CHAPTER 10 BLOWING IN THE WIND
The deputy cuffed Gabe, hands in front, and pushed him forward through the old factory's entrance. The wound on his side screamed, causing him to hunch a little, while blood drained from the torn flesh of his arm. Dizziness caused his steps to stagger, and he stumbled a couple of times, held upright by the deputy’s firm grip.
The madman led the way through a maze of corridors.
The air was thick with the stale stench of mildew and rot.
A faint trace of chemicals still lingered, a reminder of this place's dark past. The cold air carried a sharp, metallic bite, and the taste of dust and decay coated the tongue with every breath, leaving a bitter aftertaste.
Amid the bobbing flashlight beams and thick gloom, Gabe had no idea how far into the factory they had gone when the madman forced open a heavy metal door that scraped loudly against the concrete floor.
The deputy pushed Gabe into the room. The madman flipped a switch, causing an overhead bulb to flicker, bathing them in a faint, pale light.
The room had once been an assembly hall where machines sang in sequence and men shouted over the din, but now it was a shrine to a darker trade.
Rows of iron-barred cages lined the walls, their doors warped and pitted with corrosion, the floor beneath them blackened in places by irregular spatterings of dried blood.
Ghostly trails of crimson snaked across the pitted concrete, some old and brown, some shockingly fresh, coagulated into thick puddles that gleamed even in the dimness.
The walls, thick with condensation, ran with streaks that caught the faint, blue-white light filtering from the single bare bulb hanging overhead.
The bulb, swaying gently from a frayed cord, cast sickly halos onto the iron lattice and cut the space into islands of shadow, making the cages seem like the ribs of some defunct metal beast.
“Do you know the story of Goldilocks and the three bears?” the madman asked, breaking the chilled silence. He looked at Gabe. “Not the fairytale. The true story.”
Gabe stared at him.
“First off,” the man murmured. “There were only two bears: Papa Bear and his son. There was no Mama Bear.”
Gabe looked around the horror room, his mind conjuring images of Abel and the kids stuffed inside the cages.
“Goldilocks didn’t come into their home on her own. They found her… hunted her… trapped her. But she wasn’t alone, as in the fairytale. She had two pretty boys with her—the three of them caught in the trap together.”
The deputy stood next to Gabe, a smug look on his face as the madman wove his dark version of a children’s fairytale.
“Now, Papa Bear had been isolated for a long time and hadn’t seen anything so fresh and pretty as Goldilocks in so very long.
” His eyes narrowed with a dark, malevolent pleasure.
“So, he fucked her.” A sinister grin etched his face in the eerie pale light.
“Her screams brought out the beast in Papa Bear, and he began to tear her flesh with his claws while he fucked her, shredding her soft, tender skin, ripping her open—”
“Stop it,” Gabe rasped, his horror mixing with rage.
The madman looked at him, his smile fixed on his lips. “But I didn’t get to the part where the bear son took his turn with the pretty boys.”
“Just do what you’re gonna fucking do,” Gabe growled at the man.
“At least, hear the end of the story. Where the Papa Bear hung the bodies in the park for the friends of Goldilocks and the pretty boys to find.”
Horror widened Gabe’s eyes.
“Did you really think I would let them go?” the madman huffed. “There’s only one way I let people go.”
“You fuck!” Gabe lunged at the man—and hit the ice-cold floor an instant later as the deputy nailed him in the back.
Gabe didn’t move as he gasped against the filthy, freezing concrete, just inches from a puddle of coagulated blood.
Musty dirt and grime surged up his nostrils along with the coppery scent of blood, the intense pain of his wounds immobilizing him.
The madman stepped over and, with the tip of his boot, lifted Gabe’s chin, forcing his eyes upward. “The blood you’re inhaling,” he murmured. “That’s where I gutted the boy—while Goldilocks and her pretty brother watched.”
“ No…” Gabe choked, teeth gritted as tears spilled down his face. “ I’ll fucking… kill you…”
The deputy squatted beside him, grabbed his hair, and craned his head back until the tendons in his neck strained and popped. “I ask again… how do you plan to do that?”
Gabe stared at him through bulging eyes, glazed with tears, his face flushing hot from the strain on his neck. The deputy chuckled coldly and shoved Gabe’s head forward, smacking his face on the concrete as he released his hair and stood up.
“That’s what I thought.”
“Where are they?!” Angel's plea tore through the night air as his gaze swept frantically across the park.
His gaze jumped frantically between the towering trees, their bare branches clawing at the night sky.
Shadows pooled beneath them, drowning the grounds in darkness so complete it seemed to swallow sound itself.
Dane reached blindly into the glove box, fingers closing around a flashlight that cut a thin, trembling path through the blackness, while the others held up phones whose dim screens offered little comfort against the void surrounding them.
“Maddy!” Angel cried out. “Maddy!”
Only the vast, indifferent silence of the night answered, thick and cold around them.
“He lied,” Angel choked out, a raw, primal terror seizing him. “He lied, Dane! They’re not here! They’re not here!” His voice cracked, splintering into hysteria.
“Wait…” Cole’s hand shot out, a sudden stillness in his posture. From the impenetrable black, a faint, disquieting sound drifted—a low, rhythmic thump-thump-thump , like something heavy shifting or swaying. “Over there. I hear something.”
The men moved as one, their footsteps hushed, flashlights carving nervous tunnels through the gloom, revealing only the glistening, frost-tipped grass beneath their feet.
“I don’t see anything…” Devlin whispered, his voice a strained tremor.
Then Cole saw it. A flash of bone-white skin against the void, crumpled at the base of a massive oak.
Abel . His name exploded in Cole's brain like a gunshot, and he lunged forward, heart hammering so violently he tasted copper.
The flashlight beam stuttered wildly across Abel's naked torso—revealing ropes that bit deep enough to draw blood at wrists and ankles, the bark scraping raw patches on his spine, a filthy rag wedged so brutally between his teeth that his jaw stretched at an impossible angle, eyes bulging with animal terror.
“ABEL!” The name ripped from Cole's throat like something clawed and feral.
He crashed to his knees, the impact sending lightning through his bones.
“Baby—” The word strangled into a guttural sound as the light revealed Abel's body—a grotesque canvas of purple-black bruises blooming across ribs, cheekbones, jaw.
Rivulets of half-dried blood snaked from his hairline, pooled in the hollow of his throat, smeared across his inner thighs in rust-dark handprints.
Cole fumbled frantically at the knot of the ropes, his fingers slipping on the blood-slicked hemp, nails breaking against the impossible tightness.
Abel thrashed his head violently, tendons standing out like cords on his neck, eyes bulging white with terror.
A guttural, desperate wail tore from behind the filthy gag, the sound barely human.
Cole's trembling hand brushed against Abel's bare thigh, slick and warm, and he recoiled instantly, his vision blurring into a kaleidoscope of shadows.
His palm was smeared crimson, the blood so dark it looked black in the moonlight, glistening between his fingers like oil.
“You're bleeding...” he whispered, the words catching in his throat like broken glass.
Abel screamed again, a desperate, muffled sound that vibrated through his entire body.
Cole worked the gag free with shaking hands, the sodden cloth peeling away from cracked, bleeding lips.
Abel gasped, a ragged, choking sob that seemed to tear from the depths of his soul, his body wracked with hysterical tremors that rattled his teeth.
“Stop him!” he shrieked, his voice raw and shredded, spittle flying from his mouth. “Don't let Angel close! Stop him!”
“What—” Cole's question died as something warm and sticky splattered his cheek with a sick wet sound.
His lungs seized. Time fractured as his gaze dragged upward through the darkness, each millimeter an eternity of dread.
The scream that erupted from him wasn't human—it shredded his throat raw as he crashed backward, spine slamming against frozen earth hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. The image above burned into his retinas like acid, his body convulsing as if electrocuted. Blood roared in his ears as he scrambled up, legs nearly buckling, lunging toward the others with the desperate strength of pure terror. He collided with Angel, fingers digging into flesh as he wrenched him around, crushing the younger man against his chest with such force their ribs seemed to fuse. “No-No-No— don’t look!”
“Let me go!” Angel's shriek pierced the night, his body twisting with inhuman strength, fingernails ripping through Cole's shirt and into his skin. Blood welled as Angel clawed for freedom. “Where is Maddy?! Maddy! MADDEEE!!”
Dane stood paralyzed, jaw slack, pupils blown wide as his brain struggled to process the nightmare materializing before him.
Angel exploded from Cole's grip with the feral strength of a trapped animal, lunging forward.
Dane's body reacted before his mind could—he tackled Angel mid-stride, arms locking around him like steel cables, crushing him against his chest hard enough to crack ribs.