The Summer I Died: A Thriller (14 page)

“
I’m gonna kill you,
”
Tooth said.

“
I don’t think so. You’ve got a penance to pay. You shouldn’t have hurt my Sundance! He didn’t do nothing but try to protect me.
”

“
You’re a half wit.
”
Tooth’s mouth was full of phlegm and spit.

“
No, I’m not. I’m an animal lover is all. I had that dog since he was a pup. Watched him grow up, him and his brother both. He didn’t deserve to die like that.
”

“
Why don’t you untie me and I’ll kill the other mutt, too, make everything even-Steven.
”

Skinny Man didn’t like that. He gleefully wrenched the shovel from Tooth’s thigh and put it in the fire, the handle sticking out the little iron door. Not a peep came from Tooth.

“
Boy,
”
Skinny Man
said,
“
you in a lot of trouble.
”

“
We won’t tell,
”
I pleaded.
“
Just let us go and we
—
”

“
Shut up, you twit,
y
ou’re not going anywhere.
”

I g
lanced at Tooth’s thigh and saw
blood gush out like a fountain. The artery had definitely been sliced, and without aid he would drift off into sleep and never wake up. Tooth knew it too; he was looking at his leg with
panicked
eyes.

Skinny Man cracked his knuckles and looked down at the woman.
“
Now, where was I?
”
There
was renewed pleasure in his voice
.
“
Oh yeah, our game.
”

He went back out the door, up the stairs, and came b
ack a moment later with the
saw in his hand and his dog at his heels. The dog came over and sniffed at Tooth’s leg then started licking the blood from the open wound. His dog collar jingled as his tongue flicked up and down.

“
Butch, leave him alone and come lay down.
”

The dog looked back and forth from his master to the wound a few times, as if deciding which was of greater importance, and finally went and lay down near his bowls. Skinny Man took the saw and cut into the woman’s arm at the shoulder.

“
The fuck
!
”
I screamed.

“
You son of a bitch!
”
Tooth said.

With a shit-eating grin, the man hacked through her bone, the sickening
zzz zzz
echo of the saw filling the sweltering room. I closed my eyes and muttered some kind of prayer even though I wasn’t sure I was even speaking English. Butch started barking, and through all the noise I heard the dog get up and start padding about. I heard Tooth screaming profanities. I heard Skinny Man grunt like he was having trouble getting through the bone. And when I opened my eyes, I saw the arm separate from the body.

I choked back bile.
A numbness floated into my mind
,
a drunk co-pilot
taking
the helm. My brain just couldn’t wrap around what it was seeing. It just wasn’t real; I would wake up soon. I knew I would because this stuff only happened in dreams.

Skinny Man took the arm and licked the blood flowing from the hacked shoulder. It dribbled down his chin and he laughed like a goblin. He rushed at me and grabbed my face and kissed me, smearing blood all over my mouth. His slick tongue lapped thick, bloody saliva on my eyes. Every bump on his tongue, every whisker on his chin, scratched itself across my face.

Butch was going wild, running and jumping up to get a taste of the arm. He tried to snatch it out of the man’s hands and got a smack for his troubles.
“
Hold on two secs, will ya?
”

Taking the saw again, the madman cut the arm in two and put the pieces in Butch’s dishes. The dog tore at the flesh, shaking his head back and forth until the chunks of flesh pulled away. Then, like a vacuum, he inhaled the meat.

“
That is a nasty wound you got there,
”
Skinny Man said to Tooth.
“
Lucky for you, I fancy myself a bit of a doctor. Got my first aid badge in the Cub Scouts.
”

He bent down and yanked the ax from the woman’s head. It came loose with a gurgling fart as the pressure from the internal bleeding escaped.

And that was enough for me, my brain pulled the plug.

The last thing I saw before I passed out was Skinny Man taking the glowing shovel out of the stove and placing it flat against Tooth’s wound. I heard a sizzling pop of flesh, Tooth’s bloodcurdling scream, and then all was black.

CHAPTER 13

When I came to all was quiet. The rag was in my mouth again, swollen from my drool, or my tears, or both. I sucked it out and swallowed it. The smell hit me next, an eye-watering stench of decomposition,
worse than the time I found a
dead raccoon in the garbage out back of my house. That raccoon had been in that trashcan for weeks and when I lifted the lid the rot had hit me
hard
as a
punch
and
almost knocked me over. Fucking-
A if this wasn’t a hundred times worse.

My neck ached like I’d been kicked in the esophagus, and my chest felt constricted. When I’d fainted my body had fallen forward and been caught by the collar. It’s a wonder I didn’t snap my neck or choke myself to death. As I stood up, I could feel fresh cuts under my chin from where the collar had cut in.

The macabre realization that I could have died somewhat peacefully washed over me and I didn’t know if I was happy or sad.

The jingle of chains next to me meant Tooth was moving around. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the faint glow coming from the stove door. The wood had burned down to embers but their light was enough to make out the shadow of my best friend.

“
Tooth?
”

At my voice, t
he chains stopped.
“
You awake?
”
he
asked
.

Our words were muffled by the rags, but Tooth and I had that connection, that ability to understand each other.

“
Yeah,
”
I replied.
“
What happened?
”

“
Oh God, Roger, he cauterized my leg. He burned it shut. This guy is crazy. We have to do something.
”

“
This is fucked
. He sealed your wound? Why? So he can torture us some more?
”

Tooth was quiet for a moment and I thought maybe I’d said something he hadn’t thought of. In a funny way
,
that made me
fe
el
bad.
Both because I’d just scared him
, and because, so far, he’d taken the
most damage. But I knew that was just a momentary thing, I was going to get mine, too.

“
The girl?
”
I asked

“
He took the body upstairs. I think she was dead. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t moving or breathing
or anything,
and she’d lost a hell of a lot of blood. The dog ate her arm.
”

There was another pause; neither of us knew what to do or say. I
used
the moment to begin working the rag out of my mouth.
The good thing about the rags was that
even though they cut off our ability to speak clearly when they were tight, with some tongue and jaw work the material
would begin to stretch. T
hey were a poor choice for
gags—unless he was hoping the bacteria on them would give us e-coli or something and send us into a fit of poisoning that would have us
wishing
for death.

“
Roger?
”

“
Yeah?
”
The gag was loosening a bit
.

“
Promise me if we get out of here,
promise
you’ll come to California with me.
”

The moment was so unreal I started laughing. Right there in the middle of all this death and torture I just lost
it. Imagine it, Tooth and me
on the beach, smoking weed and riding the surf, talking to hot women in bikinis, laughing about the time we were chained up in some madman’s basement. I wanted that more than anything. I wanted to be so far away from reality I started to smell the sea and feel the breeze in my hair.

“
Sure, I’ll go with you. You’re right, there’s nothing here for me,
”
I said.

“
Except Lucy Graves’ tits.
”

“
Yeah,
”
I laughed,
“
those are pretty nice.
”

He wi
nced as he shifted his leg
.
“
Someone’s bound to see the car. Rangers patrol there daily, right? All we got to do is make it through tomorrow and hope a ranger notices the car sitting there for two days and comes looking for us. I figure it’s got to be around midnight now. That psycho ain’t been back in a while and my guess is he’s sleeping. Let’s just make it through the day.
We can do that.
”

“
But a ranger won’t hear us down here,
”
I said. The walls were concrete and even though the ceiling was made of
cheap, rotting
wood, with enough rugs and furniture
over us our yells would
go unheard.
“
Plus,
”
I added,
“
if he doesn’t have a warrant he can’t come in anyway.
”

“
He will if we’re loud enough. We just have to listen carefully, make as much noise as possible.
Scream like crazy.
I’ve made some calculations while you were blacked out. That door there in front of us is a stairwell, most likely the one we saw from outside. That means the driveway is out that door and if someone were out
there
.
.
.
.
Remember when we heard the woman?
The sound
does
carry.
We can be heard if we yell loud enough. This door over to our left must go under the main part of the house. Under the living room and stuff. So if he lets anyone in the front door, they won’t
hear us because he’s probably sound proofed it somehow. But if someone comes up the driveway, we’ll hear the car and can yell our asses off.
”

“
Have you heard any cars?
”

“
Not yet. I heard the door at the top of the stairs when he left. The hinge squeaks a little. And the ceiling above us connects to the whole house. Sometimes the dust shakes off it and I figure that’s him walking around.
”

“
But what does all that mean? How does that help us?
”

“
Not sure. But it gives us a heads up when he’s coming anyway.
”

I watched the glowing stove in the corner of the room. The wan light from the slats in the door illum
inated the nearby dog dishes
. Something was in the dish though I couldn’t make out what it was. Then again, I didn’t need to. I knew it was the woman’s arm, or what was left of it.

“
How’s your leg?
”
I asked.

“
Hurts like a bitch. I think the bone is broken.
”

“
We’re going to die, aren’t we?
”

“
I don’t know. I can’t really wrap my head around all this. I keep waiting to wake up.
”

Good ol’ Tooth; as usual he was on the same page as me.

The human brain has a difficult time rationalizing the absurd. It’s like watching aliens land in your backyard and take a dip in your pool. You think,
“
This is a dream, any moment now I’ll wake up.
”
And then you do wake up. And you laugh about it and go back to sleep.

Only we weren’t waking up.

“
But did you see what he did to that woman?
”
I asked.
“
What kind of sick fucking maniac is this guy? Why did he do that? He’s not human. Do you hear him
when he speaks? We or us or they. Is he talking about the dog or the voices in his head?
”