Cruel: A Dark Psychological Thriller: (A Necrosis of the Mind Duet 1)

by Trisha Wolfe

  He lets his hands fall away from the door and, without any words, turns slowly to face me. Eyebrows drawn together, he drags his gaze over me. My white Oxford is open in front. I make no move to cover myself.

  With cautious movements, Alex steps closer and takes his keys from my grasp. I forgot I was holding them. He slips the keyring into his pocket, then his hand goes to my waist, startling me.

  Eyes cast downward, he flattens the back of his hand along my stomach. I can’t help it; I flinch at the tender feel, my belly tensing instinctively.

  He traces his knuckles upward, his touch gentle and examining, as if he’s learning the curves of my body. My breath stills in my lungs as he reaches the contour between my breasts. His fingertips rove over the delicate arch of one breast, allowing him to trace the shape, and I’m studying his features, expressions, the way he looks pained, and trying to understand what’s causing that pain.

  Alex abruptly stops. As he reaches the divot of my breastbone, he secures the top button of the shirt. He fastens it, then works his way down gradually to close the shirt.

  He clasps my face between both hands, those blue eyes intense. “A subject has never made me feel so weak.”

  “That’s because I’m not a subject. I’m a woman.”

  He releases me with a forced breath. “You’re a parasite.”

  I lift my chin, defiant. “And yet that doesn’t change how badly you want me.” I lick my lips to wet them. “You’re the one with the illness, Alex. Why don’t you just give in? Accept that you can’t cure me, that there’s nothing to cure.”

  He steps backward, moving down the stairs. His face is level with mine. “It damn near breaks me…I’ve never wanted a woman more.” He takes another step down. “But not like this. Not without you able to reciprocate what I feel. It can’t happen any other way—that would make me more vile than the fiend who put my sister in the ground.”

  He starts down the stairs, letting his words hang in the dark between us. Before he’s gone, I make sure he hears me. “If you actually succeed…the feelings I’ll have for you won’t be what you want, Alex.”

  “I’m willing to risk that,” he says.

  A chill touches my skin and I cross my arms. I look at the cabin door. If there’s any chance of escape, it’s not through here. No, hiding that door, keeping me in the basement, isn’t a means of security. That cabin belongs to him.

  His own personal ninth circle of hell.

  When I enter the basement, Alex is waiting for me with the leather cuffs in his hands. For now, I accept my temporary fate. I won’t find a way out of here by physically overpowering him, or seducing him.

  Alex plays on a psychological playing field, and I need access to that chamber locked away in his mind, the one with all the ticking clocks.

  That’s my way out.

  I hold out my wrists to him, and he locks a cuff into place. He won’t meet my eyes, his gaze distant and evasive. I’ve pushed him too far tonight, but not far enough to snap.

  He leaves the room, and I sit on the cot and pull my knees to my chest. He returns with the jogging pants I left in the shower room.

  “I would appreciate it if you stayed clothed,” he says.

  I huff a soundless laugh. “Sure. Anything for my captor’s comfort.”

  Alex appears to temper a retort, and instead leaves the room again. He’s not gone long when he returns with a hammer and nail. I watch curiously as he drives the nail into the wall opposite me.

  He removes the keyring from his pocket and hooks it on the nail. So I can stare at it. Knowing it’s just out of reach. A cruel taunt.

  “It’s late…or early,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’ll begin in a few hours. Get some sleep.”

  The lights dim as he leaves the room, shutting the curtain behind him. I hear a door close. The one I always hear, that leads to his lab. He doesn’t go to his dark room of clocks.

  I sit in silence for a long time just staring at the keys on the wall.

  Maybe I failed, or maybe I stirred something in Alex that will prove useful. I’m not sure what damage I may or may not have caused—but I am sure of one thing.

  I read Toyota on one of the silver keys while I was trying to unlock the door. Which means there’s a vehicle somewhere close.

  18

  Monster

  Alex

  Since our inception, humans have been consumed with the concept of time. The ancient Maya believed it was their sacred onus to keep time on its course, using mathematics and astronomy to develop a calendar that is as near accurate to the one we now use.

  The ancient Egyptians revered their sun god, placing obelisks at the mouth of tombs to capture the rays of the sun and revive the dead. Those sun monuments served as a way to tell the time of day, a derivative of the sundial. They valued time even in death, mummifying those they honored to withstand the test of time.

  From the Sumerian sexagesimal system, the water clocks of the Zhou dynasty, Egyptian shadow clocks, to the Frankish hourglass, every civilization has made a sacred practice of recording the passage of time.

  My personal favorite is the pendulum clock. First to analyze the pendulum’s properties, Galileo discovered isochronism, simply meaning the pendulum maintains a constant period despite variations. Which he realized was exceedingly useful in timekeeping.

  This method of keeping time was the most accurate up until the mid-twentieth century, when physicists proved atoms were the ultimate timekeepers. Introduction of the atomic clock changed the length of the second as we knew it, and opened a doorway into the future where the writings of H. G. Wells may become fact rather than fiction.

  According to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, a clock at rest appears to slow when compared to a clock traveling at a fast rate, thus giving credence to theories of time travel. I’ve dabbled in my own temporal theories, the results proving that particles traveling at virtually the speed of light decay slower than those at a latent state.

  The history of time, a witticism in its own right. The desire to crack the space-time continuum is as deeply rooted in personal desire as it is in need of a scientific breakthrough.

  However, there is only one truth every scientist can agree upon as cited by Einstein himself: there is no “master clock” for the universe. Time is relative to the observer.

  As I am Blakely’s observer, I pay special attention to how I see her, which is no longer through the lens of a microscope. A dangerous shift in perspective.

  An image of her standing before me, shirt draped open, her beautiful breasts on display, covers my vision and suddenly even the air is tactile. I can feel the weight of her on top of me. Feel her soft skin as I graze my knuckles down her belly.

  I drag my hands over my face, as if I can wipe her from my thoughts. She’s an infection invading my system. That’s why I’ve barricaded myself in the dark room, letting the maddening tick of the clocks drive her out.

  I stare at the one pendant of light in the room, the bare bulb strung in the middle. I have no use for the glaring clarity of daylight today. My chair is positioned right in front of the newest clock. It’s a basic, round wall clock. Black and white. A pendulum protrudes from the bottom, oscillating back and forth, ticking the seconds away.

  It’s beautiful in its simplicity. That’s why I chose it. Classic, sleek, modern. Hard. It suits her perfectly.

  Cold sweat beads along my brow as I extend my hand toward the swinging pendulum. Light reflects off the steel every time it ticks a full second, sending a fracted shard of light onto my palm.

  As I watch, absorbed in the comforting rhythm, I speculate if electroshock could work as a time machine and send Blakely’s mind back to a moment before she entered this room.

  The way she looked at me—the judgment in her cool eyes—as she stood amid the clocks…

  I close my eyes and curse. The errant thought creeps into my mind, questioning if I chose Blakely for the project or my own selfish needs. />
  I stand and knock the chair backward. The jarring scrape of the legs against the wood floor is barely heard over the relentless ticking, but it’s enough to interrupt my spiral.

  Fist clenched, I grip the latest variant of the reagent. With every subject, with every failure, I adjust the chemical compound.

  My heart rate increases as I open my palm and stare at the vial. I prepared the mixture for the newest subject, determined to get it right. Not to fail again. I prepared it before I knew the newest subject was Blakely.

  I glance at her clock again, desperation flooding my system with adrenaline.

  Five clocks no longer tick. Their hands point to the time each of the prior subjects expired.

  Died.

  I hear Blakely’s voice correcting me, calling out my lies.

  You’re a murderer.

  “I’m a scientist.” Every breakthrough requires sacrifice. A mantra I’ve been reciting for over two years. I cannot let my subject—no matter how tempting—deter me from that achievement.

  I clutch the vial and leave the room.

  The time for theoretical hypothesis is done. The only way to test my theory is to administer the reagent.

  As I descend the stairs, I hear a scratching noise. I draw back the curtain to find Blakely scraping the edge of the chain against the cement floor.

  She looks up, her hair tangled over her shoulders. Apparently she was right about the shampoo, but the wild look is sexy on her. Everything is sexy on her.

  “No TV. No books. If you don’t kill me, the boredom will,” she says. “Figured I’d compose my autobiography right here on the floor. Give the next subject something entertaining to read.”

  The disdain in her voice gives me hope that my timing is right. She cannot be lethargic or uncommitted. Some range of emotion is needed as a base for the treatment to be a success.

  I head to the cart and unwrap a sterile syringe. She hasn’t questioned what she saw upstairs—or what transpired between us. She hasn’t pushed…because she knows it’s a sensitive matter. She’s either wary about forcing the subject, or she’s saving it for later. An ace up her sleeve that she can use to unnerve me.

  “I’ll bring you a journal,” I say, as I hold the vial up to fill the syringe.

  “With a pen?”

  “Of course.”

  “Aren’t you worried I’ll stab my jugular?”

  I turn to face her, and her gaze goes to the syringe in my hand. “I didn’t perceive you as suicidal. Should I be worried?”

  Blakely drops the chain, purposeful in her intent to cause a disturbance. “As you studied me, stalked me, know everything about me…I guess you don’t have that to worry about.”

  I hold up the syringe and flick the tube, ridding it of any bubbles. I decide to steal her thunder, as it were, and remove the future opportunity to vilify me with her words.

  Taking a seat on the stool opposite her, I say, “In my room, every clock was set to the conception of a new idea. A hypothesis. A theory. An experiment. A subject. Anything of importance that I deemed deserving of documentation, I made it tangible by giving it a way to track its own timeline.”

  Blakely brings her legs beneath her, chains rattling with her movement. “Well, your little room of horror looks a lot like if Salvador Dali painted his version of a void.”

  Amused, I raise an eyebrow. “Your assessment isn’t far off. That void’s name is Musou black. The blackest paint in existence. It consumes light, allowing nothing to reflect off its surface. I wanted only my clocks to exist in the room.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You believe I know so much about you, therefore I feel you should know something about me in return.”

  “Do I have a clock, Alex?”

  A hesitant pause, then: “Yes.”

  She’s silent for a long beat, her watchful eyes never wavering. “I bet you have a real hard-on for Dali.”

  A smile twitches at my lips. “I hope you don’t lose your edge, Blakely.”

  She stands suddenly. “Then don’t take it from me, Alex.”

  I glance at the syringe in my hand, a heavy weight filling my chest. “I simply have no choice.”

  I push off the stool and have her in my grasp. She attempts to wrap the chain around my neck, but I step on the length, locking her wrists by her sides. Hand clamped to the back of her neck, I stare down into her face. Those piercing eyes promise malice.

  “I’ll try to be gentle.”

  “Go to hell.”

  I sink the needle into her arm and watch as her pupils dilate. Blakely becomes docile, her body going slack, and I quickly wrap an arm around her waist to catch her. I carry her to the gurney and lay her on the bedding, removing the chains and securing her cuffs to the side bars.

  As I ready the drip bag with anesthesia, she croaks out a word.

  “What did you say?” The combination of the drug and the anesthesia is dangerous, and I have to adjust the dose carefully.

  When she says nothing more, I clip the bag to the bar and insert the needle into her arm. She’ll be completely under in less than a minute.

  “I was thinking about time earlier,” I say, as I place adhesive over the tube on her arm to keep it in place, “and how if only I could send you on a course at the speed of light, I could slow the necrosis in your brain…maybe even revert the process.”

  She swallows, straining to keep her eyes open and locked on me.

  “That’s absurd, I know. A foolish, whimsical theory that has no basis.” I stroke her hair, my fingers splaying the blond layers over her shoulder. “If there was a way to do this differently…for you, I assure you, I’d try.”

  But that’s not our reality. The desire to cure her must outweigh the risk. No matter the pain, no matter the torture for us both.

  I won’t fail her.

  “I think about that moment between us outside the warehouse,” I say, as she starts to fall under. “When my emotions were soaring, when you asked me how I felt, to describe it to you. What you were truly asking me for was this right here. You were pleading with me to help you, Blakely—and I’ve never wanted anything more.”

  Her lips move, and I lean in to get closer.

  “You’re not the doctor…you’re the monster,” she whispers. A reference to Frankenstein.

  I stay close to her as the drug infuses her bloodstream. I watch her chest rise and fall, her breaths becoming shallow as the drug drags her further down. Her eyes finally give up the fight and close.

  I inhale her scent, filling my lungs with the searing ache, then reverently touch the scratch marks on my cheek. I look at my pocket watch to record the time. “In this moment, we are both monsters.”

  19

  The Little Death

  Blakely

  I don’t have to notch my walls with the days like some old-school convict. The measure of time is all around me.

  Every time Alex checks his watch. Every time he drives a hand through his hair in frustration with an unwanted result. Every cruel procedure he subjects me to is logged with date and time. After nearly three weeks, I’ve underwent twelve electroshock sessions, including the first where I felt every millisecond of torture.

  Today’s treatment will be lucky number thirteen.

  My mind is foggy and detached. I touch my forehead and blink hard, trying to recall the last conversation I had with Rochelle. She’s the closest thing I have to a friend, or had… Our talk in her office comes to me in fragments, her ironed face a blur and difficult to picture.

  My whole life before feels distanced.

  Side effects of the drugs and electroshock. Memory loss one of the most prominent. Alex claims he’s curing me of my illness, but if he doesn’t kill me, all he’ll achieve is frying my brain.

  I’ll become a hollow vessel. Vacant and lifeless. I suppose he can then claim I’m cured, as I’ll have nothing left that makes me me. I’ll be one of those drooling, empty-eyed, comatose patients in a constant stu
por.

  I hope he kills me.

  Night is the only time Alex allows me out for fresh air, like some caged animal. And only at the top of the basement stairs, not daring to risk another attempted escape. I spend my fifteen minutes staring at the stars. They’re brilliant here, unlike the city, where they have to compete against the big, bright lights.

  After that night in the staircase, Alex hasn’t looked at me longer than the seconds necessary to mark an observation. He hasn’t touched me other than to get an updated brain scan. By keeping his distance, he’s assuring he won’t make a mistake—that he won’t give me the chance to get close to him again.

  With what mental capacity I have left, I open the notebook to the marked page. Alex did give me a journal. And a pen. I know he reads it while I’m under, so today I write a passage I hope will reach him. One last attempt to unchain myself from this fate.

  For some reason, as I touch the pen to the page, an image of Ericson in his wrinkled business suit pops into my head. I can smell the coffee, feel the metal spoon in my hand. I close my eyes and see the words on the page, the notes I’d taken of my target.

  That’s who I was. I despise the fact that a memory of Ericson—the piece of shit that he is—is what awakens me, but I hold on to it regardless, because it’s what binds me to Blakely and her life.

  Then I write:

  The forest sky is blood, the trees black veins. Decay is the wind that whispers through the limbs, corrosive, destructive. Like the rotted soil devouring the roots, he poisons my body, stealing that vital essence which makes me alive.

  Shadows can’t exist without the sun, yet the stars burn like an inferno against the inky black, casting me in the deepest shadow of darkness. An inescapable void where he chains the lock.