Slaughter

By Lemon Sparrow

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I would rather be anywhere, anywhere other than this too-sunny room with these too-chilly people. They are the chalk-skinned, the blue-veined, and in an attempt to appear more human than they are they have filled the room with sunlight, which does not warm, though the light is bright and yellow, as it should be. The strangest thing about this place, however, is not the people, nor the strange light (which is false, cold like these people’s faces), but the brick wall that stands three feet from both windows. That wall makes me feel trapped, but the five others in the room don’t seem bothered by it. They stand, hands clasped, in silence. Oh, yes. The silence is theirs, theirs alone, and they will see how long I can stand it. How long before I crack.

The chair I sit on is uncomfortable and cold, and though I am free to move, free to run if I want, I don’t. That would be stupid, and I know it. With people like these, who knows what sort of weapons they have, how many people they control? If I were to run, and an entire army was waiting outside the door, they would gun me down in an instant. Ka-pow. No more Lauren Edgewood.

I clear my throat, once, nervous and trying not to show it. “What do you want?” I ask.

I’m being stupid, I know - they haven’t spoke a word yet, and they won’t now - but I have to try. A long time ago (only a few years, really, but I have no concept of time) my grandma told me one of those peculiar sayings. Deafening silence. You see that phrase in books all the time, but I never understood it until now. And once I do, it’s frightening. These people, five men with their too-pale skin and their blue veins, are trying to break me with silence. I don’t know what they want, I really don’t, but I understand what they’re doing. The silence is another Chinese water torture, or lights flicking on and off at random. Five seconds. Two. Twenty-eight.

“I know what you’re doing,” I tell them, but again, no response. “Let me out!” They don’t even twitch, and I am struck with the sudden, inexplicable feeling (though more real that any other emotion right now) that if I were to get up and push one of them over, he would fall like a cardboard cutout with no resistance.

“You don’t have the right to do this, you know,” I say. “You can’t kidnap me and hold me hostage for no reason. There are police; they’ll find me.” My words sound pathetic, desperate to my own ears, but I push any certainty I have left into them. It won’t do me any good to break down, or to become numb with fear, and I know that. I know that. For the first time, one of the men smiles.

He is silent, but he doesn’t need to speak because I know what he’s thinking. It’s what I’m thinking, something along the lines of ‘People do it all the time, what are you saying? It might not be legal, but thousands, millions of people have been held hostage, even tortured, for no better reason than that their captors wanted to. We don’t need any other, my dear. You’re a silly, foolish girl and you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And it’s true; I don’t. I don’t know why I’m here, I don’t know what they want from me. I’m helpless, though I hate to admit it.

My grandma, the same one who told me about deafening silences, likes to tell people I am the most stubborn girl they will ever meet. Give me a problem, I’ll solve it. Put me in a room with no windows and no keys to the door, and the next day you’ll find me outside twisting daises in crowns because I had a hairpin in my hair that day. I may have been able to undo all the magic knots at the country fair, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get out of this. These people who have me? They’re scary. It’s not the skin, or the veins, or the way they are forever silent - though, that’s unnerving as well - it’s them. It’s looking at them and knowing something about them isn’t quite right. That they’re not quite… not all the way human.

They’re not aliens, or monsters; they’re people - but not in the way we’re used to seeing them. It’s as if a crucial part of their brain had been removed at birth, and now they’re not like the rest of us.

“Listen,” I whisper, trying to make my voice into something dangerous, something they should be afraid of. “You’d better let me out. You’d better let me go, you bastards. You sons of bitches.”

The man who smiled before does so again, and I have the unshakable feeling that he has no idea what I’m calling him. I try to think of a threat, but nothing comes. I’m looking into the man’s eyes - he stands second to the left - and I can’t look away. Throat dry, eyes glued, I stare. His eyes are a color I’ve never seen before, but I know they’re not contacts as certainly as I know that my own are blue. His eyes are a flinty grey, a steel hue, and they are so cold I know, instantly, that he’s a killer.

Murderer.

Life-stealer.

“Who are you?” I ask, not expecting an answer.

Stepping forward, he comes to stand before me, hands resting on his knees as he bends. He is kneeling, now, and that peculiar, knowing smile is still there. “My name is Slaughter,” he whispers. They are the first words I’ve heard in over a day, and they send cold fear down my throat. I can’t swallow. “What is yours?”

And right then - the moment I look into his eyes - I know I’m not getting out of here. I’m going to die, here on the floor that thousands, millions of others have died. I can’t escape because there’s a brick wall three feet from the window, and I know there is nothing behind it that will save me. I’m going to die, and it’s going to be bloody.

“Make it quick,” I tell him, and he smiles again.

“Of course. Lauren Edgewood.”

My body is trembling, and I can’t remember if I ever told him my name at all.

finis