“The reason you’re alive, in case you were wondering, is I need to know what you know and who you’ve told.” Salk’s voice had lost any forced jocularity that I was used to hearing the times we intersected at the hospital. He stood in front of me, hands on his waist and the unpleasant smile still on his lips, as though he were getting ready to punish an unruly child and savored the idea. “I understand you can lie, and I understand that torture is not foolproof, but I have to try, don’t I?”
I looked up at him, fear and rage warring in my heart. “I know you’re a murderer. I know you killed Rebecca.”
Salk gave a fake wince as I said her name. “Yeah, that was not my best choice. I knew that taking someone from where I worked was risky, but I needed someone and she was just…there. Like a gift. It was easy at the time, but hindsight is a bitch. If I had known you were going to be a super-sleuth, I would have tried to hold off.” He smiled again, and I was reminded of Alicia comparing him to a shark. It was apt. “But let’s move past that. What do you really know?”
I felt my jaw clenching as anger won out. “Fuck you. I’ve told you the only thing that is important.”
The expression fell off Salk’s face like rotten meat off a bone. Dead-eyed and silent, he bent down and began pulling off my right shoe. I tried to struggle briefly, but I didn’t budge. I needed to save my energy for when I could make it count. My left wrist seemed to be slightly looser, so…
Salk reached back into the pool of darkness surrounding us, and I heard the sound of metal being drug across concrete a moment before the hammer came into view. He brought the hammer up to my face for a moment, but he didn’t ask another question. Instead he brought the head of the hammer down on my right pinky toe with enough force to burst the flesh and pulverize the bone.
I know I screamed, but I don’t remember it. I was too concerned with the bomb going off in my head as the pain reached my brain. I felt myself slip towards blackness and then back out again. My head was spinning as I gasped for breath, and I realized I was flailing involuntarily, as though my body had decided it was time to escape regardless of any plan I might have. With great effort I slowed my breathing and movement. It was hard to think about anything but the pain, but I had to try and hold on.
I couldn’t see my foot, but I could tell from the force and the spray of blood that had shot across the floor into the dark that the toe was crushed if not torn off completely. That meant I would be slower if I had to run, but it might possibly make my foot easier to slip free if I didn’t black out. Of course, that was always assuming he ever left me alone long enough for me to try before he had broken me too badly for it to matter.
Salk was snapping his fingers in front of my face, his expression still blank, but his voice cold and angry. “Pay attention. This is your next chance. What else do you know?”
I knew I needed to cooperate at least partially to minimize any damage and slow things down. Through clenched teeth I muttered, “I know you give things to that monster to kill, or you are the monster. I don’t see how you could be, but who knows? That’s what else I know.”
He nodded. “So you don’t know much it sounds like. If you’re telling the truth, which you probably aren’t. But still, a good start.” He suddenly slammed the hammer down again on my foot a bit further in. My world exploded into red and black, and this time I heard myself screaming for a moment before I blacked out.
When I came to, Salk was just standing there, arms by his side, bloody hammer in his left hand. His eyes rolled towards me when I opened my eyes, but he didn’t move yet. Just stood there, statue still, watching me for awhile as I tried to get my thoughts together. When he spoke, his voice was still flat but sounded lighter, as though he was happier than he had been.
“Glad to see you’re back. You’re down three toes now, I’m afraid. In my expert opinion, they are beyond saving.” His gaze flicked down to my feet for a moment. “Two of them are pretty much not there anymore if I’m honest. But hopefully this is making my point. This is how much I hurt you when you cooperate. Imagine how much worse it’ll be if you don’t. I know how to break nearly every bone in your body without you dying from it quickly, and while I’m ill-equipped to keep you alive long-term here, I can certainly break you enough that the rot and infection that slowly kills you down in this hole will make this,” he waved the hammer towards my feet like the scepter of a bored king, “seem like a pleasure.”
I was barely listening to what he was saying. I was too focused on trying not to look at his bloody finger. I had been watching him closely since I first woke here, and I hadn’t seen any signs of him being faster or stronger than I would expect. If he typically hid some preternatural strength or agility, it seemed unlikely he would hide it now, particularly when he was trying so hard to frighten me. But it wasn’t much hope by itself. Even normal Marcus Salk was perfectly capable of torturing and killing me as he was, to say nothing of that monster I had seen, whether it was tied to Salk or somehow sprang from the man himself.
But then, when I woke up, as he gave his best intimidating monologue and waved his hammer around, I saw it. His right index finger was bleeding. That was the hand he was using to hold my foot when he hit it. That told me two things. First, he wasn’t especially coordinated. Second, he could still be hurt.
“Ready to answer my next question?” His voice remained lifeless, but it still had that lighter, almost merry edge to it. He was enjoying himself.
I nodded, making a point of moving slower and more wearily than I felt. “Yes. Water please.” I rasped my voice as much as I could, which wasn’t hard in my current condition.
It was hard to see what Salk was thinking, his face an emotionless mask as he seemed to consider my request. I felt my heart sinking as several seconds seemed to pass. Then his eyes shifted up in what might have been a look of exasperation. “Fine. Be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” He turned and moved into the dark. A door opened, and a light came on in the adjoining room. I could see much more of the basement now, including stairs at the far end that he had not taken. That meant there was water down here and he would be back sooner.
I frantically began tugging at my left arm, ignoring the pain and protest of my wrist as I yanked and twisted with all my strength. I had been right--the rope on my left wrist had some play in it, but I wasn’t sure it was enough. I started sawing the rope back and forth across my wrist quickly instead, and within a few seconds I saw blood beginning to well around the rope. At the same time I was aware of the light turning back off in the adjacent room as Salk returned.
After a frantic motion to smear the blood more thoroughly on the rope, I gave a last pull to free my wrist. I felt something pop in it, but the blood had provided enough lubrication that it slipped free just as Salk stepped back into the light. Good. Just in time.
“Seriously?” His voice was still too strangely flat to convey sarcasm well, but he punctuated it by throwing the glass of water he had brought in my face. He sat the glass itself down on the floor, and then bent forward, gripping my left arm roughly with his left hand as he began undoing the rope around the chair arm with his right.
This is what I was waiting for. I knew he favored his left hand, and that he would favor it more with his right one injured. He could have come at me from the side and been totally safe. But he was arrogant and he thought I was secure. Harmless. And the stupid bastard had tied my chest with a bungie cord.
An adult human male can bite down with over 200 pounds of pressure. Given the proper placement and force, it’s more than enough to rip out the left internal and external carotid arteries in one bite. I had thought of the best angle if I got the chance, but I couldn’t waste time trying to be perfect. In one movement I leaned forward and down and then shot my face up into his neck, my mouth as wide I could make it. Distracted with my arm and the rope, he couldn’t react in time. I clamped down, grinding my teeth together as I felt skin, muscle and then tendons give way. I shook my head as I pulled him towards me, and I felt the arteries begin to shred as new volumes of blood sprayed down my throat and out into the room around my lips.
I still didn’t let go, but I realized that Salk had been squealing. Not really struggling or fighting back, just squealing like a dying animal. I didn’t even hear it until it started to fade away. As his body went limp, the weight of it did the rest of the work for me, and with a wet snap I was left with a mouth full of the man’s throat as the rest of him crumpled to the floor.
I spat it out and began working to get free. Even with my injured
wrist, it didn’t take long. I kept an eye on Salk the entire time. He
had lost more blood than any person can lose and live, but I had seen
too much already that night. When I was free, I took the hammer and
beat his head until there was very little left. When there was no
question about him coming back, I began to explore the basement.
The room next door was actually a full living space, with a cot, a
small kitchenette, and a bathroom. I found some bandages and
antiseptic, doing the best I could to protect my foot in the short-term.
Salk had been telling the truth--the last two toes on my right foot
were gone. After I was done with first-aid, I began looking for any
information that Salk could have left behind. Any clues about what was
actually going on, what that creature was. But there was nothing that I
could find. I felt my strength waning as the adrenaline started to
wear off, so I got to work getting out of there.
I quickly pilfered his pockets and found his keys as well as my own. Moving up the basement stairs, I found the door at the top was locked, but after a tense moment I found the key on Salk’s keyring. I tried to move quietly as I went upstairs, images of that terrible creature in the woods filling my head as I hobbled along. I was in a small ranch house, and when I opened the exterior door I saw my battered little spy car outside. Apparently Salk had been forced to take it when his was wrecked, and by some miracle it had actually made it this far. I hoped it could make it a bit farther.
Standing in the doorway looking out, I saw I was out in the middle of nowhere. There was a dirt road leading away into the distance, but no sign of other lights from houses or cars. I could tell that the sky was starting to lighten as dawn approached, but it was of little comfort at the moment. Aside from the terrible pain, I also felt exposed in this strange place where anything could be lurking about. I quickly went back inside to spread around the contents of a gas can I had found in the basement, making sure to saturate anywhere I had traveled and Salk’s body as I went. Going back outside, I tried my car and it cranked up with a groaning whine. So far so good.
I had actually forgotten to find something to light the gasoline in my addled state, but the cigarette lighter from the car and a scrounged up piece of paper from my floorboard did the trick, and in a few minutes I was driving away.
Having no clue where I was, I saw the tracks on the dirt road seemed to show Salk had come from the right, so that’s the direction I headed back in. Driving was awkward, as the car had no cruise control and I couldn’t use my right foot to accelerate. Thankfully it was an automatic, and while it wasn’t comfortable, that inconvenience was the least of my worries. More troublesome was my consciousness, which was dipping in and out as I drove. Gritting my teeth, I bumped my right foot against the interior of the car lightly, the surge of pain making me groan but bringing me back for the moment.
I had a panicked thought and looked down at the gas gauge, remembering how low I had been before the wreck. Apparently Salk had to stop and get gas to get me all the way out here, because now there was over half a tank. I had the unironic thought that it was a lucky break, and then I started crying. Not just a little, but blinding, body-wracking sobs to the point that I had to pull over.
I sat there in my dingy little spy car for some time weeping. Part of it was the physical and emotional toll of the last few hours, but most of it was because it was over. Salk was finally dead. And that night, as I sat tied to his chair and said that him killing Rebecca was the only thing that was important, I had meant it. The monster, the mystery, none of that mattered. He had taken my life from me, my sweet, wonderful baby, and now I had ended him.
But while that was a relief in one way, it terrified me in another. For months I had been preoccupied with studying Salk, with preparing my revenge. Now that it was done, I found myself standing at the edge of my black despair, the ground weakening under my feet as the new reality set in. I had nothing left to do. Nothing left to live for.
Salk had taken my gun and knife, but there still was a boxcutter in the glove compartment. I took it out and held it for awhile, testing its feel in my palm and the accompanying idea in my mind. It was very tempting. But I kept thinking of what Rebecca would want me to do, and of that terrified little boy in the moments before he died. I wasn’t done. I couldn’t even say whether or not killing Salk had killed the monster or if it was still out there, and I hadn’t come this far to quit on any of it, myself included.
I cranked back up and drove on, hitting pavement and then a small town with a hospital nearly three hours from home. When I…
“Hold up,” I said, cutting my grandfather off mid-sentence. “Just stop.” He frowned and nodded.
We had been sitting here for over two hours, and as the old man talked I had felt my anxiety grow into a kind of strange, angry fear. I stood up and began pacing to try to rid myself of some of the nervous energy I had been accumulating.
“So to summarize, you killed this guy Salk who killed your wife. And he either was this terrible beetle-rat monster thing or he was working with him? Is that the fucking short version?” I realized I was yelling, but I didn’t care. My grandfather opened his mouth to respond but I talked over him. “Okay, aside from the fact of how batshit crazy that is, let’s just go with it for now. Let’s even say that you did kill this Salk guy, who clearly couldn’t be a monster because they don’t fucking exist, but that you were justified because he really did kill grandma.” I paused to take a breath, and seeing the abject sadness on his face, I forced a calmer tone. “How does any of that explain what I saw last night? What did you do to that woman?”
“I was getting to it. There’s a lot you still don’t understand.”
I shook my head. “No. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. I get that you have been through a lot. I do. And maybe you can’t see how crazy some of this stuff is. But if you really believe all this stuff…you need help. But I can’t know what kind of help you need until I know what you’ve done.” I tried to prepare myself for the question I had been dreading asking all morning. “Grandpa, did you kill that woman?”
He met my gaze solemnly, looking older in that moment than I had ever seen him. “I did. But again, there’s more to it.”
I raised my hand. “Sure. Aside from Salk and that woman, have you killed other people?” He nodded, not even trying to explain further at this point.
“How many?”
His eyes didn’t leave mine. “That woman makes 87.”
I felt my knees going as I stumbled back against the kitchen counter. “What? How? Fucking why?”
He looked dejected. “I’ve been trying to tell you why. It’s not an easy or quick thing to explain.”
I dug into my pocket as he was talking. “Yeah, I guess not.” Pulling my phone out, I tapped out 911 and hit call. After a moment of silence I heard it ring and then a woman’s voice was on the line.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
My throat was suddenly dry as a bone. My grandfather sat silently staring at me from the table without protest, just watching. I finally managed to croak out, “I think there’s been a murder out here. I think my grandfather killed someone.”
---
Credits
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