Helltown (24 page)

Earl burped and scratched his groin. He reached into the cooler next to his recliner, retrieved a fresh beer, and twisted off the cap. Judging by the empty bottles on the floor next to him, this was his fifth one. Cherry didn’t think that would be enough to get him drunk. It would probably take ten or twelve to get someone his size drunk, maybe more than that. So it wasn’t likely he was going to pass out any time soon. It wasn’t going to be that easy to escape.

Cherry knew she needed to free her legs. If she could do that, she was confident she could outrun Earl. He was big and would have a large stride. But he was also fat, and she was confident she could escape.

He glanced at her suddenly. She squeezed her eyes shut. Too late. She heard him push out of the recliner, cross the room, the floorboards protesting beneath his girth.

“Hello?” he said, and she could almost feel his shadow looming over her. “Excuse me? Little girl, wake up. I know you’re awake, I saw your eyes, and they were open, so open them up again.”

She didn’t.

“Hey,” he said, angrier. “Did you hear me? I said open your eyes.” He kicked her in the side. He didn’t put much force behind it, but she had three or four broken ribs, and if felt as though he’d stuck her with a hot poker.

She cried out and opened her eyes and stared up at him.

“Hi,” he said, smiling.

“Hi,” she managed.

He sat down before her and crossed his legs. He smelled rancid, like he’d soiled himself two days ago and hadn’t gotten around to cleaning himself yet. He reached out a massive hand and patted the top of the head, the way you pat a dog.

He didn’t say anything. She didn’t either.

Then, abruptly, Cherry began to cry. She couldn’t help it.

“Hey,” he said, and he sounded alarmed, almost scared. “Don’t do that, I didn’t hurt you, so don’t cry, don’t do that.”

“I wanna…go home,” she said between sobs, throwing herself on his mercy.

“I can’t let you go, I’d get in trouble, I’d get in real trouble, my brother would be madder than...he’d be really mad.”

He was still patting her head. It was driving her crazy.

“Stop!” she shrieked. “Stop touching me!”

“Hey!” he said, recoiling from her. “I didn’t hurt you, I was just petting you, there’s nothing wrong with petting, I’m allowed to do that.”

Cherry forced herself to calm down. The crying was making her lungs heave inside the iron maiden. She half expected to begin vomiting blood at any moment.

“I didn’t do nothing,” Earl grumbled, getting to his feet.

“Wait…” she said. “Wait…”

He frowned down at her.

“I need…the bathroom…”

“You gotta hold it in until my brother gets here.”

“I can’t.”

“You gotta.”

“Please?”

Earl twisted his mouth indecisively. “A deal?” he said. “Okay? I let you go, I let you use the bathroom, you let me kiss you, that’s the deal. Okay?”

Cherry didn’t know if he was joking or not.

“Okay?” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

Grinning hideously, he bent over, gripped her beneath the arms, and lifted her as if she weighed nothing.

She resisted the urge to cry out; she didn’t want to scare him off.

“I can kiss you?” he said.

“After…I go.”

“I wanna kiss you now.” Without waiting for her to answer he knelt before her, tilted her chin upward with his hand—on his knees he was still taller than she—and pressed his lips against hers. They were wet with beer. The stubble around them prickled her skin. She kept her mouth squeezed shut until he pulled away. He grinned at her proudly.

“Bathroom?” she said.

“Can we do it again? Can I kiss you again? Just one more time, real quick, can I?”

“After I go to the bathroom,” she said.

“Okay, after you go, but you promised, you promised I can kiss you again.” He heaved himself to his feet and got all the way to his armchair before realizing she wasn’t following him. He glared at her. “What’s wrong? The bathroom’s this way.”

“I can’t walk,” she told him. “You need to untie my feet.”

“I can’t do that, I’m not allowed, but you can hop, like a rabbit.”

“I can’t.”

“Then I gotta carry you, is what I gotta do, I gotta carry you, that okay?”

“No!” she said, and began to penguin-walk. When she waddled past Earl, he placed his hand on her shoulder, gently, the way one might guide a young child, or a blind person.

They left the living room this way, the captured leading the dumb, and followed a hallway barren of pictures or any other décor. A 1960s-looking kitchen opened to the right. The bathroom was across from it. The hall ended another ten feet or so farther on at a windowless door she hoped led outside.

Cherry extended her arms in front of her so Earl could untie the rope. He stared at her.

“You need to untie my hands,” she told him. It felt as though she were speaking between sausages instead of lips. Even so, she was feeling better, stronger, more clearheaded. She suspected the adrenaline coursing through her veins had something to do with that.

Earl shook his head. “I told you, don’t you listen, I said I can’t untie you, not your feet, not your hands, I’m not allowed.”

“How am I supposed to use the toilet?”

“You can still use your hands, they’re just stuck together, that’s all. You can still pull up your skirt. Look.” He demonstrated, pressing his wrists together, as if they were handcuffed, and groping for her skirt.

“Stop it!” she told him, alarmed. She shuffled into the bathroom and elbowed the door closed. “Don’t look.”

Earl stuck his foot between the door and the jamb. The door bounced off his boot. “I have to watch,” he said. “My brother, he said tie her up and don’t let her outta your sight, so I can’t let you outta my sight, I gotta watch.”

“I need privacy.”

“My brother said—”

“I won’t kiss you again. Not if you watch me.”

For a brief moment it was as though a black veil had lowered in front of Earl’s face, and she feared he was going to strike her. But then the veil lifted and he said, “If I don’t look, you’ll kiss me?”

“Yes.”

“Two times?”

“Once.”

“Two times?”

“Fine.”

Earl removed his foot. Cherry elbowed the door closed again. To her dismay she discovered there was no lock. She voiced this.

“So?” Earl’s voice came back.

“Don’t peek! If you peek, I’m not kissing you.”

“You promised!” He tried opening the door.

She pressed her body against it. “If you don’t look!”

“I told you I wouldn’t, didn’t I?” He gave up his effort to get in. “Now go on, go pee, go quick, my brother, he’ll, he’ll be back soon.”

The bathroom, Cherry observed, was no more than six feet in length by four feet in width. Hunkered into the small space was a sink marred with toothpaste gunk, a toilet with a partially unhinged seat, a shelf lined with half-used toilet paper rolls and two bars of withered soap in a shallow ceramic dish, and a medicine cabinet.

Cherry caught her reflection in the medicine cabinet’s mirrored front. Her hair was disheveled, her naturally tanned skin so pale it was almost white. Mascara streaked her cheeks like black tears. Blood smeared her mouth, as if she had just finished a strawberry pie eating competition.

She opened the medicine cabinet door, praying the hinges didn’t squeak. They didn’t. Inside she found a bottle of Aspirin, two cans of Gillette shaving cream, three toothbrushes all poking out of the same glass caked with green grime, and—
thank you, Lord
—a straight razor with a rust-free blade.

She snatched the razor by the wooden handle, eased the medicine cabinet closed, and lowered herself onto the toilet seat.

A moment later Earl shoved open the bathroom door and stuck his head in.

“Don’t look!” she cried.

“I’m not, I’m just checking, that’s all—”

“Get out!”

He obeyed. Cherry said another silent prayer of thanks, because although she was sitting on the toilet seat, she hadn’t lifted her skirt, or pulled down her panties.

Quickly, not trusting that Earl wasn’t going to stick his head in the bathroom again, she used the razor to saw the rope binding her ankles. In her haste she sliced the pad of her left thumb open. Blood squirted to the floor. She bit her lip but kept sawing until the last of the twine snapped apart.

She unwound the length of rope and tossed it aside. Then she unbuckled her stilettos and left them next to the discarded rope. She stood, barefoot, and flushed the toilet. She went to the door, terrified yet at the same time oddly calm. She cupped the razor with her bleeding hand.

“I’m done,” she said, opening the door.

Earl smiled down at her, no doubt in anticipation of his two kisses. The smile turned into a frown when he noticed the blood dripping off her hand.

“Hey,” he said, “what happened? A where’s the rope for your feet—”

Cherry slashed his throat with the straight razor. His eyes bloomed; he tottered backward, his hands going to the wound. She ran toward the windowless door. For a moment she was positive it wasn’t going to lead outside, it was going to open to a cellar, she would be trapped, Earl would recover, catch her, kill her—

The door handle turned easily in her hand and then she was outside. A cry of elation escaped her as she fled down the porch steps into the night, through the rain, through the mud.

Her eyes were searching for the best path to take into the forest when she spotted a wood-paneled pickup truck parked at the end of the gravel driveway.

She risked a glance behind her, didn’t see Earl, and made for the vehicle. She didn’t think she’d be lucky enough to find the keys inside it, but this wasn’t the city. She had to check.

Just as she reached the truck she heard Earl exit the house behind her. She opened the driver’s door with her bound hands. The overhead light blinked on.

A key was inserted into the ignition lock.

Cherry’s heart sang. She heaved herself up onto the bench seat and she turned the key. The engine vroomed to life. She tugged the column shifter into drive and was about to tromp the gas when Earl appeared next to the open door, one hand pressed against the bleeding tear across his throat.

Shrieking, Cherry swiveled in the seat, brought her knees to her chest, and kicked as hard as she could. Her left foot breezed past him. Her right connected with his gut. He grunted—more of a bloodied gurgle—and stumbled away.

She stepped on the gas. But Earl managed to snag her hair. The truck lurched forward; her head snapped backward. Her foot came off the pedal.

The truck jolted to a stop.

Earl tugged her head, hard, as if trying to pull her from the vehicle. Her toe, however, found the pedal. The truck shot forward. Earl released her hair but kept pace next to the door. She stamped the gas at the same moment Earl fell and grabbed the steering wheel. His weight yanked it to the left.

The pickup truck arced on a dime, the cornering force tipping it onto two wheels. Cherry’s stomach lurched. She thought of bracing herself, grabbing hold of something, but she couldn’t with her bound hands.

The truck crashed onto its side. She heard the juxtaposition of crunching metal and shattering glass, followed by a dead silence.

Pain. Nowhere. Everywhere.

Cherry had no idea how long she laid in a crumpled heap in the crashed pickup truck, half cognizant, but then the pain sharpened, becoming more localized, coalescing inside her head and chest. She opened her eyes and tried to push herself upright. She cried out as sharp teeth bit into her hands. She glanced down and saw she lay on a bed of gummy safety glass. Where the driver’s side window should have been was jagged gravel.

Earl
, she thought, and her fear of the man mobilized her into action.

Grimacing—not thinking about how broken her body was right then, though “smushed” seemed an appropriate description—she stood and became perpendicular to the seats. The engine hadn’t shut off. The dashboard clock read 12:11 a.m. The steering wheel protruded from the dash at her face level. A pair of sunglasses had somehow remained clipped in place to the sun-visor.

Cherry tried to shove open the passenger’s door above her head with her bound hands. She cracked it a foot or so but didn’t have the height or leverage to push it all the way. She wound down the window—the simple action of turning the crank took a Herculean effort—but she accomplished it. Then she climbed, using whatever she could for purchase: the driver’s seat, the center console, the dashboard, the steering wheel.

With a final groan she pulled herself atop the door. She didn’t rest or congratulate herself. Carefully, slowly, she slid to the ground. Her knees buckled on impact and she collapsed.

She wanted to remain there, on the prickly gravel, on her side. She wanted to close her eyes, go to sleep, forget the pain. But she couldn’t do that, of course.

Focusing, steeling her determination, she regained her feet and shuffled around the pickup truck’s hood. She stopped.

Earl lay on the ground, next to the exposed undercarriage. His ugly, piggy face was turned toward her, his eyes closed, his expression slack. Blood covered his pasty-white neck and singlet.