A Place So Wicked by Patrick Reuman (life books to read txt) 📕

Faces started popping in and out of the darkness. There must have been a hundred of them there, standing just beyond the veil of darkness. The darkness seemed to move, the faces with it, undulating in waves. She tried to focus, her head feeling heavy and weightless at the same time, trying hard to distinguish the faces, to see who they were. But it was impossible. Because just as the faces would come into focus, they would disappear.

“Where are they?” the doctor asked, coming forward, holding the knife at ready.

But she was out of it, watching as the darkness swirled like an ocean, the waves, people, somehow floating everywhere now, not only around her, but above her, higher than the door, in the ceiling. None of them were smiling like the doctor. They all looked exactly how she felt, trapped and afraid.

Eli opened the door and walked Toby inside, Toby’s hands behind his back with the rope wrapped very loosely around his wrists. They took in their surroundings with high-alert as they entered. To both their surprise, nobody was waiting on the other side to attack them. In fact, it didn’t appear there was anybody there at all. They scanned the area, baffled.

But then there was a noise. Toby knew straight away that it had come from the basement. He tried to hurry ahead but was held back by Eli’s grip.

“Let’s take it slow,” Eli said, whispering. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us down there.”

Eli remembered the pocketknife he had in his pocket and wished he had more, not only more weapons but more time. They needed a plan, and beyond this rope thing, they had none. But sometimes that’s just how life was, a fucking mess, chaos, and you never knew what was going to happen next. Like meeting Paisley and throwing his life on the line to save her and her family. Sometimes you just had to go for it.

They headed for the basement, but slowly, their steps soft as to not alert those below of their presence. At the basement door, they halted, both taking in a deep breath, knowing that beyond this door there was not only danger but a horrible smell, that of death. And it may be the last door either of them ever walked through. Toby wished it were a better door, grander, maybe made of gold or something. It was a funny thought, one to calm his nerves. It didn’t work.

Toby opened the door.

The doctor seemed more like an insane surgeon now, his hand firmly gripping the blade as it hovered over Paisley’s fingers. He said he would take her fingers off and make her eat them if she didn’t speak the answers he wanted. She shook, pinning her body as far back against the chair as she could. But she wasn’t going anywhere.

She could give a fake answer just to get him to stop. Wasn’t that the fatal flaw in most torture tactics? The fact that people would say anything to not lose their fingers, or worse, their life. She stuttered something, but it was nothing but jumbled nonsense. She couldn’t even line up her thoughts long enough to formulate a sentence let alone a plausible lie.

“Please don’t,” she mumbled.

It was not the strong, firm lie she wanted, but it did cause him to stop and look up, directly into her eyes. The faces in the dark were still there but were blurred now by tears.

“I will stop. All you have to do is tell me where the others are.”

She was right about to shake her head no, her throat too dry, too worn out to speak another word, when the basement door squeaked open behind her. Everybody stopped and looked up. A smile formed on their faces, striking fear and anguish into her bones. They must have found them. There was nothing left now, other than to die.

Down the stairs came Toby, Eli in tow, Eli’s hands placed firmly over Toby’s. “I found this one outside.”

Eli’s voice almost brought a smile to Paisley’s face until his words processed in her mind. He found this one outside. Which one, she wondered, had they found? And how had he found one but not the others?

“Let me go!” Toby yelled. “You fucking monsters! Let me go!”

Addison’s mother laughed. “Monsters? Is that what you think we are?”

Toby thrashed around, pretending to try to break free from Eli’s grasp. It caught Eli off guard, almost causing him to lose his grip. But he held strong, glad of Toby’s actions because he wasn’t sure anybody would believe their act, especially with Toby being a little bit bigger than Eli himself.

“You lure people to this house,” Toby yelled, the words not truly an act, but all the built up rage finally escaping. “Then you feed them to this house like cattle. You sick bitch!”

But the woman only laughed, shedding a wide grin for them all to see. She started to talk, but another cut her off. A hooded figure stepped forward from the dark.

“You think it is we who are the monsters?” a girl’s voice said as the hood was removed to reveal Addison. “We are the protectors. We are the reason this city is still standing, the reason it prospers. Without us, all of it would crumble. It is you that are the monsters. You are merely six people. The city is made up of thousands. You selfish ingrates would have them all die so that you may live?”

“So that we may live?” Toby was growling now, his words coming out with such disdain, such hate, that it was nearly palpable around him. “We didn’t do anything wrong to deserve to die! You don’t get to decide who lives and who dies!”

“Unfortunately for you,” Addison’s mother said, a small smile on her shadowed face, “we do. And we