11 – The Slaughterhouse

Kadin is standing in front of her gate and scrutinizes Bird Street. There is no sign of Billy. Where could he be? It is getting late.

He just went to get out of his school uniform and into casuals and promised to fetch her afterwards. Something is wrong! She received numerous calls from his smartphone which she missed because her phone was in her room while she quickly made something to eat in the kitchen and the radio was on.

Damn! She wishes that she heard the calls and wonders why he hadn’t text her, because now she is clueless. She tried to phone him afterwards and only found the answering service until her battery was deflated.

She wants to yell out of frustration and worry and decides she has to walk up to his home in Park Drive. She starts to walk briskly. What if they have caught Billy? She remembers that the booklet is still in her room. Billy gave it to her when they were at Vyasa to keep until they have the time to go and put it back. Something spurs her on because she must reach Billy’s home as soon as possible to see if he is safe. The booklet will have to wait; they’ll collect it later on.

Maybe something unforeseen happened and his mother needed him urgently and something went wrong with his phone. Maybe he is safe at home; and is the booklet so important for those dangerous men? Then she remembers the warning on the first page in Sanskrit: “Put me back where you found me before the world comes to an end and if the devil visits you, don’t look him in the eyes.” Vyasa was adamant that they should return the booklet immediately before the curse hits them.

Maybe they should have listened!

She begins to jog.

~*~*~

It is a rough ride and Billy must use his hands to support him and prevent him from toppling over. The man still stares at him with cold, hateful eyes and sitting against the sliding door, he blocs any possible escape. What are they planning? Is the booklet really that important or did they kill the old man and want to get rid of an eyewitness? That must be the reason why the man doesn’t inquire about the booklet and only gestures that he must keep quiet.

Maybe he is on his way to his execution. Vyasa’s warning now rings in his ears: there is a curse on someone who keeps the booklet and then these strange words that none of them understood: “... if the devil visits you, don’t look him in the eyes.”

Is he going to meet the devil? Maybe these men have instructions to prepare him for the devil!

He shivers when he thinks back about those street kids with the strange eyes that followed him and gazed at him with their blue eyes and acting like zombies. Vyasa warned them that an ominous wizard probably is their leader. How on earth did these men locate him so easily? He was so sure that he had ditched them the moment the lift’s door closed. Then again he sees the blue eyes of the boy that stares at him when the lift’s door closed. And he remembers the eyes of the boy who stared at him when he exited the lift and then followed him.

“If the devil visits you, don’t look him in the eyes ...”

He shivers with goose bumps all over.

If they want to murder him, he has no control over that. If they only want the booklet, he’s got an ace up his sleeve that he must play as cleverly as possible. The problem is that he wants to return the booklet without endangering Kadin because the damn thing is in her possession. If he gives it back, what assurance does he have that they won’t liquidate all eye witnesses?

The van suddenly turns sharply and jolts to a halt. Billy doesn’t see anything and ignores the man flatly that stares at him. The van is motionless for a few seconds and then moves abruptly forward just to stop dead again. The front doors open and then close. Are they at their destination?

The man in the cabin opens the sliding door and gets out. He walks backward and gestures to Billy to exit the van. Billy gets out cautiously with his schoolbag still slinging from his shoulder and looks around.

They are in an empty, dark warehouse with large electric, roll-up garage doors behind them. The only light comes from windows near the roof.

The man’s two accomplices stand at each side of the van and watch him carefully. His stomach knots and he gets a sickening feeling when he sees a rope hanging from the high roof with the rest of the rope heaped on a piece of plastic on the cement floor. Are they going to execute him and get rid of his body or are they going to torture him and is the plastic there to keep his blood off the floor? A little bench is placed right beneath the rope. Are they planning to hang him? He doesn’t see a loop in the rope.

The man from the van speaks for the first time in a strange accent: “Take off everything and shoves it in the van and I am not going to repeat myself.”

Billy puts his bag in the van and looks back at the man but he seems to look forward to any excuse Billy might offer to hurt him. Reluctance is not a good idea! He removes his blazer and then his shirt self-consciously. His heart is beating wildly and he feels dizzy from fright. What is their plan? He stands with his bare upper body and hesitantly looks at the man.

“You better hurry up ...”

He removes his shoes and socks and shoves it into the van. The ice cold cement floor makes his reality palpable. He removes his trousers and self-consciously stands only in his underpants. He looks at the man with the question on his face: may I please keep my underpants on?

The man shows no mercy: “Everything!”

He removes the last piece of respect and stands there naked and uneasy with his hands in front of his tools. Why on earth must he be naked? Is it part of his torture or is it because his clothes could leave forensic evidence when they leave his naked body somewhere else? The man turns around and gestures to the bench and the rope. “Walk forward and step onto that little bench.”

Billy obeys and walks over the cold cement floor and climbs on the bench. His heart is beating fast in his chest and light sweat forms on his forehead. Anxiously he listens and expects distress. Maybe a stab with a knife or a bone breaking hit with a baseball bat. Or are they going to strangle him? He feels his nudity all the more tensely and must concentrate not the shiver from fear. The sense of feeling so overwhelms him that he is beginning to feel dizzy.

His heart nearly stops when one of them takes his left arm and another his right arm. Appalled he sees that these are the accomplices. They lift his arms and bind his wrists expertly as if they had practiced it beforehand. Do they always handle their enemies like this? They each walk to the opposite walls of the warehouse. They hook the rope around pegs in the walls. Then they pull the rope tighter and tighter.

Billy feels how they pull his arms straight until his shoulders are severely stretched. He bites on his teeth when the rope cuts painfully into his wrists. Just before he cries out of pain they are satisfied and fasten the rope ends. He now knows they plan torture; but why don’t they ask about the booklet’s whereabouts? Maybe they want to make sure that he realizes the hopelessness of his situation and that he will be as meek as a lamb when they work with him.

Then he hears a loud bang and his heart jumps in his throat as the bench is kicked from underneath him and it scrapes noisily along the cement floor. It must have been the third man that has done this. He instantly lands in a crucifix position that pulls painfully at his shoulders and he must balance himself on the front of his feet cushions and use his calf muscles. It gives a little relief from the tension in his shoulders and wrists. He realizes that his calve muscles will tire very soon and that this position is going to become more painful by the second. He just prays that they are not going to increase the tension by pulling the rope even more because the grip on his wrists is painful and uncomfortable.

Then a voice from behind: “What is your name?”

Billy swallows and tries to get his name out but his throat is dry. He hears his own voice hoarse and shaky: “Billy ...”

“What?”

He cleans his throat and tries again: “Billy ...”

Billy listens intently and tries to find out what is going on behind his back. He hopes they are going to negotiate before the torture begins. Why don’t they ask him about the booklet? The only reasonable explanation he can find is that they are preparing him for the leader. Attentively he listens but all is quiet behind him. Then he hears noises that sound like fidgeting with something at the van. Maybe they are searching through his school bag.

Suddenly there is a reflection of light against the wall opposite him and a light breeze caresses his naked body. Someone is probably entering through a side door. Could this be the leader? Now he is hearing a faint whisper behind him and then all is quiet again. Vyasa believes these people are part of an unholy cult and the leader is a powerful wizard.

“...if the devil visits you, don’t look him into his eyes.”

Billy gets a fright and shivers because ice cold finger points touch his skin lightly and tease under his armpits and slowly caress his sides and over his stomach and then ever so lightly over his buttocks and then vanish so that he shivers involuntarily and his back muscles and calves contract painfully. He now feels impotent and dependent on their mercy.

A rough, strange, hoarse voice whispers in English in his right ear and Billy gets goose bumps all over.

“Billy... Billy... Billy... why didn’t you just left my booklet behind? But every action has its reaction and each decision has a consequence and here you are now ...”

The accent is stronger, and stranger than that of the previous speaker.

“We create our own reality, Billy. Welcome in your own HELL ..