“Jeremy,” she breathed. “I missed you. It’s so good to see you.” It was comforting to know she meant it.
She made her rounds also, and soon it was time for the piñata. One of Rose’s kids made the final blow, and everyone made a point of scrambling around for a bit of candy. It was humiliating, really; crawling around for cheap, sticky treats in crumpled wrappers.
Lunch was always the same: cold cuts and vegetables with fresh buns and every condiment. They sat together around a large table, which was more than they had done while living under the same roof.
Everyone gave updates on new lovers, old scoundrels, baby due dates, living arrangements. A lot can change in a year for ten people, especially such messy ones.
Jeremy always maintained silence during this part, because he rarely had anything to add. But sure enough, the eyes found him.
“What about you, Jer?” Mrs. Ridgeroy asked. “What are you up to these days?” He twitched at the shortening of his name. She owed him every syllable.
Violet popped into his head, and Jeremy smiled.
“Well… I’ve found someone,” he said shyly and unsure of how much he was about to confess to, and how accurate it would be.
Whoops and outcries around the table begged him to continue. “Who is she?!”
“Her name is Violet,” he said, and they all nodded for more.
“Come on, you’ll have to give us a little more meat than that!” Rose protested, seemingly in jest but serious.
“Well, she’s a server at a diner nearby.” He was careful not to name it. “She’s very pretty,” he continued, “she has this blonde hair that she always wears in a ponytail.” (He didn’t actually know this, he’d just never seen it down.) “And the brightest grey eyes. I really think she’s special. I don’t know her too well yet, but I think we’re really going somewhere.”
Anxiety set in under the gaze of his captive audience but a sense of godliness came back as he bent the truth into words that would make them happy for him.
The lies began to come more easily.
“Wanna know how we met?” He was beginning to sense a story weaving itself in his head and wondered if it would be convincing. Of course, they all nodded their confirmation. Jeremy decided to steal a story his boss Johnny had told him once.
“Well, I’d seen her around an awful lot, and one time she walked by me with a twenty dollar bill hanging out of her pocket, like she tucked it in there quickly but it was about to fall out any second. So next time she came back, I said, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s a twenty dollar bill about to fall out of your back pocket.’ So she reached back, found the bill, smiled at me and said thanks. She said, ‘Why are you sorry?’ And I said, ‘Because I just admitted I was staring at your ass.’”
The whole family giggled with gaping mouths. Where had this confidence come from? How could that line have actually worked?
“After that, she wrote her name and number down on the bill and told me to call her. So I did.” He wished so badly that this was the way it had happened and wondered if, over time, he could convince Violet it had.
“She might even come to live with me. I’ve moved into this home that I’ve been renovating. I’m there all the time doing work on it and it’s completely empty, so it makes sense for me to live there.”
Nods of understanding.
“She has a younger brother too,” he continued. “His name is Ben, and he might come to live with us also.”
“How old is Ben?” Mr. Ridgeroy. Pervert.
“He’s six.”
“Isn’t that a little young for him to be moving away from home?” Anna asked.
“Well, they don’t have the greatest home. It might be nice for him to be able to get away.” Everyone at the table would understand that. Mrs. Ridgeroy lowered her head the slightest bit. Mr. Ridgeroy looked on steadfastly.
“Good for you, Jer.” Rose looked so happy for him. “Maybe soon you’ll be the one with new additions to the family and I’ll be able to stop!” She said this with one hand on her protruding belly.
Jeremy smiled, amazed at how good it felt to share something. He couldn’t let it go just yet.
“I make her tea every morning,” he said. It was a lie, but also a pact that he made right then. “I know just the way she likes it. And we eat our eggs the same way. Over medium.” He added these bits because they were the only ones about Violet that he knew. But they didn’t realize this. They saw him as a punch-drunk new lover.
“Why didn’t you bring her along then? We would love to meet her!” Mrs. Ridgeroy said greedily.
“Ah well, maybe next year,” he said with a shrug and a smile.
Next year. God, he loved the sound of that. By then, they would be a family. Violet would know all the things about his past he wished he could change, and would understand why he needed to come to the family picnic. She would question it at first, but she’d get it. He wouldn’t let her come along though. He would shield her from them.
Jeremy began to worry about her and Ben. He had checked on them in the morning with his ear to the door. He didn’t want to rouse them; he feared it would cause their crying all over again. But they’d been in there for some time now. It was only just past noon, but still. No one could be sustained with potato chips forever. He thought about the errands he would need to run on the way home.
“Actually,” he said standing up, “If it’s alright, I think I might make a couple of sandwiches to go. For Violet and Ben.”
He began a deli assembly line. He put everything he could fit inside; every addition an apology. He wrapped them in napkins and prepared to make his goodbyes.
“I should probably go get back to her,” he said as lovers often do. As if neither could wait until the other was back in their arms from a day at work, a night out, a trip down the driveway to check the mail.
More hugs were given to say goodbye, alongside flimsy promises to make plans before the next picnic came around again.
He left that church with a new sense of purpose. He would return home (home) with sandwiches in hand like a hero.
He wondered what they would say when he brought them food. Would they think him kind? That was what he wanted, after all, but it might be too soon. Violet was smart, and he was vulnerable to her. She might realize it. What if he was too nice, too soon? What if they weren’t scared enough? What if they just appeased him, pretended to oblige, then ran out the door the instant he gave them an inch?
He could easily be duped. Even his gunmanship had been lacklustre. Fear had been in their eyes, but it wouldn’t last. They weren’t really afraid of him, were they? Violet had seen him before, she’d talked to him. She would figure him out.
He didn’t want to, but he would have to find a way to make sure they stayed scared of him just a little longer. They were about to be fed and in a relative amount of comfort, but he couldn’t let them feel too at ease. They needed to know they were at his mercy. And he would have mercy, but it was his to give.
At that moment, as if a sign from the heavens or hell, Jeremy saw something on the side of the road. A lifeless body; a furry one.
It was a puppy dog, probably not more than a year or two old. A chocolate lab, it looked like, freshly dead. He could see the crushed ribs, the flattened segment where the tire had run it over, like dough under a rolling pin.
As he got closer, Jeremy saw that its head was still intact with a collar around its neck. This was someone’s Buster.
Jeremy thought it would be better to clear the road kill out of the way. That family should never find their flattened friend.
He slowed his car, stopped and got out. Left the car on.
Quickly, before anyone could stop and stare, he scooped the dog up off the ground, cradled its head with one hand and held its haunches firmly in the other. He walked back to his car with the body and opened the door with one hand while balancing the lifeless carcass on his leg with the other. He dropped the dog onto the back seat. It amazed Jeremy
how limply the body flopped down.
After getting back into the driver’s seat, he headed home.
There was no garbage bag underneath the body. Jeremy didn’t even put it in the trunk. He simply drove down those streets with a dead dog that wasn’t his own in the backseat.
8
Violet dreamt she was late for work. When she walked into the restaurant sweaty and breathless, a thumping sound made her look to the front window. A zombie was standing there, staring at her and slamming its fist against the pane rhythmically. Maybe it was a code for help. There wasn’t time to interpret before Jeremy opened the door and peeked inside.
She woke with a start when the door to their prison opened up. There had been a couple of timid knocks prior, but the weary inmates were tired enough only to register them in dreams.
Violet sat up as fast as she could and breathed in sharply through her nose. She couldn’t afford to be groggy.
Ben, somehow, slept on and she debated letting him stay that way, as far removed from this place as he could get. But the chance of him waking up to their conversation, startled by the man who had kidnapped them looming above his head, led her to give his little shoulder a shake. She wanted to be the first thing he saw instead of that man.
Jeremy, she thought to herself. He has a name. A man who knew her name, and had given her his. He should have had the courtesy to be a complete stranger. It was starting to make her feel angry that she knew who he was.
Ben awoke and it broke Violet’s heart the way his eyes widened in horror as he remembered where he was. She tried to give him a smile, but it came out haunted and clownish, a miserable parody. The muscles couldn’t bring themselves to turn upwards.
“Hi there,” Jeremy said in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry I woke you, but there’s something I need to show you.”
To Violet in that moment, Jeremy looked like a pitiful, wayward boy. It occurred to her that she could probably overtake him. If she and Ben organized a revolt, Ben could bite at his ankles while she swung elbows at his face, and they could tackle him to the ground. She stored this idea away and began to count the seconds until Jeremy was gone from the room. She would tell Ben not to be afraid and that they would be out of there soon.
Violet didn’t say anything in reply, and Ben just stared wide-eyed. Jeremy continued. “I want you to know I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. I want us to become very close, actually.”
He said this as if it was possible after what he had done, Violet thought bitterly.
“But,” he stipulated, “I can only be as nice as you are to me. We’re going to be living here for awhile –”
“Whoa.” Violet couldn’t help but be bold. “What do you mean by ‘awhile’?”
Jeremy could see he had gone too quickly, skipped too many steps. It was time to backpedal so he could keep her comfortable.
“Well, a few days,” he lied. “Just until I can make sure that everyone will come out of this safely.”
“Look, Jeremy,” she would try to use his name as much as she could. “Nothing bad will happen to you. If you let us go, our mom will be so happy to see us that if we ask her to, she’ll leave you alone. If you let us go, we’ll let you go. We don’t ever have to see each other again.”
Jeremy just stared at her sadly, and she saw she had said the wrong thing.
“Neither of us is hurt,” she kept trying. “And you’ve been very nice to us. And,” she didn’t know if it was appropriate or not, but decided to try to make him smile, “you are a really great tipper.”
He did smile.
“I don’t know what we’re doing here, but my family doesn’t have a lot of money. I mean, I can try to give you a few thousand dollars. That would be no problem. Just take us to the bank, or let me call my mom so she can put aside some money.”
Jeremy was shaking his head. “I don’t want any of your money.”
Then what? Being kidnapped for ransom was terrifying, but being kidnapped for something else was even more so. There was only one other reason she could think of as to why they were there. She again felt the premonition of his hands all over her, covering her mouth so she couldn’t scream.
Violet took a deep breath from a reserve hidden within.
“No?” she asked. “Well, even if you didn’t want it to begin with, I’m sure we could figure something out. I know we can give you whatever it is you need. Whatever it’ll take to get us home, we’ll do it. I mean, we have extended family too, they have careers and connections…”
She stopped because she didn’t know what else to say. How many times could she tell him she would give him whatever he wanted before he asked her to take her clothes off? She thought of him railing against her body as Ben watched right beside them. Violet tensed. Her arms locked across her body and she refused to let go, like her sense of wellbeing that was slipping away as she clung desperately to it.
“No, that’s not it,” Jeremy explained uselessly, “It’s not anything tangible that I want.”
Violet clamped her eyes shut.
“We don’t need to talk about that part right now,” Jeremy said. “Let’s just not worry about it, that’ll figure itself out, okay?”
Nods from Violet and Ben. The rest of their bodies were frozen in place.
“For now, I need you to look at something.” Jeremy leaned over and grunted with exertion as something furry appeared in his arms.
Violet realized it was a dog. A large and dark one. A pet? How long are we going to have to stay here that we need a pet?
The dog’s head rested on Jeremy’s shoulder and kept very still. With its head facing the other way, there was no way to know if a friendly tongue was wagging about, but Violet sensed instinctively that something was wrong.
Jeremy opened his mouth to begin what looked like it might be a speech, with a deep breath and a sudden, sharp upturn of his skinny shoulders.
“I don’t like to be violent,” he started. “I don’t want to hurt you. But sometimes, if things don’t go the way they should, I might have to. This dog here, Buster, he was my pet. I brought him home after finding him in an alley one day. But he started to misbehave. He was killing animals and knocking over things and barking at everything that went by. I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t listen.” Jeremy shrugged, a somewhat muted gesture with the weight of the dog still in his arms.
“He would even run out into the street, and it was only for his own sake that I wanted him to stop, but he wouldn’t. So I had to do this. I had to kill Buster,” Jeremy lied. “I didn’t like doing it, but I did.”
His voice shook, and his eyes misted over. Violet could see he was feeling something genuine and mistook his words for truth.
“It had to happen,” he justified. “And I don’t mean to scare you too badly, and I’m sorry if a dead dog is a strange thing to bring down here to show you, but I wanted you to know that you have to listen to me.”
He paused to clear his throat.
“Now, I’ll be as nice to you as I can. I want you to be comfortable here. But the thing is, you won’t be able to leave until I say that you can. So you should try to accept your new surroundings and listen to everything I tell you. Don’t try to escape.
“I’m going to put security cameras in here so that I’ll know if you’re trying to get out. There are electric fences all along the property, and there’s no way for you to get out of here without hurting yourself and setting off an alarm. I don’t want to cause you any harm, but I need you to cooperate. Does all this make sense?”
No, thought Violet, none of it did. She still had no idea what he wanted from them, or for how long. But the dead dog that Jeremy held onto crept into her bones. She sensed that there was something incredibly off-balance about the man before her. For the first time, she began to fear for her life and not just their safety.
Violet merely nodded. Her stomach was plagued with the unsettled feeling of her faulty evaluation of Jeremy, but the image of hi
m sitting passively in a diner booth still pervaded her thoughts. He wasn’t a sinister, coal-hearted man. She could see him trying not to quiver. He kept swallowing in an exertive attempt to hold back the waver that snuck in and around his words.
But she realized she had no idea what he was capable of, and her fear forced her to comply.
“Okay,” Violet said. “We’ll stay here and wait for you to figure things out.” Her voice shook. She tightly held Ben, who had been sitting in stone silence, staring at the stranger.
That seemed to please Jeremy, and with a nod, he retreated from the room.
“I’ll get you guys something good to eat,” he said from the doorway. “I know you can’t live off of chips. I have some sandwiches, but what else? Any requests?” What an inappropriate question. Well, I’d really like it if you would let us go. No? A ham sandwich then, please.
Violet and Ben shook their heads in tandem. They just wanted him out of the room, out of their space and their vision, just gone. Jeremy answered their silent will, closing the door behind him. They heard the lock latch into place behind the wooden barrier.
Violet looked at her brother.
“I love you,” she said. “I’m so sorry we’re in here. I never should have given him a ride. You should never give rides to strangers. But I did know him, I served him at work, and he just seemed so…”
“Why does he want us here?” Ben asked.
“I honestly don’t know. There’s something wrong with this man. He doesn’t see the world the way we do. He might not even realize it’s wrong to be holding us here like this.”
“But it’s stealing,” Ben said earnestly. “Everyone knows you’re not supposed to take things that aren’t yours.”
“You’re right. But we’re not things. Maybe he thinks he’s borrowing us. He could just be really, really lonely. We need to keep him happy and do everything that he tells us to, as long as it doesn’t involve us getting hurt or leaving each other. We should stay together no matter what, okay?”
Ben gave a small nod.
“I won’t leave you,” Ben said. “If you won’t leave me. Promise you won’t?”
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