Hunter’s gaze found Marlon before returning to the boy’s mother. ‘The sad truth is that therapy and shrink visits are mainly hogwash. It’s in their financial interest to keep their patients coming back. Marlon’s condition is a lot more common than you might think, Ms. Sloan. And though you might think you’re helping by being overly protective of your son, you’re not.’

Ms. Sloan glared at Hunter. Anger crept into her eyes.

He ignored her look and addressed Marlon. ‘Every week, just try to walk a block outside your comfort zone, Marlon, however far that might be. If you can’t manage a block, try half a block. Find a park bench and have a seat. When your breathing calms down, ask a passing stranger for the time. Next week, ask two. The week after that, three. Next month, walk another block outside your new-found comfort zone, and repeat what you did before. Before you know it, you’ll be making new friends and the whole anxiety thing will be behind you.’

Ms. Sloan’s glare morphed into an intrigued stare.

‘You don’t need a therapist’s mumbo-jumbo to crack this thing, Marlon. You can do it yourself. One small victory at a time.’

Thirty-Eight

Cautiously, Squirm raised his left hand and brought it to his face, but the tips of his fingers touched nothing. They paused less than half an inch from the swollen flesh that now surrounded his left eye.

Back in the projection room earlier that day, his trick had worked. By using both of his thumbs and index fingers, he had managed to force his eyes open and keep them that way while those horrific images played on the large screen before him. ‘The Monster’ didn’t seem to mind it. In fact, he had laughed out loud, telling Squirm it was an ingenious move.

‘I like that, Squirm,’ he said as he used his dirty fingernail to pick something from between his teeth. ‘You were faced with a problem, and you came up with a smart alternative. That’s clever. I like clever.’

Without noticing, Squirm’s breathing had become labored. He’d never seen so much blood. He’d never heard screams like the ones coming from that woman – guttural and overwhelmed with pain, drowning in terror, and completely void of hope.

Sharon, that was her name. The man had made him repeat it a number of times while the film played on. Squirm would never forget that name for as long as he lived.

On the screen, Sharon had finally passed out. Somehow she had managed to endure the pain for a lot longer than anyone would’ve imagined. Several minutes, in fact. Squirm actually thought that she’d finally let go of the desire to live and accepted the inevitable. That the film and her suffering would finally be over. But he couldn’t have been more wrong.

The images played on, and Squirm watched as ‘The Monster’ turned off the sander, placed it on the floor and walked over to where the camera was. Once he got to it, he zoomed in on the grotesque mess that her face was turning into. Lumps of skin and flesh hung loosely from her forehead and brow. Blood surged from her wounds in sheets. It ran down on to what was still left of her face, moving past her chin and down to her naked torso, but Squirm could see that Sharon was still breathing.

The ordeal was far from over.

‘Keep your eyes open, Squirm,’ ‘The Monster’ had said, excitement coating his words. ‘It’s just about to get really good.’

Squirm felt like something had gained life inside his stomach and had begun crawling its way up the inside of his chest. Shock had forced the boy’s mouth to fall half open. His hands were shaking and he had to keep readjusting his fingers so as not to let go of his eyelids. Cold sweat had begun trickling down his face and back.

The screen flicked to black for a moment, then it started again.

‘I had to stop filming.’ For some reason, the man sitting beside him had decided to explain. ‘It took me the best part of twenty minutes to wake her up again. But I’ll tell you something, Squirm, she was one tough bitch.’ He let out a croaked, over-enthusiastic laugh that made the boy’s skin crawl.

The new segment started from where the previous one had left off. More blood and tiny chunks of skin began flying up, propelled by the sander’s rotating disk, before cascading back down over everything like rain.

‘Next time, maybe you can watch it live, Squirm, what do you say? Wouldn’t you like to be in that room with us?’

Whatever had begun crawling its way through Squirm’s insides gained momentum. All of a sudden, it rushed up through his throat with incredible speed.

Squirm hadn’t thought it possible, but Sharon’s screams had gotten even louder, assaulting the boy’s ears with the effect of piercing needles. He was still doing his best to hold his eyes open, but there was no stopping the crawling creature from his stomach which had burst into the kid’s mouth in avalanche style.

Squirm’s body jerked forward violently and he projectile-vomited the little that he had in his gut all over the dark-gray linoleum floor. Some of it reached the screen.

‘You ungrateful sonofabitch,’ ‘The Monster’ had barked, jumping up from his seat. He was careful not to step on the mess Squirm had made on the floor.

The boy looked up at the man with total panic in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I’ll clean it. I’m sorry.’ He fell to his knees and used his hands to try to collect what he had regurgitated on to the floor.

POW.

The man’s opened hand connected with the side of the kid’s face, just by his left eye, with such force it sent the boy tumbling across the floor. He only stopped when his head smashed against the wall. Squirm’s eyes rolled back into his head a fraction of a second before he collapsed on to the ground like an empty sack of potatoes.

Without caring, ‘The Monster’ grabbed the unconscious boy by the hair, dragged him downstairs and threw him back in his cell.

Thirty-Nine

‘What was that about?’ Garcia asked Hunter as both detectives joined Officer Woods by his black and white unit outside.

‘Nothing, really. Just trying to give the kid a tip.’

‘OK,’ Woods said as he finished writing something in his notepad. ‘I’ve just come off the radio with Operations. Before you guys got here, I had asked them to run a quick check on what Marlon had said. That was the info I was waiting for.’

Hunter and Garcia were quietly impressed by Officer Woods’ approach. Most officers would have left all the checking to the detectives.

‘Anything?’ Garcia asked.

‘You tell me,’ Woods began, reading from his notes. ‘There really was a fault with the phone lines reported last month. AT&T sent two engineers to fix it on the twelfth, and yes, they did have a basket-crane truck with them. The fault was fixed that same day. Since then, AT&T has had no other reports, and they have no knowledge of any other faults with the phone lines in this area. They also said that they did not send any other engineers up here for a subsequent check since the fault was fixed. Not on the fourteenth of last month, or at any other time for that matter, and that includes last week.’