The Tower

Chapter 17

Allander laughed softly as he wiped the noses of the two children. Their arms and legs were bound with gray duct tape and they lay struggling on the couch. The tape was also wound around their heads several times, covering their eyes but leaving the rest of their faces exposed.

The bodies of their parents lay on the carpet next to the couch. The woman's body was sprawled over her dead husband, her limbs interlocked with his. Their heads, arms, and legs were positioned at unnatural angles. Although Allander had intended them to look like two people holding each other intimately, they looked more like broken action figures.

Before arranging this deadly embrace, Allander had carefully gouged out their eyes with a knife he had found in the kitchen. It had taken him some time to get up the courage to approach the woman. The first thing he had done was to wet a towel and smear the white beauty mask off her face.

Now, he sat on a love seat with his knees pulled up to his chest. He hugged himself and grinned as he addressed the children.

"I'm certain that your estimation of your mother and father was rather hyperbolic anyway. Parents are deified by their children, but as you can see, the idols in the temple have come tumbling down." He extended a foot and touched the woman's corpse.

The little girl choked on a sob. "What did you do to my mommy?"

Allander chewed his cheek and squinted. "Let's just say I did nothing you didn't want to do yourself. I only put your desires into action. You see, that's the worst part about being a child-you're too small to have an impact on anything. Just a confused mind and a weak body with tiny little fingers insufficient to grasp and swing a blunt object."

He took the girl's hand and caressed her trembling fingers tenderly until she jerked them away. They brushed the ragged tape that covered his ring finger and a jolt of pain shot through his hand.

The boy was clearly too petrified to speak. His legs poked out of the large leg holes in his shorts, looking foolishly small and unimportant.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to dispose of you both for the time being," Allander said.

The girl's chest began to shake uncontrollably and she jerked around on the sofa and pulled at the tape on her wrists.

"Oh no. Oh no no no." Allander threw his head back and laughed a deep, rolling laugh. "I'm not going to kill you. Just move you to the bedroom, away from the watchful eyes of your parents." Standing up, he faced the children and his voice dropped. "They see not what they do."

The girl's bedroom was pink and yellow and splendid. The wallpaper had grand stripes of dancing color, and the bed was adorned with a flowing canopy. Above the girl's desk were several cut-out letters that had been colored with crayons.

The letters were aligned with an ordered sloppiness that only a child's hand could have accomplished. "L-E-A-H." They were proud, bright and confident. Allander stared in fascination at the girl's name, standing with one child tucked under each arm. "Astounding." He shook the girl gently. "Such self-affirmation. To be admired in a budding woman."

He laid the children side by side on the mattress underneath the canopy and unwrapped their wrists, allowing their groping hands to meet and clasp together. Then, he secured their fearful handhold and taped their other arms down to their sides.

After kissing both children on their foreheads, he stood back and admired his work. His fingertips moved lovingly over the boy's face, lingering for a moment on his lips. Running his other hand smoothly down his own stomach, Allander fondled himself. He moved his hand from the boy's lips, across his rosy cheeks to the back of his head and held it there for a moment before turning away.

It would be easy, but not quite what he wanted. The woman in the mask had scared him, but he had dominated her. The boy was nothing next to that.

He cleared his throat and found his voice again. "Brother King, Sister Queen. So much contradiction harmonized in a single pair. Play, children, and see each other not."

Allander stood naked in front of the full-length bathroom mirror and stared at his pale, bruised body. His dirt-covered feet had left marks on the white carpet. Gazing at the mirror through his tangled locks, he looked at the crusted blood on his bottom lip, the swirls of dried salt that clung to his chest, the small leaf of seaweed pasted by his left nipple, and the thin, wiry stubble that sprouted unevenly around his jaw and throat.

Peeling off the tape, he looked at the red slit in his finger. It was a brand, he decided. They had marked him like an animal, right across his own fingerprint.

He reached out his hand and touched the mirror. "What have they done to you?" he said aloud, his query bouncing off the white walls of the bathroom.

Allander sat on the love seat in the living room wearing a royal-blue silk shirt and a loose pair of pants with a drawstring. He had showered, shaved carefully, and re-dressed his finger. He had decided on the exotic outfit after trying on several; he felt it looked somehow princely on him.

He swirled some milk around in his highball glass and leaned back against the sofa, closing his eyes. After a few minutes, his head lolled back, and in his mind he caught a glimpse of an overweight man pulling a clown mask over his unruly hair. Images of heads with the eyes gouged out and a hand wiping a white mask from a woman's face flashed rapidly through his mind. He awoke with a start, the glass of milk sliding from his grasp. He watched the milk spread across the carpet, sinking into the soft fibers. It reminded him of semen.

He was instantly alert, his eyes darting around until he realized where he was. "Ah, there's the rub," he said, and walked to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee.

The boy and girl lay next to each other, the sound of their breathing all that interrupted the perfect silence of the room.

"Leah?" the boy said.

"Ssssshhhh, Robbie. Don't talk. We don't know what the man will do."

"Is he gonna-" Robbie's breath caught in his throat and he started gasping, sucking air in and out through his wavering lips. Leah pressed his hand tightly.

Robbie finally regained control of his breathing and continued. "Is the man gonna hurt us?"

Leah didn't respond right away, but squeezed Robbie's hand again. Their palms were both sweating profusely and the moisture mingled to make a slick seal.

"I think he already has," she replied.