WEBCAM (27 page)

“Bitten, huh? Well, it’s not a contest. Because if it was, you’d lose. But you’re young yet. Plenty of time for more maniacs to torture you before your career is over.”

“Fingers crossed,” Tom said.

Then he sat back and tried to settle in for the long, boring drive ahead.

CHAPTER 49

Joan’s phone buzzes.

Tom again.

Erinyes waits for him to leave a message, and then listens.

Interesting. He’s heading to northern Wisconsin.

Erinyes drums her fingers on the steering wheel, thinking.

He’s following the news on his laptop. Things are getting hot in Illinois. Between the house being raided, and the sorority adventure, the police and the media are all whipped up in a convulsive frenzy. There are rumblings about bringing in the FBI, and even mention of road blocks.

Exciting. But risky.

This might be a good time to leave the state for a while. Let things cool down.

Erinyes reaches out to his better half, who agrees.

He tracks Tom’s location by his phone, and then points the van north.

CHAPTER 50

Fear threatened to devour her.

One-two-three… one-two-three…

She was bound, gagged, and waiting to be killed by the maniac who had butchered all of her sorority sisters.

One-two-three…

This wasn’t in her head. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a paranoid delusion. It wasn’t a hallucination or a fantasy.

It was real. And there was no escape.

One-two-three… one-two-three… one-two-three.

Kendal managed to retain her sanity by tapping the back of her head against the interior wall of the vehicle.

One-two-three… one-two-three… one-two-three.

The woman next to Kendal had her eyes closed and was jerking and twisting her arms. It wouldn’t do any good. You can’t break duct tape. Kendal owned a purse made entirely out of duct tape, bought on a whim at a craft fair. That stuff was stronger than leather.

One-two-three…

“We’re stopping, ladies.” It was the man driving. “I need you to behave. The walls of this van are soundproof, so if your scream all it will do is make me angry.”

He parked the vehicle, and shut it off. After more than a minute, the curtain moved back, and her abductor appeared.

Kendal wet herself with fear. It was only then that she realized she was wearing a diaper.

The man squatted next to her, grinning. “Hello, Kendal. I’m going to take your gag off. Do you want that?”

He nodded, and Kendal nodded along with him.

“And will there be any screaming?” he asked, shaking his head.

She repeated the gesture. He unbuckled the ball gag and pulled it from her mouth. Kendal closed her sore jaw, swallowing several times.

“I’m Erinyes. Say my name.”

“Erinyes,” she whispered.

He gave her a rough pat on the cheek, then turned to the other woman. “Guess where we are, Joan?”

The woman doesn’t answer.

“Don’t want to talk to me? I’m hurt. Is it because your heart belongs to him?” Erinyes raised up a cell phone and showed her the screen. “I just took this picture of Tom a minute ago. He’s right outside, walking into that restaurant. Less than twenty meters away.”

“TOM!” Joan screamed.

Erinyes grabbed Joan by her bangs and began to slam her head into the side of the van, until she was either dead or unconscious. Then he smoothed out her hair, pulled back his hand to stare at his fingers, and wiped the blood off on Joan’s jeans.

“I told her not to scream,” he said, turning to Kendal. “Are you going to scream?”

“No.”

Kendal felt herself shrink, like she was about to disappear. The psychological term was
disassociation
. She was detaching from her surroundings, going to a safe place in her mind where she couldn’t be hurt.

It was an effective way to cope with horrifying situations. But it was a last resort. If Kendal detached, she’d have no chance to get away.

So she focused on the head tapping, this time harder.

One-two-three-one-two-three-one-two-three…

“What are you doing?” Erinyes asked.

“I have obsessive compulsive disorder.”

Erinyes nodded. “I thought there was something odd about you. Like Jack Nicholson. In that movie. Do you wash your hands all the time?”

“No. I count.”

“Count what?”

“Everything. Steps. Ceiling tiles. Cars that pass.”

Erinyes tilted his head, seeming to appraise her. “So you’re crazy.”

“We’re all a little crazy.”

He took her throat in his hand. “Are you saying that I’m crazy, Kendal?”

One-two-three-one-two-three…

“My father had antisocial personality disorder,” Kendal said, speaking as quickly as she could.

“Is that what you think I have?”

Kendal began to spit out what she memorized for Abnormal Psych class. “Several behaviors must be present before a diagnosis of ASPD can be made. The subject must fail to conform to social norms or laws; lie or use aliases; be impulsive, aggressive, and irritable; have a reckless disregard for the safety of themselves or others; show consistent irresponsibility; and lack remorse.”

“And what did Daddy do to make you think he was a sociopath?”

One-two-three-one-two-three-one-two-three.

“There are seven subtypes of ASPD, according to Theodore Millon. My father was the unprincipled type. He did whatever he wanted to,” Kendal swallowed the lump in her throat. “Regardless of who he hurt.”

The man’s eye twitched. “Sometimes fathers do things we don’t understand.”

“My father raped me.”

Erinyes had no reaction. “Were you tempting him? Acting like a whore?”

“I was eleven.”

“AGE DOESN’T MATTER!” Erinyes screamed in her face, flecking it with spittle. “We’re all sinners, Kendal. All of us. Even little babies.”

ONE-TWO-THREE…

“Stop that head tapping thing. It’s irritating me.”

“I can’t,” Kendal whimpered.

“Men naturally lack discipline,” Erinyes said. “My father taught me that. Impulse control is directly linked to the penis. But women… they have control, Kendal. They don’t do things impulsively. They calculate. They plot. That makes them worse sinners than men. With women, everything they do has intent. So stop that damn head tapping.”

“I wish I could,” she cried, “oh god I wish I could.”

Erinyes narrowed his eyes, and Kendal cringed. She was sure he was going to hit her, or slam her head into the side of the van, or worse.

But instead he said, “The Erinyes are Greek deities of vengeance. They give Penance to sinners. When a sinner suffers, their soul is cleansed. The more sins they have, the more they must suffer. Do you think it’s easy to be Erinyes, Kendal? It’s a great burden, punishing the wicked.”

He moved next to the small box, on the floor of the van next to Joan. It had a sheet over the top.

“All of the furies wear a special crown,” he said, pulling off the sheet.

It revealed a small, glass aquarium, no more than ten gallons. The interior appeared to have been speckled with mud.

Then Kendal realized the specks of mud were moving.

“It’s a crown of spiders,” Erinyes said.

Kendal began to thrash her head back and forth.

Oh no. No-no-no-no-no…

“I think Joan should be awake for this, don’t you?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out something small and white. There was a snapping sound, and Kendal smelled ammonia. Joan’s head popped up.

“Welcome to the party, Joan. I was telling Kendal about my pets, here. Eratigena agrestis. Also known as the hobo spider. It is one of the very few spiders known to attack humans. That’s why it has picked up another name. The
aggressive house spider
.”

Erinyes took the screen cover off the tank, setting it aside. Spiders began to crawl onto the van’s floor, spreading out in all directions like a creeping stain. Some of them were at least two inches long.

“I was telling Kendal that all of the furies must wear a crown of spiders. I did, when I was sixteen years old.” Erinyes lowered his voice to a whisper. “A word of warning. If you move too much, they bite. And it really, really,
really
hurts.”

He reached into the bottom of the aquarium and pulled out—

A plastic bag. The grocery store kind.

Erinyes held the bag by one of its handles, bouncing it on his fingers. “A few ounces of spiders. That’s a lot.”

He moved to Joan, who began to violently flail, stretching to move away, but with nowhere to go.

Erinyes went to her—

—and pulled the plastic bag over her head, tying the handles in a loose knot under Joan’s chin.

Erinyes reached into the tank once again, removing a second bag.

“Remember our game, Kendal? Would you like to sing along?”

ONE-TWO-THREE-ONE-TWO-THREE…

“The eetsy…beetsy… spiiiiiiiiider… went… up… the… waaaaaaater spout.”

He opened the bag, holding it up to her face. Kendal couldn’t stop herself; she peered in horror at the bottom, which was teaming with hairy, scurrying, eight-legged monsters.

And then the bag was on her head, and thousands of hobo spiders began to explore their new environment.

CHAPTER 51

Contrary to expectations, the trip wasn’t too boring. They stopped once to eat, stopped once to drop Harry’s child off
with some babysitters
, and stopped several times for gas. Between stops, Tom played his cell phone game, and time passed pretty quickly.

Up until they got way up north and lost cell coverage.

“My phone reception is gone.” Herb held his cell up in the air and began to wave it around.

Tom did the same thing, searching for bars. But no matter where he held it, his screen said
NO SIGNAL
.

“Try adjusting the rabbit ears,” Herb eventually suggested.

“Huh?”

“They were on old TVs.”

“Rabbits were on old TVs?”

“That’s what the antennas were called. You’re probably too young to remember.”

Tom frowned. “Can we switch to WiFi or Bluetooth?”

Herb shook his head. “I just had a case where a killer hacked a neighbor’s WiFi connection to spy on her. It’s easier than you think. With normal equipment, WiFi only has a range of about thirty meters. Bluetooth, less than ten. And both need some sort of WAP.”

That made no sense. “They need a derogatory term for Italians?”

“W-A-P. Wireless access point. Like a router. We don’t have one. No hotspot either. And no ad hoc network. With a hotspot or ad hoc, we could maybe text each other, but we still couldn’t connect to the Internet or reach anyone beyond our short range.”

“Fascinating,” Tom lied.

“I’m full of useless bits of information.”

To make polite conversation, Tom asked, “Such as?”

Tom paid half-attention as Herb talked about Argentina, and Nikola Tesla, and sharks, and all Tom cared about was that his cell service had vanished, and Joan still hadn’t called him back.

He wondered what she was doing, at that very moment.

CHAPTER 52

Joan pursed her lips together, her whole body quaking with effort not to scream.

Because if she screamed, the spiders crawling all over her face would creep into her mouth.

CHAPTER 53

Erinyes checks his cell phone.

No signal.

He tries Joan’s phone, and his 4G laptop, and has similar results.

Maybe there’s just no signal out here in the boonies.

He speeds up. Tom and his buddies are two miles ahead. Prior to the service disruption, Erinyes had been listening in to their conversation. He knows where they’re going—to the local police station—and he considers beating the trio there and surprising them.

But that poses a problem. If they change plans, it will be impossible to find Tom out here.

The other option is to stay behind them, keep them in sight. It shouldn’t be that hard; even though the sun has gone down, that private investigator’s RV stands out like a giant, bright red thumb.

The danger there, however, is that McGlade person noticing he’s being tailed.

Decisions, decisions…

The choice is made for him when Erinyes comes upon road construction, and fifty meters ahead sees that Tom and the others have pulled over to the side of the road.

If he slows down, or stops, he risks being spotted.

Erinyes opts for the original plan, turning off his headlights before cruising past them, heading toward the tiny, one horse town of Spoonward, Wisconsin.

When he arrives, he isn’t sure where to go. He doesn’t have the police station address, and the whole town seems to have locked up and retired for the night. Worried about the time, and how far behind Tom and company are, Erinyes begins to drive up and down the streets, looking for someone, anyone, to ask directions. He finds a billboard that announces a Walmart nearby—open 24 hours—and begins to head for it, but luckily notices a simple street sign that says
POLICE
.

He turns on Main, cruises past dark shops and buildings, and sees a sole light at the end of the street.

Sure enough, it’s the stationhouse.

Erinyes rolls past, parks a block away, next to a bait shop. He kills the engine and goes into the back of the van. When he removes the bag from Kendal’s head, spiders scurry everywhere.

Kendal’s eyes are open, but she’s staring into space. She has a few bites on her cheeks, her nose, and the hobo spiders have begun to spin webs in her hair.

“Are you here with us, Kendal?”

Kendal doesn’t answer. She’s somewhere else. Which is fine, for now. He wants her docile.

Erinyes turns to Joan. When he pulls off the bag, her eyes are open as well. But she stares directly at him, defiant. She also has several spider bites. And her hair is so mottled with webs, she looks like a gray-haired old lady.

“I see you’re with us, Joan. I’m stepping out for a few minutes. You know by now I make good on my threats. If you scream, if you try to escape, if you so much as move an inch out of place, you’re getting twice as many spiders. But this time, I’m going to slice off your eyelids and your lips, first. Do you understand?”