As the large, wooden door unlatched and opened, Megan sat up completely, both curious and afraid to see new faces entering the room. First “Thing One” entered, carrying, as usual, a paper plate with food and a bottle of water, and conducting his routine delivery as if there was nothing different about this particular visit for him. “Thing Two” took his normal position by the open door at first, until Megan heard a woman’s voice from the stairway. “Have her stand,” the voice commanded.
“Thing Two” approached Megan nonthreateningly. When he placed his thick hand under her upper arm, prompting her to stand, she didn’t resist. Even if she hadn’t weakened from lack of proper nourishment, she quickly learned that she could never overpower the large mute. Besides, she was intent on learning the identity of the new visitors. The lighting provided by the single bulb hanging from the ceiling offered little assistance to Megan’s eyes, provided just enough luminescence so she could see two silhouettes now entering the doorway. One was a male, much less intimidating in size and stature compared to Sonny or his two replacements, who remained for the moment leaning against the far wall, where his face stayed hidden in shadow. But the other, the female who had evidently given the order to “Thing Two,” approached, until she was well within the perimeter of the room which was penetrated by the dim light source. “Let’s have a look at her,” she said with a malicious smile, her face leaning in close to Megan’s.
Megan squinted as her mind pricked at her memory while staring at the beautiful woman. She recognized the visitor, who was studying her face as she studied hers in return, but with all the traumatic events that have overwhelmed her during the past week, her memory was slow to register. After a moment’s hesitation however, the light in her eyes brightened, and she gasped with surprise and confusion when revelation surfaced.
“Dr… Palmer?”
The woman did not answer. She took another hard look at Megan’s face; more specifically, it appeared as if Dr. Palmer was studying her forehead. “You’re right,” she said, apparently to one of the others in the room. “It’s starting to fade.”
The silhouette at the far wall replied with a voice that rang with strong familiarity in Megan’s ears: “Very well. A little reapplication will suffice.” Her eyes never left the woman before her, but she heard light footsteps upon dirt surface approaching. The beautiful Diana Palmer gently placed her right hand on Megan’s cheek, and she immediately pulled away. Her knees felt weak; her stomach churned. Never had she thought that this kind and caring parishioner, who frequented the weekly Bible Study meetings, would turn out to be involved in her abduction. Thought to be a respectable woman in the community, who often volunteered at several church functions, whose baked goods were to die for at the annual bake sale, Dr. Palmer now stood before the prisoner, revealing a nature that made her out to be someone entirely opposite from what Megan, and probably the rest of the church, perceived her to be.
“Hold her,” the woman commanded. Immediately, the giant standing behind Megan tightened his grip on her arm, and proceeded to restrain the other. Simultaneously, Dr. Palmer held her head in place, pushing the thumb of her right hand against the right side of Megan’s chin and her middle finger behind the back of the left side of her jaw, just below the ear. She applied pressure, and the nerve pinched. Megan felt the discomfort instantly, and any attempt to twist out of the woman’s grip only increased the pain. Her head was locked into place from the simple pressure hold, and she was forced to stare forward at her tormentor.
“We’ll need to dampen the surface,” the man’s familiar voice informed. He was now standing very close to Diana’s left, just out of Megan’s peripheral vision.
“Such a pretty thing,” Dr. Palmer remarked. “She’s going to be such fun.” Her wanting eyes bore into Megan’s like a sadistic, disturbed child who’d received a brand-new doll in perfect condition, but sparked the child’s imagination with hundreds of possible ways to mutilate and mangle it. A crisp, clean, blank canvas for a twisted, dark artist to taint and splatter with whatever vile and sickening images her warped mind could conjure. The woman’s devilish smile alone caused Megan’s entire body to shiver with a horrible dread. Unexpectedly, Dr. Palmer spat upon Megan’s head, then leaned in to her. She extracted her wet tongue and began to lick the spot where she had just defiled, spreading the warm saliva evenly around the center of Megan’s forehead. “She’s a bit dirty though,” she noted, “but that should be moist enough.”
“Thank you dear,” the man replied.
Dr. Palmer drew in a deep breath through her nostrils. “She’s also bleeding.”
“So soon?” the man’s voice asked in wonder.
“It must be occurring naturally,” the woman commented.
The man sighed. “Have one of your men bring her something to accommodate her for the time being. For now, let’s tend to the business at hand. If you wouldn’t mind…”
Dr. Palmer, using her one-handed grip against Megan’s jaw, forced her head to turn right, now facing the man who was now standing before her.
There was no hesitation this time. Megan recognized him right away.
“Father?”
The priest said nothing. He only stared deeply into her frightened eyes. And his were the same green as they had always been, but somehow, they were brighter, as if they were filled with a luminous poison that gave off their own light independently in this darkened place.
“Father Paul!” Megan tried to scream through the hardened grasp of Dr. Palmer. “What… what are you…?”
“Shhhh,” the pastor soothed as he gently covered her mouth with his right hand. “It’s alright, dear. Everything’s going to be alright.” His voice suddenly began to echo within her ears, her head, and strangely, her heart. There was nothing serene in his voice, but somehow it lingered inside her whole being until her shivering stopped. And his eyes; though she wanted to shut her own or look away, she felt strangely pulled toward them. Deeper and deeper, she lost herself in his gaze, until everything else in her vision began to darken, and only the priest’s green, almost glowing eyes were all that she saw… all that she knew. The sounds of Thing Two’s breath as he stood against her rear, pinning her arms, dampened, fading slowly away, until all she heard was the inner rhythm of her own rapidly beating heart. Then even that was drowned out from the priest’s voice inside her head.
Megan’s own breathing slowed, and her eyes, captivated by the priest’s, ceased their periodical blinking. They only widened to what seemed like a greater circumference, soaking in all the toxic light of those green eyes that penetrated her. Though she was no longer shivering, her veins were streams of ice, freezing her entire core with a fear that was like nothing she had ever experienced. It was a fear that shut down all thought, and shut out all light, leaving her paralyzed; a victim of the gorgon Medusa itself.
Then, in an eternal moment, the priest lifted his gaze. Instantly, Megan became aware again of her surroundings. “You may release her,” he said to the giant man behind her.
“Do as he says,” Dr. Palmer ordered softly as she removed her own hand from Megan’s jaw. She felt the man’s grip leave her arms as well.
Though she could once again see and hear everything around her, Megan’s statue-like conditioned remained. The fear did not dissolve within her, and dumbfounded, she stood still, unable to move an inch. Unable to blink an eye.
She watched Father Paul open a tiny box made of tin and dip two of his fingers into the contents within. He then raised his fingers, covered with what appeared to be black ash, to her forehead, still damp with saliva. Then he drew a figure upon her head, the trace of his fingers seemed to have formed a simplistic shape, like a cross. Closing his eyes, he mumbled almost inaudibly under his breath, something undecipherable… a language she did not recognize in the slightest.
“Zin cah-vay molock olgah thay.”
When he had finished speaking in the strange tongue, he took his fingers from her head and closed the box of ashes.
“There we are,” he spoke as if he were a doctor who had just administered a tetanus shot to an apprehensive child. “That should hold for a while. We probably won’t need to reapply again before the new moon.”
“Do you think these ashes are even necessary?” Dr. Palmer asked with a sigh.
Father Paul grunted a short chortle as he turned from Megan. “Hardly,” he admitted. “You know very well that any Keepers still alive are very few and scattered. They haven’t the resources, nor the means to interfere.” He and the woman casually strolled, side by side toward the open door. “But you know Bill,” he continued.
“I certainly do,” Dr. Palmer chuckled as well. “Always the precautious one.”
“True enough,” the priest remarked as they crossed the threshold of the doorway, now being followed by Things One and Two, “but he’s been performing so admirably during this Cycle. The least we can do in return is humor him. Anything to keep the man’s blood pressure down, wouldn’t you agree?”
Mrs. Palmer’s giggle elevated to a playful laugh. “Absolutely.”
When the heavy, wooden door was shut, as soon as the Megan heard the solid sound of its latch set into place, her paralysis disappeared in a heartbeat. She immediately collapsed to her knees and forearms upon the dry, dirt floor beneath her, gasping in the dusty air as if she had just surfaced from being under water for too long. As she panted several deep breaths, she could still hear the fading conversation, accompanied by retreating footsteps from the four captors ascending the stairs outside the room. With a pint of strength in reserve, she managed to crawl to the solid door that kept her imprisoned against her will. Screaming for the priest, she flailed her open palms against the wooden barricade, begging him to come back, demanding him to explain why they were doing this to her. Yet the conversation between the man and woman continued as well as the footsteps. It was as if they couldn’t hear the violent racket she was initiating from behind the door. Within seconds, she heard the creaking and closing of the trap door at the top of the stairway, and then silence.
She halted her violent thrashing of the barricade before her as she lurched to her right side and vomited upon the floor.
For several minutes afterwards, Megan sat with her back against the door, wrapping her arms tightly around her bent legs against her chest, and she rocked slightly back and forth as she wept in despair. “Why?” she cried repeatedly in the dimness. “Why? Why? Why?”
She could make sense of nothing. What the priest had done to her was unbelievable. She couldn’t grasp how he had somehow instilled a fear in her so deeply, just by staring into her eyes, that she was frozen with a terror unparalleled to anything she had ever experienced.
How the hell did he do that to me? And more perplexing: WHY are they doing this to me? Sonny, Father Paul, Dr. Palmer: it seemed that everyone she loved and admired had been false. How many others were involved in this never-ending nightmare? How many others, that had been in her life as friends and loved ones, were merely puppet masters who had gotten close to her in order to carry out this extensive plan? A plan that remained entirely a mystery to her. Her head was splitting, her heart completely despondent. Never in her life, could she have imagined such a betrayal, one that would leave her empty and bitter to the end of her days, which could very well be near.
That should hold for a while. We probably won’t need to reapply again before the new moon.
Millions of questions suddenly frustrated her thoughts. What was going to happen during the new moon? What did the priest mean? What are Keepers? Who’s Bill? What was that alien, perverse language that he spoke? And what was the ashy substance he had applied to her head? No, not applied… REAPPLIED! Had that stuff been on her head this whole time? She immediately longed for the mirror in her purse.
Megan frantically began rubbing her forehead where he had desecrated it with the contents from the tin box. When she looked at her hand, there was nothing on her palm except the splinters and redness from her slamming it against the door. Nothing that looked like the ashes he placed on her. She tried to rub it off again, but still no residue of it transferred to her palm. This odd phenomenon left her in both wonder and terror. Whatever it was, it would remain on her. Until the new moon, she thought. Whatever they plan to do to me, it will happen during the new moon. Oh God!
Megan felt as if she had reached her breaking point. First, the man she loved more than anyone had shown his true colors, completely turning her world upside down. Then the agony of being kept here, being tormented by the same man, with no understanding as to why. Then his torment ended with a severe blow: he had murdered Ryleigh, one of her best friends… Ben too. Now she had learned that the treachery had run unimaginably deeper than she could bear, as Father Paul and Dr. Palmer were also involved, and finally understanding that she would never leave this place alive. As the recollection of all the horrors she endured in her time here as their prisoner filled her thoughts all at once, she began to weep even more severely. And for the first time since her arrival to this cellar, she instinctively slipped her hand down her dirty, tattered shirt, grasping for the one thing that brought her any peace: her mother’s crucifix.
It was not there. She had forgotten in this moment of misery that it was lost. Not lost. Stolen. She suddenly remembered the man in her car, the one who made everyone uncomfortable at the Bible Study. Cliff had left the church to manage his way on foot through the pouring rain. She had noticed him and took pity, and foolishly she had offered to drive him wherever he needed to go. And how did he repay her kindness? By robbing her of her money and her necklace that was most precious to her. It kept her mother’s memory closest to her; now it seemed as if it may have been a good luck charm or some item of sacredness that warded off evil, for it was when the necklace was taken from her that her life had gone from one of perfection to one of unthinkable turmoil.
Cliff was the first wolf in sheep’s clothing, the first who had lured her in with false innocence, the first one who she realized had pretended to be someone he was not. The first of what appeared to now be several monsters hiding in plain sight; waiting for the moment, when she would be the most vulnerable from her faith in humanity, to strike. Monsters… the word stuck in her mind as she mentally tracked the recent horrors that have occurred back to Cliff. Then her eyes widened as the memory of his voice struck her.
It’s during a new moon… that the real monsters come out.
Cliff had said this to her during their discussion in the car that night. He had known about this… whatever this was. He was hinting about the unknown terror that was going to happen, evidently during the new moon. It was going to happen to her, and he knew it. Cliff was also involved and subtly confessing to her. Or was he warning her?
If you don’t give it to me now… you will die.
Fearing the barrel of the pistol pressed against her head, fearing for her life, Megan had surrendered the necklace to the desperate man. Now she wished she hadn’t. Whether Cliff was behind this atrocity or not, seemed to make no difference now. She was going to die anyway; handing over her mother’s crucifix didn’t change that, and she would have preferred a quick death compared to what must be coming. She knew it would be worse than a gunshot. Otherwise, why would they go through all this trouble to keep her alive as a prisoner until the time would come? Whatever was going to happen, it would be the climax of this nightmare. And it would happen soon, and somewhere nearby. They kept her in this place because whatever wickedness they intended to inflict upon her would happen somewhere close. Somewhere…
Megan’s eyes lifted from the dirt floor and were suddenly drawn to the other door across the room; the one that no one ever passed through. Once her eyes met this silent, still structure, she couldn’t pull away from it. Whatever was to happen, it would be in the area behind that door. Her imagination sent frigid tingles down her spine. There were monsters all around her, but the most terrifying of them all was in that space contained by thirteen bolt locks. This was her bedroom
in an alternate reality where Hell had reign. And there was a monster in her closet, waiting hungrily for the door to be opened. Before, she would never have entertained such a fictional concept as a possibility, but then after the priest’s supernatural demonstration upon her, anything was possible. It was then that Megan understood fear like she had never known, and as the whirlwind of all her grief and anguish circulated from her spine and engulfed her entire being, she engaged in yet another session of uncontrollable vomiting.
****
Some time had passed when Things One and Two entered the room, alone this time, and brought Megan her meal. More bread. More water. Thing One also placed a paper bag on the floor next to her plate.
Megan had moved from the spot where she had broken down hours before in front of the exit. To distance herself from the sulfurous odor of her vomit, and from the other door which now frightened her tremendously, she remained cowering in the corner farthest from it. She had decided that, when she felt brave enough, she would drag her mattress to this same corner.
The silent men conducted their usual routine. Though she knew her question would remain unanswered, she spoke against hopelessness with a quivering voice: “What’s behind that door?”
As usual, Things One and Two ignored her. They left as quickly and as silently as they had entered. Gradually, she crawled to her food, took a bite, but stopped as she had no appetite, starving though she was. She took a small gulp of water, but it gave her no refreshment. She then opened the paper bag and found that it was full of tampons. At least Father Paul, whose name she had cursed repeatedly in these short hours upon the revelation of his true nature, was not entirely thoughtless.
The Paladin's Message (The Keepers of White Book 2) Page 16