The Gospel of the Font

Chapter 20

Guess what: I'm not dead yet, though I'm not much better off. Most people will tell you to treat every day you're alive as a blessing, but those people have never spent two weeks tied to a steel pipe in someone's smelly basement, wearing the same clothes they were wearing when they were captured.

Yeah, welcome to my new reality. A pair of police-issue handcuffs are rubbing my wrists raw as they keep me tethered to a long chain wrapped around a metal pipe running from the floor to the ceiling along the wall. The room is a large, unfinished basement with dusty cement floors. The walls are pure cinder block and the paneled ceiling has insulation hanging through gaping holes as well as some bundles of wire.

There is only light in here when the sun is out, coming through the slender windows on the walls to my left and right. When the sun goes down, it's as dark as it is when my eyes are shut. It's hot and humid during the day and cold as fuck at night, but I have no bed or blanket. I've been spending my nights curled up against the wall in the tightest ball I can form and my days hardly moving to conserve what little energy I have.

As for my own condition, let's just say that I've looked better. I haven't had a shower in two weeks and I'm covered in dirt and dust. My black hair is matted and clumpy and my skin is pale. My clothes are dirty and torn and I smell so bad that the flies won't even buzz around me anymore. I've been having trouble determining if I'm sick or not. I can't stop coughing, though that may just be the dust. I'm woozy, but that's to be expected with what little they give me to eat and drink around here.

So, what landed me in this situation? Well, it all started when I woke up in the back of a van after being knocked out in the hotel room. I was tied up and lying on a hot metal floor. There were several men around me, but I couldn't see their faces. We were moving, but I had no idea where to or how long we'd been on the road. Hell, I didn't even know how long I'd been out. I'm still assuming that I woke up the same day I was knocked out. It could have been a year later for all I fucking know.

Anyway, the van stopped at this house in the middle of nowhere. It was night time when we stopped, but I could see a bunch of trees surrounding the house and not a single streetlight. They led me through the front door and dragged me into the kitchen. I was thrown onto a dining room chair and they bound my hands behind me.

As a bunch of Redeemers I'd never met before—and didn't care to—surrounded me, I got to see a familiar face. You can imagine my shock when that fat fuck, Detective Harris, comes strolling into the kitchen. It isn't his house, or at least it's not where he lives. Given the rundown condition of this shit hole, I don't think anyone lives here. An abandoned house in the middle of the woods; what a great place to stash a kidnapping victim.

Harris and his thugs spent hours working me over, constantly demanding that I give them the book. With each refusal, their torture techniques got worse. I was splashed with ice water, beaten by men twice my size, drug around the floor by my shackles, and worse, but I never gave them the book.

After about twelve hours of this treatment, they chained me in the basement and left me. Harris shows up once every couple of days to give me food and water, which usually consists of stale bread and water that I'm sure he got out of the toilet. He always comes at night and is wearing a black suit, probably to keep from being seen. With each visit, he gives me the same speech, that it will all end as soon as I give them the book, and I give him the same response, that I won't give it to them and they'll have to kill me.

A part of me wonders if they know what will happen if they just outright kill me. I'm sure Allustar told them not to let me die without handing it over but didn't tell them why, so they blindly followed without question. Of course, it could be them just desperately wanting to see the book for themselves, not wanting to admit that their curiosity has overridden their faith. Either way, it doesn't help my situation.