Poison Orchids: A darkly compelling psychological thriller

by Sarah A. Denzil

  The journey was not a long one, but it was a quiet one, and at one point, the truck pulled off the road and onto a driveway which was headed by a long wooden field gate. The truck went over a bump in the driveway, and the headlights jumped onto some sort of skull fixed onto the front of the gate. Large horns came out of the skull like antlers. She shivered again.

  Rodney got out of the truck to open the gate.

  Gemma grabbed Hayley’s arm. “He’s the one who hurt Ellie.”

  In shock, Hayley shook her head. “What do you mean? He was there when she fell?”

  “No,” Gemma rolled her eyes. “I don’t have time to explain—”

  “Let’s just get through this. It could be dangerous if he knows we know. We’ll tell Tate later.”

  “But what if he hurts us?”

  Hayley didn't know what to say. She wanted to be back at the farm, dancing with Tate like she had at the party last night. But she knew she had to be strong, so she decided to reassure Gemma as best she could. “This is important, remember? Tate wants us to do well.”

  Rodney came back and drove the truck through the gate, past an old cabin, and towards a field which held a cluster of outhouses. Finally, he parked the truck, pulled on the hand brake, and opened his door. Hayley's fingers trembled as she opened her door, and for a moment she was embarrassed that Gemma might have noticed. Her flip-flops churned up dust as they followed Rodney towards a large building locked by a thick chain and padlock. She shivered as she waited for him to open the door, and as she shivered, Gemma slipped her hand through hers. Gemma was shivering too.

  She wanted to ask questions. What was this place? Why had they come here after dark? Where was Tate? But her voice was gone. Instead her throat was clogged with an unspoken scream. She longed to scream at the top of her lungs or throw up until her stomach stopped cramping, but for some reason she could do neither.

  The door was open, and Rodney was walking in.

  They went. Two small women. Hayley not much more than a bag of bones, barely layered by the small amount of muscle she'd acquired from working the fields, still not much in terms of physical strength. Skinny and lithe. Her tongue felt thick.

  As they entered the strange, large facility, the cold air tickled the hairs on her arms, infiltrated her nose, her lungs. It was scented with the sweet smell of rot.

  They followed Rodney as he stepped between old metal benches. No, not benches, they were some sort of conveyor belt. What was this place? Gemma was whimpering now, and Hayley’s chest felt tight.

  You would do anything for the farm, wouldn't you? You would do anything for me?

  Yes.

  Get on your knees, bitch.

  Hayley couldn’t breathe. Why had Tate made them come here? What did he want them to see? Why this man, this Rodney who turned her stomach and made her feel dirty just by looking at her? Why hadn't he spoken? She glanced back towards the open door and thought about running away, now, stealing the truck and getting out of here. Driving for as far as she could until she found a safe place. A hospital. A police station. Anywhere with a phone and a friendly face.

  But none of those places would have Tate, would they? Or the cabins and the beautiful mansion? They wouldn't have fresh mangoes or lunchtime soup. They wouldn't have a sunrise that bathed the world in orange—a bright, burning star in the sky.

  Rodney opened up another door and led them down some steps to yet another door. When this was opened, the smell hit her hard. The air was freezing. Both Hayley and Gemma hesitated on the final step, neither wanting to go into that dark room. Their shoulders were huddled together. Both of them were shaking now, and Gemma continued to whimper. Rodney turned back and stared at them, perhaps hesitating about what to do next. Hayley recoiled away from him. Finally, he grabbed Gemma by the wrist and forced her into the room, which in turn dragged Hayley through the door because Gemma wouldn't let her go.

  It was pitch black. Gemma's hand was like a vise around hers. Tenacious. Bone crushing.

  Silence.

  And then, more of Gemma’s whimpering.

  The light went on.

  The whimpering stopped.

  All Hayley could hear was the sound of Gemma screaming.

  The big man moved behind them, and a meaty hand wrapped around Hayley's face until she could taste salt on his palm. It was only then she realised she'd been screaming too. Gemma's hand tightened until her fingers felt like they were going to snap.

  Hayley closed her eyes, hoping that if she opened them again it would all be a terrible nightmare. A terrible mistake.

  But when she opened them, she realised that this was real, and that all of those eyes were indeed staring at her. There they were in a circle. Frozen. Stiff. Whiter than the moon. There they were.

  And at the back, facing her directly, were Ellie and Clay.

  27

  Gemma

  Run…

  Lifeless people tethered to chairs.

  Run…

  Clothes and shoes on their bodies. Flesh tainted blue.

  Run…

  So young. So dead.

  Run…

  A face she knew well. A beautiful face. Eyes staring blankly.

  Clay.

  No, no, no, no. It can’t be you.

  Not here.

  I’m inside your nightmare. Of the dead people sitting in a circle.

  What is this place? Who are all the others?

  The word dead started up a chant inside her mind.

  Dead, dead, dead. All dead.

  Rodney stepped across to a thin, frozen girl and ran a lock of her long, dark hair through his meaty hand.

  Stiffly, Gemma turned and forced herself to look at the girl’s face.

  Ellie.

  You didn’t go home.

  A slow grin pulled Rodney’s mouth into a bloodless line. “Don’t worry, girls. In another hour, you won’t even remember being here. You’ll forget me too. The Chemist will work his magic on you. Until the next time. It’s just a test. To see how good you are at forgetting.”

  “Forgetting?” Gemma whispered.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We show you terrible things. Then Tate makes you forget.”

  “Why. Why?” Gemma raged at him.

  “You don’t need to know that.” Rodney smirked as he sauntered over and perched on one of the empty chairs. “Come and join the group, girls. Have a little chat. Pull up a chair.”

  Hayley shook her head stiffly. Gemma felt her tug on her hand, dragging her backwards towards the door.

  Rodney’s expression flattened as he glanced at the door and back to Hayley. He jumped to his feet—pitching forward as one foot caught on a chair leg.

  For a moment, Gemma stood immobile.

  Hayley’s voice pierced the air. Go! Go, go, go!

  Blood buzzed in Gemma’s ears. Adrenaline shot through her limbs with electric jolts. She raced after Hayley, knocking hard into her just as she yanked the door handle.

  The two of them exploded through the doorway. Gemma spun around, catching a glimpse of Rodney scrambling to his feet and chairs crashing to the floor. She slammed the door shut, fumbling desperately with the door’s lock.

  “Leave it,” Hayley hissed.

  They tore away into the cavernous darkness. The only illumination came from the weak moonlight through the windows and from the tiny bulbs of a control panel outside the cold room. She couldn’t remember the way they’d come in through all of this machinery and equipment.

  They ran in the wrong direction, ending up in an area with a metal grid underfoot. Enormous bull horns were stacked up in a corner. She knew what this place must be—a disused meat processing plant. Right now, they’d run towards what must have once been the slaughter floor. It’d been half-dismantled, but huge hooks still hung down from an overhead conveyer belt. A revolting, sickly odour of rust and death saturated the air, coming up through the drainage grates.

  A sharp clang of metal against metal echoed as Rodney threw the cold
room door open. Gemma’s stomach flipped. She hadn’t managed to lock it.

  “Hide, hide,” Hayley whispered. “He’s coming.”

  “Fucking get out here, you two!” Rodney stomped through the shed, kicking out at something that made a loud clatter on the floor. “Don’t make me have to find you.”

  Gemma ran behind a partition with Hayley. Rodney charged past them.

  Hayley pointed at a vertical sliver of moonlight, inhaling a shivery gulp of air. “The door is all the way down there. Let’s go.”

  “Wait.” Gemma clutched her friend’s arm. “If he turns on the lights, he’ll see us. We don’t know where he is.”

  “Why isn’t he switching the lights on, anyway?”

  “Don’t know,” Gemma muttered.

  As if in response, machinery whirred to life. The overhead conveyer belt jolted and made a grinding sound then began shuffling along its track.

  Hayley stared fearfully at the hooks as they swung menacingly on the conveyer. “God… he must be right next to us.”

  Gemma squinted around the building, trying to see better in the dark. Something was off. He was giving them a clear shot at the door.

  She caught sight of a tall shadow passing by the window nearest to the exit. “He must have a remote control. He’s playing a game with us. He’s down there near the door. Waiting for us.”

  The control panel she’d seen before flashed in her mind. It’d been directly outside the cold room. She realised it must hold its temperature controls.

  “Come on.” Gemma pulled Hayley with her.

  “Where—?” Hayley gasped, running with Gemma.

  Gemma raced to the control panel and began tearing at the looping leads that were connected beneath the panel. “If we destroy this, he’ll have to try to fix it. Maybe then we can get away.”

  Hayley grabbed a metal bucket and started hammering at the buttons and levers.

  Rows of fluorescent lights buzzed and crackled and turned on overhead.

  Rodney came charging towards them. “What the hell you doin’?” he roared. “Dumb bitches.”

  Gemma and Hayley rushed away as Rodney went to the control panel. They could see a clear path to the door now. Without looking back at Rodney, they fled.

  They sprinted out through the door and into the dark night. And kept running, across the field.

  “There’s a light on—there!” Hayley gestured frantically towards the low-set farmhouse.

  “Wait. We don’t know”—Gemma caught her breath—“we don’t know if they’re bad too. The cold room is on their land, right?”

  Hayley whirled around to Gemma, gasping. “The road—we’ll find our way there. Get a ride into town.”

  “Yeah. We need to get into town. But which way?”

  “Maybe straight past the house?”

  Gemma nodded.

  Staying low, they raced around the house, keeping a wide berth.

  The howls and snaps of a group of dogs sent chills spiralling down Gemma’s back. She heard them jumping up against a metal fence. “They sound vicious. What if Rodney lets them loose? They’ll find us and rip us to pieces.”

  “Damned dogs just gave away where we are too.” Hayley’s voice rose in desperation.

  Gemma tried to make out features of the land. Fences. The odd trees. Bushes. Everything looked the same in every direction. “Maybe we should follow along the fence. At least we won’t be circling back.”

  They ran to the fence and ran alongside it, stumbling and falling every few minutes.

  “I still don’t hear any cars,” said Hayley, stopping to look around. “Maybe we’re just heading into the middle of nowhere.”

  Nerves fizzed under Gemma’s skin, her stomach so tight she wanted to vomit. “Let’s try going a different way. Only, we don’t know where he is. We could be going straight to him.”

  Hayley gripped her arm. “Gemma, he’ll kill us, too, if he finds us, won’t he?”

  Gemma closed her eyes as she breathed out a yes.

  She could see Clay’s bluish face so clearly in her mind. Clay had wanted to leave. I should have gone with him. He’d still be alive. God, they’re murdering people. And no one knows but us.

  Hayley was pulling her again, urging her on. Together, they climbed the fence and raced into the field.

  The frenzied barks of the dogs came from a different direction now.

  “The dogs…” Gemma whirled around. “They’ve been let out.”

  “I hear a car!” Hayley pointed ahead.

  They fled diagonally across the dry grass—low, dry bushes scratching Gemma’s legs.

  A thin road stretched in front of them. A car drove slowly up the road, headlights illuminating the tar. Music streamed from a window that was partially open, a female voice warbling a country song on the radio.

  “It’s not Rodney’s van,” Gemma breathed as it drew close.

  “Should we—?” Hayley turned to Gemma.

  The dogs were closer. Their barks and snarls terrifying. If we hesitate, it’ll be too late and the car will be gone. Can a stranger be any worse than Rodney?

  Wordlessly, Gemma ran with Hayley to the edge of the road.

  The pale-coloured station wagon pulled up. “Does the car look safe to you?” Hayley whispered.

  Gemma couldn’t see in through the dark window. “If we don’t like the look of who’s in there, we run.”

  Hayley nodded fervently.

  The driver’s door opened.

  A man jumped out.

  Gemma barely had time to recognise that it was Rodney’s bulky frame in front of them before he’d swung a rifle up and pointed it straight at them.

  “Get in.” He gestured with the rifle, swinging it towards the car and then back to them.

  They backed away.

  “I got the car from the house. From good old Wendy,” Rodney told them, looking unconcerned that she and Hayley were readying themselves to flee. “I’m not stupid enough to go searching for you across the countryside. Easier to flush you out.”

  Hayley shook her head. “I’m not going with you. I’m not.” Her voice had grown hoarse with fear.

  “Awww.” Rodney blew out a stream of air from between his teeth, mocking her. “If you think I’m taking you back to the cold room, you’re wrong. That was just a taste.”

  “A taste of what?” Gemma tried to sound defiant but instead her words squeezed together into a whimper.

  “You’ll have to ask Tate that.” He shrugged. “Anyway, where’s your loyalty? Aren’t you girls loyal to your precious Llewellyn?”

  “You people are killers,” Hayley cried. “You killed Ellie.”

  “I bet you’re a bad shot,” Gemma told Rodney, making another desperate attempt at bravado. “You smelled like booze on the way here. If we run, you’re not going to get us.”

  “Maybe I won’t be quick enough to shoot both of you. But I’ll be sure to get one of ya.” He swung the rifle from Gemma to Hayley and back again. “Which one of you will it be?”

  The dogs’ deep barks came closer.

  “Just get in,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Hayley stared at Gemma. Any choices they had were gone.

  He grinned as they walked onto the road and into the car.

  The car reeked of cheap perfume and fast-food chicken—which had to be Wendy’s—and Rodney’s sweat.

  “Lucky you didn’t do too much damage to the control panel,” he said as he drove away. “I was able to plug the important bits back in.” He shook his head in annoyance. “Still needs fixing though. What were you trying to do—thaw out your friends? Trust me, better to keep them iced, so you can go back and talk to them whenever you like.” He chuckled to himself.

  Rodney left the country music playing loud on the radio, humming along. He swung the car around and drove to the house then made them get into his van.

  He headed for the highway. Gemma and Hayley remained silent, clutching each other’s hand.
<
br />   The drive seemed to go on forever.

  All the while, panic whirled through Gemma’s mind.

  What will happen when we get back to the farm? Will Tate and Rodney kill us too? I knew Rodney was bad, but not this bad. And Tate… God, Tate’s a murderer too.

  She raised her head in time to see a highway sign.

  “This is the wrong way,” said Gemma in alarm. “I just saw the sign for Katherine.”

  “Just taking a detour,” Rodney said.

  Gemma scanned the road frantically through the car window. He steered the car around a bend and into town. It was comforting, at least, to see houses. There were people here.

  Hayley nudged Gemma. “Soon as he stops, we jump out and run for help,” she said in a voice so soft that Gemma strained to hear.

  Gemma gave a slight nod back. She was next to Rodney, and she didn’t want him to know that she and Hayley were communicating.

  But Rodney kept driving, until they were way out of town. The sign for a town named Bowman’s Creek was ghostly in the moonlight.

  The houses grew sparser and sparser and the land rougher and rougher. Until there was nothing and no one.

  He drove down a dark dirt road and onto a property.

  “Where are we going?” Gemma demanded.

  “You’ll see,” he said. He got out and opened up their door. “You two get in there.” He gestured towards a small shed.

  “Help us!” Hayley’s scream rang out clearly.

  “Scream all you like,” he told her. “There’s no one to hear you.”

  When they tried to turn and flee, he was quicker, pushing them in their backs with the barrel of his gun.

  The air inside the shed was hot as they stepped through the doorway, still baking from a day of sun on its metal roof and walls. The shed stank of a funky, sour odour that she couldn’t name.

  Rodney switched on a set of LED bulbs.

  Gemma blinked in the sudden light. “What the hell?”

  Two large cages dominated the shed—one occupied by large, white birds and the other empty. The cockatoos screeched and flapped their wide wings.

  Rodney pushed Gemma and Hayley into the empty cage.

  Gemma gasped at the sight of a puddle of clothing in one corner of the cage. Girl’s clothing.