How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers (19 page)

“Oh, fuck you and your press,” Harlan said, and bashed the deformed head into Nick’s face.

He didn’t exactly pass out, but he certainly didn’t get back up once he fell down. He simply did not possess enough energy to move.

He heard Harlan open a car door, then close it. The engine was already running. The guy who’d showed up to the cabin with a gun, he’d left his car running like a dumbass.

Harlan drove away, leaving Nick down for the count and the cabin in flames.

Nick’s pocket vibrated.

He pulled out his cellphone, opened his email. He had one new message in his inbox:

Dear Nick,

Thank you for submitting
The Owls in the City . . .

45. FAHRENHEIT 451

They were surrounded
by hundreds of Sergio’s books, all of them burning. Sergio always told Eliza one day his books would be burned, although in his head he had always pictured a bunch of whacko Christians being the pyros. This worked, too, though.

Eliza stood up, coughing, the smoke seeping into her mouth and strangling her lungs. Inside the bedroom, the cop was saying there was nobody else here. Eliza and Louise walked in, now able to see thanks to the flames preparing to swallow them whole.

“Where the fuck did they go?” Louise said, then spotted the open window. She pointed, excited. “Shit, they escaped!” She ran for the window and climbed out.

The cop pointed his gun and told her to stop, she was still under arrest.

Louise laughed. “Fuck you, copper. I have to save my boyfriend.”

She leapt outside and took off into the forest, shouting Stephen’s name.

Eliza and the cop stood in the burning cabin for a moment, shrugging.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose we ought to get out of here before we burn to death.”

Eliza nodded. “Good plan.”

Outside, Nick sat in the dirt, his face illuminated by the glow of his cell phone. He was laughing like a crazy person.

The cop glanced around, confused. “Where the fuck is my car?”

Eliza kicked her editor-in-chief. “Calm down, man. You’re losing it.”

Nick shook his head, still laughing. Laughing so hard he was crying. He held up his cell phone, showing her the screen. She read it, then started laughing too.

“Congratulations,” she said, and their laughter grew further out of control. “You’re gonna have to write the sequel on toilet paper rolls.”

Nick abruptly stopped laughing and looked at her, serious. “I have to write a sequel?”

46. 360 DEGREES

Harlan had driven
ten minutes before he realized Billy was sitting in the backseat.

“So, where are we going?” the tweaker asked.

Harlan screamed, slammed on the breaks. Billy bashed his face against the driver’s seat.

“Shit, man, I didn’t have my seatbelt on.”

Harlan sat behind the wheel for a moment, breathing heavily, trying to avoid a heart attack. Then he got out, opened the backdoor, and pulled Billy from the passenger seat, dragging him out in the road.

“Hey, man, what the fuck are you doing?”

Harlan didn’t respond, just kept dragging him around the car. He popped open the trunk.

Billy laughed nervously. “You can’t be serious.”

Harlan pushed him inside and closed the trunk, then got back behind the wheel, started driving again. He no longer felt pain. His body had numbed, blissful and content. Harlan drove into the night, aching to get back home and write a new blog post. This was going to be his best one yet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Max Booth III is the Editor-in-Chief of Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, an editor for
Dark Moon Digest
, and a columnist for LitReactor.com. He is the author of
Toxicity, The Mind is a Razorblade
, and
How to Successfully Kidnap Strangers
. He has studied under Craig Clevenger and award winning editor, Jennifer Brozek. Raised in Northern Indiana, he currently works as a hotel night auditor in San Antonio. Follow him on Twitter @GiveMeYourTeeth for random drunken ramblings and visit him at
www.TalesFromTheBooth.com
.

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