by Jack Heath
‘My name’s Hailey.’ The woman talks slowly, like I’m a special kid. ‘What’s yours?’
I climb down off the chair and put it back where I found it.
‘You have to get us out of here,’ Hailey says. ‘You hear me? Those guys are gonna kill us.’
‘Please,’ someone else says.
I know what will happen if I speak up. One of the prisoners will repeat everything I say to the captors, hoping for mercy.
So I head back to the hole in the wall.
‘You can’t just leave us here!’ Hailey shouts.
I slip out, and bend the metal back into place behind me, sealing them in.
CHAPTER 9
I am a card, a loan, a fish. Who am I?
Scientists used to think sharks didn’t sleep, because they swam all day and night. But it turns out they do, at least according to a guy who once sat next to me on a Greyhound bus to Austin. He said one side of their brain sleeps, while the other side swims and hunts and fucks. Then they swap. Left, then right, then left again.
In an unfamiliar environment, humans do something similar. On your first night in a new bed, only half your brain sleeps. The other half stays awake to monitor threats. That’s why the scratching of a rat or the compressor in the fridge wakes you up at someone else’s place but not at your own.
Several times in the night, I’m woken by more distant howling. Maybe it’s human after all—except that I would have thought the slaughterhouse was too far from my window for sound to carry. It’s wordless, mindless. I go back to sleep with goosebumps all over my body.
The third or fourth time I wake up, feeble sunlight is coming through the curtains. There’s a hollow ache in my belly which could be hunger or anxiety. The noisy twittering of birds is like a lobotomy stick behind my eyeballs. I can hear rushing water, too. There must be a river near here.
I don’t feel refreshed. According to the vintage alarm clock on the dresser, I’ve been in bed for six hours, but I guess only half my brain got any rest.
After meeting that guy on the bus, I used to wonder if the sharks had a dark side and a lighter side, like they only attacked people when the wrong side of their brains had control. Now I think probably both sides are the dark side. Humans too.
I dress in some clothes from the closet. A grey turtleneck, a denim jacket, some thick tan pants. I won’t be on the cover of GQ, but at least the outfit is warm, and everything’s more or less my size. I wonder whose clothes they were. A former prisoner’s, maybe.
I emerge into the dining room, where the smell of baking bread is in the air and two yoga mats are unrolled on the floor near the table. Zara and Cedric are stretching, both in skin-tight activewear, black with neon highlights, that shows off their meatiest parts. My stomach burns.
‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Zara smiles between her legs at me, catching me looking. ‘Cultural appropriation, right?’
‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ I say.
‘I wasn’t sure about it myself.’ She rolls her neck from side to side. ‘But I did some research. Apparently yoga was mostly a spiritual practice in ancient India—there may not even have been an exercise component. Modern postural yoga has Indian, European and American roots. So I figure it’s okay for us to do it.’
‘Right.’
‘Care to join us?’
‘It’s a bit early for me,’ I say.
Cedric smirks, like he had already guessed my hamstrings wouldn’t extend that far. His eyes, which last night seemed glassy, are now bright.
‘Suit yourself,’ Zara says. ‘Three more breaths here, pedal it out and, when you’re ready, move into up dog.’ She and Cedric both straighten their arms and tilt their faces upwards. I realise that the bird noise and rushing water sounds are fake, coming from a large Bluetooth speaker in the corner.
‘Did I miss anything last night?’ I ask.
‘Don’t think so,’ Zara says. ‘No more activity on the cameras. No cops showed up.’
‘I guess it really was just a hiker or a poacher.’
‘Hopefully. We’ll do another sweep of the forest anyway. Now, open up your hips for lizard—let the earth support you.’ Zara and Cedric contort themselves into another painful-looking pose. I wonder why their clothes are so tight. Wouldn’t these exercises be easier in loose ones?
Cedric tilts his head towards me. ‘Are we gonna put you to work this morning?’
‘Sure. Happy to help out any way I can.’
‘How much do you know about what we do here?’
Nothing. ‘Everything,’ I say.
‘Great. I could use a hand with some tickets.’ Cedric glances at Zara. ‘Is Kyle doing a mailout today?’
‘Tomorrow, I think,’ Zara says. ‘Lux, I wouldn’t mind your input on some marketing copy, too.’
‘Okay with me.’ Hopefully I can figure out what all this means when the time comes.
Something dings in the kitchen.
‘Bread’s done,’ Cedric says.
‘Great. Let’s finish with mountain. Lift your heart to your thumbs.’
The two yogis stand up straight, eyes closed, half-smiles on their faces. The sight is oddly chilling, so I go into the kitchen. Behind the dark glass of the oven, a loaf of bread has risen perfectly. I wrap my hands in a tea towel and take it out.
It feels like I’m dreaming. Yoga and baking with killers.
‘Wild-caught yeast,’ Zara says from behind me. ‘You like?’
I turn around. She has a gym towel draped over one shoulder, like a prop. Her cheeks are flushed and there’s a slight sheen of sweat on her throat. The spandex hugs her curves.
‘Looks good,’ I say.
A coy smile. ‘It’s not hard to do. Just leave some flour and water out in the open as bait, and you’ll snare some. Keep it nice and wet to selectively breed the best strains. I have several secluded spots around the forest where I like to do it. Each place has a slightly different flavour.’
I would have thought yeast was a poor topic for flirting, but she’s making it work. ‘Can’t wait to try it.’
‘Help yourself.’ She gestures to the knife block behind me.
I pick up a bread knife. It’s been years since I used one of these on actual bread. The serrated edge is perfect for sawing through tendons.
I carve off a wedge. Steam spills from inside the loaf.
‘Try it.’ Zara sounds so insistent that I suddenly wonder if the bread might be poisoned.
I take a bite. It’s warm, soft and slightly salty, just like Zara’s flesh would be.
‘Delicious,’ I say.
She beams. ‘Plenty more where that came from,’ Zara says. ‘All you have to do is ask. Hey, how well do you and Fred know each other?’
‘We’re pretty tight,’ I say, instantly on high alert. ‘Why?’
Zara must sense my unease. ‘No reason,’ she says. ‘He just never told me how you met.’
‘We had a mutual friend.’ This seems likely. Safe from contradictions.
‘Who?’
‘Morning.’ Donnie walks in, blinking and yawning. He’s wearing a loose white T-shirt which might be his pyjamas, and he hasn’t shaved yet. His stubble is remarkably thick and dark.
Zara loses interest in me. ‘Morning, Donnie. Coffee?’
Kyle enters next, wearing the same hoodie and sweatpants as yesterday. He looks like he has shaved, even though I’m sure he doesn’t need to.
‘Hi,’ I say.
He just grunts.
Zara and Kyle have toast for breakfast. Cedric eats nothing. Everyone else has Samson’s leftover stir-fry from last night, although Samson himself doesn’t turn up to eat it.
‘He’s already out looking for the mystery man,’ Fred tells me, when he emerges from the editing room with bags under his eyes. ‘I’ll join him in a minute.’
Zara spoons the stir-fry into bowls and microwaves them one by one. The men don’t offer to help.
‘You’re a vegetarian, Lux?’ Donn
ie pours himself some coffee.
When I was investigating Lux for murder—a murder it turned out he didn’t commit—I quizzed a lunch-lady about his standard order at the college cafeteria. Ham sandwich on sourdough. ‘No.’
Everyone around the table looks suddenly uncomfortable. This was a test, and I failed.
‘I eat fish,’ I add.
The tension in the room eases.
‘Oh, that’s okay,’ Donnie says. ‘The environmental impact of fishing isn’t nearly as bad as raising cattle or pigs.’
Fred nods thoughtfully. Kyle copies him.
I look around the table at all these killers and torturers. ‘Are you all vegetarians?’
‘What right-thinking person isn’t?’ Cedric says, in his hard-to-read way.
If there’s no meat in this house—other than the people—I’m going to go crazy.
‘Well, here are your cruelty-free vegetables.’ Zara has several steaming bowls balanced on the inside of her arm, like a professional waitress. No one thanks her.
‘Are you vegans?’ I ask, as she puts the bowl in front of me.
‘What?’ Donnie laughs. ‘Not me. I have to drink a pint of milk a day to keep up my muscle mass.’
I watch his muscle mass, trying not to drool.
‘And I do love an omelette.’ Cedric looks wistful. ‘But it’s never quite as good here as in Spain.’
‘You wound me, Cedric.’ Zara tosses a spear of baby corn into her mouth with chopsticks. I try to remember if I put the can opener back in the drawer before I went to bed. I was so tired. But I’m sure I did. Didn’t I?
‘What’s the popularity of the site like these days?’ I ask, keen to change the subject.
‘About nine hundred people,’ Fred mumbles around a mouthful of rice.
‘Is that site visits per year?’
Fred laughs. ‘No. That’s paying subscribers. We get two thousand site visits per day.’
I try to sound impressed rather than horrified. ‘Wow. People love porn, huh?’
This time, the silence is stony rather than awkward. I’ve said the wrong thing again.
I backpedal, not quite sure what I’m backpedalling from. ‘I mean, you know, it’s incredible that you’ve captured the market so carefully.’
‘It’s not porn.’ Kyle clenches his butter knife like an angry king. ‘It’s justice. Those nine hundred people are helping us give a voice to victims of crime and show them respect, by punishing perpetrators the system let go.’
It’s the first time I’ve heard Kyle say anything without waiting for Fred to say it first, but he still sounds like he’s parroting someone.
‘Yeah. We got a Nazi back there.’ Donnie jerks a thumb towards the slaughterhouse. ‘We got a paedophile. We got a rapist. We got a domestic abuser. We got a paid-up member of the KKK. We got a fucking Isis fighter. That guy I shot yesterday? He stole people’s life savings with fake cancer treatments. There’s nothing sleazy about giving these people what they deserve.’
He’s listed seven people, but I only saw six. Maybe he’s killed someone and forgotten about it.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean your subscribers were jerking off to this,’ I say, although that’s exactly what I meant. ‘It’s like, you know how people say “food porn”? I meant it like that. You’re making high-quality justice porn, you know?’
The tension lingers. Then Fred’s face breaks into a smile.
‘Justice porn,’ he says. ‘I like it.’
Everyone relaxes.
Fred wipes his mouth. ‘All right. Kyle, you show Lux where to ditch his car. Cedric, get to work on those support tickets. Zara and Donnie, start prepping for the mailout. I’ll keep searching for our mystery man, see if I can’t pick up his trail. Let’s get to work, people.’
As we pack up the dishes, unease gnaws at me. I only eat bad people. It’s not much of a moral code, but it’s what I have. The Guards have a similar policy. Which puts me in a difficult position, ethically.
It’s like one of those recursive logic puzzles that I used to get in the mail. Is it bad to kill people who only kill bad people?
But deep down I know that it doesn’t matter. I can agonise and rationalise, but my hunger will eventually pull my conscience into line. The Guards were doomed from the moment Fred let me into their house.
‘Don’t put those knives in the dishwasher,’ I tell Kyle. ‘It makes them blunt.’
CHAPTER 10
I eat until I’m fit to burst, and yet I’m tremendously empty and deep. What am I?
‘Okay, go slow here,’ Kyle says. ‘It’s just up ahead.’
We’re in the midnight-blue sedan I stole, bouncing along the dirt. The track isn’t designed for cars, and the car isn’t designed for off-road. Branches rattle against the undercarriage and scratch the paintwork off the sides. The radio is hissing. Can’t get any stations out here.
Kyle has been sent to help me get rid of the car. At first I assumed that meant he was leading me to a chop shop back in Houston, but like a teenage GPS—‘Yo, go right. Nah, man, that way’—he directed me deeper into the woods rather than back towards civilisation. So I assume we’re going to torch it. Hopefully there’s a clearing big enough that we can do it without burning the forest to the ground.
Kyle lounges in the passenger seat, chewing his nails. He has none of the obvious signposts of disaffected youth—black clothes, piercings, shaved head. I guess those boys, the ones with dog collars and eyeliner, want you to know how little they care. It’s a convoluted way of asking for help. Kyle, with his curly brown hair, pimpled jaw and track pants, looks like a normal kid. Invisible by choice.
‘How old are you, Kyle?’ I ask.
‘Nineteen,’ he says, and then glances at me to see if I believe him. I pretend I do. I’m guessing he’s more like seventeen, or even sixteen.
‘How’d you get involved in this?’ I ask him.
‘The Guards?’ He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. My friends at school were sharing the videos around. Killers getting beaten up, paedophiles getting buried alive or whatever. I heard they were hiring, and I needed the money.’
‘What for?’
‘I grew up in Ackerly. You know it?’
I shake my head.
‘Of course not. Why would you? It’s a town of two hundred people. A meteorite landed in a field once—that’s literally the only interesting thing that ever happened in Ackerly. There’s a plaque and everything. It wasn’t even a good meteorite. Smaller than average and made of chondrite—that’s the most common material for space rocks.’ Kyle scratches the hair under his baseball cap. ‘Anyway, I wanted out of Ackerly. But I needed a car, and gas, and a place to stay. Those things aren’t cheap, and no one in town had any cash. My mom spent all her money having me—’ the matter-of-fact way Kyle says this makes me think it was something his mother said often ‘—so I had to get a job.’
‘And you just … sent in a resume?’ To a dark web torture site?
‘I got lucky. Someone else in Ackerly posted something online about the Guards. She said their site was a hoax. So they gave me a way to prove myself. They told me to put a brick through her window with a message on it. After I did that, I was in. They wired me the money for the fare to Houston, then Fred picked me up from the bus station.’
Kyle wanted money for a car to get out of the middle of nowhere. Now he lives in a house even further from civilisation, and he still doesn’t have a car. The irony seems to be lost on him.
I take a risk. ‘Who’s Druznetski?’
‘Oh. He’s a private investigator.’ Kyle doesn’t look suspicious that I don’t know this. ‘We use him for background checks on potential inmates. Figure out what they did, how they got away with it, if anyone will notice they’re missing and so on.’
He discusses abduction with the casual fatalism of a cop nearing retirement age. That ability to simply not give a fuck, I’ve noticed, is only present is the very old and the very young.
‘What’s
he like?’ I ask. ‘Druznetski?’
‘Dunno. Never met him. He’s not one of the Guards.’
‘Why are we called the Guards? No one ever told me.’
He looks over. ‘You don’t remember from your vow?’
What vow? I quickly backtrack. ‘I had a little chemical help to memorise the words at the time, you know what I’m saying?’
‘Oh.’ He glances at my teeth. The missing ones are too far back to see, but he still seems to buy my story that I was a meth head.
‘Well, it’s named after a group in Finland, I think, or Sweden—one of those countries. They were a small volunteer army who fought off the invading Russians. The actual name was the White Guard, but Fred thought that sounded a bit, you know, Nazi-ish. Whoa, whoa! Stop!’
I hit the brakes just in time to stop the car from going over the edge. There’s a gorge here, narrow but deep, and well hidden by the trees on either side of it.
‘That was close,’ Kyle says. ‘Come on. Leave the parking-brake off.’
We get out of the car into the feeble daylight. Kyle’s right—it was close. The sedan’s hood pokes out over the hundred-foot drop. Down the bottom, a shallow creek flows between boulders, rubble and the skeletons of clumsy cows. I can see the shattered remains of other cars are rusting in the shadows. The Guards have done this before, maybe dozens of times. Some of those steel carcasses probably belong to former prisoners.
‘Okay,’ Kyle says. ‘Make like a pregnant lady and push.’
I hesitate.
‘I know,’ Kyle says. ‘Hurts to do this to such a sexy car, right?’ He pats the sedan on the trunk and even gives it a squeeze, as though it’s a woman’s butt.
I don’t care about cars, but I get why some men do. Everyone wants to be beautiful, but men aren’t allowed to be. If they use make-up, nail polish or hairspray they get belittled and attacked. So they surround themselves with beautiful things instead. And because their entire concept of beauty comes from advertising, those things tend to be expensive. Luxury sports cars. Guns with high-capacity magazines. Sprawling mansions with swimming pools. And women, which starts the cycle again. Only women are presented as objects of desire, which is why men consider themselves ugly in the first place.