Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

“What’s your story?” said Hall, as if Geiger could hear him, too. “You in the market for a little redemption? That what this is? Sorry, man-ain’t gonna happen. You’re going to hell, just like the rest of us.”

Hall’s cell phone rang, and he answered.

“You in position?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Mitch, “I’m here. Right downstairs, across the street.”

“Stay put.”

Dalton turned to Geiger, hands behind his back, head bobbing in a slow, satisfied nod, as if he had figured out some especially difficult riddle. Mr. Chips in a chamber of horrors.

“What do you do with it?” Dalton asked.

Geiger, his head inclined again, shifted his jaw slowly, searching for a position that would allow him to talk with the least discomfort.

“Do with what?” he mumbled.

“With the pain. I read all the studies. Do you do that ‘put it in a box’ thing? Or do you go Zen and rely on mind over matter? Which is it? I’m fascinated-honestly. I saw the backs of your legs when we stripped you down, and clearly you’ve had plenty of chances to practice. So what do you do with the pain?”

“It’s my…” The last word was difficult for Geiger’s battered mouth to form, so it came out a slushy mutter.

Dalton bent down. “It’s your what?”

Geiger’s head slowly rose until his eyes met Dalton’s. Their faces were just inches apart, so close that Geiger could see his reflection in Dalton’s glasses.

“My ex-per-tise,” Geiger said.

Dalton’s hands came out from behind him. They held Geiger’s antique straight razor, and Dalton saw the shift in Geiger’s eyes and the tightening of his chest muscles. The movements were minute but unmistakable. Dalton’s feral smile reappeared.

“This is a real beauty, Geiger. Where did you get it? Is this an old friend?” He admired the ornate handiwork on the mother-of-pearl handle. “And the backs of your legs? You know, the way you deal with the pain tells me that maybe the two of you know each other very well.” He pulled the blade out from its sheath. There was an inscription etched into the polished steel. “‘To Ben, with love, from Paula.’ Mom and Dad? Am I right?”

A smoke-spewing train came chugging through a tunnel in Geiger’s memory, barreling toward the moment. He sensed what cargo it brought, and the train’s clatter and roar set his eardrums vibrating.

“You got cut for years, huh? Was it Mommy or Daddy? I’m thinking it was dear old Dad.”

Geiger saw a glimmer of something new in Dalton’s eyes, but it wasn’t sympathy.

“You had a very bad time of it, didn’t you, Geiger? Sorry, but now you and I are going back there.”

Dalton ran his gloved thumb gently up and down the blade’s finely honed edge. The latex split open.

“A little too sharp, I think.”

Geiger watched him start tapping the razor on the cart’s metal railing, creating a serrated design the length of the blade’s edge. The train kept coming, its Cyclops eye burning fiercely.

“Where is the boy?” Dalton said.

“Are you ready, son?” said the voice inside Geiger’s head.

“I’m ready, sir,” Geiger replied.

Dalton turned, smiling quizzically.

“No need to be so formal,” he said. He examined the blade and then laid it down on Geiger’s left quadricep, four inches above the knee joint. “We’ll work upward. I think that’s what your father did. When I reach the groin-if we get that far-I’m going to cut off your testicles.”

Dalton pressed the blade down evenly. The entire length of it sliced into the flesh.

The boy lay facedown, naked, on a bench in the great room. The music played softly. “I see my light come shining…”

His father stood over him, holding the pearl-handled razor.

“What do we know, son?” he said.

“Life makes us ache for the things we think we need, and the pain makes us weak.”

“So what must we do?”

“Embrace the pain, a little each day, and grow strong.”

Behind his glasses, Dalton’s eyes narrowed as he examined his handiwork. The altered razor left a puckered, four-inch incision whose jagged edges sent the blood flowing in different directions across Geiger’s thigh.

“Tell me where the boy is, Geiger.”

Geiger’s father laid the blade down on his upper thigh.

“Steady now, boy.”

It had been years since he had flinched or made a sound during the ritual, but his father still prompted him each time.

“Say it with me, son,” he directed, and they chanted together softly.

“Your blood, my blood, our blood…”

“Your blood, my blood, our blood,” mumbled Geiger.

Dalton, about to make his third cut, had stopped to wipe Geiger’s blood off his gloves when the slurred words slipped out.

“What did you say?”

He slapped Geiger across the face, smearing his cheeks with his own blood.

“Geiger, you said something. What did you say?”

Geiger’s father drew the honed edge across the flesh, opening a thin, wet, red crevasse. The boy stayed rock-still. He was watching the music inside his head.

“Did it hurt, son?”

“It didn’t hurt, Father.”

“The truth?”

“Yes.”

“Good. In a world of liars, pain will always bring the truth. When I’m gone, that may serve you well.”

Dalton bent down and rested his hands on Geiger’s knees.

“Tell me where the boy is.”

Geiger’s lids fluttered and rolled up. Dalton peered at him; it was like looking into the windows of an abandoned house.

“It didn’t hurt, Father,” said Geiger.

Dalton looked to the viewing room. “Hall! I’m not sure what we’ve got here!”

The viewing room door opened.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Hall said.

“The light’s on but nobody’s home. See for yourself.”

Hall moved toward Geiger. He was becoming increasingly aware of a heavy weariness-not some existential burden or crisis of conscience but a palpable weight, like a ball and chain trailing from an ankle. He’d put in almost twenty years. Nothing got simpler; everything got more complicated, more opaque. No one really knew anything anymore.

Hall stopped beside the barber’s chair.

“I’m not going to bullshit you,” said Dalton. “I don’t really know where he is.”

“Where he is?”

“I’ve never seen anything like this before. Believe it or not, I’m not sure he’s feeling this.” Dalton adjusted his glasses. “It’s like he feels the pain, but it…”

“But it what?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“Cut him again. Let me see what happens.”

Dalton made another cut. Geiger’s pupils and nostrils flared, his hands balled up, and the muscles in his forearms visibly hardened. But he made no sound and showed no other response.

Hall grabbed him by the sides of his head with both hands. “Do you want to die? Is that it?” He bent down and spoke directly into Geiger’s face. “Have you ever seen someone bleed out?”

Geiger shook from the rumble of the churning steel roaring toward him. It was nearly on top of him now.

“Because I have, man-and you wouldn’t want a rabid dog to die like that. You hear me?”

But what Geiger heard was a different voice calling to him. And as his eyelids fell, the memory train plowed into him, shattering his view of Hall and the room around him, revealing another, more vibrant world beyond.

“Son! Come here, son!”

The boy came out of the cabin and headed up the side of the mountain. It was dark, but there was a good moon and he could make his way through the woods without much difficulty.

“Son! Where are you?”

His father’s voice, higher-pitched than usual, seemed to be bouncing off the dense trees, but he had a general sense for where it was coming from.