by Bryan Smith
Have a little hair of the dog that bit you.
In this case, that would mean another taste of Marnie’s sweet flesh rather than a nip of booze. His hand drifted to the doorknob again as he moved closer to the brink of surrendering to his basest instincts.
But then he thought of the girl in the barrel.
Shit.
She had spent an entire evening sealed away in that goddamn thing. Bound and gagged. Helpless. Deprived of food and water. Who knew how long she had already been in the barrel prior to his arrival at Olson’s restaurant? Way too long was the only real answer to that. He wondered whether she had voided her bowels or bladder during the night. It was a disquieting thought that made his face twist in disgust. It was very possible. And maybe she had spent the entire night literally stewing in her own juices while he was busy fucking Marnie and Nadia. The thought filled him with an intense self-loathing and extinguished the remnants of his lingering horniness.
He turned away from the bathroom door and hurried down the stairs, pausing at the bottom to stare briefly at the front door. He could still get to work on time--making it in just under the wire--if he walked out of here now and got in his car and got moving without further delay. Rescuing the little girl remained his ultimate aim, but now he was wondering whether he should wait until tonight’s meeting of the Diabolical Conspiracy to make his move--as he’d originally assumed he would do--or instead do something right fucking now.
A sudden squelching sound told him water was no longer running through the pipes overhead. Marnie had just finished her shower. If he had a window of opportunity here, it was closing fast. A mental image of the girl squatting in a puddle of her own piss decided the issue for him. He glanced at the front door one more time, cursed under his breath, and headed for the garage. Once he was there, he eyed the blue metal barrel with increasing trepidation as he approached it. What if she had died during the night? It didn’t seem likely. She was young. Healthy. But there could have been complications arising from the conditions of her captivity. Maybe she had choked on the gag. Maybe whatever drug they had used on her had overwhelmed her system. The possibilities deepened his already considerable anxiety. It was too easy to imagine the girl dead inside the barrel. But one way or another--and regardless of whether he wanted to--he was going to find out.
He used the crowbar to pry the lid off the barrel. He closed his eyes and issued a desperate prayer before taking a look inside.
Please, please, please let her be okay.
He put the crowbar down and slid the lid aside to look in at the girl, flinching at the acrid piss stench that drifted out. The odor shamed him and made him wish he had acted last night. The good news, though, was that the girl was alive. She peered up at him with eyes that didn’t look as dazed as they had the night before. A good thing, of course, but the downside to that was seeing the obvious terror in her expression, which hadn’t been there before. She whimpered and cringed away from him as he peeked in at her.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. “I’m not going to--”
The rest of it went unsaid as heard the door to the garage open again.
Aw, shit.
“Sneaking another look at the vessel, are we?””
Mike frowned.
The what?
Mike glanced to his right and saw Marnie approaching him. She was smiling and her tone was light and apparently carefree. Either she didn’t suspect him of rebelling against the conspiracy or she was exceptionally good at concealing suspicion.
She sidled up next to him and looked in at the girl. “My, but she is a cute one. Stinks, though.” She laughed and waved a hand in front of her face, then nudged Mike with an elbow. “We’ll have to clean her up before the ceremony. I bet Olson volunteers for that duty. That’d be right up his alley, the fat little perv.”
Mike was still holding the barrel’s lid and now he gripped it tighter as he struggled to keep his disgust at that comment from showing. A voice in his head was shouting at him now, urging him to smash the lid against Marnie’s head, then grab the girl and get the fuck out of here. Incredibly, though, a reluctance to physically harm Marnie lingered. It was insane. She wasn’t just a bad person. That had been understating it by quite a lot. She was a horrible, despicable person, possessed of an almost indescribably vile excuse for a soul. And yet, she was still Marnie, his former all-consuming obsession. It might not be enough to stay his hand, but it was enough to make him hesitate.
Marnie nudged him again. “Aren’t you gonna be late for work?”
“Fuck work.”
She laughed again. “Wow, Mike, that’s so unlike you.” Another laugh. “I dig it, though. You don’t need to be Mr. Responsible all the time.”
“The ceremony tonight…what’s it all about? You said Nadia would tell me last night, but that never happened.”
“Gosh, I wonder why? We were all kind of otherwise occupied, you know. Speaking of that…I take it you had a good time?”
The girl in the barrel kept staring up at him. She wasn’t looking at Marnie at all, as if she sensed there was no hope of help from that direction whatsoever. Her eyes were opening pleading with him. It made Mike nervous. What if Marnie noticed and somehow realized he’d given the girl reason to believe he might help her?
He had to distract her while he worked up the nerve to act.
“Yeah…a good time. Definitely.” He glanced at her. “So come on already, give me the lowdown. What’s up with this ceremony? What did you mean when you called this girl ‘the vessel’? And why was it so goddamn important that I be the one to transport her here. That was some stressful shit, by the way, and I’d love an explanation.”
Marnie pursed her lips for a moment as she appeared to think it over. Then she shrugged and said, “Nadia really meant to tell you last night, but we got sort of carried away with all the drinking and fucking. I guess she forgot.” She smirked. “Hazards of the lifestyle.”
“The satanic lifestyle, you mean?”
“Yeah. What else? Anyway…” Marnie flipped long blonde locks from her face and looked him in the eye. “That shit with you yesterday, the whole transport thing, was a crucial piece of the puzzle Nadia has put together. It’s all based on stuff from the Satanic Bible. You’re the Thirteenth, remember? Your initiation into the group completed the infernal circle. As the Thirteenth, it was necessary for you to deliver our vessel.” She flicked a quick glance at the girl in the barrel and smiled again. “This little sweetheart being the vessel. Delivery of the vessel by the Thirteenth opens a direct channel with realms beyond this world, including the infernal hierarchy of Hell. But opening the channel is just the first phase. When you kill the vessel tonight, we’ll be able to request an audience with Satan himself. Imagine it, Mike. A chance to communicate with the single most powerful entity in the universe. The lord of darkness. Our beautiful master. It’s an incredibly rare opportunity for those of our faith.”
Marnie radiated a palpable live-wire excitement throughout this speech. Mike had never seen her anywhere near this enthusiastic talking about anything else. She sounded like a person breathlessly discussing the imminent occurrence of some massively historical event. From her point of view, of course, a summoning of the devil would be on that level. Mike didn’t believe Satan himself would actually be present in Nadia’s garage tonight, mainly because he didn’t believe in the existence of such a being. But Nadia was a master manipulator. It was possible she had some kind of theatrical trickery in mind to make the rest of these loonies believe it was happening. How she meant to pull the deception off was an interesting thing to contemplate, but it didn’t really matter much because the ceremony would not be happening. Not tonight and not ever.
He looked at the girl in the barrel again. She was still watching him in that obviously beseeching way. “So I’m supposed to kill…the vessel?”
“Of course.” Marnie was still going on in that bubbly, giddy tone. How could she sound
that way when discussing something so monstrous? “You still don’t understand how integral you are to everything as the Thirteenth. I envy you so much, baby. Tonight, when you slit this thing’s throat and bathe in her blood--”
There was a cracking sound as the edge of the lid’s barrel connected with the center of her face. Blood jetted from her nostrils as the blow broke her nose and sent her stumbling backward. Mike pursued her as she crashed against a work table and then pitched forward, dropping to her knees. He swung the lid again with all his might and it smacked into the side of her head with a resounding thump. She toppled over and stared up at him with dazed, uncomprehending eyes. A flicker of sick sympathy flared within him as he took a good look at the damage he’d already inflicted. He experienced a moment of terrible doubt. She had never seen it coming. It stunned him to realize how completely she had accepted the sincerity of his immersion into her “faith”. This was a betrayal. Didn’t matter that it was a righteous one. It was a betrayal nonetheless. But he understood there was no taking it back now. He’d chosen his path and the only thing left now was to see it through to the end. So he dropped to his knees next to her and choked back bile as he raised the lid above his head and brought it down again. Tears blurred his vision as he watched her body convulse and then stop moving.
Oh, Marnie. Oh, God. I’m so fucking sorry.
Though a voice of reason reminded him of Marnie’s grievous shortcomings and told him this horrible thing he had done was right and necessary, the grief he felt was real. And he couldn’t bear to look again at what he had done to her, at the wreck he had made of her beautiful face.
Oh, Marnie. Jesus, what have I done?
There was a moment there where he might have crumbled completely, but that same strident voice of reason spoke up again, reminding him there was still work to be done and that everything might yet be lost if he didn’t get his ass in gear. So he got shakily to his feet and stumbled over to the barrel. The little girl peered up at him again and when he looked into those terrified but hopeful eyes, his resolve to do what needed doing returned and strengthened.
He reached into the barrel, grasped the girl by her armpits, and pulled her out, setting her gently down on the garage’s cement floor. Holding her gently by the shoulders, he strove for a comforting tone as he said, “You’re gonna be okay now. Hold on while I find something to cut your loose.”
Tears spilled from her eyes, but she managed a nod to show she understood.
He forced a smile. “Good girl. This is almost over, I promise.”
He stepped over Marnie’s prone form and scanned the work table for something he could use. There were knives aplenty in the kitchen, of course, but he couldn’t risk going in there yet. It was very possible Nadia was up and moving around by now and he didn’t want to deal with her until he’d set the girl free. There wasn’t much on the table’s surface, so he started rooting through the drawers beneath it. He hit pay dirt with the second drawer, finding a pair of garden shears with very sharp-looking blades.
After freeing the girl from her bonds and removing the gag from her mouth, he gripped her by the shoulders again and said, “What’s your name?”
She sniffled and her bottom lip trembled, but she managed to spit it out. “Buh…Brittany.”
“Okay, Brittany. Listen close. I know you’re scared, but it’s very important that you do as I say. Do you understand?”
She sniffled again and nodded as she wiped tears from her eyes.
“I’m gonna open the garage door in a minute. When I do, I want you to run. Okay? I’d take you back to your parents or to the police myself, but I’ve got some things I have to do. There are some more very bad people out there and I have to act fast to make sure they’ll never hurt you or anyone else again. Knock on a neighbor’s door, tell them somebody bad took you and dropped you off in this neighborhood. But please don’t send them this way, okay? At least not right away. This is super important, Brittany. If the police get here too fast, I won’t be able to do the things I need to do. Understand?”
Her brow creased with confusion and her lower lip jutted out in a pout, but she nodded again. Mike wasn’t at all sure the message was getting through, but there was nothing he could do about that other than hope for the best. He got to his feet again, did a quick scan of the garage, and spotted what he was looking for over by the door to the house. A punch of a button mounted on the wall there resulted in a rattling of gears as the garage door began to retract.
Mike met Brittany’s gaze one more time. “Run. Now.”
She ran.
Mike watched her as she dashed through the opening, the hem of her pee-stained polka-dotted dress flapping wildly around her skinny legs as she ran. Then she hooked a right and kept on running, disappearing from his vision. Once she was gone, Mike felt a small degree of inner peace return. He had done the right thing. Finally. For once. But it was just one piece of the puzzle. Much hard--and dangerous--work remained.
He reentered the house and stood inside the short hallway that led to the kitchen on one side and the living room on the other. Holding his breath, he listened for sounds of activity. But several moments passed and he heard nothing but the hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen. He let the breath out and got moving again, cognizant again of that diminishing window of opportunity. Maybe Nadia was still asleep, but that wouldn’t remain the case for long.
He slipped into the kitchen and tread lightly over the tiles as he crossed to the counter, where Marnie had left her handbag the night before. He opened it and felt his heart speed up at the sight of the nickel-plated automatic pistol resting in there against a makeup case. The same gun she had threatened him with that morning three months earlier. Had it been just three months? It felt more like a lifetime. Everything had changed. The mundane world he had known prior to the night of his forced initiation into the Diabolical Conspiracy was lost to him now. Part of him wanted to believe he could yet get it back somehow, but the larger part of him knew better. Odds were he wouldn’t even survive the day. A return to normality was a pipe dream, nothing more.
Taking the gun with him, he left the kitchen and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Nadia was still stretched out on the bed. She was still nude and the sight of her lovely body quickened his pulse, in spite of everything. Her head turned in his direction as he came into the room, her eyes fluttering open as she blinked blearily at him for a few moments. Then the world seemed to come into focus for her as her gaze locked on the gun in his hand.
She sat up. “That’s Marnie’s gun.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Where is Marnie?” She squinted and leaned forward a little. “Is that…is that blood on your shirt?”
Mike pointed the gun at her. “Marnie’s dead. Get dressed.”
Nadia’s expression didn’t change. The implied threat of the gun didn’t seem to bother her. “So you killed Marnie? That’s too bad. I liked her a lot. Are you going to kill me, too?”
Mike jabbed the gun in her direction. “I told you to get dressed. Shut up and do it.”
Still no visible fear on her part, not even the slightest flinch. Nothing more than an apparently mild curiosity. It disturbed him. “But why am I getting dressed? If you’ve gone this far, you and I both know you have to kill me. You know I’d never let you off the hook for this. So why not just kill me now?”
“Because I need your help.”
She laughed. “Oh, really? With what?”
He took a step closer to her and aimed the gun point-blank at her face. “I need you to help me kill the rest of them.”
14.
The parking lot behind Fat Sam’s was mostly empty when Mike pulled in at just before nine that morning. The only other vehicles present were a van, two compact cars, and a delivery truck. The delivery truck was backed up close to the restaurant’s rear entrance, while the other vehicles were parked by a Dumpster in the same vicinity. Mike drove to a far back corner of the lot and backed into a
space to watch for the arrival of a black Jaguar. All the empty space made him feel conspicuous, but parking any closer to the restaurant would increase the likelihood of being spotted by his quarry too soon. No, back here was the best position for surveillance. If the information Nadia had fed him was correct--and he believed it was--Olson would be arriving within the next few minutes. In the unlikely event of someone else from the restaurant approaching him to inquire about his presence or to tell him the restaurant wasn’t open yet, he had a cover story prepared. He would say he had arrived early for an interview and was just killing some time. It was a plausible-sounding excuse, but as it turned out, he didn’t need it.
Olson’s black Jaguar pulled into the parking lot at six minutes after the hour. Mike hit the gas and roared up to a stop next to it just as Olson was stepping out of his car. He threw his own door open and popped out, aiming Marnie’s gun over the roof of his car at Olson’s stunned face. The portly freak threw up his hands in an instinctive protective gesture, but, perhaps paralyzed by shock, he made no attempt to run. Mike let out a breath and squeezed the trigger. The bullet was on-target, punching through the center of his face and sending a cascade of red out the back of his head. Olson fell back against his car and slid toward the ground. Mike was back in his car before Olson’s corpse hit the dirty asphalt. He dropped the gun on the empty passenger seat next to him and burned rubber out of there. The whole thing went down so fast he was reasonably certain there had been no witnesses. No one had come running out of the restaurant at the sound of the gunshot, nor had he seen anyone on foot nearby. A lucky break. He would need more of them if he hoped to accomplish this insane mission he’d embarked upon.