Jack Ketchum - The Passenger

“Why?”

“Got to ask you something.”

“Ask me here.”

“It’s girl talk, honey.”

She stubbed out the cigarette. As she passed she saw Ray seated in the kitchen, the bottle in front of him, pulling cards out of his wallet and shoving them back again, frustrated. Still looking for that family photo. She wondered if it even existed.

At the door Marion took her arm and led her into the room and there was Emil on the bed lying sprawled beneath her coverlet. Marion closed the door behind her and stood there and Emil smiled.

“ Next,” he said.

It was a gut punch that turned instantly to rage and fear.

“Fuck you!” she said, and turned and saw Marion blocking her way and didn’t hesitate for a moment- her two elder brothers had taught her to fight way back when and damned if she’d forgotten. She threw her right to the side of her jaw and Marion went down against the pinewood door like so much raw meat. She shoved her out of the way and her hand was on the doorknob when Emil lunged naked off the bed and she felt the warm sweat of his arms around her waist straight through her clothing. He pulled her down on top of him and she turned in his arms, kicking and squirming and trying to pull free but he was too strong. He shoved and rolled her so that he was on top of her straddling her hips, his hands pinning hers to the mattress near the foot of the bed. Then she felt other hands on her wrists, not as strong but strong enough and she heard Marion spit the word bitch and looked up at her naked and looming over her and holding her down, Billy and Ray standing in the doorway behind her and she knew she’d get no help from either one of them.

“Don’t do this. Please, Marion!”

Marion smiled. And there was so much wrong with that smile that she knew she’d never understand it as long as she lived.

“Oh, honey,” she said. “It ain’t nothing. I had boyfriends used to give it to me rough all the time. You lay back, watch the ceiling. You’ll get used to it.”

Emil’s fingers went to her blouse, to the buttons. Billy had his pocket knife in one hand and was poking its tip to his opposite thumb as though testing it while he and Ray moved to the bedside, watching them, an impossible drift of soulless motion and for the first time she really did fear for her life, knew that this might be the end of her right here on this bed, knew it so deeply and well that when her skirt went down and her panties went down and she felt his cock, hard and still beslimed with Marion against her thigh the room swirled and she nearly fainted in the knowledge, but she didn’t, she wasn’t going to be that lucky. She just looked away from them, from all of it and heard him spit on his hand and felt him wipe it across her and then the bright pain of entry like a thousand needles sinking all at once into her flesh and she cried out and heard the drone of Marion’s voice above.

“ There, there, darlin’. You might as well know it. Life’s nothing but a trail of tears for us girls. You might as well know. ”

And then later, Billy demurring but not Ray. Ray the family man, solemnly stripping off his clothes. She turned away again.

And again that voice above her. Dreamy and cooing evil at her.

“ You’ve never seen what I’ve seen. There’s so much you’ve just been protected from. Had a guy once, beat me morning, noon and night, regular, pretty much every day. And people used to say, why do you stay with him? He beats you! And I’d say I love him. He's mine. And I did, and he was. He may be crazy drunk nights but days he’s mine, I said. What’s a woman to expect from a man, anyhow? So don’t you worry about any of this, honey. A woman can get over near anything. And I’m the living proof. ”

When it was over they left her alone but did not completely close the door and she knew they could hear her sobbing so she stopped sobbing and wiped away the snot and tears and got up and used the bathroom, gave herself a whore’s bath in the sink and washed away the blood across her face and hairline, then left the water running so they could hear and went back to the bedroom and opened the bedside drawer and silently as possible took out a pen and notepad, thought hard and began to write.

Emil leaned into the room just as she was zipping up her skirt and asked if she was ready. She said she was. She guessed they weren’t going to kill her quite yet. He looked strangely hesitant for a man who’d just finished raping her.

“You’re pretty much okay, right?”

“I’m… (going to fucking get you)… yes. (Somehow I’ll see you dead for this.) I’m all right.”

“Good. That’s good.”

She walked past him, fists clenched, on into the living room and saw the other three standing set to leave but ignored them and walked straight to the kitchen, took the half-empty bottle of Glenlivet off the counter and poured all that was left into a tall tumbler off the dish rack and drank prodigiously- an old magician’s trick, a little slight-of-hand, fellas -because as she drank they were watching that and trying to gauge her. So that they did not see her set down the bottle on the small square of paper she’d slipped onto the counter beside it.

She drank most of what was in the glass. It wasn’t only to complete the illusion. She needed it.

She slammed the glass to the counter.

“Let’s go.”

“Janet!”

Ever since the crime scene back on the highway he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong. Something wrong with Janet. He’d phoned Kaltzas’s garage and got through this time and no body had heard from her. It was the most likely place in go for help and she hadn’t.

Why?

Inside the house was silent. Living room, study, silent. Just as he’d left them.

But not the bedroom.

The sheets were stripped off the bed and piled on the floor and that wasn’t like her at all, they’d be in the hamper if she was planning to do a laundry when she came home tonight and that was troubling enough but then he saw the pair of beer cans on the dresser. She never drank beer. Hated the stuff.

So that now he was really worried.

Phone the police.

In the kitchen he saw more beer cans in the garbage and two more on the counter along with the empty bottle of Glenlivet.

Jesus. The Glenlivet was fucking empty. That was wrong too. They’d had a nightcap last night before bed and the bottle was still nearly full when he put it away. Then he saw the scrap of paper beneath it and pulled it out from under.

NY TA45567

blue Dodge wagon regist Marion Lane

Emil? Ray? Billy? murder, Rt 605-8:30 p.m.?

HELP!

The handwriting was shaky but hers. He reached for the phone and heard nothing but dead air so he followed the line down to where they’d pulled it out of the wall socket- Who? Emil? Ray? Billy? -plugged it back in and dialed 911. What if I hadn’t come back for the goddamn briefs? he thought. What in god’s name if I hadn’t? Then the cop was on the line.

“Officer Hutt speaking. How can I help you?”

He put on his most businesslike, no-nonsense voice. A little amazed that he could do so.

“Listen carefully. My name is Alan Laymon and I’m an attorney. I have specific information regarding the murder of a police officer on Route Six-o-five at approximately eight-thirty this evening. 1 have a plate number for a blue Dodge wagon. The killers are holding at least one hostage, maybe two. I have names or partial names for all of them. Do you understand me?”

He did.

All told, Emil thought, things were looking good. He’d had two pieces of ass in a single night. He more or less preferred the one he hadn’t raped. Which was fine since it was simpler. He had both of them here in the front seat beside him right where they ought to be.