The Remedy Read online

  Lash out.

  Say something.

  Distract him.

  Run.

  But Leigh could do nothing but stand frozen in place, breathless as Rob reached for her. Barely above a whisper he said, “Take my hand.”

  Somewhere outside in the forest, the unmistakable throaty squawk of a crow filled the quiet air between the trees. Its cries continued as it flew overhead, calling out for another bird of the blackest feather, a companion to share its darkness.

  Chapter 24

  Samuel Tucker got a bum deal.

  That was what it would read on his headstone.

  Hands tied to each bedpost with lengths of thickly wound rope, Sam lay face up, stark naked on the queen-sized bed that had been placed squarely in the center of the cabin’s bedroom. Unlike the rest of the house, this room was kept surprisingly tidy, the entire space void of clutter or filth. The bed was neatly made, bordered by nightstands atop of which sat unlit kerosene lamps, and facing a charming antique bureau. A rocking chair sat in the room’s rear left corner next to an authentically old-fashioned record player resting on a rolltop desk. If one were to judge by this room alone, they might have referred to this cabin as nothing short of cozy.

  Of course, this illusion was broken the moment Sam turned his head to the right and caught sight of the grimacing old woman waiting in her rusted wheelchair. In any other scenario, any other cabin, this woman could have been just a sweet, harmless handicapped senior. Here, she was the Anti-Christ—though maybe that title was best reserved for the disfigured ogre who was now returning to the room with thunderous footsteps.

  The door opened slowly with a prolonged creak. Sam craned his neck to see Grizzly, who had taken the occasion to change into a periwinkle nightgown, standing in the threshold. The nightwear looked anything but modern—a full body flannel pullover with lace bordering the yoke. She stared shyly down at her feet.

  “Oh my goodness,” her mother said, clasping her hands together. “You look lovely, dear. Doesn’t she look lovely?”

  Sam didn’t have to look at the old woman to know she was speaking to him. “Oh, just beautiful.” The words came out dry, emotionless.

  Clementine groaned, restraint apparent in her voice as she tried not to upset her daughter. “You don’t know how lucky you are.” She spun her chair toward Grizzly. “You put the ranger and the hunter back in the cellar?”

  Grizzly nodded, her eyes still trained on the floor.

  “Good.” The wheels of Clementine’s chair squeaked as she moved closer to the bed. “Now then, no need to be nervous, darling. Mama will tell you what to do.”

  The muscles in Sam’s buttocks clenched. This was actually going to happen.

  He was going to be raped.

  Although the physical implications were nothing short of nightmarish, the real reason for the waves of nausea striking him was worse: this demented family wanted his seed. The moment they had it, Sam would be a contributor to this fucked-up gene pool. This he could not take.

  How the hell did I end up here?

  A voice within him chuckled at the question. In the strangest, most screwed-up way possible, he knew that his fate made sense. It was undeserved, unjust, and completely unprecedented, but in the life of Samuel Tucker, that was all just business as usual. Another day, another shit sandwich.

  Had it all ended when a foundry accident prematurely took his father’s life, Sam would’ve never considered his life cursed at all. Sure, he would’ve loved to have a father past the age of seven, but a single-parent home was no reason to turn his life into a sob story. He still had his mother, and that made him far more fortunate than a lot of children. So no games of catch in the backyard, but life went on.

  Until his mother’s death when he was fifteen. He’d never liked the guy she’d been seeing at the time. Sam never spotted any bruises on his mother’s arms or had to overhear horrendous shouting matches, but this man had simply reeked of deceit. He borrowed money and never returned it, stayed out late without explanation, and every time Sam caught his eye, he was greeted with the same eerie smile the dirtbag wore like a Halloween mask. So really, it came as no surprise when he killed himself and Sam’s mother in a drunk driving accident. A soul crushing tragedy that poisoned Sam with hate and anger for the next three years—yes, but not a shock. As much as it pained him to say it, Sam could admit that his mother had been playing with fire. Only he’d gotten burned as well.

  Even still, Sam didn’t find it possible to feel too sorry for himself. Thanks to a mother who, for the most part, had raised him right and a father who’d left him enough savings to pay his expenses, Sam was able to continue his education after high school. At the young age of twenty-two, Sam knew such an advantage made him fortunate, despite everything else.

  But you can’t escape if you’re born under a bad sign, can you?

  In a roundabout fashion, choosing to enroll in those college courses was what had landed Sam here: helpless, buck naked, and surrounded by lunatics who, after raping and murdering him, planned to eat his corpse. To think that if he had just kept at it after the rebellious troublemaking of his early teen years, the worst place he could have ended up would’ve been prison. At this point, a jail cell was looking like a four-star hotel.

  If I hadn’t decided to go to school.

  If I hadn’t needed a ride back to campus.

  If I hadn’t gotten in that GODDAMN VAN.

  After all was said and done, there was only one reason he could think of that justified any of the decisions he had made in the last twenty-four hours, or even in his whole adult life:

  Leigh…

  Sure, they’d only known each other for a single day, a span of time most would never consider long enough to get to know someone. And though just days ago he never would’ve thought such strong feelings could develop in such a ludicrously short time, Sam could not deny the connection he had felt with the girl.

  Maybe there was no such thing as love at first sight. And she probably wasn’t hearing wedding bells when they had looked into each other’s eyes. But if nothing else, Leigh had been a friend. Even if their relationship would have failed romantically, Sam just knew their friendship would have lasted. And that would’ve been good enough for him.

  If Sam’s hard-knock life had taught him anything, it was the absolute rarity of good people, and to always appreciate the time spent in their company. Because the good ones never lasted. War, drunk driving, backwoods cannibals—something always came to take them away.

  Speaking of which, there was no way of knowing for certain, but odds were that Leigh was already dead. Since he could do nothing to help her, he prayed the sicko who dragged her outside had made it quick—nothing like what he was about to endure. Though she had once thought of him as a traitor, a fucking bad guy for crying out loud, Sam could take solace in knowing that she had known the truth before she was forever taken from him. As suspicious as some of his acquired survival skills might’ve seemed in the wrong light, they were only derivative of a self-reliant lifestyle. Before the end, Leigh had at least come to see that Sam was no criminal.

  Let the record show: Samuel Tucker was a good guy, through and through.

  Though this detour into Sam’s memories had given him a temporary escape, reality returned in its full ugliness as he became aware of both Grizzly and Mother Clementine looming over him. They were staring at his crotch.

  Grizzly grunted, the sound laced with inquisition. Her mother leaned forward, straightening her round spectacles to get a better look. In the microsecond it took for Sam to blink, Clementine’s expression had turned from one of puzzlement to pure rage.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. “Get it up, dammit!”

  Sam slowly looked to the area of his body that currently held the attention of the two females in the room. His was greeted by the sight of his penis lying across the flesh under his belly button, as limp as a drowned earthworm. At first he didn’t fully comprehend, his mind too exha
usted to grasp the situation. But after darting his eyes back and forth between the menacing women and his wilted organ, he finally got it.

  These crazy bitches needed him to get an erection.

  Fear seized his insides, squeezing some part of him deep inside his gut and bringing sharp cramps to his abdominals. What they were asking was impossible.

  “I can’t.” Sam’s voice came out a weak whimper.

  Just as he was beginning to consider the consequences by not following through with the old woman’s order, a ground-shaking thump rattled the floor, sending vibrations running up the bed frame and into Sam’s bones.

  Grizzly was stomping on the floor.

  “Goddamn you!” Clementine shouted over her daughter’s petulant thumping. “Make it work! Now!”

  Upon hearing the outrageous demand for the second time, the fear wrapped around Sam’s heart was replaced by the wrath of an emasculated man.

  “Listen!” The volume of his shout surprised even himself. “I can’t do it with you standing there watching me.”

  The maniacal matriarch folded her bony, vein-covered arms across her chest.

  “Well, I ain’t leavin’ you alone with my daughter. I know your type. You like to play rough, don’t you?”

  What the fuck is she talking about?

  “So start doing your job or I’ll cut it off!”

  Sam had known it was just a matter of time until that threat reared its ugly head. Castration would, of course, prevent him from performing his half of the dirty deed, but still, Sam got the feeling Clementine wouldn’t think twice about reaching for a knife.

  Sam craned his neck away from the chair-bound witch and her oafish daughter. He’d never been less aroused in all his life, and if he were to have any chance at exciting himself, he could not spare even half a glance at his hideous captors. In order to pull this off, he’d have to become nothing less than a Zen master—completely separate mind from body. Drift off to somewhere far, far away where a banquet of beautiful, voluptuous naked women waited to please him. Not Leigh, though. He could never disrespect her in that way.

  Just use something as a focal point. Don’t look away from it and concentrate on the dirtiest thing you can imagine.

  Sam’s gaze landed on the pile of his own clothes lying on the floor at the base of the bed. By limiting his field of vision to the mound of laundry, Sam used the image to imagine they were discarded in his own bedroom. A young Jenna Jameson had just ripped them off his body before binding his wrists to the bedposts. She was teasing him now, gently licking the flesh of his inner thighs, just barely brushing her tongue against his balls. He so desperately wanted her to take him in her mouth, to swallow the entire length of his shaft that had become as long and thick as that red stick that stuck out from the pocket of his discarded jeans.

  What the fuck?

  Sam had just begun to feel his loins awakening when the sight of that long red stick had completely interrupted his fantasy. Sam lifted his head from the pillow, straining to get a better look at the item on the floor directly underneath his left shoulder. The tip of a faded red rod poked out from under his crumpled jacket.

  A stick of dynamite.

  The scene flashed in his mind. Leigh had just been about to light the dynamite’s fuse, but he snatched it from her grasp just in time.

  And then slid it into his pocket.

  “Boy, you got until the count of three to get ready for action!”

  Sam whipped back to face the snarling old lady.

  “Wait! I can do it. I just need a few minutes with my right hand, okay?”

  Clementine stared at him suspiciously.

  “It has nothing to do with your daughter. Your daughter’s gorgeous. I just always get myself started, no matter who I’m with. I’m serious.”

  She continued to stare, unblinking, her expression impossible to read.

  “Just untie my hand, all right?” Sam glanced over to Grizzly and winked. “Let’s make this happen.”

  After the longest five seconds of Sam’s life, Clementine turned to Grizzly and nodded. The brute shuffled over to Sam’s side, an old-fashioned barber’s razor in her hand. A moment later, Sam’s right hand was free.

  “Thank you,” he said, rotating his wrist to get the feeling back. “Now just give me a minute and we’ll be in business.”

  He rolled onto his side away from them, bringing his free hand to his groin, and began to pump.

  Even with the furious jerking, Sam’s penis remained lifeless in his grip. But this was of no concern as he stared at the dynamite stick, trying to gauge its distance. He was almost certain he could reach it now with his loose hand. However, he knew Clementine and Grizzly were both staring at his back and observing his every movement.

  He would need a distraction.

  “How’s it goin’, boy?”

  “Getting there,” Sam answered, peering back over his shoulder. “But, um…”

  Here goes nothing.

  “Would you mind putting on some music?”

  As expected, Sam was answered with a moment of stunned silence followed by Clementine muttering, “Come again?”

  Sam cleared his throat. “Well, I was just thinking, it’s your daughter’s first time, right? I just thought some music might make things a little bit more romantic. I find it always helps me.” He nodded his chin toward the ancient record player.

  “Oh, hush! She don’t need music and neither do you. Now come on!”

  His shoulders fell slack with Clementine’s response, pushed down by the weight of failure. It was worth a try, but it had also been his only idea. Even if he had the mental strength left to think of another ruse, he doubted he had the time.

  Sam stopped touching himself. What was the point? It wasn’t going to work. All he could do was close his eyes and wait. So he did.

  From the darkness of his closed lids he heard a sound, something that was part moan, part snarl. It had come from Grizzly’s mouth, no doubt a protest to Sam’s lack of participation. Another threat from her mother would come at any moment now. Or maybe not. Maybe she’d just get straight to the cutting.

  It was only when Clementine spoke again that Sam realized Grizzly hadn’t been snarling at him.

  “Now honey, I didn’t mean you don’t deserve romance, I just—”

  Grizzly once again slammed her foot on the ground, the bed frame dancing across the wooden floorboards.

  “Okay, okay!” Clementine released the brake of her wheelchair. “If it’ll help make this special for you, I’ll put a record on.”

  More squeaking from the chair’s rusty wheels. The old woman was moving away toward the phonograph.

  Grizzly, however, hadn’t budged and wasn’t taking her eyes off her gentleman caller.

  Please, God…

  “Well, come pick out a record if you want music so badly.”

  With the obedience of a well-behaved child, Grizzly lumbered over to her mother’s side. Both of them hunched over a wooden crate of vinyl records. They did not see Sam whip his hand out and snatch up the dynamite from the floor. There was just enough time to stuff the stick under the bed’s top sheet before the crackle of needle on vinyl filled the room.

  “Ah, Billie Holiday,” Clementine said with a sigh. “Excellent choice.”

  Over pops and snaps of the vinyl’s cracks and dust, the soul singer crooned, “Crazy he calls me…”

  “Isn’t that lovely?” The old woman began to wheel herself back over to the side of the bed.

  Sam shrugged. “It’s no ‘Sexual Healing,’ but it’ll do.”

  The bed shook as Clementine’s chair collided with its sideboard. Sam could see her shadow towering over his body and onto the floor before him. Sam swore he could feel her sour breath blowing down the backside of his neck.

  “Roll over and face me, boy. It’s show time.”

  Sam tensed, the entire room becoming silent except for Billie Holiday’s tearful lyrics.

  “The impossible will ta
ke a little while…”

  He couldn’t roll over to face them. Not yet. There was still one more thing that needed to be done first, one more miracle that needed to happen.

  After a long, deep breath to steady his nerves, Sam closed his eyes and said, “I’m just about ready to go. But I think we’re missing some candlelight.”

  “No!” Clementine’s response came so quickly it practically cut off Sam’s last word. “There’ll be no more stalling.”

  “I just thought your daughter would like some—”

  “I said that’s enough!”

  This time Sam didn’t even get the chance to be disappointed by the old woman’s denial of his request. Grizzly was already stomping her feet and letting out a string of frenzied moans. Her whining came out high-pitched and liquidly, the combined vocalization of a sparrow/sow hybrid.

  Before her mother could placate or scold her, Grizzly was pacing over to the bureau near the door and grabbing something that rattled in her hand. Sam peered over his shoulder to spot a box of matches in her grip, which she slammed into the chest of her elderly mother.

  Clementine looked down at the box of matches and back up to her daughter. “Now, don’t listen to him. He’s only trying to…”

  This time it was Clementine’s turn to be interrupted. The sound piercing from Grizzly’s lips could only be compared to that of a boiling teakettle. She banged her fists against her misshaped forehead, yanking at the dirty clumps of hair that sparsely populated her scalp.

  “Okay, fine!” Clementine dropped the matchbox into her lap and reached for her wheels. “Quit your wailing and I’ll light the lamp by the bed. Lord have mercy.”

  “Yeah, that’ll be great!” Sam pretended to be as enthusiastic as possible as he gave Grizzly a flirtatious wink. She flashed a smile that was missing two front teeth, and clapped her hands like a delighted little girl at a puppet show.

  Grizzly moved aside to let her mother pass as she wheeled around to the other side of the bed, rolling right over Sam’s heap of clothes. With her chair mere inches away, Sam made sure to keep a hand over his crotch to hide his still-nonexistent erection.