Four Minutes, J. C. Laird [young adult books to read TXT] 📗

He hated her, despised her, loved her. He clenched and unclenched his hands, his mouth dry. Nicole… He looked around at the isolated, secluded area. No way could he wait to get back to the house; he’d take her here.

Norman kept his boyish smile etched on his face and managed to keep his voice even and steady. “Certainly, I only live a mile or so from here; I’ll give you a lift. But first let me take a look under the hood for you.”

She stood, faced him and grinned as he neared. “Sure, look all you want.”

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His head and balls were throbbing, but his throat was the worst; he could hardly swallow, it felt like a golf ball was lodged in there. Norman opened his eyes and, even in the grey dimness, it took several seconds for his eyes to adjust, then several more seconds for them to register where he was. “What the hell…?” He was in his own basement, bare-assed naked, sitting in a chair, but somehow completely immobile.

Then his mind began to clear; he remembered the blonde and that beaming smile. He had been ready to take her when she had unexpectedly lashed out and caught him in the throat with her fist. As he staggered, choking, she kicked him in the balls. Then, hit him over the head with something…Now, he was in his own basement, tied up somehow.

Although he couldn’t move his head left or right, up or down, his eyes could see his forearms duct-taped to the chair arms and his thighs duck-tapped to the chair bottom. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out that his lower legs, torso and head were duct-taped to the chair legs and back. The extension he had put on the chair back for securing their heads worked well. Norman didn’t even try to struggle; he had built the chair himself and bolted it to the cement floor. It wasn’t going to move or break.

He winced as the lights came on. The blonde was sitting on the leather couch smoking a cigarette, the remote control for the lights in her hand. “I was getting worried; I thought I might have whacked you too hard with my trusty Louisville Slugger. We played ball with it when we were kids.”

He had a splitting headache and it hurt to talk, but he managed to rasp, “What is this? What are you doing and why in hell did you attack me? You can’t get away with this…

“Stow it Norman, I don’t have time for your bullshit; I’ve got some serious work to do.” The blonde unwound from the couch, stood and ground her cigarette out on the cement floor with a sneakered foot.

He stared at her. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

She walked over, bent down, hands on knees and stared Norman in the eyes. “My name’s Ryan. I’m the bitch who’s going to introduce you to those ‘four minutes’ you were talking about.

Norman’s eyes widened. “What…how… how…why did you say that…?” His mind was trying to grapple with everything. Ryan, he knew that name from somewhere.

He tried to follow her with his eyes as she went to retrieve something outside his range of vision. Seconds later she was back, wheeling a portable hospital tray he sometimes used as a TV tray when he ate in the basement. But instead of food, it now had several other items on it: vise-grips, clamps, screw driver, several knives, a box cutter and a number of other things just outside his vision.

“Let’s see… Norman Joseph Bartholomew, serial killer of …ummm…nineteen women, right? This may take a while since you’ll be atoning for all of their deaths, especially Dana’s—slowly.” Ryan picked up a teaspoon off the tray. “I’ve read of a novel use for this. Just insert it under someone’s eye, maybe an inch into the orbital cavity, then a quick flick up—like shooting peas—and presto; the eyeball just pops right out.” She put the spoon down and picked up a single-edge razor blade. “But personally I liked the one where you cut off the eyelids; you’d have to watch everything. Plus, they say the pain—as the eyeballs dry out—is excruciating.

His eyes moved left, then right, attempting to track her as she slowly walked back and forth in front of him. Panic was growing in his darting eyes, like a welling tsunami. He literally screamed, “Who are you; why the hell do you care? Why don’t you just call the cops?”

She stopped her slow pacing. “You know, your theory on that ‘four minute’ thing was pretty accurate. The brain does have enough oxygen after death to last for four or five minutes, or in Dana’s case, well over six. Of course, she was a cross-country and marathon runner; her body was a little more efficient than average in utilizing oxygen. She was still in there when you started shoveling dirt over her”

Confusion had now joined his panic. “That’s impossible; you can’t know that!”

Dana cupped a palm below her eyes and removed her contacts. When she was done her green blouse no longer matched her brown eyes. “And you were right, our parents wanted a boy, instead they got a double whammy, twin girls—Ryan Dana Sanders and my sister, Dana Ryan. My parents were pretty slick, huh?”

She pulled off her blonde wig and removed the net holding her dark hair beneath. She shook it loose, her brunette tresses falling to her shoulders. “There, that’s better.” Ryan picked up and slowly began tugging on a pair of blue latex gloves, snapping the thin rubber with an ominous finality as she finished.

Norman was speechless. He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out; his mind was reeling.

“Dana and I never had any of that ‘twin-telepathy’ stuff, no paranormal, psychic connection; we couldn’t ‘feel’ what was happening to each other in adjoining rooms, let alone over great distances. Until those few minutes after she died, that is.”

Eyes wide, Norman was still staring, his mouth agape.

She smiled. “You’ll be catching flies if you don’t close your mouth.”

A choking sound escaped Norman.

Ryan slipped a white plastic bib-apron over her head and tied it around her waist. “For most people that last ‘four minutes’ or so is a peaceful transition, a gentle going-to-sleep as the oxygen fades away. But for others it can be a horrendous final experience, residual memories of terror, a wraith-like sense perception of the outer world.”

She pulled up a chair and sat facing Norman, their knees almost touching. Ryan leaned forward, staring into his eyes, her smile long gone. “I can’t explain it Normie, some kind of sixth sense from her dying, oxygen starved mind, reaching out to me in terror 2500 miles away, somehow giving me ethereal, hazy images of things in that grey area between black and white: a sense of your house, of you, of your truck, of things seen and heard those last minutes.”

Dana picked up a roll of duct-tape from the tray and ripped off a strip. “I had to meet and date a cop for three months just to get your address from your license plate. Then, it was just a little research, planning and reconnoitering after that.”

She pulled a small notebook out of her back pocket. “Let’s see now…your first victim… Sharon Lee Anderson, October, 2001. We’ll start with a little payback for her.” She pressed the duct-tape over her captive’s mouth, grinning at the bulging terror in the eyes above. “I know we’re out in the middle of nowhere Norman, but your screaming might get on my nerves.”

She picked up the box cutters and slid out the blade. “Be patient Normie, this will take a while, but we’ll eventually get you to your four minutes of dead, inner terror. And I promise to make it as bad a sendoff as I can.”

 

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Imprint

Text: John C. Laird
Images: Cover © Alexandra Laird, All Rights Reserved. Original clock image by Paolo Neo (public-domain-photos.com)
Editing: Juniper Lee
Publication Date: 02-21-2012

All Rights Reserved