by Serra, D. A.
“Oh, god!” She shoves the rifle out of reach with her feet. “Oh god! Hank? You came back.”
He turns toward her. He sees her crouching in the bathroom doorway. “Of course I came back,” Ben says with a smile. “You knew I would. We have unfinished business.”
What’s real? Wait. Is she still in a dream? He’s dead. Ben’s dead. It’s Hank. I need to see that it is Hank! Ben raises his handgun aiming at her head and she reacts reflexively. Using power from both her legs, she launches herself backward into the bathroom as he fires! The sound of the gunshot thunders out piercing the serenity of the neighborhood and then she knows. I am not dreaming! I am not imagining! I am not crazy! I have been right all along. She scuttles across the bathroom tile, which feels hard on her knees. The bathroom still smells of the lavender soap and citrus shampoo she lathered on in sweet luxury earlier. I’m glad I’m clean, she thinks in a passing second. I’d hate to be found dead and dirty, too, a last humiliation. I’ve been dirty, I’ve been soaked in mud and covered in blood and I really do want to die clean. Does this explain why we clean a body before we bury it? She feels oddly peaceful about that even as she realizes it is such a strange thing to be pleased about. And no matter how this ends, at least it will end and that is something to be thankful for she tells herself. She scrambles into Jimmy’s room.
Ben walks after her following with the ease since he is the greater more powerful predator. He will do this deliberately. He has a right to enjoy this. She killed Theo. He steps into the bathroom and glances into the shower stall - empty. She killed Kent. He steps toward the other bathroom door, which leads to Jimmy’s room. She killed Gravel. Bitch! He wants her suffocating in fear. He is excited by her terror and thrilled to see her crawl. He has been patient for this moment. Now, he owns her and all the waiting is worth it.
Alison rolled to the left as she scurried into Jimmy’s room and so now she is trapped. She must get across to the doorway that leads to the hall and the stairs. Moonlight streams in white through Jimmy’s bedroom window. She wedges up against the side of his dresser trying to calculate her chances of making it to the door. She is only partially hidden. She has seconds - only seconds to decide but time stretches as her brain works at peak efficiency. To get out and into the hallway she must cross the bathroom door opening. Stupid, stupid, she scolds. I should have gone the other way! Crossing the door now will expose her to him as he walks through the bathroom. It would put her directly in his line of fire. What? What to do? Too late. Ben emerges from the bathroom into Jimmy’s room. He turns toward her. He has her. There is nowhere to go. She reaches for the remote on Jimmy’s dresser and presses it. Bells! Whistles! Lights! Ben twists around startled as Jimmy’s robot bursts to life nearby and walks toward him. “What the fuck!” He fires at it! He’s never seen anything like it. Alison uses the one instant of his distraction to cross behind and at a dead run she escapes the bedroom. With big strides nearly flying she heads for the stairs. The Mossberg, she thinks. I need the Mossberg in the basement.
Ben smiles at his reaction and surprise. She tricked him, very funny. She is so inherently competent. He takes off after her with huge powerful strides and complete confidence.
He will not expect another weapon. If I can just get to the basement. Her legs know these stairs. Her body has learned the curve of them and the width of them. It is ingrained into her muscle memory from going up and down them thousands of times. The darkness is no impediment. She easily springs down three stairs at a time landing with exacting surety and sure-footed. At the halfway point, where the staircase opens up to the first floor, she throws her legs over the banister and vaults to the foyer floor below easily clearing the little foyer table she knows is there. She feels a twinge in her right knee when she lands. She ignores it.
Ben giggles at himself for being startled by the toy robot as he takes the stairs. He is really having such a good time now. He pursues her with agility and speed. He vaults over the banister too, but lands on top of the foyer table smashing it to pieces and getting thrown off his feet. Knowing every inch of this house intimately is her advantage. This is her home, her ground. She scrambles into the kitchen. He is only seconds behind her. She knows there is not enough time to get safely across the kitchen to the basement door. It would allow for at least one clear shot. One clear shot is all it would take to bring her down. Immediately as she enters the kitchen and darts by her microwave she presses the preset timer button. She could do this in her sleep. It starts automatically at 15 seconds. She dives down behind the far side of the center island’s butcher’s block and freezes. It is the only solid thing between them as Ben enters the dark kitchen. The timer: thirteen…twelve… There is only five feet between them and she tries with brutal desperation to control the sound of her panting but she must take in air - her body demands oxygen. She needs a few seconds more.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Confidently, Ben flips on the kitchen lights, which really panics her - she likes the dark - she needs the dark - it is her friend and she knows that. It’s so bright. God, so bright! The timer: nine… eight… He easily figures out where she must be. He starts slowly to circle the butcher’s block.
“I’m looking forward to seeing your son again when we’re done here. Such a cute boy reminded me of Kent when he was little.”
Alison slides open the drawer and pulls out the very long two-pronged barbecue fork. The timer: three…two… He’s at the corner of the island.
He smiles, “Peek-a-boo.” He looks over. She’s right below him.
The microwave buzzer goes off. He spins involuntarily toward the unexpected sound from directly behind him. Alison rises up and jams the barbecue fork into the flesh of his side. He lurches forward and releases a wail of angry pain. It is the scream of an enraged and injured beast! She uses the moment to bolt for the basement doorway thankfully open. Alison dashes down the stairs while Ben has to pull the fork from the soft tissues of his body and from where one of the tongs has punctured his right kidney. Game over. He is injured! He is in a fury of hate. No matter what happens, even if he has to go with her, he’s not leaving until she is dying painfully at his feet. He stuffs a kitchen towel under his shirt to quell the bleeding. He turns and moves to the basement, and then, he stops abruptly. He has underestimated her all along. He will not do that again. She’s a survivor, a fighter. He knows there is a chance someone has heard the gunshots. He will need to move it along. His eyes slowly take in the scene and he considers his options. The basement must be a trap. Why else would she run there instead of out the back door of the house? It’s not logical. And she has proven to be logical. Ben walks over to the kitchen sink and opens the cabinet door underneath. He reviews the products available to him. He pulls out the can of oven cleaner. He opens the drawer where she got the barbecue fork and removes the long sticks of matches. “What a predicable little homemaker.” He ignores the pain in his side and with only the ghost of a limp, he walks to the basement door where he strikes the match, points the can and sprays into the flame creating a blowtorch. He moves the torch meticulously around the door molding setting the paint and wood trim on fire. He grabs the newspaper from the kitchen table and tosses it on the floor; the pages catch quickly and begin to burn throwing off plumes of black smoke.
Downstairs, Alison scrambles over all the obstacles and wrenches open the dresser drawer. She throws Jimmy’s Batman pajama to the floor and unearths the Mossberg rifle. Gratefully, she grabs it and lifts it out. She spins quickly around expecting him to be right there! Where is he? Why hasn’t he followed her? What’s keeping him? Then, she smells it. Smoke! She moves quickly back to the stairs. Her eyes widen as she sees the flames at the top. Oh, no.
Ben revels in the colors of the flames. Exquisite, he thinks. Even while he was watching Uncle Rafe burn to death tied up inside his Canadian cabin, Ben had to note how brilliant and attractive the flames were as they licked their way up the walls. Fire is truly captivating. Something about the
energy, the waving shapes, and bright yellow and blue, makes him want to stick his hand in it. He did that once as a kid and he remembers it as being thrilling although he still carries the scars. With the flames eating up the kitchen wall and steadily on its way, he proceeds out the back door. Once outside, he turns the corner of the little home, passes the barbecue, and stops in front of the two wooden trap doors a few feet from the ground that lead down to the basement. The two doors are partially covered with ivy. He noticed them a few days ago when he was casing the house. It had been so easy to find the Kraft home thanks to all the news coverage. It was as if they were pointing him the way. News teams - really such a helpful bunch, he thinks, it would have taken him a long time to track her down without them. He would have, of course, but it would have been inconvenient. He positions himself outside the trap doors. He is slightly favoring his injured side, but playing in pain has always been easy for him. He sees pain as a challenge. He knows he will have to get that side stitched up somehow after he leaves here.
He watches the trap doors to the basement. She will come right to him. She will have to. He shifts from foot to foot as he becomes excited. He has always loved the hunt and especially trapping, luring them in, where they walk themselves right into his arms because they have no choice. He prefers that to stalking because stalking just seems like the weasel’s way of winning. He favors inducing the victim to walk to him. Such a yummy sensation of power as they hand over their lives. It simply confirms the superiority of his mind. When he thinks about what this bitch has done to his family his blood heats and surges inside his veins and he swelters. He takes a nice long breath in - this is going to be luscious.
Smoke billows into the basement and Alison feels it sinking down into her lungs. She looks over at the steps up to the trap doors that lead to the backyard. It is bolted on the inside. She knows he’s out there waiting - certain death. Do what he doesn’t expect. How do I get through those flames? The smoke alarms sound in the house! Move! She yells at herself. She runs to the washing machine. The smoke thickens. She opens the top of the machine. A set of Jimmy’s sheets are sopping wet inside, left halfway through their cycle this morning by Polly. Yes, Polly stopped in the middle of doing the laundry. She reaches in and yanks out the wet sheet. She runs to the bottom of the basement stairs. The top steps of the staircase are beginning to burn. She has no time to think this through. She throws the wet sheet over her head and knows speed is her friend. It will be like when you run your finger through a candle flame, she tells herself, if you go fast enough it doesn’t hurt. With every ounce of energy, ramped up, she barrels up the stairs in her bare feet while covered in the wet sheets and carrying the Mossberg. At the third step from the top, she flings herself through the flaming doorway and onto the kitchen floor. She pulls off the smoldering sheet and looks around. The kitchen is engulfed in flames. It’s hot! Her skin is beginning to burn. Too hot all around her! Out - out now! Out the backdoor or burn alive. She blasts out the back door into the yard choking on the smoke. She takes a number of quick breaths. She knows there are some burns on the bottom of her feet and they are just beginning to sting. She coughs and looks around.
Above the noise from the cracking and popping of the fire as it consumes the kitchen side of the house, Ben hears her coughing. What, he thinks? She went up those stairs? How? Goddamn it! He runs back toward the kitchen door.
Exposed in the open yard she whips her head all around. The overhanging branches of the large trees surround her. They reach out their many limbs toward her. Her throat tightens and she struggles for clean breaths of the cold night air. She turns for the garage, opens the door, and stumbles inside. She just needs to hold on now. Help is coming. Help must be coming. The smoke alarms are blaring. The fire rages. She looks for a safe nest, a place to wait, but as soon as she stands still in the two-car garage, she realizes this was a grave mistake. Bad choice. There is only one way in or out of this garage. A very bad choice. And he is coming. The two-car wide rectangular space is just as crammed with a wide range of miscellany as the basement of her house. One small window, high up on the far wall, allows in the flickering red and gold light from the flames consuming her home and making the garage look ghoulish with large undulating shadows. She could never reach that window with all of the boxes and lawn equipment stacked in front of it. It will not serve as an escape route. The hairs stand on her neck and icy fingers run down her spine as she senses him walking toward the garage now. She knows he is coming. The garage feels like Hobbs’ shed; it even smells like the shed with the scent of gasoline, paint, and rusting metal from the gardening tools. She imagines Kent and sees him nailed to the side of the garage wall. No, she reprimands, no, think straight. Then, Gravel is there in the doorway. No, not here. You are not real. Stop, she pleads with herself. Focus. It is Ben. Ben is real. Ben is here! This is happening, right now, isn’t it? Or have I gone mad? Have I set the house on fire? Have I gone mad and set my home on fire? No. She jumps over the lawn mower and ducks under the three bicycles suspended from the ceiling by ropes. The skin on her bare burned feet stings as she shuffles around the snowboarding boots. She begins to breathe through her mouth to keep up with her pounding heart and to expel some of the inhaled smoke that tastes dirty on her tongue. She burrows in toward the back wall of the room behind the old broken-down Ford, which hasn’t moved in two years. She shrinks down into the corner with the Mossberg sleek and heavy in her hands. And this is when it all becomes clear. This is the exact instant when she finally realizes that it is not about her life. It is an epiphany: this has never been about her life. It was a fluke that she survived. It was not meant to be. Everyone knows that, and that is the reason why people look at her strangely, and why they do not understand her. It created an imbalance. It was one enormous cosmic mistake. Yes. And that is what has prolonged this nightmare, and that is why she has been in a half-alive condition all of this time; because she was self-concerned, because she was not focusing on what was really her task, her function, her responsibility. It was her destiny to trade herself for Jimmy and Hank. It was supposed to be her life for their lives. She has thwarted fate and so she has been stuck in this altered state of delusion and hallucination, suspended in a half-living, half-dead form all this time because she was unwilling to commit her own self, unwilling to make the needed sacrifice. She looks back over the course of the last month and realizes she was not meant to survive the island. If she would have stood out in the open at that one moment in front of the lodge, and if she would have taken the clear shot at Ben that was offered to her in that moment, then that would have ended this when it was meant to end and how it was supposed to end with both of them dead. That is why this is not over, that is why this has all felt unfinished, and that is why she and Ben are tied to each other in this cyclical death dance. She wanted more than she was meant for; she wanted it all, to save herself and her family. She wanted too much. She should have been grateful to step out from behind that rock and take out Benjamin Burne no matter how many bullets he sank into her chest while doing it. That is what Hank would have done. That was what was required. She has not really been alive since she left the island that night and this is how she knows that what she is thinking is the truth. She has not lived one single day in a whole state. He is coming, yes, he is supposed to come, and it is time. It is past time. Instantly, she feels lighter. She has all the time in the world and calmly she waits for Ben to step into the garage. Now, she understands what is meant by destiny, by fate, what is truly meant when someone says, “It is written.” It has been incomplete because she has been a coward. She has been uncommitted. What was needed was an unconditional commitment to end it. She asks herself, am I ready for that now? Am I strong enough to stand up and take the bullets into my body so I can end this? Do I have the courage to stand there and shoot? Will it hurt? I know I have to die to get him, because that is what he does not expect me to do, and that is the only way to beat him. I know that. I know if I don’t end his life he
will never stop tracking me, never stop hunting my son, my beautiful son, and my loving husband. There is no other option. He will be back again and again until it is over. I have to do this tonight - now. I have to stand and take that shot regardless. Am I ready? There is nowhere left to run, no more tricks to surprise him, and no place left to hide. There is only what is meant to be. I see this vividly, and I know that he does not see it, and that is my advantage - the only advantage I have left, and the only one I will need. He will not expect me to reveal myself to him and put my life on the line to get the clear shot. He will assume I will hide, run, fight for self-preservation and that has been my flaw. I can see that now. I am at peace with that. My life has been good even if it has been short. I have been truly loved. And I have loved truly and now I will prove that. I will need precisely the right shot so I am certain to kill him, so he cannot be resuscitated, so no form of him survives. When I stand, he will want that moment to gloat — that will be my moment, the moment for that final surprise. And so, she commits, that as long as she can take him with her, then she will gladly go violently into that good night.
