The three night staff helped Mr Merton back to his room. He didn’t resist, he didn’t speak. He just smiled as he climbed into bed and curled up.
“That’s the third time this week we’ve found him just standing in the kitchen,” Julie said at shift changeover.
“Well, he’s new here, it’s probably an upset for him. They don’t like change at his age,” Betty replied.
“I think he’s creepy,” young Helen said.
Betty rounded on her. “Helen, that poor man’s had to put up with so much tragedy in his life, so much loss. You should be more sympathetic.”
Helen flushed. “Sorry,” she said, but Betty wasn’t finished.
“Then just as he gets settled into a place, there was all that…” She paused. “All that trouble at The Meadows.”
There was silence as they remembered. It had even made the national papers. Eleven residents out of fourteen dead in a two-month period. The press called it the Killing Meadows.
“So, I think we can forgive Mr Merton for looking,” Betty crooked her fingers into inverted commas, “creepy.”
Helen nodded, shamefaced.
Betty sniffed.
“Good,” she said.
Betty left a note for the day staff explaining that Mr Merton had been up in the night and that he should be left to sleep through breakfast.
Lying in his narrow bed and still clutching the medicine bottle under his pyjamas, Mr Merton allowed himself a chuckle.
“Stupid cows,” he thought.
Nothing on earth would have induced him to go down for breakfast that morning.
Tapes, also known as Mark Tomlinson, is a 49-year-old father of four who dabbles in short fiction and will continue doing so until he gets it right.
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12 Responses to “MR MERTON • by Tapes”
Comments
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December 19th, 2008 at 5:14 am
Wonderful piece!
December 19th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Sinister !!!
)
Well done!
December 19th, 2008 at 5:51 am
I love the “creepy” tone. Am I right in thinking that Mr. Merton is poisoning the breakfast?
December 19th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Too many characters were introduced too quickly for such a short story. “Julie” has one line, and then she disappears. You could easily discard her without changing anything important.
The twist ending was pretty obviously telegraphed; it would have been worth the expenditure of a few more words to hide the big surprise more effectively.
December 19th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I liked that. Thought the conversation between the staff at shift change was just right. Bottle of rat poison might’ve worked better, though.
–dj
December 19th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Saw the ending coming and still enjoyed it.
December 19th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Creepy is right! Though I did wonder how he could poison everyone with medicine. I guess if it was medicine they weren’t prescribed for or were allergic to?
December 19th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Great little story, Tapes. For some reason when this story first arrived in my in-box there was no ‘comments’ facility available. Anybody else have this problem, please say yes before my paranoia gets revving up again?
December 19th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Thanks for the feedback folks. I think Mr Merton is keeping some noxious substances in an innocuous looking medicine bottle. A friend of mine who worked in certain institutions told me some real horror stories about the ingenuity of determined people who want to make poisons!
December 19th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I guessed the ending pretty much from the start, but I still liked it. Short and not exactly sweet. ^_~
December 19th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
For such limited word space, Tapes wrote a fine, highly-readable piece.
December 19th, 2008 at 7:31 pm
“A friend of mine who worked in certain institutions told me some real horror stories about the ingenuity of determined people who want to make poisons!”
I once came across a story about a psychotic transferred to a new institution which he was convinced was staffed by vampires so as to have a captive herd who wouldn’t be believed. So he researched that silver was fatal to vampires and took a whole load of a silver salt – fatal to himself – just before he thought the vampires would come. The story ends with him dying satisfied as he surveys the twitching remains of the staff…