Suffer the Flesh

Chapter 10

Zoey’s heart slammed against her chest as she leaned in closer to the door, open wide enough for her to hear what was going on inside. Something felt terribly wrong, and instinct told her to stay away.

But she had to know what was happening.

At first she heard laughter, a loud bellow.

“Fuck you!” James yelled. Zoey peered in through the small slit separating the doors.

“No, James. Fuck you.”

She didn’t recognize the man who had James by the hair, the man who then punched James in his stomach and dropped him to the floor.

At the head of the room stood the three visitors who had tortured her. Beside them stood three other men.

“My name is Zachary,” the man who had punched James said to the roomful of prisoners and guards—all prisoners now, it seemed. “Call me Zack.” He smiled, crossed his arms over his black T-shirt. “In case you haven’t guessed, James is no longer in charge. Neither are his asshole cohorts. From now on, you’ll all do as I say.”

He shifted his feet, ran his hand over his black hair. “We’re going to have fun, ladies. And gentlemen. Just do as you’re told, and we’ll all get along just great. No one will get hurt. Wait, scratch that. Just do as you’re told.”

He paced, slow steps across the front of the room. “We got sick of the way things have been run around here. Got sick of this once-every-other-month bullshit. We pay way too goddamn much money. And we thought our way would be more fun. Don’t you agree?”

Fun? Was that what they considered fun? She glanced over her shoulder at the empty hallway, turned her attention back to the cafeteria.

Zack faced the women, who stared back at him in stunned silence.

He smashed his fist into a table. “Answer me!”

Women shouted “yes!”

“Better.” He turned to the other visitors. “Everyone accounted for?”

“I left some in the medieval room,” a man dressed in a monk’srobe said. “They’re chained up, though.”

“We left one in the nursery,” Serge said. Then he grinned, added, “She’s not going anywhere.”

“Pete, Doug, go get them, drag their sorry asses in here. Serge—room number?”

Serge shrugged. “How should I know? It’s the nursery.”

“Wally? Room number?”

The monk shook his head. “I didn’t notice, Zack.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, somebody tell me the room numbers.”

Zoey stepped away from the door and crept backward down the hall. Shaking hands guided her way along the wall. She needed to hide—but where? Her mind searched every room, but there was no time to think. A few more feet down the hall, she ducked into the bathroom. Killed the lights, and left the door ajar so she could hear them approaching.

The toilet stalls had no doors. The shower area was a large, open room with overhead jets. No place to hide in there either. The linen closet was located at the back of the bathroom, behind the showers, and she rushed toward it. The darkness prevented her from seeing, but she knew what the closet looked like, lined with shelves, loaded with towels and T-shirts.

Working quickly, she removed half the contents of one shelf onto the others, rearranging them to look as natural as possible, guided only by blind instinct. She stuffed herself into the narrow shelf, hiding behind stacks of towels and shirts, pulled the door shut and drew them toward her, desperately hoping she hadn’t knocked any to the floor. It was impossible to know in the caliginous room. Her already pain-wracked body ached even more from being stuffed into the small space.

Under other circumstances, there was no way she would have imagined fitting inside that closet. She didn’t know what she was going to do. They were probably already looking for her, and when they discovered she was gone from the nursery, they would likely tear the place apart looking.

Surrender was an option—maybe they would go easy on her if she did. But then, she thought, if they’d beaten her so badly in fun, what the hell would they do to her in anger?

No, better to hide, to think.

She managed to turn onto her back, legs spread, the damaged flesh between her thighs screaming, but it relieved the stress on her contorted limbs.

No way to know how long she lay there, in the dark, cramped space waiting to be discovered. But after a while the voices came, angry and frustrated, slamming doors.

From the closeness of the voices, she knew.

They were inside the bathroom.