by John Hunt
“That’s a good little bitch. Keep fucking quiet,” said the man.
He turned her over and secured her hands behind her with plastic ties. She spat blood on the floor, confused, blinking her eyes to rid them of the bright spots. The gorilla man flipped her on her back and he placed his knees on both sides of her and sat on her stomach. She grunted as his weight stretched the skin on her hip bones and crushed her ribs against her insides. Her breath hitched in difficult gasps.
The driver didn’t look back. He didn’t glance in her direction at all and she knew there’d be no help from him. Olivia guessed the broad shouldered man would be driving the speed limit, stopping for all the lights and following all the rules of the road. They could not afford to be pulled over. Not with her, their stolen cargo in back.
Gorilla man must have had keys or something in his back pocket because she felt something unyielding grind against her hip bone. The pain took on an immensity of its own and reduced the lesser pains to dim background noise. Her nose throbbed and blood still ran into her mouth yet the grinding pain on her hip overshadowed it. She grit her teeth and tried to move her hips a little, to adjust the angle of her hips to lessen the pain. He must have thought she were trying to buck him off because he put his hand over her nose and mouth, pressing tight. The pain in her nose exploded, needles probing at her brain and the hand tightened, fingers pinching her nostrils closed and cutting off her air. She could see the outline of his mask as the passing street lights glowed on the fur. Her lungs burned. She twisted her head, trying to dislodge the hand. He responded by gripping tighter. The pain of his grip battled against her need to breathe. She opened her mouth and jerked her head and she felt skin against her teeth: his skin. Without thinking about it, knowing she had to breathe, needing air, needing that goddamn hand off her mouth, she clamped down on the skin and crunched through it.
“Fuck!” He lifted his hand and she pulled sweet, beautiful air into her mouth. The air tasted wonderful and her lungs filled with it. She inhaled again and she choked on the blood in her mouth while the man in the gorilla mask examined his hand in the passing lights from the street. The driver never said a word. He picked up an iPod and pressed play. A woman’s voice singing Ava Maria issued from the speakers. She knew that song from her music teacher in high school. Her teacher, Mrs. Trayne, used to play it all the time and tilt her head listening to it with her eyes closed. The driver didn’t look back, unconcerned about his partner’s swearing or why he did.
The Gorilla got off her and knelt beside her. In this moment, the removal of his weight equated to heaven. He leaned over her and even though she couldn’t see his eyes in the depths of the mask, she felt them roaming up and down her body. Olivia pressed her body into the floor of the van, desperate to create distance, maybe to disappear into the metal floor. He grabbed her nose in between his thumb and index finger and squeezed. She squealed and tasted blood dribbling into her mouth. The pain lifted her hips off the floor. He let go, chuckling. Lights from the street ran across the ceiling, his head a dark, furry blob.
“You and I? We’re gonna have some fun aren’t we darling? You got spunk. I like it.”
Her voice trembled, “Do what you like. Just please. Let me go. I haven’t seen your faces. Please. Let me go.”
He didn’t move. The van rocked gently. He ran his fingers lightly over her cheeks, almost a caress. She flinched and couldn’t suppress a shudder. His hand snapped out and grabbed her breast and twisted it, pulling her off the floor with his strength. She cried out and after what seemed a lifetime of pain, he let go. He said, “I’ll do what I like anyways. But letting you go? Doesn’t matter how nice you play or how great you suck a dick. We’re never letting you go. You’re ours now. And baby, we’re gonna have us some fun tonight! Have to break you in, honey, take that fight right out of you. That’s the best part, breaking the new ones in. Woo-hee!”
The ceiling of the van blurred with her tears. Whatever they had in store for her wouldn’t be pleasant. And no matter what she did, in the end, she knew they had to kill her. Why wouldn’t they? The dead make terrible witnesses. It was clear from what he said, she wasn’t their first victim. They weren’t bumbling fools. They’d done this before and acted with confidence because of it. How many girls had perished under their cruel hands? Her veins ran cold with despair.
. . .
Before the van stopped, Gorilla man put a sack over her head and tied it around her neck, taut enough to be uncomfortable. Her hands throbbed from the tightness of the plastic cuffs. He lifted her up and slung her over his shoulder with a grunt. A blood clump fell out of her swollen nose and rolled along her skin and into her hair.
From the van, it seemed a short distance before the sound of boots on gravel turned to the click of tile. She wished she could see inside the house, where they were and what they were doing. Blood pulsed in her head and his shoulder digging into her diaphragm made it hard to breathe. Her stomach roiled and she thought she might vomit in the sack. No, no, no, don’t do that, she thought, clenching her teeth and swallowed down rising bile not wanting to have her own head and face swimming in her own puke.
A door creaked and heavy feet clomped on wooden stairs. She could tell they were descending because each step dipped down. The stairs went on forever, every drop a fresh dig into her stomach. Her knee cracked on the corner of something hard and she yelped. She felt the blood clot roll against her cheek. It was cold.
“Shut up. That was nothing. You don’t know what pain is.”
Her world had been reduced to sounds and battling the urge to vomit. She heard a clinking of metal and a door scraped open. His steps thudded forward. He let her slide off his shoulder and she knew he was going to drop her like a sack. She managed to turn her body before she hit cold concrete. Her right shoulder and hip took most of the impact and an expulsion of air hissed through her lips. Her hip and shoulder throbbed, pulses of pain in a universe of pain. The plastic ties on her wrist bit into the flesh when she hit the floor and a warm trickle of blood slid along her tingling thumbs and palm. Her head clipped the ground and her teeth clacked together. Winded, she curled on the ground waiting for the pain to subside. Steps receded and the heavy door clanged shut. The rope around her neck dug in, cutting off the carotid and dimming her vision until she lifted her head for relief.
“Hold still, honey. I gotta cut the string. You wouldn’t want me to nick ya.”
Metal pressed against her ear, down her jawline, playing along it with patient pressure. The string cut with ease. He yanked the sack off her head, getting a few hairs in the grabbing and she gritted her teeth against it wondering how many hairs he got in that grab. Bright light stung her eyes. She blinked and sniffed back blood leaking from her nose. She moved to wipe it away but her hands couldn’t comply. She felt the numbing sensation moving up her forearms, an intense tingling, like a buzzing under her skin. She’d read one time that lack of oxygenated blood killed cells. Would they keep her trussed up long enough for her hands to become useless? Now what were they going to do to her? Nothing pleasant, nothing she’d laugh and blush about, that’s for sure. Something terrible. Something cruel enough she had to be snatched and hidden so they could enjoy their prize and do things to her where she could expect no help and her screams wouldn’t matter. Except to those who caused them.
Her head flicked around the room. Cinder Brick walls like her dorm room except pink. A Pepto Bismol eye stinging sort of pink. The floor was concrete grey. A pink metal dresser against the wall. She later learned the dresser was bolted to the floor, like everything in the room and the bolts were melted at the seam, impossible to remove. Her eyes took in an open shower with pink tiles and a heart-shaped mat outside the stall on the floor. And next to the stall? A pink fucking toilet. And behind her, she had to crane her neck to see, a cot, frame painted pink, bolted to
the floor covered in pink blankets and red pillows. The room measured two, maybe three times bigger than the one she’d moved into at the university, which seemed now a lifetime ago.
The Gorilla man squatted before her, “Welcome home!”
Another man stood in the corner, wearing a jackal mask. Must be the driver, the one who didn’t speak or turn to look all the way here. Where-ever here was. His arms crossed over his chest, he had broad shoulders and the muscles rippled along his forearm. The dark pockets of his eyes devoured her.
The Gorilla man stood unbuckling his belt, casual, as though he were getting ready to climb into bed after a hard day.
“Nice place isn’t it? Warm,” he gestured to the toilet and shower, “private amenities,” he tossed the belt behind him and started kicking off his boots, “and best of all: rent free!” He slid his pants down and his erection bounced above her. “Well, not really free. We all have to pay in some way, I suppose. Sometimes, paying can be painful. Yep. It sure can be. How painful this gets is completely up to you…kind of mostly up to you. If you misbehave, I’m not accountable for my actions. Sometimes I just get carried away. All of a sudden I’m covered in blood and my poor date? Well, she barely looks human anymore! And for what? I’m gonna get what I want in the end anyways. I always do.”
He grabbed her shorts, fumbling for the button and she squirmed, scrambled and kicked out with her foot. He caught it effortlessly. She bucked and twisted and kicked out, trying to get loose of him.
He held on, his grip tightening and he said, “You’re gonna wanna play nice.”
He spoke over his shoulder, to the Jackal, “A little help here.”
The Jackal walked over. Olivia could see a bulge in the Jackal’s pants and knew there would be no help from him. She knew she should just listen to him, give in, give them what they wanted and maybe, just maybe she could figure a way to get out of here but she couldn’t. She didn’t have it in her to quit like that. Couldn’t give in to these fuckers! Amazing, how similar terror and rage were to Olivia. Rage made her forget about how much her shoulders hurt or how her hands tingled for lack of blood flow. Olivia thought, Fuck them! Think they can just scoop her off the street and she’d be their plaything for nothing? Everything has a cost and they were going to pay it. Her nose didn’t bother her at all in the moment the Jackal grabbed her feet and the Gorilla started tearing at her shorts. Instead she screamed, a piercing scream, warbling in pitch and echoing in the small room. She kicked out, twisted, squirmed, screaming and snarling and fighting them. Gorilla man grabbed a fistful of her hair and punched her in the face. Her lips mashed against her teeth and her head hit the floor, again! The ceiling spun, the long tubes of light fading in and out. She tried to scream and instead choked on blood. Coughs wracked her chest and she spit out blood onto the grey floor.
“I like this one. I really do, but she’s gotta learn. You got them shears on you? Good. Now hold her tight. She’s not going to like this.”
Still dazed, the word “shears” reached a part of her brain telling her she should be concerned. She lifted her head and frowned at what she saw. The Jackal sat on one of her legs and held the other by the ankle, his grip tight, his biceps bulging. The Gorilla held shears. Garden shears, the type she’d seen her dad use to cut thick branches. She read a brand name on the blade, CRAFTSMAN and knew he bought them at Canadian Tire, the same place her dad bought all his tools.
She whispered, “Hey now! Hey! What’s going-“ The shears snipped cleanly through her small toe. The toe jumped into the air, spun and hit the cold floor. A dash of blood punctuated where it landed. A red blot on grey. What the hell just happened? She couldn’t believe it. Was that her toe? Then the pain hit. They’d cut off her toe alright and instead of screaming, she yelled, “You motherfuckers! Cock-sucking shit-bags! Let me go, let me go or I swear to-“ Gorilla squished her cheeks with his hand, fingers digging in deep. Her jaw bone creaked under the grinding pressure. It cut short her cries.
He said, “Shut. The. Fuck. Up!” He shook her head and she could feel the grinding pressure on the bones in her skull. He leaned in close and said, “You want me to keep going? You want me to whittle down every toe? Then what? Start on your fingers? After that, an arm? Is that what you want?”
She shook her head. Her courage faltering under the images he presented.
“I’m gonna cut those ties off your wrist. Then, you’re going to take off your own fucking clothes and lie down on that bed my partner took the time to make all nice and pretty. I don’t want no more shit from you. Not one fucking word or whining or ‘please don’t,’ crap. You got it? One more sound out of you, and you lose your other baby toe. We understand each other, princess?”
She nodded. He held the shears up to her eyes and clicked them shut. She flinched. He turned her roughly by the shoulder and snipped through the plastic ties.
Blood rushed into her hands, tingling life fluttered in her fingers, another location of pain on a body wracked with it. Blood dribbled from where her toe had been. It ached. Intermittent shards of pain made her wince and suck in air. She saw her disembodied toe on the floor by the metal leg of the bed. She’d painted the toe nail a bright blue. She thought it cute at the time.
She stood, being careful to go easy on the foot, snot, drool and tears a shiny line hanging from her chin. Under the gaze of the Gorilla and the Jackal, she undressed. Her entire body trembled and the toe on the floor kept drawing her eye, as though tethered on a line. When she pulled her shorts off the fabric brushed against the red nub where her toe used to be. She sucked in air and almost fell over, stumbled and she stifled a sob. How to fight men such as these? They’d whittle her down, piece by piece and in the end what would be left? A torso, maybe. They wouldn’t need a room to hold her. All they would need is a box. They were going to do what they wanted and there was nothing she could do about it. Tears shined on her cheeks. Fully nude, she hobbled to the bed and sunk into it, staring at the ceiling wishing she were anywhere else or anyone else.
The Gorilla sighed, rubbed his hands together and said, “My! That sure is pretty.”
The bed creaked under his weight.
-4-
Five years. Although she’d lost more parts of herself over the time, the first night remained the worst. Maybe because such cruelty was unknown to her she questioned whether it was really happening. Even though it kept happening, over and over. Those things happened only in those horror movies Dale tried to get her to watch but she never would. She wasn’t into that sort of thing. She told him once the world didn’t need more horrors, even for entertainment. She didn’t know anything of real horror then and spoke of it from a protected person’s perspective, confident those terrors would never visit her in her suburban home with a full belly and clothes on her back. Now, she lived those terrors. She became a meat puppet, her strings played by two masked men, evil in their own ways.
Quite a contrast between the two men. The Gorilla enjoyed giving pain. The more she squealed the more excited he became. One time, while he was using her, he stabbed her shoulder with a knife. She imagined she heard the skin split as it slid in and ground against bone. Oh, how that hurt! How she bled! She freaked out! Squirming, kicking, screaming and the Gorilla man yelling, “Fuck yeah! Like a goddamn bronco!”
The Jackal barely touched her. He would always be in the room though. They always came into her cell together, always wearing their masks. The Jackal never spoke to her. Not once. Afterwards, when Gorilla man got too enthusiastic, the Jackal would carry her to the shower, clean her wounds, dress her in a fluffy robe and comb her hair, never saying a word, the dark eyes behind the mask enigmatic and more than once she hoped to find some humanity in their depths. There never was. He would play Ava Maria on his iPod attached to portable speakers, on repeat, the same fucking song over a
nd over. He would paint her toe nails pink (the toes she had left anyways) resting her foot on his knee, always gentle and relaxed. He would clean her room with some sort of polish, mop the floors and spray the room with freshener before they left. He liked the scent of lavender. The Gorilla man would snore on her bed or wait, pacing in the room, anxious for the Jackal to finish his ministrations or his labor. It was the Jackal who would show up after one of their ‘date nights’ and made sure she took the morning after pill, the Gorilla man sighing theatrically in the background. No need to threaten or force her to take the pill. She didn’t want a child by rape.
The Jackal proved inscrutable. She didn’t know what he got from all this. He never used her. Not that way. The Jackal watched, moving around the room for better angles, an almost forgotten shadow seen over the Gorilla man’s shoulder. She thought maybe, just maybe, he felt sorry for her or there was some connection she couldn’t see that prevented him from participating. Maybe he cared for her. She wanted to believe it, she wanted to think he would become an ally. After a brief time, she dismissed the idea. He never shirked from helping Gorilla man punish her. She sensed he even liked it. He got right in there and she could hear his breathing get faster when he held her down for the Gorilla.
At first, she fought every time they entered the room. She had once removed the shower curtain rod, hid behind the door and when the Gorilla’s giant head appeared beyond the door, she struck it, gritting her teeth and screaming, her arm a relentless blur. Problem was, the rod had been hollow. A light weight, piece of shit aluminum. The Gorilla man laughed at her, his arms crossed above his mask and his eyes peering out from the protection of his forearms. Then he took the rod from her hands. Like it were nothing, like she were nothing. And then he punished her, laughing sometimes and other times, his voice a growling rage. The Jackal stood by to clean her up after. The Jackal was there to watch.
