Cheater's Paradise

by Keith Trimm

  “Yeah, you killed my dad and my brother, she is pissed.”

  It now dawned on Bob that the family they escaped from had been tracking them. “I didn’t kill your dad, your mother did, she hit him with a fence post,” Bob said.

  “I don’t think so,” the driver said.

  “And I didn’t kill your brother, Chad did.”

  “You are just as much to blame as that other guy was, and you’re gonna pay for it.”

  “What are you going to do? Take us back to that barn? The police have probably have that sectioned off as a crime scene.”

  “No, we aren’t going back there, I’m taking you to my uncle’s place up in Colorado.”

  Chapter 19

  The Basement

  Colorado looks a lot different than New Mexico, gone are the flat windswept deserts replaced with endless expanses of woodlands and hills as far as the eye can see. After a four hour drive, the tow truck pulled into a secluded wooded area populated with a large house and many out buildings. It wasn’t a farm, but a country homestead complete with a few tractors and large machines for moving timber.

  Little was said on the trip about what awaited Bob and Cindy, the driver didn’t want to give too much away. But now that they had arrived, he was willing to tell them anything. “Welcome to your new home,” the driver said.

  Cindy looked out the window, it was beautiful. “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Middle of fucking Colorado,” the driver said getting out of the truck. Next to them pulled up the semi. It paused for a moment and headed down the gravel path to one of the out buildings.

  “What are you going to do with us?” Cindy asked.

  “Same as before, skin you, cook you and eat you, it’s a family tradition.”

  “What kind of fucked up tradition is that?” Bob asked.

  “My grandfather started it back in the twenties, it’s the way we do things.”

  “Now would be a good time to stop,” Bob said. “A bad tradition is still a bad tradition.”

  “No, you don’t know what it’s like to eat human jerky, it’s fucking fantastic,” the man said as he swung open Cindy’s door. He cut her loose and let her out of the truck. This house was so secluded that he wasn’t afraid of her running. She was too heavy and the woods were too thick. If she did manage to get loose, the wolves would have her before morning. The man freed Bob and held a gun to him. Bob was a different story. “See where the semi parked? Walk that way,” the man said.

  “Do you have a name?” Bob asked.

  “Yeah, now get walking.”

  “It says Henry on your work shirt.”

  The man looked at the blue oval on his work shirt, yeah it does. Now git.”

  Bob and Cindy took off walking in the direction of the semi followed by Henry. It was a nice walk, with plenty to look at with the ever green trees. A bit chilly with fall like weather. Cindy had the chills dressed only in her blanket stolen from the hotel. The trees were losing their leaves and looked like skeletons against the blue sky.

  Once they arrived at the semi, Henry directed them into one of the steel buildings. It was filled with tools and machines in all directions.

  “What do you do out here? Why all the machines?” Bob asked.

  “We do some logging, not much, just enough to make some extra money,” Henry replied. “Head over to the end of the building on your left, see that door? go in there.”

  Bob and Cindy dodged the machines and tools and walked back to the door. They opened it and stepped inside, it was an office.

  “Sit down,” Henry said.

  The office was dusty and strewn with wood chips. It was dark and musty and smelled like used chainsaw.

  Bob and Cindy sat down in the chairs provided and Henry sat at the desk. “Now tell me how you killed my dad?” Henry asked.

  “We didn’t,” Cindy said. “Your mother did.”

  Henry leaned over the desk and looked Cindy in the eye, “Now once again, how did you kill my dad? Blaming my mother isn’t going to cut it.”

  “She used a fence pole, hit him in the back of the head.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was sucking his dick when it happened, I was as surprised as he was.”

  “You sucked my dad’s dick? You fucking fat whore!”

  “It was either that or be cut up into food.”

  “My father would never cheat on my mom, never.”

  “Sorry, I know what I did, and I know what I saw.”

  “You did something,” Henry said. “You did something to make him want you to do that. You talked him into it.”

  “No, it wasn’t that hard, he said he hadn’t had sex in years.”

  Henry leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know about that stuff, that’s between mom and dad.”

  “Ask her,” Cindy said.

  “I did, she said you killed him.”

  “She’s lying,”

  “Now you’re calling my mother a liar?” Henry asked.

  “I was tied up, how could I do anything to him?” Cindy asked.

  Henry was tossed for a loop on that one. He had to sit back and think. “I don’t know, you found a way out of your ties and killed him.”

  “That’s a pretty huge jump don’t you think? What am I? Wonder Woman?”

  “Wonder whore maybe.”

  “There’s nothing I can say that will make you change your mind, you have it made up already. All you want to do is punish me.”

  “Oh fuck yeah, I have plans to fuck you up good lady. Look at you, naked, just like a whore.”

  “I’m done talking to you, if you're going to torture me, do it and be done.”

  Henry pressed a button on the phone on the desk. Over the speakers mounted in the building he said, “Jason to the office, Jason to the office.”

  Bob then spoke up. “Are you going to torture me too?”

  “You killed my brother, you bet your damn ass I’m going to torture you.”

  “Chad killed your brother, I didn’t touch him.”

  “Not what momma said.”

  “Your momma wasn’t anywhere around when your brother was killed. She was too busy hitting your dad with a fence post after catching your dad getting a blow job from Cindy.”

  The door opened and Jason stepped in. “What do you need?” he asked.

  Take these two to the basement, lock them up separate.”

  Bob found a lot of irony in what was about to occur, he was now going to be jailed instead of being the jailor.

  In the basement, Bob found the accommodations filthy and cramped. There were three rooms, more like the layout of a house, each with a door and a lock. He knew his underground bunker was top notch, not like this retro fitted shit hole. Once inside a room, it was locked and he was faced with the fact he was trapped. Looking around, he saw a single bed and a bucket for a toilet. He had put in fully functional toilets with a septic system. Maybe since they planned to eat him, they didn’t figure he needed anything nice for an extended period of time.

  He wondered if Cindy was close and yelled her name. She called back and Bob realized the walls were sheetrock and paper thin. She was in the room to his left and as a contractor put his deconstruction mind to work. The bed had a cheap frame so he removed the mattress and took the frame apart. He then had two long metal poles he could use to punch a hole in the wall.

  “Stand back!” Bob yelled and started ramming the metal pole into the wall repeatedly. It only took a few good hits to make a hole, He then pulled the sheet rock apart revealing the wood framing behind. It took a few good kicks with his foot to break out the sheetrock on the other side and reveal Cindy who was sitting on her bed.

  “Hi,” Bob said smiling through the wood supports.

  Cindy stood and walked over to Bob and the hole. “Can you get us out?”

  “Never underestimate me, I am a fantastic contractor and it only took me ten minutes to bust down this wall. This place is built like shit. “

/>   “What does that mean?” Cindy asked.

  “It means that we are in a basement, which means we are underground. That means there is dirt surrounding us and I need to find a way to tunnel out very quickly. This isn’t some WWII prison movie where I can haul the dirt out bit by bit. Once I get started, I have to have a clear way out before they come back.

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “I have some tools here, the bed frame is excellent for cutting and tearing. The one problem we have is getting you through the wood supports, I don’t know if you can squeeze through and I don’t have a saw.

  Cindy pushed herself through the wood supports and couldn’t get her breasts through. “Fuck!” she said. “Can you make a tunnel on my side too?”

  “That would take way longer than we have. You have to find a way to get passed the supports.”

  “Why don’t you come on my side and make the tunnel?” she asked.

  “Oh shit,” Bob said not thinking. “What a dumb ass.” He slipped easily through the wood supports and headed straight for her bed. In a flash he had it torn apart and was looking for the best place to start digging. He knew he would be up against a cinder block wall, but cinderblock isn’t that hard to break apart. The only issue he had was the noise. If Henry was still in the office, he could hear them pounding away at the wall.

  Later that day, Bob had a huge pile of dirt in Cindy’s room and a decent sized hole dug to the outside. Large enough for him to get out, but not quite large enough for Cindy. It would take another hour before they were free. Then they heard something, a voice. A female voice calling out. “Who is that?” Bob asked.

  “I don’t know, sounded like a woman,” Cindy said.

  “There are three rooms down here, there is a chance someone else is locked up.”

  Cindy yelled out, “Who are you!”

  A muffled voice called back, they couldn’t make out what she was saying, but they could tell it was coming from the wall opposite the one Bob tore out to get into Cindy’s room. Cindy pounded on the wall with her fist and waited for a return. Immediately she heard a pounding and looked to Bob. “We got to set them free.”

  “They’ll be back anytime, we got to go.”

  Cindy picked up one of the bed frame bars and beat on the wall. She tore into it quickly and made a hole large enough to get her leg through. She then kicked and kicked until the sheetrock on the other side of the wood supports broke open. She then tore at the plasterboard until she was able to see who was in the room next to her. It was a woman, thin, blonde and nude. “Thank you,” she yelled and crawled into the room with Cindy and Bob.

  “What’s your name?” Cindy asked.

  “Laura Thompson,” she replied.

  “How long have you been in there?”

  “Three days, they stopped me on the side of the road, asked me to use my phone and shoved me into their van.”

  “Did they tell you why?”

  “Yeah, said they were going to make stew out of me.”

  “What happened to your clothes?”

  “Fuckers took turns raping me first.”

  Bob stepped over and looked Laura over, “I want you up out first, and you’ll fit.”

  Laura tip toed around the dirt and concrete pieces. She looked up at the hole Bob dug and tried to think how she’d manage to fit.

  “Put your foot in my hands,” Bob said. He made a cup with his hands and motioned for her to place a foot inside. In one swift motion, he raised her to the hole and she shot out into the open with little effort.

  “Go get help!” Bob yelled.

  “No, I want to wait for you two.”

  “This may take a while and they might come back, you need to get help right away.”

  “If they come back, I’ll hide in the woods, I’m waiting for you.”

  “Fuck,” Bob said under his breath. “Why can’t she do as she’s told?”

  “She’s scared,” Cindy said.

  “So am I,” Bob replied getting back to digging.

  Chapter 20

  Woods

  Laura ran into the woods and scratched up her legs on the brush. She stepped on all sorts of sticks, rocks and debris that cut her up and caused her pain, but she needed to hide. She found a tree to hide behind and looked for anyone that might have spotted her. She saw no one, just the back of the out building, the semi and the main house. For the most part it was clear. Then she saw the front door of the house open and three men step outside. She knew them all well, they had been raping her repeatedly.

  It was all she could do to not yell out and warn the two people who helped her escape, but she couldn’t do a thing as she watched them walk across the gravel towards the building. She got down and laid on a fallen branch keeping low as to not be seen.

  Inside the torn up holding cell, Bob and Cindy continued to dig out the hole to a size they could both fit through. Then then heard the sounds of men’s voices in the hall. In a panic, Bob tried to climb through the hole but he wasn’t tall enough to reach it. He motioned for Cindy to come over. “I’m going to lift you up, ok?” he asked.

  Cindy nodded and put her foot up for Bob to grab ahold of. He knew she was too heavy to do that so he got down on all fours to make a human table.

  “Stand on my back,” he said.

  Cindy did her best to balance on Bob’s back and reach the hole. She could get her hands on the sides of the opening, but she wasn’t strong enough to pull herself up and through. “I can’t make it,” she said.

  Bob tried to raise himself up and allow Cindy to push her way through. He lifted with his legs trying not to let her slide back and fall. “How’s that?” he asked.

  “I got it, keep going she said.”

  Bob raised a little more and he felt her lift off his back. She had managed to pull herself up through the hole. He looked up and say her turn around to talk to him. Before she could say a word he said, “Go, go get help!”

  Cindy turned back and fled into the woods. She couldn’t see Laura and ran blindly.

  Bob jumped up at the hole and tried to grab the sides. He couldn’t get a grip and tried again until he was exhausted. He couldn’t hear the voices in the hall any longer, but knew that didn’t mean anything, they could be walking through the door anytime. Then the door opened and Henry walked in followed by two other men.

  Bob turned to face the three men standing in the doorway. He didn’t say a word.

  Henry looked at the hole, then the pile of dirt and concrete, and then to Bob who was very calm considering the situation he was in. “How did you?” then Henry said nothing. Instead he walked over past Bob and looked up out the hole at the evening sky. Henry turned back to his men and said, “Go find them, two girls, one skinny, and one fat, both naked.” He then turned to Bob and said, “That was quick.”

  Bob replied, “Your construction was cheap, not the kind of work needed for holding people. Unless you’re running a daycare center.”

  “I know, we only hold people here a few days, most don’t have a clue how to get out, most are too scared to try.”

  “I’ve worked construction all my life.”

  “I can see that,” Henry said.

  “I built a bunker from scratch back home, complete with power, sewer and full heating and ventilation. Had a backup generator and full septic system. All the cells had their own working showers and toilets.”

  “Who did you keep in your bunker?”

  “Lying cheating whores.”

  “Nice,” Henry said. “What happened?”

  “A so called friend got a conscience and broke them out.”

  “What happened to your friend?” Henry asked.

  “No fucking clue, haven’t seen him in months.”

  Henry stewed for a moment and paced around the room. Bob watched without saying a word, he didn’t want to piss Henry off any more than he already was.

  “They better find those girls,” Henry said. He looked at Bob waiting for a reply. He g
ot nothing. “Are you married to the fat one?” Henry asked.

  “No,” Bob replied. “What were you doing with her with no clothes on?”

  “Long story,” Bob replied.

  “You fucking her?”

  “None of your business.”

  “She your girlfriend?”

  “No,” Bob replied, although he did have feelings for her now.

  Henry stepped out into the hall and looked around. “Now where am I going to put you?”

  Bob tried to stand still but his nerves were getting the best of him.

  “I could weld a brace to your leg, hurt like hell.” Henry said. “You’re too smart for anything else.”

  “You could let me go.”

  “My momma will be here tomorrow morning, she will want to see you.”

  “I told you, I didn’t kill your dad or brother.”

  “I know, but she’s going to want to kill you herself, you’re the only two that ever escaped in sixty years. She just wants to take it out on your hide,” Henry said.

  Back in the woods, Laura caught up with Cindy who was now out of breath and cut up from the sticks and rocks littering the floor of the woods. She was bleeding and crying from the pain. Both girls were suffering but free.

  Laura spoke up, “Are you alright?”

  “I can’t go any further,” Cindy replied.

  “We have to keep going, they have dogs.”

  “Fuck the dogs!” Cindy snapped. “I hurt all over.”

  “I haven’t eaten in three days, stop bitching and let’s go!”

  Cindy stood up and took a step, she immediately stepped on a sharp twig and screamed in pain.

  “Shut up!” Laura yelled under her breath. “Try again.”

  Cindy took another step and then another. She was able to walk as long as she took her time and didn’t try to run, the problem was that night was coming soon and she wouldn't be able to see the ground soon. Together, they managed to walk around five miles before they had to stop. The light had faded and they could see by was the sliver of moonlight from above. During the escape, they kept silent, now that they were done running for a while, they could now talk in whispers.