Divine Evil

normal one, she decided.
    How the hell was she going to get out?
    She twisted one way, then the other, hissing at the pain, and discovered they hadn't even left her enough mobility to sit up. Her wrists were already raw and bleeding. She had to pee.
    Clare nearly succumbed to a bout of hysterical laughter and forced herself to lie still and concentrate on breathing until it passed.
    The sound of a car engine broke her control again. She was screaming for help when the door opened and Dr. Crampton came in.
    “You'll only hurt yourself, Clare.” He propped the door open with a rock so that the sunlight and fresh air could pour through. She blinked against it. He had his medical kit in one hand, and a McDonald's takeout bag in the other. “I've brought you some food.”
    “How can you do this? Dr. Crampton, you've known me all my life. I grew up with Alice. Do you know what it's going to do to her when she finds out what you've done? What you are!”
    “My family is my concern.” He set both bags on a chair, then dragged it to the bed. He hated this, despised it. Once he had wrested control from Atherton, they would go back to the pure way. There would be no more mistakes. Nomore waste. “You've injured yourself.” He clucked his tongue as he examined her wrists. “You're courting infection.”
    She had to laugh. “So, you make house calls to your victims. Keeping us alive for the sacrifice. You're a real humanitarian.”
    “I'm a doctor,” he said stiffly.
    “You're a murderer.”
    He set the bags on the floor, then sat. “My religious beliefs don't infringe on my dedication to medicine.”
    “This has nothing to do with religion. You're sick and sadistic. You rape and kill and enjoy it.”
    “I don't expect you to understand.” In his competent way, he opened his bag and took out a fresh syringe. “If I were a murderer, I would kill you now, with an overdose.” His eyes remained patient, even kind. “You know I couldn't do that.”
    “I don't know anything about you.”
    “I'm what I've always been.” He took cotton to dab on antiseptic. “Like the others, I have opened myself to possibilities and renounced the so-called Christian church, which is based on hypocrisy and self-delusion.” He pushed up his glasses, then held the syringe up, squirting out a bit of the drug to test.
    “Don't.” Her eyes fixed on the needle. “Please, don't.”
    “I've seen great things, Clare. I know, believe me, I know that a man's salvation can't be based on self-denial, but on indulgence and vitality.” He smiled at her, but his eyes glittered with a fervor she didn't want to understand.
    “This will make you feel better. Trust me. When you're calm, I'll dress your wounds and help you eat. I don't want you to be in pain or to worry. It'll all be over soon.”
    She twisted, screaming, but he clamped a hand on her arm and slid the needle gently under her skin.
    * * *
    Time drifted, misty and dreamlike. Docile with the drug, she sat unresisting while Crampton cleaned and dressed her wrists and ankles. She even thanked him, with a blank, polite smile, when he fed her the hamburger.
    In her mind she was a child again, sick with the flu, dressed in her nightgown with the dancing kittens on it. She went with him, floating, when he took her outside to urinate. He tucked her back into bed and told her to sleep. Obediently, Clare closed her eyes. She didn't feel him tie her again.
    She dreamed of her father. He was crying. Sitting at the kitchen table, crying. Nothing she could do or say seemed to comfort him.
    She dreamed of Cam, of making love to him on the kitchen floor, aching with need, stunned with pleasure. Her body was slick with sweat and naked as it slid over his.
    Then she was tied to a slab, no longer hot with needs but cold with fears. And it was Ernie who mounted her.
    When she woke, she was chilled with drying sweat. Nauseated from the drug, she turned her face into the pillow. But she was too weak even to pray
    “She hasn't been seen since yesterday morning.” Cam rubbed a hand over his face as he talked to the state police. “Her house was unlocked, nothing was taken. Her clothes, her jewelry, her tools, all her I.D. are still there.” He paused to drag smoke into his already raw throat. “I've contacted her brother, her friends. No one's heard from her.” He fought against a sickness in his gut as he detailed her description. “White female, aged twenty-eight. Five ten, about a hundred