"Daddy!" a little girl clad in a school uniform cried, "Daddy, where's mummy?" She stares up at the tall men in heavy uniforms standing in the middle of her living room, deep in discussion with her father. Her voice is drowned out. He doesn't hear her, and he continues to talk frantically to the strange men.
"Emma would never just leave her there! It's been seven hours, and she hasn't called, and- and this just isn't something she would do!"
One of the men looked at her father sympathetically. "We'll do everything we can to find your wife, Mr Hooper. In the meantime, you and your daughter should get some rest-"
Before her father could interrupt, the unknown man put his hand on his shoulder, patting it gently. "- and I'll call you immediately if anything happens, okay?"
Her father nodded slowly. His face was pale and drained of all colour - he looked numb and far older than a man in his mid twenties.
The officers turned to leave, a police woman crouching down to the little girl's level.
"Hello sweetie, what's your name?" The woman asked, smiling softly at her. She's very pretty, the young girl thought to herself.
"M- my name is Molly."
The woman's smile broadened. "You have a very pretty name, Molly. Would you like a sweetie?"
Molly looked up at her father for reassurance, but he was busy talking to the policeman again. She snapped her gaze back to the woman in front of her with a frown on her face. "What's happened to my mummy? She was suppose to pick me up from school."
The woman's smile faltered a bit as she carefully picked out her words. "Well, Molly... your mum is visiting a good friend right now."
Molly frowned again. "She is?"
"Yes, she is. She wanted us to come over here and make sure that you're alright. She told us to pick you up from school- but there was traffic, and I was very late, so I'd like to apologise for that, Molly."
Molly tugged at the hem of her skirt, fidgeting with her clothing. She always fidgeted when she got nervous.
The woman reached inside of her trouser pocket and pulled out a chocolate "Here ye' go now," she said, "Go on, take it."
She tentatively reached out for the sweet, taking it from the woman.
"Now go get some sleep, and make sure your dad does too, okay sweetheart?"
"Okay," she replied.
The woman brushed a piece of hair out of Molly's face, and stood up to leave.
When they had all gone and it was just her and her dad, he scooped her up with one arm and carried her to her bedroom. He set her down on her bed and kissed her goodnight without really looking at her, before he left the room to sit by the telephone.
Once he left, she stood up from her bed and stripped off her school uniform. She looked around her room. The walls were pink and covered with kitten stickers, while the floor was littered with stuffed animals and toys. Where were her pajamas? Her mummy had always dressed her for bed. Then she remembered that her mummy pulled out her pajamas from the top drawer of her wardrobe.
She stood on her tip toes, straining her arm to reach for the top drawer, but failed; she was too short. In the end she wrapped herself tightly in her blanket to protect herself from the cold, in only her underwear.
It had been 6 months, and her mum still had not returned home. Her father became restless as the months passed. He held search parties every few weeks, he posted signs with pictures of her face on them on wooden posts, post boards, all around the shopping centre. When it became six months since the day of her disappearance, the police had phoned her father to tell him that they had run out of leads and that the case would be reopened once a new one had been found. Her father was furious and distraught; he broke just about anything fragile out of anger and frustration. He screamed and cried while little Molly hid in the bathroom with her hands closed over her ears.'I want mummy, I want mummy!' She mumbled to herself, with tears streaming down her cheeks.
Silence had fallen over their flat eventually.
A knock came from the other side of the bathroom door. She shuffled away from it and sat closer to the loo. He entered the bathroom, face red, eyes bloodshot and puffy, and his hands were bleeding.
"Daddy, what happened to your hands?" He didn't answer her question, he just reached out for her and she huddled into his arms.
"I'm sorry, Moll's. I- I'm so sorry..." He started to sob into her hair, and Molly didn't understand what he meant by that. She awkwardly stood there and let him hold her, and cry. It was strange seeing her daddy cry, she thought. Grown ups aren't supposed to cry.
He took her head in both of his unsteady hands, and looked her straight in the eyes. She could feel the stickiness of the blood on his hands against her skin.
"We're going to find mummy together, okay?" She nodded, still not grasping what he meant. Mummy was on holiday, that's what they had told her. He pulled her closer, and kissed her forehead with trembling lips. "We're going to find her- just you and me."
Cedric Hooper came home that night with stacks of newspapers, all from different companies, dating as far back as two years previously. He plopped them on the table, and called for seven year old Molly to come over. He set a stack of newspapers in front of her. "I need you to look in current events columns in each of these new papers. Do you understand?"
She nodded. Her mother had been a teacher's assistant and as a result, Molly had learned how to read at an early age, although she still struggled a bit.
"Look for any articles to do with missing women, and let me know when you find them, okay?"
She furrowed her brows in confusion. "What does "arcticles" mean, daddy?"
He sighed, shaking his head impatiently at Molly. "Just look for pictures of women, or the word 'woman', and let me know. I'm going to look through these ones," he looked up from the papers with a half mad smile on his face. "We're going to work together, and bring her back home!"
He was beaming at her, and she felt obliged to do the same back at him. She still didn't understand what he meant by "bringing her back home". Why couldn't they just call her, and tell her that?, Molly thought; she's probably having too much fun to want to come back, anyway. Molly did miss her though, so she complied with helping her dad to bring her back. She hoped that Mummy wouldn't be upset at them for doing so. They just missed her so much.
Molly was twelve when she learned the real reason about why her mother had never come back. She had read enough articles by then to understand the severity of her mother's disappearance. Her mother was a potential victim of a serial killer. He stalked the streets of London, and for some strange and unknown reason only targeted mothers between the ages of 25- 40. Police and newspaper journalists called him ' Oedipus'. She and her dad lived in Brighton, about an hour and a half away from London. Everything pointed at Oedipus, but they lacked the evidence and the reasons to make their claim applicable. If Emilia Hooper really was a victim, she would be the only one that didn't live in London.
All the women had similar features. They either had long hair, dirty blonde or auburn, pale skin, and soft faces - relatively friendly looking women. Her father had come up with the theory that Emma could still be alive, that she somehow escaped from the murderer and was in hiding.
Even though it meant he would never see her again, he still considered it to be a better alternative than the other. He spent most of his time staring at the bulletin board that hung and took up most of their living room wall. It was covered with cut out articles about Emma (her father insisted on calling her that, despite the articles using her full name), and other women who mysteriously vanished around the same time.
Molly took up a private project of her own by studying the pictures of some the victims of the oedipus in her room. The oedipus sometimes displayed his triumphs in the most sickly manner. He sent a hand or a foot to people in high places by mail.
He always left his signature mark on the hands and feet that he sent. The palms of the hands were scorched black, and so were the bottoms of the feet. Seeing how clean the hands and feet were cut, there was no sign of a struggle, so obviously they were already dead by the time they were dismembered. His killing time span had lasted two years, and for some reason they mysteriously stopped once Emilia Hooper went missing.
It was too strange to be a coincidence, but that's what everyone thought it was; a coincidence.
Family and friends gossiped about how her mother and father were going to end in divorce eventually; They believed she ran off while she had her chance, that she abandoned them. Molly didn't know her well enough to object. She was only seven at the time, and everyone and everything seemed happy to her at that age.
She grew up faster than most seven year olds, though. At school, other children would tease her about her "Looney" dad, and that she was "looney" just like him. They made fun of her obsession with death, and called her names, like "the grimm reaper" or "looney Molly" . She never understood why they were so mean to her; she had always been nice to them(although whenever they made fun of her dad she did not hold back her anger, and usually got sent to the school's headmaster's office.).
She had only two school friends; Shirley MacKinnon and Thomas Butterfield. Shirley's mum was friends with Emilia before she went missing; they went to primary school together, and were very close. She did her best to watch over Molly when she could by inviting her over for dinner,or to sleepover, but her father would regularly turn down the offers.
He rarely allowed her to go out, and he would throw a tantrum if Molly didn't arrive right on the dot, after school. One time he had called the police when she hadn't shown up half past three(she was stuck in detention for hitting Vernon Johnson in the face, after he purposely pushed Tom into a mud puddle.) . The police came to her school and questioned the teachers on her whereabouts and the teachers directed them to the headmaster's office, where they found Molly and Tom sitting on a wooden bench outside the office, both covered in dried mud, head to toe. They were allowed to leave after that, but word had soon spread about the incident the next day around school.
"You're dad's a lunatic, y'know that?" remarked Vernon Johnson, in snarky tone. It was breaktime - she, Shirley, and Tom were sitting by the swing set, when Vernon and his group of friends came up to them. Molly ignored the jibe, not wanting to lose her temper and having to be sent to detention again.
The boy leaned in towards her, his face close to her ear, "Did ye hear what I said?" He whispered in a sing song voice, "YOUR DAD BELONGS IN MENTAL HOSPITAL!" Molly flinched as he screamed into her ear. Tom immediately stood up, his cheeks flaming red.
"Shut up, Vernon."
The boy glanced to were the dangly tall boy stood, huffing and puffing.
"What did ye say to me?" He stalked closer to where Tom stood, "Do you want me to finish from where we left off yesterday?"
"I said; Shut. Up."
Molly looked up at her best friend, alarmed.
"Tom, it's okay, just drop it-" she chimed in. She did not want to be the reason for Tom getting hurt.
"Yeah, why don't listen to your psycho girlfriend? I hear she collects dead animals and cuts them open. I bet she eats them-" His eyes suddenly widened. Vernon was the exact opposite of Tom, both physically, and personally; he was short and stubby, with a wide stomach, and with cheeks so large they almost hid his eyes. He stood right in front of Tom, glaring up at him with a smirk on his face, "- I bet she and her dad eat them raw- with the fur, and everything! Her dad's probably training her, so that she can take over for him as the psychopath of the neighbourhood when he's sent off to the looney bin!"
He turned to his friends that were throwing fits of laughter, behind him.
"I'd say he's doing a pretty good job! And Ye know what?" He said, turning to face them, again, "-I bet he killed her mum!"
Before Molly could react to his words, Tom had already thrown himself at Vernon, tackling him to the ground.
Shirley screamed, and ran off to go find a teacher, while Molly tried to intervene and separate the two.
"No- Tom! Stop!" She cried, pulling at his shirt to get him off the other boy. His friends were all cheering him on, making loud chanting sounds. She had just ripped Tom away when a punch came flying at her, hitting her straight on her jaw. She was knocked off her feet, and fell backwards. Tom was immediately at her side.
"Molly! I'm so sorry- are you okay?" He asked her, worriedly.
A dribble of blood leaked down her chin "I- I'm fine..." She said as he helped her up. She was massaging her jaw, and she walked to where Vernon nervously stood. She could here his friends mumbling things, like : "I can't believe he hit a girl!" And," that's not right..." She smirked at that last part.
"I won't tell on you." She callously stated. The boy's sparse brows knotted together.
"W-why wouldn't you?"
"Because from now on, you're going to leave Tom and Shirley, alone. You can say or do whatever you like to me, just as long as you stay away from them. The headmaster won't hear a thing about how you whacked me in the jaw. Possibly fracturing it," She turned her head to the side and spat out some blood, "Understood?"
The boy stood there speechless for a moment, then shortly grunted in agreement. He and his friends walked off murmuring to each other, glancing back at them.
"Molls! I'm sorry, but I couldn't just let him say that to you." Tom fished in the pockets of his trousers and presented her with a hankie. "Here, take it."
She spat out a tooth into the now blood stained white piece of fabric and winced. Her jaw was throbbing.
Tears slowly built up in her eyes "Most definitely fractured." She muttered to herself.
"Where'd Shirley go?"
" Oh, she went to grab a teacher, and here she is now..."
Shirley gasped in horror, "Oh Molly, what did they do to you?!" Mrs Radcliffe was close behind her, so Molly took a chance.
She leaned in, closely. "Nothing. Nothing happened to me. I slipped and fell, okay?"
Shirley looked positively perplexed, but nodded her head, anyway.
"Molly Hooper, what on earth happened here?" Mrs Radcliffe, demanded once she closed in on them, pulling out another handkerchief to wipe the smeared blood on her chin.
"I- I was, um, I was on the swing...and I fell."
Mrs. Radcliffe arched an eyebrow at her. "You fell from the swing?" Molly and Tom nodded their heads in unison. She spun on her heel, staring pointedly at Shirley. "Shirley McKinnon, you informed me that a fight had broken out. Why did you lie?"
Shirley shrunk under the teacher's glare, her bottom lip wedged between her teeth. "I... I thought that's what happened. Sorry, miss."
The teacher scrutinized them for a moment, before taking in a deep breath.
"All right, follow me. I'll take you to the nurse's room. You two had better start heading to class, now. The bell will ring very shortly."
The nurse called her father, and told him that he would have to take her to the hospital to get her jaw x-rayed. Molly's suspicions were proven to be true when the doctor came back with the results three hours later.
"Her jaw is definitely fractured, but thankfully it's not too serious. We're going to have to insert three wires on both sides of her mouth to keep her jaw still for about a month and a half. She'll have to eat pureed food till then" The doctor eyed at his clipboard, and then glanced up to look at her.
"How'd this happen, again?"
The left side of her jaw was so swollen, she could barely speak, "I fwell off thwah swing." She recited, pressing the cold ice pack gently against her jaw.
When it was just her and her dad again, he turned to her with a stern gaze.
"You've got to be more careful, Molls. Bad things happen when we aren't careful. You of all people should know that!"
He continued to lecture her all the way home, and she pretended to be paying attention, very carefully tilting her head and muttering sounds to make it seem as if she was acknowledging what he was saying, but in truth she was making silent vows to herself; to never let him find out the real reason why she had been getting detention; why she had been coming home with bruises and cuts. That it was all for him.
Two months later her jaw was healing along, just fine. There was a faint scar that would reveal itself in direct sunlight, but other than that she was as fine as she could ever be.
Early on a Saturday morning, a knock came from outside Molly's 'office' (that was what she liked to call it.) Molly popped her head out from the window "Tom! Did you bring them?" She was inside the old abandoned shed that stood behind her flat. It was falling a part, and smelt strongly of mildew and damp wood, yet it was quiet, and that made it suitable for her purpose.
"Yeah, could you open the door? It's a bit heavy, and they smell horrible." The dangly boy saddled in carrying a large blue tote box inside the shed.
"Just set it on the table, over there." She took a double glance at him, frowning. "Did you actually carry it all the way here?"
He waddled over to the table and set the box down before he replied.
"Of course not! I borrowed little Ben's wagon." He wrinkled up his nose a bit, and swatted the air. "They smell foul, but they're from yesterday's batch. I just stuffed the bag in the tote, and left. My uncle had no idea."
Molly smiled at him appreciatively. "I just hope there are no cute one's in this batch..." She pulled out her satchel and took out a metal container. She snapped on a pair of marigolds, opened the lid of the box, and gagged. The smell was so intense that it brought tears to her eyes. This was the only way she could practice, she reminded herself as she opening the lid of her metal container, reaching for her scalpel.
Molly had developed a peculiar interest in studying the human anatomy. She would go to the local library and take out books on the subject, and read about post mortems. And sometimes she would take out books on infamous serial killers out of curiosity. She would look at murder scene photographs from old newspapers and would try to examine and come to a conclusion on her own, before reading the body paragraph. Her predictions were sometimes correct.
Although she was only twelve, with thorough research, she believed she had finally found her calling. A forensic pathologist; now that was a career she could see herself pursuing. She was certainly capable of doing it. She had the interest, and the drive. Might as well start practising now, I suppose. She thought to herself. Tom's uncle picked up road kill for a living. Sometimes when he wasn't paying attention, Tom would take either one medium sized animal (like a raccoon, or a skunk), or a bundle of small ones( crows, squirrels, rabbits, cats, dogs.), for Molly to practice on.
He found it disgusting and absurd when she had first asked him about it, however he eventually got around it.
Shirley's dad was police man in London. He was assigned to a few of Oedipus's victims cases. When she'd go visit him, Shirley would sometimes overhear information on cases he was working on when he was on the phone and scribble down notes on a piece of paper. Shirley dreamed of becoming a detective when she was older and she and Molly would come up with theories about cases, many to do with Oedipus.
Molly had become disturbingly obsessed with his murders as the years passed. The way he did them, and the psychology behind it. It all fascinated her. Her dad noticed early on, and practically encouraged it. They would discuss their theories almost every night after supper, he agreed with some of them, and would even pitch some of the one's that he thought had enough evidence to open his wife's case again to the police. They hardly ever made it past the sergeants, though, and they eventually dismissed him as an obsessed nutcase.
Sixteen was a landmark year for Molly Hooper. Not just because she had finally built up the courage to chop her hair up to her ears, the first time she ever had a hair cut since she was in primary school, or that she sported shiny new braces. It definitely wasn't because she had her first-ever snog with Tom (which was rather awful).
It was partly because it was the year that her father had been diagnosed with leukemia, and the other part was because of another rather disturbing event, as well.
Her father had just finished his third treatment of chemotherapy and was resting in the hospital with her aunt by his side. Molly had been at home when she received the phone call that changed everything dramatically.
Molly jumped on her bicycle and rode to the hospital, sweat dripping down her forehead and stinging her eyes. Once she got past the front desk, she rushed into the hospital room, short of breath and almost tripping over own feet. Her father was sitting upright on the hospital bed, with his eyes slightly closed, almost as if he was sleeping. Her aunt stood up, alert.
"Moll's, what's the matter? I was going to drop him off soon, he just needed some rest first..." The woman asked, questioning the blatant fear stricken pale face of her niece. "Molly?"
"Aunt Norah, th-they-" she was interrupted by the voice of a news anchorman doing a report on the telly.
"Twelve human skeletons have been found at Hyde park, along with the decomposing body of what officials believe to be female. The gruesome scene was discovered by a young man when he was jogging through the park this morning. Examiners are working to identify the victims."
Aunt Norah's face transformed as realization hit her. She paced over to her niece and took her hand.
"Are you certain?"
She shook her head and casted her gaze at her resting father, and looked back at her aunt, and murmured in a hushed voice: "A coroner's liaison officer called. They need someone to identify the body, but dad's too weak right now, and I was too young to remember what she looked like, and-"
Her father groaned loudly, wrinkling his face in a grimace. His eyelids lazily fluttered open.
"...Molly. Come here..." He patted the bed beside him. Her aunt patted her on the shoulder and stepped outside the room to give them privacy. Molly sat down hesitantly, trying to search for the right words to tell her father.
"What's the matter, Molls? You look like you've just seen a ghost."
'More like being revisited by one.'
She bit her bottom lip, letting her fringe fall over her eyes to hide them.
"D-dad, I need to tell you something..."
"Molls, this better not be about some bloke, I swear. I told you quite clearly that you're not allowed to even think about boys."
"What? No, dad. It's something about- uh, It's...it's about-"
He pouted, and sighed, heavily, "Spit it out, Molly. I'm too exhausted to even attempt to figure out what you're trying to say, 'specially with that stutter of yours."
She rolled her shoulders back, sat up straight, and peered at him. "It's about Emma, dad."
He grimaced, and shot her a look of annoyance, "Mum. She's your mum, Molly. That's what you call her." His gaze hardened, afterwards. " What about her? Any news?"
She began to fidget with her fingers, and the moment she noticed her dad watching her, she immediately pulled her hands apart.
"Well, yes, actually. An officer from London, called... They said that- that-"
"Molly."
" - They found bodies- well, one, actually. The rest were skeletons." She locked eyes with him, " They need us to identify it... They think it might be Em- Mum."
If she where to choose a word to describe the look on his face at that very moment, the closest word would've probably been nauseated. The word depicted all the emotions that he must have felt; Disturbed, heartbreak, anger, frustration, and lots, and lots of despair.
"They're not sure if it's her or not, but dad, I-"
"Let's go, then."
She gaped at him. He was practically immobilized, vomiting every few hours, and in absolutely no condition for travelling. "Dad, neither of us can drive, and you're in no shape to go all the way to London." She chewed at her lip, anxiously hoping that that would make him think rationally.
It, however, did not. The next day they traveled to London, packed in Aunt Norah's tiny old rusted frog eye car. Aunt Norah insisted that she go in his stead, but her brother was an extremely persistent man. Molly's father hadn't spoken a word since they left the driveway of their home - not that she blamed him. There really wasn't anything anyone could say. All of what could be said, would be said on their way back, she supposed. Maybe.
They got out of the car in front of St. Bart's. Her aunt told them that she'd stay in the car and be waiting for them when they came back. They were introduced to two liaison officers, and escorted into the hospital. Her father had to be wheeled in on a wheelchair; He was still too weak from his chemotherapy treatment. Molly pushed her dad's chair and entered the cold room that reminded her of a giant freezer. She had read about the mortuary, she'd seen pictures. To finally see it in person was almost breathtaking- she smirked at her own joke when she was sure no one was looking at her.
Goosebumps were rising on her skin and she felt a tremor run down her spine. It wasn't because of the chill in the room, or of her excitement of being in the morgue ( and yes, she was excited), it was another kind of excitement, a sick stomach churning one. The sensation became stronger the closer she got to the table. A body was under the white sheet. A body that could possibly be her mother.
The examiner said something, but she couldn't make out whatever it was; she was focusing on the table. It could very well not be her as well, she reminded herself. The examiner said something else, her father nodded, and the doctor pulled back the white sheet halfway. The body was ghastly. There was still a lot of flesh on the body, so it had just started decomposing... about a month and a half ago , she'd estimate. And the face was... well it was very disturbing. The face was sunken in, a pale bluish green complexion, and the way her mouth hung open made it look as if she was screaming. She was missing quite a bit of teeth, and her jawline appeared to be broken.
"... What happened to her jaw...?" She muttered to herself under her breath. The pathologist must have heard her, because he began to talk about it, " The jaw line hangs open like this because it's broken. See how most of her teeth are missing? Her jaw is almost completely broken off. Someone shattered her jaw with one hit. It's safe to assume that the hit was wielded with a weapon, like... the back of a gun, or a shovel handle. " The examiner looked sympathetically at them both. "We believe that this is the body of Emilia Hooper. In the description that you gave the police ten years ago, you mentioned that your wife had a tattoo of your daughter's date of birth on the back of her neck-"
Her father cut the man off short, "-Yes, it was in Roman numerals." He moved his steady gaze from the doctor to the body lying on the cold metal table.
"You think she was murdered, am I right?"
"Yes. The difference with her case, compared to the other victims, is that it seems as if her corpse was preserved. That she might have been held captive, or something, and her death perhaps came a little more than a year afterwards, and from there she was preserved, with quite a bit of care."
"I'd like to see the tattoo."
The hospital worker, wrinkled his face. "About that-" He lifted the back of her head and exposed the back of the woman's neck. A shiny pink layer of flesh topped over the skin where her tattoo should have been. "It's the same thing with her fingerprints. It's almost as if the the murderer wanted to erase who she was, previously."
Molly almost gasped, and said exasperatedly, "They were burned off. Like what Oedipus did to his victims!" She looked earnestly at the doctor.
The pathologist had a worried expression on his face as he tried to put an end to the discussion. "'Oedipus' has been gone for years, so this can't be his work-"
"I- I'm sorry, but you did say that her fingertips and the back of her neck were burned, right? Aren't burns his signature?"
"Yes, but he would burn the entire flesh of the palms and the bottom of the feet as well dismembering them. That doesn't seem to be the case with these victims."
"No, you can't tell with other ones because they're just bones, but this woman-" her father stopped her by gripping her wrist and yanking it hard.
Tears were forming in his eyes, he tried sniffing them away, "It's her Molls. It's Emma. My Emma. I know it." He started to breathe rapidly, " I-I need to breathe, I-I can't -" He made a hacking noise deep in his throat as if he was about to vomit. The nurses were called in and rolled him out of the mortuary, with Molly following behind them. She paused at the double swing doors and turned around before going any further.
"Doctor...?"
He stepped closer, scooting his glasses further up the arch of his nose. "Stamford." He gave her a sympathetic smile, " I am so sorry for your loss."
She bowed her head, "I lost her a long time ago, so... I knew this day would come eventually. But, thank you." She continued, "I actually wanted to say that I plan on continuing my studies here at St. Barts after I attend uni. "
"Is that so? And what field are you interested in?"
She chewed on her bottom lip, nervously,and rocked on her heels a bit "The plan is to work hard and become a forensic pathologist- like you, sir."
Doctor Stamford looked at her with a funny expression "It's quite an interesting career, I'll give you that." He smiled at her, "Well, that means that one day you might become a student of mine, miss...?"
"Molly Hooper. I look forward to working with you one day, sir." She shook his gloved hand that had some blood on it.
"Oh, sorry! May I wash my hands in the sink over there?"
He nodded his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the young girl. She glanced around the room, looking completely awestruck. She was strange, that girl, Stamford thought - she had just witnessed her mother's decomposed corpse on a slab, and yet here she was acting as if she were a foreigner looking at some sort of national monument. She gave him a small little wave before running off to find her father and the nurses.
"Doctor Molly Hooper..." He muttered quietly to himself, "... sounds like a good name for a pathologist."
Molly was chained down to a bed, she knew it. She could feel the sheets beneath her and the tight chains that strapped her against it. Off in the distance she heard laughter that lasted for what felt like hours. It made her want to rip her own ears off. She also tried screaming, but no voice would come out. This is just a nightmare, she reminded herself, You know it is. It's a nightmare.
"First, Mummy."
"then, Daddy..." The once cackling voice whispered, suddenly right above her. She couldnt see him, but she could feel his breath and instead of it being warm like ordinary breath, it was cold. Ice cold. And stank of blood and rotten flesh. A cold drop of a thick, heavy liquid fell on her forehead. She knew right away that it was blood.
"... now, MOLLY!" The person, shrieked, followed by high pitched laughter.
She jerked up from her bed, gasping and clutching to her chest. It took her a few moments to readjust her breathing. She analysed her flat from her fold up bed.
Everything seemed to be in the right place. Well- where she left them. I'm a thirty-four year old woman who works as a forensic pathologist at one of the best hospitals in the country, and yet my flat looks like it's been raided by a teenager then, as usual, she reassured herself that the state of her flat was completely fine because she was, well: a forensic pathologist at one of the best hospitals in the country, she was too busy to be bothered by fixing up her flat because of her full time dedicated career, and therefore no one should judge her, including herself.
She noticed that the telly was on.Shit, I must have left it on before I fell asleep. She searched her bed for the remote and once she found it, she stretched her arm and pointed it at the box prepared to press the 'off' button, when something interesting came on the screen.
Missing young woman was the headline.
She turned the volume up higher.
"Tara Gunning vanished mysteriously three nights ago after she dropped off her son at his father's home. The father of the child sent in a report after she hadn't arrived to pick up their son."
The camera view then moved to a man, presumably the father of the woman's child. "I- I don't know what could have happened. She's never done this before, she loves the wee lad to death... She'd never do this. Not to him." That reminded Molly of the conversation her father had with the police all those years ago. She shook the memory off, switched off the telly, pulled the covers to her chin, and shut her eyes.
"God help that kid," she whispered drowsily into her pillow. " He's sure as bloody hell going to need it... and I've got to quit drinking before bed.