Tortured Pages

“Son of a bitch!”

Henry chucked a pen at the computer screen in front of him and pushed back in his chair, almost tipping over. He put his hands over his face, outlining the contour of his cheeks and jawline as they returned to his lap. The screen in front of him was white with blotches of black lettering and a blinking cursor. On the desk to his right sat a tattered old notebook. Within its pages lay the contents of Henry’s brain. Random words of differing sizes. Doodles. Pictures cut from magazines taped to the off-white pages. It was a collage of chaos.

It had been six months since Henry’s first, and only, book had hit shelves. It was an underground success, garnering a few low-key awards and recognition from a few snooty writers in big cities. He never imagined writing a book – let alone a second – yet here he was. He had written plenty of fan fiction in his days. And articles. Lots of articles during his hard-hitting days as a journalist at the Coy County Tribune covering the riveting county fair scene and the occasional spoiled child getting a scholarship to play softball at who-gives-a-shit university. But a novel? That was reserved for the pros. Stephen King. Agatha Christie. Mary Shelley. They were the ones who wrote masterpieces, not a 35-year-old marketing executive at Bluefield Advertising and Design.

But on one particularly gloomy afternoon, following a binge of mind-numbing Netflix shows, Henry did something surprising. He stood, walked to his desk, put pen to paper, and then fingers to keyboard. And out it came. Like the smooth swaying of a conductor directing an orchestra, the words spilled from his fingers onto the pages in front of him. The story of a young man, known to his readers as Jules, and his killing spree. It was dark. It was twisted. And the best part, according to Henry, was that he never got caught.

It was more work than he imagined. A lot of research had gone into investigating the minds of so many wicked individuals. Bundy. Manson. Gacy. A documentary on Netflix spurred this wave of creativity. But then it took off, like a baby bird leaving the breast of its mother and learning to fly. Once he started to write, he couldn’t stop. And when it was done, when he felt he had finally created something he could be proud of, he hit delete. He punched the delete key so hard that he thought he might break the keyboard. And he walked away. Three months of writing, gone with the press of a button. Who am I? I am not Stephen King, he thought. Nobody will ever read this shit.

Only they did. And they loved it.

Roughly a month after erasing the book from existence, Henry discovered that in the digital age, nothing is ever truly gone. Searching for the logo of a cartoon mouse for a client, in the inner recesses of his computer, existed a document. It was out of place among a collection of colorful JPEGs. Yet there it was, accidentally saved into the wrong folder. He double-clicked the page icon and up popped the title, “A Twisted Mind.” It was dated May 9, two days before he deleted the original. It was missing about a dozen or so pages, but it was intact. Henry thought about sending it to join the other lost images and documents in the depths of wherever files go when they are banished from a computer, but he didn’t. He revisited the story of Jules. He dove back into his life with a renewed vigor. Five days later he finished the book, and off it went into the hands of some publisher in California. A year later, Henry was a published author with a cult following. People wanted to know more about Jules Madison.

The first book came to him with such ease. The words poured from his mind onto the screen like a waterfall following a spring rain. But this time those words were not as free. His publisher wanted a first draft of the new book by August, but it was now October. He was hopelessly lost. Devoid of creativity, Henry would let the words flow onto the screen and then immediately delete each letter with a loud thud from the keyboard. I don’t know this person. This isn’t my Jules. It was simply too much.

Henry stood up and went into the kitchen to pour himself another cup of coffee. His third that night. The clock on the wall read 2:03 a.m. He made himself a bologna and cheese sandwich with a squirt of mustard and walked into the living room. As he walked past his computer, the little blinking cursor began to taunt him. He read the words “chapter 7” on the screen. And underneath, whitespace. He sat down on his sofa and flipped on the television, a major no-no for an aspiring writer. He took another bite of the sandwich and laid on his side.

His eyes became heavy. He wanted to sleep, but he knew he had to do something, anything, to get the story back on track. His mind began to race with images of Jules. His life as a single dad. His mundane job as a teller at a small bank. And his evenings masquerading as something much darker. The first story was so clean, so mentally satisfying in the narrative. But on this second journey into his world, the motivation was gone. The why just was not there. He needed to take drastic action. He needed to know more about Jules Madison. It was time to go back into the dark place.

Henry sat his plate and cup in the sink and gathered up a few items. He grabbed the flashlight from atop his refrigerator. He gathered a roll of duct tape and a box cutter and threw them into a small pouch attached to the elastic band that went around his waist. In a drawer beside the stove usually reserved for utensils, he took out a solid black mask and placed it over his head. He put on a ball cap and pulled the hoodie of his sweatshirt over his head. He took several deep breaths and walked to the door that everyone mistook for a closet. If only they knew. He cracked a smile underneath the mask. Using a key adorned with a skull and crossbones on the side, he turned the handle. He flipped on the flashlight and illuminated the dusty stairs below. He began his descent.

***

The first thing that hit Henry was the smell. Musty. And the humidity. There was a coolness to the damp air that immediately raised the hairs on his arm. The wooden planks leading to the concrete pad below creaked with every step. When his boots met the floor, there was a tiny splash from a pool of water that puddled at the base of the steps. He began surveying the room with the tiny beam of flickering light. In the corner was a water heater. Beside it, the heating unit. In another corner was a rusty toolbox with a couple of old hammers and a box of nails sitting on top.

Henry gave the flashlight a good smack as the light began to dim and then flicker some more. Beside the toolbox was a white bucket in front of an old mop. A metal pole extended from floor to ceiling. Attached to that pole was a chain. Henry focused the flashlight on the chain and followed it as it snaked along the concrete to an opening just underneath the stairs. Sticking out from the crawl space was a foot. The foot was attached to a pair of long legs that were covered in cuts and bruises. At the top of those legs, a pair of dirt-covered denim shorts. And then a torso with a tattered black t-shirt with an old, neon 80s band on the front. Finally, a beautiful blonde head with a cut lip and a black eye. The girl was lying on her side, asleep or dead, Henry did not know.

“Hey,” he whispered. Silence. “You, get up.” Still nothing. Henry inhaled. “Get your ass up,” he screamed.

The girl in the corner jumped to attention. She sat up, pulling her battered legs to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She seemed too tired to cry.

“I don’t have all night. I want you to tell me exactly what is going through your head.”

The young girl did not respond.

“I’m not going to tell you again. I want you to tell me exactly what you are thinking. Right now! Last night. All of it. Tell me! I want to hear how much you hate me. I want to hear about your pissing yourself. How hungry you are. I want everything!”

The girl shifted, drawing her legs closer to her body, but remained steadfast in silence.

“I didn’t want to have to do this. You did this, remember that.” Henry lunged forward and grabbed the girl by her hair. She yelped as he pulled her out of the corner. She tried to fight back, but her strength failed her. Gone with the lack of food and the insanity of this new reality. Henry took the box cutter out of the pouch and held it beside her face. He pressed the blade against her cheek, just hard enough to draw a spec of blood which ran down her once-smooth skin.

“This is the last time I’m going to ask you. If you want anything to eat you will start talking!” His voice had grown desperate. But yet again, she remained silent. She mustered up enough strength to reach for the blade, but he stopped her advance.

Henry held her tighter as pulled her hand free and pinned it to the cold concrete floor. He pressed his boot on top of her bony fingers.

“This is not how this was supposed to go! You were supposed to be my inspiration. How am I going to learn anything from you?”

He lifted his foot and held the box cutter to the edge of her smallest finger. “Last chance.”

The girl began to cry, but she refused to speak. Speaking had gotten her nowhere. Promises of being set free, promises of clean water, a shower, some actual damn food vanished into the void along with her sanity. None of it came to fruition. Telling Henry what he wanted to hear had gotten her nowhere. So, for the past four days, she sat in silence.

Henry grew tired of the games. He pushed the box cutter closer to her finger – a little too close. Dark red blood began seeping from her knuckle as she yelped in pain. This time, it was too much. Even for him. When Henry began this little experiment, he thought he would learn exactly how Jules felt. What motivated him. What his victims felt. But none of it had gone according to plan. Now things had gone too far. He was in too deep and this girl, this waitress he had pulled from her car in the parking lot outside of the café, was not cooperating. She is not the one, he thought.

Seeing that she was not going to break, he released her wrist from his grip and pulled the knife back. She grabbed her hand and immediately retreated to the darkness underneath of the stairs. In frustration, he kicked the white bucket into the wall, shattering it into large plastic chunks. He picked up the mop and threw it across the room. He stormed upstairs and slammed the door behind him. Vomit spilled from his mouth as he locked the door behind him. He released the pouch around his waist and threw it into a corner. He collapsed onto the couch, his mind racing.

Now what? How am I supposed to understand Jules if she won’t let me in? I told her I would let her go when I was finished. What is wrong with her? That bitch.

Henry could feel a wave of panic splash over him. The sudden attacks of struggling breath occurred much less frequently in his late 20s and early 30s, but they still crept into his life from time to time. Usually at the most inopportune of moments. Right now was not the time to lose his shit.

As his breathing returned to normal and his mind began to clear, he got up from the couch and his dungeon of self-pity and returned to his computer desk. He placed his hands over the keyboard and let them hover as he stared at the blinking cursor. A finger lightly tapped one of the keys. And then another. Before long he had a page. And then two. Within an hour he had written nearly a chapter, delving into the madness that haunted this fictional young man.

He shifted his focus to the lives he had taken and the tiny worlds he had disrupted. He thought of moms and dads and sisters and brothers and boyfriends and classmates and friends, all impacted by the decisions he had made. And then Henry smiled. A wicked smile. The kind of smile that comes from playing God. As Henry smiled, so did Jules. In the story, Jules had finally realized the immense power that he possessed. What started out as a curiosity, a boredom if you will, turned into an obsession. Now, that obsession had turned into power. He was no longer just James Ulysses Madison, bank teller, he was Jules. And he had the power to impact other people’s lives.

As Henry banged out page after page of Jules’ awakening, he too began to feel that strength. The girl in his basement could be anybody. He didn’t know her. He saw her one evening while sitting in the corner booth reading over some notes in his blue and yellow notebook. She inspired him. She was perfect. Her blonde hair. Her innocent face. So, one evening just before midnight, he took her. It had been a couple of weeks. Her face was all over the news. He learned her mother was still alive, but her dad had died when she was still young. She had a brother and a guy he thought might be her boyfriend. But to Henry, she was his. His oasis in this desert of insanity. He had the power and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

By the time the sun peaked through the picture window in his living room, Henry was a wreck. He had produced the most writing he had ever done in his life and his mind could no longer take it. He got up from his chair and crashed on the bed. As his brain faded to black, the last thing he saw was Jules. And the girl in his basement. And then, nothing.

***

It was a quarter-past six when Henry stirred. She was the first thing he thought of. He typically took the girl in the basement a sandwich around noon and then some leftovers at dinner, but he had been out all day. As he worked his way to the kitchen, that rush of creative energy driving him the night prior had vanished, and he was crashing like an addict coming down off their latest high. He poured himself a glass of orange juice and fixed a nice breakfast. Four eggs, some bacon, and two slices of toast, just enough for he and the girl in the basement. She earned it, he thought. After all, she was responsible for this breakthrough.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he noticed the girl was not in her usual hiding spot. He lifted the flashlight a little higher and scanned the room. Again, he followed the chain to a limp pile of limbs lying beside the fractured pieces of the bucket. Henry sat the plates on the edge of the steps and walked over to her, kneeling down and checking her pulse. She was cold, but still alive. Damn. Henry went upstairs to grab a blanket from the closet, returning to place it over her disheveled body. My inspiration.

He went back upstairs and sat down at his computer desk. He began to pour over everything that had leapt from his mind the night before. It was genius. It was exactly what he had hoped for. But his beauty in the basement was fading. She was not well, and he had a book to finish.

***

Henry’s eyes lit up with excitement as he read back over the pages in front of him. It is perfect. The perfect ending to the perfect story. But how would he get there? The points between where he was and where he wanted to be was miles away. He needed the meat in the middle of this haunting sandwich.

“Can I get you anything else?”

Henry looked up from his notebook to see a young brown-headed girl standing across from him. A pretty little thing, no more than 22 or 23 years old. A student at the local university perhaps? He glanced back down at the words and again at the waitress.

“Maybe some more coffee? Or maybe some dessert?”

“No, thank you,” Henry said. A smile wiped over this face. “I appreciate the offer…what did you say your name was again?”

“Rebecca," she smiled. "Just let me know if you need anything."

“I’m fine for now,” Henry said. The young girl nodded and turned to another table of customers.

Henry lowered his eyes once again focusing on the pages below. He picked up the pen and placed the black tip to the page. Rebecca. He wrote on the page.