Belladonna
Page 3
before killing them was a plus. Well, it was a shame he wouldn’t have the proper opportunity to indulge in that opening act with Bella. If he’d simply waited until afterward, then he could have choked her out. But at least he could better savor the main event. He made a mental note to try to control himself better on his future hunts. These experiences were already rare enough, so he had to make the most of every single one of them.
Assured that she was unconscious for the time being, he stepped around the sofa and downed both of the drinks left sitting upon the table. Yeah, it was a decent amount of booze, but he could handle it. His tongue was getting a bit dry and pasty with his excitement, anyway. The soda helped to wet his whistle for the time being. He had a lot or work ahead of him. The sooner he had her fully secured, the sooner he could really relax and do all of this at his leisure.
It took him a bit of time to think of something adequate with which to tie up his catch. A quick run to the garage netted a rope, but not enough by his estimate to secure both her hands and her feet. Furthermore, he needed something to use as a gag to keep her quiet in the event that she regained consciousness … and she could awaken at any given moment, a realization that hastened him all the more. He was so caught up with excitement that he was in a state of near-panic. He could hardly think straight at all. He had thought it all out before, and this wasn’t his first hunt. Why would he start losing his head now?
He was halfway up the stairs, heading for the bedroom, when he was stricken by a sudden wave of nausea and dizziness. He wasn’t used to drinking that much, that fast – more of a sippin’ kind of guy when it came to booze. He initially just waved it off as being the rum, bouncing off the hallway walls clumsily on his way to the bedroom. As he headed for the dresser drawer to fetch one of his pistols, some socks, and a couple of leather belts, the effects of dizziness and nausea worsened with startling quickness.
What had he eaten earlier? Was it the fast food he had devoured before heading out? No, if this was food poisoning, he sure would’ve felt it sooner. Maybe his liver was finally letting him know that he’d been beating it up a bit too much? He slammed the dresser drawer shut and turned around to head out the door … and then the room kept on spinning, even when his feet stopped moving.
“Not good,” he muttered to himself as he staggered into the master bathroom.
His dizziness far outweighed his nausea by then. The tingle he felt within his belly was not so much akin to a real need to throw up as much as it was simply in response to the intensity of his sudden vertigo. His heart was thudding in his chest ferociously, his hands were shaky, and he felt the fine beads of a cold, freakishly sudden sweat oozing from every pore of his skin. His pulse had already been quickened by his brief struggle with Bella, but it had never slowed down since then, and it was now even quicker still.
“Panic attack” was the first thing that came to mind. Why now? Why? He didn’t have anything about which to panic. Things were cool. He had a handle on this. He had this all under control. All he had to do was head back down there, get her all laced up, and then he could sit back and chill for awhile as he decided what to do with her. Nothing to get worried about, nothing worth freaking out, and certainly nothing he hadn’t already done before – nothing that warranted this kind of a reaction.
He couldn’t bring himself to vomit, even when he tried. He gave up on the idea, dragging himself to his feet, and moved over to the sink. He splashed some cold water upon his face, hoping it might help him sober up a bit. That move was a mistake. No sooner had he arisen than he just as quickly found himself falling over sideways to the floor, dropping clumsily like a wasted frat boy. This was no buzz. This wasn’t even drunkenness. He knew it now. He remembered Bella with her straws in the drinks. She’d drugged him! The little whore had poisoned him!
He had to crawl out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, and out into the hallway, moving on all fours before he could even attempt to bring himself to stand up. Using both walls of the hallway for support, he stuffed his pistol into the waistband of his jeans and clumsily managed to make his way down the hall. He knocked off pictures of friends and family as he made his way along. He cursed under his breath as he saw a couple of the frames crack and shatter upon hitting the carpeted floor. What the hell had she given him? Why had she drugged him?
Money, he realized, was the motivation. He’d tried perhaps a bit too hard to impress Bella with his wealth, never counting on the idea that she might be the type to spike his drink and rob him blind while he was either unconscious or dead. In fact, she probably intended to call over some friends with a moving truck to clean him out while he was unconscious. Sneaky, sneaky little seductress!
Well, to hell with that. He was still on his own two feet. He was going to get her first. Actually, he already had gotten her, but he was going to finish her before she could finish him. He was going to put a bullet in that pretty head of hers, right where she lay upon the hardwood floor behind the sofa. He didn’t care what kind of evidence it would leave behind. He was running out of time. If he was only going to pass out, then she would surely wake before him, and then she would have a free run at everything in his place. And if she had poisoned him with something lethal, then he wanted to make damned sure that she wasn’t going to get away with it. Who knew how many other guys she’d victimized with this little scam of hers? Of course, he’d been trying to scam her out of her life at the same time, but at least his motivation was simple curiosity rather than blatant greed. Becoming intimately acquainted with the circumstances of life and death seemed like a much more noble cause than boosting one’s income.
By the time he made it to the head of the stairs, his vision was blurring terribly. He looked over the banister and down into the living room. Squinting his eyes, he could barely discern the form of Bella’s slender, shapely legs protruding from behind the overturned sofa. Presumably, she was still unconscious. That was a shame. He wanted her to see this coming, wanted her to know she was going to die before he actually pulled the trigger. This wasn’t about his fascination with the Great Transition anymore. Now, this was all about getting even. This was about getting his before she could get hers.
He clung to the banister rail and tried to ease himself down the stairs. Right away, he knew it wasn’t going to go well. He managed the first couple of stairs just fine, but as his vision became an almost impossible blur, with blackness creeping around the edges, he realized he wasn’t going to have time. He had one chance, perhaps only seconds left. He figured that he could just slide down the stairs – clumsy, stupid, probably funny to watch, but necessary. And so he let go of the rail to give it a try, estimating he would have time to hop up, scramble over, and pop Bella in the forehead before he totally lost it. His estimation, alas, was grossly inaccurate.
He tumbled down the stairs like one of those cars he’d seen cartwheeling down a steep hill in an action film. Unlike one of those cars, however, he didn’t explode into a giant fireball when he got to the bottom. Everything just went black.
He was surprised and grateful to eventually find himself returning to consciousness. His head, shoulders, and right knee ached terribly, probably from the stairs. Wow – he actually remembered falling down the stairs? Well, perhaps that did make sense. It had been the drug that had knocked him out, not the fall.
He couldn’t see. Something covered his eyes. Attempting to cry out in alarm, he found that he could not speak, either. A gag had been tied into place in his mouth – something cloth, maybe a sock. He was seated in a chair, but unable to stand up. His ankles were bound to the chair’s legs and his wrists were tied behind his back.
Being blind, mute, and bound was the least of his worries, however. What bothered him the most, and what had been responsible for rousing him from his drugged slumber in the first place, was the sensation of something cold and wet being splashed upon him … and then smelling gasoline.
Frantically, knowing what was about to happen, he thrashed about in the chair
and screamed for all his worth. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work! He’d been so careful, so methodical! He was the one that had put in all the hours, all of the work, all the research, and all the patience in setting this up. He was the one that had done all the legwork. He was the one that should be benefiting from it all, instead of…
The blindfold was jerked away from his eyes abruptly, causing him to squint against the glare of the brightness of the lights. It was her, Bella, standing right in front of him. Looking around with wide eyes of panic, he could see that she had set him up in the middle of his living room. She set down a large red plastic jug. It made a hollow thud as it touched the hardwood floor. He recognized it as the gas can from his garage that he used to fill his lawnmower. As best he could recall, the thing had been almost full; now, from the sound of it, the can was pretty much empty.
“Five gallons sure covers a lot of household,” Bella commented as she adjusted the blue rubber gloves she now wore upon her hands.
She switched on the digital video camera she had set up with a tripod in front of him, adjusting its gaze to focus directly upon his face. He