“Look!” Agnes pointed at the screen showing images from all four surveillance cameras at the petrol station. The image in the upper right corner showed the insides of the carwash hall. The camera was placed high up, beneath the ceiling in one of the corners. The picture showed mainly the carwash floor where the carwash customers and their cars would be, if there was anybody about to use the carwash that is. Nobody was, of course. The carwash hall was empty. You could also see the open gate leading out of the carwash and the three huge brushes that would whirl around, washing the cars when the carwash was in use. And you could also see the outer wall opposite the camera. The outer wall was made of aerated concrete. You could sense the rough structure of the aerated concrete blocks through the plaster and layers of white paint.

The recording from the camera was in black and white, making it impossible to judge the colors of the words someone had written on the wall. Still, Agnes was in no doubt. The color was red. Nobody would write something like that in green or blue.

Belinda grabbed her arm, hard, her nails digging in. It hurt, but she didn’t try to break free. “We’ll call the cops,” she said in a firm voice as she struggled to catch Belinda’s eye.

However, Belinda’s eyes were glued to the screen and the five words someone had written on the white aerated concrete wall. The paintbrush and paint bucket left casually on the carwash floor.

Belinda’s voice was thin and like a mouse as she read the words out loud. “Tonight you shall both die!”

“We are calling the cops,” Agnes repeated, this time releasing herself from Belinda’s grip.

“Tonight you shall both die!” Belinda reread the words again for no reason. “Tonight you shall both die!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

A FLUFFY SEA OF GREEN CURLS

 

She writhed in pain, screaming as she was pulled along by her hair over that concrete floor. Desperately trying to free herself. She scratched at the hand dragging her, tearing at its flesh, digging her nails into its skin. But it was all in vain. The hand was merciless.

She had nothing but a faint idea of how far she’d been dragged along—three, maybe four meters? Certainly far enough for the raw concrete to shred the skin on her hips, legs, and feet.

The light was still a blinding explosion of white when she was forced into a standing position and the vice-like grip on her hair released. Desperately blinking her eyes, she tried to open them against the bright light, and in a daze, she glimpsed a dark shadow moving closer before she was hit by a fierce punch to her stomach. All air exploding from her lungs, she doubled over, gasping for air.

The push from a firm hand on her forehead sent her stumbling back into a chair. And even before she managed to get her breathing back to normal, she’d been tied to it.

Sitting there, she slowly opened her eyes, still panting for air but with less pain, she found her eyes had finally adjusted to the bright light, it was less blinding now.

She saw white walls, the plaster hanging loose here and there. She saw the mattress where she’d woken up less than an hour ago. She saw dark stains of what must be dried blood on the floor, the walls, and the mattress, even though that couldn’t be possible. Not here, not in Denmark. This was a torture chamber. Shackles on the walls and everything. Dried blood everywhere. This couldn’t be happening. Not in Denmark. No way!

She clocked Benjamin lying on the floor, pressing her t-shirt against the wound in his thigh. She heard him rasp, “No!” And saw him struggling to get up without success, his wounded leg not cooperating.

She tried to turn around to see the man standing behind the chair but the ropes around her arms and legs were far too tight. Her hands were fixed to the back of the chair, her legs lashed to the chair legs, making it impossible for her to move an inch. Still, he was right there, behind her, she caught but glimpses of his dark shape from the corner of her eye.

Him. The man who dragged her by her hair over the concrete floor, who punched her hard in the stomach, who tied her to this chair. The man who must have stabbed Benjamin in the thigh with a knife. The man who must have captured them both, beating her up badly. Her memory was clouded. She recalled the slow evening at the petrol station: Belinda and the final, she remembered the words on the wall in the carwash, the moving air pump, her thesis, the love doll in the backseat of the BMW, and some of what happened later. The beatings, the pain inflicted upon her, the darkness. But no faces. She recalled no faces at all.

“Who are you?” Her mouth was dry, her lips swollen, making the words hoarse. “Who are you? What have we done to you?”

Wriggling her body, she struggled to turn the chair around, but it didn’t move much at all. She caught sight of a white painted iron door that looked like something out of a nightmarish prison cell, covered in bloodied handprints. She noted cameras under the ceiling, and a large mirror covering a major part of one wall figuring, as she saw it, that it was not a mirror, but a one-way window. She imagined the man sitting behind the glass watching his victims suffer.

She started weeping. “Please, let us go? We haven’t done anything to you! Please! Please!” Still, deep within her soul, she knew pleading for her life wouldn’t help at all. They weren’t the first victims he’d brought into this hellish basement, and he wasn’t about to stop.

And she saw Benjamin roll onto his stomach and try to push himself forward. The t-shirt left behind and blood flowing freely from his wound. It was only now she noticed the pool of blood under him. So much blood. He dragged himself forward, leaving a wake of bright red blood behind him.

At that moment, the man left his spot behind her, moving around the chair, he stepped out in front of her.

He was wearing white clothes, overalls, like the slaughterhouse workers wear. The white uniform was covered in blood, from neck to toe.

His face was hidden behind a clown mask. Only, it wasn’t a regular clown, not like the clowns in a circus. It was a distorted clown. A sad clown. The face of the mask was pure white. The eyebrows were thin, arched slashes high upon the clown’s forehead. The hair a fluffy sea of green curls. A sparkling silver tear under one eye completing the image of a sad clown. However, the blue eyes glaring out of the eye holes in the mask were anything but sad. They were alive, exited, lecherous, and intense.

She’d seen those eyes before, she thought, unable to place them. Maybe the terror had deluded her mind?

She turned her eyes to Benjamin lying face down on the concrete floor, panting. He’d stopped dragging himself toward them.

The clown reached out to fondle Agnes’s naked breasts with slow and fumbling fingers.

“Don’t,” she begged him. “Please, don’t.”

The clown said nothing. She could see his eyes ogling her breasts as his clumsy hands pressed, squeezed, explored, and groped them. A new wave of terror coursing through her as he started to pinch her nipples softly, making sweat roll down her sides. She wailed. “Don’t!”

He continued to squeeze and pinch them as a mix of tears, sweat, and snot dripped from her chin…to his hands…to her breasts. Concentrating on the left nipple, he squeezed hard, tormenting her as he twisted it around, nails digging in. The gleam in his eyes increasing as his pupils grew larger and a ray of bliss ignited deep within their darkness.

Then out of nowhere, he released his grip.

Heaving out loud, Agnes collapsed against the back of the chair. Her head falling forward, straining her neck muscles. The next thing she knew, a heavy bag was being pulled over her head, making everything dark again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ON THE DISPLAY, THE NUMBERS 112

 

TOnIGHT YOU SHALL BOTH DIE

The letters were red as Agnes knew they would be. Block capital letters. All but the single n. A cold wind was blowing through the carwash gates and Agnes huddled against the cold.

Belinda bit her lip, looking both scared and reflective at the same time.

Agnes was still holding her cell phone in one hand. On the display, the numbers 112. She was not too fond of the darkness outside, nor the threat on the carwash wall, yet she was still to make the call. The muscles in her hand holding her phone were aching with tension. She tried to relax a bit but it was hard.

Her eyes moved to the surveillance camera high above them. “The recording from that camera will show who did this,” she said softly. However, they didn’t have access to the hard disk where the recordings were stored. They were locked away somewhere off-premises. She didn’t even know where. “I’ll call the police and then I’ll call Arni.”

Arni was the owner of the petrol station. The only person she knew for sure to have access to the recordings. He needed to come ‘round. He made the system this way in an effort to avoid robbers or shoplifters from destroying the evidence of their crimes.

Belinda searched the darkness outside. “I’ve got this awful feeling we are being watched.”

“Let’s go inside and call the po…What? What is it?”

“Someone’s out there! By the billboards!” She pointed out of the carwash to the two large billboards on the left side of the petrol station. One of the billboards advertising a brand of cereal that mostly consists of chocolate, the other a movie about Swedish crime. Between the two billboards, she glimpsed a person.

“I see him,” Agnes whispered, her heart leaping into her throat. “I’m calling the cops right now. I don’t like this.”

Belinda was silent.

Agnes hesitated, finger lingering above the call button on the display. “What’s that in his hand?”

“A cell phone,” Belinda said. “He’s filming us.”

Agnes pushed the call button as the guy stepped forward, strolling toward them. The cell phone connected and beeped once, before Belinda snatched it from her hand and cut the connection.

“Why did you do that?” Tears were filling Agnes’s eyes. She was properly afraid now. Outside, the guy was closing in on them, holding up his cell phone, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was filming them.

“It’s Christoffer,” Belinda confessed, a tormented expression on her face.

Agnes felt her jaw drop as all the anxiety, all the fear, the tingling sense of being watched melted into a ball of anger. “Your boyfriend? Mr. Happy Slap?”

“It’s not my fault, okay?”

“Did I scare you girls?” he shouted, laughing.

Agnes looked at the words on the wall. The lowercase n among the capital letters. “You recognized his handwriting. That’s why you told me not to call the police before we’d examined the carwash!”

No answer, Belinda had already left the carwash, rushing to her boyfriend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

HE REMAINED STANDING THERE A FEW LONG SECONDS

 

“Are you fucking insane or what?” Belinda yelled, pointing her finger at Christoffer.

He was still filming. Still laughing. Struggling to speak through his own laughter, he snorted, “You thought…it…was…real!” and pointed the camera at Agnes coming out of the carwash with a grim look on her face.

“That!” Agnes pointed at the words on the carwash wall. “That is just, so not funny! I’m calling the police.” She had her cell phone ready in the hand not pointing at him. “I will not tolerate this!”

Christoffer killed his laughter. “Oh, get real. It’s a joke! You can handle a joke, right?”

They just stared at him. Agnes dialed 112 on her cell phone, not taking her stare from him.

“Stop filming us!” Belinda demanded, trying to grab Christoffer’s cell phone. “Now!”

He lowered his phone and killed the camera. “Wait a second,” he said to Agnes. “Please, don’t call the cops. I can explain.”

She stared at him in silence, as he quickly typed something on his phone.

“What are you doing?” Belinda reached out to snatch the phone but he was faster than her.

“Okay,” he said, sliding the phone down into his pocket, “I’m ready.”

They were standing there, the three of them, illuminated under the canopy of the petrol station, scrutinizing each other. The air tense with anger. He cast his eyes down to his worn shoes, slumping his shoulders.

“I’m sorry, okay? I thought, this would make us all laugh our asses off. But, hey, okay, it seems I was wrong…”

“Right now, I don’t know if I ever want to see you again,” Belinda declared.

“Who’s going to remove that paint from the carwash wall?” Agnes asked, unaware of subconsciously moving closer to Belinda.

“Come on. I’ve said I’m sorry, right? It’s not like it was my idea in the first place.”

A car appeared in the distance on the highway. The blueish light from the headlights sweeping the bitumen. Agnes let’s her eyes follow the car. It was a big car. The engine had a deep, hollow sound to it. Maybe the exhaust muffler was broken. She had time to wish the car to stop at the petrol station before it passed them by.

Belinda paced around yelling, “Christoffer, I’m not the mood for any bad excuses right now. Why don’t you just fuck off!”

“Some guy offered me a grand to do this, okay? I told you I was broke. I sent him the recording just a minute ago when you tried to grab my cell. It wasn’t my idea. I just figured we’d all laugh about it afterwards, like, a prank or something.”

Agnes pushed her cell phone down in her back pocket and shot Belinda a hard stare. “I’m going inside. It’s windy and I’m cold.”

Belinda nodded and then turned to Christoffer. “I want you to fuck off right now. I don’t want to hear any of your little stories, get it? Just fuck off.” She turned on her heel and followed Agnes to the shop.

As the automatic doors closed behind them, Christoffer looked a little like a scared sheep that had lost its flock. He remained standing there for a few long seconds, before turning around and walking back to the billboards. There, he disappeared back into the darkness where he’d appeared only minutes earlier. Shortly afterwards, the silence of the evening was broken by the sound of his scooter as he headed out onto the highway and sped toward town.

“How come we didn’t hear the scooter before when he got here?” Agnes wondered out loud, now sitting on the counter watching the red dot of his taillight disappearing into the night. “It’s pretty noisy, that scooter.”

“He may have pushed it along.” Belinda toyed with the string from her white hoodie. “I know how this sounds, but he’s really…“

“Fucked up.” Agnes finished her sentence, and suddenly they were both laughing again.

Still, the laughter died quickly this time and silence took over.

“You think he was telling the truth, claiming someone paid him to scare us?”

“He’s so full of shit.” Belinda seemed to shrink before her eyes. For some reason she’d pulled up the hood, hiding most of her head under it. “Who knows? It might be true. You never know. I just think he’s very insecure, he has massive problems with his self-esteem. He doesn’t mean to hurt anybody. He just gets these weird impulses and sometimes he acts on them, not really thinking about the consequences. I don’t think he can handle it. Couldn’t you tell he was sorry for what he’d done? Maybe I was too hard on him? I don’t know. Why does everything have to be so complicated?”

Agnes dangled her feet, sitting on the counter, watching the deserted petrol station. “I wonder if the final is over by now,” she said in a low voice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE EXPECTATION OF PAINS TO COME

 

The bag closed tightly around her head. She couldn’t see, and could hardly breathe. Gasping for air, panic building inside, her heart beat like crazy while the ropes cut deep into her wrists and ankles, the back of the chair hurting her shoulders. Although she couldn’t see anything, she jerked her head toward the sounds of the clown moving.

He circled the chair slowly. Then went over to Benjamin and started manipulating him into another position. Benjamin stayed silent. Maybe he was unconscious, maybe he was too scared to speak, maybe he had given up pleading with the clown…Maybe he was dead?

She was suffocating beneath the bag. Couldn’t breathe at all, the bag was too tight, her body too stressed, the panic inside her too severe. Sweat dripping off her, despite the cold of the basement.

She heard the iron door open and the rustle of a few people entering the room. They spoke in hushed voices, not much louder than whispers. Despite her best efforts, she was unable to catch more than loose words and fragments of their conversation. Her breathing in the bag was too noisy as she wheezed and gasped for air. She felt dizzy.

Then a bare hand touched her skin. It wasn’t the clown, it was a small hand, a female hand, maybe. She tried to pull away as another hand, this one larger, more masculine, closed around her left breast.

They were still talking. She understood that she was the topic of the conversation, still, her ears only caught loose words. “…better with Danish girls…illegal whores…Thai…intense…looking forward to this…” There were several voices blending into one, and all so low, and the situation so horrifying. It was impossible for her to even determine how many people were in the room, if they were men or women, or to even separate out one voice from another—it all blended in to one, becoming a blur of panic and terror.

And the expectation of pains to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BELINDA’S VOICE EVAPORATING INTO THIN AIR

 

Belinda lingered by the door as Agnes slid her laptop into the backpack, collected her papers and books.

“We can’t just leave and go home. We are working here!” Belinda argued.

“I’ll call Arni and tell him what’s happened. He has to understand. I can’t be here anymore. Not tonight. Look at my hands! They’re shaking.” Agnes held her hands up for Belinda to see. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going home.”

“It was just Christoffer. It was just a prank. Listen to me, Agnes!”

“It wasn’t funny to me.” She placed her backpack on the table and shoved her books and papers in next to her laptop. After that, she dropped her arms by her sides and looked at Belinda. “What are you saying?”

“Closing time is less than two hours away. I need to get that paint off the carwash wall. If Arni sees it and finds out that Christoffer did it, I’ll lose my job. I’ll be sacked the minute he finds out.”

“No, you won’t.”

She retorted. “How well do you know Arni?”

Agnes tilted her head. Actually, she didn’t know the man at all. She hadn’t had this job for more than a few weeks. “Maybe I’m overreacting,” she said. “It’s the thing about someone paying Christoffer to scare us that I don’t like. The thought of someone sitting somewhere else, getting their kicks outta watching the recordings from Christoffer’s cell phone; That’s what freaks me out.”

Belinda smiled. “He’s so full of shit sometimes. Don’t overthink it, it was probably all lies.”

Agnes sensed her face tightening. Unable to return the smile, no matter how hard she tried, she turned away from Belinda to look out the window. The window was facing the dark back side of the petrol station and, by now, she really couldn’t see anything but the reflection of the back room. She nodded and closed her eyes, trying to gather her thoughts and feelings. She was scared. But she was also angry. Anger being the dominant feeling she reckoned now, as she took the time to reflect on her own feelings. And it was Belinda who was the subject of her anger. The threat Christoffer painted on the carwash wall hit some nerve deep inside her soul, and she was not going to stand for it. Besides, she was goddamn tired of listening to Belinda making excuses for him! She’d had it with this crap. That was it, kaboom, thank you so much Belinda. I’ll leave it up to you to get your ass out of this bloody mess. I’m out of here!

Agnes filled her lungs, aiming to release her anger. She didn’t believe in anger, she didn’t believe in acting out on impulse. So instead, she grabbed her backpack, looking straight at Belinda who was clenching her hands deep in the pockets of her hoodie.

“Belinda,” Agnes said in a calm but cold voice. “I can’t stand listening to you making excuses for that loser anymore. I got so fucking scared, okay?”

Belinda nodded. “So did I.”

Agnes held her glare, still feeling the rush of anger, and an unfamiliar and unwelcome urge to hurt Belinda.

“Let’s see if we can find a way to get that paint off, shall we?”

It took a while for Belinda to comprehend the words but when she did, her face lit up with relief. “Maybe the paint’s still wet, we need to hurry.”

A tired sense of release took over as anger left Agnes’ body. She did well, she thought. She was above her own fury. She’s better than that, she’s just proven that she is. “Maybe all we have to do is to start the carwash?”

“We might want to remove the paint pail before that.” There was joy forming in Belinda’s voice. However, that stopped the second they heard a car entering the petrol station.

“That better not be Arni showing up,” Belinda said, going out into the shop.

Agnes followed her, thinking what a night, and shaking her head. But the next instant, she was slamming into Belinda’s back, who had halted abruptly.

“What is it?”

“There’s no car.”

Agnes peered over Belinda’s shoulder at the brightly lit area under the petrol station’s canopy. No car anywhere.

“You heard it too, right?” Belinda asked.

“Of course, I did.” She pushed past Belinda to have a look at the screen showing live images from the surveillance cameras. No car to be seen anywhere. Not in the carwash, not by the petrol pumps. “Maybe it went around the back?”

“Why should it?” Belinda’s voice evaporating into thin air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOU ARE THE STAR OF TONIGHT’S SHOW

 

Someone tore the bag off her head, the heavy fabric scratching her nose and swollen lips. A second after, the bright light hurt her eyes, and again she was blinded, but not as fiercely as the last time.

A few seconds passed before she was able to glimpse the dark shadow of the clown moving in front of her, the light still hurting her eyes. A few seconds more, and the clown emerged in all his hideous insanity: The blood on his white slaughterhouse overalls. The crying clown mask. The green hair.

He was alone. The iron door behind him was closed and Benjamin was tied to a chair like herself. A black bag made of heavy cloth over his head, with a yellow smiley printed on the front of it. Only partly visible from where she was sitting, but more because Benjamin’s head was resting against his chest. His body now limp, blood still flowing freely from the wound in his thigh, running down his seat to pool on the concrete floor. He was dying. He needed a bandage. Someone had to stop the bleeding or he was going to bleed to death.

The clown bowed deeply in front of the one-way mirror and then turned to each of the three video cameras, miming a happy salute to each of them. Two of the cameras were positioned under the ceiling in the corners of the room, the last one she couldn’t see from where she was seated, but judging by the direction the clown saluted, it appeared to be placed somewhere behind her back. She could hear a fait hum from one of the cameras, as it zoomed in on her face. She felt very naked, very vulnerable, and very afraid.

The clown stroked her chin with a soft hand, gently lifting her head to force her to look directly into the camera.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She moved her head, trying to shake off his hand.

“Tell us your name, Agnes.”

That voice. Like the eyes. She knew it from somewhere.

“What is your name?”

“Ag…Agnes Birkemose.”

“Please, Agnes, would you be so kind as to tell us something about yourself?”

Terror wracking through her body and soul, her mouth was dry. She shook her head. “Please, let us go. Benjamin’s bleeding so bad, he needs to go to the hospital. Please.”

“Tell us something about yourself! How old are you?” He tightened his grip on her chin as his other hand slid into his pocket. “How old are you!”

“Twenty-six.”

“Where do you work?”

“The petrol station.”

“The young gentleman sitting in the other chair is your boyfriend, correct?”

He shoved her head sideways to make her glimpse Benjamin, but jerked it back immediately. Now, he was holding a strange tool in his other hand. He lifted the tool for her to see. “Do you know what this is?”

She shook her head. “A…pliers?”

“It’s shears for steel plate cutting.”

She was scheming like crazy, trying to figure a way to get out of the chair but it was hopeless. Whoever tied her up knew what he was doing. Shivering, she broke down crying as he opened the shears and slid them over her breasts. He caught one nipple between the two blades and squeezed the handles just enough for the shears to dig into her flesh, but not breaking the skin. She stiffened, trying to pull away, but of course she couldn’t. Her skin shone with a mix of sweat and dirt.

“You are the star of tonight’s show, my beautiful. It’s a sad show; A tragedy, filled with pain and passion. It’s a dark and shadowy circus you‘ve become a part of, but tonight, you are the star. Now, salute your audience!” He turned her head toward the one-way mirror. “You can’t see them, but they can see you my dear. Salute them!”

She was shaking so badly, feeling so scared, she couldn’t find the words. Nothing but incoherent sounds escaping her swollen lips.

The clown gently squeezed the handles of the shears again, making the blades dig deeper into her nipple, sending a flash of pain through her body.

She screamed.

“Greet them!” he repeated.

“He…Hello!” she whimpered.

“Tell the audience that you honestly hope they will enjoy your death.”

“No, no! You mustn’t! I haven’t…”

The shears dug in deeper. “Say it!”

She was crying so hysterically now, sobbing loudly as she said the words, “I…hope…you will…enjoy…my death.”

“That’s a big girl,” the clown whispered, patronizing joy in his voice. He removed the shears from her breast and turned to face the one-way mirror. “Let the show begin!” he shouted triumphantly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIKE ‘DISASTER DATE’ ON MTV

 

“Why would anybody drive around the back of the petrol station? Why?” The words flying out of Belinda’s mouth, still her voice not much more than a whisper.

“How would I know?” retorted Agnes, eyes locked on the backdoor, as she pulled out her phone. “Where else could it have gone? Tell me, did you notice any glare from the lights of the car?”

“No.” Belinda looked from the cell phone in Agnes’s hand, to the backdoor. “You’re not calling the police, are you?”

“I’m calling Benjamin. I didn’t see any glare from the headlights either. Still, we both heard the car turn into the petrol station. We heard the engine. It tells me one thing. Somebody must have switched off the headlights in advance before turning in here, and then also the engine as the car rolled around the back. I’m calling Benjamin, to tell him to come around and pick me up this instant. You can come along if you want to.”

“But why would anyone drive around the back with the lights out?”

“Why would anyone pay your boyfriend to scare the shit out of us?”

Belinda swallowed a lump, turning around to check out at the brightly lit area. “Someone has moved the air pump again. See!”

“Of course, they have.” leveled Agnes, not even glancing at the air pump and calling Benjamin, “They like their games.”

“They?”

“Sure—one man couldn’t do all this by himself.” The phone beeped against her ear, Benjamin not answering the call. “If he’s not answering because the final’s still on…” sneered Agnes through clenched teeth, when the answering machine took over.

“Hi, this is Benjamin. I’ve probably left my cell phone somewhere. Leave a message after the beep and I’ll get back to you when I find it.”

“Benjamin! It’s me. I want you to come to the petrol station right now and pick me up. Something’s happening…I don’t know what…I’m scared…hurry!” She cut the line and stashed the phone away.

“The first time that air pump was standing like that, I thought to myself that it smelled like candid camera…” Belinda looked at her, a faint hope flickering in her eyes. “Do you think…?”

“No.”

“Like ‘Disaster Date’ on MTV or…”

“This is too creepy. I’m so scared, Belinda. Candid camera’s supposed to be funny, right?”

“Maybe…It’s funny afterwards?”

Belinda’s lower lip began to tremble, to quiver. Her hands began to shake, and fear flooded her eyes, as they both heard the unmistakable sound of a car door opening behind the petrol station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

AND SUDDENLY SHE MANAGED TO BREATHE AGAIN

 

“Don’t cry, Agnes,” the clown cooed. “It’s only showbiz after all.” He transferred the shears to his other hand. “I promise, I won’t kill you, okay?”

Agnes was hunched over in the chair as far as the ropes allowed. Tears and drool were dripping from her chin. She turned her head ever so slightly and sized up the clown, trying to read his eyes behind the mask.

“I promise,” he repeated. “I won’t kill you—and nobody else will either—until you beg us to do it.”

He laughed. A goofy, sneaky, almost shy laugh. He sounded a little like a teenage boy trying to lure a girl out of her panties.

The clown turned his back to her and shuffled in tiny swinging, dancing-like steps over to Benjamin, who still appeared unconscious.

“No!” Agnes gasped. “Don’t. Leave him alone!”

The clown tore the smiley bag from Benjamin’s head, opened the shears and placed them under Benjamin’s nose.

Agnes stiffened as the terror of the situation drained her lungs, paralyzed her, made everything stand still. Her lips formed a silent ‘no’ but she had no air to make the sound.

Conversely, there was plenty of sound to be heard when the clown snapped the shears shut, and Benjamin jolted to life. Howling from pain, he threw himself about, unable to free himself from the ropes. The clown used the shears again, and again…

Agnes couldn’t see Benjamin as the clown was now blocking her view, but she could hear him, and she could certainly hear the snapping sound of the shears.

Suddenly she managed to breathe again. She screamed, yelled, spat, threatened, bargained, begged, cried. She was unsure her words gave meaning anymore, she was unsure, she gave meaning anymore, she was so lost in this madness, this terror, the stench of blood.

With horror, she witnessed a finger falling to the dirty floor, and she couldn’t takes her eyes off it. That finger had touched her, caressed her, she had kissed it, bit it, held it. It used to be Benjamin’s finger.

She stopped screaming, slumping her shoulders. Her chest heaving as her breath hissed through her sore throat and tears blurred her vision, still she saw the finger. It was lying on its side, giving her a clear view of the nail. Her eyes locked on the finger, riveted. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, daren’t, mustn’t take her eyes from the finger. There was nothing but the finger here. Nothing else was happening. She couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t accept that this was happening. It wasn’t happening to her. It’s not her boyfriend, not her beloved Benjamin being cut open with shears for cutting steel plates. It’s not his blood pooling under the chair. It has nothing to do with her. She’s shutting it out, closing herself down, blocking it all out.

The clown was at his best. He even started whistling a happy little tune as he sliced away. Blood oozing down his hand, making the gloves slippery. Repeatedly, he was close to dropping the shears, but he wasn’t going to let a small thing like that stop him. He was an artist almost at his peak. Benjamin had fallen silent now. Dead. Still this didn’t stop the clown. He was possessed, bewitched by bloodlust.

Meanwhile, the three cameras zoomed in with a greedy humming, two of them aimed directly at Agnes’s face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I JUST FELT TRAPPED BEHIND THE COUNTER

 

Soon after, the car door slammed shut, followed by the sound of shouting and a commotion out the back.

“What’s happening?” Belinda whispered.

Agnes bent down to grab the fire extinguisher from the shelf beneath the counter. She lifted it, weighing it in her hands, and replied with a shrug. She jumped up onto the counter and slid down the other side.

“Where are you going?” Belinda reluctantly shifted her stare from the backdoor to look at her.

“I just felt trapped behind the counter,” Agnes whispered, once again scouring the lighted area around the rows of petrol pumps. The air pump was still standing in the middle of it all. She spotted lights out on the highway, moving in this direction. A single headlight. She remembered the two fools with the love doll and the camera, driving the BMW with the broken headlight but it could’ve been anybody. It didn’t matter, so long as they stopped at the petrol station.

The commotion out the back had stopped and all was quiet again.

“You got a weapon?” Agnes asked.

Belinda shot her a long, silent stare, her eyes narrowed. She was biting her lower lip hard, making it turn white despite the firm layer of lip-gloss. She nodded and lifted a heavy wrench. “From the box of forgotten items,” she whispered.

Agnes nodded. Why the hell didn’t she think of looking in that box for a weapon? It was full of stuff customers had left behind at the petrol station; tank covers of all sizes, cell phones, sunglasses, and all kinds of stuff. People forgot the weirdest things.

“You cover the backdoor, okay? I got this one.”

A fast nod.

Just then, the backdoor slammed open and Christoffer stumbled inside. His hair a sweaty mess clinging to his head. His eyes wild, exited, scared. He staggered, grabbing the wall for support, sending magazines, newspapers, and bags of candy tumbling to the floor. Then fell to his knees gasping for air.

It was only then that Agnes saw the blood, and in seeing the blood it was impossible to comprehend that she didn’t notice it sooner, as the whole front of his shirt was covered in it.

“Run!” he gasped as he slid to the floor. “Run for your life!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOOSING THE BALANCE FOR A MOMENT

 

“Christoffer!” Belinda dropped the wrench and fell to her knees next to him. He was muttering incomprehensible words, holding his stomach, where his blood had dyed the fabric red. “Talk to me, Chris! I’m here. I’m right here.”

Unable to shift her watch over the wide open backdoor and the darkness behind it, Agnes backed away from where Belinda was kneeling over Christoffer. She backed into the shelves of potato chips, losing her balance for a moment as bags of chips fell to the floor all around her. The whole row of shelves caving in and crashing to the floor, pulling her down as it hit the fridge and the postcard stand, flipping it over and sending postcards flying everywhere. Rolling on to her hands and knees, she started moving instantly, stumbling out of the automatic doors with her pulse hammering in her ears. Only to face the bright glare from the sole headlight of a motorcycle with a sidecar.

Benjamin!

She ran to him, throwing herself into his arms, before he even turned off the engine. He laughed, trying to get a hand free to take off his helmet. “Oh you heard baby! We won! We won the final!” He laughed, kissing her hard on the mouth, but stopped abruptly as soon as he sensed she wasn’t kissing him back.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIKE A BIRD SPREADING ITS WINGS

 

Later. Time was making no sense. But it was later. Definitely later. Benjamin’s dead body had been removed. A long time had passed before it had happened. At least it felt like a long time. His dead eyes staring at her, life drained from them. Still they stared, boring into her. It felt like forever. The cameras zooming in and out, turning on their hinges, with that faint humming noise.

The horror of what was to come next made every cell in her body shudder in expectation of pains yet to come. The terror growing each time she heard footsteps outside the door, and her eyes darting back to Benjamin’s dead body, or the pieces of him lying around.

His stare. Dead eyes staring at her.

At last, the clown came back. He released the ropes still attaching Benjamin’s body to the chair, pushed the body to the floor and grabbed it by the legs, pulling it along like a sack of potatoes.

Agnes watched on in silence. Petrified.

Benjamin’s body left a scarlet trail of blood on the concrete floor. Fingers missing on both hands, his stomach cut open, his nose, ears, and mouth cut to pieces. As the clown dragged the body along, Benjamin’s arms slipped up along his sides and over his head, like a bird spreading its wings.

She watched as he was dragged out through the iron door into a dimly lit hallway. She saw the dirty white walls, the raw concrete floor with drainage holes, a naked light bulb on a wire hanging from the ceiling. She saw a layer of dust on the socket and on the light bulb itself. And then the door slammed shut.

Now she was alone. Trying hard not to look at the pieces of her beloved still lying around, strewn carelessly in the pools of blood on the floor. The cameras were busy capturing it all, zooming in, greedily, eagerly, passionately. Agnes felt empty. She felt disconnected, lost in a reality that couldn’t be real.

She watched as the door opened and the clown returned, carrying a shovel and a thick black plastic rubbish bag. He leaned the shovel against the wall and opened the bag, rolling down the sides to make it stand open on the floor. Then he performed a little dance routine before returning to the shovel, which he grabbed Fred Astaire-style, before using it to scrape together the remains of Benjamin’s body into a pile that he finally shoveled into the bag. With this done, he closed the bag, set it down next to the iron door, and scraped the pools of blood and other bodily fluids down a drain in the concrete floor. He was thorough. Even so, some of the blood had already soaked into the raw concrete floor and couldn’t be removed.

The clown exited the room, leaving Agnes all alone with no sense of time at all. She stared purposefully into the wall, to not see anything.

And she waited.

Waited.

Not wanting to.

Not knowing why.

But she waited.

Until the doors flew open and the clown reentered the room, dragging behind him a half-naked, beat-up woman whom he carelessly threw on the mattress. The woman’s body was covered in dried blood. Her hair long, bleached, and messy. The breasts were large and a bit saggy. Agnes didn’t recognize her at all before the clown laughed, “I guess you two know each other, right?”

Belinda.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IT’S MY DUTY TO HELP

 

“We have to go!” Agnes yelled, breaking Benjamin’s embrace. “There’s a killer! A maniac!”

Astonished, Benjamin giggled. “What, baby? Are you kidding?”

“No! Christoffer’s been stabbed! He’s lying inside the shop. There’s blood everywhere!”

“Who’s Christoffer?” He dropped his helmet down into the sidecar, looking in all directions at the same time. “There’s nobody here.”

Agnes shook her head furiously and pointed to the shop. “There’s a car around the back of the shop. I don’t know who drove it. Christoffer’s Belinda’s boyfriend. He’s lying inside the shop!”

“Where’s the guy who stabbed him?”

“I don’t know. Around the back, maybe. I…but…No, stay here! Don’t go in there!”

“I’m a medic, Agnes. It’s my duty to help if somebody’s been hurt.” He took her hand and pulled her along. “Come on. We can’t leave him there, can we?”

“But…You don’t understand! We need to get away from here! We’re not safe here!”

“Agnes.” He sent her a tired glance as he pulled her hand again. “Come on.”

She yanked her hand from his grip. “No!”

He shrugged, raising his hand in amazement. “I’ll be right back,” he said in a tender voice and ran to the shop.

“Benjamin!” she shouted after him, but by that time the automatic doors were already closing behind him.

And that’s when she realized that she’d lost the fire extinguisher, in her haste to escape the shop.

Around her, outside the brightly lit area of the petrol pumps, the darkness almost seemed to sneak in upon her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IT’S OKAY, I’M A MEDIC

 

Benjamin was met by complete chaos as he entered the shop. Upturned shelves lying everywhere, postcards and bags of potato chips scattered all over the place. Over by the counter and the backdoor a very young, and very frightened, woman was observing him. Mascara running down her cheeks, she was kneeling next to a lifeless young man, the front of his shirt soaked in blood.

“I think he’s dead,” she says. “I can’t find the pulse.”

Benjamin rushed over to her. “It’s okay, I’m a medic. That’s not the right way to check the pulse. Here, we need to stop the bleeding.” He surveyed the chaotic room while his fingers fortunately found a calm and regular pulse. “The pulse’s fine. He’s going to make it. Do you have a cell phone?”

“Sure.”

“Call an ambulance!”

She just stared at him blankly.

“Now! Call an ambulance!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

AFTER THAT, IT WAS ALL DARKNESS

 

Agnes’s legs buckled under her and she fell to her knees next to Benjamin’s motorcycle. Leaning against the sidecar, she counted to three and used all her strength to pull herself back onto her feet.

“Benjamin!” she whimpered. She wanted to shout the words, but terror blocked her throat, all she managed was this weak whimper. She’d never been this scared in her whole life. Never ever. How could she let Benjamin enter the shop? Why wouldn’t he listen to her?

She cried. No longer the adult woman she’d been for years now. The reasonable, educated woman she was proud to have become, was gone. That caring, sensible, and cultivated woman she had learned to think of as herself was gone, gone, gone. With nothing left but a scared little girl, a frightened animal caught in bright lights under the canopy of the petrol station. That brightly lit spot in a sea of darkness. Her senses were alert, sharpened by fear and adrenaline. She smelled the gasoline, the hot motorcycle engine, the old leather on the seat of the sidecar. She detected the tiniest details, some rust on a scratch of the motorcycle tank, a few strands of grass under the legs of the billboards, a microscopic piece of glass on the tarmac. She spun toward sounds she couldn’t place. The wind? Voices? A weak hissing from the air pump. The ticking noise from the motorcycle.

A car door opening.

Behind the shop.

She swallowed again, and again, unable to rid the lump from her throat.

She stared at the shop windows but could see neither Belinda nor Benjamin. She took a step toward the shop, shaking so badly she could hardly stand.

“Benjamin!” Again, all she managed was a whisper. Tears flowed freely from her eyes, streaming down her cheeks, dripping from the tip of her chin. “Benjamin!”

One moment she thought she could hear his voice demanding an ambulance, the next, she wasn’t sure she’d heard it at all. She took another step and fell down hard on the tarmac as her legs gave way again.

The last shred of reason that was still present inside her, understood that she was in a state of shock, but that didn’t really help her any. She put her hands on the tarmac and pushed herself back up to her knees, feeling her heart pounding against her ribs like a boxer. A wave of dizziness flushed through her the second before a sound behind her made her turn around, just in time to see somebody kicking her in the head.

After that, it was all darkness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A BALL OF BARBED WIRE

 

“There’s no time!” Belinda cried, grabbing Agnes’s Doctor-boyfriend’s arm. “Don’t you get it? They’re still outside!”

He flashed her a hard glare. “I can’t find the stab wound. It bloody well has to be here somewhere. What’s his name?”

“Who?” She could neither look at Christoffer nor Agnes’s boyfriend. Her eyes had a life of their own, constantly returning to the backdoor.”

“This guy your boyfriend?”

“Christoffer. His name’s Christoffer.”

“Great. Now listen to me. It’s very important you listen carefully. He is only going to survive if we get an ambulance out here immediately. You want him to survive, right?”

She nodded. “I do. But they are still outside. It’s the two guys who came by earlier. Or at least, I think it’s them. Anyway, it’s them, it has to be, I knew it right away. They had a love doll in the backseat. They were filming Agnes. I told her they were evil psychos, but she wouldn’t listen to me, and now look what’s happened! They’re out back in their BMW. They’ll come in here any minute. We are not safe here. We have to go. We have to take Christoffer with us. Don’t you understand? They are dangerous. They stabbed Christoffer! They’re sick I tell you.” She could hear herself ranting, not at all coherent, but there was no time to tell this story from the beginning. “I saw it at once. They’re the types who’d kill their neighbor’s dog when they were kids. They also made Christoffer pull an evil prank on us. They’re maniacs, I’m telling you. Listen to me! Fuck your fine medical education and fucking listen to me!”

“Are you going to call that fucking ambulance, or do I have to do it myself?” His voice hit her like a punch to the face. She stopped talking as her insides twisted into a hard knot like a ball of barbed wire. He wasn’t going to listen. She understood that now.

He was waiting for her to make the call, a commanding, impatient glare in his eyes. “Are you calling?” he insisted, in a voice trembling with restraint.

She took her cell phone out of her pocket but she never made the call, because in that moment they both heard the sound of a car door opening, and seconds later slamming closed. They heard footsteps approaching the open backdoor.

“I told you!” Belinda whispered.

“Agnes…” he realized quietly and shot up.

“We have to bring Christoffer along,” she implored to his back.

But he wasn’t listening. “Agnes!” he bellowed, thrashing his way through the sea of chip bags, stepping on some of them, making the bags explode. Chips flying everywhere, as he kept screaming, “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE STREAKS ON HER DIRTY FACE TOLD THE STORY

 

“Agnes? That you?” Belinda asked, as the sound of the clown’s footsteps disappeared outside the iron door. She struggled to a sitting position on the mattress despite her aching body. “Agnes?”

“Yeah.” The woman tied to the chair in the middle of the room turned her head slowly to reveal a heartbroken expression. “He killed Benjamin…with a…with a…” She gasped for breath, but she wasn’t crying. Still, she had been crying. The streaks on her dirty face told the story. Now, she grimaced, snarled, and gasped for air. Like a hurt animal. “Shears for cutting steel plates. He killed Benjamin with shears. Right in front of me.”

Belinda drew her legs in tight into her chest. She said nothing. What could she say? It seemed pointless to tell Agnes about the violence she’d been the victim of inside another smaller cell somewhere else down in this nightmare of a basement. How could she speak of the beatings she had endured, the kicks. How she’s been groped all over her body, how she’s bled, lost a tooth, been tormented with clamps everywhere, nose, ears, lips, breasts, arms, cheeks…How could she possibly speak of this, when Agnes had been forced to watch as they butchered her boyfriend? She tried to nod her head, not really sure what it was supposed to imply, or even if it showed at all when she was shaking as badly as she was.

“We are being filmed,” Agnes uttered after some time. “There’s cameras there, and there, and there.”

“Snuff…” Belinda’s voice was calm as death. “Fuck.”

“I think it’s even sicker than that. I think there’s a live-audience. Behind that one-way mirror over there.”

Belinda observed the mirror. “You think they’re watching us right now?”

“Oh yeah. They’re watching, and listening, wanting to indulge themselves with every torment, every suffering of ours.”

“We will both die tonight.” Belinda hugged her legs even tighter.

Agnes didn’t answer.

Silence filled the room, no sounds coming from the outside, no footfalls in the hallway, no distant voices, no humming from zooming cameras. Nothing but the hiss of their own breathing.

“Maybe there’s a break in the show?” Agnes started to wriggle her hands that were still tied behind her to the back of the chair. “Do you think you can get these ropes off me?”

“What if he comes back?”

“Then he’ll kill us.”

“But…”

“But he’s going to anyhow. I need to get these ropes of off me. We have to fight him, the two of us, you can’t take him down alone.”

Belinda shook her head. She’d already tried to take him down before. That’s how she’d lost her tooth. “But they can see…they can hear us.”

“Yes. If they are watching us right now. I think they might be upstairs somewhere having a break, drinking coffee and eating cake before the grand finalé. The cameras were zooming in and out all the time before, now they’re all quiet.”

“You can actually hear the cameras zooming?” Belinda glanced at the nearest camera. “I didn’t think a camera zoom was supposed to make any noise?”

“Maybe they’re some kind of cheap junk made in China. What do I know? I heard them zooming.”

Belinda bit her lip so hard it hurt. “Okay,” she answered dimly. “I can try.”

“As long as the cameras stay silent,” Agnes said, squinting her eyes, “we are safe, I think.”

Belinda crawled to Agnes and began working on the rope around her right leg. “Fuck,” she muttered. “They’re really tight and my fingers are fucked up. I can hardly…” She started crying but continued to work on the rope, despite the pain from her broken nails and the sore, swollen joints of her fingers. It was a difficult job and progress was so slow.

“Hurry!” Agnes whispered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE CELL PHONE BEEPED AGAINST HER EAR

 

Kneeling by his side, Belinda stroked Christoffer’s face, feeling the stubble scratch the skin of her hands. She looked from his bloodied shirt, to the bags of chips lying everywhere around them, to the automatic doors. For a brief second, she glimpsed some sort of movement outside the shop windows, then it was gone. She turned to the open backdoor and the darkness behind it as she dialed 112. Her hands were slippery, covered in blood, snot, and tears…the cell phone slipped from between her fingers.

It crashed to the floor, a cacophony of sound hitting her like a wave of thunder. She stiffened, listening, as her stomach tied itself into a hard knot. Footsteps coming this way.

Wiping her hand on the legs of her trousers, she picked up the phone and swept her eyes from one door to the other while she dialed 112. This time, she made sure not to drop the phone.

It connected, the cell phone beeped against her ear, and then a cold female voice answered. However, Belinda didn’t get to utter a single word, because in that same moment a strong hand seized the back of her neck out of nowhere and smashed her head down on the floor. The first hit sent explosions of color and light through her vision, by the second hit, darkness took over.

 

 

 

 

 

 

HE HAD A BAG IN HIS LEFT HAND

 

Having untied both of Agnes’ legs, Belinda had moved on to her hands. She was crouching behind the chair, struggling with the ropes as footsteps echoed through the hallway outside the iron door. Agnes felt the tiny glow of hope that had been starting to build inside her chest shatter and die as she turned her head toward the door. She heard a key enter the lock of the door. “Fuck,” she mumbled, feeling lost.

Belinda quickly scrambled to the mattress.

Then the doors swung open, and the clown appeared in the doorway. He stayed there for a while, looking from one to the other, before he closed the door and moved to Belinda.

Agnes wriggled her hands to get a sense of how close Belinda had got to untying them. She wasn’t even close. Only the rope around her left hand appeared to be a bit looser than before.

The clown grabbed Belinda, pulling her up by her long hair and dragging her into the middle of the floor. He had a bag in his left hand. An old doctor’s bag. Something slid about inside it as he dropped it hard on the other chair.

He threw Belinda to the ground and turned to face Agnes with the air of an old schoolmaster. He shook his head disapprovingly, making the green curls sway around his head, theatrically placing his hands on his hips, and casting her an interrogative stare from behind the mask. “Agnes Birkemose. Where have the ropes around your legs gone?”

Belinda was getting to her feet.

“Stay down!” he shouted. “Down!” He signaled her with a flat hand, like he was ordering a dog to lay down. “Down!”

She threw herself flat on her stomach, squeezing her eyes shut.

He turned to Agnes. “Has your colleague here untied the ropes around your legs?”

Agnes returned his stare, stone-like, in silence.

He shrugged and went to the old doctor’s bag to search for something.

At his feet, Belinda was whimpering unintelligible words.

Finally, the clown seemed to have found what he was looking for. “Look what I brought along!” He was holding a stapler like a trophy. It was the kind of stapler used for putting up posters. “Belinda! Would you please care to pay attention? I have something to show you.”

He curled a hand under Belinda’s chin and lifted her head, forcing her to look at his face. “Look me in the eyes,” he cooed affectionately. “Look me in the eyes. That’s it.” He placed the stapler on her cheek and triggered it.

A loud click discharged from the stapler as it fired a staple deep into the flesh of her cheek. Belinda recoiled in pain but only a tiny whimper escaped her lips.

“Keep looking me in the eyes!” The clown commanded as the cameras resumed their zooming of her cheek. “Get up!” Still gripping her chin he pulled her to her feet, not letting go before she was standing in front of him. “That’s better. Keep looking into my eyes.” His voice was mushy now, warm, praising her with excitement. He lifted the stapler to her breasts and slid the cold metal over her nipples.

Belinda convulsed; Her jaw shaking, her legs trembling, but she was not resisting him. She just stood there, her hands hanging loose, her eyes locked to his—waiting for the next lot of pain to come.

Agnes spotted blood trickling from the staple still stuck in Belinda’s cheek, and averted her eyes as the clown shot a series of three fast staples into Belinda’s breasts. But she couldn’t escape Belinda’s howling from the pain, the sound more animalistic than human.

“Tell me you like it,” the clown said as he fired two more staples into her breast.

Belinda, in an extremely faint, far away voice, said she liked it.

Tears rolled down Agnes’s face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE WOMAN SLID HER TONGUE SLOWLY ALONG THE ROW OF TEETH IN HER UPPER MOUTH

 

On the other side of the one-way mirror, the atmosphere was intense with the profound reality of what was going on out there in the torture chamber. Only a select few of the truly discerning got to experience something as bespoke and heinous as this.

There were only three people in the small room. Two of them sitting close together on a leather couch. The woman had long blonde hair, diamonds in her ears, an angular face, and was wearing a gray suit that clung to the curves of her slim body. She was somewhere around the age of forty, used to getting whatever she desired. She was leaning forward, mesmerized, her elbows were resting on her thighs, her eyes devouring Belinda’s bleeding breasts.

By her side, slouching back into the couch, sat an overweight man with a tumbler of scotch in his hand. He had a large ring with a green stone on his middle finger. His tie hung loose, shirt unbuttoned, he was sweating. He licked his lips over, and over, and caressed the woman’s lower back. This was his gift to her.

Alone, in a heavy armchair to the right of the couple, the last spectator sat in jeans, a t-shirt, and All-Stars. Seeming more relaxed in every way than the two others.

There they sat drinking it all in. The audience of tonight’s show. All three of them feeling something. Tonight, they could actually feel. Tonight, their hearts were beating faster, their bodies were electric with sheer emotion. Tonight, they were actually, properly alive; they felt it all. Tonight was intense. Tonight, was exquisite.

They’d all been there before. It was addictive, like coke. They each got a copy of the video recordings on a hard disk as a souvenir. However, they rarely looked at the recordings. The thought of owing a copy was rewarding enough. And sometimes all they needed to do was touch the hard disk to get a rush of power.

This was the ultimate pleasure. The most intense night money could buy. To have someone suffer a slow and painful death merely for the purpose of your unbridled pleasure.

And this time, it was even better. It was Danes. Spoiled welfare Danes. Not some Thai-girls bought out of a Bangkok slum, or illegal Russian hookers, but real, regular, Danes. The kind you could meet on the street. It was incredible.

The couple on the couch had five children. Three girls and two boys. The children were spending the night watching the final on TV with their Polish nannies. The couple loved their children of course, as parents should. Their children were born to a life of meaning. They were planned, wanted, and received nothing but the best. The couple loved them dearly, just as they loved their life of luxury, and themselves, as they loved each other. It was a real love.

The man in the chair had no children. He had chosen not to. Children didn’t interest him. However, that might change later on in life, who’s to tell? He was getting to an age where people would start wondering if there was something wrong with him, since he hadn’t started a family already. So the thought of having a child had crossed his mind, he did care about appearances. You had to look a success to be one.

The woman slid her tongue slowly along the row of teeth in her upper mouth. Then she suggested, “Wouldn’t it be more intense if we got the two girls to torture each other?”

Her man lifted a lazy eyebrow and glanced at the other man. “Okay by you?”

The other man nodded, not making any effort of hiding the bulge in his trousers.

“Maybe we could even get one of the girls to kill the other honey,” the fat man added, sliding his hand over his wife’s back. “Would you want that?”

“Yes!” The word nothing but a coarse whisper. Still, he heard it and sensed her excitement under his touch. Placing the tumbler on the wide armrest of the couch, he leaned forward to pick up a microphone lying on the table, giving the clown their wishes for the finalé of tonight’s show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THIS IS A BOX CUTTER, BELINDA

 

“The audience of tonight’s show has made a special request,” the clown announced in a friendly voice as he grabbed Belinda by the arm. “We all seem to have forgotten about Agnes. We can’t do that. It’s no use the two of us having a party, leaving the star of the show sitting there watching, is it?” He led her to Agnes, who suddenly got very busy squirming in her chair, desperately trying to break free.

“You are the star of tonight. We can’t have the star sitting there all forgotten as the supporting cast gets all the attention. That wouldn’t be fair on you.” He stepped back to make room to shove Belinda in front of her. “So, Belinda, now you’re going to play the role of the executioner. The audience wants you to use the stapler on Agnes.”

“No.” Belinda shook her head. “No!”

“It’s not that hard to do,” the clown said, forcing the stapler into her hand.

Belinda resisted fiercely and after a while the clown relented and let go of her hand. She sank to the floor, crying, as the clown showed Agnes a narrow box cutter that suddenly appeared in his hand like a magic trick. He slid out the blade one notch and took a firm grip around the back of Belinda’s neck and squeezed hard.

Belinda squealed loudly as he shoved the knife into the side of her body, just above the hip.

“This is a box cutter, Belinda,” he sneered in her ear. “You know, the kind of knife you use in the petrol station to cut open cardboard boxes when you fill the shelves with potato chips and candy. I grabbed this one from the shop when I came by to pick you up. You know the kind of knife I’m talking about?”

“Y…Yes.”

“The blade is only one notch out right now.” He turned the knife slightly inside her flesh. “I’m leaving it like this as long as you do what you’re told. If you choose not to do as I tell you, I will slide the blade forward a notch each time I have to repeat myself. That’s about five millimeters more blade inside your body each time. Agnes, wouldn’t you say one notch on this knife is about five millimeters long?”

Agnes just stared at him, wide-eyed, incapable of forming any words, unable to even think.

“Use the stapler,” he said.

Crying, Belinda lifted a shaking hand that was now holding the stapler, to Agnes’s upper arm and squeezed the trigger.

The pain felt like a bee sting. Agnes moaned.

“Again. On her neck.”

Belinda’s hand was shaking so badly. However, she succeeded in lifting the stapler to Agnes’s neck and shooting a staple into her flesh.

“The chin.”

Belinda moved the stapler.

“No, wait a minute,” the clown said. “I’ve got an idea!” He removed the knife from Belinda’s side and took the stapler out of her hands. “I just got the best idea ever. I am sure you girls are going to love it!”

Agnes ripped and tore to free her tied hands.

The clown moved over to the doctor’s bag.

Agnes knew for certain that neither she nor Belinda were going to love his new idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOUR NAME IS YOUR BRAND, YOUR TRADEMARK

 

“Do you recognize this?” The clown returned behind Belinda and was talking to Agnes. In his right hand, he held Agnes’s name tag from the petrol station. “Why aren’t you wearing your name tag, Agnes?”

Agnes opened her mouth but no sounds came. She goggled at the little metal tag. It was like seeing something from your past life, stumbling over a forgotten toy in the attic. She couldn’t take her eyes off the name tag.

He flicked the lock on the back side of the name tag, making the long needle spring open. “The most important thing in showbiz, Agnes Birkemose, is to get your name out there. Your name is your brand, your trademark. It’s all about imprinting your name on the minds of your audience. Nothing’s more important than that. You know that, don’t you?”

Paralyzed, Agnes had stopped struggling to free herself from the ropes. She hardly breathed.

“Your brand,” the clown said tenderly. “I’m holding your brand in my hand, Agnes. However, in this show, nobody’s watching me.” He laughed. “Not with two beautiful topless girls in the same room. Not a chance. Belinda?”

“…yes.”

“Would you be so kind as to place Agnes’s brand where everybody will notice it?” He held the name tag before Belinda’s face, waiting, until she reluctantly retrieved it. Then he stepped back. “Place it.”

“Wh…where?”

Agnes began to convulse again, staring at the needle between Belinda’s bloody fingers. “No!” she gasped.

“Where do you think it should go?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Where does everybody look at a beautiful topless woman?”

Agnes’s heart stopped beating as Belinda whimpered, “The breasts?”

“Then put the name tag there.”

“But…” Belinda stared at Agnes’s small breasts and swallowed as Agnes started thrashing about in the chair, wrenching at her tied hands.

“Now! Do it!”

Sobbing, Belinda reached for the soft skin in the upper part of Agnes’s left breast. She pinched the skin, forming a bulge into which the needle had to go.

Agnes couldn’t breathe, her whole torso contracted in terror.

Belinda hesitated briefly to steady her hands before pushing the needle all the way through the sensitive tissue.

Agnes unleashed a blood curdling scream, she wailed, she roared, she wept. Sweat and mucus flying from her face. She threw herself sideways but couldn’t escape the excruciating pain. It felt like an eternity before Belinda finally stopped pushing the needle into her breast.

“The needle’s bent,” Belinda whined, “I can’t…”

“Then straighten it out and try again.”

Agnes slumped in the chair. Belinda struggled to straighten the needle, her hand shaking like crazy. Agnes’s heart beat hard and fast as she gasped for air.

Then she felt Belinda’s fingers returning to her breast. A few seconds later the needle also returned, and with it the pain.

Eventually the needle exited her flesh on the other side of the bulge between Belinda’s fingers.

“Close the lock,” the clown commanded. “Make sure she doesn’t lose her name tag.”

Agnes raised her feet to Belinda’s chest and shoved her away from her.

The next second, the clown launched himself forward, grasping the name tag embedded in the flesh of Agnes’s bleeding breast. He twisted the tag around, making time disappear into an eternity of pain like nothing Agnes’s had ever known before.

Pain.

Nothing existed but the pain.

And then, the sound of his greedy laugher against her cheek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A LOUD AND PRETTY SICK SOUND THAT ONLY FED BELINDA’S FURY

 

Belinda landed on her back and elbow on the raw concrete floor, hardly feeling the pain. It was like the pain was now disconnected from her. She glanced down at her naked torso, seeing the blood, dirt, and scratches. The staples still sticking in the flesh of her tits, blood trickling from them, especially the one Agnes hit kicking her away.

As the clown twisted the name tag, Agnes thrashed about, screaming like a maniac. Belinda realized that if they were ever going to have the slightest chance of escaping this nightmare alive, she must act now. While the clown was furiously fighting Agnes, while the cameras were zooming in on the name tag and the blood oozing down Agnes’s body.

The time was now.

But what should she do? As long as Agnes was still tied to the chair, they had no chance of overpowering the clown. She knew this from having fought him earlier on in the other cell. A fight that left her missing a tooth. There was no way of overpowering him without a weapon.

She threw a quick glance to the vacant chair. The doctor’s bag still on it. Maybe there was a weapon inside the bag?

Agnes’s screams changed pitch, as she tried to talk down the clown. Begging him to stop hurting her, of course he wasn’t listening, too busy twisting the name tag in the opposite direction now. The box cutter appeared in his other hand.

Belinda swallowed her own pain and rose to her feet. The doctor’s bag proving to be empty, nothing but an unpleasant smell of rottenness inside it. She threw it aside and grabbed the chair instead, weighing it in her hands.

A hard knock on the glass came from the other side of the one-way mirror, aiming to warn the clown, only he wasn’t hearing it, too busy tormenting Agnes. He didn’t even sense Belinda closing in with the chair, he heard nothing else but Agnes’s pleading. He was completely preoccupied by his own perversion, he didn’t sense a thing, before Belinda struck his head full force with the chair, sending him stumbling away from Agnes. The name tag still sticking in her breast, the flesh torn around the needle, blood streaming down her body, she seemed about to lose consciousness.

The clown was raging about, clutching his head. The mask pushed askew, the green wig staining red on its right side. Touching it turned his fingers red. The box cutter was gone. He must have lost it in the fray.

Belinda went at him. Swinging the chair again. He tried to ward off the attack with his left arm. But the force of the hit broke his arm with a loud and pretty sick sound that only fed Belinda’s fury. He sank to his knees as she swung the chair at him for the third time, this one a direct hit to his face. Down he went, landing on his back. There was no way of stopping Belinda now. She swung the chair again, and again, and again. The legs of the chair breaking off, splinters and tufts of green wig flying, blood spraying everywhere. She kept on hitting him.

The cameras did not zoom in on her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THIS AGNES WAS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON

 

Agnes finally managed to free her left hand. Opening and closing it, she flicked it in the air to get her circulation going.

Her other hand, the right one, was still tied to the back of the chair. The rope was still very tight. She couldn’t untie it with her left hand, certainly not as long as it was still numb, aching, and stinging from lack of circulation. She was careful not to look down at her chest, not wanting to see the wound in her left breast. That must wait until they were out of this place.

If they could get out of this place.

She spied the clown’s box cutter lying on the floor less than half a meter from her. There was blood on it. She had no idea if it was Belinda’s or her own. She couldn’t even say if he used the knife on her or not. She honestly didn’t know. It was all a blur of pain and shock.

Breathing deeply, she got to her feet. The rope gnawed into her right wrist as she lifted the chair from the floor. Her legs were stiff and yet rubberlike at the same time. Still, she managed somehow to bend down and pick up the knife with her left hand.

She slid the blade a few notches out and moved the chair around to cut the rope. It hurt the skin on her wrist, but apart from that it proved no challenge. Soon pieces of rope fell to the floor and at last, so did the chair. Her hands were free.

Next to her, Belinda seemed to be tiring at last. She was still swinging the remains of the chair at the clown, but the strikes fell slower. Panting for air, she lifted the chair over her head. Two legs had broken off the chair and the seat was now hanging loose.

Agnes grabbed the backrest of her own chair and turned toward the one-way mirror. She stood up straight, a brief moment resembling a shield-maiden of the Viking Age, her breasts naked and covered in blood and sweat, her greasy hair hanging loose. She was less than three paces away from the one-way mirror. She covered the distance running, swinging the chair on the left side of her body like a kid playing baseball. The next second, she smashed the chair through the one-way mirror, sending an explosion of broken glass, sweat, and blood flying into the room behind the mirror.

She counted three people in the room. All standing. One—a man wearing jeans—was scurrying toward a door in the back of the room, while the two others, a woman and an overweight man, were cowering, paralyzed behind a leather couch. The fat man shouting for help into a microphone, yelling that something unexpected had occurred.

Agnes had never seen any of them before. Never. Ever. She used the back of the chair to scrape off most of the glass still sitting in the windowpane. The glass mostly gone, she swung a leg into the room, putting a foot down on the thick and soft carpet inside the room.

The woman started pushing the fat man. “Stop her, goddamn it! You’re the man, aren’t you?”

The microphone slipped from his fat fingers.

“Do something!” the woman shrieked.

Dropping the chair, Agnes brought up the box cutter. She darted over to the man, shoving the knife into his large stomach, twisting it around. Eyes bulging, he said nothing, not a word. She tore the knife out of him and stuck it hard into his floppy neck. Then turned to face the woman. The woman screamed at her, spit flying from her lips, but Agnes was no longer a reasonable person. Not in this moment she wasn’t; she might never be again. Agnes had changed. And deep, deep, down inside the core of her soul, she understood that it wasn’t for the better.

The woman tried to punch her in the face but it was no good. Agnes had already slit her throat open and was on her way to hunting down the last spectator. He had already reached the door and was leaving the room.

“Stop!” Agnes commanded, jumping over the fat man, who had fallen to the floor.

To her utter surprise, the man actually stopped and turned around, shaking all over. His legs caved in and he crashed into the wall. A dark stain forming in the front of his jeans and a small lake of piss growing around his left foot.

Agnes pounced on him.

“I wasn’t even meant to be here. This was my first time. It wasn’t my idea. Sejer invited me. He was the one paying for our tickets. He, that…you…I couldn’t refuse. I would…please…don’t…no…”

The Agnes who checked in at the petrol station not so many hours ago wouldn’t have been able to hurt this man. She would have figured that killing him would have left her no better than him. Maybe she still believed that to be true. However, this Agnes, standing here; staples in her skin, her own name tag pierced through, and gushing blood from, her left breast…this Agnes was a completely different person.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOW LOOK WHAT’S HAPPENED

 

Exhausted, Belinda dropped to the floor next to the lifeless clown. She had cast the remains of the chair aside. Her breathing came in slow and laborious gasps. Sweat was pouring down her body, leaving tracks in the dirt on her skin, making her wounds sting. She could hear her pulse echoing inside her skull.

The clown was dead. He had to be. She stared at his chest. It didn’t move. No chest movement, no breathing. There was blood everywhere. The mask was broken but still covered most of his face. The green wig sat askew on his head, his own brown hair clumped from blood and other stuff she was not too keen to name. She had killed him. She had killed a human being. For some reason she could hear her mother’s voice inside her head, blaming her.

Now look what’s happened. You’re going to rot in jail.

She carefully reached out to push the mask from the clown’s face. Blood made it stick to his cheeks and it broke in two as she lifted it, revealing nothing but the lower part of the man’s face and nose. The mouth was wasted, the teeth smashed in. A few of the teeth had even pierced his cheeks.

“Is he dead?”

Belinda turned her head to see Agnes returning through the broken one-way mirror, an extremely bloody box cutter in her hand.

“Guess so,” Belinda nodded. “I killed him.” Her lower lip quivered, but she managed to restrain herself from crying.

“Who is it?”

“Don’t know. The mask broke.”

Agnes came over and stood behind her. “He wasn’t alone. It’s impossible. I think we need to get moving.”

Belinda glanced at the name tag still attached to the flesh of Agnes’s breast. “I’m sorry…I…”

Agnes bowed her head and for a moment she almost seemed surprised to spot the name tag sitting there. “Forget it.” She gently pulled the needle of her name tag out from her wound. “You saved my life. Let’s see who this bastard is.”

Reluctantly, Belinda reached over and removed the rest of the mask. It was a man she’d never seen before.

“Him?” Agnes puzzled. “He was at the petrol station tonight. Before those guys with the love doll. He bought a Wunderbaum.”

Belinda rose up. “The last thing I recall from the petrol station is…” She lowered her eyes, “There wasn’t any blood on the floor beneath Christoffer, even though he had been lying there for some time. His shirt was all bloody. I found this a bit odd, so I started to wonder…maybe, Christoffer…Shouldn’t there have been a puddle of blood on the floor?”

Agnes grimaced. “I am not in the mood to wonder about blood right now. We need to get out, and we need to get out now. Can you walk?”

“Yes.”

“Grab a weapon. The remains of the chair or something.”

Belinda glanced at the box cutter in Agnes’s hand. Blood dripping from the blade.

Agnes smiled, and something in her eyes made Belinda turn cold inside. “There were three spectators, Belinda. A woman and two men. They won’t be going to anymore live-snuff-shows.”

Belinda peered through the broken one-way mirror.

“Come on,” Agnes said, “we can exit through the backdoor of the spectator’s room.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

MR WUNDERBAUM DIDN’T DO THIS ON HIS OWN

 

Shortly after, they were passing through the backdoor of the spectator’s room and the stench of blood and feces was revolting. They had to step over the body of the third spectator to exit the room.

The hallway floor was raw concrete, like the floor inside the torture chamber. White paint peeling off the walls. Frayed plasterboards forming the ceiling, from which light bulbs hung by their cords. There was dirt and dust along the walls, and trails of blood on the floor. The hallway seemed to go on forever. On their right side, another, shorter hallway that lead to a closed iron door, behind which they suspected the torture chamber to be. There were spider webs hanging from the ceiling and dead spiders littered around the floor. Walking on that concrete floor, each footstep making loud crunching noises, impossible not to be heard, should anybody be in their vicinity.

There were four closed doors on the left side of the hallway. Agnes opened the first door to a small cell with a dirty mattress on the floor.

“That’s where I was locked up…” Belinda said.

Agnes shut the door. The next door opened to a larger room where work on a new concrete floor seemed to be in progress. A cement mixer, mortar, and sand in large sacks lying around. Parts of the floor seemed to be done already, although it appeared to have been done with poor workmanship by someone lacking the basic skills. The new floor was uneven, clearly made in phases, bit by bit. And then, as her blood ran ice-cold, she understood what she was looking at.

It was graves.

Starting at the opposite side of the room, she figured there to be five or six graves, each covered by a layer of concrete. At the end of the row of covered graves, a new one had been dug. And even though she knew this was a bad idea, even as every cell in her entire body resisted, she had to go and peer into the hole. It was deep, intended for several corpses. Looking down into the hole, she saw Benjamin. Almost unrecognizable. The clown had done a thorough job with those shears. Discarded into the grave, Benjamin’s body lay haphazardly at the bottom of the pit: one arm akimbo at a seemingly impossible angle above his head, the other nowhere to be seen. His legs were bent and his back twisted. She and Belinda were also intended to go in that same grave.

Recoiling from the grave, she was shaking her head avoiding Belinda’s glance. “Move on,” she said, not wanting to start calculating how many corpses were buried under those concrete squares next to his grave. “We need to get out of here. Somebody must have been operating the cameras. Mr. Wunderbaum didn’t do this all on his own.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

IF SHE WAS A CELL PHONE SHE’D START BEEPING BY NOW

 

Behind the next door, they found another cell. Also empty. Agnes spotted a large earring lying amongst the dust on the floor. It had been bent out of shape and was darkly colored. She quickly closed the door and continued to the last one.

Belinda stayed close behind, clutching a broken chair leg with both hands, ready to put up a fight. Agnes, unable to control herself, clenched the box cutter so hard it hurt her fingers. She placed her other hand on the handle of the last door, a part of her expecting it to be locked. But, it swung open easily and soundless.

A dimly lit staircase led to a new door, this one open. A blue glow filling the doorway. She took the stairs, one step at a time, as quietly as she possibly could.

Behind the open door at the top of the stairs, she found a room that smelled of coffee and tobacco. A few chairs around a dining table in the center of the room. On the table, an overflowing ashtray, some coffee mugs, and a folded newspaper. Along one wall was another table with several computer screens showing pictures of the torture chamber, the broken one-way mirror and the dead clown on the floor.

“Why’s there nobody here?” Belinda breathed through her nose in rapid hisses. “They were zooming in like crazy when he twisted your name tag around. They must have watched as I killed him.”

“And as I killed the audience,” Agnes whispers.

“Maybe they got chicken and ran off?”

“We would be so lucky.”

“Maybe, there was only one guy up here…”

Agnes looked at the dining table. There were five coffee mugs. Three spectators and two executioners. It wasn’t impossible. She circled the table to a narrow sliding door. It made sense, if the last accomplice was sitting here, controlling the cameras and watching as she and Belinda killed Mr. Wunderbaum and the three spectators, watching as their nasty little business fell apart. He might well have panicked and run away.

She shot Belinda a warning look before she pulled the sliding door open. The adrenaline was starting to leave her body now, she felt tired and exhausted. The pain was becoming worse. If she was a cell phone she’d start beeping now: Battery almost empty.

The sliding door rattled fiercely as it slid open. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness behind the door, and a few confused seconds more for her to understand what she was seeing.

A wall made of hay.

Stacks of hay bales.

It was about a meter and a half from the sliding door to the hay bales, forming a weird hallway. She stepped out of the door, Belinda right behind her, and into the darkness of the strange hallway. Feeling her way forward, step by step, progress was slow.

At last she reached the end of the hallway. Moving her hands around the edges of the walls, desperation starting to build inside her. “It’s a dead end,” she muttered. “A dead end. There’s no way out of here.”

“I felt an opening between the hay bales a few steps back,” Belinda says.

“Show me.”

Belinda led the way back to the opening, an even narrower corridor through the hay. Belinda moved on ahead.

Five, maybe six paces down, Belinda halted.

“What?”

“Another dead end. Bales of hay everywhere. If I only I could see.”

“Try searching higher or lower…” Agnes stared back into the darkness behind them, only the faintest glow of blue from the computer screens could be seen.

“Hey, hello!” Belinda said. “I feel something. A plank, some wood, I think. Some of the hay bales are attached to the plank.” Agnes could hear her pulling and pushing about.

And then, a section of hay bales gave way and opened to a large barn. The moon shining through a large open gate, giving the insides of the barn a faint bluish glow. Looking in all directions, they exited the haystack. The barn looked like most barns do. A tractor parked in the middle, among its utilities. Plow, harrow, seeder. Whatever.

Through the small, arched barn windows, Agnes spotted the glowing signs of the petrol station, less than a kilometer away. It broke her heart. They were this close. Blue lights flashed around the petrol station. Police? Ambulances? Maybe, someone found Christoffer? Belinda and her must have been reported missing by now. She couldn’t stand the sight. The police officers were so close, looking for clues to what happened in the petrol station, so close, and yet, so far away that they may as well have been on the moon.

Outside the large barn gates, several cars were parked in the courtyard. The moonlight sparkling on the chrome of a Jaguar parked next to the clown’s metallic blue Toyota, with the Wunderbaum Agnes had sold him earlier the same evening, hanging from the rearview mirror.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SO CLOSE TO FREEDOM

 

“If the accomplice panicked,” Agnes whispered behind Belinda’s back, as they left the barn. “I doubt he’d waste time closing the exit hole between the hay bales.”

Belinda crossed the courtyard, looking around. A regular Danish farm courtyard, like so many others. Whitewashed walls, black roof. Slightly decayed. A little spooky in the blue glow of the moonlight. No lights on in any of the windows facing the courtyard.

The air was chilled, even inside the shelter of the closed courtyard. Naked from the waist and up, her skin contracted against of the chill of the night, erecting her nipples, making the staples still sticking in her flesh hurt even more.

They were so close to freedom.

So close.

The entryway leading out of the farm was dark, but luckily the gate was ajar. Half way through the entrance, on one of the doorsteps of the farmhouse, lay a love doll with duct tape over the mouth. Not speaking a word, they moved on and slipped out of the gate.

A dirt road led away from the farm, up a hill, and through some field boundaries and so on. Probably to the highway or a country road, to freedom. A car was coming down the road. It was still too far away for Belinda to spot the brand of the car, nevertheless she was pretty sure it was a BMW. Only one of the headlights was working.

“Shit,” Agnes gasped next to her. “We can’t let them see us. Let’s run through the fields.”

“I told you so,” Belinda muttered, hurrying after Agnes around the corner of the farmhouse. “I told you they were psychos.”

There was light in the windows on this side of the farmhouse. The garden door was open. Belinda hadn’t seen the lights from the petrol station, nor the blue flashes of the emergency vehicles from the barn windows, as she had focused her attention on the cars in the courtyard. However, she saw it all now, shining like a lighthouse out in the distance, showing them the way to freedom, but unlike Agnes, she didn’t wonder if someone had found Christoffer.

Because he was standing there in the open garden door with a shotgun in his hands.

“Girls,” he said, aiming the shotgun at them. “I’m sorry, but you’re not going anywhere. Arni, come here, I got the girls!”

Belinda stared at him, and in his eyes, she saw all the things she wished she didn’t understand.