chapter 17
It was one in the morning in the Kingdom of Cots, and Alex awoke suddenly to the sound of crashing glass in the distance. His eyes shot open and he was awake. For a moment he was confused about where he was, forgetting about the shrouds that hung around each bed on the riggings that had been put up, hospital style, throughout the gym.
Alex blinked, reaching for his new glasses underneath the cot and putting them on, and sat up.
The room was full of the sounds of snoring and slow, steady breath. He reached out to the sheet and pulled it aside to see Sid in the next bed, fast asleep.
Then he heard another sound, outside, beyond the back door of the gym. The scrape of metal, like an old window closing.
He slipped on his shoes and grabbed his jacket off the rack, putting it on over his pajamas.
Alex tiptoed into the corridor of white sheets that ran the length of the gym, looking up and down the line. No static in his head. But now he heard a door closing somewhere. He reached back into his sheeted cubicle and grabbed his go package just in case.
He began to step quickly to the back of the gym until he reached the metal door at the rear. He opened it and peered out into the night.
Across the lawn, under the moonlight, there were no lights on in the main house of LaLaurie. Off to the right was a gate, and beyond it the woods. He let the door shut behind him and pulled the jacket closer, wishing he had put on jeans over his flannel pajama bottoms.
In the darkness a shimmer of cloth gleamed, satin, legs moving steadily and slowly, next to the gate. Not just one. As his eyes adjusted, Alex became aware that he could see three different pairs of legs crossing the small drive beyond the gate, going into the woods.
A window scraped open at the house. Alex stuck to the wall and saw a girl in pajamas, climbing through an open window, rolling and dropping silently. He recognized her—she was tall with chestnut hair and Asian features. He’d seen her at the library. She began to walk, steadily and without a glance in any direction. Alex realized with shock that she was barefoot. He could see his own breath; she must be freezing.
Not far from her window he saw several more standing open. One of them was broken, and there was a robe caught on it. What the hell?
He heard footsteps from around the gym, off to his right, and shrank back into the shadows. More girls, two of them, one about sixteen, the other about eighteen, both brunettes. Both barefoot, too. They walked steadily toward the gate, silently, moving through it. They came within fifty yards of him along the way and never cast him a glance.
For a moment Alex thought of running back to grab Paul and Sid, but the Asian girl and the two brunettes were still going, and he was about to lose them.
Alex ran across the lawn, looking back to see if there were any more coming. Not a soul. Hurry. He headed across the drive and into the woods, and was lost for a moment, perceiving no actual path. He was about to get on the ground to see if he could find footprints in the dark when he caught sight of another pair of legs in the distance, satin pajamas glimmering in the moonlight through the trees.
He made a beeline for the pajamas. He started to see more pajama’d legs, a procession up ahead. Alex headed off to the right, moving faster, until he was parallel to them. He stepped on a rotten branch. It snapped loudly, but not one of them noticed.
Now Alex saw them more clearly. There had to be a dozen or so young women, all walking neatly side by side. They seemed unconscious—he caught sight of the two brunettes he had seen earlier and they looked neither at each other nor at the girls ahead. Their eyes shimmered, unseeing, as they passed like ghosts between the trees.
Then he gasped when he saw Minhi. She was halfway up the line, and walking barefoot, wearing racing green pajamas. Her sleeve was torn where she must have had trouble getting out her window. He could see a rough scrape, visible on her exposed shoulder.
“Minhi!” he whispered. He dared to get closer to them, walking quickly, keeping trees between them. “Minhi!”
She didn’t respond. He stopped for a second, hugging a tree and looking back at the procession. He stepped out, now right next to the girls as he let Minhi move on ahead. He walked for a moment alongside a pair of girls he vaguely recognized from his literature class. He waved his hand. No one glanced at him. Alex turned and stumbled up next to Minhi again. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Minhi was walking, her arms swinging slowly, a perfect automaton stride. She didn’t look his way. He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Hey!”
Nothing. All right, that’s enough. Alex stepped in front of her this time, grabbing her left shoulder.
Minhi struck his forearm with her right. Then Alex felt the flat of her left hand smack hard against his jaw and the side of his head. No sooner had he lost his grip on her when Minhi’s right arm swung back, smacking him again and sending him reeling against a tree. This little demonstration of Hung Gar kung fu completed, she continued on her way. He stuck to the tree and stared. Minhi hadn’t looked at him once.
Alex considered retrieving something from the backpack, maybe a flash-bang, of which he had two. They did no real damage but were loud and flashy, and he could set off one and maybe break them out of their trance. But if that worked, he might not learn just what this was about.
Alex changed tactics. He started walking alongside the procession again, passing it quickly on the right. He moved steadily until he drew near the front.
They continued into the woods, barefoot, feet squishy in the soft earth, gaining scratches as they occasionally stepped on twigs. Approximately fifteen minutes, about a mile.
Then Alex saw light—several lights, in fact, torches glowing yellow through the trees. He hunkered behind a tree, staring, as the procession passed him again. They were pouring into a clearing in the woods.
Alex crept forward slowly now because they were fanning out and he couldn’t see past them. He heard someone clear her throat, and he realized that all along the way he had not heard that sound. The sleeping didn’t do that.
Alex reached the clearing and circled around it, trying to find the edge of the group. He heard someone yell. It was a stifled scream, like someone shouting through a gag. He started moving faster until he finally reached the edge and saw what the procession was gathered around.
There was a chair in the grass, with a man of about fifty sitting in it—no, not just sitting: tied, bound, and gagged. The man was trying to get away, but the chair was reinforced at the back and it barely rocked as he fought against the binds. He was wearing slacks and a light jacket. His eyes swiveled in terror.
Next to him was a table, and Alex saw the glint of steel—no less than ten knives laid out in a row.
Behind the chair was another table, with what looked like a pair of speakers and a small device, something that might have been an iPod. There was a figure with her back turned to them, but the hiss of static in his head and the white robes she wore identified her instantly.
Elle turned around and looked at the crowd.
“I’m going to play something for you,” said Elle. “And then we’re going to have a demonstration.”