by Jonas Saul
Turner nodded, then jerked his head toward Sarah.
The same routine was performed on her, but his hands were more probing and certainly rougher. At one point she thought she would knee him in the nose when his face was too close to her crotch during the inspection.
The guard nodded. “Clean.”
At the top of the door behind them, a large, rectangular silver block engaged a magnetic lock. Nothing was getting through that door unless the power was cut.
“Can we hurry this along,” Sarah said. “Gotta pee.”
Neither guard saw the humor, their faces remaining unchanged.
“Tough crowd tonight.”
Diner gave her a stern look.
“Sorry,” Sarah whispered. “Just trying to work on the tension in this room.”
After a minute’s wait, the door in front of them—a bank vault door—clicked as if it was on a timer, and creaked open. When it was fully open, the inside of the waiting area was exposed.
Must’ve cost a lot of money for this kind of security.
They were heralded into a waiting room where champagne and wine was being served. On Sarah’s left, four men in business suits crowded a small bar where a woman in a bikini served drinks.
Diner led them to a red leather sofa against a back wall that had room for two to sit. A well-dressed man in shiny black shoes came up to her and whispered that the Medical Room would be available within minutes.
Sarah didn’t recognize anyone in the waiting area. A quick count came to over a dozen men milling around, drinking, chatting and snacking on crackers and small olives stabbed with toothpicks. The furniture was expensive leather, Italian tile on the floor and paintings of women in various poses adorned the walls.
Naked women meandered throughout the men, offering snacks and beverages. One wore a dog collar with a chain dangling past her hips. Another wore a leather facial mask, and one blonde girl who didn’t look a day over twenty was crawling on the floor, a leash attached to the collar on her neck. In a far corner, a woman wore heels that had to be seven inches high, her toes coming to a point at the floor. She held a leash with a man attached. She ordered the man to heel, then started to walk, stopped, whipped his buttocks with a cat-o-nine tails, and barked another command.
A few men glanced over, but paid little attention to the act guaranteed to be found in a sex circus emporium.
Diner’s uneasiness oozed off her as she grew fidgety beside Sarah. A quick glance this way, a sudden jerk of the head that way. Sarah hoped Diner could hold it together long enough to get inside the room and call for help.
A door opened across from them and a man exited. He was slipping on a suit jacket, a wide grin on his face. Behind him, Sarah caught a glance of a woman tied to the wall, her legs spread wide like she was caught in the middle of a jumping jack and suspended that way. Her purple face and bleeding mouth told Sarah half the story of went on in that room. The other half of the story was the item suspended from the woman’s vagina and the blood dripping from it. Red and purplish lacerations from the man’s belt rippled across her thighs and shins.
Then the door closed, cutting off the sight.
Another woman screeched from down the hallway. It sounded like the high-pitched wail of a dying rabbit.
Diner leaned close to Sarah and whispered, “This is awful. Sarah, I’m scared here. This was a bad idea.”
“I’m scared, too,” Sarah said under her breath.
The man in the suit with the shiny black shoes who had just told Diner her room would be ready soon, approached the man who had just came out of the room in front of them.
“How was Delilah?” he asked. “Did she meet all your expectations?”
“Yes, but she’ll need a month or two to heal,” the man said, an ugly smirk on his face. “Sorry about that. Got carried away this time. I’ll pay the extra needed for her recuperation.”
“That’s no problem.” The suited man spoke as if his voice was made of silk. “That’s what they’re here for. As long as you’ve had your amusement, then we’re all happy. Even Delilah is happy to serve.”
He guided the man to where a drink was placed in his hand by the girl with the dog collar and chain.
The girl met Sarah’s eyes for a brief moment. In that second, Sarah saw the fear, the humiliation, and the disgust for the people around her. This girl didn’t want to be here as much as a concentration camp survivor didn’t want to stay in their camp. But Sarah thought she detected something else in the girl’s eyes. Hopelessness. The girl believed there was no way out. This was her life now, at least what was left of it.
And all thanks to someone like Detective Timothy Simmons.
That’s why Mason let Vanessa leave through the back door.
The man with the shiny shoes stepped in front of them.
“Your room is ready.”
Diner and Sarah followed him down a short hall where they passed two other men exiting rooms.
At the end of the hall, a door opened into an area that looked like the kind a brain surgeon would perform a twelve-hour operation in.
Two tables littered with surgical tools sat in the center of the room. A metal bed covered in a plastic sheet was pushed up against the tables of tools. Under it was a large drainage grate where Sarah assumed all the blood of the victim would seep out of the room.
The man shut the door as he left them and locked it from the outside. They looked at each other and expelled air at the same time.
“Holy shit,” Diner said.
“I second that.” Sarah wandered over to a table by the door. Three small pantry-like units sat against the wall on top of the table. She opened the first one with her teeth as her hands were still cuffed.
“Ouch,” she said. “Look at this.”
Adult toys in their original containers were piled one on top of the other. They all appeared to be butt plugs mixed in with an assortment of anal toys. She gestured at the largest one that had a base as wide as a small Frisbee.
“Who could ever use that?”
Diner came over to stand beside her and opened the second door. Nipple clamps spilled out. More adult toys were stuffed inside. Everything from vibrating nipple clamps, rings for the base of the penis, to ball stretchers and vaginal pumps.
The last door held vibrators, dildos and a variety of devices that were supposed to be entered into the human body but appeared to be made for giants.
“Sarah, look,” Diner said. “This is too large. How can they name it The Great American Challenge? The tip of this thing is the size of a baby’s head. Who in their right mind would put this thing inside them?”
“What about that one?” Sarah nodded toward another item. “The Rambone. There’s no way. Just no way.”
Diner shut the door to the pantry unit. “We both know these aren’t used willingly.”
“I think now is a good time to use your phone. Call this place in. Let’s shut it down.”
Diner pulled out her phone, dialed a number, and held it to her ear.
Vivian whispered in Sarah’s head.
The news was a letdown. A total loss of hope swept over Sarah even as Diner pulled her phone away and tried to dial again.
“It’s no use,” Sarah said.
“But I have to try.”
“Signal jammers.”
“What?”
“I was just informed that your phone won’t work in this building.”
“What? Why not? It has to work. We have to get out of here.”
Sarah moved over to the chair in the corner and sat down, her bladder not happy she was sitting. “Not sure that’s going to happen too soon.”
“But Sarah, you brought us in here. You said bring your phone—”
“I also said I don’t know everything!” she snapped. “Vivian tells me what I need to know when I need to know it.”
“Well, right about now is a good time for her to be telling you something useful, isn’t it?”
Sarah stared at
the tables covered in unique tools and wondered why they were inside the warehouse. What was the purpose?
Then Vivian starting whispering. She explained what was important about Medical Room number two and why they were there as the door clicked open and a crew of six men entered the room, Mr. Turner leading the way.
“Detective Marina Diner,” Turner said. “You have disappointed us.”
The guards behind him swung their weapons around and aimed them at her.
Turner smacked the cell phone out of Diner’s hand. When Diner bent to pick it up, he raised his booted foot and came down on the back of her hand.
Diner screamed as bones crunched.
Turner ground his foot as if he was extinguishing a cigarette with his heel as Diner screamed louder.
Sarah’s every urge was to attack Turner, hands cuffed behind her back or not. But she couldn’t as one of the machine guns was jammed in her neck making any movement a gamble.
Finally, mercifully, Diner yanked her mangled hand out from under the boot and crawled away, holding her hand up.
“We know what happened at the funeral home.” Turner spun to face Sarah. He stepped closer to her. “We know what you’ve been up to. And we were more than happy to allow you access to this room. Although I was surprised you chose this room.”
“Why, because it leads to the panic room?” Sarah said.
“You know more than you should, but that’s not the reason.”
“Oh right, because this is the room I kill you in.”
He offered that brief smile again. “Cute. No, I was surprised because this was the room we sectioned off for your torture session once we picked you up off the street. Providing we got to you before the police did.” He turned to face Diner. “But this female pig brought you to our doorstep, so the torture club is in session and yours will begin as soon as Detective Diner has been dealt with.”
The revulsion in her gut made her want to vomit on the man standing in front of her, but she managed to swallow it down.
“Dealt with?” Sarah asked. “Really? Bit weak though, no? Unoriginal? Don’t you mean raped and then killed, or cremated, or tortured?”
“Sarah Roberts, the violence I’ll use to rend your limbs will be much worse than what happens to Marina here. But first you get to watch Diner’s end. Then you will be next.”
Turner set his weapon on the far counter and turned to his men.
“Pick up the detective and get her on the table.” He grabbed a circular saw from a section of drawers that opened to various tools. “Let’s have some fun.”
He turned on the saw.
Chapter 31
The thunder of gunfire erupted from somewhere in the building. It was so loud and long that it could be heard over the racket of the circular saw.
Turner cocked an ear and listened for a moment as three men struggled with Diner to get her on the table.
Sarah didn’t care what was happening outside the room at the moment. She studied the men in the room, looking for weaknesses, someone she could attack, limited as she was with her hands cuffed behind her back.
They got Diner up, her arms splayed, the sound of the plastic crinkling under her body. The man holding her wounded hand squeezed the injury, a look of absolute joy on his face as Diner yelled, her eyes fluttering on the verge of passing out.
“Don’t,” Sarah shouted. “Don’t you dare pass out on me, woman.”
The saw shut down. Turner let it fall to the side of his leg.
“And why not?” he asked. “What does it matter? She has maybe ten minutes to live. Aren’t you merciful?”
“I want her to be awake when you die. I want her to see what’s coming.”
A shadow crossed his eyes, as if doubt had crept up and rooted a new spot in his thoughts. Or maybe it was fear. If she hadn’t been staring straight at him, she would’ve missed it.
Gunfire erupted outside the door in another part of the warehouse again. Something was going on and she could tell Turner was beginning to wonder if it had anything to do with them.
“You two,” he motioned to the men by the door. “Go see what’s going on.”
They did an about-face and were gone, the door closing behind them rapidly.
“Friends of yours out there?” Turner asked. “They won’t make it out of the building.” He turned back to Diner who seemed to have lost her struggle. She lay on the table, panting softly, eyes closed. The men attending to her held on tight, almost in fear that at any moment she would spring up from her position on the table. “Regardless of what is happening out there,” he added, “we continue in here.”
He started up the saw again. Diner renewed her struggle, kicking and screaming.
“Hold her!” he yelled over the noise of the saw.
No one watched Sarah. She wondered if it was because she was cuffed and deemed non-threatening. But what did matter was getting that saw out of his hands and without the use of her own hands, she was severely limited.
Turner brought the saw up and focused on Diner’s lower leg. In seconds he would begin to cut and if the detective survived this ordeal, she would be maimed for the rest of her life.
Sarah jumped up, took two large steps and dove head first at Turner. He had been expecting her. Before she made contact, he swung the saw around toward her approach. When she dove, she came in low. Before making contact with his body, the horrid vibration of the saw and its blade hit her upper back.
A right shoulder might pack some weight on a football field, but down here, hands secured behind her as she body checked his thigh, all that happened was Sarah bounced off his thick body and rolled painfully into the corner.
A sharp agony rose near her shoulder blade as if a colony of a thousand bees stung her in the same spot. Her bladder released mercifully, wetting her pants thoroughly. Through gritted teeth, she screamed while Turner flicked off the saw to laugh.
Sarah cried out as blood slid down her spine and pooled around her buttocks. She wondered how bad the injury was, how deep it went. How much blood could she lose before she passed out?
Diner yelled over Turner’s laughter, but Sarah couldn’t hear it. Something about her being okay.
Then the door burst open. The two men from before ran back in, their guns no longer slung over their shoulders but held firmly in their hands.
Turner set the saw down on the table between Diner’s ankles.
“Sir, we’re under attack,” one of the men reported. “They’ve breached the outer perimeter.”
Turner wiped sweat from around his mouth and asked, “Who?”
“Looks like ETF, sir.”
“Where are the girls?”
“Being rounded up for the cage.”
“How much time?”
“Minutes, sir. Maybe less.”
The look of hatred in his eyes when he turned to Sarah made her stare back at him, trying to evaluate his next move.
“Bring them in,” he said without looking away from Sarah. “Do it now.”
“Yes sir.”
The men disappeared, leaving the door wide open as Turner pulled the saw from the table and set it on the floor. Then he shoved the table across the room with Diner still on it. When it hit the far wall, Diner smacked into it, bounced back and fell off the table, smacking the tiled floor hard.
The pain in Sarah’s shoulder continued to rise like a tsunami of needles poking around her flesh. She squeezed her hands. All fingers responded. She flexed her biceps, then triceps. Everything worked as it should.
Maybe it was just a flesh wound. But it hurt like a bitch.
She looked down by her feet and followed the saw’s cord to the wall where it was plugged in. Turner was working on something in the floor, spinning a dial that was just under the edge of the tile. She knew he was accessing the panic room. She had to stop anyone from going inside or they would never get out. It could only be opened once—the way Turner was opening it. As a safeguard, the code changed each time it was opened and
the other two that knew how to work it were dead.
She leaned forward and picked up the circular saw’s cord with her foot as the men who had been holding Diner fled the room. With Diner writhing on the floor, her broken hand held high and Sarah bleeding and handcuffed, they no longer posed any kind of threat.
Sarah managed to get the saw’s cord wrapped around her right ankle three times.
As the noise of machine-gun fire continued outside the open door, she turned to her side and managed to get onto her knees. Without looking back at Turner, she used her good shoulder against the cupboards to push off and get to her feet. The smell in her shirt from the Chinese restaurant had grown fainter, replaced by the smell of her urine with a touch of copper from the blood.