by Bryan Smith
She thought for a moment, realized she was close to losing count of how many people she’d killed today, and decided it no longer mattered. These weren’t people to her anymore. They were just obstacles. If she had to kill a hundred more to get free of this place, she would do it.
But to get free, she needed to get moving again. A cruiser was parked at the side of the road, probably the one driven by the cop who had originally spotted her. It was the only still-operational vehicle in the immediate vicinity. She didn’t relish the idea of fleeing in a cop car, but she was out of other options.
She exchanged the empty pistol for a loaded one, prying it from the stiffening fingers of a dead lawman. She took some spare bullets, too, and stood up. Then she took a step toward the intact cruiser and winced, her knees buckling beneath her. With the adrenaline of the moment fading, the pain had come back. She drew in a wheezing breath and continued to hobble toward the cruiser. Each step triggered another jolt of pain. It was worse when she paused to kneel again and retrieve a dropped pump-action shotgun. She felt faint for a moment and almost keeled over. But she got herself upright again and staggered the rest of the way to the car. She slipped behind the wheel and set the guns and bullets on the passenger seat.
Her eyes surveyed the array of unfamiliar cop equipment on the dash. A strained voice squawked through a burst of static over the radio. Keys dangled from the ignition slot. The engine was still running. Jessica put the car in gear and swung out into the road, twisting the steering wheel until she was pointed away from the roadblock. Her fingers curled around the steering wheel as she stared at the empty stretch of road ahead. A road that wouldn’t remain empty very much longer. She tapped the gas pedal and the car rolled forward, picked up speed.
She had no idea where she was going.
Her ribs hurt like a son of a bitch. Some of them were cracked, or maybe worse.
She was in perhaps the most conspicuous getaway car in the history of getaway cars.
But she was alive.
Goddammit, she was still alive.
She gritted her teeth and drove.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Megan was still floating somewhere on the edges of sleep when some part of her mind perceived the sound of a key turning in a lock and urged her to consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open and she fuzzily saw the cell door swing inward. Deputy Hal strode into the cell, unsheathing something from his belt as he approached Megan. Alarm bells clanged in Megan’s head and she came fully awake, sitting up abruptly on the narrow and uncomfortable cot.
Hal twirled the nightstick in his hand and flashed a dead-eyed, oily smile.“On your feet, cunt.”
Megan flinched.
It was the first time a man had ever called her a cunt to her face. Being called a cunt could never be a pleasant thing, but the epithet itself didn’t bother her so much as what it symbolized—the complete lack of respect anyone here had for her.
Hal poked her shoulder with the nightstick, hard enough to hurt.“Hey, bitch. I know you’re not deaf. Get on your feet, you stupid cunt.” Her pained expression made him grin, and he twirled the nightstick again. “Unless you want me to start breaking bones?”
A sneer twitched at a corner of her mouth. “What good would I be at the Sin Den, then?”
The grin dropped from his face as rage stole into his features. “Fuck you. You should be mine. Goddamn sheriff.”
Megan slowly licked her lips, taunting him. “Careful what you say, Hal. It might get back to the man in charge. I bet he wouldn’t—”
He snarled and came at her then, grabbing Megan by an arm to roughly jerk her to her feet. He leaned close to her, warming her face with his hot, tobacco-redolent breath as he whispered into her ear. “You asked for this. Remember that.”
He dragged her into the middle of the cell and said, “Bend over and grab your ankles.”
Her eyes went wide.“No. Why—?”
The nightstick cracked against the back of a knee, making her cry out as she dropped to the floor, banging her knees against the dirty concrete. He grabbed the collar of her shirt and jerked her to her feet again, causing the thin fabric to stretch and tear a little.
Hal brandished the nightstick again. “Your ankles. Don’t make me say it again.”
Megan whimpered and did as instructed. She was fit and flexible, so it was easy enough to do, but it stretched the muscles in her legs and made the place struck by the demented deputy’s nightstick sing with pain. She lifted her head and looked out at the big room outside the holding cell. She heard a voice emanating from an unseen radio, an excited voice that brayed something unintelligible through a burst of static before cutting off. But the room was empty. There was no one to answer the radio call, much less anyone who might rescue her from whatever vile thing the deputy had in mind. Not that anyone in this lunatic asylum of a town would want to help her anyway.
Hal stepped behind her and thrust his crotch against her upraised ass. She winced at the feel of his enormous erection sliding over her denim-covered bottom. This was the second time she’d let him do this. She yearned to fight back. Maybe stomp on his instep while he was distracted and grab the nightstick from him while he yowled in agony. She imagined cracking him over the head with the thing a few times—let him see how much he liked it. It was tempting. But he was big and powerfully built, and she was just a little thing. Stomping on his foot wouldn’t accomplish anything good, would maybe only incite him to something worse than molestation. Tears misted her vision as he hooked a hand into the back of her jeans and held her ass tight to his crotch as he writhed against her. He made moaning sounds and started breathing faster, calling her more vile names between short gasps. She wished he would just hurry up and come in his fucking pants, the dumb bastard.
The creak of a door opening on the other side of the room made her look up again. Sheriff DeMars emerged from his office and came striding across the room with a scowl on his florid face. “Deputy, the fuck are you doin’?”
Hal’s breath audibly caught in his throat. He let go of her and shuffled backward a few steps. Megan straightened and staggered away from him. She fell against a grime-encrusted concrete wall and stood with her back against it as the sheriff bulled full-steam into the cell, big nostrils flaring as his face went an even darker shade of scarlet. He slammed the base of a hand against the deputy’s chest and sent him stumbling backward.
“He hit me with that thing.” Megan indicated the nightstick with a nod. It had fallen to the floor and rolled to a stop against a leg of the cot. “Behind the knee. I’ll probably have a nasty bruise.”
The sheriff wrapped a big hand around the deputy’s throat, kept him from falling onto the cot. He leaned close, spittle striking Hal’s cheeks with each tersely enunciated word. “Do. Not. Fuck. With. The. Fucking. Merchandise!” His hand tightened around the deputy’s throat, making the man’s face turn nearly as deep red as his own. “You dumb shit. You know better than to go against my word. Least I thought you did.”
Megan watched this with a numb detachment at first. She didn’t realize she was going to speak again until after the words were out there. “He said he claimed me fair and square. Said he was gonna keep me for himself no matter what you said.”
DeMars’s head turned slowly toward her, his scowl deepening.“The hell you say.”
Hal tried to speak, the words emerging as a strangled gurgle.
Megan nodded.“The hell I say.”
DeMars scowled.“I reckon I believe you.” He eyed her up and down and uttered a piggish snort of admiration. “You’d tempt any man, sweet thing.” He looked at Hal. “But you know my word’s law here, boy, and you damn sure know not to go against it. So I think it’s time for an object lesson.”
He relinquished his hold on the deputy’s neck. Hal sucked in two big lungfuls of air before trying to speak. “Sheriff…I…she’s…”
The sheriff had something in his hand now, something that vaguely resembled an electric razor. Megan guessed i
t had been attached to his belt. DeMars jabbed it against Hal’s belly and pressed a button. There was a sizzle of electricity and Hal’s body did a violent little jig before falling in a heap to the floor. Megan gasped, slapped a hand over her mouth, and slid slowly to the floor. Hal was still twitching when the sheriff stooped over him and placed the Taser’s prongs against his neck. DeMars said something, but Megan was too horror stricken to hear what he was saying.
Hal was a bastard. An animal. A subhuman, coldhearted son of a bitch devoid of even the merest scrap of decency or compassion. He deserved to suffer and pay for his transgressions. Earlier in the day she’d entertained violent fantasies of revenge against the men who’d taken Pete. She’d convinced herself she was capable of any level of brutality necessary to get her man back and get gone from this godforsaken place. But as she watched Hal twitch and piss his pants, she was no longer so sure. It was such an awful thing, witnessing this bit of violence done against a human body. How could she ever imagine she might be capable of anything remotely similar?
Still down on one knee, DeMars glanced her way and grinned. “Don’t look so down in the dumps, girl. This should make you happy.”
Megan shook her head.“No…”
Her voice trailed off in a whine.
DeMars smirked and said, “You thought that was bad, darlin’? Well, get a load of this.”
Megan’s brow furrowed as one of the sheriff’s meaty hands grabbed Hal’s zipper tab and tugged it down.
Oh, God. What’s he doing now?
DeMars pushed down the deputy’s underwear, seized the man’s largish cock, and pulled it out through the fly of his trousers. The head of Hal’s penis was glistening, still wet from leaking seminal fluid. The sheriff gripped it tight and stretched it taut, making it look like a short length of hose. He winked at Megan and extracted something from a pocket with a free hand. “You’re too young to remember them old Ginsu commercials. TV ads for these wicked-sharp Jap knives. They’d demonstrate the sharpness of the blades by using them to slice through all kinds of shit.” He chuckled, genuine amusement glittering in his pitiless eyes.“Reckon they never thought to try that shit out on a man’s wang.”
The thing in the sheriff’s hand was a large folding knife.
It was open now.
Megan shook her head again.“No…you can’t.”
But he could.
He didn’t even hesitate, which deepened the horror. Megan couldn’t fathom how a human being could do something so awful to another human being so calmly. The blade cut through Hal’s stretched-taut shaft with shocking ease, the penis coming away from the balls amidst a gout of bright, leaping blood. Hal came out of his stupor in an instant, screaming as he sat bolt upright and clutched uselessly at the wound. Blood seeped through his shaking fingers and soaked his hands in hardly more than a second. His face was a twisted mask of agony. It hurt to even look at him.
DeMars was laughing again. “Ginsu got nothin’ on this bad boy!” He cackled and slapped the severed penis against Hal’s twitching, sweat-soaked face. “That’s what you get for thinkin’with your dick, dumbass.” He showed Megan an expression electrified with demonic delight. “Check that out, honey. That’s one bad motherfucker of an object lesson, ain’t it?”
Hal shifted toward the sheriff, clawed at him with a bloody hand. The hand slapped his trousers, tracing a big, bloody smear across the fabric.
Sheriff DeMars sneered and slapped the hand away. “You goddamn son of a bitch. Look what ya done to my pants!”
He dropped Hal’s dick on the dusty concrete floor and pulled a big gun from his holster, a shiny revolver, and placed the barrel against the dying deputy’s sweat-sheened temple.
Hal’s lips trembled as he struggled to say something between whimpers.
DeMars spat in his face. “Hush your cryin’, sissy boy. You know you’re done for.”
Fat tears leaked from Hal’s eyes, rushed in rivulets down his pale, shaking face.
He whimpered some more, cried out for his mama.
The boom the big revolver made was immense, nearly deafening in the confines of the little cell. The sound was almost as horribly impressive as what the bullet did to Hal’s head.
Almost.
Megan was on her feet and moving before she consciously knew she was going to make a run for it. The cell door stood wide open, a temptation impossible to resist in the wake of such close-quarters horror. She found surprising strength in her legs as she shot through the opening and streaked through the big outer room. She passed through the room in a flash, careened down a short hallway, and spied the front entrance. The knowledge that the insane sheriff would be right on her heels drove her forward, gave her an extra kick as she banged through the door and emerged into the fading sunlight. A sense of wild exhilaration burned through the lingering horror. She was out. Free. She didn’t slow for even a second, she was so focused on forward motion, that and nothing else, her head down, arms and legs pumping like an Olympian’s. That sense of exhilaration flashed through her again. DeMars would never catch her. He was old and fat, and she was young and—
Her foot struck a floodlight embedded in the ground at the far end of the building’s small parking lot. She fell fast and hit the ground hard in an awkward tangle of flailing limbs. Urgency brought her to her feet again in seconds, but it was too fast. She felt woozy. She stumbled and tripped again, banged the back of her head on the hard ground. Things went gray for a few moments. When she could see again, DeMars was standing over her. He looked calm as ever, damnably calm, as if he hadn’t spared a moment’s concern over her possible escape.
“You’re a tough little gal, I’ll give you that. But fun-and-games time is over.” He reached down and grabbed her by an arm, jerked her to her feet. He leaned close. His breath was foul.“You and me are goin’ for a ride.”
He set off toward the opposite end of the parking lot. She stumbled as he dragged her along behind him, but his iron grip kept her upright. There were some more gray moments. When her head was clear again, she was sitting in the passenger seat of an unmarked Crown Vic. Her hands were cuffed and a seat belt was strapped tight across her waist.
The car was already rolling out of the parking lot. DeMars glanced at her as he turned onto the street. “Sorry that took so long, sugar. Had to clean up the mess and find somebody to mind the store. Had a devil of a time finding anybody. Most of my men seem to be MIA at the moment.”
Megan was shocked to hear he’d been gone for a while. She’d been sure only a few moments had passed. The back of her head felt tender from where the ground had thumped it. She hoped she hadn’t suffered some sort of brain trauma, because she wasn’t likely to see the inside of a doctor’s office any time soon.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You forget already?” He flashed another of those oily, shit-eating grins. “You ever pole danced before, girl?”
Megan didn’t say anything.
She’d taken a class in pole dancing. It’d been a hip fitness trend for women for a while. She’d been fit and limber to start with, so she’d been good at it. But she’d never done it in front of a crowd of leering, drunken men.
Her gut knotted.
Shit.
The sheriff howled laughter. “Aw, shit. You have pole danced.” He brayed laughter again. “I know a naturalborn stripper when I lay eyes on one, don’t ever let nobody tell you different.”
Megan’s head spun.
She felt numb and barely even noticed when DeMars covered one of her knees with one of his big hands. The numbness stayed with her until they reached the Sin Den, insulating her from the hopelessness of her situation for a time. The Crown Vic left the town proper and traveled along winding back roads, soon leaving paved roads altogether as it plunged deeper into the darkening wilderness.
Then she saw it through a line of trees.
An array of bright lights—flashing neon and strobe lights. She heard music and laughter. The Crown Vic bounced an
d shuddered over the rutted dirt path as it came too fast around a corner.
And now here it was.
The Sin Den, in all its decadent glory.
The numbness was gone.
She told the sheriff she would do anything to stay out of that place. She would do anything for him. Do anything to him. DeMars listened to her and rubbed his crotch as she said things that shamed her.
Then he laughed.
They were parked now.
He turned toward her and put a hand on one of her breasts. She didn’t bother knocking it away, knowing it would do no good. He squeezed the breast and licked his lips as he stared at it. “Tell you a little something most strangers don’t know. There’s two Hopkins Bends.” It was weird how bland his tone was, given what he was doing. He sounded like a man sharing a bit of local color over a drink at a bar, and not at all like a depraved maniac who was about to sell her into the local sex trade. “There’s where you just came from, and that’s the public face of Hopkins Bend. Looks like any other little town, almost quaint on the surface. The people who live there are almost what you might call normal. Then there’s the hidden Hopkins Bend, where the old families live, out in the woods. They’re a strange lot, and you know that’s saying something coming from the likes of me. Most of them live like its still the middle of the nineteenth century, backwards as all get-out. Oh, and they’re cannibals.”
Megan blinked. “What?”
DeMars chuckled. “They eat people. Well, outsiders.”
Megan’s stomach twisted again. “Jesus…”
“Yeah. And this place here? It’s run by one of the old families. One of the more enterprising ones. Hell, they’re tycoons by local standards. The Prestons.”
Megan was shaking. “Will they”—she gulped—“eat me?”
DeMars shrugged. “Probably not.”
Megan’s shaking intensified. “Oh, God…”
“Don’t worry, darlin’. Deal I made with Mama Preston was for five grand. They’ll want to get their money’s worth out of you. Still, I think you better do your damnedest to impress when they run your sweet little ass out on that stage the first time.”