Sawbones

Chapter 14

The middle of nowhere

Laura comes back to life with a cough, only she’s still got the gag in her mouth, so it comes out like a dry retch. Everything hurts — arms, head, chest. . Her left leg stings and throbs. . and it takes her a moment to remember why. To remember where she is and just how fucked up her world has become.

She’s sitting in the driving seat of an ancient, long-dead car, both wrists secured to the steering wheel with more cable-ties. She’s seat-belted in, but just in case that’s not enough, the Bastard has chained her to the seat as well.

The throbbing pain in her left leg is getting worse, and she looks down to see her jeans stained with blood.

It’s all coming back to her — the scrabble of the dog behind her, paws on mud getting closer. A sudden moment of silence as it leaps, and then the pain as it sinks its teeth into her leg, whipping its head back and forth, tearing out chunks of meat. The sound of her own muffled screams. And then the Bastard’s there, hauling the dog off her, so he can punch and kick her instead. She can barely see out of her right eye now.

Laura tries not to cry. She knows it isn’t going to help. But it’s no use — she’s sore, miles from home, scared, bleeding, and she wants her mom and dad so badly. .

She cries till there’s nothing left but dry heaving sobs, then even they subside and she’s left feeling hollow and empty.

From where she’s sitting she can see that the car she’s in is one of about a dozen abandoned in a field, all of them axle-deep in the knee-high grass looking like they haven’t moved in years. Some have more glass than others, but they’re all older models, stained with rust. A graveyard for automobiles.

One of the girls from the Winnebago is chained up in an ancient Volvo. Next to that there’s someone else in a Volkswagen Beetle. Another one slumps in a rusty Dodge pickup. . There’s an old Ford sitting on flat tyres on the other side — the girl in that one’s dead. Her head hangs to the side, eyes open and glassy, flies clustering around the stumps where her arms used to be. Oh, Jesus.

Laura can’t twist round very far, not with her hands strapped to the steering wheel, but she can see other cars in the rear-view mirror. At least three of them have dead women in them. There’s only one girl still alive back there, chained to the seat of a rusty Cadillac. She’s nodding. Back and forth, and back and forth, like she’s listening to heavy metal, but Laura gets the feeling there’s something broken inside the girl’s head. Something that snapped when her arms were cut off.

The girl looks up and stares at Laura. Silently calling for help.

As if Laura can do anything with her torn-up leg and battered body. Like she’s not chained to some crappy old car in the middle of a field waiting for the Bastard to come back and hack off her fucking arms! She can feel tears start to prick at the corner of her eyes again, but this time they’re tears of frustration and rage as she tries to rip the steering wheel off the dashboard.

Laura doesn’t know how much time has passed, but the sun is still on its long, slow haul up into the clear blue sky when she hears the warning drone of the Bastard’s Winnebago. He must have been away somewhere, spreading his own brand of happy fucking sunshine.

A door slams and cheerful whistling fills the air, another bloody hymn. Two minutes later, he turns up in the automobile graveyard, a big shit-eating smile on his face and a girl over his shoulder. Now he has five again.

He stops and beams at them all, chained in their rusty cars. “Rejoice!” he says. “Rejoice for now we are ready to spread the Lord our God’s word!” And then he launches into a crackly baritone, singing about how great Jesus is and how he’s going to save them all in the end.

But Laura gets the feeling any help from the Lord is going to come too late to do them any damn good. Unless He smites the Bastard down with a big bolt of lightning right now.

The Bastard comes to the end of his uplifting hymn and gives them a salute, before carrying his new girl into a long, low barn that sits at the side of the field. There’s no door, just a hole into the darkness inside.

The singing starts again, but this time it’s all distorted — echoing inside the barn.

And then there’s screaming. High-pitched, terrified screaming.