The man returned with a silver tray that looked expensive. Snake’s bologna sandwich looked as out of place as a string of pearls around a hog’s neck sitting on top of it. The little man was holding a gun on us as the big man placed the food and drinks on the bed that Snake was sitting on.
“Please enjoy,” the man said, “we’ll check on you later.”
Snake flew into the sandwich like he hadn’t eaten for three days. Then he took a bite of one of the pieces of cake.
“Mmm, that’s some good cake, boys. It’s coconut with some kinda real good frostin’.”
I was glad Snake was enjoying himself. Otherwise, I’d have my hands full trying keep him from crying. Did he really believe these men were being hospitable because they were lonely and just wanted us to hang around? It might be better for all of us and help me to try and figure out how to get us out of this mess if he did think that.
After Snake finished his cake he asked if he could have one of the pieces that was supposed to belong to me or Glenn. We told him to eat it all if he wanted it. He finished his coke and let out a loud belch. After what seemed like a long time, we still hadn’t heard anything else from our captors and decided we may as well lay down on the beds and try and get some rest. I had been thinking that this would be the perfect opportunity to hide my revolver. I threw back the covers to my bed and climbed in, fully dressed. I didn’t know for sure if we were being watched, but suspected we were. I had no idea if the two men had any accomplices. For all I knew we could be under twenty-four hour surveillance. Once in bed, I pulled the covers up high around my neck then reached down and fished the pistol out of my underwear. I then turned over, making it look like I was trying to get comfortable, and slid the gun between the mattress and box springs. I wanted it pushed up far enough to not be noticed, but at the same time keep it where I could get to it quickly.
The lights were eventually dimmed. Not cut off, but dimmed, like they were in a theatre when the movie was about to start. I was laying there wishing I had x-ray vision like Superman so I could see what was happening on the other side of those walls. I was still a young teenager, after all. Then I started thinking seriously about our situation. I was almost positive these people had been hired or had some sort of connection with the Bullards, but not Freddy and Bruce. Probably some shady characters Jake knew from his years in the moonshine business. Who else would want to kidnap us? We sure didn’t have any money or come from wealthy families that could pay a big ransom. I wondered about Glenn’s truck. Daddy would see it in a few hours when he arrived at the farm for the morning milking. They may have found it already. Mine and Glenn’s parents knew where we were going and though they were usually already in bed when we got home from these nighttime fishing trips, somehow Momma always seemed to know when I got home. It was some kind of inexplicable intuition that mothers had. If I wasn’t home by midnight, or a little after, she would wake Daddy up and they would go find us and see if we were alright. Even if she didn’t notice I wasn’t home, Daddy and Paul started rounding the cows up for milking at three AM and they would be sure to see the truck.
But what I didn’t know was that the truck was not there anymore for Daddy or anybody else to find. And even if it had been they would have no idea of where to start looking. If we were gonna get out of this thing alive, it was going to be up to me.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“He wouldn’t just run off like that, Andrew,” George was telling Sheriff White, beginning to get frustrated.
“Alright, George, just try to stay calm. I’ll send some deputies out right now. And you’re sure he went fishin’ with Snake and that Burt boy?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I saw him loadin’ his stuff in Glenn’s old truck and they had a big bunch of chicken livers. I don’t think they’d be haulin’ chicken livers around for the fun of it. I’m telling you, them Bullard boys have something to do with this. They threatened him when he kicked Bruce in Lena’s store that day and she pulled a shotgun on ‘em. Now he’s the key witness in their daddy and brother’s murder case.”
George propped his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands. “I shouldn’t have let him go out like that at night. I can’t believe his momma did either, ‘cause she’s a worrier anyway. We just wanted him to do something besides sittin’ around and worryin’, so we let him go.”
“It ain’t your fault, George. You can’t watch him every minute of the day and night. I’ll tell you what. I’ll go and round up them Bullard brothers right now if I can find ’em, and asked ‘em what they was doin’ last night. See if they’ve got an alibi they can prove. If they say they do, I’ll check it out and see if they’re telling the truth. I can’t hold ‘em with no evidence, of course. But maybe I can put some fear in ‘em and git ‘em to start talkin’. Them two like to talk big, anyway.”
“I’m comin’ with you, Andrew, and I don’t want to hear any argument. I’ve got to find my boy.”
“Okay, George. I ain’t gonna argue with you. You’re welcome to come. Just promise you won’t do anything foolish.”
“When have you ever known of me to do anything foolish, Andrew”?
“I can’t recall you ever doin’ anything foolish, George. But your boy ain’t never went missin’ like this either.”
*****
We were awakened by the lights being turned back on bright. I have no idea how long we’d slept, but I felt rested. Or as rested as possible given the situation we were in. The door was unlocked and the two men entered the room pushing a cart that had more silver containers on it like the ones Snake’s sandwich and cake had been brought in the night before. They also had three TV trays that were folded up. The little man picked up the dirty dishes Snake had left and put them away, then unfolded the TV trays. Then he took the lid off the silver platter. The air was instantly filled with the savory aroma of bacon, eggs and coffee. There was also big golden biscuits, grits and brown gravy. It all looked so delicious and my stomach suddenly felt as empty as I could ever remember. Plates were placed on each of the TV trays along with silverware. The big man once again told us he hoped we enjoyed it and the two left us alone to eat.
All three of us filled our plates and started to eat. I couldn’t believe I had an appetite knowing that most likely something bad was going to happen to us very soon, but I ate everything on my plate and then got more. I’d heard stories about condemned men getting a last meal just hours before going to the electric chair and ordering enough food to feed an army. I always wondered how they could possibly have an appetite at a time like that. I noticed Glenn had eaten well too, and Snake, well… nothing stopped Snake from eating. The food was delicious. It was as good, if not better, than Momma’s and I thought she was the best cook in the world.
Other than Snake commenting on the cake the night before, we hadn’t spoken. We had been afraid to. I couldn’t stand the silence any longer and said something about the food being good.
“Yeah, it’s real good and they brought plenty of it,” Glenn responded. “I wonder why they’re feedin’ us so good? Maybe they just wanna hold us here for a while. You know, put the fear in us. Why else would they be feedin’ us like this?”
“Yeah, I bet you’re right,” I said. “That makes sense to me. They wouldn’t be wastin’ good food and goin’ to so much trouble to cook it if they were planning on doin’ something bad to us.” I didn’t believe a word of what I’d just said and wasn’t sure if Glenn did or not. The important thing was to make Snake believe it so he wouldn’t get too upset and say or do something that would aggravate the situation.
The two men returned and gathered up all the dirty dishes. They asked if any of us wanted to smoke. Snake said he did, and the big man produced a pack of cigarettes and handed one to him, then gave him a light. Then they sat a large pitcher of iced tea and three glasses on one of the TV trays and folded the other two back up. When they got to the door the big man turned around.
“You gentlemen rest up for a while and let y
our breakfast settle. We’ll have some entertainment for you shortly that we hope you’ll enjoy.”
I couldn’t imagine what kind of entertainment they were talking about.
“Do you think they’re gonna bring us a TV or something,?” Glenn asked, quietly.
“I have no idea what they mean by entertainment,” I said.
Apparently, Glenn had forgotten about the pistol I’d been carrying and I was glad he did. I didn’t want to take any chances of him trying to do something foolish in an act of desperation. I wanted to be the one to do something foolish if it came down to it, because I believed my foolishness might be a little less foolish and better planned that Glenn’s.
*****
The room our captors had taken us into had a thick plate glass window on one wall. Looking through the window, there was a room below with a concrete floor that sloped slightly to the center where there was a drain. There was a big water hose rolled up on a spool in one corner and the concrete floor was wet. The room we were in was dark and the room below was lit with halogen lights that had protective wire cages around them. We were given popcorn and cokes after we had been seated in chairs that were upholstered in plush velour.
“Just sit back and relax gentlemen, and enjoy the show,” the big man told us. Then he disappeared and we could hear him walking down a flight of stairs. In my wildest dreams and imagination I had never seen anything like the place we were being held, with all its strange and elaborate rooms. Somebody must have spent a fortune on this place. And for what purpose?
Nothing happened for several minutes as we sat there not knowing what we were about to see. Then, we saw a door open and a man pushed through it into the room and we all gasped out loud at the sight of him. He was completely naked and looked more frightened than anybody I’d ever seen. His body was covered in some thick, gooey substance that looked a lot like motor oil. He paced around nervously, holding his hands over his privates as if they were his biggest concern. I imagine I would have done the same thing. When you are a man and naked in a strange place, I guess it would be a natural instinct. The man walked over to the door he had come through and started pounding on it. There was complete silence from the room below because of the thickness of the glass we were looking through.
While he was pounding, he hadn’t noticed something that had dropped to the floor from somewhere above. It only took an instant for us to see what it was. Bees started swarming from several large nests. The kind of nests you’d see in an apiary. They swarmed around and quickly filled the room, some flying up and bumping into the window where we were sitting. It only took a minute for them to locate the source they were searching for. There were only a few bees that landed on him at first. Then others followed. He was running around the room now, stopping occasionally to try and climb the solid concrete walls. He was rubbing his hands over his body, clawing and flailing his arms, trying to remove the bees and the honey that clung to him like glue. More and more of the tormentors started attacking him until he was completely covered and unrecognizable. He looked like a mummy that was wrapped in bees instead of a burial shroud. He dove onto the floor and rolled around frantically. It was then I realized how glad I was we couldn’t hear. The bee mummy got up and walked around for a couple of agonizing minutes blindly, looking like he had no joints in his arms and legs. Then he fell to the floor, rolling twice before becoming completely still.
Snake had run to the door before the man had fallen to the floor, but I was so caught up in the horror I was witnessing that I hadn’t noticed. He was at the door kicking it and crying.
“You gotta let me out! I gotta go home now! Please, please, open this door!”
He continued kicking the door with all the strength he could muster. Then he turned around and tried the knob with his hands that were cuffed behind his back. I had no idea why they cuffed Snake and not me and Glenn. Maybe they thought he would hurt himself if they didn’t. The door, of course, was locked tight. I ran over to him and grabbed him around the waist in an attempt to calm him down. He spun his body around wildly, slinging me off as if I were nothing more than an annoying housefly.
Then I noticed the lights were being turned back up. Glenn was now standing with his face almost touching the glass. He was unable to speak for a moment, then managed to get his voice, “Come look at this!”
I pulled myself up off the floor. The shoulder that I had landed on hurt like hell. I staggered over to the window and looked, but could see nothing but a heavy fog that was covering the room below. The fog lingered for a few minutes as me and Glenn just looked at each other, not knowing what to say. I turned around and saw that Snake had finally worn himself down and was just sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, sobbing and making mournful noises that sounded like a wounded animal that had been caught in a trap.
Glenn poked me with his shoulder and I turned back around. The fog was disappearing rapidly, as if it were being sucked out of the room by a vacuum. We could see that the floor was covered in dead bees. So was the lifeless body of the man.
Then we saw a small door open up and the ugliest little dogs I had ever seen came rushing wildly in the room. They were hideous and mangy, like something you would see in a horror movie. Their bodies looked like nothing but hide stretched over a pile of bones. It was obvious they were starving. They ran around the room, fighting each other and baring their sharp teeth. The dogs looked like something I’d seen on one of the Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom shows. I knew they weren’t domesticated dogs. Momma had taken me and Glenn to the Birmingham Zoo when I was about ten years old, but I didn’t recall seeing one there.
“I believe there hyenas,” I said to Glenn, never taking my eyes off the ugly beasts.
“Well, they’ll find what there lookin’ for in a minute,” Glenn said.
Two of them ran over to the big clump of dead bees and started raking them away with their paws. Then the other four joined in. One started by licking at the honey, another sunk its sharp teeth into the flesh of the man’s upper arm. Suddenly, the feeding frenzy was on as all six of them started devouring the man I assumed was already dead. At least I hoped he was. The dogs were ripping and tearing the man to pieces and we were watching. I was wanting to look away, but some inexplicable force was keeping our eyes glued to the horrible sight. The beasts were bloody from head to toe, which made them look even more ugly. Luckily, me and Glenn both had strong stomachs. Being raised on a farm around animals, you see all kinds of things that would make a city boy puke.
I heard a slight humming noise above my head and saw that a curtain was starting to close over the window, sliding on a track. What kind of place is this, and where in the hell is its location? I was thinking to myself. How could you hide such an elaborate place unless it was underground. I then remembered being brought in. We had walked through a door and immediately started descending a flight of stairs. That was it. This whole compound of horrors was underground. I couldn’t even fathom how much it would cost to do something like that. And how in the hell does anybody get their hands on a bunch of hyenas? This has to be a dream, or rather a nightmare, and I am going to wake up any minute, I kept telling myself. But I knew better. This was real, and if we didn’t find a way out soon, somebody else would be sitting up here watching us being devoured by some kind of hungry beasts.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“I hope you enjoyed the show, gentlemen. We thought a documentary on certain insects and carnivores might be educational. We were planning a double feature, but we had some technical difficulties with some of our wildlife and weren’t able to proceed. Maybe we’ll have it corrected in time for a late afternoon matinee.”
The man spoke to us as if we were guests at some all inclusive resort. They had given Snake a shot of what I assumed to be some kind of sedative to calm him down. When we got back to our room he was sleeping and snoring loudly in the bed where he’d slept the night before. When the man closed the door and I heard it lock, I turned to Glenn.<
br />
“Are you feelin’ okay?” I asked him.
“Hell no, I ain’t okay. What kind of stupid question is that?”
“No, I mean can you still think clear. And do you feel okay physically?”
“Well, I guess I feel as good as anybody could who’s bein’ held prisoner and just watched a man covered up with bees get ate up by a bunch of damn ugly assed dogs.”
“Good, ’cause we gotta figure out some way to get out of here. I wonder if they have this placed bugged, or can hear what we’re sayin’?’”
“Well, if they don’t it would be the surprise of my lifetime, ’cause they sure as hell have thought of everything else.” I was glad Glenn still had some sarcasm in him. That meant he was still at least partially normal.
“There ain’t no way there is just two men runnin’ this operation,” I said. “There’s gotta be more back in the bowels of this God forsaken place somewhere. We’ve got to be underground, too. Remember when they brought us in how we walked down those stairs?”
“Yeah, I remember. And if this place is underground what are the chances of anybody ever finding us?”
“Probably slim and none,” I answered, rubbing my temples. “We have to talk quiet and hope they don’t have some kind of high powered microphone pickin’ up what we’re sayin’, but we’ve got to get a plan together.”
I still didn’t want to tell Glenn about the gun. For one thing, I didn’t know if they could hear what we were saying, and the other thing was that we were getting more desperate by the minute and I was afraid he might start blasting away at them the next time they came through the door. We had to wait until Snake was able to move and right now he was in dreamland as the result of some potent drug.
“Well, what kind of plan do you have in mind? ’Cause I can’t think of a damn thing we could do unless it was to wrestle the gun away from that little fellow. He’s the one that holds the gun most of the time and he ain’t no bigger than we are. But he’s always a safe distance away, too. Maybe if we could get him in close to us or something,” Glenn was just whispering now.
Long Holler Road - A Dark Southern Thriller Page 18
