Ben honked his horn. Slowly, I turned and walked to the intercom box, as if in a trance. Dillon followed closely behind. A metal box had been installed over of the intercom, the lid propped open. A small padlock rested on the top.
The screen had already been activated, showing Ben in gray relief. He wore an annoyed expression, verging on the cusp of anger. He was mouthing some words. I pushed the button and his voice broke through.
"Hello? Hey, listen. I know she's in there. If you don’t—"
"Ben?" I asked, voice strained with emotion.
His expression changed instantly. He moved to the intercom, filling the screen with his wide beautiful face. I raised my fingers to the screen, tracing over the features that I loved: his bottom lip, slightly square, his dark blonde mussed hair, his round eyes that were filled with the magic of the universe.
"Genie," he said softly. His eyes searched mine, penetrating my heart. "I've called you so many times. I just—I need to hear it from your own mouth. Did you mean it? Did you mean everything you said? Your texts . . . I . . ."
I had no idea what horrible, heartless things Dillon had texted, but I'm sure he had taken extra special pleasure in torturing Ben.
No! I wanted to scream. None of it! I love you so much it hurts. Help me, Ben. Run! Go get help! I'm going to die in here! Virginia and I both!
I glanced back at Dillon, who stood just off to my right, wanting so desperately to do something as heroic as Madeline, or sink my fangs into his neck like Rhenn, reveling in his shrieks as I drained his lifeblood in one fortifying gulp.
But this wasn't a novel. This was real life, bound by hard and fast rules, impervious to imaginative endings. Dillon held up a hypodermic needle filled with cloudy fluid, his face impassive, and depressed the plunger. A fat droplet quivered on the tip.
I cleared my throat, trying to speak through the painful knot. "Yes," I said in my best automatic voice. "It's over."
Ben's hands dropped from the screen. He looked away. I batted my eyelids quickly, trying to stop the rush of stinging tears. He looked back up again, his mouth turned down, his eyes filled with pain. "Can we talk about this? I just—I don't understand what happened. I mean I thought we had something special . . . something worth fighting for."
I'd fight the Khmer Rouge for you, Benjamin Walker. And I’d enjoy every minute if your love waited for me on the other side.
"There's nothing to say," I continued in a cold, hard voice that I didn't recognize. I prayed that I was convincing enough for Dillon, but peppered enough subtle desperation to alert Ben, my ever perceptive Ben. I put my hands on the box, one on each side, trying to stabilize myself, trying to hold on to something steady in the swirling room.
I focused on my one subliminal message—HELP!!—and tried to communicate it through the cabling that ran underground. I blinked hard, trying to send the message in Morse code.
"I don't understand," he repeated in a dejected tone of voice, oblivious to my silent pleas. "What did I do wrong?"
Nothing! You're perfect. The most perfect person on this entire planet of eight billion people! I would never do that to you.
I could see Dillon in my periphery, making the 'wrap it up' signal with his free hand.
"Can I at least come in? See you one last time? I just can't help but think that there's been some sort of misunderstanding. Can we talk in person?"
Dillon tapped impatiently on the face of his watch.
"No, I—I think that would be a bad idea. I'm really busy. I'm just finishing up book two. The deadline is really tight."
"Book two? You mean you're going on with it? Rhenn and Friends?"
That he remembered the working title made me want to weep. I wanted to just dive into the intercom like a ghost, slither along the cable and touch him, to run my finger along his gorgeous lower lip one last time. But I couldn't.
"Yes, two and three." I glanced over at Dillon. "Maybe four, I don't know yet."
"But I thought . . ."
"I really need to go now, Benjamin . . ." I caressed his name with all the tenderness of a departing lover. With my thumb, I stroked the image of his face before Dillon hit the hang up button, and I would never lay eyes on him again. "Please don't call anymore. Or text. I'm sorry that things had to end this way, but it really is for the best."
Ben moved to say something, but Dillon snaked his finger over and hit the kill button. The screen went black, taking my heart with it. I turned to him, numb, waiting for his appraisal of my performance.
"Good job, Piss Drinker." He lowered the hypodermic needle. I dared to breathe. He walked over to our adulterated dining table, sheathed the needle and tossed it onto the pile of drug paraphernalia. "Looks like Verge gets to live, after all."
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Upon us were the short, dark, and very cold days of winter. I had always loved winter. I looked forward to the sun setting at four, bringing on nightfall and hastening everyone indoors. Winter has so many cozy offerings: evenings by the fire, hot chocolate, warm blankets, and solitude.
But most of all, winter offered relief from the relentless cheerful days of summer that lured people out to parks, festivals, and barbecues. Summer was like the popular girl at school, beaming upon the ones with a social life, and casting bright derision on those without. For me, summer always meant watching other people live, laugh, and have fun, while I sat on the periphery, excluded.
Winter is a solitary sport, which suited me great. It’s the great leveler, spoiling outdoor fun and chasing everyone inside with bitter winds and rain, where everyone has to sit inside with their miserable selves. Except me. I like my own company.
But now, looking through the lens of captivity, I began to dread the long cold winter nights. Dillon had taken up the job of delivering my once daily meal, making my contact with Virginia virtually impossible.
I had no idea what state she was in, how she was doing, or even what she was doing. And it worried me to distraction. Occasionally, Dillon would allow us a few minutes together, always supervised, but those few precious minutes did very little to allay my fears.
Dillon responded to all questions pertaining to Amy Mathews as if he was her new manager. But Virginia could get a message out to David somehow, couldn’t she? Dillon couldn't take on Virginia's role. Agent Smith could smell a turd in the room. He'd invite Virginia up to New York, or arrange another press junket, to which Virginia would be required to attend. Dillon couldn't take her physical presence.
But if I asked casually about Virginia’s dealings with the outside universe, Dillon butted into the conversation, reminding us about the "allowed" topics of conversation.
Another day dawned. Another day, another dollar, I thought, rising from my nest of haphazard blankets. I pulled on the same pants and Hello Kitty sweatshirt (found it in a box—one of Virginia’s prank Christmas presents) I’d been wearing for exactly thirty-eight days, vowing to burn them once this ordeal ends. If it ever ends, I reminded myself morosely.
Then a depressing wave of futility washed over me. Under what circumstances would it ever end? I thought of Victor Frankl's daughter, who lived in the downstairs basement for twenty-five years, bearing children and living her life in a makeshift hovel. Comparatively speaking, The Dungeon was palatial. I even had a tiny window with which I could watch life pass me by.
So I passed my days, looking out of my little window, watching the skeletal tree limbs shake in stiff breezes, shiver in driving rain, and luxuriate under feeble rays of sunshine.
Then one day, something happened. It was about five-thirty in the evening, I guessed. The sun had set, draping the front yard in murky shadows. I was watching a bird flit from limb to limb, when I heard the front door slam shut downstairs. Was someone leaving the house?
I pressed my nose against the cold glass, trying to see.
Then Dillon emerged from under the porch roof, walked to Virginia’s car, and climbed in. "Please, please, please . . ." I muttered, hope swelling in my he
art, bulging painfully against the ventricles. "Please drive away."
He started up the car and drove down the driveway as the gate swung open. Then he turned onto the main road and drove away, while the gate languidly closed.
This is it! This is it!
I ran to the door and screamed into the thin crack between the jamb and the door, projecting my voice down the hallway, through the floors and directly into Virginia’s ears.
"Virginia!" I screamed, rattling the door with all the strength I had left in my weakened arms. Dillon had left the house. Now was our chance to escape. "Virginia!"
I heard her quick footsteps up the stairs.
"Genie,” she cried from the other side. "I don't have the keys!"
"Go get a pipe or something and bang the doorknob off," I said, pressing my mouth into the crack. "Hurry!"
When she ran back downstairs to hunt for a useful implement, I returned to my front yard vigil. I peered into the darkness, searching the shadows with my sharpened animal vision, alive to any movement.
The white landscape, cloaked in shadows, was a paragon of stillness. After what seemed like an eternity of watching the front yard, Virginia returned, hammering and prying and stifling sobs.
Finally, the door swung open.
"He's not back yet," I said to her. "But we need to hurry."
There was a dazed look in her eyes. "He went to the store. He said he’ll be right back. He made me take a Demerol before he left, so I’d be too stoned to move, but I just . . . hid it under my tongue and then I . . . I spit it out when he left."
"Thank God for that," I said, moving past her. "We don’t have much time."
Virginia put her hand on my shoulder. She seemed sluggish. The pill must have dissolved a little before she spat it out. "He’s a . . . he’s killed people, Genie. He—"
I grabbed her hand, unable to hear the details. "We’ll be next if we don’t hurry." And I pulled her down the stairwell.
The house was dark and draped with the same thick malodor that I had smelled the day Ben and I broke up. We both ran to the front door. The boxes still covered the intercoms, the panic button far out of reach. It would take too much time to pry off the box. We needed to escape, and now. I opened the front door. Together we ran across the snow encrusted lawn. Virginia tripped. I looked back in just enough time to see her fall.
I ran back to her and picked her up. "Get up! Hurry!"
She clambered to her feet. She was weak and skinny, as weak and skinny as me. I looked around, trying to think.
After the stalker episode, we’d spent considerable time and effort installing an impenetrable perimeter fence that kept all inquisitive Amy Mathews fans securely outside.
I hadn't once considered that my comprehensive security system designed to keep people out, would be equally effective with keeping people in. There was an electrical wire than ran along the front wall and gate, raised about three inches from the top. I knew it was always set at the maximum level, meant to shock any would be visitors out of their sneakers.
Electrocution didn't discern between friend or foe, and Virginia and I would face the same welcoming jolt as soon as we clambered over the wall. That is, if we could get that high.
Three of the four walls were ten feet in height. The wall lining the front of the property was a mere eight, but along with the wire, glass shards were cemented to the top. Virginia and I didn't have the luxury of escaping uninjured. We just needed our lives; the rest would heal with time.
"Our best bet is the front perimeter fence," I whispered to Virginia. "We can climb over in that blind spot."
She shook her head. "The whole fence line is being recorded. He can see everything with my cell phone."
"Does he check the footage?"
"Yes," she said, slipping her hands into her armpits and shivering. Her face was pasty white; there were dark circles under her eyes. I worried about her ability to get over the wall. "We'll have try the back fence. He turned the cameras away from there a little while ago. He said she didn't want the lion being filmed."
Dread sank in my belly like a dead weight. Did he plan on dumping bodies there? I wondered suddenly. Is that why he kept the lion so hungry? If so, he had a far advanced criminal mind than I had ever given him credit for.
Then I immediately felt a surge of relief that he hadn’t installed a camera in my room. Maybe he planned to. Maybe he’s out buying one now.
Though we wouldn't have to contend with glass shards, we'd still have to find a way to climb up the ten-foot perimeter wall with stacked cinderblocks on one side and chain-link on the other, avoid the lion, endure the near fatal shock of electricity and roll off the other side soundlessly, without breaking anything that would hinder our escape into the woods.
We snuck around to the side of house, racing from one puddle of shadows to the next. I blew on my numb fingers and rubbed my hands together. All the better to climb with, I thought. At least I wouldn't feel anything.
We reached the far corner, cloaked in shadows. I peered up at the precipitous wall.
"You go first. I'll follow," she said.
The lion lay snoozing at the far end of his enclosure. I pulled off my sweatshirt and threw it over my shoulders. Hopefully, it would provide some insulation against the electrical wire.
Thick snow had blown in a few days previous. It was an idyllic snow storm with fat fluffy snowflakes that floated around in the atmosphere and settled upon surfaces like dust. Then the wind picked up, swirling and hustling the contented flakes, harrying them into the trees, driving them into the gravel.
For twenty-four hours the world was a horizontal white haze of snow, pummeling down from the grey sky. The wind had finally died down, leaving behind two feet of virgin snow. The world around us was as dark and still as death. Our breath froze in the air. I watched Virginia's blue shivering lips as she spoke. "I'll give you a leg up."
I nodded and stepped onto her clasped fingers, reaching for the highest point on the chain-link fence. My fingers, made clumsy and stiff with cold, clamped onto the fencing about six feet off the ground. With my other hand, I reached far up further.
The lion stirred.
I climbed to the top and threw my sweatshirt over the lip of wall, trying to spread it wide across the wire, while pinioned against the chain-link fence. My toes dug into the little diagonals. Just over the top of the fence, I glimpsed the frozen forest just beyond where freedom, glorious freedom could be found.
I swung my leg over to the top of the wall and straddled it, gritting my teeth, awaiting the jolt. Nothing . . . yet.
Headlights flashed across the side yard.
"He’s back," I whispered. "Hurry, give me your hand."
The lion ambled over.
She grabbed my hand and climbed a few feet off of the ground, her red raw fingers clamped onto the chain-link fencing. She made slow progress, dislodging her right foot, reaching for more height, pulling herself up on shaking limbs.
Tires crunched on the gravel.
The lion pulled back his black lips, revealing his huge set of bone-crunching teeth. He nibbled on the toes of Virginia’s shoes. Then he rose up on his hind legs, face even with hers and raked his long claws over her fingers.
She gasped and pulled back her hand. I could see dark blood dripping from her fingers. "Keep going!" I said, reaching down and trying to distract the lion by waving my leg at him. It worked for a few seconds. He turned his yellow malignant eyes on me and jumped, his claws narrowly touching my leg.
I glanced up at the house and looked for signs of Dillon. Nothing.
The lion sniffed around, a little too interested in Virginia. I balled up some snow and chucked it at his giant head, hoping to distract him, hoping—
He shook the snow from his ears, looked up at me, and roared, sending his deep voice echoing into the still forest. Panic stricken, I looked up at the house. And the kitchen light flicked on.
"He's in the kitchen," I whispered, my voice shaking. "
Move it!"
Virginia glanced up at me, face strained and white. Then we both heard the ominous creaking of the kitchen door opening, and saw Dillon’s bulky silhouette, framed by the threshold.
We froze, Virginia hanging from the fence like a frozen June bug, me straddling the top of the wall, with only thin spread of fabric separating my crotch from two hundred and twenty volts of arcing electricity.
I held my breath and glanced down at Virginia, whose hands were shaking, blood dripping from the right hand where the lion had laid her knuckles bare.
The world was silent, still, and pregnant with terror. Just a few more seconds, I thought, and he'll turn around and go back inside.
Suddenly, the lion pounced. Virginia let out an agonized shriek and came off the fence, landing on a snow-encrusted bush and disappearing within.
Dillon broke and ran toward us.
"Virginia!" I screamed. "He's coming!" I bent down and reached as far as I could. "Grab my hand!"
Virginia got out and up fast, straining her hand toward me, our fingertips scrabbling for each other. Dillon wrenched her off the fence and dragged her, kicking and screaming, away from the enclosure.
He looked like the missing link, hunched over and monstrous, effortlessly dragging Virginia's dead weight across the smooth white terrain. Then he stopped and turned back to me.
"You come down off of that wall, Eugenia." I glanced toward the dark forest. Just beyond, our neighbors could be found, help could be found. "You come down now or your sister is lion meat."
"Don't do it!" she cried, hands buried in her red locks of hair that lay bunched in Dillon’s fist. He shook her so savagely I thought he'd snap her neck. And to Dillon, she begged: "Stop . . . don't . . . please . . ." When the shaking stopped, she half screamed, half sobbed, "Run! Save yourself!"
"You come down now and nobody gets hurt," Dillon said. He powered up his fist and lined it up with Virginia's temple. "Or I can keep going until Virginia here learns how to shut her big fat cunt of a mouth."
I Am The Lion: A Riveting Psychological Thriller Page 16
