Retribution

by Evelyn Drake

  The house is too quiet .

  The door edged itself open a crack and Michael took his hand off the handle. He waited. He listened. And then giving Steve a nod, he opened the door .

  Light spilled into the room and outside stood a half halo of men. Large men with large muscles and large guns. In their center stood Sigmund .

  “Michael, welcome home,” he said, arms broad and with a large, happy smile .

  18

  Michael

  “C ome! Come!” Sigmund waved his hand as if beckoning Michael and Steve forward. “I am so happy you are finally here. Chandler’s golden boy.” Sigmund was smiling from ear to ear and spoke like a jovial inn manager welcoming people to come dine at his personal table .

  Michael felt his knees falter, but they held him. His eyes swept the hallways to either side of them. They were empty and the house was as quiet as ever .

  “Where is my family?” His voice came out as a croak .

  “Here!” Sigmund said, waving his arms. “Right where you left him.” Sigmund’s veil of hospitality slipped a little with the subtle jab .

  Michael stood, soaking it all in as he listened to the house, but the house felt empty. Michael’s lungs began to burn, and he had to remind himself to breathe .

  “Steady now,” Sigmund said, his voice sounding genuine with concern as Michael swayed on his feet. “Come, come, now. Your boy can go with my special friends,” Sigmund said with a flip of his hand toward Steve .

  Michael felt Sigmund’s slender fingers wrap themselves around his bicep, and his body walked forward even though his mind remained frozen. Behind him, he heard a fight break out .

  “Michael!” It was Steve’s voice .

  Michael turned around, still dazed, just in time to see three of the men subdue Steve with a man on either arm and another with his arm around Steve’s neck .

  “This way,” Sigmund encouraged, and Michael turned forward again and walked on. “I am so eager to show you what I’ve done with the home. You’ll be pleased, I’m sure.” His voice in all its enthusiasm still sounded oily to Michael’s ears .

  Michael’s eyes turned to look at Sigmund as they walked and he studied the man’s black, oil slicked hair. He wasn’t an old man, Michael realized. There were no lines on his face. Michael had always thought him older, and thought that the perception might have been driven with the severity of his look. His skin was pale and his hair seemed to highlight the gauntness of his cheeks rather than flatter them. He’s too thin , Michael realized and wondered what was wrong with the man. Does he smoke crack? But as Sigmund prattled on, his words unheard, Michael saw that his eyes were clear and sharp .

  “Here, the main entry way,” Sigmund guided Michael as they moved deeper onto a high balcony overlooking the home’s grand entryway. Before him, dangling by his neck from a chandelier that was as big as a car, hung Baxwell—his family’s butler. The man’s sixty year old body was bloated and mottled with black veins of rot that stretched up his neck, and his gut was unnaturally thick, and Michael knew that it was from trapped gasses brought on by the man’s decay .

  “Aren’t you pleased?” Sigmund asked, looking at Michael with joyful exuberance and waiting as if he actually expected an honest answer. “I mean, the man who practically raised you disowned you right along side your father... I thought you’d be pleased,” Sigmund finished with a pout when Michael simply stared .

  “Oh well,” Sigmund clapped his hands together, putting a hand to the small of Michael’s back. “There is so much to see. I’m sure we’ll find something that you like .”

  Sigmund guided them down the long, sloping stairs that opened onto the large landing area of the second floor. It was where most of the bedrooms were housed. The stunned numbness that had enveloped Michael began to wear thin, and he became aware of a buzz within him that tingled out to all of his nerve endings. His chest tightened and he found it increasingly hard to breathe .

  Their next stop was his parents’ bedroom. Outside the bedroom on the floor lay his father. His hands and legs had been nailed to the floor. One hand and both of his legs had torn through the nails that had held him down and pools of blood soaked the floor beneath him. His one remaining hand still nailed to the floor had more nails in it than the others appeared to have had. His father’s arm was twisted as his body stretched itself to its utmost ability to the bathroom .

  “Poor fellow bled to death,” Sigmund said, shaking his head sadly. “I tried to warn him, but he just wouldn’t listen.” His plaintive tone turned cold. “If only he had listened.” And Michael heard the warning buried in his words .

  “But come!” Sigmund intoned, jovial again. “More to see!” He led a hapless Michael to the open bathroom door. At the far end of the white tiled room with black accents stood a claw foot tub. Water had sloshed out of the tub and covered the floor, but the tub remained filled to its rim. Bent over at the waist, unmoving with her head inside the tub, was Michael’s mother .

  “Did you know that she had a brain tumor?” Sigmund asked, his full, unwavering attention on Michael .

  Michael’s mouth opened to answer but then he shook his head no before turning his gaze to look once more on his mother. Her slip was a pale, powder blue made of satin or shiny silk, and her feet looked as dainty and well kept as ever. He had the sense that Sigmund’s words about her illness were true—and that he hadn’t known was the additional cut on his psyche that Sigmund meant it to be .

  “A mercy killing really,” Sigmund said, his voice soft and full of sympathy .

  “My sister...” Michael rasped the words, unaware that he would say them until they came out of his mouth. He turned his hope filled eyes to Sigmund. It was a fool’s hope, but he was willing to be that fool .

  “Ah, yes! Yes! She’s eager to see you!” Sigmund said, his voice bright and loud enough to ring off the bathroom’s tiled walls. He clapped Michael on the back hard enough to throw Michael off balance so that he took a step forward. But Sigmund’s slender hand on his arm had him turned around, whisked out the of bedroom and down the hall before Michael had a chance to further process what was happening .

  They walked several doorways down the hall before Sigmund stopped them outside a door with smears of dried blood on its handle. In the distance, Michael could hear the faint sounds of Steve’s screams—he assumed that they were Steve’s—and Michael felt a coward for not running to his rescue. But he had to know. He still had hope, despite all that he had seen .

  “Now, before we go in, you should know that Sara isn’t feeling her best right now .”

  Alive! Michael’s heart skipped a beat and he felt as if he might hyperventilate. The air didn’t seem to be doing for him what he needed it to .

  “And... she’s a little indisposed.” Sigmund’s hand touched Michael’s arm as if in conspiratorial sympathy. “I’m sure you’ll understand,” he said with a wink, leaning in .

  Without turning his gaze away from Sigmund, Michael’s hand reached on its own and turned the handle of what he knew to be Sara’s bedroom. He released the door’s handle and let the door travel under its own momentum as he stood in the doorway .

  Several feet inside the door in a position chosen for maximum dramatic impact for anyone entering the room, was Sara, his sister, sitting in a large, heavy, wooden chair. She wore a pink, floral, short-skirted dress that rested modestly over her thighs. Her head lulled to one side in a half-controlled attempt to hold it up, and her brow was beaded with fevered sweat .

  Her wrists were tied to the chair’s armrests and so was the ankle of one of her bare legs. Her other leg was untethered. Next to her, draped over the back of another chair, lay the skin of her untethered leg. It was in one piece like a high-fashioned stocking. In contrast, the leg without its self-made stocking was red and angry in spots and seemingly dried out and pale in others .

  There was surprisingly little blood .

  Michael sank to his knees as all the strength left him, and he let his he
ad hang to his chest. When Sigmund’s hand alighted on his shoulder, he closed his eyes and welcomed the knife across his throat that he hoped would follow .

  “Get up, get up. Your sister’s been waiting for you,” Sigmund cajoled .

  Michael remained as he was until he heard his sister’s soft, whispered squeak. It wasn’t a word, only a sound .

  Not able to look at her, he crawled to her, keeping his gaze fixed to the floor as his vision blurred with falling tears. When he reached her, his head next to one of her fastened wrists, her fingers curled themselves in his hair and he wept openly .

  Sigmund was at his side next, his mouth whispering into Michael’s ear .

  “Take it. Give her what she needs .”

  Michael felt a hard cylinder slipped into his hand. His thumb’s graze of the rest of it knew it for what it was—a short, stubbed knife .

  Sara’s fingers tightened in his hair and lifted as if pulling his face up, and her voice sounded with a hoarse rasp in her throat though she formed no words .

  His face streaked with tears, Michael lifted his head. Her eyes were larger than he’d ever seen them and they implored him, begged him. Michael shook his head no. “We can fix this. We can make things better. We can make everything okay.” More tears spilled from his eyes .

  Sara tried to shake her head no but it lulled wildly instead. She regrouped and tried again as her eyes fluttered. She lost her focus but then regained it. “Please.” It was more air than sound. “End. Please .”

  Michael shook his head again, his eyes blurring more as tears dripped from his cheeks onto the floor .

  Sara’s fingers stretched to reach his lifted head and he bent so that she could touch him. Her fingers pinched his cheek, squeezing over and over again as her rasped, haunting remnant of a voice begged, “Please .”

  Michael dipped his head and gasped his sobs as he clung to her skirt. Finally, he stood up in one movement and burying his face in her neck so that she could lay her head against his, he nicked her jugular with the sharp tip of the blade Sigmund had given him .

  Her death came slowly as she breathed with greater slowness with her head rested against him. His tears wet the shoulder of her dress and he sobbed his grief as her life ebbed out in small wheezes until at last, all tension from her body left her and the flow of blood from her neck’s wound stopped .

  She was gone .

  Michael sank to all fours and wailed his grief with rage and pain too large and violent to be held within him. When Sigmund’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, Michael lashed out wildly, pouring all that was in him into the focused effort of taking his second life. That of Sigmund’s. But with a mere sidestep, Sigmund had Michael face down and his arm stretched back into a breaking position .

  “Now, now. We’re not done yet,” Sigmund chided, not sounding the least bit upset. “I have so much more fun planned for us .”

  19

  Steve

  S teve howled his pain and rage. He stood completely naked on a Saint Andrew’s Cross with his legs and arms stretched in the form of an X. The muscles of his arms, chest, and thighs bulged and strained in their effort to break free of his restraints. But his efforts weren’t enough, and his howls of rage transformed into a choked, guttural growl as one of his three captures flipped the switch that sent electricity coursing through his body .

  He shook, violently, as his eyes rolled back in his head. He felt a stitch rip in the brace that held one of his arms and he put all the focus of his jerking body into that one arm until it felt as if he had dislocated his shoulder .

  When the electricity finally stopped flowing, Steve hung his head on his chest and gasped for air .

  “Who said you could stop screaming?” asked a big guy with what looked like a sick caterpillar on his lip. He stepped close to Steve’s side and lifted a short leather strap with a hard ball encased in the end. Swinging it hard, he brought down the balled end on the top of Steve’s shin .

  Pain exploded in Steve’s shin; it felt like had splintered. His body bucked as the pain travelled through him and overwhelmed his senses. But he managed to remain focused on wrenching and jerking his body, hoping to break the ripped restraint on the one hand that had a chance at freedom. Another stitch broke .

  Caterpillar lip raised his arm again for another strike .

  “Hey, wait. His hand.” It was the voice of the man at the electrical switch box. He looked as if his acne-years had not been kind to him, and his face was marred with the pockmarked remnants of zit battles lost .

  As two of the men reached for his hand, Steve redoubled his efforts to break loose, bucking and jerking with all the strength he had in him. Pockface put a shoulder into his chest to subdue his attempts, but the man grew careless as he reached with one arm forward as he leaned in .

  Stretching forward, Steve sank his teeth into the man’s neck. The man pulled and jerked and screamed, pummeling Steve’s abs and ribs with short but powerful jabs. Blood filled Steve’s mouth but he held on, continuing to pull and yank at his hand. He was rewarded with another tear of stitching .

  More hands were on him then, pushing his forehead back while another hand tried to pry his mouth open .

  “Get back! Get back! I’m going to zap him !”

  “No!” screamed the man whose neck Steve held fast .

  The electricity hit and felt like a solid wall of bricks slamming into Steve. His muscles seized, his body shook, and his jaw clamped down completely. The man whose throat he had held fell to the ground, twitching with aftershocks from the electrical current. He was bleeding heavily from his neck .

  Caterpillar Lip fell backward, twitching from the electrical shock. He remained on his feet but he held a hand to his chest over his heart. His gaze looked distant and his face had a confused and worried expression. He continued his backward, stumbling gait until he reached the wall. He didn’t seem to register the man laying on the floor bleeding out. He didn’t seem to register anything .

  The man who had been at the electrical control rushed forward with a warrior’s scream on his lips and a knife held high. With a huge arcing swing, he slashed down at Steve’s face. Steve swiveled his head to the side, twisting his shoulder out of its socket, so that the knife’s tip lodged in the wood behind his head. All the while, he yanked and pulled at his hand’s restraint .

  The rest of the stitching gave way and the leather cuff detached itself from the cross. When the knife slashed again, Steve met it. Grabbing his attacker’s forearm, he pulled the man in and gave him a savage head butt that had him staggering backward .

  Steve wasted no time in going to work on his dislocated and useless arm’s hand cuff. He had the strap unfastened just as electro-boy hit the switch again. The jolt of electricity sent Steve falling forward. The electrical lead was attached to the back of one calf and the fall forward dislodged it, so that by the time Steve hit the ground, he was twitching with the memory of the electricity that had held his body captive, but he was a free man .

  Getting to his feet, Steve staggered. But, as Caterpillar Lip regained his composure enough to lead another attack, one punch from Steve in his solar plexus had the guy down, his lungs locked. The effect was temporary, Steve knew, but it was enough .

  Electro-boy rushed him with the knife again .

  Too dumb to live, Steve thought to himself, snatching the blade away as he used the man’s momentum against him to bash his head into the X cross. Electro-boy fell to his knees and Steve had his throat cut a second later .

  Caterpillar Lip at least had the decency not to resist when Steve came for him. It was in his eyes that he understood the fairness of his end—live by the sword, die by the sword .

  Steve rolled his good shoulder experimentally. “Good enough,” he mumbled and limped his way to the door frame. Taking a few deep breaths to build his nerve, Steve slammed his shoulder into the doorframe. The resulting pain dropped him to his knees, but his shoulder remained just as misshapen as it had been a momen
t before .

  Getting back to his feet was one of the hardest things Steve had ever done. But, taking some more deep breaths, he rammed his shoulder into the frame again. This time when he fell to the ground, he didn’t just fall to his knees. He fell to his side as his pain ravaged body dealt with another failed attempt .

  Breathing in ragged gasps, Steve climbed to his feet again and, picking a direction, he began a limping, naked journey down the hall with a single knife in his hand to keep him company. Somewhere in the faint distance, he could hear screams .

  Reaching the stairs, Steve climbed up and lost the sound of the screams .

  Turning around, he climbed down the stairs. The screams grew louder as he made his way to the ground floor, but they weren’t as loud as they should have been .

  Steve turned in a circle, the tiles cold under his feet as he tracked the sound of his lover’s screams. Setting his sights on the receding hallway leading off the main entrance, Steve made his way toward the back of the house and where he hoped the kitchen was. As he suspected, the sound of Michael’s voice grew. Passing a door—a door he had been hoping to find—Michael’s screams became suddenly louder .

  Steve opened the door leading down to the basement. He did it with as much force as he could, and the door banged against its anchoring wall. Michael’s screams stopped .

  “Fe. Fi. Fo. Fum,” Steve intoned with a loud, booming voice with each step of the stairs. His entire body hurt and his brain buzzed with pain, but, he hoped he could pull Sigmund’s attentions away from Michael. He did not want the man he loved to have to endure one more second of pain than he had to. Not on his watch .

  Reaching the bottom of the basement stairs, Steve turned the corner and stopped. Before him, Michael was held tied to a forgotten radiator. He was naked, on his knees, and panting for breath. There were huge, red welts covering his back, sides, and legs. Steve growled when he saw that Michael’s ribs, shadowed in bruises from two days before, bore new marks .