Held Page 6

  “This is your fault,” he screamed, pointing the poker at my face.

  Still pushing away sleep, I asked, “How the hell is this my fault?”

  “I went to your room this morning to get you up and dressed. But you weren’t there,” he said, his voice rising and falling as he spoke.

  “No. I’m not there. Because you brought me down to this dungeon,” I screamed up at him. “I didn’t ask you to bring me down here. I didn’t want this. So it’s your fault,” I yelled, clearly having learned nothing yet.

  His nostrils flared with anger. My attention focused on the poker and I thought maybe I should stop yelling at him. I knew I should, but I also knew that my back-talking sassiness was what he liked most about me. It was a fine line that was sure to be the downfall of me once I stepped across it at the wrong time.

  For a while longer, he stood over me, though he had at least lowered the poker and now held it at his side. I watched as he slowly calmed down. His nostrils stopped flaring, his chest quit heaving with his heavy breathing, and he finally relaxed his grip on the poker.

  As he calmed down, so did I, though I was still terrified. I’d watched him kill Stephanie. And if she was already dead before I woke up, then I’d watched him beat the hell out of a corpse. Either way, I knew I wasn’t dealing with the average feller. This man was truly a psychopath, flying from one extreme to the next in the blink of an eye. Professionals who had spent years studying and researching people like him didn’t know how to deal with them, so how was I supposed to know how to handle him? And unlike the pros, my life depended on it.

  He tossed the poker aside, but too far for me to reach. Even if I turned myself around and stretched my body as far as it would stretch, I wouldn’t have been able to reach it with my foot. Even in his madness, he was smart enough to know not to leave it where I could get to it. That made him even more dangerous in my opinion because even when it seemed that he’d lost all touch with reality and his thoughts and emotions, he still knew what not to do. Scary.

  Thinking of a way to get back on his good side and back to the main floor of the house, I asked, “What are you going to do now?” I hoped he didn’t detect the tremor in my voice.

  “I’m going to have to get rid of it. It’s going to start smelling soon, and I don’t want you to have to smell that.”

  Good. He was looking out for me, in a sick sort of way. All hope wasn’t lost. I felt certain that soon, maybe later today or tomorrow, he’d take me back upstairs. He still liked me enough to not want me trapped down here with the smell of a rotting corpse. Of course, my hope was destroyed when I asked for food.

  “Ron, what time is it?”

  “Why? Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

  “Yeah. I need to be at home with my family, but since that isn’t possible, I was just wondering.”

  Glancing at his watch, he answered, “Seven thirty.”

  “I’m hungry, and I need to pee.”

  After staring at me for a few seconds, he put his foot against a plastic bowl that set on the floor between Stephanie’s body and me and pushed it my way. I watched the bowl slide toward me and stop a foot or so away from the mattress. I reached out and pulled it the rest of the way to me. Looking inside, I thought he was joking. He must be.

  “What’s this?” I asked, looking up at him.

  “If you’re hungry, eat that. It’s what I fed Stephanie until she quit eating. Poor thing starved herself to death,” he said looking over his shoulder at her body.

  “No, I’m pretty sure you beat her to death with that there poker.” When I saw him snap his head back to face me, I quickly moved on. “If this is what she had to eat, no wonder she wouldn’t eat it. What is it anyway?”

  “It’s dog food.”

  “Are you serious?” I looked into the bowl again. It didn’t look like dog food. Of course, with the maggots and flies covering it, who could tell what it was?

  “It’s the good kind. None of that cheap stuff. Besides, dog food is required by the FDA to be fit for human consumption. People eat it during recessions like this. It’s fine.”

  “It’s got bugs all over it.”

  “Yes. It’s been down here a while. Let’s see, she quit eating over a week ago, maybe close to two weeks. Pick them off. Or eat them. They’re full of protein.”

  “You know what else is full of protein? Steak and eggs. Why don’t you run upstairs and make that happen for me?”

  He laughed. “There’s the girl I love.”

  Love? What happened to like? I didn’t dwell on the use of terms. What captured my attention was that I was back in his good graces. One step closer to getting back upstairs.

  He headed up the stairs.

  “Are you going to make me something to eat?”

  “Eat what’s in the bowl, Nicole. When you’re down here, you don’t get the luxury of my cooking. And if you need to pee, do it on the floor.” With that, he went through the doorway and closed the door behind him, leaving me alone in the basement with a full bladder, a battered corpse, and a bowl of rotten dog food.

  Chapter 12

  I waited and waited for Ron to return, but he didn’t. My belly growled, but I ignored it. If Stephanie could go nearly two weeks without food, surely I could go a couple of days. That should be long enough for him to allow me back upstairs.

  Funny how I had begged him to let me go home, and now I was begging him to let me go upstairs. The worse my situation got, the better off I realized I’d had it before.

  Eventually, I could hold my pee no longer. I looked for a bucket or a hole or anything, but other than the bowl containing the dog food, there was nothing. So I squatted on the mattress with my butt hung over the edge and let it go. I cried as I peed, having been reduced to such animalistic ways, but there was no other way. Beside the mattress was better than on it.

  After I’d drained my bladder, I sat on the mattress and looked at the mess I’d made as it slowly crept across the concrete floor. As it made its way to the drain in the center of the room, it pooled around Stephanie’s heel. I felt horrible that she had to lie in my piss. Damn Ron.

  At some point, I fell asleep. I had no way of keeping track of time in the basement. If there were any windows, they were tightly covered and let in no light. I never knew what day it was or what time it was.

  I woke to the feel of someone’s hand on my butt. Once again, I was curled in the fetal position to stay as warm as I could. I opened my eyes but didn’t move. Focusing on the feel of the touch, I ruled out the possibility of a bug or a rodent. It was definitely a human. A disturbing image flashed through my mind of Stephanie’s cold corpse crawling across the floor and touching me. I quickly rolled onto my back to find that Ron was on his knees beside me.

  “Will you have me now?” he asked.

  Immediately, I answered no.

  In a huff, he got up. In the dim light of the bare bulbs, I saw that he was naked. And excited. And now, angry.

  He paced back and forth for a little bit, mumbling under his breath something I couldn’t make out. I watched him closely, afraid this would be the time he raped me. And if it was, I’d still consider myself lucky that I wasn’t Stephanie.

  I watched in amazement that even in his anger and frustration, he kept his erection. It bobbed around in front of him as he angrily stomped back and forth across the room. Had this been a movie I was watching from the comfort of my own home, I would’ve surely laughed. But here, in this moment, it was the farthest thing from funny.

  Then, he saw Stephanie. With no more than a second’s worth of consideration, he walked over to her and got on his knees. With her arms and legs still shackled to the floor, spread wide, he had his way with her.

  As if it wasn’t disturbing enough to watch him rape a dead woman, I listened as he said my name over and over while doing it. With each thrust of his hips, he said, “Nicole. Nicole. Nicole.” As he climaxed, he said my name again. This time, it was loud. A long, terrifying howl of m
y name, sure to haunt me in my sleep.

  And that wasn’t even the creepy part.

  Worse than watching him rape a dead woman, worse than him repeatedly saying my name while raping a dead woman, was the fact that he stared at me the whole time. His eyes never left mine while he defiled the woman he’d murdered so violently.

  My skin broke out in gooseflesh, my throat tightened, my stomach knotted, and my heart pounded.

  He got up from her and walked past me without saying anything. I watched him walk slowly up the stairs. When he closed the door behind him, I released the breath I’d been holding. I noticed I was crying, so I gave in and let it go, crying harder than I’d ever cried before.

  The severity of the situation was starting to sink in on me. All thoughts of controlling the situation were gone now. All hopes of being let go were gone along with them. I wasn’t capable of handling someone like him. I had no training in dealing with people with mental problems. I don’t know if anyone had the training it would take to deal with Ron. He scared me more than anything I’d ever encountered, either in real life or in my nightmares.

  As I fell asleep, I was grateful for the sweet release sleep brought to me. Even if my dreams were nightmares, it’d be less frightening than my reality.

  I woke some time later to the sounds of Ron beating Stephanie’s lifeless body, but when I rolled over, I was alone in the basement. Well, alone with Stephanie’s body. Ron wasn’t in the room. I must’ve been having a nightmare. The sad part was the nightmare had been a reality just hours before.

  When I escaped, I was going to have to get two jobs to pay for the therapy I was going to need to deal with this trauma.

  The next time I woke, it was to the loud clanging sound of what reminded me of metal striking metal. I quickly sat up and scooted backward until I felt the cold wall at my back. From there, I watched Ron work.

  He had an axe high above his head. I watched as he brought it down hard, slicing through Stephanie’s outstretched arm near where it connected to her shoulder. I gasped, but if he heard me, he ignored me and kept on chopping. First one arm, and then the other. Then, he moved to her legs, chopping each of them off close to the hip.

  With each strike of the axe came the sound of a snapping bone, followed by the clink of the metal striking the concrete floor. Also with each strike of the axe, I jumped and closed my eyes.

  After decapitating the torso, he tossed the axe to the floor and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

  He glanced over at me and saw that I was watching him. “Dirty work,” he said.

  I could only nod stiffly.

  After unlocking the restraints of her wrists and ankles, he placed each of her limbs in a separate black trash bag and tied it tightly. He did the same for her head and torso, though the torso wasn’t as easy for him as the smaller pieces had been.

  Two by two, he carried the bags up the steps while I watched in silence.

  When all the bags were gone from the basement, he returned. Exhausted, he sat on the bottom step, facing me.

  “Are you afraid, Nicole?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Did he want me to be afraid? The wrong answer may be my ticket to a trash bag, so I weighed my words carefully.

  “I’m afraid that you’ll end up not liking me enough to put me in a trash bag like you did her.”

  “Nonsense. I told you, I didn’t like her from the beginning. She wasn’t you. And you aren’t her. As long as you don’t make the same mistakes as she did, you’ll be fine.”

  “I’m thirsty. And hungry.”

  He pointed to the bowl of rotten dog food. “You have food right there. As for water, I’ll get you a drink in a moment. I must rest now. I’m afraid I’m not as young as I used to be.” He laughed. “That’s a silly expression, don’t you think? After all, none of us are ever as young as we used to be. In fact, I’m not as young as I was when I said that.” He laughed again, more to himself than anything. Then, he said, “Tell me, Nicole. Did watching me with her stir up any feelings of jealousy?”

  I stared at him, confused as to what he meant.

  Seeing my confusion, he elaborated. “I mean, were you jealous that I was being with her in that way? Did you wish it were you underneath me?”

  I felt there was no right answer here. To say yes might make him rape me. To say no might make him angry enough to use the poker on me. It was a no-win situation. No matter what I said, I was certain it would be wrong. But I had to say something, so I went with, “No.”

  He shook his head. “That’s a shame. But you know I wanted it to be you. I came to you, needing to be with you in that way. And you denied me. What was I to do, Nicole? I am only a man with manly desires. I have wants and needs. These are things you must understand. You have a husband, after all. Surely, you know how it works.”

  “It’s different with my husband.”

  “Different? How?”

  “With him, I want him just as much as he wants me.”

  He thought for a moment and then asked, “Are you saying that you don’t want me?”

  Another trap. Unsure of what to say, I said nothing.

  “Nicole?” he shouted. “Are you saying that you don’t want me?”

  His voice echoed off the walls of the basement. His eyes were getting that wild look to them again.

  Not wanting to enrage him but not wanting to encourage him either, I said, “No. At least not yet.”

  He calmed a little and asked, “What do you mean by not yet?”

  “Well, I haven’t known you that long. What kind of girl do you think I am? I can’t just go around giving myself to every man who wants me, now can I? That would make me no better than Stephanie.”

  Completely relaxed and back to the happy Ron that made a mean sandwich, he smiled and nodded. “That’s my girl. In time, I’m sure you’ll grow to want me as much as I want you. Then, it will be sweet.” He nodded at the spot where Stephanie’s body had been. “Until then, I’ll need someone to fill in.”

  Chapter 13

  I watched as Ron walked across the basement to a utility sink. Hanging on the wall beside it was a yellow garden hose. He took it from its place, connected it to the faucet, and turned on the water. He walked across the room to me, stopping a few feet away from my mattress. I waited for him to come closer, but he didn’t.

  “You thirsty?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  He unscrewed the nozzle from the end of the hose. The water came out and fell to the floor in splatters.

  “Come and get it.”

  Handcuffed to the pipe, I couldn’t get far. I got up on my knees and leaned as far as I could toward him. It wasn’t far enough. I leaned farther, causing great pain to my right arm and wrist, which was twisted around behind me in an awkward position. Had I not been so damn thirsty, I would’ve told him to shove that hose up his ass.

  He pulled up on the hose quickly, creating an arc of water that hit my face. It was cold. Shockingly cold. I gasped, and then licked my lips, getting all the water I could.

  He laughed. I didn’t.

  Again, he jerked up on the hose and splashed my face. Again, I licked the water from my lips.

  “Nicole, if you want me to contain my passion for you, you really must stop acting so provocatively. You’re exciting me.”

  “Well maybe if you’d just give me a drink of water, this wouldn’t be a problem. And if you didn’t have me down here naked, maybe you could contain yourself more.”

  Smiling, he stepped forward and let me drink from the hose. I drank and drank until I thought I would throw up. I wanted to drink more then, but he walked away, taking the precious water with him.

  He twisted the nozzle back on the hose. Water came out, this time with pressure pushing it. As he began spraying the floor, washing away Stephanie’s blood, I scooted back against the wall. Drawing my legs up to cover my chest, I watched him work.

  “One of the reasons I bought this house was the drain in the baseme
nt floor. Very convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I’m sure it’s there in case the washing machine overflows or leaks, but it is so handy for washing away blood. This house has paid for itself many times over with this drain. Money well spent.”

  I watched the dirt and blood slide across the floor and disappear down the drain. I wondered if one day, a woman would sit handcuffed to this very pipe and watch in fear as my blood swirled away down the drain.

  I felt drops of liquid fall from my face and hit my arm, and I wondered if it was tears or the water he’d sprayed on me.

  When he was finished cleaning the floor, he brought the hose back to me. I quickly got up on my knees again, begging for water. This time, when he unscrewed the nozzle, he let the water pour down on me, running down my chin, my breasts, my belly, and dripping onto the floor and the mattress.

  He squatted down in front of me and watched the water run over my chest. I didn’t care. I was drinking as much as I could while what I couldn’t drink ran down my body. If he wanted to watch, that was his problem.

  Even when he reached out and cupped my breast, I ignored him and continued to drink the disgusting, rubbery tasting water.

  Finally, he stood up. “If I don’t find someone to fill in for you quickly, you’re going to have to learn to want me.” He reached into his pants and adjusted himself before turning and walking away, taking the hose back to its spot on the wall.

  As he was leaving the basement, he stopped at the foot of the mattress. “I’m going to dispose of this trash. I’ll be back. It may be a while, though. Try to miss me while I’m away.”

  “Wait,” I said quickly as he ascended the stairs. “Can I get a blanket? And some food? And water? And a bucket to use as a toilet?”

  Halfway up the steps, he turned to me. “That’s a lot of requests coming from a girl in the basement. You can pee on the floor. I’ll wash it when I get back. You’ve got food, Nicole. Eat that. As for the blanket, you should have enough nice thoughts of me to keep you warm. And as for water, there’s a thunderstorm due tonight or tomorrow. When it rains, water seeps into the basement. That should hold you until I return. I’ll see you soon.” And with that, he disappeared into the main floor, closing the door behind him.