All or Nothing

All or Nothing

By

Stuart Kean
e

Copyright © Stuart Keane 2014

Cover art copyright © Steve Crisp 2014

Published: 5th December, 2014

Publisher: Stuart Keane

The right of Stuart Keane to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement or the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

‘All or Nothing' is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For more information about the author, please visit
www.stuartkeane.com

For more information about the artist, please visit
www.crispart.co.uk

Acknowledgements

To my wonderful wife, Leisyen. For tolerating me and allowing me to follow this crazy, awesome dream, and for supporting me every step of the way.

I wish to thank Geoffrey West and Julia Gibbs for initially proofing and editing my work. Once again, working with you is an absolute pleasure and I thank you for bringing the best out of my words.

A special, unique thank you to Steve Crisp, an absolute legend. I've been a huge fan of your work for many years and the fact I got to work with you, speak with you and share your talents was a true bucket list moment. You provided a perfectly grotesque cover and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Heartfelt thanks to Donna Harrison, Iain Harrison Jr, Iain Harrison Sr and Nicola Park. For creating some wonderful photographs and material for promotion of this novel. The fact that you took time out of your lives to help me on this project is hugely appreciated.

A special thank you to Mags and Ewan. Your contribution to this novel was subtle but ever so important. Thank you.

I want to thank my family, as always. You are my inspiration, my support and my solace in times of need.

To Richard Laymon, Stephen King, James Herbert, Clive Barker, and Shaun Hutson. For so many memories and adventures and for inspiring me to do this in the first place. You will continue to inspire me for many years to come.

And finally…to my readers. Thank you all for following me on this journey.

To Leisyen.

For too many reasons to list, so many it would take another three-hundred pages.

PROLOGUE

The room is nowhere.

A mystery, a myth. The room could be anywhere in the world, hidden in any country, any state, any home, any basement or any apartment block.

The room is an anomaly, a mere statistic. For all intents and purposes this room simply isn't there.

The interior remains silent, untouched and isolated.

It’s a nine feet by nine feet cubic block, with a solitary bed, one small pillow and a pathetic excuse for a blanket bundled up at its foot. The frame is screwed to the floor with industrial bolts and painted with cheap department-store paint. The bed itself is made of rusting steel. The frame, distorted beneath the pillow, gives it a lopsided appearance.

The walls are made of stone, they radiate no heat and emit no smell. It’s like a human-sized thermos, sealed tight and unused in years. The urinal in the corner is stagnant, its white ceramic surface now yellow with age. A fly settles on its rim and stays put. Whether by choice or because it’s slowly dying from the fumes is anyone’s guess.

The door opens and a figure steps into the room. The low light introduces a man shrouded in shadow, his height, weight, hair colour, features, all indiscernible. He's joined by a second man, similar in size, albeit a little thinner and taller. The men are strong and they’re carrying something. It looks like a potato sack, but arms and legs are jutting from it, serving as makeshift handles for the two haulers.

Next, the men swing the ‘sack’ onto the bed. A huge metallic groan breaks the silence. After a few seconds they grunt and turn away. They leave and shut the door behind them. A deafening clank is heard as the steel bolt slides home and the room is locked once more. Then all is silent.

In the corner of the room, a miniscule red LED light turns green.

***

One hundred and seventeen miles away, a man sits at his desk, smiling. His comfortable red leather chair squeaks under his average weight, appropriate for a well-heeled middle-aged man. His right hand caresses his chin, the universal gesture for deep thought. He taps his clean-shaven chin three times before he reaches out and grabs the monitor on his desk and pulls it closer.

He taps on the keyboard, which is paper thin and almost invisible on his desk. The desk is otherwise empty. He taps another key and the screen goes green. Night vision. The man can see the dingy nine-foot square room from a discreet mobile camera. The image’s green hue makes the scene appear peculiar. He can see the damaged bed and the stained urinal. He strains to see anything else. The fly is dead on the porcelain rim now, but that’s none of his concern. It goes unnoticed.

The ‘sack’ moves. What
seemed
like legs and arms
are,
in fact, arms and legs. The whole mass moves until the legs bend and the arms move to what can only be a man’s head.

The two huge delivery men have left behind a human being.

And the observer of the cell smiles, his expensive tooth veneers radiate moonlight from the vast glass window behind his desk. His office is expensive. His dental work cost more than the room’s decor. A finger taps the keyboard again, his gold ring bouncing the moonlight onto his black slimline keyboard. The monitor displays four rooms in total, all nine-foot square, all at risk of a health code violation. Each of the rooms has a person lying on its bunk. All the rooms are identical. The man pushes a button, and from hidden speakers we hear four simultaneous clanks.

The rooms are open for business.

“Game on,” he murmurs to himself.

The man smiles.

***

Four offices, all identical, all expensive. The desks came from the same production line. All have a monitor installed, all have slimline keyboards and built-in speakers. All have leather chairs, on which sits an occupant. The offices are exactly one hundred miles apart from each other, positioned in a square formation, in luxury suites in unlabelled buildings in various locations. All the occupants are male.

All of them smile. All of them caress their chins in delight at what they are seeing.

Each monitor displays all four rooms.

The rooms each contain an unconscious human being.

Each person has a black credit card in their hand.

Game on indeed.

ONE

Heather Mason stirred slowly.

For a second she thought she was blind, blackness swallowed her. She froze in panic, unable to move. After a few moments she regained her composure and breathed. Once calm, she waved her heavy hands in front of her face. Still nothing. She closed her eyes and counted.

“One…two…three…four…”

On five she opened her eyes and breathed in relief. She still couldn’t see, but she could identify shapes in front of her. She wasn’t blind. The room was pitch black but she could see. Barely. She waved her hands in front of her face again and this time she was relieved to see distinct movement. A smile crept over her face for a moment. It disappeared when something else dawned on her.

This wasn’t her bedroom.

If it had been, the bed wouldn’t feel like concrete beneath her. Her Minnie Mouse nightlight would be spinning on her dresser, casting Disney shapes onto her ceiling. She would be able to detect any one of the fifteen different perfumes she regularly used. Today was the day for Paul Smith…but he was nowhere to be found…or smelt, as the case may be. Most importantly, the landing light would be on. Despite being an adult, Heather had a mild fear of the dark. A poor excuse for a pillow supported the back of her head. The darkness started to become cloying.

In a second her brain started working overtime.

She closed her eyes, a reflex effective since she was four years old, a way to ward off the fear of the dark. If she couldn’t see the darkness, it couldn’t hurt her. Of course it sounded stupid when you believed this as an adult, but for Heather it was a safety blanket.

Fear set in as she sat up, and then collapsed back down again. She felt groggy, her head felt heavy on her fragile shoulders. She couldn’t move her hands easily. The early signs of 'pins and needles' started to set in. They felt like lead for a few minutes as the blood rushed back.

She moaned and rolled over, swinging her legs out over the side of the bed. Her hands stayed inert at her side until the blood found its home, the ‘pins and needles’ sensation making her wince. She felt drunk and hung-over.

The cold stone floor shot a bolt of electricity up her body as her feet touched down. Bare feet? Where were her socks? She placed her hands on her head and she groaned loudly, feeling as if she'd slept for years.

Heather opened her eyes and saw nothing. Nothing, at first, then images began to materialise as her eyes became adjusted to the dark. She could make out shapes. Her rump was on something moderately soft. She assumed it was a cheap brand of mattress. Suddenly her senses kicked into motion and she was awake. 

The silence was deafening.

The mattress was greasy, damp, and cool to the touch.
Is that an insect running across my fingers?

Heather flinched. The sudden movement heightened her senses.

The smell of the room was putrid, like rotten vegetables and urine. She gagged at the odour and vomited right there, on the floor. The splashing sound was a welcome intrusion to the silence. It hurt her ears, but confirmed that her senses were fine, even if they were a little ragged round the edges. Just like an ordinary morning slump.

She looked around.

Where was she?

Heather tried to remember the night before.

Coming home from work, she'd stopped off at a bar for a well-earned drink. Twelve and a half hours at the office had really worn her out, but she felt that she'd achieved a vast amount during her day. She liked to celebrate with a coke. She had supplies at home, but fancied being out and around people for a change.

So she'd gone to the bar. The place was empty when she arrived, and an hour later was packed with the eight o’clock rush. By that time, the barman had refilled her glass twice, and she had satiated her hunger with snacks. Alcohol was never on her agenda for the evening: watching her mother die of alcohol poisoning had been enough to confirm a lifestyle choice that was strictly teetotal. No, it was soft drinks only from then on. The fact that she was even in a bar was impressive to her, since she rarely left home, except for going to work. Three more cokes and she was finished celebrating alone. Heather stood up to leave.

A man had blocked her exit. It wasn’t done intentionally, it was simply that she was leaving and he was arriving, but their eyes met and he asked her to join him; she had agreed. She returned to her perch at the bar and ordered her seventh coke of the evening. The stranger had ordered a JD straight with ice. The whisky’s smell made her feel nauseous.

They had chatted about current affairs, keeping fit, their jobs, and her mother, God rest her soul. She’d told the man about her family. Her mother had drunk herself into an early grave. Her father had skipped town when she was young and was found dead some years later. According to her mother, he had pissed off the wrong people. Her mother was her only family while she was growing up. Her one inspiration.

For all the topics they must have discussed, Heather could not remember anything else they'd said to each other. After the eighth coke it was all a blur. Puzzling.

What the hell am I doing in this room?
she wondered.

Heather stood up and walked about, balling her feet against the cold floor. It was her way of relieving stress, she did it during work more often than not. It felt a bit odd doing it on a hard stone floor as opposed to a soft plush carpet, but nonetheless it relieved the stress a little.

Holding out her hands, and moving slowly she felt around, first finding a wall, then moving around, following this surface with her fingers until she had done a full rotation of the room. She estimated it had taken seven minutes in the darkness. She considered timekeeping a vital tool, and Heather was very good at it. Making a rough estimate, her conclusion was that the room was roughly the size of an average office. The walls and floor were made of the same material, both of them cool to the touch and damp. It was smooth, and seemed to be either worn down by years of use, or was a new construction.

She realized that she was being held captive. The bunk was basic, worse than would be used for a prison cell. She imagined a tramp turning his nose up at it. Her fingertip exploration had revealed that the wall’s surface felt the same overall, apart from small indentations here and there. However, a small section had been made of metal, which felt greasy and rusted. Unfortunately, she'd also placed her hand in a toilet bowl. The ceramic feel and shape of the toilet was obvious, even in the dark. The stench of stagnant water now soaked her skin. She gagged at the smell. Heather stood still and turned slowly.

There was a door.

She continued towards it until she noticed a thin, weak sheath of light coming from the end of the room. The door was open. How had she not noticed that? She must have scanned the door with her fingers and then moved past the gap without realising. In hindsight, it was a good move. She now felt like she knew the outline of the room a little better. Only time would tell if it would help her.

What sort of captivity was this
?

Heather walked to the door and breathed in. Peering through the crack, she saw nothing but blackness, like a human-sized void. A small, single bulb cast an eerie yellow glow in front of the opening. Beyond that, the darkness could have stretched forever.

Gripping the door, she pulled with all the strength she could muster. It groaned, the hinges squeaking, setting her nerves on edge. The mechanisms needed oiling, in fact, the hinges needed replacing full stop. They creaked in protest of the weight as it swung, but when the door was about a third of the way into the room, it wouldn’t move any further. Heather took a deep breath.

Thirty-four years of fear slivered deep into her soul. For once, she knew facing the darkness was the only way to discover where she was, why she was there and who had put her here. She remembered being three years old and smashing her knee on her dolls’ house just as she was going to bed. She cried for hours. In her child’s mind, the darkness had tricked her. If she could be in that much danger as a child, in her own bedroom, who knew what dangers the darkness would bring this time? Breathing deeply, Heather braced herself.

She stepped through the door’s opening.

***

The third of the four men was smiling. He was winning so far. He drummed his well-manicured fingers on the desk and looked intently at the screen. The monitor cast a dull hue onto his face, showing off his chiselled cheekbones and jaw. Several years and plenty of money had gone into that complexion and appearance. On the screen he saw his Choice had just discovered a way out of the room. He knew she was the first to discover the exit. The muted silence of his competitors proved that. He was in the lead. He smiled again, not hiding his shit-eating grin.

He took the glass of JD from his desk and drank.