Survivor: 1 (9 page)

Lisa started to cry.

Mr. Smith ignored her as he went about his work. First
he attached a device on the windowsill, screwing it on
with heavy-duty screws; it looked like a pulley. Then he
payed out the heavy line it was attached to and fastened
a metal ring to it. A piece of short, heavy chain was attached to that, and another device was attached to that.
Then he drew out two pairs of handcuffs, one which he
attached to her wrists, the other to her ankles. He attached a piece of chain to the thin but sturdy chain of the
handcuff and ran that length of chain to the heavy pulley
on the larger chain. He did the same thing to the hand cuffs attached to her ankles. When he was finished, he
untied the rope that secured her ankles and wrists to the
bedposts. Lisa was barely aware of what Mr. Smith was
doing; she lay on the bed crying uncontrollably, hysterical in her fear.

Mr. Smith tested the strength of the chain by tugging
on it. Lisa felt a sharp bite of steel in her wrists and ankles
and stopped crying. Mr. Smith smiled. "There. Why don't I
help you stand up now"

He helped Lisa sit up by moving her shoulders and upper body into a sitting position on the mattress. Then he
helped her move her legs over the side of the bed. "Stand
up now and let's see you walk." She did so, and Mr. Smith
kept a close watch on her, grinning and nodding. Lisa's
cries had reduced to sniffles, and she walked around the
room, testing the new contraption that would keep her
prisoner in this room. The shackles around her ankles
were barely a foot apart and forced her to shamble along
like a prison inmate. She stumbled as she tested the limits
of it. Mr. Smith reached out to help her up. "Whoa, watch
out there! I can't lengthen the chain on the cuffs down
there. Wouldn't want you trying to kick me or Animal."
"

Lisa glared at Mr. Smith but said nothing. "How far can
I move in this thing?"

*Let's head to the bathroom and find out" He held his
arm out, as if escorting her like a gentleman. He led her
to a door she had barely noticed before that was set
against the wall. He opened the door, and she saw that it
was a small bathroom, complete with a tub and a sink.
Lisa walked into the bathroom. "Can you sit down at the
john? Let's try it"

Lisa turned around and sat her naked buttocks on the
lid of the toilet. The payout of the line attached to the pulley grew taut. Mr. Smith smiled. "Wonderful! Just like I
thought. You have enough line to reach the toilet, which means you probably have four feet beyond the bedroom
door and that's it. I'll board up the window to keep you
from smashing it and trying to escape, but then I've got
you pretty well trussed up"

Lisa looked at Mr. Smith, feeling defeated and beaten.
She had been doing some thinking last night and resolved herself to not even try to plead with him. He had
told her last night that it wasn't personal, he was only doing this for the money. He had picked her up because
she was what his unknown clients were looking for to be
the star of a snuff film. She had been thinking about that
last night, and while the implications of what was going
to happen to her were petrifying, she had a thousand
questions to ask him. She had been debating on whether
to try to draw him into some sort of conversation. Part of
her felt that she needed the human contact of conversation to keep from going crazy, while another part of her
held the dim hope that perhaps if she evoked enough
compassion in him, Mr, Smith would let her go. She seriously doubted that, but it was worth a try.

"How did you get into what you're doing?" She asked
him, her voice submissive but not pleading. "You
know ... the whole snuff film thing."
"-

Mr. Smith shrugged as he worked at the window. He
had gone into the living room and come back with several five-by-twelve pieces of wood, which he proceeded
to erect across the window and nail to the wall, boarding
it up. "I never really got into it. It's just something I do for
money."

*But you had to fall into it somehow."

Mr. Smith turned to her. "Why do you want to know?"

Lisa shrugged. "I figure as long as I'm going to ... you
know.-.. I might as well know more about it!

Mr. Smith turned back to the window and continued boarding it up. "I admire that. You'd rather face up to
things than run away from them. I like that."
"

Except for the pounding of nails as Mr. Smith boarded
up the window, there was silence for a moment.

*1 was a producer for a while," he said, finishing up the
window. "I produced a lot of hardcore porn back in the
seventies. That's how I met Al, one of the guys you'll meet
later. He's a director. He shot a bunch of films for me. I
specialized in a lot of extreme hardcore S&M and bizarre
shit-golden showers, fisting, bestiality, blood sports,
scat films, rape films, a lot of kiddie porn-you name it. I
had an audience that ate that shit up"

Lisa listened, feeling disgusted with Mr. Smith. He
looked, acted, and sounded like the stereotypical pervert. Middle-aged, balding, overweight, glasses, small
beady eyes. It was easy to picture him sitting his girth on
a director's chair, pulling his pants down, and telling the
naive teenage giggleboxes who came to Hollywood with
dreams in their eyes that, sure they could have a part in
his film, but first they had to get down on their knees and
show him how much they appreciated him.

"So how did you come to be a part of making snuff
films?' Lisa asked, hiding her revulsion.

Mr. Smith was finished boarding up the window. "I
don't do just snuff films. I do a lot of stuff on commission.
Al and 1, we do a lot of extreme hardcore S&M shit. And I
ain't talking your everyday, run-of- he-mill slap-andspanking shit that bored yuppies and trendy goths are
into, either. All that rope bondage and whips and chains
shit that people are into? Forget that. You can get crap
like that at your neighborhood video store. The stuff I'm
talking about that Al and I deal in is extreme, sick shit.
Most of it is near-death stuff: mutilation, a lot of asphyxiation. Al's tapped into the extreme hardcore community real well. Some of the people he shoots for privately,
they're into this kind of shit. Whenever we get a job, he
comes to me and I ... well, I sort of comb through the
girls I know of that would fit perfectly."

"What kind are those?"

Mr. Smith looked at her. "Not like you, that's for sure."

"Why's that?"

"You're not like them, that's why. You got a life. A career.
You're a lawyer, right?"

Lisa nodded.

"The chicks I usually get for extreme hardcore films
and snuff films," Mr. Smith said, regarding her calmly,
"they've got nowhere to go but down. Sometimes we get
a request for a guy, and they're just as easy to get because
they fall into the same shit. Most of them are hardcore
druggies; runaways, hookers, people that aren't immune
to turning some pretty sick tricks, you know what I mean?
I find them, take them out, buy them clothes, show them
some money, they fall all over me. Turn them on to a bit
of blow or smack-most of them are already fucked up
on drugs anyway-and they'll keep coming back for
more. Once they get a taste for a shitload of money and
free drugs, they'll do anything. They'll even come back
for more. Shit, some of them are so fucked up when we
use them for an extreme hardcore film, they actually like
it! Can you imagine that? Getting off on somebody cutting your tits or burning you with cigarettes? Well, some
of them get off on it, and those are the ones we use for
the films. Like I said, they got nowhere to go but down,
and they don't give a shit what happens to themselves
anyway. Shit, most of them are too fucked up to care.
And most of them have the same sob story to tell: Daddy
abused them, or they ran away from a shitty home life or
some other shit. It don't matter where they come from as
long as they're on the way down. Long as they been on the street for a while and they got nowhere to go, no
mommy and daddy to go to, no boyfriend or husband
that will give a shit about them, they're the ones we use.
Long as nobody misses them, that's all that matters.'
'

Lisa was disgusted, but she tried not to let it show. "So
why me?"

*1 told you. The guys that commissioned this film, they
got tired of watching a bunch of junkie cunts being raped
and sliced up. To tell you the truth, a lot of those chicks
get so fucked-up-looking they look real skanky by the
time we use them. The clients wanted something fresh.
Shit, they woulda used a bitch like that Britney Spears
chick or Heather Locklear if they could get away with it.
They wanted somebody that was pretty and healthylooking, somebody that didn't look like they had been
shooting dope for the past five years, or who had too
many fucking scars on their bodies from S&M mutilation
"
or size-fourteen assholes from too many fisting sessions."

So in other words, I'm nothing to them and to you. Lisa
thought, digesting the information slowly. If she had
heard this yesterday, she would have gone into hysterics.
Now she merely processed the information and shifted
gears. "I'll be missed, though," she said. "My husband ...
my parents, our friends. I'm not just some nobody. People
will want to know what happened to me."

Waybe." Mr. Smith shrugged and headed toward the
entrance to the bedroom. "But who gives a shit? What
matters is that nobody will know afterward. That cop that
pulled you over yesterday? He's got nothing on me. And
when this is all over, this here," he pointed to his scruffy
beard, "gets shaved off and I wear my contact lenses for a
while. Maybe lose a few pounds. Trust me, we had this
planned for a while. The van I used last night is already in
Mexico, the driver's license I used was fake. In short, the
cops got nothing on me. And this place?" He swept his hands around the cabin. "It's so far off the beaten track
nobody will know anything. Nearest neighbor is a mile
away, and-"

"Nobody will hear me if I scream," Lisa finished.

if they do, they'll think it's just the coyotes howling at
the moon." Mr. Smith grinned. And besides, you'll be too
fucked up to do any screaming. The shit Al will shoot you
up with ... you'll be conscious, but you won't be able to
scream."

Lisa was silent. Mr. Smith watched her for a moment,
then bent down to pick up his toolbox., He started heading outside.

"What about the people who are into this?" she asked.
Mr. Smith stopped at the doorway and looked back at
her. "The people that ... pay to watch. I mean..." She
gestured vaguely. "What kind of people are into this?
Why? Why do they do it?"

Mr. Smith appeared to ponder the question before he
answered. "More than fifty percent of the people that
watch snuff films are weak, inadequate, high-profile people with high-profile jobs, mostly people in the business
community: corporate executives and CEOs, bankers,
people like that. Some of them are high-priced lawyers.
The others are participants in the extreme hardcore
scene just looking for something they haven't seen or
done. As to why they do it .. " He paused, stroking his
chin. "It's a power trip," he said, looking directly at her. "It's
a rush for them. It gets them off. Extreme hardcore and
snuff isn't just about sex. It's about owning someone,
making them beg for mercy, deciding whether or not
they're going to give it. It is the ultimate power over someone. When the ... people who are into this kind of
stuff ... when they watch a snuff film, they like to imagine what it's like ... what the killer feels. They like to pretend they're him, doing the things he's doing. They get a tremendous sense of power, knowing they orchestrated
the torture and death of another human being."

The thought terrified her, but she tried not to show it.
"What about the guy that will be doing it ... the Animal?
-Why does he do it?*

Mr. Smith grinned. `1 guess you'll have to ask him." He
turned and left the room.

Lisa sat on the bed, all hope draining away. She had no
idea what time it was now. There was no clock in the bedroom, and the sun had been up for how long? Two
hours? Three? All sense of time was a blur. She had barely
slept last night, especially after being forced to pee on
the mattress she slept on. She had started crying after
soiling her mattress, and the next thing she remembered,
the sun was coming up. She supposed it could be anywhere between eight and eleven o'clock in the morning
by now.

Her bladder felt full again and she stood up, walked
into the bathroom, lifted the toilet lid, and sat down. She
peed, then flushed the toilet. The urge to wipe came, but
then she thought, why should 1? Mr. Smith was bringing
the Animal to rape and kill her anyway. Why clean up for
him? She stood up and moved to the sink, sobbing quietly as she washed her hands. Even though she had just
found out she was pregnant, she was already picturing
what her and Brad's baby would look like. And now it
was all going to be snuffed out. She took a deep breath
and hung her head over the sink, trying to calm herself
down. When her sobs trickled down, she looked in the
mirror at her reflection. There were large, dark circles under her eyes, the whites red. Despite not sleeping much
last night, and everything else she had gone through, she
didn't look that bad.

She walked back into the room just as Mr. Smith was
replacing the mattress. The old pee-stained mattress was resting on its side against the bedroom wall. He patted
the new mattress. "Have a seat. I'll be outside nailing up
that window." He exited the room and she stood there for
a moment, her mind numb and reeling. After a few minutes, she sat down.

She heard him clomp outside to his vehicle, then a
few minutes later she heard him at the side of the cabin
outside the bedroom window. She heard the sound of
pounding along with his mutters, and then he began putting the wood up, securing it over the window. She
sighed and tried to drown out the sounds of Mr. Smith
hammering nails in the wood that would secure it to the
windowsill. The room was dark from the boards already
blocking the sun from the inside. She looked up at the
ceiling, feeling her eyes grow heavy with tears again. The
sound of those boards going up over the window was
like nailing the lid of her coffin.