Digger - The Doctor Will See You Now by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 23

With several corpses hanging in various states of dissection and decay, Ryan decided it was time for another break. Preparing to go to the 'old port' again, he showered, shaved and dressed in his best casual clothes. Ryan planned on arriving in Portland at around ten o'clock. He would go straight to the club where he'd met Theresa. Sitting at the bar, he waited, hoping that she was a creature of habit and would soon make an appearance. After a time, he looked at his watch and noted that half an hour had passed, but he was willing to be patient. After another fifteen minutes, he saw her walk through the front door. She was dressed much the same way as she had been during their previous encounter, the night they used each other for their own selfish needs.

Ryan did not approach her but instead waited for her to notice him, and soon he caught the attention of a slim, well-built blonde woman. Blue-eyed and modestly well-endowed, she walked toward him in a way that accentuated her hips. Locking eyes, she became drawn to him. "Hi," she said. "My name's Cherry." Ryan quickly guessed that this was not her real name and she was probably a prostitute. He had no intention of sleeping with her, but this chance meeting could be used to his advantage. Women can often become jealous of one another -- how their clothes fit, their physical attributes, how much attention they receive. And as though the fates had decided it, Theresa walked toward them. Perhaps not so much as walked, but sauntered. If she was trying to intimidate Cherry, or whatever her name was, she was failing miserably.

It was just a bit of small talk, but Theresa demanded attention.

"Oh, hey," she called.

She touched his arm with a degree of affection that Ryan found obviously transparent.

"Ryan, right?"

The music throbbed throughout the spacious rooms of the club, prompting them, once again, to yell in order to be heard. Theresa glared at Cherry, doing her best to be intimidating. But all she could manage was cruelty. "Cherry," she said.

Her tone was filled with childish vindictiveness. Obviously, they were at least familiar with one another. "Isn't it time for you to go back to work?" Caught up in an angry reaction, Cherry stormed away, leaving Theresa with a gesture anyone could understand. She held it up as she walked away, mouthing the words 'fuck you'. Theresa was more than pleased with herself in her success at driving off what she perceived as competition, and turning back to Ryan, she displayed an arrogant grin.

"Anyway," she began. "So, how are you?" It was as though she had forgotten their night together, along with her attempt to tear down his emotions. "Actually, I'm doing pretty well," he answered. "You know, school's going well. I just passed my first board exam." He paused to take a sip of his beer. Of course, he was lying. It was part of the game, and the size of Theresa's ego made it even easier. She batted her eyes a few times in a transparent effort to seem charming. But the more she tried, the more infuriated Ryan became. However, he realized that playing the game successfully meant hiding one's emotions as well as one's intentions. "That's great!" Theresa replied. "I'm not sure what that means, but congratulations."

"Thanks," Ryan said. "I have one more to take. So when I graduate, I'll be board certified."

Her eyes lit up again at the thought of, at least, being the girlfriend of a doctor. She would not only have bragging rights but would also see herself as being above everyone else. Ryan saw her reaction and immediately acted to capitalize on it.

"So," he continued. "How about coming up to the cabin sometime?"

Theresa's face lit up as she imagined herself sunning her scantily clad body on a broad patch of beach -- a cigarette in one hand and a mixed drink in the other. "Yeah!" she answered exuberantly. "Are you going to be having a party?"

Again, she was being led by her ego. Not only was Ryan fully aware of this, but he was using it to draw her in even closer.

"No, I thought it would be just us," he answered. He let a moment go by so as to allow Theresa to react. He needed her to get a bit more excited. "Do you like boats?" he asked.

It was a simple 'yes' or 'no' question. But it wasn't the question that finally gained her cooperation, it was the way it was asked, almost sounding like an invitation. "Oh, my God!" she exclaimed. "I've never been on a boat before! When do you want to get together?"

"Well," he began. "How about this weekend?" Theresa's eyes grew large at the suddenness of the arrangements Ryan was proposing.

"You mean now? Tonight?"

Ryan smiled kindly as part of the performance. One should always be certain their portrayal of sincerity is convincing. "Oh, I should go home for a change of clothes," she said. Ryan thought quickly. He didn't want her to go home, only to change her mind.

"You know what?" he began. "Why don't I take care of that? In the morning, we'll go out for breakfast, and I'll get anything you need. Sound like a plan?" Theresa was excited beyond words. The idea of a man living on the lake and spending money on her seemed like a dream come true.

"So, when do we leave?" she asked. "How about right now?" Ryan answered. Theresa was overcome with excitement, having no idea what Ryan's true intentions were.

They engaged in small talk while finishing their drinks. However, before leaving, Theresa excused herself and disappeared towards the ladies’ room. On her way, she paused to brag to a small group of women, turning back towards Ryan and pointing. One would have thought she had just won a free lap dance from a male dancer. Ryan watched as Theresa basked in her ego, then marched victoriously off to the ladies’ room. "Jesus fucking Christ," Ryan mumbled to himself. "This girl thinks she's the best thing since the enema." The analogy seemed to be accurate At least, as far as Ryan was concerned. She walked back out, flipping her hair as she passed the group of women, who now looked at her with disdain. He couldn't hear them, but he knew the word 'bitch' had been spoken.

"Whenever you're ready," Theresa said.

She still spoke with transparent affection, and it only added to Ryan's well-hidden anger. As they left the club, she took Ryan's hand and glanced back, being certain that she was seen by her friends, turning back momentarily while giving a sarcastic wave and a snide grin.

The door closed behind them as Theresa was led off into the dark streets of Portland and, at Ryan's insistence, went with him in his car. After a few minutes of silence, Ryan broke the quiet tension.

"So," he began. "How often do you get up to the lake?" Theresa was examining herself in a palm-sized mirror. She had turned the car's ceiling light on, it was busy adjusting her makeup.

"I've never really been there," she answered. "But, I'm really looking forward to it."

Still blinded by her ego, Theresa continued to be led by the delusion of living on the lake with a doctor, even if it was nothing more than a living arrangement -- sex in exchange for the good life. She didn't care about Ryan as long as she got what she wanted.

Ryan drove a bit faster than normal, wanting to get to the cabin quickly. He began to see images flash into his mind -- horrific and bloody. He wasn't concerned about what Theresa wanted. People like her always thought they deserved whatever they wanted without having to lift a finger to work for it. But Ryan knew that Theresa's fatal flaw was her sense of entitlement—the impression she carried with herself that she was somehow better than everyone else. He would occasionally glance over at her and notice how she sat, like a queen riding in her royal carriage, and thought it both humorous and disgusting. On one hand, she still had no idea what she had gotten herself into. Her ego had effectively blocked her survival instincts. Anyone else would have become immediately suspicious and taken steps to avoid this kind of situation. On the other hand, Ryan felt that the best form of hell for people like Theresa would be to put all of them in a locked room and allow them to constantly irritate each other with their arrogance, arguing over petty, meaningless things in order to feel superior. And the heat would be turned up enough to make them uncomfortable -- just for good measure. Truly, this would be more than enough. And for all eternity.

Eager to begin his latest anatomical project, Ryan brought a forty-five-minute drive down to thirty minutes. The darkness of the Lake Sebago area did well in hiding the distance between Ryan's two-mile driveway and the main road. Having never been there, Theresa had no references on which to gauge the distance and remained completely ignorant of where she would soon find herself. Ryan drove the length of the driveway with the lights off. He knew it was unlikely Theresa would be unable to find her way back to the road if she couldn't remember how to get there. Pulling around to the back of the cabin, Ryan shut off the engine and got out. Theresa got out and, closing the door, was struck by the overwhelming silence of the woods. "It's so quiet here," she said.

Ryan walked around the front of the car and approached Theresa and taking her in his arms, kissed her deeply on the mouth. She responded to him willingly and without hesitation.

"That's why I like this place," Ryan replied. "You can do anything you want out here -- indoors or out." Theresa grinned coyly, knowing exactly who Ryan was referring to.

"Well, come on in."

Theresa looked out into the woods. The night sky harbored a new moon, giving the woods an especially deep degree of darkness. It is so enveloping that should one walk fifty feet past the tree line, it might be impossible to find their way back. As Ryan showed her to the front door, Theresa noticed the absence of the lake and suddenly found the silence distressing.

"Where's the lake?" she asked.

Ryan pointed off in the direction of Lake Sebago. "There's a trail over there. It's about half a mile to the lake. I know a really private spot we can go to tomorrow. Sound okay?"

Again, Theresa believed his lie. He knew exactly how to play the game, and unbeknownst to Theresa, he was winning.

He walked her through the front door and turned on the living room light. Having closed the basement door after spraying the bodies, the smell of decay had been successfully isolated. They sat on the couch together as Ryan began fondling her breasts. Theresa tipped her head back in arousal as his hand found its way beneath her bra, his fingertips circling her swelling nipples. For Theresa, teasing was part of the game, and, removing his hand, stood up and wandered the living room. "There's not much on the walls, is there?" she asked. Ryan hesitated in his response. He had become so single-minded in his goal that he began having trouble focusing on anything else.

"Oh, you mean pictures?" he asked. "Pictures?" Theresa replied. "It needs more than that. It needs a woman's touch, and I could make this place look really nice."

Ryan watched her intently as she examined the largely empty walls. In her mind, she was already picking out prints and cheap statuettes, as though she planned on moving in.

"I guess I've never really had a lot of time for that kind of thing," he responded. "I'm always studying." Another lie.

"But I'm working on finishing the basement, and I'm almost done. I just need to get the flat-screen out of the box." Theresa took a sudden gasp of excitement. "Let's set it up now," she insisted. "Um, sure," Ryan said. "We can do that." He got up from the couch and walked towards the basement door. Theresa was quick to follow as he opened the door and gentlemanly allowed her to walk down first. "It's dark down here," she began. "Hey, did you hear about that guy in the paper who's been digging up dead bodies? They're calling him 'Digger'.”

It was only when they reached the bottom of the stairs that Ryan flipped on the light switch, illuminating the horror he'd been hiding -- the horror she would soon become a part of. Theresa's mind was momentarily shocked by the sight of rotting corpses hanging from the ceiling and rows of alcohol-filled jars containing all manner of gruesome, half-rotted organs. She suddenly turned toward Ryan. He seemed to be staring through her with a faint smile on his face. And as tears came to her eyes, Ryan became fully aware that he had won the game. His prize would be something he never imagined acquiring. "Yeah," he said in a gentle voice. "I know." A heartbeat later, his fist came up and struck Theresa across the face. Her world had gone black in mid-fall, shortly before landing hard on the cement floor. She would not be able to recall the event. However, everything else that was about to befall her, she would experience with crystal clarity.

She woke to a chill and discovered herself tied to Ryan's dissection table, bound by both wrists and ankles, her limbs pulled out away from her body, restrained at each corner. She was unaware of how much time had passed, but as Theresa regained consciousness, a disturbing feeling crept over her. One that told her she had been violated. In a panic, she raised her head to look down, only to find that her clothes had been removed.

"Don't struggle," Ryan said.

With the light shining on her face, Theresa was unable to see beyond its glare. Ryan's voice seemed to come from every corner of the darkened basement, giving his presence an additional degree of the sinister. "Because you're not going anywhere." He stepped out of the darkness while toweling off his genitals. It was then that Theresa realized that Ryan had raped her. She was quickly overcome with fear, and realizing she was unable to escape, she began weeping uncontrollably. Ryan walked around to the head of the table and leaned over her.

"You know," he began. "You're a lot better in bed when you're unconscious."

Her weeping quickly turned to rage as she spat in his face. "You piece of shit!" she screamed. "I'm going to fucking kill you!"

Ryan giggled at her, mimicking her angry words. Seeing that his deepest need was soon to come to fruition, the ecstasy of the moment had finally pushed him beyond the boundary of sanity. He had started out as a medical student with aspirations of helping those in need. But now he stood over Theresa's living body as an impending murderer. She began shivering in the cool air of the basement as Ryan stepped away from the table.

"No, Theresa," he said in a calm, almost kind voice. "You're not going to kill me. You're not going to do anything. You're going to lay there, and you're going to keep your mouth shut."

Casually putting his clothes back on, Theresa began screaming at the top of her voice. Ryan's frustration was immediate, as he quickly walked back to the table and slapped her across the face.

"No one's going to fucking hear you, got it?!" He struck her hard enough to raise a hand-shaped welt on the side of her face.

"And if you keep screaming, I'm going to cut out your fucking tongue! Now, shut the fuck up!" Theresa took a few panicked breaths as tears ran down the sides of her face. Again, her anger was beginning to surface.

"You asshole! Fuck you!"

Ryan unleashed his rage. And grabbing her by the hair, he beat the back of her head several times into the table as he spoke.

"Oh, I'm an asshole?!" he asked angrily. "Tell me something. Did you really think you were going to play me? Did you?! You were still in bed when you tried to burn me. Did you really think I gave a shit about you, you fucking cow?! You are so full of yourself, aren't you?!"

He moved within only inches of her face as Theresa continued crying and could feel the back of her head bruising from its impact with the table. "So," Ryan continued. "I'm going to do the world a favor." His voice had suddenly become calm, and he was close enough to feel the warmth of her face radiating against his lips. Gently, he reached up and took her jaw in his hand. He moved in closer and attempted to kiss her on the mouth. But out of fear, Theresa forcefully turned away as she continued sobbing. Ryan smiled slightly at her reaction and slowly made his way to her chin, lightly kissing it. He moved down further and, with his tongue protruding, licked her throat up to the underside of her chin. As Theresa continued weeping, Ryan moved down and kissed the middle of Theresa's chest, then slowly ran his tongue between her breasts while gently massaging one of her nipples. His intention was to taunt her, to terrorize her, and he was getting a great deal of pleasure from doing so. Moving back up to her face, Ryan looked into her eyes. "I'm going to take you apart," he whispered. Theresa let out a horrified scream. "Don't you fucking touch me, you sick fuck!" Ryan tried to ignore Theresa's screams as he unfolded a surgical towel, draping down her abdomen and groin. On it, he set out several surgical tools. Looking down at the chromed instruments, Theresa let out what was almost a plea for help.

"Oh my God!" she cried. “What are you doing?!” "God?" Ryan replied. "God's not going to help you. Do you know why? It's because you're an asshole. It's because you don't care about anyone but yourself. So I'm going to kill you, eventually. And God's going to let me."

His eyes scanned her body, focusing on her breasts. "You know Theresa," he began almost informatively. "You do have a nice pair of tits. I'm just not sure what I'm going to do with them. I suppose they would look good in a specimen jar."

He donned a pair of soiled kitchen gloves as Theresa, again, began weeping and picking up a scalpel, he touched the edge of its blade to the soft skin on the middle of her chest. And as he prepared to make the first incision, Theresa, having felt the sting of the small steel blade, let out a terrified scream. Ryan was heavily focused on opening her chest, and her sudden, high-pitched scream startled him into a fit of anger.

"Fuck!" he yelled.

He paced furiously while trying to cope with Theresa's continued hysteria.

"Stop screaming! What the fuck did I tell you?! Stop fucking screaming!"

He considered the threat he made, but the traumatic removal of her tongue might cause Theresa to drown in her own blood, and Ryan needed her alive for now. Walking over to the cabinets, he fumbled through a box of stray items and uncovered a roll of duct tape. Pulling out a long strip of it, he walked quickly back to the table and stretched it across Theresa's mouth. She struggled against the adhesive restraint as Ryan applied another length of it, securing her from creating any further distractions and grabbing Theresa by the face, he threatened to cut out her eyes if she continued.

He picked up the scalpel and, placing the tip of the blade high against her chest, slowly began his first incision. Theresa thrashed wildly on the table. Her screams muffled beneath two layers of duct tape as Ryan smoothly incised eighteen inches of warm skin. After this first incision, he sidestepped back to her head. Her skin had become cold and clammy. Her eyes reflected a lost expression, indicating the beginnings of shock. And although the incision was clean and free of ragged edges, the skin had begun bleeding. Grabbing two more surgical towels, Ryan stuffed their edges under the sides of Theresa's body. He wouldn't be able to soak up all the blood, but Ryan wanted to avoid making a mess. He knew there would be some clean-up -- there always is—but he didn't want to end up painting the basement with her blood.

Theresa began shaking violently as Ryan cut deeper through muscle and fibrous tissue. By the time he had completed the 'Y' incision, Theresa was near unconsciousness and beginning to vomit. But this did not deter Ryan from proceeding and simply placed another towel over her face.

"Fuck, I hate puke," he mumbled to himself. Having quickly teased away the muscle from both sides of her chest, Ryan picked up his sheet metal scissors and snipped through her ribs. He could see her heart beating rapidly while lifting the severed bones from her body. He knew she would not live long and wanted to experience this for as long as possible. Removing his gloves, Ryan slipped a bare hand beneath the living organ and lifted it slightly out of Theresa's chest. He expected that a muscular organ would possess a high degree of tone. That it would feel 'solid'. But its consistency gave it a considerable amount of flexibility, and resting in Ryan's hand felt more like a soft, slippery fist-sized bag, throwing itself slightly from side to side. So involved had Ryan become in this experience that he felt himself in the beginnings of arousal. But the regular beating of Theresa's heart began to fade. Becoming irregular, it would soon fail and after resting in Ryan's ungloved hand, it now felt like a bag of worms fighting each other for escape.

"No!" Ryan began. "No, no, no, no, no! Not yet!" He set the organ back in place, and, remembering a random fact from a class in cardiology, he raised a fist and struck the organ in an attempt to startle it back into rhythm. But unprotected by the bone that, until a few minutes ago, kept it from trauma, the impact of Ryan's fist caused it to rupture. A tsunami of blood exploded from Theresa's chest. It covered both the wall and the ceiling and left Ryan's face covered in a heavy layer of bright red blood. Having unknowingly allowed his mouth to remain somewhat open, he invited a noticeable amount to find its way in. Ryan quickly retreated to a corner of the basement and began retching violently. Yet, there was little that there was almost nothing to bring up, so inducing himself to vomit was both pointless and unsuccessful. If Theresa had been carrying any blood-borne diseases, Ryan had now been exposed. "Son of a bitch!" he screamed.

He had learned enough about human pathogens that he knew what the possibilities were and in an uncontrolled seizure of rage, Ryan grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher and proceeded to beat Theresa's now lifeless skull into a fragmented, misshapen mass of mangled tissue and bone.