SUMMER

Duct tape

Ether

Handcuffs (2 pairs)

Zip ties

Leg restraints (2 pairs)

Ball gag

Nylon cord (12 feet)

Trash bags

Tarp

Hacksaw

Buck knife (6” blade) with sheath

Satisfied that everything he needed was in the duffel on his lap, he zipped up the bag and tossed it behind the passenger seat, where it landed with a dull thud. The back of the van is a chaos of supplies, provisions, and assorted tools of the trade. Behind the driver’s seat, a metal toolbox scabbed with rust weighs down two weathered tarps. The one on top is light blue and plastic. Unremarkable, disposable, and utilitarian. The one underneath is more special. It is a painter’s tarp. The heavy cloth might have once been white but has been stained by time and crime to a much darker shade. Folded carefully, it patiently tolerates the hastily bunched imitation lying on top of it. Two gasoline cans sit a few inches apart near the back door, their long yellow snouts drooping from their squat red bodies. They look like guardians in a deep slumber after a lavish meal. The fuel in their bellies sloshes faintly whenever the van shifts on its axle, as if they are stirring in their sleep.

Beside them are scattered a few unopened packages of scrubber sponges and a couple of cans of mosquito repellant, the dark green forest on their labels suggesting a destination for the evening. Half-filled bottles of ammonia, bleach, and cleaning fluid poke above the rim of a blue mop bucket in one corner of the van. Hanging from a peg in the ceiling is a green Coleman electric lantern, its dormant LED tube awaiting the next tableau.

But no one would ever see any of that. The windows in the front were tinted and those in the back had been painted over from the inside, completely blocking out any light aside from a few insignificant fingernail scratches in one rear window. The only light came from the street lamp straining through the windshield. It cast a dim yellow glow over a stained and torn mattress and glinted dully off the chains snaking from the bullring bolted to the floor.

He closed his eyes, tugged absently at his disheveled beard, and inhaled deeply, allowing his senses to recapture the magic of the night he’d spent with his last special guest: the slick sheen of an ocean breeze clinging to her scalp as he ran his bulbous nose through her hair, the intoxicating musk of soap, orchids, and salt; the firm contours of her muscles, tense and trembling beneath her smooth tan skin; the thin halo of olive green encircling her onyx pupils, which threatened to swell from her head as she strained at her bonds and watched the knife dancing, teasing; the reassuring taste of copper on her lips, her neck, her stomach, the blade. The prickling warmth between his legs.

He smiled perversely as her face registered a dizzying array of emotions: confusion, fear, terror, pain, bewilderment, desperation, futility, resignation, shock. And finally, transformation. He watched the life drain from her, saw her features melt, swirl, blend, blur. In those last moments, he breathed her in, filling his lungs with her, and held his breath so he could keep her inside him forever. It was the single most spectacular moment of his life and he closed his eyes tight and held on to his vision of her.

After a few moments though, the scene started to slip away. The sounds faded first, followed by the color. The excitement he had experienced at the memory evaporated like icy footprints under the sun, leaving behind only a fragile shell. The phantoms of smell, taste, and feel fled like mist in a breeze.

He opened his eyes and glanced at his watch. The hands were at ten and two. Twenty minutes until closing time and at least another thirty before she left. He lifted his gaze and stared at the rearview mirror on the driver’s side, staring at the façade of the restaurant. Fifty minutes. Less than an hour by the clock, though his mind could stretch it into an infinity if he wasn’t careful. Years of perfecting his methods had required patience and discipline, and he knew from experience that even the best laid plans could be ruined by passion.

He contemplated taking out the box to occupy his time and cool his impulses. He told himself that it would help him to concentrate on the work ahead by channeling his energy and sharpening his focus. But he knew there was a chance he would not be able to close the box once it was opened. He knew the contents all too well; he recognized the power they had over him. And he understood that if he lingered with them for too long he might miss the opportunity for which he had so carefully planned. Or worse, that they might ignite in him the careless brutality of blind lust.

A slow, steady panic grew and the nearly unbearable tension drove him to his decision. He leaned over toward the rear of the van and retrieved a shoe box poking lengthwise from under the driver’s seat. He sat it in his lap and looked over the top. “Tip Binding Black Rubber Sole Stiletto Heels” stood out in black ink on a white label. It was faded in places where he had caressed it over the years, particularly the enigmatic shoe size indicator, “EUR 37.” The shoes were hidden beneath a floorboard at his home. The box now held several glass bottles with white screw-on caps.

He lifted the first vial, unscrewed the white plastic top, and filled his nostrils with the smell of melted rubber, cotton candy, charcoal briquettes, and Jardins de Soleil perfume. He closed his eyes and was transported to that night when his journey began. August 4, 2003. Columbus, Ohio. An opportunistic encounter, not planned at all. He had been drinking coffee at an outdoor café downwind from the fairgrounds when she walked in and sat at an adjacent table. She ignored his attempts at small talk and left after only a few minutes. On a whim, he followed her in his car, rolled up alongside her, and offered her a ride. Without a word, she broke into a quick jog across the street but didn’t look where she was going. The car that struck her screeched to a halt about midway through her flight. He didn’t stick around to see if she survived.

He replaced the cap on the bottle and picked up the next one, labeled “October 20, 2003.” The cotton balls clung to the bottom, stained brown and black from motor oil and freckled with shavings from a bar of English Lavender soap. The image came almost unbidden: the hazard lights on a late model four-door Honda Accord softened by the first snowflakes of the season. Hood propped open, steam hissing from a ruptured hose, a distressed thirty-something leaning over the engine with a flip phone to her ear. When she heard him calling to her from his van, she had been wary. The pitch of her voice was higher than normal but controlled, her hand gestures defensive but non-threatening. She relaxed almost imperceptibly when he had mentioned that he worked for AAA and offered the fake name of a supervisor at the Lake Shore Drive office. Three minutes standing around by the side of the road with the freezing wind whipping off Lake Michigan was all it took to dull her judgment. She allowed him to search for the problem with his flashlight while she retrieved the toolkit sitting on the passenger seat of his van. She didn’t hear him following her and only briefly registered the tire iron striking the back of her head. She woke up 20 miles from her car and ironically had only 20 hours remaining in her life.

He returned the Chicago memory vial back to its slot and lifted out its neighbor, labeled “July 10, 2005.” The chip of cow manure was nearly a decade old, but its fecal earthy fragrance still managed to overpower the cut straw and wintergreen breath mint lying on top of it. His eyes teared slightly as he waved the open bottle back and forth under his nose. He did not consider his work to be competition but it was hard not to rank this memory as one of his best. The summer farm expo in Topeka, Kansas had given him the opportunity to indulge in his fantasy about the Midwest farmer’s daughter that David Lee Roth had sung about in his youth. It had been so hard to choose a playmate from all of those tan, toned country girls. In the end the decision had been made for him as an innocent-looking teenage brunette in jeans, boots, and a flowery white blouse approached him and asked what kind of farming he did driving an old van and why he had parked so far back in the lot when there were plenty of spaces near the auction tent. She had put up a struggle that resulted in an unintentionally disfiguring blow to her face. But he discovered an exciting new world with the back side of her warm, limp body.

He stayed with Topeka for another five minutes before gently placing her back in the box next to a vial marked simply “2005 – 2010.” Unlike the others, this one was sealed and contained only a strip of cloth with brown and red spots. He preferred not to remember the smells of those years but he kept the strip of bloody bedding from his cell as a reminder of what happened when he was careless and impulsive, as he had been in Texas. He knew his sentence could have been much worse. If she had been a college student with a clean record rather than an exotic dancer in a drug rehab program her testimony might have held more weight. And if she had been inside the vehicle when the police arrived rather than next it, he might have caught a kidnapping charge as well. But while the judge looked like he understood the need to occasionally be a bit heavy-handed when putting a woman in her place, the jury could not ignore the extent of her injuries.

His time spent in Huntsville State Prison almost killed him and he had vowed not to ever get caught again. Five years in that institution of lower learning had given him a wealth of ideas for refining his methods and heightening his experience. When he finally released, he waited an agonizing six months before filling the vial labeled “Cedar City, Utah – August 15, 2010” with a combination of sandstone, scrub oak, wildfire ash, and a glossy pink fingernail that still retained some of its shine.

He left the remaining two vials in the box. The broken teeth containing bits of strawberry gum in “Chula Vista, California – July 2011” seductively hissed while the bloody wedding band in “Cannon Beach, Oregon (Ecola State Park) – April 2012” winked at him. But they would have to wait.

Reluctantly, almost regrettably, he replaced the top on the box as he relished the feel of its weight against the pulsing bulge in his pants. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths until the hardness started to subside and he was able to return the box to its place beneath his seat.

He pulled an unlabeled vial from his jacket pocket. It contained a freshly cut Evergreen sprig, a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes, and the wing of a monarch butterfly that had watched him dig the grave earlier in the week. A shiver of anticipation coursed through him at the thought of adding the final item: a glistening patch of flesh from her right shoulder with “Kayla” tattooed in cursive.

He was about to look at his watch again but his attention was drawn to the chime of the bell above the restaurant’s front door as the last of the customers left. He waited, watching her clear the dishes from a table.

When she disappeared into the kitchen, he moved to the back of the van, retrieved the handcuffs, ether bottle, and a rag from his duffel. He laid them on the mattress and crawled over to the side door, sliding it back and forth on its well-oiled track a few times before leaving it slightly ajar.

He knew from watching her for so long that it would only take her about ten minutes to go through the checklist of closing procedures in the kitchen. She would come back to the dining room to turn off the lights, set the alarm, and lock the front door.

On any other night, she would walk the 50 feet to her car, which was typically the only one in the parking lot by that hour, and head home. But not tonight.

Not ever again.

Van needs detailing

that blonde teenage waitress fought

like a caged tiger