Страница 44 из 82
Once they’re all inside, Luther splashes around a bucket of blood in the back of the Sprinter, courtesy of the real groundskeeper, and a bucket of bran cereal mixed with water, courtesy of Kellog’s.
Then he carefully backs the van out of the trailer and drives to the nearest cemetery exit on Western.
There’s a barricade, natch, but Luther’s gas mask, and the new stenciling on the sides of his Sprinter that read CDC—Center for Disease Control—go a long way toward establishing his credentials.
Even so, his van is stopped by cops.
“Don’t open the back!” Luther screams through his closed driver’s-side window. “Lewisite gas!”
“These SRT guys?” a baby-faced cop asks.
“Civilians inside the grounds, and they’re dying.”
The cop and his partner shine their spotlights in on his unconscious passengers.
The blood and the fake vomit make it look like a scene from a warzone.
“Gotta move them! Now!” Luther screams.
The cop, who appears to have just achieved puberty, speaks into his walkie-talkie and then waves him through.
Perfect.
Luther pulls out onto Western, mightily pleased.
Now the real fun can finally begin.
“Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.”
DANTE ALIGHIERI, The Divine Comedy
Sixteen Months Ago
He tackles the house first, stripping it down to bare walls and floor.
It takes him two days to install the chains—drilling deep anchors into the masonry to hold the leg irons, manacles, and neck collars.
Fifteen Months Ago
“How may I help you?”
“When I make a withdrawal, I can request any denomination, even coins, correct?”
“Yes.”
“I need fifty thousand dollars in pe
“Excuse me, did you say fifty thousand dollars?”
“Yes. That comes out to five million pe
“No, we don’t even have that many in the vault. But we can get them for you. It just may take a bit of time.”
“No problem. I have plenty of time.”
“Might I ask what they’re for?”
Another smile. “I’m going to prove that money can’t buy happiness.”
Fourteen Months Ago
He stands at the opening to the warehouse all day, watching the trucks back in.
Load after load after load of sand, and the growl of the dozers spreading it around.
He can’t remember the last time he’s been this energized.
Finally, after all these years…
Creating again.
One Year Ago
The weather comes two days early.
Ten Mole Fan 18” DMX wind machines.
Six thousand apiece.
When the crew has completed the install, he walks through the warehouse with the remote console, pushing buttons, imagining all the fun to come.
Eight Months Ago
Luther watches Jack Daniels from the tree outside her house. He also notices someone else watching her.
That won’t do at all.
Jack is his, and his alone.
Six Months Ago
The bill for the monitors, the remote cameras and batteries, and all the cables, comes to a hair over two hundred thousand dollars.
“You opening up a television studio?” Luther is asked as he hands over the credit card.
“Something like that.”
Three Months Ago
When the driver for “The Septic Specialist” climbs back into his rig, Luther is sitting in the passenger seat, smiling and holding a subcompact .40 Glock.
“How full of shit is the tank?” he asks.
The driver’s eyes narrow with confusion. “Um, about three-quarters.”
“Buckle your seatbelt and drive where I tell you.”
Two Months Ago
Luther stares into the cage, locking eyes with the enormous beast.
“You sure about this, buddy?” the man selling it says. “He’s a vicious son of a bitch. Not a good pet at all. Plus he eats a whole lot of meat.”
Luther nods slowly. “Meat won’t be a problem.”
One Month Ago
It’s late in the night.
Two, maybe three A.M.
It has rained all day, and it’s still raining—he can hear the patter of it on the roof far above his head.
In a distant corner of the warehouse, under a portion of failed roofing, water drips into a growing puddle on the concrete floor.
He cut the generators for the night, and so he walks in total darkness, guided only by a flashlight.
Down he goes—several flights of metal stairs that echo in the dark—into the basement.
When he reaches the cell, he fishes the keys out of his pocket and unlocks the deadbolt.
Pushes open the door, lets the beam of his flashlight play across the walls, finally landing upon the wretch of a human being that sits huddled in the far corner, chained to the wall by an iron neck collar that looks like something from the dark ages.
The man looks up as the light strikes his face.
Haggard. Emaciated. Toothless.
His beard a foot and a half long.
Luther has been force-feeding him for the last month, the man apparently intent on dying after seven years in captivity.
But he’s not about to let that happen.
He still requires Andrew Z. Thomas to wear a helmet, although in truth, he probably no longer contains the strength or wherewithal to bash his head against the concrete wall.
Luther sits down across from him.
“I never hear you typing anymore.” He touches the old typewriter he brought down years ago as a sick joke. In the begi
The first several hundred pages are actually decent, but soon after, the strain of captivity having taken its toll, the writing had disintegrated into madness.
Incoherent sentences.
Then incoherent words.
And finally just a single word, typed over and over for five reams of paper…
lutherlutherlutherlutherlutherlutherlutherlutherlutherluther…
“I’m nearly finished,” Luther says. “But I need you to hang on a little while longer. You’re the centerpiece after all. If you do that, I promise you, I’ll give you what you want.”
The chain clinks against the wall as Andy looks up.
“What’s that?” Andy says.
The words come out at barely a whisper, but Luther stares nonetheless, stu
These are the first words Andy has spoken in more than a year. He assumed the man’s mind was gone.
“I’ll set you free,” Luther says, rising to his feet.