It was one o’clock in the afternoon when Nick hauled himself off the bare mattress that reeked of screwing. He hadn’t minded that when he dropped down on it the night before; he’d been pissing drunk. Now halfway sober, all the stinks of his mother’s house pinged on his memory like a thumb and a middle finger on the back of his head.
He padded into the grimy kitchen, the floor adhering to his bare feet. Each sticky footstep served up an image; an odd sort of slideshow. By the time he’d crossed the room, Callie’s face was bobbing in his sodden brain, drenched in Bud Light and warped.
Talk to me, Nick. Why is that so hard?
She had stood by the window with her arms crossed. The setting sun sent orange shafts through the shuttered window. Her lips pursed. If he hadn’t been so wary, he would have kissed that tight mouth loose.
It’s time you got a another job, Nick. It’s been a month, I can’t carry the both of us forever. She stared at the side of his head. My parents think you’re a loser, Nick.
He finally looked at her. The sun’s rays had sharpened into daggers slicing slivers across the wall. Do you? he’d asked her. A moment of hesitation, too long, incredibly long. She knows this. His turn to look at the side of her head. Her ear is a perfect shell, smooth pink coral and cool to the touch. It catches even the smallest of sounds. She heard the hairline crack in his heart.
Just get a job, Nick. Something, anything, she pleaded. I’m trying to make it on my own. I don’t want to borrow money from my parents again. She reached out, knowing that the crack was widening into a chasm that she wouldn’t be able to breach. Go to school at night and get your GED. Then you’ll be able to work anywhere. I’ll help you. This last she said to his back, as he quietly walked out of her apartment.
The faucet cranked and sputtered bubbles into the plastic glass. Nick sipped the tepid water grimacing at the flat taste. He wanted a beer. Badly.
You’re drinking too much. When had Callie said that to him? You’re spending too much time with your brothers, Nick. They’re bad news. He’d remained silent, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the obvious. If you were working, then you wouldn’t be over there all the time. She’d sighed deeply. It’s time you got another job, Nick... The memory replayed again and again, the words sharper each time around. He threw the plastic glass into the sink and went in search of a beer.
He knew the basement door. It was four paneled and solid but even so it bore its share of scratches and dents. He’d put most of them there. The first time Clyde and Denny had lured him to the basement, he’d been clueless. Clyde had pushed him in and Denny had thrown the door shut so fast that it hit Nick on his skinny nine year old ass. He went down on his knees, his fists beating on the inside of the door. He’d spent an hour sucking air from the crack near the floor.
The next time he fought back, this time catching the door with the heel of his shoe as Clyde hauled him through the doorway. The dent was small but the scuff a foot long. He ended up on the landing anyway, crouched against the wall, his eyes wide in the dark. When the door creaked open two hours later, Ma was waiting on the other side, ready to smack him good for the scuff.
He shook his head, dislodging the images that rode the alcoholic wave. They pursued him relentlessly when he drank, populating his consciousness like a favorite bar. Arguing with Callie hadn’t helped any, that always sent him back to his mother’s house like a damned salmon swimming upstream. But the basement didn’t hold demons anymore, only beer. He pulled the door open, hinges complaining loudly.
Damn. She was right, of course; he had been sitting on his ass for way too long.
They had napped on that Sunday afternoon a month before, sharing the couch with the lazy, fat tabby with the broken muffler. He’d awakened first and the sight of Callie still asleep - her chestnut hair draped across her white neck, upper lip dotted with tiny beads of sweat - had seared permanently into his retinas. Even now, weeks later, that was what he saw when he closed his eyes.
Then her eyelids had shifted frantically as though seeking him in the dark, looking for him, leaving him shitfaced scared like never before, not even in those first lockups in the basement. Days passed into weeks and Callie grew puzzled, then annoyed. Yet he remained silent, unable to tell her that he was falling for her. Falling hard.
It took him a second to realize that the basement light was on. Clyde and Denny, last night’s drinking buddies. He shook his head in disgust and proceeded down the flight of stairs. There was beer down there.
“Callie?” He stood rooted at the bottom of the staircase, stupidly wondering why she was seated in a chair in the middle of the large basement room. She hated his mother’s house.
It sounds mean, she had told him. And even though he knew mean, he didn’t understand that. He had never heard it coming.
It’s all the creaking, Nick. The floors, the doors, even the windows shriek. Like someone’s in pain. Like someone’s causing pain. She didn’t know the half of it; he had never told her.
“Callie?” he asked again, but even as he did, he knew she wouldn’t answer; the duck tape had sealed her lips together. She watched him with enormous eyes, straining against the rope tied around her arms and middle. He took one step before going rigid.
“Well, look who’s here.”
Clyde sat in the battered recliner, his huge frame overflowing the armrests. “It’s baby bro.” Nick watched him, his breathing growing shallow.
“Whattaya think, Stut? You gonna be the hero today?” The sneer reached out in his voice, oily and metallic, like the .45 resting neatly across his beefy thighs. Nick took a step towards Callie.
“Naw, Stut. You can’t just take her,” Clyde grinned, his fingers stroking the revolver. “Wanna see who’s quicker?” A high pitched cackle emitted from the corner. Nick flicked his eyes to the left, spying Denny in the shadows. Front and flank; they were stalking.
“Ten bucks says he ain’t as fast as you, Clyde.” Denny jiggled in place, skinny fingers running through his greasy hair. “I bet he ain’t.”
Nick narrowed his focus. The words, first the words.
“Let her go, Clyde.” Smooth, frosty.
“You hear him, D?”
“Yeah, I hear him, Clyde.” Denny giggled, revealing yellow teeth. He absently scratched at a crusty sore on his cheek. His eyes were slightly glazed; he’d been dipping in the meth again.
“He says to just let her go. Said it like a man, too.” Clyde smiled again, a single gold tooth catching the beams from the naked light bulb. The tiny flash shimmered briefly before extinguishing with his next words.
“We gotta talk, Stut.”
Nick glanced at Callie before sitting down on the third step of the staircase. He waited for Clyde.
“That’s a good little bro. You know you ain’t worth shit to me. But her,” he gestured to Callie with the .45, “she’s worth 250k.”
“Yeah, yeah...” Denny shook his head rapidly. “250k...”
“Shut up, Denny,” Clyde said good-naturedly. Nick’s mind raced, desperately trying to connect the dots. Callie was worth a quarter of a million dollars? How? Did her parents have that kind of money?
“You’re h-holding her for r-ransom?” Concentrate, breathe. Now talk. “Don’t d-do this, C-Clyde. Concentrate! Callie doesn’t have that kind of muh-money.”
“Now you’re getting all nuh-nuh-nervous, Stut. Ain’t nothing to be scared about.” Clyde grinned again. Suddenly, the step under Nick’s ass seemed made of ice instead of wood. Cold, prickly claws scratched up his spine.
“You should try talking to your girlfriend Stut, instead of just doing her.”
“She’s loaded! Ain’t she Clyde?” Denny exclaimed. “Loaded, man, like a quarter mil ain’t nothing to her old man.” Denny skipped over to stand beside Callie. “Tell him...go on, tell him.” He poked Callie in the ribs until she nodded in short little jerks. She swallowed hard, the small bone in her throat bobbing.
“Her old man owns Edwards Industries. Millions little bro, you been screwing millions and you didn’t even know it, you freaking moron.” Clyde laughed deep from his belly, a derisive bell tone surprisingly rich and mellow. He’d used it to bludgeon Nick into humiliation many times. Denny cackled an octave higher, sucking breath as though an asthmatic.
Nick turned back to Callie, her disheveled hair framing her face wildly. She met his eyes briefly before looking away. He saw through her half-truths now, remembered how she’d change the subject when he brought up her family, pretending to be scraping by, only telling him the bare facts - parents still married, father in business, a younger brother in high school. Solid citizens straight down the effing line, middle class people with middle class bank accounts. Except that he didn’t really know that, did he? He’d never visited them, never talked to them, never even saw them except in pictures. In six months of being with her constantly, he knew almost nothing about her.
“All you gotta do, Stut, is let ‘em know you got her. But...” Clyde nodded graciously, “you’ll give her back. If they pay you for your time. Easy thing, little bro. Even for a stuttering freak like you.” Clyde studied him from under heavy brows, a faint smile on his lips. “I just wanna let you in on a good thing, Stut. Don’t make it hard on yourself.” He nodded his head, knowingly. “You know, you always end up doing it my way.”
The last time Nick fought the darkness, was also the first time he embraced it. He’d turned ten that day, a tall skinny kid with shifty eyes and a pinched mouth, who on occasion wet the bed. It was a full five minutes after Ma had left the house that Nick figured out that she had completely forgotten his birthday. He’d stared at the front door, the frost creeping up his insides like a heavy glacier, opaquely solid and heavy. Icy crystals touched his brain. He’d stood like that, frozen.
Then Denny had walked into the room, jiggly and stupid, just begging for it. It had taken Nick almost no time at all to get Denny worked up - a simple thing if you knew Denny - to the point where the froth bubbled up around the corners of his thin lips and his eyes grew wide and stayed that way.
Quit acting like you can’t see me, jerk, Denny had snarled at him. Nick had continued to look at the stain on the wall, doing his best not to smile. I know you can! Look at me! I’m here! and then Denny had thrown himself at Nick, hitting the ground instead, because even though Nick was younger by two years, he was faster in every other way.
Denny screamed at him from across the room. You bastard freak! Ma said you was found in the dumpster, in a box of dirty diapers. You ain’t our brother, butt-head, you ain’t got the same Ma as me and Clyde! That’s why you can’t talk. You ain’t human! And Nick felt the cold encompass him completely like an icy immersion; such a deliciously cool, breath sucking jolt. He welcomed it. The words came easier in the cold. He looked Denny in the eye and spoke clearly.
Retard. Denny’s Achilles tendon, because he was stupid enough to have been left back twice and smart enough to know how stupid he really was. Nick said it again and again, cool, frosty, polar, each time. Retard, retard, RETARD... until Clyde’s fat paw gripped Nick’s neck from behind, and used it like a handle to move him from the living room to the kitchen to the basement, all the while talking in his ear, You was born a bastard freak, you ain’t worth a damn to me, you wanna pretend not to see me too, asshole? Nick was so disoriented that he didn’t even try to kick the basement door that time. It was an easy thing to slam it shut on his face.
The oxygen eventually returned to his brain. Then he’d gone from a screaming shriek to a mumbling half sleep in a seamless transition, just in the time it took him to slide down the door. When he awoke fully several minutes later, he heard the silence. Clyde and Denny had left the house. An unfamiliar peace enveloped him; for the first time in his memory, he couldn’t hear the echo of flesh striking flesh.
He grew to crave the darkness. Even after Clyde had lost interest in locking him in the basement, he sought out the darkness himself. He found it in the oddest places - the blackness of an elevator shaft; the repetitive work on the night shift; the dark, mindless pleasure between Callie’s legs.
“Show him why he’s gonna do it, D,” Clyde said lazily. Callie sucked in through her nostrils as Denny pulled on a handful of her hair. He slapped her sharply across the mouth twice. Callie’s head swung left then righted itself in time for the second blow.
“How ‘bout now, Stut?”
“I ain’t done, Clyde,” Denny whined. “Can I do her? Can I? It won’t take but a minute. I’m ready.”
Nick watched Denny’s fingers roam over Callie’s breasts. He saw a single tear fall on Denny’s hand, rolling down in a straight path despite the knobby contours of his knuckles. It landed in a silent plop on Callie’s lap. Into the sweet darkness.
“Stupid bitch!” Denny slapped her mouth again. “She’s putting boogers on me, Clyde. Let me do her real quick.” He pulled on his belt.
Nick shifted his gaze back to Clyde. “Alr-right. But I get a c-cut.”
A deep groan vibrated in Callie’s throat, guttural and anguished. Clyde regarded Nick through carefully hooded eyes, a Cheshire grin playing on his lips.
“That’s more like it, Stut. That’s more like it.”
“Hot damn, what the hell...” Denny yanked on his zipper, caught on his grimy underwear. He pulled on it frantically, hopping from one foot to the other. Nick turned back to Callie.
He looked directly into her eyes and spoke to her like he did before he lost his job, before she broadsided him with her kindness and chestnut hair and deft fingers that knew exactly how to rub the sore spot on his neck. He spoke his love like he had never been able to before, and she heard him with those smooth, coral shells, mottled red now, those shells that caught Nick’s silent words like waves in a cupped palm.
Now.
He dove towards Clyde as Callie stuck her feet out, tripping Denny onto the concrete floor. Denny hit hard with his face, hands caught unawares somewhere down in his crotch. He rose cursing and spitting blood, murder in his eyes. Callie kicked him in the face with both feet. She fell over backwards, feet sticking absurdly up in the air.
Across the room, Nick landed heavy, scrambling on all fours behind Clyde’s chair. He dimly heard the crack of the gun as he swung his arm around the top of the recliner, pinning Clyde’s thick neck in the crook of his elbow. He gripped his wrist with his free hand and squeezed. Clyde swung about, jerking Nick from side to side battering him on the right side of the face with the revolver, another shot fired off into the ceiling. Nick tightened his grip. He squeezed until his shoulders popped.
The blows slowed. The revolver clattered to the floor and Nick lunged for it, standing and pointing it squarely at Clyde’s purple face in one motion. Clyde smirked again even as his color remained vivid. Two seconds went by; two even breaths, two heartbeats. Nick squeezed the trigger. A hole appeared in Clyde’s chest.
“You killed him! I saw you!” Denny shrieked across the room. Nick paused a moment, realizing that Callie was right; everything shrieked in this house. He pulled the trigger again, splattering Denny’s little brain across several cardboard boxes lined up against the wall.
He’d found the beer.
Nick lifted Callie off the floor, gently pulling the tape off her mouth, wincing as though it was pulling on his lips instead of hers. The ropes fell away as soon as he undid one knot; he rubbed her arms briskly. He looked up to see her studying him intently, a small frown between her eyes.
“What is it?” he whispered, dreading the answer.
“I didn’t know you stuttered.” She shivered. He rubbed her arms again, his fingers kneading the raw welts where the rope had cut into her flesh.
“Is that why you d-don’t like t-talking?” Her teeth chattered. He kept his eyes on her welts.
“It’s okay. I d-don’t m-m-mind.”
The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “Me neither.”
He padded into the grimy kitchen, the floor adhering to his bare feet. Each sticky footstep served up an image; an odd sort of slideshow. By the time he’d crossed the room, Callie’s face was bobbing in his sodden brain, drenched in Bud Light and warped.
Talk to me, Nick. Why is that so hard?
She had stood by the window with her arms crossed. The setting sun sent orange shafts through the shuttered window. Her lips pursed. If he hadn’t been so wary, he would have kissed that tight mouth loose.
It’s time you got a another job, Nick. It’s been a month, I can’t carry the both of us forever. She stared at the side of his head. My parents think you’re a loser, Nick.
He finally looked at her. The sun’s rays had sharpened into daggers slicing slivers across the wall. Do you? he’d asked her. A moment of hesitation, too long, incredibly long. She knows this. His turn to look at the side of her head. Her ear is a perfect shell, smooth pink coral and cool to the touch. It catches even the smallest of sounds. She heard the hairline crack in his heart.
Just get a job, Nick. Something, anything, she pleaded. I’m trying to make it on my own. I don’t want to borrow money from my parents again. She reached out, knowing that the crack was widening into a chasm that she wouldn’t be able to breach. Go to school at night and get your GED. Then you’ll be able to work anywhere. I’ll help you. This last she said to his back, as he quietly walked out of her apartment.
The faucet cranked and sputtered bubbles into the plastic glass. Nick sipped the tepid water grimacing at the flat taste. He wanted a beer. Badly.
You’re drinking too much. When had Callie said that to him? You’re spending too much time with your brothers, Nick. They’re bad news. He’d remained silent, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the obvious. If you were working, then you wouldn’t be over there all the time. She’d sighed deeply. It’s time you got another job, Nick... The memory replayed again and again, the words sharper each time around. He threw the plastic glass into the sink and went in search of a beer.
He knew the basement door. It was four paneled and solid but even so it bore its share of scratches and dents. He’d put most of them there. The first time Clyde and Denny had lured him to the basement, he’d been clueless. Clyde had pushed him in and Denny had thrown the door shut so fast that it hit Nick on his skinny nine year old ass. He went down on his knees, his fists beating on the inside of the door. He’d spent an hour sucking air from the crack near the floor.
The next time he fought back, this time catching the door with the heel of his shoe as Clyde hauled him through the doorway. The dent was small but the scuff a foot long. He ended up on the landing anyway, crouched against the wall, his eyes wide in the dark. When the door creaked open two hours later, Ma was waiting on the other side, ready to smack him good for the scuff.
He shook his head, dislodging the images that rode the alcoholic wave. They pursued him relentlessly when he drank, populating his consciousness like a favorite bar. Arguing with Callie hadn’t helped any, that always sent him back to his mother’s house like a damned salmon swimming upstream. But the basement didn’t hold demons anymore, only beer. He pulled the door open, hinges complaining loudly.
Damn. She was right, of course; he had been sitting on his ass for way too long.
They had napped on that Sunday afternoon a month before, sharing the couch with the lazy, fat tabby with the broken muffler. He’d awakened first and the sight of Callie still asleep - her chestnut hair draped across her white neck, upper lip dotted with tiny beads of sweat - had seared permanently into his retinas. Even now, weeks later, that was what he saw when he closed his eyes.
Then her eyelids had shifted frantically as though seeking him in the dark, looking for him, leaving him shitfaced scared like never before, not even in those first lockups in the basement. Days passed into weeks and Callie grew puzzled, then annoyed. Yet he remained silent, unable to tell her that he was falling for her. Falling hard.
It took him a second to realize that the basement light was on. Clyde and Denny, last night’s drinking buddies. He shook his head in disgust and proceeded down the flight of stairs. There was beer down there.
“Callie?” He stood rooted at the bottom of the staircase, stupidly wondering why she was seated in a chair in the middle of the large basement room. She hated his mother’s house.
It sounds mean, she had told him. And even though he knew mean, he didn’t understand that. He had never heard it coming.
It’s all the creaking, Nick. The floors, the doors, even the windows shriek. Like someone’s in pain. Like someone’s causing pain. She didn’t know the half of it; he had never told her.
“Callie?” he asked again, but even as he did, he knew she wouldn’t answer; the duck tape had sealed her lips together. She watched him with enormous eyes, straining against the rope tied around her arms and middle. He took one step before going rigid.
“Well, look who’s here.”
Clyde sat in the battered recliner, his huge frame overflowing the armrests. “It’s baby bro.” Nick watched him, his breathing growing shallow.
“Whattaya think, Stut? You gonna be the hero today?” The sneer reached out in his voice, oily and metallic, like the .45 resting neatly across his beefy thighs. Nick took a step towards Callie.
“Naw, Stut. You can’t just take her,” Clyde grinned, his fingers stroking the revolver. “Wanna see who’s quicker?” A high pitched cackle emitted from the corner. Nick flicked his eyes to the left, spying Denny in the shadows. Front and flank; they were stalking.
“Ten bucks says he ain’t as fast as you, Clyde.” Denny jiggled in place, skinny fingers running through his greasy hair. “I bet he ain’t.”
Nick narrowed his focus. The words, first the words.
“Let her go, Clyde.” Smooth, frosty.
“You hear him, D?”
“Yeah, I hear him, Clyde.” Denny giggled, revealing yellow teeth. He absently scratched at a crusty sore on his cheek. His eyes were slightly glazed; he’d been dipping in the meth again.
“He says to just let her go. Said it like a man, too.” Clyde smiled again, a single gold tooth catching the beams from the naked light bulb. The tiny flash shimmered briefly before extinguishing with his next words.
“We gotta talk, Stut.”
Nick glanced at Callie before sitting down on the third step of the staircase. He waited for Clyde.
“That’s a good little bro. You know you ain’t worth shit to me. But her,” he gestured to Callie with the .45, “she’s worth 250k.”
“Yeah, yeah...” Denny shook his head rapidly. “250k...”
“Shut up, Denny,” Clyde said good-naturedly. Nick’s mind raced, desperately trying to connect the dots. Callie was worth a quarter of a million dollars? How? Did her parents have that kind of money?
“You’re h-holding her for r-ransom?” Concentrate, breathe. Now talk. “Don’t d-do this, C-Clyde. Concentrate! Callie doesn’t have that kind of muh-money.”
“Now you’re getting all nuh-nuh-nervous, Stut. Ain’t nothing to be scared about.” Clyde grinned again. Suddenly, the step under Nick’s ass seemed made of ice instead of wood. Cold, prickly claws scratched up his spine.
“You should try talking to your girlfriend Stut, instead of just doing her.”
“She’s loaded! Ain’t she Clyde?” Denny exclaimed. “Loaded, man, like a quarter mil ain’t nothing to her old man.” Denny skipped over to stand beside Callie. “Tell him...go on, tell him.” He poked Callie in the ribs until she nodded in short little jerks. She swallowed hard, the small bone in her throat bobbing.
“Her old man owns Edwards Industries. Millions little bro, you been screwing millions and you didn’t even know it, you freaking moron.” Clyde laughed deep from his belly, a derisive bell tone surprisingly rich and mellow. He’d used it to bludgeon Nick into humiliation many times. Denny cackled an octave higher, sucking breath as though an asthmatic.
Nick turned back to Callie, her disheveled hair framing her face wildly. She met his eyes briefly before looking away. He saw through her half-truths now, remembered how she’d change the subject when he brought up her family, pretending to be scraping by, only telling him the bare facts - parents still married, father in business, a younger brother in high school. Solid citizens straight down the effing line, middle class people with middle class bank accounts. Except that he didn’t really know that, did he? He’d never visited them, never talked to them, never even saw them except in pictures. In six months of being with her constantly, he knew almost nothing about her.
“All you gotta do, Stut, is let ‘em know you got her. But...” Clyde nodded graciously, “you’ll give her back. If they pay you for your time. Easy thing, little bro. Even for a stuttering freak like you.” Clyde studied him from under heavy brows, a faint smile on his lips. “I just wanna let you in on a good thing, Stut. Don’t make it hard on yourself.” He nodded his head, knowingly. “You know, you always end up doing it my way.”
The last time Nick fought the darkness, was also the first time he embraced it. He’d turned ten that day, a tall skinny kid with shifty eyes and a pinched mouth, who on occasion wet the bed. It was a full five minutes after Ma had left the house that Nick figured out that she had completely forgotten his birthday. He’d stared at the front door, the frost creeping up his insides like a heavy glacier, opaquely solid and heavy. Icy crystals touched his brain. He’d stood like that, frozen.
Then Denny had walked into the room, jiggly and stupid, just begging for it. It had taken Nick almost no time at all to get Denny worked up - a simple thing if you knew Denny - to the point where the froth bubbled up around the corners of his thin lips and his eyes grew wide and stayed that way.
Quit acting like you can’t see me, jerk, Denny had snarled at him. Nick had continued to look at the stain on the wall, doing his best not to smile. I know you can! Look at me! I’m here! and then Denny had thrown himself at Nick, hitting the ground instead, because even though Nick was younger by two years, he was faster in every other way.
Denny screamed at him from across the room. You bastard freak! Ma said you was found in the dumpster, in a box of dirty diapers. You ain’t our brother, butt-head, you ain’t got the same Ma as me and Clyde! That’s why you can’t talk. You ain’t human! And Nick felt the cold encompass him completely like an icy immersion; such a deliciously cool, breath sucking jolt. He welcomed it. The words came easier in the cold. He looked Denny in the eye and spoke clearly.
Retard. Denny’s Achilles tendon, because he was stupid enough to have been left back twice and smart enough to know how stupid he really was. Nick said it again and again, cool, frosty, polar, each time. Retard, retard, RETARD... until Clyde’s fat paw gripped Nick’s neck from behind, and used it like a handle to move him from the living room to the kitchen to the basement, all the while talking in his ear, You was born a bastard freak, you ain’t worth a damn to me, you wanna pretend not to see me too, asshole? Nick was so disoriented that he didn’t even try to kick the basement door that time. It was an easy thing to slam it shut on his face.
The oxygen eventually returned to his brain. Then he’d gone from a screaming shriek to a mumbling half sleep in a seamless transition, just in the time it took him to slide down the door. When he awoke fully several minutes later, he heard the silence. Clyde and Denny had left the house. An unfamiliar peace enveloped him; for the first time in his memory, he couldn’t hear the echo of flesh striking flesh.
He grew to crave the darkness. Even after Clyde had lost interest in locking him in the basement, he sought out the darkness himself. He found it in the oddest places - the blackness of an elevator shaft; the repetitive work on the night shift; the dark, mindless pleasure between Callie’s legs.
“Show him why he’s gonna do it, D,” Clyde said lazily. Callie sucked in through her nostrils as Denny pulled on a handful of her hair. He slapped her sharply across the mouth twice. Callie’s head swung left then righted itself in time for the second blow.
“How ‘bout now, Stut?”
“I ain’t done, Clyde,” Denny whined. “Can I do her? Can I? It won’t take but a minute. I’m ready.”
Nick watched Denny’s fingers roam over Callie’s breasts. He saw a single tear fall on Denny’s hand, rolling down in a straight path despite the knobby contours of his knuckles. It landed in a silent plop on Callie’s lap. Into the sweet darkness.
“Stupid bitch!” Denny slapped her mouth again. “She’s putting boogers on me, Clyde. Let me do her real quick.” He pulled on his belt.
Nick shifted his gaze back to Clyde. “Alr-right. But I get a c-cut.”
A deep groan vibrated in Callie’s throat, guttural and anguished. Clyde regarded Nick through carefully hooded eyes, a Cheshire grin playing on his lips.
“That’s more like it, Stut. That’s more like it.”
“Hot damn, what the hell...” Denny yanked on his zipper, caught on his grimy underwear. He pulled on it frantically, hopping from one foot to the other. Nick turned back to Callie.
He looked directly into her eyes and spoke to her like he did before he lost his job, before she broadsided him with her kindness and chestnut hair and deft fingers that knew exactly how to rub the sore spot on his neck. He spoke his love like he had never been able to before, and she heard him with those smooth, coral shells, mottled red now, those shells that caught Nick’s silent words like waves in a cupped palm.
Now.
He dove towards Clyde as Callie stuck her feet out, tripping Denny onto the concrete floor. Denny hit hard with his face, hands caught unawares somewhere down in his crotch. He rose cursing and spitting blood, murder in his eyes. Callie kicked him in the face with both feet. She fell over backwards, feet sticking absurdly up in the air.
Across the room, Nick landed heavy, scrambling on all fours behind Clyde’s chair. He dimly heard the crack of the gun as he swung his arm around the top of the recliner, pinning Clyde’s thick neck in the crook of his elbow. He gripped his wrist with his free hand and squeezed. Clyde swung about, jerking Nick from side to side battering him on the right side of the face with the revolver, another shot fired off into the ceiling. Nick tightened his grip. He squeezed until his shoulders popped.
The blows slowed. The revolver clattered to the floor and Nick lunged for it, standing and pointing it squarely at Clyde’s purple face in one motion. Clyde smirked again even as his color remained vivid. Two seconds went by; two even breaths, two heartbeats. Nick squeezed the trigger. A hole appeared in Clyde’s chest.
“You killed him! I saw you!” Denny shrieked across the room. Nick paused a moment, realizing that Callie was right; everything shrieked in this house. He pulled the trigger again, splattering Denny’s little brain across several cardboard boxes lined up against the wall.
He’d found the beer.
Nick lifted Callie off the floor, gently pulling the tape off her mouth, wincing as though it was pulling on his lips instead of hers. The ropes fell away as soon as he undid one knot; he rubbed her arms briskly. He looked up to see her studying him intently, a small frown between her eyes.
“What is it?” he whispered, dreading the answer.
“I didn’t know you stuttered.” She shivered. He rubbed her arms again, his fingers kneading the raw welts where the rope had cut into her flesh.
“Is that why you d-don’t like t-talking?” Her teeth chattered. He kept his eyes on her welts.
“It’s okay. I d-don’t m-m-mind.”
The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “Me neither.”
9 comments:
Ok, I tried reading it but I gave up on it, because it just seemed uselessly bleak. I mean I'll try to read it again, and I'm not saying it's overly violent, just hopeless.
I like my bit of violence, and this may sound worse, but I like it when it's comical and used sparingly.
Cheers!
Thanks for giving it a go but if you finish it, I think you'll find a tiny twist and a little bit of humor towards the end.
Thanks again, some response is better than no response.
I'll attempt to read it again and then I'll be able to comment on the entire story. Maybe I wasn't in the best mood when I tried to read it.
Sorry if the first comment sounded too critical, just thought I'd comment right away and tell you what I thought. Cheers!
Not too critical at all. The story truly is bleak but hope shines a little ray at the end.
In any case, the story is what it is, from conception on the tone was set; I merely typed it. ;)
Theamak, I read this the other day and after RP's comments, I thought I should jump in.
The story drew me right in. I really didn't have time to read it all, but did anyway. I needed to know who Nick was and his motivation. And you revealed all that.
I did find a few things hard to believe:
1. The stark differences between their backgrounds. I know this happens, but Nick came from a really, really sick family. What was she doing with him? How did they meet? How did they connect?
It seems like she's been staying over at his family home where the two sick brothers live or hang out. What did she see in him? Was she going to save him? I could see her not knowing about how bad his family background was (not just poor but nasty and abusive), that she'd never met his family and he was doing a good job of pulling it off. But this takes place at his family home.
2. They've know each other long enough that I can't understand that she didn't know he stuttered. Or that he didn't know she stuttered. Maybe in her presence he didn't or that there is some other explanation, but it's not something I would guess most people would know.
But the writing was good and the story was compelling. Those two things keep it from ringing true to me.
Valid points, AK Steve. I wasn't clear on either.
1. Callie had only visited Ma's house once. I have to make that clear. She knows the brothers are trouble but she doesn't know the horrible history.
2. Nick doesn't stutter in her presence because he feels safe. I'll have to include that (introspectively) somewhere.
But I obviously missed the mark with Callie's stuttering. She's not a stutterer. She's suffering from shock and that's making her stutter at that moment.
Thanks for your helpful comments. I'm trying to keep this at under 3000 words and I'm at 2,950 :), but your suggestions will definitely help clean up the story.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Ok, Theamak, promise I'll get back to this, maybe if I have a little spare time this week. A comment will be coming soon.
Whenever you can, RP.
I liked this piece, i thought that yes, it was bleak, and yes, it was depressing, but it still gives hope. some situations, some families, and some lives are bleak. jane austen wrote once that people read in order to understand both the good and the bad in them, so we have to have sad and bleak and depressing stories. or something like that.
i especially liked the beginning, when they are talking about stut getting a job...i liked the part about the orange rays coming through the window, the description of her ear, and the crack in his heart. i thought this was great writing. i think, though, that the scene with her being tied up and kidnapped comes too soon. instead, i would have the part about what shitty brothers they are, locking him in the basement and all, before this scene. that way it gives us a little background to believe how awful they are instead of just thinking they're good-for-nothing drinking buddies. but i think that this story has lots of potential for a longer word count, too. just something to consider.
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