DOM#67A
LOSTON, COLORADO
AD 1999
7:10 PM SUNDAY
It was dark in Casey’s basement.
He knew that, had always known that, but never had it so fully registered on him. The darkness hummed around him. It palpitated with its own deep, thrumming power, washing over him like dark waves that stood permanently at high tide. And yet the darkness that surrounded him was nothing compared to the darkness that he feared was coming.
He looked around him, blinking quickly as though rapid twitching of his ocular muscles could slice through the darkness like a propeller blade. Nothing. His eyes were useless.
He could hear, though, and what he heard frightened him.
The man. The oldest of the four strangers who had taken him captive. In the few moments that they took binding his arms, Casey could tell that he was their leader. Malachi, one of the girls had called him. He was in charge. And he was the most to be feared.
"The dark scares you, doesn’t it?" said Malachi.
Casey wanted to answer, wanted to say, "Yes, sir, it does, please let me go, please," but the gag that stretched tightly across his cheeks and through his mouth prevented anything more than a low moan.
"Oh, I’m sorry." Casey felt the cool swish of air that accompanied Malachi’s movements as he glided toward him. Or perhaps it was one of the other three, who were in the dark room as well. Though they hadn’t so much as moved or even breathed, as far as Casey could tell, since they’d brought him down here, below the bar, and tied him to a chair an instant before turning off the lights.
They sat there, silent, Casey gagged and bound tightly, slowly feeling his hands and feet go numb, remembering horror stories of POW’s in World War I who lost their feet when their captors tied them too tightly and they rotted on their legs. He wondered how long it would take to happen, how long before his hands died and he lost his ability to serve at the bar. He wondered, and wondering turned to imagination, and imagination turned to fear.
Fear was what they wanted. He knew that; why else would they be acting like this? But knowing did not help him overcome the thick dread that froze his blood and made icy sweat ooze from his forehead.
Malachi touched Casey’s neck and Casey jumped, jerking violently away from the man, almost knocking over the chair. Malachi caught it before it toppled, though, and whispered, "Shh, peace, my son. I’m just taking off the gag. You won’t scream, now, will you?"
Casey shook his head back and forth. Screaming would be useless, anyway. They were in the bottom of a deep cellar, lined with stone and concrete and dirt to insulate the few expensive wines he kept for special occasions. Such a thick layer of dense matter would keep anyone outside the cellar from hearing him. He could drop a grenade on the floor and the only sound to penetrate above would be a slight tapping. No, he wouldn't scream.
"Good." The gag loosened, and Casey sucked in a great, gasping draught of air that tasted better to him than the finest Guinness.
"Now, my friend. Casey, is it?"
"Y-yes, sir."
"Sir. Good. Excellent respect, my friend. Keep that respect, and you will live through the night." Malachi paused a moment. "You are well connected, yes?"
"What?"
"You know the people in the town, correct?"
Casey was struck by the strange cadences of the man's tone and word choices. It sounded as though this Malachi was speaking English as one would a second language, translating rapidly from some unknown set of linguistics. Yet he spoke without accent, and obviously had no trouble following Casey's words earlier in the evening. Still, the wording of Malachi's question – "You know the people in the town, correct?" - struck fear into Casey.
"I suppose," he answered.
"Of course you do." Casey sensed rather than saw the man’s predatorial smile growing larger, like the jaws of a Venus flytrap about to spring shut on a helpless fly. "Of course you do. I would like to know something, if I may."
Casey waited. He hadn’t been asked a direct question, and he wasn’t about to volunteer anything.
"Is anyone moving in to Loston?"
"What?" The question took him by surprise. It was the last thing he expected. Of course, he had no idea what these crazies wanted, so he guessed that any conversation he held with them would be one long succession of surprises. And none of them happy ones.
"Are the inhabitants here expecting any new people? Move-ins? Families?"
Casey sat silently for a moment, thinking. Fact was, he knew about as much about the town as anyone. A bar in a small country town was more than just a place to drink, it was a place to come together. It was a place where just about everyone in the town who was over twenty-one and still ambulatory would show up at least twice a month, and since Casey kept his ears open while he worked, he heard about most of what happened in the town.
So he knew for certain that there were two move-ins this week: a Devorough family that moved in Thursday night, and Coach Harding’s cousin from Los Angeles, who was supposed to be arriving tonight. But he didn’t answer right away, because he wanted to be absolutely sure he gave them a correct answer. He sensed that his life depended on it.
The pause, however, proved to be too much for one of the women. Casey had no doubt that the Malachi could wait until time ran out and God died of old age to get what he wanted, but one of the women - the blonde girl, he guessed - spat out the words, "Where’s the girl?"
Casey heard Malachi grunt and turn. A light turned on, blinding him, but he made out enough through his tear-streaked vision to see Malachi slap the woman. It was a hard backhand that made almost no noise but would surely leave a sharp ridge of bruises along her jaw and his knuckles.
Casey only saw it peripherally, though, because as soon as the woman spoke those three words, something happened. It was like his tongue was locked inside his mouth. It wasn’t as though he resolved not to speak; rather, he suddenly felt he couldn’t talk even if he wanted to. Nor was it merely imagination. He felt something change in him, and perceived an actual presence, a real though unseen power that froze his jaw and prevented him from uttering so much as a sound.
That was only part of him, however. Another part, a part that had somehow been subjugated in that moment, was screaming. "Yes, yes, I know, I know it all, and I’ll tell you, too, if you’ll just let me alone!" it yelled.
But the sound didn’t come out.
Malachi turned back to Casey, the rage that had momentarily flashed across his face disappearing. The sharks were hiding under the calm surface again, but Casey knew they were still there, circling. Waiting.
"Now, who is new to your fair city?"
Casey opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Malachi’s jaw tightened. He turned back to the woman and slapped her again. Harder, on the other side. She cried and fell, and he kicked her in the side. "You stupid bit," he said. "You shouldn’t have mentioned the girl directly. Now he’s locked and we have to break him."
Casey heard the word break and the silent screams that couldn’t make it to his lips increased in volume, resounding in his head like thunder across a roiling sky over a black sea.
The man turned back to Casey, and this time he held a small metallic box. He clipped it to Casey’s wrist, then looked in Casey’s eyes. Casey recoiled at the hatred and rage that glinted from the man’s bright irises. "It’s for my salvation," said the man, and pressed a switch.
Agony, liquid fire, ran up Casey’s arm. It stabbed inward and upward, penetrating the bones of his arm, shearing inward to his trunk and legs, sparking through his spine. A million firecrackers ignited behind his eyes and burned his skull from the inside out. He felt his eyes melting in their sockets, and then drip in white-hot rivulets into his skull, searing his brain.
But while it happened, no sound emerged from his lips. He didn’t scream. Couldn’t, in fact. Whatever had kept him from talking apparently prevented any noise whatsoever.
Malachi pressed the switch again. The fire dissipated, leaving Casey gasping and sweating. He was surprised that he could see, that his eyes had not in fact melted. He also noticed that his body seemed to have suffered no external ill effects at all.
Which didn't make the agony he had just experienced any less real. It just made it more terrifying as Casey realized that whoever these people were, they had ways of causing pain that he had never heard of.
Malachi leaned close, then closer, eye to eye with Casey. "You can’t talk at all now, though I’m sure you want to."
His hand dropped to the switch again, and Casey managed a whimper. His torturer smiled at the sound. "Good. As soon as you can scream, you’ll be able to tell us what we need to know. And you will scream. Oh, yes, you will scream."
He hit the button again. Casey writhed in his chair, muscles cording up in arms made strong by years of pushing beer barrels under taps, of throwing out people who wanted to start fights. But his bonds held, and he still made no sound.
The man watched. And waited.
"You will tell us what we want to know," he said.
And Casey knew he would, eventually.
But first, he would scream.