13 Drops of Blood (4 page)

“Next round?”

“Yeah… next round. Every ten minutes or so they sweep up the mess and start again.”

“Do you think we should wait?” Elizabeth asked politely.

Buck looked Elizabeth in the eye. “Naw. This here is the best part, the
main
part. You should shut-up with the questions and enjoy. Hell, it’s a magic show, that’s what it is. A gosh-darn magic show.”

* * *

“Scott,” Penny said. “That’s the man I gave a cigarette to.”

“No it isn’t,” Scott said; his voice was barely a whisper. “It… it only looks like him. It’s part of the experience.”

“Part of the experience? Look! Look at him! Blood is pouring out of his head! See the tattoo? See his eyes! It’s him!”

Scott didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything.

He pulled Penny away from Gary’s box, grinding his teeth together. His heart was beating faster now; his thoughts were reeling.
What if it
was
the man from outside? Could it be him? Was it at all possible?

Had they stepped into a snuff film?

Were they about to die?

Scott dragged Penny across the creaky floor and heard a strange sound. He knew that sound. (
Oh God, he knew––but he didn’t want to admit it, he didn’t even want to think it.)
He slapped his free hand on the next box, wanting to see, needing to see. The light inside the box turned on. The box was empty, with the exception of the photograph. He read the name, not that he needed to: FORTY-FIVE – PENNY BEACH.

“Oh my God,” Scott said. “What the hell is this?”

Penny’s eyes were bright and alluring above her smiling lips. She was wearing the same dress. Her hair and make-up was a perfect match. Yes, the photo was taken today. There was no denying it.

Scott didn’t recall seeing anyone with a camera, but then again, he hadn’t been looking. Someone could have snapped one easy enough.

Penny began weeping. “That’s me! That’s my name!”

“No,” Scott whispered, but his eyes spoke the truth.

The box was for her.

Suddenly there was a deep, low, growl. The strange sound, he realized, had not been his overactive imagination. And this time, he could not dismiss it.

They were not alone. There was a dog in the room.

“Oh shit,” Penny said.

Then the lights came on––all of them.

They were standing in a warehouse. In the center of the room was a large cage. Inside the cage was a dog. It had teeth like daggers.

But could not attack, y
et.

The cage was sitting on a riser, three feet from the ground, attached to what seemed like, a pulley system. There was a metal cable linked to the top part of the cage that extended high above the animal.

Florescent lights hung from the rafters. Glass cases were attached to the walls. Must have been a hundred of them. Half the cases were empty, save the photo inside. The others were stuffed with the mutilated dead. On the far wall, maybe twenty-five feet from the floor, several windows overlooked the room.

People watched through the windows with happy, smiling faces.

Looking at the floor, Scott gasped.

Unlike other floors, this one was made of unfinished plywood. And protruding from the wood was hundreds and hundreds of spherical blades. Some of them were fourteen inch in diameter. Some were twelve. A few looked to be sixteen. They reminded Scott of semi-circular shark fins, or teeth, or both.

“Table saws,” he whispered, remembering the photograph. Hundreds of saws had been attached beneath the floor. This took time; someone wasn’t kidding around.

He stepped back and looked at his wife with a new sense of fear.

“Dear Lord,” he said. “You were right. This is a snuff film.”

* * *

Buck Million stood up from his chair and lifted a glass in the air. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he hollered, slurring his words slightly. “Let the show begin! Yah-hoo!”

Someone else said, “Here, here!”

Standing at the window, Lawrence and Elizabeth gazed into the room with the saws. Lawrence crumpled his face into a ball.

What the hell is this
, he wondered,
some kind of game?

Elizabeth saw a man and a woman acting afraid, fake carcasses lying inside glass cases, and saws––probably made of plastic––sticking through slots in the floor. She didn’t bother to look at the actors closely, or to analyze the props. She didn’t care for this type of entertainment; it wasn’t for her.

She walked away from the excitement and sat in a chair near the pianist. The music he played was beautiful. It reminded her of a simpler time, when family was king and people were unadorned and content.

After a fair-sized drink of wine she opened her purse, deciding it was a good time to phone her daughter.

She hadn’t talked with Penny in days.

* * *

Scott saw the people watching through the large windows. He waved his hands in the air. One man waved back, smiled, and nudged the woman on his left. Scott waved twice more before his eyes returned to the blades in the floor.

There was a moment of silence, followed by the sound of a phone ringing. It was Penny’s phone, ringing from inside her purse.

Scott’s eyes widened. The concept of getting outside assistance hadn’t yet crossed his mind. “Answer it! We need help!”

Penny unbuckled her purse and went for the phone.

A door––snuggled between two glass containers––opened, and Denoté stepped through the doorway, grinning like a wolf. He held a shotgun in his hands.

Penny pulled her phone free. “Hello?”

“Hi Penny,” Elizabeth said, watching the pianist. She sat her glass of wine on a table. “How are things?”

“Mom?”

Before Penny had a chance to say anything else, Denoté pointed to the far wall and shouted, “That’s your exit!”

Scott looked at the exit, and at the saws blocking the path. He screamed, “What the hell are you doing to us?”

Denoté only laughed. “Start the saws!”

As if obeying his command, the saws came to life. The sound was gigantic; it was all Scott could hear. With the saws, the dog began barking hysterically and the music was turned louder to make things more powerful, more surreal. But how much stronger could things get? Wasn’t this intense enough?

Penny shouted into the phone: “Mom? Mom? Can you hear me? Is that you? Oh God, I need help!”

She looked at the floor.

The blades were placed in odd angles, giving her room to walk but not much room for error. One missed step and you’d lose a toe, or maybe a heel.

In-between the blades––blood, meat and bones sat in little piles.

Denoté smiled. This was his favorite part of the show. He loved watching people scream. And although many victims ran into the saws like they wanted to get it over with, most just stood there, too scared to move, afraid of the foreseeable future.

Seeing the woman’s phone, Denoté decided to accelerate the event. The people upstairs might not like it as much but so what? They had enough entertainment to satisfy the sickest elite minds.

He reached into his pocket and clicked a button on a small devise. The dog’s cage began lifting towards the ceiling, setting the dog free.

Once it was able, the animal leapt from its cage, oblivious to the danger on the floor.

Scott saw it coming and screamed in fear.

Penny didn’t see the dog until its blood splashed her in the face.

As the animal bounced across several saws, she carelessly stepped away from the carnage. A 14-inch blade ripped her left foot––and her peach gala shoe––in half.

The pain was immeasurable, beyond calculation. Falling backwards, she dropped her phone and screamed. Before she hit the floor her fingers stabbed her face and her hands squeezed tight. A second blade caught her in the elbow, severing the arm. A third blade hit the small of her back. Blood sprayed nine feet in the air. She was pulled across this blade, losing bits and pieces as she moved.

Her eyes rolled back and her mouth fell open.

The people upstairs applauded.

* * *

As Elizabeth listened to her daughter screaming, the people in the room began putting their hands together. Within the clapping and the laughter she heard Lawrence shriek.

“Oh my GOD!” He said with a huff, once he was able to string some words together. He clutched his chest, thinking a heart attack would be unavoidable. He wondered if he was dreaming. “That’s Penny down there! And that’s Scott! What the hell is this?”

Elizabeth came running towards him, pushing away whoever was in her path. She squeezed herself between Lawrence and Buck and looked into the room.

“Where? Where are they?”

The two men that were standing near the door saw what was happening. The man with the smashed teeth grinned. His name was Russell. “Looks like we’ve got a situation, Chez.”

The disfigured man agreed. “Looks that way.”

Chez flicked a switch on the wall and reached into his jacket pocket. A moment later both men were releasing the safeties on their guns.

* * *

A red light began flashing. Scott didn’t look at it. He was too busy watching Penny being dragged from saw-blade to saw-blade.

Denoté
did
look at the flashing red light, and he knew what it meant. There was a situation, and it was time to bring this show to an immediate end.

He lifted the shotgun up, and aimed it at Scott.

Scott noticed; it was time to move.

He began running like an athlete, successfully dodging blades for the first twelve feet. Then the shotgun blasted, his toes clipped the jagged edge of a spinning saw blade, and he went down––arms wide, head back, screaming.

* * *

Chez and Russell eliminated people systematically. Russell shot the bartender first, putting a bullet in his head. The man fell back holding a bottle of Sherry. Russ shot the waiter and the piano-man next. The waiter flipped over a chair and the pianist smashed his face against the keys on his way to the floor.

Those mangled notes would be the last he’d ever play.

Chez shot the couple standing closest to him, hitting each of them in the face. They fell like dominoes, one slamming into the other. Then Chez killed whoever seemed easiest, and at this point––they were
all
easy. Nobody was moving yet. Nobody was running. Everybody was standing in a terror pose with their eyes lit up and their hands in the air, saying things like, “
DON’T SHOOT!”
And “GOOD LORD MAN,
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?”

The time for fun was now.

One man fell onto his knees begging. He was shot in the heart. Another man wet his pants. He was shot in the balls. There was a woman that looked about sixty-years-old. She had white hair and a dress that went all the way to her feet. Putting her hands in the air, she proclaimed: “I surrender!”

Chez laughed at the woman and shot her once in each tit.

Lawrence put his arms around Elizabeth as if trying to protect her. He felt a pair of bullets entering his back. Elizabeth took one in the eye. They fell to the ground together, lumped in a contorted ball.

When Denoté entered the room he didn’t look upset or agitated. He was a professional. This was the business he was in. Sometimes the exhibition went smoothly; sometimes it didn’t. Either way––they got paid and traveled to another country.

He walked from body to body, shooting indiscriminately.

And while Denoté and his two brothers finished their dirty work, Page stepped outside and told those waiting in line the bad news. “There was an accident,” she said. “Someone has been hurt. The show is cancelled.”

When the question of refunds came about she lied, saying a full refund would be issued between three pm and eight pm the following day. Some complained. Some didn’t. And none realized how close they had come to certain death.

* * *

THE CONFESSION

George was stripped of his belongings and placed inside one of the small padded room inside the police station, which looked nothing like the interrogation rooms he had seen on television. The room was bright and small, six feet by six feet. There were no dark corners creating a gloomy atmosphere, no light bulb hanging from a cable in the ceiling; the room didn’t have the famous mirrored window that George thought was commonplace. There was no table to pound an angry fist against and no chairs to kick over in disgust. It was just a box, really––a white padded box with two white padded benches on opposing sides. The room’s only door had no knob, only a small murky window you couldn’t see through. There was a security camera behind a bubble in a corner, where the ceiling and the wall collided. The floor was covered in cheap brown linoleum. Both padded benches had stains of blood that were hard to notice, and even harder to ignore once they were seen.

George waited for an hour and ten minutes. Sometimes he would sit, sometimes he would stand; sometimes he walked from bench to bench thinking about what had happened. He was sitting with his elbows pressuring his legs and his face planted into his hands when the door opened. Two officers entered the room and took the opposing bench, introducing themselves as Detective Martin and Lieutenant McKean. Neither man was dressed in a uniform. They had white collars and nametags. Martin had a potbelly and short black hair. McKean looked like an Irish boxer in training. His fists seemed bigger than his head.

Both officers offered a hand; George had no choice but to shake them.