Bare Girl Page 13

  Isabel crouched down, searching for him.

  As she rested her hands to either side, her right hand touched a rock.

  Her fingers probed around it and found it to be the size and shape of a large potato. She gripped it firmly and hefted the weight.

  Isabel had never been violent to anyone in her life. That wasn’t how Abuelo had lived, and he had always taught more by example than instruction.

  But this was survival, and if that sicko who skinned a woman and acted self-righteous about it came near her, she’d cave his skull in.

  She heard rustling in front of her and a little to the right. She scanned the darkness, seeing nothing.

  The rustling continued. Yes, there he was, the faintest silhouette of gray against the black. He was passing by her, about ten feet beyond a tangle of branches. He walked slowly and almost silently through a dimly lit clear patch. The moonlight gleamed off his blade. In his other hand he carried some dull, sticklike object. The sharpener.

  Strangely, Isabel felt no fear now. She had a weapon, however inadequate, and she could take him by surprise. She might very well die in the next two minutes, but at least she would die fighting. As Abuelo had always said, she had fought all her life.

  She had fought and won.

  Isabel crept in the opposite direction than the serial killer had headed, not to avoid him, but to get around the thicket that separated them. She made agonizingly slow progress, for she dared not make any sound.

  At last she made it to the open area. He stood at the far end of the patch of moonlight about ten yards away, his back to her, peering around him into the shadows beyond. His muffled breathing told her he wore his gas mask.

  Summoning up her courage, she paced toward him, trying to tread silently. Eight yards. Five. Three.

  She raised her stone over her head, clasping it with both hands in order to give it maximum force.

  Two yards. One more step and she’d be in range.

  The killer whirled around. Isabel stood face to face with him, his blank gas mask gazing at her inhumanly.

  She brought the stone down with all the force she could muster.

  He ducked at the last instant and instead of hitting him on the head, she hit him on the shoulder.

  The killer grunted and his knife dropped to the forest floor.

  Isabel brought the rock up in a backhand blow that glanced off the side of his head, sending him staggering into the shadows.

  She took a step forward, raising her rock again, but the killer recovered too quickly and made a vicious swing with the sharpener, using it like a police officer would use a baton.

  Isabel jumped back and the sharpener whooshed in the air just an inch from her face. If they had still been in the moonlight and he could have gauged the distance better, he would have hit her for sure.

  They faced each other for a moment in the near darkness, indecisive, before Isabel leapt forward and smashed the rock down.

  The killer took it on his upraised forearm, letting out an almost feminine yelp of pain, while at the same time driving the dull end of the knife sharpener into Isabel’s stomach.

  Isabel groaned and doubled over, the rock slipping from her grasp and falling onto the ground with a thud. She coughed, stomach churning, and tried to right herself.

  To her surprise her abductor didn’t brain her with the sharpener, but instead got on his hands and knees and searched around for his knife. Isabel took a couple of unsteady steps away.

  A light breeze shifted the branch above them, rustling the leaves like laughing ghosts and briefly illuminating the area where they fought. Two objects shone on the forest floor, the rough rounded shape of her rock, and the nasty blade of his knife.

  The rock lay closer to her. She dove for it. His knife lay almost at his feet, and he scrambled for it.

  He got to his weapon first and lashed out at her. She leapt back, the knife slashing at her dress.

  She didn’t have time to grab her stone. She only had time to run.

  It was a full-on sprint. No time to watch out for trees, no time to be silent. His muffled breathing and heavy footsteps came right behind her.

  Across a glade and through a thicket they ran, heading steadily uphill. Isabel thought it a miracle that she hadn’t run into anything or tripped in this half-blind race through the night. On and on she ran, until her lungs burned and the breathing from the gas mask behind her sounded ragged.

  The ground grew more open up ahead. She could run with more confidence now, and the labored breathing behind her began to lose ground. She was winning this race.

  She crested a low ridge and ran down the other side, her heart leaping with joy as she saw the distant taillights of a car. People! The car looked half a mile away, and was headed away from her, but there was a road there and there would be more cars.

  Then she saw the chain-link fence and the barbed wire on top.

  She saw them too late, focused as she was on the distant, dwindling lights of the car. She managed to slow down enough that she didn’t hurt herself, but bashed into the fence nonetheless.

  She gripped the chain links. Could she climb it? No, the wire was coiled too thickly. She’d get caught and he’d drag her down.

  “Help!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Help!”

  She dodged to the left just before her attacker’s knife arced down and screeched across the links, sending up sparks.

  And the terrible race started again. She sprinted along the line of the fence for as long as she could, hoping against hope to find an opening. But then an impassible thicket loomed up ahead of her and she had to veer off back the way she had come. He was falling behind again, his tortured breathing telling her she still had one advantage. If she could get far enough away, she’d have time to escape him. This must all be his land, encompassed by a vast fence. If she could create enough distance between them she could climb the fence. She’d cut herself horribly on the barbed wire, be scarred for life, but it was better than the fate awaiting her if he caught her.

  Isabel ran. She entered the woods again, slowing down a little as the light dimmed. She did not want to lose her only chance by hitting a tree and knocking herself out.

  He lagged well behind her now, still pursuing but breathing like he was about to have a heart attack. His breathing grew fainter as she gained ground. She slowed to a walk for a moment in order to look over her shoulder, keeping her arms ahead of her in case in that instant she ran into something.

  She couldn’t see him, only hear his labored breathing far behind.

  Isabel started to run again.

  The trees grew thickly here and she had to take care. Once or twice she stumbled, and branches lashed out at her, tugging at her dress and scraping her outstretched arms. Isabel had no choice but to slow down.

  Then, up ahead, she saw something that she hadn’t dared to think possible.

  A clearing filled with people.

  She couldn’t see clearly through the interlaced branches and dim moonlight, but she could definitely see people standing by the trees in a more open area of the forest. Campers? Some teenage party?

  Isabel resisted the urge to shout out. That would bring the killer right to them, and he was so far behind now that he might have lost her completely. No, she would get up close and tell them what had happened in a gasping whisper. They would help her. It looked like they numbered about a dozen. Even if the killer showed up he wouldn’t dare face so many. He’d run and she’d be free.

  Why didn’t they move? Why didn’t they turn as she snapped branches and rustled leaves passing through the underbrush?

  She pushed out into the clearing, and saw all the trees around had someone standing right against the tree.

  They were all naked.

  Why didn’t they move?

  And then Isabel’s eyes picked out what she was really looking at, and she froze, a scream caught in her throat.

  Chapter 16

  They were all women, they were a
ll naked, and they were all dead.

  Isabel stared in openmouthed horror at the twisted figures around her. They had obviously met the same fate as the empty sack of flesh her abductor had dangled in front of her earlier. He had killed them and skinned them. Or had simply skinned them alive. Then he had wrapped their hides around tree trunks and stuffed them with something in order to give them a semblance of life.

  As a breeze wafted through the glen she noticed something else—they had all been shaved and their hair replaced with leaves that rustled with every breath of air.

  For some reason that detail made her shudder more than anything else. It was like they were still alive, still interacting with the world they had departed. From a distance she had mistaken them for living people, and getting a closer look didn’t entirely break that illusion.

  Now that she stood in the midst of them she saw that there were many more than she had first supposed. Dozens. A whole forest of stuffed women. She grew faint, the terror and exhaustion of the chase finally catching up to her body as her mind became overwhelmed with the idea of her joining these poor souls.

  Although the last sane corner of her consciousness screamed at her to run, to hide, she stood rooted to the spot as if she, too, was one of those tree women. She stood transfixed at the horrible sight.

  Until the sound of a step made her turn around.

  He was there, just a few feet away, the knife in one hand and the sharpener in the other.

  That snapped her out of it, and she tried to bolt.

  Too late. He swung at her.

  Instead of cutting her with the knife, he swiped at her head with the sharpener. Isabel saw a flare of light, felt a crushing pain, and landed hard on the forest floor.

  She struggled to rise as the bleary image of her abductor loomed over her. He reached out, but in his hand he did not hold his knife. Instead he held the spray bottle.

  There was a faint hiss of gas and Isabel’s head whirled. Within moments she blacked out.

  When next she awoke she was back in her cage in the cellar. Her shoes were gone and she wore only her dress. Isabel slumped, feeling utterly defeated. The lights were on and she could see that her abductor was not in the cellar. Once again the televisions were on, each soundlessly showing her concerts or music videos.

  The metallic voice rang out. “Look at yourself, Isabel.”

  Isabel looked down at herself. Her dress was muddy and damp, but she saw nothing else wrong. She hadn’t been injured.

  Wait. There was a thick line of blue ink encircling both shoulders.

  “Yes, you see it? Look further,” the voice instructed.

  With mounting dread she peeked under her dress. A dotted line ran from the base of her neck to her pubis. Lifting up her skirt, she saw two more blue lines encircling the tops of her legs.

  “You have more lines on your back and neck that you cannot see, Isabel. Can you guess what those lines are?”

  Isabel trembled, tears gushing from her eyes as she violently shook her head.

  “Tell me, Isabel, what do those lines mean?”

  “You’re a monster!” she sobbed.

  “I am ordering you to answer,” the voice demanded. “What do those lines mean?”

  “T-they’re to cut me,” she said, barely able to get the words out.

  “No, they are to flay you. They are to remove your skin so that I can preserve it. Then you will join your sisters in the woods.”

  Isabel collapsed, shaking all over.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” the metallic voice mocked. “To hang there preserved in your beauty. They look so lovely, don’t they, hanging there in their graceful poses. I have done my job well, I must say. Each one of those was done with such care. The first few didn’t turn out so well. I had to perfect my technique, and that wasn’t easy while I slaved for you day in and day out.”

  “S-slaved for me?”

  “Oh, yes. You were correct when you guessed that I worked for you. But I’m not one of those beautiful people with a fancy job. No, I’m not beautiful at all, you bitch!”

  The metallic voice rose to a screech as it said this. Isabel shivered.

  There was a pause, as if the speaker had to collect himself. Then he continued.

  “Each of those women was specially picked by me. I didn’t choose just anyone. Most of them were prostitutes, or ‘exotic dancers’ as some called themselves. Like there’s a difference if you work on a street corner or in a strip club. I found it easy enough to get them into my car and back here. Flash a bit of money and they’ll do anything with anybody. I always took the pretty ones, the fresh ones. I didn’t want some burnt-out old whore with blackened teeth. No, I wanted the young, expensive ones who traded on their good looks to make money. You know a bit about that, don’t you?”

  “I’m an entertainer!” Isabel shouted. “Why do you people always think I’m cheapening women? I’m giving women strength.”

  “By making them into sex objects? By shaking your behind on stage and baring your breasts on Wall Street? People used to be burnt at the stake for doing what you do.”

  Isabel stood up. She still shook like a leaf, but she squared her shoulders and looked defiantly at the camera.

  “Burnt at the stake? Like a witch? So you are one of the so-called ‘religious’ protestors. I knew it! Haven’t you ever read the Bible? Didn’t Jesus stop a fallen woman from being stoned to death by saying, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’? What about Mary Magdalene? What about Christian charity?”

  Isabel’s anger grew as she spoke. The Christianity she knew was the patient, caring kind of Abuelo and her neighbors back in Sonora, not the warped ideals the protestors spewed at her over the Internet. If she was going to die at the hands of a crazy zealot who elected himself judge and jury, she was going to tell this maniac a thing or two about religion.

  Silence.

  Isabel glared at the camera. “Well, what do you have to say to that?”

  The speaker came on at the tail end of a chuckle.

  “I apologize, Isabel. I couldn’t reply because I was laughing too hard. You think I’m religious? That’s not why I do what I do. We are all sinners, Isabel. I suppose I will go to Hell for what I have done, but it couldn’t be any worse than the Hell I’ve lived in all my life, and at least I’ll have the satisfaction of seeing you and all those other women roasting right there beside me. No, I’m not after redemption. I’m after justice.”

  Isabel stared at the camera. Some part of her mind thought it appropriate that she spoke to this soulless creature while looking at an electronic gadget and listening to a synthesized voice.

  “Justice?” she asked. What could he mean?

  “Yes, justice. You think you’re helping women, but you’re cursing them. You’re grinding them down while claiming to lift them up.”

  “Grinding them down? How, by telling them they can be whatever they want to be? My songs tell girls they can grow up to become anything they can dream up. My songs tell women they can change their lives. Every woman who hears my—”

  “Every woman, Isabel?” the voice screeched so loudly that feedback hummed through the sound system. “Every woman? I knew you were a tool of oppression, but I didn’t realize you were stupid too. Not every woman is empowered by your songs and your little stunts. In fact, very few are. You just think about that for a while. I don’t have time to talk to you anymore. I have some knives to sharpen.”

  With that the system clicked off and Isabel was left standing there staring at the camera, wondering.

  She sat down on her mattress, knowing that her time drew near. She had read about how serial killers liked rituals. Holding her here had been one such ritual, as had the chase through the woods. Mocking her and hunting her had been part of his compulsion. Now, it seemed, that compulsion would be satisfied. Soon he would come in and kill her, carve her marked-up body like an animal at the slaughterhouse, and she would join those women in the woods.

>   How much longer could this go on? Surely there must be a huge manhunt for her right now. Police and detectives would be scouring the region for any sign of her. Had the killer left any clues?

  She didn’t know. He had killed so many already, but as he admitted, they had been prostitutes, society’s castoffs. There hadn’t been much of a search for any of them.

  This time was different, though. Perhaps the killer had slipped up and left a clue. Perhaps the authorities were hot on his trail right now.

  She had to buy time.

  How? She had nothing that he wanted except her life. He hadn’t raped her, hadn’t tortured her except for the horrible ordeal of letting her go only to catch her again. He had scoffed at her offer of millions. He seemed to be motivated only by his twisted ideology. Surely he knew he had taken a terrible risk by kidnapping one of the most famous people in the world. He didn’t care about his own life as long as he got to prove his point.

  That was it! If she could help him do that, maybe she could buy some time.

  She stood up in her cage again and waved her arms at the camera, calling out, “Hey! Listen to me! I know I’ll die, but let me speak for you. If you promise not to kill again, I’ll send your message to the world. Take a video of me saying whatever you want. Write a script about your feelings, about what you want to prove about women, and I’ll read it for you!”

  The only response she received was silence.

  She bit her lip. Was he hesitating because she insisted that he no longer kill women? The chance to speak to the world must be a sore temptation, but losing his chance to continue killing might hold him back.

  She had to say that, though, because otherwise it wouldn’t be believable that she’d make the offer. And if she did make the video and he killed her before help came, at least her death would mean something.

  Or maybe she was just being foolish. Perhaps he had already released a statement, or perhaps he’d lie and say he’d stop killing. It wasn’t like she could trust him.

  But what else could she do? She racked her mind for another answer and came up with nothing.

  She tried again. “Listen! Are you worried the police won’t release it? Put it on the Internet. Upload it to YouTube and other sites. They’ll never stop it being distributed and it will go viral. Everyone will hear your side of the story.”