The old woman tried to shove one of the red balls into Mona’s mouth but the younger woman thrashed her head to the side like a dog shaking an injured rabbit. Mona’s lips were closed so tightly that her mouth was nothing more than a thin, hard line.
“Get… the fuck… away… from her.”
In normal situations, Matt’s voice would have boomed out like God issuing proclamations from the Mount. However, his words were still thick and slurred. Rather than resounding through the small room with the force of a thunderclap, they were nearly lost beneath the continued noise from downstairs.
Undaunted by his order, Mary pinched Mona’s nostrils between her fingers and waited. Within the span of a minute, Mona’s mouth gasped open as she sucked in a lungful of air; and, at that moment, Mary plunged the ball into her mouth so forcefully that it almost seemed as if the old woman were trying to cram it down her throat. Her wrinkled fingers fed the straps through a series of buckles and she yanked hard as the taste of rubber flooded Mona’s mouth. Pleased with her handiwork, the old woman walked to Matt and repeated the same process with him.
“Mary!”
The voice was muffled and filled one of the silences between the series of rapping sounds.
“Mary Gruber!”
“Keep your britches on.” Mary yelled. “I’m a’comin.’”
With those words, the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Knocking. The sound had been someone pounding on the front door.
“Now, you two don’t go nowhere… I’ll be back quicker than a duck on a Junebug.”
Mary shut the door behind her as she left the room and the couple heard a soft rattle and click as if, perhaps, the old woman had taken the time to lock the door. Then her footsteps padded down the stairs, leaving the two newlyweds staring across the room at one another.
Though the gags kept the couple from speaking in anything other than garbled vowels, the expression in Matt’s eyes told Mona everything she needed to know: they were getting out of this. No matter what it took, they were not going to die in this dusty old house in the middle of nowhere.
As if in response to this unspoken conversation, Matt squirmed in his chair. He tried throwing his head and shoulders back in the hopes that me might be able to make the chair rock. If he could just make it topple backwards with enough force, perhaps the old wood would shatter when it hit the floor. He knew it was a long shot but, if he were completely honest with himself, it was probably the only chance they had. So he continued thrusting as much of his weight backward as he possibly could. If his ankles hadn’t been tied so tightly to the chair’s legs, it would have been a hell of a lot easier; in that situation, he probably would’ve been free almost before Mary had even finished locking the door. This, however, was not the case and Matt had to force these thoughts from his mind. Dwelling on what could have been, instead of focusing on the here and now, would only compound matters: he would grow frustrated and that frustration would further impede his ability to think clearly. So, no… he simply had to work with what he had at hand and do his best to ensure that he and his wife made it out of this room in one piece.
While Matt grunted into his gag, Mona tried a different tact. Closing her eyes, she took a breath through her nose, held it, and then clenched her hands into fists so tightly that her fingernails bit into the palms of her hands. Then she relaxed for a second, exhaled, and repeated the entire process. Breathe, hold, clench, release… breathe, hold, clench, release….
From downstairs, the two could hear the murmur of a conversation. There was definitely Mary’s voice but also another. Possibly male. Though the words were nothing more than a rhythmic drone, both Matt and Mona realized that the person speaking to the old woman wasn’t either one of her sons. For one, they wouldn’t have bothered with knocking; and the woman lacked the strength to have carried Matt and Mona upstairs by herself. Which meant that she’d had help. The boys were in on whatever was going down and they were obviously not around right now. Otherwise, one of them would have simply answered the door and left their mother to finish the job at hand. So, no: there was someone else at the door… an outsider who had no idea that two young lovers were tied up and awaiting death within the house.
Mona switched tactics again, this time twisting her wrists in opposite directions as she pulled at the same time. The ropes rubbed against her flesh like sandpaper and she bit into the rubber ball in her mouth as she squeezed her eyes shut. Her wrists felt as if the skin were being scraped away layer by layer and the coarse fibers of the rope were like tiny needles that jabbed into raw flesh. But still she continued to twist and pull, ignoring the pain that coaxed beads of sweat from her brow; she tried to focus, instead, on thoughts of Matt. She pictured the shallow wound on his neck, the trickle of blood from where the old bitch’s knife had nicked him….
How much longer would the unseen visitor be at the door? How much longer until Mary returned? Pain was not an option… if they were going to make it out of this nightmare, it had to be now. While their captor was still distracted.
Mona wrenched her wrists so violently that, from behind, they probably looked as if they were wrestling one another. More and more flesh was stripped away and the pain was now a stinging burn. It throbbed through her hands and arms as blood oozed from the self-inflicted wounds, the abrasions seeming to make her very bones scream in torment; but this agony, as intense as it was, would be nothing compared to what she would feel if her beloved Mattie were snuffed out right before her eyes. She would gladly endure the fires of Hell if it meant keeping her new husband safe and alive. And if that meant fighting through the pain of a rope burn, even one this severe, then so be it. She would do whatever she needed to.
Her wrists were raw and now entirely coated with blood. She could feel it ooze down her hands, as warm and sticky as the syrup Matt always poured on her pancakes, and she realized that she didn’t have to struggle quite as hard now. It was as if her hands were moving just a bit more freely. As if all that blood were like oil, lubricating the spaces where rope met meat.
From downstairs, the lull of the conversation continued. But it was obvious that Mary’s tone was becoming sharper, growing impatient with her visitor. It would only be a matter of time before she shooed them away and returned to the room with that viscous little knife of hers. And she would then kill Matt as easily as if it were something she did every day. Mona had no doubt about this… and she couldn’t let that happen.
Mona threw her left shoulder down while wrenching her right one upward so violently that the sound of her joints popping was like the snap of a dry twig. The rope shifted positions and peeled away a new layer of flesh. She screamed into her gag, though the sound was nothing more than a moan behind the red ball, and then repeated the action again, this time changing directions on each shoulder.
To Matt, it probably looked as if her entire body were wracked with spasms; but she continued jerking her shoulders again and again, stripping away layers of tissue with each savage thrust. Finally, she felt the coils of rope shift. Ever so slightly: almost as if they were drawing back in an attempt to figure out what this wild-eyed woman was up to… but that was all it took. Mona redoubled her efforts, grunting and groaning as her slender, blood-glazed hands slipped through the intertwined knots of her bindings; she twisted and yanked, pulled and slithered her way through the rope until, finally, her left hand plopped free. After that, it was only a matter of seconds before he right hand joined the first: drops of blood spattered against the floor as she worked at the knots securing her ankles to the chair’s legs and then she scampered across the room, not even pausing to remove the straps of her gag.