tickledorange
2nd Level Orange Feather
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Tickling on Pastik Lake m/f
OK, I finally wrote another story. Please, read this and tell me what you think. I kinda fudged parts of it, I know, so I'm not as worried about that. (P.S. it's about 9,000 words, so take your time!)
Inside the small café on the corner of the street, the two men sat across from one another at a booth. Nothing seemed suspicious about either one of them, not even the tones of their voices. People who walked by them, though, caught a small piece of their conversation. Alex Bandy met a very quiet looking stranger who had been a friend of one of his friends for many years. Alex’s friend, Greg, had recommended this black haired, blue-eyed man to his closest friend after Greg had told Alex his story a while back. The two had a nice conversation about the weather and other things before finally getting down to business. “So this is her?” said Alex, staring at the photograph of a young woman in his hand.
Kyle tapped his coffee cup nervously. “Yeah, so you think you can do it?”
“Anything for a friend of Greg’s,” Alex replied. “So why this one, she seems so innocent.”
“Oh geez, Alex, you wouldn’t understand. The nights I stay awake thinking about her. I see her every day and everywhere I go: at the grocery store, walking her dog every evening, she’s everywhere.” He took a short pause. “She has to be the most beautiful woman I ever met!”
“And that’s why you want me to get rid of her?” he asked quizzically.
“Exactly! So you think you can do this for me?”
“I’ll try,” he said, touching the photograph and then putting it in his pocket.
“Thank you, thank you so much!”
Kyle shook Alex’s hand heartily as both of them stood up to go pay the bill. Afterwards, each man walked separate ways out of the restaurant, going to separate vehicles. Alex opened the keyhole to his van, sat in the driver’s seat, and put the photo of Stacy on his front console before driving out of the lot. He watched as Kyle left in the opposite direction. “Crazy old fool,” he thought to himself.
Stacy, in the mean time, was still at work. She had been there late tonight at the gym she worked at, manning the front desk while everyone else had already gone home but the janitor. She finished filing away all the extra clipboards before locking up the front door and making her way to the parking lot. The outside of the building near the parking lot was very well lit, but still did not calm her fears that someone was watching her. Indeed she was right, but she was looking in the wrong place…..
Alex had already positioned himself in her apartment lot instead. Kyle had given him the address to the building, but forgot to give him the number of her place. Instead, he had found the spot reserved for her by slipping into the complex earlier that evening and finding her last name on one of the mailboxes in the building. Finding her apartment number to go with it, he hid in the bushes near her spaces and waited for her to pull into the adjacent space.
A few moments later, he saw the small Toyota pull into the space that he had predicted. Stacy stepped out of her car, locking the doors with the remote. Alex was only a few feet from her at this point, watching her every move from the tall bush. She turned around to make her way to go to her building when Alex crept up behind her. Not hearing anything that was going on, she continued her pace until she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. “Who’s there?” she mumbled, pulling out some mace.
Alex dove and hid quickly behind his van, waiting until she turned around again. He knew that this time, he was just going to have to go for it. He crept up again and then, at one instant, he lunged forward, knocking her to the ground. The mace and her keys fell out of her hand and onto the hard pavement. Stacy struggled and screamed, trying to push up so she could get him off her back. “Get off of me!” she yelled.
Alex immediately took a few pieces of cloth out of his pocket and used them both to gag her. Stacy was shaking her head and pulling away while he stuffed the makeshift muffler into her jaw and sealed the ends behind her head. Stacy screamed to the point that tears popped out of her eyes from the shrillness of her voice. He then lifted her up by both arms, leaving both of them behind her back. Stacy pulled viciously against his grip, not wanting to know what this sicko had in store for her. He smiled at her reactions as he walked her forcefully into the back of the panel van and led her inside. There he produced a set of handcuffs from the cardboard box in the van and placed one of the cuffs on her wrist. Stacy tried to swing back and hit him with her now freed hand, but he stealthily grabbed it and placed it into the other side of the cuffs. He then pointed to a large metal dog crate that was anchored down in the back of the van. She rolled her body around, trying to resist the pushing he was doing to get her in there. “Fine, be that way,” Alex laughed to himself.
He rolled her the rest of the way in and watched her as she squirmed beneath him. When he finally got her into it, he locked the small padlock that held it together and backed away from the cage. Stacy curled up in the corner, still cursing at him beneath her gag. Alex crawled up to the front seat and buckled his seatbelt. While starting the van, he could hear Stacy kicking the sides of the tiny crate. “I think we’re going to have fun together,” he said, smiling to himself as he drove away.
Kyle was sitting in his apartment when the phone rang. Reading the number on the caller ID, he joyfully picked it up when he saw it was Alex. “Hey buddy, how’s it going?” he answered.
“I just wanted to call to say that I went and picked up your cat tonight,” Kyle said as he pulled into his driveway and winked at Stacy.
“And you had no problems getting in?”
“Nope, and don’t worry, I think that the two of us will have a lot of fun together.”
Kyle hung up the phone and sat back in his easy chair, flipping on the small TV. It looked like he could surely sleep easier tonight.
Alex hung up the phone and turned off the van. He then got out and ran around to the back door, where he threw it open and stared at Stacy curled into a ball in the cage. “Let’s go,” he said climbing in the back.
He unlocked the cage padlock with a key from his ring, reached inside, and grabbed Stacy by the ankle. She tried to kick him with her free foot as he pulled her out of her cage by the other. “C’mon, you already tried this before. Don’t make it harder on you,” he said, finally yanking her from the van and standing her up.
He then dragged Stacy from the driveway into the back door of the small wooden cabin. Stacy marched as best as she could when he held her by her hair and handcuffs. Her protests could be heard silently, and he couldn’t wait as he tried to guess what she was saying beneath her gag. “No please, no!!!” he imagined her say as he dragged her through the door while poking her in the side.
He took her to a small room where he immediately set her on the floor, keeping his hand on her arms as he quickly locked the door behind him, trapping both of them in the room. “Now, lie down!” he ordered, pointing to the floor.
Stacy, still sobbing, felt his weight shift on his arm as he pushed her to the floor while she cautiously got on her stomach on the red carpeted floor. She looked around the room and saw nothing else in there except for her and a few hooks in the floor and walls. She tried to look behind her as he felt her tie her ankles together with rope, kicking as much as she could as she felt it being tied around both of her ankles. She rolled around on the floor at the site of the rope being tied to the bolt in the center of the room, but that didn’t help her either. Alex watched as he stood up and watched Stacy pull at her new bondage. He then took a new seat upon her back and grabbed onto one of her cuffed wrists. “Oh yeah, here we go,” he said, placing his fingers on her ribs.
He started slowly, poking and prodding at each of her ribs, watching her body squirm below him. He changed up with a few more pokes, and then switched to lightly tickling her ribs, barely touching the sides of her shirt. She kicked beneath him, g her pleas muffled as he listened to them. He tickled at each of her ribs, up and down, over and over, watching her shake her head beneath him. “Oh my, your ribs are ticklish!” he taunted, ruffling her hair.
After about ten minutes, he stopped tickling, but continued to sit on her. “I want to REALLY hear how ticklish you are!” he said excitedly.
Stacy buried her face into the carpet as she felt his fingers running through her hair and towards the gag. Alex unknotted the cloth from her mouth and felt as Stacy let a huge breath of air flow through her lungs. “Please, please, just let me go. Don’t tickle me anymore!” the girl screamed, tears flowing from her eyes.
He stared down at her hair, putting the tips of his fingers against her ribs. Stacy batted at his hands with her elbows, but then retreated when he began tickling her ribs again, this time faster than before. He trotted along her ribcage, making sure to touch every single rib he could find. When he found each one, he dug his finger into it and let his finger wiggle against the side of her rib for a few seconds, taking in her newly screaming laughter as he went. “How does this tickle?” he said, eventually slowing down.
“Why…why are you doing this to me?” she asked, becoming increasingly short of breath.
Alex then again dug furiously into her ribs, faster and harder than before. “You don’t ask that here, do you understand?”
Stacy shook he head ‘yes’ as quickly as she could, almost hitting her chin against the floor several times. She then pressed it against the floor and tried to arch her back, but remembered that he was sitting on her, still tickling deep into the sides of her ribs. “Noooo, make it stop!” he could hear her scream every once in a while, taking in the sounds of her laughter as he now tickled the very edge of her stomach.
Stacy never knew what was going to happen to her next. Even though it was torture and she was extremely ticklish, she hoped that nothing even more horrifying would happen to her. She kept having flashbacks of being tickled before, first by her brothers and then by her friends, but nothing that she could remember was as cold and sadistic as this. She could feel the tears coming from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks as she continued to laugh ferociously because of what was being done to her. “All right, break time,” he said, loosening his grip on her sides.
“Thank…you...” she said, breathing in the precious air.
“Hey, that wasn’t for you. I needed a break,” he replied coldly, stretching out and popping his fingers.
Stacy closed her eyes beneath him as she could feel the moistness of the cellar against her bare arms now. Was she really sweating that bad? It didn’t matter; his arms running up the back of her shirt gave her a new worry. “What was going to happen now?” she thought.
Alex felt the meat and bones of her ribs. “You have very nice skin,” he said, rubbing his hands against them.
Stacy cringed at the thought, but then turned her attention to the now wiggling fingers on the edge of her abdomen. Stacy rolled back and forth, holding in the laughter beneath her breath. He could see the top of her face, especially her closed eyes and pursed lips. “OPEN THEM!” he screamed at her.
Stacy shook her head no as he began to tickle her ribs faster than before. “I know how to make you,” he taunted.
He kneaded the skin around and under the ribs using his hands, glancing up every once in a while to take a look at her now red face. “Just let it go, you’ll feel better,” he coached, taking one of his hands and tickling her left armpit.
Her head jerked back as her eyes popped open and a huge burst of air and laughter popped free from deep inside her lungs. “I see that got you awake.”
“Stop it, stoooop,” she screamed in between laughing moments, “that tickles hahahahahaha.”
He fixed both of his hands now along the tops of her armpits, making his way into them as he saw her try to break the cuffs. One by one, he whittled down the number of fingers he was using to one in each underarm. Stacy wiggled her toes furiously as Alex tickled with one finger along all sides of the inside of her pits. Stacy’s laughter had turned silent beneath him, and he returned to tickling her sides just above her waist. Stacy flapped around beneath him, trying now to stay awake as she felt her energy drain from her body and her breathing depreciate. “Please…don’t…I…I can’t” he could hear her whisper from her head that was now turned on its side on the carpet.
After a few more minutes of tickling her waist, he stopped. “Well, you survived the first day,” he chuckled to himself, “but this isn’t over.”
Alex took a piece of the cloth and tied it around the back of her head, covering her eyes. He got off of her, unlocked the door to the room, and walked out, turning off the light behind him. “Good night,” he said, locking the cell door again.
Alex stood against the door for a second, wiping his face with his hand. Something inside of him had come out that he hadn’t seen in a while. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that he had liked it.
Stacy could hear the tune of a familiar song outside the walls, but could not place the name of it. She shifted her weight around to find a comfortable position as she closed her eyes from beneath her blindfold. “People are strange,” was the last thing she thought before finally falling asleep.
Andrea had been asleep on the couch, still waiting to see if her friend had come home, when she heard a knock on the door. “Edwardsville Police, the voice had said.
She sprang from the couch and jumped to the front door, opening it in a flash. “Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said, smiling at the officer. “Please come in.”
Officer Hill walked into the small five room apartment and sat down on one of the couches. Andrea had taken a seat in a nearby chair. “So, tell me all you can remember about last night.”
“I came home around midnight last night to find Stacy’s car in her spot outside the window,” she said pointing to the lot below.
“What happened then?”
“Well, I thought she was home, but when I came up here, no one was home.”
“The lights weren’t on? You checked al the rooms?”
“Yeah, I even asked the neighbors and called her cell phone. No answer there either.”
“And you know she had it with her?”
“I watched her put it in her purse earlier before she left,” she said, looking at the lamp. “She always has it with her.”
“Anyone suspicious you’ve seen lately around here?”
“Not really, no. Just the usual people.”
“Any one in the apartment that you’d suspect would either follow her or do anything suspicious toward her?”
“Well, there was one person, Kyle…something. I don’t know. He lives in apartment 10, but he has never hinted to doing anything like this.”
“What has he done?”
“Well,” she said, crossing her legs, “he has sent her flowers on Valentine’s Day and called her a few times here to tell her things like about how beautiful she is and how they should be together, but every time Stacy says that she doesn’t love him and that he should stop calling her.”
“And has he?”
“Yeah, he hasn’t called in the past few days, so I guess he finally got the hint.”
“Do you have a photo of her that I can give to my other officers and we can give to the local media?”
“Yeah, hold on, I’ll get you one.”
Andrea walked into her room and pulled out a picture from the side table drawer next to her bed. It was her and Stacy at a friend’s birthday party last weekend, so it was only a few days old. She handed to Officer Hill and he looked at it carefully before slipping it into his notebook. “Thanks for your time. Let us know if anything turns up and we will do the same for you.”
“Thanks, officer.”
He got up from the seat and walked towards the door. “Here’s my card in case you need it,” he said.
Andrea shut the door behind him as he walked out of the apartment and down the wooden stairs to his car below. She watched as he got in his car and drove away. She then took the card and stuck it to the fridge. She looked at the clock and realized then that it was time to go to work. Gotta get on with our lives, she thought, locking the door behind her.
Stacy woke up the next morning panicked and confused. She was screaming so loud that Alex could barely hear her in the basement. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back, but now she was strapped to the top of a table. Her legs were stretched out to meet into a set of stocks at the end of a table that had conveniently been pushed back far enough that her feet fit perfectly in them. Her toes were each tied back and her legs were anchored down with straps fastened to the table. She was neither blindfolded nor gagged, which confused her a little. She leaned forward in her bonds, trying to see if she could move her feet in any way. Something chewed at her deep inside her mind. Was he going to tickle her feet? She hated having her feet tickled, especially for long periods of time. One time her brother had tickled her so much, she thought she was going to die after a few minutes of foot tickling. Her fears increased when the wooden door unlocked and in walked Alex. He was holding a small metal tray and a reusable convenient store mug with a straw attached to it. “Good morning,” he said to her. “Time for your breakfast.”
Stacy looked up cautiously at him, then at the bowl and thermos. He again climbed on her, this time wrapping his legs around her. “I hope you like Frosted Flakes,” he said, filling a spoon full and then putting it up to her face.
Stacy squinted her eyes and pursed her lips together tightly. He held it closer to the edge of her mouth and looked at her with a hateful stare. ”I don’t want to have to punish you, do I?”
Stacy persisted more when fighting with him, which made all of his muscles tighten in his face and caused him to lose his temper. “Fine,” he said, chucking the bowl at the wall, breaking the bowl and spilling the cereal, “you’ll be sorry for this later!”
He stormed out of the room holding his head. Stacy shivered a little inside, but kept her exterior emotions strong. She didn’t want to excite him even more than he already seemed. Alex was already upstairs, gathering the necessary materials that he would need for tonight’s session. “This ought to show her who’ in charge,” he said, zipping up the small shaving bag.
The clomp-clomp of the stairs could be heard from the cell in the basement, which made Stacy all the more apprehensive. That was until she saw the door unlatch and Alex appeared to her on the other side, same face as before, but holding the bag this time. “I came back. I’m better now, but only because I’ve thought of a good punishment for you. Don’t worry, you’ll get it later, but for now, I’ll just settle with tickling your….poor…helpless…feet.”
Alex moved closer as Stacy kicked her feet at his face. He stared at them until he put his face so close that the tip of his nose was against the sole of her left foot. His hand reached toward her and he placed both of them against the size 8s. “Please, stay away from my feet!” she screamed, backing her head up.
Stacy then felt as his fingers wiggled against the center of the soles of her feet. She tried to kick back at him, but couldn’t move her toes at all toward him. Her feet kicked involuntarily as he dragged both of his fingers up her feet and felt both of them wiggling underneath him. “I have something for you,” he said, standing up.
Alex went to his bag and pulled out an electric toothbrush. “To take your mind off the foot tickling,” he said, turning it on.
He walked it over to her and placed it inside her bellybutton, letting the tips of it reach her navel and tickle her from the inside. She thrashed her arms around, trying to wiggle the device out of her bellybutton, begging for mercy at the same time from Alex. Alex ignored her pathetic screams and smiled at the painful reaction he got from her. He put his hand against the small of her back and leaned her forward just enough that the brush touched all sides of her now sensitive navel. He pulled the tape off his finger and taped it around the outside of the toothbrush, letting it sit in its spot on her ticklish skin. “OMG….get it out of thehehehehehere!” she screamed as she saw him move back to her trapped feet.
He pulled a fork out of his kit and dragged it on her cheek. “Can I use this?” he asked, moving it around on her neck.
Stacy shook her head at the pressure of the fork, still begging for him not to make it worse than it already was. Alex dragged it down her neck, over her arms, between her legs, and finally, down her foot. Stacy’s whole body twitched when he did that, so he proceeded to try it again on the other side, this time coming down her chest and tummy instead of her arms. This caused her already quivering tummy muscles to jump even more and made her giggle with ticklishness. He reached into the bag and grabbed the other fork out of it too. He placed both of them on her toes, which began to wiggle at the touch. He dragged each one simultaneously down each foot, watching her face pucker up with laughter even more than it already had. “Ok, this isn’t fun for me anymore,” he said, throwing one of the forks away.
He tickled the bottom of her foot with one of his hands now, the fork still tickling the other. He traced his finger also along the side of her foot, making her twitch it to the side that was being tickled. He laughed as she tried to pull free from her toe bonds. Stacy was already almost gone; especially since he had tickled her insane like this for almost a half an hour now. She saw him reach up with his fingers to tickle her toes, tickling each of them with the tip of his finger. Stacy attempted to wiggle them at him, but couldn’t quite do it. Even the small movements she was making were causing Alex to get more aggressive with her. He ran all of his fingers against all of her toes, raking at her soles and then sending his fingers back to her toes. Stacy tried to pull free of her hands instead, but had no success in that either. It only made her lean forward more than she already was. She could now see the things that were happening to her feet: how Alex was tracing along the tops with little squiggles and how he was sticking the tips of his fingers in her toes so she would try to push them together. He made little circles around her ankles and down around the balls of her feet that went through her toes and on the soles of her feet. Stacy shook her head in insanity as she could only now laugh and beg for him to stop the unforgiving torture. Noticing her lack of movement, he put his hands around her whole foot now. “Almost done,” he said, staring down at his hands.
He took his fingers and put each of them at different parts of her soles. He moved his fingers rapidly now, sending Stacy close to flying through the air. She could feel the vibrating laughter moving through her tummy and toward her now aching throat. Barely to the point where she was about to lose it, he immediately stopped tickling and took a second to look at her. She was a wreck now. Her brown hair was all over her face and her arms, legs and tummy were twitching. She looked to the surface of the table and let her hands hang free above her. “No…more…I promise….let me go.”
“I can’t do that. That’s what got you into trouble in the first place.”
“Please….you have to….I hate being tickled.”
“I can see that,” he said, pouring her a glass of water. “Now will you at least drink something?”
“Oh god…I need water….be….good now…sorry.”
“All right,” he replied, bringing the straw to her mouth, “drink up.”
Stacy gulped down a whole glass of water in just a few seconds, barely stopping to take a breath. “So….do you like the water?”
“Oh yes…..thank you…I…I’m sorry.”
“That’s ok.” He stroked her hair with one hand while holding the glass in the other. “I guess you just went a little overboard.”
He chuckled to himself before pulling the glass away from her mouth. Stacy laid her head against one of her arms as Alex got up to leave. As he walked up the stairs, Stacy listened until he was finally gone for her to close her eyes.
Upstairs, Alex was letting out his pet lab, Dog, while he let Stacy have a small rest in the basement. “Take your time,” he said to the large dog, waving at him, “I have a job for you to do when you get back.”
Stacy couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard she tried. The position she was in was too uncomfortable to even think about movement. The sitting hurt her back a little and her toes were starting to go numb. She kicked each of her legs to get the blood flowing, but could barely move them against the thick straps.
Alex opened the door to let the puppy back in, when he could hear her moving around in the basement. He ran down the steps and unlocked her cage, dog still hiding at the top of the stairs, waiting for Alex to return. “I see we’re having trouble,” he said, staring at her twitching legs.
He untied the bonds on her toes, letting them wiggle free. He then grabbed onto both of her arms, which Stacy let drop to her sides in weakness. He took the handcuffs out of his kit and fastened them on her wrists again. Stacy took a swing at Alex, but he caught her arms just in time. “See, I knew you would do that,” he said, holding her arm.
Alex attached the cuffs to the hook at the bottom of the table with a lock and chain from his bag. Stacy tried to pull up on the cuffs, yanking at the thick metal chain. Alex laughed at her efforts, poking at her tummy as Stacy fought with the new chain. After he knew she couldn’t get free, he trotted his way to the bottom of the stairs. “Come here, boy,” he said, patting his leg.
The dog ran down the stairs, his big paws clunking at each step. “And in order to make sure you take your nap, here’s Dog to help you out.”
“What do you mean, he gonna bite me or something?”
“No, but this will work just as well.”
Alex pulled a jar of honey and a paintbrush out and placed the jar on the table. Dog tried to knock it over with his nose. Alex chuckled, “See, he loves this stuff.”
He put some on the brush and painted the sole of the right foot with it. Stacy cursed and screamed as the brush went up and down both of her feet now, giving both soles a good coat of honey. He then took some on his finger and put it on her toes and on the sides of her feet, causing Stacy to jump at every move. She couldn’t curse anymore; the feeling of tickling had caused her to laugh again. Alex motioned for the large dog to come over as Dog made his way toward both of them, all the time staring at the honey on Stacy’s feet. “Now, you two have fun. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Alex watched for a few seconds as he walked out of the room, locking the door behind him and listened to Stacy scream as the dog sniffed at her feet. Dog had already made a space for himself at the bottom of the table, taking a small taste of the honey and then going full force at licking her feet clean. Stacy’s eyes felt they were going to bug out of her head. Her hair was already messed up from before, but now it was a matted mess that covered her entire face. It blocked her vision from seeing what was happening to her feet. She could feel their little tongues running up and down her soles, sometimes switching to lick the ends and tops of her toes. “Noooohohohohohohohohhohoho stahahahahahahahahap,” she screamed, kicking and moving her feet at the tickle attacks.
Alex stood over the air vent in the kitchen and listened to her laughter from upstairs. He paced around the kitchen, waiting for her laughter to finally stop, but he couldn’t hold his patience long enough. He made his way to the inside of her cell, where he found Stacy with her head on her arm, still laughing her face off. “Oh, let me help you with that,” he said, stepping behind her.
He put his hands under her shirt and held them in position for a second. Stacy opened her eyes and turned her head with some of the energy she had left. She could see Alex’s blue shirt from behind her, but couldn’t process the thought that he was the one tickling her ribs now. He ran his fingers up and down her bumpy ribcage, feeling the hoarseness of her laughter beneath his hands. It was a rush for him to have such control over a person again, to make them feel just like this and know that he was the one who made her like this. Alex could hear her laughter go silent beneath him, so he dug deeper into her ribs, reaching over to her underarms and tummy at times. Stacy’s eyes were about ready to pop out of her head when she chuckled the last second before passing out.
******************************
“Hello?”
“Is this the residence of Kyle Redali?”
“Yes it is, how can I help you?”
“Kyle, this is Officer Hill from the Edwardsville Police Department. I’d like to ask you a few questions about one of the people who lives in your building; Stacy Mullard.”
“Is she all right?” he asked nervously.
“Well, she HAS been missing since Thursday, and we wanted to ask you when the last that you saw her was?”
“It was that morning, Thursday. She was just about to leave for school. We had a short conversation about…something…I don’t remember. Then we both went our separate ways.”
“So you guys were friends?”
“Nope, more like acquaintances. I pretty much ruined the friend thing when I asked her out a while ago. She told me ‘no’, and we haven’t really talked to each other since.”
“I see, and where were you last Thursday night?”
“I was at a bar, Stagger Inn Again, with some friends. We just hung out and had a few beers till about 1 AM, and then we came home. Ask my friend, Brian Halel. He works there as a bouncer, so he walked over and talked to us for a while.”
“All right, that’s all we need right now. Thanks for your cooperation; we’ll be keeping in touch.”
As soon as Hill hung up the phone, he got in his police car and drove to the Stagger Inn. Finding a parking spot in the crowded downtown and making his way through the typical weekend crowd, he hung over the bar. “What can I get for you, tonight?” said a tall, blonde haired bartender.
“I was wondering if you could answer a couple questions for me,” Officer Hill said, flashing his badge.
“I’ll try my best,” Brian replied.
Both of them stepped into the kitchen area of the small tavern. Brian stood against the sink while Hill stood a few feet away, leaning on the wall behind him. “How long have you known Kyle Redali?” he asked.
“What happened? Is he OK?”
“Kyle’s fine, I just want to know.”
“About 5 years now, since high school.”
“Were you with him at all on Thursday night?”
“Yeah, he came to Stagger Inn with us. What’s this all about?”
“Just trying to put a few pieces together,” he said coolly, “Do you know Stacy Mullard?”
“Yeah, she’s some girl who lives in Kyle’s building. He used to talk about her a lot until all of a sudden he stopped.”
“And do you know why he did?”
“I have no clue. Something about….she moved away…or something. He didn’t quite say.”
“Has your friend ever told you anything about her, anything of suspicion?”
“Well, one time, he had al of these pictures of her. Not ones that he took with her, but some that looked like he was looking through her windows and stuff at night. That was a little creepy.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s all I can think of now. Other than that, he’s been as gentle as a teddy bear to everyone.”
“Well, thanks for your time. I’ll let you get back to work.”
“I’ll let you guys know if I hear anything.”
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“We interrupt your hit music channel with some breaking news. Local college student, Andrea Preston was abducted from her apartment last night just three days after her roommate disappeared. Police seem to have a few leads in the case, but chose to withhold the information due to the ongoing investigation. Edwardsville Police are encouraging all women in the area to be on alert and for everyone to take all necessary precautions. Don’t walk alone at night, and use the campus escort service if you feel uncomfortable walking alone at night. Be on the lookout for any suspicious activity in the area and report information to the police if you have any. And now back to your hit music.”
Andrea was frightened. She had been in here now for about an hour, and still could not figure out where she was. All she knew was that her hands were handcuffed behind her back to something in the floor. She couldn’t move any part of her feet, except for some of the cloth bands that were used to hold her toes. She felt like screaming, but her yelling was only stopped by a few soft cloths that were shoved in her mouth. She had managed to spit a few out, but still had trouble with the one that was tied behind her head. Alex had already heard her screaming through a hole he had drilled in the ceiling. No one else could see the 4” diameter hole; it was covered by a rug upstairs. He busted his way thru the locked gate to her cell, staring at his captive who was now screaming and cursing at him. “Well, someone is cranky,” he said, putting a bottle of water on the ground. “I thought you might have cotton mouth.”
Alex chuckled to himself as he ungagged the girl. Before Andrea had a chance to scream, he shoved the bottle into the blonde’s mouth and forced almost half the bottle down her throat. Andrea breathed heavily when he finally pulled it from her mouth and put the cap on, tossing it into the corner. “You’ll get the rest later.”
“Where the hell am I?” she asked, lunging at him while still cuffed.
“Oh my, you’re a feisty one!” he said, walking around her and putting his hands on her ribs. “Are you also ticklish?”
Suddenly, she remembered how she had got here. The man in the parking lot looking for directions….her walking with him….being shoved into a van……opening the door….trying to escape…..being knocked out. It all was coming back to her. “Please don’t kill me!” was the first thing that had come out of her mouth. “OK, here’s how it goes,” he said, wiggling his fingers just above her ribs. “If you’re good and take it like you’re supposed to, I’ll consider letting you go. Otherwise, there could be horrible consequences.”
“Like what? You don’t scare me!”
“Then open your eyes.”
Alex dug fiercely into her ribs, touching each one as he passed it with all of his fingers. Andrea could barely take it, but she wasn’t about to let this guy get the satisfaction he wanted. Alex leaned toward her, looking at her face and noticed her lips were pursed together, here cheeks puffed up, and her face was turning red. “Laugh!” he screamed, removing his hands for a second and going full force in the next instant.
Andrea’s flushed away all the pent up air inside of her when she had finally belted out the loudest, highest scream of laughter that Alex had ever heard. He never saw anyone so ticklish, and so defiant of him. He ran his fingers wildly around her ribs, moving them along her bare stomach in a few of his passes. Andrea shook her head at him, leaning down and almost hitting her head on the wall behind her. Alex moved to the front of her, sitting on both of her legs as she winced at the pressure of her ankles being pushed down in the stocks. It didn’t matter, he was still tickling her ribs the whole time, driving her out of her mind and forcing her to take in breaths whenever she had the split-second. Andrea felt like she was going to pass out beneath him. Her lungs hurt from her incessant laughing and her voice was becoming hoarse. She shook her head at him whenever he tickled her upper ribs and under her armpits, muttering out the occasional quiet “please” whenever she caught a moment of sanity. Suddenly, the tickling had stopped again. Andrea had no concept of how long she had been tickled; she couldn’t even process one decent thought. Her hair was now all over her face, her head was swimming with dizziness from the lack of breathing, and she could barely keep her head up. Alex’s only answer to this: he grabbed a cloth hood out of his pocket and put it over her entire head. Andrea was left alone in the dark, unable to speak, and just sat still as her muscles twitched from the tickling. “Maybe next time, you won’t try to escape,” he said, slamming the door behind him.
Stacy sat still in the next room. She could hear the sound of someone being tickled for the past two hours, but she was glad it wasn’t her this time. The past week had been pure torture for her: being tickled until her eyes were about to pop out of the back of her head, chained up in a damp basement, and having to deal with Alex was not her idea of a fun week. Now on top of that, she had to hear someone else endure some of the things that she had been through. Stacy had curled herself into a ball on the floor, her hands still cuffed in front of her, when she heard the door unlock. “Hello, Stacy,” he said, grabbing her by the arm. “I have something to show you.”
A belt was tied around her waist and the cuffs were tied to it. Stacy was too weak and tired to resist him: having the lights on constantly was driving her crazy and causing her not to sleep. She followed the directions of his hands as he ked her down the hall to a door that looked like another cell. As he unlocked it to shove her in, he pulled her back and then shoved her inside another lit room. There, she saw something that made her mouth drop open: her best friend and roommate Andrea was tied to the floor, but was unable to move at all. Stacy was at least given the freedom to pull herself to a mat against the wall. Stacy was led toward the other wall, away from Andrea, and was made to stand there. She winced when he forced her against the wall in the cell. Alex laid her on a table he had placed in the room. He put her feet in the small stocks at the end and tied her hands to a rolling bar at the other. Stacy cried as the bar turned, but Alex had stopped when he thought he had finally seen her muscles almost pop out of her arms. He poked her in the sides a few times, watching her squirm beneath him, before gagging her and leaving the room.
Andrea tried to get a look at her, but could only see the bottom of the table. She tried to call to her, “Stacy! Stacy! Are you OK?”
Stacy sat there. She couldn’t talk anyway, but didn’t want to risk Alex being able to hear them. After all, she could see the hole in the floor clearly from where she sat.
“Stacy, listen to me. We’re gonna get out of here, it’s gonna be OK, I know it. I’ve been down here for…I don’t know…and he’s been tickling me. I don’t think I can take much more.”
She listened to her friend talking below her. It was the first time in almost weeks before she had heard the voice of someone who didn’t want to hurt her. Although Andrea made sense, nothing in Stacy’s brain would believe anything she was saying. What if they never did make it out? What if this was how life went: staying here forever and being tickled like this? She couldn’t take it anymore, but there was nothing either of them could do. “Damn you!” Andrea screamed as she pounded both of her fists on the ground.
Alex had returned a while later, this time carrying another table in with him and placing it next to Stacy’s. He pulled Andrea quickly from the ground, uncuffing one of her wrists and then recuffing it in front of her. He unlocked the stocks, undid all of the toes, and led her up to the table where he tied her in the same fashion as Stacy. “Hello, ladies,” he said, sitting on a stool he placed at their feet. “I thought I’d try something.”
He began by tickling both of their feet at the same time, using one of his hands to tickle each of their feet. Andrea kicked back at him softly while Stacy just began by laughing. He looked toward her and tickled her feet harder, raking his fingers along the bottoms of her feet as Andrea screamed at Alex for torturing her friend. Alex retaliated by doing the same thing to Andrea, which caused her to shake her head at him and curse even more under her breath. Stacy looked to the wall, not wanting to see her friend being tortured, when he retaliated by doing the same thing to her. Stacy kicked with any strength she had left and laughed louder than she had laughed the first time he tickled her feet. Alex stopped and stood in front of both of their feet, putting his face down to each one as he scratched his fingers along the surface of them. Both girls twisted their heads and arms in ticklish retaliation, but couldn’t pull themselves free from him. Alex ran around to the back of them and put his hands on both their necks, tracing a trail along their ears and to their tummies. He put his finger in each of their bent over bellybuttons and tickled the inside of them with his cruel index finger. Andrea shrieked at the tickling, while Stacy had almost laughed her tongue out. They could see him tracing lines across both of their tummies, both of them cackling now from having him tickle from the inside of their bellybutton and all the way around their body. He squeezed at their bellies, which almost made Stacy fall off the edge of the table. Alex saw this, so he took his concentration off of Andrea for a second and started spider tickling Stacy’s tummy. Stacy bobbed her head up and down, letting her hair bounce into her face and almost hitting Alex. He didn’t care though. He continued his assault on her tummy and waist, letting his fingers roam free as he felt the vibrations of her shaky laughter beneath the tips. Andrea kept her eye on him as he watched her move over to her to do the same. “No….you can’t…..I hate this….stop torturing us!”
Alex pretended not to hear her as he did the same thing to Andrea, but this time at the bottom of her. He started by squeezing at her knees, watching her try to kick her stiff legs at him as he tickled the bends of her knees too. She twisted her legs around, but couldn’t manage a way out as he tickled all around her thighs. He made her struggle to kick and push at her legs, tickling at individual spots at a time before she could even think about trying to get him away from that spot. He tickled his way down her leg until finally making it to her feet. Andrea screamed in horror as she felt him at her feet again. He only tickled her soles for a little while, but it still agonized her and drove her to tears. In just a few minutes though, the tickling had stopped and Andrea was left to lie in her own sweat. Alex left the room immediately, leaving the two of them to rest and regain their energy for just a minute when he had returned with three electric toothbrushes in his hands. “I thought we might try something,” he said, putting them down.
He took a video camera and placed it on a single tripod a few feet away and in between the tables. Alex ran to the front, stared into the lens and said, “This is the last time you will see one of these people. Now, say hello to the camera, ladies.”
Andrea and Stacy just stared in fear at the camera, then looking back at Alex as he turned on all three brushes. He placed one in a holder that was near Stacy’s stocks. Stacy could already feel the tingly tickly sensations running up and down all the nerves in her feet. He then did the same for Andrea, watching both of their faces as they reacted to being tickled on the feet again. “Now let’s see how this does.”
He walked up to Stacy and put the brush against her bare tummy. Stacy squirmed beneath him, not knowing which tickling to concentrate on: her feet or her stomach. She pounded her fists and pulled against the chain that held her hands together. Andrea reacted the same way when the torture was done to her, but she almost broke the rope away from her hands when she lunged toward Alex. He laughed and then switched back to Stacy, putting the brush on her neck and tummy as he lifted it from different places and put it down randomly upon her ribs, neck, stomach, and bellybutton. Stacy could take no more. The days of being tickled and the constant attention to all her ticklish places had caused her to convulse, cough, and finally pass out from the sensory overload. Andrea screamed when she saw Stacy’s lifeless body, but Alex didn’t mind. He left them both tied there as he walked out of the room. “Now I have my answer,” he said, locking the door again.
Andrea stared at her lifeless friend. She had no idea what to do or any way at all to get out of here. All she could do was look at the ceiling in a daze and cry herself to sleep.
Kyle walked from the outside of his house to the inside and looked at the caller ID. It was the Edwardsville Police again. “Hello,” he said cautiously.
“Kyle, this is Officer Hill again. I just wanted to tell you that your alibi checks out and you are now cleared, so we don’t need you to come down and give a statement.”
“Well, thank you, and I hope you catch the person who did this.”
Kyle hung up the phone with a sigh of relief. Out of sight, out of mind, he thought, going back to making his dinner.
“Wonderful night isn’t it?” asked Alex.
Stacy didn’t care, though, nor could she answer. Alex had dragged her out of the house where he placed her, hands tied behind her back, on the long pontoon boat. Stacy screamed at him through her gag. She had no idea what any of this was about, but she knew it couldn’t be good. Alex had not let her out of the house for the weeks that she had been there, so why were they out here now? She looked over the edge of the boat, staring at the water below her. A few boats passed by them, but it was no use getting their attention; no one could see or hear either one of them.
Alex slammed the boat to a screeching halt. “Here we are,” he said, looking around him at the secluded spot of a cove in a dark part of the lake. “Time to finish the job.”
Stacy looked over the edge of the boat. This is it, she thought, this is how it ends. Alex picked her up and took her over to the opened door on the boat when all of a sudden, they both looked up. There stood two armed officers, both pointing their guns at Alex and Stacy. “Put your hands up, all of you!”
Alex immediately stopped what they were doing and turned around before anyone could say a word. He shoved Stacy to one end of the boat, letting her fall to the hard floor, while he jumped off the side of the boat. One of the officers on the boat jumped out and swam after him while the other went over to the other boat to help Stacy. He untied her hands as he asked, “Are you all right?”
“He….was…going …to…drown me!” she said, crying.
“It’s ok, you’re safe now.”
Within seconds, the police had apprehended Alex by the arm and put him on the lake patrol boat. “I’ll take this one,” said the officer, getting behind the wheel of the police boat.
“All right, then I’ll take this one to the station.” He turned to Stacy, “We’re gonna head to our marina where we will get a statement from you, get you cleaned up, and then we’ll go from there.”
“Thank you, you…you saved my life!”
The two of them headed back to the station, following the lake patrol boat and then watching as it pulled out of sight. This was the first time Stacy had realized that Alex was really gone.
Officer Hill had already gotten the call from the lake patrol. The description and picture from the camera phone was indeed the photo of the missing college student. He and another cop, Officer Franklin, had already taken upon themselves to search the home of the suspect. Upon searching the cabin, they found the driver’s licenses and belongings of several other women. He also found a scrapbook full of the articles that the local paper had put out about the case glued in with the pictures of all the young women they described. Officer Franklin had to turn his head a few times. It was nothing like he had seen before. The women were all tied up in some sort of fashion, their faces distorted in hysterical laughter.
It didn’t stop there. His police dog had been scratching at the basement door for a while now. The animal was scratching furiously at the basement door. “What is it?” he said, opening the wooden door.
He followed the dog around the basement, through the twists and tunnels, until he found a locked door at the end of the hallway. Franklin busted down the door to find Andrea still sitting curled up in the corner with her hands cuffed behind her. “It’s ok, I’m with the police,” he said, cutting her free of the cuffs.
“Thank you, thank you so much! You have no idea. He…” she said, hugging him tightly and crying.
“Don’t worry, ma’am, you can tell us all about it at the police station.”
In the end, both girls had identified Alex as their kidnapper. Because of the evidence found in his basement, Alex was also charged in the disappearance and death of four other women. The whole town was overjoyed, but they were also very disturbed. The shrine to Alex’s victims that he had built in his basement, the pictures of the basement where they were kept, and most of all, the smiling face of a man a few of them knew as their neighbor, had left a bad taste in the town that something like this could even happen to them. Andrea and Stacy could have cared less what the town thought, they were just relieved to see the headlines: “Pastik Lake Killer Gets Death Penalty.”
OK, I finally wrote another story. Please, read this and tell me what you think. I kinda fudged parts of it, I know, so I'm not as worried about that. (P.S. it's about 9,000 words, so take your time!)
Inside the small café on the corner of the street, the two men sat across from one another at a booth. Nothing seemed suspicious about either one of them, not even the tones of their voices. People who walked by them, though, caught a small piece of their conversation. Alex Bandy met a very quiet looking stranger who had been a friend of one of his friends for many years. Alex’s friend, Greg, had recommended this black haired, blue-eyed man to his closest friend after Greg had told Alex his story a while back. The two had a nice conversation about the weather and other things before finally getting down to business. “So this is her?” said Alex, staring at the photograph of a young woman in his hand.
Kyle tapped his coffee cup nervously. “Yeah, so you think you can do it?”
“Anything for a friend of Greg’s,” Alex replied. “So why this one, she seems so innocent.”
“Oh geez, Alex, you wouldn’t understand. The nights I stay awake thinking about her. I see her every day and everywhere I go: at the grocery store, walking her dog every evening, she’s everywhere.” He took a short pause. “She has to be the most beautiful woman I ever met!”
“And that’s why you want me to get rid of her?” he asked quizzically.
“Exactly! So you think you can do this for me?”
“I’ll try,” he said, touching the photograph and then putting it in his pocket.
“Thank you, thank you so much!”
Kyle shook Alex’s hand heartily as both of them stood up to go pay the bill. Afterwards, each man walked separate ways out of the restaurant, going to separate vehicles. Alex opened the keyhole to his van, sat in the driver’s seat, and put the photo of Stacy on his front console before driving out of the lot. He watched as Kyle left in the opposite direction. “Crazy old fool,” he thought to himself.
Stacy, in the mean time, was still at work. She had been there late tonight at the gym she worked at, manning the front desk while everyone else had already gone home but the janitor. She finished filing away all the extra clipboards before locking up the front door and making her way to the parking lot. The outside of the building near the parking lot was very well lit, but still did not calm her fears that someone was watching her. Indeed she was right, but she was looking in the wrong place…..
Alex had already positioned himself in her apartment lot instead. Kyle had given him the address to the building, but forgot to give him the number of her place. Instead, he had found the spot reserved for her by slipping into the complex earlier that evening and finding her last name on one of the mailboxes in the building. Finding her apartment number to go with it, he hid in the bushes near her spaces and waited for her to pull into the adjacent space.
A few moments later, he saw the small Toyota pull into the space that he had predicted. Stacy stepped out of her car, locking the doors with the remote. Alex was only a few feet from her at this point, watching her every move from the tall bush. She turned around to make her way to go to her building when Alex crept up behind her. Not hearing anything that was going on, she continued her pace until she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. “Who’s there?” she mumbled, pulling out some mace.
Alex dove and hid quickly behind his van, waiting until she turned around again. He knew that this time, he was just going to have to go for it. He crept up again and then, at one instant, he lunged forward, knocking her to the ground. The mace and her keys fell out of her hand and onto the hard pavement. Stacy struggled and screamed, trying to push up so she could get him off her back. “Get off of me!” she yelled.
Alex immediately took a few pieces of cloth out of his pocket and used them both to gag her. Stacy was shaking her head and pulling away while he stuffed the makeshift muffler into her jaw and sealed the ends behind her head. Stacy screamed to the point that tears popped out of her eyes from the shrillness of her voice. He then lifted her up by both arms, leaving both of them behind her back. Stacy pulled viciously against his grip, not wanting to know what this sicko had in store for her. He smiled at her reactions as he walked her forcefully into the back of the panel van and led her inside. There he produced a set of handcuffs from the cardboard box in the van and placed one of the cuffs on her wrist. Stacy tried to swing back and hit him with her now freed hand, but he stealthily grabbed it and placed it into the other side of the cuffs. He then pointed to a large metal dog crate that was anchored down in the back of the van. She rolled her body around, trying to resist the pushing he was doing to get her in there. “Fine, be that way,” Alex laughed to himself.
He rolled her the rest of the way in and watched her as she squirmed beneath him. When he finally got her into it, he locked the small padlock that held it together and backed away from the cage. Stacy curled up in the corner, still cursing at him beneath her gag. Alex crawled up to the front seat and buckled his seatbelt. While starting the van, he could hear Stacy kicking the sides of the tiny crate. “I think we’re going to have fun together,” he said, smiling to himself as he drove away.
Kyle was sitting in his apartment when the phone rang. Reading the number on the caller ID, he joyfully picked it up when he saw it was Alex. “Hey buddy, how’s it going?” he answered.
“I just wanted to call to say that I went and picked up your cat tonight,” Kyle said as he pulled into his driveway and winked at Stacy.
“And you had no problems getting in?”
“Nope, and don’t worry, I think that the two of us will have a lot of fun together.”
Kyle hung up the phone and sat back in his easy chair, flipping on the small TV. It looked like he could surely sleep easier tonight.
Alex hung up the phone and turned off the van. He then got out and ran around to the back door, where he threw it open and stared at Stacy curled into a ball in the cage. “Let’s go,” he said climbing in the back.
He unlocked the cage padlock with a key from his ring, reached inside, and grabbed Stacy by the ankle. She tried to kick him with her free foot as he pulled her out of her cage by the other. “C’mon, you already tried this before. Don’t make it harder on you,” he said, finally yanking her from the van and standing her up.
He then dragged Stacy from the driveway into the back door of the small wooden cabin. Stacy marched as best as she could when he held her by her hair and handcuffs. Her protests could be heard silently, and he couldn’t wait as he tried to guess what she was saying beneath her gag. “No please, no!!!” he imagined her say as he dragged her through the door while poking her in the side.
He took her to a small room where he immediately set her on the floor, keeping his hand on her arms as he quickly locked the door behind him, trapping both of them in the room. “Now, lie down!” he ordered, pointing to the floor.
Stacy, still sobbing, felt his weight shift on his arm as he pushed her to the floor while she cautiously got on her stomach on the red carpeted floor. She looked around the room and saw nothing else in there except for her and a few hooks in the floor and walls. She tried to look behind her as he felt her tie her ankles together with rope, kicking as much as she could as she felt it being tied around both of her ankles. She rolled around on the floor at the site of the rope being tied to the bolt in the center of the room, but that didn’t help her either. Alex watched as he stood up and watched Stacy pull at her new bondage. He then took a new seat upon her back and grabbed onto one of her cuffed wrists. “Oh yeah, here we go,” he said, placing his fingers on her ribs.
He started slowly, poking and prodding at each of her ribs, watching her body squirm below him. He changed up with a few more pokes, and then switched to lightly tickling her ribs, barely touching the sides of her shirt. She kicked beneath him, g her pleas muffled as he listened to them. He tickled at each of her ribs, up and down, over and over, watching her shake her head beneath him. “Oh my, your ribs are ticklish!” he taunted, ruffling her hair.
After about ten minutes, he stopped tickling, but continued to sit on her. “I want to REALLY hear how ticklish you are!” he said excitedly.
Stacy buried her face into the carpet as she felt his fingers running through her hair and towards the gag. Alex unknotted the cloth from her mouth and felt as Stacy let a huge breath of air flow through her lungs. “Please, please, just let me go. Don’t tickle me anymore!” the girl screamed, tears flowing from her eyes.
He stared down at her hair, putting the tips of his fingers against her ribs. Stacy batted at his hands with her elbows, but then retreated when he began tickling her ribs again, this time faster than before. He trotted along her ribcage, making sure to touch every single rib he could find. When he found each one, he dug his finger into it and let his finger wiggle against the side of her rib for a few seconds, taking in her newly screaming laughter as he went. “How does this tickle?” he said, eventually slowing down.
“Why…why are you doing this to me?” she asked, becoming increasingly short of breath.
Alex then again dug furiously into her ribs, faster and harder than before. “You don’t ask that here, do you understand?”
Stacy shook he head ‘yes’ as quickly as she could, almost hitting her chin against the floor several times. She then pressed it against the floor and tried to arch her back, but remembered that he was sitting on her, still tickling deep into the sides of her ribs. “Noooo, make it stop!” he could hear her scream every once in a while, taking in the sounds of her laughter as he now tickled the very edge of her stomach.
Stacy never knew what was going to happen to her next. Even though it was torture and she was extremely ticklish, she hoped that nothing even more horrifying would happen to her. She kept having flashbacks of being tickled before, first by her brothers and then by her friends, but nothing that she could remember was as cold and sadistic as this. She could feel the tears coming from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks as she continued to laugh ferociously because of what was being done to her. “All right, break time,” he said, loosening his grip on her sides.
“Thank…you...” she said, breathing in the precious air.
“Hey, that wasn’t for you. I needed a break,” he replied coldly, stretching out and popping his fingers.
Stacy closed her eyes beneath him as she could feel the moistness of the cellar against her bare arms now. Was she really sweating that bad? It didn’t matter; his arms running up the back of her shirt gave her a new worry. “What was going to happen now?” she thought.
Alex felt the meat and bones of her ribs. “You have very nice skin,” he said, rubbing his hands against them.
Stacy cringed at the thought, but then turned her attention to the now wiggling fingers on the edge of her abdomen. Stacy rolled back and forth, holding in the laughter beneath her breath. He could see the top of her face, especially her closed eyes and pursed lips. “OPEN THEM!” he screamed at her.
Stacy shook her head no as he began to tickle her ribs faster than before. “I know how to make you,” he taunted.
He kneaded the skin around and under the ribs using his hands, glancing up every once in a while to take a look at her now red face. “Just let it go, you’ll feel better,” he coached, taking one of his hands and tickling her left armpit.
Her head jerked back as her eyes popped open and a huge burst of air and laughter popped free from deep inside her lungs. “I see that got you awake.”
“Stop it, stoooop,” she screamed in between laughing moments, “that tickles hahahahahaha.”
He fixed both of his hands now along the tops of her armpits, making his way into them as he saw her try to break the cuffs. One by one, he whittled down the number of fingers he was using to one in each underarm. Stacy wiggled her toes furiously as Alex tickled with one finger along all sides of the inside of her pits. Stacy’s laughter had turned silent beneath him, and he returned to tickling her sides just above her waist. Stacy flapped around beneath him, trying now to stay awake as she felt her energy drain from her body and her breathing depreciate. “Please…don’t…I…I can’t” he could hear her whisper from her head that was now turned on its side on the carpet.
After a few more minutes of tickling her waist, he stopped. “Well, you survived the first day,” he chuckled to himself, “but this isn’t over.”
Alex took a piece of the cloth and tied it around the back of her head, covering her eyes. He got off of her, unlocked the door to the room, and walked out, turning off the light behind him. “Good night,” he said, locking the cell door again.
Alex stood against the door for a second, wiping his face with his hand. Something inside of him had come out that he hadn’t seen in a while. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew that he had liked it.
Stacy could hear the tune of a familiar song outside the walls, but could not place the name of it. She shifted her weight around to find a comfortable position as she closed her eyes from beneath her blindfold. “People are strange,” was the last thing she thought before finally falling asleep.
Andrea had been asleep on the couch, still waiting to see if her friend had come home, when she heard a knock on the door. “Edwardsville Police, the voice had said.
She sprang from the couch and jumped to the front door, opening it in a flash. “Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said, smiling at the officer. “Please come in.”
Officer Hill walked into the small five room apartment and sat down on one of the couches. Andrea had taken a seat in a nearby chair. “So, tell me all you can remember about last night.”
“I came home around midnight last night to find Stacy’s car in her spot outside the window,” she said pointing to the lot below.
“What happened then?”
“Well, I thought she was home, but when I came up here, no one was home.”
“The lights weren’t on? You checked al the rooms?”
“Yeah, I even asked the neighbors and called her cell phone. No answer there either.”
“And you know she had it with her?”
“I watched her put it in her purse earlier before she left,” she said, looking at the lamp. “She always has it with her.”
“Anyone suspicious you’ve seen lately around here?”
“Not really, no. Just the usual people.”
“Any one in the apartment that you’d suspect would either follow her or do anything suspicious toward her?”
“Well, there was one person, Kyle…something. I don’t know. He lives in apartment 10, but he has never hinted to doing anything like this.”
“What has he done?”
“Well,” she said, crossing her legs, “he has sent her flowers on Valentine’s Day and called her a few times here to tell her things like about how beautiful she is and how they should be together, but every time Stacy says that she doesn’t love him and that he should stop calling her.”
“And has he?”
“Yeah, he hasn’t called in the past few days, so I guess he finally got the hint.”
“Do you have a photo of her that I can give to my other officers and we can give to the local media?”
“Yeah, hold on, I’ll get you one.”
Andrea walked into her room and pulled out a picture from the side table drawer next to her bed. It was her and Stacy at a friend’s birthday party last weekend, so it was only a few days old. She handed to Officer Hill and he looked at it carefully before slipping it into his notebook. “Thanks for your time. Let us know if anything turns up and we will do the same for you.”
“Thanks, officer.”
He got up from the seat and walked towards the door. “Here’s my card in case you need it,” he said.
Andrea shut the door behind him as he walked out of the apartment and down the wooden stairs to his car below. She watched as he got in his car and drove away. She then took the card and stuck it to the fridge. She looked at the clock and realized then that it was time to go to work. Gotta get on with our lives, she thought, locking the door behind her.
Stacy woke up the next morning panicked and confused. She was screaming so loud that Alex could barely hear her in the basement. Her hands were still cuffed behind her back, but now she was strapped to the top of a table. Her legs were stretched out to meet into a set of stocks at the end of a table that had conveniently been pushed back far enough that her feet fit perfectly in them. Her toes were each tied back and her legs were anchored down with straps fastened to the table. She was neither blindfolded nor gagged, which confused her a little. She leaned forward in her bonds, trying to see if she could move her feet in any way. Something chewed at her deep inside her mind. Was he going to tickle her feet? She hated having her feet tickled, especially for long periods of time. One time her brother had tickled her so much, she thought she was going to die after a few minutes of foot tickling. Her fears increased when the wooden door unlocked and in walked Alex. He was holding a small metal tray and a reusable convenient store mug with a straw attached to it. “Good morning,” he said to her. “Time for your breakfast.”
Stacy looked up cautiously at him, then at the bowl and thermos. He again climbed on her, this time wrapping his legs around her. “I hope you like Frosted Flakes,” he said, filling a spoon full and then putting it up to her face.
Stacy squinted her eyes and pursed her lips together tightly. He held it closer to the edge of her mouth and looked at her with a hateful stare. ”I don’t want to have to punish you, do I?”
Stacy persisted more when fighting with him, which made all of his muscles tighten in his face and caused him to lose his temper. “Fine,” he said, chucking the bowl at the wall, breaking the bowl and spilling the cereal, “you’ll be sorry for this later!”
He stormed out of the room holding his head. Stacy shivered a little inside, but kept her exterior emotions strong. She didn’t want to excite him even more than he already seemed. Alex was already upstairs, gathering the necessary materials that he would need for tonight’s session. “This ought to show her who’ in charge,” he said, zipping up the small shaving bag.
The clomp-clomp of the stairs could be heard from the cell in the basement, which made Stacy all the more apprehensive. That was until she saw the door unlatch and Alex appeared to her on the other side, same face as before, but holding the bag this time. “I came back. I’m better now, but only because I’ve thought of a good punishment for you. Don’t worry, you’ll get it later, but for now, I’ll just settle with tickling your….poor…helpless…feet.”
Alex moved closer as Stacy kicked her feet at his face. He stared at them until he put his face so close that the tip of his nose was against the sole of her left foot. His hand reached toward her and he placed both of them against the size 8s. “Please, stay away from my feet!” she screamed, backing her head up.
Stacy then felt as his fingers wiggled against the center of the soles of her feet. She tried to kick back at him, but couldn’t move her toes at all toward him. Her feet kicked involuntarily as he dragged both of his fingers up her feet and felt both of them wiggling underneath him. “I have something for you,” he said, standing up.
Alex went to his bag and pulled out an electric toothbrush. “To take your mind off the foot tickling,” he said, turning it on.
He walked it over to her and placed it inside her bellybutton, letting the tips of it reach her navel and tickle her from the inside. She thrashed her arms around, trying to wiggle the device out of her bellybutton, begging for mercy at the same time from Alex. Alex ignored her pathetic screams and smiled at the painful reaction he got from her. He put his hand against the small of her back and leaned her forward just enough that the brush touched all sides of her now sensitive navel. He pulled the tape off his finger and taped it around the outside of the toothbrush, letting it sit in its spot on her ticklish skin. “OMG….get it out of thehehehehehere!” she screamed as she saw him move back to her trapped feet.
He pulled a fork out of his kit and dragged it on her cheek. “Can I use this?” he asked, moving it around on her neck.
Stacy shook her head at the pressure of the fork, still begging for him not to make it worse than it already was. Alex dragged it down her neck, over her arms, between her legs, and finally, down her foot. Stacy’s whole body twitched when he did that, so he proceeded to try it again on the other side, this time coming down her chest and tummy instead of her arms. This caused her already quivering tummy muscles to jump even more and made her giggle with ticklishness. He reached into the bag and grabbed the other fork out of it too. He placed both of them on her toes, which began to wiggle at the touch. He dragged each one simultaneously down each foot, watching her face pucker up with laughter even more than it already had. “Ok, this isn’t fun for me anymore,” he said, throwing one of the forks away.
He tickled the bottom of her foot with one of his hands now, the fork still tickling the other. He traced his finger also along the side of her foot, making her twitch it to the side that was being tickled. He laughed as she tried to pull free from her toe bonds. Stacy was already almost gone; especially since he had tickled her insane like this for almost a half an hour now. She saw him reach up with his fingers to tickle her toes, tickling each of them with the tip of his finger. Stacy attempted to wiggle them at him, but couldn’t quite do it. Even the small movements she was making were causing Alex to get more aggressive with her. He ran all of his fingers against all of her toes, raking at her soles and then sending his fingers back to her toes. Stacy tried to pull free of her hands instead, but had no success in that either. It only made her lean forward more than she already was. She could now see the things that were happening to her feet: how Alex was tracing along the tops with little squiggles and how he was sticking the tips of his fingers in her toes so she would try to push them together. He made little circles around her ankles and down around the balls of her feet that went through her toes and on the soles of her feet. Stacy shook her head in insanity as she could only now laugh and beg for him to stop the unforgiving torture. Noticing her lack of movement, he put his hands around her whole foot now. “Almost done,” he said, staring down at his hands.
He took his fingers and put each of them at different parts of her soles. He moved his fingers rapidly now, sending Stacy close to flying through the air. She could feel the vibrating laughter moving through her tummy and toward her now aching throat. Barely to the point where she was about to lose it, he immediately stopped tickling and took a second to look at her. She was a wreck now. Her brown hair was all over her face and her arms, legs and tummy were twitching. She looked to the surface of the table and let her hands hang free above her. “No…more…I promise….let me go.”
“I can’t do that. That’s what got you into trouble in the first place.”
“Please….you have to….I hate being tickled.”
“I can see that,” he said, pouring her a glass of water. “Now will you at least drink something?”
“Oh god…I need water….be….good now…sorry.”
“All right,” he replied, bringing the straw to her mouth, “drink up.”
Stacy gulped down a whole glass of water in just a few seconds, barely stopping to take a breath. “So….do you like the water?”
“Oh yes…..thank you…I…I’m sorry.”
“That’s ok.” He stroked her hair with one hand while holding the glass in the other. “I guess you just went a little overboard.”
He chuckled to himself before pulling the glass away from her mouth. Stacy laid her head against one of her arms as Alex got up to leave. As he walked up the stairs, Stacy listened until he was finally gone for her to close her eyes.
Upstairs, Alex was letting out his pet lab, Dog, while he let Stacy have a small rest in the basement. “Take your time,” he said to the large dog, waving at him, “I have a job for you to do when you get back.”
Stacy couldn’t sleep, no matter how hard she tried. The position she was in was too uncomfortable to even think about movement. The sitting hurt her back a little and her toes were starting to go numb. She kicked each of her legs to get the blood flowing, but could barely move them against the thick straps.
Alex opened the door to let the puppy back in, when he could hear her moving around in the basement. He ran down the steps and unlocked her cage, dog still hiding at the top of the stairs, waiting for Alex to return. “I see we’re having trouble,” he said, staring at her twitching legs.
He untied the bonds on her toes, letting them wiggle free. He then grabbed onto both of her arms, which Stacy let drop to her sides in weakness. He took the handcuffs out of his kit and fastened them on her wrists again. Stacy took a swing at Alex, but he caught her arms just in time. “See, I knew you would do that,” he said, holding her arm.
Alex attached the cuffs to the hook at the bottom of the table with a lock and chain from his bag. Stacy tried to pull up on the cuffs, yanking at the thick metal chain. Alex laughed at her efforts, poking at her tummy as Stacy fought with the new chain. After he knew she couldn’t get free, he trotted his way to the bottom of the stairs. “Come here, boy,” he said, patting his leg.
The dog ran down the stairs, his big paws clunking at each step. “And in order to make sure you take your nap, here’s Dog to help you out.”
“What do you mean, he gonna bite me or something?”
“No, but this will work just as well.”
Alex pulled a jar of honey and a paintbrush out and placed the jar on the table. Dog tried to knock it over with his nose. Alex chuckled, “See, he loves this stuff.”
He put some on the brush and painted the sole of the right foot with it. Stacy cursed and screamed as the brush went up and down both of her feet now, giving both soles a good coat of honey. He then took some on his finger and put it on her toes and on the sides of her feet, causing Stacy to jump at every move. She couldn’t curse anymore; the feeling of tickling had caused her to laugh again. Alex motioned for the large dog to come over as Dog made his way toward both of them, all the time staring at the honey on Stacy’s feet. “Now, you two have fun. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Alex watched for a few seconds as he walked out of the room, locking the door behind him and listened to Stacy scream as the dog sniffed at her feet. Dog had already made a space for himself at the bottom of the table, taking a small taste of the honey and then going full force at licking her feet clean. Stacy’s eyes felt they were going to bug out of her head. Her hair was already messed up from before, but now it was a matted mess that covered her entire face. It blocked her vision from seeing what was happening to her feet. She could feel their little tongues running up and down her soles, sometimes switching to lick the ends and tops of her toes. “Noooohohohohohohohohhohoho stahahahahahahahahap,” she screamed, kicking and moving her feet at the tickle attacks.
Alex stood over the air vent in the kitchen and listened to her laughter from upstairs. He paced around the kitchen, waiting for her laughter to finally stop, but he couldn’t hold his patience long enough. He made his way to the inside of her cell, where he found Stacy with her head on her arm, still laughing her face off. “Oh, let me help you with that,” he said, stepping behind her.
He put his hands under her shirt and held them in position for a second. Stacy opened her eyes and turned her head with some of the energy she had left. She could see Alex’s blue shirt from behind her, but couldn’t process the thought that he was the one tickling her ribs now. He ran his fingers up and down her bumpy ribcage, feeling the hoarseness of her laughter beneath his hands. It was a rush for him to have such control over a person again, to make them feel just like this and know that he was the one who made her like this. Alex could hear her laughter go silent beneath him, so he dug deeper into her ribs, reaching over to her underarms and tummy at times. Stacy’s eyes were about ready to pop out of her head when she chuckled the last second before passing out.
******************************
“Hello?”
“Is this the residence of Kyle Redali?”
“Yes it is, how can I help you?”
“Kyle, this is Officer Hill from the Edwardsville Police Department. I’d like to ask you a few questions about one of the people who lives in your building; Stacy Mullard.”
“Is she all right?” he asked nervously.
“Well, she HAS been missing since Thursday, and we wanted to ask you when the last that you saw her was?”
“It was that morning, Thursday. She was just about to leave for school. We had a short conversation about…something…I don’t remember. Then we both went our separate ways.”
“So you guys were friends?”
“Nope, more like acquaintances. I pretty much ruined the friend thing when I asked her out a while ago. She told me ‘no’, and we haven’t really talked to each other since.”
“I see, and where were you last Thursday night?”
“I was at a bar, Stagger Inn Again, with some friends. We just hung out and had a few beers till about 1 AM, and then we came home. Ask my friend, Brian Halel. He works there as a bouncer, so he walked over and talked to us for a while.”
“All right, that’s all we need right now. Thanks for your cooperation; we’ll be keeping in touch.”
As soon as Hill hung up the phone, he got in his police car and drove to the Stagger Inn. Finding a parking spot in the crowded downtown and making his way through the typical weekend crowd, he hung over the bar. “What can I get for you, tonight?” said a tall, blonde haired bartender.
“I was wondering if you could answer a couple questions for me,” Officer Hill said, flashing his badge.
“I’ll try my best,” Brian replied.
Both of them stepped into the kitchen area of the small tavern. Brian stood against the sink while Hill stood a few feet away, leaning on the wall behind him. “How long have you known Kyle Redali?” he asked.
“What happened? Is he OK?”
“Kyle’s fine, I just want to know.”
“About 5 years now, since high school.”
“Were you with him at all on Thursday night?”
“Yeah, he came to Stagger Inn with us. What’s this all about?”
“Just trying to put a few pieces together,” he said coolly, “Do you know Stacy Mullard?”
“Yeah, she’s some girl who lives in Kyle’s building. He used to talk about her a lot until all of a sudden he stopped.”
“And do you know why he did?”
“I have no clue. Something about….she moved away…or something. He didn’t quite say.”
“Has your friend ever told you anything about her, anything of suspicion?”
“Well, one time, he had al of these pictures of her. Not ones that he took with her, but some that looked like he was looking through her windows and stuff at night. That was a little creepy.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s all I can think of now. Other than that, he’s been as gentle as a teddy bear to everyone.”
“Well, thanks for your time. I’ll let you get back to work.”
“I’ll let you guys know if I hear anything.”
*******************************
“We interrupt your hit music channel with some breaking news. Local college student, Andrea Preston was abducted from her apartment last night just three days after her roommate disappeared. Police seem to have a few leads in the case, but chose to withhold the information due to the ongoing investigation. Edwardsville Police are encouraging all women in the area to be on alert and for everyone to take all necessary precautions. Don’t walk alone at night, and use the campus escort service if you feel uncomfortable walking alone at night. Be on the lookout for any suspicious activity in the area and report information to the police if you have any. And now back to your hit music.”
Andrea was frightened. She had been in here now for about an hour, and still could not figure out where she was. All she knew was that her hands were handcuffed behind her back to something in the floor. She couldn’t move any part of her feet, except for some of the cloth bands that were used to hold her toes. She felt like screaming, but her yelling was only stopped by a few soft cloths that were shoved in her mouth. She had managed to spit a few out, but still had trouble with the one that was tied behind her head. Alex had already heard her screaming through a hole he had drilled in the ceiling. No one else could see the 4” diameter hole; it was covered by a rug upstairs. He busted his way thru the locked gate to her cell, staring at his captive who was now screaming and cursing at him. “Well, someone is cranky,” he said, putting a bottle of water on the ground. “I thought you might have cotton mouth.”
Alex chuckled to himself as he ungagged the girl. Before Andrea had a chance to scream, he shoved the bottle into the blonde’s mouth and forced almost half the bottle down her throat. Andrea breathed heavily when he finally pulled it from her mouth and put the cap on, tossing it into the corner. “You’ll get the rest later.”
“Where the hell am I?” she asked, lunging at him while still cuffed.
“Oh my, you’re a feisty one!” he said, walking around her and putting his hands on her ribs. “Are you also ticklish?”
Suddenly, she remembered how she had got here. The man in the parking lot looking for directions….her walking with him….being shoved into a van……opening the door….trying to escape…..being knocked out. It all was coming back to her. “Please don’t kill me!” was the first thing that had come out of her mouth. “OK, here’s how it goes,” he said, wiggling his fingers just above her ribs. “If you’re good and take it like you’re supposed to, I’ll consider letting you go. Otherwise, there could be horrible consequences.”
“Like what? You don’t scare me!”
“Then open your eyes.”
Alex dug fiercely into her ribs, touching each one as he passed it with all of his fingers. Andrea could barely take it, but she wasn’t about to let this guy get the satisfaction he wanted. Alex leaned toward her, looking at her face and noticed her lips were pursed together, here cheeks puffed up, and her face was turning red. “Laugh!” he screamed, removing his hands for a second and going full force in the next instant.
Andrea’s flushed away all the pent up air inside of her when she had finally belted out the loudest, highest scream of laughter that Alex had ever heard. He never saw anyone so ticklish, and so defiant of him. He ran his fingers wildly around her ribs, moving them along her bare stomach in a few of his passes. Andrea shook her head at him, leaning down and almost hitting her head on the wall behind her. Alex moved to the front of her, sitting on both of her legs as she winced at the pressure of her ankles being pushed down in the stocks. It didn’t matter, he was still tickling her ribs the whole time, driving her out of her mind and forcing her to take in breaths whenever she had the split-second. Andrea felt like she was going to pass out beneath him. Her lungs hurt from her incessant laughing and her voice was becoming hoarse. She shook her head at him whenever he tickled her upper ribs and under her armpits, muttering out the occasional quiet “please” whenever she caught a moment of sanity. Suddenly, the tickling had stopped again. Andrea had no concept of how long she had been tickled; she couldn’t even process one decent thought. Her hair was now all over her face, her head was swimming with dizziness from the lack of breathing, and she could barely keep her head up. Alex’s only answer to this: he grabbed a cloth hood out of his pocket and put it over her entire head. Andrea was left alone in the dark, unable to speak, and just sat still as her muscles twitched from the tickling. “Maybe next time, you won’t try to escape,” he said, slamming the door behind him.
Stacy sat still in the next room. She could hear the sound of someone being tickled for the past two hours, but she was glad it wasn’t her this time. The past week had been pure torture for her: being tickled until her eyes were about to pop out of the back of her head, chained up in a damp basement, and having to deal with Alex was not her idea of a fun week. Now on top of that, she had to hear someone else endure some of the things that she had been through. Stacy had curled herself into a ball on the floor, her hands still cuffed in front of her, when she heard the door unlock. “Hello, Stacy,” he said, grabbing her by the arm. “I have something to show you.”
A belt was tied around her waist and the cuffs were tied to it. Stacy was too weak and tired to resist him: having the lights on constantly was driving her crazy and causing her not to sleep. She followed the directions of his hands as he ked her down the hall to a door that looked like another cell. As he unlocked it to shove her in, he pulled her back and then shoved her inside another lit room. There, she saw something that made her mouth drop open: her best friend and roommate Andrea was tied to the floor, but was unable to move at all. Stacy was at least given the freedom to pull herself to a mat against the wall. Stacy was led toward the other wall, away from Andrea, and was made to stand there. She winced when he forced her against the wall in the cell. Alex laid her on a table he had placed in the room. He put her feet in the small stocks at the end and tied her hands to a rolling bar at the other. Stacy cried as the bar turned, but Alex had stopped when he thought he had finally seen her muscles almost pop out of her arms. He poked her in the sides a few times, watching her squirm beneath him, before gagging her and leaving the room.
Andrea tried to get a look at her, but could only see the bottom of the table. She tried to call to her, “Stacy! Stacy! Are you OK?”
Stacy sat there. She couldn’t talk anyway, but didn’t want to risk Alex being able to hear them. After all, she could see the hole in the floor clearly from where she sat.
“Stacy, listen to me. We’re gonna get out of here, it’s gonna be OK, I know it. I’ve been down here for…I don’t know…and he’s been tickling me. I don’t think I can take much more.”
She listened to her friend talking below her. It was the first time in almost weeks before she had heard the voice of someone who didn’t want to hurt her. Although Andrea made sense, nothing in Stacy’s brain would believe anything she was saying. What if they never did make it out? What if this was how life went: staying here forever and being tickled like this? She couldn’t take it anymore, but there was nothing either of them could do. “Damn you!” Andrea screamed as she pounded both of her fists on the ground.
Alex had returned a while later, this time carrying another table in with him and placing it next to Stacy’s. He pulled Andrea quickly from the ground, uncuffing one of her wrists and then recuffing it in front of her. He unlocked the stocks, undid all of the toes, and led her up to the table where he tied her in the same fashion as Stacy. “Hello, ladies,” he said, sitting on a stool he placed at their feet. “I thought I’d try something.”
He began by tickling both of their feet at the same time, using one of his hands to tickle each of their feet. Andrea kicked back at him softly while Stacy just began by laughing. He looked toward her and tickled her feet harder, raking his fingers along the bottoms of her feet as Andrea screamed at Alex for torturing her friend. Alex retaliated by doing the same thing to Andrea, which caused her to shake her head at him and curse even more under her breath. Stacy looked to the wall, not wanting to see her friend being tortured, when he retaliated by doing the same thing to her. Stacy kicked with any strength she had left and laughed louder than she had laughed the first time he tickled her feet. Alex stopped and stood in front of both of their feet, putting his face down to each one as he scratched his fingers along the surface of them. Both girls twisted their heads and arms in ticklish retaliation, but couldn’t pull themselves free from him. Alex ran around to the back of them and put his hands on both their necks, tracing a trail along their ears and to their tummies. He put his finger in each of their bent over bellybuttons and tickled the inside of them with his cruel index finger. Andrea shrieked at the tickling, while Stacy had almost laughed her tongue out. They could see him tracing lines across both of their tummies, both of them cackling now from having him tickle from the inside of their bellybutton and all the way around their body. He squeezed at their bellies, which almost made Stacy fall off the edge of the table. Alex saw this, so he took his concentration off of Andrea for a second and started spider tickling Stacy’s tummy. Stacy bobbed her head up and down, letting her hair bounce into her face and almost hitting Alex. He didn’t care though. He continued his assault on her tummy and waist, letting his fingers roam free as he felt the vibrations of her shaky laughter beneath the tips. Andrea kept her eye on him as he watched her move over to her to do the same. “No….you can’t…..I hate this….stop torturing us!”
Alex pretended not to hear her as he did the same thing to Andrea, but this time at the bottom of her. He started by squeezing at her knees, watching her try to kick her stiff legs at him as he tickled the bends of her knees too. She twisted her legs around, but couldn’t manage a way out as he tickled all around her thighs. He made her struggle to kick and push at her legs, tickling at individual spots at a time before she could even think about trying to get him away from that spot. He tickled his way down her leg until finally making it to her feet. Andrea screamed in horror as she felt him at her feet again. He only tickled her soles for a little while, but it still agonized her and drove her to tears. In just a few minutes though, the tickling had stopped and Andrea was left to lie in her own sweat. Alex left the room immediately, leaving the two of them to rest and regain their energy for just a minute when he had returned with three electric toothbrushes in his hands. “I thought we might try something,” he said, putting them down.
He took a video camera and placed it on a single tripod a few feet away and in between the tables. Alex ran to the front, stared into the lens and said, “This is the last time you will see one of these people. Now, say hello to the camera, ladies.”
Andrea and Stacy just stared in fear at the camera, then looking back at Alex as he turned on all three brushes. He placed one in a holder that was near Stacy’s stocks. Stacy could already feel the tingly tickly sensations running up and down all the nerves in her feet. He then did the same for Andrea, watching both of their faces as they reacted to being tickled on the feet again. “Now let’s see how this does.”
He walked up to Stacy and put the brush against her bare tummy. Stacy squirmed beneath him, not knowing which tickling to concentrate on: her feet or her stomach. She pounded her fists and pulled against the chain that held her hands together. Andrea reacted the same way when the torture was done to her, but she almost broke the rope away from her hands when she lunged toward Alex. He laughed and then switched back to Stacy, putting the brush on her neck and tummy as he lifted it from different places and put it down randomly upon her ribs, neck, stomach, and bellybutton. Stacy could take no more. The days of being tickled and the constant attention to all her ticklish places had caused her to convulse, cough, and finally pass out from the sensory overload. Andrea screamed when she saw Stacy’s lifeless body, but Alex didn’t mind. He left them both tied there as he walked out of the room. “Now I have my answer,” he said, locking the door again.
Andrea stared at her lifeless friend. She had no idea what to do or any way at all to get out of here. All she could do was look at the ceiling in a daze and cry herself to sleep.
Kyle walked from the outside of his house to the inside and looked at the caller ID. It was the Edwardsville Police again. “Hello,” he said cautiously.
“Kyle, this is Officer Hill again. I just wanted to tell you that your alibi checks out and you are now cleared, so we don’t need you to come down and give a statement.”
“Well, thank you, and I hope you catch the person who did this.”
Kyle hung up the phone with a sigh of relief. Out of sight, out of mind, he thought, going back to making his dinner.
“Wonderful night isn’t it?” asked Alex.
Stacy didn’t care, though, nor could she answer. Alex had dragged her out of the house where he placed her, hands tied behind her back, on the long pontoon boat. Stacy screamed at him through her gag. She had no idea what any of this was about, but she knew it couldn’t be good. Alex had not let her out of the house for the weeks that she had been there, so why were they out here now? She looked over the edge of the boat, staring at the water below her. A few boats passed by them, but it was no use getting their attention; no one could see or hear either one of them.
Alex slammed the boat to a screeching halt. “Here we are,” he said, looking around him at the secluded spot of a cove in a dark part of the lake. “Time to finish the job.”
Stacy looked over the edge of the boat. This is it, she thought, this is how it ends. Alex picked her up and took her over to the opened door on the boat when all of a sudden, they both looked up. There stood two armed officers, both pointing their guns at Alex and Stacy. “Put your hands up, all of you!”
Alex immediately stopped what they were doing and turned around before anyone could say a word. He shoved Stacy to one end of the boat, letting her fall to the hard floor, while he jumped off the side of the boat. One of the officers on the boat jumped out and swam after him while the other went over to the other boat to help Stacy. He untied her hands as he asked, “Are you all right?”
“He….was…going …to…drown me!” she said, crying.
“It’s ok, you’re safe now.”
Within seconds, the police had apprehended Alex by the arm and put him on the lake patrol boat. “I’ll take this one,” said the officer, getting behind the wheel of the police boat.
“All right, then I’ll take this one to the station.” He turned to Stacy, “We’re gonna head to our marina where we will get a statement from you, get you cleaned up, and then we’ll go from there.”
“Thank you, you…you saved my life!”
The two of them headed back to the station, following the lake patrol boat and then watching as it pulled out of sight. This was the first time Stacy had realized that Alex was really gone.
Officer Hill had already gotten the call from the lake patrol. The description and picture from the camera phone was indeed the photo of the missing college student. He and another cop, Officer Franklin, had already taken upon themselves to search the home of the suspect. Upon searching the cabin, they found the driver’s licenses and belongings of several other women. He also found a scrapbook full of the articles that the local paper had put out about the case glued in with the pictures of all the young women they described. Officer Franklin had to turn his head a few times. It was nothing like he had seen before. The women were all tied up in some sort of fashion, their faces distorted in hysterical laughter.
It didn’t stop there. His police dog had been scratching at the basement door for a while now. The animal was scratching furiously at the basement door. “What is it?” he said, opening the wooden door.
He followed the dog around the basement, through the twists and tunnels, until he found a locked door at the end of the hallway. Franklin busted down the door to find Andrea still sitting curled up in the corner with her hands cuffed behind her. “It’s ok, I’m with the police,” he said, cutting her free of the cuffs.
“Thank you, thank you so much! You have no idea. He…” she said, hugging him tightly and crying.
“Don’t worry, ma’am, you can tell us all about it at the police station.”
In the end, both girls had identified Alex as their kidnapper. Because of the evidence found in his basement, Alex was also charged in the disappearance and death of four other women. The whole town was overjoyed, but they were also very disturbed. The shrine to Alex’s victims that he had built in his basement, the pictures of the basement where they were kept, and most of all, the smiling face of a man a few of them knew as their neighbor, had left a bad taste in the town that something like this could even happen to them. Andrea and Stacy could have cared less what the town thought, they were just relieved to see the headlines: “Pastik Lake Killer Gets Death Penalty.”
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