The Death Sculptor полностью

His chin slumped down to his chest, his head feeling too heavy for him to lift it back up. He stayed like that for several seconds. Only then he realized that he was naked, except for his sweat-soaked striped boxers clinging to his skin. It took him another moment to understand his position. He was sitting down on a comfortable leather office chair. His arms were pulled back behind him, around the chair’s backrest. His wrists were bound together by something hard and thin that was cutting into his flesh. His feet were also pulled back and tied together under the chair’s seat, about an inch or so from the floor. His whole body hurt as if he’d been at the receiving end of a massive beating, and the pain inside his head was eating away at his sanity.

Something was pulling against the corners of his mouth, and all of a sudden he was overwhelmed by a desperate gagging sensation. Coughing erupted from his chest with incredible force, but the air was half-blocked by the tight cloth gag in his mouth, and that served only to intensify his desire to retch. Littlewood tasted bile mixed with blood, and the coughs quickly escalated into a struggle not to choke to death.

Breathe through your nose, was the only thought that came into his head. He tried to concentrate on that, but he was too scared and drunk on pain for his brain to muster any discipline at that moment. Littlewood needed more air, he was desperate for it, and instinctively he drew another deep breath through his mouth. The mixture of bile and blood that was sitting just under his tongue was sucked back into his throat, blocking the oxygen passage even more.

Total panic.

His eyes rolled back into his head and the contents of his stomach exploded inside him, shooting up through his chest and esophagus like a rocket, though to him everything happened in slow motion. His body started to go limp. Life was quickly draining away from him.

He felt the acid taste of vomit take hold of his mouth a fraction of a second before it was flooded by warm, lumpy liquid. At that exact moment, his gag gave in, dropping from his mouth as if someone had snipped it off at the back.

He threw up all over his lap. But the good news was he could now breathe.

After a battery of dry coughs and spits, Littlewood started taking desperate gasps of air, trying to fill his lungs with oxygen and at the same time calm himself down. He started shaking, convulsing with two realizations – one: he had just come within an inch of death; two: he was still tied to a chair, and he didn’t have a clue what was going on.

Movement came from his left. Startled, Littlewood’s head snapped in that direction. Someone was there, but the shadows didn’t allow Littlewood to see.

‘Hello?’ he said, in such a weak voice he wasn’t sure it’d been audible to anyone but himself.

A few more desperate breaths to steady himself.

‘Hello?’ he tried again.

No answer.

Littlewood looked around himself. He saw a large bookshelf crowded with leather-bound volumes, a floor lamp by the side of a large desk across the room from him – the room’s only source of light. His eyes moved right and he saw a comfortable brown leather armchair. A few feet in front of it he recognized the psychologist’s couch – his psychologist’s couch. He was back in his office.

‘By the look on your face, I can see you’ve figured out where you are.’ The phrase was delivered in an even voice. Someone had come from the shadows, and was now standing about five feet in front of him, leaning against his desk.

Littlewood’s gaze refocused on the tall figure as even more confusion settled in.

‘This is your office. Four floors up from the road below. Thick windows. Thick walls. And your window faces the back alley. Outside your door there’s a large waiting room, and only then do you reach the door to the outside hallway.’ A pause and a shrug. ‘Scream if you like, but no one will hear a peep.’

Littlewood coughed again to try and clear the vile taste from his mouth. ‘I know you.’ His voice was croaked and weak. Fear cloaked every word.

A smile and a shrug. ‘Not as well as I know you.’

Littlewood’s head was still too fuzzy for him to put a name to the face. ‘What? What’s all this?’

‘Well, what you don’t know about me is that I am . . . an artist.’ A deliberate pause. ‘And I’m here to make you into a work of art.’

‘What?’ Littlewood finally noticed that the person in front of him was wearing a clear, hooded, thick plastic jumpsuit and latex gloves.

‘But I guess that what I am does not matter. What matters is what I know about you.’

‘What?’ The fog of confusion was getting denser, and Littlewood started wondering if all this wasn’t just a bad dream.