by S. D. Rudd
“I wanna see it.”
She whirled around toward him. “No! I couldn’t bear to see you hurt. Ever! No more talk of the forbidden window or any window, for that matter. None of them will lead to your freedom anyway. There’s only one way to do that.”
Her hesitation was long enough for Alan to realize she wasn’t going to tell him.
“This forbidden window,” he prodded. “Where is it?”
A long hesitation.
“Where—”
“You already know where it is!” she snapped.
“I wouldn’t be asking you if I did.”
A deep sigh. “If you must know, it’s not a window at all but that is all I will speak concerning it. Now, come on.”
“Another metaphor,” he said, getting the revelation.
Something about that forbidden window drew him. He could not figure it out. Almost as if something inside him was tied to it. He pulled her arm and stopped her, turning her around to face him.
“Camille, you don’t understand…I have to know this.” He could see the resignation in her eyes. “I can’t promise you that I won’t go there but I can promise you that I will if you don’t tell me.”
With a sapped face, “you’re insane.”
“Please,” he begged. “Camille…for me? Please?”
Camille studied him in the early morning light for what felt like several minutes. Finally, she released a deep sigh, rolled her eyes and spun on her heels. “Come with me,” she said. “We don’t have much time before the cycle repeats.”
“I don’t understand.”
She spun around again. “When the sun goes down, no matter where you are in the world, no matter what you’ve done, you’ll end up right back in that room with no recollection of who you are, where you’ve been or what you’ve done.”
Alan’s bottom lip stuttered. Nothing could have prepared him for that. The blood in his face ran cold and his legs began to lose its ability to hold him. He was rendered speechless.
“Yeah,” she said with a nod of affirmation.
“How long did you know about this?”
“I told you, you’ve been here for three days. You wake up, do the same things, say the same things, making the same discoveries…then at nightfall you’re back in that room with no recollection of any of it.”
Alan’s whole body felt numb. He wondered if this were a vast hallucination; wondering if this was really happening or if it was just another bad dream. Yes, he had to be resting at home in his own bed. But something told him he wasn’t. It felt too real.
She grabbed both his hands, gazed into his eyes, and spoke carefully. “And I, for one, cannot allow that to happen to you. Not again,” she said. “If you don’t want to die, if you want to get out of here and regain your memory…then you’ll have to do exactly what I say from here on out or this place will be your reality for life.”
Gripping words. Yet she spoke them with such conviction that he had no choice but to put his trust in them. “What do you want me to do?”
She just continued walking. Alan followed her without question. At this point the curiosity had become anxiety. What was she going to show him that fascinated so much of this morning? With every step he took, it felt like he was walking deeper and deeper into an alternate reality. A dream world. A nightmare.
It was all he could do to keep from flying into a massive berserk of hysteria. Just when he thought that animal was about to be unleashed he felt the soft caress of Camille’s hand around his wrist. Somehow that calmed him on contact. She was a natural at that. Strange. This touch seemed so familiar to him.
“We’re here,” she said.
Before them was a similar old wooden door to the fifty or so they had just passed. However, this one had a padlock on it.
“Go ahead,” she prodded. “Open it.”
“It’s locked.”
“Is it?”
“We’re lookin’ right at it! It’s locked!”
“It’s not,” she said. “Open it.”
His lips slammed shut. Frustrated.
“Do you remember how you got out of those chains?”
He did. It only happened thirty minutes ago.
“Then calm down, focus and open this door,” she said, thrusting a finger toward it. “Look at it. Do you see it as locked or unlocked?”
The hesitation was too long.
“We don’t have all day,” she said swinging her pretty hair from side to side. “This is simple. Use your faith. You’ve done this before. Is it locked or unlocked? Answer before your mind has a chance to challenge it.”
“Unlocked!” he blurted out.
In an instant the padlock fell from the door and the knob turned all by itself. He spun around toward Camille, who returned a pleased grin.
“You shouldn’t be surprised, Alan. You are very strong. I’m proud of you. Please, walk in. There’s not much in there except for what you want.”
A way out?
He stepped into the room and she was right. This room looked exactly like the one he was chained up in, the difference being the window not being boarded up. Its light…was strange. He walked over to it, mesmerized. Bright. Very bright. Shades of blue, yellow, white and some other colors he never knew existed on the color wheel. That was all he could see. There were no trees, no buildings, no landscape…just the light. He took his index finger and pushed it through the light.
An intense warming sensation soothed his finger. He ripped it out and studied it. Nothing damaged. Nothing hurt. He redirected his attention back to the light inside the window.
“What is this?”
“A vortex,” he heard her say from behind.
He glanced over his shoulder. “To where?”
“To where ever you want.”
Alan turned back to the vortex.
“Remember I was saying how none of these windows will lead you out? Well, that is true but this one is the exception. This one will take you anywhere in the world. The only catch is you have to be familiar with the place in order to be sent there. You can’t just show up at a place that you’ve never visited before in your life. It’s just not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because this portal connects with your mind, searching for tangible places, not imaginative. Memory is often forgotten but it is rarely lost unless you’re killing brain cells. Places you remember visiting will show up in the portal’s search and send you to the most desired location at the time. Today you might want to go home…tomorrow you might want to visit a relative. The vortex will connect with your mind, which accesses your heart, and determines where to send you on any given day.”
Wow, he thought.
“This is not a metaphor, by the way.”
“Yeah, I kinda sensed that. So, how does it work?”
“You just step inside.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
He put his whole arm through this time and felt the most sensational reverberations he’d ever encountered. One thing was for sure. If this thing didn’t take him to where he wanted to go, he would sure feel good until he got to where ever he didn’t want to go. Alan took his arm out and turned to face Camille.
“You’re coming with me,” he said.
Her eyes lit up. “Oh…I can’t.”
“Sure you can. I can’t just leave you stranded here. You can stay at my place for a while. There’s plenty of room for you.”
Now her bottom lipped stuttered, much to Alan’s surprise. “You don’t understand…this place…I can’t leave it. I…I’m not allowed outside these walls.”
“Why not?”
She froze at his ignorance. This must have been one of those things she’d told him every day for three days that he had forgotten every day for three days. “Because I’ll die!” Shocked, he was getting ready to ask another question when she cut him off. “Look, I can’t leave. Not like this. There’s too much to explain right now and we don’t hav
e a lot of time but know that you have to go now if you are to have a chance at saving yourself.”
Alan deflated a little and he started to object.
“Go, Alan!”
Gradually, he complied. It started with an about face. Then a hand on the window sill. Then another pause as he dropped his head. Alan peered at her over his shoulder again, staring at a pitiful looking Camille.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “You spent so much time keeping me from escaping. Now you’re showing me a way out. Why are you doing this?”
Camille’s eyes fell off of him. She turned her back to him, arms folded across her chest in front of her. If he wasn’t mistaking Alan heard a faint sniffle. “Because I believe in you,” she said. “And if you don’t succeed…I will never be free.”
It was all she needed to say. Those words. The sudden vulnerability. Her sincerity. Perhaps it was the age old tradition of a man being needed by a woman that activated his natural instinct to fly into action. He guessed it was all of the above and more that he could not reason at the time. But something about those words resonated in his soul.
It was never his intent to return to this place. Ever. For anyone or anything. In fact, when Camille had revealed the secret of escape Alan wondered if she’d lost all hope and decided to just let him go, leaving herself to stay and suffer alone. It shocked him. It moved him. Staring at the back of this beautiful woman, something struck him. Hard.
Was he in love with her?
But he couldn’t figure out why. Did they have a past relationship? There was no way he would know with his memory being wiped clean every morning for the last three days. Even then, when did they have time for that? Three days is not a lot of time. Then again, in this world, as Camille had put it, three days was enough time for a lot to happen. Even anything to happen.
With one hand on the window sill he looked at the vortex in front, out into the yellowish-bluish-whitish-strange colored light. It wasn’t as bright as it once was. Beyond the window, freedom. Or so he was told. Behind him, a mystery. Suddenly he felt torn between escaping to find out who took Monica and staying to comfort Camille.
“Alan,” she said. All of his thoughts came to an abrupt halt. “There is one more catch.”
He waited but did not turn around, not being able to bare the sight of her vulnerability and her fear if being alone in this house with that creature, who was out until nightfall, not being able appear in the sunlight.
“Before you are taken to this special place of your choice, you will be met with two tests. You must pass them both if you are to be transported to your destination.”
The words seemed to echo in his mind like a distant thunder. And the last question he would hear her ask came a little too sudden for him.
“Do you trust me?” she said.
A strange question coming from a woman he’d just met hours ago. Or was it days? He shrugged. “Sure.”
“Then don’t touch the water.”
“Why not—”
“Don’t touch it!” she said. “Please.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about but he nodded anyway. Alan sat on the window sill and stole one last image of Camille. Tears streaming down her face. Her long hair blanketing both sides. She was beautiful. And he was leaving her.
“I’m coming back for you,” he said.
An involuntary smile stretched across her face.
“I mean it,” he said.
“I know,” she said now beaming like the sun.
Satisfied by her reaction, Alan threw his legs over the window sill, paused to draw a long deep breath and then he leaned into the vortex.
FOURTEEN
MONICA JOLTED AT a deafening crash. She squirmed her way to as upright a position as her bonds would allow. Feet still planted together in front. Hands tied behind her back. Ankles with similar knots holding them tight.
Same bonding technique as before.
The first thing that came to her mind when she heard the noise was that a bomb had went off inside the warehouse. That theory, however, was shattered in a haste when the one-eye, one-patch man stood a dozen feet to her front. The explosion had been him slamming the warehouse gate with way too much aggression.
An intimidation tactic.
Very effective.
Because, after she studied the guy a little while, that’s exactly what she was. Intimidated. No, terrified. Sylvain Ambrose was no kindergarten teacher. He had the look of a man who would slaughter an innocent baby and still rest easy that night.
His physique was quite impressive. Or at least it would have been had their meeting been on different terms. And if he didn’t have that loathsome scar running down the right side of his face, stretching well beyond the patch used to hide his dead eye.
She wondered how he’d gotten that. Military? Accident? A brutal fight in which the other guy looked more severe than even he? She didn’t know, didn’t really care.
All Monica knew was he did not consider her as a guest. That was obvious. Bargaining chip. That’s what she was. She had just heard Sylvain say it, what…how long had she been asleep? She couldn’t see the time on the clock hanging from the adjacent wall. It was too far away but if she could take a wild guess? She’d say—
“I hope my appearance doesn’t offend you,” Sylvain said.
Monica’s head swiveled his way. She could not speak because the piece of cloth was wrapped around and through her mouth, knotting up in the back of her head. She imagined needing a serious perm if ever she got out of this alive.
“My apologies,” he said. “I had forgotten that you were unable to speak. Allow me to remove that for you.”
She met his first step towards her with an instinctive flinch. Sylvain froze.
“You do not have to worry, my dear. I am not here to hurt you.”
Sylvain reached into his pocket and flipped open a blade in one swift motion, eyes boring straight through her skull. She gasped.
He completed his trip, knelt down, and cupped the sides of her head with care, holding the blade with his index finger and thumb inches from her mangled hair. She figured if he really wanted to kill her he could have done it then without her realizing she’d been cut.
He had to feel her body trembling. But she fought against resisting him for fear of ticking him off. The scent of his cologne was surprisingly pleasant. If she had to guess, she’d say Giorgio Armani.
Sylvain was so close to her that his breathing was felt through her hair. With his head almost near kissing distance, to the side, Sylvain tilted her head forward and cut the fabric with a flip of the wrist. Then, in one swift motion, flipped the blade shut and dropped it into his pocket.
“I am aware that I don’t score points for being a gentleman but I can at least win the battle over fairness.”
Points? Fairness! Does that scar run through his brain!
He arose to his feet. “That feels better now, no?”
She sat there and kept a watchful eye on him. Sylvain walked over to a nearby table and grabbed a steel chair.
He tilted it and dragged two of the legs over to her, causing a squeal very similar to that of fingers running down a chalkboard. When he was within a few feet of her he yanked the chair up, turned it around and slammed it square on all fours, which elicited another flinch from Monica.
The whole time he glared at her with menacing, yet soft eyes.
One thing was for sure. This man was a con artist, perhaps the greatest she had ever met. And that frightened her. Because she could never read his actions. Which is what a con artist wants out of his victims anyway. Confusion. He sat down hard in the steel chair, straddled his legs and leaned back. Then he stared at her for a solid minute.
“You are much stronger than I’d expected,” he began. There was a long pause as if pitching a question Monica would have no choice but to answer. “I’d expected you to beg for your freedom trough uncontrollable tears.
“I’d expected you to try and negotiat
e a suitable replacement for your captivity. I’d expected you to alleviate your misery, your fear, by trying to play on my good side.” Another long pause preluded a barely audible sigh. “But I was wrong.”
He looked off to the side, releasing another gentle sigh.
“Do you wanna know how often I’m wrong, Miss Brookes? It is Miss Brookes, am I right?”
She tried her best to hide her shock but it had to be written all over her face. Still, she wasn’t going to answer.
“Never,” he said, facing her again. “I’m never wrong and do you know why I’m never wrong? I’m never wrong because I was a math wiz all my life. I’m never wrong because I’ve learned to calculate at a very young age.
“My first assignment came when my father plotted to rape my mother six months after they divorced. He thought, for some bizarre reason, that my being a nine year old adolescent would hinder me from stopping him. That is, until the butt of my little league baseball trophy fell on his head. Twenty-seven times; twenty-eight if you count the last time when I threw it at him.
“I guess you could add six more to that figure but that was my hockey trophy. When my baseball trophy broke I had to find a replacement while I still found interest. However, you get the point. In school I never got lower than a ninety-five percent on any test or assignment. Guess what my all time score was in math? A hundred. That’s right, I never failed a test in my life.”
He paused to let it sink in.
“So, you see, I have never been wrong before in my life. Which means that I could not be wrong now ‘ither. My calculations have always been…we’ll just say dead on.”
His eyes pierced her soul. She was forced to redirect her gaze. She heard the rustling of fabric as he shifted position, probably leaning toward her.
“Why do you fear me, Miss Brookes? Hmm? Why not love me? Respect me?” He paused for effect. “Is it because I have captured you and killed your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said, hoping to make him lose interest in Alan’s search. “And I know he’s not dead because you just sent an idiot to go look for him but he’ll likely wind up dead if ever he finds him and you for one know that.”
