Seven, eight ... Gonna stay up late (Rebekka Franck #4) (17 page)

I woke when
the light was turned on. I felt the worst I had in ages. My head was hurting
badly and as I slowly regained consciousness I realized this wasn't just from
bad wine, nor was it due to what I had done with Peter. My head was actually
hurting.

Peter!
I thought and opened my eyes.
What did we
do?

Then the strangest sight met me. It looked like
a window in front of me. I reached out and touched it. Then I tried to sit up,
but realized I couldn't. I touched the ceiling and then the sides again. My
heart rate went skyrocketing as I felt the plastic surrounding me. What was
this?

The panic rose in me as I felt the entire box
surrounding me. Was I trapped somehow? What was this ... this thing? I grunted
and tried to hit the plastic as hard as I could. Then I heard voices and turned
my head. I gasped. Two boxes just like mine next to me. In them were two girls.
I recognized both of them.

"Camilla?" I said and put my palm on
the side. "Princess Amalie?"

"Rebekka Franck," Camilla replied. She
looked terrible. She had become really thin and her eyes were so anxious.

"What's going on here?" I asked still
feeling the sides, pressing them to see if I could get them to become loose or
push them somehow. I stared at the princess. She seemed to be attached to
something, a pipe of some sort. It went straight into her throat. She looked
anxiously at me; she could make only muffled sounds.

Camilla was crying. "How?" she asked.
"When did you get here?"

"I don't know," I said. "I
remember being in the yard of my father's house when I saw someone ... a face
behind the bush. I went to see who it could be. I stood face to face with him
... wait. I knew his face. He was looking at me. I had seen him before. I knew
I had. In the parking lot at the festival, when I was looking for you, Camilla.
When I thought I could still get to you before he did." I sighed and
rubbed my head. "I was so close. I just didn't know it. He must have had
you in the car. That's how he knew my name. He knew who I was when I spoke to
him and asked if he had seen you. Oh, my god," I said. "I could have
stopped him ... and then he was in the neighbor's yard looking at me. When I
approached he hit me with something.  The last thing I remember is the
pain. Is he the one who put me inside of this thing? And you two? Have you been
here all this time? What has he done to you? Amalie are you okay?"

Amalie looked at me, while tears rolled down her
cheeks.

"Well at least you're both still
alive," I said. "Now, how the hell do we get out of this thing?"

"You don't," Camilla said. "We've
tried everything."

I began examining the sides. "If there's a
way in, there's a way out."

"No," Camilla said. "There isn't.
Plus he will be back in a matter of seconds. He was just down here and turned
on the light, then he went back upstairs. Don't upset him, don't make him
angry. We never know what he'll do next."

Camilla was shivering as she spoke. My heart was
pounding in my chest as I looked at Amalie and the things he had her attached
to. What was it? Some kind of torture instrument? My heart dropped as I began
imagining what he was up to, as I realized that soon it would be my turn. What
kind of sick game did he have planned for me? Why had he even taken me? I had
no relation to Camilla or Amalie. Was it merely to shut me up? To hide his
tracks? Was he afraid I might have told the police about him, that I would be
able to lead them to him? Well it was a little too late for that, since I
already had talked to them. He couldn't prevent me from doing that. Could it be
the article? It had to be. Maybe he wanted to prevent me from writing more
about it, maybe he was afraid I knew too much and once I dove into the story
properly, he would be exposed.

I heard steps approaching and a face appeared on
top of the stairs. The man was smiling at us while grinning eerily. He wore a
white apron and a chef's hat. In his hand he held a butcher's knife. Camilla
and Amalie were both whimpering at the sight of him on the stairs. Camilla was
shaking, her jaws trembling visibly. His voice cut through the room and evoked
shrieks of fear from Amalie's throat.

"Good morning ladies."

"There has
been
a slight change of plans," Allan said while
opening a bottle of wine and pouring himself a glass.

Yes it was still morning, but it was after all
his birthday and a day to celebrate. A good chef needed a glass of wine on his
side. That was just the way it was. He drank from the glass with his eyes
closed. He sloshed it in his mouth for a while to really taste it. Just like
the French did it. Just like he had studied the prince do it through his
childhood at the castle.

"Don't worry. The changes are only for the
better," he continued once the wine was swallowed.  "But it does
mean that we are in a hurry now."

He picked up the cookbook on his table and began
flipping the pages. "We're having a party tonight," he said while
finding the right pages. "And I was thinking about treating our guests to
some real delicacies."

Allan rose and went to open another can of food
for the Princess. He poured a big portion into the funnel and started the pump.
Then he watched as the food was slowly forced into Amalie's stomach. She was
whimpering and gagging, but down it went. It was a little premature to take her
now. He had been planning to wait at least a week. He would have to keep it on
all day to make the most of it. It didn't matter if it killed her, since she
was going to die today anyway. Then he would cut out her liver and prepare it
for the guests. He was thinking about serving her gastric entrails as well,
since it would be stuffed by the time she died.

"You just hang in there, my Princess,"
he said and tapped at the side of the box. "It'll be over soon."

Then he went to look in his cookbook and sip the
wine while feeling excitement spread in his entire body. This was perfect. He
couldn't have imagined a better plan. Forcing the prince to eat the foie gras
made from the liver of his own daughter. It was the completion of his
masterpiece that he had been looking for. This was perfect. Finally Allan was
happy. Happier than ever. For the first time since the day they had told him
they couldn't have him at the castle anymore, he was actually happy again. He
closed his eyes and took in a deep breath of satisfaction, but was disturbed by
the constant banging on the box from the journalist woman. She hadn't been
quiet ever since he walked in, but he wasn't going to let her ruin his moment
with her screaming.

"Let me out! Let us out of here!" She
went on and on, but Allan had become immune to the plead of his victims. On the
contrary it had become his fix, it had become the thing he enjoyed the most. He
walked towards the box with the woman in it, holding his book in his hand and
the wine in the other. The pump force feeding Princess Amalie was humming
quietly across the room, a humming that to him sounded like the sweetest music.

The woman was grunting and kicking the ceiling
of the box, while screaming at him to let her out, to let them go. Allan put
the book and the wine down and listened to every word she said and like a
conductor he put up his fingers and pretended to be directing an orchestra. The
other girl Camilla was now joining the choir with her crying while the sounds
coming from Princess Amalie was like an extra addition to the music, like drums
or a violin joining in every now and then. It was beautiful, he thought. So
perfect.

"You crazy lunatic!" the woman cried.
"What do you want from us? Why are we being kept in here?"

Allan stopped conducting and opened his eyes. He
stared at the woman then picked up the cook book and leaned over her box to
better show her the pictures.

"See these pictures?" he asked.
"Now let me explain. We all enjoy a great meal, don't we? Do you enjoy a
good meal, Rebekka Franck? Are you
une
gourmante
?"

The woman stopped screaming and stared back at
him with distrust. She didn't answer. It annoyed him. He wanted them to obey
him, to fear him enough to not dare to not answer when spoken to. Where were
people's manners these days anyway? Allan had been taught strictly as a child.
You always answer when spoken to.

"I take that as a yes," he said trying
to not let her silence get to him. "We all love a good steak or a roasted
chicken and it's no secret that the life of an animal headed for the
slaughterhouse isn't all smiles and happy songs, right? And sometimes you run
across a dish that requires that the animal to not only be brutally killed, but
also tortured in what most people would consider a horrifying and diabolical
way. Unfortunately for the animals those kinds of dishes often turn out to be
among the most tasteful. In many ways we can thereby conclude that sometimes
cruelty can be delicious."

"I don't understand," the woman said.
"Are you fighting for animal rights or something? Is that what this is all
about?"

Allan couldn't help laughing. "That was a
good one," he said. "No I'm not fighting for animals." He paused
for effect.

"I'm fighting for cruelty."

This time the woman's silence gave Allan great
pleasure. He flipped a page in the book and showed it to her. "Look at
this picture. Come on, just look at it. I think that's going to be you in a
couple of hours. Yes, I think that's the one I'll pick for you."

The woman tried to hide it, but Allan saw the
fear in her eyes. She was fighting to keep the panic down.

"Looks good, right? Ikizukuri. A delightful
Japanese dish. It literally means 'prepared while still alive.' It works like
this. When you go into a Japanese restaurant you choose the fish that you would
like to eat, then the chef will grab it out of the tank and start slicing it up
while it still flops around on the cutting board. The really hard part is that
the chef - that would be me - has to cut the fish - that being you - without
killing it. It is served with its heart exposed and beating, trying to gasp for
air while it's staring at you with pain filled eyes while slowly dying right
there on the plate."

Allan paused and waited for his audience to
react. Just looking into the woman's eyes was enough of applause to him.
"The good part is that it doesn't demand much preparation time. I will
just have to cut you open after the guests have arrived. So I'll probably do
you last."

Allan grinned and turned in one movement to face
Camilla. She whimpered when his eyes met hers. "And you, my dear. You'll
be prepared like an
Ortolan
. Do
you know, what an Ortolan is? Well of course you don't. You're not familiar
with French cuisine and its delightful cruelty, are you? No, you weren't born
into richness like Princess Amalie and I. You are a worker. Your parents worked
their way up to be like us. And look where that got them, huh? Never having any
time for their precious daughter. Well I bet they regret that now, don't they?
Don't you think so, huh, Camilla? Huh?"

Allan hit the box aggressively wanting her to
answer him, to fear his wrath. Camilla whimpered and nodded.

Allan relaxed with a deep breath. It wasn't time
to lose it now. He had to stay calm or he risked ruining everything. "Well
an Ortolan is a tiny bird. It's only about six inches long and weighs four
ounces. It's olive green and yellow with a touch of ruby. The recipe is easy,
actually. First you capture the bird in the wild," Allan said and looked
at Camilla with a smile. "Well I've done that. Next is to stick it in a
tight cage so it can't move and then drown it in a snifter of Armagnac."
Allan studied her face and went close to the box. "Well I guess we'll need
something a little bigger than a snifter, won't we? I have an idea. Why don't
we use the box? We've seen it work before, haven't we, Camilla? I bet this time
you won't last as long." He laughed while thinking about the barrel of
Armagnac he had ordered from France waiting for him in the garage. It was the
best money could buy. Expensive as hell, yes, but completely worth it.

Camilla shivered with fear inside her box. Allan
squatted next to it and looked in.
Oh the
delight
, he thought and tilted his head while studying her anxiety
inside the box, breathing it, sucking it out of her, letting it fill him with
both strength and passion.