CHAPTER 52

Joan couldn’t look at the tray of food he left on the bedside stand. She couldn’t eat it. She wouldn’t eat it. Whatever he was putting in her food made her insides feel as if they were being slit open. He didn’t even need to use the leather restraints anymore. She couldn’t leave the bed if she wanted to. Instead she spent what felt like hour after hour curled up in a fetal position trying to ward off the pain.

She no longer thought about talking him into releasing her. She no longer dreamed about escaping the cabin. She only wanted to escape the pain. Maybe he would finally kill her. Yes, why didn’t he just kill her and get it over with? Instead, he kept bringing her food. The smell of the soup alone reminded her of her body’s reaction to it. And already her insides burned. The nausea had never left. For hours it continued, like being seasick on a cruise and not being anywhere near land. She couldn’t think about it, nor could she feel anything else. So when he sat down next to her and started showing her his collection, she could only stare right through him and pretend to be interested.

He was the little boy again, excited and anxious, as if bringing his show-and-tell projects to share with her. Each one more hideous than the next and threatening to make her vomit, though there couldn’t possibly be anything left inside her stomach. She tried not to think about the blobs as pieces of human beings. She tried not to think about the fact that he had taken them from their owners.

He was showing her something in a large jar with a white lid. She refused to look closely, not allowing her eyes to focus on what appeared to be a dirty yellow glob of fatty tissue.

“This one was a surprise,” he told her, holding it up at her eye level. “I knew an alcoholic’s liver would look abnormal but this…” He was smiling and explaining it as if it were a prize he had won in some competition. “They say a normal liver has the same texture and color as calf’s liver. You know, like you can buy at the supermarket. Actually, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to eat calf’s liver. That’s just gross.” He turned the jar slowly around as if giving her a full view. “See, the alcohol causes that discoloration.”

He got up to put the jar on one of the top shelves, and Joan hoped the presentation was over. He came back, stopping at the food tray. Oh, dear God, she couldn’t handle him force-feeding her again. She simply couldn’t survive another spoonful. But he left the bowl and picked up the brown paper bag that he had brought in with him on the tray. He sat down beside her and took another jar out of the bag. It looked like an ordinary twelve-ounce jelly jar. But it didn’t look like jelly. The liquid was clear, like in the other jars. And like the other jars, something was floating inside.

“This is my newest acquisition,” he told her, twirling it in front of her. Then he finally held it still and so close to her face that she couldn’t avoid recognizing the two floating, bright blue eyeballs. “Amazing, isn’t it, that these couldn’t see except with really thick glasses.”