DEAD IN BED By Bailey Simms: The Complete Second Book

PART 8, AUTHOR'S NOTE - 2/5/15, 7:12pm

He set the mop outside the door. Then he turned around the folding chair and sat in it, facing me.

"Do you know why you're here, Bailey?" 

After scaring myself by knocking the stew to the floor, I'd become too timid to do anything but shake my head. I couldn't let myself do anything that stupid again. All I could think about now was what he'd done to Kyle with the garbage bag. I had no idea what he might be willing to do to hurt me.

"You're here because you need to be taught a lesson."

He looked at me like I was a little kid.

"Since you left home, things have gone a little off-course. Haven't they?"

So he knew I'd run away. I didn't say anything in response to him.

"Well, I'm going to help you get your life back on course. That's why you're here. You're here because I'm concerned about you, and because I care about you. You can think of me as your captain. Like the captain of your ship."

The captain of my ship? What the hell.

"And do you know how I'm going to help you get your life back on course? I'm going to teach you how to finish what you've started. A lot of people are counting on you, Bailey. You know that. You've let them down. And now you've let me down." Suddenly he smiled the same friendly grin he'd used at the gas station parking lot. "You're very talented! You should be proud of that. I've become a big fan yours, Bailey. A big fan of your work."

Suddenly things started to come together. A fan? He'd read my book? I felt the rise of nausea creep back up. I thought about the weird way he was calling us "Bailey" and "Kyle." And then I remembered the U-Haul. He'd kidnapped us in specifically a U-Haul. Had he got that idea from Dead in Bed? In Part four, the Home Guard imprisons Ashley in the back of a U-Haul.

Oh. My. God. He was a fan.

"You don't just write a novel that moves a lot of people then abandon it halfway through," he said. "Especially not after you've promised to finish it. Once you've committed yourself to something, you see it through."

Could this really have been possible? Fans of Wattpad writers didn't kidnap them. Things like that didn't really happen. The whole idea was just crazy. And, yet, this was really happening. Which meant that this guy was completely insane. There was something very wrong with him psychologically.

Reaching this conclusion made me even more terrified than I'd been before.

"So here's the deal." He leaned closer toward me and lowered his voice a little. "You're going to finish your sequel. Right here. You can take all the time you need. And when you've finished it, you can go. Easy as that. You're finally going to write this book, and I'm going to help you do it. It's for your own good. I'm not going to let you down. I promise."

I didn't know how to respond. I was completely taken aback. Had this cop been reading my story from the beginning? Had he commented on it? For all I knew, we could have shared messages. I'd had tons of exchanges with some of the people who'd been following Dead in Bed. And a few of them were begging me to write the sequel. But all of them understood that it was just a book. They understood that sometimes life gets in the way of writing . . . Or so I'd thought.

Suddenly all of the terror I was feeling started to boil up as outrage.

"You can't make me do anything," I said.

Immediately I regretted saying this to him. This guy was holding Kyle somewhere. It wasn't just my own safety I was risking by lashing out.

The cop just stared at me blankly for a moment, as if he was considering what I'd said. Then he slowly nodded. He didn't say anything. He just stood up from the chair. He sort of loomed over me for a moment. Then he stepped into the bathroom.

He casually stepped up to the toilet.

What the hell was he doing?

He unzipped his pants, and he started peeing.

The stream of his urine poured down with surprising intensity, gurgling into the bowl and echoing off the bathroom's tile walls. The scent of pee came all the way into the bedroom. I felt a strange new kind of dread I'd never felt before while listening to the force of his piss slamming into the water and churning it into a froth.

When at last he finished, the cop just stood there for a little while. Then he zipped up.

He approached me, folded his arms, and stared.

Finally, he said, "When you finish writing the next part, I'll prepare another a meal for you." He shook his head. "But not until then."

He set the handcuffs key on the bed, just within my reach.

Then he stepped out of the room and locked the door.

I collapsed onto the bed. I didn't even bother removing the cuffs.

What had just happened?

All I could think about was how the cop had just peed in front of me like that. It was just so weird and terrifying. Was it supposed to be some kind of threat? Some kind of message? Something do with the scene in Dead in Bed where Ashley listens to Jason peeing not long before he rapes her?

I still can't be sure, but, honestly, I'm terrified of finding out. I'm totally freaking. Way more than before. I just have to focus everything on getting us out of here. If that means writing the sequel to Dead in Bed, then that's what I'll do.

I mean, what other option do I have? Starve to death? The cop definitely didn't seem like he was bluffing about not feeding me until I write the next part. Since he's left, I've finally realized how hungry I am. And it's not like I was having any luck coming up with a realistic escape plan. At least this is a way out.

Obviously, these aren't the ideal writing conditions. Normally when I write I have all my notes and outlines and everything. And I have to confess, I haven't really been working on Dead in Bed at all. But at least I've got the story in my head. So I guess I'll just have to work with what I've got.

I have to start writing the sequel. It's my only way out. 

Bailey