INSIDE
© 2002-Destiny West

 

Dugard Place looked like any normal cul-de-sac you might find in any middle-class suburb of any town in England: Neat houses lined up next to each other encircling a small green with few sporadically placed trees. Most days in the late afternoon if you were to walk past or through it, the sounds of children playing happily, or the noise of teenagers; or occasionally a mother yelling impatiently at the kids would greet you. In other words, normality - and Dugard Place certainly looked “normal”.

But then most places do, don't they? Because unless you are intimately familiar with the occupants of each house, nobody really knows what goes on behind those closed doors. Everybody has skeletons in the closet, secrets and goings-on that you don't want other people to know about, and Dugard Place was no different. It had its fair share of skeletons and secrets, but luckily enough for the occupants 'dirty laundry' did not get hung out around there too often.
People came and went like they do in any street nowadays. You made new neighbours and after a while they moved on, sometimes you kept in contact; more often than not though you lost contact, except for that annual Christmas card that came through the mail slot of your door in December. People move and become faint memories in the abyss that is our mind.

One particular house’s occupants on Dugard Place had been there the longest. Nobody knew exactly how many years The Fergusson’s had owned number 11.
Again, they seemed normal enough: The average English family, Mum, Dad, two kids plus an elderly grandmother that made her appearance each Sunday for the family roast before being quickly taken back to the home where she had been placed several years ago.
The grandmother's existence was a chore, she was one of the reasons why the family could never take Christmas abroad and also the reason why Sunday's had become abhorred. But let's face it, what teenage kids (or adults for that matter) want to sit around listening to a senile incontinent old women rattle on about 'When I was young…' and 'During the war…”?

Her time was coming though, and that reason the Fergusson's kept everything sugary sweet. That and the fact that she had a very healthy bank account that would finance them many Christmas's abroad, if they could ever leave the house for any length of time.
See, the grandmother was not the only reason why 11 Duggard Place had become the Fergusson's own prison, but she was the only 'reason' that they could talk about openly. The other reason wasn't as easy as placing in a home, though it wasn't through lack of trying, they had done so ever since that reason had been born.

The Fergusson family had another child: The youngest and the true bane of their existence. Grandmother would eventually die and logically at her age it was any day now. But the third Fergusson child was only a teenager and medically there was no reason why she could not continue to live until she was in her 90's.
Elizabeth and Jack Fergusson, had tried many times to place it in the facilities that “took care of this kind of thing. ”Sometimes she was accepted, but the longest she ever was allowed to stay for was a few days; then they would get the dreaded phone call and they would have to go pick her up and bring her back home. This had to be done very late at night, or at least in the early hours of the morning so that nobody knew.

Walls surrounded number 11. Not any excessive fortress-type of enclosure, just a brick wall that was taller than a fully-grown adult and gates that could be padlocked. In this day and age this kind of set up was not at all questioned. The Fergusson's were just considered “security conscious” and there is nothing wrong with that.
The reason why nobody was ever really invited into the house was not so easily explainable. The other kids on Duggard Place had thought it was strange that they were not allowed to play inside the Fergusson house. But over time it was accepted and nothing was ever said or done to challenge the arrangement.
It was lead to believe that the reason 'visitors' were not allowed was because Elizabeth Fergusson was prone to terrible migraines. In itself this wasn’t a lie, she did get splitting headaches, but this was mainly from incessant screeching noise made from their youngest child.

Elizabeth Fergusson's pregnancy carrying the twins had been difficult enough, they had been born two months premature but had survived to prosper into healthy bright children: a boy and a girl. However, due to Elizabeth’s weak constitution and the way the twins’ pregnancy had battered and abused her body, she had been warned by the Doctors not to have any more children.
They had not been particularly upset by the news, why should they be? They had a pigeon-pair, a lovely set of twins, and both children were healthy.
Then one year later Elizabeth discovered she was pregnant again.
The doctors greeted this news grimly.
'Your life could be at risk.' She had been told.
'I suggest a termination.' Another doctor had advised.

But Jack and Elizabeth Fergusson were not going to murder their unborn child. Besides their twins had survived against the odds, so there was no reason why baby number three could not achieve the same.
Or at least, no reason that they knew about anyway.
But the Doctors knew better, or should we say that they knew the truth.
For after Elizabeth Fergusson had given birth to her premature twins by caesarean section, there had been complications. Too much blood among other problems had led the medical staff to inject Elizabeth (without her knowledge or consent) with a new drug.
The drug did all it was meant to do and basically Elizabeth survived to care for her newly born twins. She was never told about the life saving injection she had been given, and of course was never told about the side effects, and when Jack Fergusson's sperm had penetrated Elizabeth's fertile egg the 'side effects' had kicked in and made the Fergusson's unborn baby their host.
There are some areas of science that man should not play with, not even when the very best of intentions are behind them. Us, the public only hear of the medical successes, we are never told of the failures nor what they are truly experimenting with in their labs.

So, the doctors tried to persuade the Fergusson's that a termination would be in their best interest. But all Elizabeth and Jack had to do was look at their adorable twin one-year-olds to rule out any idea of abortion.
However this did not stop the doctors. Right through out Elizabeth's pregnancy they plotted and schemed. They injected her with substances that she thought were for her benefit but in reality were drugs to encourage miscarriages.
Nothing worked. The baby and the side effects battled on and if anything appeared to thrive on all the poisons continually injected into it.

Tired of the medical interference, the Fergusson’s and opted for a home birth. Then they left town. They moved into number 11 Duggard place with their other two children; with the neighbours blissfully unaware of the 'other' child carried into the home in a specially constructed sound-proof box.
Baby number 3 or “Lizzie” as it was formally called; was cared for as best as possible under the circumstances. They were not outwardly cruel to the child, but they never really formed an attachment with it either.
Elizabeth and Jack's relationship was never the same; each secretly blaming the other for Lizzie, though they remained together and battled on. The twins however stayed away from their sibling as much as possible. They never equated it with being their “sister.” Lizzie was more like an unwanted pet.

As for Lizzie, she did not know any better.
The baby Elizabeth had carried was just a shell, a body for the 'side effects'. She had no feelings and no thoughts beyond those of a primal nature such as 'hunger’ or ‘cold.'
She never had the intelligence to learn to read, write or even talk for that matter. The only form of communication that came from her was the terrible high-pitched screeching sound that the Fergusson’s had become accustomed to, just like other folks get used to the faint background humming of the refrigerator.

The first thirteen years of Lizzie 's life had gone past without any major disruptions or events.
She had spent most of her time in the little room they had provided for her towards the back of the house, where she would sit and watch TV rocking back and forwards on her knees and letting out her noises. She had to wear disposable nappies, Elizabeth Fergusson had tried in vain to toilet train the child, but failed and eventually gave up.
Lizzie’s skin looked like it had been the experiment of hundreds of skin grafts. It was pitted and peeling and no matter how many creams or lotions were applied to soothe the inflammations, it always remained the same. Her hair was coarse and dry and her scalp was a mass of yellow scabs where she had picked and prodded herself out of boredom rather than any frustration or anger. The eyes were dark and vacant, prone to continual infections, and she emitted an odour that could fortunately be disguised by a constant barrage of perfumes and air fresheners.

The trouble started in Lizzie 's 13th year. Like any normal girl of that age, puberty had set in and with that came menstruation. Lizzie would bleed for exactly one whole week of every month. During this week the site of her own blood encouraged the screeching her actions grow more disturbing to the point of dangerous. At these times Elizabeth Fergusson would truly suffer with the terrible migraines.
When she first started her periods the Fergusson's had been given largactyl in order to sedate her. However as with most drugs, especially sedatives, our bodies become accustomed to them and eventually they no longer offer any help. So, the 'bloody week', as the twins liked to call it, was dreaded at 11 Dugard Place. Jack spent more time doing overtime at work eking out his existence as a porter in the city mortuary whilst the twins spent more time at friends’ houses, leaving poor Elizabeth to deal with Lizzie by herself. It was one such night during a 'bloody week' with just Elizabeth and Lizzie at home, that the true horror began.

Elizabeth had taken to her bed with an agonising migraine and two Valium. Whilst she lay fast asleep in the dream world that offered her sanity; Lizzie had left her room and had ventured out to explore the other areas of the house.
This in itself was very unusual. If any of the Fergusson’s had previously attempted to move her out of her room, her screeching would become so high pitched that they were forced give up and let her be, rather than risk the neighbours hear. She seemed happiest in her room, and never left it. There had certainly never been the need to lock her inside. But on this fateful evening Elizabeth Fergusson had made the error of leaving the front door unlocked.

All children are naturally curious, and Lizzie took the opportunity to explore.
Nobody can be sure exactly, of what lead up to the particular events of that night, or what Lizzie's actual footsteps were. The only thing the Fergusson's could be sure about was how Lizzie was found and what she was found doing.

Jack Fergusson had arrived home around 10pm that evening. The twins were still out visiting friends, despite it being mid-week and a school night. Pulling his car into Dugard Place, his headlights had caught something in their pale light. It was a sight that froze him to the bone: it was the distorted figure of Lizzie bent over something lying on the grass in the circle of green.
His paralysis was short lived. Horrified at the thought of the neighbours seeing Lizzie, Jack turned off the headlights, and left the car idling; speeding across to the green towards the nightmarish scene.
It was only when he had got closer that her realised the true horror of the vista: Lizzie was not alone. The terrified eyes of a teenaged boy stared up at him from underneath Lizzie's body. It was Harold Dean from number 22.

'Help me!' The boy pleaded, his body crumpled and bleeding from injuries inflicted upon him.
Jack grabbed Lizzie by the back of the neck, just as the twins walked onto Dugard Place. Seeing their father on the green they rushed towards him. It was the first time Jack Fergusson had not heard Lizzie screeching. She was dead silent, her pupils dilated fully and her mouth glistening from the boy’s blood.
Jack thrust Lizzie into her sibling’s arms.
'Get her back into the house.' He hissed through clenched teeth. Without question the twins led Lizzie back towards the house. She seemed different, almost dazed. She wandered vacantly back into her room and Scott, the eldest of the twins by 2 minutes, shut door behind her.

‘Where’s mum?' asked Janice, his sister.
'How am I meant to know?'
Scott replied, heading back outside to help his father. Upon inspection, Janice found her mother still asleep.
'Mum…'
She pleaded, shaking Elizabeth’s shoulder to wake her.
Eventually, she stirred from her drug-induced slumber. Her head no longer thumped.
'Mum, Lizzie got out.'
Janice said impatiently.
'What?'
Elizabeth replied, not knowing if she had indeed heard correctly.
'Lizzie got out. She was on the green, Dad found her. She had Harold Dean pinned beneath her.'
Though still a little groggy, Elizabeth managed to get to her feet and follow Janice downstairs to living room.

Jack and Scott were standing there shaking, their clothing splattered with blood.
'My God!' Elizabeth exclaimed.
'What’s happened? Where’s Lizzie?'
'Lizzie’s in her room.' said Jack, raising his voice slightly. 'As for what happened, I was going to ask you?'
He took off his blood soaked shirt and tossed it into the fireplace. It hissed in the flames.
'Go get cleaned up, Scott.' He told his son. 'And when you have finished bring your clothes back to me.' Both twins hurried from the room.
Elizabeth sunk into the sofa and nursed her head in her hands.
'I, I had a migraine.' She stammered. ' I took some Valium and went to bed.'
'How the hell did she get out?' Jack demanded.
'I don't know.' Elizabeth whined. 'I suppose I must have left the door unlocked.'
She looked up at her husband. His face was grave.
'I'm always left to deal with her, especially during the bloody week.’ She continued. ‘You’re never here and you know that Lizzie never usually leaves her room.'
'She has killed someone.' Jack hissed at her.
Elizabeth swallowed hard.
'Harold Dean. I found Lizzie on the green bent over him…eating him!'
'No!' She said in horror and disbelief.

‘Come with me’ Jack said, grabbing his wife by her arm and dragging her towards Lizzie's room. He unlocked the door. Inside Lizzie was on the floor hunched over a mangled mass of scarlet. Her mouth was buried in the pulpy red mess. It was like something out of a horror story.
Elizabeth Fergusson's stomach churned involuntarily and she vomited over herself. Jack pulled the door closed and turned the key.
The twins re-entered the room. Both teenagers stood there staring at their mother in disgust and fear.
It was Scott that eventually broke the horrid silence.
'So now we know what really happened to all our pets that have disappeared.' He said.
Elizabeth Fergusson felt ill. she wandered back to the sofa in shock and sat down.
'Did anyone see?' She asked.
Jack shook his head. ' No, I don't think so, but I couldn’t take any chances. I had to bring him inside and give him to her.'

His wife glared at him. '
What do you mean? Are you saying he wasn't dead?'
Scott declared.
'No he wasn't…'
'We didn't have a choice Elizabeth.' Jack interrupted. 'We couldn't let him tell anyone.'
Elizabeth nodded. She knew perfectly well that Jack and Scott had no other option.
So Harold Dean was Lizzie's first human victim and unfortunately not her last.

The day after the incident, Jack and Elizabeth entered Lizzie’s room to dispose of the mess that had been 'Harold Dean' and were stunned to find no sign of the body whatsoever. There was no way of escape, the door had been locked all night and there were no windows. Maybe the whole event had been some horrible dream deep within each of their psyche. But no. For despite being no sign of Harold who, in life was generally disliked: a small, spoiled and spiteful boy, there was other evidence of the night’s events. The stench though was unbearable. Lizzie was sitting amid the pool of foulness that had overflowed from her nappy; swaying backwards and forwards watching her cartoons. Her entire body was covered in mixture of excrement and red and black fluid.

The Fergussons walked into the room cautiously. In all Lizzie’s thirteen years she had never shown any aggression towards any of her own family; but they could not now be sure. Things had changed. Lizzie had officially committed murder and to make matters worse the whole Fergusson family had aided her.

‘We have to clean her up.’ Jack said to his wife. He had always prided himself on having a strong stomach; his father had been a mortician and Jack had grown up in this grim environment watching him at work on corpses.
‘She’s so silent.’ remarked Elizabeth.
It was true. Lizzie’s parents approached her carefully.
‘Lizzie.’ They both said softly, their faces distorted into twin masks of reassurance.
She had learnt to recognise her own name and the voices of her family.
She turned to face her mother and father, her open mouth chewing upon some foul-looking sinewy substance. In her hand she clenched the last vestige of the night before: a splintered bone that had once possibly been a rib. Elizabeth Fergusson stepped back in shock.

‘She’s eaten everything’ She said in a horrified daze, barely able to keep her stomach under control from the stench of filth in the room.. ‘His eyes, bones, hair teeth…everything’
‘At least we don’t have to dispose of anything ourselves.’ Jack ventured.
He knelt down in the odorous mess that surrounded his daughter and attempted to prise the bone from her hands, but Lizzie was strong and fought to hold on to this last titbit. The screeching began.
‘For heaven’s sake Jack, let her keep the damn bone.’ Elizabeth screamed, her voice almost drowned in the horrible noises emanating from her daughter’s mouth. Jack released his grip and stood up. The screeching stopped, and she turned her vacant stare back toward the direction of the television.

Jack and Elizabeth prepared to go about cleaning up their daughter. Ideally it would have been better to be able to get her into the bath, however past experiences had taught them that this wasn’t an option. On the last occasion, Lizzie had screeched so loudly at the sensation of immersion, that it had drawn the attention of their concerned neighbour. Of course they had bluffed their way out of it, saying that that it had been one of the twins having a temper tantrum. But that had been over a decade ago, when such a story may have been plausible, and that time had long since passed. So they would hand wash her every day or every second day depending on her physical state, and if they could get away with it.

Jack fetched the large bucket of warm soapy water and the wash cloth, whilst Elizabeth attempted to prize her daughter out of her clothes. Cleaning an incontinent child day in, day out had made Elizabeth accustomed to the stench of human excrement. However, this time when she removed her daughter’s nappy, she felt the vomit rise in her throat and dropped the plastic parcel of gore to the tiled floor in horror. For mingled between Lizzie’s own blood and faeces were clumps of what appeared to be hair and then on further inspection, teeth. Some still had the fillings in them.
Jack fetched a large green industrial strength rubbish sack and began scooping up the mess. He dropped the almost unidentifiable rags that were once Lizzie’s clothes into the bag, and tied the neck tight. When they were finished, Elizabeth carefully dried her daughter putting a clean nappy on her and fresh clothes. Then they left her alone with her TV and the fragment of bone, shutting and locking the door behind her.
They stood motionless in the living room for a few minutes. Jack let out a long sigh.
‘The door has to be locked at all times.’ He said.
Elizabeth nodded in agreement.

The last piece of Harold Dean had gone by the next day, however over the next week Lizzie passed a two more teeth and a final clump of hair in her faeces.
The next few weeks in the Fergusson house passed uneventfully.
Although nothing was ever mentioned between them about Harold Dean, the matter of the lad’s disappearance became a grave matter. “Missing” posters appeared on the lampposts, a newspaper campaign began and the police came knocking on the door on two occasions appealing for help. Jack dealt with it all marvellously, giving a performance that would have won him an Oscar had this been a film. But the disappearance of the boy was not foremost in his mind. Yes it had happened, but that was that…and teenagers go missing all the time.

Within a week or two Lizzie began screeching again. However having her door always shut and now additionally bolted, the noise had become so muffled, that it was barely audible.
However, surely as the hours tick by and life goes on, the bloody week drew upon them again and Lizzie’s screeching could not be so easily drowned out.

‘It’s driving me mad.’
Elizabeth pleaded frantically with her husband.
‘There is nothing I can do about it, Elizabeth.’
His wife shook her head furiously.
‘There must be something Jack. New drugs, or… or..’
‘Or what?’ Jack looked at his wife.
‘Well, we could find her something else to eat.’ She whispered. ‘And it would stop the screeching…’
Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Obviously the strain of the situation had been too much for her fragile mind and she was beginning to crack.
Or was she? On second thought, maybe it wouldn’t be that difficult. The city was filled with vagrants and wasters, none of whom would be missed. If they were careful, they could get away with it…
No. The idea was insane. After all, there were other things that would quell her cravings.

At first they had started off small, offering Lizzie puppies or kittens, that Jack managed to lure to the house or pull into his car; but they would only last a day and then the screeching would begin again.
And so the next three years of the Fergusson’s life went by in a daze of automatic responses. With every cycle of ‘the bloody week’, Jack and Elizabeth would offer Lizzie something she might enjoy to eat. Eventually, the offerings got bigger and came in the form of large dogs that they “rescued” from the dogs-home, but these sustained her for only a few days. They were still not enough to keep her quiet for the majority of “the bloody week.”

Jack and Elizabeth Fergusson knew what they had to do. Lizzie would only ever truly be satisfied and silent with the taste of human flesh and blood.

It was decided upon straight away, that the twins would not be told about the plan. There was no reason that they had to know, for if Jack or Elizabeth were ever caught and Lizzie discovered, then the twins could plead ignorance. Besides, Janice and Scott never entered Lizzie’s room and since the incident they had spent more and more time out of the house.

Late at night after leaving work, Jack would drive the streets looking for homeless people. The offer of money, drugs or food was generally enough to entice them into the car. He would drive them back to the house on 11 Dugard Place, park his car in the garage and usher them inside; offering a welcome meal and a room for the night. Lizzie’s room.

They took one homeless person a month and these outcasts were never missed. There was never any news of their disappearances in the newspapers and Jack Fergusson would take the ‘clean up bags’ to work and burn them in the incinerator.

Life was quieter in the Fergusson house, Elizabeth did not suffer with as many migraines and her stomach had hardened to the ‘clean up’ tasks. Lizzie was now sixteen, and still content to rock backwards and forwards in front of the television, satisfied with her monthly offerings during her bloody week. Jack and Elizabeth Fergusson never questioned how it was possible for Lizzie to eat and digest an entire body, leaving nothing but a reeking mass of excrement behind. An over excessive metabolism? Who knows? Why question something that is going so right?
Of course the thought had entered their minds on many occasions that in the distant future they would die, and then what would happen to their daughter Lizzie? The twins were still oblivious to the monthly ‘offerings’. They had never questioned the silence during Lizzie’s bloody week, they had just accepted it. Both knew that sometimes it was better not to ask questions because you might not always like the answers.

Jack and Elizabeth though began to question everything. Why had they not listened to the doctor’s advice? How long could they keep living like this, making Lizzie the monthly offerings to keep the peace? One night while lying in bed they had discussed another option.

‘It’s only logical Elizabeth.’ Jack had told her.
‘You’re suggesting killing our own child.’ His wife hissed with disgust.
‘Yes, but we kill a human being every month.’ He continued. ‘We can’t go on like this forever, we are bound to get caught.’
She knew he was right. But the idea of killing their own child was as horrifying as when the doctors had originally suggested she have a termination. Of course during the past sixteen years of Lizzie’s life, it had entered Elizabeth’s mind; especially when she had been a baby in the cot, screeching and hideous. At those times Elizabeth had often pondered placing a pillow firmly over the child’s face and suffocating it, condemning it to being another unfortunate, though considerably more convenient, statistic.

‘We aren’t going to live forever, Elizabeth. What will happen to Lizzie then?’
Hot tears rolled down Elizabeth’s face, but Jack did not comfort her.
‘We cannot expect Janice or Scott to take over this terrible lifestyle just for the sake of their sister. Call me selfish, but I’m forty-five! For the past sixteen years of our lives I feel we’ve having been living in a virtual prison. I love you, but I want some quality out of life for a change.’

‘And what of Lizzie’s life?’ Elizabeth asked, wiping her tears away with the corner of the bedsheet.

‘She has no quality of life.’ Jack concluded.

They sat in silence for a few moments.

‘Look Elizabeth, I’ll do it. Nobody will ever know. It will be like Lizzie never existed and eventually, in time; it’ll seem like these past sixteen years have been nothing more than a nightmare.’

‘You think it’s that easy?’ She whispered. Of course it wasn’t that easy. They could not erase the past sixteen years from their lives, nor that of the twins for that matter.

‘No.’ Jack sighed. ‘But for everybody’s sake, including Lizzie’s, it’s the right choice.’

Elizabeth paused.
‘What will we tell the twins?’ She said after a moment.
Jack thought.
‘We’ll tell Scott and Janice that Lizzie died in her sleep.’

‘And you seriously think that they would believe it? What about my mother?’
‘listen, we’ve never been really sure how long Lizzie would live for. The twins won’t question because they can finally get on with their lives. As for your mother, she’s been senile for most of Lizzie’s life and I don’t think she even knows the child exists.’

Elizabeth knew her husband was right. But killing their own child? She wondered if she could live with herself if they truly went ahead with it.

‘How will you do it?’ She asked him, not really wanting to know, but she had to be sure that her child wouldn’t suffer.

‘An injection.’ Jack told her. ‘I‘ll bring home some syringes from work tomorrow evening. A bubble of air in the blood will kill her instantly.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’ She asked.
‘It will. I will be injecting her with formaldehyde.’
Both Jack and Elizabeth Fergusson slept poorly that night for different reasons:
Elizabeth’s conscious was working overtime, her natural maternal instincts were planning havoc on her mind and challenging their decision at every step.
Jack, on the other hand could not sleep properly from excitement.
It was not the thought of killing his own daughter that enthralled him, it was the life that would happen afterwards. He would finally be free of this mess, and free to leave Elizabeth too if he so chose.

Morning came slowly. Jack went to work leaving his wife alone in the house with Lizzie; the twins were at school. Elizabeth chose to handle the day as normal and went about her household chores. From time to time she checked in on her daughter.

Lizzie lay sprawled in front of the television, moaning a steady high pitched rhythm.
Over the past three years Lizzie had grown considerably bigger. Her body was now a mass of fat rolls that Elizabeth would have to clean to stop infections and sores from festering.
She looked at her daughter, and though she could recognise some maternal tug in her heart, she knew that it was just that: a maternal natural response, nothing more. She did not love this child, not like she loved her darling twins.
‘I love her because my body makes me.’ Elizabeth said aloud walking out the room, closing the door behind her and automatically bolting it.
‘Life can be better.’ She said to herself, and sat down on the sofa, waiting for Jack to arrive home.

He was early. In truth he had watched the clock all afternoon and had packed what he needed to take home with him when he had first arrived in the morning.
He had left two corpses for cremation. He needed a reason to return to work.

‘You can finish up early if you want.’ He had told the new lad.
‘Are you sure?’ His assistant asked. ‘We still have a couple to go.’
‘Yeah, you’re fine.’ Jack nodded. ‘Get on home with you. I’m just going out to grab something to eat, then I’ll come back and finish up for the night.’

On his arrival home Jack made a suggestion.
‘Elizabeth, why don’t you go for a drive for about 15 minutes. Get out of the house while I do this.’
She agreed. She knew that even though what Jack was going to do was indeed right; she dreaded being in the house whilst he did it.
Silently, she went to the garage and got in the car, she did not say goodbye to Lizzie.

Jack opened his case and prepared the several syringes. Formaldehyde was an everyday chemical and common in his line of work as a preservative, a godsend in keeping the flesh from decaying. He measured a dose into three syringes and shook each one. Perfect. The air in the partly filled syringe had mixed into the fluid and caused a slight effervescence. The arrival of this into her bloodstream would surely do the job.

He found her in the same position she had been in all day, curled up in front of the television.
He offered her the defrosted leg of lamb he had taken out of the freezer that morning before going to work, and Lizzie snatched the meat from him immediately. Taking the first syringe, Jack knelt before his daughter and without hesitation or final thought plunged the needle into the side of Lizzie’s neck.
She dropped the bone and screeched frantically as Jack fought to inject the fluid into her blood stream.
Incredible: the child remained alive. No effect whatsoever.

Stunned, by not altogether surprised, he calmed Lizzie down with hushed tones of his voice and retrieved the leg of lamb for her to gnaw upon.
He steadied himself and took the second syringe. He waited for a moment to make sure that Lizzie was once more focused on the television before proceeding. Once again he moved cautiously towards Lizzie’s neck and then pushing the shining needle into the flesh and pushing down on the plunger forcefully.
This time it was different. Lizzie’s body snapped around and with a terrible strength she threw Jack to the ground. With a speed unseen in her before, she scrambled to her feet and fled the room.
Jack Fergusson cursed loudly.

‘Lizzie, come back.’ He finally called to her.
Jack forced himself to stand, his body ached from the surprise assault and he was unsure of what to do next.
But Lizzie wasn’t coming back. She going through the front door and her agonised screeching was ringing in his ears. Jack felt as if he wanted to scream after her, but he knew that so much noise would certainly attract the neighbours, if it hadn’t done so already.
He rushed out the door after her.
Then, miraculously, the screeching stopped.

Lizzie stood on the drive- way, pacing backwards and forwards like an animal, emitting a different noise that startled Jack. This time it was like a deep growl. Wild eyes flashed a look of hate at him. The first time he had ever seen emotion within those usually vacant spheres..
He approached her carefully.

‘Lizzie.’ He cooed to her softly. ‘Come to daddy.’
She backed away, just as a set of headlights swung onto Dugard Place.
‘Fuck!’ Jack cursed.
As the car pulled into his drive way at full speed, he realised it was Elizabeth.

He quickly moved out the way as she drove the car full throttle into the garage ploughing into Lizzie, slamming her body up against the back garage wall.
Jack pulled down the roller door with a crash.
Elizabeth reversed a little then slammed forward again, wedging her daughter’s body between the radiator of the car and the brick wall. The garage was filled with the reek of car-fumes.
Jack banged on her window. ‘Enough!’ He screamed at her through the glass.
Elizabeth sat frozen in the drivers seat, hands clenching the steering wheel, her whole body shaking.
Her husband ripped open the door and yanked the hand brake into position.
‘It’s over.’ He told her.
Elizabeth could not bring herself to look through the windscreen of the car and over the hood.

He helped his wife from the car: Her legs felt unsteady under her bodyweight, her breathing was erratic, and she shook.
Jack piled into the driver’s seat, leaving the door open and reversed a few yards. He then turned the ignition-key into the ‘off’ position.
He sat for a few minutes, trying to prepare himself for what he might see or still have to do. Finally though, after a deep breath, he climbed out of the car and shut the door quietly behind him.

His wife was still leaning against the wall trembling.
He walked towards the front of the car, dreading what he would see.
Lying on the concrete ground was the broken body of Lizzie, his daughter.

Parts of her were plastered over the front of the radiator and rich red bloody mess crawled its greasy way down the brick wall. He nudged the main mass of Lizzie’s body where it lay on the floor with his foot. The scarred exterior flesh seemed to ooze away from her insides and creep across the concrete floor. The screeching noise was still there. Whether it was shock that tricked him to thinking that the horrid wailing was there in his ears, he could not tell.
Jack vomited,
His stomach lurched and emptied itself all over his chest. It was his turn to shake.
Elizabeth approached him, holding her hand against the wall to steady herself .
She forced herself to look down at the corpse of her daughter.
‘Why doesn’t the screeching stop!’ She demanded, repulsed at what she had done, rather than what lay before her.
Jack pointed to the ground, eyes wide in horror. The noise was getting louder.
On the floor before them lay a pulsating screeching mass.

It was no longer Lizzie screeching, and in hindsight they realised it had never had been Lizzie that had screeched at all.
The pulsating mass was a blasphemous deformity of textures and substances. It was like nothing that Jack had seen, in all his time working at the mortuary: A pulpy mess of cartilage and sinew that in their terrible outlines suggested parts of kittens and puppies.
Most horrible though was the way that the mass moved. It changed and shifted constantly, glistening wetly. Occasionally eyes would form in the mass, blinking in terror before submerging themselves in the protoplasm.

Then they saw it:
Surfacing out of the scarlet bubbling jelly was the shape of a perfect baby, clotted against dog fur mouth chattering in agony.
The grotesque vista that lay before them was a mass of all that Lizzie had devoured, including her own twin whilst in her Elizabeth’s womb.
The macabre coagulation continued to pulsate and screech upon the floor.
‘I don’t understand.’ Elizabeth muttered.
Neither did Jack. Nor did he want to. He took a shovel from against the wall and began to furiously batter at the crimson nightmare before him, hacking and slashing at the mass until finally the wailing faded and stopped altogether. Elizabeth bent down to touch the quivering body of Lizzie’s twin, and brought it into her arms. Once more she could recognise that maternal tug in her heart: a natural maternal response.