She'll Never Live

by Hunter Morgan

  * * *

  The Bloodsucker had been studying the open kitchen window from the shadows of the woods line when he'd heard the muffled shouts from inside the house. He couldn't make out exactly what was being said, but Claire was very angry. She was screaming at Ashley in the bathroom. He'd been able to make out their silhouettes in the tiny, curtained window. Claire had screamed at Ashley the way Granny had screamed at him and it pissed him off.

  He flexed his fingers, fighting the resentment bubbling up inside him. Didn't people know that wasn't the way you talked to kids?

  But he knew he needed to keep his anger in check. He needed to stay in control. Of all his jaunts this summer, this one would be the trickiest. The most dangerous. He had to be able to get in, get her out and escape into the woods, carrying her. It was farther than he usually carried the women. And he still wasn't sure how he was going to get Ashley out of the house without Claire knowing it. That was key; taking her beneath her nose. Showing her how she had failed her daughter. He wasn't even sure tonight was the night, although the timing would be sweet. To take Ashley on the eve of Claire Bear's capitulation to her failure.

  Now, looking at the open window over the kitchen sink, forgotten in the fight he suspected, he couldn't help thinking that it might be providence. Ashley was meant to be his.

  * * *

  "Tim, it's Claire," she said angrily into the phone when the answering machine on the other end of the line beeped. "Tim, if you're there, would you please pick up?"

  She exhaled, trying to hide her annoyance with him. She knew they were screening their calls. "Rochelle? Tim? I really need to talk to you. Not about the money." She turned around in front of the kitchen sink and gazed out into the dark yard. "It's about Ashley. About her coming to stay with you for the school year."

  She hesitated, afraid she was making a mistake. Afraid she might be making a bigger one if she didn't get her daughter out of this town. "Tim, would you please—"

  Beeeeep. The answering machine cut her off and she cursed as she hung up.

  * * *

  The Bloodsucker parted the branches of the tree he stood behind and stared in wonder as the curtains to the far right of the house parted and one of the double windows lifted. Like an angel in a dream, Ashley appeared.

  His breath caught in his throat, in awe of her beauty. She really wasn't that young. His mother had only been a few years older than Ashley when he was born and girls really did mature sooner, these days.

  He slid his hand over his breast pocket and the felt ridge of the old photo inside. He didn't have to pull it out to compare the two women. His mother's lovely face was forever etched in his mind... and soon, Ashley's would be, as well.

  He stepped boldly out of the sanctuary of the woods. It was dark in the yard now, and would remain so as long as he stayed out of line of the electric eye of the two lights on the back porch. It would be at least another hour before the moon began to rise in the sky and then it would only be a quarter moon. Not so bright.

  He watched as Ashley lit up a cigarette and he tisk-tisked under his breath. He would have to speak to her about the dangers of smoking. It was so unhealthy, and not terribly attractive on such a pretty young woman, either.

  The Bloodsucker stood for another full moment, watching Ashley, then realizing he couldn't waste time, he pulled the ski mask from his back pocket. If Patty Hearst had worn one of these, maybe she wouldn't have gotten caught. Maybe she'd still be robbing banks today. He pulled the mask over his head, liking the feel of it on his skin despite the heat of the August evening. He didn't plan to keep the mask on all night. It would be important to him that he and Ashley be able to see each other as they got to know one another better, but he thought this might add to the fun.

  The mask secure, he shifted the backpack on his back and cut across the yard to the phone utility box.

  * * *

  In the kitchen, Claire poured the still hot marinara sauce into a storage container and carried the dirty pot to the sink. A warm breeze blew in through the window, teasing the hair on her shoulders as she turned on the hot water. She leaned down to open the cupboard below the sink to grab the dish soap and several squirt bottles of assorted cleaning fluids fell out. The window cleaner struck her bare toe and she yelped.

  "Am I the only person in the house who can put something away correctly?" she muttered. Tears sprang in her eyes and she wiped at them as she tried to shove the bottles back under the sink. As fast as she shoved them, more tumbled out.

  "Damn it," she groaned. She shut the hot water off and went down on her knees, opening both cabinet doors. She began to pull out bathroom cleaners, furniture polish, rug deodorizer, a bottle of Windex, a second bottle. She found the dish soap at last... and another bottle of Windex, this one lemon fresh scent. She didn't know why two people living in an eighteen hundred square foot house needed three bottles, all half full, of window cleaner.

  Claire got up, grabbed the trash from the corner of the kitchen and returned to the task at hand. So her daughter had a tattoo and she was going to have to send her out of state. So there was a serial killer murdering women in her town. So she was probably going to end up losing the job she had dreamed of her whole life. At least the cabinet under her sink was going to be neat and orderly.

  * * *

  Ashley ground out the cigarette in the flowerpot on the windowsill, then grimaced. "Sorry," she whispered, brushing her fingertips over the African violet. She dug the butt out of the potting soil and pitched it through the open window. That was one of the conveniences of having a paranoid cop mother. There were no screens on the windows because they were never allowed to leave the windows open.

  "Now what?" Ashley wondered aloud. Did she go out into the kitchen and try to reason with her mother?

  Like she was ever reasonable.

  Did she pack her backpack, climb out the window and head for her friend Ashley's place? Maybe even Chain's? She'd never been to Chain's trailer, but she knew where it was.

  Of course, with her luck, her mother would come after her, flashing blue lights and all.

  She wandered away from the window and stopped to stare at the pile of clothes on the floor. She could start putting some of them away. Some of the clothes were supposed to go to the church yard sale—too old or they didn't fit anymore. Others had never made it to her winter drawer. If she was going to Utah, she thought morosely, she'd need them.

  But she wasn't going to Utah.

  She leaned over her desk and hit "play" on her CD player. KORN blasted through the speakers. The song was really obnoxious; she didn't really like it, but her mother hated it. She turned it up a notch and wandered over to her closet.

  She knew her mother wasn't really going to send her to live with her father and Rochelle and those twit half sisters of hers. Her mother might threaten. She might scream and holler and put Ashley on double secret probation, but she wouldn't really send her away. They were a team and had been since the divorce. She loved her.

  Against her will, tears filled her eyes again. She really was sorry about the tattoo and losing her job. Both were stupid mistakes. She was even sorry about sneaking out of her grandparents' house that night. It was just that she wanted so bad to be with Chain. And they really hadn't done anything wrong together ever... well, except for the tattoo, maybe.

  Ashley tugged on the sleeve of a shirt hanging in her closet that her mother had bought her for Christmas. She had hadn't worn it since January when she started wearing black, but the shirt really was pretty. It was blue and green with an open neckline and flowing sleeves and was made from a filmy fabric that was so see-through she wore a camisole under it. She fingered the thin fabric and then pulled it off the hanger.

  Something behind Ashley, not a sound because her stereo was pounding—more like a feeling—made her turn. The wind must have—

  Suddenly nothing was right in her room. It was as if she were suddenly in one of those creepy fun houses where everything was wrong
. Crazy. Crooked walls. Weird lights.

  There was someone there. A stranger in a black ski mask.

  He rushed toward her. Ashley opened her mouth to scream, but the sound barely got out before he was on top of her, covering her mouth with his hand. And how would her mother have heard her anyway with the CD blasting and her door closed, she thought with terrifying clarity.

  The intruder, now behind her, his arms wrapped around her pinning her arms down, was wearing rubber gloves like the ones her mother kept in the car for crime scenes. They had that funny latex smell.

  Ashley was so scared that for a split second, she was unable to react. Then she got pissed. If this man thought he was going to rob them—She shoved her elbow backward as hard as she could, surprising him, she thought, and he grunted with pain.

  But he still had ahold of her.

  Ashley threw her elbow again, but he had twisted his body, still keeping an iron grip on her. She missed. He was trying to cover her face with a rag or something that smelled funny, but she wasn't going to let him do it. The beat of the KORN song pounded in her head. She could feel it against her skin the way she could feel the man's hands on her. The song was almost over. There would be a lull on the CD between it and the next song. If she could get her mouth open and scream then...

  The song ended and the thrum of the electric guitar began in the background, again.

  Ashley kicked and swung her arms and threw her head back, smacking him in the chin or nose, or something.

  He yelped and she twisted in his arms. His hand slid off her mouth and she tried to scream but her voice wasn't nearly as loud as she had thought it would be.

  * * *

  The minute the music had started, Claire had been tempted to march down the hall, go into Ashley's room and rip the electrical plug to the CD player from the wall. But she had the entire kitchen cabinet emptied now. She had sponged out the spilled, dried soap, tossed out the old ant traps and was starting to put the cleaners back just the way she liked them. She placed kitchen products on the right: dish soap, dishwasher tablets, disinfectant spray for the countertops, cleaner for the stainless steel refrigerator. All the other cleaners went on the left: bottles of window spray, bathroom bleach spray, air and rug deodorizer.

  The thumping cadence of the punk rock music made Claire's headache even worse. Now she could feel every beat of her heart in the throbbing in her temples. It was synchronized to the beat of a song that she couldn't understand the words the singer was screeching. Ashley said it wasn't punk rock. Claire didn't know what the heck she called it. Didn't care. There would be none of it in her father's strict Mormon household; she would guarantee Miss Ashley that.

  A sob rose in Claire's throat and she swallowed it. With Ashley gone, what was she going to do?

  The song blasting from down the hall blessedly ended, but another began. Just as the guitars and drums were beginning to thump again, Claire thought she heard a sound that didn't seem to go with the music. Seated on the hardwood floor in front of the sink, she turned around and looked over her shoulder. She couldn't see the hallway from this vantage point. Had Ashley come out of her room?

  She waited. When she heard nothing but the music again, she turned back to the bottles still on the floor beside her. Two bottles of air freshener, left side. Dishwasher additive to keep glasses from getting streaky, right side.

  What sounded like a muffled thump from the back of the house made Claire glance over her shoulder again, a little squirt bottle in her hand. What was Ashley doing? Moving furniture? Sliding dressers and the bed in front of the door so her mother couldn't get in, maybe?

  When Ashley was five, she had tried to paint her toenails while her mother and father were busy with one of their arguments. When she had gotten red polish on the tiles of the bathroom door, she'd tried to nail the door shut from the inside so Claire wouldn't be able to get in and see the mess she had made. And had been successful. What she hadn't considered was how she was going to get out of the bathroom once the door was nailed shut. Claire and Tim had had to take the door off the hinges to reach Ashley and send her to her room for a time-out.

  Claire smiled to herself. Life had been so easy then and she just hadn't known it.

  * * *

  The next song was a long one, Ashley knew. Almost four minutes. The intruder was getting angry now. He'd pinched her. She'd knocked him in the teeth with her head again and the square piece of gauze he'd been trying to cover her nose and mouth with had flown out of his hand.

  She knew, now, that this man was not a burglar. She'd probably known from the moment she turned and saw him. She knew who he was... he was the killer.

  Funny thing was, that realization didn't make her any more scared than she already was. Maybe because a person could only be so terrified. Maybe because emotions could only run so high and then you just ran out of feeling. After that, all you had was instinct and Ashley's instinct was to fight. If he was going to kill her, she was going to make him do it right here. She wasn't going to let him carry her out of her room alive, if she could help it.

  The intruder got one arm wrapped securely around her shoulders, his hand on her mouth and he began to drag her toward where the white gauze lay on the end of her bed. When dragging her heels did nothing to slow him down, she buckled her knees, dropping all of her weight, and let herself fall to the floor. Miraculously, she took him with her. As she went down, she grabbed the edge of the sheet, hoping to lose the white gauze, at least momentarily, in the tangle of bedsheets and the blanket. She didn't know what was on the gauze, but she knew it had to be the way the son of a bitch was knocking the women out.

  On the carpeted floor, Ashley tried to roll away.

  She flailed her arms, knocking his hand away from her mouth. This time she let loose a bloodcurdling scream that she prayed would drown out KORN's lead singer. "Mommy!"

  Chapter 14

  Ashley's scream was the fabric of every mother's nightmare—a cry that penetrates the very soul.

  Claire had only heard that earth-shattering cry once before, and that had been when Ashley was eight and had fallen through the glass panel of a storm door at a friend's house.

  Claire was up off the floor in a split second, racing down the hall. "Ashley!" Claire cried, afraid of what she might find. Blood? Had she fallen and hurt herself trying to move furniture, or, God forbid, had she done what perfectly normal teenagers do every day—tried to take her own life?

  Claire grabbed the doorknob to the bedroom, hearing the pounding of the loathsome rock music. It seemed as if it took an eternity for the door to swing open. And then Claire realized this was the nightmare too horrible even to remember when you woke. The kind that left you bathed in sweat, shaking in your bed, unable to recall.

  A masked man held Ashley down on the bed. Claire's little girl, dressed in gym shorts and a yellow SpongeBob T-shirt, was fighting him for all she was worth.

  Claire's mind seemed to slow until it wasn't moving any faster than her legs.

  Her sidearm. She needed her Beretta Cougar. But, out of habit, it was locked in the gun safe where she kept it when she was home. Away from Ashley, away from any other teenagers who might come to the house.

  When Claire burst into the room, she startled the intruder who sat straddling Ashley on the bed. Trying to rape her? He pulled his hand from Ashley's mouth and the teen screamed.

  "He's got a knife!"

  Claire didn't have time to think. She hurled herself over the pile of dirty clothes on the floor, onto the bed. "Run, Ashley! Run," she screamed. "Get out of the house! Out the front!"

  The man in the bed struggled under Claire's weight. He swung a fist and clipped her hard in the chin, so hard that her head snapped back and her teeth rattled.

  Claire jerked her head forward, slamming into his face with her forehead as Ashley wriggled under him. He howled in pain and anger as he tried to grab the back of Ashley's T-shirt. She squirmed forward, twisting until she was on her belly, only her legs p
inned, her hands on the carpet.

  "Let go! Let go of my mother!" Ashley shrieked as she bucked and kicked him.

  "Ashley, go!" On her knees on the bed beside her daughter, Claire raised both hands and tackled the masked man, knocking him backward off Ashley.

  The teen slithered to the floor, crawled over her pile of clothes, and scrambled for the open door. "Mom!"

  "Go! Go!" Claire reached out, trying to grab the man's mask off his face but he caught her off guard with a knee to her stomach. She groaned, closing her eyes as spasms of pain sent swirls of bright light through her already pounding head.

  Ashley raced down the hall, panting hard, shaking so badly that she could barely see where she was going. "Where's the phone! Where's the phone?" she screamed.

  "Run!" her mother shouted from the bedroom.

  Ashley's bare feet hit the cool, smooth wooden floor of the kitchen. All of her senses seemed to be heightened. She could smell the delicious scent of her mother's marinara that had cooked in the kitchen. She could hear the whoosh of water as it filled the ice trays in the automatic ice maker in the refrigerator freezer behind her. She looked around wildly.

  The phone wasn't on its charger on the wall, of course. It never was. Then she spied it on the counter and dove for it. She didn't see the bottles of cleaner on the floor in front of the sink and she tripped over them, falling forward. She caught herself with both hands before her chin struck the counter and with her cheek pressed to the counter-top, she reached for the phone. Hitting the on button, she punched 911 as she righted herself. She listened for the call to go through as she jerked open the closest drawer, looking for a weapon. A knife, that hammer her mother used to beat chicken breasts, anything...

  There was no sound on the phone. Just dead air. "Come on. Come on," she muttered.

  She heard a loud bang from down the hall. It sounded as if her mother and the man had fallen off the bed and onto the floor. They'd knocked the nightstand over, apparently, because the music stopped.