Gatekeeper

by Alison Levy

  Lips drawn into a thin line, he knelt down and looked closely at the girl he had knocked out. A memory stirred. He didn’t remember her face too clearly, but the color and cut of her coat, as well as the bandages on her hands, gave her away —this was the girl who had attacked him earlier.

  “Dumb bitch,” he said, shaking his head incredulously. “What do you want with me? You a cop or something?”

  That didn’t seem likely; tackling people in the street and picking locks was a little gung ho for the typical officer. Still, if she was a cop, he had to find out quickly. He had managed to keep his activities off the public radar thus far. One cop on his doorstep was sure to bring more, and that meant questions and warrants and opening doors that he would prefer remained closed. If she was a cop, he had to get rid of her before the other pigs came snorting around.

  He unlocked his back door, grabbed her by one ankle, and dragged her over the threshold.

  Once inside, he turned out her pockets. He found a metal lock-picking tool, a credit card bearing the name “Rachel Wilde,” and a pair of glasses, but no badge. Still not convinced, he pulled up her shirt and cupped his hands around her breasts, checking for a wire in her bra. Nothing. Probably wasn’t a cop. He felt some satisfaction at knowing his activities were still undetected. He was still free to do anything he pleased.

  He leaned over her and peered into her unconscious face. Rachel Wilde. He didn’t know the name, and nothing in her pockets offered him any clue as to her motivation for following him. Well, he would have to ask her when she woke up, and if she wouldn’t volunteer the information, he would have to coax it out of her. He grinned. That wouldn’t be a problem. The women he brought here couldn’t talk enough once he got started on them. They offered him any piece of information they might know—location of jewelry, bank account numbers, hidden stashes of cash—once they realized why they were here. They all talked . . . until he shut them up.

  The girl on the floor groaned but didn’t stir. He took her chin in his hand and turned her head back and forth, evaluating her. Small, tanned, athletic—unappealing. She looked a little too vanilla for his palate. He hadn’t bothered with a girl this white-bread since he first started. Besides, the police paid attention when girls like this disappeared. But . . . then again . . . He pushed up her eyelid and checked her sightless eyes. Dark irises. Dark hair, too. And the curve of her cheekbones spoke of something distinctly non-Aryan in her background. Could be part wetback or redskin, maybe even gook. His personal thirst—arousal, revulsion, and anger combined into an indistinguishable mélange—rose within him. She wasn’t as tall or curvy as he usually liked them, but since she’d been so damn eager to get into his house, he would be willing to overlook her shortcomings. Of course, the basement wasn’t furnished for more than one “guest,” so he’d have to scavenge some substitute equipment from around the house. Hopefully she’d stay asleep until he found what he needed. Until then, he’d have to keep her locked up.

  Leaving her meager belongings on the carpet (having labeled them “useless,” his mind had already discarded all thought of them), he grabbed her by one arm and dragged her across the floor, all the while humming a happy tune. The door leading down to the basement was, like the outer door, triple bolted. He flipped each lock with his free hand, swung the door open, and pulled her to the top of the stairs. Then, still humming, he grabbed her by the shoulder and hip and flipped her over the edge.

  Her limp form rolled down the steps, her arms and legs thumping against the wall and railing as they flopped erratically with the tumbling motion. One boot popped off her foot, bounced off the wall, and sailed out of sight as she fell.

  With a final thump, her body landed at the foot of the stairs, face turned sideways, legs bent at the knee, and one arm pinned beneath her. She groaned again and flexed the fingers on one hand while twitching the foot of the opposite leg. He nodded approvingly. She survived the fall. Maybe she was tougher than she looked. Good. It was always more fun when they could take a lot of punishment.

  He closed the door, bolted all three locks, and began his search for the particular items he would need.

  OUTSIDE, IN THE backyard next door, a woman’s brown coat reached one half-empty sleeve down into an open trash can. The inhuman hand inside the sleeve closed around a discarded cell phone.

  13

  TRAPPED

  Rachel awoke encased in cold darkness. Swimming in disorientation, she tried to realign her dizzy brain with her body, only to discover that her entire body ached and she was missing a boot. A faint smell—some sort of cleanser—stung her nose and sharpened her senses as she drew a deep breath.

  Forcing her eyes to focus, she found that the room she was in was windowless and pitch black, except for a horizontal line of light several yards above her. A door, her mind finally grasped. The light was leaking under a door at the top of a staircase. Oh shit, she thought with a stab of raw terror. I’m in the basement.

  She sat up and felt a crack of pain shoot through her. She grabbed her torso, wincing. The pain was coming from a spot just below her left breast. Probably a fractured rib, maybe two. Very slowly, she climbed to her feet and took note of every ache she felt. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, and she spotted her missing boot across the room. She limped across the floor to retrieve it, glancing around all the while.

  The room, little more than a nine-by-nine cube, was empty. She grabbed her boot and then ran her hand along the wall. The rough texture of cinder blocks met her fingers, triggering a sinking sensation in her gut. There was no way she could bust through solid concrete. She looked up the stairs to the door connecting this little cell to the house. Squinting intently, she saw a series of faint metallic glints on the edge, just above the doorknob. Deadbolts, three of them—just like the exterior basement door. Hazy though her mind still was, she registered that this seemed like excessive protection for a basement, even for a guy who, like the oracle said, was paranoid. It could only mean that he was hiding something in here, and a guy like this didn’t hide pleasant things. She reflexively reached for her coat pocket, only to find it empty. The severity of the situation sank in: she was in a violent man’s well-protected basement, she was injured, her backup wouldn’t arrive for who knew how long, and her phone was gone. A surge of fear electrified her veins and prickled through her skin.

  “This can’t be happening,” she whispered to herself. “This cannot be fucking happening.”

  “Hey!” bellowed a muffled voice. “I hear you talking, dammit! Let me out of here, now!”

  Rachel’s eyes followed the sound and zeroed in on another door she hadn’t previously noticed. It was tucked back, half-hidden by the stairs, and, like every other door Rachel had seen connected to this basement, secured by three deadbolts. This time, however, the locks were facing her. She shoved her foot into her boot, cringing from the pain in her sides as she did so, hobbled across the floor, unlocked the three bolts, and pulled the door toward her.

  This room was even darker than the one Rachel was standing in; everything past the threshold was a curtain of pure black.

  “Hello?” she called into the darkness. “Is someone here?”

  “Who’s that?” shouted a woman’s voice. “Where are you?”

  The voice was familiar. It confirmed the presence of a prisoner Rachel had already known was there.

  “Miss Morley?” She limped through the doorway and paused, waiting in vain for her weary eyes to pierce the blackness. “Are you okay?”

  “Fuck no, I’m not okay!” Miss Morley screamed. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Rachel Wilde. I’m the one who gave you the flash drive.”

  There was a long silence. Guilty tension rippled up Rachel’s arms and put the hair on the back of her neck on end.

  “You led that bastard to me,” Miss Morley hissed. “You set me up.”

  “No,” Rachel said. “I needed the information on that flash drive to lead me to him. I didn’t know he would
come after you.”

  Rachel heard Miss Morley draw a breath—a tired, ragged, mortally terrified breath. Only then did she realize that the bravado and outrage in the woman’s voice had been an act. Leda Morley might put up a front tougher than a bulletproof vest, but underneath that front she was deathly afraid.

  “Why are you here?” Miss Morley asked quietly.

  “I’m supposed to arrest him.”

  “Arrest him?” The doubt in her voice suggested she might more readily believe that Rachel was the Tooth Fairy come to track down an errant molar. “You came here to arrest him?”

  “Yeah . . .” Rachel sighed. “I’m not doing a very good job. But don’t worry, I have backup on the way. They’ll be here soon.”

  “You’re a cop?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s . . . complicated.”

  Rachel put one hand on the wall and slowly walked toward Miss Morley’s voice. Never in her life had she been so uncomfortable with the absence of light. The passage that separated her house from the rest of the world was far darker than this basement, and yet it wasn’t nearly as menacing. The passage to the pocket dimension was a snippet of nothingness, just two steps’ worth of void. The emptiness of that dimensional gateway triggered a spasm in her senses and a nervous dread in her spirit, but the physical response she felt now was far more primal. The darkness here concealed things, secret and horrible things. She was a mouse trapped in a snake’s hole, and the animal instinct inside her cowered at the reptilian air she breathed.

  Something thin and cold suddenly brushed her cheek. She shrieked, jumped back, and blindly struck the wall, gaining herself a fresh bruise. The pain in her ribs flared up and constricted her lungs. She hissed through her teeth and crouched low to the ground, willing her heartbeat to slow. Anger and self-reproach quickly displaced her fear. Being trapped like a mouse is no excuse for acting like one.

  Despite the fire in her side, she stood up and inched forward, waving one arm in front of her to find the offending object. Her fingers closed around it, and she found it to be long, thin, and made up of tiny plastic links. A possible explanation popped into her head, and she gripped it in her hand and pulled.

  A lone bulb over her head clicked on and cast its urine-colored light over the room.

  This room was slightly larger than the last—about twelve by twelve—but like that room, it was solid concrete, and as uniformly gray as an overcast sky. There were a few cracks in the floor, accompanied by a couple of dark stains that showed signs of recent scrubbing. The odor of cleanser she had smelled in the other room was stronger here, as was her sense of foreboding. Nevertheless, with the darkness removed, the primitive fear in Rachel’s gut diminished and her training kicked in. Mind focused, she turned and approached her fellow captive.

  Leda Morley’s swollen, bloody cheek was the first thing Rachel saw. The second was the iron restraint, connected to the cinder block wall by a short but thick chain, that was binding her wrist.

  Mindful of the chain but focusing on one issue at a time, she made a quick assessment of Miss Morley’s condition. Aside from her cheek, she showed no obvious signs of injury. Her clothes were ripped and stained, probably from their owner being stuffed into and pulled out of a footlocker, but what she could see of her skin appeared intact. Rachel got closer and saw that there was a large smear of blood on Miss Morley’s lower lip and chin although her lips were not split and there was no blood around her nostrils.

  “You didn’t lose a tooth, did you?” she asked. “I see blood on your mouth.”

  “It’s his,” said Leda. “I bit him.”

  Rachel raised an eyebrow and nodded approvingly. “You did better than I did. Do you have any other injuries?”

  “My neck hurts from getting bumped around in that trunk, but I’m okay.” She jostled the chain holding her wrist. “Can you get this damn thing off me?”

  Rachel seized the chain and pulled it as hard as her injuries would allow, but it was unshakably anchored to the wall. She stuck her hand in her coat pocket, but, not surprisingly, her lockpick was missing. She shook her head.

  “It’s on there tight.”

  This news clearly did not surprise Miss Morley, but it brought a tremble to her lip and a tear to her eye. She bowed her head and folded her hands under her chin. “Oh God,” she moaned. “Jesus, please save me.”

  The sight of Miss Morley praying made Rachel uncomfortable. Religion was an uncommon thing among her people, and those who had it kept it private. More to the point, however, praying struck Rachel as being an unproductive use of time and energy under the circumstances. She turned and scanned the room for anything that might be a help to them.

  She saw two locked doors. The three deadbolts on one were accessible, but also accompanied by a fourth lock, a formidable padlock. She flipped the three deadbolts and gave the knob a shake. The padlock did its job and held the door firmly in place.

  Cursing, she pulled the knob as hard as she could, and a faint sliver of light became visible through the edge. That’s the light by the driveway, she deduced. This is the door that leads outside. Her fractured ribs cried out and she released the knob, whereupon the door clicked back into place, swallowing her glimpse of freedom.

  She crossed the basement and approached the other door. This door had no deadbolts, but like the door to the driveway, it had a padlock. The door jiggled a little when Rachel yanked it, but the padlock held. She planted her feet and pulled as hard as she could until it yielded up a paper-thin view of the far side. Still straining against the lock, she peeked through the opening. The inside was shallow, like a closet, and from within, something metal reflected the light of the lone bulb behind her. She tried to lean a little closer to see the source of the glint, but as she did so, the stench of bleach struck her like a wave of mustard gas. Gagging, eyes watering, she released the door, but not before she caught the faint trace of an odor under the bleach. What is that rancid stink? she thought, her stomach churning. Spoiled meat? Whatever it was, she wanted no part of it. She moved away from the closet and determined not to touch it again.

  Rachel looked around the empty room again. Aside from the locked doors, the only other opening was a tiny vent on the ceiling. Her stomach knotted and her heart climbed into her throat. There was no way out and nothing she could use as a tool to help them escape. With mounting panic, Rachel grabbed Leda’s wrist restraint again and, ignoring her body’s wails of pain, pulled with all her weight. Miss Morley also grabbed the chain, planted one bare foot against the wall, and added her strength to the effort. Together, the two women pulled with all their combined force, but the rods that held the chain to the wall did not budge. They loosed their grip and dropped the chain, panting.

  “That fucker’s not going anywhere,” Miss Morley spat.

  “There’s blood on it,” Rachel suddenly said. She scraped some reddish flakes from the edge with her fingernail. “See here, right by your wrist.”

  “Are you sure it’s blood?”

  “Yeah,” she said reluctantly. “I’m sure.”

  “Well . . .” Miss Morley whispered. “It’s not mine.”

  But it’s someone’s, Rachel thought. Someone was in this restraint before Miss Morley. He’s brought someone else down here before . . . maybe more than one “someone else.” Maybe—the knot in her stomach twisted—that’s what the nasty stink in the closet is about. Maybe that spoiled meat smell is . . .

  The expression on Miss Morley’s face told Rachel that the two of them were reaching the same dreadful conclusion.

  Seeing her own horror reflected back at her, Miss Morley closed her eyes, dropped to her knees, and turned her face up toward the ceiling. She clasped her hands under her chin and kept her lips moving in prayer even as she forced back the tears that filled her eyes. “Jesus, please help me,” she prayed. “Please, please help me!”

  Rachel paced the room with her hands pressed to her screaming ribs as she desper
ately assessed the situation. The plastic chain on the light bulb was too flimsy and too short to choke a man. The padlock on the door would make a good weapon, but it was attached to the wall. It seemed like all she could do at this point was wait for Wu to show up, although knowing he was the closest to arriving did not alleviate her fear. Wu was decent at hand-to-hand fighting, but, truthfully, he was not any better than she was. In a fight between Wu and her captor, she would have to bet on the latter. Suarez was a much better bet. He was Hallan, born and raised in a warrior society; he could take down a psycho like this without breaking a sweat. But he was farther away than Wu, and at this point there was no telling how long it would be before he got there. There had to be another option. There had to be a way out. If there wasn’t . . .

  Her eyes darted to the foul closet and she shivered. This man had overpowered her easily when she was rested and unhurt; now she was exhausted, in pain, sporting a possible concussion, and locked in a basement. She didn’t have her cell phone, she didn’t have her lockpick, she didn’t have a weapon. The only advantage she’d ever had on the guy was—

  “What was on the flash drive?”

  Miss Morley raised her head and stared at Rachel with bloodshot, defeated eyes. “What?”

  “The flash drive I gave you. What was on it?”

  Leda’s brow furrowed and she shook her head. “What the hell does it matter?”

  “It might matter a lot,” Rachel pressed. “The only advantage I have on this guy is that I know what he’s been up to for the last few months and he doesn’t realize it. Just tell me: Did you learn anything from that memory stick?”

  Miss Morley sighed. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her unfettered arm around them. “The few sections I had time to translate looked like diary entries.”

  Rachel blinked and cocked her head. “Diaries?”

  “They’re descriptions of people’s lives: births, deaths, marriages, daily occupations, and other personal business, not all of which I could translate clearly.” Miss Morley raised her hands in a gesture of helpless frustration. “They are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years old, but they’re very mundane. They might be interesting for a historian, but to the average person they’d be pretty damn boring.”