Officer in Pursuit

by Ranae Rose

  “You hungry?”

  “Yeah, now that you mention it, I am.” She’d been too busy to notice, before. Now that he’d brought it up though, there was definitely a hollow, pinched feeling in her stomach.

  “I’ll go grab us some plates. Anything in particular you want?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what’s there for the taking, but I’m sure that if Sasha made it, it’s good.”

  “Okay.”

  His cape fluttered behind him as he made a beeline for the buffet, uninhibited by the crowd, which had clustered around the stage. Faye was standing three feet higher than everyone else, inviting the first round of contestants to join her. There was applause as an extremely realistic zombie staggered up onto stage, and an equally creepy clown followed.

  Had those two escaped from their duties at the haunted house next door to participate? Their costumes were good, almost professional looking. And creepy beyond belief, especially the clown.

  When Grey returned to the booth and blocked Kerry’s view of the stage, it was a mercy. “Sorry, but they were out of everything besides cocktail shrimp and that pumpkin cheesecake. I know it’s a weird combination, but if you’re as hungry as I am…”

  He pushed a plate piled high with shrimp and cheesecake toward her. There was even a little pool of cocktail sauce that was threatening to merge with the whipped cream.

  She was hungry enough not to care. “Thanks,” she said, and tried to eat without looking like a rabid wolf.

  Grey popped shrimp into his mouth two at a time and nodded toward the stage. “What’s the judging criteria?”

  “I think right now they’re doing ‘scariest costume’. I mean, they’ve gotta be, right?”

  “Yeah, that zombie looks like he walked off a TV set.”

  “But the clown will win, don’t you think?”

  Grey shrugged. “What’s he gonna do, stab somebody? Happens all the time. We’ve got a hundred meth heads that look scarier than him at Riley, and plenty of them have stabbed people. Flesh-eating, though… That’s scary as hell.”

  “I don’t know. I think I’d take my chances with the zombie. After last week at the shooting range, I’m pretty confident I could pull off a headshot with my Glock. They move so slowly, they’d make great targets.”

  “That’s true. But clowns are the type of creepy bastards who’d try to get real close and personal to kill you, but without biting. You could shoot them. Taser them. Beat them over the head with a frying pan. So many possibilities. All you have to do is be faster than they are.”

  Kerry tried to win Grey over by arguing that zombies weren’t and could never be real, while any creep could potentially dress up in a clown suit. But he was steadfast in his belief that zombies were scarier than ‘morons in make-up and giant shoes’.

  “Seriously,” he said, “the idiot would be more likely to trip over his bozo feet and fall on his own blade than successfully murder someone else. And good luck sneaking around unnoticed to commit homicides when you look like that.”

  “No one looks at the shoes!” Kerry said. “It’s all in the face. Anyone’s eyes would look dark and beady ringed by all that make-up. And then there’s the mouth… Something about those perma-smiles just creeps me out.”

  “And yet, you pretend that the zombie’s artfully exposed teeth aren’t scarier. Come on. You’re kidding yourself. This is our first argument, and I win.”

  Sasha appeared in a blur of red spandex and blonde hair. “What are you arguing about? I’ll play tiebreaker if you need a third opinion.”

  “A zombie or a killer clown – which is scarier?” Kerry asked before Grey could say anything.

  “God, do you even have to ask? The clown, of course! Zombies aren’t real.” She narrowed her eyes in the direction of the stage. “That clown, though… How do we know he’s not going to walk out of here and murder someone tonight?”

  “That’s exactly what I said!” Kerry flashed a gleeful smile at Grey, who just shook his head, his cape swishing.

  “Oh, Grey…” Sasha said. “If you’re not creeped out by that clown, I’m worried about you. A man in your line of work should be able to identify a threat when he sees it.” She jabbed a finger toward the stage. “Right now, we’re basically being bitten in our collective ass by one.”

  He just snorted and took a drink from what was maybe his sixth cup of cider.

  “I’ll be right back,” Kerry said, feeling the effects of the one she’d finished just minutes ago. “I’m just going to run to the restroom.”

  “Hurry up,” Sasha said. “They’re about to announce the winner of the scariest costume category. I want you to see Grey’s face when he loses.”

  By the time Grey retorted, Kerry was already out of the booth and heading for the house. In nothing but her mermaid costume, she was a little chilly. It was probably about sixty degrees out, and her bare arms and shoulders pebbled as she climbed the stairs.

  Inside the house, it was perfectly warm. She hurried to the restroom and back out, but was forced to take the steps slowly – one wrong move, and she’d trip over her flowy mermaid tail.

  By the time her shoes hit the lawn, she could hear the faint roar of a chainsaw drifting from the neighboring property again. It made her break out in a fresh crop of goose bumps, and she had a sudden vision of the clown on stage wielding a chainsaw.

  Now that would be scary.

  Of course, like Grey had said, the clown’s oversized shoes might make such a weapon an unwise choice. The thought had her smiling despite the creepiness of it all. Only Grey could find something funny about a psychotic clown.

  The house was just behind her when she saw a flash of movement in her peripheral vision. She’d just begun to turn towards it when something closed hard around her upper arm and a hand clapped down over her mouth.

  Her panic was instant and overwhelming, almost debilitating. She writhed and fought, but without any real direction. She was like a fish out of water, and her mouth already tasted of pennies – the coppery flavor of adrenaline.

  Thoughts of clowns and chainsaws were gone now, replaced by a much more real and potent fear: a fear of Brad. The person pulling her into the shadows beside the house was a man – she could tell by his size, his strength, and the guttural curse that rolled out of him when she managed to land an elbow in his ribs.

  She couldn’t be sure, but the rumble of his voice seemed familiar. He wore a mask – it was black and faceless, a wraith’s hood. He wore gloves too, was dressed from head to toe in black. On any other night, he would’ve looked like a criminal. Tonight, he could’ve been anyone out of the Halloween crowd.

  Her attempts to scream – to make any noise loud enough to draw attention – were futile. She could taste blood from where he was mashing her lips against her teeth, bruising her cheeks with his fingertips. No matter how hard she kicked and swung her elbows, he didn’t cry out.

  There were woods behind the house, beyond the back lawn. She realized now that he’d grabbed her strategically, at the place closest to the tree line. As he pulled her toward it, her heart beat so fast she feared it might burst.

  It didn’t, though. It kept going – kept pounding – as they disappeared into the shadows cast by two-hundred year old pines. Underbrush crunched beneath her sandals as she scrambled for a foothold, getting tangled in her mesh tail fins. The crowd across the lawn was so close.

  And yet, so far away. Kerry twisted and lashed out with her fists and elbows, her movements frantic. But Brad’s hands – they had to be his – were like vises on her arm and mouth. She was almost afraid that if she jerked too hard, she’d snap her neck.

  She didn’t let that stop her, because anything would be better than whatever he had planned for her. It was like what they always said about being abducted: if you got in the vehicle, you were as good as dead. Fighting tooth and nail to stay out of a vehicle was always the safest choice, even if it meant gambling with your life.

  There was no car in
this situation, but the gist of the advice was the same. Which made it that much more terrifying when Kerry kept failing to escape, to overpower the man in the mask.

  A dozen regrets ran through her mind. Why had she gone anywhere alone? Why hadn’t she carried a weapon of some sort? A knife, pepper spray… Anything.

  The house faded behind a screen of tree trunks, and all the breath was knocked out of her lungs when her captor slammed her hard against an oak, pinning her with her back against its bark.

  She was still gasping, fighting not to suffocate, when he removed his hand from her mouth and pulled back his hood.

  * * * * *

  “Kerry’s been gone a long time.” Grey glanced toward the house, searching its brightly-lit windows and front steps for any sign of her. There was none, and the night loomed dark and vast beyond the house, lightless at eleven o’clock.

  There were thousands of stars overhead, but their light was distant and there was only a sliver of a moon.

  Sasha was knocking back a cup of cider. “Yeah. It’s a shame she missed the judging – your face was really something.”

  Grey frowned. “People are too desensitized to zombies nowadays. I blame TV.”

  It was unbelievable how scary people thought the clown was. He looked like a guy who’d rolled in flour and smooshed some of his mom’s lipstick on his face. Not exactly the stuff of nightmares, unless you were an editor for a fashion magazine.

  “Whatever – you lost. I can’t wait to tell Kerry.”

  He looked toward the house again. Still no sign of her. “I’m going to go check on her. After all that’s happened, I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Hold on, Superman.” Sasha plucked the end of his cape. “You don’t go barging into bathrooms checking up on your girlfriend. That’s weird. I’ll go.”

  “I wasn’t going to barge in. I was just going to check inside the house.”

  “If something’s bothering her, she’s probably in the bathroom where she can have a little privacy. Let me handle it.”

  He let her march off toward the house, resisting the urge to follow her. He watched as she climbed the steps and disappeared inside.

  She was inside the house for an eternity. Grey was on the verge of saying to hell with it and going in after her when she reappeared.

  Alone.

  Grey’s fear that Kerry was upset and hiding in the house turned on a dime, transforming into something much worse: fear that something had happened to her. That she wasn’t in the house at all.

  When Sasha reached him, her face was white and the look in her eyes confirmed his fear.

  * * * * *

  Brad’s face – his barely-healed scars – looked awful, but the real horror was in his eyes. They glinted, even in the dark. He looked crazy. Crazier than Kerry had ever seen him before.

  “Look what you did,” he said, his eyes locking with hers and sending fear drilling through her chest, hot and sharp. “Look!”

  She looked, not because he’d told her to, but because she couldn’t not look. Linear scars crisscrossed his face, about a dozen of them. They ranged in length from about a quarter of an inch to two inches long. All were the angry, purplish red of fresh wounds, and it was obvious that though they’d fade over time, he’d never look the same.

  The sight made her dizzy. She didn’t regret doing what she’d had to in order to escape, but the fact that she’d been forced to do that to someone made her sick. It wasn’t like her – wasn’t a choice she’d ever wanted to have to make. The scars would last forever, a testament to her desperation, his viciousness.

  “Did you think I was just going to let you go?” He shook her like a ragdoll, and she struggled to keep her head from bouncing against the tree too hard. “After you did this to me? You’re out of your goddamn mind if you thought that!”

  The impact of his palm against her cheek was like the crack of a whip.

  An involuntary sound slipped out of her – a cry as quick and sharp as his blow.

  There’d been a time when she’d been an expert at holding back such sounds, biting her tongue no matter how bad it hurt. Apparently, she’d lost her edge.

  “Go ahead, scream!” he said. “Nobody will care. Nobody will come.”

  She knew it was true. Screams were floating from the neighboring property, and her own would be lost in the sporadic chorus.

  “You were lucky, Kerry. Lucky that I loved you. I never would’ve really hurt you, because I loved you.”

  Apparently, a broken wrist, a couple of cracked ribs and God knew how many bruises didn’t count as being ‘really hurt’. The worst part was, even after those wounds had healed, the pain had lingered in places no one could see. She still felt it, especially now that she had to face him.

  It was like being back in their old house – washing the dishes one minute and finding herself on the floor the next, because she hadn’t made what he’d wanted for dinner. Being dragged out of bed by her hair because he couldn’t find a clean pair of boot socks for work. Seeing stars because she’d talked to their male neighbor, and in Brad’s book, saying hello just to be polite was tantamount to having an affair.

  “I don’t love you anymore,” he said, shaking her again. “You hear that? I don’t fucking love you! And until you can make me love you again, you’re going to pay for what you’ve done. Every single one of these scars, Kerry – you’re going to make up for them, or you’re going to hurt. No holding back. Not anymore.”

  There’d be no reasoning with him, no talking her way out of this. There never had been, ever. During their marriage, she’d made her share of attempts at talking him down, at scoring enough brownie points to take the edge off his anger. It had never worked, and she knew it wouldn’t work now.

  She wouldn’t degrade herself or waste precious seconds by trying. And she wouldn’t make the mistake of trying to punch her way out of this, either. Instead, she brought up her knee as hard and fast as she could, driving it into his crotch.

  It worked. He stumbled backward, swearing, and she could breathe again – move again.

  She ran for it.

  CHAPTER 25

  “You’re sure she wasn’t in the house?” Grey’s heart was already beating in double-time.

  Sasha nodded. “I checked all the downstairs rooms. I even walked upstairs and called for her.”

  “Shit.” Shit. Shit. His heart was pounding now. He tried to think of where else she might have gone – the parking lot, maybe, to get something from her car?

  No, she’d parked in the small main area, and he would’ve seen her if she’d walked out there. She would’ve had to pass the cider booth.

  Where could she have gone without him seeing her – behind the house?

  “Damn it. I’m going to look for her.”

  Sasha grabbed him by the arm before he could hurry past her.

  “Wait! Don’t go without telling me exactly where you’re going to search. You know, in case something’s up.”

  She wasn’t smirking, wasn’t smiling. Her eyes looked pained and lightless, and that set Grey even more on edge.

  “I’m going to look around the house. Behind it, and at the edge of the woods.”

  He didn’t think Kerry would be out there voluntarily, and Sasha’s expression said she felt the same.

  “I’ll tell Henry. Maybe he’s seen her in the parking lot. And if he hasn’t, he and I can help you look.”

  “All right.”

  Grey hurried out of the cider booth and toward the house, scanning the shadows it cast for any sign of Kerry. God willing, he was getting all worked up over nothing, but he couldn’t count on that. The events of the past three weeks weighed heavily on him, and he couldn’t escape the feeling that something had gone terribly wrong.

  * * * * *

  Kerry tripped over her mermaid tail. That was all it took to shatter the split second she’d earned herself, her chance at escape.

  Brad’s fingers thrust through the mesh and clasped aro
und her ankle, as solid and dread-inspiring as a leg-iron.

  She kicked, but he dragged her backward. Sequins were torn from her dress and landed glittering on the pine needle floor like loose fish scales. She was reminded of the scales scraped off by fishermen that always glimmered on the wooden cleaning stations at the local fishing pier, and then a sharp slap from Brad brought her back to reality.

  “Goddamn it! When will you learn?”

  A familiar rage bloomed in her chest as he grabbed her by her hair, yanked her to her feet.

  “You dumb bitch! You dumb, crazy bitch.”

  She fought him. Punched and kicked, giving it all she had because what choice did she have, now?

  It wasn’t enough – she wasn’t strong enough. She was hurting him – he was even bleeding – but he was relentless, and she couldn’t take him down. It was beyond frustrating, and it fanned the flames of her rage.

  Her anger melted the paralyzing edges off her fear. She was afraid – deadly so – but that fear didn’t hold her back. Instead, it goaded her on. She wouldn’t go with him, wouldn’t do what he wanted, no matter what.

  She ended up face-down in the pine needles with his knee in her back. He put all his weight on her, and she actually thought her spine might snap. That was her main worry, until she felt cold metal against the side of her neck.

  “There’s not a goddamn thing about you that I love,” he said, pressing the blade against her carotid, “but I don’t want to do this. Don’t make me. Don’t make me, Kerry.”

  That was how he’d always talked – acting like she was somehow forcing his hand whenever he hurt her. God, she was sick of it!

  She fumed, spit dirt and pine needles out of her mouth, prepared to tell him to fuck off, it wasn’t her fault. Never had been.

  He yanked her up again by her hair before she could utter a word.

  Standing hurt her back so badly that she forgot all about the knife and her sudden resolution to tell him how it was.