by Ian Dawson
“It was fun.”
“That’s all I get? I paid for a PS4 game for this kid and all I get is, ‘It was fun’?”
“Yeah,” James didn’t know what else to say. “What did you do today?”
“Played receptionist for you,” she said with a laugh. “That Austin guy you hang out with sure likes you,” his mom said. “It’s almost like he has some kinda crush on you.”
“Mom, that’s stupid. Why would you say that?”
“The guy called here like ten times today. He’d ask where you were and I’d tell him. He’d be silent, then say thank you and hang up.”
Austin knew! James’s eyes went wide. “I have to go,” James said.
“Go where? You just got home. Tell me more about the party. Any cute girls?”
“I’ll tell you more later. I have to go.” He walked toward the front door. He could feel his mom behind him.
“James? What is going on? Does this have something to do with that Austin kid?”
“Yeah,” James said. This was his chance. If anyone could help him, it was his mom.
“Honey,” she said, taking his hand. “Are you gay?”
“What?”
“Well, I’ve never had any girls call here and ask for you as much as this Austin boy has.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay if you are. You’re my son and I love you no matter what.”
“Mom, I’m not gay. Austin is not gay. We are just friends. Drop the whole gay thing.” He couldn’t believe his mom had said that. Although, given the weird obsession Austin seemed to have with him and his whereabouts lately, he understood why she might have thought that about him.
“I understand,” she said. “You’re not ready to tell me. But when you are I’ll be here for you...and your boyfriend.”
“Wow. Just...I’m gonna go.” He opened the front door. He couldn’t believe his own mother thought that Austin was his boyfriend. James was certain that if he was gay he could do a lot better than Austin! At least he hoped.
It was dusk when James got up the nerve to walk up Austin’s driveway. There he was in the garage, smoking. A laptop – probably stolen – sat open next to him on the couch. The blue glow from the laptop’s screen gave Austin’s face a haunted appearance.
James decided to take the initiative and apologize before things got out of hand.
“My mom wanted me to go to that stupid party. I didn’t have any fun, I promise.”
Austin turned the illuminated laptop around to face James. On the screen was a collage of pictures on Facebook of the party. In every picture James was in he was happy.
James swallowed hard. He could feel the tension in the air like being in a cage with an untamed lion.
“She’s so funny. You know what she thought,” James let out a nervous laugh. “She thought you and I were dating.”
Austin’s eyes widened.
“But I told her she was crazy, so it’s okay.” James suddenly thought something crazy himself: what if Austin did think they were dating. “You’re not, right? I mean, it’s okay if you are, but I’m not.”
The garage door closed, the sound of the shaking metal door made James jump. No way out.
Austin stood. “Your mom thinks I’m some homo, eh?”
“No. She doesn’t. It’s just...because you were calling so much, she thought...” James wasn’t sure what to say or do. “Look, I’m sorry.”
He watched as Austin picked up a squeeze bottle filled with a clear liquid. “Come here, James.”
James remained where he was. “What’s in the bottle?”
“Come here and I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me and I’ll come over there.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me? I’m your best friend, James. I saved you from Tyler. I didn’t know where the hell you were today.”
“My mom told you.” Ten freakin’ times!
“Yeah, she told me. You were out with other friends. People who wouldn’t risk their lives to help you when you’re in trouble.”
James took a step forward. “I’m sorry. It won’t...”
“Happen again,” Austin said finishing James’s sentence. “Yeah, you’ve said that before. But now I think it’s time that you follow through on that promise.”
“I don’t understand.”
Austin turned and stepped toward him. “You will.”
In one motion Austin squeezed the plastic bottle at James’s face. He turned his head to the left; the liquid splashed onto the right side of his face. The skin on his face sizzled and burned. James screamed, grabbed at his face with his hands.
“What did you do!?”
“Hydrochloric acid,” Austin said calmly. James watched as Austin looked at his face. “Ouch, looks painful.”
“Why? Why would you do that?” He dropped to his knees, the pain cutting into his flesh like hot razor blades.
“Because now, James, no one will want to hang out with a freak like you. No one except me. Because I made you what you are.”
Tears streamed down James’s face. The pain from the acid was immeasurable. He passed out.
James woke up in the emergency room. Half his face covered in gauze. His mom was there with him. And so was Austin.
A week later, as James recovered at home, he couldn’t figure out how Austin had managed to get away with doing something so horrific without any consequences. James wanted to tell his mom exactly what had happened, but he was terrified that Austin would hurt her or do something even worse to him. And so, he remained silent.
James had lost sight in his right eye. The skin on the right side of his face and neck was now red and pink from fresh scar tissue. He felt like the villain Two-Face from Batman or Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street.
A few weeks later, Austin stopped by his house and brought him a pair of sunglasses. They were all alone in the house. Austin looked over James’s face and smiled. “Not my best work,” Austin said, “but look what I started with.”
Screw you, James thought. He was afraid to do or say anything to set him off. Afraid of what might happen the next time. So, he did what he always did: “I’m sorry I made you do this to me,” James said.
“Good,” Austin said as he patted James on the shoulder. “Because I’d hate for your mom to lose her only child. No mother should have to go through that. Enjoy your new glasses,” Austin said as he left the house.
Despite what had happened or maybe because of what had happened, he remained friends with Austin. And he still wasn’t sure why.
And now, here he was carrying the unconscious body of a young boy toward Austin’s house and to a fate James didn’t want to think about.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
James was grateful when he and Austin finally arrived at Austin’s uncle’s house. They walked along the length of the chain-link fence that lined the perimeter of the house’s backyard on their way to the front of the house. James arrived at the empty, oil-stained driveway first, knowing Austin was close behind.
He looked out at the dark, deserted road, and heard the faint sounds of cars driving on Rancho Road in the distance.
James legs felt heavy under the weight of the boy whom he was now carrying in both arms; the boy’s legs draped over his left arm, his neck and head over his right.
As he arrived at the front door, he felt Austin’s hand clamp down on his shoulder. The sudden contact caused James to nearly drop the boy. Austin kept his hand firmly on James’s shoulder as Austin opened the front door with his free hand.
“Move,” Austin said in a low tone.
James stepped inside. Austin clicked on the lamp by the door and closed the door behind them. James heard Austin lock the deadbolt.
The dim, yellow light from the lamp by the door illuminated the nauseating living room: a yellow sofa, dead plant in th
e corner, green shag carpeting with flecks of orange, and a floor lamp with a yellow lampshade that made everyone in the room look sickly. There was trash from fast food on the floor by Austin’s uncle’s stained recliner, and a folded and ripped apart TV Guide on the TV tray next to it. James knew Austin’s uncle hated being looked at by the people on the cover of the TV Guide, so his uncle ripped the cover off each week.
James eyed the ugly couch, wanting to set the kid down and take a nap. “Where do you want him?” James asked; his voice strained from the dead weight he was carrying.
“Take him in the garage. I’ve got a special place for him.”
James nodded and moved toward the kitchen where the door to the garage was located. As he did so, Austin moved down the dark hallway and was swallowed by the blackness. James heard a door open.
“Uncle Brock?” he heard Austin say to no response.
Of course, he isn’t here, James thought. If he was here, he’d be passed out drunk on the couch drooling on himself.
James’s arm muscles shook as his strength began to give out from holding the boy for so long. He knew it was probably only twenty minutes or so, but it felt like much longer.
“Hey, Austin,” James said as he shifted the weight of the boy’s limp body in his arms. For such a skinny kid he sure was heavy. “You aren’t planning to surprise your uncle with this kid, are you?
Austin emerged from the darkness of the hallway and smiled. The silence said it all. Austin walked across the kitchen and opened the door that led to the garage. He motioned James forward, the hunting knife in his outstretched hand. James could see the tip was still dark with his blood. James took a step toward the door.
Once inside the garage, James placed Daniel’s body on the couch. It was the first time he had seen the kid in the light since they caught him. His jaw had a yellowish-purple bruise where Austin had punched him. Dried blood was on his lip and under his nostrils. His left sock was now soaked in blood that was seeping through the duct tape around his foot. James felt his stomach lurch.
At first James thought the boy was dead. The way his limp, unconscious body flopped around made him resemble a rag doll. But his chest was moving slightly, his closed eyelids twitched. He picked the foxtails off the spiky-haired boy’s boxers.
Austin entered the garage and made a beeline for his uncle’s workbench. The bench was covered in rusty tools, scrap pieces of wood and used cans of spray paint.
James stopped picking off the foxtails and looked over at Austin. “What are you doing?” He received no response.
Austin hurried back into the house and a few moments later returned with his black duffel bag. He pulled out a used roll of duct tape and tossed it to James.
“Tape him up so he can’t escape,” Austin said. James looked at the boy on the couch. “Austin, he’s out cold. He’s not going anywhere.”
“He’s probably faking. Hurry up.”
James sat and stared at Daniel. He felt sorry for what he had allowed himself to get sucked into. He gripped the tape in his hand, but did nothing.
Impatiently, Austin shoved James out of the way, grabbed the tape, and leaned over Daniel. He pulled a length of tape, ripped it with his teeth, and wrapped the tape tightly around the boy’s legs.
James watched as Austin diligently pulled off just the right length of tape, ripping it free with his teeth, and applying it to the boy’s extremities.
After he was finished, Daniel’s feet and hands were bound together. His mouth covered with a piece of tape that wrapped around his head.
“Can he breathe?” James asked.
Austin looked over at him and laughed. “Yeah, like it matters. His nose isn’t covered.”
“What now?”
Austin picked up an open pack of cigarettes from the coffee table, pulled one out, and lit it. He exhaled a plume of smoke in James’s direction. “I have to make some preparations. If he wakes up, yell.” Austin pulled a key ring from the front pocket of his black jeans, hopped over the couch and exited into the backyard through a new-looking door with a doggie door at the bottom. “One more thing, James,” Austin said, his back turned toward the door. “You try anything and I’ll do to you what I’m going to do to him. And that’s a promise.”
Austin walked across the weed-infested backyard. His uncle’s Rottweiler owned this backyard, which was covered in his poop. Austin made his way toward an old garden shed in the back right-hand corner of the yard and used the key to open the padlock.
Austin entered the small space and yanked on a thin metal chain above his head, which switched on a naked light bulb. The light illuminated the room in a yellowish glow. Cockroaches scurried for cover as Austin surveyed his abundance of stolen treasures.
For years Austin had kept his stolen treasures locked away from the prying eyes of everyone except James, the only person he trusted with knowing his secrets. Even his uncle knew nothing about his collection. But soon his uncle would know more than he ever wanted to. Austin smiled.
The walls were lined with posters of naked women, basketball players, and a couple street signs he and James had stolen in the middle of the night when they had gotten bored.
Shelves lined the bottom half of the walls in the shed. Most of the shelves were filled with junk that his uncle had stored in there before Austin came to live with him. But Austin had worked around it and made the place his own.
Thanks to a five-day suspension he had received from school for screaming obscenities in the quad during lunch and telling a teacher “go to hell, asshole,” he had all the time in the world.
He was running out of room under his bed for certain items, and he knew that if his uncle ever got curious and explored his bedroom, he would have a difficult time explaining where all the expensive items had come from.
From the time his uncle left for work to a half-hour before he came home, Austin was in the shed cutting the wood or digging the hole that would eventually become his tunnel and his two favorite rooms.
The tunnel connected perfectly from the shed in the backyard to the garage, which made it easy to transport all sorts of things like animals, weapons, and stolen stuff without it being seen.
And now, of course, with the two new additions to his collection, he couldn’t take the risk of them being seen or heard from, which made the shed and the tunnel even more valuable.
Inside the shed were Austin’s treasures: video games, Blu-rays, iPads, smartphones, credit cards; things that he had taken; things he was proud to have in his possession.
And now he had a second kid in his possession. He had to keep the two separate, but knew keeping the older one in the house for too long would be a mistake. He figured he could just kill the small one and hold the older one prisoner in the tunnels but it was late and he was getting tired. He just wanted to get this kid taken care of and figure out what to do next later.
He started to clear out the shed, removing each item and transferring it outside near the chain-link fence. He hadn’t realized how much stuff he had acquired. He was pretty impressed by the amount of items he had taken over the years.
But all this stuff was just junk to him now. He now had something in his possession and under his control that was far more valuable than any phone or computer: human life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Daniel felt as if he were floating in space. His mind swirled with tiny flashes of light as his body moved without his control. He could feel his arms and legs bouncing and swaying like rubber hoses. His head jostling back and forth, making his brain feel as if it were about to shake loose inside his skull.
He tried to open his eyes but couldn’t. Tried to open his mouth but was unable to. It was as if he were trapped in some open cocoon that failed to let him do anything he would normally do.
He had to get out of it.
Daniel focused in on the swirling points of
light, trying to figure out what was going on. Connect-the-dots. The last thing he could recall were his arms being pinned behind him and a fist slamming hard into his face. Pain, followed by more pain when he was hit again. Then nothing.
Was he dead? In a coma? Or just unconscious? His jaw was on fire. The coppery taste of blood invaded his taste buds and throat. His body twitched out of control. He could smell the faint aroma of cigarette smoke in the air as he landed on what felt like stiff pillows.
Maybe it was all just a very vivid dream.
He could hear muffled voices and sounds but was still unable to decipher what was going on. He could feel himself being moved around like a rag doll. Could sense that something wasn’t right but was powerless to do anything about it.
But he had to try.
With all the energy he could summon, Daniel screamed inside his mind: Wake Up! He screamed in his mind again: Wake Up!
A bright wash of light entered his eyes. He had done it; he had pulled himself out of the darkness of wherever he had been.
But was it worth it?
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Daniel’s head was throbbing. He couldn’t open his mouth; or move his arms and legs.
He opened his eyes, the view blurry at first but quickly focusing into a clear picture. A garage? He could see the large metal door and the garage door opener hanging from the wooden rafters. Daniel continued to scan his new surroundings.
Definitely not a dream. This is a living nightmare. I’m in Hell.
The couch looked like it had been salvaged from the city dump. It had rips and shredded material on the legs and sides from what must have been a very large cat or angry dog. It smelled of cigarettes.
An old refrigerator sat next to the door that led from the garage into the kitchen. Magazines of all types were everywhere; some in piles, some scattered about the room. A large section of oil-stained green carpeting covered the floor.
A TV was set up with a Nintendo Wii near a cluttered workbench. A stack of video games sat beside the TV.
