Onward and Upward

by Tony Wilson

Chapter 7

  After disembarking from the Lady S and trotting down to the security barrier, Caroline grabbed Agnetha’s hand and started to cross the busy road, and they made it half-way across before two black vans bracketed them in. As she instinctively reached into her handbag for her spray one of the doors flew open and a very unsavoury looking man sprayed her first, and as her knees started to crumble she saw Agnetha receive the same treatment from another man, a very fat man. As she slowly regained consciousness she did just as her David had taught her, she didn’t move, or make a sound. She realised that she was naked, with only an old blanket thrown over her, and was well and truly tied to the side of the utility van. As she sat there regaining full consciousness she started using what senses that she had available to her to assess the situation. She was obviously in a moving vehicle, presumably one of the vans, and it smelled terrible, with body odour and other unidentifiable smells, and then she heard the animal like grunting. There was tape over her mouth but not over her eyes so she slowly opened them, and what she saw made her go rigid. She tried to scream and lash out but to no avail, and the two men just laughed and continued brutalising Agnetha. Slowly she calmed down and quickly realised that both men were drunk, bottles of beer rolled all around the van floor, and Agnetha had obviously been unconscious for some considerable time because she was in a terrible state, and not making a sound. She presumed that they had started on Agnetha while she was unconscious, but then she must have woken up and fought viciously, scratching and biting her attackers, Caroline could see untreated wounds on both their bodies. Their reply had been obvious, a large pair of blood stained pliers and a hammer lay on the floor. She then looked closer at the unconscious woman’s body; they had been systematically torturing her. For perhaps the first time in her life she one hundred percent prayed with every fibre of her being, not for the salvation of these animals, or her own safety, but that Charlie would exact retribution on them - and the more painful the better. As they sat back against the side of the van, exhausted from their exertions, the fat one drunkenly introduced everyone. He of course was El Gordo, ‘not because of my size you understand, but because of my importance’ (wishful thinking), and his friend was ‘Harley’; his hobby was driving his motor bike over other peoples body parts, and finally there was ‘Zoomer’, the driver. Zoomer was into making specialised movies; they were called snuff movies, where the principle participant was killed on camera. These films were in great demand by a discerning clientele and they would pay good money for a quality film, ‘and guess what bitch, you are going to be the star in your very own movie, and a copy of it will be sent to your boss, Michaels’. Apparently the only reason that she was still in one piece was that he owed ‘Pencil’ a favour - he wanted to be the principle supporting actor in her film. He then went on to explain in graphic detail why he was called Pencil, and it had absolutely nothing to do with his writing skills; it was because of his creativity when using very sharp pencils on snuff stars. Just as things started to look as though they might not wait for Pencil, Zoomer shouted back to them that they were approaching their exit. Quickly they took final swigs from the open bottles of beer in the ice box (they had obviously come prepared for a long wait) and after dressing, El Gordo managed to squeeze his bulk into the front passenger seat of the van.

  As the van drew up outside the dilapidated house El Gordo shouted to his ‘woman’ to go back inside, checked that the two roving heavies were out of sight, and then slid the side door back. Harley had cut the ropes securing Caroline to the side of the van and then tied her hands behind her back and hobbled her ankles so that she could walk, just, but couldn’t make any sudden moves, and as the door slid open he kicked her over to fatty in the doorway, and then grabbed the other one by the hair. Caroline looked up at the sky and hoped that David was watching, then she did a terrible thing, she shrugged her shoulders and the blanket fell to the ground. ‘If this doesn’t make him want to kill these animals nothing will’ she thought. She was dragged into the house and sat down on a hard chair in what was obviously the home gymnasium, and Agnetha was dumped unceremoniously on the floor beside her, she didn’t make a sound. Her chair was dragged backwards up to the wall bars and her elbows were roughly tied to them, and then the end of the rope was looped savagely around her neck. After a few slaps, just for the fun of it, they then left her alone, and within a few minute she could hear them tucking into a hearty meal, and then all went quiet, hopefully they had fallen asleep. If she tried to struggle she would choke herself, which seemed like a good option for later on, but first she must look at the window, after first confirming her worst fears, so Caroline studied Agnetha closely as she lay there on the floor in front of her. She studied her as if she were a cadaver lying on a mortuary slab, which in effect she was, but she had to be one hundred percent certain, she didn’t want to have any guilty feelings in the future over what would surely follow. Finally, as Agnetha’s skin slowly changed colour she was one hundred percent certain, now she would not feel guilty when they arrived. David had taught her how to estimate time without the aid of a clock, but that trick wasn’t necessary, the gym’s clock ticked away as she quietly watched the corner of the window, and one hour and seven minutes after settling down to watch it, a small red dot appeared in its corner, and she started to hum, as if in pain. The dot started to circle and she stopped humming. David had found her, and she could now talk to him if it was safe. It was safe.

  ‘Hello my darling, is that you?’ she whispered.

  The dot moved up and down, ‘yes’.

  ‘I’m fine my darling, is Charlie listening in?

  The dot moved from side to side, ‘no’.

  ‘Good, Agnetha hasn’t made it; they raped and tortured her before she died’. If that didn’t sign their death warrants then nothing would, and as the dot shook in the corner she could only imagine what was going through her husband’s mind, then she heard the door handle squeak, someone was on the other side of the door so she continued whispering - but this time to Agnetha, as if trying to rouse her.

  ‘It’s pointless talking to her you stupid bitch’ Harley said, ‘She was dead before we even dragged her out of the truck’. That would at least take some of the guilt off David; he couldn’t have saved her even if he had been here waiting for the van to arrive, then he matter of factly continued, as if they were discussing the weather, ‘but you won’t have long to wait to finish your jabbering with her, the Pencil has just arrived’, and with that Zoomer entered the gym, carrying a state of the art movie camera and sound equipment, ‘we don’t want to miss any of your little screams now do we’ he joked, waving a handful of microphones in her direction. Behind him in waddled El Gordo and another even fatter man, or was it the other way round? If either of them was the Pencil then he didn’t get his name from his build, he was obviously El Gordo’s twin brother.

  As Caroline quietly sat watching the preparations for her death being made, she absently thought about the clinical reasons behind each of their odd behaviours. It was obvious that Fatty (1) had been sent over the top by the death of his son and the loss of the drugs, but what about his twin brother Fatty (2)? then she quickly realised that whatever happened to one, happened to the other one as well, after Fatty (2) stubbed his toe on a piece of gym equipment and Fatty (1) went ‘ouch’ and rubbed his toe, very weird. Harley on the other hand was just your average common or garden paranoid schizophrenic, but Zoomer was fascinating to watch, he obviously had advanced signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder as he set out the microphones for the sixth time, but there was definitely a touch of ‘Dissociative Identity Disorder’ in him as well, as he argued continuously with himself, in two distinct accents., and they all obviously had underlying ‘sexual problems’ (they were dirty old men), which explained why they all seemed to get on so well together.

  Fatty (1), El Gordo, was the first one to notice that Caroline wasn’t writhing and screaming and begging for mercy. ‘What’s up bitch, looking forward to it are yo
u hee-hee-hee’. He really did think that he was so so funny (and so did his brother).

  ‘Oh most definitely fatso’ she said in her primmest English voice. This made both of them very angry indeed.

  ‘Is that #### (censored) equipment ready yet Zoomer’ he demanded, and when he got no reply he slowly rotated his bulk around, just in time to see Zoomer slide gracefully to the floor, sound asleep. Fortunately there was a gentleman in black lowering the camera to the floor beside him so it did not get damaged.

  ‘Harley’ they both screamed, but Harley was already sound asleep against the wall bars, and both then realised that something was not quite going according to plan as they both looked down the wrong ends of seven assorted weapons of personal destruction, and one ten cent pea shooter, which quietly went ‘pufft’. A tiny dart flew into Fatty (2)’s bulbous neck, Fatty (1) grabbed his own neck - and they both flopped to the floor unconscious, and a rather nice looking American gentleman (well nice eyes anyway, the rest of him was covered in black) looked sideways at Pierre and said in awe ‘You have just got to tell me where I can get one of those things from man!’

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