Chris Mooney - The Killing House

‘A neighbour’s dog kept shitting in our backyard, so I decided to take care of the problem. The neighbour’s daughter caught me with the dog before I could do anything, and when she threatened to tell everyone, I… made sure she wouldn’t be able to talk.’ Borgia voice’s contained no shred of shame, regret or guilt. ‘Instead of juvenile detention, the judge said I could undergo psychiatric help at Spaulding, and you know what happened there. You know what you did.’

‘And your two companions, Marie Clouzot and Brandon Arkoff?’

‘They were at Spaulding.’

‘I want their names. Their real names.’

‘Marie Clouzot and Brandon Arkoff. Now tell me — ’

‘No,’ Fletcher said. ‘When were you released from Spaulding?’

‘I wasn’t released, I escaped.’

‘How?’

Borgia grinned. ‘Marie freed us — all of us. Brandon, Marie and I — we fled together. She took care of us. We stayed together, we lived together — we survived. Together.’

‘How heartwarming,’ Fletcher said. ‘Why did you try to kill Ali Karim?’

Borgia recoiled as if slapped. ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he said.

Fletcher sighed. ‘Why did you give the order to have him killed?’

‘That came from above. The Director himself. You’ve made a lot of enemies, Malcolm. We can’t afford to have you or anyone associated with you running around the country — who knows how many people know your dirty little secret.’

‘I’ll say it again. I had no involvement with the Behavioral Modification Project. I was trying to expose it. Ali Karim spent a small fortune hiring forensic archaeologists to try to find out where the hospitals buried the bodies.’

Borgia’s eyes widened, surprised and possibly offended. ‘Karim,’ he said, his voice rising, ‘was helping that murdering whore the world knew as Theresa Herrera find her precious little boy. Karim was helping to hide you all these years — you, a murdering psychopath who had helped to orchestrate a secret mass murder. Karim protected you, the Bureau protected their murderers — gave them new identities, relocated them, paid for everything — and who helped me and the others? Who protected us? Nobody. Nobody helped us and nobody was looking out for us. Karim deserves to die, you deserve to die — the whole goddamn murdering lot of you needs to be punished for what you did. And you’re going to tell me, right now, where you buried the bodies.’

Fletcher said nothing, mesmerized by Borgia’s psychotic breakdown.

Borgia kicked the kennel door. ‘ Where did you bury the bodies? ’

Fletcher said nothing.

‘TELL ME! ’ Another kick, another roar: ‘ TELL ME WHERE YOU BURIED THE FUCKING BODIES!"

Beats of silence, and then Fletcher said, ‘Do you want the truth or your version of it?’

‘The truth,’ Borgia said, panting. ‘This has always been about the truth.’

‘Then I’ll tell you.’ Fletcher waited a moment before continuing. ‘Contrary to what you’ve been told, I had no involvement with the Behavioral Modification Project.’

Borgia backed away from the kennel door.

‘I didn’t bury any bodies,’ Fletcher said. ‘After the Bureau closed down the project, well after they shredded all the documentation and destroyed every last bit of evidence, I — ’

Fletcher cut himself off when Borgia turned, raised the Glock and fired randomly into one of the kennels. Fletcher jumped to his feet, the ceiling’s web of chain link preventing him from standing upright, and he yelled as Borgia fired again.

‘ Look at me. ’

Borgia swung his attention back to him. ‘You made me do that,’ he said. ‘You killed them. Their deaths are on your hands because you keep lying.’

‘I’m telling you the truth.’ Fletcher’s ears were ringing from the gunshots. ‘I can’t tell you where the bodies are buried because I don’t know. The Bureau took measures to make sure the bodies would never be found — that no evidence or documentation regarding the project would ever be found.’

Borgia’s eyes were vacant, his grin vicious. ‘Marie was right. You are a monster. A liar and a monster, just like the rest of them.’

Fletcher was about to speak again when he heard a faint scream, the sound coming from the passageway. The scream was followed by a clear voice crying for help.

Borgia backed away from the cage and grabbed the cattle prod from the operating table.

‘I’m telling you the truth,’ Fletcher said.

‘The world will know soon enough what you did,’ Borgia said. He pointed the cattle prod at him and added, ‘And so help me God, you will tell me where you buried the bodies.’

Borgia stormed through the passageway. Fletcher sat back against the floor and grabbed his right boot.

Fletcher gave the heel of his boot a sharp twist. The seal broke. Quickly he unscrewed the heel. Now it was in his hands and he slid the compartment open, revealing the false bottom. Inside and set in the hardened, contoured plastic were lock picks and a small, five-inch folding knife.

The knife went into his mouth. Lock picks in hand, he threaded his fingers through the chain link, grabbed the padlock and went to work.

Jimmy Weeks had jumped to his feet when he heard the gunshots.

The police had found him. They had come in with guns ablazing and they were searching for him and they didn’t know where he was because he was locked alone inside this dark room. He

sucked in a deep breath and screamed at the top of his lungs, screamed ‘ HERE! HELP ME, I’M IN HERE! ’

He stopped when he heard the deadlock for the big, heavy door snap back.

Jimmy swallowed, his throat raw, throbbing, and nearly collapsed in relief. He was alive, he had survived; he was going home to see his parents.

The lights for his room went on; the sudden brightness, as always, felt like needles flying into his eyes. He gripped the cage’s chain link as the big, heavy door swung open, and with his eyes slammed shut he screamed in relief and fear and, now, anger: ‘ That crazy woman locked me inside here — there are other people in here, I heard them, they’re — ’

Jimmy cut himself off when he heard an electric crackle. His eyes flew open but he couldn’t see much of anything. Something sharp and cold hit his neck and then a blast of lightning flew through his body like millions of tiny electrified bolts. His legs gave out and he collapsed against the floor. His muscles twitched in painful, uncontrollable spasms. He heard keys jingling and then the crackling sound came again and more bolts of lightning slammed into the back of his head and through his limbs and the scream died on his lips.

Marie Clouzot stood in one of the printing press’s ground-floor offices, undressing in the submarine glow of Brandon’s computer screen. She’d heard the gunshots; they were faint, coming from the basement. She knew what Alexander was trying to accomplish (and that was his name, Alexander Borgia, not Terence Davidson; they didn’t use their old names any more). Alexander believed he could convince the monster to tell him where he’d buried the other patients.

During the drive to Baltimore, she had reminded Alexander of the many doctors and nurses who had been caged inside the basement’s chain-link kennels over the years. True, some of them confessed to knowing full well that Namoxin was an experimental medication with many side effects. And, yes, two of the doctors had admitted to working in the secret Behavioral Modification Project. But none of them — not one single doctor or nurse, she reminded Alexander, would say where the bodies had been buried. They kept professing their ignorance of such matters before and after a hand or foot had been amputated. When they watched their sons and daughters being led to the operating table.