Phobias

by Ryan Horvath

  And, because he couldn’t currently track down the three who might have survived his first plot, he decided to work on a new group of people.

  ~*~0~0~*~

  When he fled the Twin Cities metro, Miedo headed south and crossed over the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. He settled on Grand Cayman Island where he had a small bungalow waiting for him. He purchased the place under an assumed name about a year before he started with the Deans, Holly, Calvin, and the others. Aside from the house, he’d added a smaller building to the property and had it set into the thick flora so that it was nearly invisible. He integrated himself into society on the island, which was as disrupted as the rest of the world, but, being a small island, the people there knew how to survive without connections to the world at large. The island was one of the first places in the world to restore power after the Great Blackout. And Miedo had been smart enough to stock up on non-perishable food before the proverbial shit hit the fan.

  But he soon started to feel an itch. It wasn’t a physical itch, and Miedo knew from his training and experience back in the States that it was a psychological itch. And for him, it was the itch of unfinished business. As he walk the streets and beaches of Grand Cayman, the itch gradually went from psychological to physiological, and he started scratching absently at a spot on his wrist. Eventually, the spot became red and then abraded, and Miedo knew he had to put the itch to rest.

  He studied the people of Grand Cayman and found some that piqued his interest. Miedo knew it was going to be hugely risky to kidnap people on an island this small, but he also knew that, if he didn’t satisfy the itch, he was liable to chop his arm off at the wrist. But as a trained psychiatrist, he knew if he did that, the itch would just move to another place and he’d be short a hand to scratch it. So, he studied.

  He found three. It didn’t take as long as he thought it would to find three phobics on the island but, by the time he did, the itchy spot on his wrist looked like a heavily scratched mosquito bite that hadn’t been allowed to heal.

  The first one he found was a teenage boy. The boy wasn’t far from Calvin Vale’s age. His phobia was ophidiophobia. A classic! Miedo thought, when he discovered this. The boy was afraid of snakes. And snakes were easy to come by in the tropics. Miedo lured the boy to his property with promises of food for labor and, when he had the boy in his secluded building, Miedo struck and brought the boy down with a Taser. When he had the boy subdued, Miedo stripped him naked and locked him in a room that was smaller than an average prison cell. Then he brought in four heavy boxes. Each box held a number of snakes. Miedo placed each box in a corner of the room and then injected the boy with a new stimulant he’d been working with. He quickly let himself out of the cell and stood watching through the small window. And while he watched, Miedo rocked in anticipation. And he scratched at his wrist. The excitement also gave him a hard-on. To Miedo’s surprise, the boy popped wood too and then quickly snapped to attention. Then Miedo turned up the dial for the baseboard heaters he’d had installed. The boy was confused by his situation at first but quickly began to bargain with Miedo to be let out. As the room heated up, the snakes became more active and started to come out of the boxes. When the boy saw this, his drug-addled mind freaked and he squealed with fear.

  And Miedo relished the sound. He took strength in the boy’s fear and found himself able to stop scratching at his wrist.

  Most of the snakes were without venom, but there were a pair of coral snakes in the mix. The boy flipped out when the snakes first touched him, his hard-on deflated, of course. There was nowhere he could go. Miedo watched with pleasure as the boy threw himself against two of the walls in an effort to break free. But the metal held strong and the boy only succeeded in breaking his upper arm. He bawled as the reality of his situation took over him and the coral snakes found him. His tears didn’t stop them from biting him.

  Miedo rocked back and forth and masturbated while he watched the boy succumb to the combined effect of the stimulant and the neurotoxin from the snakes. Miedo achieved orgasm when the boy expired.

  The next person he found was a woman. And she was androphobic. Of all things, she was afraid of men. Miedo found that incredibly easy to exploit. The woman was his captive about a month after the teenage boy, and Miedo had begun scratching again shortly before he caught her. That was how he knew he needed to keep going. The scratching wasn’t as bad as the first time, but it was there. Miedo kept her suspended from the ceiling much like he did Heather though without the straightjacket.

  Miedo found a quartet of vile men, pirates really, who took up residence on the island after the Great Blackout began. He and the four men savagely raped the androphobic woman with no trace of civility or humanity. These brutal acts went on weekly, sometimes twice a week, for about four weeks, before Miedo grew bored with the woman and the pirates. During the last rape session, Miedo climaxed first and, while the pirates continued on the woman, Miedo quickly shot one, then another of the pirates in the back of the skull. They fell quickly, of course. The shock of the suddenness of Miedo’s attack allowed him to shoot the third pirate in the stomach, and then through the heart. The last one, he shot in the lower back as the naked pirate tried to flee. Once down, Miedo shot the man several times between the legs, destroying his genitals before he made the final pirate eat a bullet.

  When the vicious pirates were no more, Miedo turned on the woman. There was probably nothing really left of her at this point. Miedo hadn’t heard even a whisper of fear out of her during the last two assaults. He knew her psyche was gone and all that hung before him at this point was an empty husk. He found it not to be too empty, however, as he plunged a sharp knife into her just below her sternum and worked it down. As the androphobic woman’s guts splashed to the floor, she made no sounds.

  That mess had been horrific to clean up, but Miedo was prepared. He hosed the blood into drains and incinerated the bodies.

  The itch went away for a while after that.

  But then he found his third phobic victim.

  A man.

  Another drunk.

  And a pyrophobic. Fire was his bane.

  Miedo kept the nude mad strapped to a chair for weeks and burned him. Sometimes he would do something as simple as using a lighter and running the flame against the pyrophobic’s skin. Other times, he would throw lit matches at him. One time, he got a little too excited and caught the left side of the man’s hair on fire. And Miedo didn’t immediately put the fire out either. When Miedo did finally put the fire out, he saw the man had sustained nasty second and third degree burns. He escalated things and purchased a bottle of hairspray. He lit a lighter and sent fireballs over the pyrophobic. The response was more than intoxicating as the man broke down in his prone position.

  When Miedo was ready, he brought in a large bottle of high proof alcohol. He watched the pyrophobic’s eyes glimmer and mouth salivate with desire. He recognized it as something he had seen on Chad Dean’s face more than once. Miedo held the bottle and poured alcohol into the pyrophobic’s mouth, and the pyrophobic drank eagerly. But Miedo didn’t want him passing out. He wouldn’t, anyway, in the few minutes he had left. Miedo placed the pyrophobic’s feet in a metal tub and poured in some of the high-proof liquid. He wasted no time and lit the accelerant. Miedo watched in joy and masturbated again to the sounds of the man’s screams until the fire overtook his victim’s vocal cords and killed him.

  This caused his separate building to burn to the ground with the man in it but, as it was Miedo’s property, and no one else’s was damaged, there was no investigation.

  The itch went away for a while after that.

  But, as these things have a tendency to do, the itch came back.

  Unfinished business Miedo thought as he looked out at the crystal clear water during a walk on the beach. “Unfinished business,” he muttered aloud to no one.

  He scratched at his wrist. It had almost healed after the death of the last phobic. Now it was turning red again.<
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  ~~35~~

  Walt leaned his tall form back in his chair, yawned, and stretched. Months had gone by; it was summer again and hot in southern New Mexico. Walt wasn’t a huge fan of the heat. He missed summer in the upper Midwest. Winter had been much better down in Hillsboro but, now, it was a little too hot for his liking.

  Walt spent most mornings shirtless and in shorts and working in the vegetable garden the four of them started when they took over the house. This morning was no exception and he scratched absently at the smooth skin over his sternum while he sat.

  Walt’s nineteenth birthday was approaching. A week later, the internet was supposed to be up and running again. Television had come back mid-spring, even if only through the old antennas.

  Walt was excited for the return of the internet. Having been born in the Digital Age, he found it difficult to adapt to life without computers and easy access to information. Calvin did too, and even Holly for the most part. Chad was the oldest among them and even he commented more than once about how irritating it was to be living without the internet.

  But Walt was most eager to have the ability to find him. To find the monster; the asshole; the deplorable thing that killed his mother.

  Walt ground his teeth while he thought about it. The habit was getting worse and Walt often felt his jaw aching.

  He was sure Justin Andrews was still out there; still alive somewhere. Walt didn’t know how he knew that, but he just knew. And, for some reason, Walt was convinced that when the internet came back, he would be able to find the murderer with ease.

  Walt started to fantasize about what he would do to Andrews when he got his hands on him, but a voice from behind him pulled him out of his daydream.

  “Mornin’,” Calvin said. He came out of the house and was a few paces away from Walt’s lawn chair.

  “Hey, man,” Walt returned. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. When he looked at Calvin, he saw just how bad his best friend was looking. His heart ached with sympathy for his friend and ire for Andrews. Of the four of them, Cal was doing the worst. Each night he got a little less sleep; he wasn’t eating as much as he should or could, so weight loss was evident; and if there wasn’t a vacant look hidden in his gaze, then there was a haunted one. In spite of all of this, Walt asked, “How’d you sleep?”

  “Fine,” Calvin said quickly. “Better, in fact,” he continued the lie. He pulled up a lawn chair, unfolded it, and sat down next to Walt.

  Walt didn’t want to fight with Calvin so he didn’t contest his last statement. Instead, he said “Garden’s coming along really well. We’re going to have plenty to eat.”

  “That’s great,” Calvin said with forced enthusiasm. He leaned forward to match Walt’s posture.

  Neither of them spoke for a short while. They listened to some chickadees and wrens chattering near the creek.

  Calvin finally broke the silence. “Walt?” he said.

  “Yeah?” Walt returned. He wasn’t looking at Calvin and didn’t see the defeated look that came across his friend’s face.

  “I’m really struggling,” Calvin said in a small voice.

  “What?” Walt said. “What did you say?”

  “I just… I just…” Calvin choked. “I…I…I still c…c…can’t believe I did that to that g…g…girl.”

  “Huh?” Walt said, hearing the change in Calvin’s voice. He turned to face his friend and saw Calvin was on the verge of tears. “Shit. What do you mean?”

  “That girl!” Calvin said loudly, startling a nearby cluster of wrens. “I can’t stop thinking about what he made me do to her.”

  “Listen, Cal,” Walt said and took hold of Calvin’s shoulder. Calvin was trembling which wasn’t out of the ordinary, but the quaking felt more intense than normal. “We’ve been over this. What happened to that girl…”

  “Heather,” Calvin interrupted.

  Walt nodded in confirmation. This wasn’t the first time he’d gone through this with Calvin, but it was definitely the earliest in the day Calvin had ever gone into this dark place of his. “Heather. Yes,” Walt corrected. “What happened to Heather wasn’t your fault. Or any of our faults.”

  Walt paused, and in practiced unison, he and Calvin said, “It was his fault.”

  “His fault,” Walt reiterated. He hated going through this so often with Calvin and that was mostly because Walt had to do the same thing for himself in private on more than one occasion. He blamed Andrews for murdering his mother and blamed Terry for cold-cocking him so he couldn’t save her or, at least, die trying to save her.

  “His fucking fault,” Calvin said, trying to relax. Today, the anxiety had been with him since before he woke up. In truth, it had been with him since the day he lost his father. And it had nothing else to do but fester and grow. “His fault,” he went on. “Fucking piece of shit doctor.”

  Walt chuckled. Calvin had never uttered the last colorful phrase before. “That’s right, man.” He squeezed Calvin’s shoulder, but the shaking did not subside.

  “Walt?” Calvin said.

  “What is it?” Walt asked.

  “Saying that shit over and over isn’t helping anymore,” Calvin said. A blank look came across his face.

  Walt didn’t know how to respond. He waited for Calvin to go on.

  “It’s psychological mumbo jumbo and every time we go through the speech, it makes me wanna tear my fucking ears off,” Calvin said. “Psycho-babble makes me think of him and his fucking voice.” He paused. “That just isn’t helping anymore.” He sighed. “Man! I’m losing my shit.”

  “Don’t say that,” Walt said, trying to sound calm. This was definitely new territory for Calvin. “Just hold it together.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that,” Calvin said. “Just add it to the list.”

  “List? What list?” Walt said furrowing his eyebrows.

  “Of things I probably can’t do anymore. The one on top of the list is sex. We’ve been here almost a year. I know you’ve gotten some since we’ve been here. I’ve tried twice and they were both utter disasters,” Calvin revealed. “Fuck. I can’t even whack myself off.”

  Walt didn’t have a reply to that. Finally, he pulled his hand from Calvin and said, “So what can I do to help you, then? If you don’t want the ‘psycho-babble’…” He made air quotation marks. “Then what do you want? I lost my mom to that pile of dog shit. I don’t want to lose you too.”

  Calvin was pensive and didn’t respond right away. “I want… I want… revenge. I want that miserable fuck to go through what he put me through. I want him to suffer. And then I wanna make him dead.”

  Walt listened to his best friend. He didn’t like the thought of Calvin thinking about homicide for the sake of revenge. Justice was fine, but revenge was not. “We don’t even know if he’s still alive,” Walt said.

  “Of course he’s still alive,” Calvin said. “I can feel it somehow. Like a scratching behind my eyes. And I bet he’s just as unhappy about us being alive and in the unknown as we are about him.”

  “Okay,” Walt said, and he put his hands up defensively. “So he’s alive. Is killing him the answer?”

  “No. It’s not,” they heard from behind them. Chad was leaning against one of the support columns for the porch overhang. Like Walt, he hadn’t put a shirt on yet this morning and he held a cup of guava juice. He’d been listening to them for most of their conversation.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get better until I know he has paid for his crimes. Paid for what he did to me. To you both.” Calvin moved his index finger back and forth between the two of them. Tears fell from his tired-looking eyes. “And I need to get better. Otherwise, time is running out for me.”

  Chad left the support of the beam and moved to the two younger men. He squatted down in front of Calvin’s chair so that he was at eye level with him.

  “Isn’t death a rather easy escape for what this sick fuck has done?” Chad asked, looking deep into Calvin’s lo
st eyes. “Why should he get away so easily? Wouldn’t it be better to make him suffer?”

  “How are we ever going to find him?” Calvin said.

  “I don’t think we’ll have to,” Holly said, joining them. She wore a thin T-shirt and a pair of men’s boxers.

  “What do you mean?” Walt asked.

  “Guy like him. He’ll come and find us,” Holly answered. “We’re a loose end. He probably hoped we’d all end up killed in our flight from the law or dead in incarceration for the crimes he pinned on us. But we didn’t. And as sure as we are that he is still alive, you can bet he’s just as sure about us.” She hesitated. “Yeah, He’ll find us. He may have already.”

  Holly’s last sentence caused them all to look around their surroundings. No one saw any indication they were being watched, but Holly’s comment still rang in their ears.

  Calvin stood up fast, looking suddenly renewed. “Then we better prepare,” he said. “When the son of a bitch gets here, he’s going to regret it. And Chad is right. Death is far too easy for him. I bet we can come up with something much better than that.”

  The other three nodded agreement.

  “Revenge is a dark path to go down,” Holly reminded, even though she was just as committed as the others.

  “Then let’s think of it as retribution instead,” Chad said, rising to an upright stance.