How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers (12 page)

“Uh, we’re getting there.”

“Are we lost?”

“No we ain’t fuckin’ lost,” she said, and got all excited and pointed to a two-story house on the corner of the street. “There! Right there. That’s where I live. Lost my ass.”

“Your ass is lost?”

“It’s gonna be lost in your face in a few minutes.”

“Shit, girl.” Billy tried to pull into the driveway, but instead parked in the middle of the front yard, bashing into a garden gnome. “Whoops.”

“Who gives a shit?” Samantha said. “Come on!”

Billy chased after her toward the front door. She tried to open it, but it was locked.

“Shit!” she said.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you have a key?”

“I left it at Burger King!”

“Shit.” He looked around the neighborhood, worried they were making a scene. Just what he needed right now, a bunch of noisy neighbors prying into his business and calling the cops. Fuck that. He needed to stay as far away from the law as possible today.

Samantha grabbed a rock and smashed it through the front door window, then reached inside and unlocked it.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Relax, man,” Samantha said, leading him inside and shutting the door. Glass cracked underneath their feet. “I break windows here all the time. My house, I’ll do whatever I want.”

“You’re crazy.”

“That’s one perspective.” She took off her Burger King T-shirt and threw it at him. “Catch me if you can!”

She turned around and ran through the foyer, down a hallway. He expected the house to be a total disaster, but it was surprisingly clean. Maybe she had a maid. But on a Burger King salary? Wait, she couldn’t even afford this house on a Burger King salary. Maybe her dad was rich. Although she
was
a drug dealer, so maybe she was rich as fuck. Who knew. Who cared?

Billy followed her into the kitchen. She’d stripped the rest of her clothes and was bent over the fridge, scavenging through its contents. Her flat, pancake ass taunted him. It said, “Come smack me, Billy. Come squeeze me.”

“Okay,” Billy replied.

“What?” Samantha said.

“I said, do you have any beer?”

“Uh, I dunno, doesn’t look like it. I guess I’m a prude. Oh wait, here we go.”

She stood up and spun around, holding a tall bottle of wine between her breasts.

“Isn’t that cold?” Billy asked.

“That’s the best part!” The bottle was half empty. She took a long swig and passed it to Billy. He didn’t really care about wine, but it was better than nothing, so he gulped it down despite the overly sweet kick in the face, and his belly warmed and his erection stirred.

Samantha continued running around the house and Billy followed. She eventually led him upstairs to the master bedroom. He noticed multiple photographs of a black family on the nightstand and hung up on various walls, but his attention was more focused on Samantha’s bouncing tits. He tackled her on the bed and she giggled as he kissed her neck. The foreplay only lasted a couple seconds before he grew impatient and stuffed himself inside her. He started thrusting like a rabid dog and for a moment he forgot all about kidnappings and heads in duffel bags. But only for a moment. They were soon interrupted by the sound of a woman screaming downstairs.

Billy stopped thrusting, but remained inside her for a moment. “Who the hell is that?”

Samantha stayed quiet.

“This isn’t your house, is it?”

“How should I know?” she asked.

“You’re fucking crazy, girl.”

“Come on, finish!”

“No! We gotta go.”

“Fuck you, you pussy.”

Billy pulled out and put his pants back on. “We gotta get out of here before the police show up.”

Samantha sighed. “Fine, but I’m taking a souvenir.”

“What?”

Samantha hopped across the bedroom and, rolling on tiptoes, reached up and pulled down a large wedding photograph of a man and woman.

“Who are these people?” Billy asked.

“I don’t know,” Samantha said. “But they belong to me now.”

“That’s some evil-sounding shit.”

“I’m an evil girl.”

Naked and holding on to the wedding picture, she sprinted out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Billy followed, watching her nonexistent ass as he ran. A woman stood in the doorway, talking to someone on her cell phone. Billy recognized her from the wedding photograph. She’d aged at least a dozen years and had put on some considerable weight, but she was definitely the same woman.

She screamed and shouted into the phone, “Yes, I see them now! They’re trying to escape! Please hurry! One’s a man and the other’s a wom—”

Samantha swung the wedding photo and the glass shattered against the woman’s face. She fell to the floor, unconscious.

“Holy shit,” Billy said, and ran for the car.

“Pop the goddamn trunk!” Samantha said. “I don’t want to be holding this photo all day.”

Billy got behind the wheel and pressed the trunk release button, and it was only when Samantha started screaming that he remembered what was still in the trunk.

“Uh-oh,” he whispered, and cautiously stepped out of the car. Samantha was still standing there, but now she’d dropped the wedding photo. Her eyes were glued on the contents in the trunk, on the opened duffel bag, and the numerous severed heads inside.

Billy held up his hand, trying to calm her. “Now, before you freak out, I can explain.”

Samantha realized he was standing next to her and screamed louder. “Help! Somebody help! Oh God, help me! He’s a psycho! He’s gonna kill me!”

“Will you please be quiet? It isn’t as bad as it seems.”

Samantha turned around and tried running away, but Billy grabbed her and pulled her back. “Just wait a fucking second so I can explain what’s going on, will you? Jesus fucking Christ.”

“HELP! HEELLLLPP! SOMEBODY HEEEEEELLLP MEEEEEE!”

Billy sighed. “Okay, fuck this.”

He pushed her into the trunk and closed it, locking her with the collection of human heads. He got back in the car and drove away, the sound of police sirens closing in.

“Fuck,” he said, punching the steering wheel. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

27. ASSCRACKS OF THE UNIVERSE

Louise was too
excited to be standing on the sidewalk trying to sell people books. She wanted more action. She needed more thrills. More gas station riots, more random kidnappings. Fuck this vanilla pedestrian bullshit.

Stephen, meanwhile, seemed to be content on the sidewalk, panhandling to strangers. She guessed he preferred this to being back at the apartment with a couple of guys tied up in the closet.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew they weren’t meant to be together forever. They’d never exactly had much in common, besides both being available and being connected to the small press scene. Stephen was easy, sometimes a little clingy, but predictable enough to keep as a boyfriend for a short while. After so long, though, predictability ran dry—usually around the time that you become involved in a hostage situation.

When the foot traffic was light, Stephen would pull out his camera and snap photos of random objects. Louise asked what the hell he was doing and he said with the right angle, anything in this city could be a book cover.

“Sure,” Louise said. “That crack in the sidewalk could be for my next book,
Asscracks of the Universe
.”

“Or it could represent the cracks in a relationship, being stepped on countless times a day by strangers.”

“Yes, of course.”

Louise stopped a man walking past them and said, “Hey, dude, if you buy a book I’ll flash you my tits.”

“Louise!” Stephen said.

“What if I buy two?” the guy asked.

“I’ll let you take a photo.”

“Deal.”

The guy grabbed two random paperbacks from their milk crate, handed them ten dollars, and took a photo on his smart phone of her exposed breasts. Stephen stared at the scene, shocked, but then he took a photo, too, so fuck him and his false outrage.

Louise decided just to keep doing this until she either ran out of books or she was eventually arrested. A few cops passed her, but they only slowed down long enough to get a good look, then they drove away. The milk crate emptied. They’d made ninety-five dollars.

“Who would have thought that whoring yourself out was profitable?”

“Many people,” Stephen said. “That’s why there are so many whores in the world.”

“God bless the whores.”

“Now what?” he asked.

“I guess we’ll go back to the car and refill on books.”

“Are we gonna be doing this all day?”

“Are you kidding? We’re never gonna stop.”

Stephen pouted and walked away. Louise followed. They made it half a block and bumped into a homeless freelance editor eating leftover McDonald’s from a trash can.

Louise tried to turn around and walk in the opposite direction, but Stephen didn’t get the hint.

“Jared!” he shouted, and ran up to him.

Jared pulled his head out of the trash can and smiled at Stephen once he targeted the source of interruption. They pounded their fists together like true hardcore gangsters.

Louise sighed and joined them. “Hey.”

“So, you guys are out sellin’ books too, huh?” Jared asked.

Stephen nodded. “Yup.”

“I ran into your boy, Nick, earlier.” He pointed behind him. “He was a real asshole.”

“He can be that way,” Stephen said.

“Nick is a saint,” Louise said.

Jared ignored her and spoke directly to Stephen. “So, I was trying to talk to him about you guys possibly hiring me for my editorial skills.”

“Yeah, Nick really does all of the editing. I don’t think he’s looking to hire anybody.”

“Maybe you could talk to him?”

Stephen hesitated, took a step back. “Well, he doesn’t exactly listen to me. And I already know, on this subject, he definitely isn’t interested.”

“What does he have against me?”

“Uh. I dunno, man.”

Louise coughed. “Liar.”

“What was that?” Jared asked.

“Oh. Nothing.”

Stephen gave her a dirty look. She smiled.

“Maybe if he would just let me do a test edit, he’d see how good I am.”

Stephen scratched his head. “Yeah, but, like, didn’t he hire you to edit some novella a few years ago?”

“Yeah, and I did amazing work. So I don’t understand his problem.”

Louise couldn’t hold her breath any longer. She gasped for air. “Dude, you can’t edit for shit.”

“What the fuck?” he said.

“Louise!” Stephen said.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true. You don’t have any idea what the fuck you’re doing, and everybody knows it. Nick, along with anyone else worth their salt, dislikes you because you claim to be this all-wise editor, yet you barely have a grasp of the English language. Did you never learn grammar in school? For fuck’s sake, dude, even basic spelling you have trouble with. And that would be bad enough by itself, but you constantly scam new writers and publishers into paying you for your services, and they have to learn the hard way that not everybody in this business knows what the fuck they’re doing. They would be better off flushing their cash down the toilet.”

Jared stared at her, speechless. Stephen looked at his feet, cheeks blushing. “Uh, maybe we should go.”

“Yeah,” Jared said, tears streaming down his face. “I think that would be a good idea.”

Louise burst out laughing. “Jesus Christ, dude, are you crying?”

“Leave me alone.”

Stephen grabbed her arm and pulled her along. “You’re such a dick,” he said, and in response she laughed even harder.

Nick was waiting for them at his car. The trunk was open, and his milk crate of books was still full.

“You didn’t sell shit, did you?” Louise said.

He shook his head. “I see you made out well.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I started flashing my tits.”

“Ah. Good idea.”

“I can’t fucking believe you,” Stephen said to Louise. “He didn’t deserve any of that.”

“Oh fuck you, he did too and you know it. Goddamn hustling trash artist.”

Nick seemed confused. “Who didn’t deserve what?”

“Jared,” Stephen said. “Louise made him cry.”

He laughed. “You made him cry?”

Louise grinned, proud. “Hell yeah. It was beautiful.”

“I can’t believe I missed that.”

“You may get to relive the moment,” Stephen said.

Nick raised his eyebrow. “How do you figure?”

“He is charging straight for us.”

“What?”

Stephen pointed down the block. Jared, in all his obese glory, was running like a mad bull directly toward them.

“Holy shit,” Louise said, giggling.

Nick shook his head, amazed. “Well, this ought to be good.”

“You assholes!” Jared screamed from down the street. “You motherfuckers!”

“I do believe he intends to murder us all,” Nick said.

“I didn’t even do anything,” Stephen said.

Louise snorted. “Story of your life.”

“We are officially broken up,” Stephen said.

“Whatever. Jared’s gonna kill us, anyway.”

“He seriously might,” Nick said. “He is a rather big man.”

“And incredibly slow.”

“Yeah. That, too.”

They stood in the parking lot and waited patiently. They felt it was the polite thing to do, after insulting him so much.

“I’m getting tired,” Nick said. “I wish he’d hurry up.”

“If he kicks your ass, will you hire him to edit?” Louise asked.

Nick thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah, probably so.”

“So that’s the secret.”

“That’s the secret.”

Jared neared. He continued shouting threats. His running had declined to a brisk walk, and he kept holding his chest like he was two seconds away from a heart attack.

“Gon . . . na . . . fuck . . . ing . . . rip . . . your . . . heads . . . off.”

“Calm down there, big fella,” Nick said.

Jared, finally in the parking lot, pushed himself into another sprint toward them. For a moment, Nick thought they might be in some serious trouble, but then Jared tripped over his own untied shoelaces and tumbled to the cement. His pants fell down and his bare, hairy ass flopped out for the world to see. His skull smacked against a concrete parking stop and his body went limp.