Salem's Lot - Stephen King [138]
On one, he suddenly sprinted across the room toward the shuttered window and tried to crash through both glass and shutter like a Western movie hero, taking the drop to whatever lay below with blind hope. In one mental eye he saw himself crashing through only to fall onto a rusty pile of junked farm machinery, twitching away the last seconds of his life impaled on blunt harrow blades like a bug on a pin. In the other eye he saw himself crashing through the glass and into the shutter which trembled but did not break. He saw Straker pulling him back, his clothes torn, his body lacerated and bleeding in a dozen places.
On the second track, he saw Straker tie him up and leave. He saw himself trussed on the floor, saw the light fading, saw his struggles become more frenzied (but just as useless), and heard, finally, the steady tread on the stairs of one who was a million times worse than Straker.
On the third track, he saw himself using a trick he had read about last summer in a book on Houdini. Houdini had been a famous magician who had escaped jail cells, chained boxes, bank vaults, steamer trunks thrown into rivers. He could get out of ropes, police handcuffs, and Chinese finger-pullers. And one of the things the book said he did was hold his breath and tighten his hands into fists when a volunteer from the audience was tying him up. You bulged your thighs and forearms and neck muscles, too. If your muscles were big, you had a little slack when you relaxed them. The trick then was to relax completely, and go at your escape slowly and surely, never letting panic hurry you up. Little by little, your body would give you sweat for grease, and that helped, too. The book made it sound very easy.
‘Turn around,’ Straker said. ‘I am going to tie you up. While I tie you up, you will not move. If you move, I take this’-he cocked his thumb before Mark like a hitchhiker-’and pop your right eye out. Do you understand?’
Mark nodded. He took a deep breath, held it, and bunched all his muscles.
Straker threw his coil of rope over one of the beams.
‘Lie down,’ he said.
Mark did.
He crossed Mark’s hands behind his back and bound them tightly with the rope. He made a loop, slipped it around Mark’s neck, and tied it in a hangman’s knot. ‘You’re made fast to the very beam my Master’s friend and sponsor in this country hung himself from, young master. Are you flattered?’
Mark grunted, and Straker laughed. He passed the rope through Mark’s crotch, and he groaned as Straker took up the slack with a brutal jerk.
He chuckled with monstrous good nature. ‘So your jewels hurt? They will not for long. You are going to lead an ascetic’s life, my boy-a long, long life.’
He banded the rope over Mark’s taut thighs, made the knot tight, banded it again over his knees, and again over his ankles. Mark needed to breathe very badly now, but he held on stubbornly.
‘You’re trembling, young master,’ Straker said mockingly. ‘Your body is all in hard little knots. Your flesh is white-but it, will be whiter! Yet you need not be so afraid. My Master has the capacity for kindness. He is much loved, right here in your own town. There is only a little sting, like the doctor’s needle, and then sweetness. And later on you will be let free. You will go see your mother and father, yes? You will see them after they sleep.’
He stood up and looked down at Mark benignly. ‘I will say good-by for a bit now, young master. Your lovely consort is to be made comfortable. When we meet again, you will like me better.’
He left, slamming the door behind him. A key rattled in the lock. And as his feet descended the stairs, Mark Jet out his breath and relaxed his muscles with a great, whooping sigh.
The ropes holding him loosened-a little.
He lay moveless, collecting himself. His mind was still flying with that same unnatural, exhilarating speed. From his position, he looked across the swelled, uneven floor