Page 17 of Kimbra
These guys are idiots. First, the lug driving and the one sitting with me are just blindly following the asshole who apparently is in charge of their little gang. I won’t call it a club because that would diminish all the actual clubs. I know they started as one, but they have to be light years away from the club Ben used to be a part of.
First of all, they talk like I’m not listening and have overshared some things that could definitely get them locked up for a lot of years. I think the lug sitting across from me has used his head to hit people one too many times and has lost too many brain cells. I don’t think he has a clue about why the others call him Lennie. I don’t thinkOf Mice and Menwas a book he ever picked up. Hecould probably do some damage to a person, but a war of words he wouldn’t win.
The one they call Boss or Pres or Taz is a fucking idiot of a different kind. He expects blind obedience from his guys. He’s so focused on getting this money that’s supposedly owed to him that he can’t seem to think of anything else. It took him a long time, I’m guessing at least an hour or two, to bring up his other club guys who are hurt and need medical attention. He thinks I’m a surgeon or something. “You better fix them up, or I’ll get you sold so fast and go after your fucking kids.” I would’ve argued back with him about needing supplies and all, but I don’t think it would do a lick of good. He’s the kind of guy who only hears what he wants to and tunes everything else out. I’m thinking there are some mommy issues there.
The only one of the three that actually gives me the creeps is the one driving. I think I heard his name was Brander. From their conversations over the drive, I’ve learned that he’s the one behind the…package I got a while ago, as in he was the one who removed those body parts, froze them, and then delivered them. He’s someone who definitely gives off Ed Gein vibes, and he might have enjoyed carving up what he did. He’s the kind of guy I don’t want to be left alone with…ever.
Looking out the back window of the van, I can tell we’re going down 84, and from the last few signs I’ve seen, the next town is Watson. We’re more than three hours from home. CreepyMcCreeperson Brander must have a big lead foot. This isn’t where Ben said his old club was. He said that it was close to Walla Walla, and that’s not on this road. Makes me wonder where they’re taking me. I really hope Branson got a hold of Ben and got him and Bent and Bailey to the family. He’s so smart. I’m sure he did.
I’d really like to figure out a way to get out of this mess, but there’s no way I’m jumping out of a van going more than seventy-five miles an hour. I’m just going to have to figure something out when we stop. If Brander leaves to go do something, I think my chances are pretty fucking high I can get away. He gives me the heebie-jeebies, and he makes one have to wonder if he’s got a mask made of human skin. Or maybe he’s more like Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy and keeps his victims as souvenirs. It was his smile when he talked about dismembering Erik’s ex-wife that gave me the chills.
I’m lost in my thoughts for a while and only jostled from them when the brakes screech and we slow down, exiting the interstate. We drive for maybe ten minutes before we make another turn and drive on a gravel road. We’re only on the gravel road a couple of minutes before Brander stops the van and parks it. He and the asshole who’s name I don’t even know get out. Lennie looks at me and speaks. “Time to get out. You need to help the brothers.” Shit, maybe it’s not that he's used his headtoo many times. I feel bad for a second, then I remember he’s helping kidnap me, and that feeling disappears quickly.
He opens the side door and hops out. Brander and Asshole are standing there. “Let’s go. I need you to patch up Smitty and Knob. I can’t lose more brothers since we lost String Bean and Spade because your man’s fucking club killed them. I’ve got bandages and stuff, so you better get them fucking healthy, or my threat about your kids still stands.” Brander grabs my arm and pulls me to what looks like an old barn, and past it, there’s an old barn house that has definitely seen better days. We go past the barn and walk toward the house. My mouth speaks before I think. “Does that place have water or electricity?” Asshole looks back at me. “Yeah, it does, and we got some cots in there for the guys to lay on.” Color me surprised. Brander yanks my arm to walk faster up the steps to the front door. The place makes me glad I’m caught up on my tetanus shot.
The door opens, and as soon as I walk in, I can tell nothing is going to be sanitary. There’s a level of dust so thick on everything I think I could actually cut it with a knife. Brander points to the room to the left. “They’re in there.” I walk into the room, and I swear I can smell gangrene. I look over at Brander and the one I call Asshole. “How long ago were they hurt? Did anyone clean the wounds? I can smell an infection from here.” Asshole points to the room. “Just fucking get in there and save them.” Yeah, ’cause I’m a miracle worker with bandages and gauze.
“Bring me all the supplies you have so I know what I’m working with.” Brander takes off to another room, hopefully getting me some actual medical supplies, but I don’t hold my breath for them. I do hold my breath, going into the room to not smell that putrid scent. I have a feeling one of these men is knocking on death’s doorstep.
I stop at the first man I come to, and he looks up at me. “You a doc?” I nod. “Yep, I am. You wanna show me your wounds? Were you shot or stabbed or what?” He lifts his shirt and shows me. “I was stabbed, and the fucker got some good punches in.”
I ask him a few more questions to assess his injuries. Without being able to use any tools but my eyes and hands, I figure he must not have had anything important nicked. I’m guessing he’s probably got a couple of cracked ribs.
Brander brings in a box of supplies. I’m surprised to find gloves, antiseptic, some gauze, and bandages. I get to work fixing up who turns out to be Smitty. He’s quiet and only makes a couple of hissing sounds when I clean his wound. He should be fine if he keeps it clean. The ribs will just take time because, without even asking, I know that suggesting he see a doctor in an actual hospital will fall on deaf ears. I fixed him up first because I’m pretty damn sure the other guy is beyond my help if that smell is any indication.
I stand up and move the chair I was sitting in over to the other guy, Knob, I think they called him. He’s unconscious and has asheen of sweat on his face. I feel his forehead, and he’s burning up. Since he’s not able to tell me, I ask the room, “Was he stabbed, shot or what? He can’t tell me right now, and anything you can tell me might just save his life because I can tell you right now he’s really close to being too far gone.” Asshole looks at me from the doorway. “You better fucking hope he makes it.” He then tells me that Knob was shot twice, once in the shoulder and once on his opposite side. I get to work, having Asshole cut his shirt off. I can immediately see that, surprisingly, the wound on his side was pretty much a flesh wound, but his shoulder wound is oozing with infection. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bullet is still inside of him. It’s been a long time since I spent time in the emergency room, but I do what I can to clean his shoulder. I get his side wound cleaned up quickly. “He’s got a bad infection and needs antibiotics. I cleaned up the wound, but his fever and infection can only be cleared up with some seriously strong antibiotics, which I don’t have here.” Asshole slams his fist against the doorway. “He can’t go to the fucking hospital. He’s got warrants out. I’ll see what Brander and Lennie can come up with. You stay here and don’t even think about going anywhere.” He walks out of the room, and a couple minutes later, I hear the front door slam and lock from the outside. Well, shit.
I look around, and Smitty is asleep on his cot, and Knob hasn’t moved a muscle since I got here. He may have locked the front door, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no other way to get outof this place. I stand up and quietly walk out of the room. I go past the front door and find what must be a dining room and kitchen, all covered with the same layer of dust, which tells me they definitely don’t live here. I walk back toward the front door and find the stairs that lead upstairs and a door on the other side of the stairs. I go to the door and open it. It’s a set of stairs that must lead to the basement. “Kimbra, you know damn well you yell at every woman in a horror movie about not going down to the basement.”
“You should probably listen to yourself.” The voice behind me scares the ever-loving shit out of me, and I let out a scream that can probably be heard a mile away. “AHHHHH!” I turn around, willing my heart to go back inside my chest. Brander stands there with a creepy-as-hell smile on his face. “You might like my treasures. Too bad they’re back at the basement in the clubhouse.” His creep level has to be close to one thousand. He grabs me by the arm. “Taz wants you where he knows you won’t escape. Let’s go.” He pulls me down the basement stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, he shoves me, and I land on the dirt floor. I look back at him. “This here is a root cellar, so there ain’t no escaping. One of us will be back when we need you to take care of the guys again.”
He heads back up the stairs and closes the door. I hear the lock engage. I look around, and damn it, he was right. There are no windows or anything, just shelves and a really old chest freezer,which I’m not opening for anything. I really hope Ben is close.Please find me.
Ben
We pull over into a rest area after Jon signals all of us to follow him. He must have just gotten a call and needs to share. Maybe they found Kimbra, and we can meet them somewhere.Don’t get ahead of yourself, man.
We all pull up and park next to each other on the far side of the rest area where no one else is. Jon takes off his helmet to speak to all of us. “I just got a call from Riff. His guys just spent the last half hour combing their clubhouse. There’s no sign of Kimbra or that she’s ever been there. The other group of their brothers are about to head over to the property near them that Taz bought.” If it’s possible for Jon to look pale, he does. Mike speaks up and asks what’s on the tip of my tongue. “What else did they say? It looks like you saw a ghost, Pres.” We all watch him as he rubs his beard. “They didn’t find Kimbra or anyone but a couple of their guys who were so drugged out he doubts they even know they were there. I think he took care of them and sent them on a permanent trip, but that’s not what was the surprise. In the basement, there were four or five big chest freezers…they were all full of pieces…pieces of people. Way more than just Celeste. Said there had to be at least seven or eight people in there.” Whatin the fuck? Tripp speaks with disgust. “There was only one fucking freezer down there when we were part of the club, and all it had usually was frozen salmon that the guys would catch every year. What the fuck?”
Enough. “So we heading to the property?” Jon nods. “Yeah, if she’s there, they should find her in the next thirty minutes or so. We’re about an hour and a half out, but their clubhouse is the same way, hell it’s only about a ten-minute drive from the property. Riff is going to call me as soon as he knows so we can send the brothers up the mountain if we need to.”
Jon puts his helmet back on, and we head back out on the interstate. If it was just me, I’d be breaking every speed limit to get there, but I know that would get me pulled over, and my mouth most likely would get me detained.Please be there, Kimbra, and please be alright.
Kimbra
I never realized how much I don’t like being alone with my own thoughts with nothing to distract me. Of all days I forget to put on my smartwatch, it had to be today. That’s just Murphy’s law, ain’t it? I don’t even know how long I’ve been down here. I’m guessing maybe an hour or so. I guess it’s better to be down here than having to be in a room with those idiots. I just really wish there was a way to get out of here. I looked all over, and it wasdefinitely made to be a root cellar. I even checked all the shelves, hoping to find something to help me escape. I’ve been thinking about trying to pick the lock on the door, but if I get that open, I still have to sneak out of the house. I broke down and opened the freezer just because how could I not? You know, if you were stuck in a room with a dirt floor and nothing else, you would, too. I had to try and keep my contents in my stomach. I think I saw the face of a woman, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the same person whose appendages showed up on my front porch. Makes me think that my correlation between Brander and Ed Gein is a lot more on the nose than I want to admit. The size of that freezer…it could fit more than one person. Oh God. If he has a skin lamp upstairs, I might actually die.
Wait. The floor is dirt. Could I actually dig myself out of here? Bentley would know. Looking around, I’m not sure where I would start digging because something tells me one area would be better than the other. What the hell am I thinking? I don’t have anything to dig with, and I have no idea which place to start digging. I think getting the door unlocked might be the best bet. I stand up and dust myself off. Time to try and get out of here.
I’m on the first step up to the door when I hear a key in the lock. I step backward and wait for the door to open. It slams open, and Asshole is standing there looking down. “I got what I could get, so come up and get Knob better. I can’t afford to lose any more men.”
Yeah, I have a feeling whatever he got is not going to get his man better, but I’m not about to vocalize that just yet. I walk up the stairs and walk back into what must be the living room. “I don’t know what he’s been eating, but you should really feed Smitty some good nutritious food. A couple days of that and some over-the-counter medicine, and he will be up and around. His ribs will just take time to heal.” I walk into the room, and Lennie is standing there with a box. He sets it down on the chair I sat on while tending to each guy. “Here’s the stuff. You need to fix him.” He’s a man of few words. He walks past me and out of the room. I walk over and look in the box. I see more bandages and over-the-counter pain meds, which will work for Smitty, but not this one. I see some IV bags, and I grab one and look at it. I read the label, and it takes me a moment to place it. “Did you get this from a vet?” Asshole walks into the room. “Yeah, I had to get what I could. They said these are antibiotics, and you said that’s what he needs.” I look down and see he’s still got a sheen of sweat on him, like I expected. “Antibiotics from a vet aren’t made for humans. They have different chemical makeup and amounts and aren’t human grade, so it may or may not work.” Asshole stares daggers at me. “Will he make it without it? Be fucking honest.” I shake my head. He’s bad enough off. I’m surprised he’s still in the land of the living. “Then fucking give it to him. It has a chance of helping, and you better hope it works.” I know this is wrong, and the chance of it helping is slim to none,but I also know the asshole is probably two seconds away from bringing his gun out and pointing it at me.
Against my better judgment, I put on some gloves. Before I can make myself give him the IV, I check the wound and clean it again. I wipe him down, and that’s when I hear it. He’s got the rattle, the one that tells me he’s closer to death than I realized. It also tells me no amount of antibiotics is going to help him. When I examined him the first time, I saw track marks, which tells me his body wasn’t just trying to fight this infection while he was unconscious but most likely going through some serious withdrawals. I get the IV going, knowing that the gurgling sound I can faintly hear is the telltale sign that he’s close to death.
I finish up and look at the guys. “I’ve done what I can, but he’s probably not going to make it through the night. His body doesn’t seem like it was able to fight off the infection at—” I’m interrupted by the sound of a bunch of motorcycles. Asshole looks out the window, and his eyes get huge. “What the fuck?” He looks over at Brander. “It’s the Norse Rebels. I wonder what they want. Put her back in the cellar.” Brander grabs me and pulls me so fast that I trip over my feet, trying to keep up. He opens the door and pushes me in, and I miss all but one step on my way, crashing back down to the dirt floor. Ugh. That’s gonna hurt in the morning. “You better be fucking quiet, or I’m going to have some fun with you.” Oh, fuck that. I’m not being a victim to this generation's John Wayne Gacey or Jeffery Dahmer.
I’m sitting in complete darkness this time because the psycho didn’t turn the light on as he shoved me down the stairs. I know the stairs have to be in front of me, but I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. I can feel I probably have some scrapes and bruises on my hands and knees, but nothing feels too bad, so I’m thinking I avoided breaking anything.
