Endurance (A Novel of Terror)

by Jack Kilborn

Deb set the apple core aside, and went back to the cupcake she’d been licking. She peeled off the paper, thinking about five hundred people missing in this area. Missing, presumed dead.

  How does something like that happen? Don’t these people have families? Didn’t the families know where they were going?

  And yet, Deb herself never told anyone she was going mountain climbing that fateful day. One of many rookie mistakes she’d made. If she’d told someone, and had been overdue, maybe they could have sent help.

  Deb felt a stab of adrenaline kick up her heart rate.

  No one knows where I am now.

  Last year, Deb had lost her parents. Mom, to cancer. Dad, to grief over Mom. The tough exterior Deb wore like armor kept anyone from getting close.

  So here she was, making the same rookie mistakes all over again.

  I’m not mountain climbing, though.

  No, I’m at a creepy inn, out in the middle of nowhere.

  But this time, there is someone who knows where I am.

  She glanced at Mal, who’d taken their plates and was dumping the apple cores and bread crust into the garbage can in the corner of the room. He lifted the can’s lid, peered inside, then made a face.

  “You okay?” Deb asked.

  “Remember when I said the meat was pheasant?” Mal asked.

  Deb’s stomach turned a slow somersault. “What are you saying?”

  “I think I was wrong.” Mal said. “It wasn’t pheasant at all.”

  Maria’s alive.

  The thought stunned Felix. After a year of hoping, despairing, and wondering, to finally have this confirmed was so overpowering he didn’t know whether to cheer, laugh, or weep.

  “What have you done to her, you son of a bitch?”

  Cam pushed Felix aside and grabbed John by his flabby neck. He raised the hunting knife.

  “Answer me or I’ll scalp you.”

  Felix reached out, ready to intervene, but John began to babble. It was a rant, mostly incoherent, but obviously sincere.

  “Blue blood. It’s blue. We all got blue blood. Me ‘n my brothers. Direct line to Charlemagne. Like the Presidents. Ma says it’s too pure. Too presidential ‘n strong. We get sick. We need mixin’.”

  “We bled her. Same as the others. Nice and slow.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Cam said.

  But Felix thought he got it. “You need her blood.”

  Cam looked at him. “Huh?”

  “Transfusions,” Felix said. He stared at John. “Is that why you’re so worried about bleeding?”

  “If’n I get cut, it don’t stop. Takes too long to heal up.”

  Cameron shook his head. “No way. I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true,” John implored. “We don’t hurt her none. We just use her for bleedin’. And…” John’s voice trailed off.

  “And, what?” Cam said.

  John pursed his lips. Cam pointed the hunting knife at Jon’s face. An inch from his nose.

  “What!”

  “And makin’ babies,” John whispered.

  Felix sank to his knees, feeling like someone had punched him. He’d been overwhelmed by emotion after hearing Maria was alive. Now, hearing why Maria had been taken—to be bled and raped by a family of psychos—it was too much to handle.

  “Bullshit,” Cam said, shaking his head. “You’re lying.”

  “I ain’t. I ain’t lyin’.”

  “We’ll see.”

  And then Cam stuck him with the knife. In his right arm, just below the shoulder.

  John screamed. High-pitched and loud, like a girl. Cam jammed the sock back into the hunter’s mouth, while Felix watched, slack-jawed, as blood began to soak John’s shirt.

  The giant thrashed, breaking the chair, crashing to the floor. Landing on his broken fingers made him scream even louder, and he rolled onto his side, kicking to get the rope off his legs.

  Felix tore off John’s sleeve to assess the injury. The knife wound did more than bleed. It gushed with John’s heartbeat, pumping out of his body with a lub-dub rhythm.

  “Wild,” Cam said. His face twisted into a grin.

  Felix pressed his ruined hands to John’s wound, then spat out at Cam, “You asshole! If he dies we won’t find Maria!”

  Cam stuck out his lower lip. “What do I do?”

  “My tool kit! In the truck! Get the superglue!”

  Cam ran off. John flipped, onto his belly, knocking Felix away. Blood soaked the carpet beneath him. He pulled the sock out of John’s mouth and implored, “Where is she?”

  “Stop the bleedin’… gotta… stop the bleedin’”

  “Tell me where Maria is, and I’ll stop the blood.”

  “Turn…” John mumbled.

  “Turn? Turn where?”

  “Turnikit…”

  Shit. John’s going to die without giving up where she is.

  They’d used all of the rope to tie John up. Felix could have cut off a length, used that, but John was too big to be able to control. Felix’s eyes wandered the room, frantic. They locked on the closet.

  Hurrying to it, he grabbed a metal clothes hanger and stretched it in his hands, wincing as he bent back the hook on top. When the wire opened up, he tucked one end under John’s armpit. Then Felix brought the two ends together and began to twist the hanger around John’s biceps. It was easy at first. But once the wire began to meet with resistance, Felix didn’t have enough strength in his mangled fingers to make it tight.

  Dammit, where’s Cam?

  Felix picked up a broken chair leg and jammed that under the wire. He began to turn the leg, like a propeller, cinching the wire tight against John’s skin.

  John moaned.

  The wound still bled.

  Gritting his teeth, Felix jammed the sock back into John’s mouth and twisted the leg even harder.

  The hanger pressed deep into John’s flabby arm, then broke the skin. More blood poured out, covering the wire. Felix tried to twist the wire off, and the blood dripped out of the split flesh like a towel being wrung out.

  No. No no no no…

  “John. Listen to me.” Felix grabbed John’s cheeks, which had grown sickly pale. “You need to tell me where she is.”

  “Help… me.”

  “I’ll help you. But I need to you tell me.”

  John’s eyes glazed over, and he seemed to be looking far away. “Help… me… Dwight…”

  Dwight?

  Felix felt the gun press against the back of his head. He knew who Dwight was. The Sheriff of Monk Creek had been of no help to Felix during his quest, refusing even the simplest of requests.

  “Stand up. Hands over your head. Slow and easy, or I’ll have to use force, like I did with your friend outside.”

  Felix felt his entire world crumbling. He lifted up his hands.

  “This man tried to kill me, Sheriff. He’s got my fiancé. The one I told you about.”

  “Is that so?”

  The Sheriff grabbed Felix’s wrist, twisting his arm and forcing him face-first into the blood-soaked carpet. He felt the Sheriff put a foot on his back, and the handcuff go on.

  “You have to believe me,” Felix said, his words blowing a bubble of John’s blood. “Please.”

  “We’ll get to the truth of this whole situation.” The Sheriff gave his arm another rough twist, then slapped on the second cuff. “That’s for damn sure.”

  “Help me, Dwight,” John said again. His voice had gotten very weak.

  “You don’t look so good, Johnny. Where’s your styptic?”

  “I dunno, Dwight. In my truck.”

  “Shit lot of good it’s doin’ you there.”

  Felix turned and looked up at the Sheriff. Though not as big as John, Dwight was a large, portly man, with a doughy face and a bald head. He was wearing a brown shirt and green slacks, his badge handing on his belt next to his gun. The Sheriff knelt next to John, and unwound the coat hanger.

  “Don’t move, dummy. I
got to open the wound for this to work.”

  The Sheriff unclipped a knife from his belt and brought the blade next to John’s arm.

  “Don’t… move.”

  With a quick motion, the sheriff jammed the tip into the original wound and cut sideways. John howled, jerking his whole body sideways.

  “Goddamn it, John! I almost nicked my finger!”

  “It hurts! They broke my fingers, Dwight! They broke all my digits!”

  “I gotta expose the goddamn artery.”

  The blood was really gushing now, almost like a water fountain. Felix watched the Sheriff pull a tan package out of his breast pocket. It had QuikClot printed on the paper. He tore off a corner and poured white powder into John’s wound. John yelped.

  “Shush, now. Stop being a baby.”

  “It burns, Dwight. B-burns bad.”

  “Hold still. I need to see if I got it all.”

  John twitched. Felix stared at John’s arm. The powder indeed stopped all the bleeding. But there seemed to be another problem.

  “Jesus, Dwight! Hurts even worse!”

  Felix could see why. The hemostatic agent apparently had stopped the blood from leaking out, but it hadn’t stopped the internal bleeding. John’s triceps began to expand, like a balloon.

  “I’m gonna have to open you up again, John. Hold on, I got more styptic in the car.”

  “No! Please, Dwight!”

  Without provocation, the Sheriff kicked Felix in the side, so hard he actually saw red.

  “Now don’t you move none, or I’ll make it worse for you,” he told Felix. Then he lumbered off.

  My gun. It’s in the sink.

  Felix pressed his head into the sopping carpet, then pulled his knees up under him. He got to his feet, unsteady, feeling like puking again, and staggered into the bathroom. The Beretta was still there. He backed up against the sink, reaching his cuffed hands behind him, seeking the gun.

  The sink was deep, the bowl curved, and every time he touched it, the weapon slid away from him. His fingers, wrapped in bandages, had no feeling in them, and he couldn’t see what he was doing over his shoulder.

  He felt fresh sweat break out on his forehead, stinging his scalp wound.

  Slow and easy, Felix. You can do it.

  Nudge.

  Miss.

  Nudge.

  Miss.

  He eyed the door, expecting the Sheriff to come in any second.

  Wait… I’ve got handcuff keys in my front pocket…

  He’d put them there after cuffing John on the highway. Felix tried to bring his hands around, but he couldn’t even get a finger in his pocket, let along reach for the keys.

  No time. Go for the gun.

  He backed up to the sink again, stretching his arms.

  Concentrate. Reach your hands in deeper.

  Felix blinked back tears, held his breath, and locked his right hand around the butt of the gun.

  Now what?

  He tried to bring the gun around, and shoot forward from the hip, but there wasn’t enough play in the cuffs. The best he could aim was sideways. Felix wasn’t a very good shot in ideal conditions. He doubted, with the stance, he could even hit the wall while standing up against it.

  “Now, what do we have here?”

  Startled, Felix spun around, pressing the trigger.

  The shot missed the Sheriff by a good five feet.

  However, it didn’t miss John. The hunter’s head jerked back, and the back of his skull popped off. Brains spilled out like a dropped bowl of oatmeal.

  The Sheriff was on Felix in three steps, punching him in the jaw, stepping on his neck when he fell and yanking the gun from his hand.

  “Looks like you just went from assault to homicide, boy.”

  “Sheriff, you have to listen. John has my fiancé. He and his brothers have her someplace.”

  The Sheriff didn’t seem to be paying attention. He got on one knee next to John, and closed the man’s staring eyes.

  “Styptic won’t fix this one, hoss.” He blew out a breath. “Look at all that blood.”

  “Sheriff… listen to me!”

  The Sheriff’s eyes centered on Felix. Felix saw no mercy there.

  “No, you listen to me. You’re going to get into my car and not speak one more peep, or I’m going to shoot out both your knees. You got that, boy?”

  Felix nodded.

  The Sheriff manhandled Felix to his feet, and roughly pulled him out the front door. The squad car was there, and there were several motel guests with their doors open.

  “Everyone back inside,” the Sheriff ordered. “The situation has been taken care of.”

  The Sheriff opened the rear door of his car and shoved Felix into the back seat, next to Cam. Cam’s nose was bleeding freely, and his face was the epitome of sullen. He had his hands behind his back; apparently handcuffed like Felix.

  “Asshole snuck up on me. Probably gonna take me back to the nuthouse. You find out where they’re keeping Maria?”

  Felix gave his head one quick, brief shake. “John’s dead.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to find out where he lives.”

  “What does it matter, Cam? We’re fucked.”

  The car bounced on its shocks as the Sheriff climbed in. He adjusted his rear-view mirror, looked Felix square in the eyes, and started the car.

  When he pulled out onto the road, Felix was confused. He whispered to Cam, “This isn’t the way to the police station.”

  “What are you two hens cluckin’ about?” the Sheriff demanded.

  Felix slunk back in his seat. “Town. It’s the other direction.”

  “I ain’t takin’ you to town.” The Sheriff grinned, showing his crooked brown teeth, and Felix felt his mouth go dry. “I got other plans for you boys.”

  The machine whirs and clicks, spins and pumps. The IV drains blood out of Maria’s right arm, passing it through the siphoning mechanism, and pumping into George. He also has an IV sucking blood out of him, feeding it back into Maria’s left arm.

  A trade. Blood in, blood out.

  This has been done to Maria dozens of times, and it never fails to revolt her. Exchanging blood with these monsters—she thinks of them as monsters rather than human beings—is almost worse than when they climb on top of her. But the revulsion goes beyond the awareness that their diseased blood is in her body. Their blood actually causes her to feel sick.

  These freaks are ill. Seriously ill. They bleed from the slightest injury, and the bleeding doesn’t stop on its own. If they don’t get a transfusion every few weeks, they die.

  Maria isn’t sure why she’s still alive. Apparently whatever disease they have isn’t fatal to her. Perhaps she’s immune. Perhaps it can’t be passed on. Perhaps her body cleans their dirty blood, like some sort of human dialysis machine. However it works, Maria knows that she, and other captives like her, are keeping these mistakes of nature alive.

  The process takes a few hours, and it’s nearly done. Afterward, the monsters line up, eager for a chance to impregnate her. Maria has tried to tell Eleanor that she can’t have children, that her ovaries don’t work, but that hasn’t stalled their efforts. Eleanor endlessly prattles on about the presidential blood line, about having heirs, and she has some grotesque, grandiose delusions about her legacy. So convinced of her own importance, Eleanor often lies down alongside Maria, and has sex with her own monstrous children and grandchildren in some twisted attempt to produce more monsters.

  Though not deformed, Eleanor is the biggest monster of all.

  Maria looks around. The freaks are huddled together, grunting at one another. They don’t talk much. Some are mentally retarded, from either inbreeding or birth defects or both, and unable to converse. They’re missing limbs, or have too many, or their appendages are under-developed or in the wrong place. Some have heads that are too large, some too small. Many have harelips. Few of them have hair, and they’re all sickly pale and smell sour.

  “All don
e,” Eleanor says. She’s lifting her dress up over her head. “Let’s line up, children. It’s time to make babies.”

  George pulls the transfusion needles from his arms, quickly sealing his wounds with a white powder. He turns to Maria and says, “Me first.”