Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A tale of Atomic Love

by Yardley, Mercedes M.

  He busied himself cleaning out the bowl. Pulling the girl’s hair back and tying it with a rubber band, just in case. Checking to make sure the metal chair was firmly fastened in place so it didn’t move, that she was breathing easily. He’d had one suffocate before. What a shame. Such a loss. He’d cursed for days after that one. Had to find another right away to stuff food into the hunger. Much sooner than he had planned, of course. It had been dangerous, and close. Too close.

  He climbed to the front of the semi, hopped behind the wheel, and started the truck.

  He drove down the road, past the turn-off the girl usually took to get to her house. A small thing, neat on the outside, thanks to her. He had watched her scrubbing and weeding and painting the trim. Mowing the lawn in a pair of men’s shorts and a white tank top. The boyfriend was never outside unless he was coming or going, a posse of men or women hanging around him.

  Lu wondered what the house looked like now. Destitute. Empty. Maybe it mourned for her, in a way. Knew she was leaving a hole that would never be filled. Wondered if it had cried when she left, knowing deep in its eaves she wouldn’t return. Lu felt vaguely sorry for it, but not for long. You can’t do what he does and give in to the weakness of sympathy.

  He continued on, leaving her house, her boyfriend, and everything else that had any meaning to the girl behind.

  ~

  Montessa woke up somewhere in Idaho, but she didn’t know this, of course. She just knew she was stiff and hurting from being tethered to the chair. Her head was feeling a bit better, and the nausea was mostly gone, but she was thirsty. The hood made it hard to breathe. She tried to breathe shallowly, but she still inhaled the thin, dark fabric. It still fought its way into her mouth, wanting to coat her throat and airways with lint and thread and darkness.

  Her breath started to come fast. She fought to slow it.

  She squirmed against the ropes, uncomfortably. Testing. Feeling. The knots were tied firmly. Her ankles were sore and raw. She still wore one shoe, and the other missing sneaker shot that strange hypodermic needle of sadness through her again. A container of sorrows. She kicked the remaining one off, wiggled her toes. Better to lose both than to be constantly reminded of the one. She had learned about loss early. Learned about moving on, as much as you could.

  “Doing okay back there?”

  His voice was muffled, but still strangely melodious.

  “I need to use the restroom.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “And I really need a drink of water, if you have one.”

  “Quite the demanding princess, aren’t you?”

  She didn’t say anything else. Just tipped her head back, willing her eyes to somehow see through the black fabric. She swallowed hard, tried to keep the panic and despair down.

  They rumbled to a stop. She felt it, the gravel underneath wheels.

  She heard him clamber toward her. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, nipped it hard enough to draw blood. Concentrate on that, Montessa, she told herself. Instead of wondering who the man was. What he had in his hands. Wondering if death was as peaceful as liars always said, or if it was gushing and bleeding and limbs drumming a sporadic rhythm on the ground as the last neurons fired. She bit her lip again, otherwise her screams would force their way out of her belly and throat and she would shriek both of them into oblivion.

  “I’m going to untie your feet so you can use the coffee can. I’ll have my knife to your throat. Try anything and I’ll kill you.”

  “You’re going to kill me anyway, right? Why should this deter me?”

  “If you want to be stuck like a pig while taking a piss, be my guest. It seems like a cheap way to go.”

  “I won’t try anything. I just…please hurry.”

  She felt his hands on her ankles, felt the tension of the ropes release.

  “Don’t kick me.”

  “I already told you I won’t.”

  His hands around her waist, her shoulders. The ropes fell away. He yanked the hood off, pulled her awkwardly to her feet, and she groaned at her stiffness.

  “My hands?”

  “They stay tied. I’ll pull your pants down for you.”

  “I…”

  “Relax. This isn’t my thing. Don’t worry that I’ll be getting off on it. I certainly won’t.”

  She thought she should be ashamed. That there should be a stab of humiliation, but there wasn’t. It wasn’t any different than being a stripper. Any different than being used by Renan. And using the restroom was a relief.

  “Thank you,” she said after he yanked her pants back up.

  “You’re exceptionally polite.”

  “For a kidnapped girl?”

  “For anyone.”

  He led her back to the chair, and she balked.

  “I’m sorry. Could I stand for just a little bit longer? Even a minute or two?”

  “Think you’re in a position to ask for favors?”

  “Mama taught me it never hurts to ask.”

  She looked him in the eyes, then. An earthy brown, exotic, so dark that they almost seemed black. Pinpoints of light in them, fire at the corners. Her breath caught.

  “I scare you.”

  It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. He knew it. Knew it deep in his bones the way he knew he was a murderer. The way he knew he was meant to be a lover to somebody, meant to go down in flames.

  She swallowed hard.

  “Your eyes.”

  “What about them?”

  She was going to discuss her fear. Tell him about his blackness, how he chills her. He’s heard it before. A hundred times by now, at least. He felt his shoulders draw in, and this angered him. He straightened, gritted his teeth together. Who has the knife, huh, he thought. Who is in charge here?

  “You are,” she said, “but that wasn’t what I was going to say. Your eyes have a fire inside of them. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I just…that sounds silly.”

  She sat down, rearranged her arms behind her so her bound wrists were as comfortable as they could get.

  “You can tie me up again. I just wanted to move around a little bit, that’s all. But I can see you’re stressed and would like to get going.”

  Lu stared at her. Stared at her eyes, pupils not matching each other, and her matted hair and the curves of her lips. He saw the dried blood on her head and down her throat, the angry wounds that caused them. He bound her body too tightly to the chair and pulled the hood down roughly over her head.

  He crawled back to the driver’s seat and started the truck. Turned the music up. Way up. So he didn’t have to hear her trying to calm her breathing in the back of the cab.

  Night came. He filled up at a gas station and grabbed some hot dogs and Cokes from inside. Drove a good hour away from there and then let her use the bathroom again. The sigh of relief she breathed when he yanked the hood off, it hurt him somehow. This made him angry. He tried hard to sound benevolent.

  “I have some food. Hungry?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “What will you give me for it?”

  It was a cruel joke, but one that he often played. This was where they begged. Offered him everything. Their body, their money, anything they had on them. This was when wedding rings came off and dignity peeled from their souls like the clothes from their bodies.

  Then Lu laughed. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was entertaining to see how much they were willing to give. How little things like faith and honor and trust really meant when their body was on the line.

  Montessa looked at him.

  “For a gas station hot dog? I can sing. Would you like me to sing?”

  Lu started.

  “Sing?”

  “A song. Do you like songs?”

  He didn’t know what to say. He sat down on the little bed beside her.

  “Nobody has offered me a song before.”

  “Do you want anything in particular, or should I choose?”

  He unwrapped one
of the hotdogs, took a bite. He watched her eyes follow it greedily.

  “You choose.”

  She closed her eyes. Lu noticed that that one eyelid was still slightly darkened from earlier bruises. Her coward boyfriend, beating on a little girl.

  He turned his face away and took another bite. It didn’t matter. None of this mattered.

  She opened her mouth and began to sing. What he expected, he wasn’t sure, but this sure wasn’t it. Something soft and sweet and slow. Something that reminded him of being a child, if being a child had been somewhat pleasant. Which it wasn’t.

  He wanted to slap her mouth silent, wanted to watch her lip split. He wanted her to sing forever. He realized he had squished the hotdog in his hands, and that his fingers had curled into fists and were shaking.

  “Stop it,” he said, and she stopped. Just like that. A woman used to doing what she was told.

  He threw her hotdog on the ground. She looked at it, then up at him.

  “If it wasn’t what you wanted, then you should have said so.”

  Her voice was calm. Lu felt knocked off kilter. Shouldn’t she be begging by now?

  “Nobody sings when they should be pleading for their life.”

  She blinked her haunting eyes.

  “What should I have been doing, then?”

  He snorted.

  “Most women offer me their body right away.”

  “I’m not most women.”

  He squatted down, picked up the hot dog. Peeled the foil back.

  “I know. Your mama told you that you were a little princess.”

  He held it out to her. She took a bite, spoke with a full mouth.

  “No, I said she told me I was special. There’s a world of difference.”

  Then she was eating, and the hot dog was gone faster than he expected. He had the feeling she would have licked the juice from his fingers if he would have let her. Again, that feeling of something almost like sympathy. Again, he pushed it away.

  “Thirsty?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I got a Coke.”

  “Do you have Diet?”

  He started to laugh then, a sound that filled the dark cab, and it made her face hot and turned her stomach to ice at the same time.

  “What, you’re worried you’re going to get fat? Put on a little weight while strapped to that chair?”

  Her cheeks warmed.

  “I guess…you’re right. What a silly thing to worry about. Got any chocolate while you’re at it?”

  She was joking. She was actually sitting there in restraints, trussed up in the tractor of a truck, and she was joking.

  “Balls of brass,” he said, and opened her drink. He slipped a straw in and held it for her. She drained the can quickly, so quickly, and he realized she was probably thirsty, that she had probably been thirsty after her night of dancing, that she had probably been looking forward to a long drink when she got home, but he had robbed her of that. For the first time, he felt something close to shame.

  “Thank you,” she said, and shifted uncomfortably on the chair.

  Lu slammed the drink down.

  “Stop thanking me. I’m not a nice guy.”

  “But I…what do you want me to say instead?”

  He stood up.

  “Stop asking me that! Like you’re some good, obedient pet, or something. It’s disgusting. You disgust me.”

  She was quiet, swallowed and dropped her head, but not before he saw the shine of tears in her eyes.

  Finally. She was going to act like a real victim.

  “Want to know what’s going to happen to you?”

  This was it, his speech. His Time to Tell. He reveled in this, in explaining long and slow why each girl had been chosen, what their future was going to be.

  “You’re going to kill me. With what? Your knife? You seem to like that knife.”

  Lu frowned.

  “I do like my knife. But I don’t always use the knife, you see. There are other ways.”

  “Whatever you hit me with.”

  “The wrench. Sometimes, yes. But not usually.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  He smiled. Dark. Predatory.

  “Because I want to.”

  Because I can. Because I’m a god in here. Nobody thinks less of me.

  “They don’t think that of you, anyway.”

  He snorted. “Isn’t this where you tell me that I don’t have to do this?”

  She shrugged as well as she could in the chair.

  “I don’t think it would make a difference.”

  “You could try it.”

  She looked him in the eyes.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He tugged the hood back over her head. He imagined he saw her haunting eyes, her tears through the fabric, but of course it was impossible.

  He didn’t talk to her again until they were in Northern California.

  “Hey. Desert Girl. Ever see the ocean?”

  She started. She’d been asleep.

  “What?”

  “The ocean. Ever see it?”

  “No. I always wanted to, but never got out that way.”

  “Then I have a surprise for you.”

  He grabbed her, dragged her roughly forward. She made a sound in her throat, something high and afraid and thrilling. He sat her in the passenger seat of his cab, used a padlock to fasten her bound wrists to the door handle. He pulled the hood from her head, her hair mussed, and left her blinking in the cloudy sunshine.

  “Close your eyes,” he said.

  She obeyed. He opened his window, the fresh air rolling in. She turned her face to it.

  “Smell that.”

  She smiled then, an innocent thing, a smile of pure joy. It hurt Lu’s heart that he had to be the one to witness it. He wished it was anybody else. Could be anybody else.

  “It smells just like I always imagined it would.”

  Color came to her cheeks, just a little.

  “You can open your eyes now.”

  Her large, liquid eyes sprang open, and the breath she took sounded too close, too intimate, and Lu, who was used to seeing blood and viscera and the most hidden and secret of things, blushed and looked away.

  “It’s as beautiful as I had always hoped.”

  Rocky. Blue, with white foam. The water churned and pulsed far below them. Montessa pulled herself as far forward as her bound hands allowed.

  “Do you ever let people go out there?”

  He looked at her.

  “What?”

  “People. Girls. Your bodies. Do you ever…in the ocean?”

  “Sometimes.”

  She watched the water with something exquisitely close to hope.

  “Would you possibly consider…”

  “Disposing of you in the ocean?”

  The color that came so recently to her face fled.

  “I don’t like it when you put it that way.”

  “It is what it is, sweetheart.”

  “Why?” she asked, her eyes still on the sea. “Why do you have to make everything so horrible? Even if it has to be, why would you say it in such an awful way?”

  Lu shrugged. Leaned back in his seat and put a cigarette into his mouth.

  “Why sugarcoat it? Doesn’t change anything, does it?”

  The cigarette began to burn.

  “This just doesn’t seem like you,” she said.

  He laughed around his cigarette.

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “I know a lot more about you than you think.” She turned to face him then, and her skin was pulled too tight across her face. He wondered briefly if he should feed her more. Probably. Not that it mattered. Not for much longer, anyway.

  “So how long do I have?”

  He closed his eyes.

  “How come you always seem to know what I’m thinking?”

  “How long?”

  He sucked in hard,
held the air in his lungs. Felt the burn from the inside out, but in a different way than he usually burned.

  “A few days, maybe. Until I get tired of you.”

  “Well, sure.”

  He opened one eye, studied her.

  “Why sound bitter all of a sudden?”

  She turned to him, all skin and bones and rage in a tiny little package.

  “Who says you get to decide, huh? Maybe it’ll be all over when I get tired of you.”

  His cigarette flared, erupted, fire spurting from the end and running up its length. He cursed and tossed it out his window. Opened his door, jumped down, and stamped it out. Cursed again. Stared at the girl bound in his passenger seat. She was staring right back.

  Lu felt his heart do a strange thing. It hurt. It opened. It beat.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The meathead bouncer saw Montessa leave that night, but he didn’t see where she went. Assumed she walked home, if she didn’t have a ride. She’d been walking home a lot lately.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Renan demanded. His voice was hot and dangerous, his eyes narrowed to slits. He took his aggression and turned it on high.

  “Nothing. It just means that she’s been walking home a lot lately. What’s with the attitude, man?”

  “You didn’t see nobody pick her up or nothin’?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  Renan ran his hand over his hair.

  “She’ll be so sorry for this.”

  “She could be in trouble. This doesn’t seem like her.”

  Renan glared at the meathead.

  “And just how do you know anything about her, huh? Not supposed to talk to the girls, are you? Not supposed to talk to my girl.”

  The bouncer stepped forward.

  “Then maybe you should take care of your girl, huh? Keep an eye out for her.”

  “What was that?”

  “You heard me.”

  Renan left with his anger burning slow. Didn’t come home. Didn’t get any food. Didn’t call, nothing. She had a phone, right? Didn’t pick it up. That’s not what a good girl does.

  That’s what a girl does when she needs to be punished. He just had to find her first.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It seemed a shame to be so close to the sea and not to dabble in it just a little. There was nowhere Lu liked better. Sometimes he thought he’d been born of the sea, a Boy of Sorrows, and one day he’d simply walk back into the waves and disappear.