Page 20 of Devil's Riches

6

Alexis

My eyelids fluttered open.

This time there was no limbic phase between sleep and consciousness where I didn’t understand what was happening. The throbbing between my legs brought the dark memories rushing back to me immediately, along with the stinging pain from the cuts that ran over my belly and legs.

I let out a groan and rolled over in an attempt to take some of the pressure off the worst cut on my right leg. My eyes fell on the X-shaped crack on the concrete floor as I moved. Like last time, there was a brief flash of recognition in my mind as I looked at it, but it passed before I could sink my teeth into it and figure out what it meant.

“Awake again, huh?” Greg’s voice boomed from the other side of the room. He stood up, walked over, and loomed over me with a twisted smile. “You passed out while I was cutting you earlier, so I thought I’d give you a break.”

He tilted his head and gave me an expectant look, as if he expected credit for his ‘kindness’.

Suddenly it occurred to me that the gag had been removed from my mouth, and my clothes were back on. I raised my fingers to my lips to rub the spots where the rope had chafed the skin. Then I opened my mouth and sucked in a deep breath, preparing to scream.

“I wouldn’t bother if I were you.” Greg’s hand clamped down over my lips. “It’s late now, so there’s no one at the park next door. No one will hear you.”

He pulled his hand away and smirked. “Seriously. Try if you want,” he said, motioning at the air around us. “Scream your little head off. It won’t do anything.”

I stared up at him in wide-eyed silence, as if I’d seen a ghost. Something about what he’d just said was pricking at my guts like a million little needles, but I couldn’t figure out why. All I knew was that it was important.

The words kept churning around inside me, combining with memories and recent sightings. Then, with a rush of adrenaline, the answer finally came to me.

I understood now what people meant when they talked about feeling a rush of blood to the head. There was a pressure inside my skull that made me worry it would split right open, and my heart raced faster and faster with every second that passed, leaving me breathless and dizzy.

“I know where I am,” I whispered.

Greg raised an eyebrow. “Finally figured it out, huh?”

My eyes fell upon the crack on the floor again as my heart hammered like mad. I couldn’t believe Greg had brought me here. Brought me home.

The dusty old room we were currently in was the garden shed on my family’s Thunder Bay property. My dad used to work on all sorts of hobby projects in this space when he had spare time, and he always let Sascha and me watch and help, as long as we were careful to avoid touching any tools that could hurt us. Last time we were in here—over ten years ago now—we helped him make a birdfeeder for my mother’s birthday.

A few years before that, when I was six, Dad accidentally let something heavy slip off his workbench, leaving the X-shaped crack on the concrete. Sascha and I saw it afterwards and deemed it our ‘treasure spot’. For months afterwards, we made up stories about pirates sailing to Thunder Bay and burying their loot right under the garden shed.

There was a public park with a playground right next to the house, too. During the day, there were always kids playing there as their parents sat on benches and watched. They’d start to drift away at three or four in the afternoon, and by dinnertime the place was deserted, leaving the street quiet and peaceful.

There were no other homes within a half-mile, because our house was right at the end of the street, and the park beside it left a huge gap between it and the other houses further down. Across the road was a thick patch of woods, frequented by walkers during the day but empty at night.

That meant Greg was right earlier. During the day, people might hear me scream, but when it was dark I had no chance.

“Why did you bring me here?” I choked out. My heart wanted to burst right through my ribcage.

“I told you already,” Greg replied. “No one would ever think to look for you here.”

“You think no one would choose to look for me where I used to live?” I said, eyes incredulously wide. But even as I questioned it, I knew he was right.

The people of Thunder Bay avoided this end of the road like it was contagious, only venturing as far as the park next door so they could use the playground. The only time anyone ever came close to our property was when kids tried to scare each other on Halloween by making each other run past the gate and up to the front door.

To those kids, it was Thunder Bay’s very own haunted house, supposedly filled with the spirits of the Butcher and his victims. To the adults of the town, it was a stark reminder of past horrors.

No one ever wanted to step inside. No one even wanted to think about it.

“My sister told me your family couldn’t sell the place after what happened,” Greg said with another nasty smile. “No one wants anything to do with it, so it just sits here, all abandoned. It’s the perfect hiding spot.”

A surge of adrenaline made me dizzy. “Let me go inside,” I said, desperate to see it all again. “Please. I… I just want to be in there one last time.”

I expected him to deny my request immediately. Instead he frowned and tapped his chin with one finger as he considered it. Then he nodded. “All right. I need to stretch my legs, so we might as well take a walk,” he said. “Don’t try to run or do anything stupid. I’ll have this on me the whole time, and you know I won’t hesitate to use it.”

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