After Grace

19. All Things Wicked

I smelled death before I opened my eyes. I tried to move my arms. The rustling of metal chains chimed above me-- I turned my bruised eyes up and saw my wrists hanging from the ceiling. Beside me, another man had been left in the same position. Arms over his head, chains keeping them in place. The only difference between he and I was life and death.

My dry tongue scratched the roof of my mouth, blood seeped between tiny cracks in my lips. I was dehydrated and weak. My head pounded, I could barely keep my legs straight. The room was dark save for thin needles of sunlight piercing the broken blinds over the windows. The corpse beside me was not the only dead thing in the room. This was also where they kept the heads and other inedible parts of people they killed. I remembered their teeth necklaces and skull masks. This is where they kept the materials. Flies and maggots revelled in this place. I knew vomiting would only make things worse, I did my best to keep what little I had in my stomach from flooding out.

Gunner walked through the door with a smile on his face, one that was quickly obscured behind a bandana. "You haven't puked-- good thing I'm not a betting man, certainly would've lost that wager." He held a can of beans in front of me and shook it. "Care for a bite?" he asked. The hunger tightening my stomach mixed with the repulsion from the body parts made my head spin. "No? Okay, I'll eat it later." He put the can aside and moved closer to me. "You've been through this before, you know the drill."

"The drill? The last interrogater I had, I killed," I said.

"Yeah, we were pretty sad about that. Tamara was a good lay. But there are always others to fill her place. Like you... okay look, this doesn't have to be a whole dramatic thing, just tell me where the other group is and you can go hang out with your friends, tell stories, sing songs. Really, we won't bother you."

"I wanna talk to her," I said. He leaned down close to me.

"You're talking to me."

"No," I replied and looked him in the eye. "I'm done talking."

"Oh yeah?" He meandered to the window across from me and lifted the blinds. Annie and Camden stood in the middle of the street, both shivering in stained white t-shirts, two men holding them in place.

"We talked to the others, well, talked is a loose term for it. But they told us these two are new, said they came with you."

"They'll freeze!" I said, I could see Annie's rattling chin as her whole body shook from the cold. I watched Camden's eyes as he tried to understand what was happening.

"Oh, trust me, freezing is the least of their concern right now. Where is the other group?"

"I--"

"Before you try to lie your way out of this, let me just say we've searched these woods. We've been sending scouts out for months. If you tell me someplace we've already checked, I'll know you're lying and the kids will pay. Who do you want to die first? The boy or the girl?"

"Wait! Listen to me, Halter said I'm one of you, there was another girl, Victoria, we were taken from here, Halter said Mother would want to meet me. I don't know what he meant but--"

"I don't care," he said and rapped his knuckles against on the glass.

The two men holding the children let them go. Annie and Camden stood idle, not knowing what to do. The men took the rifles slung around the shoulders and held them in their hands. One of them pointed towards the woods. Annie took Camden's hand. The children ran.

"You have thirty seconds before we go after them. If you lie, we kill them."

"Wait, let me just talk to her!" I begged.