Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men - By Regan Wolfrom Page 0,67
to leave. Just let me try.”
“It won’t work. You’ll just bring your uncle here looking for you.” He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to kill you either way. So you can write the letter and trust me, or you can not write the letter and know that the boy and your uncle will both die a horrible death. Oh, and then I’ll kill your auntie, too. And yes... your cousins... and that stray dog that you always give your scraps to. I’ll kill that little dog just for you, Vanessa.” He chuckled a little. “Or, you know... you could write the goddamn letter.”
I started to cry.
And then I wrote the letter.
I packed a couple suitcases while Quinn watched; I came so close to convincing myself that I really was going on a trip, to somewhere that didn’t involve a shallow grave under The Wolfman’s trailer.
Once everything was ready I tried to feel relieved. I had to believe that I was keeping my family alive.
I heard a knock on the door. I wondered if it was even possible that someone had come to save me.
“Ask who it is,” Quinn said in a whisper.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Conan,” someone answered.
I didn’t know any Conans.
Quinn smiled and walked over to the door. And then he unlocked it.
The pervy kid stepped inside the camper.
“You need to go,” I said. “Please... get out of here.”
“I’m good,” the kid said. “I want to see this.”
“She’s all packed,” Quinn said.
The kid grinned, his fangs and his pair of long black gloves shining in the orange light of the camper. “Sounds good, Dad. I brought the tape.”
They’d wrapped my wrists behind my back and taped my ankles together, lying me down on the floor. They’d stuffed a hand towel in my mouth and wrapped three or four layers of duct tape right around my head.
They worked together like a team, and once they were done they took off their gloves and looked me over like I was a prize chicken.
It still seemed odd that they’d be related. I’d never thought of The Wolfman having a son, and even if I’d pictured his kid I would have imagined a tough kid from Brooklyn who was at least three inches taller and could grow a decent moustache.
“This is how it’s done,” Quinn said to his boy. “If you take your time and do it right, everything will work out.”
“I know,” the kid said. “You’ve told me this like a million times before.”
“But you don’t listen, Conan. You just run around scratching at girls in the woods. You don’t even finish the job.”
“I didn’t want those girls to die. I didn’t even mean to hurt them.”
“Well you did kill them. I couldn’t let them run off to the police and tell them about you. Some weird kid grasping at titties in the woods... this isn’t the life I wanted for you.”
“I know... I’m sorry, Dad.”
“It’s a start. Now let’s get it done.”
The kid nodded as he pulled off another long strip of tape. He wrapped it around my head again, but instead of covering my mouth one more time, he brought it right over my nose. And then he stuck his fingers in my nostrils, sealing them up completely.
“Do another one,” Quinn said.
So the kid did.
I waited for a moment, wondering what would happen. I couldn’t draw any air in through my nose or my mouth. And I wasn’t in the water. My ocean goddess and my gills couldn’t breathe on land.
I started to struggle, rubbing my face against the linoleum, trying to catch the tape somehow.
“She’s suffocating,” the kid said.
“I know,” Quinn said. “Looks good.”
“No... she can’t die like this.”
“I know.”
That was the moment I passed out.
I woke up in the water, upside down. I could feel the tug of weights on my wrists, along something pulling me from above. It took me a few seconds to realize that they were suspending me by a line in my own dive tank. Like a stuffed-mouthed bass they’d reeled in and wanted to keep fresh.
With the weights against my wrists, I knew that once they cut the line I’d be on my way to the bottom.
But I still had my goddess within me; I was breathing through her. The blood hadn’t made her fight, but she hadn’t left me, either.
Quinn and his son knew what I was. They were toying with me. They’d wanted to see it first-hand.