The Soul Collectors

7

Darby's gaze flashed inward, away from the man claiming to be Charlie Rizzo and seizing on a memory of herself at thirteen, lying on her stomach underneath the bed in the spare bedroom of her childhood home and watching, in mounting horror and fear, a pair of soiled work boots moving slowly across the carpet towards her — the serial killer she would later come to know as Traveler, a real-life Michael Myers dressed in greasy blue coveralls and wearing a mask of stitched-together flesh-coloured Ace compression bandages, the holes for the eyes and mouth hidden behind strips of black cloth.

The mask covering Charlie's face was made of human skin.

The areas around the mask's eyes and mouth had been cut away, and in the candlelight she saw black non-absorbable sutures crisscrossing their way around the mask's eyeholes and dark leathery flaps of dried skin around Charlie's neck. The curling, cracked edges of the mask's mouth had been sewn into his healthy lips. There was no sign of blood, or of swelling or infection, on the lips or along the healthy, living skin around the sutures. This… procedure had been done some time ago, and Charlie's skin had healed.

Darby swallowed drily, the candlelit bedroom taking on a surreal quality, as though by turning around she had stumbled through some portal and straight into one of Stephen King's creepy horror stories.

Charlie stood behind the chair holding Mark Rizzo, whose head was still slumped forward. With the aid of the light, she now saw that Rizzo's face was swollen, the skin split in several places — Christ, the skin around his left eye was a bloody mess. Darby thought Rizzo had been beaten unconscious; he didn't stir or make a sound when Charlie placed a hand on the man's shoulder.

She saw dirty, callused nubs of scarred skin. No fingernails. They had been removed.

'I didn't do this,' Charlie said, pointing to the mask with the revolver.

She believed him. There was no way he could have done that to himself — or by himself. The sutures had been sewed and tied off with a neat, orderly precision. Someone else had sewn the mask to his skin — someone with a skilled, patient hand.

'Who did this to you?'

'One of the twelve,' he said. 'He sewed it on to my face as a reminder.'

'For what?'

Charlie grinned. 'You'll see. First, this.'

He removed his hand from Rizzo's shoulder and began to work furiously at the buttons of his long black shirt. No, not a shirt, she thought. It's one long piece of black material, like a robe or a tunic. It seemed to belong to some past century, some ancient and now dead culture. It brought to mind European castles, a time of fiefdoms and serfs.

'I was born with a specific genetic condition,' he said, moving his bent and crooked fingers with their missing nails to work on the next button. 'Do you remember what it is?'

She did. And she easily recalled the odd-sounding name because the condition was so bizarre and unusual.

'Athelia,' she said. 'It's when a child is born without one or both nipples.'

'Yes.' Charlie grinned, pleased. 'Yes. It's very rare. Dr Adams — that would be my family doctor — he told me there were something like two hundred thousand cases worldwide. This was back in '97, when I was taken. Do you remember how many nipples Charlie Rizzo was missing?'

'Two,' Darby said, staring at the dark rat's nest of unwashed hair secured to the mask.

Not a mask, she reminded herself. He's wearing another man's face.

'Come closer,' he said, training the gun on her. 'I want you to see this… That's far enough.'

Darby stopped about a foot away from the chair. If she could just move closer, she could bridge the gap and get into fighting range.

Charlie undid the last button. With his free hand, he pushed the fabric aside and let it drape across his shoulder to give her a full view of his naked body.

His chest, wasted thin and so pale it seemed to glow in the candlelight, was covered with a mess of thick, raised scars. Some were white, others pink and red; some were fresh welts, crusted with blood. Both nipples were missing. She also saw that he'd been turned into a eunuch.

Darby stared at the thick white scar left where his genitals had been and felt a cold place in her stomach, her skin slick underneath the heavy tactical clothing.

'Being born without both nipples,' he said, excited, 'that would put me in a rather exclusive club, wouldn't you agree?'

She did, but, given the thick scarring, it was impossible to tell if his nipples had been removed. Given the long, deep and jagged grooves — they seemed to cover nearly every square inch of his chest — she suspected it had been done with a carving knife.

'Now do you believe me? That I'm Charlie Rizzo?'

'Yes,' Darby said, not sure what else to say — and goddamn if some part of her hadn't turned over to the possibility that the man standing less than a foot away was, in fact, Charlie Rizzo. And the lattice pattern covering his chest and legs — why does it seem familiar?

'The mask,' she said. 'Whose face is it?'

'That's an excellent question,' Charlie said. He shrugged back into the tunic, quickly fastened a single button and then grabbed a tuft of Mark Rizzo's hair.

The man let out a yelp of surprise or pain as his head was yanked backwards. His daughters made frightened mewing sounds from behind the tape, but Mark Rizzo's single, good eye didn't look at them. Darby watched Charlie, her fingers, still tucked underneath her shirtsleeve, tightening around the prongs of the knife handle.

Come on, give me an opening…

'Now, Daddy,' Charlie said, looking directly at her. He had moved back behind the chair, the gun's muzzle pressed against Mark Rizzo's temple. 'I want you to tell Dr McCormick why I'm here.'

Mark Rizzo opened his mouth. Blood dribbled on to his chin. He licked his swollen and cut lips, then tried to speak.

Darby couldn't hear him — and she kept breathing through her mouth instead of her nose. The stench coming off Charlie had reached a nauseating pitch, making her eyes water.

'Speak up, Daddy. Don't be shy. Start with the day I was abducted.'

Rizzo's single eye rolled around in its socket, dazed.

'Charlie,' Darby said, 'why don't you tell me — '

'NO,' he roared, pointing the gun at her. 'NO. I've been waiting for this moment for ever — it's the only thing that's kept me alive all these years!'

Darby stared at the gun hovering a few inches from her face. Adrenalin was pumping through her limbs, urging her to fight. She had to remind herself to keep her voice calm.

'Tell me what he did to you,' she said. 'Tell me and I promise I'll — '

'We're not going anywhere until he confesses! He needs to say it. That's why I brought you here! You need to hear it from the monster's own lips. I want the world to know what he did to me!'

Charlie, trembling with rage and watching her closely, leaned against Mark Rizzo's ear and hissed: 'Tell her, Daddy. Tell the nice lady about the day I was abducted — tell her why they took me.'

Mark Rizzo's single eye locked on her. 'This… thing,' he croaked. He swallowed, tried again. 'He's not… my son.'

Charlie pulled the gun away. Darby watched in slow motion as he pointed the gun to Mark Rizzo's leg, saw her window of opportunity and took it.