and run like hell for the back door! Too late for the car. Head down the back to the creek and we’ll follow it out of here. By god, we’re gonna accomplish at least part of this mission, or Damien will cut our balls off before the whole group. Run!”
As Blood lit the gasoline on the floor, the kitchen was quickly engulfed in flames. Looking back over his shoulder as he reached the patio, he saw and heard a huge explosion coming from the center of the house. “Oh yeah!” he yelled, heading down the steps to the creek. “Gotcha, you Muslim bitch!” he screamed as he joined his other two accomplices. All three men began running as fast as they could in the dark along the creek bed. Stumbling and cursing, they made it about a hundred yards from the house when they looked back and saw a huge plume of smoke and flames through the trees. Fire trucks with blaring sirens were rapidly approaching, and no doubt police as well. Blood had slipped on a rock about twenty feet back and had fallen face-first into the creek. Big Bear had a nasty collision with a tree limb, which had slowed his progress considerably, and Buzz had fallen down the steps on the way to the creek, ripping a large hole in the knee of his pants. Together now, the three misfits lay gasping for air on the creek bank, downstream from the house.
As usual, Buzz was the first to speak. “What the fuck happened in there?” he asked, looking as bewildered as the other two. “One minute I’m lyin’ on the couch, strokin’ my cock, thinkin’ about that sweet little pussy I’m about to get, and next thing I know, I’m runnin’ like hell down the fuckin’ creek in the pitch-black night! Who set that alarm off? Was there a keypad in the bathroom? She couldn’t have gotten outa there, could she? Did that bathroom have a window? Jesus, Bear, tell me you checked it out before you put her in there!”
Bear squirmed uncomfortably on the wet creek bank. “Uh, it was kinda dark in there, and, uh…I don’t remember seein’ no window. She was actin’ pretty friendly, though, not like she was gonna’ try somethin’ crazy or nothin’ like that.” He stared down at his feet, remembering the promise Mariah had made him just before closing the door. Hell, for all he knew right then, that bathroom could have had another door in it! His mind had been on something far more pleasurable, but he wasn’t about to tell Buzz that.
“Dammit!” Buzz growled. “If that girl got away, we’re good as dead. We didn’ wear no masks or nothin’ ’cause I was plannin’ on torchin’ the house with her in it when we were done with her. Shit! If she’s alive, she can identify all of us, and worse than that, my fuckin’ car’s still parked in front of her house! We’ve gotta get it outa there, and fast! Maybe with all that commotion goin’ on with the fire trucks an’ all, no one would notice if one of us slipped over there an’ moved the car. What d’ya think, Blood?”
“I think for sure I ain’t doin’ it!” Blood replied without hesitation. “It’s your car, man; you better go and get it.”
“Well, that’s a friend for ya,” Buzz mumbled. “There’s a park and a lake just down this creek a ways, so you guys go on down there, and I’ll try to slip back, get the car, and meet ya back there in about an hour or so. Bear, you still got your cell?”
Bear reached for his pocket. “Yeah, man, it’s still in there.”
“Good. If I’m not back in an hour, call Damien, tell him what happened, and maybe he won’t be too pissed to leave you there! I gotta give this a shot or we’re all fucked!”
With that, Buzz turned around and headed back toward the house.
*****
Mariah sat nervously in the Moores’ living room. Looking out the window across the street, she watched as a consortium of fire fighters attempted to keep the fire that engulfed her own home from spreading into the woods and endangering the nearby houses. Thankfully, Miriam, Joe Moore’s wife, had been at home this evening, even though her husband was out of town on business. She had been shocked when Mariah appeared at her front door, clad only in her pajamas, screaming something about men trying to rape her. Moments later, her house had inexplicably burst into flames, and now the two women watched in stunned silence as the pumper truck doused the Quitan home with seemingly endless gallons of water. It was clear to them that the damage would be extensive, but Mariah was so thankful to be alive that she could focus on little else. There were police in her yard, apparently responding to the alarm that she had set off, but there was so much confusion that no one seemed to know exactly what to do other than to put out the fire. Mariah was in a state of almost-complete shock, sitting on the couch, wrapped tightly in Miriam’s robe, shivering, and still breathing heavily from her race across the street. Miriam didn’t know what to think, and seemed content just to console Mariah and wait for her to settle down.
All of a sudden, Mariah began sobbing uncontrollably. Finally realizing that her home was about to be totally destroyed, she cried out, “I have nothing left…it’s all gone…all our things, everything that was special to us…all gone. I have nothing to wear, nothing to eat; even worse, I have to tell my father of this. He will be devastated. He loved our house—said it reminded him of Ayna, my mother. Oh, those horrible men…”
Miriam leaned over and put her arm around the sobbing girl. “Now honey, don’t you worry. All your friends in the neighborhood here will help you get through this. You can stay here as long as you want, and you can wear some of Ginger’s clothes. She’s about your size and far away at college; she won’t be needing what she left behind anytime soon. When you’re able, I’ll let you borrow my cell phone to call your dad. I’m sure he will want to return right away when he hears the news. What men are you talking about? Who were they?”
“I-I don’t know, really,” Mariah continued to shiver and cry. “They came in through the den door in back, just as I was about to lock it and go to bed. Said they were going to make an internet movie of them raping me dressed up in provocative clothes with my Muslim headdress on. Some sort of humiliation to my religion and my country. I escaped out the bathroom window and set off the alarm before they could carry out their plan. I guess they decided to burn the house instead. They were very tough-looking, with tattoos of swastikas and things like that—must have been some sort of white-power, Aryan-type gang. They were probably planning to kill me when they were through, because they didn’t even bother to conceal their identities. Even though I lost all my things, I am so grateful they didn’t harm me. They were so hateful…” Mariah stopped in the middle of her sentence as she noticed the black car parked on the curb near her home. “I’ve never seen that car here before! I wonder if it might belong to them and they haven’t been able to get back to it. Miriam, can you get one of those policemen out there? I would like to talk to him now.”
“Sure, honey, let me see if I can get one of them to come over here for a moment. Now you just try to calm down till I get back.”
*****
It had taken Buzz about ten minutes to work his way back up the creek toward the house. As he got closer, he caught a glimpse of what was left of it through the trees. Smiling to himself, he could see that the roof had almost completely burned off, and that part of the back den had caved in. The flames had apparently gutted the middle of the house, where the kitchen was, and then spread out in all directions. Some of the fire was still burning, but it looked like the firemen were getting it under control. There were two fire trucks there, plus a couple of cop cars. He noticed his own car parked slightly away from all the hubbub, seemingly unnoticed. As he approached the edge of the woods on the far side of the house, his foot slipped into a dark gully, sending him sprawling to the forest floor. “Fuck!” he muttered to himself. “Can’t see shit out here!”
Pulling himself back to his feet, Buzz felt into his pocket for the car keys. He hoped he hadn’t lost them in one of his many recent falls. Surely they hadn’t fallen out! Hmmm…there’s the switchblade. He reached a little farther, then…aaahhh…there they
