Chapter Fourteen

What Fun Doesn’t Look Like

 

 

 

Stinging pains like a million tiny needles jabbed into Lexi’s hands, wrists and arms. The fiery sensation burned deep inside her, numbing her muscles and making her feel only half there, like someone had pulled off her arms and legs then tossed her down, leaving her to wriggle across the floor like a worm. That couldn’t be, she told herself.

Wake up.

Wake up now and fight.

Her stomach turned, clenching as a horrific odor oozed into her pores and swelled her lungs. With each breath, she pulled in more of horrible smell until the stench permeated her body. Gradually she came to, working to open her eyes and struggling to remember.

So relieved to see her own front porch light.

Almost reaching her front door, a brief struggle…

The gray rag, smothering her…

That wicked smell, the blackness…

What had she noticed, right before being grabbed?

Step by step, she flipped back through her memory, narrowing her attention to that single fine line of events until she hit on the one thing that had stood out to her at the moment. The vacant spot in her driveway usually filled with her stepdad’s van. A rush of disgust rolled through her. Dale Welks had sunk to a new low, kidnapping his own stepdaughter. The possibility stirred the queasiness in her stomach, made her aching arms and hands throb with new fierceness.

No. She couldn’t let herself freak out. That was the last thing she needed, wild fear and anger wiping out her ability to think.

Lexi returned to her thinking. The memories started to fill in, especially the pieces of the park—her starting to think Monica was right, racing away from Ash. The fury in his voice, the hint of a threat. Was he so spiteful that he’d take her? His tone had softened after she’d run away. His calls had become less hostile, more pleading. Did that mean something?

Wiggling against the throbbing in her limbs, she tried to get the feeling to return so she could use her muscles. The tingling in her arms and legs was brutal but she continued on, anxious to get through the pain and move. Lexi struggled to sit and loosen her bound wrists, but when she moved her fingers she realized her hands were covered with a plastic bag. Even though another surge of fear threatened to make her lose control, she continued bending her fingers up and down over and over until the ripples of pain softened enough that she had sensation in the tips of her fingers.

The inside of the bag was damp. Sticky, maybe. From her own sweat? The plastic was pretty thin, grocery store shopping bag most likely. She wiggled, trying to poke holes in the plastic and fighting the twine wrapped around her wrists. With each movement, the stench surrounding her flowed deeper into her skin, saturating each quivering inch of her inside and out.

“Lexi?”

She stiffened.

Was the sound real? Or was that stink making her lose her mind?

She held her breath, kept herself completely still.

The voice came again. “You okay?”

She tensed, braced to defend herself as best she could.

“Lexi, it’s me, Monica. Are you okay?”

She sucked in air and ended up gagging on the swollen stink of the dark place. Blinking into the thick black air, Lexi forced her eyes to adjust. About ten feet away, the silhouette of Monica’s dark hair formed.

“Lexi? You okay?” The rustle of plastic being twisted came through the darkness. “He got me too.”

“Monica?” Disbelief swelled in Lexi’s mind. She fought against the confusion, trying to clear her thoughts.

“Yeah. It’s me.” The crinkle of plastic came again. “He got me too. I’m tied up, just like you.”

That made no sense.

“What does he want with you?” she asked, even though she was still uncertain about who had taken her. Taken them? “What does he want with me?”

“I don’t know.”

They’d said Monica had gone missing hours before she’d gone out with Ash. How long had she been gone before anyone noticed? Terror climbed up her back and cut off her air as more questions surfaced, bobbing along with the others. How long had she been out? Where the hell were they? She tried to speak, but her throat had tightened and the only sound that came out was a hiss. The hiss turned into a cough, which turned into a gag. Soon Lexi was fighting for control of her breathing. She let the shudders in her lungs roll through her until finally the heaving stopped and she was left with a manageable pant. Inhaling through her mouth made the stench less unbearable so she continued, pulling the air through her mouth then exhaling through her nose.

The rasp of Monica’s sharp breath crept through the bleak stench. “We’re in trouble.”

Lexi continued focusing on her breathing, doing what she had to to straighten out her mind. That meant she had to stop thinking about what made sense and what did not. Speculation would make her head spin and get her nowhere. She needed to concentrate on the facts.

One new fact bubbled up—she had no real proof that Monica was actually tied up. The girl could easily be pretending. Of all this things she’d considered, that one, given everything that had happened, made the most sense.

“You!” Lexi wriggled from side to side, anxious now to get the feeling back in her legs so she could get to her feet. The other girl’s guilty silence exploded between them. She used her anger to energize herself and give herself the will to fight harder. “What kind of freak are you?”

“It’s not me,” Monica replied, her voice urgent. “Don’t you get it? We’re in trouble. Real trouble.”

Lexi had fallen for the girl’s lies before. That was in the past. “Who helped you?” She thrashed more, biting at the plastic covering her hands, jerking at the twine to free her wrists.

“Lexi!” Monica insisted, her voice taking on an unfamiliar edge. “I didn’t have anything to do with this. As a matter of fact, if I hadn’t come to your house, trying to help you, I wouldn’t be here.”

Trying to help her? The absurd comment stopped her cold. “You didn’t come to my house. And what do you mean trying to help me?” Lexi spat in disgust, the stiff cord cutting into her ankles as she squirmed against the cold, hard floor beneath her. “Like I’m supposed to believe that.”

“It’s the truth. I didn’t want you to have to go to the police station alone. Remember?”

There was a shuffling sound. Lexi’s eyes had adjusted enough that she could tell it was from Monica. Pebbles ground against the cement floor as she scooted over, the movement slow because the other girl was tied up too.

Lexi fought for another breath, gagging as the stench filled her stomach with bile and made her head swim. The smell was foul, unnatural, unimaginable in its awfulness. This time she ignored the fear that came each time she pulled the nastiness of it into her body, scrambling despite the agony until her legs came under her. Leaning against the rough wall, she fought the binds and the pain until she was upright. Her legs were bound so balance was difficult, she swayed awkwardly then hopped to keep from toppling over.

But it was no good, the movement made the panting return, only this time she forgot to breathe in through her mouth. Suddenly she couldn’t stop heaving. Her lungs twisted and her knees started to shake. The precious little control she’d managed to gather started to slip away, bit by bit.

“Lexi. Lexi!” Monica worked herself over a few more inches, until they were close enough to brush shoulders. “You’re going to make yourself pass out. Sit back down. You need to put your head between your legs and breathe slowly. In and then out.”

“No, I-I have—I—have—” Lexi hopped forward but her knees buckled—she went down in a heap.

“It’s okay. We’re going to be okay,” Monica whispered, gradually scooting to where Lexi had fallen.

Lexi’s check stung where it had hit the floor and the pain radiated down her neck, blending in with the pain in her arms and back. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back the flood of hot tears as the waves of queasiness and the vise-like grip of panic tightened around her chest.

“Look at me,” Monica pleaded, leaning her shoulder into her

Lexi squeezed her eyelids tighter, shook her head. The reality was too much. Excruciating. Absolutely unbearable.

“Please?” the other girl asked again. “Open your eyes. It’s just the two of us here. We have to work together. We’ve got to keep things from getting worse.”

But Lexi couldn’t open her eyes, and she couldn’t stop smelling the horrible smell, the sickly sweet scent that coated her body, filled her head and soaked her through and through. She tried breathing through her mouth again but now that she’d taken in so much of the smell, the heavy, full rush of air only made the repulsion worse. Her stomach convulsed and her lungs trembled. Her last thought before blacking out was the memory of Ash on the park bench, trying to smother her with the blanket.

 

* * * *

 

Consciousness came back to Lexi, brought on by the sounds of heavy footsteps and loud breathing. She opened her eyes and saw a person coming toward her, a bright, swinging camp-style lantern out in front of a tall, wide-shouldered body. Yellow light cut up from beneath the guy’s chin, distorting a battered catcher’s mask, hiding his face and muffling his voice.

“Hi.” The fingers of his left hand twitched. “Having fun? I hope so, because I know having fun is all you really care about.”

He leaned down, the huge mask swallowing his face.

Lexi’s skin burned hot, her muscles flicked. Was this part of a dream? Something she was remembering from before she’d been snatched? No, she realized when he spoke again. This was now.

“How are my special video sweethearts? Enjoying each other?” The lantern swung high, squeaking as it swayed on its handle. The light danced across the floor and the guy in the mask twisted, adding, “And our guest, of course. You’re enjoying him as well. Am I right?”

Lexi’s gaze followed the path of the light. Her gaze moved along, following the filmy, lemon-yellow path. The illumination stopped and she saw what the guy intended for her to see.

No, not what.

But who.

Jon Eagle.

He was seated on a wooden crate and tied to a pillar, ropes and brightly colored coils wrapped around, cutting into his decaying flesh. His clothes hung limply, looking like clothes that had been stretched across and around him after he’d died then started to rot. Empty plastic ice bags covered his twisted feet and filled his lap. Some of the bags had blue penguins, some had a cluster of red snowflakes. Empty two-liter bottles of Coke circled his feet. Two shrunken eyes, floating above hollowed cheeks, stared straight ahead. An open mouth screamed silently.

The shriek that gathered inside Lexi came out as a garbled, defeated wail. The pitiful sound of her own cry made her shiver then tremble with an odd intensity. The vibrations in her body were a feral combination of terror and brute force. She let out another wail, hoping that the wild strength in her would win out.

The person with the lantern rushed forward, shouting over her shrieks. “Stop screaming.”

Lexi kept on, hoping that she’d find some mystical power to escape or that someone would hear her, or that she would wake up. She stared ahead, watching the gentle swaying of the lantern and its spilled light as she howled. On and on she went, battling with herself to keep from giving in to the helplessness of her situation.

The guy set the lantern down and pulled a rag from his pocket. Even though she knew what was coming, she didn’t stop screaming. The sound was all she had, the only way to fight back, and so she used it. He held the lantern up, taunting her. From beside her, she heard Monica urging her to stop with the noise but she had no intention of listening.

He took one step forward.

Then another.

And one more.

In a long, smooth, motion, so graceful it looked like he did it all the time, he swooped in and stuffed the nasty thing into her hollering mouth. She recognized the scent and, realizing that she had to fight another way, twisted, willing herself to stay conscious.

Don’t let him win.

Be strong.

But whatever was on the rag found its way into her lungs and wiped her out, the last of her screams fading into the desolation of her mind.