Human Remains

I do it? Should I do it? Why not, after all? I could do it in such a way that would not identify my involvement. And it would make everything suddenly much more interesting, much more exciting. I’ve enjoyed the last year very much indeed, but the last ones haven’t been nearly so entertaining. It still feels like the right thing to do and I get a thrill of excitement each time I walk away from them, leaving them behind, but the stimulation I get now is not nearly the same as it was the first few times. I need to – how do the tabloids put it? – up my game.
    So what, if the press then know it is being done deliberately? They will have no idea how, or why. They will quite likely not believe that such a thing is possible. The individuals concerned all died of natural causes, after all. There is no question of foul play.
    The thought of ringing someone up – or, no, perhaps it would be better done by email, or by post – and the result of it! The story they would print for the next edition! It would be immense. It might even attract national attention.
    The erection is growing, not diminishing. I’m past the point of decision. It’s no longer about the ‘if’ – it’s now all about the ‘when’ and the ‘how’. It has given me a completely new way of approaching the matter. A new inspiration.
    I pick up the newspaper, no longer concerned about the crumbs or the smear of butter, and fold it in half. Holding it casually against the front of my body, I leave the kitchen and hurry past the desks outside to the lobby, ducking into the disabled toilet tucked away around the corner by the lifts. I lock the door and undo my trousers, laying the newspaper out open on the grubby floor, a double page spread with pictures of them as I’ve never seen them, pictures of smiling faces from a different age, happy faces before I met them, before I released them from their pain, before I showed them the way to escape from it all. And looking at them again turns me on even more, rubbing myself hard enough for it to hurt, thrusting into my fist until I find relief, all over the newspaper, over their faces.

Annabel
     
     
    The Park and Ride was quiet on a Tuesday lunchtime. I’d only ever seen it at seven in the morning, the buses busy but the car park still empty. Now I had to drive all the way to the far side before I found a space. Annoying to have to walk all the way to the bus stop and then all the way to the very back of the car park before I could start to drive home. And then, no doubt, to have to park three or four streets away from home.
    I’d taken the morning as flexible hours because I’d woken up with a fierce headache, one that made me nauseous. I’d almost expected it to last the day, but by eleven o’clock it had subsided to a dull thudding, and I was bored at home anyway.
    On the bus, my mobile phone rang. It rang so infrequently that it always gave me a jolt when I heard it. I felt for the phone, vibrating and playing a tinny rendition of Mozart at the bottom of my bag, tangled up in the rubbish I carried around with me everywhere I went and never needed. Someone sitting behind me tutted with annoyance at the noise, which got louder and louder as I held my bag open.
    At last, when I was convinced the caller was going to give up and it was going to go to voicemail, I felt the trembling phone and grabbed it.
    ‘Hello?’
    There was a pause and I thought again that they must have rung off.
    ‘Hello, is that Annabel?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said, wondering if it was a sales call and how I could get out of it. ‘I’m just on a bus, I can’t hear you very well.’
    ‘This is Sam Everett,’ said the voice. ‘I’m a journalist with the
Briarstone Chronicle
.
    ‘Oh, yes. I got your email. How did you get my mobile number?’
    ‘Ah – a lady in your office let me have it. Sorry, she said she thought you wouldn’t mind.’
    Of course. Kate would assume I wouldn’t mind; I never minded anything, did I? I felt cross, but that wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference now.
    ‘No, I guess it doesn’t matter.’
    For some reason, I’d assumed Sam Everett was a woman. I had no idea why; I just suspected that a journalist interested in a human interest story like this one would be female, empathetic, kind. Maybe Sam Everett the man had a completely different take on it – maybe it was the bodies he was interested in, the decomposition, the potential for violence.
    ‘Is it a good moment to