Chapter 33 Trojan Horse
TROJAN HORSE
As the sun began to set in earnest, a circle of high-strung onlookers circled Einar and Bastien in the erstwhile chessboard-floor restaurant. I was hard on my feet and swayed with fatigue, bruised and aching all over.
Next time, be careful what you wish for, I thought to myself, but not with regret; rather with a disoriented emptiness that is customarily experienced on the first night alone in a strange country.
“Right, folks, a few steps back please,” Einar chirped, his arms extended theatrically. “Out of the splash zone.”
He turned to the fury boy with a brandished hunting knife.
My mind buzzed with possibilities at the sight, none of which could have possibly occurred to the people around me.
Freed from arbitrarily imposed self-restraint, I imagined crossing countless other borders that had until then seemed uncrossable.
In other words, I wondered what the threat of the cold, hard steel would feel like against the tender skin of my inner thighs and shuddered as my nerves tangled and jolted like a jellyfish’s tentacles right under my skin.
As Einar approached him, Bastian’s crusty lip rippled with a growl, starved eyes popping out of their sockets. He jerked angrily to and fro in his chains in a manner of someone fastened over a roasting pit.
“Oh bloody hell,” Einar sighed.
Then, without a warning, he smacked the boy hard across the face with the back of his hand. The plaster crunched and crumbled into a spiderweb-like pattern as Bastien’s head collided with it.
“Einar,” I gasped, just as I had thought I was well beyond being shocked. “It’s no use, they can’t feel pain!”
“Oh, this was for me, not him,” Einar replied lightly.
“Actually, we’re unsure whether they don’t feel pain at all or are just unable to react to it normally. I had the most fascinating discussion with Kev about this the other day and ... no one cares right now, do they?”
Like fluffy caterpillars, Dave’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead.
I shook my head in response, but not without an apologetic smile.
All we heard for the next few minutes was the soft gush of blood from the vein opened in Bastien’s elbow. Einar skilfully caught the ruby liquid in the vials before tying a rag tightly around the wound.
“Right.” He straightened up once he had three ampules full. “Now comes the tricky part. I’ll need you now, Lena. Grab gloves and a vial.”
She did. Einar pulled Bastien back into a sitting position and, completely nonplussed, squeezed the child’s slender throat. The small face turned burgundy red, and the eyes shone white and huge. I covered my mouth, but not before a shocked gasp escaped me.
The tightly stretched fabric of Einar’s shirt let up as he turned to me, and in his face, guilt mingled with amusement, much as if he wanted to say: “Oh come on, I did as much to you and I actually love you ...”
Some of the onlookers sauntered off, unable to bear the horrible wet noises any longer.
Bastien stuck out his tight, purple tongue, and soon enough, a steady stream of ropey saliva ran down it.
“Take the flask and catch it, Lena,” Einar instructed her mechanically, eyes fixed on the boy.
Unable to watch the child without feeling physically ill, I focused on Einar instead.
He was pink with effort, and a vein throbbed in his temple darkly, threatening to burst. The muscles of his arms and broad shoulders were tightly clenched, bulging like rising dough, veins popping out. I bit my lower lip.
Once Lena collected two vials and caught some of the transparent fluid into the whiskey bottle, too, shaking it to mix it with the honey-coloured liquor, Einar released the boy from his grip.
Lena then walked out of sight with the vials through a door that led to the former kitchen.
A short while later, we heard her open and close what I assumed was the refrigerator, judging by the sucking sound.
Then she re-emerged, looking highly uncomfortable and slightly green in the face.
“What did you go to the fridge fer?” Russ asked, puzzled.
“Well, if you must know, I rubbed some rotten ... whatever it was ... all over my private parts. To make sure they let me wash before ... well, before sticking their business in places that are now full of the damn vials. I need to stash them somewhere else first, don’t I?”
I groaned as my guts twisted inside of me.
“That’s very smart,” Einar told her appreciatively, no sign of horror registering on his face.
“Och foockin’ ’ell,” Russ said, looking as sick to his stomach as she did upon re-entering the room. “I’m so sorry that I asked.”
“I’m going,” Lena announced tersely. “There’s no time to waste. Make the most of it, yeah?” She fixed her eyes on Einar, who nodded solemnly.
“You have my word.”
She nodded curtly and walked out the door with a hard-set look on her face, not looking at anyone.
A little while later, Einar scanned the room, taking in the people who remained there: Russ, Albert, Dave, Mickey, Cyril, and me. I didn’t like the look of grim satisfaction that bloomed on his face.
“Well then,” he said darkly, “now for the fun part of the evening.”
In two broad strides, he reached the hideous orange couch by the restaurant’s entrance. A cloud of dust rose from the fluffy pink pillow as his fingers dug into it. A chill crept up my spine.
“You have all seen it,” Einar told us. “The boy went to sleep and never woke up. Probably malnutrition.”
Turning his back to us, he pressed the pillow onto Bastien’s face and held it there fast, his other hand pushing the back of the cannibal’s head into the dirty fabric. I very much wanted someone to stop the sickening spectacle, but nobody moved an inch.
“Good, important rules should never be permitted to have exceptions,” Einar spoke as he crouched with his back to us, slightly breathless from exertion. “Because exceptions tend to erode them.”
A few of us shifted on our feet, reluctantly acknowledging the unsavoury reasoning behind his words.
“It might be hard to watch,” Einar grunted. “But it is mercy. No one should ever have to suffer living like this. Killing is ugly, but oftentimes death is not.”
There wasn’t much resistance to be had from the small bundle of ropes. Soon, he sagged limply against the wall and lay still.
What followed Lena’s departure was, without a question, the most difficult phase of the whole scheme. Waiting.
Josh had agreed to observe Bonifacio from the forested hilltop that stood between us and the fortress.
About an hour after Lena’s departure, he informed us that three burly men had let her in through the gates, but not before each taking a swig from the bottle she had brought.
They had seemed pleased with her arrival, Josh told us, and hadn’t been rough with her.
At least not before the gate shut behind them.
Then, there was no news whatsoever for three days. Apparently, all that happened was that two men came out for a short stroll around the adjacent marina. Apart from that, the gates remained closed, and we could only guess what took place beyond them.
On the fourth day, Josh finally reported a change.
“I heard shots,” he said at the dinner table, nervous excitement twinkling in his brown eyes. “And no smoke, meaning no fire and so no cooking. Something’s definitely up.”
Customarily, Josh left the camp at sunrise with Jean-Luc’s binoculars and some food and only returned at sunset. So, when on the seventh day he rushed back in at midday, it was clear that something significant must have happened.
I had been lying on my back in the grass, reading.
I marked my place and straightened up, holding my breath.
Einar stood up from his chair, abandoning the book that I knew he had only been pretending to be reading.
It took him a split second to arrange his facial expression into the mask of assured confidence that he always wore, and I felt a faint stab in my heart at the intensity of anxiety that had briefly flashed in his eyes.
“Lena and Emma and some other woman just ran out of the front gates and are heading this way,” Josh announced breathlessly. “But a cannibal was at the curtain wall above and jumped down to chase after them. He’s injured and limping, but so is Emma by the looks of it.”
Quicker than a heartbeat, Einar disappeared through the campsite gates in long, forceful strides, with a hunting knife fastened to his belt but armed with no other weapon.
Grabbing my bow from our tent, I rushed after him, and so did Josh himself, Dave, Russ, Albert, Mickey, Cyril, and others who had been nearby and had heard the news.
Rounding the corner, Bonifacio finally came into our view.
It was a spectacular sight. The proud fortress sat on the limestone cliffs of the narrow peninsula like on a throne, and the bulk of its pale stone gleamed in sunlight like a diamond.
From where we were nothing but the walls was visible, the houses and churches and squares beyond hidden from our sight.
We reached the marina, set on the strait dividing the peninsula from the mainland. Several half-sunk boats protruded from the shallow water awkwardly. As we ran, lungs burning and muscles protesting, palm trees swayed above our heads in the characteristically fresh, salty seaside breeze.
At the further end of the marina, a young woman appeared, running with all her might, strawberry-blond hair flying madly around her head.
The stretching road curved behind an assortment of colourful, multi-storey houses, so we couldn’t see who or what trod in her heels.
Einar reached her first and caught her by her arms. She struggled to break free, but he held her fast, asking questions.
He then let her go, indicating to her that she should run towards us.
Lena and Emma emerged from behind the corner.
Lena was carrying Emma on her back, struggling with the weight, unable to run with her burden.
Even from so far away, we could hear the growls that followed them.
Einar picked up his pace, arms pumping like the coupling rod on the wheels of a fast-moving locomotive.
But the fury was too close to the young women for him to reach them in time.
Slowing down, I nocked an arrow, aiming. But Lena either didn’t realise our presence or wasn’t willing to bet her sister’s life on me. She roughly shook Emma off her back, propelling her forward with a hefty push. And then she lunged at the male fury who was easily twice her weight.
“No, don’t do that, Lena, NO!” I yelled desperately, my voice echoing through the space, but ultimately lost in the whispering of the palm trees and the susurration of sea waves.
From that distance, I could not safely fire the arrow into the tangle of limbs and heads on the ground.
Einar reached them, brandishing his knife.
He grabbed the fury’s ponytail of greying hair.
Holding his head fast, he cut through the throat with such vehemence that the head almost came off.
It tilted grotesquely to the left, propped on the shoulder at an impossible angle.
Einar stepped back swiftly to avoid the spurting blood, his whole body visibly tense with adrenaline.
Our group, joined by the strawberry-blond girl and by a sobbing Emma, reached him shortly.
And then we all saw the terrible truth that had been concealed from us, but visible to him all along.
It wasn’t only the fury’s blood that pooled around the bodies, congealing on the burning asphalt, making the air around taste like metal.
It was Lena’s blood, too. The fury had bitten a hole in her throat.
By the time we got there, she was already very pale and lifeless.
Back at the campsite, Einar wrapped Lena in a sheet and put her in the coolest possible place, which was a windowless pantry we had ransacked earlier.
Einar had washed the blood off Lena in the sea before carrying her all the way back from the marina.
As an unusually tall, strong woman, Lena must have been a heavy burden even for a man of Einar’s stature.
And yet, he hadn’t stopped to rest, hadn’t once rearranged her weight in his arms. Aside from being slightly flushed in the face and breathing deeply through his nose, he gave no indication of having struggled.
Neither did he make a sound when he washed himself with boiling seawater mixed with disinfectant, his skin angrily red and painfully raw from being scrubbed down without mercy.
Having pushed a few tables together in the chequered restaurant, we all sat down, most of us conspicuously red and puffy-eyed. Cara, the strawberry-blond girl, and Emma shared a table separate from the rest of us.
“What happened? Have they all turned?” Einar asked Cara.
“I think so,” nodding shakily, she replied in an Irish accent.
“They all pretty much got sick at the same time. Lena tried to warn most of us women. Well, those she knew weren’t loyal to the bastards.
But avoiding the contaminated water is no use if you’re going to get raped at night.
I was only lucky because it was my time of the month, and the man who kidnapped me didn’t like to do it when I was on the rag. ”
Her pretty face scrunched up as if she were about to start crying, but she swallowed heavily and blinked hard, overcoming the urge.
“Do either of you feel ill at all?” Einar asked gently.
They both shook their heads.
“Good. We’ll still need to keep you quarantined from the rest of us for a few days, but that’s just a precaution. Now tell me: how do we get inside?”
“There is a large gate on the side closer to the marina. I don’t know if that one’s unlocked,” Cara replied.
“We left through the smaller one at the front of the fortress. It’s hidden behind the tower that is sort of embedded in the curve of the wall’s edge.
There is a stony path leading up to it. We left it shut but unlocked.
So you should be able to enter through there. ”
“We go today, then,” Einar announced.
My heart began to beat notably faster.
“Let’s go kill whatever remains of those arseholes. Let’s go take Bonifacio.”