Mr. 8 Read online

  Denton filed the name away. “Why? Is he your leader? Do you take orders from him?”

  “No.” He said it with such vehemence he might as well have answered, yes.

  “Look, we are all on the same side here. I passed the test, remember? I’m not one of them.” It was always the mysterious them with paranoia. In this case, the mysteriously infected them. “Like the old saying goes: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Right?”

  “Shut up! You have no idea what’s going on.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, Eddie? Tell me about this war you’re fighting. Why don’t you start by telling me what happened with your mother.”

  Denton didn’t even see Eddie move his hand, but the slap against his wounded cheek sent a wave of excruciating pain through him. A desperate howl burst from his lips.

  “I told you to shut up.”

  Whatever had happened, it was still an open wound. He would have to tread carefully, but perhaps it could be used to open a wedge between Eddie and his friends.

  Before Denton could think up a line of attack, the others came back in, huffing and puffing and stamping snow off of their boots.

  “Nothing. The only tracks were ours and his,” Danny said.

  Before there was a beat of silence, Denton said, “I lost his car on Angel’s Pass. When I reached the cabin, I assumed he came here.” There were so many turns and cut offs it was a reasonable explanation. He just hoped they wouldn’t think about it enough to start picking at the flaws in his story. Like, if he thought the person he was tailing was there, what happened to his car?

  “Who is he? Who were you following?”

  Denton search for a plausible answer but felt the well of his imagination go dry. He needed a delay, just a few moments to come up with something.

  “I’ll tell you everything, but I really need to use the bathroom first.”

  When the restraints were off, Eddie helped him to his feet. Denton’s legs proved to be too cramped and stiff to move on their own, so Eddie steadied him and led him across the dining room and into the seating area.

  Movement began to fill his aching limbs with warmth. He gently pulled his arm away from Eddie. “I’m okay now.”

  Denton felt some of the tension ease from his body. He wasn’t free, but he was no longer tied up or being held. After a few hobbling steps on his own, the fear ebbed a little and anticipation filtered in.

  He kept his eyes focused on the door they were leading him to. It was nothing special, a short four-panel design, painted white, with a bronze colored handle. But excitement built at the possibility of being alone for a few minutes. Maybe he could get out a window? Maybe he’d get a signal on his phone and call the police? Maybe he’d find a weapon? The door represented freedom and safety.

  Denton got to enjoy about thirty seconds of hope and then he entered the bathroom.

  It was a recent addition to the old lodge, jammed under the stairs. There was a sink and a toilet and an awkward space to stand in between. He’d been in bigger lavatories on planes. There was no window. A lighter patch of paint on the wall above the basin showed where a mirror used to be.

  There was an overhead light. The shade had been removed leaving a bare bulb. Denton contemplated what he could do with it: remove it and… what? Electrocute himself?

  He searched his pockets for his cell phone, but it wasn’t there. Had he put it in one of his overcoat pockets? Or had it fallen into the snow, when that son-of-bitch redhead kid caught him outside?

  They hadn’t worried about letting him use the bathroom, because they knew there was no salvation there. They had been careful to make sure there wasn’t even any glass for their prisoner to use. Was he their first? Had they brought the others here too? Was this all just part of the drill?

  Faced with no help but the sink and the toilet, he started by emptying his bladder. From the moment he had stood up, the need to go had only gotten more demanding. When he was done, he turned on the tap and began to drink greedily from the weak current.

  Way out here the water would be fed from a well. Was it safe to drink? Would he live long enough to get sick from it, if it wasn’t?

  He glanced at the space where the mirror should have been. He stared at the wall, where his eyes should have looked back at him.

  Okay Dent, keep using their paranoia against them. It’s your only chance.

  Denton was still running the water over his cuts and bruises when the door was yanked open.

  “Okay, that’s long enough,” Danny said. “Time’s up.”

  Denton eased himself out of his crouch and turned off the tap. There were no towels, so he wiped his face with his sleeve. The white cotton of his shirt came back with pink streaks of water diluted blood. He looked one last time at the space where the mirror had once been and steeled himself for what was to come.

  Alvin hauled him roughly back across the room and pushed him into the chair before starting to re-knot the ropes.

  “Is this really necessary?” Denton asked. “I’ll be helpless if he shows up here.”

  “Just do as you’re told,” Danny said. “Or you won’t have to worry about that. I’ll give you to Alvin here to have some fun with.”

  Denton looked down at Big Red’s face. He was grinning like an idiot at the thought. He pulled the rope around Denton’s ankle with a quick jerk, prompting a wince of pain.

  “Could I at least have my glasses back?”

  “I think they’re still outside,” Eddie said with a distracted tone.

  “Be thankful we don’t blindfold you,” Danny said.

  “Be thankful we don’t rip your eyes out of their sockets,” Alvin giggled.

  When he was strapped back in, Danny grabbed another chair and set it in front of him. The other two stood on either side with their arms crossed. Their eyes never left Denton’s face.

  “So, tell me about this guy.”

  He had to be careful with what he said. If he didn’t do this right, he might send this little Manson family after some innocent person.

  “A student. Not one of mine. His name is Rob Sherman.” Every year hundreds of new people came to attend Milton. It was far safer to invent someone from that vast anonymous pool than to attempt to fool them about a local. Rob Sherman was a teacher Denton had when he was an undergraduate. He was a bit of a prick and mumbled his lectures, but Denton didn’t name him to send any harm his way. The man should be safe enough. He was in his sixties by now and living in another state. No one would mistake him for a Milton student.

  Danny clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “What does he look like?”

  Trying to gain trust and credibility, Denton attempted to mimic the boy’s body language, but the restraints made it impossible. He only ended up looking and feeling as if he were going to fall over.

  He leaned back and answered, “Big—athletic.” Ideally, nothing would come of this gambit, except his freedom. Hopefully after that, they’d be locked up and never have the chance to claim another victim. But if he failed, and if they went off looking for someone, better it be someone with a fighting chance.

  “Six-five, two-hundred and eighty pounds, short brown hair, blue eyes, stubble on his chin, thick neck.” He rattled off the details thinking about a football player whose picture was often in the papers.

  “Why were you following him?”

  Denton tried to think of a reason they would believe… the reason they would use. “Well, he’s infected.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “On campus, I saw him drawing eights.”

  Danny scowled and shot out of the chair. Irritation was reflected in every one of his movements, as he did a quick pace across the floor.

  “Idiots! All over the internet people are talking about Mr. 8. They have no fucking idea. And really, could they have come up w
ith a more stupid name?”

  Denton’s mind raced trying and figure out what had set him off. Could it be he didn’t like his crimes being attributed to a serial killer? Was there something about the nickname he found offensive?

  “Doesn’t anybody read anymore?” With a rhetorical flourish, Danny grabbed something off the table and started waving it around. “It’s all right here, but people are completely blind. That’s why it’s up to us to save them. If it wasn’t for us, Bexhill would be overrun by now. Maybe the entire Eastern Seaboard would be lost.”

  Denton stared at the fluttering gray blur in Danny’s hand. The way the object moved, it could have only been a book. For a moment, he actually believed it was that simple. All the answers were written down in it, just waiting for him. But then he remembered Danny was insane. Could this have all happened because of this madman’s interpretation of a biblical passage or something equally twisted?

  “We are the army of three.”

  Denton realized that Danny was no longer talking to him. He was sermonizing to the other two. How often did he go through these spiels to keep them in line?

  “We are the light in the darkness. The sword against the demons. The world will become a wasteland, unless we stand up against the evil that is invading our home.”

  Denton remembered the video game Eddie was playing the other day. Had Danny just decided to make it real? Hoping that believing hard enough in it, he could make it true? Denton didn’t need to be able to see the faces of Eddie and Alvin to know it had become true for them. How much longer before there would be more of these Bexhill Guerrillas?

  Danny was spreading a disease of bad ideas. A sickness that corrupted fear and turned it into hate and death. He certainly wasn’t the first person to use such a ploy to gain power over others. Unfortunately, there was never a shortage of people willing to line up and swallow the poison.

  Danny walked back and peered down at Denton. “And you, Mister Doctor, are just as dumb as the rest of them.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they’re not eights. It’s two circles. It’s the star and the moon.” Danny spoke as though the words were distasteful to him, and he didn’t want them on his tongue.

  “What’s the star and the moon?”

  “Their symbol.”

  “The infected people?”

  “The aliens.”

  Chapter 20

  The Third Shift

  THE TWO WORDS FELT like a punch line to a bad joke. He might have been tempted to burst out laughing, if it wasn’t for the fiery look in the boy’s eyes and the deep crease between his brows. Danny was dead serious.

  He had formed his guerilla army to fight aliens.

  Very carefully, Denton said, “I see.”

  “Do you? Do you really?” Danny was breathing so hard through his nose, he was practically snorting.

  The expelled air was warm and Denton’s imagination provided a sickening spray on his skin. He pressed back into the chair eager to create some distance, but he couldn’t budge it. Stuck there with the psychopath mere inches away, Denton forced himself to return the glare.

  Eddie placed a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Forget about it, Dan,” he said. “So, he’s clueless. It’s not our problem. What are we going to do about this Sherman guy?”

  Danny stood there, smoldering with rage. No one in the room moved. After what felt like several minutes, he straightened up and pulled his shoulder away from Eddie’s placating hand. He swept his hair back with both his hands and stepped over to the wall of photos. “Nothing we can do until morning.” The fury that consumed him only a moment ago had vanished.

  “And what do we do with him.” Alvin stuck a filthy, gnawed fingernail an inch from Denton’s face.

  “Nothing for now,” Danny said, in a business-like manner. “I may have more questions for him. Until we can locate the new target, he’s not going anywhere. We’ll watch him in shifts. I’ll take the first one. You two get some sleep. It looks like we’re going to have a busy day tomorrow.”

  Without a word, Eddie and Alvin headed up to the bedrooms on the second floor. Denton watched as Danny made a tour of the downstairs. He threw a few more logs on the fire and turned out every light, except for one by an old leather easy chair.

  Denton was tempted to ask him about the aliens—probe him to see how deep the delusion went—but then he thought better of it. Danny was too volatile. A wrong word could cause another blow up. And without the others around, it might not end so well. For now, keeping quiet might be the best way to keep the madman calm and keep himself alive. There was nothing to gain from being curious. The details of the boy’s fantasies were not important.

  The night dragged on without any sleep. Denton zoned out a few times and everything disappeared into a forgotten dark haze, but real slumber never came. The pain from his jaw had spread and filled his entire head with a skull splitting throbbing. The chair was rigid and uncomfortable. His body grew increasingly sore with each passing hour sitting in it. And when he did start to doze off, he would slump down and the cords would cut deeper into his skin, or else his mind would whisper a new unwelcome thought to rekindle his terror.

  In an attempt to stave off the burning sensation growing in his eyes from strain and fatigue, he tried to keep them closed as much as possible. But even that was a challenge during the first two watches. His guards were not easily ignored.

  For most of Danny’s shift, he sat in the chair by the lamp, playing with his revolver. Whenever he grew bored or the whim took him, he’d release the cylinder, slam it back into place, and spin it. The noise of its turning, filled the room with an ominous tick-tick-tick sound, like a ghoulish game of chance.

  When it was his turn, Alvin spent the entire time pacing. His feet fell heavily on the floorboards as he thumped from one end of the room to the other. He carried on this monotonous path, as though he were a sentry on patrol.

  To distract himself from his fears and the pain, Denton tried to work out the psychology of his captors.

  Danny was the dangerous one. He was a paranoid schizophrenic and unquestionably delusional. He was also a narcissist and was very likely a sociopath. He had an absolute certainty about everything he did or said. Despite this, or perhaps specifically because of these traits, he possessed a fair amount of charisma, at least enough to sway others to his will. He was their natural leader. He was their own personal Jim Jones.

  Alvin, on the other hand, was pure muscle. Although he was most likely sadistic, Denton didn’t believe he suffered from any serious psychological disorders. However, he estimated Alvin’s IQ to be significantly south of one hundred. He was clearly no mastermind. Rather, he was one of those cruel, insecure personalities who gravitated to people like Danny. He was a thug looking for any chance to exert power over others. He was a schoolyard bully who had outgrown the schoolyard.

  Eddie was the wildcard. Although not precisely stable, he didn’t exhibit any overt signs of psychosis. Denton had no idea how Danny could have convinced him to kill his own mother, but he theorized that the act of matricide had caused him severe psychological trauma. Whatever his belief in aliens was before the murder, he had no choice but to believe in them now. The alternative was to collapse under the weight of his guilt.

  The boy was confused and deeply troubled. He would be the one to break.

  Sometime in the predawn hours, it was finally Eddie’s turn to watch him.

  Denton was engulfed by complete exhaustion. He would have preferred to fall back into himself. Simply sink into that morass of pain and fatigue that had carried him through most of the night. But he might not get another chance with Eddie alone. So when Alvin was gone, and Denton was confident that he was in his room behind a closed door, he knew it was time to speak.

  He asked in a low voice, “Please, would you explain it to me?”

  “What
?” The boy was still groggy, his hair mussed from the pillow. He had no problems sleeping with a man tied to a chair downstairs. Perhaps he didn’t have any more of a conscience than the others. Denton began to feel that his plan was doomed to fail, but he wasn’t ready to accept his fate.

  “The eights—I mean the circles, what do they have to do with aliens?”

  “It’s their symbol: the star and the moon. One of the aliens called them the eyes of power. And they draw them like you saw in the picture. They put the mark everywhere as a reminder.”

  “A reminder? How so?” Denton tried to keep Eddie speaking. This nonsense about aliens threw him for a loop. This was why he based his studies in analyzing people by their possessions. Real live psyches were far too strange.

  “You know, like home sickness. They draw them to remind them of their home. Danny says it’s what they see from their original planet, the one they came from before they sent the virus out to colonize the Universe.”

  “And your mother started painting this symbol?” Denton ventured.

  Cold, hard silence followed.

  “But she painted moons and stars before, Eddie. I saw them on your stairway and in the studio. Isn’t it just the celestial-sun symbol? Didn’t she use that subject often in her work?”

  “No, this was different,” he said sharply.

  “How?”

  “Just leave her out of it. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Why don’t you tell me? I’m a good listener. And I really want to know what’s going on here.” He spoke in a slow, calming voice. If Eddie had any bad experiences with therapists in his past, this could easily backfire.

  He adjusted to a more confidential tone. “Come on, what could it hurt? I’ll probably be dead tomorrow, once Danny decides he has no further use for me.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Have you ever brought someone here, and they left alive?” He tried to say it casually, but the last word caught in his throat.

  Eddie didn’t say anything.

  “Did you bring your mother here?” he asked.