by Blake Crouch
He finally broke free and swung his legs off the gurney.
Naked, tall, pale, and covered in cuts, burns, and bruises.
He looked monstrous.
"What is this?" he said again.
I reached into my pocket, took out the Harpy I’d liberated from the control panel drawer.
Now I held a knife in each hand.
I swung my right arm back and sent the knife sliding across the concrete, until it finally collided into Luther’s bare feet.
"I can barely walk," I said. "And you aren’t so pretty yourself."
"Yeah."
"I’d say we’re evenly matched."
"Not even." He knelt and lifted the Harpy off the floor, opened it with a subtle flick of the wrist. "I’ll fucking take you apart."
"Then let’s do it," I said, opening my blade and starting toward him. "One of us has to die."
Epilogue
HE doesn’t know how long he’s been chained up in darkness.
He barely remembers his own name.
Almost all of the time, he is cold.
All of the time, he is thirsty and hungry.
There is no day or night here, down in this cold, dank room in the basement of the factory. He thinks he may have been here for months, but it could be longer. Much longer. He fears that his mind has lost the ability to reason time. That years may have passed.
His beard is six inches long.
He is skin and bones.
The slash he received eons ago is now nothing more than a raised scar across his abdomen, and he fingers it obsessively, constantly replaying the knife-fight like a piece of botched choreography.
Every other day, his captor brings a pitcher of water and a plate of food.
Several times, he was asleep when the food arrived and awoke to find a giant rat feasting on his meal.
The first three times, he shooed it away.
The fourth, he crushed it and ate it.
His former life only visits him in dreams—bright, vivid, blue-sky dreams.
He has long passed the point of wanting death and he couldn’t effectuate such a plan regardless. He is forced to wear a helmet to prevent braining himself. The few times he’s tried to starve himself or go without water has resulted in force-feeding. In one paining session, his teeth were removed so he couldn’t bleed himself to death.
His captor has informed him that he intends to keep him alive for twenty years, and while he feels certain that his body will last, he wonders about his mind. Already, it is breaking down. To know and understand that you’re going crazy is perhaps the worst brand of torment he has ever withstood. He’d rather spend a year in the gurney.
And so he is essentially a soul trapped in an earthbound body.
His approach to living could almost be described as Zen.
The ten square feet where he eats and sleeps and shits is his world.
He has an intimate knowledge of the cracks and fissures in the concrete beneath him—studies their patterns like the word of God.
The space beyond his length of chain has become as mysterious and unreachable as the universe.
Occasionally, screams trickle down from the warehouse several floors above, but mostly, there is only silence and darkness.
Recently, his captor brought down an antiquated typewriter and ten reams of paper.
A sick joke, but more and more he’s considering writing if for nothing more than the diversion of something new to pass the hours.
He talks to Orson all the time.
He tells himself stories that he may one day write.
In the strangest of them all, none of this is really happening. He’s just a character trapped in the twisted story of a semi-famous writer who lives on a lake in North Carolina. He keeps trying to finish the story. To write in some weakness in the chains, some error in judgment on the part of his captor that might allow him to escape, but nothing ever seems right.
At last, on the story’s hundredth incarnation, he arrives upon the answer.
A character returns unexpectedly to the warehouse and saves him.
As the story closes, he’s lying in a luxurious bed, drifting in and out of sleep.
He hears approaching footsteps and smiles.
Because the covers are warm.
Because he feels no pain.
Because those footsteps belong to Violet.
She’s coming to nurse him back to health.
Momentarily, she’ll be through the door.
And she’ll sit on the bed and feed him from a bowl of steaming soup, and when she’s finished, crawl into bed with him and run her fingers through his hair and whisper that he’s safe now. That the pain is behind him, behind them both, and in this warm, soft bed—everything that matters.
AFTERWORD
So when can you expect the end of the Andrew Thomas/Luther Kite saga?
I’m good friends with thriller author J.A. Konrath, and our writing has covered many of the same themes of good and evil. I love Joe’s Det. Jack Daniels Series, which showcases his own unique, disturbing take on the serial killer genre.
In 2011, we concluded our Serial series with SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT, a double-novel we wrote that brought together every major character from Konrath's work and my work, including Orson, Luther, Andy, Violet, Jack Daniels, and numerous others.
Then Joe approached me with a simple, yet unique, idea: Wouldn’t it be fun to have Jack and Luther square off in a full-length novel that was also the conclusion to both of our series? I was all for it. That novel is STIRRED, which we’re currently writing, and it will be released at the end of 2011.
If you’re new to my books, or Joe’s books, and want to get caught up on the entire history of our shared Crouch/Kilborn/Konrath Universe before reading STIRRED, here is the order they go in, along with the characters they spotlight:
ALL CAPS = Novels
Italics = Novellas and Short Stories Contained within SERIAL KILLERS UNCUT
A Watch of Nightingales by Blake Crouch (1969, Orson Thomas, Andy Thomas)
A Day at the Beach by Blake Crouch (1977, Luther Kite, Maxine Kite, Rufus Kite)
A Pitying of Turtle Doves by JA Konrath and Jack Kilborn (1978, Donaldson and Mr. K)
The One That Stayed by JA Konrath (1983, Charles Kork, Alex Kork)
A Night at the Dinner Table by Blake Crouch (1984, Luther Kite, Maxine Kite, Rufus Kite)
Cuckoo by Blake Crouch (1986, Luther Kite, Rufus Kite)
SHOT OF TEQUILA by JA Konrath (1991, Jack Daniels, Tequila)
A Wake of Buzzards by Blake Crouch and Jack Kilborn (1991, Orson Thomas, Donaldson)
A Brood of Hens by Blake Crouch (1992, Orson Thomas, Luther Kite)
A Glaring of Owls by Blake Crouch and JA Konrath (1993, Orson Thomas, Luther Kite)
A Murder of Crows by Blake Crouch and JA Konrath (1995, Orson Thomas, Luther Kite, Charles Kork)
Bad Girl by Blake Crouch (1995, Lucy, Orson Thomas, Luther Kite, Andy Thomas)
DESERT PLACES by Blake Crouch (1996, Andy Thomas, Orson Thomas, Luther Kite)
The One That Got Away by JA Konrath (2001, Alex Kork and Charles Kork)
LOCKED DOORS by Blake Crouch (2003, Andy Thomas, Luther Kite, Violet King, Sweet-Sweet & Beautiful)
An Unkindness of Ravens by Blake Crouch, JA Konrath, and Jack Kilborn (2003, Luther Kite, Alex Kork, Charles Kork, Javier Estrada, Kiernan, Isaiah Brown, Donaldson, Mr. K, Swanson, Munchel, Pessolano, Jack Daniels, Tequila, Lucy, Clayton Theel, Barry Fuller, Sheriff Dwight Roosevelt)
WHISKEY SOUR by JA Konrath (2004, Jack Daniels, Charles Kork)
The One That Didn't by Blake Crouch and JA Konrath (2004, Luther Kite)
FAMOUS by Blake Crouch, (2004, Lancelot Blue Dunkquist)
Break You by Blake Crouch (2004, Luther Kite, Andy Thomas, Violet King)
BLOODY MARY by JA Konrath (2005, Jack Daniels, Barry Fuller)
RUSTY NAIL by JA Konrath (2006, Jack Daniels, Alex Kork)
SNOWBOUND by Blake Crou
ch (2007, Javier Estrada)
DIRTY MARTINI by JA Konrath (2007, Jack Daniels)
Truck Stop by JA Konrath and Jack Kilborn (2007, Donaldson, Jack Daniels, Taylor)
Serial by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch (2008, Lucy, Donaldson)
Killers by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch (2008, Lucy, Donaldson, Luther Kite, Kurt Lanz, M.D.)
A Schizophrenia of Hawks by JA Konrath and Blake Crouch (2008, Luther Kite, Alex Kork)
AFRAID by Jack Kilborn (2008, Taylor)
DRACULAS by Jack Kilborn, Blake Crouch, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson, (2008, Clayton Theel, Kurt Lanz, M.D.)
FUZZY NAVEL by JA Konrath (2008, Jack Daniels, Alex Kork, Swanson, Munchel, and Pessolano)
ABANDON by Blake Crouch (2009, Isaiah Brown)
CHERRY BOMB by JA Konrath (2009, Jack Daniels, Alex Kork)
TRAPPED by Jack Kilborn (2010, Taylor)
ENDURANCE by Jack Kilborn (2010, Sheriff Dwight Roosevelt)
SHAKEN by JA Konrath (2010, Jack Daniels, Mr. K, Luther Kite)
Lovebirds by JA Konrath (2011, Lucy, Donaldson)
STIRRED by Blake Crouch and JA Konrath (2011, Jack Daniels, Luther Kite)
RUN by Blake Crouch (2013, Kiernan)
Thanks for reading!
Blake Crouch
BONUS FEATURES
Interview with Blake Crouch by Hank Wagner
Originally Published in Crimespree, July 2009
According to his website, Blake Crouch grew up in Statesville, a small town in the piedmont of North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2000, where he studied literature and creative writing. He currently resides in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. Crouch’s first book, Desert Places, was published in 2003. Pat Conroy called it “Harrowing, terrific, a whacked-out combination of Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy.” Val McDermid described it as “An ingenious, diabolical debut that calls into question all our easy moral assumptions. Desert Places is a genuine thriller that pulses with adrenaline from start to finish.” His second novel, Locked Doors, was published in July 2005. A sequel to Desert Places, it created a similar buzz. His third novel, Abandon, was published on July 7, 2009.
HANK WAGNER: Your writing career began in college?
BLAKE CROUCH: I started writing seriously in college. I had tinkered before, but the summer after my freshman year, I decided that I wanted to try to make a living at being a writer. Spring semester of 1999, I was in an intro creative writing class and I wrote the short story (called “Ginsu Tony”) that would grow into Desert Places. Once I started my first novel, it became an obsession.
HW: Where did the original premise for Desert Places come from?
BC: The idea for Desert Places arose when two ideas crossed. I had the opening chapter already in my head... suspense writer receives an anonymous letter telling him there’s a body buried on his property, covered in his blood. I didn’t know where my protagonist was going to be taken though. Around the same time, I happened to be glancing through a scrapbook that had photographs of this backpacking trip I took in Wyoming in the mid 90’s. One of those photographs was of a road running off into the horizon in the midst of a vast desert. My brain starting working. What if my protagonist is taken to a cabin out in the middle of nowhere, by a psychopath? What if this cabin is in this vast desert, and he has no hope of escape? That photograph broke the whole story open for me.
HW: Why a sequel for your second book? Affection for the characters?
BC: It was actually my editor’s idea. I was perfectly happy walking away from the first book. But once she mentioned it during the editing of Desert Places, I really started to think about where the story could go, wondered how Andy might have changed after seven years in hiding, and I got excited about doing it. And I’m very glad I did, because I would’ve missed those characters. Even my psychopaths are family in some strange, twisted way.
HW: Of all the reviews and comments about your books, what was the strangest? The meanest? The nicest? The most perceptive?
BC: The strangest: This was a comment about me and the reviewer wrote something to the effect that I was either a super-talented writer with an immense imagination or one sick puppy. I think that’s open to debate. The meanest: From those [expletive deleted] at Kirkus. Now, keep in mind, this is my first taste of reviews and the reviewer absolutely savaged my book. It was so mean it was funny... although I didn’t see the humor for some time. The review ended, “Sadly, a sequel is in the works.” The nicest: That’s hard to choose from. I particularly loved the review for Locked Doors that appeared in the Winston-Salem Journal. The reviewer wrote, and this is my favorite quote thus far, “If you don’t think you’ll enjoy seeing how Crouch makes the torture and disembowelment of innocent women, children and even lax store employees into a thing of poetic beauty, maybe you should go watch Sponge Bob.” The most perceptive: The reviews that recognize that I’m trying to make a serious exploration of the human psyche, the nature of evil, and man’s depravity are the ones that please me the most.
HW: Do you strive for realism in your writing, or do you try more to entertain?
BC: First and foremost, I want to entertain. I want the reader to close the book thinking, “that was a helluva story.” Beyond that, I do strive for realism. I want the reader to identify with my characters’ emotions, whether it’s fear, sadness, or happiness. The places I write about, from the Yukon to the Outer Banks to the Colorado mountains are rendered accurately, and that’s very important to me, because I want the reader to have the benefit of visiting these beautiful places in my books.
HW: The villain in Locked Doors seems almost a force of nature, cunning, instinctively brilliant when it comes to creating mayhem. Do you worry that readers might write him off as unrealistic?
BC: I decided to approach Luther Kite a little differently than my bad guy, Orson Thomas, in Desert Places. In the first book, I tried to humanize Orson, to gin up sympathy by explaining what happened in his childhood to turn him into this monster. With Luther et al., I made a conscious decision not to delve into any of that, and for this reason I think he comes off as almost mythic, larger than life, maybe with even a tinge of the supernatural. I don’t worry that readers will find him unrealistic, because I didn’t try to make him like your typical realistic humdrum villain. What I want is for readers to fear him.
HW: What’s the most important thing a book has to do to keep YOUR attention?
BC: It’s actually very simple... a great story told through great writing. I don’t care if it’s western, horror, thriller, historical, romance, or literary. I just want to know that I’m in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.
HW: Who are your literary heroes?
BC: I grew up on southern writers -- Walker Percy, Pat Conroy -- the fantasy of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. In college I discovered Thomas Harris, Dennis Lehane, James Lee Burke, Caleb Carr, and my favorite writer, Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy just blows me away. His prose is so rich. He is unlike anyone else out there today. His 1985 novel, Blood Meridian, in my opinion, is the greatest horror novel ever written.
HW: What makes Blood Meridian “the greatest horror novel ever written?”
BC: The writing is mind blowing. The violence (which occurs frequently and in vivid detail) rises to the level of poetry in McCarthy’s hands. And the story is fascinating. It’s based on historical fact and follows a bloodthirsty gang through the Mexico-Texas Borderlands in the mid-1800’s, who have been hired by the Mexican government to collect as many Indian scalps as they can. I read Blood Meridian every year.
HW: Reading Desert Places and Locked Doors, it seems that you’re drawn to the horrific. The books are filled with horrific acts, and with terrifying set pieces, as in the descent into the Kites’ basement in Locked Doors. Did the horror genre hold any attraction to you growing up?
BC: I honestly didn’t read a lot of horror growing up, but I always loved the sensation of fear produced by
a scary movie or a great book. Some of my first short fiction (written in middle school) could be classified as horror. In fact, there’s a short story on my website called “In Shock” that I wrote in the 8th grade.