An Easy Job

The grass felt wet against my back, as the moonlight shone down on me from above the
clouds. Beside me, I could recognize the cold steel of the revolver. Snatching it from the dew, I
pulled myself back on my feet. I’d hurt my left leg in the fall, and it felt worse with each limp I
took towards the thick forest, away from that mansion . . . away from that monster of a man. I
knew there was a small drug store just on the other side of the brush, and I was determined to
get there and call for help. The only thing was, I wasn’t sure who I’d call – the police, or Louis
Valone.

It can be difficult to maneuver around the outstretched sticks and bushes, even without an
injured leg. It was hard to bend, and when it did, it was even harder to stretch it back out again.
Behind me, I could see the red lights from Jiang’s estate grow dimmer and dimmer, eclipsed by
the trees and falling leaves closer by. What was this thing? Was it a man? It was hard to tell. It
had the features, certainly – a face, hands, feet, a nose, eyes . . . but I’d never seen one look
so . . . monstrous.

There was what looked like a cabin up ahead, and with my leg getting worse, I decided to
stop there and ask for help. I could see people in the window, but I still had this strange
unsettled feeling in the back of my head. I wasn’t sure if it was the secluded location, or the
musk of embalming fluid, but as I pushed the open door inward, the two became obsolete.

At first sight, you’d have thought I’d interrupted a party. There were men in suits, glasses in
hand, seemingly joking around with a couple of women in cocktail dresses. Children played by
the dining table, consumed in their game of hide and seek. An old couple sat in one of the
chairs, the woman knitting, while her husband read from a torn newspaper. It would have been
quite a cheery scene, only . . . none of them were moving.

Everything seemed to have come together for me as I stood in that doorway, staring at all of
the empty faces, and if it wasn’t clear enough to me then, as I turned to vomit, I caught a glance
at a bronze sign hanging proudly outside of the cabin.

“The Doll House”

I also caught a glance at the eight foot tall behemoth barrelling through the woods toward me.
The world seemed to fade into blackness, as I fell over onto the rough dirt. Images flashed
before me, almost as if blinking in slow motion between the slides of a presentation. I could
recognize the moonlight, still hidden behind the dark clouds. The red lights of Jiang’s estate.
The angry chef, bloodied knife in hand. The newly replaced lightbulb in the cage room, and Walter’s
mangled body in the cage beside mine.

I slowly regained consciousness as the massive man entered the room, followed by a
significantly smaller man I recognized as Henry Jiang.
“And nobody saw him?” He asked, looking up at the giant. The behemoth slowly shook his
head.

“Good. I’m not sure the pigs would take another bribe,” He said, stepping toward the cage.

“You did well, Guaiwu. Mother would be proud.” He finished, turning around and patting the
giant on the back before heading up the stairwell. The behemoth watched him leave, and then
kneeled down to my cage. He looked at me for a moment, and then opened his mouth to speak.

“Make a sound, and you’ll be bound,” Came a deep, powerful voice, as the man behind it
pointed toward the mangled corpse of Walter. With that, the giant opened the other cage, and
gestured towards a young boy sitting in the corner. He obediently stood up and strided over to
the monster, and with no effort, the giant picked up the boy and made his way down the dirt
hallway as the room seemed to get darker and darker as I lost consciousness once more.