Our Secret to Have and to Hold

Emery

"Yes!" Kai exclaimed. "We're going."

"What? Are you kidding? Please tell me that's the drink talking."

"Oh come on, these people are posers. Messing with them in person will be a million times more fun."

Maybe. It all depended on who we ran into. "These people could be dangerous, Kai. What if this Pastor Charles is just some axe-wielding lunatic?"

Kai raised his eyebrows. "Then I guess we better bring an axe too."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes.

"Let's just go and see, and if we're not down with whatever's going on, we leave," he said with a shrug.

I bit my lip as I debated. We could just leave if we wanted. And why not go out and do something I never would normally? Who was going to stop me? "Let's do it then."

A few days later, after sneaking out of my house, we travelled to Wixom. The house was in the middle of nowhere. There was only a single car parked by the house.

"I think we actually should have brought the axe," I muttered as we climbed from the car. "If I end up being chopped up into little pieces, I'm so coming back and haunting you."

"That could be fun." A boyish grin rose on Kai's lips. He took my hand as we walked up to the door "Time to see the animals in their cages." He was wide-eyed and clearly trying to spook me.

I wasn't far-off spooked anyway. The buzz of insects was the only thing I could hear. Everything was eerily quiet and still. "Where's everyone else?"

Before Kai could answer, the door opened. The man that stood before us was creepy to say the least. Greasy, greying hair framed a mottled, worn face. He wore a black suit and waistcoat with a silver crucifix hanging from a chain.

"Hello Brother," the creepy man said.

"Pastor Charles, I presume." Now he was being overly serious. He was enjoying this game already. I gave Kai a side-eye. "I brought my friend Emery."

"What is this place?" I asked.

"Oh it's a house of mirth to some. The portent to those whose eyes are open but cannot see. Once you enter, you agree to never share the provenance of what you've seen inside. Our secret to have and to hold."

Yep, I called it. This guy was a whack job.

"Til death do us part?" I sneered.

"Punishment is your everlasting soul." He stepped back and we entered a rather cosy-looking front hall. The fire that burned in the fireplace emitted an embracing warmth to fight of the chilly night air.

"I'm the watchman. This way." He gestured us to go into the room ahead.

Kai walked in front of me and stuck his tongue out behind the Pastor.

I just about managed to cover my laugh with a cough. "You're such an idiot." I smacked his arm as I stalked past him.

We entered a dark, gloomy… nursery? There was a cot in the middle of the room and a bizarre, macabre mobile hanging above it. There was a dark stain on the mattress in the crib.

The door slammed shut behind us. I darted back to it, trying the handle. "Shit. It's locked."

A few lights flickered on. That was when I noticed the stain on the mattress was a deep red.

"Well," Kai said, seemingly unbothered. "Only one way to go."

Flames roared to life in the fireplace as the cries of a baby resonated from hidden speakers.

"Who shall speak for the unborn?" The Pastor's voice rose above the cries.

A wispy curtain pulled back and bile rose to the back of my throat at the sight. A woman was strapped to a gurney, feet in stirrups. Blood pooled between her legs.

"Help me. Help me. I killed my baby. Now I'm bleeding to death." She whimpered in pain.

"Bummer," muttered Kai. I chuckled at his nonchalant response.

"Help me, please." Her voice had dropped to a whisper as she tried to reach for Kai's arm. "He kidnapped me. He's making me do this. This isn't a show. This is not a show."

"What the fuck?" It wasn't her words that stopped me cold. There was something in her voice.

"She's really good." Obviously Kai and I weren't on the same wavelength.

"No, No—"

"You're good," he said again. He must have brushed his hand against some of the blood. He raised his hand to his nose. "This… Jesus Christ. This is real blood."

Our gazes locked. What the hell had we walked in to?

"Help me." The woman on the bed was sobbing now. How long had she been here, tied up like this?

"Wide is the gate and broad the way which leadeth to destruction," the Pastor continued.

The collar around the woman's neck buzzed. She clamped her hand around it as her body shook. It was shocking her.

Then the lights cut out.

"We've got to go." I pulled Kai by the hand, ignoring his pleas to wait. When we passed into the next room, something thudded behind us… a dead body.

"Shit!" said Kai.

A pungent, sickening smell hit me. I could almost taste it on my tongue. "It smells like death in here." I covered my mouth and nose with the edge of my sleeve but that did nothing to block the acrid scent.

Red lights flickered on as yet another fire flickered. As we stepped further into the room, the cause of the smell revealed itself. On a bed was a man attached to dozens of tubes. His skin was ashen. He was nothing more than skin and bones.

"Behold the whirlwind of the Lord. It shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked."

Damn, was there not a way to shut this loon up?

"He's alive. Hey man," Kai said as he crept closer. Kai reached a hand out towards one of the tubes connected to the man.

"Ahh!" The man screamed, making my heart leap up my throat as I jumped back. "No more! He's corrupted me by the drugs of my choice: ecstasy, cocaine, opioids. My body is a bag of mush. I'm dying from the inside out."

"Oh my God. We have got to get the fuck out of here," I said as I pulled Kai to yet another room.

"What of the sodomite?"

The door slid open in front of us. What horror were we going to be faced with now? It was like this guy was guiding us around his own sick zoo from hell. And we had no choice but to play along.

"Help me, please. Please, you got to get me out of here."

Red lights.

Fire.

A man strapped to a chair.

"The seducer of the innocent, toward the wicked filth of strange flesh. Did the Lord not say that man shall not lie with man as with woman?"

"He can't do this to people." There was a fury blazing beneath the surface of Kai's eyes that I'd never seen before.

"It is an abomination!" The Pastor's voice was growing tenser and louder as he continued to spew his venomous bullshit. "The blood shall be on their heads. The Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone. Behold, His judgment is… it is ever swift and divine! And in uncertain times, what vengeance shall mark their days."

"When he finishes talking," the man strapped to the chair said, "knives will burst through my chest. I saw it happen to the guy before me."

"A plague to slow their way or the strike of swift justice!" The Pastor was now shouting. He was getting worked up. We needed to move and fast.

"We have to get him out of here," Kai said as he started to unstrap him.

"His judgment is ever swift!"

I ran over to help. My fingers fumbled with the straps but we were getting through them, one by one.

"His punishment a slow… burning… fire."

We yanked him forward as dozens of sharp, rusted blades tore from the chair, forming the shape of a cross. How goddamn poetic.

We all took a moment to breathe. That had been way too close.

The Pastor had fallen silent. What would he do now that we had ruined one of his shows?

"Go get help. We're getting everyone out of here." Kai tossed me the car keys then bent to undo the last remaining straps across the man's legs.

"Kai, I'm not going to just leave you here."

"Go! Now! I'll be fine."

I didn't want to leave him but we had to do something. If we left now, we'd be condemning the rest of those stuck here to death.

I pushed open the next door, running aimlessly out into the hallway. The house didn't look all that big from the outside but I felt like a mouse trapped in a maze.

I finally managed to reach the entrance we had first come in. Just as I reached up to pull the chain on the door, I was slammed into the wall, then roughly spun around and was met with the demented eyes of the Pastor.

"Yes. I see in your eyes a true connection to the wretched souls in here." He pushed the hair back from my face. My head was still spinning from its meeting with the wall. "There's sin coursing through your veins, an evil that must be tamed. I think you need to be in the show."

He leaned closer towards me, like a tiger about to pounce on its prey, when Kai appeared and struck him around the head with an iron poker. He fell to the floor, out cold. By the rising and falling of his chest, he was obviously still alive. Pity.

Kai dropped the poker and ran towards me. "Em, are you ok? Are you hurt?" His hands ran up and down my arms as his eyes roved over me.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I lifted my hand to my hairline and winced at the sudden jolt of pain. "I hit my head but I'm ok."

He pulled me close and placed a kiss on my head. Kai had come to my rescue yet again. I didn't want to be dependent on him like that. It wasn't fair to either of us.

We pulled back from one another and looked down at the Pastor.

"What now?" I asked.

"He can't get away with this. You ok to help me move him?"

I didn't know what Kai was planning and at this point, I couldn't care; the bastard was going to stick me in one of his twisted shows.

We both grabbed an arm and started to drag him back to the room that had the chair with the knives at the back.

"Where's the guy?"

"He's freeing the others." Kai hefted the Pastor up into the chair. "Help me strap him down."

Now I knew what Kai was planning and I wasn't about to say a single thing to stop him.

The others eventually joined us and told us their stories of how they were abducted. They were all innocent of the so-called crimes they were supposed to have committed; they were just regular, good people.

Finally, the Pastor opened his eyes.

"Ok you sick bastard," Kai began. "This girl you kidnapped after her appointment at Planned Parenthood and all she had was a UTI. This guy you took from rehab when he was trying to sober up. And my friend here was at an AIDS clinic volunteering his time. How many people have you condemned for no reason?"

"I do not answer to you or your laws."

A guy like this was never going to admit he was wrong or beg for forgiveness.

"We're gonna call the police and then you're going to prison," the woman said on a tremble. Who knew how long it would take her to recover from the psychological trauma? Another crime to add to the Pastor's list.

"That's not justice," Kai declared. "He doesn't deserve anything less than what he was willing to put you through. I say we do what's right." He glanced over to me. "Emery?"

He'd hurt so many people, killed who knew how many? Kai was right. Locking him inside a cell wouldn't be justice. The man was a monster. He would've hurt me too. I was so done with getting hurt, especially by men who thought they had some God given right to lay their hands on me.

It was time for me to take control.

"Kill the motherfucker."

We left him where he was; he didn't deserve to be buried.

The five of us piled into the car and Kai drove towards the nearest hospital; the guy was going to need some medical attention after all those drugs had been pumped into him. We didn't know each other's names; Kai had said it was better not to exchange them. The less everyone knew the better.

Kai pulled up a few streets over from the hospital and turned in his seat. "No one speaks a word of what happened in that house. We swear to take it to our graves."

"Believe me, no one will hear a word from us," the man who had been tied to the chair said. The others nodded in agreement.

"Thank you," the woman cried as she looked at Kai and I. "You saved us." After a chorus of thanks from the others, they got out of the car and we started our journey back home.

"You're quiet," Kai said while keeping his eyes on the road.

"Hmm." I kept replaying the events over and over. The outcome was always the same apart from one detail. Sometimes I imagined strapping someone else in the chair and I was the one to push the button.

"I know it's a lot," Kai said, pulling me from my thoughts once more. "We killed a man."

"It's not that."

"It's not?"

"I know it should be but… God, Kai. How many of these sickos are out there? He fully believed in the bullshit he was preaching and he was hurting innocent people because of it. How many others are just getting away with it?"

Kai turned to look at me, his brow furrowed. "It's really gotten to you, hasn't it?"

I knew nothing was ever going to be the same after tonight; I'd never be able to forget what I saw. "I feel like I'm burning up from the rage."

Kai continued to gaze at me, periodically looking back at the road. After a minute, he nodded. "Then we do something about it."