by J. Thorn
Ravna felt the conversation sliding toward the uncontrollable, as if the room had begun to tilt and gravity had taken hold of him. “You chose that path. You left your wife and kids and went off the deep end. You did that.”
“Right,” replied Drew. “The same way I was the one who brought you to the cave, who poisoned the boy’s mind and used him to snare my prey like a fly caught in a web. That was all me, wasn’t it, Rav?”
Ravna sat still, biting his bottom lip.
“You don’t know how it feels. Once it’s inside you, it’s impossible to control. I’ve seen my hands involved in acts that made me want to slit my own throat, but I could never do it. Don’t tell me what I chose to become. Don’t you dare say that.”
“So you have me here. You have Karen somewhere. Now what? If this is about extracting revenge or your pound of flesh, then take it. I really don’t care about your personal demons.”
Drew smiled and stood, brushing off his hospital robe as he did the topic of conversation. “Time for some fun,” Drew said, holding a finger up in the air. “But we have to wait for everyone to arrive at the party.” He turned and ascended the steps toward the open door, stopping at the top and turning back to face Ravna. “I’m going to leave Gaki in charge. He likes you, and he really likes your little girlfriend. I told him to leave Jasper a taste, but you know how those hungry ghosts can be. So selfish and impulsive.”
Ravna shook his head, looking around the room for anything that could provide a glimmer of hope.
“If you meet up with the old man on the other side, tell him I said hello.” With that comment, Drew walked through the doorway. Ravna heard his steps above and was left with the sound of dripping pipes yet again.
***
“What are y’all doin’ down here?”
Ravna’s head jerked to the side and he felt the pain of a cramp in his neck. He blinked and wondered how long ago he had passed out.
“He said it was ‘time to get the party started.’ Said you’d know what that meant.” Jasper stood in front of Ravna with his hands on his hips. He wore hip waders over his mechanic’s shirt and grasped a pair of yellow rubber gloves in one hand.
“Fuck off,” Ravna said.
Jasper responded with an open-handed shot to Ravna’s face. The blow reawakened the swelling in his eye. “Need to teach you some southern manners. That ain’t no way to speak to your host.”
Ravna spat and winced as the motion brought another wave of pain to his bleeding, toothless gums. “Why? Why are you letting that demon ruin your life?”
“Ruin my life?” Jasper said. “What ‘life’ are you talking about exactly? The one where I sit in a grease-stained office all day, jerking it to a magazine filled with women that wouldn’t speak to me in real life? You mean the one where I serve condescending Yankee assholes like you, pretending to care about your beach vacation? That life? You can take your education and your degrees and shove ’em up yer ass. You don’t know me, and you don’t know what a ruined life looks like. But you’re about to find out, sir. You are about to find out.”
Jasper turned and walked back up the steps. He disappeared for a moment, and Ravna heard more scraping and jostling in the room above. When the young man returned to the top of the steps, he had a body tucked underneath his right arm.
I hope she’s still alive, Ravna thought as Jasper came down the steps, Karen’s heels thumping from one step to the next.
Jasper dropped her naked, unconscious body to the floor at Ravna’s feet. He saw her chest moving enough to know that she was not dead. Karen’s hair snaked over her dirty skin, and one ankle bulged out with grotesque deformity. Thin lines of dried crimson ran from her shins to her thighs, as if someone had used their fingernails to draw blood.
“I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is no. He told me I wasn’t allowed to. He never said I couldn’t strip her down and crank one out, just that I couldn’t, you know, consummate the act.”
Ravna was not sure why Jasper was telling him this. He didn’t detect a sense of nobility in the young man, based on the condition of Karen’s face. Ravna winced. She had withstood a storm of punches.
“Let her go,” Ravna asked.
“Can’t do that, sir. Got my orders, and there are some preparations I need to make for the Gaki. You dealt with him before; you know how he can get.”
Ravna watched as Jasper slid his hands inside the rubber gloves. He pulled a pair of work goggles from his back pocket and pushed them onto his face without removing his baseball cap.
“These things can get messy. Hope you don’t mind me takin’ the necessary precautions and all.”
Ravna remained silent as Jasper disappeared into the corner of the room. He came back with a wooden folding chair identical to the one Ravna sat on. Jasper opened it, slammed it to the ground to ensure the legs would not fail, and proceeded to drag Karen upright and into the chair. She moaned, and her eyes flitted several times, but she appeared to be lost in a haze of powerful narcotics. Jasper bound her hands and made sure her ankles were tight on the wooden legs. He stooped and double-checked Ravna’s, as well.
“There. Now we’re ready,” said Jasper.
Another shape appeared in the doorway at the top of the steps. Ravna recognized the demon before he could even see its face.
“Yep. Now we can start the party.”
Episode 2
Thursday, September 5th
She sneezed, spraying the filthy white tile with a splatter of blood. Karen lifted her bound wrists to wipe her nose as best as she could. It was most likely broken, but that was the least of her concerns. She shivered as a brisk September wind passed through the broken window. A single bulb dangling above the vanity provided meager light and even less warmth. Karen found herself daydreaming about the generations of people who had awoken every morning, entering this room to prepare privately for their days.
Bet they would have never imagined it would look like this. A battered woman inside a battered tub.
There would be some consolation in the fact that he had not touched her. Not in that way. He had masturbated while in the room, which made her want to vomit. But it could have been worse. Much worse.
Karen gave up screaming toward the end of the first day, when the kid had punched her in the nose and then proceeded to knock out several teeth. He had no compunction against beating the shit out of a woman, and Karen could only speculate as to why he had not taken everything he wanted, especially with her naked and bound. She also gave up on modesty, realizing he placed her in the tub so he would not have to allow her into another room, hoping her waste would find its way down the ancient drain. The bathroom reeked of moldy water, human waste, and an unmistakable hint of rotting eggs.
“I’m hungry, Jasper. I need to eat, or I’m gonna pass out.”
She stunned herself with the request, thinking it quite impossible to crave food in her current situation. She doubted she could chew anything more than pudding while the raw, shattered stumps of her teeth remained exposed at the base of bloody gums. Karen waited but did not hear his movement in the house. The steps cracked in protest every time he came up or down, and she had not heard that noise since the last time she passed out.
A lonely curtain rod hung at an angle, the bracket on one side missing where the end of the bar rested on a broken tile. Karen looked up at it, and then at the shards of the old window remaining in the sash. The fall was probably two stories, maybe more, and that was assuming she could use the shower rod to break open a big enough space. The original leaded glass in the windows would not hesitate to slice into her flesh, unlike the crumbs of safety glass in newer windows. The windows dated back to the turn of the twentieth century, and most of them had been painted shut decades ago.
Ravna crossed her mind, but his image did not linger. She knew that stewing on the finality of her situation would ensure its final outcome. Karen refused to consider what she last said to him. She dismissed the memory of the last time the
y kissed. Those thoughts would do nothing but increase her self-pity until it paralyzed her from the head down.
Another gust of wind blew through the room, raising gooseflesh on her naked body. Karen considered using her feminine advantage on him if he returned, but she then reconsidered. He could have taken her at any moment, but clearly had been instructed not to. However, as with most men, she believed she could suspend the rational part of his head by appealing to other desires.
Karen moaned and tried to straighten her back where the remnants of a tub spout pressed into her muscles. She shifted her legs, turning them both and wishing she could straighten them out entirely. The steps cracked, his boots rising like the snap of a snare drummer marching into battle.
Tuesday, September 3rd
“Got your phone?”
Karen winked at Ravna and held the piece of shiny plastic up with her right hand. “Got yours?”
He feigned surprise and then pulled it from his back pocket with the flair of a Vegas magician.
“How long?” she asked.
“Six hours, give or take.”
Karen pushed a lock of dark hair over one ear and bit her lip. She noticed his eyes on her freshly shaven legs. “AC, cat, mail stoppage?”
“Check, check, and check,” Ravna replied.
She smiled and looked down as a portrait flashed on her phone. Ravna frowned.
“Hon, I have to take this. Just a second, okay?”
Karen had come to hate Ronny O’Toole’s avatar. The picture was of him at a bar in college, holding a full pitcher up to the camera with a stupid, drunk grin on his face. She wanted to change the picture, but he insisted everyone at the office keep it.
“Hey, Tool,” Karen said as the phone came to her ear and she strolled toward the kitchen. She felt Ravna’s eyes on her backside and decided to throw a little extra sway into her hips. She glanced over a shoulder to wink, but he had already begun fussing with a duffel bag that would be thrown into the trunk.
“I’m leaving in five,” she said into the phone.
“Where ya headed?”
“Not now, Ronny. If you need something from me, spit it out. I don’t have to time to bullshit with you.”
She heard the sigh on the other end, and felt the disappointment in it.
“The Rede Design account. What’s the status?”
“All info that’s on the server. What do you want, Ronald?”
“He’s too old for you.”
Karen smiled and looked at herself in the bedroom mirror. She pursed her lips together and blew a kiss at her reflection. “Ain’t gonna happen, hon. We’ve been over this a million times. I told you before: If you can’t let it go, then I’ll find work at another agency.” She waited, listening for a reply to her light threat.
“I know,” he said with a pause. “I know. I’m sorry. You two have a great time. You deserve it. Bring me back some saltwater taffy?”
“Chocolate or mixed?” Karen asked.
“Mixed,” replied Ronny.
“See you next week, Tools.”
“Bye, Karen.”
She swiped at the phone and ended the call.
Men think all attractive women are the same. I love Ravna and Ron knows it, yet he thinks he can appeal to my shallow desires. Sucks for him.
Karen took one last look in the mirror, enjoying the lift of her breasts in the bikini top. She would rock Ravna’s world on this vacation, make him remember what having a younger woman was all about.
“All set,” she said. Her sudden appearance startled Ravna, who looked up to see Karen now wearing a thin, transparent beach wrap that sat on her hips.
“Damn,” he said.
“What?” Karen asked as if she couldn’t read his face.
“How did I end up snagging a young hottie like you?”
“Beats me,” she said, leaning forward to plant a slow kiss on his cheek. “Definitely ain’t because of your wallet.” She gave him a playful look on her way toward the door, slinging a bag over one shoulder and looking about the apartment one last time.
“Ready?” she asked.
Ravna nodded. He grabbed his bag, checked again for his phone, and snatched his keys from the kitchen counter. Karen did not wait, bounding down the steps and checking her purse one more time to make sure her round, plastic case of birth-control pills was in there. She turned to see Ravna coming through the lobby door and toward the car, grinning like a fool.
***
Something stirred inside her as Ravna rocketed the car down the highways and past endless, faceless strip malls. He was older, and that would most likely mean endless months of awkward stares from her mother, but this was not what troubled Karen. There was something else inside him, something tragic and incomplete. He had made a casual mention about a recent trauma on their second date, but she had let it slide, afraid to taint the excitement of new love. Her phone made fewer and fewer chirps. Eventually, Karen placed it in a compartment on the dashboard, content to let it sit idly but within easy grasp.
“Kick us some tunes?” Ravna asked as they rocketed down Interstate 81.
“What are you in the mood to hear?” Karen asked as she plugged the audio cable into her phone. Her eyes fluttered as she reached for the shiny, plastic device she had struggled to put down.
“Something from my library. No offense or anything.”
“None taken,” Karen responded, unplugging the audio line from her phone and plugging it into his where it rested in the cradle hanging from the dashboard.
Karen shuffled through his playlists, searching for something heavy but not the screaming, growling metal that Ravna played when he was alone in his apartment, trying to piss off the landlord. “Metal?” she asked.
He smiled as she cued the tunes. Karen let him have thirty or forty seconds of enjoyment before turning the volume down a bit.
“Spoke to my mom yesterday,” she said. Karen watched as Ravna’s eyes shot to the rearview mirror. He checked the dashboard gauges as if trying to let her know that he could not possibly discuss their relationship while sitting behind the wheel of an automobile.
“Yeah?” he finally said.
“She asked about us.”
“Karen, can we not talk about this now?”
“When can we talk about it, Ravna? How many times do we have to pretend that we’re not serious, that we’re simply having fun together? Maybe I want more than that.”
“You’re twenty-six,” he said. “How do you know what you want?”
Karen’s eyes dropped to her lap, and she began twirling the birthstone ring on her pinky finger.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. What I meant is that there’s no hurry. Let’s let things naturally evolve.”
Karen winced. She looked out at the beige highway barrier before turning back to face him. “I guess we disagree on the nature of evolution.”
“Funny. Really funny.” Ravna’s gruff words failed to hide his smile. “A family, a house. I don’t know if I’m—”
“I’m not asking you for all of that,” Karen interrupted. “I mean, I’m sure we’ll have that talk at some point, but not while I’m a naïve, gullible, twenty-six-year-old piece of ass.”
“Touché,” Ravna replied.
“I want more than whatever it is we’re calling this.”
Ravna nodded, his hands firmly at ten and two on the steering wheel. “And what are we calling this?” he asked.
“A mini-vacation at Virginia Beach,” she replied. Karen reached over the seat belt and allowed her hand to slide down the inside of Ravna’s thigh. “It’s for lovers.”
“Works for me,” he said with a grin.
The green highway sign rushed to greet them, and Ravna squinted, lowering his head below the rearview mirror to make sure he saw the number correctly.
“I’ve never been. Heard the scenery is incredible, especially deep into Virginia. It’ll add an hour or two to the drive. Only thirty-five miles per hour the whole way.”
>
Karen nodded, pulling her hand back but brushing against the outside of Ravna’s jeans, just above his zipper. “I guess if you’re not in a hurry to get there . . .” The words came out as a suggestive purr.
“Maybe we spend a night in the Blue Ridge Mountains,” Ravna replied.
“Go for it. Can’t say I’ll have a good reason to drive it anytime in the near future.”
Karen watched the black ribbon of Interstate 66 tease him to the east until the exit for the scenic bypass appeared. The early September sun radiated upon them, and Ravna turned off the air conditioning inside the car and dropped the windows, pulling in all of the fall fragrances the Blue Ridge Mountains had to offer.
“Heard it can be slow going, especially if you get behind a semi.”
Karen shrugged, her eyes closed and face turned to capture the sun’s rays.
***
“What’s that light?” Karen asked, leaning over the middle console. She squinted at the blinking red wrench on the dashboard. Her eyes hurt from the wind, sun, and miles. Ravna looked down at the dashboard and back out at the hairpin turns and single-lane traffic.
“Check engine,” he replied.
Karen sat back, knowing that, of all the lights on the dashboard, this was one that could cause a lot of problems.
“We need to stop for gas soon, anyways. I’ll have a look.”
Karen laughed. “Unless there’s a keyboard underneath that hood, I’m not sure what good ‘looking’ at it will do.”
“Funny. God, you’re so funny.”
Karen looked at Ravna’s face and saw the amusement he found in her sarcasm, even at his own expense. As the sun slipped lower on the western horizon, Karen saw the rust-colored lights of a service station ignite in the distance, several hundred yards off Skyline Drive.
“Another mile or so. I think there’s a gas station up there,” Ravna said.
Karen’s infatuation with the scenic highway had begun to wane. She no longer held her head out the window like an excited canine. Instead, she dove into a book of Sudoku and the remnants of an iced coffee from eighty miles ago.
