Eyes of the Predator (42 page)

“Clean up. Five minutes. Pee or
shit if you need to, but get clean,” was all he said.

He turned away leaving the door
open. Lyn looked into the mirror and saw the dried blood and cuts that covered
her shoulders and chest. She stared at herself. The image staring back at her
brought her back further from the faraway safe place and closer to reality than
she had been in hours. Was this image really her? Was this really happening?

“Clean up! And be quick!” Lylee
said sharply from just outside the door.

Lyn picked up a washcloth, wet
it, and began to wipe her face, arms, and chest. Tears fell across her cheeks.
She was alone. What was going to happen, would happen. She may be alive for the
moment, as long as the man needed her, but she knew that her life was already
slowly draining away, washed down the sink with the reddish brown drops rinsed
from the washcloth in her hand. The image in the mirror was a shell. Soon there
would be nothing of substance left.

In the bedroom, Lylee busied
himself with straightening the plastic under the chair and making sure there
were no telltale signs of what had been taking place in the room. This was not
the first time he had toyed with his prey before the kill, but it was
definitely the longest period of time he had allowed himself to do so. Again,
the cautious predator came into his mind warning him. End this. Quickly, before
they come and you are still over the kill, end it!

He pushed the cautious voice out
of his brain. The need to extract what he wanted, what he needed, burned in
him. In his mind, he shouted back at the cautious voice. I will end it when I
have her, all of her!

He looked into the bathroom. The
girl stood in front of the sink, robotically wiping her body. The washrag was
streaked with dried blood. Remember the rag, he thought. Have to take the rag
and towel with what was left of the girl. But not just yet.

Lyn’s right wrist stung as the
man reached into the bathroom and jerked her roughly. The skin where the
plastic tie had secured her to the car and then to the chair in the cabin, was
a raw, red, bleeding sore spot that burned at his touch.

Pulling her to the spot on the
plastic in front of the chair, he stood close in front of her. His hand moved
up between her legs. Her body stiffened.

“You ignoring me? Don’t.” The
word was a warning.

Lyn tried hard to focus on the
curtains. Tried hard to find a way to the safe place, as she had done before.
It was gone, and she could not find her way there.

“Do – not – ignore – me,” he
said, each word a separate and distinct warning.

His hand moved to the inside of
her thigh. He grabbed the skin and pinched hard.

Lyn gasped at the sudden pain.
She tried to push his hand away with her left hand, despite the knife that
rested point first against her abdomen, as they stood close. He pinched harder.

“I warned you. I’m afraid that’s
gonna leave a mark.” Under the fierce eyes, the grin was back.

Lyn forced her eyes to find his and
looked into the gray eyes of the beast. They were full of life. They observed
her, considered her every action and reaction with an inhuman, animal
curiosity, like the cat toying with a captured mouse.

Her gaze into his eyes was what
he wanted. He released his grip, and the sharp pain from the pinch to the
inside of her thigh subsided.

“Don’t you want to look at me?”
he asked, again taunting.

Lyn said nothing.

“You know you should talk and be
nice. After all, I’m the one who’s taking you to Canada.” His words mocked and
emphasized her helplessness and hopelessness.

Lyn blinked and said nothing.
Canada was gone.

She became aware that the man was
stroking himself with the hand that had pinched her thigh. She stared blankly
into the gray eyes, not wanting to see or know what he was doing. The trauma
and fear were suffocating her. Any reason she had left was rapidly departing,
leaving an empty shell behind. She welcomed the emptiness.

He grinned at her. “Did it really
hurt?’

Lyn said nothing. She just looked
at him through tear clouded eyes.

Lylee took her wrist and twisted.
Lyn gasped as he bent the wrist backwards.

“I said, did it hurt?’

“Yes, it hurt,” Lyn gasped.

“Did it hurt bad?” Lylee twisted
harder on her wrist.

The pain moved up her arm to her
elbow, and Lyn could only whisper through clenched teeth, “Yes. It hurt really
bad.” The pain in her wrist and elbow was blinding. “Please, stop….please,” she
whispered.

Lylee released his grip, and her
limp arm fell to the side of her trembling body.

“Good. So which would you rather
be? Hurt or dead?” He looked at her, and the animal was back in his eyes
staring hard into her. “I can make dead hurt a lot more than that.”

Lyn said nothing. He couldn’t
really mean for her to answer.

But Lylee did mean for her to answer
and choose. It was part of the game, and he needed an answer.

“Which? Dead or hurt? Answer me!”

Forcing her to make a choice, to
choose the pain he would inflict, was like honey to him. Her torment was his
sweet. His tongue moved over his lips as if he could taste the sweetness thrown
out by her raging emotions. Fear. Confusion. Hopelessness.

Lyn saw the contortion of
pleasure on his face. She didn’t understand it, but she knew she must answer.

“Please. Just hurt me…don’t kill
me…please.”

Lylee smiled happily. “All right
then. Hurt it is. You know I’ll give you what you want sweetheart. Now you give
me what I want.”

Lylee’s mind and body were awash
with surging arousal. Lyn trembled at the realization that she had taken a
step, a long stride, towards the end. She was losing, and soon he would have
all that he wanted from her. When that was done, it would be over. He would
feed on her living remains until her corpse ceased twitching and she was no
longer alive. She wondered whether not being alive would be better.

She was oblivious to the knock at
the door, but the moment of surprise and indecision she saw in the gray animal
eyes caused her brow to furrow in confusion. Something had happened. What, she
wondered.

Pushing her hard into the chair,
he moved quickly and lightly to the window where he peered out between
curtains. His thumb rotated the large knife in his hand as he contemplated the
source of the knock at the door.

Then a voice from some faraway
place drifted into the room, pulling Lyn ever so slightly from the reality of
the cabin.

“Rye County sheriff!” the voice
called. “Need to speak with you for a minute. Open the door please.”

Standing on the porch to the side
of the door and away from the window, Deputy Grover Parsons saw the curtains
part slightly as someone peered out.

“Open the door please,” he
repeated. “I need to speak with you for a minute.”

“Just a minute, deputy,” a male
voice with a definite Texas twang called out from behind the door. “My wife and
I been sleeping and, you know, well, we’re not dressed. Let me grab my pants!”

“Right, sir. Just hurry up and
open the door!” Grover called back. His hand was on the pistol at his side.

Inside the cabin, Leyland
Torkman, predator, felt the pressure of being the hunted, and although it was a
new sensation, he did not panic. Lyn watched motionless from the chair as he
pulled on his blue jeans and tee shirt and slid his feet into his shoes.

Looking at Lyn, he said in a
hissing whisper, “Any sound and I will slit your throat and gut you before I
kill him. You understand? He cannot save you, but I can hurt you. And I will
hurt you…bad.”

He stared at her, waiting, and
was about to speak again when she finally nodded her comprehension. Lyn watched
from the chair in helpless torment as he moved to the door, desperate to call
out, to make some sound, but frozen instead. It was as if she was watching the
drama play out on a screen, and she could only sit, breathlessly waiting for
the next terrible scene.

Partially opening the door with
his left hand, he peered out, the hand holding the edge of the door as if to
slam it shut at any second. From behind, Lyn could see the hunting knife in the
waistband of his jeans over his right hip. She could not see the deputy, who
was so close, but still an invisible voice to her.

As the door opened, she became
aware of the rushing of the creek outside. It seemed to rush into the room, the
sound pulling her a little further into the reality of the here and now.

“Hey, deputy. What can we do for
you?” Lylee’s voice was light and friendly, and non-menacing. He could see that
the deputy’s hand rested lightly on the butt of his sidearm.

“Need to come in and talk to
you…and your wife.”

“My wife, too?”

“Your wife, too,” Grover replied,
pausing and then adding a formal, “sir”.

Parsons watched as the man at the
door turned his head and called over his shoulder, “Honey, cover yourself up!
We got company.”

And with that, the man at the
door opened it slightly farther to allow the deputy to enter the cabin. The
deputy started into the room, tensed and alert, eyes searching for the girl
somewhere in the dim interior of the cabin.

Something glittered in the
afternoon sunlight shining through the door. Parsons’ eyes flicked to the
right. The reflected light sparkled from the Texas longhorn ring on the finger
of the man’s hand, holding the door, just at Parsons’ eye level. It was an
awkward way to hold the door, the deputy thought, and at the same moment, he
knew that it was the ring described and noted carefully on the small pad in the
breast pocket of his shirt, along with the description of a medium built man
with a Texas twang and driving an old Chevy with Texas plates.

He knew it instantly, but it was
an instant too late. As the deputy’s hand began to lift the pistol from its
holster, the man’s left hand jerked the door fully open and then came across
the back of the deputy’s shoulders until the forearm was across the front of
Parsons’ throat. Simultaneously, the knife moved with practiced precision and
uncanny speed from the waistband of his jeans into Lylee’s right hand and then
to the opening between the front and rear panels of the protective vest the
deputy wore. The deputy’s pistol had not fully cleared its holster when the
heavy blade was pushed deep into his side.

A gasp, followed by a deep,
throaty moan of pain escaped through the deputy’s quivering lips. He clutched
at the man who had just taken his life. They stood in an intimate embrace in
the doorway. The deputy struggled to turn and put his arms around the man that
had killed him while the other tried to extricate himself from the grasp of his
dying victim.

As light and life faded from
young Deputy Parsons’ eyes, he saw the girl, seated on the chair across the
room. Their eyes met, and he struggled to hold more tightly to the man in his
grasp. The girl’s eyes were wide and staring into the deputy’s face.

“Run.”

The girl stared back. He had said
something, and somehow, dimly she knew he had spoken to her.

“Run!” The deputy’s voice was a
hoarse grunt.

Grover Parsons sank to his knees
as the girl’s eyes cleared with understanding. She sprang from the chair and
through the cabin’s back door as the deputy’s eyes clouded and his life bled
out onto the cabin floor. Yet still, in death, he clutched at the man who had
killed him.

It only took seconds for Lylee to
pull himself from the deputy’s death grip. But those seconds were enough for
Lyn to make her attempt at escape, and as she moved, her mind came crashing
back into the real world of the present.

Clay knelt in the foliage at the
edge of the tree line behind the cabin, resting the shotgun on his bent knee.
Deputy Parsons had disappeared around the front of the cabin not more than
three minutes earlier, when Clay heard the noises. They were indistinguishable,
muffled sounds, barely audible over the creek’s rushing. For a moment, he
thought to go to the front and help Deputy Parsons with whatever was happening,
but then the rear door of the cabin slammed open.

Startled, he raised the shotgun
to his shoulder, fearing what might happen next. Kneeling in the brush
contemplating taking a man’s life was far different from sitting in a tree
stand stalking white tail deer.

An instant later, he lowered the
shotgun to his side and stood up. The girl, completely nude and covered in
bleeding cuts, ran across the cabin’s small backyard. He stood still in the
shock of the moment. It was Lyn. It was the girl they had dropped at the truck
stop just yesterday morning; the girl that had become his obsession. The object
of his pursuit and search was before him, and yet seeing her so suddenly and in
that condition immobilized him. He watched her run, directly at him, her eyes
unrecognizing. He tried to speak and move, and think what to do next.

But what to do next took care of
itself. The cabin’s rear door banged again. A man in tee shirt and jeans
sprinted from the back door and into the yard, clearly in pursuit of the girl.

Lifting the shotgun to his
shoulder, Clay shouted, “Drop! Lyn, drop!”

For the first time in her panicked
flight, Lyn became aware of the young man in work clothes standing in front of
her. He shouted something. He looked familiar. Why was he shouting? What was he
shouting?

She saw him raise a big gun to
his shoulder, pointing it at her. Why would he do that? Why would he point a
gun at her? He was shouting again.

Fearing the shotgun’s blast, one
more in a long series of fears she had faced in the last two days, Lyn dropped
to the ground. Behind her, Lylee slowed as he became aware of the young man at
the edge of the woods pointing the shotgun at him.