by Ricky Fry
It might have been only minutes, but it seemed like an eternity before he returned, blood splattered on his hands and face and neck—Ruby’s blood.
How I hated him then. I would have killed him with a rock or my own bare hands had I been able. I would have watched the blood and brains oozing from his cracked skull onto the weather-worn asphalt and laughed as the life drained from his face. It wouldn’t be the last time I’d have such fantasies, though my attention quickly turned to the question that burned brightly in my mind.
Is he going to kill me too?
But he didn’t lay another finger on me. Instead, he went around back and cleaned up with a bottle of water. I heard the splashing and rubbing from my place still strapped to the bench seat. When he was finished, he closed the double side doors with a delicate touch before climbing into the driver’s seat. The engine rumbled to life, and soon we were back on the road, climbing higher into the mountains while Ruby’s body was left to rot in the hot afternoon sun in an otherwise unremarkable ditch somewhere behind us.
Hours passed without a word between us. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to speak. I wanted to curse him and tell him I’d send him to burn in hell, but the gag stuffed in my mouth prevented me from saying the thoughts that raced through my mind.
Travis did speak, but not to me. He spat and muttered incoherent phrases under his breath as he fidgeted and tapped nervously on the steering wheel.
It was dark when the van finally slowed, and Travis reappeared at the side doors. “I’m going to take the gag out of your mouth, but only if you promise not to scream.”
I nodded.
He traced the back of his fingers lightly against my cheek before untying the knot behind my head and slipping the gag out.
“Bastard,” I said. “You killed her. You killed Ruby just like you killed Monica.”
“Yes,” he said, releasing a long sigh. “I killed Monica, and I killed Ruby too. But you have to understand, my dear, sweet Spencer. I did it all for you.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s okay. Maybe you don’t understand it now. One day you will. You’re mine now, and I won’t let them take you away from me. Not now. Not ever.”
As dry as my throat had become, I managed to gather enough saliva to spit in his face.
I expected he might hit me, but instead, he licked the runny saliva from his chapped lips, holding it in his mouth as if he savored the taste. I felt bile rise up and burn the back of my throat.
“You taste good,” he said. “I could taste you again and again.”
I knew what would come next from the smile that flashed across his face. “No,” I said.
But it was too late. He held me down with his clammy hands on my shoulders and leaned forward until his lips touched mine.
As if by instinct, I snapped my head back and slammed it forward, bringing my forehead down hard on his nose. Blood gushed from both nostrils and soiled his shirt.
That’s when he slapped me. The back of his hand struck my cheek with a sudden pop that left a loud ringing in my ears.
Even he seemed surprised by his reaction. “I didn’t want to do that, Spencer. But you made me. Just like you made me kill Ruby.”
“And Monica? Did I make you do that too?”
He smiled again, his teeth stained bright red from the blood that had worked its way into his mouth. “It’s okay, Spencer. I forgive you. We’ll make a nice girl out of you, I promise.”
I screamed and spat as he worked the gag back into my mouth. Then I heard the back door open, and he returned a moment later with some kind of cloth bag, maybe a pillowcase, which he placed over my head.
“Relax now. We’ve got about eight more hours on the road until we get home. It’s going to be a long ride if you wanna keep fighting me.”
I almost didn’t hear the last thing he said. My breath had quickened again, and I gasped for air. The bag over my head closed in around me, and I thought I might die from suffocation.
This is it. This is the moment I die. Alone in the back of a van with a madman behind the wheel.
I must have passed out again because I don’t remember anything from the rest of the drive.
The only thing I remember is that when I finally opened my eyes, the van had stopped. Even with the bag over my head, I knew it was nighttime. The only sounds were the chirping of insects, crickets maybe, and the hoot of an owl somewhere off in the distance.
I steadied myself, waiting for whatever would happen next.
“We’re home,” he said, as he wrapped his hands around my ankles.
I kicked and kicked and felt my feet strike what I thought might have been his face. He released his grip and cried out in agony.
“My nose,” he said. “I think you broke my fucking nose.”
Then something hard hit me on the head, and for the second time since we’d left Ruby dead in a ditch, the world spun and went dark.
TWELVE
I couldn’t say how much time had passed until I woke with an awful pounding in my head. I lifted my hands toward my face, still expected them to be pinned to my waist by a chain, and was surprised when I touched my own cheeks. My fingers climbed upward until I felt soft gauze—a bandage had been wrapped tightly around my head.
Maybe I’ve been rescued. I’m in the hospital. I never thought I’d say this, but I’d give anything to see a police officer standing over me.
My hopes evaporated when I felt the now-familiar cuffs around my wrists. Only they were different. Not handcuffs. More like something from an old film, thick bands of metal with a protruding bolt on each side.
And the chain. There was still a chain. This, too, was different than the standard police issue. Heavier. It was dark in whatever room I’d been brought to, but I followed the links of the chain until it came to a ring on a wall. Cold to the touch. Concrete.
A fluorescent light flicked on overhead and sent pain shooting through my head. I squinted and struggled to adjust my eyes to the bright light.
“Welcome home.” Travis moved until the light was behind him, his shadow falling across the shackles still secured tightly around my ankles.
“Where are we?”
“My house.”
“Your house?”
“Well, not exactly. I’m sure the police will turn up at my apartment when they figure out what’s really happened. This is more like a cabin, a hunting lodge, where my uncle used to bring me when I was a kid. The old bastard never did leave a proper will, said he didn’t trust lawyers, and the like. But it’s mine to use, with no paperwork linking it to my name. Maybe Uncle Bart was right about the lawyers.”
“Travis, you have to stop this.” My head still throbbed as I struggled to find the right words. “Let me go now, and I won’t say anything, I promise. Whatever happened out there with Monica and Ruby will all be forgotten. Just give me back my clothes and drop me alongside the road. I’ll hitch a ride from there.”
“Now, you and I both know it’s never that simple. Besides, I think you’re really going to like it here once you learn to behave and start acting like a good girl.” He touched the clean white bandage taped across his nose. “I’m afraid we didn’t start off on the right foot.”
“Look, I’m sorry about that. Real sorry. It was all just a misunderstanding. You’re a nice guy, Travis. I know deep down you’re a nice guy. But you have to let me go.”
“Go where? Back to jail and then on to prison? You’re a wanted fugitive. For all the police know, we did it together, killing Monica and Ruby. Or maybe you did it alone and forced me to go along. I bet they think you’re headed to Canada right now, or maybe you turned around and headed down south to Mexico.”
“Wait a minute—”
“Could be true,” he said. “Stranger things have been known to happen.”
The very suggestion that I’d had something to do with Ruby’s death set my blood boiling. In the back of the van, I’d felt fear—fear for my life. Now all I felt was anger.
“GPS?” He laughed. “Come on, Spencer. You really think I’m that stupid? I tore that thing off the undercarriage the night I killed Monica. Tossed it outside the window somewhere just over the Idaho border. And I got news for you, we ain’t in Idaho anymore.”
He’s smarter than I thought.
“Okay, then. So what’s your plan?”
“My plan?”
“Yeah, I mean, you can’t just keep me chained up in here forever.”
“I’ll keep you chained up for as long as it takes.”
“As long as what takes?”
“Until you love me.”
I spit at his feet. “I’ll never love you, Travis. You killed Ruby. You killed my friend.”
He cocked his head to the side, and one corner of his mouth turned upward into a devilish grin. In the flickering glow of the fluorescent lightbulb, he looked like the sinister psychopath from some horror movie.
That’s what he is. A murderer. A psychopath. I’m alone with a psychopath.
I wanted to scream. But so far, screams had done little to save me. I held out some kind of hope that I could talk my way out of this, even if I doubted that would happen.
“Love you?” I said. “Do you think I’d really love someone who keeps me in chains?”
“You will. I know it, Spencer. You’re the one.”
“Then let’s leave together. You said it yourself, we could go to Mexico. Take long walks on the beach and drink cocktails with little paper umbrellas.”
His gaze softened as if he were staring off into the distance, imaging the possibility. “That would be nice. But we’re not there yet. You don’t love me. I have to know you love me first.”
Maybe I should just say I love him.
The idea made me sick, and I thought I tasted bile again in the back of my throat. “So what are you going to do, just leave me here? Where am I going to pee?”
He pointed. “There’s a bucket over there in the corner. I’ll bring you some food in the morning.”
“A bucket?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll empty it twice a day.”
Wow. So chivalrous. It’s like he thinks he’s actually doing me some kind of favor.
“You should rest now.”
“Wait—”
He reached for a switch on the wall, and the room went dark. I listened for footsteps but heard only the slightest whistle as he breathed in and out of his broken nose. I imagined him standing there in the black, empty space of the room, hovering over me like some kind of ghost.
“Spencer?” he said.
I didn’t answer.
“I love you. You’ll see. I love you.”
And then he was gone.
THIRTEEN
I stayed awake for a long time, too terrified to close my eyes and too bothered by the pounding pain in my head.
Some situation you’ve found yourself in, Spencer.
It was like one of those cheap thriller novels my first roommate, Sarah, used to read when she was too stoned to bother putting on clothes or leaving the apartment—the ones where the wife murders the husband and frames his mistress or the serial killer stalks the female police detective assigned to hunt him down.
Only this wasn’t a cheap thriller. It was my life. Looking back on that first night in Travis’s cabin, I should have been more terrified than I was. But it’s hard to grasp the reality of the situation in the moment, however terrible it might be.
I closed my eyes and rested my head against the concrete wall.
Somewhere outside, I heard an owl hooting and wondered if it was the same one I’d heard before Travis had knocked me over the head. In the days and weeks to come, I would long to be that owl—spread my wings and fly off into the night, my feathers silhouetted against a full moon. Only I wasn’t an owl. There would be no flying away.
I’ve often wondered how people manage to sleep in impossible circumstances. Soldiers in a cold, wet trench, bullets whizzing over their heads. Migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea in a rubber raft, sharks circling in the blue waters all around them.
But the body wants what it wants. So it was some late hour deep in the night that I finally curled up on the musty, damp floor and drifted off to sleep.
The heavenly scent of eggs and bacon frying in a hot pan filled the air. A ray of sunlight poured in through a tiny window high in the wall. It was almost as if I’d woken up in a different place, just another weekend trip to the cabin with my high school friend Felicity.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it was true. Travis’ heavy footsteps on the wooden stairs were quick to destroy my thinly-conceived fantasy.
“Good morning,” he said. He was no longer in his company-issued uniform. Instead, he wore a red flannel shirt and a pair of jeans. Standing there with the plate of bacon and eggs in his hand, he looked almost like a hipster waiter at a Portland all-night diner. “I thought you might want some real food after all those cheese sandwiches.”
He put the plate down on the concrete floor, an arm’s length from me, and pulled an old wooden chair from the opposite corner of the room.
The hunger in my stomach threatened to send me leaping for the plate, scooping long strips of greasy bacon into my mouth like some kind of wild animal. But I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of feeling good about himself. I didn’t want to be the animal in his zoo.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Maybe you’re not hungry.”
I thought he might take the plate away, but he left it sitting in front of me.
“Eat whenever you like. Maybe someday soon, we could enjoy our meals together.”
Why, yes, honey! That would be great—you pouring me another glass of champagne and passing the oysters across the table as I sit chained to the wall, a bucket of my own shit fermenting in the corner.
“Yes,” I said. “That would be nice.”
If only for the opportunity to stab you with a fork.
He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t lie, Spencer. Only bad girls lie. You’re not ready yet, but that will change when you see how much I love you.”
“If you really love me, why don’t you prove it?”
“How?”
“You can start by jumping off a bridge.”
He laughed. “You see, that’s why I like you. You’ve got a little fire in your belly. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you in Topeka, you’d be a challenge. But anything worth doing takes work, right? You’re not like that stupid—”
“Like what? Like who?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m gonna make a supply run, go into town and get stocked up on everything we need to stay out here for a while. Enjoy your breakfast.”
I watched him climb back up the stairs. He was young and in good shape, but today he seemed even lighter on his feet than he had during the long days in the van.
He’s excited. He’s happy. He actually thinks something good might come from this.
I waited until I heard a vehicle’s engine roar to life and the crunching of tires on a gravel driveway. As the sound slowly moved away and disappeared, I inched forward and lifted the plate.
Could the eggs be poisoned?
No, that didn’t make sense. Why would he go through all the trouble of kidnapping me just to poison me with eggs? I lifted a strip of bacon to my nose and sniffed. It was smoky—real bacon, not like that fake, vegan stuff they serve in half the restaurants in Portland.
I wanted to put the plate back down just to spite him, to see the disappointed look on his face when he came back to find the plate exactly where he’d left it. But I was too hungry. I brought the bacon to my lips and took a small bite. Chewed. Swallowed. Delicious.
When the bacon was gone, I moved on to the eggs. He’d left me without a fork, so I scooped the eggs into my mouth with a piece of buttered toast.
I’d never been so happy for such a simple meal. Even on the streets, after I’d found myself eighteen and no longer in foster care, there had been homeless shelters and soup kitchens—friends who’d fed me and let me crash on sofas. And the punk house with my first boyfriend, Derek, who played in a shitty band and wore the same smelly, leather jacket for years after it should have been tossed in a dumpster.
There was another memory too. Matt bringing me eggs in bed and telling me he loved me. He’d kiss me on the forehead before leaving for work, and when he’d come home late in the evening, he’d take me out for a romantic dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant.
Matt never needed the chains. He’d done what so many men do, swept me off my feet with compliments and adoration, always playing the perfect gentleman. It was only later when he knew I’d come to rely on his support, that he’d threaten to withhold his love as a means to control me.
Little by little, he seized power. First, it was the cell phone he’d added to his plan so he could monitor the record of my calls. Then it was the joint bank account. No need for my own anymore, he’d said. Besides, it wasn’t like I ever had any real money in there anyway.
Like a frog in a pot of water, by the time I realized what was happening, it was too late. Until the night I came home to find him pacing back and forth, and everything fell apart.
Travis was a more obvious danger. Unlike Matt, who’d only threatened to kill me, Travis was a confirmed killer. As I swallowed the last of the eggs and toast and licked the plate clean, I wondered if Monica and Ruby were the only ones. Perhaps there were others left to rot on the side of some empty road. More bodies tossed into ravines.
I returned the plate to the place where he’d left it and surveyed the room. The walls and floor were all concrete, with wooden beams holding up the ceiling above. A single high window, my only source of light, might have been too small to crawl through. And it didn’t matter. A metal grid of welded rebars had been bolted over the opening.