by Jack Kilborn
The people who lived in the area were another story. Not that they were mean, or even particularly cold. A better word for them was distant. Over the past twelve months, Felix had talked to dozens of Monk Creek residents. He was usually met with a warm smile or a nod, but once he started asking questions their demeanor would change. Felix originally thought it was because small towns were private, wary of talking to strangers.
But now he suspected differently. Now he saw a big conspiracy of silence. There was something going on in Monk Creek no one wanted to discuss.
And John had something to do with it.
Felix drove past the parking lot, onto the unkempt grass alongside the building. He pulled the truck around the back, into a copse of trees behind his room. Once parked, Felix turned off the ignition, wincing as his ruined fingers removed the keys. Then he waited in the darkness, listening to the night, second-guessing himself for the last time.
I can still go to the cops, turn him in. John tried to kill me. I haven’t broken any laws.
Yet.
Felix considered starting the truck again. Taking John to the police was the only legal, and moral, course of action. The police had more resources, more manpower. Maybe trying to get John to talk would endanger Maria.
But what if the cops don’t believe me? What if John’s lawyer tells him not to say anything? What if John is well-known in the community? What if he’s friends with the police?
Felix couldn’t risk John not talking.
The only way to know the truth is to get it from John myself.
Felix grabbed the gun on the dash, opened the door, and climbed out of the truck. He walked around to the flatbed and rapped John on the heel with the butt of his Beretta. John squealed in fright.
“Out. Now.”
“Please don’ hurt me.”
Felix hit him again, harder. John moaned and began to inchworm backwards out of the truck on his knees and chest. Felix grabbed the large man’s cuffed wrists and helped him off the tailgate, onto his feet.
The night had gotten colder, the cool breeze pinching Felix’s wounds. John’s face was glossy with sweat, reflecting the light from Felix’s bathroom window. Felix removed the bungee cords wrapped around John’s legs and led him to the back porch; a poured slab of concrete with two weathered resin chairs facing the woods. He tried the patio door.
Locked.
Felix squinted through the split in the curtains, saw Cameron lying on the made bed, watching TV. He knocked lightly, and whispered. “Cam, it’s me. Open up.”
Cam’s head jerked at the sound, and a moment later he sprang off the mattress and opened the door. The younger man was dressed for bed, in boxer shorts and a tee shirt, but he still wore those black leather gloves. Felix had never seen Cam take the gloves off, even in the sweltering West Virginia summer when temperatures peaked at a hundred and three.
“You got one,” Cam said, his eyes getting big when he noticed John. Cam’s voice was high and raspy, as if he’d never finished the last few weeks of puberty, even though he’d just turned twenty. “Christ, Felix. You’re covered with blood.”
“Get the rope,” Felix said.
Cam did as instructed, and Felix lead a docile John to a battered desk chair, which creaked under his weight as he sat down. When Cam brought the nylon clothesline, he secured John’s body and feet while Felix covered him with the gun.
“You don’ wanna do this,” John said.
Cam stepped away, looking startled.
“Cam...” Felix said. He knew Cam’s history, knew that he might not be able to handle what was about to happen. “Maybe you should wait in the—”
Cam’s hand shot out, slapping John across the face. It sounded like a firecracker going off in the small room.
“Where’s my sister, you son of a bitch!”
Cam raised his hand again, but Felix grabbed his arm, wincing at the pain in his injured fingers. He looked into Cam’s eyes, saw them crackling with fire.
This is a bad, bad idea.
“Easy, kid,” Felix said, trying to keep his voice even. “John wants to cooperate. Don’t you, John?”
John eyed the floor, saying nothing.
“Does he know where Maria is?” Cam caught Felix’s forearm and squeezed. He was strong for his slight build.
“Maybe.” Felix tugged his arm away. “I’m not sure.”
Cam grabbed John’s ears, forcing his head up. “Where is she? Where’s my sister?”
“You better let me go.” John looked close to crying again. “Y’all be in big trouble if’n you don’t let me go.”
Cam stared hard, and something flashed across his face.
Is that a smile?
“Can you count, you big, fat redneck?” Cam asked. “Because I’m going to count to ten. And if you don’t tell me where Maria is, I’m going to kill you.”
Felix felt like he swallowed a bucket of ice. He knew why Cam was in the hospital. Knew what Cam was accused of doing.
Accused of. Never proven.
Still, it was enough to get him committed.
“Cam,” Felix cleared his throat. “Let’s go in the other room, talk this over.”
Cam ignored him, walking around to the back of John’s chair. “I bet you’re so slow and dumb you count on your fingers, don’t you? Here, let me help you count.”
John’s lips began to tremble.
“Cam...” Felix said. This situation was spiraling way out of control.
“One,” Cam counted.
CRACK.
It sounded like a branch snapping. But it wasn’t wood. Felix knew that Cam had just broken one of John’s fingers.
John’s face turned bright red, and Felix saw the scream building up in his throat. He managed to grab a dirty sock from the floor and shove it into John’s open mouth a second after the howl began. The sound went on and on, and Felix had never heard anything so pitiable, so awful, in his entire life. It made him sick, all the way down to a cellular level. Like Felix’s entire body had become rotten, making him want to crawl out of his skin and go hide.
But Cam wasn’t finished.
“Two.”
Another snap. John thrashed his head back and forth, the tendons in his neck sticking out, his throat vibrating with muffled cries.
Felix’s stomach clenched like a fist. He stumbled into the bathroom, dropping the gun in the sink, vomit spewing up and spraying the toilet. He sunk to his knees and held the bowl, trembling. The steely resolve of a year-long search seeped out of Felix’s body, replaced by pain, fear, and regret over what was happening.
I have to stop this. Now.
But John’s a killer. He had something to do with Maria’s disappearance.
He’s also a human being.
A human being who tried to kill me.
So that means we can torture him?
He may still have Maria.
That last thought gave Felix the strength to stand up and return the bedroom, albeit on wobbly legs. John was thrashing back and forth, his muffled screams making the hair on Felix’s neck stand up. Cam hyperextended another one of the man’s fingers, twirling it around and around like he was stirring a cookie batter.
“Cam.” The spectacle before Felix was surreal.
“I got this, Felix.” Cam grinned at him. “Least I can do, since you busted me out of the loony bin.”
Cam grabbed another finger, and Felix yelled, “Enough!”
Cam’s head shot up, looking like a teenager scolded for bad grades.
“Back off,” Felix ordered. His voice was shaky, but he held Cam’s gaze until the younger man slunk away.
Felix glanced quickly at John’s hands—most of his fingers were stuck out at odd angles—and walked around to face him. John was bright red, his face wet with tears. Felix yanked the sock out of his mouth and was rewarded with a soul-wrenching moan.
“Am... am I bleedin’?” John said.
Felix swallowed. “Not yet. But if you don’t answer my que
stions, my partner is going to start cutting off your fingers. Do you understand?”
John nodded, his chin trembling. Felix leaned down over him.
“Tell me, John. Is Maria alive?”
John stared, but stayed quiet. Drool leaked out of the corner of his mouth. Felix had once jammed a finger catching a football, and it hurt like hell. To have five broken fingers, misshapen and manhandled, must have been unbearable.
“Answer me. Is Maria alive?”
“You... hurt me bad,” John cried.
Felix felt his stomach turning again. But he managed to keep it under control when he said, “Cam, go out to the truck and get this bastard’s hunting knife.”
Cam nodded and hurried off. Felix considered his prisoner. Maybe John didn’t want to talk, because he thought if he did, he’d be killed. Killed because he was no longer useful. Or killed in retribution for the things he’d done to Maria.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Felix said. He knew it sounded hollow. Lame. But the alternative was letting Cam start slicing off fingers; something Cam seemed disturbingly eager to do. This was a slippery slope, and unless Felix could convince John he’d live through this, the situation would get a lot messier.
Could I allow Cam to keep hurting John?
Felix closed his eyes. He saw Maria’s face. If John had something to do with her disappearance, Felix would let Cam roast the guy over hot coals in order to get answers. Felix could have a crisis of conscious after John talked.
If John talked.
“Got it,” Felix said, hurrying back in. “Man, this knife is wicked.”
John began to blubber uncontrollably at the sight of Cam, and Felix felt ready to do the same.
Be strong. It’s for Maria.
Cam positioned himself behind John.
“Don’t cut me... please don’t cut me.”
e knew it sounded hollow,
“I just want to know what happened to my fiancé,” Felix said. He forced himself to maintain eye contact.
“He’s... he’s gonna cut my fingers off.”
“Not if you tell me the truth. If you tell me the truth, I promise he won’t cut you. We won’t hurt you any more if you tell me.” He crouched down, staring into John’s face. “Is Maria still alive?”
John’s lips trembled, but he stayed silent.
Anger surged up in Felix like the vomit had moments ago, and the last vestiges of sanity left him as he reared back and slapped John across the face, hard as he could.
“Goddammit, tell me!”
John’s whispered answer was the most important thing anyone had ever said to Felix.
“Your woman is... alive.”
# # #
Maria allows herself to be led out of her cell by George. He’s one of the largest of her captors, close to seven feet tall, and among the most sadistic. He’s not as deformed as the others, though his head is a little too big for his body, and his arms are too long, like a gorilla. The cattle prod he has in his hand is used for amusement as much as persuasion.
But today George seems distant. He straps on her ball gag without saying a word, and the nudge he gives her with the stick lacks electricity.
He puts the black cloth bag over her head, grabs her elbow, and leads her through the underground tunnels. As usual, Maria counts her steps. The first dozen times, they’d been clever, having her walk in circles. All the better to keep her disoriented. But lately they’d slipped into a routine. At exactly a hundred and fifteen paces, they come to the door to the Room.
She hears it open, feels George push her from behind. Maria’s legs lock. As terrible as her captivity has been, her times in the Room were the low points. What happens in the Room goes beyond pain, beyond sickness, beyond desperation.
What happens in the Room is an abomination.
George nudges her, but she still refuses to enter. She braces herself, expecting the jolt, anticipating the hurt.
But it doesn’t come. Instead, she’s shoved inside, many hands grabbing her, pulling her to the chair, strapping her down. Then the bag is pulled off her head, and Maria stares into the bulging eyes of Eleanor Roosevelt. She’s surrounded by a menagerie of freaks. Practically all of them. Deformed, twisted, grotesque, some half-naked, some fully nude. They form a large circle around Maria, smiling, drooling, grunting.
Eleanor holds a cupcake in her hand, a lit candle jabbed into the pink frosting.
“Happy anniversary, child. Today, you’ve been with us a whole year.”
As the words sink in, Eleanor blows out the candle. The freaks—those who have two normal hands—begin to clap. There are hoots. Howls. Giggles.
Maria sobs. She fights her bonds. Fights with every last bit of her strength, even as she realizes that Felix will never save her, that she’ll never get out of this hell alive, that these sub-human monstrosities are going to use her all up until there’s nothing left.
Maria watches George sit in the opposing chair. It’s his turn today; the apparent reason for his lethargy. She watches Jimmy—his eyes crossed and the pale hump on his back protruding through the split in his filthy lab coat—wheel the machine forward.
Maria screams when the needle goes in.
# # #
Kelly’s fascination with the Lincoln bedroom lasted all of six minutes, and then she was lying in bed, tackling Zombie Apocalypse on her iPod. With Grandma watching, she’d finally beaten level 65, though it had taken up all of her shotgun ammo. Now she was on level 70, fighting a boss who was three times her character’s size, with a stomach so fat it looked like he’d eaten ten other fat guys.
Kelly strafed him with the machine gun, circling his rotund body while dodging the green acid he kept puking at her. She got his health down to only a few red bars, and then one of his lumbering minions grabbed her, turning her into a pile of ash.
Retry? the game asked.
“Hell, yeah.”
She adjusted the pillow she was on, took the last bite of a chocolate chip granola bar, and prepared to kick some fat zombie ass.
Then JD growled.
Kelly glanced at her dog. The hair on his muzzle was sticking straight out, and his lips were raised in a snarl. His defensive stance. But he wasn’t focused on her. He wasn’t focused on the front door, either.
JD was staring at the closet.
That’s strange.
“JD. Come.”
Kelly patted the mattress beside her. At home, the German Shepherd wasn’t allowed on the bed, but Mom couldn’t bitch about what she didn’t know.
JD didn’t move. He growled again, hunkering down like he was ready to pounce.
Kelly studied the closet door. She’d checked inside earlier, while exploring the room, and had found it empty. But the way JD was snarling, he obviously didn’t think it was empty anymore.
Could there be something in the closet?
The thought of it was creepy, and made Kelly shiver.
“What is it, boy?” she asked. A pointless question—it wasn’t like JD was going to answer.
But he did answer, in his way. He stared at her and whined.
The only time Kelly ever heard JD whine was when she accidentally slammed his tail in the patio door. That’s what he looked like now—eyes wide, ears flat, tail drooping under his hind legs. Like he was hurt.
Or scared.
That’s stupid. Dogs don’t get scared.
Do they?
Kelly stared at the closet door again. She’d been pretty engrossed by her game. Could someone have snuck past her and gotten into the closet?
No. JD would have noticed.
Maybe it wasn’t a person. Maybe an animal had crawled in there, through the walls. They’d had a racoon in the house before, up in the attic. JD used to bark like crazy when he heard it.
But JD wasn’t barking now. He was growling and whining.
Some other type of animal, maybe?
A few seconds ago, the closet had been just a boring, old closet. But now, with how JD wa
s acting, it was actually beginning to freak her out.
She thought about the hunter by the waterfall, the one with the messed-up face. After beating Level 65, she’d used her iPod to Google cleft palate. That lead her to a site about birth defects, and some of the images were among the most horrible Kelly had ever seen. On one hand, it must have been awful for the poor people who had to live with those deformities. On the other hand, there was something so instantly repulsive about those images, Kelly had to stop looking at them.
Could that hunter guy be in my closet?
Kelly pictured him standing behind the door, waiting silently for her to go to sleep. So he could sneak up on her and kiss her with that disgusting mouth.
Kiss her, and worse.
Kelly had never kissed a guy. Not even on the cheek. She didn’t want her first to be that awful man.
I’m imagining things. He’s not in the closet.
He can’t be.
Right?
“Come here, JD.” Kelly said it softly.
JD didn’t come. He looked at her, then back at the closet.
Kelly set her iPod on the nightstand and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She held her breath, listening for any sounds that could be coming from the closet—
—and heard someone cough.
JD barked once and lunged at the closet door, scratching at the knob. Kelly quickly stood up and backed away, to the bathroom. The wooden floor was cool under her bare feet, and she felt nearly naked in her sleep tee shirt, even though it had three-quarter sleeves and hung past her knees.
The Shepherd continued his attack on the doorknob, even biting it, and though JD had never been able to open a door before Kelly had an unrealistic belief that he might this time.
“JD, come.”
The dog glanced at her.
“Come. Now.”
He trotted over, tongue hanging out, tail wagging. Kelly patted his head, surprised by how reassuring it felt. Then she knelt down and hugged his neck, both of them eyeing the door.