He hadn’t beaten her or anything, but she was restrained in a chair, and that was bad enough. She could imagine the many despicable avenues this situation could take at any moment, and that’s why she decided to stop pleading. If this man grew tired of hearing her whine and cry he might do things to her. Better to go along with it and remain as calm as she could.
“Look,” said Lance, “I meant what I said when we met about you being a great muse for my art. You are. Soon enough you will play a part in one of my most intense and major productions. You should be so proud, but if I had to guess I’d say you’re scared out of your head. Can’t blame you there.” He selected a paintbrush from a coffee can sitting atop a large table he used for his artwork. He dipped it in some oil paint and added a detail to the chin on a portrait of Ronnie he was painting.
He went quiet, just painting, glancing at Ronnie from time to time, but not looking her in the eyes. Just looking at her for details. He’d even positioned lights around her to put shadows on her face.
The studio was in a cold room that appeared to be partitioned off from other rooms. The ceiling was unfinished wood that reminded Ronnie of a garage or barn, but the place smelled of oil paints rather than hay or axel grease. The partitioned walls were covered in paintings of herself, tacked up haphazard with nails and staples. One wall had an emblem mounted at the center like a morbid coat of arms with the letters GH in Gothic script. She figured his name wasn’t really Lance and those were his initials.
At first the chair had been comfortable with exception of the leather bands wrapped around her wrists that were now quite restrictive. The skin was red and sore from friction. Her legs were bound to the legs of the chair and they were beginning to cramp. She could only shift so much, but not being able to scratch even the smallest of itches proved to be a torture all its own.
“I’m thirsty,” she said, her voice timid and cracked. It had been maybe two hours since she said anything.
This time Lance looked Ronnie in the eyes. He had this stupid half-assed grin on his face at all times that made Ronnie want to puke. The way he looked at her made her feel icky, like he was imagining her naked.
“Sure thing, honey,” said Lance.
He stood from his desk and grabbed a bottle of water with a straw sticking out of it. He placed the straw to her lips and she sipped. She liked her water ice cold, but this room temperature beverage was as good as water ever tasted.
Lance returned to his chair and continued painting, stealing glances at Ronnie and applying more details. Next to him was a bust of Ronnie made out of clay. She hated to admit it, but lance was a damn fine artist. Her eyes went back to the bust like it was some kind of focal point. She was impressed at how alive the eyes were. It was amazing someone could achieve such detail in clay. The many portraits on the walls were equally detailed and lifelike. Some of them were so exquisite they were like looking into a mirror, and many of those had been painted before he had kidnapper her.
Ronnie had showered Lance with praise at one point, but that fazed him nothing. Compliments and pleas rolled off of him like water off a duck’s back. She constantly thought of new ways to gain his confidence, to manipulate him into letting her go, but even through his silly grin the man remained stoic in his position as her captor.
It had only been a day or so, but it felt like time had slowed to the pace of sap dripping out of a wound in a tree trunk. When Ronnie became tired she would nod off and wake with a start the way one does when driving while tired. Her head would loll to the side and she would jolt awake, sometimes attempting to lift her arms, which was part of what caused her wrists to become so inflamed.
Her stomach growled and though the idea of eating food in such a situation seemed inappropriate, absurd even, the tightening of her guts was becoming a real issue.
“I’m hungry,” she said. As much as she tried to quell the timidity in her voice, there really was nothing she could do about it. When only speaking in small bursts once an hour or so, her voice tended to sound foreign coming from her dry throat.
“Hungry, huh?” Lance said. He looked around the room as if food would miraculously materialize out of nothing. “Guess I’ll have to go get some grub.” He picked up an X-Acto knife from his desk, a detail tool he used when sculpting clay. “But I’m in the middle of something here, you see? I don’t really like to be interrupted.”
Lance was calm, voice even, but he wasn’t sculpting, so why did he grab the razor knife? Made Ronnie nervous.
Lance shifted toward her, knife held up. “Ever get your lips so chapped that they crack and split?”
Ronnie didn’t say anything or even move. Was he asking her a question or launching into some kind of tirade. And what was he doing with that knife?
Lance’s eyes brightened. He drew the razor to his mouth. “You just make a few small cuts.” He placed the edge of the blade on the soft flesh of his upper lip and dragged it down a half an inch, creating a small red line. He did this twice more on top and another few times on his bottom lip. He did it with practiced patience, though his head trembled and he gritted his teeth, sucking in air as he did so.
Ronnie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She wanted to scream, but there was no point in that. Long ago she discovered the power of not allowing enemies or bullies to get the better of her. That gave them a thrill, and that thrill only made them want to harm her more.
“You see,” said Lance, “there’s the cracks. You must have had bad chapped lips, right. They crack and then what?”
There was a pregnant pause like a deep chasm between them.
Lance pulled off the biggest smile his face seemed capable of. The slits he’d created with the razor blade opened into tiny fleshy crevices from which blood dripped down his chin, dotting his white t-shirt. A truly sinister and psychotic grin, something one would expect in a funhouse or perhaps an asylum.
As much as Ronnie didn’t want him to gain any pleasure from affecting her, she could no longer hold back her screams. She shrieked, wiggling and twisting in the chair, but unable to go anywhere. All she could do was close her eyes from this craziness, and she was sure the razor would be biting into her flesh soon enough.
Lance laughed.
He laughed and laughed until he howled at the moon like a damn werewolf or a dog on a police siren. He laughed and howled until his voice rivaled Ronnie’s.
PART THREE
Riding the Dead
Chapter Thirty
The coffin was propped up, the top half open with the TV back inside. Most of the chairs had been stacked in the corners, all but two, next to which was a makeshift bed constructed from a twin inflatable mattress and several comforters that had been discovered in the closet (the Wall of Suicide was gone, much to Calvin’s disappointment—he’d wanted to show Hazel. She would have gotten a kick out of it). They discovered a mini fridge in the ticket booth area. It was now stocked with beer, soda and some food. There were twice as many shrines, the largest and most revered being the one with the guy Hazel and Calvin had murdered together. That shrine was constructed on the wall above their bed.
In the past week Calvin found himself engulfed in that particular mural. They found out that the guy’s name was Danny Grant, aged twenty-six. According to his driver’s license he lived on Loring Street in pacific Beach. Now he was immortalized in a series of photos of Calvin and Hazel posing with his dismembered corpse.