The Cage (11 page)

The pain in her hand had crescendoed into a sharp, throbbing ache that kept her anchored in the present and wouldn’t allow her mind to drift away to a more peaceful place. Holding her hand under the water helped. She realized absently that this opened the wound to infection, but what did it matter now?

Her head fell back against the blackened surface of the basement wall, and she prayed for death to take her away from the pain.

Then, as if answering her prayers, a voice in the distance echoed from down the corridor.

“Jennifer, I know that you’re down here! I heard you scream. I’ve got a proposition for you. I’m going to give you a chance at your revenge . . . but my offer doesn’t come without a price.”

Moving forward in a daze as if compelled by a Siren’s song, Jennifer followed the sound of Ackerman’s voice. David was surely dead. Kendrick and Ferris had likely been murdered as well. She was the only person left to stop Ackerman from escaping, but she had given up that pursuit. Now, she only hoped that the killer would make her death quick and painless and that God would somehow forgive her sins and allow her to be reunited with her family and David, the man she loved.

She moved toward the exit of the Chamber of Horrors. She had always found the nickname of the old basement amusing. The place hadn’t been a torture chamber out of some horror novel. It was merely an old wing of a hospital that had been used for procedures that had been commonplace across the world. Her coworkers looked back upon the deeds as gruesome and terrible, but the men and women who conducted the operations were only trying to do what they thought, with the limited knowledge of their time, to be in the best interest of their patients. Although she supposed that there were some doctors who were overzealous and took some sense of sadistic pleasure in the acts— just as there were bad apples in modern medicine— most, she suspected, were normal people trying to do their best.

Just as she had tried to do something good. She only wanted justice. What was so wrong about that? Ackerman deserved to die for all that he had done, and it was her right, her privilege, to be the one who carried out his sentence. But despite the best of intentions, she knew that others would regard her as the villain.

None of that would have mattered if she would have succeeded in her plans, but as fate would have it, she had failed. And those around her had paid the price.

Ahead, a light bloomed into existence. Holding up a hand in front of her face as her eyes adjusted to the sudden illumination, she saw a figure at the end of the hallway. As her vision came into focus, she noticed that the iron bars of the old security door sealed off the end of the passage between them. Ackerman stood beyond the bars, and a chair rested in the water behind him.

A figure sat upon the chair.

Cold shock eroded her fear and propelled her forward, hope rising up inside.

David had survived.

His wrists and ankles had been secured to one of the old hospital chairs with duct tape, and more tape covered his mouth. His eyelids appeared heavy, and she noticed blood oozing from a wound in his shoulder. Multiple cuts and contusions lined his face, and a sallow shade had overlaid his normally tanned complexion. But he was alive.

Wanting to hold him, she rammed into the bars, but found them secure. Tears poured down her cheeks, and icy tendrils shot up her wrist and forearm as her ruined hand made contact with the iron. She slammed her other forearm impotently against the bars.

She screamed at the top of her lungs. “No! Let him go! Haven’t you done enough? Haven’t you tortured me enough?”

Ackerman didn’t seem to enjoy her pain. He didn’t smile or laugh as she might have expected. He simply stared into her eyes, his expression unreadable. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but stopped himself.

He looked away for a moment and then softly said, “We’re going to play a little game, Jennifer. Let’s call this one . . .
Giving the Devil His Due
. ”

“I’m going to give you an opportunity to end my life. You can finally have your revenge, or justice, or whatever it is that you think my death will achieve. But I want you to know that killing me will not bring you peace. I suspect that nothing ever will. For either of us.”

Tapping into a deep well of rage, Jennifer said through gritted teeth, “Maybe. But why don’t we find out for sure?”

Ackerman shook his head and sighed. “Did you know that my father, as part of his research, not only subjected me to all of the terrible and traumatic events that had taken place in the lives of the world’s most notorious killers, but he also forced me to read countless books? I never quite understood why, but I suppose that he wanted to see how the subject matter contained within the volumes affected me. One book that he made me study in detail was the King James Version of the Bible. Although I never quite became a convert, I can still quote several memorable passages. One such quote from Jesus—who is generally regarded as a wise teacher whether or not you believe in the truth of his divinity—comes from the book of Matthew. ‘For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’”

She couldn’t tolerate another word. She spit at him through the bars and said, “Don’t you
dare
quote the Bible to me! You’re a sick murderer, and you have no right to stand there and lecture me. The Bible also talks about the concept of an eye for an eye, but you don’t have enough blood to pay for all that you’ve shed.”

Ackerman’s calm facade melted away, and before she even realized that he had moved, he slammed into the bars in front of her. He stood within inches of her face. She could smell the stink of his sweat and feel his hot breath upon her skin, but she stood her ground and did not shy away from him. She could see his jaw clenching as he tried to contain the fury that always simmered just below the surface of the mask he wore for the world. His words poured out in a flourish. “Jesus also said, ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ But this little debate is getting us nowhere, and I really should be going. That is, if you don’t kill me. So let’s play.”

Ackerman pointed toward a spot on the wall behind her. He raised his flashlight to illuminate an electrical box with a large switch on its side. The box was new and seemed very out of place among its surroundings. It appeared to be only temporarily mounted upon a set of pristine two-by-fours. Ackerman said, “I assume that was installed recently so the construction workers could easily shut the power on or off as they came in for work in the morning or left for the night.”

He redirected the flashlight’s beam to a spot below the electrical box. An old table had been pushed against the wall and weighted down by a large chunk of debris. “If you really want to kill me, just stand on that table and throw the switch.”

Ackerman walked back to David’s chair, taking up position behind his prisoner. He shone the flashlight upon a large, bare coil of wire resting between David’s legs. “I pulled this wire out of the wall. It’s connected to that electrical box. All you have to do is throw the switch, and your revenge will be complete. All that you’ve worked for, hoped for, will come to fruition. The voltage in the box is 120, but it’s the current that kills. And it’s more than sufficient to end a man . . . or two men, as fate would have it.”

Her eyes settled upon David.

“Throw that switch, Jennifer, and we’ll both be electrocuted,” Ackerman said. “I know that you care greatly for this man. I can see it in your eyes. I saw it the first day that I came here, when he placed his hand on your shoulder. The action radiated a sort of loving tenderness. A British writer named James Allen once said, ‘He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much.’ I told you there would be a price for your revenge. If you’re willing to sacrifice your friend here, then you can put an end to all this right now. You can beat me at my own game.”

Jennifer knew nothing of wiring and electricity, but she did remember Kendrick mentioning that Ackerman had damage to his amygdala—the portion of the brain that controlled fear—and that this resulted in a diminished capacity for the killer to be truly afraid. She imagined that this lack of fear would also lead him to not fear his own death. With that in mind, she reasoned that Ackerman was telling her the truth.

If she sacrificed David, she could have her revenge.

But at what cost?

She looked into David’s eyes for some sense of his feelings, but all she saw was fear. She found no affirmation or resignation, no sign that he was willing to give his life. Nothing that she could use to console herself or reconcile what her rage wanted her to do.

She loved this man, and he loved her. Two weeks before she learned that Ackerman was coming to Cedar Mill, she had caught David fumbling with something in his pocket. Later, out of curiosity, she had searched his jeans and found the ring. The thought filled her with warmth. Who knew how long he had been carrying the ring around, working up the courage to propose to her? And at the time, there was nothing she had wanted more in the world than to be his wife. When he held her, she felt safe. His touch was electric. She had never experienced greater happiness than in the moments when he pulled her close and gently ran his fingers through her hair.

He had opened a door to her, a path that led to a normal life. She had no illusions that it would be perfect or that they would always get along, but she knew that he would always love her and watch over her.

But Ackerman had to be stopped.

Great achievement came through great sacrifice. How many others would be hurt or killed if she allowed him to walk away? She couldn’t simply stand by and permit him to sow the seeds of pain into the lives of so many more innocent people.

She tried to look at the situation with some objectivity and determine which path would be less selfish, but in her mind, both roads led to her own selfish desires. One led to a normal life with a man she loved, and the other gave justice to her family and the families of all of Ackerman’s other victims.

There was no right choice. How could she live with herself either way?

Ackerman said, “I hate to put a rush on such a pivotal moment in your life, but I’m walking out that door in fifteen seconds.”

She tore her eyes away from David and settled upon Ackerman’s face. The face had grown older, but the look in his eyes hadn’t changed from the night when they had burned into her memory.

Her heart thundered.

The faces of her family swirled inside her mind.

Nausea and dizziness threatened to bring her to her knees, but she refused to give in. She refused to let her guilt, her fear, and her pain control her life any longer. She had a chance to break the chains that had shackled her for so long.

The rage exploded deep within her. Nothing could stand in her way.

Ackerman had to be stopped. He had to be punished for stealing her life.

Without another glance at David, Jennifer stepped up onto the table and pulled the switch.