by David Beers
Christian didn’t want anyone to know, because what he saw was insane. A bloodied, endlessly smiling version of himself that said sick things he should do. Things he would never have considered before the goddamn voice showed up inside his head. To let someone know about it … would let them see he was losing his mind.
That’s why you should tell someone, Melissa said, though Christian couldn’t see her in the darkness.
No, a deeper part of him said. Don’t say anything.
A memory came back, one in which he stood inside a former FBI agent’s house and looked at Luke. The FBI agent was dead, as was his wife, and the way Luke stared at the bodies had moved something inside Christian—leading him down a path to actually believing his partner was a murderer.
That same piece of Christian that warned him then was warning him now.
Stop it, he thought. Just stop. You’re dehydrated and kidnapped, so you’re making up crazy fucking ideas that have no basis in reality.
And perhaps that’s what pushed him to speak. His will to trust Luke and ignore the only voice in the room that was truly his own.
Christian relaxed his jaw, realizing he was still grinding his teeth. He sighed. “It started six months ago. Around the time she got Goleen. Usually, when I see these things, it’s either my mom or my therapist, and they try to steer me the right way. I know it’s how my mind calms me down and gives me direction based on what it thinks they’d say, but it helps. Six months ago. Jesus, this is a lot, Luke. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Yes.”
“You know about the mansion in my head. I’ve told you about it. Well six months ago a voice started talking to me inside it. I didn’t know what it meant, only that it hadn’t happened before. It shouldn’t have been there. That mansion is mine, and for me. Not for anything else. But it wouldn’t leave. I stopped going inside, and I think you and Tommy both know my work suffered. I was scared, but when she took you, I went back. I’ve been going back to keep learning about this fucking bitch, and the voice keeps talking. It’s saying it’s me.”
He stopped, not wanting to go any further.
“Is it?” Luke asked.
“Who else could it be? It’s in my head. Of course, it’s me.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Veronica said.
Christian shook his head, though no one could see him. He didn’t want her to hear this, perhaps more than anyone else in the room. His mother would love him no matter what, and his partners were his partners. Veronica could leave him at any moment—if anyone made it out of here alive.
No, Christian. You shouldn’t tell Luke.
He threw the thought away.
“The problem is, the image my mind shows is me, but it’s different too. My hands are covered in blood and I’m smiling. And what I say, that’s not me. It’s not the things I think or believe.”
“You know what I’m going to ask, don’t you?” Luke said.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
No one said anything for a moment, and then his mother spoke. “Honey, we don’t have a lot going on in here, so maybe you could tell us just to keep our minds busy. Maybe Dr. Titan here can help you, or maybe your mind’s trying to tell you what you should be doing.”
And another push in the direction Christian didn’t want to go. A push that he couldn’t deny, as his mother was his life.
“It’s telling me to kill her. It’s been telling me that she has to die for what she’s done. She has to pay for this, for all of it. It’s what I was talking about inside the trunk, Luke. That’s what it’s telling me.”
“You don’t think the voice is right?
“You asked me the same thing in the car, but you argued the other side.”
“I wasn’t tied to a cross at the time. It’s changed my perspective some.” Christian heard Luke chuckle. “Why are you so against her death?”
“It’s not that I’m against her dying; I’m against the reason I want her dead. It’s vengeance. It’s hate. That’s not who I am.”
“Sometimes situations dictate we change who we are, Christian. You remember what you did to Bradley Brown? You used his memories to change his actions, and it worked. It gave me time to get in there and stop him. Only, no one is coming this time. If you’re going to save us, you might have to embrace those feelings. It might be the only way.”
Tommy was silent in the dark room, listening to his two partners talk. Mrs. Windsor threw in a few cents every now and then, but Tommy didn’t pay much attention to her.
Luke’s words were … different.
In fact, Luke was talking in a way that Tommy had never heard before. This might be the psychiatrist version of him that Tommy didn’t know, but even so, it didn’t feel right.
What he said, of course, made sense. If Christian could talk this psycho into freeing him, they’d have a chance at getting out of here. If Christian had to act a certain way for that to happen, then so be it, but …
Tommy didn’t like it. He didn’t like how Luke had driven the kid to talk when it was clear he didn’t want to. During a time when they could have been planning an escape—and if not an escape, then something that might help when she returned—they were instead psychologically evaluating Christian.
But maybe that’s what they needed to do, maybe that was the plan.
Tommy stopped thinking and finally spoke. “Look, we need to get an idea of what we’re going to do when she returns. I’ve thought about chewing threw the damn ropes, but it’ll be impossible. They’re too thick and our jaws would fail before we even got close.”
The conversation between the two had ended a minute ago, and the room was silent again as everyone took in Tommy’s words.
And when Luke spoke, Tommy felt that, somehow, he’d been waiting a long time to say what he did.
“The only path out of this is if Christian embraces his mind. He’s got to free us.”
Chapter 26
Lucy woke up. Her head hurt but not nearly as bad as her back. She didn’t move for quite some time, fearing the pain that would erupt when she did. She, of course, had felt this kind of pain before, but the fear of it was almost as bad as the actual hurt.
She looked out the window in her bedroom, a tiny thing, and saw that the sun was setting. She’d slept the entire day, but that was fine.
She’d seen Daddy in her dream, and knew that the Lord had sent him to talk with her. Christian was the correct person, the sword that her tiny community always believed in. He would bring destruction to the wicked. Yet, he wasn’t there yet, and that’s what Daddy showed her.
Just as Momma hadn’t been there yet (though, to be fair, she never made it). Christian would. Lucy just had to teach him.
Lucy finally stood up and went to the mirror in her bathroom, turning around and looking over her shoulder to see the damage. It was bad. Blood sat caked on her flesh. She needed bandages and antibacterial salve, but that all would have to wait until tomorrow morning. Everything would be finished then—Lucy knew she only needed tonight.
Christian would learn the same way Lucy had, the same way her father had and his before that. Through pain. The Lord always taught His lessons with that medium.
Lucy arrived at the storage unit just after midnight. She hadn’t wanted to show up any earlier, as more of the town’s people might be awake. Midnight, she figured, would see most of them at home in bed, giving her space and time to work.
She maneuvered the vehicle so that it faced the storage unit, then kept its lights blaring. The unit wouldn’t be as illuminated, but her solution should work.
Lucy brought the whip with her as she stepped from the car. She stood for just a second with the door open, deciding whether to bring the other thing. Even if she didn’t use it, having it with her was better than not. Lucy reached back in and grabbed it from the passenger seat, then closed the door before walking to the unit. Using her key, she unlocked the padlock, took a step back, and pulled the pistol from h
er waistband.
She would need to do this quickly, because if they had somehow managed to get loose, they’d be waiting to attack. The car lights would blind them some, and her pistol would do the rest.
Lucy stepped forward again, grabbed the door and flung it open with all her strength—her back crying out in angry protest. Ignoring it the best she could, Lucy jumped back and leveled the gun at the inside of the unit.
A small sigh escaped her lips. Everyone was mostly the same. The demon, of course, had fallen and was lying on the cross instead of hanging from it.
The car lights cast long shadows on the floor.
Lucy walked in and went to Christian. No one else mattered right now. Just him and his need to understand what he was supposed to be. She could deal with the rest later, once this mattered was finished. She knelt and set the gun just behind her, making sure it was far enough away to avoid any possible tricks. She still held the whip.
“Cuh-Cuh-Cuh.” Lucy paused, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, she looked around the room again, seeing the other faces. Everyone was silent, all waiting on her to speak. She brought her eyes back to Christian. “Hey.” Another deep breath. “I know why you yuh-yelled at me earlier, and I’m not muh-mad about it.”
Christian’s eyes looked black in the gloomy lighting. He said nothing.
“I went and I prayed. God answers you when you honestly turn to Him. You just have to seek His will and not yuh-yuh-your own. Buh-before, I just wanted to see you anointed as His sword, but that isn’t what God wants. Not at first. You must go through your trial by fire. You must be born again in the same way that I was, and Daddy, and everyone else. Then … Then, you’ll see.” Her eyes were wet. She hadn’t spoken this much truth to anyone since Daddy died. “I know this is going to hurt. It’s essential, though.”
Lucy picked the whip up and wasted no time. She knew the order this would take.
She raised it high—her back once again begging her to stop, but she paid it no mind—then slammed the whip down across Christian’s chest.
He let out a loud scream, but Lucy barely heard it. The whip went up and then came down. Christian tried to move out of the way, squirming like a worm being toyed with by cruel children, but he couldn’t escape. He couldn’t resist God’s holy trial. Finally, he balled up and simply tried to block his face, but Lucy didn’t care about that. His shoulders, his back, his chest, legs, or face—all of it was the same. All of it serving the Lord’s greater purpose.
His screams didn’t stop and neither did the ones coming from those around him. Everyone begging her to stop, threatening to kill her, and on and on like the heathens they were.
Finally, Christian didn’t move at all. He lay there as the whip slapped against his wet shirt. In the poor lighting, Lucy couldn’t tell if it was blood or sweat, but that was nonessential. Blood needed to be spilled. A lot of it.
“There,” she said, losing her stutter—totally in the moment now. Christian was subdued and she needed him that way for what came next. Lucy went to the back of the unit and grabbed the metal wire she had used on Goleen and Titan. She walked it to the car and laid it next to the front wheel. As she returned to the unit, she paused and took in the mood. The screaming had stopped from the peanut gallery, and now she heard sobs. They would cry harder before this ended.
She dragged Christian to the car and tossed him up on the hood. He landed hard, bending the metal beneath him. He lay still, breath heaving from his chest.
Using the wire, she tied his hands to the side mirrors, and then stretching the length of the wire, bound his feet to the car’s tires. He would be able to move some, but that’s what the beating had been for. He wouldn’t have enough energy to struggle.
She turned around and looked in at the unit. One more thing.
Lucy walked to Titan and lifted his cross, so that he hung upside down staring at Christian.
“Please,” Mrs. Windsor said, her voice barely a whisper. “Please don’t do this.”
“When it’s done, he’ll be better for it. And so will you.”
Lucy ignored the rest of the pleas and went to the car. She pulled the object from her pocket—a scalpel.
“You told me you would flay my skin, and when I prayed, God showed me how purposeful all your words are, Christian. You were showing me what I have to do to you, to make you understand.”
Christian felt as if his bones and muscle had all turned to razor blades. He could barely move, and when he did, his body screamed with the fury of a thousand hurricanes.
He saw the Priestess standing above him, but barely heard anything she said. Her words were lost in the winds of pain soaring through his body.
And then she pulled something from her pocket.
Christian lifted his head slightly, seeing the metal gleam beneath the moonlight. A scalpel. He dropped his head back, hitting the metal hard.
He listened to the woman walk forward, her feet echoing in the silence. She lifted his shirt up. He didn’t want to look down and see what she’d already done. The pain was enough.
He felt the first incision just above his right nipple. Christian let out a gasp, but didn’t scream.
“Well, what do you think? Are you going to let her skin you alive?” Christian turned his head to the right and saw the other version of himself standing there. The blood that dripped from him was black in the moonlight. He had rolled his shirt sleeves up and now Christian saw that the blood extended to his elbows, as if he had thrust both hands deep into a cow’s exposed innards.
The scalpel cut across Christian’s skin slowly, peeling back flesh with each millimeter it moved. Tears flooded Christian’s eyes and he let out another gasp. Finally the scalpel stopped moving and Christian forced himself to look. The Priestess held a strip of his skin and blood flowed greedily across his torso, as if it wanted to cover every piece of him and wouldn’t stop until it succeeded.
“I don’t like doing this, but it’s essential,” the woman said. There was no emotion in her voice.
Christian’s head fell against the car.
“You can make her kill herself right now, and you know it,” the other said. “Just do it. Stop all of this.”
“Christian!”
He lifted his head again, hearing Luke’s call. Luke hung upside down, his body sagging against the wires binding him.
“Listen to yourself,” he said and nodded. “It’s the only way.”
“SHUT UP, DEMON!” the woman screamed, whipping around to stare at Luke. He said nothing else and she turned back to Christian. “Are you beginning to see?”
Christian closed his eyes and made the decision.
“I see … a little girl … who can’t stop stuttering,” he whispered. “Do you see her?”
Lucy stood over Christian again and had just slid the scalpel beneath his skin. She looked up but he didn’t bother raising his head. His eyes remained closed as his mind fed him the necessary information.
“Tell me, Lucy, can you see her? Stuttering all the time, and what did the kids in school do to you for it? Those were rough times weren’t they?”
“Stop, Cuh-Cuh-Christian. Stop. That’s not fuh-fuh-funny.”
“No, nothing was funny with those kids. Remember when your momma bought you that new dress, the first one your family had been able to afford all year, and they ripped it from your neck to your ass the first day you wore it to school. You were so proud of that dress, and they just reminded you that nothing you did would ever make you one of them.”
He took a breath, and as he did, felt the scalpel dig deeper, going past the upper layer of skin.
“Sssssstop.”
Christian shook his head. “It was all because of your daddy. Him and his weird religion that only about five people in the whole fucking town believed in. All of them waiting on a sword to come wipe out everyone else. A goddamn cult is what you were, and you knew it. Your mother knew it, too, but she was too goddamn weak to do anything. What a
bout you, though, Lucy? You were the weakest, because at some point you started believing, didn’t you?”
“S-S-SHUT UP!”
The blade dug deeper, faster, too, and Christian groaned as he felt it touch his chest plate.
He didn’t stop talking, though.
“You believed and you’ve been waiting for that sword your whole life, except no one else believed because no one else in the whole fucking …,” he paused to catch his breath. “In the whole fucking country believed in that crazy shit. Now look at you, Lucy, cutting me up for some God that doesn’t fucking exist.”
He raised his head and saw tears flowing down the woman’s face. Rage had built inside Christian as he spoke, replacing the fear and even some of the pain, but as he watched her crying, he felt joy. Because fuck her.
“Fuck her,” the other said next to him. Or maybe the other didn’t say it at all. Maybe Christian spoke the words. He didn’t know any longer.
“Your father never loved you. You were simply a tool to keep his crazy delusions going. Your mother never loved you; if she had, she would have at least pretended to believe, but she’d rather die than be around you. No one has ever loved you and no one ever will. If there’s any evidence that no God exists, all you have to do is look at your sad, pathetic life.”
“N-n-n-nnnn,” but she couldn’t finish.
Christian smiled.
“Do what your mother was too scared to do. What your father should have done all those years ago when he realized you were just a stuttering little mutt.”
Lucy shook her head.
Christian looked past her. “Do you see him? Right there in front of Luke? Do you see your daddy?”
Lucy turned around and stared.
“I can hear him Lucy. Listen and you can, too.” Christian swallowed and when he spoke, southern drawl filled his voice. “They ripped up that Bible didn’t they? All because you cain’t defend yourself. Ain’t no way God gonna show you a damned thing your whole life ‘cause you cain’t even defend yourself.”
