Wild Flower

by Abbie Williams

  The phone fell from my numb fingers and clattered against the wooden surface of the counter. I was shaking almost too badly to retrieve it, but I managed, fitting it back into its cradle. My entire body felt immersed in ice water, my eyes frantically scanning the darkened windows. My own reflection peered back from the curtainless expanse of glass and a thousand eyes seemed to be watching. My neck prickled anew, in a seizure of horror.

  He’s gone, he’s not here. He is gone. He left town.

  Who the fuck is he? What does this mean? Is he really Zack Dixon?

  My legs were almost useless, trembling as hard as they were, but I forced myself to walk out the front door, clicking on the porch light as I did so, determined to walk the short distance over to Mom and Aunt Ellen’s and tell them exactly what I’d just learned. If they wanted to call the police, then we would.

  Is that really necessary?

  What would you even tell them?

  I made it down the porch steps and an owl hooted just above my head. I jolted, gasping, pressing a hand to my heart to still the sudden frightful pounding, almost laughing at my own jumpiness as the huge bird flapped away across the black sky, no more than a few yards above the cafe.

  It’s all right, Jilly, it’s just an—

  It was at that exact moment he caught me from behind. I hadn’t detected a sound, his footfalls silent over the grass, not even able to scream as his hand swooped around my head and clamped hard over my mouth. He carried me effortlessly to the far side of the cafe, closest to the lake, where he spun me around so that I could see his face, keeping my mouth firmly covered. The back of my head cracked against the siding as he pinned me.

  “Don’t make a sound,” he ordered, his voice low and soft. As prey before a much stronger, faster, and cunning predator, instinct froze my limbs. In sharp contrast, my mind lunged and then streaked as though at light speeds, racing through a thousand thoughts and images in the space of a second.

  Oh God oh God oh God…

  He didn’t leave.

  You can’t fight him.

  He’s going to hurt you.

  Justin, oh God, Justin…

  The baby. If I struggle, he’ll hurt me worse.

  Jilly, do something, for God’s sake!

  Move! Scream!

  But only a gulp, a pitiful little whimper of air, emerged from behind his hand.

  He braced my spine against the wall, the boards unyielding behind me. Even as I watched his terrible, pale snake eyes come closer, smelled his breath against my face, I was imagining impossible things, such as the wall magically becoming one of those revolving doors from a cartoon, safely spinning me away from this horror. I was trapped, a mouse in a cage, one of his hands gripping my mouth, the other lodged beneath my breasts, effectively pinning my upper arms. Sweat erupted on my icy skin, all internal sounds amplified, as though both hands were clamped over my ears. The baby kicked at my belly and my bowels liquefied with agony.

  Oh God, baby, my baby boy, I’m so sorry…

  Zack wedged a knee between my thighs. I was wearing loose pajama shorts and his hard bare leg felt more obscene than I could possibly describe. Bile surged and I gagged. Instantly he demanded, “Does this make you sick, Jillian? You don’t want this? Don’t want me?”

  “You…fucker…” I tried to rasp, though I should have known better.

  “That’s big talk,” he spat, shaking me with two violent jerks. He put his mouth against my cheek. “Where’s your scar-face husband now? You’re not so tough without him, are you? Will he still want you after I’m through with you? Tell me.”

  My breath came in frantic little gasps.

  “He won’t.” There were notes of both aggression and triumph in Zack’s voice. “He can fuck himself then.” As he spoke, he lowered one hand down my body, over my belly and then farther. Tears flooded my cheeks and I heard growling sounds of hatred emerge from my throat. He only smiled, squeezing at both points of contact, though his voice bore an almost loving tone as he murmured, “But first I’m going to fuck you. I knew I was going to fuck you the second I first saw you, Jillian. I have never wanted a girl the way I want you. I just had to find the right time.”

  I closed my eyes to block out the sight of him but I could not likewise cover my ears. He pressed his face closer, directly against my skin, and continued speaking. “I know you want it. You can’t fool me, you little pregnant slut. You’re all little sluts. Camille swims naked in the lake, right down there. I saw her, but I don’t want her the way I want you. I’ve been waiting and waiting for you, and finally here you are. I knew if I was patient I would get you alone. You’re my reward.”

  I tried to bite him. My teeth scraped over his palm, uselessly, but he made a sound of muted rage, releasing his hold on my mouth and backhanding the right side of my face. Bursts of hot-white light exploded before my eyes. It hurt so much that I lost momentary focus; I’d never before in my life been purposely struck.

  Seeing stars, I realized dimly, somewhere in the recesses of my mind.

  “Hold still.” His voice was clipped, breathless, his palm slick and rough against my mouth, his other hand resuming its course between my legs. He fumbled to the hem of my shorts and then there was nothing to stall his progress. His breath was heavy on my face. “You want it, admit you want it. You knew I was in your house, you found what I left for you. You want me. Tell me so.”

  “No,” I begged, though the word was obstructed by his hand. “No.”

  He tried to force his hand beneath my underwear and I twisted so fiercely that he stumbled, enough that my countermovement caused me to fall to my knees. I tried to scramble away, on all fours, but he was on me in an instant, this time catching my hips and flinging me to my back, as though I was as floppy and malleable as a ragdoll. All breath fled my lungs as he braced over me, pinning me by the throat with one hand.

  “Shut the fuck up,” he hissed.

  I sensed movement beyond Zack’s shoulder and thought I was imagining things. Zack yanked my shorts down past my hips.

  “Get away from her right now,” said a trembling voice, just to my left. I was so overcome with terror that at first it didn’t register that someone else was speaking.

  Zack froze.

  “Get away from Jilly right now,” the voice repeated, wobbling over the words.

  “Or what?” Zack asked, his tone black as death. His body blocked my view of the person connected to the timid voice.

  In reply, someone fired a gun, perhaps no more than ten steps away from us. The shock of it sang through my ears, leaving behind a vortex of silence, filled an instant later by shrill ringing. Zack surged to his feet as though electrified and I rolled sideways, horribly disoriented, and vomited. There was a second gunshot, further rendering my ears useless. All I could see was my puke striking the dewy grass.

  In the next second, someone was on their knees beside me and I fought to get away, choking on sobs and vomit, but it wasn’t Zack. I finally realized that Noah Utley was hunched there with me, his hand curled over my right shoulder, his eyes wide with stun in the light of the almost-full moon. He was trying to talk to me, his mouth flapping. I made myself focus and heard him say, “Holy shit, holy shit, he just ran away. He’s running away. Holy shit, Jilly, are you all right? Holy shit.”

  A pistol lay on the ground at Noah’s knee. I drew myself to one elbow and managed to order, “Call 911.”

  “Oh Jesus, your face is bleeding. Oh fuck, are you all right?” He was beside himself with shock, I could tell, his voice traveling down a long corridor. “Here, Jilly, I’ve got you.” Noah helped me to my feet, as gently as though I was made of something irreparably fragile, like tissue paper. “Can you walk?”

  I nodded, clutching his arm, and then ordered, “Get…that gun…”

  Noah nodded in response, crouching at once to grab the pistol; he held it awkwardly, as though it might bite him, aiming the short barrel at the ground. With his free hand, he helped me to the porch, where he
seated me at a table. The baby was kicking furiously. My lap was wet; I’d urinated. Noah set the gun on the table between us and fumbled something else out of his pocket, dropped it, and fell to his knees to retrieve what I realized was his cell phone. He pressed its screen to make a call while I scanned the area with wild eyes, my hand near the gun; Zack Dixon was nowhere in sight but I was not taking any chances. I was shaking so hard that my teeth rattled my entire skull.

  “Please hurry,” Noah was saying into his phone.

  “Why…” It was all I could manage to articulate, but Noah understood what I was asking. He sank to the chair at a right angle to mine, as though his knees suddenly gave out.

  “This is so c…crazy.” His trembling words rushed forth like startled birds. “I was…I was out here to kill myself. I stole my dad’s gun and I…oh God oh God…I was going to put the gun in my mouth down on the dock. And then…and then…I saw what he was trying to do to you…”

  I blinked in slow motion.

  And then I reached across the tabletop and clutched Noah’s fluttering hands into mine. He was as cold as a rock dredged up from the bottom of the lake, shaking almost as badly as me, but I squeezed his hands, hard. It took almost all of my effort, but I steadied my voice. “Noah! Noah, it’s all right. You saved my life. You saved me.”

  “Jesus Christ, J…Jilly.” He bent his forehead to our joined hands. He rasped, “You saved mine, too.”

  “Jillian!” I heard Mom’s panicked voice, coming closer.

  I tried to call to her but my ability to speak had been destroyed. Noah lifted his head and his eyes shone bright with unshed tears. Because I still gripped his hands, he staunched the flow of them with his shoulders, first one and then the other. Mom and Aunt Ellen flew into view from the direction of the house, jogging toward the porch in their bathrobes. Mom caught sight of us first and thumped up the steps. Somehow the image of my mother, barefoot, her uncombed hair loose over her shoulders, her eyes frantic, allowed me to fall to pieces. She was at my side then, cupping my head to her belly, as though I was a little girl. I wept, limp against her warmth. In the distance, moving fast, was the sound of a siren.

  “What in the world is going on?” Aunt Ellen asked Noah, her palms resting on my shoulder blades.

  I couldn’t hear what he said. Mom smoothed one hand over the back of my head in a tense, repeated motion. Two police cruisers roared into the parking lot, top lights spinning. Mom bent to my ear and said with quiet authority, “Jill, tell me what’s happening.”

  I drew back and observed the raw pain on her face as she regarded me, her lips dropping open. I watched the play of emotions cross her features, moving from shock and disbelief to outright fury. She cupped my chin and demanded, “Who did this to you?”

  “It was…Z…” I gulped a breath and forced out his name. “It was… Zack.”

  Mom sank to a chair beside me. For a second I was afraid she might faint, but Ellen bolstered her.

  “He had her on the ground,” Noah supplied in a whisper. He was hugging himself around the torso, still shivering, but his voice had steadied.

  “Oh my God, oh dear God,” Aunt Ellen gasped. “Where is he now?”

  Charlie Evans, Landon’s senior law enforcement officer, and two younger deputies were advancing on the porch.

  Aunt Ellen yelled, “Charlie, my niece has been attacked!”

  “What the devil?” Charlie asked as he lumbered up the steps. Aunt Ellen bustled into the cafe, clicking on additional lights. I knew without a doubt that she would have coffee brewing in the next two minutes. Mom did not move from my side. I pressed my right hand to my belly, where the baby was performing energetic donkey-kicks.

  “Jilly has been attacked, Charlie. I heard a gunshot not five minutes ago,” Mom said. “It woke me from a sound sleep. And then I ran over here as fast as I could.”

  The two deputies flanked Charlie, all of them looking so official and out of place here on the nighttime porch at Shore Leave. I flinched as Charlie took my chin gently into his fingertips and examined my face. I’d known Charlie since I was a little girl and his eyes were full of concern, anger that this had happened to me.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said, taking a seat across from Mom, who drew her chair closer to mine. Catching sight of the pistol, Charlie said, “Boys,” and one of the two deputies ran back to the car. Seconds later he returned and deposited the pistol into what must have been an evidence bag.

  “First things first,” Charlie said. “Whose firearm?”

  “Mine,” Noah said. “It’s my dad’s, I mean. I brought it out here because…” He choked, looking at me for strength. I nodded, willing him to continue. He whispered, “I was planning to shoot myself. I stole that from my dad’s desk drawer.”

  “And how does Jillian fit into all of this, son?” Charlie continued, calm and authoritative.

  Noah said, “I had just gotten here. My car is out on Flicker Trail,” and he pointed lamely toward the road leading back to Landon. “I heard what sounded like struggling and then I saw…oh God…I saw that guy holding Jillian by her neck. I told him to stop. He didn’t seem like he was going to, so I…so I fired the gun into the air and then he jumped up and ran. And then the gun went off again, I didn’t mean for it to shoot, but it did. And then I helped Jilly up here and called 911.”

  “Jillian, can you corroborate this?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes,” I whispered. I sat straighter. “It happened just like that. Z… Zack,” I could hardly say his name. I started over. “I came down here just a little bit ago to get my cell phone and it was when I came back outside that he c…caught me…”

  “Dammit, Charlie, she can’t deal with this right now,” Mom snapped, and I lifted my face toward the sky to contain my tears.

  “I want Justin,” I whispered to Mom, like a child, single-minded. I figured she could make this happen.

  She nodded at once. “Let’s get you cleaned up, honey, and then we’ll call him right away.”

  “You want me to call him?” Charlie offered.

  “No,” I whispered at once. “Let me talk to him, please.”

  “I’ll be right here when you’re ready,” Charlie said.

  Fifteen minutes later Shore Leave was lit up like the Fourth of July. I had showered in scalding water and was wearing clean clothes, bundled into a flannel shirt of Justin’s, one that smelled like him. I needed him with a rabid ferocity, and he was on the way to me, as we’d called him like Mom promised; I told Mom that I needed to be the one to tell him I was all right because otherwise he would go crazy, totally ballistic with worry, but my throat was so blocked that I’d been forced to hand my phone to Mom.

  Two feet away from Mom, I heard my husband answer with his warm, low voice, thinking it was me on the other end. “Hey, baby.”

  “Justin, it’s Joan,” Mom said, without preamble. “Jilly’s been hurt. You need to come home right now.”

  Oh shit, I thought.

  There was a split second of hellish silence and then Justin’s frantic voice, “Oh God, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

  Mom said firmly, “She’s right here with me, Justin, but you need to come home now.”

  “Let me talk to her, let me talk to her right now,” Justin ordered, and it sounded like he was choking.

  I grabbed my phone from Mom, bringing my husband’s voice to my ear, holding the phone with both hands. I mustered all of my willpower and whispered, “It’s me, I’m here. Please hurry.”

  “Jillian.” His voice harsh with fear. “Jillian, baby, tell me, oh God, tell me what’s wrong…”

  I started to cry.

  Mom took the phone, wrapping me against her side as she explained quietly, “Just get going as quickly as you can. Call me back when you’re driving and I’ll explain.”

  “I’m coming,” he said intently.

  It was another fifteen minutes before I saw his truck. Justin barreled into the lot and almost took out the back end of one of th
e police cruisers. He slammed out of his truck and Mike Mulvey, one of the deputies, tried to detain him, but he barked, “Get the fuck out of my way,” and then I was down the porch steps and in his line of sight. And then nothing else mattered because I was in his arms. He clung to me, touching my face, my back, my belly, his hands moving continuously over my body, assuring himself that I was in one piece. I clutched the material of his t-shirt, holding fast, crying again, this time in relief. He rocked me even closer, his lips against my hair. His voice broke as he said my name, over and over. “I am so sorry I wasn’t here, oh God, I am so sorry. Oh God, sweetheart.” He cupped my face and drew a painful breath, the expression in his eyes severe with contained fury. “Your mouth. He hit you.”

  I clutched his wrists, for strength, and mustered the wherewithal to say, “He did, but I’m all right, we’re both all right.” Justin cupped my belly as I repeated, “We’re both all right.”

  His eyes were beyond agonized. “Oh God, I will never forgive myself. Tell me. Tell me what happened.”

  Though I’d already explained the events to Charlie, told him that I hadn’t been raped, despite the fact that this was Zack’s clear intent, we sat down with him again, me on Justin’s lap and held close, Justin crackling with the intensity of his anger.

  He kept saying, “I want him dead” and “I’m going to fucking rip him to pieces,” which perhaps weren’t the kinds of things to be spoken in front of three officers of the law, but Charlie had known Justin his entire life as well, perceiving the justification for these statements, and so didn’t comment. He told us, “We’ll do everything we can to bring him in, don’t you worry.”