Page 22 of Twice as Twisted

“Not long,” Baron says. “I just need to grab a few things for the trip.”

He glances at me from the corner of his eye. He’s been doing that. He thinks I don’t notice.

“And?” I press.

“And check on my projects,” he says, slowing on a quiet, tree-lined street where old, two-story colonial houses are set back from the road and spaced more widely than modern neighborhoods. A pair of fifty-something ladies with sensible bob haircuts topped with visors power-walk along the sidewalk, fluffy little dogs scampering along on their leashes beside them.

“You live here?” I ask. “Looks lame as fuck.”

“You’ll see,” Baron says, turning into a narrow alley with privacy fences on either side. It runs between rows of backyards and provides entrance to the driveways and garages that are hidden from the street view. “I’ll show you what I’ve been working on since December.”

“You picked a hell of a location,” I grumble as he hits a button to send one of the tall wooden gates swinging inwards. The house isn’t quarter the size of our house in Faulkner, but it couldn’t look less like a drug lab if it tried. Baron pulls up to the back of the house and turns off his car. The gate swings closed automatically behind us, enclosing us in the privacy fence. It’s perfect, but I don’t want to admit it. I know why Baron did what he did, but I’m still pissed about it. Once we get Mabel, everything will be good again.

Baron puts his hand to a keypad at the back door to unlock it, and we step from the warm May sunshine into the air-conditioned cocoon of the house he chose over the one where our family lives. It isn’t anything special, but I see my twin everywhere, from the automatic gate to the keypads to the orderly interior filled with sparse, utilitarian furniture and tasteful but soulless pieces of art. He once said he doesn’t see anything when he looks at art except the market value.

“Down here,” he says, placing his hand on another keypad. The door is thick and sturdy, an exterior door that he must have installed to replace one of the usual interior doors inside the house. He swings it open, and dank, moist air wafts from the darkness within, along with a smell that makes my stomach curdle. The other side of the door is padded, and I think of Mabel in her padded room, and for one second, I’m sure he was lying to me all along.

“What is this?” I ask, a sudden certainty that I don’t want to know the answer filling me even as I ask. I grip the edge of the door, my feet weighed with cement like some poor sap who pisses off a mafia boss. Behind the door isn’t a room, it’s a beckoning mouth that will swallow me, a hell where only demons go. Once I take that step, once I know what’s waiting in the dark, I can’t go back. I can’t unsee, can’t unknow.

“It’s one of my projects,” Baron says. I can see the gleam of excitement and pride behind his glasses, but I still can’t pick up my feet. I hear a rustling, scrabbling sound below, like rats or bats lurk in the basement.

He sees my hesitation, my trepidation, but unlike Dad, he doesn’t call me a pussy. He flicks on the light for me because he knows only light can dispel the monsters in the dark. Then he steps inside the door and smiles. “Come on. I want you to meet Jane.”

“Jane?” I ask, following him down the stairs into the basement. I watch my feet on the stairs, not trying to see past my brother’s tall form in front of me, to what’s waiting below. “Is that your new formula? Alice, and now Jane?”

He chuckles. “No. Alice in Wonderland is complicated. Like Mabel. Jane… Jane is plain as cocaine.”

We reach the bottom of the stairs, and he flips on another light. The sight that greets me is the furthest thing from the cooking operation in Faulkner, all industrial stainless steels tanks and chutes. Here, there’s only a dirt floor and cement walls. Two rusted iron rings are bolted into the wall, and attached to each of them, an equally rusty, thick iron chain. On the end of the chains, iron cuffs anchor a filthy, huddled creature. She’s crouched with her bony knees pointed out, her hands on the floor between them, her head hanging down, strings of greasy hair and shadow obscuring her face.

My stomach rolls over. “Is that… Mabel?” I ask under my breath. It’s hard to tell. Everything is the color of the dirt she’s covered in—her hair, her skin, the tattered underwear clinging to her skeletal hips.

“I told you, it’s Jane,” Baron says, strolling over to her.

“Who the fuck is Jane?”

“This is Jane,” he says, gesturing. “No last name, just plain Jane. Isn’t that right?” He fists her matted hair, lifting her head so I can see her face.

She stares at me for a second, eyes unfocused, jaw wired shut, patches of hair missing on one side of her head. Baron’s fingers tighten in her greasy strands, and she nods a fraction of an inch. I can’t tell if she moved on her own, or if he moved her head for her.

“I found her on my way here,” Baron says. “I’ve had her almost six months. I like to practice on her.”

“Practice what?” I ask, eyeing the grisly scars and sutures on various places on her body. “Harvesting organs?”

Baron chuckles. “Good idea. I’ve done a few surgeries on her, but I haven’t taken an organ yet. Just extracted a few teeth with pliers when she bit me.”

She makes a sound and bares her teeth, what’s left of them. I notice the dark splotches on the dirt around her, realizing they’re probably blood. Against the wall is a five-gallon bucket with a lid, probably the source of some of the putrid stench. There is also a pile of empty plastic bottles, sports drinks and juices and sodas.

“Are you hungry, little bird?” Baron asks.

Her eyes widen, and she nods eagerly.

“I knew you’d be okay for a week without food,” he says. “Those drinks have plenty of calories. But I bet you don’t feel too well.”

She grips his leg, staring up at him with a mixture of pleading and fear, her head nodding and nodding. I can see every bone in her skull, in her clawlike fingers, standing out against the back of her neck and straining against the skin of her shoulders.

“This is what we came for?” I ask. “To feed your pet?”

“How shall I have her sing for her supper?” Baron muses, looking pleased with himself. “I can cut into her abdomen and let you fuck her intestines. I did that a few times. It’s easier than you’d think. You have to make sure not to slice through the muscles, but go between them. It feels just like a pussy, but the blood and the screaming are so much better than what you can get from even the roughest anal.”

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