by Jack Kilborn
“So what do we do with him? Should I just take him out back, put one in the back of his head?”
The Sheriff made his hand into a gun, and pointed his index finger at Felix.
“No. Give him to Ronald. He ain’t been fed proper in a while.”
“Yes, Ma.”
The Sheriff hooked a hand under Felix’s armpit, pulling him to his feet.
“And when you’re finished up, Dwight, help Grover up in the Grant bedroom. The old woman in there is the only one left.”
The Sheriff made a pouty face. “Aw, c’mon, Ma. I gotta get back to the office. I’m working tonight. Can’t Ulysses do it?”
“Ulysses is towing a guest’s car.”
“How about Millard or George?”
“Millard is cleaning up a mess in the transfusion room. One of our permanent guests is holed up in there. She’s with a dog that bit George, pretty bad. Millard’s going to take care of it, soon as he gets dressed.”
Permanent guests?
“You’re talking about Maria,” Felix said.
Eleanor cocked her head at Felix, then zapped him with the prod. Felix fell onto his knees again.
“I wasn’t speaking to you,” Eleanor said. “But yes, I was talking about Maria. Big disappointment, that one. I had hopes for grandchildren, but the girl is barren as the Sahara Desert. But don’t you get your hopes up, young man. Millard is going to put the poor girl out of my misery. He’s very good at that. And it’s no loss for us. We have enough new blood to last us for the year.”
“You... monster,” Felix said, bracing himself for another jolt.
But Eleanor didn’t prod him again. She just smiled.
“Sometimes, people in power have to do distasteful things for the greater good. Throughout our nation’s history, our Presidents have had to do many things that could be considered unsavory. And before them, the kings that passed on their sacred blood line, often made sacrifices for the greater good. Being born to rule is a huge responsibility, and royalty has no need for morality.”
Then Eleanor stuck the cattle prod on Felix’s chest, pressing him to the floor, holding him there until his entire world was reduced to a blazing, pinpoint of pain.
“Get him off my rug and feed him to Ronald,” Eleanor said. “Then go help Grover with the old woman.”
The Sheriff scratched his head. “Shit, Ma, it’s just an old lady. Grover can handle—”
Eleanor’s hand shot out, fast as a rattlesnake, slapping Sheriff Dwight across the face.
“Dwight D. Eisenhower Roosevelt, don’t you swear in this house.”
The Sheriff looked at his shoes. “Sorry, Ma.”
“Besides, you should never underestimate women of later years. They’re a lot stronger than you think.”
“Yes, Ma.” The Sheriff hauled Felix to his feet once again. “This is the one that did John. You want to give him a horse whippin’? I can fetch it for you.”
“It’s been a frightfully busy day, Dwight. I’m too gosh darn tired to horse whip anyone right now. Besides, Ronald will deliver a right proper punishment without me.”
The Sheriff nodded. “As you wish, Ma. And remind me before I go I got somethin’ for you in the car.”
Eleanor beamed. “Is it the Reagan/Bush ’88 banner I’ve been asking for?”
“It sure is. Found one on Craigslist. Practically brand new.”
She touched the Sheriff’s red cheek. “Y’all are such a dear boy. When you get off work tonight, come knock on Momma’s door. She’ll show you how grateful she is.”
Eleanor ran her liver-colored tongue over her lower lip.
Felix winced. I didn’t think this could get any more repugnant, and it just did.
The Sheriff set his cowboy hat on a cabinet, opened a drawer, and took out a mining hat. He perched that on his head, turned on the light.
“Move it, boy. Lest I horse whip you myself.”
He prodded Felix out the front door, walking him into the woods. After being inside the house, the forest seemed even darker. Felix eyed the treeline, wondering how far he’d get if he made a run for it.
Best case scenario, I escape, return, and save Maria and Cam.
Worst case, I get shot. Which sounds preferable to being eaten by Ronald, whoever that is.
Then Felix felt the Sheriff grab the chain linking his wrists. Escape was no longer an option.
“Straight ahead. Keep a’moving.”
He marched Felix through the trees. They walked for several minutes, not following any particular path Felix could make out. The Sheriff’s head lamp constantly scanned the foliage in all directions. Like he was afraid of something sneaking up on him. And maybe he was.
They eventually reached an open clearing. The Sheriff’s light focused on…
A cave. With a metal pole sticking into the ground in front of the entrance.
And scattered around the pole...
“Jesus Christ,” Felix said.
There were bones. Human bones. Dozens and dozens of them, littered about like the aftermath of a plane crash. Skulls and rib cages and pelvises. Femurs and spines. Some dark with age. Some still with strips of bloody flesh clinging to them.
“Shh,” the Sheriff whispered. “If Ronald is sleeping, you don’t wanna to wake him up.”
The Sheriff tapped Felix on the back of the head with his gun, trying to get him to move forward. Felix didn’t budge.
“Move it, boy.”
“No fucking way.”
Then Felix felt the Sheriff’s hand on his, grabbing three of his mangled fingers.
Oh, please no...
Felix heard the bones break before he felt them.
Snap snap snap.
Then the pain hit, making everything Felix had experienced that night pale by comparison.
He opened his mouth to scream, and just as it was leaving his throat the Sheriff forced something into his mouth.
A ball gag.
“That’s what you did to my brother, John,” the Sheriff said. “How’s it feel, boy? How’s it feel to break a man’s fingers when he can’t fight back?”
He grabbed Felix’s right hand and repeated the process.
Christ, no…
Snap snap snap.
Felix’s stomach was empty, but he dry-heaved anyway, bile coming up through his nose.
Using Felix’s fingers like a steering wheel, the Sheriff guided Felix to the metal pole. He quickly uncuffed his left hand, made Felix hug the pole, and cuffed him again.
“Have fun with Ronald, you sonofabitch.”
The Sheriff reared back and punched Felix in the gut. Felix dropped to his knees, sobbing, watching as the Sheriff scurried off, leaving him alone in the darkness.
Then Felix manuevered around to face the cave. Though the full moon was shining through the break in the canopy, Felix’s eyes hadn’t fully adjusted to the dark, and he couldn’t see anything. But he could smell it. A rank, foul odor. Spoiled meat and blood and feces and musk.
The smell of a predator.
The handcuff keys were still in Felix’s pocket. And with his hands now cuffed in front of him, they were within his reach.
Felix brought his right hand in front of his face. He didn’t want to look at it, but he had to assess the damage. Felix squinted in the darkness, saw his ring finger, middle finger, and index finger, all bent backwards at forty-five degree angles. The bloody bandages he’d put on earlier had begin to drip. Felix tried to move his hand, and a ripple of agony coursed through him, making him want to die to end the pain.
I’ll never be able to get those keys out of his pocket.
Then Felix looked up, and saw the dim silhouette of something coming out of the cave.
# # #
When Kelly opened her eyes, she was lying on dirt.
Am I outside? What’s going on?
It all rushed back to her in a flood of images. Going into the closet. Chasing JD. Talking to Alice.
No, not Alice. Alice was really a c
razy, freaky man named Grover. He caught me because my finger was...
Then the pain hit. Kelly stared at her index finger, saw an ugly, serrated cut around the knuckle. She’d seen an injury like that once before. Back home, one of her classmate was helping his father set fox traps, and one snapped down on him. Kelly figured when she stuck her finger in the peep hole, Grover had put a fox trap on it to hold her there.
She bent the digit, wincing, feeling the tears well up but biting them back.
I’ll cry later. I need to figure out what’s going on.
She tore her eyes away from the injury and studied her surroundings.
Even though Kelly was on dirt, she wasn’t outside. She was in some kind of tiny, dark room. The walls were concrete. The door was metal. The only furnishings were a bucket and a water pump.
“Mom! Grandma!”
Her voice echoed around in the enclosed space. She got up and went to the door.
Locked.
“Mom!” Kelly yelled with all of her lung power.
“Who’s there?” someone said back. A man. Not far away.
“Help me! I’m locked in here!”
Kelly put her ear to the door.
“I’m locked in, too” the man answered. He didn’t sound like he was standing outside. More like he was from a room to the left. She walked over to the wall and cupped her hands together, putting them against her mouth as if she were about to shout. Then she pressed her hands to the wall and said, “Can you hear me?”
Kelly held her ear against the cold concrete and waited for a response.
“Yeah, I can hear you.” The man’s voice was quiet, but clear.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“We’re under the Rushmore Inn, being held in slave cells.”
“What do they want with us?”
“They’re sick. They want to use our blood for transfusions. And...”
Kelly didn’t like the way his voice trailed off, like he was about to tell her something and then changed his mind.
“And what?”
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Kelly. You?”
“Cam. I came here with my sister’s fiancée, Felix. We’ve been looking for her for a year. We think she’s here.”
A year? They’ve been looking for a year?
Kelly shook her head.
No way. I couldn’t last a year here.
“Have you seen my mom or grandmother?” she asked, her voice getting higher as panic set in. “Letti and Florence Pillsbury?”
“I haven’t seen anyone. Just the guy who brought me down here. Ugly bastard with a split in his face. They need our blood because theirs is bad, or something like that.”
Kelly was horrified. “Our blood?”
“I’m O negative. So is my sister. It’s pretty rare.”
Kelly closed her eyes. She was O negative, too. So were Mom and Grandma.
“What else do they want us for?” she asked.
Cam didn’t answer.
“Cam, please, if you know something, tell me. I can handle it.”
“They... they kidnap women to make babies.”
Kelly knew she had to be brave. Mom told her that the best way to overcome bad situations was to fight the fear and keep a clear head. Emotions weren’t useful.
But Kelly felt the tears coming on anyway.
“Kelly? You okay?”
“I’m only twelve years old!” Kelly wailed.
“Jesus. Look, it will all be okay. We’ll get out of this. I promise.”
“How? What if they’ve already got Mom and Grandma? No one knows we’re here.”
“I’ve been in bad situations before, Kelly. We’ll make it.”
Kelly lost herself to tears, crying so hard her nose began to run. All the while she heard Cam saying, “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” Over and over again.
She thought of Mom, who’d given the same lecture to Kelly since she was four years old and skinned her knee.
“Be strong. You won’t help your situation by crying. Focus on what you need to do to fix it.”
Mom was right. I can cry about the pain. Or I can deal with it.
Kelly blew her nose on her sleeve, then asked Cam, “What situations?”
“What?”
“You said you’ve been in bad situations before.”
“It’s… tough to talk about.”
Kelly pressed her ear to the wall. “Please, Cam. I feel like I’m going to crack up. Tell me something hopeful.”
Cam didn’t answer.
“Please.”
“It happened when I was a kid. I was playing in an abandoned house up the street, with my best friend. A man, a drifter, he grabbed us. I was locked in a closet. My friend... the man hurt him. Bad. For a long time. It was so bad, he died. I heard everything. But I managed to get away. I escaped back then, Kelly. I’ll escape again. We both will.”
“That’s... awful, Cam.”
“Nietzsche said what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I’m strong, Kelly. And I bet you are too. We’re going to get out of this.”
“Be quiet!”
It was a new voice. A woman. Coming from the opposite wall.
“Who’s there?” Kelly yelled.
“Shut up!” the woman said. “We aren’t allowed to talk! They do things to us when we talk!”
“Who are you?” Kelly asked. “What’s your name?”
There was a clanging noise, followed by the woman saying, “No! I wasn’t talking! I was telling them not to talk! Please don’t hurt me! I’m carrying a baby!”
It was followed by a scream so raw, so horrifying, that it was the single most frightening thing Kelly had ever heard in her life.
What could make someone scream like that?
Kelly hugged her knees and watched the door. Her nose was running again, but she didn’t dare sniffle. She wasn’t going to make even the slightest sound.
Please, don’t come in.
Please go away.
Please please please go away...
# # #
When Mal opened his eyes, he was lying naked on a cold, stainless steel table. He recognized the type from his cop days. It was sturdy, able to hold up to five hundred pounds, and had gutters along the edges to catch bodily fluids.
A mortician’s table.
He tried to sit up, but there was a strap around his neck. His wrists and ankles were similarly bound, heavy leather and tight buckles.
Mal remembered the shower, the bloody shampoo, then someone grabbing him.
What the hell is going on?
He looked around the room. It was small, but brightly lit, with a large florescent lamp overhead. Concrete walls. Two doors. A TV and VCR, resting unevenly on a cardboard box. They were plugged into an extension cord that ran along the dirt floor under the closest door.
Next to the table was a cart, piled high with medical instruments, none of which looked clean. Knives. Saws. Scalpels. Drill bits. Clamps. Needles. And a bowl of white powder.
“The time is ten fifty-two pm. We’ll begin the operation shortly.”
Mal followed the voice, saw a man standing at the foot of the table.
It’s an honest-to-Christ hunchback.
The hunchback wore a filthy white lab coat, his gnarled spine protruding up through a split in the back. The man also had clubbed feet, and one leg was several inches longer than the other, as judged by the high, clunky soles of his orthopedic shoes. His skull was bulbous, misshapen, hairless, and his cheekbones were uneven.
“What’s going on?” Mal said. “Who are you?”
The hunchback raised a camcorder to his chest, pointing it at Mal. He smiled, revealing several missing teeth. “I’m Jimmy, your surgeon. It appears the patient is awake. Let’s make sure.”
Jimmy raised a scalpel in his free hand, and before Mal could protest, the hunchback poked him hard in the thigh. The pain was instant and awful.
“Fuck! What the fuck are you doing?!”
>
“Indeed, the patient is awake, and responsive to stimulus.”
Jimmy pulled the scalpel free.
“Let me up, you crazy fucker!”
Jimmy set down the camcorder between Mal’s legs, then hobbled over to the television. It was an old CRT model with a pull knob for an on switch. Snow appeared on the screen, with the accompanying static hiss.
“I understand your concerns,” Jimmy said. “Surgery can be a traumatic experience. This tape should answer some of your questions.”
Jimmy pressed play on the VCR. After a few seconds of white noise and vertical flipping, an image came on.
It showed a woman, strapped to the very same table Mal was lying on.
Jimmy was using a hacksaw to cut off her leg.
Though the sound was turned low, the woman’s screaming stabbed Mal in the ears.
The scene cut to a different angle of a different person. An older man. He was begging, beating his bound fists on the table, while Jimmy had a hand inside his stomach cavity.
Next came a close-up of a woman’s breast, being filleted off as she thrashed.
“This next one is my favorite,” Jimmy said.
On the screen, he was using a spoon to pluck out a man’s eyeball.
“Did you hear the pop sound when it came out? I can rewind it if you didn’t.”
Mal squeezed his own eyes closed.
This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
“It’s not over yet!” Jimmy whined. He stuck Mal with the scalpel again. “Keep watching!”
Mal forced his eyes open, one nightmarish image after another searing itself onto his brain. Amputations. Organ removals. Procedures that weren’t even remotely medical, like the one involving a power sander.
“Dermabrasion,” Jimmy said. “It removes acne.”
“You’re insane,” Mal said. “You’re fucking insane.”
Jimmy switched off the TV, then stared over Mal’s head.
“You have a potty mouth, Mr. Deiter.”
Mal looked up, saw Eleanor had walked into the room. She was wearing a robe and a hairnet, a frown creasing her ugly face.
“Eleanor, what the hell—”
Eleanor clamped a hand over his mouth. “Any more foul language and I’ll have Jimmy sew your lips together. Understand?”
