Pressure (15 page)

I continued getting good grades on my tests and papers.

Melanie and I said “I love you” a ridiculous number of times a day. In a rare demonstration of personality, Anthony kept count in a notebook.

And just before Christmas, as I was walking along the sidewalk after dark, listening to loud music to relieve some of the stress of studying for final exams, a black van pulled up alongside me.

I turned down the volume and kept walking, picking up my pace.

The driver side door opened and somebody got out.

As he broke into a sprint, I did the same, but he tackled me from behind and knocked me to the ground. A gloved hand punched me in the face. Something jabbed into my side. I stopped struggling as everything went blurry, and then dark.

When I woke up, my hands were tightly bound together with duct tape and covered by yellow mittens. My bare feet were bound together as well, and another strip of tape was over my mouth. I was in the back of the van, lying on a comforter that didn’t live up to its name. I went into an immediate panic attack, unable to breathe through my nose fast enough to get the oxygen I needed, terrified that I was going to suffocate.

Darren glanced back at me from the driver seat. “Hey, easy back there! Calm down! It’s going to be okay. I’ll get that tape off your mouth as soon as there’s a good place to pull over.”

I screamed at him through the duct tape.

“Don’t freak out on me, dude,” Darren said, returning his attention to the road ahead but adjusting the rearview mirror so that he could watch me. “You know I’m not going to hurt you if I don’t have to.”

I didn’t know that at all. I rolled onto my side and frantically tried to pull my hands apart, but of course the duct tape didn’t give. I tried to pull my feet apart and had the same lack of success.

“If you want to tire yourself out, that’s fine with me,” said Darren. “We’ve got another eight hours left. When we get to a rest area, I’ll give you another shot if you’d like to sleep some more.”

I didn’t want to sleep some more. I wanted to find out what he was planning to do with me. And I wanted to know if he’d done anything with Melanie.

“Do you want to listen to some music?” he asked. “The stations here are crap, but I’ve got some CDs. How about something mellow? You like Neil Diamond? I’ve got his greatest hits right here.” Darren put the CD in the player and turned up the volume. “If you want me to change it, just nod your head, okay?”

I rolled onto my back again and continued to struggle. I scraped the mittens against my mouth, trying to get the duct tape off.

“Exit in four miles,” Darren said. “I’ll pull off there and then we can make you more comfortable.”

I stopped struggling. This wasn’t going to work. If I was going to escape, I’d have to surprise him, and to do that, I needed to conserve my energy.

God, what if he’d done something to Melanie?

I lay silently, listening to “Sweet Caroline.” We were definitely on a freeway, but I couldn’t see outside of the van to pinpoint our location beyond that. All I knew was that it was dark outside.

As the song ended, the van slowed down and took the exit. A couple of minutes later the vehicle came to a stop. Darren turned off the engine and looked back at me.

“How are you feeling?”

I knew he couldn’t see me giving him the finger through my mitten-covered hand, but I did it anyway. Darren leaned over and reached for something that was blocked by the passenger seat. I heard him open the glove compartment. When he looked back at me, he had a gun.

“I don’t want to shoot you, Alex. I really, really don’t. But let me make this clear. If you try anything, I won’t shoot you in the head; I’ll shoot you in the arms, legs, and stomach and let you bleed to death. It’s not a fun way to go. Do you understand me?”

I nodded.

“Let me add to that. If you try anything, I’ll also hunt down Melanie and do the same thing to her. Got it?”

I nodded again. I was still absolutely terrified, but at least now I had the relief of knowing that Melanie was safe. For the moment.

“Good.” Keeping the gun pointed at me, Darren got out of the driver seat and moved into the rear of the van. He pressed the gun tightly against my stomach. “It takes a long time to die from gut-shot wounds,” he informed me. “Don’t make me prove it. No bities.” With his other hand, he ripped the duct tape from my mouth.

There were a million questions I wanted to ask and a million profanities I wanted to scream, but I remained silent except for my panicked breathing.

“Don’t hyperventilate on me,” said Darren. “Just breathe in…breathe out…breathe in…breathe out…envision a happy little meadow…”

“Where’s Melanie?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t touch her. This is about
you
, Alex. You and me. I know you’re scared and I know you’re angry, but it’s all going to work out, I promise.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“My parents’cabin. Duh.”

“The police will find us there.”

“I hope not. I’d rather have you as a partner than a hostage. Anyway, we won’t be there long. Do you have to go to the bathroom?”

“No.”

“I brought a little jar if you decide that you do. I’ve got some drinks and snacks in the cooler. Beer, too.” He grinned. “Wouldn’t it be funny to get arrested for underage drinking?”

I didn’t return his grin. “Are you going to undo my hands and feet?”

Darren looked genuinely apologetic. “I can’t, dude. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I’m going to be driving and I can’t keep the gun on you the whole time. You’ve got plenty of room back here so you can change positions whenever you want. You’ll be okay. Do you want another shot? It’ll make the ride go quicker.”

I shook my head. No way in hell did I want to sleep through a possible escape opportunity.

“Do you want a beer?”

“No.”

“Mountain Dew?”

“No.”

“Chips? Beef jerky?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, suit yourself. We’ll stop at the next rest area if you change your mind.”

“Darren?”

“Yeah?”

“I changed my mind.”

“About the beer?”

“No.”

“Then about what?”

“About the knife. I’d like to cut you now.”

Darren let out a high-pitched laugh that hurt my ears. “See,
that’s
why I like you so much,” he said, moving back into the driver seat. “We’re gonna have some great times.”

We didn’t speak during most of the ride. I had nothing to say. I accepted a few gulps of Mountain Dew and two strips of beef jerky at the next rest area, but regretted it when the need to urinate became too much to bear. Fortunately, I was able to manage the process of peeing into a jar well enough despite the mittens and Darren’s assistance was not required.

After three hours that felt like thirty, I started to wish that I’d accepted the shot.

I wondered if anybody was looking for me. Anthony would assume that I was with Melanie. Melanie would assume that I was in my room asleep. I had no exams scheduled until late this afternoon, so I could easily go that long without being missed.

I smiled involuntarily at the irony that, given the choice, many students would rather be trapped in a van with a psycho than face their final exams. Perhaps Darren would let one of them trade places with me.

Six hundred eighty-three hours later (in mental time), Darren pulled off onto a dirt road. “We’re almost there,” he told me.

An extremely bumpy twenty minutes later, Darren stopped and shut off the van. “Gotta check on a couple of things,” he said. “Back in a sec.”

He got out of the van, taking the keys with him. I lay there for a moment, and then frantically began to struggle with the duct tape. Sure, there was virtually no chance that I’d be able to free myself in time to deliver a surprise kick to the face, but maybe the gods were smiling upon me and the tape would rip.

The gods were not, in fact, smiling upon me. I at least hoped they weren’t laughing at me.

The rear doors to the van slid open. Darren stood outside, pointing the gun at me. “Scoot over here,” he said.

I obliged. The comforter bunched up beneath me as I tried to slide toward the rear door, but I managed well enough.

Darren reached into his jeans pocket and took out the familiar knife. He snapped out the blade. “I’m going to cut your feet free,” he said. “Again, please don’t make me shoot you.”

“I won’t.”

He lowered the gun a bit, aiming it at my groin. “Make sure you don’t.”

“I said I won’t.”

Darren sawed away at the duct tape. He’d used a lot of it, and it took a couple of minutes, but finally my feet were free. Darren stepped back from the van.

“Get out and walk around a little bit to stretch,” he said. “But don’t try to run away. You know what will happen if you do.”

“Enough with the threats,” I said, with a lot more courage than I actually felt. “I understand that you have a gun, and I understand that you’ll shoot me if I do anything wrong, so quit harping on it.”

“You know, if you were like this all the time, we wouldn’t be here right now. Go on, get out and stretch.”

I got out of the van and nearly lost my balance, but managed to remain upright and slowly walked around, grimacing at the tingling in my legs.

We were in front of a small, one-story cabin. It was unpainted but didn’t look at all rickety. There was no grass, but there was cactus everywhere.

Most notable was the fence. I couldn’t tell how far back it went, but the left and right sides were each about five hundred feet from the cabin. Behind me, I could see that the fence was topped with razor wire.

I watched as Darren went to the front gate and slammed it shut, trapping us inside the prison. He locked a thick, black padlock and pocketed the key.

“What do your parents
do
here?” I asked.

“This is my recent addition,” Darren said, gesturing to the fence. “Good thing we don’t have any neighbors or they might get suspicious, huh?”

“You put this all up by yourself?”

“Of course not. I hired some people. There’s no law against being a paranoid whacko who wants to keep the New World Order out.”

“So why are we here?”

“Because I have a surprise in store for you, my friend. Here, give me your hands.”

I held out my hands and Darren cut off the duct tape. I shook off the mittens and massaged my aching wrists.

“We’re going inside now,” he said. “I know you said to quit bringing up the gun thing, but if you freak out, I have to shoot you. Don’t freak out.” He tossed me a small key. “Go open the door.”

I walked over to the front door of the cabin. There were two windows but both were covered with dark red curtains on the inside. I inserted the key into the lock, turned the doorknob, and slowly pushed open the door.

The cabin seemed…well, like a normal cabin. I stepped inside. The floorboards didn’t even creak.

Darren came in after me, turning on the light. “Not too shabby, huh?”

“What am I supposed to see here?”

“Nothing here. It’s in the first bedroom. To your right. Door closest to you. Use the same key.”

I unlocked the door and pushed it open. A woman lay on a small bed, gagged, her hands and feet tied to the bedposts. For a second I thought it was Trisha, but an instant later I realized that though there was a resemblance, this woman was several years older. Her face was tearstained, her wrists and ankles were raw and bloody, and she was wearing only a bra and panties.

My stomach dropped as if on the longest, tallest, scariest roller-coaster ride ever built.

I looked back at Darren. “I’m not going to hurt her,” I told him.

Darren smiled sadly. “Yeah, I know. It’d make things a lot easier if you would. I’ve got a straight razor. You can’t believe how tempted I was to use it, but I wanted to keep her fresh for you.”

I shook my head. The gesture wasn’t meant for Darren but for myself, to deny that something like this could be happening. The horror I was feeling was too intense to be real. If I closed my eyes, maybe it would all go away.

But I didn’t close my eyes. It wasn’t going to go away. I needed to keep myself focused to save this woman’s life.

“I’m not doing it. You’ll just have to shoot me.”

“I don’t believe that. I think if I shot you in the leg you’d do it. I think that if I put my gun in your mouth you’d do it. Don’t you think it would be fun? Her skin parting. She’d scream and scream but we’d be the only ones to hear and appreciate it. She’s a crack whore; nobody will miss her.”

The woman whimpered and cried softly.

“I’m not doing it,” I said. “You might as well just let her go.”

Darren shook his head. “I’m not gonna let her go. We both know that. But I’m also not going to make you slice her up at gunpoint. Instead, we’re going to do this as a game. See the dresser next to the bed? Open the top drawer.”

“No.”

“Goddamn it, Alex, don’t get all resistant on me! Open the drawer!”

Avoiding the woman’s eyes, I stepped over to the dresser and opened the top drawer.

Inside was a brand-new, shiny hatchet.

“It’s yours,” Darren said. “Take it.”

I picked up the hatchet and clenched it in my fist, wanting nothing more than to hurl it at him, to embed it in his throat.

“Here’s the game,” he said. “We’re going to let her loose in the yard. You have ten minutes to bring me back her head. Nothing else; just her head. If you don’t do it, I’ll find you, shoot you, and leave you to bleed to death while I laugh in your face. Then I’ll cut her into pieces so thin they’ll be invisible to the human eye. How does that sound?”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Then how about we add another little twist to the rules? Follow me.”

Darren backed out of the bedroom, keeping the gun pointed at me. I wondered if there was any possibility of flinging the hatchet at him before he squeezed off a shot. Pretty damn unlikely. But if he really did aim for my arm or leg, and I managed to get him in the face…

It wasn’t going to happen. He’d shoot me before the hatchet even left my hand.

I walked back into the main part of the cabin. Darren used the gun to gesture to the other door. “Open it,” he said. “Same key.”

I did so. It led to another bedroom. And another person tied to a bed. A little girl, probably not more than six.

“Oh my God…” I whispered.

“Her mommy and daddy are probably frantic,” said Darren. “She’s been missing for two weeks now. Don’t worry; I haven’t done anything to her. But here’s the deal: you have ten minutes to bring me the woman’s head. After ten minutes, I start hurting this little girl. I start hurting her bad. She has tiny little arms and I bet they come off real easy. I will hurt her until you finish the game, or until I decide that it’s game over. Now, is there any confusion whatsoever about how this is going to work, Alex?”

I shook my head, feeling as if I might pass out at any second. Or throw up. Or both.