I shook my head, afraid that if I opened my mouth, my voice would crack and give me away.
“Okay. I’m going back to my room. You’ll be happy to know, Nicole, that in no more than an hour, my novel will be finished. And this is only the beginning.” He smiled as he walked toward me. “We’re destined to be together forever now, Nicole.”
My blood ran cold.
“This book is the tie that binds us. Forever. I can’t wait for you to read it.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead. I fought back the urge to vomit, but I took some comfort in knowing that he would never be able to kiss me again.
I listened to the sound of his footsteps retreating down the hall over the sound of my furiously beating heart. My palms were wet with nervous sweat and trembling in anticipation.
When I once again heard the sound of clicking keys, I glanced over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t see Ron. Then, I yanked my wrist from the cuff and stood on wobbly knees.
Without hesitation, I headed for the living room. But then I stopped.
I quickly and quietly walked back across the kitchen to the refrigerator. I reached up and grabbed Mason’s teddy bear. Ron had stolen it from my baby and brought it here, sitting it atop the refrigerator as a constant reminder to me that he could take away my family at any time. There was no way I was leaving it here. Tucking the bear under my arm, I made my way back to the living room, where I raced to the front door.
First, I tried the knob. It was locked. I unlocked it. Then, I turned the knob and pulled on the door. It didn’t open. I realized the deadbolt was locked. I unlocked it and once again pulled on the doorknob. The door opened.
I burst through the open doorway and into the crisp fall air.
As fast as I could, I ran down the front steps and across the lawn, my bare feet pounding the cold, hard earth as I went.
There was no house to the right of Ron’s, only an empty lot. To the left was an abandoned house, windows and doors boarded over. Directly across the street, I saw no vehicles and assumed no one was home. But the house next to that one had a car in the driveway so I ran to it. With my left hand, I held down the doorbell button, and I pounded the door with my right hand. I kept this up until the door opened.
Chapter 47
One Year Later
I walk out of the store with a bag of groceries in each hand and head for my SUV. I’m halfway down the row of cars when a van pulls into the spot beside my vehicle. I freeze. I wait a moment, but no one emerges from the van. I turn around and go back to the front of the store where I sit on a bench and wait forty-five minutes for the van to leave.
Seeing no vehicle parked around mine now, I walk all the way down the row of cars until I reach my SUV. I put the sacks of groceries in the backseat, looking around to make sure no one is close to me. I then get behind the wheel and immediately lock the doors. Only then can I breathe a sigh of relief.
I drive straight home, checking my mirrors to verify no one’s following me. Our new house is only a few blocks from the grocery store, so I’m home in minutes. Before getting out of my SUV, I look around to see if anyone is nearby. Seeing no one other than the elderly gentleman next door sitting on his porch, I get out and quickly grab the groceries and head inside the house, immediately locking the front door behind me.
Putting the groceries away, I realize the milk is warm and the butter is soft. It’s not the first time I’ve had groceries go bad while waiting for a vehicle to pull away from mine. But I can’t help it. I’d rather have food ruin than risk being kidnapped again.
***
I stand at the side of the baby bed looking down at my son. He’s a beautiful baby. He lies there, wiggling and cooing, and he reminds me of Mason at that age.
As if he can hear me thinking of him, Mason giggles in his bed. I turn around and smile at him and he closes his eyes, finally submitting himself to sleep.
I look back at my new son, Austin, and I can see no traces of Ron. At least not yet. I’m hoping I never do. I’m hoping against hope that he’ll have all of my features and habits, and that he won’t grow up to be a serial killer. I’m not sure that’s how it works, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Taking the baby monitor with me, I leave their room and walk into the family room. The drawer in the entertainment center catches my attention, calling out to me as it always does. This time, I give in and walk over to it.
As I watch my hand reach out for the handle, I ask myself if I’m ready. Is Dr. Brown right? Is it time to face it so I can move on?
I pull open the drawer and there it sits, staring up at me just as it has for the last three weeks, waiting patiently for the day I can finally bring myself to read it. Apparently, that day is today.
Reaching in and picking up the book, I tremble. Not just my hand, but my whole body shudders slightly. I close my eyes and tell myself it’s over, even though I know it isn’t. How can it be over when he knows where I live? We’ve moved four times in the past year, and yet Ron still knew where to send the book. I don’t think it’ll ever be over. As long as he’s out there, it won’t be over. And he is out there, somewhere, managing to evade police.
The book feels heavy in my hand.
I carry it with me as I perform my nightly routine of checking the alarm and every window and door lock in the house. Satisfied that the house is a fortress, I walk into my bedroom, where Wade is already in bed reading a magazine.
He smiles at me and I smile back.
I carry the book with me as I walk around the bed. Wade sees it. His smile fades a little, but he says nothing. I can feel him watching me as I crawl into bed beside him and turn on the lamp on my nightstand.
I smile at him and kiss him on the cheek to let him know it’s okay. We’ve been talking about this for three weeks. We both knew I was going to read it. We just didn’t know when.
Once I’ve settled in, I grasp the book firmly in both hands, trying to hide the trembling.
Wade places his magazine on his nightstand and scoots closer to me, putting his arm around my shoulders for support.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out slowly. I open my eyes and look at the book.
Across the top of the cover in big, bold white letters is the word HELD. Across the bottom, also in big white letters, was his name, R.D. Redwine. Between the title and the author’s name, is a picture that turns my stomach. It’s a basement. A mattress lies on the floor, a pair of handcuffs dangling off the edge. I know this place well. I hid rotten dog food under that mattress. I spent a lot of time wearing those handcuffs. And the things I saw in that basement…
I shudder and fight away the tears that want to come.
I run my fingers across the raised letters of the title and take a deep breath. Unsure I’m ready, I open the book.
The dedication page reads simply: To Nicole.
At the bottom of the page, Ron has handwritten a message to me in red ink.
The tie that binds us. Forever.
My eyes fill with tears, but I blink them away. I have no doubt that I’ll cry more than enough when I’m finished reading this horrible book, this masterpiece of a madman.
I turn the page and begin reading.
‘She squinted as she stepped out of the store and into the glare of the bright sunlight…’
The End
About PUSHED
Ron Redwine is an up-and-coming author, a man whose lifelong dream of achieving celebrity status in the literary world is finally becoming a reality. But Ron isn’t only a writer. He’s also a sadistic serial killer who kidnaps, tortures, and murders women in his basement.
Nicole Lee is a beloved wife and mother. She’s also the only woman who has ever escaped Ron’s clutches. After being held in captivity for nearly a year, she found a way out, a way to be free once again and go back to her life. Only she can’t. The life she knew before her abduction is gone. Separated from her husband and son, Nicole is psychologically broken. She spends months in
a mental health facility trying to put the past behind her so she can return to her family.
Upon her release, Nicole hides herself away in a fleabag motel where she wrestles with her demons alone. When an interview on the local news advertises the last two stops on Ron’s latest book tour, she becomes enraged. Furious that he’s able to live his life happily while she’s reduced to an existence filled with guilt and despair, she decides to take matters into her own hands.
Pushed too far, Nicole seeks her revenge, using Ron’s own devices against him.
PUSHED
KIMBERLY A. BETTES
1
As the flesh peeled away from the bone, she screamed. Had there been windows in the room, the glass would’ve rattled in the panes from the vibrato of her shrieks. Not dissuaded by her suffering—in fact, even more motivated by it—Ron continued to slowly pull on the flap of skin, watching as first her ankle and then her heel bones became exposed.
Buried amidst the screams were curse words, all aimed at him.
When she called him an asshole, he ignored her. When she called him a motherfucker, he shook his head. But when she called him a son of a bitch, he smiled.
“How right you are,” he said, watching as his hands slowly stripped the meat from her foot, careful to not lose his grip on the slippery, bloody skin.
Seconds later, the screaming stopped. She’d blacked out once again.
Two days earlier, when this woman had leaned down into his car window and asked if he was looking for a good time, he’d immediately said yes. Of course she had no idea that her idea of a good time was so vastly different than his, but it was a lesson she would soon learn.
He could tell right away that she was a fighter. It was evident in her voice, demanding and strong, slightly raspy from years of nicotine use. It was in her eyes, steely and cold, hardened by all they had seen. Most of all, it was obvious in the confident way she carried herself. The life she was living was a hard one indeed, but it had yet to knock the wind out of her sails or strip the steel from her spine. There was no doubt that she would give him the good time he sought.
She wasn’t exactly a young woman. He guessed her to be in her thirties, though she looked a decade—possibly even two—older. Life on the streets had that effect on people. It made them age before their time. The crow’s feet that sprouted from the corners of her eyes as well as the parenthetical lines that flanked each side of her mouth were etched deeply into the leathery skin of her face, put there by years of hard living.
As a prostitute, she’d surely had it rough, both with pimps and johns alike. Beaten, battered, raped, used, and addicted to drugs, she’d seen it all. Her story was written in those lines on her face, in the gaping holes in her mouth where teeth used to be, and in the track marks on her arms.
Yet she continued on, selling herself for money that was used to feed the addiction she needed in order to sell herself. It was a vicious cycle, and yet she trudged ahead like a trooper, proving that she was strong.
But was she strong enough to survive him? Only time would tell.
Pulling the last of the skin away from the bones of her foot, Ron smiled. Without her screams the basement was quiet, allowing him to hear the slurping sound of the meat pulling free of her body. It was a gratifying sound, the beautiful result of his tedious work.
Careful to not damage it, he rinsed the bloody shell of a foot in the stainless steel sink at the end of the long work table. He then placed it in a jar of alcohol and screwed the lid on tight. In order to get a better look at the fleshy bone sock, he held the jar up the fluorescent bulb which hung over the table, allowing the white light to penetrate the jar and the clear liquid within.
It looked fake, like a hollow rubber foot you might find in a Halloween prop shop.
Pulling the skin off the toes had been tricky. The cut marks where the scalpel had poked through were tiny testaments to that fact. But overall, it looked good. Much better than the first couple of times he’d performed the task.
He set the jar on the shelf above the work table where it stood alongside the others. There were ten jars in all, each containing a foot that had been taken from a different woman. Two of the jars consisted of the entire foot, bones and all, while the others held no more than skin.
Personally, he didn’t care for feet. He found them to be disgusting appendages. Usually ignored by people, they became hard, calloused things with crusty toenails and flaky skin. Women wore shoes that restricted and bound their feet until their toes were twisted and gnarled, laden with bunions and hammertoes. Men neglected their feet, allowing fungus to grow along with the thick, hard toenails. And then for some reason, in the summer everyone felt the need to show them off, donning flip flops and sandals as if they were proud of themselves for what they’d done.
Feet were hideous things that should remain hidden away.
However, the main character in Ron’s latest book had a foot fetish. He collected the feet of his victims and kept them in a jar on a shelf in his basement, which meant that Ron had to do the same. Whether or not he liked it.
Turning to the woman on the table, a woman who had introduced herself to him as Candy though that was undoubtedly not her real name, he saw that she was still unconscious. She probably would be out for a while considering the amount of blood she’d lost. That was fine with him because he could use a break, both from his work and from her shrieks.
He removed the latex gloves he wore to avoid having to actually touch her feet, and he tossed them into the trash can at the end of the work table. He then picked up the remote control and turned on the television, a 42” flat screen that hung on the back wall of the basement. It was a new addition to the work area, one that he was glad he’d installed. He’d just recently bought the TV, and had only done so in order to watch the news.
The media was a foolish entity that passed out information nearly every hour of the day, information that often times should’ve been withheld from the public. Day after day, news anchors gave away police secrets, telling viewers what evidence they had, what they knew, what they didn’t know, and what their plans were to catch the criminals. And they said it all with a smile.
He was grateful for the news, however ignorant it may be. Without it, he might have been captured already, or at least be a blip on the police radar. But because of the media, he was still one step ahead of the cops, still free, and still able to do the research necessary to give his novels the realism they needed in order to be successful.
Like keeping jars of feet on a shelf in the basement.
As the evening news came on, he pulled the water hose from the hook on the wall and attached it to the faucet at the sink.
He listened to the news as he sprayed water on the whore’s body, washing the blood into the trough that ran around the inner edge of the stainless steel embalming table which he had modified to suit his needs. He had drilled holes and attached two U-bolts to the foot end of the table, one at each corner. He’d done the same thing on both sides and the opposite end of the table. The purpose of the bolts was to have a place to connect one end of the thick leather restraints that was used to subdue his victims. The other end of the strap was wrapped securely around whichever woman had the misfortune of finding herself on the table. Currently, that was Candy, who was passed out, temporarily relieved of her nightmare, his joy. But she would soon be awake and the fun would recommence.
While the anchor told about the body of yet another prostitute that had been found with the skin stripped off one of her feet, Ron began spraying the floor, sending Candy’s spilled blood into the drain in the center of the room. The news anchor then made a poor segue to the next topic, a local politician’s sex scandal, and Ron finished spraying the blood off the floor, not listening as intently now as he had been.
2
I kept my eyes low, staring at the white vinyl floor as I made my way down the long brightly-lit hallway, passing door after door, most of which were closed. The cold and impersona
l fluorescent bulbs burned overhead, but the majority of the light came from the sun, which streamed into the hall through the transoms above the doors and then bounced off the cream-colored walls, nearly giving me a headache.
There were many reasons I dreaded the trip down this particular hallway. The most immediate reason was standing about twenty feet ahead, leaning against the wall, almost as if she was waiting for me.
Without lifting my head, I raised my eyes and glanced at her. Linette. A girl I’d grown to despise.
As usual, she stood on one leg with the other leg bent, her foot pressed against the wall behind her. She leaned heavily on the leg bearing her weight, making her look off-balance, seemingly on the verge of tipping over. Her arms hung limply at her sides. The faded pink house shoes she wore matched her robe, which was flapped open, belt hanging loosely, revealing the hospital-issued gown beneath. With pale skin and limp, lifeless hair, she looked right at home in this place.
Not at all like me.
I wore faded blue jeans, a dark blue t-shirt, and pink tennis shoes. My hair was brushed and pulled neatly into a ponytail. I could’ve given up and dressed myself in hospital attire, could’ve walked around looking like Linette and all the others like her, but I chose not to. Instead, I chose to keep every semblance of normality I could. I chose to keep as many ties to the outside world as possible. It was the only thing that kept me grounded, the only thing that kept me sane in an otherwise insane environment.
As I neared Linette, I lowered my eyes again, hoping she wouldn’t notice me but knowing that she would. Not once had I ever been able to sneak past her undetected. With some people it was possible. They were so withdrawn and so lost, they were oblivious to their surroundings. But not Linette. For some reason she liked me, even though I’d never given her a reason to.
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