about your ‘genius’ plan, as well?”
She smiled and leaned close to me. I didn’t know what to expect. I thought she might whisper something evil or hit me, but instead she put her big, pouty lips on mine and kissed me. I turned my head and vomited. Chunks of pizza splashed across the floor and the stench of my bile flooded the air.
“I don’t think he likes you,” Mitch said, laughing.
“Shut it!” Jenny roared. She climbed back to her feet, panting with the effort. Her face burned red with fury and exertion. I congratulated myself. Sometimes actions speak louder than words, and vomit is more venomous than any insult.
“You don’t really date her, do you?” I asked Mitch.
He chuckled. “Not a chance in hell. She’s just a business associate.”
“And you business is?”
“Films,” a bright voice answered. I turned my head toward the door which lead into the house. Laura stood there, as beautiful as ever but this time wearing lacy, red lingerie that didn’t really cover much of anything. She walked toward me, swinging a small camcorder in her hand. I almost cried. My only hope wasn’t a hope at all. What had I done? What had I allowed to happen with my own stupidity, ignoring the oddities of the day out of desperation?
“What kind of films?”
She ignored me, walked to the garage door, and peered through the windows. “We need to get moving. It will start soon.”
“What will start soon? What are you doing?” I asked.
Thunder rumbled low, and I understood. Panic like I had never known before, not even when that intern had grasped my hand so long ago—rolled through me. I strained at the chords. My tendons flexed and creaked under my skin but the ropes didn’t budge.
Mitch looked down on me and smiled. “I was a boy scout,” he confided. “I learned well.”
“I think you missed a few lessons,” I spat.
My mind didn’t seize up like minds are reported to do in panic. Instead, it pounded through theory after theory, trying to figure out the best way to get out of this alive.
My arms were tied tightly, but I thought I might have one advantage. While my left wrist was tied too securely for my hand to slip through, my right wrist had no hand to speak of. The hook was clamped on with nothing more than a good fit and a little bit of suction. With a little effort, I should be able to pop it off and slip my hand free.
I maneuvered my body as best I could and pulled with all my might against the bound on my right hand. Mitch watched me for a second and then punched me hard in the stomach. The blow forced the breath from my body and it was several seconds before I could pull in a replacement.
“I know how to lash,” he informed me. “You aren’t going to be able to slip your bonds just because you have no hand. I’m not an idiot.”
“Fooled me,” I croaked.
“Enough of this,” Laura said, striding over. “We’ll have all the fun we want soon. Have you given him the pill?”
Jenny slapped her forehead. “Forgot. Thanks for reminding me.” She reached into the hip pocket of her jeans and pulled out a crumpled plastic sandwich bag. She reached a fat finger into the bag and pulled out a little purple pill.
“Open up,” she said, leaning over me.
I clenched my mouth shut. She had somehow slipped me drugs already, I wasn’t about to let her do it again.
“I’ll say it again nicely but only once. Open up.”
When I didn’t open my mouth, she nodded at Mitch who bent and squeezed my cheeks with his powerful hand. My jaw exploded with pain and my mouth popped open of its own accord. Jenny dropped the pill between my teeth, covered my mouth with a meaty palm, and rubbed my throat. I pinned the pill to the roof of my mouth and swallowed.
Jenny bought the fake and smiled. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Mitch was more clever, however, and he used the same trick to make me open my mouth again. He spotted the pill straight away and hammered another punch into my gut. I was ready this time and clenched my stomach; the air stayed in my lungs this time, but the pain was still astronomical.
“Swallow it or else,” he said with an even voice.
“Fug off,” I said around the fingers still clasping my cheeks.
He punched me again, took another pill from Jenny, and poked it deep into my mouth with a meaty finger. I tried to bite his finger off but his grip on my cheeks kept my jaw from closing. He shoved the pill down my throat. I gagged at the salty tang of sweat and thought I might manage to throw the pill up, but my the spasm he evoked in my throat somehow forced the pill down instead.
“We’ve done this before, you know?” Mitch said and punched me again in the stomach just for kicks.
I tried to clench up against the pain, but my pentagram prison held me flat. “What was that pill?” I gasped.
Laura bent down and stroked my cheek gently. “You’ll find out in a moment, honey. We need to get him in position,” she added to her accomplices.
Jenny nodded, pulled a rag out of her pocket, and shoved it deep into my mouth. Mitch pulled out a roll of duct tape and sealed my mouth by wrapping the tape around my head a half dozen times.
They opened the garage door and the cool night air rushed in. It was too cool for a summer evening. I knew what it meant but hoped that it might not happen. If rain fell…I tried not to think of it.
Mitch lifted the pentagram by the point on which my head rested and dragged me outside, through a gate at the end of the driveway, and into the backyard.
My backyard was an acre of well cared for grass and flowerbeds. A tall wooden fence leant it impressive privacy for suburbia. I had only ventured out there a few times in my life, but I had always appreciated the fence; it kept the gawkers at bay and let me pretend for just a few hopeful moments that I was nothing more than an ordinary kid. But now I hated that fence because I recognized it for what it was: a barrier from the rest of the world, from help.
Mitch drug me into the middle of the yard and dropped me there. The sky was a grayish black, we were too close to the city to ever experience true darkness, and even at that moment, with the stars and moon hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds, the millions of bulbs in the surrounding city gave the world a thick, twilight sheen.
Lightning flashed somewhere, and I counted silently. Thirty long seconds went by before the crash. The storm was still far away then—or so I hoped. The wind that tickled the trim grass around me was cool, slicing away the nervous sweat on my face.
“Are you sure it’s going to rain?” Jenny asked, looking up at the sky doubtfully.
“As sure as I can be,” Mitch answered.
“It better,” Laura said bluntly. She had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders before leaving the warmth of the garage. “We’ve waited long enough to make our move.”
Mitch pulled a knife from his pocket and flicked it open. Snick. The blade was black and near invisible in the gloom. He went to work with it, quickly cutting the clothes from my body until I laid there naked and tied up in my back yard. Mitch took the rags and tossed them into a black garbage bag.
I had never lain naked outside before, and it was an experience that I could have done without. The wind chilled by body, bringing out goosebumps and shivers. My mind told me I was in agony, but my body—specifically one part—seemed to enjoy it. It rose to the occasion, you might say.
I moaned, realizing what the purple pill had been. I tried to speak around the gag, but loud grunts were all I could manage.
Laura seemed to get the message and got down on her knees next to me. She stroked my cheek. “Oh, honey, you so enjoyed it earlier. Don’t you think it will be a simply marvelous way to go out?”
I squinted angrily. It was lame, but it was the only thing I could do. If my mouth had been free, I would have spat on her. If my arms had been free, I would have strangled her. But I could do none of that, so I concentrated all of my anger into my gaze and poured it at her.
The trees at the edge of the yard moaned
and swayed in the breeze. The temperature dropped quite suddenly, and I heard a dreadful sound approaching.
“Rain’s coming,” Jenny said.
Laura nodded and shed the blanket from her shoulders. Mitch walked a half dozen paces away from me and turned around to watch, his big arms crossed over his chest. Jenny slapped open the view screen on the camera. It chirped as it came online.
“Ready?” Laura asked.
Jenny prodded a button on the back of the camera with her thumb and nodded once.
Moving like a cougar, Laura climbed on top of me, her knees straddling each side. She leaned down and kissed the side of my neck with infinite tenderness. Lower and lower she kissed, past my shoulders, chest, and onto my stomach.
I tried to hate it, to wish death upon her, but the primal animal inside of me roared with delight, and my body shuddered with pleasure, even as my mind registered the sound of rain arriving.
Pregnant drops of death splattered onto the grass around me. My brain was fine tuned and every blade of grass that bent under the rain screamed at my ears. A drop landed close enough to my left hand for some of the spray to kick up and onto me. Thankfully, only rain that hit me directly caused me agony. It was a mystery that had always puzzled doctors, my parents, and myself, but it was a mystery that I was thankful for at that moment.
More drops landed around me as Laura shed her barely-there-lingerie, flinging it up into the wind which was picking up steadily. The wind caught it and flung it out toward the boundary fence. I saw Mitch