The Method

by Ralston, Duncan

  Alex hung his head.

  She stood and looked around the small, featureless room with a sneer. “What makes ‘Control’ think I won’t tell everyone what happened here? What makes them think they can keep this place a secret anymore?”

  He gave her a sympathetic look. “You think you’re the first person to ask that? You wrote your next of kin’s addresses on your contracts, Mrs. Moffat. They’ll be watching you out there. If you tell anything to anyone, they will not hesitate to murder your father, Frank’s father, or any one of your friends or family. I know you don’t talk to your mother anymore, but I’m sure you’d regret it if you found out they killed her because you couldn’t keep a secret. Trust me: you do not want to challenge these people.”

  Despite all of his lies, she had no reason to doubt the veracity of this. She’d seen what they were capable of and what they’d been able to cover up.

  “Even if you did tell, what would be the point? Like you said, it won’t bring Frank back.”

  Linda balled her hands into fists. “People would be held accountable. They’d burn this fucking awful place to the ground with all of you in it if we’re lucky. And I wouldn’t piss on it to put it out.”

  Alex lowered his head and stepped out of the room. “I’ll take you upstairs when you’re ready.”

  “Lead the fucking way,” she said.

  The games room stood empty when she entered behind him. No Harriet behind the observation window, all the monitors turned off. No one sitting on the sofa watching the blank TV on its mount. No one stacking up cards or piecing puzzles together.

  The Method was finished.

  At least for Linda and Frank.

  She assumed sometime in the very near future, maybe as soon as next weekend, another couple would step in through the lodge’s front doors brimming with hope, filled with thoughts of reigniting lost love.

  The poor bastards, she thought.

  In the elevator, Alex hummed something that made her skin crawl.

  “What’s that song? Why are you humming that?”

  “Huh? Oh, um . . . I’m not sure. I guess I must have heard it somewhere.”

  She eyed him as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. He waited for her to step out into the main foyer. The large room was equally as empty as below, everything in its right place.

  Reset.

  As though she and Frank had never been here.

  A strange urge overcame her as she looked up the stairs toward the loft, and the cedar panels slid back into place. “I want Frank’s luggage. I want to bring it home with me. Where it belongs.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible. It’s been incinerated.”

  “You people have everything covered, don’t you? Well, how am I going to explain what happened to Frank? Or did you forget about that?”

  “You were in a car crash. That’s why you have so many injuries.”

  “A car crash. You’ve probably got the hospital records and police reports all ready to go.” She chuckled bitterly, remembering Trevor and Dillon’s motorcycle accident story. “I still don’t understand why our friends would tell us to come here.”

  “You’d be surprised what a parent would do to protect their child.”

  Linda remembered the way Trevor's expression had darkened before he'd revealed what had brought them together, before Dillon had practically forced him to recommend coming here, to Lone Loon Lodge, to experience The Method for themselves. She wondered if she might have done the same under similar circumstances. If they'd threatened Frank's life, had he survived, would she recommend The Method to their friends?

  ”Anyway,” Alex was saying. ”I don’t think they would have given your friends much of a choice.”

  “They.” Linda spat the word. ”You still act like you’re not as guilty as the rest of them. You were just following orders. We do what we’re told, right?”

  “I’m protecting the people I love, just like you did.”

  “By hurting others? Does that make it sit right with you? For all you know, the family you’re protecting is already dead.”

  His eyes went wide.

  Linda's laugh was full of venom. “You’ve never even considered that, have you? That they could still be pulling the wool over your eyes after all these years?”

  Alex opened his mouth to reply. Closed it.

  She was surprised by how much satisfaction the look on his face gave her.

  “I’ll show myself out, thanks.”

  And she did.

  Frank awoke struggling against the straps and nearly ended up punching himself in the face. For a frantic few minutes, he couldn’t remember where he was or how he’d come to be in this cramped room with white walls. Then he felt the dull aches in his left calf from the trap and right thigh from the screwdriver, the soreness in his face from multiple punches, the slash on his left thigh, his fingers crushed against the kitchen tile, the bruises and scratches on the sole of his left foot, the burns on his temples.

  So much for electroshock pain therapy, he thought, and when he laughed, his head hurt.

  Slowly, he rose from the uncomfortable bed and looked around his dismal cell. The walls blank, the mattress stripped down to a white sheet. They’d put a cast on his leg, bandages elsewhere, and dressed him in fresh clothes from his luggage, a clean t-shirt and shorts.

  The camera above the door buzzed as it focused. He gave it the finger.

  Linda was probably long gone by now. He still found it hard to believe she’d actually flicked the switch that caused the last burst of electroshock to knock him unconscious, but he supposed they’d somehow manipulated her into doing it. He hadn’t seen malice in her eyes. She had looked terrified.

  At least until she’d heard him say it.

  I don’t love you anymore.

  After that, she’d looked surprised. He supposed hurt might have come next, but by then, the shock had already hit him, and everything that had happened since was lost.

  The door unlocked and swung inward.

  Alex pushed a folding wheelchair in. “Good news. Control has decided to let you go in light of what happened to Linda.”

  Frank sat up, wincing as a bolt of pain shot up his leg. “What happened to Linda?”

  “Oh.” Alex looked annoyed and sighed. “I thought someone would have told you by now.”

  “Told me what, goddammit!”

  The man gave him a sympathetic smile. “Linda took her own life.”

  Frank fell against the wall. The back of his head struck the tile, and he cried out in pain. “Linda wouldn’t do that,” he said, rubbing his new injury.

  “I am truly sorry, Frank. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “When?”

  “What?”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Right after your electroshock session. Dr. Kaspar thinks she must have been racked with guilt after flicking the switch on you—”

  “Oh Dr. Kaspar thinks that, does he? You mean after you made her flick the switch. Why would she feel guilty? What did you people tell her?”

  “We told her you’d died.” Alex seemed to think this was obvious. “Just like Kaspar said we would.”

  Frank ran his hands through his hair, fighting the urge to stagger out of bed and choke the man to death in front of the camera. It would certainly be a triumphant ending, bringing things around full circle, giving him a sense of closure.

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Alex was saying. “We take precautionary measures to prevent . . . things like this from happening. But I guess she found a loose screw on her bed and used it to slash her throat. By the time we saw her on the monitors—”

  “Please stop talking.” Frank needed to think. Thinking required silence. He just couldn’t take what this man said at face value when he’d lied to his face so often. “That doesn’t make sense. Linda wouldn’t do that.”

  “You never can know how people will react under extreme duress.”

  “I do. I d
o know. Linda wouldn’t kill herself. If she really is dead, it’s because you people killed her and you’re trying to cover it up.”

  Alex’s jaw tightened. “Regardless of what you believe, they’ve decided to let you leave.”

  “Who decided? Who’s they?”

  The man shook his head. “You know I don’t know that,” he said, and spread open the wheelchair.

  Frank pushed himself to his feet. “I don’t need your fucking wheelchair.”

  “I’m just trying to make your checkout as comfortable as possible.”

  Frank hobbled over to him. “I’ll be sure to leave you a good review.” He pushed the wheelchair aside angrily and limped out into the hall, one hand on the wall to help himself along.

  Alex’s shoes squeaked behind him. “There are a lot of support groups for grieving widowers—”

  “You think I buy that bullshit my husband’s dead story of yours? I’m starting to doubt if you really even are Asian.”

  Alex laughed awkwardly.

  “How about you take your advice, and your stories, and shove those little factoids up your ass?”

  Nobody was around in the games room. Everything looked neat and tidied. He thumbed the elevator button, but it did nothing. Alex sidled up to him and used his card key. The doors slid open and Frank stepped in.

  They rose to the ground level in silence.

  The lobby was just as dead as downstairs. It was still dark out, but the first orange rays of dawn glimmered through the large windows.

  Frank hobbled to the front doors.

  “I don’t think I have to tell you it would be against your better judgment to talk about this place with anyone.”

  “No word-of-mouth marketing, huh?” Frank opened the door and leaned against it. “That’s not a very good way to run a business, Alex.”

  “It’s just that it would be very detrimental to your family and friends if you do.”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Shadowy organization watching my every move. If I hadn’t figured that out by now, I’d have to be pretty damn dense.”

  He staggered out onto the porch and down the steps, out across the grass and around to the side of the building. Their car was gone, but the Escalade was still parked where it had been.

  Through the tinted windshield, he saw a woman hunched over in the driver’s seat, obviously searching for something on the floor or in the glove box. She sat up suddenly, and Frank’s heart literally skipped a beat.

  It was Linda. She was alive.

  Linda wore a similar look of astonishment and struggled to push the door open. “Frank?”

  “Lin!”

  He limped over to her, and she met him halfway. They hugged each other so tightly that their backs cracked, and she reared back to look at him, unable to believe her eyes.

  “They told me you were dead,” they both said, and laughed at the coincidence.

  “What now?” they both said.

  “Now?” Linda kissed him excitedly on the lips. Despite the pain, he kissed her back. “Let’s go home,” she said.

  “Home.” Frank nodded. “I think that plan’s to die for.”

  Linda grinned and smacked his shoulder.

  “Ow! Careful!” He winked. “I’m fragile.”

  “Oh, my fragile little flower.” She kissed him on the cheek and headed for the car.

  Frank wrenched the passenger seat back and hauled himself into it.

  “I can’t find the keys,” Linda said. “I’ve checked everywhere.”

  Frank lowered the sun visor. The keys fell into her lap.

  “Aha!” She turned them in the ignition, and the radio came on. As she turned the car around and headed for the road, she realized it was the same song Alex had hummed in the elevator, Willie Nelson’s version of “You Always Hurt the Ones You Love.”

  Frank turned off the radio. “I hate that song.”

  “So do I.”

  A smile crept onto her face. She laid her hand palm up on the transmission and glanced at her husband. Frank smiled back and slipped his hand into his wife’s.

  As the trees parted along the highway, Linda and Frank Moffat drove off hand in hand into the sunrise, the future uncertain, but it was theirs.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you for reading The Method! I know you have many choices of books when reading, and I'm grateful you chose to read mine when you could have been absorbed in the latest Gillian Flynn or Stephen King or Blake Crouch! That's pretty amazing to me, I gotta say. 15-year-old me would never have believed people would actually want to read something I wrote, let alone publish the damn thing. Although 15-year-old me was still playing with Ninja Turtles so I really shouldn't put too much stock in what he might have thought about his future.

  I need to thank a bunch of people for their help and encouragement during the writing "process," the Kindle Scout campaign, and beyond. First, as always, thanks to Sherri for her gentle nudges—which may or may not have involved "gentle" death threats—to get this bugger finished and out into the world. Thanks to my mom, who is always eager to read everything I write, even the stuff she probably shouldn't. Thanks to fellow writers, readers and others in the horror community, in particular: Michael Bray, Matt Shaw, Daryl "DLD" Duncan, Erin Sweet-Al Mehairi, Becky Narron, Thomas S. Flowers, Matt Hickman, Lydian Faust, Chad A. Clark, Dawn Cano, Alex Kimmell, Shaun Hupp, Daniel Marc Chant, Darren Dilnott, Lisa Arrigo, and Scot Leedom. Special thanks to James Newman for reading the first physical copy and providing the book with an excellent blurb.

  This time around I'd also like to thank everyone who voted for The Method on Kindle Scout, the folks at KS for selecting it, and my editor Vivian Doskow for her great notes and fixes. I was very surprised and pleased at the amazing amount of support this book received, and I certainly wasn't expecting it to be chosen for publication. I hope to get to know some of you through social media. If you're inclined you can reach me directly on Facebook and Twitter, and follow me on Amazon and Bookbub. And if you enjoyed this book, you may also enjoy the thriller Wildfire, available absolutely FREE when you sign up to my sporadic newsletter at www.DuncanRalston.com.

  About the Author

  Duncan Ralston was born in Toronto and spent his teens in small-town Canada. As a "grownup," Duncan lives with his partner and their dog in Toronto, where he writes dark fiction about the things that disturb him. In addition to his twisted short stories found in GRISTLE & BONE, the anthologies EASTER EGGS & BUNNY BOILERS, WHAT GOES AROUND, DEATH BY CHOCOLATE, FLASH FEAR, and the charity anthologies DARK DESIGNS, BAH! HUMBUG!, VS: US vs UK HORROR, and THE BLACK ROOM MANUSCRIPTS Vol. 1, he is the author of the novel SALVAGE, and the novellas WILDFIRE, WHERE THE MONSTERS LIVE, and WOOM, an extreme horror Black Cover book from Matt Shaw Publications.