But like his mother and father said, he wasn't going to be coming around. No one wanted him.
So I thought.
I got to feeling weird, the kind of weird that's just an empty feeling in your guts, the kind of feeling you don't have any real reason for, and you don't need any reason for… the kind of feeling that says something's wrong, and if it don't look wrong to you right now, it's going to real quick, just as soon as it gets bad enough.
I felt like… you know… eyes were on me. I kept telling myself, Marilyn, you're being just stupid… as stupid as you can be.
But you know… I kept feeling it… kept thinking that there was someone following me… someone watching me.
It was getting so I was afraid to open my curtains at night… and this was in the bedroom I'd slept in every night since I was a little girl!
I finally got a grip on myself and convinced myself that I wasn't going to be afraid any more.
That was the first night in a long time that I'd been able to get to sleep easily.
That was also the night that it happened.
I woke up with a hand over my mouth and my heart racing madly.
Those first few seconds after you wake up are awful… you have no idea where you are… what you're doing… why you're doing it… who you are…
And if you've been dreaming at the time you wake up, you can't figure out which is real and which isn't.
I knew that there was one thing that was real.
There was a hand over my mouth, and it was pressing down so hard that I didn't have a chance to make a single sound, let alone call for help!
I was frozen for a moment, and then I reacted mindlessly flailing about in all directions, my muscles charged with an overwhelming charge of energy. I was panic stricken.
I was out of my head.
I couldn't think.
I reached up and grabbed an arm… it was a solid, firm arm… it was a man's arm.
I knew in that moment, somehow, that it was Hunter.
He'd come back for me… he'd returned to Sludge Falls for revenge, and he'd somehow gotten into the house, and he was going to kill me now.
I was having trouble breathing. My heart was beating so fast that I couldn't get enough air in my lungs to keep oxygen in my blood, and I felt like I was going to start blacking out.
I shook.
I jerked.
I tried to break away, but then his other hand got me up to my neck, those awful long fingers that had stroked me so lovingly on our first date… those caresses that had convinced me that he was a gentle human… those fingers that had lied to me now were clamped tightly around my neck, pressing in… squeezing me… harder… harder… harder…
I started to feel dizzy.
I felt my mind drifting away… felt myself being sucked down into some kind of strange vortex, like a plug had been pulled on reality's drain and now I was going to be sucked into a cosmic sewer for all time.
He brought his head down to my ear and he spoke, and for the first time I knew without a doubt that it was Hunter.
"I have a gun. You can yell… but if you do, you'll be dead before anyone can come close to you. Do you understand? I'll kill you. I'll put a bullet in you that'll take an hour to kill you… but you'll die, no one will be able to save you. Do you understand?"
I couldn't say anything. How do you talk to an insane person? How do you tell someone that you agree to madness… his madness… that you agree to let yourself be destroyed. How?
He slowly took his hand away from my throat. "I'm telling you the truth, Marilyn. I'll kill you if you make a sound."
I didn't say anything. I'm not stupid, after all.
He slowly took his hand away from my mouth now. The flat of his palm hovered about an inch above my lips… I knew that I'd get perhaps a quarter of a second of a scream out and then he'd slam his hand back down on me, and he'd break my neck.
But maybe he'd wait… rape me first… and then break my neck. I didn't know how he'd do it, but I was already preparing myself to die. I had given up all hope.
"That's good," he said, when I remained silent. "That's what I like to see."
He reached into his pocket and removed something… I couldn't tell what it was in the dark, but then I felt something soft against my teeth.
He pushed it harder, and I realized that it was a soft rubber ball… maybe the kind that you can pick up in any toy store.
He forced it to fill my mouth, completely… but it wasn't so big that it hurt my jaws.
It just made certain that I'd never have the chance to scream.
I suddenly felt a wave of fear and blind panic sweep over me, and I screamed anyway, but of course, it was too late…
There was no one who could have heard me beyond the door to the room unless they'd stuck their ear right up against the wood.
I knew my mother was sound asleep… and there wasn't anything short of a war that would wake her up.
I wanted to fight him… maybe do the same thing that I'd done to him the last time I was with him… but I didn't have the chance. Or the strength.
He had me tied up before I knew what was happening… my arms behind my back, my feet together…
He lifted me off the bed, and to my amazement, my arms and legs hung down like limp pasta.
I couldn't move them. I couldn't move at all… I don't even think I could have screamed if the ball was out of my mouth.
Nothing seemed to work anymore, particularly my brain, and my will to survive.
He carried me out the open window that he'd entered by, deftly descended a ladder and bundled me into a van that was parked out by the road.
He drove off, and as far as I could tell, there wasn't a soul around that saw a single thing.
I finally got a chance to see the hunting retreat that his family owned, the place that had provided him with the past-time that created his nickname.
Only now… it wasn't going to be used as a hunting lodge.
It was going to be used as a torture chamber.
He carried me into the wooden structure, and laid me on one of the bare mattresses that were stacked on iron bedsprings.
He said nothing to me.
He didn't need to. I knew exactly what his plans were. It was as if I could read his mind.
"So," he said looking down at my bound form. "You think you're pretty hot shit, don't you?"
I looked up at him, feeling more frightened than I'd ever felt in my life.
He wasn't looking at me with a demented look in his eyes… he wasn't giving me any indications just from his facial features that he was out of his mind.
But I knew that he was. I knew that he was crazy… mad as a hatter.
I knew that he was capable of doing anything to me… no matter how disgusting.
I took it for granted that he was going to kill me.
He set about preparing his props which I realized were fairly sophisticated.
"You're looking this stuff over pretty carefully, Marilyn. You've never seen anything like this before? Come on. You're not that unworldly, are you? A block and tackle? You've never seen anything like this? Give me a break. Haven't you ever wondered how people managed to fuck before the block-and-tackle was invented? I know I sure have."
He was being friendly, jaunty, and then he started to whistle.
I realized that he must have either done this before, or else he'd been up here already preparing the place for my arrival.
There were hooks all over the place… large hooks, solidly embedded in the walls to make certain that they'd support the weight of a human body. My body.
He attached ropes to the hooks, chains to the hooks, pulleys to the chains…
It looked a dungeon master's nightmare.
I just lay there on my, bed, staring, unable to comprehend any of it. It was just too awful.
Finally, he looked over at me.
"You're ready, aren't you? I sure hope so. I'd hate to think that you weren't ready, after all the trouble I've gone to. You really disappointed me, Marilyn. I hope you realize that. I came back out here just to impress you, let you know that I don't hold any hard feelings just because you were unfaithful to me, and injured me physically, and now you're trying to divorce me."