MARY heard from her brother roughly once every six months. When Theo did get in touch, it was to tell her that he was going out of the country so could she please not call, or that he had broken up with his girlfriend so could she please not ask about her, or that he had got a new job and would be very busy so could she please not expect him to call. It was a situation that she was comfortable with.
Theo was six years her senior and she'd never really known him that well. When their parents died, they shared some awkward moments at the funeral and wake she'd organised, and then he'd gone home without their cousins noticing he had even been there. As far as she was concerned, a card on his birthday and at Christmas was the sum total of her sibling duties.
So when she opened her laptop and saw an email from him marked urgent on a cold October morning, she took a moment, leaned back in her chair, took a sip of coffee and thought for a moment before she opened it. What could be urgent in Theo's world? Money? Some kind of illness? Maybe something had happened to one of his friends. She assumed he had to have some.
STUCK IN NEW YORK. HURRICANE. NEED YOU TO GO TO THE HOUSE AND CHECK SOMETHING. INSTRUCTIONS IN FLOWER POT BY THE DOOR.
She read the email twice and had a look at the news. Hurricane Sandy had hit the East Coast and travellers were being advised that it could be at least three days before planes could take off again. The message had been sent a few minutes ago, so she fired off a response asking if he was OK, and if there were any more details he wanted to share. Seconds later, another urgent-marked email arrived.
JUST GO, PLEASE. URGENT.
The prospect of a drive out of London and into Kent wasn't exactly what Mary wanted to do with her Sunday. However, she wasn't able to kid herself that it wouldn't happen. She knew that it was curiosity, rather than any sense of obligation, that got her out of the flat and into the car.
The roads were relatively clear; no one else was daft enough to be driving on a snowy Sunday winter morning. The stop and start of London traffic gave way to the dull monotony of the motorway, and it wasn't long before Mary had to force herself to start paying attention to turn-offs and increasingly tiny road signs. Theo's house was a little way from the centre of a small village, and stood alone just off to the side of a lane lined with large overhanging trees. She'd seen it briefly when she'd helped him move in a few years previously (her idea, not his), and it was bigger than she had remembered. Bigger than he needed, she assumed, but then reminded herself that she had no idea what he was getting up to in there.
Mary parked her car in front of the house and crunched over the gravel to the blue front door. Sure enough, there was a cracked flowerpot, filled with soil and nothing else. She had a moment of confusion when she bent down, carefully lifted the pot, and saw nothing. Then she remembered that he hadn't said under. He'd said in. She dug her fingers into the cold, damp soil and pulled out two small clear plastic bags. One contained the front door key. The other contained a note.
She was surprised when she opened the door and didn't hear the insistent beeping of a burglar alarm. Presumably no one came to bother Theo out here. She took off her shoes and took the opportunity to have a quick look around the downstairs area. It was slightly messy, but not shockingly so. She'd always imagined Theo sitting under a layer of dust, but that wasn't the case. Natural light streamed in through the large windows, but heavy blue curtains made it clear that Theo could sit in darkness if he wanted to. The surfaces looked like they'd been cleaned recently. She was impressed. She went through to the kitchen, found a glass and ran the tap while she opened the bag.
The piece of lined paper inside had been folded over several times. On one side, it simply read MARY. On the other, THIS WON'T MAKE SENSE. IF THE BASEMENT DOOR IS OPEN, LEAVE. IF THERE'S NO BAD SMELL, OPEN THE INSTANT COFFEE JAR. IF THERE IS, OPEN THE TEA.
Mary was taken aback, but she had entered into this in the spirit of curiosity. The urge to get out of there as quickly as possible was weaker than the desire to know exactly what was going on. There had been no obvious reek when she'd entered the house but, to be certain, she took a long sniff, feeling a little silly as she did. Nothing. Just the smell of a house left empty. She turned off the tap and went through the kitchen cupboards until she found the instant coffee. Sure enough, another small plastic bag with another small piece of paper. She opened this up and took a seat at the kitchen table.
I NEED YOU TO KNOCK ON THE BASEMENT DOOR.
She turned the paper over. MORE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE KNIFE DRAWER.
This one was a puzzler. For a moment she wondered if Theo was playing some kind of long distance game with her, or if he really was in New York at all. Would he really play an elaborate prank on her? She didn't think he cared enough to do that. Just to be on the safe side, she opened the drawer and found the next clue first. Deciding against opening it first, more in the spirit of the game than anything else, she walked over to the other end of the kitchen and knocked on the door. The noise was startlingly loud in the silent house and she instinctively took a step back.
"This is ridiculous," she muttered to herself, and stepped back to the door, putting her ear to the wood. Nothing. "OK?"
She opened the next note. This one was longer and more detailed, and made her wonder if she'd made the right choice coming here.
IF YOU HEARD NOTHING, KNOCK AGAIN. LOUDER. IF THERE'S STILL NOTHING, LEAVE. IF YOU HEAR SOMETHING, FIND THE NOTE IN THE OVEN.
Something wasn't right. This was no hungry pet situation. There was no broken boiler to be checked. But she couldn't very well turn around and leave now. She knocked again on the door, harder this time. Nothing. She hit the door as hard as she could. Pressing her ear against the wood, she heard something. Faint. A rattle. Something metal. Then she heard a cough.
She pulled back from the door. She moved quickly over to the oven, pulled open the door and found a plastic bag taped to the bottom, ignoring the grease and blackened debris that got under her fingernails. THERE'S FOOD IN THE FRIDGE.
While she stood, staring at the note, she heard a cry. A voice from the basement, a girl's voice, cried out. It was crying for help. She clenched her fists, crumpling the note, and took a knife from the drawer. Whatever the hell her brother had done had nothing to do with her, but she wasn't the kind of person to leave a situation like this. Above the basement door she found a set of keys which fit the locks on the door. Belatedly, she wondered why anyone would need to lock a basement.
Standing at the top of the stairs, the basement went deeper than she'd expected. She flicked the light switch, and nothing happened. As she took the first step down, she saw something move quickly out of sight. It looked like a hand. She moved slowly down the steps, using the light from her phone to illuminate the room.
There, in the corner, she saw the source of the noise. A young blonde woman, barely in her twenties, was chained to the far wall. In the muck and dirt of the room, the locks on her hands and feet were pristine. She looked terrifyingly skinny. Blood had caked where the locks rubbed her skin. She wore a red evening dress. She had dressed up, before all this had happened. She had turned her head away from Mary as far as it would go, but turned when Mary muttered, "Jesus Christ almighty."
At this, the young woman turned, her eyes and mouth open wide. "Help me!" she rasped. "Please, you have to get me out of here. You have to get me out of here before he comes back!"
Mary moved to the young woman's side. "Jesus Christ almighty," she repeated. "What has he done to you?"
"Please!" repeated the woman, crying now. "Please, get me out of here!"
"It's alright," answered Mary. "He's not here, he's not coming back. Tell me what happened."
The woman sobbed. She told Mary that she had been on her way to a party and had got lost. "It was raining so hard. He stopped in his car and said he could help me find a phone. He seemed nice. He talked about his wife and kids. He said he had a little girl and a little boy. He asked me if I liked the music and then?then I woke up and I couldn't
move."
"Has he done?anything?" Mary asked, dreading the answer.
"No. He just kept me here. He won't let me out. Please, please call the police."
Mary stood, the full realisation of what her brother had done sinking in. "This is?this is horrible," she said to herself. "I can't believe?my brother?"
"Your brother?" screeched the woman. "Your fucking brother did this to me? You have to let me go! You have to let me out!"
"I'm really sorry," said Mary. "This isn't how we were raised, you understand."
The woman looked up, her eyes wide in disbelief. "I don't give a fuck!" I don't give a fuck! You need to let me go, you need to call the police!"
Mary bent down and brushed the hair from the woman's eyes. "What's your name, sweetheart?" she asked.
"What does it matter?" answered the woman. "It's Rose, what the fuck difference does that make?"
"None, I suppose," answered Mary. "But I want you to know, Rose, that this isn't how we were brought up. We were taught to do it quickly. I don't know what Theo's playing at."
Rose opened her mouth to answer, and Mary slid the knife across her throat. "There's no need," she said, as the blood poured over Rose's chest, the look of confusion on her face freezing. "There's just no need."
Mary found a piece of plastic sheet in the garage and covered Rose's body. She went back upstairs and drank the glass of water. Before she left, she wiped down the surfaces she had touched. She had been taught to clean up her mess.
The traffic was bad on the way back. Mary thought briefly about what Theo must be thinking, up in the air and fretting, before deciding that she didn't particularly care. She had a long shower, drank a bottle of red wine, watched some bad TV and slept for ten hours. She had been taught to properly unwind. When she woke up, she made herself a cooked breakfast, packed with grease she wouldn't normally allow herself. When she'd eaten and drunk the contents of a cafetiere, Mary opened her emails. There was one marked urgent from Theo.
You had no right it said simply.
Neither did you she wrote, and pressed send.
9. GONE FOR GOOD
Vinny Negron, United States