Taken Page 2

  “I am taking you to the Goddess. Don’t worry; you’re going to be fine.” He attempted to sound as though he was in control, but his voice still wavered slightly. He didn't feel like talking.

  The girl was flummoxed, and shook her head slowly from side to side.

  “Goddess?” her tone was incredulous, “What in the hell is that supposed to mean? And I’m not fine. You hurt me.”

  “I did not hurt you. I've been very gentle.”

  “You kidnapped me! You drugged me!” she shrieked. “People will be looking for me - I was right in the middle of a shift.”

  Jack glanced at her in the rearview mirror and smirked.

  “Nice try, but your shift was over - and you came on to me at the diner. I don't think anyone’s going to be looking for you at all,” he said, grinning.

  “You’re new at this sort of thing, aren’t you?” she asked sarcastically. Her eyes were fixed and cold. “I'm not just some stupid slut you can tape up and carry away, you know.”

  Jack decided that was the last straw. He had had enough of her mouth.

  “Listen close, little lady. I'll pull over right now and tape your mouth shut if you keep cracking wise. I did you the courtesy of leaving your flap-trap open, but if you don’t shut up right now then you’ll leave me no option.”

  He glared at her in the mirror hoping to drive his point home.

  “So what’s it gonna be, missy?”

  She quit talking and eyed him coolly, detached, an almost blasé expression on her face.

  “We have a long ride ahead of us, and I intend for it to be a peaceful one, so do like my sweet Dianne says: ‘don't open your mouth unless you have something important say.’”

  He glanced at her again and saw her weighing his words. He had not expected her to handle the situation so calmly. She displayed no sign of fear at all, only a look of steely resolution and a stolid “fuck you” attitude.

  She remained quiet for awhile. Perhaps the futility of her arguments had sunk in. Perhaps she was considering the sincerity of his promise not to hurt her, wondering how psychotic he really was. She was most likely remembering all the news stories she had heard about young women being abducted and hacked into pieces, or found strangled and raped in fields in the middle of nowhere.

  Jack realized that he might have captured himself a real live firecracker, and decided not to light any more matches. He left her to her thoughts as he concentrated on the highway.

  She was silent for so long that he thought she had fallen back to sleep, but that turned out to have been wishful thinking.

  “So….” she said. She let the word stretch out about four times longer than it normally should. “Who is this ‘Dianne’ you mentioned?”

  “Dianne is my Goddess,” he responded hesitantly.

  “Goddess, eh?”

  Rayne sounded dubious.

  “And you’re taking me to her…why?”

  As the waitress waited for his response, Jack looked back at her and felt a pang of compassion.

  He cleared his throat loudly before he spoke.

  “She thinks I did her wrong, thinks I tried to get laid by a hooker in a truck stop, but I didn’t. I told her the truth - I got robbed; but she didn’t believe me. Now this is a test of my loyalty to her, that’s what she says. She wanted to see if I had the guts to snatch a beautiful girl for her, to prove that I do love her. She made it clear that no one would get hurt, so you don’t have to worry.”

  The waitress fell silent again. Several minutes went by as they both sat in contemplative silence.

  “It’s funny, but you look a lot like her,” he said eventually.

  “You’re a sick-o,” she replied, and laughed at him.

  Now, the weigh station loomed ahead, glowing yellow in the darkness of the interstate. Jack tapped the brakes gently and veered ever so slightly to the right, maneuvering the rig carefully onto the bumpy shoulder where it came to a jerky stop.

  “What are you doing?” the girl asked, the first tinge of unease creeping into her voice. Her eyes darted furtively around the sleeper, her temporary prison cell.

  Jack put his index finger to his lips. “It's okay. I have to hide you. There’s a weigh station ahead.”

  He attempted to be both comforting and menacing at the same time, and failed miserably on both counts.

  “You try to get anyone's attention, and I'll kill you,” he stated, in a matter of fact tone. “And if someone finds you, they die, too - their blood is on your hands. Got me?” he said as he climbed into the sleeper with her.

  He didn’t wait for her response; instead, he yanked a four inch strip of duct tape from the roll and used it to make sure her mouth was no longer an issue. She didn’t struggle as he muted her, but there wasn’t anything she could have done, anyway. He had bound her well.

  Jack inspected her wrists and ankles, to make sure she had not started to wriggle herself free, and then pulled a tarp from the floorboard in the sleeper.

  He then rolled her up like a human burrito, leaving only a small opening just big enough for her to breathe through. She shot a homicidal look at him as her face disappeared beneath the tarp.

  That look on her face frightened Jack at some base level; he had never been the target of someone else’s murderous intent. He reminded himself to control his emotions and get down to business.

  There were no other drivers waiting in line at the weigh station. Jack maintained a calm demeanor as he exchanged pleasantries with the inspectors as they hastily checked his truck. They waved him through quickly, and he let out a huge sigh of relief as the officers bid him a good night, and safe trip.

  Jack hated that more than anything. He hated people telling him to have a safe trip; as if that was something he had any control over. Sure, he could be as cautious as a city transit van carrying a bunch of senior citizens to their doctors appointments, and that would guarantee he was being safe; but any drunken, sleepy or inattentive driver could wipe out all his hopes and dreams as easily as the tarp-wrapped girl could surely erase any evidence of a table full of truckers who had devoured a sloppy breakfast of pancakes, hash browns and gravy biscuits.

  Have a safe trip, indeed, he muttered to himself, indignant. He rolled out in a hurry, hitting the highway like a bat out of hell.

  He had to pass through two more weigh stations along the way, and both times he feared his heart might burst from the anticipation of being found out. Each time an inspector approached he slid his hand beneath his denim jacket and touched the handle of his eight-inch hunting knife sheathed underneath.

  Fortunately, no one showed an iota of interest in Jack; they just checked his stickers and sent him on his way. To them, he was just another long-haul trucker trying to get back home.

  After several hours of driving, he was almost home; less than half an hour separated him from his dear Dianne. He missed her so much. His stomach churned in anticipation of holding her close again. He was ready to get all this behind him, get his passing grade, and return the waitress back to her life unharmed.

  Jack glanced down to check his gauges, and with a profound sinking feeling realized he was nearly out of gas. There was no way he would make it back to Jacksonville without stopping to refuel.

  Jack pulled the rig and its precious cargo into a truck stop at the next exit, and opted for the most desolate pump island, which still was not nearly as secluded as he would have liked. Anxiety snaked through his guts.

  Good fortune, by nature, was fleeting, and, even though he was close to the end of his long drive, he knew it would only take one slip to bring on his undoing. His father used to say that discretion was the better part of valor.

  Jack wondered if that statement applied to this situation.

  Probably not, he decided.

  Two days prior to this haul, the worst crimes Jack had ever committed were petty misdemeanors: the occasional consumption of amphetamines to help him stay awake during a long night of lonely driving, a shoplifting incident
back in junior high school.

  But now he was a felon, a kidnapper; he had gone over the waterfall at the end of the world. He knew that after tonight he would be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.

  But the Goddess had insisted, and Jack had obeyed; had there been an alternative? If she would have instructed him to embark on a killing spree to earn her affections, he had no doubt that he would have gleefully opened a thousand throats to appease her demands.

  After he finished pumping gas, Jack strolled over to the convenience store where he found an antiquated pay phone screwed haphazardly into the wall. He picked up the receiver and hastily punched in numbers from the back of his prepaid phone card to call home.

  No answer.

  He started to call again, but changed his mind and set the handset back in its cradle, disappointed.

  As he stuffed his hands in his pockets to warm them against the frosty night, he felt a something crumpled in the left front left. He knew he needed to haul ass, but it was a five dollar bill. He could win a million more for Dianne; against his better judgment he turned and walked inside the store to try his luck on a scratch-off lottery ticket.

  He scratched the ticket and was astounded to find that he had won twenty five dollars. This random luck was a pleasant surprise and he felt triumphant as he proudly lay the winning ticket down for the cashier to pay out his loot.

  The young man behind the counter seemed extraordinarily fidgety and nervous; Jack became suspicious of him right away. He suddenly realized that the lighting in the store was too bright; headache inducing fluorescents caused him to squint uncomfortably.

  “What's the matter?” John asked the kid at the counter. His voice sounded too loud in his own ears, as though he had just shouted in a cave.

  The jittery young man cut his eyes to the right and shook his head a few times quickly. “N-Nothing, sir,” he stammered. His long brown hair swung back and forth in front of his greasy face like a pendulum as his head moved.

  The kid pushed five wrinkled and greasy five dollar bills across the plexiglass counter in Jack's general direction, motioning with a shaky hand for him to pick it up. The kid was purposefully avoiding making even incidental eye contact with Jack..

  Jack stepped back a few feet so he could fully assess the body language the kid was exhibiting. Something was wrong. Jack looked behind the counter to see if there was a television set, but there wasn’t one in evidence, hell, there was not even a radio back there. If anyone had seen him with the waitress in Slidell, if someone had seen what happened in the parking lot, it might be nationally broadcast news by now.

  He wondered if the police had issued a “be on the lookout” broadcast for a red Freightliner with a driver matching his description. If they had, he doubted the search would have expanded beyond Louisiana state lines at this point.

  He figured he was just being paranoid, anyway. An adult had to be missing for twenty four hours before law enforcement would intervene, at least as far as he knew. He guessed the waitress’ coworkers assumed she had hitched a ride home with a good looking trucker, and was maybe riding him like a cowgirl in a sleazy hotel room even now.

  But what if someone had seen him stick a needle in her neck and called the cops right away?

  The nervous kid developed a voice and broke Jack's reverie.

  “Don't you want your money, man?” he said, shuffling back and forth frantically. Jack eyed him warily.

  “You gotta piss, or what, kid?”

  “Yes, sir,” the teen laughed uncomfortably. “Back teeth are floatin',” he added with a nervous guffaw, undulating in his unceasing potty dance.

  Jack smiled to himself and shook his head in disbelief at his own paranoia. You're losing it, Jack.

  “Have a good night.” he advised the vibrating counter jockey. Twenty-five dollars richer, Jack’s confidence was growing again; but as he strolled past the surveillance cameras in the brightly lit parking lot, he still could not shake the feeling that the kid behind the counter knew.

  The rest of the trip was a nightmare of dread and paranoia. His fear was at full tilt, and threatening to undo him. Danger seemed to be around every curve. He passed several state troopers; each one of them watched him intently as he drove by.

  Jack was slick with sweat and in desperate need of a bathroom by the time he rolled onto the street where he lived, navigating with extreme caution. He drove a slow five miles an hour down Blairmore Drive, the narrow dirt road that led to the humble home he shared with his Goddess.

  His driveway was at the end of the street, a mile and a half beyond the point where civilization ended; it loped around a copse of water oaks and back out onto itself. It could have been called a cul de sac, he supposed, but there were no other houses in the sac.

  His house was a modest prefab with a brick facade, a dainty looking flower garden in the front that feral cats had taken to using it as their litter box. The rest of the yard was surrounded by dark woods.

  Jack eased the tractor to a whining stop by the front door. He had driven 1200 miles over the last two days, just about eighteen hours straight, and it was a miracle that he had not had to go off his route at all. Lady Luck had smiled on him so far, but now he was almost completely exhausted.

  Flood lights lit up around his property, activated by motion sensors. They bathed the front yard in a shocking stage-like glow.

  He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw his haggard reflection; his own face actually frightened him a little.

  Lord, he prayed softly to himself, please let all of this be worth it. Please tell me I did this for a good reason. Please, please, please.

  He knew his prayers were probably useless. Why would God grant a kidnapper’s requests?

  Jack unrolled the waitress burrito wedged in the back of the cab. The waitress was sweaty and fully awake, and her eyes practically bulged from their sockets. She tried to resist him at first; but when she realized he would drag her out of the truck one way or the other, she lay limp and allowed him to heave her body over his shoulder.

  “Don't try anything stupid, lady. This is all going to work out fine, you'll see. Dianne will take care of everything,” he said in a voice that was reassuring but firm.

  The waitress stiffly nodded her head in agreement.

  He opened the door to his humble abode, and stepped inside. He stood in the doorway with the girl slung over his shoulder, eagerly awaiting Dianne’s adulation, praise the likes of which he didn’t dare imagine.

  As he stood in the doorway awaiting the appearance of his beloved, a song by John Cougar Melloncamp floated in from the other room. It was “Jack and Dianne”; how appropriate. Jack knew that Dianne must have waited for this precise moment to make that song play on the radio. She always was so good at things like that.

  The front entrance opened into a small foyer; to the left was the living room, sparsely furnished with a threadbare beige sofa. A dusty lamp cast a dim pall on its cushions, and a coffee- stained end table next to it was simply adorned with a stack of ancient TV guides. Jack carried the waitress through the living room and into the dining room.

  Dianne was waiting for him there, partially hidden in the shadows, sitting in a wobbly wooden chair facing toward the front door. Even in the near darkness she shone with a radiance that filled the room.

  He was surprised to find her sitting in the exact same position she had been in when he last saw her two days ago. Her hair was perfectly coiffed, and even though her expression was blank she was still as attractive as when they had first started dating so many years ago. She had done her makeup just right, and she was wearing the pink dress he had bought for her on one of their anniversaries. She was beautiful.

  Jack smiled broadly as he stood triumphant with Dianne’s trophy hanging limply over his shoulder. He eased the waitress down into a chair that faced his beloved, and said, “Dianne, I’d like to introduce you to Rayne.”

  He was nervous and he waited for any sign of her approva
l. When Dianne failed to respond, he felt himself becoming upset. He hoped so badly that he had not disappointed her.

  “I have got to pee,” he said, looking for any reason to excuse himself from the awkward silence. “You girls get to know each other for a minute - I’ll be right back.”

  Jack strode briskly back into the family room, leaving the quivering young waitress and his surprisingly subdued wife to work things out for a moment. He stepped into the bathroom to relieve himself, splashing cold water onto his flushed face to hide the massive perspiration that was developing on his brow. After he felt that he had sufficiently regained his composure, he walked back to the dining room, where Dianne looked as though she was ready to talk.

  “Yes dear?” he asked Dianne sweetly.

  Her voice finally comforted his ears.

  “So this is my prize, is it?” she asked.

  “Indeed, my dear. I told you I could do it,” he said, looking desperately for any sign of approval.

  “Take all that tape off of her and hold her down on the table for me, lover.” Dianne cooed.

  Jack was surprised by this request, but was unable to deny his Goddess any demand.

  “You won't try to get away, will you, little lady?” she whispered slowly to the girl as Jack laid her down on the table.

  “If you think you can get away, think again; Jack is strong; he won’t let go of you.”

  The girl tried to wriggle free from where she lay on the table, but the duct tape with which she was bound muted her efforts. When Jack approached her with his buck knife drawn, she calmed down considerably.

  He began to cut her free from the tape using the knife. He tried to be careful, but his hands shook so badly that the knife slipped and dug into the flesh of her shapely legs not just once, but twice.

  She bucked from the pain of being cut, but Jack held her down tightly as he continued to saw his way through the tape, fresh blood glistened on the sharp edge of the wayward knife’s blade. The waitress was bleeding from both of her calves and her left arm by the time he got to her mouth.