“Remember this?”
He held up a metal cylinder. On the bottom were six metal spikes, each half a centimeter long. On the top was a knob.
An artificial leech. When pressed into the skin and twisted, it shredded flesh.
“It’s bleeding time, Moni.”
Luther smiled, revealing black teeth.
Moni began to scream for help.
No help came.
Tom
Tom opened his eyes to the smell of burnt pork.
He was hanging from the rafters by his wrists, the rope tight and cutting off circulation to his hands. He was tall enough that he could touch the floor on his tiptoes, taking some of the weight off.
Tom spat, hacked, and spat again until he was sure he got all of the roach parts out of his mouth. Then he took in his surroundings.
The tiny room appeared to be carved out of dirt, with railroad ties bracing up the walls and ceiling. A root cellar, maybe. There was some low light, partly from a low wattage bulb on the overhead rafter, partly from a cast iron woodburning stove in the corner of the room, its chimney rising up into the ceiling.
Whatever drug he’d been given had left him foggy, but still very much afraid. His leg hurt from where he’d stepped in the spike hole, and his arms were cramped. Tom visually followed the length of the rope that bound him, and saw it was attached to a pulley and tied to one of the beams, near the doorway.
And standing in the doorway…
“Tom…”
Sturgis Butler, face and clothing burned, eyes black as oil, voice sounding like an echo chamber, walked slowly into the room. He stopped at the stove, opening the hinged door. Next to the stove, on a wall rack, were assorted pokers, pincers, and branding irons. Sturgis selected an iron, showed it to Tom, and stuck the end inside the fire.
The worst burn Tom ever had was when he was a child, stepping barefoot on a lit sparkler on the fourth of July. It had instantly seared into his skin and stuck there, requiring him to pull it out and also burn his fingers.
It had been bad.
A branding iron seemed a lot worse.
Sturgis left the iron in the fire and turned to Tom. He smiled, his teeth black as his eyes.
“I… see… your… fear…”
And then the realization of what was happening hit Tom like a slap. Not a full understanding, but enough for Tom to show some much-needed courage.
“Enough with all this bullshit,” Tom said, punctuating his voice with forced bravado. “Let me talk to your boss.”
Sara
On her back, stars dancing in her vision, Sara reached up to scratch out the eyes of whoever tackled her and Frank.
“Where’s Deb?
Illuminated by a faint blue glow stick, Mal’s face was frantic, eyes wild. His neck was bleeding, and he had bloody rips in his shirt.
Next to her on the ground, similarly sprawled out, Frank had begun crying again.
“Is Deb with you?” Mal demanded, raising his voice.
“Pang—Pang is possessed,” Sara told him. “We all ran away. I don’t know where your wife is. We were following her, then she was gone.”
Mal helped Sara up, and then they both pried a sobbing Frank off the floor.
“Blackjack Reedy is behind me somewhere,” Mal said. “He’s got a whip.”
Sara got a closer look at Mal’s shirt, counting at least eight bloody gashes in it.
“Jebediah found us,” she said. “We had to run. We can help you look for Deb. It’s a maze down here.”
“We’ll find find find her,” Frank moaned. Then he dropped over in a dead faint.
Mal looked at Frank, and then off into the distance. “How long ago did she go missing?”
“A few minutes.”
Mal pulled the handbag off his shoulder. “The heroin. Take care of him. I have to find her.”
Sara didn’t want him to go, but she completely understood. “Thank you. Good luck.”
“You, too.”
He ran off. Sara opened the purse, found a plastic case with a big syringe in it. Somewhere, in the dark distance, she heard a whip crack.
Sara knelt down and gently slapped Frank’s face. “Frank, you have to get up.”
Frank moaned, but his eyes remained closed. Sara had no idea how much of the heroin to give him, or even how to properly administer a shot. She gave his shoulders a shake.
“Frank, it’s Sara. I have some drugs for you. You have to get up.”
“Just… leave me… here.”
“I can help with the pain. How much am I supposed to give you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a doctor.”
“Of molecular biology.”
Sara wasn’t sure how heroin worked. She’d seen enough movies to know it involved tying off an arm with something in order to find a vein. But did she inject him directly into his broken arm? Or could she shoot him up anywhere? She took the needle out of the case and did that thing where she held it point-up and flicked it with her finger to remove all the bubbles.
“That’s too much,” Frank said. “That would kill an elephant.”
“So how much do I give you?”
“See those little lines on the barrel? Each one is ten milligrams. Start with that.”
“Where do I inject you?”
“Straight into my eyeball,” Frank said.
Sara stared at him.
“Kidding kidding kidding. Just jab it in my wrist. Intramuscular probably won’t be be be as effective as a vein, but I’ll take anything as long as it’s quick.”
He gave Sara his good arm. She held his hand.
A whip cracked again, much nearer.
Sara squinted at Frank’s wrist, saw a blue vein, and slid the needle in on an angle. She pressed the plunger, giving him ten milligrams. Then she pulled the needle out, expectant.
“Well?” Sara asked.
The pain creases in Frank’s face slowly relaxed, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a tiny smirk.
“You are so pretty,” he said.
“Is it working?”
“Your breasts look like two big, beautiful scoops of ice cream in a bra.”
Sara grinned. “Yeah. I think it’s working.”
She helped Frank up, and he put his good arm around her shoulders.
“Your lips are like a little red bowtie,” Frank said.
“We need to move, Frank.”
“Yeah. Move in with me. You and Jack. I have some money put away. We can get a good lawyer, get him back.”
Another whip crack, so close it made Sara jump.
“Let’s go!”
Sara began by helping Frank along, but then he let go of her and ran ahead. He turned down a corridor, and then began to jog backward while smiling at her.
“I feel great! Why don’t they make heroin legal?”
“Frank! Watch—”
He ran backward into a wall, falling onto his face. When he got up, his makeshift tourniquet had come off.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Doesn’t hurt at all.”
Frank shook his broken arm and it wiggled like a gummy worm, bending in all sorts of places it wasn’t supposed to.
Then a pair of bloody arms wrapped around Frank from behind, grabbing him in a bear hug. Jebediah Butler. Sara ran to him, but was jerked off her feet as Blackjack Reedy’s whip snaked around her neck, choking her until she passed out.
Deb
As soon as Deb realized Sara and Frank weren’t behind her anymore, she stopped running.
“Deb!”
Sara’s voice, echoing through the tunnels. But Deb couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. She’d made two or three turns, and the faint echo seemed to be both in front of her and behind her at the same time.
“Sara!”
But even putting her lungs into it, Deb’s voice didn’t get any louder than speaking normally. Deb didn’t know if it was something Franklin had done to her voice, or if it was psychosomatic because she’d been terrified out of her mind in that exam room. Whatever the case, she couldn’t call for help.
She looked around. These underground tunnels seemed to go on forever. Deb could imagine herself, wandering around for hours, going in circles. A lesson from Girl Scouts came back to her. When lost, stay put. Let the rescuers come to you.