The Prison

by Stefano Pastor

  Nico was confused. “But… but…”

  The man motioned to wait. “He was healed completely and went wild in an attempt to free himself. Yelling and insulting them. Aunt Anna tried to call the police, but my mother forbade her. She told her that she didn’t want to. That was Dino, the boy she loved, and he did not intend to make those horrors. He told her that there was someone else within him that possessed him. He said that Dino was still there, she was sure, and she had to release him.”

  He grimaced.

  “She persuaded her. I don’t know how she did, but she could do. It took hours to convince her. Aunt Anna was sure it was a splurge. She always believed in telling the truth, but my mother was her only family; her little sister that was traumatized by that terrible experience. And since that thing was unable to harm them; she agreed to join the madness. They loaded him onto a pickup truck and took him to an old cabin in the woods that nobody knew existed. They left him there for months. My mother and Aunt Anna, the only survivors, provided the police a false description of the murderer. Slowly the interest over the massacre went out. They came to live in the town; they sold the villa and spent months searching for a suitable home.”

  “Fit for what?” asked Nico.

  “When they went to pick him up, I was already born. They took him in the cellar that had been set up for him and bound him in that place. It was not easy. After that day Aunt Anna was no longer the same, she suffered a heart attack, and her disease degenerated quickly. She survived for only a couple of years. My mother had an obsession, to have back Dino. The creature was indestructible, immortal; she soon realized that he did not grow old either. He did not need to eat or drink. Mom believed the Devil possessed him. She began to bring to our backyard exorcists; before she turned to the Catholic Church, and the priests came. They were skeptical and when they came to that guy chained they were appalled. Mom risked more than once denouncement. But then they realized too that he was not human, that they had faced a monster. They tried really, but he laughed off their efforts. No exorcism affected him, and then my mother gave up the traditional religion and turned to the less conventional. Mostly they were charlatans and couldn’t do anything. Even they came out shocked. Someone believed. I’m not saying that they had powers, on this I’ve always been skeptical, but they were convinced. Eventually, my mother did not find anyone who wanted to help her. Aunty Anna had died, and she was left alone. She also had a son to raise. So the creature remained there, chained up in the cellar.”

  Silence descended, and Katia was the first to break it. “That’s it? That's the story?”

  The man shook his head. “That thing was sneaky, evil. He made us suffer, to put us against each other. And he was also my father. Life with my mother wasn’t easy. Let’s just say it was a nightmare. Every year it got worse. When I was at Nico's age, I descended alone in that cellar. I was not allowed to do so. The creature could survive even without eating, so no one went there to see him. My mother spent months trying to forget about him. But not me, he was my father. Of course, I knew he was a risk. I never approached him, much less I would have freed, whatever he said. Though I could speak to him, tell him everything. He listened, but I knew he was faking, he had only one thing in mind, but I didn’t care, I was not alone, at least for a few hours a day. I began to bring food because even if he could resist without it was still a pleasure to eat. And water. The chains do not allow him any movement, and I was careful not to let him bite me. He had become increasingly necessary. He seemed the only one who could understand me. My mother, however, began to suspect but she never told me anything. I continued because I couldn’t do without.”

  He chuckled.

  “He fooled me. It was logical that it would happen, but I was so stupid not see it. Mother later said that he had used a chicken bone. What was certain was that he used it to break free from the chains. At that time they there were not attached to the wall. So, one day, when I went to him and sat by his side, as usual, I had no idea that he could free one arm.”

  Nico gulped, noisily.

  “He was very fast; he grabbed my throat and squeezed so tightly that I was out of breath. I couldn’t even scream. He gripped and clutched, and I watched him shocked. He wanted to kill me; he did not care that I was his son; he just wanted to kill me. All the words that he had fed me were just lies. That was when my mother arrived. She always spied on me; she came with an axe and began to hit him without stopping. His blood was all over me, but she did not stop not even when he let me go. At one point I thought she would not stop ever, but eventually, she did. She put the chain on him and led me away. She carefully washed everything off me, and when she had finished, my hair had turned white. All white.”

  Nico tried to say something but was unable to speak.

  “That was just the beginning. My mother decided he was a danger. She did so reluctantly because she was sure that in that body there was the soul of the man she loved but decided to kill him. She tried every means. Closed his head in a bag to suffocate him and even drowning him. Most of the time he amused himself but when she decided to burn him; he began to scream. She poured gasoline on him for days while he screamed reducing him into a human torch. In the end, the gas finished and after a few minutes, he recovered as before. Then she tried killing him with every kind of venom, and with acids. Even that was horrid when immersed in a tube of acid. Unfortunately, they were things she couldn’t do it alone, so I had to help her. She attempted to dismember his body, several times, to tear his head off, but even that failed, no saw could undermine his bones. She continued for years, five years for the precision sake, and that was in my teens. Then she collapsed. She accepted that it was impossible.”

  “How did your mother die?” asked Nico.

  “You don’t learn anything from your mistakes; you are doomed to repeat them. She wanted to forget him, seal the basement, but she couldn’t. She grew old, was close to fifty, and he remained the same as the boy she had loved. Thus, she began to descend in the cellar, more and more often. In the beginning, she was content just to watch him. She could stay hours only y to watch him. Then she became more daring; she entered the cell. I wasn’t there; I didn’t realize anything, maybe it was my fault. I was trying to stay away from her as much as possible, to ignore her. She had destroyed my life, and I couldn’t forgive her. I was already thirty years old, and I felt the life slide away like sand. I couldn’t have a girlfriend; I couldn’t have a family. Nothing, I was condemned to be the keeper of that monster for my entire life. And so she turned to him. Maybe she tried to forget what had become and see only the boy she loved. I guess she came to pet him, maybe even kiss him. He said worse, but he always lies. Maybe nothing happened; it was just an accident, an accident. He broke free. He managed again to release an arm.”

  “Did he kill her?” Katia shouted.

  “He grabbed her but did not kill her. He imprisoned her in an embrace. And then he waited. He waited. Eventually, I arrived. I was worried, I had searched my mother everywhere, and I couldn’t find her. Only at the end, I decided to go down to the basement. I tried not to go there ever, especially alone, but that day I had to. I found them there, close one to each other. He told me that he would kill her if I hadn’t released him. She asked me not to. And I didn’t. He began to break her bones, one by one, and I heard her scream. If I attacked him, he would kill her anyway. Or maybe this was the justification that I found. Maybe I was too afraid to go near him again. It lasts long before she died. The autopsy found sixty-seven fractures. Eventually, even she implored me to release him. For me, it was torture; whatever my feelings toward her, she remained the most important thing I had. But I knew it wouldn’t do any good: If I released him he would kill her anyway, and he would have killed me too. But the worse part, he would be free. I couldn’t unleash such a monster in the world. Then finally she fell silent, and I knew she was dead. He let me take her away, and was quite easy even tie him down again. He laughed and said horrible things. I decla
re that my mother had fallen down the stairs. I bought witnesses who claimed to have witnessed the scene. The police were skeptical, the fractures were too many to have been caused by a fall so short, but were unable to take apart my alibi and were forced to close the case. The gossip flourished about me. Someone said I killed her.”

  “And that thing? What did you do?”

  “It was nonsense, but he had brought me to the threshold of madness. I put him on fire again. I got pleasure from his screaming, his pain. I continued endlessly, for two weeks in a row, always stirring the fire and watching him burn. In the end, I was destroyed, annihilated, the shadow of myself, but he just extinguished the flames, He returned the same as ever, and he was mocking me. I shut the damn door and did not set foot in the cellar for almost ten years. Then I returned how I could not do it! But I was stronger; I was able to fight him, his words couldn’t hurt me anymore.”

  “It’s crazy!” said Katia. “But what does he want?”

  The man shook his head. “Bring destruction, I guess. I think he hates us all, the whole human race. He can’t do anything, only kill.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “And now what is he going to do?”

  “That’s what I want to find out.”

  “Must he be looking for an exit?” Nico said.

  “There is none,” replied the man.

  “Are we locked inside? But…” Katia was not convinced. “If he is strong…”

  “He is not. He is strong, yes, much more than a man, but is made of flesh, too. He can regenerate, but can’t beat the steel. All the walls of this home hide a soul of steel. It’s a prison. We had fifty years to turn it into a prison.”

  “But he’s right!” Katia continued. “Sooner or later someone will come and see what happened. They will try to enter or call the police! They will surely find a way to get in. And after?”

  No one answered because there was no need. They would not be there that day, they realized.

  “Why did not he kill us yet?” Nico asked.

  The man winced. “I think he’s looking at ways to make me suffer. Death is not enough for me.”

  Katia shook his head, nervously. “What should we do? Wait for him to kill us, that’s all?”

  Nico whispered: “We’re not going to… chain him up again?”

  “You are crazy!” his mother squealed. “Did you see what happened? I stabbed him a bunch of times, and he did not notice! What would you do, fool?” Then she turned to the man, with innocent eyes. “Max, please! We have nothing to do with him! If you care about my son; let us out! I’m not asking you to leave that thing, please only leave us, we will be fast. And then you can seal it again.”

  The man remained impassive, and Nico answered for him.

  “It is not possible; it’s what he wants. Don’t you remember how fast he is?”

  “Shut up!” she hissed. And went back to ask the man, “Please!”

  “I wish I could Katia, but Nico is right. That’s just what he wants. Perhaps it is for this reason alone that he left us in life.”

  “Why did he stay?” she screamed. “Why did not he go? It’s your entire fault! Did you have to treat him that way?”

  Nico looked his mother horrified, but she did not retire what she said.

  “But yes, it’s true! What reason you had to torture him for years? They had imprisoned him, could not he be that enough?”

  The man shook his head and stood up. Nico ran after him.

  “What are you doing? You will not listen to her?”

  The man went out in the hallway.

  “It is useless to continue with this farce.”

  “Do you think you can handle? Can you do something?”

  The man said nothing and went ahead. Nico followed him.

  9

  They did not look far. The young man was in the living room, sitting in a chair, and he had also changed clothes. He had poured a drink, the expensive brandy that the man loved so much.

  “You show up at least; I got bored.”

  The man stepped forward and entered the room. Nico did not dare to stand by his side and stood behind him.

  “What do you want?” asked the man.

  The young man pointed to a chair. “Have a seat.”

  Then he threw the glass from which he was drinking against the wall.

  “This stuff is crap! I don’t understand why you like it so much.”

  The man stepped forward but did not go to sit.

  “Why you still haven’t killed us? What do you hope to accomplish? You think you can force me to let you out?”

  He chuckled. “In the end, you told them. Did you tell them everything? Don’t you feel better now you’ve liberated your conscience? Is not better to share the secrets?”

  Nico shivered. That being human-looking had heard them; he had heard every word that they had said.

  “I have to decide,” said the young man. “I am not sure. To decide whom I will kill first. Not you, Max, I need you again. I do not intend to deprive me of your company. Whom should I choose, Max? The woman or the boy? You tell me whom I should kill.”

  “You will kill them both.”

  The young man laughed. “Of course. But who’s going to be the first? Who should go first? Oh, I know who you want to save, but will you have the courage to say it? You will be able to get your hands dirty, to condemn someone to death?”

  The mask of the man was strong, now, no longer seemed scared. He reached the bar and poured himself a drink.

  “You’re very sure of yourself, aren’t you? Remember that you are not yet free. This is still a prison, even if you don’t have the shackles. Why are you risking like that? I might catch you again, it already happened. Do you remember that two women were enough to put you in chains?”

  The calm of the young man just cracked. “It won’t happen again! That was a mistake that may not recur.”

  The man savored his liquor; he drank a sip of it.

  “There could be pitfalls in this house. Maybe full of traps. I could have installed them myself, in case you were free.”

  “You’re bluffing. There is just nothing. That wall of steel will not imprison me’.

  Then he stood up and moved to Nico.

  Nico saw him coming and wondered if he should make a run. He had not much hope of succeeding. And still, there was no way to hide in that house.

  “I wish I had a place all to myself. A safe place, where you couldn’t get in. A place only mine, where you didn’t have any power.”

  The young man paused, hearing those words, and turned to the man.

  “What are you babbling about?”

  The man shrugged. “A dream. I’ve always had since I was a boy. A place where you don’t exist, where I could be free.”

  The young man burst out laughing.

  “It does not exist. It never existed. You will never be able to get rid of me.”

  “I know,” muttered the man in a low voice.

  The young man was next to Nico, so fast that he doesn’t even realize. He felt his hand fondling his neck and strove not to scream.

  “So, have you decided? Who should I kill, the woman or the boy?”

  Nico closed his eyes. He wanted to get apart from everything, not hearing the man’s response. He didn’t want his mother to die, and anyway what security there was that the monster would accept the choice? He visualized by not being there, being in the Chamber, protected, safe.

  And immediately he opened his eyes, stared at the man. He met his eyes.

  No, he wasn’t going crazy; those words were a message for him. A safe place, where no monster could enter. The Chamber was his, just his. He recalled the words of Tano: had searched all over the upper floor, but had found a room where he was unable to get in. And they were thieves, for them open a lock was simple. But not the Chamber. That Chamber was his alone. It was not locked; you have just to lower the handle. He had done so.

  Anothe
r memory emerged: the man had him passed first, had made him open the door. Only he had opened that door, no one else.

  No, it was absurd, insane. The words of the man continued to haunt him. A safe place, just his. That would have protected him, defended by all. Was it possible? Some lock… magical? No, not magical, something scientific. A door can be open only with the touch of his hand. A coded lock on its footprint. It was the only possible explanation; there was no reason why the man would say such things right now. It was a message for him.

  But if he were wrong, if he failed, he would die the same, even without trying.

  The young man hand pressed stronger on his neck; now it was no longer a caress.

  “Hurry Max; I’m losing patience.”

  The man ended up drinking and came towards them. He looked into Nico’s eyes as he took the decision.

  “The woman,” he said. “Kill the woman.”

  It was a blow to Nico, although he expected it to happen. He felt free, instantly.

  The young man laughed again. “Are you sure? You might need, you might get some sex, during the long days that lie ahead! I could enjoy myself too.”

  He took a step toward him. “But you are sentimental, I know. You always have been.”

  He stroked his cheek and Nico saw the man stiffen.

  “You’re a big baby. You needed your daddy. You were almost touching.”