by Grant Hunter
‘You’ve failed at level two. It is just as well that I like you so much.’
The little bit of light that came into this claustrophobic room, came from a small spot on the wall, that blinked as Gabe’s voice spoke from the intercom. I wondered how he could see me so well. Was it infrared? Why was this building equipped with such expensive gadgets?
‘You don’t really look like you’re grateful, babe. The ones before you, all died at level two. But where is the fun in that? It’s easy to die, so I expected more from you tomorrow.’
Tears sprang into my eyes. But this time it wasn’t because of the pain or fear. It was rage. I knew he would torture me to death, and if my body appeared to give up too quickly, he would stretch out my misery. He would wrap me up with bandages, speaking to me with sweet words, until I became strong again.
He was in control, looking at me day and night, deciding when it was over. Unless... unless, I could kill him first. I thought. Yes! That was it. That was the answer. My pain disappeared and my body relaxed. It was as if my senses had a new focus, a new purpose. I had to do it, yes, I would kill him! My mind seemed clearer. With my finger I ran my hands over the dress. I could smell his sweat on it. I thought that I had heard something in his voice, something I hadn’t heard before. Doubt and weakness? But I had to know for sure.
‘Thank you, Gabriel. I like the dress…’ and I looked above me, at the camera, while I touched my breasts.
‘Yeah. Good girl. That’s why I like you, Naomi.’
There it was! The intonation, the emphasis, the small emphasis at the end of the word like, as if it was a question. I heard uncertainty, and then an unprecedented fire flared in me.
‘I’m so hot, Gabe,’ I said.
‘Go on…’
‘You like to watch, don’t you big boy.’
He breathed heavily. ‘Yeah…’‘But I’m so hungry, Gabe. Will you bring me some food?’
‘If you spread your legs…’
‘Why don’t you make me do it? and teach me a lesson?’
‘You want me to teach you a lesson?’
I turned my back to the camera and pulled up the dress. ‘Look my pussy is all wet. Why don’t you come over to see for yourself?’
‘Yeah, I’ll fucking teach you!’
Then there was silence and a click. He was gone and I could hardly suppress a smile. My plan could work! I knew his weakness. I turned on my back and saved my energy, for what was to come.
It happened exactly as I had expected. The door opened and Gabe thrust his head around the corner. I smiled at him when I saw that he held something: a tray with something covered with aluminium foil. Slowly he shuffled over to me, sat down on the edge of the mattress and looked at me with almost a caring expression.
‘You brought me food?’ I asked softly.
He nodded, put the tray on the floor, next to the matrass, grabbed my arm and looked at the bandage inquiringly.
‘Looks good,’ he said.
‘That’s not why you are here.’
‘No.’
I leaned forward, threw my arms around him and pulled him to me. ‘Teach me, Gabe. I’m a bad girl!’ When his right hand slid inside my panties I gently pushed him back.
‘Yeah. You like that?’ I whispered and I pulled him so hard that he fell on top of me. I saw the astonishment in his eyes when I opened up my legs and wrapped them around him. I bit him hard on his ear. He squeaked and grumbled something unintelligible. I shoved my hands towards his trousers, but before I could go further, he grabbed my hands and looked at me vacantly. Only now I saw the emptiness in his eyes. A dead, staring gaze. Soulless. I shuddered. No, I was not going to give up now. Certainly not now. I had to touch him emotionally.
‘Sorry, I forgot.’ I laughed out loud. ‘You don’t really like it rough, eh? It only works the other way around, doesn’t it. So shall I give you a blow job?’
‘I know what you are doing. Bitch.’ He jumped up and stormed out the door.
‘Fine!’ I screamed at the camera. An adrenaline rush leapt into my heart and filled me with the power I needed to throw the tray at the camera. I forgot everything: The hunger, the pain, the cold. There was only hatred. I stared at the tray that lay in pieces on the ground, next to the fragmented camera. Now he couldn’t spy on me. Slowly I stood up and picked up a sliver of plastic off the floor.
‘What have you done?’ I heard him screaming furiously through the intercom. ‘Damn it. You broke the camera.’
This was my chance. I gripped the fragment in my hands. It was him or me – him or me, I repeated continuously in my head. You have to do it, Naomi. You have to get out of here alive!
Slowly I crept forward. On my bare feet, holding the piece of plastic in my hand. I held my breath when I opened the door with a click. I put my head through the doorway, and I could see the floor downstairs, between the metal railings. This part of the factory was completely strange to me; it seemed like a different building. I sniffed the appalling smell that hung there, from putrefaction. Sickish and rancid at the same time. An odour of flesh, of death. My gaze fell on steel fences and hooks on the ceiling. This used to be an slaughterhouse, now abandoned, with the assembly line of hooks on a rail as a silent witness to the horror that had once happened here. In the corners I saw lights blinking. Little red lights.
‘Fucking cameras!’ I whispered. With the piece of plastic in front of me, I walked down the hallway, looking for a way to escape. The space below was huge. In the darkness I noticed something coming from a door in the distance. A faint light came from the room I had left. It threw my long shadow over the concrete floor. At the end of the corridor, a spiral iron staircase ran down.
‘Back on your feet, I see. Faster than expected. Welcome to the next level,’ I heard from the intercom.
Then there was a loud boom, which made me jump. My eardrums were throbbing. I looked up, at the concrete wall covered with pipes. My attention was attracted to the industrial ventilation shaft that ran far above my head. On the other side, there was a narrow fire escape leading towards the shaft. Could I escape that way? I thought.
‘Yes, I think so.’ My voice sounded calm, as I spoke aloud.
‘But what if he has left a trap again?’
‘We just have to try it.’
Just when I wanted to turn, I heard something strange, even above the loud booms. It was the growl that I had heard before. Damn! He released those shit wolves again!
At that exact moment, I saw them tearing up the stairs. For a second I wondered if I wouldn’t be better to shut myself up in the little room I had escaped from. Then I decided to run towards the fire escape, right above me, but when I pulled myself up, it was too late. It happened so fast that I didn’t immediately realise what happened. A razor-sharp pain shot through my calf and a weight dragged on me. I grabbed the steps and had to use all my strength not to let go. My hands sweated, I lost my grip and fell down. I saw a huge muzzle and in a reflex I stabbed the piece of plastic in the wolf. Squeaking and whining the beast backed off.
A second one jumped on me. He opened his jaws, but instead of biting me, he bit the injured wolf, which let out a hellish howl. They fought. The one-eyed wolf came at me and I jumped up and held on to the stairs tightly. With the little bit of strength that I had left, I pulled myself up. Something warm and wet flowed over my right foot. With difficulty I managed to ignore the stinging pain in my right calf.
I was halfway the fire escape before I finally dared to look down, towards the whining and growling.
‘Cleverly done, Naomi,’ echoed the words through the intercom. ‘But I forbid you to go any further. Do you hear me?’
I ignored the threat and banged against the grid above me. I opened the ventilation shaft and wriggled myself into it. Finally I got myself inside, safe and sound, and for a long minute I took a break, before I carried on.
33
I could smell grass. Not the summer, hay-like grass; It was wet, swamp-like. My feet sank a
way in the mud, and with the next step, I couldn’t move any further. A loud sound made me shake. It sounded like a siren. The next moment everything became dark. I wanted to run. My foot didn’t move, and I stumbled over, on something hard, something creaky. The siren kept going.
‘Stop!’ I screamed, covering my ears with my hands.
I tried to feel what it was, but at the same moment the darkness disappeared, an now I saw the mountain of skulls and bones, I fell on.
For a minute I didn’t understand where I was. My injured leg remembered me of the horrible reality.
‘Quiet, Naomi. No worries, no worries.’
I rocked back and forth.
‘Come on, you are going to survive.’
I gently touched my calf, where the bite marks still were visible. The blood was almost dried up.
‘You were sleeping for a while. See? Nothing to be worried about. They can’t find you here.’ Slowly I turned my body, ignoring the painful pressure in my shoulder, and pushed up the grid behind me a bit.
‘See? You don’t need to be afraid. There are no wolves.’ There was only a dark trace. Most probably from blood.
The shining daylight, made me believe it was late in the afternoon. I turned my head towards the small room, further ahead. I immediately realised that there was no light coming from it. Had Gabe been in it? He saw me running escaping to the ventilation shaft. Why did he not chase me?
Gabe knows where I am, the thought haunted me and I started to crawl on my hands and knees through the ventilation shaft as quickly as possible. Between spider webs and mouse droppings. I passed another grid, opened it a bit and saw that I was above my room. It looked untouched, except for the light that had been turned off now.
‘I must go faster. No stopping anymore.’ I crawled further to the next grid. I peeked, curiously through the tiny holes. It was another dimly lit room. A dirty mattress was lying on the floor and there was a pile of paper on a small table. A red light blinked in the corner.
‘Cameras. Those damn cameras are everywhere.’
At the moment I said it, I suddenly realised that he wanted me to see this room. That I should have a look at the papers on the table. The mattress was placed exactly underneath the grid.
‘I will not do it, bastard,’ I said and I crawled further, across the grid, but when I moved my weight I realised too late that it was loose. The grid fell down, and I crashed on to the mattress. Immediately, the light turned. Seconds passed, but nothing happened. There was no sound. Only my heavy breathing.
I stood up from the mattress, slowly. Only now I saw the disgusting pictures on the walls.
‘Oh God...’
I felt acid coming up and swallowed a few times to keep everything down. When I looked at the pictures better, I held my hands over my mouth. There was blood on all of them. Full of amputated arms and mutilated faces. Empty-eyes. Hair with blood that was stuck to skulls. On one of the pictures I clearly recognized Sharon. She was lying down in a different place than the others. Naked, with intestines bulging over a bloody sheet. Flashes of memory of that night came back to me. It was as if I could smell that strange iron scent. I coughed, turned away from the photo and vomited out yellow water next to my bare feet.
‘Quiet, Naomi!’ I calmed myself. ‘Take deep breaths.’
I turned and walked to the table and threw a quick look at it to make sure that there were no more disgusting pictures. There were newspapers. Unfolded, showing screaming faces with exclamation marks: Murder! There were strips in between. With shaky hands I took one out.
‘Justin...’ I whispered speechless when I looked at the comic and saw my name. ‘H-How is this possible? He was right…’ I flipped through the pages to the beginning and read in the heading the name of the publisher;
Net X
Then my attention was drawn to a newspaper that looked newer than the rest. I pulled it out of the pile and read the headline:
Naomi Quinns missing: Fears as Dutch student disappears.
‘The date... This can’t be right.’ Furiously I gathered the papers together, and tore them into pieces.
‘Don’t do that,’ Gabe said through the intercom, directly followed by a click.
‘Shit, he’s coming!’ I had to do something and fast. I grabbed the small table, tilted it and wriggled one of the legs loose. The nails stayed in half way, exactly as I hoped. I squeezed myself against the wall next to the door.
Sounds of footsteps coming closer. I gasped for air, just before it happened.
‘Just do it, Naomi! Do anything to escape from this psychopath.’
The door opened slowly. Everything around me stopped, as if time itself had stopped. Gabe took a step over the threshold. I tensed all my muscles, swung the wooden table leg backwards and hit him. Gabe moaned and fell down. I ran around him, slammed the door closed and put the latch on it so the door was locked from the outside. With the wooden leg still held tight, I walked down the iron stairs, step by step. Behind me I heard Gabe banging on the door, and shouting that this was not the plan and that I didn’t know what I was doing.
All my senses seemed sharpened. After every step I made, I stopped a moment, turned my head with each sound. Did I hear the wolves? I had to hold the iron stair handrail in order not to fall. My knees seemed to be locked and only at the last step I dared to let go of the handrail. Far above my head, in the ventilation shaft, I heard a rumbling sound.
‘Shit!’ I screamed, and right away I started to run. I had to get away, before Gabe crawled out of the ventilation system and caught me. I didn’t feel the pain in my calf anymore and my legs carried me with ease.
‘I’ll get you, bitch!’
His voice sounded from above, and in a reflex I turned around. Gabe came off the stairs. I turned to the right, and ran in a factory hallway. This one was different from the previous one, where I first was tied up. Gabe had moved me to another factory, after the attack with the wolves.
Maybe to confuse me? I thought while running. This space was much larger, it had iron crush barriers everywhere. It reminded me of an abandoned slaughterhouse. The hooks hung like clothes hangers on a railing, patiently waiting.
My feet ran over metal grids, which had drained away the blood of the slaughtered animals, and suddenly my eye fell on a narrow passageway, which ran down. I ran over there and ended up in an underground space, where the stench of death still hung. An iron-like smell, mixed with sulphur. I gagged and tried to orientate myself. I looked above me, and saw the grids that I had passed before. Then a shadow above my head moved, creeping like a panther. Then the figure turned around and ran the other way.
On my toes I creeped through the underground part. A long iron workbench was attached to the wall, with large sinks in it. The concrete floor was covered with blood stains, the spots were mainly around to the huge tanks that stood there. I looked at everything, searching, hoping that there was a butcher knife or something like that, but I couldn’t find anything. On my right I passed a big door, which I opened curiously. It was a huge cooling room. A hint of fungus, rot and excrement made me gasp. I turned my head away and took a gulp of fresh air before I had a new look into the seemingly empty cooling compartment. Thanks to the little light that was inside, I could see that the space went further back than I had estimated. At the back I distinguished a new door. Above, on the ceiling, hooks were attached to something like a train track. I bit my lip and stepped into the space. The door behind me closed with a click.
‘Shit!’ I whispered. As much as I pushed, the door stayed shut. Bright lights jumped on and immediately I noticed the power lights of cameras lit up.
‘Congratulations and welcome to the next level!’
He sounded like a quiz master who was going to make an announcement. The door in the back flew open and someone came inside, dressed bizarrely. He was wearing a black balaclava over his face, a white apron over his black garments and held a butcher knife and an iron rod.
‘Oh God! No...’ My knees
trembled when he drew the huge knife over the rod so that sparks splashed off.
‘Please Gabriel, please, Let me go.’
The figure threw his head backwards and began to laugh. I didn’t recognize the laughter. He sounded much deeper than before. This couldn’t be Gabriel.
‘Stop. Please. I have money. Lots of money,’ I wailed. ‘My parents will pay you anything, everything you want. Please...’
The sharpening did not stop and as he further stepped forward, I got myself ready for a fight between life and death.
‘Hell no. I’m not yet ready to die!’ I whispered to myself.
When the figure was close enough, I jumped aside, and in a reflex he snatched at his balaclava. He swung with the knife and it touched my arm. I bit my lip to hold the cry of pain inside. He stopped for a minute, tried to put his mask back straight. That’s when I jumped up, grabbed a hook from the ceiling, and ran forward, while he was still grabbing for the mask. With all my strength I planted the hook in his body.
His eyes almost fell out of his head when he took the hat off and looked in horror at his belly, where the sharp hook had stuck in, right through the now red apron.
‘You see, it’s a stranger, Naomi. Finish it now!’
He dropped everything out of his hands and grabbed the hook. I jumped up again, to the iron chain to which the hook was attached, and pulled with my full weight on the chain attached to the pulley. It dragged the man a little bit off the ground. The sound that came out of my enemy was not human. He swung wildly back and forth. I closed my eyes, counted the seconds, and held on tight to the chain, so that the man stayed there.
Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen… And at forty, when I really couldn’t hold on any more, he chain slipped through my fingers. Losing balance I bounced backwards. From my side I saw the knife lying next to me.
‘This is it! This is your chance, Naomi.’ I grabbed it, jumped up and ran to the door which the man had previously came through. One more time I looked behind me. The man was lying dead silent on the ground.