by Lukens, Mark
Petra tried to keep her mind blank in case the Dragon was trying to probe it for a name, for an image, for a memory.
“I need to know more about the store. More about the people in the store.”
Petra stayed silent.
“I know there’s food in the store. A lot of it. Supplies, too. I’ve seen it through other people’s eyes. Seen it in their dreams.”
“What do you need me for, then?”
The Dragon paced from one side of the porch to the other, the heels of his boots clomping on the floorboards, like he was deep in thought, or at least pretending to be. He stopped and stared at Petra. “I want to know more about the person who runs the store. The manager, I think they call her.”
“Do you even know her name?”
It was the Dragon’s turn to remain silent.
Petra wondered if the Dragon could only enter certain people’s dreams, read certain people’s thoughts, or at least pick up on their feelings or the images in their minds. Maybe he had more power over some than others, and maybe there were some whom he had no power over at all. And maybe it had nothing to do with the strength of the person’s mind. Maybe it was just differences in the makeup of people’s brains, the chemicals and synaptic connections.
But it also felt bigger than that to Petra, bigger than just randomness, like stronger unseen forces were at work, some kind of good battling evil.
“Tell me about this person. The manager.”
Petra didn’t answer.
“How much food is in that store? How many guns? How much ammo?”
Jacob floated back into Petra’s peripheral vision, like a ghost materializing out of a wall. She looked at him; he had what looked like an old handheld tape recorder in his hands, one that used a cassette tape and ran on batteries. The PLAY and RECORD buttons were pushed down as Jacob waited to capture her confessions on tape.
“How much medicine and medical supplies?” the Dragon asked.
Petra still said nothing.
“How many people are there? How many are trained to shoot? To fight?”
She wasn’t going to answer. She tried not to fidget, but the ropes on her wrists were too tight, beginning to hurt a little.
“How do they get onto the roof? How many entrances are there into the store? How many do they use? How do they barricade the entrances inside the store? How many car batteries do they have to electrify the fence in the back?”
Petra remained silent, glancing from Jacob to the Dragon, and then back to Jacob again. He held the clunky dinosaur of a tape recorder in his hands. But that kind of device was all they could use—most digital devices were useless now, part of a world that didn’t exist anymore, a world that may never exist again.
The Dragon sighed heavily. “I guess we could keep asking questions over and over again. For hours, I suppose. But I don’t want to waste that kind of time.” He looked at Jacob and gave a slight nod.
A lunatic spark of happiness glowed in Jacob’s eyes as he bolted away.
Petra couldn’t turn all the way around to see what Jacob was doing, but she heard him setting the tape recorder down somewhere behind her, pushing the STOP button, the buttons making a loud clicking sound. He grabbed a few things and then came back up on her left, dragging another wooden chair with him. He set the chair down close to her, almost facing her but off to her left just a little. He had a canvas duffel bag on the floor.
“Last chance,” the Dragon said. “I think you can guess what’s about to happen. But we don’t need to do that. We can be civilized here.”
Petra’s heart thudded against her breastbone, her pulse pounding in her ears. Something bad was coming—she could tell by the smile on Jacob’s face.
The Dragon gave a brushing-away gesture with his gloved hand, like he was suddenly annoyed and exhausted by the whole thing.
Jacob dug around in his canvas bag and pulled out a pair of handheld pruning snips and a small blowtorch.
Petra’s breath caught in her throat, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe.
CHAPTER 3
Petra
The pain was immediate and intense; it was Petra’s whole world for the moment. Everything else seemed to fade away into the hot whiteness all around her. She had the sense for a few seconds of being outside of her own body, floating just above it, like she was looking at someone else’s hand, not her own, someone else’s pinkie finger being snipped off, someone else’s finger spurting blood, someone else’s wound being cauterized with a blowtorch.
But it wasn’t someone else; it was her. She bucked in the chair, straining against the ropes, tense like she was being electrocuted. She had promised herself that she wasn’t going to scream or cry, but she couldn’t help it: the scream came on its own, the tears leaked out whether she wanted them to or not.
The torture was over, but the pain was still there. It felt like Petra’s whole hand was throbbing, waves of pain surging up her arm. Her stomach turned. She was afraid she was going to puke all over herself, throwing up what measly liquids she might still have in her stomach.
Jacob pushed a wad of gauze onto the stump where her finger used to be and wrapped a white bandage around it. She grunted as he wrapped the wound—he wasn’t being too careful with it. She squeezed her eyes shut, more tears slipping out.
“Remember when I told you I used to work for Vincent as an enforcer for his family?” Jacob said as he wrapped the tape around the bandage over her maimed hand.
Every slight movement sent excruciating pain shooting through her.
“Remember how I said most of the time I didn’t need to use violence? Well, sometimes I had to use violence. And I was very good at it. You’re going to see how good I was at it.”
Petra’s breaths came quickly. She bit down on her bottom lip, her eyes still squeezed shut, her right hand clenched into a fist as if her fingers were protecting themselves from Jacob, withdrawing into her hand like a turtle into its shell.
“That wooden frame in the field with the cables on it,” Jacob continued, “the place where we hung Audrey and Scott, that was my idea. Imagine watching the rippers tear your own lower body apart as you hang there.”
Petra tried to get her breathing under control. Her stomach rolled inside of her, gurgling.
“I told you she was a tough one,” Jacob said, glancing up at the Dragon from his chair.
The Dragon nodded in agreement, but his eyes were on Petra. “She’s seen monsters before. Haven’t you, Petra?”
Petra opened her eyes and stared through her blurry vision at the Dragon.
“You’ve seen a monster,” the Dragon said, his voice lower, softer. “Someone close to you. Someone named Diego.”
Petra didn’t say anything, swearing to herself that she wasn’t going to give these two animals one nugget of information, not one bit of satisfaction.
“Yes,” the Dragon said, nodding now like it had been confirmed. “You’ve known monsters. You’ve known fear. True fear. And loss. Diego . . . he took things from you. Loved ones. People you couldn’t save. You wanted to kill Diego. You were ready to die for the sins of not saving your family. You’ve been ready to die for a long time now. Haven’t you, Petra?”
Petra didn’t answer. She thought she’d been prepared for torture like this. She had imagined Diego and his men doing something similar to her. She’d been sure that he would’ve eventually beaten her to death in one of his rages. Memories of those beatings came back to her in a hallucination so vivid she swore for a moment she was back in Philly, back in that large house in the suburbs, that masterpiece of modern architecture. He hit her, punched her in the stomach, then slapped her in the face, kicked her several times after she was down on the marble floor, curled up in a ball, trying her best to protect herself.
And at some point Diego was going to get tired of her. He would want to move on to a new woman. New women. He would kill her. Most likely he would shoot her up with enough heroin to kill her. It would be just like falling as
leep. But after she’d run away from him, he wouldn’t let her die so easily. He would have tortured her before killing her. She would have been dragged to some warehouse perhaps, tied to a sturdy chair not so different than the one she was tied to now. Then she would’ve been tortured just like Jacob was torturing her now, by someone like Jacob, someone with dead eyes and an amused grin, someone who lived for delivering pain and terror, someone who fed off it.
But Diego hadn’t been able to catch her, hadn’t been able to find her after she’d stolen his money and bought herself a new identity, hiding in a small town outside Baltimore. There she had trained herself to be stronger and tougher. She’d taught herself to defend herself with guns, knives, hand-to-hand combat. She had prepared herself to go after Diego, to kill him for what he’d done to her family.
Some of her family members had been tortured, some beaten, a few killed. Some had their homes and businesses burned down. They had suffered because of her, because she had been selfish enough to leave Diego, selfish enough to try to save her own life. And now she was the one suffering, the one who felt the pain.
She deserved this pain. This was her penitence.
The thought of it calmed her down a little, numbed the pain just a bit. She opened her eyes and looked at Jacob, smiling at him.
“Oh, you’re a tough one, alright,” Jacob said, returning her smile.
Petra saw the gleam in Jacob’s eyes. She knew Jacob could have worked for Diego just like he had worked for Vincent in Ohio. Even though she’d never met Vincent, she knew he’d been the same as Diego. Men like that were all the same. Men like Jacob and Diego’s enforcers were all the same. Men like the Dragon were all the same.
“Yeah, you’re tough,” Jacob warned. “But we’re just getting started.”
“But it doesn’t have to continue,” the Dragon said. “You tell me everything I need to know and this will all stop.”
Petra stared at the Dragon.
“Tell me about the store.”
“There’s a lot of food there,” she said. “Supplies. Medicine. Guns. Ammo. And you’re never going to get it.”
“How many guns?” The Dragon nodded at Jacob.
Jacob got the tape recorder and pushed the two buttons down again to record.
“I didn’t count them.”
“How many people are there?”
“I didn’t count them, either.”
“Guess.”
“Twenty. Twenty-five. I’m not sure.”
“And the manager. She’s the leader?”
“You already know that.” She was answering questions the Dragon already knew the answers to. It was like he was getting her warmed up, used to answering questions. Because there were other things he wanted to know. He was leading somewhere else with the questions. “You already know all this stuff. You had a mole inside the store.”
“Yes. Moles. Traitors to their own people. I wonder if you know any traitors among us.”
“I don’t. How would I know?”
“You knew about Audrey. About Scott.”
“Audrey came down to give me meals. I asked for her help. She didn’t come to me. I came to her. She went to Scott. That’s all there is to it. They weren’t happy here. They wanted out. Most of the people here probably want out; they’re just too scared to leave.”
“They might want out, but they don’t know what’s good for them. But I do.”
Petra stared at the Dragon. The pain in her hand was down to a dull throb now, her burnt nub of a pinkie aching; it was pain she’d never felt before, but she didn’t want to show them how much she was suffering.
“What about the others?” the Dragon asked.
“Others?”
“The blind woman and the ones she’s with. They’re at the store.”
“I never met them.”
“You’ve seen the blind woman in your dreams. She’s talked to you before.”
“No. I’ve seen her, but she never said anything to me.”
The Dragon exhaled a loud sigh and looked at Jacob.
Petra braced herself for another round of torture, for another finger to be snipped off and the wound cauterized with the blowtorch. Maybe it would be the pinkie of her right hand this time. Maybe Jacob would keep going back and forth between her hands. Or maybe he would start on her toes.
Jacob stood up and picked up the wooden chair he’d been sitting on. He carried it across from Petra, setting it down in front of her ten feet away.
“What are you doing?” Petra asked.
“You don’t seem to want to talk,” the Dragon said. “The torture might not be working. So we’ll have to try something else.”
CHAPTER 4
Petra
Petra heard the guards behind her. It sounded like they were dragging someone toward her. Then she saw the servant woman in their grasp; she was dressed in the same type of white dress that Audrey had worn. They slammed her down into the wooden chair across from Petra, tying her wrists down tight to the arms of the chair. She cried out as they knotted the ropes. Then they tied her ankles to the legs. She was tied to the chair like Petra was, a mirror image of her. One of the guards pulled out a wide strip of cloth and wrapped around the servant’s face, covering her mouth.
“Okay,” Petra said. “Okay. The blind lady talked to me in my dreams. Is that what you want to hear?”
The Dragon didn’t answer.
“But . . . but she didn’t say anything special. She just told me that some of my people were still alive. That’s all she said.”
“Too late,” Jacob said as he brought his canvas bag and another chair over to the woman. “You had your chance to talk. Now you need to watch this. Watch what you’ve done to this woman. Just like what you did to Audrey and Scott.”
“No, Jacob . . . please don’t do this.”
“Oh? Not so tough now?”
The servant woman breathed heavily through her gag, her eyes wide as she stared down at her right hand that Jacob held still with the powerful snips, easing the blades down onto her pinkie finger, positioning the blades where he wanted them.
Maybe they wouldn’t do it. Maybe they were just testing her, trying to get her to talk.
“I told you what the blind woman said. I’ve told you what I know.” Petra struggled against the ropes binding her to the chair.
“I don’t believe you,” the Dragon said calmly, conversationally. “I think there’s more you’re hiding. More you need to tell me.”
“What? I don’t know what you want. Just . . . just ask me a question and I’ll answer it.”
“I’ve got a better idea. You tell me anything you think might be important. Anything about the blind woman, about the people she’s traveling with, about the store. About anything that comes to your mind.”
Jacob snipped off the woman’s pinkie finger. She howled into her gag, struggling, the ropes and the chair creaking. She sobbed, her eyes squeezed shut. Jacob turned the blowtorch on and touched the flame to the bloody wound, cauterizing it. The woman’s howls turned to high-pitched screams through her gag. Jacob set the torch down and bandaged her hand like he’d done to Petra’s.
“You’re sisters now,” Jacob told Petra. “Twins.”
The woman’s screams turned to low sobs. She looked like she was close to passing out.
“We can do this all day,” Jacob said. “There’s a lot more I can cut off this woman.”
*
Hours later Petra was down in the basement again, cradling her left hand against her under the blankets. She’d drunk some water but they hadn’t given her any food.
Jacob only cut one more finger off the woman’s hand, and then the woman had passed out.
Petra told Jacob and the Dragon about the blind woman, what little she knew about her from the dreams, what little she knew about the people who traveled with her, what little she knew about the store. She told them about Max, about Kate and Brooke, about Joe and Fernando, the doc, Tina, and anyone else she could thin
k of.
Finally, it seemed to be enough. The Dragon seemed satisfied.
But she hadn’t said anything about Dawson and the promise he’d made in the back of the pickup truck. She’d kept that blocked out of her mind. But how long would she be able to keep that information blocked? Were they going to torture her again tomorrow? Torture someone else in front of her? Soon enough the Dragon would see it in her mind, or in her dreams.
CHAPTER 5
Dawson
Greg Dawson had always been a coward. He didn’t like to think of himself that way, and maybe he had fooled himself over the years, justified some of his actions, a revised history of his memories, but there was no hiding from the truth now. As he looked back on his life he saw clearly the things he’d done, and sometimes, more importantly, the things he hadn’t done because he’d been afraid.
He’d never stood up to people in his life.
When he was eleven years old he’d stood by on the playground as three older boys pushed his younger brother around. They’re just teasing him, he’d told himself, just playing with him. But the teasing had turned physical: pushing, shoving, hitting, kicking. After it was over, Dawson had been mad at his little brother for provoking the older boys, for putting himself into that situation. But he’d really been mad at himself.
In high school he’d gotten together with a girl, the first real girlfriend he’d ever had. Once, in the hall, he’d been about to go around the corner to her locker, but he heard her yelling at the three boys who were teasing her, telling her they wanted to take her out into the woods on a date. Dawson hadn’t even thought about it, he just turned and walked back the other way. He never told his girlfriend that he’d overheard her being teased, that he’d been just around the corner. And she never told him about the incident. Like many things in his life, he’d just pushed it from his memory.
Maybe part of his lack of courage was that he’d always been small, short and thin, too weak. But that was no excuse because he knew other smaller people, boys and girls, who had no trouble standing up to people, confronting people, speaking their minds, pointing out wrongs and injustices.