Drawn Into Darkness Read Online Free PDF

sir.” Justin finished my wrist and stood up.
    Stoat told him, “Now get out of here, and I don’t want you in here with her. I’ll take care of her.”
    Sure, he would, I thought, forced to face it now. Same way he took care of Schweitzer.
    I just wondered how soon.

THREE
    B y nightfall I almost did not care how soon. My back ached atrociously, and when I tried to ease my joints—hip, knee, elbow—the metal bit into my wrists and ankles. It would have hurt much worse if Justin hadn’t wrapped them, but it still hurt some. And I had to keep flexing my feet and hands because even in the subtropical heat I felt them going cold and numb, losing blood circulation. Maybe because I couldn’t move, or maybe because I was so scared. I had to be strong, I coached myself. Take care of myself. Flex my muscles, keep myself ready to move, watch my thoughts.
    Trying to be more bored than frightened, I examined the perforated white tiles—what were those things made of, anyway, Styrofoam?—and I tried to see patterns in the squares on the ceiling. And in the overhead light fixture, but it was just the usual two bulbs covered with a frosted-glass square bug-catcher. The hermaphroditic positioning of the lightbulbs gave me mental fodder for a few moments but nothing uplifting. I felt my backache getting worse, plus discomfort from pressure points on the mattress; I began to understand how people got bedsores, and I badly wished somebody had thrown a blanket over me, covering me, if only for psychological comfort. But I didn’t make a sound. Didn’t want Stoat’s company. Neither he nor Justin—what was Justin’s real last name? My memory had dropped it somewhere between here and the living room. Anyhow, neither of them came near me. I smelled macaroni and cheese, supper, but nobody offered me any, which made me feel starved and abused even though my knotted stomach would not possibly have let me eat it. When I thought divorce was the best way to lose weight quickly, I was wrong. Being a prisoner in fear of one’s life looked even more effective.
    And hopeless. Nobody was going to miss me or rescue me, least of all my family. My parents and I were barely speaking. My ex had no reason to want to phone me. My sons would not call, and it might take them a month or more to start worrying about me. I had two older brothers who kept in touch sporadically and might call if the spirit moved them, but I couldn’t count on it. I had not yet met anybody down here who gave a damn, just dollar store and grocery store clerks. My friends from up north might call, leaving messages on my voice mail, and get pissed at me when I didn’t call back. Nobody would come to my little fuchsia home to check on me.
    Like my thoughts, the room darkened—nightfall—but my eyes stayed open.
    The overhead light fixture flicked on.
    I think my whole body winced like my startled eyes. Reflexively I turned my head. By the bed stood Stoat with his big pistol and his goatee, which did nothing for his undistinguished profile, just made him look like a goat. Stoat the Goat, that was what I would call him, although not to his face.
    As I thought this, as if he were psychic and heard me, he turned to glare, pointing the pistol at me as Justin went around the bed releasing my wrists and ankles. Of their own accord, my arms and legs curled toward my midsection like those of a squashed spider.
    â€œGet up,” Stoat ordered, gesturing with the gun. “Potty time.”
    I realized I should have been afraid it was more than just potty time, but my mind had gone as numb as my toes. Awkwardly I swung my legs over the side of the bed to sit.
    â€œThe gag?” Justin asked.
    â€œYeah, take it off. Let her spit and get a drink.”
    I felt Justin fumbling at the back of my head to untie the thing. Maybe he didn’t want his darling Uncle Steve to realize he could slip it in and out of my