The librarian

He gazed down at the mess strewn across the floor, not at all how the room would normally be. No in Malcolm’s world everything had a place, a place for everything. It’s the way he was brought up you see, a smack on the back of the skull with a wooden spoon, or anything that was close to hand at the time of leaving so much as an empty cup out.

His mother was very much “old school”, just the one child and extremely strict. Her husband had died just two years after Malcolm was born and left a substantial nest egg behind him. So Malcolm had a nice upbringing, good education, and wanted for nothing. Except that is, for a life?  You see Malcolm wasn’t very social and struggled to make friends. He was never into fashion, appearance or girls and would spend most of his school days studying in libraries, or hidden up in his bedroom reading science fiction books or surfing endless pages of internet nonsense. He just kind of, existed?

One day however, Malcolm did get noticed. At the age of twenty four he was caught peering over the garden fence at a young girl that lived next door. She had been lying on a sun bed with little more than a string covering her lower half and nothing else. It was the first time Malcolm had seen an almost naked female, and he had found himself transfixed and feeling stirrings that he hadn’t experienced before. Oh he’d obviously gone through puberty and experienced the things young boys experience alone in their bedrooms, but never in front of an actual real life girl. The trouble is though, is that the very young girl’s father had been watching him watch her, and when Malcolm’s hand slipped into his pocket, he flipped his lid, ran down, jumped the fence and dragged him to his mother.

Malcolm got labelled that day, the pervert at number forty three Nabors would cross the road to avoid him and he would hear them talking about him as he walked passed. They would even shout things like “perverted bastard” or “pedo”. It never really got to him though he was used to being “the odd one”.

At the grand old age of thirty Malcolm’s mother passed away with cancer, leaving him on his own in the house. He generally kept himself to his self and only left the house to go to work. He had to get a job in a library in the city because nobody would hire him locally, but he was happy with that no one knew him and he was able to just blend in.

Three weeks ago however he was no longer able to just “blend in” a guy had run into the library like a man possessed and landed a punch on his temple sending him flying into the children’s section. He didn’t stop there either, in fact by the time he had finished Malcolm looked like road kill, three missing teeth, a broken nose, broken jaw in two places, four cracked ribs and a half removed left ear to be exact.

While in hospital Malcolm had seen a story on the nine O’clock news, one of the reports was of a young woman that had been raped and murdered in an ally quite close to where he lived. Up until that point he was unable to remember the guy that had put him in the bed he was laying in, but when he had seen the pictures and name of the girl it soon dawned on him. The same man had dragged him kicking and screaming up his back yard for spying on his daughter six years previously.

He didn’t think it would take that long, he could feel his longs heaving his arms were numb with pins and needles and his head felt as though it was going to explode. The mess on the floor was spinning and fading in and out. He could hear the rope creaking under pressure as he tried to force one last breathe past the crushing grip on his neck.

Malcolm James Conway was cremated two weeks later in a chapel with only the priest and chapel hand present; his ashes were put into the garden to the rear of the church. Evidence was later found to connect Malcolm with the rape and murder of Dorothy Brannon aged nineteen, along with five other girls.