314 Book 2 (42 page)

“Alma,” said Paul
as he ignored the sleepers and headed for the door that led to the room where Alma and his friends were being kept. He had to pass through the sleepers as they writhed on the floor. The women tried to grab his pants as he went, but they weren’t strong enough to grip him. He burst through the door to the next room and saw his girlfriend still strapped to the gurney.

She was awake, and looked at him as he entered.

“Paul?” she asked with tears in her eyes.

“Alma!” He went to her bed and leaned over to kiss her. “You’re awake. Are you okay?”
He started to rip away the circular pads that were pasted to her forehead and connected by wires to a nearby machine.

“I remember you,” said Alma as emotions and memories flooded back to her. “I remember you, Paul. I love you.”

He started to unbuckle her from the gurney as he said, “I love you too, babe.”

“What is this shit in my eyes?” asked Jacker from one of the other beds.

“Where are we?” asked Rachel.

“We’re in the hospital,” said Stephen. “Alma drove us off that cliff.”

“This is no hospital,” said Paul. “I’ll explain later.”

“Is everyone okay?” asked Rachel.

Paul looked at Aubrey, who was lying silent on her bed. “Something happened to Aubrey. I don’t think she made it.”

“Oh Christ,” said
Stephen. “Are you serious?”

“We have to find Ben.” Alma sat up after Paul unlatched her other wrist
before he headed to the buckles over her ankles.

“Your father took him
.”

“He did?” asked Alma, sounding groggy still.

“Yeah. He broke into this place and took him. Honestly, I think Ben’s better off out of this place, even if it is with your crazy-ass dad.”

“It’s not Ben I’m worried about,” said Alma as she got up fr
om the bed. “It’s everyone he gets close to that has to worry.”

Jackson Reservoir

Midnight

March 13
th
, 2012

“What’s your name?” asked Alex of the black woman they’d found parked at the scenic overlook on the north side of Widowsfield.

One of the other guards was searching her car, a rundown Buick that seemed to be more rust than metal. Alex was carrying a flashlight and was examining the area, confused as to why this woman would choose a place like this to camp at.

There was a small tent and a bedroll set out in the parking lot, near a spot where the guard rail had been broken. The twisted metal bent out in the direction of the reservoir.

“I’ve got lots of names,” said the woman as she packed her sketchpad into her duffle bag.

Alex couldn’t fathom what the woman had been drawing. It was pitch black out, and the moon was covered by clouds. If she’d been sketching the reservoir, then she’d been doing it by memory alone.

“Well, why don’t you tell me what name I’ll find on your driver’s license?” asked Alex, annoyed with who he assumed to be a wandering transient.

She rummaged through her duffle bag as she answered, “Rosemary Arborton.”

Alex pointed the flashlight down at the bag to see what it was the woman was pulling out. It was black, and metal, and…

“She’s got a gun!” Alex cried out as he dropped his flashlight.

Branson

3:14 am

March 13
th
, 2012

“I’m going to take real good care of you,” said Michael Harper as he turned on the water in the tub. “I know I wasn’t good to you, and I know I made a lot of mistakes, but I’m going to change all that.” He spoke loud over the sound of the running water.

Michael had stolen money from the two nurses at the facility, and used it to rent a suite at a hotel outside of Branson. Ben had started to respond to Michael during the drive out of Widowsfield, just as they crested the hill on the far side of town. Ben was still in a near catatonic state, and he hadn’t blinked since Michael found him, but he was making guttural noises here and there, as if trying to respond to his father.

Michael looked out of the bathroom to the small living room where he’d parked Ben’s wheelchair. The hotel staff had been kind enough to bring the chair out for Ben, and then bring him out to their room. Once inside, Michael decided it was time for him to take a bath, considering he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one. He wheeled Ben over to sit just outside of the door, facing a television that was set against the wall beside the bathroom. His son’s position meant that Michael could keep an eye on him even as he bathed.

It was very early in the morning, and Michael knew he should get some sleep, but he was wired. After rescuing Ben, and getting a hotel room in Branson, Michael had celebrated by smoking the last of his meth.
That was when he realized how dirty he was, and decided to take a much needed bath.

Ben’s head hung limp to the side, resting on his bony shoulder. His glassy eyes, slathered in Vaseline, stared in at Michael. His tongue flicked in his open mouth.

“I’m going to make up for lost time,” said Michael. “I’m going to be the father you deserve. I’m going to take care of you, Ben. Okay?”

Ben gurgled and a stream of spit fell from his chapped lips.

“You’re doing better already,” said Michael with pride. “You’re going to be all right. Give us some time, and you’ll be up and at it again. We’ll travel the country together. You and me, just two cowboys on the open road. Right, my man?”

Michael reached down to test the water in the tub. It was tepid, despite the fact he only had hot water running into it. “F
ucking cheap-ass hotel water heater.” He turned off the water before it got any colder.

He heard an odd sound coming from the kitchen of their suite. “What’s that?” he asked of Ben, but his son only stared back at him with wide, glassy, bloodshot eyes.

The bathroom door opened up on the small living room, which was twice as wide, and the kitchen was adjacent, requiring Michael to walk out of the bathroom and turn a corner to see the stove. He passed his son, leaving the boy to stare absently into the bathroom. Michael went to the kitchen.

There was a pot of water boiling on the stove.

“Who in the hell put this here?” asked Michael as he turned off the burner. His back was to Ben as he looked quizzically at the stove. He heard teeth begin to chatter and he turned around.

Ben had moved.

His chair was facing the kitchen now, and his glassy eyes stared at his father.

To Be Continued…

And so the lies come to an end!

Rosemary Arborton’s intricate manipulation of Oliver’s memory has been revealed, and The Skeleton Man has escaped Widowsfield. Who knows what terrors he has planned for the real world – the world outside of the Watcher’s will.

When I set out to write this book, I wanted to challenge myself to do
everything I could to put the reader in the same frame of mind as the characters. For some of you, it will work, and I’m certain for some others you found yourself frustrated as the story structure continued to flip back and forth between time. I hope that now, after you’ve finished the book, you can see why I structured it like that.

314 Book 2 is all about three things: Lies, memories, and insanity. Furthermore, it’s about how those three things intermingle. I wanted the reader to feel like they were being lied to; to feel like they were remembering things incorrectly; and ultimately to feel like this book was driving them a little crazy. Hopefully it was a fun ride!

Some readers have complained about the back and forth between time that occurred in the first 314, and if they read this one then I’m sure they’re even more frustrated! Many of us prefer stories that start at one point, and then move forward diligently to arrive at the next. There’s nothing wrong with preferring that type of book, we all have our specific tastes, but I wanted to do something vastly different from that.

My goal here was to craft a book that does actually tell a cohesive story, but that requires the reader to be the one to put the puzzle together. Just like Nia’s (Rosemary’s) explanation about discovering that you take a box of random puzzle pieces and discern them by the color on the back of the pieces, I set out to write this book in a similar way. All of the events of this book seem jumbled and nonsensical when it begins, and the characters often comment on how nothing seems to make sense, but then you begin to put the pieces together, and things suddenly come together.

I had fun with the parallels between how Rosemary was crafting a lie, while at the same time the Watcher and The Skeleton Man were creating their own false worlds. It’s almost as if Rosemary is the same as the Watcher, and Lee is her Skeleton Man. Something to ponder for certain.

I wrote the entire book without the ‘journal’ entries preceding the chapters, and then went back to add those in. I wanted them to be a bridge for the reader, and to use an analogy plucked from the book itself, those entries were meant to be similar to the fog that Rosemary sees coming from the north side of town when she’s in Amelia Reven’s office. Those journal notes are like the color on the back of the puzzle pieces, but it takes a while to realize they’re true. And, if I accomplished what I hoped to, you fluctuated throughout the book between thinking the journal entries were written by Nia, or
that they were written by Lee. Of course, both are correct, because both of those people are Rosemary. There’s also a part of me that likes to think those journal entries are partially me breaking down the fourth wall and speaking to the reader directly – tying in with the idea of abusing the fourth dimension.

I’d love to hear what you thought of the book. Were you along for the ride, or did you feel like you were going crazy? Who did you think was writing the parts at the beginning of each chapter? Did the mystery work for you?

Don’t hesitate to write me. I do my best to respond to everyone’s emails.

Finally, if you enjoyed this book please take a moment to review it on whatever site you purchased it. As the self-publishing industry grows, more and more independent authors are resorting to dirty tricks to get ahead. I pride myself on trying to do everything honorably, so I don’t pay for reviews, and I don’t create various accounts to write
glowing reviews for my own work. That means I am entirely reliant on your help. The same goes for any self-published author whose work you enjoy. The two minutes it takes to write a review means more to us than you could imagine.

Thanks for your support, and please come find me at any of the following places. I love talking with fans, and I give away a heck of a lot of great things! In fact, right after I finish writing this I’ll be packaging up a bunch of signed covers of my book, Deadlocked 2, to send out for free to people that asked for them!

That reminds me, if you’re not familiar with my Deadlocked series, make sure to go get the first one. It’s free!

You can contact me at any of the following places:

[email protected]

www.arwisebooks.com

Twitter: @arwisebooks

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/AR-Wise/136771799776460

This is the first chapter of my novel, Daughter of Bathory, available now on most ebook sites.

Arthur Cain could feel the blood trickle down from the wounds where his nipples had been. The lesions stung as sweat ran into them, but the pain was an annoyance compared to the agony within. His stomach churned, and every breath carried new pain as his diaphragm expanded, then retracted, bringing hot air that aggravated his already tortured innards. He staggered through the dark, his bare feet slipping in the cold muck that covered the rough stone floor. He’d thought he was in a basement, but the further he delved the more roughhewn the walls became, as if he were descending into a cavern.

“Artie,” said one of the men in the white makeup that had spent the last several days torturing Arthur. “Where’d you go, worm food?” His tone was one of gleeful torment, and his voice echoed through the passage as if born of the darkness itself. “We’re not finished with you yet.”

Hot liquid fell down the back of Arthur’s leg. He wasn’t certain if it was blood or feces. The torture that the white-painted sadists had inflicted on him had crippled his intestines, and he’d lost control of his bowels several days earlier.

The ball gag in Arthur’s mouth was held in place by a leather strap and was large enough that no air passed between the hard rubber and his cheeks. Every inhalation came through his nostrils, and the frequent nosebleeds he’d been suffering forced him to snort and swallow his own blood while trying to breathe, mimicking a sense of drowning that often caused panic. The extent of the torture seemed to have purpose though, as if these men weren’t just creative in their mania, but rather ticking off a checklist. It had all begun with what was still the worst moment of Arthur’s capture.