“After JD saved mine,” Maria said.
Kelly offered Maria her hand. She looked a lot like her mother.
“There are others down here,” Kelly said. “A pregnant woman, and a boy named Cam. I think he’s your brother.”
Maria’s breath caught. “Did... did you say Cam?” Without waiting for an answer, Maria cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled, “Cam!”
“Maria!”
Sprinting across the hall, Maria unlocked the next cell door she came to. Seeing Cam—her brother Cam—standing there with a lopsided grin on his face, turned her tear ducts into faucets.
When she hugged him, it was so tight he yelped. Maria threatened to fall apart, the sensation was so overwhelming. For a moment this living nightmare faded away, replaced by happy, childhood memories of safety, security, and love.
“We found you,” Cam said. “Me and Felix. We’ve been looking all year.”
Maria held Cam at arm’s length, her eyes getting wide. “Felix? He’s here?”
“They took him to see a guy named Ronald.”
Ronald? Oh, no...
“Ronald’s not a guy,” Maria said. “He’s a—”
“Someone help me!”
The female voice came from one cell over. Maria reluctantly let go of Cam and hurried to the next door. The cell’s occupant was older, late thirties, dressed in a tattered house dress. Her hair was long, and just as matted as Maria guessed her own hair to be. The bump on her belly was large enough for her to be in her last trimester.
“Oh, thank God,” the woman said, falling to her knees and weeping. “I’ve been praying for so long to get rescued.”
But Maria wasn’t paying attention. She was thinking of Felix, with Ronald.
I need to get out of here. I need to help him.
“What’s your name?” Letti asked the woman.
“Sue Corall.”
“Are you alone, Sue? Are there other people with you?”
“My husband, Larry.”
“Is your husband here?”
Sue didn’t answer, but her eyes glazed over.
“Sue?”
“I... I think he’s in the next cell. Jimmy... the hunchback... he... he keeps...”
Letti took the keys from Maria, who was staring at the cell door across the hallway.
I know that one. That’s my cell.
I’ll die before I’ll let them put me in there again.
“Oh... Christ.” Letti turned away from the door she just opened. Sue came waddling over, but Letti grabbed her shoulders, refusing to let her see.
“He’s my husband!” Sue implored.
“Sue... you really don’t...”
“Let me go!”
Letti allowed the woman to pass, and Maria made the mistake of following her into the room. The odor hit her first; feces and urine and rot.
But seeing was worse than smelling.
“Whoa,” Cam said.
Sue’s husband was lying on the dirt floor.
At least, what was left of him was.
The man was missing one leg, his left hand, half of his right arm, an ear and an eye. Badly stitched wounds on his torso spoke of other missing parts. His shoulders were also dislocated, cocked out at odd angles.
Strappado. This poor bastard.
Sue shrieked, falling on her knees next to her husband, cradling his head. He moaned at the tender action.
His teeth are gone, too.
Larry said something. Even without teeth, Maria got the gist of it.
“Kill... me. Please... kill... me.”
“Help him,” Sue cried. “Someone help him.”
Maria felt terrible for both of them, but she didn’t see how they’d be able to get him out of there. Larry was in too much pain to even turn his head. Besides, Maria had to find Felix, and fast. It could already be too late.
“He wants to die.” Everyone looked at Cam, who had come into the room. He had an oddly serene look on his face.
Sue shook her head. “No. No no no.”
“Please... kill... me.”
“We can get you help,” Sue implored. “We can get out of here, and get you help. Get you doctors.” Sue patted her belly. “This is your baby, Larry. Yours. They think it’s theirs, but I was pregnant when we came here.”
“I... want... to... die. Please...”
Sue clenched her fists and beat them against her thighs, moaning.
Cam knelt next to Sue. “You love your husband.”
Sue could barely speak through her sobbing. “More... more than anything.”
“Then you have to let him go.”
“No. God, no.”
Letti put her arm around Sue’s shoulders. Cam stared down at the man. “You want to die?”
Larry nodded.
Maria’s stomach bottomed out. She didn’t like the direction this was heading.
She said, “Cam...?”
Cam touched Larry’s cheek, gave it a gentle caress. And then, with a quick, violent motion, Cam grabbed the man’s head and twisted it around 180 degrees.
The crack was so loud Maria could taste it.
Sue let out a wretched sound, somewhere between a scream and a sob. Kelly buried her face in Letti’s shoulder. JD hunkered down, his muzzle hair standing on edge, baring his teeth at Cam.
Maria was awestruck.
She thought about Cam’s past, his ordeal years ago when he and his friend were abducted by a pedophile. Cam hadn’t been the most stable child in the world before then, but afterwards he’d become withdrawn, and quite literally a danger to himself and others. He was committed into a psychiatric institution, given therapy and various drugs, but his condition never seemed to improve. While locked up, he was even accused of doing something unspeakable to another patient, even though it was never proven.
Could Cam—my dear, sweet, little brother Cam—be more disturbed than I ever imagined?
Or was he just being merciful when he snapped that poor man’s neck?
“We have to find Felix,” Cam said, standing up. “Sis, do you know how to get out of here?”
Maria simply stared at him, unable to reconcile his actions.
“Sis? We need to move before they come for us.”
“How many of them are there?” Letti asked.
Maria spoke in a monotone, keeping her eyes on Cam. “A lot. Eleanor, she names each one after a President.”
Kelly said, “There have been forty-three presidents, Mom.”
Letti put her hands on her hips. “Are you saying that crazy old bitch has forty-three crazy mutant children running around here?”
Maria thought of that old nursery rhyme, the one Eleanor was fond of repeating.
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.
“I think she’s only had around twenty,” Maria said. “But she brings women in here. Gets them pregnant. Some of the babies don’t survive. Birth defects. And she kills the baby girls. Says no girl will ever be president.”
Letti gripped Maria’s arms. “How many are we talking here, Maria?”
“Including the children?” Maria said.
“Yes. Including the children.”
Maria closed her eyes, doing a mental count. “From what I’ve seen, there are more than fifty.”
# # #
Florence stared at the woman sitting on the floor of her closet—the women she’d just hit in the face—and instantly recognized who it was.
“You’re Deborah Novacek.”
Florence knew her because she was perhaps the most famous athlete competing in Iron Woman.
Deb looked like hell, filthy and frazzled, and now bleeding from her nose. She stared up at Florence, and then kicked out one of her prosthetic legs.