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nikolai kingsley is currently studying literature at Deakin University as a means of avoiding a more productive lifestyle. He lives in the usenet newsgroup talk.bizarre. His favourite authors include Jane Austen, Frank Herbert, Enid Blyton and Poppy Z Brite; his favourite musicians include Skinny Puppy, the Cocteau Twins, Throbbing Gristle, Marilyn Manson and TISM. His favourite literary device is the Russian style sentence-that-goes-on-for-six-pages-without-a-breath. He is therefore obviously insane. Further proof of this can be seen at http://www.very.net/~nikolai .

Heal Thyself

"There's nothing like being indestructible to make you a friend of all things."
- Frank Herbert

The train was nearing the second last stop, so I began securing my position. I had to be sure that I was alone. There were two others - a couple - asleep on the floor at the end of my carriage. After thinking about how much I’d like to play with them for a while, I remembered why I’d come out here. No time to play, so I carefully edged close to them and beat the man's skull in with my lead pipe, three solidly-placed blows. The woman woke up and screamed, but she wasn't quick enough to do anything.

When the train stopped at the next station, I rolled their bodies out onto the platform. I'd acted just in time; the man was awake and the skull wound was already beginning to heal. I saw his hands moving spastically around the elongated dent I'd made, thumbs poking into it and coming away smeared with dark red. Too late; the train pulled away from the station before he was in any state to get up.

I checked the magazine in the handgun, made sure I had the spare in case I needed it, then kicked open the connecting doorway. The next carriage was empty, so I moved onto the third. Someone had been busy in here.

She'd had her feet wedged into two of the metal rings that passengers held onto when the train was crowded, and her hands had been tied to two others, forcing her into a painfully spread-eagled position. She was stretched tightly over the path between the rows of seats, face up, arms and legs splayed out. She was still alive, trying to scream through a ruin of a throat that had recently seen some expert knife work. I pulled the yard-long section of broom out of her ass. There was a lot of bleeding and she slumped into a more relaxed posture; the broom handle had been holding her up. I thought some more about playing, then regretfully clubbed a couple of fist-sized dents into the crown of her head. She stopped moving, and hopefully she'd stay put long enough for the train to reach the end of the line and then head back into the city.

I glanced around. Whoever had done this couldn't have gone very far - I hadn't seen them get off at the station - so they were still on the train. I drew my handgun, slipped the safety off and proceeded with caution.

The artistes who'd worked the girl over were in the next carriage. Two women, playing a variant of an old Russian drinking game; instead of trading punches, they were stabbing each other with kitchen knives. The one with the short brown hair would take a long swig from her bottle, then stab her shaven-headed companion, pushing the knife in up to the hilt; then her friend did the same, twisting her own weapon around before pulling it out again.

This continued until white spirits started spurting out of a bloody hole in the brown-haired girl's throat each time she drank. At this point they abandoned the game, dropped the bottles and simply hewed into each other, screaming (as best they could, given the state of their throats) while grappling with one hand and stabbing with the other. Presently, the brown-haired girl gave up and collapsed. I shot the other girl through the forehead.

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