Mace Crindle Plant
December 3, 12.25 a.m.
In 1995, Elliot Crindle of Mace Crindle Corporation, a petrochemical giant, agreed to a settlement with the United States Department of Justice and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to a very lenient $2 million civil penalty for industrial pollution from leaking sewers and over 65 separate environmental violations, Elliot agreed to upgrade or replace over 18 miles of ageing sewers across the plant.
The ancient pumping centre occupied a large underground site with cavernous rooms formed by elaborate brick arches. The company had closed this unit and sealed it. It lay ten metres below ground, accessible, still, through an industrial elevator in land once belonging to the company and now derelict.
Into this abandoned underground room Sebastian walked, the still body of Denise Levene over his shoulder.
At the centre of the vast and labyrinthine old sewer complex was a large circular space. In it was a set of shelves upon which sat Sebastian’s curiosities and artefacts, his own small contribution to the grotesque. His women. He had the clothes belonging to all of them hanging on the walls. There were rows of photographs of each woman taken as they were stalked, then the grotesque shots of their murders and the still, posed bodies hit by the glare of the camera flash.
In the centre, a glass vitrine containing his sculpture of body parts in formaldehyde, The Progression of Love.
Behind his display was a dry shrivelled object in the centre of a small shrine. It was Chloe Mestella’s heart. Sebastian felt excited being there in the sewers with his girls, seeing evidence that it was real, that it had all happened. He often watched his objects by candlelight so they flickered as if alive. There were body parts from seven women in the sculpture he called The Progression of Love: Mary-Jane, Grace, Amy, Jessica, Elizabeth, Kitty and Rose. It was finished. Now he just had to deal with Harper, and Denise.
Across the room was a single bed. Sometimes he slept there, deep in the caverns below the city streets. He had food and drink in there that would last a good while. He could hide out for weeks, if need be, hidden away, sealed in his dark chamber.
He put Denise on the bed. He had time now. As much as he wanted. All the time in the world.
It had been a couple of days since he had seen his objets d’art and he crossed to them. He took Jessica’s sweat-drenched blouse out of its plastic bag, put it to his nose, savoured the memory, felt it snake through his mind. He could feel his excitement grow. He had planned to bring a body down here many times to play with over and over again, if he ever dared. Now he had dared.
He replaced Jessica’s blouse. He wanted the aroma to last. He sealed the bag and turned to Denise. Unlike the rest, she was not there as an object of his fantasy. He had never imagined her ripe in his hands, his fingernails bright with her juice.
She was there for a different purpose altogether. He looked down at her. Such a small, frail bird. He wondered what it would be like — not only to be loved, but to feel love. He knew from long experience that it was not ‘being loved’ that saved people, but loving.
Sebastian was not yet finished. He pulled Denise’s body over his shoulder and went further into the labyrinth, down the dark, lost passages of the chemical sewers, his feet wet with the rainwater that seeped in through the old brick walls. Her cuts had been superficial. Deliberately so. Not dangerous, just across the odd vein or two to create a lot of blood. Blood incited fear so well. He would’ve liked to have seen Tom Harper’s face when he arrived at Denise’s bathroom.
He came to the steel bars of the caged prison in the depths of the plant. In there, he would keep Denise. He barged the door open with his shoulder. It took him three attempts and then he took her into her new home, laid her down on her bed and looked down on her face. Like a sleeping princess.
He left her and closed the steel door. The heavy metal clunked in the darkness and Sebastian trudged back up the tunnels like the Minotaur of old myth.
But those old myths weren’t true, were they? Minotaurs taking young maidens into the labyrinth to devour them. They were just stories, right? Just old stories.