[ 6.  If These Walls Could Talk ]

I woke up with a twang of nausea at the tip of my tongue.

My head lolled from one side to the other, feeling a bit out of my control, and the ground beneath my feet rumbled. I tried to open my eyes, but all I could see was an extensive blackness. I lifted my arm to rub at my eyes, but it stopped short. My wrists were bound together behind my back.

Then I started to panic. I regained my senses one by one, starting with touch as I realized I was, in fact, tied to a chair. The ground below me could only be vibrating like that because I was in a moving vehicle? I couldn't see because... because there was something tied around my head to block my vision.

"Hello?" I tried to call out, but my voice was shaky.

I could hear the radio playing soft rock. Air Supply, maybe? There weren't any other indications of what present company I was in, but I already knew who was driving this car.

I tried again. "Hayes, is that you?"

For a second, it felt like the air around me stilled. If I could see, I'd know if he even heard me. He had to have. The music wasn't that loud and it felt like my voice echoed around me as if I were the only thing in a three foot radius.

"What do you want from me?" I cried, tugging at the zip-ties around my wrists to no avail. "I don't have any money, if that's what you're after."

Finally, he spoke. "That's hard to believe."

I froze, not having expected him to actually respond. It made the situation all too real. My heart felt like it was about to burst in my chest. Without the ability to see, I wasn't able to make any plans to get out of this. Was I in his Camaro? No, I couldn't hear the purr of a V-6 engine. If anything, the vehicle I was in sounded one rev away from breaking down on the side of the road.

"Hayes, listen. We can work something out. Give me a number and I can put together a certain amount by next week—"

He laughed, sending goosebumps fluttering down my skin from my arms to legs. "I don't want your money." I bit down on my lip and stared into the black cloth covering my eyes.

"Then... what do you want?"

Hayes didn't respond. That was the end of the short conversation between us. And I got nothing from it. He had to know about the heisting if his remark about me not having any money meant anything.

How long was I even passed out for? I left Mr. Ciraulo's house around noon, I thought. Hayes was in my bedroom when I'd fallen through the window. He kneed me in the balls and then smothered my face with a rag. Holy shit, was I chloroformed? The past week felt like a bad movie.

"Keep your mouth shut or I'll break your arm."

I believed him.

The vehicle slowed to a stop and I braced myself, flexing my wrists against the zip-ties in a useless attempt to break them one last time. I could hear him opening the driver's door. It squealed when it was pushed. It didn't sound like he got out, though. Instead, the vehicle rocked from side to side with his movement.

I felt him before I even knew he was near me. Rough, leather gloved fingers grazed my exposed skin where my T-shirt rode up as he unbuckled the seatbelt across my chest.

Then he removed my blindfold. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the new lighting. Hayes was crouched in front of me, wide eyes staring at me. "You're going to walk inside with me. If you try to run, I'll find you again. Just make this easy for both of us, Vincent," he said, his voice earnest, but threatening. "Do you understand?"

All I could do was nod.

He dug into his pocket and pulled out a knife. My blood pressure spiked and I felt my heart dive beyond my chest. But then he only reached behind me to cut the zip-ties.

It was still daylight. The sun was pouring in through the only two windows of the van—I'd figured out it was a van. It had to be. I was seated in a foldable seat attached to the wall, so when I got up, crouched in the confines of the cramped van, the seat popped back into a folded position. Hayes went back to the front to exit through the front door. I assumed he wanted me to follow.

As soon as my feet hit the pavement, he had a death grip on my arm. I squinted as I checked out my surroundings. I was in a decent neighborhood with big front lawns and painted shutters and...

I forgot it was Halloween.

Two cheap, gauzy ghosts hung from the lamps on either side of the front door, reminding me that today was my favorite holiday. Go figure I was in a bit of a bind. I hoped Guillermo remembered to put out the candy bowl I'd prepared. I hoped Guillermo was alive.

Hayes didn't loosen his grip on my bicep when he pulled out his keys and unlocked the front door. I was yanked inside and heaved to the ground, landing on my side.

"Did you kill my roommate?"

He locked the door back and turned to me, quirking an eyebrow. "Guess," he said blankly. I stared up at him, feeling horrified. Hayes looked thoroughly done with me at this point. I wondered why, if he was going to kill me, he didn't just do it in that van. Certainly it would be easier to clean the crime scene than tossing me all around his house. 

I didn't move from my spot, but looked around. The house was nothing like one my subconscious would imagine in my nightmares. It looked like something out of a home decorating magazine. Was this his home? Behind me was a lavish living room with a spotless cream couch and fake flowers on the coffee table. To my immediate right was a kitchen, it looked like. 

Hayes tightened his hand around something, but it was smaller than his fist so I couldn't see it. "Get up."

I scrambled to my feet. He looked up and then down my body once. Then he locked his hand around my arm again and pulled me deeper into the house. We walked past the IKEA display of a living room into an attached dining room. Instead of how I'd expect it to look compared to the rest of the house, the table and chairs were all pushed to the wall except for one. There was a huge tarp laid out on the ground underneath the singular chair. I was going to vomit.

My fight or flight was a bit delayed, but I decided to try to flee. I couldn't feel my legs, but I knew I was running.

I didn't make it far. Hayes was right behind me. I had made it to the front door, but he pinned me against it with my cheek slammed against the cool wood. His body was flush against the back of mine and I could feel the warmth from his chest.

"Nuh-uh, little thief," he tutted, one hand flat against the back of my head, holding it in place against the door. "The running has gotten old, I'm afraid. Still, it's interesting how you want to live so badly, but wouldn't call the police when you escaped. Why is that, Vincent?"

I gritted my teeth. "You know why."

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled it back so that his mouth lingered an inch away from my earlobe. "Normally, I love the chase. You're much faster than the others," he said, a chill driving down my spine. "But not fast enough."

I was dragged, again, to the dining room. This time he held on until I was seated on the chair. I glared at him for all these theatrics. If he wanted to kill me so badly, why hadn't he just gotten it over with already? A quick blow to the head with a blunt forced object, a fatal gunshot wound, poison. Why did he have to play with his food?

"Why do you want to kill me?"

"Oh, I don't want to kill you."

My voice got caught in my throat as he clasped a pair of metal handcuffs around my wrists. I wasn't sure what happened to Mr. Ciraulo's jacket that I was wearing. Now I was just in my t-shirt. Hayes then zip-tied my ankles to the legs of the chair. I couldn't get up if I wanted to.

I tried to set him on fire with my eyes. "What's your fascination with zip-ties? Are you a sadist in bed?" I asked, trying to distract him.

Hayes' lips turned up for just a second. "What if I said yes?" he asked. "Would it turn you on? At a time like this?"

Instantly, my cheeks heated. How much did this man know about me to know my sexual preference? How long had he been following me? I breathed hard through my nose while I tugged at the handcuffs. Hayes stepped back and admired his work for just a moment before he turned to a table in the corner of the room.

"And what if it did turn me on, huh?" I challenged, not meaning a word of it, but trying to get a feel for how easily Hayes could be manipulated. "You said you don't want money. I could pay you in other ways in exchange for letting me go, you know."

He turned towards me with one black leather glove off and his bare hand inching the second one off. "As if I'd fuck you. Good try, though," Hayes said following a scoff.

I eyed him closely. He was not an unattractive guy, other than the kidnapping-murderer trait. The facial hair on his face gave him the rugged look that matched his hobby, but in the dim lighting, his dark eyes seemed almost warmer.

"You got a wife? Kids?" I asked. The victims in the movies always try to appeal to their killer's humanity. Hayes ignored my question and stepped closer to me. "Did your wife decorate the living room?"

He looked mildly unimpressed. "No wife."

I didn't like how he was looking at me. Like I was a test subject. A lab rat. I didn't want to know what kinds of sick and demented scenarios were running through his mind.

"Ah, a lonely bachelor," I said, feeling smaller under his gaze. "Playing the field. Trying to find the right girl, huh?"

Hayes pursed his lips. He was still standing a few feet from me, but hadn't moved to do anything else after taking off his gloves. "So you assume I'm straight just because I said I wouldn't fuck you?" he inquired accusingly. I clamped my mouth shut, caught completely off guard by that clapback. He glanced at my bound ankles again before walking out of the room.

I sat there, shunned to silence. Where was he going? To get a special murder weapon? Maybe he was one of those freaks that had a fascination with Japanese Samurai memorabilia and had an extensive katana collection. Or he was a gun nut, like Mr. Ciraulo. Either way, I just sat still and tried to get a better feel for where I was.

All of the windows within eyeshot were shuttered or had thick curtains. I could see the sunlight pouring in from the front door around the corner and in another room adjacent to the living room, but not the source. Wherever Hayes went, I could hear him shuffling a bunch of things around noisily. I couldn't see most of what was on the table in the corner, but I did see a metallic glimmer of the living room light against something shiny.

A knife.

I was too incapacitated to do anything about it at the moment, but I noted it in the back of my mind. It could be useful at some point.

Hayes reentered the dining room. His shoes crinkled the plastic underneath us. In his hand was a TV dinner and a soda. He walked behind me and sat at the discarded table.

"Where are we?" I asked the wall since I couldn't see him.

He didn't reply right away. I gnawed at the skin inside of my lip, the silence more threatening than his words. If I couldn't hear his fork scraping the plastic tray, I would think he might have been sneaking up behind me.

Finally, he said, "Albany."

I could feel my heart drop. We were hours away from home. Even if I were to escape this house, how the hell would I get home? I had no idea where I was. The panic was emotionally edging, sending me through something of an attack before I would rationalize, take a deep breath, and try to keep thinking.

When Hayes finished eating, he started to pass me, but stopped upon second thought. "I decided not to kill you tonight. Trick-or-treaters will be coming around in about an hour," he said, making my blood run cold.

I stared at him in awe. So he was going to kill me. At least now I had a time limit.