No Sanctuary (27 page)

“Crucify me on a cactus,” she heard herself mumble. “Ha ha.” No joke. She could see herself on one of those saguaros that stood in the desert like a mutant man with upraised arms. She felt nails in her palms, the spines piercing her back and buttocks and legs. The sun seared her bare skin. She heard her skin sizzling like bacon on a skillet. Squinting through the glare of the noon sun, she saw Holden smile and drop to his hands and knees and crawl toward her. Bones littered his way—glaring white skulls, ribcages, parts- of a dozen bodies or twenty. The bones clinked and clattered as Holden scuttled through them. Some dissolved into white powder that puffed, and he was crawling through a cloud of bone dust. When he emerged from the cloud, he was no longer Fredrick Holden. He was a tarantula, fat and furry and half a foot across. And scurrying toward Gillian’s feet. Gasping, she tried to move her feet away from it. Skeleton fingers held her feet to the hot desert ground. She couldn’t move. The spider climbed onto her bare left foot, walked up the skeleton hand at her ankle as if the finger bones were the rungs of a ladder. It moved up her shin. It sat for a moment on her knee as if resting. Then it began crawling up Gillian’s thigh, and she screamed.

The scream snatched her away from the horrors in the desert. She was in the trunk again, panting. When she opened her eyes, they both burned as if someone had flung saltwater into her face. She realized it was sweat.

The trunk was very hot. The black air felt like a heavy blanket pressing down on her, suffocating her.

I won’t suffocate, she told herself. This trunk isn’t airtight. I’ll just cook.

I must’ve been out a while, she thought.

She was drenched. Even lying motionless, she could feel runnels sliding down her body, tickling her. The newspapers felt sodden under her back. She rolled onto her right side. Sweat must have been clinging to her skin in tiny beads like raindrops, standing in pools in the hollows of her throat and navel. It cascaded off her when she rolled. She heard it spill onto the newspapers.

The change of position helped. Much of the paper peeled off her back with the turn. A sheet of it still adhered to her buttocks, but there was nothing she could do. She lay there motionless, her eyes shut tight to keep the sweat from stinging them. The trickles continued. Her legs, pressed together, felt as if they were lathered with hot butter. Only her mouth was dry. Her tongue touched dry flakes along her lips.

The floor of the trunk suddenly tipped beneath her. She flinched and choked herself on the rope and quickly bent her knees, rumpling the papers but stopping her forward roll.

The car’s going uphill, she thought. Up a steep hill.

It had moved up and down many times before, rocking her slightly, but never anything like this.

He’s taking me into the mountains, she thought.

Rick jerked awake as something smacked the wall of his tent. He lifted his head. The blue tent was murky inside with daylight. He thought a pine cone must’ve fallen. But then the tent was struck twice more, and other objects, missing, thumped the ground outside.

Bert moved, rubbing him, and he looked down at her. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

“They’re throwing stuff.”

The sleeping bag’s zipper was on the other side of Bert. He couldn’t get to it without crawling over her, so he started to squirm out the top. Bert rolled away from him. He heard the zipper slide with a sound like ripping fabric.

“So long, Rick the Prick!” Jason’s voice. It came from a distance. “So long, cunts!”

Rick was half out of the bag, sitting up, his hand on the knife propped upright inside his hiking boot. Bert had slid out the open side. She was on her elbows. At the sound of Jase’s voice, she stopped trying to get out.

“It hasn’t been nice knowing you!”Luke called.

“FUCK YOU AND THE HORSES YOU RODE IN ON!” That one came from Andrea. From nearby. Her tent?

Bert shook her head.

There was distant, derisive laughter from the boys.

Rick sat motionless, waiting. Bert didn’t move either. She was still stretched out, lying half across her empty sleeping bag, propped up on her elbows, naked to the knees. Her feet were still inside Rick’s bag. Her breasts rose and fell as she breathed.

“I guess they’re gone,” Rick finally said.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish.” Smiling, she lay back and folded her hands behind her head. One of her feet stroked the side of Rick’s leg. “I hope that’s the last of them.”

“We’ll take that other trail.”

“And make sure, first, they’re really going up to Dead Mule Pass.” Bert took her legs out of Rick’s bag and stretched them out on top of it. “It’s hot in here. Must be late.”

He flipped the sleeping bag off his hot legs. The air felt good on them. “When Jase handed the gun to you, it changed everything. That ... I think that pretty much shattered my obsession with Julie and the rest of it.”

“God, if I’d known what you went through. I feel like such a jerk for forcing you into this trip.”

“It was probably good for me. I know you’ve been good for me.”

“We don’t have to go on, though. If we turn around, we could be back at the car this afternoon. Would you rather do that?”

“I don’t know. I think I’ll be all right now. And I’d hate to cheat you out of the rest ...”

“I wouldn’t mind. This hasn’t exactly gone the way I’d hoped, anyway.”

Rick nodded. “Bet you didn’t expect it to be this exciting.”

“Or this crowded.”

“Well, now that Jase and his pals are gone ...”

“That only leaves Andrea and Bonnie.”

“Maybe we ought to split up with them.” That, Rick knew, was what Bert wanted. Strangely, the idea of leaving the girls behind didn’t disturb him. He felt no disappointment. Andrea was a temptation and she had offered herself to him. If she were gone, he could stop struggling against the urge to take her up on it. And he could be alone with Bert.

“They’re nice and everything,” Bert said. “Andrea’s kind of a kick.”

“She’s sure got a mouth,” Rick added.

“But it’s like having guests. Even if you like their company, they’re in the way.”

Rick suddenly had a thought that made his heart quicken. “How about this?” he asked. “We’ll have a leisurely breakfast, tell the girls to go on without us, and then we’ll get all our stuff together. And we’ll hike around the end of the lake to our stream.”

“You mean, stay there?” Her voice was eager, her eyes bright.

“All day. And we’ll pitch our tent down by the inlet and spend the night. Does that sound okay?”

“It sounds perfect. Too good to be true.”

“But true,” Rick said.

The ride became a torture as the heat in the trunk grew worse and the car climbed and dropped and made sharp turns, sliding Gillian over the newspapers, trying to throw her forward and back, the rope squeezing her throat each time she flinched at the sudden movements.

It can’t go on much longer, she thought.

We’re in the mountains. We’ll stop soon and he’ll let me out.

Let me out. No! God, what am I going to do!

The car slowed abruptly, throwing Gillian onto her back. Her knees flew up. Her left knee bumped the lid of the trunk before she could straighten her legs.

She felt the car make a sharp turn. Then it began moving forward. It was no longer on pavement. On a dirt road? The floor of the trunk shuddered under her back, shaking her, sometimes bouncing her roughly.

It won’t be long now.

I’m sorry, Jerry, she thought. I shouldn’t have left without you. But then he might’ve gotten you, too, so maybe it’s better this way.

Knowing that she would never see Jerry again, Gillian felt a twist of sorrow and loss.

It’s not over yet, she told herself.

Then the car stopped and the engine went silent.

Gillian felt a change inside herself as if a switch had been thrown. She no longer felt the stifling heat, or the pains of her bound and battered body, the awful fear. Her heartbeat thundered. She shivered. She felt cold. Even her mind felt cold. And sharp.

He’s gonna have to work for it.

The trunk lid swung up. Daylight poured down on Gillian, blinding her. Cool air lapped her burning wet body. The air smelled of pine and damp earth. Squinting, she peered out. The opening was about three feet high. Beyond it, she saw the green of trees and a few pale patches of sky. Fredrick Holden wasn’t there.

He must’ve used a trunk release on his dashboard.

Gillian heard the soft sound of a breeze whispering through the woods. There were birds singing, chirping, squawking. She even heard the flutter of wings. The whiny buzz of a mosquito.

Where is he?

She heard a footstep. It made a quiet crunching sound on the ground. Then there were more footsteps.

He’s coming!

He stood over the trunk and stared down at her.

Didn’t do anything, just stared as if entranced by the look of Gillian stretched out in his trunk, naked and gleaming with sweat, tied up and helpless.

His eyes seemed to bulge. His mouth hung open. Gillian could see his chest move as he breathed rapidly. He closed his mouth, licked his lips and swallowed. Then he rubbed a forearm across his mouth.

“All mine,” he muttered as if to himself. “Allll mine.”

He bent over the trunk. His hands swirled over Gillian’s slick skin as if he were fingerpainting.

Go ahead. Enjoy the hell out of this. I’ll get my turn.

The hands slid on her shoulders, circled and kneaded her breasts, swarmed over her belly and down her thighs, slipped between her thighs and slithered there, delving around the rope. Then they roamed up her body again and lingered on her breasts as if he couldn’t get enough of the slippery way they felt, especially when he squeezed them.

“Untie me,” Gillian said. Her voice came out in a dry, raspy whisper. “I’ll do wonderful things to you.”

He slapped her face hard.

Then he rubbed his hands on his shirt. They left dark stains on the pale fabric. His right hand dropped out of sight below the edge of the trunk. It came back with a knife.

It was a huge knife with a long, broad blade. A bowie knife?

Leaning over the trunk, he cut through the rope around Gillian’s ankles. The edge of the blade scraped lightly along the side of her calf and kept moving higher. Goosebumps crawled over her skin. She tried not to shiver. She couldn’t help it. She wanted to damp her legs together, but that would push the blade into her thigh.

He’s gonna ram it right up into me.

No, he won’t, she thought. He can’t have blood in his trunk. Even the newspapers wouldn’t hold it all. He’s smart enough to know that.

The knife turned. The point lightly traced its way up the hollow where her leg joined her groin, followed it to her hip.

The knife rose above her. Holden kept it in his hand while he wiped his mouth again with his forearm. Then it came down slowly and Gillian thought he was going to free her hands. The blade pressed, instead, against her pubic mound. She saw his arm make a sawing motion, but she felt no pain. He’s cutting the rope, she realized. That’s all.

That’s all?

She felt the rope part. Her hands were still bound together, but now she would be able to raise them without choking herself.

And my feet are loose, she thought.

He’d take me easily in a fight, but I can make a run for it.

Holden pressed the blade to her throat. With his other hand, he reached behind her neck. He grabbed the rope and yanked it. Gillian felt as if she were being scorched by the streaking rope, but then it was out from under her.

Holden clutched the end of it with his left hand. “Up,” he said, and tugged it like a leash. Gillian sat up. Sweat streamed down her body, dripped off her chin and breasts. Sodden newspapers clung to her back.

With his rope hand, Holden peeled the papers off. “Out,” he said. His command was followed by another tug. Gillian winced.

Bracing herself with forearms on the edge of the trunk, she turned and got to her knees. She had papers on her rump. They stayed stuck to her while she swung a leg out of the trunk. Her knee found the bumper. It slipped off when she put her weight on it. She squirmed on the edge. The rope at her throat was yanked, and she tumbled out, rolling. The bumper hit her side. She bounced off it and slammed the ground ... and reached up and caught the rope and jerked it. Holden yelped. His arm snapped forward. The end of the rope flew from his hand.

Gillian flipped over. She rammed the fists of her tied hands against the ground and thrust herself up, and was almost to her feet when Holden’s kick caught her hip and sent her hurling sideways. She crashed against the rear of the car. It knocked her away. She fell and rolled and tried to keep rolling but Holden pinned her down with a shoe on her belly.

He stared down at her. He was breathing hard. He rubbed his lips again with his forearm.

Then he stomped.

Pain blasted through Gillian.

Wheezing and dazed, she was only vaguely aware of Holden picking up the rope, of how he pulled it and how she crawled, and how he picked her up and braced her against a tree trunk. By the time her mind cleared, it was too late.

Holden no longer held the rope. She couldn’t see where it was, but she felt it around her neck, against her right ear, against the side of her head. Its other end, she knew, must be tied to a branch above her.

She tried to grab for it.

Something stopped her.

She looked down. She was wearing a black leather belt. It was cinched tight around her waist. Her bound hands were lashed to it with rope—probably some of the rope that Holden had cut off her feet.

When did he do that? she wondered.

I must’ve been out for a while.

She looked around. The car was a few yards away, its trunk and driver’s door still open. But she didn’t see Holden anywhere.

Soon, she heard him tramping through the woods.

He came into the clearing. His arms were loaded with twigs and sticks. He gazed at Gillian and walked toward her.

Jesus, be’s gonna burn me at the stake like a witch!