Dead of Eve (10 page)

He groaned and the sound jolted the place already throbbing below my waist. He raised the sheet, eyes dark with lust. “Come here. I want to test a theory.”

I rolled against him, drawing in his comforting scent of Cavendish tobacco. “If this theory involves you and me naked in bed, you have my full attention.”

His hard body tucked against my soft one. “I’ve noticed a pattern.” He coiled his arms around my waist and nuzzled my neck. “When we sleep like this, skin to skin, you don’t wake with night terrors.”

Huh. Was that right? When his tongue slipped between my lips, I forgot what we were testing.

Over the next few days, Joel rigged a system to convert lake water to drinking water. As the sky blushed with dawn’s sun, we stood around a tiered drum layered with gravel, sand and charcoal, each layer separated by thin cloth.

Joel didn’t even try to hide his proud grin. “I’m gonna go help Steve bring down that last barrel.” He looked at me, opened his mouth, shut it. Then he grabbed my chin and planted a kiss on my lips. “High ready while I’m gone.” He nodded to my carbine. “Finger next to the trigger, okay?”

“Roger that.”

He kissed me again and took off.

Eugene bent over the siphon, watching the water pump into a barrel strapped to a refrigerator dolly. While we waited, he cheered me with far-fetched narrations about the monstrous fish he and my father caught in the very cove we pumped from.

“Hey Evie,” Steve yelled from the house. “Can you come in a minute?”

Eugene nodded. “Go ahead.” He tapped a finger on the sidearm holstered at his hip. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, be right back.”

I flew up the ramp and stumbled into the dark basement. As I waited for my vision to adjust, a muffled moan tingled across my skin. I turned. “Joel?”

Steve stepped out of the shadows, his smile distorted from its usual easy lift. Then his arms rose. The last thing I saw was the butt of his shotgun swinging toward my face.

Well, I can kill too because now I have hate!

How many can I kill, Chino? How many?!

And still have one bullet left for me?

Arthur Laurents,
West Side Story

Pied light penetrated my swollen lids. I cracked them open.

Steve knelt over me. “Good morning, beautiful.”

I groaned. Needles pulsated in my head. “What are you doing?” I tugged my arms. They were tied at my back. My ankles and knees were bound as well.

He cupped my jaw. “Shhh. Soon.” His smile threatened, hinted at something cruel, and he knew it.

When he dropped his hand, I arched my back and tilted my head. Joel lay hog-tied in the corner, his eyes pitch-black and penetrating, his mouth a pinched line.

Was this another fucking nightmare? “Are you okay?” I whispered.

He blinked and sucked in his cheeks.

“Joel?”

His lashes lowered and his chest shuddered through a ragged breath.

“Joel? Why aren’t you talking?”

“Because”—Steve paced a circle around me—“he understands the rules.”

A deep inhale helped me squash the emotion from my voice. “What are the rules?”

“Each sound he makes will be paid in blood.” A frightening grin wrenched his lips. “That would be your blood.”

I’d bet our ration of ammo that every sound he didn’t make would also be paid in the same. I rolled my head, forced my gaze to the unknown across the room. Eugene was on a ladder, drilling something into the ceiling. Several pulleys were screwed into the joists with rope laced through them.

“Eugene.” My shout inflamed the pain in my head.

Steve stood over me, framed in halos of fluorescent bulbs. “He’s busy. What do you need?”

“I want to talk to my husband. Let me go over there.”

“No fucking way.”

How the hell did they take down Joel? Mother fuckers had the advantage of surprise. He trusted them and they used it against us.

I lay on my side and waited for Steve’s hovering shadow to float away.

Joel’s eyes burned into mine and I furrowed my brows, let him read the question there. What was the plan?

His gaze jerked between me and the clatter on the other side of the room. His lips formed words, soundless and careful. “Your. Pack. In. Boat. Go.”

I shook my throbbing head and whispered, “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

A vein bulged on his forehead. “Promise,” he mouthed.

Even if I could escape, I’d never leave him. I thrust my chin left to right.

The muscles in his chest and arms pumped up for a fight. “Promise. Me.” His moving lips were mute, but I felt the venom of his demand in my gut.

The squeak of sneakers on concrete pierced the silence. Footsteps approached. Hands curled into my bound arms, lifting me.

Joel tried to get up, eyes wild. Then I was bent over Steve’s shoulder, watching his back and legs move over the concrete. I arched to look at Joel, captured his gaze, and mouthed, “I promise.”

He closed his eyes and sagged against the wall.

Steve bent and my back hit cement. A smile slithered across his face and kicked up my pulse. “Hey Pop, ’bout ready?”

“All set.” Eugene strutted over to me, hiking his trousers over his gut. “Oh, Evie girl. Steve and I’s been real lonely, like. Seeing how you’re the last woman left, it’s your job to help us out with that.”

A hot acid burn made its way to the back of my throat. “What? Eugene, no. Don’t you fucking do this. I’ll fucking—”

Steve shoved a rag in my mouth. I bit his finger and tried to head butt him. He sat on me and tied a gag around my head. That done, he raised the AA-12 and aimed it at Joel.

Eugene knelt next to me, fisting a large hunting knife. I bit down on the rag and dug my nails into my palms, but the heave of my chest betrayed me.

“Now you’re gonna hold real still for me while I cut away your clothes.”

“Or else,” Steve said, “I’ll introduce Joel to this shotgun you fancy so much.”

Piece by piece was cut away. Eugene kept his eyes on the knife, careful not to nick me despite my squirming and moaning. Finally, the last scrap of clothing was removed and I lay bare on the cold floor.

Eugene collected the rope hanging from the pulleys. Used it to replace the ties on my wrist. Then he yanked hard on another rope and slid me into place. I hung from a pulley system designed to lift me up and down. I twisted my arms and pulled as hard as I could against the binds. There was no give.

I thought about my life leading to that moment, about my father. When he pulled the trigger on himself, was he sorry he never hugged me? Never told me he loved me? If he were there, would he have given me those comforts knowing I so desperately needed it?

“Pop, let me do the honors, huh?”

“Go ahead, boy.”

Steve tossed him the AA-12 and squatted before me. His eyes seared every inch of my skin. “Fucking beautiful. I’ve been watching you, you know. When you and Joel thought you were stealing away those private moments. When you thought you were bathing under his eyes only.” He wet his lips and pulled a blade from his boot. “But I’ve longed to see you close up. Like this.”

He traced the inside of my thigh with the blunt edge of the blade. I tried to stifle the brutal shaking in my muscles and failed. He cut away the ties at my knees and ankles.

I kicked out a leg. He was expecting it and dodged. “Now, now. There’s only one reason we’re keeping Joel alive.”

Eugene stepped over to Joel and kicked him in the side. I writhed against the rope, my face boiling.

Steve squeezed my chin. “So you’ll be cooperatin’ from here on out, ’kay?”

My teeth gnawed the gag when his cold hand gripped my waist, burned my skin. The moment he cupped my bared sex, it occurred to me that I’d half-fooled myself into thinking they wouldn’t go through with it. But, oh God, it was happening. Panic ripped through me, ramping my pulse and catapulting my stomach to my throat. I jammed my eyes shut.

Time passed like the stages of grief. I kept my eyes closed, pretending it wasn’t happening. Then the nauseating pain became difficult to ignore. It fueled a hatred so deep, my bones thrummed with it.

When I opened my eyes, I sought out those of the men hurting me. Neither would meet my glare. That was when I looked to Joel. If I could wash away one memory from my life to date, it would be the suffering in his eyes while I was raped in front of him.

After that, I hid behind closed lids, certain Joel and I would die. I didn’t want to watch it happen. The realization crushed my heart in a suffocating ache.

When I eventually dragged my eyes open again, daylight’s glow no longer outlined the basement’s exterior door. By then, my body sagged, numb in most places. A dull throb in others. I knew the tissues between my legs were ripped from the dry penetration, the sandpaper scraping of meat on meat. At least, until blood and semen wet me there.

I hung from the ceiling by my wrists, knees cut and bruised from dragging on the floor. Each time I struggled to stand on wobbly legs, I was knocked down with a kick, a fist, the butt of a gun.

Steve sat back on his ankles. “I won’t listen to his sniveling another goddamn minute.” He pushed me away and aimed the shotgun at Joel.

A guttural sound barreled in my chest.

“Nah, got a better idea,” Eugene said. “Take him outside.”

They hauled Joel through the door, one on each arm. No, no, no. The image of Joel bound amongst aphids rammed my heart against my ribs.

The door shut and I worked at the knots on my wrists. Tied with precision, the heavy nylon rope destroyed my hope for an easy escape. I took two forced breaths to battle my panic. My forearm sheathes were thrown on a shelf a body’s length away.

Stretching mine as long as I could, I reached for the knives with my feet. The rope gnawed and shredded my wrists. The distance was too convenient, the dumb asses. Then I realized. Three inches too short. I needed air.

I pushed off, tucked my knees to keep them from dragging, and swung. The rope around my wrists burned. My hands went numb. Once I had momentum, I bent at my waist keeping my legs in front of me, demanding more strength than my upper body could offer.

On the final thrust, I kicked my feet at the shelf. A blade clinked to the floor. I swept it with my foot. The handle lay at my toes.

Should be just like plucking dandelions with my bare feet while lying in the grass with the A’s, right? I wrapped my toes around the handle. My muscles quivered as I raised the blade to my fists in front of me. A brief sigh of relief.

The backyard woke with the sounds of screams. I cut my arms free and lunged for the door.

I reached for the handle and heard voices on the other side. Fuck. I twirled around. No guns in sight. I ran back where they left me and stood in front of the rope, hands and knife behind my head. Dread attacked my body in violent shakes.

The door opened and Joel’s screams grew louder. Then silence. Steve’s smile waved through my dizziness, the AA-12 strapped to his back. “Hey gorgeous, you ready for more?”

Eugene slammed the door behind them. My stomach lurched. They swaggered closer, naked and erect. I stood unresponsive until they were an arm’s length away.

With a downward swipe, I split Steve from sternum to groin. His skin peeled from the blade and gave way to an avalanche of bowels. Eugene yanked me back by my hair but I was already circling the knife up. I caught him in the throat. His jugular erupted in a red monsoon and he dropped next to his son. Steve writhed. Eugene gargled.

Satisfaction tingled through me as I appreciated the damage. But I wasn’t satisfied. The AA-12 lay next to them. I scooped it up, squeezed the trigger. Again. And again. And again.

Cradling the gun to my chest, I shuffled over the splattered concrete, toward the silence on the other side of the door. It creaked open.

I opened my mouth, but my cry was trapped with my breath. I tried to take a step, refusing to understand what I saw. I collapsed to my knees. Reached out my hand. I began to crawl.

I desired my dust to be mingled with yours

Forever and forever and forever.