it strange that in the past decade, almost all reported sightings in this area stopped. I decided to come up and take a look for myself.
His feet scuffed against the floor, back and forth in front of her. He paced.
“Your kind are the shield. Break through the armor, and find the treasure. Buckets of it.
He stopped moving.
“I’m going to take the pillowcase off your head. And if you do well with that, I’m going to remove your gag. I have a few questions I’d like you to answer before we take a little trip.”
Liberty stayed still, though her nostrils flared and the fabric puffed from her heavy breathing. She didn’t want to go for a trip. Please, her mind screamed, somebody help me.
“If you understand, nod your head.”
She did. So tightly tied, the gag it pulled her hair as she nodded. She wanted to look, yet what she might see terrified her. She would do this. Stay calm. One thing at a time until she got a chance to break free.
He took a few steps and stopped in front of her. She could feel his presence next to her, the warmth of his body radiated, heated hers. Placing his hands on either side of her face, he reached underneath the fabric to lift the case, his skin connected with hers as he pulled it up an inch at a time. His rancid breath blew soft against her cheeks, cooling the sweat that had formed. She wanted to scream.
She closed her eyes tight until he’d finished.
“Open your eyes.”
First a blurry slit, then all the way. Russ stood just out of her view, to the left, behind her. She faced a long wooden bench that sat against a cement wall, like the walls in the kennel. Three darkened television screens were mounted above it.
And like the busiest day in the history of the kennel, animals were abundant. Except none moved, some of them didn’t even have eyes. Or bodies. Heads on the shelf, on the bench, on the floor. Antlered deer heads, black bear, raccoons, and even a fish frozen mid-swim cluttered every inch of space.
Her eyes darted around, took it all in. Wooden boxes full of tools on the floor, jars of marbled eyes on the back of the bench. Overhead fluorescent lights hummed and flickered.
Russ’ head appeared over her left shoulder, he opened his mouth to speak, and his teeth looked wooden. “Nice, huh?”
Her eyes grew wide, his brown muddy aura matched his hair, eyes, and teeth. Dirt, or maybe dried blood, was caked in the deep lines in his forehead and she looked away. Was this her destiny now? Later that night, would her eyeless head be on the bench? Or, perhaps, the floor?
“Ooh, look,” he said like he were a child with a new toy. “See this?” He walked to the bench, pressed a black button mounted on the wall behind it.
The recorded Sasquatch wail.
“Call of the wild, huh?” He laughed, a party of one.
She shut her eyes. What had happened to Nathaniel? Sage? Russ started to push her, maneuvered the chair to the left. It scraped against the cement. In the far corner, a figure came into view. A body beneath a blood-stained blanket. Tears rolled down her face.
She’d been so mean to him for a year. Deceptive this past week. Cold. And he’d been nothing but patient and understanding. She hated herself.
And her daughter had been upstairs in the company of this monster’s son. Was she still?
“Victor,” he yelled out, “come here.”
She jerked as his voice boomed behind her. She averted her eyes from the body and strained to see to her right as a door creaked open.
“Yeah?” Victor answered from above.
“Get your ass down here, you need to go turn some compost.”
The boy whispered “Now?”
“Now.”
Feet pounded down the stairs, then Victor came into her view— his aura a deep blue, flecked dark pink, with an overlay of gray. Fearful, guarded, dishonest. She recognized him from the photograph Becky showed her. She cowered back into the chair as he crossed the room without looking at her. No acknowledgment. Like she were just another project.
She heard the stairs creak again.
“You can come down,” Russ said. “I want to introduce you two, anyway.”
“Dad, she doesn’t care.”
“Sure she does. Don’t you, Sage?”
Liberty made a noise, a cross between a grunt and whine, and Russ bent over to look into her eyes. His were bloodshot and beady.
“You want the hood?”
Spittle landed on her forehead.
Liberty held her breath, tried not to