McGlade began to shout, “THIS SUCKS! THIS SUCKS!” over and over, Phin figuring that he was going to bow out, forcing him to endure all the agony.
But, son of a bitch, Harry kept pressing his button.
And so did Phin.
Smoke rose from the chair he’d been strapped to, and his blood felt like it had begun to boil, but he wouldn’t stop tapping that button.
He swore he’d die first.
McGlade had stopped his THIS SUCKS mantra and was now yelling out words between jolts and screams.
“PUT…A…LIGHT…BULB…IN…MY…MOUTH…SEE…IF…IT…GLOWS!”
Phin forced himself to smile, teeth clenched, eyes squeezed shut, the pain so bad he was heading toward a blackout, but he kept pressing that button over and over andoverandover until consciousness ceased.
First, Phin’s chair shorts out, causing a small electrical fire.
Then McGlade’s follows suit.
Luther grabs the fire extinguisher under the cart and quickly puts out the flames. He needs these chairs to work. They’re an integral part of the plan.
The duo has passed out, and Luther uses a portable oxygen cylinder filled with QNB gas to make sure they stay out for a while, strapping on the face mask and giving each a dose.
Then he frees them, pulling them onto the sandy floor and checking out his precious machines.
Phin’s is fried, the circuit board melted.
Luther gives the unconscious man a hard kick in the ribs and then checks Harry’s chair.
It still seems operational, thankfully.
Luther rubs his face, considering his next move. This was the Violence circle of hell, and the goal had been for Jack to watch her friends kill each other. Luther has put many people in these devices before, and they always made for a good, drawn-out show. Most people resisted at first, but they eventually broke and allowed their counterpart to suffer.
Apparently, he underestimated the bravery of these two men.
Especially McGlade.
Luther walks over, gives Harry a hard kick as well.
No matter. There will be time later to kill them both.
In fact, if things go well, he’ll have the chance to watch Jack kill them both.
But first, Luther has to break her.
He goes to the control panel, putting the second device through the paces, testing to make sure it all works. Unfortunately, it has lost its ability to deliver electrical shocks.
That’s okay.
It can still burn, freeze, stretch, cut, and abrade.
Luther knows he has to alter the course of Jack’s journey. She was supposed to visit Violence next, but Luther supposes he can now save it for last.
After all, once he straps her to this chair, she won’t be in any shape to do any more wandering around.
I reached the doors, typed in the code.
When the deadbolt retracted, I tugged them open.
Shit.
It was dark outside.
Inside…it was pitch black.
From what little light slipped in, I made out the faintest impression of a corridor.
Cracked and buckled linoleum flooring.
Walls streaked black with mildew.
Ceiling panels missing, exposing old ductwork.
And something just beyond the edge of visible light that I couldn’t quite nail down.
“What are you waiting for, Jack?”
I stepped across the threshold but lingered in the doorway.
“There’s no light, Luther.”
“You aren’t scared, are you?”
Through sheer force of will, I moved decisively over the threshold and got three steps in before I couldn’t see anything anymore.
Total darkness.
Total silence.
“Luther?”
He didn’t answer.
“Luther. I can’t see a damn thing. Where am I supposed to go?”
I waited, both for him to reply and for my eyes to register some inkling of light, but neither happened.
Tightness was beginning to press down against my chest.
I rubbed my belly and said in my head, It’s okay. We’re gonna be okay. He doesn’t want to kill us. He doesn’t want to kill us.
Nothing to do but edge forward.
So slowly, painstakingly.
One step at a time.
My hands outstretched so I wouldn’t walk into something.
Ten steps in, my left hand grazed a wall, and I kept it there, letting it trail along like a lifeline.
“Luther, what is this?” I asked. “What do you want?”
Received as a response only the echo of my voice.
He watches her through a hole in the wall, night-vision goggles presenting her in washes of gray and green.
Eyes sparkling like emeralds.
He can see her chest heaving in the darkness.
The fear in her face a profound and lovely thing.
One of the handful of times he did this before, a woman simply crumpled down into a fetal position and screamed until she lost consciousness.
But Jack won’t do that.
Jack is afraid, sure, but she’s in control of her fear.
He removes the goggles, puts his finger on the switch, and waits.
I stopped.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Gave my heart a chance to settle down.
In place of the terror, I conjured up the faces of Phin, Herb, and Harry. Imagined Phin sitting across from me at the end of my sofa, rubbing my swollen feet and telling me some story from his past with that mischievous glimmer in his eyes that I’d first fallen for while he hustled me at the pool hall. Saw Herb with donut crumbs in his walrus mustache, trying to convince me his newest diet was working. Harry—insane, stupid, offensive, wonderful Harry—trying to name my daughter after the newest trendy brand of vodka.
Let my affection for my boys carry me on.
Two steps later, I bumped into something and jumped back, stifling a shriek.
No, not something.
Someone.
The soft pliability of skin through fabric was unmistakable.
“Luther? Is that you?”
Still staggering back, I realized I’d let my hand lose contact with the wall.
Disorientation rushed in.
I wanted to grab the floor, so I didn’t fall over, but I managed to stay in a crouching position.
“Who’s there?”
No one answered.
I couldn’t hear anything over the tribal drumbeat of my heart.
Tried to walk but collided into a wall.
Turned.
Started forward again.
Thinking I was heading back toward the double doors, but instead I stumbled into someone else, and as I screamed, it hit me.
Rot…decay.
Please no.
A rivet of blinding blue flashed in the corridor for a fraction of a second, and I felt my knees soften from abject terror.
Swaying men and women—perhaps a dozen of them—dangled from the ceiling in clear plastic body bags, their toes just inches off the floor.
“Is anyone alive?”
No response, and in the next burst of strobe light, I caught a glimpse through the plastic of the damage that had been inflicted upon them—gunshot and knife wounds. Blunt-force trauma to the head. Some of them leaked through rips in the plastic, the linoleum floor just ahead of me slicked with their blood.