Chapter 18: Things get Ugly.
Darkness. I was pretty sure my eyes weren’t blindfolded. My hands were bound, and sounds were muffled. A low rumbling, plus a steady vibration in the floor told me I was probably in the trunk of a car. What confirmed it was feeling a lurch, the squeal of brakes, and getting thrown roughly into another body. The smell of her, that sweet, bitter smell of Cinnamon and sadness let me know it was Erin. Her body was still warm, and I felt her take a breath, but she was so still…
“Erin? Erin, c’mon, wake up.” No response. I could hear shouting now, and then the distinctive report of gunfire. A lot of gunfire. Shouts became screams, and I could hear whatever vehicle we were in getting hit. Suddenly, there was a muffled, but very loud explosion, and the vehicle lurched. The screams stopped.
Silence. Darkness. The crunching sound of footsteps, drawing near.
There was the creaking and groaning of bent steel, and then a brilliance that left me as blind as before. Hands grabbing me, dragging me up, then throwing me down. Heard Erin’s body hit the ground beside me with the sound of a sack of dropped meat. Struggled to make out a face, but it was only dark silhouettes. A boot kicked me. A fist hit my face. A rapid succession of blows, I was unsure of means or weaponry. A sharp crack on the back of my head.
Darkness again.
I awoke to cool, rough stone under my cheek. Trying to move no more than possible, I cracked my eyelids. I saw the hem of Erin’s shirt. Then I felt the toe of a boot in my back. “I saw that,” a gruff voice spat. It sounded like oil-soaked gravel, full of hate and spite. “Get your ass up, big boy.” Hands grabbed me, and thrust me into a chair. I could see we were in a cave of some sort, or maybe a room shaped like a cave. Or a cave converted into a room. Either way, the floor and walls were made of rough hewn stone, and there was a door stuck in the wall on the left. Opposite the door was Erin’s limp body, curled upon itself like a wounded animal. She still wasn’t moving. The voice spoke up behind me vicious and reptile. “Looks like this one’s formed an attachment. Let’s give him a lesson about Universe.” A man in drab army pants and heavy boots walked past me. He wore no shirt, but had a tight fitting black hood covering his head and face, leaving only his eyes visible. He grabbed Erin around the waist, and hauled her up to her feet. Her eyes fluttered. “L,” she asked, her eyes full of pain and confusion. “What’s going on?”
The voice behind me, dripping with malice, said, “Did someone say the animal could talk?” The man holding Erin threw her into the wall. Her shoulders and back hit, and she started to slide into a heap again. Before her knees could fully buckle, he swung his fist into her stomach, throwing her back into the wall again. His left hand shot out, grabbed her throat, and proceeded to lift her upright. Erin’s breath was ragged and constricted underneath his hand. He curled his arm into his chest, turning Erin around, facing the wall. His right arm shot forward, connecting between her shoulder blades, as he simultaneously let go of her throat. Erin was thrust, face first, into the wall. Her scream as the sharp hooks of the unfinished raw rock tore into her skin was unbearable. I could see the red stain on the wall from where her nose broke, and the smear where her cheek gave way to the rock. Her torturer grabbed her by the hair, pulled hard, and shoved her face into the wall once again. He laughed at Erin’s low moan of pain.
“Ok, stop. Seriously, I’ll tell you what you need to know, freely. You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“I don’t think you get it, Little One,” said the voice behind me. “We don’t care. That’s how life is, sometimes. No matter what you do, the things you care for are destroyed.”
The man in front of me pulled a knife from the sheath in his belt. It was long, slightly curved, edged on both sides, and looked like it was flaked with rust. But I knew it wasn’t rust. With the other hand still in her hair, he half dragged, half threw her onto a wood and steel table directly opposite the chair I was sitting in. The edge of the table struck her in the stomach, and she folded neatly in half, her face once again slamming down. Her lip split, her teeth stained red, like pearls dipped in raspberry preserves.
The hooded man placed the knife at the small of Erin’s back, and slid it upwards along her spine. She gasped, and her blouse and bra fell away from her shoulders. A thin red line scored up her back, and then slowly began to bead and ooze small threads of blood. “You like that move?” the voice in my ear said. “One stroke, and the blade cuts her shirt, bra, and skin, all at the same time.”
“You fucking asshole,” I growled. “Stop it! She’s got nothing for you!”
“I don’t think you understand, yet. We don’t care. You can plead, you can beg, you can offer us money, you can even threaten us. Universe doesn’t care. Sometimes, truly awful things happen. Like this for example.” I felt a hand on my left wrist, and one on my shoulder, and then whoever was behind me rammed their knee into the back of my elbow. It gave way with a sickening crack, as my arm filled with pain. The man before me was now sliding his knife down Erin’s leg, peeling back her pants, but caring little for the pale, delicate skin underneath. I could see tiny cuts and gashes in her calf & thigh where the knife dug in a little too deep. When he grabbed the waistband of her pants, she came to her senses just enough to struggle. With a laugh, he twisted her arm behind her back, and raised her up off the table. For a moment, you could see her, topless, blood from her face dripping onto her perfect breasts, a look of desperate horror in her eyes, and then he slammed her against the table again. Her face bounced off the unforgiving steel, and her shoulder dislocated with an audible pop. As Erin howled with pain, the man just laughed, and with a savage pull, tore her pants off.
The voice whispered in my ear, as the sickening pain in my arm matched what I was watching, “you see? There is nothing you can do. You are helpless in an uncaring Universe, which will crush your body, and your spirit. Watch. Watch and learn something about the Universe you live in.”
The man with the knife wrenched Erin’s dislocated arm above her head, and without a word slammed the knife through the back of her hand and into the wood, pinning her like a butterfly in a sadistic collector’s menagerie. Erin turned her head sideways, looking at me, and screamed, only to be silenced by a fist, breaking her cheekbone. The hooded man stepped back, began unzipping his pants with one hand, as with the other, he jammed his fingers into
The Editors have agreed: There is no way we are letting you read the rest of this. Go and read something more pleasant, like American Psycho, or The 120 Days of Sodom.
In case you were wondering, we called the author’s fiancée, and she’s doing just fine.
though, because at that point it was more exposed muscle tissue than skin.
Eventually, they stopped. I couldn’t tell if it was hours, or days later. The hooded man stepped back, picked up his pants, and started wiping off parts of Erin onto them. The unrecognizable heap on the table that used to be her would quiver every now and again, but other than that there was no sound, no movement.
As for me, I guessed I had about a dozen broken bones, including my ribs, left arm, and right leg and foot. I had cuts and bruises all over my body, but I wasn’t paying attention to what my body was screaming at me. My eyes were on the table, and what was on it. The door opened, and more hooded men entered. As they grabbed Erin’s body and dragged it out of the room, my tormenter, with that voice, said, “I hope this has been a valuable lesson for you. Tomorrow, we let you go. We hope you will do your best to incorporate this experience into your philosophical world view: Universe simply doesn’t care, about you, or anyone else, no matter how hard you may want it to, and no matter how righteous you feel in your heart.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“That’s the spirit.”
He left the room, and everything went dark.
