I choked back bile. A numbness floated into my mind, a drunk co-pilot taking the helm. My brain just couldn’t wrap around what it was seeing. It just wasn’t real; I would wake up soon. I knew I would because this stuff only happened in dreams.
Skinny Man took the arm and licked the blood flowing from the hacked shoulder. It dribbled down his chin and he laughed like a goblin. He rushed at me and grabbed my face and kissed me, smearing blood all over my mouth. His slick tongue lapped thick, bloody saliva on my eyes. Every bump on his tongue, every whisker on his chin, scratched itself across my face.
Butch was going wild, running and jumping up to get a taste of the arm. He tried to snatch it out of the man’s hands and got a smack for his troubles. “Hold on two secs, will ya?”
Taking the saw again, the madman cut the arm in two and put the pieces in Butch’s dishes. The dog tore at the flesh, shaking his head back and forth until the chunks of flesh pulled away. Then, like a vacuum, he inhaled the meat.
“That is a nasty wound you got there,” Skinny Man said to Tooth. “Lucky for you, I fancy myself a bit of a doctor. Got my first aid badge in the Cub Scouts.”
He bent down and yanked the ax from the woman’s head. It came loose with a gurgling fart as the pressure from the internal bleeding escaped.
And that was enough for me, my brain pulled the plug.
The last thing I saw before I passed out was Skinny Man taking the glowing shovel out of the stove and placing it flat against Tooth’s wound. I heard a sizzling pop of flesh, Tooth’s bloodcurdling scream, and then all was black.
CHAPTER 13
When I came to all was quiet. The rag was in my mouth again, swollen from my drool, or my tears, or both. I sucked it out and swallowed it. The smell hit me next, an eye-watering stench of decomposition, worse than the time I found a dead raccoon in the garbage out back of my house. That raccoon had been in that trashcan for weeks and when I lifted the lid the rot had hit me hard as a punch and almost knocked me over. Fucking-A if this wasn’t a hundred times worse.
My neck ached like I’d been kicked in the esophagus, and my chest felt constricted. When I’d fainted my body had fallen forward and been caught by the collar. It’s a wonder I didn’t snap my neck or choke myself to death. As I stood up, I could feel fresh cuts under my chin from where the collar had cut in.
The macabre realization that I could have died somewhat peacefully washed over me and I didn’t know if I was happy or sad.
The jingle of chains next to me meant Tooth was moving around. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the faint glow coming from the stove door. The wood had burned down to embers but their light was enough to make out the shadow of my best friend.
“Tooth?”
At my voice, the chains stopped. “You awake?” he asked.
Our words were muffled by the rags, but Tooth and I had that connection, that ability to understand each other.
“Yeah,” I replied. “What happened?”
“Oh God, Roger, he cauterized my leg. He burned it shut. This guy is crazy. We have to do something.”
“This is fucked. He sealed your wound? Why? So he can torture us some more?”
Tooth was quiet for a moment and I thought maybe I’d said something he hadn’t thought of. In a funny way, that made me feel bad. Both because I’d just scared him, and because, so far, he’d taken the most damage. But I knew that was just a momentary thing, I was going to get mine, too.
“The girl?” I asked
“He took the body upstairs. I think she was dead. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t moving or breathing or anything, and she’d lost a hell of a lot of blood. The dog ate her arm.”
There was another pause; neither of us knew what to do or say. I used the moment to begin working the rag out of my mouth. The good thing about the rags was that even though they cut off our ability to speak clearly when they were tight, with some tongue and jaw work the material would begin to stretch. They were a poor choice for gags—unless he was hoping the bacteria on them would give us e-coli or something and send us into a fit of poisoning that would have us wishing for death.
“Roger?”
“Yeah?” The gag was loosening a bit.
“Promise me if we get out of here, promise you’ll come to California with me.”
The moment was so unreal I started laughing. Right there in the middle of all this death and torture I just lost it. Imagine it, Tooth and me on the beach, smoking weed and riding the surf, talking to hot women in bikinis, laughing about the time we were chained up in some madman’s basement. I wanted that more than anything. I wanted to be so far away from reality I started to smell the sea and feel the breeze in my hair.
“Sure, I’ll go with you. You’re right, there’s nothing here for me,” I said.
“Except Lucy Graves’ tits.”
“Yeah,” I laughed, “those are pretty nice.”
He winced as he shifted his leg. “Someone’s bound to see the car. Rangers patrol there daily, right? All we got to do is make it through tomorrow and hope a ranger notices the car sitting there for two days and comes looking for us. I figure it’s got to be around midnight now. That psycho ain’t been back in a while and my guess is he’s sleeping. Let’s just make it through the day. We can do that.”
“But a ranger won’t hear us down here,” I said. The walls were concrete and even though the ceiling was made of cheap, rotting wood, with enough rugs and furniture over us our yells would go unheard. “Plus,” I added, “if he doesn’t have a warrant he can’t come in anyway.”
“He will if we’re loud enough. We just have to listen carefully, make as much noise as possible. Scream like crazy. I’ve made some calculations while you were blacked out. That door there in front of us is a stairwell, most likely the one we saw from outside. That means the driveway is out that door and if someone were out there . . . . Remember when we heard the woman? The sound does carry. We can be heard if we yell loud enough. This door over to our left must go under the main part of the house. Under the living room and stuff. So if he lets anyone in the front door, they won’t hear us because he’s probably sound proofed it somehow. But if someone comes up the driveway, we’ll hear the car and can yell our asses off.”
“Have you heard any cars?”
“Not yet. I heard the door at the top of the stairs when he left. The hinge squeaks a little. And the ceiling above us connects to the whole house. Sometimes the dust shakes off it and I figure that’s him walking around.”
“But what does all that mean? How does that help us?”
“Not sure. But it gives us a heads up when he’s coming anyway.”
I watched the glowing stove in the corner of the room. The wan light from the slats in the door illuminated the nearby dog dishes. Something was in the dish though I couldn’t make out what it was. Then again, I didn’t need to. I knew it was the woman’s arm, or what was left of it.
“How’s your leg?” I asked.
“Hurts like a bitch. I think the bone is broken.”
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
“I don’t know. I can’t really wrap my head around all this. I keep waiting to wake up.”
Good ol’ Tooth; as usual he was on the same page as me.
The human brain has a difficult time rationalizing the absurd. It’s like watching aliens land in your backyard and take a dip in your pool. You think, “This is a dream, any moment now I’ll wake up.” And then you do wake up. And you laugh about it and go back to sleep.
Only we weren’t waking up.
“But did you see what he did to that woman?” I asked. “What kind of sick fucking maniac is this guy? Why did he do that? He’s not human. Do you hear him when he speaks? We or us or they. Is he talking about the dog or the voices in his head?”
Out of nowhere, I started crying again. My emotions were bubbling like a tar pit. Tooth had cried some, too, but mostly he was just mad. Somehow I knew that without him I would have broken down and given up
long ago. He wasn’t optimistic, but he wasn’t giving up yet either.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “when I get loose I’m gonna kill him. I’ll feed him to his own damn dog.”
“My parents are in Providence and Jamie thinks I’m at your house. What are we going to do? We can’t just sit and wait for a park ranger. You need to get to a hospital.”
“I know, I know. But these chains . . . I can barely move.”
“So we’re done.”
“Maybe not. Can’t think like that anyway. Look, they lock into these steel plates in the wall, and maybe if we pull hard enough we can start to loosen the mortar around them. But be careful, I cut my wrist already.” He started writhing again, yanking the chains from the wall. He rocked back and forth with all of his body, careful not to let his neck take too much of the weight. We both did this for several minutes until we grew tired. Then we stopped and leaned back against the wall.
My eyes had adjusted enough I could finally see the poster on the door. A sunset, a fucking joke. Something to get his victims thinking about life, I suppose. But I didn’t think about life, I thought about pain, and how we’d stand up to it, and how long I’d go before giving in to it, and how long before I accepted my inevitable death.
I could also see the swelling of Tooth’s face, which had blown up like a bunch of grapes.
“It’s no use,” I said. “I’m tired.”
“Okay, let’s take a rest, conserve our strength.”
I knew he said that for me; I knew he’d go all night if he could.
Some time went by and we didn’t say anything. We tried to break the chains again and when that failed I resorted to sniveling. Tooth calmed me down and started talking to me about comics. “You know, I never read Silver Surfer. What does he do?”
I knew he was trying to get my mind off the present, and although it didn’t work, I appreciated the effort. “He rides a silver surfboard and saves people.”
“Yeah? That’d be nice about now. How come people are always saying Batman is the shit? I don’t get it. I mean, I like Batman and all, but he’s not like Spider-man or Ghost Rider or anything, he’s just a guy with gadgets.”
“But that’s why he’s so cool. He’s just a normal guy with guts and skill. A regular Joe who doesn’t take shit from nobody, minds his own business, makes some bad choices once in a while, but ultimately does the right thing. A true hero.”
I thought about Batman, the Dark Knight, and how easy it would be for him to escape these chains. He’d have some gadget on his belt or up his sleeve that would melt these cuffs and then he’d torment his captor and make him pay. I had nothing in my pockets, and Skinny Man had our gun. Tooth had his cell phone but neither of us could reach it. What a cruel joke.
“Hey,” Tooth said as he rocked against his chains, “let’s work on the chains a bit longer. We gotta keep it up if we plan on getting out of here.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, but before I could start he spoke.
“I’m sorry, Roger.”
“For what?”
“For this. For getting us captured by a bloodthirsty lunatic.”
Wasn’t much to say to that so I just nodded like an idiot.
We worked at the chains again but it was the same old song and dance—they weren’t budging. I quit pulling and put my head against the wall and tried to find a comfortable position to rest in. Normally I would have found leaning against a cold stone wall on par with getting kicked in the back, but I was sapped of morale and energy. I barely remember shutting my eyes before I was out.
I saw my parents. They were standing outside of a jail cell, shaking their heads at me. Their look of disappointment ate away at me like acid and I felt ashamed and embarrassed, though I wasn’t sure why. My mother pointed an accusatory finger at me and frowned. My father put his arm around my mother and looked away. Why was I in jail? What had I done? Nobody spoke to me or tried to offer any assistance. I was alone.
Tooth came into the room and sidled up next to my parents like they were his own. He was beaten black and blue, his sunken eyes glaring at me with malice. There was a large purple scar wound around his neck, as if he’d been strangled. Like a magician, he pulled a barking rottweiler out of thin air and began to open the door to my cell. The dog, wild and enraged, started drooling and snapping at me in anticipation of a meal. But before the door opened wide enough for the dog to pass through, Tooth reconsidered his action. He stopped and said, “If you can hear me, just pretend you’re asleep.”
My parents puffed away in a cloud of dust, as did the jail cell and Tooth, and in their place a naked man covered in tattoos danced in the glow of a candle. The dog appeared behind him, its head following his movements.
The man looked like an enchanted stick bug as he floated across the ground, his lanky legs bending like straws. He held something ovoid in his hand, something he repeatedly tossed in the air and cooed to each time he caught it. As the vision became clearer, I saw it was a human head covered in dirt. It was Tooth’s head!
No, it wasn’t.
It was the woman’s head.
And I suddenly realized I was no longer asleep.
I went rigid, my breath caught in my throat. He was here, in the dark with us, with her head. There wasn’t any candle; it was the stove’s embers casting the light. Tooth was whispering so softly I could hardly hear him: “Don’t move, seriously, don’t move.”
Naked, the man rolled the severed head over his body, down to his balls and stuck his dick in its mouth. I shuddered; I was at a loss as to what to do. So I followed Tooth’s advice and pretended I was asleep, even though I was pretty sure he had seen me wake up. Through slitted eyelids, I continued to watch the freak show before me, horrified and mesmerized.
I could see the head’s lifeless eyes, its gaping mouth caked with dried blood. Just hours ago it had been alive, attached to a woman with a real life. Maybe a mother, maybe a wife, someone with dreams and childhood memories. Now it was just an object, a sickening prop that could no more scream than tell you its name.
“I like it when you do that to me,” Skinny Man said to the head, still fucking its lifeless mouth. Then, placing the head on the ground, he began fondling himself. Faster and faster he went at it. Butch snuck up behind him and took the head in his teeth and ran back up the stairs. Still jerking off, Skinny Man came up to me and looked right at me, his hands still stroking his erection. I shut my eyes completely, but even with my eyes closed, I could see him looking into my face. The whiskers of his beard brushed against my lips, tiny needles poking their way into my mouth. A tongue flashed out and licked my lips and I lost it.
I screamed.
That just made him laugh. He laughed and laughed and danced around some more with his dick in his hand.
Our game of opossum now exposed, Tooth shouted at him, “I’m gonna kill you, you dumb fucker!”
But Skinny Man didn’t seem to heed the threat. He grabbed Tooth’s gag and tied it so tight I thought it would cut Tooth’s head in two. “Boy,” he sneered, “you yell at me one more time I will show you your insides.”
Tooth mumbled but couldn’t form any words.
Holding himself and moaning, Skinny Man came on the floor. When he was done, he gave a little shiver and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Now,” he said, “let’s see what we got here.”
He reached up and turned on the light. The room looked like a slaughterhouse. The walls were stained red, blood saturated the floor, a mutilated arm lay near the dog dishes. Skinny Man was covered in prison tattoos, most of them faded. A couple of them showed demonic orgy scenes of animals raping women, or at least that’s what they looked like. He slithered over and stuck his hands in my pockets and pulled out my wallet. Opening it in front of me, he took out my driver’s license and licked it. “Roger,” he said and laughed. “143 Union Avenue. Let me guess, white picket fence, two-car garage. Does Mommy know what a bad boy you’ve been? Maybe I should stop in and let her know where you are.”
“No!” I screamed. “Stay away from her, you fucking maniac. If you touch her I’ll kill you.”
“Enough with the yelling already! You make too much noise. I hate noise.” With that, he put the gag back in my mouth, tying it tight until it felt like my cheeks were tearing. “If I find these rags out again, I’m gonna wrap you with barbed wire.”
Tooth was frantically trying to kick at Skinny Man, but the leg irons barely let him get his feet up.
He reached into my front pocket and played his fingers around near my balls. “And what do we have here.” He pulled out the pair of dice I had taken from my kitchen that morning. “Snake eyes,” he read, and rolled them around in his hand. Next, he fished around in Tooth’s pockets and took the cell phone. He threw it at the wall and it exploded like a firework. My heart sank. Tooth stopped struggling and hung his head. We’d been counting on the phone.
Sensing our defeat, Skinny Man did a little dance back toward the center of the room and stopped. He spun around and muttered something under his breath, looked back at us. “Any of you all see a head, about yay big, with white teeth, long brown hair, pretty mouth? It was here a minute ago.” Then he started laughing again, occasionally flicking his tongue at us.
He searched Tooth’s pockets once more, looking for anything he may have missed, and wound up with Tooth’s driver’s license. “David McNulty,” he said, reading it. “Thirty-two. Shit, you ain’t thirty-two. Where’d you get this, Boston?”
Tooth mumbled.
Skinny Man punched him in the face. “You liar! I don’t like liars.” He went and opened the door to the stove, bent down and reached inside. When he stood up, a pile of glowing embers sat on the fake ID, orange heat pulsating on the surface. They looked like little magic gemstones. In his other hand he rolled the dice about. “Oh boy, oh boy,” he said, “been a while since I made a wager of any kind. You hear that rattle, huh, that’s luck being shook up like juice. You gotta mix it all together and get it just right or else you get too much bad luck and that’s no fun. Or you could get too much good luck, which might seem a good thing, but it just leads you on until it runs out and then you got nothing. Nope, gotta shake it up just right for this game. Roger, you want high or low?”
The Summer I Died: A Thriller Page 9