Chapter 7: Murder Gone Viral by Stephen Simpson
Richard chains the homeless boy onto the floor after kicking him a few times into submission.
Then, feeling accomplished with himself, he walks past the cubicles. It was easier than he would have ever been able to imagine. Six kids neatly stowed away in six cubicles. Now they are ready to start making the video as soon as Gareth arrives in the morning.
He does not feel like feeding them tonight, besides the smell down here will drive him insane. Tomorrow he will lead the drug-selling black kid on the choke chain, and he will have him clean up the place. It stinks.
He goes upstairs and then after he gets a six-pack of beers from the fridge, he settles himself onto the couch. He pops open the first can as he clicks the button on the remote control. The TV flickers on and after he switches between a few channels, he chooses a movie. He sits back with a beer can in his hand and he stares at the screen mesmerized. Before the movie is finished and the credits starts rolling across the screen, he has sipped his way through all six cans of beer, and he is fast asleep.
Sarah can hear the noise from upstairs and soon she realizes the sounds are from a movie. She asks softly, “Emily?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you? Can you see anything around you?”
The child whimpers. “No. It is too dark.”
A voice from across Sarah startles her. “It is too dark to see anything. I cannot even see my hand in front of my face.”
“Who are you?” Sarah asks bewildered.
“Max.”
“Max? How long have you been here?”
“Just arrived. How many of us are here?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long have you been here?” Max asks, worried.
“I am not sure, and I have been asleep for most of the time—I think anyway. The day I got here, there was a college boy who was asking me questions about being the perfect teen. I honestly thought it was just a joke, but then someone grabbed me from behind and put something over my head. Next thing I knew, we arrived here somewhere in the woods.”
Emily cries softly, “I want my Mommy.”
Sarah replies to her sad voice, “I promise you I will do everything I can to get us out of here.” She pulls her wrist painfully against the metal handcuff again, and despondently she knows she might never fulfil her promise to Emily. She says, “Okay, so we know there is me, Sarah. Also, Emily. Emily, how old are you?”
Emily sobs, “Eight.”
Max says, “I am nine.”
“Wow, Max. You sound very brave for a nine-year-old.” Sarah tries to sound impressed.
“Yeah, well. I have been living on the streets since I have been about seven. You have to learn to be strong quickly.”
“On the streets?” Living in her privileged world, Sarah never even considered the possibility there could be homeless people who are so young.
Max scoffs. “My dad woke up in a bad mood one morning and while calling me a homo, he literally kicked me out of the house. I suppose I could have gone back later after he had a few beers and mellowed out a bit, but after sitting across the house on the side-walk staring back at that house of pain, I decided it could not be any worse if I went somewhere else.”
Another voice asks softly from Sarah’s left. “What do you think they want to do with us?”
“Who are you?” Max asks harshly.
The soft voice replies, “Samantha.”
Sarah asks, worried, “Is there anybody else in here?”
There is a grunt from further back in the darkness and a deep voice says, “Me. Alex.”
Max exclaims, “Five so far. It is me, Emily, Samantha, Alex and you, Sarah.”
There are a few moments of silence as each of them considers their own predicament, when Max says again, “No, wait. There are six of us. When they grabbed me and threw me in the back of the van there was another black kid already in the back. He was slumped in the corner and he did not wake up once.” He hesitates. “Maybe he is dead already.”
Emily wails loudly.
Sarah shushes her, “No, Emily. We must not make a lot of noises. They might hear us.”
Emily continues to cry softly.
Samantha asks again, “So what do you think they want with us?”
Alex asks abruptly, “What do we have in common?”
Max replies, “An eight-year-old girl, a nine-year-old boy, the boy with me was black and looked about fourteen—maybe.”
Samantha offers, “I am eighteen.”
Sarah declares her age, “I am sixteen.”
Lastly, Alex contributes his age. “And I am seventeen. So, we are all kids. I heard you say Sarah that the day you were kidnapped, they said they were doing a survey on the perfect teen, so it must have something to do with that. Although being a homeless gay-boy does not really equate to a perfect teen.”
Max exclaims loudly, “Fuck you, asshole.”
Sarah gasps shocked, but before she can say something, Samantha adds to the conversation, “I am black, and I am disabled.”
Alex laughs derisively. “Also, not the perfect teen.”
Sarah inhales loudly. “What is wrong with you? I suppose you consider yourself perfect.”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I am popular, rich, football captain, rising star. Also, I am white, perfectly straight, and healthy.”
Max calls out disgusted. “You are the worse specimen of a human being I have ever come across.”
“Actually. You have not come across me yet, gay-boy. You have only heard me.”
They continue arguing and insulting each other right through the night until they hear the door above them creak open and footsteps come down the stairs. The overhead light flickers on.
Shocked Richard looks around when he sees eyes staring up at him in different degrees of emotion. Then he remembers he did not feed them the night before, so they did not get a dose of the potent sleeping potion. In hindsight, it was probably a good thing he chose not to feed them otherwise they would be all groggy this morning.
He walks past each cubicle, looking in on each inhabitant.
Emily is too pathetic, Samantha is paralysed, Sarah looks at him heroically, and Max looks at him defiantly. This leaves Alex and Scott. Alex is sitting in a corner of his cubicle with his legs pulled up and his forearms draped across his knees nonchalantly as if he is taking all of this in his stride. Scott is just starting to wake up, stirring in his sleep. Richard did not realize how hard he hit him behind the head and now the kid probably has a concussion.
Richard stops in front of Scott. He yells loudly, his voice bounces off the concrete walls, “Wake up!”
Hurriedly Scott sits up and scoots himself across the floor to the corner of the room. He looks up in terror. “Let me go. You don’t understand, my sister is all alone.”
“Get up.” Richard stares down at the boy.
Slowly, Scott lifts himself off the ground and then pushes his back further against the wall behind him. He pulls his hand up protectively until it jerks back, and he notices his hand is cuffed to a chain, which is connected to a metal ring in the floor.
Warningly Richard says, “Stand still. I have a job for you.”
Scott stands still until Richard pulls the dog training choke chain over his head. Scott pulls away, but it is too late, the chain around his neck tightens quickly and cuts into his skin, choking his breath out of him.
Richard pulls Scott behind him, while Scott investigates each cubicle as he stumbles past them. He sees other kids look out at him with dirty faces and huge eyes.
Richard hands Scott a shovel and a bucket and then he leads him around to each cubicle to clean it. Scott gags every time he scoops the human excrement from the ground and drops it into the bucket.
When the foul mess has been shovelled up from the floor, he tells Scott to put the bucket by the foot of the steps. He hands Scott a bucket with soapy water and a mop.
Silently and slowly Richard follows Scott around the room as he mops up the remaining dirt and pee stains. When Sarah or Max dare look him in the eye, he storms at them threateningly and afraid they avert their eyes quickly.
When the room is as close as it will ever again get to a fresh pine smell, he orders Scott to pick up the bucket and shovel as well. The unfortunate kid can hardly manage with two buckets, a shovel and a mop, but he stumbles up the stairs in front of Richard while the choke chain bites into the soft skin around his neck painfully.
Outside, Richard orders Scott to tip the soap-water into a ditch and then Richard takes the bucket from Scott. He twirls the bucket above his head and then when he lets go of the black plastic handle, the pink plastic bucket flies in a high, majestic curve across the soft pale blue of the early morning sky. It almost reaches above the trees, but then it brushes against the very top of a tree and it twirls and swirls in its plummet back to earth.
Richard pulls Scott to the back of the cabin. He says abruptly, “Take the shovel and dig a hole.”
Obediently, Scott starts to scoop the soft, dark brown soil. He is not sure how deep or how long he has to make the hole and panicked he wonders if he is digging his own grave.
After twenty minutes, Richard laughs amused. He has been watching the nervous expression on the little boy’s face and he could not help imagining all the frightening thoughts rushing through his head. “Bury the shit bucket.”
Scott drops the bucket down the hole and when it hits the bottom with a sickening slopping noise, the smell wafts up.
Richard exclaims as he gasps for air, “Fuck.” He lets go of the choke chain as he steps further away from the stinking hole. “Cover the hole,” he bellows. “And don’t get ideas and think you can run. There is nowhere to go.”
After Scott has covered the hole, Richard drags him behind him toward a rainwater container on four wooden stilts to the side of the back garden. With clothes and all he pushes Scott into an outdoor shower cubicle and then he turns on the tap. The water rattles through the pipes directly from the rainwater drum, and then the ice-cold water gushes over Scott’s head. He has an instant brain freeze, and his lungs battle to find a breath of air.
Richard lets him stand under the water for two full minutes, but to Scott it feels like two hours.
Laughing amused, Richard turns off the tap, and then he yanks Scott out of the cubicle.
Rivulets of water run down Scott and puddle in every footprint he leaves in the soft soil.
They walk back to where Scott let the spade lean against the side of the cabin. For a moment, Scott considers grabbing onto the wooden handle of the shovel and hitting Richard over the head with it. Richard is as big as a bear though, and fearfully Scott considers he would have to hit him more than once.
Without making a grab for the shovel, he stumbles past it. They enter the cabin and then Richard lets Scott use the toilet. He keeps the door open and stands with his legs spread apart, his body braced should the kid decide to make a run for it.
When Scott is finished, he comes walking out of the little room meekly. Richard pulls him back to the stairs and down to the basement, where after he chains him to the floor again.
Richard takes each kid up individually. He lets them each have a two-minute freezing cold shower and then he leads them to the toilet to do their business.
Lastly, he takes Sarah. As Sarah is pulled roughly with the choke chain pinching into her flesh, she looks around curiously. She looks for opportunities which might present themselves. She counts the stairs and her steps from the door to the shower. Her eyes fall on the shovel standing up straight against the outside wall of the cabin. Her eyes take in every detail of the cabin she can see as Richard leads her to the toilet.
Richard sighs when at last he finished his chores. He cleaned them, took them on a bathroom run, and filled their bowls with kibble and clean, fresh water from the tap.
He slumps down onto the couch in front of the TV exhausted.
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