“Yep. Be patient.” He advances and knocks on the door. Second time lucky.
Hailey eyes him. “Where does your surname come from? Wrath seems unusual.”
“British, I was told by my parents. I looked it up once. Means angry.” He shakes his head. “Imagine me, British.”
The three of us stand outside the side door of Warehouse Four, with the walls of another warehouse rising to our left. Only a few overhead security lights shine their meagre light on our alleyway.
“Tempting to get my flashlight out,” Hailey says to no one in particular.
The door swings open, a triangle of light flares across us, the noise level increases, and a man steps out and gestures at the door. “In. Zedder will see you.”
We file in past him and he shuts the door. The tang of oils,gasoline, and sweat smacks me in the nasal cavity. Grottos of darkness clash with pools and shafts of bright yellow light.
Most of the space in this warehouse is occupied by stacked containers, crates, and cars being pulled apart, painted, or tormented by men buried in their engine bays. Crates are being transported by forklifts, or swing from hooks that dangle from chains. The air above is murky with drifting pollution and cluttered with the voices of men and a few women. It’s shredded with angle grinder screams and metal clashing on metal.
It…
Triggers something…
Inside me.
I stand riveted in place, fading away from here and now, remembering other scents, other colors, other screams. Women being dismantled by a blade, naked, hanging from chains. Coils of blood slide down their bodies as they writhe and sob. Their hands are bound, as Hailey’s were. Their feet are bound.
I shut my eyes, clench my hands into fists.
Damp hair sliding under my hands and the give of flesh. Muscles wrench into contortions as they try to dodge the weapon I hold. My hand. My fist. My fingers curled about a hilt or a gun. Warm living bodies, and dead ones. The susurration of erratic and diminishing breathing then the complete silence when they cease to breathe. Complete silence, if not for the squeak, squeak, squeaking of chains.
Good times,someone says.
I wake from my trance, head swinging up, refocusing on the now. On this warehouse. The others are walking away from me and talking.
What was that?
My memories? Or some other man’s?
Thatwas notme or mine. I would never kill women for the pleasure of it. Yet my cock stirs and evil chitters somewhere, back there, in the depths.
I’ve had scenes like that play in my mind too often now to dismiss them. The possible reasons are nearly all terrible. I had something like that occur while I stood and watched it happen, and I did nothing. Or? Or I watched too many horror movies. The last and worst reason? I did those hideous things. That would make me a torturer. Perhaps I worked for a government agency in the worst kind of country. In my heart, I doubt that could be the reason.
Or I was simply a murderer. Or both torturer and killer.
Both is not good. And I wouldneverdo those things.
If I’m to ever tell Hailey what I am, I need to figure out why I am remembering acts I would never allow myself to do.
I’ve been following our group on auto pilot, and Hailey turns to look at me.
She holds out her hand.
“Kail?”
“Coming.” I take her hand, shove the evil into the back of my mind.
I will sort that out later, along with the other crap churning like rotten soup inside my head.
We’re being led toward a small well-lit office, off to the side, past two high-performance cars being pulled apart. I doubt these cars belong to anyone in this establishment. We’re treated to suspicious stares by the men working on the vehicles. Inside the office, two men are conversing over something we can’t hear through the glass door and windows. A young man stands before an older man.
Having been dismissed, the young man holds the dooropen for the four of us. He nods at the man who brought us. “Oscar,” he says, to the man with us, then he leaves.
