Nine, Ten ... Never Sleep Again (22 page)

"What the
hell is
this Anna? What are you going to do? What do
you mean you'll take my heart?"

Anna looked at the man she had once loved and
smiled. "I meant just what I said, Michael. See, I have been collecting
new organs for our son, and all I need is a new heart."

"But … but Valdemar is dead?" I don't
understand."

"I dug him up. I wanted to be with him. Do
you have any idea how much I miss him every day of my life, do you
Michael?"

"N … No."

"Where were you, Michael?" Anna asked.

"Where was I … when? Anna, I really don't
think you're well …"

Anna leaned in over Michael's numb body. He was
still naked. She looked into his eyes and shook her head slowly. "Where
were you when he died, Michael?"

"I … I don't know. How am I supposed to
know?" Michael said with a shivering voice.

"How are you supposed to know? Well, any
normal father who cared would know exactly where he was at the moment his son
died. I know where I was, Michael. I was right next to him. I had given him a
part of my one lung, but it wasn't enough. I begged the doctor to take more, to
take whatever my son needed, but he refused. It would kill me, he said and he
wasn't allowed to do that. Can you imagine, Michael sitting there holding him
in your arms while he draws his last breath? Huh? Can you? No, of course you
can't, 'cause you WEREN'T there, were you? Did you look into his big beautiful
eyes and tell him how sorry you were that you couldn't save him, did you? No
you didn't. But I did, Michael. I held him with these arms, these two arms
while he slowly died. And then I screamed, Michael. I screamed and cried in
anger because, if anyone deserved to live, it was him. Because I knew he could
have lived, if only his dad hadn't been such a BASTARD."

Anna was crying now and lifted the scalpel into
the light to make sure Michael saw it. His eyes grew wide. "Anna, I … I
…"

"It's too late, Michael. There is nothing
you can say to bring him back to me. He was my everything, Michael. He was all
I had and now … now I'm alone. Alone with my shame, alone with my guilt that I
couldn't save my only son. Where were you, Michael? Were you with your new
family? With your new son?"

"I … I don't kno …"

"Of course you don't. Because you don't
care, do you? And then, what happens next? I call his dad's office to let him
know that his son died and when the funeral is." Anna fought her tears and
anger. She spoke through gritted teeth. "You didn't even show up for the
funeral, Michael. You just had your secretary send a flower arrangement."

"I was out of town."

"Doing what, Michael? Selling your new
product? Selling the new game that saved your company and saved your job, huh?
And tell me, Michael, what is the name of that game, huh? The game you're now
making millions off of? The game you pretend is yours?"

A shadow crossed Michael's face.

"What's the name of it, Michael?" Anna
yelled.

"Mindskill," Michael said with a low
voice.

"Mindskill, huh? Now, is that a
coincidence? Your son created a game with the exact same name. It couldn't, by
any chance, be the same game, now could it? NO you would never just steal it,
would you? You would at least give him the credit and maybe send a check to his
mother every now and then since it has become such a huge success, am I right?
How could you, Michael? You know that all he ever wanted was for you to accept
him, for you to see how smart he was and for you to love him despite his
handicap. Why couldn't you just do that? Everything he ever did, he did to make
you proud, to make you finally see him. You couldn't even give him the credit
for having invented the game could you?"

"Look Anna, if this is about the money,
then I am willing to …"

"It was never about any money. I don't need
your blood money. Valdemar doesn't need your blood money. We don't need
anything from you. We don't want anything from you." Anna paused and
looked at Michael's chest. "Except for your heart."

Then she lifted the scalpel and sank it into his
skin. Michael screamed as he watched Anna make an eight-inch incision cut down
the center of his chest wall. Then, she cut his breastbone and opened his rib
cage to reach his heart, when suddenly, someone knocked on the door.

"We don't want to be disturbed," she
yelled, but the knocking didn't stop.

"Room service," the person outside
yelled. Anna took off her gloves, walked to the door, and opened it just enough
to peek out. "We didn't order any …" Then she paused. The face
greeting her on the other side of the door was suddenly very familiar.

"So Bill Durgin is a woman, huh?" The
man said. "Well I'll be damned."

"Peter,
please, don't do
this to me." Peter had put me in
a straitjacket and was now tightening it on my back so I couldn't move. Then,
he tied me to a plank of some sort.

"You know, I found this among a bunch of
equipment in the basement recently. I believe it must have been used back when
the place was a mental hospital. It's exciting to think about who might have worn
it before, don't you think? It could have been a famous historical
person."

"I doubt it, Peter."

Peter laughed. "Well, maybe not. But I do
have a feeling about this place. You know, back when you first left me, I came
out here and often spent weeks here, just walking the hallways and discovering
the place. I have made many friends here. The place is filled with history.
Like that doctor that I told you about. I have met him. He killed himself after
killing more than a hundred patients here doing all kinds of experiments on
them. He shot himself and his family in room 237, but every now and then, I
meet him in there. He has a big hole in his head from the shot right here, and
there is blood all over the walls and floor, "Peter said and put a finger
to his forehead with a grin.

"Peter, you're hurting me. It's too
tight," I said. "Please just let me go, will you? Let me and Julie
go. You don't want to hurt us, I know you Peter."

Peter lifted his camera and took a series of
pictures. "There you go. The first one for the wall. The one where you
start pleading for your life." He giggled in delight. "Isn't this
fun? Oh, did you know that back when this place was a hospital for the mentally
ill, they simply called the patients ‘lunatics’? It's the truth; that's what
the doctor told me. Back then, the mentally ill were people who had to be put
away, they were an embarrassment to the family, so they were often forgotten
once they arrived here at the asylum. So, the dear doctor could perform any
experiment and treatment he pleased. No one ever cared."

I stared at Peter, wondering how I was ever
going to get out of this. Julie was still downstairs and I just hoped that she
would stay safe. "That's all very interesting, Peter, but what are you
going to do to me?" I asked, thinking it would be best if I kept the
conversation going. Maybe an opening would come. Maybe I could talk him out of
it.

"Oh, I have something extraordinary planned
for you, Rebekka, dearie. Don't you worry about that. It's going to be
spectacular."

Peter walked towards a small box covered by a
cloth. Peter looked at me with excitement in his eyes and pulled the cloth off.

"Ta-da."

A small cage appeared underneath. Inside of it
was a huge rat. He was staring at me with empty black eyes and vibrating whiskers.
I had always hated rats more than anything in this world. Any nightmare I’d
ever had, always contained at least one rat. Peter knew that.

"Peter. You know I hate rats. What are you
doing with that?" I said, with my heart in my throat.

Peter opened the cage, took out the rat, and
held it in his hand. I started breathing heavier, gasping in fear of what he
was going to do with it.

"Isn't he a beauty?" Peter said and
lifted the rat so I could better look at it. "It was actually the doctor
who came up with the idea. He told me that he used rats in many of his
experiments. See, back in the late eighteen hundreds, when this place was an
asylum, the doctor thought rats were able to find diseases in the human body
and eat them. One of his many theories was that mental illness was caused by
something growing inside of the patient, overshadowing the patient's way of
thinking, making them think they saw things they didn't and making them filled
with fear and so on. So, his theory was that the rats would be able to detect
the disease in the body and remove it like trash from a garbage can."

"So, what did he do?" I asked with a
shivering voice.

"You'll see," Peter said. "It's
very simple really." Peter grinned and found a metal bucket. Then he
placed the bucket on top of my stomach and put the rat underneath it.

I felt sick to my stomach just thinking of the
creature on top of me. Peter then found an old Bunsen burner that reminded me
of chemistry lab in high school.

"Peter what are you doing?"

Peter found his camera and took another series
of pictures before he turned on the Bunsen burner, then started heating up the
metal bucket. "Peter I don't like this," I cried. "What are you
doing?"

"
As the
container is being gradually heated, the rat will begin to look for a way out.
The only way out is through the patient's body. Digging a hole, by gnawing its
way through the straitjacket and then your skin, will probably take a few hours
of agonizing pain for you. And then result in certain death."

It didn't take
long
before I started feeling the rat gnawing on the
straitjacket. The thought of those teeth soon nibbling my skin scared me to
death. My entire body was shivering in fear.

"Peter I promise I'll … I'll do anything
for you."

Peter stroked my head gently. "Oh, but dear
Rebekka. You just aren't well, are you? You need to be cleansed. The doctor
told me how I could cure you."

"But Peter," I cried. "This will
kill me. You told me so yourself."

"But then you'll be made immortal
afterwards, Rebekka. Through my pictures, through my art, you'll stay alive for
eternity."

Slowly I felt the straitjacket gave in to the
rat's sharp teeth. "Peter please, don't do this …"

As I spoke, suddenly a sound interrupted me.
Peter heard it too and turned to look. I couldn't believe my eyes. In through
the door came Henrik Fenger. He looked like he had been through hell and back.
His clothes and hair were soaking wet, his eyes looked like those of a mad man.

"Who the hell are you?" Peter asked.
"What are you doing here? This is private property."

I wanted to scream for help, but somehow the
expression on Henrik Fenger's face made me hesitate. I was whimpering while
feeling the rat gnawing through the jacket and now reaching the fabric of my
shirt. Next would be my bare skin.

"Thomas De Quincey, I presume?" Henrik
Fenger said.

Peter growled and walked closer. "Who the
hell are you? Who told you where to find me?"

"Anna," Henrik Fenger said. "You
probably know her as Bill Durgin. I killed her a couple of hours ago. You told
her to bring you her contribution, remember? She told me all about it before I
slit her throat with her own scalpel. You were stupid enough to give her this
address where she was supposed to bring the body of her son. Quite the wacko,
huh? Trying to keep her dead son alive by putting in new organs? What a
lunatic."

Henrik Fenger had developed a tic in his left
eye and was constantly blinking now. I could feel the rat's teeth on the other
side of the fabric.

"I don't know what you're talking about.
We're kind of in the middle of something here," Peter said. He had
clenched his fist and was waiting for the right moment to attack Henrik Fenger.
Henrik saw it too, but he didn't seem the least bit scared. More like he was
really angry.

"She was a loose end anyway, Thomas,"
Henrik said. "It was too easy to figure out where she was. She wrote, or
rather Billy wrote that she was watching her next victim eating soft tofu soup.
Well anyone travelling in hotels in Denmark knows there is only one hotel that
serves only vegan, organic food and that's Skal's Hotel in Vensyssel. See the
thing is, everybody knows it, but it's the only hotel in Vendsyssel and there
isn't a restaurant anywhere near, so you're kind of stuck with their annoying
food, aren't you? So I figured that no man, and we knew all of her victims were
travelling men, didn't we? Well cheating travelling men, that is. So, I figured
that no man would want to eat tofu soup unless he was forced to, if you know
what I mean."

"I really don't care," Peter said. He
lifted his clenched fist and stormed against Henrik. He punched him and cracked
his lip, but to my surprise Henrik didn't even move. Blood was running down his
chin and he still didn't even stop smiling.

"Is that it, Thomas? Is that all you've
got? ‘Cause I've gotta say, it wasn't much of a punch." Henrik lifted his
clenched fist and slammed it into Peter's face. The blow forced him to stumble
backwards. I gasped while watching Peter's eyes roll back in his head. His nose
bled heavily. He landed on the floor and his head was still spinning when he
sat up.

"Now try again, Thomas 'cause I really was
looking forward to a proper fight. After all, you were the guy who gave Anna
the idea that she should take my kidney, now weren't you? You are the guy I
have been searching for. The mastermind, or should I say kingpin? Maybe you
just need a little more motivation. Maybe if I told you I killed Karl Persson
as well. And … uh … Michael Cogliantry and Alex Andreyer. Everyone in that
pathetic little chat room of yours. I pretended to be Karl and then set up a
meeting with each and every one of them. Told them we should go on a killing
spree together. Guess it wasn't a complete lie, huh?" Henrik laughed.

Peter finally managed to get to his feet, then
stormed towards Henrik, slamming his fist into his face, causing Henrik to fall
backwards. Then Peter was all over him. I tried to move in my straitjacket and
suddenly realized that the rat had bitten its way through what was holding my
arms. Suddenly my arms were loosened and I was able to move them. My right hand
was soon freed and I managed to hit the bucket onto the ground. I screamed as I
saw the rat. It was still gnawing on my clothes, but as soon as it realized the
bucket was gone, it shrieked and jumped for the ground. I twisted my body back
and forth and soon, my other hand was free as well, and I was able to squirm
out of the jacket. Panting, I put my feet on the ground and watched as the two
men fought each other, panting, throwing punches, yelling and groaning.

I looked around me to see if I could spot a
second exit and found a small door in the other end of the room, behind a part
of Peter's macabre exhibition. I opened it and snuck through. I ran down the
stairs, stormed into Julie's room, and found her on the bed. She had been
crying. In her hand she was holding my cellphone that Peter had taken from me
and left in the kitchen when he dragged me upstairs.

"I called the police," she said.
"They should be here any minute."