by Sara Clancy
Streaks and splotches covered the walls and drenched the floor. An overlapping puddle that ranged from fresh crimson to old, deep maroon. There was no doubt that the room had been used for something grotesque. And used quite a bit. Evelyn couldn’t turn away from it even as the woman stepped into the lit room. Lithe and graceful, the long black dress clung to her like a second skin. Her long heels clicked with every step as she stalked to the center of the room. Then, with her arms held up like a game show model, she sprung back around to face Evelyn.
“So, what do you think? Do you know how lucky you are? Not everyone gets to know the exact room they’re going to die in.”
Evelyn swallowed thickly. She didn’t know what to say, or think. Every attempt to form an escape plan left her head feeling like a hollow shell.
“He’s going to beat you to death,” the woman continued gleefully. “Crush that little head of yours against the stones like rotten fruit. Break your bones. Turn all your organs into a stew. How long do you think you’ll last? Oh, do make it fun for us.”
“Your son?” she breathed heavily. The image of a big-eyed boy sitting by the wheel of her car flashed across her mind. “He’s just a child!”
The woman dismissed her with an amused wave of her hand. “Not Ivan, you fool. Aleksandr. You haven’t met him. Yet. It was Ivan and my husband who got you for Alek. You’re a birthday present. Be sure to make it enjoyable for him.”
All the words drifted to the back of Evelyn’s mind as an image, a memory, surged forward. The creature that had attacked her. The horrible, nightmarish being that had hurled itself from the shadows.
“That monster is your husband?”
Fury twisted up the woman’s doll like features. She stalked towards the cage. Evelyn watched the woman reach into the shadows an instant before a strong current coursed through her veins and seized her muscles. As Evelyn thrashed, her jaw squeezing tight as the pain increased and fire replaced her blood, a single word came to her. Taser.
The crackle of electricity finally stopped and the woman grabbed the top of the cage. Instead of a Taser, the woman held a cattle prod in her hand. It clashed against the metal as she shook the cage. Every so often, the button would be pressed, and a dancing stream of blue light would zip between the prongs.
“How dare you,” the woman hissed, eyes blazing with rage. “My Petya is the greatest man on this earth. He is glorious. Your pathetic brain can’t contemplate his magnificence!”
She stabbed the prod through the bars. Driving it into Evelyn’s bare stomach. Agony held her solid. Helpless. The scent of cooking flesh and burnt hair struck her nose. Working herself into a frenzy, the woman alternated between spitting Russian words at her and sticking the cattle prod in harder. The pain built. Combining and pushing her to the brink of consciousness. Evelyn longed to topple over the edge. To fall into oblivion and leave this behind. The pain kept her in place. Locked her to reality.
“Olga?”
The fresh waves of pain stopped, but there was no real release. Electricity seemed to spark between each of her cells. Locking her joints into place. Leaving her jerking against the bottom of the cage like a fish on dry land. A male voice laughed and spoke with benevolent reprimand.
“I can’t leave you alone for a moment. Didn’t the other one satisfy you?”
In the corner of her eyes and edge of consciousness, Evelyn saw the woman point at her with the cattle prod. Mercifully, it didn’t make contact. The bars of electricity sparked a hair’s width from her eye.
“She insulted you, my love. I couldn’t let that stand.”
“Now, now, sticks and stones, dearest,” the man chuckled.
“But–” her words cut short and the man clicked his tongue.
“We agreed. She’s for Aleksandr.”
The woman scowled. “I’ll keep her alive.”
“Alive and ready to fight are two different things. She’ll be his first real kill. We want it to be a special memory for him.”
There was a moment of silence before the cattle prod was left atop the cage. Evelyn longed to reach for it. To take the weapon. But she couldn’t move. Tears dripped from the edges of her eyes as she helplessly stared up at it.
“Do you remember our first?” the woman, Olga, asked with a sultry tone.
The smile was evident in the man’s voice as he replied, “You had her squealing like a pig.”
The rest of the conversation faded away as Evelyn saw the shadows above her begin to swirl. They clustered and heaved like a churning ocean. Like oil and tar. Creating a colossal drop that slowly swelled and lowered down towards her. Can’t they see it? Can’t they see? If the madmen were aware of what was happening above their heads, they made no sign of it. Her screams lodged in her paralyzed throat as a needle thin nail pierced the bubble. Moving as smoothly as a scalpel, they dragged down along the curve of the droplet, splitting it in two. The creature that emerged was only vaguely human in shape. With nails as long as Evelyn’s arm, it crawled free. Its bones stood stark against its skin. The sharp curve of the spine kept it forever hunched over. It scurried across the ceiling on the tips of its nails and the toes of its disjointed legs.
Look up! Look up! She screamed the words in her head over and over but couldn’t get it to pass her lips. Directly above Evelyn now, the monster rotated its head. Twisting until she was forced to stare into the shiny silver disks of its tiny pupils. A smile spread across its face, rippling the skin like curtains being drawn back. Broken fangs glowed with the same ferocity of its eyes. See it! Please, God, see it! The couple continued to chat between them, their Russian words drenched with love and lust, completely unaware. Helpless sobs turned to whimpers in her throat as slowly, lazily, a serpentine tongue slipped out of the creature’s mouth and coiled about. Her mind was still screaming as the lack of oxygen tainted the edges of her vision. The burning pupils followed her into the darkness as her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell back, unconscious.
Chapter 5
The videos played on an endless loop. Static periodically washed across the screen of the old, clunky television set, but the sound was perfect. They had apparently rigged the room for the singular purpose of blasting the bloodied screams, pleas, and feeble babbling of the women. Their victims. And they had succeeded. Evelyn longed to cup her hands over her ears, make some attempt to dampen the ear-splitting noise, but she didn't dare move.
The noise crawled over the inside of her skull like a swarm of insects, burrowing into her brain to keep her from latching onto any constructive thought. She knew what she had to do. Think it over. Break it into tasks. Have a plan.
The lingering traces of electricity had already left her body. Knowing that didn’t stop her hands from twitching. Each time they did, a fresh wave of fear crashed down upon her. Stay still. Don't draw that thing’s attention.
That panicked thought made the pecking order clear. The monster that had slithered from the ceiling had beat out the serial killers. It had long since dragged itself out of her limited line of sight and escaped into the shadows.
Gathering every last ounce of her reckless bravery, she shifted her gaze. Only the flickering light of the TV pushed back against the endless pool of shadows. Pain pulsed in her eyeballs as she strained to look at every inch of the ceiling. The unfinished surface of the concrete slab offered hiding places for the darkness to remain. It tricked her more than once into thinking that she had spotted the monster, and her heart stammered every time. But there was nothing.
There was no comfort in that.
The wound on the back of her head ground against the bars of the cage as she pushed her head back. Not secure enough to get up just yet but desperate to catch sight of the monster again. It was real. She hurled the thought to the universe at large. A demand rather than a plea. It was real. It had to be. The other option was too horrific to consider. Not now. It can’t start now.
Evelyn had learned about the giant, genetic clock ticking against her that said
her mother had abducted her. Her mother had ranted that they were being hunted. That demons were snatching people and replacing them with fakes. But ‘Mommy can see them’. Evelyn shuddered as she recalled the statements that were repeated over and over again. She knew what they were doing. She wasn’t going to let them get her daughter.
The psychotic episode hadn’t lasted, but it had done enough. From then on, Evelyn knew her parents were lying when they told her, ‘mommy’s just not feeling well. She’ll get better soon’. It wasn’t the flu or some random bug. There was a wound in her mother’s brain, or something psychic that would never fully heal. Years of soul training tests and medicinal cocktails, therapists, and crushing, accumulating debt; it had all boiled down to endurance. The three of them had lived on a tightrope, trying to be happy while knowing that a gentle breeze could ruin it all. There was no cure. And Evelyn was her mother’s child. They had the same wild hair, dark eyes, and full lips. They shared a taste for spicy food and both had double jointed fingers. It wasn’t out of the question that these similarities were the complete inventory of what she had inherited.
Despite this, she had hoped for a few more good years. Her mother hadn’t shown any warning signs until she was in her twenties. But then, her mother hadn’t been in a situation like this. Stress had a way of forcing things like this to the surface. Evelyn couldn’t stomach that option right now. The monstrous deformity had to be real.
A sudden move banged her head against the bars. Pain exploded out from the wound on her skull and her vision blurred for a moment. It was oddly comforting. A head injury. Stress. Fear. She rattled them off and clutched them close. Any of these could result in hallucinations. Blinking rapidly, she sucked in a deep breath, feeling a fantastic sense of accomplishment when her lungs swelled. The shackles of fear weren’t holding her as tightly as they had before. Taking advantage of her recklessness, she rolled onto her side and pushed up onto one forearm.
Carefully, she avoided looking at the TV screen and used its flickering light to search the room. The glow wasn’t as effective against the dense shadows as she had hoped. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust and allow her to make out a few shapes, objects, and what she assumed were the walls. It was almost an afterthought to look for the couple. The real threat, she reminded herself.
That was a concept she had a harder time wrapping her head around. Taken by serial killers. It just didn’t seem real. A vague memory of watching scary movies with her dad played in the back of her mind. She could almost hear herself bragging about all the things she would have done differently to stay alive. Cocksure and laughing. Safe in her own home. Then, she hadn’t doubted that she could survive where all the characters had failed. It was a lot harder to be that confident now.
Shoving the thoughts away, she grounded herself in the moment and tried to do something useful. The room appeared to be empty. At least nothing moved within her limited field of vision. She hated not being able to hear anything beyond the recorded screams. The bare concrete ground would whisper even the slightest movement. She scanned the area restlessly until she was satisfied. No couple. No monster. No other living victims. She was utterly alone.
A sudden convulsion caught her off guard. Unprepared, she lurched to the side, her knees slamming into the bars of her narrow cage as she curled in on herself. Sparks of pain sizzled along her nerves at the impact. It took her breath away even as it cleared her mind. Nausea rolled the pit of her stomach. She dry-heaved until her stomach ached. All that came up was spit and bile. Nothing in my stomach. She clung to the realization and tried to think. It takes two hours for food to work through your stomach. I ate just before training. Training took an hour. So these freaks must have had me for at least one hour.
Pressing her lips tight, she tried to recall a map of the city. Maybe calculate where they could have taken her in that time. It was all for nothing. For all she knew, she could have been staring at the walls for two hours already. And there was no way to tell how long she had been unconscious.
Humidity thickened the air. Combined with the stale heat and the persistent, coppery stench of old blood, breathing became a forced act. One that she put off for as long as possible. Sweat drenched her workout gear. She spared a moment to account for everything. Crop top, sports bra, shorts. Only her sneakers were missing. If she tried hard enough, Evelyn could believe that they hadn’t touched her.
Water dripped from the compact waves of her hair as she pushed it off her forehead. The damp tendril flopped back down to obscure her vision again. Without any other distraction, the television pulled her eyes back to the screen. The footage never faltered. All she could do was stare. Tears welled, the salt burning her eyes. They fell, as hard trembles wracked her body. She stared. Barely able to breathe past her choking sobs, Evelyn's shock held her in place, forcing her to watch the endless parade of women. There’s so many of them, she thought as the figures writhed and screamed, begging for death as the couple gleefully cackled. None of them survived. The ultimate truth of that cut into the depths of her soul. They all died. And I will, too.
The knowledge struck her and created a bottomless, icy void within her ribs. It spread quickly, chilling her bone marrow and shattering something inside her that she hadn't even known could be damaged. The images on the screen took on a new meaning. It wasn’t something that she could step back from. Something that just happened to others, not her, not in real life. She watched the horror with the certainty that she would face the same fate.
“I’m going to die here.”
The recorded screams drowned out the words, but feeling her lips move was enough. Gasping for air, Evelyn glanced at the door beside her. The one that the woman had shown her. The opening to the blood-stained room. It was barely visible in the gloom. That didn't dampen the physical effect of it. Her stomach heaved, her throat constricted, every inch of her body burned with the consuming desire to topple into hysterics.
Clutching the bars of her cage until her knuckles ached, she forced herself not to look away. She needed to see it, to endure the rising, crushing panic, or she’d never accept the reality.
“They’re going to kill me.”
With those words, the last of her warmth faded. Her feral hysteria fell silent. There was nothing left inside her skin but the numbing cold. Barely feeling her body anymore, she slumped back against the bars and watched the television with an unblinking stare. Despair made it easier to stomach the video.
I’m going to die here. She repeated the thought until the words no longer made her flinch or whimper. Blistering tears carved paths through the sweat, blood, and grime that smeared her face. It was the only thing she felt anymore. Everything else was just gone.
There was no way for her to tell just how long shock had kept her cocooned within oblivion. But there was a benefit to it. With her mind finally silent, she was able to step back and properly assess her options. There was a choice before her. One that she had to make now, while she had the limited freedom to do so. Should I fight? Or should I just get it over with?
Before the question had even formed, she knew which one she was going to pick. In essence, she had decided before she had hit puberty. As she watched her mother struggle to keep her identity, her freedom, her tenuous mastery of her own mind, she’d vowed that she’d never follow. It was a battle she didn’t see any value in fighting.
For some, the promise of one more minute, one more second, one more breath of life was enough to hold on to. The flicker of hope. That’s what kept her mother going. Hope that someday it would get better. Hope that she could come home. Hope that they’d be a family again. But for Evelyn, the cost was too high. The terror of deterioration too great. Every woman that flicked across the screen was in the same state as the others. Utter devastation. Not just physically, but emotionally, mentally. There was nothing left. No going back. An integral part of themselves had been broken. They had all fought so hard to live, gave up everything for it, and what did they get in return? E
ven if they had survived, the best they could look forward to was what Evelyn’s mother had now. A safe place. Watchful eyes. And a world of drugs to numb the pain. The remainder of their lives would pass in a functional but meaningless haze. Where nothing mattered and emotion was a concept that could be understood but never felt. No fate could have ever terrified Evelyn more. Not torture. Certainly not death.
Conviction alone wasn’t enough to stifle survival instinct. It reared up in the back of her mind, continually whispering promises it couldn't keep. Hold on. Look for an escape. Do what you have to do. There will be a chance. You can run. You can get out of this. The siren song continued, as strong and persistent as the women’s screams. They were glorious thoughts, but Evelyn knew she wouldn’t listen. The proof of it was playing out before her eyes. She didn’t have it in her. She couldn’t do what these women did. Bring on her last breath. She’d take it now.
That didn’t make the decision any less bitter. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to drown out the sounds of Hell and the alluring whispers. It will hurt. Think about the pain. What if someone finds your body? What if they tell dad what happened to you? Instead of breaking her will, that last thought strengthened it. He’ll understand. It’ll be a small comfort knowing that I suffered for only days instead of months, or years, which will help him on the long run.
Lifting her chin and steeling her spine, Evelyn forced her eyes open and stared down the screen. She’d never gone into a fight unprepared and she wasn’t about to start now. Her one, brief encounter with the couple had made two things clear. The man called the shots, but the woman was the one with a hairline trigger. If Evelyn could push her hard enough, fast enough, she might lose her temper and kill her quickly. So Evelyn wanted to know exactly where those buttons were. The tapes were a golden resource. It showed both of them in their element.