by Rick R. Reed
It’s a Kaposi’s sarcoma lesion.
She raises a hand to touch him.
And he turns away.
* * * *
Beth swallowed hard, burying her face in the cool comfort of her sweater. Even this scenario, though tragic, was preferable to reality. Mark was dead.
Perhaps, she thought, it had always been only a matter of time before she brought him death, brought it to him with the warmth of a kiss, the gentleness of a caress.
Beth tensed as she heard the jangle of keys. Time to eat—once more. How many meals did this make? What would he bring her this time? In an absurd way, she found herself looking forward to eating; it broke the monotony.
How long had she been in here?
The sound of Abbott fitting the key in the lock still made her stomach turn. The door swung open and their gazes met. She shivered at the blankness of his stare and the mystery of what lay behind his dead eyes.
Why hadn’t she seen the evil in those eyes when she first saw him at Nordstrom? Was that very same evil, in reality, what had drawn her to him?
He came close and set down a tray. He had brought her a TV dinner: a lump of grayish mat in a pool of greasy gravy, bright yellow corn, gruelish mashed potatoes. Beth couldn’t wait to eat it and have its warmth fill her.
He hunkered down and handed her a plastic fork.
She wanted to eat slowly, not wanting him to see how much she appreciated the food, but she couldn’t help herself. She devoured it in seconds. The meal warmed her and gave her some courage.
He lifted the tray and started toward the door.
“Hey, don’t rush off.”
Abbott turned, his gaze sweeping over her. She felt she was nothing more than an irregularity in the floorboards, no more animate than the shelves of dusty glass jars lining one wall. “What?”
His voice made her tremble. In another life, she might have considered his deep tone manly and pleasant. Now she found herself tightening and relaxing groups of muscles to try and stop the quaking and terror his voice inspired.
“I just wanted the thank you for the food.”
“Bullshit.” He started to push open the door.
“Can I just talk to you?”
“What about?”
“About us. About you. What you’ve come to mean.”
She watched him roll his eyes, blow out an impatient breath. How many times had she tried this penitent routine? How many times had it failed?
But she would never get away if she couldn’t convince him that whatever lunacy he was acting out was getting them somewhere. There had to be some rationale for what he was doing. If there wasn’t, Beth feared there was no hope at all.
“I know I’ve said this before…” Her voice trailed as she watched him turn to stare at the door. His grip on the edges of the food tray showed white, bloodless fingers. Beth was tempted to just shut up, to curl further into a corner, to try and imagine a different outcome to when Mark emerged from the hospital, one where he took her in his arms, relieved and joyous at their reunion. “Listen, Abbott, please come over and sit.”
“No.”
“You said a long time ago you wanted to teach me a lesson.”
“Yeah, but fuck that. I just want to see you suffer. That’s all.”
“Abbott, I have suffered. I know you don’t believe this, but I really loved Mark. Watching him die was the worst suffering I’ve ever experienced.”
“Right. That’s why you fucked around behind his back.”
“No, no. It was the worst suffering I ever went through because it was all my fault. Oh God, Abbott, I can’t tell you how the guilt eats me up. I was just thinking how I might as well have been guiding your hand when you…when you stabbed him.” She paused to stare at the floor, then whispered, “It was all my fault.”
He took one hand off the tray and rubbed his eyes.
“I know that now.”
At last, his gaze met with her own. “You’re right about that much.”
She pressed on, feeling she was making headway. “That’s why you have to let me out of here. I need to confess. I need to tell the police what happened and be punished for the terrible things I’ve caused. It was all my fault.”
“So…you’re gonna confess to Mark’s murder?”
Mark’s name in his mouth stung her. “Of course. It was me. If I hadn’t done what I did, he’d still be alive today.”
“And you wouldn’t implicate me, would you?”
“No, Abbott, of course not. I’m grateful to you.”
He smirked. “For showing you the way and the light?”
She started to respond, but the words caught in her throat.
He left and she shrank back, balling herself up further as she heard him locking the door.
* * * *
He was afraid he might kill her. What he had in mind could do just that. First, there was the risk of infection. He looked down at the gauze, the hydrogen peroxide, and Betadine he had purchased at Walgreens. Would these things be futile against the enormity of the wounds he planned to inflict?
He could have talked to the pharmacist; there were stronger medicines. But such a conversation could arouse suspicion, especially in a small town like Salem, Ohio.
The headlines about the missing postal worker were still fresh in his mind. People were talking about her in Walgreens. How long before someone discovered the truck in the lake? How long before someone was beating on the cottage door?
Yes, he feared he would kill Beth. But what he had planned was so sweet! It would serve as yet another step in her education. Yet the thought nagged—if the infection didn’t get her, then the shock might.
The hatchet lay on the table. Abbott had cleaned its blade of rust and it glistened in the pewter light, clean and sharpened with whetstone.
And what about the loss of blood? Certainly, there would be lots and lots of blood.
He picked up the propane torch, still in its packaging from the hardware store. He had never used one, although its operation seemed simple enough. But he was no doctor. Cauterizing a wound was ground he’d never covered. Would the flame make the bleeding cease quickly enough to assure she wouldn’t die from loss of blood?
He paused, listening to her whimper. He knew all she could think of was freedom. Hadn’t she learned anything? He could see it in her eyes that she felt no contrition. She was simply afraid of him.
Why were women always so afraid? Even Candy, his mother, drawn to men and fearing them all at the same time. And look what happened to her. His mind flashed on the scene—the birthday presents, the music on the radio, and that weaselly looking guy, Gene. Little Abbott tied to a kitchen chair, mouth covered with duct tape.
But he didn’t want to think about that now. Now he had to think about what he was going to do with Beth. Perhaps, if she survived, he would start to set things right with her.
She would fear not only him, but all men.
And that was a start.
* * * *
She lay on her side, facing the wall, knees bunched close to her chest. Abbott thought she didn’t look so pretty anymore, the mane of red hair reduced to stubble, her skin ashen and dirty. Even though they had been at the cottage less than a week, Beth appeared thinner and weaker. She lost strength with each passing hour.
And that was good. She would need to suffer to truly learn. Once she did, he knew she would no longer just mouth words of contrition, but mean them.
Yet he didn’t really give a fuck about that. She would no longer whore around, and that was all that really mattered.
Wasn’t it?
Beth turned slowly. She had been sleeping and Abbott watched her come awake.
The sun, a cold orb in a gray sky, had been dangling above the horizon just before Abbott came into the room. Slanted rays of dull light seeped through the wood, penetrating the darkness.
She rubbed her eyes and sat up, startled, and scooted into a corner. The whites of her eyes shone in the darkness, he
r face reminding him of pictures he had once pored over of Nazi concentration camp survivors.
Abbott breathed in. Her terror gave him confidence. He knew what he was about to do would work, knew it was the right thing.
Her words came out choked. “What do you want?”
He felt it better to say nothing, to let his actions speak for him. His gaze slid to his hands, which held the hatchet and propane torch. A length of rope lay coiled at his feet.
“What are you going to do?” She moved back, trying to melt into the wall. “Why do you have those things?” Her voice rose with hysteria.
Abbott thought of a trapped animal, fluttering about, trying to escape. He gripped his tools tighter, unable to keep from grinning as he neared her.
“No!” Beth kicked at him, barely missing. She stood and tried to run to the door. Abbott down put his tools and pursued her. Before she could open the door, he sprung at her, wrapping his arms around her waist and slamming her to the floor, his weight crashing down on her.
She gasped, the wind rushing out of her lungs.
Abbott pushed her face into the floor, digging his fingers hard into the back of her neck. He lifted her head and slammed it down, face first, with a sickening crunch. She shrieked, then made a snorting sound. When he let go of her head, she raised a face against face covered with blood. A broken nose was more than he had hoped for. Things were truly on his side.
“Please,” she whimpered, her words garbled by the blood.
The pleading suffused his muscles with energy. As she began to cry, Abbott’s strength increased, surging. He could do anything.
She tried to turn over, to free her arms, pinned under the weight of both their bodies.
Abbott pushed down with his shoulders. “I’ll break all your fuckin’ bones. Don’t think I don’t have the strength to do it.”
He eased up a little, then finally rose up to straddle her backside while holding her head to the floor with one hand. He longed for her masses of hair, which would have proved useful now.
“You need to do exactly as I say. I need to tie you up and gag you.” Suddenly, he felt inspiration. “They’ve been looking for that postal worker lowlife. They’ll be coming here and asking questions. I can’t expect you to be quiet, can I?”
“Oh, Abbott, you can.”
“Don’t fight me.”
She fell quiet. The light had gone out of her eyes. Did she believe him? Didn’t she wonder what the hatchet was for? The torch? If she did, it didn’t make her struggle. How could she know what he had planned anyway?
It didn’t take long to bind her legs together, her left arm hog-tied to her ankles. He gagged her mouth with a bandana. Leaving her right arm free made him wish he had a helper. But helpers were in dreams. No one had ever given him help. Why should things be any different now?
From his back pocket, he pulled a length of linen he had torn from a sheet and blindfolded her. “You like this, Beth? I bet you’ve been tied up lots of times.”
She lay limp, her face robbed of expression or character by the blindfold and gag. Abbott lifted her arm and looked at it. He pushed back the sleeve of her sweater, exposing the smooth expanse of skin. How many men had adoringly stared at this same flesh? Abbott’s stomach churned.
Her fingers were slender, long, the knuckles powdered with amber freckles. Traces of red polish still clung in bits and pieces to her perfectly tapered nails. Had her husband paid for manicures for her in some Magnificent Mile salon?
He pulled a ring from her third finger. Had her husband bought this for her? Abbott pocketed the jewelry with its cluster of diamonds around a solitary sapphire.
How many dicks had these fingers wrapped around, tracing veins and pubic hair, milking them of their seed?
Beth whimpered and squirmed a little as he stretched her arm along the floor. He straddled her bicep and held out her hand on the hardwood.
With his free hand, he picked up the hatchet. This would have to be done fast, before she had any notion of what was happening. Before he even gave it a second thought, he raised the weapon above his head, then brought it down, whistling, through the cold air, burying it into the wood beneath Beth’s outstretched fingers. The hatchet cut through the flesh, bone, and sinew of the four fingers on her right hand.
She bucked beneath him so hard, he feared she’d throw him off. A screaming, mewling sound came through the gag.
The fingers flew into the air. Blood spattered, more than Abbott imagined there would be. It squirted onto the wall opposite and covered his face and clothes.
Then he put down the hatchet and picked up the propane torch.
Chapter 23
Abbott had done everything he could to forget: washed the blood from his face, thrown away the shirt he had worn, tossed the hatchet into the cold waters of the lake.
Was Beth dead? Had she died from shock? He couldn’t think about that now. If she was, he’d burn the cottage, go back to Chicago, and pretend none of this had happened. He could hide in his apartment in Bridgeport, hide from everyone, including his landlady, Ila Perkins. The woman didn’t realize he knew who she was.
But thinking about Beth’s mortality, Chicago, or Ila Perkins couldn’t erase what he had done. He could still see the fingers flying into the air, the blood spurting. And the smell of the burning flesh as he cauterized the stumps haunted him, that sickening sweet odor. Would he never be able to force it from his memory?
He knew he should go in and check on her.
But what if the shock had killed her?
She would require the Betadine and bandages he had bought. Would the mice come out of the woodwork to nibble the stumps of her fingers, lured by the smell of burnt meat and blood?
The wind from the lake washed over him. He had opened the window so he could lie on his cot, listen to the night sounds and feel the cold air. He had hoped the chill would cleanse him, turn his thoughts away from what he had done, which somehow seemed worse than killing her husband. Right thing or not, the savagery of the act still haunted him.
He reached down beside the cot, running his fingers over the smooth glass of the Ball jar. Should he lift it? Peer at its contents?
It felt as if something gnawed at his innards, eating away his insides when he thought about the jar. But the only way to appease the tiny hungry beast within him was to confront the reality of the jar’s contents.
He lifted it and held it to the light. Inside, Beth’s four fingers floated in rubbing alcohol, bits of skin floated in the liquid, along with her tapered nails. He began to growl. The sound, low and guttural, started at the base of his throat and moved out, involuntarily, from between his slightly parted lips. The chips of red polish took him back, back to his mother.
Candy always painted her nails bright red.
He could see those nails now, moving quickly to open a present for him. The nails, bright red against the navy blue paper patterned with sailboats.
Abbott rubbed his temples where the pounding had started.
He had only been four years old. It had been his birthday…
* * * *
He sat in the middle of a mass of color, crumpled reds, blues, yellows, and greens surrounding him—bows, ribbons, and wadded balls of gift-wrap. The best part was the presents, a Davy Crockett outfit complete with a gun just like Davy used, a stuffed monkey he’d already begun calling Charlie, a big red Tonka fire engine from Mike, the guy who owned the beer joint where Mama worked. There were Lincoln Logs from Bill and Kevin, Mama’s friends, and even a grown-up football from Mackey, the big Irishman who told funny stories and who could blow the neatest smoke rings you ever saw. Mackey could do tricks, like taking off the top of his thumb, which scared Abbott, and folding down a handkerchief so it looked like there was a little mouse inside. The mouse jumped up Mackey’s arm when Abbott tried to pet it.
The grown-ups weren’t paying much attention to Abbott now. Everybody had already had their cake and ice cream and had clapped when Abbott had blown
out his candles. They’d all sung “Happy Birthday” in their deep voices. Now, they were drinking Old Style and listening to WLS on the radio.
Abbott didn’t much care what the grown-ups were talking about. He was too busy with Charlie and thinking about getting one of Mama’s old shoeboxes to make a bed for him. Charlie must have been tired. But not too tired to go for a ride on Abbott’s new fire truck!
Abbott lay Charlie across the top of the bright red engine and started rolling it around the living room floor, making the siren sound he knew so well. He was watching Charlie’s face, when suddenly the fire truck came to an emergency stop. There was an obstacle in the road—a big black boot.
“Watch where you’re goin’ with that thing, kid.”
Abbott looked up and saw Gene, frowning. It frightened Abbott. Gene had just started working at the same beer joint Mama did and Mama didn’t know him very well. Abbott already knew he didn’t like him. Gene had stood in a corner while everyone sang “Happy Birthday” and didn’t chime in. He didn’t smile, just stood there, looking like a dummy. And when they had their chocolate cake and strawberry ice cream, he didn’t have any. He just drank beer and stared at everyone else.
Worst of all, he didn’t bring Abbott a birthday present. Why would you come to a birthday party and not even bring a present?
And Abbott didn’t like the way Gene looked. Kind of like a weasel. He was too skinny and had a big pointy nose and a little black moustache underneath. Abbott heard Mama say she thought Gene was “cute,” which made Abbott like him even less. All the other guys had put on nice clothes for the party, but Gene had on old blue jeans and a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off his thin arms and dragon tattoo.
“Sorry,” Abbott whispered, but it didn’t seem like Gene heard. He was taking some funny looking cigarette from his friend Duke, a yellow-haired guy with a buzz cut. The cigarette smelled bad, kind of bitter, and Abbott didn’t like it.
Gene saw Abbott staring and smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile; it looked kind of mean. He held out the little cigarette. “Wanna try it, kid?”
“Hey, Gene! Cut that out! For Christ’s sake,” Mackey yelled across the room.
