The Renfield Syndrome by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 11

Claire had come home from an especially exhausting day. The town they lived in was a two-hour drive from a tourist mecca, and the hotel she worked in had filled up quickly. Of course, when people left for their sightseeing journey, they generally left a mess behind, and it was Claire’s job to clean the room before the tenants returned. Skipping dinner, she headed straight for her favorite stress reliever. Caspian was on his own for dinner as his mother drank herself into a deep state of alcohol poisoning. She had come so close to drinking herself to death that Caspian considered holding back on his plans so he could just sit and watch her die. He thought that if he was lucky enough, he would call 911 only when he saw her skin turn a yellowish pale—an indicator that death had been present for some time. Knowing that she would never return from this state, the tears of insincerity would flow as emergency personnel did their best to intervene. But this was not what Caspian wanted. After everything she had put him through, he wanted the pleasure of ending his mother’s life with his own hands.

Dinner was brief and hardly filling. In spite of having spent many evenings cooking for himself, he wasn’t much of a chef and prepared only what he felt was needed to extinguish his hunger. Cleaning up was done in short order, and it was only afterward that he noticed his hands were trembling. Caspian knew that it was time to give his mother what she deserved, and walking over to where she lay unconscious, he poked a finger into her shoulder. There was no response. Exposing her right arm, he pinched the inside of her elbow—the area where he intended to inject the toxin. Again, there was no response. It was time. Retreating into his bedroom, Caspian returned with the powdered substance, a spoon, a lighter, and the syringe. He thought it might be better to carry out this procedure on the kitchen table, and sitting at its edge, he lined everything up in a row. As he mixed the toxin with a small amount of water, he began to experience the beginnings of arousal, and heating it with the lighter, it started to boil. Soon the spoon was too hot to hold, and carefully setting it on the table, Caspian drew the clouded fluid up into the syringe and allowed it to lie on the table to let it cool. There was no point in carrying out his plan if his mother was awakened by the injecting of scalding fluid.

Twenty minutes went by, and with his mother still in an alcohol-induced lethargy, Caspian held the syringe against the inside of his wrist. Expecting to find it still warm to the touch, he was surprised to feel it had cooled sufficiently enough to do what he had wanted for far too long. Taking the syringe in hand, he walked to the living room, where his mother lay on her side. He was fortunate to find she had let her right arm hang out over the edge of the couch. This made it easy to deliver the toxin, and kneeling down, he inspected the inside of her elbow. The work Claire did was strenuous, and with a slightly thin build, her veins tended to stand out. A phlebotomist in training would have seen her as an easy draw, and with the cephalic vein clearly distended, Caspian slipped the 31-gauge needle in until a flash of blood filled the very tip of the syringe. Easing the plunger in, he delivered the toxin into his mother’s bloodstream, having used enough of the powdered substance to create a strong concentrate. Claire didn’t move at all as the toxin coursed through her blood. It wasn’t until it began to take effect that she jolted from her slumber and, sitting up, stared at Caspian. Any words from her were not necessary. “So,” Caspian began. “What do you think, bitch?”

Now he would tell his mother the things he had been holding back for far too long. Had he made his thoughts known before, he would have suffered at the hands of whatever punishment she could imagine.

“Talking is a bit difficult right now, isn’t it?” he continued. “It’s okay. I understand.”

By this time, the toxin was doing exactly what it was supposed to, and as her heart fluttered to a stop, her face turned a light blue. Her brain had used up whatever oxygen was left, leaving Claire’s body on the couch slowly filling with the gases of

decomposition. Although she was clearly dead, Caspian continued talking to her as though she could hear every word.

“After everything you fucking put me through,” he said. “I owe you at least this much. Trust me, I could think of a million ways to torture you— emotionally, physically. If I were older and stronger, I could have done anything. But I just got sick of it. I couldn’t handle it anymore. Oh, don’t worry about the toxin. By the time they do your autopsy, it’ll be completely gone, and I’ll take care of everything else.”

Sitting next to her ear, he leaned in and uttered his final words as Claire’s consciousness faded.

“No one will suspect a thing, and of course I’ll cry my little eyes out at your funeral. ‘So sad; I hope she didn’t suffer.’”

His words were sarcastic as he continued.

“Those assholes, they don’t know shit. I think I’ll have you cremated just in case someone gets the idea of digging your ass up later.”

Now he had to get rid of the items used to commit his mother’s murder—the syringe, the Ziploc bag, the lighter, and especially the spoon. Any of these could serve as evidence against him and needed to be destroyed or at least well hidden.

Making sure that her arm was clean of any amount of blood, Caspian secured the items he had used in a plastic bag and left by the back door. Three blocks away was a pond connected to a leather mill. Beyond that was a large hill peppered with trails that wound around the back and further onto a plain that seemed to go on forever. Somewhere in between was a small area covered with clay and forded by a stream of cold water. Should he be there on a hot summer day, the water would be perfect for dipping his feet. If he felt so inclined, he could build a small fire and gaze up at the stars on a clear night. But the stars held a destiny for Caspian that he was not yet able to imagine, and as he walked down to the stream, he opened the bag and, removing the lighter, set it on the ground. He couldn’t afford to have anything left intact, so crouching down, Caspian set it on a rock near the water, and picking up another rock, beat the lighter into small fragments. What butane was left ran off into the stream only inches away. Polluting the stream with such a small amount was of no concern as he took the rest of the items from the bag. He used the spoon to dig a hole he would bury the Ziploc bag in, but only after thoroughly rinsing it out in the stream. Now, there was the needle and syringe. Caspian wondered how one disposes of such a device without being injured and still making certain that it would never be found. He surveyed the area and discovered it might be possible to bury it beneath the rocks on the bottom of the stream. The water was cold and flowed quickly, but a police dog could quickly sniff out the presence of the drug even if it lay beneath the stones of a fast-moving stream. Caspian would have to dispose of it a bit further away.