But someone had known, someone I'd talked to very recently. Someone had said the boy had been under the floor in the stall, or something to that effect. Who had it been? We'd seen so many people. Obviously, not Rain or Manfred; not any of the law enforcement people, they'd know and that would be okay. All right, who? Who had I talked to? The funeral home lady, Cleda something. No, not her.
I'd been sitting there with the door half-open, one foot out while I thought. With a suddenness that struck me dumb, a big SUV pulled in beside me, the door was ripped from my hands, and my arm was grabbed and I was out of the car. Then a big hand hit me right where the shovel had bashed me a long, long time ago, and then I was out.
Thirteen
I was in his vehicle by the time I was conscious enough to understand what was happening, and by then my mouth was taped shut and my hands were bound together. His blitz attack had caught me completely unawares.
Barney Simpson was hunched in the driver's seat, backing out of the driveway and taking off down the road like a maniac. The SUV lurched so violently that I slid to the floor. I had no means to stop myself. I landed on my bad arm, and the pain was excruciating. I would have screamed, but once again, he'd taken care of that.
There's something terrible about being right when being right means you get bitten on the ass.
I'd be lucky if that was all that happened.
He pulled over after five minutes. I still couldn't move, but I was trying to gather my energy. I had no idea where we were. Twyla lived in a suburb, maybe Doraville's only upscale housing development. Five minutes from it would take us almost anywhere: into the older part of Doraville or out into the country. Past Barney's head, I could see ice melting off a pine tree, one of a stand of trees. There are trees all over in North Carolina.
"We had it all," he said. He was looking down at me, and his big black-framed glasses magnified his eyes, so he was not just looking, but glaring. "We had it all, until you found them. I'd spot them at the hospital and mark them for the future, or Tom would see them out walking or hitching, and we would pick them up and then we'd just…use them up."
Oh, Jesus, I thought.
"We'd use every bit, all the pain, all the sex, all the fear. We'd consume them. Until they were nothing."
I was strangling behind the tape, gurgling and gasping.
"We had the second place, the place in the barn, in case we had two boys at the same time. It was like a holding cell. We'd never really had to use it. But I guess Tom just couldn't resist, even though the last thing he should have done was pick up another boy."
Having made his point, which was that I was the snake in their paradise, he put the SUV in gear and glanced in his rearview mirror. He pulled back onto the road.
"But Tom couldn't give it up, thought it would be his last time, I guess, and a hitchhiker, they're just like apples falling into your lap."
I couldn't just huddle there on the floorboard and fear. I had to think of something to do. I might manage to open the door and roll out, but the car was going so fast that I didn't think I'd survive. I would save that for a last resort. Dying that way would be better than dying the way the boys had.
Okay, it was time to fight. I kept telling myself that, but I remained so dizzy and disoriented that it was hard to make my muscles agree on an aggressive program. And then it was hard to get in position to make my blows count for something. My legs were free, because Barney hadn't had time to confine them, and also maybe he'd hoped I'd stay unconscious for longer. So I kicked at him, trying to get some force behind my legs, wriggling so that my back was braced against the door. Of course, the SUV swerved and he screamed at me, "I'm going to pull your skin off!" I knew he meant it literally. He didn't look like a hospital administrator anymore. He looked like what he really was: a man crazed with his own evil.
He struck at me, but he had to drive, so the random swings didn't connect with my legs often. If they did, they didn't have much force behind them because he was having to strain to reach me.
The pain in my arm was constant and increasing. In a way it was good, because it kept me awake and angry, and in a way it was bad, because it was draining my energy and my will. I even caught myself wanting to be careful of the healing injury. But there was no point in keeping the arm from breaking if I died soon after, I told myself stoutly, and I kicked with renewed vigor and rage.
"You crazy bitch!" he screamed. Well, right back at you, buddy. I was so pleased I had my hiking boots on.
I'd assumed sooner or later we'd be in the center of Doraville, but he swerved to the right, and I knew we'd turned onto one of the back roads that twisted through the county. We were going up into the mountains. That was the worst possible development.
He leaned way over, till his left hand was barely on the wheel, and he hit me in the face open-handed. I saw gray for a second. He looked very satisfied, when I could focus on his face again. He'd caused pain, and he liked that a lot. Also, I'd quit kicking. He could drive with both hands on the wheel. I debated with myself whether to let him drive safely and not get hit again, or to kick out and get hurt. I rested for a couple of minutes and decided it was time to try again.
I got his knee this time, and there was the familiar swerve, but this time he looked all around and pulled over again. Okay, this was a step for the worse. He flung open his door and dashed around the SUV while I was struggling to change positions so I'd be facing him. But I couldn't manage it, and he popped open the passenger door so suddenly that I fell out. He caught me by my hair, pulling the stitches in my scalp. I made a noise that would have been a scream if I could have opened my mouth. He dragged me out by the hair, out onto the narrow shoulder, gray with ice and snow slush. There was a steep slope down to the forest, patched with white. Beyond the forest, I glimpsed water.
I had to struggle desperately to keep from landing flat on the ground. I got my feet under me somehow, and tried to twist away, and he hit me again, this time with his fist, in the ribs.
Oh, God, it hurt.
Once I got my feet braced I rammed against him, trying to knock him down, but I only made him stagger a foot or two, and then he began beating me in earnest. I thought if I fell down he would kill me, but I didn't think I could stay up for long. I landed a lucky kick to his crotch, but when I brought my foot back down I slipped on the ice by the side of the road, and I toppled over. I rolled through snow and wet grass, down and down to the bottom of the slope.
He was no more dressed than I for something like this; in fact, he was even less prepared, because I was wearing boots and a heavy coat and scarf, and he was wearing a suit and that was it. His shoes went along with the suit, strictly indoor wear. By the time I got to the tree line at the bottom of the slope, he'd begun floundering down after me.
Getting up was very hard with my hands taped, but I was able to struggle to my feet, and I took off. It was terrible, making my way through the heavy brush and trees, with the ground slushy. But I had to put as much distance as I could between him and me.
Would he come down in the trees after me?
Yes, idiot. Of course he will. I heard his inarticulate scream of rage and then the sounds of him thrashing through the trees.
At least he was openly nuts now. At least he wasn't trying to reason. That was the only chance I had, his mental state.
Not that I was thinking. I was just running.
Plan, plan, plan, I needed a plan. The weather and terrain were all against me. If I trod in the patches of snow, all he had to do was follow my tracks. And it was very precarious, trying to hurry and also trying to avoid stepping in the snow. At least there were a few other tracks around; people had ridden their four-wheelers through here, and I could see another set of tracks, vague ones, a few yards away. I leaped between the snow patches, hoping that the ground would not show every print I made simply because it was wet. Maybe he wasn't any more of a woodsman than I was.