Born To Bleed (The Roger Huntington Saga, Book 2)

by Ryan C. Thomas

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. Keep him lucid so he can speak freely and feel whatever pain I need to bring to his world to get my answers. If he’s compromised my position in this community I will destroy every relative he has before I finish him myself.”

  “I don’t trust him down there alone with that criminal buffoon.”

  “What criminal buffoon? One of Barry’s men?”

  “Yeah. Bob. He’s watching the kid down there but I got a feeling he’s gonna do something stupid. I don’t think he should even be here. What if he sees something?”

  “Well of course he shouldn’t still be here! Why haven’t you told him to leave?”

  “He said he was waiting for one of the other guys. Found him dead out back.”

  “Dead? You’ve checked this out?”

  “I sent someone to check on it a minute ago. Haven’t heard back yet.”

  “Well, this Bob is no doubt to blame for this sudden turn in events. Wait until we’ve had dessert--I want you here in case there is an issue--then go down and kill the idiot. Kill him in front of my uninvited guest so he knows how serious his situation is. Barry will have to hire new help from now on but that’s not really my concern. Now, where is the dessert?”

  “I have her in the next room. She’s out cold.”

  “I trust you gave her the requisite dosage.”

  “Same as always, sir.”

  “Fine. Bring her in already so I can get on with my party.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I heard them leave, moving off in different directions. Marshalll was now explaining something about the lens on his telescope to someone, and whoever it was seemed mighty interested.

  I crept up to the top of the stairs, saw the party through the doorway to my right. It was a large room with floor-to-ceiling windows, a full bar, some antique globes and one heck of a nice telescope in the center. Through the windows I saw the bright blue moon above the surrounding foothills. The lighting in the room was low, probably to diminish the room’s reflection in the windows so one could see the stars outside, but I was still able to get an idea of where people were. This room stretched down to the other end of the house, and most of the guests were at that other end.

  I squatted low outside the entrance and peeked my head around the jamb, saw the white-haired bitch, Belle, sipping wine, saw the fat man looking through the telescope, saw the others in a conversational circle near some leather recliners, and counted four nameless goons with guns surrounding another well-dressed table. Ten bucks said there was cold metal with basins underneath the tablecloth.

  Funny thing about the scene was that, again, it looked normal if you discounted the blood-stained faces and dresses and suits coated in bits of female flesh. The sick bastards hadn’t even bothered to clean themselves. But then why bother? They were about to eat again and would just make another mess.

  The bar was on my side, sharing the common wall with the long hallway my ass was in. Marshalll’s wife was playing bartender, opening another bottle of wine now. She poured some full glasses and stuck them at the end of the bar.

  Shit! I ducked back out. One of the goons had just looked my way. I couldn’t tell if he saw me or not but I couldn’t stay around to find out.

  I bolted to a room off the hallway, away from the stairs, some kind of storage room with plenty of boxes in it. Flicking the light on would give me away so I couldn’t tell what was in the boxes, but I can tell you they smelled bad. Smelled a lot like sweat and mold.

  When I risked a glance back toward the stairs sure enough that goon had come over and stuck his head out, looking at the stairs, which was enough time for me to stick my own head back in. I’d left quite a blood trail on the floor, but the lighting was low and the hall rug was brown, so I hoped and prayed it would disappear. If he noticed it, would it register as a new stain? I had to think these guys saw a lot of blood around this house. I waited to see if he’d come down my way, all the while holding my arm and dripping sweat. My insides were hurting and my head was getting dizzy. Blood loss will do that to you. My entire left half was going a bit numb and while that helped me stand the pain of the bullet in my arm, it concerned me greatly. If I passed out both Victoria and I were dead meat.

  The goon didn’t come my way. After a few seconds I peeked back out again and saw the doorway was empty. He either went down the stairs or back into the room.

  There was a cheer from the observatory across the hall, and I heard Marshalll say, “Ah, dessert has arrived.”

  CHAPTER 18

  No no no no no, I thought. Not good. This was not good at all. Four guys with guns that would make Rambo jealous, five guys if Ben was back in there, and a roomful of cannibals. Worse, right wing cannibals with money and influence.

  I slid the clip out of the gun, checked the bullet counter. Six shots left. My mind raced with possibilities: run in and shoot all five goons in the head, and then Marshalll? Yeah right, my right hand still throbbed from when Ben had twisted it and I was woozy from a bullet wound. Not to mention my broken nose had me seeing halos around everything. I probably couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from ten feet away. Run in, hold Marshalll hostage and hope the gunmen couldn’t shoot me over his shoulder? Marshalll would just tell them to shoot. He seemed like that kind of egomaniac. Run in and just take out as many as I could before I got plugged? Well, that wasn’t going to save Victoria no matter how many I shot.

  As usual, I found myself turning to the things I knew best: comics and movies and video games. Most notably the last one, because the one thing in life I was good at, besides painting fucking trees, giving my money to therapists, and talking to dead people, was kicking ass at First-person Shooters. Back in the day, Tooth and I would go toe-to-toe on Counter Strike and Medal of Honor and I would whoop his butt.

  “You’re fucking cheating, dickstain,” he would yell. “You’ve modded your keyboard.”

  “You just don’t think ahead. You gotta anticipate the opponents’ moves. I know what gamers are gonna do before they do it.”

  “Well have a cookie and celebrate yourself. I’m thinking of pussy and you’re thinking of where some ten-year-old with a joystick is hiding in Nazi Germany. I bet you even think about whether or not his balls have dropped yet? Got that one all figured out, Darth ’Bator?”

  Tooth was always a sore loser.

  So what’s the first thing you do in a game when you need to take out a room full of enemies? You get a big gun. And where do you find a big gun? You take it from the enemy that’s holding it.

  That was about the best plan I was going to come up with, and if I didn’t execute it fast I was probably going to lie down right here and sleep forever next to the boxes.

  I slinked out of the room, this time heading toward the far end of the hall, away from the stairs, hoping to take the goon just inside the rear door to the Observation Room by surprise. I’d shoot him in the leg, grab his gun, and do my best to get the others before they knew what was happening. Like a video game I planned it out as I walked. Take out the first guy; shoot the second; duck behind the bar and scurry to the other end of it; stay low; lean out and get the third and fourth guy; then back out into the hallway where I’d wait for number five.

  It would have worked great in a video game, but I wasn’t so lucky. I slipped in, saw the first goon right in front of me, and then felt an elephant’s trunk around my neck. I went flaccid and felt the gun yanked from my hand.

  Ben had come out of nowhere. “You are a brave little man.”

  The guests all turned and gasped.

  “Marshalll, is there a problem?” asked the judge. “Who is this young man?”

  Marshalll waved it all off in his customary fashion. “Nothing, nothing, just a minor inconvenience. We’re taking care of it. Ben, please remove our new guest to his quarters. And try not to get his blood everywhere. That arm looks dreadful.”

  “Is it an intruder?” The judge again.

  “Unfortunately, Ju
dge, but he’s alone, not to worry.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “He’s not,” I said around chokes. “I called everyone I know and told them--”

  Ben cut off my words with a tightening of his baboon arm.

  “Marshalll, I dare say this is not the ideal moment for unwanted guests.”

  “I am taking care of it, Your Honor.”

  At this point I saw Victoria on the table. They’d taken the table cloth off just like in the dining room downstairs. She was shackled to it, unconscious, her eyes still closed. Her naked body was bruised and I could see the streaks around her eyes from a lifetime of crying. Two men were already sitting at the table, knives and forks in hand. One of them, more interested in his meal than in me, was poking her breast with his fork.

  Flashbacks of Skinny Man’s basement materialized out of nowhere, and suddenly I was crying. All my bravado had jumped ship and left me to beg like it was ten years ago in some madman’s basement. “Please don’t kill her. Please don’t. She didn’t do anything.”

  “Of course she hasn’t done anything,” Marshalll said. “She doesn’t need to have done anything. She just needs to have what we want. Her youth, her spirit, her light.”

  “You’re all fucking sick! You’re going to go to Hell for this!”

  “My boy, we aren’t going to Hell or anywhere else. That’s the whole point here, don’t you see? This is an offering to our lord, who keeps us in good health.”

  “You’re all fucking nuts.”

  “And you, boy, have betrayed yourself. You know this girl here, as is evident, but for you to be here alone means you knew where she was and couldn’t get anyone to help you. Am I right? Otherwise you wouldn’t be so dumb as to stick around. See, Judge, this is why we don’t dine on his kind.”

  “Dreadful bitter is the man meat,” said the white haired woman.

  “Just don’t eat her,” I said. “Not alive. Not like that.” My head was spinning, Ben was cutting off my air, my arm was dripping blood albeit less torrentially than before, and my face was so swollen I could see my own forehead in my upper peripheral.

  “Oh, we’re going to eat her . . . what is your name?”

  Ben jerked me around and dug a knuckle into my ribs. It hurt like hell and did the trick. “Roger.”

  “Roger what?”

  “Smith.”

  “Does he have a wallet, Ben?”

  Ben frisked me. “No.”

  I’d forgotten all about my wallet, couldn’t even remember which kidnapper had taken it. Getting back my Red Sox hat was of more concern to me than my credit cards. At least I’d gotten it back.

  “No matter,” said Marshalll. “We’ll get it out of you later. I can see by your swollen face you’ve had about as much pain as you’re going to be able to take. You’ll talk rather quickly when we work on your nose and . . . is that a bullet wound? I can certainly use that. Ben, take him back down and--”

  “No,” said the judge, stepping toward me. The room seemed to get even quieter as he moved, as if the other guests were awed by his stride. “Let him watch. He went through all this trouble to find his friend here, I think the least we can do is let him have closure.”

  Marshalll looked to his wife for a second, who nodded approval, then smiled. “Excellent idea. Roger, do please join us for dinner.”

  Ben shoved me forward toward the table and forced me into one of the seats. The other four goons, who had circled us as soon as Ben got his arm around me, trained their weapons at my head.

  The white-haired bird sat on my right, the judge on my left, the fat man directly across from me. Everyone else took their seats as well, with Marshalll and his wife at the heads of the table.

  “Don’t do this, Marshalll,” I said. “I told everyone what’s going on here. I saw Barry before I came. He’s dead by the way. I’m the one who sent the police earlier and I called Sheriff Ted Mathers in New Hampshire and told him if I don’t check in that he should send the cavalry here. Go ahead, look it all up, see if I’m lying.”

  For a moment I thought I could see a sliver of fear in Marshalll’s eyes. Most good businessmen can tell when a person is lying or telling the truth, and everything I’d just told him was one hundred percent accurate. But good businessmen, much like chess champions, are able to weigh the outcome of a move and see how it will play out ten moves in the future.

  “The police are already convinced you were a prank call,” he said. “I will have to wait to find out about Barry. If he is dead, I certainly won’t lose sleep. As for a sheriff in New Hampshire . . . by the time he’s secured any agreements by local authorities to ask me more questions everything you see here will be long discarded. I fund most of the police force in this town, and my friend here Judge Coates is a friend as well. May I ask what it is you do for a living, boy? Exactly how do you know Barry?”

  “Didn’t say I knew him, just said he was dead.”

  “You said you saw Barry, which I take to mean you called on him. So you do know him. How? Through the gallery? It would explain how you know of this beautiful girl before us.”

  I was seated at Victoria’s right hip, trying not to stare at the soft skin of her belly and thighs, and especially her wounded womanhood.

  “Answer the man,” the judge said. He was rubbing his fork and knife together right next to me. Scritch scritch scritch. “Unless you want to be found in contempt.”

  Judge Coates smiled at his own lame joke.

  “I paint. You’ve bought my stuff. In fact, I want it back.”

  The white-haired bird chuckled and leaned her bulbous face into mine. “So you are an artist? That’s wonderful. What type of stuff do you paint?” As she spoke I looked at her bloodstained teeth and thought about punching them down her throat.

  “I paint old cunts like you getting shot in the face.”

  She was unfazed by my attempt to shock her. I guess if you’re going to eat people alive you can pretty much deal with curses and gory imagery.

  “I should like to see such a painting, in fact,” she said. “There is so much power and strength that comes from the taking of another’s soul, but I assume you’re just trying to make me flinch. Isn’t he a scream, Marshalll? Maybe after we dine on your girlfriend here Marshalll will let me take you to my house and I can show you a good time.”

  There was an image that actually scared me. “You’re sick. Ugly, old and sick.”

  Now she leaned in even closer and whispered in my ear. “If I had my way I’d take you home and fuck your ass with my sewing shears.” She leaned back, giggling.

  If Skinny Man were still alive I could have hooked him up on a date with this old nutbag.

  “Who shot you?” Marshalll asked. “You look about on your last leg.”

  “He wasn’t shot when I left him,” Ben said. “Must have been that idiot down in the basement.”

  “Yeah, he’s dead too,” I said.

  Marshalll checked his watch for a second. “No matter, saves Ben the job of having to do it himself. If you would be so kind as to put your arm over the table so the blood doesn’t get on the floor.”

  I looked at him. “Are you serious?”

  One of the goons grabbed my left arm and slammed it on the table. White hot pain lashed up my neck and made my brain swell. I tried hard not to scream but my shaking gave away my hurt, which made everyone around me smile like they were watching a comedy film.

  The fat man across from me poked Victoria in the ribs, licked his finger. “How much longer until she wakes?”

  “Any second now,” Marshalll replied. “Does anyone need more wine?”

  “Don’t do this,” I pleaded again. “Please, don’t do this. This is wrong, this is sick, this is . . .”

  “My boy, this is the way of the world.”

  “What world! You eat people! This isn’t the way of the world, this is a party for asylum inmates! Please don’t do this!”

  “Shh. No need to yell. We’re right here. We need h
er to honor our lord, to give us new life, so that we may continue to keep the community in the black. We couldn’t let rabble like you swoop in and take it over, with your rock music and gangs and drugs. We’ve made this town the affluent circle it is, and we have no desire to stop.”

  “Fuck your community. You’re all psychos, sick psychos who’ll burn in Hell.”

  “Oh, Hell is not a fear for us, Roger. Hell is a place of power that will welcome us with open arms. You really have wandered into the wrong house tonight. You’ve ruined my party and upset my guests and for that there will be punishment. But before we have our talk later you will see just how beneficial Hell can be.”

  Victoria stirred.

  Everyone at the table stared down at her with eager grins, picked up their utensils and licked their lips.

  “Give it a second,” Marshalll sad. “Wait until her eyes open.”

  “No!” I leapt up and tried to shove my way to Marshalll but the goons grabbed me and slammed me down.

  “Hold him!” Marshalll yelled. “He moves again shoot him in the legs.” Then looking back at Victoria, his own hands raised with fork and knife: “Any second now.”

  Her legs twitched, her shoulder moved, she made a little noise the way people do when they wake up, and then her eyes opened. The drug was still overwhelming her, and she was so out of it she wasn’t even confused, just trying to wake up fully. She looked down at me, and I think she recognized me in some back room of her mind.

  “Bon appétit,” said Marshalll.

  At once the dinner guests groaned and jammed their knives into Victoria’s soft flesh. Blades slipped into her belly, her thighs, her breasts, and one through her cheek. Blood arced out and she immediately shivered like someone forcing themselves out of a nightmare.

  Oh, how I screamed, how I shook, how I flailed. Four strong arms held me down while guns pressed hard into my back.

  The knives started cutting, opening long gouges in her flawless skin. The blood was running onto the table now as they sawed into her. Victoria was looking right at me, the glaze in her eyes dissipating as reality--confusing as it must be--began to set in.