How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers

by Max Booth III

  Billy held up his hand, trying to calm her. “Now, before you freak out, I can explain.”

  Samantha realized he was standing next to her and screamed louder. “Help! Somebody help! Oh God, help me! He’s a psycho! He’s gonna kill me!”

  “Will you please be quiet? It isn’t as bad as it seems.”

  Samantha turned around and tried running away, but Billy grabbed her and pulled her back. “Just wait a fucking second so I can explain what’s going on, will you? Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “HELP! HEELLLLPP! SOMEBODY HEEEEEELLLP MEEEEEE!”

  Billy sighed. “Okay, fuck this.”

  He pushed her into the trunk and closed it, locking her with the collection of human heads. He got back in the car and drove away, the sound of police sirens closing in.

  “Fuck,” he said, punching the steering wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  27. ASSCRACKS OF THE UNIVERSE

  Louise was too excited to be standing on the sidewalk trying to sell people books. She wanted more action. She needed more thrills. More gas station riots, more random kidnappings. Fuck this vanilla pedestrian bullshit.

  Stephen, meanwhile, seemed to be content on the sidewalk, panhandling to strangers. She guessed he preferred this to being back at the apartment with a couple of guys tied up in the closet.

  She wasn’t stupid. She knew they weren’t meant to be together forever. They’d never exactly had much in common, besides both being available and being connected to the small press scene. Stephen was easy, sometimes a little clingy, but predictable enough to keep as a boyfriend for a short while. After so long, though, predictability ran dry—usually around the time that you become involved in a hostage situation.

  When the foot traffic was light, Stephen would pull out his camera and snap photos of random objects. Louise asked what the hell he was doing and he said with the right angle, anything in this city could be a book cover.

  “Sure,” Louise said. “That crack in the sidewalk could be for my next book, Asscracks of the Universe.”

  “Or it could represent the cracks in a relationship, being stepped on countless times a day by strangers.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Louise stopped a man walking past them and said, “Hey, dude, if you buy a book I’ll flash you my tits.”

  “Louise!” Stephen said.

  “What if I buy two?” the guy asked.

  “I’ll let you take a photo.”

  “Deal.”

  The guy grabbed two random paperbacks from their milk crate, handed them ten dollars, and took a photo on his smart phone of her exposed breasts. Stephen stared at the scene, shocked, but then he took a photo, too, so fuck him and his false outrage.

  Louise decided just to keep doing this until she either ran out of books or she was eventually arrested. A few cops passed her, but they only slowed down long enough to get a good look, then they drove away. The milk crate emptied. They’d made ninety-five dollars.

  “Who would have thought that whoring yourself out was profitable?”

  “Many people,” Stephen said. “That’s why there are so many whores in the world.”

  “God bless the whores.”

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “I guess we’ll go back to the car and refill on books.”

  “Are we gonna be doing this all day?”

  “Are you kidding? We’re never gonna stop.”

  Stephen pouted and walked away. Louise followed. They made it half a block and bumped into a homeless freelance editor eating leftover McDonald’s from a trash can.

  Louise tried to turn around and walk in the opposite direction, but Stephen didn’t get the hint.

  “Jared!” he shouted, and ran up to him.

  Jared pulled his head out of the trash can and smiled at Stephen once he targeted the source of interruption. They pounded their fists together like true hardcore gangsters.

  Louise sighed and joined them. “Hey.”

  “So, you guys are out sellin’ books too, huh?” Jared asked.

  Stephen nodded. “Yup.”

  “I ran into your boy, Nick, earlier.” He pointed behind him. “He was a real asshole.”

  “He can be that way,” Stephen said.

  “Nick is a saint,” Louise said.

  Jared ignored her and spoke directly to Stephen. “So, I was trying to talk to him about you guys possibly hiring me for my editorial skills.”

  “Yeah, Nick really does all of the editing. I don’t think he’s looking to hire anybody.”

  “Maybe you could talk to him?”

  Stephen hesitated, took a step back. “Well, he doesn’t exactly listen to me. And I already know, on this subject, he definitely isn’t interested.”

  “What does he have against me?”

  “Uh. I dunno, man.”

  Louise coughed. “Liar.”

  “What was that?” Jared asked.

  “Oh. Nothing.”

  Stephen gave her a dirty look. She smiled.

  “Maybe if he would just let me do a test edit, he’d see how good I am.”

  Stephen scratched his head. “Yeah, but, like, didn’t he hire you to edit some novella a few years ago?”

  “Yeah, and I did amazing work. So I don’t understand his problem.”

  Louise couldn’t hold her breath any longer. She gasped for air. “Dude, you can’t edit for shit.”

  “What the fuck?” he said.

  “Louise!” Stephen said.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true. You don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re doing, and everybody knows it. Nick, along with anyone else worth their salt, dislikes you because you claim to be this all-wise editor, yet you barely have a grasp of the English language. Did you never learn grammar in school? For fuck’s sake, dude, even basic spelling you have trouble with. And that would be bad enough by itself, but you constantly scam new writers and publishers into paying you for your services, and they have to learn the hard way that not everybody in this business knows what the fuck they’re doing. They would be better off flushing their cash down the toilet.”

  Jared stared at her, speechless. Stephen looked at his feet, cheeks blushing. “Uh, maybe we should go.”

  “Yeah,” Jared said, tears streaming down his face. “I think that would be a good idea.”

  Louise burst out laughing. “Jesus Christ, dude, are you crying?”

  “Leave me alone.”

  Stephen grabbed her arm and pulled her along. “You’re such a dick,” he said, and in response she laughed even harder.

  Nick was waiting for them at his car. The trunk was open, and his milk crate of books was still full.

  “You didn’t sell shit, did you?” Louise said.

  He shook his head. “I see you made out well.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I started flashing my tits.”

  “Ah. Good idea.”

  “I can’t fucking believe you,” Stephen said to Louise. “He didn’t deserve any of that.”

  “Oh fuck you, he did too and you know it. Goddamn hustling trash artist.”

  Nick seemed confused. “Who didn’t deserve what?”

  “Jared,” Stephen said. “Louise made him cry.”

  He laughed. “You made him cry?”

  Louise grinned, proud. “Hell yeah. It was beautiful.”

  “I can’t believe I missed that.”

  “You may get to relive the moment,” Stephen said.

  Nick raised his eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

  “He is charging straight for us.”

  “What?”

  Stephen pointed down the block. Jared, in all his obese glory, was running like a mad bull directly toward them.

  “Holy shit,” Louise said, giggling.

  Nick shook his head, amazed. “Well, this ought to be good.”

  “You assholes!” Jared screamed from down the street. “You motherfuckers!”

  “I do believe he intends to murder us all,” Nick said.

&nb
sp; “I didn’t even do anything,” Stephen said.

  Louise snorted. “Story of your life.”

  “We are officially broken up,” Stephen said.

  “Whatever. Jared’s gonna kill us, anyway.”

  “He seriously might,” Nick said. “He is a rather big man.”

  “And incredibly slow.”

  “Yeah. That, too.”

  They stood in the parking lot and waited patiently. They felt it was the polite thing to do, after insulting him so much.

  “I’m getting tired,” Nick said. “I wish he’d hurry up.”

  “If he kicks your ass, will you hire him to edit?” Louise asked.

  Nick thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah, probably so.”

  “So that’s the secret.”

  “That’s the secret.”

  Jared neared. He continued shouting threats. His running had declined to a brisk walk, and he kept holding his chest like he was two seconds away from a heart attack.

  “Gon . . . na . . . fuck . . . ing . . . rip . . . your . . . heads . . . off.”

  “Calm down there, big fella,” Nick said.

  Jared, finally in the parking lot, pushed himself into another sprint toward them. For a moment, Nick thought they might be in some serious trouble, but then Jared tripped over his own untied shoelaces and tumbled to the cement. His pants fell down and his bare, hairy ass flopped out for the world to see. His skull smacked against a concrete parking stop and his body went limp.

  They stood above his body for a moment, staring at his ass. It was mesmerizing, like a shooting star fueled by flatulence.

  “Well,” Nick said. “That was anticlimactic.”

  “Do you think he’s dead?” Stephen asked.

  “Probably.”

  “I think he’s still breathing,” Louise said.

  Blood began pooling under his head.

  “We should probably call an ambulance,” Nick said.

  Stephen shook his head. “Why? The hospital isn’t that far. Let’s just drive him.”

  “I don’t want that piece of shit in my car.”

  “Dude,” Stephen said, “he’s bleeding out the skull. Cut him some slack.”

  Nick sighed. “Ugh. You fucking owe me, man.”

  Stephen smiled. “I knew you had a soul.”

  “You can drag him into the backseat, though. Because I’m not touching his lardass.”

  They were barely out of the parking lot when Louise’s cell rang. It was Eliza.

  “What up, girl?” Louise said.

  “Uh, you guys need to get back to the apartment. Now.”

  “Okay, sure, give us a few. We gotta drop Jared off at the hospital.”

  “Fuck that,” Eliza said. “Get your asses back to the apartment.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Sergio’s dead.”

  28. THE COCKS IN THE CLOSET

  Eliza hated using Nick’s laptop. Pubic hairs were always lodged into the keyboard. She’d told him before that he sucked at cleaning up post-masturbation, and he’d just giggle and tell her to write him a post-apocalyptic book about sex addicts.

  Sergio had already emailed them the sequel to The Cumming of Christ. She took one look at the title and started laughing, which was definitely a good sign. She browsed through the manuscript, reading a few lines here and there, getting a sense of the general plot. It sounded just as ridiculous as the original book. Classic Sergio.

  The cover idea for Cunnilingus is Close to Godliness came almost instantly. She started up Photoshop and got to work. She tried not to think about the fact that there were two men tied up in the closet, but it was difficult, especially when they began pounding on the door and screaming through the duct tape. She ignored them for a little while and continued working.

  The screaming progressed. It grew louder and more desperate. Could the neighbors hear? Shit, that was all she needed. Cops knocking on the door because of a noise complaint. What a pathetic way to get caught.

  She opened the closet. Only one of the hostages was screaming—Harlan. The other hostage, Lewis, was grabbing Harlan’s cock with all his might. He’d turned around so he could latch on with his hands still tied behind his back.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Eliza said, and tried to pull Lewis off him. But he was quicker than she expected. He released his grip on Harlan’s cock and smashed his face into hers. She stepped back a few feet and tripped over some books on the floor. Fucking Nick, she told him he ought to clean this place up once in a while.

  Eliza tried to stand up, but Lewis jumped on top of her, leaving her lightheaded and gasping for air. He did this with his hands still tied behind his back. Who was this guy? Before she could defend herself, he was standing above her and kicking her ribs. Then he stomped on her face and she passed out.

  She woke up with her arms and legs tied behind her back, like a goddamn hog. Harlan was next to her, bloody. Her face throbbed. It felt wet and deformed. Maybe he’d broken her nose, kicked it straight into her brain.

  Lewis was sitting on the floor a few feet away, out of breath. In one hand he held a knife and in the other he held a beer.

  “That man had been lying,” he said. “He did too have beer.”

  “What are you even still doing here?” Eliza asked. “Why haven’t you run away?”

  Lewis sipped the beer, looked at her, contemplating the question, then took another sip. “My car is missing. I don’t intend to leave until I retrieve it.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not them I have business with.”

  “My brother.”

  “If your brother is the man who kidnapped me and stole my car, then yes.”

  “I think you broke my nose.”

  “And soon I will remove your head from your shoulders.”

  They stared, daring the other to speak. Neither did, except for Harlan, who screamed through his duct tape. As if reminded of something, Lewis tossed the empty beer bottle to the floor and stood up. He found the roll of duct tape by the sofa and crouched down next to Eliza, then wrapped it around her mouth.

  “I know it isn’t much,” he said, “but at least it’ll slightly dampen the sound of your screams. And believe me, you will be screaming quite a bit here in a few minutes. You and that buffoon I’ve spent all day locked up with.”

  Eliza tried to curse at him but it all came out as nonsense through the duct tape.

  “They always scream,” he said. “And I don’t blame them. Decapitation is a hell of a way to go out, especially when it’s all slow and drawn out.”

  Eliza’s eyes widened with terror. She wanted to kick Nick in the balls for leaving her here alone. Then she wanted to strangle her brother for kidnapping a goddamn psychopath. A part of her was still hopeful, though. She wasn’t dead yet. Maybe the guy was just bluffing. He didn’t sound like he was bluffing, but who really knew. Plus, in the movies, whenever the bad guy gave a long speech about how he was going to kill the protagonist, he almost never had a chance to follow through with it. That’s why horror monsters like Michael Myers always got their shit taken care of. No talking. No dumb speeches. Any second now, help would arrive. Or he’d slip up and offer an opportunity for her to bash his brains in with something.

  “First, though,” he said, standing up, “I would like another beer.”

  Lewis walked into the kitchen just as the front door opened and Sergio entered the apartment, obviously ready to save the day. See? That’s why you didn’t give big speeches before you murdered somebody. Fucking amateur.

  Sergio stood in the doorway, staring at her, and she tried screaming for him to turn around and run away, to call the cops before her hostage—wait, who was the hostage now?—decapitated everybody. But he just stood there like an idiot until Lewis returned to the living room and drove a knife through his throat.

  She was reminded of the way a hose might spurt water from the side of the tubing if a hole was poked into it.
Only instead of a tube, she was staring at a neck, and instead of water . . .

  29. BIZARRO SORROWS

  After his reading, Sergio decided to stay up and ride the energy high. He sat in his apartment with his laptop and wrote. Various horror movies played in the background. He’d pay attention to a scene here and there, but he was mainly absorbed in his writing. He was pretty drunk, but alcohol had never really made him tired. It woke him up. Gave him the creative spark that helped pay his rent.

  He walked home from Nightscapes and immediately started writing a new novel. Or maybe it would be a novella. He didn’t know and didn’t care. All he knew was he had a killer idea for a story and he would write it until the story ended, then he’d send it to his publisher, and maybe he’d make a couple hundred bucks in royalties in six months or so. Or maybe he’d make nothing.

  The book, obviously inspired from last night’s events, was about a zombie outbreak during a public book reading. It was fast paced and bloody as hell. And, like most of his books, it took place in the span of one day. The best stories—especially suspenseful stories—took place in short bouts of time. Books that went on for years and years were boring as hell. If the story was supposed to continue past a couple of days, then he’d just write a sequel.

  By that afternoon, Sergio had already written fifteen thousand words. Most writers wouldn’t have even started their outlines by then. But most writers were assholes. A lot of people Sergio knew weren’t even real writers. They just liked to pretend. They talked plenty of talk on Facebook and offered recycled writing advice on their blogs, but they never actually wrote anything worth reading. Some of them didn’t even write at all. They just talked about it.

  That was the difference between Sergio and most of the people in the small press scene—Sergio actually did his job. What other small press author was consistently putting out solid material? Hell, the year was barely halfway over and he already had nearly twelve books released. Twelve books this year. Total? Shit, last time he counted, he was almost to sixty.

  Meanwhile, everybody else was on Facebook, talking about writer’s block and boasting over pathetic word count goals. Fuck word count and especially fuck writer’s block. Writer’s block did not exist. It was just an excuse to be lazy.