"I know you have a gun under there," said the man. "If you so much as twitch I’ll pull this trigger and your brain will be splattered into pieces too small for you to ever come back."
Casey knew then that the guy was insane. His three friends had pulled weapons during the short diatribe, too, all three taking them out with that same easy, almost casual style.
Casey was outgunned, outnumbered, out of luck. He was also supremely glad he had not tried to shoot earlier. From the look of these three, he had little doubt that such a move would have ended in his death. These people were dangerous, and his only hope lay in cooperating and praying that whatever they wanted took them away quickly.
"I’m taking my hand off the trigger," he said. His voice remained calm, well-modulated. Keep them happy, he thought. Pretend nothing is wrong, and live to see tomorrow.
"Slowly!" barked the other guy, a younger, good-looking fellow.
Casey moved slowly. "Thought you might be looking for something," he said as he withdrew his hand, centimeter by centimeter, from below the bar.
"Somebody," said the blonde girl.
"Looks like you found him," said Casey, trying to sound calm, as though this sort of thing happened every day. Stay cool, stay calm, and stay alive, he thought.
The older man laughed. The sound pierced Casey’s ears like needles wrapped in barbed wire. "Not yet, my friend," said the man through his laughter. "We haven’t found whom we seek." He leaned in, then, and Casey stared into twin pools of hell masquerading as human eyes. "Not yet. But we will.
"With God’s help and yours, we will."
DOM#67A
LOSTON, COLORADO
AD 1999
7:00 PM SUNDAY
** CONTACT MADE – SERIES SEVEN/A-TYPE **
When the door opened, John’s breath caught in his throat.
He remembered once at a Mexican restaurant he’d gotten a bit overzealous with the chips and salsa, swallowing a large piece of tortilla that went down sideways. It had jammed in his throat, partially blocking his trachea and making it hard to breathe. Annie whacked him on the back a few times, then tried the Heimlich. Neither worked. He wasn’t in any real danger of asphyxiation, because he could breathe around the chip, but the pain was excruciating, and breathing definitely was a chore. They’d gone to one of the two doctors who practiced in Loston, making an emergency house call, but the chip had popped back up as they pulled into his driveway.
John hadn’t been eating chips - hadn’t been near Mexican food since Annie died – but he had similar respiratory problems when he saw Fran as he had that night in Los Toros.
He dropped the bouquet he was holding, a small mass of tousled mountain flowers that seemed all the more beautiful for their chaotic arrangement. He knelt to gather them up again, and could not take his eyes off her, though it meant he had to crane his neck upward to see her.
She wore a white shirt and blue jeans, simple clothing that nonetheless draped her like it was tailored. She was slim, but not overly so. She had the look, not of a bulimic heroin addict, which John saw so many of the girls in his classes struggling to achieve, but rather the appearance of a truly healthy person. One who glows from without with physical well-being and from within with spiritual peace.
Annie had always looked like that.
The only ornamentation she had was a gold bracelet that hung loosely from her wrist. It was completely unnecessary, in John’s opinion, for no mere gold could match the glow of her eyes.
"Are you trying to hypnotize me?" she asked after a moment, and John’s face went red as he realized how openly he had been staring.
"No," he said. "No, I...uh...." His brain completed the perfect moment by deciding now would be a good time to step out to lunch.
"It’s John, right?"
Again, John’s jaw pumped up and down for a moment before anything resembling speech emerged. "Yeah."
She smiled, a laughing, playful grin that invited instead of mocking. "Come on in."
She twisted sideways, but didn’t move out of the doorframe, effectively forcing John to get close to her as he entered. He sensed that it wasn’t a calculated move, designed to either seduce him or put him off, but was rather the action of a generous person whose personal space is completely inclusive of everyone around.
He noted an economy in her movements, too, a like a professional dancer, someone so in tune with her body that personal awareness became instinct. Her feet were placed just so, her body lithe and slightly leaning in the direction she would move, each placement perfect and yet totally unrehearsed.
Again, though she looked nothing like her, John was struck by Fran’s resemblance to his Annie.
He moved past her, trying not to look too awkward as he passed close by her and then entered her house. Boxes sat everywhere in the small living room, most of them open but unpacked. The place was furnished, though, filled with comfortable chairs and soft lighting.
And books. They were unpacked, lining the walls, some on partially constructed shelves, some just lined up on the floor like silent guardians of literacy. John could not recall ever seeing so many volumes in one room before, unless it was in a library. He loved to read, himself, but his own accumulation of literature was dwarfed by Fran's collection.
Fran noticed his gaze. "Sorry about the mess. I actually got here two days ago, but I haven’t done much. Just slept." She swept her hair back, a nervous move that conveyed her embarrassment at this fact. "Not really like me."
She seemed mortified by the apparent laziness such a fact conveyed, John noted. Good woman, he thought. She's a hard worker, and wants it to show.
Then he thought, That's the kind of woman I'd like to marry.
The thought bounced around in his cortex for a long second before he realized its significance. Whoa, cowboy, he thought. Let's get through the date before planning the wedding.
Fran changed the subject, saying, "If you can wait just a second, I’ve got to go change."
"You look fine to me." The words blurted out of him before he had time to think about their appropriateness. He blushed. This wasn’t like him.
Fran smiled, looking sincerely grateful. "Thanks. But I would like to look a bit better for my favorite cousin’s favorite friend who’s taking time out of a busy schedule to be my new favorite tour guide."
John didn’t know what to say to that, really, his brain having decided not only to go to lunch but also to stop for a movie and perhaps spend the night in a nice hotel somewhere. Fran saved him from revealing his sudden lack of brain function, though, by motioning to the flowers.
"Did you pick those yourself?"
"Yeah," said John. He was down to monosyllabic responses, he noted. Articulation and anything resembling a vocabulary were apparently at the movies with his brain. "They’re for you."
"Thank you, Johnny." John jumped a bit at that, or rather, not so much jumped, actually, as minutely twitched. A twinge. She noticed. "Are you all right?"
He refrained from saying the first word to pop into his head, which was "Yeah," nodding instead. "I just...someone else used to call me that."
"Sorry. I’ll call you John."
"No, it’s okay. You can call me Johnny."
He smiled at her. She smiled back, then took the flowers and put them in a vase that had been on the floor, stuffed with bunches of newspapers. Then she disappeared down the hall, stepping into one of the rooms.
John wondered if she was in her bedroom.
He wondered if he’d ever see it.
Hold on, tiger, he thought. Slow and easy.
Even as he gave himself that directive, however, he knew he was assigning himself an impossible task.
Fran stepped back out less than two minutes later. She had changed, keeping the jeans and the gold bracelet but adding a nicer pair of shoes and putting on a red blouse that heightened the natural blush of her cheeks. She was beautiful. John’s breath caught in his throat again.
"Ready to go?" she asked.
He nodded, trying to remember how to make words come out of his mouth. "Nice bracelet," he said, which definitely ranked high among All-Time Dumbest Non-Sequiturs.
Her reaction was unexpected. For a moment, the glow in her eyes darkened as she fingered the gold links of the jewelry. "Thanks," she said. "It was a gift from my husband. I...I always wear it."
John was silent for a moment, unsure how to react. The specters of two dead lovers seemed to hang between them during a long period of silence. Then he pushed forward, clearing his throat and saying, "Anything you want to see first?"
Fran nodded and brightened almost immediately. "Take me to where you picked the flowers."
DOM#67A
LOSTON, COLORADO
AD 1999
7:10 PM SUNDAY
It was dark in Casey’s basement.
He knew that, had always known that, but never had it so fully registered on him. The darkness hummed around him. It palpitated with its own deep, thrumming power, washing over him like dark waves that stood permanently at high tide. And yet the darkness that surrounded him was nothing compared to the darkness that he feared was coming.
He looked around him, blinking quickly as though rapid twitching of his ocular muscles could slice through the darkness like a propeller blade. Nothing. His eyes were useless.
He could hear, though, and what he heard frightened him.
The man. The oldest of the four strangers who had taken him captive. In the few moments that they took binding his arms, Casey could tell that he was their leader. Malachi, one of the girls had called him. He was in charge. And he was the most to be feared.
"The dark scares you, doesn’t it?" said Malachi.
Casey wanted to answer, wanted to say, "Yes, sir, it does, please let me go, please," but the gag that stretched tightly across his cheeks and through his mouth prevented anything more than a low moan.
"Oh, I’m sorry." Casey felt the cool swish of air that accompanied Malachi’s movements as he glided toward him. Or perhaps it was one of the other three, who were in the dark room as well. Though they hadn’t so much as moved or even breathed, as far as Casey could tell, since they’d brought him down here, below the bar, and tied him to a chair an instant before turning off the lights.
They sat there, silent, Casey gagged and bound tightly, slowly feeling his hands and feet go numb, remembering horror stories of POW’s in World War I who lost their feet when their captors tied them too tightly and they rotted on their legs. He wondered how long it would take to happen, how long before his hands died and he lost his ability to serve at the bar. He wondered, and wondering turned to imagination, and imagination turned to fear.
Fear was what they wanted. He knew that; why else would they be acting like this? But knowing did not help him overcome the thick dread that froze his blood and made icy sweat ooze from his forehead.
Malachi touched Casey’s neck and Casey jumped, jerking violently away from the man, almost knocking over the chair. Malachi caught it before it toppled, though, and whispered, "Shh, peace, my son. I’m just taking off the gag. You won’t scream, now, will you?"
Casey shook his head back and forth. Screaming would be useless, anyway. They were in the bottom of a deep cellar, lined with stone and concrete and dirt to insulate the few expensive wines he kept for special occasions. Such a thick layer of dense matter would keep anyone outside the cellar from hearing him. He could drop a grenade on the floor and the only sound to penetrate above would be a slight tapping. No, he wouldn't scream.
"Good." The gag loosened, and Casey sucked in a great, gasping draught of air that tasted better to him than the finest Guinness.
"Now, my friend. Casey, is it?"
"Y-yes, sir."
"Sir. Good. Excellent respect, my friend. Keep that respect, and you will live through the night." Malachi paused a moment. "You are well connected, yes?"
"What?"
"You know the people in the town, correct?"
Casey was struck by the strange cadences of the man's tone and word choices. It sounded as though this Malachi was speaking English as one would a second language, translating rapidly from some unknown set of linguistics. Yet he spoke without accent, and obviously had no trouble following Casey's words earlier in the evening. Still, the wording of Malachi's question – "You know the people in the town, correct?" - struck fear into Casey.
"I suppose," he answered.
"Of course you do." Casey sensed rather than saw the man’s predatorial smile growing larger, like the jaws of a Venus flytrap about to spring shut on a helpless fly. "Of course you do. I would like to know something, if I may."
Casey waited. He hadn’t been asked a direct question, and he wasn’t about to volunteer anything.
"Is anyone moving in to Loston?"
"What?" The question took him by surprise. It was the last thing he expected. Of course, he had no idea what these crazies wanted, so he guessed that any conversation he held with them would be one long succession of surprises. And none of them happy ones.
"Are the inhabitants here expecting any new people? Move-ins? Families?"
Casey sat silently for a moment, thinking. Fact was, he knew about as much about the town as anyone. A bar in a small country town was more than just a place to drink, it was a place to come together. It was a place where just about everyone in the town who was over twenty-one and still ambulatory would show up at least twice a month, and since Casey kept his ears open while he worked, he heard about most of what happened in the town.
So he knew for certain that there were two move-ins this week: a Devorough family that moved in Thursday night, and Coach Harding’s cousin from Los Angeles, who was supposed to be arriving tonight. But he didn’t answer right away, because he wanted to be absolutely sure he gave them a correct answer. He sensed that his life depended on it.
The pause, however, proved to be too much for one of the women. Casey had no doubt that the Malachi could wait until time ran out and God died of old age to get what he wanted, but one of the women - the blonde girl, he guessed - spat out the words, "Where’s the girl?"
Casey heard Malachi grunt and turn. A light turned on, blinding him, but he made out enough through his tear-streaked vision to see Malachi slap the woman. It was a hard backhand that made almost no noise but would surely leave a sharp ridge of bruises along her jaw and his knuckles.
Casey only saw it peripherally, though, because as soon as the woman spoke those three words, something happened. It was like his tongue was locked inside his mouth. It wasn’t as though he resolved not to speak; rather, he suddenly felt he couldn’t talk even if he wanted to. Nor was it merely imagination. He felt something change in him, and perceived an actual presence, a real though unseen power that froze his jaw and prevented him from uttering so much as a sound.
That was only part of him, however. Another part, a part that had somehow been subjugated in that moment, was screaming. "Yes, yes, I know, I know it all, and I’ll tell you, too, if you’ll just let me alone!" it yelled.
But the sound didn’t come out.
Malachi turned back to Casey, the rage that had momentarily flashed across his face disappearing. The sharks were hiding under the calm surface again, but Casey knew they were still there, circling. Waiting.
"Now, who is new to your fair city?"
Casey opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Malachi’s jaw tightened. He turned back to the woman and slapped her again. Harder, on the other side. She cried and fell, and he kicked her in the side. "You stupid bit," he said. "You shouldn’t have mentioned the girl directly. Now he’s locked and we have to break him."
Casey heard the word break and the silent screams that couldn’t make it to his lips increased in volume, resounding in his head like thunder across a roiling sky over a black sea.
The man turned back to Casey, and this time he held a small metallic box. He clipped it to Casey’s wrist, then looked in Casey’s eyes. Casey recoiled at t
he hatred and rage that glinted from the man’s bright irises. "It’s for my salvation," said the man, and pressed a switch.
Agony, liquid fire, ran up Casey’s arm. It stabbed inward and upward, penetrating the bones of his arm, shearing inward to his trunk and legs, sparking through his spine. A million firecrackers ignited behind his eyes and burned his skull from the inside out. He felt his eyes melting in their sockets, and then drip in white-hot rivulets into his skull, searing his brain.
But while it happened, no sound emerged from his lips. He didn’t scream. Couldn’t, in fact. Whatever had kept him from talking apparently prevented any noise whatsoever.
Malachi pressed the switch again. The fire dissipated, leaving Casey gasping and sweating. He was surprised that he could see, that his eyes had not in fact melted. He also noticed that his body seemed to have suffered no external ill effects at all.
Which didn't make the agony he had just experienced any less real. It just made it more terrifying as Casey realized that whoever these people were, they had ways of causing pain that he had never heard of.
Malachi leaned close, then closer, eye to eye with Casey. "You can’t talk at all now, though I’m sure you want to."
His hand dropped to the switch again, and Casey managed a whimper. His torturer smiled at the sound. "Good. As soon as you can scream, you’ll be able to tell us what we need to know. And you will scream. Oh, yes, you will scream."
He hit the button again. Casey writhed in his chair, muscles cording up in arms made strong by years of pushing beer barrels under taps, of throwing out people who wanted to start fights. But his bonds held, and he still made no sound.
The man watched. And waited.
"You will tell us what we want to know," he said.
And Casey knew he would, eventually.
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