The Night Stalker

A Gothic Tale

By Freddie Clegg

He had always had a thing about medics. Maybe it was that whole “caring for other human beings” thing. Or maybe it was just the starched white coats for the doctors and those cute uniforms for the nurses. Anyway, as always in these matters, motives don't matter.

At least they didn't matter to Frances, the focus of his attentions.

He'd been watching her for over a month. On the pin board in his cellar was a shrine to his latest obsession. There were photographs sneaked with his mobile phone and those where he had used the long lens from a parked car as she left All Hallows University College Hospital. He'd kept the paper napkin that she'd blotted her bright scarlet lipstick with and that he'd retrieved from her table after she left the coffee bar. There was a strand of her jet black hair that he'd managed to surreptitiously cut, standing so close to her in that packed underground train that he could smell the light, flowery, scent she favoured. Pinned alongside it was a plan of the layout of her apartment building and a list of the places she went; the health club, her favourite bar, and, for some odd reason, the old ruined abbey on the hill overlooking the harbour.

His preparations were almost complete. On a small table in front of his shrine, his tools were arrayed like a votive offering to her presence. The picture he'd stolen of her, emerging from the hospital at the top of the steps under the classical pediment of the portico, stood in the middle of the board staring down at the things he'd spread before her.

There were the cable ties that would grace her wrists and ankles; there the tape that would stifle any cry; there the mask and gloves that would hide his identity from her. He needed no more than that. He could tell that she was not weak but he knew that he was stronger. No need for weapons; no need for threats. He was fit; he trained his body for his mission and he trained his mind. Her slight build would present no threat. He could sense how she would feel in his arms; her thin waist gripped, pulling her back against him; her already pale complexion drained of blood by fear, those carmine lips pressed silent by his gloved hand. As always the sense of anticipation was sufficient to set his pulse racing.

He looked again at where he would keep her; the small cabinet, the shackles, the locks, the hood.

And then he knew it was time. The night was dark; cold with the wind sweeping in from the coast. She'd be wearing her long black coat, he thought. Rain began to spit down as he sat in the van waiting; street lamps reflection in the puddles of rain from earlier in the day split by each new drop. He looked up. The street lamp where he had parked the van had failed, how convenient, he thought.

He saw her enter the street, head down against the weather, hunched against the cold, hurrying towards the hospital. The blue flash of lightning and the crack of thunder – unseasonable, but no less intense for that - stopped her in her haste. She looked skywards for a moment and then hurried on.

She passed the van. He was standing by its rear doors. “Frances,” he called as she went by. She stopped and turned. It gave him his chance. With the proficiency gained of experience and strength drawn from obsession, he took her. Her wrists bound just as those of that blond nurse had been. Her mouth taped shut with the same criss cross pattern he had used on the radiographer. The sedative injection slipped into her arm just as he had for the physiotherapist. So many medics; each with their own speciality, each succumbing to his.

He sat in the driver's seat of the van, breathing slowly, regaining composure. She lay quietly, sedated, not quite conscious, behind him. He pulled off his mask, waited for his pulse to slow, and then drove slowly off. The lightning flashed again, this time striking the tower of the Hospital, sparks spitting from the conductor that ran from its tip to earth.

He tried to be hospitable but they always found it a shock. She was, as all the others had been, sitting in front of her shrine. She was a distressed as the others had been. Why was it, he thought, that they all found it so difficult to accept the devotion he offered to them?

After all he took such great care of them. Of course she was tied to the chair but that was only because she would struggle so. And yes there was the tape on her lips; but couldn't she see that he could not bear to hear her cries?

The storm outside was worse than ever; rain streamed down across the tiny barred window high in the wall of the cellar. Bolts of lightning slammed down on the town and the ruins of the abbey on the hill above, throwing strange shadows of mysterious shapes on the window.

He turned again to his guest, unfastening her tightly fitting black jacket. Such unconventional garb for a medical student; he felt sure her tutor must have commented on her appearance. She looked almost Victorian; the high-collared jacket in heavy fabric, the long skirt, her dark hair drawn back from her pale face. And beneath the jacket? As she struggled against the ropes that held her he delighted in his first close look at her; the neatness of her waist – could it be that she was corseted? He studied the swell of her breasts beneath the fine white cotton of her blouse and the way that her slender neck stretched like the stem of some exotic flower from the starched and lace trimmed collar.

He paused for a moment, drawing breath and savouring the splendour of the girl's presence, the fulfilment of the dreams and plans of his these last three months.

Another flash of lightning; another crack of thunder. The lights in the cellar flickered, dimmed and then failed. He looked up towards the window where a pale blue light showed that the moon at least was still shining between the clouds.

With a crack as loud as any bolt of thunder from the storm, the cellar door crashed back, torn from its hinges by some overwhelming force. He turned to face it; first terrified that he had been discovered and then horrified by what he saw.

The monstrous shape moved towards him. Taller and heavier than he was the shape seemed human but was endowed with animal like movements and brutish strength. He raised his hand towards the shape, only to have it brushed away with a force that threw him to the floor. As he lay there, half stunned by the violence of the blow, he saw the shape advance on the girl. The thing shambled to where the girl sat staring at it in wonderment. It snapped the ropes that held her to the chair with ease. Then, with a gentleness that seemed unbelievable for a beast capable of such aggression, it lifted her from the chair  He watched it in astonishment as the thing held her gently across its shoulder with one giant hand while picking up the chair with the other.

The last thing he saw was the barely human, scarred and disfigured face of the creature as the chair was dashed against his head, shattering his skull.   

The police called at the University the following day. They told Frances that she had had a lucky escape. That they suspected that a man had been planning to abduct her. That he had probably been responsible for the disappearance of other medical staff and scientists from the hospital. That the man had suffered an appalling assault and a violent death although they could not yet say exactly who was responsible. There were puzzling aspects to the crime they said but that need not concern her. They were sure she was safe now. The police inspector was certainly puzzled by the curious matter of the two severed fingers at the scene of the crime, neither from the victim and, according to the forensic reports and DNA tests, not from one person either. But he did not mention this to Frances.

Frances thanked them for their concern and said that she was never in any fear. That she took great care to be safe and that, besides, she had friends that looked out for her.

The more she thought of it the more she was pleased that her night time work in the laboratory these last few weeks had gone so well. The storm had obviously given sufficient power to animate her creation, though how it had managed to find her she could not yet begin to understand. Doctor Frances Norah Stein was well pleased with herself. She just wished that her friends wouldn't call her 'Frankie'.   

THE END

© 2007 Freddie Clegg

All characters fictitious.

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