One Star

by Christopher D Schmitz

  His assailant had pulled a long cable out of the rear of the van which he’d backed into the driveway during the blackout. The fat man’s body screamed in agony as he tried to move; he crawled to his knees and tried to scramble away as quickly as possible.

  The smaller man caught up to him easily and sizzled his backside again with the stun gun. Feeny’s heart raced like a misfiring engine and he fell into a heap of twitching limbs. Although he didn’t fully black out this time, he slipped in and out of consciousness like he’d fallen into a drunken state. His body couldn’t quite come to terms with the damage and reconcile the situation with is mind.

  With the long cable affixed around his torso, the anonymous man activated a winch mounted inside the cargo van and collected his heavy mark. The light duty crank struggled as it dragged Feeny ungraciously over the ledge, beating his shins purple against the ball hitch and finally towing him within as the kidnapper wrapped his hands and feet with duct tape.

  Feeny began coming to consciousness again when the wild-eyed, familiar man stuffed his mouth with what he assumed might be some kind of sedative. The kidnapper wrapped more tape around his mouth and head ten times to ensure it wouldn’t slip free and caught as much hair as possible.

  He refused to swallow, but within minutes his saliva had melted the gel caplets and the contents leaked down his throat. A foggy haze of torpid terror overtook his brain and he drifted off as the roaring of gravel echoed beneath the thin skin of the creeper van.

  10

  Feeny woke up to a heavy whiff of wood smoke and a choking impulse. A handkerchief wrapped around his head gagged him tightly. He struggled to move but couldn’t and felt the deep ache in his joints where his captor had bound him to a chair. Every muscle in his body throbbed from the muscle pain caused by the taser.

  He muffled a demand to his captor who stood over an archaic potbelly stove made of cast iron. Making coffee as if this was any mere camping trip the kidnapper finally stepped into the light where Feeny could get a look at him. He was definitely the man who’d left the store after Feeny’s insult last week.

  “Oh good. You’re finally awake,” the man with the tired eyes said. Setting down his porcelain coated mug he unfolded a pocket knife and stepped menacingly towards his prey. “My name is Kurtis.” He slid the blade along Feeny’s check, turned the edge, and cut the gag.

  He spat out the moist fabric. “What do you want from me? I saw you the other day in my store.” He looked around, searching for any clues to his location or anything that might aide in an escape.

  Kurtis crouched in front of his captive. He grinned wickedly, like someone who’d had a clear break from reality. “You know,” he mused, “I’m not even sure quite yet.” He turned his back on Feeny and retrieved his coffee.

  The prisoner evaluated the small cabin he’d been taken to. Guessing at the age and layout of the rustic, log structure he assumed it was either an abandoned shack or a hunting cabin. Through the windows Feeny could see only green, wild canopy.

  “My mother can’t afford any ransom,” he blubbered.

  “I know.” He sipped his coffee and glared daggers at Feeny. Kurtis silently laughed about a novelty tee shirt he’d once seen… something about fat people being harder to kidnap.

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Then… what? Can I go? I promise I’ll never tell a soul.”

  Kurtis walked behind the chair where Feeny couldn’t see him. Seconds seemed to stretch on forever.

  Feeny anxiously shifted. The tension fell palpable and heavy on the rear of his neck and bead into thick drops of nervous sweat.

  Kurtis basked in the power—the tingling sensation of dominating another human being—of holding his life in his hand.

  He kept his tone even. “What kind of books do you like… mack-daddy Feeny oh-six?”

  Feeny hung his head and whimpered a few sobs. He suddenly realized that his online activities had come back to bite him.

  “It looks like you made that connection pretty quickly. I guess you’re just a prick, but probably not an imbecile. Now, what kind of books do you like?”

  “I think you know.”

  The crinkle-rustle of a creased book-spine opening. Kurtis’s words dripped with disdain as he read. “What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishy-gods! Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh! Where the Baddelaries partisans are still out to mathmaster Malachus Micgranes and the Verdons cata-pelting the camibalistics out of the Whoyteboyce of Hoodie Head. Assiegates and boomeringstroms. Sod's brood, be me fear! Sanglorians, save! Arms apeal with larms, appalling. Killykill-killy: a toll, a toll. What chance cuddleys, what cashels aired and ventilated!”

  A clap akin to the closing of the cover.

  Feeny’s head rocked forward as Kurtis swung the book like a baseball bat, cracking his skull with the hardcover’s spine. The blow took him by complete surprise; stars flashed behind his eyes and he felt the sticky wetness of blood trickling down to his shirt collar.

  “Maybe I’m not reading this quite right… am I reading it right? I’m sure there’s a kind of artistry to it, but if this is the metric you measure quality by, then you must go crazy for bathroom-stall limericks. Let’s see what the internet tells us.”

  Kurtis tossed the book into the mouth of the stove and picked up a laptop. He read from the screen, “Theo Shultz’s Darkness Deep Within is perhaps the worst example of Stephen King copy-catism I’ve ever seen. I secretly wonder if Mr. King suddenly became a mental retard and began trying to recreate the plots of those books that made him famous… to say nothing about the quality of the originals and the oft-passive voice interludes King so often bores his readers with. That part Shultz got right. I did rage quit this book and tore it into two pieces. Don’t worry, I made sure to put both separate halves into different trash bins so that no unfortunate hobo picks up one half at the dump and entertains any thoughts of reading what should have been an abortion in creativity.”

  Feeny chuckled under his breath as his captor read aloud. Apparently, he did not understand the gravity of his predicament.

  Leaning menacingly close, Kurtis whispered, “I don’t think you get it. I have no intention of letting you go until you’ve learned a lesson: the internet is not anonymous and your cutting remarks have real life consequences—either to you or to someone else.”

  Opening his mouth to speak, Kurtis interrupted him and slashed him across the thigh with his knife. He flashed a grin of amusement at his pun. Feeny screamed and his kidnapper wrapped an old rag around his mouth to gag him anew.

  He stood and went towards the door. Glancing at the wound, he determined it was superficial, although likely painful. “I’ll leave you to ponder that,” Kurtis said. He slammed the door shut behind him as a wild-eyed Feeny tried to scream through his gag.

  Kurtis paced back and forth. His footsteps echoed empty over the hardwood floors of his home.

  He imagined the self-important Feeny trapped and gagged. Bound to the wooden chair he would undoubtedly descend into sorrow, regret, and hunger—soiling himself and staining his face with crocodile tears.

  A pang of worry and doubt suddenly struck a chord deep within the author. It passed when he glanced at the stacks and stacks of his novels that he’d purchased and piled along the baseboard trim of his living room.

  He flung any second thoughts far beyond his mind. His book was good and he knew it! He just needed others to begin recognizing the same.

  As usual, Kurtis’s home remained dark. Darkness meant he wouldn’t see photos and be confronted with thoughts of Felicia or memories of Charlie and Mikey.

  He stared at his books instead, descended into them—asked his characters for guidance.

  Kurtis chuckled for a moment. He knew how crazy it sounded, but it seemed to work… sometimes. The therapist he’d begu
n visiting after Felicia’s accident said he’d latched onto obsession. Kurtis stopped seeing him.

  He picked up a paperback and read the back cover blurb for the thousandth time, revisiting the world of his own creation… or is it the real world and you’re just recording it? He chuckled at the thought—although it seemed very much like a foreign voice creeping in and disguised as his own inner talk.

  Kurtis laughed out loud as he reached for a bottle of whiskey. The fact that he recognized that was proof that it was all in his head, right? The heralds of the Darque are just part of my fiction—I’m in control here.

  The whiskey dulled his clarity of mind and his inner argument became moot. I’m in control, he insisted again.

  Yes. You’re in control, his creeping thoughts agreed. This is all you and your paranormal fiction. Think of this instead…

  Kurtis thought again about the fat critic restrained by duct tape and finally losing bowel control as he crapped himself. His inner sadist felt blissful.

  He poured himself another high-ball glass and smiled. “I’m in control.”

  Next to his laptop he felt the judgmental glare of his dead wife. Kurtis met the gaze of the smiling, framed photograph. Felicia sat on the grass of a nearby park, holding a child on either lap. Michael and Charlie.

  Kurtis stroked her glossy cheek and then his face went stony with her accusation. “What?” he defended and as he the frame face-down. “I’m in control!”

  11

  “Feeny’s got to pay,” Kurtis said to the steamed up bathroom mirror. He’d scrubbed away the blood and stink of Feeny’s fear with a loofa and water cranked up as hot as he could tolerate.

  With his index finger he traced lines on the glass and altered the hazy form of his naked reflection. He drew a scraggly beard, horns, and ears which wreathed his face with the disturbing shape of an inverted pentagram.

  With his palm Kurtis wiped the mirror clean of the fog and revealed his face. “Of course he does,” he agreed with himself, “For what he did to Julie Baird. Only someone who cared about justice would make this monster pay. Only someone who was truly… noble.”

  Convinced, he nodded to his reflection. The pep talk helped—he’d panicked slightly on the drive back to his house and feared he’d lose his nerve.

  Towel-less he walked through his dark house and let the night air wick away the moisture. The evening air pressed in around him, suffocated him with the loneliness of it. Darkness meant that he wouldn’t see many reminders of all that he had lost… photos and belongings of his family. Ever since the funeral his shades had been perpetually drawn and his house kept as dark as possible.

  He had little. He’d boxed up most of his children’s belongs and donated them to area churches or thrift stores. Everything hurt him in some way and he did his best to rid himself of reminders. Feeny had taken from him when he had nothing left. He’d hurt him further and now it was Kurtis’s time to hurt him back.

  Meandering back into his living room he reached for the increasingly familiar bottle. His eyelids fluttered with surprise when he saw the giant seven-pointed star he’d etched into his hardwood floor near the blanket and pillow where he’d slept. He couldn’t ever get to sleep inside his bedroom—visiting that chamber without Felicia felt like an egregious betrayal. But he didn’t sleep much better out here on the floor; he’d obviously drawn this during one of his nightmare episodes.

  For a moment Kurtis considered visiting his therapist again. “You don’t need help,” he whispered, not quite sure where those words came from. “You’re in complete control.”

  12

  Kurtis could tell his tactics were working as he entered the cabin tucked away in the woods. A faint odor of ammonia piss wafted off of the bound man.

  Feeny’s face looked drawn and gaunt. The gag had somehow slipped off overnight and when Feeny coughed Kurtis could tell his captive had screamed until his voice went ragged.

  Using a turkey baster Kurtis gave the critic a shot of water. He wanted to break the fat man, but not due to the effects of starvation or dehydration, although he didn’t plan to feed his pet for another day or so.

  “Have we learned anything since yesterday?”

  Feeny, through his struggled panting, spewed a hot string of profanity and vitriol.

  Kurtis acted as if he couldn’t hear him and went about his morning routine for an hour while the raspy-voiced captive hollered himself out. He built a small wood fire in the pot belly stove and made his morning coffee.

  Once he’d finally relented Kurtis pulled up a chair and sat adjacent to the prisoner. He stared deep enough into Feeny’s eyes that the fat man flinched.

  “It’s a new day and time for a new lesson,” Kurtis said as he took out his laptop. He turned the screen to face him; it showed a nasty review on the Amazon listing for a title by Julie Baird. He read back the one star review out loud.

  “What can I say about Zeppelins of my Heart except that I have never been to a farm. However, I do assume that copies of this train wreck of a novel are at least ninety percent similar to manure droppings. Don’t be fooled, dear agrarian enthusiasts; you can’t even use this atrocity of the English language to properly fertilize a field making it perhaps the most worthless piece of crap I could purchase on the internet. You can see I got it in ebook. I must assume that the paperback version probably attracts flies and smells like garbage, too.”

  Feeny did his best to hide an arrogant sneer as his captor read the review with the exact snide tone he’d intended for his comments to have. He did his best to keep the smile subdued, but his eyes twinkled as he relived the mischievous glee of writing that post. He may have been bound and tortured, but the rush he got from writing those assassination pieces made it nearly worth it—like some kind of perverse fetish.

  “Oh, you think that’s funny?” Kurtis turned the laptop and clicked the next window on his computer. He brought up another cached and saved website: www.MackdaddyFeeny06mustdie.com. It featured Julie Baird’s photo prominently on the landing page.

  Feeny blew an amused raspberry and laughed. “That website?” He laughed with a belly roar. “What? You’re ticked off enough about a bad review that you’re willing to commit a serious felony? Get over it! Haven’t you heard of the First Amendment? I can say whatever I want! Stop being such an over-sensitive snowflake; what ever happened to ‘sticks and stones, but words will never hurt me?’”

  The intense look burning within Kurtis’s hollow glare shut Feeny up. “Did you know Miss Baird?”

  “No.”

  “She bared her soul in that book, so shut your fat hole you disgusting little maggot!” He snapped the laptop shut and dragged an end table in front of the captive before wandering behind the reviewer. The distinct sound of pulling duct tape off a roll cracked behind him.

  Kurtis reached over Feeny’s head and taped his eyelids taught so that he’d have to keep them painfully open and looking only in the one direction. “Zeppelins of my Heart was written by Julie Baird. She was a real person, not some nameless, faceless computer server floating out in the clouds. I tried to get in touch with her. Money will let a guy do that, and I got a bunch of that when my… I got some in a recent insurance settlement,” he steered his confession as he regagged Feeny, this time with tape.

  “I found that I really identified with her and the abuse she’d experienced at your hands.”

  Feeny grunted and groaned an argument.

  “Correction noted. You abused her with words. She was one of two-hundred sixty-four reviews you’ve written.” He took his knife and slashed a second cut across Feeny’s thigh. His nose whistled as he inhaled sharply from the pain. “Two hundred sixty two more to go,” he whispered as Feeny wailed through his duct tape muzzle.

  “As I said, I tried to reach out to Miss Baird. Do you know what I discovered?”

  Feeny muffled something incomprehensible.

  “Miss Baird committed suicide six months ago. Her f
amily said she fell into a deep despair… it seemed to have started around the time that she tried to achieve her dream of becoming an author. She just couldn’t get any traction and they cited Julie becoming distraught over negative reviews. So you see, Mister Feeny, ‘words can never hurt me’ is an entirely false statement.”

  Kurtis set down a framed photo of Julie Baird and a copy of her book. He arranged them on the table where his victim was forced to look at them. “I’ll let you think about that tonight,” the kidnapper growled. “I’ll see you tomorrow with a new lesson.”

  He abandoned his captive and Feeny could hear the sounds of chain and padlocks on the exterior door. All he could do was stare at the table and move his eyes as fast as he could to try and draw down enough tears to keep them moist.

  13

  Feeny’s ears perked up when he heard the distant rumble of a vehicle in the distance. He was sure his captor was arriving for today’s “lesson.” Over the last week he’d made many keen observations to his environment—as soon as his eyesight returned to normal, that is.

  If he’d truly contributed to the death, even unwittingly, then Feeny had to assume his captor intended to kill him. He guessed that if he was going to ever get free of this madman it would have to start with learning as much as he can—both about his prison and about his jailer.

  The cabin was small and completely off the grid by the looks of it: no power, no water. He assumed it was remote—there was no light or noise pollution to speak of through those two small windows. Feeny felt certain he was being held somewhere well away from civilization. He missed even the gentle buzz of the sixty cycle hum many electronics emitted. With no power, communications signals were unlikely. The cabin was utilitarian but had very little in the way of equipment, features, or furnishings he might find useful. The only items worth cataloguing were the fire poker, a set of knives and silverware, and a few blankets.