Ken McClure - Pandora's Helix

When Neef came round he was bound hand and foot with surgical tape. Farro Jones was in the far corner of the room looking at the paperwork clip hanging above three coffins that sat in readiness for residents of the body vault. He saw Neef move, out of the corner of his eye, and came over.

“Well Neef, this is a sad day for you; you are being cremated at four thirty this afternoon.”

Neef felt his insides turn to water. The look on Farro-Jones’ face said that he wasn’t joking.

“For Christ’s sake, man, you can’t hope to keep getting away with killing people. Common sense should tell you that. Where is killing me going to get you?”

Neef’s appeal to reason only brought a smile to Farro-Jones’ face. “With you and Ann Little out of the way, no one can prove anything. No one who knows me saw me at the flats today and no one will ever see you again after you take the place of...” Farro Jones looked at the wad of papers he was holding. “James Henry Todd... at his cremation this afternoon. Come on!”

Farro Jones put his hands under Neef’s armpits and dragged his body across the floor towards the wooden trestles where the three coffins sat. “It’s going to be a tight fit; Mr Todd was a good bit shorter than you, but I’m sure we’ll manage.”

Neef was still groggy from the blows to his head but panic was bringing life to his limbs. He strained at the tape that secured him but could make no impression on it.

“I thought you’d be unreasonable about this,” sneered Farro-Jones so while you were out cold I nipped out and got a little something to calm you down. Farro Jones started to fill a syringe. “Nothing too drastic. I wouldn’t like you to miss your own funeral.”

There was nothing Neef could do to stop the injection going ahead. Almost immediately he felt his muscles go weak and his resolve slip away. He was not truly unconscious just too weak to move. Farro-Jones forced some tissue into Neef’s mouth and then gagged him with surgical tape. He removed the lid of the coffin intended for James Todd and propped it up against the vault door. “In you go,” he grunted as he struggled to lift Neef’s apparently lifeless body and finally loaded him untidily into the coffin.

“As I thought,” said Farro-Jones. “A bit tight.” He bent Neef’s legs this way and that until he had them both inside the coffin. Finally he packed the area around Neef’s head with surgical gowns so that he was held totally immobile even if he had been capable of moving which he was not.

Farro-Jones could see from his eyes that Neef was still conscious. “Good” he said. “You’re going to experience the whole bit, Neef. The drive to the crematorium, the service, the organ music, the hymns — What’s the betting it’s the twenty-third psalm, eh? You may even hear a few tears being shed before that electric motor starts and you feel yourself sink down to where the ovens are. The clank of the fire door opening and then... in you go.”

Farro-Jones lifted the lid of the coffin and Neef was aware of its shadow coming over him before all the light disappeared and he could hear Farro-Jones insert the screws one by one in their pre-drilled holes. He could already feel the temperature start to rise. He felt his own breath rebound off the lid against his face. The air supply must be limiting, he thought. With any luck it would run out before a live cremation became a possibility. It all depended on whether or not Farro-Jones was going to screw the lid down or not. Please God let him screw it right down. Asphyxia must be by far the better option.

“I’ll just leave you a little gap, Neef” he heard Farro-Jones say. “Wouldn’t like you to smother before the big event.”

Neef could see a thin chink of light where Farro-Jones had left the lid loose and wedged it open with the screwdriver he’d been using.

Neef’s nightmare situation was now beginning to threaten his sanity, so great was his sense of absolute terror. Why in God’s name had he not let the police handle it? He hadn’t even told anyone where he was going! No one knew where he was and no one would ever know what had happened to him. True, there would be a bit of a scandal when the mortuary attendants discovered that they still had the body of someone named Todd, who should have been cremated but by then it would be too late to wonder who or what had really been in the coffin that had been consigned to the flames. He could hear Farro-Jones moving about; he heard the sound of the body transporter trolley being raised and lowered as Todd’s body was returned to the vault.

“Soon be time, Neef. The hearse will be here in a few minutes,” said Farro Jones. “Then all my troubles will be over and it’s back to the rigours of the research lab. You know, I thought it was a hellish quirk of fate when Frank MacSween’s grandson became infected but if he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have been able to tidy up things here so nicely. When all’s said and done the number of people who’ve died might be said to be unimportant when you think about the benefits my research could bring when the teething troubles have been sorted out. Don’t you think?”

The gag in Neef’s mouth prevented any kind of reply to the ramblings of the madman outside. The muscle relaxant Farro-Jones had used on him was beginning to wear off a little and his limbs were now racked with pain at being crammed and twisted into such a confined space. Cramp was already threatening in his calf muscles.

“Time to batten you down, old son,” said Farro-Jones. “They’ll be here any moment now.”

Neef saw the crack of light disappear as Farro-Jones removed the screwdriver from the crack and started screwing the lid down. His voice was further away now. Suddenly there were other voices.

Neef’s terror soared to almost unbearable heights as he imagined that the undertakers had arrived. If they were here this soon, he was going to be conscious throughout. His brain was screaming instructions to his limbs but they refused to respond. He had no way at all of alerting the people outside.

Neef felt the coffin rock slightly on its trestle. Someone had touched it. He waited for it to be lifted, his eyes wide with fear in the darkness. There was an agonising silent pause when nothing at all happened then Neef realised that the lid screws were being undone. As the lid was slid away, he blinked against the light and looked up into the face of a policeman.

Neef was helped up into a sitting position. He saw Farro-Jones being held between two uniformed policemen while another in plain clothes cautioned him.

“How on earth?” he gasped as his gag was removed.

“I told them,” said Eve appearing at his side and putting her arm around his shoulders.

“But how did you know I was here?”

“When I looked out the window earlier to wave good bye to the firemen who’d been to visit Neil I saw your car parked outside Pathology. David’s car was parked beside it. That worried me. Ann Miles told me that you had gone out so I thought it odd that your car was back but you weren’t. I was about to phone the police when they arrived; they were looking for you in connection with a fire?”

“It’s a long story,” said Neef, rubbing his forehead weakly at the thought of it. He suddenly felt awfully tired and couldn’t fight the feeling. The effects of the injection Farro-Jones had given him and thoughts of what had so nearly happened to him conspired to make him lose consciousness.

Within minutes of waking up in a small side ward in the hospital, Neef was having an argument. He had declared himself fit and wanted to leave but this apparently was not an option open to him. The nurse present when he woke up had no wish to enter into any real argument with a consultant physician so she called the doctor who had dealt with Neef’s admission.