Chapter 9

Through the valley of death
Through the fires of hell
Through the drifting of time
I will find you. I will find you.
Looking Out For You (B. Lake) 2018

ZERO HOUR +32

I awoke with the top of my head cut off.

At least, that’s what it felt like. I couldn’t move my hands enough to check, although I was pretty sure there would be an egg-shaped lump on my forehead, and my cheek felt like I’d run into the side of a bus – or one had run into me.

My hands were getting pretty numb, and my shoulders were really starting to burn at the way my arms were locked behind me. There was something gluing my left eye closed.

I shook my head to try and dislodge whatever was covering my eye, and discovered just what a bad idea that was when my skull split open and my brain fell out and landed in my lap. Fair enough, I obviously wasn’t using it.

I waited until the Anvil Chorus finished, and gingerly opened my right eye. It felt sore, but at least it worked. My ears worked too – although I couldn’t hear enough of anything to prove it, apart from the creaking of old wood now and again as the shack muttered in its dotage.

Summer was gone, no longer tied to the stove, a couple of pieces of sliced curved plastic dangling from a handle the only evidence she had ever been there. Her face flashed into my mind and I felt my heart start to pound once again. Had the bastard taken her and left me here to die? I had no idea how much time had passed while I was out. Anything could have happened.

Panic started to get a grip. Nobody knew we were here, so there would be no last-minute rescue. I knew Murdoch wanted Summer, and I was just unwanted baggage. He wasn’t going to include me in his future plans – that was a given, so I would in all likelihood simply starve to death in this deserted shit-hole. Or, if he was feeling generous, he would come back, shoot me in the head and just walk away. I pushed the rising wave of fear back down again. Not helpful!

I twisted my neck to try and see out of the window behind me – trying to see whether the white truck was still there. My gummed-up eye prevented that, and I spent a few minutes screwing my face up and then raising my eyebrows as high as possible. At last my facial antics shifted the glue slightly, and my eyelid raised enough for me to get a blurred view. It was with mixed feelings that I saw a blurred white shape in my peripheral vision. I twisted my head around a little further, feeling a severe strain on my neck muscles and confirmed that it was the truck.

So where had Murdoch taken Summer?

The answer came a few minutes later. From the other room, came a deep sigh and I heard a mattress spring protesting at movement compressing it.

“Wake up. More playtime!” Murdoch’s voice was thick and heavy with sleep and something else – lust.

I screwed my eyes closed tight and wished I could do the same with my ears.

But I couldn’t.

The springs made their noise and I heard a deep mutter of pleasure. And I heard a higher-pitched noise from Summer. Then the springs began to squeak with a regular rhythm.

Everything within me seemed to ignite at once – every emotion I possessed; rage, violence, pity, sorrow, fear, sadness, guilt, jealousy, revenge, murder. They seemed to swirl inside me like a whirlpool, each bobbing to the surface to allow me to take a good, long look at it, before slipping under once again to allow another emotion to take its place.

I fought my bindings until my shoulders burned, my arms tightened into unbearable knots, and my wrists bled – red pools appearing on the floor alongside the back legs of the chair. The chair rocked from side to side, and my feet drummed on the floorboards as I kicked out helplessly.

Finally, my voice got in on the action, as the raw emotions inexorably climbed my throat and forced their way out. I screamed and roared, yelled and bawled – anything to block out the sound. And anything to unhear the sound she had made.

It might have been protest. Or it might have been pleasure. As she had exited the car after my confession of loving her, she had turned her face to me and mouthed that she loved me, too. Then she was gone and in his arms.

What did that mean?

And the sounds she made now – what did they mean?

I guess the racket I was making must have pissed Murdoch off enough for him to stop fucking Summer for a while. He appeared at the door, dressed only in his jeans and just the button at the waistband fastened. The two ends of his belt hung loose, down alongside the open zipper.

He smirked at me from the doorway.

“What’s the matter, you don’t like some stranger fucking your girlfriend? Get used to it. You’re the stranger here. I’m just giving her what she wants. She loves my cock more than she loves breathing. She knows it. I know it, and now you know it.”

“I know who you are Murdoch,” I spat. “I know who you are, I know who you’re working with, and I know what you’re trying to do. You’re no stranger. You’re an open book. A really bad book about a creepy little fuck who likes to rape girls, because he can’t get over the fact that he couldn’t fuck his mother – because she couldn’t stand the sight of him.”

It was true to some extent. I knew who he was and what he wanted. And I had worked out who he was working with. It had suddenly struck me while I was yelling. I didn’t know anything about him and his mother however. That was just to piss him off enough to concentrate on me and leave Summer alone.

“Is that right? Bad for you then, because you just discovered a world new world of hurt for yourself.”

He moved to my side, took a knife from the hip pocket of his jeans, opened it and prodded it towards my face. I felt the point touch just below my open eye, which was now firmly shut.

“I know what you’re trying to do, you slimy limey fuck. You think I don’t recognise that you’re trying to piss me off on purpose? I got a degree in psychology, you fuckwit. So don’t try mind games with me.”

He moved the knife point down my side, and I shivered, anticipating the thrust of the blade into my chest, my kidney, my belly...

“And while I majored in that, I also took other courses ... medical courses.”

His arm moved and I felt the tie that fastened my right arm to the chair leg suddenly fall away, while my left arm remained trapped in place. I tried to move the freed arm and grunted with pain. That limb had been twisted back for what could have been hours, and was now repaying the insult.

Murdoch tucked away the knife – a small, red-handled Swiss army knife – and lifted my arm to the horizontal, still talking. Trying to hide my fear, I avoided his eyes and stared at a dark mark on his throat, belatedly recognising it was a bruise. It had been covered with some sort of make-up, but that had faded or worn away. Summer had really got a good shot in when she escaped from him the previous time.

“Anatomy, osteology, neurology ... Those courses all helped me understand psychology so much better; how physical events affecting the body can affect the mind, the chemistry of injury, the consequences of pain and pleasure and how they all work together to alter the brain.”

My arm was now raised to the vertical, straight up. My shoulder, after being trapped and held still in an abnormal position for so long, protested further at this movement by lighting a fire within the joint. There was too much pain to fight his grip.

Murdoch took my wrist in one hand and suddenly pulled it towards him while giving a lightning-fast palm-strike to my elbow.

“Pain has an amazing effect on the brain,” he marvelled in a conversational tone as my body jerked as if touched by high-voltage wires. I had heard the breaking of bone very clearly, like the snapping of a green twig, an instant before the rest of my senses caught up with events and alerted me that something had gone wrong by flooding me with agony.

I screamed. I screamed long and loud. When I ran out of breath and felt the room begin to circle around me, I just whimpered until he simply let go of my arm. Then I screamed again as it dropped uselessly to my side.

“It actually rewrites the brain, to teach us a lesson; to teach us not to do it again. Not to get into that position again. Not to mess with things that don’t concern us. And especially not to fuck with people who can cause you pain. Like your little girlfriend, who is actually my little girlfriend and who is waiting patiently for me back there so we can finish fucking up a storm.”

“Not my girlfriend,” I muttered painfully, my lips feeling thick and unwieldy. “Just a fucking goblin.”

He laughed delightedly; as he’d only needed to give one lesson and I’d learned it well. I now knew who belonged to whom.

“Okay. Now we’ve got that out of the way, I’ll get back to the matter at hand. I’ll see you later. Then we can have a little talk as to who you are and how you’re involved with Charlotte; you know, the why’s and the wherefore’s.

He patted the dangling arm, just hard enough to make me yell in agony once more

He padded back into the other room, and I heard the rustle of shedding clothes, and then the bed springs creak once more. There were flashes and little sparks wandering across my vision, and a singing in my ears, so I couldn’t hear what was said, just his lower tones, followed by her lighter voice. Neither of them sounded particularly bothered about my condition, so I tried to tune them out as the springs started to chorus once more.

It was more than obvious now that Murdoch wasn’t just a man with a plan, he was a full-blown, all-out, balls-to-the-wall psychopath. What’s worse, if such a thing was possible, he was also a narcissistic, sadistic, sociopath - a fully-loaded, all optional extras included, nut job!

I could feel myself sweating, and was shivery cold at the same time, and guessed I was going into shock. So when I started to develop tunnel vision, the edges creeping inward and drawing soft black curtains in towards the centre, I welcomed the encroaching darkness.

In my long, drifting dream I was flying, surrounded by choruses of voices in perfect eight-part harmony. The bass notes would soar, the melody then taken over by altos as the basses and baritones duelled softly below, with the sopranos and tenors alternating in a sharp, punching vocal that interjected into the music and punctuated the tune as it dipped and soared through the heavens. Violins broke in to accompany the high notes, while woodwinds trilled and tweeted above them, before the cellos grounded the whole piece, bringing depth and meaning to the melody. Kettle drums pounded and massed drummers marched to...

“Stop sleeping on the job!” The unwelcome wake-up call was accompanied by a splash of water across my face, making me start and then groan at the pain of the sudden movement. The disappointment of being wakened from that dream to the grim reality almost made me cry.

Murdoch was crouched in front of me, grinning as he squeezed a plastic bottle of water, playing the spray across my face and making me splutter and snort as it went up my nose.

Once again, he was naked apart from the loosely fastened jeans. In my dazed state, my mind fixed on his naked toes as they splayed across the boards, which were darkened from the water runoff. The scent of male and female sex pheromones, lubrication and sperm rose from him in a miasma of betrayal. At least he’d shut the door on Summer, and I wouldn’t be subjected to possibly seeing her.

“Time for a chat. Charlotte tells me you’re some sort of whizz-kid in the motor industry. That you inherited it from your parents, and that you’re worth a pot of money.”

I heard the words, but didn’t understand what he was saying. It didn’t make sense. Summer had lied. That was important somehow – I just couldn’t put it together.

He prodded my arm and I gasped in pain, seeing the curtains start to draw closed once again.

“Is that right, you’re some rich kid?”

“Rolls-Royce,” I gasped. With the various pains hammering at me from every part of my body, it was the only car I could think of.

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re a limey. They were sold to the Germans.”

Fuck. Was he a piston-head? Did he know the motor industry? Because I certainly didn’t! I wasn’t even sure if piston-head was the right term for car fanatics. Engine head? Metal-head? Wing-nut?

I grinned at my own thoughts and he looked taken aback. I tried to whip my brain into gear.

“Share swop. I got cash and shares in their company for mine. Now I’m in production for them.”

“You build cars?”

“No, I design robots. They build the cars.”

His eyes widened. I had surprised him. Good.

“So you’re worth money to the right people.”

I shrugged, trying to use only my left shoulder to do so. I knew that giving myself a cash value might help to keep Summer and I alive. Although he was working on her for a different pot of money, I didn’t think Murdoch would be completely immune to the idea of holding me to ransom. From what Summer had told me, and from the way he’d acted and spoken so far, he was the cleverest guy in the room in his estimation. The way he’d started to train Summer in an established institute without being challenged, how he’d followed and tracked us, the thing with the traffic cones, fucking Summer so I’d hear them together; all of that meant that he was enjoying the game a whole lot because he knew with absolute certainty that he was the one with the brains – the one man with the plan.

“Good to know,” he said finally.

I shrugged again.

“But we still have a problem, don’t we?” he continued. “Charlotte...”

He let it drift off.

“A hitchhiker.”

“So you being with her is just a coincidence then, not because she’s rich, not because you want her?”

“She’s just a goblin with a bad luck geas on her.”

“You keep calling her that. So I’m guessing you play fantasy games a lot. Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of your type over the years. You like to bring your fantasy creations into the real world. It gives you a sense of importance to replace your impotence; a way to cover your weakness and cowardice, a means to disguise your frightened little lives – by using a language other people don’t fully comprehend. In the end, you’re just a geek with a need.

“My need is very different however. You mentioned something about knowing who I’m working with? So how would you know anything about my business?”

Ah shit. I’d screwed up. I gathered what strength I had left to face the coming storm.

I shook my head, my lips pressed firmly together. He understood at once, and punched my broken elbow. I screamed. I didn’t care that I sounded like a spoiled little girl whose favourite doll had been thrown in the dustbin. I screamed again as he repeated the punch, and passed out.

I liked passing out. It was so much more pleasant than being awake.

He woke me up and we went through the same routine until I passed out again.

The water spray brought me around once more.

“This time we’ll try something different,” he said. “I’m not going to keep letting you escape into unconsciousness. That would be too easy, and wouldn’t give me what I need.”

He rose to his feet and patted me on the head, smirking at me. “Let’s see if she really does mean nothing to you.”

“Oh Charlotte,” he called out as he went to the door and opened it. He looked at me and giggled. “You’ve been a bad little goblin, Charlotte, so I’m going to have to punish you.”

I heard the sound of a series of blows, the thud of fists on flesh, and her cries of pain were worse than anything from my arm. I squeezed my eyes shut. My choices were limited. I could tell him what I knew – which wasn’t a whole lot and would probably sign my death warrant, as well as leave Summer in his hands, to mould with her pain into something she detested. Or I could allow him to torment and abuse her, which might keep me safe and potentially reach a point where I could bring the authorities down on him. Or ... There was no more ‘or’. There was no choice.

“Stop! I’ll tell you!” I yelled. “Stop!”

He appeared in the doorway. He had taken off his pants and was now naked, his erection all too obvious.

“Good. Keep those good thoughts in mind and I’ll get back to you in a while!”

He gave me a smile of superiority and turned into the room.

“Charlotte, dear. I think you want to suck my cock, don’t you!”

“Yes, of course!” Her voice stabbed me through the heart. I knew she had to say them to survive, but it still hurt.

“You know how much you love doing that!”

“Yes!”

She owed me nothing. She wasn’t mine. So why did it hurt so bad?

I thought I’d cried myself out. I was wrong.

I found myself humming a tune, and then singing out loud to try and drown out the noises of their pleasure as she sucked him to completion, and then continued doing it until she got him hard enough for another fuck – the springs singing their appalling chorus once more.

Finally, the continual, infinite series of pain and pleasure came to an end with apparent joyful cries all round – except from me. I was out of the white knight business for good. Never again! The girls in my life were damaged – all of them. But I was the most damaged of all – too damaged.

Murdoch appeared in the doorway in his usual half-fastened jeans, his sex stink in my nostrils once again. I looked at him blankly. I couldn’t feel excited enough to show any expression at all. Now I just had to look after me.