by Ricky Fry
Travis moved in between us. “Don’t call her that! She’s not a whore. She’s my girlfriend.”
His mother scoffed. “You know something? You’re even dumber than you look.”
His lips quivered, and I thought he might cry, but instead, he stiffened up and stood his ground.
“Fine,” she said, stomping up the stairs. “If you won’t do it, then I’ll kill her myself.”
She came back with another plastic grocery bag and pushed him aside with the same strength I’d seen when she moved on the sheriff. I screamed and thrashed at the chains as she forced the bag over my head and pulled it tight. Plastic sucked into my mouth and nose, and I couldn’t breathe. I closed my eyes.
This is it. In another minute, this will all be over.
Then I heard a thud and her fingers loosened their grip around my neck. I tore the plastic bag off, and when I opened my eyes, I saw Travis standing with a bloody hammer in his hand. His mother was standing too, a look of bewilderment and disbelief plastered across her face.
She collapsed to the ground in slow motion, first falling to her knees before sliding onto her back, her legs splayed out at odd angles on both sides.
Travis crumpled to the ground beside her. “Oh, what have I done? I’m sorry, mama. I’m so sorry.”
Then he raised the hammer again and brought it down on her face. Then again. And again. Blood splattered in all directions. He swung and swung until he toppled over in a pool of blood and sweat.
I reached for the bucket and retched. The room spun around me as I struggled to understand what had happened.
Two murders in the same day.
A son had killed his own mother. But I was alive, and even though it made me feel like a bad person, I was happy it was her and not me.
Travis sobbed beside her for a long time. I didn’t dare move or speak. If it had been possible, I wouldn’t have even breathed, waiting to see what would happen next.
Then he stood and dropped the hammer to the bloody floor. “I did it for you,” he said. “See? I did it all for you.”
TWENTY
He wrapped her up in a plastic tarp the same way he’d wrapped up the sheriff. Any emotion he’d shown before was gone. He didn’t cry. He didn’t smile. I studied his face for any clue about what he might be feeling, but there was nothing. Maybe he was shutting out all of the things he felt, a person gone numb. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
He picked her up and draped her lifeless corpse over his shoulder—the good one—the one I hadn’t stabbed. Then he tromped up the stairs, laboring beneath her weight, and disappeared for some time.
Only an hour before, his mother had mopped the floor clean. Now it was covered again with blood. Her blood. I knew I had to be patient and handle Travis carefully, or soon it would be covered with mine too.
My thoughts drifted back to the night I’d left Portland. I knew at the time I’d made a big decision that would change things forever. But never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that decision would bring me here.
He was still in a somber mood when he returned. He didn’t speak as he mopped the floor and scrubbed her blood from the walls with a soapy brush. He was careful to clean up well, though not as careful as she had been. Then he emptied my bucket, rinsing it out and placing it beside me again with a fresh roll of toilet paper.
“Are you hungry?” He looked at me for the first time since he’d dropped the hammer to the floor beside his mother’s smashed face.
Normally, it would have been impossible for me to eat after witnessing such a gory crime. But I was hungry and thought food might settle my knotted stomach. “Yes,” I said, “I could eat.”
I regretted my decision as soon as I heard him moving around upstairs in the kitchen. A terrible idea forced its way into my head.
What if he’s cooking his own mother? What if he intends to feed her to me?
I was relieved when he reappeared with two plates of eggs, toast, and bacon. I sniffed the bacon carefully just to be sure and took a bite only when I was satisfied it was not Henrietta I would be eating.
He positioned his chair directly over the place where she had died, and we ate in silence. When we’d both cleared our plates, he carried them upstairs and returned moments later with two cups of coffee.
“Do you know the story of the Boy and His Mother?”
“No,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood for another one of his stories, but it would have been better than sitting around in awkward silence.
“You’ll like it,” he said.
I sipped my coffee and nodded.
“One day, a man is apprehended for stealing. What exactly he had stolen, the story doesn’t say. But he was sentenced to death—they killed people for stealing back in those days—and he was led to the gallows to be hanged.
“As the crowd threw rotten vegetables and heckled the condemned man, he caught sight of his weeping mother. He asked his executioners if he might speak with her one last time. It was not an unreasonable final request, and so his mother was brought to the platform where the noose had already been strung around the man’s neck.
“He told her to come closer so that he could whisper in her ear. When she leaned in close, he bit her ear off with his teeth and spit it upon the wooden planks of the gallows.
“The crowd was terrorized and took pity on the poor mother, who surely did not deserve such a horrible son. But the man spoke. ‘Do not be deceived by my mother,’ he said. ‘When I was only a small boy, I stole a book and gave it to her. Had she whipped or chastised me then, rather than encouraging me to steal more and telling me my thefts would go unnoticed, I surely would not have grown into the man condemned to die before you today. Whatever guilt has arisen from my actions is as much the responsibility of a mother whose poor education left me deficient.’
“The crowd directed their scorn and rotten vegetables at the mother as she scurried away in shame. As for the man? He was hanged with a smile on his face, for at least some of his guilt had disappeared along with his miserable mother.”
It was clear to me exactly what he was trying to say, and he looked at me like he wanted me to believe him. But I didn’t believe him. As awful as his mother had been, he wasn’t a little boy. He was a man. He was responsible for the choices he’d made.
“So? What do you think?”
I lied. “It’s a very interesting story.”
“Don’t you get it?”
“Oh, yes. The poor man was only a product of his environment.”
A smile spread across his face. “And in the end, he finds peace because he finally frees himself from his mother’s bad influence.”
“Are you free, Travis?”
“Yes,” he said. “It was her all along. Don’t you see? I’ll never do a bad thing again, not with you by my side.”
We both know that isn’t true.
“I’m with you,” I said. It was another lie. “I love you.”
I wanted to ask him to take the chains off, but I thought it might seem like I was rushing him. I had him exactly where I wanted him. He believed I understood him. And I knew that deep down, even a monster like Travis longs to be understood.
“Prove it,” he said.
“What?”
“If you really love me, then prove it.” He pushed the chair back and took two steps toward me.
I wanted to pull back, but instead, I climbed to my feet, chains rattling, and moved closer to him. “How do I prove my love?”
“Kiss me.”
I’d rather bite your ear off.
But biting his ear off would have only convinced him that his mother was the one who had been right. As much as the thought of kissing him repulsed me, I knew my survival and eventual freedom depended on it. Like an animal who chews its own foot off to escape a trap, I was prepared to sacrifice a part of myself to save the whole.
He leaned forward, and his lips met mine. My arms were behind me now, pulled backward by the chains. He brought his hands up to my
face, the same hands that had killed his mother only a few short hours before, and caressed my cheeks and neck.
I was floating out of my body again, this time to a beach with a salt breeze in my face and the sun on my back. I didn’t come back until it was over.
“You’re amazing,” he said. “I want to kiss you like that until the day I die.”
Let’s hope that day comes soon.
I struggled to keep my eyes open. I was exhausted from the events of the day, but I stayed awake long after he’d gone upstairs, and his footsteps stopped moving around the cabin. I could rest later. For now, I still had work to do.
I started by carving another line. Then I got to work on the bolt in the wall. I snapped the chain up and down and twisted the links against the bolt in each direction until my arms were too tired to continue. I’d almost given up for the night when the bolt began to wiggle.
It was a tiny movement, so minuscule it was almost imperceptible. I wondered if maybe I was just seeing things. Maybe the days and nights in the basement were playing games in my head. But when I traced my fingers along the base of the bolt, more concrete dust fell away to the floor.
It wasn’t nearly enough wiggle room to pull the bolt free, not even close, but any progress was better than none.
It’s going to take time. And time is the only thing I have.
I told myself I had to keep going. I refused to lose hope, no matter how many murders I might witness or the horrors Travis would inflict upon me. I went to bed that night, curled up between the scratchy blankets, with something almost resembling a smile on my face.
TWENTY-ONE
Travis called it our two-week anniversary. He’d come bouncing down the stairs with a huge smile on his face, boasting about the lasagna he carried and how he’d made the pasta layers from scratch.
“Took me two hours,” he said.
We’d developed something of a routine in the days since he’d killed his mother. He would appear in the late morning with breakfast and return each night with dinner. Often, he’d tell me one of his unusual stories, or we’d play card games together until we ended each night with another kiss. Then when he’d finally gone off to bed, I carved my lines and worked on the bolt.
Tonight was no different. We ate the lasagna, and he told me a story. This time it was about three sisters who each sought a hand in marriage.
“Their father was a successful merchant and wished to attract the best suitors,” he said. “And so he hung a golden ball outside their house as an offer of marriage.
“A passing prince saw the golden ball and married the oldest daughter. So the father hung another ball, and soon thereafter married his second daughter to another prince.
“It was his youngest daughter’s turn, but the father had spent all of his wealth on the first two and had no money left for another golden ball.
“Instead, the youngest daughter was married off to a peasant, a young man who she’d loved since they’d played in the fields together as children. The older sisters looked down on the younger sister’s poverty and refused to be seen with her.
“Many years passed. The oldest sister’s princely husband squandered his fortune before dying in a foreign war. The second sister’s husband lost his money to gambling debts and ran away with another woman, leaving her to face the creditors alone.
“But the youngest daughter’s peasant husband saved his meager earnings and became an even wealthier merchant than her father had been. And even though they had treated her with disdain, she took pity on her older sisters and cared for them in their old age. She and her husband lived happily ever after because their marriage had been one of true love.”
I scraped at the remaining lasagna on my plate and wondered if anyone was even still looking for me. I was a criminal as far as they were concerned—just another mugshot on a wanted list.
“Do you love me, Spencer? Do you really love me?”
“Huh?” I had been too lost in thought to consider his question or how it might relate to the story.
“Were you even paying attention?”
“I’m sorry, Travis. It was a really wonderful story.”
His face turned sour. “Sometimes, I don’t think you really love me. I can feel it when we kiss. You never look me in the eyes. It’s like you go somewhere else.”
It had been a mistake, not paying attention. “I love you, Travis. I promise.”
“You’re lying!” He flipped the plate from my hands, and it smashed to pieces on the floor. “I worked so hard on the lasagna, and now it’s ruined. You ruined our anniversary. Maybe mama was right. Maybe you’ve been lying all along.”
I’d seen him flip from hot to cold before and knew how dangerous it could be. His emotions were getting out of hand, and I had to think fast before things got any worse.
He jumped to his feet and paced back and forth. “It’s Stockholm syndrome. I saw a television show about it once.”
“Stockholm what?”
“Stockholm syndrome. It’s when hostages or captives develop feelings of sympathy and sometimes even love for their captors. But it’s not real, Spencer.” His face turned red, and he started to cry. “None of this is real.”
I’m losing him.
I’d worked too hard to build up his trust. If I lost it now, it could take weeks or even months to get it back. And I needed his trust if my plans for escape had any chance of working.
It’s time. I can’t wait any longer.
“Come here,” I said, opening my arms wide. “Let me show you how I love you.”
He collapsed into my arms, and I pulled him closer. His body trembled as I held his crying face against my breast the way a mother cradles a child.
“Quiet now,” I said. “It’s okay, Travis. Everything is going to be okay.”
“Don’t ever leave me, Spencer.”
“No, I won’t ever leave you.”
I held him until he stopped trembling, then I lifted his face from my breast and stroked his cheek. My hand followed his neck down to his shirt and began to open the buttons.
He reached up to stop me. “Spencer—”
“Don’t you want it?”
“Yes,” he said. “I want it.”
I finished with the buttons and moved down to his pants. He was already hard.
We went to the floor together. His hot breath warmed my skin as I unbuttoned my own pants and slid them down around my knees.
And then he was inside me. I was tempted to float away, back to my spot near the ceiling where I could watch what was happening instead of living it. But I forced myself to remain present. I had to be ready when the moment finally came.
He moaned my name.
“Yes, baby?”
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
His muscles tensed, and his breathing quickened. It was almost time. Time to end this nightmare.
My fingers found a piece of the broken plate and wrapped themselves around it. I aimed for his neck and swung as hard as I could.
Missed.
The shard buried itself deep into his upper arm, the same one I’d stabbed in the shoulder with the knife. Travis pulled back and cried out in pain.
But I didn’t wait. I raised my hands above my head and pulled at the chains around my wrists. The bolt came free of the wall with a glorious pop.
Travis was too busy pulling the shard from his arm to notice me roll behind him. I came up with the chain in both hands and wrapped it around his neck.
He struggled against my grip, but I held tight. It was a fight only one of us would win, and I’d already decided the winner would be me.
Little by little, he weakened. He, too, grabbed a broken piece of the plate and swung at me. But it was a wild swing, and he missed.
I pulled the chain harder until his face turned blue. My hands were bleeding, but it didn’t matter. The adrenaline surged through me, and I hardly noticed the pain.
He made one last attempt to br
eak free, the pathetic efforts of a sad and dying man. Then the fight left him, and his body went completely limp.
Quick. Find the keys.
I didn’t want to touch him. He was so ugly lying there with his naked midsection, exposed as the monster that he really was. But I dug through his pockets until I found the key to the shackles.
Steady. Breathe.
My hands shook so hard I dropped the key once or twice, but in another minute, my ankles were free. Then I raced up the stairs in search of the wrench he’d used to tighten the cuffs that still hung from my wrists.
I tore apart every cabinet and cupboard in the kitchen. There were knives and screwdrivers and the bottle opener he’d used the night we drank the wine, but no wrench.
There wasn’t much in the living room besides the old sofa, so I moved to the back of the cabin, to the room I’d never seen in my time upstairs. It was his bedroom.
By all accounts, it was ordinary. A bed with neatly tucked sheets. A dresser. I pulled the drawers apart in my search for the wrench, but they held nothing but folded pants and rolled pairs of socks.
The closet door creaked as I swung it open. Shirts hung in a tidy row. I rifled through them, then felt my hand along the top shelf until I found a box.
Inside were Polaroid pictures of sleeping girls, chained up in the basement the same as I had been. I counted three, no four, separate faces, and wondered how many girls had died alone in his dungeon. How many families had cried themselves to sleep at night wondering what had happened to their daughters?
As cruel as it might have been, I had no time for sympathy. That would come later. I returned the box to the shelf and continued my search for the wrench.
Maybe it’s in the basement.
I tiptoed back to the basement door and peered down the stairs. I didn’t want to go back down there, not after everything I’d been through. But I needed the wrench to free myself of the chains. I had to be brave.
My foot found the first step. Then the second.
My eyes moved to the corner where I’d killed him and left his body to rot. It was empty. Travis was gone.
