Devil's Den

by Jeff Altabef

  Caesar barks at me. “When did you become such a pussy? You’re better off killing fatso. What if he tells the kidnappers you’re after them? Eliminate the threat, you lily-livered loser. I’m embarrassed to have trained you.... Oh, I see. You want to impress the broad. My bad.”

  I push Caesar from my mind. He’s not totally wrong. He usually isn’t, but I can’t kill Peterson with Kate here. Peterson should have been honest with her, but he didn’t hold back the information about the video because he’s a bad person. Fear held him back. I know a bit about fear from when I was young, so I give him this one break.

  I hand him a five-dollar bill from my pocket, and he shoots me a quizzical look.

  “I’m getting a coffee on the way out. That should cover it. I’m not a thief. I’ll be back in case you think of anything new. Remember, you’re on Team Megan now. Oh, and everything is on sale today—20 percent off. Don’t look so upset. You’ll feel better about yourself in the morning.”

  The sale will probably hurt a guy like Peterson more than the broken rib. I gently grab Kate’s hand. Her fingers are icicles.

  “Time to go. It’s opening time for the store and we don’t want to inconvenience Mr. Peterson.”

  I pour a cup of coffee, add three sugars and a healthy amount of half and half. “Do you want one? It’s going to be a long day.”

  Kate just shakes her head.

  I unlock the door, switch the sign to open, and tug Kate outside. When my feet hit the pavement, I make a silent promise to myself. That won’t be the last time Kate will see her daughter alive. For a time, Kate saved my life. Hell, she was my whole life, and I owe her.

  The kidnappers were careless. They should have known about the video camera. Now they’ve left me a thread, maybe even a few. I’ll pull on them until the truth unravels and it leads to Megan.

  Megan summons her courage, straightens her back, and steps inside the office. Even though she’s scared, she doesn’t want them to know.

  An attractive woman sits behind a plain oak desk, facing the door. Curly, short, black hair streaked with gray falls to her shoulders. Her eyes shine a brilliant gray color, like smoldering charcoal.

  Unlike the jumpsuits Megan has seen so far, which are all a single color, this woman wears a multicolor suit. It shimmers in the morning light that pours through a window behind her. All the colors of the rainbow blend together in a seamless pattern across the suit. It’s quite beautiful.

  The woman remains seated and beams a motherly smile at Megan. Her face glows as if lit by an otherworldly light. Megan has never met anyone who looks so supremely confident and sure of herself before.

  She nods at Megan to sit in one of the two plain wooden chairs opposite her desk.

  When Megan touches the chair, she’s not sure how she got there. The woman’s magnetic personality must have pulled her forward without her realizing what she was doing.

  “Please sit.”

  Megan looks at the chair, and although she wants to obey, she retains an ounce of free will. “I’d rather stand.”

  The woman shrugs one shoulder as if she anticipated her answer. “Of course. The choice is yours. My name is Ivy, but people here call me Mother. I think you should do that also.”

  “I already have a mother, thank you.”

  “I’m not here to replace your biological mother. I have a different role. I’m sure you’re a bit disoriented. Much has happened in one day’s time. Your new and true life starts today. You can relax. You’ve been freed from your old, oppressive life.”

  “I’m happy with my old life, thank you.”

  “Really?” Ivy arches one eyebrow. “You’re not fooling me. You’re smart. You know life has lost its meaning out there,” she waves one hand and her slender fingers flicker toward the window, “in the vast ghettos and poor districts where crime runs rampant. No one looks out for each other. People feed on their neighbors. It seems as if God has left us to our own devices, but that’s not right. God hasn’t left us. We’ve left Him. He is here with us now, as He has always been. He has plans for you. He wants to be relevant again. Relevant in your life and your world. His time has come, and so has yours.”

  Ivy’s voice bewitches Megan. It has a musical quality, and she speaks eloquently with complete and total authority. Megan has never met anyone who remotely compares to this Ivy, and she struggles to understand what to make of her.

  “God?” The word scrapes by Megan’s mouth in a whisper.

  Ivy tents her fingers on the desk and presses the tips to her lips. “Yes. A fine place to start. What do you know of God?”

  Megan shrugs. “I’ve been to church on holidays. I know the Bible.” While technically true, she only possesses a passing acquaintance with the Bible, and doesn’t really know much about God. Her mom took her to church a handful of times, and sometimes they even talk about God, but all those conversations were abstract. She never gave it real thought. Never thought about God in a personal sense, like He impacted her life. Not really. No one does.

  Ivy smiles knowingly, as if she’s reading Megan’s thoughts. “Going to a place of worship is not the same thing as knowing God. Those places function as barriers that interfere with our relationship with God. All that’s gone now. I’ve wiped it away.”

  Megan whispers, “How?”

  “God speaks to me personally. He always has, and I’ve created a way for you to speak with Him directly without interference from others. When you’re ready, He will talk directly to you. Tell you what He wants. How you can serve Him. You will become one of his Angels. You have an important role to play before the End of Days is upon us. Critical, really.”

  Megan feels as if it’s hard for her to breathe like she’s been sucker punched. Unsure what to believe, she leans against the top of the chair and shakes her head to clear it. On one hand, this talk about God and angels sounds crazy. Only nutters, who wander the streets mumbling to themselves, talk directly to God. On the other hand, Ivy looks sure of herself and completely sane. She almost glows with an ethereal light, her gray eyes blazing with knowledge.

  What secrets does she know?

  If anyone speaks directly to God, it could be this Ivy. And certainly, some people must have spoken to God in the past. The Bible made that clear. She tries to remember all the people who spoke with God from the Bible but can’t recall any besides Jesus and maybe Moses, but others must have. And if others talked to God back then, technically Ivy could now. Right? There shouldn’t be a time limit on something like that. If no one talks to God for two thousand years, then the connection is lost forever? That wouldn’t make sense.

  Ivy intrudes upon her thoughts, “I know this is a lot for you to take in right away. I get it. You don’t know what to believe, but I assure you, you will be a believer in the end. Everyone does, so long as we can protect them from the Devil and his trickery.” She shifts back in her chair. “Let’s talk about more practical matters. I know you are a pragmatic person. First, your name.”

  “My name? My name’s Megan.”

  “I have good news and bad news to share with you. I always start with the bad to get that out of the way. Megan is dead. Gone, vanished, never to be seen again. Spring has replaced her. Your new name is Spring. Spring will be happier and more fulfilled with a higher purpose than Megan could ever have been. That’s the good news.”

  “Spring is a season.”

  “Yes, and my favorite season at that.” She makes it sound important as if she’d done her a favor. She motions to Buck, and he slips a necklace around Megan’s throat before she can turn or object. “More good and bad news for you.”

  “Great,” mutters Megan. “Let me guess. You’re going to start with the bad news.”

  “This necklace marks you as one of God’s true children from this day forth. We can use it to track your location and it sends us information about you. We’ll know about your well-being. Things like heart rate and health stats. This way, we can care for you more efficiently and understa
nd your needs in a way we never could otherwise.”

  Megan’s face heats. “You’ll also know exactly where I am at any moment.”

  “Yes, of course.” Ivy swipes the screen on a tablet and Megan feels a shock like a bee sting.

  “Hey!”

  “There’s also a small tab of plastic explosives in the clasp. If you snap the chain, the circuit will break, and the explosive will detonate. In time, you won’t even think about the chain. You’ll see this necklace for what it is—a way to bring you closer to God and your true calling. Buck wears his necklace, as does everyone here at The Farm.”

  “So, God wants my head to explode if the chain breaks?”

  Ivy smirks. “Only if you’re under the Devil’s control will you try to snap the chain. No one has done it for some time. It’s really not much of a concern.”

  “Maybe not for you. What if the necklace breaks accidently?”

  “No need to worry about accidents. The necklace looks like silver, but it’s really a new metal alloy. It’s almost impossible to break. We use diamond tipped cutters to break these chains. And only I have those.” Ivy lifts her pendant and shows it to Megan, a cross inside a star. “You see, I also wear one. It’s pretty, don’t you think?”

  “It’s not my style.”

  Ivy points to a lemon-colored jumpsuit hanging on a coat rack in the corner. “That’s for you. We all wear jumpsuits. We don’t want clothing to get in our way. We like to keep things simple and conventional clothing hampers the spirit.”

  “Why yellow? Buck’s got red, and you have one with many colors.”

  “I am the Mother to everyone, so my jumpsuit blends every color. The colors represent different functions. Red for security. Lilac for medical. Yellow for Angels. Of course, you’ll find others.”

  “And the symbols on the chest?”

  “Different levels of enlightenment. You’ll recognize them over time and realize what they mean.”

  “How come mine has a green armband?”

  “So many questions. That’s good.” Ivy leans forward. “That’s because you’re still pure.”

  Megan glares at her. “That’s why you had that witch doctor examine me? To see if I’m a virgin?”

  “Of course. We needed to know if you’re pure. There are separate places for the pure and impure among us.” Ivy glances at Buck. “Take her to the bathroom to get dressed and then to get a haircut before she starts her transition.”

  “A haircut?” Megan runs her hand through her blonde locks. She’s never cut it more than a few inches to remove split ends. She can’t imagine what she’d look like with short hair, but she’s sure she won’t like it.

  Ivy sighs impatiently. “Hair, clothes, names, and the like, are barriers between Him and you. Here, we do away with those things, with the vanity and pride. Everyone is treated fairly.”

  “Right.” Megan looks over her shoulder at Buck. “Am I going to get an electric stick like him?”

  “I said fairly, not equally.”

  “Why would God want you to hurt us?”

  “My dear, who told you that God doesn’t punish the wicked?” Ivy walks to the side of her desk, an arm’s distance away. “You will be transformed. And then you will remember today as your true birthday. You will thank me, and after you talk to Him, you will call me Mother and know that I’m His agent on Earth. We will talk again soon, Spring. I teach a class for the Angels later in the day. You will attend and learn.”

  Megan touches the pendant. The necklace complicates her plan to escape. Now she’ll have to figure a way to disarm it before she runs.

  There must be a way.

  She eyes Ivy’s tablet before leaving.

  Kate hands me a tablet, an old one with an annoying dime-sized dead spot in the middle of the screen. She says Megan’s is newer, that Megan cleaned offices on the weekends to buy it, but that one is...unavailable.

  Old and imperfect is still way better than nothing, which is what I have. Useful tools in my business, I’m pretty good with computers, but I’m wary of them.

  Some people start sweating just because they don’t have their phone or tablet with them. Suddenly, the devices have become almost as essential as clean air or water. Why need something that bad if you can avoid it? Soon we’ll start making humanoid robots, and we all know where that will lead. We’ll become lazy and eventually they won’t need us anymore. Evolution will continue, and the planet will probably be better off without us.

  I settle on Kate’s couch, plug Peterson’s flash drive into a port on the tablet, and replay the video. Each time I watch it, I marvel at Megan’s courage. Fifteen and she has more guts than most trained soldiers I’ve known. The Army drills behaviors into recruits to get them to react in set ways to avoid making decisions. That way, when faced with life and death situations, they react, without thinking. The Army knows they can’t teach courage, so they don’t try. Either you have it or you don’t, and Megan has it in abundance.

  Kate silently sits next to me, looking lost and mired in that horror world of what ifs again. She’s breathing heavily as if each breath takes a concerted effort. Maybe it does? Perhaps actually seeing Megan’s abduction has so wounded her, she can barely breathe. I’d take that pain away if I could. Absorb it so she wouldn’t have to feel it any longer. It would be the least I could do, and maybe it would make up for some of the hurt I’ve inflicted on others. But I don’t know how, and my focus has to be on Megan right now. I need threads to pull. The kidnappers made mistakes. No operation goes off perfectly. I just need to recognize them when I see them.

  Halfway through my third time watching the video, my attention level peaks. Megan kicks the lead assailant in the knee, he bends over and a flash of silver sparkles on his chest. I freeze the video, rewind a few frames, and restart it in ultra slow motion. A chain flips out from underneath the scumbag’s shirt when he bends over.

  I zoom in on the chain until it turns grainy. There’s a pendant on the chain. “Look at that symbol. It looks like a cross in a star. Have you seen anything like it before?”

  Kate leans forward and shakes her head. “Do you think it’s important?”

  “Could be.” I send a picture of the screen to my phone. “Simple pendants like that are usually significant to the people wearing them. And anything significant to this guy can turn into a lead for us. It doesn’t look like a gang symbol. With a little luck, it might help us identify the group we’re dealing with, or the guy who’s wearing it.”

  Definitely a thread.

  I take a few more screen shots: the best glimpses of the three assailants faces, the license plate on the van, close ups of the clothes worn by the attackers. I’ll spend a few more hours pouring over the video on a frame-by-frame basis later, but my eyes sting.

  Kate sits lifeless beside me. Her body melts into the couch, but her eyes look eager. They’re hoping I’ve found a miracle that’ll bring her daughter home. I wish I had. At least we have a few leads.

  “Here’s what I think. This isn’t the first time this group has kidnapped someone. They’re not experts, but they’ve done this before and have some military training. You can tell by the formation. One in front and two behind to make sure the target doesn’t turn and run. The van blocked any chance Megan had of crossing the street. The guy in front moved with a certain confident swagger I’ve seen before, and they parked the van thirty minutes before Megan arrived at an ideal location to snatch her. Either that’s a coincidence, or Megan was their target all along. And I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “Why would someone target Megan? She’d never been in trouble or...”

  Kate pauses and when I realize she won’t verbalize her thoughts because they’re too terrible for her to put into words, I rub my hands over my face and feel the stubble on my cheeks and chin. It’s obvious why someone would want Megan. Kate knows this deep down, but she doesn’t want to admit it. I try to be sensitive, but I suck at sensitive.

  “I’ve only know
n about Megan for a few hours, and it’s obvious she’s special. You said she’s an A student and she looks a lot like you. I don’t know what these people want yet, but there’s plenty of reasons to target a young, smart woman as pretty as Megan.”

  Kate shivers. “You think someone wants her because she’s pretty? She’s only fifteen.”

  “We shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but I’ve heard of other cases involving young women.”

  Kate balls her hands into fists. “I’m going to kill whoever’s done this.”

  Anger is way better than the world of what ifs. We can use anger, but Kate’s will fade over time. Generally, there are two types of people. Those who can’t let go of their anger unless they unleash it at the rightful targets. If they never act on it, they become spiteful, petty people full of hatred. And the second type, the lucky few who can let their anger burn off over time. Kate’s a lucky one. I’ve seen it dozens of times. She can forgive people. Maybe not me. I don’t deserve forgiveness, but if we get Megan back safely, she’ll focus on her daughter and thoughts of revenge will fade.

  That’s not how it works for me. The demons rumble in my head. They want blood, and they will not quiet over time. Either I’ll satisfy them, or they’ll drive me crazy.

  “Don’t worry about vengeance. Leave that to me. Now we need to follow the clues and bring Megan home.”

  I tick the threads off with my fingers. It makes me feel better to do it this way. They sound more substantial than they really are, as if we’re close to finding Megan, even though we’re not.

  “First, we have the license plate for the van. It’s probably stolen, but we could get lucky. Second, the funky star symbol with the cross inside might lead us somewhere. And third, we’ve got three partial photos of these guys’ faces. Two are decent. They might be in the system. If they’re ex-military, we should find at least one of them. We have the best chance with the leader, the one Megan chopped in the throat. His photo looks the cleanest.”