As silently as I could manage, I slinked down the hallway toward the one door at the end. It pushed open with a slight creak but nothing loud enough to draw attention. I stepped into a pretty large coat room. A collection of gray and brown furs and sleek leather jackets hung from rods along the walls. Hats, gloves and scarves were stacked on shelves above the coats. Some boots lined the floor. A large clock in the shape of a ships helm filled the one empty wall across from the jackets.
Another door was off this room. I pushed it open.
An empty gargantuan kitchen greeted me. The lights were off, but I could see a collection of pots and pans on the counter of the island in the center of the room. Looked like someone was getting ready to make a family dinner then decided against it.
I could also hear music now, flowing out over some kind of in-house speaker system. If I knew more about classical music I might have placed it, but for all intents and purposes it was some kind of chamber music. The kind of crap they play in museums and shit. Me, I prefer guitars, loud drums, and people shouting about how pissed off they are. Complaining about the government or drug control. At least it’s something I can identify with.
Above the music and the hum of the refrigerator I heard distant voices. Somewhere in the house people were conversing. Not for the first time since arriving I wondered if these homeowners were gun happy, and if so, how close they kept their pieces to them. If I got out of this alive I was gonna buy a bulletproof vest to match my gun.
I inched past the center island toward another hallway running off the kitchen that led deeper into the house. I could see all the way to the end of it, to an area that looked like a sitting room. In eyesight was a gaudy recliner and a china cabinet displaying a collection of porcelain dolls. They each probably cost more than my yearly rent. I took my steps as slowly as possible, listening for any betrayal from the floorboards. There was quite a bit of squeaking, which was to be expected considering how old this house was, but the music and party chatter seemed to drown out my approach.
When I reached the end I stopped and leaned against the wall, trying in vain to make out the conversation coming from a few rooms away.
“Do you remember that girl from Holland?” A man’s voice. Distinguished, older perhaps.
“Of course.” A woman answering. Definitely older judging from her rasp. “Such a pleasant evening all around. Wish we could have invited Joseph over for that one. Has anyone heard from him lately. We do miss his anecdotes.”
“He will just have to come another time.”
“The man is intolerable.” A third voice, also male. “I see no reason to converse with him any longer. Let him do his thing on his stubborn sailing trip and get himself lost in the Bermuda Triangle, I say. Save us all the trouble of having to hear his ridiculous hunting stories.”
“Yes, well, Joseph aside, that girl from Holland was quite a treat. Dare say we won’t find another like her in some time.”
There was a collection of here-here’s from numerous other people, accompanied by the clinking of crystal. Dinner party at a kidnapper’s house. How quaint.
I peeked into the sitting room, saw it was empty and slinked through it, found yet another hallway lined with portraits and old photographs, and followed it closer to the voices. As I moved the chamber music seemed to move with me. At least six other hallways broke off of this one, each dimly lit with iron sconces and small electric chandeliers. At the ends of them were more vast rooms filled with couches and chairs, the occasional desk and bookshelf. Giant windows looked out into the back- and side yards. I stayed my course toward the voices, vaguely aware that the air in the house was growing warmer. The conversation, however, remained bland.
“Markus Fritch bought a villa in Tuscany . . .”
“. . . which is the only reason the market sustains in this day and age . . .”
“. . . Fritch was just about forced out of Rio . . .”
“. . . fabulous vintage that has been put up for auction from Sothebys at a mere ten thousand per bottle . . .”
“. . . says Veles, and I believe there will be penance to pay . . .”
“. . . I hope dinner is served soon. I’m starving and the kids are with the nanny tonight but I know she drinks and falls asleep early . . .”
“. . . that new novel by Harrison Lucas, about the Polish cargo trains during the war . . .”
“. . . I believe it was during Cologne. I was flying for Operation Millennium and I had met this pretty little nurse . . .”
“. . . My doctor says the cancer has disappeared, which I told him it would. Of course I’d explain my therapy to him but he would not be enlightened, I should think.”
“. . . I believe that was 1933. I remember my mother working at the rubber factory . . .”
“. . . bought into the computer stocks, but I am regrettably second guessing myself now . . .”
I passed through a small study and into another of this labyrinth’s hallways, was almost at the end of it when a giant ink blot of a shadow fell on the wall next to me. Somebody coming my way from the party. I grabbed the nearest door and opened it, saw it was a closet, and ducked inside. The smell of the ocean greeted me, but I realized it was just some kind of detergent on all the linens inside. Owing to the age of the house the door had an old keyhole at waist height, through which light spilled onto my jeans. I knelt down and watched like some peeping Tom as a very large man with muscles bigger than washing machines walked by holding what looked like a machine gun he’d ripped off a tank.
Correction: two men. Another man came into sight, pulling up the rear. He had also been visited by the guns and ammo fairy. This piece was smaller, some kind of hybrid Uzi, but no less intimidating.
I already knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore but I wasn’t expecting the munchkins to be packing such serious heat. The tiny gun in my hand felt useless in comparison.
The men disappeared around the end of the hallway, went to wherever hulking security sociopaths go. I waited a few seconds for good measure then let myself out of the closet and resumed my investigation, making note of any possible hiding spaces along the way, praying that the bulletproof vest I needed so badly would materialize out of thin air for me. I glanced back every five seconds to make sure the Heavy Artillery Twins weren’t doubling back.
Finally, the room with the gathering came into view. I squatted behind a chaise lounge a room away and assessed the crowd.
There’s a unique excitement that comes with spying, especially after you’ve just shoved gardening shears into a man’s throat and then broken into a rich asshole’s house. It’s the kind of feeling that makes you feel braver. Like you are privy to a universal secret. And perhaps more, that you can control its outcome. Example: I could wait until one of these jerks went to the bathroom, follow, and reduce the party’s number by one. I could run out guns blazing. I could lock them all in and set fire to the house. When people don’t know you’re watching, you realize how vulnerable they are. These are the feelings that always scare me. Probably because I’m always where I shouldn’t be, in a situation that scrambles my brain.
We’ll have to put it all in my file later.
Moving on.
About twelve guests in all, each formally dressed, the youngest of which was easily pushing fifty years old. They were drinking wine and hobnobbing with one another like they’d been farm raised to attend State dinners. All in all, pretty standard fare for your average old money crowd. If you’ve ever seen any ancient black and white film about southern landowners you know the type of scene I’m referring to here. Save for the one little issue of the terrified girl crying in some underground bunker.
In the center of the room a large dining table had been prepared with good china and centerpieces that would make Martha Stewart proud. A fire crackled in a grand marble fireplace, over which sat some gaudy sculptures on the mantle. Why they needed a fire in summer was beyond me; probably just to show off the fireplace itself. The ceiling extended upward
s two stories to a large crystal chandelier that threw tiny rainbows onto the crown molding. I could just make out a landing running around the second floor up there, bookshelves against the walls, all overlooking the table.
I could also make out another two goons at the far end of the room, each with a machine gun slung over their shoulders. The larger one looked like he should have Princess Leia chained to him.
No one in the party seemed to care much about the incredibly dangerous weaponry around them. If any of those goons accidentally slipped a finger against a trigger these guests would be shredded like soft cheese. I’d have scratched my head out of confusion at the stupidity of it all if I wasn’t so scared to make a move.
The scene continued to play out in monotony for a few more seconds until a man with a bushy white mustache put his hands in the air in a universal gesture of attention. The guests all hushed. For some reason I did, too.
“Thank you, thank you. I hope you’re all having a good time. And once again I’m honored to be hosting tonight’s soirée. Maryellen and I just had the Observation Room on the third floor redone and we’re eager to show it to you all a little later.” He put his arm around the woman next to him to punctuate the point. No doubt it was Maryellen, his wife. Even from my hiding spot I could see her wedding ring was so big it would take an X-Wing squadron to destroy it.
“The room is exquisite,” she said. “You can see clear to Rosanna Canyon. It’s quite beautiful.”
“Take my wife’s word on it.”
“It’s a lovely home, Marshalll.” A voice from somewhere out of sight.
The mustached man ignored the compliment, continued: “I just want you to know that I appreciate you all coming. You all look fantastic, as usual. I wish we got together more often these days, but I certainly cherish any time we can find to dine together. Perhaps we will find ways to meet more often in the future. I know we all look forward to these dinners with such fervor. Which brings me to my next point. Dinner will be served in a couple of minutes so I suggest we all sit and get comfortable. I can see you are enjoying my choice of vintages so I’m also having more wine brought out--”
I didn’t hear what he said next because I heard new voices from behind me. Glancing back, I could see the shadows of people coming toward me from where the first two goons had gone.
Without thinking, I scurried around the chaise lounge and hooked a right around the nearest corner into a tiny sitting room. Stairs to my left ascended to the second floor. I took them as fast and as silently as I could just as two bodies passed by the chaise lounge and walked toward the dining room. I couldn’t see who it was but had to assume it was the gunmen; the floor kind of shook as they walked.
At the top of the stairs I found myself in a small guest bedroom. The light was off, the bedding untouched. The ugliest painting of some sword-wielding dancing wolf creatures met my eye. It was uglier than a two-headed camel fucking a rocking chair; must have cost a fortune. A second door was open to the landing with the bookshelves running around the dining room below. The sounds of chairs being pushed in and out, and glasses being refilled, rose up and bounced off the high ceiling. I lay on my belly and slithered like a snake toward the base of the railing, peeked down at the guests below.
The two goons had indeed returned.
They were carrying something.
A naked woman. Maybe in her twenties. She looked dead, eyes closed, body limp. Taut skin and elfish face. A real sexy girl.
It wasn’t Victoria. I had no idea who it was. The girl who I’d heard crying?
Goons three and four quickly removed all the centerpieces and withdrew the flowing white table cloth, revealing a double wide stainless steel operating table ringed with a thin collecting basin. On the table were four metal shackles.
They laid the naked girl on the table and fastened her wrists and ankles into the shackles.
Ice flows of sweat broke out on the back of my neck and cut glacial ravines down to the balls of my feet.
The dinner guests oohed and ahhed as the girl was locked in place. They raised their knives and forks and grinned.
I shook a little. I saw Jamie’s face float through my mind.
“Wait for it.” The mustached man held up a palm. “The drug should be wearing off any . . . . Ah, here she comes.”
The girl slowly opened her eyes.
CHAPTER 14
She barely had time to ascertain her surroundings before the nightmare began. An old woman with a beehive of silver hair shoved her steak knife into the girl’s thigh and sliced open a deep gouge that severed an artery. With the knife she flipped out the artery and let it dangle like a long blue worm. Then she cut through the flesh straight to the bone, ignored the arc of blood that Pollocked her face. The other dinner guests followed suit and sliced into the young girl with a zeal I had only seen before on Discovery Channel documentaries about starving animals in the Serengeti. The young girl’s tight skin parted in long red slices as the blades ran fissures down her body. Streams of blood zig-zagged down her sides and pooled on the cold metal table, shimmering like mercury.A grinning man reached into one of the long slices on the girl’s bicep, grabbed each side of the cut, and ripped it open like he was looking inside a goody bag. Bone and muscle shredded apart under his fingers. He tore out a long strip of striated muscle and stared at it in awe.
“Ah, but I forgot the toast!” The mustached man again. “How gauche of me.”
“But she looks so good and we’re hungry,” chuckled the old white-haired bitch. “Make it a fast one, Marshalll.”
The drugs on the girl must still have been dissipating because she wasn’t crying or screaming yet. But she managed a murmur and started trying to pull her arms and legs free, pumping more arterial blood onto her white flesh and the table beneath her. She was able to raise her head a little and look in horror at the deep red ravines cut across her belly, breasts, legs and ribs. One of the gun-toting apes, a fifth one I hadn’t seen before, came a little closer to the table, watching her intently.
Marshalll put a hand on the man’s barreled chest. “She’s not going anywhere, Ben, let her be.”
The goon backed off. I slowly put my guns through the railing and aimed at Ben. I could shoot him, I was sure of it. Even with my somewhat blurred vision from my busted nose, I could take his head clean off from here. But the other four hulks would have a bead on me in a second, and with those weapons would shred me into geek pasta. So I just kept watching and shaking.
Marshalll raised his glass of wine. ”To good friends, good health, a banner year for the market, and of course, the flesh of our salvation.”
“Praise Veles,” they chanted.
“And now, everybody, let’s dig in.”
“Here here,” the guests replied, sipping their wine.
Marshalll glanced down at the young girl, smiled with old yellow teeth.
She was crying now. She was becoming lucid. She was scared out of her fucking mind.
So was I.
“Hello, my dear,” Marshalll said to her. “Thanks for coming to dinner.” He thrust his head down and clamped his teeth on her nose, crunching the cartilage and thrashing his jaw back and forth, and came away with the nose in his mouth. He chewed it like steak gristle and swallowed it all in one gulp. Beneath the gory hole in her face, her mouth was open in some attempt to scream. But no sound came out. The pain was too intense. Then, Marshalll picked up his steak knife, and with a demonic grin, drove it down into her belly and began sawing at her.
This time she did scream, high-pitched and laced with gurgles. The shriek resonated inside the core of my soul.
Ben stepped a bit closer, finger on his trigger, watching her intently, but ignoring the massacre.
Her screams did not deter the dinner guests from following Marshalll’s lead, and they stabbed their knives into her with great glee, laughing and kibitzing as they cut chunks of her flesh away, picked it up on their forks, and put it in their mouths.
They c
hewed her flesh with the savagery of a pride of hungry lions. Her blood ran down their chins and they merely wiped it back into their mouths with their fingers. A bald man with black-rimmed glasses grabbed a ribbon of flayed flesh and pulled it all the way down the middle of her chest, like a giant hangnail, yanking it loose and sucking it into his mouth like it was spaghetti.
Her screams transcended anything human.
Another woman gingerly cut the girl’s stomach out, careful to keep it intact, and then opened its contents in front of her, picking out blobs and chunks of black and red goo that she sucked on and devoured.
I wanted to shoot them all, but now all four guards lifted their guns as if they suddenly sensed something was wrong. Or maybe they were just tense from the screams.
Save her, Roger. Save her!
I can’t! I’ll get shot!
I wanted so badly to close my eyes, but I just couldn’t. I was frozen in shock and horror, watching them eat this poor girl alive.
An elderly woman went for the girl’s face. Took her fork and stabbed it into the girl’s lower lip, pulled it back, sawing at the pink puffy skin with her knife until it ripped off. She swallowed it in a single gulp like it was a piece of shrimp.
Marshalll jammed his fork into her left eye socket, scooped the eye out, snapped the veins holding it in her head, took it off the tines with his fingers and ate it like a cherry plucked from a Manhattan. Pink goo dribbled down his chin and the woman next to him, his wife, leaned over and licked the juice off of him and mmmmmed as she swallowed it.
It went on and on for what seemed an eternity. They cut every bit off flesh from her body and wolfed it down. When her ribs were exposed they gave up on utensils and hooked their fingers into the bones, pulling with all their might until her ribcage tore loose from her body.
Eventually, she stopped screaming. She wasn’t even dead at this point. Her body still twitched and shook. She’d gone into shock and shut down. Which was just as well, because it was a happier place for her to be. It made me feel a little better about not doing anything. But hardly. I felt the same way I’d felt watching that strange lady burn to death in Skinnyman’s basement, after he’d wedged an ax in her skull. I just wished for her to die so it would end, so I wouldn’t bear the guilt of inactivity any longer.
Born To Bleed (The Roger Huntington Saga, Book 2) Page 12
