Born to Lose

by James G. Hollock

  In the blink of an eye the car reversed toward her and in seconds was again beside her. The driver got out, mentioning the front tire was going flat. He stepped toward the hood, began to bend down to inspect the tire, then slowly straightened and faced Kathy, who was inching herself further onto the berm.

  He sprang with such speed that Kathy barely began to turn and run before she was caught from behind, her scream cut off by his hand clapped on her mouth. She struggled, dropping her purse in the process, but her lithe five-three frame gave her little chance against her attacker, who manhandled and dragged her to the car. Meanwhile, the passenger had gotten out; he stood by the open door as Kathy was shoved inside. Both males jumped in, but this time the driver got into the passenger seat and his companion got behind the wheel.

  They sped away on Middle Road but soon entered a bewildering series of turns on back roads. The one who grabbed her, now in the passenger seat, put a gun to Kathy’s head. From then on it was nearly always pointed at her body or head. The man wielding the gun finally said, “My name’s Bill, and this,” indicating the driver, “is Ron.” Kathy sensed these were fake names but made no comment. Bill continued, matter-of-factly, “We just robbed a bank in Philly and we’re on our way to Ohio. We need a hostage in case we’re stopped by the cops, ya know, something to give up for a getaway, so you’re it.”

  Daring to speak Kathy asked, “Where are you going in Ohio?”

  “We’ll let you know when we get there,” she was told. “Keep your head down an’ don’t look out the windows.” Kathy dropped her head, staring at the gear stick. With her long blonde hair loose, she realized her ball cap was no longer on her head. She’d lost that as well as her purse, probably when she was grabbed.

  Kathy clung to the hope she’d be let go in Ohio, but she had some troubling thoughts. When the Corvette had first pulled up, she was asked for directions, so it fit that they were from Philadelphia, now lost in Pittsburgh. Yet now her abductors seemed familiar with the territory. Kathy also worried about the car itself. Why was it so clean and shiny? Men fleeing a bank robbery in Philly surely wouldn’t stop to wash and wax a car. Her optimism about release in Ohio began to evaporate as Kathy realized she’d been lied to from the start. Although she’d been warned not to talk, her mounting dread forced the question, “You’re not going to rape or kill me, are you?” The one who said his name was Bill pointed his gun away from Kathy. “If we were gonna kill you, we would’ve shot you already. What good’s a dead hostage? And we ain’t got time for sex, okay? Now keep your mouth shut.”

  Bent and cramped, Kathy worried in silence before Ron, driving at a leisurely pace the whole way, finally turned onto a dirt road, winding upward and steep in parts. When the road split into three directions, they turned left onto a narrower road that proved to be a rutted driveway leading to a dilapidated farmhouse and a few scattered outbuildings. Parking beside the house, all three got out. Bill walked to the front porch, calling out “Paul!” several times. There was no response other than the hoarse and insistent barking of two mangy dogs tied nearby. Bill tried the doors and windows, but everything was shut tight. He returned to the Corvette. It was now very dark, and he reached inside to turn on the headlamps. In the diffused light, Kathy was able to take a better look at the two men. Slim and with light brown hair, Ron, at five-ten or five-eleven, was the taller. He looked around twenty years old—not much older than she—with a face like that of any kid in any neighborhood. Harmless looking, with a guileless smile, he seemed more likely to be to earning merit badges than building a rap sheet (Record of Arrest and Prosecution). He hadn’t been aggressive in speech or manner, and Kathy couldn’t imagine what he was doing here, part and parcel of what amounted to her kidnapping. She felt that if she could talk to him alone, maybe he’d let her go. Ron, though, was clearly under the influence of Bill, the one doing most of the talking, now standing casually with his left arm resting on the ’vette’s roof while his right arm hung down, his hand loosely holding the gun. He was shorter than Ron and heavier, more muscular. His hair was dark and fashioned into a “duck’s ass” in the back. He looked like a hood.

  Her abductors talked in low tones only a few feet away. If she was going to be let go, why hadn’t they done so on the main road? Why had they taken her to this remote spot, pitch black and abandoned? If only Bill would again walk away somewhere, Kathy concluded, she would talk to Ron, reason with him, promise him money … say anything for a chance to get away.

  The two were done whispering. Then Kathy heard Bill tell Ron, “Take the car down below. I’ll see you when you get back.” The knowledge that she was to be left alone with Bill jabbed fear through Kathy.

  “Wait! Why can’t I go?” she cried. “You said you’d let me go, you only wanted me as a hostage. We weren’t stopped by the police, so you made it! You’re free! You don’t need me anymore!” Ron raised an eyebrow in question to Bill, who shook his head and gave Ron a nod toward the car. Kathy rushed forward shouting, “Wait, stop, take me with you!”

  Bill raised the pistol and yelled, “That’s it, don’t move!” The gun, almost touching her and held perfectly steady, so unnerved Kathy that she dropped to her knees and raised her hands to shoulder height.

  “Please, I thought I could go now. You said so … You made it to Ohio….” Hearing the Corvette fire to life, then rumble off, Kathy slumped in despair.

  With his own plans in mind, Bill said, “What’s the problem with you? I’m starved, so he’s gonna find a pizza or something. You must be hungry, too. He’ll be back, we’ll eat, then we’ll take you out on a road somewhere and leave you go.” His words did nothing to raise her spirits but still, she had to think, maybe in a little while she’d be free, alone along a road. She could find a house, call home. For now, though, she told herself, sit quiet and hope for the best. Or should she chance a run, get away somehow? Kathy dropped her arms and stood up, feeling unsteady. She watched the Corvette’s taillights disappear around a distant bend in the lane.

  Bill mentioned a picnic table behind the farmhouse. “Come on,” he said, “we’ll go back there and wait for Ron.” Already alone and isolated, Kathy felt that if she went behind the house she would disappear altogether. “I don’t want to go anywhere. Look, here’s a big rock. I just want to sit here.” Kathy kept her eyes on Bill while moving sideways toward the rock.

  Bill was tiring of the girl’s unwillingness to comply, yet he didn’t lash out. “You know what? I told you my name, my buddy told you his name but you never said what yours is. So, what is it?” Would it be good or bad to reveal her name? she wondered. Give him a made-up name like the one she’d surely got from him? In the end she said truthfully, “My name’s Kathy. Is Bill your real name?” “Nah,” he said, laughing. “How did ya know it wasn’t? Can’t say why I said Bill. Do you want to know my real name? I mean, why not? We’ll never see each other again.” Learning his true identity, Kathy realized, might put her in even greater peril; she shuddered to think that he would readily reveal it. Had he planned to kill her all along, to avoid leaving a live witness to this kidnapping? Kathy tried to sound casual. “No, it’s okay, I’ll keep calling you Bill. One of my brothers is named Bill,” she lied. “I like the name.”

  This banter about pizza and exchanging names—real or not—had Kathy thinking for the first time that maybe her captor wasn’t perfectly evil, wasn’t a hardened criminal. Now that his bank-robbing and hostage-taking escapade had succeeded, he would feel safe, pleased with himself. Wasn’t that enough for one day? After Ron got back, maybe they would take her down from this forsaken mountaintop, drop her off, and drive away to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. These thoughts were so reasonable that Kathy tried to dismiss her anxiety over Bill’s willingness to reveal his own name. Yes, of course it was all over now. They were done with her and probably would be glad to be free of her.

  Hanging on to this better outlook, Kathy was emboldened to say, “I guess Ron will have to look around to get some food. S
ome places are going to be closed ’cause it’s Good Friday, but he can find somewhere open, don’t you think?” Without inflection Bill responded, “Yeah, I think.” Gone was his spurt of friendliness. He seemed distant and preoccupied but, Kathy thought, at least he wasn’t as threatening as he had been. A minute passed with nothing said, Bill’s eyes alternating from the farmhouse to the rutted road, then back to the farmhouse. Kathy broke the silence. “Is it okay if I sit on this rock? I’m feeling tired.” Through the darkness she sensed Bill’s appraisal. “No, it’s not okay,” he answered. “We’re going behind the house for awhile.” Stepping very close to Kathy, he extended his hand, saying, “Hold on, it’s dark.” Kathy countered as much as she dared. “We shouldn’t go there. When Ron comes back, he won’t know where—” In an instant Bill’s right arm came up straight as a yardstick with the gun at her face. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward him, encircling her waist with his left arm. In a forced walk, Kathy was led away. Once behind the house Kathy looked around in the darkness. Up to the right she saw rounded heaps, silhouettes, but only after getting closer did she make them out to be junk cars, five or six of them. Bill shoved her toward the jalopies with such force that she stumbled and fell. She heard him say, “Take off your clothes.”

  Kathy, a high schooler who’d never been on a date—wasn’t yet allowed to date—was struck with her worst fear. “I can’t, I can’t, oh please … I’ve never been … my Dad, it’s important that … I’m a virgin …” Her staccato response did nothing to dissuade. Bill put his hand to her forehead and pushed her down on the ground, the cold wet seeping through her handmade culottes. Standing over her, gun again in her face, Bill repeated, quieter this time, “I said, take off your clothes.” Then she heard the sinister click of the gun’s hammer. “Okay, okay,” she agreed, “but let me get up. My clothes are wet.” Kathy pushed up from the ground so as to stand, hoping for a chance to run for it, but Bill kicked her arm out from under her and she fell back down. “Off with the clothes, and shut up.”

  Kathy squirmed free of the culottes. She sat up, leaning forward with her arms to cover her naked legs. Bill knelt beside her, knocked her arms away from her legs and said, “You forgot the panties, sweetheart.” When Kathy made no motion to comply, her tormentor pushed her down. On her back, she stared up at a black heaven. Positioned above her, he bent his knees to reach the ground and laid the gun down. From his coat he pulled out a skinning knife. Kathy felt a hand grab the waistband of her panties, then the knife cutting and ripping through to the crotch. Bill worked the blade, pulled, and the panties were in his hand. He put them in his pocket.

  Kathy knew all was lost. Bill put the knife aside and swept the gun further away. With no choice but to suffer the fate of this terrible night, Kathy said, “It’s so wet and cold. Can we go in one of the cars?” “Yeah, all right,” came the response, then, more agitated, “Get the hell up and get in that one,” gesturing at a nondescript two-door hulk squatting on four flats. Kathy pulled open the passenger door and crawled in the back. After maneuvering past an old battery and generator left on the backseat, she sat upright. Making his way in, Bill shoved the auto parts to the floor and told Kathy to lie down. Both made attempts to get situated; the quarters were cramped, chilly, and dank, conditions hardly better than outside. Further, the car’s upholstery gave off a sickening musty odor. When Bill’s ankle got caught for the second time between the battery and generator on the floor, he cursed, started disengaging arms and legs and began backing out of the car door muttering, “This ain’t workin’. Come on, out on the ground!” Standing outside the car, Bill reached in, taking hold of Kathy’s hand. She was pulled out roughly and sent sprawling. Bill’s hands grabbed her shoulder, twisting Kathy onto her back then lowered himself onto the teen who, numb with terror, no longer felt the cold. First, the crude hand, then the invectives. “God damn you! You on the rag?” His face was close to hers. She felt a fleck of spittle. Turning her head aside Kathy said weakly that yes, she was. Inexperienced with men’s attitudes on such matters she had, of course, listened to girl talk and was now uncertain whether wrath would descend upon her. Bill cupped her chin with his hand, forcing her to look at him. “Too bad,” he said, “you’re gettin’ it anyway.”

  During the rape the gun was held at her temple and she feared it would go off at each movement. Kathy remembered two recurring thoughts: When will this be over? Is he going to kill me? Though defiled by force, the teen was already feeling guilty. Did she struggle enough? Did she resist in every way? Maybe she should have bolted into the night, chancing a bullet in the back, or clawed at his face, risking a knife across the throat.

  Then it was over, her body and mind stung by the coarseness of the attack. She turned onto her side, grabbed for her culottes, and placed them over her lower body. She pulled her legs up, wrapped her arms around her shoulders, and lay in this fetal position as a light rain began to fall.

  How much time had gone by Kathy, in her stupor, didn’t know, but when she lifted her head, Bill was sitting Indian style on the hood of a junker, idly twirling the revolver on his index finger while talking with Ron, who had apparently just returned. Kathy tried to climb into her clothes but Bill called over, “Sweetheart, hold up with the clothes, it’s Ron’s turn.” Bill slid from the hood, then both men walked over to Kathy. Badly hurt and tormented, Kathy felt ripped inside. She couldn’t face this, just could not. She held her clothes against her body. “Ron, please let me go, don’t touch me. I’m sick now, I don’t feel well and … and I’m bleeding.” Bill stood to the side, arms folded, amused. “She got that right,” he quipped, “on the damn rag, but, what the hell, I’ve been in worse places.” Bill laughed and turned to Ron. “So, want it? She still ain’t half bad.” Ron rubbed his thumb back and forth across his chin. Bill yawned, as much as telling Kathy her immediate predicament was of little moment to him, but Ron finally said, “Forget it. If she’s bleedin’ I don’t want nothin’ to do with her.” Bill nodded, shrugged again, then told Kathy to get dressed. “And comb your hair, put some lipstick on.”

  Kathy didn’t care what orders came out of Bill’s mouth, she’d comply. Anything to keep the peace, keep him calm until she was released. Bill had the gun and he had drawn a knife, yet she hadn’t been shot or sliced, and now, with Ron’s decision, she would not be raped again. Things could change, she knew, but her thoughts were to provoke no anger. Addressing Bill, Kathy said, “I’d like to comb my hair, but I don’t have my purse. I guess I dropped it on the road when you grabbed me.” Bill was walking away from Kathy when he heard this reply. He stopped, pivoted, stepped toward Kathy, and gave her an odd look. “What did you say?” His tone confused Kathy. Had she said something wrong, somehow made a mistake? “What is it? I’ll comb my hair, I’ll put lipstick on, but my comb and stuff is in my purse. I dropped it on the road … I don’t have it.” Greatly worried, her voice trailed off, now barely audible. “Bill, do you have a comb? Can I use it … I’ll comb my hair.” Ignoring her plea, Bill emphasized each word: “You lost your purse?” Thoroughly flummoxed as to Bill’s meaning, Kathy replied, “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. I can get another one.” She was breathing harder. She moved her eyes to the left and saw Ron standing still, hands in pockets, but clearly paying attention to this exchange, apparently in the dark himself about what the problem was.

  Bill spat out at Kathy, “You dressed? Good, now let’s go.” He motioned to Ron. “Get her! Keep her with you. Follow me to the front of the house.” Bill marched off, with Ron following ten yards behind, clutching Kathy’s wrist. During the walk to the farmhouse, Kathy whispered desperately to Ron. “What is it? What did I do?” Nervous himself, Ron replied, “Just keep walkin’.” As the trio approached the house, the dogs again sounded a ruckus. This so annoyed Bill that he hurled stones at them.

  Once together, Bill announced to Ron, “We got to kill her.” Ron’s eyes widened. Dropping his grip on Kathy’s arm, he held his hands out, palms toward Bill. “Wai
t a sec, hold up!” Ron began to protest. Not waiting to hear another word, Kathy pushed Ron as hard as she could, then began a dash to escape. Surprised at the shove, Ron stumbled toward Bill, whose eyes stayed with the fleeing girl. He sidestepped Ron and sprang forward.

  Kathy tore across the driveway, arms and legs pumping furiously, headlong into a rough field, the ground made uneven by clumps and depressions, but inside of fifty yards a tremendous blow across her back sent her facedown into grass and weeds. Seizing Kathy’s right wrist and twisting it up behind her back, Bill forced the frantic Kathy to her feet and marched her across the field back to the farmhouse.

  Keeping torque on Kathy’s arm and glancing at her occasionally, Bill started right in again to Ron. “We got to kill her. She dropped her damn purse in her neighborhood. She got her name and address in there …” Kathy, upright but sagging, listened to her own death sentence.

  Ron wanted no part of murder. Bill was usually calm and calculating, but always, just under the surface, there lay a recklessness, a violence. Ron knew he couldn’t plead for the girl’s life. That would peg him as soft, too nervous, even unmanly. So instead, feigning unconcern, Ron said, “So what she lost her purse? We were just gonna fuck her and let her go anyway.”

  “No,” Bill shot back, “you don’t get it. She got fucked but we were gonna scare her real good about sayin’ anything to her family or the cops, and, believe me, she wouldn’t say anything if she knew what was good for her. But now, whoever picked up that purse took it to her house, so her folks are gonna go nuts and call the police. When they see that purse and her missin’ they ain’t gonna wait no twenty-four hours to start lookin’. I’ll bet there’s cop cars combin’ the area for her right now. We can’t risk gettin’ caught with her in the car with us, ’cause you know why?” Without waiting for Ron to reply, Bill continued, “Because this ain’t just a rape. It’s kidnapping. And do you know what they do to kidnappers?” Bill traced his index finger across his throat.