Page 61 of Long Pig

Chapter Forty-One

Eve and the Apple

Willow

Butch left her alone for what seemed like hours. The silence pressed in from every corner until she could hear her own pulse behind her ears. The air was thick and stale with the faint, sweet stench of decay that clung to her hair and clothes.

When the door creaked open, she jolted upright. Butch stepped inside without hurry, moving with the calm precision that frightened her more than violence ever could.

He carried a toothbrush, toothpaste, a washcloth, and a small bowl filled with warm, soapy water. Steam curled faintly upward. He set everything on the bed beside her. Then he pulled a water bottle from his jacket pocket and added it to the pile.

It took everything she had not to shrink away from him. Her body screamed to recoil, but she forced herself to stay put. Her expression locked into a mask. His hair was damp, and he wore clean clothes; he’d showered.

There were no clothes for her. She could smell herself now, that sour, human tang of fear and sweat layered beneaththe heavier odor of death that never left the air. Her stomach twisted with hunger, but she was grateful he hadn’t brought food.

“There’s a timer on the light,” he said. “I’ll set it for ten minutes while you brush your teeth and wash up.”

He turned and left as quietly as he’d entered.

She wasted no time. Her hands shook as she squeezed toothpaste onto the brush, the minty smell almost too normal. The first taste hit her tongue, and she gagged. She breathed deeply through her nose and tried again with more luck. She dipped the washcloth into the warm water, wrung it out, and began to scrub her face, arms, and neck.

When the cloth grew cool, she dropped it back into the bowl. “Fuck it,” she whispered and stripped off her jeans and underwear. After she slipped the jeans back on, she washed her underwear in the soapy water, then hung the dripping garment on the bedpost. The routine felt familiar. It was something she’d done in prison when the weekly clean clothes allotment wasn’t enough. Again, she was reduced to an animal surviving by instinct.

The thought stung. Sparks of hatred lit inside her. Fear had ruled her every breath since he’d taken her, but beneath it something else stirred: defiance. He wanted her to be part of whatever twisted rituals he lived by, and she would convince him that she was just like he was.

The light went out. She stared into the dark and lay back on the bed after moving the pillow beneath her head.

She reviewed every word he’d said. Most of it was insane and self-justifying. Then there was the notebook, his “catalogue.” Not just people he’d killed, but people he’d consumed. The memory of his calm explanation made her skin crawl.

He was sick. Dangerous. His eyes had swept over her, but not in lust. It had been colder than that, more clinical. Like she was something he was trying to understand and decide what to do with.

Her mind spun so fast it hurt. Thoughts overlapped, collided, and fell apart. The one constant underneath all of them was the awareness of isolation. A suffocating, total aloneness that pressed against her like a physical weight. She could feel the edges of hopelessness trying to close in. She wouldn’t let it.

Hours later, the door opened again. A smell drifted in. Butch stepped inside, holding a bowl.

He said it was vegetable stew only, but she couldn’t make herself believe him. She stared at it, her throat tightening. Even the idea of swallowing anything here made her stomach rebel.

“My stomach isn’t doing well,” she murmured. She hoped her complexion was pale enough to make the half-lie believable.

“Would you eat if I took you upstairs?”

Her mind flickered with responses. She chose the truth. “I don’t know.”

His gaze lingered, unblinking. If he took her upstairs, it was a test, another step in his strange experiment. He pulled a key from his pocket, bent, and unlocked the cuff around her ankle.

“You will need to carry the food and walk in front of me.”

She didn’t argue. No plans to escape, not yet. That would come when the time was right. She lifted the bowl, the ceramic warm against her hands, and walked up the ramp into the garage. The untainted air hit her lungs, and she almost cried from relief. No rot. No death. Just oil and gasoline.

“Go to the door on the right,” he said, reaching around her to open it.

Narrow stairs led upward into dim light.

“Sit at the table over there,” he said, pointing to a small table by a window. She set the bowl and water bottle down and sank onto the wooden chair. She forced her hands flat on her thighs to keep them steady while the warmth of the room sank into her bones.

The stew’s gray tinge turned her stomach again.

He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his gaze never leaving her.