Held & Pushed (2 book bundle) (42 page)

She turned away from him, leaving him stunned that
he’d been unable to manipulate her with his words. Never before had he failed
to talk his way into or out of a situation. He was charismatic, and he had a
way with words. He could make people happily do whatever he wanted them to do
simply by saying it in a way that gave them the impression it was what they
wanted too. Not this time.

He didn’t dwell on his failure for long, though.
He soon began to worry about what her plans were for him. As he stared in
silence at the back of her thin body, he wondered what she was thinking, what
she was doing.

It was no surprise that Nicole would be the one on
whom his charms didn’t work. She was special. He’d always known that. But the
fact that she was too smart for his wiles meant only one thing.

He was in trouble.

21

I
turned my back on Ron, leaving him speechless. That was fine by me. I was sick
of hearing his bull shit. It was amazing that he honestly thought I was going
to believe that load of crap. There was no doubt in my mind that if given half
the chance, he would kill me. I wasn’t about to let him off that table while he
still had a pulse.

Ron kept a lot of stuff in the basement, all
neatly organized and labeled. Afraid of what I would find but curious to know
what he had that I might able to use against him, I searched through the
cardboard boxes and plastic containers, being careful each time I opened one.
There was no telling what I would find inside.

I took great care to ignore the jars of feet on
the shelf above the work table. It was disturbing enough to know they were
there; I sure didn’t want to see them.

While I rummaged, Ron found his voice. The sound
of it annoyed me to the point that I considered turning on the television that
hung on the back wall in order to drown him out, but I didn’t do it for two
reasons. One, I wanted to be able to hear him in case he got loose and tried
sneaking up behind me again. And two, I was curious as to what he might
possibly have to say.

Turns out, it was nothing important. It was the
same old lines as earlier, said using different words. I let him blather on
uninterrupted about how great our life together would be, which he did for
nearly twenty minutes. I wondered if even he was starting to believe the
nonsense he was saying.

On the top shelf above his work bench—several feet
away from the jars of feet—I found a small wooden box. I pulled it down and
opened it, removing the lid and setting it aside. At first, I didn’t know what
it was I was seeing. The container was filled with shiny things, all mingled
together. I shook the box gently, and then it hit me.

The box contained body jewelry of all types.
Earrings, nose rings, tongue studs, lip rings, eyebrow rings, as well as rings
for female genitalia. Some of them appeared to be rusty, but when I looked
closer, I realized that what I thought was rust was actually blood. And worse,
most of the pieces of jewelry still had pieces of flesh clinging to them, some
of which were shriveled up and dry, others still pale and fresh.

Remembering what he had done to Crystal while
forcing me to watch, I became furious. There was no doubt that the very pieces
of jewelry he’d so cruelly ripped out of her body were laying in this box,
blended in among the jewelry torn from the bodies of so many other women.

Using the back of my hand, I wiped the tears from
my eyes. When my vision cleared, I saw all the tools lined up neatly before me
and I had an idea.

A minute later, I stood at the foot of the
embalming table glaring at Ron as he stared at me with wide eyes, trying to
hide his fear by talking. His mouth moved. I saw it. But I didn’t hear what he
was saying. All I could hear was Crystal’s cries, her screams and pleas for him
to stop, to
please
stop. But he
didn’t. She screamed and screamed until her throat gave out and stopped
producing sound, while he kept right on going.

He was going to pay for what he had done to her,
for what he’d done to all of them.
Including me.

With the knife in one hand and the pliers in the
other, I began.

I used the knife to pop up the scab on Ron’s left
foot, just beneath his big toe. When there was a large enough piece of it bent
back, I locked the pliers onto it and yanked once, twice, three times, ripping
off the majority of the foot-long scab in one large piece. I opened the jaws of
the pliers and dropped the scab onto the table between his ankles. Then I moved
on to his right foot, performing the same task. Less of the scab came off of
his other foot—only about half of it—but that was okay. It would be enough.

As soon as the scabs were torn off, Ron’s feet
began to bleed once more, but I paid no attention to the dark red goo. Instead,
I focused on the job at hand, driven by my anger.

From the box of disgusting mementoes, I pulled the
biggest pieces of jewelry and shoved them one at a time into the raw and
bleeding flesh of Ron’s feet. I pushed them hard and fast, burying each as deep
as it would go. Often times, I’d push the ring in so far that once I pulled my
hand away, the metal was lost amidst the mangled mess.

Feeling that it wasn’t enough to simply push the
jewelry into the soles of his feet like pushpins on a corkboard, I used the
hammer to drive in each piece even further, like nails into a two-by-four.

I didn’t stop until the box was empty.

Tink
,
tink
,
tink
.

Over Ron’s caterwauling, I could barely hear the
sound of the hammer as it clanked against the metal. When I could no longer see
any of the pieces of jewelry or hear the sound of the hammer pinging against
them, I realized I was just pounding the raw meat of his feet, which by this
time resembled raw ground beef.

Still running on anger but with no more jewelry to
embed in his feet, I threw the empty box across the room and picked up the
biggest scab from the table.

If I lived a thousand years, I would never forget
the things I’d witnessed while I was held in Ron’s basement. Not the sick
things he did to the women he kidnapped or the agony and terror on their faces
as he did it.

Maybe it was because Crystal was the last woman
I’d witnessed murdered at his hands, or maybe it was because what he’d done to
her was the worst of them all, but in my mind—as fresh now as the day it
happened—I saw Ron cut off the girl’s tattoos one at a time and force-feed them
to her.

With his eyes squeezed shut and his head thrown
back, mouth open wide as he screamed, he didn’t realize that I had approached
his head.

It was perfect.

Moving quickly, I crammed the hard, crusty scab
into his mouth and clamped my hand over it to prevent him from spitting it out.
With my other hand, I pushed up on his chin, trying to keep his mouth closed so
he couldn’t bite me.

For a few seconds, I succeeded. But then his
adrenaline kicked in, giving him the strength he needed to fight me off and
open his mouth. He jerked his head back and forth as he spat out the scab.

Then he retched.

To avoid getting any of his vomit on me, I jumped
back and stood a few feet away, watching as he heaved again and again.

When he was finished spilling the contents of his
stomach—partially digested dog food and water—I sprayed him clean with the
water hose. His puke washed away easily enough, but the scab didn’t. It stuck
to the steel table, lodging itself between his head and shoulder, which is
where I left it.

I’d considered leaving the vomit there for him to
wallow in as well, but I didn’t want to see or smell it later. I didn’t have
the iron stomach that Ron did. So I washed it away, but left the scab as a
reminder to him of what I was capable of doing.

I left him in the basement alone, yelling and
cursing in agony.

Embedding the body jewelry into his feet had been
a bloodier mess than I’d realized. In my rage, I didn’t notice and I didn’t
care. But once I was back upstairs and had calmed down, I noticed the blood
covering my hands and forearms, as well as the smears of blood and drops of
vomit that had splattered across the front of my shirt.

I took a hot shower, scrubbing my skin until it
hurt, and then I changed back into the other set of clothes I’d brought with
me. Just as before, I washed the dirty clothes and tried to put the event out
of my mind.

In Ron’s office, I read the next few chapters of
his novel, stopping only when I realized that I was crying.

While it was true that what I was doing was
cathartic in many ways and absolutely necessary, it was also true that it was
taking a toll on my emotions. I wasn’t cut out for torturing another person,
even if that other person was Ron. Every time I thought about what I’d done to
him already, my stomach rolled and a wave of nausea washed over me.

Reading about what he’d done to those women was
nearly as bad. Seeing the words, accounts of things that had actually happened,
saddened me deeply. It took me to a place I didn’t want to be, a place I’d
already been. I felt their pain and sadness, and I wanted to take it away for
them. Of course I couldn’t because they were dead, killed by the man in the
basement.

All I could for them now was make the son of a
bitch pay.

And he would pay dearly.

22

I
didn’t return to the basement until the next
day after breakfast. Instead of spending the evening dealing with Ron, I chose
to drink wine, eat popcorn, and watch television. While he suffered in the
basement, cold and in pain, I relaxed upstairs, comfortable and warm.

When I
entered the room, he was awake and staring blankly at the ceiling.

I
approached him.

“Geez,
Ron. You stink. It’s really unbecoming of a man to smell so terrible.” Using
his own
words against him was funny to the point that I
almost laughed. “What is that smell?”

Without
moving his head or eyes, he replied, “
It’s
feces.”

“Shit?”

“Yes,
Nicole. It seems I’ve defecated on myself. Or shit, as you say. Would you be a
dear and clean it off? Thanks.”

I thought
about not cleaning it at all, just leaving it lay there in soft clumps under
his testicles and between his thighs, but it really did smell. The thought of
that odor lingering in the basement day in and day out was enough to make me
get the hose.

As I used
the force from the stream of water to push Ron’s shit into the trough of the
table, I noticed that his hands and feet had turned a pale shade of blue. It
seems I’d pulled the leather restraints too tight when I’d strapped him down.
It must’ve cut off the circulation. I wasn’t about to loosen them and give him
a chance to get away. In a day or so it wouldn’t matter anyway. The circulation
would be cut off from far more than just his hands and feet.

“Do your
hands hurt, Ron?” I asked out of curiosity. They certainly looked like they
might.

“Not as
much as my feet.”

I could
see that. After all that I’d done to his feet, I imagine he was praying to lose
the feeling in them.

“Would you
like some water while I have the hose out?”

“I
suppose.”

After Ron
drank, I returned the hose to its place and leaned against the work table,
facing him with my arms folded across my chest.

He still
didn’t look at me, just continued to stare at the ceiling.

I wondered
what he was thinking, but then realized I probably didn’t want to know.

Another
minute ticked by slowly, and then finally I broke the silence.

“I tore
the flesh from her bones, saving the feet as a souvenir of my handiwork,” I
quoted. He didn’t turn his head my way, but I saw a flicker of recognition on
his face. I continued. “Her screams were shrill, deafening to a normal man. But
I was no normal man. My ears were used to the screams of a terrified and
desperate woman much like a construction worker’s ears grow accustomed to the
sound of a jackhammer tearing through concrete, or the way a lumberjack’s ears
grow accustomed to the sound of a chainsaw ripping through wood.”

“Buzz.”

“What’s
that?”

“It’s buzz
of a chainsaw. Not sound.”

“Oh.
My apologies.”

“I see
you’ve been reading my novel.”

“I have.”

“I don’t
appreciate you snooping through my things.”

“Well I
don’t appreciate you ruining my life, so I guess we both have boundary issues.”

For a
moment, neither of us spoke. He continued to stare at the ceiling and I
continued to stare at him. When the silence was finally broken this time, it
was him that spoke first.

“It’s
fascinating, you know.”

“What’s
fascinating? That I haven’t killed you yet? That the tables have turned on you?
That the citizens of this country let the government get away with so much? Or
perhaps you’re referring to the price of gasoline.
Or maybe
America’s love affair with guns.
There are a lot of possibilities here,
Ron. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“No. It’s
fascinating to me that out of all the passages in that book, you would choose
that paragraph to memorize.”