9th Circle

by Carolyn McCray; Ben Hopkin

  *

  Once it was clear that neither Mala nor the officer could find any way to get into the ventilation shaft to drag Janey back out, they were immediately at odds. The only real solution here was for someone to go into the building and search for her. The officer was having none of it.

  “I’ll go in myself, then,” Mala countered.

  The cop, Officer Roberts, huffed in exasperation. “You don’t seem to understand. When the captain says ‘locked down’ until he gets here, we are locked down.”

  Mala felt a slight wave of sympathy for Darc. This must be how he felt constantly. Rules, the rules that Mala usually embraced, were in the way here.

  “She’s by herself,” Mala pleaded.

  “We’ve got twenty men in there.”

  Could he really believe that was an answer? There were so many things that could happen to Janey while she was in there by herself, not all of them related to the possible serial killer lurking in the shadows. She was crawling around a ventilation shaft, for crying out loud. Mala had to quell the urge to just shove the police officer out of the way.

  Then an idea sparked. “What does Darc say?”

  Roberts dropped his eyes, his expression somehow ashamed and guarded all at once. Mala had seen that same expression too many times not to know what it meant. Something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong.

  “We’ve…we’ve lost contact with him,” the officer stammered finally.

  “What?”

  “Actually, with two teams.” Roberts lifted his eyes back up to meet Mala’s. She could see the earnestness radiating out of his face. “So, can you see why we’re in lockdown?”‘

  Yes, she could see. She could see very well. And what she could see was the possibility of her young charge getting seriously hurt.

  If Officer Roberts truly thought Mala would just sit here and let that happen, he had another thing coming.

  *

  There was something wrong here. Officer Larry Benson had started off this whole search just trying to keep from thinking about this being the place where his steaks came from. Now, the sight of organs and unidentified cow parts was getting a little ho-hum.

  He and Murdoch, the other cop with him, had dug their way through three different rooms filled with stuff that Larry didn’t even want to think about. They were now sorting through bins and bins of entrails. And he was tired of it. Maybe he should pretend to puke so he could run out of here like Suvall had. Sissy punk.

  Thirty-two years he’d been on the force. He knew what a royal screw-up looked like. And this was it, baby. Might as well drop trou. They weren’t going to find anything here.

  “Yeah, just more guts,” Larry grunted over his shoulder at Murdoch. “Didn’t ever think I’d say ‘just’ when referring to intestines.”

  “At this point, I’m just hoping we don’t find much. Can you imagine what it’ll be like if we have to sort through all this shit? Like Humpty Dumpty on crack,” Murdoch muttered back.

  Off to the left of them, there was a muffled screeching sound. Both the cops swung around, reaching for their weapons. It sounded like it had come from behind a door that was snuggled in between a washbasin and some kind of machine that did who knew what.

  Larry glanced over at Murdoch and saw the sweat beading up on the officer’s brow. At least Larry wasn’t the only one that was freaked out at this point.

  Murdoch whispered, without taking his eyes off the door, “Should we wait for backup?”

  “We are the backup.”

  Stepping over some organ meat that had spilled out during the search, Larry kept his pace dead even with Murdoch as they both approached the door. It was probably nothing, right? One of the other two teams, or maybe a carcass that had slipped off a table. No biggie.

  Larry spoke into the radio at his shoulder. “We’re going in.”

  This was nothing. He knew it was nothing. Thirty-two years on the force, you knew stuff.

  This was nothing.

  *

  Grown-up men were crying. The sound echoed through the tunnel and scared her so badly, she dropped Popeye. She scooped him back up and squeezed him tight.

  The sounds forced pictures into her head. Pictures of badness.

  Mommy and Daddy, their faces squished up and tears falling from their eyes. Smiling and saying nice things, but their voices saying bad, bad, bad. Red everywhere. Red covering everything so she couldn’t see Mommy or Daddy anymore.

  She huddled in a corner of the tunnel, holding Popeye tight so he wouldn’t be scared. She sucked her thumb, even though she knew she wasn’t supposed to. She couldn’t help it.

  There were no crayons here. No markers. She couldn’t draw badges. So she drew them in her head, making them big enough to cover Popeye and her both. She stayed there in the badges until the sounds stopped.

  It took a long time.

  *

  Screams crackled over the radio as Mala and Officer Roberts listened in horror. It was the one team with whom they still had radio contact, and it sounded like they were being flayed alive. If there had been any uncertainty that this was the right place, that doubt had fled with the horrific sounds of the police officers being eviscerated.

  “No, no, no, no…” Roberts grabbed the radio. “Benson! Murdoch! Get out! Get out! Do you copy?”

  But all that came back over the radio were their continued screams. One set of cries choked off in what sounded like a gurgle of blood. The other continued on until it finally faded away to nothingness.

  “Oh, no. No.” Mala was sick. Sick from what she had just heard. Sick from the fear she felt for Janey, Darc, Trey, the other officers inside. Sick from the knowledge that she had allowed a little girl to come to the place not only where her parents had been butchered, but where the killer lay in wait.

  Officer Roberts wiped his eyes brusquely, evidently embarrassed by the emotion he felt at the death of two of his own. She would say nothing, but her respect and regard for the officer rose several notches. But it was more clear than ever that they had to get Janey out. Now.

  She opened her mouth to start her arguments, only to have him cut her off cold with a finger pointed straight at her. The finger quavered, as did the voice that followed it.

  “It’s not going to happen,” Roberts retorted to her unasked question. “Those two were good men. We’re not losing more by sending them in blind.” Mala started to protest, only to be overridden once more. “I get that you’re worried. I am too. But until we have eyes back in there, we wait. We wait. Understood?”

  Mala held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. As much as she wanted to claw her way into the structure herself, she knew he was right. She would just have to trust Janey’s instinct for self-preservation. As for Darc, she was pretty sure he didn’t have any.

  Trey’s would have to serve for both of them.

  *

  As the screams ended, Trey and the rest of the group bolted in the direction of the sounds, seeking out their location. Trey had just enough time to realize he had willingly run toward danger, and was about to pat himself on the back, before he saw a figure dart past them, covered in what looked like blood.

  “What the—?” Trey managed.

  Darc rushed off after the figure without a word or a glance to his companions. Typical. Somehow, every operation ended in Trey’s chasing frantically after his partner in a labyrinth of death. He turned to James and the other guy, whose name he could never remember.

  “You two follow the source of those sounds. Benti, you’re with us.”

  Sometimes Trey forgot just how fast Darc could be when he really wanted to get somewhere. He was like some kind of tall, dark bunny rabbit or something. Okay, maybe he could come up with a cooler animal for his partner, but that was what he looked like right now.

  Right up to the point where Darc was hit in the side of the head with a side of beef. No sooner had Trey had the thought that this had to be the weirdest weapon he had ever seen than he and Benti were struck
by another. The killer was whipping the flanks of meat down the tracks with superhuman speed. They weren’t just getting hit by meat. They were getting pounded by hundred-pound meaty juggernauts.

  Trey caught a glimpse of their suspect, wielding a meat hook, which he used to fling the carcasses in their direction. He almost managed to avoid the next one before it smacked him in the side, knocking him to the ground. He found himself staring up at the ceiling and realized the meat had to travel along the set tracks laid up there. Clambering back to his feet, he shone his flashlight above him.

  “Heads up, guys!” Trey shouted at the others. “He can only hit us if we’re under a track.”

  Just as he spoke, he saw the figure sprint through an open door, slamming it behind him. Arriving at the door together, Darc, Trey, and Benti shoved it open and burst through into…

  A maze. A freakin’ maze.

  If Trey had thought the gutting room was big, it was nothing compared with this one. There were metal chutes everywhere, curving around so that you couldn’t see all the way down any one of them.

  After work one night, Trey had started watching a documentary on Temple Grandin that talked about her work, specifically where it related to slaughterhouses. He had found out a couple of things before he was so bored, he fell asleep in front of the television.

  One, Grandin was high-functioning autistic. Trey had thought that was cool, since he dealt with it every day. But when he figured out that they weren’t going to tell him how to better handle his partner, it became a lot less interesting. He already knew the amazing stuff people with autism were capable of. Duh. He saw it every time he went to work.

  The other thing was why the chutes that led to the hammer-punchy-in-the-head thingamabob were curved. Grandin had come up with that idea to keep the cattle from getting stressed out by seeing what was about to happen to them.

  Great for cows. Not so great for detectives trying to track down a serial killer.

  And they had to go through this freakin’ maze of death. Trey had to admit, he was getting pretty sick and tired of this serial killer. He had never had to run so much on a single case in his entire career. And he used to work in vice.

  “Bugger this. Where’d he go?” Trey complained.

  Darc did his scan-the-room thing but apparently didn’t come up with anything useful. He turned to Trey. “We should each take—”

  “No.”

  Darc tried again. “If they are booby-trapped, then we should spread out the risk by—”

  “No.”

  And once more for good measure. “It is an inefficient use of—”

  Okay, time for a more detailed explanation. For such a logical guy, sometimes Darc just didn’t think things through. “Yeah, like I’m going to take a path you clearly didn’t think was the best one.” Trey let that idea sink in for a second. “Whichever one you pick, I’m following right behind.” He turned to Benti. “You do what you want.”

  Benti snorted. “You kidding? I’m on your six. And seven. And possibly eight.”

  Yeah, that about covered it. Trey turned back to Darc. “Well, big guy?”

  Darc turned to the labyrinth of chutes in front of them, clearly not pleased but probably figuring he’d get more accomplished by moving forward. Which was exactly Trey’s plan, with one small addition: move forward, don’t die. It was a simple plan, but he was proud of it.

  Looking at the chutes directly in front of them, Darc moved toward the one on the left. Trey decided that maybe it was time to speak up.

  “You sure? That left one didn’t work out so well last time.”

  Darc just glared at him.

  “Okay, okay.”

  And on that note of shared confidence, they entered the chutes.

  *

  Popeye was getting restless, she could tell, but it wasn’t always so easy to know what to do. She rocked back and forth, looking at where the shaft split in two. She didn’t know which way to go, and Popeye wasn’t helping. He was very, very naughty sometimes.

  Down one of the paths, there was a cool breeze that ruffled her hair and Popeye’s fur. It smelled good, like when it rained or when she went down to the water and played in the rocks.

  From the other one came a low moaning sound. It sounded scary. And it smelled bad.

  Then she thought about what was behind her. If she turned around, she would be with the pretty lady. The lady was nice. She said soft things to her.

  The lady would be mad at her. The thing she had done was bad. She wasn’t supposed to run away like that. But even though the lady would be mad, the lady wouldn’t be mean. The lady would hug her and hold her and tell her that everything would be okay.

  That sounded really good.

  But she knew why she was here. She was supposed to help. Helping meant making things better. Going back to the lady wouldn’t make things better for anybody but her. Mommy always said she should think of other people and share her toys. It wasn’t the same thing, but it was close.

  She held up Popeye to see what he was thinking. He just stared at her. She knew what that meant. It meant she wasn’t going to like his answer.

  But it was okay. She was scared, but she knew that the tall man would keep her safe. And the tall man would be where he could help people, too. She knew where she had to go.

  She moved down the shaft, the echoes of the moaning bouncing around her as she crawled.

  *

  Trey had this courage thing figured out. You didn’t really have to do anything more than just put one foot in front of the other. Oh, and make sure you were pointed in the right direction first.

  They had made it about a quarter of the way down the chute, so far as Trey could tell. The curving lines of the chutes made it almost impossible to know for sure.

  From behind him, Officer Benti barked, “Ouch!”

  Both Trey and Darc whirled around to see what was going on, only to see Benti rubbing his calf briskly. Darc turned back and continued making his way down the chute. Trey moved closer to the cop.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Something stung me, maybe?” The officer still had a hold of his lower leg, apparently trying to rub the pain out of it.

  “Dude,” Trey counseled, “you have got to buck up.” He made sure Benti was ready to start moving again, then turned to catch up with Darc. He spoke over his shoulder. “Trust me. With this guy we’re chasing, it could have been so much—”

  From the side of the chute, strands of curled wire sprang out, the pointed ends piercing Benti’s clothes. There was a microsecond pause for Trey to identify the automated stun guns mounted on the walls before the officer began to thrash from the voltage flowing through the line. His eyes rolled back in his head, only the whites showing.

  “Oh, man. Oh…Darc!” Trey called out. He moved toward Benti, only to see the remaining stun guns swivel to target him. “What the—?” Trey danced back out of range, but the writhing of the cop dragged him back almost against his will.

  And then there was a hand grabbing his arm and pulling him away, hard. Darc gripped him with hands that seemed made of iron.

  “He’s gone,” Darc said.

  “No!” But looking back, Trey could see Benti dancing and jumping like a marionette on curled wires instead of strings. With that amount of voltage coursing through him, if Benti came out of it, he would no longer be Benti.

  And then he couldn’t think about it any longer. Trey was too busy running for his life.

  *

  Darc observed that there was an interval of 1.3 seconds between the moment when a red light flashed on the stun guns and the moment when they turned and fired. That 1.3 seconds was the only thing keeping them both alive right now.

  Darc broke into a run, Trey matching him step for step. Well, almost step for step.

  As Darc lunged forward, one of the chute gates closed right in front of Trey. His partner tried to make it through before it shut entirely, but he couldn’t. He was forced to run
down the chute parallel to Darc.

  The patterns of the chutes and the stun guns were trails of light, prompting him left or right, up or down. But now Darc had to stretch the web of light to include his partner. It strained, but held.

  The chutes down which they were running were getting more and more narrow as they progressed. Darc knew this was to gradually acclimate the cattle to the walls at their sides while making it impossible for them to escape the bolt that lay ahead.

  This also made it far more difficult for Darc and Trey to dodge the ever-increasing attacks from the snaking lines of the stun guns.

  Lines and symbols flowed and changed in Darc’s vision, the constantly shifting landscape of their dance with death.

  “Down!” Darc yelled at Trey.

  “What?” Clearly, Trey didn’t understand the invective, but his momentary lapse of attention caused him to stumble. The stun gun wire snapped over his head, missing him by centimeters.

  “Jump!” Darc snapped.

  This time, Trey needed no prompting. He leapt into the air, the wires slashing harmlessly below him. They had the system worked out now. They would be able to successfully navigate the chutes.

  “Right!”

  But Trey dodged left, and one of the wires grazed his leg, giving him what sounded like a nasty jolt.

  “Right,” Trey growled through teeth that seemed fully clenched together. “My other freakin’ right.”

  Darc continued to issue imperatives as they traversed the remainder of their respective chutes. The back half-wall of the corral loomed before them, a row of stun guns coming to life right in front of them. The barrier appeared to be approximately five and a half feet tall.

  “Darc, dude…?” Trey asked, his tone panicked.

  “Faster!” Darc shot back.

  They both sped up, but Trey was clearly uncertain about what was going on.

  “Faster? There’s a wall.”

  But Darc continued increasing his speed, taking them right up to the back wall. He then barked out orders in rapid order. “Jump right!” They both sprang up, planting each of their right feet on the wall of the chute to their right. “Up left!” They then ricocheted to the left, springing farther up. “Right! Left!” And then finally, “Over!”