Kramer woke to a massive amount of pain. The basement was dark and smelled of oil. A little light shone out of a single bulb that dangled from the ceiling.
She looked over at the source of her pain. A rope tied her swollen wrist to a long nail protruding out of the wall. The injury looked horrid. It was a dark purple, her hand sitting at a bad angle. She looked at her other arm and then down her body. Nothing else damaged yet.
Then she tried to look around the basement as best she could in the little light she had. It was a mess. Tools scattered around different makeshift tables told her the guy wasn’t organized. Something hung from the ceiling to her right. It had chains, and a small black strip that looked like a seat.
Then it hit her. She looked back at the tools on the tables. They weren’t just any tools. They were items used in some kind of fetish. She was sure of it. The thing hanging from the ceiling was a swing of some kind. Behind a beam, barely visible in the light from the bulb, she saw a medieval stockade, with the hole for a head and two smaller holes for the hands. Black ropes could be seen dangling around the side of it.
Footsteps started down the stairs. Mr. Walsh came into view. He was wearing shorts and a wife-beater shirt, white and stained.
They couldn’t hold her for long. Bruce would miss her at dinner and wonder what happened. He knew she wouldn’t stand him up. They’d had a deal. But would he come to the Walsh house and expect to find her tied up in the basement?
“I see you’re finally awake.”
He stepped up close and sniffed her. It was repulsive and at the same time reminded her of a dog doing the same thing.
“Good, I smell fear.”
He lifted the edge of his shirt and wiped his nose, snorting as he did it.
In all her experiences with the dead and working with the police, she had never been in such a bad place.
“What are you going to do? Whatever it is, there will be no going back. You won’t be able to undo it.” Kramer hated that her voice sounded so weak.
He looked up at her and stared for a moment before responding. “I never
“What about Kelly? Wouldn’t you want to change that?” She had nothing to go on. She had to try to keep him talking.
“Never. Kelly was good. One of the best. I left her locked in that stockade over there for almost a week once and she still begged for me to do it to her. The more they beg, the faster I release them. You’ll learn this rule because you’re a bitch too. You’ll learn.”
Kramer’s insides twisted. She almost lost her bowels as her urine, warm and sudden, rushed down her leg.
Mr. Walsh looked over at her feet. “Good,” he smiled. “That’s a start.”
He stepped over and bent down, placing his hand, palm open in the small puddle that formed at her feet. She leaned into the wall as hard as she could to get away from him, but it was no use.
He lifted his hand and sniffed again. Then he opened his mouth and licked her urine off his fingers.
He looked up at her and smiled his evil smile again. “You taste good.”
For a large man, he stood up with ease and speed. One second he was on his knees and the next he was standing, his chin coming to her forehead.
“You’ll do fine. One or two months of being my pet and then I’ll bury you in the wall like all the others.”
Kramer couldn’t help herself: she spat at his face, the phlegm landing beside his mouth in a glob.
He stepped back, licked around his lips, caught a piece of her saliva, and dragged it into his mouth.
“Damn, do you taste good.”
Then with the quickness and deft speed of an athlete, he lunged forward, grabbed her jeans on both sides, and yanked with his vise-grip hands. They snapped and dropped, leaving her exposed to him, her panties the only thing separating her privacy from his insanity. Kramer screamed as long and as loud as she could.
“Oh, you are going to be fun. Maybe later, my wife could join us. I usually leave her out in the beginning. I love all the bodily fluids except blood.” He turned and tossed her jeans away and then looked back at her. “My wife only likes blood. When she joins us, you end up minus a finger or a toe. After a few weeks, you’ll never walk again and then, eventually she takes too many pieces and I’m left with a dead trunk, and that’s no fun. Well, maybe for a few days, but that doesn’t concern you, because you’re already gone by then.”
He laughed. Then he guffawed and slapped his knee. The laugh grated on her already raw nerves. Kramer cried. Was this it? Could it be that easy?
A loud bang from upstairs made her jump, pain rushing through her wrist.
Mr. Walsh looked up at the ceiling.
“Wait here,” he said.
As Mr. Walsh reached the bottom of the stairs, Kramer heard a gunshot somewhere above. He heard it too, and stopped. In the dim light, she thought she could actually see doubt on his face.
He ran from the bottom of the stairs to a table that was littered with gadgets, lifted one and walked over to stand beside her.
The door opened above. Light shone down the stairs. It looked like someone was holding a flashlight.
“Kramer? You down there?”
“Help!” she yelled, but only half the word escaped her lips before Mr. Walsh clamped a hand over her mouth. Breathing became a chore she couldn’t accomplish.
The tool in his hand was a metal OBGYN-type speculum with the ends shaved down to points like knife-tips. Mr. Walsh turned the sharpened ends toward Kramer’s chest and pushed it forward with all his strength.
Between his grip and the ropes on her wrists, she had little wiggle room, but it was enough to arch her back and spin her chest away. One of the pointed ends of the speculum entered between two rib bones and punctured her right lung, which caused immediate stress in her breathing ability.
A gun went off somewhere in the basement.
Mr. Walsh’s hand came away from her mouth and nose. Breathing was even more difficult than before. It seemed like the one bulb in the basement went out for Kramer.
Kramer regained consciousness as she was being loaded onto a stretcher. An officer was standing over her.
“What happened?” she managed to ask.
“We got ‘em, thanks to you. You’re going to make. You’ll be okay.”
“Got who?” she asked, feeling slightly out of it. “You mean, Mr. Walsh?”
Bruce nodded. “You didn’t show for dinner. The great Kramer would never stand me up. I figured you’d come to the Walsh house, so I thought I’d do a drive-by tonight. I found your car parked a block down. The engine was cold when I touched the hood. It set off my internal radar. When I came to the door, Mrs. Walsh was acting weird. Then I heard someone screaming from the basement. I asked to check it out but Mrs. Walsh said no. I called for backup and explained that I had probable cause and entered the house anyway. I cuffed Mrs. Walsh and then got startled and fired my weapon by mistake. I found you in the basement.”
A paramedic stepped forward and tried to push Bruce away. “Sir, we have to get her to the hospital.”
Kramer lifted her good hand and touched Bruce’s arm. He turned back.
She tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“What? What are you trying to tell me?” Bruce asked.
“The…” she waited, breathed in, cringed with the pain, and said, “wall.”
“The wall? Is that what you’re saying?”
Kramer nodded.
“What about the wall? Is there something in the wall?”
Kramer nodded.
