by J K Ellem
Cobb ducked back his head, just out of range of Abby’s clawing hand. He went back to the work bench, grabbed a gun, and then shot Abby in the chest with a tranquilizer dart.
“Pity,” he said as he unlocked the cage, pulled out her limp body. He brushed back the hair off her face and attached the dog collar around her neck. He plucked out the dart then watched her chest gently rise and fall.
Good. We need to get this party started.
43
He hung suspended below the surface, in a soundless, watery void. He'd given in to the pull of the waves above and the current below that slowly drew him toward the submerged rocks.
His face and skull were numb, his eardrums throbbed. Coldness invaded every pore of his skin, every hair follicle, every muscle, bone and ligament. But it didn’t dull his senses, nor his anger, and his will to live burned white hot. He was starved of air, but was starving for revenge, for retribution.
The sway of the current drew him further, pulling him on a leash back towards the perilous rocks. Moonlight danced on the choppy surface, penetrating only a few feet below, turning the layer above into a milky gray.
Shaw held himself deeper, in the pitch black, beyond the reach of prying eyes. His body temperature had plummeted. He knew he couldn’t be seen anymore by the thermal sensors on the drone. He just wanted to be certain. So he held his breath and depth, ignoring the pain and burning in his lungs.
A large, invisible hand pressed against his back, forcing him forward again, another push of the current as waves began now to curl and roll above his head. He was getting closer with each surge.
A wall of black, blacker than coal, loomed ahead, a huge underwater tumble of rocks. The force of the waves intensified overhead, but below the surface he could maneuver, steer and direct his body.
He had a fighting chance below the surface, whereas above he would be at the mercy of tons of raw energy, the full force of the breaking waves as they smashed against the rocks.
He needed air to breathe.
Like a seal, Shaw bobbed up, took a gulp, a salty mix of air and water and sank back down. The building surge lifted him again, threw him forward a few feet, then settled him back down as the energy dissipated, slowly gathering again for the next oncoming wave.
In the lull, Shaw swam forward underwater, trying to judge the distance to the rocks, trying to gauge when he could ride the next swell that would carry him just far enough to deposit him—not smash him—on to the first row of rocks.
His eyes stung, his lungs burned as he waited patiently. The next surge came, he could feel it build and grow in intensity above him, a mammoth, rolling force. His body lifted, was carried forward. The rocks came closer, he kicked hard, judging the distance. Still higher he rose until he was pushed over the first row of rocks just below the surface as the wave crashed.
The wave receded and Shaw reached out, fighting the pull backwards. Fingers found cold stone and held on as he settled on to large flat rock.
Another lull between waves. Drenched and shivering, he broke the surface and clambered up the rocky slope. Hands and sodden boots gripped then slipped off the tumble of rocks. Some of it was man-made, huge slabs cut rough then dumped into place to reinforce the natural rock. Some slabs were the size of a family sedan, others as big as a school bus.
He banged his knee hard, but kept climbing, the cold numbing whatever pain he felt. He counted down until the next wave would descend upon him. He had seconds not minutes. He needed to outrun it or risk being swept off the rocks then battered to a pulp.
He spied a cleft in the rocks and made for it.
The wind groaned and howled, chilling him even more through sodden clothes. A storm out at sea building and heading towards the mainland.
The opening in the cleft strobed as lightning fractured the sky, painting the jagged gap in electric white for an instant, Mother Nature guiding Shaw.
He was nearly there when the next wave hit. An ocean of coldness, and boiling froth came crashing down on him drowning him.
Clinging and choking, Shaw held on for his life. The wave slowly withdrew, an avalanche of hissing water cascaded back over him, dragging him backwards with it. He held on.
Then he surged again, upwards and into the cleft.
His feet touched the flat watery ground, not solid but solid enough. Shaw found himself in a narrow trench where the natural wall of stone had split apart a million years ago, forming a protected inlet. The sound of the crashing waves receded as he staggered further in. Walls of slick rock rose on both sides and a muted light shone down from a rip in the sky above. More lightning cut through the darkness and the rock surface glimmered.
Seawater sloshed around his feet as he moved through, trying to find a way out. Walls of rock, cold and hard closed in around him, forming a natural rocky corridor that turned and bent as he moved.
Then it ended.
Shaw stared up at a sheer wall of rock in front of him.
Dylan Cobb was meticulous about the process. Everything had to be just right. After all, he didn’t want to disappoint his subscribers. They had all paid a lot of money to join his website.
What had first started out as a hobby back in college—secretly filming his sexual conquests—slowly grew into a professional labor of love. Cobb, ever the perfectionist, had begun cataloguing his exploits, just for private consumption at first. Then he became more interested in improving on his style and on his techniques in recording the abuse. Not content with watching the playback of grainy, raw footage, taken with a hidden spy camera, he invested in a high-end, 4K ultra HD camcorder.
That’s when his “hobby” became an obsession. He started using iMovie for editing and flow, adding titles, basic effects, and producing quality films better than most independent film studios. For Cobb, it wasn’t pornography with elements of violence and abuse. Been there, done that. It was art to be studied, to be mastered.
Not long after he decided to share his exploits with the world. He discovered a huge on-line community of women-haters who appreciated Cobb’s artistic flare and shared in his demonic hatred. Cobb remained firmly on one side of the fence though, never straying to see if the grass was darker on the other side…until one day.
A chat room avatar—a fan of Cobb’s work named “bitchtamer0613”—asked if Cobb could go further. The fan was willing to pay for it, to see it, to have his own perverted requests carried out by Cobb live online. Cobb agreed and money was wired to his bank account. Just a couple of hundred bucks to see a drunken woman seduced in a bar then brought back to Cobb’s apartment to be whipped against her will. Not hard, but hard enough.
Then more requests came tumbling in. More intense, more demanding, larger amounts of money offered.
Cobb knew he was onto something. It wasn’t the money. It was the instant self-gratification that he felt. Soon he was addicted to the attention, to the praise. He became a star with tens of thousands of online fans. He opened his black site up to membership, no sharing from others, the content was all Cobb’s and he liked it like that. He was the star, he was in control, no one else. His own impulses, his own needs escalated, until one day he strangled a young woman in his bed, the camcorder live streaming. Instead of drawing condemnation, the act of killing the woman beat his audience into a frenzied state of wanting to see more.
Cobb left Abby on the floor while he set up a second video camera. He would bathe and clean her while she was unconscious. The audience didn’t want to see some dirty, filthy woman strung up. That would be aesthetically unpleasing.
He checked the ring mounts embedded in the floor and in the ceiling and positioned the second camera and tripod accordingly. One in front and one behind to capture Abby fully as she hung in place, arms and legs spread to their extremities. Just like da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man.
Cobb checked his watch.
Thirty minutes until he went live.
44
Annie swiveled the laptop around. “There, the money has been transferred back.
”
Olga, with her gun still trained on Annie, pulled the laptop towards her. Satisfied, she pushed it away again, placed her gun on the kitchen counter and picked up her cell phone.
Lorenzo Matera picked up on the second ring. “Is it done?”
Olga’s eyes remained on Annie. “Yes, she has transferred the money. It should take a few minutes on your end. Call me back when you see it in the account.” Olga hung up and placed the cell phone next to the gun. She said nothing, just stared at Annie. No smile, no expression, no hint of what was coming next.
Annie switched her gaze from Olga to the cell phone. It sat there motionless, silent. And when the return call came there was no ringtone, just a subtle vibration.
“Yes,” Olga spoke into the phone. She listened for a moment. Nodded. Then held the phone out to Annie. “He wants to speak to you.”
Annie’s breath caught in her throat. Was this a final “Goodbye” from Lorenzo? One last chance to hear her voice, to hear her beg and plead for her life? Annie took the phone. “Fuck you,” she said into it then handed it back to Olga.
Olga’s expression softened slightly, a smirk disguised as a smile, then she took back the phone from Annie. Olga listened but said nothing.
The movement was lightning fast. Annie leapt forward, across the counter top, her hand reaching for the gun, her stool tumbling over behind her as she propelled herself forward.
The response was swift and brutal. Olga without even looking at the gun, grabbed it, and slammed it into the side of Annie’s head, smacking Annie hard with the barrel of the gun against her temple. Annie was unconscious before she slumped forward onto the counter.
Olga still held the cell phone to her ear. “That was nothing. I just need to clean up and I will be finished.” She ended the call and looked at the unconscious form of Annie slumped forward in front of her, feet dangling off the other side.
“Such a pity. I was just beginning to warm to you.”
Looking closer, Shaw could see that it wasn’t a wall of rock at all. In the darkness it just gave off the illusion it was. It was a small funnel of rock with a series of ledges on one side, narrow but useable. Shaw began to climb, an overwhelming urge to leave the cold, the water and danger behind.
Moments later he pulled himself out of the narrow cleft, rolled onto his back and lay on the hard surface staring at the stars above, chest heaving.
The drone was gone. He was alone. The beam of the lighthouse swept across his vision then was gone again. The lighthouse was tormenting him, ever present, the regular sweep of its beam as certain as the sunrise. From the mainland Moors Island looked peaceful, uneventful. Yet the place was doing its best to kill him. It was as if once you were here, you couldn’t leave. You were trapped on a harsh rock surrounded by a perilous ocean, like the prisoner island of Alcatraz.
Alcatraz. Isolated. A prisoner island. A rock, surrounded by treacherous currents, just off San Francisco Bay. Almost impossible to escape from. Guards with rifles. Towers. Fences. A natural place to put a prison.
Shaw sat bolt upright. Alcatraz has a lighthouse. It was the first one built on the U.S. West Coast.
He rolled over and sat on his haunches, rubbing his numb hands, friction doing its job of warming them up. But that was the extent of his efforts. He needed to stay cold, even if it meant being on the brink of hypothermia.
The drone wasn’t protecting something here on the island. No. Shaw’s theory was wrong.
The drone was a guard, the modern-day equivalent, making regular sweeps. The store room. The stockpile of food. The vials of insulin. Edward Brenner wasn’t hiding from anyone. He was a prisoner, incarcerated on Moors Island. Had been for the last three years. There was no escape.
Shaw looked around as shapes began to form. He was on a rock ledge with a wall of vegetation in front of him. There was only one way forward, and that was through the thick vegetation.
On the other side was a small clearing scattered with large pebbles, gravel and raw scrub. Shaw didn’t recognize the section of the island. It had remained hidden, cut off from the rest. While in the ocean he had drifted around to another part of the island, an area that couldn’t be accessed from the rocky beach and the jetty where he and Annie before had tied up the boat. More secrets. More hidden places Shaw thought as he crossed the clearing, his eyes scanning the shadows around him.
Then he stopped, almost tripped.
Partially covered in the dirt was another metal hatch, a steel turning wheel recessed into the top. This one was different.
Without hesitation, Shaw wrenched the turning wheel and pulled back the hatch. A dim cone of light spilled out. A steal ladder led downwards into a narrow vertical shaft.
Good enough. Shaw dropped into the shaft, closed the hatch above him and descended. A few minutes later the shaft widened and he came to a landing made from metal grate. The ladder continued downwards, shrinking to an unimaginable depth.
Shaw stepped off the ladder and on to the circular landing platform made from open mesh steel. Metal gantries branched off into the darkness, down other tunnels. He followed the only tunnel that was lit. The walls were washed in a putrid yellow, an unmistakable color he’d seen before many times in a number of government and military facilities that hadn’t had a face lift since the 1960’s.
The tunnel ended at a heavy steel door with a steel turning wheel. Off to one side there was an open store room. Inside he found steel shelving units like the other store room. The shelves were filled with bottled water, labeled tins and packs of what looked like vacuum sealed food all stacked in neat rows.
Shaw searched the store room, looking for a weapon but found nothing. The air was cold and he started to shiver. He took a can of beans off a shelf and twisted off the ring pull. Using the ring pull he slowly undid the screws on one of the metal bracing struts on a shelving unit. The four screws holding it in place easily came away. He held the metal strut in his hand, feeling the weight of it.
Now he had a weapon. Nothing heavy, nothing fancy, but still nasty nonetheless if the person wielding it knew what to do.
Shaw slowly turned the wheel on the heavy steel door, the metal strut tucked under one arm. A blast of cold, stale air greeted him from the dimness beyond.
Inside was a row of cubicles that reminded Shaw of prison cells.
Alcatraz.
All were in darkness except one. A flimsy cable with a naked light bulb hung from the ceiling of the end cubicle. Shaw edged forward, the metal strut held at the ready. The place smelled of human occupancy, that pungent stench of stale sweat, human excrement and slow death.
In the cell a figure lay huddled on a metal cot. The threadbare blanket that covered the body could not hide the emaciated condition of the person underneath.
Shaw lowered the steel strut slightly as he approached. The figure under the blanket quivered then convulsed into a coughing, wrenching, wheezing fit that lasted almost twenty seconds.
Sensing someone else was now in the cell, a head covered with a crop of wispy gray hair poked out from under the blanket. Eyes, ringed red looked straight at Shaw.
The figure slowly turned.
Gone were the rugged features, the angular jaw, and the look of defiance that once burned in proud and adventurous eyes. It was replaced with gaunt, strained features. Skin, waxen and yellow, drawn tight and thin across the jaw. Sunken eye sockets, blemished dark and bruised. Hollow cheeks, sunken flesh, the morbid details of the skull clearly visible through facial tissue that had wasted away from years of malnutrition and neglect. No sunlight. No fresh air. An underground existence not fit for any human being.
Shaw took a step forward, “Mr. Brenner?” He looked at the man on the cot in disbelief.
But it was him. He had found Edward Brenner.
45
The body had to be prepared. It couldn’t just be dumped in the ocean. What would happen if it floated to the surface a few days from now? Or worse, if it just washed up on shore, on a beach full
of people swimming and sunbathing?
What amateurs would deem as unnecessary, or as a waste of time, Olga Abramovich viewed as an important ritual. A professional requirement. She had a reputation to uphold. No residual.
She lay two layers of thick plastic sheet on the living room floor, secured the feet and hands with cable ties. She placed the body in the center of the plastic, and taking her time, she carefully rolled it up like a package, using thick ropes to secure the plastic around the head, torso and feet.
When she was done, Olga stood back and made sure everything was snug and tight for transporting.
Next she backtracked her steps through the cottage. Despite wearing nitrile gloves, she wiped and cleaned, giving the cottage one final check just to make sure she’d left no trace of anything behind.
When she was finally satisfied she hoisted the body over her shoulder, carried it through to the kitchen, flipped off the last light switch, plunging the place into darkness, and then went outside into the pitch black night, locking the door behind her.
The body was surprisingly light, she thought as she trudged along the beach to where the small boat was moored. She had to return the boat as soon as she was done, before dawn, otherwise it would be missed.
As expected, the secluded area of the beach she had selected was deserted. She placed the body carefully into the boat, dragged up the beach anchor and angled the boat back out to the ocean. The small outboard motor started with the first pull and within minutes Olga was heading out into the vastness of the ocean.
46
Three miles offshore, Olga cut the engine.
The edge of the horizon was already starting to fade to a dull orange with the coming dawn. Looking north she could see in the distance the remnants of a storm and a scatter of lightning near the lighthouse. But it was far enough away not to affect her. She had to move quickly.
