Finally, she bent over to pick up the air pump. Lifting it up, she hesitated briefly then resumed humming the Medina tune again as she carried the air pump back to its place. There were two air pumps at the petrol station. Both were now hanging from a two-piece pipe that automatically refilled them with compressed air. It hissed and whined for a few seconds until the air pump stopped lashing about from side to side and settled in its place at the valve. The sound gave her the creeps, but she stubbornly continued humming the Medina tune.
Her skin was prickling as she stood there, eyes trying to penetrate the dusk, goose bumps forming on her arms, as she felt the eyes of someone watching her.
“Belinda!” Agnes was standing just two steps outside the automatic doors, glaring at her wide eyed, eyes electric, her lips pressed tight. There was pleading in her eyes, in the way her lips trembled. She stumbled to the side, arms crossed, like she was trying to comfort herself. “Hurry inside! Now! Something’s happened!”
THE OUTER WALL WAS MADE OF AERATED CONCRETE
“Look!” Agnes pointed at the screen showing images from all four surveillance cameras at the petrol station. The image in the upper right corner showed the insides of the carwash hall. The camera was placed high up, beneath the ceiling in one of the corners. The picture showed mainly the carwash floor where the carwash customers and their cars would be, if there was anybody about to use the carwash that is. Nobody was, of course. The carwash hall was empty. You could also see the open gate leading out of the carwash and the three huge brushes that would whirl around, washing the cars when the carwash was in use. And you could also see the outer wall opposite the camera. The outer wall was made of aerated concrete. You could sense the rough structure of the aerated concrete blocks through the plaster and layers of white paint.
The recording from the camera was in black and white, making it impossible to judge the colors of the words someone had written on the wall. Still, Agnes was in no doubt. The color was red. Nobody would write something like that in green or blue.
Belinda grabbed her arm, hard, her nails digging in. It hurt, but she didn’t try to break free. “We’ll call the cops,” she said in a firm voice as she struggled to catch Belinda’s eye.
However, Belinda’s eyes were glued to the screen and the five words someone had written on the white aerated concrete wall. The paintbrush and paint bucket left casually on the carwash floor.
Belinda’s voice was thin and like a mouse as she read the words out loud. “Tonight you shall both die!”
“We are calling the cops,” Agnes repeated, this time releasing herself from Belinda’s grip.
“Tonight you shall both die!” Belinda reread the words again for no reason. “Tonight you shall both die!”
A FLUFFY SEA OF GREEN CURLS
She writhed in pain, screaming as she was pulled along by her hair over that concrete floor. Desperately trying to free herself. She scratched at the hand dragging her, tearing at its flesh, digging her nails into its skin. But it was all in vain. The hand was merciless.
She had nothing but a faint idea of how far she’d been dragged along—three, maybe four meters? Certainly far enough for the raw concrete to shred the skin on her hips, legs, and feet.
The light was still a blinding explosion of white when she was forced into a standing position and the vice-like grip on her hair released. Desperately blinking her eyes, she tried to open them against the bright light, and in a daze, she glimpsed a dark shadow moving closer before she was hit by a fierce punch to her stomach. All air exploding from her lungs, she doubled over, gasping for air.
The push from a firm hand on her forehead sent her stumbling back into a chair. And even before she managed to get her breathing back to normal, she’d been tied to it.
Sitting there, she slowly opened her eyes, still panting for air but with less pain, she found her eyes had finally adjusted to the bright light, it was less blinding now.
She saw white walls, the plaster hanging loose here and there. She saw the mattress where she’d woken up less than an hour ago. She saw dark stains of what must be dried blood on the floor, the walls, and the mattress, even though that couldn’t be possible. Not here, not in Denmark. This was a torture chamber. Shackles on the walls and everything. Dried blood everywhere. This couldn’t be happening. Not in Denmark. No way!
She clocked Benjamin lying on the floor, pressing her t-shirt against the wound in his thigh. She heard him rasp, “No!” And saw him struggling to get up without success, his wounded leg not cooperating.
She tried to turn around to see the man standing behind the chair but the ropes around her arms and legs were far too tight. Her hands were fixed to the back of the chair, her legs lashed to the chair legs, making it impossible for her to move an inch. Still, he was right there, behind her, she caught but glimpses of his dark shape from the corner of her eye.
Him. The man who dragged her by her hair over the concrete floor, who punched her hard in the stomach, who tied her to this chair. The man who must have stabbed Benjamin in the thigh with a knife. The man who must have captured them both, beating her up badly. Her memory was clouded. She recalled the slow evening at the petrol station: Belinda and the final, she remembered the words on the wall in the carwash, the moving air pump, her thesis, the love doll in the backseat of the BMW, and some of what happened later. The beatings, the pain inflicted upon her, the darkness. But no faces. She recalled no faces at all.
“Who are you?” Her mouth was dry, her lips swollen, making the words hoarse. “Who are you? What have we done to you?”
Wriggling her body, she struggled to turn the chair around, but it didn’t move much at all. She caught sight of a white painted iron door that looked like something out of a nightmarish prison cell, covered in bloodied handprints. She noted cameras under the ceiling, and a large mirror covering a major part of one wall figuring, as she saw it, that it was not a mirror, but a one-way window. She imagined the man sitting behind the glass watching his victims suffer.
She started weeping. “Please, let us go? We haven’t done anything to you! Please! Please!” Still, deep within her soul, she knew pleading for her life wouldn’t help at all. They weren’t the first victims he’d brought into this hellish basement, and he wasn’t about to stop.
And she saw Benjamin roll onto his stomach and try to push himself forward. The t-shirt left behind and blood flowing freely from his wound. It was only now she noticed the pool of blood under him. So much blood. He dragged himself forward, leaving a wake of bright red blood behind him.
At that moment, the man left his spot behind her, moving around the chair, he stepped out in front of her.
He was wearing white clothes, overalls, like the slaughterhouse workers wear. The white uniform was covered in blood, from neck to toe.
His face was hidden behind a clown mask. Only, it wasn’t a regular clown, not like the clowns in a circus. It was a distorted clown. A sad clown. The face of the mask was pure white. The eyebrows were thin, arched slashes high upon the clown’s forehead. The hair a fluffy sea of green curls. A sparkling silver tear under one eye completing the image of a sad clown. However, the blue eyes glaring out of the eye holes in the mask were anything but sad. They were alive, exited, lecherous, and intense.
She’d seen those eyes before, she thought, unable to place them. Maybe the terror had deluded her mind?
She turned her eyes to Benjamin lying face down on the concrete floor, panting. He’d stopped dragging himself toward them.
The clown reached out to fondle Agnes’s naked breasts with slow and fumbling fingers.
“Don’t,” she begged him. “Please, don’t.”
The clown said nothing. She could see his eyes ogling her breasts as his clumsy hands pressed, squeezed, explored, and groped them. A new wave of terror coursing through her as he started to pinch her nipples softly, making sweat roll down her sides. She wailed. “Don’t!”
He continued to squeeze and pinch them as a mix o
f tears, sweat, and snot dripped from her chin…to his hands…to her breasts. Concentrating on the left nipple, he squeezed hard, tormenting her as he twisted it around, nails digging in. The gleam in his eyes increasing as his pupils grew larger and a ray of bliss ignited deep within their darkness.
Then out of nowhere, he released his grip.
Heaving out loud, Agnes collapsed against the back of the chair. Her head falling forward, straining her neck muscles. The next thing she knew, a heavy bag was being pulled over her head, making everything dark again.
ON THE DISPLAY, THE NUMBERS 112
TOnIGHT YOU SHALL BOTH DIE
The letters were red as Agnes knew they would be. Block capital letters. All but the single n. A cold wind was blowing through the carwash gates and Agnes huddled against the cold.
Belinda bit her lip, looking both scared and reflective at the same time.
Agnes was still holding her cell phone in one hand. On the display, the numbers 112. She was not too fond of the darkness outside, nor the threat on the carwash wall, yet she was still to make the call. The muscles in her hand holding her phone were aching with tension. She tried to relax a bit but it was hard.
Her eyes moved to the surveillance camera high above them. “The recording from that camera will show who did this,” she said softly. However, they didn’t have access to the hard disk where the recordings were stored. They were locked away somewhere off-premises. She didn’t even know where. “I’ll call the police and then I’ll call Arni.”
Arni was the owner of the petrol station. The only person she knew for sure to have access to the recordings. He needed to come ‘round. He made the system this way in an effort to avoid robbers or shoplifters from destroying the evidence of their crimes.
Belinda searched the darkness outside. “I’ve got this awful feeling we are being watched.”
“Let’s go inside and call the po…What? What is it?”
“Someone’s out there! By the billboards!” She pointed out of the carwash to the two large billboards on the left side of the petrol station. One of the billboards advertising a brand of cereal that mostly consists of chocolate, the other a movie about Swedish crime. Between the two billboards, she glimpsed a person.
“I see him,” Agnes whispered, her heart leaping into her throat. “I’m calling the cops right now. I don’t like this.”
Belinda was silent.
Agnes hesitated, finger lingering above the call button on the display. “What’s that in his hand?”
“A cell phone,” Belinda said. “He’s filming us.”
Agnes pushed the call button as the guy stepped forward, strolling toward them. The cell phone connected and beeped once, before Belinda snatched it from her hand and cut the connection.
“Why did you do that?” Tears were filling Agnes’s eyes. She was properly afraid now. Outside, the guy was closing in on them, holding up his cell phone, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was filming them.
“It’s Christoffer,” Belinda confessed, a tormented expression on her face.
Agnes felt her jaw drop as all the anxiety, all the fear, the tingling sense of being watched melted into a ball of anger. “Your boyfriend? Mr. Happy Slap?”
“It’s not my fault, okay?”
“Did I scare you girls?” he shouted, laughing.
Agnes looked at the words on the wall. The lowercase n among the capital letters. “You recognized his handwriting. That’s why you told me not to call the police before we’d examined the carwash!”
No answer, Belinda had already left the carwash, rushing to her boyfriend.
HE REMAINED STANDING THERE A FEW LONG SECONDS
“Are you fucking insane or what?” Belinda yelled, pointing her finger at Christoffer.
He was still filming. Still laughing. Struggling to speak through his own laughter, he snorted, “You thought…it…was…real!” and pointed the camera at Agnes coming out of the carwash with a grim look on her face.
“That!” Agnes pointed at the words on the carwash wall. “That is just, so not funny! I’m calling the police.” She had her cell phone ready in the hand not pointing at him. “I will not tolerate this!”
Christoffer killed his laughter. “Oh, get real. It’s a joke! You can handle a joke, right?”
They just stared at him. Agnes dialed 112 on her cell phone, not taking her stare from him.
“Stop filming us!” Belinda demanded, trying to grab Christoffer’s cell phone. “Now!”
He lowered his phone and killed the camera. “Wait a second,” he said to Agnes. “Please, don’t call the cops. I can explain.”
She stared at him in silence, as he quickly typed something on his phone.
“What are you doing?” Belinda reached out to snatch the phone but he was faster than her.
“Okay,” he said, sliding the phone down into his pocket, “I’m ready.”
They were standing there, the three of them, illuminated under the canopy of the petrol station, scrutinizing each other. The air tense with anger. He cast his eyes down to his worn shoes, slumping his shoulders.
“I’m sorry, okay? I thought, this would make us all laugh our asses off. But, hey, okay, it seems I was wrong…”
“Right now, I don’t know if I ever want to see you again,” Belinda declared.
“Who’s going to remove that paint from the carwash wall?” Agnes asked, unaware of subconsciously moving closer to Belinda.
“Come on. I’ve said I’m sorry, right? It’s not like it was my idea in the first place.”
A car appeared in the distance on the highway. The blueish light from the headlights sweeping the bitumen. Agnes let’s her eyes follow the car. It was a big car. The engine had a deep, hollow sound to it. Maybe the exhaust muffler was broken. She had time to wish the car to stop at the petrol station before it passed them by.
Belinda paced around yelling, “Christoffer, I’m not the mood for any bad excuses right now. Why don’t you just fuck off!”
“Some guy offered me a grand to do this, okay? I told you I was broke. I sent him the recording just a minute ago when you tried to grab my cell. It wasn’t my idea. I just figured we’d all laugh about it afterwards, like, a prank or something.”
Agnes pushed her cell phone down in her back pocket and shot Belinda a hard stare. “I’m going inside. It’s windy and I’m cold.”
Belinda nodded and then turned to Christoffer. “I want you to fuck off right now. I don’t want to hear any of your little stories, get it? Just fuck off.” She turned on her heel and followed Agnes to the shop.
As the automatic doors closed behind them, Christoffer looked a little like a scared sheep that had lost its flock. He remained standing there for a few long seconds, before turning around and walking back to the billboards. There, he disappeared back into the darkness where he’d appeared only minutes earlier. Shortly afterwards, the silence of the evening was broken by the sound of his scooter as he headed out onto the highway and sped toward town.
“How come we didn’t hear the scooter before when he got here?” Agnes wondered out loud, now sitting on the counter watching the red dot of his taillight disappearing into the night. “It’s pretty noisy, that scooter.”
“He may have pushed it along.” Belinda toyed with the string from her white hoodie. “I know how this sounds, but he’s really…“
“Fucked up.” Agnes finished her sentence, and suddenly they were both laughing again.
Still, the laughter died quickly this time and silence took over.
“You think he was telling the truth, claiming someone paid him to scare us?”
“He’s so full of shit.” Belinda seemed to shrink before her eyes. For some reason she’d pulled up the hood, hiding most of her head under it. “Who knows? It might be true. You never know. I just think he’s very insecure, he has massive problems with his self-esteem. He doesn’t mean to hurt anybody. He just gets these weird impulses and sometimes he acts on them, not really t
hinking about the consequences. I don’t think he can handle it. Couldn’t you tell he was sorry for what he’d done? Maybe I was too hard on him? I don’t know. Why does everything have to be so complicated?”
Agnes dangled her feet, sitting on the counter, watching the deserted petrol station. “I wonder if the final is over by now,” she said in a low voice.
THE EXPECTATION OF PAINS TO COME
The bag closed tightly around her head. She couldn’t see, and could hardly breathe. Gasping for air, panic building inside, her heart beat like crazy while the ropes cut deep into her wrists and ankles, the back of the chair hurting her shoulders. Although she couldn’t see anything, she jerked her head toward the sounds of the clown moving.
He circled the chair slowly. Then went over to Benjamin and started manipulating him into another position. Benjamin stayed silent. Maybe he was unconscious, maybe he was too scared to speak, maybe he had given up pleading with the clown…Maybe he was dead?
She was suffocating beneath the bag. Couldn’t breathe at all, the bag was too tight, her body too stressed, the panic inside her too severe. Sweat dripping off her, despite the cold of the basement.
She heard the iron door open and the rustle of a few people entering the room. They spoke in hushed voices, not much louder than whispers. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to catch more than loose words and fragments of their conversation. Her breathing in the bag was too noisy as she wheezed and gasped for air. She felt dizzy.
Then a bare hand touched her skin. It wasn’t the clown, it was a small hand, a female hand, maybe. She tried to pull away as another hand, this one larger, more masculine, closed around her left breast.
They were still talking. She understood that she was the topic of the conversation, still, her ears only caught loose words. “…better with Danish girls…illegal whores…Thai…intense…looking forward to this…” There were several voices blending into one, and all so low, and the situation so horrifying. It was impossible for her to even determine how many people were in the room, if they were men or women, or to even separate out one voice from another—it all blended in to one, becoming a blur of panic and terror.
The Ringmaster Page 5
