All of them, every last bastard, will burn for this. I’ll hear them scream as the flames scorch them.
The amount of hair she saw fall from her head was horrible. She could tell by the sharp tenderness in her left side she had at least one cracked rib. Her jaw was stiff and unable to move without causing her to shudder with the pain.
The men had stomped on her head and kicked her in the face. Thick globs of dark, bloody snot flowed out of her swollen nose. She tried to stand up from the toilet, but her leg muscles were too sore to bear her weight. Angela slid to the floor and crawled into the corner. She held her hands over her face and drew her legs as close to her chest as she could.
She drifted into a troubled sleep. Hours passed as she stayed on the floor. The sound of boots stomping on the tile floor and the clack of the doctor’s hard-heeled shoes woke her.
“Pick her up from there,” the doctor said. “I want someone to clean this disgusting floor.”
She heard him bark out orders as uncaring hands lifted her. Unable to resist them, she remained limp as they pulled her up and dragged her over to the bed. They tossed her naked body onto it with little concern with how she landed. They snickered at her while they discussed the various depraved acts they committed. There was no mistaking the sound of pride in their voices.
“Enough,” the doctor said. He lifted his hand and pointed to the door with a crooked finger. “Leave us. You’ve had your fun.”
He set about looking at her wounds, opened a small bag, and removed a long syringe. She tried to pull her arm away from him. He paused, looked over his glasses at her face, and chided her.
“It is a pain medicine,” he said. He held it in the air, inviting her to consider it. “Or would you rather feel it when I reposition your finger?”
She relaxed and let him give her the shot, long minutes passed as it numbed her busted body. He returned to his triage, poking and prodding at her flesh. His hands cleaned and dressed her wounds. He pulled on her finger and bent it downward. She tried not to scream from the undeniable spike of pain, but she could not stop it. Her jaw muscles tore as her mouth opened wide. After her trembles from the sudden endowment of torment faded, he pushed her legs apart and administered more of his medical treatment. He searched for lacerations on her body with a passive and removed expression.
“Some men,” the doctor said. “Have such violent persuasions.”
“All men only want one thing.”
“Women only have one thing to offer.”
“Men only take,” she said.
“It is to be taken,” he said.
Angela felt nothing more for him than repulsion and bitter contempt. He stood and removed his rubber gloves, tossed them to the overturned garbage can, and released a sigh of displeasure. A sudden anxiety came over her as she saw him stare at the floor.
He remembers the vial. He knows he left it.
If he did, he did not show it as he folded his supplies back into his bag.
“Do you feel you would like to cooperate now?”
She opened her stiff jaw and intended to tell him to go to hell. He raised his hand to stop her and looked at her body and down to the floor.
“We will discuss that once you have been cleaned and this room scrubbed. The smell of it alone is offensive to me.”
He knocked on the door and waited for the men to unlock it on the other side. Doctor Wilson looked at his notepad as he stepped from the room. She could hear him give commands to the men in the hall. She closed her eyes and listened to him speak.
“Have someone clean that filthy room while you take her to the shower. Offer her some more motivation. Just the two of you this time. Do you understand? Be quick about it.”
She tried to wrap the sheet around her body before they entered the door. With smug grins and piercing eyes, they yanked her from the bed with unhindered aggression.
“Come on, bitch. Doc says we got to get you all cleaned up.” The mustache faced man spoke as he strutted around the floor in front of her.
She was powerless to fight them as they dragged her naked and bruised body from the room and down the long hallway. They pulled her into a doorway and beyond a small turn. She saw they had brought her to a small row of shower stalls. One of the men pushed her headfirst into the tiled wall. She landed hard on the once white floor. Fresh blood dripped from her reopened wounds and fell to the slick ceramic tile.
“Here you go.” The cockeyed man tossed a bar of soap that hit her on the shoulder. “Wash that filthy thing.”
“Yeah,” the man with the mustache said. “Make it so we can’t smell it no more.”
She looked at the small white bar of soap as it spun on the floor near her knees. Ice-cold water sprayed out of a nozzle overhead. The stream hit her tender flesh and made her suck in air from the frigidness. They turned up the pressure, and it felt as though it was peeling her skin off.
The man with the splayed eyes picked up the bar of soap and forced it into her hand. He pointed to her midsection and again told her to wash her body or he would hit her. She believed him. She believed he would strike her for no more reason than to see her flinch as he swung.
They watched as she tried to wipe off the dried blood and smears of grime from her body. The men enjoyed it more when she cried while she rubbed the soap over her skin. Her insides felt damaged, and she could not control her bladder. It caused duplicate looks of sheer revulsion as her body released dark brown liquid. They turned from her as it flowed across the floor and swirled into the drain.
The man with the mustache vomited into a nearby sink, and the cockeyed man laughed at him. Neither man looked back at her as she continued to scrub her body. She tried to wash away the feeling of them, to remove any ghost of them from her skin. She scrubbed and washed until there was no more soap and her flesh was raw in places. Angela watched the drain and saw a large mass of hair that once grew from her head collect at the silvery strainer. She imagined their smoldering bodies, twisted into unnatural positions, with mouths opened in silent and eternal screams. Images of their flesh burnt and covered with ash played before her eyes as she stared at the loose strands of her hair.
The water stopped flowing and dripped onto her naked form. She could not stand when commanded by the man with the facial hair. He knew she could not, but he slapped her face nevertheless for not following orders. She was numbed, or her nerves overwhelmed, and the slap was unfelt. He lifted her, pulled her from the shower, and pressed her against the wall. She could feel him move behind her.
Smoldering…charred…
He wrapped his arm around her neck and forced himself onto her. She struggled but could not stop him, he was not long at his exertion and pulled away from her after only a few moments. Angela slid down the wall. Her mind drifted to visions of their burned bodies as the sprung eyed man followed behind his counterpart.
Smoldering…charred…screaming…begging for death…
Once finished, the cockeyed man collapsed to the floor beside her. The man with the mustache grabbed her arm. He pulled her along as she tried to walk. Her feet slid over the floor as she tried to keep up with his pace. She looked at a large metal door as they walked past. It led to a stairwell. If there were stairs, she thought, then there was a way out.
Slung headfirst again, this time she landed on the more forgiving bed and not hard tile. The mustached man tossed another gown over her body, it was not clean but had less filth than the one she wore earlier.
“You should cover that thing up, it looks rough.”
The door slammed behind him. She heard as he worked the lock. When he brought her back to the room, she saw what kept her inside. A large metal bar crossed the width of the door and had a padlock on both ends. It was apparent there was no way to break it free.
Her mind went back in time to when she was young and had her first boyfriend. She trusted him, loved him, and wanted to keep him happy. Like all young men, he pleaded and begged until he wore her down. Angela allowed
him to have his fun fumbling about her body. However, he wanted more. He wanted things she would not do before marriage. He carried her to an empty farmhouse under the premise it was a small group gathering. There was no one else there. She felt tricked but not in any way suspicious. He offered her a drink, and they talked for a short while. She became groggy and realized what had happened, but it was too late.
When she woke, she found she was alone. He had left her behind, and she walked home. Confronted by the look in her father’s eyes and the sound of her mother’s screams, disappointment was a polite word they would use to describe it. She explained her side of the story and they accused her of putting herself into the situation, that she carried some of the burden as well. Her boyfriend bragged about his conquest at school. She could not escape the other kids judging eyes and heard them whisper as she walked by. Her classmates, cruel and misunderstanding, labeled her a whore. Angela left Virginia to escape that label.
The ordeal drove a wedge between Angela and her parents. They spoke less than a dozen times over twenty years, the last was when her mother called to tell her that her father had died. Her life was destroyed and never the same because of a selfish boy’s personal gratification at her expense. She lost faith in a god that was supposed to be kind and merciful and yet let such a horrible thing happen to her. Years later, she realized she suffered from severe depression and sought help. After months of regular discussions, she accepted the reality that she was an unfortunate young woman that was taken advantage of and it was not her fault. It took a longer time for the anger to fade.
The thought of revenge kept her focused. Nothing would bring her more joy than to watch the men who violated her die the same way as the pale woman and her followers. Angela pulled the gown over her body and pushed her face into the mattress to muffle her screams. She shouted into the dense material and made herself a promise. It was to end the lives of all the disgusting men one way or another, especially the deceptive doctor. Angela knew he was the orchestrator of the vile acts performed on her and the guards were more than eager to listen to his directions.
She lifted her head when the door opened. The doctor came into the room holding several sheets of papers. He spread a slick grin across his face. His eyes glinted in the fading sunlight that came through the window.
“I hope you are prepared to assist me now,” the doctor said.
Whatever it takes, Angela. Whatever you have to do. You won’t end this way. You can’t. You're stronger than this.
Angela sighed in defeat, leaned on the bed with the side of her hip, and propped her body up with her folded arm. She rubbed at her temple, and her fingers brushed her swollen eye. It caused her to wince. The doctor stepped forward and presented her with two small pills, which she placed in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. She worked the crushed bits down her throat without a drink of water.
“I’m not his wife,” she said, tired of the game they played. “I’d never met him before he stole my truck and abandoned me.”
“Abandoned?”
“Well, he came back for me after he left.” She sighed before she continued. “I mean, I don’t know why he came back, but he did. Maybe he thought I was pretty. Men will do things for women when they think she’s attractive.”
The doctor pointed to her breasts. He said, “And he did those things to you?”
“Yes,” she said. Angela lowered her gaze to the bed. “He did.”
Doctor Wilson nodded his head as he wrote notes on his papers. She would tell him things he wanted to hear, what she believed would help her, all in hopes it would benefit her escape. Angela told herself Frank would do the same.
“I knew he was ill. He resists the cure. His sickness is far greater than I imagined it would be.” The doctor was pleased. “And his real name?”
“All I know is Frank. We didn’t exactly share a lot with each other. We agreed to pretend to be spouses so you wouldn’t lock him up, and he wouldn’t have to kill me.”
She watched as the doctor stood and walked to the window, stroking his chin. He glanced back at her with a questioning look on his brow.
“You came from Memphis?”
“Yes, I was married and lived there for thirteen years.”
“Your real husband?”
“Dead.”
Doctor Wilson nodded his head as he jotted on his notepad. He said, “And children?”
“No,” Angela said. She acted saddened by the question. “My real husband, Daniel, hated kids.”
“Does Frank have children?” He waited for her to answer and tapped his pen on the paper.
“He didn’t say. I didn’t care.”
“Did he say why he wanted to come here?”
“No, he just drove and I waited for my chance to escape.”
“And the others? Did they know him?”
She shook her head. She said, “Strays.”
The doctor did not seem satisfied with her answers, and he paced the floor. He would stop and stare at her until she looked away, then he would pace more, forever sucking at his glasses.
“I can tell you one thing,” she said. “He does call out one name a lot in his sleep.”
The doctor picked up his pad and wrote. He stopped and waited for her to speak the name as if it were a key piece to a puzzle, the final one he needed.
“Well?”
“Clara,” she said. “He calls out Clara every night.”
The doctor smiled as he wrote in fevered scribbling on the paper. When he finished writing, his head sprung upward, and he showed his wide yellow grin. The doctor marched to the door and tapped at it with impatience. The sound of it unlocking followed.
“Thank you, missus?” He paused, waiting for her to speak.
“Barker.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Barker.”
He stepped from the room to leave Angela with her pains and guilt. She curled up on the bed and sobbed. Angela cried until the medicine cast her into slumber. She dreamt a scene of foul, despicable torments, men with animal horns for sexual organs. The woman with the eyes and pale skin was in the middle of them, holding her to the floor, telling her to ‘Behold’ and she could not wake. She could not pull from the woman as her alabaster hands guided the horns into all the holes of her body, all the while staring coldly into her eyes. The woman’s lips opened, and Angela saw a fountain of blood flow out. It covered the men and splashed onto her naked and penetrated body. She tried to cry out but was silenced by two horns invading her mouth. On the dreams went until she woke to find she had lost control of her bladder again. Angela did not attempt to move. She was in too much pain.
Her mind wandered, she remembered the near past before things changed and the world fell apart. By some cruel working of her inner mind, her thoughts turned to the memory of the evening her husband had his coworker over for drinks. What was supposed to be one drink after work turned into several. He was always so hard with the bottle, drinking too much. His business partners knew it, his coworkers knew it, and the whole town knew it. He would get so intoxicated that he became incoherent and would fall to the floor stone dead drunk. His friends often complained about it, having to drag him in the next morning.
She begged him to stop, to get help, but he always ignored her. Just like that night, she asked him to slow down, he shooed her away. He drank more and more and his coworker, Phil, who she had only seen before at social gatherings, sat back and watched him. Phil laughed with him, sang a few lines to an old song with him, and waited. Yes, Phil was waiting in patience for him to get to that point. She tried nonchalantly telling Daniel at first and then she outright warned him of what was happening. She even asked Daniel to come into the bedroom, but he simply told her to ‘fuck off’ and went back to his drink.
So she waited, watching him, unsure if she should leave, go to a hotel, or just drive around. But she waited too long to decide, Phil stood from the chair and opened the front door. Daniel was dead to the world in a puddle of his own vomit and piss. On
e by one, Daniel’s business partners filed into her house. The way they looked at her, licking their lips like wolves, their eyes locked onto her curves. She turned to run to the bedroom, to find safety, but Phil was there waiting for her.
How they laughed at her with the look of sadistic pleasure on their devilish faces. They called her all of the classic names that men like to use. Their eyes sparkled with sinister intent. All eight of Daniel’s trusted friends and partners had committed a disgusting unforgivable act.
When done, finished with their fun, they each spoke various threats. Warned her of what awaited if she ever told. Even then, she knew it would be a beginning of something horrible. Daniel would never seek help. She could never make him believe what she said, and she feared the men would keep coming back. Being the type of men they were, they would not stop after getting away with it the first time.
She considered leaving him, but she could not bring herself to do it. The furthest she ever got was packing her bags and setting them by the door for him to see when he staggered in. She learned after several hollow threats to leave that he did not care. Daniel was concerned only with his drinking.
Those years before Mike came around were the worst. He had moved back to town and met with Daniel to catch up on old times. When he saw what Daniel had become, he helped him to get sober. He became a constant companion around their home. Angela noticed how Mike’s eyes followed her when she walked by and how he dropped his gaze to the floor when she looked at him. It was not hard to see his interest in her but he never acted on it or acknowledged the fact.
Phil sent her a message in the fall of the first year Daniel was sober. He told her that there was video he recorded. If she refused to pay him five thousand dollars, he would show it to Daniel. The next day he sent word he would post it online if he did not get the money soon. She confessed all to Mike, and he helped her create a plan.
Mike had her contact a man she got weed from several times back when Daniel drank heavily. She met with the man and purchased enough heroin to cause two long time junkies to overdose. Mike met her at a gas station and took the small bags from her. Two days later Daniel came home from the office and told her an associate had died of a drug overdose. Daniel said everyone was surprised by it, none of them ever suspected he had a drug problem. She resisted the urge to laugh when she asked him what he overdosed on and faked concern when Daniel told her. That night she and Mike drank glasses of wine and burned the copies of the video. They agreed never to speak of it again.
The Trace Trilogy (Book 1): The Wretched Page 24