Read Online Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson - Free Book Online

him.
    “They won’t hear you down here anyway. The walls are too thick. Don’t make me mad now. You wouldn’t like me mad.”
    Her eyes went wide.
    “Will you be good?” he asked her.
    She nodded. Slowly, he let her go, but she bolted for the locked door, screaming. Bad, bad girl. It was easy to knock her
     to the floor, secure her hands behind her with the duct tape in his pocket. He took his time with the gag. He’d told the truth
     about the walls being soundproof. He’d experimented himself, turning up his radio to full volume as he worked. No one had
     ever complained. No one to hear her, no one to see him drag her into the van, waiting at the loading dock.
    He wished that she could sit beside him as he drove. It would be nice to go for a drive with his girl, but he couldn’t chance
     a passerby seeing the gag. He apologized for putting her in the back of the van, but he’d made it nice and comfortable, lined
     it with blankets, a soft nest. He took a minute to look at her before he closed the door. So sweet she looked. He told her
     that she wouldn’t be in there for long.
    He could hardly wait. His whole body was humming with triumph. He felt drunk on power, on anticipation, barely able to focus
     on the road ahead of him. He’d made her notice him. These were the moments he lived for. He took the road that would lead
     to the outskirts of the town, was zipping along, happy as a lark, when he saw the turnoff for the park with the adjacent school
     playground. He went warm with nostalgia for the hours he’d spent in that park. And it extended for acres, was practically
     a woods as you went farther out. The park would be the perfect place, their secret bower. He drove into the park, the empty,
     quiet, dark park. Once there, he doused the headlights. The van coasted almost silently; the clerk at the rental place had
     boasted that it would. He drove until the road became crunching gravel, then a narrow, hard-packed dirt path; kept going as
     the path gave way to scrub and shrubs that whipped the underside of the van as it clambered over them. It was getting more
     difficult to manœuvre the van now. Small birds, spooked, flew up out of the underbrush as he passed. He imagined those that
     hadn’t gotten out of the way in time; their small bodies would be popping like grapes under his wheels.
    There. Over there. The van would just fit inside that stand of trees. He drove it in amongst them, parked. Shut the engine
     off. He could almost hear his heart drumming. Soon. He sat for a bit, breathed slowly, felt his body go calm, cool.
    He took the camera out of the glove compartment, slid out of the van, opened the back doors. She was so pretty, lying there
     with tears streaming down her soft cheeks, her bosom heaving, tiny cheeping noises escaping from the duct tape gag. Her nose
     was running too. How disgusting. But this had happened before, with other darlings of his. He used some tissue from the box
     he’d stored in the back of the van just for mishaps like this one. He wadded it thick so none of her snot would touch him,
     and lovingly cleaned her up, though she tried to yank her head out of his hands.
    What was that clicking sound? A soft
tap-tap-tap,
like birds pecking at crumbs. He put the tissue down and peered through the stand of trees, looking back the way he’d come.
     In the dark he could just make out two people coming down the path, arm in arm, walking carefully, as the elderly do. It was
     the old couple that walked the park in the mornings. They moved purposefully, scrawny limbs pumping in jerky, almost avian
     motions as they made their way closer. Shit! What were they doing out in the woods this late at night? Bloody busybodies probably
     spent their time beating other lovers out of the bushes who just wanted some peace and quiet. Stryker went utterly still,
     trusting in the dark camouflage colours of his clothing and the van. Aging eyes wouldn’t make him out, aging ears wouldn’t