Blake Crouch - Serial Uncut

"You kill me."

Mr. K nodded.

Donaldson made his decision in a nanosecond. "How do you want me to do it?"

"You can use your imagination. I have plenty of tools you can choose from."

Donaldson stared off into the miles and miles of endless marshland. Thought about this strange request. Found himself becoming aroused.

"I'll kill him," he said. "And I'll make it hurt."

Mr. K checked his rearview mirror, eased his foot off the gas, and then drove onto the shoulder. He put on his emergency lights, then ordered Donaldson out of the car.

Donaldson didn't even attempt to run away. He walked around to the rear of the car without being told and waited, butterflies amassing in his stomach.

The man in the trunk was awake, completely naked, his wrists and ankles tied with rope. He was older, late forties maybe, and he squinted in the powerful sun. In his mouth was a gag made out of a rubber ball.

He looks positively out of his mind with terror.

Donaldson licked his lips again.

"I prefer clothesline," Mr. K said. "You can buy it everywhere, so it's untraceable. And it won't hold a fingerprint. Get him out of the car. Hurry, before another car comes by."

Donaldson muscled the man out. It wasn't easy. The guy squirmed and fought, and he was pretty heavy and tough to lift. Donaldson quickly gave up trying. Instead, he dragged him nude across the asphalt as the man moaned around his gag.

That's gotta hurt, Donaldson thought. But that's nothing compared to what I'm gonna do.

Mr. K took a tool case and a gas can out of the trunk, then closed it. He instructed Donaldson to pull the man into the marsh. It was wet, moss clinging to Donaldson's shoes, muck seeping through. High reeds seemed to reach out and tug at the bound man, making it even harder to pull him.

After fifty yards, Donaldson was exhausted.

After a hundred yards, Donaldson was seriously pissed off. He hated being in the sun again, hated the throbbing in his nose and muscles, and hated this heavy son of a bitch for squirming so much and for being so goddamn heavy.

"That's far enough," Mr. K said. He set down the tool chest and opened it up.

Donaldson stared inside at the contents like a kid ogling presents under a Christmas tree.

"Can you give me my ball gag back?" Mr. K held out a rag. "It's my last one."

Donaldson unbuckled the gag from the man's mouth, disgusted by the spit dripping from it. He handed it to Mr. K and then kicked the naked man in the stomach for making such a mess.

The man screamed. The first of many to come.

"I'll pay!" he cried. "I'll pay!"

"What should I use first?" Donaldson asked Mr. K.

"Try the ball peen hammer. Breaking before cutting or burning always seems to work better."

The next two hours blurred by for Donaldson, his entire world reduced to hurting this unknown, screaming, naked man in this deserted marsh. Even Mr. K seemed to vanish to Donaldson, though he took pictures during the proceedings, and occasionally interrupted to offer advice or encouragement:

Don't cut there too deep. He'll bleed to death.

Try the pliers.

Tell him what you're going to do next. It makes it worse.

That part's particularly sensitive. Use the blowtorch.

He's not looking at you. Make him look at you, or cut off his eyelids.

He's passed out again. Use the ammonia rag to wake him up.

There's still a patch of skin there.

Now would be a good time for the salt and vinegar. Rub it in good.

It doesn't make you gay. Enjoy yourself. He's at your mercy.

How does it taste? Different than that other part you tried?

Try feeding his eyelids to him.

Don't worry, it's not your fault. He had a heart attack. It happens sometimes. You did well.

Donaldson sat nude next to the dead thing. The portly killer was covered with blood and bits of tissue, and he couldn't think of any time in his twenty-something years of life that he'd ever been happier.

Mr. K finished wiping off the cheese grater with a rag and some bleach, and placed it back into his tool kit. Then he told Donaldson to douse the corpse with gasoline.

"Fire will take care of any evidence you've left behind. But wait until I'm gone. I don't want you attracting any attention."

Donaldson emptied the can and stared up at Mr. K, who stood silhouetted against the setting sun. He looked enormous.

Donaldson offered him the empty can, said, "Take me with you."

"You're naked and covered in blood, Donaldson. You'd ruin the interior of my car."

"I thought you stole the car."

"Stealing cars is for stupid children. The police have radios. It's too easy to get caught. If you manage to get out of here, remember that. You'd be wise to remember everything I've said to you."

"You're not going to kill me?"

"Why should I? Even if you remembered my license plate number, which I don't think you have, I just shot two rolls of you torturing a man to death. I have nothing to fear from you."

Mr. K picked up his toolbox and turned to walk away.

"Can I get my gun back?" Donaldson asked.

Mr. K dropped the box, took out the.38, and wiped it off with the rag. He emptied the bullets onto the ground and tossed Donaldson the weapon, then reached into his breast pocket and tossed something else at him.

Wet wipes, from a fast food chicken place.

"I'd recommend getting some of that blood off before you try hitchhiking again."

Donaldson nodded, picking a morsel of something out of his front teeth. "Next time I won't get so much on me."

"There'll be a next time?"

"Yeah. Oh yeah."

Mr. K stared at him for a moment, then lifted his toolkit. "Goodbye, Donaldson. I wish you luck on your future exploits."

"You, too."

Mr. K smiled. Not a hint of a smile. Or a half-smile. But a full one, like he was genuinely happy.

"And you be careful hitching," Mr. K said. "Never know who's going to pick you up."

Indianapolis, 1995

Lucy sat down at one of the few empty tables on the perimeter of the hotel bar and hoped none of the waitresses would notice her. She was fifteen years old, and even wearing the makeup she'd taken from her mother's vanity, she knew her chances of getting served a drink were remote. Worse, she was taking up real estate that legal customers willing to pay ten dollars for a mediocre glass of wine could have inhabited. And there were plenty of them about, the bar nearly full and the hotel lobby bustling with well-dressed adults older than her mom.

The convention didn't technically begin until tomorrow morning, so none of them wore name badges. But she felt sure her eyes were passing over famous mystery writers, perhaps even people she'd read. The man she'd come to see, Andrew Z. Thomas, the convention's guest of honor, for whom she'd stolen her mother's car and driven six hundred miles on a learner's permit, had yet to make his appearance. Just the thought of him being in the same building made her knees feel weak.

"Hi there."

Lucy turned and met eyes with a waitress now standing at her table, a pretty girl, probably in college, her dirty blond hair drawn back into a ponytail.

Lucy said, "Could I just get a water, please?"

"I'm afraid you can't sit here, sweetie."

"Why not?"

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two."

The waitress laughed. "I'm twenty-three, sister. You ain't twenty-two."

"Please don't make me leave. I don't-"

"I'll get in trouble if the manager sees you sitting in my section. I'm sorry."

Lucy stared at the waitress, then lifted her handbag off the table and climbed down from the chair. They'd already refused her a room because of her age. Now this. What a mean hotel.

She was two inches shy of five feet, and she felt even smaller threading her way through the groups of conversing adults in the lobby.