Ryan Thomas - The Summer I Died

“Don’t know where you live yet,” he said, waltzing back over to Tooth, “but I’ve got other ways of amusing myself.” He pulled the gun out from the back of his waistband, cocked it, and put it to Tooth’s head. I cringed, expecting my friend’s brains to explode onto the side of my face, but the bastard didn’t pull the trigger. He was just trying to drive us crazy. Instead, he put it in his pocket and held up the dice.

Tooth was breathing hard, his charred lips singed and gooey like marshmallows that had fallen in a campfire.

“Oh boy, what to do, what to do. This is always the hard part, deciding where to begin. Never had three fresh ones at the same time before. I kind of feel like a kid in a candy shop. I don’t want to go too fast, though, an opportunity like this should be savored. Had me two before. Had me one and half, too. Fuck, I had me halves scattered all about like the earth was bearing babies. Babies, oh yeah, had me one of them once, too. Pretty little girl with bright blue eyes. So trusting when they’re young, will follow you anywhere you call ’em sweetie and precious. Yeah, that one, I hung her face on my wall to remind me of how precious our time together was. And now I got me three. What to do, what to do. Best to let fate decide for me. You’re one through four,” he said pointing at me. “You’re five through eight,” he said to Tooth, “and the bitch in the back is the rest.” Butch barked a couple times to which Skinny Man replied, “I’ll handle it my way! You stay outta this!”

He tossed the dice on the ground and they came up a three and a six. Who was nine again? Then my stomach bubbled, my head swam. What was he going to do to Jamie? He was going to rape her, I just knew it. He was going to rape her and beat her and cook her alive. Tooth was thinking the same thing, I could tell. He was yanking his chains away from the wall to no avail.

Butch barked. Skinny Man screamed, “Just hold on! I only got two hands!”

My God, he was insane. He was the devil, arguing with his hellhound.

A shoe flew at my head and missed by an inch. The crazy fuck was getting undressed in front of us. I shook my head, bit the rag to try and rip it in half. The dog kept barking while the maniac tore his pants off. Faster and faster he ripped his wardrobe off and then flung it about the room. Once he was fully naked he squeezed himself and lurched about as if he had no control over his body, as if he was Satan’s marionette.

As he moved, his tattoos undulated like underwater scenes of hell. I could see them clear as day now: dogs raping women, wolves eating babies. The muscles in his arms and back tightened and flexed, and even though he was skinny, he had a tautness to him. One look and you knew he could lash out at you with rattlesnake reflexes. He took up moaning as he danced, like an engine revving up for take off. When his dancing reached its frenetic peak, his arms and legs snapping this way and that, his moaning a full-on siren, he took a pair of hedge-cutting shears off the table, spun around wildly, ran into the room with Jamie and slammed the door.

Then for a few moments everything went silent. Tooth and I stopped fighting the chains, just listened. The raspy wheezing of Butch’s breath was all we heard, a scratchy sound like someone raking leaves.

Then faintly, Jamie spoke. “Please don’t. Oh God, please don’t.” I could hear her hyperventilating. “No. No, please!”

Then she screamed.

I went wild. Tooth struggled with all his might but the chains held. Over the dog’s breathing, and our frantic attempt to free ourselves, Jamie’s high-pitched wail cut into my heart, stopped my breath like someone was stamping on my chest.

She just kept screaming and screaming. Butch was up and pawing at the door, licking his chops. I fought so hard my wrists began to bleed. Maybe thirty seconds went by before the door opened again and Skinny Man came out carrying the hedge-cutting shears and a mound of gore. I felt faint. I had no idea what part of my sister the bloody flesh belonged to, but I knew it was part of her. Tooth was trying to scream around the gag but he wasn’t making any sense. The sores around his mouth split, dribbling more snot-colored pus down the corners of his lips.

Skinny Man dropped the goop in the dog dish and removed the shovel from the stove. I felt like I was watching it all through the large end of binoculars. It seemed so far away. The glowing shovel, bright red from the fire, left an afterimage in my retina when he went back in the other room.

I waited with baited breath and it wasn’t long before we heard the faint singe of skin followed by Jamie’s horrific cry. Then he returned, with that sedated look people get after eating a big meal, and put the shovel back in the stove. He scooped up his clothes and went up the stairs. Before he did though, he set the clippers against the wall near the door, as if to remind us of our nightmare.

Despite the gag, I screamed for Jamie, annunciating as best I could. “Jamie? Jamie, please, talk to me, say something.” I sounded like a drunk with a swollen tongue.

We waited and listened. There was no response. Was she dead? Did that psycho just kill her? The moment was too much to bear and I threw up. The puke shot around the gag and ran down my shirt. I hadn’t eaten anything in a long time, so most of what came up was bile. The combination of piss and blood and puke collecting on the floor was so foul I figured the stench of the house alone might bring the police.

The boiler rumbled, the fire crackled, Tooth panted. I stared at the dry puddle of skin that had melted off Mystery Woman and tried not to think of anything.

I could tell you that time passed, but it didn’t so much pass as jump ahead to another point, everything in between just a black spot in my memory.

Until, finally, she spoke.

“Mom,” she said. He words were strained. “Mom. Dad. Please, somebody help me. Oh God, it hurts. It hurts.”

“Jamie.” Whispering her name in the dark. . I’d never whispered like that before. You know, that kind of whisper where the words become an emotion. The kind of whisper that wakes something inside of you.

I threw my head back and let my body shake; I don’t know why. I was just so happy she was alive it was more than I could bear.

Tooth and I exchanged determined looks and I knew what he was thinking, same as he knew what I was thinking. We had always shared the same brain more or less. We were thinking, there’s always a way out, you just have to find it. Neither Batman nor the Silver Surfer were going to save us. This was real life, and if we wanted out we had to do it ourselves. At that point, with myself covered in regurgitated food, and Tooth swollen and burnt, a silent vow passed between us. No more waiting to die. We were going to escape. And if we died trying, then so be it.

As I leaned back listening to my sister cry, I realized for the first time how much she meant to me. All our fighting and name-calling meant nothing anymore. She was my sister, and I loved her, and if I had to die to save her I was prepared.

Near the stove, Butch chomped up the last of her flesh and licked his lips. He pawed the door open, slipped through, and with a grunt he went upstairs.

I turned back to Tooth and nodded a few times to let him know I was ready and able. I imagined myself with him, in California on the beach, watching the waves roll in. It was serene, and suddenly I felt okay about dying-not the pain part, just the part about not existing. Probably we would never see California, or the outside of this cellar ever again, but I felt okay.

I caught Tooth’s eyes and followed the motion of his nodding head. It was his way of telling me we had to talk so I started working at the gag. Barbed wire or no, we had to formulate a plan.