The man took the flask from her, screwed the cap back on, and shoved it into a rear pocket of the jeans. Then he seized her by an arm and started dragging her toward the woods.
Julie’s eyes went wide. “Hold on. Stop. What are you doing?”
“Got another job for you.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No.”
She whimpered. “Jesus. I can’t. I swear. I’m about to pass out.”
He laughed. “This one’s gonna be easy. It’s all set up for you already. Just one little thing you have to do.”
Julie didn’t have the first clue what he was talking about and figured asking him to elaborate would be useless. Whatever he had in store for her was bound to be something horrible, and knowing what it was in advance wouldn’t do her any good anyway.
The man pulled her roughly through the woods, keeping a steady grip on her arm the whole time and jerking her upright every time she stumbled, which was often. Low-hanging branches and bit of bramble poked and scratched her bare flesh. The forced march through wilderness went on for at least ten minutes, maybe longer. She began to think the other “job” had just been a ruse to get her deep into the woods, far enough out to kill her and leave her body without worrying about having to dig another hole. And maybe those baser instincts had already trumped the Lulu delusion.
Oh, God, I’m about to die.
She started crying again.
No…wait.
That wasn’t her.
The sound was coming from somewhere directly ahead. Someone else was out here. She saw some bushes and some very leafy trees. The man dragged her through the bushes, inflicting numerous new scratches on her body. They emerged into a very small clearing. A nude woman leaned against the thick trunk of a very tall tree. Her hands were stretched high over her head, the wrists bound with rope and tied to a low branch. Her ankles were tied with another length of rope. Several layers of duct tape were wound around her mouth and the back of her head. The woman saw them coming and began to mewl.
The man planted a hand at the small of Julie’s back and gave her a hard shove. She stumbled deeper into the clearing and dropped to her hands and knees in front of the bound woman. She looked up and saw the desperate terror in the woman’s shiny eyes. The eyes went wide, silently begged her for help. The man stepped past Julie and removed a big hunting knife he’d left embedded in the trunk of the tree.
Then he yanked Julie to her feet again, eliciting a startled screech as he pressed the knife into one of her shaking hands. “Kill her.”
Julie gaped at him. “What!”
“You heard me.”
“No. I can’t. I won’t.”
The man’s face went hard again. “You have to kill her. It’s what Lulu wants.”
“What? Why?”
His grip on her arm tightened to a painful degree. “This is a test. You have to show you’re worthy. Prove you’re like us.” His upper lip twitched. “Kill her.”
He released her arm and shoved her forward again. Julie looked at the woman. She was pretty. Slender but curvy. She was maybe thirty. Her brown hair was long and curly. She wore a necklace with a little heart pendant, the kind of thing a boyfriend might give her. Then she saw the ring. Strike that. Not a boyfriend. Her husband. A man who loved this woman was out there somewhere, maybe scared and wondering where she was. That man was never going to see her again. Not alive, anyway.
She threw the knife to the ground and moved away from him. “I’m not killing her. Fuck that.”
The bound woman made that mewling sound again.
The man smirked. “So you admit you’re not like me? Lulu was wrong?”
“No.”
He frowned. “But-”
“I won’t kill a woman. Bring me a man. Any man. I don’t care. I’ll do any nasty thing you want to him. Slit his throat and drink his blood. Open his gut and pull his intestines out. Cut his dick off and feed it to him. Whatever. But this…” She gestured at the woman. “No fucking way.”
He stared at her for a long time.
Then he started talking to Lulu.
Which was really weird, watching the crazy fuck talk to the voice in his head. Arguing heatedly with himself, basically. After a while he appeared to surrender. He sighed. “Lulu says we’ll do it. I’ll put you back in the trunk and go find you a man to kill.”
Julie shook her head. “No.”
“No?”
“No.” She shook her head again. “I’m done with the trunk. I get to ride up front with you.” He started to protest, but she pressed on. “And the reason for that is I’m not letting you pick who I get to kill. That’s my call. I meant what I said. We’ll grab some fucker and I’ll fuck him the fuck up. But you don’t get to tell me who it’s gonna be. Got it?”
She expected him to argue the point, but he just shrugged and said, “Okay.”
Then he picked up the hunting knife.
Julie shook her head vigorously. “Don’t.”
He laughed.
Then he rammed the big blade into the bound woman’s flat belly up to the hilt and jerked it back out. A thick gout of blood spilled from the wound and the woman bucked against her bonds. Her eyes got even wider and instinct made her try to suck in breath through her mouth, dimpling the thickly layered duct tape beneath her nose.
Julie staggered backward, tripped on a rock, and fell hard on her ass. She sat there and watched the crazy man do some more things to the doomed woman with his big knife. Then she rolled onto her stomach and squeezed her eyes shut.
Help me, she thought. Somebody please help me…
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Diary of a Mixed-up Girl blog entry, dated October 31, the previous year
You would not believe the fucked-up day I’ve had so far. And on my favorite day of the fucking year. Of all fucking days. I’m so fucking furious. I’m shaking. Like seriously shaking like one of those hard-core alcoholics locked in a detox cell. I keep backing up and starting every sentence over because even though I’m so goddamn angry I can’t get past my anal hatred of typos. Christ, my life is ridiculous.
It’s true. I’m a ridiculous person. Like I’m the boiled-down cliché essence of every tortured fucking goth kid ever. I hate being a TYPE. A fucking category. But I am. I fucking AM, man. The only thing distinguishing me from the rest of Team Gloom is my look. I’ve got that All-American Girl thing happening. I was sort of proud of that. Thought it set me apart. It was the best disguise fucking EVER. No one could ever guess the truth about me or see the darkness inside.
WRONG.
I for sure thought I was fooling the fuck out of my parents. Especially my mother. I always thought she was fucking stupid and clueless, what with that bland, pleasant way of talking, sounding like a fifties housewife. Barely a working brain cell in her bubble head, I thought. Until today. Because it turns out the joke was on me.
This is a lot of beating around the bush. The thought of actually writing it down makes me start shaking again. But fuck it, I’ll just spit it out. Came home from school and right away knew something fucked was happening. First clue was the extra cars parked outside. Came inside and saw all these serious-looking old fucks. I thought somebody had died. A grandparent, maybe. I got a little nervous and started psyching myself up to fake some grief. But then Dad gets up and says some shit that went something like, “Honey, we don’t want you to be mad, because we love you and this is all about how much we totally fucking love you, honey, and holy fuck, but we are so fucking worried and we just want to help you, okay?” And Mom starts bawling.
And suddenly I get what this is. This is one of those intervention things. So I start yelling at them, becoming a fucking profanity machine. But their bullshit goes on and on. Nobody’s here to judge you, sweetie, they tell me. Could you please calm down, could you please fucking calm down? But I keep yelling. I’m fucking screaming. They’re not here to JUDGE me!? Who are they fucking kidding!!!?