Dangerous Savior

by Wulff, Carson

  Ethan doesn’t know if his own illicit attraction to Tom makes the plan easier or harder.

  Lines are blurring already—he’s not sure where the attraction he’s been experiencing is coming from, so overwhelming that it overpowers his fear and common sense.

  Jed grunts as the chains are fastened around his arms, but he keeps his mouth shut, which surprises Ethan. The skin around his left eye is purple. Whatever part isn’t swollen completely shut is crusted over with drying blood. His mouth is bleeding actively, more than just a split lip. Sure enough, when Jed bears his teeth to growl a protest at Tom’s roughness, he’s missing several of his front teeth.

  No wonder Jed isn’t talking.

  Something tells Ethan that it was talking that got Jed’s teeth knocked out in the first place.

  So it feels like delicious payback when Ethan looks at Tom and says, “Hey, I’m so sorry about the cell phone. I completely forgot about it. I should have told you it was in there.”

  Tom pauses as Ethan speaks. Listens.

  Ethan struggles to come up with something more believable to add, but his head is too foggy to come up with anything better.

  For a moment Ethan doesn’t think he’s going to get a reply, but just barely perceptibly, Tom nods as if in acceptance of Ethan’s words.

  Ethan can’t believe such a feeble apology didn’t arouse suspicion. How sheltered is this man from modern society? He must be extremely sheltered if he doesn’t know that cell phones are a lifeline most people wouldn’t forget. Ethan almost laughs out loud at the fact that he did indeed forget he had it for a hot minute.

  Jed, despite his busted mouth, does laugh; a cruel, choking sound. “Really boy? You forgot you had your phone on you?”

  It’s easy for Ethan to shoot a glare down at the man when they’re both tied up, unable to reach each other.

  “People your age are glued to those things. Who are you trying to fool?”

  Ethan isn’t trying to fool anyone—and even if he was, it’s in Jed’s best interest to shut his mouth and help Ethan escape. Or is Jed sharp enough to know that Ethan would think twice about helping the bikers that abused him?

  Or at least, Ethan tells himself he would think twice. In reality though, Ethan’s not sure he could live with knowing his own actions led to someone else’s death. Even if that someone else is Jed.

  There’s a guilt that’s sure to come, there. The guilt of standing by. Doing nothing. A bystander’s shame. Ethan’s seen it worn on others throughout his life, had that shame spilled in apologies at his feet when his so-called friends stood by while the middle-school bullies slammed Ethan against lockers for being too close to their girlfriends.

  Ethan couldn’t help it, he’s always gotten along with women better than men. Always found himself desiring friendships built on communication and mutual respect rather than what he found in men his own age—which was all about posturing and liking the same sports rather than anything meaningful.

  Maybe that inclination towards befriending the opposite gender was the first sign of his sexuality. That disconnect of not relating to the straight men around him, obsessed with sports and cars and girls. His female friends, however, were obsessed with the same things as him—namely… guys.

  “Who are you trying to fool, boy?” Jed repeats, antagonistic. “What do you think, they’ll let you out of this? You know what they want us for, don’t you? They’re fucking cannibals.”

  This whole time, Tom has studiously paid Jed no mind, but at this he turns to shuffle through some drawers on the workbench across from the table.

  The freezer humming in the corner of the basement becomes much more ominous.

  Ethan tells himself to relax. Takes a deep breath. He knew. He already knew. There have been enough context clues this entire time to point to this being a family of cannibals. The thought has crossed his mind several times over.

  But that doesn’t mean he wants to believe it.

  Ethan closes his eyes. Accepts that cannibals might be exactly what he’s dealing with.

  Tom could be a cannibal.

  “I don’t care what they are,” Ethan snaps at Jed, courage bolstered by his eyes squeezed shut. The fact that Jed is restrained and virtually harmless right now. “I’d rather be eaten by cannibals than molested by your bikers again.”

  It’s not entirely true, but it’s true enough that Ethan manages a copious amount of venom behind his words. In reality, Ethan would rather take the road that keeps him alive.

  “You sure about that you fucking slut?” Jed bites back.

  Tom whips around, expression murderous.

  Oh.

  Did—

  Did Ethan anger Tom by talking back to Jed?

  A ripping sound tears through the basement as Tom pulls a length of silver duct tape from its roll. He stomps up to Jed, slapping the tape over his mouth. Jed struggles, screaming muffled protests to no avail. Tom wraps the tape all the way around Jed’s head, as tight as he can, unconcerned about the tape running across the man’s matted hair.

  The whole thing is beyond excessive, how much duct tape ends up wound around Jed’s head just to cover his mouth. But Ethan almost feels smug.

  Ethan’s breath catches in his throat when Tom steps away, satisfied with his handiwork, and fixes a hard look on Ethan, who looks back curiously.

  “Who?” Tom asks, voice a dangerous overhang of icicles.

  “Who… what?” Ethan asks, timid now under Tom’s gaze. He feels like a pet rolling over to expose its stomach whenever Tom looks at him.

  “Touched you,” Tom replies coldly. “Who did it?”

  Oh. Of course Tom heard Ethan just now, accusing Jed’s men of molesting him. He hadn’t thought that particular information would mean anything to Tom.

  “Wh-Why do you want to know?” Ethan asks.

  Tom doesn’t answer, his expression simply grows angry as he points slowly to Jed, as if in question.

  Jed is frantic beneath the duct tape, muffled protests made clear by the way he’s rapidly shaking his head to deny his involvement.

  Ethan carefully shakes his head no. “Wasn’t him.”

  Like clockwork, Tom points to Ricky, who is still unconscious.

  A crawling sensation of dread oozes down Ethan’s spine like an egg has been cracked on top of his head.

  What is Tom going to do if Ethan confirms that Ricky is the one who sexually assaulted him?

  Does it matter, after what Ricky did to him?

  Ethan pictures his best friend Jasmine from middle school in tears after her boyfriend beat Ethan up for spending too much time with her. Pictures her frantic apologies for not stopping it while it was happening. For watching instead.

  Will he feel guilty if something bad happens to Ricky?

  Will he care?

  Will he feel like the man deserved it?

  Maybe Jasmin’s guilt came from the fact that she knew that Ethan didn’t deserve the beating.

  Ricky. He hurt Ethan. He deserves some sort of punishment.

  But… who is Ethan to decide?

  Ethan turns his head away, eyes downcast. He can’t confirm it. Can’t deny it, either.

  It turns out that’s all the confirmation Tom needs.

  In a flash, Tom’s ripping Ricky from his restraints with a snarl. Chains rattle, shrill and metallic as Ricky’s pulled from the table and tossed, still unconscious, onto the floor.

  “N-No, wait, Tom, wait,” Ethan says, cringing at his use of Tom’s name, which clearly set the man off last time he tried to use it. “It, it wasn’t that bad. He just groped me. Scared me. Made some gross comments, it wasn’t—it wasn’t—”

  Ethan stutters on the last dregs of defense. Because… he can’t defend this man. Can’t say what the man did to him wasn’t traumatic, wasn’t sexual assault, even if it didn’t get a chance to escalate to anything worse.

  Regardless, Tom ignores him entirely, hauling Ricky’s limp body over his shoulder and carrying it to a metal t
able over by the freezer. Ethan has to strain against his own chains to look over his shoulder, barely able to see the freezer or the slab of a metal surface at all.

  And. Maybe that’s for the best, because the next thing Tom does is pick up a blade that looks more like a mallet than a knife.

  A butcher’s knife.

  Ethan whips his face forward, away from the scene of Ricky sprawled on the slab and Tom positioning the cleaver over the man’s neck.

  There’s no blood-curdling scream like there was when Tom ran the biker through with his chainsaw. No, Ricky is unconscious. There’s no torture. No self-aware pain as Tom ends his life. Just a sickening squelch as the blade’s flat surface drags quickly through something wet. And then the choppy, splintering crunch of blade severing bone.

  Ethan’s chest heaves in fear even though he expected this.

  A quick, stupid glance over his shoulder reveals Ricky’s head decapitated from his body, his blood pooling on the metal slab’s surface to overflow onto the concrete floor.

  No wonder the concrete in the basement is stained several shades of brown. The edges of the stains are watery like coffee rings left from a mug.

  The musty basement air floods with the stench of raw meat, coppery blood. Chains rattle. When Ethan dares to look back again—because he must, because he needs to know what Tom is capable of—Tom is lifting Ricky’s headless body upside down by chains around his feet, to hang from the ceiling.

  Tom’s draining him. Draining his blood. Like an animal strung up in a butcher’s shop.

  Ricky’s blood drips from his neck slower than Ethan would expect, splattering onto the concrete floor like a gently running faucet.

  Tom pulls a hose off of the wall and sprays the bloody concrete, letting the now vaguely pink mixture wash down one of the floor’s many drains.

  Jed is pale and wheezing through his nose as if he’s never seen something so horrific.

  Ethan has no sympathy for Jed.

  Jed wasn’t horrified by what he did to Ethan. What Ricky and his gang did to Ethan. But he’s horrified by this kind of violence? By killing someone quickly and draining their blood?

  It is horrifying. It is disgusting and violent and wrong—but how is it that much worse than Jed’s own crimes? Because Ethan’s sure that Jed and his gang had planned to leave him beaten to death on the side of the road.

  Ethan’s almost insulted by the notion that wounds that don’t break too much skin are somehow less lethal than what Tom is doing to Ricky now. The pain the beating left in Ethan’s abdomen and ribs may very well end up deadly—he has no idea what kind of damage the beating left hidden behind his skin. Hell, he hasn’t even gotten a chance to lift his shirt and asses the bruising.

  Ethan needs medical attention at an actual hospital. Needs Tom to agree to that, somehow, and that seems like a tougher mountain to climb than college and a career and a happy future ever was.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  He should have never left home.

  8

  Ethan doesn’t turn around to watch when Tom begins butchering Ricky’s body. It’s enough—far too much—-just to be unable to block out the sound of skin being pulled away from meat, saws carving through bone.

  Ricky’s body is being segmented, pulled apart and packed away. Wrapped in paper and twine and stored in the freezer.

  Ethan flinches every time the freezer opens with a familiar suction sound, the hum of it growing louder, another piece of Ricky being stored inside.

  Is that going to be him, soon?

  Are all of Ethan’s efforts to treat Tom like a human being going to amount merely to being saved for last? He doesn’t want to die, not like this. Doesn’t want to be packed into the freezer in hastily wrapped sections, never to be heard from again.

  He can’t leave his parents with their only child’s disappearance weighing on their shoulders for the rest of their lives. How painful will that be for them—never quite knowing what happened to him, whether he’s dead or alive, whether he’s suffering? Will they think he abandoned them? The sudden wanderlust that drove him to take this trip may certainly make them question if he’s simply a runaway. Will they blame themselves? Comb over every last bit of their parenting to dissect why he would want to ghost them?

  And what if they did catch his killers? Would that be worse—knowing that their son was slaughtered and eaten by a family of cannibals? Would finding out he suffered such a gruesome fate be better than the sick whirlwind of never knowing?

  Fuck.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Ethan needs to figure this out. Needs to come out of this alive. Dying isn’t an option. He can’t do that to his family.

  He hates himself for not grabbing as much of his stuff as he could carry and making a run for it when he still had the chance.

  He was a fool.

  It seems so silly now, his own hesitance to abandon his van even though it was running on empty. His trust in society driving him to try to get help from the gas station employees instead of saving his own skin.

  Ethan breathes, smothering his face in his shoulder, trying to drown out the smell of blood and meat with his own body odor.

  This isn’t his fault.

  He… he can’t blame himself for making one snap decision after another when he’s never been in such a high-stakes series of events. It won’t do any good.

  With Tom busy stuffing what remains of Ricky’s butchered body into cloth sacks for disposal, Ethan strains to look around the basement with a fresh perspective.

  Flimsy tool storage lines the wall by the metal butchering table, filled with potential weapons that are of course out of reach in his current position. But Ethan would rather not go the fight route anyway. Flight is his best bet against these people. He’s already beaten in terms of numbers, strength, and not to mention experience with violence towards other human beings.

  Several bright red plastic gasoline cans are shoved under the stairs. The faint smell of gasoline is strong enough that Ethan's sure the cans are full. That bothers him. It's incredibly unsafe to store gasoline in a basement. Why not keep it in the barn?

  Behind him, far across the large basement, the sun shines through the slight crack in a cellar door that must lead outside. The doors on the hatch are metal, the handles wrapped in chain and boasting several padlocks. There are no windows.

  It’s clearer now more than ever that this half of the basement is set up for butchering—the hooked chains hanging from the ceiling. The stainless steel chopping block. The drains on the floor. But what kind of animal would be easy to drag into this basement for butchering when a barn would allow for much easier access than the small cellar door?

  The question answers itself—it was set up for butchering humans. For keeping live humans chained up. But why? What made this family so prone to killing that they have a dedicated space for it?

  The left side of the basement is segmented off by a partial wall, Ethan has no idea what’s behind there. A curtain made from a tacked-up blanket hangs in the doorless opening that leads into that side of the room. The curtain’s drape is snagged a bit on a cardboard box against the wall. If Ethan leans forward just a bit against his chains and cranes to look, maybe he’ll be able to see inside…

  Thankfully, Jed seems to understand what Ethan’s doing, because he leans back to allow Ethan to peer around his body.

  Through the gap in the curtain, Ethan makes out the corner of a broken wooden dresser, clothes spilling out of the bottom drawer. The end of a flimsy bed frame.

  Does… does Tom live down here?

  Ethan saw the rest of the house when Tom walked him through it—the upstairs was oddly furnished and slightly too rustic, but it was livable. It was impoverished, but not unsanitary. Nothing compared the musty, unwelcoming conditions of this basement.

  Tom’s family forces him to live down here? Like some sort of animal?

  It reminds Ethan of neglected family dogs that he’d sometimes see chai
ned up permanently in backyards, flea infested and sad, with chunks of fur missing, ear tips eaten raw by flies.

  He never understood how anyone could neglect an animal like that, let alone a child.

  But Tom isn’t a child. He’s a grown man who is currently butchering another human being. Ethan shouldn’t spare one ounce of sympathy for him, especially when everything he’s thinking is just an assumption, anyway.

  But he has a reason for assuming, doesn’t he? The way Tom’s sister beat him so viciously without Tom showing any signs of fighting back. The way Tom’s mother glared at him suspiciously when Tom chimed in on the discussion of who to pick for butchering and who to leave dead on the road. The way all the women encouraged Daisy, a mere child, to murder a man in cold blood.

  There is a strong chance that Tom has been warped and groomed by a lifetime of abuse. Hell, there’s a chance his sisters have been, too. But Tom’s the only one he hasn’t seen relish in abuse and murder yet. Tom hasn’t seemed to take pleasure in it at all—by all appearances, Tom has simply been following orders.

  At least, that’s what Ethan will have to tell himself to make his own plight easier. He needs to try to see Tom as a human being if he wants Tom to see him as one.

  But this honesty shit has to stop. Ethan can’t pull metaphorical punches anymore. He needs to seduce this man, needs to lie his way into this man’s heart, if that’s what it takes to survive. He needs to blast as much charm as he can muster full-force.

  And he’s thinking… he’s thinking it might work—because Tom is certainly sheltered beyond imagination. It doesn’t matter that Ethan isn’t the hottest guy ever, or the most charming—he thinks, in hindsight, Tom has enjoyed simply having Ethan’s attention on him.

  There’s no room for second guessing anymore.

  Ethan is going to do everything in his power to make Tom adore him.

  And then, when Tom is willing, or when Tom loosens the leash enough to give him an opening—Ethan is going to make a run for it.

  At some point, Ethan falls asleep amidst the butchering. It says something about how exhausted he is that he can nod off while chained so uncomfortably, with the backdrop of knives sawing through human bone echoing off the cinder block walls behind him. When he wakes, though, it’s to find Tom standing before him, staring at Ethan’s body slumped, bound and sleeping on the table.