Prey for Us

by Geoffrey Neil

  The sound generated by the door triggered the expected screams and writhing from Waylon. Morana tossed her bag inside to the floor closed the door. She reached up and turned off the shock collar that hung from the ceiling, and once again placed her flashlight in the center of the floor to light the space.

  “Looks like you traveled less last night. That’s good,” she said, looking around the unit. She unzipped the duffel bag and changed from her business suit into jeans, a thin blouse, a leather jacket, and boots. After repacking her suit, she zipped the duffel bag, and then went to Waylon, her feet scuffing to a stop beside him. She took hold of the wires protruding from his zipper and pulled them taut.

  He winced, and his face filled with terror.

  She wrapped the wires around her fingers and firmly yanked. Waylon bellowed through the gag with his eyes squeezed shut. The wire ends flew out if his zipper, connected to hair-encrusted duct tape that secured the bare copper ends. He writhed and then knotted himself in the fetal position.

  Morana opened the storage unit door and backed the Explorer partially inside. She opened the rear door and pulled Waylon up to his feet. “In you go.”

  When Waylon resisted, she let go of him and went to the open driver’s door, returning with a stun gun. She held it up and pulled the trigger and showed him the lightning that crackled between the prongs.

  Waylon immediately hopped in his ankle bindings to the open door and sat on the edge.

  Morana blindfolded him, then pushed his legs inside before slamming the door closed. After loading Gus’s cage safely onto the passenger seat, she locked up the unit, and they drove away. As they sped toward Thane’s house, she took a few corners hard enough to slam Waylon into the side of the Explorer’s cargo area.

  As they drove, her phone buzzed with a text message from Clay.

  Bingo… Thane’s taking me to sub-lair to show him wiring options. Will be away from phone...

  Morana pulled to the side of the road and quickly replied:

  On my way w/the cargo. Don’t tell Thane. I want to surprise him.

  She waited, but no reply came from Clay. She pulled back into traffic and accelerated.

  When they arrived at Thane’s place, it was midafternoon. She backed into the driveway. The honeysuckle hanging from the pergola scraped the doors and windows as she neared the garage. She stopped and parked at an angle beside Thane’s truck, in a place that brought the rear door of the Explorer to within a couple of steps of the garage.

  She got out and went to the entry door. It was unlocked. She opened it cautiously and leaned inside. “Hello?… Thane?… Clay?” There was no answer.

  She went to the side of the garage and found a shovel leaning against the wall beside a garden hose. She used it to dig a couple of scoops of dirt from the edge of the lawn, placing the dirt into a plastic bag that she pulled from her jacket pocket. She twisted the bag closed and returned to the driver’s door. She pulled out a cargo bag filled with supplies and slung it over her shoulder, and then opened the Explorer’s rear door.

  Waylon lay inside, motionless, still gagged, and blindfolded.

  Morana pulled a stun gun from the bag and gave him a brief jolt, slamming the door closed. When he finished screaming, she opened it again, and said, “I need you to show enthusiasm for my instructions. Do you understand?”

  Waylon vigorously nodded.

  “I’m removing you from the vehicle. You will stand, and you will hop when and where I tell you to,” Morana said.

  Waylon nodded again.

  She pulled his legs out, guiding his feet to the ground, and helped him stand. She squeezed the back of his collar with one hand while pressing the stun gun into his back with the other, pushing him through the garage entry door where they stopped.

  She called out again. “Thane… Clay?”

  No answer. She checked the key hook just inside the door. The keys were gone, and the nail was raised. She felt a chill when she looked down at the neatly-spread area rug only a couple of steps away on the trap floor, knowing that it was cocked and loaded.

  She pushed Waylon, navigating him around the outside edge of the trap floor until they reached the center of the shop.

  Thane had removed the sheets that obscured his work countertop. A large spool of cable and wire cutting tools sat beside the phone. Pieces of wire sheathing and copper ends were strewn on the floor below it.

  “Not a move,” she said to Waylon as she released his arm. She exited the garage and came back with Gus’s cage, a towel draped over it to keep him calm. She came back to Waylon, set the cage down, and threw back the carpet that concealed the small lift on the corner of the Gateway block. She guided him to the square within the faint seams of the lift.

  With her bag slung over her shoulder, and Gus’s cage in hand, she checked to make sure their feet were within the lift’s boundaries.

  “You’ll feel motion,” she said. “Don’t move and I won’t have to feel my hand-lightning again.”

  She stomped on the corner of the lift twice. Nothing happened. She stomped again, harder. Waylon tensed as the lift descended, swallowing them into the darkness under the floor.

  Morana turned on a flashlight, and each time the lift slowed to a stop at a lower level, she pressed the wall panel the way Thane had taught her on previous trips to the sub-lair.

  Above them, the opening to the lift shaft shrank to a small square. When they eventually reached the opening of the sub-lair elevator chamber, light streamed in, and Morana stepped out into the chamber. She set Gus’s covered cage in the corner of the lift chamber. She came back and pulled Waylon’s arm. He resisted at first, then hopped off the lift. She noticed that the lift remained in place after they stepped from it instead of automatically ascending back to the surface like it had each time with Thane. She looked at the walls, floor, and ceiling of the chamber, still unable to determine how Thane had triggered it. If he was not down here with Clay, she would be trapped here with Waylon until whatever time Thane returned.

  Her concern was short-lived as she heard a voice from another part of the sub-lair.

  “Be still,” she said to Waylon.

  “Mo, is that you?”

  She recognized Clay’s voice.

  “Yes, is Thane with you? I have a couple of gifts for him.” A metal tool clanged on the floor around the corner, followed by footsteps.

  Thane appeared in the entryway to the lift chamber. When he saw Waylon gagged and bound, he smacked the heel of his hand to his forehead and said, “What have you done?”

  “I’ve kept my promise. I told you I would get him.”

  “After all you’ve learned about me, why would you bring him here?”

  “Look,” she pointed to his blindfold. “He can’t see anything. He didn’t see how we got here. He doesn’t know where he is. He can’t speak. You have complete control, and you have another visitor…” She went to the cage and removed the towel that covered it.

  “Gus!” Thane ran to the cage and knelt beside it. He slipped his fingers into through the wires.

  Gus was startled by the commotion and cowered near the back of the cage before skeptically moving forward to sniff Thane’s fingers.

  “Do you want to take him out of the cage?” Morana asked.

  “No, he’s scared. He doesn’t like it down here. I’ll take him up.” Thane stood and glared at Waylon. “I knew he had Gus.”

  Morana said, “The good news is that Gus is back where he belongs.”

  “Thank you,” Thane said. “Did anyone see you enter the garage?”

  “No.”

  “Good… This is very good.” He stepped closer and leaned down to verify that Waylon could not see under the blindfold.

  “He can’t see you,” Morana said.

  “Can he hear me?”

  “Absolutely,” Morana said. She snapped her finger beside his ear. Waylon’s head turned slightly.

  Thane stepped cl
oser to Waylon and said, “We had a deal. I let you go when I didn’t have to. I let you go when you were vulnerable to me. I gave you the gift of freedom that I hoped you would give me. And you pay me back with extortion?”

  Waylon shook his head and hummed something through the gag.

  “It doesn’t matter what you just said. Your words have manipulated and tormented me for the last time. Now, sit.”

  Waylon didn’t move.

  Morana pulled her stun gun from her bag and pulled the trigger. Sparks snapped between the prongs, startling Clay and Thane, and sending a sharp echo crackling throughout the sub-lair. She jabbed the prongs into Waylon’s side, but she didn’t have to pull the trigger. He fell to the ground on his side.

  Clay went to pull Waylon up to a sitting position, but Thane intervened, saying, “Leave him.”

  Morana said, “I need to make a brief visit to your bedroom, and then I need to set something up in the trap floor chamber.”

  “Both doors are open—why?”

  “Trust me. You and Clay just watch Waylon and then bring him to me when I’m ready.” She left them and walked down the corridor to Thane’s open bedroom door.

  Clay and Thane stayed back at the lift chamber. Waylon groaned and struggled, failing to raise himself to a sitting position.

  Thane looked down at him. “After a lifetime of battles, it looks like you finally lost the war. You have bullied me for the last time.”

  Waylon stopped moving.

  Thane went to the waiting lift and stepped on.

  Clay quietly watched him closely, trying to see what Thane could possibly use to trigger it.

  “Now that I have my prey,” Thane said, “I’m going up to the garage to ensure our privacy.” He picked up Gus’s cage. “If Mo finishes whatever she’s doing before I get back, tell her to wait. I won’t be long.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Clay asked.

  “No. You watch him. If he moves, make him sorry.” The lift ascended. Thane disappeared, the rock column that supported the upward lift slid as part of the wall, accelerated.

  †

  At the surface, Thane stepped into the garage and looked around, confirming that the entry door was closed and that no one had breached it. He placed Gus’s cage on the floor beside his work counter. He opened the cage door, expecting Gus to race out. Instead, the cat sauntered out and purred, rubbing against Thane’s leg. Thane gently scratched his head. “It’s all over, Gussie. It’s finally all over.” Gus leaped up onto the counter and then jumped again to the top of the cabinet where he curled up in his bed.

  Thane carefully walked around the trap floor area rug and to the entry door. He opened it and looked outside. Morana’s Explorer was still backed at an angle to within an arm’s length of the door.

  He disabled the trap floor key hook, locked the doorknob and moved the 8-ton block to obstruct the door. He brushed off his hands and stepped back to inspect it and the other stack of blocks in front of the larger roll-up door.

  He checked again, that Gus was safely in his bed atop the cabinet, then returned to the lift. His heart raced as he descended into the sub-lair, now assured of complete privacy and total control over his nemesis.

  When he reached the sub-lair, Clay and Waylon came into view. They sat side by side on the floor facing him.

  “Where is Mo?” Thane asked.

  Clay pointed to the corridor. “She said to bring Waylon to her as soon as you got back.”

  They pulled Waylon to his feet and guided him around the corner and then along the corridor to where Morana waited in the trap floor chamber. She came to the door and said, “It’s time for your trial.”

  Waylon refused to move into the chamber. They forced him.

  Thane closed the door.

  Morana untied Waylon’s blindfold, tossing it to the floor. When he saw what was before him, his eyes widened, and he teetered, hopping a few times in his ankle bindings to catch his balance as he looked around at the way Morana had furnished the room. Several items on the floor were spaced in a wide, arc around a chair.

  “Please have a seat and make yourself comfortable,” Morana said. She held out her hand toward the chair.

  When Waylon didn’t move, Clay pushed his back. Waylon hopped to the chair and sat, wheezing through his nose.

  Thane and Clay stepped away to lean against a wall off to one side.

  Morana went to the first item on the floor—a bucket of mud. Some of the mud had dripped down the outside edge, forming a small puddle around its base. She pulled a couple of small pieces of paper from her pocket, handing one to Thane and one to Clay.

  Thane looked at it and briefly smiled.

  Clay looked confused.

  Morana went to Waylon and held up her piece of paper for him to see. It was a ticket for a Private Mud Dunking Show. The price on the ticket: $1.00. “Sales have been dismal, but the show must go on!” she said, stuffing her ticket into her pocket. She moved to the next item and picked it up. It was a piece of paper with tape on it. The paper read: Kick Me. She held it up for Waylon to see. “You might remember this. I’m sorry we have only one of these signs—Thane simply couldn’t remember how many times you stuck this to his backside. So, he’ll tape this one to your ass, and then he’ll kick until it feels right.”

  Waylon rolled his eyes.

  “That’s okay,” Morana said, wagging her finger at him. “You’ll take it seriously soon enough.”

  She placed the kick me sign back onto the floor and picked up an empty tuna can, its jagged lid raised after having been partially opened. She moved toward Waylon and said, “Amazing… Not a single blemish above your eyebrows. Thane, would you mind?” She motioned to him.

  Thane stepped closer and took off his glasses.

  Morana gently drew her thumb across the scar that ran above Thane’s eyebrow. “The hateful graffiti you left on your victim’s face remains and has gone unpunished—so far.” She slowly walked around Waylon. “Do you feel any shame for abusing Thane?”

  Waylon nodded.

  “Then this is a wonderful day for you. We’re going to remove your need for Thane’s forgiveness. What is about to happen in this room will unburden you. Thane will set you free, and relieve your conscience by removing your debts to him.”

  Waylon mumbled three syllables, his expression becoming earnest.

  “No, no, no!” Morana said. “You don’t need to be sorry. That’s the beautiful thing about evening the score. Repaying a debt eliminates the need for pesky apologies and unsatisfying forgiveness.” She then moved to the next object, a small glass jar, no taller than the tuna can, and filled with cream. She held it up to the light and turned, reading its label. “Here we have the most interesting item of all. Do you know what this is?”

  Waylon, slouched to one side, his face returned to a glare.

  “I’m not feeling your enthusiasm. Do I need to ask Clay to bring me my hand–lightning?”

  Waylon bucked in the chair, shaking his head.

  She twisted the jar’s lid, opening it. “Whew!” She said, coming closer to Waylon. She squatted and held it close to his nose. At first, he looked confused, then recognition registered on his face. He shut his eyes tightly. A few seconds later, Clay and Thane smelled the piercing aroma of menthol as it filled the small chamber.

  “I’m sorry, Sweetheart,” Morana said to Thane. “I know this scent brings back a horrible memory,” she scooped a glob of it with her finger and smeared along Waylon’s upper lip above the gag. “I want this scent to be top-of-mind while your debts are removed.”

  Waylon wrinkled his nose and then sneezed.

  Morana turned to Clay and Thane. “How many victims fantasize about making things right, yet never get the opportunity?” Morana came to Thane and took his hand. “The memories you shared with me are so vivid, and you conveyed all the pain you felt. The pleasure he got from tormenting you has ended. You have a unique opportunity
to make yourself whole. Your power and privacy are absolute in this place.”

  Waylon’s eyes widened as he looked back and forth between Thane and Morana.

  “He’s all yours,” Morana said, nodding her head toward Waylon.

  Thane, said, “I want to be alone with him.”

  “Of course. We’ll wait outside.” She came to him and gently kissed his cheek. In his ear, she whispered, “Don’t let him go this time?”

  “Deals are over,” Thane said, holding an icy stare on Waylon, who began bucking and tugging against his bindings.

  Morana and Clay stepped out into the corridor.

  As Thane closed the chamber door, Waylon fought his bindings hard enough to fall off the chair. The closing door muted Waylon’s muffled pleas.

  †

  A hundred feet above the sub-lair, Uncle Jesse strolled around the unfamiliar Ford Explorer that was backed up at an odd angle to the garage entry door. He peered into the back window and saw some plastic ties, duct tape, and a blanket.

  Three men dressed in white stood a short distance away, watching him. They carried paint buckets, brushes, and rollers with extension poles.

  Uncle Jesse glanced at Thane’s truck, still blocking the roll-up door, and then rubbed his chin, his attention returning to the Explorer.

  He squeezed past the rear bumper to get to the garage entry door. The knob was locked, so he pulled a full keyring from his pocket and tested each key in the doorknob until he had tried all of them. He took a step back and kicked the door.

  The latch broke, and the door flew open about the width of a fist before it slammed against something solid. Dammit! “What in God’s name?” he said, pressing the door open as far as it would go. He cupped his brow to see into the garage through the narrow opening. He reached in and felt behind the door. It was something solid, and heavy, and it had a gritty surface. He took out his phone, reached in, and took a photo. It showed a block of rock or concrete, taller than the entry door positioned inches from the inside knob. Son of a bitch. He kicked the door again.

  The painters watched, one of them smirked.