by Paula Cox
“Howdy!” she cries. “How are you doing today?”
“What the—”
“Oh, don’t stand up,” she giggles, and then grabs Hope’s arm.
Hope grabs her hand and tries to pull her away, and then Hope sees what I see: the needle, held in her other hand, aimed toward Hope. Heroin. A damn lot of heroin. Enough heroin to kill a dozen people, let alone one.
Hope lets out a scream and dives for the needle, gripping her wrist and twisting it. The woman grunts and grabs at Hope’s throat. Hope coughs and chokes out her words. “Who—are—you? Get—the—hell—away—from—me!”
Lindsey—wearing a black suit, her braid draped over the side of the cart—lets out another giggle as they wrestle for the needle. “I’m your worst nightmare, baby girl!” she squeals. “I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to you! Oh, please do stop struggling! You’re just making it worse.”
Rage explodes in my chest, making me leap to my feet, jump over the stall, and sprint toward the wheel.
Fucking Lindsey, my mind howls. Fucking Lindsey, laying her hands on my woman. Fucking Lindsey, haunting my goddamn life. Haunting, yeah, ’cause it wasn’t Hope on the ghost train. It was Lindsey!
I sprint toward them.
In the dark, they look like a four-armed, four-legged shadow creature, writhing about, a needle clasped in one of its hands.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hope
I take in the woman, trying to figure out who she is even as we fight. I see her braided hair and her shaved sideburns, I see her pinched, ratty face and her twisted lips, I see her wide, bloodshot eyes, I see the suit she wears, even the shiny black shoes. I’ve never before laid eyes on this woman. I know that for sure.
But then I see the needle in her hand. I know it’s a needle full of heroin. My subconscious turns over and over, cogs grind, and it all clicks into place. This woman—whoever the hell she is—was the one who drugged me. I’m out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s not a coincidence that she’s here at the same time as me. No, she followed me. And if she followed me here with a needle, isn’t it possible, likely, that she followed me to the boat with a needle?
A scream escapes me. I lurch for the needle, grab the woman’s wrist. I speak, but my words seem faraway. She grips my throat with her free hand and crushes my windpipe. I suck in breaths, ragged, through a throat that grows smaller and narrower as she squeezes her fingers.
“I’m your worst nightmare, baby girl!” she squeals. “I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to you! Oh, please do stop struggling! You’re just making it worse.”
When she speaks, tobacco and wine and whiskey wash over me, thick from a mouth that hasn’t tasted toothpaste in a long time.
“It—was—you?” I wheeze, my fingers growing weak on her wrist. “Wasn’t—it?”
“Oh, the boat?” The woman lets out a witch-like cackle. “Yes, sweet girl, it was me.”
She squeezes harder on my throat, crushing windpipe and skin and flesh, crushing muscle and tendon, crushing everything. She’s a slight woman, but her grip is solid, like a bodybuilder’s.
As her grip becomes stronger on my throat, mine weakens on her wrist. Soon, she’ll be able to stab the heroin-loaded needle into me, a new track mark for my collection, and it will rush into my system and stop my heart. Weeks later, I’ll be found, rotting here on the ferris wheel.
I wonder if Killian will come to my funeral? Will Killian ever know the truth?
My head floats away from my shoulders, the lack of air propelling it up, and my eyelids are heavy, so heavy that all I want to do is close them and be done with it. My fingers slip from around the woman’s wrist. My head lolls back and my eyes close. I cling onto her wrist again, barely able to squeeze down with my fingers, only just reaching her. I feel faraway, floating, flying.
Finally, a black curtain falls over my vision and I forget I’m in a ferris wheel. I’m aware that the woman’s hands are still around my throat, but that’s distant.
I float into the air above the amusement park.
I float down into a dream.
I know it’s a dream because I see me and Killian from above, as though I’m in a drone peering down at us—them? Killian and the woman—am I really that busty? that curvy?—walk down the boardwalk together. I float about fifteen feet in the air, without a body, only two floating, invisible eyes. Somewhere else, I am being murdered. But that doesn’t seem to matter as I watch this love-struck couple.
Killian laughs. I remember the laugh well. I’d just asked him to prove that he really knew the constellations. He points up at the sky and tells the naïve woman to follow his finger. The naïve woman does as he asks, and Killian tells her all about the stars. The woman is deep in love. I can see it in her eyes. I remember feeling the intensity of it. She’s more in love than she imagined herself capable of.
I follow them, amazed. Is this heaven? I think. Am I already dead? Is this really heaven? The logical part of my mind comments: This is just a lucid hallucination brought on by lack of air and unconsciousness. I ignore the cold logic and swim through the air, trailing them.
Soon, I know, they’ll be screwing on the boat. That bouncy, full-bodied woman will be begging Killian for it in a way she never thought she would, begging like a porn star, begging like a true lover. Together, they leap onto the boat. Killian starts the engine and the boat glides through the black sea into the harbor, where it will lull while they make love. I try and follow them, but something in the air stops me. I try to scream, but I don’t have a mouth. I smash against this invisible wall, over and over and over, but it won’t budge. Cursing—silently, because in this strange dream-place I have no voice—I hover above the dock.
When I see her, I know that this is a dream, yes, a creation of my mind, sure, but that it happened—or something similar to this happened. And as it happens, I’m convinced it’s happening right now and yet I can’t do anything to stop it.
Tonight, the woman wears a dark blue suit. Her braided hair is wrapped around her neck, looking in the dark like a woman with a snake draped over her. She runs to the end of the dock and reaches out to the boat: a child reaching into a puddle of water trying to scoop up its newspaper boat.
“Killian!” she hisses, fingers outstretched. “Killian, no! Killian, please! Why her, Killian? Why her?”
My mind is making connections it has no reason to. Who says this woman is connected with Killian? But she’s not speaking here, is she? No, her words come from faraway, outside the dream, in the amusement park. She’s screaming, “Killian, no,” in real life. Why would she be screaming that? Is Killian here? Or am I imagining this, too?
I glide down through the air where I can see her face. Tears stream down her cheeks and her fists are clenched. She cries for a long time, a dream-long time, and then wipes the tears with the sleeve of her suit jacket and reaches inside her pocket. She takes out a needle, studies it for a few moments, and then slips it back into her pocket.
“You never did like druggies, did you, lover boy?” She grins. I don’t know if the words are in the dream or in real life, things are so blurred. I feel as though I am in that in-between state which comes over you after a vivid dream, when you’re paralyzed in bed, aware you’re awake but the dream still with you. When the shadow of your lamp turns into a shadowed monster. “Let’s see if you like this slut when she’s off her tits.”
The woman paces slowly up the dock, turns on her heels as expertly as a woman on a catwalk, and then sprints toward the water. She dives in and disappears beneath the surface for a few seconds. When she emerges, she isn’t gasping and splashing, like I would be, like any normal person would be. She emerges silently and begins to paddle toward the boat. Or in the direction the boat went in, because the night is dark and the boat is darker.
“It was all a matter of patience, sweet Killian!” she screams, but not from the water.
Is Killian there? Is she telling Killian what happened? Is tha
t how I know?
Now that this woman has moved from the dock, I find that I can, too. I follow her as she paddles and paddles, never once showing any sign that the water is autumn-cold, a cold that would rattle the bones of most people. She just paddles steadily, a determined expression on her face, jaws jutting like rocks from her skin, temples pulsing, forehead creased.
“I did it for you!” she cries, voice floating from a ferris wheel faraway, into my dream. “I did it for you, you silly man!”
I follow her until she comes to the boat. She waits a few yards away, treading water, and—
“I watched you fuck her!” she growls, but still her voice does not come from the water. Yes, the dream and the park are crossing over. Killian is there—here—there. Maybe he can stop this crazy woman. “I listened to her beg and I watched you fuck her! It killed me! It killed me!”
I turn from the woman in the water to the boat, where he moans and I grunt, writhing, pounding, joining in pleasure. I want to slap the silly waitress across the face. She watched this moment? She was there?
When the sex is done and Killian and this begging, sexually awakened waitress go to sleep, the woman paddles to the boat, grips the edge, and pulls herself up, peeking over the top. She sees that we are both sleeping—
“Like angels, sleeping together like angels! You never wrapped your arm around me like that, did you? You never hugged in close to me like that, did you? No, it was all cold. You were a tough man, no time for me. Always so selfish, weren’t you? Well, let’s see how you do with your little baby, shall we? Let’s see how you do without this little holier-than-thou princess bitch—“
And she pulls herself up. Water pitter-patters on the deck, but neither Killian nor the naïve, in-love woman have a clue. The braided woman creeps across the deck and kneels down next to the waitress—
“I should have killed her then! I should have stabbed her in the heart! I should have ended the bitch’s life! You were mine! Nobody else’s! Mine!”
She takes the needle from her jacket pocket, lifts my arm, aims, and sticks the needle in. Suddenly, the floating orb I’ve become drops like deadweight, landing inside the waitress’s head—my head, and I’m in my body. I can feel the needle slide into my skin. I try to bat her away, but it’s too late. The heroin is in my system. My head turns to the side just in time to see the woman drop back into the water and begin her long swim back toward the dock.
“Do you think I’m a fool, Killian, my sweet lover boy? Do you really think I’d tell you any of this if there was any chance you could save her? No, Killian, she’s dying tonight. She’s stone-dead tonight. You better get used to the idea that your little angel, your sweet little baby, is dying tonight! Yes, she is! She is and you can’t stop me!”
With a gasp, I wake up, my throat burning, on fire.
Killian stands less than a yard from the wheel, pleading with the crazy woman. I wonder how long they’ve been talking. Long enough for this crazy bitch to reveal the truth about her sick little plan, I think. In the excitement, she’s let go of my throat. But the needle is aimed straight at my arm, mere inches from the skin. I know if it pierces, if she presses down on the needle, I’m dead. No doubt about it. The syringe is so full it looks like it could burst at any moment.
Killian holds his hands out. “Lindsey,” he says, struggling to keep his voice steady. “You need to put the needle down. Right now. You need to—”
“No one can have you but me!” she screams. “That’s why I did it! Would she swim through ice-fucking-cold water for you, Killian? No! Would she inject someone for you, Killian? No! Only I would do that! Don’t you see? Only I would do anything for you.”
“Then why kill me?” I groan.
The woman—Lindsey—snaps her gaze to me. “Don’t speak,” she hisses. “Don’t you speak.”
“We were done,” I sigh, my throat aching with each word. “Why not just let it end like that?”
Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Killian creeping slowly forward, his hands by his sides, ready to act. Inch by inch, he creeps forward. He nods tersely to me. I know the message: Keep that psychopath distracted.
“Because you’re a sweet little angel bitch and I didn’t think a sweet little angel bitch should be allowed to live.” With one hand she holds my arm, with the other she holds the needle. All it will take is a quick wrench of the arm and a quick jab, and I’ll sleep and never wake up. Her fingernails dig into my skin, leaving bloody marks, but I barely feel it. Lindsey grins madly at me. She reminds me of a stone statue of a jackal, torchlight reflecting in the eyes. A picture of craziness.
“I’m a smart girl, Ms. Angel. I’m smarter than you’ll ever be. If you die with Killian right there, no matter about the drugs, he’ll mourn you. I wanted him to hate you. Junkie bitch overdosed, ha! That’d be—”
Killian lurches across me and grabs Lindsey’s wrist in his hand. Lindsey yelps and drops the needle, where it clatters to the floor. As soon as the needle is out of her hand, I tear my arm away from her. Her fingernails scratch down my skin, leaving long gouges, but I just keep pulling, desperate to be away from her. When my arm is free, Killian lifts me under the armpit, hooking his arm around me—all the while still wrestling with Lindsey. One-armed, he swings me about and lowers me to the ground.
My first instinct is to charge through the park and get out of here. To pump my legs until all of this is behind me. But Killian, I think, and turn to face them.
Killian leaps from the ferris wheel. Lindsey throws herself at him. Killian pushes her into the seat.
“Stay down!” he barks.
She ignores him, feral, all but frothing at the mouth. “It was meant to be us! It was meant to be us! It was meant to be us! It was meant to be us!”
She throws herself at Killian; he slams her back into the seat.
“Stop it!” Killian demands. “Just stop it!”
She throws herself again. This time, instead of pushing her, Killian pushes the cart. His muscles strain, rippling under his leather. The insignia of the Satan’s Martyrs, the knife-impaled man, contracts as Killian’s back muscles tense. He grunts as he pushes. Then the entire wheel creaks loudly, an ear-piercing banshee’s cry. It swings up, the cart in which Lindsey sits moving up, up through the air, until she is stranded ten feet above the ground, looking down on us.
Lindsey looks around her, down at the ground, and then starts screaming.
It’s difficult to believe that the woman screaming up there is the same woman who swam through icy water without once flinching, who plotted to murder me, and who revealed the entire plan with a super-villain style monologue. She grips the rails and peers over, looking at the ground, and then lets out screams which vibrate up and down the metal frame.
“Shit,” Killian mutters.
We stand side by side, our arms touching. Despite everything, the feel of his arm brushing mine is like a blanket, a warm blanket after a long hard day. Without even thinking about it, I move in close to him. Then I reach down and brush the back of his hand with mine. He turns his hand, brushes my fingers.
“Shit,” I agree. I rub at my throat, trying to massage some of the burn out. “Who the hell is she, Killian?”
“One of my exes,” Killian says. “A crazy one.”
“Yeah, a crazy one.”
“We need to get her down.”
“You’ll have to call the police, or the fire department,” I say. “How else—”
“Police?” Killian sighs. “Goddamn, police? I hate the police.”
“Listen to her,” I say. Her screams go on without pause, shrieks which could rouse the entire town if we were back in the Cove. “She’s terrified.”
“She just tried to murder you,” Killian points out.
“I know, but still . . .” He turns to me, his face as handsome as ever, as strong as ever, his eyes still bright, bright blue. “We can’t just leave her up there, can we?”
“Pity she’s not a man,” Killian mutters. “I co
uld end this damn quick if she was a man.”
“Sometimes, I think you’re a monster.”
Killian shrugs. “Sometimes, I am.”
Lindsey’s scream cuts short, and she shouts downs: “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please help me! I don’t like heights! When I was in the hospital they put me in a room on the top floor and ever since then it’s—Ah, it’s too high! Please! Please!”
“If we call the police,” I call up to her, “they’ll arrest you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Just get me down! I don’t care if they arrest me! I don’t care about anything!”
Killian takes out his cellphone and dials the sheriff, a man named Bob McCrery.
“I’ve got a situation, Bob,” Killian says into the cellphone, pacing up and down near the ferris wheel. “It’s bad. Yeah . . .”
