She blinked, trying to see, but there was only blackness. For a moment, she feared he might have blinded her. He had done that to several of the women before he murdered them. Then she saw a faint glow of red light that finally convinced her that she really was regaining consciousness and she could still see.
But it was an odd, dreamy state of consciousness. Her mouth was dry. Hard as she tried, her tongue couldn’t work up any moisture. She was freezing cold. There was something frigid pressed up against her back. Try as she might, she couldn’t understand what it was.
After a time of gently rocking back and forth and up and down, it registered that she could only be in the trunk of the big Lincoln. The faint red glow was the light from the taillights leaking out of their housing.
She reached up to push at the trunk lid and found that her wrists were tightly locked together with something hard. She held her wrists up before her face, staring at them as best she could in the faint red glow. Handcuffs. It was handcuffs.
She felt her stomach, breasts, legs, and realized that she was completely naked. She found a small pile of oily rags. She didn’t know if her clothes were among them, but she collected all of them together and hugged them to herself as she curled up in a ball, trying to fight off the cold and nausea.
The icy thing behind her kept softly smacking into her back. She struggled to turn around a little, both to get away from it and to try to see what it was.
Once she was on her back, she found that the red glow wasn’t enough to reveal what was in the trunk with her. She used her handcuffed hands to reach over to her left. She felt something cold, smooth, and rather firm. She groped along it, feeling for anything that would tell her what it was.
Her fingers glided over a series of bumps. With icy dread she realized it was a human spine. The skin was dead cold.
When the brakes came on, the red glow from the brake lights was considerably brighter and Angela was able to see that the wrists and ankles of the skinny young man had been tightly bound with duct tape.
She realized then that it was the male prostitute Clay Baker had abducted the day before. His body was still there in the trunk with Angela.
When she finally managed to prop herself up on an elbow, she realized that her ankles were taped together with duct tape just like the dead man’s. That explained why in her drugged state she couldn’t comprehend why her legs weren’t following her mental orders. She was pretty sure that if she worked at it she would able to get through the tape, but it would take some time.
Whatever Lucy had injected in her arm had left her groggy and weak. It was a struggle merely to think. Simply moving her arms took great effort.
Summoning her strength, she managed to scoot a little bit away from the dead body. The irregular, hard shape of the trunk floor hurt her back.
The spongy movements of the old Lincoln, the rolling rise and fall, told her that the shocks on the car were shot. Besides her headache, the up and down movements were making her feel seasick. She knew by the dazed way she felt that the drugs were contributing to the nausea. It was taking an effort not to throw up. The last thing she wanted was to have to lie in cold, wet vomit.
Angela thought that maybe when Reverend Killer and Lunatic Lucy eventually opened the trunk she could jump out and run. She realized that was a lousy plan, because even if she could get the duct tape off her ankles, when they eventually opened the trunk it would take a slow, clumsy effort to climb out, and even if she was able to get out she didn’t think she had enough strength in her legs to run. She was so dizzy she wasn’t even convinced she would be able to stand.
Angela wondered what had been in that syringe. By her uncoordinated thinking and floundering attempts to move she knew it had to be something powerful. Clay Baker said that his sister had once worked in a hospital. She would have had access to drugs and syringes.
These two had done this before. They were experienced. They knew what to do to make sure their victims didn’t have a chance to fight back or escape.
Angela hated drugs. Drugs had robbed her of her childhood. They had robbed her of a real mother. They had brought danger and pain into her world. After everything she’d seen, she would never take drugs. She didn’t even drink.
But now these two depraved psychos had drugged her.
Angela didn’t know how long they drove, but she guessed it must have been about an hour. In the beginning they stopped at lights or stop signs, but once they started moving at a steady pace she knew they had left Milford Falls. She had no clue where they could be taking her, but it seemed obvious they were taking her out into the countryside. When Reverend Baker was done with her, he would dump her body in the woods like he had done with the murdered woman Angela had found.
She could tell that the drugs had begun wearing off a little, because her thoughts weren’t quite so fragmented. As they drove on into the night, Angela worked at the duct tape on her ankles. She had to scoot farther away from the body behind her so that she had more room to work. The effort took time, and at first she didn’t know that in the dark she could do it. But bit by bit she tore through all the layers and was finally able to pull off the thick mass of duct tape. She felt a flush of triumph at the small victory.
As they drove for a while through what she knew had to be the countryside she picked through the rags trying to find her clothes. In the dark, pitching trunk, she found her panties. Putting them on was the second small victory. Before she could find any more of her clothes, the car slowed. It crept along the road briefly, and then turned abruptly and stopped. The transmission clanked and the car reversed direction, backing off the road. As they bounced through the dip of a shallow ditch, it banged Angela’s head against the trunk lid.
The engine shut off. Angela listened, trying to hear what was going on. Almost immediately she heard the doors open and then slam shut.
She urgently turned herself in the shallow space and drew her knees up to her chest as best she could, getting ready for when they opened the trunk. Her heart pounded in her ears. She swallowed back against the fear rising in her throat.
This might be her only chance—her last chance. She reached up and behind with her handcuffed hands and grabbed hold of metal around the trunk’s hinge. She had learned long ago, growing up at her mother’s trailer, that when dealing with psychos you couldn’t hesitate to take any opportunity that presented itself to escape.
The trunk lid suddenly sprang up. In the moonlight she could see a tall, dark shape, and a short one.
The taller shape bent down. With all of her strength, with her hands braced on the metal framework above her head, Angela kicked her feet out at the head of the dark shape leaning in toward her. She felt her heels connect. He cried out in surprise and pain as he stumbled back.
Angela snatched up a jack handle she had found during the long ride. Armed with the metal bar, she managed to climb out of the trunk. With all her strength she swung at him. His hands covered his face, so his arms blocked the blow she had hoped to land against his head. Even so, it was clear by the way he cried out how much it hurt when the metal bar hit bone.
“Fucking little bitch!” he screamed.
He immediately reached for her. Angela swung, this time connecting with his outstretched hand.
He flinched back, bending over holding his hand. He let out an angry howl of pain. Angela had no strength left. She was moving on sheer force of will fueled by fear. She hoped that if she could stop him for long enough she could run and hide. They might never find her if she hid in the dark woods. She just needed one more blow to stagger him back far enough so he couldn’t reach out and grab her when she made her escape.
As Angela took another mighty swing, he backed away just in time to avoid her landing another blow.
As the heavy jack handle swung around in the follow-through, Lucy suddenly flew out of the darkness and slammed into Angela from the side. Angela crashed to the ground with Lucy on top of her.
Clay Baker’s boot imm
ediately came down on the back of her neck, pressing her face into the ground. Lucy twisted Angela’s arm with the jack handle behind her and with a knee in the small of her back helped her brother pin Angela down. The small but surprisingly strong woman wrenched the metal bar from Angela’s hand and tossed it away out of reach.
Lucy used her teeth to pull the cap off a syringe and used her free hand to jam the needle in Angela’s bottom and shove the plunger home.
Angela felt the hot sting of all the liquid tearing into the muscle all at once.
With one boot already on her neck, Clay Baker stepped up and placed the other on her back. He balanced on top of her to keep her down. She had trouble drawing a breath. It had been a valiant effort. She had struck several blows to the monster, but in the end, Angela was on the ground, struggling just to breathe under the weight of both of them.
She could feel herself tingling as the drugs moved through her bloodstream. Her mind grew numb as she struggled to remain conscious. It seemed not to matter anymore. In mere moments she was incapacitated. Clay Baker stepped down off her. Lucy brushed herself off as she got back up on her feet.
Angela lay on the ground, the world slowly spinning and tipping every which way around her. She tried to stand. Her legs folded. She realized she couldn’t even remember how to stand.
Clay Baker kicked her in the ribs, knocking her back down. “You stupid fucking little bitch!” His scream echoed back from the still, moonlit forest. “You goddamn whore!”
She could feel hot drops of blood from his bleeding nose falling like fat drops of rain on her back. He leaned down toward her, cursing at her in a blind rage.
Angela couldn’t even feel satisfaction at having hurt him. She could hardly feel anything. She scarcely knew where she was anymore.
Clay Baker grabbed her by the hair and hauled her to her feet. He gritted his teeth as he put his bloody face close to hers.
“I don’t think you can begin to imagine what we’re going to do to you.” He pointed at his broken nose. “You think this hurts? We’re going to show you what hurt really is. This is nothing compared to what you’re going to feel.”
He pulled Angela from her feet and dragged her across the small opening in the forest until he reached an area of deadfalls. He hauled her limp body beyond the half dozen tangled logs on the ground and the splintered stumps to a tree that was still standing. He pushed her up against the trunk.
“Hold her,” he told his sister.
Lucy put a hand under each breast and pushed against Angela’s ribs to hold her back against the rough tree bark. He grabbed her handcuffed wrists and grunted with the effort as he lifted her up until he was able to hook the cuffs over a limb.
The limb of the tree had been cut recently. As Angela hung from that limb she could see out over the small opening in the forest. The spot, clear of tress, lit by the nearly full moon high overhead, looked familiar.
With dread, she remembered then, what was familiar about the spot. This was where she had found the wolf feeding on the corpse of Kristi Green.
Angela remembered the visions she’d had looking into his eyes. He had taken Kristi Green out of the trunk and dragged her to this place. This was where he had started to torture the terrified woman. But then he had spotted Angela hiking up on the ridge. In a hasty act of self-preservation, he had stabbed her in the chest at least a dozen times—quick violent punches—and then left her lifeless body there on the ground while he and Lucy escaped.
After leaving, they had driven around the area, going up and down the road a few times. After the police and crime scene people had arrived, he drove down the road and found Angela walking home through the snowstorm. Angela had foolishly thought it was a lucky break to get a ride home.
“Get the bag out of the car,” Baker growled at his sister.
She hesitated and then signed something. He went ballistic.
“What! How could you be that stupid! How could you leave our tools at the motel!”
Lucy withered under his screaming fit. She backed away a step, clearly afraid he would hit her. Her fear was well founded. He punched her once, then a moment later hit her again.
After a few minutes he started to calm down. She signed, apparently offering to drive back to the motel and get what she had forgotten.
“No,” he finally said after glaring at Angela for a time. “No, I’ll go get them. I want to bandage up my nose. I’ll get the bag.”
Lucy hung her head, not wanting to look up at him.
He stepped close to Angela, hate twisting the crosses tattooed on his cheeks. “We have a bag of special tools. Things we use to make whores like you suffer. I can’t wait to get started in on you.” He smiled. “While I’m gone, I’ll let Lucy introduce you to your new world of pain. Lucy really hates cheap godless whores like you. You’ll see.”
Angela wanted to spit in his bloody face, but she couldn’t seem to summon the strength or the spit.
He turned to Lucy. “You can get started on her while I go get cleaned up and get our tools.”
As he hurried back to the car, Lucy finally looked up at Angela and smiled. Her smile was just as wicked as her brother’s.
After her brother had left, Lucy foraged around on the moonlit forest floor among the deadfall for a time, picking up limbs and then discarding them as unsatisfactory. She at last found one that seemed to satisfy her. She stepped on the end and broke off the extra until she had something just a little longer than a baseball bat. She whacked it against a fallen tree trunk, then took a few test swings. She seemed satisfied.
Angela contorted herself as she hung by the handcuffs, trying to get them loose from the limb. With her arms stretched over her head and the handcuffs hooked over the stump of the limb, she couldn’t get herself free. She looked up and saw branches that had been sawed off the limb, leaving stubs that kept the cuffs from sliding off.
Angela’s weight was largely hanging in the handcuffs. She had to stretch up on her tiptoes to take weight off her wrists and catch her breath. She could feel warm blood running down her arms from where the cuffs cut into her flesh.
Lucy returned and without ceremony took an experimental swing, landing a blow on the side of Angela’s ribs. She gasped at the shock of sudden, brutal pain.
Lucy stepped close. Leaning in, she inspected her handiwork. She ran her small fingers over the spot where she had landed the blow, feeling the torn skin, testing if she’d broken a rib.
Then she put her mouth on the side of Angela’s left breast and bit down as hard as she could.
Despite being in a dazed mental fog, Angela screamed. Tears of agony ran down her cheeks as she twisted from side to side trying to get away from the viselike grip of Lucy’s teeth. The pain was stunning. It felt like Lucy was taking a big bite of flesh out of her.
When she finally let go, Angela couldn’t hold herself up on her toes. She hung in the handcuffs, panting from the pain, unable to comfort the bite wound. Lucy immediately swung her club, slamming it into Angela’s right side. It hit just below the ribs. Before she could get her breath, Lucy bit down in a new spot on Angela’s left breast.
All Angela could think of was how much she wanted the pain to stop.
Lucy straightened and showed Angela a bloody smile. Lucy was a psychopath. Along with her psycho brother they were an incredibly dangerous pair. They had tortured and murdered innocent people in the name of spreading the word of God.
Lucy swung again, landing a blow on Angela’s ribs on the other side. It made a sickening sound. The eye-watering pain made Angela dance on her toes, trying to find a way to make it stop hurting.
In that instant the pain crossed over to rage.
Angela strained with her arm muscles to curl up, drew in her legs, and with all her strength suddenly slammed both feet into the center of Lucy’s chest.
Angela had strong legs. The powerful blow knocked the wind from Lucy’s lungs and violently threw her back.
As the small woman was flun
g back, her body twisted as she stumbled and fell. She landed on one of the standing spearlike splinters rising up from the stump of a deadfall.
Still angry, Angela managed to bounce herself in the handcuffs enough that they popped off the limb.
Finally free, she snatched up the club that Lucy had used on her. Fearing to lose the advantage, she ran around the stump, intending to use the heavy club on Lucy. She saw, then, that there was no urgency.
Lucy had fallen forward onto the large spike of wood. It had gone in through her soft upper belly just under the bottom of her rib cage. She was so deeply impaled she couldn’t pull herself off. The shock of it had stunned her. She scraped at base of the stump with her toes, trying to lift herself off, but the wooden spike was in so deep that it was clearly hopeless.
Lucy’s wide eyes stared at Angela pleading for help. Her hands clawed the air as if she was trying to find something to pull herself off the jagged spear of wood.
Her mouth opened wide, trying to scream. Only a gurgling, wet cry came forth.
And then blood started oozing up into her mouth. It ran out and poured off her chin. Her eyes blinked as she started choking, coughing, and gagging, trying to get a breath as her lungs filled with blood.
Angela, still panting with rage, stepped closer. She could have used the club to bash in Lucy’s skull and end the woman’s misery. But Angela didn’t want the misery to end. How many people had this woman hurt? How much misery had she inflicted? How many victims had she tortured before her brother killed them?
Angela left the struggling woman drowning in her own blood and staggered away, intent on escaping. The effort had taken everything out of her. The adrenaline had overpowered the drugs briefly. Now she was sinking back into a stupor.
As she tried to take a step she collapsed onto her side.
The bleeding bite wounds throbbed so painfully that even in the drug haze Angela could hardly take it. She clawed at the ground, scooping up handfuls of snow that hadn’t yet melted. With trembling fingers she pressed the snow to the bite wounds on her breasts. The freezing snow hurt, but it helped numb the greater hurt of the bites. She put snow on the painful wound on her ribs. She didn’t know if they were broken or not.