Left for Dead: A gripping psychological thriller Read online

  He was always in his study working with his rulers and protractors and pens and charts. I knew it was important that he get it right, that cars and buses and motorcycles and people crossed bridges every day and they had to be safe.

  Sometimes if I hung around long enough, he would give me a sheet of paper and a pencil and show me how to draw a simple plan for a birdhouse or go-cart or jewelry box. When I became too much of a pest, my mother would arrive and usher me out. Your father needs to work now, Amelia Jane, give him some peace and quiet. When I’d protest, he’d reach into the tin of fruit candies he kept in his top drawer and drop one into my palm and tell me he’d come and play later. I would go outside in the backyard and wait on the swing set or ride my bike around the yard with my brother. Sometimes I would look up at the study window and see my father standing there staring at us, smoking the cigarettes he wasn’t supposed to smoke.

  I didn’t know it then but he wasn’t interested in bridges anymore. He was planning his escape, visualizing a new future, a different life without us. Then one day he left and never came back.

  I used to ask my mother if he left because of me and she would say through wobbling lips that my father loved me very much and that nothing was my fault. I didn’t believe her because when my father was at work I would sneak up the stairs into his study and spin in his squeaking chair and pretend to smoke and mess about with the Golden Gate Bridge. He found out and didn’t like it and he left.

  10

  The car stops and Moonboot turns and looks at me for the longest time.

  Finally, I break the silence. “I won’t say anything if you let me go.”

  It’s laughable. I know this when I say it, but it’s all I’ve got.

  “Won’t you?” he says.

  I can’t tell if he’s angry or amused or just indifferent.

  He stares at me awhile longer then gets out and opens the passenger door and lifts off the blanket and cuts the ties to my ankles and the pulse returns to my legs.

  “Get up.”

  My heart beats wildly because I know this is bad, this is the reason for the long journey, the blindfold, Johnny Cash.

  “Do as you’re told,” he commands when I don’t move.

  I sit up.

  “What’s your name, sir?” I say, reaching.

  “Stop talking.”

  “I was spelling bee champion in the third grade and voted most likely to succeed in sixth grade. I love animals and banana splits and my grandmother. I had my first kiss when I was twelve and collected for the blind foundation and one day I want kids. One of each. Or both the same, I don’t care as long as they have ten fingers and ten toes.”

  I’ve gone too far because his hand grips my upper arm like a vise. He swivels me around so I’m sitting on the edge of the seat and takes off my boots.

  “Walk,” he announces, lifting me up by the elbow.

  “You won’t get away with this. My husband will be out looking for me right now. I’m a lawyer. You’re going to go to prison for a very long time. Unless you let me go. Let me go and I won’t tell anyone. Before things go too far. Think about it. I don’t know who you are. You could just leave me here and simply drive away. I can find my own way back.”

  He pushes me along. Pine needles and stones prick the soles of my feet. I can’t see much through the mask because it’s dark apart from the headlight beams.

  “My name is Amelia.”

  “Lie down.”

  “Amelia Jane Kellaway.”

  I think how dumb it was to tell him my full name because now he will probably hunt down my family and kill them.

  “I said lie down.”

  I break loose and run. My body has taken over my mind and I run. I cannot stop it. The situation is terrifying, the way my body is moving without my consent, like I’m a mere bystander to my own life, and I want to stop because it hurts like a roller coaster, that choke of terror at your throat, the oxygen that’s just out of reach.

  He’s behind me, too close, boots thumping, breath heaving. He is running fast for a man of his size. I can see myself from above, with this stupid rag-mask on my face, hands tied, barefooted, careering into trees, the shadow of him gaining ground.

  Think like a champion, I tell myself. Visualize success. Me first at the finishing line, getting that hole in one, making the hundred-yard touchdown. I see myself getting away, finding a road, flagging down a passing car, ripping the mask from my face to look out the back window at the figure of him getting smaller.

  I trip. Face first. My knee cracks against a rock and I scream into something that might be moss. I try to quiet myself, to bear the pain in silence, lie as still as can be because there’s a chance I’ve fallen into some sort of valley or ditch and he can’t see me. I wait. Seconds. Minutes. Nothing. There might be hope.

  “I don’t blame you, Amelia Jane Kellaway. I would’ve tried, too.”

  He’s standing above me like a monolith. I wonder if he’s been there the whole time.

  “Cooperate and you live,” he states.

  I start to cry and hate myself. “Please.”

  “Say yes, Amelia, and you live.”

  I’m crying hard now. It’s so difficult to breathe with this rag on my face, and I know what I’m in for, what he wants, I can hear it in his voice, smell it coming out his pores. He kneels down and gets close.

  “Say it.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Do you want to live?”

  “Yes, I want to live.”

  He does it right there with his knees in the water.

  11

  I wake up warm. Through the tiny squares of the mask I see flames from a campfire. I don’t know how long it’s been since the river, an hour or two maybe, but it must be late. It burns between my legs. I think about the act of war committed against my body. I should feel some emotion but I only feel numb.

  “Hungry, Amelia?”

  He is somewhere to my left. There’s the clash of metal on metal as if he’s eating from a can. When I don’t reply, he tries again, softens his voice like a concerned friend.

  “Come on, Amelia, you’ve got to eat.”

  There’s a clunk as he puts down the can. He shifts toward me and pulls me up to a sitting position with his powerful hands.

  “Here you go,” he says. “Give this a try.”

  I feel something cold on my lips. Spam. I eat even though I want to throw up because I don’t want to give him an excuse to exert his power again. He puts the neck of a water bottle to my lips and I gulp that down too.

  “Tastes okay, doesn’t it?” he says, spooning in more Spam. “A fraction down home but it hits the spot, wouldn’t you say, Amelia?”

  He leans back on his heels, waiting for an answer, so I nod.

  “Good for you, Amelia Kellaway,” he says.

  He resumes feeding me as if I’m a child. I can see him through the cloth. His face is lit by the fire and set in a pleasant paternal expression. He has an incisor snaggletooth and a scar on his chin. He has changed into a dark green and crimson checkered flannel shirt, creases ironed to perfection, brilliant white crew neck T-shirt beneath it.

  Abruptly, he stops. He lowers the fork and stares at me. He comes close, so close, in fact, that I can smell the pork on his breath. He waves a hand in front of my face.

  I shut my eyes and tell myself to be still. I can’t let him know I can see him. It’s the one advantage I have.

  He wipes the knuckles of his hand against his jaw as he thinks.

  “Okay,” he says, sitting back, satisfied.

  I rearrange my legs to let out some tension and he moves to the other side of the fire and stokes the embers with a stick, throws on more wood. Then he is out of my line of sight, going to the car, popping the trunk.

  For one God awful minute, I think he’s going to make me sleep in there. But then he’s back by my side with that blanket, kneeling down to slip a zip tie around my ankle, securing it to his own so we are Siamese twins. My skin itc
hes at the thought of being next to him all night long or that he may touch me again, accidentally or otherwise. To my relief, he keeps his distance and lies on his back with his arm under his head.

  “Would you look at those stars,” he says.

  He pulls the blanket up so that it covers our shoulders. I catch the scent of leather polish and salt and freshly laundered clothes.

  “Sleep tight, Amelia.”

  *

  I feel a tug on my leg. It’s Matthew rousing me for one of our rare Sunday morning brunches at that sweet little diner near Central Park, the one with the best eggs Benedict and freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, and a great window seat where you can watch little kids skip their way to the zoo. But when I open my eyes, I see the porous weave of the cloth, and remember exactly where I am.

  It’s daylight. The forest is alive with morning sounds. I see his outline, half-turned from me, putting the zip tie he’s taken from our ankles into his jacket pocket. He stands, stretches, and looks over his shoulder.

  “Morning,” he says.

  He kicks the ashes of the dead fire with his boot.

  “You like coffee? Of course you like coffee. Who doesn’t like coffee?”

  I pretend I’m asleep while he retrieves a large bottle of water and tips some into a metal container then puts the container on the small gas cooker to boil. He opens a cooler, gets out two plastic mugs, and spoons in some instant coffee, pouring in hot water last.

  He looms over me.

  “Sit up.” I don’t move. “Quit fooling, Amelia. I know you’re awake. You’ve got coffee coming.”

  I give in and try to raise myself up but it’s difficult with the zip ties on my wrists so he helps me to a sitting position and guides the mug into my hands.

  “Don’t burn yourself.”

  I think about throwing it in his face. Then what? Run again? Make him angrier than before? So I go with it and take a sip. It’s piping hot and way too strong.

  He makes oatmeal in the metal container and feeds me again.

  “Do your hands hurt? Your wrists?”

  I nod.

  “It needs be one or the other.” He sounds apologetic as he removes the wrist ties but secures my ankles.

  After he’s done, he stands up and rubs the back of his neck.

  “Okay,” he says, blowing out a breath. Like, okay, there’s work to be done. Okay, what can I do to her next?

  Okay turns out to mean performing the mundane duties of cleaning the breakfast bowls and coffee mugs then returning to the trunk to pull out a shovel and two brown tarps. He lays one tarp flat on the ground between two trees, and hooks three tartan bungee cords through the other tarp’s aluminum grommets and secures it to the tree like some sort of lean-to shelter. He retrieves something else. A sleeping bag and two pillows.

  Oh God. I’ve seen enough true crime documentaries to know how this goes. He’s in this for the long haul. He carries on, busies himself gathering wood, setting up the supplies, digging a latrine, and I lie down on my side and close my eyes because I don’t know what else to do. I can tell by his light-footedness that he’s happy and I wouldn’t be surprised if he started humming or whistling to himself. I try to think of a plan, some sort of plan, to regain some control, but I seem to be in this strange state of shock, a stunned paralysis of the mind where everything will not compute properly, as if I’m a survivor of a plane wreck, walking around in circles in my own mind.

  12

  When he shakes me awake again, it’s dark. I’ve slept for the entire day. He tries to give me a polystyrene cup of instant noodles but I push them away.

  “Come on, now, Amelia.”

  “I don’t want any,” I say.

  He pauses and puts the noodles on the ground. I feel him come close and I flinch because it makes me think of yesterday when he touched me and I’m not sure I can survive a second time. His forearms brush against my ears and I brace myself and wonder if he’s about to push my head down into his lap. I think to myself that I’m going to bite that sorry thing off but he unties the knot of the mask instead, releasing the cloth from my face, taking great care to arrange the hair around my shoulders.

  It’s a shock to see him, unfiltered and larger than life, so close, looking at me with his caper green eyes, jaw rotating while his molars crush what’s left of his food. All I can think of is Kevin Costner in his older years. A man’s man. A broad-shouldered man’s man in a tavern with a misted mug of beer in his big fist, shooting the breeze with the burnished-skinned old-timers, recounting a day of felling trees or hunting or building a barn from scratch. A man’s man who, for some reason, wanted me or someone like me—a proxy for a mother or sister or aunt he blamed for some deep-seated wrong done.

  Slowly, he strokes his chin as he studies me. Then, quite suddenly, he says—

  “You have pretty earlobes, Amelia Kellaway. Very pretty earlobes. I like the fact they’re not pierced.”

  He picks up the noodles and holds them out. “I know things must be strange for you and what-not, but it’s important you eat, Amelia. Just a few forkfuls, would you do that for me?”

  I hear his words but I’m still in shock that he’s removed the mask.

  “Amelia?”

  I nod my head.

  A smile breaks out on his lips. “That’s the spirit.”

  He reaches around and runs a strand of my hair through his forefinger and thumb. I wonder if he has a “type” and whether I fit it. I wonder if any woman in her late twenties around five-seven with medium length-brown hair is enough to turn his head and cause him to strap his leg into the moonboot and pull the flat tire routine. I wonder if I am simply one of a number, and if I am, what happened to the others.

  He moves to the other side of the fire and lounges against a tree trunk, one shoulder against it, watching me. I pick up the noodles and bring the tiny plastic fork to my lips. I attempt to still my shaking hand and wonder whether this is the moment I should beg for my life.

  “I need the bathroom,” I say.

  He looks at me and pauses. “You bet.”

  He removes the ankle ties and pulls me to my feet and walks me to the edge of the campsite and points to the hole in the ground he dug earlier.

  I’m free and this is my big chance to run but I just stand there.

  “Go on,” he says.

  I squat over the makeshift latrine, balancing my right foot on one side, my left on the other, and deliver the whole shebang. It all comes out, everything, and I’m mortified by the noise and the smell. I glance up and he’s turned his face away, averting his eyes. I need to wipe myself and he gives me a roll of toilet paper then turns his back again.

  “It won’t always be like this,” he says.

  *

  He has a large bag of Honeycrisp apples. He has already eaten two and is on to his third. He offered me one, but I told him my stomach hurt, and after the latrine, he doesn’t push the issue.

  “You don’t say much, do you?” he says, chomping.

  He’s emanating a syrupy aroma and I know I will never be able to eat my mom’s apple pie again.

  He pulls my backpack toward him, opens it, and begins rifling through. I feel instantly violated with him going through my things like that, pulling out my tees and sweats and underpants and sports bras. He finds my copy of Anna Karenina, the one that I thought would double as entertainment and a bug killer.

  “Tolstoy,” he says, spitting out a black pip. “I’m impressed. Although I prefer Steinbeck myself, but then I guess I’ve always been a patriot.”

  He puts down Anna and continues searching. He finds my wallet and opens it.

  “So you weren’t fooling about being a lawyer,” he says, studying my business card. “Manhattan, no less. Your parents must be proud, Amelia.”

  I wince and he sees it.

  “I touched a nerve.” He stares me. “Issues with your folks? I understand. My mother was no better than a street whore herself.”

  He returns the car
d and pulls out the photo of Matthew that I was planning on using in a farewell-to-ex-fire-lighting ceremony somewhere along the trek.

  “And who’s this? Hubby?” He studies the photo again. “No, not hubby. He’s a stopgap, a fly-by-nighter, Amelia. I know his type. I can tell just by looking at him that he’s not for you.”

  As he’s returning it to the wallet, he finds the other photograph. Veined and crumpled. Me as a two-year-old on my father’s knee taken out the back of our house, the house later foreclosed on by the bank after he left.

  “Oh, this is sweet.”

  “Put it back,” I say.

  He stares at me. “You were close to your pop.”

  “I said put it back.”

  “You’re right. I apologize, Amelia,” he says, returning the photograph. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

  He hurls the apple core into the brush and takes out his own wallet.

  “Since were sharing—”

  He shows me a photograph of a boy about six standing next to a black BMX.

  “That’s Noah,” he says, face darkening. “He’s older now, thirteen. I get emails sometimes. He’s stayed strong, despite his mother’s lies. She was never my wife, just a waitress, a nobody. You look like her but I won’t hold that against you.”

  He touches the photo. “I wear my heart on my sleeve, I know that, but when it comes to Noah I can’t help it. I sure miss him a lot.”

  He takes a final look then returns the photo to his wallet and falls silent, staring morosely into the fire.

  Finally, he lifts his head and looks at me.

  “I’m sorry, Amelia. About before, about what occurred at the river, it won’t happen again.”

  He’s so earnest I almost believe him.

  13

  Rightly or wrongly, his words have given me hope. If he says he won’t touch me again, maybe there is a scrap of humanity in there. Maybe I can reason with him. Maybe I can gain his trust.