by K T Rose
“Nice to meet you in person,” Father Paul said.
Benny smiled and nodded.
“That asshole had a phone,” St. Pete said.
A look of astonishment crossed Father Paul’s face. “Is that true?”
“Yes. My mother is really old, you see, and she doesn’t like her nurse.”
“Well according to the contract, she doesn’t have much of a choice but to get comfy, does she?”
“You’re right...I’m sorry.”
“That’s alright, friend. We’re going to take you upstairs and Hazel is going to bring you something good to drink and Basil will bring you what you requested to eat. We’ll be ready in a few hours. Until then, you’ll stay in our guest suite. Is that alright?”
“Okay.”
Father Paul nodded at St. Pete, then at Jessica.
St. Pete motioned for Benny. “After you, Mr. Fucker.”
Benny gasped and looked to Jessica with a ‘can you believe this?’ expression drawn on his face.
“You be nice, St. Pete.” Father Paul looked at Benny, who stood next to Jessica, shaking like a leaf during a thunderstorm. “You have to excuse my friend. He has a deep hatred for people that can’t follow simple rules. You understand.”
“I can’t say I do.”
St. Pete bared his teeth. “Let’s go.” He nudged Benny’s arm and Jessica followed.
***
The barn stood silent to their footsteps as she and St. Pete ushered a woozy Benny across the cement floor for the staircase. She stood behind as he stood in front. Benny hadn’t said a word as St. Pete led him inside. He only groaned and mumbled. Maybe it was because of the codeine Hazel stuffed in his chicken cordon bleu. Or the tranquilizer they laced his merlot with. Either way, this was the quietest he’s been since he'd arrived.
As they made their way for the staircase, she couldn’t help but hesitate to descend. Her face grew hot. She climbed these steps before as a person sure they would die. Her spine shivered as she willed her legs to move. She took deep breaths as she closed her eyes. This was worse than before. Last time she was here, Boaty had his toes broken. She hadn’t gone this far back. Shit, she hadn’t bothered going near the podium.
With stiff knees and her heart beating in her throat, she stepped down, lagging behind the men as they went for that dungeon where she wasn’t sure if they’d cleaned Blue’s face off the floor or Mr. French’s head off the wall.
Half of those stains, she’d caused.
Heart thudding, she stopped short of the room entrance.
St. Pete sighed. “Earth to Olive!”
“Huh?”
“Get your ass in here!”
She stepped. The darkened room’s floor was coated in hay and the walls smelled strong of paint.
Uni lay against the wall, her mouth open and eyes closed.
“What?”
St. Pete leaned Benny against the wall. He slid down to his butt. “Make sure she’s still asleep.”
Jessica stepped over to Uni, who drooled from the mouth and onto the hay.
“She looks asleep.”
He chained Benny up and stomped over to Uni. He stuck a finger under her nose. “Slow breaths.”
He pressed her wrist. She let out a harsh, squealing gasp, forcing Jessica to flinch. St. Pete hopped back, astonished.
“Mmm,” Uni groaned.
“Shhhhit,” St. Pete said.
Uni pulled at her chains lazily as her eyes fluttered.
“Mmmm,” Uni grumbled.
“Perfect timing. No need for the salt. Too bad she’ll be conscious when it’s her turn. Poor sap.” St. Pete pulled a hand over his glazing forehead.
Jessica’s heart jogged, nearly jumping up into her throat. She remembered that feeling. After the confusion of being lost, remembering who she was and how she begged her head to stop spinning, the setting shocked her. Then the memory of Hazel shoving a needle into her neck flashed across her mind.
Reliving it was hard enough and putting someone else through it damned her to the core.
Chapter Seven
“Don’t touch that,” Techy warned as he swatted Blaze’s hand away from one of the four keyboards lying on the narrow table against the wall. Each key glowed different colors of the rainbow as it gave some light to the control room. That and the monitors that lined the wall behind them. Images of the bodega, kitchen trailer, dining gazebo, medical trailer and many other places around the compound played in real time across each screen.
“Oh, shut up,” Blaze quipped. “I know more about this equipment than you do. This was my day job before I came here, ya know.”
“A job you do at high school doesn’t count you in as a professional.”
“So what if I got paid or not? It was still a job, dammit! You try working the P.A., the camera for the daily news, and filming every awful event from talent shows, to the debate teams matches. Oh and then editing was the worst! It was so hard and so time-consuming.”
Techy rubbed his temples. “Yes, I know. And so does everyone else, now back off, woman!” He spun back to one of the four monitors in front of him. He banged on the keys until one of the monitors, the one to the far right, showed a still image of The Silent Red Room.
“Jeez. It’s like he’s married to this shit,” Blaze said.
“Well, it is our livelihood.” Another screen, this one to Techy’s far left, pulled up The Silent Red Room’s forum. The spinning skull took the middle of the screen right in front of him. Jessica imagined onlookers waiting at their desks, on their beds, or wherever they sat to see Father Paul feed Benny and Uni to their hungry pockets. She frowned. She used to be one of those sick people.
Jessica glanced through the window behind the monitors. Inside was the small room with very blue walls, a bookcase full of tools, a TV mounted on the opposite wall, and a steel chair with chains hanging from the arms and legs. The Silent Red Room in all its mysterious glory set not even a foot away and although she was on this side of the camera, she couldn’t help but feel that she was next to be slaughtered.
Techy went to operating his keyboard again and on the fourth monitor, the bookcase came into view. On the top was a handgun, gardening sheers, a wireless power drill, and a four-sided cheese grater. The second shelf held a familiar set of pliers, a machete, a spoon, mallet, and a hammer. On the bottom was a cluster of barbed wire, a katana, and a full knife set including a meat cleaver.
An uproar from the hallway prompted her to look over her shoulder at the open door next to them. Her heart hit her feet.
“Please, let me go!” Uni cried out.
“Stop fighting or I’ll have to put you back under!” Hazel yelled.
“I thought you gave her more?” St. Pete asked.
“I didn’t because she started acting like an ass when we got inside.”
“The fuck! Olive!”
Shit.
Jessica darted into the hallway and approached. “Yeah?”
“Wha—grab her legs!” Hazel said as she wrestled with the needle between her hands.
Jessica rolled her eyes and stomped for the group. Why couldn’t they have anyone else do this? There were literally two able bodies in the other room fucking around. Couldn’t they tell she didn’t want to see the very woman she’d sentenced to death?
She went to grab at Uni’s flaying legs.
“No! Get the fuck away from me, you bitch!” Uni lodged her foot into Jessica’s chest, knocking the wind out of her. She stumbled back into the wall with a sharp umph.
“You have no idea how much I’ve been wanting to do that,” St. Pete said as he held her arms under either of his armpits. He grunted and struggled as she kept kicking and missing Jessica’s body entirely.
Grinding her teeth, Jessica grabbed at Uni’s thighs from the side, hugging them into her chest. This time, Uni stopped kicking. Her glazed over eyes stared at Jessica as she shook her head slowly. Jessica turned away. The eye contact burned, too much to hold.
�
��You can’t even look me in the fucking eye,” Uni blubbered. “You did this to me! You took me from my wife. My parents. My friends.” She sobbed. “My flowers.”
She curled her knee and pulled her left leg free from Jessica’s grip. Uni bent her leg at the knee, twisted at the waist and jammed it into Jessica’s mouth. Pain struck Jessica in the face, forcing her to yelp as her arms loosened around Uni’s thighs and her head thrashed back. Stunned, she stood there, patting at her lower lip with shaken fingers. It stung to the touch.
“Fucking useless! Techy! Blaze! Get out here!” St. Pete commanded.
They came running from the control room.
Uni kicked and screamed. “You bitch! You did this!”
Blaze went for the right leg and Techy tussled with the left. Once they got a good grip on the woman, Hazel punctured her in the neck with the needle. Sluggishly, Uni’s limbs slowed to a twitch. They hauled her off to a room at the end of the hallway.
Jessica stared at the spot where they stood and struggled as blood leaked from her mouth. Her eyes glazed over. What had she done? She couldn’t even face her victim, let alone keep a hold on her. I did this…
“It gets easier with time, Olive.”
She looked over her shoulder to find Father Paul with a clipboard and a pen, writing something on it. He hooked the clipboard onto the control room door and tugged at the neck of his chin high dark sweater.
“I know it’s hard to see someone up close and personal you’ve sentenced to death. I mean, she told you so much about her life, right? Her wife, parents, that juvenile decision to open a flower shop instead of going to dental school of whatever her initial plans were. It’s a part of the job. Making them believe you feel something, anything about their personal lives. How else would we get them here?”
She dropped his gaze and frowned at the creamy tile floor. It didn’t feel like just a job. It felt…it was…wrong. One of the worse things she’s ever done. She was no better than those twat sisters of hers or Franny. For the first time, she felt she deserved the torture she’d endured from the twins, Wendy and Jena, who may’ve been onto something by abandoning Jessica, a monster.
Lost in thought, she hadn’t recognized Father Paul’s silent approach. “You should get that cleaned,” he said, swiping his thumb over her lower lip. “It’s show time.”
***
‘Cheese grater to the chin: 0.1BTC.’ Techy clicked on the bid and it popped up on the TV screen behind Benny, whose head drifted side to side with a blindfold across his eyes. He sat chained to the chair at the ankles and wrists.
“Not even the highest bid,” Blaze said.
“I know,” Techy whispered. “But Father Paul said pick the most brutal ones for this one.
“They’ll be pissed,” Blaze said as she leaned back in her leather computer chair next to Techy.
“You think he cares? If they’re so mad, they can write him a letter and come complain in person.”
Blaze shrugged and turned to Jessica who sat in a chair to Blaze’s right. Jessica held the bag of frozen peas close to her cramping lower lip. She flicked her tongue on the inside of her lip and tasted copper between hanging skin. She winced and grumbled, then decided that staring at the bids as they rolled in could serve as a revolting distraction.
‘Drive a shiv up his belly.’
‘Tear his face off with a machete.’
‘Shove the barbed wire down his throat.’
Bids rolled in fast, she knew, but to read them all and see who and what won was… different. She’d been one of those people, aching and hoping to know what it was like to be on this side. Unfortunately, there was no reward here. Only pain, entrapment, and terror. Utter relentless terror.
Even Blaze’s loud, “Ohhh. Nooo” as Father Paul shoved the cheese grater to Benny’s chin and moved it back and forth, shaving off skin and eventually bloodied tissue fell to the floor, didn’t prompt a reaction from Jessica. Not even the blood that spritzed his goggles and face mask. Her heart melted for their chattering passenger as much as it had for Uni. She imagined Benny’s mother watching, happy she sent him here and even more eager for the million-dollar payment for his sacrifice. The longer Jessica watched, the longer she wanted to run, take her chances getting through the woods while dodging Orion and Domo’s bullets.
“You alright there, slugger?” Blaze asked, a smile across her face and a glimmer from the monitor in her eye.
Jessica wrinkled her nose and pushed the frozen peas closer to her face.
“She got you good. You can probably put in a bid for her. Say, next week’s pay?”
Jessica shook her head. She’d put Uni through enough shit. The last thing she wanted was to add to her torment.
‘Clip his ears. 0.2BTC.’
Father Paul took the butter knife and sawed from the top of Benny’s ears down, slicing them in half until he reached the lobe. Jessica’s belly rolled. Blaze whooped and hollered. Techy searched his list for the next one up. Benny cried out in agony.
‘Take his top lip off with the katana. 0.8 BTC.’
Father Paul pulled Benny’s upper lip from his face, giving the sword space to come down. With one slice, he removed the lip and plucked it from his fingers. Jessica didn’t see where it landed. She only saw the red mess that gushed from the open wound and leaked down Benny’s chin. His top row of teeth drowned in the blood flow.
‘Drill through the ear. 1.0BTC.’
Father Pull picked up the power drill and went to work. He shoved the tip inside Benny’s earlobe and pulled a finger back on the trigger. The tip hesitated to twirl as blood shot out from Benny’s ear. Father Paul grunted as he pushed it in deep, jumbling Benny’s eyes as they twitched and jumped. Blood spilled from Benny’s mouth as his limbs and joints seized up. Then all movement stopped as Father Paul pulled the drill from Benny’s face.
Benny slumped forward, not so talkative. Not so alive.
“Bet you he’s happy to be drugged, huh?” Blaze asked through a chuckle. Jessica looked over at the girl and wanted to ask her how’d she feel about being in that chair. Though they were a part of Father Paul, no one was safe. But she swallowed her words and looked forward at the room. Benny sat there, unmoving. Father Paul had gone. It wasn’t until the control room’s door swung open when she realized what was happening.
They were up.
Techy put up an intermission post. “This auction has expired. Auction number 2 starts in ten minutes.”
Father Paul grabbed a sweater and jeans from a shelving unit nearest the door and goggles from the end of the computer desk. He picked up the clipboard from the door and jotted something down.
“Alright, pull him in the hallway,” he said.
Techy, Blaze, and Jessica stood.
“Olive, you don’t touch him. But do wait for them in the hall while I change out of these clothes. I want you to keep those peas to your lips. I can’t have you walking around here hurt, can I?”
She nodded and went into the hallway. Techy and Blaze were already pulling Benny from the chair then they dragged him into the hallway and laid him on the floor. His face stood frozen in time, wide-eyed and stunned as blood poured from the ruined orifices of his face.
Stomping sounded from behind. Jessica turned to find Hazel and St. Paul dragging Uni down the hall. Her limbs were limp, but her small moaning and occasional grunts let Jessica know she wasn’t totally out of it.
As they sailed past, she could hear the woman’s words, or word. Jennifer. She cried for Jennifer. The sobs and moans faded as they took her into that blue room, forced her upright, and chained her to the chair. St. Pete hid her fluttering eyes with a blindfold.
“I’m so sorry,” Uni uttered. Her head swayed then came to a stop. It was as though she caught a glimpse of the mirror, a one-way window from the control room. If they hadn’t blindfolded her, she’d be staring hard as if she could break it with her mind.
The control room’s door opened, and Father Paul came out, clapping hi
s hands together. “Alright, places everyone.”
Techy took his place at the station in the control room, pulling up a message that instructed onlookers to place their bids. Hazel stood near the door with arms crossed over her chest. St. Pete slouched in the chair where Blaze had been sitting.
“Alright, guys, I’m off,” Blaze announced.
“Happy guard duty,” St. Pete said.
The first bid rolled in before the screen could fade in.
‘Skin arms. 0.1BTC.’
Father Paul picked up the machete as Uni plead softly. He pressed it hard against her arm and sliced a thin layer of flesh free. She cried out through a blanket of tears.
Jessica’s mouth burned with the onset of vomit. She rose quickly and sprinted for the door. She hated putting someone so undeserving in that chair—anyone in that chair.
She ran from the basement of the Center and through the living room. She yanked the front door open and ran out onto the porch. She stopped, put her hands on her knees as she heaved and cried.
“Fuck!” She blubbered. She wanted to get far away, even if that cost her life. She hated Father Paul. She hated Hazel and St. Pete and most of all she despised Olive. She stood straight and ran down the steps, but her heavy cries weakened her ankles and brought her down, allowing the snow to moisten her knees as her tears hit the ground. She was a monster. Not just Father Paul or St. Pete. But she was a part of them. She should’ve died along with Dale that night. Her heart collapsed as grief and the bitter winter breeze shook her body. Death. Why hadn’t she gone with death?
“Miss Olive?” Tilly slid onto his knees and hugged her. “Miss Olive, please don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry, Tilly. I lied to you,” she wept.
“How do you mean, Miss Olive? Please stop crying.”
“I fucking lied. We are the worse kind of people. I—” She blubbered as the boy held her to his chest.
“No. No, we’re not! Okay? No…” He started to sob. “We’re not bad.”
“Yes, we are,” she said. “Uni didn’t deserve this. Dale didn’t deserve this. You don’t deserve this.”