The Girl from the Well

CHAPTER EIGHT


    The Smiling Man


“Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty.”

This is the first thing the teacher’s assistant hears as she struggles back to consciousness. A light shines from somewhere above and distorts her vision. She shakes her head, attempting to dispel this hurt, and finds that she cannot move. Someone has lashed a series of ropes around her legs and arms, imprisoning her against a hard bed. She can do nothing more than move her head a few degrees in either direction.

A man moves into her line of vision. He is the same one she saw driving the white car with the drowsing teenager in his passenger seat.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” the Smiling Man says. “Though I am sorry to say you won’t be staying here very long.”

The girl tries to sit up, struggling in terror against her bonds, but the Smiling Man has done this many times before, and they hold fast. She opens her mouth to scream, but the man merely laughs as her cries bounce off the walls. “Nobody’s going to hear you this far down, sweetheart. I made sure of it.” He grins in a disarming way, but his eyes remain blank and hooded, unable to absorb so much as a glimmer of light.

“I called the police,” the girl gasps out, unwilling to surrender. “They’ll be here soon, and they’ll catch you.”

The Smiling Man

take him, take him now

shrugs this off, like it is of little importance to him.

“It’s quite a drive from the nearest police station, especially with the rush hour. There aren’t many police in this town anymore, not after the recession. And besides”—he leans in close so she could smell his light, delicate perfume, the strong decay of eggs in his breath—“by the time they get here I will be gone,” he whispers. “And you will still be dead.”

He moves toward the boy and strokes his head fondly. “You’re a little too old for me,” he tells the teaching assistant. “Too old. I like them young. The younger, the prettier, the better. This one’s older than I’m used to, but he’s got such a pretty face.” His fingers find a trail down the side of the boy’s jawline.

“But what to do with you?” He throws the covers off one table, revealing an assortment of knives, of strange and twisted surgical instruments. The girl’s struggles increase in earnest, and she screams again. “Never had anyone as old as you before. Not my type. Doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun, though, right?” He selects one of the larger knives and advances toward the now-terrified young woman, still smiling as kindly as a choirboy.

“I think I’ll start with you first. I like to take my time when it comes to my toys, and I won’t have that as long as I’m in the house, thanks to you. By the time they arrive and find your body, I’ll be far away with my little boy, and no one will ever find us.”

Something rustles at the corner of his eye, and a faint gurgling reaches his ears. The Smiling Man

crushhimscreamcrushhim

turns his head, frowning at the distraction. But the boy continues to slumber atop the bed, and there is no one else present. Satisfied, he turns back.

He seizes the young woman’s wrist, ignoring how she cries out, how she tries to push him away. “Maybe I should take a little bit of you as a souvenir,” he says, thoughtfully. “A keepsake for the short time we had together, if you’d like. So a part of you will always be with my—Tarquin, didn’t you say his name was?—my Tarquin here. It’s the least I can do for you.”

The tattooed boy is still sleeping on the cot, unmoving. His feet are shackled, and his face is worn. Neither the girl nor the Smiling Man

crushkillcrushkillKILLKILL

sees the small blanket of black that rises around his form, though in the small trickle of light it seems larger somehow, like it gains its strength from places such as these.