Come Get Me (26 page)

“What the hell are you doing?” he finally
managed to say.

“Whatever do you mean Jimmy dear?” she asked
innocently. “We’re just two girls having a little fun.”

“What have you done you crazy bitch?” he said
recovering a bit more. The initial shock was starting to wear off.
He wanted to run across the room and help Jill but the way Maria
looked he didn’t think that would be a good idea. She’d changed
almost as much as Jill had but in the opposite direction. If
anything she looked better than she had when they were driving out.
While he’d been outside wasting his time she’d used hers to change
clothes from the frumpy old restaurant stuff to a flimsy see
through nightgown type thing complete with matching bathrobe. The
whole outfit left nothing to the imagination. He could see
everything down to the mole on her inner thigh.

“I haven’t really done anything but sit here
and watch,” she said. “Oh, well, I did also bring her out here
before I brought you too. Does that still count as nothing? I sure
hope so.”

“Is she even alive?” he asked stepping
forward slowly. He didn’t want to make her think he was going to
rush her or anything but from where he was he couldn’t tell if Jill
was breathing or not.

“Well, I don’t know,” Maria said
thoughtfully. “Let me check.” She spun around went over to Jill and
slapped her right in the face. Jim could already see a red mark
forming as a quiet groan reached his ears.

“Yup,” Maria said happily, “I’d say she’s
alive. Not too happy maybe but alive nonetheless.”

“So what is all this?” Jim asked as he inched
forward.

“It’s about us Jimmy. You and me. I didn’t
like what our little Jilly was doing so I took matters into my own
hands.”

“Now what happens?” he asked hoping he
wouldn’t hear what he knew she’d say.

“You’re a smart boy Jimmy. I think you know
what comes next.”

He figured if he could keep her talking long
enough he might figure something out but he wasn’t quite able to
make it that far. The next thing he knew something had slammed into
the back of his head and the floor was rushing up to say hi.

He was sure it should’ve hurt more when his
head finally struck the ground but strangely he felt nothing. He
tried moving his arms and legs but got no response from either. His
vision was beginning to darken. There were people talking but he
wasn’t sure what they were saying. He struggled to make it out but
was only able to hear a little before he passed out.

“
Does this mean no goodnight
kiss?” Maria asked as she began to laugh. He wanted to spit some
smartass answer back at her but he couldn’t. Everything went dark
and he heard nothing else.

14

I must be dreaming, Jim thought as he looked
around. He and Jill were sitting in a sauna, both had towels
wrapped around their bodies. Looking at Jill, wearing barely
anything, he smiled but when he tried to reach for her he couldn’t
move. He tried again and still nothing. He couldn’t see any reason
why he shouldn’t be able to move but that didn’t make any
difference. He still couldn’t. Maybe they were playing some type of
game. Why they would be doing it in a sauna and how they’d got
there was beyond him but he was with Jill so he knew he was
safe.

Movement in front of him caught his
attention. Jill’s hand was slowly moving up to where her towel was
tucked in so it wouldn’t fall. It looked as if she was reaching to
undo it. Jim sat motionless waiting for it to drop so he could gaze
upon her beauty. Her hand undid the tuck and started pulling the
towel open. Jim’s heart was beating faster than it ever had. You
would think he was some little kid seeing boobs for the first time
or something. He felt a stupid grin plastered across his face and
glanced up to see if Jill had noticed. To his horror the person he
thought was Jill was actually Maria. Eyes almost bulging out of his
head he had no choice but to watch as she ripped off the towel and
tackled him. Before he knew it the thing was wrapped around his
neck strangling him. Over the rushing noise in his ear he could
hear Maria’s insane laughter as she tightened her grip on him. He
was beginning to see stars. She was going to kill him and he still
couldn’t move.

With a start he woke up. The dream still
lingered so much that his throat hurt and he had a bit of a problem
getting a deep breath. After a few seconds of gasping he realized
some things from the dream weren’t a dream after all. The biggest
one was that he was still unable to move but this time he knew why.
Through blurred eyes he could barely see the floor a lot closer
than he thought it should be. When he saw his feet closer than they
should be he figured out that he was down on the floor lying on his
side. That didn’t make much sense. The last thing he remembered was
looking at Maria molesting Jill. He quickly looked around trying to
find Jill. She was nowhere to be seen. He tried to move his hands
but found he could barely move them. They were tied just like his
feet. Struggling to move around so he could get a better look at
his surroundings he finally found out where Jill was. Once he’d
turned enough he could see her still hanging just as he remembered.
She looked no different than she had. Still unconscious and
absolutely no help in getting out of whatever mess they’d gotten
into. As he watched her eyes popped open and looked around
lazily.

“Jill!” he whispered. He didn’t know where
Maria was so he knew he’d better be quiet. He hadn’t seen her when
he’d been thrashing around but that didn’t necessarily mean
anything. Jill wasn’t responding to him. She just continued looking
around in no particular direction. A string of drool dripped out of
her mouth onto her shirt as he watched but she didn’t seem to
notice. After a few more seconds her eyes fluttered closed. Whoever
grabbed her must’ve drugged her to the gills, he thought as his own
mind slowly began to clear. The inside of his head felt like a
little gremlin had taken up residence and started pounding a drum,
but other than that he was ok. Reassuring himself that she was fine
for the time being he took stock of the situation. He was tied up
in the middle of nowhere, his soon to be girlfriend was also tied
up but even worse off than him and he had no idea where the people
that had done this were. Yup, they were screwed.

Cursing to himself he looked around to see if
there was anything close enough that could be used to cut himself
loose. From another room came the sound of voices. At least now he
knew where those other people were. He couldn’t hear what they were
saying but he could tell they were arguing. He didn’t care what
they did as long as they ignored him. He needed time to get out of
here. Unfortunately he didn’t see anything that would help him in
that endeavor. Looking back at Jill he saw she was still off in la
la land and of no help yet. With no sign of a weapon of any sort
and no help coming from anywhere he figured unless a miracle
happened then they were both going to die.

Since no solution out of the situation
presented itself he turned his attention to the argument. From the
sound of Maria’s voice she stood just on the other side of the
doorway the voices were coming from and she wasn’t happy. He could
hear her yelling at someone but everything she said seemed to run
together. His pounding head did little to help matters any. He only
caught a few words and those didn’t make sense. The person she was
arguing with interrupted her but Jim couldn’t hear any of what they
said. Just a quiet mumbling. He struggled to hear what was said but
got nothing. When he was hit it must’ve been pretty hard to mess up
his hearing so bad. It didn’t surprise him much though. His vision
was already blurry, so his hearing being messed up was just par for
the course.

He was just going to start feeling sorry for
himself when he heard a noise. He froze where he was. Maybe there
were more than just the two in the other room. When he hadn’t moved
for a few seconds the noise came again.

“Pssst!”

Jim decided to take a chance and turn around
to see what it was.

“It’s Johnny Langill.” He heard as he wormed
his way around. He almost stopped moving when he heard the voice
but it was too late now so he kept going. At least if someone was
going to talk to him he’d like to be able to see who it was. When
he finally squirmed enough so that he was almost facing the other
way he was surprised to come almost face to face with Pete. Sitting
a few feet away Pete was propped up against a wall near where Jim
had been laying. He didn’t know how he’d missed him before but
there he was regardless.

“I think it has something to do with that
damn purple dinosaur. I think he made him do it,” he said giggling
to himself.

Jim almost couldn’t speak for a minute. Pete
was the last person he’d expected to see here. “What do you mean
it’s Johnny?” he said recovering himself. “And how did you get out
of jail?”

“All I know is that one minute I’m sitting in
a jail cell minding my own business and the next thing I know the
lights go out,” he answered sounding slightly confused. “Then I
heard some loud bangs I guess were gunshots, then silence. A few
minutes later keys are rattling in my cell door and it pops open.
Before I could even ask what was going on somebody hit me and I was
out. After that the next thing I see is Johnny. He picks me up and
throws me in here like a sack of potatoes. Do I look to you like a
sack of potatoes?” Pete looked at Jim so seriously he almost
started laughing. He would have if the situation was just a little
different.

“He’s pretty strong,” Pete added when Jim
didn’t answer. “You wouldn’t think it from looking at him though.
He must work out or something.” This sent Pete into another
giggling fit for some reason but Jim ignored it.

“What the hell did they bring us all the way
out here for?” he whispered. “Do you know what’s going on?” He
hopped Pete knew more than he was letting on. If they were both
clueless then they were even more screwed than he’d thought.

“Well my dear Watson,” Pete said after
calming down a little, “I’d guess we’ve been brought here for a
very good reason. Not a reason we came up with mind you but one
that someone here thinks is pretty good. Oh yeah, if the reason,
whatever it may be, wasn’t good enough I’ll add this. It probably
won’t matter too much since we’ll probably die in some horribly
painful way before we find out anything else about the afore
mentioned reason for us being here. Do you understand?” Pete said
everything as if he was just telling someone that it was dark
outside. It didn’t seem to bother him one bit he might only have a
few more minutes to live. He was totally calm. If his demeanor
wasn’t bad enough he started cleaning his finger nails, at least
the ones he could reach, as Jim laid on the floor staring at him.
He at least could try to get him free or something. Instead he
didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

“Oh you want more? Well, it would seem our
dear Maria has a thing for you.” He added when he noticed Jim was
watching him. “She seems to have decided that since our little
drugged up Jilly has made your heart go all pitter patter, she
would just have to remove her.”

After his little speech he quietly started
giggling as if something was funny. Jim wished he could see
everything like Pete did. Maybe he would be laughing too but he
doubted it. Yup, good old Pete was gone. He was going to die and he
thought it was all funny.

Maria suddenly came storming back into the
room followed a few seconds later by Johnny. Neither of them looked
very happy. Seeming to want someone to vent her anger on she walked
directly over to Pete and planted a stinging smack to his face.

“Shut the hell up ya damn freak,” she yelled.
“I heard you talking all the way in the other room. Don’t think I
didn’t hear all your snide little remarks but that’s ok. I have
plans for you.”

Turning her attention to Jim she said, “It’s
about time you woke up. I heard the freak talking to you. He was
actually pretty close to the truth. I’m actually kind of surprised
he was smart enough to figure out his own name much less anything
having to do with what I’m going to do. I guess he’s a lot smarter
than we all gave him credit for.” She turned and kicked him it
seemed just for good measure. Maybe she hoped he would eventually
match her image of him if she abused him enough. Thinking about
kicking someone into stupidity made Jim snicker at the absurdity of
it, but if there was anyone that would try it Maria was surely
going to be first in line. This thought just made him laugh even
more. He didn’t even try to stop himself. If he was going to die he
might as well enjoy it. He looked up to find Maria looking at him.
She still didn’t look very happy. Forcing himself to calm down he
figured it was time for some real answers.

“What’s all this shit really about?” He
demanded. “It can’t all be just because I didn’t fall madly in love
with you when I got here. There has to be some other reason for all
this.” The look in her eye wasn’t pleasant but he didn’t care. He
was trussed up like a Christmas pig and he wanted to know why. “And
another thing,” he added, “what in the seven bells of hell have you
done to Jill? She looks like the poster child for drug abuse. Oh
yeah, last but certainly not least, will you quit looking like the
evil step-mother from some fairy tale and say something. Usually we
can’t shut you up but now when I want you to talk I get
nothing.”