Doll House

by John Hunt

  The pain! Her body convulsed with it. The Jackal held her down. She screamed until she thought the inside of her throat must be bleeding. The Gorilla laughed. He picked up the toe and held it before her eyes.

  He said, “Another part. Gone forever. Whittling away at you dear, one piece at a time. Soon they’ll be nothing.”

  He dropped the toe. It bounced and struck her nose, leaving a red splotch on the floor. No longer a part of her. Afterwards, the Jackal tended to her with gentle ministrations. Yeah, he felt something for her. Olivia could never manipulate whatever it was he felt to her advantage. There had always been two of them in the room and the Jackal was the leader. She knew it with certainty. And she meant something to him. More than the other girls. Some connection the Jackal believed they shared and not to be spoiled by a sordid romp. What did he see in her? She hugged her arms to her chest. He was still out there, biding his time.

  Like the detective, she thought it significant the Jackal never touched her. Would it reveal his identity somehow? Maybe point them in the right direction? Olivia should talk to Lucy and Jen. Some questions needed answering and maybe, those two had the answers. She wasn’t ready to do that yet. She could wait. Even if Lucy and Jen were ready to talk about it to another survivor, Olivia needed more time to be comfortable enough with all that had happened to her before she could discuss it. She never did feel comfortable discussing her emotions and talking about it again, so soon, would be too much. She tapped a button on the iPad, her missing fingers as noticeable as neon. It made her feel ugly, deformed and she hated being reminded of it.

  -15-

  The Jackal’s stomach clenched. He felt anxious a lot of the time now. A master at blending in, no one noticed the anguish he suffered. A smart man, he knew it would be folly to contact her or try to get her again. The play that made sense was to start again somewhere new. Work alone this time. It had been convenient to have a helper, someone to live in the place, to keep an eye on the girls as long as the person didn’t visit the girls on their own. To find such a person again would be challenging. No, it would be next to impossible. He knew how rare it had been to run across a man like Shawn. Chances of finding another were slim to none and slim had left town. Besides, Shawn was the reason it fell apart. His foolishness had brought it all down. That and Olivia. His penis throbbed at the thought of her. She killed Shawn. The news people confirmed it although they didn’t have to. He knew it had been her because Shawn had wanted to hurt the Jackal and that was the best way to do it. To be intimate with Olivia when he wasn’t there. Shawn had paid for it and it wasn’t him doing the punishing this time. He would love to have seen it. Seriously, how could Shawn not realize the danger? It had been her who had kicked him in the balls so hard he was bruised for days. He smiled, thinking of it. He had grinned under the mask when Shawn crumpled and triumph shone from Olivia’s face. So pleased with herself. It took a lot of restraint for him to not laugh out loud. He would have to stop thinking of her. The memory of her face! Torture! He couldn’t stop himself from turning on the TV hoping to see her on the news. He would lean towards the TV burning for a glimpse of her leaving the police station under guard or running into her house and scowling at the cameras while making sure her hair covered her missing ear. It excited him to see Lucy and Jen too, just not nearly as much. Olivia. She inspired him. The smell of her, the feel of her skin and the golden tints in her eyes. He wanted to take her and use her and watch the fire, the strength drain from her eyes. He wanted to crush any hope inside her in his hands and when all her light had been extinguished, he would kill her. He wanted to taste her and take all of her inside him, absorb her very essence through her flesh. They would be together always then. What better way to do that than to consume her? He frowned. Those thoughts were dangerous. He had to forget about her and move on. Everyone, the cops and Olivia were on high alert. To go for her again would be a Shawn type of move. The move of an idiot.

  The best way to get over her would be to find another pet. Another obsession. He decided to scout for new locations tomorrow, find a new base of operations and figure out how to make it untraceable to him. He needed to keep busy. He was developing a junkie fixation on her. He supposed he always had it, this unhealthy need for Olivia. And time apart wasn’t making it any easier. If truth be told, it was making it worse.

  . . .

  The next day, while scouting for new locations, he looked up and noticed he had gravitated closer to Olivia’s house. Driving down streets thinking about nothing, his brain in idle, he noticed he was circling closer and closer to her. He cursed himself. Not a good idea. Shit like this could get him caught. Maybe she would be at the kitchen window as he passed. He was close to her now, might as well take advantage of the situation.

  A cop car drove by. Outwardly, the Jackal appeared unconcerned although his heart tried to climb out of his chest with its pounding. Jesus man, you need to let her go. Find someone else. A whole harem of others. He could glory in pounding them with cock and fists, tenderizing them until they landed on his plate. He needed to stay away from here, away from her. The Jackal drove away, glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure the cop hadn’t turned around. The cop car kept going and the Jackal released a whistle of air. He stopped at a red light, thinking the red was the exact shade he had painted Olivia’s nails once. He sighed. If he was making the right decision, then why did he feel so bad? He would have to give it time. What was that stupid saying? Time healed all wounds? Hippy nonsense. He needed to find some other distraction. Most definitely of the female variety.

  -16-

  Olivia’s predictions proved correct. It only took another week for the media to be distracted with some other inanity. A city council member taking bribes or some such nonsense. They still reported on the house of horrors and the two men in masks because it was one hell of a story and they loved to play backseat investigators. Most of their attention focussed on the police and their lack of progress in the investigation, insinuating police incompetence without coming right out and saying it. It served their agenda of creating fear in the community. Scaring the public witless improved ratings and circulation sales. With headlines reading, “Jackal still at large! Police are clueless,” Olivia felt sorry for the detective with the terrible moustache. He must be under enormous pressure and he didn’t appear equipped to deal with it. The main reason the media vans left was simple: Olivia wouldn’t give them an interview. She hid in her house most of the time so she imagined the powers that be thought their resources could be better spent elsewhere. Lucy didn’t have the same reservations about speaking with the media. She had already been on one local morning show. Her light coloured hair, wonderful almond shaped eyes and slim figure made for a beautiful heroine and the public ate it up. Olivia suspected Lucy was being paid to appear on the shows and had ambiguous feelings about it. She thought Lucy was at least making something positive out of a negative. Maybe talking about it would even help her recover. But then she thought it wasn’t just her story though was it? It belonged to Olivia and Jen too.

  Still, just because Olivia wanted to put it behind her by not discussing it with the media vultures didn’t mean Lucy did. Olivia believed it dangerous to keep stirring it up instead of letting it fade away. Dangerous for all of them. Her appearing on the talk show circuit might renew interest from the media. Olivia liked not having the media camped out on her lawn. It helped her breathe a little easier with them gone. Less media cover, less exposure and less chance of the Jackal seeing her on the TV and inciting him to visit her one night so he could finish what he started. Olivia wanted the media to leave her alone so she could have time to think without the talking heads pressuring her to discuss what she went through in gruesome detail. When it all faded into black and white memories where their power to hurt had diminished, then maybe she could talk to Lucy and Jen about it. Funny. It was okay to yap about it when she
felt it was okay? She shook her head at herself. Still, she would need to talk to them eventually. All those nagging questions. Why not her? Why didn’t he try to rape her or speak to her? Not that she wasn’t relieved. The Gorilla had been more than enough. It made her think she might know him. If he had spoken, would she have recognized his voice? Her arms rippled with goosebumps at the possibility. With thoughts like that, how could she ever feel safe again?

  Her dad told her the cops had investigated the hell out of Dale. She had just broken up with him before moving into the university, he was an ex-boyfriend, he was upset and obviously the prime suspect. The ex-boyfriend always is. In the end, they had nothing to go with. At the presumed time of her abduction he said he had been home, watching a movie he rented through YouTube. He provided them with an online receipt indicating the date and time he rented it. It matched up. Although, didn’t you have twenty-four hours to watch it? There was some sort of time constraint on it. Didn’t mean he couldn’t have grabbed her. Thinking Dale could be the Jackal was ridiculous to her. They were the same age, grew up together, had the same friends. So, how did he meet Shawn Grady? How did he become the leader of the torture duo? She could tell, by the body language and deference shown by Shawn that the Jackal was the leader of their little torture club. Besides, the Jackal looked at lot bigger than Dale. It’s possible her projection of fear made him seem bigger but Dale had always been kind, gentle. The Jackal’s kindness came at the expense of her pain. Without her pain and torture he wouldn’t bandage her or paint her nails or comb her hair. Dale had been kind because he couldn’t be any other way. Dale couldn’t be the Jackal. It didn’t make sense on so many levels. An absurd idea with the power to niggle at her brain. Then why did the Jackal never talk to her? Why did he never rape her? He may have been saving her for something or he could have a scar or tattoo she might recognize. For whatever reason, he had fixated on her as someone different than the other girls and didn’t want to ruin the fantasy he concocted in his head. But if he never intended for her to get out of there (which she knew he didn’t) then what would it matter if she knew him? He would get what he wanted from her and kill her. Hang her on a hook in his freezer to dine on later. Fuck! Why couldn’t she be some Zen master that could let this shit go and walk around with the gentle smile of inner peace etched on her face, happy to be alive and not a corpse on a hook in an insane man’s freezer? Instead, she huddled in her house terrified, expecting a shadow wearing a Jackal mask to walk past her window.

  She had taken to carrying a knife around with her. Ever since her dad went back to work and she had been left alone in the house, she was afraid to leave her room when he wasn’t home. Every creak menaced her. The wind pushing and pulling at the house jellied her legs. A dog barking in the distance had her peering out the window expecting to see the Jackal’s tall frame moving down the side of the house. She wanted to get through it. She knew her dad had to go to work and couldn’t stay home forever. If he did that, they would end up living in a box in an alley. She fought the urge to call him although the fear sometimes paralyzed her to the point she wouldn’t even leave her room to eat. She knew he set the house alarm before he left. Knew he walked around the house to see if there were any new footprints in the snow. He called it ‘checking the perimeter’ and he would flash her an extravagant salute. He did everything he could to make her feel safe. He even called the police station to make sure the patrol cars would cruise by their house in case their vigilance began to lag. Even with this knowledge and the firm belief the Jackal would have to be a complete idiot to try and nab her the pressure continued to build inside. She used the washroom with the door open. She wanted to close it but what if she opened it and there he stood, reaching for her, his breath sounding forced from behind the mask. Irrational. She knew it. But how to suppress it? No idea. She lasted two days before she called her dad at work, voice condensed into a terrified whisper, asking him to come home while hiding in her closet. He did and he brought with him a knife. A six-inch bowie knife complete with sheath and attachable to a belt to hang at her waist. She liked it. A lot. The blade gleamed. She studied her eyes in it and the wide-eyed terror she normally saw staring back was gone.

  Most of the time she wore track pants. They were comfortable and who the hell did she have to impress? She didn’t want to acknowledge she got used to wearing them in the room she had been kept in and wore them out of familiarity as much as anything else. She wore a belt over them so she could attach the knife to it. She patted it throughout the day, reassured by its cold weight. She still hid in her room most of the time (there were too many windows downstairs in her opinion) and only darted out to use the washroom or make something to eat. Day by day the terror lessened its hold on her. So she thought. She would be reminded of how the fear controlled her when her dad came home and the relief at the sight of him trembled her body. She knew it would get better with time and she would have to be patient. Five years in a basement taught her all about patience. One step at a time. Quite the misfit family. Her dad the alcoholic and she, the terrified, scarred girl imprisoning herself in her house. Now might be the time to focus on something, get her mind occupied with something else. Like helping her dad and maybe they should move somewhere else now that the media had lost interest. Both of them could get a fresh start. For the first time in a long while, a faint stirring of hope fluttered in her chest. A fresh start had a nice clean ring to it.

  -17-

  Harry didn’t like going to work. No surprise. Most people don’t. There are a lucky few who have found their dream job and for them, work became playtime. Playtime you got paid for. Harry didn’t mind his job and before Olivia had been taken, he sometimes enjoyed it. When he got to use his brain and solve a problem no else could, it provided him with a sense of satisfaction. After she had been taken, it prevented him from going crazy with worry. It gave him something to think about other than what might be or what had happened to his daughter. Even after the embarrassing incident when they sent him home, he didn’t mind going there day after day. It helped him keep some sort of handle on his drinking. Then Olivia came home and going to work terrified him because now he feared she wouldn’t be there when he walked through the door. He feared her return had been a dream. A remarkable dream in which the impossible became reality. How many parents still waited for some word of their missing children? He had been one of those. Fighting to breathe with such a heavy weight on his chest. Imitating life while drifting through a fog. In the space between thoughts, terror’s fingers would crush his heart and he would want to call her, to hear her voice and know her return was real. He worried it would cause her to fear more if he did that. He couldn’t imagine how she functioned, escaping such an insane situation and being thrust back into a world where beds weren’t bolted to the floor and men with animal masks no longer visited her room on a whim. Instead, he called the detective almost daily to check on the status of the investigation and to see if officers were still driving by his house. No new updates and yes, they were driving by. He loved it when she called, asking him to come home and felt guilty for loving it. He shouldn’t be happy she was so scared at home she called him, should he? It did mean he could go home to her. It meant he could know her return hadn’t been a dream. His boss had been very accommodating. She had two kids of her own and understood his need to leave when Olivia called but at some point it would have to stop. Olivia knew it too. Her calls came less frequently and he found himself spending entire days at work without a call from her. It nagged at him and he lost time wondering what she was up to and if she was okay.

  Harry called Olivia before leaving work everyday to see if she needed anything for him to pick up on the way home and if he had been running low on booze, he would make a quick stop to resupply. He knew his drinking worried her. He noticed her watching him when he got up to get another beer. He worried about himself too. Since she returned, he had been getting carried away with his booze i
ntake and couldn’t even explain to himself why he continued. She was home right? There should be no reason to keep drinking. Most times, he would be pissed halfway through dinner. Slurring his words and staggering to the washroom and confused as to how he got so drunk so fast. Olivia’s eyes would remain on him, a concerned frown drawing lines between her eyebrows. He wanted to stop. Oh God, how he wanted to stop! It amazed him, the level of self deception required to keep going. To lie to yourself and to know it yet still convince yourself you’ll quit tomorrow or the next day and that all you need is just one more drink, one more taste before you shut it down for good. It never was one more taste. One more taste became one more bottle became one more case became I’m still a goddamn drunk! How is it a person can hate themselves in one moment and cheers themselves in the next with a bottle of booze in the hand? Truth is, Harry loved to drink. That simple. That’s what made it so scary. The alcohol hitting his lips soothed the anxiety he lived with. It turned ocean waves of fear into gentle ripples. It made his mind empty. It erased every fear and amplified self deception.