Phin didn’t like it at all, and his heart began to do a thrash metal drum solo. He tried to pull free, but the bonds were solid.
The room was stuffy, smelling of mildew and rank blood.
Concrete walls. Low light.
A floor covered in sand.
A dungeon. He was in a dungeon.
How did he get there?
The snatches of memory came rapid-fire, like thumbing through a stack of postcards.
The cemetery.
The golf cart.
The semi truck.
Jack.
JACK.
“JACK!” Phin yelled.
“Phin? That you?”
It wasn’t Jack. Phin craned his head and noticed an identical chair across from his, with another occupant strapped to it.
“McGlade?”
“Tell me we got drunk and this is some S&M hooker thing.”
“Luther’s got us.”
“Do you think he’s going to be bringing in hookers?”
“I doubt it.”
“Kinda figured.”
“You see Jack or Herb?”
“No. There’s some kind of control panel on a cart. One of the walls I’m facing has a big window, but it’s dark behind it. There’s a plaque beside it, looks like brass, has some writing. All I can make out are the words CIRCLE and VIOLENCE with a bunch of smaller words. And…” McGlade’s voice trailed off.
“And what?”
“Body. A dude. Sitting in the corner.”
“Alive?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“You can try to yell, see if he wakes up. But it’ll be tough for him to hear without a head.”
Phin felt himself grow very cold. “Aren’t you going to make some joke about giving head?” he tried.
Harry didn’t answer.
“You with me, Harry? Don’t freak out on me now.”
“I’ve been kidnapped by a killer and am looking at a corpse without a head. Who wouldn’t freak out in this situation?”
“We need to think rationally.”
McGlade let out a slow breath. “You want to know what I’m thinking rationally about? Once again we’re tied up and waiting for some maniac to torture us to death. I should just go ahead and wet my pants right now.”
“Keep it together, Harry.”
“It’s like déjà vu all over again,” McGlade said. “You know how many nightmares I’ve had about the last time this happened?” His voice cracked. “I…I can’t handle it, buddy.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t. I went through this once before. I can’t…”
“We’ll get out of here, Harry. It ain’t over till it’s over.”
But Phin’s own words didn’t convince him. And they felt even more hollow when he heard Harry McGlade begin to softly sob.
I rushed through the overgrown weeds in the front yard and up onto the porch. This house, like all the others, was barely standing upright, its entire frame listing to the left. Through the door came the cries of a woman.
A woman. I blew out the breath I’d been holding, ashamed to be grateful that it was no one I knew.
She screamed again.
I had to help her, but I hesitated. Without a weapon, bursting inside wasn’t exactly a safe proposition.
I turned the handle anyway and eased the door open.
In the lowlight, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. When they did, I spotted a sofa on the far side of the living room, the upholstery rotted away, now nothing but a wooden frame and rusty springs. Nature had found its way inside, dirt and leaves and animal droppings and puddles of stagnant water. A coffee table lay smashed on the floor beneath a light fixture that dangled from the ceiling by its wiring, the plasterboard around it bowing down.
I called out, “Hello?”
“Back here!” a woman cried.
The floorboards creaked under my weight as I made my way through the living room, dodging gaping holes where the wood had deteriorated.
I stopped, listening.
I stood in a dark, narrow hallway, rain falling through a hole in the ceiling above me. There was a door at the end of the hall, its frame outlined with threads of light. From behind the door rose a chorus of screams—numerous voices—that soon devolved into groans.
I moved forward.
A floorboard snapped.
My leg punched through into the crawlspace under the house, my right foot sinking down into cold mud.
I fought my way out, the tendons around my elbows straining as I heaved myself back up onto the floor, pushing away from the hole and gasping for breath, sweat popping out in beads all over my face.
People were still screaming behind the door, but I couldn’t move just yet, the exertion of hauling myself out of the crawlspace having sapped what little energy I’d had. I was dizzy, achy, exhaustion already tugging at my body even though I’d only awoken a few minutes earlier.
I barely made it onto my feet.
Staggered the last few steps to the door.
Pushed it open and stood in the threshold gasping for breath, the black stars in my field of vision threatening to sweep my consciousness out from under me.
Oh…oh dear God.
It had once been a small bedroom with a window looking out into a backyard at a child’s swing set and the factories beyond.
Now the flooring had been stripped down to the plywood. In places, the drywall had been ripped out, leaving the studs exposed. The leg irons and wrist irons and neck collars had been anchored deep in the studs, and four people, one on each wall, stood in chains. A smell not dissimilar to barbecue hung in the air, and I noticed smoke rising from the shoulders of an old man across the room, his corduroy jacket dotted with charred holes, some of which were still ringed with smoldering ash.
His head hung down and he wasn’t moving.
He stood on a metal grate, blackened from flames.
A blonde, several years my senior, called my name from across the room.
We locked eyes.
Hers were filled with terror.
I could guess mine were, too.
He screams into the microphone, “Say it! Say it! This is the start! You mess this up, I’ll teach you what pain really is! Say it!”
Tears streaked down the woman’s face, her entire body shaking.
She said in an otherworldly voice, “Welcome to hell, Jack.”
“Is Luther here?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going to help you,” I said. “I’m going to get you all out of here.”
The woman’s face screwed up in a wreck of fear as she shook her head. “You can’t help us.”
I took a step into the room, looking at the grating on the floor, spying the dancing flames beneath it.
Luther had turned the room into an oven.
I was unable to comprehend how much time, how much money, it would take to build something like this. And why? What was the point of being this elaborate?
Up in one corner, hanging from the ceiling where two walls met, I spotted a surveillance camera. Underneath it, a brass plaque, twelve inches long and three inches wide.
The words “CIRCLE 1: LIMBO” had been engraved into the metal, followed by three numbers:
666
I crossed over to the smoking man, checked for a pulse, knowing there wouldn’t be one but trying anyway. Then I walked over to the woman who’d spoken to me and tested the chains.
Heavy-grade iron. Nothing I could do to free them without help or tools. I glanced at the two other shackled men—both twitching as if in the throes of debilitating palsy, their eyes gone wide, vacant.