I lie down on my side at least a body’s length away from Marcus to keep my distance while I go to sleep. I don’t feel cold, but I must have been shivering because he moves closer to me and drapes his dried shirt over my arms. Even though he’s not touching me, I can feel him, the energy and warmth pulsating between us. It’s electrical. I picture his bare chest, inches from my back, sculpted to perfection like an ancient marble statue of a perfectly chiseled god. Goosebumps rise up over my skin. My breathing falters and for a moment I can’t swallow, hard as I may try. I force my thoughts to turn to Glenn. The polar opposite of Marcus. Deep, coffee brown hair, short and cropped. Clean shaven face with thick, manicured eyebrows. Well dressed and short tempered. Outspoken and egotistical, yet clever with words.
We went camping at Mount Baerstynn a couple years ago. I told my parents I was going camping with a group of girlfriends from school, since they would never let me go alone with Glenn. We hadn’t seen each other all summer and just wanted some time to ourselves. It was there that I lost my virginity. It sounds more romantic than it really was. The truth is we had gotten into a major fight at the gas station when some guy hit on me while I was in the convenience store getting snacks. Glenn was watching from the pump the whole time and when I got back to the car, he was furious.
“What was that all about?” He glared at me.
“What?” I asked. I knew what he was referring to, but it really wasn’t the big deal he was making it out to be and I didn’t want to feed his anger by acknowledging it.
“Oh, I see. You two are planning a secret rendezvous tonight, eh?” Glenn pressed the gas pedal, which threw me back into the seat.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Glenn,” I said. “That guy was just asking directions. I told him we’re from out of town and that’s it. You’re making a big deal out of nothing.” I grasp the handle on the door as Glenn speeds up even more.
“Pollen, I saw him checking you out before he even approached you,” said Glenn, his eyebrows crinkled in fury.
“Slow down.” I said glaring back at Glenn. We were beginning to ascend the mountain on a twisting, winding road. “So it’s my fault he was looking at me?”
“No. But you didn’t have to flirt with him when he spoke to you.”
“I wasn’t flirting,” I said. “Glenn, please slow down. You’re scaring me.” But he didn’t slow down. He pressed down on the gas and zoomed past a car ahead of us. I looked down at the steep drop off next to the non-existent shoulder of the road. Part of me was uncertain whether I would see tomorrow, the way he was driving.
“I saw the way you smiled at him,” said Glenn, his hands clenched, knuckles protruding into his stretched skin, on the steering wheel.
“Yeah, I was smiling. So what? I smile at everybody. Glenn, slow down!”
Before the last syllable left my mouth, the ominous whining of sirens filled the mountainside. Glenn said nothing as he slowed down to pull over, but I could see the fire in his eyes. The cop gave him a ticket for speeding and for not fastening his seatbelt. I was worried he’d be arrested for disorderly conduct, but he managed to maintain composure. After all, he was angry with me, not the cop.
We drove the rest of the way in silence, the tension so thick I could barely move. When we arrived at the campground an hour later Glenn apologized for being a dick. I apologized for, well, smiling. But if that’s what it took to keep the peace, I was willing to do it. The rest of the weekend was dreamy and I quickly forgot about our little spat. We hardly left the tent, except for the last night, when I wanted to sleep under the stars.
I look up at the sky one last time before falling asleep. There’s a dusty haze blanketing the night sky, causing the stars to look blurry. The sky was clear as a freshly polished window that night with Glenn. But recently this murky haze has been taking up residence in the sky and my life itself seems to be falling into a dark hole with little chance of escape. I just want to go home.
Chapter 6
I carefully twist my body over to my back, not wanting to wake Marcus if he is too close to me. But he is not there. The sun hasn’t quite lifted over the horizon yet and it’s still somewhat dark in the cerulean dawn, but I scan the area and, sure enough, Marcus is gone. But his shirt is still here, draped over my shoulder. Where did he go? He was in so much pain last night; he couldn’t have wandered off. Oh god, what if he was taken? Dragged out of here by one of those mountain men. But why would they leave me?
I search the area looking for any evidence of foul play, but there is none. My pack is next to me, where I left it last night. I grab it and stand up, looking further away for any signs of life. I still don’t see Marcus anywhere.
Panicked, I race around our campsite in a spiral pattern, moving further away in each rotation, calling out his name, but not too loudly, “Marcus!” And again, “Marcus!” Even a whisper sounds too loud out here in the early hours of the morning, so quiet and still. I swear every step I take sends echoes throughout the forest.
The humidity this morning is stifling; this is definitely not a good day for a leisurely run. Sweat is dripping down my face and my breathing has turned rapid. There’s a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. My throat begins to swell and my mouth goes very dry. I double over and before I know it, last night’s nuts and greens are all over the ground. That’s when I hear a rustle in the bushes behind me. I spin around and my heart stops for a brief moment.
“Marcus, what are you doing out here?! You shouldn’t be walking on that leg!” I attempt to scream in a whisper.
“It’s much better,” says Marcus. “See?” He pulls apart the gaping hole in his jeans and all I can see is the stitching with a tiny bit of pink skin. He smiles at me, “I had a great nurse. Besides I needed to, well, nature calls…”
“Right,” I start, looking down at the ground to avoid staring at his ripped chest. Of course. Hot guys need to use the bathroom, too. My cheeks flush as I imagine how ridiculous he must think I am. I tug my earlobe nervously. “Sorry. You shouldn’t have gone so far. I was just worried.”
Marcus leans over and looks at the ground behind me. “Yeah, I can see that. Might want to wash that down.” I pull out the canteen and finish off the water. I feel embarrassed. Not just about vomiting, but I just drank the last of the water without even offering any to Marcus. And now nature is calling me.
“The river isn’t too far from here. I’ll go refill the canteen,” I say.
“I’ll come along,” he says.
“No, I’ll be okay. Anyway, I need some, um, private time,” I respond, turning to leave. A few steps forward and I realize I’m still holding his shirt. “Oh, I forgot, here,” I say, handing him the shirt, still averting my eyes as if my humility is flashing bright neon lights through them.
Marcus smiles, “Thanks, I’ll be waiting over at the camp. We’ll move on when you get back. I have a good feeling we’ll hit civilization today.” I can feel the warmth of his gaze tingling on my back as I walk away, and I force myself to shrug off the idea that he’s feeling something for me. Glenn is waiting for me.
As I near the falls where Marcus and I jumped, my footsteps become slower and more discrete, like a cat sneaking up on its prey. I hide behind a tree scanning the area to make sure nobody is around. After about five minutes of observation I slowly make my way to the water, keeping my head up and alert. I know I won’t be able to hear anything over the gushing falls, so I’m constantly scanning the area, only taking quick glances at the canteen every now and then. I fill the canteen completely first, then drink some water with my cupped hands. “Not too much,” I tell myself. My bladder can only hold so much and it’s already feeling like a dam ready to burst.
On the way back I find a cozy nook in between three trees and some shrubs. It feels so good to squat down and relieve myself. I swear it’s one of the most euphoric feelings a human can have, to empty one’s bladder completely. I relish the moment, closing my eyes and taking a deep, relaxing breath.
When I open them I see something I hadn’t expected. It’s an infinity fly hovering right before my face. The same infinity fly that is tattooed on my temple. The scientific name for it is B4K-92, but it was nicknamed the infinity fly for its uncanny ability to survive. Gardeners hate them because they lay their eggs in the stems of plants and when the eggs hatch, the larvae suck the nutrients out of plants, which cause them to shrivel up and die. They’ve developed resistance to every pesticide on the market. Every time the biochemical companies produce a new pesticide that will kill them, farmers go crazy spraying it over everything. It doesn’t take long for the infinity fly to rise from the ashes, more invincible as ever.
The infinity fly lands on a leaf and it almost looks as if it is staring at me with its bulbous opalescent eyes. In that brief few seconds I spend watching the bug, life feels normal again.
I stand, adjust my clothing and prepare to take off to find Marcus when I hear that familiar rustling of the leaves. The blood rushes to my cheeks when I get the sensation I’m being watched.
“Damn it, Marcus I told you I needed private time!” I turn around and my body is paralyzed. Standing before me is that tall burly sideburn guy that tried to kill me before. Victor is pointing a shotgun directly between my eyes. I escaped death three times yesterday, but nothing can prepare you for the sight of a double barrel positioned right in front of your eyes with a man’s twitchy finger resting on the trigger. Looking down the long dark cylinders of the shaft may be the last thing I see before I die.
“Hey, perdy girl,” says Victor sneering behind his gun. Slowly, I back up until I am against the trunk of a tree. I suppose I never would have noticed it before since I’ve never seen him up close, be he has some kind of a tattoo on the white of his right eye. It’s shaped like a triangle with a dot in the center. Victor brushes the barrel of his gun against my cheek. Then down my neck. Then he traces the outline of my breast and waist, groping me with his gun and gawking in a way that makes me feel dirty and molested. My heavy breathing does nothing but draw more attention to my chest, where his eyes rest.
“Too bad your boyfriend ain’t here to rescue you this time,” says Victor in a methodical, disturbing tone. “Earl and Ned are taking care of him right now.” He jabs the barrel under my shirt and begins to lift it up. The icy cold barrel sends a shiver up my spine, so different from the one I felt last night with Marcus. I’m terrified right now, yet something burns inside me and somehow I know I’ll be okay. I consider running. The woods are pretty dense here; I could avoid the shotgun’s pellets. I figure I have a good shot at getting away again. Unfortunately, my time to consider this dashing exit has run out.
Victor grabs my shoulder and throws me down on the dirt face first. I can’t help but let out a gasp at the strength he uses as he squeezes me. Before I have time to react my wrists are bound together tightly with a tattered old, spiky rope that itches my skin and irritates the healing scratches from yesterday. Then he just sits, straddled across the back of my thighs, for a while. Minutes pass. His gaze penetrates my skin, like red-hot laser beams. I can only imagine what he’s doing back there, but I don’t want to. Then he sniffs and I feel his breath against my lower back. He’s smelling me. His breath moves higher and higher until it is just behind my neck. Now I’m really scared, not for my life, but for what kind of freaky fetish this guy might have that I may be forced to comply with.
Although I expect him to touch me, he doesn’t. My head is yanked back as he pulls me off the ground by my hair. Then my arms are pulled back beyond the range of extension they are meant to go and I’m forced backwards. I turn my head to see what’s happening and Victor holds a length of rope connected to my wrists, pulling me backwards. I stumble for a while, catching my heels on tree roots and fallen limbs. It takes me a few minutes to gain my bearings, but eventually I get into the rhythm of walking backwards. Why is he making me walk backwards? I guess he doesn’t want me to see where we are going. No, because if I escape I will know exactly where to go to get back to Marcus. Maybe it makes him feel superior. It doesn’t matter anyway. What matters is that I figure out how to get away and get back to Marcus.
“Where are we going?” I ask, hoping he’s just stupid enough to give up the information.
“Oh, you’ll see shortly darlin’,” he replies.
My heart shoots up into my throat as a booming gunshot rings out and echoes among the trees. Then another. It stops me in my tracks and Victor stops as well. My eyes widen and all I can think of is Marcus and his wounded leg. There’s no way he could outrun Ned and Earl this time.
“I guess you’re on your own now little lady. Sounds like the boys finished off your knight in shining armor,” says Victor, chuckling under his breath. He jerks the rope back and I trip over a protruding tree root, falling on my rear and overextending my arms.
“Ahh!” I gasp at the shooting pain that rips through my shoulders. Victor grabs my hair again and jerks me back to my feet. My eyelids puff up with thick salty tears, but I bite my tongue to keep from releasing them. It’s not the pain of the falling, or overextending my arms, or even being yanked by my hair. My heart is breaking for Marcus. I try to reorient myself with the backwards walking again to avoid falling and ripping my arms out of their sockets.
I didn’t know Marcus that long. We didn’t even talk that much, but we had a connection. A close, unspoken connection that only close friends and family have. And now he’s gone. Once again, I’ve lost somebody. And it’s my fault. If only I hadn’t left him alone to get the water. Hell, they probably followed me and I led them right to him. He was expecting me and most likely announced his presence when he heard them coming. I try to choke back my emotions, but a single tear escapes the invisible armor I’ve put on. And then another. They keep coming despite my attempt to hold them back. Before I know it I’m blubbering like a child who’s lost her mother. For the first time since I woke up in this desolate forest I feel utterly hopeless. I’ll never make it back home. I’ll be imprisoned and murdered by these crazy backwoods freaks. Or maybe they’ll torture and molest me. No, I’d rather die. I’ll end my own life before I let that happen. They can molest a corpse for all I care.
We come to what looks like a large, open field, it’s hard to tell going backwards. I turn and crane my neck to look and get a glimpse of a large two-story log house, equipped with solar panels on the roof, before Victor punches my face back with the barrel of the gun. There is a warm trickle falling from my cheek. He must have hit the scabbed-over scar on my face and it opened back up.
Managing the front steps backwards is tricky, but at least Victor is patient. No, scratch that, there is no compassion. He just needs a break to light up his cigarette. The smoke scratches at the flesh in my throat and I stifle a cough when I reach the top step. Victor turns me around now to face the front door and blows a cloud of smoke in my face. Even though I try to hold my breath the tickling in my throat wins out and I have to gasp for air. This causes a violent, choking hack that almost makes me vomit again. He bowls over in laughter.
The front screen door swings open and slams against the wall. An emaciated looking woman is glaring at me with sunken eyes. Her ashen hair, which was probably once a pretty shade of strawberry blond, hangs flat in matted chunks. She obviously hasn’t bathed in a while. I try not to make eye contact, but I can’t help but notice a speck of color just to the side of her iris. She has the same eye tattoo as Victor.
“And what the hell is this?” she says with a thick twang similar to Victor’s.
“One a ‘dem mutants I caught in da woods,” he says.
“I’ll make the call,” she says, as she turns back into the house. Victor storms after her, dragging me with him, backwards again. The screen door slams into my shoulder and the bottom corner of the door leaves a three-inch gash on my ankle. But I’ve had so many superficial wounds over the past couple days, the pain and the blood don’t really bother me too much any more.
“Wait, Lucy! Not yet!” sho
uts Victor, still dragging me. When we stop at the kitchen I don’t want to turn around. The smell of this place is horrendous, a mixture of rotten potatoes and feces, mixed with a strong flavored alcohol. I don’t want to know what lies behind me in the kitchen to diffuse this foul odor.
Victor and Lucy are arguing, but I am so overtaken by the smell and my surroundings that I can’t focus on deciphering their words. Just outside the kitchen, I am facing a wall below a staircase patched with framed family photographs. It looks like a family of four: a mother, a father, and two girls. On the right side of the wall, the girls are very young. As the pictures progress to the left the girls seem to be growing until, at the far left, they are teenagers. I take in each and every one. I don’t see a single similarity to the couple arguing behind me.
Just past the photographs to the left, there is a door. There is something ominous about it, but I can’t seem figure out why. It just looks like a normal door. Something shakes me out of my quiet inner world and I catch a bit of what Victor says, “Shut up, woman, and do as I say. I’ll do whatever I damn well want with her and there ain’t a damn thang you can do ‘bout it!”
That’s when it hit me. That door. It was a normal interior door. But the doorknob had a deadbolt on the outside that looks like it was just put there recently--and a clumsy job at that. Why would anyone need a deadbolt for a cellar? Maybe a lock on the inside to keep spying eyes from going down there and looting your wine collection. But not a lock on the outside--unless your intention was to trap someone down there.
Why I wait until now to start kicking and screaming is beyond me. Before, I felt like I had a fighting chance. That I could still get away when the time was right. But I was too distracted by the family pictures to take any action. Victor is dragging me to the cellar door and the fear of the unknown is taking hold of me. What is down there? A surgical table with numerous torture devices? Chains and ropes and other items to keep me still? Sedatives and tranquilizers to slowly poison me and keep me doped up and unable to escape?
Fall of Venus Page 5
