Authors: Mark Nykanen
I’d better open the curtain I’ve got drawn across the cargo area, let some air in back there. It’s starting to get a little warm. I need to water them. I saw a billboard for a Safeway a few miles back. That would be perfect. Pull in, duck back there, and give them all a drink. And get ready for the complaints:
I have to pee. I’m hungry. What do you want?
(more often,
What the fuck do you want?
).
Where are we going?
So first I’ll tell them that if anyone says a word, one word, then it’s no water for any of them. Nothing.
There’s the Safeway. It comes up faster than I realize, and I wonder if I’m starting to nod off. I find a space not too close and not too far from the nearest cars, and lean back, letting my eyes look over everything from left to right. No patrol cars, none of those wide-bodied barges favored by detectives in these parts. Nothing but the early morning bagel crowd of overweight Mormons.
I eat two more of the chocolate-covered espresso beans that have kept me going most of the night. I’m close to finishing the entire bag. Chocolate and caffeine, and water. I really do need to pee, but I can’t leave them, so I take the pee bottle back there with me.
Now this is a form of torture, making them watch me when their own bladders are ready to burst. It’s been twelve hours or more since any of them have had a chance to go, and I wonder who will break first. I’ve had others pee in their pants. June looks away, so does that Jolly Roger hubby of hers and their son, but daughter dearest stares right at me, at
it.
She’s a bold one, isn’t she? Doesn’t look worried. Not like her mom when I was taking off her dress.
Oh no, I smell it before I see it, and when I switch on the dome light I see that Sonny-boy has messed himself. His sister is having none of it. She sounds like she’s swearing at him behind the tape. It must be so because June is back to shooting her dark looks. Roger just looks sick. He’s probably feeling very guilty, dragging me in the house like that. And now look at them, after just half a day with me! Tied up, hungry, thirsty, messing their pants. And you thought Harrisburg was bad, didn’t you, Jolly Roger?
“All right, listen up.” This gets their attention. I haven’t spoken to them since we got started. “It’s time for some water. Who wants to get a drink first?”
I knew it. Daughter dearest lifts her head and moves her legs, and when I look at her I think she might not be as young as I thought. She could be sixteen. Seventeen? Possibly.
Everyone nods when I tell them what the deal is. Everyone except Sonny-boy, who seems too ashamed to open his wet eyes.
I peel the tape off his sister’s mouth, and notice her lips, fluted, like a champagne glass, and full. I help her sit up, feel the ridge line of her back. Then I run my hand up her spine, feeling every little bone, and her skin—it’s so firm—and her neck, narrow and smooth. I keep my hand there as she drinks, and feel the liquid rushing down her throat.
“Not too much,” I say softly. “You’re going to have to hold it.”
“Like
him
.” She whispers a disgust so pure that I can only crouch there and admire her. But that’s all I do because she’s violated the agreement.
“If you say another word, they’ll get nothing.”
“Really?” She brightens. “And what happens if I scream? Will you kill them?”
I clamp my hand over her mouth, though my body shakes with laughter. And she knows it, I can see it in her eyes. And then—I don’t believe it—she slips her tongue against my fingers. What a wench. What a dirty, filthy wench. I love her.
June is having an altogether different reaction to our tête-à-tête. She’s trying to kick, yes
kick
her daughter, and I’m beginning to sense some serious family issues here.
“Stop that,” I snap at her mother. “Get a hold of yourself.”
“
Oompf-oompf
.”
“Oh,
oompf-oompf
, yourself.” Even her pantyhose is starting to lose its appeal.
She’ll be the first to go, I can see that already. You make sacrifices for your art. Sure, everybody does, but June Cleaver here has been on my nerves since that Sarah Bernhardt routine over her dress. A real drama queen. You get all types in this line of work, let me tell you.
I tape up her daughter, and move over to Sonny-boy. He doesn’t respond to my warnings, so I turn to that Jolly Roger of a dad of his and patiently explain the deal once more.
He might be listening, I can’t be sure. He looks exhausted, eyes heavy and hooded, like all his piss and vinegar have drained away; but there’s no telling with some men, especially the big ones who try to make themselves look even bigger by doing something stupid.
“She,” I point to the girl, “got away with it because she’s cute, but you’re old and ugly, Roger—” he looks confused when he hears his assigned name— “so don’t go getting any ideas.”
He nods as if to say, “Sure-sure, gimme a drink,” and downs a full quart before I cut him off.
June’s turned away from me, on her side, no doubt pouting over her plight, so I snap her bra, pull it all the way back like it’s a slingshot, and let her rip. I haven’t done this since high school, and it feels great, and brings her right around. But the
oompf-oompfing
has a snarling sound to it now, so I simply announce, “You lose,” as I trickle water over her head and cap the bottle.
Now she starts kicking, it’s a tantrum, and this forces my hand. I pull out my knife, a switchblade I bought in Sonora, Mexico, five years ago, a real beauty of a blade with turquoise inlay in the handle and gold bands on the top and bottom, and a stainless steel edge so sharp that all I have to do is nick Sonny-boy’s cheek and a red blossom blooms. I pick him because I’m beginning to suspect that if I nicked his sister, Mom would never stop kicking. One of those tit for tat, mother-daughter things.
Sonny-boy’s scratch is nothing, but it’s enough to shut up June.
I wipe the blade off on her hip, on the panty part of the pantyhose, but feel none of the thrill that first captured my attention. It’s extraordinary the way intimacy can breed animus.
When I look at the girl again she nods, and if I were to guess—and let’s face it, that’s precisely what I’m doing at this point—I would have to say that what I’ve just done meets with her complete approval. But what’s really odd, what’s never happened before, is that she has met with mine.
Four more hours to go. The nicest part of the trip, through the high desert of southeastern Utah. Rolling hills of red rock, beautiful mountains, open country. But it cooks around here in the summer, and even now the temperature is getting up there. I realize I’d better turn on the a/c and crack the curtain a little wider or they’ll roast back there.
I keep thinking of the daughter. She looks absolutely delicious, completely ripe. When I touched her skin, I wanted to touch more of it. I wanted to run my hand over every firm inch of her. She’s at that age when her skin is stretched to its maximum, when it couldn’t be any firmer, when you really could bounce a dime off her belly. I had all I could do not to reach around and feel her breasts. She has such nice ones, high and proud. Of course she’s underage, and
I wouldn’t want to break any laws, now would I?
What kind of childhood could produce so much hate: If I scream, will you kill them? I think she was serious. I don’t think she’d mind at all if I offed them right now. They seemed so normal. That’s why I went after them. The only thing missing was Lassie, and I have a Lassie or two lying around somewhere. Plus the bone parade, so they can spend their time thinking about what could happen, how they could end up. Time to think means time for the terror to sink in. I want them secreting adrenaline into every cell, until they’re flush with it, like cattle moving down the slaughterhouse ramp, bellowing hopelessly as an endless rush of chemicals comes crashing through their brains.
Maybe she was molested when she was little. Nowadays, you can’t help thinking it, it’s the first thing that comes to mind. I really despise child molesters. To prey on children like that is a disgrace. That can really twist a kid into an emotional pretzel. They should all be shot.
But it could be that she’s just a bad seed. I’m sure that’s what they’d say about me. I had a perfect childhood. No one buggered me. I think I was spanked all of two times. Mom stayed home. Dad worked. And I got to play all the time.
All in all, I turned out fine. The only fetish I have—if you could even call it that—is this pantyhose thing. I’m not the only one. Search under “naughty pantyhose” on the web, and dozens of sites show up. You think I’m kidding? You want up-skirt shots of big-breasted Asians in pantyhose? No problema, as they say down south, way down south. British schoolgirls in knee socks and sheer pantyhose? Ditto. These pantyhose freaks even have their own lobbying group. They want to make Hollywood filmmakers show pantyhose in sex scenes, instead of nylons and garters, which are so ridiculous anyway. On Valentine’s Day maybe half the women in a restaurant have them on, but the rest of the year it’s pure pantyhose, and thank God for it.
I’ve tried them myself—there are even sites for that, men in pantyhose, usually men with giant erections—but the thrill was fleeting. By the time I’d worn out half a dozen pairs, I didn’t really have any interest in wearing them anymore. I guess it was cross-dressing, but there’s nothing unusual in that. Every Halloween party I’ve ever been to half the guys are in drag. Are half the women in drag? No. They’re goblins and fairies and witches. But the guys? They’re secretaries and tarts and sweethearts in miniskirts, pushup bras, and pumps.
So I’m hardly tweaked, not by contemporary standards. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not tweaked. It’s not as if I get off on these abductions. I do them because I have to. It’s work. I’m certainly not getting any erections out of it. I’m not like those freaks who climax when they kill. The only thing I’ll admit to is ambition, but that’s it. I take pleasure in the fame. And why shouldn’t I? I deserve it. Every bit of it. The work I do is unique, first-rate, and unforgettable. I take the human mind and bend it and bend it and bend it, and right at the moment it breaks, I capture the entire length of the naked body as it tenses and shudders. That’s what I saw in Nepal, the terrible turbulence that lies beneath the sleeping skin. I wondered then how he’d achieved it. I wonder still. I know how I do it.
But you build terror, just like you build anything worth having. It takes time. Lots and lots of time. It’s like I have to sweeten them up, the way you sweeten a pear by putting it in a paper bag. Day by day the pear softens, the juices rise, until finally it’s ready to burst. Then again, she could be gaming me. Trying to play me for the fool. God knows, others have tried, but never so early in the game. They did it after they saw the compound, and the cage.
Then, in a week or two they’d tried to seduce me, with their husbands right there! They took me for a fool. But she was willing right from the get-go. She seemed thrilled by it. Maybe life with Mom and Dad and Sonny-boy is so boring that even this is better.
I feel a sudden rush of sympathy for her, and tell myself to watch it.
It feels like I’ve been driving forever, but at last I turn off the highway and head down the dirt road. All I see in the side-view mirrors is the funnel of dust we leave behind. On a day like this—no wind, no humidity—it can hang there for an hour, slowly drifting back to earth. Every time I pass a mountain biker on one of these roads I feel sorry for them, sucking up all that dusty air. But if I could I’d send them all back to wherever they came from. I moved here for the isolation, and now suddenly we’re the mountain biking capital of the world. About a million of them pour in here every year to ride the trails on the slick rock, and some of them get off course and end up out this way. I’ve been tempted to immortalize one or two, but never have. Every step has to be planned. I just smile, tell them they’re lost, and how to get back. And then I watch them carefully to make sure they go on their way.
I stop at the cattle guard and open the gate, pull through, and lock it back up. It used to be a working ranch until I bought it. I had no use for the land, just the privacy it gave me. The biggest selling point was the single feature I couldn’t see, that no one sees—the cellar. These Mormons love their cellars. They fill them up with enough food to keep themselves stuffed for a year or two. It’s part of their religion. So they have cellars, but I’d never seen one like this. The first time I walked in, I was astounded by the size.
They’d built it right below the barn, which was huge with half a dozen horse stalls on either side, and a tall ceiling with a two-thousand-square-foot guest quarters above that. Post and beam. Beautiful. I use it for my home. But the cellar, for my taste, was glorious.
The entrance is completely hidden. It’s in the last stall on the left. Rake out the hay, and there’s a heavy oak door set flush with the floor. It has a recessed, hand carved O-ring that blends right in. I didn’t even notice the door until they pointed it out to me. Turn the O-ring and the door opens to a steep set of stairs that descends fifteen feet to the floor below. The cellar is the full size of the barn. Very raw in appearance, with unfinished cinder block walls. There’s a composting toilet on the far end, the “kitty box,” and cold water pipes running out of the ceiling nearby.
When I viewed it for the first time, it was stacked with all these survivalist foods: hundred-pound sacks of rice, oats, flour, huge boxes of dried fruits, dehydrated milk, beef jerky, plus cases of tortilla chips, pretzels, Twinkies, Sno Balls, you name it. Cookies, instant cakes. Those Mormons were a bunch of couch potatoes waiting for the apocalypse.
It looks much different down there now.
• • •
I drive right into the barn, close the double door, and lock up. And then I listen. I listen very closely. I’ve never found anyone here, but this would be the worst possible time for an oversight.
It feels odd to me. I realize that it’s probably nothing, just the effects of a sixteen-hour drive, but I inspect each stall. They’re all empty. Except for the hay, they’re as shiny clean as the Mormons left them more than fifteen years ago.