After we had walked maybe a half mile, we spotted something metallic looking up ahead. We could see the reflection of small slivers of sunlight that managed to penetrate the thick canopy of trees reflecting off whatever the contraption was. We were both almost worn out from struggling through the undergrowth. Each step took effort and my legs were full of briars. I was cursing myself for letting Glenn talk me into this fool’s errand.
As we got closer, we saw that the metallic structure was a huge fence. It must have been fifteen feet high and looked like it ran on forever. The fence was galvanized, heavy gage chain link and had six strands of wire at the top that curved outward. I’d never seen wire like this before. It wasn’t barbed wire like a lot of fences I’d seen that were similar. The wire was flat and looked like ribbon with edges that looked sharp enough to cut you to shreds if you tried to climb over it. Glenn reached out to put his hand on the fence and I quickly slapped it away.
“What if it’s electrified?” I whispered.
Glenn shook his head, agreeing with me. We followed the fence in the opposite direction of where the house was to see how far it went. We must have walked a hundred yards before the fence made a ninety degree turn. It continued on for what looked like an eternity, deeper into the dense woods.
“There ain’t no telling how much they spent on this thing,” I whispered. “I told you they were hidin’ somethin’,” Glenn said with a know-it-all look on his face. I hated it when he was right.
We followed the fence farther. I couldn’t fathom why anybody would need such an elaborate, impenetrable fortress unless they truly were trying to hide something. They sure didn’t go to this much trouble and expense to keep cows in. Glenn heard it before I did and grabbed me by the arm, pulling me deeper into the woods. It was the unmistakable sound of an automobile. We laid down flat on our stomachs, both of us behind a separate pine tree.
Over a small hill, a car came into view. And not just any car, either. It looked brand new. A shiny cherry red car with a black convertible top. I couldn’t believe anybody would be driving a car like that through a field. Then I noticed the car was traveling at a fairly high rate of speed and wasn’t bouncing around like it should have been driving across rough terrain. The reason was that it was actually driving on smooth pavement. Why would anybody have a driveway that was in worse shape than a logging road and then put a newly paved road in the middle of nowhere? This was starting to get interesting and kind of scary. Glenn poked me and pointed at the car.
“That’s a brand new Oldsmobile Cutlass 442. That’s a bad-ass car,” he said, with a look of awe on his face.
I had never been impressed by cars, which I know was odd for a teenage boy in the ’70’s. To me they were just another piece of machinery that served a purpose. No different than a tractor or hay baler. We watched as the car came to a stop. A man and woman got out and walked over to a huge limestone rock. The man looked around a few times, like a small animal wary of predators, then bent down beside the rock and started fumbling with something. Then the woman walked over to a small metal box that was mounted to an oak tree. She took what I assumed to be a key and unlocked a lid that covered the front of the box. She stood there for a minute, appearing to be holding down a button or lever. Then she walked back over to where the man was and they disappeared as if they had been swallowed up by the earth.
Glenn looked at me like he’d just seen a ghost. “They’ve got some kinda underground room over there,” he whispered. His face looked like he was as shocked and afraid as I was. We laid still, almost afraid to breathe, until they emerged about ten minutes later. They looked around, got in the car, and quickly drove away. As soon as they were out of sight we jumped up and hightailed it out of there. Briars or no briars, we were running like deer. Whatever it was they were doing, I didn’t want to know.
CHAPTER FOUR
Every town or community in the United States, and probably the world, has at least one. A woman who is more than willing to accommodate almost any man that comes along. Most of the time it’s for money, sometimes it’s because they are lonely, and then some just plain old like it, I reckon. Long Hollow, or “Long Holler,” as it was pronounced by at least three-fourths of our inhabitants, had one too. Her name was Madge Harper and she looked to be maybe thirty years old. Most of these loose women aren’t ever going to be candidates for Miss America or any other beauty contests. But that was not the case with Madge. Madge was a real knock-out. I mean movie-star pretty.
Some of the guys I knew that were a little older than me had made a few visits to Madge’s house, and once they did, their lives were changed forever. The conversations we had once had about hunting, fishing and football changed dramatically. Now all they wanted to talk about was the last time they’d been to Madge’s or what they were going to do the next time they went. Or hoping one day they would be able to find a steady girl who was as much fun as Madge.
The fact that Madge was married didn’t slow her down one bit. That’s right, Madge was a married woman. Her husband, Carl, was gone a lot, but you didn’t have to worry about him showing up unexpectedly. He welcomed the young boys, or men, or whoever wanted to come. He got some kind of twisted pleasure out of watching old Madge and other men. The few boys I knew that were adventurous enough to visit Madge when Carl was home, said he would take pictures of Madge and the boys. He would even tell them what positions to pose in and whether or not to smile. Like he was some kind of photographer for one of those erotic magazines.
When they had finished their business, Carl would make them hang around and drink a few beers, or maybe have Madge fix them all something to eat. They said Madge was a hell of a good cook, besides her other obvious talents.
Given the circumstances, you might think Carl was abusive and treated Madge badly, but you’d be wrong. Carl doted on that woman like you can’t believe. He was always bringing her gifts when he’d come home from one of his many trips. And I don’t mean little knick-knacks either. I’m talking expensive gifts, like jewelry and even a new car about twice a year. Nice cars too. Carl was supposedly a truck driver, or something, but the truth was, nobody knew exactly what he did. Whatever it was, it had to have paid well.
Of course some of the Old Guard in Long Hollow had their suspicions about Carl’s money. There are always those who believe anyone who is doing better than them financially must be doing it through some nefarious way like bootlegging or bank robbing or something even darker. Especially when they were transplants like Carl and Madge. They had only moved to Long Hollow about ten years before. But try as they might, they couldn’t find anything out of the way about Carl’s business. Neither could the sheriff, who was as big of a busy-body as the rest of them. The harder they tried to expose him as a gangster or even the devil himself, the more he’d kill them with kindness by giving a big chunk of money to one of the churches or bringing someone in need a weeks worth of groceries. He even gave most of the money to have our courthouse remodeled.
The next night after our bountiful fishing trip, me and Glenn were once again at our usual spot at the cemetery. Out of nowhere, Glenn told me he believed the perfect way for us to cure ourselves of our fear of girls our own age would be a visit to Madge’s house. He deemed fifteen years old to be the appropriate age for such an endeavor, and since his fifteenth birthday was only two weeks away, we should start making plans.
“But I won’t be fifteen ‘til February, Glenn,” I reminded him.
“That’s okay,” he said. “You’ll be with me and I’ll be fifteen. It will be sort of like havin’ a learners permit to drive a car. As long as you’re with somebody whose got a license, you’re alright.”
Well, that made perfect sense to me. Apparently Glenn had given this a lot of thought. The one thing he hadn’t accounted for, however, was the cost of the ass transplants we’d need once our parents finished wearing ours out. And they would find out. They always did. Nell Fuller lived right on the corner of Long Hollow road and the old grist
mill road that you turned on to get to Madge’s house and she didn’t miss anything, day or night. Glenn, always the believer in the super-natural, said she had some sort of special seeing powers, like a witch or something. When I told him of my concerns he scoffed at me for having no imagination whatsoever.
“We don’t have to walk up the road, you dumb-ass,” he said, admonishing me like I was his six year old sister. “We can go up the creek bank and walk up the ridge to the back of her house.”
“I thought you said Nell Fuller was a witch and had special seeing powers. If she does, what difference would it make how we got there?”
Glenn looked confused for a second, then he got mad. “Look, if you’re gonna be a chicken-shit about it, I’ll take Tom with me. You don’t ever wanna do nothing if there’s any risk to it.”
I wasn’t expecting this sort of peer pressure from Glenn. I was the one who was usually coming up with the death defying feats. Of course Glenn always went along with me without question.
“What about VD?” I asked. “As many men as she’s been with, she’s bound to have caught something.”
“That’s what they make rubbers for,” Glenn yelled, “That and to keep from getting somebody knocked-up.”
I was losing the battle of reason with Glenn. He was countering my every punch, so I decided the best thing to do was just give in. The way I had it figured, a lot could change in two weeks and by then he’d have something else on his mind.
CHAPTER FIVE
The lights of the Valley View Motel were the last thing Roland Wilson could remember seeing. He could recall the sign indicating that there was indeed at least one vacancy. He had been on his way from Chattanooga to New Orleans to visit relatives and have, what in his mind, was some well deserved and hard earned fun in the Big Easy. Somewhere in Alabama he had lost track.
He woke up feeling like he was a character in some fairy tale. He found himself lying in a king size bed that had a heavily ornate, metal frame and an eclectic array of cast iron designs. There was everything from gargoyles to peace signs and the frame looked like it weighed a ton. His hands were tied to the steel pickets of the headboard and his feet were bound at the other end. There were two leather straps tightly secured, one across his torso, the other about mid-thigh.
But all that Roland was concerned with at this moment was the extraordinarily beautiful woman laying beside him that didn’t have a stitch of clothes on a body that looked like it had been sculpted by Michelangelo or one of those other famous Italian artists whose names Roland couldn’t remember or pronounce. As he slowly began to focus through the clouds that were beginning to melt away from his partially opened eyes, he saw that she was smiling at him. She had perfect white teeth and full, inviting lips.
Roland was a single man who liked to play the field. A lot. He could be found at least three nights a week at one of the hot-spots in town, trying to score his latest conquest and usually succeeding. Once he saw this gorgeous creature laying beside him with obviously only one thing on her mind, the question of where he was or how he got there was the farthest thing from his mind. He wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. If he was dreaming, then so be it. It was the best dream he had ever had.
She had even been considerate enough to undress him. He looked down and saw that his motor was already running. She looked down, then back up at him, still smiling. Not a word was spoken by either of them as she went to work. And man, was she good at her job. In fact, she did it so well that it only lasted a few minutes, to Roland’s embarrassment and disappointment. He was hoping, and really hoping hard, that she would give him another chance.
She finally spoke in a raspy voice, “It’s alright sweetie, we have plenty of time.”
“I promise I never have had that problem before,” he said, halfway apologizing and halfway trying to assure her that he was normally the world’s greatest lover. “Where am I, and what’s your name?” he asked.
“Does it really matter?” She was kissing his bare chest softly, her breath hot on his skin.
“I’d like to at least know your name,” he said.
“I’ll tell you when the time is right. I’m going to give you a night you’ll never forget. You just do what I say, without question, and you will never want to leave.”
She brought him a cold bottle of Budweiser, a straw sticking out the top, and held it to his parched lips.
“Why don’t you untie my hands for a minute while I drink my beer,” he said, trying to sound authoritative.
“That would take all the fun out of it,” she said with a cute little giggle.
He smiled at her and began drinking the beer through the straw. She opened one for herself, and to make him feel more comfortable, drank hers through a straw too. He finished his in a hurry, not realizing during all the euphoria how thirsty he was. She quickly opened another and he drank that one down almost as quickly.
“That’s enough for now, cutie. We don’t want it to have an adverse effect, if you know what I mean.”
She got up and walked over to a night stand and picked up a purple scarf, put it around her neck, and began to do a little provocative dance, doing things with the scarf that would have gotten him going again under normal circumstances. She then folded it several times and tied it around his head, making a blindfold.
“You’re a kinky little devil,” he said with a sideways grin on his face.
He heard her rattling around, picking up something else. “Now I’m going to give you the greatest pleasure you ever have, or ever will experience. Just do what I tell you and don’t ask questions.”
At this point, he would have jumped off into a rattlesnake pit if that’s what she told him to do.
“Now, I want you to open your mouth,” she said, like a mother trying to coax her baby into eating.
He obeyed, and she placed a giant sugar cube on his tongue and told him to hold it there and keep his mouth open wide. He knew immediately from the sweet taste what it was, but had no idea what part a sugar cube could play in her little game. But he wasn’t about to question her or her motives.
The woman looked over at the man that had been standing in the shadows in the corner of the room the entire time. The man quietly walked toward Roland with a glass bottle in his hand, shaking it vigorously as he walked. The woman continued running her hands through Roland’s hair as the man approached and quickly pulled off the rubber seal and thrust the bottle into Roland’s open mouth, putting his other hand on his throat and pinning him against the bed’s head board. The man had an iron grip and Roland thought he was going to be strangled in a matter of seconds. He couldn’t fathom a woman having that kind of bone-crushing grip. But there was nobody else in the room. Was there? He immediately started to feel dizzy from the restriction of oxygen to his brain.
The fire ants, detecting the scent of the giant sugar cube, began rushing from the bottle in a mad, feeding frenzy. In just a few seconds, the inside of Roland’s mouth was filled with hundreds of the angry, stinging little beasts. He started trying to squirm, but it was no use. The constraints and the throat crushing grip the man had on him was too much.
“Get the duct tape ready and get it over his mouth as soon as I pull this bottle out,” the man said. The woman tore off about an eight inch strip of silver duct tape and had it ready. The man held the bottle in Roland’s mouth until most of the ants had disappeared from the bottle, then quickly jerked it out, chipping one of his front teeth. Roland had about a second to scream before the tape silenced him. Or at least muffled him. There was nothing short of death that would stop the terrified moans.
“Bring the syringes,” the man told her.
She never spoke a word as she produced two large syringes filled with more of the energetic little demons. She pulled off the tops with her teeth and placed one in Roland’s left ear. The man put his in the other ear, still holding the grip on his throat with his left hand. They began squeezing the plungers, slowly forcing the ants into Roland�
��s ear canals. When the syringes were empty, they jammed rubber ear plugs in behind them tightly, giving the tormentors only one way to travel. Roland was shaking in horrible, convulsive spasms and the woman thought for a minute he was going to break the ropes and leather straps that constrained him. The man had his stop watch out, timing the event to see how long it would be before Roland lost consciousness. One minute ticked off, then two, three. This one’s tough, the man was thinking.
“Pull off the blindfold and let’s see his eyes,” he told the woman.
She reached down and untied the purple scarf. Roland’s eyed were clenched tightly and the woman had to pry one of them open using both hands. Only the white’s of Roland’s eyes could be seen and the woman let go of her grip, looking at the man and shrugging as if she had expected something different.
The man looked at the woman, back at Roland, then again at his stop watch.
“If he is still conscious past another minute, let’s start the IV. Go ahead and check his blood pressure.”
The woman reached under the bed that was shaking like an earthquake from Roland’s violent convulsions, and pulled out a small black pouch. She pulled the sphygmomanometer from the pouch, wrapped it around Roland’s left bicep and began pumping it up. She held her fingers on his wrist until the device deflated and looked at the man with a half smile.
“One forty-eight over one-twenty. Pulse about one-fifteen. I think he may be in pain,” she giggled.
“Okay, nurse. Looks like we’re going to have to start the IV. This one just don’t want to give it up.”
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