bother of saving your life by staying out of trouble,” Carter said as they made their way to the front door.

Once outside, Riley turned back and said, “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me – and not just for tonight.” He looked down at the blood on the path. “Sorry about the mess too. I can clean it before I go.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s not important.”

Riley smiled. Dr Carter was great.

“And I’m sorry for disturbing you and your wife so late,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Carter said. And as Riley made his way down the garden path, he added as a friendly warning, “Just don’t make a habit of it.”

14

Dr Robert Carter still lived in the same house in the same respectable street where he spent most of his retired life tending to his flowers and plants in the large garden to the rear of the property. He was now sixty-eight years old, and with his white hair and beard, the wrinkles that spread out from his eyes and crept down his cheeks, and the thick reading glasses propped on top of his nose, he looked every inch the pensioner he had become.

As Riley pulled up outside, Carter appeared at the front door and quickly huddled up against the chilly breeze.

“It’s been a while since your last visit.” He smiled thinly as Riley strode up to the front door. “I’d finally hoped you’d taken my advice and stayed out of trouble.”

“This was an accident,” Riley said, pointing to the bloody rip in his jacket. “Besides, I wanted an excuse to come and see you. You know I like to bring you something when I visit.”

“I’d prefer a single malt.” Carter shook Riley’s hand. “What’s happened now?”

“I got shot.”

“Some accident.”

“It’s the truth. I didn’t mean to get in the way of the bullet, so technically it
was
an accident.”

“You must’ve gone up in the world. It’s the first time you’ve been shot, isn’t it?”

“Hopefully the last too.”

Carter snorted a laugh.

“Yeah, hopefully.” He invited Riley into the kitchen that, over the last eighteen years or so, had doubled as a treatment room whenever his favourite patient paid him a visit.

As he sat down at the kitchen table, Riley noticed how different the mood of the house seemed. It was too quiet. Empty. The walls were the same colour and the same pictures hung on them, the fixtures and fittings were the same, but something was missing, something that made the house a home, and he suddenly realised with crashing guilt that this was the first time he’d been here since the funeral.

God, what a selfish bastard he was.

He’d phoned a few times but hadn’t come to see Carter once since his wife had passed away last November, the diabetes finally growing too complicated for her aging body to handle.

Just one more thing to add to my guilty list!

Carter told Riley to take his jacket and shirt off as he placed some towels on the floor to catch the blood. Carter must have gone through dozens of towels over the years but always refused Riley’s offer to replace them. Then he brought what he needed to treat the wound and Riley smiled when he saw Carter carried the same old battered tin box that he took from the same cupboard under the sink. It was as if the good old doctor had kept it especially for him. Maybe he had. Riley had certainly given him reason to believe that it would be needed in future. Then again, maybe it was just a retired doctor thing. They were his tools. A carpenter doesn’t throw away his saw when he finishes work, does he? No, he keeps it, just in case.

“Who did this to you?” Carter asked as he placed his equipment on the kitchen table. He glanced at the wound and then at the map of other scars on Riley’s torso, some old, a lot recent.

“I don’t know,” Riley said.

“Really?”

“Really. There was a shooting at the club about an hour ago. Drive-by type of thing.”

Carter nodded, as if nothing surprised him these days. Shootings, stabbings, murder, rape, child abuse... you read about it over breakfast every morning.

“Were other people hurt?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry, you’ll hear all about it on the news tomorrow.”

“I can’t wait.” Carter leant close to Riley’s side, pushed his spectacles further up his nose, and examined the wound without touching it. “If you were a legitimate victim then you could’ve gone to hospital.”

“You know I hate hospitals, and I’ve seen enough of them over the years to last five lifetimes.”

“So you come and see me instead?”

“You’re my favourite doctor  - always have been.”

Carter looked up, a twisted grin on his face.

“And you’re full of shit – always have been.” He pulled on some surgical gloves, sank to his knees and began cleaning the wound with a sterilised swab. “There’s no exit wound,” he said, checking Riley’s back. “But the hole looks deep enough to suggest the bullet’s embedded itself. The bleeding’s not that bad but this could be a hospital job.”

“I’ve got faith in you, Doc,” Riley said, but inside he was worried. A bullet in him? That was bad. That was a ‘Hidden Danger’ wasn’t it?

He looked down at the wound as Carter cleaned it as best he could. He could now see that the small hole was almost a perfect circle. The skin around it had bruised and welted up, and inside it looked black and red and slimy.

“There doesn’t seem to be any sign of immediate infection,” Carter said. “Any shortness of breath?”

“No.”

“Dizziness?”

“No.”

“Apart from this you feel okay?”

“Don’t feel a thing. You know that.”

“Good.”

“But you have to get the bullet out if it’s in there, right?”

Carter smiled and said, “You’ve watched too many films, Riley. If it’s easy to reach and hasn’t gone in far enough to damage vital tissue or organs then yes, I could try to get it out. If it’s going to be difficult to locate then I’ll probably do more damage poking around inside of you. The most important thing is to stop the bleeding and check for infection.”

“But won’t the bullet cause infection if it’s left in?”

“The heat from the bullet itself usually kills the chance of that. You’ve got more chance of catching an infection if it’s brought along a piece of your shirt or jacket with it that contaminates the skin. But anyway, that’s what antibiotics are for, and if I think you’ll need to go to hospital you will, no arguing. Now, raise your arm and put your hand on the back of your head.”

Riley did so and looked away as Carter inserted his little finger into the bullet hole. He felt nothing more than a sensation of movement as the finger probed inside him; no stinging, no burning, no sharp stab or dull ache, just a hint of being touched.

“Yep,” the doctor said. “It’s in there. Only an inch or so, but it’s in there. Had it had enough power it probably would’ve continued on through your kidney. A little higher and it could’ve been your liver. How far away from them were you?”

“Only a couple of feet,” Riley said.

“What were you doing so close to them?”

“My job. Can you get it out?”

“Will you go to hospital if I say no?”

“Probably not.”

“Then I suppose I’ll
have
to get it out,” Carter said. He reached up to the table. Fumbled in the tin box. Pulled out the metal tweezers. Then he shook his head. “And, as usual, we’ll proceed without anaesthetic.”