Alive! Not Dead!

by R. M. Smith

  “They were drawn there,” I said. “I have no idea why.”

  Stalkers. Where have I heard them called that before? I remembered hearing it somewhere…but who had said it?

  “The northwest…” she said quietly. She was lost in thought.

  Outside, faintly, a dog barked.

  We were quiet for a while. We didn’t think twice about the dog bark.

  “Where did they go in the northwest?” Liz asked.

  I said “Not really sure. We were told this by someone in the military.”

  She laughed quietly. “Oh, the military…”

  “Yes.”

  She was lost in thought again; then said “We should go to Houston. Not only to get further away from the northwest, but I’m sure the food warehouse down there is ok, too. It lasted through all of the hurricanes these last few years. Remember Hurricane Jess? That one really tore through Houston, but my warehouse survived with barely a scratch.”

  “The northwest is gone now,” I said. “Remember what I told you about the split?”

  “That’s right! It’s gone! Good.”

  “Maybe when we’re all better we can head down to your warehouse,” I said, leaning my head back against the wall.

  “Ok,” she said. “I’m sorry about your little boy.”

  “He wasn’t ours,” Mindy said. “We only met Pete a few days ago.”

  “Oh…”

  “We met him…I’m sorry I can’t talk about it.”

  “It’s ok. I understand.”

  The dog barked outside again, louder, closer.

  Mindy asked “Is that a dog?”

  We listened. It barked again, sounding even closer.

  “It is!” I said.

  We were sitting in the living room at the front of the house. There was a large picture window overlooking the front yard. Suddenly we saw a mangy dog come running into the yard. It ran to the front door of our house. It started scratching to get in.

  We all were in too much pain to jump up or answer the door. I slowly stood up, making my way there.

  “Wait, Dan,” Mindy said.

  I turned to her. “Why?”

  “How did the dog know we were in here?”

  “Probably our scents.”

  “Just wait a sec,” she said as she managed to stand. She walked to the edge of the picture window. She peered down the street. “I’m gonna check to see if…”

  A good-sized rock came sailing through the picture window. Luckily all of us weren’t in the direct line of fire. Glass rained down into the living room. The dog stopped scratching the front door. Instead, he jumped through the window. He didn’t bite or attack us. His tail was wagging like mad. He was happy to see us!

  We all were confused.

  I looked at the dog, then at Mindy. Her mouth was hung open. She was staring at what was left of the window.

  A huge slob of a man with a long snarled beard stood in the window. He had a red bandana. He had a shotgun pointed at us.

  “So this is where you went to after killing my boys,” he said softly, angrily.

  Liz screamed. I saw in her face that she recognized this man.

  “Scream all you want,” he said mercilessly. “You’re mine now. I’m gonna slice all three of you fuckers up.”

  “Please, leave us alone,” I said.

  “You know I can’t do that. But, I’m really not after you two – not really, still gonna kill ya but, that bitch there, she’s toast. She slammed my hand in a car door and that hurt like a motherfucker. I’m gonna make her pay.”

  “Please, no…” Liz whimpered.

  He stepped through the broken window. He was huge. He probably weighed close to 400 pounds.

  “But I was told to track you down,” he said as he pointed his gun at me. “You’re Dan Kingsley, right?”

  That stunned me. How would he know who I was? I didn’t answer. I was simply shocked.

  “And you’re Mindy Thompson,” he said as he pointed the gun at Mindy.

  She was just as shocked as I was. She asked “How do you know our names?”

  “Some fella in a military uniform stopped me. He told me to bring you back to the market.”

  Liz was shocked, open-mouthed.

  “Let us go. Please,” Mindy begged. “We just want to live our lives.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” the fat man said.

  “Come on man,” I said. “We’ll do anything. Just let us go.”

  He shook his head no.

  I was in too much pain but I still tried to fight him.

  It was a mistake. He had me pinned on the ground before I even realized it. My body screamed in agony. He taped my hands behind my back, taped my legs together, and gagged me. He used duct tape to bind me. I couldn’t budge.

  He did the same to Mindy. She didn’t fight him. There was no use.

  Liz struggled with him. He shoved her around pretty hard as he taped her up. “You’re gonna get fucked up,” he told Liz. “Paybacks are a bitch, they say. Well, heh, you’re my bitch, and paybacks are hell!”

  When he was done taping her up, he hoisted her over his right shoulder. He carried her outside after telling his dog, Teller, to stay.

  You watch them, Teller! Stay! And if they try to get away, sic the man’s balls!”

  Outside, at his pickup truck, he let the tailgate down with a thud.

  “Here’s payback number one,” he said.

  He slung Liz’s body down into the back of the pickup as hard as he could. When her body hit, the truck bounced on its shocks. There were snaps as bones broke.

  He threw her face-down into the truck.

  We were bound, sitting on the glass covered couch.

  The dog sat in front of us, not growling, just watching us, panting.

  There was nothing we could do. I couldn’t budge. My hands were bound. I couldn’t get my fingers around to rip the tape. I couldn’t turn to face Mindy. I could only turn my head. She was crying. Her mouth was covered in duct tape, too as well as mine.

  Even when I tried to squeeze out of the tape, my sides hurt too much from our earlier beatings.

  All we could do was wait.

  Washburn found us, I thought. What’s he going to do to us now that we’re caught? If only I could get out of this fucking tape!

  SWEET BLISS

  Mindy and I were duct taped to chairs, side by side.

  There was a barrel to our right with a small fire in it.

  In front of us, Liz was strung up by her feet and hands between two hoists. She was naked. Her butt was resting on a table under her. The table was lined with all sorts of kitchen cutlery.

  On the other side of Liz, the rotten bearded man was humming and giggling. He was pouring barbecue sauce all over Liz’s body. It was dripping onto the table.

  Liz was either dead or unconscious. I couldn’t tell, but her face was broken. It looked like her nose was broken as well as some of her teeth. Her lips were smashed.

  To the left, Washburn sat. Silent. Stern. His arms were crossed. He had taken off his shirt. He wore a white t-shirt underneath.

  “Wake her,” Washburn stood, commanding our captor.

  He said, “In time. I am preparing the feast.”

  Washburn once again folded his arms over his chest.

  Liz stirred. The cook had removed her gag. He wanted to hear her scream.

  “Good morning,” the cook said.

  Liz’s eyes shot open. Immediately she realized where she was. She began to plead for him to stop.

  Washburn came over and stood next to her. He measured her body with his eyes. He said “Do you see what you have done?”

  What you have done, I thought. What does Liz have to do with this?

  “Lee, please,” she begged. “Let me go, please.”

  How does she know his name? Who is Liz? What the hell!

  “DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?” he screamed at her at the top of his lungs. Even our captor stepped back. “YOU ARE THE CAUSE O
F ALL OF THIS! YOU BROUGHT ALL OF THIS DOWN ON US!”

  Her body hitched as she cried. “Lee, please…”

  Washburn looked at our captor. “Trenton, you may begin.”

  “It’s Bart! Call me Bart!”

  “Good enough,” Washburn said as he went back to his chair.

  Mindy was shaking her head violently. Her eyes were wide and confused. I could hear her begging them not to do this but she couldn’t speak. I, too, wanted to tell them not to do anything, but the tape was too tight around my mouth.

  All we could do was watch.

  Bart took a filet knife. He started slowly shaving the hair off of Liz’s right arm with the blade. Gingerly. Caring. He was being gentle as she cried, begging. Then he used the sharp edge of the blade on her. He slowly stabbed it under the skin on her shin. Liz jerked back but couldn’t move very far. Bart sliced the blade upward under the skin on her shin toward her kneecap; slowly cutting. Liz wailed in pain as her skin was sliced away like a curl. Blood began to pour off of her leg. She was jerking in pain.

  “OH GOD LEE MAKE HIM STOP! OH FUCK! GOD! GOD!”

  Bart looked at Washburn with a sly smile. Bart was getting his payback. Washburn remained sitting, uncaring of the woman who was being killed in front of us.

  Who the hell is she and how does she know Washburn? my mind kept screaming.

  Bart set the filet knife down. He took a long knife from the table. Carefully, with the expertise of a skilled butcher; and as Liz shrieked in pain, Bart slowly stabbed the long blade into the bottom of her leg under her right kneecap. She pleaded, screaming at him to stop as the tip of the blade emerged out the other side of her leg in a bubble of blood. We watched helplessly as he slowly sawed the blade along the back of her shin bone, down to her heel, cutting through leg tendons below the kneecap all the way down to her Achilles tendon. Liz was shrieking, crying, begging, whipping her head around as he cut her. At her heel he gave the knife a hard tug. Her lower leg muscle thumped down onto the table. Blood poured out of her cut arteries.

  Screaming she passed out.

  “STOP HER BLEEDING! I DON’T WANT HER TO BLEED OUT!’ Washburn commanded.

  Bart brought some small rope over from a different table. He looped the rope tightly around her leg at the hip. As he snugged it down, the bleeding stopped.

  “She passed out from the pain;” Bart said “I have smelling salts.”

  “Use them on her,” Washburn said quietly.

  They were at the end of the table. He opened a small lid and held them under her nose. She slowly woke up, screaming as she did. The pain in her leg must have been grotesquely searing.

  Mindy and I were helpless. We were both screaming through our taped mouths for them to stop.

  Washburn again got up again and walked over to her. There was a small salt shaker on the end of the table. He took the lid off and poured the salt on her exposed bone. Again she screamed in agony. He looked at her with no compassion. “Continue,” he said, “but keep my wife awake.”

  Wife? What the fuck? That’s his wife?! And then I remembered: Washburn had called them stalkers! That’s where I heard it before! Washburn had said it and his wife said it! Holy shit!

  Bart spilled the smelling salts all over her face.

  Her head fell back. She was in agony. Her body was shaking. The chains of the hoists were clinking.

  Bart then cut off the calf of her other leg and tied it off; the same way he had done the other.

  Liz vomited. Somehow, she was still alive.

  He untied her feet from the hoist. Her legs slammed down onto the table. Her body slid backward on the bloody table but she didn’t fall off.

  He reached for something leaning against one of the table legs. It was a long handled bolt cutter. He clamped it right above the bloodied flesh of her ankle. With a loud crunching noise, Bart pinched through her skin and snapped through the bone of her lower leg. Her foot dropped onto its side on the tabletop.

  Liz was passed out again.

  “You need to keep the bitch awake,” Washburn commanded.

  “She is probably in shock,” Bart said.

  “Make her wake up!”

  He walked over to a different table with other instruments on it. Bart brought back a small butane torch. He used it on Liz’s cut off stumps – not only to cauterize the wounds, but also to hopefully snap her awake due to the burning pain.

  She didn’t wake up.

  “I think she’s gone, Lieutenant,” Bart said.

  “Bullshit! Wake her up! I want to hear her beg for mercy!”

  Bart slapped her but still she didn’t wake. He took the filet knife. He slid it between her two front teeth. He jimmied it around a little, and then sliced quickly and deeply up into her gums. She didn’t move.

  I noticed that a large bruise had formed on the side of her neck.

  “Wake her!” Washburn commanded.

  Bart used the butane torch on her back and on the back of her arms. Liz didn’t move.

  “She’s really dead now, you asshole!” Washburn shouted at him. “I WANTED HER ALIVE LONGER!”

  Bart backed up. He spread his arms, a large grin on his face. “She’s all yours,” he said. “My payback’s done.”

  Washburn untied her arms from the hoist. Her body sickly slumped onto the table. He took the carving knife and began to repeatedly stab her in her chest and abdomen. There was a constant thunk! thunk! thunk! as the blade rose and fell over and over until her body was mutilated.

  When he was done, out of breath, he turned to Mindy and I. “You’re next,” he whispered. His shirt was covered in Liz’s blood. “Take off their gags. I want to hear them beg me to keep each other alive.”

  Bart took off only Mindy’s gag.

  “You sorry sons of bitches!” Mindy yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Take her clothes off,” Washburn said still out of breath. “She’s first.”

  Roughly, Bart tore all of the duct tape off Mindy. She was screaming as hairs were pulled out. Then he ripped Mindy’s maternity top off. It had been loose on her. She had wanted to give the baby room and didn’t know if we would ever find bigger clothes down the road. Washburn saw her belly when she stood naked in front of them.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered. “You’re pregnant.”

  “Yes I am,” she said sternly. “Don’t you dare hurt my baby.”

  “Oh we won’t,” he said as he nodded to Bart who roughly took Mindy’s hands, hooked them to the hoist, and lifted her into the air. Her feet were still tied. She swung there in front of us.

  “Leave her alone!” I wanted to cry but I was still gagged.

  Bart shoved Liz’s body off the table. It thudded sickly to the ground. He went to the other hoist, brought it over, and tied Mindy’s feet to it.

  “Wait a minute,” Washburn said. “Only tie one foot to the hoist.”

  Bart untied Mindy’s feet. She tried to fight by kicking but Bart was too strong. He had her tied by one foot in a few seconds.

  “Now we need to get that other leg out of the way,” Washburn said.

  Mindy started screaming. “No! No! Please no please.”

  My head was down. I was weeping, begging, praying that they would stop. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs but I couldn’t. I felt utterly helpless as I watched Bart walk over to the table. He picked up a hack-saw. He placed it on the side of Mindy’s left leg, right at the hip.

  He started to saw…he started to cut my wife’s leg off.

  Mindy screamed in terror at first. Then it turned into a shrieking painful howl. Blood poured down her leg as he sawed. She was jerking in pain as he cut through her bone. The leg dangled then fell to the floor as he finally cut through.

  Blood was pouring out of her. She would be dead in minutes if they didn’t stop it.

  “Now. Let’s see what we got in there,” Washburn said, almost whispering. “What’s inside that bump on her stomach?”

  Bart used the filet knife
on Mindy’s belly. He slashed her lower stomach open from side to side. Blood washed down her remaining leg.

  Instead of taking the filet knife back to the table, he stabbed it straight into Mindy’s other thigh where he could get to it easier. From the nearby table he grabbed a tenderizing fork. Rudely, he shoved it deep into Mindy’s lower stomach. Mindy’s water broke. It splashed onto the floor with all of her blood.

  Bart pulled something out of her belly.

  I saw a baby in there.

  So tiny.

  Covered in blood.

  Bart flicked it off the fork. It flapped down onto the table.

  Mindy hung there, blood gushing from her cuts. The umbilical cord hung from her torn belly. The filet knife was left there, stuck deep into her thigh up to the hilt.

  “Something you’d like to tell your wife before she’s gone?” Bart asked, almost boasting. He ripped the tape from my face.

  “YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!’ I yelled at the top of my lungs, crying. “You killed my wife…our baby…”

  “We couldn’t let you pass on the virus,” Washburn said. “The MCON virus, Dan. You were the carrier.”

  “BULLSHIT,” I cried, spit running down my face along with more tears. My body was hitching. I was bawling my eyes out.

  He laughed a sick grunt. “Yeah…maybe you’re right...”

  Through my tears of frustration, sorrow, anger, I looked up at him. “What?”

  “There never was a virus,” he said. “I made it up.”

  Bart dropped my gag. “Huh?”

  “I made it all up!” He said with his arms outstretched. “Just to get that fuck who was fucking my wife! I sent a missile to take down that jet you were on, Dan – the one who had that bastard on it too! Remember, you told me that you weren’t sure if everyone on the plane died? Well I had to make sure, didn’t I? So I launched another one. Right the fuck dab in the middle where the first plane crashed. I needed to make sure that son of a bitch was dead. I nuked his home in Salt Lake City, too. Maybe he had missed his original flight from there – who knew? I knew his connecting flight was in Seattle. Fucker was too cheap to get a non-stop flight. Ha! He had a layover in Seattle from Salt Lake on the way to Kansas City! What an ass! I never knew what my wife saw in him. I have so many people convinced it’s some virus,” he continued, a sly grin on his face. “I have the whole fucking military wrapped around my god-damn finger – and they do whatever I ask them! They bring people in. I question them. If they don’t do what I say, I have them all gassed. I can pin the MCON virus on whoever the fuck I want. People buy it. They believe whatever I tell them – and why wouldn’t they when I’m the fucking leader of the goddamn military!