by Amy Cross
“So it really happened in here?” I ask, feeling a shudder run up my spine as I turn and look around the small, windowless concrete basement. “Someone was murdered in this room?”
“Not just murdered,” Freddie points out. “Viciously tortured over a long period of time. And then slaughtered like a goddamn animal.”
I glare at him.
“What?” he asks. “It'd be disrespectful to her memory if we ignored the cruel harshness of her death. She was carved up like a slab of beef.”
“Right where we're standing now?” I whisper, horrified by the idea.
“I told you I could feel the walls vibrating,” Freddie continues. “I told you, and you wouldn't listen. I could feel them still shaking after she screamed so much. I'm very sensitive.”
“We have to call someone, don't we?” I ask, heading over to join Becky.
“I still want you to get on your knees and apologize,” Freddie reminds me. “You owe me!”
“We have to call the police,” I continue, as I see that Becky's hands are trembling slightly. “I mean, they'll want to know. Now we've found where Molly Holt was killed, maybe the police'll be able to find some more evidence. They might even be able to track down the people who murdered her.”
I wait for a reply, but Becky seems completely lost in her own thoughts as she continues to stare down at the print-out. I've never actually seen her like this before.
Reaching into my pocket, I take out my phone, only to find that I don't have any coverage down here in the basement.
“Do you think we'll get a reward?” Freddie asks. “Or money? Not that it's about the money, of course. But do you think we'll get some?”
“This is insane,” Becky whispers, and I immediately hear the shock in her voice. “I heard about this case. I read about it. I never thought for one moment that something so horrific could have happened round here. That poor bitch, getting kidnapped and dragged out here, and then having all those things done to her.”
She pauses, and I swear there are tears in her eyes now.
“What kind of monsters would do something like that?” she whispers.
“Do you think they buried her here?” I ask.
She turns to me and wipes a tear away.
“I mean,” I continue, “if the killers had to get rid of her body, doesn't it make sense that they'd have buried her close by?”
She pauses, before slowly nodding.
“We have to be careful who we tell first,” Freddie says after a moment. “I don't want anyone else taking the credit for my discovery. 'Cause there are totally people who'd do that.”
I turn to him. “Credit?”
“I did what hundreds of cops couldn't. Not to mention all the people online who reckon they've got all these theories about the Molly Holt murder. Out of all those people, I'm the only one who put all the pieces of the puzzle together.”
“It's not a puzzle,” I point out. “It's a murder.”
“Whatever. The point is, I did the hard work. I persisted, even when blinkered fools told me I was wrong. No offense intended, Tim, but that is in fact what you and the others were like. You were blinkered, disbelieving fools who swallowed the lamestream media's fake news narrative about Molly Holt having been murdered close to her hometown. If I hadn't insisted on pursuing my investigation to its logical conclusion, the truth about her murder might never have come out!”
“What do you want,” I ask, “ a medal?”
“Yes! Actually, a medal would be quite nice, among other things.”
I check my phone again, but I still don't have any signal.
“This is nuts,” Freddie continues. “Do you guys realize we're standing in the exact spot where that video was filmed? Like, Molly Holt was over there by the wall, tied to a chair, and her attackers...”
He pauses for a moment, before taking a step back and looking down at the floor.
“The camera must have been about here,” he adds, “and the attackers were moving around a bit. In the video -”
“Do we have to talk about the video?” I ask, interrupting him.
“It's disrespectful to ignore the truth.”
“It's disrespectful to talk about it in such graphic detail!”
“If I hadn't watched the Molly Holt video,” Freddie replies pompously, “I'd never have made this breakthrough. If you'd watched it, you'd know that there was a video camera placed here in the middle of the room, and then they moved it when necessary. At least some of the time, it was basically aiming at that point over there, which is where the chair was placed. I can't be sure, but I believe it was the same chair that's in the corner. There'll have to be forensic tests to determine that, but I'll leave those to the police. Molly Holt was tied down and I think the knives were being kept on a table over -”
“We don't need to talk about the details!” I point out, feeling uncomfortable at even the merest mention of knives.
“Well, if you'd seen it, you'd know what I'm talking about!”
“I'm going to go upstairs and get some phone signal,” I reply with a sigh, turning to head toward the exit, “and then -”
“I want to see the video,” Becky says suddenly.
I stop and look back over at her, shocked by what I just heard.
“I've never seen it,” she adds, before holding up the print-out, “and this is just one frame. It's really hard to be sure that we're in the right place. And if we're gonna start calling people and telling them what we've found, then I want to check first.” She pauses, and I can see that there are still tears in her eyes. “I hate the idea of it, but at the same time I feel like I have to see.”
“We can't watch it down here,” I say, with a flash of relief. “No signal means no internet.”
“That'd be a terrible shame,” Freddie says, slipping his phone from his pocket, “if I didn't have the entire Molly Holt video already safely downloaded to my phone.”
I feel a lead weight of dread suddenly fall in my heart.
“Tim's too scared to watch it,” Freddie continues, grinning in the screen's glow as he taps to bring up the video. “Sorry, Becky, but Tim is actually kind of a wuss.”
“I'm not a wuss,” I reply, clenching my fists. “I just don't want to watch a video of a woman getting murdered!”
“You've got to face the world as it is,” Freddie adds as Becky walks over and stops next to him, and now they're both looking down at the phone. “There's no point hiding from the darkness that exists all around us. I think that's something we all have to realize before we can truly grow up. Maybe you're not ready for that.”
“Before we grow up?” I reply, astonished by his pomposity. “You're the most immature person I know!”
“In your opinion, Timothy,” he says with a smile. “Only in your opinion.”
“Start it,” Becky mutters, clearly transfixed by the phone's screen.
“Last chance to see, Timothy,” Freddie says with a taunting tone.
I open my mouth to tell him to go to hell, but then I spot the fascinated expression on Becky's face and I suddenly start to wonder whether Freddie might be right. After all, he's a complete idiot but even idiots can be right occasionally, and Becky's always been more mature than pretty much anyone I know. If she thinks it's okay to watch the video, then maybe I'm the one who's wrong. And if I don't at least take a look, maybe Becky will always think that I'm some immature little scaredy-cat.
“I only want to see a few minutes of it,” I mutter as I shuffle over and stop to look at the screen. “I'm not watching the whole thing. Just enough to be sure that this is where it was filmed.”
“It's ninety minutes long, doofus,” Freddie chuckles. “I'll just show you the best bits.”
“The best bits?” I reply, as I glance at Becky in the hope that she'll be just as shocked as I am. “I don't think that's a very appropriate way of describing them. Is it, Becky?”
She doesn't reply. Instead, she's simply staring at the screen, waiting for
the video to start.
“Some of the bits are pretty boring,” Freddie continues, with a hint of anticipation in his voice, “so I usually fast-forward through them. The first twelve minutes are mostly just her sobbing and begging for help, but then...”
He taps the screen and uses a fingertip to drag the slider along.
“Then it gets really sick,” he adds, grinning at me. “Then the real action starts.”
He stares at me for a moment, then he glances at Becky, and then he looks back down at the phone. And then, finally, he taps to start playing the video.
Instantly, a horrific scream rings out from the phone's speakers.
Chapter Ten
“Please stop!” Molly Holt sobs in the video, leaning her head back as fresh blood runs from the wound on her cheek. “Please just kill me!”
The blade of a large knife comes into view and brushes against her bare neck, causing her to shudder and pull away. The blade moves with her, pressing against her skin but not quite cutting through, and a moment later a human figure briefly passes in front of the camera, obscuring the view for a fraction of a second before moving away again. Footsteps echo in the darkness. When Molly Holt comes back into view, more blood has run down onto her shoulders and over her bare chest, and something can be heard dribbling off-camera onto the concrete floor.
I look over at Becky, hoping she'll say that we should stop watching, but she actually seems fascinated. There are tears in her eyes, but for some reason she doesn't seem to want to turn away.
“Eyes on the screen, dude,” Freddie whispers, nudging my arm. When I look at him, he's grinning. “For research purposes. To respect Molly Holt's suffering.”
I want to tell him he's sick, but then I guess I'd be calling Becky sick too, and I don't want to do that.
I look back down at the screen, just in time to see that Molly Holt has turned to look directly into the camera lens.
“Please,” she stammers, “if anyone sees this, my name is Molly Holt and I -”
Suddenly a fist slams into the side of her face, snapping her head to one side. She lets out a spluttering gasp, and then more blood starts flowing from her mouth. A moment later she starts coughing, and it sounds as if there's something caught in her throat.
“See those white bits?” Freddie says. “Those are teeth.”
I watch as a stained tooth rides a river of blood down over Molly Holt's chin. Instead of falling off and out of shot, the tooth seems to stick slightly, even as beads of blood drip down all around.
I look over at the other side of the basement, toward the spot where this must have taken place, and a shudder runs through my chest as I imagine her shivering and dying on the floor. A moment later, I force myself to look at the phone again, before Freddie has a chance to remind me.
Footsteps can be heard somewhere off-camera, and a moment later a hand comes into view and grabs Molly Holt's hair from behind, forcing her head back. A figure steps in front of the camera, partially obscuring the view, but I can hear Molly gasping and crying out for a few seconds before her cries become much more muffled. I don't know what the man is doing to her, and I don't want to know, but Becky is still staring transfixed at the video and I can't let her think that I'm some kind of little kid. I have to keep watching.
A moment later the man moves out of the way, and I see that he's stuffed something large and white into Molly Holt's mouth. She's weeping now, and I can hear snotty sniffs coming from her nose.
“It's a sock,” Freddie says.
I turn to him.
“In case you missed it,” he adds, “you see later. He just stuffed a sock in her mouth to shut her up. I guess she was talking too much.”
I look back at the screen.
“Just keeping you informed,” he mutters.
“Turn her over,” a gruff, deep voice says suddenly in the film.
The voice of a monster. Or at least, one of the monsters.
I watch in horror as thick, hairy arms reach in and grab Molly Holt by the shoulders. Just as she's pulled back out of the frame, the camera moves violently as if someone has picked it up so it can be re-positioned. The image on the screen swings wildly this way and that, becoming nothing more than a series of blurs, which is actually a slight relief after all the shots of bloodied body parts. There are scraping sounds too, and not only several sets of footsteps but also some grunts. A moment later, I realize I can make out two voices.
“Put her there,” one of them says.
“Where are you gonna put the camera?” the other asks.
“Right here.”
“What about the light?”
“Should be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“I reckon.”
Suddenly there's a bump and the camera comes to a rest, showing a bare patch of concrete floor. The image briefly goes out of focus, before an unseen hand makes a few adjustments and the picture becomes sharp again.
“Is it really helping us to watch this?” I ask.
“It's giving us valuable context,” Freddie replies.
“Aren't we just -”
I catch myself just in time. Becky still looks engrossed by the video, so I guess I can't argue too much. Still, I wish she'd suddenly tell Freddie to stop all of this. I wish she'd agree with me that we shouldn't be watching the video.
Looking at the screen, I see that there's no sign of Molly Holt, although I can hear a few grunts and gasps coming from somewhere off-screen. I don't know what they're doing to her right now, and I don't want to know, but at the same time I can't look away.
I need Becky to look away first.
All I can think is that I want this to be over, that I want the worst of the video to have already run. That way, maybe we won't have to see -
Suddenly the upper half of Molly Holt's body falls into view and her head cracks sickeningly against the concrete floor as she lands. She winces and tilts her head back, straining every muscle before suddenly something slams into her out of shot. It's as if she's being repeatedly pounded by something we can't see, and she keeps her head tilted back as she starts letting out a series of deep, guttural groans that are muffled by the white sock that's stuffed in her mouth. Bubbles of blood are coming out of her nose, and the white sock seems to be almost spilling free. At the same time, someone close to the camera is grunting loudly.
“In case you hadn't figured it out,” Freddie whispers to me, “they're -”
“I get what they're doing,” I reply through gritted teeth, while glancing over at Becky and seeing that her gaze is still fixed on the screen. “I'm not an idiot,” I add. “Or a kid. I'm not an idiot or a kid.”
Freddie's grinning at me.
“This bit gets kinda repetitive,” he says suddenly, dragging the slider across the screen some more.
“I want to watch it all,” Becky tells him.
“And you can,” he replies. “I'm just showing you an edited highlights reel first.”
He stops the video and then rewinds slightly, before playing again. Immediately, there's the sound of chair legs scraping against concrete, and the screen shows a pair of rough hands hauling Molly Holt off the floor. I'm sure she's bleeding a lot worse than before, and her entire body is shuddering with convulsions as she continues to sob. There's still a sock stuffed in her mouth too, but I can't stop staring at her waist, where she seems to be sitting on the concrete floor in a huge puddle of her own blood that's covering the insides of her thighs and legs.
“It doesn't get much sicker than this,” Freddie whispers, just as a pair of rusty garden shears comes into the shot. “She was twenty-one years old. Poor bitch.”
I flinch, desperately wanting to look away.
“You get what they're doing to her, right?” Freddie asks, nudging me again.
“I hate it,” I whisper.
“But you get it, don't you? Like, you will, in a moment. It's not just random, all the things. It seems random at first, but if you watch the whole thing yo
u -”
“Sshh!” Becky hisses, as if she's annoyed by his interruptions. “I want to hear.”
In the video, Molly Holt is sobbing as the shears move closer to her face.
“Now you just stay still now,” one of the male voices says, filled with anticipation. “The more you fight, the more we'll have to hold you down. You don't want that, do you?”
“Can't we take the sock out?” the other voice asks. “It's not like anyone'd hear her screaming. Not out here.”
“I'm sick of her fucking voice.”
“Yeah, but... I mean, it's part of it, isn't it? People want to hear her.”
Without answering, the other figure moves around behind Molly Holt, with his head remaining out of shot. Still shivering, Molly Holt shudders and pulls away after a moment, but she doesn't get far. It's as if she's too terrified to try to get away, and I watch in horror as a hand reaches down and bunches her long hair together behind her head. And then, slowly, the man uses the shears to cut through her hair as she continues to sob. The sound of the shears' blades sends a shudder up my spine, and I watch as the man takes the cut hair and sprinkles it onto the ground.
I look over at Becky again, but she still seems engrossed.
What's wrong with her? Why does she want to watch this?
I'm starting to think that maybe she's sick in the head, like Freddie.
Hearing a kind of slow whimper coming from the video, I force myself to look back at the screen. Molly Holt is being turned over and laid on her front, and thick, pudgy hands are holding her down even as she tries in vain to get up. Now that I can see her bare back properly, I realize there are thick bruises covering large swathes of her body, running all the way down to the back of her legs. There are bloodied smears everywhere, and even bloodied hand-prints on her waist, and strips of torn skin are -
Suddenly the video cuts to a close-up of the girl's face from one side. She's sobbing as a hand comes into the frame and takes hold of the sock, pulling it slowly from her mouth. As the white fabric emerges, I see that it's stained with blood, and several loose teeth are dragged out as the sock is finally pulled all the way clear. A moment later, syrupy red blood dribbles down across her bottom lip and runs down her chin.
