The rain sounded like it was close by, the gentle pitter-patter trickling into her ears, and she shivered as she waited to feel the first drops. It was already way too cold out to get wet.
I am outside … right? Ugh, why does everything hurt?
Her eyelids felt heavy, glued together almost, but Sarah managed to squint them open. She hissed as white light speared its way into her eye sockets and lanced deep into her skull, where it did not receive a warm welcome. She forced it back out with a groan, her eyelids slamming shut again.
Fuck! Why is it so bright out? Wasn't it just night time a few minutes ago?
The pounding drum that was her brain just wouldn't give her an answer. Every thought was forced to share space and precious, delicate strands of concentration with a raging storm of pain, screeching winds and booming thunder making it impossible for even the simplest of thoughts to take proper shape. She tried to block it out, tried to raise her hands to cover her ears and squeeze out that pounding noise and confusion, but both her arms refused to cooperate.
Hey … why can't I move? Why the fuck can't I move? I can't have been hit that hard.
That last worrying idea shocked the rest into silence. Someone had hit her. She couldn't yet remember who or what had struck her, but the threat of danger was enough to jolt her back to life. She could feel herself coming around, aware enough of her body to realise she was resting on something hard and cold, and that her legs weren't cooperating either. She couldn't move. She couldn't fucking move. Her chest began to tighten, but she made herself go on breathing before her panic could smother her.
Get it together, Sarah. Feel that twitch in your fingers? That pressure on your wrists? You aren't paralysed, you're just stuck, somehow. You're going to try opening your eyes again now, okay? It's going to hurt like a bitch again, but you need to find out what's happening here. You need to find out if you're safe.
Her eyes didn't like it, but at least they obeyed her command. That bit of perseverance paid off, telling her that the bright light slamming down into her face was too harsh and unforgiving to be anything but artificial. Grimacing, she did her best to peer past the light with her eyes slitted open, wincing as even that small exposure provoked a deep and unholy ache within her head. A few careful blinks helped her adjust some, and she was able to make out shapes – a low ceiling – beyond the glare. The sound she had mistaken for gentle rain still drummed in her ears, too strong and steady to be anything but a working sink. I'm not outside, then.
After flexing her fingers and toes, reassuring herself that they still worked, she consulted her body as a whole, and discovered that she was not quite standing, yet not quite lying down either. The hard surface at her back was set at a severe angle, leaving her head and shoulders high and her toes dangling down towards the ground, her body propped up and prone for whatever was to come. She rolled her sore head forwards as much as she dared, noting the heavy black cuffs that bound her wrists and ankles, making any movement beyond a little desperate squirming all but impossible. Sure enough, pulling at her restraints only caused pain, their stiff edges biting into her skin the moment she did. With growing horror, she saw that her thin sweater had been split open down the middle, baring a faded white bra and a strip of too-pale skin that stretched all the way down to the waistband of her jeans. The thin sliver of faded pink scar tissue that ran down between her breasts brought the memories rushing back.
She remembered the pain after her operation, the changing of layers of crisp white bandages and the livid red line that had lain beneath them. She remembered the staggering weight her new heart had placed upon her young shoulders, the many long months she had spent fighting to keep it, and the cold panic that had gripped her chest as, finally, her time with her fresh new organ had run out. She remembered the warm touch of hope as she and her would-be saviour tried to make their escape from the city, and how, in the space of mere seconds, it had been snatched away again as he left her to her fate.
I'm going to die, she thought, guts already cramping up in terror. Then: He's going to kill me.
Unable to help herself, she rocked forwards against her bonds, wincing as the leather restraints dug deep into her wrists. Fuck. Her eyes darted left and right, more shapes slowly coming into focus as her eyes adjusted beneath the harsh bulbs above. That bright examination light above her head seemed to be the only concession towards the cold, clinical surrounds she had been expecting. It was cold, all right – freezing, really – the room's dingy stone walls doing little to keep in the heat, the worn surgical slab against her back raising goosebumps all over her skin. She shivered, and spotted what could have been her jacket, tossed into a corner in a careless heap, but the deep shadows that clung to the room's edges made it impossible to tell for sure. Beyond the damning glare of her spotlight, everything was painted in vague shades of grey, from the strange implements and ancient surgical apparatus which lined the walls, to the ones that were hung from the ceiling in untidy rows. The midnight gleam of metal was everywhere in the darkness, scalpels and saw blades and god only knew what else dangling down for her goggle-eyed appraisal, all those jagged edges strung up like the mobile in some sadist's playpen. From the looks of it, said sadist liked to keep his toys sharp.
Her eyes widened as grim realisation set in. There would be no hope of catching hold of a real doctor in this drab basement room – no chance at reason, or some desperate, last minute bargain. This wasn't GeneCo's shining and spotless headquarters; it was a cavern of nightmares, where no one would hear her scream.
She almost did scream when, at last, she spotted him.
In the shadows and without his helmet, he could have been any other doctor, head down as he concentrated on the small sink before him, humming something soft and melodious under his breath as he scrubbed up ready for her surgery. It was only when Sarah let her eyes shift sideways, away from the sink and back onto the wide array of grisly tools around the room, did she remind herself that the task he was readying himself for, the one that had him singing a merry little tune, was her murder.
A low, despairing whimper crept from her throat, and she hated it, loathed herself for it, for the moment she unleashed that traitorous sound, the man's shoulders stiffened and began to turn towards her. In his heavy black leathers, he was by far the darkest thing in that frightful room, and now she had his full attention. The running faucet squeaked off, the water dripping away into silence as he snatched up a towel and dried off his hands. He took his time in slipping into a pair of thick gloves before his footsteps began to move across the stone floor towards her, bringing him into her small circle of light.
Her would-be killer was … human. Sarah didn't know what kind of monster she had been expecting beneath the GeneCo disguise – perhaps a mismatched, patchwork job of rotting skin taken from his victims, pulled across his face in a grotesque mask of death. As far as Sarah could tell, the skin stretched taut across his cheekbones and jaw was smooth and clean, and most definitely his own. His hair was a steely grey, kept short and neat, and slicked back from his forehead to give him a sleek, business-like appeal. The dreaded GeneCo stalker didn't have claws, or fangs that might have made him stand out on the street, or eyes that glowed red as they tracked his latest victim. He was just an ordinary man – one who had chosen to maim and murder as a living. Somehow, that was more terrifying than any twisted monster she could have ever dreamed up.
His eyes were focussed on hers, and as he came closer still, Sarah saw they didn't quite match up, just like Jareth's. They were a soft fern-green, and though their pupils were the same size, there was a thin swatch of brown marring the left iris, making it appear far darker. It seemed wrong, somehow, to know something so casually intimate about the man – to even see him as just a man, considering what was to come.
Those eyes creased at the corners as the man's mouth began to curl, his thin lips slowly peeling back to reveal twin rows of straight, white teeth in a smile that was far too wide to be natural. Sarah felt her heart pitch up into her throat. Jesus. Something in that smile chilled her all the way down to her soul. The monster she had been dreading was there, all right; he was lurking just beneath the surface, playing peekaboo until the real fun started. She wondered if he would laugh as he cut her open. She wondered just how many other poor souls had borne witness to that sly, demon's smile, and if, in their dying moments, it was the last thing they had ever seen.
"Williams-comma-Sarah." That bright and unsettling smile dimmed some as the man got down to business, reading from a neat sheath of notes attached to a small black clipboard. "Age: twenty-seven; height: five foot six. Weight: approximately one hundred and five pounds, down from your last check-up. Blood type: O-positive. And now …" His lips twitched as he scanned a little further down his notes, before tapping a disapproving finger against the page. "Yes, exactly ninety days overdue." He paused in his reading to flash her another oily little smile. "Plus a couple of extra hours because of that detour you took, but hey, who's counting? It's good of you to finally join me. You don't mind hanging around a little longer while I finish off the relevant paperwork, do you?" From the way his smile widened, she could tell he hadn't been expecting a reply. "Fantastic."
His pen scratched across the page while he continued to mutter to himself, and while Sarah tried to calm her racing heart without much success. Though her body was in panic mode, her restraints rendered her incapable of either fight or flight, leaving her with only one bleak option: to hang there in silent terror. A cold shudder rippled its way through her core as finally, he set all his notes and the clipboard down. It was time for the practical part of his twisted little exam to begin.
She bit back a scream as one gloved hand came to grip the left side of her face, and his thumb moved dangerously close to her eye socket. She was stiff with fear, but he only propped the lid open and urged her head backwards. There was a soft click, and then the beam of a small penlight was directed into her eyeball. The smell of peppermint surrounded her as he leaned in, almost close enough to kiss as he peered into both of her eyes in turn, humming and angling her head to suit himself as she tried to keep the flesh from crawling off her bones. The light finally clicked off, leaving her blinking away dark halos as the man shoved up her sleeves and prodded a finger into each of her biceps, and then the tender bend of both her arms.
"Well, no wonder your little drug dealer friend seemed so disappointed to lose you. It doesn't look like you've actually been using," he observed. "Looks like I got there just in time. You'd be surprised how many last minute rebels I have to deal with, polluting their whole bodies with whatever shit they can find, just to try to damage the parts GeneCo have given them. That can set me back a good couple of days, just waiting around for it to flush out, as if I haven't got anything better to do. Some people are pretty selfish, huh?" Once again, her lack of answer didn't seem to phase him. "Well, you've saved us both a little time and effort here – not by running in the first place, though." His lips hitched up at the corners. "At least you can console yourself with this: you won't be making that mistake again – or any other, for that matter."
The words awakened a sour, hot pulse in her guts. There she was, on the brink of death, and her executioner-to-be was jolly enough to crack jokes about it. "Lucky me," she murmured, without thinking.
That eerie smile cracked into another wide, toothy grin. "Ah, she speaks! That's the spirit, Sarah. You are lucky not to have gotten dragged down into the dark world of drugs. Just. Say. No." He punctuated his last words with three light, playful taps of his finger against the tip of her nose, which she flinched away from in disgust. He went on, seemingly oblivious to the sickened scowl she gave him. "Saying that, I think you might regret going into this completely straight, without so much as an aspirin or even a stiff drink to take the edge off for you. This is going to hurt."
Like you really need to tell me. Sarah sucked in another breath to try to settle her nerves. "Okay, so … if this is really happening, don't I at least get a chance to say my goodbyes?"
"Of course." His eyes had shifted from her by then, and were moving along his hanging rows of tools, seeking out just the right weapon. "You had ninety days notice – ninety days of non-payment in which to make your peace with the world and all that's in it." He paused in his musing to shoot her a sly, sidelong glance. "And, of course, let's not forget those couple of hours on the run with your friend. Shame he had to dash off like that, wasn't it? I wonder where he rushed off to."
Sarah clenched her fists and chose to ignore the question. She had far bigger worries than Jareth's whereabouts right then. "You know I didn't choose not to pay, right?" she asked. Any real conviction behind her words was dampened by the hitch in her breathing, and by the small, needy sound she coughed out after. It was painfully close to whining. "I tried to keep up – I tried like hell. I skipped meals, I went without heat, even in the winter, but my salary only stretched so far. I could maybe understand punishing me like this if I just forgot to make the payments, or I just didn't feel like paying, but … I did all I could." The cuffs that held her bit into her wrists as she leaned forward into them. "This isn't right. This isn't fair. I don't deserve this."
The man shrugged. "You made the agreement and you didn't stick to it. There aren't any participation ribbons or runner-up prizes in the organ game, I'm afraid. You either succeed or you fail – and you, my dear Sarah, have most definitely failed. It's not all bad news, though. Your heart will get put to use again, and with any luck, the next owner will be better equipped to take care of it." Another bright, white flash of his teeth set her own on edge. "Just think of it as a form of recycling."
The tightly-drawn thread of panic within her finally snapped. "I don't want to be fucking recycled! Jesus Christ, I just want to live!" With how badly she was trembling, she didn't know where that surge of strength managed to come from. "You don't need to do this. Please … please, just let me go! Let me go!"
"After you've proven so tricky to catch the first time? I don't think so. You've shown yourself to be a little too slippery for my liking, Sarah Williams. You won't be wriggling your way off this hook any time soon."
The cocky assurance only spurred her to test her bonds again. She began to squirm as much as her binds allowed, but only succeeded in chafing her wrists against the unforgiving leather of her cuffs. Her captor simply watched her struggle; she was only proving his point. Sarah's aching wrists thanked her as, finally, she slumped back against the cold slab.
Jesus. Okay, think, Sarah. Just think. You are not going to die here. Not in this … this sicko's little murder den. You can't run, you can't move, but you can talk. You've got to use that to help yourself in any way you can. Keep him busy. Keep him talking.
"So, where am I?" she asked, with another glance around the room. "This sure as hell isn't any GeneCo building I've seen before."
He let his eyes slide back towards his line of tools, reaching up to finger the nearest shining silver blade before answering. "It's the end of the line. That's all you need to know."
He wasn't exactly wrong. Sarah could feel the hopelessness of her situation pressing down on her chest, making her body long to bow, her lips to go on begging for mercy, but she fought against those desperate urges the only way she could. She would fight her fear tooth and nail before giving in. If the man wanted her terror before he took her life, she would do her best to give him only indifference. "Wh-where is that exactly, east side of town or west side? I'm not too good with directions."
Her captor grunted, a deep scowl setting in. "Got to love a smartass. When you've pissed yourself in fear and your throat's raw and bleeding from your screams, we'll see how smart you are then."
Sarah felt her pelvic floor muscles contract, as if in agreement. Still, she managed to steal a crumb of hope from his words; he would have to keep her alive long enough for her to get to the screaming stage. She refused to let herself think past that point, tuning out the part of her mind that cried and whined, and wondered just how much agony it would take to force out the desired sounds. She gave no reply as she considered her next move, still and silent as she observed the way the man's eyes kept on darting back to hers as he made a show of selecting his instruments. All the while, he watched her watching him, hoping for a reaction; she could see the quirk of his eyebrows, the tilt of his mouth as he lingered over a particularly nasty-looking tool. He did want to see her suffer, even before the cutting began, and knowing it for certain finally forced anger to rise up, tall and proud above her fear.
"I'm not trying to be a smartass," she told him, already feeling herself losing her hold on her tongue. "I'm actually feeling pretty dumb right now, to be totally honest with you, because I just can't understand what could possibly motivate you to do this – to kill people. To pick them up off the street and drag them back to … to whatever this place is, just to murder them."
His eyes flicked towards her again, this time holding her in their dark depths. Though everything in her trembling body told her to look away, Sarah held him in her sights. She refused to be the one to blink first. Being caught was actually starting to feel pretty refreshing. Sure, she was terrified of what pain awaited her, but after months upon months of worry, of sleepless nights filled with sorrow and clawing desperation, it felt good to finally be able to stop running. Self-preservation was a care that lost, past Sarah had carried with her. As dangerous as it was, with disgust and sickening rage crawling their way up through her insides, this new Sarah felt almost ready to shrug free of that burden for good. She was finally at the Repo Man's mercy, trapped and probably not long for this world in the bargain, but by god, she was furious.
"Why do you do it?" she demanded. "What gives you the motive, the right to end someone's life?"
"It's my job," he sneered at her, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he continued to browse his tools. "And might I remind you, that job is to uphold the contract that you agreed to – not to waste my time bickering with you just because you've suddenly decided you don't like the terms."
She shook her head in disbelief. The fucker really was cold enough to believe that. "Are you kidding me? I signed that contract because I didn't have a choice. I needed a new heart; I either agreed to your terms or I died! It's not like I had a lot of options open to me."
"Oh, save your sob stories. You're all the same. We'll never see eye to eye when it comes to making debtors account for their actions, so why bother? Call me crazy, but I thought you might have had more important things on your mind, like maybe one last prayer to whatever god you hold dear, rather than trying to figure out why I do what I do."
She had no problems calling the man before her crazy – just not to his face. Not just then, anyway. "How can you do this to people? Don't you have a conscience? A family? Anything?"
He gave another dismissive grunt. "My family is my business. I do all of this for her."
Sarah's mind worked quickly. Her. "So … who? A wife? A daughter?" The man's eyes seemed to narrow at the latter. "A daughter, then," she affirmed, and licked at her dry lips. "You're not that old, so she has to be … what, twenty, twenty-five at the most? I'm hardly older than her or her friends. Would you do this to one of them?"
The man turned his head and gave her a dark look. "You don't talk about her. What happens here isn't any of her business, this is just … well, my business."
"Right, 'business'. So how long have you been in the murder business, huh? 'Cause I'm guessing I'm not your first. I bet they don't call it that on your paychecks, do they? Murder? And I bet you sure as hell don't call it that when you two sit down to dinner and have a little daddy and daughter chat about how your day went. I hope it pays you well enough to look after her, and put something decent on the table. I hope it pays you enough that if your little girl ever gets sick, she doesn't have to take out a loan she can't afford, default on it, and then be forced to look you in the eyes when you stick one of your precious knives in her!"
For the second time that night, the man's shoulders stiffened. His whole body seemed to freeze in place, but then he was turning, moving with surprising speed and grace to snatch down the first sharp blade his fingers encountered. The moment he came to face her, Sarah knew she had gone way too far. His formerly cold eyes now blazed with fury, a fierce snarl on his lips which bared both rows of his teeth. He jabbed the scalpel he held in her direction, pointing it right between her eyes. "You shut your mouth. My job means that I can protect her, so that she never ends up a lowlife, no good brat like you. Now, you take that back right now – that part about her being sick. She will never end up in your shoes."
"But she could easily-"
The slash of his scalpel cut her off, all rational words and thought reduced to a strangled little squeal of terror as the tip of the blade came within an inch of her nose. The man's barked words seemed deafening in that tiny room. "You take it back! You take it back before I gut you and then sew you back up, just to gut you again, making sure you're still alive to enjoy every second of it!"
There was murder in his eyes and flecks of spittle on his lips, his heaving breaths hissing out between his teeth as he waited, none too patiently, for her reply. Sarah gulped, able to hear the dry clicking of her throat as she did. Suddenly, all of that fear she had felt was back, pounding in her chest and churning in her belly, buzzing and crawling around her insides with no place else to go. She wanted to scream, to swoon; she wanted to let her eyes roll back and faint dead away from this whole horror show, but she knew one cut of that scalpel would bring her screaming back in a hurry. Her bladder clenched, and this time she was certain it had let go, though she was shivering too hard to feel it.
"Okay … I'm sorry, okay? I'm really, really sorry. I don't want that for her at all – I don't want her to get sick. You think I'd wish that on anyone else? Christ, no. I lost someone, and I'm still hurt from that and I'm really, really scared right now, but I didn't mean it. You're not going to lose her, okay? She's not going to get sick. Please … please believe me … please don't …"
The hand holding the scalpel bunched into an even tighter fist, strained and trembling, before it finally dropped back down to his side. The man let out a deep sigh, but it sounded like he was choking. His gaze fell to the floor, but his eyes were glazed and unseeing. "She already is. She's already sick, and it's my fault. It's all my fault."
Sick daughter, the primitive part of her brain attuned only to survival piped up. Use it. Work with it. Empathise, Sarah. Empathise like your fucking life depends on it.
Chapter title from: Zydrate Anatomy