The Renfield Syndrome by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 6

It had been hours since Caspian had been sent down to the basement, and having calmed his mind, he fell asleep. Yet, in her cruelty, Claire quietly crept down the cellar stairs, and crouching in front of him, grinned moments before waking him with a hard slap across the face. With the violence that swarmed around his mind, Caspian woke with a closed fist as his mother commenced to screaming at him again. It was only a matter of time that the violent thoughts regarding the bully at school would shift to her. She seemed to go out of her way to make him miserable, and she seemed to enjoy it. But as he got to his feet, his mother caught a glimpse of his closed fist and called him out on it.

“What’s this shit?” she asked. Grabbing his arm, she raised his hand, which, by now, had loosened to an open hand.

“Did you think you were going to take a swing at me, huh?”

She pulled him away from the wall while continuing to taunt him. “You little piece of shit,” she continued. “If I even think that you’re coming after me, I’ll cut your fucking eyes out, got it?”

Caspian said nothing as he broke eye contact and hurriedly started for the cellar stairs. His stomach was churning with hunger, and before his mother could leave the cellar, he rushed to the refrigerator and took what food he could carry. He began to realize that if he was to survive his childhood, he would have to live by his wits and learn what his mother’s habits were so he could work around them in order to get what he needed. In time, he would develop a set of skills he used to stay out of his mother’s way. At the same time, he noticed her drinking had become especially heavy, and he often discovered her on the couch drunk. It wasn’t that he cared, but he sometimes tested her level of consciousness by pushing at her shoulder, looking for a response. Only once did she react by turning on her side and emptying the contents of her stomach on the carpeted floor near his feet. The smell was sickening, and Caspian wondered what might have happened if he had left her lying on her back. Maybe next time, he thought.

Oddly enough, her alcoholism did not interfere with her job as a cleaning woman in a hotel across town. Her duties were simple yet exhausting, and she would often indulge in one or two beers to steady her nerves. But as her anger continued to boil, Claire’s drinking took a serious turn, and it didn’t take long for her to drink herself into unconsciousness. This went on for years as she continued to medicate what was, in fact, a long-standing mental illness. Her alcoholism and vicious bout of anger blinded Claire from seeing the damage that had been done to her and the damage that had been done to Caspian. As long as she continued in this state, she would never get the treatment she so badly needed, and Caspian would continue to suffer as well. However, there would soon come a day when the torment she had been putting him through would end. That day arrived soon after he began tenth grade. One of the classes he was required to take was chemistry, and part of the curriculum involved becoming well versed in the many compounds held in storage. One of those compounds was hemotoxin A, a powdered substance contained in a dark brown jar kept high on a shelf, away from the eyes of most of those who wandered through the storeroom. Caspian, however, had discovered it while taking inventory and, immediately curious, looked it up online in the school’s library. What this substance could do shocked him, yet it was perfect for what he had planned. What he had uncovered was that hemotoxin A is a coagulant and, once injected into the bloodstream, causes immediate coagulation. And while not an expert in pharmaceuticals, he was able to ascertain that the half-life of hemotoxin A was roughly twenty minutes. By the time an affected individual’s body got to the autopsy table, the substance would have faded into an undetectable trace. The only issue was how to deliver it. Although his mother was unconscious most of the evening, Caspian would have to think of a way to deliver a powdered compound into her blood. After giving it considerable thought, he arrived at a solution that was beyond simple, but he needed at least one syringe with an attached needle, preferably of the type used by diabetics. The syringe was attached to a thirty-one-gauge needle and was the perfect width for what he needed to do; anything larger would almost certainly cause enough pain to possibly wake his mother from her drunken stupor.

He began studying the human anatomy, looking for the ideal place by which to inject the toxin. After studying her arms, he chose the cephalic located on the inside of her elbow. He had studied it several times as she lay in a near alcohol-induced coma. Normally, one would use a tourniquet to bring up the vein, but cleaning hotels was a strenuous job, and acquiring increased muscle mass made Claire’s veins stand out considerably. This would allow Caspian to effortlessly insert the 31-gauge needle and push the toxin into her body. Its effect would be immediate and likely complete even before he stood up. He just needed Claire to be as still as possible. If she moved her head even slightly, the needle might veer off in a painful direction and possibly wake her from her intoxicated repose. But how much would he need? Too little, and he may not see the desired effect. Yet, in this case there was no such thing as too much. In fact, he wanted to use as much as he could obtain. He simply needed to acquire it without getting caught.