Don't Say a Word (Hometown Antihero)

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  I was close.

  So, so close.

  In the distance, I saw a car come into view, headed my way. I sighed with relief. The cavalry had arrived. I was going to be okay. I was going to be saved.

  In dramatic cinematic fashion, I stood in the middle of the road and flagged down the vehicle, tears running down my face. If I didn’t get hit, everything was going to be okay. It would all be over.

  The nondescript silver sedan pulled to a stop well shy of where I stood, and the driver’s-side door opened. Relief flooded through me as I started toward the car, already rambling an explanation of who I was and what had happened and where I needed to be taken. But I stopped short the second I saw the driver. Something in the back of my mind screamed “Danger, Will Robinson. Danger…”

  I knew that warning voice.

  It was never wrong.

  “Kylene,” Mr. Callahan said as he approached. “Good Lord … are you okay? The whole town is looking for you.”

  I stared at him blankly, taking slow, cautious steps in retreat. My mind scrambled to put together the pieces of the puzzle as I did. He’d had access to all the girls that had gone missing over the years. He had a past that could be leveraged. He was at Marco’s the night I was taken. He was smart and vindictive and not a big fan of mine—or girls just like me.

  In so many ways, I fit the profile of the others.

  “Get in the car, Kylene.…”

  Fat fucking chance.

  “I know it was you,” I said, my voice cold and hollow and warning.

  “I tried to warn you,” he replied. “I told you this would happen. My friend and I have been trying to help those girls out of their bad situations for a long time.”

  Numbness and cold filtered through my system at his words.

  “I’m sure you and Coach tried to help lots of girls that we don’t even know about, but no more. You’re done, Callahan! They found Danielle’s body.…”

  He eyed me strangely.

  “You’re not making any sense, Kylene. You must have hit your head.” He reached his hand toward me and I recoiled, taking another step backward. “Just get in the car … please.”

  Callahan could gaslight me all he wanted, but there was no way in hell I was going anywhere with him. If I did, I was as good as dead.

  Instead, I sprinted up the embankment just enough to get around him and his vehicle, heading back through the woods, my head reeling.

  My physics teacher had kidnapped me.

  Mr. Callahan killed those girls.

  FIFTY

  I could hear him yelling after me as I ran, but I tuned it out. I wished I’d gotten a better look at wherever it was he’d kept me bound in the basement. That would have been helpful information for the sheriff. When you get far enough into the backwoods of southern Ohio, it’s easy to keep secrets and hide things, like unpermitted cabins or homes—or bodies. So easy to bury them deep among the trees that would never tell. I chastised myself for not thinking like my father would have. I couldn’t afford to let Callahan get away with what he’d done.

  I ran just inside the tree line, Callahan still in pursuit. He wasn’t gaining on me, but he wasn’t fading, either. I tried to think while my head throbbed and the blood pounding in my ears created the rhythm of my survival. I’d either outrun Callahan and live or be forever lost.

  There was a bend in the road up ahead, and as I neared it a shiny black car came around. I threw myself in the middle of the road and darted straight for it. I dared a glance back to Callahan. He had paused on the side of the road. As soon as the car came to a stop, he took off running.

  I darted to the passenger door, threw it open, and climbed in.

  “My name is Kylene Danners and I’ve been kidnapped,” I said before landing in the seat. I looked over to find a familiar face staring back at me with disbelief.

  “By God, Kylene. What are you talkin’ about?” Mr. Matthew asked, looking pale. “Kidnapped?”

  “Yes. I need you to take me to the sheriff’s department right away. Do you have a phone on you?”

  He scoffed in the same way Gramps did when technology was involved.

  “It’s in the trunk with my things. I can go get it or I can just take you where you want to go.”

  “Where are we?” I asked, scanning the hills around us.

  He looked at me strangely. “You don’t know where you are?”

  “No. I said I was kidnapped.”

  His eyes narrowed for a second then turned toward the road as he put the car into park.

  “Sheriff’s gonna have all kinds of questions for you when you get there,” he said, staring south. “You sure you’re up for that?”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  He nodded. “I’m gonna go get that phone so you can call the sheriff and let him know you’re all right.”

  He popped the trunk, then got out. Seconds passed before he returned with phone in hand.

  “It’s a shame,” he said, reaching the phone toward me. “Girl like you … got next to nobody lookin’ out for her. That’s how bad things like this happen.…”

  That voice in the back of my mind perked up, telling me to hear his words—to grab the phone and run. I reached for it slowly, controlling my shaking hand and breathing as I did.

  “Bad things like what?” I asked, slipping the phone from his grasp.

  His sideward glance met mine and I saw the devil in it.

  “If you don’t already know, you’re about to find out.”

  Just as I threw open the car door to launch myself out, his outstretched arm wrapped around my neck, pulling me back against him. A cloth soaked in some chemical pinched over my mouth and I could feel my mind grow fuzzy. Unconsciousness came slowly but welcomed me like an old friend—one who secretly hated me and wanted me dead. Because that was what I was going to be when Matthew was finished with me.

  Dead like the rest of them.

  FIFTY-ONE

  I awoke in a drugged haze.

  My eyes fluttered—lids and lashes heavy as concrete—while my head swam. I had no idea what he’d given me, but it was damn effective. When I tried to move, I couldn’t. Fear crept up my immobile spine.

  “The dead has arisen,” a voice called from somewhere in the room. “Nice of you to join me. I don’t like workin’ on the unconscious ones. Takes all the fun out of it.”

  Doing my best to ignore his words, I forced my eyes open enough to assess my situation. I was lying on my side against the wall of the basement with the window I’d escaped through. The stairs were on the far side of the room, taunting me. I had no chance of making it to them in my nearly paralyzed state. I could only assume that was why my hands and feet were untethered. No need to bind someone who can’t move.

  I tried to think clearly—to form some kind of plan, but my mind was still hostage to whatever chemical he’d given me. Something was clawing at the back of my brain, but the drugs seemed to shush it into submission. I watched Matthew saunter around the room, a new table positioned next to the one with all his torture implements, and I choked back a sob. This was it—there really would be no escaping.

  “I have to tell ya, Kylene. Your gramps would have been mighty proud of how you managed to get out of here. Real proud, indeed. Course, that don’t matter much since he won’t ever know what happened to you. Sure, there’ll be suspicion of foul play, but good ole Sheriff Higgins will lay that to rest. That’s the nice thing about having a dirty cop around. My hands can stay clean as a whistle.”

  When his back was to me, doing something in preparation for my murder, I took a deep breath and tried to move my hands. A twitch of my index finger—a firing of the tiniest synapse—gave me hope. I tried again with my other hand. All five of those fingers wiggled, too.

  “You gave me a real scare there for a second with your escape, young lady. I’ll give you that. But I know these woods like the back of my hand. I saw which way you’d run and I knew where you’d end up. Only took me three pas
ses down that road to find ya.” My right foot flexed. My left knee bent. “And now we’re here.” He looked over his shoulder at me, his smile wicked and full of bloodlust. “It’s just about time.”

  I stifled my flinch, not wanting him to know his cocktail was wearing off. Not wanting to play the only card I held. Instead, I lay as still as I could while I attempted to speak, mumbling something incoherent, letting drool run from my mouth as I did.

  “Easy there, girl. That chloroform can really take it out of ya, especially followed up with a healthy dose of ketamine. Might have given you a bit too much. You petite things barely got enough meat on your bones to live.” He turned back to his tools, methodically placing them around his table of doom. “I got real good at estimating things like that in Nam. Medics never had any fancy equipment or anything. No scales to weigh patients. We could figure how much juice to give a soldier. But you ain’t a soldier, are ya, Kylene? You’re just a girl. A girl too much like her daddy for her own damn good.” He turned his body toward me, steely eyes glaring. “And you’re gonna pay a price for that, just like he did.”

  He stepped toward me, hands empty, and I stifled every instinct in my body telling me to fight—to run. Freedom was still too far away, and I knew it. I needed to get closer. I needed more time.

  Matthew bent down, scooped me up under my legs and shoulders, and carried me over to the empty wooden table. The one likely to soon be painted in my blood if I couldn’t figure a way out. He placed me down, arranging my hair around me, but I couldn’t focus on that. All I could feel was the bite of sharp metal into my lower back. Right where I’d tucked garden snips before I’d escaped. The pain helped me think—helped me clear my head and focus on how I could use them.

  Matthew thought he’d given me too much sedative—thought I was just a waif of a thing—but what he hadn’t bargained for was my percent lean body mass. Was I small? Yes. Was I strong? Definitely. And I’d once read that things like roofies and other date rape drugs didn’t always work well on athletes and extremely healthy people. Their systems burned through them too quickly for the desired effect to take hold as deeply. I prayed whoever had written that article was right. That it wasn’t some junk piece on HuffPost.

  Because I was about to bet my life on its accuracy.

  One shot, I thought to myself. I had one shot at him. If I succeeded, I escaped. If I didn’t, I died. It was really that black and white—that cut-and-dried.

  With his back turned to me again, muttering to himself about which instrument to use on me first, I made my arm silently creep up the table to my back. It took some effort, but I managed to dislodge the shears from my pants so they were loose behind me. Doing what I could to lift my hips out of the way, I pushed the tool down behind my leg to where I could more easily grab it. Then I let my arm lie lifeless beside me, though a touch closer to my body than it was before.

  When Matthew turned his attention back to me again, he had a gnarly saw in his hand. I panicked at the sight.

  “You know I had to amputate a lot of limbs back in Nam. It was real gruesome. Sometimes we had enough meds lyin’ around to sedate the poor bastard. Sometimes we didn’t.” He looked at the rusted saw whose teeth were bent at all angles and ferocious looking, and smiled. It was a look of longing. A look of nostalgia. Whatever he’d done overseas, he’d clearly grown to enjoy it, and it made me question if all the soldiers he’d worked on had actually needed their limbs amputated. Or maybe Matthew just needed to scratch his psychotic itch.

  Right then, I knew it was now or never.

  My lips quivered, a jerky uncoordinated movement that drew his attention, just as I’d intended. He took a step closer, his pelvis in line with my waist—above where my hand was slowly creeping toward the shears. Once again, I tried to force words out, letting a tear slide down my face as the garbled, choking sound passed my lips.

  He leaned in closer still.

  “Shhhh…,” he said, trying to quiet me. To calm me. My adrenaline surged. “We’ve still got time before you can talk. And I want to do as much as I can before I have to strap you down. I like them awake and immobilized. Tying ’em down always did seem like cheating to me.…”

  Another tear escaped, and he bent over the top of me, his hand reaching to intercept the tiny droplet. I gripped the handle of the shears and unfastened the safety. I felt the handle widen and knew the blade was exposed.

  “It’s better this way,” he said softly, whispering in my ear.

  One shot …

  He pulled away to smile down at me, his teeth yellowed with coffee and age—his scars puckering—and anger rushed through me. This wasn’t just for me. It was for every girl he’d ever touched. Ever exploited. Ever killed.

  One shot to end his reign of terror.

  Without hesitation, my arm sliced through the air with every ounce of strength I had. It slashed across his face, catching the hooked edge of the blade on his cheek and dragging it across his nose into the opposite eye. He shrieked in pain, falling back. As he laid on the table of tools, I saw the butt of a gun peeking out from the hem of his shirt. I reached for it with my other arm, wrenching it from his waistband before I fell off the far side of the table. I collapsed to the ground, but I held the gun tight. From my position on the floor, hands shaking, I released the safety and pointed it at him.

  “Don’t you fucking move!”

  He looked over his shoulder at me as I scooted back to use the wall as support. My legs felt weak and heavy but fight or flight had kicked in, helping me get to my feet. His face looked ghastly, all bloody and dripping. And his eye …

  “I’m going to flay you, ya little bitch!” He took a step toward me and I discharged the gun, the bullet whizzing past to embed in the rock wall behind him.

  “Do you think I’m screwing around, you sick bastard?” I sidestepped toward the stairwell, my back still pressed against the wall. He mirrored my movement around the far edge of the table I’d been laid upon only moments earlier. “I’m getting out of here and getting help. Hope you can run fast, you old bastard. Because once they unleash the dogs in the woods, it won’t take long to track you down.”

  “They won’t take me alive…,” he said. An icy finger slid its way up my spine. Death by cop. He was willing to die just to avoid his punishment—or avoid retribution from whomever he answered to. With his knowledge of Sheriff Higgins’ situation, it had to be the AD.

  “I don’t care how they take you,” I replied, inching closer and closer to the bottom of the rickety stairs. “In cuffs or a body bag, it makes no difference to me. Try me and see. I grew up around here and my daddy’s a cop. Wanna find out how good my aim is?” I steadied the gun with both hands as I climbed the first step, which was wonky and too high. My shaking leg could barely haul me up.

  As if to taunt me, he took a large step forward. I dropped the barrel of the gun at his foot and fired. Again, his cries echoed through the basement as the bullet pierced it.

  “You’d better hope you get out of here, little girl.…”

  I took aim and shot him again, wounding his other foot.

  “That’s where I’m headed now. And my guess is I can get there faster on two wobbly legs than you can on those.”

  I took another two steps as he hobbled toward the stairs.

  “If I’m dead then you’ll never know the truth about those girls,” he said, giving me pause. “Or your daddy…” My feet fell still. His creepy, pain-filled laughter floated up to me, begging me to come back down and face him. And I knew I should try to run. Every fiber of my being was screaming at me to, but the small part inside of me that sought justice for the girls and freedom for my father said he wasn’t bluffing. He was baiting me, but if there was any chance that he knew something about either, I needed to hear it. To risk it. If not, the truth would die with him.

  “Talk,” I said, stepping down a riser. I wanted to come down enough to see his face. To try and see if he was full of it or not. I could always read people—or
at least I thought I could. My confidence in that ability had been shaken over the past couple weeks, but I was certain it wouldn’t fail me in that moment.

  But damn did all that blood make it hard.

  “Your daddy was framed.”

  “No shit.”

  “You know who did it, do ya?”

  “Like you do.…”

  “I know the AD.” My body froze. My suspicion confirmed. “The man behind the curtain—the great and powerful Oz.”

  My hands started to shake, and I reset my grip to try and quell it. But it was a losing battle. I was too shocked to control my system.

  “You work for him?” I asked. He nodded. “How did that happen?”

  “He came to me,” he said, inching toward me. “The first girl I ever killed—I was sloppy that time, and he knew about it. Figured out I’d done it. He sent me a letter giving me a choice: either I did as he asked—ran his whoring operation for him—or he turned me in.”

  My addled mind grasped for pieces of the puzzle too far out of reach.

  “Who did you kill?” I asked, scared of the answer.

  His maniacal smile did little to assuage my anxieties.

  “I think you know.… Your daddy never solved that one.”

  Sarah Woodley.…

  He smiled when he saw realization dawn in my eyes.

  “Who else?” I demanded, regaining a fraction of my composure. Thinking of the girls steeled my spine. “I know there were others.”

  “Well now, that’s true.”

  “What did you do with them?” I asked. “Where are the bodies?”

  His gory stare was distant and wistful as he looked past me as though the wall were a window and the answer to my question lay just beyond.

  “These hills are riddled with bones,” he said, voice distant. “I like having them nearby.…”

  I shuddered at his words. “Then why did you sink Danielle in the river?”

  His beady eyes focused on me, the anger and hatred in them so bold and raw that it forced me back against the wall.