Read Good Day to Die for Free Online Page B

Just don’t do anything on your own. Risks are one thing. Stepping off a cliff is something else entirely.”

FOUR
    L ORRAINE CHO GENTLY TOUCHED the sheet of aluminum covering the room’s only window. Wondering if she’d made it through another night. The metal was cool to the touch, but that only meant the sun wasn’t shining. It might be morning; it might be cloudy; it might be …
    What was the point? Why this need to mark each passing night?
    Because she knew she was never getting out of there. Because the only thing she could hope for was some hunter stumbling across the cabin (even though hunting season was six months away) before Becky and her husband (she still didn’t know his real name) did what Becky claimed they’d already done to twenty-three other women. Twenty-three women and seven men.
    “Now, the men … well, Lorraine, the men simply do not count. Daddy said we had to kill those men, but we did not enjoy it one bit. No sireee. I swear on the Lord’s Book, Lorraine, it gave me the creeps just being near those homosexuals. I surely do hope I don’t get the AIDS. Course, we were careful about the blood and Daddy insisted that I wear rubber gloves. But, still, those boys were homosexuals. ”
    Lorraine shuddered, pulling the blanket a little tighter. They’d taken her clothing, though she couldn’t understand why.
    “Daddy says we took your clothes so you would not run away from us, Lorraine. You’re like the baby we couldn’t have because Daddy can’t have babies. Oh, I have wanted a little girl for so long and now you are my little girl.”
    “But there’s no place to run to, Becky. Clothed or naked.”
    How many hours had she spent with an ear pressed to the window? Listening for any human sound—for voices in conversation, a distant factory whistle, the whine of tires on pavement, the lowing of cattle in a meadow, the call of a rooster at daybreak.
    At another time, in another place, the forest sounds would have delighted her. The birds sang out with a hundred voices, while the sigh and hiss and howl of the wind changed from second to second. A nearby stream (her bathtub) babbled over a rocky bed, forming a base for the darting hum of bees and flies, the persistent whine of mosquitoes. Squirrels and chipmunks quarreled from first light until sunset, their tiny claws scratching over the bare earth as they competed with cooing doves and bawling jays for the cracked corn Becky thoughtfully spread on the ground.
    But there were no human sounds. None at all. And the only human odors were the stink of the outhouse and the sharply acid smell of the bucket in the corner.
    They’d driven for hours and hours before dumping her in the cabin. Fucking her, the two of them, as they traveled the inter-states. Taking turns; one driving while the other played.
    The man had been rough, twisting her body with powerful hands. The woman had been gentle, chattering away as if she were sitting down to a church supper.
    “Don’t you fret, Lorraine. If Daddy says you’re a keeper, then, by the Good Lord above, you are a keeper and we will not hurt you. Not one darn bit.”
    Lorraine wondered how Becky defined “hurting.” Because Lorraine had never been in more pain. Those weeks in the hospital were nothing compared to this; now she was afraid most of the time, and the terror was absolutely physical. The fear shook her with the intensity of a dog shaking the body of a dying rat.
    It hurt so much there was no point in thinking about the pain. No point in thinking about a problem without a solution. Sure, she could get out of the cabin; she could pry the tin sheet off the window in a matter of minutes. But what would she do then? Trudge blindly into the forest? Pick a direction and hope for the best?
    When she wasn’t afraid, Lorraine was numb, her emotions deadened as if by anesthetic. She sat in the room’s only chair for hours, not thinking, not feeling.
    The hopelessness, she realized, only made her