“The things we must do for the good of the family. You’ll soon understand, lovely one,” she croons just before a hand with a cloth wraps around my mouth, smothering my scream in its noxious fumes, and—
TWENTY
That moment. We know it well. We’ve seen it many times before.
That one moment where, in a movie, we get the point-of-view of the main character coming to in a dimly lit setting, where the images are blurry, and the little bit of sound is an raspy echo of a voice. It’s in that moment when the main character—along with the audience—is then fully awake and alert, and it’s revealed that she’s in a cell of some kind, an abandoned warehouse, a torture chamber in a secret room of the cute suburban home, a bathtub in a grungy hotel bathroom, a garage that’s rigged with lethal booby traps designed by a madman. We know this place.
That moment isn’t entirely accurate. For one, the time it takes to come to after blacking out drags on for much longer. I know the runtime for a movie moment is, obviously, much shorter than “real time.” I’m not an idiot, despite my apparent current predicament might show. At the very least, however, there could be some realism implied by having the scene black out a few times or something to that effect.
Oh, and the pain. How can a film show a character in the worst possible pain throughout her bones, all the way through to the nerves in her gums, the roots of her teeth? We’re given little more onscreen than a wince and a gasp, as if that shows us what enduring pain entails.
In reality, there’s a sharp scrape of pain traveling up my arm then down the side of my body, like someone’s taken a soldering iron and seared me inside by trailing it up and down, singeing my tendons and nerve-endings. I don’t wince and gasp. Instead, I gag and cough up dust and dismay. Dry, sore, wrenching heaves, and it feels like my throat has been smoothed to a slick scar by a piece of sandpaper.
My ears and head feel as if they’ve been stuffed with cotton. I can’t hear anything but what faintly sounds like music playing in water. The song is familiar, but I’m in agony at the moment, just not in the mood to play Name That Tune. It hurts worse behind my eyes, that wretched pulsating pain. This time, I don’t know if it can be rightly attributed to withdrawal symptoms, but I seriously doubt anything out of my current predicament helps matters at all for me. I think it has more to do with what’s happened, however, since my eyes feel itchy and hot as if they had been doused in something. Maybe it’s one of the after-effects of chloroform or whatever agent’s keeping me groggy, I don’t know, but whatever it was, it’s dried out my eyes as much as it has my throat.
It’s only now when I get any sense of what’s happened with my body. I’ve been plopped down on a cracked leather sofa like a ragdoll, and I’m lying on my side, one arm twisted underneath me, the other dangling off the sofa. I manage to untangle myself from the invisible knots that bind. My neck and back loudly crackle-pop when I twist and swivel around, pushing myself into a sitting position, and the burn of it tears through me. Tears cast a watery film over my eyes, threatening to spill. I don’t care when they finally do. The pain shreds me.
Remember that movie moment I was detailing before? What about the setting of it? The grey, metallic angles of a warehouse space; the moldy, slime-coated bathtub in a filthy institutional bathroom; the dusty, cockroach-littered floor of a nice neighbor’s basement torture chamber, and so on…? I’m fully cognizant of my surroundings, and it’s nothing like any of that. Not a movie moment I recognize. Instead, I’ve been planted in the coziest public space of the resort, probably the only space that’s even actually comfortable at all. The resort’s lounge seems decoratively at odds with everything else in the place. Instead of a Western theme, it looks like something out of a noir, where the paneling is made up of dark wood, and the curtains are made of dusky, velvety material. Instead of vinyl booths and wooden tables and chairs, there are deep, plush armchairs, sofas, and loveseats. The sofa I’d been placed upon, however, is the only bit of furniture I see that’s mismatched, like something out of a gentlemen’s club. It’s a grubby Chesterfield, its lumpy, leathery hide having been professionally cleaned and treated maybe a couple of times in its entire existence.
I rub at my sore eyes, scrubbing away fresh tears. They can’t blind me now. The music I’d heard is now clearer, something with a twangy, downhome rhythm from a forgotten era. I thought I recognized the song, but I don’t. Still, the tune’s familiar and weirdly soothing, which ought to unnerve me, but I’ve since grown numb to all of the horrors of the night. It’s kind of nice to hear something calming and warm for a change. Beats all the screaming any day.
When I turn my head a little, my neck smarts, but I catch the murmurs of a conversation coming from somewhere not far behind me. Men’s voices, low and controlled. The music then stops, and I sit very still, waiting for the song to change before I move again. Sure enough, my instincts were right. There’s an old jukebox against the wall near the double doors leading to the lobby. It whirrs and clicks, switching selections, and it sounds like Lena Horne, her unmistakable trill bringing me focus, clarity, and then I hear the rest as well.
“He suffered.” Rex’s normally easy drawl is brittle, echoing from the back of the lounge. “My boy suffered, and your wayward insistence on keepin’ her does not grant me the peace my family so needs. My wife and I. We’re not comin’ back from this, hear?”
Rex’s outburst is answered with silence. Then there’s the squeak of tines scraping on a plate, the clink-scrape-scrape-scrape, pause, clink, scrape, pause. Someone’s eating, cutting into something and scraping from a dish, and then shoveling the food into a hungry maw.
I freeze where I am. I don’t want to move again lest I make a sound, drawing their attention from whatever it is they’re doing back there, so I sit there so perfectly still, glancing around the room, looking for a possible weapon within easy reach. If I can’t sneak out to look for Shay, at the very least, I can defend myself. The odds aren’t great—I’m not dense— but I’d rather have a halfassed fighting chance than none at all. The coffee table in front of me is an old steamer trunk, the edges frayed. There’s a half-empty bottle of bourbon, some expensive make my father used to store, and two empty tumblers that look like they’d been carved from blocks of ice.
Rex’s voice softens, the sound of it causing me to stiffen. “Look, I recognize the moral import of ceremony and ritual, son. We would be hellbound, if we’re not already. These sacraments keep us from becoming savages.”
I want to laugh out loud at that. “…keep us from becoming savages,” but I keep quiet and controlled. I’ve my eye on the bourbon bottle. It’s the only thing within easy access that may be somewhat useful as a weapon.
The scrape-scrape-scrape of the utensil against china stops and the dish loudly clatters against a hard surface, jolting me from my thoughts of fight-then-flight.
“What sacraments are you referring to, Rex?”
His voice sends ice water trickling through my veins, down my spine, and so suddenly, my earlier suspicions are solidified. I need to run.
“What ritual?” says Charlie.
I grab for the bottle and am up and off the sofa, whirling around in a spinning tide. My heart in my throat. My grip, clammy and useless. The bottle slips from my hand and shatters on the tiled floor, sending glass shards and bourbon all over the floor beside the sofa.
Charlie stares directly at me from his perch on a barstool at the opposite end of the bar. He wipes his mouth with a linen napkin, his cold gaze focused only on me as he does. Rex stands beside him, primed to move, but Charlie puts a hand on his arm.
“Relax. She’s not going anywhere,” Charlie says.
I don’t know if I find his ability to adeptly turn from tender-heartedness into coldness admirable or frightening. Judging by his flat expression, I’ll go with the latter. And I knew, somehow, this makes more sense. What doesn’t make sense are the why’s and the what’s. What, for instance—
“What…what about your
fiancée?” I say. My voice comes out as a raspy squeak. Can’t help it. My throat is dry and scratchy, like I’d swallowed a handful of emery boards.
Charlie offers up a wry grin, his face returning to its boyish softness. That mask, that crafted play, is impressive. Then he turns back to his meal, picking up his steak knife and fork and then back to carving and eating a big hunk of something plump and red on his plate. “What about her?” he says around a piece of meat, chewing, swallowing. A rivulet of blood dribbles down from the corner of his mouth. He pays it no mind. He just eats.
“You were there when she was—I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand what?” he says as he carves into the meat again.
“Oh, that reminds me,” says Rex as he rummages around in his pocket. He pulls out the finger with the dark, painted nail, a little ragged around the edges from where he’d been chewing and sucking on it, and plonks it down beside Charlie’s plate.
Charlie barely glances at the thing, choosing to focus on his meal instead. “What exactly do you want me to do with that?” he says around another bite.
“Saved it for ya,” says Rex. “Thought it’d be a mighty fine souvenir of the evenin’. Some of us need to remind ourselves that we’ve fed.”
“Then some of you need to keep eating. This won’t happen again for a while. We won’t get anything this fresh for a long time.”
Rex picks up the finger and waves it at Charlie, as if taunting him. “You don’t want the last bite of her then?”
Charlie answers by sharply smacking Rex’s hand away, sending the finger sailing across the other end of the bar. “Fuck your reminders,” he growls around a piece of gristle and chews, swallows, his empty, glassy gaze honed in on Rex.
Rex then hunts around in his other leg pocket, finds what he’s rummaging around for and slams it down on the counter. “How’s about that reminder, boy?” he says, nodding at the ring. “I don’t need to jog your memory you spent some good goddamned money on that woman and made a heft of empty promises to her.”
Charlie stares down at the ring, continuing to carve, shovel, and chew as he appraises it, seemingly deep in thought.
“Wasn’t wise on your end to propose,” Rex says softly, his tone almost chiding. “One wedding at a time. No getting gluttonous.”
“It’s not your say, old man.”
“It was my boy’s first blood. It most assuredly is my say.”
Charlie swiftly slides off his barstool, clears his throat, once again wipes his mouth and chin with his napkin and faces Rex squarely on, toe-to-toe, head-to-head. “You’d do well if you remembered your place, Rex. This was never about us.”
“I am aware.”
“Are they ready?”
Rex gives me a quick glance before turning back to Charlie. “They are, but she needs to be put in her place for what she did—”
Charlie’s hard stare speaks for him and instantly shuts and locks Rex down. Charlie then makes his way around the bar, wiping his hands with the napkin as he moves towards me. A broad, friendly smile crosses his features, one that would’ve been an invitation before everything.
Before everything.
Before this.
Sorry, Charlie. I’m not fooled.
He sets the napkin onto the bar as he sidles his way over, his smile darkening.
Suddenly, what had been playing in the back of my mind comes on in full Technicolor on a giant screen in front of me. My sister. Jesus Christ. Where was Shay? Another image, a snapshot this time. A little boy, frightened half out of his wits. Bryceson. Where was Bryceson? He’d had Bryceson with him earlier, so he must have—
Charlie reads it all over my face. His expression creases into an exaggerated, sad frown, his lower lip sticking out in a full pout. “Oh, no,” he says, his voice cracking, on the cusp of laughter. “Where is he? Where oh where could that little lamb be?” He breaks, laughs, shakes his head at me.
I look over at Rex, who just shrugs, nonchalant about it. It wasn’t his worry. It wasn’t his problem.
The dish on the bar still holds an uneaten slab of meat. Plump. Wholesome. Red.
“Frogs…” Charlie says as he edges closer to me.
His little hands curling around Charlie’s waist.
“Snails…”
His face buried in Charlie’s torso. Hiding from the horror.
Charlie leans in and says in my ear, “Puppy dogs’ tails.”
I move backwards, stumbling away from him, striking the back of my leg against the trunk as I do.
He grins, and it’s laced with poison. “That’s what little boys are made of.”
I swallow back the acid forming in my mouth, my throat. I can’t speak. My voice refuses me.
Charlie makes a face. “Honestly, it’s nothing like that. That’s disgusting. I find that little boys taste just as ripe and sweet as little girls, as long as they’re scrubbed clean first. Gotta get rid of the mud pies and earthworms ’cause it can all leave such a bad aftertaste. You know how kids are, am I right?” He offers up that smile again, and what had been warm and endearing before now seems entirely off-kilter on him. “He always slices up a kid for me since I’m usually the last one to eat. Freshest stuff around. Kinda nice of him, don’t you think?” He nods over my shoulder at Rex. “Papa Rex, your ears burning over there?”
Rex can’t contain his rage though. He storms towards me, eyes blazing, fists curling, but Charlie sticks an arm out, blocking him from his target. Charlie shoves Rex away just as he seems about to lunge for me, Charlie’s own eyes never leaving mine as he does.
“I won’t remind you again that you don’t get to make that call,” Charlie says over his shoulder to Rex, his voice cold. “Make yourself useful, sir. Just get in there, and see that everything’s set up properly, everyone’s there.” He nods primly at me, his smirk twists and curves. “This part is very important. You are important for what happens next.”
Rex scuttles away, through the swinging doors in the back of the lounge. I hadn’t even noticed them there.
The quiet now, it’s searing.
“What about Shay? Where is she?” I ask Charlie so softly, for it scrapes my throat, my mouth. That dryness.
He smiles, and it weirdly seems genuine in all of its tenderness, like he really hopes something of me.
Something I can’t bear to see, can’t bear to know.
Charlie holds out a hand for me, beckoning. Come. Let me show you. My own are trembling as I clasp his hand. The air has caught in my chest, stuck there, that ball of lead. He leans in close, taps his forehead against my clammy one. His breath reeks of smoked meat and bourbon, of old world secrets and decay.
“I think they’re ready now,” he whispers just before he plants a kiss on my forehead. Benediction.
I then let Charlie lead me along, past the bar where he’s left the remains of boyflesh on the dish. The flies have congregated nearby, humming a tribute, some of them hovering over the sticky surface.
With one push of the door, he ushers me inside where they’re waiting.
#
There’s something not quite right about the room, something staged here like it was always meant to be a showcase, theatrical even. The room itself is dark, dimly lit by a chandelier made up of antlers and what looks like old bones. The space itself is wide and lacking in any sort of furniture. The walls are decorated in animal trophies carefully mounted and on closer inspection, as much that’s possible in such low lighting, seemingly cared for.
The air is heady with burning sage and the meaty sweat emanating from the bodies of the gathered crowd who step aside as Charlie leads me further into the room. So many faces all becoming a blood-smeared blur. Hands reach out to touch my arms, my face, my hair, a fleeting, airy sensation again and again, causing me to shiver. We’re greeted by a barricade of Card family members with Delia at its center. I barely recognize any of them in their filthy dresses and suits, in all their madness, their bloodlust. However, their eyes a
re bright and alert, their smiles exuding an alien warmth, a strange sense of comfort that had been severely lacking until now. And Delia, she seems almost—
Motherly.
Here, in the haze, she’s almost beautiful again. She holds out her arms to me, beckoning me to come to her, to be held, and I do. As soon as she embraces me, I feel her heartbeat deep from within. She smells of warmth and rain, honeyed milk and hay. My heart and mind are becoming quickly undone.
“My dear, my darling one,” she says softly, the tinkle-chime of her voice melting me. “No matter how this ends, know that you’re welcome and wanted. Know that you’re loved.”
I sense movement from the crowd of them, someone hurriedly shoving others aside and then stepping forward into the circle. Delia releases me and holds out a warning hand in the direction of the interloper. I turn to see that it’s Rex, primed to pounce, to rip me apart as I so deserve.
But Delia is having none of it. She shakes her head at her husband. “This was never once about him. You know perfectly well,” she says.
“If you can’t behave yourself, Rex,” Charlie pipes in, “I’ll have one of your own muzzle you and then chain you in a corner like an animal.”
I don’t want to see the look on Rex’s face, so I keep my eyes locked with Delia’s. She strokes my hair, kisses my cheeks one at a time. Then she takes my face in her warm hands, gazing into my eyes as she does.
“Many of us here now, we’ve known. We’ve always known,” she whispers, and I’m hers, committed now.
It’s as if Delia words were meant to signal them, for the crowd splits, revealing the heart of the matter to me against the back wall between two rustic wooden doors. She’s been trussed up on a rack and gagged, her smooth, ivory skin completely free of its bridal bondage.
Her hair, once shiny and groomed, is now a damp tangle of knots and nests. Her eyes are panicked, wild, darting this way and that. They rest on me as I approach her from the gathering. She strains against the tight chains and tries to speak around the gag, but it comes out as grunts and bubbles of spittle.
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