I looked over at the chains hanging empty beside me, the open cuffs stained red. Could I reach them, use them somehow? Did I really care?
But my musing was cut short when I heard the driveway door creak open real slow, like an old man with back pains afraid to fart too quick. It could have been the wind, but somehow I doubted it. I just had that feeling that something was amiss. Not hard considering my location. And sure enough, out of the shadows, came Butch down the stairs. Alone.
The fucking dog was a spawn of hell, had eaten flesh for a living of that I was sure. His oily black coat reflected the blood-stained bulb as he hungrily walked over to me. A cold, slimy tongue whipped out and licked the wound on my leg. I jerked my knee and he pounced backward.
“You like that,” I said. “You want me to beat your face again, you fucking bitch?”
He cocked his head and studied me like I was abstract art.
“Yeah, you remember that, outside, when I punched you in the face. Hurt didn’t it? Something broke, huh? What was it, a tooth, your jaw, a cheekbone? Come any closer and I’ll do it again and I won’t stop until you lie dead on the floor. C’mon!”
The black hellhound didn’t move, just sat looking pensive. Then he sniffed the air a bit, like he was figuring out which part of me to bite first. Should have known he wouldn’t run away. He probably grew up biting chained prisoners.
I jerked my knee again to entice him, and he jumped back and forth real quick, almost as if he was just playing. He gave a little bark and glanced at the stairs, like he was afraid the noise would bring his mentally handicapped owner and a smack to his ears. So I did it again, thinking at least that would be something.
Dogs are quick though, and you can’t read them as well as humans, so when he charged me I yelped in terror. He jumped back, then snapped a few times and rushed me again. This time he went for my ankle but he bit the chain instead and shook it frantically. Growling and biting, he whipped the chain about. I spit a wad of phlegm at him and hit him in the eye and damn it felt good. Stunned, he took a few steps toward the stairs and licked his lips.
“Butch!” came from outside. “Butch, get out here now!” I heard Skinny Man getting closer to the house, yelling for his dog, until finally he stuck his head around the top of the stairs and said, “Butch, you know better than to go down without me. Get yer ass up here right now.” I could see from his torso he was still naked, his garish gray tattoos looking like spots of decomposition. Didn’t anybody live nearby enough to notice a naked man with a corpse in his backyard?
Butch looked at me, looked at his owner, and trotted up the stairs a defeated animal. As the two of them drifted out into the yard again I heard Skinny Man say, “Don’t worry, we’re gonna play with him in a few minutes.”
It was a small victory but it was mine and it was all I had so I took it. The flies were landing on me like early arrivals to a concert looking for the best seats. It was all very telling of what was about to come. And I knew I couldn’t win, not really, so I put my head down again and tried to find that spot on the beach once more.
And damn if I didn’t notice something lying by my feet.
The fucking spike.
How the—? It was right next to my left foot, practically touching it. A few half-smudged paw prints decorated the dirt next to it. Butch must have kicked it when he lunged at me. My heart started to race and my body broke a sweat. I almost fought the feeling off, because I didn’t want hope to fuck with me, but I also realized I didn’t really want to die.
I lifted the toe of my sneaker and got the spike under my foot. I would have to do this very carefully, I thought, and I’d probably only get one shot. I drew it back and placed it perpendicular to the wall so that it stuck out like a nail. Using my heel, I pushed back on the tip of it and lifted it slowly until it was upright. Quickly, before it could fall, I slammed my foot flat against it and trapped it under my sole. The leg iron bent outward and cut my ankle open, slicing in deep enough I could feel it in my head. I gnashed my teeth against the pain, telling myself if this worked a lifelong limp would be worth it.
I reached down with my hand as far as I could, about two feet away from the spike. At this point I cursed myself for having never played sports because I was going to need more than luck on my side. I needed some fancy footwork and some serious skill. With the spike facing up like a rocket nearing takeoff, I flicked my foot up as much as the chain would allow and shot the spike up the wall.
Into my hand.
My heart was a salsa beat trying to rip through my rib cage. I couldn’t believe it. I was so stunned I just leaned back against the wall and sighed, a big exhalation of tutti frutti emotion: rage, determination, fear, sadness, but mostly rage. I flipped the spike around so that the point was out and twisted my wrist to see what I could do with it. You ever see monkeys pick up a toy at the zoo and not quite understand how it works, try to eat a soccer ball or stick a comb up their nose? That’s how I felt. And forget what I’d seen in films. I sure as fuck wasn’t about to pick a lock with it, not only because I had never done so before, but also because the tip was too big to fit in the keyholes of the cuffs.
But I had it, so now what?
I thought maybe I could pry the cuff open, but thought better of it. The handcuffs were too strong to be broken and I’d probably break the spike or sever my wrist. I could see if Skinny Man would get close enough to jab it in his belly, but that would be a waste, he’d just take it away. I had to use it to get free somehow.
“Jumping Jesus, that fucker was starting to stink like my Aunt Gretchen’s ass sores.” It was Skinny Man, bounding down the stairs with Butch in tow. His limp prick swished back and forth like a broken watch hand. He was dirty, like he’d been digging, and the sonofabitch was wearing Tooth’s Red Sox hat. I put the spike behind my lower back and pressed my body against the wall to hold it there.
“I put him next to Sundance, so the dog can get his revenge,” he said. “Better late than never, you know. And Sundance, he don’t like people that mess with him. He’s a mean mother when he gets mad. Like this one time, delivery man comes to the door, and Sundance he’s all barking and fixing to bite the guy’s nuts off. But the guy figures he’s safe because Sundance is behind the screen door and all, so he yells, ‘Shut up, you smelly mutt!’ And Sundance, you know what he did? He goes around the back and opens the back door and runs around to the front and bites the fucker in the ass. Tore a chunk right out. The guy’s screaming and hollering for me to get the dog off him. But at that point it was out of my hands. Butch comes tearing through the house right behind Sundance, sees his brother having so much fun, and goes right for the neck. BAM! Just like that. Boy, we had fun with the fella, didn’t we, Butch? Say, you ever seen one of these?”
He held up a short, slick, tube-like object. It was grayish-white where it wasn’t covered in blood, and ringed with ridges.
“It’s called a trachea. Interesting, I think. It’s Butch’s favorite. Here, boy, here ya go.”
The dog took it and went over to his dish and put it on the floor. This seemed pretty amusing to Skinny Man, whose cackle filled the room. “What’s the matter with you? You look like you got a pole up yer ass.” He walked over to the dice, shooed away some flies and picked them up.
“I suppose you know what that looks like.” I cursed myself for replying. What if he grabbed me and I dropped the spike? I wasn’t thinking worth a shit.
“Actually I don’t, but we got time enough to find out. Where’s that duct tape?”
“Who was she?” I asked.
He looked at me funny, then hit on what I was talking about. “That bitch? She was probably someone’s girlfriend or wife or mother. I don’t really know, I didn’t ask.”
“Why did you kill her?”
“What is this, a Barbra Walters special? What do you care?”
“I just want to know what she did to you, what we did to you, why you’re doing this.”
“You’re just stalling.
But it won’t help you because I’m in the mood for walking, not talking.”
“I want to know.” I really did want to know, but I was also stalling.
Skinny Man got kind of sullen and put his nose to mine and breathed into my mouth. “Because if I don’t they get mad at me, hurt me. Even right now they’re listening and if they hear what I’m telling you they’re gonna be pissed. And if they get pissed nothing I do to you is gonna satisfy them. They’ll just make me go on and on. Oh, son, I really wish you hadn’t come here, but what can I do about it now?”
Who was they? The dogs? The flies? Ghosts? But then he chuckled and I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. Did he ever stop laughing? Psychiatrists might classify it as a nervous tic, but somehow, I knew he was truly finding pleasure in all this pain. That, on some deep level, scared me more than anything.
“My odds are looking good this time,” he said as he played with the dice. “Fifty-fifty chance I roll your number. You want odds or evens?”
“I want you to die.” I didn’t know where that came from, it just burst out before I could stop it. I figured he’d slug me for it and I drop the spike and then all would be lost, but he didn’t seem to mind. I’m sure he’d heard it all before.
“You’re kind of an oddball, so I’ll make you evens.”
In his own head, he was the funniest thing since the whoopie cushion, and that last remark must have been his coup de grâce because he doubled over and snorted a bunch. “Get it?” he asked, still choking on his laughter, “’cause you’re odd . . . see . . . and I said even. Get it? Shit, boy, don’t you ever laugh? They say it’s good for the soul, ya know. Aw, forget it, you’re no fun.”
He tossed the dice at my chest and they bounced across the floor like two kids playing tag. I couldn’t see the numbers where they landed, but Skinny Man looked really pissed when he looked at them.
“Fine,” he said, coming over and looking at me. “Fine. I’m a patient man, I am. Good things come to those who wait, I tell ya. And when she’s gone you ain’t gonna have no easy out. You fucking freak!”
He bent down and scooped up all his torture toys and started wiggling. He had to catch a couple small knives as they escaped his grasp, but he held them tightly and went over into Jamie’s room. Within seconds she was crying. My chest went tight and breathing came hard. She was alive, and I thanked God for that, but was it worth it, was this really living?
I dropped the spike back into my hand and thought frantically about what to do. The links in the chains might be breakable, though my only experience in handcuffs before this told me not to get my hopes up. Still, without another choice, I jammed the tip of the spike into one of the links and tried to bend it. But it was no use. I needed a fulcrum point, some way to pry at the link without moving the chain. The wall, I thought, use the wall. I put the spike against the wall and leaned back against it, and held it still with my hand. It was a tricky position to maintain, but the wall provided reinforcement, and when I thrust my body backward, the spike drove in the link. The cuff ripped into my wrist and it felt like my bones were mashing. Ever so little, I could see the link warping, but at this rate I’d either break my wrist or die an old man before I got free.
“What you got there?”
I jumped at the voice, dropped the spike to the floor.
“When did you get that?” Skinny Man asked, holding a small knife in his hand that was covered in Jamie’s hair and dripping blood. “You’re a real sneaky Pete, ain’t ya. But I believe that belongs to me.”
He snatched it up and hit me on the head with it. The blow rang through my skull and lodged behind my eyes.
“I forgot something upstairs. If I come back and find you doing anything funny I’m gonna cut your ears off and sew them into your sister.”
He took off up the stairs, leaving me alone with Jamie’s screeching pleas for death. Well, not entirely alone—Butch was sniffing at the door to Jamie’s room, riled up by the noise and jonesing for flesh.
CHAPTER 20
While Jamie cried, Butch whined and shot me a sad face as if to ask whether I could open the door for him. The dog had no manners. He gave up after a minute and went and lay near his dishes again, eyes glued to the door, his collar jingling against a piece of bone as he stretched out.
Dog collar.
Like a slap across the face something hit me. Something out of left field I had never noticed before. Butch was wearing a dog collar. I mean, I had noticed it all along, but it hadn’t meant anything before. It never registered. But dog collars had buckles, and one part of a buckle was the small arm. Small enough, say, to fit into a cuff lock?
I was still pretty sure I’d never pick the lock. Fuck, I was so drained I probably couldn’t do it with the key. But hope was still squatting in my brain, like a shit-faced drunk in an empty Beverly Hills estate, stretched out on the wraparound couch drinking fine aged bourbon, feet up on the wall, scratching his ass with a priceless antique rapier. In control is what I’m getting at. Making it impossible to sit still.
From above me I heard Skinny Man banging pots and pans, stomping across the floor and then back again. Slowly, Butch looked up too, like he’d seen this movie before but couldn’t find anything better to watch.
“C’mere, Butch,” I said. He turned his attention to me, tilted his head. “C’mere, I won’t hurt you.” Not now anyway, I wouldn’t, but like Skinny Man said, good things come to those who wait.
“C’mon, you stupid fucking mutt, c’mere so I can pet you. C’mon.”
I whistled a bit to entice him, but I think he had learned not to approach me carefree. Still, he looked interested, and if I could only lure him over. Perhaps what was needed was incentive. My leg was still coated in flaky blood, the wound was itchy and red and a couple of the tooth marks were moist with puss. I shook it like an elderly stripper auditioning for a Vegas review, and Butch finally stood up. He padded over and sniffed the leg and I reached for his neck, but he was out of range. Shit. The leg idea was working against me. I’d only get bit, and Butch would get a free meal.
I had to get him near my hand. So I rubbed my wrist against the cuff, opening the cut I had inflicted earlier. The pain shot up my arm like electricity and burned my insides. My teeth felt like they were being scratched with a file. It was so bad I almost stopped before I drew blood, but I forged on thinking of the larger picture. I needed to save Jamie, I needed to get free and call the police. I missed my parents. Tooth was dead. Jamie was butchered. So much blood.
No, I thought, don’t ride that train. Stay focused.
As hard as I fought though, that train began running away, the images filling my head like too many people cramming into an elevator. Jamie tortured, Tooth’s jaw on the floor. Oh God, no, don’t lose it, don’t think about it. There is no Jamie, no Tooth, nothing other than the chains on your wrists and the collar on the dog. Rub the wrist. Harder. Pain equals freedom.
The first drop of red hit the floor with a light plop and was eaten by the dirt. But Butch could smell it. Immediately he came over and put his nose against the cut, sniffed enthusiastically, and started licking the blood as it came out. To keep him where I wanted him I smeared some of the blood on my hip. He licked it off my shorts, and maybe decided it must be coming from there because he kept on licking until I could feel his saliva against my skin. With my hand on his head, I moved him closer with my fingers until I could grab the collar. The buckle was under his head, so I spun it up onto the back of his neck and got a good grip on it. Frantically, I worked my fingers to unclasp it. It wasn’t easy. My thumb pushed the flap backward into the buckle, but it would only go so far before the eyelets stopped it and it bunched up. The difficult process was further compounded by the dog’s inability to keep its head still as it licked.
“Stay still, will ya.”
Dust was falling from the ceiling. Above me, the man walked toward the stairs. The collar was bunched up again. The footsteps got closer, they were coming fast. Butch move
d his head but I grabbed the collar and yanked him back.
“You move again I will kill you so slowly you’ll think the world’s rewinding. Now stay still!”
I worked the flap backwards once again and slipped a finger under the loop that formed. Triumphantly, the arm came out of the eyelet. No sooner had it freed than Skinny Man was back at the top of the stairs. I ripped at the collar and the whole thing came loose. Skinny Man came down the steps, yelling something. I almost took the collar but knew he’d see me so I left it dangling around Butch’s neck.
“Knew I’d find it sooner or later,” he said. He held up a jug of bleach, unscrewed the cap. “Gotta be careful with this stuff, it can burn something awful.” He shook the jug at me and a stream of bleach leapt out and hit the dirt in front of me. I pressed back into the wall. When it hit the floor it smoked a bit, and I thought, bleach doesn’t smoke. Whatever he’s got in there it ain’t bleach, it’s something much worse.
“Shit,” he said, and flung his fingers about. He’d spilled some on himself and I smiled watching him try and wipe it off. “What are you laughing at? You still thirsty, Roger? How’s about a drink.”
“No thanks.” Not that drink anyway. Real water, yes. Absolutely. Thirsty did not begin to describe the anguish my body was experiencing from the lack of food and water.
“Oh, now you don’t want my hospitality. You sure are ungrateful, aren’t ya? Snooping around people’s yards, asking for favors and then showing no appreciation, stealing my tools.”
He came over and ran his hands around my pockets, behind my back. I thanked God I had left the collar on Butch. The dog stepped aside quietly and sat near the boiler. His collar hung down on the sides of his neck, but Skinny Man didn’t notice.
Still bare-assed, Skinny Man went over to the door to the back room. “I’m gonna have fun with you real soon, teach you some manners. But first there’s a sweet little girl needs my attention.”
The Summer I Died: A Thriller Page 14