by Kirk Alex
Choking, they fought to keep from breathing at the longest stretches possible. Did not wish to take in air at all—and ultimately failed. You could not endure without needing oxygen at some point.
“We’re trapped. We’re done.”
“Shut up, Stella. I warned you about that. You’re making it worse.”
“You didn’t see the meat grinder and the sausage stuffer, you didn’t see the patty press and the meat slicer in his kitchen—I did!”
Images flashed in her mind’s eye and could not be suppressed. Nothing close to it. Bits and pieces of “hamburger” in and around the hopper opening, as well as on the wooden handle of the grinder and other parts of it. Blood-red palm and fingerprints on the grinder that would not let her be, that she could not make go away.
The slicer had had prints on it; patty press did, too. One of the stew “bits” that she had wiped from her face after the fat freak with the metal clanging in his belly had sprayed her full on, had resembled a thumbnail. She hadn’t been certain of it at the time.
Things had changed since then. How they have changed. A thumbnail.
“We’re stuck! They’ll chop us up! You’ve seen it! It’s a slaughter house! Real one! Trusty’s Bordello of Fear! They’ll grind us up like hamburger! What do you think that stench is! All those bodies! Mutilated! They were mutilated and stuffed inside these walls! All these walls got dead bodies in them! It’s a house of death! Roscoe was right! He was right about Cecil! Serial killer! What he is! My God, Roscoe was so right. We shouldn’t have laughed at him! He knew what he was talking about. He knew.”
“You were the one who laughed at him,” pointed out Pearleen Bell.
“That’s right,” seconded Lana “Da Bottom.” “Next time you run into Marty why not comp him a BJ to make it up to him? How’s that?”
Stella Martel shook her head at how idiotic and pointless she thought their comments were.
“Cecil’s been in and out of psychopathic hospitals. He’s sick; he’s twisted. The asshole’s sick, I tell you! He’s sick! And we’re trapped in this house of freaks and cannibals!”
“The next thing that comes out of your mouth better not be: We’re all going to die! Because if it is, I’ll kill you myself right now, bitch! I’ll beat your stupid ass!”
“I can’t take this shit anymore! I can’t!”
“Oh, you’ll take it.” Lana Sepulveda spun in the other’s direction. “I guarantee you you’ll take it!” She slapped Stella Martel several times, hard, across the face and watched her stagger and go down: a sobbing, hysterical heap.
CHAPTER 201
Pearleen stepped in. Had no choice. Grabbed Lana around the waist and pulled her off of the other woman. Now all three were sobbing.
“Stella. I’m sorry, Stella. I didn’t mean to hit you, Stella. Forgive me. I am so very sorry.”
Lana and Pearleen were soon holding one another tight and weeping against each other’s shoulder. They separated. Helped Stella to her feet. Stella had wrapped her arms around them both. Made a frantic effort to hold on, needing to. Unable to let go.
It was clear now to Lana and Pearleen that their friend was no longer capable of rational thought.
“Look, Pearl, we’re inside a tunnel. It has to lead somewhere. My guess is it will take us to the garage. What other purpose would a tunnel like this serve? What would be the point?”
“With somebody like Cecil, who dresses up like a sadistic clown and calls himself Trusty Lusty, who knows?”
“It has to lead to his garage. What better way to smuggle victims in and keep neighbors from finding out than by pulling into the garage with the victims in the trunk? All he’s got to do is go through some secret trap door that takes him down here to the tunnel—and he’s home-free. And the neighbors wouldn’t know it.”
“Let’s just keep moving. Please, God, let there be a way out. Please . . . please . . . please. . . .”
Stella slipped, her feet gave way and she took Pearleen with her, with the latter staggering against the “wall” on the right and leaving a prominent crack along the center of the cruddy plywood panel, from one end to the other. Dirt drizzled down from the ceiling; one of the planks cracked at about the middle, breaking into two halves and swung down, dangling this way from either side of the ceiling above them.
Other chunks of soil and small rocks fell on them, threatening to bury them alive. The rectangular panel continued to crack, outwardly this time and on its own, with some force, and a body rolled from it and landed on the floor. Evidently a shelf had been built into the wall that the body had been kept in. It was a woman. Intact and alive, if only barely so. No clothes on her. Wrists had been cuffed behind her back. She wept.
“Miss Betty. . . . What are you going to do to me, Miss Betty? I had to . . . I had to . . . I just couldn’t take it in there anymore. . . .”
“No, no.” Pearleen did what she could to convey that they were not out to harm her in any way. “We’re from out there, outside. We’re not part of Biggs’s depraved bunch.”
“No way,” Lana assured the half-mad, half-dead woman.
“Help me, then. Why don’t you help me? Somebody . . . Somebody has got to help us. . . . Deliver us from this hell. . . . Mercy; just a touch of mercy. . . .”
Lana and Pearleen were near hysteria themselves, seemingly succumbing to the same state their friend Stella was in. More tears flowed. This new development froze them up, left them undecided as to what to do about the pain-wracked woman at their feet crying out for help one minute, then something else the next. She wanted to die.
“Kill me. I beg you, Miss Betty . . . Kill me. . . .”
Pearl tried again. Wanted to assure her that Miss Betty was not with them. “There’s no Miss Betty here. Not in the tunnel—at this time. No way are we part of Brother Trusty’s twisted followers. Understand?”
The woman may have caught on. Was beyond tears.
“My name is Helen Irene Sanchez. . . . Let my family know . . . what happened to me. My two sons . . . my parents. . . . Let them know. . . . Biggs forced me to get in his van at gun point in Culver City. . . . Cecil Omar Biggs and Marvin Ritalin Muck. Please tell my family. Now . . . end my pain. . . .”
Blood flowed from her mouth and upper thighs; a good deal of her toes had been chewed off. Rodents, no doubt.
“I can’t do that.” Pearleen choked back sobs. “Forgive me. I can’t. . . .” She wiped hair and dirt away from the dying woman’s face. . . .
“They kidnapped me five months ago.” The woman spoke in a tone so low and weak she was hardly audible. “Now that I have told someone . . . I can . . . My family will know. . . . My family . . .” Mouth agape, eyes open, she said nothing more. Was still. After a moment, Pearleen pressed her ear against the woman’s chest. Couldn’t tell a thing. She felt her neck in search of a pulse.
“She’s gone.”
Pearl closed Helen Irene Sanchez’es eyes.
CHAPTER 202
They rose. There was nothing else to do but keep going. It was not long before they heard other moans. It was obvious enough to them, these new, faintly heard cries for help came from behind the same wall, only further on. The illumination projected by the lighter in Pearleen’s hand continued to decrease.
“Please let me out.” Another female voice. Pleading. “Please, Miss Betty. . . . Bishop Biggs? Where are you? I’ll be good. Do as you wish—in every way. I can be trusted. . . . Trust is everything. Trust and loyalty. Please let me out. . . .”
Pearleen tapped at the wood. Lana glared at her. “We have to get out of here! Pearl! We’ll never make it if we keep stopping every two minutes!”
Pearleen’s rapping of her knuckles led her to yet another plywood panel. She pulled on the handle that was there. Got nowhere. The panel was loose. There was a rail above, as well as along the bottom. She yanked the handle to the right and the rectangular panel slid open.
“We can’t help nobody else until we help ourselves first, Pearleen, da
mmit!”
There was a crudely built coffin inside the wall that sat horizontally on a shelf. The victim trapped within could be heard whimpering, trying to speak.
“I’ll be just the way you want me to be. My life as a strumpet is over, Miss Betty. . . . I promise. . . . Miss Betty. . . . Give me The Word. . . . I am so ready to accept The Word. . . . I’ll be the best for you, Bishop Biggs. . . .”
“Another one. . . .” Lana shook her head. It was hard to take.
Pearleen searched for and found the latch on the lid. A padlock hung from it. Lana moved up and helped her out with it. They twisted the thing back and forth, yanked up and down on it until they had it off. They lifted the coffin lid. There was a woman lying inside the poorly constructed oblong box. Hands cuffed behind her back, same as the other one. She was not clothed. Her head remained ever-so-still, as she dared not move. Only her eyeballs shifted, to see who had come to deliver her from her mind-numbing predicament.
CHAPTER 203
“Is that you, Bishop Biggs?” wondered Dixie Osgood in a tone closer to plea than query, while her eyes adjusted to the flickering, weak light in Pearleen’s hand. It was more light than she was accustomed to.
Excreta stench was choking, unbearable. The ever-present cockroaches, practically as thick as thumbs, scrambled out of sight.
Pearleen and Lana dragged the homemade coffin out of the wall. Lowered it to the planks and dirt and mud that was the floor. They reached down to help the woman. Only she was not budging.
“Did Bishop Biggs send you?” Dixie was clearly concerned. Her eyes were welling.
Pearleen took pause. What was she supposed to say? The situation continued to make her ill to her stomach.
“Nobody sent us.”
Lana urged the woman to get up. “We’re getting out of this place.”
Dixie Osgood shook her head. Was adamant. She did not wish to be touched or moved. Fear did this, fear of Cecil Omar Biggs, fear of his disciples, fear of what Biggs would do to her should he discover that she had been “bad,” had gone and done something he had not approved of.
“I can’t. I can’t. DON’T TOUCH ME! DON’T TOUCH ME! Bishop will punish me if I’m bad. He’ll punish me. He’ll tell Miss Betty to hurt me. He’ll tell her to hurt me if he finds out.”
Lana’s advice to Pearleen was to let her go. They did. The woman remained in the coffin.
“He’ll know I betrayed him. Because you moved me. You moved the box. The bishop will know.”
Lana DaBottom had had it up to here with the whole nightmarish circus of it.
“FUCK HIM! So goddamn what!”
Pearleen’s tip to Lana was to take it easy. DaBottom wasn’t interested.
“Tunnel takes us to the garage; am I right?”
“Please put me back where you found me. Please . . .”
“Leave her be.”
CHAPTER 204
Pearleen rose. They decided to keep moving forward. Lana soon followed. Passed her up, with Stella awkwardly hurling herself ahead of them both.
There was a sound, at the far end of the tunnel, above their heads somewhere: like a hatch or trap door maybe, lowered closed and locked into place, that resulted in the briefest flash of light. Was it that? Or nothing more than their impression of it? Before they’d had a chance to think it through, or arrive at anything resembling a conclusion, Stella Martel’s next step triggered something like a bear trap and she released a sharp, anguished cry as the steel teeth of the thing dug into her right ankle.
The disorienting suddenness of it, coupled with indescribable pain, sent her staggering against the Latina, whose own left foot triggered another animal-type metal trap—and both women went down in agony.
Pearleen sought to help. Attempted to pry the traps loose and free them—and it could not be done. Furthermore, the traps were linked to chains that were in turn secured to cinder blocks buried beneath planks that made up the floor. Choking on tears, Pearleen knew she would have to leave the two of them where they were for the time being. She wondered what other surprises Biggs had rigged the tunnel with?
Rising to her feet, she held the butane lighter out in front of her and noticed now why Lana and Stella had not been able to spot the traps: they’d been concealed within carefully-constructed depressions in the floor and covered over with dark plastic trash bags.
She aimed the lighter directly at the floor, and ever-so-carefully, moved further along the tunnel. She reached a short, wooden stoop at the end. Looked up. Yes, indeed there was a portal up there. Trap door. Just as there was one to her left, in that side of the tunnel. Door was about half the size of your average door, both: in height and width. Appeared to be metal. Where did it lead? Another passageway? She grabbed the steel handle with both hands, and yanked hard. Didn’t matter where the door lead to because it was solid and it was locked. Concluded immediately she was expending time and energy she could ill afford. She turned back toward the stoop and her eyes caught something else: a snake slithering down from the top step.
She fired once at the head, stopping it. It was not until she was able to get a closer look at the snake did she realize that the reptile had had its skull flattened by someone long before her bullet ever went through it.
Just more of the weirdo’s games that made no sense. The bastard did get you to waste another one of your precious bullets, didn’t he?
Pearleen proceeded to make it up the stoop, holding her breath, praying that she would be able to get out this way.
Slowly, taking one step at a time, she made it up. Held the gun out in front of her in both hands. She counted the steps. Eight steps to the door.
She was halfway there when the door creaked open, and a grinning Cecil Omar Biggs appeared, using a couple of male geeks, wearing bloody and disgusting hog masks with slobbering long tongues hanging out, as human shields.
Biggs held a gun in one hand, and the black, aircraft-aluminum Maglite in the other.
“Pearleen Bell. You didn’t think it was going to be this easy, did you?” Biggs prodded the retards to move down the steps—with a reminder not to harm her, only hold her.
“This is sick, Cecil. You can’t go on. They’ll get you. Sooner or later they’ll get you.”
“Meanwhile, I’m having the time of my life.”
He shoved the men down after her. Pearleen emptied her gun into the psychos and watched them thrust themselves at her just the same, tumbling down to the bottom and taking her with in the process.
That was it for Cecil’s goons in the repulsive hog masks. The wounded geeks were in too much pain to think about rising back up.
Pearleen Bell made it to her feet. Hurried in the opposite direction. She staggered over the coffin, the other dead woman. Found her way toward the opening, and got trapped inside the corridor—and was yanked out through the same hole in the bathroom wall by members of Cecil’s “inner circle.”
CHAPTER 205
Biggs was already there, waiting at the door to the john.
“Look at the damage you did to the wall. My storage corridor is a disaster, the tunnel a mess. All this is going to cost time and money, lots of money. Not to mention hard work. I can’t help but get annoyed when people come in here and think they can destroy my property.”
He held the Maglite horizontally and whacked her across the belly with it. Pearleen doubled over. Went down.
“It’s a simple fact, real estate that is not kept up automatically depreciates. Any moron will tell you that. Am I right, Brother Muck?”
“Yo, why you be lookin’ at me? Don’t be me put no hole in the wall.”
Biggs’s eyes were back on the stripper.
“You see, the plan is to eventually unload the house and relocate the United Christian Church of Re-Newed Hope to larger, more accommodating quarters. Possibly Temple City. I’m determined to get a decent price for the place.”
He nodded to board members and staff to help her up. They managed.
“Only it makes
it pretty difficult when someone like you feels you can come in here and start knocking holes in my walls. It’s bad enough we have to keep an eye on Sassy and Mr. Fimple for this very same thing. I mean every time I turn my back, there they are, banging their heads against something: wall, door, staircase, other staff members, or members of the congregation. I don’t care for it at all. Can stress a man out.” And he let her have it again, right across the mid-section, that sent her sprawling back down. Where she belongs, thought Cecil. He would have preferred smacking her in the jaw, or face, neck—but then that might have impaired her ability to suck cock, which he had plans for her to do later.
“Remind me to give her a tetanus booster shot. Might have to give one to myself—to be on the safe side.”
CHAPTER 206
Pearleen Bell was carried to the Mattress Room. Leggings were clamped to her ankles that came with a foot and a half long chain between them, this then was attached via lock to a long chain that hung from an overhead pipe. Biggs saw to it that there was enough slack in the chain so that she would be able to lie down on any one of the soiled and ratty mattresses on the cement floor should she be inclined to do so at some point in the future. He held her wrists and handcuffed them in front of her.
Pearleen crawled to what she assumed to be the chamber pot. Found herself throwing up. The last blow to the belly and general decay and stench in the tunnel and here in this room had brought it on.
“As you may or may not have surmised, I don’t like to see vomit on my floor. Use the bucket to shit in, piss in—puke in. It’ll have to do for the time being. You’ll eventually be allowed access to the john. You’ll be provided with fresh tap water to drink, food to eat.”
