Mary shut the door behind her as she left the room and the couple heard a soft rattle and click as if, perhaps, the old woman had taken the time to lock the door. Then her footsteps padded down the stairs, leaving the two newlyweds staring across the room at one another.
Though the gags kept the couple from speaking in anything other than garbled vowels, the expression in Matt’s eyes told Mona everything she needed to know: they were getting out of this. No matter what it took, they were not going to die in this dusty old house in the middle of nowhere.
As if in response to this unspoken conversation, Matt squirmed in his chair. He tried throwing his head and shoulders back in the hopes that me might be able to make the chair rock. If he could just make it topple backwards with enough force, perhaps the old wood would shatter when it hit the floor. He knew it was a long shot but, if he were completely honest with himself, it was probably the only chance they had. So he continued thrusting as much of his weight backward as he possibly could. If his ankles hadn’t been tied so tightly to the chair’s legs, it would have been a hell of a lot easier; in that situation, he probably would’ve been free almost before Mary had even finished locking the door. This, however, was not the case and Matt had to force these thoughts from his mind. Dwelling on what could have been, instead of focusing on the here and now, would only compound matters: he would grow frustrated and that frustration would further impede his ability to think clearly. So, no . . . he simply had to work with what he had at hand and do his best to ensure that he and his wife made it out of this room in one piece.
While Matt grunted into his gag, Mona tried a different tact. Closing her eyes, she took a breath through her nose, held it, and then clenched her hands into fists so tightly that her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. Then she relaxed for a second, exhaled, and repeated the entire process. Breathe, hold, clench, release . . .breathe, hold, clench, release . . . .
From downstairs, the two could hear the murmur of a conversation. There was definitely Mary’s voice but also another. Possibly male. Though the words were nothing more than a rhythmic drone, both Matt and Mona realized that the person speaking to the old woman wasn’t either one of her sons. For one, they wouldn’t have bothered with knocking; and the woman lacked the strength to have carried Matt and Mona upstairs by herself. Which meant that she’d had help. The boys were in on whatever was going down and they were obviously not around right now. Otherwise, one of them would have simply answered the door and left their mother to finish the job at hand. So, no: there was someone else at the door . . . an outsider who had no idea that two young lovers were tied up and awaiting death within the house.
Mona switched tactics again, this time twisting her wrists in opposite directions as she pulled at the same time. The ropes rubbed against her flesh like sandpaper and she bit into the rubber ball in her mouth as she squeezed her eyes shut. Her wrists felt as if the skin were being scraped away layer by layer and the coarse fibers of the rope were like tiny needles that jabbed into raw flesh. But still she continued to twist and pull, ignoring the pain that coaxed beads of sweat from her brow; she tried to focus, instead, on thoughts of Matt. She pictured the shallow wound on his neck, the trickle of blood from where the old bitch’s knife had nicked him . . . .
How much longer would the unseen visitor be at the door? How much longer until Mary returned? Pain was not an option . . . if they were going to make it out of this nightmare, it had to be now. While their captor was still distracted.
Mona wrenched her wrists so violently that, from behind, they probably looked as if they were wrestling one another. More and more flesh was stripped away and the pain was now a stinging burn. It throbbed through her hands and arms as blood oozed from the self-inflicted wounds, the abrasions seeming to make her very bones scream in torment; but this agony, as intense as it was, would be nothing compared to what she would feel if her beloved Mattie were snuffed out right before her eyes. She would gladly endure the fires of Hell if it meant keeping her new husband safe and alive. And if that meant fighting through the pain of a rope burn, even one this severe, then so be it. She would do whatever she needed to.
Her wrists were raw and now entirely coated with blood. She could feel it ooze down her hands, as warm and sticky as the syrup Matt always poured on her pancakes, and she realized that she didn’t have to struggle quite as hard now. It was as if her hands were moving just a bit more freely. As if all that blood were like oil, lubricating the spaces where rope met meat.
From downstairs, the lull of the conversation continued. But it was obvious that Mary’s tone was becoming sharper, growing impatient with her visitor. It would only be a matter of time before she shooed them away and returned to the room with that viscous little knife of hers. And she would then kill Matt as easily as if it were something she did every day. Mona had no doubt about this . . . and she couldn’t let that happen.
Mona threw her left shoulder down while wrenching her right one upward so violently that the sound of her joints popping was like the snap of a dry twig. The rope shifted positions and peeled away a new layer of flesh. She screamed into her gag, though the sound was nothing more than a moan behind the red ball, and then repeated the action again, this time changing directions on each shoulder.
To Matt, it probably looked as if her entire body were wracked with spasms; but she continued jerking her shoulders again and again, stripping away layers of tissue with each savage thrust. Finally, she felt the coils of rope shift. Ever so slightly: almost as if they were drawing back in an attempt to figure out what this wild-eyed woman was up to . . . but that was all it took. Mona redoubled her efforts, grunting and groaning as her slender, blood-glazed hands slipped through the intertwined knots of her bindings; she twisted and yanked, pulled and slithered her way through the rope until, finally, her left hand plopped free. After that, it was only a matter of seconds before he right hand joined the first: drops of blood spattered against the floor as she worked at the knots securing her ankles to the chair’s legs and then she scampered across the room, not even pausing to remove the straps of her gag.
She crouched behind Matt’s chair and pulled at his ropes, freeing him much more quickly than she had herself. In less than a minute, they were both reaching behind their heads and undoing the buckles on the ball gags; when, at last, they were completely free of Mary’s little toys, Matt embraced his wife so tightly that it almost seemed as if her were attempting to somehow pull her into the safety of his own body.
Their lips parted and they kissed deeply, their tongues gliding over one another in passionate fury . . . but only for a moment. Then they pulled away from each other and glanced around the room like a pair of tigers who’d just realized the zoo keeper had left the door of the cage open.
“Oh shit, babe . . . your wrists.”
Matt practically ran to the desk and shuffled through the scrapbooking material that cluttered its top. At the same time, Mona stalked across the room and pulled back the curtains just enough so that she was able to peek out the window.
The morning sun had crested the horizon now and glistened on the snow as if the rolling dunes had been dusted with glitter. At the corner of the house, and almost entirely out of sight, she could just make out a car. It was a black and white sedan and a row of red and blue lights perched on its top. She turned her head toward Matt, who had found a scalpel-like Exacto knife and was busy cutting long strips of cloth from the hem of his shirt.
“Cops, Mattie . . . she’s talking to a cop.”
Matt, however, acted as if he hadn’t heard Mona’s report. He ripped free the last piece of cloth and hurried to Mona’s side, where he began wrapping them around her wrists so gently it almost seemed as if he were afraid the makeshift bandages would cause her arms to crumble.
“I’m pretty sure that cunt locked the door.” He said as he worked.
Mona nodded.
“Yeah, I heard it, too. Did you see the bow in the case in the hallway? What I wouldn’t do to
get my hands on that.”
Matt tied the dressings carefully, trying to ensure that the pressure didn’t cause his wife any more pain that what she already had to be feeling.
“Think the cop is looking for us?”
Mona turned the question over in her mind for a moment before replying.
“Don’t see how . . . nobody knows we’re here. Has to be somethign else, I think.”
“Yeah. That’s about the way I have it figured, too. Here, you take this.”
Matt handed Mona the Exacto knife and she grinned despite the deep throbbing that ached in her bandaged wrists.
“Oh sweetie . . . “ she said with a wink, “you shouldn’t have.”
“More practical than flowers and better than a card. Now . . . what do you say we get the hell out of here, princess?”
The couple crept across the room, their feet creaking so softly on the floorboards that it easily could have been mistaken for nothing more than the warmth of the rising sun expanding the old wood. Approaching the door on the opposite side of the room, Matt turned the knob so slowly that he almost seemed like a cat burglar trying to gain entrance. Pressing one hand against the door, he opened it carefully so that the creaking of hinges wouldn’t give them away.
The room on the other side was much darker and emptier than the one they’d been held captive in. Rather than smelling of lilacs and body powder, this one had an almost coppery, salty aroma in the air. Mixed with this was a stench that reminded Mona of the time their toilet had been clogged for nearly three days: something like shit and stale piss tainted the air and, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she noticed the sole piece of furniture in the room for the first time.
It was a large, butcher block table that looked as though its legs had been bolted to the floor by a series of metal fixtures. A naked woman leaned across the table with her hands stretched out in front of her and she seemed to be placing all of her body weight into her torso. Even so, her buckled knees trembled and Mona wondered for a moment why the woman simply didn’t sit down upon the floor. She looked pale and tired and the skin drooped from her frame as if she’d lost a lot of weight in a very short period of time. But there was something else . . . a series of dark lines marred her skin almost to the point that it looked as though her emaciated body had been used to draw clusters of tic-tac-toe boards onto her flesh.
“What the fuck is this?”
At the sound of Matt’s voice, the oily mass of tangles that was the woman’s hair turned slightly. She glanced over her shoulder and her eyes grew round as she saw the couple in the doorway. Tears streamed from the corner and she mumbled excitedly into the same sort of gag that Matt and Mona had come to know all too well.
Matt walked across the room as if the woman might leap toward him at any second. With steps as slow and deliberate as a big game hunter, he circled around the table while his eyes took in every detail.
“Oh shit, sweetie . . . her hands have been nailed to the table. She’s cut up bad, too.”
Mona stayed in the doorway and looked back into the room they’d came out, listening for the key to rattle in the door once again. The Exacto knife was leveled in front of her and, if her husband’s words had any impact on her at all, it was not betrayed by the hard expression that was chiseled onto her face.
“Looks like this bitch has been kept here a while.”
The woman probably thought she was thrashing about, but – in her weakened state – she looked more like a fish that had been thrown onto the bank for far too long and was in the final stages of its death throes. She continued babbling into the ball gag and her eyes almost seemed to plead with Matt, who squatted down next to her.
“Look, I’m going to take that gag out, okay? But you have to stay quiet. That old lady? She doesn’t know we’re free yet. And we want to keep it that way, okay? You understand?”
The woman nodded her head as tears glistened on her hollow cheeks.
“Okay . . . I’m taking the gag off, now.”
Standing, Matt slid the straps through the buckle on the back of the woman’s head and plopped the ball from her mouth. Almost immediately, loud sobs burst from her mouth like water from a crumbled damn. Matt slapped his hand over the woman’s lips so hard that her head snapped backward. Even then, her words kept bubbling up like the snot that was beginning to leak from her noise.
“Look,” he hissed, “I told you . . . stay quiet. I mean it, okay? I’m not fucking around here, you understand?”
The woman sniffled and nodded her head again as she tried to blink away her tears.
“You sure? Because I’m serious. . . you only get one more chance, honey.”
More nodding.
Matt eased his hand away from the woman’s mouth, ready to clamp it back down if he had to. But this time the lady with the nails in her hands stayed true to her word. Her voice was nothing more than a whimper that hitched and quivered with tears.
“Crazy, they’re all crazy, please get me out of here, please, please, please . . . .”
“Shhhh . . . it’s okay . . . shhhh . . . .”
From outside the house an engine rumbled, causing Mona to spin around as quickly as a ballerina. She now faced the locked door in the other room again as she held the Exacto knife in front of her like a swordsman preparing for battle.
“Cop’s leaving.” She whispered. “I figure that old hag will wait until he’s well out of sight before . . . .”
“Cop? There’s a cop here? What’s wrong you with, you people? There’s a cop!”
Darlene’s eyes darted from Matt to Mona and then back to Matt again. Both of them stared at her silently, almost as if it had never crossed their minds that maybe, perhaps, they could simply yell for help. That all of this could be over, that they could go home, be free . . .
“Help m . . . .”
The scream that had begun to erupt from Darlene’s mouth was cut short as Matt’s hand slapped over her lips again with a sharp crack. She tried to shake her head free, but he pressed his palm even more tightly against her face and braced his other hand against the back of her head.
“Now, I told you, damn it. One more chance. I told you, didn’t I?”
Darlene sank her teeth into Matt’s flesh and he winced but made no move to yank his hand away.
“Stupid fucking bitch.”
Without another word, he pushed the woman’s jaw in one direction and jerked her head in the other with a violent twist. There was a sharp snapping sound, almost like a wishbone being pulled apart at Thanksgiving, and then he allowed Darlene’s body to limply slump toward the ground. Only the nails in her hands kept her from collapsing like a discarded rag doll as her unblinking eyes stared into eternity.
For Darlene Honnicker, the agony of her torture had finally come to and end . . . .
SCENE NINE
The added weight of the car being towed behind them made it seem as if the scenery were slowly scrolling by and the vehicles simply sitting still. This illusion was enhanced even more for Daryl, who sat in the driver’s seat of the wrecked Honda. Without the rumble of an engine, the interior of the car was eerily silent and he found himself wishing he were in the cab of the truck with his brother. Not to mention that it would be warmer up there. The motor of the car was completely shot, which meant the heater was out as well. Even with his layers of clothing, Daryl could still feel the cold upholstery of the seat seep into his back and ass and his teeth chattered between clouds of breath. Every few moments, he had to lean forward and wipe the frost from the inside of the windshield with his arm, but other than that his part in the operation was monotonous.
Basically, all he had to do was watch for the brake lights of the truck to wink at him and apply pressure to the pedal in the car as well. A few small adjustments were required with the wheel, but for the most part the chain that connected the two vehicles made this a simple task. Which was perfect, seeing as how Daryl had never actually learned to drive. However, this lack of participation also
gave the mustachioed man ample time to think . . . and his mind turned, time and time again, to the book that sat on the passenger seat beside him.
He glanced at it for what must have been the hundredth time in the past five minutes. That worn leather cover, the elegant handwriting, and those three seemingly innocent words: Mona’s Secret Delights. A chill coursed along his spine that had nothing to do with the sub-zero temperatures within the car and his stomach felt as if it had turned into a writhing knot of worms. Earl had said he was just being a little baby, that the book was obviously some kind of joke; but, at the same time, Daryl’s older brother certainly hadn’t put up much of an argument against going straight home and disposing of the car later.
“Everything’s gonna be okay.” He said aloud. “It’s gonna be right as rain, you’ll see.”
The quiver in his voice, however, betrayed the fact the he was trying to talk himself into accepting what he secretly believed to be a lie.
Mona’s Secret Delights.
He looked at the book again and his thoughts immediately turned to Mama. Sometimes, he woke up in the middle of the night with the remnants of a dream still clinging to his consciousness like a tenacious rottweiler. He’d sit in the glow of his night light and listen to his own haggard breath as sweat dried cool on his drenched body.
The dream was always the same: it was Mama and Earl tied to the chairs in the upstairs room, only they were so much smaller than what they were in real life. In fact, Daryl seemed to tower over them as if he were a giant in the halls of his castle. When he walked, the floors rattled with each thudding step and showers of dust cascaded from the rafters overhead. His shadow fell over his mother and brother, engulfing them in a darkness so complete that Daryl could only see the frightened gleam in their eyes.
In this dream, his fingers were actually slender needles that clinked against one another and dripped sizzling beads of acid onto the floor. In each amber droplet, Daryl could clearly see his mother and brother reflected: their faces were gaunt and colorless, their mouths pulled back into screams that never seemed to come, and their eyes wide and glassy. Within those eyes, there was another reflection, this one of a small boy with a blood soaked tee shirt. The boy was being fed into the darkness of a closet whose doorway was lined with fang-like teeth; his feet scrambled over the floor and tears glistened on his cheeks, but still the hands urged him ever onward. For a second, the young boy locked gazes with the towering giant and his mouth formed two words: help me.
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