“They’re marked for immediate termination, Tom. No fucking around!”
“Shut up!” Tom shouted behind them as the figure of Billy came alongside.
Billy shook his head. “You’re goddamned crazy, Tom. I always said it.”
“I said, shut up!” But Tom grinned. He pulled out a large KA-BAR knife and twirled the blade around its long axis as he approached Lopez. “I’ll get to you in a minute, altar boy. But first!” he jumped and landed hard on Houston’s lap, the chair underneath nearly buckling, groaning horribly under the sudden impact. Her eyes widened, and Lopez could see her attempt to struggle out of her constraints. The wood groaned in anguish, but the ropes didn’t budge.
He placed the knife between her legs, the tip pressed against her groin. “See, Billy, I’m going to teach this traitor a lesson, what happens to you when you betray your country.” Lopez could hear Houston breathing quickly, a panicked look on her face. Tom seemed very happy to see it. “See, I hate betrayal. Hate it. When my wife betrayed me, when she started fucking that lawyer up the road every mission I was sent on, that made the bitch a whore. When you betray your country, whore, it’s worse!”
Keeping the knife where it was, he placed his hand up her shirt from below and felt up her breasts. Lopez saw Houston close her eyes and tighten her face. He felt a charged coldness run through him. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. He pulled harder on the ropes but only managed to make the chair squeak more loudly.
“Oh, yeah, baby, you have a nice rack. I’m gonna have me all of this,” he said, suddenly pressing his left hand against her sternum and flicking the knife upward in a flash with his right. The duct tape muffled a scream from Houston, but she was uninjured. The knife work was highly skilled, her shirt and bra severed in a single stroke, her large breasts springing forward from the released tension. Lopez stared at them, pale like her skin, the nipples bright red and taut. He closed his eyes and felt ashamed.
Tom slapped the KA-BAR against one of her breasts, the handle near the nipple, the long blade running up the gland to the striated pectoral muscle in the upper portion of her chest. “Got this during my Iraq tours.” He ran his finger from the nape of her neck slowly down to her navel. Houston twitched. “One of these can open you up like a piñata.”
Lopez opened his eyes, his blood pressure mounting. No!
“We’ll get to that, don’t worry, darling.” With his free hand, he stood up and unclasped his belt. “But first things first.” Keeping the knife near her neck, he snapped open his pants and yanked them and his underwear down to his thighs, revealing a throbbing erection.
“Jesus, Tom! We don’t have time for this! Just do them!” pleaded Billy, not a foot away from Lopez.
“We’ll do them, don’t worry. First, I’ll do her right. I’ve got to teach this bitch-whore a lesson.” Flushed in the moment, he bent forward and drew the knife quickly across each of her legs and waist, tearing her jeans and underwear away from her in seconds, nicking her thighs and drawing blood. He yanked the tape violently from her mouth, and Lopez heard her groan. “Scream for me, won’t you, bitch?”
Lopez felt himself shaking, rocking in the chair, uttering muffled screams. Houston only closed her eyes. Her powerlessness and acquiescence sent him into a frenzy.
“Shut up, priest, or I’ll do you now,” spat Billy, who quickly returned a hungry gaze toward what happening in front of him. He licked his lips.
Tom reached a muscled arm underneath Houston, and in a single fluid motion, lifted her enough against the restraints to fit himself under her, his penis slapping against her stomach and pubic hair. “You’re gonna ride this, girl!”
“No!” Lopez screamed the word through the tape. He felt a primitive force rushing through him like he had never felt before. Far more than anger, he was filled with a desperate sense of violated ownership and a need to protect that he had no time to analyze. Every muscle fiber in his body tensed, and he even rose up slightly against the constraints, partially standing with the chair lashed to him. Maniacally, he screamed to God in his mind, a vision of Samson struggling against the marble pillars dancing before him as he strained against the ropes.
His arm broke loose.
In the sickly sound of rotten wood cracking, the arm of the chair snapped, the rope slackened, no longer properly tied, and his hand sprang upward, suddenly released. In a split second, he watched the event, his mind racing at a superhuman rate, the glint of rusted steel flashing from an embedded nail ripped out of the chair body. In his peripheral vision, he saw Billy turning as if in slow motion toward him, reaching to pull out a weapon from his belt. Lopez did not pause but reversed the direction of his arm and swung it down with all his strength toward his captor. The nail punctured the man’s neck and drove straight into his body without resistance, the flat wood of the chair arm then smashing the man’s jaw. An artery was pierced, and blood like a geyser spurted sideways. Billy dropped like a stone, yanking his body away from the crude weapon, hard enough that Lopez — tied awkwardly to the chair by torso and legs — lost his balance and fell on top of the man. Below him, blood continued to spray out in pulses to the dying man’s heartbeat. Lopez instinctively turned to look behind.
Tom was already reacting, turning his body and lifting a leg off Houston, his large knife in a tightened grip. Lopez could hardly move. One of his legs had been freed from the impact when he crashed to the floor, but he could do little except kick it up and down. He could not stand. He could not swing it over to even try to feebly engage the man. There was no hope that he could defend himself.
Suddenly, Houston smashed her forehead into Tom’s face. A loud cracking sound followed the impact, like a branch broken over a knee. She had shattered his nose. The blow was astounding, professional, practiced. The man’s head snapped to the side, blood pouring out of his nostrils, and he fell hard against the side of a table, overturning it. Lopez instinctively looked back to Houston, half expecting to see her forehead split open from the impact, but she looked unharmed, her blue eyes wide and staring toward the floor and the figure of the man.
Lopez could hardly see Tom now. Their captor was near his feet. He strained his neck upward and looked down his body toward his legs. Tom shook his head, the blow disorienting him, his face a horror film of blood and a disfigured nose. But he was conscious enough to pull out his gun. Like a drunk, his arm weaved, and he tried to aim the firearm at Houston. The first shot blew out a window on the other side of the room. The second splintered a wooden column inches from Houston’s head. Lopez did not let him fire a third.
Pumping his leg like a piston, he kicked the man in the head. The impact was solid, and Tom slumped forward. Lopez did not hesitate to examine his foe. The piston pumped again and again, impact after impact, blow after blow making extreme contact with the man’s skull. He lost himself, the rage, the purging of primal anger and fear overcoming his consciousness. He only knew reaction, action, destruction and striking back. Again and again and again.
Finally, in complete exhaustion, he went limp and stopped kicking, his breath bursting from his nostrils. Underneath him, the form of Billy had stopped twitching, the blood no longer spurting. The entire cabin was suddenly still and quiet.
After what seemed like an eon, he became aware of his surroundings once more. He lay on his side, strapped to a chair, on top of a dead man he had just killed with a nail. At his feet was another victim of his violence. In front of that corpse was a beautiful woman, violated, nearly raped and murdered. Lopez felt tears in his eyes. Everything was a horrible nightmare.