CHAPTER 46: MASTERMIND
OMG! No!!!!!!!
My mind gradually emerges from unconsciousness. Everything around me is extremely blurry. I’m in a dark place. There's this small spotlight shining down on me and I can't seem to move. All I can hear is dripping water at a close distance.
What happened? Where the hell am I?
I feel this constant thumping on the right side of my head, behind my eye. At last, my vision is perfectly clear. I see these old rusty pipes on the ceiling. It appears that I’m in a warehouse of some kind, or maybe a basement. A hooded man is standing in front of me with his back turned.
He's cleaning something long and shiny on a wooden table. There's something on the wall over the table. It's too dark to make out. I strain my eyes to see what it is. The wall is decorated in razor-sharp knifes, surgical tools, and other various weapons. I begin to wobble, trying to free myself from this bondage, yet I remain unable to move.
I feel my heart pounding forcefully against my ribcage. I pause and look down at myself. I'm sitting in a wooden chair, tied down with braided rope. My forearms are strapped down on the armrest, nearly cutting off the circulation to my hands. At last, the mystery man rotates to me.
"Oh, you’re awake?” he asks and lets out a creepy chuckle.
I freeze when I realize who is talking to me.
"Professor Nelson?" I blurt out confusingly.
He grins widely with a sinister smile and replies…
"I do prefer the name Hellhound.”
OMFG he was Hellhound the whole time
I immediately begin to scream at the top of my lungs.
"Help me! Someone help!”
He approaches me carrying a tight fist, which he throws at my face. First, I see a quick flash in my left eye before my head severely jerks right. Somehow, there's two Professor Nelsons standing in front of me. I have to wobble my head in order to rid myself of the spinning feeling.
The merry-go-round gradually stops. My small headache has turned into a migraine. A moment later, I reposition my head center again. There's a bad stinging sensation in my ear from the blow he delivered. Also, I can hear a buzzing sound in my ear. I stare back into his eyes as my vision adjusts.
He raises his other fist. I shut my eyes tightly and brace my neck for the impact. My head whips violently and now I must start from scratch. It takes a little longer to regain focus. This time I can taste blood on my tongue.
"No need to shout, Ms. Hill. No one can hear you in this warehouse. I’ll let you scream all you want, when the time is right.”
"Why are you doing this?" I ask with my mind still spinning.
He breathes out heavily and leans back onto the desk.
"That should be self-explanatory by now. This is my purpose. I’m paving the way for my master’s return. I’m pretty sure you know all of that by now.”
He lets out a chuckle and picks up a pair of leather gloves from a table. He slips his hand into one glove.
"You know, when I killed Professor Grant, I thought I had you all to myself,” he pulls the bottom of the glove to make sure it's on well. "But that fucking boy found out. Remember that day in class, when I asked you about Professor Grant’s behavior?” he asks while slipping on the other glove. "I thought to myself, this girl is serious, she's absolutely clueless. Of course, I found out about your mark that same day Grant did. When I convinced you to go to that park, I followed you. But Mane had to fuck up everything.”
He pulls the other glove firmly, making sure it’s on nice and tight before intertwining his fingers.
"I know he’s been keeping track of our family. But he always looks outside the box. Sometimes the truth is right there in front of you. It’s funny how a simple thing like changing your last name can throw someone off. I would like to thank my half-brother, Cornelius, for playing along so well. He did a fantastic job.”
He lets out another chuckle then turns away towards the desk.
"But he told me he’d warned you. He said that you would run into a dead-end and you have.”
He laughs again but this time his voice sounds demonic. He then begins to look through his huge collection of weapons, deciding which one to use on me.
"Oh, and when I sent you the text, I knew you would fall for it. So, I had them total the car for me. And I swooped by to give you a ride to my fun-house. Oh, look what I have here.”
He turns to me with a camcorder pointed.
"Say hello. We're going to make a movie, starring you. We’re going to call it ‘The gruesome death of Iva Hill’. This is going to be fun because I’m posting it up everywhere when it’s done. Everyone will see me, everyone will fear me.”
He places the camera on the desk and positions the lens until it faces me.
"There that’s perfect,” he says satisfied.
"Please, don’t do this,” I burst into pleading tears abruptly. "Please, please, please,” I can't seem to stop crying as I plead for my life.
"Don’t waste your breath,” he says as he folds his arms and leans against the desk again.
“You’re too dangerous to be kept alive. You must be killed before your awakening; before we become the prey.”
“I don’t deserve this,” I cry out.
“A victim never does,” he says and shrugs his shoulders carelessly. “In this world, you’re either being a predator or you’re someone’s pray. At least, that’s what my dad drilled in my head since I could remember. This person I’ve become is because of him. He always felt that Cornelius was a letdown. He showed me how to murder, kill, and steal for power. I accepted it. I found power in killing innocent people. He showed me the person I was born to become.”
“A monster,” I reply.
“A prophet,” he corrects me. “God has killed more people than any of us and he’s divine. Then, if that’s the case, so am I.”
I then realize it’s absolutely useless trying to reason with this lunatic. There’s no use trying to negotiate with someone who feels like they’re born to kill innocent people for no good reason. I’m stuck here, bound to a chair with no one to help me. Yelling won’t do anything but entice him to kill me faster.
He then rubs his chin and squints at me, as if he just realized something he’d hadn’t noticed before. He points at me and smiles.
"You remind me of this girl. She was this beautiful brunette who lived next door to me. Her name was Grace. I was ten at the time and she was twelve. One day, I asked her if she would play with me and she said no.”
His smile falls flat during this part of the story, yet his eyelids expand.
"I didn’t take the rejection very well,” he begins to speak in a creepy, lifeless, way. “So one day, after school, she took a short cut through the woods. I followed her.”
He begins to approach me extra slowly, trying his best to act out the scenario.
"I knew that it was the time to act, so I did.”
He puts a fist up into the air, near his face.
"I picked up a rock the size of my fist and I crept up behind her, quietly,”
He extends his fist back. I feel my heartrate picking up as he silently tip-toe closer to me.
"And I got close to her. So close, I can smell her apple scented perfume. Then I called her name and she turned. I watch her beautiful smile twist into terror. And then…”
He swiftly throws his fist at me.
"Boom!" he stops his fist near my face.
My body flinches hard. He laughs in a gloomy, dark, voice again and stands straight.
"I hit the bitch hard. She was a stubborn one who didn't want to die. I hate stubborn victims.”
He shakes his head while sucking his teeth.
"They're like a..,” he moves his neck around. "...annoying tag on a shirt.”
He walks back to the table and leans against it again.
"She pleaded and begged. And I thought to myself, I just busted this bitch head open, and she believes that I’m going to stop?"
He pauses to shake his head again.
“It’s a shame, you know. If she wasn't so damn stubborn, she would've at least had an open casket,” he says and then explodes into a sinister laugh. “She was screaming at the top of her lungs. I then pounded her face in with that rock. Needless to say, she wasn’t pretty anymore. That’s when I realized that I loved killing. I knew this was my purpose. I never stopped since. I can’t stop. I won’t stop.”
The disturbing part of this story isn’t the story itself; instead, it’s the fact that he’s telling the story with so much ecstasy.
"Well enough talk, time to go to work,” he says to me while turning toward the table of weapons.
He starts to mumble a melody to himself as he looks through his tools. My heartrate skyrockets. I begin to sob again when I see him turning around. He has something in his hand. It's a small piece of metal. He slips the piece of metal over his glove.
"I think we'll start today with some warm-ups. I’m going to torture you slowly and painfully. Your mother will not recognize you after I’m done. Hell, God won’t either.”
He walks over to me with a hellish look in his eyes.
"You took that first punch like a champ. Let’s see how you hold up to……brass knuckles.”
"Please, I…”
Before I finish I feel my head jerk left, extremely hard.
All I heard was the sound of metal colliding into flesh. My ears are now ringing loudly and there's a terrible pain on my face; like a thousand bees are stinging me all at once. I try to center my head but my neck is too numb. Everything starts to blackout again. Professor Nelson helps me regain consciousness by tapping hard on my face. Suddenly, two Professor Nelsons become one again.
"Hey, hey, I'm not done with you yet.”
He helps me maintain my consciousness.
"Are you missing any teeth?"
He shifts my limped head center again and digs his fingers into my mouth.
"Nope, no missing teeth, damn, that’s too bad.”
I then feel this warmth flowing down from my nose.
"Broken nose, that’s one point for me,” he talks like a game-show host. “By the way, you can thank Jessica for that one. Someone has to pay for my niece’s broken nose.”
He walks back over to his equipment and tosses the brass-knuckles on the table.
"I love games,” he says as he searches through his large selection of weapons.
"Actually, it’s quite an obsession. Life itself is a game of chess. The whole fucking world is a giant chessboard. One person makes a decision and there is an outcome, for better or for worse. Mane understands that now, and I beat him in the board game and in real life. Now, you have to pay for his loss.”
He picks up a hammer and holds it in the air, studying it. Fear hits me hard again.
"Nah,” he puts it back down on the table.
He picks up a long blade and studies it. A thought lingers in his mind before he walks over to me with the blade. Boom! He slams the blade on the armrest directly between my fingers. I flinch automatically.
“Stay still. We don’t want you to lose any fingers, do we?”
He then begins to stab the arm of the chair, around my newly painted fingernails from earlier today. He stabs in between my fingers, trying to make me as frightened as possible; torturing me mentally.
“I’m getting good at this,” he says as he continues to poke the sharp blade into the wood of the armrest.
Then all of a sudden, he stabs my hand with the blade forcefully. My entire body cringes with pain. The worst part of it all is that I can’t shake the pain off because the more I move the more it hurts.
“Sorry, I slipped,” he says.
He pulls the knife from my hand, bringing up blood with it. He then turns and tosses the blade onto the table and survey’s through his assorted weaponry. I look at my hands as blood oozes down the armrest and drip onto the floor. However, I’m not looking at the wound itself, I’m looking at my nails.
A quick flashback reveals itself to me. I leave my current situation and find myself in Maria’s room, getting my nails painted by Jessica as we talk about boys. Then, just like that, I’m back in Hellhound’s twisted lair again. I then feel tears flow down my cheeks as I think about my friends and how terrified they are right now.
"Look what we have here,” he says with excitement as he decides what weapon he should use next.
He holds up an aluminum baseball-bat. Onc again, another memory flashes before my very eyes. I see myself with Eric and Jason, cheering as we watch a baseball game together on television. The next moment I’m back in my current dilemma.
"I want to play a little game. I haven't played it in a while. There's a door outside this one. If you find it, you win,” he pauses to think about what he’d said. “But you won’t win,” he assures me. “And if you lose...well, you get the idea.”
He waves the bat across his face.
"I call this game ‘I smash in Iva's skull with my baseball-bat’. I’m going to love this.”
He lowers the bat at his side and grabs a knife off the table. He walks over to me and I begin to panic like a madman. He points the blade between my eyes. The razor-sharp tip is sparkling in the light.
"Don’t make any sudden moves, or else I'll cut your fucking throat.”
My body tenses up like a statue. I look out the corner of my eye as he walks behind me. I can feel my nerves tingling at the tip of my fingers. One by one, the ropes loosens off my body. He pulls the ropes off of me and throws them to the side, but then he puts his knife close to my face again.
"No sudden moves or I'll shove this blade through your face.”
I watch him as he cuts through the braided ropes easily like a knife to butter. Finally, my left hand is free. He then frees my right hand, shortly after. He quickly grabs my shirt with the tip of the blade pointing between my eyes. I go cross-eyed looking at it.
"No sudden moves,” he warns me again.
He grips the back of my hair tightly and escorts me to a rusted door; each strain of hair feels like it’s about to be ripped from my scalp. He pulls the door open, and then he pushes me into this white hallway. I look up and see these construction lights hanging from rusted pipes. I look down at my shoes and notice some maroon paint underneath them.
I quickly realize that I'm standing on the giant word “START”.
“Beautiful isn’t it? I created this maze myself,” he tells me. “I guess this is where I wish you good luck.”
Instinct kicks in. I push his hand away and kick him as hard as I can. The kick lands in-between his legs. I notice the bat falling from his hand, so I quickly pick it up off the floor and take a swing. The bat collides into his arm. This causes his knife to fall down. I swing again, but he leans back and dodges my swing.
I swing again but he catches the bat with one hand and slaps me, forcefully, across the face. I fall backwards onto the cold floor. He smiles brightly at me and slaps the baseball-bat onto his palm.
"It looks like we have a fighter. That’s more like it. I'll still give you a ten second head-start,” he says to me, excitedly.
In a last desperate attempt to survive, I begin to cry.
"Please, don’t do this,” I burst into a crying plea.
"Nine!..,” he continues while shouting. "...eight! seven!…”
My mind switches to secondary-drive. I quickly stand and dart down the hallway, running as fast as I can. I make it to the end and see another long corridor on my left. I run in that direction. There's another right at the end, so I quickly dash in that direction without thinking twice. As I run, I hear Professor Nelson yell, "Let the games begin".
I feel another dose of fear and adrenaline shoot through my veins. I make it to the end of the hall and turn right without hesitating. As I'm running, I see him leap from around a corner in the distance with a blood-thirsty look on his face.
"Boo!" he yells down the hall at me.
I look left and see another long hallway, so I take off running again. I make it to the end of the long hallway and find another right. I take a second to use the wall to catch my balance and my breath. A second later, I begin running again. At the end of this corridor, I catch myself in a debate.
It's a three way intersection.
"It’s time for sudden-death!" his voice echoes from every direction.
My mind says left so I go left. I can feel myself getting lightheaded and my breathing is starting to become uncontrollable, yet I keep my legs in constant motion. I make it to the end of the hall. Then I realize it’s a dead-end. I collapse against the wall and begin to sob.
“Don’t quit,” I keep telling myself in my head.
I begin to think about my friends. And that makes me weep, badly. I can't die, not like this. Come on Iva, come on.
I inhale deeply and burst into a sprint, making my way down the opposite end. I push myself to the edge of my limits and exceed them. I can see the wall coming up. It's getting closer and closer. At last, I reach it. Oh no...It's another corner. I'm trapped.
I begin to sob. I feel all over the wall for some kind of door or opening, but it’s completely flat. I can’t die like this. I push myself off the wall to start running again but I have already lost the game. The bat is coming toward my face so fast that I can't even think about dodging it. I can’t gasp, scream, duck, or even blink. All I see is Professor Nelson swinging the bat…