Clockwork Little Happiness

3

the acquired inability to escape

Something warm and slippery ran across my cheek, contrasted by a cold, damp nudge against my hand and I slowly stirred to golden yellow glows of light flickering all around the room but this time something rumbled deep within it. I blinked stiffness out of my eyelids and shifted on the cot, my legs and arms regaining their mobility but being knocked out for so long made every motion feel sluggish. I scrubbed at my face, stained with half dried tears and when my hands pulled away, I saw blood under my fingernails.

And then I remembered.

The man... the man who claimed was helping my friends attacked me in the museum and carried me down to-

On edge and remembering everything now, I sat up and glanced around frantically for the other man who drugged me but there was nothing except wax figures, lit candles mounted on every surface, a workbench with what looked to be surgical tools on top of it and grimy old machinery that'd probably been there for decades. Other humanoid statues lurked in the corners of the room, tucked away behind metal racks of various clothing of different sizes.

No sign of the dark haired man anywhere. The same dog who followed me out from Lester's truck was peering up at me from the right side of the bed with big glossy black eyes, whining low in his throat and licking my hand as if he were asking what happened to me, if I was okay.

I couldn't really comprehend it yet. My brain was ten paces behind the rest of myself, behind my body who was ordering me to get up and find a way out, and behind my gut who knew something terribly, terribly wrong was going on. But what for? What did these people want?

Why did that man bring me down there?

I pushed myself up on my palms, but the echo of boots scuffing down into the room made me quickly lied back down, turning over onto my front and squeezed my eyes shut with my hands over my mouth because if either of those men saw me awake, heard me breath or just as much had an inkling that I was conscious, I was going to die. I was going to die either way if I didn't get out of that room. Out of that town.

I expected the footsteps to approach the bed, but instead a creak came from the same area where I first saw the dark-haired man, then a rustling of paper, soft taps like pencils against a plastic cup.

Then silence.

I laid there, waiting and praying for the boot heels to exit the basement, but no other sounds except my own shallow breaths and the hum of some kind of generator reverberated through my ear drums - if I was going to do something... I had to do it now. Slowly and as carefully as I could, I turned my head toward the middle of the room and my breath instantly hitched when I saw the dark haired man's silhouette hunched over a desk, a wide beam of light from the table lamp highlighting the various mediums lined across his desk. Paint brushes, pencils, parchment with half drawn sketches, and wax casts of eerily blank faces arranged on the shelves above.

He's painting, I realized then, noticing the slow drags of his hand against the canvas, periodically dipping a thin black brush in a small tin cup. He was so focused on his work, an artist completely lost in their element, and I took the brief opportunity of adrenaline surging through my veins to shift onto my back and little by little, ease myself to my feet - cautiously and deliberately like a dying, bleeding rabbit in front of a sleeping wolf.

The cot dipped and twisted with my weight but otherwise made no noise. The dark haired man didn't budge an inch.

I was invisible.

Please, God, I continued praying to myself, keeping both hands clamped tight over my mouth because I didn't trust my voice not to breath too loudly, to not scream at any sudden movement. Or just at the sight of that ominous figure in the chair who didn't even feel human.

The dog had his two front paws perched on the mattress, watching me with his head tilted as I tip toed gradually past the man and he was in a position where I could've walked right by him without him seeing me... if I did not make a sound. My sneaker hitting the concrete just a tad too heavily would have gave me away and he would've killed me. Forced to watch myself die through the reflection in the two twin knives he had strapped inside his apron... I saw it before he drugged me.

I didn't want to think about how many others he could've killed with those.

My shoes grazed forward as if sliding against oiled marble, fear making my bones tremble and ache like they were made of wet cement, crumbling closer and closer to the ground and through the floor, but I forced myself to move; to go, go, go and keep moving-

I almost cried out at the sight of a body in the machine set up in the center of the basement, steam rising from the bottom and a thick, translucent substance dripping off it's metal extensions. Not water. Nothing that I could instantly recognized amidst my erratic heartbeat and thoughts equally a jumble. But the face inside-

I shut my eyes again because if I didn't I was going to scream and cry. Cry because my heart had just ripped in two. Scream because I was looking at Wade's lifeless eyes and there wasn't anything I could do to help him, to get him out of that torture chamber because if I tried it'd mean my demise too. And Carly... what had they done with Carly?

What if the man in the suit got to her too?

But then I saw the way out. The beginning of the staircase the man in the suit brought me down... it must've been the door leading back into the museum, outside where he separated me from my friends. My heartbeat blipped back to life when I remembered the others were supposed to come back to the campsite - they must've been there by now... they had to have been looking for us.

The tiny hairs at the back of my neck stood on end as I silently crept closer to the staircase, taking one step at an agonizingly slow time, but once the tip of my sneaker touched the very top of the wax stairs, I ran the rest of the way - through the door tunneling into a musky kitchen, past the piano and all the way to the front door that still hung slightly ajar. My shoulders slammed it all the way open, crisp night air filling my lungs and my knees began to throb with how fast I was forcing myself to run but I told myself to keep going, that I had to - if those men caught me again... there'd be no second chance.

Not when you were dead.

I breathed heavily with each step, stumbling over the curb and my own two feet as I struggled to find my way through the pitch black town, quieter than a crypt. All the lights in the buildings were off. I couldn't even hear the hum of nature from the surrounding woods and it left me with a keen sense of dread, like I wasn't even on earth anymore. I eventually stopped to catch my breath in a secluded alley of two buildings, my shoulders finally sagging against the prickly stucco as I tried to ease my hammering pulse.

I wouldn't go anywhere without finding out where those men took Carly first. The last time I'd seen her, she was headed for the church with Wade... and then Wade-

My eyes squeezed shut. I didn't want to remember my friend that way, not as some kind of doll, a shell of his better self. I'd get help... once I found my way back to my friends, we'd go to the cops and tell them what happened, show them what these people were doing. They'd get Wade out of there-

I jumped when the town suddenly blasted with light and sound; the faint tune of a nearby radio, cheery old-time jingles from the empty shops and other ambient noises that came with small-town life. Except this wasn't real life...

This was man-made.

I snuck closer to the street, sticking close to the wall and peered around the corner as quietly as I could.

"Carly?" I whispered to myself, seeing her lone figure standing in the road, dirtied and out of breath. "Carly?" I called out but my voice was hoarse and weak from being unconscious for so long. "Carly!"

She gasped and spun around, eyes searching for my face halfway hidden behind the wall.

"Oh my god, Morgan!? Morgan!"

We ran toward each other, meeting halfway and her arms flew around me. My damp cheek brushed against hers. "You're alive, thank God," I breathed, hugging her close. "Thank God..."

"What happened to you?" She asked, pulling away.

"He drugged me... I-I just woke up. I didn't think I was gonna get away."

Carly's eyes widened when the saw specks of blood still dry on my hands. All my own. "Bo did this?"

"Bo?" That must've been the man in the suit. "No, it... it was the other one. The painter. He looked... he looked just like him."

Carly really looked confused then, like she had no idea who I was talking about... did she not know about the other man? "I think Bo did something to Wade," she explained then. "He went into his house up the hill and never came back."

My stomach twisted with sickness and guilt; I wanted to tell her... she needed to know what those men had done to her boyfriend but I couldn't bear the thought of her heart breaking and to be truthful, I wasn't completely sure what exactly happened to him. I didn't want to think he was already dead... but I knew what I saw back there.

Lying to Carly was the furthest thing from my mind but so was the truth. "We'll get help," I told her. "The cops will find him, they'll... they'll get us out of here."

"How? The road's washed out and the nearest police station must be miles away."

"We'll cut through the woods, back to the campsite. It's close by, right? The others must've made it back by now-"

Carly's hand shooting out to squeeze my arm killed the words on my tongue then and her eyes doubled in size, staring straight over my shoulder. "Morgan, behind you!"

My breath hitched as I turned around to see the man from the basement - the painter - standing less than ten feet away from us, the strange covering on his face an uncanny clone of the other man who tricked all of us. His hands were tense, fingers outstretched and curled slightly like claws ready to grab at prey but he was unarmed. No syringe or knife gripped between either fingers so I pushed Carly back. He was there to take us to the basement... he followed me all the way out there and now he was going to take us back.

No... Carly couldn't see Wade down there. I had to keep her out.

I slowly inched toward the sidewalk, nudging Carly along with me and the second the heel of my sneaker touched the curb, the painter advanced on us at a startling speed.

"Run, Carly, go!"

We split into different directions then. I ran through the back alley of the pet store, hearing Carly's own quick, light steps echo over toward the strip of neighborhood homes but the noise was swiftly overtaken by the painter's boots pounding after me; never getting closer but not fading out either. He was just there. Always there behind me.

But the alley connected directly into the rural houses, separated only by a rickety and short leveled wood fence and with all my mustered strength, I climbed over it, rolling onto the damp lawn of someone's backyard. Were they even home? Did anyone inhabit this place except those two men? As I hurried up the patio steps leading to the patio door, it seemed that the house was vacant inside through the small shuttered window. I couldn't see any sliver of light and when I tried twisting the knob it was locked.

I didn't have a lot of time. Any second the painter would've found me and I had to find someplace that not even he knew to think of but those chances appeared terrifyingly dire - this town was their hunting grounds. Luring travelers inside to do... I didn't even know what, but if they found us I knew in my heart we weren't ever, ever going back home.

Racking my brain, I made a last attempt to try the left side window and to my shock, it slid open with a soft pop. Bitter, murky air blew gently in my face and as I pulled my legs through, I heard muffled music coming from somewhere in the house. Somebody was inside. My heartbeat slammed against my chest out of fear and hope that someone like us - someone normal and who'd help - was here. There had to be... there was so many houses in Ambrose. Someone else had to be living there, right?

... Right?

The house was pitch black. Shifting my shoes a mere inch made the floorboards creak and groan, and while my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed thick layers of soot caked on all the furnishings like no one had occupied the space in years. Decades maybe. But that faint garble of music still echoed from the hall across the front door so I walked closer to it, studying everything from pictures of a middle aged couple hanging on the walls, an old fashioned china set laid out on the kitchen table as though the homeowner's were expecting company, and to the ancient television set occupying the width of the living room.

Everything was vintage.

I paused right at the mouth of the small corridor, listening in if the masked painter found out where I was, but all that gave away was the chirping of crickets and the self operated small town ambient noises those men switched on. Not knowing where my assailant had gone frightened me but I pushed my feet toward that dull line of light seeping underneath the crack in the hallway door. There had to be something there... a person, a working phone to call for help. Something.

Slowly, I nudged the door open with my palm and gasped when I saw an elderly man standing at a desk, smoking from a wooden pipe.

"Help," my voice came out unstable. "Help us, ple-"

I jumped back the second my hand made contact with the man's shoulder. It was so, so cold. And stiff.

Not human.

Holding my breath, I edged around the desk, looking up into the man's face that didn't move a muscle, not even bat a single eyelash and as I examined his aged features, I realized that it was frozen in place. Seemingly painted on. Trembling, my fingertips grazed the underside of his jaw-

Wax. It was wax.

His whole body.

How? My frazzled mind thought, shocked by how lifelike the figure was from the tiny lines around his eyes and mouth to the very real clothes on his back, every stitch worn and soft looking like it once belonged to an actual person. Why would someone make human wax statues? And why put them in empty houses where nobody saw them? I didn't understand any of it and the longer I stood there, static jazz filtering in from the radio on the desk, the man's pipe permanently attached to his lips, the more it began to feel like some kind of ruse.

Was that why the town was near abandoned? Because everyone who entered was taken hostage by these men?

I had to get out. I had to tell Carly-

A floorboard creaked somewhere in the kitchen and my heart dropped.

Oh, God, I thought to myself and dread swelled in my chest, making my pulse pound faster and my palms grow clammy. The painter. He was there. He was gonna find me.

With my heart beating out of control and his footsteps approaching faster that what my mind could process, I ducked behind the half open door and squeezed myself small when the painter's imposing shadow entered the room. His outline cast a long black silhouette against the wall and I held my breath, pressing both hands to my mouth as he knelt beside the bed, lifting up the skirt, yanking open the closet door and parting the long racks of floor length coats with his boot.

Go, a voice in my head whispered. Go now.

Holding the door steady, I slowly eased around it, the painter's back only inches from my face as I slipped by him; my whole body stiff and numb with trepidation. One wrong move, one breath or heavy step and it'd be over. But like it was in the street, the painter's hands were empty. No knives, even though I was sure he still had them in his apron. He wouldn't need a weapon, though.

He'd kill me with his bare hands.

I was in the hallway now. My shoes slid slowly, precariously over the floor and I became acutely aware of the painter ransacking the room behind me while I tip toed back to the window. Was it still open? Did I forget to close it? I must've... maybe that was how the painter knew to search the house.

Moonlight began to cascade in through the shutters, lighting up a small portion of the kitchen and I moved faster when I saw the back window wide open. I was almost there, almost free and in that moment I didn't care about making noise in the squeaky old house as I ducked out through the filthy windowpane, kicking one leg through and then the other-

Strong fingers clamped tight around my ankle.

The painter's hand.

"No... no!" I cried in fear, trying to twist and jerk my foot free but the painter's grip tightened and pulled me hard against the window. "No, please! Stop!" I thrashed against the side of the house and with a painful pinch, my foot wrenched out of the painter's clutches and it sent me falling onto my side on the patio.

My heartbeat roared in my ears and with a panicked glance, I saw that my leg wasn't stabbed or cut. The laces on my sneaker had came loose but I didn't think twice about it as I stumbled to my feet, the painter's ghastly mask floating through the other side of the window and the sight of him terrified me so much that I just started running. I scrambled over the wooden fence, hearing the back door to the house kick open and it spurred me on, faster and faster where no other thought existed in my head except escaping.

But where?

It was clear nobody else lived in that town except those men and if every other house or building was like the one I came from, there wasn't any chance of getting help. Not in Ambrose.

I stopped to catch my breath at the back end of another house, heaving and wiping dirt from my face while I pondered what to do, where to go. Carly... where was Carly? The church? Back to the House of Wax? No, nothing was there except death and it occurred to me bleakly that maybe she took a chance and made a run for the country roads, for our old campsite. Blake must've brought the truck back by now...

I waited until my heartbeat steadied to a regular pace before even attempting to move and I managed to make it halfway around the house when heavy footsteps on the sidewalk made me freeze in place against the scratchy wall. I was scared that the painter tracked me again and so in a fit of desperation, I inched up the trellis all the way to the slanted rooftop, pressing myself against the bulky boards and kept my head low so those men wouldn't see me.

And they didn't.

But I heard them.

"-you lost her?" Bo's enraged voice bellowed from the street. "What the fuck are you doing? You sweet on this girl now, Vincent?" He continued on but there was no additional voice to answer him, as if he was speaking to himself. "Jesus Christ, I have to do everything around here, don't I?"

My blood roared in my ears as I slid half an inch up the roof panels, catching a brief outline of Bo below on the sidewalk, a body slung over his shoulder, but somebody else was with him. The painter was there, his shoulders appearing smaller and more rounded in front of the other man, hunched slightly the way a child would look when scolded by a parent and I wondered how these men knew each other. What brought them together and made them do what they did to these people.

Bo cursed again under his breath, turning halfway toward the street and after ducking back down before either of them spotted me, I realized that body in Bo's arms was Carly. And she was moving.

She was still alive.

"Go back to the house. I'll deal with the girl."

My face flushed with panic when I realized what he meant and my heart sank as Carly cried out for help, her voice echoing throughout the barren streets, trailing all the way to the gas station until I couldn't hear it anymore. I waited a few seconds before risking the chance to peer up over the roof panels again, seeing the painter - Vincent, I remembered Bo calling him - standing alone on the sidewalk. He was watching the direction Bo had disappeared to but as if knowing there was a presence lingering behind him, felt eyes burning into his back, his head snapped in my direction toward the roof and I ducked down again.

I squeezed my eyes shut, not even wanting to breath or have a single thought in my head in fear that he would hear that too.

He saw me.

He saw me and now he wouldn't stop looking until I was dead. I waited and waited for the sound of his boots thudding past the gate, around the side of the house, up to the trellis but nothing came. No noise except my own ragged breathing and the melodic jingle of fake store music.

Carefully, I lifted my chin and peeked down at the ground. Vincent was gone and when I checked every side of the house, the coast was clear to make a move. I had to climb down before either Bo and Vincent really discovered my whereabouts and get Carly out of the gas station before they hurt her. Before they turned her to wax, like everything else.

But I was just one person against those two men who wouldn't need much to hurt me. To kill me and the rest of my friends. I didn't want to leave Carly but I didn't know what else to do.

The car, I thought. Blake brought his truck back, but what stood in the way was making it past the water blockage up the road and back to the main path leading to our campsite. There wasn't going to be any chance in hell of getting out of Ambrose unless I found my friends and having a running car again. Or a phone. I lost mine down in Vincent's basement but Paige and Blake would've still had theirs. I'd find them and call the cops.

I jumped down quietly from the trellis and shadowed the path I'd taken earlier where the countryman Lester dropped me off, but when I reached the stream, I realized that the water level had risen all the way up to my knees. I had to brace myself against the rocks as I crossed, the strong currents knocking me off balance but I sloshed through the deep trench, running once my sneakers touched dry dirt again.

Hold on, Carly, I thought to myself. I'm coming back.

MEANWHILE

The sleepy, deceivingly unassuming town of Ambrose sat quiet for a moment as Nick Jones stared out the gas station window for the man who attacked his sister, braced for any sort of threat yet not knowing at all how he was going to get himself and his sister safely home. Not that he'd ever admit it. He was the elder sibling and and by all accounts, he was supposed to know what to do.

"What about Wade and Morgan?" Carly said behind him. "I think he has them too. What if he turns them to wax?"

"What do you mean wax?"

"You don't get it! They're all wax, everyone!" Nick listened on in mild disbelief then, as Carly began piecing together her memories of the night. "Morgan told me she was drugged by a man who looks like Bo. That has to be his brother. I think he's the one who turns them all into wax."

"Where'd he take her?"

"I don't know, but he was following her. I saw it."

"Alright, we'll look for her, but we got to get out of here. She might already be-" Nick stopped short when he saw his sister's anguished expression, but he had to be realistic and his first priority would always be his sister.

"No, wait!" Carly suddenly exclaimed then, recalling one particular detail that could potentially save her and everyone she cared about...

I glanced behind me at the road as I ran, heart stuttering the farther I got from Ambrose but when I turned back around, I nearly smashed headfirst into the front bumper of Blake's truck. My hands shot out to steady myself against the hood, panting heavily.

Wait... Blake's truck? What was it doing all the way out here? Were Paige and Blake close by? Or Nick and Dalton?

My chest expanded with relief and joy as I realized we had a full operating car again and I hurried to the driver's side, but when I tried the door, it refused to open. Keys. I needed the keys. But where?

Where were my friends?

Scouring my brain for what to do, I knew I couldn't stand and wait for someone to come by. I'd already been gone too long, left Carly alone for more than I should've and if there was any chance to get that car moving, it had to happen now. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes, clenched my fist tight and drove it straight through the window. The sharp crackle of glass breaking sounded like a collapsing skyscraper in the middle of the silent, dense forest - the shrill whistle of the alarm setting off just barely concealing my pained cry as glass slivers pierced my skin.

Blood ran in thick trails down my arm while I reached down to unlock the door and jumped inside. Sometimes Blake kept another set of keys in the glove box or behind the gear shift... it had to be in here. It had to-

My fingertips scraped against cold steel underneath the passenger side floor mat then and I rushed to start the engine. It rumbled to life, the air conditioner system automatically turning on, headlights blasting down the empty dirt road and even the radio hummed with an R&B station Blake had on previously. The most beautiful, normal sound I've heard in hours.

I winced as I steered the truck toward our old campsite, my blood staining the wheel, the gear shift, everything I touched. Tiny shreds of glass dug deeper in my palms as I gripped the wheel tighter, making me bleed more but I just stepped harder on the gas. I couldn't think about anything else. I was so close to finding my friends again.

We were that much closer to getting out of here.

I slammed on the breaks once I reached the border of our camp, taking a second to catch my breath and inspect the damage to my hand. A deep gash ran down the length of my palm, littered with bits of glass and there was two long slashes on the front of my hand leading into smaller hairline cuts on my knuckles. I could barely move them, much less have feeling left but that didn't matter now. There was a dim yellowish light flickering between the tree trunks, the exact same area we slept yesterday night and I scrambled out of the car as fast as I could.

My friends, I thought with assurance, with hope.

Then somewhere in the distance, I heard Paige's scream.

A/N: Thank you for reading!

As I was writing this, I imagined Vincent hearing the car glass breaking in the distance after killing Dalton and going to investigate in his yellow truck and it leading to the campsite murder spree.

Title reference: From the 1991 sculpture The Acquired Inability to Escape by Damien Hirst.