by Dan Wells
“Can’t even do this to my face, you coward?”
Did she want him to kill her?
Forman stormed past me, picked up the extension cord, and brought it back to the pit. He touched the bare wires to Radha’s chain and she screamed; the boards shook, and I imagined her body spasming against them from inside the pit. He pulled the wires away just half a second later; they had barely touched the chain.
“You might kill her,” I said.
“No,” said Forman, “you might kill her.”
He held up the wires, gesturing for me to come. Radha choked and gasped for air, then started screaming insults at Forman.
“No,” I said.
He shocked her again, and her sudden scream was cut off by a gargle as she fell below the surface of the water. The boards rattled, even the heavy barrel shook in place. Forman pulled the wires away.
“You can stop this whole thing, John,” said Forman. “The shock you give her will be her last one, you have my word, but until then . . .” he shocked her again, and the boards above the pit jumped with her. “I’ll just keep doing this.”
What was I supposed to do? What was Radha’s plan? She’d spent a year trying to earn his trust, and now she’d thrown it all away for . . . what? To save Melinda from a few shocks? It didn’t seem worth it.
I could save her—I could walk right over and shock her, and Forman would let her go. But could I trust him? And even if I could, and he let her go, what had Radha’s choice accomplished? Nothing, except to make me obey Forman. That couldn’t be what she wanted; she’d told me to “never give in.”
He shocked her again, and her scream was loud and primal. The other women were crying, shrinking into themselves, trying to hide from the world that had gone mad around them. Forman pulled back the wires and again offered them to me.
Was Radha’s plan a trick? Had she known that Forman would ask me to help? Was this whole thing designed to give me a weapon—to get my hands on the wires so I could attack him? But she couldn’t have known that would happen, could she? All she had known was what I had told her—that I was a killer, and that I didn’t want to be.
Never give in.
I stood my ground. “I won’t do it.”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“I won’t.”
“Burn in hell, Forman,” said Radha, her voice weak and raw.
“You first,” said Forman, and touched the wires to the chain.
She screamed again, and the planks over the pit shook and jumped and rattled. Forman didn’t pull the wires away this time; he held them there, watching the commotion. I rushed at him but he held up his gun with one hand, keeping the wires on the chain with his other. All three of the other women were screaming now, and I watched helplessly—we were scared out of our minds, but Forman’s face was a snarl of rage. Radha was filling him with rage, and he was embracing it fully.
And then, abruptly, the boards stopped shaking and Radha’s rage disappeared.
It was a visible, physical change—the muscles in Forman’s face and body, so tense with anger, grew softer, then rigid with fear. Instead of hunching over the chain, leaning forward like a predator, he leaned back, eyes wide, horrified. His breathing quickened and he dropped the wires, clutching his chest and swallowing hard. He was sweating, and scooted back, then tried to stand and run but his legs gave way. He crawled toward the women as if seeking shelter, but this only scared them further and they shrank back. Forman howled, an animal scream of terror, and curled up in a fetal position on the floor. The gun lay discarded on the floor nearby. Forman was helpless.
This was Radha’s plan. She’d told me before that he broke down whenever he killed one of them—the emotions from the other women, and from the victim herself at the moment of death, were simply too much for him to handle. They’d never been able to take advantage of it because they’d always been chained up, but I was free. She’d sacrificed herself to put him in this state, for this moment when I could take advantage of it and finish him off.
The wires were closer than the gun, just a few steps away. I picked them up quickly, careful to touch only the plastic, and walked toward Forman. His screaming dulled—he was feeling my clarity now, pushing away the women’s fear and pulling himself together. I didn’t have long. I ran the last few steps and jumped out with the wires, but his hands shot up and caught my wrists at the last second.
How could he be that fast?
I fought to bring the wires down, to touch him anywhere with the exposed metal, but he was too strong. Slowly he grew more focused, more determined, and began to bend my arms back. I expected him to push the wires toward me, but he pushed them out to the sides—he didn’t want the wires to touch me because he was touching me, and I was soaking wet, and any current that passed through me would shock him as well. He didn’t want that to happen, and that meant it would hurt him.
And if it would hurt him, I wanted to do it.
“Never give in,” I said, and reversed the direction of my hands, pulling them towards me instead of away from him. I felt a white fire tear through me, every muscle in my body screaming and flexing and burning at once, and then everything went black.
19
My third date with Brooke was a continuation of our second: we dressed up in gaudy tourist clothes and went to the shoe museum, holding hands and laughing at the rooms and hallways stacked high with shoes. There were grayed felt spats from old military uniforms, and bright Velcro sneakers from the Eighties. There were adjustable wooden molds from England, high wooden sandals from Japan, and heavy wooden clogs from Denmark; there were boots of alligator skin, snake skin, and shark skin. There were novelty slippers with faces and tiny lights. There were running shoes with long metal cleats. There were snowshoes. There were stilts.
I could hear someone’s voice down the hall, familiar but impossible to identify. I turned to ask Brooke if she recognized it, but she was gone. I heard the voice again, and it was Brooke’s voice, and I followed it down a maze of shoes and shelves. The hallways were long, stretching out and converging on a single point; each corner revealed more rooms, more shoes, until at last I realized that the walls themselves were made of shoes, vast piles of them, like a cave hollowed out in an endless mountain of shoes. Brooke’s voice called me on, urging me to wake up. My own shoes were gone now, and my feet were wet and cold. I reached for a pair on the wall and my hand touched bare cement.
I was in Forman’s basement, awake and cold. I was handcuffed to a pipe in the corner. My feet were bare, and my mouth tasted like vomit. I touched my chest gingerly, my muscles sore, and felt two burns where the current had forced its way through my skin and into my body.
“John?”
I looked up and saw the other women looking at me. Stephanie had joined them, chained into the corner where Radha used to be. I didn’t know the others by sight, only by sound, but outside of the pit it was hard to recognize their voices.
“What happened?” I asked, still groggy.
“You got shocked,” said one of the women. She was younger than the other two, but maybe a little older than Stephanie. Jess, maybe? “It knocked you both out.”
“He fell too far for any of us to reach,” said another. “I think I dislocated my wrist trying to reach him.” That had to be Melinda.
“To reach his keys?” I asked.
“Or to kill him,” she said, shrugging coldly. Definitely Melinda.
“Wasn’t the gun right here?” I asked.
“It got knocked over there,” she said, gesturing toward the stairs. She spoke softly. “He took it when he left.”
“So he woke up first,” I said. Maybe he could regenerate, like Crowley had. “How long was he unconscious?”
“An hour, maybe two,” said the last woman; I recognized her voice as Carly. “Same as you. You actually started to move first, but he woke up first and gave you some kind of a shot. We thought it was poison.”
“It was a sedative,” said Jess. �
��That’s the same way he kidnapped me.”
So my guess about the electrical shock had been right—he was just as susceptible to it as a normal human. Maybe he couldn’t regenerate at all. If I could find a way to shock him without getting myself next time, I could stop him.
“Where is he now?” I asked. From the pit in my stomach I guessed that I’d been asleep for several hours; I’d been here for maybe 48 hours now, and hadn’t eaten a thing.
“He left,” said Jess. “He chained you up, then he brought her down, then he left.” She pointed at Stephanie, and I looked at her closer. She was terrified and quiet, curled up in the corner with tears streaking her face.
“Are you okay?” I asked. She nodded dumbly. “What about the woman in the wall?”
She started to cry. “The eyes?”
“She’s still there?”
Stephanie started sobbing uncontrollably.
I closed my eyes. I felt . . . not empathy. Not concern. I felt responsibility. Just like I had with Mr. Crowley, I swore that Forman wouldn’t kill anyone else if I could help it. I’d kill him, and that’s where the killing would end.
The three long-time prisoners stiffened abruptly, heads cocked and listening, eyes going wide. “He’s back,” said Carly.
I listened carefully, but I didn’t hear anything until the front door opened. Footsteps crossed the floor above us, followed by a dull, heavy scrape. He was dragging something. Another prisoner?
We listened in silence as the footsteps moved into the kitchen, then the hall, and on into the back of the house. Several minutes later they came back, and we heard a burst of water in the kitchen sink. The pipe I was chained to rumbled with the noise of rushing water, and a moment later another pipe, thicker this time, trickled lightly as water ran down the drain. It was as if the whole house was an extension of Forman himself, moving and reacting with everything he did. He surrounded us. He controlled us completely.
The door above us opened, and light flooded in from the kitchen. Forman’s silhouette came in, slowly coalescing into a real body as my eyes adjusted to the light.
“You’re awake,” he said. “Excellent.” He came toward me quickly, neither menacing nor cautious. I was too weak to attack him, even if I wanted to—too groggy from the drugs and my two days of hunger. “There’s something I think you should know,” he said, dropping down on one knee to reach my handcuffs. “You’re now officially wanted for the murder of Radha Behar.”
“I didn’t touch her,” I said.
“Early forensic evidence suggests that you did,” said Forman, “including your hair mixed with hers, and your shoes found nearby. But don’t worry—I’m practically in charge of the investigation, and it would be very easy for me to steer it in another direction. Assuming, of course, that you meet with my requirements.”
“You want to know about Mkhai.”
“I’ve given you two chances,” he said, undoing my handcuffs, “and you’ve thrown them away. This is your third. Up we go.”
I rubbed my wrist and struggled to my feet. “What two chances?”
“Two chances to be yourself,” he said. “To live the life you deserve. You’re not one of them,” he said, gesturing at the four terrified women. “You’re not a toy; you’re not a victim cowering in a corner. You’re a warrior, like the legends of old. You killed a god, John. Don’t you want to take his place?”
He took me by the arm and pulled me toward the stairs. I followed unsteadily, trying not to lean on him for balance. My legs didn’t want to respond, and my head felt light.
“I’m not like you,” I said.
“Nobody is,” said Forman, shoving me forward onto the stairs. I grabbed the handrail and tried to climb. “There was nobody like Mkhai, either,” he said, “and there’s nobody like you. You’re a precious snowflake. Now hurry up.”
I climbed the stairs and paused in the kitchen, willing my legs to wake up while Forman locked the door behind us. I was free, but I was too weak to do anything—even when he was completely incapacitated, he’d been able to feel my intentions and protect himself. Did that mean I could only attack him unintentionally? Could I plan some kind of accident?
A cell phone rang, and Forman reached into his pocket. He glanced at the number, smiled, and answered. “Nobody,” he said, “how nice of you to call.” Pause. “No, still nothing. We’re about to find out, though.” He looked at me. “He’s stronger than we thought, and weaker. I can’t wait for you to meet him.” Pause. “Yes, I told you, I’ll call you as soon as I know. Be patient.” Pause. “Bye.” He put the phone away and pointed toward the hall. “After you.”
I started down the hall, keeping a hand on the wall to steady myself. I wondered if there were any more people in the walls, buried and sealed off forever.
“You had Radha in chains, and I gave you my knife, and you refused to hurt her. She liked it, you know—being hurt. She always had a sense of satisfaction when we finished.”
“That’s because she’d survived,” I said.
“And you mortals appreciate the chance to survive,” he said. “Your life is defined by death, and each time you face it you grow stronger. You learn more, and feel more. It sounds stupid to say it like this, but not dying makes you more alive.”
“What defines you demons?” I asked.
“The things we lack.”
We passed his bedroom, moving down the hall to the torture room. My legs were growing firmer again; blood was flowing more strongly, and my balance was better.
I wondered who was in the room—it had to be someone I knew. Who would he force me to torture? My mother? My sister? Brooke?
“Your second chance came when she was in the pit,” said Forman, “and that should have been an easy one: you didn’t have to hurt her directly or even see her face, just touch the wires to the chain. It would have been a kindness, in fact, because it would have saved her life. But still you did nothing.”
“I don’t want to hurt people,” I insisted.
“That’s what you keep saying,” said Forman, “but it didn’t stop you from hurting Mkhai, and it didn’t stop you from attacking me in the basement. We all have our tastes, of course, and I just had to realize that I wasn’t addressing yours properly. You didn’t hurt Radha because she was innocent, and you only hurt the wicked. So, I brought you somebody wicked.”
We turned into the torture room and there he was: Curt, my sister’s attacker, bound and gagged and completely at my mercy.
He was awake; his eyes were wide, and his mouth was sealed tight with a thick wrap of duct tape. His feet were securely fastened to floor, where Forman had broken through the hardwood and run thick lengths of chain through the heavy floor supports. His hands were bound at the wrists by ropes that ran up and into the holes in the ceiling, but where Stephanie had been hanging loosely, Curt had somehow been pulled tight. He was spread-eagled, held firmly in place.
Curt stared at me, with wide, scared eyes that said he didn’t know what to think. I’d been missing for almost two days, and he was sure to have heard about it, and I definitely looked like a prisoner—I was covered in dried muck from the pit, with burn marks on my shirt and vomit crusted on my clothes, and I could barely walk. It wasn’t hard to guess that I was a prisoner and a victim. And yet I was here, unbound, and Forman was treating me so graciously. Like an equal. If Curt had heard any of what Forman had said in the hall, he’d be even more confused.
And more terrified.
“There he is,” said Forman. “You learn a lot of things working in a police station—like how a certain Mrs. Cleaver calls every fifteen minutes to rant about her daughter’s abusive boyfriend. ‘Arrest him. Lock him up. Kill him.’ But there’s not a lot the law can do in a case like this, is there?” He walked over to the dresser and began sifting through the tools. “Women in abusive relationships are, by nature, accepting of abuse, and poor little Lauren was too browbeaten to accuse her browbeater formally. She actually told the paramedics she’d fall
en out of bed, if you can you believe it.” He held up a flathead screwdriver, examined the tip, and put it back down. “They didn’t believe it either, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it. If the victim says there was no abuse, the law says there was no abuse. The law is helpless.” He turned and held up an old, dirty scalpel. “But you’re not.”
He stepped toward me and offered the scalpel. “This is what you want, right? You’re a punishing angel. You won’t hurt anyone, for any reason, unless they deserve it—and who deserves it more than Curt? You saw what he did to your sister. And don’t think he stopped there—he got away with it, after all, so what’s to stop him from doing it again? He can slap her and punch her and beat her until she falls unconscious, and he’ll always get away with it. Nothing can stop him.”
He placed the scalpel in my hand. “Nothing but you.”
Curt was shaking his head wildly, tears filling his eyes, but I didn’t see him as a victim—all I saw was Lauren’s face, red and purple and black. She had a cut on her cheekbone, right where I did; I reached up and touched my face, feeling the scab. I deserved mine, but Lauren had been completely innocent. Curt had beaten her in cold blood.
I stepped toward him. Wasn’t this the same decision I’d made with Mr. Crowley? To stop a bad man from hurting the innocent? I’d tried to tell the cops, and they’d ended up dead. Crowley had been a situation the law couldn’t deal with; it was me or nobody. I’d stopped him because nobody else could, and now that was true again. The law was helpless—the only plan the police had was to sit and wait while he beat her more, again and again, until at last she finally decided to accuse him. Could I, in good conscience, allow that to happen? Not when I could stop it, forever, right here and now.
I stepped forward.
But no, this was different. Crowley was a killer—a supernatural killer—and killing him was the only way to stop him. He was killing more than once a week by the end—how many more people would be dead now, six months later, if I hadn’t stepped in? But Curt was not a killer, and his punishment could not be death. It was too much. I couldn’t do it. I stepped back.