by Amy Fecteau
“What about Fletcher? What’s going to happen to her?”
His father released him, returning to his rigid stance. He looked at the man, absently fixing his tie.
“Not much longer, sir.” The man plugged an electric drill into the wall socket. “It’s best to have everything out, neat and tidy.”
“What about Fletcher?” Matheus repeated. “Answer me!”
A pair of guards appeared in the doorway, one of them carrying a toolbox. Matheus’s father stepped aside, letting them kneel before the chair. Matheus wrenched at the tape, rocking his body from side to side. The chair wobbled. One of the guards grabbed the legs, while the other fished some brackets out of the toolbox. He rummaged among the tools before leaning toward the man in gray flannel.
“Hey, can I borrow that?” The guard asked, pointing at the electric drill.
“Oh, certainly,” said the man. He handed the drill to the guard.
“You son of a bitch, if you hurt Fletcher, I’ll kill you!” Matheus yelled, still fighting against the tape.
The drill whirled, biting into the ceramic tiles.
“Thanks,” said the guard, passing back the drill.
“Your words mean nothing to me, dämon. I am protected by the divine hand.”
“My pleasure.” The man in gray flannel carefully replaced the drill in its original position. “All set, sir.”
He rose, a hammer in one hand. He’d slipped on a long, leather apron and rubber gloves that extended past his elbows. “Shall I begin?”
“Yes,” said Carsten. He waved the guards away. They retreated, closing the door behind them.
The man crossed the room, shoes squeaking on the tile. He positioned himself behind the chair. The claw of the hammer scraped across Matheus’s cheek, following him as he jerked his head away. The man had used the hammer before, but Matheus didn’t think he’d been building any decks.
“What are you going to do?” Matheus asked. The hammer moved like a lover’s caress. “You can’t do this.”
“Where are the others?” his father asked.
Matheus stared at him. “What?”
“I will cleanse this world. My son will be safe.”
“I am your son!” Matheus snapped.
“Lies, lies.” Carsten shook his head. “My son is dead. There is only you, squatting inside his mortal form.” Tears slid down his cheeks.
Matheus had a dizzying moment of collapse. His father did not cry, especially not over him. The hammer scraped over his lips, tugging slightly. The flavor of bitter metal met the tip of his tongue.
“He was weak,” his father continued, hardly more than a whisper. “Weak like his mother. I tried to make him strong, but I failed.” He sighed heavily and raised his head to look at Matheus. “I could not save him, but I will have vengeance.”
“You’re insane,” Matheus said, his teeth clipping the hammer as he spoke. He shuddered, unable to stop himself. Cold twisted inside him. He felt the man’s heartbeat, slow and steady. Calm. Professional.
“Some will call me that, but others will see and they will know what I have done for them. I will wipe your kind from the Earth. I will re-sanctify this world in the name of our Lord.”
“Fucking insane,” said Matheus. “I don’t know why I’m surprised by that.”
“Mock, dämon, but my child will be safe.” He gestured at the man behind the chair.
The hammer whisked by Matheus’s ear, slamming into his injured shoulder. He screamed, head thrown back, cords standing out in his neck. The man drove the hammer down, the claw digging into flesh, tearing at the muscle underneath. After a minute, the man released him, resuming his gentle stroking along his face. Matheus slumped forward, his hair covering his face, choking on whimpers. A red haze flooded his vision.
“Where are the others?” his father asked, as though he had not just watched his only son writhing in pain.
Matheus pressed his lips together. He didn’t trust himself to speak. The claw of the hammer pulled at his lips, clattering against his teeth. He closed his eyes and waited for the blow. It came, but along his collarbone instead, leaving behind a row of neat, darkening circles. Reaching around the chair, the man ran his thumb along the pulpy flesh, his breath hot in Matheus’s ear.
“Sing for me, birdie,” he whispered, digging his thumb into Matheus’s abused shoulder. He licked his ear, sticky spit sliding down the side of Matheus’s face.
“Fuck!” Matheus fought, twisting his head, his wrists, clawing at the arms of the chair with ragged nails.
“Where are the others?”
“Go to hell!” The scream ripped out of Matheus’s throat, laced with fear and desperation.
The man released his shoulder. Gently, he ran his fingers through Matheus’s hair, letting the strands drift back into place. He moaned at the soft touch.
“Have you ever been sodomized with a wine bottle?” the man asked, still stroking Matheus’s head.
Matheus choked, his eyes flying open. He stared at his father. Carsten’s face held nothing but dispassionate determination.
“Too much force and the glass will break. Are you going to play nice, birdie?”
“Get away from me!” Matheus shrieked.
“That’s all right, birdie. You’ll sing. Everybody sings.”
Someone slapped him. Matheus groaned, mumbling nonsense under his breath. Why was Quin slapping him? Why did everything hurt?
“Give him a minute, sir,” someone said. “He’s a tough one. He isn’t broken yet.”
The voice sounded pleased. Not Quin. Quin never sounded so smugly obsequious. One by one, details snapped into place. The chair. The tape. The smell of blood―his blood. Matheus groaned again. A sticky wetness ran down his thigh, past his knee, pooling at his feet. He stared down at the dark pool, dim reflections looking back at him. Someone stood behind him. The man in gray flannel, with all his special tools.
“Mattias.”
Matheus raised his head, the muscles in his neck trembling with the strain. His father looked down at him, the faint curling of disgust on his face. Disgust at Matheus. Not at the man behind him, the man with all the tools and the endless ways to use them. No, it was Matheus who was the monster here.
“There’s the birdie,” said the man. Matheus flinched. The man laughed, a warm chuckle.
“Dawn approaches,” Matheus’s father said with a glance at his watch.
“Ah,” said the man. “Time for something stronger, I think.”
The plastic scrunched as the man retrieved his next toy. After a few clicks came a stream of consistent white noise. He tried to place the sound, but his thoughts danced away as he tried to grasp them. He couldn’t focus. He watched his father watching the man. A guard stood by the door, a statue in flesh.
The things men do.
“May I?” his father asked.
“Of course. Careful, sir.”
The man passed a metal bar over Matheus’s head. About fifteen inches long, the bar had one end wrapped in a thick cloth, the other glowing white-hot.
“Uagh,” Matheus said, trying to push himself back against the chair. The man reached over and gripped his shoulders, holding him in place. His fingers pressed into the pulpy mess of bone and flesh, but Matheus barely noticed. His gaze fixed on the bar, a deep, animalistic panic rising up his throat.
“Be still,” said his father. He brought the bar closer, placing the end in the dip of Matheus’s collarbone.
Matheus screeched, the smell of burning flesh filling his nostrils, thick and harsh over his tongue. He screamed and thrashed, his muscles standing out in stark lines as he fought.
“In nomine Patris,” his father chanted, dragging the bar down to the base of Matheus’s sternum. “Et Filii.” Removing the bar, he brought it up to mid-pectoral, setting the tip on the right and dragging the bar across in a horizontal line. “Et Spiritus Sancti.”
With a deep sigh, he stepped back. “Amen.”
Matheus sobbed. H
e couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t take anymore.
“Bitte, Vater,” he wept. “Bitte, bitte. Es tut mir leid. Vater, bitte.”
“Stop that,” his father hissed.
“Bitte, bitte, bitte,” Matheus chanted, unable to stop himself.
“Stop. Stop at once.”
“Sir?” said the man, stepping forward. “Perhaps―”
“Stop looking at me with his eyes,” Matheus’s father said. “You are not him! Sie sind nicht mein Sohn!”
He lifted the bar, bloody but still hot, and drove it forward. Matheus didn’t have time to blink before the pain burst in his eye. The bar sizzled in the goopy flesh, then squelched as his father pulled it free. Then, another stab, another surge of pain as the world went black.
Matheus sank into the dark, away from his father, away from the man in gray flannel and the tiled room, away from the anguish and the torment, away from himself. He floated there, separate and safe. He could stay there forever, locked in this place where nothing could hurt him. His body didn’t matter any longer. His body belonged to them now, his father and the man. What they would do didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He was free. He had escaped, and they couldn’t follow him here. Here, into his space, the safe blankness of nothingness. Except…
A long black cord nudged at Matheus. Tendrils wrapped around him, teasing him, memories exploding as they brushed against him. Memories of someone carrying him through the city, healing his wounds. Someone cutting rope from his wrists, someone holding him as he cried.
Quin.
The dark shifted. Matheus no longer floated. Bracing himself, he gripped the cord, felt it bite into his hands, and yanked.
atheus’s cheek pressed into hard-packed dirt. The Earth wobbled, rising up to meet him before falling away into the void. A rock poked into his side, and disappeared. He exhaled, choking on the undulating aches coursing through him. He drifted, floating away from his mangled body, tethered by ropes of pain and longing. The floor settled beneath him, bringing along the rock, and the dirt beneath his cheek. Matheus thought about moving, but even the shifting of neurons disturbed the throbbing equilibrium, sending the world skittering away. He inhaled the thick, fetid air, trying to remember what had happened. Fire scorched his chest, and faded, leaving behind a tight, crackling sensation that made his stomach fill with bile. He stopped breathing.
Instead, Matheus listened. A low hum filled the air. Milo’s computers, maybe? No, the theater didn’t have dirt floors. The cellar of the run-down manor had earthen floors, but they’d left, right? Matheus struggled to place his thoughts in line. Yes, they’d left, fled after Apollonia attacked. Then they’d gone to the theater, and then, and then… A dark haze obscured the rest of his memories. He curled his fingers, digging into the ground, packing dirt under his nails. For a second, the world wavered, and settled into place.
He’d been in the movie theater. Matheus knew that. Had he left? Where had he gone? He pushed into the haze, groping blindly for anything to latch onto. The image of an old farmhouse popped into his mind. His father’s house. No, not his father’s house, too plain for his father, too comfortable. No, said another, deeper part of his mind. A trap. His father had used the farmhouse to lay a trap, and Matheus had strolled right in. A piece of the haze retreated, leaving shadowy images that slipped out of Matheus’s grasp. Why hadn’t his father killed him?
A chair. He’d been in a chair, and his father had asked him questions. So many questions. Had Matheus answered them? Everything had hurt so much. He wanted pain to stop, he wanted—the man in the gray flannel suit. Matheus shuddered. He remembered the man, the man in gray flannel with all his special tools. A small flicker of pride flared inside Matheus. He hadn’t answered any of his father’s questions. He’d begged, but he hadn’t broken.
The flicker pushed away more of the haze, kept him from falling back into darkness, but the pain spiked sharper in response. White never looks so bright as when it’s next to black. Matheus risked a tiny breath, a long, high-pitched whimper escaping. He lay still, listening to the hum of the generator rev and whir before falling into a gentle purr. Time moved forward, but he didn’t notice. An hour may have passed, or only ten minutes. When the shuddering agony abated to a mere tolerable throb, he brought his arm up to his face. His abused collarbone protested, easily ignored amid the chorus of shrieking body parts. A hopeless moan crawled up his throat as his fingertips brushed over the crust covering his eyes. Had the bar been silver? Could silver hold that kind of heat without melting? He pushed harder, cracking the crust. He screamed, jerking his hand away. A sticky liquid coated his fingers. The world tilted, tumbling him over the edge.
After a timeless length, the rock jabbed in his side again. He lay still. What reason did he have to move? He might have remained there for an eternity, if not for the soft scraping noise. The sound slid underneath the electronic hum, escaping his notice at first. Matheus strained his ears, perhaps the only intact thing left on his body. The noise crept closer.
“Who’s there?” Matheus asked. His voice sounded like a stranger’s, too high, the cadence fast, syllables slurred.
Dirt struck Matheus’s leg as a large weight dropped next to him. He jerked away, despite the bruises and broken bones. A light touch stroked his cheek, and he shrieked, beating at the air. He scrambled back until he felt the stone wall against his skin.
“Shh, shh,” said the other.
Matheus sensed the person in front of him, heard the soft rustle of clothing. “Go away!”
“Shh.” A soft hand brushed over the top of Matheus’s head. Dirt scraped as the other inched closer. Fingers stroked his belly.
“No, no, no.” Matheus sobbed, shoving at the hands.
“Shh, lad, I’m not going to hurt you.”
The hands tugged Matheus to the floor, rotating him onto his side. They held up his head, slipping something underneath. Matheus squeezed his new pillow, firm and springy beneath his finger and thumb. A leg.
“Quin?” he asked, but no, the voice didn’t sound right. Besides, the leg had a definite squishy quality. Nothing on Quin squished.
“Shh.” The other rubbed Matheus’s nape, avoiding the mushy flesh of his shoulder. He smoothed down the short hairs at the base of his skull. Matheus winced as a finger brushed his ear, but the other clicked his tongue and drew his hand away.
He shivered, craving more of the soft touches. He needed them, in the same way he needed the spark of pride. But the comfort amplified the pain as much as soothed. The other provided a double-edged balm, and he did not know how to resist.
“I’m sorry,” he chanted in a whisper. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
“Shh, shh.” The other shifted, the leg under Matheus’s head rising and falling.
Unconsciously, he gripped the rough fabric. The other made no attempt to free himself, only resumed his petting. He sang softly in a language Matheus didn’t understand. Languid vowels streamed together, too smooth for someone raised on German consonants.
Matheus relaxed. He swayed in and out of consciousness, letting time pass without note. One song flowed into the next. He didn’t notice when new voices, fresh, loud voices arrived, speaking just a few feet away. The words passed his ears and fell away. Matheus had no desire to hear them. He screamed when the new voices pulled the singer away. A heavy hand shoved him aside, knocking his head against the stone. His brain turned spirals in his skull. The disorientation lasted long enough for the new voices to fade away. Matheus dragged himself into a sitting position. He patted the ground around him.
“Hello?” he called. “Hello?”
Only the hum of the generator answered him. Matheus slumped against the wall. He didn’t try to fight the sobs.
Time continued on. Matheus thought he’d zoned out for an hour or so, although as much as an entire day may have passed. Fighting the bugs creeping under his skin, he touched his eyes, trying to decide if any healing had happened. The crust of blood and pus felt softer than b
efore, and sticky. Matheus gagged. He scrubbed his fingers in the dirt.
“Hello?” His voice disappeared into the darkness. No one answered, but he hadn’t expected anyone to. The room felt empty. Something about the presence of another person changed the atmosphere. “Hello?”
The hum of the generator rose into an angry whine, and dipped down with a faint hitching sound. Maybe the generator had run out of gas. If the generator switched off, so did the electrified fencing. Matheus would only have to deal with the padlock. That presented another problem, though. He had his boxers and nothing else. He let his head flop backward, striking the wall. The damp seeped through his hair into his skull. He listened to the generator gasp for fuel. The walls hadn’t been in the best shape. Some of the mortar had been replaced, but more of the original remained. Maybe if he found a loose stone, he’d have something with which to break the lock.
Matheus stretched out his arms, feeling his way up the wall. He tried to stand, but his knees refused to cooperate. With a steady hiss of curses, he maneuvered onto his stomach, and into a crawling position. He edged around the room, searching the walls, his arms growing heavier every second. He wondered if a person’s pain receptors ever overloaded. The ache in his shoulder had dimmed, but the movement brought on fresh throbs. Molars grinding to dust, he continued to the corner. At the tip of his reach, a stone wobbled. Matheus shifted, using the wall for support to push himself higher. He scraped at the mortar. A few pieces tumbled out, scattering over the floor. Matheus tried the stone again. Nothing. He swore, slamming his palm into the stone, fear and pain feeding into rage. His nails tore as he clawed at the mortar. Howling, he screamed until his voice collapsed.
Matheus gagged, coughs lodging in his throat. He hacked and wheezed, spine wrenching with every dry heave. He fought, struggling to breathe, to force his diaphragm still. An atomic bomb exploded in his mind, glowing black after-images spreading over any sense of reason or rationality.
“What’s wrong with him?”
