GARDENS OF NIGHT

by Greg F. Gifune

  Innocence is dead. Faith is a ghost. The past is a lie, the present a trick of shadow and fog, the future a whispered promise never fulfilled. And through it all, the nightmares remain. Even when the horrors of torment are shattered by the fires of so-called righteousness, burned to ash and scattered to the winds of time, misery survives, anger lives, and blood runs red, drowning the world in the iniquity of Man. In the midst of such bedlam and carnage, no help arrives. We must save ourselves, he realizes, because in this life we’re on our own. And in the absence of God, suffering is illusion, pain is meaningless, love is irrelevant. There is only survival and the purity of its wrath.

  The rest is blood, fire, water, passage. But to where?

  The moment they enter the house and the door closes behind them, Marc knows they’re doomed. He tries to lie to himself, to convince himself there’s still a way out, but he knows there isn’t. No one speaks as the strangers gawk and rubberneck as if they’ve entered a palace rather than a modest home. The stout one laughs excitedly, like the scenario is even more than he’d hoped for, while the older man gives Marc a sudden and violent push that sends him stumbling forward and into the table.

  “For God’s sake,” Brooke says breathlessly. They are the first words she’s spoken since this all began. “This isn’t necessary, you…”

  Marc meets her frightened eyes with a gaze of his own that silently conveys she needs to stay quiet. There’s no telling what may or may not set these men off.

  “Where’s the bedroom?” the big man asks.

  Marc straightens his stance. “Upstairs. Why?”

  He looks to his cohort. “It’s either that or the basement.”

  The younger man waves the gun around like a flunky in a gangster movie, finally leveling it on Marc. “Get your ass down the basement, bitch.”

  Marc knows if he leads them to the cellar he and Brooke will never get out of there alive. He has to risk lying. “The house doesn’t have a full basement,” he explains, “just a four-foot high crawlspace.”

  “Fuck it then.” He motions to the adjacent room, a small den. “Let’s just do it there.”

  The other one considers this a moment then nods. “Close them curtains.”

  Marc’s heart sinks as the man with the gun does just that. He considers rushing the older man, but even if he manages to disable him, his partner is the one with the gun. He’ll never make it.

  “Get on in there,” the older man tells them, pawing at the gray stubble dotting his scarred skin. “Do it.”

  As the curtains are yanked closed and the shades drawn, the light diminishes in the room, casting much of it into deep shadow. Displeased, the younger man nonchalantly switches on a lamp. A chill cuts Marc to the bone. Simple executions can be conducted in the dark. Apparently whatever these men have in store for them requires sufficient light.

  Later, a door will be installed to close this room off from the kitchen and the rest of the house. Neither he nor Brooke will step foot in it again, but for now the small and suddenly cramped room remains open, easily accessed and flowing freely into the rest of the house.

  Marc looks to the windows, wanting – needing – to see the outside, the street and the other houses, his neighbors, the world. But there is nothing. The world has come down to four people and a gun. Not so very far away are others who would surely help if only he could reach or signal them somehow. But it no longer matters. They may as well be miles away. He and Brooke exist in a void now, a separate hell.

  When he thinks of this, it is mostly sadness he remembers. Horribly crippling sadness. Somewhere along the line they all fell in one way or another. They all died – or soon would – and wound up there, in this place, in this moment.

  “What’s happening?” Brooke asks once they’re all herded into the den. “What do you want?”

  From behind him, the older man draws a knife, presumably from his belt, that seems to materialize from thin air. Some sort of military commando style knife, it sports a ridiculously enormous blade. Holding it up with the ease of someone familiar and schooled in its use, he stares at the blade with admiration, clearly aware of what this weapon is capable of in his deft hands. He grins with an expression that should look silly on a man his age but comes off as unsettling and creepy instead. Oddly, there is a hint of joy on his face. “Ever seen one that big, honey?” The short man snorts through hideous laughter as his cohort slowly brings the knife to Brooke’s lips. She shudders but accommodates him as he slides the tip of the blade into her mouth. “You like that shit?”

  “Leave her alone,” Marc snaps, but before he can step between them the stout man swings the gun at him. With a disturbing clang, it connects with the side of his head, sending a spike of pain across his temple and through his skull. He grunts, stumbles back and brings a hand to his face.

  Marc sinks to his knees, and Brooke makes a whimpering sound but remains still as the man removes the blade from her mouth and drops it down to her throat. “Do that again and I’ll carve her tongue out and make you eat it.”

  The pain makes everything real, turns fear to terror.

  Marc struggles to his feet. A trickle of blood runs from his hairline down along the side of his face. The room tilts then corrects itself. Brooke looks to him but he has nothing for her, no saving grace, and they both know it. “This has gone far enough,” he says groggily. “This –”

  “You think we’re playing games with you, bitch?” The younger man lumbers forward and jams the gun in Marc’s face, roughly pressing the barrel into his eye socket. “Shut the fuck up!”

  Marc’s bowels clench, certain the man is about to kill him. The barrel is cold but smooth against his flesh. The room spins again. Christ Jesus, he thinks.

  “Do the fuck,” the older man says.

  “Don’t!” Brooke says suddenly, in a surprisingly strong voice. “He – we’re sorry. We’re sorry, OK?” To illustrate her willingness to cooperate she raises her hands like Marc did in the driveway.

  The big man turns to his gun-toting partner, and with his free hand, points at Marc. “This asshole says one more word or makes any kind of move – and I mean any kind of move – you shoot him in the head.”

  The short one laughs, taking the gun from Marc’s eye and leveling it at his bloody temple. “Boom, motherfucker! Boom! ”

  The older man grins at Brooke. “Take your clothes off.”

  Marc watches helplessly, heart smashing his chest.

  His wife’s eyes assume a sudden steeliness he’s never witnessed in her before, and without ever breaking eye contact with the man holding the knife, Brooke steps out of the black flats she’s wearing, slowly unbuttons her blouse, pulls it off over her shoulders and drops it to the floor. She then hitches her thumbs beneath the elastic waistband of her ankle-length skirt, pulls it down, and, bending one knee and then the other, steps out of it and tosses it to the floor alongside her shirt.

  The younger man gives a perverted laugh. His partner watches silently.

  Resolute eyes still locked on the man’s, Brooke unhooks her bra, arches her shoulders forward and lets it fall free of her breasts. Rather than catch it, she allows it to fall to the floor with the rest.

  Marc closes his eyes. For Christ’s sake, he thinks, do something. But the blow to the temple has left his equilibrium off, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to stop the room from moving or his legs from feeling like they’re about to give out.

  When he opens his eyes again Brooke has already removed her panties and added them to the pile of discarded clothes. Standing before them, she never wavers, cries, breaks eye contact or says a word.

  “Fuck, what a body.” The younger man turns to Marc with a maniacal smile, as if he expects him to be enjoying this as much as he is, then seems to remember who he is and shakes the gun at him like an accusatory finger. “Can’t keep a slut that hot just for you, man. She needs to spread that shit around.”

  Brooke stares straight ahead.

  Ma
rc glares at him, wants to smash his face, to strangle him with his bare hands, but he can’t seem to focus. A dull ache begins pulsating from the wound on his head and runs down along his jaw.

  The other man orders Brooke to turn around and put her hands behind her back. She does as she’s told. He pulls a plastic zip-tie from his back pocket and secures it tightly around her wrists.

  They’ve done this before, Marc thinks. No one carries zip-ties around with them. They’ve come prepared for what is taking place, for what is about to happen. But who are they? And why are he and Brooke their victims? Chance, or was this planned? Have they been stalking them, preparing this for some time, waiting for the right moment when they could pounce? Have he and Brooke been targeted or are they simply unlucky enough to have come home right at the moment these men were in the area hunting prey?

  As the man roughly spins Brooke back around so she is again facing them it hardly seems to matter. She’s closed her eyes. Marc is sure she’s begun to pray. He wishes he could too, but for some reason he can’t remember any of the words.

  “Now you,” the older man says. “Get them clothes off.”

  Marc freezes, certain he’s misunderstood. “What?”

  In one quick move the big man places the point of his knife less than an inch from Brooke’s face. “You want me to cut her?”

  Woozily, Marc undoes his pants, lets them fall.

  “Keep going, boy.”

  Fighting back a sudden wave of nausea, he pulls his underwear down as well. His skins flushes, the sensation spreading slowly throughout his entire body and mixing with the terrible tilting and whirling of the room.

  The older man watches, his hand remarkably steady. In a way he’s already dead, Marc thinks. There is nothing behind those eyes. No love, no compassion, sympathy or empathy, only sadistic hatred and a coldness that seems nearly impossible to imagine. He realizes then that he and Brooke are not even human to these men, not even animals. They’re barely alive at all. They are unfeeling dolls, playthings with no real emotion, pain or fear. No one loves them and they love no one – not even each other – so it matters little if at all when they are tortured or killed. There is no meaning. They have no meaning. They can do what they want and it won’t matter, because none of them matter. And it has nothing to do with male or female, heterosexual or homosexual or even sex. Those things don’t apply here. This is violence and cruelty as sport, as pastime, nothing more… but also nothing less.

  He lowers the knife. Throughout, Brooke’s eyes have remained closed, but she comes back from her prayer as he nonchalantly cups one of her breasts, squeezes it then reaches around and cracks her ass with a violent slap. “Down on your knees, girl.”

  Face still expressionless, Brooke drops to her knees.

  Fight back, Marc thinks, stop this. But he’s so shaky he can barely stand.

  The older man nods to his partner, who finally lowers the gun, and like an excited child, rushes over to Brooke. He gropes her violently then presses the gun to her forehead and unfastens his belt.

  Pain arches through his head and the room bends again, but Marc takes a step toward them anyway. He falls, feet caught in the pants around his ankles.

  “Get up, dumbass,” the older man chuckles. “Get the fuck up.”

  Marc manages to regain his feet but all he can think about is the spinning game he used to play as a child, where he and his friends would twirl round and round then stop and try to walk. Just like then, the world is shifting and moving about crazily. He stumbles, not sure if he’s fallen again, and then realizes he’s still upright.

  “Lay down across that face-first,” he says to Marc, pointing to a loveseat on the opposite wall.

  Marc shakes his head no.

  “Make me tell you again,” he says, raising the knife, “and I’ll cut your wife’s fucking throat before he can get his cock down it.”

  “You’re going to cut it anyway,” Marc says, the words gone from him before he can stop them. But they’re not just words. They’re truth, and they all know it. “You’re going to kill us both no matter what we do or don’t do.”

  “Even if you’re right,” he says, standing so close that Marc can smell his rancid breath, feel its warmth against his face.“You want me to fix it so you’ll have to watch us kill her nice and slow?”

  He looks to Brooke but she won’t make eye contact. She stares straight ahead, as if in a trance, which he supposes, in a sense she is. His body shakes and he’s sure he’ll vomit, but he doesn’t. Not yet.

  The big man flashes a fist out quickly, slams it into Marc’s midsection. The blow doubles him over, knocks most of the air from him, and leaves Marc reeling. Before he’s recovered, the man clutches the back of Marc’s neck and shoves him toward the loveseat. Feet again tangled, he lurches forward, falling onto his hands and knees. He tries to stand but can’t. His mind screams at him to fight and struggle, but his body is unable to respond.

  Laughing, the shorter man slaps Brooke’s face repeatedly with the head of his erection then adjusts his position so he can better reach her mouth.

  From behind, a rough hand forces Marc forward until his face is buried in the cushions of the small sofa and he can no longer see anything.

  Lord God, he thinks. How can this be happening?

  As the older assailant moves in behind him and reaches around so he can place the knife blade against the side of his throat, Marc decides this man will be the first to die.

  * * * *

  Later, he remembers how the pain slaughtered disbelief. First came the repeated blows to the back of his head as he tried to get free, then the acidic nausea bubbled up, strangling him as he struggled to remain conscious and fight back. Wet, probing fingers, pressure, and finally, searing pain as the man stabbed into him. Sharp and brutal, it surged through him from the inside out, up along his spine and into the pit of his stomach, the back of his throat constricting as his body bucked in convulsive dry heaves, his mind a tempest of madness and chaos, the real and surreal exploding into one as hot breath pulsed against the back of his neck and saliva drizzled over his face in a long thick string, all of it set to rhythmic moans and guttural whispers until there was a violent and final shudder, and a warm spurting sensation deep in his rectum.

  Several blurred and semiconscious memories follow… the horrible laughter of the other man… gagging sounds… slapping… and then he has somehow wound up on his back and Brooke, on all-fours, is dragged over to him by her hair and made to straddle him, her eyes wet, makeup smudged and eyeliner running along her cheeks in long narrow swathes like war paint, her nose bloodied, her flesh red. A pair of hands forces her face down between his legs, the men encouraging her, as if they’ve given her a choice…

  And then… quiet… a strange silence in the house. It sounds so final.

  And it is.

  His entire body pulses with pain. It is the only thing that makes him think he may still be alive. His head feels odd… light and uneven and… and he can’t think straight, not like he needs to, like he could before this began.

  Vision returns soon after his hearing does, though it’s distorted. He remains still, barely breathing, and waits until he’s better able to focus. The shades are still drawn; he can see them from where he’s laying on the floor. His eyes slowly pan the room; find Brooke laying a few feet away on her side, knees pulled up close to her chin. The plastic cord previously holding her hands behind her back has been cut away at some point, and although he can see her face, her eyes are closed. He wishes she’d open them. He needs her to open them. Open your eyes, Brooke. Open them and let me know you’re all right.

  She doesn’t.

  He looks beyond her. The younger man is collapsed on the loveseat, his pants in a heap next to him and his head back as if asleep. The gun is in one hand, resting against his thigh. His partner is not in the room, but Marc can hear rustling nearby. Is he in the kitchen, maybe?

  This isn’t over, he thinks. They’re just taking
a break. They’ll kill us. Eventually, when they’ve had their fill and done everything they want to do, they’ll kill us both.

  He attempts to work his hands, his fingers. They clench into fists, release and clench again. He ever-so-slightly moves his feet and legs. Pain remains but its duller now, fading and becoming more of an ache. His mouth is dry as sand, and when he attempts a swallow he nearly chokes. Afraid the man may have heard him, he quickly shuts his eyes and feigns unconsciousness, but seconds later when he opens them he finds the man in the same position.

  There are only two thoughts in his mind, repeating on an endless loop. One is his concern for Brooke. The other is his plan to murder both these men. Violence has come to their small town, their modest home, to his wife and himself. And now it will come to those who brought it.

  Emotions fade. A merciless logic dominates his mind. His blood is cold.

  He thinks a moment, the ideas and concepts coming to him a bit more easily now as he gradually recovers. I need a weapon. Something, anything that will hurt this man enough so that I can get that gun from him…

  There, on the coffee table, about the size of his fist, a heavy glass paperweight…

  He references useless information and memories on the origin of the paperweight, how it was a gift from his mother-in-law and how she’d purchased it while on vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia several years before. She’d had no idea that one day it might very well save the lives of her daughter and son-in-law. But perhaps someone – something – else did. Perhaps it was meant to be, intended all along for her to go into that particular artisan’s shop, to buy that specific piece and for Brooke to decide to display it in their home precisely in that location, on a coffee table well within Marc’s grasp.