by Nathan Allen
“Okay, fine, not a transfer. But I’m sure there’s some way we could manage it.”
As Aimee and Blair carried on arguing, Travis felt his eyelids getting heavy. He rested his head against the window and closed his eyes. The voices around him slowly faded into the background.
The front door then opened, and he jolted wide awake. Martin climbed behind the wheel.
The door slammed shut and the car’s engine started up. It took Travis a few seconds to remember where he was and what was happening. His head was a little cloudy. He blinked several times. He didn’t think he had fallen asleep, but he knew he hadn’t been fully awake either.
The clock on the dash now said it was 2:47 a.m.
The Lexus pulled out onto the road. Martin still hadn’t spoken. Neither had anyone else. Travis looked across to Blair, who seemed to be waiting for him to take the lead. He guessed he wasn’t the only one in the car to have nodded off.
“Well?” Travis said, struggling to suppress a yawn.
Martin stared straight ahead. He took a left and turned onto the main road. Travis wasn’t sure if he had heard his question, or if he was deliberately being ignored.
“Do you have the money or not?” Travis said after a short period of deliberation.
“It’s all been taken care of,” Martin finally said. “You’ll get your money.”
A few drops of rain hit the car. Martin flicked the windscreen wipers on.
“In cash?” Blair said.
The Lexus accelerated as it overtook a semitrailer. The three passengers felt their bodies being pushed back in their seats.
“You’ll get your money,” Martin repeated.
After twenty-two minutes of silent driving, the Lexus veered off the road and traveled down a long and narrow driveway. The three passengers viewed their surroundings with a nervous apprehension. The driveway seemed endless, at least four or five miles long. Fifty foot fir trees towered above them on either side. Headlights from the passing traffic on the road behind gradually faded away.
They came to stop in front of a ten foot high wrought iron gate. The engine was shut off, and an oppressive silence took hold. The only sound now was the light rain hitting the roof, and Martin’s disconcertingly loud breathing.
Travis took a moment to study Martin, seated directly in front of him. He couldn’t have failed to notice the marked change in his demeanor upon his return. He wasn’t able to pinpoint what it was exactly, only that he appeared to be an entirely different person. He was darker and moodier. Much more intense. It was all in the way he spoke, the way he carried himself. The meek and mild-mannered man they had met earlier was nowhere to be found. In addition to being a successful studio executive, Martin Krauth appeared to be a fairly decent actor.
Through the bars in the gate in front of them he could just make out the outline of a building. It was a massive, castle-sized structure. The kind of residence one would expect Bill Gates to call home.
“What is this place?” Travis said. “Is this where you live?”
“You don’t need to know that,” came Martin’s curt reply.
Another lengthy silence. The Lexus was starting to feel like a locked cage. Travis felt his breathing become more rapid. He tried to silence the paranoia creeping into the back of his mind. Despite the massive amount of money they stood to gain, he was quickly getting cold feet about this whole endeavor. He wasn’t able to pinpoint what it was that made him feel this way, only that something about this didn’t sit right. Something jarred. Something that told him he no longer had control of the situation.
A phone shrieked at what sounded like a hundred and fifty decibels. Travis visibly flinched at the unexpected disruption. His pulse rate spiked.
Martin answered without speaking. He listened for a few seconds, then hung up.
He turned to face the back seat. “We’re done here,” he said. “The deal’s off. Get out of my car. Now.”
A moment passed, before Blair let out a reflexive laugh. “I don’t think so.”
Martin’s face remained unchanged, completely without emotion. “I won’t ask again,” he said. “I want you to leave now and never contact me again.”
“Maybe we didn’t explain ourselves properly,” Blair said. “Because you don’t seem to understand how this all works.”
Martin glared at the two brothers in a way that seemed to look straight through them. “I understand perfectly. I think it’s you who has failed to grasp the gravity of this situation.”
Travis felt a chill take hold of him. That was all he needed to hear to want to bail. He tugged at his brother’s arm. “Come on. Let’s just get out of here.”
“Are you crazy?” Blair said, shrugging him off. “After all we’ve gone through tonight, you’re willing to leave empty-handed just because this guy told us to?”
“I think he’s right,” Aimee said. She too had picked up on the darkened vibe that had invaded the car these last few minutes. “Let’s go.”
Martin turned his head. “Not you,” he said quietly. “We have plans for you.”
“Hey, we’re not going anywhere until we get what we agreed on,” Blair said. His voice was rising, completely oblivious to the imminent danger creeping up on them. “We know you’re a big shot and you’re not afraid to throw your weight around, but you seem to have forgotten that we give you the orders, not–”
Both back doors opened before another word could be spoken. Travis looked up. He saw they were not alone. Multiple dark figures surrounded the car. They seemed to have appeared from nowhere.
Fear pummeled into him like an out of control locomotive. He realized, much too late, that he should have followed his gut instincts. They were in this way over their heads.
“Hey, whoa, whoa, hold on a second.” He threw his hands up in surrender. “Forget it, we’re leaving. We’ll just go and pretend none of this ever–”
There was a flash of light, and the car was rattled by a giant clap of thunder. The heavens opened and the downpour began.
Chapter 13
Imminent suffocation remained a very real threat for Aimee. The heavy burlap sack pressing against her face, the claustrophobic trunk she had been forcibly bundled into, and the diesel fumes leaking inside to pollute her oxygen supply all combined to make the simple act of breathing an endless struggle.
She was trapped inside the confines of this complete blackness, with no idea of where she was being taken or what these people planned on doing with her upon arrival. She could only assume they were heading far away from the city. The smoothness of the roads deteriorated the further they drove, and the sound of passing vehicles became less and less frequent.
Everything happened so fast that she’d barely had time to process any of it. She remembered the car doors opening behind her, followed by the twin eruptions of close-range gunfire. Next came the warm spray of blood across the side of her face, and the flash of panic that hit her like a cattle prod to the neck. Her instincts ordered her to run, but a near-eternity passed before this was communicated from her brain to her legs.
She flung the door open to make a break for it, but could take no more than two or three steps before she was confronted by the horde. She couldn’t tell how many there were – probably no more than ten or fifteen, but at that moment it seemed like there were hundreds. She tried to escape but was quickly set upon and forced to the ground. The last thing she saw as the sack was pulled down over her head was the lifeless bodies of Travis and Blair in the back seat of the blood-drenched Lexus.
The car took a sharp turn, then drove along what sounded like a gravel road. It came to a stop a few minutes later. Everything became deathly silent. The only sound she could hear now was the heavy downpour pounding on the car, and the ever-present whine of tinnitus from the earlier gunshots.
The trunk popped open. She felt the cold drops of rain hit her body, and then two rough pairs of hands grabbing at her.
“Please let me go,” she begged as she was haul
ed out. “Please ... I won’t tell anyone about this, I promise.”
She knew how pointless and feeble her words were, and that no one in their right mind would believe she wouldn’t tell anyone about what had taken place tonight. But that was all she could think to say in the moment. She put up some token resistance as they dragged her along, thrashing her arms around and pushing her feet into the wet dirt, but her captors were so much bigger and stronger that she was simply wasting her energy.
She didn’t have the slightest idea of where she was. She only knew that there were no telltale sounds one would associate with metropolitan life. No nearby traffic or any other human activity. No hum of power lines. Just cicadas and distant coyote howls. The city limits were many miles behind them.
She was led inside a building and dropped onto a splinter-strewn floor. Her hands were forced together, and what felt like a noose was slipped around her wrists. A second noose bound her ankles together, and a thick rope was wrapped tight around her waist.
She felt her arms being yanked violently upwards, hoisting her to her feet via some sort of pulley system. The rope was pulled further. Her body stretched out like a medieval peasant on a rack, and her feet left the ground. She let out a pained yelp. Another yank, and her feet lifted up behind her. Her body became horizontal.
The sack was removed from her head, the coarse material scratching her face. Aimee gasped in lungfuls of fresh air.
“Please, just let me go,” she sobbed between breaths. “I’m begging you ... I’ll do anything you want ...”
Her pleas went ignored. Her pupils adjusted and she found herself hanging six feet off the ground.
The building was a crumbling stone structure with water leaking from the ceiling. Clumps of mold caked the walls. It smelled like a months-old bowl of citrus fruits. There was no electricity. The only light came from the half-dozen flaming torches mounted along the walls.
She wasn’t alone in the room. She was surrounded by at least thirty people, outfitted in identical charcoal-colored hooded robes. Each one stared at her with a dead look in their eyes. Their faces were completely vacant, devoid of any trace of life or emotion. A complete absence of humanity. It was as if part of their soul had vanished, leaving behind a mere shell of a human being.
The events leading up to this moment had generated so much confusion and distress in Aimee’s mind that it was a few minutes before the most peculiar aspect of this whole ordeal registered.
The strangest part was that beneath every one of these hoods was a face she recognized. One of these faces belonged to a national news anchor. Another belonged to a Grammy-winning R&B singer. There was a famous British comedian, and an international supermodel. Near the back was a Canadian pop star. To the front, a teen heartthrob from a massively-popular television drama.
These were more than just familiar faces. These were household names, people she had listened to on her iPod and watched on cinema screens. It was a gathering one might expect to find in the VIP section of Aubaine Manor, not in some derelict building hundreds of miles from civilization.
Standing in front of all these people, flanked by the late-night talk show host and the director of blockbuster superhero movies, was Martin Krauth.
“Thank you all for coming at such short notice,” he said, addressing the assembled group. “And thank you for being present for what I’m sure will be a momentous occasion. Many years have passed since our divine leader last performed a ceremony such as this, so I trust you are all as honored as I am to have been invited to participate.”
He walked to a door at the rear of the room and knocked three times. A hedgehog-sized rat scurried past, disappearing into a hole in the wall.
The door creaked open, and the group’s elderly leader emerged. He moved with a stooped gait, wearing a robe identical to that of his followers. The crowd parted as he hobbled towards the center of the room. His frail body was propped up with a length of rusted pipe that he used as a walking stick. His hands and legs trembled with every movement.
A sudden chill passed through the room. Aimee’s body shuddered upon the abrupt drop in temperature. Her skin turned to braille, and her breath billowed out in front of her. The torches flickered, the flames close to being extinguished.
The leader stood before Aimee and pulled his hood back. The light from the still-shimmering torches cast an eerie glow across his time-ravaged face. Tufts of unruly white hair poked out from either side of his scalp. A scraggly beard covered the lower half of his face.
Aimee was struck by a flash of recognition. She was certain she knew him from somewhere, but she wasn’t able to place him. She ransacked her memory for a positive match. Who was this man? He could have been a veteran actor, or perhaps an aging country music star who had receded from the limelight in recent years.
And then it hit her. He wasn’t some random celebrity, like all of his followers. This wasn’t anyone with great power or influence – at least as far as she knew. This was that old homeless man. The lunatic she often saw loitering around liquor stores and ranting at passing cars. The one who ate out of dumpsters and screamed obscenities at anyone foolish enough to come within spitting distance of him.
This was Jefferson Slade.
Chapter 14
Rumors about the Dawn of the Two Divides, the bizarre mythical sect operating on Hollywood’s darkest fringes, had circulated for many years. Tales of the cult’s existence were almost as old as the town itself, although few took any of it too seriously. Much of the chatter came from bitter unemployed actors, convinced that a rival must have sold their soul (or done something equally unconscionable) in order to land a highly-coveted role. No solid proof existed to suggest the cult was anything but fictitious.
And yet the rumors refused to die. Whenever an unknown actor or performer burst onto the scene, appearing in four or five high-profile productions in quick succession and landing on the cover of a dozen different magazines, speculation surrounding their accelerated rise to fame inevitably followed. Was it all due to talent, smart management and extraordinarily good fortune? Or had some sort of sinister interference taken place?
The legend went that as soon as one signed their life over to the Dawn of the Two Divides they were placed on a fast-track to superstardom. Membership would afford privileges available only to a select few. Talentless actors would be cast in the most prestigious and in-demand roles. Tone-deaf singers were transformed into chart-topping pop stars. Unremarkable performances would be showered with countless awards and universal acclaim.
And producers of low-budget, straight-to-DVD B-movies would enjoy meteoric career ascents, rising to become the head of a major movie studio and one of the industry’s most powerful players.
The secret society allowed its members to live in an exclusive world far removed from everyday reality, with anything and everything they could possibly desire available at the tips of their fingers. Every conceivable hedonistic indulgence was catered to, and real-world consequences did not apply.
It also worked to shield any member from controversy. A single phone call was all it took to make a potentially career-ending scandal disappear and never be spoken of again. Its tentacles were long and far-reaching, its anonymous puppet-masters controlling and manipulating every facet of the entertainment industry.
On the flip side, anyone who fell out of favor with the cult by causing trouble or threatening to go public swiftly found themselves excommunicated. Their reputation was trashed and they were banished back to obscurity, their life and career destroyed beyond all repair.
The cost of admission may have been steep, with each new member forced to give themselves over to the cult completely and participate in a series of degrading rituals to prove their dedication, but there was never any shortage of applicants. For the thousands upon thousands of wannabes who flocked to Hollywood each year seeking fame and fortune, the price was never too high. If you wanted to succeed, if you wanted membership to the world’s most exclusive club
– the A-list – you simply had to be prepared to do the kinds of things that no one else would.
Of course, these were all just unsubstantiated rumors that most intelligent people paid little attention to. The stories were largely dismissed as the product of fevered imaginations, the kind dreamed up by tinfoil turban-wearing fantasists who blogged about government mind-control experiments and called late-night talk radio shows to rant about the reptilian race secretly ruling the planet.
Several investigative journalists had looked into the existence of the cult, but gave up when they were unable to uncover a single trace of evidence.
Aimee’s nightmare continued as she tumbled deeper and deeper down this dark and disturbing rabbit hole. Here she was, dangling helplessly in mid-air, surrounded by a group of major celebrities blindly following the teachings of a certified lunatic. That lunatic was a homeless man who dressed in rags and smelled of compost. Somehow, incredibly, he had the entire group under his spell, exerting a kind of hypnotic power over them. In her head she sifted through the many absurd possibilities as to how this could have happened. Mind control? Had everyone there been drugged and brainwashed? Nothing her rational mind could conjure up seemed even remotely plausible.
The skin on her arms burned like an acid attack. The ropes dug deep into her wrists and ankles, cutting off the blood flow. Her limbs felt like they were about to be wrenched from their sockets.
Jefferson Slade turned to face his followers. A hush descended as they all waited for him to speak.
“This room is filled with sinners!” he announced. His voice had more power and volume than one might expect from a man of such advanced age and slight build. “This entire world is filled with sinners! We are nothing but the bastard spawn of a dangerous and ungodly society! Temptation lurks behind every corner! The wicked one sets his traps, luring in more and more innocent souls every day with his nefarious ways! But it’s not to late to repent.”