The Black Chronicle (23 page)

              He needed coffee but thought it may look as though he wasn't respecting the urgency of the situation if he stopped for some so he just hoped she had some at home.

              He got there quicker than he thought he would, parked his car and entered through the rear door to the building as he said he would though he had to stop at the concierge anyways to be let up. The agent's eyes flashed with recognition. Jeremy did nothing to acknowledge it, thankful for the pretence of the situation.

              Mary was already waiting with the door open when he stepped off the elevator. She was wearing a grey track suit with a pink stripe down either leg. Her long hair was caught up in a massive bun behind her head and he took note of how naturally wavy he hair was without product. Her eyes were red and her nose and cheeks flushed.

              “Hey,” she said and stepped aside for him to enter then quickly bolted the door behind them.

              “Are you okay?” he asked and she suddenly began to cry again. She buried her face into his chest and when he wrapped his arms around her he could feel each shiver and sob reverberate through her body.

              “Come on. Let's go sit down,” he said, shushing her and leading her gently into the living room.

              They sat on her leather couch where she had first confided in him and dragged him into this whole mess.

              “Is Cindy okay?” He asked.

              “No she's not fucking okay!” She sobbed.

              “Of course. I mean, is she alive?”

              “I think so. She was in the video. Should I call my sister?” She asked taking a tissue off the table and dabbing her eyes with it.

              “Not yet. May, I see it?”

              She got up and retrieved her laptop from the kitchen counter. The video was already cued up. She hit play and walked away so she wouldn't have to endure it twice.

              Mister's face filled the screen. The black backdrop behind him as in all the other videos and just like all the other videos the first thirty seconds or so was just him staring into the camera.

              “You've been a naughty girl,” Mister finally said. “A
very
naughty girl. You broke my rules. And when you break my rules, you are only hurting yourself.”

              And then he picked up the camera and turned it around onto Cindy. She was naked save for a baby's bib tied tightly around her throat and a pair of poka-dotted panties which were clearly several sizes to small for her. Her nose was bleeding and she looked disoriented, possibly drugged. Mister's white glove and arm of his suit jacket reached into the frame and grabbed her tightly by the hair and yanked it violently down causing her to cry out.

              He slapped her once, twice, then ruffled her hair so it was a rat’s nest of a mess on top of her head and held out his index and middle finger.

              “Suck them!” He commanded her and she obeyed but couldn't keep herself from crying. “Do it like you enjoy it!” He yelled at her and she did her best to stop the tears and put on a show.

              Then the camera got very close to her face and he reached in with his hand deep into her throat causing her to gag but he wouldn't withdraw even though she began choke and wretch and possibly even suffocate. Finally Mister pulled away from her and she gasped and vomited onto the floor, and tried her best to catch her breath. And then the camera was moving away from her. Jeremy could hear a clicking he guessed was the device being snapped back onto a tripod.

              Mister's face filled the screen again, grinning ear to ear, clearly enjoying himself. Then he stepped out of frame so they could see Cindy.

              “Show them,” Mister said off camera.

              Sobbing, Cindy lifted her hand to reveal the stump of her forefinger that had been severed under the first knuckle. Then Mister stepped back in front of the camera.

              “The FBI can't help you Mary. They can't help poor little Cindy either. The only person who can do that is you. You will understand soon enough. Don't worry. I will show you the truth. The ultimate truth. That life is just a dream. Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily Merrily, Merrily, life is but a dream.” Then he turned and screamed to Cindy. “Sing it! Sing it!”

              “Row, row, row your boat-” She began to sing and he continued speaking over top of her.

              “You thought Victor Matherport was hard to catch. He was fool.  You dare compare me to such a dim witted no- man? No, no. It won't be so easy for the FBI to make friends with me... I will be seeing you. Row, row, row your boat...”
              Jeremy reached up and caught his own gasp with his hand and sat back heavily in the couch just as Mary walked back into the room.
You thought Victor Matherport was hard to catch. It won't be so easy for the FBI to make friends with me.
Was that a reference to his book? Mary stood there watching him waiting for a response but Jeremy was lost in his thoughts. If he knew he was on the case he could have been following and watching him like he was with Mary.

              “He knows who I am,” he finally said more to himself than to her. “He knows I’m on the case.”

              “What do you mean?” she asked coming around the couch to face him.

              “He knows I’m involved,” Jeremy muttered, jumped up and headed for the door.

              “Wait! Where are you going?” Mary blurted out following him down the hallway.

              “Do not leave this apartment. Do not tell anyone about this until you hear from me. Do you understand?”

              “What happened?”

              “Do you understand?” He asked again this time grabbing her by the shoulders and holding hard eye contact with her.

              “Yes. Yes I understand,” she said. And then he ran out the door.

              It felt like it took hours for the elevator to reach him. He impatiently jabbed at the button until the doors finally slid open with a ding. He stabbed the lobby button until the doors closed and the lift began its excruciatingly slow descent. Finally reaching the ground floor he slipped through the doors before they had even opened all the way and ran to his car.

              He got in and dialled Charlie's cell. No Answer. He was probably just being paranoid. Everything was probably fine, but you don't take any chances with these sorts of things. He pulled out into an immediate u-turn and caused a jeep to slam on its breaks to avoid hitting him. He slipped directly into third gear and tore down the street, ignoring the jeep’s horn. He hit redial on his phone and waited. Again, it rang until it went to voicemail. He called at least ten times on his way home, each time his probable worst fear became just a little more probably.
He most likely just turns his phone off while he sleeps
,
or has it on vibrate. Or is just a heavy sleeper.
Whether or not he was, Jeremy had no clue. There were a lot of things he didn't know about his own boy. Too many things. And once this case was over he would change all that, because he was fine. He was still sound asleep where he left him. He was sure.

              Reaching the condo complex he parked on the street because the underground parking would take too long, and went to the trunk where he removed a tire iron. He swiped himself in a with a key card at the side of the building and took the stairs as fast as he could, bounding two and three steps at a time, until he reached the fifth floor.

              He jogged down the hall towards his unit and before he even reached it he could see the door was ajar. His heart jumped and his knees went weak. He didn’t leave it open. He wouldn’t.

              With the tire iron at the ready, Jeremy slowly entered the apartment. Everything was as he left it save for a dining room chair which laid ominously on its side. Very quietly he moved to the spare bedroom. He paused outside to listen. Silence. Jeremy raised the iron high over his head and pushed the door open with his foot.

              Charlie was not there. He knew instantly what it meant. His knees went soft and the tire iron slipped from his grip and klanged loudly on the floor. He couldn't stand up straight, he was in vertigo, the rotation of the earth suddenly perceptible and it was everything he could do stay on his feet. 

Then his eye caught a black envelope. A single world pasted on the front of it in white out: Jeremy. In it was a CD and a human tooth.

              He sat there rubbing his eyes with the forefinger and thumb of one hand and absently turning the tooth over and over in his other, allowing his mind to go where it would, though his conscience couldn't follow. He was retreating inside himself, shutting down. A coping mechanism, he would later realize. 

              Eventually he came back, had in been minutes? Hours? He drifted to the living room, placed the disc into his Blue Ray, hit the appropriate buttons and then Mister's face was staring at him at extreme close up.

              “Hey Jeremy,” Mister greeted naturally as though they were old friends bumping into each other somewhere. “You crossed paths with the wrong devil this time. I am the God-Devil.” And then he repeated himself, this time eyes wide, glaring roundly down the slopes of his nose and raised chin, voice hushed as if uttering a powerful incantation. “I am the God-Devil. You cannot defeat me. To defeat me would be to defeat yourself.”                                                                     

              Jeremy watched the corners of the screen carefully. He could see that it was made from inside the spare room not thirty feel from where he stood.

              “It's curious, isn't it Dr. Jeremy Foster?” Mister continued. “That we would now, at the last find ourselves intertwined as we are. You see, I had started to become... disillusioned. I was starting to think that maybe I had been pursuing the wrong ends. Or rather, using the wrong means for my desired end.  But then you came into our little game and I suddenly knew I was on the right track. What are the odds? You had written a book and known intimately another man who wore this mask and here you are again looking at it... Coincidence is for the simple. People like you and I see design where they see chance.”

              Then he paused and glared straight into the camera, his intense eyes burning even hotter. The faintest hint of a smile teased the corners of his mouth.

              “Yes the tooth is your Son's. Yes I have him. Yes he is still alive. But if you don't do what I say.
Exactly
, what I say, it won’t be the only piece of him you will be pulling from an envelope. Obeying me will not be easy. It will be the hardest thing you will ever do. But it's the only way to save your only begotten son from pain which I couldn't even begin to describe with something so clumsy as the tongues of man. Go to nine thirty five Palisade drive. Kill them all. I left something for you in the hall closet.”

              The video stopped and Jeremy stumbled to the hall closet where he found a white hockey bag. He pulled it out onto the floor and unzipped it. Inside among other things was a neatly folded stack of white clothing, white face paint, a gun and a hatchet.

              Cindy felt the need to scratch her finger, despite that fact that it no longer was there. She wasn't sure if this was a due to the tiny stump healing and scabbing up or if it was a 'phantom pain', which she had learned about in high school biology class.

              It had been days since she heard anyone besides Mister speak. It was impossible to tell how long she had been down there. The only method she had for tracking time were the intervals between Mister's visits, which she thought were probably nightly but could have just as easily been every morning for all she knew. If she had to guess, she would say it had been two weeks since she had been tazed getting into her car, and had woken up in the back of a van, tied and gagged.                                                  

              He would take her and bath her and dress her up like a little girl with pig tails or stockings or in cheap brightly coloured sweaters like the kind you find in the pre-teen section at Walmart. And then he would fuck her-
rape
her, for a couple of hours or make her stand in poses and sit and poses and say things like 'I am Mister's little puppet. I exist to pleasure you.' and 'Good girls don't get in the van,' whatever in the hell that meant. He would then bend her over and grope at her ass hole and vagina with his fingers and spread them both wide until she whimpered. He would stop once she whimpered so she had started to do it as soon as his meaty hands reached back there but he could tell which were real and which were fake and would always continue prodding and stretching until she was forced to cry for real. 

              She sat in the chair wishing she could just scratch her missing finger and wondered when he would come again.

              She thought of her parents and how worried they must be. She pictured them scouring the streets for her, up late at night, unable to sleep. She imagined her picture on the back of transport trucks. She pictured her face on milk cartons, sweet middle aged couples looking down at it sympathetically as they ate their Cheerios and Eggos and then rushed off to work and thought no more of that poor lost girl. She just wanted to see her parents one more time. She wanted to tell them that she loved them and that she was sorry for being such a little brat through high school and that she was lucky to have parents like them. To have two people in the world who loved her as much as they did.

              The man in the room with her, Greg, sounded a bit like her father and she wanted to hear his voice again.

              “Greg,” she whispered into the mysterious space around them.

              “Cindy,” the voice whispered back. But then it was silent for a long time again because she didn't really have anything to say, she just wanted to hear someone's voice besides
his
.

              “Are you okay?” Greg finally added.

              “Yeah,” she said, the irony of the question and answer painful.

              “Can you tell if you're still bleeding?”

              “No. I'm not. He bandaged it.”

              “Where does he take you?” Greg asked.

              “I don't know... into another room.”

              “Does he ever take your blind fold off?”

              “Yeah, once we're in the room.”

              “Okay, can you see any windows?” He asked.

              “No. It's just a room. No windows.”

              “He say anything. Anything that might explain where we are?”

              “Nothing.”

              The door ground open, they all froze, clenched their teeth and waited.

***

              Charlie was scared. More scared than he had ever been in his whole life. More scared than he thought was even possible. Could someone have a heart attack at sixteen if their heart beat fast enough?

He could tell he had been dosed. Drugged with who knows what. The last thing he could remember was playing black ops and eating a pizza he had to order himself because his dad had gone into his office and closed the door and seemingly just forgotten that he was there. Then he went to bed and the next thing he knew a hand was over his mouth and a man in a white ski mask was over top of him. He put those plastic zip cord kind of cuffs you see in the movies around his wrists and then he was                                  reaching into his mouth with a pair of pliers, ripping a tooth loose.            

              Then the man had taken him somewhere. Lead him out of his dad's building with a gun in his back and told him he would fucking kill him if he screamed or tried to run, but there was no way he could have run because whatever drug he had given him made him feel very, very slow and tired. He put a hood over his head and drove him somewhere, and now he was at that same somewhere with the hood still over his head and he was so scared he couldn't even cry. Why did he take his tooth? What did he want with him? Where was his dad?

              The door to wherever he was opened and the man's hands were on him. Un-chaining him from the chair and pulling him to his feet. And finally Charlie began to cry. He was sure the man was going to kill him now. Was he going to take more of his teeth first? He pictured himself, toothless and pathetic looking with bare bloody gums. And even if the man let him go he would never forget what happened, he would always be disfigured. Why was this happening to him?

              The man dragged him out of the room and down a small flight of stairs. He thought about pleading with the man but knew it would do no good and didn't want to say anything that would make him mad and hurt him more then he already intended to. Then they went through another door, down a couple of steps, which felt and sounded like metal and Charlie thought they must be in a cellar or something because the air was very cool and stale. Then he fastened him to another chair, and turned and left without saying a word.

              Charlie just sat there sobbing, trying his best to make sense of this senseless thing. One minute he's playing vids, the next his life turns into a horror movie. He had never done anything to anybody. Definitely nothing that would make someone this mad at him? Where was his dad? He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Snot and tears ran down his face until he had to use his shoulder to wipe some of it away.

              “Hello,” a girl's voice said from somewhere in the room. Charlie froze and held his breath, unsure if he just heard what he thought he heard.

              “Hello?” The girl said again.

              “Hi,” was all Charlie could think to say, it seemed very weird to be saying 'hello' and 'hi'. That was too casual of a thing to say in a place like this and so he added. “Where the fuck are we? What is happening?”

              “You don't know?” The girl said.

              “No. Who are you? Where are we?”

              “My name is Cindy. There are three of us. Plus you.”

              There was a very long pause.

              “It's Mister,” she finally said. “Mister has us.”