Heresy (A Stray Child Book 2) Read online

  He gently dresses my wound again and places three of the pills in my mouth and, as the nurse arrives with the beverages, jams a straw into the top of a water bottle and carries it over to my mouth. I drink and wash down the pills, then proceed to drink more to wash away the soreness.

  He smiles and sets the water onto a table and rolls it in front of me. He bends down and undoes the handcuff on my right hand. That’s all I’m probably going to get too.

  “I apologize for the precaution. We do this to everyone.”

  “Why am I here? Why did you all kidnap me?” I manage to say.

  “I’m not sure of the fine details and, from what I understand, it was the only way we could get you here. We don’t have many people willing to join us, so, in order to build up our numbers, we have to take them and show them.”

  “What about my dogs, huh? They’ll starve to death without me.”

  “Your family will take care of them. Anyway, we read that popular blog of yours and, from what I’ve heard, you have taken somewhat of an interest in us, no?”

  “I have. But that’s my whole fucking blog, urban legends.”

  “Well, we’re no urban legend, we’re as real as it gets. I don’t know much else, but father Brian will be here tomorrow morning to explain everything to you. Until then, we have to keep you locked up and make you as comfortable as we possibly can. Speaking of which, are you hungry? Of course you are.”

  To be honest, I really am. But I don’t want anything from these fucking psychopaths.

  “It will most certainly take some time adjusting here. Trust me, I was like you, taken from my family and forced to drink the blood, but, as time went on, my true family became apparent and, before you knew it, I found a home here.”

  “What about the other women huh? Everyone I was with was a woman. What about them?”

  “As I said, it will take some time to adjust and Brian will explain everything to you tomorrow morning. Until then, I had a cook of ours fix you up a hot turkey sandwhich and cut up some apples for you to eat. If you need anything else, please, do not be afraid to ask me or Samantha.”

  As the two doctors leave the room, I feel a sudden jolt of energy rise up inside of me and I begin thrashing around. I don’t want to know what their plan is here.

  “Quite enough of that, Lynn.” I hear Brian call from beside me, “There is so much we have to do with you and it seems you have that drive we’ve been looking for; but we can’t know for sure.”

  I turn my head to look at him and he walks towards me and sits on the edge of the bed beside me.

  “I’m sorry for all of this. It’s hard to believe, I know. However, if you’ve seen the things that all of us have seen, you would understand.”

  “What kind of fucking things would cause someone to kidnap innocent women and bring them here? I have a family!”

  “We have all seen and spoken with God, Lynn. He is cruel and twisted, but he has promised us all an eternity of bliss as payment for a woman strong enough to carry his child.”

  “What the fuck do you mean?”

  “You may be strong enough to be the holy mother, like Mary, you see. Only time will tell.”

  “Fuck you! I won’t carry any of your fucking children!”

  I suck in, roll my tongue around the inside of my mouth, and spit directly into his face. Suddenly, and understandably so, his calm, clean, pale face became bright red and littered with veins. He wipes his face off with the corner of my blanket, smiles and stands up slowly. He turns towards me and delivers sharp, swift smack across my cheek. Brian bends down, close to my face and grips my neck in his hand.

  “You do that again, cunt, and I’ll break your fucking jaw. I’m trying the best I can to give you the most comfortable place to stay here and you spit on me.”

  “Fuck you!” I shout.

  “Fine by me. I won’t be fucking gentle either. Your womb belongs to us now.”

  “I don’t belong to you, you fucking psychopath!”

  “Is that so? Who do you belong to then? Your husband? Not anymore.”

  He lets go of my face and stands up and reaches his hand into his pocket and retrieves three Polaroid photographs from inside. He grips my head with one hand and tilts my vision to the three images, each one portraying the same mutilated corpse, its head missing from the body and the picture. Sick fucks must have murdered the poor guy and took a picture to have something to show to each person they kidnap.

  “What? No reaction?” Brian says.

  Not for your satisfaction. It’s gonna take a lot more than--

  “I think I forgot one. Maybe this one will do?”

  He retrieves one more photograph and holds it in front of my face. Oh God, Zach. Why? What have they done to you? It’s my fault! I’m so sorry. Please!

  “I particularly like the fact that you can still see his tears on his face.” Brian states, “Look now you’ve got them too. I figured that might get you going and trust me, he’ll be spending his eternity in torment and horror!”

  I sob, but still manage to get my free hand up and wedge one of my fingers in his eye. I wish I didn’t bite my fucking nails, I could have taken an eye out.

  I can’t believe my husband is gone. My best friend. We were going to start a family. We just got our first house. Why did they have to kill him like that? Why wasn’t I there for him? It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have left him there alone, then he’d still be alive and we’d live out happily ever after. Fuck you, God. I devoted my entire life to you and you just took it away from me? You’re cruel. Only taking.

  “You fucking bitch! I warned you!”

  He blasts me in the face with a swift right, splitting my lip. I’m too devastated to feel anything but remorse and grief. My husband is dead because of me.

  “Doctor! Get your ass in here and sedate her!”

  The doctor and the nurse storm into the room carrying a needle in hand. Brian jams his forearm onto my neck and pins my free, flailing arm down to the bed while the doctor searches for a vein and proceeds to jam the needle inside. I watch him push the plunger down and the liquid inside seep into my body.

  It takes a moment, but my adrenaline dies down and the room begins to spin and cloud over. I can hear Brian yelling.

  “Take her down to the holding area before she wakes up. Tell Darius to watch her until it’s time for the ceremony.”

  Zach. Come back for me, please? Take me away from here. I don’t want to die here. I want to be with you. I’m so sorry.

  Chapter 4:

  Cloudy thoughts flood into my head and drowns my vision. My eyes spare no time adjusting as I began to feel my insides ache. Above me was a large man dressed from head to toe in a light brown, stained cloak-- thrusting, thrusting, thrusting in and out of me. A loud horn rings out in my head and I retreat back into the darkness.

  --

  Bare the child of my cause, Lynn.

  I can feel something cold rubbing against my body. I lurch up and gasp from the coldness from a sponge being used by a young girl.

  “Shh, shh, Lynn. I’m only here to help you. But they must not know I am here.”

  The girl says.

  I do not reply, instead I just stare at her as she proceeds to clean my body off. She drops the sponge into a bucket for a moment and trades it for a cup with a straw, she offers the drink to me and I take it. If it’s poisoned, at least I’ll die before they abuse me anymore and at least the water tastes good.

  “There is a storm coming. You need to get out of here and run as far as you can. Find a river and make yourself a raft and continue getting as far as you can. Anywhere is better than here.”

  “Why should I trust you?” I reply.

  She offers no argument but instead exposes a key that unlocks one of my restraints. She hands me a spoon and says,

  “He has the other key, the sigil around his neck. Get it from him and free yourself.”

  “Wait! What’s your name?”

  She didn’t answe
r, she just turned and left from the room. Shortly after, there is a sound of heavy footsteps coming from beyond the doorway. He’s coming back.

  I adjust so that the restraint appears to still be locked in place. I also tilt my head to make the appearance of remaining unconscious. He spared no time coming over to the bed and positioning himself between my legs to violate me once more. As I felt the tip of his dick press against me, I lurch upwards and lunge towards him, jamming the spoon into one of the eye holes of his hood and begin twisting. He howls and stumbles backwards, before he falls over, I grasp the sigil around his neck and break the chain from his neck and jam the shape into the arm restraint keyhole and do the same with the ankle cuffs. I clutch the sigil tightly. The sharpness of the coil could turn out to be a useful weapon later on. It’s certainly better than nothing.

  I spare no time standing up and running through the doorway down a long, narrow hall and reach an opening. I step forward and trip on something that was wrapped around my leg.

  As I looked down, the pale moonlight shining through the opening overhead exposed the rotting face of a nameless woman, as my eyes adjusted, more and more bodies became apparent.

  My God! There is so many dead women here! Just a mound of dead flesh and bone! Lives snuffed out by a delusionally religious cult! What kind of God would want something like this? Is this what was in store for me?

  I want this, child. And no, you are worth so much more than these whores. You are to be the holy mother. But if you continue to be a bad girl, a heretic, you’ll endure so much worse.

  These voices-- it must be the stress beginning to take ahold of my mind. I think, as long as I can tell what’s real and what’s fake, I’ll be able to survive escaping this place and maybe even escaping the jungle somehow, and if I do, I’ll get some help. Nobody will question it, given everything I’ve already seen and gone through.

  I stand up and climb over the mound of death and run into another hallway that leads to a staircase. I climb the stairs and reach a door and push through them.

  What the fuck?

  --

  I find myself back walking down the path towards the village beneath the blood sky. How did I end up here? This time, instead of silence, I could hear mad chanting rising above the rooftops of the ancient village. I turn around to see that the door I had come from is gone, nothing more than a forest lay there now. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This can’t be real!

  Sometimes you have to punish a child or a dog for them to learn the right way. It seems you are no different, Lynn.

  Something split the foliage behind me and as they stepped into the red light, I saw that it was an abnormally large human being charging after me. It had no face, just a bloodied skull, as if its maker tore the flesh and muscle from the surface. Its body was pale, battered, and featureless, but bulky non the less. Instead of hands the creature had two blades forged from its sharpened and polished bones. Its breathing sounded congested and despite only having two blank eyes, it seemed to be following my every slight movement. It stood there staring at me for a moment, then, without warning, charged furiously. My first reaction was to run.

  I reached the village quickly and saw all of the inhabitants coming out of their homes and making their way towards me, still chanting, some were also laughing. They were making their way towards me and behind me, the false creature was catching up. I had no choice but to run left through the forest and behind me I could hear the villagers chasing after me as well. I came to a small hillside, reached the bottom and tore my way through switches to escape to a series of houses. I slid into a hole in the wooden foundation of the nearest home and crawled deeper inside.

  As I stop to take a breath, I realize the welts, cuts, and bruises on my naked body. I want to just take a deep breath, but they’ll hear me. I can see a horde of feet searching for me. I crawl backwards until I hit a pit. Looking up, I see there is a hole. That should be big enough for me to fit. It’s only a matter of time before they look underneath the house. So I stand up and push my way through the hole, discovering that I am in a bathroom and the hole was a primitive toilet. Thankfully, it seems nobody has used it in years. As I pull myself out and move onto the floor, I hear a door open down the hall from me. There’s nowhere to fucking hide in here!

  I slide open the bathroom door and find myself looking directly into a living room of sorts, hurry forward, and slide open a closet door and hide within, closing it softly and leaving just enough space for me to see.

  I hear a set of feet coming down the hall, saying things in-- Japanese it seems. A man enters the room wielding a pitchfork, the smile has faded from his face and the sound dies down, but his lips continue to move as if he is still saying something. He twists his head each way, searching for me. I hold my breath as he walks towards the closet and stops. I ready myself for him to open and attack but he doesn’t, he turns around and sits in front of the door and continues chanting silently.

  You cannot hide from me, Lynn. This is my world. You will come out, eventually, and if you don’t, my children will rip you from your hiding place and punish you for your insolence.

  This cannot be real. Non of this makes any sense. This has to be a vivid hallucination from the acid they had given me. Most medical reports from survivors or captured members notes how they experienced hallucinations of God and walked through his world. It’s odd knowing that there is a universal hallucination, coincidences are rare and with every case stating something similar to this-- I don’t know. I don’t want to find out either.

  I lift my gaze from the man’s back and look out the window. I could see the massive, bound man shuffling about his little island on the horizon, from here, it looks like he is sniffing like a hound trying to find a rabbit.

  Found you.

  What?

  “Kon’nichiwa!” the man screams pressing his bloated, gray face against the opening.

  Chapter 5:

  The bloodied man forces the door open and grabs me by my hair and yanks me from my hiding place. My scalp burns as he continues dragging me to the center of the room. He drops the pitch fork and lifts me up and begins bashing my face against the floorboard. From my nose down, a sudden numbness takes hold and vibrates as my face makes contact with the floor again and again. The blood splotch forming grew bigger and bigger and when weakness and pain takes hold of me, keeping me from fighting anymore, he throws me downwards, bouncing my face off of the floorboard.

  Every child needs to be punished at some point.

  I felt the man place both of his hands on my ass and squeeze, then he removes one and I can hear his pants coming undone. I won’t deal with this shit again! Fuck you!

  I snatch the pitchfork and roll over onto my back and ram the points into the man’s chest and stand up, running him into the closet door, removing the pitch fork and jamming it into his crotch area. That only made him laugh. Alright, you fucking bastard! Laugh at this!

  I remove the pitchfork again and stab it directly into his face. The smile hung now and I let go of the pitchfork, leaving him pinned up against the wall.

  You shouldn’t have done that. I warned you.

  I heard the front door open again and footsteps come parading down the hall. Before I had a chance to react a dozen bloodied men stood staring and laughing at me. I turn to jump through the window, but the creature that chased me first was waiting, and behind him the rest of the village waited. I turn to be caught by one of the men who clutched my head and made an attempt to slide his tongue into my mouth, but I manage to push him away.

  To my left, the man pinned against the wall with the pitchfork in his head, began to laugh as he removed the prongs from his face.

  You cannot kill here. You also cannot die. But you can feel and I will make you feel a hundred rotting cocks before you feel a hundred knives wedge into your flesh. Then you will become one of us and become my precious whore.

  As I was thrown to the ground by three men, a loud siren screams out and the roo
m becomes still. All of the men stop and stand and stare up at the ceiling, seeming to forget completely about me.

  I stand up and run through them, but before I can reach the door, a massive flash of light fills the house before everything fades into darkness.

  Chapter 6:

  I awake face down in the mud. Above me stands menacing tropical trees. The sounds of dogs and shouting come from far behind me. What the hell is going on? I have no time to think about it now, I have to get as far as I can from this damned cult.

  I force myself up and begin running forward through the tropic darkness.

  No matter how far I seem to get, I can’t help but feel those fucking psychopaths right on my tail. My lungs are about to burst! I’m freezing too. I wish I had some God damn clothes. I hear another roar coming from the sky above me and yet another burst of light carries me away into darkness.

  --

  My eyes break open to find Bryan standing above me, smiling. I make an attempt to scratch at his eyes, but fail as I find myself strapped down to a piece of wood.

  “My children! The time has come to give our God his offering! The child of our cause!” Bryan calls out, not removing his eyes away from me.