Grimm: The Chopping Block (7 page)

No, Gino didn’t want to believe Alice’s hopeless prediction, but he couldn’t shake it. Unless they escaped, they really were doomed, picked off one by one until they were all dead—or worse.

Clumps of straw shifted beneath him, host to a foul mixture of blood and urine, along with dollops of gruel that had slopped over the wooden buckets with which their jailer fed them every two or three days. He’d eaten once—less than a ladleful of the cold, lumpy gruel that tasted like wet cardboard—hours after he’d been shackled, still dazed from the blow that had rendered him unconscious, and shortly before he’d been gagged. Even if they hadn’t been chained to the wall, most of them would have been too weak to put up much of a fight.

Finally, he tore his gag loose, spitting the lump of bloodied cloth from his mouth. His body streaked with dried sweat and fresh blood. Gino’s muscles trembled with exhaustion. But he had one small victory, his first since the nightmarish ordeal had begun.

“What—what time is it?” he croaked, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. How long had he been awake?
Too long
, he thought,
time’s running out
. Soon their jailer would come to collect one of them.

At first nobody answered his question. Maybe they couldn’t. Hours on a clock had become meaningless. Only one time of the day mattered to them.

Finally, Alice spoke. “Too late.”

That’s when he heard the heavy footfalls.

The click of the deadbolt lock in the steel door.

More creaking footfalls on each of the four wooden steps that led down to the long basement room.

Gino found himself afraid to look at the hulking figure who peered at his hostages through dark holes cut in the cloth hood he wore to hide his identity. At first, Gino thought the hood was a good sign. If the man hid his face from them, he must believe they would be freed—at least some of them—and they wouldn’t be able to identify him as their captor. But then Gino came to understand the man wore the hood to instill fear into his prisoners. Looking at the man’s eyes was like staring into an abyss. They were the eyes of a soulless demon who basked in their misery and torment.

Slowly his inhuman gaze traveled from one side of the basement to the other, examining each of them in turn before making his selection. Nobody knew how he made the decision. And if some secret existed to avoid selection, nobody had shared it with Gino.

Some of the prisoners froze, almost as if playing possum. If he enjoyed their screams, then death offered one form of escape. Maybe feigned death would work as well. Others whimpered. Were the pitiful unworthy of consideration? Some huddled in a fetal position, withdrawing into their own minds. Ignore the danger at all costs and maybe it would pass. Several squirmed as if the weight of his attention were physically painful and, if endured, would eventually release them from its grip. A final few prayed, hurried voices in hushed tones, even those still gagged. Gino could tell which ones continued to believe in salvation, even if he couldn’t make out the details of their faces in the darkness.

Silent, but not a possum, Gino found he fit none of these categories. Though weakened by his ordeal, rage and defiance fueled him. Though religious, prayer eluded him. And even with his mouth finally unencumbered, he could not find his voice. More than anything, he wanted to lash out at the hooded man, but the collar chain and manacles made rebellion impossible. So he knelt on the concrete floor, muscles taut and trembling, and directed his hate-filled glare downward, submissively, avoiding the abyss of the eyes.

“Which little piggy is next?” their hooded jailer asked in amusement, his voice a basso profundo that had already crept into Gino’s nightmares and refused to leave.

The man took two steps away from Gino and grabbed the jaw of a young woman with long wavy hair, a light color that caught and reflected the wan light cast down the stairs from the hallway above. Gino remembered Alice calling her Cherise once.

Cherise had been a possum, but now she began to whimper, “Please don’t, please, no, please don’t, don’t…” She tried unsuccessfully to pull her face free of his cruel grip.

“Leave her alone!”

Gino had finally found his voice.

His reaction had been a reflex—a paternal impulse—and horribly dangerous, considering his circumstances. The young woman reminded him of his daughter, a twenty-year-old sophomore in college, living in a dorm on the other side of the country. A fleeting thought of her—chained in this basement, awaiting torture and death—had overwhelmed him.

The hooded man shoved the young woman’s face aside and turned toward Gino. Soulless eyes hidden within the darkness of the cloth hood seemed to stare at him, as if noticing him for the first time.

“This piggy squeals.”

“Go to hell, you sick bastard,” Gino shouted, grimacing as bile rose in the back of his throat. “The quicker the better.”

He couldn’t undo his outburst. His fifteen-year-old son played video games all the time and most of those games had save points, places in the game located right before a difficult challenge where you could save your progress. If you died facing the big bad menace, you could restart the game from your last save point without losing everything you had worked so hard for. Unfortunately, real life had no save points. What was done, was done, for better or worse. And sometimes forever. Some choices had fatal consequences.

The large man strode toward Gino, reached into his pocket and withdrew a ring of keys.

“You, little piggy, go to hell before me.”

As the man towered over him, Gino finally noticed that he wore a white apron, a butcher’s apron, discolored—no, stained… stained with dried blood. Not a stretch to believe the blood was human. The butcher dropped to one knee beside Gino and reached for the heavy iron collar around his neck.

Gino pulled away from the man, as far as the chain would allow, which wasn’t far enough. The butcher grabbed Gino’s hair in one hand, knuckles pressing painfully into Gino’s scalp as the man’s other hand fitted a key to the padlock dangling above his clavicle. He fought to overcome his paralyzing fear, grasping for the rage that had infused him only moments ago. Free of his collar and chain, he would have a chance to escape. He tensed, waiting—

—and felt the cold metal fall away from his chafed throat, the hinge at the nape of his neck uttering a single squeal of protest as the collar fell away.

Gino lunged at the much larger man, desperation providing the brief spark of adrenaline needed to fire his muscles.

But the butcher growled, a sound that couldn’t have come from a human throat, and a meaty fist snapped out and struck Gino across the jaw. Gino imagined it felt like a right cross unleashed by a heavyweight boxing champ in his prime. One moment he was lunging forward with deadly intent, ready to wrap the chain connecting his wrists around the butcher’s throat, the next he was staring up at the ceiling, not quite sure how he had fallen.

He gasped for air, like a fish tossed on the deck of a boat, helpless to avoid the club. Rubbery-limbed, he tried to protest as the butcher looped one fist around the wrist chain and dragged him across the floor and up the wooden stairs, his head awkwardly striking each step on the way up.

Once through the open doorway, the butcher dropped him to the floor and locked the door behind them. Gino tried to speak but the words came out jumbled.

“Don’t—you do—don’t have to do this—you can end this.”

“Quiet,” the butcher said, grabbing the wrist chain again. “This will be over soon.”

At the end of the hall, another door awaited them.

That’s where he takes them
, Gino thought, terrified, his mind racing.
The place where they scream
.

Gino’s iron chains rattled against the cement floor, and clanked together as he rolled onto his stomach and tried to stand. But the butcher moved so fast that Gino’s hands and feet could gain no purchase.

The door swung open, revealing an uneven cement floor angled toward a drain in the corner. Though the butcher had apparently hosed the floor, some streaks of blood remained. A long metal countertop stood in front of the far wall next to a large walk-in cooler in the corner, large enough to hang several sides of beef.

Before he had time to dwell on what the walk-in unit might contain, his attention turned to a metal crossbar on the floor, attached to a cable that rose to the ceiling and came down again at an angle to a winch with a hand crank.

“What—what is that?” he asked, his mouth almost too dry to speak.

But he didn’t need to ask. He knew. The question was merely a stall for time, to slow down the process, for him to think of a way out of his current predicament. He just needed some time to think. A little more time—

The butcher released Gino’s wrist chain so he could close the door. He strode to the counter and strapped on a thick leather belt slotted with knives in various sizes. Lastly, he picked up a leather sap and slapped it against his palm, as if testing its weight.

Gino scrambled to his hands and knees a moment before the blow came down on the back of his head. With a groan he collapsed, managing to roll onto his back but unable to control his arms or legs. He watched helplessly, his vision shifting in and out of focus, as the butcher fitted a hook attached to the crossbar through a link in his ankle chains.

Time seemed to stutter, jumping ahead in irregular intervals, with moments of lucidity interspersed between fear and confusion. Gino’s bare feet rose in front of him, followed by his legs, dragging him closer to the center of the killing room.

In one dizzying moment, he turned his head and spotted the butcher now standing in the corner, effortlessly turning the winch’s crank, lifting Gino into the air inch by inch, his weight dangling by his raw ankles. Finally, his head cleared the floor. Upside down, he tried to thrash, to pull himself free of the hook, but his weakness and the weight of his body betrayed him.

“No! Stop! You son of a bitch!” Gino yelled. “Stop it now!”

He rose higher still, until his hands waved inches above the floor.

“Please! You can stop this before it’s too late!”

Again, the butcher reached for Gino’s hair to expose his throat.

Gino batted at the man’s hands, whipping his chains defensively at the butcher’s face. His whole body swayed beneath the crossbar. Incredibly, the butcher backed away and walked out of his line of sight.

Gino sucked in great gasps of air, trembling with this apparent reprieve.

“Good! You can stop this,” he said. He twisted his body, trying to see where his captor had gone. The sap worried him. “I won’t tell. I can’t. I haven’t seen your face.”

Chains rattled behind him, yanking his arms up and behind his back, pulling his shoulders painfully. A moment later a lock snapped and his wrists were pulled tight against the small of his back, effectively hogtieing him upside down. The butcher came around to face him again, black eyeholes offering no human connection at all, nothing he could appeal to for mercy.

“What will happen to me?” he asked. “Will they—the people upstairs—eat—?”

“In time, piggy,” the butcher said. “After I bleed you, gut you and put you in the cooler to dry-age, your time will come. Tonight, they want the French girl.”

Cherise!

“No,” he said, pitifully. “Don’t. Not her.”

He’d thought at least he’d saved the girl, given her a chance. But he’d only given her false hope, a few hours before the end.

His own hope gone, only morbid curiosity remained. “Why?” he asked.

The butcher pulled a thin knife from his leather belt and placed the sharp tip against Gino’s throat, under his right ear.

“Time to show my face, piggy.”

With that, the butcher pulled the cloth hood from his head with his free hand. As his face appeared, something strange happened. His features shifted, bones rippling and reforming beneath the flesh into a shape completely inhuman. Gino had been right all along. The butcher of men
was
a demon.

Gino couldn’t stop himself. He screamed at the top of his lungs.

The butcher waited, enjoying the moment to its fullest, and then he sliced Gino’s throat open from ear to ear.

As she had an early morning appointment with a potential rental client scheduled for the next day, Sheila Jenkins decided to leave Kim’s bachelorette party at
La Porte Bleue
earlier than the rest of the ladies. Truth be told, in the short amount of time she’d been in the private party room they’d hired for the occasion, she’d had her fill of fondue and wine. She couldn’t recall if her headache had been simmering earlier in the day or if the revelry had triggered it, but she was no longer having fun. She felt guilty for cutting out early, but if she stayed, she feared she’d become a wet blanket on the festivities. Besides, she barely knew the other women—all close friends of the bride-to-be—with the exception of Kim’s older sister, Lisa.

They had graduated high school together, followed by a two-year encore as BFFs at Mount Hood Community College before going their separate ways. For Lisa, that had meant a business degree, a husband and two children—a boy and a girl, naturally; for Sheila, the intervening years featured a real estate license and an ill-advised marriage, followed by a why-the-hell-did-she-wait-so-long divorce.

Although Sheila had no issues with Kim—their interactions were pleasant and polite rather than chummy—she felt she was really there to catch up with Lisa rather than celebrate the upcoming nuptials. But, as host of the party, Lisa had little time to spare for Sheila, and before long, Sheila felt she had become conspicuous by her outsider status. The others sent her furtive glances, then she overheard whispered questions, all amounting to the same thing: “Who is she again?” “Oh, right, the sister’s friend.”

When Lisa informed Sheila it was a little black dress party, where only the bride wore another color—Kim chose an electric fuchsia—Sheila had thought she might blend in, another face in the crowd. But she had little in common with the other women, coworkers or long-time friends with shared jobs and clubs and routines, with their own private little verbal shorthand, honed over the years. On another night, without commitments hanging over her head, Sheila might have made the effort to crack the code, but she chose the path of least resistance instead.