The little dark-haired girl kept singing something under her breath. It was a constant, low drone, drifting from the back seat and filling the car. He knew it had to be the dark-haired girl because the blonde girl had been crying basically non-stop since he had stolen her. Crying was normal behavior for a little girl who had been snatched from her house in broad daylight, taken from her pizza and internet into his incomparable realm of darkness. He had seen the reaction enough for it to become boring. Sometimes they begged but most of the time they were beyond begging before their parents’ houses were even in his rear view mirror.
But this other girl was strange indeed. He had found her in a field, feet bare and legs ankle-deep in a vernal pool. She wore an old fashioned cotton nightgown printed with faded orange flowers. He had pulled his car over on a ranch road, looking for a secluded spot to drag the blonde girl to so he could explore her in private and there the dark-haired girl was, just standing there in the night. It seemed like a set-up; a pretty little girl all alone, like a cupcake on a dish, just for him. She stood in the water, clapped her hands and pointed at him. The night was cool and still. No sheriff burst out of the bushes, no sudden helicopter blasted him with harsh light. Behind the girl, a crescent moon drifted and waned. He walked around to the back of the car.
“Come over here, girl,” he stage-whispered to her. It was unnecessary, though. The girl was already moving toward him. She hopped over the little gully between the field and the dirt road. He could see her body through the nightie and he knew it would be as soft as a peach. Two of them. They could have been twins except for the color of their hair. Lucky, lucky me, he thought.
“Hey! I heard about you on the news! I wanted to come out and see if I could find you. Is that other girl here? You know, this is the exact place where-” The man grabbed the dark-haired girl by the elbow and yanked her hard, feeling small bones grind. “Owwie, dang!” she cried, “I was just trying to tell you. This is the exact place where the hot air balloons landed. Last year. Three of them on my birthday!”
“Shut the fuck up, honey.” The man swung her by the arm as he opened the back door of the sedan and she caught the edge of it with her face. It was a hard impact but she didn’t cry. She just looked at him and blinked. Her lip was split and blood trickled down her chin. He wiped it off with a rough thumb. “Now you listen to me. I want you to get on that back seat and lie on your tummy and hold still. Don’t make a peep. If you do, I’ll kill you and then I will go kill your mommy and daddy too. I would do it in a second and never think twice.” It was almost exactly what he had said to the blonde girl and to all of the little girls in his past. All of those girls had looked at him as though he was a vengeful and destroying god when he said this. All of them except for this one. This one just did as he said and slid into the back seat like he was taking her out for a Happy Meal. He thought maybe she was retarded or something.
One of the dark-haired girl’s feet hit the blonde girl who was huddled up on the floorboard of the car in her bindings. She gasped and peered up at both of them. Her light hair was laying across her face in dirty strings and her eyes were almost totally sealed shut from crying. The dark-haired girl glanced down at her and then back at the man.
“You don’t have to tie me up like that. I’ll sit still,” she told him.
“The fuck I don’t. You lie down there like I said and put your hands behind your back.” She did as she was told. He went to the trunk and took out a length of rope. As he secured her, he saw that she was completely naked under the nightie and he felt himself stir. He let his calloused hand linger on her rump and considered his surroundings. The spot he had pulled over at had thick, private-looking brush and the moon shone on the little pond just so. It was the type of setting he looked for in his fantasies, complete with two green nymphs to chase and conquer.
His name was Nicholas Ray and he didn’t consider himself a stupid man. For example, he hadn’t been caught doing what he did, which was abducting children to rape and murder. He knew that many smart people were looking for him and that they couldn’t find him, at least not yet. But he knew he owed at least part of his success to his ability to be cautious and his willingness to do things the hard way. In particular, he was quite proud of the fact that he rarely gagged his quarry because it forced him to be more clever. He knew the arrival of the dark-haired girl was too perfect and his nerves were shot. He decided to drive further into the hills and think. As he pulled back onto the road, he heard crying from the back seat. It sounded like both girls and he allowed himself a smile. He pulled back onto the main highway, feeling pretty decent until the dark-haired girl spoke again, shattering his reverie. Her voice was clear and free from emotion.
“Oh, I am SO glad we’re gonna do it in the mountains.”
“What do you know about it?” Nicholas Ray’s body went cold at her voice.
“I don’t know anything at all,” she said and he drove on. The blonde girl sobbed softly as the hills grew taller around them.
About an hour went by before the singing started. Nicholas Ray couldn’t quite hear the words but the timbre was upsetting. The dark-haired girl was aping a woman’s tone; some smoky lounge singer from an old movie. He strained to catch the message.
“...pawned my daddy’s watch, pawned my gold wedding ring,” she sang, over and over. He felt a pressure began to build behind his eyes and he wondered if he had lost some sort of control. It was, of course, a ridiculous thought. He had both girls tied up securely, he was out in the high hills where no one knew him. The police had been alerted to the kidnapping of at least the blonde girl, he was sure, but they couldn’t know it was he who did it. He was Nicholas Ray, phantom, monster, eater of girls. This was his country and he knew it better than anyone. The little voice was impossible to ignore, though and he snapped on the radio to drown it out. It had been tuned to a classic rock station and the Eagles sang out though a light layer of static:
Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy,
She’ll beat you if she’s able,
You know the queen of hearts is your best bet...
“Ha ha HA,” the dark-haired girl chortled from the back seat, badly startling Nicholas Ray. “My grandpa LOVES this song. You know what I think?”
“Shut up, girl, or I’ll slit your throat right now. Your faggot grandpa’s too.” He gripped the steering wheel and blood exited his knuckles.
“I think,” she continued, “that I am the queen of diamonds. This girl here is the queen of hearts. And you are just a jack-off.”
Nicholas Ray felt a freezing droplet of sweat trace his spine and he was suddenly positive he was back at the rat-shit house he was sleeping at, the place that bimbo rented with the water-stained ceiling tiles that looked like someone had pissed up on them. He was just there, sleeping off a late night and a dream had turned dark as they sometimes do. There was simply no way a little girl had said something like that to him. He had heard of lucid dreaming and he resolved to take control of this one.
They approached a little foothill town, passed an Arby’s. The Eagles faded into a commercial for a local lawyer, which faded into Rush. He breathed rhythmically, the way he heard the Green Berets did before combat. Both girls fell quiet. The highway hit a crossroads and Nicholas Ray stopped the car to wait at a red light. There was no one else at the intersection and he figured the lights must be on a timer. Something scampered in front of the car and away into the pines. It was okay; everything was going to be just fine. He felt himself begin to relax.
“What’s your name?” he heard from the back seat. The voice was soft, not directed at him. Low mist drifted across the empty intersection. The light was red, red, red.
“Grace,” said the blonde girl from the floor of the car.
“Oh, that’s MY name! I’m Grace too!” chirped the dark-haired girl. Nicholas Ray shook his head hard and gunned the car though the intersection against the light. A tow truck screamed down the cross street and missed hitting them by inches.
“You are NOT both named Grace. There’s no way. You tell me your real name, honey. You do it right now or-”
“Or what, you’ll slit my throat? Okay, my name is Hobnail Boot. Fuck you.”
“Fuck me? Fuck ME? Fuck YOU, you little bitch. I am going to fuck the living shit out of you!” Nicholas Ray was now turned completely around in his seat as pine trees whizzed past the car on both sides. “Do you know what dental records are, you little slut? That’s the only way they’re going to know who you are when I’m done with you! There will be nothing left but TEETH,” he roared. The blonde girl whimpered from the floorboard while the dark-haired girl turned against her bindings to grin up at his manic face.
“Oh my TEETH? You don’t say? My poor little teeth just laying there out in the woods, all alone. You’re just gonna fuck me with your pathetic peter till my teeth fall out, is that it? You just try it with that little bait shop worm you got up there in your stinky old pants. Oh my God, I’m like, super scared.” The dark-haired girl flipped away from him on the seat. Her strange nightgown hiked up and for a second he could see her tiny, perfect rear. Then he crashed the car.
When he came to, he found himself pushing the two girls in front of him through the woods. He must have been at it for awhile because he could see nothing but trees behind him. He decided not to think of what might have happened on the highway. The air was still and quiet around him and that was good enough for the time being. The girls’ legs were free but their wrists were still bound. He didn’t remember untying them. It was much colder here than down in on the valley ranch roads and patches of snow still lingered though the season was late. He blinked through blood. The blonde girl shook and shivered though she was the more clothed of the two. His left arm felt weirdly dead at his side. He was surely going to wake up soon and find that he had been sleeping on it but for now, he was pushing two girl-creatures through the dark woods at the beginning of the mountains. Granite stuck out here and there like broken bones and when the blonde girl slipped in the duff he yanked her up to her feet by her hair. As she struggled to get her footing, the dark-haired girl skipped ahead, barefoot into a patch of snow.
“Where can you go, girl?” Nicholas Ray called after her. “You’ll die out here, dressed like that.” The dark-haired girl giggled. The blonde girl moaned. Nicholas Ray pushed her back down again and dropped to his knees. The dark-haired girl stopped her dance to watch. Nicholas Ray yanked the blonde girl’s pants down. “Yep, I feel you watching, bitch,” he said without taking his eyes from the girl below him. “That’s good. I want you to see what I am going to do to you. But it’s gonna be worse for you. Much worse, you little demon.” The blonde girl’s eyes were screwed shut. Nicholas Ray put his large paw on her stomach and he felt it shrink back in the direction of her spine. Saliva filled his mouth and he began to spit for lubrication when a small, unbound hand caressed his cheek. He turned his head and saw the dark-haired girl, her face suddenly inches from his. She had tied her ligature in a bow around her neck and her eyes were as blue as the Arctic Ocean, which he had seen once on a show about extreme fishing jobs. She looked down at him with the remote compassion of a goddess.
“Oh, Nicky. No more grumpy feelings, okay? I know what you are. You’re just the result of two sad creatures doing sad things in the dark somewhere.” Her voice was the sweetest song he had ever heard and he felt his entire body begging to hear it again. The dark-haired girl smiled sunshine all over his body. “I know you don’t really MEAN to do bad, do you? I understand what you are underneath all this. I love you and I am SO sorry I teased you.” He was filled with the aching sweetness of her words and he suddenly needed them more than fucking, or food or air. The dark-haired girl beamed down at him, past him to the other girl, lying filthy and broken on the ground. Her teeth shone, sharp and healthy in the moonlight. Nicholas Ray was lost somewhere far, far away, dreaming the simple dreams of a misunderstood man in an uncaring world when the blonde girl rose up underneath him and bit his throat out.
They found the blonde girl walking alongside the mountain highway with her head lifted and blood on her chin. When she answered their questions she looked directly into their eyes and when they asked her where he was she pointed, silently, into the trees.
