The Devil's Dream: Waking Up (14 page)

Blood fell from some endless waterfall in Manning's knee. It had burst out at first, like a pressurized tube exploding, and coated Jake's own pants as it did. Now it flowed down Manning's leg in long rivers, over his foot and pooling on the hardwood floor, creating tiny ponds in between his toes.

Manning shook his head violently, Jake unsure whether it was at his question or at the pain.

He put the barrel of the gun to Manning's knee again, the same one.

"Tell me where he's at." He didn't press down on the wound, but he didn't have to, as Manning's vocal chords renewed their hatred. He looked Jake in the eyes and Jake saw only insanity. Anger that knew no bounds, that would envelop all of Jake if it could, that would take his very soul if it could somehow exit Manning.

The blood from Manning's knee reached Jake's shoe, touching the bottom of the sole.

"Where is Joseph Welch?" Jake asked.

It wasn't a scream that came next, but a muffled 'fuck-you', that Jake could still make out. Manning went quiet finally, staring at Jake, trying to defy the pain, to defy the piece of metal lodged into his body.

He couldn't stop now; Jake knew that. He couldn't put a bullet into this person and not get what he came here for. That would be like showing up to a buffet and having a single plate of salad. Pointless, this whole thing having made not a bit of difference. No, Manning had to talk, and Jake had to make him. Everything from here on out relied on what this man said tonight; Jake's life was over, completely. He knew that, standing over the man and pressing a gun into a hole on the man’s body. He wasn't walking out of here a free man, so what the fuck did it matter what happened next? He already made his choice, just as Manning had made his.

"Last chance," he said, but the person on the other side of the gun only looked at him, sweat covering his face and his eyes filled with red veins.

Jake turned his wrist slightly and pulled the trigger again.

Manning's right knee exploded.

* * *

"
C
ome to Manning’s house
, now," Jake said into the phone.

"What?" Art asked.

"Just get over here."

Jake hung up.

* * *

"
W
hat in the
fuck did you do?" Art asked, his arms at his sides, his hands feeling like blocks of ice. Had all the blood in his extremities retreated back to his core? Was that why his toes were cold too, and did it all stem from what he saw in this room? The two cops from the car outside waited downstairs. Jake and he stood in Manning's bedroom; Manning sat in the chair, his face as pale as a corpse. Sweat dripped drown his fat chin, soaking into the white shirt he had slept in.

Blood was everywhere. Everywhere. Both of the man's kneecaps were wrapped tight in sheets, but Art didn't know if that would matter in a few more minutes. Manning didn't look like he had a lot of time left to live. The carpet had soaked up as much of the blood as it could from the wounds above it, but now the blood was beginning to pool beneath Manning. Art could see the mark across Manning’s face where Jake had ripped the tape off it, although he still had a sock in his mouth.

"I found out what they're up to," Jake said. He stared at Manning. His own hands were covered in blood, probably from tying the soaked sheets to Manning's knees.

"You broke in here and might have killed him, Jake. He's dying right now. Bleeding to death in front of both of us."

Jake didn't look away from the chair. "Brand's getting his bodies through human trafficking. Sex slaves; he's buying them up. They turned Welch into one, implanted a device into his skin that has both GPS and sound recording capabilities. You can hear him right now if you want."

"I need you to listen to me, Jake. There's no way to cover this up. There's no way to hide this."

"That's fine," Jake said. "Are you listening to me? We've got Brand. Their plan was to wait for Brand to pick up his next shipment and then follow him. That's what you've got to do now. Wait a few more days and then follow him to wherever he takes Welch."

"Jesus Christ," Art said. He pulled his phone from his pocket and hit a quick dial button. "We need an ambulance to 352 Harper Road. Multiple gunshot wounds, major loss of blood." He listened for a few more seconds and then hung up the phone. "Jake, I don't know how to hide this. I don't know how to make this look like anything but what it is. This is what..." But he didn't finish the sentence, because it was too hard of a thing to say. It was hard enough to look at the mess before him, but to call it what it was, to name it as something Brand would have done, aloud—that was too much.

"It was necessary," Jake said.

Art looked at Manning, sitting in the chair, still strapped down, not saying a word and not moving. His eyes hadn't even glanced up when Art entered the room. He just sat and stared into space, his face looking like wax.

"I'm gonna need you to put your hands behind your back, Jake. I've got to cuff you."

Jake did as asked.

M
atthew looked
at the scalpel in his hand.

"There ain't nothin' ya can do," Sheeb said, standing to his right.

Just let me come out for a few minutes, Matthew. Just a few minutes and then I'll go back inside and you can run the show. Just a few minutes inside this place is all I need,
Morgant said from inside him.

You're hearing all this, right? You have three people talking to you and yet you're all alone,
Rally said.

The scalpel felt cold in his hand. The lighthouse had no central heat and the air from outside filtered down from the top, cooling everything. Matthew had brought in some heaters over the past few years to keep Jeffrey from freezing to death in the winters, but he kept them off during the summer nights.

How many people had he used this scalpel on? How many people had it touched? A lot. More and more with each new group of people he hung above him.

The voices were reaching a crescendo, all of them talking at once, all of them with a different agenda, and all of them demanding something of him.

"I needa talk to him," Sheeb kept saying. Over and over, like a mantra. Morgant had started speaking a few hours ago, although it wasn't really speaking, what he did. It was more of that primal urge, that need to get out and to find something to fornicate with. And it wasn't
just
Morgant either. The drive seemed to come from Matthew himself, welling up inside him and pushing him to do the things Morgant wanted. The cogs in his head were slipping, not rotating together as they should, creating a caucus of voices where Matthew could barely discern one voice from the other.

You could take it across your throat,
Rally said.
It would be quick and not too painful. All of the voices would end and you could rest, Matthew.

That wasn't why he held the scalpel. Not completely. Taking it across his throat wasn't an option. He wasn't bowing out like that. He needed ten bodies, that’s all. One more shipment and everything he had built, had worked for, would come to fruition. Dragging a knife across his throat now would be like parking his car with the finish line twenty feet in front of him. But he did need to use the scalpel. And he did need to use it on himself. The pain would allow him to focus on something other than the voices, something other than the maddening cacophony of nonsense they threw at him. If he cut, just a little bit, then maybe all of this noise would disappear, maybe his mind could be at peace for just a moment.

Is it peace you want, Matthew?
Rally asked.

He didn't want to answer her, didn't want to entertain her thoughts—because they called to him, like songs from the Sirens, making him want to listen, to hear her, but he knew only disaster waited in her words.

Not disaster. Freedom,
she said.
You can let all of this go. You can walk away; you can leave the rapist and the old woman. You can leave it all, everything you've done, everything that's been done to you.

No. He couldn't. He couldn't turn away from this, couldn't put this load down, couldn't let them win. The scalpel, that would shut her up. That would shut them all up.

"It ain't gone work. Go ahead and try; you just gone end up with some new scars," Sheeb said.

If he turned around he would see her standing behind him, her hair wild and those cloudy eyes staring right at him, seeing everything and nothing at the same time.

He didn't want to turn around. He didn't want to hear her anymore. He didn't want to hear any of them anymore, save for Rally, but even she was saying things that he just couldn't do.

Matthew wrapped his hand around the scalpel and turned the business end to his left arm. He poked it against his skin, pushing harder and harder until the blade entered and blood spit onto his arm.

Silence from behind him. Silence inside him. Silence. He closed his eyes and thought about the pain, the pinpoint on his arm that the blade had made. No one spoke to him and even his erection had died down.

"Don't you do it again," the old woman said, her voice a whisper now, sounding like she might be speaking through a pillow. She was disappearing.

Matthew drug the scalpel across his arm, taking the metal through his skin, causing blood to leak down both sides, but keeping the voices at bay. Whatever it took. He had to do whatever it took to make sure that this kept going, that
he
could keep going. He reached the top of his forearm and pulled the blade out, then went back to the start, and began afresh.

* * *

H
enry watched
Matthew Brand cut into his own flesh. From his high vantage point, Henry saw it all. The man dragged a scalpel across his arm, blood spilling, splattering on the floor.

Henry watched, but what he saw didn't fully click in his brain. His own mind was fairly well occupied; Henry hadn't known pain like this existed. He hadn't thought pain like this lived anywhere, not in this world, not in this universe. His lungs felt like someone shoved a water hose down his throat and turned it on, filling the tiny air-sacs with water, making it impossible to get his fill of oxygen. He found himself, almost without any self-direction, trying to stand up, forcing his knees to straighten and his diaphragm to surge upward, to seek the air that wasn't being allowed inside him. The strain on his feet, the pain that erupted every time he put pressure on the nail, felt like flames igniting across his entire lower body. His feet looked infected and the burn never fully ceased, even when he just rested on the cross.

Henry knew he would die like this, in this tower of hell, with only the man sacrificing his own flesh to keep him company.

Something was happening to Brand, and growing worse with each day. At first Henry had thought Brand was talking to him when he spoke, but realized pretty quickly all of his conversations were with someone else. A lot of it had to do with a woman named Sheeb, while other talks were with someone called Rally. There was also someone else, Henry felt certain, inside Brand. Whoever originally owned Brand's body, that person had climbed the lighthouse like some kind of animal. That person raped those women and then left them lying on the floor while he sat down to masturbate in his own blood. That person, somehow, was different than the one Henry watched now. That other person might have been worse than Brand, if such a thing were possible. Brand at least reasoned, not for Henry or any of the other victims he had here, but still, his own type of reasoning. The other one, the one that took over for brief periods of time, possessed no reason. That other person had not looked on Henry yet, but when he did, things would end quickly for Henry.

And why wouldn’t he want that? Hanging in the air, barely able to get enough breath to keep him conscious for the next five minutes, why didn't he scream out the next time the other returned. Scream out, curse, do whatever it took to get the man's attention. Get him to lower this cross to the ground and let him have his way with Henry, before killing him. Just end it.

He lifted upwards, trying to capture a large breath of air, trying to find a breath big enough to fill his collapsing lungs. His legs screamed out in resistance, the pain rushing up to his groin, but Henry kept going, pushing through it for that elusive air he needed so bad. He found it, briefly, and fell back down to his usual place.

Henry didn't call on the other because someone might show up to save him. Because maybe Art Brayden would find this place and they would lower him down and he could go back to California, go back to his brother, go back to his mother. If he called on the other, then none of that could happen. He knew they probably wouldn't find him before his lungs quit delivering air to his blood cells, but it was possible. If the other got a hold of him, the possibility ended.

He stared down at Brand below him. An entire tree of bodies stood next to Henry and towered over Brand, yet all the man looked at was his own arm, where he now carved a third line, carved a third incision into himself.

"You can let me go!" Henry shouted, not knowing the words were coming, not knowing he was even considering them.

Brand turned, the scalpel still in his arm and his hand holding onto its base. He looked up at Henry, his face surprised, like he had completely forgotten someone hung from a cross above him.

"I won't tell anyone," Henry said, his voice weak and resembling more a small child's than a man's.

Brand pulled the scalpel from his arm, a fresh drip of blood starting as he did, and walked over to the wall. He began turning the lever connected to Henry's home. Henry watched as his cross lowered, slowly, inch by inch, moving down to the floor. Brand stopped turning when the cross was about six inches from touching the ground and walked over to Henry. This was a different man than the one Henry had ridden here with. This man was dying, as surely as Henry. The skin on his face looked nearly gray, not the rich black it had been. Red veins stood out across the whites of his eyes, and the rest of his body looked like it might be on the verge of breaking down. His shoulders sagged, and he was beginning to limp, something Henry hadn't noticed from his point of view above. The man was cracking, his whole body failing, and now he stood just a few feet from Henry.

"You won't tell anyone where I'm at?" Brand asked. He held the scalpel in his right hand, blood dripping down his left arm, falling from his fingertips to the floor below.

Henry shook his head, tears coming to his eyes as he realized how stupid he sounded. How fucking childish and stupid. Like he was just going to walk out of here, Brand not caring at all. Brand believing that Henry wouldn't go to the police, wouldn't tell a soul, but would just head back to his apartment in California and let everything in here go on as it was now. And still, he said, "I won't."

Brand bent down, gingerly, like it hurt him to move too fast, and looked at the wounds on Henry's feet. "I didn't put any salve on this when I nailed you down. You've got a pretty nasty infection." He stood back up. "Do you know how long it takes to kill someone by crucifixion?"

Henry shook his head.

"Five to seven days. You're on day three. You've got at least two more of this, and that infection isn't going to stop growing. By the end I imagine your entire lower body, from your groin to your toenails, will be alight with bacteria, all of it trying to eat you up from the inside. Your lungs will start caving in, not this pain you're feeling now—but actually collapsing."

A tear fell from the corner of Henry's eye, breaking free and flowing down his cheek. "You don't have to do this to me. You don't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry we played on your son's death. I'm sorry for everything I did. I just want to go home. I just want to live. I just want to see my mom." The words tumbled from his mouth like rocks from a gravel truck, spilling messily everywhere.

Henry saw the man's jaw flex, his teeth grinding down on each other. "What was my son's name?" Brand asked. "If you can tell me his name, I'll let you go. I'll give you some pills to help fix up that infection and I'll send you on your way right now. You just have to tell me my son's name."

His name. His son's name. Had hope actually resided inside Henry? Had he actually thought anything he said might work, might convince this man to let him go? He must have, because if not, his heart wouldn't have sunk so far and so fast. Sunk like a forty thousand pound anchor was attached to it and someone just dropped the whole thing above the Mariana Trench. Now it fell, sinking to the bottom, the pressure from the surrounding water growing with each passing second, about to obliterate his heart completely. He didn't know Brand's son's name. They hadn't discussed it and Henry hadn't cared. He had cared to learn about Victor Trust, to learn everything he could about that person in the short time he had. Brand's life? What Brand had done? That didn't matter because Victor wasn't supposed to know anything about the man. He wasn't supposed to know anything besides the basics, besides Brand being a known criminal.

Henry didn't know his son's name, and with that realization came more tears, welling and falling one after another.

"No. You don't know it. You don't know anything about him, so how can you be sorry that you tried to replace him?" Brand bent over again, placing his left hand on his knee and looking at the hole in Henry again. "His name was Hilman." Brand launched the blade into Henry's foot, pushing deep enough to touch bone.