Old Flames

by Jack Ketchum

  “I thought so. What did it sound like to you?”

  “Argument. A fight, maybe.”

  “Very good. I’m going to show you something in a little while that will probably upset you. It’s all right to be upset. It’s natural. But I want you to know what happened before I show it to you. Two men just left here. These two men were members of the Organization. Friends of mine. They were with a third man, Victor, who I also know very well. But Victor was a traitor. There’s no other way to put it. He knew things. And we found out he was talking to the police. We have people inside there too obviously. He hadn’t said anything too specific to them yet, he was waiting for their bribe money to come through. But we knew he was talking or about to talk. And he didn’t know we knew.

  “So what we set up was this. They all come over here for a friendly visit, a drink, some conversation, the usual. Then we confront Victor with what we know. He tries to deny it but we’ve got all the dates and times and people. We know which cops he’s talking to. He finally admits it. He’s very upset, very contrite. Says he must have been crazy, out of his mind. We agree with him there. Now what I want to show you is by way of instruction. I get the feeling you don’t completely believe us about the Organization but maybe after you see this you’ll think again.”

  He stepped behind her.

  And lifted off the blindfold.

  “Victor,” he said.

  Light flung itself at her eyes like swarms of stinging insects. For a moment she could see practically nothing, then saw she was in a living room. Saw chairs, a fireplace, a tele vision set, a dusty hardwood floor.

  And in the center of the floor the shape of a man. A small man. Wrapped in heavy-duty black plastic bags tied with loops of twine.

  She felt the meagre contents of her stomach rise.

  “This is what happens when you fuck with the Organization, Sara. You die. It’s that simple. Turn and look at me.”

  She did, fearfully, knowing the stakes were being raised yet again by him allowing her to see him. She saw a dark-haired, almost handsome man of medium build standing there in a sweatshirt and old jeans. Slim, hairline receding a little, nose a little too sharp, but with eyes that were wide and dark and actually beautiful—how could they be that?—a good strong chin and full, sensual lips. He was gazing at her directly. Not smiling.

  And she had the oddest feeling that she knew him from somewhere, had seen him somewhere before. That he was not entirely a stranger.

  She said nothing.

  She wondered where the woman was. If she would be familiar too.

  “You think we’re still fooling you, don’t you. That Victor’s some mannikin or something.”

  He was right. After the initial shock that was the first thought that came to her. The mind simply rebelled. She couldn’t be sitting in a room with a murdered man lying on the floor in front of her. It just wasn’t possible.

  Do you really know the limits of the possible? she thought. In this place? Do you?

  “Get up. Go over and touch it. Here.”

  He reached around and unfastened the manacles. It occurred to her that this was far and away the most freedom she’d had since the moment they took her.

  She could run for the door.

  Why don’t you, then?

  Because the door is probably locked and even if it wasn’t he’d catch her easily. That’s why.

  She stood, already dreading what she was going to find. If this thing on the floor were a mannikin why would he call his own bluff?

  She walked over and knelt and for a moment couldn’t bring herself to touch it but he was standing behind her staring, she felt his stare like a harsh command so she reached out and gave a push to the center of the thing and it was the weight of a man all right, no mannikin ever felt so heavy nor the flesh beneath the bags so giving and it couldn’t be a living man pretending either because one of the bags was tied off tight at the neck and there was no way in the world he’d be able to breathe inside.

  She was kneeling next to a dead man. A man he’d just admitted killing.

  And they would do it to her, he said, if she defied him.

  If he’d raised the stakes by showing her his face he’d raised them infinitely higher by showing her this. There was no way in hell he could let her live now unless she either escaped or submitted wholly to him and to this Organization he kept talking about.

  Whether the Organization even existed or not really didn’t matter. Though she now thought that maybe it did. Was it so far-fetched after all? Cults existed. White slavery existed. Neo-nazis existed. In the end it didn’t matter. Even if it was all in his mind, even if he was crazy, what mattered was his power over her. The power to extend her life or take it on a whim.

  The back door opened and she saw the woman standing there on the landing in cutoff jeans and a baggy tee shirt. An ordinary-looking woman, in her early forties she guessed like the man appeared to be, neither homely nor pretty, braless, with long slim legs. She looked directly at Sara for a moment and then went into the kitchen. Turned on the water and began to wash her hands.

  “It’s ready,” she said.

  “Good. Sara?”

  She turned to look at him. She heard the water go off in the kitchen and a paper towel ripped off the roll, sandals crossing the floor toward them and knew the woman was in the room with them but she didn’t take her eyes off him for an instant.

  “You’re going to help us bury Victor. By doing so you’ll be helping us accomplish two important things. One, it’ll look very good for you in the eyes of the Organization. In fact you’re doing it at their direct request. Two…well, call it a kind of bonding factor. As far as the police go, should you ever decide you need to report this, you’ll be an accomplice to murder.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re doing this under duress. So if you tell the police that, no problem. But the Organization has that covered too. We’ve done this before, you know. We’ve had practice. Once we finish with Victor here I’m going to sit you down with some pens and paper and you’re going to write us a few letters, post-dated. They’ll be friendly letters—I’ll tell you what to say, don’t worry—as though Kath and you and I are old buddies from way back. You’ll write, among other things, about how much trouble you’re having actually going through with the abortion. As though we’ve been advising you not to have one all along and you’re slowly coming around to seeing things from our point of view. Know what I mean? Then in the final letter you’ll ask us, if you do decide to keep the baby, if it’s okay for you come out here to stay awhile. Y’see? You get the idea? It’ll look like you’re here because you want to be. Period.”

  “What about the envelopes?”

  She almost bit her tongue for saying it. She knew damn well it was dangerous. But she had to try to shake him somehow. She felt trapped and resentful. She had to let him know that without defying him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The envelopes. They’d be postmarked. Dated. You can’t fake the postmarks.”

  He smiled. “Who keeps envelopes, Sara? You throw ’em in the garbage. But nobody’d think twice about people who keep letters from an old friend. Here’s the finish. Finally, what we’ll do is, we’ll give you back your address book for a minute or two. Let you enter our names in. Like we’ve been in there all along. We figure that about covers it. Don’t you?”

  She supposed it did in some twisted way. Would the police really believe this? They might.

  In any case she nodded.

  “Good.” He stood. “Let’s get going. Kath’s already dug the hole for us. You get the honor of covering him up. Kath, you and Sara get his legs.”

  She hesitated, warring inside.

  I can’t do this.

  Yes you can. You’ve got to.

  You can’t just take a man out into the backyard and bury him. This isn’t happening.

  Want to bet?

  “I’d do it if I were you,” the woman said.

  Kath.
Her name’s Kath. One more revelation. Her voice sounded cold, distant. Almost rehearsed.

  “Your father plays golf at the Fairview Country Club,” she said. “Plays mostly Saturdays. Do you know how easy it is to shoot a man on a fairway? With a high-powered rifle? Remember what we told you, Sara. You’re not in this alone. You’re responsible for and to a lot of other people.

  She paused to let this sink in. It did.

  “So. You want the right leg or the left?”

  And then the weight of the man, the stiffness of his body, the night air cool through the thin cotton dress and her own unwashed smell rising off her as they carried and dragged his body across the lawn, dew at her ankles, the one behind her the only house visible, carried him back through the line of evergreen trees and into scrubby woods to a crude four-foot hole in the ground and dumped him in, the feel of the shovel in her hands which she might have used to crack their skulls but for the baseball bat he held tapping against his leg, the blisters rising hot and sore along her thumb and forefinger, the sound of earth falling first on black plastic and then more softly upon itself, the smell of damp heavy earth, of mold and decay seeming to enfold her, thinking I’m burying myself here, it’s me, it’s me I’m burying.

  It’s me.

  The Third Day

  TWELVE

  June 10, 1998

  11:45 P.M.

  The headbox again. The still stifling air. The silence.

  She’d been standing alone for what must have been hours. Her belly pressed to the X of the crossbeams, arms and legs manacled, legs spread wide apart and arms low across the center of the X to insure circulation. It was as though she were hugging the thing. Not punishment, he said, just con venience this time. They were going out to a movie. They were going out for a pizza. They needed to get out of the house for a while. As though it were the most ordinary thing in the world just to leave her here.

  The day after she’d buried a man.

  The day after they had killed him.

  Before he left he’d slipped the bedpan between her legs and she’d used it a while ago, pissed into the silence, unable in the deep thick quiet of the box even to know if she’d hit or missed her target, only knowing that some of it had run down her leg and still felt sticky and uncomfortable along her thigh, a trail of her own self-disgust because she could do nothing to stop this new humiliation nor any other. It was a wonder to her that a human being could turn so powerless all in the course of a few days’ time. Not even days. In moments.

  Their faces haunted her, inhabiting the dark inside the box like pale flickering holograms. The woman’s face so empty of feeling, of any recognizable emotion at all as though this were nothing to her. Routine. Another day in the life. His face ner vous and unsettled—reading lust, greed, power.

  She had written out and signed the letters he dictated but was certain they’d fool no one who actually knew her. The language was his language, not hers. Stilted, formal. It betrayed him. It was not going to convince anybody that she was here on her own free will much less an accessory to murder.

  “…I am filled with uncertainty and doubt. A baby’s life is a sacred thing, isn’t it? How dare I take this step?”

  What’s your problem? she thought, whoever the hell you are. Why’s this so damned all-important to you? What happened? Mommy never breast-feed you?

  The woman, Kath, was only along for the ride. It seemed obvious that none of this was her idea. That didn’t matter, though. Because it was also obvious that she’d continue to play her part in Sara’s nasty little drama. But she knew that the craziness originated with him. That if there was an Organization it was he who’d joined it, he who’d decided to capture her, he who dreamt up the tortures and humiliations. The woman was just a follower.

  She wondered how willing a follower. Was there any weakness there? Anything she could exploit? She doubted it, but she’d watch for it nevertheless.

  Watch for it. Now there’s a bad joke, she thought.

  She hadn’t seen anything but the dark and the images inside her head since entering their names in her address book the night before. They’d blindfolded her, stripped her and led her down here to lie the night through in the Long Box, in her coffin. Got her up and fed her a peanut butter sandwich and tied her naked to the chair—which she realized for the first time today was bolted to the floor. Fed her again and hung her on the X-frame for however long it was going to take them to see their movie and eat their goddamn pizza.

  For however long they wanted.

  Her breath smelled old and stale and sour inside the box. An old person’s breath.

  She was growing old here.

  The baby still blooming inside her.

  The beautiful baby girl. The one she’d wanted to kill.

  No, goddammit, that was his thinking. An abortion wasn’t murder. An abortion was only her, Sara Foster, in the act of controlling her own body. Exercising will and choice over her own destiny. If anything this was closer to murder. This utter forced loss of control to the point where she couldn’t even take a piss without fouling herself or feed herself or take a drink except when he permitted it. You could murder a personality, an identity, just as easily you could kill the body.

  She wondered how long it would take for him to do that. To make her into another little zombie like Kath who wanted only to please him and accepted whatever he did or wanted.

  Even to digging graves for him.

  She wondered if he could. She knew about brainwashing. She knew it was possible. But possible for her? That was another thing.

  Resisting could mean death. Pretending was risky in the extreme. Giving in was unthinkable.

  Could he really expect her to have this baby for him?

  To live the next six months this way and then give birth to a child?

  The idea was monstrous. Lunatic.

  And why? What could he have in mind? For the baby or for her?

  Zombie mother? Zombie child?

  She jolted, felt hands on the headbox, undoing the clasps, the base of it chafing her collarbone again as they did so and then felt the hands lift the hook on the box off the eye on the X-frame and she sucked in damp cellar air through her mouth as he lifted the foul thing off her.

  “Don’t turn around. Don’t speak.”

  He looped the blindfold over her eyes and tied it off.

  “Open your mouth.”

  He pushed the soft rubber ball into her mouth, stretching her jaw, the taste of it bitter and dry. He tied the gag over it. Her hair caught up in the knot but she made no protest.

  Whatever this is, she thought, just get it over with.

  She heard soft footsteps on the stairs and heard them cross the room and thought that would have to be Kath joining him. She heard her go the work table and put something down on it—no, two things. One that sounded like ice in a glass and another heavier, thumping to the table and then a few moments later smelled something strange in the air, something that smelled like superheated metal. Like an automobile cigarette lighter and she began to tremble even before he told her.

  “I’d really rather pass on this, Sara. But it’s Organization rules. A slave has got to be marked with his or her own er’s personal symbol. Mostly so she can be identified if she tries to run. My symbol’s a V so that’s what you’ll wear. But don’t worry. I’ll do it where it won’t show in a bathing suit or anything, I promise. I know it’ll hurt for a second but after that you’ll be fine. And I honestly don’t have any choice, y’know? I’m sorry. Kath?”

  She heard the footsteps cross the room and the burning smell was stronger and she tensed herself knowing what was to come, that they were going to brand her like a cow, scar her, that she’d wear this awful thing the rest of her life, she’d have this to remember them by even once they were dead and buried, knowing too that it was useless to struggle, that it would only be worse for her later, god only knew how much worse and she damned them and damned her helplessness and steeled herself, telling he
rself not to move, it would hurt even more if she moved or if they had to do it over again god forbid so she pressed her body tight to the X-frame, the X-frame was suddenly her friend, it would help her not to move and when the burning began just to the left of the crack of her ass she screamed long and hard and high into the ball and gag and heard and smelled her own flesh burn, fine hair burning and meat.

  Her body drenched itself with sudden sweat, her body wanted to put out the fire that was huge like a thousand pinpricks everywhere, not just her ass but everywhere and when it was done she slumped groaning in her manacles and hung limp against the X-frame and heard ice and water sloshing in a metal container and then he was pressing an ice cold cloth to the wound and some of the pain slid into the cloth and out of her, coming back fierce and hot again and again as the rag cooled until he immersed it again and pressed it to her and all the while they said nothing, silent as priests standing before an altar.

  Kath double-checked her work on the ban dage. There was just enough play in the square white gauze pad so that when Sara moved around inside the Long Box the tape wouldn’t pull it too tight and the wound would be able to breathe. Overnight the bacitracin would do its work but the V-shaped blister probably would still suppurate for a while. She’d have to watch that. Have a look at it first thing in the morning.

  No infections.

  The home-made branding iron, a two-pronged fondue fork with a tooled wooden handle, lay beside the cooling hot plate on the worktable. She needed to put that away. Sara was never supposed to see what he’d used to create “his symbol.” He was very good at coming up with imaginative uses for everyday house hold items. In his hands a meat skewer, a pizza cutter or even a dozen clothespins and some twine could transform themselves into instruments of exquisite torture, worse in a lot of ways than all the belts and whips. The fondue fork was a new one but then he was always coming up with new stuff. She’d see him sometimes just sitting in a chair staring off into space and know he was dreaming about all the possibilities. Trying them out in his mind.