by Rick R. Reed
The look would serve to make him inconspicuous as well, if he should ever require anonymity.
There was a banging in the house, coming from below.
Dwight took on an irritated expression, checked his reflection again to see how it looked. “Tsk,” he exclaimed, “what do the little monsters want now?”
Now that he had two of them in the basement, the demands had become even more aggressive. Dwight had always wondered about people like them: they should know that their life-styles warrant any punishment that happened to them. Where was their dignity? People, if these little “things” could even be called people, should learn to sit up and take their medicine, to pay for the choices they made.
Didn’t they realize that through such payment they would find salvation?
When would they understand that he was doing them a favor?
After they were dead?
The banging grew louder. Jesus, if they kept that up they would destroy all his hard work. And if they escaped, his plan could fail. Well, his plan wouldn’t fail.
He’d sooner die than see it fail.
With a grimace, Dwight headed for the stairs.
*
Julie knew that today, the man had brought someone else in. She had fallen into a fitful sleep, jerking awake every few seconds or so, sometimes with a scream half on her lips from some dream too horrible to remember. Images danced around the periphery of memory: darkness, hands, encrusted with scabs, reaching out to grab her. Dead bodies, white and bloated, popping to the surface of some cold, dark water.
But what dream could be more horrible than this reality?
She wondered as she heard the boy being brought in (she was sure it was a boy: she could tell from the sound of his voice) if he’d been trapped the same way she had, with kindness and a smile. She wondered if this boy was close to her age: he sounded young, but exact age was hard to determine from just a voice.
She wondered if he would meet the same fate that she would.
At first, she was glad there was someone else there. Maybe together they could find a way out. But as she felt the rope around her ankles and wrists cutting into her, felt the sweat that had made of her hair a sour-smelling sponge, felt the heat and the stale air of the box in which she lay—she knew that escape, with one or fifty of them, was impossible. She couldn’t accept the fact that she was going to die, but she accepted the fact that she might not be able to find her own way out of this. She knew that someone outside would have to intervene.
But who would come for someone like her? Who would even care?
*
War Zone banged his heels once more against the side of the box. He needed to get out of this fucking dark box. He couldn’t bear it. There were things crawling on him. He couldn’t breathe. His muscles and joints ached from being forced into this little box, hog-tied, naked, and without the benefit of sight or voice (he had been gagged and the palpable darkness was blindfold enough). He was tired from banging his heels against the side of the box, but the man must know: he couldn’t handle this.
He couldn’t live with it.
Sweat poured from every pore in his body.
The rats are coming, Kenny.
His heels were raw, probably bleeding by now.
And they’re going to get you.
The air in the box seemed to be dwindling. Soon he would suffocate. Logic told him not to exert himself so much, that if he was using up air, writhing and banging his feet against the box this way would only use it up quicker.
But God, he couldn’t take this. Noooo, this was worse than anything.
Gonna eat you up, Kenny. Gonna lick them little black bones clean, yes, sir.
Bang! Bang! Bang! The wood against his feet was rough, splintery, and with each blow, War Zone felt the pain more acutely, felt the layers of skin offering less protection with each hit against the box. But he didn’t care. What was the alternative? To lie still in this horrid darkness? To wait?
He hadn’t waited for anyone, not since he was a little boy and waited for his mama to come home from work. Waited for her to save him.
Mama, please come. He kicked, hard, once more.
* * *
“Patience! Patience!” Dwight shouted, descending the cellar stairs. “Good Lord, you kids have not been taught a thing about manners, about discipline, have you?”
He began mumbling, the words flying out of him in a stream of rage, whispered with intensity. “Filthy, filthy things. Don’t deserve anything, not even the punishment I’m kind enough to give them. God, why did you bring such things into the world? What do we need of their filth? Their sickness? I hate them all. I hate them. This is the only way.” He stopped suddenly, almost as if he didn’t realize what he was saying. He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe more slowly, trying to regain his composure.
Where had the outburst come from? He must have control if he wanted to help these kids…help them through their punishment to go on to grace.
Suddenly a vision of his aunt Adele rose up before him and Dwight saw her, not as he had in her casket last month, but when she was alive and he was a little boy. She wore a man’s flannel shirt, rolled-up jeans, white socks, and penny loafers. A Winston dangled out of the corner of her mouth.
“You pray with me now, kid.”
Dwight shut his eyes, blocking out the image and the memory: twelve-year-old Dwight, prostrate and naked on his own bedroom floor, wincing as the belt his aunt wielded made contact with his back, his buttocks. “Pray with me now, kid. It’s the only way to salvation.”
The buckle had cut into his tender flesh.
Dwight pulled the cord and the basement was flooded with naked light. The two plywood boxes, so carefully (artfully, even) constructed, were still intact. The one on the left moved as the little jiggaboo boy banged into the side of it over and over. Dwight felt rage surge over him once more, pictured flinging off the top of the box and finishing the little bastard right then and there, just wrapping his fingers around that skinny, cocksucking little throat and wringing the filthy life out of him. That would show him. Dead, he’d really get a glimpse of what hell was like.
Dwight made himself take another deep breath, trying to ignore the incessant banging, trying to drive his rage down deep into himself. Control, he told himself, control is the key. Your plan will never work unless you can keep your cool. You have to get them all together. All his little friends…
He thought of Jimmy Fels, thought of the candle.
“No,” he said, flinging up a brick wall against his thoughts. Remember: cool-edged.
Dwight lifted the lid off the box and looked down at the thing inside, terrified and sweating. “What is it?” Oh, God, the smell was already bad. Had the thing soiled itself? He reached down and grabbed one end of the duct tape around its mouth and ripped it from one side to the other.
“Ahh,” the boy whimpered, blinking against the sharp pain and the sudden light.
“What do you want? Shit yourself? Well, son, that’s your problem. I told you when I brought you down here I’d take care of your needs twice a day. If you have no self-control, you can just lay there in it.”
Dwight’s words replayed in his mind, and his face clouded over.
*
“If you have no self-control, you can just lay there in it, boy.” Aunt Adele stared down at him, her thin lips disappearing in a furious line. She pushed back the horn-rim glasses, ran a hand wearily through her close-cropped salt and pepper hair. Dwight burned with the fever the influenza had brought on, sweating in his shit-stained sheets.
“But, Aunt, it’s diarrhea. I couldn’t help it.”
The hand came out, so quick Dwight’s eyes could barely register the motion, and slapped him across the face.
“Don’t tell me about control, young man. A little flu bug isn’t enough to prevent you from getting up out of that bed and walking to the bathroom not thirty feet away!”
&n
bsp; “I just sneezed and it—”
The hand shot out again. “Don’t back talk!”
Ten-year-old Dwight lay shivering, his skin cold, damp, the chills wracking his body. His stomach gurgled. He was afraid the smell would make him puke. His aunt’s rage terrified him; he wished she would just go away.
“You want clean sheets, you want a clean bed to lie in, you know where the Spic and Span is, you know where the linens are kept, boy.”
Dwight’s wish came true as his aunt left the room, leaving the smell of her Winston cigarette behind her.
Dwight relaxed, letting the chills take him, and tried to summon up the strength to get out of bed and begin cleaning himself up.
*
Dwight shook his head, forcing the memory away. Aunt Adele had to do what she had to do to make him strong. He turned his gaze back to the thing below him.
It stared up at him, the dark eyes still blinking. There was a little blood on its lower lip, where the tape must have pulled too hard. “Man,” it whispered, its voice little more than a croak.
“What is it? Speak up, young man!”
“Man, you gotta let me outta here. I can’t take this. I’ll do anything you want. Give you anything I have…”
Dwight bent over and tried to apply another piece of duct tape to its mouth, but the black thing wiggled its nappy head, making it difficult for him. He grabbed the little jaw and squeezed so tight the lips protruded. “Don’t fight me, son. Don’t fight. You’ve got nothing I want, so don’t plead.” Dwight succeeded in getting the tape back over its mouth. He smiled and looked down at—what did he call himself?—War Zone. “Pleading isn’t becoming.”
Dwight studied the dark brown eyes below him, savoring their terror, knowing such terror was only just, and said, “I’ll take care of your little mess later. I’m leaving now, so your continual kicking will do you no good.” He sighed. “And it’s probably making it impossible for others to sleep.”
He brought his face close, right down into the box, in spite of the smell. “I’ll be bringing you some company, soon.”
Dwight lifted the lid and slid it back into place.
After a moment, the kicking resumed. “Expect little and you’ll never be disappointed,” Dwight said, shaking his head and starting back up the stairs.
*
Super Powers Arcade stood at the corner of Clark and Foster, on the north side of Chicago. The arcade was in a storefront building: the large plate-glass windows, although darkened by layers of dirt, revealed the rows of pinball machines, ersatz race cars, and video games inside. The front door, usually propped open, let out a variety of bells, gongs, and beeps. If you ignored the garbage and dirt on the sidewalk outside, the round contusion in one of the plate-glass windows made by a BB, and the network of cracks that crawled out from the BB hole, you could believe it was a nice place for the children between the ages of ten and fifteen who frequented it.
The perfect place for me. Dwight Morris backed into a parking space just south of the arcade. “Like a pond stocked to the gills,” Dwight snickered, “with little fishies just waiting to be caught.” Dwight knew he wouldn’t be the only middle-aged man in the arcade. Others like him cruised the aisles of games, pretending to be interested in the neon, the beeps and buzzes, restlessly shifting a dollar’s worth of tokens from one hand to the other. But their eyes sought out the eyes of the youngsters, always finding one or two who would make eye contact and hold it. And there were always the bold ones: little tramps who would come up and ask you for the time, a light, or spare change. Those that tempt, taunt, tease…all in need of salvation. But their savior would have to come another day. After all, he couldn’t save the whole world, could he?
Dwight sensed there would be a special one tonight. One that would serve as a signpost to all the rest. He drew in the bitter cold dusk air. Surely, when he was finished, the arcades would be safe once more for families, decent kids.
Families and kids like he once had…and lost.
As he approached, the sounds from within the arcade grew louder. Dwight could smell cigarette smoke and thought that normal boys and girls should be home eating milk and cookies. Not here, smoking cigarettes and prostituting themselves.
Shameful.
Pulling his Chicago Cubs baseball cap down low, close to his eyes, Dwight entered the arcade. He went to the token machine and fed it a dollar. He positioned himself in front of Ms. Pac-Man, pumping in a token and taking hold of the joystick, but his eyes weren’t really on the screen. He was watching the children. All of them in their ripped jeans (what is it outside now? twenty? and with the wind off the lake…what’s wrong with them?) and weird haircuts.
What right did any of them have to decent lives?
Enough now. Dwight glanced at the screen for an instant. Confusion reigned on the screen with no one to control Ms. Pac-Man, no one to defend her. I need to stay calm or I won’t find the right one, the one I need for my collection.
He remembered how last night, he’d almost lost the black kid. He had just found the courage to approach him with some pinball machine strategy when another man, about his age, probably older, beat him to it. He watched as this flaming queen, waving a cigarette around like some B-grade Bette Davis, talked to the kid for what must have been less than five minutes.
And left the arcade with him.
Dwight knew then that the black kid was perfect for his purposes…a true tramp. Probably needed no more convincing than the promise of a ten-dollar bill. Dwight also knew then that it would be worth it to follow them, at a discreet distance, of course, and stake out the Gold Coast high-rise where they eventually went in.
And, of course, it was worth it. Dwight smiled, remembering the sick little thing shivering in his basement.
Maybe tonight’s fishing expedition in the “stocked pond” wouldn’t be quite so draining.
“Hey, mister, you gonna play that game or just stand there?”
Dwight turned to see an angel.
Why, this boy could be no more than eleven, twelve at the most. A dear, dear little face: alabaster skin unblemished by even the slightest imperfection, clear blue eyes, all framed by a curly mop of red hair. A sprinkling of freckles crossed the bridge of the boy’s nose and his cheeks. Dwight thought of Tom Sawyer. The boy was wearing a bright green ski parka, blue jeans (not ripped, Dwight noticed), and hiking boots. He felt something catch inside.
What was it? He looked again at the boy: the slight build, the way his jeans hugged the taut, little ass.
No. He wouldn’t think that way. Control, I must have control.
But something stirred inside him, longing for more contact.
Punishment. That’s what you’re here for. His reddish hair fell in curls across his forehead. The jawline was strong. The boy was beautiful. And not right for your purposes.
“Why, young man,” Dwight finally responded, “how rude. I was just planning out my strategy.”
“Yeah? Well, while you plan, them ghosts are gonna kill you.”
How sweet. Why can’t all the children be like him? So innocent, so secure. “Did you want to play? Were you waiting for this?” Dwight knew he’d better move on, this boy would not suit his purposes.
“Well, no, I didn’t. I just thought you needed a little advice, is all.” The boy laughed. “You didn’t really look like you knew what you were doin’.”
“Yes, well, I guess this isn’t my game.” Dwight stepped away from the screen. “Perhaps I’ll be off to something a bit more challenging.”
Dwight began to walk away, but the boy called after him. “I’d try Grand Prix Racer if I was you. It’s the coolest game in the place.”
“Mm-hm,” Dwight said, barely looking back. He had seen a true slut, sitting on one of the pinball machines. She was smoking one of those extra-long cigarettes. She had shaved her head on one side and the other side fell over her face in various shades of bright pink, blue, and yellow (defini
tely not blond). Wearing at least ten earrings, some dangly, some studs, she looked like the perfect addition to the menagerie he was building in his basement. He headed toward her.
“Mister, ain’t you gonna try it?”
Dwight turned to see the red-haired boy, tugging on his jacket. “Maybe later.” He started toward the girl again. She smiled at his approach.
Her jeans were so tight he wondered how she breathed.
“It gets busy later. You’ll never get a chance.”
Dwight stopped and turned. Why wouldn’t this boy leave him alone? The angelic face was lit up by a smile, as innocent and sweet as Dwight’s own daughter’s. “C’mon, give it a try.”
“Why does this matter so much to you?”
The boy looked down, rubbing his toe into the stained blue indoor/outdoor carpeting. “‘Cause I’m outta tokens and I was hoping if I showed you how, you’d let me play a game after you were through.”
He’d never get rid of the boy if he didn’t do what he wanted. He blew out an exasperated sigh. “Oh, all right, but just one quick game.” Dwight had an idea. “Or maybe I could just give you a couple tokens.”
The disappointment on the boy’s face was immediate. “Well, I guess if that’s the way you want it.”
“That’s the way I want it.” Just as Dwight said the words, the owner of the place came over to the girl he was approaching and whispered something to her. Dwight watched as her face clouded over with a frown and then she hurried out of the arcade.
The boy still stared at the floor.
“Okay, kid, you win. But just one game.”
They walked over to the bright red video machine, all done up to look like something out of the Indianapolis 500. The car was off in a corner by itself and the kid was right, there was no one around at the moment.
“Get in, get in,” the boy said, glee on his face and in his voice.
It was a shame this little boy, so innocent, so untouched by his environment, was so hungry for affection he had to resort to exhorting strangers to play with him.
How long would it be before he was corrupted, too?
He was wasting his time! Dwight looked around the arcade for another “candidate” as he stooped and climbed in, immediately feeling claustrophobic. He shouldn’t be doing this…this boy was too innocent (but so beautiful).
