A/N - WARNING: This chapter is told solely from Charlie's POV and is disturbingly graphic. Well at least it is supposed to be. For the translation of the Yiddish curse see the A/N at the bottom of the page. (I actually cleaned up the curse. It originally had some very STRONG language in it, but that seemed out of character for Charlie even given the circumstances.)

This chapter took a lot to work it out correctly. It went through MANY re-writes. Please let me know if the desired effect was achieved.
Yours humbly,
Alice

Chapter Twelve

Charlie fought his way through a foggy haze that made his mind feel numb. He slowly became aware that he was awake but couldn't see anything. He tried to open his eyes but there was a pressure on them and his lashes brushed against something. It took him a moment to shake off the last of the confusion before he realized that he had been blindfolded.

He tried to piece together what had happened. He and Jon were walking out of the computer lab and going to the car when something exploded behind them. Jon told him to get in the car and lock the doors which he did without complaint. He remembered watching out the driver side window as Jon drew his gun and started moving away from the car toward something about ten yards back on the path that was burning brightly. He thought it might have been a trash can but before he could decide what the object was he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. That is the last thing he could remember.

His throat hurt and it was difficult to swallow. He moved his head and noticed that his neck felt sticky as though covered in something that wasn't quite dry. He tried to bring his hand to his neck and found that he couldn't move. The edges of fear began to prickle his senses.

He tentatively tried to move any part of his body. His hands were free but something was tying his wrists down. As he tried to move his hands the hairs on the back of his wrists were pulled. It was tape. He was tied up with some sort of strong tape. His wrists, elbows and shoulders were bound. He tried to move his body around and felt the binding around his belly, hips, thighs, knees and ankles.

'Oh God, It's just like the victims. The killer somehow got in the car last night. Was it last night? Is it still night or the next day?'

"Jon?" Charlie call out to the agent but his voice was harsh and scratchy. "Jon, are you there?"

Charlie's calls were met with silence. 'Maybe he is already dead. Am I going to die now, just like all of those other men?'

Charlie felt the fear that had been growing in the pit of his stomach detonate into a fiery explosion of panic. He struggled violently against the bonds of tape holding him down, thrashing his head back and forth and wiggling his body as much as he could only to discover that the tape had no give to it. He had been securely bound but that didn't stop him from struggling frantically until he was gasping for breath.

"Help! Can anyone hear me!" Charlie shouted through the pain in his throat. His calls were hoarse but loud.

After calling for help in vain for nearly five minutes he was coughing and gasping. He forced his breathing to slow, and concentrated on the calming exercises that David had taught him.

'If I panic, I'm as good as dead. Just breathe Charlie… just breathe.'

Once he had a better grip on his raw panic he turned his right wrist as much as the tape holding it would allow and tried to feel around. He could make out the end of the wooden board that he was bound to. He stretched against the tape pulling hairs out of his wrist and his fingers came in contact with a second board.

'Jon!'

Charlie probed as far as he could with his fingers but felt nothing but the board. There was no hand there. He breathed a small sigh of relief that was cut short by a noise coming from his left.

It sounded kind of squeaky, like rubber wheels being rolled along the floor. Someone was coming. Charlie decided that the best move now was to play possum so he lay very still and tried to keep his breathing slow and even.

The sound was coming closer now. It passed the end of his feet and came up the right side of his body where it stopped. He could hear someone moving. The footfalls were light. Whoever it was, they were not particularly large. Then he heard another sound, one that he did recognize. There was a squeak of metal on metal with an audible clink. It was the sound of the foot rests on a wheelchair being lifted.

Charlie had become familiar with that sound when his mother became too ill to move around the house easily and the sound sent a chill down his spine for more reasons that his current circumstances. He associated that sound with death; his mother's death and now possibly his own. The person who had been pushing the wheelchair moved around the chair and brushed up against the right side of his body. He heard a soft moan and knew that it was Jon.

If Jon was in the wheel chair then the killer was getting ready to tie him down the same way he had been bound. He needed to get Jon to wake up and fight right now! Charlie abandoned his game of pretending to be unconscious and began yelling as loudly as he could.

"Jon! Jon wake up! Jon can you hear me? Jon you have to wake up!"

The killer just ignored his shouts to the drugged agent. Charlie heard a quick intake of breath as the killer grabbed a hold of Jon and hoisted him up out of the wheelchair. He could hear a shuffling sound then a loud grunt as Jon was unceremoniously dropped onto the wooden plank next to him.

"Jon Please you have to wake up! Fight it, JON!"

The next sound Charlie heard was the wheelchair being kicked away from its position between the plank tables. The killer was breathing hard now. Jon was not a very small man; standing at least six foot two. Charlie heard more shuffling and a thud. He felt Jon's fingertips brush his own on the right.

Charlie took a deep breath and reached with all of his might against his own tape bonds and was able to touch Jon's fingers down to the first knuckle. He tried to shake Jon's limp hand while shouting.

"Jon, Oh, God, Jon wake up. WAKE UP!"

Charlie tried slapping Jon's fingers with his own but it was useless. All that Jon did was moan softly. The sound of tape being torn off a roll was so loud that it startled Charlie for a moment. He felt the brush of rubber gloved hands as the killer began to bind Jon's wrist nearest to him.

"No! JON WAKE UP! PLEASE WAKE UP!"

Charlie began struggling wildly against his taped prison and screaming as loud as he could but it was no use. By the time the sound of ripping tape stopped, Charlie's voice was so hoarse that he could barely speak. He was panting hard and his body was now covered in a cold sweat that turned to ice when a rubber gloved hand patted the side of his face accompanied by a tsk tsk from the killer.

Charlie balled his hands up into fists as raw anger flooded through him and he snapped his head forcefully toward the hand and tried to bite the fingers of his tormentor but they were snatched away too quickly. A moment later he felt the painful sting of one of those gloved hands slapping him hard across his face.

The killer then walked away from the bound men and once again Charlie got the distinct impression that the killer was not a large person. The gate was lighter than his own and there was a swishing sound as the killer walked like the sound that corduroys make when the legs rub together. The gloved hand that had slapped him was smaller than his and the fingers were thin. He could still feel the sting of that slap and was certain that if he could see his face there would be a clear red hand mark on his left cheek.

Jon had begun to breathe less evenly and was making half moaning half grunting sounds as he struggled to wake up. Charlie knew that there was nothing that either of them could do at this point. He reached out his fingers again to touch Jon's feeling only marginally comforted by the only contact he had with the other man.

He thought of his father and his brother. Would he ever see them again? He doubted it. The odds of anyone finding them were so remote that he couldn't even calculate it. He and Jon were going to die here in this place that they had been taken.

All Charlie could tell about his surroundings was that it was a large place as evidenced by the slight echo he heard when he was calling desperately for help. There was an odor that hung in the air like paint but not the kind you paint a house with. It was a more astringent scent and seemed vaguely familiar but he couldn't place why. He also knew that there was paper, and lots of it, in this place. The unique smell of reams and reams of paper always reminded him of the warehouse that his Uncle Abe used to take them to as kids. He worked for a newspaper and thought that the boys would like to visit the presses and watch how a newspaper was produced. Then it hit him what the sort-of paint smell was. It was print ink. They were in a place that printed either a newspaper or magazine.

'This is either a publishing house or a newspaper. No wait it couldn't be a newspaper, they run their presses into the very early hours of the morning. We must be in some sort of magazine publication's print room. It's Saturday and the place would be shut down for the weekend. No one will find us until Monday. Oh God we really are going to die here.'

Charlie's morose musings were interrupted by the sound of the killer returning and pushing something on loudly squeaking wheels. It wasn't the chair. It sounded larger like a cart of some sort.

The killer wheeled this cart between the men on the plank tables bumping the support leg on the table Charlie was bound to jarring him before it stopped. Charlie could hear various metal objects being shifted around before the killer picked something up and turned toward Jon.

Even though he couldn't see what was happening he got an almost spatial sense of the killer's actions from the sound of the movements and the sound of clothing brushing against the edge of the plank that Jon lay on.

Jon made a muted gurgling sound and Charlie got the impression that something had been put in his mouth. That didn't seem right. None of the other victims had been gagged in any way, nor had they been blindfolded, but then again this killer had never attacked two people at once before. Of course there was no way for him to know if Jon had been blindfolded as well.

This didn't make sense to Charlie. The killer was changing tactics and Jon had said that psychopaths felt compelled to follow through in their carefully made plans. This killer was doing things differently. There were two victims instead of one. One of the victims was not an FBI agent, like all of the other had been. One victim had been gagged in some way and one had been blindfolded.

'I'm referring to myself as a victim. I don't want to die. I don't want Jon to die. Don! Please you have to find us.'

Charlie started to breathe faster as a wave of panic washed over him. This was no panic attack. It wasn't all in his mind. He was going to die and he was terrified. There was movement again and he felt something come close to his face. "Shhh" Charlie flinched away from the breath he felt close to his right ear. He could smell something, like a faint scent of Lavender soap.

Charlie wanted to be strong; to not give this killer the satisfaction of seeing his fear. He clenched his teeth together and through the terror he attempted to calm his nerves by trying to puzzle out what their abductor's motives were with this change of behavior.

The presence close to him moved away and he heard the pop of something plastic being crushed then the strong smell of ammonia assaulted his sense of smell. Jon's finger tips flexed against his and he could hear his head rocking back and forth probably to get away from the smell of the ammonia.

As consciousness swept over him, Charlie heard Jon begin to struggle against his bonds. He heard a startled cry come from the agent lying next to him then the frantic struggle to get out of the tape holding him down became intensified, much the same way he had fought to free himself. Jon was much larger and he battled to free himself with such violent force that Charlie could hear the legs of the table that he lay on buck and scrape against the floor.

Jon was trying to vocalize something but what ever had been put in his mouth was preventing his tongue from moving, but did nothing to muffle the sound. Charlie couldn't make out anything that Jon was saying but it sounded furious and frightened at the same time.

Without the use of his tongue Jon's words were nothing more that barely coherent sounds but Charlie could have sworn that the agent had turned his head and seen him and was trying desperately to call his name. The tone of his voice had changed from one of pure fury and now held a distinct pleading quality. Then Jon's finger tips locked with Charlie's and he was sure now that what he heard was Jon's frantic voice calling out his name. Charlie let Jon know that he could hear him by turning his face to the right and flexing his own finger tips against Jon's.

Jon's vocal tone changed again to one of anger and the change in pitch told Charlie that he was no longer looking at him but at the killer looming over them. He began to bang his head against the plank table. Charlie could feel the vibrations in the wooden cross piece where the agent's wrist was taped down.

There was a ripping sound of cloth being torn. Charlie felt something small and hard hit his right forearm. Jon's shirt had been ripped open and the buttons must have gone flying. Charlie could hear movement but nothing seemed to point to what the killer was doing now until Jon's hand reflexively tensed and began shaking as a strangled cry emanated from him.

Charlie could hear him fighting to control his cries, to not give into the pain. Charlie touched Jon's fingers again with his own and they locked their finger tips together. The killer began whistling the tune 'I left my heart in San Francisco'. Charlie couldn't believe how cavalier this person was about killing. A black rage was replacing the fear that consumed Charlie's heart only moments before.

"When my brother finds you I hope he puts a bullet between your eyes you sick bastard!"

Jon's breathing became ragged as he began to loose control of the pain. He flexed his fingers tips tightly against Charlie's as he fought not to scream.

The sheer terror that Charlie had been feeling had been completely drowned in the fury that had risen up in him like bile. He thought about reciting a litany of prime numbers in his mind but the anguished screams and staccato breaths coming from next to him along with the unmistakable coppery smell of blood belayed any chance of his success.

After what seemed an eternity of this torture Jon's hand went slack as his cries died out. The killer bent down and Charlie heard the clink of metal. There was a sickening squelching sound and a sort of scraping noise that turned Charlie's stomach. If he had eaten anything he was sure that he would have vomited as his mind drew a dire picture to match what he was hearing.

There was another crushing sound followed by the strong odor of ammonia again. Jon was moaning now and it sounded like he was rocking his head back and forth once more. He could hear the chink of metal instruments being fitted together and a cranking sound like you might hear when using a ratchet. Jon began to scream and Charlie began to cry.

'How can this be happening?...
Where is Don?...
He's not coming to the rescue this time...
Please God, make this stop.'

Jon's screams had once again subsided but he was still breathing heavily as though in incredible pain. He was trying to speak again andby the sound of his voice he had turned his head toward Charlie.

"I – O - ARE E - ARE E"

Charlie couldn't believe what he was hearing. It sounded like Jon was saying that he was sorry. How could that be? This man whom he had only known for a day, who was being brutally murdered at this very moment was trying to apologize to him? Charlie reached for the agent's…
no…
…for his friend's fingers once again.

The killer had bent over again and after a moment Charlie heard the most horrifying sound he had ever heard in his life. The high pitched sound of a saw being turned on filled the empty space of the room. He squeezed Jon's finger tips as his head and hands jerked. The scream that Jon uttered now was like nothing Charlie could have imagined in his worst nightmares. The high pitched buzz of the saw became lower and slightly muted as it hit the bone and began to saw through it.

The sound of Jon's screaming at this new assault to his tortured body nearly drowned out the saw, and Charlie felt small warm droplets spray onto his face and neck. He knew it was the splatter of Jon's blood and even though his stomach was empty he began to retch.

After what seemed like hours the pitch of the saw increased dramatically and then it stopped all together. Jon had stopped screaming and was now breathing quickly and shallowly. His voice was hoarse and ragged and was interspersed with choking sobs.

There was another sound of metal clinking only with a deeper resonating quality. What ever the killer had picked up was heaver and larger than the last device used. Again Charlie heard a squelching and scraping and then the sound of metal pieces being fitted together. This time the device that was being used had a sound more like a crank than a ratchet being tightened and it was followed by the popping sounds of bone being forced apart.

Jon didn't seem to have any strength left to scream and moaned and grunted loudly as the sound of splintering bones filled the now relative silence. Charlie was still touching Jon's fingers but they were now slack and weak. There was another small crushing sound followed by the ammonia smell, and then another, until Jon began to shake his head and groan louder.

Charlie could hear the movements of the killer but could no longer imagine what was happening. His mind had gone numb. He tried not to think about what was happening only a couple of feet from him when there was an odd sort of tearing sound and a warm splash hit him in the face. Jon's hand had gone completely lifeless and Charlie knew that he was dead.

Charlie's blindfold was wet with his tears and the blood of the agent who had tried to protect him from this deranged individual. 'I love you Dad. I love you Don.' The thoughts of his family were the only things keeping him sane at the moment for he knew as the person who had done this to Jon turned and ran a wet slimy hand down the side of his face, that he was about to die.

The hand traveled down his chin and neck then down to his shirt. He felt that hand grab a hold of his tee and a sharp pain erupted just above his breast bone as the killer used something sharp to cut a slit in the material. Then two hands grabbed the cotton and ripped his shirt apart.

Charlie began to hyperventilate as wet sticky hands ran over his chest. The smell of blood was overpowering and he began to retch again. The hands moved away and he could hear the killer bend down again. 'God, please help me.'

Alan's brother Abe was quite the potty mouth, much to his wife's consternation and had taught the boys most of the vilest curses in the Yiddish language. They were careful never to use such language in her presence lest they be forbidden to spend every third Sunday with their favorite uncle.

As Charlie lay there exposed to the whims of this psychopath blind fury and stark terror were vying for supremacy in Charlie's mind, and the anger won.

Charlie had a general sense of where this person's head was and spit as hard as he could hoping that he got them in the face, then shouted a curse in Yiddish at his attacker with a viciousness that was so uncharacteristic for him that he even sounded strange in his own ears.

"Shvuntz es im onkumn vos ikh vintsh im khotsh a helft, khotsh halb, khotsh a tsent kheylik!"

Charlie was rewarded with another vicious blow to his face, this time not a slap as before, but a hard knuckled punch. The punch had hurt the killer because there was a sharp intake of breath. He could hear the gloved hand moving vigorously and he was splattered with more droplets as the killer shook a painful hand.

Charlie laughed. "What's the matter? Did that hurt?"

He heard the sound of a paper being torn from a pad or notebook. Then there was a slight squeak followed by a smellslightly like acetone. Then he heard the sound of writing. After a moment the paper was placed on his bare chest then he felt heavy cold metal press down on his breastbone. The pressure increased and was followed by a loud click and a strong concussion against his chest. There was horrific pain that caught Charlie by surprise and he screamed in agony. The metal moved over to the left by a few centimeters and the pressure increased again before the next concussion and more pain.

He could feel blood dripping down the side of his chest from the wounds and the burning sensation from having something literally nailed to him distracted him from the sharp pinch in his right arm at the elbow.

His thoughts started to become thick and slow as the sounds of the killer became dull and muted. The burning throb in his chest started to fade as he slipped into unconsciousness.


The translation of the Yiddish curse is:
"Let what I wish on this coward come true; most, even half, even just 10 percent."