The Lonely Mile

Martin sat on the bottom step of the basement stairs and watched his angel quietly as she fidgeted on the bed. She explored her head wound, which had bled like crazy as head wounds always do, but which Martin still figured was not too serious. He was something of an expert on inflicting damage on teenage girls, and he figured she may have suffered a slight concussion and probably had a doozy of a headache, but that was likely the extent of it.

The skin he had torn open with the butt end of the knife had more or less stopped bleeding. It probably required nothing more than a few stitches, not that he was about to bring her to the hospital. The scar would be almost invisible under her luxurious mane of blonde hair, so his contact would not be too upset, and the wound might serve as a handy reminder to her of what would happen if she tried to rebel against him or her next owner again.

He would let her suffer for a while with her bloody face and pissed pants—it was exactly what she deserved after her treachery last night—and later, after she had had a chance to meditate on her foolishness, he would bring her upstairs to clean the cut on her head and allow her to shower. While he watched, of course, as a security measure.

Clean clothes wouldn’t be a problem. After hosting more than a dozen girls, all roughly her exact dimensions, for anywhere from a few hours in the beginning to seven days more recently, Martin had built up a pretty fair collection of stylish clothing favored by the twenty-first century teen girl. All the hot brands—t-shirts, sweat shirts, jeans, skirts, tank tops, and, of course, pretty underwear—he had it all, stacked in piles in the back of his closet, all waiting for the perfect girl to wear them.

Carli would be the one. She was perfect.

Eventually, he would do all that. For now, though, he was content to sit unobserved and watch his little angel as she began the process of adjusting to her new way station and her new situation. As angry as he had been at the moment of the attack last night, Martin now realized he had brought it upon himself. He never should have trusted her. It was just so hard not to.

The 4:00 a.m. trip to the hospital had been interesting. Martin had driven himself to the emergency room, his sliced-up arm screaming in protest, even after he had swallowed all those ibuprofens. The road in front of the windshield had wavered and shimmied as if he were driving drunk, sometimes disappearing entirely for a second or two as his body dealt with the shock of the serious wound, before swimming back into focus, more or less.

Then, at the nearly empty emergency room, first the nurse and then the doctor who eventually stitched him up took one look at the chunk taken out of his arm and eyed him suspiciously. The injury had “domestic dispute” written all over it, and the concern of the medical staff was clearly for whoever had been on the other end of the knife, and what fate she might have suffered.

Martin chuckled, watching as his angel tossed and turned on the bed in obvious discomfort. The medical buffoons assumed it was a domestic dispute, and in a way they had been spot on. But of course, Martin had known what conclusion they would jump to and was ready with a story. He had been replacing the muffler on his car. “The wrench slipped,” he said, the picture of innocence, sincerity in his eyes, “and I gouged my arm on a loose piece of exposed sheet metal.”

“You were working on your car at three o’clock in the morning?” the doctor asked sarcastically, making no attempt to hide his disbelief. Martin didn’t blame him, really; the explanation was about as flimsy as they come. But what could the doctor do? Martin stuck to his guns, and, in the end, they had done the only thing they could do—suture the wound, give him a prescription for some high-quality painkillers, and then send him on his way.

They were suspicious, of course they were, but there wasn’t a thing they could do about it. Even if they decided to alert the authorities, their efforts would be wasted. The license and insurance information was all bogus—fakes provided by his contact for use in the event of just such an emergency.

By the time he walked back through his front door, daylight was dawning, although the sky was overcast and moisture hung in the air like evil intent. Martin was exhausted. He stumbled into the basement and checked on Carli, still passed out on the filthy bed, and then went back upstairs and taken two Percocets. He had slept like a baby. A baby high on prescription pain meds.

The disappointment of not being able to consummate his burgeoning relationship with Carli last night was fresh in Martin’s mind, but after participating in a knife fight, enduring the cleaning, and suturing of a serious stab wound as well as the accusatory stares of the hospital personnel, and being up all night to boot, Martin decided it couldn’t hurt to wait another few hours for the big moment. He wanted to be able to enjoy it, after all, and right now, with his forearm throbbing and barking at him, the sex wouldn’t be that much fun anyway. It would be nothing more than animal rutting, and he wanted it to be special. He wanted it to be something they could both remember with fondness as the years went by, despite the fact they might not ever see each other again.

There was still plenty of time, after all. He had six more days, and Carli Ferguson wasn’t going anywhere until every last hour of that time was up. He watched her sleep for a few more minutes and then rose and ascended the stairs. It was time for more Percocet and another nap.





CHAPTER 44


May 28, 2:05 p.m.

SPE

FAR

ET

EIGHT LETTERS CLUSTERED IN three distinct groups, running from upper left to lower right, down the side wall of a truck’s cargo box. Eight seemingly random-looking letters that obviously weren’t random at all. They had, at one time during the truck’s previous incarnation, signified something, something that meant enough to someone to shout it out to the world.

Bill chewed on the significance of the letters, certain he had seen them somewhere before, pacing his tiny apartment and walking the neighborhood under glowering skies, the air so heavy with moisture and the promise of rain that he felt as though he was practically swimming.

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