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  Ben didn’t answer. He still couldn’t grasp what Sonny was talking about, but he no longer cared. He clenched his fists at his side.

  “So, you’re my last hope,” Sonny continued. “The last chance that my night won’t end in total disappointment. Besides testing my mental abilities, which I’m sad to say again have left me unsatisfied, I also wanted a physical challenge. That’s why I had to come here. That’s why it had to be you.”

  Sonny rose from the chair, his eyes fixed on Ben’s. He bent his neck side to side, which set off a small cracking sound, loosening his muscles. “A big, badass Special Forces guy like yourself should give me a run for my money. I mean, you’ve kept in tip-top shape, and you probably know like, over a hundred different ways to kill a man with your bare hands. Hell, Ben, I’ve always said you’d make a better bouncer than a bartender. I’m guessing you could kill me with just one blow if you had to. So whaddaya say we find out?”

  Ben returned his stare. What Sonny was now saying, he understood completely. He mentally prepared himself for what was coming, confident he was ready. Even still, he attempted one last ditch effort to reach out to him with reasoning. Always reason before violence; otherwise you lose your humanity, and the good that you were trained to fight for. “Let’s not do this, Sonny. We can talk about this. You still have a chance to do the right thing. Tell me where Megan is, before you do something you’ll regret, and we’ll get you some help.”

  Sonny let out a vicious laugh. “All about Megan, is it?” He turned his attention to Ben’s beaten girlfriend on the bed, who was trying to either plead with Sonny as well, or issue a warning to her man; her muffled words through the gag were indecipherable. “I don’t know Ry,” Sonny addressed her. “I wouldn’t blame you if you started to get a little jealous. Seems to me that your boyfriend here cares more about my woman than his own.”

  Just then, he turned his attention back to Ben with such a malevolent look that the latter had never seen in a human being before. The look was ten times more sickening than Jack Nicholson’s psychotic, blank stare into nothingness in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. “Do you even want to know why I got frustrated with Ryleigh?” he asked in a voice with an evil that matched his facial expression.

  Ben’s own voice expressed frustration mixed with anger and fear. “Buddy, I still have no idea what you were going on about. Some crazy shit about getting inside her head.”

  “Yeah,” Sonny replied, “that’s right. I’m trying to develop a skill that my people sometimes use. It’s very close to hypnotizing, but much more effective. I wouldn’t expect you to understand, but the gist of it is that I was trying to control her mind. To be blunt, pal, I wanted to see if I could get her to have sex with me.”

  Ben’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

  “Not that I have much interest in your girl,” Sonny went on; “it was more out of curiosity. Just to see if I could do it. Anyway, since I couldn’t even scratch the surface of her subconscious, well… I got just a little upset. So, I did what any logical bastard would have done in my place…” With that, Sonny pulled the comforter off Ryleigh, revealing that she had a bloodied right knee, and it had swelled to the size of a softball… and this could be seen easily because she had no clothing on below her shirt. “I just…” he let out a childish giggle… “I just took her by force.”

  Ryleigh’s cries grew more intense at that moment, which paralleled the red rage that was now building quickly inside Ben. “I gotta tell ya, Ben, I didn’t find her all that talented, but man did it give me such a rise to hear her screaming and crying every time I punched her in the face… every time I slammed myself deep inside her tight little sna…”

  “You son of a bitch!” Ben lashed out, more than ready to charge him, if not for the pistol pointing at him. “I’ll kill you, you dirty motherfu…”

  “Good!” Sonny laughed again over Ben’s curses. “I thought that would convince you to do things my way.” Suddenly, his tone changed to a businesslike manner, yet it still held a taunting nature. “Now, I’m sure you were a hero during your service, and I’m also betting you’d like that chance to play the hero again. Well, here’s your chance, buddy. Since you’re more concerned about Megan’s whereabouts than you are with the fact that I just raped the shit out of your girlfriend, I’ll make it worth your while. I have a yellow piece of paper in my left pocket. Written on it is the address of the place where Megan’s being held captive. If you can take me down, not only will you have saved Ryleigh, and yourself for that matter, but you’ll also become the town hero by finding the missing girl who’s all over the news.”

  Ben quelled his verbal onslaught during Sonny’s terms. He did not respond, nor did he move a muscle. But the stare from his eyes showed the determination and stone-cold resolve of both a soldier and a killer. The current standoff between him and his adversary would have put the final scene from any Western flick to shame. There would be no more attempts to talk Sonny down, no more efforts to dig for any ounce of reasoning within his lost soul. This lunatic who had come into their lives, only to bring pain and suffering amongst him and the people he cared for, was about to find out that he fucked with the wrong Marine. Yet Ben didn’t move, only lowered his gaze to the pistol in Sonny’s hand.

  Sonny read Ben’s glance. “Oh, right. Not so easy to kill me while I’ve got this, is it? Tell you what, pal: let’s make this more interesting.” He tossed the pistol to the carpeted floor, where it landed with a soft thud at Ben’s feet. “I’ll give you the handicap. See if you can pick up the gun and shoot me before I get to you. Here, I’ll even give you more space.” He backed away several steps, until he was flush against the dresser behind him.

  Ben didn’t respond. He glanced down toward the pistol at his feet, then returned his hardened stare at his newly acquired enemy.

  “So whaddaya say?” Sonny taunted. “Be the hero again. Pick up the gun and take me out.” Then his voice lowered: “And you’re gonna want to, because if you don’t… well, after I kill you, I’m gonna have to kill your woman too. You see, silly me, I forgot to wear protection when I was… you know…” He began to mock the art of lovemaking by thrusting his hips back and forth. “Could you think how complicated it would be if she gets pregnant? I’d have to deal with the irritating question of whether or not the baby is mine or yours, then we’d have to pay for a DNA test, and if it turned out to be mine, I’d be stuck having to pay child support and all that. That just wouldn’t work for me. Not to mention the fact that I don’t think I’m what people would call a good father fig…”

  “Shut up!” Ben commanded with more hatred than he ever experienced in his life.

  There was brief silence. Just a dead, locked stare between the two men. Then Sonny repeated in a more serious tone, “Pick up the gun, Ben. Take me out.” The sickening smile on his face was still present.

  Ben took three calm breaths through his flaring nostrils, never releasing his dagger stare from Sonny. When the intensity in the room had grown to a thickness beyond explanation, Ben finally replied, “I got my own gun.” Quickly, he drew his Beretta from the small of his back and opened fire.

  Ryleigh exerted a muffled scream through the bloody, cloth gag, but her cries did not even register in Ben’s ears. He was too preoccupied with trying to make sense of the situation that was unbelievably occurring, for he had only gotten off one shot, and it was dodged wide. Somehow, beyond his on ability to fathom, Sonny had gotten to him in less time than it took him to pull the trigger a second time, and his left hand grappled and pushed Ben’s firing arm clear of its target. Almost simultaneously, his adversary drove his right fist hard into his gut.

  Ben barely felt the blow, but it caused him to loosen his grip on the pistol. Immediately, he tried to bring his forehead forward into Sonny’s face, but again the uncanny speed of his enemy was astounding; instead of his head slamming into soft cartilage, his own nose was met by Sonny’s right elbow. Blood shot out of his nostrils as if he had just sne
ezed crimson mucus, and the shock of pain and fire from it was suddenly augmented as Sonny drove his foot down against the inside of Ben’s right kneecap.

  The former Marine forced himself to remain on his feet; his adrenaline pumping full blast to help him ignore the pain from his knee. He tried to pull back his arm with which he held his Beretta in attempt to fire another round, but his opponent still held a firm grip on his wrist, twisting it outward. His eyes had already started to water from the strike to his nose, and his vision was terribly blurred. And now, a new painful sensation, completely unknown to him until this moment, had registered from his left eye. Within nanoseconds of Sonny’s elbow strike, he had already gotten his right hand on Ben’s face and began pressing his thumb into his eyeball.

  Ben let out a frightened yet defiant scream of rage, pain, and hate as primal instincts started to allow panic to overflow his mind. He grabbed at Sonny’s hand with his left, tried to pry it back with all his might, but as he did so, Sonny whipped down his own forehead against Ben’s already broken nose.

  With all his conscious efforts, Ben had time to conjure up one last tactic that somehow clawed its way up through his frantic nerves. He was bigger, heavier than Sonny; he thought to allow his body to become dead weight, to drop to the floor in hopes of breaking free from Sonny’s grip, and immediately turn on his back as he would fall in order to fire his pistol up into his enemy’s chest; to keep firing until his rounds were spent. But all he had time for was the thought to do it. Before he could even carry out the attempt, Sonny had somehow ducked and slipped behind him. The villain had his hands on Ben’s head and chin before he could react. In one, swift motion Sonny snapped his neck. Then he let go.

  Ben collapsed to the floor. With no motor skills present, he was unaware of anything, even of the fact that he excreted himself. As the oxygen in his brain dissipated, Ben had time to perceive two final thoughts before he lost all consciousness. The first was that he finally realized that the love of his life had been screaming, and he was angry with himself as well as sorry in his heart for being unable to protect her. The second thought was of Sonny, and from his own inner voice, with one final statement: No one can move that fast; there’s just no way…

  And then, Ben Weber was no more.

  Sonny stood over the body. Stood perfectly still, staring down at it. He didn’t acknowledge the annoyance of the screaming young woman tied to the bed. He only shook his head.

  Suddenly, he began to kick Ben’s mutilated corpse repeatedly. His face was thickly painted with layers of anger and disgust. “Worthless – worthless – worthless – worthless – worthless – worthless fuck!” he boomed with each violent blow of his foot to the dead man’s ribs.

  Ryleigh’s wails escalated to a hysterical fit as Sonny kicked at her lifeless boyfriend harder and harder. Eventually his disrespectful rampage against the corpse ended when he spat hatefully upon it. “Goddamnit, Ryleigh!” he yelled in a vexed, raised voice. “What the hell’d you ever see in this piece of shit?” He roughly dug his fingers through his own, once-perfectly combed, dirty-blonde hair. “I mean, you call that a fight? I didn’t even break a fucking sweat!”

  He then directed his ranting toward the dead body; “Come on, man! That’s all you had? Seriously? Big, badass, Special Forces, my ass! Just put up a goddamn fight! Was that so much to ask? What more did you need, man? A fucking blindfold around my eyes?”

  Ryleigh never ceased her screams. She was beaten badly, but she had still tried to wrestle out of her restraints consistently. Nevertheless, she made no headway; Sonny did too harsh a number on her, tied her bonds too tightly.

  Sonny ceased his temper tantrum. He stood up more erectly, then fixed his hair as if he had suddenly become embarrassed by his own behavior and now wanted to regain the suave composure that everyone loved him for. In a calmer voice, yet not without a venomous tone, he said, “You guys both ruined my night. Thanks a lot, Ryleigh.”

  He bent down and grabbed the lifeless body of Ryleigh’s boyfriend. With little effort he lifted Ben up from the floor and tossed him onto the bed next to her as if heaving a large bag of trash into a dumpster. “Thanks a lot, Ben.”

  Though she heard his heavy footsteps echoing their way out of the bedroom, Ryleigh did not see as to where Sonny had left, or try to guess for what reason, for she was unable to take her eyes from the aftermath of his wrath upon the man she loved. With even more tears flowing from her, she gazed with hysterical horror at Ben, her future now obliterated beyond repair, and when she could handle the reality of the situation no longer, she closed her eyes and wept further.

  It was only a matter of minutes before Ryleigh heard Sonny return to the bedroom from the crescendo of his footsteps. With some difficulty, given the condition of her right knee, she shifted her body in order to turn away from Ben, whom she could no longer bear to look at, and stare at her assailant with pleading eyes, but in the moment her vision had focused on him, she immediately regretted her decision to do so. Standing at the foot of her bed, with a terrible smile upon a stunningly handsome face that masked a wretched villain, Sonny playfully shook a squeeze-bottle of lighter fluid, as if trying to draw her attention to it. Her blood-shot, tear-filled eye (the one that was not swollen shut) widened with horror.

  “This is the same stuff we brought on our camping trip,” he noted. “Too bad for you we didn’t use it up.” Ignoring Ryleigh’s pleading, muffled cries and her violently shaking head, both of which profoundly begging him not to do that which he intended, Sonny began to squeeze the flammable contents from the bottle, squirting her in all areas of her writhing body until she was completely doused with the liquid that would bring about her tormenting death. He then used up the remaining amount of fluid on Ben’s corpse, as well as the bed’s comforter and sheets.

  Projecting his voice over her cries of fright and panic, Sonny chuckled, “Don’t worry, Ry. I won’t tell Megan about our intimate moment tonight. I wouldn’t want things to get weird between you two, especially since she’ll be joining you and Ben soon.”

  He pulled a pack of matches from his pocket. Just as he was about to strike one to set the room ablaze, he hesitated. “On second thought,” he added with a pensive look, “I don’t think I’ll enjoy it this way.” Then he walked back to the side of the bed next to Ryleigh, knelt before her so that their eyes were at the same level, and with the gentleness of a lamb, with a loving gaze and a charming smile, he untied her gag and let it fall onto the bed under her chin. “Okay, much better. They say this is a painful way to go; I just wanna hear how bad it is.”

  Through hyperventilating chortles and staccato sniffles, brought on by the overbearing physical and emotional trauma of a night she had least expected, now only intensified by the fear and prospect of being burned alive, Ryleigh took advantage of the temporary oral freedom with which her captor had just given her: “Sonny… please… don’t… don’t do this… please don’t…”

  Sonny didn’t answer, nor did he hesitate. He lit the match. Then with gleeful anticipation, his eyes followed its path as he tossed it onto the bed. Instantly the flames rose and spread. Instantly the blood-curdling, ear-piercing screams erupted from Ryleigh’s lungs. Instantly Sonny closed his eyes with a satisfied smile, as if listening to the most serene and beautiful concerto of Beethoven. He only opened his curious eyes momentarily to get a glimpse of her body as it twisted and convulsed, side to side, up and down, desperately searching for an escape from the monstrous blaze that engulfed her. And as he stepped back to a safer distance, he laughed again, this time at the extreme difference between her animated reaction to the tormenting inferno that was eating her flesh, and the lack thereof from the burning, lifeless form of Ben next to her.

  His laughing stopped when it occurred to him that he would soon want to depart. The smoke alarm would be going off any second now, and the fire department would be contacted. Furthermore, someone might have heard the gunshot that went off earlier, meaning police officers might already be
on their way. Still, logical as he believed his mind to be, he felt it wouldn’t be too unsafe to stick around… just until the lovely screaming had ceased.

  Chapter IX

  Nothing causes time to fly by faster than a growing sense of urgency. At least Jim Panco felt so, after Sunday evening found him back in his motel room with little more knowledge of his missing daughter’s whereabouts than he had originally arrived into town with. Though under normal circumstances, one might find a day with nothing accomplished as a slow-crawling, boring day, Jim felt quite the opposite, burdened with the impending feeling that the longer things took to resolve, the less time Megan had… if she were even still alive. Yet all the same, and strangely enough, every passing minute seemed like a month to him. With each worrisome, pacing step up and down his motel room floor, he envisioned his child being sucked deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of the lost, with hope of ever seeing her again dwindling further and further. Still, he never remembered a weekend that seemed so drawn out and never-ending. It was the cruelest of all paradoxes.

  He began “Day Two” of his personal, unauthorized investigation by attending the 8 a.m. mass at St. Elizabeth’s, in which Father Paul was the main celebrant. The hour in which the ceremony was held was one that induced the paradox, for all Jim had wanted was to wait until the end of Mass, so he could speak with the priest, and this in itself made time slow down to an agonizing, weighted trudging through a thick, knee-deep bed of snow, but the avalanche in his mind was racing towards him nonetheless; the feeling that he was running out of time.

  Eventually, the sacrament of Communion had finished, followed by the closing announcements. Jim was awoken by his own troubled thoughts by the priest’s mentioning to the congregation that one of their own, young Megan Panco, had gone missing earlier in the week, and that he implored the people to keep her in their thoughts and to pray for her safe return. He also informed them that if anyone had any information regarding Megan, no matter how insignificant it might seem, to contact Police Chief William Biddle at Lancaster County’s state precinct. He was moved by the priest’s calling of the people to support his daughter’s cause, but a bit curious that he asked them to contact the chief of police, and not Detective Harrison or Gibbons, the two officers responsible for the case.