couldn’t say a goddamn thing. All he could do was fight back the urge to gag and vomit and shake so that he wouldn’t nudge the gun just a little too much and the goddamn fuck on the other end would accidentally slip and blow a hole through the back of his skull.
Tears and sweat stung his eyes. The flashlight beam felt like it was burning holes into his brain.
The worst was knowing that if the trigger was pulled, it wouldn’t even have time to register in his mind. From standing there in terror to
He blinked.
Silver’s voice penetrated his thoughts like a chisel.
“Why’d you fuck my sister?”
His mind raced. What? His
Sister?
The gun jerked painfully against his teeth. A molar popped out of its socket and warm salty blood flowed over his tongue. He started to hyperventilate. Shook his head as best he could.
Last thing he remembered before waking up to this was getting out of his car at the parking lot of the Slaughterville, his left foot crunching on gravel, then the lone sodium arc light in the parking lot eclipsed by a huge shape. There was a single sharp blow to his temple and the next thing he knew—
“I think he’s trying to say something,” the one behind him said.
Bruce. That must be Bruce.
“I think he’s trying to say how good her pussy felt.”
The barrel lurched painfully to the back of Rick’s throat, blocking even the air pulled in through his nose. He jerked back, took a breath of air, but was shoved violently forward. The rim of the shotgun broke off his two front teeth. They fell to the back of his throat and rattled with each breath like dice in a wet paper cup. He’d never felt such pain.
He tried to see into Silver’s eyes, but he only saw two bright glints of moon staring back at him, chips of ice that smoldered in a cold, cold void. And where did the dark side of that moon go? What was on the dark side of Silver’s moon?
He felt the shotgun barrel twist back and forth between his teeth. Heard Silver breathe hard between clenched teeth. Heard the snot escaping Silver’s nose in tiny bubbles.
He forced his eyes to be still, forced his eyebrows up and together in a plea. It was all he had left. The only facial muscles he could send a message with, a message that could only be read as
“What’s that?” Silver asked. “You trying to tell me something?”
Bruce squeezed his shoulders tight. “Trying to say how good she tasted. Trying to say she was the best piece of ass he ever had.”
“You fucked her ass?”
Trembling, jerking his head back and forth, no, no, no…
“You fucked my sister’s ass?”
Oh Jesus, make them stop. Let me wake up. Let this be a dream. A nightmare. Let this end. Now.
Now.
“He sure did, bro. He fucked Cassie’s ass real good. She even told me. Said he forced her to do unnatural things. Just like all them others did.”
Shut up.
“He says her ass was the tightest thing he ever put his dick in. Tighter than a rubber hose.”
The grip on his shoulders tightened. The nudge of the gun barrel in his mouth grew violent, breaking another tooth as it slid in and out of his mouth, poking the back of his throat with more force. What if he pushes it all the way through? All the way out the back?
And part of him wished Silver would pull the trigger. Pull the goddamn trigger so that the bullet would rip through his throat and explode into that idiot brother behind him. Rip his face off, and he wouldn’t have to hear another stupid, ignorant word issue from that mouth ever again.
The gun pounded into the back of his throat.
Another tooth. Blood smearing over the barrel, pouring down his chin, the pain so intense it felt like every nerve in his head and neck had been lit on fire.
Then the gun was out of his mouth. Rick spat. Coughed up his teeth and spit them to the ground. He gulped in oxygen, swallowed the air. Such a relief even though it still tasted of rusted metal.
The beam of the flashlight blinked off. There was nothing but blackness and two phantom spots hovering in the air.
“I’m giving you one chance,” Silver said. “Did you fuck my sister?”
He heard crickets. Shut his eyes, but the two phantom spots remained.
“Did you fuck my sister?”
Twelve years ago. Tenth grade. Cassie.
Their sister.
Took his virginity like it was a piece of licorice. Practically attacked him. Making out on the couch in his parent’s basement and then her face was in his lap and all he could see was the top of her head. Wild brown hair. Bits of dandruff. She dug her nails into his hips. Sucked so hard her teeth left tiny bruises on him which he didn’t notice until an hour after she was gone.
He forced his eyes open. That was twelve years ago. Twelve
“No,” he said, his voice hoarse and weak. “No.”
Silver stepped back.
Bruce laughed.
Rick’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness. He watched Silver’s hulking silhouette turn away, heard the sound of his boots crunching gravel, the jangle of metal on his belt. The click and squeak of a car door opening. Silver clearing his throat. A cap being unscrewed from a bottle, and the glug of whiskey into Silver’s gullet.
Then Bruce. “Save some for me, eh?”
The bottle smashed onto a rock. The car door slammed shut. Boots on gravel and a growl of rage.
“Liar!”
The shotgun barrel swung up again and Rick swung his head back and forth, his lips shut tight.
“Hold him,” Silver barked.
Firm hands squeezed his head, kept it still.
“Open.”
No way. No way was he going to open.
“Open!”
Bruce dug his thumbs into the hinges of Rick’s jaw, forcing his mouth open. The barrel plunged painfully inside. The taste of it came back in full force, and the blood of another tooth lost to the force of the old hard metal.
He waited for the blast, waited for his life to blink out in an instant of heat and light. Through his sweat and tears he saw that Silver held something where the flashlight had been. A book. It lay open within the stretch of his long bony fingers.
“March 31st, 1990,” Silver read in the faint glimmer of moonlight. “I let Rick Lamont fuck me.”
Rick froze.
“I let him stick his penis in my mouth. I sucked it until he came. And then—”
Silver’s throat hitched. Rick watched as tears filled the man’s eyes.
“—and then I let him fuck me again.”
