*****
Boog Jeter was kindly surprised at how much he could remember. Rememberin’ stuff wasn’t nothin’ he ever been real good at, but as he took stock while settin’ in the cab a his ol’ pickup, he felt sorta proud a hisself. He’d made up a plan, decided on how to carry it out, figgerd out everthing he needed to make it all work, an’ rememberd all the stuff he had to git. He had them heavy zip ties he’d bought at the Ace Hardware in that little shoppin’ center. They called the place Westport, but it was still Kansas City as far as he was concerned. He’d been watchin’ that black-haired woman doctor in them high-heel shoes for over four days an’ Kansas City wadden as scary for him as it had been. He never thought he’d git used to it, but he kindly was. He got the duck tape at the same place he got them zip ties. He wrapped the tape and ties in a gunnysack, one of three he put in the back a the truck before he left home.
He’d already arranged the bed a the truck. He’d spread out a coupla a blankets an’ had them six five-gallon gas cans full an’ strapped in right behind the cab so he wouldn’t have to stop at any gas stations with her in the back a the truck. All that gas made settin’ in the bed under that camper shell kindly close an’ burnt his eyes some, but he wasn’t the one gonna be back there breathin’ it. The fence post was in there, too. It was cedar and rough but who gave a shit? He had a rolled up sock in his hip pocket, his Buck knife in his front pocket, and was set to go. He’d been set to go fer a spell, but he had to wait until it was plumb in the middle a the night. Boog didn’t mind waitin’. He’d just set ‘til it was time not to wait anymore.
The only thing he couldn’t get ready ahead a time was them spiders. He had twenny-one of ‘em, all in they separate little cups. Couldn’t put ‘em all together. They’d kill one another. He’d found that out when he was just a kid. He caught up a mess of ‘em as they was crossin’ the road an’ put ‘em in a jar. They took ta fightin’ and ever durn one of ‘em died, so that’s why he had to keep ‘em away from each other.
They was tough. He’d been bit by one of ‘em onct. Burnt like hell! He was afeared he was gonna die from it for a while, an’ waited for things to git bad, but they never did. It swole up some, and hurt, but then it stopped bein’ so red an’ jest itched like hell for a day or two, but they sure was a couple a holes where it got him. When he caught ‘em, if they seen him a commin’, them spiders would raise up on they hind legs and wave they front legs at him, fixin’ ta whup his ass! Boog allus thought that was purty cute, them not takin no shit. He liked that.
He knowed things would probably be easier just to sneak inta where that Black-haired woman doctor in them high-heel shoes slep and snatch her up right from the bed, but that wasn’t enough. Wimmen was all afraid a spiders, even just little-bitty spiders. These ones he had was almost as wide as his hand. They’d scare the shit outa that black-haired woman doctor in them high-heel shoes, and he wanted to scare her. He wanted to scare her real bad. If he was gentle with them spiders an’ slow, they’d crawl around on him some. It tickled-like, them little hairs rubbin’ on him, but she wouldn’t know that. Hell, she might even go nuts! Wouldn’t that be somethin’?
Traffic had died down to nearly nothin’ an’ her bedroom light had been off for quite a while, when Boog Jeter moved his truck to the parkin’ lot at the back of her buildin’ an’ started shakin’ them spiders outa they little cups and inta a big paper bag. He worked as fast as he could, dumpin’ them in there while some of ‘em tried to climb back out. When he got all the cups empty he rolled the sack closed and kept shakin’ it a little to distract them from killin’ each other as he clumb outa the truck an’ headed for that basement winda.
It only took him a minute to git in the place, he’d done it a couple a times before. He unlocked the basement door from the inside an’ snuck upstairs. The first floor was dark, but he knowed where things was and clumb some more stairs to git to her bedroom. He had to stop shakin’ the bag though, ‘cause a the noise. They was enough light comin’ in from the outside that Boog could see where she was, a-layin’ on the bed. She was even snorin’ a little bit. He eased open the top of the sack, then, as purty as ya please, just walked right in there, poured out some a them spiders, laid that bag on the bed beside her, and walked out.
Boog actually had to make himself not giggle, as slick as everthing was. He went back down to the first floor, laid the duck tape, the zip ties, the sock, an’ the gunny sack out on the couch, and waited around the corner at the foot a the stairs. Sooner or later, that black haired woman doctor’d wake up, git a load a them spiders, an’ come tear-assin’ down them steps. Might take ten minutes, might take two hours. Made no difference to him. Boog wadden worth much at most things, but he was good at waitin’.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A tickle on her right ear brought Ruby to partial wakefulness. She was lying on her left side and automatically swatted at the sensation, then scratched the itch that remained behind. She was nearly back to sleep when her mind registered the soft plop that whatever she’d swiped at made when it hit the wall beside the bed. It took a moment for that bit of information to sink in. When it did, she felt gooseflesh rise on the backs of her arms, squirmed up onto an elbow, and switched on her bedside lamp.
Still nearly asleep, she squinted against the overwhelming glare of the sixty-watt bulb and looked around her bedroom. Nothing. No one there. All normal. Shit. Some dream or something. She relaxed her elbow and sank back to her side, closing her eyes against the brightness of the light. So tired. She fumbled for the light switch but couldn’t find it, and opened her eyes again, only her right one free of the beckoning pillow. There, so close to her face it was little more than a blur, a dark brown shape crouched on the white satin. Puzzled now, Ruby pulled back a bit to focus, and the shape grew to three times it’s height and appeared to ripple. Startled, she lurched to her elbow again, gaining an extra foot of distance from her eyes to the thing and bringing it into visual clarity. She nearly screamed. There, on the edge of her pillow, the biggest spider she had ever seen stood, waiving its front legs and looking at her. She could actually see the thing’s fangs. How? What?
Ruby froze. Was it poisonous? Could it jump? Was she awake? Could she get away before it got to her? Her heart was pounding in her ears, adrenalin demanding action. Still she remained immobile. The spider, no longer stimulated by her movement and curious about her warmth and expelled carbon dioxide, relaxed back down onto all eight legs and took the first tentative step on the twelve-inch journey that would stop at her elbow. It was then that Ruby simultaneously felt the tickle on her right ankle and the gentle probing just above the hairline on the back of her neck. Tears filling her lower lids, carefully she dropped her chin to look down the bed.
Ragged dark-brown shapes littered the sheet, hairy legs raised and questing or propelling equally hairy bellies across her, fangs below shining eyes, separated from her flesh by nothing more than the thickness of the sheet and her white silk pajamas. Christ! They were everywhere! Reason fled and her reptile brain presented Ruby with the four F options. She had to fight, feed, flee, or fuck. Her unconscious choice was to flee.
Screaming, she nearly levitated, throwing the cover aside and launching herself to stand beside the bed as she clawed frantically at the back of her head, sending her fuzzy passenger spinning across the room. Spiders were all over the place, on the bed, on the floor, on the headboard, on the nightstand. Jesus! She even mashed one under her bare foot when she landed. Wailing with fear and shock around the bile in her throat and completely lost in the instinctual reaction of flight, she shrieked from the room and down the stairs into the waiting darkness below.
Boog Jeter had worked it all out in his mind. When that black-haired woman doctor in them high-heel shoes come runnin’ down them stairs, he was gonna step out in front a her, use her speed an’ weight against her, take her in the gut with a shoulder, knock the wind outa her and truss her up. When he heard her scream, he moved out into the dark at the foot
of the steps and crouched in anticipation. His prey, propelled by both horrific fright and relentless gravity, ran right over him.
Stunned and flat on his back, Boog managed to grab one of Ruby’s ankles as she thundered past and brought her down. Slightly dazed, Boog gritted his teeth and hung on. Reason gone and her panic mode further elevated by a larger adversary grasping and clawing at her, Ruby’s screams continued, punctuated by violent kicks at the thing that clutched her ankle in the darkness. Her nails digging furrows in the carpet, she pulled the two of them halfway across the living room in the desperation of her fear.
If Boog had been a little brighter, if he possessed more sense of self, she might have escaped him. Completely surprised by Ruby’s speed and mass, shocked by the volume of her screams, staggered by her panic, and stunned by the force of her kicks to his head and shoulders, a normal man might have relinquished his grip both from astonishment at her power and the need to protect himself. Boog, however, was not a normal man. Bleeding from his nose and a small tear over his right eyebrow, as Ruby pulled the two of them across the floor he pulled himself along her struggling body until he got an arm around her waist and managed to flip her over onto her back.
Hysterical with adrenalin and the vivid image of spiders, Ruby flailed upward into the darkness at whatever had her, her terror soaring past anything as mundane as abduction or rape. Hers was a visceral, snapping, snarling, fight for life; a red-eyed and sweaty-toothed issue of do or die desperation that took all of her energy, her spirit, and her heart. Choking her with his left hand, Boog was amazed that he had to hit that woman doctor in the face five times before she settled down.
Sitting on the floor in the darkness, Boog leaned back against the couch to catch his breath. Man! That woman doctor was tough! He could feel cuts and scrapes all over his face where she got him with her nails. She’d even ripped out a little of his hair. He never figgerd a woman to be as stout as she was. Damn near kicked his ass. Ha! She wadden gonna be kickin’ nobody’s ass now, by God. He’d strapped her ankles together with them zip-ties, an’ her hands, too. Behind her back so she couldn’t get no grip on nothin’. He’d stuffed that rolled up sock in her mouth an’ duck taped it so it couldn’t come out. That tape was all tangled up in her hair. He bet she’d squall some when time come to rip that shit out.
She wadden makin’ no noise now, not even movin’. She was breathin’, he made sure a that before he put the sock in her mouth. Had to wipe her face off some to git the tape to stick, they was so much blood an’ all from where he had to hit her all those times. Puttin’ that gunnysack over her head kindly sealed her up like, plumb down to her waist. She waren’t mor’n a lump on the floor, now. Ever so often he could hear her breath whistle in her nose, so he knowed she was all right. He went upstairs, smiled at the spiders crawlin’ around, and tossed some clothes an’ a pair of them high-price tennis shoes in a pilla case. No more high heels now, nossir. Not where she was goin’.
After he gathered up the clothes, Boog lifted Ruby up onto a shoulder and went down to the basement. He’d unlocked the door to the outside for this special trip and walked up the steps and right to the rear of his old pickup. He’d opened the cargo cover and the tailgate before he went inside, so all he had to do was push Ruby into the truck. He climbed in beside her and pulled her all the way up into the bed. Then he zip-tied her ankles to the cedar post, released her wrists and re-tied them behind her back around the rough cedar, lifted the gunnysack off her head, ran a zip-tie around both her throat and the post against the back of her neck, checked to make sure the sock was still taped solidly in her mouth, and replaced the sack over her head and the post, nearly down to her hands. That finished, he wrapped Ruby and the post up in one of the greasy blankets he’d brought and looked over his work.
That, by God, oughta do it fine. Trussed up agin’ the post like that, she wadden goin’ nowhere. Be a tough ride all the way home, bouncin’ in the bed a the truck tied up like she was, but she’d live. Smell from those gas cans was purty thick, but the camper shell leaked some. Once they got on the road she’d git a little fresh air. Prob’ly git purty sick from the smell. Boog hoped ta hell she didn’t throw up. If she threw up with that sock in her mouth an’ all, she might choke up and die. That’d be a shame. Boog didn’t want her dead if’n he could help it.
He climbed out of the bed of the truck, closed the tailgate and cargo cover, got in the cab, and started the engine. Wiping a trickle of blood from his nose, he sighed. Gonna be a long drive home. Lord, he hated makin’ that long drive.
The light hurt terribly, and Ruby groaned with it. The vibration of that groan brought shrieking pain ricocheting through the entire left side of her head. God! She’d never felt anything like it in her life! Lights went off in her skull as the agony increased and unconsciousness beckoned. Gratefully she slid back down the slope into the gloom of merciful oblivion.
Christ! This made a migraine feel like a cakewalk. The vague memory of being paralyzed while lurching and bouncing awash in the sickening scent of gasoline niggled at the back of her brain. Had to be a dream. Had to still be dreaming. This pain couldn’t be real. Back to the dark. Back to sweet relief.
She tried to lick her lips, but movement of her tongue was difficult. Keeping very still so as to not increase the level of pain she swam in, Ruby opened her eyes. Eye actually. Only her right one seemed to be functioning. Touching her face was out of the question. That much movement was not possible. Before her was a gloomy uneven surface, but at what distance she could not tell. Where was she? Why was she where she was? Thought and focus made her head swim and that brought nausea. If she threw up, she’d die. Sleep. More sleep. Please, God, this can’t be real. Just let me sleep.
It was real. It had to be. The light was brighter now, and she was staring at a rock wall with the one eye that worked. Carefully and in spite of the pain, she eased her hand up in front of her face. Oh, look. Fingers. Her fingers. Four of them and a thumb. Familiar reference in such an unfamiliar situation was almost magical. She still had her fingers. They were red and raw and a nail was broken off down into the quick, but they were hers. She smiled at the familiarity of her fingers and the pain that fired through her face and head again gave her deliverance.
A clatter of metal on stone pierced her and she sensed a shadow move over where she lay. Ah. She was lying down. Another new fact. Opening her eye she not only saw and remembered the rock wall, but now there was a bucket. A plain, galvanized bucket that looked clean and shiny. Her world had expanded to include new data. Carefully and slowly, Ruby lifted her head to look around. The massive throb in her skull mirrored her heartbeat and the movement made her queasy, but she didn’t give in. The lifting of her head was followed by a levering of her left elbow and the pushing of her right hand until the upper half of her body was thrust upward and off the surface below her. She was on a blanket, a wool blanket like those old-fashioned army surplus kind. Pleased that she could remember such a thing, bit by bit she turned her head to gather in more of her surroundings. There was not just one bucket. There were three, and one had an old yellow towel lying beside it. Okay. More information. She turned her head a little farther. Was she in a cellar or a cave of some kind? The light came from behind her, but turning around was not an option yet. She was barely hanging on through the pain as it was.
Another few degrees of turn brought a chain in sight. A chain that was padlocked to a ring set into the rock wall above her. A chain that traveled downward to her feet then up her legs, then under her. Under her? Her movements tiny and controlled, Ruby felt of her waist. The chain actually seemed to go around it. How odd. What possible reason could there be for her to have a chain around her waist? Continued search brought her hand to what seemed to be another padlock. At least it felt like a padlock, but it was behind her back and she couldn’t see it. She didn’t even remember owning a chain and a padlock. Carefully, she eased down onto her side to think things over. The shift in position and head angle bro
ught the worst of the pain back for a moment, but she fought to keep the darkness at bay.
Tired. So tired. C’mon, Ruby. Think. You’re lying on a… Ruby! That’s who you are! Ruby. Ruby… Ruby… LaCost! Ruby LaCost! Doctor Ruby LaCost. That bit of realization made her try to nod. The pain of the effort brought a whimper to her lips, but her determination remained. Dammit! Think, Ruby. Put yourself in place and space. You’re lying down, you have fingers, there’s some buckets, really shiny ones, and a chain. You’re here in this gray place, and you can’t see out of your left eye, but that’s okay for now ‘cause you got two, and you’re afraid to touch the one that doesn’t work anyway. But, why here? How here? Where were you before? Have you always been here? No. No, there’s a man. Mustache and smiles and a ponytail and wonderful hands and a cat. Nudge.
She smiled with the satisfaction of a memory outside her pain and place. Nudge. Nudge the cat. Nudge, her big kitty-boy. Nudge who had been with Crockett so long and… Crockett? Oh no. Oh, my God, no. Crockett. Crockett! Crockett!
Ruby’s interior scream tightened every muscle in her body and once more she was gone into that sweet dark oblivion.
She had to pee. Her bladder pulled her to wakefulness, more demanding than the on again off again agony of injury that shot through her. More lucid, Ruby forced herself into a sitting position and looked at the three shiny buckets. The one on the left had a roll of toilet paper sitting beside it. The sight of the roll of paper made her need even stronger. She pushed herself to her hands and knees, her hanging head twitching with her heartbeat and the hurt that movement caused. She made it to the bucket but could not crouch above it. It was then she realized that she had already soiled her pajama bottoms anyway. Sobbing with the pain and because of it, she sank back to her side on the cool unrelenting stone beside the shiny bucket and let nature take its course. When the darkness returned, this time it was sleep.
Abducted Page 17
