by Willow Rose
Since Arthur wasn't able to speak he just grunted a couple of times and then moaned. Line felt tears press behind her eyes. She was glad that he was fine but she missed him so much. He had never quite been himself again after the kidnapping and she missed that happy, sweet, childish Arthur who she used to hang out with and play with for hours. Now he was mostly angry and aggressive and she had a feeling that the personnel at the home hit him when he wasn't behaving. She had seen bruises on his back and arms, but she could never prove it, since they simply told her Arthur had fallen and bruised himself.
"That's good. Are you being a good boy?"
Arthur grunted again.
"I'll be back Monday. There is a storm coming through tonight, so don't be scared, alright? It might make a lot of noise but you'll be okay."
Arthur made a strange sound and Line thought about the baby, while caressing her stomach. Was he ever going to be able to be around it or would he be too much? Was she going to be able to visit him as much as she used to? Would she have as much time for him? Probably not.
"Now be a good boy for me, will you?" she asked.
Arthur grunted once again, then she said goodbye and hung up. She looked at her phone and went online to see the weather forecast. The storm was supposed to make landfall around six o'clock tonight beginning with the Northern parts of the country. She looked at the clock. No, there was no way she could make it out of there in time. She couldn't afford a taxi, so making it to the station would take a long time and by the time she was there, all the trains would probably be cancelled due to the storm. She would end up being trapped at the station and that probably would be more dangerous than staying at the hotel. She was scared to death of Preben and Jacob and even a little of Soren as well. Scared of what they might do to her, but she would have to get by and just make sure to never be alone with any of them.
Line looked at her own reflection in the mirror on the wall and turned sideways to better see her growing stomach, when she heard a sound coming from the hallway and gasped.
22
December 2013
HE HAD GRABBED A BOTTLE of champagne from the mini-bar and was drinking it from the bottle while smiling secretively to himself. This was turning out to be a lot more fun than he had expected it to be.
Soren leaned back in the soft chair in his room and drank again. It hardly tasted of anything, maybe due to the fact that he was very drunk by now, but he continued anyway. Just to keep the buzz going. Just to keep the thoughts and images away. It had started to get worse. It was like he found it hard to distinguish between imagination and reality. Just like when he had sex with that girl in the ambulance. He was certain she had told him she wanted him to do it.
He had turned on the TV in the room and they were all reporting Breaking News, telling people to stay inside tonight, when the storm would hit the country, and trying to determine which parts of the country were going to get hit the hardest. Apparently it was going to get worse right where he was, he saw when looking at the weather-map of Denmark. They had even given the storm a name. Her name was Bodil.
Soren chuckled and drank again. He really couldn't care less. He had enjoyed this afternoon immensely, a lot more than he had expected to. And tonight he was going to have even more fun. Just seeing the expressions on Preben's and Jacob's faces when he just blurted everything out. Even Line's face was priceless. It was all worth it. So what if he pissed them off? After this weekend he would never see them again. In fact no one would see him again. Not if he went through with what he had in mind.
Soren lifted the bottle once again and drank. Lunch had been good and a lot of fun; he had a feeling that dinner was going to be even better. He couldn't wait to find out who their host really was, even if he had already guessed that it was Jacob. It had to be. He had enough money to pull something like this off. Well, so did Preben, but it just didn't seem like his thing. This kind of staging seemed more like something Jacob would orchestrate. But Soren couldn't figure out why he would do it. Why would he invite all of them here? To finish them all off like he had finished off Hans and Erik? That was certainly a possibility, but why invite Emma? She didn't seem like she knew anything at all. She seemed completely oblivious which made this whole situation so much more fun.
Soren chuckled and drank again. It was all so ridiculous, wasn't it? This entire situation, his entire life even. People were ridiculous and he realized he had stopped caring about everything and everyone.
"They can all go to hell," he mumbled to himself and drank again. A woman on the TV screen talked about how the waters surrounding Denmark was expected to rise in the coming days causing flooding and making it difficult for public transportation.
"All planes are grounded and all trains are cancelled tonight. We don't know about busses so far, but my guess is they won't be on the streets after six o'clock," she said.
Soren emptied his bottle and looked at the woman on the screen. He thought for a moment of Margit and the kids. It was going to be rough on them, but they would understand that this was his only way out, wouldn't they? Maybe it didn't matter. Once they knew everything, they would lose their respect for him anyway. They would resent and maybe even hate him. He wasn't going to stick around to see that.
Soren threw the bottle in the trash can, then walked to his suitcase and pulled out a knife, a Smith & Wesson M&P 1 Assisted Open knife, that he had bought a long time ago from some strange looking fellow in an alley in Copenhagen and brought with him in his suitcase for his own protection. He looked at the blade and tried it on his finger to see how sharp it was. It cut off a small portion of the skin and the finger started bleeding. He sucked the blood off with a smile and put the knife in his pocket.
He had been pushed around so much in his life. It was about time he took matters into his own hands. It was about time he stood up for himself. Yes, this was indeed going to be a very memorable and fun night.
23
December 2013
JACOB LOMHOLDT WAS GLOWING WITH ANGER. He had told Preben to take care of Soren Hedelund and make sure to shut him up once and for all while he took a shower and got himself ready for dinner. He didn't care what Preben did as long as he shut the man up. Knowing Preben, it wasn't going to be pretty and that suited Jacob perfectly. He was sick of Soren's outbursts and frankly he was sick of Soren, period. It wouldn't matter much if he was eliminated once and for all.
Jacob decided he had enough time to fill the bathtub and soak in the water for a little while, so he started filling the tub. He undressed while looking at himself in the mirror. He liked watching himself and playing with his muscles in front of the mirror. He was strong. He had been working out since the start of his teens and had joined a fitness center along with another buddy of his, Caspar who had been bodybuilding for years and who soon had Jacob hooked on it as well. They would pump themselves full of anabolic steroids and pump iron till their bodies were twice their normal sizes. Jacob still remembered how it felt when he started growing. He had always been a small kid, puny even. And when the other boys in his class started growing, he didn't really follow along. He stayed small for some reason and soon he was the smallest in his class. So growing muscles made him feel bigger and stronger than ever and he continued for years, even when his parents told him to stop. Even when he started getting aggressive and the veins became big in his throat, he didn't stop. At that point he couldn't. He loved it and had become addicted to the lifestyle. With the growing size, he experienced growing fear from his classmates and a growing power. He was feared and hated and it suited him perfectly. No one ever picked on him anymore and even his parents were afraid of him and, therefore, no longer tried to tell him what to do. Not after he punched his dad in the abdomen and he flew across the living room and hit his head on a dresser.
Today, he still did steroids every now and then, but not as much as he used to. He was still pumped and still worked out almost every day but wasn't as big as he had been back then either. He was still big en
ough to be able to beat the crap out of anyone he damn well pleased. And the girls seemed to like the big muscles. At least that was what they told him. When he slapped them around in the bedroom, they didn't seem so happy about it anymore, he thought and laughed.
The tub was full and Jacob got in. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the warm water against his skin. His muscles were still sore from yesterday's workout. Jacob sat still in the water with his eyes closed for quite a while and just listened to the many voices and footsteps in the old building. Next door he could hear Line's voice. She seemed to be talking on the phone with someone and Jacob knew exactly who it was. Jacob remembered with joy the day they had kidnapped Arthur from the home. It had been the easiest thing in the world. All they had to do was to give the boy an ice-cream and tell him there was more where that came from. Then he followed willingly. And the personnel at the home? Well, they were too busy drinking coffee and chatting to even notice that they left with him; hell they didn't even know Jacob and Preben were there. They had walked right in without anyone questioning them, found the poor fellow's room and talked to him. As long as the boy looked happy, then no one suspected that they weren't his friends. And frankly, no one cared. Not until he turned up in the forest, that was. Then everyone was so busy covering up for their lack of attention to the patient and explaining to the police that they did a good job at the home. What Jacob and Preben had done to the boy remained a secret since the boy couldn't talk, but it was fair to say that Jacob had his fun with him. And he managed to scare Line enough to make her silent. Jacob knew very well she wasn't the one who had talked. She wouldn't dare. And to be honest, he hadn’t thought Soren would either.
Jacob took in a deep breath remembering how important it was to not let himself get too agitated about this whole situation. He didn't like the entire setup. All day he had thought about just taking off, simply leaving the hotel, but that could never be his solution. He needed to stay on top of things. There was no way he could leave them all there alone without making sure no one spilled the beans.
Jacob sighed with satisfaction when he heard the scream piercing through the walls. It was loud and delightfully filled with anxiety. It was the scream of someone dying. Jacob exhaled and closed his eyes listening to the screams. He smiled. Finally he could relax.
24
September 2005
ERIK HAD IT ALL PLANNED OUT. He was going to tell. For months it had been eating him up and he needed to tell someone. So he told his wife, Maria. On a beautiful Sunday morning in September they were sitting in the yard, drinking afternoon tea in their new house overlooking the ocean. He didn't even plan to do it, he just did it. He told her everything and it felt so incredibly good to finally get it all off his chest. The twins were playing on the swing set and didn't hear their mother's gasp, nor did they notice she didn't utter a word to their dad before she finally got up from the chair and ran inside covering her mouth.
Listening to her cry in the kitchen, Erik felt more alone than ever. He didn't know what he had expected. Had he really thought she would understand? Now he realized he had made a mistake. He wanted to get it off his chest, but he hadn't thought about what it was going to do to her, to them and to their family.
He covered his face with his hands, then looked down at the girls. They were going to grow up hating their old man, weren't they? Maria was going to ask for a divorce, wasn't she? He had thought the consequences through a million times, but they never seemed as devastating as they did now that it was a reality.
After a few minutes, she came back out and sat down at the table. She sipped her tea and didn't look at him.
"I'm … I'm terribly sorry," he said. His voice was trembling. What would she do next? Would she pick up her things, then grab the kids and simply leave without a word? Would she call the police and tell them everything?
Maria sniffled. "Well it's a little too late for that." She drank some more of her tea. Nanna screamed with joy while swinging. The waves rolled in at the beach. Several minutes went by without a word. It was excruciating. The silence was crushing.
Please just say something! Anything! Tell me you're angry, tell me you hate me for what I've done, but please just say something to me.
"So what are you going to do about this?" she finally asked.
Erik exhaled deeply. "I'm going to tell. I'm going to tell everything. I can't live with myself like this. Not with this knowledge."
Maria inhaled sharply. "Are you sure you've thought this through?" She sipped her tea without looking at him.
"I think I have … I mean … I don't know. I just know that it is eating me alive. I can't … I can't sleep, I can hardly eat."
She nodded pensively. "I see."
The silence swept in between them again. Erik thought like crazy about what he had done, about what he was about to do. Was he being selfish? It was going to ruin so many lives, but still … It needed to be told.
"Are … will you …" Erik cleared his throat. "Are you going to leave me?"
Finally Maria looked at him. "Leave you?" She paused. Then she shook her head. "No. This is a blow to the face, but I'll not leave you. We'll have to work our way through this like we’ve worked our way through so many other things." She sipped her tea again. "Yes, that's what we'll do. That's what we have to do. No matter what you decide to do with this, I'll support you in any way I can, in any way a good wife should. Just promise me that there aren't any more secrets like this one coming back to haunt us. Promise me that, Erik."
"There aren’t. I promise," Erik said, feeling greatly relieved. He loved Maria so much at this moment. "Cross my heart and hope to die."
"Good."
The next day, Erik made the appointment he had wanted to for so long and as he left the house, his wife kissed him on the cheek.
"Now, go do your thing," she said with tears in her eyes. "Then we'll have to see what happens next."
"Thank you for being so understanding. You're really amazing, do you know that?"
Maria smiled. It was the first smile since he had told her the secret. It felt good to see her smile again. Maybe things were going to be alright after all? Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad? Doing the right thing was always the best; it always paid off in the long run. Erik's mom had taught him that and that was what he would stick to. Then he'd have to take the consequences afterwards. At least he now knew he had the support of his beloved wife.
Erik waved at Maria and jumped into the car. He drove off to the park where he had arranged the meeting. He parked the car on the far side of the road and got out. He locked it by pushing the remote, then put the keys in his pocket. He felt his phone vibrate and took it out. He had received a text from Maria. It simply said.
"I love you. Good luck."
Erik smiled, then walked into the road just as a car passed by and hit him, throwing him into the air. As he landed on the hard asphalt and everything went numb, he heard the tires of the car screeching and watched as it disappeared around the corner, while his mouth slowly filled with blood.
25
December 2013
I CALLED MY CHILDREN WHILE WALKING ON THE BEACH. MAYA WASN'T IN THE MOOD FOR CHATTING SO SHE PUT VICTOR ON, BUT HE DIDN'T SAY MUCH.
"So how was Christmas shopping?" I asked. "Did you find some presents for me?"
"You already have a present. I gave you one for your birthday, remember?" He said.
"Well, as you might recall then, we also give each other presents for Christmas," I said.
"I never buy you presents for Christmas," he argued.
"I know, you didn't used to give me any for my birthday either. But that's because Maya usually buys them for you. Now we think you're old enough to buy your own. Remember we discussed this this morning as well? I gave you money and told you this was how we were going to do it this year?"
"I didn't think you meant it," Victor said.
"Well I did. I would love to get something from you this year," I said. "Just a small thing.
It doesn't have to be anything big. It could be something you make if you don't want to buy me anything."
"Well I don't. But I don't want to make anything either," Victor said.
I sighed and looked out at the ocean. Victor had his own way of thinking, especially when it came to any social arrangement like Christmas. He simply didn't get the concept of repeating something every year. It was part of his condition which the doctors didn't have a proper diagnosis for but chose to call a "mild autism."
"We already did this," he would say. He didn't understand why we would do the same things year after year, just like he didn't see the need to be polite or to exchange gifts with others.
"What's the point?" he'd ask, "Why can't everyone just buy something for themselves? Then you'd spend the money on something you know you'll like instead of wasting it on something another person probably won't like." Then he'd go off to play among his trees in the yard or write strange things in his notebook like he had been doing a lot lately. I told myself to not expect too much from him, but a part of me really wanted him to get it, to understand and learn to love Christmas like other kids.
"Can't you just try? Just for my sake?" I pleaded, even though I knew it was a lost cause. Every year it was the same. I hoped this year would be different since he was now one year older, but every year I suffered a huge disappointment.
"Okay," he finally said. "I'll try."
My heart jumped with joy. "Promise?"
"Yes."
I opened my mouth to speak, when he suddenly interrupted me. "Don't say cross your heart and hope to die."
"Why?" I asked, startled.
"Stick a needle in my eye," he continued.
"A needle? What are you talking about?" I asked, puzzled.
