“Don’t you ever stop talking?”
“Not really. I tend to babble when I’m about to be turned into sushi. It’s a nervous habit. But then, I guess we all have our faults, eh Harry? I babble, you skin weres. Looks like we’re both a little flawed.”
“Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up!” he chanted, pressing his hands over his ears and squeezing his eyes shut.
I was pretty sure that if I pushed him anymore he would crack and either crumple into a broken ball and weep, or gut me like a fish and mount my head on the wall next to the poor unfortunate were who’d been unlucky enough to sleep with his wife.
I hope she was worth it, buddy.
“I won’t ever shut up, you sick bastard. While I’m still breathing I will make you regret ever laying a finger on me,” I said, the calm iciness of my voice surprising even me.
I was beyond sadness now, beyond anger and frustration, beyond fear. I hovered somewhere in the realm of pure blistering fury that reduced the world to crystalline clarity. I don’t think I’d ever experienced such focus as I did in that moment, strapped to the chair in Johnson’s grimy basement, unsure of whether I would ever see the light of day again.
Well, I’ll be damned if I go down without a fight. No matter what, I’ll always come out swinging.
Evidently, so would Johnson. A single swift blow to the side of my head cut through my brief moment of insight, plunging me into darkness. Before I fully sank down into unconsciousness I was able to utter a single grating “Bastard.”
Chapter 17
WHEN I AWOKE, I found my right eye swollen shut, and my vision blurred in the other. I tried to reach up and explore the state of my eye, but instead found my hands strapped to the arms of a chair with zip ties that bit into my skin viciously. Then I remembered Johnson’s ham-hock fist arcing towards me and my inability to evade the punch.
My body wasn’t going to be able to withstand much more of this punishment. Every breath hurt, and the dizzying thumping in my head added credence to the thought, while the white spots dancing on the edge of my vision gave me pause.
I’d had plenty of time to envision my untimely demise over the past few days, but not even in my wildest imaginings had I thought I would go down like this. It seemed cruel somehow, to have suffered through so much only to die from internal bleeding in a dark, dank basement, never having had the chance to say goodbye to the few people in my life who actually meant something.
I wonder if depression is a symptom of cranial bleeding.
“Fuck this,” I muttered to myself, shaking my head to clear some of the dizziness. “I’m not going down like this.”
Swallowing against the lump in my throat, I huffed a lank string of hair out of my face to look over my surroundings once more, hoping against all odds that I’d spot something close at hand that I could use to escape. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing there except the same dusty and useless crap as before. The only potentially useful items were spread out across the workbench, across the room.
I spied the shaft of a screwdriver, miraculously untouched by the passage of time and disuse. I was sure that if I could somehow get my hands on it, it would work as an effective weapon.
And therein lies the problem, idiot. You’re tied to a chair. How exactly do you plan on getting around that little snag? my internal voice asked with no small amount of bitterness, the thoughts full of cynicism. Johnson will let me out, I answered, a plan beginning to formulate in the back of my mind. I just wasn’t sure which was more repulsive—the thought of my plan succeeding or failing.
***
As soon as I heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open I closed my eye and bowed my head until my chin touched my chest, feigning unconsciousness. The smell of booze was strong again, meaning Johnson would be sloppy. It would either work to my advantage, or mean that I was royally screwed. I was hoping for the former.
Keeping my head down, I slit my eye open just enough to watch Johnson’s drunken progress. He staggered down the steps and weaved his way across the room to the workbench, whiskey sloshing out of the bottle in his hand the entire way. He’d lost his dress shirt since his last visit, leaving him in slacks and a t-shirt with yellow pit stains.
Ew, gross.