Grimoire Diabolique

The drums, Gray reflected. Get rid of folks. He didn’t know what the hell the drums were and he didn’t want to know. The crucial information had already been relayed—something he could’ve guessed all along. They’re not just going to let me out of here after they’ve had their fun. They’re going to kill me.

But when?

“Look—what’s your name? Kelly Ann?”

“Kari Ann,” she sniffled.

“Your brothers. They’re going to get rid of me too, aren’t they?”

More sniffling as she nodded, gulped.

“How come they haven’t done that already?”

“Oh, they will, just as soon as they’re finished.”

“Finished with what?”

“Yer car.”

So that was it. Probably stripping the car down, for parts, Gray calculated. “How much time do I have?”

“‘Nuther day, probably. It don’t take ’em long. Then they-they’se’ll git rid’a ya. But if yer lucky…”

Gray’s eyes widened at the suggestion of hope. “What, Kari Ann? If I’m lucky, what?”

Her eyes were red from crying. She wiped her nose. “If yer lucky, they won’t git rid’a ya right away. They’ll keep ya around until they git another car.”

Gray thought he got it. Jory and Hull were forcing the girl to bring victims back to the house. Then they’d chain the poor bastard up here and use him for sexual relief for as long as it took them to strip the car down.

“If ya—you know,” she began. “If ya do ’em good, then they probably won’t kill ya right away.”

The realization, however grim, came as no surprise by now. It made sense. Homosexual sociopaths. I’m only worth keeping alive for as long as I’m a good fuck and suck… The more effectively Gray entertained them sexually, the better chance there’d be that they wouldn’t kill him until the next abduction.

It looked like Gray would have to be a good bitch.

“Where am I, anyway?” he asked. “Some back room in the house?”

“The attic,” she said.

Gray looked at the room’s one window, then remembered the single window in the dormer-like room at the back of the house that he’d noticed when they pulled up. That window must be this window… As he recalled, it overlooked an area of the backyard surrounded by plank fencing. I’m upstairs. So how do I get out? Again, his only hope was the girl.

“Jory and Hull—they’ve been abusing you, haven’t they?” he started. “Incestuously, I mean.”

“Oh, no,” she answered. “Just blowjobs’n fuckin’ me in the ass. Hull says that ain’t incest, on account of no come goes in my pussy.”

Oh, so that’s how it works.

“But after they started doin’ the car thing, they took ta fellas more, so they’se don’t do stuff like that ta me anymore. They just beat me a lot.”

“And the father of your daughter,” Gray went on. “Didn’t you say—”

She looked down in shame. “Well, I’se lied ’bout that. Just said I got raped so’s you’d feel sorry for me. He was some fella I been seein’, but when I gots knocked up, Jory’n Hull kilt him.” Then she broke out into more tears and hugged him. “I’m so sorry. It’s juss that I’m so scared all the time, I have ta do what they say. I cain’t let ’em kill my baby!”

“That’s all right,” Gray consoled. “I understand. You had no choice. But maybe in some weird way, this is all a good thing—us being brought together.”

“What-what’cha mean?”

Make this good, Gray warned himself. “I can tell you’re a special kind of girl. You’re the kind of girl I’ve been searching for for my whole adult life.”

She looked up, teary eyed. “Yuh-yuh-ya really mean that?”

“Of course I do. And I can only imagine what kind of life you have here…with your brothers.”

“It’s pretty bad,” she sniffled. “But I gots ta do what they say so’s they don’t hurt my baby.”

Gray took her hand in a performance worthy of an Oscar. “I understand all that, and it’s okay. Any woman would do the same thing—they’d have no choice. But there’s something I’ve got to tell you, Kari Ann, and I mean this. I think—I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Her gazed groped for him, confusion merging with something that had to be hope. “We should be together,” Gray continued. “I make a lot of money, Kari Ann. I could take you away from all this. But you have to help me.”

“I-I couldn’t—”

“You have to unlock this chain from my ankle, and when you go back downstairs, you have to leave the door unlocked. Then I’ll get you and take you away from this place, you and your daughter. Then you’ll have the kind of life you deserve.”

She started with her waterworks again. “My brothers’d whup me! They probably kill me.”

Gray whispered soft. “But that won’t happen, Kari Ann. Because they’ll never know. You won’t have to worry about your brothers anymore. I’ll take care of you, and your baby. It’ll be wonderful.”