Long Holler Road - A Dark Southern Thriller (25 page)

  She put her head back down and her lips close to my ear and whispered quietly, “Just act like you know what you’re doing and listen to me.”

  “O…okay” I whispered back.

  “Listen closely to me, and don’t interrupt.” She raised back up as the big man walked a little closer to get a better angle with his camera. She had her hands on my chest and was moving around as though she was having the experience of a lifetime. I didn’t have to pretend, I
was
having the experience of my lifetime. When the man had moved further back, she leaned down and started kissing my neck again.

  “Be ready when we come into your room to bring your supper tonight,” she whispered. “I know you have a gun hidden somewhere in the room. When I hit Carl in the head, grab the gun and follow me and don’t say a word.”

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. The big man was Carl? Her husband, Carl?

  She raised back up and started putting on a show. The camera clicked rapidly three or four times. Then she was back to my neck again, kissing it violently, making everything look real.

  “There are three more men in the building. I’m going to try to get you up the stairs and into the van before they notice.”

  Madge started acting as if she were really getting into it now. She could have won an Oscar for her performance. The camera continued clicking with the flashbulbs lighting up the room. Besides the pictures, I was pretty sure we were being filmed too. I was now, among other things, a porn star. Who would have ever guessed it.

  When Madge put her head back down again, I whispered, “What about the little man that’s always with Carl?”

  “I am the little man.”

  With that she slumped down on the bed beside me, breathing heavily as if she’d just had the greatest moment of passion and pleasure in her life. Carl seemed pleased and kept the camera clicking. She laid there for a moment, then got up and walked over to the bed where Glenn was laying. I’d never seen a more surprised look on his face. When she sat down on his bed and ran her fingers through his hair, his mouth was agape like a kid who’d just seen Santa Claus.

  “Soooo, you sexy cowboy, is this gonna be your first time in the saddle too?”

  Glenn hesitated for a second, then answered, “Well, let’s just say I’ve been around the block a couple of times.” I wanted desperately to yell out,
“Lying asshole!”,
but I managed to hold my tongue.

*****

  Snake had finally come around and was eating the lunch they’d brought us as if we were on a picnic and nothing had happened. Maybe whatever they had given him had erased the memory of the gruesome scene we’d witnessed earlier. If it had, I wished they could give me a shot of it. Me and Glenn hadn’t forgotten what we’d seen, but were able to block it from our minds for a few minutes, anyway. I believed the magic Madge could work would make any man get his mind off anything for awhile.

  I wondered if I should tell Glenn what Madge had told me. For all I knew she had told him too, but I doubted it. For some inexplicable reason, there seemed to be some sort of connection between Madge and me. I had felt it the day we went to work in her yard and me and her spent so much time talking. I felt the same thing again when we went to her that night for advice  on what to do about finding Gloria Reeve’s body and the Bullard’s involvement.

  Did Glenn need to know so he’d be ready to move when the time came? Madge hadn’t told me not to tell him. Maybe she thought I was smart enough to figure it out on my own. I was smart enough to know not to tell Snake. I was afraid he’d give it away as soon as they walked in the room. Despite the progress Momma and Daddy had made with him, in many ways he still thought like a child. I supposed he probably always would.

  Glenn could tell I was in deep thought and he couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “What have you got on your mind? I mean, besides old Madge?” he asked smiling.

  “Just wondering how we can get out of here,” I whispered. I still wasn’t sure whether or not the room was bugged and they could hear what we were saying. It seems that if Madge were really on the level, she would have told me if the room was bugged. Of course it could have been that she didn’t know it either. I had a hell of a lot of questions to ask her when and if she got us out of this mess. But what if she didn’t come with us? What would happen to her? I had to stop worrying about all and just be ready when the time came. Getting out of this horror show was the top priority right now. If that didn’t work, none of the rest would matter anyway.

  “Got any plans yet?” Glenn was whispering loudly and looking irritated. He’d apparently been talking to me and I was so deep in thought I hadn’t noticed. “Are you goin’ deaf?”

  “No, I…I was just thinking. Just be ready at all times. Make sure we don’t leave Snake behind, but don’t say anything to him. He may do something crazy if you do.”

  I looked down at the stack of books that were laying at the end of my bed. I reached down and started going through them and was surprised at what I saw. Apparently, they were expecting some intellectual and erudite guests. There were volumes on Pluto, Aristotle, Socrates, Cicero just to name a few. There was also a copy of
The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire,
by Edward Gibbons and several books on philosophy and a few on physics. There were magazines, too. But they weren’t Playboy or Life or Good Housekeeping. They were mostly trade magazines on subjects like science and mechanics and aeronautics.
Who the hell were these people?
One thing was for sure. They weren’t a bunch of hayseed hicks from the hills of Putnam County, Alabama. But I didn’t really need the books to tell me that. This elaborate, underground labyrinth with all it’s automation and little chambers of horror gave away the fact that we were dealing with intelligent people that apparently had an infinite amount of finances.

  I picked up a worn copy of Euclid’s
Elements
and started thumbing through it. I had to do something to pass the time until they brought our supper, and that was going to be a while since we’d just had lunch not long before. The big man, who I now knew was Madge’s husband Carl, had said something about an early evening matinee. I was hoping the technical difficulties he’d mentioned would prevent it or they would just forget. Somehow, I didn’t think they would forget. But I was gonna go crazy if I didn’t do something to occupy my mind until they came for us again, for whatever reason that might be.  

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Apparently the technical difficulties had not been resolved, because the matinee had been postponed until the next day. This was the message that Carl had delivered when he stuck his head through the door just a few minutes earlier, and news that I was very happy to hear. He also said that dinner would be served in about an hour, which was impossible to determine since we had no way of telling time. We hadn’t seen the outside since we’d been here, but I assumed it must still be daylight outside because the days were still long, it only being the end of August. School would start back in two weeks. I was just hoping I would be there to attend.

  I had given up on Euclid. It required too much concentration, so I had started on a fiction novel I’d found among the pile of books. It was about a young boy that had been kidnapped from a wealthy family and was being held for ransom. I had to wonder if the book had been left there purposely, or if it was just sheer irony. I was actually getting into the story. It turned out that the kid didn’t really care if he was rescued or not, since his father had little time for him and his mother and was an alcoholic. In a twisted way, he was beginning to become attached to his kidnappers, one of which was a good listener and was giving him advice on how to win his father’s affection.

  Somewhere in the middle of chapter eighteen, I heard the key being inserted into the lock and the clicking sound of the tumblers. This was it. My pulse was racing and my stomach had begun it’s familiar churning as the door opened. This time it was only Carl, brandishing the gun, but not really pointing it at us.

  “I couldn’t help but notice you were making use of your little library. I admire a young man who reads and tries to make something of himself. We have many more books on subjects you might find fascinating. If you would let me know what genres you most enjoy, later on I’ll see if we can round you up something you might find more appealing than the one’s we’ve provided.” He stood there a minute as if in deep thought. “Oh, and I wanted to let you gentlemen know that dinner has been slightly delayed. Something about the sauce for some kind of pastries that are being prepared for dessert. But I was assured it would be ready in another fifteen minutes or so.”

  “Thank you for telling us,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know the proper etiquette to address somebody who was being so polite and accommodating and who also enjoyed torturing us and at some point may kill us.

  When he’d walked out I let out a long sigh of relief and frustration. My heart was young, and as far as I knew strong, but I didn’t know how much more it could take. I picked up my book and noticed that when the door opened I had just thrown it on the bed instead of laying it face down to keep my place. Of course I thought we were about to attempt an escape and didn’t figure I’d be doing any more reading. I thumbed back through the pages and finally found my place. I started trying to read again, but kept reading the same sentences over and over.

  Snake was dozing again and Glenn was looking through one of the magazines. I had to figure out a way of getting them ready to move without letting them or anybody who might be watching through the mirrored window know what I was doing. I walked over to Snake and shook him. He looked up at me with the startled look people have when they are suddenly aroused from sleep. Glenn laid his magazine down. “What did you wake up Snake for? As long as he’s asleep, he’s not worryin’ and askin’ what’s gonna happen next.”

  “I thought we could all do a few exercises before our supper gets here. We ain’t had any exercise in nearly two days.”

  “Me and you had some good exercise just a while ago,” Glenn said with a big grin.

  “Shut up, Glenn,” I said nodding toward Snake.

  “What kind of exercise did you boys do?” Snake wanted to know.

  “Oh, they just had us walk around a little bit, Snake. It was while you were asleep. What I though we might do was some push-ups. Something to get our blood pumpin’.”

  I got down on the floor in the push-up position and nodded to both of them. They both got in the floor and we pumped off twenty-five of them. After a short break, we did twenty-five more. Then we turned over on our backs and did a few sit-ups. Snake was not very graceful doing floor exercises, but he was a good sport about it. When we’d finished we sat back down on our beds. Now we had to wait. If you’ve ever had to go to the dentist to get a cavity filled or a root canal you know what the wait is like. Multiply that several times and that was what this was like.

  I got up and started walking around the room, swinging my arms in circular motions and twisting my body like an athlete warming up for a competition. I suddenly thought of something. I walked over to my bed and laid down. I let my right hand dangle off the edge and slowly lifted it up until I could feel the bottom of the mattress. I slid my fingers between the mattress and box springs just to make sure the gun was still there. I slid my whole hand inside, up to my wrist, but I didn’t feel anything! I figured it must have worked it’s way up further with all my tossing and turning in bed. I got on the floor between the two beds, I did a few more push-ups as a ruse and then laid down flat on stomach. I ran my hand up under the mattress and felt around as far as I could without being too suspicious. I was beginning to panic. Had they found it?

  The now familiar sound of the key in the door and the clicking of the tumblers could be heard. I quickly got up and moved around to the end of the bed and sat back down. Carl walked in first like he’d done before, pushing the service cart. He was alone this time. Where was the little man? Where was Madge? Then another man walked in behind him holding a gun. I knew
that
wasn’t Madge. He was almost as big as Carl. He wasn’t carrying a pistol, either. From where I sat it looked like a sawed-off shotgun. One like the cops carried sometimes. My heart sank. They were on to us. My heart was racing and my palms were so sweaty I wiped them on my jeans. Carl started setting up the TV trays and taking the lids off the food. I looked over at the door and saw Madge walk in. Or what I hoped was Madge. Carl saw me looking and turned around.

  “I thought I told you not to come in here.” She didn’t say a word but just kept walking. “Go back outside like you were told to…..”

  Madge quickly leveled her pistol and shot the man holding the shotgun. Instinctively, I jumped off my bed and dove at Carl, knocking him to the floor. I was on top of him in a flash, trying to keep him from getting hold of his gun that was in a shoulder holster. Despite the adrenaline that was flowing through my body, I was no match for him. He was as strong as a bull. He twisted his bulky body and pushed with his arms and I went sliding across the linoleum floor. I saw him reach for his pistol, then heard a loud thump, like someone had dropped a watermelon on concrete. I saw Carl grab the back of his head, wincing in pain from the blow Snake had delivered from the heavy work boots he wore. Then Madge clubbed him over the head again with her pistol and grabbed his gun from the holster. Then, just to make sure, she hit him one more time. I didn’t want to feel left out, so I jumped up and kicked him in the ribs as hard as I could.