The Laughterhouse

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Dr. Stanton is awake. He tries to cower deeper into the trunk when Caleb opens it. Caleb has never seen a man look so panicked. He has the look of someone who doesn’t know if his children are dead or alive. He should warn him that this is the easy part, that with what’s coming up this was the wrong time to be scared. There is a lump on the side of his head the size of a golf ball-he’ll have one hell of a headache, but he’ll live. His arms are bound behind him and his pajamas are all wrinkled to shit and his ankles are tied together.

“Your daughters are okay,” Caleb tells him. “But if you don’t do what I ask, I’m going to hurt them. I’m going to cut off their faces and mix them all up so you won’t know who the fuck you’re looking at. Do you believe me?”

The doctor nods but says nothing. Caleb can see he’s very much believed.

“See, that’s the thing, Doctor, in the past you’ve believed the wrong people, but it’s good to see you’ve learned from those mistakes. Do you know who I am?”

A shake of the head.

“No, I didn’t think you would. Life has moved on and I look a little different, I suppose, from when I was in the papers back then. But we’ve never met. I’ve been watching you over the last few weeks and learning even more about you over the years, but there are some things about you I didn’t figure out. I see your wife left you. That’s a shame,” he says, “because it would have been fun to kill her in front of you. In jail, it’s been hard to learn things, but sometimes we have access to the library and the Internet. It’s amazing how much shit there is on the Internet,” he says, and it’s true. It’s one of the things that has surprised him the most since coming out of jail-just how far the boundaries of privacy have eroded. People put their life stories online. They update their friends about how they are feeling. His update would say Caleb is angry.

The world was bat-shit crazy.

“Dote hurt eye chilren.”

Since arriving here half an hour ago, the scene has started to change. The slaughterhouse is a little more lit up than it was before, it’s soaked in the early morning misty light that is a hundred shades of gray, the trees look cold and foreboding, as if among them hide the creatures from any one of a thousand nightmares. Then he realizes that he is one of those creatures, that he is the boogeyman Dr. Stanton never dreamed about. He reaches in and grabs the doctor’s nose. He twists it without any care or hesitation and there’s a clicking sound and the nose springs back into shape. Blood drains out of it as the doctor thrashes about. It flows down the side of his face and past his ear, but he’s going to be okay. When it comes to banged-up noses, Caleb has had plenty of experience, and this one was dislocated, not broken. After ten seconds he’s sick of watching him.

“Get on your feet,” Caleb says.

“What do you want?” he asks, looking up from the trunk, the blood still flowing, but way slower now. He’s been crying and dirt has gotten stuck to the tear trails on his face.

“Get on your feet,” Caleb repeats, showing him the knife.

Dr. Stanton, with his hands behind him, tries to climb out, and ends up rolling out of the trunk and falling onto his side on the ground, the wind knocked out of him.

“There’s nowhere to run, and nobody to hear you scream for help.”

“Who are you?” Stanton asks, and he sniffs, then spits out a wad of snot and blood. He gets to his feet, puffing and swaying a little.

“You still haven’t figured it out?”

“No.”

“You remember James Whitby?”

“James Whitby? No, who the hell. .” he starts, then stops, and Caleb can see that it’s coming to him. “But. . he’s dead.”

“That’s right.”

“He was. . was murdered,” Stanton says, frowning.

“Come on, you’re almost there.”

“You’re. . you’re the man who killed him. You’re. . you’re Caleb. . Caleb Cole?”

“You got it.”

“Oh Jesus, Jesus,” he says, shaking his head, sending drips of blood from the end of his nose into the dregs of night. His eyes are wide, his face full of an awareness of the past and of his immediate future. “None of that was my fault,” he says, his voice getting high. “I was just doing my job, and I did the best I could with the resources I had. I promise you that, and what he did-I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry.”

“Sorry?” Caleb says, amazed at the word. “Sorry? That’s all you have say? That you’re sorry? Where were your apologies when I was in jail for the last fifteen years?”

“I-”

“Shut up,” he says, and he punches the doctor in the stomach as hard as he can, the impact making both men double over, Stanton winded, Caleb clutching his hand against his stomach and cradling it. When he’s able, he pulls the duct tape out and slaps it over the doctor’s mouth. Stanton draws ragged breaths through his damaged nose. Caleb is tempted to cut a small hole in the tape to help him breath, but he’s so angry that he’ll keep on cutting and next thing he’ll be left with three useless kids and one dead doctor. Instead he grabs him by the hair and pulls him toward the slaughterhouse, leading him inside.

So one day is going to turn into two. No big problem. And like he thought earlier, it gives him time to figure out what he’s going to do with Ariel Chancellor. Right now, the only thing he needs to figure out is how best to get comfortable. It’s going be tough when all he has to deal with are concrete floors and the occasional leftover piece of furniture.

He tosses Stanton onto the floor next to his daughters, then ties up his feet, then bunches up some blankets against the wall and lies down. He can feel the cold ebbing up from the concrete. The girls are all looking at him. He can hear them sniffling, crying, he can hear every time they move against the floor. For fifteen years he’s dealt with the sounds that others have made, the snoring and crying and taunting of others. Only thing that would stop him falling asleep right now would be a tank rolling through the front door.

He thinks about turning off the light, but he leaves it on for the kids, not wanting to frighten them any more than necessary. Stanton is staring at him too. There are equal parts confusion and fear in his eyes, and a whole lot of anger and hate too. That’s good. Caleb wonders which of those will shine through the brightest when he makes the bastard choose the order in which those little girls are going to die.