Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road

by Keene, Brian

  Except that, in Zito’s experience, real life didn’t work like that.

  What the hell was wrong with him? He hadn’t even gotten a good look at the woman—just a vague half-glimpse through the gap in the curtains. Enough to intrigue him, but certainly not an eyeful. But now that he thought about it some more, Zito realized the urge had hit him even before he saw the woman. He’d begun feeling horny—unreasonably aroused—upon seeing the house. And now that he was driving away, the sensation lessened again.

  Sighing, he found a service road in a nearby stretch of forest and turned the truck around, intent on heading back home. He’d tell Benny the house wasn’t abandoned after all, and they’d have to find another place to steal from. But as he passed the house again, the aroused feeling returned. His erection strained against the fabric of his jeans.

  Groaning, Zito slowed down and then coasted to a stop directly in front of the home. He surveyed the exterior and his gaze was drawn upward. Had he just seen a flash of movement from the attic window? Maybe it was the woman, watching him, and wishing he’d come in.

  He turned the truck around yet again and returned to the service road. Then he pulled into the forest so the truck wouldn’t be seen from the main road. The tires crunched over fallen leaves and branches. It wasn’t until he reached for the keys in the ignition that he realized he’d been gripping the steering wheel hard enough for his knuckles to turn white. He turned the truck off, pocketed the keys, and after taking a deep breath, got out of the cab. He quietly closed the door, cautious even though there didn’t seem to be anyone around who would hear him.

  Zito trembled as he walked back toward the house, nearly overwhelmed by a mix of excitement and fear. Each step brought him closer to the home, and his cock throbbed in time with his footsteps. The sensation both thrilled and disturbed him. Zito was surprised to find himself salivating.

  ***

  Arrianne decided to take a bath rather than a shower. One of the things she’d most been looking forward to since moving into their new home was the luxurious spa-styled bathtub in the master bathroom, with its ornate fittings and plenty of room to stretch out and relax, but between unpacking and the problems with the chipmunks and all the other distractions that had risen from the move, she hadn’t yet had a chance to try it out.

  Steam rose as the tub filled. Humming, she poured a generous amount of lavender-scented bubble bath and then lit some similarly fragrant votive candles and sat them around the tub’s edge and on the sink. Then she lowered the lights until the bathroom was illuminated only by the flickering flames, their reflections dancing in the large mirror over the sink. Arrianne paused, considering whether to turn on some music but then decided against it. Her phone, on which she kept her downloaded music, was downstairs in the kitchen, and she didn’t feel like retrieving it. The water simply looked too inviting. She turned the faucets off and tested the water’s temperature. It was perfect. Sighing, she eased herself into the tub and leaned back until only her head was above the water. Then she closed her eyes and smiled.

  Her thoughts drifted, focusing at first on Chuck and then on all the things she had to do, like calling the IT specialist. And there was still the problem of the chipmunks to deal with, and whatever it was that had been skittering around in the attic. Then her thoughts turned briefly to Teddy, but she forced herself to think of something else, determined not to let that grim memory lead to sadness and ruin this bath—something she’d been looking forward to. Teddy was gone. She’d grieved, but now she told herself it was time to put that grief aside and move on with life. As Chuck had said before leaving, maybe it was time to get a dog.

  She tried again to relax, replaying her and Chuck’s previous sexual encounter in her mind. Slowly her fingers found her sex beneath the water. She was tender from her earlier explorations on the couch, but soon the soreness was forgotten, overridden by waves of bliss. When she’d finished, Arrianne had forgotten all about Teddy, and the chipmunks, and the strange porn on her husband’s computer. Exhausted, completely relaxed, and relishing the womb-like feel of the water enveloping her, she watched the candles flicker until she drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  Zito glanced around nervously as he hurried up the driveway. His emotions were still hopelessly conflicted—lust and fear, desire for the woman, and disgust with himself. Deep down inside he desperately hoped a car would come along. If he was spotted, then he would have no choice but to call the whole thing off and return to the truck. But the road remained empty, and there were no other houses close enough that a nosy neighbor would see him. He was alone out here.

  And so was the woman inside the house.

  No witnesses.

  Zito didn’t find any piles of dog shit in the yard. Nor were there signs of digging or patches of yellowed grass that would indicate a dog had been pissing there. Zito took a deep breath. His feet felt like bags of wet cement. As he plodded up the steps, his heart throbbed furiously. There were no obvious signs of an alarm system or security cameras. With one trembling hand, he reached out and tried the doorknob. It turned easily. Unlocked.

  Okay, he thought. Now what? You’re not a rapist. I mean, you’ve done some bad things in life, especially lately, but rape? No … not rape. But I could just peek inside real quick. If I get caught, I can make up a story—rush out of there. And maybe … maybe she won’t want me to leave.

  He knew his thought process was irrational—especially the last part, but the compulsion was too strong. He couldn’t not turn the door handle, and as he did, his stomach acid churned with a sickening mix of excitement and fear. Then he edged the door open and listened. The house was silent. He opened the door further, looked inside, and saw an empty foyer leading into a living room.

  Holding his breath, Zito stepped into the foyer and carefully closed the door until it clicked. Then he stood still, listening and waiting. The house remained still. No barking dog, no voices, no music or television or anything else. An urge came over him to call out a greeting and was quickly followed by an even stronger urge to laugh, but he suppressed both, as well as the compulsion to turn around and leave before he got himself any deeper.

  Instead, he moved farther into the home, compelled by some base desire that he did not understand and could not control.

  He cautiously explored the first floor and found it deserted. Pulse hammering, Zito licked his lips and crept up the stairs to the second floor. When he reached the landing above, he heard a thumping sound over his head. He froze, senses hyperaware, and the sound came again.

  The third floor, he thought. She’s on the third floor.

  Without pausing to explore the second floor, he tiptoed past the open doors of several bedrooms and a closed door that he assumed must lead to a master bathroom, until he reached the end of the hall. The sounds from above grew more insistent. Zito glanced upward and found a string dangling from a trapdoor in the ceiling. He realized that what he’d assumed was a third floor was actually an attic.

  Grinning, he reached for the string. He didn’t pause to consider how the woman could be up in the attic if the trapdoor was closed. His desire overrode all caution and logic. His loins ached. His body felt tense and electric. He pulled the string and the trapdoor sprang open, releasing a hinged wooden stepladder. Someone had obviously recently oiled the hardware, as neither the door nor the stairs made any sound. The thumping and rustling sounds were louder now, beckoning him upward. Without hesitation, Zito climbed into the attic.

  It was dark, but after a moment’s fumbling he found a light switch and flicked it on. He spotted haphazard stacks of empty moving boxes and plastic tubs and containers, and a pile of pink fiberglass insulation, but that was all. If the woman he’d seen in the window was up here, she was hiding. He stepped forward, no longer bothering to be quiet.

  Then he cleared his throat. “Hello?” he half-whispered. “Don’t be scared. I—”

  Three things happened at once.

  Something slammed into
Zito from behind, crushing him face first onto the hard wooden floor. His lips mashed against his teeth and he tasted blood.

  The trapdoor whispered shut behind him.

  And the light went out, pitching the attic into darkness again, save for a small sliver of illumination bleeding up through a crack in the floor.

  Zito tried to shout, tried to move, but found that he couldn’t. His muscles seemed frozen. Gripped by some invisible force, he struggled futilely to get away. He felt a presence hovering over him, but he couldn’t turn his head to see who it was. He concentrated all his will but couldn’t even grit his teeth. All he could manage was a brief twitch of his fingers. More blood filled his mouth. Zito wanted to retch, but he couldn’t even do that.

  A terrible smell engulfed the attic. Despite the strange paralysis, his stomach muscles convulsed and his breath hitched at the stench. When they were kids, Zito and his buddies used to find dead animals along the side of the road and stuff firecrackers inside the rotting corpses. Then they’d light the fuse, cackling with glee and revulsion as the already splattered road kill got even messier. This smell reminded him of that.

  The presence loomed over him, and the air itself felt heavier. Then something plunked down onto the floor next to his head. Zito managed to flick his eyes to the left and glimpsed a box. In the dim sliver of light, he could only read a portion of the carton’s lettering—Boroscopic Conduit Inspection System. Then he noticed that one end of the box was open, the flaps clearly bent back. Whatever a Boroscopic Conduit Inspection System was, it had already been removed from the carton.

  Zito tried to scream as two powerful hands seized his hips and yanked him to his knees, but he couldn’t. Nor could he wipe away his tears as something shredded his jeans and underwear from behind. He felt cool air on his buttocks, and then something slimy and bumpy slid across his exposed flesh. Zito wanted to shudder, but his paralysis prevented even that. The slimy sensation vanished but was replaced seconds later as something cold and hard was pressed against his puckered anus.

  Then, there in the darkness, he found out exactly what a Boroscopic Conduit Inspection System was. And while his body couldn’t move, it could feel. Indeed, the paralysis seemed to amplify his sensations.

  Zito prayed for the paralysis to break, prayed for the ability to scream, and then, finally, he simply prayed for death.

  He slipped into shock and then unconsciousness before any of his prayers were answered.

  ***

  When Arrianne woke, the bathwater was cold and the bubbles had dissipated. Shivering, she glanced around. The bathroom was dark. The candles had burned themselves down to sputtering waxy stubs.

  “Jesus,” she murmured. “How long was I asleep?”

  Her fingertips had wrinkled and her joints were stiff. It took her a moment to climb out of the tub. Doing so sent jolts of pain through her muscles. She sat on the edge, curling her cramped toes onto the fluffy green bathmat, and clenched her teeth until the pain subsided. Then she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her shivering body. After wrapping her hair in a second towel, she turned the light on and snuffed the remains of the candles out.

  So much for relaxing in a bubble bath, she thought. Instead of soothing her, she was now uncomfortable and cold. Shrugging, she bent over and opened the drain. The water rushed noisily down the hole.

  Arrianne hurried into the bedroom, finished drying off, and then got dressed. As she slid into her panties, she grew aroused again. Determined not to let herself be distracted, she shoved the urgency aside and headed out into the hall, intent on tackling her to-do list.

  In the kitchen, she noticed the Boroscopic Conduit Inspection System box lying on the counter where Chuck had left it the day before. She made a note to remind him to put it away when he got home. Then she began searching for the phone number for her IT team and forgot all about the unit.

  A single, muffled thump echoed down from the attic. Arrianne stood still, phone in hand, listening, but the sound wasn’t repeated.

  “Focus,” she muttered. “It’s going to be a beautiful day.”

  ***

  Upstairs in the attic, something chuckled softly while Zito’s blood congealed on the floorboards and pink insulation.

  Chapter Five - Brian Keene and Nate Southard

  After placing a call to her IT team and reporting the recent troubles, Arrianne decided to check her Facebook page. She was lonely—and a little apprehensive. This was her first time alone in the house since they’d moved here, and it felt big and empty and too silent without Chuck. Arousal still hovered in the air around her and only amplified her loneliness.

  She opened the app on her phone and posted a status update about falling asleep in the bathtub and how silly she’d felt about it. A few people “liked” the update. A few more commented. She responded to them. Then she checked her husband’s Facebook page. Chuck was a social networking fanatic and regularly posted status updates on both Facebook and Twitter throughout the day. Neither had been updated, which meant he was still traveling.

  Bored, Arrianne scrolled through her news feed, perusing through the updates of friends and family members—mostly complaints about employers or reports on what people were having for lunch or funny pictures of cats, along with a few birthday and anniversary announcements. This only added to her boredom. It seemed like everybody was having a good time except for her. She checked her YouTube app, but nothing caught her interest there. Then she clicked her news app, hoping to find a distraction. Instead, she found Democrats and Republicans arguing with each other about things she didn’t understand—budgets and sequesters and constitutional amendments. Arrianne often wished she could take a larger interest in current events, but every time she tried, she soon found herself overwhelmed with minutia and trivialities. She returned to the Facebook app, but nobody else had commented on her status update.

  Restless, Arrianne’s thoughts turned to Chuck’s suggestion of adopting a dog. She decided to go online and check the websites of some of the local no-kill pet adoption centers. She closed her Facebook app and opened the phone’s web browser. Normally the browser opened to a blank screen, but when Arrianne clicked on it now, what she saw made her gasp.

  Three women with stringy, greasy hair knelt around a metal dog bowl. They wore nothing but faded, threadbare panties, and she noticed bruises and burns all over their sallow skin. Black circles shadowed their emotionless eyes. Their ribs pressed hard against their flesh. Each bone was clearly visible. One of them, maybe a blonde after a good shower and a round of antibiotics, sported a busted lip, blood dried to a tacky mess at the corner of her mouth. Another had a black eye. Somebody had abused these women.

  As Arrianne watched with wide eyes she desperately wanted to shut, the trio of women reached into the dog bowl and scooped up handfuls of a clear, stringy liquid. She couldn’t tell what the substance was, only that it stretched between their hands in thick, sloppy ropes. The women held their hands to each other’s mouth, shoved fingers past lips and teeth. She still couldn’t tell what the liquid might be.

  Then she saw it. At the edge of the screen, a long, thick string of what looked like dog saliva fell from off camera into the dog bowl. Another followed. Her stomach clenched. This was disgusting! What kind of sociopath could possibly get off on something like this?

  The women started slathering the handfuls of saliva all over each other’s faces and breasts. Cheap mascara smeared. One of the girls slapped the blonde across the mouth. She moaned as though she’d never experienced such pleasure. Arrianne watched as the woman leaned back, her eyes lidded with sensation, and started jamming her fingers into her sex. Her movements were fast and almost brutal, as though she were punishing herself instead of masturbating. She started with two fingers and then went to three. By the time she slid a fourth into herself, Arrianne felt hot tears fill her eyes. The phone shook in her trembling hand.

  “Jesus Christ …”

  The blonde had her entire hand up herself no
w. Her wrist jackhammered in and out, and her moans of pleasure became screams of ecstasy. The camera zoomed close. The skin of her wrist was slick with secretions and blood. Then the camera pulled out some, and Arrianne remembered the other two women. One lay on her back. She held a high-heeled shoe in her hands, and the heel disappeared inside her again and again. The other woman kneeled and choked her, knuckles white around her throat.

  Drugs, Arrianne thought. These women are obviously junkies, and this is what they have to do to get cash for their jollies. She wanted to be sad, but revulsion was the only emotion she could muster.

  The video paused as the connection slowed. Arrianne considered closing the app, but before she could, it started again.

  The woman doing the choking began to hitch. Her entire body quaked, and a gagging choke clucked out of her throat as her mouth dropped open. Arrianne knew the sound and what it meant, and she frantically punched her phone’s power button, trying to shut everything down before she could see the act. Nothing happened. Her phone ignored her, and a thin squeal rushed past her lips as the woman on the screen bent forward and vomited onto her writhing partner.

  Panicking, Arrianne rushed to the couch and shoved her phone under the cushions. Though muffled, she could still hear the wet, gagging sounds coming from the device. She stared in horror, wishing she was deaf. What was happening? Could it be some sort of computer virus, infecting not only their home computers but now her phone as well? She thought about calling the IT professionals back, but the noises coming from beneath the couch cushions changed her mind. She didn’t want to be anywhere near her phone.