by Jack Kilborn
John didn’t answer. Felix flipped on the interior light. John’s eyelids were drooping, and his jaw hung slack as he stared straight ahead.
“John? Are we going in the right direction?”
“Huh?”
“The Rushmore Inn. Is this the right road?”
John scratched his hairless cheek with dirty fingernails. “Yeah. It’s right up here. Pull over.”
“Where? Here?”
“Yeah.”
There were no crossroads. No buildings. It was just highway and forest.
“There’s nothing here, John.”
“Driveway is hard to see.”
John still had that vacant look on his face. Felix wondered if the guy was crazy. Or taking some sort of drugs. But on the off-chance that John was telling the truth, Felix pulled the Chevy off the road and onto the grass.
“Okay, now what do—”
The hunting knife was at Felix’s throat so fast he felt it before he saw it, the blade pressing against his Adam’s apple, forcing him against the headrest.
“Here’s what we gonna do, Mr. Type A. You gonna climb out, slow and easy, and then we takin’ a little walk in the woods. Your blood ain’t no good, so I won’t have no problem spillin’ it.”
The knife was incredibly sharp. Felix could feel the sting when it lightly broke his skin. Like a long paper-cut. John’s other massive hand was tangled in Felix’s hair, cupping his head like a basketball.
Fear smothered Felix like a wet blanket.
When Felix was able to speak, his voice was hoarse, barely audible. “My money is in my wallet. In my back pocket.”
“This ain’t about money, shit-brain. This is about poking your nose in what’s none of your goddamn business. Now get out of the truck.”
The knife sawed forward, giving Felix another, deeper cut. He thought about his Beretta, just under his seat. It might as well have been a hundred miles away. There was no way for him to reach it without his throat being slit.
Every system in Felix’s body went haywire. He got very hot, which was incongruous with his shivering. His bladder seemed to get smaller, tighter. His stomach churned, and his bowels were ready to burst. His breath came out in quick pants, making him even more light-headed.
This isn’t happening. It’s not happening.
Please don’t let this be happening.
He felt around for the door handle, thinking that maybe he’d have a chance to run when he stepped out of the truck, depending on how tight a grip John kept on him.
John kept his grip tight as a vice. He pulled on Felix’s head, keeping it at waist-level, as he followed Felix out the door.
“Let’s mosey on into the middle of the road. Won’t no one mind a big pool of blood there. It’ll look like a deer got hisself hit.”
John tugged him away from the car. Felix’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt, and at the same time he was finding it difficult to walk. Mixed in with the terror was a sense of detachment. Like it was happening to someone else.
Am I really about to die?
He’d never thought much about death before, and certainly never thought this was how his life would end. He wondered if he should be concentrating on something important. Or praying. Or looking back over his life and trying, in his very last seconds, to make sense of it all.
But all he could focus on was the knife.
“Unlike some of my kin, I don’t take no pleasure in killin’. Momma says it’s on account I’m too soft. But I done some bad things. And right now, I reckon I’m gonna do some of those bad things to you.”
Felix heard someone say, “Please, don’t,” and realized it was coming from him.
“I gotta. Maybe Momma won’t think I’m no softy no more if’n I bring her your head. But heads don’t come off easy. Takes lots of cuttin’ and hackin’. I ‘spect you’ll feel most of it.”
“Please...”
“On your knees, boy.”
Felix was forced down in the headlight beams. He stared at John’s waist, smelled his body odor, and realized these were the last sensations he’d ever experience.
Except for pain.
How will it feel when he cuts into my throat? Will it hurt a lot? Will I choke on blood?
Will John slit my neck, or dig the tip of the blade in?
What’s in a throat, anyway?
Jugular vein.
Carotid artery.
Adam’s apple.
The cartilage part. What was that called?
The trachea.
How will it feel when he pokes through the trachea?
How about when he goes even deeper?
Will the pain stop when he severs my spine?
Felix felt like sobbing. He didn’t want his last thought to be about the pain to come. He wanted it to be about something more important. He wanted it to be about Maria.
He pictured her face. Her eyes. Her smile.
He wanted so badly to see her, one last time.
I’m so, so sorry, baby. I failed you.
“What happened to her?” Felix croaked.
“Them questions is what got you into trouble, boy. You still asking ‘em?”
“I have to know.” Felix swallowed. “Please.”
John snorted and spat. “We bled her. Same as the others. Nice and slow. Not fast, like you’re gonna be. Just try not to splash any on my new truck.”
Rage overtook Felix, burning away the blanket of fear, filling his veins with electricity.
“If’n you take a deep breath, maybe you’ll be able to look ‘round for a bit after I get your head off.”
Felix lashed out with his fist, connecting with John’s crotch, feeling his hand sink in while simultaneously trying to twist away from the knife.
John grunted, jerking to the side, dragging the tip of the blade across Felix’s chin and cutting to the bone. Felix flinched away, but John’s hand was too big, his hold too tight. He cut again, the jagged back of the hunting knife catching Felix across his scalp. Felix reached out with both hands, his fingers wrapping around the cruel, sharp steel.
John bent down and pulled. Felix felt it cut into his fingers, but he refused to let go. He swung his head upward, fast. His scalp rammed into John’s chin, snapping the larger man’s head backward.
John jerked up to his full height, did a half-turn, then fell like a redwood, banging his forehead into the asphalt when he hit the road, his knife clattering beside him.
The pain hit Felix all at once. His neck. His head. His fingers.
Oh, Christ, my fingers.
He held them up but couldn’t see much in the dark except for blood. Then he reverted back to self-preservation and scurried over to the knife. He was able to pick it up, albeit painfully, and then slowly approached John.
The giant’s eyes were closed. Felix heard a low, rumbling sound, and he realized John was snoring.
Is he faking it?
Felix placed a foot on the hunter’s shoulder, shoved him from his side onto his back. In the high beams, he could make out the growing knot on John’s forehead.
Felix could also make out the injuries to his hands. It looked like he’d stuck them in a blender.
Seeing the cuts made them hurt even more. Felix hurried to the car, threw the knife in the back seat, tucked the 9mm into his waistband, and then dug the first aid kit out of the rear compartment where he kept his car jack and toolbox. He slathered his hands with a full tube of Neosporin, then began to wind them with gauze. Halfway into wrapping his right hand he had to stop and redo it, leaving his index finger free so he could still shoot the gun if needed.
Then Felix yanked out his toolbox, searching through it until he found the handcuffs. An impulse purchase he’d made at the same time he’d bought the gun, on the off-chance he might run into whoever had done Maria harm.
He stuck the keys in his front pocket and rolled the big man onto his belly—a difficult task with someone so heavy. The cuffs just barely fit around his thick wrists. Then Felix managed, with ev
en more difficulty, to pull his cell phone out of his pocket.
Felix used his index finger to dial 9 and 1. Then he paused.
John hadn’t said Maria was dead.
What if she was still alive?
And what if John could take him to her?
“It’s a police matter,” Felix said aloud.
But what if the cops couldn’t get John to talk? What if they weren’t persuasive enough?
Felix stared at the snoring giant.
The man who knows what happened to Maria. The man who sliced up my face and fingers. The man who almost cut off my head.
Felix hit the end call button and tucked the phone away.
I’ll get him to talk.
Felix walked over to John and gave him a hard kick in the ribs to make sure he was still out. The hunter didn’t so much as flinch. Then Felix collapsed into the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirror to look at his injuries.
It was ugly.
His shirt was soaked to the skin with blood. His head looked like he’d dunked it in the stuff, and his hair was plastered to his scalp. Not quite as bad as Sissy Spacek at the end of Carrie, but damn close.
Felix mopped away the blood with a stack of paper napkins acquired during his last trip to McDonald’s, paying special attention to wiping off his eyes, where the blood stung like chlorine.
His chin seemed to be the more serious injury; gentle manipulation revealed the jaw bone in the slit. Stitches were needed, but Felix could barely hold the gun, much less a suture. Luckily, in his toolbox was a tube of cyanoacrylate. Superglue. Felix pinched the ends of the wound together and ran a seam of glue across it. The gel set immediately, knitting the edges, forming a tough scab.
The scalp was more complicated, both hard to see and reach. Not worrying about the mess he was making of his hair, Felix alternated between a napkin compress and dabs of glue until the bleeding got under control.
Now what to do about John?
The Cozynook Motel was the best bet. Even though it was full occupancy, each of the rooms had a back patio, facing the woods. Felix could pull the truck around, load John into the room without anyone seeing.
And what about Cameron?
Felix buried the thought. Maria’s brother would either go along with this or he wouldn’t. But he wouldn’t tell anyone. Not after what Felix had done for him.
All that was left to do was figure out how to load John into Felix’s truck. He walked over and grabbed the man’s leg, attempting to drag him.
No good. John had to weigh three hundred pounds. Felix was strong, and he maintained his exercise regimen even during his obsession with finding Maria. But unless he had a ramp and a dolly, or a block and tackle, there was no way he could get John into the flatbed.
That left one alternative. John had to get in himself.
Felix knelt next to the big man’s head, a gun in one hand, a vial of ammonium carbonate from the first aid kit in the other. He held the smelling salts under John’s nostrils until the man’s eyes popped open and he twisted away from the fumes.
“Momma?” he moaned.
“I’m not your momma, asshole.”
John blinked, then sucked in his lower lip. The fear displayed on his round, hairless face made him look like an overgrown child.
“Am I bleedin’? Sweet Jezus, am I cut anywheres?”
Something caught Felix’s attention. Up on the crest of the hill, on the road leading up the mountain.
Headlights.
Someone was coming. Fast.
“Get up. You’re coming with me.”
“My head hurts. Is my head cut?”
Felix’s gaze flitted back to the approaching car. Thirty seconds until it arrived. Maybe less.
“You’re not bleeding.”
“You sure?”
Felix brought the gun up. “You have five seconds to get to your feet, or you will be bleeding. I’ll blow your fucking knee off.”
“Don’t! Aw gawd, please don’t...”
“Get up.”
John tried to get his legs under him, but he was too big and heavy.
The car zoomed within a few hundred yards of them.
Felix shoved the gun in his waistband and winced as he pulled on John’s armpit, helping the man get to his knees.
“Into the back of the truck. Move your ass.”
The car almost upon them now. In just a few seconds they would be in the driver’s headlights. Felix rushed back to his truck and killed his own headlights and the interior light, and then hurried back to John, who was standing in the middle of the road with his mouth open, looking terrified.
“In the fucking truck!” Felix jammed the gun into the hunter’s ribs, prodding him toward the back end. He pulled down the tailgate door, climbing onto the flatbed with John.
“Stay down! Don’t fucking move!”
Felix held his breath. John shook next to him.
The giant was sobbing.
The headlights approached. Felix could make out the shape of the car. A sedan. Square headlights. Something on the roof of it.
A hunting rack?
No. Sirens.
It’s a police car.
And it’s slowing down.
Felix tightened his grip on the Beretta, wondering what he would do if it stopped. He could tell the truth, say he was trying to dial 911 but couldn’t get a cell phone signal.
But then the cops would have John. What if they couldn’t make him talk? Where would that leave Maria?
Or worse, what if they knew John? What if all the townies were drinking buddies? Maybe Felix was the one who’d wind up in jail.
Felix listened to the car slow down and watched the cop’s headlights throw shadows over the flatbed. He placed his finger on the trigger of the Beretta.
They’re not going to take John.
The police car cruised by, then sped off down the highway, into the distance.
Felix breathed again. He climbed out of the bed, going around to the cab to get a bungee cord.
“What’re you gonna do to me?” John whimpered.
“Shut up.”
“You sure I ain’t bleedin’?”
“I said shut up!”
Felix whipped John in the head with the bungee. Then he wound it around John’s legs and threw a tarp over him.
Next Felix spent a few minutes cleaning himself off, stripping off his shirt and using the melted ice from the extra large cup of cola he’d bought hours ago to pour over his face and neck. The blood had begun to dry, and wasn’t coming off easily, but with a new shirt and a baseball cap he wouldn’t get a second look from any other drivers he passed.
“Where you takin’ me?” John said, his voice quavering.
“We’re going to have a nice, long talk about Maria.”
“You better let me go. Or you’re gonna get in big trouble.”
“You’re the one who’s in trouble, asshole.”
“If’n you hurt me, you’ll never get your girl back.”
Felix’s heart leapt up to his throat.
Is Maria really still alive? Or is this inbred son of a bitch just saying that to save his own neck?
I’ll find out the truth. So help me, I’ll find out everything this redneck has ever done going all the way back to his toddler years.
Felix cracked an ugly, hysterical smile, uttered a noise somewhere between a chortle and a sob, and then pulled onto the highway.
# # #
She doesn’t know what day it is. Or what month it is.
By how long her hair has grown, she knows she’s been here a long time. Ten months? A year?
Longer?
The depression is impossible to overcome. It’s even worse than the fear. Even worse than the abuse. Even worse than the—
She doesn’t want to think about that last thing. But it will happen again. Soon. Very soon. She’s due.
Escape is impossible. The door is solid iron, set in concrete. She isn’t allowed anything that can be used as a
weapon. Not a pencil. Not even a spoon.
She once tried to hide a chicken bone in her cell. She was going to sharpen it, use it against them.
It was discovered. The consequences were horrible.
Resistance is met with punishment. Beatings. Food being withheld.
And worse. Much worse.
She used to have nightmares. Of them. A few in particular. The crueller ones. The sicker ones.
Now it’s all one big nightmare.
For a while she stopped eating. Wanted to die.
They tied her to a chair, stuck a tube down her throat, one end attached to a meat grinder, and force-fed her. Along with the grain and hamburger, they ground up a rat in there as well.
A live rat. Blood, fur, bones, squeals and all. From the grinder, straight to her belly.
She ate her meals after that.
Her cell has a dirt floor. A metal door. A mattress. A hand pump for water, though the water tastes strange. An aluminum chamber pot. And books. They let her have books. Some old paperbacks. And a lot of non-fiction. About Presidents. It’s tough to read, because the single overhead bulb is only 25 watts, but she makes due.
She exercises every day. It helps pass the time. Help keeps her sane.
But she isn’t sure how much longer she’ll be able to cling to sanity.
She’s lost weight, and isn’t quite sure how she’s still alive. How she’s been able to survive what they keep doing to her.
There are others down there with her. Other prisoners. She isn’t sure of the amount. At least three. Possibly more. Talking is met with swift punishment. Whenever she’s taken from the cell, it’s with a hood over her head so she can’t see.
But she knows there are others. She’s whispered to a few. Befriended some without ever seeing their faces. Men and women in nearby cells.
But they never stay for long.
Maybe they were moved. Maybe they even escaped.
But she knows what really happened to them.
This place is a slaughterhouse. And no one gets out alive.
Once, she heard a baby crying. The sound made her weep.
Weep for the child. Weep for its poor mother.
Weep for herself.
She had resigned herself to never having kids. Spat her condition in their ugly faces.
They tried anyway. They keep trying.
