“Hi,” he said, smiling.
“Hi,” she managed.
He sat down before her and crossed his legs. He smelled rancid, like he’d soiled himself two days ago and hadn’t gotten around to cleaning himself yet. He reached out a massive hand and patted the top of the head, the way you pat a dog.
He didn’t say anything. She didn’t either.
Then, abruptly, Cherry began to cry. She couldn’t help it.
“Hey,” he said, and he sounded alarmed, almost scared. “Don’t do that, I didn’t hurt you, so don’t cry, don’t do that.”
“I wanna…go home,” she said between sobs, throwing herself on his mercy.
“I can’t let you go, I’d get in trouble, I’d get in real trouble, my brother would be madder than...he’d be really mad.”
He was still patting her head. It was driving her crazy.
“Stop!” she shrieked. “Stop touching me!”
“Hey!” he said, recoiling from her. “I didn’t hurt you, I was just petting you, there’s nothing wrong with petting, I’m allowed to do that.”
Cherry forced herself to calm down. The crying was making her lungs heave inside the iron maiden. She half expected to begin vomiting blood at any moment.
“I didn’t do nothing,” Earl grumbled, getting to his feet.
“Wait…” she said. “Wait…”
He frowned down at her.
“I need…the bathroom…”
“You gotta hold it in until my brother gets here.”
“I can’t.”
“You gotta.”
“Please?”
Earl twisted his mouth indecisively. “A deal?” he said. “Okay? I let you go, I let you use the bathroom, you let me kiss you, that’s the deal. Okay?”
Cherry didn’t know if he was joking or not.
“Okay?” he said.
“Okay,” she said.
Grinning hideously, he bent over, gripped her beneath the arms, and lifted her as if she weighed nothing.
She resisted the urge to cry out; she didn’t want to scare him off.
“I can kiss you?” he said.
“After…I go.”
“I wanna kiss you now.” Without waiting for her to answer he knelt before her, tilted her chin upward with his hand—on his knees he was still taller than she—and pressed his lips against hers. They were wet with beer. The stubble around them prickled her skin. She kept her mouth squeezed shut until he pulled away. He grinned at her proudly.
“Bathroom?” she said.
“Can we do it again? Can I kiss you again? Just one more time, real quick, can I?”
“After I go to the bathroom,” she said.
“Okay, after you go, but you promised, you promised I can kiss you again.” He heaved himself to his feet and got all the way to his armchair before realizing she wasn’t following him. He glared at her. “What’s wrong? The bathroom’s this way.”
“I can’t walk,” she told him. “You need to untie my feet.”
“I can’t do that, I’m not allowed, but you can hop, like a rabbit.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I gotta carry you, is what I gotta do, I gotta carry you, that okay?”
“No!” she said, and began to penguin-walk. When she waddled past Earl, he placed his hand on her shoulder, gently, the way one might guide a young child, or a blind person.
They left the living room this way, the captured leading the dumb, and followed a hallway barren of pictures or any other décor. A 1960s-looking kitchen opened to the right. The bathroom was across from it. The hall ended another ten feet or so farther on at a windowless door she hoped led outside.
Cherry extended her arms in front of her so Earl could untie the rope. He stared at her.
“You need to untie my hands,” she told him. It felt as though she were speaking between sausages instead of lips. Even so, she was feeling better, stronger, more clearheaded. She suspected the adrenaline coursing through her veins had something to do with that.
Earl shook his head. “I told you, don’t you listen, I said I can’t untie you, not your feet, not your hands, I’m not allowed.”
“How am I supposed to use the toilet?”
“You can still use your hands, they’re just stuck together, that’s all. You can still pull up your skirt. Look.” He demonstrated, pressing his wrists together, as if they were handcuffed, and groping for her skirt.
“Stop it!” she told him, alarmed. She shuffled into the bathroom and elbowed the door closed. “Don’t look.”
Earl stuck his foot between the door and the jamb. The door bounced off his boot. “I have to watch,” he said. “My brother, he said tie her up and don’t let her outta your sight, so I can’t let you outta my sight, I gotta watch.”
“I need privacy.”
“My brother said—”
“I won’t kiss you again. Not if you watch me.”
For a brief moment it was as though a black veil had lowered in front of Earl’s face, and she feared he was going to strike her. But then the veil lifted and he said, “If I don’t look, you’ll kiss me?”
“Yes.”
“Two times?”
“Once.”
“Two times?”
“Fine.”
Earl removed his foot. Cherry elbowed the door closed again. To her dismay she discovered there was no lock. She voiced this.
“So?” Earl’s voice came back.
“Don’t peek! If you peek, I’m not kissing you.”
“You promised!” He tried opening the door.
She pressed her body against it. “If you don’t look!”
“I told you I wouldn’t, didn’t I?” He gave up his effort to get in. “Now go on, go pee, go quick, my brother, he’ll, he’ll be back soon.”
The bathroom, Cherry observed, was no more than six feet in length by four feet in width. Hunkered into the small space was a sink marred with toothpaste gunk, a toilet with a partially unhinged seat, a shelf lined with half-used toilet paper rolls and two bars of withered soap in a shallow ceramic dish, and a medicine cabinet.
Cherry caught her reflection in the medicine cabinet’s mirrored front. Her hair was disheveled, her naturally tanned skin so pale it was almost white. Mascara streaked her cheeks like black tears. Blood smeared her mouth, as if she had just finished a strawberry pie eating competition.
She opened the medicine cabinet door, praying the hinges didn’t squeak. They didn’t. Inside she found a bottle of Aspirin, two cans of Gillette shaving cream, three toothbrushes all poking out of the same glass caked with green grime, and—thank you, Lord—a straight razor with a rust-free blade.
She snatched the razor by the wooden handle, eased the medicine cabinet closed, and lowered herself onto the toilet seat.
A moment later Earl shoved open the bathroom door and stuck his head in.
“Don’t look!” she cried.
“I’m not, I’m just checking, that’s all—”
“Get out!”
He obeyed. Cherry said another silent prayer of thanks, because although she was sitting on the toilet seat, she hadn’t lifted her skirt, or pulled down her panties.
Quickly, not trusting that Earl wasn’t going to stick his head in the bathroom again, she used the razor to saw the rope binding her ankles. In her haste she sliced the pad of her left thumb open. Blood squirted to the floor. She bit her lip but kept sawing until the last of the twine snapped apart.
She unwound the length of rope and tossed it aside. Then she unbuckled her stilettos and left them next to the discarded rope. She stood, barefoot, and flushed the toilet. She went to the door, terrified yet at the same time oddly calm. She cupped the razor with her bleeding hand.
“I’m done,” she said, opening the door.
Earl smiled down at her, no doubt in anticipation of his two kisses. The smile turned into a frown when he noticed the blood dripping off her hand.
“Hey,” he said, “what happened? A where
’s the rope for your feet—”
Cherry slashed his throat with the straight razor. His eyes bloomed; he tottered backward, his hands going to the wound. She ran toward the windowless door. For a moment she was positive it wasn’t going to lead outside, it was going to open to a cellar, she would be trapped, Earl would recover, catch her, kill her—
The door handle turned easily in her hand and then she was outside. A cry of elation escaped her as she fled down the porch steps into the night, through the rain, through the mud.
Her eyes were searching for the best path to take into the forest when she spotted a wood-paneled pickup truck parked at the end of the gravel driveway.
She risked a glance behind her, didn’t see Earl, and made for the vehicle. She didn’t think she’d be lucky enough to find the keys inside it, but this wasn’t the city. She had to check.
Just as she reached the truck she heard Earl exit the house behind her. She opened the driver’s door with her bound hands. The overhead light blinked on.
A key was inserted into the ignition lock.
Cherry’s heart sang. She heaved herself up onto the bench seat and she turned the key. The engine vroomed to life. She tugged the column shifter into drive and was about to tromp the gas when Earl appeared next to the open door, one hand pressed against the bleeding tear across his throat.
Shrieking, Cherry swiveled in the seat, brought her knees to her chest, and kicked as hard as she could. Her left foot breezed past him. Her right connected with his gut. He grunted—more of a bloodied gurgle—and stumbled away.
She stepped on the gas. But Earl managed to snag her hair. The truck lurched forward; her head snapped backward. Her foot came off the pedal.
The truck jolted to a stop.
Earl tugged her head, hard, as if trying to pull her from the vehicle. Her toe, however, found the pedal. The truck shot forward. Earl released her hair but kept pace next to the door. She stamped the gas at the same moment Earl fell and grabbed the steering wheel. His weight yanked it to the left.
The pickup truck arced on a dime, the cornering force tipping it onto two wheels. Cherry’s stomach lurched. She thought of bracing herself, grabbing hold of something, but she couldn’t with her bound hands.
The truck crashed onto its side. She heard the juxtaposition of crunching metal and shattering glass, followed by a dead silence.
Pain. Nowhere. Everywhere.
Cherry had no idea how long she laid in a crumpled heap in the crashed pickup truck, half cognizant, but then the pain sharpened, becoming more localized, coalescing inside her head and chest. She opened her eyes and tried to push herself upright. She cried out as sharp teeth bit into her hands. She glanced down and saw she lay on a bed of gummy safety glass. Where the driver’s side window should have been was jagged gravel.
Earl, she thought, and her fear of the man mobilized her into action.
Grimacing—not thinking about how broken her body was right then, though “smushed” seemed an appropriate description—she stood and became perpendicular to the seats. The engine hadn’t shut off. The dashboard clock read 12:11 a.m. The steering wheel protruded from the dash at her face level. A pair of sunglasses had somehow remained clipped in place to the sun-visor.
Cherry tried to shove open the passenger’s door above her head with her bound hands. She cracked it a foot or so but didn’t have the height or leverage to push it all the way. She wound down the window—the simple action of turning the crank took a Herculean effort—but she accomplished it. Then she climbed, using whatever she could for purchase: the driver’s seat, the center console, the dashboard, the steering wheel.
With a final groan she pulled herself atop the door. She didn’t rest or congratulate herself. Carefully, slowly, she slid to the ground. Her knees buckled on impact and she collapsed.
She wanted to remain there, on the prickly gravel, on her side. She wanted to close her eyes, go to sleep, forget the pain. But she couldn’t do that, of course.
Focusing, steeling her determination, she regained her feet and shuffled around the pickup truck’s hood. She stopped.
Earl lay on the ground, next to the exposed undercarriage. His ugly, piggy face was turned toward her, his eyes closed, his expression slack. Blood covered his pasty-white neck and singlet.
Was he unconscious or dead?
Cherry glanced about for the straight razor and realized with dread it must be somewhere inside the truck. For a moment she contemplated jumping up and down on Earl’s skull with her bare feet. But she didn’t. Because what if he was faking, playing possum, waiting for her to come close enough he could spring awake and snatch her?
Earl’s body hiccupped. A moment later his eyes opened. Cherry wasn’t sure whether he could see her or not—then his sightless eyes fell on her. They thundered over. He pushed himself to his knees, weakly, wobbly, like a calf minutes out of the womb.
Cherry stumbled back around the pickup truck’s hood and limped down the driveway. She glanced over her shoulder. Earl was up and loping after her, weaving back and forth like a drunk, one hand to his throat. They were both moving with the speed and grace of geriatric patients, and the scene likely would have been comical had the consequences of getting captured not been so horrifying.
Cherry forced herself to move faster and concentrated on not falling over. She barely felt the sharp crushed stone beneath her bare feet.
Earl, she noticed when she glanced back yet again, was no longer weaving and was closing the distance between them.
Knowing he would soon catch her, Cherry veered left, into the thicket that lined the driveway. Her feet sank into the wet leaf litter and she lost her balance but didn’t fall. She pressed forward blindly, recklessly, batting her way through the spindly branches with her bound hands.
Finally, when she could go no further, she stopped to recuperate. She listened. She could hear Earl behind her, panting, cursing.
Getting closer.
Cherry pressed on. She should have been focused on survival, getting as far away from Earl as possible, and she was, but at the same time her mind was also lecturing her for detouring to the pickup truck. She should have made a straight break for the trees. She might have been alone and wet and lost, but she would have been in a better predicament than she was in right then.
Cherry stumbled into a patch of thigh-high bush. Instead of backing out and feeling her way around, she waded through it. The scratchy shrubbery snagged her skirt and blouse and held her captive. She tugged her clothing, heard the fabric tear, and freed herself.
She only made it another ten feet, however, before she rammed her forehead against a tree trunk and buckled to the ground. She listened for Earl but couldn’t hear anything over her ragged breathing and the drone in her ears.
She didn’t know how long she lay there for, waiting to be discovered, drowsy with pain and despair. Maybe one minute, maybe ten. The cool October air had slipped its icy hands beneath her skin, caressing her bones, whispering for her to relax, to give up the struggle, to slip away—
No!
Consciousness returned with bright urgency. Everything that had occurred over the past ten minutes exploded inside her head in a collage of images—and even as she fought for clarity—Where was she now? Why was she on the ground? What happened?—she found Earl towering above her, his face slabs of fat and severe shadows, his eyes dusty white and gleeful.
“Gotcha,” he said, and reached for her.
Chapter 21
“They strike, wrap around you. Hold you tighter than your true love. And you get the privilege of hearing bones break before the power of the embrace causes your veins to explode.”
Anaconda (1997)
After Jeff’s failed attempt to rescue Austin he dragged himself to the door, gripped the knob, and found it locked. Of course it was locked. What had he expected? Someone to open it and tell him, “Golly, what a mix-up! How did you end up in here?” Nevertheless, this understanding didn’t prevent him from shoutin
g as loud as he could, begging for someone to get him out of there, off the fucking slaughter floor. When his throat became raw from this effort, he slumped against the door—and thought his eyes were playing tricks with him. The room was black but not pitch black thanks to the light seeping beneath the door sweep, and in that light he swore he could make out the snake directly ahead of him, perhaps ten feet away. The longer he stared the more convinced he became he was right. But it couldn’t be the snake that had eaten Austin; that nightmare creature wouldn’t be moving for the next few months while it digested it’s man-sized meal.
So a second snake?
Jeff’s heart pounded. The snake—yes, there was no mistaking it for shadows now—lay curled upon itself like a giant garden hose, watching him watch it.
Then it began to move.
Its improbable bulk slinked back and forth, propelling it across the floor toward him. Jeff wanted to scream, but he had no voice. He wanted to run, but he had no use of his legs. All he could do was sit there and watch it come for him.
It went for his legs first. Its serpent head nosed beneath his ankles, lifting them with ease. It looped itself over his shins, then beneath his calves, then back over his shins again. It was one big muscle, he could feel its power, and it manipulated him as if he were nothing but a stuffed doll.
As the snake wrapped itself around his waist, it corkscrewed him onto his chest. Screaming now, Jeff thrashed his upper body and pounded the snake with his fists, but none of this did any good.
The eyes! he thought desperately. Where are the eyes? Claw the bloody eyes!
But by then it was already too late.
Jeff was floating in a perfect void—perfect because in the void there was a rule, and that rule was no thinking or reflecting or regretting or worrying. All you could do was float and be. Then, he didn’t know when exactly, only at some point during his floating and being, he realized he was thinking after all. But he wasn’t thinking about Austin’s purple and puffy face. Nor was he thinking about the second snake that had slipped itself around his own body and was now in the process of working its monstrous mouth down over his skull. All he was thinking about was his childhood, and that, he decided, was okay, that he would allow.
World's Scariest Places: Volume Two Page 17
