Shut The Fuck Up And Die! (11 page)

From downstairs, the two could hear the
murmur of a conversation. There was definitely Mary’s voice but
also another. Possibly male. Though the words were nothing more
than a rhythmic drone, both Matt and Mona realized that the person
speaking to the old woman wasn’t either one of her sons. For one,
they wouldn’t have bothered with knocking; and the woman lacked the
strength to have carried Matt and Mona upstairs by herself. Which
meant that she’d had help. The boys were in on whatever was going
down and they were obviously not around right now. Otherwise, one
of them would have simply answered the door and left their mother
to finish the job at hand. So, no: there was someone else at the
door . . . an outsider who had no idea that two young lovers were
tied up and awaiting death within the house.

Mona switched tactics again, this time
twisting her wrists in opposite directions as she pulled at the
same time. The ropes rubbed against her flesh like sandpaper and
she bit into the rubber ball in her mouth as she squeezed her eyes
shut. Her wrists felt as if the skin were being scraped away layer
by layer and the coarse fibers of the rope were like tiny needles
that jabbed into raw flesh. But still she continued to twist and
pull, ignoring the pain that coaxed beads of sweat from her brow;
she tried to focus, instead, on thoughts of Matt. She pictured the
shallow wound on his neck, the trickle of blood from where the old
bitch’s knife had nicked him . . . .

How much longer would the unseen visitor be
at the door? How much longer until Mary returned? Pain was not an
option . . . if they were going to make it out of this nightmare,
it had to be now. While their captor was still distracted.

Mona wrenched her wrists so violently that,
from behind, they probably looked as if they were wrestling one
another. More and more flesh was stripped away and the pain was now
a stinging burn. It throbbed through her hands and arms as blood
oozed from the self-inflicted wounds, the abrasions seeming to make
her very bones scream in torment; but this agony, as intense as it
was, would be nothing compared to what she would feel if her
beloved Mattie were snuffed out right before her eyes. She would
gladly endure the fires of Hell if it meant keeping her new husband
safe and alive. And if that meant fighting through the pain of a
rope burn, even one this severe, then so be it. She would do
whatever she needed to.

Her wrists were raw and now entirely coated
with blood. She could feel it ooze down her hands, as warm and
sticky as the syrup Matt always poured on her pancakes, and she
realized that she didn’t have to struggle quite as hard now. It was
as if her hands were moving just a bit more freely. As if all that
blood were like oil, lubricating the spaces where rope met
meat.

From downstairs, the lull of the conversation
continued. But it was obvious that Mary’s tone was becoming
sharper, growing impatient with her visitor. It would only be a
matter of time before she shooed them away and returned to the room
with that viscous little knife of hers. And she would then kill
Matt as easily as if it were something she did every day. Mona had
no doubt about this . . . and she couldn’t let that happen.

Mona threw her left shoulder down while
wrenching her right one upward so violently that the sound of her
joints popping was like the snap of a dry twig. The rope shifted
positions and peeled away a new layer of flesh. She screamed into
her gag, though the sound was nothing more than a moan behind the
red ball, and then repeated the action again, this time changing
directions on each shoulder.

To Matt, it probably looked as if her entire
body were wracked with spasms; but she continued jerking her
shoulders again and again, stripping away layers of tissue with
each savage thrust. Finally, she felt the coils of rope shift. Ever
so slightly: almost as if they were drawing back in an attempt to
figure out what this wild-eyed woman was up to . . . but that was
all it took. Mona redoubled her efforts, grunting and groaning as
her slender, blood-glazed hands slipped through the intertwined
knots of her bindings; she twisted and yanked, pulled and slithered
her way through the rope until, finally, her left hand plopped
free. After that, it was only a matter of seconds before he right
hand joined the first: drops of blood spattered against the floor
as she worked at the knots securing her ankles to the chair’s legs
and then she scampered across the room, not even pausing to remove
the straps of her gag.

She crouched behind Matt’s chair and pulled
at his ropes, freeing him much more quickly than she had herself.
In less than a minute, they were both reaching behind their heads
and undoing the buckles on the ball gags; when, at last, they were
completely free of Mary’s little toys, Matt embraced his wife so
tightly that it almost seemed as if her were attempting to somehow
pull her into the safety of his own body.

Their lips parted and they kissed deeply,
their tongues gliding over one another in passionate fury . . . but
only for a moment. Then they pulled away from each other and
glanced around the room like a pair of tigers who’d just realized
the zoo keeper had left the door of the cage open.

“
Oh shit, babe . . . your
wrists.”

Matt practically ran to the desk and shuffled
through the scrapbooking material that cluttered its top. At the
same time, Mona stalked across the room and pulled back the
curtains just enough so that she was able to peek out the
window.

The morning sun had crested the horizon now
and glistened on the snow as if the rolling dunes had been dusted
with glitter. At the corner of the house, and almost entirely out
of sight, she could just make out a car. It was a black and white
sedan and a row of red and blue lights perched on its top. She
turned her head toward Matt, who had found a scalpel-like Exacto
knife and was busy cutting long strips of cloth from the hem of his
shirt.

“
Cops, Mattie . . . she’s talking to
a
cop
.”

Matt, however, acted as if he hadn’t heard
Mona’s report. He ripped free the last piece of cloth and hurried
to Mona’s side, where he began wrapping them around her wrists so
gently it almost seemed as if he were afraid the makeshift bandages
would cause her arms to crumble.

“
I’m pretty sure that cunt locked the
door.” He said as he worked.

Mona nodded.

“
Yeah, I heard it, too. Did you see the
bow in the case in the hallway? What I wouldn’t do to get my hands
on that.”

Matt tied the dressings carefully, trying to
ensure that the pressure didn’t cause his wife any more pain that
what she already had to be feeling.

“
Think the cop is looking for
us?”

Mona turned the question over in her mind for
a moment before replying.

“
Don’t see how . . . nobody knows we’re
here. Has to be somethign else, I think.”

“
Yeah. That’s about the way I have it
figured, too. Here, you take this.”

Matt handed Mona the Exacto knife and she
grinned despite the deep throbbing that ached in her bandaged
wrists.

“
Oh sweetie . . . “ she said with a
wink, “you shouldn’t have.”

“
More practical than flowers and better
than a card. Now . . . what do you say we get the hell out of here,
princess?”

The couple crept across the room, their feet
creaking so softly on the floorboards that it easily could have
been mistaken for nothing more than the warmth of the rising sun
expanding the old wood. Approaching the door on the opposite side
of the room, Matt turned the knob so slowly that he almost seemed
like a cat burglar trying to gain entrance. Pressing one hand
against the door, he opened it carefully so that the creaking of
hinges wouldn’t give them away.

The room on the other side was much darker
and emptier than the one they’d been held captive in. Rather than
smelling of lilacs and body powder, this one had an almost coppery,
salty aroma in the air. Mixed with this was a stench that reminded
Mona of the time their toilet had been clogged for nearly three
days: something like shit and stale piss tainted the air and, as
her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she noticed the sole piece of
furniture in the room for the first time.

It was a large, butcher block table that
looked as though its legs had been bolted to the floor by a series
of metal fixtures. A naked woman leaned across the table with her
hands stretched out in front of her and she seemed to be placing
all of her body weight into her torso. Even so, her buckled knees
trembled and Mona wondered for a moment why the woman simply didn’t
sit down upon the floor. She looked pale and tired and the skin
drooped from her frame as if she’d lost a lot of weight in a very
short period of time. But there was something else . . . a series
of dark lines marred her skin almost to the point that it looked as
though her emaciated body had been used to draw clusters of
tic-tac-toe boards onto her flesh.

“
What the fuck is this?”

At the sound of Matt’s voice, the oily mass
of tangles that was the woman’s hair turned slightly. She glanced
over her shoulder and her eyes grew round as she saw the couple in
the doorway. Tears streamed from the corner and she mumbled
excitedly into the same sort of gag that Matt and Mona had come to
know all too well.

Matt walked across the room as if the woman
might leap toward him at any second. With steps as slow and
deliberate as a big game hunter, he circled around the table while
his eyes took in every detail.

“
Oh shit, sweetie . . . her hands have
been
nailed
to the table.
She’s cut up bad, too.”

Mona stayed in the doorway and looked back
into the room they’d came out, listening for the key to rattle in
the door once again. The Exacto knife was leveled in front of her
and, if her husband’s words had any impact on her at all, it was
not betrayed by the hard expression that was chiseled onto her
face.

“
Looks like this bitch has been kept
here a while.”

The woman probably thought she was thrashing
about, but – in her weakened state – she looked more like a fish
that had been thrown onto the bank for far too long and was in the
final stages of its death throes. She continued babbling into the
ball gag and her eyes almost seemed to plead with Matt, who
squatted down next to her.

“
Look, I’m going to take that gag out,
okay? But you have to stay quiet. That old lady? She doesn’t know
we’re free yet. And we want to keep it that way, okay? You
understand?”

The woman nodded her head as tears glistened
on her hollow cheeks.

“
Okay . . . I’m taking the gag off,
now.”

Standing, Matt slid the straps through the
buckle on the back of the woman’s head and plopped the ball from
her mouth. Almost immediately, loud sobs burst from her mouth like
water from a crumbled damn. Matt slapped his hand over the woman’s
lips so hard that her head snapped backward. Even then, her words
kept bubbling up like the snot that was beginning to leak from her
noise.

“
Look,” he hissed, “I told you . . .
stay
quiet
. I mean it, okay?
I’m not fucking around here, you understand?”

The woman sniffled and nodded her head again
as she tried to blink away her tears.

“
You sure? Because I’m serious. . . you
only get one more chance, honey.”

More nodding.

Matt eased his hand away from the woman’s
mouth, ready to clamp it back down if he had to. But this time the
lady with the nails in her hands stayed true to her word. Her voice
was nothing more than a whimper that hitched and quivered with
tears.

“
Crazy, they’re all crazy, please get
me out of here, please, please, please . . . .”

“
Shhhh . . . it’s okay . . . shhhh . .
. .”

From outside the house an engine rumbled,
causing Mona to spin around as quickly as a ballerina. She now
faced the locked door in the other room again as she held the
Exacto knife in front of her like a swordsman preparing for
battle.

“
Cop’s leaving.” She whispered. “I
figure that old hag will wait until he’s well out of sight before .
. . .”

“
Cop? There’s a cop here? What’s wrong
you with, you people? There’s a
cop
!”

Darlene’s eyes darted from Matt to Mona and
then back to Matt again. Both of them stared at her silently,
almost as if it had never crossed their minds that maybe, perhaps,
they could simply yell for help. That all of this could be over,
that they could go home, be free . . .

“
Help m . . . .”

The scream that had begun to erupt from
Darlene’s mouth was cut short as Matt’s hand slapped over her lips
again with a sharp crack. She tried to shake her head free, but he
pressed his palm even more tightly against her face and braced his
other hand against the back of her head.

“
Now, I told you, damn it. One more
chance. I told you, didn’t I?”

Darlene sank her teeth into Matt’s flesh and
he winced but made no move to yank his hand away.

“
Stupid fucking bitch.”

Without another word, he pushed the woman’s
jaw in one direction and jerked her head in the other with a
violent twist. There was a sharp snapping sound, almost like a
wishbone being pulled apart at Thanksgiving, and then he allowed
Darlene’s body to limply slump toward the ground. Only the nails in
her hands kept her from collapsing like a discarded rag doll as her
unblinking eyes stared into eternity.