by Jack Kilborn
They each grabbed a leg, and dragged Paulie across the bloody floor, out the door.
Sara waited. She needed to figure out what to do next. She still had four kids left. The three in the cells, and Georgia, wherever she was being held. But those cells were solid. She would need tools to get in. A saw, or a pry bar.
Or a drill.
There was a drill in Martin’s room, on his tool bench.
Sara slowly slid out from underneath the bed, avoiding the blood on the floor and refusing to look in Laneesha’s direction. She was halfway to the door when she realized what a cop-out that was. Taking a deep break, she forced herself to face the cabinet.
“I’m sorry,” Sara whispered, feeling the words stick in her throat. “I know you believed we go someplace, after we die. If you’re right, and you can hear me, I’m making you a promise. If…no…when I get out of here, I’ll make sure your daughter finds a good home, and knows how brave her mother was. I’m so sorry.”
Sara closed her eyes but could still picture the ruined, bloody thing before her.
“I also promise, even if I die trying, to get every one of those fuckers who did this.”
Sara snuck out into the antechamber, and then peeked around the corner before committing to the hallway. Once she deemed it clear she moved quickly, on the balls of her feet, pausing by Martin’s doorway. She heard voices, from the spiral staircase ahead of her.
“…sick of dragging this heavy bastard. The wheelchair is in my room. I’ll go get it.”
Martin.
Sara hurried into his room, frantically looking for a hiding place. It was too well lit in here to hide under the bed. But there wasn’t anyplace else. Except…
Can I do this?
She gaped at the trunk, her legs feeling weak. The alternative was facing Martin with the utility knife—which had too small a blade to do any serious damage. Plus Martin attended the same judo class as she did. Sara had more experience, but he was stronger and outweighed her by sixty pounds. She silently cursed herself for making him take classes with her.
His footsteps reverberated through the stone corridor, getting closer.
I can do this.
Utility knife clenched in a death-grip, Sara cautiously lifted the trunk lid.
It’s so dark in there.
She climbed in anyway, forcing herself to squat down, the pain in her leg making her wince.
But she couldn’t get herself to close the lid.
Martin’s footsteps drew closer, practically outside the room.
Dammit, Sara. Look what Laneesha went through. You can do this.
Sara eased the lid down, watching her light get smaller until it was a thick line… a thinner line… just a speck…
And then the darkness.
It assaulted her like a freezing wind, making her want to scream while also taking her breath away. A minute ago, a second ago, she’d been empowered, a woman on a mission. But the dark reduced her to jelly. She wasn’t even sure if she could keep hold of the utility knife.
Sara strained to hear outside the trunk. Was Martin in the room yet? What was he doing? Would he notice the lock on the trunk was broken? What if he opened the lid? Would she even be able to defend herself?
Then there was a huge banging noise and the trunk shook and Sara screamed and dropped the knife, the darkness swallowing it, and her.
Martin slapped the top of the trunk and was rewarded with a cry of absolute terror from the woman he exchanged vows with.
“You okay in there, honey? I don’t want you thinking I’ve forgotten about you.”
He went to the wheelchair, parked next to the tool bench. It had shackles on it, and was useful for moving people around. An elevator would have been more useful, but Lester was pretty strong and there weren’t many people he couldn’t lift by himself.
Subject 33, however, had to weigh three hundred and fifty pounds. He’d really let himself go since Plincer locked him in that room, years ago. Martin made a mental note to bring him a Nordic Track or something on his next visit. If the fat bastard pulled through.
He wheeled the chair to the doorway and then abruptly stopped.
Something was wrong. He felt it.
Martin turned around, scanning the room. Work bench. Dresser. Peg board. Bed. Trunk.
There, by the trunk.
Martin walked over, bending at the waist to pick up the object on the floor.
“Trying to get away? You naughty girl.”
Chereese’s tanned hide was lying in a pile, like a dropped leather jacket. Martin had put all of his skins away, but somehow had overlooked her. He lifted her up, brushing a piece of rock salt out of her hair, and reverently put her back in the dresser.
Then Martin left the room. He had to walk backwards down the stairs, lest the wheelchair get away from him. Lester hadn’t waited, and had pulled Subject 33 by himself halfway across the cell area. Martin rolled up to him, and they hefted the fat man into the chair.
The lab was on the other side of the cells, through a doorway and at the end of the hall, between Plincer’s bedroom and the kitchen. As expected, the doctor was in the lab, fussing with some test tubes.
“Goodness, what has happened?”
Martin frowned. “He and Lester had a disagreement. So Lester stabbed him in the back.”
Plincer came over, peering close. “So how did he get so fat?”
“Eating too much and lack of exercise.”
Subject 33 groaned.
“Oh dear, we don’t want this one waking up on us. Hold him down.”
Lester placed his hands on Subject 33’s shoulders and leaned on him. Martin stared at Doctor Plincer, clucking like a mother hen while he searched his cabinets for some succinocholine, and wondered how a man so brilliant could be such a space cadet at the same time.
The doctor found the bottle and filled a syringe. By now Subject 33’s eyes were open. He stared up at Lester, projecting hate. Lester projected hate right back. Plincer gave the fat man a shot in the thigh.
“Okay, let’s try to get him up on the table. Face down.”
The three of them heaved, sweated, grunted, and strained, and eventually managed to beach the whale on the stainless steel operating table.
“We’ve got a knife wound four inches right of the L2 vertebra.” Plincer placed his ear to Subject 33’s back. “There’s a pneumothorax. How long was the knife?”
Lester held his fingers apart.
“Possible liver puncture as well. Did you do all of these other cuts as well?” Plincer spread out his hands, indicating the dozens of slices on the fat man’s body.
“Subject 33 was like that when Lester stabbed him.”
“Self-inflicted? Fascinating.” Plincer peered over his glasses at Lester. “You weren’t trying to kill him, were you?”
“Not right away,” Lester said.
“But for heaven’s sake, why try at all?”
“Subject 33 killed the Joe pet.”
“How did he get out of his room?”
Lester shrugged. So did Martin.
“Did you, perhaps, stop and think that maybe someone let him out?”
Martin dug into his pocket. “Lurch here dropped a key in the cell area,” he said, holding it up.
“Not Lurch,” Lester said. “Lester did it.”
Plincer rolled his eyes. “The meeting is in less than an hour. Make sure that everyone is where they’re supposed to be. Including Georgia.”
Martin and Lester both turned to leave.
“Hold it, hold it please. I’m going to need some help re-inflating his lung and sewing him up. Lester, you stay here with me, since you’re the one that did this. Martin, are you sure your wife is contained?”
“I’m sure.”
“Double-check. And as for you, old friend.” Plincer patted Subject 33’s head. “I’m afraid I don’t have time to properly sedate you. You’re going to feel this, but that’s what you get for messing around with another man’s property.”
Lester smiled. Martin sighed, heading back to his room. He was annoyed, and tense.
But he had complete faith that a few minutes with Sara would help relax him.
Sara listened, as hard as she could, but the darkness seemed to clog her ears. Had Martin left? Or was he still there, silently waiting, ready to grab her when she opened the trunk?
I’ll count to a hundred. Then I’ll come out.
She made it to seventeen, then popped out and gasped for air like she’d been underwater, swinging the knife around in case Martin was close.
He wasn’t. The room was empty.
Sara climbed out the trunk on shaky legs. She closed the lid, standing still for a few seconds, trying to get her hyperventilating under control. Now wasn’t a good time to pass out.
When her heart rate slowed a bit, she made her way to the work table and picked up the cordless drill. The bit was thick, four inches long. She squeezed the trigger and it whirred to life. Then she noticed something potentially more interesting.
On the table, in an ashtray, was a key.
It didn’t look like it would open the cells. This was a new key, and those were over a hundred years old, with locks to match. But it couldn’t hurt to hold on to.
Sara took it, and closed the utility knife, sticking both into her pocket. She also took from the bench an ice pick, a hammer, and a hacksaw. She then put down the saw, unable to carry everything at once, and rushed into the hallway, heading for the stairs.
When she was almost there she put on the brakes, noticing another door.
It looked out of place in the castle-type environment, made of silver metal with a bright new doorknob.
Keep going. Save the kids.
But what if there’s some other poor victim in there? What if it’s Georgia?
Sara reached for the doorknob hesitantly, as if she were about to touch a hot stove. She paused.
Yes or no?
Sara palmed the knob and gave it a deft turn.
Locked.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
That was Georgia’s voice.
Sara moved her mouth closer to the door. “Georgia? Are you okay?”
“Sara? Is that you?”
Sara put her hand on the door, leaning against it. “It’s me. Are you okay?”
“I’m scared, Sara.” Georgia’s voice got louder. “Please get me out of here.”
“I’m going to try. Don’t worry. I won’t leave you.”
It was a no-brainer what to try first. The key. She set down the drill and the hammer and fished out the key, fitting it into the lock easily. Sara tried to twist.
No good. The key wouldn’t turn.
She gave it the standard key-jiggle, bumped the door with her shoulder, and tried again.
It worked. Sara pocketed the key and pushed the door open. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the room. Sara saw a bed, a dresser, but no Georgia.
Sara studied the door, and noticed the pneumatic arm at the top. She bent down and jammed the ice pick under the rail so it wouldn’t close automatically, and then stepped inside.
“Georgia?”
Sara glanced behind the door and was met with the shocking image of a Georgia standing there, nude and covered in blood.
“Georgia! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, now that you’re here.”
Georgia smiled, oddly incongruous with her appearance. Then Sara noticed the bloody scissors in Georgia’s hand.
“Georgia?”
The pudgy girl launched herself at Sara, stabbing downward with the scissors.
Instinct took over, Sara sidestepped to the right, ducking under the arc of Georgia’s swing and driving an elbow into the teen’s back.
Georgia smacked into the dresser and Sara turned to face her, planting her feet apart and stepping on something squishy. She took a quick look at her feet.
Blood on the floor. Blood and rat parts.
Georgia spun, raising the scissors again. Her expression was gleefully manic.
“It’s me, Georgia,” she pleaded. “It’s Sara.”
“I know who you are, bitch.”
The girl lunged again, but this time she feinted before the swing, throwing Sara off balance. Before she could recover, Georgia had plowed into her, doubling Sara over and knocking her onto her back.
Sara fought to push the girl off, but Georgia had straddled her, making the older woman cry out when she ground knee her into Sara’s leg wound. Sara strained against her, but Georgia was strong and fierce and weighed more.
Georgia used that weight, leaning onto the scissors, bringing the blades closer and closer to Sara’s throat until they poked into her chin.
Georgia was more than just excited. She was aroused. The scissors pricked at Sara’s face, making little blood freckles, and Georgia was loving it.
The rat had been fun, but this was a hundred times better. Georgia had never tried any drugs, never had friends who attempted to share any with her. But she imagined this is what they must feel like. Each drop of blood that bloomed on Sara’s face was like another spike of ecstasy. Heroin and sex and cocaine and sky-diving all mixed up in one gigantic, pleasurable rush.
Then Georgia’s fingers were being bent back, and she had to turn her body with the rotation so they didn’t break.
She rolled off of Sara, no longer holding the scissors. The intense pleasure was gone, like a faucet that had been shut off. Not even an afterglow.
Georgia looked up at Sara and snarled.
“We can get you help,” Sara said, wiping red off her chin. “You have to trust me.”
Georgia scrambled onto all fours and then tackled Sara, wanting, needing, to bite the bitch’s face off.
Martin reached the top of the stairs and immediately noticed a power drill and hammer next to Georgia’s door. He ran to them, saw the door was open, and saw a naked Georgia wrestling with…
Sara. How the hell did she get free?
He rushed into the room, blood boiling, yanking Georgia out of the way and cocking back a fist guaranteed to break his wife’s jaw.
Georgia was there one second, gone the next, replaced by Martin. Sara had been trying to control Georgia without seriously hurting her, but with Martin she had no such compunction. She kicked him with everything she had, right between the legs, and then threw a right cross that broke the bastard’s nose.
Martin went down.
Then Sara was running for the exit, reaching for the ice pick and yanking it free, pulling the door shut behind her. After confirming the door was locked, she stuck the pick in her pocket, scooped up the hammer and drill, and limped down the stone stairs. They came to an end at the cell room, which was brighter with the lights on, but not by much. She gingerly touched her leg wounds and noted they were bleeding again.
Wouldn’t it be funny if I lived through this and then died of an infection?
She ignored the pain, scurrying over to the kids’ cells. They each had their hands cuffed behind their backs, and Tom was curled up in a ball.
“Sara!”
“Shh,” she told Cindy. “I’m going to try to get the doors open. You all need to watch the stairs and the door over there, make sure no one is coming. What happened to Tom?”
“Lester ‘n Martin,” Tyrone said. “Beat him up pretty good. Why’d you marry that guy anyway?”
“The man I married was a good man,” Sara said, squinting at the lock on Cindy’s prison door. “He was turned into something else.”
Sara knew the key for Georgia’s room wouldn’t fit, but she tried it anyway. No suck luck. Then she stuck the ice pick in the keyhole. Sara had no idea how lock mechanisms worked, other than something needed to be turned. She poked around for a minute without getting anywhere.
“Tyrone, can you pick locks?”
“Why, ‘cause I’m black?”
“No, Tyrone. Because you’re a criminal.”
“Hells no. Only thing I ever needed to bust a lock was my foot, or a gat.”
<
br /> Cindy tucked the ice pick away and wielded the drill.
“That might work, too,” Tyrone said.
She placed the bit inside the keyhole and pushed while pressing the trigger. The bit was stronger than the old iron, and it immediately began to cut.
Then the drill whined, and slowly petered out to a full stop. Sara pressed the trigger a few more times.
The battery was dead.
“Lester, did you hear that?” Dr. Plincer asked.
Lester hadn’t been paying attention. While Doctor was busy sewing Subject 33 up, Lester had been clandestinely squeezing the paralyzed man’s testicles. Lester got pleasure from the act, as he did whenever he was hurting someone, but was unhappy that Subject 33 couldn’t scream or cry. Pain without screams was like ice cream without chocolate sauce.
Lester would wait for the drug to wear off. Then he’d do much worse things.
“It sounds like a machine of some sort,” Doctor said. “In the cell room.”
Lester listened, hearing a faint buzzing noise that faded out.
“Go check it, please, Lester, if you would be so kind.”
Lester gave Subject 33 one more big squeeze and then headed for the door.
Martin sprinted at the metal security door for the third time, slamming his shoulder against it. His nose was bleeding over his mouth, down his neck, but he didn’t pay it any mind. His only goal was to get through this door and get that bitch he married.
“Don’t you have a key?” Georgia asked.
Martin sneered at her. “If I had a key, would I be trying to bust it down?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “You always were an asshole, Martin. How’s your nose? Looks painful.”
Georgia chewed on her lower lip and gave his nose a stiff poke.
Martin lashed out with a backhand, knocking the little brat across the room. “Don’t touch me, or any other Level 6, ever again. That’s the only rule. That and put on some goddamn clothes.”
He stared at his nemesis, the door, once more. Solid metal. Set in a stone wall. Calling for help was an option, but he didn’t think his voice would carry all the way to the lab. Kicking wouldn’t it be any more useful than ramming it, especially since the door opened inward.