by Hixon, Wayne
A pair of hands grabbed her beneath her arms. Another pair grabbed her ankles. Together, they lifted her up with relative ease. She tried very hard to make herself as heavy and burdensome as possible. Dead weight.
“You think she’s dead?” the girl asked.
“No. I can hear her breathing. Besides, it wasn’t that big a fall. Cunt’s heavier’n she looks.”
She wondered where they were taking her. She hoped it was someplace out in the open. Somewhere that allowed her to run if she was able to break free of them.
The two people carrying her didn’t say very much. She was lost to the darkness, the gentle sway of her transport, and the soft sloshing of the water as the two cut through it. She tried to block it all out, which wasn’t incredibly hard to do. Things were already growing fuzzy. She fought to keep her eyes open but was not entirely sure if that was working. She hurt badly and she could feel her body trying to numb itself to the pain. She fought to stay conscious but everything conspired to drag her under. And once she waded out into the black waters of unconsciousness it was impossible to fight her way back.
When she came to, Rachel opened her eyes. She was laid out on her back, very cold, in a lot of pain, and noticed the absence of hands around her arms and ankles. Overhead she saw stars twinkling benignly on their black canvas.
She smelled cigarette smoke and heard the voices of the girl and boy. There was something about the way they talked that told Rachel they had to be teenagers. Probably just high school kids. Only a year out of high school herself, she wondered if she knew them.
“Aren’t you worried she’s gonna get away?” the girl asked.
“Nah, she’s out. If she tries to run I’ll bury my knife in her. I’ll fuckin tear her up.”
“You’d better be careful.”
“I won’t kill her. I’ll just... wing her or something.”
“What are we gonna do with her?”
“What do you want to do with her?”
“Me? I just want to drop her off and get the hell away. Those people give me the creeps.”
“Don’t forget that they’re the reason we’re doin this. Too late to take her there tonight anyway. We got all tomorrow to play with her before we drop her off.”
Rachel cringed at that.
“It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Makes perfect sense.”
“I guess it makes sense if you believe them.”
“You don’t believe em?”
“I don’t know. I just think maybe they’re sick, you know? A couple of sickos.”
“No. I don’t know.” The boy sounded kind of angry. “If you think they’s so sick why you goin along with this whole thing? I think it’s cause, deep down, you know they’s tellin the truth.”
“Truth,” the girl scoffed. “I don’t know what’s true anymore.”
“Think about it, Rain. We get this girl to them and we’re set. Everything we’ve ever wanted could come true. We can go anywhere we want to. We don’t have to get jobs or any of that bullshit. We become one of them and we’re like all those vampires you like to read about.”
“Those are just dreams. That kind of stuff can’t really exist. I wouldn’t want that stuff to be real.”
“Is that what you’re afraid of? Having your dreams turn into reality? Because that’s really fuckin stupid. That’s what most people would kill for.”
The girl snorted. “Isn’t that what we’re doing? Killing for it?”
Rachel cringed again. Although a lot of what they said was nonsense to her, she definitely didn’t like the gist of their conversation. At least they want to “play” with me before killing me. She shuddered.
“We ain’t killin anyone for it. All we’re doin is takin this girl to that house and then the rest is done. This’s the big payoff.”
“And you think it’s going to be that easy?”
“I don’t have any reasons to believe anythin else.”
“I just don’t know.”
“You’ll be happier when it’s all finished. Trust me. There’s absolutely nothin to worry about. People like them don’t go to jail. They don’t get punished. Once this is over, we’ll be free from everything. Forever.”
“Jesus. You sound like a fucking cult member.”
Rachel heard the sound of skin on skin. A brisk crack. The girl barked out in pain.
“You ain’t backin out on me now. It’s too late to pull this kinda shit. Now ain’t the time to be a little bitch.”
Crack! He smacked her again. This time Rachel thought she heard the girl hit the ground. Rachel wanted to turn her head and see what was going on but she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself. If this was how this kid played with his girlfriend, she squirmed at the thought of what he would do to her.
“I’m sorry,” the girl whimpered.
“That’s a good little bitch,” the boy said. “Bein a snivelin little brat don’t help none.”
“I know,” the girl said, crying.
“Stop cryin. You should be able to take a smack now. You don’t cry like that when I smack your ass.”
“I know.”
“But you like that, don’t ya... little bitch?”
The girl was silent.
“Say you like it or I’ll bend you over and thrash you right now.”
“I like it,” the girl said. Was there a trace of sarcasm there? “I love it when you hit me.”
“What I thought,” the boy said.
Rachel imagined the boy reaching over and placing a consoling arm around the girl. Or maybe he was wrestling her out of her pants. She heard the shuffle of clothing and figured now was a good time. She jumped up onto her feet, hot electric fire shooting through her stiff muscles and achy bones. Her head felt like it was encased in cement. She took off running in what she figured was the opposite direction of the voices. She didn’t have any idea where she was. It was a clearing that looked a lot like the clearing where everything had happened two years ago. She wished she could summon that power now. Wished she could dive into that prick’s head and play with his thoughts but she was too beaten, too weak, too panicked.
Six
Rachel ran as hard as she could, her body threatening to lock up.
The couple ran just as hard behind her, their feet cutting through the grass.
Rachel knew there weren’t many houses out here but she decided to scream anyway. Maybe, just maybe, there was some wandering insomniac who would hear her.
Then she felt something smack into her back as the boy tackled her, driving her down onto the ground. She tried to twist herself away from him but he scooted farther on top of her, crushing her with his weight. He put his knees on her thighs and leaned his hands on her upper arms. The girl stood over them.
A deeper pang of fear ripped its way through Rachel when she saw the gleaming knife the girl held. Rachel tried to make eye contact with the girl. Her cheek was red from where the boy had smacked her and Rachel thought, maybe, the tears gleaming on her cheeks were tears of guilt.
But the girl didn’t look at all guilty. Hate filled her eyes. Hate and maybe just a little bit of dread as she focused on Rachel’s neck. Probably not afraid to strike if her man was threatened.
The boy craned his head over his shoulder, looking up at the girl.
“Why don’t you run that blade across the bottom of her foot,” he said. “Show her we ain’t fuckin around.”
Ever so obedient, the girl kneeled in the grass. A shiver ran through Rachel as she felt the blade touch the bottom of her right foot.
“No. Don’t,” Rachel said.
The boy stared down at her, wide-eyed and angry, ignoring her plea.
“Now, this might keep you from runnin. It won’t do no good to run anyway. You know that. If you get away today, we’ll find you tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or maybe the year after that. And that’ll be much worse. Why don’t you just lay back and take what’s comin to ya.”
“Why are you
doing this?” Rachel asked, trying to reach whatever strand of sanity the boy had.
“Because we’re sick people who like doing sick things,” the boy said, as if this made all the sense in the world. “Does that make you feel better? And the more you try and get away, the sicker the sick things get. Unnerstand?”
Rachel didn’t acknowledge the threat. Wasn’t about to give the fuck the satisfaction.
He leveled a headbutt against her forehead, causing her vision to turn red. The bone-on-bone collision jarred all the teeth in her head.
The girl ran the blade across her foot and Rachel cried out, feeling the flaps of skin separate and hang open. Flowing blood tickled her heel.
“Oh... fuck,” she muttered through clenched teeth, wanting to raise her foot and hold it in her hands.
“You’re going to want to watch it with the talkin,” the boy said. “Now you know what we do when we don’t want you to get away, do you really want to see what we do to you to shut you up?”
Visions of tongue removal shot through Rachel’s mind. She shook her head.
“Good. Very good. Because if you think you’re gettin away, you’re not. And I, for one, would hate to see you lose yer tongue. It just ain’t the same if it ain’t in the mouth. All good little bitches need a fat little tongue.”
He craned his neck back to the girl, once again hovering over them, now staring at the bloody blade with something like horrified shock.
“Rain, bring the van around. Let’s get er in there.”
The girl walked slowly off into the misty darkness. Rachel lay there, feeling dew-dampened beneath the weight of the boy. He leaned down close to her, covering her in his smells—his cigarette and whiskey breath, his dank leather jacket, old blood, the stink of death and desperation.
“I can see why they want you,” he said.
“Who wants me?” Rachel said, still trying to make some kind of sense out of this. She liked this less and less. It was too much like last time. Those guys had spoken of people wanting her also.
But those guys were dead.
“Who wants me?” she repeated, louder this time.
“Me, for one,” he said.
He removed a hand from her arm and slid it across her breast, squeezing the chill-hardened nipple through her cotton shirt.
“Very nice,” he said.
“You’re disgusting.”
He bashed his hand across her face. The pain was there but it was merely a pebble plinking into an ocean of hurt.
“I know that,” he said. “Oh boy don’t I know that.”
He put his hand under her shirt and ran it up to her bare heated breast. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had a chance to put on a bra before they snatched her.
Rachel realized the girl had taken the knife, assuming there was only one knife between the two of them.
The boy’s one-handed pawing freed up her left arm. She made a fist with her small hand and rammed it into the boy’s ear.
“Fuck!” he shouted, unmoved.
He quickly retracted his hand from her shirt and put it back on her arm, sure to dig his fingers in especially hard this time. They wrapped around her bone, dug into the tendon and muscle.
He put his face down close to hers, cloaking her in that stink. The blood from her smashed nose prevented her from smelling most of it.
“Don’t ever try nothin like that again. When Rain gets back, yer gonna pay for that.”
Keeping himself mashed into her, he laid his body on top of her. She could feel the hardness in his pants. He licked her face, his disgusting tongue running over her nose and eyelids, lapping up her blood and tears. She spat in his face and he rammed his head into hers again, driving it into the dirt and grass. Jesus, she wished she would just black out or something.
“Maybe I’ll tell Rain to go for a little a walk,” he said. “Would you like that? You want to be alone with me for a few minutes? Bet your pussy’s wet just thinkin bout it.”
He ground his erection against her crotch.
“Go fuck yourself,” she said into his ear.
“Oh, I’ll fuck you all right,” he returned and Rachel wanted to laugh with the dumbness of the comeback.
The van was near. Rachel saw the headlights bobbing as it ran over the nearly flat meadow. The van pulled up next to Rachel and the boy and stopped. The boy stood up and grabbed a handful of her hair, twisting it around his fist, pulling the skin on her already throbbing head taut.
The van was black with a crude white painting of a skull on the side. Who were these people? she wondered.
The boy slid open the side door of the van, climbed in ass first and dragged Rachel after him.
“Help me tie this bitch up,” he barked to Rain.
The girl put the van in park, stood up from the captain’s chair and, stooped over, came into the back of the van. She found a coil of white rope that looked like clothesline and tried to hand it to the boy.
“I’ll hold her,” he said. “You tie her up good. Hold your hands out,” he said to Rachel, giving a sharp yank to her hair.
Rachel obediently held out her hands in front of her. What was the point in struggling? She would have to bide her time. The girl began wrapping the rope around them tightly. She even wove it in between Rachel’s fingers. Rachel knew these people had done this before and that made it somehow more terrifying. They had done this before and, if they had done this before and were able to do it again, that meant they had gotten away with it.
The girl pulled Rachel’s hands down until they were in her crotch. The boy pressed Rachel, face first, to the floor of the van. The girl (Rain, Rachel thought) brought the rope between her legs, pulling her feet up to her ass. Rachel was being hogtied. The girl wrapped the rope around Rachel’s ankles and then, as a final touch, coiled it around her neck so that if she tried to move she was going to choke herself to death.
“There,” Rain said, once finished, as though she had finally straightened a picture perfectly upon a wall.
“Good work, babe,” the boy said.
“Thanks, Bones,” she said.
They exchanged a quick kiss and retreated to the front of the van.
Bones took the driver’s seat, as Rachel figured he would and, rather than sitting in the passenger’s seat, Rain sat down on the floor between the two front seats, turned to where she was facing Bones but could still keep an eye on Rachel. Rachel wondered how young this girl was. She had jaggedly cut pink hair that came down to just below her ears. Her skin was nearly baby-soft looking, but there was a hardness in her eyes that upset her overall youthful appearance. It was the look of a killer or a methamphetamine user. Or both, Rachel thought. The van began moving and Rachel rocked slightly to her side, the rope constricting as she did so. She coughed. They were quite serious about her not getting away.
“Now, don’t choke to death before we get there. Don’t throw up in my van neither.”
Rachel looked at Rain. The girl just kept staring at her. Surely, there had to be something in this girl she could identify with. Rachel figured if she just kept staring at her, it would force the girl to look into her eyes and maybe, just maybe, if the girl did that then she would be able to see what her and her boyfriend were doing was absolutely atrocious.
Fat chance, Rachel thought. She had come this far. What was the reason to stop now?
Bones lit a cigarette and the van filled with the acrid scent.
“How do you like this van?” he asked, almost jovially, as though it were some grand prize. He didn’t really wait for a response. “You see,” he said, “the great thing about this van is that it looks so suspicious. No one would ever suspect it of harboring a kidnap victim or anything like that because it would just be too... too obvious, you know? Hell, I’ve carried bodies around in this thing for days. I’ve had cops pull me over but not one of em’s ever searched it. Because they’d feel stupid. Like they were profiling or somethin like that. Plus it gets pretty good gas mileage.”
“I
love you, Bones,” Rain said, reaching out for a hit of the cigarette. “He put a lot of thought into this van,” she said, looking at Rachel.
“Yeah,” Rachel said sarcastically. “While you were gone, your boyfriend felt me up.”
Rachel said this while the girl made eye contact with her. She saw a hurt look flood into those almost translucent blue eyes and knew she had seized upon something.
“Bones wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, he did. Why don’t you ask him why his ear’s all red?”
“Did you mess with her, Bone Man?”
“Baby, I just had to keep her in line. Bitch’s got a mouth on her. Shit, if I weren’t drivin this van, I’d fuck her up.”
But now the girl was mad. “What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t do nothin!” Bones shouted.
“He put his hand in my shirt,” Rachel said. “Humped me. He was hard as a rock.”
“Did you do that, Bones? This girl get you hot.”
“She’s fuckin nuts, baby. You’re the only one I want to touch.”
“Is that why you wanted to get her? So you could drag her out somewhere and fuck her? Are you tired of me?”
“If I wanted to fuck her, I’d stop this van and fuck her while you watched. Or I’d fuckin kill you first. I could do that, you know. You keep given me shit, I just might. Keep your dead bitch eyes open while I plug her up the ass. How’d you like that, bitch?”
Rachel decided to exaggerate somewhat, just to drive as much of a wedge as possible between her captors.
“He said he wished you had tits like mine.”
“You say that?” Rain asked. “Her tits are a little bigger. You like that?”
“Baby, she’s lyin. Can’t you see that? You that fuckin stupid?”
“He said he wanted to get me alone.”
Bones had reached some kind of breaking point. He pulled the van onto the shoulder of the road, slamming on the brakes, the van sliding a little on the gravel. He stood up from the seat, still crouched over and, reaching over Rain, took several vicious swings at Rachel’s face. Each time his fist connected, the rope pulled on her neck, abrading it.
