As the young woman struggled ahead she became increasingly afraid, close to panic. The woods were even denser now, and the low-hanging branches clawed at her bare arms, leaving long scratches. She knew her captor’s name: Casanova. He fancied himself a great lover, and in fact he could maintain an erection longer than any man she had ever known. He had always seemed rational and in control of himself, but she knew he had to be crazy. He certainly could act sane on occasion, though. Once you accepted a single premise of his, something he had said to her several times: “Man was born to hunt… women.”
He had given her the rules of his house. He had clearly warned her to behave. She just hadn’t listened. She’d been willful and stupid and had made a huge, tactical mistake.
She tried not to think of what he was going to do to her out here in these bewildering Twilight Zone–type woods. It would surely give her a heart attack. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her break down and cry.
If only he would ungag her. Her mouth was dry, and she was thirsty beyond belief. Perhaps she could actually talk her way out of this—of whatever it was that he had planned.
She stopped walking and turned to face him. It was draw-a-line-in-the-sand time.
“You want to stop here? That’s fine with me. I’m not going to let you talk, though. No last words, dear heart. No reprieve from the governor. You blew it big time. If we stop here, you may not like it. If you want to walk some more, that’s fine, too. I just love these woods, don’t you?”
She had to talk to him, get through to him somehow. Ask him why. Maybe appeal to his intelligence. She tried to say his name, but only muffled sounds made it through the damp gag.
He was self-assured and even calmer than usual. He walked with a cocky swagger. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying. Anyway, it wouldn’t change a thing even if I did.”
He had on one of the weird masks that he always wore. This one was actually called a death mask, he’d told her, and it was used to reconstruct faces, usually at hospitals and morgues.
The skin color of the death mask was almost perfect and the detail was frighteningly realistic. The face he’d chosen was young and handsome, an all-American type. She wondered what he really looked like. Who in hell was he? Why did he wear masks?
She would escape somehow, she told herself. Then she would get him locked up for a thousand years. No death penalty—let him suffer.
“If that’s your choice, fine,” he said, and he suddenly kicked her feet out from under her. She fell down hard on her back. “You die right here.”
He slid a needle out of the well-worn black m
edical bag he’d brought with him. He brandished it like a tiny sword. Let her see it.
“This needle is called a Tubex,” he said. “It’s preloaded with thiopental sodium, which is a barbiturate. Does barbiturate-sounding things.” He squeezed out a thin squirt of the brown liquid. It looked like iced tea, and it was not something she wanted injected into her veins.
“What does it do? What are you doing to me?” she screamed into the tight gag. “Please take this gag out of my mouth.”
She was covered with sweat, and her breathing was labored. Her whole body felt stiff, anesthetized and numb. Why was he giving her a barbiturate?
“If I do this wrong, you’ll die right now,” he told her. “So don’t move.”
She shook her head affirmatively. She was trying so hard to let him know that she could be good; she could be so very good. Please don’t kill me, she silently pleaded. Don’t do this.
He pricked a vein in the crook of her elbow, and she could feel the painful pinch there.
“I don’t want to leave any unsightly bruises,” he whispered. “It won’t take long. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, you, are, so, beautiful, zero. All finished.”
She was crying now. She couldn’t help it. The tears were streaming down her cheeks. He was crazy. She squeezed her eyes shut, couldn’t look at him anymore. Please, God, don’t let me die like this, she prayed. Not all alone out here.
The drug acted quickly, almost immediately. She felt warm all over, warm and sleepy. She went limp.
He took off her tank top and began to fondle her breasts, like a juggler with several balls. There was nothing she could do to stop him.
He arranged her legs as if she were his art, his human sculpture, stretching the leather thong as far as it would go. He felt down between her legs. The sudden thrust made her open her eyes, and she stared up at the horrible mask. His eyes stared back at her. They were blank and emotionless, yet strangely penetrating.
He entered her, and she felt a jolt like a very powerful electric shock running through her body. He was very hard, fully aroused already. He was probing inside her as she was dying from the barbiturate. He was watching her die. That’s what this was all about.
Her body wriggled, bolted, shook. As weak as she was, she tried to scream. No, please, please, please. Don’t do this to me.
Mercifully, blackness came over her.
She didn’t know how long she’d been unconscious. Didn’t care. She woke up and she was still alive.
She started to cry, and the muffled sounds coming through the gag were agonizing. Tears ran down her cheeks. She realized how much she wanted to live.