by Jeff Strand
I fell to the floor.
In my dream, Melanie accidentally walked into me with a duffel bag. I grabbed her, kissed her, and asked her to marry me, even while wondering why the bag was leaking blood.
The Gallery of Horrors consisted of two upstairs rooms. The bedroom was where Darren kept all of his souvenirs; mostly articles of clothing and body parts. Most of them were preserved in jars “because of the smell,” although the teeth were in a glass display case.
I knew from one of the torture sessions that a small wooden box contained a shriveled scrap of flesh: one of Killer Fang’s ears. He’d slept with it under his pillow the entire rest of the year at Branford Academy.
He’d murdered twelve people. “Not an impressive count for all those years, I guess,” he’d admitted, “but I make them last.”
The bedroom also contained dozens of drawings, both color and black-and-white, of his exploits. An art critic might say that what he lacked in technical skill he made up for in grisly passion.
And yes, this is where Darren slept each night.
The torture room featured, along with the metal table, shelves of tools. I’d become acquainted with many of them during my months here, including the acetylene torch, but nowhere close to all of them.
I was in this room, seated on the floor, when I woke up. My hands were cuffed together and chained through a metal loop in the wall that seemed to have been installed for that very purpose. Melanie was on the other side of the room, similarly chained. Unmoving. I stared at her, praying for something to indicate that she was alive, and relaxed when I saw her breathe.
Mr. Grove lay on the metal table, shirtless. Also unconscious. Apparently the legs of the metal table were retractable, because it had been lowered to just two feet off the ground.
A kiddie table…
“Melanie!” I said in a whisper. “Melanie!”
She didn’t awaken.
“Melanie, please! Can you hear me?” I tugged on my handcuffs, but Darren hadn’t waited this long only to botch the restraint process now.
A few minutes later, Mr. Grove began to stir. His light stirring suddenly turned into complete panic as he let out muffled screams through the duct tape over his mouth and jerked around as if being zapped with an invisible defibrillator. His terrified squeals were so high-pitched that in other circumstances they might even have been comical.
Melanie opened her eyes.
Focused on me.
And then she too burst into a panic, shrieking and yanking at her restraints. I tried to soothe her, to reassure her, but how much reassurance could I give her when we were both chained to the wall in a house with a serial killer?
But her panic was short-lived. “Alex!” she cried. “Alex, oh my God, oh my God, I thought he killed you!”
I shook my head and spoke loudly enough to be heard over Mr. Grove’s squeals. “No, no, I’m fine. I’m completely fine.” The cuts, burns, and other assorted wounds gave away my lie, but my safety wasn’t the important thing now.
“Tracy! What’s he done with her?”
“Don’t worry about her,” said Darren, coming up the stairs and walking into the room. “How about we keep the noise level down to a dull roar, huh?” he asked, pointing the gun at each of us in turn.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“Resting. And no, not in the pit, so don’t look at me like that.” He gestured to Mr. Grove. “Is he always this loud?” He set the pistol down on a stool next to the metal table, went over to the shelf, selected a large mallet, and showed it to Mr. Grove. “Don’t make me use this.”
Mr. Grove went silent.
Darren grinned and waved the mallet at me. “See, Alex, if you’d had one of these at work, your problems would have been over.” He surveyed the room. “Looks like everything is all set. I’ll go get Tracy Anne.”
He left and headed back downstairs.
“What’s he going to do?” Melanie asked, desperately.
“I don’t know.” I did know; I knew exactly what he was going to do, but I couldn’t say it out loud. Instead, I said: “I love you.”
“I love you, Alex.”
“We’ll get out of this. I promise. We’ll get out of here, and everything will be back to the way it was…no, it’ll be even better, because we’ll have a book deal and we’ll never have to spend time apart ever again and we’ll…” My voice cracked. “We’ll be fine. We’ll be happy.”
I heard footsteps on the staircase. A moment later, Darren walked back into the room, holding Tracy by the hand. She was looking at the ground, shoulders shaking as she wept.
“Don’t cry,” Darren said, sounding a bit uncomfortable with the task of reassuring a child. “Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”
“You leave her alone!” Melanie screamed.
“I knew I should’ve taped you up,” Darren said, crossing over to the shelf. He retrieved a spool of duct tape and crouched down next to Melanie. She jerked her head around, trying to prevent him from getting the tape over her mouth, but after a few moments of struggle he managed the task.
Tracy stood there, frozen.
Darren turned his attention to me. “I need you to be part of this, and that’ll be a lot more difficult if I have to tape you up, too. Think you can behave?”
I nodded.
“That’s good, because if things go wrong, Melanie is going to be our cutting board.” Darren stood up and returned to the shelf. He selected a scalpel.
Melanie looked at me, pleading with me to help our daughter, but of course there wasn’t a thing I could do.
Darren knelt down in front of Tracy, getting down to her level. “Do you know who I am?” he asked.
Tracy didn’t look up.
“Look at me, Tracy.” He touched her chin, gently lifting her head. “Do you know who I am?”
She shook her head.
“I’m your daddy’s friend. I’ve been his friend for a long time. I’ve known him since before you were even born. In fact, I’ve known him since before he even met your mommy. Isn’t that neat?”
Tracy continued to cry.
Darren patted Mr. Grove’s leg. “Do you know who this is?”
“No.”
“Sure you do. You’ve seen him before, haven’t you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“You’ve just forgotten. That’s okay. I’m sure you’re a little scared, even though there’s no reason to be. You know Mr. Grove, don’t you? You’ve met him a couple of times.”
Tracy nodded.
“And who’s Mr. Grove?”
“Daddy’s boss.”
“That’s right. See, you knew all along. Your daddy hates Mr. Grove. Mr. Grove keeps your daddy away from you. Did you know that?”
Tracy began to cry harder.
“Do you think that people who keep little girls away from their daddies are good people?”
“No.”
“So Mr. Grove is a bad person, isn’t he?”
Tracy Anne looked up at Darren. “You kept me away from Daddy worse.”
“You’re right, I did. But I did it because it was really important.”
“Daddy’s job is important.”
Darren appeared momentarily flustered that he was losing an argument with a terrified five-year-old, but regained his composure. “Is Daddy’s job more important than you?”
“No. Neither are you.”
I didn’t know whether to cheer or scream.
“You’re very smart, Tracy. But how would you like to get back at Mr. Grove? Would you like to make him hurt for keeping your daddy away from you?”
“No.”
“Yes you would. It’ll be fun. We can make Mr. Grove pay for everything bad he’s done. We can make him bleed.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Sometimes we have to try things that we don’t want to do. They’re good for us. Watch this.” Darren slid the scalpel along Mr. Grove’s leg, cutting a line from his upper thigh to his knee. Mr. Grove thrash
ed and screamed through his gag.
“Your daddy has wanted to do something like that for a long time,” Darren said. “He’d give anything to be holding this scalpel right now. Wouldn’t you, Daddy?”
“Yeah, I would.”
“And he’d like you to cut Mr. Grove. Wouldn’t you, Daddy?”
“Tracy, sweetie, do whatever he tells you to.”
“No, no, it’s not what I tell you. It’s what your daddy tells you. What do you think, Daddy? Should she cut Mr. Grove?”
“Yes.”
“Tell her to do it.”
“Tracy, I need you to cut Mr. Grove. It’ll be okay, I promise.” I had no idea how that statement could possibly be true, but maybe, just maybe, giving Darren what he wanted would make him release us. Guilt over Mr. Grove’s unfair fate, Tracy’s psychological trauma…we could work through these. There’d be nothing to work through if Darren became frustrated and decided to snap my daughter’s neck.
“I don’t want to,” Tracy said, sniffling.
“Please do it,” I told her. “Then we can all go home.”
“He’s right,” Darren said. “If you kill Mr. Grove for me, I’ll let you, your mommy, and your daddy all leave. Wouldn’t that be great? I bet you’ve missed him a lot, haven’t you?”
Darren placed the scalpel in her hand.
“Just cut his leg, to see how it feels.”
Tracy violently shook her head. “No!”
Darren took her hand in his own, and pressed the scalpel blade against Mr. Grove’s leg, the one that hadn’t been cut yet. “All you have to do is push. Not even very hard. It’s really sharp. Just slide it gently toward you.”
Together they drew the blade across Mr. Grove’s leg. Mr. Grove seemed resigned to his fate and didn’t struggle nearly as much this time.
“And again,” said Darren. This time, he released Tracy’s hand halfway through and let her finish slicing the skin all the way down to his ankle.
Tracy studied the blood dripping from the blade almost quizzically, as if it were a particularly interesting species of butterfly.
“Did that feel good?” Darren asked.
“Kind of.”
“Do you want to do it again?”
“Do I have to?”
“Only if you liked it. But you liked it, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can say that you did, Tracy. It’s okay.”
Tracy’s fingers tightened around the scalpel.
Oh my God what kind of monster has my daughter become?
And then she slammed the blade deep into Darren’s thigh.
Chapter Twenty-two
Darren let out a howl and instinctively smacked Tracy in the face. His feet slipped out from underneath him and he struck the floor, hard.
“The gun!” I screamed. “Tracy, get the gun!”
She spun around.
“The gun! Right there!” I jerked my head toward the pistol resting on the stool. “Get it!”
Darren grabbed for Tracy’s leg but missed. Sobbing, she snatched up the pistol and pointed it at him. She was holding the handle with both hands. Darren got to his feet.
“Put your finger on the trigger!” I told Tracy, trying to convey the urgency without shouting and possibly scaring her into dropping the weapon.
Tracy did so. Darren hesitated, as if trying to calculate his chances of getting the gun away from a frightened five-year-old.
“Squeeze the trigger, honey! Do it now! Shoot him!”
Darren lunged at her.
She pulled the trigger. The gun fell out of her hands as it fired.
The bullet ripped through Darren’s side, catching him low, just above the waist. He clenched his teeth together, clutched at his wound, and then screamed, “Fuck!”
He yanked the scalpel out of his leg.
“Get the gun!” I screamed.
Tracy grabbed the gun but Darren was already on her. He wrapped his arm around her neck and wrenched the weapon out of her hands. She screamed and flailed and thrashed and, though I don’t know if it was intentional, slammed her fist into the bullet wound.
Darren cried out and stumbled backward into the metal table. It caught him behind the knee and he dropped to the floor again, landing right in front of me. The hand with the gun was out of reach, but I slammed my foot down on his other wrist as hard as I could, wishing that I weren’t in bare feet. I didn’t hear the crack of bones shattering that I hoped for, but Darren cried out once again.
I kicked him in the face.
He scooted out of the way, back against the metal table. He was completely enraged…and he still had the gun.
“Run!” I shouted at Tracy. “Go down the stairs! Run as far as you can!”
Tracy rushed out of the torture room.
Darren, limping but moving at a rapid pace, followed her.
I heard Tracy’s footsteps hurrying down the stairs. Darren’s were close behind.
And then a loud thump, followed by several more.
Somebody falling down the stairs.
An adult.
Silence.
I just sat there, listening. Had she gotten away? Had he fallen on top of her?
“Tracy…?”
Crying. I was sure I heard crying. “I hear her!” I told Melanie. “Tracy, can you hear me?”
No response, but her crying was unmistakable.
Footsteps. Soft ones.
Tracy walked through the doorway, looking scared and pathetic and absolutely beautiful. I wanted to call her over, to tell her that everything was going to be wonderful, that we’d be the happiest family who ever lived. But there were practical matters to take care of first.
“I heard the man fall down the stairs,” I said. “Is he moving?”
Tracy shook her head almost imperceptibly.
“I need you to keep being brave for Mommy and me. The man has a set of keys. They’re in his pocket. Can you get them for us?”
“I can’t…I’m scared…”
“I know you’re scared, honey. But you won’t ever have to be scared again. I need you to get his keys and to take his gun away.”
And shoot him. Tell her to shoot him. To make his head explode, spraying her with blood and skull fragments and gray matter. Hey, she’s already cut an innocent man, and stabbed and shot a not-so-innocent one, why would this be any worse?
Well, it could be a hell of a lot worse if she shot herself. She lucked out with the first shot. One twitch of her tiny hands and she could blow a hole in her foot. Let’s see her get back upstairs with the keys then, huh?
“Tracy, there’s a mallet over there, do you see it?”
She looked at me, uncomprehending.
“It’s like a big hammer. On the floor. See it?”
Tracy looked where I was nodding and went over to retrieve the mallet that Darren had threatened Mr. Grove with.
“I want you to hit the man on the head with it, as hard as you can. Hit him a few times. Then get the keys and bring them up here as fast as you can. Can you do that for me?”
Tracy vigorously shook her head.
“Yes, you can, sweetie!”
“I’m scared of him.”
“He won’t be scary after you bash him! But you need to do it quickly, before he wakes up!”
Though if we were fortunate, Darren was lying dead at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck.
“I’m scared!”
“You won’t be! Once you get the keys Mommy and Daddy will protect you from everything! Please, sweetheart, you only need to be strong for one more minute.”
I could almost see her physically summoning her courage. She left the torture room and hurried down the stairs.
“She’ll be okay,” I told Melanie. “It’s almost over.”
Melanie nodded, clearly trying to be strong, and I loved her for it.
From downstairs came a sound that was wonderfully similar to that of a mallet striking a skull. It was repeated three m
ore times.
Silence.
“I can’t find them!”
“Yes you can, sweetie! I saw him put them in his pocket!”
“I can’t get them!”
Shit. Darren must’ve been lying facedown.
“Keep trying!”
“He’s too heavy!”
“Just reach underneath him!”
Another silence.
“I found them! I found them!”
I listened with joy as Tracy scampered up the stairs and burst into the torture room. She was still crying, but she proudly held up the keys.
“Unlock Mommy!” I said.
It took several tries for Tracy to find the right key, and I kept looking back and forth between my family and the empty doorway.
The bracelet popped open.
I heard a noise from the staircase.
“Hurry! Get the cuffs off! Get them off!”
It was definitely footsteps.
Melanie pulled her hands free and immediately got to her feet. “Go free Daddy!” she told Tracy as she hurried over to the shelf.
Darren stepped into the doorway, holding the mallet.
Melanie grabbed a large hunting knife and threw it at him. It sailed harmlessly past his ear. Melanie grabbed for another weapon, a claw hammer, as Darren stepped all the way into the room. His hair was soaked with blood and his left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle.
Melanie ran at him with the claw hammer. He tried to deflect her attack with the mallet, but she got him in the shoulder and tackled him to the floor. Their landing was blocked from my view by the metal table.
“Mommy!” Tracy screamed, distracted before she could get the key into the handcuff lock.
I heard a loud thwack and a grunt from Melanie.
Darren got up. He let out a furious, animalistic roar, raised the mallet, and ran toward Tracy and me. She shrieked, dropped the keys, and ran to the other side of the room.
I tugged on the handcuffs and cried out in frustration.
Darren strode over to the shelf. I could only see part of Melanie behind the table, but I saw her take another swing at him with the hammer, one that didn’t even come close.
