“No, now. We need to see her.”
“Go away.”
“Nathan, we have so little time or lose the chance.”
“We have to see her,” Nathan said to the door.
No one answered.
Nathan turned the knob, then squeezed his shoulder against the door. “Please Gus, together we can get in.” He motioned for Gus to put his shoulder with his against the door and push. Gus did and copied Nathan ramming his shoulder at the door.
“What the hell you doing!” Joseph called.
“Release her. Release her now. You’ll get your money.”
“I’m callin’ the hotel!”
“Open. Open up.”
Battering the door in unison, the worn plates gave, and Gus and Nathan nearly tumbled onto the floor.
“Git-out! Git outta here! I’m callin’ the hotel!” Joseph screamed.
Behind him on the narrow balcony stood his father facing the sky arms spread. He chanted, prayed, or communed with his god incomprehensibly, Nathan and Gus catching only single words, “fornication, evil, whore, demon, the innocents, temptation.”
“Git!” Joseph said, pushing the intruders from approaching the bed, the bed where his brother Josiah fornicated behind Leeda.
“Pa! Pa!” Joseph called.
“Sodomy, Satin, sinners, repentance,” Macon kept on, Josiah as well, inserted from the rear, Leeda on her knees while he bent on one, his other pushing off the floor.
“Pa! Josiah!”
Neither heard—in rapture the father, enraptured the son.
Gus and Nathan moved around the smaller Early but he pushed and swung at them, keeping them away. “Git! Git!” he shouted, his brother behind thrusting into Leeda—whose head, broken at the neck, Nathan and Gus saw smashed like a melon, brains splattered, an ornate chair leg buried in her skull. “Pa! Pa!”
Macon turned from the balcony and came hurling into the room. “Revelation! Revelation!” His arms swung like rotors. “Damnation! Damnation!” His wild eyes focused on a wilderness beyond that no one occupied but him. Josiah continued entranced. Joseph beat the intruders with his fists. Their father, in possession of demons or saints, swung blindly at whatever was before him, and forced Nathan and Gus back out the door.
“Out now! Out!” Joseph called. “Git an’ don’t come back, demons, sinners, messengers of Satin!”
“Satin!” Macon howled.
“Nathan, we can’t do anything here,” Gus said desperately.
“Did you see her!”
“She’s gone. We have minutes left.”
“Gus what kind of creatures!”
“Terrible ones they are.”
“No! We! What creatures we!”
“Git now!” an emboldened Joseph called, standing guard at the door, his father starting to calm. “That’s right, git, or git a fist full a medicine. Git and keep goin’.”
“We can’t do anything here, Nathan,” Gus repeated, nudging Nathan away and along the hall. “She’d want us to go. To not lose The Book. Come Nathan. Come,” Gus repeated to Nathan’s resisting body and conscience, but which fitfully yielded, despairing and ashamed.
“That’s right you boys, if you know what’s good fer-yas,” Joseph blared. “And you best come back with the gold, or you’re both next.”
When the elevator doors opened, Nathan leaned against the wall. Before he could turn to go in, a figure darted out. The tempest looked at him inquiringly, then at Gus, back at his employer. A stiletto slid down from Antoine’s coat sleeve. He held his employer’s tortured expression, looking for a signal. It did not come. “Don’t make me come at ya,” Joseph threatened from the door. Again, Antoine looked for an order. Nathan lifted his head. Antoine saw the moist eyes. “Come Nathan,” Gus said, and as Nathan sadly turned, Gus said, “They are evil,” to Nathan, and Antoine took it as sufficient warrant to deal with the men he’d already identified as depravity warranting alteration. Nathan and Gus entered the elevator, and Antoine dashed toward Joseph. Joseph moved to slam the door, but the assailant slammed it instead in his face, sending Joseph to the floor.
In a second on seeing the corpse and the Early behind her, his wrist flicked, and the scar across Josiah’s throat flushed for a heartbeat before blood gushed out of it and he fell onto his pleasure. “He killed Josiah! Pa! He killed Josiah!” Joseph screamed, scampering to grab Antoine’s leg.
“Killer!” Macon screamed. “Vilest of vile! Pernicious of hell! Die! Death to you!”
About to stab Joseph to shake him from his leg, Macon grabbed Antoine’s arm and lifted his knife-holding arm high with both hands. Antoine punched Macon’s ribs but Joseph seized his arm and bit it. His legs curled around Antoine’s as the three men staggered to the open wall-high window with the wrought iron railing. “I am thy servant, Lord. I smite the retched and evil enemies of Thine Word!”
Macon bit into Antoine’s nose, and Joseph beat at his torso while fastening his teeth into his thighs. “Protector from evil! Servant of The Lord am I! They struggled on the window balcony, the railing’s old iron screws giving. “Holy seraphim, I submit to thee! The Lord is my savior!”
With Macon’s back leaning over the rail, Antoine forced against him and Joseph clutching Antoine’s legs, the railing holds snapped. Holding each other, the cluster fell into the void, Macon’s arm still swinging at Antoine’s back, his receding voice still yelling unrecognizable damnations that ended with a thud against the black ground.
Nathan and Gus sat in the backseat of a cab speeding through Minsk. “Leeda, Gus, what they did to her.” Nathan said grief stricken. “We have to get her body.”
“Of course if we can, dear boy. Now we have only minutes before we’re shut out by Hain. He said something about registering. Let’s and then see about Leeda. She’d want us to continue now. Not give up.”
“The picture of her there . . . Gus . . .”
“Erase it from your mind. Leeda is gone, dear boy. Gone. You, I must continue.”
The cab pulled into a flattened urban wasteland. It may have been a factory or utility works. Except for a single dilapidated conical structure, the area contained only debris of structures once existent there: scattered crumbling masonry, pipes, cracked asphalt grown over by patches of grass.
Welcome to the old city waterworks read the message from Hain that arrived on Gus’ device as the taxi that dropped them off departed. Continue inside. Remain until the end or fail the test. Enjoy the experience, friends. And remember, pain is gain.
They entered the place.
Watching them from the edge of the grounds, Joseph Henry remained in his kin’s rented car. Having waited outside the hotel, he’d followed them just as his pa had told him to do if he saw any of them leave. Pa was sure smart alright.
Inside the conical edifice, Gus and Nathan looked above into the inside of the giant cone surrounding them, and saw that the cement superstructure served no working purpose. The massive cone served only as a marker for the place. In fact, it was built by mistake during Soviet days due to faulty spelling in a cable to the architect. It said to make the outer structure a giant “cone,” instead of dome. Afraid to question the instructions, the architect did just that.
Gus and Nathan followed a winding stairway down several stories. An open door at the bottom of the abandoned place led them into a dark, dank tunnel. Ahead, several light bulbs shone, and they proceeded along a narrow ledge under a curved wall and beside a channel that fell off about ten feet. The channel, like the walls and walk, reflected dirty wet residue, and along the channel’s center ran a rivulet.
When they reached the strung light bulbs, a young man holding a clipboard greeted them in Russian. “English?” he then said, on seeing they did not understand. “Names.” They gave them, and he checked them on his sheet. “You understand,” he said with heavy accent, “you have volunteered. You may leave now, or once you begin. Correct?”
“Yes,” they replied.
“If you leave befor
e completing the session however, you will not be paid. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“A medical person will visit two times each day. It is then when you may ask to be let go. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“We cannot guarantee your total safety. Again, to leave before time, is to leave without pay. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Sign.”
They signed next to their names on the sheet also containing other names and signatures.
“This way to your places. Others have already arrived. Each is alone and in private.”
A second man arrived, took his place, and watched other forms enter the tunnel where Nathan and Gus had come in.
The first attendant lit a flashlight and led Gus and Nathan along a concrete hallway off the main tunnel. They passed numerous heavy steel doors and their guide stopped at one. He opened it and told Gus to enter. As Nathan waited, he saw Gus, his back against the wall of the small chamber, shackled to handcuffs bolted in the facing wall. A highstool stood against the wall between the two bolts, an empty plastic bucket on the floor. As the attendant pulled on the cuffs to check that they held, Nathan saw deep apprehension hinting of fear form on Gus’ paled face. Yet, before the door closed on his friend, he saw Gus lift his chin and signal assurance.
“What is this place?” Nathan asked the man, as he opened the door next to Gus’ chamber.
“Instrument rooms, of when the waterworks was functional. The doors must be watertight in case the level rose too far. They’re not anymore, but are still quite solid. You will not be heard. Enter please.”
Nathan positioned himself as Gus had, and the attendant closed the cuffs loosely around his wrists, allowing the arms to pass through to the biceps. “Not tight enough?” the attendant grinned. “I expect you like them tighter.” He pointed to the bucket, “For your needs. Oh, I hear guests arriving. It will not be long before you have a visitor. Enjoy yourself.”
The door closed, the space turned black. Nathan felt pressure build in his arteries and then a terrible thought flash, but no, Hain might want them dead but wouldn’t murder them; he wanted too much for someone to make it to his place.
Before he could think through Hain’s logic, the door opened. A beam of light crossed his eyes and passed up and down his standing body, as if examining him. The light was strapped to the head of the person shutting the door behind. He said something in Russian. Nathan shook his head, “Ya ne govoryu po-russki.”
“English?”
“Yes.”
“American . . . ,” the man smiled.
“Yes.”
“Good, oh good. I like Americans.”
The man’s hands passed along Nathan’s shoulders, down his breast, and undid his shirt buttons. “Here you, you take lantern. I like you watch me,” the man said, removing the coalminer like lantern strapped around his head, and setting the band around Nathan’s head so the light pointed at him. “You look me. Look my face. Yes . . . So beautiful I am. And you too. You are pretty too. You fell good now.”
The man’s moistening lips drew close to Nathan’s breast. Nathan felt the man’s tongue around them and the chill air dry its sopping moisture. He felt the man’s teeth nibble his nipples and softly press on one. “I think you will like this,” the man said, without his two front teeth letting go of the right nipple. The gentle pressure increased and turned painful.
“It’s starting to hurt, sir.”
“Good for you. Good for me.”
The pressure increased and it felt as if the man was going to bite the nipple off. “I think that’s sufficient, sir. Please.”
“Please more? Of course,” the head said, without rising.
“Sir,” Nathan squirmed, and before he knew it, a revolting bolt shot from his breast through his body, and though he could not see, he could tell that the man had bitten through the nipple.
“You do not scream?”
“Move away. Get off.”
“Look,” said the man, coming into Nathan’s searchlight, sticking out his tongue, the bloody nipple on it. “Feel good, eh?”
“Please stop.”
“Other one now.”
“No. No.”
“Good, is good,” the man smiled, as if responding to his mate’s distress and resistance with delighted welcome. Pulling his plaything’s shirt aside, he placed his mouth to Nathan’s other breast, hands reaching under his own belt. “Ah, is good yes.”
“No. Please.”
“Ah yes, is good, yes, for you for me for us for us for us for us us yes . . .”
“Ahh! Nathan screamed when the man bit off his other nipple.
“Ohhh, I shall lick. Lick for you yes, so good now to make nice, before continue, handsome brute man.”
“That’s enough. Enough—” A slap across his face shut Nathan up.
“I will say when is enough . . . Yes? But scream. Scream is good. Scream is very good, scream.”
For over an hour, how long, Nathan could not tell, the man enjoyed himself spreading pain over him. When he screamed and begged, the man aroused even more, and promised him even finer pleasures in the days he would return.
“My God!” a man entering the chamber exclaimed in Russian on rousing Nathan slumped on the highstool, his shirt stained with blood. A morning of men and one woman had come and gone from the chamber and had their way with him, but they knew torture was forbidden. The white smocked individual and a second person approached the several feet from the door to the wall. The assistant said something—Amerikanskiy.
“Some English I speak,” the white smocked man said. He then said something to the assistant, and this one reached into a bag for ointment and sterile bandages. “We will release you,” the medical man said.
“No . . . ,” Nathan’s head shook.
“No?”
“No. Stay.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
“He must be really hard up for the money,” the assistant said in Russian.
“I will clean you and disinfect. This done to you is not permitted. Some animal we will not allow back. Which number?”
“The first.”
“He will not be back. The others? Complaints?”
Complaints, Nathan thought, almost laughed. Complaints against violation, degradation, obscenity and the rest, was he joking? “No,” his hanging head shook. “No complaints.”
The remainder of the day was as if news had gotten out—and he was sure it did—of his particular male endowment. The first ones, the ones of that morning, only needed to inflict pain on his body, and sense suffering from his mind in order to become aroused and their urges satisfied. The ones in the afternoon and the next morning and the following afternoon, inflicted their desired measures of pain and trounced his yulenhood. Before the worst of what would yet arrive, that organ was manipulated, engorged and emptied so often, that each subsequent visitor grew impatient to its slow arousal, and so further punished, blamed, and demeaned him for keeping them waiting—cruel unsympathetic person that he obviously was toward their needs.
As the attendant had initially said, the medical person arrived twice each day, and each time offered to release him, and each time he declined the humane offer. The person even offered to see if he could release him with half pay. The abused refused. He would remain to the end. But he was already quite beaten up, the medical man said, and there were several days left. He would get him a mirror so he could look at himself. Perhaps that would change his mind. “No,” the shackled plaything said.
When Joseph Henry entered the chamber, the fear Nathan Nols thought quashed, returned. Degradation and infliction of pain had pushed his mind into a numb valley of unfeeling. The avenging angel staring into his face marked the start of a nightmare. “I ain’t gonna say much. I ain’t gonna say nothin’ ah-matter. I’m only gonna make you wish you was dead.”
Nathan’s eyes shut as he felt a tourniquet applied around his head. Slowly the p
ressure started. Slowly it would build, then release. Purposely. The same was done to his stripped body at its most sensitive places. The torture continued that way for more time than he could say—he kept passing out—Joseph Henry then smacking him back to consciousness and then repeating the process.
When his masochist managed to keep him awake by inserting a tube or something inside him from behind, and his pain and shouting refusing to let him blackout, the Early boy kept the tourniquets tightened to extremity. Into his mouth he pushed a ball when he screamed, making it impossible to do so again and relieve some manner of agony. Then he sodomized him, and it was good for Joseph Henry, good for settling his mind of the memory of the most blessed Earlys, his father, and his brothers. It was good for the grieving remaining son of the prophet, good for the veneration of their church that this heathen befouled, good for the memory of his kin. His kin would be re-baptized by him, sole surviving son of the prophet. Upon this sinnin’ Babylonian altar of perfidious flesh he would work his mission. Through that ablution his kin would be cleansed, forgiven, their sins transferred to this sinnin’ object of Satin. This heathen was the sacrifice for their sins. This was a good thing what came his way, his and also for this murderin’ man’s. The Lord always found a way for penance, salvation, and rebirth, for the saint and for the wicked alike. Hallelujah, may He be praised.
Days into the ordeal, the medical person, having removed the instruments left on Nathan by Joseph Henry—who vowed return—warned that another subjugation such as that, and he would have to be released. The medical man feared for the sodomite’s life.
His life? Nathan’s battered head echoed. Did he mean his cycles of fleeting glory and perpetual malignancy as yulen, or the recent days in darkness pounced upon by malice and menace by the score at that Conference of Sadomasochism, as one visitor had called it. Were the two lives actually that much different?
His blurred thoughts dimmed to basics. To see this through was all, he kept repeating. Survive. Endure. Do not despair. Do not despair.
Yulen: Return of the Beast – Mystery Suspense Thriller (Yulen - Book 2) Page 24