by R. D. Ronald
‘I’ll leave the car a few streets away just on the off-chance it could be recognised,’ Tazeem said.
He dropped the other three at the kerb and pulled away. Sadiq went around to the back where he improvised a way inside as quietly as he could. Mangle went to put some clothes on and Tatiana picked through his things for something suitable to wear. She took the clothes into the bathroom to change into after she’d taken a shower. The scent of bleach still hung thickly in the air.
Sadiq said he’d had enough for one day and was going to get some sleep. Mangle took the DVDs he’d appropriated into the lounge to see what was on them. He switched on the TV, inserted the first disk into the player and collapsed into an armchair. The picture flickered for several seconds, remaining mostly black with an occasional green or purple peppering of digital artifacts. Eventually, an image appeared. It was recorded footage from one of the booths at The Club, as Mangle had suspected. An attendant was walking around, spraying and wiping the surfaces. Then he walked off camera into the bathroom at the rear of the booth. A moment later the picture went black. Another brief scattering of purple squares and the picture returned. The same attendant walked back through the booth and exited at the front. The screen went black.
Mangle began to fast-forward through the footage. It was evident that the recording was motion-activated. A succession of clients came into the booth and performed various sex acts with different girls. So far there was no evidence of anything other than prostitution. He put in the next disk and scanned through it. A client got violent with one of the girls and began slapping her around. The girl stood it as best she could as the attack became more brutal, and the perpetrator’s face grew darker and more twisted, as if he saw before him a physical manifestation of his own demons, rather than an innocent young woman. Mangle scanned through the next two disks.
Tatiana had dressed after her shower and lay down on the couch facing away from the screen. There was nothing the DVDs could reveal about the place that she didn’t already know. Tazeem had returned and from the tinkle of crockery it sounded as if he was making something to eat in the kitchen.
The fourth disk, and one client used all three shots from a Taser gun on one of the girls. She was standing when the first shot hit but crashed to the floor as her body went into spasm. Barely waiting for her to stop convulsing from the first shot, he fired off another set of electrodes. The tendons in her neck stood out, taut as steel cables with the pressure from her grinding teeth. Mangle hit fast-forward again as the man fired the third. He’d seen enough.
He ejected the disk, feeling sick from the successive images of brutalisation and violence. Tazeem had poked his head around the door a few minutes earlier but withdrew back into the kitchen when he saw what was displayed on the TV screen.
Mangle called softly to Tatiana a couple of times to see if she was alright, and ask if she needed anything, but she didn’t respond. Her breathing had deepened now, the adrenalin rush from their escape perhaps subsiding sufficiently to allow her to sleep. Her body trembled slightly as she lay there. Mangle hoped that if it was the onset of the medication withdrawal, she would be able to cope with it better than Laura.
He put the final disk into the player. The beginning showed the usual combination of drink, drugs and violent sex. Mangle skipped ahead. The next client to come into the room looked familiar but he kept his face turned away from the camera, so it was hard to be sure. There was a steadiness, an assuredness about his movements. The other men had been jittery and nervous, even manic, but this guy was cool and in control. He selected some items from the screen and walked casually around the room sipping from a large glass while waiting for the attendant. He expertly defied the camera by turning his face away from the lens.
The attendant arrived, carrying the type of tray Mangle had seen earlier, and a girl, who judging from her looks and flawless appearance, must be from the ‘Pristine’ list and therefore extortionately expensive. The attendant placed the tray down beside the chair and left the room.
The man returned to his seat as the girl disrobed and then removed her negligée. She knelt down between his legs, pulled open his robe and began to work on him with her hands. The man seemed content, and continued to sip from his glass as his erection grew. He leaned over and removed the lid from the tray. The arm of the chair obstructed the camera’s view, and it could not pick up the contents.
The man relaxed back into the chair and Mangle saw the minimal light within the room gleam coldly on the curved edge of the knife he now held in his left hand. The man played with it, twisting the handle this way and that and watching the light dance along the blade. He seemed almost to have forgotten about the girl working below him, until she slid his fully erect member into her mouth. He looked down, slightly amused it seemed, and gently pushed her back onto her haunches. She looked up at him expectantly, awaiting his next command.
Reaching forward he took hold of her left arm, delicately, as if she were a work of fine art. The girl surrendered to his touch. He examined her perfect white skin, then slid his fingertips gently upwards from her elbow before cupping her wrist in his right palm.
He leaned forward, and drew the tip of the blade slowly and precisely around her arm, working downwards in concentric circles. He kept stopping to readjust his seating position and grip on the handle, before continuing on with his macabre geometry. The girl sat motionless, unresisting to the light grip he held on her supple wrist. Blood began to flow, at first cautiously, as if embarrassed by its appearance; a few thin red lines exploring the gravitational trajectory of its new terrain. Now it flowed faster, steadily staining her pale flesh a horrific red.
The girl’s head had dropped but still she didn’t resist. The man released her left arm, took hold of the right, and began the sickeningly precise procedure again. It was unthinkable to watch someone treated so inhumanely, but now Mangle had the evidence that they needed.
The man sat back in the chair as the girl’s blood pooled on the floor between his legs. He coaxed her towards him. She shuffled uncomfortably and resettled herself in the blood. Raising her trembling hands she took hold of his swollen cock and guided it into her mouth. Blood dripped and smeared the inside of his thighs with the motion of her sucking.
He took a handful of her hair and forced her to increase both speed and depth, then threw his head back, enraptured at her performance. The camera, for the first time, had a clear view of his face, and Mangle realised he had seen the man before. It was the Mayor of Garden Heights, Carson Keaton. It was the man who Mangle had seen in the booth as they fled The Club. The escape had happened in a whirl of action and danger, perhaps accounting for his failure to identify him at the time, but there was now no denying the famous face on the screen before him.
This was the man who had been plastered over TV screens for months, with his electoral pledge to restore basic family values and root out the organised crime that had taken hold of the city. He was hugely popular with the voters and looked a certainty to be confirmed for a second term in office.
The girl’s head bobbed up and down and Carson screwed up his face in pleasure. Blood smears covered his stomach, legs and cock. He reached over the side of the chair with his left hand. As she brought him to climax, the silent footage showed a rapturous Carson Keaton scream out in ecstasy. She swallowed and he pulled back her head from his softening member.
His left hand came back into view holding a large calibre pistol. She blinked at him stupidly for a few seconds as he lined up the weapon in front of her face. Mangle held his breath. The Mayor fired.
The muzzle flash flared on the TV screen and her head was destroyed as easily as a ripe watermelon. Fragments of skull with matted strands of hair clinging stubbornly, rained down inside the booth. Blood spray decorated everything within the room an instantly grotesque red, punctuated by chunks of brain matter. Some pieces that exploded outwards onto the window now began their nauseating race toward the ground.
Mangle g
aped at the TV. He’d known the pain of losing family members to illness and old age, but this vivid reality of seeing someone’s life extinguished before his eyes slammed into him, leaving him breathless and disorientated. He’d witnessed the guard being shot at the clinic, and the technician earlier that night at The Club, but the drive for self-preservation had anaesthetised his senses to their deaths. The cold-blooded horror of this killing was something completely different.
Tazeem walked back through the room, positioned himself by a chink in the curtains and looked out onto the street. He seemed unaware of Mangle’s state of mind and didn’t once glance at the TV.
Tatiana rubbed her eyes and then looked around as she sat up on the couch.‘What is going on?’ she asked, but neither responded.
Sadiq walked into the room and crossed to where Tazeem stood.
‘What is going on?’ Tatiana asked again, this time more forcefully, as she looked from one to the other.
‘There’s a van pulled up outside,’ Tazeem said, turning back to face them.
‘Nobody followed us,’ Mangle said, trying to shake off the trauma of what he’d just witnessed.
‘It’s too early for workmen to be starting their shift,’ Sadiq said. ‘Everybody grab your shit.’
Mangle sprang forward and ejected the DVD from the player. He swiftly pocketed it, along with the other four disks. Tatiana was up off the couch and looked to Mangle, waiting for the order to flee.
‘There’s some guys getting out,’ Tazeem said. ‘Come on, out the back.’
Mangle grabbed Tatiana’s hand and ran out into the hall. Tazeem and Sadiq were through the kitchen and out of the back door, Sadiq grabbing Dr Chu’s pistol off the counter as he passed. He shoved it into his pants pocket and began scaling the fence. Although Tatiana was fully clothed now she still had no shoes, but didn’t protest as Mangle roughly helped her up and over the fence into a neighbouring garden. Tazeem led the retreat through some azalea bushes, down a path and out into the street.
They heard a bang and the splintering crack of a wooden door being forced in. There had been no shouts or warning of any kind. Whoever had arrived in the van, they definitely weren’t the police.
‘Shit,’ Sadiq exclaimed, patting the sides of his pants. ‘I dropped the gun.’
Tazeem snatched a glance over his shoulder to ensure the others were keeping up. ‘We have no time for that now,’ he hissed, and again began to run down the length of the neighbouring road, past rows of identical houses whose sleeping residents were yet to awaken to the joys of a new day. He crossed over and rounded a corner. Mangle felt Tatiana’s grip on his hand become tighter the further they ran.
Tazeem and Sadiq climbed into the front of the Mercedes. Tazeem started the engine using his spare set of keys. Mangle and Tatiana got in the back. There was no sign of anyone else; so far they had eluded their pursuers.
Tazeem accelerated slowly to avoid attracting any attention, and navigated the succession of twists and turns to leave the slumbering estate.
‘How the hell did they find us?’ Tazeem asked no one in particular, when they were a comfortable distance from the house.
‘We would have seen if anyone tailed us from the club,’ Sadiq offered. ‘Maybe a tracker in the robes?’
‘They’re nice robes but I wouldn’t have thought they’d require that level of security,’ Mangle said, attempting humour that he really didn’t feel.
‘The robes are easily discarded,’ Tazeem said.
‘So it’s the car then, yeah?’ Sadiq concluded.
‘The car was parked two streets away and they came right to our door,’ Tazeem retorted.
They drove in silence for a while. Tazeem took the turning for the highway and kept the car at a steady 60 mph.
‘What about the chips?’ Mangle asked.
‘The membership shit?’ Sadiq said, looking back at Mangle and pointing down at his arm.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Is that even possible?’
‘That was just for identification and finance,’ Tazeem said.
‘It makes sense they wouldn’t want a card or something that could be stolen from someone’s wallet or intercepted by the authorities.’
Mangle rubbed the area on his forearm where the chip had been implanted. Other than a small red spot, there was no trace that the procedure had ever taken place.
‘It leaves no mark,’ Tatiana said, pulling up the sleeve on her sweatshirt and rubbing the same place on her arm.
‘You have a chip as well?’ Mangle asked her.
‘They put in my arm, yes,’ she nodded.
‘Fucking hell, that’s it then, yeah?’ Sadiq said. ‘Shit.’
‘The only reason for chipping the girls would be for tracking in case they escaped,’ Tazeem said.
‘But why would they want to be able to locate the very people who are paying them huge sums of money?’ Mangle asked.
‘They said there was no recording, but you have the disks there to prove otherwise,’ Tazeem said. ‘I wonder how much they would be worth to the clients to prevent them ending up with the media, or the police.’
‘That has to be it,’ Mangle said. ‘Even with the resources they obviously have access to, they couldn’t hope to keep The Zombie Room running indefinitely. We might have had a lot of luck, but we managed to breach the security in one night. The whole thing must be an elaborate sting to get blackmail evidence that would effectively control the most corrupt yet powerful members of society.’
‘Jesus, with that amount of power there’s no telling what the guy pulling the strings would be able to achieve,’ Tazeem exclaimed.
‘But how do we get these chips out of our arms?’ Mangle asked. ‘As soon as we stop somewhere they’ll be able to find us. That’s if they aren’t already trying to pin us down now.’
‘For now we have to stay on the move,’ Tazeem said, taking a turning onto a different road. ‘When it starts to get light we’ll have to find a doctor that can dig them out. Those things they planted in there weren’t exactly microscopic, and like you say there isn’t even a hint of a bump so they must be in pretty deep.’
‘I know a guy,’ Sadiq interjected. ‘He isn’t a doctor though.’
‘What the hell is he then?’ Tazeem asked. ‘A fucking librarian?’
‘Yeah, funny. He’s a veterinarian. But we’re tight. We can trust this guy to say nothing.’
‘Unless anyone has a better plan …’ Mangle said.
‘Alright, we’ll drive for now then go and see this guy first thing. We’ll need to get new cell phones as well in case we get split up.’
Mangle settled back onto the seat. Tatiana had been perched forward as well, intently observing what was being said. She looked worried and her teeth had begun to chatter. Mangle reached over and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Into his mind flashed an image of Laura lying dead on the bathroom floor.
‘Do you think we will manage to get away from it all?’ she asked with a slight stutter.
‘I’m sure we will,’ he said.
‘I would rather die than go back there,’ she said softly, and shuddered. ‘Why did you come for me?’
‘After I saw you in South of Seven and you asked me to help you, I couldn’t get you out of my head. I knew if there was a way to help then I had to do it. And then when I saw what was happening in there ...’
‘Thank you,’ Tatiana said, interrupting him, and squeezed his hand in return.
‘The doctor told us that the girls were being given a new start, a chance to make a future for themselves.’
Tatiana laughed, a cold sound like old machinery.
‘That is what they tell us, but when we get here it is not the case.’
‘The other girls, back at The Club,’ Mangle said. ‘They had the chance of escape but they didn’t come. What made you come with us if they refused to?’
‘They were not in control of their minds,’ Tatiana said. ‘Back at the clinic, they would degrade us, make us wear
headphones and sit in viewing room for hours and hours. It changed them.’
‘We heard about something they were calling Audiology treatment,’ Mangle said, not wanting to bring up Laura’s name.
‘It was some kind of hypnosis?’
‘I don’t know. After these sessions the others started to seem different. Perhaps they lost the memories of themselves and their fear. Or maybe the memories just became less important to them. Something they were aware of, yet they no longer cared.’
‘So how weren’t you affected in the same way?’
‘Before I was brought here, my family was killed in an explosion.’
‘Shit,’ Sadiq said from the front seat.
‘It was a bomb, an assassination attempt on the President of my country.’
‘That’s truly awful, but how is this anything to do with what happened to you here?’ Mangle asked as sympathetically as he could.
‘When the bomb went off I was injured as well, but in time almost all of my injuries healed.’
‘Almost all?’
‘Yes,’ Tatiana nodded. ‘Ever since that day, I have been completely deaf.’
Sadiq turned in his seat and looked back at Tatiana. ‘So when they put these headphones on you, you just couldn’t hear the shit coming out of them?’ he asked.
‘That is all I can think, yes,’ Tatiana said and shrugged.
‘So you only read lips, to hear the stuff people say, yeah?’
‘Yes. I met some friends who helped me. I learned to read lips,’ Tatiana said, and rubbed her hands on her face as she felt the onset of welling tears. ‘Without my family I had nothing, so when the opportunity to come here arose I thought this may be my chance to start over. A new life for myself.’
