Lost Highway(3)

The other woman from her car is with the Death Dealers I call Beavers. They show their teeth in an odd way when they laugh. They’ll hurt the woman for a long time. She might become like them, or she might be their dinner. I don’t know them well. They tend to stay on their side of the highway while I remain on mine.

Except Dag crossed the line into my territory. Others might too. They want Odessa. Many of them prefer women prey. If more Death Dealers come, I’ll make them bleed. This side of the highway is mine, and no one survives my traps.

I touch the screen where Odessa stirs. She needs to wake up and stop bleeding. I don’t dare clean her up. I don’t want to know her too well. Like the others before her, Odessa won’t survive. Besides, I don’t trust her. No one worth trusting comes to the Lost Highway.

When she wakes later, I take her water and bread. She looks at the food and then at me. She isn’t truly this passive. I watched her kill two people in the woods. I know she wants to survive, and I know she’ll spill blood to regain her freedom.

“Do you have a phone?”

I don’t answer her question. Odessa’s eyes are clearer. She’s more aware now. Despite her improvement, she needs to move around and stop bleeding. This place won’t wait for her to catch up.

“I want to call my family and tell them I’m safe,” she says in a rough voice.

Her screams drew me to the road. I watched her run into the territory I don’t control. I’m not sure why I followed her. None of the other people I’ve brought here survived. I don’t want to learn more names. I can’t pretend their lives matter. They all end up dead, and silence suits me now.

“My children will be worried,” she says after drinking the water.

“You’re a poor liar.”

Blinking rapidly, Odessa still hopes to talk me into allowing her access to the phone. “I won’t tell anyone where I am.”

“You don’t know where you are.”

Odessa swallows hard, struggling with her sore throat. She screamed so much when she killed Velma and the bald man. When she fell silent later, the world felt unbearably quiet.

“Who was the man in the woods?” she asks, playing her game.

“He wanted to hang you upside down and bleed you. Afterward, he would hollow out your flesh and store small animals inside you. His name was Dag, and he is one of many.”

Odessa’s eyes widen, but not nearly enough for a normal person. She takes in stride what I tell her. “What do you want?”

I don’t answer. Odessa is afraid, but she isn’t ready to accept the truth. Once she knows it, I won’t have her around to admire. I decide to keep my secrets to ensure she’ll stay with me longer.

Taking away the tray, I leave her in the locked room. Outside, the wind whips up without warning, and I watch the leaves hover in the sky. A storm is coming. The Death Dealers won’t attack until the weather clears. I have at least a day or two before I need to clean my traps.

Until then, I admire Odessa on the screen and wait for her to stop bleeding.





Chapter Four


Odessa




The house rattles under the thunder’s wrath. A splash of green colors the walls from the lightning.

I force my body into a sitting position. My leg throbs and dried blood acts as the glue between the tattered pant leg and my flesh. Ignoring the pain, I struggle to stand. A window might allow me a view outside this room, and I need to know where my captor has taken me.

Lightning sends streaks of green across the room again, and the thunder’s intensity nearly knocks me off of my feet. I hold onto the window sill and scan the scene outside my window.

Absolutely nothing is visible. Even when the lightning strikes, I can’t see past the heavy fog hugging the house. I stare through the smudged glass until my leg gives out, and I’m forced to sit.

This small room has two doors. One allows the man to come inside. I assume the other is a closet. Instead, I find a tiny bathroom with a toilet and shower but no sink or mirror. The room allows for no escape. Nothing can be made into a weapon to end a life.

I turn on the faucet and am surprised to find clean hot water. The idea of washing away my aches and pains is nearly as tempting as knowing the blood covering me is mostly from other people.

In the shower, I can’t wash my hair but wet it nonetheless. I fear the pain of hot water on my wounds. My leg smells, and my head still bleeds when I press gently on the wound. The water washes away the foulness on my skin. The blood and sweat disappear down the drain.

Having no towel, I dry off using a shirt from my suitcase. A little part of me wonders if the man is watching. Looking around, I don’t see any sign of cameras, yet I don’t care if my nudity tempts him.

I’ve wasted too many years embracing lies. I can’t do it again. Not here when my fate rests entirely in the hands of a stranger. He can do whatever he wants whenever he chooses. Pretending I can avoid a terrible fate if only I remain in dirty clothes is too big of a lie.

Dressed in a white shirt and gray sweats, I sit back on the bloody bed. My brown hair drips onto my shirt, creating damp circles just over my breasts.

My mind wanders but goes nowhere of importance. I think of Neapolitan ice cream on a blistering summer day and the way my family’s old Sheltie licked my scraped knees. Unable to think about John or my sister Athena, who haunts me most days, I am lost in comfortable thoughts detached from guilt and grief.