“Settle down. I didn’t cook the whole baby. I saved some for tomorrow’s dinner.” She paused and tilted her head. “What did you think you were eating?” She glanced into the bowl. “Oh. I bet you thought you were eating bean and bacon soup. No. Sorry. That’s not bacon. That’s Austin.”
The rage that coursed through his veins at that moment was unbridled. He yelled, screamed, cursed, and used every ounce of strength he had left to struggle against the restraints. He wanted off the table. He wanted—no he needed—to kill that fucking cunt. He would rip out her insides and feed them to her. He would then pull out her tongue and flush it down the toilet like the piece of shit that it was. And he wasn’t going to stop until he succeeded.
But he did stop. Once his energy was gone and he had nothing left to contribute to the cause, he relaxed, giving in to the sadness that overwhelmed him.
At first, he tried to fight the tears, to hide them so she wouldn’t know that her words had touched him on an emotional level. But the longer he thought about what she’d done, the harder it was to keep it all inside. Before he knew it, he was flat-out bawling. Just like the beautiful baby of which she spoke so highly had surely done.
“Oh, Ron. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” She turned and put the half-empty bowl on the work table. When she came back to him, she was holding a napkin in her hand. “Here. Let me wipe away your tears.”
But the bitch didn’t wipe away his tears. She cupped the napkin over his nose and mouth and clamped it down firmly. He shook his head violently, rolling it from side to side, but her hand was always there, never breaking contact with him.
Half a minute, maybe forty-five seconds was all he could hold his breath. If he’d had any kind of warning, he could’ve taken in a big gulp of air and held it longer, but this came without warning and while he was sobbing.
He was screwed.
Unable to fight it any longer, he finally inhaled, sucking in a soggy lungful of Chloroform-laced air. Seconds later, he was out.
24
I held the napkin to Ron’s mouth for nearly a full minute after his eyes closed, and then I went to work.
There wasn’t a lot of time left and frankly, I was glad. I was ready to be done with this whole mess, ready to be rid of Ron and have the entire nightmare behind me. It wasn’t just thinking about Wade and Mason and Austin that had done it. It was the doorbell. The postman, delivering a letter to Ron, a letter that announced a meeting tomorrow which Ron was scheduled to attend. A meeting that, if Ron didn’t attend, would bring about a phone call. When the call went unanswered, it would raise suspicions. Then the police would come.
It was funny. Not laugh-out-loud-that’s-so-hilarious-I’m-about-to-pee-my-pants funny, but unfair funny. When I’d tried to get the police to look for Ron, they hadn’t given it their all. But if Ron’s agent called them up and told them that Ron had missed a meeting and wasn’t answering his phone, they’d be right here banging on the door within the hour.
But it didn’t matter. It was all about to come to an end.
From his office, I carried armload after armload of books down to the basement and arranged them the way they needed to be. These weren’t just any books. They were Ron’s books, copies of every novel he’d written and published, including Held. They were every bit as disgusting as their creator and they deserved to be destroyed just as much as he did.
When I’d finished carrying down the books, Ron was still unconscious. I used the spare time to go back upstairs and gather my things, putting everything I’d brought with me back in the duffle bag and setting it by the patio doors.
Then I used one of the kitchen towels to scrub down every surface I might’ve touched during my time in the house. Every glass, every doorknob, every light switch, every key on Ron’s laptop, every drawer handle, and every faucet. I left nothing to chance.
Satisfied that I’d erased my presence from Ron’s home, I returned to the basement and waited for him to come around.
When he did, he was pissed.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Why would you do that? I knew you were crazy, but goddamn, Nicole. Goddamn! You fed me my son.”
“Jesus. Would you shut up already? That really was bean and bacon soup, dumbass. Do you really think I’m as fucked up as you are? Do you honestly believe I’d kill and cook my own baby?”
He didn’t say anything and he didn’t have to. The look on his face said it all.
“Oh my god,” I said. “You do. You really think I would do something like. And you think it because that’s exactly something that you would do.”
I don’t know what I was expecting from him. Certainly not an apology, but perhaps a look of shame or remorse. He gave me nothing but a cold, dead stare.
A minute later, he changed the subject by asking, “Where the hell did you even get Chloroform?”
“You’d be amazed at the things you can buy on the Internet.”
“Why don’t you just let me up right now so I can kill you and be done with this whole mess?”
“Because I don’t want to die. For a while, after I escaped your house last time, I did. In fact, I thought of many ways to do it. I put a knife to my wrist a few times, emptied a bottle of pills into my hand and wondered if I could get them all down in a single swallow. But I didn’t do it, and not because I’m a coward. I think the fact that I’m here with you proves my courage. No, I didn’t kill myself because I didn’t want to die. I have a family who loves me, and a job to do. That job, by the way, is to kill you. And you’ll be happy to know that I’m about to do it. So you will be done with this whole mess as you say, but it won’t be the way you want.”
“Where’s our son?”
My lip quivered though I tried to fight it.
“What? Why do you look like that? What happened to him, Nicole?”
“He’s in a safe place.” My voice cracked as I spoke.
“Where is he?” he shouted.
“It’s because of you,” I screamed, pointing my finger at him. “He looked just like you.”
“What did you do?” His voice was low and even, the tone of a man trying to control his anger.
Tears flowed from my eyes as I had to admit what I’d done.
“I didn’t trust myself around him. I was afraid I’d hurt him. I told myself that even though he was a part of you, he was also a part of me. I tried to ignore all of his traits that reminded me of you, tried to only see me when I looked into his eyes, but…it was just too much.”
I looked away from Ron, ashamed of what I had to say next. I shouldn’t be ashamed in front of him, and I don’t really suppose that I was. I was ashamed of myself. It pained me to say it because it was hard to accept that I’d done such a horrible thing to my own flesh and blood.
“What, Nicole? What the fuck did you do?” he screamed, his face turning red.
“I dropped him off at a fire station. They have that policy about babies, you know. I just dropped him off and drove straight to Alpine Grove. I almost did it that night. I almost killed myself. But I didn’t.”
“Well you should’ve. You fucking bitch. How dare you? How fucking dare you? He’s my son,” he shouted. The veins in his neck bulged and his eyes opened wider than I’d ever seen them before. “I want him back. I want our son back now. I don’t care what you’ve got to do, Nicole, but you damn well better do it.”
As I wiped the tears from my eyes and stopped crying, I found my courage once again and said, “Let me explain something to you. He’s not our son. He’s my son. You may have provided the sperm, but in no way is he a part of you.” I hadn’t realized that I’d changed the way I felt until I spoke the words. But I meant what I said. “He’s nothing like you. I will get him back, no matter what, but you won’t be there to see it.”
“And how do you suppose you’re going to keep me from it?”
“You seem to be unable to get off that table. But if you’d like to try, I’ll wait. Go ahead, Ron. Try to get off that table. If you d
o, I’ll stand here and let you kill me. I won’t run and I won’t fight back.”
He did nothing.
“Go ahead. I won’t wait forever.”
He jerked against the straps, pulled as fast and as hard as he could, but achieved nothing. When he’d tired himself out and gave up, I nodded.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
From between his ankles on the embalming table, I picked up the blowtorch and a copy of Held. I held them up high as I walked toward him so he could see what I had in my hands.
“What are you doing with those?”
“I’m doing what should’ve been done a long time ago. I’m destroying them. I’ll also be destroying you. And the best part is I’ll do them both at the same time.”
I flicked the igniter on the blowtorch and watched the horror sweep across Ron’s face as he saw the blue flame shoot out the tip of the torch.
“Nicole—”
“What’s the matter, Ron? Are you afraid I’ll do to you what you’ve done to so many others?”
Unable to control myself, I lowered the blowtorch slowly toward his abdomen, letting him feel the heat of the flame while he shifted uneasily on the table and pulled at the restraints.
He yelled my name, as if that would do him any good.
Just before the flame touched his reddened skin, I pulled it away. He relaxed a little but continued to wince from the pain of the burn.
“It could’ve been worse, Ron. I could’ve touched the flame to you.” I hesitated before adding, “Like this.” I reached out and touched his belly with the fire, smiling as the screams erupted from him and his flesh melted.
“Or maybe like this,” I said as I reached out and touched the flame to first one nipple and then the other.
The light brown skin turned red instantly and rose up in a grotesque bubble, the skin destroyed forever. Fortunately for Ron, forever wouldn’t be that long.
With the lit torch in my hand, I waited for the screaming to die down. When it did, I gave in to the urge to taunt him a little more.
“Well, Ron. You always wanted me to carry a torch for you. I bet you never thought it’d be a blowtorch.”
“Fuck you, you heartless bitch. If I get up from this table, you’ll be dead.”
“If you get up from that table, I’ll be surprised.”
His chest heaved as he again began to struggle with the restraints.
“Are you ready to watch your work burn? I am. I should’ve done this a long time ago.”
“I don’t fucking care. Burn it. There are plenty more where that came from.”
“What—you mean the stockpile you keep in your office? Those are going too.”
“That’s fine. They’re still published. You can burn every copy I have. People will still be able to purchase them.”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But no, I’m afraid not. See, I didn’t just read the files on your computer while I was in your office. I did a lot of research. You’ll be happy to know, or maybe not so happy to know, that I took the liberty of unpublishing every one of your books.”
The look on his face was priceless.
“Oh yeah. Thank you for self-publishing them. Had you done it any differently, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. But you did, and I did, and well, let’s just say that in a year’s time, no one will even remember your name.”
“You filthy fucking whore.”
“Are you done with the name-calling? Because I’m ready to light this disgusting thing and watch it burn.”
I brought my left and right hands closer together, touching the flame to the book. When the two joined together, the paper ignited, and the flame crawled up the edge of the pages.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” I asked, watching the pages curl and turn black.
At the sight of a fresh batch of tears in his eyes, I laughed.
When the flames got too close to my fingers, I bent down and placed the book on top of the others. It was a pile of books that was stacked high beneath the stainless steel embalming table.
“What the hell are you doing?” Ron asked gruffly.
“Ridding the world of evil.”
“I’m not the only evil in the world, you know. Even if you get rid of me and my work, there are others out there, many of them far worse than me.”
“That may be true, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.”
I stood up and took a step back, turning off the blowtorch and watching as the stack of books caught on fire.
It took a minute for Ron to realize what was happening to him, but when he did, he began to howl.
“Nicole,” he shouted. “Let me off this table. Put out that fire. Nicole!”
It would be a lie to say I didn’t enjoy watching him struggle in a failed attempt to free himself from the very device he created to restrain people. I certainly did love a good case of irony.
“Have you ever heard of The Brazen Bull, Ron?”
He only yelled louder.
“It was a torture device designed in ancient Greece. They were really on to something, those Greeks. Of course I don’t have a hollow metal bull in which to stuff you, but I do have a metal table. Who knew buying that table would come back to bite you in the ass? Or in this case, burn you in the ass?” I laughed at my own joke and at the way Ron was writhing in agony on the table.
“It burns, you bitch. Get me off here!”
“You better get used to it, Ron. Where you’re going, you’re going to burn for a long time.”
I stood watching the books burn, planning to watch until Ron was dead, but when the smoke grew heavy and thick, I started coughing too much to remain in the basement. There was no way I was going to chance dying of smoke inhalation alongside him.
Not yet ready to leave the basement, I bought a little more time by pulling my t-shit up to cover my mouth as I backed away from the table, stepping closer to the stairs behind me. It was morbid of me to want to watch such a horrific thing, but I felt it was necessary. This was what Dr. Loyd would call closure.
I was watching the smoke billow up and envelope the table when the stack of books beneath it tipped over, sending flaming paperbacks sliding across the concrete floor. In a matter of seconds, the cardboard boxes stacked against the wall ignited and began to burn.
Soon, the entire back wall was on fire, the sound of the flames crackling as it consumed everything in its path. The flames spread across the wall, eating up insulation and wooden support beams as it went.
The smoke was thick throughout the basement now, but before I left the room, I wanted to look at Ron one last time.
Through the dense gray air, I couldn’t see him. The smart thing to do would be to turn around and get the hell out of the house. But I don’t always do the smart thing.
I took a step toward the embalming table. Then another. I lifted my foot to take one more step.
That’s when Ron’s hand wrapped around my ankle.
I gasped, sucking in more of the smoky air than I wanted to.
Coughing to rid my lungs of the toxins I’d breathed in, I pulled back on my leg, trying to break free of Ron’s grasp. He couldn’t possibly have much strength in his hands. The restraints had cut off the circulation long enough to cause significant damage. It should’ve been easy for me to pull away, but it wasn’t.
The harder I pulled, the tighter he held on. Then I felt his other hand wrap around my ankle.
“Bitch,” he shouted. His voice was hoarse now, but it was every bit as strong and threatening as it had always been.
In that second, I wondered why the hell I hadn’t thought to put metal handcuffs on him too. I should’ve realized that the heat of the fire below the table would weaken the leather straps, allowing him to break free and roll from the table. It could prove to be a costly oversight.
I sucked in one last breath before letting go of my t-shirt. I held my breath and bent at the waist as it fell away from my mouth.
From this new posit
ion, I found myself underneath the thick black cloud of smoke that had filled the basement. I could now see Ron clearly. Unable to walk because of what I’d done to his feet, he laid face-down on the concrete floor. Illuminated by the orange glow of the fire, I saw his naked body, covered in severe burns. The burns were so bad in places, the flesh had peeled away in large folds. On each of his shoulder blades, I could see all the way to the bone. Yet he clung to my ankle as if nothing was wrong.
Unable to pull free of his grasp, I was left with no other choice.
Gripping the blowtorch firmly in both hands, I raised it and lowered it quickly, again and again, bringing it down hard on Ron’s skull. Over the roar of the fire, I couldn’t hear the crack of the bones as they broke, but I felt it with each blow.
It took three hits from the blowtorch for Ron to release his grip on my ankle, four for his hands to fall limply to the floor. But I didn’t stop swinging the blowtorch until the tenth strike, when I was finally out of breath.
My body craved air. I needed to take a breath, but the basement held no more clean oxygen for me to breathe.
In the time it took me to bash in Ron’s head, the cloud of smoke had grown lower. I now had to drop to my knees to have any chance at all of catching my breath.
Flat on the floor, I crawled across the basement, dragging my weary body to the stairs that led up to the first floor of the house, coughing the whole way.
I crawled up the steps, through the thick black smoke and out of the basement, leaving the door open behind me.
The first floor of the house hadn’t yet filled with smoke, but it was filling up quickly. I stood up and doubled over in a coughing fit that I was sure I wouldn’t survive, and then I headed outside, toward fresh air and freedom.
I picked up the duffle bag on my way through the patio door, which I also left open to ensure the fire didn’t burn itself out. Much like me, the fire needed oxygen to survive and I was going to make damn sure it had plenty.
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