The remains

Chapter 64

He’s right behind us. The mad man is following us the entire time. He grabs Molly’s hair, pulls it back.

She screams. He laughs.

“ Cry, cry, cry,” he spits.

He pulls mine. I begin to weep. I fall, bringing Molly down with me.

There’s a pistol barrel in our faces. He is holding the pistol that he now tucks into his pant waist. Bending, he grabs my left foot and Molly’s right, starts dragging us back across the narrow foot trail to the house.

“ Little kittens lost their mittens. Cry, cry, cry, little kittens.”

When he gets us to the porch, he pulls out a long silver knife from the sheath on his belt, cuts the tape that binds our wrists. I lie still on the ground while Molly jumps up, tries to run. But he is too quick for her. He grabs hold of her T-shirt, drags her back down and once more whips her over the head with the pistol grip.

Molly goes to sleep again.

That’s when the devil grabs hold of me. The devil drags me up the porch steps, in through the open front door, across the floor, through a door that leads to a black, rank basement.

He pulls me down the basement stairs by my hair. My spine pounds against the wood treads. At the bottom of the stairs he pulls me across the cold dirt floor. He handcuffs me to something. It’s pitch dark. The place smells of must, urine and death. I’m shivering with fear and disbelief.

An overhead light is turned on.

I can see that I’m chained to this iron pipe in the middle of a square-shaped room. It’s a basement room constructed of stone, concrete, narrow windows located at the very top of the walls. Heavy gauge wires hang from the exposed rafters. Besides the wires are big hooks. They look like the hooks the farmers use to hang their freshly butchered meat. From where I sit, I can see that the hooks are stained with blood.

For a time the beast just stares down at me. He’s breathing hard.

“ What are you going to do to me?” I beg, the handcuffs tight and cutting into my wrists.

“ Cry, cry, cry, little kitten,” he sings.

I scream.

But only the devil can hear me.