by E V Lind
There was a sound in the bushes nearby, a kind of shuffle, then silence. Beth remained still, her hand poised to lift the handle on the driver’s door and her ears straining to listen for any other noises. Her heart hammered in her chest and she drew in short, shallow breaths until she was certain there was nothing out there. She opened the car door and slung her pack inside it, and settled into the driver’s seat.
She slipped the keys into the ignition to unlock the steering, put the gearstick into neutral and released the parking brake on the car before getting out again. Then, with one hand on the wheel to steer and using her body weight to push, she started to roll the car slowly forward.
The sound of the tires on the gravel seemed so loud to her, and she kept looking up to the house to see if Ryan had heard the racket she was making. So far so good though. No lights came on and she continued to make steady progress. There was a slight dip coming up in the driveway and she slid into the driver’s seat and steered the car along through the dip and rolled to a halt another hundred yards along on the other side. Was she far enough from the house to start the engine now? She could only try it and find out.
*
What was the dumb bitch up to? Dan followed from a short distance behind her as she rolled the car away from the house. Was she running away from the war hero? Or was it something else? Had she seen him at the café today? Frustration at how stupid she was vied with temper at her for spoiling his plans. Shit, he was stiff and sore, and not the way he liked to be, and now she was leading him on a fucking marathon? He had to get to her before she reached the end of the driveway.
Red tail lights flared in the dark as she put her foot on the brake and rolled to a stop. What now? Had she changed her mind? Had she spotted his shadow loping along behind her?
Neither of those things, he realized, as he heard the car engine fire up to life. Dan put on a burst of speed as she drove forward. Fuck. He’d never catch her if she got to the road. His car was too far away and even if he doubled back and hotwired the old truck he couldn’t drive it anywhere because he’d slashed its tires an hour ago. The satisfaction had been brief, but worth it, he thought with a feral smile.
Dan flicked his attention to the car ahead. It continued to the end of the driveway and turned to the right. Dan’s lungs were burning for air as he reached the road just in time to see her tail lights flicker again as she turned into the next drive on the right. Keeping up a brisk jog he followed and saw her pull her car around the back of the small two-story house that he’d dismissed as abandoned earlier in the day. Even now, in the vagueness of night, it looked like it had seen far better days. He’d be doing them all a favor when he razed it to the ground.
A smile spread on Dan’s face. Oh, this was good. Better than good. In the confines of that dark, little house there’d be no one else to hear or see what he had planned for the whore. He shadowed the vehicle and watched as Beth struggled in the dark with a key at the back door. There, she had it open.
Dan followed close behind.
THIRTY-NINE
Ryan knew he was dreaming. He had to be, right? Tuck was with him and Ryan knew that his best friend was dead. Worse, his even-tempered, gentle-natured friend was hopping mad. He kept punching Ryan in the chest, knocking him clean off his feet then moving away and goading him to get up. Ryan kept on following Tuck, crawling along the ground, desperate to apologize for letting Tuck down but the words wouldn’t come out his mouth. And, worse, every time Ryan tried to speak Tuck would smack him again and yell. Get up! Get the fuck up! Frustration knotted Ryan’s guts. He hated dreams like this but he couldn’t wake up.
Another voice lent itself to Tuck’s demands. A woman’s. Ryan turned his head this way and that, thrashing around and trying to see where the voice came from. And then she was there. Slightly built and with long, dark hair she reminded him of someone. He reached in his mind for who it was but the name kept slipping just outside the periphery of his consciousness.
The woman leaned closer. Get up, Ryan! You have to get up! I can’t do it alone. Her face was drawn, with deep hollows below high cheekbones and dark shadows under eyes that looked at him intently. A threadbare, white cotton nightgown billowed around her. She shook her head, disappointment clear on her face. The next second, she was walking away from him. Her words little more than a rustling echo through his dream—not another baby, not another mommy.
Suddenly he knew who she was. Lizzie! Ryan tried to speak—tried to say her name, to call her back— but the words were cotton wool in his mouth. The harder he tried to yell, the more muffled the sound. Ryan couldn’t take his eyes off her—tried to will her to look behind, to look at him again. But she kept moving away, her form becoming more indistinct by the second. A fierce sense of urgency filled Ryan’s mind as the back of her nightgown suddenly spotted with blood. The spots rapidly turning to a vivid stain that spread across the cotton until it drenched the fabric from her hips to her hemline and dripped on her bare feet. Fear gripped Ryan with a strangling grasp and he fought for breath. Tuck loomed up in his face. Listen to her buddy. Get the fuck up now! She needs you!
Ryan’s eyes flew open. He sat bolt upright and gasped in a giant gulp of air. What the hell was that about?
“Tuck?” he called out loud as his eyes tried to pierce the gloom of his bedroom.
He shook his head. He was going mad. Tuck was gone. And so was Lizzie MacDonald, he reminded himself, thinking about the dream. It had felt so damn real. The message, the urgency. Their words replayed in his head until he was dizzy with them.
I can’t do it alone.
Not another baby, not another mommy.
She needs you.
Understanding dawned like the punch to the gut. Beth!
The last vestiges of sleep fell from him as he quickly got to his feet and dragged on a pair of jeans. Pain shot through his leg at the sudden movement but Ryan pushed aside the discomfort and half-limped half-ran to Beth’s room. He didn’t care if he woke her with his clumsiness. At least if she came to the door to find out what the noise was he’d know she was okay.
The urgency and helplessness of his dream still lingered, the sensation intensifying when he pushed open Beth’s bedroom door and sensed immediately that she was gone. His dream-befuddled mind grasped at straws. Maybe she was in the bathroom, or downstairs in the kitchen. He checked both those places before coming to the conclusion that she was gone.
Under her own steam, or had she been taken?
Fuck! Think! he growled at himself. Her car, was it still here? He shot to the back door, noticing that it was still locked from the inside. She obviously hadn’t gone out through here. In the porch he hit the switch for the outside floodlights and swore a blue streak when he saw his truck listing badly to one side.
She’d slashed his tires? What the fuck?
Ryan looked around for the red Toyota but it was nowhere to be seen. He racked his brains, trying to think of a single clue in her behavior today or this past evening that would have led her to do something as barbaric as render his truck useless, let alone flee from the safety of his home in the dead of night. She knew Dan Henderson was hunting her and she knew what the creep would do when he caught up with her.
Did she not trust Ryan to keep her safe? He swore another blue streak. He had to go out and look for her. He shivered in the chill night air and clumsily ran back to the house and grabbed a sweatshirt from the laundry, then snatched the keys to the 4-wheeler from the hook on the kitchen wall. He had to find her—and before that bastard did. Those voices in his dreams, they’d been warning him. Prodding him awake and into action. Telling him she needed him.
Needed him? Then maybe she wasn’t responsible for the slashed tires on the truck. Maybe Dan Henderson had already found her. Maybe he had her right now. Ryan felt a visceral fear spear through him but he quelled it instantly. He’d been warned. He was listening—and this time he had time to act. A chance to make things right. The thought spurred him on as Ryan gas
sed the tank of the 4-wheeler, cursing whoever had left it near empty, before gunning it and heading down the driveway.
He got to the road and sat there for a few wasteful seconds, debating which way to turn. Would she have gone into town, toward his mom’s place, or the other way and away from Riverbend entirely. Logic made him want to turn left and follow the road toward the coast but then he felt a mental prod. My house. Go! The words weren’t even a whisper in his ear but the urgency they imparted was enough to make him turn right and head for the MacDonald place.
*
Beth hesitated with her hand over the light switch. Dare she turn it on? Of course, she did. She’d move faster if she could see what she was doing. The bare bulb in the ceiling fixture cast its sickly yellow glow over the room and she grabbed a set of tongs that were hanging above the range so she could get her money out the flour bin. It only took a second and she slipped the envelope into her coat pocket and felt it fall through the unpicked seam of the lining and to the bottom edge of her coat. Its weight there was reassuring. All she had to do now was lock up and leave.
Cold air swirled around her.
“I haven’t got time for your games. I’m leaving, okay? Isn’t that what you wanted all along?” she muttered to the chilling presence.
“That’s a shame you’re leaving, babe. Because I have all the time in the world.”
Beth whirled around at the all too sickeningly familiar voice. Dan? Here? Oh, God, no. Bile rose in her throat and black spots danced before her eyes. She could not let him hurt her or her baby. She could barely breathe but some spark of self-preservation made her turn and reach for the cast iron pan that sat on the top of the range. Before her fingers could close around its handle, vicious fingers knotted in her long hair and yanked her cruelly backward.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Dan breathed down the back of her neck as he tugged her closer to him. “Where’s my welcome, bitch? Haven’t you missed me? Or have you been too busy fucking that poor excuse for a soldier?”
His fingers tightened, making her scalp burn. Tear sprang to Beth’s eyes. Fear rendered her mute. This was what she’d been running from. This was what she knew would happen if he caught up with her. She was as dumb and stupid as he’d always said she was. If she’d only listened to Ryan, or if she’d only kept running...
None of that mattered anymore. If she didn’t find a way to work past this fear and the pain of Dan’s hold on her she may as well just sign her death warrant, right now—hers and her unborn child’s. Galvanized into action, Beth struck backward at Dan’s knee with her foot, causing him to stagger and to loosen his hold just a little. She pulled free, ignoring the sharp pain of a chunk of her hair being ripped from her scalp.
“No. I won’t let you hurt me ever again!” she shouted.
“Let me?”
Dan laughed. The sound made her skin crawl. Evil and malice reverberated around the kitchen and filled her ears, supplanting her earlier fear with a terror she’d never known before.
“As if you ever let me do anything. As if you ever had a choice!”
He lunged toward her and Beth moved fast, sprinting around the table and pulling a chair out to block him from reaching her as easily as before.
“I have a choice,” she answered grimly.
“You poor, poor dumb bitch. I owe you so much,” he sneered. “Pain, that is.”
His voice rose and Beth cringed behind her flimsy shelter. Dan kicked out at the chair, sending it skidding across the floor to where it banged against the wall and fell over. Beth ran for the back door, twisting the doorknob this way and that. He’d locked it! Hard fingers closed around her throat from behind and in the next instant she was being pulled from the door and thrown bodily through the air. She landed against the kitchen cupboards, her head banging backward against a handle. Pain seared through her head and her vision blurred.
“Have you missed me, babe?”
Stunned, Beth could only shake her head. Her feet scrabbled at the floor as she tried to gain purchase on the floorboards and push herself upright but he was too fast for her again. Dan dropped to the floor, straddled her legs and grabbed her head with both hands. Beth grabbed at his wrists, trying to pull his grip free but he was so much stronger than she was.
“Yeah, bitch. Since I’ve been stood down I’ve had plenty of time to think about what I owe you. And it starts now.”
He banged her head into the cupboard and Beth moaned, fighting to remain conscious. What was it everyone told you? Soft spots. Eyes. Throat. Groin. She drove her fingers up toward his face and heard his howl of rage as she pushed them into his eye sockets. But still he didn’t let go. Instead, he wrenched her head back so hard that this time she lost consciousness.
Beth came to, aware something was horribly wrong. The steady trickle of something warm through her scalp was the first indicator, the smell of fuel was the second. She forced her eyes open and tried to move but her hands and feet were restricted.
“Sleeping on the job, babe?”
Dan’s jeer brought her back to full consciousness.
“You always were a lazy cunt.”
Her mouth was dry, filled with an old rag and another piece of cloth bound over her lips prevented her from spitting it out. Each of her legs were tied to a chair leg and her arms were tied behind her, making her shoulder sockets burn. She flexed against the restriction, trying desperately to ease the pain but with the angle he’d pulled her arms back and the fact her wrists were tightly secured with what felt like zip ties meant any kind of movement only caused more pain. The instinct to survive made her strain once more against her bonds.
“Stupid as well,” Dan said with a shake of his head. “You can’t get loose.”
He rubbed the front of his pants and to Beth’s horror she saw his erection straining behind the stained fabric. She swallowed against the nausea that threatened to choke her.
“I thought we’d take a little time to reacquaint ourselves. You know, talk about old times. Oh, wait, that’s right. You can’t talk, can you? That means you’ll just have to listen.”
He came closer, so near now she could smell him. He stank of sweat and blood and something else she didn’t want to think too much about. Beth pulled her head back as he drew nearer still. Her eyes grew huge when she saw the sharp blade he held close to her face.
“See this? First of all, I’m going to use it to cut your clothes off.”
She moaned in protest, earning a cuff across her cheek with his other hand.
“Shut the fuck up. Did I say you could talk? Never interrupt me when I’m speaking. Now, where was I? Yeah, that’s right. First, I’m gonna cut your clothes off, then I’m going to take care of a little business.” He stroked himself again and laughed. “Who am I kidding? We both know it’s not little, right?”
Beth shook her head frantically, her tongue pushing at the wad of cloth in her mouth as she tried to scream.
“And then, babe, then I’m going to cut that bastard you’re hatching in there from your body and you’re going to watch me kill it right here on this table. A suitable sacrificial block, wouldn’t you say?”
Anger filled her, chased swiftly by hopeless, helpless tears that filled her eyes and poured down her cheeks. Her nose clogged with snot and she labored to breathe. No! He couldn’t do that! He couldn’t kill her baby. She wouldn’t let him. Beth lunged forward, rocking her chair and shifting her weight onto her feet. She pushed up, head butting Dan square on the bridge of his nose.
“Fucking whore!”
He flung his hands wildly at her, the knife slicing across her shoulder with agonizing accuracy. Beth slammed to the floor again, the chair shattering beneath her. Her arms were still bound behind her back but she pulled her legs free of their restraints and struggled to her feet.
“You’ve gotten feisty since you left me. Just makes it all the more fun.” Dan said with deadly calm, one hand swiping at the blood that gushed from his nose. He lifted the knife to his mouth and
licked the blade. “Mmmm, you always did taste good.”
Again, Beth fought the urge to throw up. Whatever happened next came down to her—live, or die. Dan lunged toward her, the knife flashing through the air, but she sidestepped his attack and kicked again at his knee. For a second, she thought she might have him off balance but he righted himself and laughed.
“I should have encouraged you to fight back earlier on,” he taunted, madness a wicked glint in his eyes. “It’s so much more fun this way, don’t you think?”
Beth edged her way around the kitchen table. Somehow, she had to get to the door, get it open and get out. She knew he’d be close behind, no matter what she did. Did she dare try and make it down the hall and to the front door? She’d already identified the glass panels on each side as a weakness for anyone trying to gain entry to the house, but what about for someone trying to get out? She’d be cut by the glass, that was a given, but in comparison to what Dan had planned for her it would be small fry and she might just make it to the road—wave down a passing car.
“Don’t do it, Beth, you know it’ll just make me angry,” Dan continued in a singsong voice.
It was as if he could read her every move. As soon as she started toward the door to the hallway he was there before her. She feinted right and he was there, too. She watched as with his free hand he reached into a pocket and pulled out a lighter. No, surely, he didn’t plan to burn them both inside the house? “Seems I need to make a change in plans. I’ve decided I don’t want to fuck you anymore. I never did like another man’s leavings. Maybe I should just let you and that spawn inside you burn to death,” Dan said, not taking his eyes off her for a second. He began to flick the flint. “Just can’t rely on technology these days, can we?”
Somehow, she had to get past him. Had to get out. He flicked the lighter one more time and a small orange flame burned bright in the room. The latent malevolence of that flickering, bright light terrified her. Dan started to wave his hand from side to side.
