Chapter 2 - Riggs
CHAPTER 2 - RIGGS
W hen I come out of the shower, I’m talking myself into the idea that this job is going well.
Being sent into Disciple, West Virginia, to set up surveillance on the town and going up against the new security force Jim Bob Baptist hired to protect his Revival isn’t going to be a disaster. It’s going fine. I’ve spent the last three weeks putting up dozens of discreet cameras and no one has even looked at me twice. Of course, that was August when the Revival was every weekend and it’s September now, so the tourists only come one weekend a month, which means it’s much harder to blend in. But the job is basically done. All I have to do now is make sure everything’s working and troubleshoot any bugs.
I deserve this shower. I earned the right to squat in this empty house. No one else is using it, and I’ve been paying attention to it all month. It looks like it’s in the middle of being renovated, but there have been no workers here since I started watching. Not a single one.
So yesterday, I moved in. If no one else is gonna enjoy this place, I might as well help myself.
And anyway, I’ll be out of here in three days and no one back home will ever know that I stayed here a few nights instead of the woods. I mean, why should I camp out in the fucking forest, roughing it in the mud, when this perfectly good mansion has nothing better to do than give me shelter?
This house was the ideal solution for what could’ve been a very unsatisfying ending to a very stupid job. And I can use the perfection right now. Because the last six years of my life have been dark, depressing hell.
I can’t go back to those tunnels. I won’t go back. I’ll do anything my father tells me to do in order to never go back.
Despite spending the last six years in the deepest, darkest hole of a prison imaginable, I’m not a fuck-up. I come from a good family. A really good family with Colony roots that span two hundred years. I was educated, and privileged, and given all the best opportunities growing up.
Which is what got me in trouble in the end.
Every kid who is born into an upper-class family in the Colonies gets told the truth when we collectively turn eighteen on June first. But up until then, we all think the world we grew up in is all there is.
It’s not true. As nice as they can be, there’s more to this world than underground cities.
There’s sunshine, and grass, and trees, and oceans. Not to mention women.
And men. Like Collin Creed. Who was not the reason I went AWOL, but he definitely played his part.
But of course—if you run, they hunt you.
So they caught me and I’ve spent the last six years in prison for it.
Not prison like they have up here with cells, and guards, and shitty food. A Colony prison is nothing like that. There are no cells. There are no guards. You get sent to the tunnels and spend your days and nights drilling and thinking about nothing but dirt, and rocks, and darkness. You’re so deep underground you don’t even get to see an access shaft until you’re ninety days out from release.
I about lost my mind. It’s not so bad if you’ve never felt sunlight on your back before, but everyone who gets sent to the tunnels was a runner who got caught. All of us knew what we were missing down there. There weren’t even overhead lights, just headlamps. Everything was a shadow. I lost track of time. The stress of being underground again gave me nightmares and at one point, I was thinking about giving up.
I think they wait for that moment and then they pull us out and explain that we all have jobs to do, and we’re all important, and they are sure we’ve learned our lessons. They tell us what disappointments we are to our fathers. Wouldn’t we like another chance to prove ourselves to be honorable, and loyal, and dedicated to the Colony? Wouldn’t we like to go back up top to work? Only this time, we will be good, obedient Colonists and complete our assignments and return home.
Just the thought of being back up top again was enough to make me promise them anything.
Anything .
I can’t go back to those tunnels. I won’t go back to those tunnels.
And now I won’t have to because this job is basically done—early, I might add—and even though I’m squatting in an old mansion, I’m gonna get away with it. No one down below will ever find out that I didn’t camp in the woods and bathe in the river like a good little Colony worker.
All of this is what I’m thinking as I realize I forgot to bring my towel into the bathroom with me. But this isn’t enough to quell my overflowing, and smug, satisfaction over how I will spend my last few days up here in relative comfort instead of being tortured with the misery of primitive accommodations, and how I will be congratulated when I get back and given more up-top jobs to take advantage of.
I did it.
I made it.
I’m back.
These words are flowing through my head when I come bounding down the stairs and see the woman.
Her mouth is open, her eyes are wide, and she is about to scream.
Luckily, all my advanced training kicks in. I jump down the remaining stairs, cross the space between us, slip behind her, and have my hand slapped against her mouth before that scream comes out.
Not that anyone would be able to hear her—this house is nearly half a mile from town and the estate is so big, there are no close neighbors. It’s not the scream I’m worried about. It’s the time ticking off that makes this whole situation worse, because the longer I wait to respond, the longer she has to get a good look at me.
So all my actions are instincts. I drag her down the hallway to the kitchen where my clothes are, stuff an old rag in her mouth, wrap my clean t-shirt around her head to blindfold her, pull her arms behind her back, ratchet a belt around her wrists, open the nearest closet, and throw her in, slamming the door behind her. There is a loud thunk as she hits the hardwood floor.
The whole thing takes about ten seconds.
Then I stand there—back pressed against the door, still naked and breathing heavy—as my mind finally catches up with my actions.
And that’s when I realize how fucked I am.
She saw my face .
I go back upstairs, my mind spinning with my limited choices as to what to do next, when I reach for my jeans and pull them on. I grab yesterday’s t-shirt off the bathroom floor, pull that on, and then peer out the window, trying to determine if she’s alone.
There’s a huge black SUV in the driveway with a trailer hitched to it, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone waiting for her outside.
I take a breath, hold it, then slowly let it out, trying to calm my racing heart.
She’s the owner of the house, obviously. Moving back in, maybe?
I don’t know why that would be the case. This place is fine for squatters, but this woman doesn’t look like she’s into roughing it. She’s wearing fancy clothes, high heels, and lots of makeup. Which, in my experience, translates to… ambition.
And ambitious women, in my personal opinion, are dangerous.
None of that really matters. What matters is how many people know she’s here. How many people will I have to silence to cover up my mistake?
Down on the first floor the woman starts kicking the closet door, trying to scream past her gag, but I don’t pay any attention to that. I’m busy thinking about my now very short list of choices.
There is no way I can let her go. It’s not gonna happen. She saw my face. And while she doesn’t have a clue as to who I actually am, this is a Disciple house and that means she’s a Disciple resident.
She doesn’t need to know anything. All she needs to do is report me to Jim Bob Baptist, who will then take this information straight to Collin Creed, and from there… I’m fucked.
Absolutely fucked.
I am three days out from completing this job and earning my way back into the good graces of my father and there is no possible way I will allow this woman to get me sent back to those tunnels.
I will not spend the rest of my life drilling in the dark. It’s not gonna happen.
I go back downstairs and pace the hallway, ignoring her kicking feet and muffled screams. Then I start opening doors, looking for the basement because I’m gonna throw her down there and tie her to a beam or something while I finish the job I’m here to do and leave.
What happens to her after that is not my problem.
I know there is a basement because I saw the boarded-up windows from the outside. But despite searching the entire first floor, I cannot find the access point.
This is when I remember I need to get rid of her car.
How many Disciple townspeople have passed the house and noticed it already? How soon before one of them recognizes it and comes to see why she’s here? Clearly, moving back in at this point in the renovation wasn’t the plan.
I walk to the closet, open the door, push her down, grab her kicking feet, flip her over, and sit on top of her. It’s not a comfortable position because her hands are tied behind her back, so I know the pressure I’m putting on her shoulders is nearly unbearable. But I need her to shut up and listen, so I lean in to her neck and whisper, “Stop kicking, stop screaming, and if you do that, I’ll ease up. But I’m not gonna put up with your bullshit. Either you listen to me and cooperate, or I’ll kill you.” She was wriggling up to this point, but the threat makes her go still. “Do you understand me?”
She nods her head as best she can and relaxes.
“Good. Where are your car keys?”
She mumbles some words through the gag, but I can’t understand her, so I pull it out. “I think I dropped them near the doorway.”
I look over my shoulder, and spy them under a chair. “Good.” I stuff the gag back into her mouth, get off of her, leave, slamming the door closed as I curse under my breath.
I need to move that car, so I go outside, move the car and trailer around the far side of the barn, and then head back to the house. I’m just coming around the barn, about fifty feet from the back porch, when the door comes crashing open and the woman comes stumbling through it.
She’s still gagged and bound, but the t-shirt blindfold has slipped down her face and is no longer covering her eyes. It’s really not that hard to open doors with hands bound behind your back, so her ambition has kicked in and she fancies herself as one of those save-yourself girls. Because she sees me and starts making a run for it.
It’s about twenty feet to the driveway and from there, another thirty to the highway. But she’s got to navigate those porch steps in five-inch heels and I’m going full speed across flat grass, so I catch up with her just before she gets to the driveway and tackle her, taking her down into a weedy flower bed.
She screams past her gag and I think she hits her head pretty good on the side of the house, because then she starts crying.
I sit on her for a few moments, catching my breath, then spy the boarded-up basement window again. It’s not big enough to fit through—it’s actually rather long and skinny. And the framing around it is out of place with the rest of the house because it looks like a log cabin. Like maybe it was the original structure on this land and they built the mansion around it.
I lean into the crying woman’s neck. “Where’s the basement? How do I get in there?”
She doesn’t answer, just starts cursing me through the gag.
“Lady, I’ve already explained that you’ve got two choices here. Do what I tell you and make things easy, or I kill you. Which do you want it to be? Because I don’t care either way. You’re not gonna fuck up what I’m doing. You’re just not.”
Just like before, she gives in and her body relaxes. So I let out a breath. But it’s not relief. Because she saw my face. Again. That’s twice now.
I stand up, pulling her up with me, and refasten the blindfold. She’s sobbing and on the verge of hyperventilating when I turn her around and shake her by the shoulders. “I’m gonna ask you one more time. Where is the basement and how do I get you in there? And if you don’t tell me, I’m just gonna kill you and stuff your dead body into that trailer you were hauling. Then I’m gonna drive it to the lake out there in the woods and back it into the water. It might take months for people to find your disgusting, bloated body.”
Even from behind the makeshift blindfold I can see her wince. My threats are pretty gruesome, but I’m not sure how tenacious she is and I don’t really have time to figure out how much threatening she needs in order to comply with my demands.
This level seems to work, because she starts mumbling.
I pull the rag out of her mouth and stuff it in my pocket. “What?”
She takes a deep breath, still sobbing. “There’s a trapdoor in the library.”
I grab her wrists and shove her back towards the porch. She lost one of her shoes in the dramatic escape, so she limps her way up the stairs and into the house.
“Which room is the library?”
“Down the first hallway and to the left.”
With a firm grip on her bound hands I push her forward, keeping a good hold on her as she stumbles. A minute later I find the library and sure enough, once I look closely, I can see the outline of a trapdoor in the hardwood floors. I pull it open and stare down into the darkness. “Are there lights?”
“There’s a switch on the side of the wall.”
I position her in front of the trapdoor and give her a nudge. “Get in.”
She huffs. “I can’t go down those stairs blindfolded and with my hands tied behind my back. You’re crazy.”
“Well, give it your best shot because if you don’t, I’ll just push you.”
Her whole body stiffens. “You’re evil.”
“And you’re annoying. Go down. Right now.”
She gets down on her knees, swings her feet out in front of her, kicks off her one remaining shoe, then scoots forward on her butt until her feet are dangling over the side of the opening.
“See? With the right motivation, you can do anything.”
She mumbles something under her breath in response—“fuck you,” I think. But she does as she told, cautiously feeling out each step with her feet as she lowers herself down one step at a time. It takes forever because she’s whimpering and cursing, but once she gets down far enough, I go in after her, feeling along either side of the wall with both hands, until I find the light switch and flip it on.
When she gets to the bottom she stumbles forward across the small room, trips over a bunched-up rug, and falls.
This obliterates the last of her resolve because she just starts sobbing uncontrollably, her face pressed into the rug. When I don’t make a move to help upright her, she yells, “Who are you? Why are you in my house? What do you want? There’s nothing here.”
My words come out with a sneer. “I’m not here to rob you. I told you, I’m in the middle of something. It’s unfortunate that you walked in on it, and I’m sure the next couple of days are gonna suck real bad for you, but there’s nothing I can do about it. You’re not gonna get in the way of me completing this job. You’re just not.”
“What happens in a couple of days?”
I don’t answer her. Not because I don’t know what happens in a couple of days, but because she’s being cooperative and, generally speaking, cooperative prisoners stop being agreeable once they understand this won’t help them live in the end.
I walk over to her and the sound of my footsteps must be enough to scare her back into silence, because she stops crying and goes completely still.
I kneel down and attempt to stuff the rag back into her mouth. She protests by shaking her head, then she starts begging. “No! Not the gag. You’ve got me tied up and blindfolded. I don’t need a gag! No one can hear me if I scream!”
My first instinct is to ignore her and just stuff the gag back in, but I realize I need more information from her. “Was anyone meeting you here?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here? The house isn’t really livable. What’s in the trailer?”
“I was fired from my job this morning. I worked at a hotel and lived in a cottage on the grounds, so they kicked me out of it. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“What about your friends? How soon before they miss you?” She opens her mouth to say something, but I put up a hand. “Don’t lie to me, either. Because if you say ‘immediately’ thinking I will let you go, you don’t understand my situation. I need three days to finish what I came to do and nothing you say will prevent me from reaching this goal.”
She lets out a breath like maybe she was gonna lie, then takes a few moments and gives me the truth. “No one. No one is gonna miss me because my boss, who doesn’t even know I’ve been fired yet, is in Boston on business. She won’t be back for a week and even if she does try and call me, she won’t get suspicious until Thursday.”
“Well, that’s three days away. Sounds a little convenient to me.”
“Whatever. It’s the truth.”
“What about your friends? The people in Disciple?”
“I haven’t lived in Disciple for over a decade. I haven’t even been back to visit in a few years. I don’t even come home to check on the progress of the house. My friend, Lowyn, does that. And usually, when we want to hang out, she comes out to see me in Virginia at the hotel. I didn’t have a chance to call her and cry about my bad luck yet, so no one knows I’m here.”
Lowyn. As in McBride. As in Collin Creed’s girlfriend.
If I have to kill this woman things will get messy, so obviously, it’s better that I don’t. But she doesn’t need to know that. Still, this doesn’t mean I’m gonna let her get all comfortable and shit either. I reach out, pry her mouth open as she starts to scream, and shove the gag inside.
“Keep quiet until I come back and then, maybe , I’ll take the gag out. But if I hear one more noise, the deal’s off and you’ll sit down here in this little dungeon until some unsuspecting construction worker finds your dead and decaying body six months from now.”
She recoils at my threat, but she doesn’t make a noise.
I walk away, go back up the stairs, flipping the light off as I pass, and then close the trapdoor.
Three days and I’m out of here.
This woman will not be the reason I get sent back to the tunnels.
She won’t.