Nameless: Hellbound Anthology

PROLOGUE

NOW

GO fuck yourself.

Those had been Joe O’Connell’s last words before finding himself here.

Drifting back from unconsciousness, he returned from darkness only to find himself engulfed in a different kind— one that was virtually pitch black and imbued with a musty, dank smell.

He tried to lift himself from the seated position he was in, straining against the leather straps securing him in place. Iron ankle fetters tethered his legs tightly against what he recognised was a chair. His fingers felt around the arms to see if he could create any give in the straps but he gave up after a minute or so. Something cold and hard was pressing against the soles of his feet. It took him a few moments to realise his shoes and socks had been removed and that the stone floor was the source of the chill.

Adrenaline shot through his body, jolting him back into a hyper-aware state. His muscles, though appearing to be unresponsive, had retained their innate ability to twitch and contract, causing him to shiver in the chill of the air.

His memory sluggish, he briefly recalled where he had been before here—the house— and remembered the pressure of the needle as it had punctured the skin of his neck and the soft call of insentience as it engulfed him.

Joe began to writhe about violently with no effect. The chair remained static as though fastened to the floor. His eyes were still adjusting to the gloom of his surroundings. He screwed them up a few times to see if it would help him focus and make sense of anything.

He was able to discern his location was either a storage container or perhaps a huge silo. There were slatted windows on either side but no light through them, meaning either they were covered or it was night-time.

It felt like night, though he couldn’t articulate why. Perhaps his somnolent state was due to the residual effects of whatever he’d been sedated with to get him here. As if on cue, the injection site began to throb and he attempted to angle his neck in order to rub it against his shoulder. It wasn’t as effective as scratching with a finger, but it would have to do. Joe knew he had much bigger problems to worry about.

Part of him wondered whether he was dreaming. That he was somehow in the middle of a nightmare he was yet to wake from. Recent events rolled around his mind - Etchison, the Branch Obadians - as he considered the life choices that had led to this.

Being here. In this room.

As a child, he had always been terrified of the dark. Nyctophobia.

The word itself had always reminded him of a creature lurking within the night’s obsidian embrace. A nyctophobe… a nyctosaur. He had come up with all sorts of names for them. Supine creatures that lurked beneath your bed or in the wardrobe.

It was rising now, the grinding anxiety that accompanied that fear, the most basic of limiting mechanisms to prevent reckless behaviour in the most extreme of circumstances. An evolutionary advantage which prevented you from running around the African desert like a lunatic when there were lions present.

His fear of the dark had never prompted an acute fight or flight response. Instead, it had always developed more like a foreboding prescience, creeping up from the base of his spine and slowly enveloping his chest like an anaconda squeezing the very breath from his body. Ironically, that increasing anxiety also augmented situational awareness, making someone finely attuned to environmental cues when their wellbeing might be in danger.

No shit.

Fear—a gnawing emotion, honed over millennia by both nature and nurture so that it became a systemic and instinctive survival response that could prepare you for the world and ensure that you would intuitively do whatever you needed to do to survive - to live another day.

Or die another day.

Either way, fear was the body’s way of making certain you never forgot what was needed to go on living. Oddly, none of that was helpful as Joe sat here with a hunch that what was about to follow would be painful and possibly fatal. An old Simon and Garfunkel lyric inexplicably popped into his head relating to the welcoming of darkness.

He heard breathing in the obscurity before a light blinked on above him, causing phosphenes to appear in bursts before his eyes. His vision blurred, and he could just make out someone standing in front of a table at the end of the room. He could also make out the figure patiently laying out a variety of medical implements that Joe knew weren’t there to help him with his ingrowing toenail.

The stranger who had brought him here was built like a rugby player, the muscles on his arms threatening to rip through his tightly buttoned black jacket.

So, that’s how far we’ve come, announced the man gently in a soft British accent, his back to Joe. "Heroism has gone from a rallying cry or profound statement to ‘go fuck yourself?’ And you call yourself a journalist. Shame on you."

Get bent, Joe snorted derisively, straining futilely once again at his restraints.

You’ve the potential to cause me a great deal of trouble, Joseph. I wanted to kill you back at the house. Maybe I did and you’re in Hell.

His right hand floated over the various items as though trying to decide which one to choose. Settling on a scalpel, he turned back to face Joe, his face hidden in the shadows.

You know, I met Obadiah Stark, Joe stated emphatically.I can already tell you’re a rank amateur compared to him. I don’t even think you’d be interesting enough to make him sick.

The man stepped forward and pressed the scalpel against the right-hand side of Joe’s neck in a swift motion. His black hair was cut close to his head, flashes of grey along the temple. Freckles peppered his tanned face, vivid blue eyes belaying clarity of purpose. His mouth was turned up slightly as though trying to force a smile.

This area I’m pressing against is called Erb’s point, named after Wilhelm Heinrich Erb who located it. It’s basically where the four nerves of the cervical plexus meet. And if I just make a small incision here…

Joe cried out as the scalpel slid into his neck, severing the nerve cluster with the immediate effect of making his right arm tingle as though immersed in freezing cold water. He felt it go limp, his hand automatically rotating and flexing up over as though gesturing for a tip.

…you’ll find you’re paralysed down your right arm. Incidentally, this injury affects the circulation, which means your arm will no longer be able to regulate its temperature, so in cold weather, it’ll hurt like a son of a bitch.

Joe grimaced against the pain migrating from his neck and up and down his right side. His body shook with adrenaline, though he imagined his old friend fear was also playing a part.

It’s funny, the stranger said, his voice lilting softly. I’ve never actually killed anyone before. Never even laid a finger on those cattle I procure for my clients. You would be my first… breaking me in so to speak. Your knowledge has the potential to damage my reputation. It’s that reputation which has contributed to the confidence of my clientele in dealing with me, knowing I’ll provide them with a superior product, exactly as requested. And I have no intention of letting you FUCK IT ALL UP!

The man began shaking, hitting himself on the head in frustration. Joe couldn’t help but smile at the fact that his apparent existence, despite the pain and fear he felt, were having such a profound effect. He just wished he knew who his assailant was.

So what happens now? Joe asked glibly. I say sorry, tell you I won’t say anything, you let me go with my limp arm and we call it quits?

I admire your ability to find humour, even in such a despairing state, the stranger announced, the angry tremble in his voice rapidly receding. It’s endearing actually. But you know what’s about to happen. You’ll be tortured and tell me something I want to know.

Which is what exactly? Joe countered.

The truth. And I have something that’ll help you locate it.

He stepped back to the table and swapped the scalpel for a series of bamboo slivers before moving to the back of the room out of Joe’s sight.

The sound of a chair being dragged echoed around the room before the man reappeared and sat down, rocking the chair forward slightly so that they were directly in front of each other. He ran a finger along the tops of the bamboo, the motion making a barely audible clicking sound that Joe found extremely disturbing.

Joe felt sweat building up on the back of his neck, his increasing respirations causing him to feel lightheaded. Joe realised his irrational fear of the dark had been just a minor apprehension compared to this. If he didn’t know better, he would have said he was having a panic attack. Joe suddenly found himself wondering if it was possible to die from fear.

The man selected one of the bamboo slivers, placing the others on the table to his left. He positioned it just below the index finger nail of Joe’s right hand.

In case you haven’t guessed yet, this is going to hurt… a lot.

‘Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer.’

Norman Mailer

FEBRUARY 18TH 21:57

FENIT (AN FHIANAIT) COUNTY KERRY, IRELAND

Two weeks earlier

The rain pounded unrelentingly over Tralee Bay, causing the boats berthed in the marina to undulate gently one after the other.

Joe sat crossed-legged by the window, oblivious to the severe weather besieging his house and the adjacent residences. Surrounding him were scattered papers, newspaper articles, photographs and reports. To the casual observer, it would have appeared that their placement was random, but they were meticulously arranged into a specific order.

He took a big mouthful of Jack Daniels – neat, only ice to taint it – and placed the glass beside him. It was the first drink he’d had in months. Not that he’d ever been an alcoholic, but he’d discovered some time ago that if he continued with the excuse he was only a social drinker, he would slip down a slope he hadn’t realised he was skiing on. Smoking, on the other hand, was something he did too much of and had no intention of giving up. It always helped calm him.

Joe lit up a cigarette and drew on it deeply, scratching at four days of stubble on his face. After a few more drags, he placed it in the ashtray and rested back onto his elbows, letting out a huge sigh of frustration. What he needed was here somewhere. He just needed to look with better eyes.

Some investigative journalist, he chided.

It all seemed so long ago that Joe often found himself wondering if it had been real. After all, it was so vast and conspiratorial that it sounded like the plot of a crime thriller.

But it was real. There was an organisation hiding beneath the veneer of altruism and beneficence while pulling the strings of many government officials, politicians, police officers, lawyers and members of the justice system.

They had conspired, cajoled, betrayed and even murdered, all under the banner of reorganising the social strata so that the world could find itself again.

Machiavelli would have been proud.

For four years now, Joe had been investigating The Brethren, always mindful of their threat to his life but unable to let go. How could he? He had been at the centre of what would be, if made public, the largest conspiracy ever reported. Serial killers falsely executed so they could be privately tortured in order to satisfy the desires of those who felt the justice system had failed them. And he suspected that was only the tip of their obfuscatory iceberg. The magnitude of it was beyond comprehension, and yet Joe knew that life’s sense of irony would find many people probably in support of their actions.

Obadiah Stark had been a monster, of that there was no doubt. Even facing his death for the second time, he had been unrepentant for the 27 murders he’d committed.

Yet Joe had seen something else in him, not humanity, but perhaps realisation. Maybe even an acceptance of how his individualised suffering had shown him something unique. He had to admit the technology The Brethren had employed to carry out their own brand of restorative justice was impressive. Drugs and a deus ex machina designed to tailor one’s suffering to meet a specific request.

The threat to him had been clear—investigate and he would find himself in extremis, suffering in ways most likely unimaginable. So he had done it anyway, but furtively. And after leaving The Daily Eire, Joe had found he’d had an abundance of time on his hands to devote to the project.

His first thread had been to try and locate Vicky, but that had drawn a blank. E-mails and bank accounts deleted, phone numbers disconnected. Only a Google search of her name pointed towards evidence she ever existed at all. Even her sister, Sara, was nowhere to be found.

Using his connections in the FBI, Kev O’Hagan had helped him uncover bits and pieces, the most interesting of which insinuated that The Brethren had been somehow involved with the Whitechapel murders more than one hundred years ago. Hospital records he had obtained purported that one Thomas Quinn, a resident of a workhouse in London and former employee of The Brethren, had known the identity of Jack the Ripper and that he had worked for them.

Joe had initially found the whole idea ridiculous, but the fact that The Brethren were mentioned in a century old document had made him consider that it was too much of a historical coincidence.

Other documents from the period reported them as saviours of the downtrodden and legally mistreated, the familiarity of which resonated with Joe like the acutest sense of déja vu. They’d been up to their tricks, even back then. Perhaps that was where it had all begun.

Joe tried hard to contain the sudden rage he felt, recalling their manipulation of him - Vicky’s betrayal - as he rose to his feet and took his glass into the kitchen for a top up. He grabbed the bottle and was about to pour when he hesitated. This is exactly what he didn’t want to be doing, losing control and objectivity when that was all he had left. He screwed the cap back on the Jack Daniels and gave it a defiant tap before placing it back in the cupboard. He had just dropped the glass in the sink when the phone rang.

Joe collected the cordless extension from where he stood in the kitchen.

Hello.

Joe, Andrew Phillips stated on the other end. I think I have something you’ll be really, really interested in.

Well don’t keep me in suspense, Andy, Joe replied.

We’ve just found a woman’s body in Ballyseedy Woods.

Wow, that is fascinating, Joe said with less feeling than he’d intended. Andy was one of his friends in the Gardaí, going back before the Stark murders. He had always been a good source of information, treading that fine line between his duty as an officer and being a friend.

No, that’s not the interesting part, Andy replied, ignoring Joe’s glib reply.We arrested someone at the scene, an as yet unidentified woman.

And? Joe idly glanced at the ashtray, mentally noting he would need to light another cigarette.

… and she has a tattoo on her back. A tattoo consisting of tally marks.

Tally marks… Joe repeated quietly, a sense of foreboding wrapping itself around his entire body.

But that’s not the only thing, Andy continued. She said she’d only speak to you.

‘Whoever has not stood in the grave-yard on the summit of that cliff among the beehive dwellings and beehive oratory does not know Ireland through and through.’

George Bernard Shaw

FEBRUARY 18TH 18:38

UNKNOWN LOCATION IRELAND

Lamont Etchison believed in intensity. Strength, power and concentration - attributes one needed for pure intensity.

He had learnt it from an early age. Born into a working class and unremarkable family, his parents had held basic jobs. His mother, Bonnie, had been a teacher at Blackrock College in Dublin; his father a worker at Inchicore Locomotive Works.

Qualified in the most minimal way, they had led a simple life and brought Lamont up the same. They taught him that life was there to be embraced and enjoyed. His childhood was basically happy, it was sad, but that was it. Moments of drama were absent, as was change. Life occurred, one moment after another without breaks or moments of interruption.

He recalled the occasion he’d received a phone call from the hospital, telling him his mother had just passed away from the cancer that had been slowly eating away at her body for months. Lamont had jumped in his car, heading for the hospital and had then turned off onto another road before he’d arrived and just kept going - never seeing his father again nor his mother’s body. To him, it was just a mundane, daily event and not a life-changing moment. His sense of history at that moment was symbolic. It made him realise that the inscription of our life is a series of discontinuities. He had no sense of history.

For Lamont Etchison, it didn’t exist.

He lay on his bed, listening to the sound of the wind whistling across the dusk-imbued landscape. He could hear the sound of laughter upstairs from one of the gatherings taking place tonight. He had considered joining them but decided against it. They needed these opportunities to find some release from the intensity of their