Rescued I

by M. K. Elliott

  She listened as he went through his nightly routine; brushed his teeth and washed his face, then took a leak in the toilet. She waited as he shed his clothes on his side of the bed, knowing that she would be the one to pick them up again in the morning as Jackson slept on regardless.

  He slid his warm body in beside her. She was facing away from him and he pressed himself up against her back, fitting his knees into the back of hers, and he wrapped an arm around her waist.

  He nuzzled into her neck.

  I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered into her hair. “I love you so much. Why do you make me do these things to you?”

  She could smell a mixture of beer and toothpaste on his breath and the strange combination stoked the fire that had been growing in her belly. She didn’t want him anywhere near her.

  “Hey, I’m sleeping,” she said, trying to pull away from him.

  He wasn’t having any of it. Roughly he pulled her over so she was facing him. Serenity tensed, her body hard and unwelcoming, but Jackson ignored the physical messages she was sending him and kissed her face frantically, as though kisses could heal her wounds.

  “God, you’re so beautiful,” he said.

  “Jackson,” she said, pulling her face away from his. “Not tonight. I’m tired.”

  “Shhh,” he told her, putting his hand over her mouth, stopping her words. Her heart picked up a beat and she tried to twist away from him, but he climbed on top of her, forcing his knee between her legs, pushing them apart.

  “Jackson...” she protested, her voice muffled beneath his clammy palm. “Stop it.” The words came out – ‘sho-iik’, and he ignored her. She clamped her legs back together as best she could, struggling against him.

  “I love you,” he murmured, as though those three words would make everything alright. “You know how much I love you.”

  He took his hand off of her mouth and somehow he managed to get hold of her right arm and pin it behind her head. With more force, he shoved his knee back down, bruising the inside of her thighs.

  “Jackson!” she said again, practically shouting, fear tainting her voice. “I said no. Get off of me!”

  She tried to push him away, but the position he had her in, with one arm above her head and his whole body weight pinning her body down, meant that she could barely move.

  He kissed her again, forcing his mouth down on hers, mashing her lips back against her teeth. She could feel his free arm reach down towards her panties, trying to pull them aside.

  She was frightened now. Would he do it? Would he actually rape her? Jackson was free with his fists, but he had never stooped so low.

  “For fuck’s sake, Jackson,” she yelled. “Get the fuck off of me!”

  For a moment she had thought she had actually got through to him, that he had listened to her for once, but then she felt the unnatural way he lifted off of her. It was as though he sprung backwards, like someone had attached wires to his back, like he was a stunt man in some Hollywood movie.

  Jackson literally flew away from her, leaving her half-naked and exposed on the bed. He flew backwards through the air and crashed into the chest of drawers that was positioned on the far wall, opposite the end of their bed.

  He hit it with a sickening crunch and slumped down in front of it, groaning.

  Frightened, Serenity sat up in bed, pulling the sheets around her.

  “Jackson?” Tentatively she called her husband’s name and pulled the sheets tighter around her. She was scared. What the hell had just happened?

  Carefully she climbed off the bed, taking the sheets with her. She approached her husband as though he was a wounded wild animal. “Jackson? Are you alright?”

  He groaned again and clutched at his lower back.

  Serves you right, you fucking bastard, came a spiteful, bitter voice in her head that she barely recognised.

  Jackson’s eyes flickered, the whites showing unnaturally bright. For a moment Serenity thought he was going to pass out cold, but then he bolted upright, frantically scouring the bedroom.

  “There was someone in here,” he said, his voice breaking. “Someone grabbed me and pulled me off of you.”

  She shook her head in confusion. “There is no one else in here, Jackson. It’s just us.”

  He had lost some of his bravado. She could see he was as scared as she was, but Serenity knew from experience that when an animal is scared he is also dangerous.

  “No,” he shook his head desperately. “Someone else was here, someone grabbed me. I felt his hands on me. I felt his cold, fucking hands on me!”

  Cold hands, she remembered. Cold hands and soft, pale skin.

  No. That couldn’t be. It just wasn’t possible! Nevertheless, Serenity found herself looking around the room, half-expecting to see her stranger materialise out of thin air. She caught herself. That was crazy. There was no way he could get in and out of the room without either of them seeing him.

  Jackson must have seen something pass across her face. “Who is he?” he suddenly demanded. “Was it some guy you’re screwing? Have you let someone else in here?”

  Her eyes were wide with fright, but again the man’s face appeared in her mind like a subliminal image on a television screen.

  It made her pause too long and Jackson seized upon it.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” He was incredulous, as though he never truly believed she was capable of having an affair, despite his constant accusations. “You little whore! You’ve been seeing someone else!”

  It wasn’t a question any more, it was a statement.

  Her eyes were wide with fright and she shook her head desperately. “No, no, I haven’t I swear to you.”

  Jackson’s injuries probably saved her life at that precise moment. If he hadn’t been clutching his back, he would have leapt across the room and strangled her. Also, he had a lump on the back of his head the size of an egg. He reached his hand up and tentatively touched the bump. When he pulled his fingers away they were coated with blood. It looked almost black in the dim light.

  The sight of the blood threw him off of his rant; one thing she could always rely on Jackson for was putting his own well being ahead of everything else. “I need to get to hospital,” he said. “I’m hurt; you need to call an ambulance.”

  She looked at the blood and felt a sliver of malice slip down her throat. She wanted to tell him to suck it up, that she had had far worse injuries than that and had never been able to seek medical help, but years of silence wasn’t broken in a day and she held her tongue.

  The phone was downstairs. She left the bedroom and ran down to it, grateful to be out of Jackson’s company, if only for a minute or two. She crossed the room to the phone, lifted the receiver and dialled 911. She told the operator she needed an ambulance and when the operator asked what had happened, she told her that her husband had had an accident in the bedroom.

  A bark of hysterical laughter nearly escaped her, but she managed to clamp her mouth shut so it only sounded like a strange, strangled cough. Images of Jackson having got himself into some weird perverted mess with a pair of handcuffs and a candlestick danced through her mind. Hysteria was perilously close to the surface and she knew if she allowed herself to lose it, Jackson would kill her.

  “I was attacked,” Jackson shouted down the stairs, finding the strength when it came to still trying to control what she did. “Tell them I need the police as well. I was attacked.”

  For once Serenity ignored him; she gave the operator their address and hung up the phone. She walked back up to the bedroom.

  “Jackson,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. She sounded authoritative, not like herself at all, and it made him look up. “What exactly are you planning to tell the police? That you were attacked in our own bedroom by someone you never even saw? Someone that neither of us saw! The first thing they are going to ask is if you have been drinking – which you quite clearly have – and then they will send you for psychiatric tests.”

  He
opened his mouth to protest and then shut it again.

  Serenity knew that he was injured, but even this small victory felt like a powerful rock inside her.

  So what had happened? Jackson hadn’t just thrown himself off of her. The way he had moved was unnatural – leaping backwards like that. How could he have done that by himself? It was physically impossible. Then there was the shock on his face; he hadn’t known what was happening. Jackson hadn’t leapt off of her voluntarily, but it was just wishful thinking to think that the man she met today had somehow saved her and miraculously disappeared.

  She found her eyes drifting to the window, where the full length curtain lifted slightly and flapped in the breeze.

  Something stirred within her, something that shouted to her that something wasn’t right. She stared at the window, trying to figure out what it was.

  Then it came to her.

  They never slept with the window open, Jackson always complained about the amount of noise from the road, especially first thing in the morning when everyone else was getting up to go to work or take their children to school. If there was a breeze, it was because the window was open.

  Serenity stood up and pulled the sheets around her, most of them trailing out behind her like the train of a wedding dress.

  “Serenity?” Jackson’s questioning voice called to her, but she ignored it and continued to the window.

  Goosebumps rose on her skin, prickling their way down her naked arms. With a shaking hand she reached out and touched the thick, cream-coloured fabric of the bedroom curtains. She paused for a moment, taking a shallow, jittery breath, and then she whipped back the curtain.

  No one was there.

  The window was only just standing ajar a couple of inches. There was a storey drop down the other side. It was impossible for someone to have dropped that height and pulled the window partially shut behind them without being seen. They would have to be an acrobat or something.

  Just like it is impossible that someone threw Jackson across the room without being seen.

  “Serenity?” Jackson said again, irritated. He was waking up now, starting to find himself again. “Serenity, what the fuck are you doing? Get over here and help me up.”

  She should just leave him there, she thought. She should just step over the top of him and walk out the door.

  She knew that she should, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Where would she go? She had no friends or family and their bank balance would only buy her a couple of nights in a motel. Besides, he would find her. She knew he would find her and then he would make her sorry.

  Serenity told herself that she would know the right time to go.

  For years she had told herself that something inside of her would tell her when it was time to go. She had no idea when that would be. Maybe she was just making excuses to herself; a coward giving herself a get out, but that was how she felt.

  Deep down she hoped that maybe someone, somewhere, would find it in their heart to help her. She wasn’t capable of doing it herself.

  Reluctantly, she helped her injured husband onto the bed.

  Chapter Three

  The ambulance took nearly thirty minutes to arrive and by the time Serenity heard the sirens cutting through the air, she was pacing back and forth in the kitchen, chewing at the rough cuticles on her nails.

  By the time they made it down the street she was standing outside her front gate waiting to usher them in.

  It wasn’t that she was particularly worried about her husband’s state of health, it was more that the longer they took, the more time there was for him to come out of the doped-up stupor he had been in and beat the living crap out of her. At least if that was what happened there would be an ambulance ready for her.

  Two men jumped out of the ambulance, a younger one with short dark hair and a slightly chunky man in his late forties. Serenity didn’t speak, she just showed them up the stairs to the bedroom where Jackson was still lying down on the bed.

  “What happened?” the older of the paramedics asked.

  Serenity glanced at Jackson, but he wouldn’t meet her eye.

  “We were fooling around,” he said, his voice dull. “I slipped.”

  She saw the two paramedics quickly take in her wearing her dressing gown and Jackson just in his shorts, and they shared a glance of their own. Serenity knew they would be drinking out on this one tonight. She could hear their voices now - ‘You should’ve seen the state of what this guy’s missus did to him, she must be an animal in bed’

  Screw them, she thought. They obviously have no idea what they’re dealing with.

  The older paramedic examined him. “Doesn’t look too bad, but we better just take you in for observation. Chances are you’ll probably just have a concussion and a stinking headache for a couple of days, but it’s best to sure”

  “Where are you taking him?” she asked, finally speaking.

  “Good Samaritan Hospital, down on Wilshire Boulevard,” he said. “It’s the closest one to here that has an emergency room.” Then he took her question as concern. “Don’t worry; there’s room for you in the back of the ambulance.”

  Jackson turned to her. “You’ll come with me, won’t you baby?” he asked, turning into a little boy when it suited him. “You know how much I hate hospitals.”

  She forced a smile. “Sure.”

  The ambulance moved silently down the freeway, not needing the siren as Jackson was clearly not about to die any time soon.

  Serenity sat on the narrow bench beside the gurney, one of the paramedics sat on the opposite side.

  Jackson lay between them on the gurney. He had fallen into a heavy sleep and was still managing to snore, despite the oxygen mask that was over his nose and mouth.

  Serenity sat with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She had thrown on a sweater and a pair of jeans before they had left, so at least she didn’t feel quite so under the scrutiny of the paramedics now. She sat avoiding the young paramedic’s eye (the older one was now driving) and only giving perfunctory one word answers to the friendly small talk he was trying to make. She didn’t want to be rude – it wasn’t in her nature – but she couldn’t discuss the weather or the latest Dodgers game when she had so much more on her mind.

  Suddenly something heavy thudded onto the roof of the ambulance, dragging her from her thoughts, and the ambulance swerved, pulling into another lane. A vehicle behind them blasted its horn and Serenity felt the pull of the ambulance as it tried to fight against the control of the older paramedic.

  “What the..?” the younger paramedic glanced up at the ceiling.

  The driver got the vehicle back under control and shouted back; “You guys alright back there? I’ve no idea what that was!”

  “A bird?” Serenity suggested, thinking that if one of those big pelicans dropped out of the sky it could cause a big thump like that.

  “It didn’t bounce,” the paramedic said thoughtfully, half to himself. “If it was a bird, it would have bounced.”

  Whatever it was had been big – really big. If Serenity was thinking in the terms of animals, it would have been closer to a Great Dane than a bird.

  They both glanced back up at the roof of the ambulance. Was something still there? Still perched there waiting? The ceiling suddenly felt oppressive, pressing down on their heads, and the interior of the ambulance seemed to have shrunk down to toy size. A chill ran down Serenity’s back and she saw the paramedic - his name badge said ‘John’ - shiver as well.

  “It’s not far now,” John said, seeming to try to reassure himself as well as her.

  She nodded, but said nothing.

  Someone was there; she could feel it, John the paramedic could feel it, if Jackson had been awake, she was pretty certain that he would feel it too, and she was also sure that he might have had the same feeling as he was being thrown across the room when he was trying to rape her.

  Is it you?

  She sent the thought out w
ith every concentration of her mind, but what the hell would a stranger be doing on the roof of the ambulance? How the hell would he even get there? She must be going crazy to be having such thoughts. She probably was – what with all the stress she had been under – but that didn’t stop her believing.

  They pulled into the unloading bay at the hospital. Jackson woke at the change of motion of the vehicle, but then rolled over as best he could considering he was strapped down and went back to sleep.

  “It’s the bump,” John told her, mistaking her worried expression for concern for her husband. “It’s normal for him to want to sleep.”

  Serenity started to climb out of the ambulance, but instead of climbing down from the back she stood up. Ignoring the paramedic’s look of surprise, she balanced on the back of the ambulance, just before the ramp, and hooked her fingers over the roof. Like a gymnast on the rings she pulled herself up by her fingertips.

  There was nothing on the roof, but she could see dents in the metal where something had hit. There was no blood, or feathers, or even fur indicating that an animal had hit, but to be fair she hadn’t really been looking for that, had she? Instead she reached out a hand as best she could and traced her fingers across the dents. If she had of been quizzed she would have said they looked suspiciously like footprints.

  She dropped down to find John, the paramedic looking at her quizzically. “Anything?” he asked.

  She smiled and shook her head. “Must have been a ghost.”

  The paramedics admitted Jackson and he was transferred to another gurney in a shared bay. Three other men were in the same bay, ranging from a very old man who looked extremely frail as he slept, to a young guy who couldn’t have been far out of his teens and had tattooed sleeves covering the skin of both his arms. He too slept, but in that kind of zonked out way that told Serenity that he was either sleeping off an overdose of drink or drugs, or most likely a combination of both.