Her stomach soured. They seemed pretty nonchalant about the fact that she’d soon be dead. Dead, just like…
Tony.
She forgot all about Tony in her private bursts of pain and wishing that she would die. Poor Tony was beaten to within an inch of his life, and then an inch and a half beyond that. Annie couldn’t see him, as they’d dragged him away. Or was there a him anymore? Wasn’t it just a body now? Yes—she’d heard his last breath while they violated her.
Getting rid of Tony was understandable, thought Annie with a sick laugh that existed only inside her head. Who the hell could get a hard-on with a dead guy on the floor?
Annie couldn’t help thinking about his wife, Vickie maybe, why couldn’t she remember his wife’s name now, and kids, waiting and wishing, thinking that Daddy would be home any minute now, no different from Paulie wondering if his own mother would return to him in one piece. Tony had been a shit, but he’d saved her.
No, she thought. Don’t be naive. He brought you here, looking to score. Tony was looking to get some action and a full belly, no different from the rest of these cretins sitting around the post-rape-party dinner table, shoveling more protein into their bodies so that they could go at her again in short order. Tony was only slightly different from them. He tried to do the right thing, no matter his ulterior motives, and still, look what it brought her.
Had the whole damn world gone mad? She was almost convinced.
Annie curled up into the fetal position, trying to picture Paulie in her mind’s eye, hoping that it would lull her into a calm long enough to do what she had to do. She had trouble picturing his face, terrified that her more recent snapshots of memory might intermingle with her images of him. The thought occurred to her that she might never see him again, so she cast him out of her mind, though it pained her to do so.
She wasn’t sure how it happened, or when it happened, but she fell back asleep. And somewhere, nestled amidst her dreams, she found herself running through the splattered red snow, buck naked except for her snow boots, bleeding out of nearly every orifice, crying out for Christian to save her from the starving wolves, crying out for Paulie to avert his eyes. Raging monsters—hairy, howling, and clawing at the insufferable snow – bounded at her and dug into her flesh, eating until they were full. They ate her again and again, over and over, until she finally woke up.
Annie woke with a startle, looking up to the left, where the early morning sun was poking through the drawn shades the best it could. It was still dark, mostly from the unabating storm. But there was a warm orange glow to that light, as if the lightness of the planet was starting to win again. Annie steadied her chin on the floor, feeling around her body.
She’d been forcibly dressed while she slept. Thank God, she thought, feeling her dignity creeping back into her one breath at a time.
“Good morning, sweetie pie.”
Sitting in the easy chair that, Tony had once lounged on as he commanded her around, was the little imp she’d come to think of as The Midget Man. He had been the first to put his evil inside of her, where it did not belong, and so there was a particularly nasty voltage inside of her vocal cords. She wanted to holler at him, to tell him what a shit heel he was and how he was destined for hell, but as she opened her mouth she felt that pain resume, all the way from her privates up to her eyes.
“The boys stepped out for a bit. Just a little supply run at the Pepper place,” he said, his face glowing in the tiny fire that still survived inside the fireplace. He looked devilish sitting there, and now she could see that one of his eyes was lazy, drifting off to his right as if he was a hunting dog getting ready to hop on a squirrel.
She could no longer smell his repugnant aftershave, but her nasal memory would always be there, ready for her whenever she thought about what he did to her. His penetration was the moment where her entire being had shut down altogether, when she went into a distant barn of her mind, pulling the lofty doors closed behind her. The last thing she could remember was his lowly stench, of cheap aftershave that smelled like something a ten year old might wear to his first school dance.
“When is it?”
“Morning.”
“No. The date.” It was an odd request, but she couldn’t get control of her mind. Not yet.
The Midget Man couldn’t contain the snarky giggle that escaped him. He said, “The date? Fuck if I know. What the hell does that matter anyway? Dates don’t mean shit anymore, case you haven’t noticed.”
Annie groaned, reaching out her hand to push herself up.
“Hey now,” said The Midget Man, fidgeting in his chair just enough to show he’d make a move if she tried to run, and with that Annie flopped back to the chilly floor. The fire was just about extinguished, so the euphoric warmth that once blanketed her ravaged body was pulling back into its shell.
“Rapist,” she managed to say, though it hurt to say anything at all.
A switch inside of him flipped. His giddy persona was replaced by a virulent man, one with a scowling face and blazing eyes.
“Sure enough. Say what you will, but I’m not the one bleeding out my shoo-shoo. You go back to sleep,” he said. “You’re going to need to save up your energy for when the boys get back. For the time bein’, I’m all tapped out,” he said, grabbing his crotch and snarling comically.
He was the most evil thing she’d ever encountered, right behind The Shiny Bald One.
She pressed her eyelids together, listening to his breathing. He said something quiet, but she didn’t acknowledge it.
Annie snored, but she didn’t sleep. Ever since she was a child, she had been a true night owl, so the feigned snore and sleepy eyes (to trick her parents) was no stranger to her. There was a theory that went like this: when you yawn, everybody else around you yawns by proxy. When you snore, so happens the same. Annie was banking on that, combined with the fact that The Midget Man had been up all night with his deviant cronies, plotting the next day’s apocalyptic ventures, furthering their plot to turn the world into their own form of hell.
Sinking deep into a fake snore, Annie realized that she hadn’t lost that skill.
She had an advantage over them.
Though broken and torn, Annie was well rested.
Chapter Eleven
Sanford Pepper slammed his liver-spotted hands against the closet door, wincing with pain as he pushed forward, praying to an invisible God that they wouldn’t breach the door, but knowing deep down inside that they would. They were brutish monsters, every last one of them. He didn’t have much fight in him, but Sanford promised himself that he’d give them whatever he had left.
The biggest of the bunch had cracked him in the jaw with the butt of a rifle, knocking a few teeth loose. That was the last thing on Sanford’s mind. He wouldn’t even bother replacing them if he survived the morning.
He’d awoken only twenty minutes earlier to the sound of gunshots in his yard. By the time he’d grabbed his shotgun and made his way to the front door, they were already in his house, scampering about in circular motions, surrounding him. There were three of them. He didn’t recognize the one that kept laughing like a drug-addled hyena, and the big goofy looking one was recognizable from Tootsie’s corner store. He’d seen the man in there on a few occasions, always buying the greasy foods from the rotating “Grub On The Go” display case.
The third one, though—the third one he recognized.
Marcus Davis.
Rumor had it that during Marcus’ sister’s funeral (she had died three years ago, thereabouts, from a horrific head on collision) he demanded the funeral home director to remove the stitching that held his sister’s lips together. He had refused, stating that it was unorthodox and there was no reason to leave her for all to see, with her mouth hanging open. By the end of the week, all of the director’s tires had been slashed, though he didn’t dare to call the police, for fear of what the chaotic and angry Marcus might do. He was well known in the Saint Mary’s Hospital drunk tank to be discharged with bloody fists and liquor on his breath, even on a Monday night.