by Bryan Smith
My, how our standards have fallen.
She kept looking at him. She knew it was a mistake, that he might get the idea that she was actually interested in him, but she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t that she was somehow magically seeing beyond the surface decay and actually finding some obscure attractive quality in him. Rather, she was thinking again of what the devil wanted her to do.
She tried to picture it.
That seemed important.
In order to do a thing, especially a very difficult or unpleasant thing, you first have to envision yourself successfully doing it.
She saw herself leading this guy on over a course of days. Flirting with him some more here at the bar, laughing harder at his jokes, and maybe she’d stop being so dismissive of his icky come-ons. Then she’d maybe give him her number and ask him to call her over the weekend. They could set up a date. Meet somewhere private.
And then she could…what?
She frowned.
How would she kill him?
She stared at his thick neck, imagined trying to slice it open with a knife, understanding instinctively how messy that would be. He might knock the knife away before she could finish the job. And then she’d be kind of fucked. He was bigger than her. Slower, maybe, but bigger. And stronger.
Shooting him would be way easier, but she didn’t have a gun.
So what did that leave?
Maybe she could smash something heavy over his head when he had his back turned to her. That could work, but what would she use? A baseball bat? She could get one easily enough. She’d seen some gangster movie on cable years back in which a bunch of guys beat another guy to death with baseball bats. But taking a baseball bat to a date would be kind of conspicuous. A better idea might be to use some kind of found object, something she could carry in one of her bigger handbags.
For instance, a brick.
She smiled.
A brick would do the trick.
A brick would split that fat skull right open.
But now she frowned, wondering where she might find stray bricks laying around, just waiting for would-be murderers to come along and scoop them up.
“You got a funny look on your face.”
Kayla blinked and gave her head a slight shake, dispersing the gruesome thoughts as she focused on Red Nose’s face again. “What do you mean?”
The man’s expression was now strangely guarded. “You know…funny as in odd. In, like, a cold way. Like as if you were some kind of scientist studying something under a microscope.”
“Huh.”
Whoa. You’re quite the intuitive motherfucker, Red Nose.
He glanced at his watch. “It’s getting kind of late. I should hit the road.”
Kayla summoned one of her brighter smiles, the kind that rarely failed to make men do what she wanted, and leaned toward him a little. “Oh, come on. It’s early yet. Don’t you like me?”
He palmed sweat from his forehead and wiped it on his slacks. “Honey, I think you’re gorgeous. And just talking to you makes me feel twenty years younger.”
She leaned closer still and put a hand on his knee. “So what’s the problem?”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t know where to start. That’s a real aggressive move you just made, for starters. You were right, you know. I’m too old to fool around with the likes of you. Hell, I’ve got a family. A wife and kids. I’m not looking to pick anyone up. I just like to chat up a pretty girl now and then. No crime in that, far as I know. I’m sure you think I’m dumb as a rock, but maybe I’m smarter than I look. I know there’s no good or innocent reason someone like you would try to get with someone like me.”
He gently removed her hand from his knee and stood up. Then he threw a few bills on the bar and walked out of the place.
Kayla watched him go, feeling nonplussed.
Jesus. That should have been the easiest pickup in the history of pickups.
Thinking about it, though, she could see he had been right. She had been too aggressive, too obviously needy when he made those first noises about leaving. An interaction like that, given what she had to do, required subtlety.
A lot of subtlety, actually.
Huge, heaping shitloads of motherfucking subtlety.
She scanned the length of the bar, hoping to find someone else checking her out, but not a single person was looking her way. It was the usual sparse Wednesday night crowd at The Villager Tavern. There was a group of three guys sitting at the far end of the bar. They were closer to her own age than Red Nose had been. A couple more guys and a girl were in the darts room adjacent to the bar. The male darts players both seemed interested in the girl (Kayla thought she was rather plain), always looking at her and laughing too hard at the things she said.
So Kayla ignored them and studied the guys at the end of the bar. Two of them looked like they were in their mid-twenties, with the third maybe just a few years older. They were all dressed in gym attire, as if they’d come straight here from a workout. She could smell their sweat-stink from here, an odor that ordinarily repelled her, but she couldn’t afford to be picky. Besides, they were all very fit and looked acceptably cute, especially the slightly older one. He was taller than the others, had a cleft chin, and had thick dark hair. He had an easy smile, too, and maybe a day’s worth of rough-looking stubble. He exuded manliness in a way that brought to mind her first impression of the devil. The association made her squirm on her stool a little. There was a lot bad about that demonic asshole, but there was one thing you couldn’t take away from him.
He was hot.
And so was this guy.
With this guy, the pre-murder phase of their entanglement would actually be fun.
Or so she thought until he happened to glance her way.
He winced and quickly averted his gaze.
Kayla sighed.
Not this shit again.
The tall guy whispered something to his friends, who then directed quick glances her way. One of them cringed and immediately looked away. The other just frowned and stared at her. Maybe that one wasn’t under the effects of the shunning spell. He did look sort of confused. Didn’t matter, though. He was with them.
Disgusted, Kayla tossed back the remainder of her second tequila and stalked out of the bar.
A pleasant cool breeze stirred up as she started down the sidewalk back in the direction of Vanderbilt. It felt good on her skin and was nice after the stuffiness of the little tavern.
The bar experience had been disappointing, of course, but the good news was that most of the people out and about tonight didn’t treat her like a pariah. Most passed her by with blank looks on their faces, but no one reacted with obvious revulsion, which was a wonderful change. A few people even looked her in the eye and smiled or nodded. The first few times it happened she almost cried.
She’d almost forgotten what it was like to be treated decently by other people.
Which got her to thinking again about what the devil wanted from her.
She’d spent much of the evening thinking about how she might do it, but in a theoretical manner, divorced entirely from emotion. Actually doing it wouldn’t be like that at all. So then she thought about what Red Nose had said about his family. His wife and kids.
She felt a stab of guilt as she thought of her half-formed plan to kill the man.
What the hell had she been thinking in agreeing to this deal with the devil? This emotional component would be there regardless of whoever she ultimately picked as her victim. In any case, she’d be killing someone’s loved one. Other people’s worlds would be torn apart by the act. There would be repercussions she couldn’t begin to imagine.
She thought of the number stored now on her phone. Bathory’s number. She could call the Blood Countess and have her relay to Lucifer that she had changed her mind. She was ready to accept her life of isolation and subsequent damnation. It wouldn’t be much of a life, but so what? She already had Rebecca Galbreath’s blood on her hands, at leas
t to some degree. She didn’t need any additional stains on her soul.
So do it, she thought. Do it tonight and be done with this insanity.
She nodded.
Yes, I will. I’ll do it.
She experienced a lightness of spirit at having made the decision. Maybe she wasn’t the nicest person who’d ever walked the earth, but, dammit, she wasn’t an evil person.
On the other hand…
She had a whole week. A week that might be the last tolerable period of her life. So maybe she wouldn’t call Bathory tonight. Why deprive herself of her remaining few days of semi-happiness?
It troubled her a bit that she was already backtracking on the decision, but she found consolation in knowing she wouldn’t go all the way back on it. That part of it was settled.
Probably.
She frowned as she turned a corner and headed down an emptier stretch of sidewalk. The evening had lengthened. It was full dark by now. But that didn’t concern her. She was just a few blocks from campus. What did concern her was this probably business.
Only moments ago she’d felt so good about herself.
So proud of committing to the right thing for once.
And now…
She stopped in her tracks, her senses tingling as she abruptly felt like something was wrong. That was a mistake. She sensed that right away. She should have been running instead of standing here like an idiot.
Heavy footsteps came up quick behind her and she sucked in a startled breath.
Something hard slammed into the back of her skull just as her body was starting to move forward again.
She dropped like a rock to the ground.
Her last thought before the lights went out was, Red Nose.
12.
The first time Kayla came to she was in a tight, dark space. Her wrists and ankles were bound with nylon rope. The rope was cinched very tight, abrading her skin and cutting off her circulation. Her hands and feet felt numb, which scared her. She wondered what might happen to her extremities if the blood supply to them was cut off for a long period of time. She had no idea how long she had been out. It could have been minutes or hours, maybe even longer. Her knees were tucked against her chest in a fetal position. The thought triggered a disturbing thought. This close, dark space was the malignant womb of some awful Hellbeast, and she had been implanted within it as some kind of sick joke by the devil. Ridiculous, of course, but the absurd prospect nevertheless made her heart pound faster for a few seconds.
She tried hard to calm herself. She needed to think. She untucked her knees from her chest and stretched her legs out as far as she could. Which, as it turned out, was not very far at all. The soles of her shoes met resistance right away. Something solid was in the way. She moved her feet along the surface of whatever it is, trying to divine its shape. It was curved. And here was a hump of some kind protruding from the curved surface.
Her heart stuttered.
Oh, shit. I’m in a trunk.
She was sort of pissed at herself for taking so long to figure that out. Yeah, she could blame it on the hard blow to her noggin. Her thinking was still a bit fuzzy. But she wasn’t willing to cut herself that kind of slack. She needed to get her head in the game. She wouldn’t get out of this fix if her brain wasn’t working its ass off at maximum capacity.
Ass. Brain.
Assbrain
She pictured a hunk of gray matter with a pimply bare butt lodged up there where the cerebellum should be. She giggled. She wanted to call her old hometown friend, Andrew, who had a real skill with pencil and ink drawings, and describe the image to him so he could sketch it out for her.
She could frame it and hang it on her wall, keep it always as a treasured memento of this time. Oh, yes. That wondrous night I spent trapped in the trunk of a lunatic’s car. I’ll never forget it.
She giggled again.
Stop. Just stop.
She was angry with herself again. Clearly she was still loopy from the effects of the blow to her head. Not acceptable. She bit down on her bottom lip. Hard. Maybe the pain would clear away some of the mental cobwebs. She knew it was finally beginning to work when she started to be scared again.
Think, Kayla, think.
Aside from being in a trunk, what else do you know about where you are?
Nothing.
And that was the truth. She knew absolutely nothing about where Red Nose had taken her. At first the thought inspired only despair, but she realized there was at least some thin thread of hope within that meager knowledge. She could be anywhere at all. They might have already arrived at whatever Red Nose’s ultimate destination was. Or they might still be in the vicinity of the Vanderbilt campus. He might not have taken her anywhere yet. Which meant there might be people in the area.
A cop, maybe. Or a campus security guard.
She opened her mouth wide and screamed as loud as she could. Which, as the devil could have told Red Nose, was quite loud indeed.
She followed it with yet another scream, this one even louder.
And she kicked at the trunk with her bound feet.
Noise, she thought. Make as much noise as you can, Kayla. Make a goddamn racket.
The trunk popped open moments later.
And Red Nose was glaring down at her. His face was redder than ever, and he was huffing and puffing.
Kayla held her breath at the sight of him.
Come on, you fat bastard, have a fucking heart attack!
She wriggled around inside the trunk, struggling to get her legs up into a position to kick out at him. But the effort was for naught, as Red Nose leaned into the trunk and pressed a strange-smelling cloth to her face. Her eyes watered and her nostrils filled with the stench of some kind of chemical.
Then the lights went out again.
When she came to the next time, she was tied to a bed in a strange room. She was even fuzzier-headed this time, thanks to the lingering effects of whatever noxious chemical Red Nose had used to knock her out. She was, however, able to deduce some basic facts right away. He hadn’t taken her to some cheap motel room, as she’d suspected he might. That would have made sense, right? He’d said he was married. Had kids, too. So he wouldn’t bring her to his home. And yet, this room looked very much like a bedroom in someone’s apartment or house, with its peeling wallpaper, rickety bookshelves bursting with stacks of musty paperbacks, and an antique chest of drawers. So maybe he had been lying to her about the wife and kids. That even seemed sort of likely. She knew from her avid reading on the subject that some serial killers successfully led dual existences. They would have the standard nice home in suburbia, a respectable job, and the usual kind of family unit, a somewhat mousy spouse and some adorable fucking brats. But guys like that were the exception, the outliers of the serial-killing world. They were usually also the most proficient of serial killers, because no one who knew them would ever suspect them of doing the gruesome things they did in their private time. But it was far more common that these guys were miserable, lonesome losers. She couldn’t figure which category fit Red Nose yet. It could go either way.
Wait a minute…
She turned some of these thoughts over in her head again. Serial killer? She’d been assessing the available information in an almost disconnected way--more lingering after effects of the chemical he’d used to knock her out?--but now she was forced to confront the true crux of the situation. What was Red Nose’s motive for taking her in the first place?
Why was she tied to this bed?
He’d taken her for some purpose. To do something to her. She had a feeling that something had nothing to do with further discussion of obscure songs from his long-gone youth. She’d been stripped down to her panties and bra, so his plans for her likely involved some sexual element. The realization brought back the fear that had gripped her during that brief time of consciousness in the trunk.
She jerked against her bonds, but to no avail. Her arms were stretched backward behind her and were tied to po
sts in a metal headboard. Her legs had been stretched to the corners at the foot of the bed, her ankles secured to the posts beneath the bed with lengths of nylon rope. She jerked her limbs again, but there was just no give at all in the bindings. Which forced her to face a miserable truth--there was absolutely no feasible way she could free herself.
She was at the mercy of Red Nose.
He could do absolutely anything he wanted to her and there wouldn’t be a thing she could do about it.
Tears sprang to her eyes then.
She didn’t want to be raped.
Didn’t want to be killed.
A crazy idea occurred to her. Maybe this was God’s judgment on her. Some weird brand of divine intercession via pervert. The more she thought about it, the less crazy the notion seemed. Hadn’t she made a deal with the devil? And wasn’t that the sort of thing God might frown upon? Given the undeniable and obvious answers to those questions, was it really so absurd to believe that God was using Red Nose as his instrument of retribution? Hell, weren’t crazy killer types known for saying God made them chop hookers into hundreds of itty bitty pieces? Maybe sometimes those crazy motherfuckers were telling the truth.
Maybe.
And maybe not.
Either way, it changed nothing regarding Kayla’s fervent desire not to be sexually assaulted or sliced to ribbons.
She lifted her head off the pillow and peered down the length of her body. Considering the rest of the available facts, the failure to remove her bra and panties was odd. She was powerless, after all. And he’d gone so far as to tie her to a bed and remove the rest of her clothes. Leaving her undergarments in place made little sense. Okay, sure, she was grateful she wasn’t completely nude--at least not yet--but that did nothing to mitigate the strangeness of it.