by Platt, Sean
She’d always been strong, had to grow up that way being a mixed girl in a lily-white neighborhood with fat pockets of deep-rooted, if slightly closeted, racism. But she wasn’t heartless, far from it. She loved her mother more than life; so why wasn’t she able to cry for her absence?
What kind of daughter am I?
She wished, not for the first time, that her mother was there for her. But at the same time, she was glad her mother had been spared whatever was happening. Monsters, rapists, and god knows what else. Maybe her mother was lucky, vanishing along with the rest of humanity.
A knock at the door. Bob.
“You want this water or what?”
“I’m good,” she said.
He didn’t respond, so she figured he’d gone off to start his day boozing. She’d wait until he got good and drunk. That’s when she’d leave. She’d look for Charlie, hope he wasn’t too mad at her for rejecting him, and they’d take off together. She’d have to be careful, though. Bob was a ticking time bomb and she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to bury her obvious disgust.
Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t been able to cry. It was as if someone unplugged the weakest part of her, so she could stay strong and do exactly what she needed to do to survive.
**
“That little fucker stole my shotgun!” Bob said from his spot on the couch, thumbing through porn magazines he’d picked up at a convenience store.
I hope he’s not fueling up for me.
Other than briefly asking where Charlie had gone earlier in the morning, it was the first time Bob had even mentioned Charlie’s absence. When Bob asked if she’d seen him, she was honest, saying Charlie was probably hiding because she’d rejected him. She felt horrible about telling Bob that, and even more awful when Bob couldn’t stop laughing. But better to tell him that than give him more reasons to be mad at Charlie.
No wonder he ran off.
Her only wish was that Charlie had asked her to go with him. Though she rejected him, it wasn’t because she didn’t like him. She did, just not in the way he seemed to like her. He was a nice kid, maybe the nicest she’d ever known, but she wasn’t attracted to him at all. He was too young, too green, and altogether not her type. Besides, love, lust, and sex, none of that was on her mind now. She was in survival mode, barely able to cope with her own feelings, let alone massage another’s. She hadn’t been lying when she said she wasn’t looking for a relationship. The world had changed in a flash, and she had changed right along with it.
“When he gets back here, I’m gonna whip his ass,” Bob said, cracking open another beer.
“Where do you think he went?” she asked, fishing for information. “Does he know anyone here?”
“I doubt it. Though who knows? The little freak sits in his room all day on the fucking Internet. Maybe he had a buncha other geeky computer friends all over the country just waiting to jerk him off. Jokes on him, though. Ain’t nobody left to pull his pud. He’ll come back when he realizes how bad he needs me.”
Bob downed the beer and crushed the can against his head like some kind of frat boy asshole.
“You want another beer?” Callie asked, purposely making sure she was up when he finished.
“Yeah,” he joked, “About time you make yourself useful.”
She didn’t respond.
“Aw, come on, I’m just messin’ with you. Sheesh, women are so sensitive.”
She went into the kitchen and found the plastic water bottle that was different from the others. For one, it was the only bottle in the fridge which had been opened and was only a quarter full. The bottle’s label was also worn, indicating a lot of re-use. She didn’t know if it was Derek’s G, though she doubted it, or Bob’s personal supply, which seemed all the more likely. She had no idea how much G you’d put in someone’s drink, so she poured what seemed like twice the appropriate amount into Bob’s open beer can.
She brought the can in and handed it to Bob with a smile. “I’m not feeling too good,” she said, putting a hand over her stomach, “I think my friend is coming.”
“Your friend?” Bob said, taking a swig, then realizing, “Oh, your mensies. Hell, woman, you did not need to tell me that shit.”
“I’m gonna take a nap,” she said, “Call me if Charlie comes back.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll hear the sound of him begging me to let him in.”
Callie forced a laugh, then went upstairs.
**
She didn’t know how long the drug took to work or even if it would knock Bob out completely. If it was his supply, maybe he had built up a resistance to it. Maybe it just made him delirious. She thought he’d said something about getting good and fucked up on it. She hoped it would at least impair him long enough for her to get out of the house without him noticing.
She waited 20 minutes, then got out of bed and snuck out of her room and down the hall to his. The door was open and the duffel bags of guns lay on the bed. She found the Glock she’d been practicing with. She grabbed it, along with a box of bullets and went back to her room.
She loaded the gun, grabbed a charcoal jacket from the closet, about three sizes too big, put the bullets in her pocket and headed out the window to get the hell away from Bob. She hoped she could find Charlie before Bob came looking for her.
**
Clouds hung low in the sky, as Callie stepped onto the street.
No sign of Charlie or the Toyota he’d taken from Derek’s driveway. She hoped he’d not gone far. Though she didn’t know him well enough to venture an educated guess, she thought he may have stayed relatively close, just to be on the safe side. Far away enough to make a point and hide from Bob, but close enough to run home if necessary.
She needed a car. She wasn’t about to risk taking Bob’s car, or the car in the garage. She went a few doors down on the opposite side of the street where a cute purple VW bug sat in the driveway.
She knocked on the door on the off chance someone was home. The door was made mostly of etched glass framed in a deep redwood. Seeing no one inside, she tried the doorknob. Locked.
She glanced down, searching for a rock to break the window, then laughed out loud at the planter beside the walkway filled with small round rocks and one large square gray one, so out of place it may as well have had a label on it reading, “fake rock key holder.”
She retrieved the key and let herself inside.
The house was warm and the smell of cinnamon potpourri made her think of her mom’s craft room. She went to the kitchen and combed the wall for a key rack and the counter for keys. Nothing. She headed back to the doorway to see if she’d missed an obvious spot where people might keep car keys. She found a mail sorter on a ledge, and a small box of random crap, but no keys.
Callie remembered seeing an anime decal on the VW’s rear window, which made her think the car belonged to a teenager, so she went upstairs and found a door with purple letters spelling out “Meghan” on the door.
She went inside the room and into an explosion of purple. Light lavender walls, dark purple curtains and bedding, and dark purple wood trim on the door, closets, and baseboards. It was a room Callie could definitely live in. Very cute. On the walls were some anime posters Callie wasn’t familiar with. She was strictly a Marvel and DC girl. In the corner, a shiny creamy purple BC Rich electric guitar and Peavey amp.
“Cool!” Callie said, picking it up and strumming with a dark purple pick which matched the strap. She wished the power were on so she could do a little shredding. She wasn’t a great guitar player by any stretch, and didn’t have the patience to learn other people’s songs. Mostly, she played her own tunes. But she hadn’t played anything in more than a year, since her band broke up due to excessive bitchiness of two of its members.
The strings felt good beneath her fingers. Felt right. She regretted not playing more.
She strummed a few chords, trying to remember a song she’d been working on. Just when she got it, and fell into a rhythm
, she heard the door slam open downstairs.
Shit! Bob!
She sat the guitar on the bed, ran to the closet, and slid the door open. Despite the room’s neatness, Meghan’s closet was stuffed with boxes and mountains of clothes. Callie wedged herself inside, trying to keep quiet while also listening for sounds of footsteps coming up the stairs. It was a tight squeeze, but she managed to get in and slide the door shut, leaving the thinnest of cracks, still allowing her a thin sliver to peek outside. She wondered what she’d do if Bob came into the room. If she’d stayed where she was, she could have innocently claimed that she was just looking for Charlie.
But now that she’d hidden, her intentions were clear. She was on the run. And he would be pissed. And worse, if he realized she’d drugged him, he’d probably kill her. She grabbed the gun from her jacket pocket, found the safety, and clicked it off. She wondered if she could pull the trigger. This morning, when she realized Bob had raped her, she could easily have shot him. But now, a few hours later, her anger had been replaced with a steady drip of mounting fear.
The closet was an echo chamber for her rapid heartbeat and shallow breaths. She put her left hand over her mouth as if it could silence the sound of her breathing.
A crash sounded downstairs, something being knocked over.
Bob was pissed.
Then another crash.
And another.
Suddenly, Callie began to realize it probably wasn’t Bob downstairs. As if the intruder sensed her realization, the creature made its horrible clicking.
And it wasn’t alone.
* * * *
BORICIO WOLFE
October 18
Somewhere in Alabama
Boricio took off his blindfold.
Well, fuck me.
He almost didn’t believe what he saw.
That pile of shit Moe wasn’t wearing a blindfold, and he sure as hell didn’t have a fucked up face. The other captives were as they said, knees on burlap and rags over their faces. And like he said, Adam looked just old enough to buy beer without getting carded. But Moe, that fucker was on his knees, and though his hands were behind his back and bound like everyone else’s, he was in full custody of his eyesight. For now.
Moe drew a surprised breath the second Boricio leapt to his feet.
They stared at one another, neither speaking. The prisoners rustled beside them, sensing movement and tension, but could see nothing and prove even less.
Boricio slithered toward Moe, but Moe didn’t flinch or move. At least not much. His lips were quivering and his breath was scattered all over the place.
Boricio sniffed the room then put his hand at the back of Moe’s curly mat of hair and yanked it by the root. Moe whimpered. Boricio leaned in and whispered low enough so only Moe could hear him, barely.
“The itsy bitsy spider, crawled up the water spout...”
Boricio’s fingers crept along the back of Moe’s neck.
“Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and it dried up all the rain ...”
His fingers crawled over to the other side, the longest one making a circle inside Moe’s ear. “The itsy bitsy spider, went up the spout again.”
“What... what do you want from me?” Moe started to shake.
Boricio bit the edge of Moe’s ear, right at the cartilage, just enough to hurt like a hard-on bent in half, but not enough to draw blood. He whispered again:
“The itsy bitsy spider, crawled up the water spout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and it dried up all the rain...”
“You don’t want to kill me, man.” Moe said, more statement than plea.
“Don’t I?” Boricio raised an eyebrow. The prisoners strained to listen. Boricio lowered himself to a squat. “What are you really afraid of? I’m unarmed and all you have to do is yell. Are you that big of a pussy, or is there a bigger badder wolf out there than ole Boricio?”
A final whimper, then a vomit of words: “Look, we don’t have time at all because any second now Jackson is going to come back in here and when he does, he’ll be bringing Brock and Veronica with him and that’s going to be big bad news for all of us. I don’t have the time to tell you everything but I swear I can help. I can save your life, not just in here, but out there too. I don’t think you know what’s out there. But it’s not what you think... oh my God, I think I hear them outside...”
A rustling outside the door…
“Sit down, man, please.” Begging from Manny.
“You’re going to get us killed.” Jack agreed.
“I think they’re right, sir.” Adam made three.
The rustling grew louder, then stopped.
“We’re not finished,” Boricio said, kissing Moe on the cheek and returning his blindfold, and laying back down on the ground with his hands beneath him.
A single set of footsteps preceded the sound of cloth scraping concrete followed by a squeaky hinge and burlap whipping air. A sixth mat was added to the floor, confirmed by the thud of a body.
A second later, Dead Guard Walking’s bad breath was stinking up Boricio’s personal air again. “Looks like I got shit to tend to on the immediate side,” he said, “but you and me got unfinished business ‘fore this day gets to being yesterday.”
Boricio smiled. “You know, I was just thinking the same exact thing.”
Another slap hit the side of Boricio’s head, but Dead Guard Walking must’ve been in a hurry because Boricio barely felt it. A second later the door whined shut and the guard’s scent fled the room.
Boricio was back on his feet and in Moe’s face. “Alright, piggy, squeal. You got seconds, and I mean short ones, before I start creating new ways to fuck you up, starting with ones that hurt most, followed by the ones that just make me laugh.”
Boricio introduced his heel to Moe’s jaw, hard enough to prove he wasn’t worried about getting caught, though he forced his fist in Moe’s mouth to muffle his cry anyway.
“I ain’t ready for them to get back in here quite yet,” he said.
Boricio grabbed another thatch of hair and said, “Squeal pig!” then started whistling the tune to Gimme One Reason.
Moe spoke in a whimper. “I was one of you. No different. Same thing happened to me when Veronica brought me here, just like all of you guys. Only difference was it happened to me on the first day. They told me I was gonna get spared so long as I played ball and told them what the prisoners was saying each time they was in here and so that’s what I’ve been doing since. I just told you the thing about my cheek because I didn’t want you to be suspicious. I’m not one of them, I’m just trying to stay alive.”
Boricio stopped whistling. “Why don’t you have a blindfold?”
“They want me to keep my eye on things. Let them know if I see anything weird. But I’m still locked up, no different.” Moe tilted his head back to gesture at his bound wrists.
“That’s the sorta that’s all there is that makes a man stop breathing. I suggest you talk faster and actually start saying something, fucknut.”
Moe swallowed, then continued to push words through a cry. “I think these people are survivalists, you know like the folks you hear about up holing away for the end of the world up in Montana. And this place is some sorta compound.”
“Survivalists?”
“More than survivalists, though, I think they’re a cult. I’d reckon every group has a leader, but these guys kept talking about a Prophet or something.”
“A prophet? Like Waco shit?” Boricio said.
“Exactly. No one’s told me anything direct, but I heard a bit, including from some kid who disappeared the first day. Seems he was one of them until he had a change of heart up around 2:15 a.m. a few days ago. Guess it was family fun when it was all Kool-Aid and unicorns, but as soon as it was real, he wanted out. But there is no out, so Jackson was allowed to take care of things as he saw fit. I didn’t see how fit that was, but I could hear some of it, and it sounded awfu
l.”
“Solid job,” Boricio said, standing back up. “I’ll give you a B-. Course, you’ll need at least a B+ to keep breathing, so it’s a good time to step it up. Tell me, what makes Señor Prophet so special, and what are they doing with the people they toss in here to trade bullshit with you? And don’t give me none of that ‘I don’t know shit,’ because the only thing that’s gonna keep you from earning a big fat C is some solid info. Now.”
“I can only guess about why they’re bringing people in here. For sure they’re looking for information. But it also seems like they’re waiting for someone in particular to show up. They also seem keen to know everything they can about everything, but I’ve no idea how much they actually know. But they seem to have some big plans.”
“What plans?”
“I don’t know...”
Boricio’s nostrils flared.
“But everyone here does, and I know it’s something bad. They’re sorting things out; seems like they’re gearing up to go after someone, but I don’t know who. As far as what makes the Prophet so special, I think he dreamed about whatever happened before it actually happened. I can see how that would give a man a mighty lot of power. I know it ain’t much, but it’s the best I got, and it’s honest to the word.”
Well now, I don’t think that’s what I ordered at all. Dreams have been daffy as a diseased duck for days, which probably wouldn’t mean shit if they weren’t so goddamned Technicolor. And it’s a sour gallon of fucking milk that I don’t have a clue what they mean.
Boricio tried not to think about his own weird ass dreams. Wasn’t like Moe was gonna be much help figuring shit out. That fucker rode the short bus and licked the windows on the trip. “What else can you tell me about the grounds? How many guards?”
“Not sure how much more I can help,” Moe said. “I’ve never been out of this room, except for about 15 minutes on the second day when they were cleaning this one, though it didn’t look no different when we came back in. I guess I did see some stuff then.”