But Earl Manning knew one thing: he had had enough. He had come here thinking he would be alone with Raven, and instead the shadowy-looking man had forced him inside this house. Looking at it now, he could only conclude that allowing the guy to push him around had been a mistake. He should have stood up for himself immediately.
Well, it wasn’t too late. He could still fix their wagon. He would simply refuse to move another inch until the shadowy man or Raven explained to his satisfaction just what the hell was going on here. Not one inch.
Earl walked roughly six feet into the living room that might have been called a parlor by his grandmother and stopped, turning to voice his objection to this whole charade, to complain about being treated like a sap by that traitorous bitch Raven. He spread his feet and set his shoulders. He turned, ready to demand some answers, to know just what in the holy hell this was all about, and as he did, the shadowy man who had appeared when Raven pulled him out of the Porsche stepped up close, too close, violating his personal space.
The man whipped his right hand around in a circular motion like Pete Townshend making his guitar scream at the Who show Earl had seen down in Portland in ‘96, only instead of holding a guitar pick in his hand he held a large plastic bag. The bag fluttered through the air and down over Earl Manning’s head, and Earl immediately had two thoughts: 1) It really is true that alcohol dulls your reflexes, and 2) He would be doing the screaming instead of a guitar.
A heavy length of twine, almost but not quite a rope, had been threaded through the mouth of the plastic bag, and after yanking the bag over Earl’s head, the man pulled the ends apart like a garrote. The bag closed neatly around Earl’s neck just under his jawline. In his panic Earl drew in a deep breath to scream, knowing somewhere inside his Budweiser-addled brain that he was making a mistake, that it was the absolute worst thing he could do, but he did it anyway. He couldn’t help himself.
The bag sucked into his open mouth and Earl gagged and coughed it back out. He shook his head violently back and forth as if registering extreme dissatisfaction with this turn of events, which, in a way, was exactly what he was doing. He struck out with his fists, not punching as much as flailing wildly, and felt a millisecond of satisfaction when he connected solidly with some part of the man’s body, although which part he hit, exactly, he had no idea.
After that tiny victory, though, things went downhill fast. Earl stopped flailing and grabbed with both hands at the twine/rope being pulled with steadily increasing pressure around his neck, cutting off his air supply and digging into the soft skin, but it was useless. The shadowy man had all of the leverage, plus he was younger, stronger and presumably sober to boot.
It ain’t a fair fight, thought Earl, realizing immediately it would be a stretch to call it a fight at all. Then all conscious thought departed. He thrashed and grunted and sucked the bag into his mouth again, coughing it out again, his lungs screaming for oxygen, his body weakening by the second, his panicked reaction growing less and less effective.
He felt his extremities tingling, he was losing feeling in his hands and feet and all of a sudden he could feel his bladder release. Urine, hot and wet and humiliating, soaked his jeans at the exact moment he began falling to the beautifully polished hardwood floor.
His head struck the floor, hard, and he heard something crack and was surprised to discover he didn’t feel any pain. Didn’t feel anything at all, in fact, other than a warm, sort of fuzzy ambivalence. Turned out dying was a lot like getting drunk. Earl thought that in some ways it was a damned shame you could only do it once.
Panic subsided and serene acceptance took its place and Earl’s last thought before the blackness descended like a shroud was that he would never have imagined in a million years that he would die on a parlor floor.
Preview
THE LONELY MILE
Allan Leverone
Chapter 1
May 1
Amanda Lawton sagged sideways, groggy and disoriented, her blonde hair hanging in sweaty strings in front of her eyes. The heavy duct tape attaching her arms and legs to the wooden chair was all that kept her from falling to the cold, cement floor. She shot a pleading look at her captor, trying to focus on him through the disorienting effects of fatigue, hunger, and the drugs he’d forced on her. The thin man swam in and out of focus, moving around in her field of vision like a jittery Casper, although he was not a ghost, and he certainly wasn’t friendly.
This new room he’d moved her to—she thought it might be one of those aluminum-sided rental storage places—yawed and buckled in her watery eyesight. This must be what it feels like to be adrift on a small boat in heavy seas. Her stomach lurched. She thought she might puke. Please don’t let him gag me.
Her captor wrapped a final strip of the reinforced tape around each of her legs until they were completely immobile, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. Amanda knew this was her chance, probably her last chance, to beg for her life and her freedom. Maybe she could play on his sympathies, if he had any, and his humanity—if he was actually human—to plead with him to let her go.
She sat silently, though, trying to focus her gaze on him and failing, attempting to sit up in her chair and failing at that, too. What could she possibly say to him that she hadn’t already said? What pleas could she try? What promises could she make? Over the past week, the nightmarish seven days that had seemed like an eternity, Amanda had begged and reasoned, threatened and cried.
Nothing had worked. Nothing had made a bit of difference. He’d handcuffed her to a filthy little bed in the damp, nasty basement of his crumbling house, taking her when he wanted her in all sorts of different ways, feeding her when he felt like it, making her beg for the bathroom, in general, treating her like an animal or a piece of garbage while lovingly whispering words in her ear that were totally inconsistent with his treatment of her.
Amanda was in despair. Why had she let him grab her and throw her into his truck? How could she have been so careless? She would never again see her home. She would never again see her boyfriend or her parents or her college roommates. She would never hang out at the pizzeria in her tiny hometown, listening to music on the old-fashioned jukebox and teasing the local boys by wearing tight jeans and tank tops. She would simply disappear.
I guess I already have.
Amanda Lawton began to cry. She hadn’t thought it possible, she thought she had exhausted her tears at least three days ago. She had no words left to plead with her captor, but the tears came of their own accord. She cherished the tears. The tears meant that, somewhere deep inside the terrified shell of her former self, there was a sliver of hope, a dream that she might still escape the fate laid out for her by this awful man.
She was wrong.
Her captor stood and watched her cry, impassive and unmoved. He raised his arm slowly and pointed to one side of the tiny enclosure. Amanda tried to follow his gesture, which required intense concentration thanks to the cocktail of drugs she had been forced to take before he brought her to this new prison. “See the tiles on these walls?” he asked.
Amanda shook her head, trying to clear it. Why would he think she cared about the walls?
“Do you see them?” he repeated, the annoyance clear in his tone.
Amanda nodded, stifling a sob, still confused. “Yes, I see the tiles on the wall.”
“Good. These are professional-grade acoustical tiles, very expensive and very effective at accomplishing their purpose. And do you know what that purpose might be?”
Amanda shook her head again, confused and disoriented, but not so confused that she couldn’t tell he was playing with her, taunting her. Somehow this meaningless little humiliation hurt worse than all the indignities he had forced on her over the past week. It was the last straw.
She closed her eyes and sniffled as the tears came harder. She knew the man well enough by now to know this would only infuriate him, but she couldn’t help it. Of course, she was right.
“Answer me!
” he shouted. “What is the purpose of these incredibly expensive tiles?”
“I don’t know.” Amanda sobbed, not wanting to die but wishing that, if his plan was to kill her, he would just hurry up and do it already.
“Thank you,” the man said with exaggerated politeness. “Now, was that so hard?” The swiftness of his mood changes was unpredictable and frightening. “Since you’re now showing an interest, I’ll tell you. Those professional-grade acoustical tiles are so expensive because they are extremely effective at muffling noise and preventing it from leaving this room. Radio stations and music studios use them to preserve the integrity of the recording and broadcasting process, and the people I deal with use them to preserve the integrity of their operation, which, in this case, means not allowing anyone outside of this room know that you are here inside it.
“Now, in case you’re wondering, and undoubtedly you are, this little “office,” as I like to call it, is located in an out-of-the-way area surprisingly free of traffic. Not many people come here at all, either by car or on foot. But in the event someone does pass by while you’re here, you can scream all you want at the loudest volume you can manage, and all you will achieve for your effort will be a set of strained vocal cords.
“My point, sweetheart, in case you are so addled by my drugs you need me to explain it, is that, even though I will be leaving soon, and I’m not sure how exactly long you’ll be here, it will do you no good to call for help. It would be a pointless waste of effort and would only serve to tire you out for no good reason. There is a bright side, however. I know you fear for your life, but you needn’t. My home was merely a waypoint for you, and your stay, as pleasant as it was for both of us, represented no more than a temporary interlude for you before continuing your journey to your new, permanent home.”
Amanda shook her head. “Permanent home?”
“That’s right. I’m not exactly sure where you’re going. It might be the frozen wastelands of Russia or the deserts of the Middle East. It all depends upon who my contacts are currently negotiating with, but I can tell you it won’t be here in the United States, or even on the North American continent. That would be too risky for all involved. Do you understand?”
Amanda nodded. She understood. She wished she didn’t, but she did. She tried again to raise her sagging body and sit upright in the chair. It wasn’t easy, with all four limbs duct-taped to a big, wooden monstrosity that looked like an electric chair—not to mention with the drugs coursing through her body. She strained and worked and eventually managed it, and she felt marginally more comfortable. But the tiny enclosure with no windows felt like an oven.
Her stomach lurched again. Sweat streamed down Amanda’s forehead and into her eyes, stinging them and mixing with her tears, and her vision jumped and blurred. She vaguely registered her scraggly captor turning and walking toward the door.
At least it looked as though there would be no gag stuffed into her mouth—why bother if nobody could hear her scream anyway? When he reached the door and swung it open, taking one last long look back at her, she threw up all over the floor.
Her captor shook his head in silent rebuke and walked out the door into the bright May sunshine. It slanted in through the open door for just a moment like an unfulfilled promise, and Amanda wondered if she would ever see the sun again. He closed and locked the door. She waited to hear the sound of his rattletrap truck starting up, of him driving away, but she didn’t hear a thing. Of course, the incredibly expensive acoustical soundproofing tiles.
She counted to one hundred in her head, nice and slow, and when she was sure he must be gone, she tested his theory about the tiles. Amanda Lawton screamed.
And screamed.
And screamed.
And he must have been right. Because nobody came.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I’ve been fascinated by the power of the written word my whole life, penning my first thriller somewhere around the age of ten. In this short story, a young man gets lost in the woods during a fierce winter snowstorm and his body is found months later huddled against a tree, a single teardrop frozen onto his dead cheek. I suppose this gives you a fairly accurate insight into my genre sensibilities.
I attended the University of Notre Dame with the intention of majoring in newspaper journalism before changing direction after my freshman year and majoring in Business Administration, a degree I received in 1981 and have to this day never put to use.
After graduation, and despite having never set foot inside an airplane, I was hired by the Federal Aviation Administration and began training as an air traffic controller, a job I have held ever since, working in Providence, Rhode Island, Bangor, Maine, and, for the last twenty years controlling traffic at Boston’s Logan International Airport.
I am a proud member of the International Thriller Writers, New England Horror Writers and Short Mystery Fiction Society, I live in Londonderry, New Hampshire with my beautiful wife of nearly thirty years, Sue, our three children, one granddaughter, and Midnight the Miracle Cat, who has survived more adventures than the rest of us combined.
Copyright ©2011 by Allan Leverone
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.
StoneGate Ink 2012
StoneGate Ink
Boise ID 83713
http://www.stonegateink.com
First eBook Edition: 2012
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by © Claudia McKinney - phatpuppyart.com
Published in the United States of America
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