to live this quiet, almost-Zen life.
Christ, he’d been in danger of going soft, until it all kicked off.
When Kate was there.
He’d known since he was a young teenager that he was different to other boys. Everyone else – the whole fucking world – drivelled on about love and joy and happiness. He didn’t get it. Every song he heard, every film he saw, the conversations he overheard – it was all love and romance and hearts and flowers. He watched the boys in his class make fools of themselves chasing after girls. It was pathetic. He didn’t give a shit about girls. The nearest he got to feeling anything like happiness was when he was causing pain. Making his mother cry, beating his sister’s cat’s head in with a rock, fighting other boys and making them cry. That was joy.
Ironically, the more distant and disinterested he was, the more the girls liked him. They were all after him, to the disgust of the other boys. The prettiest, most popular girls pursued him, widened their eyes when they talked to him, licked their lips, asked him if he wanted to hang out with them. One girl even wrote him a poem, for fuck’s sake, which made him physically sick. But the girls offered him their bodies too, and he liked that. He liked fucking. He liked to make girls cry while he fucked them. After a while word got around that he wasn’t just a bad lad – he was really bad. They stayed away from him after that, apart from the really messed up girls, the ones who wanted danger, the girls with problems at home, glue habits and scars on their arms. He felt nothing for them except a vague animal lust, often followed by disgust. That was it. And that was the pattern of his early life.
Then Kate turned up at the CRU. Sampson’s colleague Geoffrey had picked her up and mentioned to Sampson that there was a really pretty girl in room 4C. The next day, they were working in the garden when Geoffrey nudged Sampson. ‘There’s that lassie I told you about.’ Sampson had looked up, disinterested.
It was like being kicked in the balls. He guessed he must have looked stupid in that moment, a slack-jawed moron, because Geoffrey laughed and said, ‘You seem quite taken with her. I told you she was a looker.’
Sampson couldn’t speak. He returned to his digging beside Geoffrey. Later, after the fire, Gaunt had been worried that Geoffrey knew too much so Sampson had disposed of the doddering old twat, burying him in the flowerbeds he loved so much.
He didn’t know what it was about Kate that had this effect on him, that made him feel more at peace yet more violent than ever before, the desire to hug and the need to throttle churning around inside him. She wasn’t the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, she didn’t have the best body, she didn’t move in a particularly alluring way. Put her in a room with a bunch of models and she’d stand out because, well, she didn’t look like a model. But she had an extraordinary effect on him.
Tormented, he’d watched her for a fortnight and then she’d gone, just like any volunteer, disappearing once their two weeks was up. He berated himself for not doing something, making an attempt to get closer to her, to overcome his paralysis in the face of the power she had over him.
And then she’d come back. Wonderful, terrible. And he realised why: she was with that doctor, Wilson, that wimpy little shit. How the fuck was she attracted to a gutless turd like him? Okay, so he was clever and handsome. He was nice. ‘Nice’ made Sampson’s teeth hurt. ‘Nice’ needed to be eradicated from the face of the planet.
Sampson soon became aware that Kate was up to something. So he watched her more closely, and kept an eye on Wilson too. His job had started to bore him but now he felt renewed interest.
It all climaxed in a night of flames and smoke, violence and burning flesh. He was there when the firefighters brought Kate and the other girls out. It was madness, utter chaos, the volunteers fleeing their rooms, police and firemen arriving from Salisbury, local residents appearing to ooh and aah at the spectacle. At the same moment he saw Kate and her room-mate being brought out, his boss appeared at his side. Instructions were quickly given. To Sampson’s immense disappointment, others were to deal with Kate. He was told to deal with her room-mate, however he wished.
Sampson found Sarah sitting on the grass, her head down, her nightdress, which was up around her knees, stained black by smoke. He said her name and she looked up at him. Her eyes were watering, her face, beneath the smudges of ash, was paper-white. She looked like she was at death’s door. He felt himself grow aroused.
‘I’ve been asked to help you,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’
He held out his hand and she took it. He pulled her to her feet and she stumbled. He caught her, putting his arm around her. Through the thin cotton of her nightie her skin was hot. A few feet away, Kate lay on the grass, unconscious. He looked at her ruefully, then escorted Sarah away.
She kept her head down as they walked, coughing and wheezing as he led her away from the burning building towards the trees. A gate in the perimeter fence led to a copse, just a stone’s throw from the building but concealed from view. Patients were allowed to go for walks beyond the grounds as long as they didn’t come into contact with anyone else.
She looked up, blearily. ‘Where are we going? I thought you were taking me to an ambulance.’
He didn’t reply, just pulled her along. They passed through the gate and into the copse.
She began to struggle. ‘I don’t understand . . . Let go of me.’
He gripped her arm harder, and pinched the skin above her hip.
‘Ow. Let go.’ She coughed as she protested, and as she doubled over he pushed her to the ground and dropped to his knees beside her, glad that he had been immunised.
Sarah tried to cry out but her lungs were too weakened by the smoke and the disease that had taken root in her body. Sampson pushed her onto her back and pinned her down. It was easy. She was weak and he was strong. She thrashed her head from side to side until he slapped her face and showed her his teeth.
‘Please . . .’
He cocked his head, examining her eyes. The fear fascinated him. It was pointless.
‘You’re going to die anyway,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s no point fighting it.’
She started to cry. How predictable. But her weakness, her sickness, her proximity to death, it excited him. He needed to be quick though. Pinning her with his forearm he unbuckled his trousers, pushed them down and pulled up her nightdress. He spat on his hand and moistened his cock. He was even more glad he’d been vaccinated.
She stopped struggling, just carried on crying.
As he approached his orgasm he held her throat in his hand and squeezed. Her neck was slender, his hand powerful. It didn’t take long. As she died, at the moment he came, he looked into her eyes and saw the horror there.
It was the strongest orgasm he’d ever had.
He needed to hurry. Picking up her lifeless body he strode back through the gate and found himself at the back of the building, where flames still licked at the windows, black smoke vomiting into the night air. The firefighters were round the other side, sending jets of water arcing into the building, fighting a battle that would take them minutes more to win. Sarah had got out of the Unit once. It was unfair really. But as his dad always said, life’s not fucking fair.
One of the windows at the back had blown out, and Sampson was able to step through, carrying Sarah in a fireman’s lift. It was like Hell inside the
