by Daniel James
The pit wasn’t the open pen Isaac had been expecting: the design was more like that of a man-sized mouse maze. From somewhere in the network of tunnels, blind turns and dead ends, the grunts grew in volume, echoing off the dull corrugated walls until finally, a tremendous bulk of filth-encrusted flesh and hide-hair waddled into the roving searchlights of the torches. The wild boar was easily seven feet long, an absolute monster.
It wasn’t alone.
On its tail came another, and another, and one more, all nearly as large and lethal as the lead animal. Isaac wasn’t sure who screamed louder, himself, Roach, or Ludlow, their shared outrage and grief forming a wail of discord as the greedy quartet descended on Ludlow, charging their tusks with over 700 pounds of mass and piercing his arms and legs over and over. It was difficult to tell if he was dead before their insatiable appetites reduced him from man to morsel with each scoffing, wet, flesh-tearing, bone-crunching bite.
“This is your big plan? Turn us into pig shit?” Wyndorf grinned facetiously.
Jensen took the gun back and emptied the spent brass cartridge, reloading it in no great hurry. His answer was a chilly hand kneading Isaac’s guts like wet dough. “I have other games in mind for the rest of you.”
It was clear that this wasn’t simply a matter of clinical retribution; this was an obscene and savage scheme concocted by a truly disturbed mind.
“You’re fucking insane.” Isaac tried to break free and was immediately checked by the hot sting of the cattle prod.
Jensen returned the bolt gun to the surgical tray. “Mr. Roach, I have some special guests I’m sure you’ll be quite distressed to see.”
Roach’s stomach felt as though it was being sucked down an oily drain, hollowing him out completely. He already knew who his guests were. Who else would it be to satisfy this sick bastard’s revenge? ‘No …” His voice was a raspy whisper. “If you’ve laid a finger on any of them, I’m going to play with your guts!” Roach exploded, his tied wrists stealing his righteous thunder.
Isaac was breathing heavily from his rocketing pulse, but one of Roach’s words sank in. “Them’? He looked at Roach in confusion. Who else had been dragged into this? His ex, Diane? Who else?
“I haven’t touched them.” Jensen gave him a contemptuous sneer. “I don’t harm innocents to make my bread.” He gesticulated toward Colquitt. “My associates here, on the other hand, are getting paid good money for services rendered. You can take it up with them very shortly. And if it’s any consolation, I had the same plan for Mr. Reid and Mr. Wyndorf, too. But their situations being what they are …” He shrugged apologetically, leaning against the steel gate. “I have been forced to tailor their own bespoke punishments. So don’t take this personally.”
Colquitt snapped his fingers and the two storm trooper pigs manhandled Roach back along the bridge and out of the pen. Roach was thrashing like a netted rhino until a short, sharp shock turned him limp. Isaac tried to fight back, and the voltage bit once more, making him sag against the railing. He watched hopelessly as the friend who was a brother to him in every way bar blood was dragged away, and knew he would do absolutely anything to keep his final link to the world in one piece, no matter what the cost.
Jensen grabbed a handful of Wyndorf’s hair and wrenched his head back violently. “Somebody throw this one in the barn with those other two. I’ll be taking my time with him later.” Jensen released Wyndorf, wiping his hand on his coat. “Now, Isaac, I understand you and Mr. Roach were very good friends.” Jensen pointed at him like he was a bag of luggage to be hauled off, and Colquitt did the honors by straightening him up. “I’d like you personally to watch the entertainment.”
Regretfully, Isaac wasn’t sure what upset him most: being pulled away from Wyndorf or being an imminent spectator to what awaited Roach. “Don’t you go anywhere,” he barked at Wyndorf.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Wyndorf assured. His index finger continued to rub small circles around the healed incision on his thumb. The major’s insurance policy better be worth it.
Show Time
The grass was cold and springy under Roach’s shoes. The dew in the air hinted at the possible coming of a fog he doubted he would get a chance to see. He hadn’t noticed them earlier, but in the distance there were floodlights erected around the ramshackle farmhouse, unlit and cold against the backdrop. With the exception of the crickets and ghostly taunts on the breeze, the death march was quiet. He knew Isaac was being guided along behind him at a distance, and tried to look back, maybe clock what might be the last time he ever saw him, but one of the lackeys shoved him on.
The abandoned farmhouse would have been beautiful back in the day, before it went out of business or succumbed to whichever tragic fate had befallen it. Now it was only impressive in its fall from grace. The stone walls and timber awnings looked like they absorbed frost to keep the wraiths within in good spirits. The large windows had been designed to provide gorgeous views of the open landscape and lots of light; now they were wrapped up in dark and dusty curtains.
Roach was led around to the back, where two old cellar doors lay open and waiting, the stone steps leading down to the musty, bulb-lit bowels of the basement.
Jensen stopped him at the top of the steps, an enigmatic look caught somewhere between regret and fanaticism on his roadmap of scars. “It’s the feeling of being too helpless to protect them that hurts the most.”
It was a vague, unprompted statement, but it made a sinister kind of sense in Roach’s head, and he knew then how far gone the wounded man really was. He was about to demand clarification, no, confirmation of the growing dread suppurating in his mind like a wound, when the duo of pigs prepared him for the trial down below. One trained a gun on him and the other untied his wrists, prompting him to descend into the basement alone. After the first tentative step, he added a bit more haste.
It’s the feeling of being too helpless to protect them that really hurts, came the echo. At the base of the stairs was a scuffed and dinged metal door, cold to the touch. Ripping it open, he found himself in a freezing cold tomb of bare concrete blocks. Huddled together in one corner, face streaked with tears, were Diane and their twin eight-year-olds, Peter and Vicky. Roach’s knees almost buckled, and the fear and anguish on their faces made his breathing hitch. The door slammed shut behind him, locks sliding into place.
“Diane!” He raced for her and the kids, not caring about the pending divorce, about any ill will that existed between them. Right now all he cared about was making sure they were okay. Then what? They practically collided in their tight embrace, then Roach squatted down and kissed Vicky and Peter on the tops of their heads. “Are you guys okay?”
Fresh tears started down Peter’s chubby cheeks. “I’m scared, Dad.”
Roach pulled him and Vicky in closer, trying to be their rock. He had never felt so weak. The sheer frailty on display made him want to dismiss the inchoate guilt he felt for Jensen. Kidnapping his children, his wife, in a slow-cooking retaliation put that bastard on an even footing. He wanted to cut Jensen’s balls off for this.
“What happened?” he asked Diane.
She sniffed back her tears and ran a shaking hand through her blonde hair. “These … men broke into our home a few nights ago. They won’t tell us anything.” She pointed to the camera mounted in the corner of the room, next to a small speaker. “They haven’t hurt us. All we’ve been told is that this is temporary.” A small flicker of her old, wounded trust and anger flashed in her blue eyes. “Is this something to do with”—she went to say any number of despicable things but remembered Peter and Vicky were there—“your work?”
What could he say? There was no point in lying. His silence provided her with an answer. Still she wanted more, needing to know what the hell he had done to have her and her two children snatched from a new home and a new life 240 miles away.
“A past mistake,” he added lamely.
Isaac was forced to stop at the front of the farmhouse, but
he kept his eyes on Roach’s back, watching him round the corner with Jensen and his escort. Colquitt led him up the creaky porch steps, which sounded fit to break, and into the foyer. The cavernous hallway was almost chillier than the night, increased tenfold by the sinking feeling in Isaac’s gut, occupying all interstitial space like frozen water. The interior was very similar to the exterior, so much wasted potential. Hardwood floors, no paintings, ornaments, trinkets or homely possessions of any kind. Just some disquieting doorways branching off from the foyer and an uninviting grand staircase leading up into further darkness. Isaac wondered if Jensen had purchased this property. He tried to imagine him living bare, drifting about in the gloom and the harsh labors of memory and thought.
Colquitt flicked a wall switch. At least there was power. The old wall sconces were coated with who knew how many years’ worth of dust and webbing, adding a dull hue to their glow.
“Where’s Roach going?”
Colquitt led him through the living room, their every step sounding far too loud on the solid boards. “You’re about to find out.”
The only furniture in the room was a fold-out table with a laptop on it. Colquitt showed him the camera feed that was live on the computer’s screen. Roach was hugging Diane and, Isaac was shocked and saddened to see, two little kids. Curtis had kept quiet about exactly how much he had lost during their separation. The omission nicked a small wound in Isaac until he accepted it was he who had wanted the clean break and distance, reducing family to nothing more than former business associates. It didn’t matter now. They were all in the hands of a madman they had unwittingly helped create.
Isaac could barely find his voice. “His family is innocent.”
“So was mine.” Jensen had crept in, quiet as a spider, approaching the laptop and not even deigning to give Isaac a passing glance.
Isaac watched Roach embracing his family on the screen, wishing he was still able to hold Maggie and Will. “This can all end with us, right here and now. This won’t fix anything, Jensen. You don’t want an innocent woman and two children on your conscience.”
Jensen went to speak, but paused as if he had forgotten his words, his fist clenched in thought. He slammed the table top, rocking the image of Roach and his family. “Death isn’t enough. I don’t want to kill him. Not yet. I need him to know how it feels to have his loved ones murdered in front of him. I have spent every day and every night thinking about subjecting each of you to the hell you put me through.”
Isaac’s voice was low and dangerous. “I know exactly how it feels. I just went through it.”
“Yes, you did. But I was robbed of that catharsis. So you can watch this instead.”
“This is beyond vengeance, you know that? It’s insane.” Isaac looked from Jensen’s dead features to the robotic and emotionless expression on Colquitt’s face.
“Don’t look at me. This is just a paycheque,” the mercenary grumbled.
“You want to get even, I get that. I don’t blame you. But don’t let your anger take innocent lives. It won’t fix what’s broken. Look …” Isaac’s eyes reached out to whatever shred of warmth and humanity clung to Jensen’s skin-grafted soul. “I know the hurt. And I know you don’t give a shit about my misery, or need a preacher right now, but since that unforgivable scene at yours, I’ve been trying to stay between the lines. Thinking I could find a little redemption, maybe finally do right by a family I didn’t deserve. Then these last few days passed like a blur, and the only thing that’s got me through is the thought of all the horrible shit I would do to the guy who took my family. It was a nasty little fantasy I needed to push me forward, to keep what was left of my sanity glued together. I needed someone to hate, and blame, and shoulder my rage. And I started to see how it was the only thing I had left to hold on to. I know killing him isn’t going to change anything, won’t undo the harm he’s done to me. Maggie and Will are still in the ground. And what would I have left? With him dead, what would I do without my anger?”
Isaac’s posture relaxed slightly, spent at the unburdening of his dark and hollow passion. “So trust me when I say I understand exactly what you’re feeling. And it’s no consolation, but know that Roach and I did try to stop that psycho from doing what he did that night. So if you need to see your anger through, and need to get even, all I’m asking is please don’t punish his family for a mistake we made. Don’t let Wyndorf make you into what he is.”
Silence smothered them for a moment.
“Do I look like I can be saved?” Jensen said with hopeless finality.
In those words Isaac heard shallow-grave dirt being padded down with shovels, or more likely, the grunt of belly-distended pigs satisfied. It was dumb and reactionary, yet Isaac was operating on panic and instinct. Forgetting that his hands were bound behind his back, he charged at Jensen. Colquitt was a spring-loaded trap, slamming his fist into Isaac’s solar plexus, collapsing him into a wheezing, nauseous heap. Jensen paid him no mind, switching on the small microphone for the wall speaker in Roach’s prison. Jensen gave Colquitt a nod.
Colquitt removed a walkie-talkie from his belt. “Game time.”
The tinny speaker in the corner of the cinder-block cell squawked like nails on a chalkboard then settled into a snake’s hiss. “Curtis Roach. I am giving you the same fighting chance I was given. For your family’s sake, make it count.” The speaker went dead and there was a sound of deadbolts scraping back from the door.
“What’s he talking about? Who is this?” Diane demanded, hysteria rising to a sharp pitch.
Roach crowded Diane, Vicky and Peter into the corner, shielding them from what was coming in. Three of them entered. Still in suits, still in pig masks. Two appeared to be unarmed but the third carried a butcher knife. Diane and the kids were wide-eyed and on the verge of full-blown panic attacks, and Roach was right behind them. The coursing adrenaline didn’t whitewash the fact that he was essentially one-handed, unarmed and outnumbered. He didn’t trust his aching right fist not to shatter on the first blow. On the balls of his feet, left fist clenched and severely inadequate in this situation, his blood ran high with stress.
“Get the fuck back!” he roared, taking the smallest of steps toward the silent, patient killers, too scared to leave his family unguarded.
The trio fanned out, intending to overwhelm him. Doubt and terror were proving too much for his challenging bravado. They were all going to die. He was going to fail them. Diane, Peter, Vicky, they were all going to die bleeding out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by agents of a harsh karma. The guard to Roach’s right was shuffling closer, hands up defensively, weary of him but moving like he was enjoying himself. Roach was almost paralysed by fear at the thought of stepping toward him in case one of the others got around him, that knife meeting the soft flesh of a loved one. But he couldn’t stand there and do nothing. He stepped forward half a foot and snapped out a stiff jab toward the jaw of the guy on his right. Being an ex-soldier, or whoever the hell he was, the attacker bobbed his head backward, so that Roach’s knuckles missed his chin. The middle guy with the knife had paused in his advance, allowing the others to close the gap in a pincer movement. Roach stomped out at the left-hand guy, his sole coming up short and merely brushing dry mud across his suit jacket. Behind him he could hear Vicky stifling tears, scared by the shouting, cursing and brewing violence.
The unscrupulous animal on the right suddenly rushed in, popping out a quick jab of his own which caught Roach on the cheek. It rattled him, his wild eyes flitting back and forth between both flanking attackers like a pendulum, but his head cleared quickly, just in time to catch sight of the left guy, the largest of the swine passel, making an attempt. The pig stepped in with a left hook which Roach managed to duck under. Coming up out of his roll, Roach grabbed the puncher’s tie with his left hand and slammed his right palm heel into the rotting ichor-tinged snout of the mask. Without letting go, he used the tie to drag the pig in closer, smashing him again and again, wanting to use him a
s a possible shield against the attacker on his right and, most importantly, the watching knifeman. A quick blur of movement and a shrill cry of ‘Dad!” allowed Roach to haul the semi-conscious punching bag by the tie and lapel into the swift and eager right-hand attacker, slamming both their bodies together against the wall in an exclamation of groans.
“Curt!” Diane screamed. The knifeman was quick, darting forward and opening a burning slice along Roach’s ribs.
Gasping in shock, Roach pulled away from the blade, blood running freely through his right fingers and palm. He thrust his left hand out, fingers closed, to ward off the blade. One of the downed attackers reached up and seized Roach’s right leg, pinning it in place and clobbering him in the stomach. With the breath racing out of his lungs, Roach managed a blind swing, hitting the kneeling guard somewhere along the side of his rubberised skull. It wasn’t a satisfying shot, though; it barely clipped him. With an unbearable sinking feeling, Roach felt his knees and thighs burning with the strain of opposing the two punch-drunk lackeys latched onto his legs, beating him until he was finally pulled down to the floor. Through the torrential rain of fists and snarls, Roach screamed out as Diane, Peter and Vicky huddled together helplessly with the knifeman slowly bearing down on them, the 14-inch carbon steel blade mirroring the sterile electric light. Roach was pulled to his knees, his arms pinned behind him at sharp angles, almost to breaking point. He hocked up a thick coating of rusty sinus blood and let it fly, spattering the shoe of the big one holding his right arm.