“Guns?”
“I don’t know!” Sobbing. “Please. Please.”
“What about Dylan? Is he down there?”
More crying, getting louder. “I swear I don’t know. I don’t know names. It’s just a job! Nobody’s ever died before, I swear!”
Joel slapped the tape back over the guard’s mouth. Nodded to his soldiers. “Let’s go in.”
Claustrophobia and darkness.
With only the guide lights on their rifles — the night vision goggles Dogged had brought along didn’t work for shit — they found that what may once have been a mostly open floorplan basement with yellow-and-white patterned linoleum floor had now been sectioned off with flimsy dividers. Bare drywall, bare plywood, whatever was handy, from the looks of it. Sounds seeped out — moaning, flesh slapping, whimpering coming from all over. Wires taped to the floor, a lot of them. More taped to the top of the makeshift walls, running along one long corridor, with ‘rooms’ marked off by either cheap doors or curtains. Another path led to another corridor, running parallel, so Joel and Soulfather took one, Dogged the other.
A few stealthy peeks between curtains: sex, sex, sex. BDSM performed on webcam with the flicker of laptop screens adding some dystopian ambiance. Joel assumed that the rooms with doors were reserved for the dangerous stuff. The kidnapped victims. The dark web red rooms. That’s where they would need peace and quiet, not for the victims, but to concentrate on their unspeakable abuse.
His phone buzzed. Dogged reporting from the other corridor. THINK I GOT HIM.
Retreat and rendezvous. No one the wiser so far. Sex blinders on. The willing participants had probably been promised a secure location. Of course they wouldn’t expect men with guns raiding the place while they fisted and fucked and rimmed and whipped and pegged.
If only they’d known.
Halfway down the second corridor, one of those doors stood ajar, some light spilling out. Low murmurs. Joel and Dogged took the front, inching towards it. Three distinct voices now. Soulfather covered the rear.
The two soldiers rounded the door, inside fast and quiet, covered everyone and scared them into silence. Three men — one older and bald, wearing a white lab coat over a wrinkled flannel, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. The other two wore ball caps, jeans, and boots. One was holding onto a mop in a bucket. The floor was covered in blood.
Dogged and Joel forced them to their knees, hands behind their heads, right in the middle of the blood. Soulfather stepped inside and closed the door.
Joel’s turn: “Who’s in charge?”
“Me … me … um, it’s me.” The man in the lab coat. Bald yet young-looking. Muscled. Toned. But around his eyes, the wrinkles said he was already in his forties. “I can explain.”
“Fuck explaining. Where’s Dylan?”
“Jesus.”
Louder. “Where’s Dylan?”
“Listen, if you could just—”
Louder still. “Where’s Dylan?”
The bald man winced, lurched forward, and stumbled into the blood. Joel was on him fast, pinning him in the puddle as he fought to get out. “Where the fuck is Dylan?”
“Shit, he’s at the end of the hall!” The one who’d been mopping. “Last door on the right. Padlocked.”
Dogged pointed the gun in the guy’s face. “You’ve got the key?”
Shook his head. “No, no, just the caretaker.” Nodded at Mister Labcoat. “And him.”
Joel flipped his man over. “Where? Which pocket?”
The man went for one of the baggy pockets on his shorts, but Joel cracked the stock of his rifle across his hand.
Mister Labcoat screamed. Man, did he scream, Joel was still stunned by the guttural squeal when he told me about it later. Much later.
But what made it so haunting wasn’t the noise itself as much as the fact that nobody came calling. They were all used to such screams in that place. Don’t ask, don’t tell. The man in the lab coat pulled his hand back up to his chest and clutched it like a precious thing, the pain making him nauseated.
Joel shoved his hand into the same pocket. Just a keyring and a lighter, that was all. No hidden gun or knife. Just an innocuous looking keyring and a cheap plastic lighter.
Could’ve burned me.
Instead he jumped up and headed for the door. “Watch them.”
Recon of the corridor, swept back and forth. Clear.
Walked down to the last door on the right. Had to put his gun down again. Worked the padlock. Slippery keys, slippery gloves. Shit. Shit!
Took three keys.
Yanked the lock down, released, then he tossed that fucker down the corridor, double handed his gun, and busted into the room.
He barely recognized the face looking back at him. Slackjawed, almost like Konzbruck’s, his body slumped on a chair as though he was moments from sliding down from it. Naked save for the sparkly underwear. The rest of him oiled-up. Glitter stuck everywhere across his legs, arms, chest, and face. There was a sleeping bag balled up in the corner, and a chain on a D-ring connected to a padlocked dog collar around his neck, the chain just long enough to let him move freely about the room to sleep, cry, or commit suicide. But here he was, somehow still clinging on to life. A pool of piss underneath.
The laptop in the corner was flashing an old-school text screensaver, the 3D letters spelling “Fancy Rooms” and bouncing around the screen. Joel wondered if the camera was up and running, someone sick enough to watch a victim even on his downtime.
A surge of anger. Joel stepped over and stomped the laptop flat. Hammered it with the butt of his gun until it was in pieces.
Fuck those pervs.
Another look at Dylan.
His face bruised, lips cracked and raw. Breath was shallow. But his eyes were open just enough, and he knew who he was looking at. He even tried to smile.
Down the corridor again, Dylan propped up by Joel and Soulfather. Dogged had gotten the keys to the van from one of the ball cap boys inside. They’d left all three of those amateurs in plastic cuffs, belly down in the blood.
Couples stopped moaning and grunting, started peeking out from behind curtains, or from barely-open doors, some even in leather masks. As soon as they saw the guns, they ducked back, at least until Joel’s team had moved past.
Up the steps and outside.
Three more vans. Five more men. And this time, they had guns and started firing as soon as the soldiers made it to the top.
Dogged took a round. Got knocked down, but he shouted, “I’m good! I’m good!”
Joel and Soulfather dropped Dylan rougher than they would’ve liked and took as much cover in their concrete foxhole as they could. Then they returned fire.
Picked off two just like that. Fuck. Joel hadn’t wanted to kill anyone tonight. It was a complication. If they’d done this clean, who was going to complain? Raske? About his illegal fuck factory? What was he going to do about it?
But the man had bigger balls than Joel had imagined. A trap, a fucking trap. They’d fallen right into it.
Now there were faces at the windows of the basement door. Wide-eyed amateur porn actors with no idea why there was a firefight raging outside.
Three guys hiding behind vans, spraying AR-15 bullets all over the place. Jesus.
Joel winced as a few shots impacted close by, but still no kill shots.
There would be sirens soon. There would be witnesses. There would be jail. Didn’t matter who Joel worked for. Didn’t matter who he was saving. There was no getting free of this. He was either going to die or get caught.
Unless …
He turned to Dogged. “Where?”
“All over.”
“C’mon.”
“I can do this.” He reached up for Joel’s hand, and Joel helped him into a crouch, handed him his dropped rifle. “Point em out.”
“I’ve got to get this guy out of here. I can’t get caught.”
Dogged knew exactly what Joel meant. God only knew what this would me
an for him — injured in combat at a Lutheran church turned porn pop-up in Superior, Wisconsin. Wrong place, wrong time. But he knew that Joel needed to get Dylan out of there fast, and he didn’t know anything more than that. He was on a ‘need to know’ basis, and that might just save his ass when the interrogators got to him.
Soulfather picked off another one — cringing as he did it — and they were down to two gunmen when Joel heaved up Dylan, slung him over his shoulder, and made a run for the Tahoe. His guys sent a hail of shots towards the other vans, pinning the last two in place.
But Joel could see from here he was fucked. The Tahoe, all the tires blown, windows shot out. Smoke poured from the hood. Useless.
Improv. Closest vehicle. The van with Konzbruck in the back.
Joel ran around to the back just as Dogged and Soulfather had to stop and reload. The other gunmen started in. Joel dodged a couple that sliced right through the open back door of the van as he tossed Dylan in on top of Konzbruck’s body. Slammed the door. Turned to yell for the key, but Dogged was already tossing it over.
Joel hoped to hell those two would make it out alive. He didn’t want to leave them, but the mission was the mission.
Up into the pilot’s chair, cranked up, and he got out of there as more bullets punctured the side. Joel ducked, head down, shoulders slumped. Didn’t take a breath until he was already a mile away.
Here’s what you’re wondering: why not let the cops handle it? Why not get Dylan into some safe hands?
I’d told Joel to bring Dylan to me.
So, blame me. After my prior run-ins with the police, I’d wanted to make sure Dylan was safe, sound, and talking to me before we turned any of this over to the police. I’d wanted to control the situation that had landed me square in the palm of a vengeful Senator, who’d let me spin my own web before dangling me from it over the pits of Hell.
Or worse, public humiliation.
So, what happened next was my fault. I accept that. I’m not proud of that. It still haunts me to this day.
I fucked up bad.
If I’d known then what I know now, I would’ve told Joel to abort, then caught the first plane to Norway. I’ve always wanted to visit Norway.
But I didn’t and because of that, the next few days were a lot rougher and a lot darker and a lot colder than winter in Scandinavia.
7
Joel screamed up Highway 61 in the van. Fuck cops, fuck troopers. He floored it.
That was the plan. Meet me at the cottage. I know, who’s to say the cottage wasn’t bugged, too? But I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I sat outside in the car, staring through the windshield at the front window, wondering if there was someone in there waiting for me. Was that a shadow moving behind the curtain? Had there been cameras installed the whole time, seeing my most private moments as I came to terms with my transitioning? Made me feel a little sick …
But back to Joel.
White-knuckling down the highway, Konzbruck in a body bag behind him, Dylan in gold, sparkly short-shorts sharing the cramped space with a corpse. And he was close to dying himself, thanks to long days’ and nights’ worth of abuse. The guy was covered in cigarette burns, bruises, scabs, badly-healed cuts and festering gashes, farcically offset by gold glitter and cinnamon body oil. God only knew how many internal injuries he’d sustained.
Every breath sounded like his last.
“Hang on!” Joel wasn’t sure if he was getting through to him. The guy’s haze, be it drug-induced or the result of organs shutting down one by one, was like a visible barrier between them. “Almost there!”
The destination he was heralding as a safe haven was my potentially compromised cottage, so if I’d known Dylan was that bad off, I’d have told Joel to take him to, oh, I don’t know, a fucking hospital, wouldn’t you think? Excellent question.
Because the people who had been torturing him wanted him back, and they would probably have their ways of extracting someone from a hospital, and …
… yes, this will make me sound hideous, I know …
… I really needed to ask him some questions first.
Selfish? Sure. I was putting my need to know ahead of this man’s need to live. But let’s face it: we were too late. His life had drained out to the last little drips, and he was the only chance we had to squeeze those drips into some sort of justice for the man.
Who the fuck am I, right? Who the fuck am I that I can determine if he lives or dies? Well, I’m a lot better than the men who had been holding him in an abandoned church basement, live streaming his humiliation, torture, and rape to a bunch of perverts on the internet.
Measure that against me needing him to admit who took him in the first place. Until he gave me that, it was all speculation and we’d never have enough evidence against Marquette and Raske to shut the fuckers down.
I’d called Joel from a payphone at a gas station just under an hour ago, and he’d told me he’d found Dylan, finally, and Konzbruck. I asked how they were.
“Jesus, Manny, Konzbruck killed himself. And I thought Dylan was already dead, but there’s a pulse. There’s breath. That’s about it. He needs help.”
“So do we.”
“Fuck’s sake.”
“Think about it. You take him to a hospital, what’s going to happen?”
He thought about it. “I’m on my way.”
By the time I stepped out of the car, Joel was skidding the van to a stop at the foot of my walkway. The man had no tact. My neighbors would be curious as to why a maniac driving a bullet-riddled van full of dead guys was disturbing their peace (the same people who ignored their own kids when those little terrors were disturbing my peace), and would crowd around as Joel popped out with Dylan the Glitter Boy.
So I rushed to the back door of the van and got in there first before Joel could even jump out of the driver’s seat.
The smell hit me. Death, piss, and chemical cinnamon floating in a cloud around the poor guys. Dylan was face down with one arm slung across the body bag, half-zipped. I shook, bit of a gag reflex at work. But I swallowed hard and knelt beside Dylan. That’s when I realized he was bleeding. A lot.
“Jesus, Joel!” A harsh whisper. “He’s been shot!”
“Fuck!”
I shushed him.
He climbed in beside me and shut the door. “It was a trap. The A-team was just there to clean up Konzbruck’s mess, but the B-team ambushed us while we were busy getting Dylan out. I thought, um, I thought we’d gotten out of there clean, but …” He shook his head, pointed at all the holes in the side of the van.
Dylan wasn’t gone yet. This was totally fucked. His head lolled as if he was doing it himself. His skin, slick but cold, the oil clumping. The blood was flowing out of his armpit, it looked like. His eyes blinked but couldn’t focus. I grabbed his face, both hands, and made him look at me. He fought, but I held firm.
“Dylan, are you there? Can you hear me?”
His eyes might have widened. His head might have shaken, maybe recognition, maybe shock. His mouth might have moved as if trying to speak. Hell if I knew.
“Dylan, please.”
That glass of water I’d brought for him? I dumped it on his face.
Everything jolted. His arms, legs, head, and he peed his shorts. He blew out a breath like he’d been saved from drowning. His eyes blinked wildly and he actually saw us. Really saw us sitting there beside him, knew who we were.
At least I thought he knew who we were.
On seeing us, he made noises like a bird in distress, tried to skitter away from us, but couldn’t find the strength.
“It’s Manny and Joel. You know us. Manny and Joel. You’re free. You’re okay now.”
“Manny,” he said. “Joel.”
As if those would be his last words.
“Yes, Manny and Joel. Listen, who did this to you? It’s very important. Who did this to you?”
Dylan shook his head. “They … masks.”
“Who took you?”
>
More head shaking, a furrowed brow.
“Come on, they slipped up somewhere. You had to know. Remember?”
I let go of his face. His head slumped back, but Joel grabbed it, supported it. An angry red groove around his neck under the collar, blood and pus running.
“Dylan! Who did this?”
His hand squeezed mine. His other hand crawled up my arm to my cheek. Poked and prodded. “Andrew?”
I was hoping that was his answer. Hoping he was finally telling me the truth. But when he said it again, I realized he was actually asking if I was Andrew.
“No, it’s Manny. Do you want to talk to Andrew? I can get him on the phone.”
“I’m sorry, Andrew. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive you for. You’re the good guy here.” I had raised my voice, like talking to a child or, worse, a coma patient. “You’re going to be okay.”
He died a few minutes later.
Hadn’t told us a thing.
Joel followed me outside the van. An interested neighbor was already standing there beside the van, a guy in his sixties who looked like he’d skipped a decade and gone right to old bastard.
“You can’t park this here, you know.”
Joel nodded. “I’ll be gone before you know it.”
“I’d like to know it. I’d like to watch it happen right now. You’re blocking the path.”
He looked across to his Audi sports car, a woman in the passenger seat who wanted a decade or two back.
Joel shook his head. “Go around.”
The old man, whom I’d have to continue living next to — sigh — stepped up to Joel’s face and started wagging his finger. “This is private property. I shouldn’t have to go around. This is a path I’ve paid for. That is the grass I’ve paid for. It’s not my fault you wasted whatever you’ve earned on that—”
But that’s when the man got a good look at the side of the van, pockmarked with bullet holes. Left him speechless.
Joel grinned. Prepping for a fight, I could tell. Instead of letting it happen, I grabbed Joel’s arm. “Just move the damn thing.”
Castle Danger--The Mental States Page 17