The Cool Room by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 64

Over the next few days, Jonathan noticed the absence of the voices he had been hearing from the cellar. Although suspicious, he decided to venture down and investigate for himself. He knew that at some point he would have to use the furnace and needed to know that it was in good working order. Hopefully, Frank was right and that it was just a matter of maintenance, but after being on the receiving end of Frank’s tirade, he found himself driven by curiosity. It seemed that Frank was hiding something, and Jonathan wanted to know what it was. He had also noticed that Frank was buying more groceries than usual – a lot more. Granted, Frank also living in the funeral home, as many directors do, but he was only one person and left the shelves and refrigerator stocked for what could be a small army. It never occurred to him that there may be others living in the house.

So it was on one night that Jonathan left home and drove to the funeral home. It was around one in the morning and knowing Frank would be asleep, he quietly unlocked the front door and entered the house. After worked there for several years, Jonathan knew his way around and without turning on the lights made his way to the cellar door. Not planning on illuminating the cellar, Jonathan brought a small flashlight and after almost silently opening the cellar door, he crept down the steps. Standing at the bottom, he swept the flashlight’s dim beam around the cellar. Everything seemed normal, with clean floors and well-organized supplies. Quietly walking through the spacious cellar, he came upon a sight that was nothing less than horrific. What he saw was beyond any normal person’s idea of rational, as he gazed at several cots where blankets had been thrown over what could only be the sleeping forms of people. In front of them were two tables stocked with small zip-lock bags and larger bags filled with a powdery substance. On each table there was also a jeweler’s scale. How could this be? Jonathan wondered why Frank would allow such activity in his funeral home. He thought about calling the police, but it had also occurred to him that doing so would result in the closure of the funeral home. With his name attached to such an incident, it would be nearly impossible to find work anywhere unless he could make the complaint anonymously. Looking around again, Jonathan felt the claws of fear gripping his mind and, turning away, began to quietly leave. But upon turning toward the cellar steps, he found himself confronting an unfamiliar face followed by a heavy blow to his jaw. Now, with his unconscious body on the cellar floor, Sam roused the others from sleep.

“Hey,” he said. “We got company.” Sitting up on their cots, they rubbed the sleep from their eyes.

“Come on,” he continued. “Wake up, assholes, we got a problem.”

Getting to their feet, they crowded around Jonathan, who still lay on the floor, completely unaware of his circumstances. The men stood around him wondering what to do when the unnamed man – apparently, now, their leader – spoke up.

“We can’t have him calling the cops,” he said. The others agreed, fearing that they would end up spending a great deal of time behind bars, and no one wanted that.

“So, what do we do?” Cole asked. Having been raised in Amsterdam, Cole always seemed to be getting into trouble. In school, he never quite fit into, and it didn’t take long for other students to begin harassing him. His anger and frustration came to the surface one day when he was given the opportunity to sample a bit of Cannabis. With the pleasure of the high came a need for more, and he soon began both selling and using it. This led to trafficking the substance and while on his bicycle he wore a day pack containing a wrapped kilogram of dried flower. He was able to easily make his way past police and roadblocks until the day came when he witnessed what happens when one gets caught with their hand in the till. Working for a dealer, he saw an associate being dragged out to a waiting van. He had been beaten severely with the butt of a shotgun and bloodied beyond recognition was thrown into the van never to be seen again.

In spite of his need to make money, Cole made a habit of living his life carefully and trusted no one. When Thomas entered his life, he was promise he would never have to witness such a sight again. Sam insisted that everything be done clandestinely, that things would work out if done quietly. No one wanted to go to prison, and Thomas would make certain that no one would. The chance to make money without the risk of incarceration or seeing death up close was too alluring for Cole, and he quickly became involved in what promised to be a very lucrative, albeit illegal venture.

Sam already had a plan, and Jonathan would soon be made to disappear.

“Pick him up,” he said.

Without questions, the others picked Jonathan up from the floor as their leader opened the door of the furnace. Fear swept through the small group of men as one of them dared to ask about they were about to do.

“Are we really going to do this?” he said. “Why can’t we just take him outside and put him in his car? Maybe he’ll just wake up and be confused or something.”

Having little patience for stupidity, their self-appointed leader reached out and slapping the man drew a moderate amount of blood from his nose. “Taking him outside?” he said. “Are you fucking kidding? I should beat the fuck out of you. Do you want to go to prison? Well, I don’t. Now lift his ass up and shove him in.”

Having opened the door of the furnace, the men lifted Jonathan’s unconscious body up and slid him in feet first. After closing the door, their leader fumbled with the controls until he heard the primary burners roar to life. They stood around watching the temperature gauge as its needle peaked at 1800 degrees. Through the heavy glass window, they could see Jonathan’s body beginning to move and twist. With the increasing heat, muscles quickly dehydrated, causing them to spasm. To the uneducated eye, watching such a sight was horrifying beyond words, and some of the onlookers began to panic.

“Jesus fuck,” the other man said. “He’s waking up. What the fuck do we do?”

This was Dylan, and in his youth he had always been something of a loner, fearful of most things that seemed beyond his understanding. With a fear of failure, Dylan dropped out half-way through the tenth grade and, taking up a part-time job, spent most of his money on drugs. His philosophy was that education is useless as one will likely never need it in order to obtain work, and manual labor seemed to be enough for him. But there was something gnawing inside of him – something that made him feel as though he was not fulfilling his potential. Salvation arrived when Thomas discovered him working under the table for almost pennies an hour. He told Dylan that he could be doing so much better and promised him that if he worked for him, he could have a much better life.

Naturally, Dylan was suspicious but drawn by the chance to make money as well as Thomas’s carefully chosen words, he also made the decision to join him. Like any cult leader, Sam knew exactly what to say and how to say it. He could convince a nun to sell heroin for him if he wanted to. So an agreement was struck and like Cole, Dylan was sworn to secrecy while being told that a silent operation was always the most successful. Dylan believed every word.