Slag Attack by Andersen Prunty Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m just gonna take you someplace and we’re gonna have us a little talk. And if you even think about screamin for help or tryin to get away you can kiss your ass goodbye. You can kiss your family’s ass goodbye too. I’m a very severe man. I do very severe things.” He continues to stare at her, that strange snarl fixed on his face. She looks into his eyes and doesn’t quite know what it is she sees there. Madness, definitely, but something else.
        He reaches into his shiny, tight brown leather jacket and pulls a very sharp-looking knife from its inside pocket. Holding the knife in his left hand, he reaches down with his right and squeezes her left nipple hard. She screams almost inaudibly and takes in a breath only to get a mouthful of the chemical-tasting tape.
       “ Nyah,” he says, continuing to squeeze her nipple. “Your nipples ain’t nothin. Them’s just tiny little bitty things. I’ll show you what a nice big nipple looks like.”
        Finally releasing her, he reaches down to his belt and pulls his heavily starched shirt up to the top of his stomach. There, just to the right of his navel is a nipple the size of a silver dollar.
       “ Now that there’s a big nipple. Too bad its owner was a screamer. She screamed and screamed and didn’t amount to shit. I’m a very severe man. I had to do it. I do very severe things.”
        Then another look, maybe reflection, creeps into his eerie brown eyes and he stares out the windshield for just a moment before saying, in a softer voice, “But that was before you. That was all before you, Amber Toulouse.”
        He pronounces her last name all wrong and she wonders who the hell he is. Turning the key in the ignition, he pulls away from the alley and drives out of Celine. Amber feels her hope sliding away. She wants to continue working against the heavy tape but she doesn’t know what Vincent will do if she escapes. She likes her nipples where they are. As they drive along the state route, Amber blurts, “Iggy Pop!” against the tape but Vincent shoots her a hateful stare, reaches out and whacks her on the skull, lightning-quick, with the haft of his knife.
        He will never understand, she thinks. He will never understand how she has to shout the names. Does he know what will happen if she doesn’t shout the names? A plague. A swirling plague will cover up the sun and form a black cloud and it will drop down on them, on everyone, and burn them all up with fever and disease. That’s what will happen if she doesn’t shout the names. She knows it.
       
    3.
       
    Vincent continues powering the car, pushing the speed limit but never going more than five miles over it. He is a very severe man, Amber muses over what he said. He even looks severe. His tan skin shiny and taut over high cheekbones. His head sits on his shoulders without the visual benefit of a neck. She figures he probably isn’t much taller than her but there is an aura of strength about him. Like a much larger man’s power is compacted into his smaller frame.
        As he drives, he continues to play with the nipple on his stomach. She wonders how he got it to stay on there. It does not become aroused as he strokes it with a fingertip. She can’t watch anymore. How much longer does she have before that nipple becomes hers, unclothed and clenched between his severe fingers? She doesn’t want to think about it. She turns her head to look out at the darkening countryside passing by the window and screams against the tape, “Jeff Buckley!”
       
    4.
       
    They pull into another town that announces itself as being “MILTON—HOME OF THE UNIQUE LOZENGE” on a battered sign by the side of the road. The sunlight is dying, turning shadows to monsters. Vincent decides he wants to drive through the McDonald’s and get some coffee. Amber wonders what a unique lozenge is.
       “ Now I’m gonna take the tape off your mouth,” he says before they pull into