“I suppose I did.”
“You suppose? You suppooooose? What do you mean you suppose? You either did or you didn’t. And you did, you did. I heard you. Don’t start lying to me Dead Man. Don’t you dare. If that’s the relationship you wanna develop you can forget it. I’ll terminate our affiliation immediately.”
William turned around and Nicolas allowed it.
“You’re getting brave now, I see. Is that what you want, hmmm? Do you want me to conclude our coalition? Do you?”
Will’s eyes closed. “No sir. I’m sorry.”
“That’s better. Get your ass in gear and go downstairs. There’s something I want you to see.”
William did what he was told.
When he entered the room loaded with clothing, Nicolas said, “Stop. Turn around.”
William did.
“Take off your clothes.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Take off your clothing or I’ll shoot you dead. You can leave your underpants on if you want. I don’t want my babies seeing something they shouldn’t be seeing. They’re too young and innocent. Now go on… do it. Do it now. And throw your clothing in the pile.”
Reluctantly, William removed his clothing and threw them on the floor. He didn’t toss them far; he was hoping he’d need them before long.
Nicolas said, “Now keep walking. We’re going into the cellar.”
“You have children down there?”
“I sure do.”
William walked down the rickety staircase and into the cellar with nothing on but his underwear. He created a mental image of a baby in a crib needing a change of diapers. He knew better, of course. The psychopath couldn’t be doing an okay job taking care of a baby. It wasn’t possible. Knowing this, he braced himself for what he was about to see. He expected it to be bad. Not just bad, in fact, but horrific. He imagined underfed, unloved babies needing a doctor and a real home. He imagined a dead baby, a murdered baby. He even forced himself to imagine a baby that had been burned to a crisp and nailed to the wall, because he knew it would be bad. It had to be bad. Of course it would be bad.
He thought he was ready but he wasn’t. He never imagined adults. The shock of seeing two women locked inside separate cages twisted a screw inside his mind he never knew existed.
He looked at Cathy first, then Olive, then at the empty cage.
Cathy. Olive. Empty cage.
Empty cage.
His mouth slinked open and his eyes dawned like the morning sun. His shoulders raised and his knees began to shake.
Why was there an empty cage? Oh shit… why?
He turned around quickly, shocked and disgusted and scared half to death. He thought the empty cage had his name written all over it. He held out his hands as if to say, this isn’t really happening, is it? Not to me––not to good old William McMaster! I’ve got a business to run and a house to maintain! I’ve got a new television and a handful of DVD’s that need watching! I’ve got some good years ahead of me and this isn’t the way I want to spend ‘em! And why would I? I don’t want to be locked inside a cage! I’d rather die!
The forecast for the days ahead came with such vivid force that Will almost coughed up his lunch and released his bladder at the same time––him living inside a cage for years and years, tortured on a daily basis. Was this his future?! Dear God, really? But it had to be! It just had to be! Why else would the psychopath lead him to an empty cage?
Olive screamed.
Cathy closed her eyes.
Nicolas squeezed the trigger.
William saw it happening but he didn’t understand. Things couldn’t change gears so quickly, could they? What about the cage? Was that not his future? Was that not the place he’d spend the weeks and months ahead? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe he’d learn to enjoy it. If not enjoy it, he could surely teach himself to endure life inside the cage, couldn’t he? Was it not possible for a man to live––
The shotgun blasted and William’s kneecaps exploded beneath him.
There are no words to describe what he felt at that moment, for physical pain is an experience with boundaries and limitations. Physical pain has a kill switch that transforms all levels of suffering into a whole new entity, one that clouds the things you see and hear, one that deletes your thoughts and fears while erasing your dreams and emotions. Pain on such a scale is not a white-hot poker in the pit of your stomach. It is not fire melting your pores together. It is more. It is your universe being crushed by a God that punishes you with hatred and vengeance.
William crumbled forward with his eyes round and fit to burst. His face became as white as a face could be. He hit the floor hard, knocking two front teeth from his mouth while breaking his nose. His arms twitched, his body convulsed and his nose bled. His mouth opened and closed like an upstream trout. Both legs were destroyed. Even if he had been rushed to the hospital that very minute, nothing would have saved them. The bone above the knee, the bone below the knee, and the knees themselves––all had been annihilated. Veins hung from garbled meat like wet crabgrass. The neighboring flesh was charcoal black.
Body convulsing, William flipped onto his back.
“I’ll be back in a minute guys,” Nicolas said to no one in particular. He pumped the chamber and moved close to William. “Don’t go anywhere, okay buddy? And keep an eye on the girls. See you real soon.”
He squeezed the trigger a second time, shooting William one more time in the legs. A limb became severed. The concrete floor blasted apart. Blood sprayed the walls, the floor, the cages and the ceiling. Bits of meat exploded into the air before raining down like hail.
Olive screamed with her mangled hands held in front of her open eyes. Cathy broke down in tears, looking directly at the floor. William twitched several times and passed out. And Nicolas Nehalem left the basement with his shotgun at his side, happy with the day’s events, whistling tunelessly and wondering if there was anything good to eat waiting for him inside the fridge.
20
Beth’s hands were at her face and her knees were pulled towards her stomach. With a tire-iron sticking in her ribcage and the trunk’s roof squishing her body, she found it hard to breathe and nearly impossible to move. Pauline’s foul-smelling corpse didn’t help the situation. It was pressed tight against her back; many flies and maggots were now crawling across her skin, finding a new home. The putrid odor was one of decay, rotting flesh and germinating mold. The foul stench wasn’t just inside Beth’s nose either. It had also found its way into her mouth and lungs, it reached into her stomach, it seemed to be consuming her. She was surprised she hadn’t been sick. But she was a tough woman, and being a tough woman she was able to hold it in. Just like she was able to suspend her screaming lunacy. Mostly.
But at first she nearly lost her mind.
Before they started driving Beth heard the shotgun blast and knew what happened: Nicolas killed William. Obvious.
She screamed after the blast and when she was done she screamed some more, feeling it was only a matter of time before she’d suffer the same fate as her friend. She may have blacked out; she did not know.
Then the car started rolling and her screaming ended.
She cried and shivered and prayed to the Lord above for the first time since she was a child. And when the car stopped moving and the engine turned off, her eyes were stinging and her throat felt like it had been rubbed with sandpaper and coated with a thin layer of rot. All at once she decided to get it together, be brave, be strong. She decided never to scream again. Would she be able to do it? Time would tell. But the fact she was thinking this way caused her tears to dry up, and the little girl she regressed into seemed to dry up as well.
She would not allow Nicolas to steal her life from her. She would not deteriorate. She would not become her inner child and allow her emotions to run free. Not any more, not at a time like this. Beth would get through this tragedy; she just needed to stay strong.
A door slammed shut. She h
eard someone talking. She listened, but couldn’t make out the words. Another door closed. It wasn’t a full slam but that hardly mattered.
Two doors closed. Not one. Two.
What did it mean?
Perhaps William hadn’t been killed after all. Perhaps it only a warning shot. It was something to wish for, something to hold on to.
She would be strong regardless, an adult worthy of respect. Falling apart was not an option.
She listened. Nothing.
Her social worker mentality returned, threatening to take control of the situation. She thought about talking to the man, reasoning with him. She wondered if she could figure out why he did the things he did and help him. After all, he was still a human being. He had a mother and a father. He had feelings. He could be rehabilitated.
“He’s not a man,” she whispered. “He’s a creep.”
That’s what he was: a creep. Nothing more and nothing less. Screw the fact that years ago, he was just a kid, probably being raised in less than ideal conditions. Screw the fact that he needed professional help by someone that cared, like a social worker, like her.
Beth pushed the social worker far, far away. She already tried the psychological approach with this man (Creep, she reminded herself. He’s a fucking creep…) and it didn’t work. She wasn’t about to try again. The stakes were too high. She needed to find a different Beth Dallier, figure out what she could do and what she was capable of. It was time to be honest. Her life depended on it.
Strengths and weaknesses: what were they?
She always considered her mental ability to be her greatest strength. But that wasn’t her only asset. She was physically strong too.
At two hundred and thirty-five pounds, Beth moved slowly. There was no point in pretending she didn’t. But if she changed her game plan, changed the way she approached her situation… Or to put it another way, if she punched the psycho in the face, what would happen then? She was strong. Damn right she was strong, but could she outmuscle him? Could she drop him to the ground with a quick left hook before he considered the possibility that she’d try such a thing?
Maybe she could.
Maybe…
It was decided. She could fight, and she would.
But could she snag the shotgun from Nicolas’ hand and take control of the situation? That question wasn’t so easily answered. And there was another issue, possibly the most important issue of all: if she fought him and won, and took the gun from his hand, would she be brave enough to use it? Could she pull the trigger? Did she have the stones to kill a man?
A bug crawled across her nose and Beth flicked it away with her finger.
He wasn’t a man. He was a cold-blooded killer, a creep. She needed to remember that.
He was a creep.
Killing him wouldn’t be easy but she could justify it simple enough. After all, he murdered the family in the minivan. He probably wanted to murder Cameron and from the look of things, he was planning on killing her too, but what about William? Did he shoot William? It seemed that way. But then why did two separate doors slam? Why not just one?
He was messing with her. Had to be. He slammed the door himself, and then… then… what? Started talking to himself?
Beth considered these things and more. Adding them together painted a series of question marks, but it also painted the image of a terrible man, or at very least a seriously disturbed one.
So here was the question, the real question: was killing a man with mental issues wrong?
If she had to be honest, then––yes, it certainly was wrong. But was killing a sick and twisted murderer immoral?
She thought her answer would be complex enough for different interpretations. It wasn’t. For Beth, the answer was as clear as the sky above: killing was morally wrong. Always.
I can justify it, she thought. And she was probably right. Finding validation for questionable actions was always waiting for those who looked. But if she killed him, could she live with her justifications? Would she sleep sound, or would the justification make her crazy? And on a different tip: if the creep lived long enough to kill more people, could she live with herself then? These were big questions, for which she had no answers.
Wondering why the creep hadn’t opened the trunk yet, Beth closed her eyes. “I’ll kill him if I must,” she whispered.
There was no anger in her voice, only the subtle tone of deliberation. It had been decided. She would fight. If she killed the man, so be it. She was in a tough spot, which needed a tough solution.
Seconds passed.
She heard the shotgun go off again. Twice. It sounded like it came from far away, or maybe from inside a house.
She pushed her body against the corpse, giving her arms more room to move. Lots of flies sprang to life. Bugs scurried inside her shirt, along the folds of her skin and into her hair. She wedged her fingers beneath her ribcage and wrapped her fingers around the tire-iron. She pulled it free, releasing a squeal as she did so. She was more comfortable now. Not only that, she was armed with the tire-iron.
Immoral or not, when the trunk opened she’d come out swinging. And let the chips fall where they may.
21
The big creature, the mamma he presumed, came charging towards Daniel with its legs slamming the ground like a five-horse stampede. Mouths opened and closed, not together, but slightly askew, creating a hypnotic wave-type effect. Black bubble eyes glistened in the florescent light and stingers punctured holes in the floor three inches deep.
Daniel stumbled back and tripped, feeling his stomach clench. Another six or seven crab-critters were crawling from a hole in the wall, scuttling towards him. He landed hard on his ass, raised the gun and pulled the trigger. With his upper lip curled into a sneer and half his teeth showing, he said, “Take this!” He may have looked brave, but there was no bravery in his voice, no composure or tranquility in his tone, either. The words displayed some level of misguided confidence, but they were only words––lies perhaps, as flat and meaningless as a map to a world that doesn’t exist.
CLICK.
His eyes widened and his face became cloaked in fear.
“It’s empty,” he whispered, trembling. And now the words that fell from his lips came out just right. He wasn’t lying this time. Oh no. His voice sounded terrified and his face wore an expression that fit the tone perfectly. He couldn’t believe his gun didn’t fire. Surely there must have been at least one bullet left. He couldn’t have fired all seven times. It wasn’t possible, was it? Was the clip half-empty when he loaded it? He thought he’d been counting. Was it possible that he counted his discharges incorrectly?
As giant stalks pounded against the floor, causing tiny explosions in the dirt, mouths opened and closed, teeth clicked, jaws snapped, and Dan pulled the trigger twice more, just to make sure the gun was truly empty. It was.
“Oh shit.”
Dan looked at the gun like it betrayed him while fighting back the urge to throw the damn thing across the room. He pulled the empty clip from the weapon and tossed it aside. Slamming his hand into his pocket, fingers circled the final clip. He had it, and not a moment too soon. Pulling the clip from his pocket couldn’t happen fast enough; he was running out of time, running out of ammo, running out of luck. The beast was almost on top of him now, and very soon it would be. The thought of being devoured made him feel like crying.
With eyes glued to the big boy he started to scream. His knees shook and his chin quivered.
Two killer crabs scrambled across his legs and onto his lap. One was translucent; the other was brown. They were trying to pierce him with their stingers and nip little bites from his chest, but they didn’t quite know how.
With the clip in one hand and the gun in the other, Daniel swatted both creatures off his body. The little brown monster rolled twice and landed on its claws, six feet away. The other clung to his arm before doing a loop-de-loop in the air. Once it landed on the ground it crawled in a different direction before openi
ng its wings and flying off.
Long dark stalks pounded the floor harder now than before.
The creature stopped running; it was above him. Time had run out.
Dan slid the clip into the weapon and clicked the safety. The brown crab came at him again; this time it had company. Two more crabs were right behind it, a black one and another brown one.
Daniel pointed the gun at big momma and pulled the trigger twice.
BLAM. BLAM.
Big mamma lifted several legs in front of its face and stumbled back.
The black crab-critter jumped and Daniel pointed the gun right at it. BLAM. The crab went tumbling through the air. He pointed the gun at the other two and picked them off one at a time. BLAM. BLAM. His aim was true.
The giant creature lifted its body high into the air. It looked down at Daniel with countless eyes.
SQUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
Daniel pointed the gun into an open mouth. And this time, he knew how many bullets he had left: he had two.
22
Pat looked into the darkness, hearing gunfire blast in the other room. On the floor he could see an odd-shaped rectangle of light and his silhouette standing within it, not much else. So he stepped inside the dark new space, surprised that the door had been unlocked. He placed an open hand on the wall. Only then did he realize that his hand was rebelling against all contact, even the slightest amount. Touching things with his swollen and battered fingers hurt like hell no matter how careful and delicate he tried to be, but what could he do? His hands were a mess but he needed to use them.
Deal with it, he thought. Such is life.
Ignoring his throbbing wounds, he slid his bruised, bloody, and swollen fingertips along the wall until he found a light switch. He flipped it on. Nothing happened––then slowly, almost painfully, a florescent light flickered, faltered, and came to life. His silhouette, and the rectangle residing in it, vanished.
Terror Town Page 18