“And everything will come up out of your mouth or you’ll choke on it. I don’t know. I’ve never shot anyone there.”
“Mmph!” was all she could say to let him know she understood.
He moved the gun up her face to the corner of her eye and pressed it there and dragged it back so it stretched her skin.
“She deserved it,” he said, his voice very mellow. “She did,” he touched her hair with his other hand. Sophie nodded again and shut her eyes. He fixed her hair behind her ear and his fingers drizzled down her neck so it sort of tickled. If he pulled the trigger he’d blow her brains out. No, he’d blow her eye out and then her brains.
She couldn’t help but make a little sound as he gently pulled the tape off her face. She was just too scared not to make a sound. She rolled her head around because her neck was stiff. She looked extremely excited when he picked up the glass of water. She hadn’t even asked herself if it was drugged, she was too thirsty to care. She parted her lips as he put the glass up to them and swallowed the water. Some ran down her chin and he wiped it with the handkerchief around her neck.
“I don’t…” she started to speak and he slapped his hand over her mouth and pressed his other hand behind her head. She moaned because the pressure he applied made her head hurt.
“I don’t…want…you to talk. I can break your face,” he bragged. “I can smash it between my hands – that’s how strong I am and how weak you are…but I really don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you talking. I don’t want you making a fucking sound.”
She was dead scared. She sat there, very still. He slowly removed his hand away from the back of her head and picked the gun up and pressed it against her cheek before taking his other hand away from her mouth.
His skin left a salty taste on her lips. She licked her lips as he just stared at her. He didn’t know what to make of her. She certainly wasn’t part of the plan.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t make a sound. It was like he’d pushed all the sounds she was capable of making way back down inside her, he’d shut them off.
“You’re a good girl,” he realized, running his hand down the side of her head, over her hair. “I know this. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all. Kind of like me when I met my wife,” he chuckled. Sophie wanted more water but was very careful not to speak. His smell drifted over her again. He must do a lot of yardwork, she thought. Maybe at some point he was a good man, but he’d slowly unraveled and now she was here for the epic finale of his madness.
He picked the glass of water up and she took another sip. He looked at her the whole time, not blinking. He placed the water down and stabbed a chunk of lettuce with it, then some cheese and chicken. He held it up to her mouth and she opened and he slid it in carefully. If he were a psycho, he could have jabbed her mouth with the fork, stabbed the roof of her mouth, stabbed at her teeth. He could have shot her by now. What was he waiting for?
Her body was very receptive and appreciative of the food. She felt an almost cold sensation in her tummy from the water and then the fresh juicy lettuce. Happiness swarmed in her belly over the nourishment. Everything tasted very fresh – the tomatoes, the peppers, and whatever kind of fancy cheese he used. For the next few minutes all that occurred was him feeding her. She hadn’t had anything to eat all day – everyone had been too busy with their own problems. He was the first to feed her.
“I used to cook for my wife,” he reminisced. “All the time. Not sure if she was fucking that jerk then or not.” He dropped the fork, getting angry all over again. He ran his hand over his face, making it red.
He got up and walked into the kitchen, hands on his hips. He looked over at Sophie.
“I know you’re innocent, I know that. That’s how we all start out but that’s not how anything ends.”
14
He left her in the chair all night, a fresh piece of tape on her mouth. At some point she dozed off but then she woke back up when she felt something against her foot. She couldn’t see because of the handkerchief but felt it rubbing against her leg. A cold sweat of terror moistened her whole body. She felt its tiny teeth dig into her leg and couldn’t help but try and scream. The patio door was open, and something had come in from the woods! She struggled to move around in the chair but all that did was cause the rope to rub against her skin. She had to pee so bad that she wouldn’t be able to hold it in much longer – maybe three or four minutes tops.
Whatever was by her foot had ran off. She listened for any sound at all, trying to detect where the creature might be. After a few minutes her mind began to wonder about other things. What did he do with his wife’s body? Had rats come along to feast on it? Had one of them strayed and made its way into the house. Was that what was by her foot a minute ago? She was consumed by fear. It fit around her tight. It made her sick. It made her tears red hot.
She heard him coming down the stairs. She didn’t know what time it was. She could try and figure it out – it was getting late when she left Leslie’s. The sun was almost down completely when he took her. That had to have been several hours ago.
He tugged the handkerchief down with his finger. He was in a loose fitting grey shirt and a clean pair of jeans that smelled like they’d just been pulled from the dryer. He was barefoot. She studied his feet. They were nice. He clipped his toenails. He had nice, clean soft looking feet.
He went into the living room and turned the TV on. He sat on the couch so she could see the back of his head. She wanted so badly to sit on the soft couch, to relax, to sit in a natural position. She would be good. She would tell him if she were allowed to talk.
All of the sudden he glanced back at her like she’d done something he disapproved of. He came over and ripped the tape off. It hurt and she wondered if she’d lost skin. She just looked up at him, but she didn’t speak or scream.
“I still have the gun,” he picked it up and waved it around so she could see it. “See?”
She nodded.
“What do you like to watch?” he suddenly asked. What? Did that mean she could speak?
She couldn’t even think of what she watched at first.
“More…Of The Same.”
“That’s not on,” he irritably informed. He watched it? He sounded very familiar with it.
“Um…Six Feet Under,” she announced her second favorite TV program. She cringed at it though because of the present circumstances.
“I like that too.” He went back over to the couch and turned the TV on. HBO had been running reruns of the Six Feet Under but Dorris never let her watch it.
He turned and looked at her. Every time he did that, her heart dropped. He could go from relaxed to hot-tempered in seconds and whatever mood he was in was easily reflected in those black cutting eyes of his.
“Can you see?” he wanted to know. She nodded. She was afraid to complain. Afraid to talk. He suddenly shot up from the couch and came over and picked up the entire chair with her in it and placed it down next to the couch so she had a clear view of the TV.
“I’ll get you a snack,” he said. He came back into the living room with cookies and milk for her and a beer for himself.
“There was an animal in here earlier,” she softly spoke. He snickered as he brought the beer bottle up to his mouth. He stopped before he took a sip, holding it a few inches from his mustache.
“But I killed her, remember?” he chuckled before drinking his beer. Her mouth opened to speak but she didn’t know what to say. She looked at the cookies she couldn’t eat because she was still restrained.
“You’re never gonna let me go are you?” she asked. She actually sounded like she was hoping he’d say no.
“I can’t…no.” He studied her, her sadness.
“What are you…going to do with me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you have any suggestions?” He seemed on the verge of laughter. He was crazy, she thought. But how crazy?
&nbs
p; She shook her head.
“If you untie me and let me sit on the couch I’ll be good, I swear. I won’t try to run off. You are a man with a gun, clearly you have power over me. Just let me sit there…please?”
“What are you doing, huh?” he said, he sounded upset. “You’re being sweet – you’re not going outside. I’m not going to let you go out and play. I’m not going to untie you. What the hell is wrong with you?” He got up and walked over to her. Her body wanted to run, it didn’t seem to understand that she couldn’t take it anywhere.
“You’re lucky you can still breathe is what you are. You’re lucky you’re not some…useless corpse covered in blood. Everybody wants something, and most times, something they don’t deserve. So just shut your mouth, you hear me? Or the tape goes back on.” He stared her down. She looked at the cookies. Then she finally nodded.
“You want a cookie?” he asked. She looked up at him dotingly.
“I have to use the bathroom,” she let him know.
“You want to sit on the couch or you want to use the bathroom – which is it?”
“Both…” She tried not to cry. He sneered and looked back down at the couch. Then he reached over for a cookie. He knelt down in front of her and pushed the gun into her cheek so she could feel it press against her teeth. Every time he did such a thing she got a clear vision in her head of what it would be like if he pulled the trigger. This time, teeth