“Huge,” he said. “We’d be hidden off the main road.”
“What about neighbors?”
“The houses are far apart.” He said. “Besides they’ll probably just think the van is Nadia and her crew.”
Fred stepped forward again. “Yeah, you see, hotshot? Quit whining.”
“Okay, whatever. But if we’re gonna drive through that neighborhood in this shitbox then we need to do it in a hurry.”
Fred sneered at my comment, his rat-teeth jutting forward.
“Fine,” Tony said. “Then can we go, please?”
I looked at my watch. It was eleven.
“What time does Nadia get there to clean?” I asked.
“She’s already been.”
“What? So then how the hell do we get the fucking key?”
“She puts it back in the same spot she took it from, dumbass. It sits there until the lady comes home and takes it back.”
“And when does the lady come home?”
Fred moaned. “What’s with all these fucking questions?”
I ignored him and kept my eyes on Tony.
“Around dinner time, I think,” Tony said.
“You think?”
“I’m almost positive that’s what Nadia said.”
I turned and stared down Uncle Fred. “You’re confident you can get through those locks?”
He grinned—a sinister, almost pornographic leer. “Haven’t met a cherry I couldn’t pop yet.”
5
Susan Roberts left early that morning in preparation for the big day. All of the women on Elmwood left early that morning in preparation for the big day.
They talked about the marinade they had prepared the night before while they sat in rows of salon chairs having their hair cut and colored.
They chatted quietly to one another about their preferred methods of disposal when it came to the offerings they served for Him and Them as they sat close together while their freshly-painted fingernails dried.
They asked one another if they found it painful or erotic when He penetrated them as they sat in the sauna and massaged cocoa butter on their stomachs for what was about to play host there.
And they all giggled and agreed that while what they were doing was unholy, the compensations of endless luxury coupled with His intoxicating charm and affection more than eased any misgivings they had.
6
Uncle Frank pulled the van deep into the driveway of 1507 Elmwood.
“Should we go in one at a time?” I asked.
“No, we all go at once,” Tony said.
I took a second to marvel at the house. I referred to it as a castle earlier. It was a castle—a far cry from the sad dwellings that littered my neighborhood back home, that’s for sure. I seldom ventured out this way for the simple reason a poor, starving man doesn’t walk into a bakery and start sniffing.
“Yeah, hotshot, let’s go,” Fred said to me.
I looked at Tony. “He calls me ‘hotshot’ one more time, and I’m gonna crack that beak he calls a nose.”
“Yeah, keep talking, hotshot,” Fred said with a grin.
* * *
The key was exactly where Nadia had told Tony it would be on that drunken night she would undoubtedly regret if we pulled this off. It wasn’t a tough find. It was under the welcome mat by the front door.
We quickly filed inside, then collectively froze as we stood in the foyer.
“Jesus Christ,” Kevin said.
“Anyone bring a map?” I asked.
“Let’s just find the fucking basement,” Tony said. “Don’t touch anything else.”
Fred was eyeing up a lamp that looked as though it was worth more than both his van (which isn’t saying much, I suppose) and his house. Tony spotted him.
“Leave that shit, Uncle Fred.” He then turned to the rest of us. “Spread out; holler if you find the basement door. Move fast and don’t touch or take”—he eyed up Fred again—“anything while you’re looking.”
It was about five minutes of quietly opening and closing doors until it was Emma that announced: “I think I found it.”
We were all at her side in seconds. Tony pushed to the front and looked down the carpeted steps.
“Yeah, this has got to be it,” he said. He turned to Fred. “You got your shit with you?”
Fred reached into his back pocket and pulled out something that resembled a big wallet. He flipped it open revealing all types of skinny metal instruments that looked like something a sadistic dentist might use.
“What if there’s a padlock?” Tony asked.
Fred pulled a six inch bolt cutter from his front pocket.
“Isn’t that kind of small?” I asked.
Fred looked at Emma and winked. “Ain’t the size, but what you do with it that counts, right, honey?”
God, I wanted to hit this fucking guy.
We hurried down those carpeted stairs and soon found ourselves standing and gaping just as we had done in the foyer. It was gigantic and beautiful. I had been in a furnished basement once—a small room with wall to wall carpeting that I thought was nirvana—but this place? You could have a game of hide and seek down here and never find each other.
“Jesus Christ,” Kevin said again.
Tony said, “Fan out and find the door.”
“There’s a million doors down here,” I said.
“Then find the one that looks like it doesn’t want to be opened.”
* * *
Once again it was Emma who found the door. It was twice the width of every other door and made of steel. It was only the basement’s size that kept us from spotting it immediately.
“Look at the size of that thing,” Tony said.
Fred rapped his knuckles on the metal then looked it up and down.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
He didn’t answer me, just dropped into a catcher’s stance to study the locks.
“How does it look, Uncle Fred?” Tony asked.
He answered without taking his eyes off the locks. “The padlock will be a quick snip. But this gal…” He fingered the lock flat to the door above the handle. “…she may need a few drinks before opening her legs to me.”
Emma looked at me in disgust and I shook my head at her in agreement.
“Okay, stand back, kids…” Fred smirked, still in his catcher’s stance, still fingering the flat lock. “Uncle Freddy’s gonna show you how it’s done.”
7
Susan frowned when she spotted the van in her driveway. Nadia and her crew should have been long gone by now.
She looked at the clock on her dashboard. It was nearly one. She felt panic. Would He skip her appointment if He found someone else in the house? Oh God, she hoped not. She had spent so much time preparing. So much time yearning.
She didn’t bother pulling her car into the garage. Instead she parked it halfway up her driveway and ran to the front door. She checked under the mat. The key was gone. It must be Nadia and her crew.
She opened the front door and immediately called for Nadia.
8
I had already mentioned that Kevin was a dim bulb. But I have to confess that the simple choice of words he spoke when we finally broke through the door and descended deeper into an unexpected second basement were as profound and as appropriate as anything I’d ever heard come from his mouth.
He said: “What kind of sick shit is this?”
The five us stared—no, gawked—at a naked man in a cage who was bound and dangling from both wrists. The man was coated in some kind of dark slime and had what looked like a small billiard ball jammed into his mouth, tied tight around his head.
Fred turned away from the spectacle and poked Tony in the chest. “What the hell is this?”
Tony couldn’t take his eyes off the dangling man.
“Where are the fucking antiques?” Fred demanded. “You brought us into a house to see some sick shit out of Pulp Fiction?”
Tony shook his head.
“No…I…”
Emma spoke up. “Wait, look…”
There was another steel door directly across from the cage. I think it was safe to say that none of us even remotely acknowledged it once we’d spotted the naked man. But there it was, and it was the only other door within the subterranean lair we’d found ourselves in.
Fred brought his attention off of Tony and spun around to look at the door. “That’s gotta be it,” he said.
“Fred,” I said, “We can’t go in there.”
His eyes bulged. “What?”
I was adamant; I pointed at the dangling man in the cage. “Something is very wrong here.” I pointed back to the door. “Who knows what’s behind that door? I say we get the fuck out of here now.”
“Fuck no!” he yelled. “I didn’t come this far to go away with an eyeful of some naked freak hanging in a cage. Whatever these rich bitches do in their private time is their problem. I’m going through this door and I’m leaving with something. You don’t like it, you can fucking leave.”
The man in the cage began to whimper through his gag. All five of us spun and gawked again.
“Look at that guy,” I said. “You tellin’ me he’s here on his own accord? There’s some freaky shit happening here and we have to—”
The voice at the top of the stairs cut me off and froze us all in an instant. It was a woman’s voice, and she was calling for Nadia.
9
Susan was furious. How dare Nadia and her crew break into this room? They were going to ruin everything.
Susan stomped her way down her secret stairs. He was going to be here any minute and she prayed He wouldn’t be angry. Prayed He would understand that none of this was her fault.
Her anger was at a fever pitch by the time she reached the bottom step.
10
We heard the footsteps coming down the stairs, and by their speed and force it was a safe guess that whoever they belonged to was pissed off.
We all looked at one another in a panic.
A woman hit the bottom step and marched right towards us, seemingly unafraid. She stopped a few feet from our group, her angry eyes ping-ponging between us, and then behind us, searching.
“Where’s Nadia?” she demanded.
I guessed the woman at around forty. She was attractive and looked as though she was fighting off Father Time rather well. Her crow’s feet and jowls were still smooth and tight to her silken skin and her blonde hair was thick and healthy. Her clothing, however, was modest. Jeans and a sweater.
“I haven’t had a chance to dress for Him yet, dammit,” she said. “Where’s Nadia?”
Uncle Fred stepped forward. “Nadia’s not here.” He drew a knife from behind his shirt. “And you might want to call your date and tell him you’ve got to cancel.”
“What are you doing, man?” I asked.
Fred kept the knife stuck on the woman when he answered me. “Shut up.”
He then addressed her. “There’s two ways this can happen, lady. You are going to open this door for us, and we are going to leave with something…” He took a step towards the woman and pushed the tip of the knife to her throat. “…or things are gonna get messy, and we’re still gonna leave with something. Your choice.”
“What’s with the man in the cage?” I asked the lady.
Fred turned and shot me an angry look. “Who cares, Goddammit!” He turned back to the woman. “Lady, did you hear what I said?”
The woman started to cry. Heavy tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped onto her sweater. “You’re going to ruin everything,” she sobbed. “He’ll never want to see me again after this.”
A male voice, smooth and soft, yet somehow loud enough to capture our attention said, “Nonsense, sweetheart. Of course I will.”
The woman spun towards the voice. All twelve of our eyes were now fixed on a man who seemed to materialize out of nowhere.
He sauntered down the white hallway towards us, the florescent glow overhead illuminating his brilliant features. And when I say brilliant, I don’t mean handsome—even though he was—I mean, well, brilliant.
The man was over six feet tall with a slender build and dressed immaculately in black. His face was chiseled and his lips were smooth, delicate and red like a woman’s. His hair was jet-black and slicked back tight against his head, eyes as dark as his hair and shone like black marbles.
But this is the description of a handsome man, and I already told you he was handsome. I also said he looked brilliant. The thing is I can’t really explain why he looked brilliant. No, wait—yes I can. It was his eyes. I just told you they were black, but they’re not. They were a second ago…but then they turned green. And then they turned red. And then silver. And then black again. The changes were rapid fire and brief, but they were there.
This wasn’t a man. It couldn’t be.
The woman ran into his arms and hugged him as though he were a relative long thought dead. He allowed her embrace, then nudged her back and took hold of her face with both hands. He looked into her eyes (I saw them change four different colors as he did) and leaned in, giving her a gentle kiss on the lips.
“I know what’s going on here, sweetheart. I know it’s not your fault,” he said.
“Thank you,” she replied, looking into his eyes as though her whole world resided within them. “I prayed you’d understand.”
He chuckled at her choice of words and then gently pulled her behind him so he could face the five of us.
Fred still held the knife out in front; it was now pointing at the man in black.
“Listen pal, I’ll tell you what I told her. We are not leaving here without—”
The man didn’t move at all. Even his expression of mild interest never changed. But his eyes did. They went from black to red. And that was when Uncle Fred stabbed himself in the neck.
Blood shot in pulsating spurts from the wound and streaked the white walls. Emma screamed. Both Tony and Kevin took several steps back, their mouths open and useless from shock. I grabbed Emma and pulled her back towards the rear of the cage.
Fred fell to his knees, paused there a second—his eyes wide and unbelieving—then finally fell forward onto his face, a rich pool of red soon encircling his head.
Now it was Kevin’s turn. And it was painfully fitting that he left this earth spouting the kind of moronic comment as only Kevin was capable of. His last words were: “Fred, why did you stab yourself in the neck?”
The man smirked at Kevin, and then pointed his index finger at him. The finger grew five times its own length and pierced Kevin’s forehead between the eyes. The impact was quick and sudden—in and out like an air-powered cattle gun. A small trickle of blood began to leak down the hole in Kevin’s head, and instead of falling forward onto his knees as Fred had done, he fell backwards like a plank, his head ricocheting off the cement floor with a hollow thud.
Tony was not keen on being number three. He bolted past the man and ran for the stairs. He made it up two steps when I heard a sound like tree branches cracking in a storm…the sound of Tony’s legs breaking. Each leg splintered and snapped in directions they were never meant to go. Their red and white shards pierced the cloth of Tony’s pants causing him to tumble backwards and cry out in a scream that was higher than something I believe even Emma was capable of.
The man smiled towards us (never once glancing back in Tony’s direction) and with a final shimmer in his eyes (a quick flash of yellow this time) Tony’s head exploded.
Emma screamed again, and if Tony’s legs still worked I would imagine they’d have twitched involuntarily once his brain popped.
I tried taking my eyes away from the gelatinous clumps of red that was once Tony’s head, but found the gore both shocking and mesmerizing. Surreal. I so badly wanted this to be a dream. A dream right after the discussion Emma and I had that night about whether or not we should go through with this. About pushing away our better judgment and going through with it for the better of us so we co
uld have a fresh start together. I knew now that would never happen. There would be no fresh start. No new beginning. Only an end. A horrific one.
“Come on out from behind there, you two.” The man spoke to us like he was coaxing children out from their hiding place.
I turned to Emma. Her eyes were wide and glazed. I shook her by the shoulders but the fog didn’t clear.
The man said, “Hellooooo…?”
I decided to leave Emma where she was and step out on my own. She didn’t try to hold me back; she was frozen.
“Please don’t hurt her,” I said.
The man tilted his head and studied me. His expression was almost pleasant, his eyes stuck on yellow.
“And what about you?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “But after what I just saw I would guess you could manage most anything you wanted.”
He straightened his head, his eyes gray now.
“I may have something in mind,” he said, “but it won’t be immediate.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” My voice cracked with fear.
“Immediate,” the man said. “As in: right now.”
“Okay, fine, whatever. But you’ll let her go?”
He smiled and shook his head, pointing his finger past my shoulder. I turned and followed it.
Emma was sprawled out behind me. At least I think it was Emma. Whatever it was, it was wearing Emma’s clothes. Inside her clothes was just skin. Like a suit of flesh dressed in clothes. Her fluids, her bones, everything looked as though it had been sucked out by some industrial vacuum. The only thing that remained—and I believe this was intentional—were her eyes. They stared up at me lifelessly—blue and glistening wet—within the wrinkled fleshy sockets that were still rimmed with what I used to think was too much eyeliner.
I cried out and put a hand to my mouth—something I thought only women did in the movies. I whirled back around and launched a right hand towards my assailant. He caught my fist with little effort, squeezed it and turned the bones in my hand into an excruciating mess. He then reached out with his other hand, touched me on the forehead and said: “Boop!”
WARPED: A Collection of Short Horror, Thriller, and Suspense Fiction Page 12