Suffer the Flesh

Chapter 15

Huddled at the head of the stairs, gun aimed at dead air, Zoey waited. Ralph’s gun was on the floor beside her, not even a waistband to tuck it into, only the T-shirt on her back. Ralph’s pants might have fit, but she wasn’t about to untie him to remove his clothes.

The door downstairs was open a bit, which she’d done a minute earlier, hoping to avoid suspicion. Bursts of laughter and conversation flew up from the corridor. Zoey swallowed, and raised the gun in shivering hands. Death would be certain if they were to come up now, but she planned to take as many with her as she could.

But the voices faded, trailed until they became nothing. She cried out in relief, wiped the back of her hand across her forehead.

Ralph moved, grunted into his gag. Looked into her blue eyes, pleaded with his own. Babbling into the gag as she approached him, bobbing his head, groaning. The words were unintelligible but she knew what he wanted.

“Not a chance in hell, buddy,” she whispered as she cracked the butt of the pistol on his head. Out cold again, blood gushing from his newest wound. Through the two-way glass, she watched Serge stroking himself, standing in the center of the room. Looking from woman to woman as if sampling a buffet, deciding what he wanted to try first.

In the corner, a severely beaten James was either sleeping or dead. The guards beside him were tightly bound and gagged, but they didn’t look badly hurt. No missing limbs, no major blood loss.

Not much time to act. With Serge distracted, she might have a chance.

Guns in both hands, Zoey crept down the steps and reached the door. Chewed her lip, slowly peered outside the room. The door opened out, into the corridor, and she peeked behind it to make sure no one was there.

Beside her, the door to Room Two. She turned the knob, stole inside as quietly as possible, hoping Serge was still distracted. His attention was focused on Marie, chained to the back wall.

The door snicked shut, and she searched for a weapon to use other than the guns. Something quiet, something that wouldn’t make an explosive noise.

Strewn about the room, assortments of belts, whips, bats, clubs, paddles, wooden sticks like mop handles. In order to use the quieter weapon, she would have to get rid of one of the guns. Both, if she wanted to wield it effectively. She wrinkled her nose. The air was steamy with the stench of blood and shit and vomit. She had gotten used to her own pissy smell.

No option left but to drop the guns. She laid them on the floor, grabbed a bat.

The glassy-eyed women who had noticed her now had hope in their eyes, mouths ringed in expressions of pain and wonder. Zoey held her finger up to her lips.

Serge was raping Marie, her screams muffled by his large hand, his pig grunts and laughter chilling Zoey’s bones.

She charged across the floor, bat raised high overhead, and smashed him across his back. He slumped forward, crushing Marie to the wall.

The bat nearly slipped from her slick fingers as she bashed him again and again, the last time splitting his skull. She struck him several more times. Crimson spray covered her face, her shirt, Marie, the wall. For a moment he seemed suspended in mid-air and then slowly slid down the length of Marie’s body, crashed to the floor, his dead face frozen in shock.

Marie started to laugh and cry, her chest rapidly rising and falling, tongue jutting between clenched teeth. Zoey unclamped her wrists and released her from the wall.

“Hurry!” Zoey’s voice was a loud, strained whisper. “Get everyone untied. We don’t have much time.” She retrieved one of the guns.

She and Marie rushed around the room, releasing the women. Moans of relief were deafening, and Zoey kept trying to get them to quiet down. With Marie’s help, she lifted Jessica and released her ankles, gently lowering the unconscious woman to the floor.

“Jesus,” Marie muttered. “What smells so bad?”

“That would be me,” Zoey said. She glanced at the guards, tied up a few feet away. “What do you think? How about them?”

“I think they’d help.” Their heads bobbed in frantic agreement.

Zoey frowned, scratched her head. “I think we need all the help we can get. We have to get Tamara down from that goddamned cross. What about James?”

Marie started to untie the guards. “They can help us with Tamara. James is a mess. Probably won’t matter either way. He won’t be much use.”

James’s eyes were swollen shut, and he was slumped on his side. His hands were blue from the lack of circulation from excessively tight bonds. Zoey untied him, checked his pulse. Still alive.

Claudia, who had been rescued from a bondage mask, arms chained behind her, nipple clamps holding her still, had retrieved a gun and now controlled it as if she’d held one before. Powerfully muscled legs shoulder-width apart. Face streaked with gore, fresh burns on her stomach, blood oozing from her damaged nipples, the five-foot-ten woman looked ready for battle. Or as if she had already survived one.

“What’s the plan?” Claudia asked, moving beside Zoey, never taking her eyes off the door.

“No plan. Just winging it.” Zoey looked up from her spot kneeling beside James. “Look like you’ve done this before. Know how to handle that thing?”

“Hell yeah! New York state trooper.”

Zoey grinned. “Good!”

T-shirts were being distributed, wounded prisoners being triaged, tended to as best as possible using the small first-aid kit.

Claudia laid her gun on the floor to pull the shirt over her head. The door suddenly opened and a man wandered in, distracted, sucking his teeth. “Hey, Serge? Zack wants to know if—holy shit!”

Before anyone could react, he pulled the gun out of his waistband. “Nobody fucking move! Freeze!” He looked at Zoey, at the gun in her hand. “Put it on the floor.”

He stepped into the room. His hands were shaking, but he looked excited. “You must be that cunt Zoey.” He grinned. “We’re going to enjoy peeling the skin off your body, you stupid bitch.”

She never had a chance to raise her gun. Slowly she stood, her heart hammering, body slick with sweat. “Listen, this is all my fault, not theirs.”

“Shut the fuck up. Give me that goddamned gun. Slide it over here. And where’s Serge?”

Oh god… words just wouldn’t come, no matter how much she tried to force them. Her tongue was a slab of dead meat on the bottom of her mouth. She could only hope her death would be painless but began to see less and less of a chance of that happening. For a moment she tried to imagine someone peeling the skin off her body, and she shuddered, her stomach churning acid.

“Answer me!”

“We locked him in the bathroom,” Zoey stammered.

“Where’s the key?”

“In the lock.”

“Bullshit. You’re a fucking liar.” Sweat glimmered on his balding head. It seemed he didn’t know what he wanted to do. Licked his lips, head jerking, scanning the room. At least thirty people—women, former guards, all prisoners now—glowered back. But he had the guns.

“Everyone sit down! Not you,” he told Zoey.

She stood defiantly, despite her watery legs and a stomach trying to empty itself of everything she had ever eaten.

“Wait! You—kick that gun over here.”

Claudia did as he instructed and the gun spun near his feet.

“This is priceless,” he said, running his hand over his slick scalp. “Do you have any idea what we’re going to do to you?”

“Some idea. You goddamned coward. All of you are shit!”

The stunned look on his face was priceless, would be forever etched in Zoey’s memory. “Keep talking, bitch. You’re making it worse.”

He picked up the gun Claudia had kicked over, restored the safety, and tucked the spare weapons into his belt. “You—” He pointed at Claudia “You look good and strong.

Come here.”

Claudia stuck her tongue in her cheek and approached him.

“Pick that up.” The mallet. She did as he said.

“You—Zoey. Lay down. Right here.”

This didn’t look good. No, this was a fucking mess. She lifted her hands, protesting. He raised the gun and pointed it at her head. The room was spinning… jagged shards of light stabbed her eyes. Her legs turned to mush. Slowly, she lowered herself to the floor and lay down.

He pointed the gun at Claudia’s head. “Break her leg. Right below the knee.”

The mallet slipped, almost fell from Claudia’s hands.

“Do it! If you disobey me, you won’t be able to imagine what I’ll do to you.”

Her complexion was ashy. “I can’t…”

He pulled the hammer back on the gun, pointed it at her. “Oh, you can’t?”

Claudia raised the mallet.

He stepped back, gun aimed at her head.

Claudia sobbed. “I’m so sorry, Zoey!” She raised the mallet two-fisted over her head.

Zoey squeezed her eyes shut, waited for the unimaginable pain

Crack! She opened them again when she felt nothing.

Her tormentor was on his knees, blood tricking down his scalp.

Behind him stood Kim, sporting a metal pipe in both hands, chest heaving, spattered blood freckling her face.

“Oh, Jesus,” Zoey muttered, shaking so badly she couldn’t move.

Claudia grabbed the three guns from his belt and from where he had dropped one. Kim knelt beside Zoey, helped her sit up. She threw her arms around Kim’s neck and sobbed.

Claudia shut the door. The room exploded in cheers. “Where’s that fat fuck’s gun?” she said, heading toward Serge’s body.

“I forgot about you, Kim.” Behind her, people were carefully lowering a crucified Tamara to the floor.

“Where were you? Why didn’t they find you?” Zoey asked.

“I hid beneath the rack, right below that asshole. The guys came in and untied him, but he was a babbling mess. He barely knew where he was, never mind me. And those guys are so strung out on god-knows-what they didn’t remember who they’d left behind.”

“Where did you find the pipe?” Zoey asked, testing its weight in her hands, avoiding the smear of blood decorated with flecks of scalp.

“Upstairs. I went looking for you and found that guy instead. Your handiwork I presume? I saw what was happening down here and looked for a weapon.”

Claudia returned. “We’ve got five guns. Not too bad. And we’re slowly eliminating those scumbags. How many are left?”

“Four or five I think,” Zoey said. “And five down so far.”

“Five?”

“These two, two in the room where they had Tamara, Jess, and Kim, and one upstairs in observation. I took care of that one. I think nine came in originally, right?”

Claudia nodded. “I think it was nine, maybe ten.”

“Any chance they have guards posted upstairs?” Zoey asked.

“Not likely,” Claudia said. “There wouldn’t be a need for guards, right? These cocky bastards probably figured they were just dealing with a group of women and a handful of unarmed guards. Nothing they couldn’t handle.”

She turned to the former guards, who were huddled in a corner, wisely staying out of Zoey’s way. “How do we get out of this place?”