Nancy Kerr refuses to be a victim—even when she walks in on her parents’ killers and is raped and left for dead…
Fourteen months later, Nancy wakes up in a psychiatric hospital with no knowledge of how she got there.
Slowly, her memory starts to return.
Released from the institution, she has just one thing on her mind—two men brought hell to her family home.
Now they’re in for some hell of their own…
An extract
from Hell To Pay (Crime Files Book 1)
She took a
few more steps into the living room and walked straight into hell…
Chapter 1
I’m cold,
colder than I’ve ever been in my entire life and I don’t know why. Slowly, I
open my eyes, tentatively at first because even opening them a fraction feels
like someone's shoving red-hot pins into them. The light is so bright.
What’s with
the light anyway?
Has Michael
wandered in, blootered on some poncy new beer and left the light on, after
collapsing in a heap onto the bed? I’ll brain him if he has. I’m no
good to anyone when I don’t get my eight hours.
Pulling
myself up in bed, I reach out my arm to nudge him awake so I can give him a
right mouthful. My hand finds empty space.
Where is
he?
My eyes
sting as I prise them open – it’s as though there's been an accident with false
lashes and I've glued my eyelashes together - and that’s when I realise I’m not
in our flat. The reason I’m freezing is because I’m wearing a tracing paper
thin hospital gown: the kind that shows off your backside when you’re being
whisked off to x-ray.
A tidal
wave of panic hits me and I jerk into full consciousness.
What’s happened to me?
I try to
remember, but my brain’s all bunged up as if the top of my head's been removed
and the cavity filled with cotton wool.
My arms are
bandaged up. Have I been in an accident? If I have, I don’t
remember. Maybe I hit my head.
I take in
my surroundings. If I’m in hospital, it’s no ordinary one. For one thing, my
room’s more like a cell. There’s a bed and a table bolted to the floor, but no
personal stuff: photos, or cards, or stuffed animals from people wishing me
well. Does anyone even know I’m here?
I grope for
a call button to get a nurse, but there isn’t one. What the hell? This place is
a prison.
Staggering
out of bed, I fight the wave of nausea and dizziness that make me want to yell
at the world to stop moving because I want to get off the carousel. The tile
floor is stone cold and there are no slippers by the bed. My feet are ice
blocks. Why don’t I have any socks or tights on?
Before I
reach the door, there's a jingle of keys, then a key scrapes in the lock.
Holding my breath, I brace myself for what’s coming.
A woman I
don’t recognize with brown hair tied back in a ponytail appears. She’s dressed
in a nurse’s uniform and there’s a small smile playing on the edge of her lips.
"Good,
you’re awake, Nancy."
She sounds
pleased, as if we’re bosom buddies, when I’ve never seen her before in my life.
"Where
am I?"
My voice
comes out as a rasp as though my throat’s been sandpapered down.
The nurse
puts a hand on my shoulder. "Let’s get you back into
bed, Nancy."
I do as she
says. I’m worried if I don’t lie back, I’ll faint.
"You’re
in Parkview Hospital," she says, as she fixes the pillows so I
can sit upright.
I know all
the hospitals in Glasgow, but I haven’t heard of that one. I ask her what
kind of hospital it is and she tells me it’s a psychiatric facility. The reason
I haven’t heard of it, is because they don’t publicize it. Perhaps because it’s
full of nutters they want to keep away from society. The prospect terrifies me
because that would mean they must think I’m cuckoo. Why else would I be here?
I suck in
my breath. When I ask her if this is a nut house, she presses her lips tightly
together as she tells me no one refers to psychiatric hospitals in that way any
more. Suitably chastised, I mumble an apology not because I think one’s needed,
but because she’s the one with the keys.
"Why
am I here?"
I’m
dreading the answer, but I need to know. I don’t feel any different. Surely if
I’d lost my mind, I'd know.
"You
had a breakdown."
The way she
says it, she could be talking about the weather.
She asks me
if I want anything and I tell her a pair of proper pajamas, a dressing gown and
slippers would be nice because I’m an ice block. If she gets in touch with Mum,
she’ll bring me in some stuff.
Her smile’s
still there, but breaks down around the corners of her mouth. There’s something
she’s not telling me, because she’s worried how I’ll react. There’s fear in her
eyes. I notice she’s wearing a lucky heather brooch, the same one I got for
Mum. I’m staring at it as she tells me she’s going to fetch a doctor, when a
memory stirs inside me and no matter how hard I try to push it away, someone’s
taken their finger out the dyke and the water’s rushing in.
Blood,
blood everywhere. Dad’s slumped in his favorite armchair, head bent forward as
if in prayer (he never prayed a day in his life); a single bullet hole in his
head. I know it’s him, even although his face has been beaten to a pulp: his
blood staining the fireside rug my mum was so fond of. Even in death, my dad
has a presence. He fills a room with the sheer weight of his personality.
Discarded nearby is the baseball bat they used on him. It’s covered in blood
and something sticky and dark brown, resembling raw mince.
All material is copyright of the author Jenny Thomson (C) 2013
Jenny Thomson is an award-winning crime writer who has been scribbling away all her life. She also writes as Jennifer Thomson.
Inspired by her love of zombies and The Walking Dead, she wrote The Restless Dead.
She kills people for a living in the Crime File series of books for Limitless Publishing. Book 1, 2 and 3, will be out soon.
To find out more details, check out her publisher's site at http://www.limitlesspublishing.net/authors/jenny-thomson/
Her novella, How Kirsty Gets Her Kicks, about a one legged Glasgow barmaid who goes on the run with a gun and a safe load of gangster's cash after killing one of his henchmen, will be published by the critically acclaimed Snubnose Press.
She blogs about writing at http://ramblingsofafrustratedcrimewriter.blogspot.com/ and about zombies at http://deidbastards.blogspot.co.uk
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