Suffer II

by E. E. Borton

  When teachers and friends attempted to reach out to Emily’s mother, they received no response. Most who tried to help held the opinion that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. They came to the conclusion that the family was unable to cope with Hank’s death and turned to drugs to ease their pain.

  Emily remained vigilant with the drugging and sexual assault charges, but her erratic behavior and recent arrests made it difficult for law enforcement to pursue. On several occasions, she called the police, stating there were prowlers on her property and that she could hear voices outside of her bedroom window. They showed up twice in one week to investigate, but no evidence of a crime was found. Her subsequent calls were dismissed as drug-induced paranoia.

  Throughout her ordeal, there were only two adults in town with any influence who tried to help her. Judge Hall instructed Brittany to steal from her parents and plant drug paraphernalia in the guest room Emily often used. When they noticed items were missing and then found the drug kit, Brittany’s parents banned Emily from the house and told Brittany to cut all ties with her best friend. They were heartbroken with Emily’s spiraling descent, but they had to make sure Brittany didn’t go down the same drain.

  Judge Hall was pleased with Bullet’s work to destroy and disgrace Emily. The town devoured the story of a good girl gone bad and dismissed the idea that the son of a respected state judge had raped her. There were no whispers or rumors that Emily was being framed or that there was a conspiracy to cover up a sexual assault. Satisfied that the primary goal of discrediting Emily’s allegations against her son had been reached, Judge Hall was prepared to ease the pressure. Bullet wasn’t.

  When the deal was made, Judge Hall regarded Bullet as a drug-pushing thug wannabe from the swamps. She thought of him as weak-minded, easy to manipulate, and expendable when the time came to end their agreement and part ways. She didn’t realize that she had made a deal with the devil. He had his claws deep into Emily and had no intention of letting her go.

  Bullet was a psychopath. He had no regard for laws or the rights of others. He lacked remorse and felt no guilt when destroying lives by feeding their addictions and collecting payments. His propensity for violence to solve problems and keep others in line came as natural to him as breathing air. The judge may have been through with Emily, but Bullet wasn’t. He was just getting started.

  She was exhausted. The constant harassment by Bullet’s associates in the late hours left Emily tired and weak. The black void on the other side of her bedroom window was filled with ominous footsteps and strange noises. She would hear voices whispering that she was going to die. Trembling with fear, Emily would grab a knife out of the kitchen and sit on the floor next to the couch where her mother was sleeping or in the process of passing out.

  On a regular basis, their car was sabotaged, phone and power lines were cut, and dead animals were left as gifts on the back porch. As if they knew the moment she closed her eyes to sleep, they would bang on the side of the tiny house until they heard crying. They were told to wear her down and not to stop until she was broken.

  There were days when she had to go into town to buy groceries or pay bills. She would run her errands as fast as she could so she could get back home to protect her mother. Sometimes she would return to find the doors wide open and items rearranged in the house. The most recent visit by the poltergeist scared her the most. On the table next to the couch was a large bullet. When she picked it up, it had her mother’s name written on it.

  Early in the terror, she called Tyler and asked him to come over. He thought the harassment was part of Brittany’s plan to make him Emily’s hero. On the first night, he realized it wasn’t. After the second night, he always had an excuse as to why he couldn’t stay.

  Emily had nowhere to go and no one to turn to for help. Night after night, day after day, something would be lurking in a shadow waiting for her to let her guard down. They were told to never reveal themselves and never to lay a hand on her. They were told to be ghosts.

  Deprived of sleep and too tired to eat, Emily sat in a chair next to her mother. She was watching late night TV when the power was cut – again. She sat in the darkness for several minutes. Her heart began to race when she heard footsteps walking up the back stairs. The stretching of the spring on the screen door let her know that someone was on the porch. The creaking of the rocking chair let her know that someone wasn’t leaving.

  It took her a few minutes to find the courage to stand. Emily found it strange that there was light coming through the window in the kitchen. Her mother was asleep as she grabbed the knife off the table and made her way across the room. Standing at the window, the stranger made no attempt to hide his face from her. One of the ghosts had revealed himself. With a smile, he motioned for her to come outside. In her state of delirium, she turned the knob.

  “I ain’t gonna hurt you, Emily,” said the stranger. “I promise. I just wanna talk to you.”

  “I have a gun” said Emily, talking through a narrow opening.

  “No, you don’t,” said the stranger, laughing. “But I do know you have a knife. I ain’t got nothing on me.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Billy, but most folks call me Bullet.”

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “It ain’t me, sweetheart,” said Bullet. “But I can make it stop. All you have to do is come out here and talk to me. I don’t want us waking up your mother.”

  “How?” asked Emily, stepping onto the porch. “How can you make it stop?”

  “Come on, now,” said Bullet, holding his smile. “Close that door and sit down. If I was gonna hurt you, I already would have.”

  “Why is this happening?” asked Emily, taking a seat across from him. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I told you,” said Bullet, “it ain’t me. It’s Judge Hall. You know her, right?”

  “Yes,” said Emily. “Mark’s mother.”

  “Yep,” said Bullet. “That’s the one. I work for her. She told me to plant those drugs and get you arrested so nobody would believe your story about him raping you. And the way things are looking, I’ve done my job. Nobody will believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”

  “Then why don’t you leave us alone?” asked Emily, fighting to be strong and hold back her tears.

  “Well, that’s the problem here,” said Bullet. “She ain’t paying me to leave you alone. She’s paying me to fuck with you and make you go crazy.”

  “I give up,” said Emily. “You win. Tell her she won. I’m not going to press charges, I swear. I’ll drop everything if you just leave us alone.”

  “Ain’t up to you, sweetheart” said Bullet. “That’s up to me.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to get a good night’s sleep,” said Bullet. “And I’m gonna give you something to help you sleep. That’s all I want. You do that for me, and I call off my dogs. You do that, and nobody will mess with you or your mama anymore.”

  “You just want me to take a sleeping pill?”

  “Oh, no,” said Bullet, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a tin box. “This is much better than a pill.”

  “What is that?”

  “A little bit of heroin,” said Bullet, opening the tin. “This will make you feel much better and give you the best night of sleep you’ve had in a long time.”

  “I’m not taking that,” said Emily.

  “Why not?” asked Bullet, preparing the drug. “Everybody in this town thinks you already do it, so might as well do it then.”

  “Please, just go away,” said Emily.

  “Do you love your mother?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “Do you wanna see her get hurt?”

  “No!”

  “Keep your voice down,” said Bullet, drawing the heroin into a syringe. “She wakes up and comes out here, and I’ll have to bash her fucking head in. Now sit your ass down before you piss me off.”

/>   “I don’t want –”

  “Shut up,” said Bullet, leaning forward. “I’m offering you a way out of this shit. I don’t have to do this. All I have to do make your life hell and the judge hands me a bag of cash.

  “This is just enough to make you feel better and go to sleep. You ain’t gonna get hooked on it. Can’t you see that I’m trying to help you? I don’t like doing the things she told me to do to you. I think you’re a sweet girl and don’t deserve any of this, but that ain’t up to me.

  “You do this and I tell the judge tomorrow that we messed with you all night as usual. I tell her we’re driving you batshit crazy and you’re falling apart. But we won’t do a thing to you. You take this, and me and my boys leave you alone tonight. Isn’t that what you want? You want us to leave you and your mother alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then hold out your arm and look away,” said Bullet. “This will be out of your system by tomorrow morning, and then you can get on with your life. I’ll make sure Judge Hall knows you won’t go after her boy, and all this will go away. I promise you it will.”

  “Why would you do that for me?”

  “I told you,” said Bullet, wrapping a rubber band around her arm. “I don’t like doing this to you. You’re a good girl that got caught up in some shit. Ain’t right what the judge has been doing to you, so I’m gonna make it stop. We have a deal?”

  “What is it going to do to me?”

  “Sweetheart,” said Bullet, finding a vein. “This is gonna make everything feel good again. I promise you that. After this little prick, it’s gonna wash over you like a warm bath. Everything you’ve been worrying about is gonna go away, and you’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight.”

  Bullet pushed the heroin into her and pulled off the rubber band. The instant rush caused Emily to sit up straight. She became rigid and started breathing heavy.

  “Now, don’t fight it, girl” said Bullet, rubbing her arm. “Just go with it. It won’t work if you fight it.”

  Her exhaustion and sleepless nights in terror didn’t allow her to fight. Her shoulders dropped and she leaned back into the chair. Bullet held her hands and gave her words of comfort as the drug coursed through her veins. She smiled as her fear, stress, and pain were replaced by euphoria.

  Along with every other lie he told her, it wasn’t a little bit of heroin.

  Chapter 33

  Payment Due

  Emily awoke in a panic the next morning, but it only took a few moments to regain her composure. She looked at the clock and realized she had been asleep for ten hours. Bullet was right. She slept well.

  After checking on her mother and eating a large breakfast, she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so good. Rested and with a full stomach, she was optimistic about her day. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt that either.

  With the belief that her horrible ordeal was over, she took her time going into town and running errands. When she returned hours later, everything was in order. He was keeping his word.

  She found it ironic that the only person who seemed to give her any comfort and peace was the man who terrorized her for weeks, the same man who admitted to setting her up and destroying her life. She didn’t care. All she cared about was that it was over.

  Throughout the day, she kept looking at the tiny red dot on her arm where he injected her with heroin. By sunset, any evidence of that moment had all but disappeared. With everything she had endured since the party that had changed her life, allowing him to shoot her up with heroin seemed inconsequential.

  A sense of anxiety moved through her as the remaining daylight surrendered to darkness. It was the time things started to go bump in the night. It had been the normal routine for weeks, and she knew it would take some time for her to adjust to the silence. With the knife back on the table beside her chair, she attempted to lose herself in a movie on TV. When it ended, she heard familiar footsteps walking up the back stairs.

  “How you feeling?” asked Bullet, seeing Emily standing at the back door.

  “Rested,” said Emily.

  “Good, good,” said Bullet, reaching for the handle of the screen door. “Mind if I come in?”

  “No,” said Emily, taking a seat.

  “I told you it would make you feel better and help you sleep,” said Bullet, sitting in the rocking chair. “Made you forget some things too, didn’t it?”

  “It did,” said Emily.

  “Well, I’ve got some good news for you,” said Bullet, smiling at her. “I talked to the judge today. I told her we scared you good last night. I said another week or two should put you in the nuthouse. She agreed and said we don’t need to mess with you anymore after that.”

  “So it’s over?” asked Emily.

  “Looks like it,” said Bullet, taking out the tin box. “I bet I can talk her down to a week instead of two.”

  “Oh, no,” said Emily, holding up her hand. “I don’t need that tonight. I won’t have a problem sleeping now that I know nothing is going to happen. I have you to thank for that.”

  “That’s not our deal,” said Bullet, leaning back. “It’s one or the other.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Emily. “I – I don’t understand.”

  “You either take another little hit or I gotta call my dogs back,” said Bullet. “That’s just the way it is.”

  “Why do you want me to take it?”

  “That’s the thanks I get for helping you?” said Bullet. “You’d be a fucking trainwreck right now if I didn’t give it to you. That shit ain’t cheap either. I paid for it out of my own pocket so you’d feel better.”

  “I do feel better.”

  “Look,” said Bullet, taking a breath. “You’re not leaving me any choice here. I still work for the judge, and she’s one crazy, messed up bitch. If she finds out I ain’t doing nothing to you, it’s my ass and I need to cover it.”

  “I still don’t understand,” said Emily, becoming upset.

  “Dang,” said Bullet. “I thought you was smart.”

  “Not lately.”

  “All right, I’ll break it down for you so you know where I’m coming from with all this. The judge wants you all fucked up so nobody will believe your story about her son. Are you with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she hired me to screw your life up, which I’ve done, right?”

  “That’s an understatement, but yes.”

  “Okay, then. Nothing will make the judge happier, or end this faster, if she thinks you’re hooked on heroin for real. And that’s what I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her I got you to shoot up, and now you’re doing it all day long. But you won’t be, you see. You’ll just be taking it once before you go to bed.”

  “Why can’t you just tell her without me having to do it?”

  “That ain’t gonna work,” said Bullet. “She’s smart. Real smart. What if she wants to see for herself and comes with me tomorrow night, huh? Maybe she’ll make you take a drug test or something to prove it? I’m telling you, she’ll find out. If she does find out I’m lying to her, I’m a dead man, and you and your mama are dead too. I guarantee it. That woman will kill us all to protect her precious little asshole son. That’s why you have to do it yourself tonight. Just in case she wants to see that you know how to do it.”

  “I have to do it myself?”

  “Yeah,” said Bullet. “It’s easy and it don’t hurt. I’ll show you everything.”

  “I can’t do that,” said Emily. “I just can’t.”

  “Well, you better find a way, sweetheart,” said Bullet. “Because that woman ain’t never gonna leave you and your mama alone if you don’t. You want her to leave you alone, right? This is how you make that happen, and it’s how I don’t end up shot and dumped in the swamp. This is your way out of this mess, Emily. You only have to do it once a night right before you go to bed, and it ain’t enough to get you hooked. I wouldn’t do that to you. I want this shit to be over too. I don’t like hu
rting nobody.”

  “Do you swear?” asked Emily.

  “I swear to God,” said Bullet. “We gotta make it look real. That woman wants to kill you. Don’t you understand that? She asked me to do it last week, but I talked her out of it. I said I didn’t want no murder charge and that I could make sure you’d never talk. I’m telling you, if I don’t do this, she’ll find someone else that will. And whoever she finds won’t give a shit like I do. They’ll just put a bullet in you and your mama’s head and walk away.”

  “Okay,” said Emily. “Show me what to do.”

  “Now you’re being smart.”

  Emily’s hands were shaking when she took the syringe. Bullet knelt down beside her and steadied her. He showed her where to pierce her skin and find a vein. The dose was the same as the night before. He carried her into her bedroom after she pushed the drug and slumped back into her chair.

  They repeated the process for a week. He showed her how to cook the heroin and load the syringe. After a few days, she no longer needed his help.

  On the eighth day, Bullet didn’t show up. The night before, he left his phone number on a piece of paper in her bedroom beside her nightstand. She did her best to resist making the call. An hour later he was standing on her back porch.

  “You okay, sweetheart?” asked Bullet, sitting beside her.

  “I’m not feeling well,” said Emily. “I just want to go to sleep.”

  “Sure,” said Bullet. “But I can’t give it to you for free no more. You understand that, right?”

  “Of course,” said Emily, reaching into her pocket. “How much is it?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Okay,” said Emily, handing him the money.

  “Here you go,” said Bullet. “Twenty gives you two doses.”