Drowning in Gore Read online

  “Well, go pack a bag. His mom should be here any minute.”

  The boys rushed into the house and disappeared into the doorway. Linda looked around at the mess, exhausted and ready to just snuggle on the couch with a blanket. She decided to clean it up later, when the sun went down and it was cooler out.

  The boys reappeared just as Jerry’s mom arrived. Linda engaged in small talk as she said goodbye to her son, hugging him again, glad he had a good day. She planned to get Carrie down for a nap and call the police to report the attempted rape. First, though, she just wanted to sit for a bit.

  ***

  Jim and Carl were both standing at the water’s edge, talking to each other. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but knew it was not good. She tried to open the car doors, but the child safety locks were engaged and she couldn’t open them. There was a mesh wire screen separating the front from the back, so there was no way to get out through there. Even the windows would not roll down, because they were disengaged.

  She stopped screaming, hoping that she would not draw attention to herself as she planned an escape. It seemed to be working, except she had no plan to get away. She wondered if she could knock them down as they opened the door, if she could run to safety, if she had a chance.

  The men turned and started to walk toward her. She began to breath heavy and sob again. She held Carrie tight to her chest, muffling her cries, not knowing what would happen next.

  ***

  The sun set and Linda still had not called the police. She spent the late afternoon and early evening trying to think of what she should tell the police, but had nothing to pass on other than the description of the man. She wanted to have more details to give, but was drawing a blank.

  She decided to start cleaning the back yard. The night brought cooler air and the darkness helped her to think. She dragged the playpen out onto the patio and placed Carrie into it, she was already asleep.

  With a trash bag in hand, Linda began to pick up the paper plates, plastic cups, streamers, and leftover garbage from the festivities. It almost took her mind off of the assault from earlier, allowing her to clear her mind, hopefully resurrecting the details that she had missed.

  The cleanup didn’t take long; since it was all garbage she quickly filled the trash bag. Crickets chirped all around her, breaking the silence of the evening as she walked to the garbage cans. The stars in the sky shined brightly, lighting her way. Some sort of animal scurried in the bush next to her, most likely the raccoon that had been snacking on the trash the last couple of nights. She didn’t stick around to find out, instead turning back to the patio to take Carrie inside and then call the police. She was anxious, yet hesitant to make the call.

  As she rounded the corner of the house, she heard Carrie making noises, awake from her sleep. She rushed to her, hoping that she wouldn’t be awake long. Her hurried steps took her to the patio quickly, where she saw a large man holding the baby in his arms.

  “Put her down,” she screamed. “What do you want?”

  “Beautiful girl you have here, Mrs. Jacobs,” he said.

  She rushed to him, trying to grab her baby from his arms. The man laughed off her attempts to regain possession of the child, instead pushing her to the ground.

  “This will only end worse if you are being a bitch,” he said.

  “Please, give me my baby. I’ll do whatever you want, just give her to me,” she pleaded.

  The man laughed and sat in a chair, making funny faces at Carrie. Another man, also of large stature, appeared from within the house, eating a slice of bologna.

  “You have any of that pizza left?” he asked. “I’m starving.”

  Linda did not answer, instead she stared at him as her body trembled and rejected what was happening. The last thing she remembers was the man pulling a cloth from his back pocket and shoving it into her face.

  ***

  As the men approached the car, Linda furiously rummaged through the junk in the back seat. Most of it consisted of fast food wrappers and empty beer bottles, the feast of redneck champions. Bits of colored foam also littered the refuse.

  The men continued their approach, at a slow pace, their eyes focused in the car.

  Linda continued to rummage through the piles of trash, hoping to find something to use as a weapon to defend herself and Carrie. Under the pile behind the driver’s seat, she found a small duffle bag, possibly covered as the bumpy road disturbed the wrappers and other trash. She pulled it into the seat next to her and fumbled with the zipper. She anxiously pulled the contents out, tossing them around her, unaware of what the items were. She was focused on finding a weapon of some sort, but it seemed to be filled with nothing but clothes.

  Finally, as she could see the men were only a few feet away, she felt something hard in the bag. She pulled it out, thankful to finally find something to use against the men, only to see that it was a bicycle horn, complete with rubber ball on the end.

  “What the fuck,” she said to herself.

  She looked at the clothing that surrounded her, gasping at the contents of the bag. Strewn about were the outfits that the clowns at the party wore. Her mind was riddled with confusion as she tried to comprehend what was happening. She looked out through the window, watching the men approach. It finally hit her that the men were the clowns; they were of identical stature, only more serious. She could almost visualize their make up on their faces, it made her nauseous and she began to vomit atop the fast food wrappers.

  Jim opened the door and tried to grab the baby from her arms. She struggled to resist, hitting him with the bicycle horn; it honked with each impact. Carl was laughing in the background, “stupid bitch,” he said. The horn had no effect on Jim as he gained possession of the screaming baby.

  “Don’t hurt her, you son of a bitch!” she screamed.

  “Listen, Linda, saving your precious little ball of poo will be in your hands. If you can save her, she will be fine. But, don’t get your hopes up,” he said laughing.

  “Quit clowning around,” said Carl. “Let’s get this over with so we can get to the bar before it closes.”

  “Fuck the bar, focus on what we are doing,” said Jim.

  Carl grabbed Linda by the legs and pulled. She struggled, holding onto the seats and door frame, yelling for him to stop. He didn’t listen and pulled harder, not caring if she was in pain. He twisted her legs, jerking them forward, and finally extracted her from the car. Her body hit the dusty ground with a loud thud, sending clouds of dirt into the air. Carl started to cough and sneeze as he inhaled.

  He dragged her through the dirt, onto the grassy patch in front of the lake. She searched for loose rocks to throw at him, but there were none scattered about. Her entire mindset was focused on protecting Carrie and getting away safely. Yet, she was only successful at being subdued by her captors. She screamed loudly, hoping her echoed voice would signal help, unaware that her voice never left the clearing. Her voice was becoming hoarse; the scratchy tone would give way to silence if she kept it up.

  “Here, shut her the fuck up,” said Carl as he tossed the roll of duct tape to Jim.

  Jim wasted no time wrapping her mouth in the silver tape, sealing off her voice for good. The baby still screamed though, but Jim made quick work of that using the same method, only with a smaller strip.

  Linda lay on the ground, her heart beating out of her chest, and her breaths heavy. She smacked her head on the soft grass and looked away to the side. To her fright, her eyes met with the old man from earlier, they were glazed white and lifeless.

  “Oh, I’m glad you got to see the fucker,” said Carl. “We don’t know who he is, but he saw us arrive at the party and we don’t need no witnesses. He told us what he did to you, so it gave us more pleasure in killing his ass.”

  Linda tried to scream through the tape, but couldn’t. Strangely, she felt avenged as the man lay lifeless next to her, yet feared the same fate.

  “Prop her up,” said Jim.


  Carl lifted Linda into a sitting position and Jim placed Carrie in her arms. As she held the baby tight to her chest, she was happy that she could hold her one last time. Carrie held tightly to her sippy cup, trying to suckle on its comforting juice, but failed. Linda closed her eyes and placed her cheek on Carrie’s fuzzy head, feeling comfort in the body heat transaction.

  Jim held her tightly as Carl began to duct tape Carrie to Linda’s chest, ensuring the tape was affixed firmly so they could not struggle loose. Linda tried to fight it, but could not. The men overpowered her with such force that she was quickly exhausted. She could feel Carrie’s sippy cup pressing into her chest, but she was becoming too numb to feel its pain. Her tears had dried up and she felt as though giving in was the only choice against the cruel fate she had been dealt. For a moment she thought about her husband and son, wondering how they would fare without her and Carrie in their lives. Then she felt relieved that they were not being subjected to the same punishment.

  As the last of the tape was pulled from the roll, Jim dropped the cinder blocks at Linda’s feet. He began to wrap her ankles in the length of rope, nearly cutting off her circulation in the process as he pulled the knots taught. The other end of the rope was affixed to the blocks.

  “All right, let’s do this,” said Jim as he cut the excess rope with his pocket knife.

  “What about the rapist?” asked Carl.

  “Leave him, no one will miss him,” Jim was unapologetic. “The forest animals will take care of him.”

  Carl shrugged his shoulders and grabbed Linda by the shoulders. Jim grabbed the cinder blocks and her ankles. Together, they walked sideways to the edge of the lake and began to swing her and Carrie like a hammock. After five good sways, they tossed the girls toward the center of the lake. The momentum carried them out about twenty feet, just inside where the water started to get deep. The heavy blocks would surely slide down the sandy slope, descending them deeper into the water, drowning them as their lungs filled with water.

  Linda tried to break free, but the tape and rope were just too tight. Her struggle only caused her to replace the air in her lungs with the murky water. It burned with each inhalation, bringing her to a fastidious end. Before the last of her life left, she felt Carrie go limp, and voluntarily gave in to her fate.

  Within seconds, the heavy cinderblock slammed to the lake’s floor, sending murky mud exploding all around. The bodies jerked as the rope pulled them to the bottom of the lake, and then again as they started to float upward, held in place by the short rope.

  On land, Carl and Jim cleaned up the excess rope, cardboard duct tape roll, and other debris that they didn’t want to leave behind. Jim threw it all in the back seat of the car before jumping into the driver’s seat. Carl was already in the passenger side, typing a number into his phone.

  “Hello,” said the voice on the line.

  “Yeah, Mr. Jacobs,” he said. “It’s me, Carl. It’s done.”

  “Linda and Carrie?” he responded.

  “Yep, they won’t be seen again,” he said confidently.

  “What about Jacob, my son?” he asked.

  “He is safe, spent the night at a friend’s house. Won’t know that we were even there,” said Carl.

  “Good, the rest of the cash is under the garbage can in the alley behind the donut shop. It is in a plastic sandwich bag, inside an old tennis shoe. It is all there, all yours,” said Mr. Jacobs.

  “Good,” said Carl. “I hope you and your girlfriend have a happy life. I am sure your son will be fine too.”

  “Yeah,” said Mr. Jacobs. “What about the rape, was that you two?”

  “Nope, just a random guy, but we took care of him too. Consider it a bonus,” said Carl.

  “Sure, sounds good,” said Mr. Jacobs. “Listen, this prepaid phone is going to be destroyed tonight. No need to contact me again, I know where to reach you if needed. Good work.”

  The phone went dead and the dial tone echoed in the car. Carl noticed that the crickets seemed to have stopped chirping for the first time all night. The moon escaped the clutches of the clouds just as he looked back toward the lake, to make sure there was no portion of Linda or Carrie exposed over the top of the water. Satisfied, he told Jim to drive and the engine started to roar and a cloud of dust concealed their getaway.

  Within the lake, a small group of bubbles appeared on the surface. Ripples emanated from their emergence and disrupted the calm of the placid lake. The calm frenzy was disrupted by a red sippy cup that shot from the depths below and bobbled as it floated in the murky water, where it was somehow dislodged from Carrie’s infantile grip.

  THE VANISHING POOL

  Kevin Candela

  Weathers Woods was the last piece of wild property in Midburg, a hill-crazy few dozen acres of proud old hackberry, oak, and pecan beneath which a virtual barricade of fragrance-free Asian honeysuckle had nearly choked out all the other native underbrush there – just as it had done across the greater part of the entire central United States. Once the honeysuckle carpets’ last mottled yellow leaves dropped – sometime in late November to early December around Midburg – the irregularly-shaped patch of untamed old growth wilderness was momentarily penetrable.

  The only question was why anyone would bother invading the stillness of Weathers Woods.

  Maybe to dump a body. Not that Midburg was big on murders. Disappearances yes, but where in America did people NOT routinely disappear these days?

  Maybe someone looking for a stray or missing pet. But even the local animals seemed to keep their distance from Weathers Woods. Not that anyone had the slightest clue why.

  No, there weren’t many reasons to traverse the mostly sloping – sometimes dangerously so - terrain. Even the local folks who liked to sneak an outdoor high didn’t go all that far in, although there was a much more obvious reason for this: the honeysuckle was so thick, particularly around the edges of the woods, that going just a few yards in rendered almost anyone not wearing hunter orange invisible to the bordering side streets of McElvoy, Blair, Hunt, Crease and Joppland.

  At only one time of the year, for perhaps a week – two at most – did a typical handful of people go a bit deeper into the woods. Late April was morel mushroom season, and short of that bounded by active electrical fencing all local woodland was deemed fair hunting ground. Even this unclaimed and useless-to-the-town patch had some value, although the few who did go into it hunting mushrooms almost always came out both tired and empty-handed.

  Still someone always seemed to be compelled to test their luck there anyway. Virtually every year. There was always that one person who decided “Hey, no one’s looked in there for a long time. Maybe they’ve come back.”

  And then passed the thought on to his or her friends.

  “Slow down!”

  Marly Spinelli was by far the least fit and it was showing.

  Only Adrano Melendez slowed; the rest were almost too far ahead and making way too much noise crunching last fall’s leaves and last winter’s wind-snapped twigs to hear Marly’s pained request. Adrano turned and headed back to where Marly was leaning, red-faced and panting, against the grand bole of a very old sycamore.

  “Thanks,” she managed between obviously heavy gasps of air.

  “No problem,” Adrano said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, but I can’t keep up this pace,” she said. Then another gulp of air was enough for her to add “They’re Billy goats!” as she expelled it.

  “Stay here. I’ll go get ’em and make ’em hold up.”

  He took off before she had the wind to protest.

  Marly looked around as Adrano bounded off toward the others, snapping shrub limbs and hollering “Hey guys! Guys! Wait up!” As his shouts became increasingly softer and more distant she eyed the silent woods around her warily.

  “Don’t leave me here, you guys …” she whimpered, but her party was too far distant to hear her.

  Adrano caught up with the others just over th
e next rise.

  “Damn it you guys,” he yelled as he drew up behind the gabbing trio, “Marly’s about to have a heart attack and you guys just keep plowing on, bullshitting a mile a minute!”

  His three friends stopped and turned to him. Reactions varied widely.

  “Good,” Brucine “Bree” Clay snarked under her breath.

  “What?” Sweet Janey Shaw’s big doe eyes impossibly enlarged.

  “Ah shit,” Bryce Clay said. “Really? And shut the hell up, Bree.”

  “Why?” Bree said, giggling. Her glee was hard to conceal, so she barely tried. “She’s fine.”

  “Seriously,” Adrano said. “Bryce. She’s about purple and ready to fall over.”

  Bryce looked pretty disappointed. And at least somewhat concerned.

  “Bet she looks like a plum …”

  “BREE! I mean it.”

  “Hey, that was under my breath. You weren’t supposed to hear it.”

  “All right. Shit. But you guys have all day, I don’t. I gotta get back to the shop. I told the guys I’d only be gone an extra hour. Now we gotta backtrack.”

  “I said Chunky would ruin it …”

  This time Bryce just turned and glared at his twin-in-time-only sister, the only person in the crew tall enough to look him eye to eye.

  “Well,” she said without really flinching. “I did say so.”

  “First off, her name is Marly. Second, we’re going back to see if she’s okay and you’re welcome to keep going on ahead if you want. I’ve had enough of your shit already and…”

  “YOU’RE just saying that because you want to nail Miss Big Eyed Pixie here and will even tolerate taking her babbling egomaniac friend along despite knowing as well as I do that she wouldn’t be able to keep up! You NEVER think things through!”

  Adrano looked over at Janey, whose Bambi-like innocence was holding her nearly frozen in bewilderment. As the two siblings went at each other, forgetting Marly and even the fact that they had an audience, Janey eventually turned to meet Adrano’s gaze. She was looking very much like she was going to do one of two things in the next moment: either break out in tears or bolt like a frightened doe and bound off into the woods with her very appealing little tail bobbing behind her.