I tried to sit up, but I was too dizzy and failed. I slumped back onto the floor, and my nose and mouth mashed into it, causing a searing pain where I’d lost my tooth. All I could do was listen to their chanting.
“O Holy Spirit, giver of life, from the baptismal font of the Church, you have formed us into a new creation in the waters of rebirth.”
“Bless and purify your Church.”
“Let this water call to mind our Baptism into Christ, who has redeemed us by his death and resurrection.”
“Amen.”
I received a final blast of water across my face, my hands, and then the rest of my body. Then, close to my left ear, I heard the man’s words. “May God protect your soul,” he said to me. “May he have mercy on it. I know you smell the scent of the devil on you because you’ve given yourself to the devil. You rise to the devil. You champion the devil. You pray to the devil. But not now. Now, we’re casting him out of you. We’re exorcizing him from you.”
Exorcizing him?
When I spoke, my words were slurred because blood still was seeping into my mouth.“I believe in God,” I said.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“Then explain your books?”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It isn’t.”
“Don’t you get it? You don’t? Seriously? No child of Satan is that stupid—you’re all cunning in your own way—but I’ll still spell it out for you. Do you want to know who is defiling God now? Do you?”
“I—”
He grabbed me by my coat and yanked me into a sitting position. I looked up at him in fear. In his hand was something I recognized from my youth, from my Catholic upbringing—it was an Aspergillum. It was an instrument used to sprinkle holy water, and when I looked at him, he started to shake it upon me in the sign of the cross while he spoke. In his other hand was a mirror, and in it I saw my own bloated, bloodied face staring back at me.
“It’s you,” he said. “You! With your books, you have defiled God. You have slandered him and you have mocked him. But that ends soon.”
I blinked several times at him. My mouth was seething in pain. Water dripped from my face. Blood spilled from my mouth. I tried to choke down the blood before I spoke again. “What are you talking about?”
“Your books,” he said.
“My books?”
“That’s right—your books.”
“But they’re fiction.”
“They aren’t fiction.”
“They are.”
“They aren’t—not if people believe they aren’t. And most don’t. Most don’t know that they’re fiction—if they even are fiction, which I know that they aren’t. I think you believe in what you write. The fact that they’re popular proves that people believe your word over God’s word. Your readers—your fans—think that what you’ve written is the truth. To them, your books trump the Bible. They slander God. You slander God with what you’ve written, and you’ll be punished for what you’ve written.”
“My books are meant to be entertainment.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“Yes!”
“For sinners. Written by a sinner.”
“That wasn’t my intent.”
“Only He has risen. After death, nobody rises. You have challenged that with the undead you write about. Your undead have slandered God. Defiled Him. You want proof? I’ll give you proof. Turn to Leviticus 19:16. Read it. Right there, it says that you have slandered God, and that’s a sin for which you’ll pay with your life if you don’t listen to us now and do as we say.”
I tried to collect myself. I put my right arm beneath me so that I could sit up without wavering, but it was difficult. I was shaking and I was unsteady. I looked at the man, whose face was only inches from mine, and I could feel his breath hot on my face. I could feel his fury as if he’d just slapped me again. The lot of it was pushing me to a breaking point.
Don’t lose it now.
The room is spinning. I’ve lost a tooth. I’m not even with it now.
Then get yourself together, girl. Do it before it’s too late.
What am I dealing with here?
Does it matter? He’s in in your face. That blond punk has a gun on you. Get it the fuck together and think!
“What do you want from me?”
“How many of these books of yours have you published? And don’t lie to me, because I already know the answer.”
“Three—I mean two. I had published three, but one was pulled down from Amazon because Wenn Publishing is set to publish it in a few weeks.”
“What do you mean when you say it was ‘pulled down’?”
“I had to unpublish it from Amazon when Wenn took possession of it.”
He glanced behind him at the two men, who looked in surprise at him, and then he turned back to me. “Are you saying that you have the ability to unpublish those books that are still on Amazon?”
“Of course.”
“How?”
“I do it on a computer.”
“So, if I give you a computer, you could pull them down now?”
“Yes. Of course I could.”
“And they’ll just disappear?”
“Not right away. Amazon has to process it. But it doesn’t take long. Within a day, they should be gone.”
He turned to one of the men standing behind him. “Get your laptop. Bring it to me. And grab a flashlight.”
A flashlight?
The bald man nodded at him, and then hurried up the creaking staircase.
“You’re going to remove them now,” he said to me.
“Why? I’m not the only person writing in this genre. Why are you targeting me?”
“Because you’re the one who’s receiving all of the attention right now. You’ve been everywhere, spreading your filth and your lies to a public hungry for both. In one day alone, there was the billboard in Times Square, in which you look like a slut, and then there was the ad in the Times, calling for people to come into your satanic world. Right after that, there were stories in the press about you and your upcoming book that practically begged people to buy your book. We’ll never get to all the others who write against God as you do, but in time, we’ll at least get to some of them—and they’ll also pay. As for now? We have you. Right here. Right in this basement where nothing goes well for those who choose not to cooperate with us. God has spoken to us. God has told us what to do to you should you refuse to oblige Him. In a moment, you will pull your two previously published books down, and then we’re going to see to it that you stop Wenn’s publication of your third book.”
“I’ll do whatever you want. Just please let me go.”
He cocked his head at me. “What do you mean by ‘go’?”
The question confused me. How much clearer could I be? “Set me free. I’ll pull down the books. I can make Wenn stop publication of the next book. There’s still time because it hasn’t gone to press yet. You can put that hood back over my head and drop me somewhere in the city. I don’t care where. I’ll never see you again.”
“But you’ve already seen us.”
“My life is more important to me than telling anyone what I’ve seen. I can say that you were wearing masks.”
“And make us out to be cowards?”
“That’s not what I mean. I just want to live.”
“Your physical life is about to end. What you do next either will send you to heaven or to hell. That’s your choice. If you choose to cooperate with us, we’ll make your passing easy. A simple bullet to the forehead. If you choose otherwise, we’ll saw off your head on that stainless steel table over there while you’re still conscious. You’ll feel… most of it. And then we’ll send your head to Tank in a pretty gift-wrapped box. Either way, you’re about to move from this world and into another. It’s up to you which world that will be, and how painless or painful it will be for you to arrive there.”
Behin
d him, the man who had gone for the laptop returned with one. He gave it to the older man standing in front of me. It was a MacBook Pro, the same model I owned and on which I wrote my books.
“How do I pull down your books?”
“It’s easier if I do it.”
“I’ll give you the computer, but I’ll be watching you every step of the way, so don’t try anything.” He gave the computer to me, and then he stood beside me so he could watch me. “Now, do it.”
My hands were trembling so fiercely, I barely could hold the computer in my lap. But I managed. I logged on to the back end of Amazon, and with him looking over my shoulder, put each of my first two books into draft
I looked up at him. “Do you see what I’ve done?”
“What does ‘draft’ mean?”
“It means that I’ve taken them off the market. Soon, they’ll go away.”
“By tomorrow?”
“I expect so, yes. Sometimes, it can take up to twenty-four hours. But I can’t predict that. They might come down sooner or later. It’s out of my hands now. But that’s how it’s done. To unpublish them, you put them in ‘draft’, which essentially means that you’ve pulled them from the marketplace. Does that make sense?”
He didn’t answer.
“Please let me go.”
He ignored me and turned to the men behind him. “There’s a camera on this thing, right? One that can be used for video?”
It was the man with the beard who spoke. “Yes.” He pointed at the spot just above the computer’s screen. “The camera is there, and you use that program there to videotape her.”
“The one called ‘Photo Booth’?”
“That’s right.”
“Charming. Shine the flashlight on her face.”
The bald man turned the flashlight on me, and I winced into the light.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” the man in front of me said. “The longer you’re with us, the greater the chances that something might go wrong for us. So, we’re taking care of this now. Look into the computer. Keep it brief. You’re going to be addressing Alexander Wenn. We’re going to film it, and then send the video of your message directly to him. Tell him that if Wenn publishes your book, you will be dead. He must cease publication of it immediately. He will confirm that he has stopped publication of it by sending a note to this email address, which can’t be tracked because proxy servers are concealing it.” He gave me the address. “Can you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“I need you to act for me now. Put on a show. You already look like hell, which is good. They’ll know you’re in trouble. Tell them to stop the publication of your book, or you will die. Tell them to confirm that they have done so at the address I’ve provided to you. Tell them you won’t make it out alive if they don’t do as you say. Tell them that we expect to hear from them by tomorrow at noon. If we haven’t, then you’ll die. Have you got that?”
“I do, but why should I do any of this when you’ve already said I’m going to die?”
“Don't you get it? Right now, you’re choosing how easy your death will be.” He shrugged. “Right now, I feel as if I’ve already won. We just took down two of your books, which I didn’t know was possible. This one will be a bonus, but I’ll give you this—given the publicity surrounding it, it will be a big bonus. So, choose. Do the video or not. Right now, how you die is in your hands.”
I shot the video. I did as I was told and gave them what they wanted. But not just because they wanted it. They were expecting Wenn to reach out to them by noon the next day. That would give me the rest of the evening to strategize.
When I was finished, he snapped the laptop shut, and stepped away from me with a look that suggested that I smelled rotten to him.
Just like dead Esther had smelled rotten to me.
“Get your sleep,” he said to me. “Your next-to-your-final sleep. Tomorrow afternoon, we’ll see what Alexander Wenn thinks of you. Once we receive his response, we’ll know exactly how you’ll die.”
CHAPTER TEN
With death so close, the next two hours of lying in wait were interminable.
But not wasteful.
My time was limited, but I put it to good use. I either could go out with a fight or without a fight. For me, the latter wasn’t an option. Despite how small I was, my parents had raised me to be a fighter. And I was going to fight this, regardless of how it turned out for me, which likely wouldn’t be good.
Still, I was going to try.
When the men left, they turned off the basement’s main lights. Now, only the single bulb hanging in front of me and above the blond man glowed. But I’d seen enough of the space to develop a plan, shaky and questionable as it was.
It took me a good thirty minutes of waiting for complete silence on the floor above me to convince me that the men who had threatened me had gone to bed. It was that long stretch of silence that I needed to give me the courage to go forward.
I could die.
You could.
He could kill me.
He could.
I might never see Tank again. I might never see the love of my life again. I’ll never hold him¸ kiss him, feel him against me again. Tell him that I love him again. Why? For some stupid set of books misread by zealots? Seriously? And then there’s Jennifer. I might never see her again.
Such is life before death.
Will I get through this?
Unlikely.
I have to do this. What choice do I have?
You don’t have a choice.
He could shoot me.
He could. And he probably will if he gets even a trace of an idea of what you’re about to do. He’s from the street, he looks as if he learned from the street, and because of that, he doesn’t look like an idiot to me.
I have to try.
You do. If you win, your head won’t be served in a box to Tank. If you lose, it will be.
I looked over at the blond man just as he looked over at me. He lit another cigarette and studied me.
“I need to use the bathroom now,” I said.
“Is that so?”
“It is so. I’ve been here for… I don’t know how long. No one will tell me how long. But it doesn’t matter—I’m bursting. I have to use it.”
“If you need to use the bathroom, that not only means that I need to accompany you. It also means that I need to call somebody upstairs to tell them what’s happening. Those are the rules, and I never break them. The problem for you is that if they are asleep, and I’m pretty sure they are by now, you don’t want me to wake them. They tend to dislike that. Waking them will only make tomorrow worse for you. So, here’s some advice—why don’t you just pull down your pants and piss in the dirt? It’ll be absorbed by morning and nobody will mind. Certainly not me.”
“That’s not all I have to do.”
“So, you need to take a shit?”
“If you were in my situation, wouldn’t you?”
He laughed at that.
“If I have to use the bathroom, you should allow me the dignity of doing so.”
His eyes brightened. “Because it’s the polite thing to do?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
He held out his arms as if to remind me where I was. “Lady, you’ll be dead in twelve hours. Why start doing the right thing now?”
His words slammed into me. They said they’d expect contact from Alex by noon. Was it only midnight now? If it was, midnight of which day? Was this the same day that I’d been abducted? Or was it the following day? Or another day? I had no clue. It seemed unlikely that I could go so long without using the bathroom, but perhaps the onslaught of unconsciousness had shut my body down.
There was so much that I didn’t know. Again, I thought of the concerned cab driver who’d dropped me off beside the van. If a day had passed, had he gone to the police? Had he told them what I’d told him to remember? Did he give them my name? Reveal to someone the license p
late number of the van? Tell them what it looked like? I’d never know.
This still could be the same day.
Or it might not be.
With an effort, I stood up, and in a flash, he had his gun on me. When I first asked to use the bathroom, I was nervous. But by this point, I was just angry and determined. I knew what I planned to do could go wrong, but doing nothing seemed worse to me. My parents hadn’t raised me to be passive. While I was fairly certain what I was about to do went beyond their expectations of how brave I should be in life, I nevertheless planned to go through with it if he allowed me the opportunity.
Ever since I’d discovered a possible way out, I’d been thinking it through. Weighing my options. Making sure I had a decent chance. It wasn’t a great one, but if I was lucky, it was a passable one. And I was OK with those odds—they were going to kill me anyway. Why not go down with a fight? What I needed to succeed was close to me, but not close enough.
Somehow, I needed to get closer to it.
“Sit your ass down,” he said.
“Look—I can shit in the bathroom or I can do it right here in the dirt. I’ll squat in front of you and let it all spray out. Whether you approve of the smell for the rest of the evening is your problem. It’s also your choice.”
He seemed at once taken aback and amused. “You’re bluffing.”
“I don’t think you understand how badly I need to go. I’ve suffered enough. I’ll do it without thinking twice. And it would be a sight. Do you want to know why?”
“Sure.”
“Because I have the runs. I can’t hold it in any longer, and I don’t plan to. You better decide if you’re taking me to the bathroom or not, because if you’re not, you’re going to have one shitty mess on your hands. And then you’ll need to explain it to them in the morning. I wonder what they’ll think.”
And that changed everything.
He got up from his chair, grabbed his gun, and walked over to where I stood near the staircase that led to the first floor. He was only about five-foot-ten, but physically, he was all muscle—a body made of steel. Now that I could fully see his face, I sensed that he was somewhere in his thirties.
“Get in front of me,” he said.
I did as I was told. “Aren’t you going to make that call?”
Unleash Me: Vol. 3 Page 5