I'll tell you anything," he gasped desperately, as he looked over his naked shoulder at he who had suddenly become his enemy, his tormentor, the bane of his existence, that which had come to epitomized evil... his captor.

In the first sickly pause in what seemed like hours of torture - stripped to the waist, his bare chest and stomach grinding against the gritty residue of thirty years of sinister sex upon this filthy, exposed mattress, his hands cuffed behind him, his horrid captor diligently and carelessly manipulating the soft flesh of his back in preparation for some other, ghastly, unknown torture - he reviewed the circumstances which led him to this predicament.

Chapter II

"You need a ride," came the faceless voice from the cab of the eighteen-wheeler, so replete with a dark agenda that it seemed even the crickets that hid amongst the oppressively humid night air stopped chirping at its sound.

Almost certain this was the same suspicious vehicle that had been behind him for almost six hours, he was hesitant to respond. Nonetheless, it was almost two in the morning and his car had broken-down on what appeared to be a rather desolate rural road in the deep south (one he'd ventured onto as an agitated means of escaping the tail-gating mammoth). He wanted nothing more than to be off of this road and back on a civilized route. "Well... do you have a cell phone?"

"Naw."

"Can you use your CB to call a tow-truck," he asked sheepishly.

"Naw, don't work." He cleared his throat, looked forward as if distracted, and futilely attempted a casual air: "I'm gonna bed-down at a motel up the way. You can use the phone in my room. C'mon, let's go."

Chapter III

Few words were spoken in route. The creeping silence was only broken by the crackling codes sporadically spewed by the police scanner under his dashboard. The weathered, mustached driver seemed suspiciously anxious to reach his destination, based on the rate of speed he was driving and his silence. Two all-night service stations were passed before the passenger spoke-up.

"You can just let me off at a gas station."

"Naw."

Desperate for an excuse, "Well, I have to use the restroom."

"You can use the one in my room."

Chapter IV

"HELL IN Our Rooms." The sign should have read "HELLO INN," then "Our Rooms Are Air Conditioned." However, seeing as said sign - as well as motel - seemed to have not been maintained since 1972, the neon was burnt out of most letters... in a most portentous manner, as he noted.

The truck cruised past the sign and into the parking lot of the decaying, one-story motel. As the airbreaks were applied the driver instructed his new passenger to remain while a room was arranged.

Uncomfortable with the idea of venturing into a motel room with the stoic, suspicious driver, the passenger leapt from the cab of the truck and raced towards the outdoor check-in window where his driver stood talking to the Pakistani proprietor.

"May I use your phone," he interrupted.

Both heads looked his way with contempt. As the driver opened his mouth to scorn his passenger, the Pakistani barked "are you with him?"

"NO!"

Dismissing him, "Phone for customers only," as he returned to his business with the driver.

"Then YES, I am with him!"

"Den you use da phone in da room."

Exasperated, he listened to the transaction:

"So we got that room down on the corner, where it's quiet," the truck driver inquired.

"Yes sir, close to dee woods. Ahn dee only other guests ees on dee other side of dee motel."

"And which one is the handicap room?"

"Eet is your room, sir."

"Good. And we won't need no maid tomorrow."

Chapter V

When the driver opened the door to the room, a hot gust of stagnate air flushed the passenger. A stink of booze, rot, sweat, cigarettes and vomit almost caused him to wretch. He marched to the beige phone on the cheap, 1970s-style table dead ahead.

Simultaneous with a sudden, steely, shockingly firm grasp of fingers around his upper right arm came an austere, "you said you gotta piss."

"Yes... but you can go first... while I use the phone."

"Uhn-uh... you go first. I can wait." The odd, threatening tone of his voice suggested argument was not an option. Things seemed to change now that they were alone in this room together.

"Very well."

Chapter VI

He closed and locked the bathroom door, only to hear the sounds of the door to the room being closed, latched and secured as many times as possible. Now his paranoia was becoming legitimate fear... fear that his intuition regarding the dark nature of this individual - and his dark intentions - was correct. He surveyed the squalid bathroom, only to find it chilling: several aluminum bars for the handicapped as well as a soiled and disgusting white, rubber chair with an aluminum frame sitting in the stained bathtub. He stood in front of the toilet in a mock gesture to give him time to think of a safe way out of this uneasy situation. In the process he heard the hiss of a television tuned to a blank frequency and the sinister mumbling of the driver quietly talking on the phone as if trying not to be heard.

Once he heard the "clack" of plastic-against-plastic, of handset-against-receiver, he felt it safe to open the door and make a rush for the phone, wherein he'd dial 9-1-1 and give his locale, if nothing else. However, he felt himself feeling almost instantly faint when the door was opened: he was engulfed in a grotesque miasma of overwhelmingly hot hair, clearly blowing from the room's heater, which the driver had no doubt turned up, despite the 100-degree-plus outside temperature. Feeling weak, he turned the corner, only to see the driver quickly and conspicuously close a suitcase he'd situated next to the phone.

"I'm going to use the phone now," he mumbled, the heat having affected his strength.

"Go right ahead. But how 'bout a lil' Jack Black," the driver asked as he held up a full bottle of Jack Daniels and took a healthy swig, which ran down his sweat-covered t-shirt he'd stripped down to.

"No thank you," he automatically responded while holding the phone to his ear. "There's no dial tone. There's no dial tone!"

"Hmmm... 'how about that. Must be out of order. Take a drink."

"But wait... I heard you on the phone a few minutes ago..."

"Nah, it must have been the TV. So, c'mon, take a drink, buddy," as he held the rim of the bottle to the passenger's mouth.

"No, no... you were on the phone... I heard you," he proclaimed, panicked, "I definitely heard you! Maybe there's a loose connection. Let me check."

He placed both hands on the unstable top of the 1970s-era table as he leaned over it, looking down between the one-inch gap between it and the wall. He heard the sound of the liquor bottle being placed on the chest-of-drawers next to him before he exclaimed "Hey, there's no phone cord here!"

He raised his head to look into the wall-mounted mirror before him so as to see the reflection of his "roommate's" reaction. However, all he saw was a sinister countenance of dark determination, then a violent move towards him involving the beige phone cord.

"Here's your phone cord!"

Chapter VII

The phoneline was suddenly across his chest and upper arms and being pulled tightly, the harsh plastic coating cutting into him. He gasped in shock and terror and instinctively attempted to raise his arms to peel the merciless bond from his torso. However, he found it horrifyingly impossible: the continuous and twisting pressure of the cord was pinning his arms behind him, preventing any movement from them except at the elbows - which was not sufficient to execute escape maneuvers.

He squirmed and jerked his body most curiously; he tried to slouch; he tried to stand on his tip-toes. Nothing seemed to give him an ounce of freedom. His captor was too skilled at what he was doing and he was too weakened by the heat. He was helpless.

"HELP," he shrieked desperately to anyone within ear-shot. "HELP ME!"

The driver, still struggling and adrenalized by the thrill of the catch was breathless as he obsessed upon securing his prey. "Yell... yell all you... you want," he quietly and sinisterly huffed. "No one can hear... hear you."

The violent eruption calming into a demented and perverse rapport, the defeated and terrorized captive was turned around and pressed up against the wall, his shoulder blades scraping against it, his arms completely immobilized behind him now, and a cruel palm pressed firmly against his lower chest, pinning him to this wall. Face to face, the captor's eyes fell towards the captive's neck. Regaining composure, "and even if they could hear you, they wouldn't care. What do you think goes on in places like this anyway? Family vacations? Heh! The guy in the office hears people like you screaming for help and mercy and whatever else every night. It's part of the arrangement. Besides, he probably likes it."

His soiled hands sinking into the collar of his white, cotton shirt, captor ripped it open, three of the plastic buttons hitting him in the face as they popped off. He then mercilessly pulled it down off of his captive's shoulders, exposing them as his captive threw his head back in agonizing fear.

"NO! Nooo... please don't," he desperately urged, having his tender flesh exposed and, thus, realizing his fate at the hands of his captor would, in fact, entail his bared flesh.

His shirt now pulled off of his shoulders, his captor slid his left hand sinisterly over his now-bared and sweat-drenched, right shoulder. "Mmmm... nice... so soft... You hate me touching you, don't you?"

The lack of response only angered him. He suddenly clutched his captive's throat firmly and quickly produced a dagger from his suitcase. Placing the dagger firmly against the side of the captive's throat, he situated their faces together and, again, snarled, "you despise my touch, don't you, DON'T YOU!?"

"Yes... YES... Please... please," he moaned with a guttural tone he'd never heard come from his body before, as he shook his shoulders so as to frantically free them from his captor's clutches.

The captor only held him with more ferocity as he struggled, until the captive finally calmed. He then released his grip from his throat, allowed his hand to slide over his right shoulder and onto his sweating back - with a sinister molestation all the way, raping his newly-bared flesh - then grip the back of his neck firmly, the entire time keeping their faces no more than an inch apart... as well as keeping the blade to his neck. Using his grip on the neck he led his captive to the base of the bed and forced him to his knees.

"You stay there, boy... I got business to attend to." The captor began to arduously untie the knot he'd made around the captive with the phone cord then re-connect it, but now with the captive's wrist tied in frong of him He trembled as he watched the chafed and grease-covered fingers skillfully and violently bind his wrists... never trying to resist.

As the captive listened to him dialing a number, he stared at the haunting movements the "snow" that the television made on the otherwise dark wall - the only light within this room - wondering what would become of him. Why this strange and sinister man had stalked him. What he was going to do him. "Why me... why me..." was the mantra that he could not clear from his mind as his frail body trembled uncontrolably and his heart raced.

More Shall Come.