It Can't Be Her

by Darrell Maloney

  And despite her limitations, she was a damn sight better off than she was an hour before.

  It was slow going.

  Her muscles were slow to respond after being tied to the bed for several days.

  They screamed at her in agony, the muscles did.

  She pushed past the pain, for to move slower would be to risk not having her plan in place when Jeff returned.

  In all likelihood she’d never get a second chance to escape.

  Despite the pain, it was now or never.

  She half-walked, half-crawled up the stairs, but didn’t bother wasting her time trying to get through the locked door.

  Instead she felt around on the landing until her fingers found the oil lantern.

  She grabbed it and made her way back down the stairs with it.

  Then across the darkened room to the smaller room she knew contained the gas-powered generator.

  She’d never been in this room. Didn’t know its layout. Didn’t know how big it was or how long it would take for her to explore it.

  She hoped it wouldn’t take long.

  She walked around in the dark until she bumped into something big.

  She used her hands to confirm it was the generator.

  Then she placed the oil lantern on top of the generator and continued to search.

  Her logic was basic but sound.

  A gas-powered generator requires an occasional resupply of gasoline.

  Somewhere in this room was a gas can. Perhaps several gas cans.

  She went to her hands and knees. It was particularly painful, considering the condition her body was in.

  She crawled around in the dark, feeling before her for anything which might be a gas can.

  Finally she found it.

  Actually she found several. Anne had restocked her fuel supply not long before she was killed. There were four five gallon cans, lined up neatly in the corner, each one seemingly full judging from their weight.

  And a smaller can right in front of them.

  She stood and picked the smaller can up.

  It was plastic and weighed but a couple of pounds. There wasn’t much gasoline left in it.

  But it was plenty for her purposes.

  She made her way back to the generator in the thick blackness and placed the gas can atop the generator next to the oil lantern.

  The next part was ridiculously easy.

  She merely unscrewed the lantern’s fuel reservoir cap and poured the oil onto the floor.

  She was sure it made a hell of a mess.

  She didn’t care.

  She suddenly realized she was sweating rather heavily.

  That surprised her because the basement was always on the cool side. At night she frequently shivered as she lay upon her bed.

  It must be nerves.

  She reached up and wiped the sweat from her brow, careful not to dampen her hands with it.

  At this stage in her plan she couldn’t afford to be dropping things in the darkness.

  The next step was a bit trickier.

  It was made easier because the gas can was equipped with a pour spout, though.

  She placed the lantern back atop the flat surface of the generator and put her fingers on the end of the can’s spout.

  Slowly, carefully, she married the two, guiding the pour spout to the lantern.

  And yes, she spilled a considerable amount of gasoline onto the generator, and another considerable amount on herself.

  It didn’t take much gasoline to fill up the tiny lamp, and once it was full she put the gas can aside and replaced the lamp’s cap.

  So far so good.

  She had no idea that at that very moment Jeff Barnett had left Anne’s house and was working his way through the woods toward her.

  -39-

  Jeff was in no great hurry when he said goodbye to Anne for what would probably be the last time.

  He didn’t know that as he walked through the back yard toward the tree line a sorrowful Tom Haskins was pulling into Anne’s drive and trying hard to keep from breaking down.

  Something he didn’t understand caused Jeff to turn around and look behind him right after he entered the woods.

  Something caught his eye in the distance between the trunks of two tall trees.

  Something in motion.

  Something white and khaki in color.

  With a straw-colored cowboy hat.

  It was the same uniform combination his Sara had worn the night he took her: a white shirt emblazoned on the sleeves with a Kerr County Sheriff’s patch.

  And khaki pants.

  Sara had no hat that night. It was an optional part of the uniform, and Sara didn’t consider herself a cowgirl.

  Despite the hat thing, though, Jeff immediately recognized the uniform.

  And he was far enough into the forest to be invisible from Anne’s driveway.

  He immediately crouched low and worked his way a bit closer so he could observe the uninvited lawman who was encroaching onto Jeff’s turf.

  He watched as the big sheriff placed flowers on the spot they’d found the body.

  Strained to hear what Tom was saying, but he was too far away.

  It was too bad he’d left his rifle behind.

  Taking Tom out would be an incredibly easy task from this distance.

  Now that would really be a coup. Taking out a second cop while he was searching for the first one.

  He wondered about his odds of felling Tom with his pistol, then decided it was too big a risk.

  Jeff was a fair shot with a rifle at a hundred yards or less.

  With a handgun he really sucked, even at far shorter distances.

  He’d never been taught the fundamentals. Didn’t know how to handle it, how to aim it, how to fire it.

  He also didn’t know how to care for it.

  He’d fired it maybe twenty times or so with varying degrees of success.

  He’d killed with it and he’d missed his target completely.

  Luckily for him the times he’d missed his target was unarmed and unable to fire back.

  His experiences, though, were helpful in that they taught him a valuable lesson.

  When you fire a gun at someone who doesn’t have a gun of their own, you don’t really have to hit your target. Oh, it’s nice when you do. But the roar of the gun and the flash it makes are enough to scare off your target even if you don’t hit him.

  Problem solved either way.

  Jeff might soon learn another valuable lesson.

  Since he’d never learned how to clean his weapon, he’d never done so.

  If he kept it long enough; if he kept using it occasionally, it would soon jam.

  And that might put him into a jamb.

  He didn’t know any of that. Didn’t know it was necessary to maintain a weapon in good working order.

  As the military likes to say, “clean, dry and serviceable.”

  After a few minutes Jeff decided it was a good thing he didn’t have his rifle.

  As much pleasure as he’d derive from shooting this pig down, it would surely bring a firestorm of trouble raining down on him.

  Surely every lawman within a hundred miles would swoop in and turn over every rock and leaf in an effort to find the pig’s killer.

  And since the house where he kept young Sara was just over a hundred yards away they’d eventually search it too.

  He might be able to kill her, drag her out to the road and pose her, then make his way back into the woods to disappear and make his way out of town.

  But perhaps he’d pushed his luck too far already.

  Perhaps he’d be dragging her body into the road at the same time an investigator walked up out of nowhere and shot him dead.

  No.

  It would make much better sense to let this pig go.

  He’d make his way back to Sara and rape her one last time.

  “One last time for the road,” he’d tell her while laughing hideously.

 
Once done he’d kill her and dance over her body until morning.

  Then, tomorrow right around sunrise, he’d take her up to the road and pose her, with a note for the sheriff and Sara’s severed head upon her chest.

  He’d return to the house and saddle up his Pinto, then hide him in the forest before going back to check on Sara’s body to see if it had been discovered yet.

  He’d wait there until the body was found and the cops started to arrive.

  Then he’d take one out.

  The rest would take cover.

  And while they were hunkered down he’d use the opportunity to make his way back to his horse and get the hell out of Dodge.

  Moving overland he could cover miles of ground before they even started their search.

  And with no helicopters, no bloodhounds and no off-road vehicles they’d never catch him.

  Oh, they’d eventually get horses and set out after him.

  But that would take a while. And they’d have to move much slower because they’d be hindered with having to watch for tracks.

  Jeff had never taken out two people within the same twenty four hour period.

  He smiled.

  This was the dream of every sadistic serial killer.

  A two-fer.

  As he worked his way through the woods and back to Sara he had a huge grin on his face.

  This was going to be a banner day.

  -40-

  Sara’s mind wasn’t firing on all cylinders.

  Part of it was the exhaustion. She hadn’t slept more than three or four hours a night since she’d been there.

  It’s hard to sleep when one is tied down and every muscle in her body aches.

  She was able to nap periodically throughout the days, but not often and never more than a few minutes at a time.

  The hunger pangs, and the abdominal cramping from lack of food, certainly didn’t help any either.

  She’d thought her escape plan was foolproof.

  She quickly found out otherwise, when she crawled off the bed and discovered how hard it was to get her body to work after being tied down for so many days.

  Even the most simple of physical tasks were exceedingly difficult, very painful, and seemed to take forever.

  Now she discovered a new problem.

  She succeeded in dumping the oil from the lantern and filling the reservoir with gasoline.

  But having to do it in the dark was a messy process indeed.

  The lantern, as well as her hands and forearms, were covered with gasoline.

  And gasoline in a confined space reeks.

  She desperately felt around for something to wipe her arms off with. To wipe the gas can with.

  Her clothing was nowhere in sight.

  There seemed to be no sink, no water source of any kind.

  She made her way to Jeff’s couch.

  It was cloth, an ugly brown color, and disgustingly dirty.

  But it was dry and helped absorb the gasoline from her arms.

  Sara was close to tears. The plan she’d so carefully concocted over the previous few days was in peril. If he smelled the gasoline the plan would be ruined.

  And she instinctively knew she wouldn’t get a second chance.

  Then, as she stood in the dark, desperate for a remedy to her problem, her nose caught something else.

  A scent other than the gasoline, yet equally pungent.

  She smelled the strong aroma of her own urine, wafting across the room from the soaked sheets on her bed.

  She wondered if raw urine was strong enough to squelch the smell of gasoline.

  She didn’t know.

  But really, what other option did she have?

  She left the lantern on the couch and made her away across the room, bumping into the coffee table along the way.

  Then she misjudged the distance in the pitch blackness and banged her toe hard on the bed post.

  It didn’t slow her down, though. She couldn’t let it.

  She merely cursed a couple of choice words and went about her mission, ripping the sheet from the bed and wadding it into a ball.

  She used the sheet to wipe off her arms first, then went back to the couch and wiped down the lantern.

  In the battle of gas versus urine the urine seemed to be winning.

  It was now the dominant smell.

  She took the lantern and felt her way through the darkness to where she remembered the staircase to be.

  As she crawled up the staircase Jeff opened the back door to the house and walked into the kitchen.

  The door to the basement was a mere twelve feet away.

  As Sara reached the landing she thought she heard something and froze.

  Then she carefully placed the lantern back on the spot where she’d found it.

  As Jeff walked across the kitchen floor he thought he heard something and froze.

  Then he shook it off, deciding it was a squirrel running across the roof or… something.

  -41-

  Jeff reached the padlocked door to the basement and walked right past it.

  Sara had just received the biggest break in her young life and didn’t even realize it.

  As she made her way back down the stairs Jeff walked through the den to the wet bar in the corner.

  He opened up the tiny refrigerator beneath the bar and took out the last bottle of Corona.

  “Damn!” he cursed under his breath.

  He thought there were two bottles left.

  No matter. One would be enough to quench his thirst.

  He removed the cap and lifted the bottle high, guzzling half of it before he came up for air.

  The beer was almost three years old but still tasted amazing. Most beers are piss-poor at best when at room temperature.

  But Corona was a great beer at any temperature.

  He just wished the homeowner had stocked more of it.

  He placed the bottle on the bar, and then as an act of whimsy picked it back up again.

  Just as a basketball player would make a three point shot toward a distant basket, he two-handed the bottle across the room at a tiny trash can.

  He missed by a mile. The bottle bounced off a nearby wall and slid across a tile floor.

  Almost immediately beneath the spinning bottle, in the darkened basement, Sara knew he was back in the house.

  No matter.

  She was ready for him.

  Jeff walked to the bathroom and relieved himself and made his way to the basement door.

  There he felt in his pockets for the keys, and panicked just a bit when he couldn’t find them.

  “What the…”

  He patted down all his pockets, a very confused look on his face.

  He spun around and examined the kitchen table. The counters. The floor beneath his feet.

  Then he remembered.

  He went to the back door and opened it.

  There, still in the lock, were the owner’s keys.

  He felt like an idiot.

  But he wouldn’t for long.

  He’d soon feel jubilation.

  He always did when he took a life.

  And Sara’s was getting ready to end.

  He took the keys out of the knob and closed the door, making sure he locked it.

  Then he walked back to the basement door and opened the padlock.

  He sensed nothing amiss when he opened the door for what would be the very last time.

  Just enough light burst through to light up the landing. The oil lantern was where he’d left it, and as he reached down to pick it up with one hand he reached into his pocket with the other for his lighter.

  It was a process he’d done exactly the same since he’d captured Sara and imprisoned her in the basement; every time he returned from one of his “missions.”

  First he fished the lighter out of his pocket, then lifted up the edge of the lantern’s glass globe.

  He touched the flame to the lantern’s wick to bring the lantern to life.

>   Then he dropped the globe back into place and used the lantern’s light to find his way down the stairs and to the generator.

  Once there he’d crank up the generator and douse the lantern.

  Sara had watched him carefully the last half dozen times he’d gone through it.

  The process never varied.

  She was counting on his consistency to make her plan work.

  For if he did anything differently on this particular day… well, she shuddered to think of that possibility. If he deviated from his routine on this particular day she’d almost certainly die.

  She watched from the darkness as he found his lighter and held it up to the lantern, then flicked it.

  She actually heard the click of the lighter, and that surprised her.

  She fully expected the explosion which happened a fraction of a second later to drown out the noise of the lighter.

  And it was indeed a deafening explosion. One which was magnified tremendously in the enclosed space of the basement.

  But it didn’t bother Sara that badly. She’d known it was coming.

  She’d taken the precaution of covering her ears and clamping her eyes closed to prevent temporary blindness.

  From the brilliant flash of light she knew would accompany the blast.

  Jeff didn’t know to expect the explosion.

  He heard the click of the lighter too. At that very instant he was puzzled, for he thought he caught the faint scent of… gasoline… in the air.

  Several things happened almost at once.

  The wick was soaked with gasoline, but that wasn’t what ignited the fuel in the lantern’s tank.

  No, the explosion happened when the flame from the lighter caught the fumes of the gasoline which leaked up from the tank. In the cracks of the device which raised and lowered the wick.

  The tank exploded, shattering the glass globe into half a million tiny slivers.

  Some of them peppered Sara. They felt like the stings of a dozen little bees.

  Jeff got the brunt of it, as was certainly fitting under the circumstances.

  His face was sprayed with the glass shards. They quite literally shredded his face and both eyeballs and instantly rendered him permanently blind.

  But his misery wasn’t over yet.

  -42-

  The tiny fuel reservoir had only a pint and half of gas in its tank.