Karnakian’s eyes fill with tears and his head shakes slowly back and forth as if to better convince himself of what he is seeing. “No,” he whispers. “No, no, no, no.”
It is then that Daniel gets a good look at him in the sparse light. Karnakian’s face is littered with bruises and scars from what appears to be past beatings.
“What is this?” Daniel asks. “What’s going on?”
Cliff Fox screeches with idiotic laughter, his mouth opening to reveal bloody and rotted gums housing the stumps of what few broken teeth still remain in a space where a flashy smile once lived.
His legs trembling and weak from running, Daniel puts a hand out against the wall to steady himself. “What the hell’s happening?”
Fox grins like a mentally-challenged schoolboy.
“Jack?” Daniel pushes away from the wall and moves a bit closer to him. “What’s happening here?”
“I’m sorry,” Karnakian whispers, submissively returning his gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry for everything. I’m so sorry for everything I did. I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”
Thoroughly amused, Fox giggles, claps his hands and rocks back and forth on the couch, causing the ancient springs within to squeak.
“What is this place?” Daniel fumes. “Where am I?”
Suddenly deadly serious, Fox stares straight ahead, his mouth open. A string of drool falls free from his bottom lip and hangs there a moment before breaking off and disappearing somewhere in his lap. He seems not to notice.
Am I dreaming? Daniel wonders. Is this just a nightmare?
No, he tells himself. This is too real. The feelings are too real.
The computer on the card table suddenly blinks to life. Daniel moves closer to it, watches as the picture slowly forms. A dark silhouette—Lindsay?—on her knees, head bowed. She looks up, as if cognizant of his stare, stands and walks closer to the screen. As she reaches for him the computer shuts down, the monitor goes dark.
Daniel raises a fist to smash it, but a loud banging sound echoes through the night, startling him. It seems to be quite a distance away but growing closer and louder with each crashing boom.
“No,” Karnakian whispers, his face twisting into a grimace of terror, “oh no, God no.”
Daniel turns away from the computer. “What is that?”
Fox brings his hands to his mouth theatrically, a monkey speaking no evil.
There is a rhythm to the booming sound, a steady rhythm indicative of footsteps. Loud and heavy footsteps crashing down with such force they are deafening and shake the ground like an earthquake.
Daniel runs to the doorway, looks out into the street.
Through the darkness, Wesley Steiger lumbers along the street, stomping his feet as he walks, his considerable girth jiggling as he does so, his head leaned forward, chin tucked to chest and eyes turned upward, intense and filled with a ferocity Daniel has never before seen in them. Next to him, holding his hand and attempting with great difficulty to keep up, is his daughter Dora. Afflicted with Down syndrome, she is in her late twenties but appears more as a little girl, and though rotund, has the stature to match. Her ears are set low on her broad head, her nose is flat and her lower lip protrudes. Sluggish eyes, slanted upward, stare at Daniel, her orange-red hair standing out in the dim light. Clad in a yellow dress and matching shoes, she appears overdressed, as if she’s just come from a social function of some sort.
But for the violent rage, Wes looks the same. Obese and dressed in one of his cheap suits, a tie resting too high on his belly, he plods his way toward the building with murderous intent.
In his free hand he clutches an aluminum baseball bat, and from the nicks, dents and dark stains that can only be blood along the shaft, it has obviously been used before.
Daniel backs away, returns to the room and continues on until he reaches the far wall. He braces himself against it and looks around frantically, a cornered animal. Karnakian continues to weep and mutter under his breath as Fox sits statue-still, drooling mindlessly into his lap.
The booming footfalls grow louder the closer Wesley comes, the building rattling and shaking until he finally comes into view in the open doorway.
“Wes, what the hell is this?” Daniel asks, fear racing through him, converted to sharp pains running up the back of his neck and into his skull. “What are you doing?”
Wesley stands in the doorway, sizes up Karnakian and Fox. If he hears Daniel he makes no indication. Dora, his daughter, still holding her father’s hand, stares directly into Daniel’s eyes. Slowly but decisively, she raises her free hand and points at him.
Dora begins to scream. It is not a scream of fear, but of warning.
The shriek seems to snap Wesley’s concentration. He releases her hand and steps deeper into the room. “Quiet now, little one.”
Her scream ceases, and she lowers her accusatory finger, lets it dangle down at her side. “I can see you,” she says, still looking right at Daniel, her voice oddly deep and gruff. “I can see you.”
And then Daniel realizes she is the only one.
His father’s voice comes to him from the dream at the cemetery.
They can’t see you.
He remains against the wall, tries to make sense of what he is witnessing.
“Please,” Karnakian says, “no, I—I’m sorry, please don’t—”
“Shut your mouth, worm.” Wesley stomps his way over to the chair.
Daniel clutches either side of his head as he tries to get his mind around this world where roles have reversed. Everything is backwards, upside down, nothing as it truly is. “Wes?” he blurts out. “Don’t do this. Wes, can you hear me?”
Dora shakes her head no.
“Where am I?” he asks the girl. “Tell me where I am!”
She stares at him, offering nothing.
Without warning, Wesley swings the bat around and hits Karnakian in the side of his head. It makes a sickening clanging noise as it bounces off his skull. He lets out a cry as he slumps to the side and slides out of the chair to the floor.
Wesley looks down at him and smiles. Blood is running quickly from a gash near Karnakian’s temple. Though disoriented, he attempts to crawl away.
Fox laughs hysterically.
Already out of breath, Wesley’s fleshy upper body heaves as he grips the bat with both hands and swings it down onto the small of Karnakian’s back.
Karnakian cries out again and tries to roll away from the blow. One hand reaches around behind him, reflexively trying to touch the spot of impact. “Stop,” he gasps, “please, please—”
“Stop him,” Daniel says to Dora. “Stop this.”
Her dead stare watches him.
“What do you think, Fox,” Wesley asks, beaming, “one more for the road?”
Fox laughs and claps his hands.
A whimpering sound escapes Karnakian.
Wesley gazes down at him with satisfaction. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Karnakian manages. “Please, I—I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry too, Jack. I’m sorry you’re such a sniveling little worm.”
“Please.” Karnakian grasps furiously at Wesley’s ankle for mercy. “Please.”
“Jack, you’re a bobble-headed freak, a monstrosity. It absolutely sucks to be you.” He struggles into something similar to a crouch, sweat breaking out across his puffy, flushed face. “It’s not fair that I have all the power and you have none, but you know what? Life’s not fair, Jack. If someone told you it was, they were lying. It’s not fair at all. I’m strong, you’re weak. Just the way it goes.”
The blood from his head wound increases, coating one side of his face and forming a small puddle on the floor. “Why do you have to hurt me like this? Why do you always have to hurt me?”
“Because I can,” Wesley answers, straightening back up to his full height. “And because you’ve got it coming.”
“Please—”
“Oh, stop being so melodramatic, Ja
ck!” Wesley swings the bat down again, this time connecting between Karnakian’s shoulder blades. He lets out a groan as most of the air in his lungs bursts out through his mouth, and his bloodied head falls against the floor.
With a sigh, Wesley waddles to the corner of the room and rests the bat against the wall. He turns and moves back to Karnakian. Sliding a foot under his belly, he rolls Karnakian over onto his back. Tears, blood and snot stain his face. He struggles to breathe. “That’s enough for today,” Wesley says. “Just feels so good it’s hard to stop.”
Wesley kicks him repeatedly in the side then moves to his head.
“Stop!” Daniel runs toward him. “For Christ’s sake, Wes, stop!”
Dora steps between him and her father.
“Get out of the way,” Daniel tells her.
Wesley stops kicking and begins to cough. “This really is a hell of a workout. You’d think I’d lose some weight, wouldn’t you? Good cardio if nothing else.” He chuckles, looks over at Fox. “And then there’s this one. Poor Fox, not only ugly as all get-up, but dumber than a stump too.”
Dora extends her small hand to Daniel, her face expressionless, eyes empty.
Tentatively, Daniel accepts it.
“It’s time for you to go wait in the other room like a good girl, Dora,” Wesley says. “You know the routine by now. I have some business with Mr. Fox.”
She leads Daniel to the rear of the room, past the card table and the dark computer and toward a hallway he hasn’t noticed until just then. He looks back over his shoulder, sees Wesley removing his suit jacket and laying it on the card table. Bright red suspenders hold his massive pants up. He stomps over to the couch, puts a hand on Fox’s chin and raises it up until they make eye contact. Fox’s imbecilic, nearly toothless grin returns.
“Even after all these times, even after I knocked those teeth out of your moronic head, you still don’t know what’s coming, do you?” Wesley slips his suspenders free of his shoulders. “Can you even remember when you were a pretty boy?” he says coolly. “No matter, get those pants off and roll over. It’s your turn.”
Daniel’s bowels clench and he stops, pulling Dora up short in the doorway. “No,” he tells her. “I’m stopping this right now.”
Dora brings a finger to her lips. “Shhh.”
When Fox doesn’t do as instructed, he’s thrown facedown onto the couch.
Wesley is suddenly nude from the waist down, the pink flesh of his enormous pocked and stretch-mark covered ass quivering as he swings a considerable thigh up and over Fox’s back and straddles him. “Don’t make me beat that stupid noggin of yours any dumber than it already is, matinee idol boy.”
A childlike burst of laughter comes from somewhere deep within Fox, muffled as his face is pushed into the couch and Wesley effortlessly rips his pants down. As Wesley positions his considerable bulk and leans his full weight into Fox, the laughter is quickly replaced with a loud moan.
God Almighty, Daniel prays—or perhaps cries for help—as Dora pulls him through the doorway and into the dark hallway. With more strength and speed than she appears to have, she drags him along the narrow corridor much the way her father dragged her earlier. Daniel stumbles after her, keeping pace as best he can.
As she leads him deeper and deeper into the building, the smell grows worse. It is a rotten odor, one of decay and death, and though the light is sparse, Daniel makes out wide smears of blood along the walls. The floor is littered with blood as well, and what appears to be chunks and pieces of discarded human flesh.
He steps onto a pile of bloody intestines, coiled there like a diseased snake, and his foot slides forward, slipping out from under him. Dora yanks his arm with such force that it pulls him back on balance before he can fall. He stumbles on after her as the viscera slides across the already slick floor and vanishes into darkness.
From somewhere far in the distance come agonizing screams.
“What is this?” he asks breathlessly, his mind shredding. “What’s happening to me?”
More screams answer, closer now.
They are soon overrun by a whirlwind of whispers coming at him from every direction, circling him like a wolf pack. The darkness returns, light a brief and occasional flash as Dora drags him deeper and he strains to make out what the voices are saying.
They seem familiar, these words being whispered to him. Familiar but not quite right.
Prayers, they’re—my God—they’re prayers. Recited backwards.
“Help me, Dora,” he says, though the darkness has become so thick he can no longer see her in front of him. “Dora, help me!”
As if on cue, they come to a side room, its welcome light bleeding into the hallway and providing Daniel with a sense of place and orientation. He falls against the doorframe, the girl still holding his hand.
It is a large room void of furniture. There are no windows, no other doors.
Blood, gore and entrails are scattered throughout.
In the center of the room is a woman. Her arms are full and she scrambles about hurriedly on her knees, gathering more and more items into her arms as if only allotted a certain amount of time in which to do so. It isn’t until she notices Daniel in the doorway that she stops and looks at him.
He recognizes her as the young woman who offered him the tissue in front of the Chinese restaurant, her innocence and simple beauty alien in this horribly evil place.
Her face contorts into a look of desperation and unfathomable grief.
Slick with blood and various bodily fluids, the items cradled in her arms are mutilated and dismembered body parts.
Daniel’s body parts.
His legs give out, and Dora’s grip loosens then releases. He feels himself falling, hurtling down as if he’s suddenly stepped off a ledge.
Impenetrable, bottomless darkness. Then silence.
“Listen to that wind,” he hears Lindsay say some time later. “Have you ever heard wind like that?”
“No,” he answers, voice hoarse. “It’s kind of spooky.”
“Can you feel it? It’s so hot, like it’s passing through fire before it gets to us.”
Confined again to darkness, Daniel felt himself relax somewhat. The terror remained but he could feel his heart rate slow and his breathing soften. He was floating again, but this time he sensed decisive motion. He was not simply treading darkness, he was swimming through it. He had left that hideous place but was still not conscious in a traditional sense, and he knew this. The sensation reminded him of a dream he’d once had, where in the middle of it he’d stopped and announced that he was having a dream and the entire episode needed to end. And it had.
This time he had no such luck, though eventually the darkness parted and gave way. Daniel blinked his eyes repeatedly but continued to see through a thick blurry film, as if some foreign paste-like matter had been slopped across his eyes. He wanted to rub them, to wipe his eyes clean, and it wasn’t until he tried that he realized he couldn’t move.
Unbearably hot here, sweat clung to him like a second skin, coating his body from head to toe, crawling up out of his pores, oozing from him and trickling across his flesh. He could hear the same steady and unforgiving wind he and Lindsay had encountered that night together, only now it was louder, stronger, angrier.
“The closer one gets to the flame,” a monotone voice said, “the hotter it becomes.”
A blur appeared above him. Something pawed his eyes brusquely until his vision cleared, and he caught a glimpse of a latex-gloved hand moving away.
As his head lolled to the side, the room he found himself in swept by before coming into better focus. Meager and unclean, with dirt floors and a smell somewhere between the stomach-churning stench of charred human flesh and the antiseptic stink of medicinal fluids, a tattered and stained canvas tarp served as both walls and roof, one section of it flapping free in the wind, now and then revealing what appeared to be vast desert just beyond it. A tent, Daniel realized. I’m in some sort of old
makeshift tent.
Sand and dirt flew about in the thick and muggy air, and the constant baying wind only made matters worse, its waves of hot air adding to the discomfort and stifling humidity already present.
Again, Daniel attempted movement, but his limbs refused to cooperate. Shifting his eyes, he saw that he was lying on a table. A man in doctor scrubs wearing a surgical mask and dark goggles stood to his right, hunched over slightly, his hands working methodically but hidden just out of Daniel’s view. From the angle, it appeared the man was attending to something around Daniel’s chest and midriff.
Terror erupted through him and he struggled to move, to force his body to listen and respond. “What are you doing?” Daniel’s voice was gravelly and weak, and when he spoke he immediately became short of breath. Though horrified, he had no sense of pain or discomfort. “Who are you?”
“It’s all right,” the man said without looking at him. “I’m a doctor.”
“Stop,” Daniel gasped. “What—whatever you’re doing just stop, I—”
“Everything’s fine, we’re almost done here.”
He fought to raise his head up so he could see what the man was doing but it refused to move. Straining, he forced his eyes lower but still couldn’t make out anything. “Why can’t I feel anything? I can’t feel you, are you—are you touching me?”
“Of course I am.”
“What is this? Where am I?”
The man turned to him, eyes hidden behind thick dark goggles. He looked like a giant insect. “You’re in surgery, Daniel.”
“Surgery? S-Surgery for what—why—why am I in surgery?”
“We’re just making a few minor adjustments.”
“Stop, you—you don’t have my permission.”
“I don’t need your permission, Daniel.” The man resumed his duties.
“Please stop,” he pleaded, voice cracking with emotion. “Whatever you’re doing, please stop. Tell me what’s happening.”
When no answer came, Daniel used his eyes to scan what little of the area he could see. In the corner was a box-shaped contraption painted black and made of metal roughly the size of a compact car. There were no openings or markings on it of any kind. Atop it sat a computer, the monitor on and facing them. Whatever was displayed on it was moving so rapidly he couldn’t quite make out what it was. And then just as he suspected it might be a person, something began to leak from the edges of the monitor frame where glass met plastic, something dark that ran slowly down across it to the sand below. “Is that… blood?”
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