Steven James - Opening Moves

“Hey, Rennie.”

Rennie looked up from the bar. He was the only one in the room. “Carl. Hey, how ya doin’?”

“Good. How ’bout you?”

He shrugged. “Could be worse.”

“Listen, do you mind if I use your phone, there?”

Without a word, Rennie set it on the bar. Slid it toward Carl.

“Um…you know…It’s a bit personal…Has to do with Adele.”

“Gotcha.” Rennie winked as if he understood completely. “Help yourself. I gotta use the john anyway.”

He stepped away and Carl turned the phone so the numbers faced him, then he pulled out the note that Adele’s kidnapper had left for him, and spread it across the counter. The number: 888-359-5392.

He’d done as the note directed and the body was there at the hardware store. In a sense, the ransom had been paid.

Call the number, Carl. So what if it’s a few minutes early.

Thinking about Adele being with this man was just too terrifying for him to wait.

Sweating, his hand shaking noticeably as he tapped in the number, he held the receiver to his ear and waited while it rang.

No one picked up.

With each passing second he became more and more nervous, more afraid.

The note said to call this number, that she would be okay if you did!

But another voice: No, you called early! You didn’t wait!

Still no one answered.

Then Carl heard police sirens and realized that someone must have already found Miriam Flandry’s corpse and called the station, which was less than a mile away.

And all he could think of was why the man who’d taken Adele, who’d already severed off at least one of her fingers, wasn’t answering.

And what he might be doing to her instead.

Joshua drew the heavy-duty zip tie taut around Adele’s left wrist. She was awake now, still blindfolded, but she could obviously tell that she was restrained to the chair and that he was putting something around her wrist. She tried valiantly to pull free. “What are you doing?” Her voice was constricted and tight with concern, and Joshua had to admit to himself that he kind of liked that.

He thought that maybe it would be more frightening to her if he remained quiet. So instead of replying, he just cinched the second tie around her right wrist, tugging it tight enough to cut off the circulation to her hand.

“Ouch!” She winced. “Who are you! Stop it!”

When he still said nothing, she cried out louder, squirming to get free, and it reminded him of the way Colleen had acted the night before. It even reminded him of his first trip into the special place beneath the barn with his father, when that man named Kenneth who was shackled to the boards holding up the cellar’s earthen walls, had tried so desperately but in the end, futilely, to escape.

“What do you want!” Adele screamed. The words thrummed for a moment inside the boxcar then the mattresses swallowed the sounds, leaving a soft, hollow silence in their wake.

Joshua bent to do her right ankle but realized it might be best to talk to her after all, to keep her preoccupied until he got started with the Gemrig saw. “I just want you to be still.”

When he actually did reply to her this time, she was quiet, and he wondered if maybe she’d become hopeful that she could negotiate with him. He didn’t like that his words might be leading her on, might be making her think he was going to have compassion on her. It just didn’t feel right to do that to her.

She stopped struggling for the moment, then shifted her weight in the chair. “Please let me-oh my God!” She was rubbing the fingers of her left hand together and it was clear she’d just discovered that her ring finger was missing. The first aid tape Joshua had wrapped around the nub kept it from bleeding too much, and the adrenaline, fear, and the lingering effects of the drugs must have distracted her from the pain. “What did you do to me!”

“I’ve asked Carl to do a job for me. That was to let him know how important it is.”

She took a handful of heavy breaths. “Okay. It’s okay. It doesn’t matter, but can you let me go? I’ll make sure he does what you want.”

It was clear that she was just trying to conciliate him. Of course it mattered that someone had snipped off her ring finger, and even though he could understand why she was acting this way, saying these things, Joshua wasn’t sure he liked her downplaying the severity of what had happened, all in a vain attempt to try to make him release her.

“I won’t tell,” she gasped, and it sounded like she was trying to hold back tears. “I’ll make Carl do what you want. He will. I promise.”

Joshua enjoyed the screaming, but this begging made him uncomfortable. He finished with her right ankle. Turned to the left one, trying to tune out her pleading, but she kept on, kept promising that she would do whatever he wanted if he would just stop, just please, please, stop and let her go.

He retrieved the saw. That would change things. Once he actually got started.

The November air bristled across his bare skin, tiny needles that somehow brought him closer to the moment, more in tune with what he was doing. He closed his eyes, shivered deeply. Embraced the chill of the coming night.

Last evening he’d left Colleen conscious as he amputated her hands, and that’d been satisfying. Now, with Adele, since he was doing both her hands and feet, it would last that much longer.

Yes, getting started would make things better, would stop all her talking.

He decided to begin with her feet.

Joshua knelt and carefully positioned the blade of the amputation saw against the skin just above Adele’s left foot, about half an inch below the plastic tie.

“Listen to me!” she cried, and started in again, wriggling frantically. “Whatever you’re thinking about doing, you don’t need to do this!” She’d obviously pieced two and two together, probably taking into account what had happened to her finger along with the fact that something was constricting her wrists and ankles. “Okay? Whatever you want, I’ll make sure-”

“If you keep moving, this is going to hurt a lot worse and it’ll take longer, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t want either of those things to happen.” He tugged on the end of the plastic tie again, cinching it deeper into her skin to make sure it was as snug as it needed to be, then he grasped her foot and held it firmly against the ground to keep it in position.

“No!”

He realigned the saw…

“Please stop!”

…Tightened his grip on the handle…

“No, I’ll-”

And drove the blade forward, bringing a spray of hot blood and a bright, fresh scream from Adele.

The cut was just shy of half an inch deep. Joshua paused, took a moment to drink in the sound of this woman’s cries. As he did, he felt-along with the excitement-a piercing stab of shame doing this, enjoying her suffering so much.

The reality that her pain brought him so much pleasure was unsettling. He’d done enough research on serial killers to know that the majority of them were sadists, relishing the act of making other people suffer.

You’re a sadist, Joshua. You’re a-

Never before throughout his life had he thought of himself in that way, not before this autumn when all this began. But now he was forced to admit that he really did enjoy causing pain, and the discovery of that dark part of his nature emerging so clearly, so distinctly, troubled him.

Adele was crying in between her shrieks of pain.

“The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”

The evil which I would not.

That I do.

Joshua realized that he would never be the same again, not after giving free rein to this part of his nature. Acts like this undoubtedly changed a person in fundamental ways. Once you start down this road, with the type of crimes he was committing, there’s no turning back. Yes, he might be able to find eventual forgiveness for his actions, but he would never be able to erase the impact they would have on his conscience, on his soul.