Mace Crindle Plant
December 4, 1.12 a.m.
The silence was more horrifying than anything else in the dungeon. Denise knew he was coming back and the hardness of the thick brick walls was hurting her fists as she beat against them, trying to find an escape.
Poor, poor girl. She thought it over and over again. Poor, poor girl. Please protect her from Sebastian.
She hadn’t prayed since she was fourteen years old but for hours Denise continued to pray and hope. She then lay on her side and wept for the girl whose life was in danger. And wept, a little, for herself.
It had gotten very cold all of a sudden. She had no food and her stomach and bones ached. She was in a state of half-sleep when she heard the noise of the metal bolt.
She sat upright. ‘Tell me she’s all right! Please.’
She heard footsteps coming towards the door of her prison. She saw him at the bars. The light above him clicked on and bathed him in shadow. He sat down on a small stool he had carried with him.
The silence was so tense she was sweating even in the cold of the cell.
‘Is she all right?’ Denise asked. ‘Is the girl all right?’
‘I think you’ll be pleased with Nick. I think he managed to save one of them.’ It was Sebastian’s voice. ‘I should think you will be famous for your techniques, Dr Levene.’
‘Well done, Nick! Well done! I’m amazed. Delighted. She’s okay? Well done.’
‘It was your doing.’
‘The band?’
‘My wrist hurts there was so much twanging. Nick must’ve been twanging like a lunatic. There’s a red mark all the way round.’
‘Tell me, please. Tell me.’
‘I wanted to possess her. Of course I did. She was perfect. Unique. Quite self-assured. I wanted just to grab her and take her, but Nick didn’t let me. He kept me inside. I couldn’t gain control.’
‘Jesus! She’s alive… Thank you.’
‘You know, Doctor, I am quite easy to upset. I seem to have a high degree of vulnerability, which is bizarre when you think I could kill these people without a second thought.’
‘That’s what the killing is for — to hide the vulnerability, to lock it away… to disguise it with the most potent thing there is, the power of life and death.’
‘I like killing. Like it like nothing else. It’s better than cocaine. It’s like cocaine but with all your faculties absolutely intact. It’s not false. It’s a perfect expression of human emotion. Killing, raping, ripping.’
She heard the band twang three times behind the door. Why was he twanging? She didn’t understand.
‘It feels good to twang. It keeps Nick away, too. Did it not occur to you that it might? Ha! I drove her home, Dr Levene. In my car. I was alone with her in my car. The opportunity was there, but I let her go. I felt so good, letting her go. I felt what virtue must feel like. It was quite a new sensation.’
‘Keep going. Keep working on the strategies. You can heal yourself. You must. You can.’
‘You have amazing faith, Doctor. I wonder what that feels like too. Denise, I have felt lost my entire life. Will it ever end?’ He slapped the elastic against his wrist again.
‘Why are you twanging? Is Nick there?’
‘He wants to be here. Oh, one more thing,’ he said as he stood up. ‘You will be pleased to know, Denise, that when I dropped her at her home and drove away, I felt proud of myself on your behalf, as if you were my mother or my father. It was a nice feeling.’
‘I’m pleased. You did well.’
‘Yes,’ he said. There was something in his voice.
‘What? What is it?’ she said sharply.
‘Oh, you know, Denise. You deny yourself something. You walk away. You feel satisfied, but then the urge just comes back stronger. Much, much stronger. You know.’
‘What do you mean?’
He took something out of his pocket and held it a moment. ‘I have something for you.’
He threw something through the bars. It splattered on the floor. She shivered at the cold red slime.
‘It’s Kimberly’s heart, Denise. She was a lovely, gentle girl. I have no complaints.’
Denise threw herself back against the wall and let out an agonized scream.
‘We worked on the first phase, Doctor, and that worked very well, but we did nothing on the second phase. I drove off, but I still wanted her. I needed to see her suffer. I had no strategies. None whatsoever. You left me quite unprepared.’
Denise was lying on her side, in pain. She started to cry as the monster stared at her through the bars.
‘When you do that, Dr Levene, that crying thing… what is it like? What does it feel like?’