Jack Ketcham - Right to Life

She heard his fingers on the latch and his voice telling her to put on the blindfold and she did and then she was sliding out into the room again.

"Stand up."

She was always a little dizzy after being inside. She stood slowly and carefully, using her hands on the top of it to support her for a moment until she felt sufficiently steady.

"Put this on."

She felt fabric, cotton, press lightly against her stomach and she reached for it with both hands and hugged it to her, smelled the clean fresh scent of it. She unfolded it, turned it.

"The other way. You got it wrong. That's the back."

She turned it again.

Clothes! He was giving her clothes!

A dress!

She pulled it on over her head and winced as it slid across her breasts but that was nothing to the sensation of being clothed again. It was probably a little baggy, a little bit big for her she thought and yes, it was, she knew as she began to button it. But the light thin material felt wonderful.

A short-sleeve dress. She almost felt human again.

"These too. They're yours."

He handed her her shoes. The flats she'd worn to the clinic. Their familiarity tore at her as though they were of another life entirely, relics of some dimly familiar well-loved past. She leaned back against the box and slipped them on.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome. Put your hands behind your back."

He snapped the manacles together.

"Come with me."

He took her arm, firmly and not gently, and suddenly she was frightened again. But she did as he said and walked with him. There was nothing else she could do.

"Where are we going?"

"You don't question me, remember? You'll see."

Maybe this is the end, she thought. Maybe they're going to do it now.

End me.

Kill me. Or let me go.

No. Not possible.

"Careful. There are stairs here."

He led her up slowly. She counted the steps, trying to calm herself, trying to interrupt the circle of excitement and fear which looped into each other inside her. Neither excitement nor fear would do her any good. She counted sixteen wooden steps. They came to a carpeted landing. Fresh air swept cool around her ankles and she thought they must be standing by the back door, that it must be off to her left. Then he turned her to the right and moved her up yet another, slightly higher step and she was standing on a wood floor. This must be the kitchen or dining room area, she thought. She smelled faint cooking-smells, hamburger or something, almost overwhelmed by cleaning-smells, ammonia, bleach, and something like Windex or Fantasik.

Simple, comfortable, familiar smells. Not the damp musty basement. They nearly brought her to tears.

"Okay, slow now."

He moved her a half-turn to the right and walked her fourteen steps straight ahead over a wood floor and stopped, took her by the shoulders and turned her around.

"Sit."

She bent her knees and reached down behind her with her hands until she found the base of a narrow wooden chair topped by a thinly stuffed cushion and sat down.

"Okay, now listen to me. I'm only going to say this once."

He was either kneeling beside her or sitting, she couldn't say which, but he was very close. His voice was soft but there was something excited about it too A kind of heightened nervous quality. It scared her. She wanted him stable. As stable as possible.

"You heard something up here awhile ago, didn't you."

She almost said no . Then thought it was probably not wise to lie to him. She nodded.

"I thought so. What did it sound like to you?"

"Argument. A fight, maybe."

"Very good. I'm going to show you something in a little while that will probably upset you. It's all right to be upset. It's natural. But I want you to know what happened before I show it to you. Two men just left here. These two men were members of the Organization. Friends of mine. They were with a third man, Victor, who I also know very well. But Victor was a traitor. There's no other way to put it. He knew things. And we found out he was talking to the police. We have people inside there too obviously. He hadn't said anything too specific to them yet, he was waiting for their bribe money to come through. But we knew he was talking or about to talk. And he didn't know we knew.

"So what we set up was this. They all come over here for a friendly visit, a drink, some conversation, the usual. Then we confront Victor with what we know. He tries to deny it but we've got all the dates and times and people. We know which cops he's talking to. He finally admits it. He's very upset, very contrite. Says he must have been crazy, out of his mind. We agree with him there. Now what I want to show you is by way of instruction. I get the feeling you don't completely believe us about the Organization but maybe after you see this you'll think again."

He stepped behind her.

And lifted off the blindfold.

"Victor," he said.

Light flung itself at her eyes like swarms of stinging insects. For a moment she could see practically nothing, then saw she was in a living room. Saw chairs, a fireplace, a television set, a dusty hardwood floor.

And in the center of the floor the shape of a man. A small man. Wrapped in heavy-duty black plastic bags tied with loops of twine.

She felt the meagre contents of her stomach rise.

"This is what happens when you fuck with the Organization, Sara. You die. It's that simple. Turn and look at me."

She did, fearfully, knowing the stakes were being raised yet again by him allowing her to see him. She saw a dark-haired, almost handsome man of medium build standing there in a sweatshirt and old jeans. Slim, hairline receding a little, nose a little too sharp, but with eyes that were wide and dark and actually beautiful – how could they be that? – a good strong chin and full, sensual lips. He was gazing at her directly. Not smiling.

And she had the oddest feeling that she knew him from somewhere, had seen him somewhere before. That he was not entirely a stranger.

She said nothing.

She wondered where the woman was. If she would be familiar too.

"You think we're still fooling you, don't you. That Victor's some mannikin or something."

He was right. After the initial shock that was the first thought that came to her. The mind simply rebelled. She couldn't be sitting in a room with a murdered man lying on the floor in front of her. It just wasn't possible.

Do you really know the limits of the possible? she thought. In this place? Do you?

"Get up. Go over and touch it. Here."

He reached around and unfastened the manacles. It occurred to her that this was far and away the most freedom she'd had since the moment they took her.

She could run for the door.

Why don't you, then?

Because the door is probably locked and even if it wasn't he'd catch her easily. That's why.

She stood, already dreading what she was going to find. If this thing on the floor were a mannikin why would he call his own bluff?

She walked over and knelt and for a moment couldn't bring herself to touch it but he was standing behind her staring, she felt his stare like a harsh command so she reached out and gave a push to the center of the thing and it was the weight of a man all right, no mannikin ever felt so heavy nor the flesh beneath the bags so giving and it couldn't be a living man pretending either because one of the bags was tied off tight at the neck and there was no way in the world he'd be able to breathe inside.

She was kneeling next to a dead man. A man he'd just admitted killing.

And they would do it to her, he said, if she defied him.

If he'd raised the stakes by showing her his face he'd raised them infinitely higher by showing her this. There was no way in hell he could let her live now unless she either escaped or submitted wholly to him and to this Organization he kept talking about.