by Tim Waggoner
“Still alive?”
She made no sound, no movement, lest she anger him again. But she kept her eyes wide open, so he could see that she was awake and still among the living.
“Guess so,” he said.
From his tone, she couldn’t tell whether this knowledge pleased him or not. For that matter, she wasn’t sure whether it pleased her. Maybe it would have been better if she’d died during the drive. She suspected she was soon going to find out.
“We’re going to get out of the car now, you and me. You’re small enough that I can carry you if I have to, but I’d rather you walk under your own power. It’s more respectful. Do you understand?”
Ricia didn’t, but if he wanted her to walk that meant he would have to unbind her legs. And once he did that, she’d be able to run.
She nodded.
His eyes narrowed and he nervously rubbed his scab-encrusted bald head. “I know what you’re thinking, but you can’t get away. We’re way out in the country, and there’s nowhere for you to go. If you try to escape, you’ll just make things harder for yourself. Get me?”
She got him, all right. But that didn’t mean she still wouldn’t try to get away from him the first chance she got.
She nodded again.
The man looked at her one last time, as if trying to gauge whether she was lying to him or not. Finally, he turned back around to face front, opened the driver’s door, and got out of the car.
This is it, she told herself. Stay calm … wait for your chance …
He reached into the car and flipped the switch that made the front seat fold down. Then he reached in with his other hand, this one holding a large hunting knife. The sight of the blade almost made Ricia lose it, but she forced herself to look way from the weapon and concentrated on breathing evenly. Relax. He’s just going to cut the duct tape around your ankles, that all. She hoped.
The bald man carefully slid the steel blade between her feet and worked it under the tape. Then, with a series of swift, steady sawing motions, he cut her free.
Instinct screamed Now! and adrenaline surged though her. When he’d confronted her in the parking lot behind the Burrito Bungalow, she’d chosen to run instead of fight. Now she chose both. She was still wearing her work uniform, which meant she had on comfortable black walking shoes. She would’ve preferred steel-toed boots, but one had to work with the resources at one’s disposal.
She lashed out with her right foot and slammed the heel into the bald man’s chin. His head snapped back and he made a gurgling-choking sound as he fell backward. Ricia didn’t hesitate. Ignoring the pain from the beatings she’d taken, she sat up and scooted toward the open door. Moving with her wrists still bound by tape was more difficult than she’d thought it would be, but she had a hell of a lot of motivation and she managed. She was off balance and nearly fell as she got out of the car, but she remained on her feet. The bald man was lying on the ground, blood tricking from his mouth, hand still holding tight to his hunting knife. She felt a thrill of triumph at seeing the blood. The kick had made him bite his lip, the inside of his cheek, or maybe even his tongue. It wasn’t much in the way of payback, but it would do for a start.
He groaned and started to sit up, and Ricia was faced with another choice. Go for his knife — though how she’d get it with her hands bound the way they were she didn’t know — or get the hell out of there as fast as she could. In the end, there really wasn’t any chance at all. Her instincts screamed for her to run, and she couldn’t have disobeyed them if she wanted to. She did, however, pause long enough to stomp on the fucker’s throat three times. If she was lucky, she’d crushed his larynx. If nothing else, she hoped she’d slow him down enough to give her the edge she’d need to get away. One more throat stomp for good measure, and then she took off running into the night.
Her senses were on high alert, and as she ran, she took in her surroundings in a single glance. Old two-story wooden house with peeling white paint, ancient barn so weathered it was impossible to tell what color it had once been. Between them a telephone pole upon which a fluorescent light was attached, flying insects swarming around it, its sterile white wash illuminating the immediate area but doing little to hold back the vast sea of darkness beyond. Fields of waist-high grass swayed in the night-breeze, and Ricia instantly added all these details up to form a single judgment: abandoned farmhouse.
We’re way out in the country, and there’s nowhere for you to go.
But the bald man was wrong. There was one place she could go: away.
She ran like hell toward the waving grass.
Gerald struggled to breathe as he sat up. His throat hurt like a sonofabitch, and it felt like his Adam’s apple had swollen to the size of a grapefruit. He turned to look in the direction the girl had taken off in, but she was already beyond the circle of illumination created by the fluorescent light pole. She was only a retreating shadow blending with the surrounding darkness, soon to be lost to view altogether.
Gerald tried to yell for help, but all that came out of his injured throat was a soft, raspy croak, nowhere near loud enough to be heard by the others. He was furious with himself. If he hadn’t been distracted by Caroline and Aaron, he could’ve focused all his attention on the girl, and she never would’ve had the opportunity to escape.
I should’ve killed her when I had the chance, he thought.
He pushed himself into a standing position and staggered toward his beetle. He opened the driver’s door, leaned inside, and pressed his palm had against the center of the steering wheel. The VW’s horn blared, and a moment later the barn door slid open and the other Forsaken came running to help
Gerald grinned and pointed in the direction the girl had run. Without question or hesitation, the Forsaken ran past the bug and raced off in pursuit.
Ricia was grateful for the long pants that were part of the standard Burrito Bungalow uniform. Tall grass, weeds, and thin thorn-covered branches whipped at her legs as she ran. If it hadn’t been for her pants, her legs would’ve gotten cut up something fierce. She ran at a steadied, measured pace, afraid to go any faster. Her bound wrists threw her off balance, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d trip and fall. And if that happened, then the bald man would have an opportunity to catch up to her. Whatever else he did, she was certain the man would never give up and let her go. Not after the way he’d abducted her and then brought her out to this place, wherever it was. He’d gone to too much effort, broken too many laws to allow her to escape.
She started when she heard the blare of a car horn cut through the night, and without thinking, she looked back over her shoulder toward the noise. The motion caused her to wobble and her right foot shot out from under her. She spun as she fell and landed hard on her right side, the impact forcing the air from her lungs in a sudden gust. She lay on the flattened grass for a moment, stunned and gasping for oxygen. Her breath slowly returned, and she managed to sit up, wincing in pain as she did so. Her side felt as if it were on fire; if her ribs hadn’t been broken before, they surely were now. She brought her bound wrists up to her face and inspected the tape, hoping that by some miracle it had torn when she’d fallen. But this was duct tape — the chosen tool of do-it-yourselfers and amateur repairmen everywhere. Nothing so minor as a simple fall was going to damage it. Frustrated, Ricia maneuvered her hands closer to her face, grasped the edge of the tape covering her mouth and yanked it off. It stung and she felt sharp pinpricks of pain on her lips. She guessed the tape had taken some skin with it, but she didn’t care. Both of her lips could’ve been torn off right then, and it wouldn’t have mattered to her. Just so long as the tape was off so she could breathe easier as she ran, scream for help, and release the terror seething inside her like steam in a pressure cooker. She looked at the tape still binding her wrists. Now that her mouth was uncovered, she wondered if she could try tearing the tape off with her teeth. Sure, the stuff was strong, but if she could get it off she could —
The sound of bodies t
hrashing through the tall grass and weeds, ragged breathing as lungs unused to physical activity struggled to take in and process oxygen fast enough. Someone was coming after her, and from the sounds, not just the bald man. Many someones.
Ricia forgot about trying to bite off the tape. She pushed herself awkwardly to her feet, letting out a bleat of pain as her broken ribs once more made their presence known. She stumbled forward, nearly tripping again, but then she found her balance and resumed running.
“You might as well stop, Sweetie! There’s nowhere to go!”
A man’s voice, from behind her. Not close, but not far away, either. It wasn’t the bald man, but someone else. One of the others. How many of them were there? she wondered frantically. But of course the answer was obvious: too many.
“Come on back! You don’t want to miss out on the fun!” A woman’s voice.
“Maybe she does, but I sure don’t!” Another man, not the bald-headed one. That meant there were three others beside her abductor — at least.
Though it was a cool night, the air was humid and Ricia’s body was slick with sweat. A detached part of her mind — one that would serve her in good stead if she survived to become a respiratory therapist — realized that this was her chance. If her wrists were sweaty enough, the moisture might loosen the tape’s hold and make it possible for her to grip the tape with her teeth and pull her hands free. But she couldn’t afford to stop even for the few seconds that such a maneuver would take. Could she do it while she ran? What if she lost her balance again and fell?
Before she could decide what to do, the matter was rendered academic. A dark shape loomed before her, seemingly having appeared from nowhere, and before she could turn to avoid it, a fist lashed out and struck her hard on the jaw, instantly breaking it. Ricia moaned as she collapsed to the ground, then whimpered as he broken ribs ground together. She gazed upward and through blurry tear-filled vision saw the dark outline of the bald-headed man standing over her.
“Dumb bitch,” he muttered in a hoarse whisper. “You got turned around in the dark and started heading back toward the Homestead. Don’t know why we were even bothering to chase you — you were already coming back to us.” He leaned down and she could see a slash of white cut through the darkness as he grinned. “Almost like it was meant to be, huh?”
He scooped her up then as if she weighed no more than a small child and tossed her over his shoulder. As he started carrying her back toward the barn, she didn’t resist. She was too tired, too hurt, too mentally and emotionally exhausted to fight anymore. Others joined them as they neared the barn, three of them — two men and a woman — just as Ricia had guessed. They looked just as dirty, haggard, and crazy as the bald-headed man, and their eyes gleamed with the same burning intensity.
“What are we going to do with her, Gerald?” one of the men asked. He looked to be in his sixties, though it was difficult to judge his age, unkempt and unhealthy as he was. It also didn’t help that his face was a jigsaw puzzle of scar tissue.
“Something special, I hope,” the woman said. She looked to be in her forties, maybe older. Her gray hair hung in long braids with bits of jagged bone tied in. “It’s been ages since we’ve had a new playtoy.”
“It’s been three days, Meredith,” a cadaverously thin man in his early thirties pointed out. Though he had thick black hair, he had no eyebrows and no teeth.
“I know!” The woman — Meredith — cackled. “That’s practically an eternity!”
The others, including the bald man, laughed softly, an edge of hysteria in their voices.
From her current vantage point, Ricia couldn’t see where they were going, but then she didn’t need to. She knew they were heading for the barn. She could see the fluorescent light glowing on the ground, see the liquid black shadows of her captors sliding along behind them.
“Don’t worry,” the bald man said. “After all the trouble she’s put me through tonight. I think she’s more than proven herself to have a strong spirit. I believe she’s worthy of being added to the Tapestry.”
“Aw, man … I was hoping we could have some fun with her first,” the toothless man said.
Ricia didn’t want to know what these people — whoever and whatever they were — considered fun. She heard shoes crunch on gravel and knew they were back on the driveway … almost at the barn.
“Don’t forget what we’re trying to do out here, Hayden,” the bald man said, a tone of admonishment in his voice. “We’re here to do more than merely sate our lusts.”
“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Meredith said, then cackled again.
Still riding over the bald man’s shoulder and looking downward, Ricia saw gravel give way to bare earthen floor. The light changed too, from blue-white fluorescence to a glaring bright yellow, as if work lights had been strung up in the barn. She took a breath and nearly gagged. Once, when she still lived with her parents, she’d been mowing the backyard and accidentally ran across a dead rabbit that some neighborhood dog had killed, chewed on for a while, then left behind. The rabbit had been out in the sun for too long, and what remained of its carcass was bloated and rotten. As the mower’s blades tore the animal’s corpse apart, it released a rank, greasy smell of death and decay into the air that lingered for hours. The stench inside the barn was like that, only a thousand times worse.
“Well, we finally made it,” the bald man said. He removed his hand from Ricia’s back and leaned forward. Ricia slid off his shoulder and flopped onto the ground. Her broken ribs screamed in agony, but no sound came out of her mouth. Why bother? She was already as good as dead.
The bald man squatted down on his haunches so he could look her in the face. He gestured, then spoke in a hushed, reverent voice. “Behold the Tapestry.”
She didn’t want to look, knew that she’d regret it more than anything else she’d ever done in her life, but she couldn’t help herself. She slowly turned her head and gazed in the direction the bald man indicted.
She saw the Tapestry, and she realized then that there were worse things than death. Infinitely worse. She screamed then, and she was still screaming several hours later when she became the Tapestry’s latest addition.
CHAPTER NINE
Aaron had breakfast on the dining table before anyone else was up. Pancakes, sausage, scrambled eggs, and hash browns. Not the most healthy of breakfasts, perhaps, but a mouth-watering one, if he did say so himself.
He waited for several minutes, sipping coffee, to give his family a chance to wake up on their own. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore and he went upstairs. He woke Lindsay first, whispering, “Time to get up — breakfast,” in her ear. Then he went into Colin’s room and stood by his son’s bed as he tried to decide the best way to wake up the boy without irritating him. He decided Colin would most likely be pissed no matter what he did, so Aaron gently shook his shoulder and said, “Wake up,” in as neutral a voice as he could manage.
Colin opened one eye partway. “What time is it?” he growled and rolled over to squint at the clock radio on his nightstand. “Shit! C’mon, Dad, it’s summer!”
Normally Aaron would’ve called his son on the use of profanity, but he felt too good to bother.
“I made breakfast. Get up if you want some. Go back to sleep if you don’t.”
Colin fixed his one open eye on Aaron and scowled in a mixture of confusion and suspicion. Aaron didn’t want to stick and get into an argument with the boy. He’d either come down to breakfast or not. Aaron turned and left Colin’s room — the groggy teen muttering what were most likely more obscenities at Aaron’s retreating back.
Aaron ignored Colin and continued down the hall to the master bedroom. He opened the door just as the alarm switched on, playing an oldies radio station that Kristen liked. In the darkened room, her heard the rustle of blankets as his wife began to stir. He crossed to his side of the bed and pulled back the covers, so Kristen wouldn’t realize that he hadn’t slept beside her all night. He t
hen sat down on the edge of the bed and put his hand on Kristen’s shoulder.
She rolled toward him and smiled sleepily. “Hey there.” She reached out to turn off the alarm and glanced at the time. “What are you doing up so bright and early? Usually you’re still dead to the world when I wake up.”
Aaron shrugged. “I just got up early today.”
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Is something wrong? Don’t you feel well?’
“I’m fine.” Light years better then fine, but he couldn’t tell her that. “Since I was awake I decided to surprise everyone and make breakfast. Better come on down and eat before it gets cold.”
She frowned. “You … made breakfast?”
He laughed. “I know I don’t cook much, but it’s not that unheard of for me to make a meal, is it?”
“If it doesn’t involve a gas grill and raw meat, yes.” She was wide awake now. Eyes open and clear, voice smooth and strong.
“Then we’ll make this an annual Rittenger family holiday. Henceforth, this day shall be forever known as Dad Made Breakfast Day.”
He hoped she’d laugh even though it wasn’t that great a joke. But instead her eyes narrowed and she gave him an appraising look. Aaron knew that he had just tripped her wifely radar. He’d deviated from the well-known script of their morning routine, and she was suspicious. At first he felt unjustly accused by her look and almost said so, but then he remembered she had plenty of reasons to be suspicious after what he’d done last night.
