Prey

by L. A. Larkin

  ‘Move!’ Samuel waves the pistol at them.

  Casburn sways, his face contorting with pain. He leans on her. The blood stain on his shirt is spreading. He’s growing weak.

  ‘If you get the chance, run,’ Casburn whispers.

  ‘We’re both getting out of here. Or not at all.’

  Plastic ties bind her wrists at shoulder height to a thick bar on the door of an industrial-sized oven.

  Wolfe has made a terrible mistake. A mistake that will cost them both their lives.

  She’d hoped to give Casburn a chance. To live. Instead, they are both Samuel’s prisoner. Casburn lies on the kitchen floor, face white and slick with sweat, panting heavily from the exertion. Samuel hasn’t cuffed him. It’s obvious he’s too weak to cause trouble.

  Samuel undoes the Velcro straps of his bulletproof vest and pulls it up and over his head, then rubs his ribs.

  ‘Not a bad shot,’ he says, kneeling next to her. His breath stinks of biltong, a dried meat.

  ‘You’re a tricky one. Anything else concealed?’ he asks, patting her down, a hand lingering on her inner thighs.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Casburn says between ragged breaths.

  ‘Shut up, filth. One more noise from you and I’ll cut your tongue out.’

  Samuel touches her breast, his fingers tighten, pinching a nipple through her T-shirt. She fights the inclination to cry out.

  He smiles. ‘Ah. So it is true. You have piercings.’

  Wolfe looks into the coldest pair of eyes she’s ever seen. Like two black marbles. His hand moves to the other breast. She pulls her head back and then thrusts it forward, aiming for his nose. She misses and hits his forehead. Samuel barely flinches. Casburn lunges for the pistol holstered on Samuel’s belt. He’s too slow. Samuel kicks Casburn’s face, hard. The detective’s eyes roll back into unconsciousness.

  ‘Leave him alone!’ Wolfe yells.

  The slap he gives her stings. ‘Shut the fuck up.’

  Making him angry only makes things worse. Wolfe struggles to calm herself. After two or three deep, shaky breaths, she softens her voice. ‘Let him go, Samuel. Please.’

  ‘I told him to behave. Now he has to be punished.’

  Samuel draws his pistol and shoots Casburn in the foot. ‘Now he can’t run.’

  Casburn jerks, his eyes fly open, screaming.

  Samuel drags him towards the kitchen island bench and uses a plastic tie to secure him. Then he rummages in a cupboard under the sink, pulls out a torch. He switches it on and the beam lights up the underside of his chin. ‘Reminds me of when I was a kid, making creepy shadows on the wall,’ he says, swinging the beam playfully from her to Casburn.

  Suddenly Samuel is in her face.

  ‘Open your mouth.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You do as I say, remember?’

  ‘If you let him leave.’

  ‘Nuh-uh.’ He shakes his head. ‘I have plans for him. Open your mouth or I’ll necklace him. Got the tyres just outside. And petrol.’

  A sob escapes her throat and she hates herself for showing fear. She opens her mouth.

  85

  Samuel peers into her mouth as if he were a dentist doing a tooth extraction.

  ‘Ah there it is.’

  Filthy fingers fill her mouth, his fingernails scratch at her tongue. Wolfe gags. She can’t breathe.

  ‘Don’t bite me. He’ll die if you do.’

  Samuel forces her jaw wider. It feels like he’s going to dislocate it. She retches. A tug. She jolts, eyes wide with panic. He’s got hold of her tongue stud.

  ‘I could rip it out, you know. Split your tongue in two. Like a snake.’

  She chokes, mouth full of fingers and saliva, her eyes plead with him. He lets go of the stud and wipes them on his jeans.

  ‘Not yet,’ he says.

  Wolfe coughs. Then spits away the grit and sweaty residue from his fingers. Before she can take a proper breath, a tea towel is shoved between her teeth and tied behind her head.

  ‘As for you,’ Samuel says to Casburn. ‘You can watch. Admire my precision.’

  Samuel leaves the hut, taking the torch. Wolfe tries to speak, shouting through the towel, but it’s just muffled noise. She lifts up her boot and rests it on Casburn’s hip. She nods at it.

  ‘Mhhhhhhhhhh.’

  Inside the boot’s padded tongue is a three-inch blade. She wants Casburn to pull it out and give it to her.

  Casburn shuffles closer, but each movement is clearly agony. He reaches out and touches the toe of her boot. Wolfe gestures upwards with her head. Casburn follows her direction. His hand slides up to the boot’s tongue. She nods enthusiastically. He squeezes the tongue, clearly feels something. Tries digging his fingers underneath. Fails. Undoes the laces.

  Samuel clomps up the outside steps. No time to tie her laces, Casburn tucks them into her boot. Wolfe scrambles back to where she was when Samuel left. Casburn lies on his side, panting.

  A large black duffel bag lands heavily on the kitchen table. Samuel sets the torch up on a chair, the beam on her, then props his phone up against the side of the duffel bag, the screen facing her. Kneeling next to Wolfe, he tugs down the tea towel.

  ‘Say hi,’ he says. ‘Shame you can’t wave. They’d like that.’

  She glances at his phone. He’s opened up a live link. ‘Who’s watching?’

  ‘Artists like me.’

  Artists? Christ! Psychopaths more like.

  ‘How do you know them?’

  ‘Chat room. My chat room. Invitation only.’

  ‘So those photos? The four victims with their noses sliced off. They were shared in your chat room?’

  ‘No, no, not victims. I made them more beautiful in death than they were in life.’

  Samuel opens the bag and takes out what looks like a drill with a long rotating blade. She stifles a scream. She has to find a way to connect with him. Keep him talking. But God knows how to connect with a psychopath who gets off on other people’s pain.

  ‘This is used in knee replacement surgery. Very effective at removing kneecaps, too.’

  He places it carefully on the kitchen table. Next a metal hammer, plyers, forceps, scissors, sutures, then a machete. ‘Good for hacking, but can be inaccurate and messy.’ Next, a scalpel. ‘Excellent at peeling back skin.’

  Wolfe stares at the phone. Who is watching? Are they all as sick as Samuel? He sees her look.

  ‘If you think they’ll help you, you’re wrong.’

  ‘Why cut off the noses, hands and feet? What were you trying to say?’

  He walks over to her, scalpel in hand. ‘I’d have thought you’d have worked that out. A bright girl like you.’ He holds the scalpel up to her face. Wolfe flinches. ‘Look around you.’

  Wolfe peers around the wooden hut.

  ‘Not here,’ says Samuel, irritated. ‘Out there.’

  ‘Poachers.’ Wolfe says after a few seconds. ‘Slicing off noses instead of horn. And the ears are proof of the kill.’

  ‘And the fingers in Pieter’s skull?’

  She wants to scream, You sick fuck! She counts to three. Just keep him talking. ‘His horns,’ she answers. ‘Like a rhino.’

  ‘Top of the class.’

  ‘Why?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s a theme. But I’m bored with it now.’ He runs the scalpel down her neck, pausing over her carotid artery. ‘Tonight, I’m going to explore a new theme.’

  The blade is millimetres away from ending her life. She stares at Casburn. He’s not moving, eyes closed, breathing shallow. He’s lost a lot of blood.

  ‘Dan! Talk to me!’

  ‘Looks like he isn’t going to make it,’ Samuel says. ‘Shame.’

  ‘Please, help him. You have me. He doesn’t need to die.’

  ‘Everyone dies. You will die here, so will he.’

  No! I will not die.

  She racks her brain for a way to distract him. ‘Why those specific people?’ Wolfe asks. ‘Russia, Finlan
d, Oxford. Why travel all over when you could do your work here?’

  ‘Simple. I do the hit, create my art, then make sure the bodies are never found.’

  Keep him talking.

  ‘Why the Russian woman with the unborn baby?’

  Samuel slides the scalpel under the neck of her T-shirt, then jerks the blade outwards, slicing open the T-shirt top to bottom, revealing her bra. Wolfe glances at the phone on the table, with its live feed, people getting a kick out of her terror.

  Well they can’t have it. They won’t see her screaming, begging for mercy.

  Samuel tuts at her. ‘I know what you’re doing. Keep him talking. Blah, blah. Like we’re old buddies. Get me to say things I shouldn’t. Reveal secrets. Then you run.’ He leans close. ‘Only thing is, you can’t run.’

  ‘Humour me.’

  Samuel runs fingertips over her upper arm. ‘So smooth. This is the first piece.’

  He presses the scalpel blade into her skin and begins cutting.

  86

  It’s like a blowtorch to her skin, setting her every nerve on fire. Jaw clenched, fists balled, Wolfe stares at the pattern on a tea towel draped over the back of a chair so as to not give him the satisfaction of screaming. It has South African birds on it, each one named, but the wording is the wrong way up. This gives her something to think about. The blade slices across her arm. Tears escape her eyes. She’s furious with herself.

  Don’t show your pain. Focus on the birds.

  There’s one with a red head and back, and black belly. She deciphers the upside-down lettering. A red bishop. A brown bird with black and white wings and a crazy hair-do like a punk with feathers. Hoopoe bird. She grinds her teeth, trying to imagine the sound it makes. Fish eagle clutching a fish. Huge talons. Magnificent bird of prey. She pants with the exertion and the bright, burning pain.

  ‘Beautiful,’ says Samuel. ‘A perfect crimson smile. Look!’

  Wolfe doesn’t want to see it.

  ‘Look!’ he yells.

  She drags her eyes away from the sanctuary of the birds. He holds up a crescent-shaped piece of skin ten centimetres long. Her skin. Her vision blurs. She can’t help peering down at her arm. Raw and bloody, an open wound a few millimetres deep. She starts to hyperventilate. How much more of this can she take? Birds. Think of the birds, flying free in the sky. Wolfe closes her eyes again. What was that Zulu story she read to Jacob? That’s it: The King of the Birds. How did it go? The animals had appointed their leader. Bhubesi, a mighty lion. But the birds wanted their own leader. The fish eagle, Nkwazi, assumed he would be king. But the kori bustard and the eagle owl challenged him. What were their names?

  Something wet touches the skin beneath the wound. Dear God, he’s licking the blood running down her arm. She does her best to block him out.

  What were the challengers called? Never mind. There was a tiny bird, Southern African warbler, who said he wanted to be king. All the birds laughed at him. So, they set a test to see who would be most worthy: they must fly up into the sky and the bird that flew the highest would be the king.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ Samuel says, his fingers pushing up her lids. ‘Look at me!’

  His mouth is bloody. Her blood. His hand is on his crotch. There’s no mistaking his erection. He’s getting off on her suffering. Her stomach heaves. And again. She can’t stop it, and throws up, turning her head to one side. Samuel leaps back, narrowly avoiding being hit.

  ‘Filthy bitch!’

  He seizes the tea towel, wets it in the sink, wipes her face and the gelatinous vomit on the floor, then chucks it in the bin.

  Her birds are gone.

  Samuel has put the severed patch of her skin on what looks like kitchen greaseproof paper. A long strip of paper. Plenty of space for more pieces of skin. Casburn hasn’t moved, eyes closed as though comatose. Beneath his wounded foot, blood has pooled. There is no point calling to him. He cannot save her. He cannot even save himself.

  Her chin is grabbed. ‘You’re not putting on much of a show.’ Samuel flicks a look at the phone, the live feed running. ‘You’re an interesting one, though, I’ll give you that. I cut you. You don’t scream. I wank off. You puke. What’s that about?’ He scratches at a square patch of scarred skin on his neck.

  Wolfe doesn’t answer.

  As before, she tries to distract herself. She goes back to the story of the contest to be King of the Birds. The three big birds and the tiny warbler flew up into the sky. Whoever flew the highest was the winner.

  ‘Tell me!’ Samuel yells in her face.

  But the warbler was clever. He hid under the fish eagle’s wing and hitched a ride. The owl, then the bustard, gave up and the exhausted eagle thought he had won. But the little warbler came out from under his giant wing and flew higher than the eagle. The bird of prey could not keep going and so the little bird, that everyone had underestimated, won the competition. Can I be that little bird? she thinks.

  ‘You’re used to pain, aren’t you?’ he says. ‘Who did it to you? Father? Brother? Boyfriend?’

  She doesn’t answer.

  Suddenly his eyes widen. ‘Ah, I get it,’ he continues. ‘A self-harmer.’

  ‘Did you cut yourself too?’ Wolfe asks, holding his gaze.

  ‘I knew it,’ he says triumphantly. ‘You’re used to this. Was it razor blades?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she replies. ‘You?’

  If she can connect with him, perhaps he won’t kill her.

  ‘I enjoyed it,’ Samuel says. ‘It felt good. Like I could conquer the world. And you?’

  Wolfe looks away.

  ‘Answer me!’

  ‘I…’ This is taking her to a place she vowed never to return. She looks at him again. ‘Self-loathing. Blamed myself for Dad leaving. Mum said it was my fault.’

  For a split second she thinks she sees something close to sympathy in the softening of his stare. Then his eyes narrow. He looks at the arm he has cut into.

  ‘You fucking liar! No marks.’

  ‘Wrong arm,’ she says. ‘I’m right-handed. So, I cut the left.’

  Samuel steps over her, pulls up the sleeve, peers at the pale underside of her left arm. It’s covered in thin, pale scars, thirty or more.

  ‘I’m not lying,’ she says.

  He strokes her hair, like you would a dog. ‘I see that.’ Then goes to the table and opens a hard plastic suitcase she hasn’t seen before. ‘You know what this means?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It means we’re going to have to try harder. I see that now. Can’t disappoint my audience.’

  She’s failed to bond with her captor.

  Samuel opens the case. Inside are syringes and vials of liquid. She almost wets herself. What horror is he about to inflict on her next? She can’t keep this up. The talking, the pain. Pretending to be brave. Casburn is bleeding out. Dying. This has to stop.

  ‘Hey!’ she says, addressing the voyeurs watching her torture live, looking straight at the phone’s screen, ‘Poaching syndicate! Yes, you. The Metropolitan Police are onto you. All you sickos are going to jail for life. Harold Sackville! Your career’s over. Yury Sukletin! Putin can’t protect you anymore. Terry Blunt, your shipment won’t reach…’

  The smack in the mouth slams her head back into the oven door.

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ Samuel yells.

  Wolfe shouts, louder this time. ‘You kill me, all hell breaks loose. They will hunt you down–’

  He smacks her across the mouth again. ‘I said, shut it!’

  Samuel’s phone rings, terminating the live feed. On the screen is a phone number. She recognises the country dialling code: Zimbabwe. She memorises the number, repeating it over and over in her head.

  87

  Samuel’s phone conversation is brief.

  ‘You think I do this for money…? I don’t give a fuck!’ Samuel yells. The person calling shouts back. Samuel is puce in the face. ‘Okay, okay, no more audience.’

  The phone is shoved into his
jeans’ back pocket. ‘Arsehole!’

  ‘Boss not happy?’ A glimmer of hope. Perhaps he’ll stop torturing her?

  ‘You stupid bitch!’ he screams into her face. ‘Because of you, I’ll have to hurry.’

  Samuel no longer moves with languid ease. There is an efficient urgency about him. Selecting a syringe, he injects her left forearm, forcing whatever it contains into her body.

  ‘That should do it,’ he says.

  It runs cold through her veins. ‘What did you give me?’

  ‘It magnifies pain.’

  God help me.

  ‘You’re afraid,’ he says, guessing her thoughts. ‘Good. You should be.’

  Keep him talking.

  ‘Promise me one thing, Samuel. Whatever you do, make it beautiful.’ He thinks it’s art, for Christ’s sake. Play along. ‘And take photos. If this is the last of me, then make it magnificent.’

  ‘The more pain you feel, the more beautiful you’ll be.’

  Wolfe can’t keep up the façade any longer. She can hardly breathe. Claustrophobic panic. She tugs at her bindings, the plastic ties cut into her wrists. The pain from such a simple movement catches her by surprise. She gasps. The drug is working.

  Samuel watches. ‘It’s time. The stomach, near the pubic bone, is particularly sensitive.’

  The scalpel digs into her flesh just below a hip bone. This pain hits her with the force of a gale, unlike anything she’s ever known before. Her ear-splitting scream even causes Samuel to pause. It no doubt carries out across the campsite.

  ‘At last,’ he says. ‘You make me happy.’

  Wolfe can take pain better than most. But this is unbearable. She pants, eyes clenched. How can I stop him? How? Anything. I’ll do anything. Wolfe forces herself to look at her torturer. His head is a few centimetres from hers, his focus on his scalpel.

  ‘Samuel?’

  He looks up. She kisses his lips. He tastes of sour milk, spicy meat and unbrushed teeth. She forces herself to ignore the stench.

  Samuel pulls his head back. Confused. Shocked. Wary. He withdraws the scalpel. ‘What are you doing?’