CHAPTER NINE
His captors had treated him fairly well, so far. He wasn’t sure if he had been there two or three days. His watch was gone as well as his clothes. They had given him a t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts to wear, but no shoes. He had been allowed to watch all the TV he wanted, as well as having all kinds of books and magazines to read. The TV was the only way he had of knowing the approximate time. He knew what time the news and certain other shows came on, but had to guess at the time in between shows. He had also been fed better that he would have been at home. The woman, or he assumed it was her, was an excellent cook, though wondering what they planned on doing with him next had diminished his appetite considerably.
He had received one visit from the woman that he wished hadn’t happened, but it was forced upon him and he had no choice. He was a happily married man, very happily married, that had been in love with the same woman since his junior year in high school and had always been completely faithful. At least until now. But the woman had made him do it. That sounded rather childish when he thought about it, and he remembered some TV show where the punch line was, the devil made me do it. He couldn’t remember now which show it was. The fact that the woman was beautiful and had done things his wife would never do, didn’t make him feel any better about the situation. But she and the man had threatened to beat him, maybe even kill him, if he hadn’t performed. What else could he have done? Should he have resisted anyway, putting his faithfulness to his wife above survival? Of course his wife would understand that he had to do it to save his life. She always understood, or at least always had. What good would he be to her dead?
The big man who always wore the ski mask had filmed the whole thing. It didn’t make any sense to him. Were they trying to make some porno movie and couldn’t find anyone to participate? As beautiful as this woman was, he couldn’t believe they would have any trouble recruiting a lead man for the part.
Deep in the recesses of his mind he knew that they had more in store for him than this, but was trying to keep that thought at bay while he tried to figure out a way out of this place. It was like a fortress. The place was underground, or at least he thought it was, and had solid concrete walls. He knew every square inch of them now. There was only one heavy metal door that looked like it weighed a ton, and of course it was bolted as tight as a dam.
After another two hours of solitude, right in the middle of Days of Our Lives, he heard the locks clicking on the door, causing him to quickly emerge from his semi state of sleep. His body stiffened as he wondered what they wanted this time. It wasn’t meal time yet and he was hoping they were not going to make him perform again. His conscience couldn’t stand another episode like that, even if he was forced into it against his will.
This time it was the man and he was by himself. He was sure the woman was lurking nearby, probably with a gun. She was never far away from the man. The man walked over to him and held out what looked like some kind of black, cloth bag.
“Put this over your head,” he said. His voice didn’t sound threatening at all, but he could tell by the look in the man’s eyes he meant business. Maybe they had had their fun and were taking him back to his car. At least that was what he was going to believe.
He did as he was told and slipped the bag over his head. Then the man told him to put his hands behind his back. He obeyed the order and could feel cold steel around his wrist and hear the ratcheting sound of hand cuffs being tightened and locked. The man was not rough with him at all as he took his arm and led him out of the room. Maybe they are taking me back, he was thinking, hoping. He was led several feet until they came to a set of stairs.
“Watch your step,” the man said in a pleasant enough voice. They ascended the stairs and he counted twenty-two treads. Then after several more steps, he heard a door open and could feel a breeze blowing. The first fresh air he’d felt in two or three, or however many days it had been. The sun was warm on his skin and he could hear birds singing. If only he could be a bird right now and just fly away. He heard a car door open and was told to step up. Once inside what he believed to be the back of a van, the door closed behind him. The engine fired up and they began to move.
They traveled what he guessed to be no more than a half mile and the vehicle came to a stop. The door opened and the man told him to be careful getting out. Maybe they drove my car here. They wouldn’t have just left it abandoned on the side of the road for the cops to find.
The man led him a few steps and he could here the creaking of a door opening. His heart sank for a few seconds, until he thought that they may have put his car in some kind of building or garage. That made sense. They wouldn’t just leave it out in the open for anyone to see. They walked twenty steps up a flight of stairs to a landing, turned to the right, up ten more steps, and then stopped. The man got behind him and told him to step forward. He did as instructed and could immediately tell he was standing on some kind of unstable surface. Something that was swaying back and forth gently, and making a creaking sound, like a playground swing.
The man then removed the cuffs from his hands and jerked the hood off his head. He blinked for a minute, trying to let his eyes get adjusted to the light. He could see he was on some sort of platform that was enclosed with heavy, steel wire mesh. The man pulled down the door of the platform that slid on tracks top to bottom. The platform started to lower slowly, like an unstable elevator car. The bottom of the contraption was solid, so he couldn’t see what was beneath him. His heart was starting to pound as he wondered where this slow descent was taking him. After what seemed like forever, he heard a gentle splash and could see and feel warm water running into the caged platform.
“Please, oh dear God, pleeeease don’t drown me!,” he screamed so violently it hurt his throat. His worse fear had always been drowning. How did these sick people know that?
“I’m not going to drown you. You worry too much,” he heard the man yell from above.
He looked up and could see the man looking down at him. The expression on his face gave away nothing. Then the platform came to a sudden stop. The water came up to about the middle of his thighs. It was as clear as bath water and felt almost as warm.
He stood there a minute, wondering if the man was just playing with him like a cat playing with a mouse. He held his breath, knowing that any second the cage was going to start moving again. For a minute or two there was an eerie silence. At first he thought his eyes were just playing tricks. His peripheral vision saw some sort of movement in the water off to the right hand side. He kept his eyes on the spot and after a few seconds he knew what he saw was real. It was some sort of small fish. They began circling the cage as more and more came into view. There must have been hundreds of them. They swam around the cage paying no particular attention to it, or him.
Then, like a sudden burst from a terrible storm cloud, a deluge of warm, sticky liquid drenched his head and shoulders. The shock caused him to let out an almost feminine scream and fall to his knees. Whatever the substance was began oozing slowly down the rest of his body. He wiped his eyes with the underside of his t-shirt and could see that his whole body was drenched in what looked and smelled like some sort of animal blood. It started spreading rapidly through the water and the fish that had been so docile a minute ago, were now darting around and crashing into the sides of the platform as if they had been possessed by demons. He heard the sound of metal scraping on metal and saw the door of the platform begin to slowly slide up the track. He looked up to see the man pulling a rope that was attached to the top of the sliding door, easing it up a little at a time. Taunting.
At first he felt just a few sharp, stabbing nibbles. Then it felt like hundreds of tiny daggers gouging away at his feet and legs as the piranhas began to tear his flesh apart with their razor sharp teeth. He began screaming like a wild animal being eaten alive by predators, trying desperately to climb the sides of the caged platform. The man above was lowering it slowly as he climbed. He was now submerged to his
midsection and could feel the starving beasts tearing away at his stomach. He knew his insides were going to be devoured in a matter of seconds as he tried in vain to beat the lively feasters away with his hands. It felt like he was undergoing an autopsy from some mad doctor while he was still alive. His thoughts turned to his wife through the unbearable pain. The thought of his dishonor to the person he loved most in the world was the last thought he had before his flesh was devoured completely to his bones.
CHAPTER TEN
I had convinced Glenn that I had really gone to bat for him with Madge. Of course I was lying like a dog, but he didn’t know that. I told him it was easier for me to talk to her because I wasn’t under any pressure to try to make myself into a great guy. But I had instead built him up to be some kind of Don Juan, lady killer that all the girls swoon after. I told him she couldn’t stop talking about his muscular body and how good he looked out there sweating in the sun. Why, if she hadn’t known better, she would have guessed him to be at least twenty years old. I’m not sure if he bought it completely, but it made me look like the best friend on the face of the earth. I didn’t like lying, and was terrible at it, but I was backed into a corner. Even old Cob would have been proud of my performance.
Me and Glenn were going coon hunting that night, so we took part of the unexpected windfall Madge had given us and bought some pork and beans, Vienna sausages, a big hunk of hoop cheese and some crackers at Aunt Lena’s store to carry along in our backpacks. We couldn’t decide if were going to camp out or not, but if we did we would be well stocked. Me and Glenn thought of ourselves as expert woodsmen, who could live off the land the rest of our lives if some of those commies we’d heard about decided to nuke us one day. There were caves we had spent hours exploring in several different places that would make the perfect survival shelters. We were also two of the best spelunkers in the known world, or at least in our minds we were.
When you are blessed with the infinite energy youth provides you can accomplish three or four different activities a day if you get started early enough in the summertime. So after we finished our shopping, we decided on a whim to leave a little early and do some exploring in one of the caves that was not too far from where we planned on hunting. It was also the one we knew the least about.
We went to Glenn’s house to gather up his dogs. Old Swamp Root, Devil and Blue started barking like crazy when they saw us coming out to the pen where Glenn kept them. They knew it wasn’t feeding time, so the only other reason we could possibly be there was to take them hunting. Each dog had a distinct bark, so when they cut down on a coon we always knew which dog it was. We opened the gate and they came out like those horses do at the Kentucky Derby when the starting gate is opened. They started running in circles and jumping on each other like it was the first time they had ever seen the light of day. Swamp Root and Blue immediately started trying to locate a tree to pee on. Devil was a female, so that was one activity she had to forego.
We waited until old Roscoe, Glenn’s daddy, had gotten enough beer in him to cloud his judgment considerably and asked if we could take his old hunting truck. Our parents would let us drive a little during the day, but never at night. Glenn’s momma overheard us pleading our case and stepped in to quash our efforts immediately. Mommas were good at coming up with every reason on earth why it was too dangerous to do something you thought would be a lot of fun.
“C’mon Momma,” Glenn was pleading, “we promise we won’t go any farther than the Portersville Gap. We’re gonna hunt on the side of Lookout Mountain close to the Dooley place and we promise we’ll park the truck in the gap. We won’t even get on Highway 11. It’s less than four miles.”
“Let the boys take the damned truck, Ruby,” Roscoe intervened on our behalf. “Hell, you and me was a- courtin’ in my old Chevrolet when we was their age.”
“There weren’t as many idiots on the road back then,” was Ruby’s argument.
“Accordin’ to some of the stories you and Daddy tell, there were more idiots back then,” Glenn said with a grin on his face.
Ruby decided there was no use in putting up any more fight. She was only offering a half-hearted argument anyway. She was acting like her mind was on more pressing matters. Probably some kind of trouble Cob had gotten himself into. That boy was always getting into some kind of trouble. She finally gave in and made us swear on every Bible in print that we wouldn’t go any place except where we said we were going. We took the oath and ran out to start loading the old truck.
Portersville Gap connects Big Wills Valley, the valley Long Hollow is in, with what everybody called Railroad Valley. Railroad Valley was the one highway 11 ran through as well as the Alabama Great Southern Railroad, which obviously gave it its name. The gap cut through the big ridge that separated the two valleys and had several old mining and logging roads that ran up the ridges on each side of the road. About halfway through the gap, and near the top of one of the steep ridges, was the cave me and Glenn were going to explore.
We let the dogs out and stood there for a few minutes, letting them run around like maniacs and get their business done, then called them back and loaded them in the truck. After getting our flashlights and ropes secured we started the hike up the ridge, trying to be as quiet as possible, in case we might be lucky enough to jump a deer or maybe see a bobcat. About halfway up, we stopped for a minute to rest from the steep climb. We could have taken the logging road, but it wound around several times and took longer. Besides, we never wanted to be accused of doing things the easy way.
Just as Glenn was about to say something, I put my hand up to silence him. I cocked my head to one side, indicating that I thought I heard something. It was the sound of an engine, straining in low gear, winding its way up the logging road. Me and Glenn had always liked spying on people. Especially when they were out in the middle of nowhere because you never knew what you were going to see. We learned about making out with girls as well as other useful things, like running a whiskey still, as a result of our being expert spies.
We continued our climb in stealthy fashion, careful not to step on fallen limbs that could sound as loud as a rifle shot when they were snapped in the still woods. I was thinking to myself that it was a good thing old Snake wasn’t with us. Even if the ground had been covered with shag carpet, he would still have sounded like a herd of buffalo stampeding. The truck could be heard more clearly now and I was trying to judge from the sound where it was in relation to our location. We hurried as much as possible without making too much noise. Whoever was in the truck couldn’t hear us, but they might be going to pick somebody up that was already waiting there so we didn’t want to chance it.
When the truck came to a stop, it was still a little ways from the top of the ridge. Me and Glenn found a place behind a honeysuckle hedge to hide and watch. The truck sat still with no one getting out, the engine still running.
Glenn whispered to me, “You don’t reckon old Tater Smith’s got him another still up here, do you?”
“I don’t think so. I believe he’s still in the penitentiary. Anyway, Tater wouldn’t have a truck that nice.”
The truck was a late model, three quarter-ton Ford, that was four-wheel drive. It had big mud grip tires and a high camper shell on the back like I’d never seen before. This was an awful expensive truck to go traipsing around in the woods, was what I was thinking.
The engine shut off and both doors opened. Two men got out and looked around in all directions, as if they wanted to make sure there was nobody around. They both had on caps, the bills pulled down low, making it impossible to see what their faces looked like. One man was fairly tall and had a little bit of a gut, the other was kind of wiry and appeared nervous and twitchy, like if you snuck up behind him and yelled, he’d jump completely out of his skin. They raised the tailgate of the camper and walked around to the opposite side of the truck, out of mine and Glenn’s view. We could hear them moving what sounded like tree limbs and brush and could see a huge, anc
ient cedar tree shaking a little. I noticed a pine tree had fallen, probably blown down by a storm, and was wedged against the cedar tree.
When they emerged again, they were carrying what looked like a blue fifty-five gallon drum. The kind of drum that oil and hydraulic fluid came in, except it appeared to be made of plastic. It looked like it was sealed with some kind of tape and whoever had sealed it wanted it to stay sealed. They loaded it in the back of the truck and then walked back around to the other side. Glenn looked at me with a puzzled expression as if to say, ‘what in the hell are in those barrels.’ He wasn’t any more curious than I was, that was for sure. They appeared again with an identical drum and loaded it, fired up the truck, and were gone.
After they had gotten to the point that we no longer could hear the truck, Glenn looked at me and still in a semi-whisper said, “I don’t know what was in those barrels, but they sure didn’t want them found.”
I nodded my head and we walked over to where the truck had been parked. Where the pine tree had fallen against the old cedar, it had made a little natural shelter. It looked like they had put the barrels there and then concealed them with pine boughs and whatever else they could find that would not arouse suspicion.
“Well, it could have been moonshine I guess,” I said to Glenn, not believing at all that was what it was. We walked around to see if there was anything else worth seeing or would give us more clues, but found nothing to get excited about. We shrugged our shoulders and started walking in the direction of the cave. Like I said, priorities change in a hurry when you’re young.
Long Holler Road - A Dark Southern Thriller Page 5