Henry shudders. “Christ, I hope not.”
“Yeah. . you’re probably right.” More miles drift by in silence. “What you think he does to them? You know, after he cuts their arms and legs off?”
“I don’t know, Mark,” he says to me, “and I don’t really want to know.”
Chapter 10
The back of a filthy Winnebago
Laura’s almost asleep when the side door is flung open. Orange streetlight spills in through the opening, draining the colour out of everything. The Bastard’s back and he’s not alone — he’s got a girl thrown over his shoulder.
He dumps her on the Winnebago’s filthy carpet, then climbs in after her, pulls the door shut, and switches on the pale, flickering lights. The Bastard grabs the new girl by the armpits and drags her backwards until she’s up against the fridge, then cable-ties her hands and feet to one of the rings bolted into the floor. He’s humming Nearer, My God, to Thee as he works, with a great big grin on his face.
And then he strokes her leg, starting at the ankle and going all the way up to the fleshy part of her thigh. Squeezing it as he bites his bottom lip.
The Bastard shivers, crosses himself. Then stands.
“Repent,” he says, throwing his arms wide, “for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” He smiles down at them. “Now we can all go back to the garden.”
He ducks back outside, returning with the kitten in its cardboard box, stroking its fur and telling it how good it’s been. How special. The Bastard puts the box back under the table, then picks his way between the five women, staying out of Laura’s kicking range. He may be a bastard, but he’s not stupid.
For a brief moment he sings the opening bars of Home on the Range, then he pushes through into the driver’s compartment, and switches off the light. The Winnebago’s engine rumbles into life.
Laura knows that when they get wherever they’re going, it’ll make what’s happened so far look like a trip to Disneyland. This is just the warm-up act. What comes next is going to be more horrible than any of them can imagine.
Chapter 11
Saturday
Three in the morning and I’ve got a headache like you wouldn’t believe. The car’s been getting slower and slower all night, no matter how hard I press the accelerator. Its engine has started making clanking noises, and the effort of keeping the shuddering steering wheel straight is beginning to tell.
Jack’s asleep on the back seat with his knees curled up, snoring gently. Henry’s dozed off too, the half-bottle of Old Kentucky drained and hurled out the window about a dozen miles ago.
So now it’s just me and the rattling cough of the car as something in the engine eats itself. This God-damn thing’s going to fall to pieces long before we get to Polk County. And so am I.
I blink at the dashboard, trying to figure out what the little yellow light means. Then I tap the glass and find out as the fuel gauge needle does a rapid crash to empty. Son-of-a-bitch.
Luckily there’s a Casey’s General Store not far off the Interstate, its red and yellow signs glowing in the pitch-black night. I drive the car down the off-ramp and onto the forecourt.
Henry wakes up as I’m filling the tank. He yawns and stretches, then clambers out into the cold night. “What time is it?” he asks, blinking up at the bright lights — and when I tell him he swears. “How come it’s taking so long?”
I grit my teeth. “Because you said we had to steal this ancient, God-damned piece-of-crap Ford Crown Victoria. That’s why.”
He wipes the sleep out of his eyes. “We’ll get something faster when we hit Des Moines.”
“Sixty, seventy miles. About two and a bit hours in this piece of — ”
“OK,” he says, “OK, you don’t like the car. I get it. Fill her up and we’ll see if we can’t find something a little closer.” Henry closes his eyes and shudders. “Gotta take a crap. .” Then he starts towards the store, muttering as he goes, “God-damned morons. Fifty-four Ford Crown Victoria’s a classic. .”
I finish filling up, and pay at the pump — using my credit card in the machine — then follow Henry into Casey’s. Doesn’t matter where you go, pretty much every Casey’s General Store is the same. There’s a big fat woman, with a basket full of donuts and Diet Coke, arguing with the spotty kid behind the counter about the ‘three for two’ hot pizza slices.
I ignore her, and go for the hot filter coffee in the far corner. Maybe get some gum too; something to keep me awake for the rest of the drive. And because I’m in a shitty mood, I don’t get anything for Jack or Henry.
And then I feel guilty and get a six-pack of root beer and two big bags of tortilla chips. I’m paying for them when I realise there’s a Winnebago on the forecourt. It’s brown. I catch a glimpse of the driver as he sticks the nozzle back in the pump and pays. A man, dressed in black, glasses. .
The spotty youth behind the counter tells me to have a nice day — even though it’s half-three in the God-damned morning. He’s holding out my credit card.
Outside, the guy in black climbs back into the Winnebago. Fuck.
Probably not him, but I’m gonna have to check it out.
I’m pushing out through the door when the Winnebago’s engine starts up, its headlights sweeping across the forecourt as it turns back towards the Interstate. That’s when I get a look at the front, there’s a little statue of Jesus and a hoola Elvis on the dashboard. It’s him!
Behind me the spotty till-jockey is shouting, “Sir? You forgot the stuff you bought! Sir?”
“Henry!” I’m running for the car. “HENRY! GET YOUR ASS OUT THAT DAMN TOILET!”
No sign of him, and I can’t wait. I jump in behind the wheel and crank over that gritty, crappy engine. It clicks, groans, whines then grumbles back to life, complaining that I won’t let it die in peace.
I tell it to stop fucking moaning and put my foot down. There’s a grinding sound as I work up through the gears, swearing to God that this is the last time Henry ever gets to pick the car we steal. “Move, you piece of shit!”
“What the fuck?” It’s Jack, he’s sitting up in the back, bleary-eyed as I throw the Ford round and back onto the Interstate. Following the Winnebago. “Where’s Henry?”
“It’s HIM!” I say, pointing through the wind-shield at the little red dots in the distance — the motor home’s tail lights, “He was getting gas! I saw him, right there on the forecourt!”
“Henry was getting gas?”
“Not Henry, you moron! Sawbones!”
And suddenly Jack’s wide awake. “Fuck!” He ducks out of view, but he’s back moments later clutching that Glock nine mm of his. Then Jack’s left leg appears in the gap between the front seats.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting into the front. .”
We’re gaining on the Winnebago. It’s slow and it’s painful — and the Ford’s engine sounds like it’s about to explode — but we’re closing in.
I slap his foot away. “Will you sit your ass down?”
“God-damnit,” says Jack, “Pull over so I can swap seats.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me! Took me long enough to get this piece-of-shit up to forty the first time, I am not pulling over.”
Something goes CLANGKiGKiGKiG under the hood and I know we’ve only got one chance at this. I grip the steering wheel even tighter and say a prayer to the God of Dying Automobiles.
“Shoot out the tyres!”
“But I — ”
“Just fucking shoot them!”
I check my rear-view mirror to see if Jack’s doing what he’s told, and that’s when I notice the big cloud of grey smoke billowing out the back of our car.
“Oh, Jesus. .” Jack winds down his window and sticks his arm out. There’s a hard CRACK and a flash of light as the Glock fires.
Up front I see a little round hole edged in shiny metal appear on the back of the Winnebago. CRACK and there’s another one, slightly higher and to the left.
“I said shoot the tyres!”
“You think it’s so damn easy, you try it!” CRACK.
The Winnebago starts to pull away from us. The guy driving must have finally worked out someone’s shooting the shit out of his motor home. I go to stick my foot down, but it’s already flat to the floor. And our Ford Crown Victoria’s getting slower.
The engine isn’t going CLANGKiGKiGKiG any more, now it sounds like a waste disposal unit eating a brick.
“Shoot the damn tyres!”
Another three shots, all wide of the mark. The Ford’s knackered engine makes one last painful grinding noise and gives up the ghost. I can hear bits of crank case pinging loose and bouncing off the bodywork. Steam gushes out of the radiator, all the warning lights come on, all the gauges go dead, and I got no steering.
The car hisses its way to a full stop in the middle of the road. Steam billowing out the front, smoke billowing out the back.
And all Jack and I can do is watch the Winnebago drive away.
FUCK!
Chapter 12
The back of a filthy Winnebago
The motor home’s full of muffled screaming. Laura’s trying to push herself as far away from the mess as possible, but the noose round her neck makes it impossible. All she can do is keep her eyes tight shut and try not to be sick. With the gag rammed deep into her mouth she’d probably choke to death.
After a while the screaming settles into sobbing, and then whimpering.
And then something like terrified silence.
It might be an hour later, or it might be two, but at long last the Winnebago leaves the main roads and turns onto gravel. But instead of coming to a halt, it just keeps going, the little stones making a white-noise sound beneath the wheels as they drive and drive and drive. .
They must be miles from anywhere by now.
The Winnebago slows, turns and then lurches from pothole to pothole. Finally it stops.
In the darkness Laura can hear the other girls taking scared breaths. This is it.
The Bastard isn’t singing any more, he’s swearing as he pushes through from the driver’s compartment and turns on the light. The carpet glistens dark red in the washed-out plastic glow, littered with jagged shards of white and clumps of grey.
The muffled screaming starts again.
One of the girls is slumped forward. She’s tied up against the motor home’s back wall and the top of her head is missing. Blown off by whatever idiot was shooting at them out on the Interstate.
Laura looks away. Tells herself she’s not going to be sick.
The Bastard stands there with his mouth open and his eyes like burning coals as he stares at the dead girl. “HOW DARE THEY!”
He storms through the Winnebago, yelling, “SHE WAS MINE!” and when he reaches the girl with no top to her head he kicks her lifeless body. “MINE!” He kicks her again, “MINE!” and again and again, making the whole motor home shake. “MINE! MINE! MINE!”
And in between the yelling and the sound of his foot slamming into the corpse, Laura can hear the other girls screaming behind their gags.
Then the Bastard falls to his knees and cries. Cradling the woman’s half-head against his chest, sobbing that he’s sorry and they had no right to take her from him.
He sits back and wipes his eyes with a bloody hand, leaving dark scarlet smears across his cheeks. Then he pulls out a pocket knife and cuts through the cable-ties holding the dead girl in place. Drags her out of the Winnebago’s side door.
Two minutes later he’s back, and someone else is cut free. The girl whimpers as he drags her away. Then the next one. And the next, until there’s only Laura left.
He stands looking down at her, his face like sadness carved in stone. “None of your shit, understand?”
Laura nods, the motion stopped midway by the rope around her neck.
The Bastard pulls out his knife again, and holds it against Laura’s throat. “Now I gotta go out and get me another girl. You play nice or I can just as easy make it two.”
He raises the blade and saws through the noose, then he cuts the cable-ties that go through the rings on the floor. But her wrists and ankles are still bound, the gag’s still stuffed in her mouth.
“There we go,” he says, putting the knife back in his pocket, “I knew you could be a good girl.” The Bastard strokes her hair, smiling. “My good girl. We’re going to — ”
He doesn’t get any further, because Laura head-butts him in the face. SMACK!
By the time he hits the blood-soaked carpet, she’s struggling to her feet — not easy with both ankles cable-tied together.
Weapon. She needs a weapon.
He groans, lying on his side under the table, arms wrapped around his battered head.
WEAPON!
There are drawers on either side of the stove. Hands tied behind her back, Laura fumbles for a drawer handle and yanks the whole thing clean out of the unit. It clatters to the floor — dish towels. Laura swears behind her gag and tries the drawer on the other side. This time it’s cutlery, stainless steel glinting dully in the thin light. Forks, spoons, knives that look so blunt they couldn’t saw their way through a milkshake, scissors. .
She squats down and feels for them, not wanting to take her eyes off the Bastard. He’s still groaning as her fingers find the round handles of the scissors, and fumble them into place. No way she can cut through the plastic holding her wrists together in time. She goes for the cable-ties around her ankles instead, forcing the open blade of the scissors between her skin and the plastic. Then SQUEEZING.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. . and then all at once, snip. She’s through.
She stands, eyes darting to the Winnebago’s door then back to the Bastard. She can’t stab him with her hands tied behind her back, but there is something she can do.
Laura takes a big step forwards and kicks him in the stomach. Shouting at him through the gag. Another kick — going for his nuts, but The Bastard curls up in a ball and her bare foot slams into his thigh instead.
If she still had her stilettos on she could stamp on his ugly fucking head till it went right through his skull into his sick fucking brain. But she hasn’t, so she hammers her foot into the hands covering his face, hoping to break a finger, or his nose.
And then she turns and runs.
Out through the door and onto the hard-packed dirt of a farm track. The dawn’s early light is just enough to make out the shape of a rickety old house. Some barns, knee-high grass, the corpses of long-dead cars.
Laura runs down the road, trying to ignore the jabbing pain of stones as they dig into her feet. Behind her, she can hear the sound of a dog barking. Raising the alarm. She speeds up.
Faster.
The dirt road gives way to gravel and she knows she can’t run on that. So she makes for the grass that grows along one side, on the fringes of a field of corn — the stalks taller than she is, rustling in the faint breeze. The grass is cool and damp on her battered feet, but slippery. Dangerous. And running beside the road isn’t exactly clever, is it? The Bastard has a Winnebago, and it can go a lot faster than she can.
She has to get off the road. Cut through the field. Find somewhere to hide until daylight. Maybe another farmhouse where she can call for help.
An engine’s roar comes from the darkness behind her. He’s got over his kicking. Any minute now he’ll come racing up behind her and she’ll be caught in the head-lights. No place to hide.
Laura dives left, into the corn. Stalks whip past as she runs deeper into the darkness, the leaves slapping wet against her legs and face. She’s making a hell of a lot of noise and she knows it. But not as much as that fucking Winnebago.
Or the dog.
The barking’s getting closer.
The Bastard’s set the dog on her and it sounds HUGE.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. .
She risks a glance over her shoulder and trips on a clump of something. With her hands tied behind her back she can’t
even break her fall — Laura slams face-first into the muddy earth between the massive stalks of corn, all the breath leaving her in one painful rush.
She doesn’t want to do this any more. She wants to be home in bed. She wants to be safe. She wants to be in the kitchen with Mom, sharing a cup of coffee. She wants to curl up and cry.
But if she does that, he’ll catch her for sure.
So she fights her way to her feet and starts running again. The breath hissing in and out through her nose as she pushes herself harder than she ever has before. Running for her life.
The dog’s quicker.
She can hear its paws skittering through the mud behind her. Rattling the corn stalks, barking, growling. Getting closer. And closer. And. .
Chapter 13
Des Moines, Iowa
The Fish Trap Lounge is a dingy bar in a concrete strip-mall on Army Post Road. Ouside, the sun’s baking the sidewalk, but in here it’s dark — some people would say the guy who owns the place should get some more lights in here, but they’d be missing the point, wouldn’t they? It’s supposed to be dark. That way no fucker can see what you’re up to.
It’s half-ten in the morning, and I’m nursing a cup of bitter coffee, trying to blunt the edges with way too much sugar and cream. Still tastes like shit, though. Henry’s on Bud Lite with a bourbon chaser, and Jack. . well, Jack’s sulking ’cause Henry tore a strip off him for his lousy shooting last night. Then Jack shouted back how it was all Henry’s fault for making us steal that piece-of-shit Ford in the first place. How if we’d stolen a decent car we would have caught the bastard.
So Henry hit him. Again.
The bar’s owner is a short, round guy with a shaven head, glasses, a big moustache and a T-shirt with no sleeves showing off a lion’s head tattoo. He clatters a big plate of hot wings down on our table and tells us they’re compliments of Mr Luciano, whose right-hand man will be here as soon as he’s taken care of a little business.
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