65 Proof (62 page)

At the counter, she chose a pack of Juicy Fruit and pushed the items forward.

The clerk tore herself away from a video Daily Double and rang up the purchase.

“$24.52.”

Lucy looked up from her wallet. “How much of that is gas?”

“Twenty.”

“Shit, I told him just do fifteen. Here.” She put a Jefferson on the filthy counter. “I’ll send him in with the balance, ’cause this is all I’ve got.”

“Don’t be trying to steal my gas.”

Donaldson was screwing on the gas cap when Lucy walked up. She said, “They still need five bucks. I’m sorry. It came to more than twenty with the drinks and gum. I’m out of cash.”

“No ATM?”

“Here? Lucky they have electricity. I’ll get you next stop.” She flashed a shy grin, sashaying her fingers through the air. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

He just stared at her for a moment, then turned and started toward the store. Lucy opened the front passenger door and traded out Donaldson’s Big Gulp for the fresh drink. She tossed the bucket-size cup into a trashcan between the pumps and climbed in.

Donaldson was at the counter. Lucy glanced into the backseat at the cooler with the biohazard sign. She looked into the convenience store, back at the cooler, then spun quickly around in her seat and reached back toward the lid.

Empty. The inside a dull, stained white. She closed it again.

Donaldson’s footsteps slapped at the pavement. She settled back into her seat as he opened his door. The chassis bounced when he eased his bulk behind the wheel.

“Sorry about that,” Lucy said. “I thought I had another ten. I could swear my snowboarder friend gave me some cash.” She stuck out her lower lip, pouting. “I got you some gum. And a new drink.”

Donaldson frowned, but he took the Juicy Fruit, ran it under his nose.

“Thank you, kindly. Fresh soda too, huh?”

Lucy cracked open the Red Bull and nodded.

“Cheers. To new friends.” She took a sip. A trail of pink liquid dribbled down the corner of her mouth, hugging her chin and neck, dampening her shirt.

Donaldson shifted in his chair and reached for the cup. He sipped on the straw and made a face.

“What flavor is this?”

“I didn’t know what you liked,” Lucy said. “So I got you a little of everything.”

Donaldson chuckled his approval, then turned the key and put the car into gear.

The winding county road ahead was pitch black, like driving through ink. Donaldson sipped his soda. Lucy watched him closely, taking periodic nips at her energy drink. The cool, dry air seemed to crackle with electricity as they climbed into the mountains.

“So is that really a guitar in that case?” Donaldson asked after five miles of silence.

“What do you think?”

“I’ll be honest with you, darlin’. You’re a bit of a mystery to me. I’ve been around, but I’m not sure what to make of you.”

“How so?”

“You’re young. But you’ve heard of Vietnam, I’m guessing.”

“I loved
Platoon
.”

Donaldson nodded. “Well then, you were practically there in the rice paddies with me, going toe-to-toe with the Cong.”

He drank more soda. Lucy watched.

“Took some shrapnel in my hip in Ca Lu,” Donaldson said. “Nicked my sciatic nerve. Biggest nerve in the body. Pain sometimes gets so bad I can chew through a bath towel. Do you understand pain, little girl?”

“More so than you’d think.”

“So you should know, then, opiates and I are friends from way back.” Donaldson took a big pull off the soda. “So spiking my drink here hasn’t done much more than make me a little horny. Actually a lot horny.” Donaldson turned to Lucy. “You’re about as musical as I am Christian. So you want to tell me what your game is, or do I take you over my knee and spank you right now like the naughty girl you are?”

Lucy said, “It’s Oxycontin. Did they have that back in ’Nam, gramps? And you being one fat bastard, I squirted two hundred and fifty milligrams into your drink. I’m not some frat boy trying to roofie up a chunky freshman. I gave you the rhino dose.”

She tested the weight of the Styrofoam cup. “Jesus, you’ve already gone through half of it? I’m actually more concerned you’re going to die of a drug overdose instead of the fun I have planned.”

She reached across the seat and squeezed his leg. “Look, you will be losing consciousness shortly, so we don’t have much time. Pull the car over. I’d like to take you up on that spanking.”

Donaldson stared at her, blinked hard twice, and stomped the brake pedal.

Lucy’s seatbelt released and she slammed into the metal-reinforced dashboard. Donaldson shook his head, then swiped the zip tie from his pocket. He grabbed a handful of wool cap and the hair beneath it and yanked Lucy up off the floor. She fought hard, but weight and strength won out and he cinched her hands behind her back.

Donaldson glanced through the windshield, then checked the rearview mirror. Darkness.

Lucy laughed through her shattered nose and ran her tongue along her swollen upper lip and gums—two front teeth MIA.

Donaldson blinked and shook his head again. Pulled off the road onto the shoulder.

“We’re gonna have some fun, little girl,” he said. “And two hundred and fifty milligrams is like candy to me.”

He ran a clumsy paw across her breasts, squeezing hard, then turned his attention to the backseat.

The guitar case had two clasps, one on the body, one on the neck.

Donaldson slapped the left side of his face three times and then opened the case.

A waft of foulness seeped out of the velvet-lined guitar lid, although the contents didn’t seem to be the source—a length of chain. Four pairs of handcuffs. Three carabiners. Vials of liquid Oxycontin. Cutlery shears. A creepy-looking instrument with six blades at one end. A spotlight. A small spray bottle. Two coils of climbing rope. And a snowboarding helmet.

The front passenger door squeaked open and Donaldson spun around as Lucy fell backward out of the car. He lunged into her seat, but she kicked the door. It slammed into his face, his chin crunching his mouth closed, and as the door recoiled, he saw Lucy struggling onto her feet, her wrists still bound behind her back.

She disappeared into the woods.

Donaldson took a moment, fumbling for the door handle. He found it, but paused.

He adjusted the rearview mirror, grinning to see the blood between his teeth.

“Should we let this one go, sport? Or show the little missus that there are things a lot scarier than a guitar case full of bondage shit?”

Donaldson winked at his reflection, tugged out the keys, yanked up the brake, and shoved his door open. He weaved over to the trunk, a stupid grin on his face, got the right key in on the third try.

Among the bottles of bleach solution, the rolls of paper towels, the gas cans, and the baby wipes, Donaldson grabbed the only weapon an upstanding citizen could legally carry without harassment from law enforcement.

The tire iron clenched in his hand, he bellowed at the woods.

“I’m coming for you, Lucy! And there won’t be any drugs to dull
your
pain!”

He stumbled into the forest after her, his erection beginning to blossom.

***

She crouched behind a juniper tree, the zip tie digging into her wrists. Absolute darkness in the woods, nothing to see, but everything to hear.

Donaldson yelled, “Don’t hide from me, little girl! It’ll just make me angry!”

His heavy footsteps crunched in the leaves. Lucy eased down onto her butt and leaned back, legs in the air, then slid her bound wrists up the length of them. Donaldson stumbled past her tree, invisible, less than ten feet away.

“Lucy? Where are you?” His words slurred. “I just wanna talk.”

“I’m over here, big boy! Still waiting for that spanking!”

His footsteps abruptly stopped. Dead quiet for thirty seconds, and then the footsteps started up again, heading in her general direction.

“Oh, no, please,” she moaned. “Don’t hurt me, Donaldson. I’m so afraid you’ll hurt me.”

He was close now, and she turned and started back toward the road, her hands out in front of her to prevent collision with a tree.

A glint of light up ahead—the Honda’s windshield catching a piece of moonlight.

Lucy emerged from the woods, her hands throbbing from circulation loss. She stumbled into the car and turned around to watch the treeline.

“Come on, big boy! I’m right here! You can make it!”

Donaldson staggered out of the woods holding a tire iron, and when the moon struck his eyes, they were already half-closed.

He froze.

He opened his mouth to say something, but fell over instead, dropping like an old, fat tree.

***

Donaldson opened his eyes and lifted his head. Dawn and freezing cold. He lay in weeds at the edge of the woods, his head resting in a padded helmet. His wrists had been cuffed, hands purple from lack of blood flow, and his ankles were similarly bound. He was naked and glazed with dew, and as the world came into focus, he saw that one of those carabiners from Lucy’s guitar case had been clipped to his ankle cuffs. A climbing rope ran from that carabiner to another carabiner, which was clipped to a chain which was wrapped around the trailer hitch of his Honda.

The driver-side door opened and Lucy got out, walked down through the weeds. She came over and sat on his chest, giving him a missing-toothed smile.

“Morning, Donaldson. You of all people will appreciate what’s about to happen.”

Donaldson yawned, then winked at her. “Aren’t you just the prettiest thing to wake up to?”

Lucy batted her eyelashes.

“Thank you. That’s sweet. Now, the helmet is so you don’t die too fast. Head injuries ruin the fun. We’ll go slow in the beginning. Barely walking speed. Then we’ll speed up a bit when we get you onto asphalt. The last ones screamed for five miles. They where skeletons when I finally pulled over. But you’re so heavy, I think you just might break that record.”

“I have some bleach spray in the trunk,” Donaldson said. “You might want to spritz me with that first, make it hurt even more.”

“I prefer lemon juice, but it’s no good until after the first half mile.”

Donaldson laughed.

“You think this is a joke?”

He shook his head. “No. But when you have the opportunity to kill, you should kill. Not talk.”

Donaldson sat up, quick for a man his size, and rammed his helmet into Lucy’s face. As she reeled back, he caught her shirt with his swollen hands and rolled on top of her, his bulk making her gasp.

“The keys,” he ordered. “Undo my hands, right now.”

Lucy tried to talk, but her lungs were crushed. Donaldson shifted and she gulped in some air.

“In…the…guitar case…”

“That’s a shame. That means you die right here. Personally, I think suffocation is the way to go. All that panic and struggle. Dragging some poor sap behind you? Where’s the fun in that? Hell, you can’t even see it without taking your eyes off the road, and that’s a dangerous way to drive, girl.”

Lucy’s eyes bulged, her face turning scarlet.

“Poc…ket.”

“Take your time. I’ll wait.”

Lucy managed to fish out the handcuff keys. Donaldson shifted again, giving her a fraction more room, and she unlocked a cuff from one of his wrists.

He winced, his face getting mean.

“Now let me tell you about the survival of the fittest, little lady. There’s a…”

The chain suddenly jerked, tugging Donaldson across the ground. He clutched Lucy.

“Where are the car keys, you stupid bitch?”

“In the ignition…”

“You didn’t set the parking brake! Give me the handcuff key!”

The car crept forward, beginning to pick up speed as it rolled quietly down the road.

The skin of Donaldson’s right leg tore against the ground, peeling off, and the girl pounded on him, fighting to get away.

“The key!” he howled, losing his grip on her. He clawed at her waist, her hips, and snagged her foot.

Lucy screamed when the cuff snicked tightly around her ankle.

“No! No no no!” She tried to sit up, to work the key into the lock, but they hit a hole and it bounced from her grasp.

They were dragged off the dirt and onto the road.

Lucy felt the pavement eating through her trench coat, Donaldson in hysterics as it chewed through the fat of his ass, and the car still accelerating down the five-percent grade.

At thirty miles per hour, the fibers of Lucy’s trench coat were sanded away, along with her camouflage panties, and just as she tugged a folding knife out of her pocket and began to hack at the flesh of her ankle, the rough county road began to grind through her coccyx.

She dropped the knife and they screamed together for two of the longest miles of their wretched lives, until the road curved and the Honda didn’t, and the car and Lucy and Donaldson all punched together through a guardrail and took the fastest route down the mountain.

Here’s another old story that I eventually rewrote to flesh it out a bit. It’s an epistolary peace, entirely done as journal entries written by a teen girl. I revisited the epistolary form for a section in an upcoming Jack Kilborn book.