It’s only when a rat emerges from the shadows, its little nose twitching, that I reach out and take the food before it can.
I hardly chew, I’m so hungry. The water, though, I sip. I know I have to make it last. People can go without food for days, or maybe weeks. I don’t know for sure, but I do know you can’t last very long without water.
The plate the toast came on is made of paper. Otherwise, I would’ve broken it and saved a shard as a weapon. I would’ve put it in my bra because there’s not many places I could hide it. I would’ve found a way.
Then I close my eyes and fall asleep.
The next time I open them, the Mannequin Man descends the ladder.
“Big day ahead of us today, Mel,” he says. “You look rested.” He grabs the wheel and begins rotating it until the chains tighten and I’m in pain. He rubs my head. The stubble there makes a noise. “I’ll have to shave you again soon, huh? Oh, well, that’s another day. Today…well, today we do something I’ve never done before.”
I don’t reply.
“You’ll get a bit of a change of scenery. Not much, but some,” he says. “Gimme your hands.”
I don’t.
He hits me across the face. “Now, Melanie, I know it’s noble to defy your enemies or whatever, but we aren’t enemies. I’m your friend, okay? A million-billion girls are going to see you on the news and they’ll want to be just like you. Before that can happen, you just have to trust me, okay?”
I still don’t listen, and he hits me again, this time hard enough to knock me off my feet. Blood flows from a busted lip. I’m dazed.
As I’m dazed, he stands over me, unlocks my shackles and quickly cuffs my wrists.
Then he’s dragging me across the stone floor into the far room. It’s dark. I can’t see until he flips on the light.
If ever there was a chance to fight back, it is right now. But I can’t. I can hardly move.
“All right, here we are!” he says. “I built this myself.”
In front of me is a table and two rollers, one at each end. I have no idea what I’m looking at.
“You’re gonna lie down there,” he says, pointing.
“No.”
The Mannequin Man rolls his eyes. “Yes, Mel, you are. Please don’t make me force you.”
“You’re gonna have to force me.”
Just like that, he explodes. He punches me in the stomach. I stumble backwards, but before I can fall, he grabs me around the neck, choking the air from my lungs.
“Don’t fuck with me, Melanie. I’m not the type to fuck with, okay? Do you understand?”
I say nothing. I can’t speak if I wanted to. He pushes me backwards. I hit the table, and the momentum does the rest. I’m lying on my side.
“On your back,” he says. “Now.”
So I lie on my back.
I can barely see straight, let alone stand on my own free will.
“Put your arms up.”
I don’t. Can’t.
“PUT YOUR ARMS UP NOW!”
I try. It’s not easy. My arms feel like they weigh a hundred pounds each, but somehow they raise above my head.
“Good, good.”
I hear something clamp. Metal against metal. Then down by my feet, the same sound, metal against metal.
Now I’m stretched out on this table, my fists and my hands almost touching the rollers.
Please, I almost say, but this is as involuntary as a sneeze. I can’t help myself. My voice is working on its own. I’ll never beg this psycho. No. He won’t get the satisfaction.
“So, I’m a bit of a history buff,” the Mannequin Man says. “My favorite period: the Medieval Times. They were quite good at torture back then, almost too good. I don’t know if you’re familiar with some of their devices, so I’ll teach you a little history, if you don’t mind. It’s never a bad time to learn something new, right?”
My mouth is tight, lips nonexistent. The water and toast may have given me a slight burst of energy, but the sucker punch to my gut has wiped that all away. I’m exactly where he wants me to be.
“They had this thing called the rack,” he says. “Much like what you’re lying on now, Melanie. It was widely used for interrogation. But I have no questions. And I want you to know this is not torture. I only strive for perfection, Mel. Perfection.”
The same kind of wheel as the one connected to the chains in the other room sits near my head.
The Mannequin Man begins turning it now. Slowly, around and around, until—
Pressure on my arms and legs.
He grunts, bends over, and throws the entirety of his body weight into the motion. The wheel squeaks.
I scream.
Scream.
Scream.
My right arm pops sickeningly. I feel how loose it is, detached. My spine crackles. Bolts of agony shoot up my neck. My hip makes a snapping noise as sickeningly as my shoulder did.
“Please!” I shout. I can’t help myself. The pain is too unbearable. I thought I could remain strong, that I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, but I can’t. “PLEASE!”
“Just a little more, Mel!” Grunting again, he turns the wheel half a rotation. “Your measurements are a little short. That’s all. Just an inch or two, and you’ll be perfect!”
Now it feels like my ribcage is breaking. The bones of my back are attached to nothing, floating within my flesh. My left arm stubbornly remains in its socket, but I feel a deep tearing there. Ligaments, muscle, sinew. It is beyond brutal.
“Please—stop!”
“A little more. Just—a—little—more!”
Another half a turn, my body resisting, my bones grinding, crackling, rippling.
And then I black out.
Forty
There is so much pain when I wake. I can’t compare it to anything because I’ve never felt this way before.
I’m back in my chains, curled up on the floor. In the corner, rats’ eyes gleam, watching. One, two, three pairs. They’re waiting to see if I’ll die so they can eat my corpse.
Well, I’m not dead.
Not yet.
A voice: “Good, you’re awake.”
It’s him, the Mannequin Man.
I try turning my neck to face him. A jolt of pain erupts near my tailbone. Instead, I roll over.
He is shirtless again, veins standing out under pale skin, sweat glistening over his torso.
“I didn’t think you’d pass out. It’s no fun when you pass out.” He bends down and picks up my right arm. I yelp like a wounded animal. “There, there. See?” From the pocket of his Armani sweats, he takes out a white tape measure. He stretches it from shoulder to the tip of my middle finger. “Look at that! Twenty-three inches! You’ve gone through a growth spurt, Melanie. I’m so excited.” He yanks on my left leg. Fire burns in my hip socket. He measures. “Hm, we’ll have to do a little more stretching here. But we’re on our way. Right on our way to perfection.” As he gets up, he gives my scalp a rub.
“Perfection,” I say. The simple act of talking hurts.
“Yes.”
“So that’s all it is,” I say. “Y-you just want perfection.”
He sits across from me, out of reach. Right now, it’s not like I could inflict any damage on him, let alone lift my arms more than a few inches from my sides. He crosses his legs like he’s about to meditate.
“I do want perfection. Yes. I believe we all have a chance at it. Some just require a little extra…work.”
“Perfection like you?”
He smiles. His teeth are crooked. One incisor is discolored enough to where over-the-counter whitening strips would be hopeless. “So you’ve noticed?”
“I’m asking.”
“Oh, then yes, perfection like me. And like my sister.”
“Lola.”
“If that’s what you want to call her, then yes,” he says.
There’s a litany of names I would like to call her; Lola is not one of them.
“My mother wa
s very big into fashion, Melanie. Like you were at one point, I’m sure. What girls aren’t? Even dykes get wet over a pair of Louboutins.” He titters at this, a joke to him. “My mom loved perfection. But she got old and she lost most of her good looks. Wrinkles. Gray hair. Saggy tits. You know, the works. Then she died. What I’m doing, what I did to those girls, is giving them the perfection they so craved all their lives. They don’t have to die all old and wrinkled and saggy. They don’t have to live chubby and fat and laughed at. In fact, their bodies are forgotten about altogether. I put their faces on new, perfect bodies. I’m helping. My mother would be proud.”
“You’re killing people,” I say. “What mother would be proud of that?”
He flashes his dead eyes at me, simmering with anger beneath the surface.
I have to tread lightly here. I can’t overstep my boundaries. The problem: What exactly are a psychopath’s boundaries? Where do they draw the line?
“Mine would,” he says calmly. “Just like Ke—Lola is.”
“And Lola’s perfect? You really think that?”
“She is.”
I force myself to laugh. It’s not easy, and the pain caused by this sudden rush of air exploding from my lungs is excruciating, but I do it anyway.
“What? What’s so funny?”
“Lola’s not perfect, dude,” I answer. “I’ve s-seen her naked. Sure, she can hide some of her imperfections with c-clothes, but just because you put some nail polish over a ding on your Mustang’s bumper doesn’t mean it’s still in mint condition.”
His eyes change. Now there’s something like fury in them. I should be scared. But I can’t be. The more I speak, the more I forget about the pain.
“She has a mole on her back. It’s big and raised and hairy. Probably cancerous. Honestly, she should get that checked out,” I continue. “Then there’s her birthmark, that weird continent shape on her left butt cheek. I noticed hair on her toes, too. More than a girl should have, I think. The wrinkles around her eyes, crow’s feet, they call them. The bags under there, too. We took a shower together, more than once. I saw her without all her makeup—”
“Enough!” he shouts. Snarling, he rushes me on all fours. I brace myself for impact, but there’s not much muscle intact to lessen the blow. He hits me on the right shoulder, where my arm hangs uselessly from its socket. I cry out so loud, the rats in the corner skitter away at the sound of my scream. “She’s perfect. She’s perfect. My sister is perfect! We’re perfect!”
“She’s not—”
Another blow. Pain radiates from my forehead down to the tips of my toes as he punches me across the cheek hard enough to feel the bone give inward, possibly fracture. My head dribbles off the stone behind. I cry out again.
The pain is bad, but seeing his reaction makes it worth it.
Should I push my luck?
Do I have him right where I want him?
Not quite, although I’m close.
“You are perfection. I’ll agree with you there,” I say. Blood leaks down from the wound at my temple. Whatever scab had formed there has busted open. I already feel my cheek swelling up, too.
The Mannequin Man raises his fist again. I don’t brace myself. There’s no point. I’m numb and running on pure adrenaline.
So I continue: “You work hard, I see that. You’re always doing those crunches and push-ups, but I don’t think you need to. You could be on the runway. You could be the poster boy for Marc Jacobs or Calvin Klein. You’re a natural.”
I say it all convincingly enough, despite the lingering lies burning like poison on the tip of my tongue.
His eyes lighten. He smiles ear to ear, and all I can think about is how I want to slit his throat that same distance. That would make me smile.
So would doing it to Lola.
Fuck them both.
“But your sister…and I mean no offense,” I say, “she is not perfection.”
Forty-One
Another day passes.
Lola comes down the ladder. She looks upset, eyes red and smeary.
She doesn’t meet my gaze as she tosses the bread—this time, not toasted—on the floor. It bounces from the paper plate and lands at my feet. She does the same with the water bottle. It’s without a cap, so it spills before I can snatch it up with my left hand.
Then she leaves, turns the light off.
The rats seem to be getting closer now, their gleaming eyes floating orbs in the darkness.
I hope one will get close enough for me to kill. I need something other than bread. I need protein.
My body is no longer as sore as it was yesterday, but I’m not in good shape. I managed to pop my arm back in its socket using my weight and the chains, leaning one way until, gritting my teeth and screaming, I felt the click.
Afterward, I didn’t move for probably three hours.
I eat one piece of the bread greedily and pick at the other, trying to make it last. My stomach aches for more. I can’t eat it though because I don’t know the next time I’ll get fed. It seems to be every two or three days, but not seeing the sun makes knowing how long I’ve been down here impossible.
I drink some of the gritty water. Let it sit in my mouth, hoping my tongue and lips will absorb the moisture.
He says he wants perfection, but I imagine I look like a horror creature. A stitched-together corpse. Frankenstein’s monster.
The Mannequin Man comes down later. I know because I haven’t closed my eyes.
The opening of the hatch has begun to fill me with dread, when it used to fill me with hope. I’d imagine Klonowski and a team of FBI agents flooding this cellar, saving me, taking me back home, so I could see my mother and father and Chester again.
But that hope has deflated.
I don’t expect to see them.
I gave Klonowski the address of Wymer’s old farmhouse a long time ago. If I was there, they would’ve found me by now. I’m not. I have no idea where I am, and neither does anyone else.
The Mannequin Man has his straight razor out, the can of Barbasol too.
“Shaving time, little kitten,” he says. He’s wearing a tight white t-shirt, flawless, glaringly bright in the dinginess of this dungeon, and a pair of tighter jeans, the kinds with purposeful holes in the thighs and knees. It’s a fashion statement that makes him look like a homeless person.
This is my chance, I’m thinking, because I can’t take much more of this. If he doesn’t kill me soon, I’ll die of starvation, dehydration, or exposure. The bread has given me strength; not much, but enough to fill me with courage.
“You know the drill,” he says.
I stand up so he can work the wheel to my left that will pull my chains tight. I’m thinking, thank God it’s on my left side because I can hardly move my right arm.
He walks over, the blade of the straight razor catching light from the single bulb.
I take my chance.
Grunting, I lunge at him. It catches him off guard. He stumbles, trips to one knee, then I’m on top of him. Using my left wrist, I wrap the chain around his neck and squeeze with all my might.
He chokes out something, fingers trying to snake beneath the metal, prolong his life.
I got him. I got him—
His head jerks backwards. The world around me explodes with white light as his skull connects with my nose and mouth. He takes the chain from his neck and pushes me down, breathing hard.
I can hardly see straight. I’m only aware of a towering figure standing over me, backlit. Chest rising and falling.
“You dumb bitch!” he shouts in that same serrated voice I first heard at Cocoa’s. “Just when I was starting to like you!”
He kicks me, the toe of his shoe lifting under my ribs. I cry out, but the cry is cut short because I can’t catch my breath.
“I should slit your fuckin’ throat right now. You know that?”
He kicks and kicks and kicks.
I feel my ribs shift, crack, break. I feel internal organs rupt
ure and start leaking. I see my life flash before my eyes.
He is going to kill me. He is going to beat me to death.
I’d almost rather prefer him to slit my throat. At least it would be over quicker.
But then he stops.
I look up. He’s blurry, hazy. His face is beet red, his hair all over the place. He takes a deep breath, swipes strands from his brow.
“You’re getting too fat,” he says. “Now you won’t eat for a fuckin’ week. How about that? You like that?” He bends down and picks up the water bottle, which is somehow miraculously still standing and nearly full. I’ve only been taking sips of it. “No drinking, either. You’re going to the desert, Melanie. You’re going to suffer.” He pours the water on the floor, throws the bottle at me. Then he gathers his stuff and leaves.
When I find the strength, I crawl toward the puddle slowly spreading among the stone. I put my lips to it and slurp, slurp until there’s nothing left.
I leave behind a bloody kiss.
Forty-Two
Two days later, or so I think, I am back on the stretcher, screaming.
He turns the wheel until my knees pop, until tendons twang and snap.
He tells me this is part two of a three-part punishment. Part three is coming very soon. He was going to wait until I was dead for part three, but he’s been watching videos and he thinks he can do it while I’m alive.
“It’ll hurt, though,” he says.
Then I’m back in my dungeon, chains too tight.
My body is grotesque. Out of my peripheral vision, I see how my arms appear longer. I see rip marks in my skin. The most movement I can do is wiggle my fingers and toes. That’s good, I think deliriously. I’m not paralyzed. Wiggling your toes is one of the first things they do at the hospitals when a patient is in a very bad accident and thought to be paralyzed. At least on television.
I smile. Somehow, I smile.
And I close my eyes.
I dream of mannequins.
I dream of my mother and father at the hospice, except I am on the bed, looking up at them through glazed eyes. They are crying and saying, “My baby, oh, my poor baby.”
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