The Assistant

By J J Mckenzie

Martin is on self destruct and has been for some time now. The thing is, he plans to take as many with him as possible. Filled with hatred for the weak worthless and deprived, he decides to systematically wipe them all out.

Rachel had suffered years of abuse at the hands of her father but now she's emerged out the other end, bruised and battered. But still alive. However she hates herself for what she has become. She seeks like minded people online and finds sympathetic souls willing to help her reach her final goal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Mar 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493139309

J J Mckenzie

Author Bio Coming Soon

Book preview

1

He wanted to watch the junkie expire the way he wanted. He didn’t deserve to regulate his destiny. He was completely hopeless in life, why should he be allowed to govern his own death?

Robbie. Was it Robbie . . . or maybe Bobbie? He had forgotten now. He remembered he was thirty-four but that was also irrelevant. What mattered was that he was a junkie, who was a wilful and agreeable subject. He lost his family, his job, his home, and his body surrendered, years ago, to the Heroin. Smack is so nineties, he thought.

He befriended the junkie on a pro suicide website and they eventually met for a pint and real chat face to face. They got on great and became friends, even though he found the stinking smack-head utterly repulsive. They spoke of suicide. The junkie was convinced that his newfound friend was the only person that listened and understood him. Robbie had nobody in his life anymore, his wife, sick of the beatings, stealing and erratic mood swings, amongst countless other unforgivable transgressions, finally left him last year.

His body and brain have been slowly rotting ever since. His father died when he was ten and when he broke into his own mother’s house and beat her within an inch of her life, when she confronted him in the darkness of her own living room—that for her was the final straw.

Robbie thought he could handle the smack, thought he could quit at anytime. However, it very quickly grabbed him by the throat, like a rabid dog and it still refuses to let go until it has shaken and tore the life from him completely.

He had a good job. Once. And a beautiful home, but the job didn’t last as the Heroin took hold and once he had been sacked he hadn’t the income to support his habit and began systematically selling every household possession he and his long suffering wife owned, to feed the beast within.

‘I can help you do it, if you want,’ the man said, one day after a particularly heavy I can’t go on anymore session. The addict never responded to the man’s offer of helping him commit suicide just then, instead he just sat there looking forlornly at the floor, wiping tears from his blushed gaunt cheeks. The man loved this; he swims in peoples despair. The sorry creature was nothing to him.

The next day, however, he met up with his wretched friend in his rancid flat in Easterhouse and it was the junkie who broached the subject this time.

‘Did you mean that?’

‘Mean what?’ He knew exactly what the creature meant.

‘About helping me to die,’ he wheezed through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

He sighed, as if he really didn’t want to do it but felt compelled to because of their friendship.

‘Bud, I would do anything it takes to stop your suffering,’ he managed to say quite sincerely.

‘When?’

‘What?’

‘When… when can we do it?’ the junkie said.

He was desperate. His body was just a punctured bag of bones. The veins in his arms collapsed and expired a long time ago. Since then he has ransacked his body for suitable sites, plunging the needle in between his toes and his groin among several other places. The latest and last place he could go to was the thick and blubbery veins under his tongue and the scary thing was, he had no qualms about doing so.

‘Depends on how you want to do it,’ the man shifted uneasily on the sticky threadbare chair he was sitting on. Tonight he would shower at least three times, scrubbing all the way.

‘Overdose I reckon,’ the junkie speculated.

The man guessed that no one could pop pills as quick as this poor creature could. He could down them quicker than a kid could with a tube full of Smarties. He’d be gone in minutes. But where was the fun in that?

Boring! He bawled in his head. No fucking imagination!

But he decided to go along with the idea, or at least something similar.

‘I’ve got a better way,’ he said, as he scanned the pitiful abode.

‘I don’t want it to be painful,’ the addict bleated.

‘It’s not painful, I promise’. Painful? The guy stabs his body with needles everyday!

‘What is it then?, It’s not smack is it? Cos it would take a truck load to kill me,’ he moaned, then scratched and picked at a scab on the back of his neck.

The man felt a rush of nausea from deep within as he watched the addict pick the now removed scab lodged behind his black and yellow fingernails. However, the man showed no sign of his weakness.

‘I’m talking about Cyanide,’ he said and the junkie did a double take. ‘And where the hell would you get a hold of that?’ he retorted, sounding very cynical.

‘It’s easily obtainable you know. Just crush half a pound of pear or apple seeds into a powder and add it to a fruit juice and drink’

‘Are you kidding me? Apple seeds can kill?!’

‘I kid you not buddy.’ He wasn’t kidding; apple seeds contain amygdalins, which are a Cyanide and sugar compound. When ingested it denies blood the ability to carry oxygen, causing its victims to die of asphyxiation.

‘Cyanide eh,’ the junkie mused.

In his limited warped imagination, Cyanide sounded almost romantic. Like the war heroes, captured behind enemy lines, consuming there death capsules full of the lethal compound, rather than tell their adversaries any of their beloved country’s home secrets.

‘Death is in a matter of minutes,’ the man assured him.

‘OK but you’re gonna have to bring some juice with you… oh and a cup.’

Oh for Christ’s sake!

‘I’ll bring everything that’s needed. Are we likely to be disturbed?’ He knew the answer to this; He was the junkie’s only friend.

‘Nah man nobody comes up here,’ he mumbled.

He was incredibly lonely. He didn’t need a partner though. Sex to him was a distant foggy memory. His penis was no longer of any use to him, other than the natural, primary function of urinating. He once got a pup from someone but it died two weeks later from distemper. Robbie was so out of it that he failed to notice the dead pup until a week after. By that time the dog’s rotting corpse had become home to several hundred well fed Bluebottle flies and their offspring. The flat reeked of rank rotted flesh.

‘Then it’s settled,’ was all the man said.

‘Thanks bud,’ he started crying again.

Get a bloody grip of yourself man!

‘Tomorrow?’ the junkie proposed through quivering withered lips. Sheepishly looking at his new and best friend for confirmation and wiping the tears from his drug addled face.

The man exhaled his now trademarked empathetic sigh, whilst staring out the dim and dirty living room window.

‘Aye,’ he agreed. As he said this, the man turned from the window and faced his friend and trying hard to conceal his joy, he looked him straight in the eyes and confirmed, ‘Aye I will.’

The night before, when they discussed the when, where, and how’s of suicide, the junkie gave him a spare key so he could lock the front door as he left. This morning, after washing it, the man sat twirling the key deftly between his fingers. This focused his mind and prepared him for the day ahead. He was giddy with excitement but on the outside, he remained very placid. Sombre even.

As the man entered the flat, at 8.05am, the junkie was going through his routinely tortured sleep. The Assistant went to the bedroom and stood at his bedside.

‘Are you ready,’ he whispered in the addict’s ear.

The stench of canker rose from the addict’s breath and right then he wanted to repeatedly stab this pathetic piece of shit in his eyes with the key in his hand.

‘Robbie…’ (or Bobby, he still cannot quite recall), ‘. . . wake up.’

He awoke in a sweat, lay perfectly still, and stared at the man; as if he had a gun pointed to his head and was telling him to lie perfectly still. He had only been asleep for about two hours. Sleep was a luxury very rarely afforded to him. The savage brute that raped and pillaged his body, dictated when Robbie should sleep and when it must be fed.

‘Are you ready?’ the man repeated.

Now visibly relaxed after taking in his surroundings the junkie woke up properly and croaked, ‘Yes.’

You’re just as well staying right here.’ From his bed, junkie boy nodded in agreement.

Good.

He sat next to his soon-to-be dead friend and pulled out a large milk carton that was full of apple juice, a half pint plastic cup from his plastic shopping bag.

Let’s do it, the addict said with morbid enthusiasm, as he lit his first and last fag of the day.

‘Half a pound of this stuff is a lot to get through, so I suggest we do it quickly.’

‘I’ve got to drink all that?’ The thin, red, permanently embroidered veins on his expanding eyes seemed close to bursting, as he eyed the bottle, top to bottom.

‘‘fraid so. But it won’t take long and you won’t taste them at all.’

After he coughed up the first two drags of his cigarette, the addict downed the fist cup, in one. The man filled the cup immediately.

‘You will watch over me won’t you?’ he asked pathetically.

‘Think of me as your Guardian Angel,’ said his friend. With those parting words still ringing in his ears, the junkie edged toward sleep.

The contents of the milk carton were not what the man said it was. It contained no crushed apple seeds. It did, however, contain enough Vallium to get him wasted, especially since he just woke up. (Hence, the early morning call). The man reached down to the floor at the side of the bed picked up the clear plastic shopping bag he brought with him.

‘Can you hear me Bobby?’ (Or whatever his name was).

Extremely stoned but still conscious, the smack-head nodded wearily.

The man cupped the back of the addict’s greasy head and lifted it slowly, as if he was offering him some life saving water; instead, he rapidly placed the bag over his head and tightly gathered it up around his throat, twisting it around his index finger.

The smack-head’s eyes shot open, his mouth had formed a big O! of horror. The bag filled with spit and hot panicky breath. He had good purchase around the neck as he watched his victim change colour, the moment he inhaled a sharp burning breath and practically sucked the whole bag into his cankerous mouth. His decaying teeth and swollen tongue could be seen clearly through the translucent carrier bag. Looking like they had just been shrink-wrapped. The junkie’s body convulsed and protested at the attack. This lasted roughly eight minutes but the man could do this for eight hours! Today he felt strong. Not like the other days. Today was a good day. Then the addict was gone. Even better!

He knew he intended to asphyxiate him. He knew he would have to pull the carrier bag tight around his neck, which would obviously leave ligature marks. Not a problem.

He procured various pornographic magazines that he had hidden in the smack-head’s malodorous and dilapidated flat yesterday and then he strategically placed them on the bathroom floor.

Paraphilia is the practice of, amongst other things, Autoerotic Asphyxiation. His junkie has now become, what is known in Paraphilia circles, as a gasper. He stripped the dead addict, lifted him to the toilet, and used a piece of ripped up bed sheeting. Then he walked back to the bathroom and wrapped it around the towel rail. At the business end of the sheet he fashioned a slipknot, looped it around the frail neck of the junkie and pulled tight. He then grabbed the under his arms. Aw man! and pulled him away from the towel rail causing the sheeting to become taut. Once this was done, he took one of the addict’s bony hands and wrapped it around his drug-withered penis.

Job done.

Robbie . . . that’s it! . . . It was definitely Robbie, he remembers now.

2

The night beyond his window was damp and bleak. His apartment—that, in his day would’ve been called a flat—was located on the north side of the river Clyde, on Lancefield Quay. It faced The Gorbals, at the other side of the silent, murky water.

He stood in his black toweled dressing gown, drinking tea the colour of ripe chestnuts, and distantly stared out from within his comfortable abode. The lonely desk lamp aimed down at some paperwork and the weak glow from his laptop, were the only sources of light and company, within his study.

Outside, black clouds stacked and gathered like an angry mob, ready to fight. Distant thunder sounded like a claxton, heralding the oncoming storm. Silent lightning danced, flashed and slashed the night sky, lighting the way for the torrent about to be unleashed from the heavens.

The tangerine streetlights and unknown shadows, cast an unforgiving hue on Nativestag’s tired but perfectly groomed face. His hair was greying at the temples, but he liked that.

As Bill Cosby once said, Grey hair is great graffiti! At least he still had it all; it was tapered short at the sides and back. On top was textured, spiked and seemingly unkempt.

He opened the large Velux window, leaned on his bony elbows and stuck his head out. The air was dead. No thunder. Silence.

Then splot! A fat, perfectly round raindrop slapped onto his dry concrete window ledge, like a paintball pellet, leaving a crowning silhouette. Then another.

In twenty seconds the rain gathered pace and urgency and transformed the street below, glossing everything in a dirty copper glow. The downpour used the leaves at the roadside and the roofs of the buildings like drum skins, creating a cacophony of continuous, rolling rhythms.

Now he heard water dripping from every straight edge. Water running. Streaming. He looked down and saw it racing at the roadside kerb, skipping over, already full, overspill drains. It coursed on to its destination—the lowest level. Water always finds its level, he edged back indoors. So does death, he thought as he checked his hair for rain splots.

The dull light from outside highlighted Nativestag’s strong, square jaw, but because of years of illness, it poked out from beneath his pale, paper-thin skin, like a cow’s hipbone. His eyes were like natural Sapphires. The spheres of blue ice that nested in his gaunt sockets have witnessed many horrors and atrocities, all of them committed by their owner.

He is thin but trim; his fine sinewy muscles define his every angle of his body from the neck down. His torso however, is littered with angry scars that run furiously across and down it. Everyday, he religiously runs an hour on his treadmill works out on the bench press for an hour and finishes with fifty sit-ups. This has—along with his medication—managed to keep the Reaper from calling at his door, demanding to be escorted back to the netherworld. For now.

When he went to his desk, he sat down on his Italian leather swivel chair, which sighed its approval when the air escaped and it accommodated Nativestag’s fibrous frame. The wine coloured Rosetta chair was also a recliner. It doubled perfectly well as a bed when he was either too tired or too sore to make it to his room. He stayed at his computer all the time, except when he had to work of course.

He didn’t work nine-to-five. To Nativestag, the concept of working day in, day out, for someone you hated until you’re either sixty-five or dead, was something very alien to him. Scary even.

Although, often he thought it was nowhere near as scary as his chosen career: Dealing with Gangsters, junkies, lowlifes, thieves and desperados has been his way of life since the age of sixteen. Now though Nativestag is almost at the top of his tree, earning thousands a week. He didn’t have to deal with the losers on the street with their pleads and excuses anymore. He hasn’t for a long time.

He had no desire to sell hash, he just liked to smoke it, but every time he went to buy a bit, back in the day, his friends kept asking him to get them some too. Eventually, his dealer suggested that he become the shopkeeper instead of the deliveryman. Nativestag took his advice, borrowed four and a half ounce of Moroccan hashish, on tic and never looked back.

However, as any self-respecting dealer will testify, Cannabis is a slow burner—so to speak—and it takes years of selling large quantities to make any serious financial gain. Therefore, he started a sideline in Cocaine, which soon became his biggest earner.

From celebrities and politicians to footballers and high court judges, he’s dealt with them all. However, he never moved among their circles. Never socialised or networked, like many gangsters did. He wasn’t a gangster.

He was the one holding the limelight, not in it. He had goons who would do that for him. They sold pounds of coke every night for him and they couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to be part of Glasgow’s Glamorous Glitterati. A couple of those drug-dealing goons from those days are now apparently celebrities in their own right. Strange days!

However, he had done his last deal today and passed on the reigns to someone who was primed to take the helm and keep the good ship Coke sailing. Nativestag didn’t know who the (un)lucky guy was. People much higher up than him, made that decision. He has a very substantial amount of money in the bank now that will see him comfortable for his remaining life, that he suspected wouldn’t be that long anyway.

Now he is a private man. Completely. Nobody visits his home, not even the postman; his mail is delivered to a P.O box in the city.

Although he has three mobile phones, there is no landline in his home. None of his now ex associates, or his enemies for that matter, has knowledge of where he lives. He seldom has any need for female company, but when he does, he will call them, meet them, fuck them and pay them. Women were a distracting inconvenience as far as Nativestag is concerned. So much emotional investment was required to sustain a good relationship.

He needs none of it. Besides, who would fall in love with a monster like him?

3

Walking away from the drug trade was easier than he thought. Not like the movies, where gangsters are hounded then killed for deserting their families. I’m not a gangster. I have no family.

Retiring young enabled him to deal with the two remaining factors in his life: his illness—which was gradually gaining its momentum, creeping up on him like an unpaid bill, and the hobby that’s hitherto, kept him from going completely insane. The same hobby that’s been running parallel to his drug career for twenty years—assisting people’s deaths (and murder in general).

This was his life. This is what he does now, not drugs. Drugs just make money. Killing people completely fulfills his lust for power and control. The profits from Cocaine couldn’t even touch it.

Since his first assist after his mother’s death, Nativestag felt that killing people who were suicidal, was the right thing to do. Not that his first was voluntary. Suicide is the perfect way to die.

There are, for him, three types:

1. The willing—Some of the people he has helped, have been thankful for his presence. Gratified that someone will listen to their anguish, before they go. Never judging them, never dissuading them. Ready to assist their exit in any way.

These people were the true; everything was organized, bills all paid up to date and beyond, any personal possessions given to loved ones, wills signed and counter-signed and old emotional wounds, upsets and grudges reconciled.

One subject left him £5000 and his gold watch for rigging up the guy’s car and watching over him, making sure the pipe coming from the exhaust, didn’t burn or fall out, while he slowly gassed himself on Carbon Monoxide. Nativestag kept the watch and gave the five grand to a Big Issue vendor in Argyle Street.

They Leave long winded letters that Nativestag promises to deliver to the recipient(s). Only to read them then burn them. Loved ones don’t need to know how mummy was feeling when she vertically slit her wrists wide open, up to her biceps, in the family bathtub now do they?

Nativestag was always the last man to see them alive and the first to see them dead. To these people, he was seen as noble and righteous, helping the weak and wounded end their suffering.

2. The undecided—Almost everyone who has had extreme trauma, mental illness, or serious physical sickness may have considered suicide at their lowest points in their lives. However when free from this malaise, their lives become worthy again and they no longer feel the need to die. These indecisive individuals have to be coaxed and cajoled back to thinking otherwise.

In those dark times, when everything seems hopeless for them, Nativestag is always there persuading them that voluntarily combustion is the only answer.

3. The undeserving—Many people would call Nativestag an animal if they knew a fraction of his atrocious activities. However, there are worse folk than him. These people ruin their chance at life and everyone one else who comes into contact with them. The pedophiles.

Demonic destroyers of innocence and beauty. Robbing and raping children, leaving thick mental scars that never heal their entire lives.

Grown men and women, who lock their kids in cupboards or severely beat them and their partner everyday. Fuckin sick spineless bastards!

Then there are the junkies. Victims of their own greed and in turn that same greed produces more victims wherever the junkie goes. Their pathetic and useless lives anger him. As far as he is concerned, they shouldn’t be entitled to live. More breathing space being used that someone decent could benefit from. Oxygen thieves.

His mother didn’t deserve to die but every single soul that left their body in his hands certainly did.

4

His MacBook Pro displayed the website that is his home page. Before finding out about the site and others like it, he had no outlet for his desires.

His first assisted death, not including his mother’s, was more like a forced one. The man was undeserving and had to die and Nativestag was happy and obliged to fill out the role of executioner.

After that, he wanted to participate in more suicides, but he just didn’t know where to find them. Instead, he prowled the streets of Glasgow’s city centre bumping off tramps and low lives that were far too pathetic to