“I'll be back soon, okay Jase?”
Jason remained silent.
Rachel turned and followed Victor to the steps, listening to the flat echo of her steps as she ascended.
“Your brother,” Victor said. “Is he..?”
“He's just in shock,” Rachel said flatly.
Victor nodded thoughtfully.
The next floor up, the middle of the three, was again divided in two. In the main space there were a few items of exercise equipment: an ancient-looking treadmill, exercise bike and rowing machine, along with some weights. To Rachel's right, the second part of the space was sealed off by a closed door.
“That's my little control room,” Victor said. “Controls for the heating and lighting, and some monitors. I've got CCTV cameras set up around the perimeter. Place like this needs an early warning system.”
“Early warning of what?”
“Anything. If there are people above trying to get in, you're better off knowing about it before they come through the front door. Fire, radiation. Having eyes on the ouside world without exposing yourself is a necessity.”
“Looks like you're planning to survive a nuclear war or something. Why did you build this place?”
Victor paused for a moment.
“I'm the only one allowed in there,” he said stiffly, and strode toward the next set of steps.
Rachel followed, with a growing sense of unease.
The top floor comprised of living quarters: a spacious living room and kitchen and separate bathroom and bedroom, all furnished nicely. Only the knowledge that the rooms were part of an underground tomb altered the impression of an interior of a normal house or apartment.
The entire structure, Victor proudly informed her, totalled around 2,100 square feet. From his tone, Rachel presumed this was an impressive statistic.
She was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, half wondering how comfortable the couch would be, and tuning out Victor's rambling about the construction of the bunker, and how he had found a company in America that specialised in such buildings following the terror attacks of 2001 and the subsequent panic.
Lost in her thoughts, it took her a moment to realise that Victor had stopped talking. When the sudden silence alerted her to the change in Victor, she had time only to curse her stupidity at being so easily separated from her brother and Michael before something heavy and solid crashed into the back of her head, and the lights went out.
*
When Michael broke the surface again, his eyes opened more easily. The pain was still there, an orchestra of it: wood, wind, brass and strings playing a bombastic melody, but at least he found himself able to focus his thoughts.
It took him a moment to remember Rachel, to remember her words to him.
The man in the woods had saved them.
Alarm bells rang in Michael's head, briefly muting the chorus. The man in the woods was not to be trusted. He cursed himself for not telling Rachel more when he had the chance, for warning her, letting her know how his first encounter with the hooded man had gone. There just hadn't seemed to be the time.
It was dark in the room, which was almost featureless. Low ceiling, very little furniture other than the bed he now laid on. No windows. The air smelled stale and musty, heavy with the stink of sweat that he presumed belonged to him, but also a smell much older, more ingrained. As though the room hadn't received fresh air for a very long time.
He couldn't hear anything beyond the walls of the small room. It must be night time. They were asleep.
He struggled on the bed, tried to find the strength to lift himself upright. He was defenceless here; vulnerable.
The effort exhausted him, and the lure of sleep proved too irresistible.
Again he drifted away from consciousness, and again his final thought was one that planted seeds of concern, seeds that took root immediately and began to grow, dominating his fevered dreams.
Why couldn't I feel my legs?
*
Blood.
Filling her nose and mouth with a bitter metallic taste; riding her hacking cough like an unbroken horse.
Rachel forced open her eyes painfully, and when she saw what he had done to her body, closed them again and prayed for oblivion to reclaim her.
She was tied, naked, to his bed. Every inch of her body that she could see from her awkward angle was covered in bruises and long, shallow cuts that interconnected across her, forming a map of Victor’s insanity.
She had struggled for the first hour, had even tried screaming for help at one point, though she knew none would come. He had stuffed her mouth with his filthy underwear then, silencing her, making the bile surge in her gut. Eventually, when it was clear that there was to be no fantasy rescue from the horror Victor was determined to inflict on her, she tried to follow Jason's example, attempted to submerge her consciousness and detach herself from the horror. It worked to the extent that Rachel was able to tune out some of the pain – or maybe just to become acclimatised to it – but she could not tune out the indignity, and it fuelled a burning, destructive rage inside her.
Rachel had no idea how long she had been tied to the bed – at least, not in hours. Time was now measured in her 'sessions' with Victor. Three times he had entered the bedroom: each time carrying some object that she quickly learned was to be inserted into her.
Each time, before the violence began, Victor would rant at her, rising in pitch like an evangelist, working himself up into a state of blind anger that seemed to be required in order for the torture to start. Always, the focus of his rants was what he called her 'education', the lessons she would learn before he could safely release her and put her to work.
She heard the bedroom door open, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut, praying that the man entering the room would be Michael or Jason, but she knew immediately that hope was futile from the ragged, eager breathing.
When she dared to look, she saw Victor, a dark silhouette, naked and leering. Clutching a broken bottle in his right hand.
“Time to learn.”
*
It was the smell that woke him up a third time, a delicious salty aroma that writhed on the air like an exotic dancer, teasing him, inviting him forward.
His eyes opened. Daylight.
Nearby, he could hear the sound of cooking. The smell of the eggs, doused with pepper and salt made his mouth water and his stomach cramp.
"Hello?" Michael called out feebly.
He heard a clang, and moments later Rachel appeared in the open doorway, smiling coldly.
"You're awake," she said. "Hungry?"
Michael nodded, noting that the pain had backed off a little. It was still there, stalking him at a distance, watching like a cat, but he found at least it was manageable.
Rachel disappeared, returning with a plate heaped with scrambled eggs and some bread.
"Victor made a run to town," she said. "He was pretty excited by the eggs. I think you'll be seeing a lot of them."
She smiled again, but Michael noticed that the smile was not reflected in her eyes.
Michael reached for the plate, groaning a little as the pain stalked closer.
"Careful," Rachel said, her voice full of concern. "We think you've got a broken arm. Your shoulder was dislocated too, but Victor popped it back in while you were out."
Her nose wrinkled a little with distaste, as if remembering the sound of it.
"Here, let me do it."
Rachel sat next to the bed in a small wooden chair, and began to scoop the eggs up with a fork, guiding them toward his mouth.
It embarrassed Michael, to be fed like a toddler, but the gnawing hunger pushed the shame away, and he took the eggs into his mouth gratefully, chewing vigorously and ignoring the pain when he swallowed. It was the best food he had ever eaten.
He ate in silence awhile, letting his thoughts gather, feeling as if his mind were a jigsaw assembling itself slowly.
"I can't feel my legs, Rachel," he said finally,
and he knew from the falling of her face, the way her eyes suddenly refused to meet his. Knew even before she spoke.
"When...we crashed into the tree, a piece of a branch was in your lower back. Victor took it out. He said it wasn't life threatening, but there was a good chance that..."
Her voice trailed off, as if speaking the words would make it real.
Michael focused all his thoughts, all his energy on his feet, trying to move them, even to wiggle a toe, but there was nothing, not even a feeling of dead weight, just...an absence that began at his waist.
"I'm paralysed," he said flatly.
Saying the words was a curious business. Michael, at least the Michael who had existed before St. Davids erupted in mindless violence, would have met such news with unyielding black despair, a consuming fear and anxiety that would have slowly destroyed him. Paralysis. The latest instance of bad luck in a life full of it.
Instead, he felt oddly detached from it. The news that he was paralysed reached him as might news that it was raining outside, or that today was Tuesday.
Maybe I'm just in shock, Michael thought. Maybe when it sinks in, it will do so under the weight of a mountain of despair.
It didn't feel like that to Michael, though. Something inside felt different, something that told him that a life without legs was better than no life at all. For a man used to pessimism, the change was startling. For now, he decided, it was best not to dwell on it.
He swallowed a final mouthful of the eggs, and shook his head slowly when Rachel moved to get another forkful.
"Tell me what happened," Michael said. "Tell me about Victor."
Rachel's expression darkened, her eyes losing focus.
"We're in his house, well, his...bunker I suppose you'd call it. Most of it's underground, that's where we are now. They can't get to us down here. He was in the woods that night. He said they, the Infected, he calls them, had been attacking his land for hours, and he was out driving them back when he saw us, saw them chasing us.
"He's got guns, Michael. Explosives too. It's like a fortress here. It's a place we can stay and be...safe."
Michael nodded slowly, understanding. Rachel's words said one thing, her tone and stiff body language another. She sounded as if she were reciting some practised script.
"Did he say why he has this place?"
Rachel shook her head, and stood, preparing to leave.
"He's got cameras everywhere, Michael, watching everything. So...you know, if you need anything, he'll see.”
Her words were pointed, the subtext not lost on him.
Michael nodded his understanding, fixing her eyes with a meaningful look.
“I understand,” he said. "Can I talk to him?"
Rachel nodded.
"I should let you get some rest. I'll tell Victor you asked for him."
She turned to leave.
"Wait," Michael said. "What about Jason?"
Her head dropped a little as she turned back to face him.
"Is he here?"
"Yes," she replied. She pointed at the open doorway.
Michael lifted his head a little. Through the open door he could see into the next room. Jason's massive frame filled a too-small-for-him armchair that faced away from Michael. He looked oddly serene sitting there, unmoving.
When Rachel spoke next, her voice cracked with emotion.
"He's done nothing but sit there since we got here. He hasn't spoken; he doesn't seem to hear anything. It's like he doesn't even know we are here."
The sadness in her voice made Michael's heart ache, and he understood then. Understood that she was putting a brave face on the situation for Jason, and for himself. Understood that her dedication to Michael's health stemmed from the fact that there was nothing she could do for Jason.
Michael's body was broken, and there were at least things Rachel could do to help that. Jason's injury was ethereal, intangible, and he saw the helplessness she felt written clearly in her eyes.
And something else. Terror. Hidden well, but definitely there. Michael thought of the careful neutrality she exuded, the claims that they were safe, and realised there was only one thing here to be afraid of.
Victor.
"How long have we been here Rachel? How long have I been unconscious?"
Rachel's head dropped, as though she didn't want to think about it.
"Five days," she said, her voice flat and featureless as a becalmed ocean.
Michael reached out to comfort her, his fingers landing lightly on her forearm.
She flinched, tears filling her eyes, and then hurried from the room without a word.
Michael looked at Jason for a moment, sitting stock still, facing a wall, and was reminded of visits to his ancient grandmother at a home for the elderly, and the way she stared at nothing in particular, locked away in her memories.
Then he let his head drop back onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling, trying not to think about what could have happened in those five days to turn the strong, focused woman he had met in the midst of chaos into the guarded, fearful person that had just left the room.
*
In the narrow kitchen, Rachel scrubbed the plate clean of the eggs, polishing it until it looked new.
With each passing night that Michael had remained unconscious, she had prayed that Victor's prognosis that the policeman would be paralysed would not come to pass.
When Michael had told her that he couldn't feel his legs, she had felt her spirit break. Jason was unreachable, and, sitting in his chair night after night, remained oblivious to what happened each evening on the floor above. She didn't know whether the sound of it, the gasping, sneering violence in the locked room even made it down through the floor, or whether Jason's ears were simply closed off forever.
Neither Michael nor Jason could help her. It was just her and the lunatic who spoke in different accents, words that sounded like dialogue from bad action movies. The lunatic with the guns.
Suddenly, she felt so alone, so hopeless, that she wanted to cry, but already she had been made painfully aware that every inch of the bunker was monitored and recorded, and Victor's retribution would be swift and brutal.
She scrubbed until her arm ached, and the skin of her palm was raw with the friction, stopping only when she heard the hatch that led to the outside opening above her head, the hatch that separated the hell above from the hell below.
*
Victor had spent hours rearming the traps, setting up hair-fine tripwires and pressure plates, using up almost all of the explosives he had stored on the basement level of the bunker.
When he was satisfied that the area was secure, he set off for the bunker again feeling exhausted and happy.
He couldn't really explain to himself just why he had gone to the aid of the people tumbling around in the crashing car that night, but to say it had paid off was an understatement.
The long years of solitude had practically neutered him, driving away all of his baser desires for the company of women, but finding one in such distress on his very doorstep, a pretty young thing so vulnerable, so powerless to refuse his advances, had awakened a monumental sleeping hunger inside him, and now the passing hours were marked with that delicious, rapacious appetite growing until it ached inside him, secure in the knowledge that it would be satisfied.
She had resisted that first night, displaying a spirit he found admirable, if futile, until Victor had levelled the gun at the back of her retard brother’s meaty head. She'd broken then. A delicious fracturing of her psyche that Victor could almost taste, and that made his groin ache every time he thought about it.
Finding the cop with them had been almost even better. Victor had been distracted by the mindless herd attacking his home, and had presumed the policeman dead, so discovering that he had carried on the adventure, recording it all for Victor to savour at a later date, was like a fine dessert after a mouthwatering meal.
When Victor had discovered the policeman's change of uniform, an
d the subsequent loss of the micro-camera, his rage had been primordial, and he had made sure the girl paid the price.
Now, the policeman was simply leverage. It was obvious the girl cared for him somehow, obvious that if ever threats on the brother proved less than persuasive, threats on the cripple would do the job nicely. And besides, he had found something in the policeman's uniform pocket that excited him enormously, something that, if he was right about it, would be worth keeping and showing to the man. One final act in the policeman's drama before Victor finally decided to remove him from the equation.
They were, Victor thought as he returned to his home, like a marvellous little family, a family of obedient little children, all ready to please the master of the house in one way or another.
As Victor approached the hatch, he felt his cock twitching in anticipation. The little bitch would be pleasing the master of the house soon enough. Maybe he'd even move the action down to what had become the hospital wing of his little house, and get her to please him right in front of her idiot brother.
Victor snorted, and opened the hatch that was hidden under a pile of refuse in the squat surface building, and descended the ladder, locking it again from the inside.
The day’s work is done, he thought excitedly.
Playtime.
12
Michael had lain in silence for hours, trying desperately to think of ways that he might be able to escape the situation in which he now found himself.
A couple of times, he had tried to call out to Jason, but the big man's head didn't even move.
Rachel, evidently, was on another floor, out of earshot. Michael wondered how big this place could be, and just what would drive a man to build himself an underground prison in the middle of nowhere.
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