Storm Vengeance

by Pamela Cowan

  find balance, her karma, her fate—well, she’d decided fate could go fuck itself.

  Sadly, fate had its own ideas. Storm heard her window slide open, controlled from the driver’s side, and felt the touch of the wind on her cheek. Instead of opening the door and removing the wire, the woman got out, walked around, and reached in through the window. She took the scarf away and then did something to the wire. Storm felt it tighten for a moment and she drew back from it. Then it loosened and she got ready. As soon as the door was wide open, she’d act .

  “You watch many movies?” Raggedy Ann asked.

  “What?”

  “Simple question. See, in a lot of movies you get some real violent characters. They can be pretty inventive. Makes you wonder about the writers sometimes. Anyway, I saw this one movie where the good guy, or was it the bad guy? I forget. Anyway, this one guy he had to get this other guy to do what he wanted. But the other guy was a badass, so you couldn’t just hold a gun on him. It would be like holding a gun on Chuck Norris or something.”

  Storm swallowed. She felt nauseated, both from the car ride and from the dizzying unreality of what was happening to her.

  “So, to keep out of this guy’s reach, the other guy took a broom stick, drilled a hole, and ran some wire through it. Made a loop to put around the other guy’s neck. Sort of how they handle biting dogs, or snakes, or whatever. See what I’m saying?”

  With a sinking feeling, Storm did see what she was saying. There was no way for her to get away. Her plan was not going to work.

  The woman continued, “I’m going to open the door. When you start to feel that wire pull on the side of your neck, that’s your signal to get out of the car. You’ll be too far away to reach me, unless you have a hell of a kick.

  “I’ve also got the gun and I imagine I can shoot you before you kick me. Your kids won’t be too happy then. Probably make them sad to find out their mommy is never coming home.”

  “You bitch,” Storm spat, fury destroying any reasoned response she might have made. “I’m going to kill you!”

  “I don’t think so. I think you’re going to do what I say, go where I tell you to go, and maybe, if you behave, get to go home. So, come on. Let’s do this the easy way. You know, the only way you get to live.”

  The door opened and Storm felt a new wire slip around her neck. The other wire tightened a moment and then was pulled away. She felt it drop to her lap. Then, as promised, she felt a light tug on her neck. She swung her legs out of the car and stood, then leaned against the open doorway, needing the stability it provided. The wire on her lap fell to the ground. It was so quiet, she heard it land.

  The not completely unpleasant smells of cow manure and hay came to her on the breeze. She was definitely in the country. There was a change in the light as well. Instead of the ambient glow from the car’s dashboard, this light was yellow and stronger. A porch light, she thought.

  The wire now tugged against the back of her neck. “Walk forward. That’s it. Keep going. Okay, stop. Now, turn left. A little more. Good.”

  Storm heard the woman move around her, felt the wire slide around her neck as she changed position. The bitch was behind her now, but knowing that did nothing to help her.

  “Okay, walk forward. Go slowly.”

  Storm took one cautious step after another, inching each foot slowly along the ground. Still dizzy, it helped to think about what she was feeling. She thought she must be walking on grass, a lawn, but an old one, bumpy and uneven. Her hands began to wake up and she wrung her hands together. As blood rushed into them, the tingle became painful.

  “Stop.”

  The toe of Storm’s right shoe connected with something solid. She stood, swaying.

  “Stay there.”

  There was the jingle of keys and then the distinctive sound of a key sliding into a lock. Storm considered trying her plan anyway. What if she...?—but every scenario ended with the wire being drawn deeply into her neck, severing some vital artery, or worse. Her shoulders drew up protectively and she shuddered.

  “Okay, up the steps. Take it slow.”

  Storm did as instructed. At the landing, her foot slipped on the metal sill plate and she stumbled. The wire bit in, and then the end of the broom stick was pressed hard against the back of her neck and the pressure was relieved. Sickeningly grateful, she took a deep breath, steadied herself, and took another step inside.

  Again she felt the stick, more of a prod now. “Turn left and walk.” Across a room that was nothing but what the echoes of the woman’s voice could tell her—walls somewhere, a carpeted floor, then tile or linoleum, Storm moved forward. Each step felt like a step nearer the grave.

  Then there was another doorway to pass though and steps to descend. Carefully, walking sideways, her bound arms pressed against a handrail she couldn’t see, she moved downward. Around her rose a smell of damp mold and mildew, and there was a sharp chemical smell that she couldn’t identify.

  “There’s a chair in front of you. Move around and sit in it.”

  Storm sat cautiously. Sweat slid down one temple. Her entire body trembled and she panted, not from exertion, but from an overwhelming sense of

  frustration. A need to get her hands on this oh so clever woman.

  Howard had once asked her, “Do you know you practically vibrate when you’re angry?” She knew now that he’d been telling the truth.

  The gun was a sudden hard prod against the back of her neck. Then came the threat.

  “No one would hear if I pulled the trigger in here. From this angle the bullet would tear apart your brain stem, and if you were to live, which is very unlikely, you would be nothing but a vegetable, a crudité maybe, or a carrot? You get to chose. Or, you could just sit very, very still.”

  Storm sat, as yet another wire was slipped over her neck and wound around the high back of the chair. Then, as had happened in the car, the old wire was unwound. She felt fingers moving, catching and pulling single strands of her hair as it was removed.

  Raggedy Ann was cautious beyond reason. Storm both admired and dreaded that attentiveness.

  “I’m going to take the cuffs off. When you’re free, I want you to put your forearms on the table in front of you.”

  Storm felt the woman’s cold fingers fumble at her wrists. Leaning forward, she gave her more room to work. She couldn’t wait to be free of the cuffs. If she could get her hands on the wire, keep it away from her neck . . .

  As she felt the cuff around her left wrist open, the muzzle of the gun was back again, pressed against the back of her head. A moment later the cuff around her other wrist fell open. The handcuffs dropped to the floor with a muffled jangle. From the sound and the scent of dust, Storm guessed that the basement floor was hard-packed dirt.

  “Hands on the table.”

  Storm brought her arms around to the front of her body. Having them free felt wonderful. She rolled her shoulders and rubbed her hands together.

  “Put you hands flat on the table,” the woman commanded, jabbing the gun hard against Storm’s skull.

  Storm obeyed.

  Once more Storm felt icy fingers and then heard a hiss as a strap was drawn tight around her wrist. In that split second, she realized the woman must have put her gun down.

  Using her free hand, Storm reached for the tape over her eyes and ripped it free.

  Pain exploded in Storm’s head and with it came stars—the comic book variety—with sparkling centers. After the sharp pain came a deep throbbing. The bitch had smashed the gun into the side of her head. Aware that blood from a new cut on her neck was trickling down her chest, Storm fought to stay conscious and upright.

  Dazed, Storm watched as if from a distance as her arms were repositioned on the table and straps placed around her wrists and then her forearms, just below the elbow. The straps were pulled tight, and then tightened a second time. Luckily the bands were wide enough that she thought they wouldn’t cut off too much circulation.

  The
sunglasses she’d worn had been knocked off and her nose ached. The tape had torn a few strands of her hair out by the roots and ripped several layers of skin from the corner of one eyelid. Sweat made it sting. Tears that were more from frustration than pain slid down Storm’s cheeks. Their salty bite added to her list of complaints.

  Raggedy Ann finished strapping down Storm’s arms and stepped to her side. Roughly she touched her fingers to the place where she’d hit Storm with the gun, then she rubbed her fingers across Storm’s forearm. Storm saw three bloody streaks and realized her head was bleeding.

  “You need to stop fighting. You’re making things much worse than they have to be.”

  “What do you want?” Storm whispered.

  “Not yet.”

  The woman left. Storm heard her footsteps, quick and light on the stairs, then the door at the top of the stairs opened and closed.

  She was alone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  STORM WILLED HERSELF to be calm—to think. So far she had no idea what the woman wanted. All her efforts to find out had been met with silence or hostility and threats. So, never mind the reason she was being held, she had to concentrate on getting free.

  Was there anything around her she could use as a tool, or a weapon? Her range of motion was limited by her shackles and the wire around her throat. She could only see straight ahead and as far to each side as she could roll her eyes.

  The walls to either side were empty stretches of roughly plastered walls, gray from age and grime. The wall she faced held a floor to ceiling wine rack decorated with cobwebs. On it a few dusty bottles rested on their sides. She sensed empty space behind her and guessed that the basement ran the full length and width of the house. The stairs were somewhere behind her, out of sight.

  The only thing she could see that might prove useful were the bottles. Maybe she could break one and use the glass to cut herself free. Then she could use an unbroken one as a club. But how to reach them?

  The table her arms were strapped to was long and narrow, probably built as a special work surface, or maybe a place to hold wine tastings. In any case, it was heavy, with massive legs and a thick wooden top.

  Rows of holes had been drilled through the top. Two sets of them, and through each set black straps, two inches wide, had been fed through and threaded into plastic buckles. They reminded her of the cheap plastic buckles on the backpack she’d carried when she was a student.

  She tried lifting the table, hoping its weight would be enough to break one of the straps or, more likely, a buckle. She strained until her muscles screamed in protest and fresh sweat broke out across her forehead.

  Nothing. The main problem was the almost hair-thin strand of wire around her neck. It was like a check rein used on cart horses in the Victorian era. She’d learned about them when she’d read Black Beauty as a kid. The rein held a horse’s head up so it would look pretty, but it also made it very hard for the horse to throw its weight forward and pull a cart, which led to whipping the horse. She remembered the anger and frustration she’d felt for the poor horses. She felt that frustration now, except this time for own helplessness.

  If she couldn’t break the straps, maybe she could push the table forward into the wine rack. That might cause one of the bottles to fall and break on top of the table. If it was close enough for her to wrap her fingers around the broken glass, she might be able to saw through the straps.

  She scooted closer to the table until her stomach was tight against the edge. Digging in with her feet, pushing with her arms and pressing against the table with her stomach, she tried to rock it forward. She thought she felt it begin to move, tilt forward slightly, but it moved no further and finally she had to let go. She tried again and again, each time with the same result. When she ran out of strength, all she had to show was a sore stomach and rib cage, and ugly friction burns where the straps had torn into the skin of her arms.

  Breathing hard, Storm rested. Blinking sweat and tears from her eyes, she stared straight ahead at nothing in particular. There was nothing of interest to see. Dim gleams of green and brown from the few bottles on the wine rack. The wood grain of the table. An old oak chair, the twin to her own, pushed in its place to her left. Dust motes swirled in a beam of light cast from somewhere in the ceiling behind her.

  She closed her eyes. The furnace clicked as it cooled, old timbers creaked. She could hear her own breathing. The beating of her heart was like a rushing tide in her ears. Maybe if she controlled her breathing, she’d calm down. Breathe in. Breathe out. Only the more she focused on it, the more erratic her breathing became and the more frantic she felt.

  She opened her eyes. Still nothing to see, just the wine rack, the bottles, the table. No, that was a lie she’d been telling herself. There was something else. Something left on the table expressly so that she’d see it. Reluctantly she forced herself to look.

  It was a red, shallow metal tray with a handle. She knew it was part of a larger tool box. Her husband had one just like it. It sat in their garage, filled with hand tools.

  They weren’t completely alike though; this one wasn’t polished and lined with non-skid material to keep the tools in place. It was old and battered, with one seam torn open and rust setting in.

  Inside the tray were several hammers and something that really bothered her—a brand new box of galvanized nails. They were shiny under the light. The only shiny thing in this dusty, unused space. Storm looked down at her arms tied to the table and cursed her vivid imagination.

  Storm knew Raggedy Ann had returned when she heard the door at the top of stairs and a puff of air sent the dust motes swirling. Then she heard the tap of shoes coming down the stairs.

  “Been busy?” the woman asked, tossing Storm’s purse on the table. She dragged the chair that had been next to Storm around to the other side of the table and sat down. “Your neck’s bleeding pretty good,” she said, resting her forearms on the table.

  Storm considered kicking out, trying for a knee. She might not get free, but she could hurt the woman. Then again there were the hammers to consider—and the nails.

  “What do you want, you crazy shit?” Storm asked. Though she had wanted to appear calm, the words hissed from between clenched teeth.

  “My name is Lauren Barry.” She waited a moment, an expectant look on her face, then she sighed. “Nothing? My name means nothing to you? Lauren Barry. Still nothing? Why am I not surprised.”

  Lauren stood abruptly and leaned across the table, her face close to Storm’s. “Maybe your father would remember the name. I’ll be sure to ask him.”

  “Wait, I do know that name. Wasn’t that the name of the girl my. . . Are you. . .are you her?”

  Lauren stepped back and sat down. “Yes, I’m her. I’m the girl your father ran over one night when he was stinkin’ drunk. The one he left on the side of the road.”

  “Oh my God.

  “Surprised?”

  “Of course.”

  “But you know the story.”

  “I know my dad was drunk. I know he was driving and jumped a curb and ran into a girl. He went to prison for twenty years.”

  “Not long enough,” Lauren spat out. “Not long enough to pay for what he did to me. Want the rest of the story?” Lauren’s smile was grotesque beneath the fake one she’d painted on her lips.

  “Twenty years ago a teenager was walking home from school. She was sort of a loner, this girl, so she was walking home all by herself. No friends around to yell ‘watch out’ or something along those lines. Not that it would have helped much. The car was moving fast. Luckily, the telephone pole it slammed into slowed it down. That way, when it spun around and hit the girl, it didn’t kill her. Nope, lucky girl. All it did was break both her legs in a dozen places, and smash her, face first, into the ground. Who needs two cheeks bones, two eye sockets, an intact jaw?”

  “That’s horrible,” said Storm

  “It was,” Lauren agreed. “He ruined my life. He ruined my face and
my body, and he never so much as said he was sorry. Not even a sorry. How does that work?” As she spoke, her voice had risen until she was practically screaming.

  Storm shook her head and was immediately aware of her mistake as the wire caught the edge of one of the cuts on her neck. She winced and drew back in the chair.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” Lauren continued, her volume dropping into a more conversational range. “I’ll make sure he’s sorry.” She reached forward and took one of the hammers out of the tool tray. “Know what this is?”

  “No,” Storm’s voice quavered. It annoyed her. She sounded timid to her own ears, as if she’d break quickly, easily.

  “It’s a special kind of hammer,” Lauren explained. “I looked it up. I think this one’s called a bumping hammer. They use it to hammer out fenders.” She dropped the hammer into the tray and smiled when the sudden bang made Storm jump.

  “This one,” Lauren told her, picking up another with a long pointed end. “This one is called a bullet point. Makes sense, doesn’t it?” She turned the hammer slowly so that Storm could see every inch. She dropped it into the metal tray as well, and again smiled to see Storm react to the sound.

  Lauren picked up the last of the three hammers and stood. Storm swallowed hard. The hammer was as odd as the others, but in a different way. Formed from some sort of thick, rubbery material, it had a square head, was matte black, and seemed heavy.

  “And finally, my favorite,” Lauren said. “It’s called a dead-blow hammer. Though that’s sort of a bad name, since I believe this is a mallet and not a hammer at all. People don’t seem to care about getting things correct. They act like details are unimportant. You know what detail I think is important? Your father’s address!” she shouted and slammed the mallet down on the tabletop between Storm’s hands.

  Storm’s hands tightened into fists. The straps bit into her arms as her muscles contracted against them. “I don’t know,” she shouted. “Why would I know?”