Hangman

by Jack Heath

  He’s out the door before I register what he’s said. Philip Hall. Plus me. Plus the five other prisoners.

  Seven dead. He’s going to kill us all.

  •

  I hear his car start in the garage. The automatic door rolls up, and closes again once he’s left.

  I don’t know where he’s going, or why, or how long he’ll be gone. I’m certain of only two things. One: I have to be gone before he gets back. And two: there’s no way out of here.

  The handcuffs are too tight to slip out of. I’ve been pulling constantly since I woke up, but each one gets jammed up against my thumb and the other side of my wrist, where they cut deep grooves into my flesh. My feet are a similar story. I have no hope of getting either fetter past my ankle.

  I could use the tools hanging from the walls to break the chains. A power drill, a hacksaw, a pair of pliers. But Luzhin isn’t stupid. They are placed well out of reach. No objects of any kind are within range of my clutching hands or kicking feet.

  I’m useless now. My skills are noticing things and reading people. I’m not an escape artist or a strongman. Now that I know Luzhin is the killer, my abilities are redundant.

  Not that they did me much good. I never suspected Luzhin, not even a little. Even Thistle trusted him, and she’s at least as smart as me. No one else will have figured out the truth.

  Perhaps I can engineer a rescue. There’s tape over my mouth, but Luzhin made a crucial mistake. If I stretch my face upwards and my hands downwards, I can grab the corner of the tape. My hand is sweaty, so it takes a while to get a good grip—but once I’ve got it, the tape tears off quickly and easily.

  ‘Help!’ I scream. ‘Somebody help us! Help!’

  I listen. At first there’s nothing. And then a distant muffled mumbling sound. For a joyous moment I think I’ve succeeded—and then I realise it’s one of the other prisoners sobbing.

  They’ve tried this before, and it didn’t work.

  ‘Help!’ I yell again. ‘Please! Somebody!’

  The house I shared with John Johnson was never truly silent. It was quiet, sometimes, but I could always hear the distant roar of traffic or the soft mutterings of the neighbour’s TV.

  This isn’t like that. There is a complete absence of noise from outside. The foam mattresses suck up all sound. Shouting will do nothing.

  I’m a death row inmate. Not here by choice, yet because of my choices. I’m waiting for a visitor who will kill me and then secretly dispose of my body.

  How long will Thistle look for me? A month, maybe, before she decides that the trail has gone cold. She might believe I’m living in hiding somewhere, but most cops know that no one ever really gets away with anything, long-term. Eventually she’ll assume that I got what I deserved, and she’ll be right.

  I bang my wrists against the wall and my ankles against the floor and roar through clenched teeth until the whole mess sounds like a chainsaw going through a chain-link fence. I didn’t live through my parents’ murders and the group home and sleeping under a bridge and the pyromaniac roommate and the drug-dealing roommate and everything else that happened to me just to wind up here.

  I look up at my hands.

  They’re good hands. They’ve served me well until now.

  Before I have time to change my mind, I put my left thumb into my mouth and bite down, just past the biggest knuckle.

  Hot blood rushes down my throat as the skin and muscle split, sending a shock of agony spiralling up my arm. Soon my teeth hit the metacarpal, bone on bone, and I try to chomp through it. But the skeleton is too strong.

  I relax my jaw and release my mangled thumb. If I don’t get free and find something to stem the blood flow in the next few minutes, I’m going to go into hypovolaemic shock. So I grab the thumb with my other hand, and bend it until I feel the bone snap. A jagged shard erupts through the skin, and I put the whole mess back in my mouth and keep chewing and tearing.

  With one last crunch, the thumb finally pops loose from the rest of my hand. I swallow without thinking, and it goes down my oesophagus like a gristly cocktail weenie.

  I pull.

  My thumbless hand still won’t fit through the cuff.

  I moan with horror as I realise that I’ve mutilated myself for no reason, and that I’ll be dead before Luzhin even returns.

  I pull again, harder.

  My hand slips out with a slick rattle.

  It takes a second for me to realise I’m giggling. My mad chuckles echo through the dark. I tell myself that I’m just relieved, but maybe it’s more than that. Maybe I’ve completely lost my mind. The nine-fingered cannibal, laughing at himself in the shadows.

  With my left arm free, I have more reach. Stretching out sideways, I grab the leg of Luzhin’s workbench. My hand slips off the first time, because my thumb isn’t there to grip one side. But the second time I get a better hold of it. It’s fixed to the wall, but not well. I can shake it.

  I pull and push and pull and push until something jangles to the floor. A monkey wrench. No good—not unless I want to smash all the bones in my feet to get them out of the fetters. I keep shaking the bench.

  Thunk. The power drill falls to the floor. I drag it over.

  I check that the bit is in and switch it to counterclockwise mode. My cuffs are welded to a steel plate above my head, which is attached to the wall by four fat screws. I jam the bit into one of the screw tops and pull the trigger.

  Blood dribbles onto my forehead as the drill whirrs. Soon the screw is loose enough to yank out and toss away. I get started on the second screw, already feeling a little dizzy.

  As a little boy, I wondered if dying people could keep themselves alive with sheer willpower. I never seemed to fall asleep against my will, no matter how tired I was, so I couldn’t see why death would be any different.

  Screw number three comes loose. I struggle to line up the bit with the last one.

  It seemed like if my parents had loved me enough, mere bullets shouldn’t have stopped them from staying with me.

  I’m regressing. I’m begging myself to stay alive, like it’s a choice.

  Screw number four is out. I tear the plate off the wall. With both arms free, I can take off my shirt and wrap it around my crippled hand. The fabric flushes red instantly. I hold it in place while I drill the screws that bind my fetters to the floor.

  Maybe it’s for the best that I swallowed my thumb. Without it I might not have the energy to keep going.

  One screw loose, one to go. I keep drilling, the tool trembling in my grasp, until the last one is out. I’m free.

  I climb to my feet and stagger over to Annette Hall, loose chains jingling. Pale, no shirt, covered in blood—I must not look like much of a rescuer.

  ‘Stay quiet,’ I tell her hoarsely. She makes no sign that she’s heard or understood.

  I tear the tape off her mouth. It comes easily, and there’s a lipstick kiss on the sticky side—he must have used the same strip of tape over and over.

  ‘Where does he keep the key?’ I ask.

  She gags, and I realise there’s still something in her mouth. I put my fingers between her lips and pull out a wadded-up tube sock.

  ‘You’ve got to get us out of here,’ she says. Her voice has an early-morning croak to it. She hasn’t spoken in days.

  ‘Where’s the key to your cuffs?’

  ‘He keeps it on him.’

  That’s when I hear the garage door winding upwards, and she screams.

  CHAPTER 24

  What crime is punished if attempted, but not if committed?

  I slap my hand over Annette’s mouth. Luzhin is probably coming down here either way, but I’d prefer it happened later rather than sooner. He’s still in his car at the moment—I can faintly hear the engine noise, the squeaking brakes.

  If I ran, I could probably make it out of the house before Luzhin came inside. Then I could call Thistle from a neighbour’s phone and summon backup. But when he saw the police coming, Luzhin
might kill his prisoners to keep them quiet.

  If I stay, and Luzhin comes down here, I won’t be able to fight him. I’m already bleeding to death. He’ll kill me, and the prisoners won’t be any better off. No one will know they’re down here. And without a key, it’s not like I can get them out, can I?

  You could bite off all their thumbs, says the crazy, hungry part of my brain.

  Remembering the sledgehammer I used to free Robert the first time around, I quickly scan the room. Some regular-size hammers, some wrenches. No sledges.

  One day, no matter what, my life will end. At least today I have the opportunity to get killed trying to do something good.

  ‘I’m getting you all out of here,’ I whisper. ‘But you gotta stay quiet.’

  I take my hand off Annette’s mouth. She shrinks away while I jam the drill bit into the screw top and pull the trigger.

  The drill squeals, and the screw comes out surprisingly fast. The old brickwork crumbles around it. I tell myself the mattresses will stop Luzhin from hearing us.

  ‘Can you walk?’ I ask.

  She nods. ‘He takes us up to the bathroom every day.’

  I unwind all four screws, and the metal plate clangs to the floor. Next in line is Robert Shea. I start drilling again. ‘He won’t want to kill us in his regular clothes,’ I whisper. ‘He’ll go upstairs to change into something disposable. When he does, we can sneak out the front door together. Then we’re gonna run like hell. Got it?’

  Robert’s plate falls off the wall, and I catch it. ‘By the way, tell Jane Austin she saved your life,’ I say. I might not make it out of here alive, and she deserves to know.

  I start unscrewing Larry Shea. He’s a big guy, but not as big as Luzhin, and he looks hungry and frail. He won’t be much help if Luzhin comes down here. The screws are taking longer than they should—I have to pull the trigger of the drill with my mangled hand and steady it with the other. Larry mumbles something through his tape.

  I peel it off and pull out another sock. ‘What?’

  ‘Let my wife go first,’ he gasps.

  ‘Shut up,’ I tell him. If I had time to think about that sort of decision, I wouldn’t have released the child molester first. I yank the last screw out and the plate falls off the wall.

  ‘Wait at the top of the stairs,’ I tell him, as I start working on Celine’s chains.

  ‘Not without my wife,’ he says, but with less conviction.

  ‘Standing here won’t get her out any faster,’ I grunt. I could add that Robert is better off with one parent than none at all, but I’m already undoing the last screw. Husband and wife run up the stairs and huddle by the door with Robert.

  Last is Cameron Hall. Photographer, trumpeter, friendless. The boy I’ve been hunting for weeks now. The one who was screwed up by his mother, literally. The one I was so sure would be dead. I start working on his chains.

  ‘You’re gonna get us all killed,’ Annette Hall says.

  I keep drilling.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Annette says. ‘That front door is loud. Two deadbolts and a chain. We can get it open, but it’ll take a minute, and he’ll hear us. He’ll just come down the stairs and shoot us.’

  ‘I left the back door unlocked,’ I say. But it’s hard to imagine all six of us clambering over that fence, silently, in our condition. And I know from my previous visit that Luzhin’s bedroom window overlooks the backyard. If he sees us while he’s getting changed…

  ‘I have a better plan,’ Annette says.

  I yank Cameron’s plate free. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Cam and the others can hide in the guest bedroom on the ground floor. I’ll pretend to be still chained to the wall in here. When the son of a bitch opens the basement door, he’ll see me. He won’t realise the others are gone until he comes down the stairs. You can hide under the stairs and trip him when he’s halfway down. Then we’ll overpower him together while the others open the front door and run for help.’

  ‘Mom,’ Cameron says uncertainly, ‘you gotta come with me.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘He’ll open the door expecting to see me right there. I have to stay.’

  I hesitate. It’s a good plan. Annette has had a few days to observe Luzhin’s house and his movements. In a way, she knows him better than I do.

  She’s effectively risking her own life—and mine—to save her son and three other people. I wouldn’t have thought she was the type.

  ‘Trust me,’ she says. ‘This will work.’

  I’m too dizzy to argue. I’ve lost a lot of blood.

  ‘Okay,’ I say.

  ‘Go,’ Annette tells Cameron. ‘Hide in the guest bedroom and don’t make a sound. Okay, baby? Not a sound until you hear us yelling. Then you run. Out the front door.’

  Cameron’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can,’ she says, and kisses him on the cheek. ‘Go. Now!’

  Still Cameron hesitates. She pushes him away. ‘Go!’

  He runs up the stairs to the others. They disappear through the basement door. Cameron closes it behind him.

  Annette and I stare one another down in the dark. She doesn’t know that I know the truth. She raped her son—but now she’s putting her life on the line to save him and five other people.

  Children fear that monsters exist. Adults fear that they don’t—that the world is just a jigsaw of screwed-up people with good qualities as well as bad.

  ‘Did you have sex with Cameron?’ I ask.

  She looks at me for a long time. Too long to be innocent.

  ‘No,’ she says finally.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘He asked me.’ Her voice is quiet. Worn down. ‘The fucked-up thing is, I wanted to say yes. But once you open a door like that, you can’t close it again.’

  I don’t know what to say to that.

  ‘Don’t screw this up,’ she says, and puts the black hood back on her head. She holds the metal plate against the wall as though it’s still bolted in.

  ‘Do I look okay?’ she asks.

  I don’t have time to respond. Quiet footsteps approach the basement door. Luzhin is coming.

  The power drill is still by Annette’s feet. I snatch it up and scramble out of sight under the stairs just in time. Luzhin opens the door above my head, casting a rectangle of light across Annette. I can see her through the gaps between the stairs.

  I wait for him to walk down the stairs.

  He doesn’t.

  A gunshot rings out.

  Brain matter explodes out of Annette’s hooded head. Her whole body goes limp in an instant. She slumps to the floor. The metal plate lands on her, and she doesn’t react.

  Luzhin storms halfway down the stairs, ready to shoot the other prisoners—he must have decided to do us all quickly, like pulling off a bandaid—but he hesitates when he sees the fallen plate.

  I don’t give him time to figure it out. I pull the trigger on the power drill and shove it between the steps.

  Luzhin shrieks as the drill pierces his ankle. The spinning bit turns his skin to ribbons and punches a neat hole into the bone.

  Luzhin’s ankle collapses under him and he tumbles down the stairs, still screaming. I hear his forearm crunch as he hits the floor, but Annette Hall’s corpse cushions the blow to his head. He’s still holding the gun.

  I scramble around the corner and run up the stairs, but Luzhin recovers quickly. The bullet travels faster than the speed of sound, so I see the blood burst from my chest before I hear the shot. I trip on the last step and land half in, half out of the basement.

  My pectoral muscle feels like it’s filled with razorblades. Shredded flesh rubs against a shattered rib as I drag myself through the basement door and kick it closed behind me.

  The front door is wide open. The other prisoners must have fled when they heard the first shot. I should run too, but I can’t even stand up. I’ve lost too much blood.

  I can hear Luzhin limping up the stairs. I
can’t drag myself away from the door. But I have just enough strength to reach up and slide the bolt across, trapping Luzhin in his own dungeon.

  Luzhin fumbles with the door. It stays closed.

  There’s a thud as he kicks the door from the other side. It stays shut.

  He kicks again, but not hard enough. I guess he can’t put any weight on his ruined ankle. He’s trapped.

  So get the fuck up, Timothy.

  Instead, I let my eyelids flutter closed.

  Silence. Long enough for Luzhin to realise that his other prisoners are long gone. It’s over.

  I drift off to sleep for a moment before another gunshot wakes me up. I look up at the bolt sealing the door. Intact.

  A thud from inside the basement.

  My eyes drift closed again.

  •

  It’s impossible to tell how much later I feel rough hands rolling me over. I want to tell whoever it is to go away, but I’m too tired even to open my mouth. Someone is calling my name, but I’m not sure if they’re real or if they’re part of the dream world that’s pulling me in, as slow and strong as a coastal tide.

  Hands roam across my chest, strong palms finding their mark, and it’s only now that I realise I’m not breathing. I try to start again, but it’s like I’ve forgotten how. I’m dizzy. I’m dying.

  Thump! The first shove of the CPR cracks another rib, but the pain is on the other side of aquarium-thick glass. After another whack, there’s nothing. Maybe my rescuer has spotted the bullet wound. Or maybe he’s still going, but I can’t feel it anymore. I’m no longer half dead—closer to three-quarters.

  A mouth covers my own and air rushes into my lungs, so much that I feel like I might burst. I’m getting CPR from someone who learned it the old way. Who learned mouth-to-mouth as well as compressions.

  The lips are soft, full. I recognise them. The woman who’s trying to save me—the woman who, for some reason, thinks I’m worth saving—is Agent Reese Thistle. Bringing me back to life with a kiss.

  I black out.