A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events (15 page)

The doctor quickly removed
his hat to bow to The Lady. He held the top hat at his chest, a
safe distance from her perch and stammered out the words he’d said
in comfort moments ago. “My Dear Lady. My Liege. My Dark Queen.
I-I’ve...” And he glanced down to his side and to the pouch of
collected coins. “...I’ve earned the coin necessary to grant my
freedom, as we’ve agreed, yes?” The hopeful tagline gripped to his
plea, hoping it would remind her of their agreement. If he earned
six dollars and sixty-six cents, he would be set free. It was then
that The Lady smiled, brought her knees up toward her voluptuous
chest, showing just enough of her snow white, pale flesh to incite
arousal, and smiled a sweet, sweet smile.

“
Your freedom?” She
echoed. Her voice was as sensuous as vanilla, but her question was
thick with contempt.

“
My Dear Lady, we did have
an agreement. It was many years ago now. Decades, I believe.” The
time scale instinctively brought the doctor to brush at his soiled
overcoat, knowing he must have looked a mess before the beautiful
creature.

“
Yes.
Yes, we did have an agreement, didn’t we?” And she cocked her head,
either eliciting the illusion that her captivating smile spread or
it actually
did
. The latter would have been much more dangerous for
Binkman.

Binkman stood awkwardly,
sure he had shared the information that was most pertinent to his
release. He’d brought the coin they’d agreed on. She apparently
understood his message. Still, there was a coy look on her face, as
if to say there was something more to the agreement that Binkman
hadn’t initial realized, or was suddenly tacked on as a sudden
amendment.

“
I... did not forget
something, did I?” It was all that Binkman could muster.

“
No, no.
You did not, dear doctor. But you
are
mine, aren’t you?” She
purred.

Binkman would have
blushed, but the blood did not flow through him as it did his
living days. Again, he tipped forward in a bow. “I am, of course.
But...” He dared. “...we had an agreement.” With a hard
swallow.

The ruby-lipped woman rose
from her bleeding throne and moved swiftly toward the doctor. Each
tap of her tall, stiletto heels shook Dr. Binkman to his core,
almost driving him to turn around and flee back to his pitiful
prison. The woman stopped in front of him, driving her piercing
gaze through his head like a bullet.

“
Owners don’t make
agreements with their slaves, sweetheart.” And she narrowed the
safe zone between them, her glossed, Satan-red lips close to his
cracking, purple grimace. “You’re mine until I decide otherwise.”
And she snatched his coins away before turning and heading back
toward her throne. Instead of moving back into it, she curved
around the large seat, lifting a beckoning finger to draw the
frightened doctor her way. He followed, the slave he
was.

Behind the throne was a
small, standing basin of liquid, as still as an empty sky, and as
black as tar. She waved Binkman forth and he came with
apprehension. With an arched and precisely sculpted brow, the
woman’s eyes drifted to the basin. Binkman leaned forward to see
what it was she saw.

A scene played out within,
showing the children, Jacob, Harry, Barker, Brain, Gassy and Crater
all in the quad during the event with the jump rope. Binkman saw
the four boys terrorizing the two others and humiliating them in
front of their peers. It brought Binkman to quirk a brow of his
own, glancing to his hostess. “My Lady, is there something I should
know about this image?”

The woman smiled, leaning
back while resting a hand on her hip. “I wouldn’t be showing you
this if there wasn’t a reason for it, doctor. I’m willing to grant
you your freedom for the coins you’ve collected and for another
small favor.” Of course, it wasn’t a favor she was truly
requesting; it was a demand. Binkman started wondering if she was
concerned with the coins at all, or of it was all part of a ploy to
keep him docile for so long. Still, he asked.

“
What is it you desire, My
Dark Queen?” Playing the role of someone that was still concerned
with pleasing her. However, Binkman tried to be sincere, as he knew
the woman could infiltrate the sanctity of his mind at any time she
chose.

“
Those boys. The four
harassing the other two? I desire them in your place. They’re
rotten and terrible, full of violence and twisted thoughts.” With
each choice word to explain the quartet, her salacious smile grew
larger and larger until it was a full-blown expression of ecstasy.
Her face bore the expression but for a moment before it went sour.
“All things you are, doctor Binkman. All things that are hard to
replace in a single, outstanding terror like yourself. So
outstanding a terror, mind you, that I need four different little
monsters to culminate to the wickedness stuffed deep down inside of
you.” And, still at a distance, she pointed a finger in his
direction. Though there was no direct contact, Binkman felt as
though he were shoved with that finger directly in the center of
his chest, causing him to roll back on his heel. The doctor
swallowed hard once more.

“
Besides, there’s a golden
lining to all of this, my dear doctor.” She revealed.

“
A golden lining?” To
Binkman, certainty of his freedom, or as much certainty as could be
expected from the woman, was enough. But, his ears perked and he
listened.

“
One of the boys there,
being mistreated by those four I expect you to collect? He’s the
one that tossed that last coin your way, allowing for this very
counsel.” She laughed with glee as she rounded the black basin,
nearing Dr. Binkman once more. Binkman stood as stiff as a board
while she curled around behind him and brought her arms up under
his, to place her soft palms and manicured fingers to his
chest.

She whispered near the
doctor’s ear. “Look in again.” Referring to the basin.

Binkman shuddered with the
touch. It’d been so long since he’d felt the touch of a woman. His
desire for it was a great part of the reason he’d come to this dark
prison in the first place. He did as he was instructed,
submissively, and leaned forward to look into the basin.

The doctor saw nothing but
himself. The image in the still, black fluid seemed dead and
run-down. The color of the liquid itself distorted the colors of
the reflection, but it was still possible to discern that, whatever
it was he’d become, it was no longer living and hardly human. It
was then that something much worse, something without even the
facade of his humanity, crept into the image. He felt the woman
behind him lean forward and her reflection cast was not the
beautiful image he’d seen upon arrival; it was a twisted, macabre
monstrosity, its face curled into a sinister stare, with a long,
spear-like nose. As it spoke, the sound came from the woman behind
him, leaning near his shoulder, but the grotesque, sharp-toothed
mouth of the demon beside his reflection moved to mouth the words
in sync.

“
You
won’t leave here without my little ball and chain.” For the
doctor’s keeper knew that anyone taking such capital
absolutely
had
to leave something in collateral.

The doctor looked to the
woman at his side, his possessor, then back to the sickening
reflection in the basin pool, as if to verify, for the sake of his
own sanity, that the being beside him was the same one responsible
for the demonic guise. Or, was it the other way around? The woman
the guise for the demon? The doctor couldn’t contemplate the
thought for long before the woman’s spidery fingers descended into
the black pool and seemed to “grip” the face of her terrible
reflection and literally lift it from the liquid to manifest the
image into a reality, if any of the experiences could qualify as
such. Then, as the viscous liquid clumped and shed from the
vibrantly contrasting, pale hand to drip back into the pool, she
held only the dark mask.

Now, no longer obscured by
the opaque fluid, the true details of the mask, which was presumed
by the doctor to be a face, moments ago manipulated in the image to
have expression and speak, were clear and able to be seen. The
forehead of the mask was crunched and deep, elderly lines creased
what was a sort of dark cast metal from which it seemed made. The
eyes of the mask were heavy-lidded and slightly cant in a diagonal
that expressed anger or fury. The nose, the most prominent feature,
was long and curved downward, extended in what may have been six or
seven inches in length. The tip of that nose seemed razor sharp at
its point. And the mouth, second only to that nose in size,
stretched in a wide, Cheshire semi-circle with rows and rows of
sharp, hungry teeth. It was terrible in the reflection, but
absolutely harrowing manifested before him; so profound an image
that it seemed to be an entirely different entity in the
room.

The doctor clambered for
speech. “W-What is it you intend for this...?” He hadn’t a proper
word in his expansive vocabulary to describe it.

“
This...” The woman said
as she rounded him, looking into his dead eyes. “...is your ‘ball
and chain.’”

The doctor wasn’t
absolutely sure what she meant, but his speculations about what the
woman alluded to became clear when she extended the mask’s innards
(a sort of reversed image from the inside, equally discontenting)
in his direction. “Put it on. All will know you are a monster,
despite your freedom. And that you’re
my
monster, Dr. Binkman.” Always
asserting her power over her captive.

The doctor shuddered at
the thought of donning the terrible mask. In life, Dr. Binkman
wasn’t a terrible looking man. He’d been popular with the women,
but Binkman’s faults rested mostly in that he intended to be
popular with women that wouldn’t have him so. If Binkman had a
chance at all, he’d at least make the conditions clear.

“
And... if I bring these
children to you—the ones you desire—then you will remove this mask
so that I might be as I once was?” Binkman asked hopefully, knowing
he hadn’t much for negotiating power. Worse, the conditions of
their last agreement on his freedom were now receiving a
last-minute caveat that made an enormous difference.

A short fit of sweet,
amused laughter and the woman, his Dark Lady, answered as
cryptically as Binkman would have expected. “Well, it would most
certainly increase your odds, wouldn’t it?”

Binkman hoped for
something more direct, but hope in a place like this was a sparse
commodity and it was better left to the birds. He simply nodded,
lifted his chin and waited for her decree. It was his only chance,
if there was ever a chance, and it was a better one than spending
an eternity in a molding hole beneath a well.

The Dark Lady approached
with a giddy smile, white rows of straight teeth licked at as
though she prepared to partake of a delicious morsel, and with her,
nearer and nearer came the terrible mask until it came to his face.
The moment the dark metal touched his cold, dead flesh, there was
an immense, searing pain. The mask burned into his skin, sending up
wisps of smoke around his head. In that moment, he became one with
the terrible thing. When his eyes blinked, so did the heavy, angry
eyes of the mask. When his mouth contorted, so did the long,
terrible maw of the mask, deadly teeth spreading to match its
exaggerated size. The terrible thing was no longer simply a mask—it
was his new face, the face he’d have in the free world. It was
his
new
prison,
for he knew such a thing could not be seen openly in the world
above, otherwise a similar exile would resume. His meetings would
have to be focused, direct and devious. That, they would
be.

When the agonizing pain
subdued, Binkman stood, holding his new face, feeling it, trying to
understand what he’d become. The woman, delighted with the
transformation of her pet, clapped and stood back to appreciate
him.

“
You
are
a stunning creature, doctor. I daresay, this is the best
you’ve ever looked!” And her fingers intertwined with
adoration.

Sadly, Binkman believed
the Dark Lady truly thought so. Her tastes were far different than
any other he’d ever met. She enjoyed the sick and twisted, reveled
in the macabre and horrific.

His new mouth curled to
produce the words, although awkwardly. “Now?”

“
Now? Now you meet the
boy.” And with a simple snap of her fingers, Binkman felt as though
he were being torn in two.

Vertical lines blurred
through his obscured vision and he felt an immense pressure at his
feet. Suddenly, without expecting it, the doctor burst through the
shelf of dirt at the surface, far above his prison, sending a
surprising and terrifying display of dirt, dead leaves and brush
around his emerging body. The sudden blast from Binkman’s release
sent Jacob back, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the
ground, completely aghast of what was occurring in the forest
before the busy highway. Something literally had just risen from
the earth, and with shocking spectacle. However, such spectacle
would resolve to absolute consternation as Jacob actually saw what
it was that arrived. It was not human.