Wonderland by Ken Brosky

Extras

Read the First Draft

Wonderland

By Ken Brosky

First published in: Skyline Magazine

“Close your eyes.”

Sandra did as she was told. She assumed Larry was undressing; he never liked to be watched while undressing. The first time he did, he caught her looking and slapped her hard enough knock her unconscious for a few moments. When she awoke, he was fully clothed again applying a cold compress to the side of her face. Sandra figured he probably had some kind of psychological problem, something about being embarrassed naked.

Larry didn’t have a bedroom as far as Sandra could tell. She could see a dresser next to the TV, and he spent most of his time sleeping on the futon resting against the wall to Sandra’s left. The room reminded her of her family’s living room when their aunt came to stay for a few months.

“You can open your eyes now.”

Sandra opened her eyes. The short man now sported a tight tank top covered by a tighter Hawaiian shirt (unbuttoned, of course; he couldn’t button it up anyways if he tried) and loose blue jeans. She assumed he worked in some kind of factory because his jeans always looked splotched with grease. That, or he never took the time to wash his clothes. Judging by the smell of the house, Sandra couldn’t immediately dismiss the idea. She managed a weak smile at the thought.

Larry glared at her. He had a mixed expression of anger and hurt on his face. “We’ll wait for Dwayne tonight.”

Sandra nodded again.

“Did you want something to eat?”

“Yes,” she whispered. She couldn’t remember the last thing she ate. Larry went through the large opening to the right that led to the kitchen. He came back in with a large bowl of cereal and handed it to her.

“Could you maybe loosen the chains?” Sandra asked in her most polite Sunday School voice. “Just so I can eat? You can tighten them again after I’m finished.”

Larry looked her over. “No,” he decided. “I don’t want to take any risks this time.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a silver key. It looked almost identical to the one Sandra had for her house. “Last time, we had a little accident with our guest when we tried to be nice and loosen the chains for her to be more comfortable. You know what she did? She kicked me a good one in the crotch and got the key. Almost escaped, too. Man, Dwayne was upset about that one.” He placed the key back in his pants pocket.

Sandra’s thoughts went to the bloodstains on the carpet near her feet. She was not the first girl to be taken by Larry. Likely, she would not be the last. The thought sent a chill down her spine and tears to her eyes. She looked at the clock so that she could remember: 4:35 p.m., Monday afternoon—the first time Sandra could face the reality that she would soon die.

She ate her cereal and attempted to rest against the wall. The chains around her wrists were intended for much smaller girls: they were short, attached to large metal plates about two feet from the ground. When Sandra stood up, she had to crouch slightly. When she sat down, her hands hung near her shoulders. She could never get comfortable, making sleep nothing more a light doze at best.

Larry walked over to his stereo and turned on his favorite Guns ‘n Roses mix. Sandra could almost sing along to every song; it was all he ever listened to and he listened to it a lot. He sang along with “Paradise City” for a few seconds before tidying up the room. Magazines were stacked, couch pillows were fluffed, and the rug was vacuumed with a device that resembled a spaceship with a tube sticking out of its nose.

“Jeezum crow, where is he?” Larry asked.

He looked at Sandra when he said this. She shrugged her shoulders slightly and shoved a handful of cereal into her mouth. It tasted stale, but at least it would get rid of the hunger pains. It was the first food she could remember eating since she was taken—she wondered if any of the other girls had starved to death.

Larry snatched the bowl away from her before she could take another handful and placed it in the kitchen. Anger poured into his red face and Sandra regretted acknowledging him altogether. Something to remember, if she lived into the next day: ignoring Larry equals finishing meal, making Larry mad equals starvation. She glanced longingly at the bowl as it sat on the kitchen counter top, next to Larry’s impressive collection of cooking knives.

“That’s right,” he said, returning to the living room. “He’s going to hit rush hour traffic. At least an hour delay, I would assume.” He scratched at a zit on his chin. “We’ll have to pass the time with some quiet reading, I suppose. Or maybe a game of Outburst?” He chuckled. “Just kidding, of course.”

Sandra ignored him. Her stomach churned, rejecting the dry half-meal, demanding that she eat something sensible to calm its appetite. For a moment, she thought she would vomit. She pushed the feeling deep down into her feet and tried to focus on the music. It helped, however slightly, but just enough to prevent her from retching—an act that surely would upset Larry again.

“Larry?” Sandra asked quietly.

Larry turned down the music. “Excuse me?”

“Can, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Larry said.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Larry looked at her for a moment. “Yeah, I figure we probably will.”

Sandra burst into tears. She had known the answer before it was spoken, and yet she had asked anyways in a last-ditch attempt to recover a sense of hope. She wondered if perhaps her tears would make him change his mind. She cried harder, trying in vain to wipe the snot from her nose.

This seemed to repulse Larry. He wiped at her face with a towel he kept nearby, maybe for this exact purpose. She cried into it for a few more minutes while he continually dabbed at the tears and runny nose. Finally, when no more tears came, she plopped herself on the ground. Her hands hung in the air and it hurt, but she didn’t care anymore.

“Don’t be sad,” Larry soothed. Even his most comforting voice sounded feeble and whiny. “I’m sorry it has to be like this. I know I have problems. I understand that. But you’re making me feel better, me and Dwayne both! We don’t do this as often anymore, and we feel bad when we have to kill someone. We really do!”

Sandra closed her eyes when she felt his eyes on her body. She tried to picture something, anything that would take her thoughts away from her present situation. She pictured herself in her favorite story, Alice in Wonderland. She pictured herself sitting at a large table across from Alice, beautiful and innocent. The Mad Hatter sat on the far right end of the table, sipping at his tea and laughing wildly. The Hare sat on the other end to Sandra’s left, telling the Mad Hatter a wild story about Wonderland.

Sandra imagined herself sitting there in Wonderland while Larry told her one of his pathetic sob stories about his childhood and ran his fingers through her hair.

The Mad Hatter looked horrible. His buckteeth jutted out at a ridiculous length so that when he sipped at his tea, he had to tilt his head back. When he did so, he would fall over in his chair and laugh at his own incompetence. His usually pink complexion looked a bright red when he did this and his giant cartoon eyes grew more bloodshot with every guffaw.

Sandra wanted to tell the fat old man that his story made no sense. She wanted to ask him how that story was supposed to make her feel better about her inevitable death. Instead, she pictured Wonderland and nodded her head while he continued running a hand through her hair.

“That’s good,” Larry soothed. “I’ll get you your bowl of cereal.” He left the room and returned with the half-eaten bowl of cereal. He handed it to Sandra and sat down on the couch in front of the stereo system.

Sandra munched on her cereal, kneeling on the carpet so her hand could both reach down to the bowl and reach up to her head. She wondered if perhaps she could throw the bowl at the large window in the living room and shatter the glass; surely someone would come to her aid, then. A red curtain covered the window, but still—the bowl felt heavy under her hand. If she threw it hard enough, she could still shatter the window. No, she decided; she barely had the energy to bring her hand to her mouth, much less enough to throw the heavy china. If she missed or didn’t throw it hard enough, Larry would kill her for sure. She was too big of a risk, he would say to Dwayne.

She would die either way, and she knew it. With as much effort as she could muster, she threw the bowl at the window. The heavy porcelain shattered easily enough, only no glass accompanied it. Instead, the curtains fell back slightly to reveal not a window at all, but the wall. It had been painted off-white, just like the rest of the walls. A light just above the curtains shone on the wall and gave the illusion of sunlight. Larry had done a good job making the basement look exactly like the first floor of a normal house.

“Eventually you’ll come to like it,” Larry said, staring at the new mess next to the stereo system.

Sandra doubted it. She couldn’t see how she could ever enjoy being hurt by two of the fattest, ugliest, foulest-smelling men she had ever come across.

Larry was looking at Sandra now. She couldn’t read his face, but it didn’t look like he was angry at all. No, he had different kind of emotion in his eyes—not anger at all, but something else she had seen on his face before.

He shuffled his way towards her and suddenly Sandra remembered that look. She grimaced and forced herself to remember back to three days ago to keep her fragile psyche distracted from the inevitable.

She had left he mall easily enough. She and Casey and Jenny had spent the entire day trying on new clothes at various catalog stores and ate their lunch in the food court. When four o’clock came, she and her friends parted—the two chose to wait for their parents to pick them up, but Sandra lived close enough that she could walk. It was only about six blocks to her house, an easy enough walk for any fourteen year-old. Simple enough.

An ice cream truck had rolled up next to her about halfway home, on Canal Street, if Sandra remembered correctly. She assumed it had been Canal Street because all of the houses looked exactly the same on Canal Street, only painted differently. Sandra often imagined tourists walking from the mall back to the hotels just outside her suburb and getting completely lost in the maze of houses, just like the hedge maze in Wonderland.

The ice cream truck parked a block up. The prices posted were outrageously low—fifty cents for two giant scoops of ice cream. Sandra checked her purse and found two quarters; she would buy an ice cream cone and share it with her little sister. She remembered paying the man for the two scoops of vanilla and taking a few tastes right away. The taste had been bitter, and everything around her immediately began to go black. Two strong hands grabbed her around the midsection and she felt her feet lift from the ground. Then there was nothing; only dreams. When she finally awoke again, she found herself chained against a cold wall and she could feel her heart beating in her ears when she didn’t recognize the house or the man sitting in front of her. The man—the ice cream man—later introduced himself as Larry.

“I made the same mistake,” Alice said from across the table. “Chasing after that rabbit and peering into the hole.”

Dammit, she thought—no, Damn me for being so stupid. She had been the one stupid enough to buy the ice cream. There had been no one around because it was too hot outside for comfort. She was sure that no one had seen Larry take her.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” Larry asked.

Sandra would have given anything to go to the bathroom at that moment. Unfortunately, Larry’s version of “going to the bathroom” consisted of peeing in a large plastic bowl placed on the floor.

“No,” she whispered.

“Okay.” Larry kneeled in front of her and grabbed a few pieces of cereal, popping them into his mouth one at a time. “Did I tell you what happened this morning?”

Sandra shook her head.

“A guy pushed me in line at the supermarket and I told him not to push me and he apologized! How about that?”

“Bravo,” Sandra mouthed.

“What?”

“Nice job,” she said

Larry smiled and returned to the couch. “I’m getting better at that, standing up for myself. I really hate being pushed around, you know. I just sometimes have trouble asserting myself, I think.” He readjusted the pillows on the couch. “But I think I’m getting better at it. Considering how often I used let myself get pushed around, I think I’ve made leaps and bounds.”

Sandra drifted in and out of reality, thinking more and more about Wonderland. Alice was smiling, staring at Sandra. The Mad Hatter and the Hare were both laughing hysterically, spilling their tea everywhere. Alice ignored them; she motioned to Sandra below the table. Slowly, carefully, Sandra peered under the table and saw that Alice had a large kitchen knife resting in her lap.

Sandra managed a glance into the kitchen. She wanted more than anything to see one of the knives from the knife set on countertop to be gone, wanted more than anything for Alice to be real. But all of the knives still sat in their holding places, just next to the spice rack.

The doorbell rang from upstairs and Sandra snapped out of her daydream.

Larry ran into the kitchen and Sandra followed the sound of his footsteps as he made his way up the stairs. A door opened, and for a moment there was complete silence. Sandra relished in the moment. The door opened again a few seconds later and the man named Dwayne walked down the stairs in the kitchen, followed closely by Larry. Dwayne stood a few inches taller, with darker skin, but just as ugly. Sandra couldn’t help but wonder how two people with such perverted tastes could have possibly met.

“Maybe one of them took out an ad in the personals,” Alice whispered. Sandra lowered her head and smiled.

“It’s about time,” Larry joked.

“Shut up, man,” Dwayne snapped. “I couldn’t speed my way here and get busted by a cop again. I’ve already got two damned citations. One more point and my license is revoked.”

“Okay,” Larry said, holding up his hands in defense. “No need to get all upset.”

Sandra’s body began to shake uncontrollably as the two men examined her body. She could feel their eyes crawling across her face and down her torso.

“Knock her out first,” Dwayne ordered.

“I don’t think we really need to—”

“Shut up, man! We gotta knock her out! You didn’t do anything to her yet, didja?”

“No, Dwayne.”

Dwayne moved over to Sandra and punched her across the face. His fist connected just above her jawbone and she cried out. He hit her again, this time in the temple, and the man in front of her slowly began to disappear. Everything began to disappear and Sandra felt her consciousness slipping. Everything went dark, except for Dwayne’s horrible grin and Sandra realized she had her eyes almost completely shut.

Through barely open slits, she saw Dwayne stand up in satisfaction. Larry moved over and his eyes had the familiar look that Sandra had already begun to dread. She had seen the look twice before now, his eyes bulging and his face wrinkled from the giant grin he displayed. He looked almost like a cartoon with that stupid grin, as if the Mad Hatter had gained two hundred pounds and had misplaced his hat before turning into a real human.

Dwayne shoved Larry out of the way, hard enough so he went tumbling into the kitchen, smacking his head on the refrigerator. “Get the hell out of my way! I’m going first this time.”

Larry rubbed his head and stood up. “Dammit Dwayne, you didn’t have to do that!”

Sandra took a deep breath through her nose. She could smell Dwayne’s cheap cologne. She swallowed hard with the aftertaste of the bitter scent stuck in her throat. She pictured Wonderland. The Hare and the Mad Hatter were dancing on the table, kicking over plates and teacups in their way, still laughing uncontrollably.

Alice looked to Sandra with a little smile cracking at the corner of her lips. “Wait,” she whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’ll do whatever the hell I want to, you little shit!” Dwayne shouted. Angry, Larry jumped at him and half-punched him across the face. Dwayne grunted and threw Larry against the couch. “Dammit, Larry!"

“I want Larry,” Alice said softly. The Mad Hatter and the Hare stopped dancing. Alice was still looking at Sandra, still with that half-smile on her face.

Dwayne looked at Sandra in disbelief. He turned to Larry. “What the hell was that? I thought you said you didn’t do nothing to her unless I was here! You having extra innings or something when I’m gone?”

“No,” Larry whined. He clutched at the purple bruise on the side of his head.

“Then why the hell is she requesting you, you little shit?” Dwayne grabbed Larry and punched him across the face hard enough to send blood coursing down Larry’s unshaven chin and onto his white undershirt. The blood soaked in quickly, matting down the hairs on his chest.

Larry’s face turned bright red. He lounged again and this time connected square with Dwayne’s jaw. The impact made a terrible noise; it reminded Sandra of the time her dad had smashed two flat pieces of wood together to scare away a bear outside of their cabin up north. Dwayne fell onto Sandra hard, got up, and grabbed the nearest hard object he could find: one of Larry’s old-fashioned wood-framed speakers in the corner of the room.

Larry backed away a step, but Dwayne—fat as he was—managed to out-step him and slammed the speaker over Larry’s head with both hands. The wooden corner connected with Larry’s skull and split open a fresh gash across his receding hairline.

Dwayne looked down at Larry, who began crawling towards the kitchen, screaming as hard as he possibly could. He turned to Sandra, but Sandra didn’t see him. Sandra saw the Hare, standing foolishly on the large table, staring at Alice. She saw the Mad Hatter on the other side of the table, doubled over, laughing so hard that his bloodshot eyes bulged out of their sockets.

“That little shit,” Dwayne muttered, tearing at Sandra’s clothes. “Got what he deserved, right girl?”

Sandra stared at Dwayne in complete horror, glancing over his shoulder to Alice. Alice smiled and pulled out the knife. She carefully set it on the table. The Mad Hatter saw the knife and immediately and grabbed for it.

“Close your eyes,” Alice said soothingly. “Don’t watch this.” Sandra nodded and shut her eyes as hard as she could.

Dwayne’s grip on Sandra released and she felt her face wet with a hot, sticky liquid. She opened her eyes slightly and bent over so she could wipe away the fresh blood. Dwayne knelt in front of her with a look of complete disbelief frozen on his face. A kitchen knife protruded from of the top of his skull. Blood quickly ran down his thick hair and dripped onto Sandra’s face. Larry knelt next to Dwayne, staring at Sandra. He breathed heavily, wheezing. Blood drizzled down his forehead from the gash in his skull. Each breath sounded forced, each one heavier and more forceful than the last. It took three full minutes before the breathing stopped completely.

The Hare lay on the table, quite dead. A smile was frozen on his face, his eyes staring into a void, his paw still clutching his cup of tea. The Mad Hatter dropped the bloody knife, still laughing. Only now he couldn’t seem to control his laughing, and his bloodshot eyes cast an image of desperation as the corners of his mouth stretched unimaginably across his face. His hat fell off and Sandra noticed for the first time that he was bald on crown of his head. The Mad Hatter doubled over and continued to force more laughs even as his breaths grew less frequent. The grin did not leave his face even when he finally laughed away his last breath.

Sandra dry heaved a few times. Larry still knelt just in front of her, the top of his body resting on Dwayne’s motionless frame. His pants pocket was within reach, but the key too deep for Sandra to grab. Slowly, she raised her foot and pressed below the outline of the key on Larry’s thigh with her big toe. The outline crept up his pants until a small piece of silver poked its head out of the top of the pocket.

She pictured the rabbit poking his head out of his hole, Alice standing over him in triumph as she grabbed at his ears and yanked him from his home.

Sandra grabbed the exposed key and hurriedly unlocked the braces. With her chains gone, she could finally stand fully erect and relished the feeling for a moment as pins and needles danced across her lower body. Normally, the feeling would have annoyed her. But today, the pins and needles brought her joy.

The joy was short-lived. Tears welled up in Sandra’s eyes and she couldn’t help but let them out. She wanted nothing more than to leave the horrible house and feel the sun’s hot rays bake her pale skin. She had to find the way out and the first thing to do was to find the basement door; just past the kitchen and up the stairs. She ran, still crying, tripping on every step but not slowing down and not looking back.

Sandra ran through the empty first floor, avoiding a few small mousetraps before reaching the front door. She opened it and let the spring air waltz across her skin, drying the salty water on her face. She looked around at all of the unrecognizable houses, unsure of what to do next.

“How do I get home?” Sandra asked.

Alice stood at the foot of the porch, still holding the rabbit by the ears. She let go and Sandra watched the white creature hop away, down the street, though the giant hedge maze.

Alice smiled. “Just follow the rabbit.”