Dark Matter

by R. D. Cain

  When the clock on the radio read midnight, he was sober, alert from the caffeine drinks and ready to get started. He patrolled the streets of Church and Wellesley, noting that most but not all of the “girls” had Adam’s apples. The Shuter Street girls were out; nothing interesting there.

  It wasn’t until his third pass up Parliament Street that his heart began to pound. This girl was young, thin — maybe too thin — leaning into the passenger side of a car. Bannerman quickly ducked from the road into a parking space, leaving his car out wide enough to watch the girl and the driver. She was smiling, her hair down, but in the dark he couldn’t tell whether it was blond or dirty blond. She seemed a little reluctant, averting her eyes — maybe he was trying to talk her down too much. If the man had known the strip, studied it as much as Bannerman, he’d just pay whatever she asked. Her beauty was a rarity here and wouldn’t last long. She looked like Lindsay.

  When she opened the door and climbed inside, Bannerman followed. His heart felt like it had come alive, unable to let her out of his sight. He jotted down the licence plate, just in case, and recorded that it was a tinted-windowed grey Honda Civic.

  He followed them to a dark alley, where they parked under a tree that blocked the flickering streetlights.

  Bannerman waited a few minutes, then found the nerve to get out of his car slowly, the door closing with just the slightest click.

  He approached with quiet steps, cautious, and angled toward the passenger side. He crept closer and closer. When the palm of his hand touched the cold body of the car, the sensation of touching a rigid corpse crept up his arm.

  And the car quivered. It jostled slightly as if by unwanted contact, as if it could feel him intruding. He was low, his ass to the ground, only peeking up to catch another glimpse of her. He had to know.

  When the driver’s door burst open, Bannerman thought he was imagining it. The man — Mediterranean, with broad, thick shoulders — looked enormous when he came around the car with outstretched arms, his face a death mask. Bannerman had little time to rear back. He tripped over a parking curb, hands scuffing the damp pavement, and found himself jammed against a recycling dumpster.

  “You some kind of fucking freak?” The man didn’t wait for an answer. Bannerman thrust his arms up to cover his face as the man grabbed the collar of his shirt and began pummelling him. He squirmed and twisted, not to avoid the strikes — no, he wanted to catch a glimpse of the girl as she ran away. He shouted, “Wait, come back! Wait!”

  Tuesday, October 23

  Lindsay, Rebecca and the other girl — her name was Andrea — awoke to the sound of heavy footsteps creaking across the floor. Their slow, measured tempo made Lindsay’s blood run cold with fear even though the man hadn’t hurt them . . . yet. The girls slept together, as far from the hatch as possible, which meant that the first footstep they heard each morning was right over their heads. The joists creaked and sank under his weight. The man rolled the piano aside; dust drifted down from the ceiling. Every time more dust fell, she felt more forgotten, more buried, more dead. The damp caused her to cough. Her water bottle was empty and she was reluctant to ask for more.

  As the hatch peeled back, blinding natural light shot through the semidarkness, revealing that it was mid-morning in the real world. The ladder gave a rattle reminiscent of a steel anchor being released into the ocean. Silence. Then footsteps. Steel-toed construction boots, insulated overalls, work gloves and this time a balaclava all came down the ladder, slowly into view.

  He was carrying a plastic bag from Shoppers Drug Mart. Before tossing it to Andrea he removed a piece of paper and handed it to Lindsay. Another one of his stupid handwritten notes. She snatched the paper and read it while Andrea went through the shopping bag. Tampons, baby wipes and toilet paper. He stood waiting for Lindsay to read the note out loud, as was protocol. There were no secrets here among the girls. Is this everything you need?

  “Yes,” Andrea replied.

  The man turned and left, taking with him the bathroom area garbage can filled with used tampons and pads. He climbing up, pulling the ladder away and slamming the hatch shut. Andrea went over to the toilet to freshen up. The toilet was in the corner nearest the night light. There was an iron tap mounted to the ceiling with a drain under it for a shower. They had analyzed the jailkeeper’s behaviour countless times. He’d been nicknamed the Mute, Fuck-Face, the Warden and other names. No matter which name they used, it was spoken with fear and hatred, making it clear who they were talking about.

  Is he going to keep us forever? What does he want with us? If there’s a ransom, why don’t my parents just pay it? Don’t they want me back? It was no use, it just went in circles.

  Andrea came back over to the warmth of the other girls. “I think that puts me at twenty-two days here, maybe more.”

  Lindsay said, “We have to get out. We can’t sit around and die of old age.”

  Rebecca was finally coming around. “I don’t think old age is what’s going to get us.” Her voice trailed off. She was trying to make sense of the situation and didn’t like where her mind was taking her. “Nearly a month here. There’s no sign he’s going to let us go. I think he has plans, but it’s like he’s waiting for something.”

  Lindsay said, “It must be ransom. He hasn’t raped us. We have no idea what he looks like. He could let us go after he gets his money and we’d never be able to identify him.”

  Andrea pulled out one of the baby wipes and began wiping her face clean. “My parents don’t have any money.”

  “Mine do.” Lindsay said. “He’d know if he checked my driver’s license. I live in the Bridle Path.”

  Rebecca said, “Are you serious?”

  Lindsay nodded.

  Footsteps creaked again. He’d be getting breakfast ready. Bottles of Gatorade with mini dry cereal boxes. He always made sure he collected everything he brought in. Lindsay hiked her pants up. There was no use denying that she was losing weight. Her waist was two inches smaller. What I’d do for a cheeseburger and fries.

  She glanced at the toilet and a plan came to her.

  Lindsay peeled her shirt off and ran her fingers through her hair. Weeks of built-up grease from the lack of soap made it impossible to thicken it up.

  Andrea asked, “What are you doing?”

  “We’re getting out of here. Andrea, go get the lid from the top of the toilet tank and put it down there.” She pointed to the floor. “Cover it up with one of the blankets. We’re going to smash it over his head.”

  Rebecca said, “We can’t overpower him.”

  Lindsay considered taking her pants off to really sell it, but she wanted the protection of jeans during the fight. “We’re going to distract him like we planned.”

  Andrea asked, “Planned?”

  Lindsay conceded, “Okay, like how we talked about. Then I’m going to smash him over the head with that porcelain lid.”

  The hatch opened and the ladder rattled down. She refused to accept imprisonment. Lindsay reached back and gripped the weapon, glancing to the two girls, who were exchanging terrified expressions. With pleading eyes, they both looked at her and shook their heads “no.”

  7

  As the Warden descended, he took a cursory glance around the opening of the hatch. As he climbed down farther, he checked the corners of the room, where any surprises might come from. The dark nooks, where threats could hide, were the toughest parts of the room to see from the entry point. Secure in the knowledge that they were all accounted for, he reached back up, and brought the breakfast tray down.

  He stood straight and turned to the girls. They were ready for him in the established way, except one girl had chosen to take her top off. He noted the ugliness of the lumps of flesh hanging from her frail body. And he could smell the fear.

  Lindsay spoke. “I know you won’t answer,” she began. “But we’re really hungry.” />
  He shook his head. They had no idea about the meaning of the word hungry. They needed to get out more, to other countries where you had to fight for one meal a day. He came closer, put the tray down and began to turn away. He had no interest in their pleading.

  “Wait, wait, just one sec.”

  He sensed that she had moved toward him, just a step, but that could not be tolerated. A message would have to be sent.

  He paused to let her finish.

  “Listen, like I said. We’re all hungry. I know I’m young and inexperienced. But, listen — this is tough to say in front of the other girls.” Lindsay paused, trying to sound sincere, trying to conjure what would sound authentic but also match what he might expect to hear. “But . . . it’s been a while since I’ve been with a boy.” Rather than trying to read his behaviour to see if the act was working, she tried to produce tears. It wasn’t hard, not with the stench from the dirt floor and their unwashed bodies, let alone the prospect of dying in this place. “Anyway, if you’d be interested, I wouldn’t mind.”

  She traced fingers from her right hand down her bare chest and tried to smile.

  They were all attractive. It had been a while since he had taken a woman, and when he did, she looked like these girls. And it wasn’t really sex; it was more like punishment. He glanced around the room, searching for anything out of place, anything that could be used as a weapon. Nothing. With a gloved hand, balancing the tray of cereal on the other arm, he slowly gave her the finger.

  Lindsay knelt down and pulled the other girls down by their arms so they were next to her. “We talked about it last night.” She looked at the other girls. “We’re all hungry.” Lindsay reached her arms out to him. “Come here, I’ll make you feel good. Please, I’m hungry.”

  He looked back over his shoulder and shook his head. Maybe next time. Besides, he had a new prisoner waiting upstairs, someone more to his liking.

  He put the tray down on the ground and turned toward the ladder. It was a silver aluminum A-frame that might not hold the weight of both him and the new addition. He noticed a shadow cross over it; then he heard the footsteps charging toward him. He was able to get an elbow up, but the weight of the porcelain lid smashing over his head carried enough momentum to bring him to his knees. His head felt like an egg that had been dropped to the floor, fractured, with aching fault lines.

  He tried to get up, stumbling forward and making a noise. His amateur assailant swung again, with both hands as hard as she could. The flat part of the lip struck the back of his head, the porcelain shattering. It would have done more damage had it stayed intact. He dropped to the ground and rolled onto his back.

  Lindsay turned a fragment in her hand, overjoyed to see it was razor sharp, and lunged at him. Though the Warden was dazed, he still kicked her away easily and staggered to his feet. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, then counter-charged. She couldn’t back up fast enough. The Warden shoved her backward and punched the right side of her face twice, then grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her back into a wall. She stumbled, tripped and her head slammed into the concrete. Rebecca had run over, aimed for his balls and kicked with all of her strength. She managed to graze him, but adrenaline masked the pain and her kick only made him angrier. Knowing he could easily outpower and outfight all of the girls at the same time he paused a moment, sucking in air for the next round of action. When he rose to his feet, Rebecca began to back away, her hands up in front of her, pleading for mercy. Andrea had been cowering in the corner the whole time.

  The Warden produced the cattle prod from his belt and when he hit Rebecca with the voltage, she squealed like a beaten pig. He couldn’t suppress the smile he had under the mask and giggled like a little boy playing. He crept toward Andrea and while she begged for mercy, he kicked her to the ground. He turned to Lindsay, the leader of the uprising. As she struggled to get to her feet, he smashed the prod over her head, ripping her scalp open. A red, sticky coating of blood streamed through the blond hair and down the back her neck.

  The Warden stood in the middle of the room for a moment and eyed the captives. They wouldn’t try that again — not with what he had done to them, and certainly not with what they still had to come.

  Andrea crawled over to Lindsay, staying close to the wall. Andrea was the only one with any brains. He couldn’t tell if he was bleeding from the head or not. His balls ached, and he felt nauseous.

  The next captive would be tending to that issue; the girls could all sit together and maybe offer each other technical pointers. He grunted and went upstairs, leaving the hatch open and pulling the ladder back out. He lumbered out the back door to the porch.

  The strong fall sun crept its way up in the sky, still obscured by forty-foot evergreens that ran around the property line, guarding the shack. Any person entering the backyard had to either walk up to the front door or cross the treeline, both of which would leave trespassers in an open shooting gallery for some distance.

  Chavez loved the smell of these evergreens. They dripped sap that to him smelled like Canada. Long-dead pine needles coated the backyard, starved from green to orange. Beyond the trees, at the back of the property, ran a small stream. During the spring melt, it became a torrent of white water and violent undertows. Now, in mid-fall, the water had become perfectly still, like a dormant anaconda. It reminded Chavez of the encantados of Brazil — mythical shape-shifting serpents that had stalked him in his childhood. A lone crow, black as onyx, sat in a tree and watched the stream.

  When he was ten, he had been taken from his home by a United Nations child protection worker. She was tall, white, thin, with long blond hair. He had never seen such a being in his life. She led him out of his house by the hand and told him that he couldn’t be with his parents anymore because they had gone with God. She brought him to another house in the village. They were a family he knew vaguely, because they had two boys of their own who had bullied him many times.

  Whenever he could escape from his new home, he’d wander up and down the dusty streets, overhung with jungle trees and lined with wooden shacks made from scrap wood, rock and poured mortar, searching for his true mother and father. In his imaginary world, his parents were waiting for him in a big house filled with toys. If he could only find them, he would be free from the man he was forced to call Tio — Uncle.

  There would be no more slaving in the woodshop, crafting junk to sell to tourists. He wandered the village, speaking to everyone from policemen and soldiers to vagabonds and banditos — all strangers.

  Tio had used the folklore of the encantados to control him and keep him from wandering — but it was too late. After one of Chavez’ failed excursions to find answers he overheard a businessman speaking to his wife. As they walked hand in hand out of a village bar, the old man whispered to her that “the worthless little runt will be looking a long time,” that his father had shot his mother in a drunken rage when he found she had tried to sell their son — him — for much-needed money, then shot himself after an altercation with the police. “That little boy will find nothing but misery in the truth,” said the man. “The boy is like a cuervo perdido,” a lost crow.

  Now he knew why he had been moved in with this family, and forced to call the man Tio. Tio also used the encantados to keep him silent about the nature of their relationship. At fourteen, after years of secrets and abuse, he realized that no invisible man in the sky named God was coming to save him. Soon after the Christian god was condemned to the same fate as the forgotten gods of Mount Olympus, so fell fictitious devils and encantados. He came to understand that gods and devils were nothing more than mythological scapegoats used by men. Men like Tio, who manipulated and preyed on the young and naïve. The world was a place where men helped men, or men hurt men; ghost stories, like those that told of the encantados, were for children. Chavez had been through too much to be considered a child any longer. This realization became a launching p
oint for action when he decided to free himself.

  After serving three years in the Colombian army, Chavez returned home with a rifle and a mission. Tio, his wife and his sons were the first in a long line of betrayers and complacent enablers to hear his rifle speak his rage. When Tio had reached for a knife, Chavez had chopped his hand off with the machete that hung from his belt. There was less blood than he had hoped. Tio begged for his life before taking the final bullet in his pleading, pathetic face.

  Only the strong survived in the world. For the weak, like his mother who had tried to sell him, and even for his abusers, he had nothing but contempt. The only one to escape was the blond child protection worker, who was busy throwing other orphans to sadistic predators. And one day she too would go screaming to her imaginary god.

  Young Chavez had dragged the four bodies out into the backyard and counted the crows that fed on their flesh. Their caws, their earnest screeches calling others to come and enjoy the feast, was like nothing he had ever heard before. In broad daylight, they picked into Tio’s eyes and drove their beaks into his fat protruding tongue. Chavez vowed that day that he would never again be anyone’s victim.

  The call of a crow pulled him from his daydream. A tree bough dropped, then sprang up as the bird took flight. Chavez looked down at the boy who lay unconscious in the shade. He was still covered by a painter’s sheet that had dropped away from his face. Smooth perfect skin, blond hair, hazel eyes partially open in the half-sleep of anesthesia.

  Chavez inhaled a long pull of air with his nostrils. Underneath the boy’s Axe body spray and hair gel, he could smell his sweat. He could smell what a dog smells when it remembers a person forever.

  He heaved the boy’s limp body over his shoulder. His footsteps, although heavier now under the extra weight, were still sure and effortless. Arriving at the hatch, he dropped down the ladder and gingerly extended a foot while bracing the body with one arm on the nearby wall. He started down into the basement, ducking around the floor as he angled down into the cool, dark room.