to spiral through the veil that enshrouded him, rising and falling on the waves of fatigue that crashed against his consciousness. Tinged with madness and savage glee, it was the sound of a witch who rendered fat from babies in her bubbling cauldron; it was the merriment of a demon bubbling up through the anguish of the damned; it was the embodiment of every insidious creature that had ever sipped from the cup of despair with a thirst that could not be slaked.
“I’ll be pretty, so very, very pretty… so pretty….”
As Matt was sucked into the chasm that enveloped him, one final thought rose to the surface of his mind: Mona…
And then there was only darkness.
SCENE FIVE
For the first time in weeks, Darlene Honnicker felt hope unfurl within her soul. She’d heard the muffled voices from downstairs: the deep tones of a man and the softer, less distinct, cadence of a woman. The words were nothing more than a rhythmic lull that had been robbed of meaning by distance and wood; but they were the sounds of someone other than more familiar voices that made her cringe like a beaten puppy with each uttered syllable. Perhaps cops, she’d thought. Maybe her captors weren’t as clever as they thought. Maybe they’d left some sort of clue behind when they’d snatched her: a credit card that slipped unnoticed from a wallet, tire tracks that were so distinct only a handful of vehicles in the county would match them…. It happened on TV all the time. Just when things seemed at their bleakest, some handsome FBI agent would kick in the door and snatch a broken and crying woman from the clutches of death. She could almost picture them in their dark suits, hands resting lightly on the holstered pistols while their eyes picked up some small sign that the old woman and her sons weren’t alone in this house. They’d exchange a look with arched eyebrows, pull their weapons in one fluid motion, and then their voices would boom through the silence: Get down! Down! Put ’em where I can see ’em!
She tried to scream, to let them know that she was here, that she was alive; but the ball gag that stretched her mouth into a painful O seemed to cram the sounds back down her throat, making her wretch and cough on the despair that burned like acid against her already strained vocal chords. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and the salty solution stung the thin cuts on her cheeks and lips… but she couldn’t give up. Not with help so close. Not when all that separated her from the promise of freedom was one wooden door and a set of rickety stairs.
She knew what she had to do. But the mere thought of it made her feel as if a fiery ember simmered somewhere in the pit of her stomach. Bile rose in the back of her throat, its bitterness overpowering the flood of saliva that had absorbed the rubbery taste of the gag and she tried to breathe slowly through her nose. Her heart fluttered in her chest and she squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that the day old gash on her temple ripped open anew.
Do it, just do it, girl….
Her arms trembled and she bit down on the red ball as if she were some savage predator and it the throat of her prey.
You can do this, Darlene. You have to….
Downstairs, the voices continued their wordless singsong . So close that they were probably directly underneath her; but with the nails in her hands, they may have as well been on the moon.
On the count of three, okay?
Images of home flooded her mind: her grandmother’s quilt draped across the headboard, the overflowing garbage can in the kitchen, the telephone ringing as her sister called to gossip about what Louise Hambright had done after Sunday services. Children laughing and playing on the street outside.
One…
She wanted it back, all of it back. The boring daily routine, the dishes and vacuuming, the way Mr. Thompson next door would try to look down her blouse when he thought she wasn’t looking. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like much of an existence; but it was life… and it was hers, damn it.
Two…
Her muscles felt as if they were contracting in an attempt to flee as far from her hands as they could possibly get. Urged on by the warning hammered out by her heart, they tightened and pulled, stretched until they felt as if they were on the verge of snapping like old rubber bands. But there was no choice… it had to be done.
Three!
Darlene yanked her hands upward, ripping the scabs that had begun to heal around the rusted metal of the nails, and the torment slammed into her like a sucker punch of white hot nausea. Blood and cloudy, green pus squirted from the twin wounds as drops of sweat were forced through every pore on her body. She was freezing and feverish all at the same time, reality swimming in and out of focus while little flash bulbs of light burst in her field of vision. She wanted to double over, to throw up, to chew through her wrists just to end the agony of the nails rubbing against raw flesh and exposed nerve endings… but she had to keep trying.
The ball gag subdued the scream that seemed to rattle within her head and the heads of the nails pressed cruelly down upon her wounds. Her body shook as if fault lines were shifting somewhere within her and split-second blackouts pummeled her consciousness like jabs from an insane prize fighter. Her naked body glistened beneath a sheen of sweat as chill bumps crept over every inch of exposed flesh.
Oh Jesus, dear God, sweet Lord, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus….
She didn’t care if she had to tear holes the size of quarters in her hands, if the ripped tendons and shredded muscle meant that she would never again be able to flex her fingers: saviors were downstairs, people who could deliver her from this rustic pit of Hell. She ignored the squish of raw flesh against uncaring metal, fought through the cloud of acid that seemed to curl and roil about her, and willed the spike to shift.
Just wobble like a loose tooth in a baby’s mouth. Show some sign of giving, of weakening….
The nails, however, remained firmly embedded in the scarred wood. Bits of tissue hung from crags in the rust like fleshy prayer flags and the metal was slick with blood that oozed around the base like a liquid flower unfurling crimson petals.
Darlene slumped forward and her forehead hit the edge of the table with a sharp whack. She panted through her nose and swallowed the vomit that kept trying to shoot through her esophagus as her hands slid back to the tabletop. Tears rolled from her eyes and streamed down a face that was as pale and waxen as a corpse.
Everything from the follicles of her hair to her toenails shrieked with electric-like jolts of molten agony and the little vein bulging against her temple quivered with each irregular swish of blood. Her heart felt as if it were convulsing like an epileptic in the throes of a seizure and she just wanted to close her eyes, to let the darkness take her and morph the pain into a muted dreamlike sensation that drifted on the dark seas of unconsciousness.
Rest… rest and try again, for God’s sake, don’t give up girl…
Through the pounding of her own pulse and the Lamaze-like gusts of air that flared her nostrils, Darlene heard a deep laugh from somewhere behind her. It started as a chuckle, something that may have been nothing more than a pain induced hallucination; but within seconds, it had built into a rolling guffaw that seemed to radiate from every corner of the dusty room.
“Well, ain’t that sweet.” A voice quivered between snorts. “If I didn’t know better, I’d reckon she were tryin’ to get away, Daryl.”
She felt a finger against her back, tracing patterns in the sweat that trickled down the canal of her spine.
“Sure looks to be that way t’ me, Earl.”
Hands squeezed her shoulder so tightly that fingertips dug into her collarbone like drill bits. At the same time, something rustled against her damp hair and she felt warm air tickle her ear as a voice that smelled like bitter coffee and rotten meat whispered.
“Now why would you want to go and do that for, darlin’? Don’t you like our little time together?”
Daryl walked to the front of the table and grabbed a fistful of Darlene’s hair. He yanked her head up so that he was staring directly into her glassy, dilated eyes.
“What in tarnation were you doin’ all that foolishness for?”
His eyes flitted to his brother and something about his tone and stance was like a schoolboy trying to impress
