G.o.d is great, she thought, closing her eyes and swallowing, G.o.d is good, let us thank him for our food...

Little Messiahs.

by Eric Stoveken.

Leonard awoke from a chloroform daze knowing that he was in trouble. Adrenalin cut the pharmaceutical fog, and Leonard took in what he could of his surroundings. The room was a minimalist tableau lit by a low watt bulb dangling from a decimated fixture in the center of the room. The floor and the ceiling had recently been painted black, the scent of the paint still filled the room, and the walls were padded with soundproof foam.

Leonard's hands and feet were taped to the arms and legs of an old wooden chair. He had been stripped to his boxers and tie. His mouth was gagged and filled with blood, shivers wracking his body every time he bit down.

The chair was grabbed by unseen hands and flipped onto the floor. The move was not done with excessive force, but the ease with which it was executed suggested impressive strength behind it. Leonard suffered a broken nose and a split lip. The chair was returned to its proper position, and the voice of his captor came from behind Leonard's right ear.

"Do I have your full and undivided attention?" The a.s.sailant waited for the indistinct and pained mutterings that struggled to get around the gag before continuing. "I guess this is not exactly helping your communication skills." A hand crept around Leonard's head, ripped the duct tape off of his mouth and removed a large ball of aluminum foil. The sight of the gag not only explained the previous shivers down the spine but aroused several new spasms as well.

Leonard started screaming for help and was smacked hard in the back of the head. Blood rushed to the front of his skull, intensifying the throbbing in his nose and the ringing in his ears. "We will have none of that. It gives me a headache. Besides, the room is soundproof so any cries for help are just plain silly. So, now that you are able to speak, how are you feeling?"

"What do you want from me?"

"Do you have any idea how many times I've heard that question? And every time, it's asked as if I have a clearly defined motive. Granted, I do; but generally people who do this kind of thing do not. Furthermore, people ask as if my motive needs to relate to them specifically or be of such a nature that my revelation of it will lessen this ordeal. Neither of these is true and the question is pointless. Everything will be revealed in time. Now back to my question. How are you feeling, Leonard?"

"You know my name."

"It's amazing what you can learn from someone's wallet, Leonard. Your response does not answer my question."

"I'm scared, alright? Is that what you want to hear?"

"Excellent. Fear. We shall work from there, Leonard. Regarding your question as to whether or not that was what I wanted to hear, I will say this: the only thing I require of you during our time together is honesty. If you were s.e.xually aroused by my treatment, I would want you to tell me so. Granted, fear will make my job easier, but so will your cooperation and candid description of what you are feeling."

Leonard had not yet seen the face of the man who held his life in his hands, but he had listened carefully. The captor had been pacing back and forth behind him. The sound of his footsteps said he was wearing dress shoes. This implied a fairly formal dress code. The shoes were certainly not the sneakers or heavy boots that Leonard expected of a psychopath.

The voice was solid, but not deep; with the scratchiness of a lifelong smoker. His tone was intelligent and world weary, though not necessarily old. "Well then. What do you say we begin?"

The light went out; Leonard could hear pieces of wooden furniture moving somewhere in front of him.

The stranger working methodically in the darkness. Eventually, the faint sound of breath placed the stranger directly in front of Leonard.

The light snapped on and Leonard's eyes readjusted and gazed upon his captor. He looked like the most average middle-aged show salesman in all the land. Leonard was taken aback by the milquetoast ent.i.ty that stood before him. He had a paunch, faint traces of laugh lines etched in his cheeks and a receding hairline. He was dressed, simply, in slacks and a b.u.t.ton down shirt of an indiscernible brand or quality.

The a.s.sailant chuckled. "Not quite what you expected, am I? Fear not. You will be far more surprised with me by the time this is all over." He paused, gauging Leonard's response. "You're probably wondering what I have in store for you."

"I think I have a pretty good idea."

"And you are wrong," he replied with chilling confidence. The stranger was sitting on a chair just like Leonard's. On either side of him were folding tables with boxes on them, the contents of which could not be seen from where Leonard sat.

From the pocket of his shirt, the man produced a scalpel, which he fidgeted with dexterously as he spoke. "My name is . . . Roger," he explained. Leonard noticed Roger's meaningful pause and upward gaze before giving his name, as if he were making it up. If Leonard had no chance of getting out alive, he would have been told his a.s.sailant's real name. The pseudonym meant hope. "You should be honored by your selection. Your life may yet have some value in this world."

"Are you out of your f.u.c.king mind?"

"What a stupid question. If I am sane, I would tell you so. If I am mad, I will certainly deny it and give you the same response. You may as well ask me if I am a pathological liar.

"Enough logic games. We won't worry about the outside world or the rules and mores that define it. We are going to live in the moment, and in so doing dedicate all our energies to the task at hand." Roger took the scalpel and removed a jagged patch of skin from Leonard's left arm. The scream that followed lasted longer than Roger liked.

Annoyed with the pitiful shriek, Roger took the b.u.t.t end of the scalpel and sharply struck Leonard's broken nose. The pain was minor, but snapped the prisoner into silence. "Leonard, if you start caterwauling every time I touch you, this is going to take longer than it has to.

"Now we are presented with an open wound on your arm. This is terribly inconvenient for you, because, while it is painful right now, there is potential for infection and gangrene. That much exposed flesh can lead to blood poisoning and a slow painful death. Not fun, Leonard.

"I have beside me two boxes. In one I have the makings of a modern first aid kit. There are bandages, tape, antibiotics, and topical antiseptics. Everything that I need to care for that wound in a sterile and proper manner is in that box. You like that box, Leonard. The other box is filled with other ways of treating the injury. Iodine for that 1940's style medical attention. Kosher salt and whiskey should we opt for a more civil war era approach. Then there's the Tabasco sauce and sandpaper."

The prospects sent Leonard into a fit of fighting against his bonds and screaming for help that would never come.

"Now, now. This is not the sort of thing that I am p.r.o.ne to rush to judgment on. Each box has its merits that need to be weighed carefully. However, if you act like a child, I will be forced to make a snap decision. I may choose box number two simply because it requires less patience than box number one."

Leonard sunk into deep silence.

"You may have noticed that I have a lot of hatred inside of me and what may be described as 'a real mean streak'. Some might even say that I have too much hatred and cruelty for one man. They would be far more correct than they could ever understand. On a related note, you will be experiencing more pain than any one man should endure. You will feel as if you have died a thousand deaths by the time this is through.

"Which brings us back to the issue of the boxes. These boxes contain more than just instruments of pain or relief. They also contain the possibilities thereof. I can be merciful or cruel; and you need to try and guess which one I will opt for. It is in your nature to try and antic.i.p.ate my next move. That's a good way to drive yourself mad, attempting to crawl inside my head. So what would inspire me to take mercy on you? Quiet obedience maybe? Or do I want to see you spew invective at me like a drunken biker? What do I want from you, Leonard? I'm going to sit here for a little while and watch you think about that."

Roger leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. Leonard's look, an almost defeated pout, was more or less unchanging. Were it not for the determined defiance with which he cast his eyes downward, Roger would think that his victim had been broken far ahead of schedule. Dragging deeply, Roger decided to bide his time, waiting for Leonard to make some sort of move.

After ten minutes, Roger began removing the contents of the first aid box, silently cataloguing its contents as he set them down on the tray. When this brought no reaction, he shifted his attention to the other box; removing the bottle of hot sauce and juggling it from hand to hand. This continued for a couple minutes until he lit another cigarette and inspected Leonard. The same defiance was in his eyes, the same pout on his lips. The cut on the bridge of his nose had begun to scab, so Roger extinguished his cigarette on it, bringing Leonard back to full attention.

"I'll be right back. I warn you that this meditative bitterness bores me and I may be tempted to force some animation into you when I return. Think about what I have said and let's see if you can choose your fate." The light went out and the door opened and closed behind Leonard, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

The pain had faded into a white hot noise in the back of his head. It was Roger's apparent creativity, not the immediate pain, that worried him. He did, however, expect sterile treatment of his injury. Complications could narrow the window of opportunity for Roger to do whatever he needed to do. A lukewarm comfort, if that, was all that Leonard had.

Leonard knew he was in for more pain and suffering then he had ever imagined. Moments of fleeting kindness were the best that he could hope for. He needed to do everything in his power to bring those moments about. He tried to think.

The door opened in the darkness before Leonard could come to any meaningful conclusions. Footfalls shuffled into their position in front of him. Something was placed on one of the tables. Roger's voice crept through the darkness. "So, what box do you think I'm going to use, Leonard?"

Leonard could feel something in the air inches above his open wound. Not being able to see what it was or when it was coming drove reason from him and almost sent his ability to speak with it. "I don't know! I don't care! Just do it!"

"You couldn't bring yourself to see this situation through my eyes, could you?"

Leonard could feel the invisible hand creeping closer to the wound.

"I'm very disappointed in you."

At the moment that he most antic.i.p.ated the burn of cayenne and vinegar on open flesh, the lights came on revealing no hand near his arm and Roger sitting serenely in his chair. On the table next to him, a microwaveable burrito sat awaiting the hot sauce.

Before Leonard could take in this unthreatening scene, he cringed against his bonds and let out the whimper of a man beneath the dentist's drill.

Roger chuckled quietly. "A thousand deaths, my friend. Each one worse than the one before."

Leonard stared at his captor with his head still buzzing from the adrenaline and enough anger to impress him.

"Which I guess means I'll be committing a thousand murders." An odd remark, Roger's statement caused Leonard's face to drain of vengeance in exchange for curiosity. "Speak while you still can," Roger warned.

"It's odd the way you talk about all this."

"How do most people you know talk about kidnapping a man and torturing him for an extended period of time for reasons that he cannot begin to comprehend?"

The point was well taken; but in spite of his comprehension, Leonard found a bizarre reply falling out of his mouth before he could even think. "Most of the people I know call it marriage." He had made a joke. A joke cracked at a man who had broken his nose and cut a swath of skin from his arm and who had the ability to expand upon these injuries for an unspecified amount of time. Perhaps, insanity was setting in.

"Good answer. There is something that I can admire. Flippancy in the face of an uncertain future." Leonard cautiously noted that Roger had still not used the term "death" in any literal sense. Roger's amus.e.m.e.nt proved contagious and Leonard attempted a smile, trying to blend, to bond with the man who could kill him at any moment. Roger's demeanor remained cool. He pivoted sharply, glaring at his prisoner. "Now what would your wife say if she heard her husband talking like that?"

Leonard's smile vanished as abruptly as his captor's. "How the h.e.l.l did you know I was married?"

"You're wearing a wedding ring, Leonard. Now answer the question. What would Christina say if she heard you talking like that?"

Leonard steeled himself. Roger was trying to rattle him by mentioning his family. "I think she would be too traumatized by this situation to even speak."

"How right you are." Again that chilling certainty. "Tell you what. Because of your humor in the face of danger, I shall attend to your wound in a compa.s.sionate and sterile manner. Fair enough?"

Leonard now feared for his family as well as himself, but he struggled to remain cordial. "Thank you."

His grat.i.tude was laughed at. "You'll be taking that back before this is over." With nothing else, he set to work, gently cleaning the wound with an antiseptic that, while stinging, was far kinder than anything in box number two. The wound clean, the captor laid down a couple layers of clean sterile gauze and taped the bandage securely in place, wrapping the tape around the arm, being careful not to inhibit circulation. "There. How does that feel?"

"Much better. Again, thank you."

No sooner had the word "you" been uttered then Roger pulled a night stick out of his belt, bringing it down with bone cracking speed and focus on the bandaged wound. Leonard let out a scream that was silenced when he was knocked unconscious by a sharp blow to the side of the head.

When Leonard awoke, it was to the sight of Roger donning latex surgical gloves and organizing tools on a tray. "It is time for us to begin our work in earnest, Leonard. We are little messiahs, my friend, and yet, what sacrifice have we put forth? Virtually none."

Leonard was unable to respond as the aluminum foil and duct tape were back in place. Scalpel was taken in hand and a deep painful cut made on Leonard's right arm. He reflexively bit down on the aluminum foil ball, raising goose b.u.mps and worsening the pain of the incision as the skin tightened around it.

"You see, Leonard. I am on this Earth for this very purpose. Whether or not you were destined from birth for this is a matter of conjecture. You see, you were chosen for this. Whether it was by me or some higher force acting through my hand is a futile debate. Wouldn't you agree?" Roger picked up a surgical needle and some thread. "Now I don't want you to worry about these cuts. The needle and the thread have both been sterilized and the thread has been soaked in iodine. It will sting, but it will keep the st.i.tches free of germs and bacteria that may cause infection."

His st.i.tching was crude but efficient. While not trying to mutilate or damage the cuts, Roger was by no means gentle, causing Leonard to repeatedly bite down on the aluminum foil ball. "Just think of all the good that we are doing here, Leonard. You're dying a thousand deaths. Think about that."

Once the first cut was sealed, Roger quickly made another, inches from the first. This second incision went a little bit deeper and produced a trickle of blood. Leonard swooned and a low moan rumbled down in his throat.

"Before you pa.s.s out, let me tell you that I have plenty of epinephrine and thorazine. Any time you get to spend in the sweet void of unconsciousness is thanks to me." Those were the last words Leonard heard before fainting.

Consciousness came in the form of an epinephrine drip. Roger had gone on to open and close many more incisions. Leonard's arms and legs were covered in freshly sewn lesions which made themselves evident when the adrenaline kick caused his entire body to jerk to life. The muscles convulsed, the skin stretched, and the fresh lacerations were pulled taut against their iodine soaked bindings.

An attempt to scream produced the usual m.u.f.fled cry. Leonard looked around the room. No sign of Roger. Then came the spray. A fine mist shot into the air above Leonard's head and gently cascaded down on the fresh cuts. The prisoner let out further pathetic attempts at screams and fought madly against his bonds, worsening the pain of his mangled skin and sending new lightning bolts of pain through his broken arm. Spraying the mist, a combination of lemon juice, vinegar, and bleach, Roger walked around to face Leonard.

"I would normally have kept you awake for all those incisions, but I felt that I could make much quicker progress if I just went ahead and cut you up without your crying. Besides, I can always make up for the pain that you missed now that you are conscious. How are you feeling?"

Leonard's eyes darted frantically around the room. His heart raced. For a moment, he felt strong enough to try and escape before the pain kicked back in. Whereas he had previously been able to use shock and detachment to look at his situation calmly, he was now too frantic to comply his way to freedom. The adrenaline and the pain and the endorphins all sang the ballad of fight or flight; but his lacerated and bruised muscles had other plans, leaving his body locked in a state of suspended animation.

"You know something? My suture job wasn't really sufficient to seal some of those gashes." The madman walked to the back corner of the room, returning with an industrial soldering iron. The sight sent Leonard into more futile and painful fits of resistance. "I'll just have to cauterize the wounds, for safety's sake."

He first applied the iron to a cut on the right knee. The skin on the knee is relatively pain resistant. Even so, it was by far the worst pain Leonard had yet experienced. The pain is unique. There is intense heat at the actual point of contact, but the nerve endings there are quickly killed. The heat, however, is such that from the central burn emanates a spectrum of damage and subsequent pain. Skin crisping burns still torment the living nerves closest to the point of contact. Further out, secondary burns still tenderize the flesh beneath the skin. Beyond that, first degree burns, little more than a sunburn, but having appeared and blistered in seconds stings the skin. These a.s.sorted pains const.i.tute but a fraction of the miasma of sensation flooding the victim's mind.

There is a sound, quiet in the stillness of the room but thunderous in the ears of the victim; a hissing sound of hair being singed and that first layer of skin sacrificing its moisture to the searing metal. The hissing lasts just a moment before being replaced with the sizzling of flesh, of meat cooking. And what meat cooks without giving off a scent? Roasting human flesh lets off a noxious stench made all the worse for the victim by the singed hair musk that wafts up ahead of it.

This symphony of pain was to play in its entirety for Leonard every time his captor touched metal to flesh.

"Do you understand why you are here yet?" Leonard had been reduced to choking sobs and could only shake his head. Too damaged to move, too drugged to faint, he was trapped in the chair and in the hands of his madman torturer.

"Well, you see, I'm like a sponge." Iron touched flesh, the symphony played. "I soak things up." Another pause and a third lesion was sealed. "Specifically, I absorb negativity. Do you know what that means?"

Leonard again shook his head, this time more desperately as the pain was compounding with every second.

"When I say negativity, I mean so-called bad feelings. I mean anger, hatred, bitterness, rage, envy, contempt, loathing, and cruelty. All those a.s.sorted feelings that can lead perfectly normal people to do things like this."

As Roger spouted the litany of negative emotions, he touched the iron to a wound for each feeling. Leonard swooned again, but remained trapped in a chemically forced state of hypersensitive consciousness. His mind wanted to fly to some safe and warm place away from the body, but was held back by pharmaceutical chains.

"The people who have these emotions aren't driven to anything this severe." Sizzle and burn, another cut sealed. "Which brings me ever closer to the reason that we are here right now. You see, normally the emotions that I soak up take the form of little problems. Little crimes, little sins, and little transgressions. Sometimes they are as minuscule as cutting someone off at an intersection or being rude to a cashier. Ironically, it is usually being the recipient of such behavior that would cause a person to do such a thing. Vicious cycles are born.

"Then there are the bigger sins and bigger crimes. They come from the same place, you know. Murder is just the result of negativity, just like starting a fight, calling a name, or cheating at cards: lackadaisical expressions of negativity." As he went on, Roger continued the step by step cauterization of Leonard's legs. "Do you see what I am saying?"

Leonard could not even shake his head by then. He hung his head, eyes shut tightly with tears creeping out the corners. His chest heaved with quiet sobs. He'd known people who enjoyed pain, s.e.xual m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.ts and exercise junkies. They all spoke of the epiphany; of the moment of clarity and tranquility that comes from pushing your body over the edge. He had captured a faint taste of that escape with the broken arm and the broken nose. He had begun to float, and while he hated the eerie sense of detachment when it was happening to him, he now yearned to feel it once again. The carefully regulated IV's in his arm saw that he stayed right where he was, body, mind, and soul. Roger was good. He had done this before. For the first time, the painfully real specter of imminent death reared its ugly head causing Leonard's sobs to become all the more pathetic.

Roger's fist crashed into Leonard's already damaged face with surprising force and stealth. The uppercut rocked the chair back so far that it nearly spilled backwards. His ears rang, but could not drown out his captor's screaming. "You sniveling punk! You think this is fun for me? Have you been listening at all? All those feelings, all that hatred and anger and fear and loathing and bitterness and contempt; that is not fun. At first it's a bit of a rush. A tingle in the base of the brain, a hot flushed feeling in the arms ready to strike at the first person foolish enough to cross me. It has a strength that comes with it. That's not where it ends. It keeps building. It stockpiles itself in the crevices of my being and it makes itself at home because chances are it has been there before. It builds until I must release it. Like here. Like now. And why do I go through this? Because this is my cross to bear. Because by taking all those emotions, all those little cruelties and private murders and pouring them into this one pure, simple, and isolated act, I spare the world at large. I stop the vicious cycle and slow down the wheel of Karma. I save lives and minds and souls through this sacrifice. This is not a hobby. It is my destiny."

Leonard's eyes were wide with shock, fear, and desperation. There was also a sense of pity that felt grossly inappropriate.

"You want to know where you play into all of this?" Leonard nodded a weak affirmation. "There is a flipside to all the bile that I take upon myself. For every cruelty there is suffering. For every crime there is a victim. When someone hits another person the sting is felt, and when someone commits a murder someone else must die. That is where you come in. You are taking all that upon yourself and expelling it in this same pure act. This same ritual in which I expel what demons I can from society, you take its pain. You take its suffering and bleeding and bruising and crying and anguish. We are little messiahs, Leonard. Be proud of what you are accomplishing here today."

The terror that lurked in that moment was more intense than anything that Leonard had felt. He did not know how to feel, what to say. The pain was still lighting up his nervous system and the blood still dripped warm and sticky from some of the less carefully attended cuts. He thought that he was a broken man, but the implications of everything that had been said were such that he knew his ordeal was just coming to speed. If anything was to be a source of comfort for him it was the idea that he was helping humanity, and that his torturer was just as pained as he was. He desperately wanted to believe it all.

Roger clapped his hands together loudly. "Ah, but how I prattle." The smile that spread across his face had enough evidence of glee in it to cast a shadow of doubt upon everything that preceded it. Had all that talk been part of the game? Or had it been the truth? Roger turned off the IV drips. Perhaps he was finally getting tired. He waited for the drugs to work their way out of Leonard's system, idly pa.s.sing the time drawing intricate patterns on his victim with the soldering gun.

When at last it looked as the drugs had run their course and that Leonard was ready to slip into sleep or unconsciousness or that blackness whose name does not matter, Roger sharply slapped the broken arm to bring him to attention.