by Paul Blades
When she awoke, she heard the radio on. It was very cold. The image of him sitting comfortably in her front seat, smoking those stinky cigarettes and fiddling with the radio angered her. It was so unfair. Everything that had happened was so unfair. She pulled and tugged at her bonds and tried to emit a roar of rage from behind her gag. All that emerged was a mere murmur.
And then she heard it. The news was on. She had missed the first few words. And then her hearing just zoned in on it as if the man inside the car had turned the radio up.
“...Wisconsin authorities believe that Jackson kidnapped 22 year old Carly Walker just outside of the small town of Beaver Dam yesterday evening at about 11 P.M. They are concentrating their search for the escaped murderer and his prisoner in the Wausau area where Jackson once led a notorious chapter of the outlaw motorcycle gang, the Rogues. He is believed to be driving Ms. Walker’s maroon, 1996 Chevrolet Malibu and to be armed and dangerous. His photograph and that of Ms. Walker are available on the Wisconsin Attorney General’s website. Federal authorities, we are told, have focused their search for Jackson in areas west and south of Wisconsin in the belief that he may have fled the state……In other news…..”
The radio clicked off.
Jack sat back and grimaced. Well, the jig was up with the girl. He knew it couldn’t last forever. Anyone who saw her and the car together in one place would add two and two and make four. One of them had to go. And right now, he only had one car.
At least he knew that his ruse at throwing the authorities off his trail had worked. The main area of search for him was concentrated in his old stomping grounds. That’s why it was so easy to get across the Mississippi back there.
But then there was that thing about the FBI. They knew where he was headed. It would probably have taken them a day or so to get a real operation going, but they were probably hot on his trail now. It wouldn’t take them long to connect the job at the army navy store with him and from there calculate how far west or south he could have gone. All the Interstates and main highways would be watched closely.
He was about fifteen miles outside of Kansas City. The area was heavily wooded with nice rolling hills. He had to do something right away. He had to get rid of the car. But first he had to get rid of his excess baggage.
About a mile down the road, he took a turnoff to the west. He drove for about twenty minutes. The terrain was getting flatter but more heavily wooded. Finally, he saw what he was looking for. It was an old dirt road. He turned into it. It went on for about 3 or 4 miles. He passed one run down old house, but nothing else. Another, even narrower road, one even less traveled on, went off to the left. He took it. Abut a mile up there was a small clearing. He pulled the car into it and shut off the engine.
A deep pit had been growing in Carly’s belly. She knew that whoever had connected her kidnapping to the man’s escape and announced it to the world had signed her death warrant. He had to get rid of her now. Her picture would be all over the news. They would have a description if not a picture of her car. No way could they walk together into a motel lobby now. The law would be there fifteen minutes after they checked in. No, he would travel alone from here on out.
A dismal fatalism ran through her. She had been expecting it all along and here it was. She closed her eyes and tried to pray.
The roughness of the ride and their reduction in speed told her that they had pulled down some old dirt road somewhere. He was taking her some place remote where he could kill her and leave her body. When the car stopped, she knew that she had only minutes to live.
The trunk popped open within a few moments. He released her ankles from her wrists and lifted her body out of the trunk. She was unsteady on her feet and he had to hold her up by her arm for a little while so she wouldn’t fall. His grip was like iron. Carly knew that escape from him was impossible.
She tried not to look him in the face. She didn’t want his cruelty to be the last thing that she saw. When he told her to start walking into the woods, she didn’t refuse. What was the point? She wanted to maintain her dignity as long as she could.
But she couldn’t stop the crying. She thought of Randy and the life they thought they had together. Of her mother who she had never made up with after their foolish argument. Of the girls she worked with, of Ike, her girlhood friends, her past boyfriends. It all came rushing through her mind.
After about a hundred yards he made her stop. This is as good a place as any, she thought. She looked up toward the trees. The morning light made everything seem dream like. She took a deep breath, enjoying the taste of the air. She hated the idea that they would find her body with all these things in it, but there was nothing she could do about it. There was nothing she could do about anything.
He pulled the Walther out of his pants pocket. The girl was looking away from him. He could hear her crying. She was tough though, he thought. No begging or pleading, no protest at all. It was too bad. And he had really been looking forward to fucking her again. He drew back the action and loaded a bullet into the chamber. It made a clicking sound that caused the girl to jump a little. He extended his arm. He wanted it to be a clean shot. Sudden death. It was the least he could do. He took a deep breath.
He waited. And waited. And waited. His hand started to shake. Something came boiling up inside him. “God damn it! Shoot!” he yelled to himself. “Shoot!”
He couldn’t do it. It was useless to try. He lowered his gun hand.
His heart was beating a mile a minute. He was all sweaty and a little dizzy. Why couldn’t he shoot her, he wondered. And then he knew it. There was something about the girl that he really liked. He just wasn’t depraved enough to snuff it out. All those long years in stir he had thought about that girl that Drummer had made him kill. He knew that killing this girl now would haunt him just as much. More.
The guards he had killed and that guy at the army navy store, well, he didn’t feel so bad about those. They were necessary. But this wasn’t really necessary. It was just convenient. He could hide her in the trunk or leave her out here in the woods all tied up and maybe call in a couple of days and let the cops know where she was. But either way would cause problems. She might get away or something and then where would he be? His only hope was to have the FBI looking for him over thousands and thousands of miles. He hated his indecision.
Her whole body had been shaking as she had anticipated the noise of the gun. She realized that she probably wouldn’t even hear it. The bullet would snuff out her consciousness too fast. It would be just like turning out a light. But waiting for it was agonizing. “Just do it! Do it!” she screamed inside her.
And then he told her to get on her knees. “I should refuse,” she thought. “I’d rather die on my feet.” But then the thought that she might live just a few moments more if she obeyed him changed her mind. She sank down, one knee at a time and then knelt up straight.
“On your belly,” he told her.
She turned to look at him. What was he up to? Why didn’t he just shoot her? She saw the gun dangling from his right hand. It didn’t look like he was going to use it. Had he changed his mind? “Oh god!” Carly thought. Her tears turned into sobs. He came close to her and, pushed her until she was face down on the ground. She felt him hook her ankles back together and then connect them again to her wrists.
Jack ejected the shell from the chamber of the Walther, making sure he retrieved it, and then put the pistol back in his pocket. There were things that he had to do. First thing he had to set things up so that he could leave her here while he went and got a new car. It might take most of the day so he had to be sure she was secure.
He went back to the car and got the camping stuff out of the trunk. He brought the tent over to where the girl was laying. First he dug out a depression using the little shovel that came with the camping kit, four feet long and about 6 or 8 inches deep. Then he set up the two man tent right over it. The tent was made of green and brown camouflage so it would be hard to spot.
Once the tent was up, he went back to the girl and unfastened her ankles. He pulled her to her feet and guided her to the tent. Before putting her in, he let her pee. Then he forced her into the tent and made her lie down in the depression he had made. He hogtied her again using the bracelets. He knew that that wasn’t enough. Somehow she might slip the bracelets over her ankles or wrists. He went outside the tent and got the rope he had used on her yesterday. He used it to tie off her elbows and knees, just like when she was in the tub. She squealed unhappily when her elbows came together. Then he tied off her wrists and ankles again as a second line of defense. If she was able to somehow to remove the bracelets, she would still have to get the ropes off.
When she was secure, although moaning unhappily, he stepped out of the tent. He walked back to the car and retrieved all their goods and piled them in the tent with the girl. He began removing all of the poles, making the top of the tent fall down on top of her. He straightened the stretch nylon as much as he could. He gathered some rocks and placed them at the corners so that the wind would not blow the top around. Then, after dragging some large branches over to the tent, he collected armfuls of dead leaves and brush and spread them out all over it. It was good and camouflaged. You would have to walk right up almost on top of it to see it, and maybe not even then. The girl would stay right where she was for as long as he wanted.
He stepped over to the edge of the tent and crouched down. “I have to go get another car,” he told her. “I’ll be back in a while. Stay right where you are. If I find out you’ve moved when I come back, I’ll punish you.”
He got up, surveyed his handiwork, and then walked back to the car.
CHAPTER FIVE
Agent Holmes and his young assistant were sitting in a coffee shop in the Treadway Motel in Iowa City, Iowa. He was not a happy man. That son of a bitch, publicity hound attorney general up in Wisconsin had blown the whole thing. Holmes had his men spread out over four states, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. He had alerted the state police in each jurisdiction. Everybody was looking for a maroon Malibu and a blond headed girl. Now, because of that stupid asshole back in Wisconsin, they would have to start all over at square one. Their man would ditch the car and the girl and finding him would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
He had already instructed his people to double check every stolen car report in the target states. Any one of them could be Jackson, especially the older ones with antilock systems that he was familiar with. They were going through all the other crime reports too. There had been one this morning in western Wisconsin that had piqued his interest. A store clerk had been killed in an army navy store outside of Tucker Lake. His throat had been slit ear to ear. All the money in the safe was missing and all the handguns in the display case.
Jackson’s signature was all over the job. They were waiting for confirmation of some prints that they found, but they found probably a hundred sets in the public portion of the store. It would take a while to sift through them. But Holmes knew his man and was convinced that he had done it. It confirmed his hunch that he had headed west and crossed over the Mississippi last night. They had drawn on a map the outward limits of where they thought he could be by driving all night on back roads and they had decided that the furthest he could have gone was described by an arc that stretched from Denver, through Wichita and to St. Louis.
Things were complicated now that their man was certainly armed. And he had undoubtedly changed clothes and gotten a change of clothes for the girl, that is, if he hadn’t killed her already. Holmes had seen Jackson’s psychological profile and criminal history from the prison. He was smart all right. And he was as cold as cash. He had run half the prison and was notorious for striking back at any challenge to his authority. It was suspected that even a guard had fallen afoul of him. They had found his body at the bottom of some concrete stairs. The investigation concluded that he had fallen. The minority view was that he had been murdered.
And from his days out on the street, Holmes learned that Jackson had a thing for the ladies. The gang had run them sure enough, and he had a habit of picking out the cream of the crop for his own bed, using them and then throwing them away. Holmes was convinced that Jackson would keep the girl as long as he could. He wouldn’t be able to resist it, especially after all that time behind the wall. The girl was good looking and young and that didn’t hurt her chances at all. Until now, that is. Now her negatives would outweigh her positives.
He looked at his assistant, Special Agent Linda Kramer. She was bright and good looking and bucking for promotion. Blond and blue eyed, tall and lean. He had a job for her. She would be flying out later this morning. It was dangerous, but he had a hunch and wanted to play it out.
“Okay, Agent Kramer,” he said, “here’s what I want you to do….”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jack took another cruise round the long term parking lot at the Kansas City International Airport. He didn’t want to keep driving around and around, but he was looking for something special. He had picked up the tools he needed at a local hardware store.
He saw a metallic blue, ’94 Mercury Grand Marquee pull into the lot and pass him. It looked perfect. Jack circled around and parked the Malibu. He got out and nonchalantly walked over to where the Marquee was parking. A guy wearing a somewhat shabby, ill fitting business suit got out. He popped the trunk and removed a valise, a small, wheeled suitcase and a large garment bag. It looked like the guy was going for a long trip.
Once the man exited the lot to head towards the terminal, Jack went to work. He quickly jimmied open the door with the flat bar he stuck in by the driver’s side window. It took him a couple of tries to catch the mechanism just right, but then the door unlocked and popped open. Casting a quick look around, Jack then hopped in the car. He had the ignition lock off in about ten seconds. The screwdriver went into the ignition, he turned it and the engine leapt into life. He looked down at the dashboard. There was ¾ of a tank of gas. The inside of the car was as clean as a whistle just like the guy had tidied it up knowing that someone else was going to use it. Jack didn’t wait to examine the rest of the car. He put it in reverse, backed it out slowly from its slot and then headed for the gate. He had the ticket from the Malibu. He drove up to the ticket window. When the guy in the booth looked at the ticket, he looked back quickly at Jack.
“Changed my mind,” Jack told him. He handed him a twenty. The guy handed him back his change with a sneer. Jack pulled off.
He made a few stops on his way back to where he had left the girl. He stocked up on some food and sundries at this huge grocery store, bigger than any he had ever been in. They had just about everything he needed there. He stopped to top off the gas tank. In the convenience store next to the gas station, he saw something in the window that intrigued him. It was an advertisement for a cell phone for $50.00. He went into the shop. He discovered that he didn’t have to show any identification to get one. He made up a name and bought one. It would come in handy later, he was sure.
Before going to pick up the girl, he pulled the car to a remote location and inspected it. It had 137,000 miles. There were maps and other paperwork in the glove box, including the registration. The car belonged to a Peter Lindley. Why people kept their registration in their glove box was beyond him. The ash tray was full of change. There was a picture of a woman under the visor on the driver’s side. She was a pretty brunette, likely Lindley’s girlfriend or wife.
In the trunk was nothing remarkable aside from a spare tire, some tools and a case of bottled water.
A little while later, Jack pulled up to the dirt road he had gone down earlier where he had left the girl. He slowed down, but just kept going. He had been away a little more than 4 hours. What if the girl had gotten loose and had got in contact with the cops? They could be waiting for him there. It was stupid to drive down a single lane road when there might be someone waiting to slaughter him. He drove on for about 2 miles and then turned around. It was a little before noon. He needed to put some distance between himself and the airport as soon as possible. There was always the possibility that the guy had gone back to his car for some reason. Maybe his flight was cancelled, or maybe he forgot something and had to go back to the car to get it, one of the many indecipherable papers in the glove box. The whole point of changing cars was so that the Feds wouldn’t know what he was driving. Why take time to get the girl? He had food. He had money. And he had the Walther and its extra clips. He could just leave the stuff he had unloaded from the girl’s car. He didn’t really need it.
But if he didn’t get the girl, the likelihood was that she would die out there all tied up like that. It was getting colder and the radio had said that there was a cold front coming in with the probability of snow. At least a foot, they said. The girl would probably freeze to death overnight. It was probably below freezing already. He knew that the girl’s death would linger on his conscience no matter whether she died from a bullet he put into the back of her head, or died because he left her tied up in the woods in the middle of a blizzard. The only difference was that he wouldn’t have to see her die.
He was parked in the lot of a convenience store. He knew that he needed to get on his way before somebody got suspicious. But what should he do? He slammed his hand into the steering wheel. “Fuck!” he yelled. He knew he needed sleep. He had been up close to 24 hours. And he needed to make tracks. But it sure would be nice to have the girl with him when he stopped to get some. He thought of her mouth around his cock, the way she had sucked him off before they had left the cabin yesterday. And her ass would be nice and stretched, easy to get into. She had sweet tits and she kissed him back fiercely when he got her excited.
His cock had grown hard just thinking about her. “Fuck!” he repeated, not quite so loudly this time. He knew he was going to go get her. He was just stalling for time. He didn’t want to face what might be down that road. He was so close to getting away. It would be a shame to die now. He took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s do it,” he thought. He put the car back into gear and drove back to the little dirt road.
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