Twisted Evil
For the ones who still believe
There’s more than this.
© Wendy Lorraine Maddocks 2003
Twisted Evil
Copyright Wendy Maddocks 2003
Smashwords Edition
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Part One:
Blood And Guns
ONE
Robyn let out a mouse-like squeal as she flew into the concrete wall and grinned in sick pleasure. She pushed herself off the wall and crashed down to the wooden floor with a sharp scream. Her long red hair was tied in a loose knot between her shoulder blades and was streaked with dried blood from wounds inflicted days before. She had a long, wide bruise along the length of her cheekbone, but it didn’t seem to bother her. the dark-haired man straddled her and violently backhanded her across the face, the sharp edge of his golden signet ring creating an inch-long cut at the corner of her mouth. She giggled. “I love it when you do that.”
“I know you do, baby. That’s why I do it.”
Robyn tensed her muscles, threw him off of her and climbed on him. Putting her face close to his, she ran her fingers over the curves of his face, drawing blood from the side of his nose with one razor-sharp fingernail. “Do you love it when I do it?” She ran her finger over the cut, collecting most of the blood, and licked it off. “Mmm.”
“Absolutely.” He smiled and clasped his hands behind his head. “You’re the only one can make me scream.”
Robyn sat up and rested her hands on his chest. “Mm. I like the screaming.”
The dark-haired man – his name was Mika – lifted her off him, as if she weighed no more than a feather, and sprang to his feet. He wiped the rest of the fresh blood from his face and sucked it from his hand. Robyn was more than happy to let the thin trickle of blood make its tracks down her neck, enjoying the sensation. Mika opened his eyes wider and watched with growing interest as the red liquid dripped down her skin. It was so red. And her skin was so pale. Even now, it was just an enchanting contrast.
Robyn took the elastic band from her hair, snapped it around her wrist and brushed frantically at her flame coloured locks. It was amazing how shiny that hair could become within a few minutes, and how the bloodstains seemed to mostly flake out. She reached up and ran a hand through Mika’s brown hair – a rare show of friendly affection. “What’s wrong Mika?”
“Nothing. I’m just looking.” He caught a handful of hair at the side of her head and moved it away. Mika nuzzled his face in her neck. “Listening. I can hear it in you, you know. Rushing around you.”
“Can I go play with my toy?” Robyn whined in a tinny voice.
“Now?”
“Can I? It’s been a whole day,” she reasoned. The tangy smell of blood was too much and her tongue flicked out at the corner of her mouth. The taste of her own blood disgusted her, but she couldn’t let anyone see her looking battered and injured. She followed Mika up a flight of stairs to the attic and banged the door open. He left her to play but left the door open.
“Hello, puppy.” Robyn produced a key from the pocket of her long, full dress and unlocked the chains of the young man she kept in the room. His name was Leo Kent. The cuffs were taken off his wrists and he dropped to the floor. “Wanna play with me, Leo?”
A tiny moan escaped from his lips as his head bounced off the floor. Leo had had his shirt torn off a long while before and deep claw marks ran the length of his torso. The wounds were congealed at the edges and had scabbed over in places. The dusty wooden floor beneath his body was spotted with brown, but no more liquid ran from his re-opened injuries. His face looked hollow and bruised, and tears had begun to appear in his paper-thin skin. Leo was a young man – in his mid-20s – but now looked aged beyond his years. His blue eyes were glazed over and semi-focused on something in the middle distance.
Robyn let out a deep, throaty growl when he didn’t move and placed one hand on his cold chest, which she used to drive him back and pin him against a wall. Leo’s head lolled to one side. The woman bent down until she could look into his eyes and slapped him hard. When again there was no response, she let him crumple to the floor and straddled him. Her sharp fingernails dug into the soft flesh behind his shoulders as she shook him until his head struck the floor. “Why won’t you scream for me? I thought you loved me.” That much, at least, was true – Leo had once been infatuated with Robyn’s fleeting spirit. “You used to love me, you’d do anything for me. Give me anything I wanted – jewellery, clothes. Except what I really wanted. Then, you saw me for what I truly am… and, boy, did you scream. So loud and so long. Such a sweet sound.” She giggled manically for a few seconds. Frustrated by his pronounced lack of activity, she fastened one hand around his neck and carried him through to the study, where Mika was playing Solitaire on his computer.
“Sodding game!” he grumbled as he ran out of cards and had to start over.
Sulkily, she tossed Leo’s limp form into an empty swivel chair at the other end of the computer desk. The chair creaked under the sudden weight, but Mika didn’t take his eyes away from the screen, always clicking on the mouse. “The puppy doesn’t want to play,” she complained.
“That’s ‘cos he’s dead, love,” he explained.
“Dead. But, I wanted to play with it.” She twisted a lank lock of hair between he fingers. “He’s been my favourite all week.”
“They always die, baby.” He grinned as Robyn bit into his neck and slid one delicate hand in his t-shirt. “Never stopped us though.” Angry at the computer for ruining his game, and desperately wanting to please his girl, he stretched out one arm and swiped his entire computer onto the floor, where it instantly burst into flames.
“Oooh,” she cooed. “Fire… pretty.”
“Does that make my little bird happy?”
Robyn sank to the floor, giggling insanely, raised her hands above her head and hitched the skirt of her dress up to the top of her thigh. “What do you think? Now, come and get your reward.”
Mika planted tiny kisses right up her leg, and pulled her to her feet by her crossed hands. “Not here in the fire. Wouldn’t want Leo to get jealous now, would we?” He reached over the flame, grabbed the dead mans wrist and pulled him into the fire. “Let’s watch him burn.”
They watched for a few minutes, then Robyn turned to him and put her arms around his neck. “Mika. I’m hungry,” she whined. “Can we go eat now?”
“Tomorrow.”
“But I’m hungry now,” she moaned. Robyn had never been known for having a long fuse, and had the same fiery temper as typically befitted a redhead.
Mika hated to see her sad, and would do anything to satisfy her every desire. He did anything to make her happy, deriving almost as much pleasure at watching Robyn enjoy herself as he did for himself. Unease swept over him as the fire crept ever closer and he dragged the woman into the dark bedroom – he would put the fire out in a minute or two. Robyn, having a short attention span, seemed to have forgotten all about the blaze. Mika’s keen sense of smell picked up the acrid scent of sizzling flesh and he realised that he was also hungry. “Tonight, we shall feed. And we’ll find you something new to play with.”
“I’ll go and make myself pretty. Can we go to that French place in the city? They always have the best quality.”
“We can go where-ever you want, baby.”
An hour later, mere moments before sunset, Robyn flounced down the stairs dressed in a short, leather skirt and thin, lace-trimmed top. “Do you like?”
Mika looked up at her from his position on the floor, and grinned, showing perfect white teeth. “You look good enough to eat.” His own classic outfit of black jeans and a white t-shirt was enough to blend the couple in as any other two youngsters who were out for a night together.
Mika called a taxi and ordered the driver to take them where-ever the lady wanted him to. The minicab pulled up at the end of the street and they got out. Mika leaned in the drivers’ window and reached into his pocket as if searching for the correct change. “How much is that?”
The driver glanced down at the meter. “That’s a tenner, mate. Plus tip.”
Faster than lightning, he whipped his hand out of his pocket, gripped the back of the man’s neck and bashed his face into the steering wheel. “How much is that?” he repeated.
“N-n-nothing, mate. It’s on the house.” He revved the engine and the car sped down the road.
“Oh, you bad boy, Mika,” Robyn purred, slipping one arm through his. “I’m gonna have to punish you when we get home. It was my turn.”
Mika smirked, knowing full well that she would be completely satisfied, her every twisted fantasy fulfilled, before they even thought about heading home. They sat down at an outside table and pushed the menus to one side.
“Would you like anything to drink while you decide?” asked a waitress.
Robyn raised an eyebrow and licked her lips in barely concealed anticipation of the coming meal. Mika put his hand on hers and smiled at her to calm her down. “We’ll have two glasses of champagne, please.” As the waitress jotted this down, Robyn opened her menu out in front of her. After a minute or two, Mika spoke again. “Seen anything you like?”
“Uh-huh.” She pointed to a slim, blonde woman who was eating an unidentified dish. “That looks good. Juicy.” Robyn got that far away look in her eyes again and started to hum a made-up tune to the stars. “She’s important. To the plan.” She turned back to him, a glimmer in her eyes. “I want her. Let’s take her now.”
“No, love. It’s too risky. There are people around here who know what we are. That’s why we have to lay low – operate undercover. Try to act like everyone else… until the very end. Or, at least until we’re out of sight,” he said, gently. There was logic to that. If they revealed their true natures in public…
So they ordered a small meal each, and kept sight of the girl until she disappeared around the corner with her boyfriend.
After a few minutes of tracking them by the scent the couple left behind, Mika realised that they were headed out to a nightclub in another part of the city. That wasn’t ideal but, with a little help from Robyn, he could work with it. Knowing exactly what to do, Robyn darted off down a dark, side alley whilst Mika kept following them at a safe distance. Robyn and Mika had done this several times whilst tracking people and Mika thrived on thrill of the chase. He knew he had to stay well out of sight until Robyn called out to him – and with her speed, it wouldn’t be long. She worked fast.
Mika flattened himself against the shadow of a wall as the couple stopped to make out in the middle of the street. Metal garbage cans rattled around a corner and the young man went to see what had caused the noise. Mika watched as the blonde girl stood in the middle of the road, tapping her foot impatiently while she waited. It was so tempting to go up to her right now, but Robyn had told him that she was important to some plan or other. Robyn was usually right about these things, and Mika had learnt that it was never a wise move to go against her. When the man didn’t come back after five minutes, the girl went after him; Mika followed her. Robyn was perched on top of one of the bins with the boy kissing her, one hand firmly planted on her cold stomach beneath her top.
“Hey, Ricky. Did you forget about me?” asked the young woman. “I’ve been waiting for, like, ever.”
“Oh, shit,” he said as his girlfriend caught him with the redhead. “You better get out of here before things get ugly.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She slid off the lid and draped one arm over his chest. “I wanna watch.”
“What the hell d’you think you’re doing with that slut?”
“I’m serious. Get out of here.” Robyn made no attempt to move and stroked his chest with her fingers. “Carly, I can explain everything.”
“Go on then. Explain why you’ve got your tongue stuck halfway down that slag’s throat.”
Mika stepped out of the shadows, a frown creasing his pale face. “What are you seeing about my girl?”
“You might wanna stay out of this, mate,” Ricky told him. “Could get dangerous.”
“And you might wanna get the hell away from her,” Mika bargained. “Or I could get dangerous.”
Robyn stared at him and nibbled Ricky’s ear. “Look at them, Ricky.” She wasn’t talking to Ricky, though she used his name. “So jealous and possessive. It’s all part of the plan.”
Carly looked between the three of them, equally disgusted by them all. “Ricky, she’s a whore. She could’ve been anywhere – and you’re swapping spit with her.”
“Okay, I’ve had enough with this bitching.” Mika whirled around on his heel and punched Carly in the side of her face. She fell to the floor, unconscious. “Never gets old.”
“You hit my girlfriend!” Ricky wasn’t as bothered about it as he made out, circling one arm around Robyn’s tiny waist. “That’s unforgivable.” He clapped one hand over hers and kissed it. “I told you this would get ugly.”
“Mmm,” she murmured. “I love it.”
“I know you do, baby.” Mika sniffed the air hungrily as blood started to trickle from a small cut on Carly’s cheekbone where he had struck her. “So do I.”
“Smell that?” whispered Robyn, seductively. “It’s life… power.” Her eyes fixed on the blood, as did Mika’s, almost entranced by it.
“It’s blood!” Ricky spat. “You made my girlfriend bleed.”
Mika bent down to the unconscious woman and licked the blood from her cheek. “I’ve been wanting to do that all night.”
“Mika. Save me some,” whined Robyn. It was so tempting…
“You’re a freak.” Ricky turned to her and threw his arm off his chest. “Get away from me.”
“I thought you really liked me.” Robyn stroked his neck with her fingers, able to feel the oxidised blood pulsing through him. His skin was so delicate, practically unblemished, and practically begging to be torn. “We just want a taste. It will be quick, I promise.”
Ricky gasped as she stepped closer, and slapped her as hard as he could. He had always been taught never to hit girls, but this chick was crazy. As his hand hit her face with a resounding slap, she didn’t turn her head away and barely even flinched. Instead, she just laughed. “So young, so weak.” She grabbed one of his arms and twisted it up behind his back. He struggled to free himself from her grip but Robyn held firm, seemingly with no effort at all. In a fit of temper, Robyn head-butted him and pushed him across to Mika, who instantly folded him into an identical grip and sniffed his neck.
“Right, I’m reporting you two to the police.”
“I don’t think so.” Mika reached into his pocket, retrieved the mobile phone and tossed it to Robyn who snatched it out of the air and crushed it underfoot. He threw Ricky to the ground and he rolled to a stop next to his girlfriend’s side. “Now, I’ll show you how to treat my baby properly.” In a flash he was at her side and had swung by one arm so she was flying through the air. She crash landed on the hood of a parked car, and her head went through the front window. Robyn broke into a smile and flipped back onto her feet. She stretched one hand behind her head, and brought it back into view covered in blood. Staring at it, the redhead giggled; Mika licked his lips and instantly found himself pinned to a large metal wheelie bin. Their combined strength made dents in the top and the reinforced edge crumpled like paper in his hands. Mika lifted her bloodied hands and sucked the cherry-coloured liquid from her knuckles.
“I’m hungry now, Mika. Let’s eat.”
Mika could sense Carly coming round, and could see Ricky watching them in horror. Grinning at his terror, Mika let him watch as he licked her hand clean. “Food,” he growled. “Now, which one first?”
“Not her. She knows about the plan. We need her alive.”
Seeing the pleasure the other couple took in hurting each other, Ricky scrambled to his feet and made a dash for the main street. If they could do that to each other, what might they do to him? Mika appeared in front of him, and Ricky skidded to a halt. With him in front, and Robyn right behind him, there was no way out. “What do you want?”
“I smell fear. It makes my nose tickle, Mika.” Robyn dragged the young man into the shadows where she grabbed him in a stronghold. Mika followed.
“What’s the plan then?” Mika demanded.
“I don’t know. She’ll tell us though,” Robyn said. “Stop squirming.” She got bored of him and sank two sharp, pointed fangs into his throat. He was on drugs; something had infected his bloodstream and he tasted… wrong. Robyn resisted the urge to pull away from the contaminated life-force – if she wasn’t so hungry, Robyn would have thrown him away as being sub-standard, but not having fed properly for more than a week, she couldn’t leave the bitter-sweet liquid. After a moment or two, her hungry partner joined her, hating the sour taste of the drugged blood but finding it impossible to withdraw. When they were finished, Mika wiped the warm, sticky substance from his mouth with his arm and let the man’s corpse fall to the ground, out of the shadows. “I thought he was going to be your new toy.”
“I got hungry,” Robyn shrugged.
Carly screamed as she knelt down by the body, tears already falling from her eyes. “Ricky! What have you done to him? You’ve killed him!”
“That was the idea,” said Mika, formulating a plan with Robyn.
Carly stroked Ricky’s head gently – a pointless act in itself, but she thought he might still be able to feel it. She stared up at the couple through eyes blurred with tears, and screamed.
The graveyard shift.
When all the nutters come out to play.
Good job it wasn’t a full moon.
One lone security guard in a huge, partially abandoned warehouse…
God, that sounded like the beginning to some cheesy horror flick. They all started like that – some white bloke on his own, easy prey. Actually, David Lander wasn’t on his own. Physically he was, there was no-one else in the building, but most of the ground floor corridors were monitored by 24 hours surveillance cameras. No-one got in or out without it being picked up by the cameras, and there was usually another guard in a little hut to work the barrier in the car park. He often wondered why the company didn’t employ more security staff, but the cameras picked up most of the slack. Just to make extra sure that the cameras hadn’t missed anything, David did a quick patrol of the halls every half hour. After these half hourly sweeps, he usually settled down at his desk to read his sci-fi novel, or to watch one of the old black and white movies on his portable TV. Tonight, however he was engrossed in his game of Tetris on his Gameboy, which he was playing with the sound turned up as high as it would go to keep himself awake.. He usually plied himself with hot coffee to do that, but he hadn’t got the correct change for the machine. “Stupid thing! Let me a get a high score or I’ll put you in the crusher.”
“First sign of insanity that, Dave.” He had been concentrating so hard on his game that he’d not even noticed the tall, lean shadow pass before him. “Talking to yourself.”
“Oh… uh… uh, hi Mr Jordan-Smyth.” David turned the console off and put it on the shelf next to his empty pizza box. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Evidently.” Mr Jordan-Smyth reached a long arm over the desk and felt for the big, brown signing in book. He caught sight of the discarded Pizza Express box and open cola can. “Tut tut. Not sup-“
“I know I’m not supposed to eat on duty but I missed dinner and I was absolutely starving. You won’t report me will you?” He couldn’t afford to lose his job or to take a pay cut.
“Course I won’t. Don’t suppose there’s anything left, is there? So did I.”
“’Fraid not. It was only a small one.” He looked down to make sure the assistant manager was writing on the correct page. “I think they’ve got chips and sausages cooking in the cafeteria, though.”
“Have you tasted some of the crap they serve up there? I’d rather starve to death.” He started to sign his name in the book, desperately trying to hide the gun he carried for protection. Gareth Jordan-Smyth wasn’t proud of having to fetch a gun to work every morning, and he blamed this necessity on the violence of the nation. It didn’t make him feel any better to know that it only held one bullet at the moment – it would still be one more notch on the gun crime tally; one more life lost. But, he couldn’t risk going to work without some kind of protection. Not now he worked here… “Bet the kids are missing you.”
“Yeah. It’s my last night though, so I should see more of ‘em soon.” Working two jobs every day meant that he didn’t get to see his family as much as he’d like. With a wife and two kids to support, he’d had to take on a daytime job to boost his income, but this meant he never got to read his children bedtime stories, or do the school run. But, David was moving back to evenings next week which meant he would be home by midnight – too late to get them to bed, but early enough to take them to school. “I’m supposed to be meeting a new security guard in the morning.”
Gareth took the electronic swipe card that was held out to him and wiped the dust from the black magnetic strip. Before David could buzz him through into the maze of corridors, he had to check that he had signed in correctly. With the sensitive information contained within these walls, it could never be allowed to let someone through without the proper checks. Gareth was headed to the Crash Room where he would have to pass many other identification tests before he could gain entry. Everything in this building was guarded tightly and impassably. The Crash Room was home to information that almost no-one got to see. Only three people had authorised access to that room and the information.
David would never work again if he let someone through without ID. No-one could ever know what was in that room.
He was about to pick up his Gameboy again and restart his game when he saw a second shadow pass before him. A long, black coat was all he saw at first, before the stranger took off the baseball cap that was hiding his face. “Shit, you scared me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.” He split his face in a wide grin which showed a mouth of slightly tobacco-stained teeth, and two spaces where teeth had been punched out in a fight. He had a large scar around his eye, and a face framed by very closely shaved black hair. “I’m Johnny Cox. Your new recruit.”
David raised his eyebrows in surprise – he hadn’t expected to meet him until the morning. “Sign in and come round the desk.” While Johnny was filling the book in, David quietly reached behind him and locked the door to the office. He put the keys back in his pocket, trying not to let them rattle too much, and leant back in his chair. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the rookie guard but… actually, it was that he didn’t trust him. But, David didn’t want to take any chances until he had been here a while and knew the rules. Johnny hopped over the desk and sat down in one of the chairs. Maybe he was just really keen to get on the job, but David found his energy slightly unsettling. He didn’t trust this guy. “Ever heard of the Crash Room?”
“Nope!”
“Keep it that way.” David balled up his fists and rubbed his eyes with them. “They keep loads of top secret info in that place. People are always trying to get in there but under no circumstances must you let them know what’s in there. That’s why we’re always carrying.”
“Guns.” He liked guns; guns gave him power; power gave him respect.
“Two handguns.” David slapped his belt where he kept his pistols holstered. “One on either side for quick draw. Always fully loaded. Four live, two blanks in each.”
“Four and two, got it. Anything else.?”
“If you see anyone that looks even a little bit suspicious, don’t hesitate to pull a gun.” That really only worked in theory, David had only used his gun twice, always preferring to give someone a good talking to rather than get involved in a shoot-out. “They’re there to be used.”
After explaining the rules of entry and how to keep an eye on all the cameras, David sent Johnny off to get his uniform from stock and did a final check of the corridors before he went home. It was nearly six in the morning and it would take him an hour or more to get home. More employees would start work soon and another security guard would show Johnny what to do. There was just something about that guy that David didn’t like. Johnny seemed a little too comfortable working with guns – trigger happy, some might say.
It hadn’t taken Carly long to realise that the murdering couple were taking her and her dead boyfriend to the docks. The smell of dead fish was raw and assaulted her nostrils. The fishermen were out on their boats trying to get their fish for the market and were sailing around, pulling up nets of trapped fish every so often. The fish had to be gutted when they were brought in, and Carly was glad she wouldn’t be around to witness that event.
“What should we do with the body?” asked Robyn, who was dragging it along behind her like a toy dog on a leash. “We can’t just leave it here.”
“You’re right,” agreed Mika. This kind of straight forward speech wasn’t exactly normal for Robyn; she was usually told what to do. “It’d be bad for us if it was found.”
“Strip it, weight it, dump it. No-one will ever know.” Robyn was bored of him now, and wanted to get rid of the body as soon as she could. It seemed much easier just to leave the body where it was but, come the morning, it would be found. They couldn’t risk that. Besides, Robyn was enjoying listening to Carly’s pathetic cries and pleas for release.
“Please,” the blonde woman sobbed. “You can do what you want to me but leave Ricky alone now.”
“He’s dead,” snarled Mika, annoyed by her pitiful moaning. Roughly, he grabbed her by the hair and tossed her to the ground by the side of a large trawler. “I don’t think he’ll feel anything.” To prove his point, he drove a booted foot into the stomach of the body that Robyn held out in front of her. “Got it?”
“Haven’t you people ever heard of rest in peace?”
“Oh, we’ve heard of it.” Mika strode over to her and kicked her hard in the stomach. The woman screamed in pain and Robyn giggled in child-like delight. “But, we prefer rest in pieces.” Mika took a silver penknife from his pocket, flicked it open, and proceeded to gouge chunks of flesh from the body and scattered them around the docks. Carly looked away until Robyn held her head still so she had no other choice but to look on. Hopefully, with so much of the flesh torn away from the body, no-one would notice the telltale signs of how Ricky had really been killed. Mika shoved a few large heavy stones under Ricky’s clothing and buttoned his shirt over them. Robyn got up and looked at Mika for permission to complete the disposal. She kissed the cold, clammy forehead as she gripped him by the shirt, and threw him into the sea, again, with almost no effort at all.
Robyn was stronger than most of her kind and used this advantage to it’s full potential. She jumped up and landed halfway up a ship’s walkway, where she sat down and innocently twirled her hair between her fingers. Watching Mika just standing and looking at the girl was fun. There wasn’t the blood and the crying that she loved so, but she knew that Carly was in just as much torment. Robyn could hear the young woman crying beneath her, but was distracted by the sound of Mika’s hand striking skin. She looked down and saw Carly clutching one hand to the side of her face. Carly shrunk back into the wooden board under the walkway as Mika advanced on her, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Ohhhhh!” Robyn moaned and put one hand up to cover her eyes. In her daze, she forgot where she was sitting, and fell to the ground on her back. She didn’t feel the impact or notice that she had fell. “Oh, it burns. It burns.”
Mika left his victim where she was now cowering in the corner and flashed over to her side. “What is it, love? What burns? Tell me, and I’ll kill it.”
“The light. It’s coming… and it burns us all to death.”
It was no use trying to get her to explain herself when she was like this. Mika looked up to the sky, which was just beginning to lighten at the promise of the dawn. “Okay, baby. Let’s get you home.” He swept her up in strong arms and glanced down at her limp form. He reached under the walkway and grabbed Carly by the shoulder, destroying her plan to do a runner when they had gone. “Don’t worry, blondie. I haven’t forgotten about you. You’re important.”
A few minutes later, Carly was locked in a room downstairs while Robyn rested in the bedroom. Robyn had changed into one of the long, black dresses she was more used to and was watching Mika pacing the room. He was impatient. “What’s wrong, Mika?” she drawled. “Have I done something?”
“No, my sweet. You haven’t done a thing.” Mika sat on the bed next to her and stroked her bare arms with his fingertips. “I just want to find out about this plan.”
“It will come. In time.” She looked up at him with a spark in her eyes. “Soon.”
“Let’s go torture it out of her then.”
“Wait. Just for a little while.” Not until she gave up hope – that wouldn’t be much fun. “Give and take.”
God, Mika hated it when she talked in riddles. But, he knew better than not to trust her, she always knew what she was doing even… if it didn’t seem like it. “Can you try to make even a little sense?” he growled, leaping off the bed and starting to pace the room again.
Robyn mewed like a cat and curled herself into the tightest ball possible. She didn’t like it when Mika was nasty to her.
“I’m sorry, baby. I know you can’t help it.” He felt Robyn coming up behind him and pulled her close, watching the skirt of her dress swishing through the air behind her. “We’ll dance under the stars again, my little bird.” Robyn laughed her infectious giggle as Mika lifted her off the ground and twirled her around the room. Mika would do anything to keep her happy. Robyn reached into his pocket and got his penknife. She opened it and hungrily smelt the fleshy residue along the blade. It was no longer fresh enough to hold her interest for long, and she let it drop to the floor as she headed to the door. Mika followed her downstairs and opened the door to the room at the back where Carly was chained up.
Robyn and Mika stood in front of her and looked on as she strained against her restraints and grimaced as the skin on her wrists became red raw. A fire burnt in a fireplace in the corner, which held only a few trinkets that Robyn had acquired and a baseball cap and shades that Mika owned. Mika took a key from the shelf and held it just out of her reach. “Looking for this?” It was the key to her chains.
“As it happens, yes.” Carly shifted her position and stretched out, even though she knew it was pointless.
“Uh uh uh.” Mika stepped back and closed his hand around the key. “Not yet.” Robyn took the key from him and dangled it right in front of her face. When Carly brought her arm up to make a grab for it, Robyn moved it back and snapped her teeth in her face. “We haven’t had our fun with you yet.”
“What are you gonna do to me? And why have you gotta keep me all chained up? I mean, I’m not exactly going anywhere, am I?”
Robyn walked up behind her and Carly turned her head to the side, so she didn’t have to meet her gaze. “Just a taste?” she purred to Mika. Robyn made a long cut across the top of her shoulder and licked off the blood that squeezed out. “Mmm. This one has power. Knowledge. I can taste it.”
Carly gritted her teeth against the sting of the cut, but involuntarily tensed her muscles against any more assault. Hot, salty tears lay, undried, on her cheeks, but she held her head up, defiantly. “What do you want?”
Robyn and Mika looked at each other in slight disbelief that she hadn’t figured it out yet. “Information. On the plan,” Mika told her.
“What plan?” Robyn cupped Carly’s cheek with one hand and wiped away the tears with her thumb. “I don’t know anything about a plan.” Carly found that she couldn’t look away from Robyn and realized that her cool touch was comforting and gentle. She sobbed out loud as Robyn took her hand away. “What’re you gonna do when they find the body?”
“They won’t.” Robyn sounded quite confident about that, and Carly stared at her curiously. “They’ll just find parts of it.” Mika chuckled and wrapped an arm around Robyn’s shoulders. They shared this obsession with torture and torment. Robyn walked over to the fire and grabbed two red hot pokers and tossed one over to Mika.
“You can do so much with these things,” Mika muttered. “I just don’t know what to do first.” Before he moved, Robyn closed her hand around the end of the poker and screamed in pure ecstasy as it burnt into her hand. Smoke rose up from her fingers and the room, once again, filled with the tangy smell of burning flesh.
“This is your idea of a good time? I’m thinking a few decades of therapy.”
“Shut up!” growled Robyn, and lashed out with the poker, creating a large red wound on her side. “Victims don’t speak.”
“V-v-victim?” Carly had stopped pulling against her chains, now realising that she wouldn’t get free from them. “Are you gonna kill me?”
Robyn left the room to get something Mika had thought of and slid through the open doorway with a sly smile on her face. Mika smiled at Carly, idly tapping the end of the poker on the floor just under her feet. “Eventually.” Robyn crept up behind her and stretched a length of black material between her eyes. “You should have screamed for me. But, you will.” Quickly, she tied the rag around her mouth to make a gag, and returned to Mika’s side. “Why won’t she scream?”
Mika grabbed her by the arm and turned her around to face him. “We’ve got to make her.” He dropped to his knees and pulled Robyn down to him, placing both hands on her shoulders. “Do you remember anything about this plan, love?”
Robyn got that far away look in her eyes and stared into the fire. “The flame… it dies.”
“Yeah, I know the fire will go out. But the plan, Robyn. What’s the plan?” He shook her as her eyes began to roll back in their sockets.
Her face split in a thin smile. “I don’t know. She does.” She leapt to her feet and tightened her grasp on the fire poker. With the poker mere centimetres away from Carly’s chest, Robyn stopped and looked at her. Carly’s eyes were wide with fright, and her cheeks were red with crying. “Maybe we shouldn’t have killed him, Mika. Maybe we should have made him watch.”
The heat already being given off by the metal instrument was unbearable to Carly, and she vainly tried to pull her body out of range. Robyn dragged the tip of it over her ribs and pushed it right through her left shoulder. She screamed in sudden pain, which soon dulled into a burning ache, while her two captors just laughed and held each other.
“See how happy you made my baby?” grinned the dark-haired man.
“She screams so pretty. Shall I make you scream some more?”
“No!” Carly yelled over the top of the gag. Blood was pouring from the wound in her shoulder, and she could see the couple staring at it as it stained her top.
“Tell us about the plan,” Robyn demanded. “It’s important, I can tell.”
“Never! This is our only chance now.”
Carly braved the abuse they poured on her and endured their sick pleasures until the next dawn.
TWO
The uniform was itchy and much too small for his large frame. They had ordered one to fit him properly from their suppliers, but it would take a couple of days for delivery, which meant he had to wear this one for now. He’d found that he could get away with wearing his normal clothes some nights – or so one of the morning security guards had told him – as long as he kept to blacks and other dark colours. Tonight wasn’t one of those nights, though.
Johnny had had to put on the too-small uniform and stretch it until it covered most of his arms. FDR Industries were having some sort of inspection, and it would look bad for the firm if someone was seen to be breaking the rules. Not that Johnny felt particularly protective of the whole company, but he really wanted to keep his job. He’d been out of work for a few years and hadn’t been able to find permanent work. Johnny had left his last job, also as a security guard, after hurting his back. It wasn’t serious and was nothing more than a distant accident. After reading that he’d had back trouble in the past, no-one seemed to want to employ him in case it flared up again and it had taken a lot of convincing to get these people to take him on. If it was that hard to find a job, he was going to make damned sure he didn’t do anything to lose this one.
“Could you tell me where I might find Mr Jordan-Smyth?” asked a middle-aged woman with glasses. “I have an appointment with him.” She pushed her glasses further up her nose and smoothed down her coat.
Johnny reached under the desk and felt around for the book. “I’ll just check for you. If you could sign in while you wait…” The woman took hold of the biro on the desk and began to write in the book as Johnny tapped something into his computer. The woman was probably something to do with the inspection. It must be important because the assistant manager had had a dozen visitors today and none of them had left the building yet, which left him with two options; a, it was going very well, or b, it was going very badly. Either way, he had to do his best to be polite. “He’s in his office. Someone will be down shortly to take you up.”
“Why can’t I just go up on my own? I’m sure I’ll be able to find it.”
“I’m sorry ma’am. It’s just a security thing. All visitors have to be escorted.” He cleared his throat then gestured to a row of cushioned chairs at the far end of the lobby. “You can wait over there until someone comes.” It was weird that anyone would have an appointment in the early hours of the morning, but Johnny had quickly learnt that FDR Industries did it’s most important work by night. Sure, the normal work was done in the day; typing, filing, paperwork. But the real work started at night. Okay, so the building was often empty at night, but the co-ordination never started until darkness. Not many civilians were willing to sneak a peek after dark so they did it then, when no0one would bother them.
“I’ve got someone to take up?” asked another middle-aged woman – Mr Jordan-Smyth’s assistant. “Another inspector probably. You know, I’ve been making tea and coffee all day.”
“Tell him to make his own bloody coffee for once,” he said with a smile that showed the gaps in his teeth. “She’s over there. What’s all this about anyway?”
“It’s a progress report. Mrs Rose, follow me.” She rolled her eyes as she started toward the door, as if to say “Here we go again.”
Johnny wished the cameras picked up sound so he could hear what was going on but he wasn’t in a position to know. He was only a security guard; not meant to know what he was guarding, just to do it. Despite this knowledge, he couldn’t deny that he was growing more curious by the hour – what was so important anyway? He could see people still milling around the corridors, and one of his cameras picked up a long line in front of the coffee machine. He was suddenly very glad that he’d thought to bring his vacuum flask of coffee with him. Idly, he began to doodle on the front page of the book, wishing he had enough battery power to play games on his mobile phone. “Shoulda charged it,” he grumbled to himself.
Professor Wright was a top scientist, who now worked at the Rashda Observatory, tutoring a small group of physics students who had shown great promise. Most of them were interested in learning from him, but he had given one or two the boot after misbehaving and being persistently absent. The students were all about 20 and each of them had the potential to become a good scientist.
Although a brilliant physicist, the professor was very knowledgable about space, the sun, the moon and the stars. Which is why he had come to lecture at the Rashda Observatory. It was a very good school of science which had state of the art technology, allowing him to pursue his own investigations in his own time. He hated being labelled as an astronomer or ‘space-guy’ – he wasn’t an astronomer, he was a scientist.
“Great scientists are born, not made,” he told his lecture group. “You can’t just wake up one morning and think ‘I’m going to be a scientist.’ That love of science and the world is there,” he pointed to his head, “from the beginning.”
A student put up her hand. “But how do we know if it was always there? I can’t exactly go home and ask my parents, can I?”
“You can’t use the phone?” A titter circled the room and Professor Wright silenced them with a glare. “I’m not teaching you how to be a physicist - I’m guiding you. You all have the know-how to be a physicist. The love of physics; the natural curiosity. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong, Professor, but aren’t you teaching us science?”
“Yes, I suppose I am.” The bell rang for everyone to leave their lectures, and Professor Wright sat down behind his desk. He had to mark their test papers from last week, and was planning to work on his secret project all evening.
Carly stood, limply hanging from her chains, too weak and tired to fight back. Her blood-stained top stuck, uncomfortably, to her skin, but she no longer had the energy to wriggle beneath it. The black gag now loosely circled her neck, slightly torn where she had bitten into it. “Please! Stop hurting me!”
“Are you gonna talk?” asked Mika. Robyn had grown weary and had gone to bed with the excuse, ‘It makes my eyes hurt.’ Mika himself was getting bored by this, but found it mildly amusing when she pleaded for mercy. “Because, if you’re not –“
“Okay, okay. I’ll talk. Just give me something to drink first,” she rasped, severely doubting that these two would let her out of this house alive. Mika yelled out for Robyn. She’d keep an eye on their captive and she would know if Carly was lying about anything. Robyn glided into the room and sat down. “I’ll talk,” Carly repeated.
“Good,” said Robyn as Mika left the room. “It’s for your own good. Because it’s coming. I can feel it.” She held her hands out and grabbed Carly’s hands. “Can you feel it too? It burns me - it will burn us all.”
Carly jerked her hands away, but, there not being much movement within the constraints of the chains, Robyn kept a hold of them. “I can’t feel anything. Let go of me.” Tears were still gushing down her cheeks and Carly sniffed in a feeble attempt to stop crying. It didn’t work. “Oh, don’t cry, honey,” soothed Robyn. “It’ll all be over soon – I promise. The pain will stop.”
“It will be over if we have our way,” she moaned.
Robyn shot out an arm and reached for her throat – reaching and stretching – and ripped the gag from Carly’s throat and dropped it on the floor. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
Mika re-entered the room holding a glass of water in one hand, and a plastic drinking straw in the other. He put the straw up to her lips and let her drink for a few seconds before he began questioning her again. “Tell us… hmm, tell us who you work for?”
“Does it matter who I work for?”
“Maybe not, maybe so.”
“FDR Industries. I’m the Information Officer… which means I know everything about the plan.”
“And the big question: What the hell is the plan?”
“To put an end to the pain. You can find everything you want at the warehouse. I’m not telling you anything else,” she said with conviction. She wouldn’t tell them anything else. Not when this was their only chance to save humanity, to wipe the monsters from the earth. And, smart as they might be, by the time they figured it out, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.
“You might not tell us, but you will tell someone. Robyn?”
“Give me some space,” Robyn ordered. Mika stepped back and sat down on a chair by the wall, absently twirling his ring round and round his finger. Robyn reached up and took hold of her hands again, looking deep into her eyes. “I see it. The desire to tell us everything… just to make the hurting go away.” Their eyes still locked, Robyn moved her hands down until they were resting above her heart. “The longing to be free from this. Nothing can hurt you now. I can make all this stop. You just have to tell me.”
“It’s supposed to be kept secret,” Carly protested, weakly. “I’m not allowed to say.”
“Since when did that stop you? Don’t you want me to make this stop? Just tell me, and it’ll never hurt again.”
Carly raised her head and nodded. “The Crash Room,” she whispered. “That’s where we keep all the information, calculations and stuff.”
“What are all the calculations for, sweetie?”
“To turn the sun. To give us paradise. Freedom from the monsters. Heaven on Earth. And it’s nearly done.”
“Nearly done?” probed Robyn, never for a moment breaking eye contact. “How long have we got?”
“Until the new moon. One week yesterday.” Carly swallowed at a lump of guilt that had formed in her throat. “It’s already started, and it can’t be stopped.”
Robyn glanced down to the floor and slid down the wall behind, mentally exhausted and not remembering a single word that had been said. “It’s close. It pulls at my skin,” she mumbled and started scratching at her arms.
“Oh, God. What have I done?” croaked Carly, fresh tears springing from the corners of her eyes. “I never meant to, I swear, I didn’t,” she said to no-one in particular, and herself.
“But you did,” Mika reminded her. “Where do I find this Crash Room?” Carly remained silent and stared down at the still-scratching Robyn. “Come on, you might as well tell me. You’ve told me everything else, and we’ll find it eventually anyway.”
“The old abandoned warehouse just outside town? It’s not so abandoned.”
Mika held the glass up to let Carly drink the remainder of the water. Human rights and all that. “You know what I hate?” He ran his finger around the rim of the empty glass and threw it against the concrete wall, shattering it into a thousand tiny pieces of glass, which rained down on Robyn who laughed manically. “Vague people!” he roared.
“I want to sleep,” Carly told him. “Unchain me.”
“You can sleep in the chains. Everyone else did.”
“E-everyone else?” she asked, not sure if she wanted him to elaborate.
“Think on it while you sleep. Sweet dreams.” Mika put an arm around Robyn’s waist and left the room, leaving Carly to her uncomfortable sleep and disturbing dreams.
Even if her captors did manage to get the information on the plan, in the highly unlikely event that they managed to gain access to the Crash Room, Carly seriously doubted they had the intelligence to decipher the calculations. And, in the even more impossible event that they did, there was nothing they could do about it. It would soon be too late even to halt the progress of the project. Besides that, what interest did the couple have in the plan. Of course, in the back of her mind, she knew why they were so interested in the plan and why they wanted to stop it so badly, but the part of her mind that dealt with logic was in fierce denial. Logic tried to rationalise what it could and ignore what it couldn’t explain of what it saw.
In her half-asleep state, Carly could hear voices in the room above, but couldn’t quite hear what they said. She had enough presence of mind to remind herself that her ordeal was far from over. So, it was probably best to snatch a few hours sleep while she had the chance.
“The Crash Room.” Mika tested the name out, rolling each word around his mouth to see how it sounded, as Robyn lay beneath the thin covers, playing with her hair. “I like that – the Crash Room.”
“It sounds as if everything will go wrong. Crash!” murmured Robyn, distractedly. “Mika, I don’t want everything to go wrong.”
“Nothing will go wrong, baby. You’ve got my word of honour,” he vowed. “I’m not letting anything come between my baby and what makes her happy.”
Robyn smiled that smile that no-one could resist and shrank back against the headboard. “I’m tired. The girl made me tired.” Robyn couldn’t recall anything that had passed between her and Carly during their conversation, but Mika was positive she would remember it all after she had rested for a while. Robyn pulled the elastic band from her wrist and used it to tie her hair back. “Is my hair nice?”
“It’s never looked better,” he replied. He held his finger up to silence Robyn and listened. “She’s crying. I can hear her.”
“She longs for her mate,” said Robyn. “Her heart breaks for him.” She giggled as she listened. “Beautiful sound. The crying. Painful and lonely and hopeless.” Seeing that Robyn was about to drift off into her own little world again, Mika left her to rest and went up to the attic to inspect the fire damage. He would go out to scavenge himself a new computer tonight.
Professor Andrew Wright hesitated a moment before picking up the phone and putting it to his ear. He hesitated a further moment before punching the number into the number pad. Even now he had made the decision to go through with it, he wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing. But he couldn’t exactly back out now. It had sounded like a good idea when it had first been thought of, and now things were starting to happen, he wasn’t sure if it was such a good thing after all. At midday tomorrow, it would be too late to turn back.
After a few rings, the phone on the other end clicked into action. There was no voice at the other end, but the professor knew he was simply being listened to. “It’s Professor Wright,” he said, with no indication of the uncertainty he felt. “Things are starting to change now. Soon, it’ll be too late to stop this from going ahead. We need to meet today at two o’clock. Normal place.” He put the phone back on the hook and let out a deep breath he hadn’t even realised he was holding. Professor Wright was using one of the payphones on campus in case anyone was trying to track him. He and the people he was working on this project with were getting into some pretty deep stuff now and the consequences would be… substantial, to say the least, if something went even remotely wrong.
“Professor?” began one of his students. “Does last weeks’ test count towards our final grade?”
“No,” he replied, his facial expressions ranging from mildly not-bothered to utterly pre-occupied. “It’s just a routine assessment.”
“Oh, that’s good then.” The girl sounded relieved and fiddled with the strap on her backpack. “’Cos I think I bricked it. I was having a bit of a bad day and I couldn’t think straight. I can do a make-up test if I need to.”
“No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. And I’m sure you haven’t done as badly as you think you have.” Her mind put at ease by his words, the student walked away to join her group of friends under the old oak tree. He fondly remembered what it was like to be that young and carefree, then he grimly reminded himself that it had been his own choice to take on this huge responsibility.
To some extents, the shaman led a more or less human existence. He lived in the middle of a small city, held down a job working from home, okay, he had no real family, but there were people, of sorts, who cared about him. The robes his tribe required he wear at all times meant that he was usually prevented from going out during the day. Mostly, he was able to blend in with the humans, as long as it was in the dark or dim lighting where his unusual clothing was less noticeable. He took a large bite of his maggot-infested apple, savouring the crunchyness of the tiny worms. Where most people would have retched and ran for the bathroom, the shaman ate the apple mainly for the nutrients found in the bugs.
The open book on the table at his side contained writings in a long-dead language that he wasn’t sure he remembered. It wasn’t Latin, or even one of the more common demon dialects, as many spells and scriptures were. It had been so long since he had been required to do anything like this, the shaman had at first been worried that he might get things wrong. But when he had obtained the materials needed for the beginning of the sequence, it had all come flooding back to him. “Like riding a bike,” he said to himself, no hint of an accent. “You never forget it.”
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