Enough-Pt. 2

Part 2: Failure

            It was the chill that ran up her spine that roused Nadine from the darkness into an even darker reality. It was cold. She was shaking and she couldn’t remember a time when she had ever been so cold. Her whole life, her mother had obsessed over the wonders of layers, wrapping scarf after scarf, pulling sweater after sweater on her and sending her on her way. But as Nadine lifted her throbbing head off the ground slightly, she knew she was far from home. But she couldn’t place where. It was dark and the windows in the room, just two small ones, were sloppily painted over in black. Small strings of light filtered out through the streaks and dust swirled up as the light touched the floor. On the side she was facing, Nadine could make out a bunch of old junk, at least that was the only word she could come up with. Useless knickknacks like an old grandfather clock in the corner, its face cracked and hands still—one of them bent at an awkward angle. Then there was the old 1950s-styled washing machine, its door yanked off, the metal pieces that once kept it attached jagged. There were boxes too, tons of them, with dark stains from what Nadine assumed was water damage. Some boxes were sealed with an endless amount of tape, others had even more useless junk popping out of them. Like the box closest to Nadine held a bent golf club, a lamp with no shade and a broken lightbulb, a bug net with a perfect circle cut right in the middle.

            She was unsure of the time she had spent in the dark room, but she knew it had been a couple of days. On the first day, she had been hysterical and begging. The dark man didn’t care, in fact he calmly told her a total of three times to keep quiet. When she failed to do as he demanded, there was the fist sailing toward her and silencing her. When she came to and Nadine saw him sitting across from her, she started up again and he silenced her once more. The third time, she whimpered and he was okay with it. But then her eyes drifted to the rest of the room and the screaming started again.

            He had pulled her upright and through her tear-filled eyes, Nadine blinked, her eyes scanning the room. The cold she had realized in that third moment had been coming from behind her and when she looked over she found out why. The first thing she saw was an ancient looking desk complete with a swivel chair and an equally ancient laptop with a camera hooked up to its screen. But just behind the desk there were the bodies but what captured Nadine’s attention was the one suspended from the ceiling. They were all women, all of their bodies in various forms of decay, all of them various ages and all of them frozen. Their faces were all contorted in silent screams, their eyes wide with terror. The suspended woman had her stomach gutted and her insides hung out of her. The suspended woman’s face was contorted into a look of pure terror, her eyes so wide they looked as if they could pop right out of her skull. The scream that escaped Nadine’s mouth at the sight of the woman had made the dark man rise up and wrap his fingers around her neck.

            He had choked the scream right out of her and as Nadine started to cough furiously, the dark man had eased back against the wall, sliding down to the floor across from her. But the minute Nadine got the air back in her lungs, she fixed a dark look on him. The good little girl within her was coming out and unable to stop it she said: “You’re…you’re insane.”

            The words had seemed to make every hair on the man rise up. Even through his burly beard, she could see the dark rage forming and before she could take it back, before she could even see it coming, he was on her, punching her in the face. There was the blinding pain as his knuckles connected with the bridge of her nose. There were the stars, twinkling and dancing in the darkness of the room. Then there was the sharp, iron taste on her tongue and then there was nothing.

            Her nose had been broken. She could barely breathe properly now because of it but she had learned her lesson. He didn’t want her to comment. He just wanted her to sit there and listen to him talk. It was okay for her to look, to question with her eyes and he would be more than happy to explain. He just didn’t want to hear her voice and he most definitely didn’t want to hear her opinion. So, when he came in earlier, she had remained silent. He had pulled her up and she had forced her eyes to skip over the bodies to the long shelves lined against the wall. There were jars there and as she squinted her eyes to try and get a closer look, the pain in her nose making her dizzy, the dark man had followed her gaze.

            The jars were lined neatly and had words scratched onto masking tape across the middle. The dark man had chuckled, gaining Nadine’s attention once more. She had been staring at one jar in particular, one that was closer to her but still too far to read the scribbled words.

“That one is from my early days…back when I was just starting out.” She remembered how he had titled his head back, a small smile lighting his lips at the memory.

“It was a pigeon,” He had continued. “A fat one that couldn’t get off the ground. It had lived by the trashcan in my driveway for days and I got tired of looking at it. I was six. So one day, when I was playing in the grass and that pigeon was picking at the bread crumbs mother would leave beside it, I picked up a rock and I crushed it.”

Nadine knew he had enjoyed it. It might have been dark in the room, but there was some light where the bodies were and as his head had tilted back, she could see his smile. She could see the excitement in his eyes. She tried to be him in that moment, imagine a small child crushing a pigeon with a rock. She had called him insane before but seeing him take pleasure years after ending a small animal’s life, Nadine couldn’t help but think whatever problem he had ran deeper.

“Then I ripped its wing off. It was easy, like tearing paper. And in that jar, that’s that wing. I preserved it. Mother always said I was a scientist at heart. I think I was more of a doctor except I never did anyone any good…”

            He then went on to tell her the purpose of the room. How it was a trophy room, how he kept things that meant something to him only, things that reminded him of the good times in life. He was a very precise man, he told Nadine. His mother had always praised him for his careful hands and said that one day he would do the world a great deed, that he would help people. But, the dark man didn’t see it that way. As far as his hands were concerned, as long as they were attached to him, his definition of what was “good” was skewed.

            She wasn’t sure what it was that made her realize her days, her hours, hell maybe even her minutes, were coming to a close. She wouldn’t be alive for long. It was only a matter of time before she would probably be replacing the suspended woman. That was why when she had come to after drifting off in the middle of another twisted story, she had been struggling to free herself from her bindings. The ropes that bound her hands and ankles were tight, so tight, she was losing circulation. But, her nails were sharp and though that hadn’t helped her when the dark man had pulled her right out of the parking lot, they were helping her dig into the bindings. She could feel the binds weakening and only a few more minutes of slicing and wiggling was all she would need in order to free herself.

            In thinking of the parking lot, Nadine couldn’t help but think back to Kenton. The one she had obsessed with for days and had even written in her diary about made her chest ache. She imagined Kenton coming out of the theatre, that lovable smile on his face, his dimples showing and then the confusion filling every angle. His head turning every which way. He would call her name and run back inside, asking the workers if they had seen her, if maybe they had seen her go back in because he had taken long to find his phone. She wondered if the dark man would have still tried to take her if Kenton was there. She was sure the boy of her dreams would have given it his all and decided in that moment that even if he lost the fight and she  had still been taken,

            As one last wiggle caused the rope around her wrists to fall, Nadine wondered how Kenton was taking it all. How worried was he about her? She started on the rope around her ankles, pulling as quickly as her numb hands could. She had to escape, that was always at the back of her mind and no matter how hard the dark man hit her, it was the one thing that could never get knocked out of her. She was going to get out. She was going to run up the steps and out the front door and run as fast as she could until she was home, or out in the open, or in front of a neighbors door. What would happen after involved her being reunited with her family and running into Kenton’s arms who would hold her close, press light kisses to her forehead and tell her that he would never let her out of his sight ever again.

            Thinking this way restored the shattered remnant of hope in Nadine’s belly. She had energy now, blood pumping faster and faster through her veins and pretty soon, she was grabbing one of the glass shards from the broken clock in her fist and starting up the steps. She had to get out. She had to go home. She couldn’t stay in this basement, storage room, trophy room, whatever it was. One second longer and she would go mad. It was all about the effort, she told herself as she reached for the knob. If it didn’t work out…if it didn’t work out…

            The door creaked open slightly and Nadine slipped out quickly. She was in a kitchen and it was a sharp contrast from the mess she had faced downstairs. Clean floors, new appliances that were scrubbed so that everything shined. The paint job was sloppy, an ugly shade of yellow but the objects in the room made her stop for a moment. When she got over her shock, she was moving again, gripping her piece of glass in her fist and moving down the dark hallway, Nadine moved as quickly and quietly as she could. She entered a new room, no doors, just more hallway. This room was empty but it had a single TV in it with antennas poking out, old style with knobs and all. There were two windows in the room, side by side and a regular size but they were painted black and even had boards nailed over them.

            Though she could see the dark man living here, it didn’t make sense. This house was probably just the place where he committed his bloody crimes, where he took his victims. She hurried down the hall, not letting thoughts of the dark man slow her and finally, she reached what looked like the front door. She ran for it, forgetting about being quiet, just desperate to escape. She had passed a door she thought was a closet but seconds before her fingers touched the knob, the door swung open.

            Then there was someone slamming into her from behind, making her ribs smash against the door. Nadine dropped to the floor, in too much pain and was so taken by surprise that she could barely force out a gasp let alone breathe. She looked up enough to recognize the dark man and then she felt him grab a fistful of her hair and pull her back.

            “Bad!” The dark man growled, like he was scolding a dog and he was pulling her back, toward the basement and that was when Nadine knew she had to fight. Gripping the glass, she plunged it into the hand that he pulling her with and as he cried out and released her, she began to crawl away.

            But the dark man ripped the glass from his hand and reached for her with his other one. He grabbed her hair again and Nadine cried out, tears lighting her eyes. He flipped her with ease back onto her back and though Nadine kicked and clawed at him, it didn’t do much. Growing tired of her fidgeting, he released her hair and stepped over her. He pulled back his fist and Nadine knew what was coming next.

            She didn’t stop fighting though. She thought back to her mother’s warm hugs, to her father’s firm shoulder pats and lastly she thought of Kenton Fuller’s smiling face. She thought  about how nervous he looked seconds before asking her out. Cool and composed Kenton Fuller nervous? She couldn’t help but laugh lightly at the memory, the tears sliding down her cheeks in the present. Then the fist was sailing toward her face and when it made contact with her cheekbone, the explosion of pain made her eyes grow wide. The stars began to gather above her head, her vision growing blurry.

            But, before her world faded to black, there was a voice that reached out to her. A familiar voice that made the hope that had been reborn in her stomach die.

            “She got pretty far.”

The world was fading, the darkness was pulling her in, but she clung to the voice, to every word and her mind was scrambling to place it.

            “You should lock it next time.”

            At the last second it all became clear, but it was too late. The same cold darkness that had consumed her all those other painful times was back, wrapping its arms around her, covering her ears and mouth and telling her that it was enough, telling her that she had done enough.