Chapter Eight
Roland paced the dark room, a lump in his throat, his heart thumping in a fast rhythm.
He couldn’t take Marissa’s painful cries from behind the tape.
He covered his ears, pacing, his head inches from the low ceiling.
He hadn’t meant to tie her up, but she’d left him no choice.
Why had she been afraid of him? He was so confused.
He was way off schedule. It was late—early morning, more likely.
He’d carried her into the deep womb of the plant.
He’d found it months before, and had visited it several times in preparation.
It had been so easy. Lazy employees. They made him sick, the way they disappeared into rooms together, shirking their responsibilities.
All but that one. The nosey one. No one else was supposed to die but him and Marissa.
His plan was all askew. Was there some sign in the mixed up plan that he wasn’t seeing clearly?
Roland clenched his jaw as he mulled over the thought.
The maze of rooms leading to the cavity where they were to spend their final days together were sparse, with nothing in them but a few old generators and an old box of supplies where he’d found rope, tape, hammers, gloves, and rolls of wire. All useful.
He crouched behind Marissa, darkness settling upon his shoulders like a great weight.
He withdrew the plastic containers from the burlap bag.
He’d planned everything down to the last detail.
He knew the exact dosage, having memorized it from his favorite episode of Law and Order.
He’d even practiced it on that other woman.
He’d had to. How else could he figure out the dosage for the remedy?
Roland wiped sweat from his face. He recalled the woman’s face when she’d drank the potion he’d made.
Stupid woman. She’d thought it was a mixture of juice and alcohol—Passion Punch—and gulped it down like it was Kool-Aid.
The diarrhea had taken him by surprise, the way she’d writhed in pain until there was nothing left for her to expel.
They hadn’t shown that on television. He’d watched as she’d vomited on the forest floor, then shit like water in the dark mud.
He’d let her suffer for six hours as he looked on, researched, learned.
As soon as she said she felt like her heart would explode, he’d given her the grain alcohol, held the bottle upside down to her lips, spilling it down her cheeks and neck as she fought in desperation, the cold liquid saturating her trembling bosom.
Roland had been surprised at how quickly the alcohol had remedied the antifreeze.
It was then he’d learned to think things through, to plan.
The alcohol had worked. Within an hour she lay on the earth, exhausted, but no longer feeling the palpitations of her heart.
She had threatened to go to the police, screamed, cried into the night.
She’d called him ugly, a monster. He’d had to get rid of her.
He’d had no other choice. She would have ruined everything, the whore.
Served her right for getting into his car on that street corner.
He’d needed a guinea pig, and he’d have let her go, too, if only she hadn’t reacted so poorly.
Roland set the blue bottle of antifreeze next to the bottles of whiskey.
In front of them he set the rest of his supplies.
He took the old-fashioned travel alarm clock he’d stolen from the locker at the trucking company, and held it in his palm.
He ran a finger along the square metal edge.
Twenty-four hours. From the moment they drank the antifreeze, they’d have up to twenty-four hours before death claimed them.
Finally, no one would be able to come between them.
He set the clock on the ground next to the cake.
Marissa had finally fallen asleep, or passed out, from all her crying, Roland wasn’t sure which.
Either way, it was Roland’s opportunity to make sure she’d left nothing behind.
He thought about his plan. In twenty-four hours they would be eternally bound.
His heartbeat sped up. The thought tantalized him.
Roland weaved through the arteries of the older side of the power plant.
He dragged his hand along the stone walls.
The stone felt good on his psoriasis, scraping away the itch.
He’d memorized the turns of the plant’s narrow passageways, and counted the steps to the entrance to the second floor.
He’d prepared perfectly to carry out his plan.
Soft moans filtered through the closed door.
The boiler hissed. Roland peered through the window, shadowed by the darkness of the hall and room within.
He watched the girl, straddling a man whose pants were gathered around one ankle.
Her back arched and her naked breasts swayed with each thrust of her hips.
Roland’s chest tightened and he fisted his hands as he watched her riding him. He grit his teeth, squinted his eyes in disgust. He tore himself away, heading toward the office.
He walked into the open room and headed for the time clock.
Eleven-forty p.m. Close enough. He put the time card in the slot and cast a glance behind him as the machine clicked, stamping the time onto the card.
He replaced the card into the metal holder on the wall, grabbed Marissa’s bag and jacket from the chair, and headed back toward her.
Footsteps approached from down the hall.
A soft giggle followed. Roland slipped into the security office.
The man who ran the security cameras was slumped motionless in the chair, his chin resting against his chest. Roland looked at his body with no remorse.
People were stupid. When Roland had walked into the room to disable the interior cameras, the guy startled, asking if he was Paul’s replacement.
Kara had mentioned Paul, as well. Who was Paul?
It was only after the man wouldn’t stop his incessant questioning that Roland had no choice.
He had to take him out of the picture. People should learn to shut their mouths.
Stupid people. Roland wondered if he’d miscalculated, if there would be any unanticipated employees showing up.
Voices of the young couple passing by the room brought Roland’s thoughts back to the issue at hand.
It was so easy to be invisible. People were so self-centered that they failed to see things right before their eyes.
Roland thought about how easily he’d watched Marissa.
For months he’d watched her. Once, he almost drove up to her and revealed himself, but had chickened out.
Marissa should know better than to live on such a rigid schedule.
The whole town lived on schedules, it seemed.
It surprised Roland how the same old woman took a walk at exactly seven p.m. every evening, and how a particular group of teenagers met behind Sheetz gas station every night at nine-forty-five p.m. sharp, with their baggy pants and their shoes untied.
Roland was glad he wasn’t a kid any longer.
Those were the kind of kids he might have hurt just to wipe the cocky smirks off of their faces.
Roland waited for the couple to reach the office before heading back to Marissa.