Cellar Door

Luke

We’re born with receptors. Not unlike a computer network, we’re molded off of a similar grid. Physical cells within our body respond to outside stimuli and transmit a signal to the central nervous system. Hot, cold. Pain, pleasure. We’re a sensitive network of feeling.

When a receptor becomes desensitized, it goes numb. Unfeeling.

There’s only so much pain the human body can sustain before receptors misfire and shut down. This is done to protect the brain—to protect us.

But what about the casualties of this desensitization process? Repeated exposure to something that used to cause pain becomes less harmful, less averse. We stop responding to it in the same way.

I’m leading Makenna to the garage, and she’s taking in everything. She’s stimulated, almost on overload, by her surroundings. She’s been locked in a dark room for nearly three days, her senses deprived. Now her mind is mapping a way out.

The Luke Easton prior to three years ago wouldn’t be able to fathom having a woman locked in a cellar. He wouldn’t be able to imagine a time when he’d lead that woman out into the early morning to dispose of dead bodies.

It’s taken me three years to desensitize myself. Years of wading through the absolute darkest natures on the Internet, the heinous acts they’ve committed. Images and videos of the sickest abuse…abhorrent acts that made me ill, made me vomit.

I’ve become another version of myself. I know the moment when Makenna reaches the outside, she’ll try to run, to escape. And I know when she does, I’ll do something terrible to prevent that from happening. Because it’s what I have to do.

Is that how the devils became devils?

Was there a spark of something unnatural, and they fed that flame until it roared into an unstoppable fire? My sister the casualty of men who became desensitized to the extreme? Is Makenna a victim of this same process, yet I’ve found ways to justify her treatment?

This is a disturbing thought. Comparing myself to the fiends who harmed Jules. They weren’t even human, and yet…all Makenna sees me as is a monster.

I adapted my skin to mimic the devils I hunt, so I can move around in their world. It’s a necessary evil. I still believe this. As long as I give Makenna her own revenge in the end.

She stares at the bare, white walls. “This isn’t your house,” she finally says.

“It is mine.” I found it half complete and abandoned. The owner ran out of money and couldn’t afford to finish his dream home. There was a frame and builder plans. I bought them both. Cash. An easy transaction for a man wanting to get out of debt.

I threw up drywall and put a chair in the living room and a computer. No pictures. No TV. No personal effects.

“An empty house with a cellar full of sadistic torture artifacts.” She walks behind me. “You really are insane.”

I stop before the door that leads to the garage. “I suppose you’re qualified to make that assessment. Sane people don’t jump on people’s backs in the middle of fights.”

I glance at her to catch her reaction, and her slender face is pursed in thought. I thought so. As I open the door, I leave the light off and click the garage door button. I have four cars I trade out. It’s probably time to purchase a new one, but again, time. I’m running out of it.

I choose the black Charger, because that’s the vehicle where I stuck Myer in the trunk.

Makenna’s fingers wriggle around her bandages to grip the sleeves of her jacket, her teeth sink into her bottom lip. Her gaze flits from the car to the open garage door.

Don’t do it.

She reaches for the door handle.

I walk around the car and, as I’m seating myself behind the wheel, she takes off.

I sigh out a long, defeated breath before I climb out. “There’s nowhere to run,” I shout.

Makenna has made it as far as the fencing. Luckily, captivity hasn’t completely killed her detecting senses. A six foot fence wraps the perimeter of the house, and it’s got a bright red voltage sticker adhered to the front.

She moves along the fence, searching for an opening. “Please…” She begs, as I approach. “I don’t want to die like this. Without knowing… Without seeing him one last time. You can’t bury me in the woods.”

Christ. I scrub my hands down my face. I’m tired. Too tired after stealing a body from the morgue to deal with her level of frantic crazy. “Just get in the fucking car.”

She tries to run again. This time, I give chase, catching her by the waist before she makes it another few feet across the yard. “There are no neighbors, Mak. No one. There’s no way out.”

I carry her, thrashing and shrieking, to the Charger where I heave her into the passenger seat. I manage to wrangle the seatbelt across her chest, click it into place. I have one cable tie left, and I use that to cinch her wrists together around the strap.