Ding Dong!! Is She Dead?

by Alathia Morgan

  “Hey, now. I know how to behave. I plan to work hard and be out of this miserable place as soon as possible. Hopefully she won’t have to stay full time after this week. When are you coming back to bring groceries and give her a break?” Mike wasn’t at all impressed with J.D.’s attitude.

  “Well, she made an appointment for you to see the doctor on Friday. I think that I can get away with coming up here Saturday or Sunday, but it will depend on how things go with your family. We have been so shorthanded because of the stuff that you did. We have all been working extra shifts to cover the missing people.”

  “I should be able to get away sometime this weekend and hopefully you will be feeling much better by then. I should know if they are going to take away Megan’s protection detail. It seems that if you lay low the rest of this weekend they are going to call off the dogs.” J.D. was just glad that the extra pressure was going to decrease because all of this was giving him stomach ulcers.

  “Did you find out where they are staying?” Mike sat up quickly and then groaned at the pain that movement caused.

  “Actually, only the Chief of Police knows that and he isn’t saying. They will be meeting on Monday to decide what will happen with the search. The fact that this happened is in your favor, especially if they stop looking for you. I should be able to ask around and do some snooping this week, so that by the time that you get out you will be able to find them easily.” J.D. stopped the conversation as the nurse used her key to come in.

  “Thanks man. Keep checking into those details for me, would you? That way when I feel better I may have a home to go to.” Mike was feeling hopeful that the chance to get Megan and Sally would be greater when he got well.

  J.D. slipped out while the nurse got unpacked, promising to be back the next weekend.

  --------------

  Since there had been no sign of Mike, Saturday night or Sunday night, the entire group gathered at the Double G Ranch again to decide what the next step would be on Monday Morning.

  After some discussion it was agreed that Karen would head back to the state office. Unless there was a sighting by someone then they were going to work on becoming normal citizens again.

  Allie was going to continue working from Justin’s apartment, but they were going to stay in town so that they could get to know each other better.

  Megan was ready to get started on the guest house and see what needed to be done to make it livable. Sally would be staying out of school for the moment just in case Mike did try to cause more trouble, there would be less chance of him harming a school full people.

  Chief Slayer assured Megan that they would continue to look for any sign of Mike. If and when she was ready to go back to her house for things all she had to do was ask and they would make sure that there was an escort available.

  Karen had already packed that morning, knowing that she would probably have to leave. Since she had driven her car out to the ranch that first night, she could leave whenever she was ready. After giving everyone hugs and promises that she would call to check in, she headed back to give her final report to the Sheriff and then back to her supervisor with the state troopers.

  --------------

  When those with jobs headed out, Megan, Sally, G.G. and Allie went to see what could be done on the guest house.

  The guest house was situated to the right of the big house close to the fence line, but still within easy walking distance. It looked so cozy from far away, but as they walked closer the ladies could see that this was going to take a while to fix up.

  The shrubs around the house were overgrown, the entire outside would need a paint job and some of the boards would need to be replaced. The porch was sound, but the steps leading up to it would need to be repaired.

  Megan imagined that with a white coat of paint and some yard work this would be a wonderful place to spend some time to let herself recover both emotionally and physically. Anxious to see the inside, she hurried around to the front door. Seeing concrete steps she knew she didn’t have to worry about falling through. G.G. had said that the doors were not locked so Megan went ahead.

  Taking a deep breath, Megan opened the door and was hit with a cloud of dust. The door hadn’t been opened in so long that all of the dust on the top of the door came whooshing down as she stepped inside.

  It was perfect for Sally and her to start over with. There were four main rooms inside. First, there was a living room with a door to the left heading to the kitchen. When she entered the kitchen, it was styled in cabinets from the 50’s era with Formica countertops with silver handles. Then turning right into a small hallway with a bathroom on the left and a small hall closet on the right, Megan walked into the bedroom. This would be perfect for her and Sally to share, with blue and yellow walls to give the room some color. There wasn’t a closet in the room, but that could be easily fixed with a wardrobe or something.

  The next room was through the door on the right and had a door that led to the back porch with the stairs that needed to be fixed. This would work for an office space and play room for Sally’s toys. There was another door leading back to the living room, which is where all the others were just walking through the front door talking. It was a circle of a house, small but wonderful for the two them. She left the others and went out on the back porch to a wonderful view.

  The tree to the left gave lots of shade, but there were vines that had grown up around the banisters supporting the roof. It left an enclosed feeling while letting you taking in the wide world beyond which encompassed an amazing view of the Big house, barns and horse corrals.

  Megan felt such a sense of peace that she hadn’t had in years. While living in this home, she could be alone yet there would be people close by if she needed help. Imagining Sally swinging from the tree in a tire while she got the chance to relax, Megan went back inside to get started with the cleaning.

  The others had just finished walking through and Sally was running from room to room looking at everything.

  G.G. got down to the practical very quickly. “Most of the furniture will need to go outside and air out. New coats of paint for each room, but you will need new curtains and kitchen stuff. These things have been here for ages. We can bring up the flatbed trailer and let you girls load anything that you don’t want, so that once you are done with the painting you can just add the furniture that you need.”

  “There are a ton of boxes in the bedroom and against the wall in this back room. What should we do with them? It looks like they have family documents and keepsakes.” Allie hated to just load them up and give them away to strangers.

  “Hm that is a good point about the keepsakes needing to be gone through, Allie. I guess we will have to look thru them and see what we need to keep and store. I will have a couple of the guys brings some wood over here to fix those steps so that we can do the loading from the back porch. I guess we could start in the living room first since we aren’t keeping very much. Then we can paint it and put the stuff we want to store in this room.” G.G. rolled up her sleeves and made a few phones calls while they started sorting.

  --------------

  Everyone settled into a routine of cleaning and sorting, Justin worked in the morning and Allie had the afternoon shift to do her work. They stayed in town on weekends and spent the week at the Double G Ranch so that Megan and Sally wouldn’t feel quite so lonely.

  Two weeks went by with no sightings of Mike anywhere. He hadn’t tried to kill anyone and they were no closer to finding out who had helped him. As time went by they started to let their guard down and go on about their daily lives.

  Justin made plans to go to the cattle auction two hours away on the other side of Rockwall. Allie planned to spend the day with Megan as they started to paint the back rooms, now that they had gotten all of the boxes sorted and moved out. Hoping that by sticking together there would be safety in numbers, the guys left early that morning. If they bought anything, the ranch hands would bring the trailers and load up the
stock.

  The ladies were planning to make a day of it and hoped that they would have both the back rooms painted and finished so that Megan and Sally could move in before the weekend. G.G. had bought all of the supplies that they needed and Sally was so excited to paint in the bedroom that they would be living in.

  Justin and Allie hadn’t been apart since that night almost three weeks ago and they were eager to see how they handled the day spent away from each other.

  Justin kissed Allie like it was their last kiss and joined his dad for the drive to the auction. Justin left Allie standing in the yard waving as they drove away.

  “This is such a strange day. I never thought that I would miss anyone when they were only going to be gone for the day. Maybe this is true love.” Allie wasn’t quite ready to accept this warm feeling inside.

  Allie headed back inside to help Megan not realizing that every moment of her goodbye with Justin was being witnessed and held against her.

  Chapter 15

  He found them at the Double G Ranch, living with the Greenley family. While there was a police car that came by occasionally, Karen was no longer watching over his family. There was still the entire set of ranch hands and family members always around to catch him if he tried anything. The worst one of all was that bitch, Allie, taking his family and moving them all over so that he couldn’t find them.

  Mike was hiding in the field just across the road from the Double G in the overgrown grass. While he still was not feeling in top shape, he had brought along a chair and sleeping bag so that he could stay and observe more comfortably. All of the pain that he felt, he added to the list of things that Allie and Megan had done to him. There wasn’t anything that they could do or say that would take away the growing hatred that Mike felt.

  Seeing Allie kiss Justin meant that there was something precious that Allie would do anything to protect. This was a potential way that could be used to get them all away from the Double G if another opportunity didn’t not come fairly soon.

  There was no way that he could continue to stay out here in the heat and watch them lead a happy life. He had to change this behavior so that his family would understand what happened when you crossed the head of the family.

  Watching all the activity on the Ranch with binoculars, there were some patterns to their routine that had possibilities, but he could never get close enough so that he could have any alone time with Megan and Sally. All the workers escorted Megan, Sally and Allie around from the guest house to the main house or barns. Everyone wore guns and there were at least five dogs running around that would alert everyone to his presence. They could always be subdued with steaks, but there were so many other variables to work with that it would take some time to work out all of the details. Patience would get him within reach of the goal with careful planning.

  At night there would be several ways to access the guest house or he could try sneaking in and waiting for a chance to get in the basement of the Big house.

  He watched as several ranch hands got the trailers hooked up to two of the trucks. He took a chance and scrambled to get close enough so that he could hear where the ranch hands were going.

  The two guys were cleaning out the trailers now and didn’t notice when the bushes by the fence shook with movement.

  “Good thing that the Greenley’s are picking up some extra cows at the auction. It means that even with the drought they will still need ranch hands to look after them.” The first ranch hand scraped the shovel along the bottom of the trailer so that anything left from last time would loosened enough to brush out with the broom.

  “Job security is what I call the cattle auction. The drought hasn’t been near as bad here as it has further south. So it makes sense to buy when the cattle are cheaper and sell when the market goes up.” Ranch hand number two swept the trailer of all the loose droppings.

  They both left the trailer causing Mike to hit the ground so that they didn’t see him. He needn’t have worried because both ranch hands returned with loads of hay to cover the now clean trailer floor to welcome the new arrivals.

  “At least we get a trip out of this little town for the night. By the time that the auction is over, we will need a good night’s sleep. At least Justin will stay with us while we get them all loaded up.”

  “Yeah, even though he is the owner’s son, he still pulls his weight around here same as the rest of us do.”

  Mike left while they were making the second trip inside, making his way back to his original hiding place. This was the perfect opportunity to sneak in and see Megan since the women would be hanging out on the ranch while the men were gone. The less ranch hands that were around who could stop him from seeing his family the better.

  He left his lookout to get the supplies that he would need and to make a call to his helper.

  “Hey can you bring me several steaks out close to the Double G Ranch around lunchtime?” Mike had a plan to get everyone on the other side of the ranch while he had a chat with his family.

  “Sure, buddy, do you need anything else?” J.D. wasn’t certain what Mike had planned, but was willing to help take care of Mike’s family being reunited with him.

  “Yes, actually. Five gallons of gas and a few matches. That should do the trick and I might need your help with my distraction plan.” Mike was excited that after weeks of recovery and waiting, it might finally end today.

  Arriving right on time, J.D. parked his personal vehicle close to the road in a corn field that was seldom used. Mike met him and took the steaks from him so that those crazy dogs would be distracted. J.D. helped him douse the edge of the hay field across the road that was part of the Double G.

  They poured the gasoline along a huge stretch of road so it could take the fire fighters hours to get it under control. Hopping back in the truck, they pulled out and Mike lit several matches and threw them into the field. They waited for the flame to catch and then J.D. drove off slowly so that no one would pay any attention to his vehicle.

  He dropped Mike off at the edge of the Double G property with the steaks. Mike took off walking through the corn field that was right next to the empty field he had been watching from. This way he could cross the road and hope that the fire would provide cover so that he would not be found.

  He arrived back at his hiding place to watch and see how long it would take for the family and the rest of the ranch hands to clear out to take care of the fire.

  Once, the alert had been sounded, people were racing in many directions, so no one noticed when Mike walked up to the back door of the guest house.

  He pounded on the door, hoping that the urgency would make them open up without looking to see who it was first.

  --------------

  Allie had been helping Megan and Sally to repaint the old guest house. It had fallen into disarray years before when the big house had been remodeled with the basement apartment. The apartment was cozy, but when everything settled down, Megan and Sally would need a more permanent place to live that would be more of their own space. G.G. had given them the place with two months’ rent free in exchange for doing all the manual labor that was required. She knew that it would take Megan a while to get on her feet and no one wanted to accept charity so this would help both of them out. Settling on a lower rent if they would put the work that was needed into making the old house livable again as they came across things that needed fixed. Megan and Sally were so excited that they could paint and decorate any way that they wanted.

  The house had been empty so long that most of the furniture had to go to the trash. The cleanup had taken two weeks to get ready for the painting process. The girls hadn’t been able to wait and got started as soon as Justin and His dad left that morning. So only a few hours after they left, the ladies were still at it with only a small break.

  Realizing that she would have to stop the madness, Allie was just about to suggest that they come back and do the trim after lunch, when there was a banging on the door. Allie glanced
out the window to see that there were vehicles and people running everywhere. Assuming that there was something majorly wrong she opened the door to find a gun in her face.

  Mike was standing there pushing her into the room with Megan. Turning to see who was there, Megan dropped the paint brushes that she going to clean. Mike kept the gun trained on Allie because he knew that Megan wouldn’t actually try to hurt him.

  “Allie, take your gun out and put it on the floor. Just know that even though I have a gun, I also have a knife, so if you even try anything crazy I will gut you just like I did Julie. Sit on the floor in the corner,” he tossed zip ties to Megan who was shaking so badly that she dropped them.

  “Megan, tie her up and don’t do anything more than I tell you to.” Mike was hoping that all the years of training that he had instilled in Megan would take over and keep her in line.

  Megan bent down and grabbed the zip ties. Trying to remember how much Mike could hurt them, she did what he asked. Allie simply held her hands out, making sure to keep them a little apart so that maybe she could slip out when Mike wasn’t looking.

  “Make sure that you do her feet as well.” Mike watched to make sure that Allie was taken care of since she was his biggest threat now that Karen was no longer protecting them.

  “Get back against that wall, Megan.” He walked closer to Allie. Having pulled out his knife; he placed his gun in the back of his waist band. Keeping the knife where she could see it, he pulled on the ties and made sure that it was cutting off circulation.

  “There that is how you do it you stupid, cow. Any one worth their salt would have made sure it was on better than that. You just can’t do anything right, can you?” He focused his attention on Megan, who had slid down the wall and was just waiting for him to hit her. She knew what was coming and Mike was never gentle.