82 Born to Make the Kill

Tony tore at the rope and the smoldering jacket until he was free. He dropped them to the dirt floor, stood to his feet, and reached to his waistband for the gun. It wasn’t there. He looked on the ground around him and saw the orange glint from the fire reflect off the polished nickel barrel behind him. It lay two feet away. With one step, he grabbed the Colt and glanced toward the crackling sound back in the corral. The voracious appetite of the fire, in a feeding frenzy, had begun its greedy consumption up the wall of the barn.

“Help me,” Rudy shouted. The flames around him had begun to nourish themselves on his jeans. “For God’s sake Tony untie me. I’m burning up.”



Confident Tony was distracted enough by the rope and flames, Natalie had fled toward a more protected position. A ladder on the opposite side from the coral led to a loft. She had taken the first two tentative steps up its rungs when Rudy’s anguished cry stirred her heart with pity and she turned toward him.

“Aaaaahhh,” he shrieked and began to writhe under the constraint of the ropes as the flames began to devour his legs.

When his sweatshirt burst into flames Natalie started down the ladder. She couldn’t just standby and do nothing. As her right foot touched the ground, he screamed again.

“N A T A L I E!” His legs frantically thrashed to no avail and his body twisted without relief.

She fought tears as she watched his pyre. Even if she could get to him in time, with the rope she had tied him up with, she knew she couldn’t release him before the flames charred his flesh. But she had to try. As she pushed away from the ladder, however, Tony, who stood between them and to her right, raised the pistol.

“See you in Hell, lover boy,” Tony said, with an almost reverent tone.

“No!” Natalie shrieked as the gun exploded. The shock of the explosion forced her eyes to blink. She opened them quickly and turned back to Rudy. Where his head had been, a blaze now danced around his stillness. He slumped against the post where she had tied him.

She looked toward her assailant. When last she had seen Tony a second before, his gaze was focused on the lifeless torch on the other side of the barn. Now he glared at her. Whether he had used his last bullet to silence Rudy like he warned or put him out of his misery, she couldn’t determine. But one thing she was certain of, for whatever reason, he wanted her alive, at least for a while. She jumped back on the ladder and began to climb.

“Here, pussy, pussy,” Tony chanted and dropped the revolver. “We have unfinished business don’t we?”

Natalie reached both hands to the next rung and continued to climb. The rungs were mossy from years of nonuse in the moist climate. Her feet were four feet from the ground when her right foot slipped. She held on with her hands as her body slammed against the rungs. Although she banged an infected knee against one of them, she ignored the pain again and, able to regain footing, she continued to scurry up the ladder. She made sure to support her step on each rung with the arch of her foot.

Above the roar of the flames, she could hear Tony’s footsteps as he splashed through one of the many puddles on the barn’s dirt floor.

“Here pussy, pussy,” he chided again. “You have something I want and I won’t stop until you give it to me.”

Natalie remembered in the warehouse Tony hadn’t raped her. “Not this time,” he told Hank, “I’ll take her later.” Now she knew this was later. What else could it be? How he would force himself on her and then get away from the barn before it buried him in flames she couldn’t imagine—unless he didn’t plan to live through the inferno. But that made no sense whatsoever. Everything she perceived about Tony indicated he was a survivor. He didn’t find a doctor for Hank so he wouldn’t have to answer questions about the gun. He shot and killed so many people along the way so he wouldn’t leave witnesses. She had questioned him about his plan, “you didn’t kill me when you could have.” But what was his end game? Was he running from something or toward it, and what did she have to do with it?

Whatever he planned for her role, she had to take action. She couldn’t take the luxury of time to ponder long in uncertainty as the flames that feasted on the wall across the barn had reached the roof. They now spread across the fresh fuel in their selfish quest. If they didn’t get out of this furnace soon, Rudy’s prediction that they would all die would be manifest.

She scrambled into the loft and stepped between the side rails and into the hay. She looked across the barn toward Rudy. Above the smell of burned flesh she caught the astringent scent of melted rubber. She remembered just a few days ago the innocent kid with brown helmet haircut and the squeaky athletic shoes opened the door to her dressing room like a gentleman. Now, he was nothing but blackened, scorched remains.

The scrape of Tony’s foot on a ladder rung pulled her to the pen tucked into her panties. She pulled it out with her right hand.

“This is getting real tiresome. Tony has plans for you. What’s that they say? ‘Resistance is futile?’”

Natalie had shared her dad’s passion for science fiction and recognized the Star Trek reference to the Borg’s irresistible assimilation tactics. Even though she didn’t have the right weapon to stop him, she knew what she had to do to thwart Tony. She could hear him climb rung-by-rung in a slow ascent. “Here pussy, pussy,” he chanted as he drew closer. She realized he moved up slow and deliberate to intensify the terror, but she wasn’t going to let him have it his way. She was no longer the timid farm girl from Iowa afraid of snakes. This bastard was nothing more than an old sidewinder. She would crush his head if she could.

_____

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81 Born to Make the Kill

Rudy heard a pop as the scattered coals burst into flame and they gorged themselves on the fresh fuel by his legs. His eyes darted back and forth as this new terror threatened. He twisted to get out of their path and pulled his knees toward his chest. The rope tight around his neck choked, yet the fire continued toward him on a careless path without reprieve.

“Help me,” he shouted, but no one responded.

He scraped his feet on the ground and tried to push the hay away from him. It had opposite effect and stoked the blaze with new fuel. A few feet away he saw the pile of hay by the wall burning. Hasty billows of smoke streamed toward the roof.

“We’re all going to die in here. We need to get out.”



Tony ignored him and turned his attention to the more desirable subject as she leapt over the fence of the corral. He headed through the gateless gap toward her, unaware the bottom edge of his jacket had ignited in the back.

“Trick or treat pussy.”



Natalie disregarded him and ran toward the center of the barn with the rake head clutched in her left hand. As she reached the open area, she realized it had a rope tied to it. She grabbed the line about three feet from the rake and began to swing it over her head. As it circled, she let the rope slip out from her hands until it extended to a ten foot radius from her body. She stood in the vortex and turned the rope above her head like a lasso in faster and faster circles. The rake flew around her chest high.

Tony came toward her out of the corral past Rudy. The flames at the back of his jacket lapped up its full length. They flickered above his shoulders. Natalie saw that he was oblivious to the heat as his concentration fixated on the obstacle she hurtled between them.

Then, above her, she heard the distinct vibration from the blades of a helicopter. She tore her eyes away from Tony and lifted them toward the roof. The sound continued to build until it seemed to hesitate just above her. A flash of hope ignited as Natalie continued to swing the rake around her. Had a spark from the fire, a wisp of smoke, or a glow from inside the barn escaped the hole-ridden roof and alerted the pilot? But then the roar crept away into the distance and hope careened even deeper into the abyss.

She turned her eyes back to Tony.



Tony’s eyes, too, had followed the cloud of smoke toward the rafters. He knew they had been spotted. Time was short but it no longer mattered. Survival gave way to redemption for Ma’s pathetic life and the crown of righteousness could only be earned by a willing sacrifice.

He tore his eyes away from the smoke and looked toward the glaring eyes of the innocent girl in front of him. From behind the tongues of orange flame reflected in them he saw no fear, only confident rage. He began to walk again as if the flying object was his destiny. When at last he stood at the edge of the orbit the rake navigated, he paused and listened to the air as it twisted its way through the molded steel.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

“Leave her alone,” Rudy shouted and kicked at the flames around him.

“I told you once, asshole, to shut the hell up or I’d do it for you,” Tony yelled with his eyes glued to the projectile Natalie had thrown between them. She had proven to be a creditable adversary. He would take pleasure in her final test.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

The whirling weapon flew by him several more times and Tony stood like a school girl waiting to step into the arc of a jump rope.



With Tony’s face in the shadows, and the flames that lapped up his coat, it looked to Natalie like Satan had walked straight out of the fires of Hell. Suddenly, Tony’s expression changed from victor to panic. She took three quick steps forward.



The smell of singed hair drew Tony’s concentration from the orbit of the rake. He realized he was on fire. He grabbed the lapel of this jacket and started to tear it off. But at the same moment the heavy rope collided with his right arm and began to wrap around his body. His arms, already pinned inside his blazing jacket, were entrapped. He knew at any instant the steel object would collide with him.

To avoid it, he threw himself to the ground. The action only proved to be more catastrophic as the change in elevation brought the rake on a trajectory with his head. It hit him in the face. The tines tore several fresh gashes into his flesh. Stunned, he collapsed to the dirt floor.

“Damn you, Whore. Bring it on.”



The ring of her phone aroused Angela Hawk from the comatose sleep she had fallen into as soon as her eyes had closed. She jerked her head up from the head rest.

“Agent Hawk,” she said as the sleep fog slowly released her mind.

“Agent Hawk, this is Patrolman Seth Parker, I may have found something.”

“What do you have?” she asked, and as her startled heart began to pump life back into her veins, she sat up straight and looked out the window. One emergency vehicle remained on the scene. A tow truck had just finished hooking up the burgundy pickup.

“I’ve been flying south of the scene of the murder,” Seth reported to the agent, “and I just passed over what looks like a deserted barn. There’s smoke coming through the roof.”

_____

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80 Born to Make the Kill

The click was unsatisfying. The snarl on Tony’s face twisted into a smirk and foretold what would happen next. Yet without wavering, Natalie continued to hold the gun against Tony’s chest, and pulled the trigger again and again. But with no surprise the hammer fell on hollow chambers. Frustration settled on her like a chainmail cloak. The terror wasn’t yet ended.

“Trick or treat, bitch. You got tricked, now I get the treat.”

She watched as he reached into the left pocket of the jacket and produced a single bullet. He held it in front of him in the palm of his hand. “Had a feeling you might try to cheat me, so I took out some insurance. You’re going to have to work harder to make this kill.”

Natalie saw his right hand come up slow. She knew he was reaching for the barrel of the Colt. She jerked the pistol away and swung for his head. He twisted, raised his arm and blocked the blow. The weight of the gun ripped it from her hand and, for a moment it seemed suspended in air, but then it slammed into to the dirt floor and slid to a stop near Rudy’s feet.

Rudy stretched his leg and tried to kick it toward Natalie, but his leg wasn’t long enough. The revolver lay inches away. Tony dove fast and stretched his hand out for it. Rudy swung his foot up and hooked Tony’s arm. The kick spun Tony around. He fell hard on his side and landed on the gun.

Natalie realized the silver barreled menace was back under Tony’s control. She kicked him in the low back with the toe of her boot. He rolled with the bullet still clutched in his left hand, and grabbed for her leg with his right. She pulled it away just in time and his hand flailed passed her calf. With his chest exposed, she drove a spiked heel into his abdomen and felt gratified as a shriek escaped his lips.

She realized that Tony would come up with the gun, so she ran toward the back of the corral, and then turned to gauge what he would do next.



Tony sat up and picked up the Colt. Standing, he turned toward Rudy and with a swift kick, planted the heel of his shoe in Rudy’s face.

“Don’t screw with me. Your life is hanging by a thread already.”

He loaded the single slug into the chamber, slammed the cylinders closed and raised his eyes. Across the corral, Natalie stood like a trapped cat trying to judge which direction to run, he chided, “Here pussy, pussy, time for my treat.”



As Tony started to walk toward her, Natalie took a step back and assessed escape routes. The corral stood in the corner of the barn, so behind her and to the right, the walls offered no way out. If she continued backward, she would further box herself in. Tony, on the other side of the small fire, blocked any opening in the corral’s fence. This left one path. She had to go over the top rail. She bolted to the left and, after the first step, her foot hit something in the darkness. It slammed into her boot-covered shin.

Natalie stopped. She looked up as Tony shifted on an interception path. The pistol hung from his right hand like a useless appendage.

She reached down to free her foot from whatever had entrapped it and recognized the head of a handle-less steel dirt rake like her dad used on the farm. She wrapped the fingers of her left hand around it. Prepared to run, she bent her knees and swayed side to side as if Tony was the pitcher and she was about to steal second base. Tony continued to approach. She waited until he was five feet away and then faked a run to the right.

Tony matched her move to his left and drew a step closer.

Natalie brought the rake up with a jerk and swung it at him. He twisted away to this left. Even without much force, the head of the rake made contact with Tony’s right arm. He lurched backwards, stumbled over his feet and fell into the fire. Coals and flaming shards scattered in all directions.

Natalie turned back toward the fence. In two steps she reached it. As she grabbed the top-rail, a shriek pulled her attention away from escape to the boy she tied to the post just a few feet away.

“Natalie, Tony untie me!”

Natalie stood aghast with her fingers clutched around the plank and stared toward Rudy. Some of the embers had landed in the hay where he sat.

“Burn in Hell,” Tony said as he got back to his feet. He tucked the gun into his belt.

Natalie stepped on the first plank with her left foot. Years of neglect had weakened the support and it cracked under her weight. She thrust her right foot to the next slat before it gave way and swung her left leg over the top in one fluid movement. The action shifted her right foot. It slipped off the board and brought her down on the top rail hard on her crotch. The pain shot through her, and a vivid memory of the pistol whip Tony had given her on her pubic bone in the warehouse replayed. She didn’t have time to cower or flinch. She employed the ache to stoke her mental strength. Pain meant she was alive and could still fight back. Tony had said, “You going to have to work harder to make this kill,” and she meant to do just that.

_____

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79 Born to Make the Kill

“Don’t,” Natalie demanded. “You don’t have to kill anyone else.”

Tony looked at her and smiled and then turned back to Rudy. He flexed his finger and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber.

Rudy turned his head back toward Tony and blew out a forceful sigh.

Natalie wasn’t sure if this was good news or not. If the gun had gone off and only one bullet did remain, this would have brought her to a more equal footing in Tony’s game. But when no explosion erupted, it had to continue.

“Damn, nothing there. Must be your lucky day. Now it’s your turn lover boy.”

Tony pointed the gun at Natalie.

“But I’d aim the gun at you,” Rudy said.

“Of course you would, cocksucker. But as I said, I’m taking your turn and I choose the whore.”

Natalie’s heart had begun to crawl up her throat. At the very least, if the gun fired it would be over quickly and she wouldn’t have to be subjected any more to the threat of rape or brutality. She wanted it to be over but she didn’t want to die. She recognized the look in Tony’s eyes. She had seen it in the motel room. His soul had vanished and his hazel eyes had turned cold with the vacant look of a murderer—a psychopath.

“On your knees. Plead for your life.”

“Damn it Tony, leave her alone,” Rudy screamed.

Tony turned the gun back toward Rudy and squeezed the trigger once again. Click. The hammer fell on another empty chamber.

Rudy gasped.

“Shut the hell up or I’ll do it for you.”

He aimed the gun at Natalie again. “On your knees.”

“I’m not giving you the satisfaction. If I die, I’ll die standing not begging.”

“Have it your way then. Let’s see, I’ve pulled the trigger twice and haven’t found the slug. That means you have a three out of four chance of living through this. Not bad odds, but you know what they say, the house always wins.”

He stepped toward Natalie and put the muzzle of the gun between her blond eyebrows.

She could feel the steel against her flesh and remembered how hard and cold it had felt when he thrust it inside her in the warehouse. Against her will, her eyes closed.

“Can’t watch this, huh? So, you’re just another damn sniveling coward after all.”

She forced her eyes open again and looked straight into his. The fear that had arisen, she fed to rage. “That better?” she screamed.

“You have no idea what it’s like to watch the light go out in someone’s eyes. There’s no feeling like it.”

“I’ve seen the light go out in yours more than once, but somehow you keep drawing breath.”

She looked at his forefinger as it slipped over the trigger and then turned her eyes back to his. “I hate you,” she continued, yet her tone remained as matter-of-fact as if she was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

“I know. That’s what makes this so damn much fun.”

She sensed the contraction of his finger but continued to look into his eyes. To run away wouldn’t improve her chances as he would still have the gun with the one bullet left he had promised for her brain. She decided to stand her ground. If she survived the next few seconds, it would be her turn.

The hammer moved and the cylinders rotated as she saw Tony squeeze the trigger. When she heard the metallic click, her heart slid into her stomach and she exhaled the bitter taste of tension.

“Damn, your still here.”

“Stop this shit,” Rudy yelled.

“Why? Now it’s the whore’s turn and there’s a one in three chance she’ll take me out.



Tony looked at Natalie. Her face still revealed no fear and yet the hatred he had seen before had been eclipsed by something unexpected—something disappointing. He had driven her over the last three days to the brink of Hell’s shore and tormented her far beyond anyone he had faced down before. Now her time to settle the debt, to give recompense for his brutality, was at hand. Yet the look on her countenance showed hesitation.

“You can’t do this can you?” he asked. “You can’t pull the trigger on this jackal after all I’ve done to you. You wanted the gun before, now I’m ready to hand it to you, yet you don’t think you can do it.”



Natalie wasn’t sure she could. It had been easier with Hank. It had been self-defense. He came at her with assault and rape in his eye. This was different, though. To take the life of an unarmed man no matter how repulsive or threatening he had been would feel like murder. At that moment he would pose no threat to her, but yet this was the way out. If she could kill him, it would be over.

“Why don’t you give me the gun and let’s find out,” she said.

“Damn Rudy, she just grew a set of titanium balls.” He turned the gun, grabbed the nickel-plated barrel and held the handle out to her. “Like I said, we all get a turn.”

Natalie took the Python. It was heavy and she remembered when she first grabbed the pistol just before she shot Hank that it filled her hands. After it had exploded, the force of the blast had knocked her backward into the bumper of the old sedan. Stunned at that moment as the bumper crashed into the swollen knot on the back of her head, she had lost control of the revolver.

Not this time. She rested the muzzle on his tweed jacket right over Tony’s stone heart.

She looked into the gargoyle face in front of her and without hesitation pulled the trigger.

_____

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78 Born to Make the kill

With Washington State Patrolman Samuel Jenkins stationed at the recent widow’s house until Yolanda’s mother could arrive, Angela had returned to her black SUV and phoned in the APB for the Subaru.

Now, hours later, there were no new leads. Like a poltergeist, the evidence that something had happened was obvious, but the doer of the carnage vanished like steam in warm air. The pull of their presence surrounded her but she was unable to pinpoint the actual direction it tugged. She had driven up and down every country road between ground zero, the spot of the original sighting four and half hours ago and the junction where the roadblock, just south of West Fork, was still being enforced, she had turned up no clues. Finally, fatigued and frustrated, she had drifted back to Magillian Road where Jose` Osorio’s body had been discovered. The investigation at the sight was winding up as daylight faded, so she closed her eyes.



Tony saw Natalie’s eyes move and knew her thoughts. As she lunged for the gun, he stepped back and she missed grasping it by inches.

“So you still want to play games? I’ve got one for you.”

Tony pulled the gun from his belt and aimed it at Rudy. He walked over in front of him. “Get over here,” he shouted at Natalie.



“What are you doing?” Rudy screamed. The tension made his voice crack like he had just entered puberty.

As Tony had ordered, Rudy had sat down next to the post that had been his companion for the last several hours. While the argument between Tony and Natalie escalated, he just wanted Natalie to stop. He didn’t know why she intentionally provoked Tony. His family history was nothing more than a prod to antagonize Tony. Was she working some kind of angle? Was she trying to draw him in close enough so she could attack? Was there anything he should be doing to help her? Was she going to give him a signal?

Now as he looked into the dark abyss at the end of the silver barrel pointed at his forehead, he saw this had been what Natalie had predicted. His short life had come to this final vision. He and Natalie wouldn’t escape to Canada. His last breath would be pleading for his life. And he wouldn’t even see the flash or hear the blast that signaled his death?



“Get over here, Whore.” Tony pulled the hammer back and the cylinder rotated into position.

Natalie watched. She didn’t have feelings for Rudy but didn’t want another death on her account, and she didn’t want to be alone with the beast with the gun. She stepped around the fire.

The white nylon rope that had been used to hogtie Natalie lay beside Rudy. Tony kicked it toward her. “Tie him up, tight.”

If she obeyed, it might buy a few more minutes. She didn’t have a plan yet, so she needed time for an opportunity to present itself. She had grabbed for and missed the gun. Now Tony used it again to heighten his authority.

She stepped toward the two men and picked up the rope.

“Tie him to the post.”



Rudy looked past the muzzle of the revolver, and hoped he had escaped execution for the moment and watched as Natalie circled around behind him. The rope felt snug as she looped it around his arms and chest several times. Disappointment settled over him. If she did have a plan, she had been unable to execute it before she was forced to tie him to the stake.



“Around his neck too,” Tony demanded.

Natalie thought that to be cruel and looked up at the demonic figure shadowed in the firelight. Tony pointed the gun at her. There was nothing she could do but comply. She looped the rope around his neck.

“Again!”

She looped it again and looked toward Tony for approval.

“Now, tie it tight.”

“That’ll choke him.”

“Only if he moves.”

She cinched the rope tight and tied two overhand knots behind the post.

“Move back inside the corral, bitch.”

Natalie stepped around the two men and stood in the five foot gap between Rudy and the fire. Oblivious to the warmth it produced, her sole concentration focused on the terrorist with the gun.

“Now, are you ready for the game?” Tony asked. “How ‘bout Russian Roulette.”

“No!” she shouted.

“What the hell?” Rudy screamed.

“Oh yes and we’ll all get a turn, well except for lover boy, here. I’ll have to take your turn for you since you’re all tied up.” His sardonic laughter filled the barn and hopelessness permeated the stagnant air. “Here is how it works, rather than point the gun at our own head, we’ll point it at each other’s. The way I figure it, there’s only one slug left, so I’ll spin the wheel of fortune and then we’ll see who wins and who loses.”

Tony pointed the pistol into the air and released the hammer. He lowered it again and pointed it at Rudy. With the fingers of his left hand, he spun the cylinder.

Natalie could feel tears begin to dam up behind her eyes and choke her throat. “No please don’t, Tony.”

“You’re the one who wanted to play games,” he said then looked toward Rudy. “Well lover boy, this could be the end of your relationship with the whore.”

“Tony, please don’t shoot me,” Rudy shouted with a pathetic whine. He turned his head away from the revolver.

Natalie stared, though, as Tony’s index finger massaged the trigger.

_____

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77 Born to Make the Kill

With this vivid memory seared into her mind, she couldn’t escape the knowledge that even then she had used sex as a tool for gain. If that wasn’t a hooker … it was no different than any starlet on the director’s couch. Natalie had even teased herself with the thought that a onetime dalliance with her agent might be worth it. But she couldn’t give Tony the satisfaction of admitting he was right.

“I guess I have a narrower view of a prostitute,” she said. “I think of a hooker like you’ve described your mother, getting paid for sex.”

“You leave my ma out of this,” he said, as they reached the coral.

“I didn’t bring her up, you threw her out there,” Natalie continued and stepped close to the fire. Its hot breath warmed her black leather boots. She kept her back toward Tony and Rudy, and stared into the orange glow at her feet for strength.

They stopped behind her

“Sit down,” Tony shouted and by the scrape of feet in the dirt she sensed Tony had pushed Rudy. “Well now that she’s out there, Ma does make a fine comparison.”

She kept her eyes on the fire and stepped around behind it to place a subtle barrier between them.

“Why’s that?” Natalie said, and the sarcasm spirited across the distance between her and Tony like a heat seeking missile.

“Hell, by Ma’s standards, you are a whore.”

“How do you figure?” Natalie’s eyes drifted to Tony’s hand. He slipped the gun under his waistband, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and lifted a smoke to his lips.

“Well, what’s your definition of a whore?”

“Like I said, someone who gets paid for sex.”

“Damn, this may be a first. I agree.”

“But I’ve never had sex for money.”

“Of course you have,” he shouted, “and I have the video to prove it.”

“Do you mean sex with Rudy? Not only was that under false pretenses, but as I recall, I never got paid for it, unless the payment was all your abuse.”



Tony glared at her. In just a few steps he could have grabbed her, thrown her frail ass into the fire and held her there with one foot while she burned to death—but not now. Fate alone would evidence who took the next last breath.

He stepped toward her. She held her ground. At the fire, he bent at the knees and took hold of the unlit end of a burning stick. He raised it to light the cigarette and drew a long deep breath. In a sudden convulsive fit he coughed rattling, raspy phlegm from his lungs and then spit it into the fire. The sputum hissed in protest like an angry viper as it shriveled in the blaze. He stood and cleared his throat. Their glares were eighteen inches apart. With the flaming stick held between their faces he could see the fire dance in the gold flecks in her smoke-colored hate-filled eyes. He took the cigarette from his lips and forced a stream of smoke out of his lungs toward her face.

“Doesn’t matter.” he said. “Why did you spread your legs for Rudy? Why did you allow yourself to become his fantasy?”



The light of the fire revealed the evil in his eyes and she shrugged off the quake of fear that threatened to roll up her back, and converted it to her storehouse of rage.

“I had no idea I was his fantasy. I thought I was doing a screen test.”

“That’s right,” he said, “a screen test for who?”

“For Ansell Parker but you made all that up. Ansell doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

He dropped the burning stick into the fire, put the cigarette back into his mouth and reached across the flames. He grabbed the lapels of her jacket and pulled her torso slowly over the center of the fire pit. “But you didn’t know that when you consented to have sex with him on tape.”

She starred into the face of her oppressor. His evil eyes flickered with more than the light of the flames. Out of his dark sockets, the fires of Hell emanated as if they were contained in his soul. His lips were only inches from hers and his scorching saliva spattered against her bruised cheeks as he spit his accusation into her face.

“Take your hands off me,” she demanded and her voice, not obstructed by fear, reflected the fury in her chest.

“So, let’s see what we’ve learned,” he continued and pulled her closer in defiance. Then, with a sudden shove backwards, he released her.

She had to take a step back to catch her balance but without hesitation, she moved again to the edge of the fire and didn’t give him any ground.

“You thought you were going to have sex with an actor so you could look good for Ansell. Your plan was to ultimately get paid for screwing Rudy by getting hired in a leading role on an upcoming movie. Getting paid for sex,” he paused like a lawyer who just caught the witness in a lie. “Isn’t that what you said?”

“You’ve twisted this all around.” Her own words, the ones she had come to dread, echoed in her memory once again and the image from the loathsome glare of the farm girl reflected in the mirror in her apartment fell across her eyes as if Amy stood in the midst of the fire—Whatever it damn well takes. Now, she was being forced by this con man, this murderer, this psychopath to realize somehow he was right. He got her to prostitute herself.

Tony took a long last drag from the cigarette and dropped the stub into the fire.

“Is that so? By your own definition, you are a whore. So own the title, you’ve earned it.”

She saw Tony’s eyes smolder as he continued to glare at her across the fire. A sinister smirk she recognized spread over his acne scarred face and he began to force a wicked guttural laugh out of his mouth. She could see he knew he had won the debate. Although she would never admit it to him, she recognized it too. He was right, she had done it all to self-promote, to compromise her body to get ahead. She wondered if her move to LA had really been to pursue her passion for acting or just to assuage a driving need to overcome an insecurity she knew had chased her through life—an obsession for recognition.



Tony felt exhilarated. He read the naked truth revealed on her face. She’s no better than Ma. It was more satisfying than any sexual climax he had ever experienced. She had been willing, and now she had become Ma. She was worthy.

“What’s the matter,” he chided, “cat got your tongue?”



Over the last three days, Tony’s gun had been the phallic symbol of power. Tony had used it in the warehouse to elicit her submission to assault, and threatened her into compliance with it again and again. Natalie had seized the authority for a moment and used it to subdue Hank, but Tony didn’t need it now. His words were enough.

She shifted her eyes and realized the tide could change again in the next moment. The brown composite pistol butt lay exposed and unchallenged just above his belt. She grabbed for it.

_____

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76 Born to Make the Kill

Natalie reached the passenger side of the car a moment later and noticed both the front and rear doors were ajar. She remembered when Tony stole the car, Rudy had placed her on the backseat next an infant seat. Now, it had been tossed out onto the barn’s dirt floor. She presumed Rudy must have moved it out of the way when he moved her to the coral. She slipped into the front passenger seat and looked toward Rudy.

He laid face up under the dashboard and aided by the flashlight, looked underneath. In his left hand a maze of small, blue, yellow, red, black, white and green copper-filled tubes, any two of which could have been the right ones, painted a puzzled look on his face.

“Hurry,” she whispered.

“Don’t know which are the right wires.”

“Can I help?”

“Uh, yeah, line your finger up under the dash right below where the key goes.”

Natalie found the ignition and slipped the forefinger of her left hand below it.

“How’s that?” she asked.

“Perfect.”

Natalie’s eyes were on Rudy’s face. His lips hadn’t moved. He turned his eyes to hers and she saw the baffled look had transformed into stark terror. She knew if she could see her own reflection, her face would mirror his. That familiar voice with its Jersey accent screeched like a subway’s steel wheels against the tracks. When it rumbled from the backseat and with just one word—“perfect”—a repressive weight of despair fell over her.

“Well, ain’t this cozy?” Tony continued. He sat up and peered over the back of the front seat. “Takin’ your whore for a ride lover boy?”

Rudy remained silent. The flashlight slipped out of his hands and he laid his head on the floor of the driver’s compartment.

Natalie realized Tony must have camped out in the car for insurance. He could have gone anywhere in the barn to stretch out and sleep, but he choose the one place where he could protect his interests. He knew that their first thought would be to take the car, so any escape attempt would include him in the backseat.

She knew she should refrain from engagement, but just like the emotional fights she got into with her mother, the rage she had amassed in reserve thwarted any apprehension that might have suggested caution.

“Why do you insist on calling me a ‘whore?’” she shouted. Her throat horse, she forced herself to articulate every syllable so her message was clear. With the rest over the last few hours, her mind had sharpened. She was ready for battle. To further intimidate, she stepped out of the car, turned toward the back door and slammed it shut with her foot.

“’Cause that’s what you are.” Tony said. “Like a damn umpire, I call ’em as I see ‘em.

Tony slid across the seat to the passenger side door and tried the handle but the child lock had been secured and the door wouldn’t open.

“Damn it,” he yelled. He leaned over the seat, pointed the Python at Rudy and glared out the window at Natalie. “Open the damn door or I’ll blow him to Hell right now.”

Two against one were better odds than her alone, and she wanted no more bloodshed, so she stepped to the door, opened it and then stood back as Tony got out.

“I suppose you’d know all about whores,” she continued and scowled through the gloom at the swollen bloodshot eyes in Tony’s head. “That the only way you get laid?”

“You’d be surprised what gets me off, Bitch.” He turned toward Rudy who still laid as if he had melted into the floor mat, and continued, “Out of the damn car.”

Natalie felt the barrel of the Colt jamb into her ribs and he nudged her toward the coral. “’Bitch’ is no more complimentary than ‘Whore,’” she said. Her side, bruised from when he kicked her in the motel parking lot, ached, but without a flinch she began to walk as directed. “How would you like it if I called you Bastard?”

“You have called me Bastard, and I am one in the truest sense. My mother got knocked up by some guy who didn’t know her name, some guy who didn’t hang around, some guy who paid her for the trick, and the next thing you know, drum roll please, it’s me. So yeah, I’m a goddamn bastard. At least I know what I am but you have this delusion about who you are.”

Natalie continued to walk toward the fire. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Rudy had left the sedan behind and now moved like a lamb to slaughter a few steps away on her left side. Behind her, she heard Tony as his scuffed his foot against the loose dirt of the floor.

Natalie said, “Is that so? Who do I think I am?”

“Oh, you’re Ms. Hollywood. Ms. walk-down-the-boulevard swinging your ass so men’ll notice. Ms. take-off-your-clothes-for-the-camera just to get a part. If that’s not a whore ... ? You’re no better than my ma, spreading her legs for profit.”

Natalie didn’t want that to be true. Her memory flashed back and brought full exposer to Amy’s first sexual experience with the boy in the barn—the one who took her cherry. She went down with him in the hay not because she liked him, or even because she was that curious about sex. She had been brainwashed by her parents, and her church, that sex outside of marriage was a sin. But not being accepted at school by those popular cheerleaders seemed a worse Hell than eternal damnation. Then, after months of scorn, during her sophomore year, the Queen pulled her aside one morning after geometry class.

“See that boy?” she asked with her finger raised toward a boy a year older than her pulling his books out of a locker. “He’s a friend of mine. He told me he wants to meet you but he’s too shy to ask. He’ll be eating his lunch alone today in the quad. Go talk to him and be his friend. If you’ll do that, I’ll consider it a great favor. And if you go all the way with him, there’s an opening in the cheerleading squad—“

“You want me to sleep with him?” Amy asked. Her mouth fell wide open.

“I’ll need a trophy” The Queen ignored Amy’s question with a wink.

“A trophy?”

“Yeah, proof that you really did it … with him.” She nodded toward the boy.

“Like what?” Amy shot a quick glance toward the boy. She couldn’t believe she even entertained the suggestion. He was one of the more popular boys around school and not bad looking. He looked back at her and smiled a sheepish grin.

“His underwear … no, his signed underwear. Bring me his tighty-whiteys with his signature and you’re in the squad.”

Amy didn’t believe in miracles but after her rejection a few months earlier from the cheerleading team she knew it would take a miracle to pull herself out of the rural-farm ghetto class. Now she was being offered a gift, a way to rise out of the slums. It would cost her virginity, but the price paled when she considered the reward. In league with the popular girls would give her the respect she craved.

“I’ll do it,” Amy agreed, although her stomach churned with nervous hesitation.

But the friendship didn’t come, and another girl advanced to the squad. How could Amy know she was being played? She was always so trusting and gullible. As it turned out, one the cheerleader minions was on the outs with the Queen, and the boy in hay was her boyfriend. It all came out when his briefs went up the flagpole. Rather than be embraced with her new found social status, Amy was exposed in front of the whole school as a self-confessed slut.

_____

Can’t wait for more; go to Amazon.com to add this to your bookshelf.

For more about me, visit http://www.jearlrugh.com/ or Facebook

© Jearl Rugh 2012

All Rights Reserved