I must be dreaming, Jim thought as he looked around. He and Jill were sitting in a sauna, both had towels wrapped around their bodies. Looking at Jill, wearing barely anything, he smiled but when he tried to reach for her he couldn’t move. He tried again and still nothing. He couldn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be able to move but that didn’t make any difference. He still couldn’t. Maybe they were playing some type of game. Why they would be doing it in a sauna and how they’d got there was beyond him but he was with Jill so he knew he was safe.
Movement in front of him caught his attention. Jill’s hand was slowly moving up to where her towel was tucked in so it wouldn’t fall. It looked as if she was reaching to undo it. Jim sat motionless waiting for it to drop so he could gaze upon her beauty. Her hand undid the tuck and started pulling the towel open. Jim’s heart was beating faster than it ever had. You would think he was some little kid seeing boobs for the first time or something. He felt a stupid grin plastered across his face and glanced up to see if Jill had noticed. To his horror the person he thought was Jill was actually Maria. Eyes almost bulging out of his head he had no choice but to watch as she ripped off the towel and tackled him. Before he knew it the thing was wrapped around his neck strangling him. Over the rushing noise in his ear he could hear Maria’s insane laughter as she tightened her grip on him. He was beginning to see stars. She was going to kill him and he still couldn’t move.
With a start he woke up. The dream still lingered so much that his throat hurt and he had a bit of a problem getting a deep breath. After a few seconds of gasping he realized some things from the dream weren’t a dream after all. The biggest one was that he was still unable to move but this time he knew why. Through blurred eyes he could barely see the floor a lot closer than he thought it should be. When he saw his feet closer than they should be he figured out that he was down on the floor lying on his side. That didn’t make much sense. The last thing he remembered was looking at Maria molesting Jill. He quickly looked around trying to find Jill. She was nowhere to be seen. He tried to move his hands but found he could barely move them. They were tied just like his feet. Struggling to move around so he could get a better look at his surroundings he finally found out where Jill was. Once he’d turned enough he could see her still hanging just as he remembered. She looked no different than she had. Still unconscious and absolutely no help in getting out of whatever mess they’d gotten into. As he watched her eyes popped open and looked around lazily.
“Jill!” he whispered. He didn’t know where Maria was so he knew he’d better be quiet. He hadn’t seen her when he’d been thrashing around but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Jill wasn’t responding to him. She just continued looking around in no particular direction. A string of drool dripped out of her mouth onto her shirt as he watched but she didn’t seem to notice. After a few more seconds her eyes fluttered closed. Whoever grabbed her must’ve drugged her to the gills, he thought as his own mind slowly began to clear. The inside of his head felt like a little gremlin had taken up residence and started pounding a drum, but other than that he was ok. Reassuring himself that she was fine for the time being he took stock of the situation. He was tied up in the middle of nowhere, his soon to be girlfriend was also tied up but even worse off than him and he had no idea where the people that had done this were. Yup, they were screwed.
Cursing to himself he looked around to see if there was anything close enough that could be used to cut himself loose. From another room came the sound of voices. At least now he knew where those other people were. He couldn’t hear what they were saying but he could tell they were arguing. He didn’t care what they did as long as they ignored him. He needed time to get out of here. Unfortunately he didn’t see anything that would help him in that endeavor. Looking back at Jill he saw she was still off in la la land and of no help yet. With no sign of a weapon of any sort and no help coming from anywhere he figured unless a miracle happened then they were both going to die.
Since no solution out of the situation presented itself he turned his attention to the argument. From the sound of Maria’s voice she stood just on the other side of the doorway the voices were coming from and she wasn’t happy. He could hear her yelling at someone but everything she said seemed to run together. His pounding head did little to help matters any. He only caught a few words and those didn’t make sense. The person she was arguing with interrupted her but Jim couldn’t hear any of what they said. Just a quiet mumbling. He struggled to hear what was said but got nothing. When he was hit it must’ve been pretty hard to mess up his hearing so bad. It didn’t surprise him much though. His vision was already blurry, so his hearing being messed up was just par for the course.
He was just going to start feeling sorry for himself when he heard a noise. He froze where he was. Maybe there were more than just the two in the other room. When he hadn’t moved for a few seconds the noise came again.
“Pssst!”
Jim decided to take a chance and turn around to see what it was.
“It’s Johnny Langill.” He heard as he wormed his way around. He almost stopped moving when he heard the voice but it was too late now so he kept going. At least if someone was going to talk to him he’d like to be able to see who it was. When he finally squirmed enough so that he was almost facing the other way he was surprised to come almost face to face with Pete. Sitting a few feet away Pete was propped up against a wall near where Jim had been laying. He didn’t know how he’d missed him before but there he was regardless.
“I think it has something to do with that damn purple dinosaur. I think he made him do it,” he said giggling to himself.
Jim almost couldn’t speak for a minute. Pete was the last person he’d expected to see here. “What do you mean it’s Johnny?” he said recovering himself. “And how did you get out of jail?”
“All I know is that one minute I’m sitting in a jail cell minding my own business and the next thing I know the lights go out,” he answered sounding slightly confused. “Then I heard some loud bangs I guess were gunshots, then silence. A few minutes later keys are rattling in my cell door and it pops open. Before I could even ask what was going on somebody hit me and I was out. After that the next thing I see is Johnny. He picks me up and throws me in here like a sack of potatoes. Do I look to you like a sack of potatoes?” Pete looked at Jim so seriously he almost started laughing. He would have if the situation was just a little different.
“He’s pretty strong,” Pete added when Jim didn’t answer. “You wouldn’t think it from looking at him though. He must work out or something.” This sent Pete into another giggling fit for some reason but Jim ignored it.
“What the hell did they bring us all the way out here for?” he whispered. “Do you know what’s going on?” He hopped Pete knew more than he was letting on. If they were both clueless then they were even more screwed than he’d thought.
“Well my dear Watson,” Pete said after calming down a little, “I’d guess we’ve been brought here for a very good reason. Not a reason we came up with mind you but one that someone here thinks is pretty good. Oh yeah, if the reason, whatever it may be, wasn’t good enough I’ll add this. It probably won’t matter too much since we’ll probably die in some horribly painful way before we find out anything else about the afore mentioned reason for us being here. Do you understand?” Pete said everything as if he was just telling someone that it was dark outside. It didn’t seem to bother him one bit he might only have a few more minutes to live. He was totally calm. If his demeanor wasn’t bad enough he started cleaning his finger nails, at least the ones he could reach, as Jim laid on the floor staring at him. He at least could try to get him free or something. Instead he didn’t seem to have a care in the world.
“Oh you want more? Well, it would seem our dear Maria has a thing for you.” He added when he noticed Jim was watching him. “She seems to have decided that since our little drugged up Jilly has made your heart go all pitter patter, she would just have to remove her.”
After his little speech he quietly started giggling as if something was funny. Jim wished he could see everything like Pete did. Maybe he would be laughing too but he doubted it. Yup, good old Pete was gone. He was going to die and he thought it was all funny.
Maria suddenly came storming back into the room followed a few seconds later by Johnny. Neither of them looked very happy. Seeming to want someone to vent her anger on she walked directly over to Pete and planted a stinging smack to his face.
“Shut the hell up ya damn freak,” she yelled. “I heard you talking all the way in the other room. Don’t think I didn’t hear all your snide little remarks but that’s ok. I have plans for you.”
Turning her attention to Jim she said, “It’s about time you woke up. I heard the freak talking to you. He was actually pretty close to the truth. I’m actually kind of surprised he was smart enough to figure out his own name much less anything having to do with what I’m going to do. I guess he’s a lot smarter than we all gave him credit for.” She turned and kicked him it seemed just for good measure. Maybe she hoped he would eventually match her image of him if she abused him enough. Thinking about kicking someone into stupidity made Jim snicker at the absurdity of it, but if there was anyone that would try it Maria was surely going to be first in line. This thought just made him laugh even more. He didn’t even try to stop himself. If he was going to die he might as well enjoy it. He looked up to find Maria looking at him. She still didn’t look very happy. Forcing himself to calm down he figured it was time for some real answers.
“What’s all this shit really about?” He demanded. “It can’t all be just because I didn’t fall madly in love with you when I got here. There has to be some other reason for all this.” The look in her eye wasn’t pleasant but he didn’t care. He was trussed up like a Christmas pig and he wanted to know why. “And another thing,” he added, “what in the seven bells of hell have you done to Jill? She looks like the poster child for drug abuse. Oh yeah, last but certainly not least, will you quit looking like the evil step-mother from some fairy tale and say something. Usually we can’t shut you up but now when I want you to talk I get nothing.”
“My, my, my,” she said looking at him thoughtfully, “we’re just all kinds of full of questions tonight aren’t we?” she looked at Pete then continued, “Freak boy, here figured out some of it. Isn’t big handsome Jimmy intelligent enough to figure out the rest?”
Jim was sick of the games so he just gave her a bored look and said nothing. He figured it was better to put on a brave face. If she thought he wasn’t afraid maybe she wouldn’t try to do anything.
“To answer or not to answer, that is the question,” she said when she saw he wasn’t going to talk. She tried to sound like she was really having a hard time deciding but he knew she’d talk. He was right when he’d said it was usually hard to shut her up. If there was a chance for her to brag about something she would do it. Now he just had to wait and see what came out when she started talking. “Well, I guess it won’t hurt anyone if I explain everything to you. Except you that is, since you won’t be leaving here alive. That usually ends up hurting a little bit.” Jim didn’t find anything about the whole situation the least bit funny but she must have since she started laughing. Johnny joined in but he didn’t seem to think it was as good a joke as she did. Jim’d almost forgot he was there he was so quiet.
“So where to begin?” she asked when she’d calmed down. Jim couldn’t help but look her in the eyes when she talked. He didn’t like what he saw. He’d heard you could see things in people’s eyes but had never believed it. He did now. All that was behind Maria’s eyes was insanity and hate and it was all directed at him. He didn’t know what he could’ve ever done to deserve something like that. He didn’t have time to dwell on it though since she was still talking. “The story is so long I don’t really know where to begin.” She glanced at Johnny from the corner of her eye. “Johnny, where, oh where, do you think I should start?”
“I guess you should start where ever you want,” Johnny said sheepishly after a few seconds of internal debate.
“That is usually where normal people start isn’t it? But since when am I normal? Plus, it’s just oh so boring to be predictable like that but I guess for speeds sake it will have to do. So, Jimmy,” she said turning her gaze back on him, “let me tell you a story. Let me take you back, way back to yesteryear, not just yesteryear but all the way back to a time you should remember quite well. Why would you remember it? I’ll tell you why. Because it was back in your heyday, back when you were a big man on campus, as it were. Its high school where my tale begins, and no not a tail from my butt so don’t ask.” This was mostly directed at Pete. At the mention of a tail he’d perked up and raised his hand to ask a question. When his dreams had been dashed he sadly went back to cleaning his finger nails.
Maria seemed to be taking quite a bit of pleasure being the center of attention. She’d slowly started walking around the room waving her hands in the air as if she was trying to paint a picture of what she was talking about. If anything it made her look even crazier. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a grown woman walking around in her negligee telling a story surrounded by candles. It was almost but not quite comical. There was no doubt she was just as gone as Pete but whereas he was calm most of the time she was off the deep end. She was totally gone. He shot a glance at Johnny to see what he was making of the performance and was heartened to see he didn’t appear as sure of himself as he had. Jim could tell just by the look in his eye he still worshipped her but he also might be realizing she wasn’t all there. Jim quickly turned his attention back to Maria as she turned her attention back on him.
“Would it surprise you if I told you I had a huge crush on you back then?” she asked. “You must’ve known. There was no way you couldn’t. I mean I worshipped the ground you walked on. I followed you everywhere. Basically I made a total fool of myself but that didn’t matter to me as long as I was close to you. Unfortunately, instead of returning my feelings you acted as if I didn’t exist. Sure, you were nice if you saw me in the hall or happened to notice I was stalking you. Sometimes you even deigned to talk to me but usually nothing more than a quick hello or something but oh, how I lived for those little things. I tried working up the courage to actually carry on a conversation with you a few times but you were always too busy with your mean, little friends. I know they poisoned you against me. That’s the only reason I can think of that you never talked to me. Because of them.” She was becoming more and more excited as she spoke. Facing him she took a deep breath. This seemed to calm her because when she started talking again her voice sounded a little closer to normal.
“Tommy, Rob, Pete, and Jim bestest friends forever,” she said in a sing song voice. “Never letting anyone or anything come in between their close knit group. You know a lot of people thought you four might be gay or something. But I knew you weren’t. You had all the time in the world for girls, just not me! I would’ve treated you way better than any of them did. I would’ve treated you the way you should’ve been treated. I would’ve given you anything and I mean anything. But no, you thought all you needed was them. What bullshit! You didn’t need them! All you needed was me!” She’d become agitated again and had slowly been walking towards him. Before she was finished speaking she was so close he could feel the spit flying from her mouth as she yelled. She stood looking at him for a few seconds, shoulder heaving from her excitement before suddenly spinning and walking towards Johnny. He stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders as she approached and whispered something to her. Jim hoped he was trying to talk her out of continuing what she was doing. She shook her head so whatever it was obviously hadn’t worked.
Jim took this break in the story for another opportunity to look around and try to figure some way out of this mess. He hadn’t had much luck before but maybe he’d missed something. Peeking at Jill he saw she was still dead to the world and Pete just continued rocking and mumbling. He was just getting ready to give up when he noticed something odd. He’d seen Pete rocking but he hadn’t seen him moving. Each time he rocked back he used his feet to push himself a little closer to the wall. Looking over Pete’s head Jim saw an open space with night and starry sky behind it. He was slowly working his way to one of the windows. Jim was sure it was just by accident but if it wasn’t and if he got close enough he might be able to jump out and run for help. The only thing tied on Pete was his hands. If he got out he really might be able to find help and bring them back but Jim didn’t hold much hope of that idea working. Pete wasn’t suddenly going regain his sanity and save the day. He was just sitting there rubbing his hands together and rocking back and forth without a care in the world. Nothing else. There was no grand escape plan forming behind those dark little eyes. He was in his own world where he was safe and nobody could hurt him. Why come out now?
“Now then Jimmy boy, let’s flash forward,” Maria said catching his attention. “When you left town, you just left. No words of goodbye, no telling me how you really had loved me all those years and would send for me when you could. No nothing. You just left without a word or a backward glance. Do you know how bad that hurt me? I was heartbroken. I couldn’t understand why you’d left me. You didn’t bother saying anything least of all goodbye. One day you were there then next you weren’t. I just didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. What was I to do?” She looked at him like she expected him to answer. Not knowing what else to do, he just silently stared back. She was deep into her delusion but as long as she was talking they were relatively safe. All the stuff spouting from her mouth was sort of true but only sort of. He remembered her from high school and how she was almost always in the places he was but that was it. She must’ve somehow gotten the idea that they’d had some type of relationship with each other. He didn’t know how though. All he could remember saying to her was hi.
“I knew we were meant to be together,” she said as she walked over to Jill and slowly ran a finger down the side of her face. “But we weren’t. You left to go God knows where and do God knows what with God knows who and left me here with no idea of when I might see you again. Then I thought maybe you were testing me to see if I really did love you and would wait for you. I knew I would but I also knew I had to figure out a way to get you to come back. Then, one day, a few years ago it came to me. I had an epiphany.” She brutally pushed Jill’s head to the side, spun and walked back to the center of the room. Stopping with her hand raised and looking up at the ceiling Jim almost thought she really was having a true vision then he remembered who he was thinking about and just shook his head.
“It was like a sign from the heavens. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it sooner. I knew that day I just had to make it so you had no choice but to come back. After that the rest was easy,” she said smiling, “Do you want to guess what my idea was?” she looked at him expectantly. He wasn’t about to try to answering anything. He didn’t know what was right or wrong in this situation so he figured being quiet was safest. “Boy,” she said looking at Johnny, “I thought he was a lot smarter than this. It’s a good thing we didn’t end up together; our children probably would’ve made the freak over there look like a genius. Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, my idea. Well, since you won’t guess I’ll just tell you.” She took a few seconds to gather her thoughts. While she did this she just looked at him with shinning, evil eyes. Her hands idly roamed over her body in many provocative ways but Jim didn’t think she was trying to entice him anymore. It seemed more out of habit than anything. He didn’t have much time to think about it, which was fortunate.
“I thought about it for what seemed a long time but actually wasn’t,” she began, “Finally, I figured out just what it would take. I knew if something happened to one of your precious little friends you would probably coming running home right away. I could’ve gone after your mother but I figured that was too old hat. You know something that someone else would do but not me. I’m better than everyone else so my plan had to be better than what someone else might come up with. The thing about my plan though, was that it had to be something drastic. It couldn’t just be some little accident. Why would you rush home for that? It had to be deadly. So the logical choice was killing one of them. I figured that would do the trick. Then, once you were back I would be here to comfort, console, and love and nurse your damaged emotions back to the way they should be. Then you would finally love me and we would be together forever and ever!” She sounded like she really believed her plan would work. Jim cast a quick glance at Pete to see what he was doing. He was a little closer to the window but still not close enough to jump out. Pete’s eyes flicked in his direction and Jim saw one of them wink at him. He thought he was seeing something at first but decided he hadn’t when he looked at Pete’s hands. His bonds were loose. Almost loose enough for him to get free. In a few more minutes he probably would be free. Then he could make a break for it and get help. At least that was what Jim was hoping for.
“Ok, at least I know why I’m here now,” he said trying to give Pete as much time as he could. “But why did you take Pete and Jill? They didn’t have anything to do with any of this. Well, I guess Pete did, but he was out of the way stuck in jail and probably on his way to the loony bin.”
“Well,” she said looking towards Jill, “little Jilly over there is here simply because she’s just like all those other girls you used to date. She was trying to take you away from me. See, you did everything that you were supposed to do as part of my plan. You came home and we reunited with each other but then you made a mistake. You went and met Jill and picked her instead of me! How could you go and do something stupid like that? You’re mine! Don’t you understand that? She sure didn’t seem to. When I found her earlier I tried to explain it to her nicely but she just got all smart and started asking all kinds of dumb questions so since she wasn’t cooperating I brought her out here to explain things a little better.” She looked at Jill angrily for a minute before continuing.
“Freak boy over there is here because my loving dolt of a partner got just a little bit ahead of himself. He thought it would be a good idea to change the plan from what I’d originally designed. I actually was content to leave Petey sit in jail and rot but Johnny boy thought of something else. It’s something I don’t really like, but I guess it might work. We don’t really have much of choice now either way but he can tell you that.” Maria was beginning to go into pout mode again but she surprised him.
“Why don’t you tell them what you had planned lover boy,” she said teasingly.
To Johnny’s credit that looked like the last thing he wanted to do but he took a deep breath and fixed Jim with a glare. “Well, let me tell ya, when you left all that while ago she was pretty messed up. I’m talking not eating, not taking care of herself, stuff like that. She was bad. Hell, all she really did do was drink and cry. Other than that she just sat in her place day in day out doing nothing. I didn’t really understand why until one day when I went over to check on her she finally told me. She was drunk as a skunk and was barely coherent but I understood enough to know what you done. I thought that was a pretty mean thing for you to do leaving her like that but then again I was happy too. See, I was there and you weren’t. I was there for her when she needed somebody. You weren’t. I’d loved her for as long as I could remember but every time I tried to tell her, all she wanted to talk about was you. But now all of a sudden you weren’t there anymore. You left. I knew she and I would finally end up together now. But no, she said she wasn’t going to let you go that easily.” Johnny paused here like he was remembering something he didn’t really want to and Jim guessed he was. He actually felt somewhat sorry for the guy. Johnny’d been in love with the crazy bitch all these years and all she’d ever wanted was Jim. If it’d been him he would’ve just moved on but it didn’t seem Johnny was able to do that. He held out hope all those years she would eventually love him back and she never did. Johnny himself was probably half crazy by now.
“She went on and on about how you’d come back for her one day,” Johnny said starting his story again. “She said you’d realize you’d made a mistake and you would come back and take her away with you and ya’ll live happily ever after. I tried doing things to get her to love me, hell, just to even notice me, but none of it worked.” Johnny was getting angry now. All of his pent up aggression was about to come poring out. Jim could see that trying to explain anything to Johnny right now was going to be a waste of time. “Then a little while ago she got her idea,” he said continuing. “I guess over the years she’d at least decided she could trust me so she told me about it. I couldn’t believe what she wanted to do at first. Then I thought of all the crap I’d been listening to about you and figured why not.” A change was slowly coming over his face as he talked. He actually looked like he was getting happier about something. Jim didn’t know what was going on but he hoped it was something good. Pete was still slowly struggling with his ropes so he still needed some time. Johnny was doing a good job giving it to him. Maria surprisingly was just standing nearby twirling her hair. She must’ve known about Johnny’s feelings. There was no way she couldn’t. Then Jim understood. She’d used those feeling as a way to get him to help her. Maybe in her own demented way she did care about him but Jim doubted it. At this point she probably didn’t care about anything but the revenge she thought she was taking on him.
“Actually I was kinda hoping it would turn out this way,” Johnny said startling him. “See, I hoped you’d come back and not want her. Then you’d be gone again and I’d have her back to myself like before. It’s a little unfortunate you three have to die but that’s how it’s got to be. Who knows, maybe once you’re dead and buried she’ll finally love me and not you.”
Even though Johnny was telling him they were going to kill him he still almost felt bad for him. He couldn’t imagine what it must’ve been like living with her all these years. If he’d had to do it he’d probably feel almost the same way except without the killing people and stuff. This thought sober him quickly and got him thinking right again. The reasons they had for doing the things they were doing were the reasons of the insane. One wanted to kill him because he didn’t love her and the other wanted to kill him because he’d had to listen to the complaining about him over the years. This really was crazy. He was going to be killed for pretty much nothing. At least if he’d done something maybe it would’ve made a little bit more sense but he hadn’t. There was no real reason except they were crazy.
“But you didn’t tell him the best part,” Maria said whined. “You didn’t tell him what we did after we had the plan all together. You also didn’t tell him what we did to Tommy and that was one of the best parts. With your little pee sized brain I shouldn’t be surprised you forgot to mention how I, myself, went out in those yucky woods where Tommy was and acted like I was the typical damsel in distress so he would come out of his tree and rescue me. That really sucked by the way, I got all hot and sweaty and stinky but boy was it worth it. You should’ve seen the look on his face when he realized what was really happening. I should’ve gotten some type of award for that let me tell you” She paused to make a few scared-surprised faces, mocking what Tommy must’ve looked like, laughing harder each time she looked at Jim’s face.
“You also seemed to have forgotten to tell him the rest of your involvement in this whole plan. How once he actually did come down to check on me you came up behind him and cracked him in the back of the head then threw him on that tree stump you’d cut earlier to make it look like some kind of dumb accident.”
Jim was grateful she stopped to catch her breath for a few minutes. She’d worked herself into such a state of excitement that she was starting to hyperventilate, which wasn’t a bad thing, but he also didn’t really want to hear all the gory details of Tommy’s death. Jim was actually hoping she would pass out then all he’d have to do is deal with Johnny. At least he still might be able to be talked out of what Maria wanted to do. Then again he had already killed Tommy so maybe it was better if Maria just stayed conscious and kept talking. Left to his own devices Johnny might decide to put an end to thing and get out while the getting was good.
“You also didn’t tell him about what happened to Rob,” Maria chimed in apparently done calming down.
“That’s because you did Rob all by yourself!” he spit back defensively.
“Oh yeah, I did didn’t I? Sorry,” she said smiling. “Yes, it’s true. I did call him begging for help with my car. I told him I’d broken down out near the freaks place and I was scared and needed help. Him being the Boy Scout he was he rushed right out to help.”
“You took advantage of him!” Jim yelled. Pete still needed more time. He had to keep her talking.
“Of course I did. What else was I supposed to do?” she responded. “I couldn’t very well confess to killing his best friend in an attempt to make you love me could I? Plus Tommy’s funeral was coming up then you’d be leaving. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to find some way to keep you here a bit longer. You needed that extra time to realize where you belonged and that Jill was wrong for you. So to help you out I chopped Rob into little, itty, bitty pieces the first chance I got.” She finished with a giggle. “But,” she started again apologetically, “it wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. Sure the screaming was cool and all but you can only take so much of that before it gets boring. You should’ve heard him! When that hatchet hit him he let out such a scream that I thought they’d hear it all the way back at the sheriff’s station.”
She began limping around and moaning to demonstrate as she was talking. She reached behind her acting like she was trying to pull something out of her back until she finally fell down. She lay with her eyes closed for a moment before they popped open, “And do you know what the best part was?” she asked whispered only a few feet from his face.
“We weren’t even caught!” she answered gleefully when he said nothing. “I knew the sheriff here was an idiot but I thought for sure he would notice something strange was going on. I mean it was a decent plan but there were at least a dozen things we should’ve been caught on. I mean at the very lest we should be suspects now or something. But as you can see, nothing, nada, zip. They have no idea what’s going on around here.” Jim couldn’t look directly at Pete without giving him away. He decided to try to shift himself to another position more away from him than he already was. If he could keep her attention focused on him then there was at least some slim hope still left that they might survive. He didn’t need to worry about her though. As soon as he moved and got slightly comfortable she smacked him in the head.
“You don’t move unless I tell you too!” she yelled. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah, then my little Johnny-wonny came up with his brilliant addition to my plan. This in turn brings us to the reason for Pete being here. Deputy Dog’s bright idea was to make it look like Pete was the one that had done everything. He was afraid he was about to have the murders pinned on him so he broke out of jail. Johnny was going to make it look as if Pete had somehow over-powered him and taken his gun when he’d gone to check on him. Then the freak, who probably has no knowledge whatsoever about guns, was supposed to shoot his was out of the station with Johnny as his docile hostage.” Maria chuckled a few times before continuing. She obviously didn’t think Johnny was too bright. Either that or she just liked putting him down in front of others.
“For some reason,” she continued, “Pete was going to contact you and Jill and talk you into meeting him out here so you could help him escape. But at the last possible minute, Johnny, suddenly being the big strong hero, was going to wrestle the gun away from whoever had it at the time and dramatically shoot everyone before they could escape. Then supposedly all the blame for everything would be placed on you three and we would be in the clear. Sounds like a great plan huh?” Jim thought it did sound like a half decent plan. Not one he would use but it might’ve worked out ok.
“Oh,” Maria added, “did I forget to mention he didn’t really think of any kind of reason why you might help Pete or why Pete might’ve killed his friends? I mean he was crazy sure but not like that. Everyone knew he wasn’t violent.”
“It wasn’t…” Jim started to say.
“Well,” Maria said cutting him off, “I didn’t like it. It wasn’t my plan and my plan was better so I didn’t want to use it. Now I don’t really have a choice.”
“Well, if that wasn’t your plan,” Jim said jumping in feet first just to keep her talking. “Then what was it? What did you actually have planned? Did you just think killing all of us would be written off to another type of accident? You couldn’t actually believe you were going to get away with it could you? Practically everyone in town saw the display you two made at Tommy’s funeral. They also saw you fawning all over me too. If we were to turn up dead after that it would look mighty suspicious wouldn’t it? How did you think you’d get away with it?” He knew Pete only needed a little more time. If he wasn’t out after this, it was over. The last time he’ had a chance to look at Pete’s way he’d seen he was at the window. Hell, if he stood up he would probably fall out. Jim didn’t know why he didn’t do just that other than his hands were still bound but even they were loose. He should’ve made a run for it but instead he just sat there.
“Well, all that’s true isn’t it?” Maria said taking his bait. “But if you remember I did leave enough clues for even a jackass like the sheriff to get some pretty wild ideas about what was going on didn’t I?” Maria said. “I mean I left goat hair at most of the places we did stuff. Then I left the hair and tracks at Petey’s house. We even wrote who we wanted everyone to think of on Petey’s house. If that wasn’t a good enough clue I don’t know what was. If nothing else it would just be written off to one of those strange disappearance types of things.”
“You actually thought you could blame the whole thing on a legend?” Jim asked incredulously.
“Why not?” she asked. “You four seemed to believe in him enough way back in the day so I figured why not use that to my advantage? See, I know something you don’t know. Remember when you and your little buddies went looking for him.”
“How do you know about that?” Jim asked defensively.
“Oh you know, one of those days you didn’t notice me, you know back in high school, well I saw all of you crowded around each other like you were trying to keep a secret so naturally I had to know what was going on. Don’t look at me like that. I was practically your girlfriend so I felt I needed to know what my man was doing. Boy was I surprised to find out you idiots were going out to find The Goatman.” She started laughing at this. Jim didn’t think it was very funny. The four of them had been very serious about finding proof of his existence. According to Pete they’d found what they were looking for. “Hey pay attention,” Maria said when she saw his blank look. “Anyways, when I was coming up with my plan for getting you back I thought why not use the exact thing that had scared the piss out of you when you were little? Why not just do what I had to do and then blame it? I mean sounds like a pretty good idea right? I thought it was. If I did everything just right there was no way I’d ever be caught. As you can see I haven’t been caught so everything must be working right. Johnny’s little brainstorm threw a wrench into everything for a minute but it doesn’t really hurt any of my plans too much. There’s only one thing left to do.” She started walked over to Jill and grabbed her by the hair. Reaching up and behind her on a shelf Jim hadn’t seen before she took something down. It flashed as it caught the candle light. She had a knife. A big one.
“Now I just have to kill three instead of two,” she said smiling at his surprise. “I think I’ll start right here.” She put the knife to Jill’s throat. He could see her arm tensing, ready to pull the blade across her throat but it never happened.”
“Goatman, Goatman, Goatman,” Pete yelled exploding off the floor, “come get me!” Then he was jumping through the window into darkness. Their two captors had been caught completely off guard. They stood there with their mouths hanging open looking at where Pete had been only moments before. All that was left were the pieces of rope that had held his hands.
Jim had to admit he was slightly stunned himself. He hadn’t thought Pete had it in him. He’d hoped something like this might happen but Pete wasn’t exactly the hero type.
Pete had probably surprised himself too. At least now he had a chance at getting away. He might even be able to find help before Maria decided to cut her loses. Then again who was he kidding? It was Pete they were talking about and they were in the middle of nowhere. Where was he going to find help at?
“Well, that sucks,” Maria said being the first to recover from the surprise. “I guess we better go get him. We wouldn’t want him going and bringing back help would we?” As they turned to leave Jim felt his hopes rising. Left alone for a few minutes he might be able to free himself and Jill then get away.
“Oh! Wait a minute!” Maria said spinning back around and surprising him. “It wouldn’t matter even if he did get back to town would it? Everyone there thinks he escaped from jail so no one will believe anything he said. He’ll be lucky if they don’t shoot him on sight.” Her laughter echoed throughout the house as she turned and followed Johnny out the door. The little hope Jim had was destroyed when he heard her. He’d completely forgotten about Pete’s supposed escape from jail.
After he was sure they were gone he rolled over and sat up. At least he wouldn’t die lying down if at all. He was still alive so far so maybe things weren’t over yet. He glanced at Jill hoping she might’ve woken up but saw instead that she was still mostly out of it. If they were going to get out of there she wasn’t going to be much help. He studied the area immediately around him thinking maybe there was something he’d missed that could help him. He momentarily thought of using the fire from one of the candles to burn through the ropes but was afraid he might set himself on fire in the process. Maria didn’t need anymore help killing him than she already had.
Just when he was about to give up Pete suddenly came rushing through the door. He was waving his hands around his head like he was trying to ward off evil spirits and mumbling to himself as he approached. He was only a few feet away when Jim noticed something wasn’t quite right. His hands and parts of his shirt were covered with some type of dark liquid.
“Holy shit!” he almost yelled before catching himself. “What the hell happened to you? Is that blood? Why didn’t you go get help or something?”
Pete ignored Jim’s question and began untying the knots holding Jim’s hands and feet.
“Lover boy won’t be coming back anytime soon,” he grunted. “He had an unfortunate accident with a freak and a rock.” Jim thought it better not to ask anything else. Pete looked at him vacantly for a minute then laughed and said, “Ya know it’s really dark out there. He never even saw me. I just kinda stood still and he walked right past me then, Whack! He went down and I ran back here. Those two or actually one really aren’t some of the smartest people I know.”
“You don’t know that many people anymore Pete,” Jim reminded him.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said smiling and continued working on Jim’s ropes. He seemed to be having a problem getting the knots undone. Maria must have tied him a lot tighter than he’d thought. He hadn’t really noticed until now but he couldn’t really feel his fingers very well. The tingling sensation he felt was the only reason he did notice anything. He wanted to tell Pete to hurry up but thought it might distract him if he did so he asked him about something else instead.
“Why’d you come back? Why not save yourself or go for help?” he asked calmly not wanting to sound frantic and cause Pete to get upset.
“Couldn’t leave you here by yourself now could I?” he answered with a quick smile. “You just said I didn’t have that many friends left plus there’s no fire outside. It’s all in here. I didn’t have any. I forgot to grab it on the way out. I can’t go wandering around out there without it.”
“What do you need fire for?” Jim asked. “Maria just said that everything that’s been happening to you wasn’t done by the Goatman. It was them. Her and Johnny. Not the Goatman.”
“Oh it might have been them,” he laughed, “but he’s still coming no matter what they say. We called him whether you want to admit it or not we still did it. He’s still on his way. Don’t you doubt it. He’ll be here soon.” Pete quietly started giggling. He’d been working on the knots the whole time he was talking. Jim could feel them loosening as he watched. His fingers were starting to get a little more feeling in them and he could move his fingers freely. He was almost free. Pete was working on the last knot just as Maria stormed back into the room like a hurricane holding a gun in her hand. Pete must’ve had some kind of sixth sense or something because he was up and half way out the window, yelling something about the Goatman and how he was coming for them, when she fired her first shot. Everything happened so fast that all Jim heard was a grunt from Pete as the slug hit him in the back then he was out of view. Jim hoped he hadn’t been hit but knew he almost surely was. It would’ve been hard for her to miss at that range.
Jim couldn’t waste much time worrying about Pete. Maria was still in the room waving a gun around.
“You damn freak! You killed my Johnny!” she yelled as she continued pulling the trigger. Jim knew he was lucky he hadn’t been hit then again it might’ve been better that way. Before she might’ve just planned on killing him quickly but since Pete had gotten Johnny he had no idea what she would do. He looked at her tear stained face while he struggled to free himself from the last little bit Pete hadn’t had time to untie. He hoped he’d be able to work the ropes loose before she finally decided to turn her attention back to him.
“God damn it! Now what am I supposed to do!” she wailed. Turning her back on him she started crying. He could care less. He hoped she stayed that way the rest of the night. At least by then he’d be free. Unfortunately after only a few seconds she turned back around. Tears were still running down her face but she seemed to be done crying. “Well,” she sneered, “I guess it’s back to Plan A.”
She quickly turned around and walked into another room. He continued struggling with the ropes but couldn’t help but listen to what she was doing. It sounded like hurricane Maria had come to town. Things were being thrown all over the place. He heard things hitting the walls, scraping across the floor and one thing even went flying from the door only to land a few feet from where he was on the floor. He hoped it was something he could use but it was only an old stack of magazines. He didn’t know what she was looking for but it probably wasn’t going to be good for him. At the same time he got loose of the last knot all noise stopped in the other room. He started to stand up but heard Maria coming back his way. He quickly sat back down hiding his hands. He still needed to get Jill before he could leave. Now that he was free he could probably over power her and everything would be alright. But he had to use his element of surprise. He couldn’t give her a chance to run. It had to be quick.
Maria slowly walked into the room holding something behind her back. He couldn’t see what it was but it looked bulky.
“You know how I made it look like Tommy and Rob had been killed by the Goatman?” she began. He just looked at her. Staying silent was still the safest route. He didn’t want to provoke her any more than necessary. He knew it didn’t really matter anymore since he was free but Jill wasn’t. Maria could probably kill her before he could reach her so he had to keep her attention on him. “Well, you and Jill are going to get to join them and I’m going to do it the same way I did your friends. You get to be another victim of the Goatman!” she squealed as she moved the object she was holding from behind her back. In her hand was an axe. Not just a little hatchet type of thing but one of the big ones. Just the thing you average monster would use to dismember his victims.
“The Goatman has just been such a busy little killer hasn’t he?” she asked merrily as she stepped towards Jill raising the axe. Jim knew it was now or never. He dove towards her and hit her just as the axe was starting its downward swing.
The impact drove most of the air from his body. The landing wasn’t much help either. He hadn’t got up this morning planning on fighting a crazy woman with an axe but if he was going to save Jill he had no choice. They tumbled across the floor as they landed and Jim managed to knock the axe from her hands almost loping his arm off in the process. It didn’t cut him but he did take a solid hit to his shoulder which made his whole arm go numb. Things were just not going in his favor today. He knew his chances of defending himself and Jill had just gone down quite a bit but Pete was still out there somewhere, hopefully alive, and hopefully looking for help. Things weren’t looking good for the home team.
As they both struggle to get a hold on the other Maria surprised him by landing a glancing blow to his crotch. He, just like every other man when hit in that area, instantly lost all control of himself. He tried to hold on to her but the pain was so intense she was able to wriggle free. During the scuffle he found out another thing that wasn’t going to make this escape very easy. She was a lot stronger than he’d thought. He also found out just how useless his arm really was. Every time he tried to move it pain shot from his head to his toes. Between that and his crotch he had no choice but to release her. He didn’t want her getting away but he couldn’t stop her.
Once she was free she quickly jumped up and began looking for the axe. Luckily she had totally lost track of where it’d flown when he’d knocked it away. It wasn’t much but at least it was something. While she looked it gave him time to recover. Jim was in an extreme amount of pain but he was slowly trying to make his way to his feet. He only made it as far as his knees before his head began swimming. As if things weren’t bad enough his stomach decided to rebel and emptied itself all over the floor. He was on his one good hand and knees stomach still heaving when he was violently kicked in his ribs. As he tumbled across the floor he rightly guessed Maria had given up her attempts to find the axe. Instead she’d decided to use his ribs to practice kicking field goals. When she kicked him again he tried to roll with it but wasn’t quick enough. Once upon a time someone had told him that if you rolled with a kick it wouldn’t hurt as much. If he made it out of this alive he swore he’d find that person and kick them then ask how it felt. He had rolled with the kick but still felt like he had caught every last bit of it.
“Damn, I’m glad I never dated you,” she yelled as she readied for another shot. “If I’d known it was this easy to kick your ass I would’ve definitely found someone else.” She emphasized her last statement with another hard kick to his ribs. Jim was sure he felt something crack on this one. He instantly started coughing and quickly regretted it. He watched as spit dribbled from his mouth and puddle on the floor. To his horror he could see there was just a little bit of blood mixed with it. She’d probably punctured something he probably would’ve rather not have punctured. He’d already been having trouble breathing but now every time he tried to take even a little breath it felt like his chest was in a vice. The great thing about this was that it made him cough which made him hurt all the more. His vision was starting to dim and knew that wasn’t a good sign. Struggling to remain conscious but losing the battle he tried getting back to at least his hands and knees. It didn’t work very well.
“C’mon! Do something, you frickin wimp!” she taunted him. “Don’t just lay there!” she yelled landing a nice kick to his head. Jim saw her, as if through some type of fog, throw her hands up in disgust and retreat to the room she’d got the axe from. Through the ever-thickening fog that was covering his eyes he wondered what she was waiting for. He was lying defenseless. She could kill him whenever she wanted and yet she held off. He felt half dead anyways. He'd probably thank her at this point if she did kill him he was in so much pain. Then again there was Jill to think about. She was still here too. Looking at her he was ashamed to feel slightly jealous. At least she didn’t know what was happening. She’d pretty much been drugged up throughout this whole ordeal and would probably end up never waking again.
“Jim!” he heard someone whisper. For the first few seconds after hearing his name he thought he was dreaming. Just moving his head made his vision dim but he did it anyways so that he might see who was calling him. Maybe it was somebody from the other side come to help him on his way. He didn’t immediately see anyone but wasn’t too surprised. His vision was getting blacker around the edges at an alarming rate. Moving his head hadn’t helped much. Luckily after a few seconds of thinking he was passing out he was able to see a little better. Unfortunately that didn’t help. He still didn’t see anything.
“Jim over here!” called the whisper again. “It’s me Pete!”
Jim knew he was fading and the voice he heard actually was from the other side. He’d seen Pete shot in the back. That must be why it was him. When Jim had thought of death before he never thought he’d be greeted by Pete when it happened. He was almost disappointed. At least someone was there though and he guessed that was all that mattered. Looking around he was still unable to see where Pete was but moving around caused him to realize something. He wasn’t actually dead. If he could still feel pain then he was still alive. If he was still alive then he was still in danger. Wanting to slap himself for almost giving up he forced his eyes to focus and found Pete’s head sticking up above the window he’d jumped out of a few minutes before.
“Jim, wake up damn it! I need some help here,” Pete whispered a little louder. Once he saw Jim was looking in his direction he began talking again. Jim couldn’t hear most of it since his hearing had decided to rebel but he did hear Pete tell him he just needed to hold on for a little longer. He said the Goatman was almost there and that all he had to do was wait a little longer.
Great, Jim thought, the Goatman was almost there. Maybe he could talk him into putting him out of his misery since no one else seemed to want to. For someone who said she wanted him dead Maria was sure taking her time. But hey at least the Goatman was on his way. Yup, Pete was still crazy. Leave it to him to think some mythological creature was on the way. Forget all about going for actual living, breathing help. Not that it mattered much anyways since, if the thing was real, it wanted to kill him almost as much as Maria did if not more. Jim was still slowly processing everything when he was startled and almost smacked his head on the floor as shots split the night and pieces of wood started flying from the window frame where Pete’s head was.
“Damn he’s a fast little bugger!” Maria exclaimed. “Think I got him that time though. If not oh well.” She turned her attention back to Jim and smiled.
“I’ll just deal with him after you and I are finished.”
Jim’s concentration was lost as a result of the gunfire but he still tried to focus his eyes enough so that he only saw one Maria instead of three. One was bad enough, but three was enough that he almost asked for the gun to kill himself for her. It was too much trouble trying to see her so he just closed his eyes and rested his head on the floor. It was making his head hurt worse anyways. He figured he might as well be as comfortable as possible if these were going to be the last few moments of his life. He didn’t like giving up but there was nothing he could do. There wasn’t much he could do with one arm and no weapon. Maybe if the army or something came in right now they might live but as it stood now he could barely move his head without passing out much less fight for his life. Maria held all the cards. Opening his eyes he looked her way to see what she was doing and was saddened to see tow of her standing across the room from him. Gun in one hand, gasoline can in the other. Not a good mix. She saw the direction of his gaze and smiled. “Don’t worry; it’s still the axe for you and the tart. I can’t use the gun on you. It wouldn’t fit the story. Remember? The Goatman carries an axe not a gun, silly.”
Nonchalantly tossing the gun over her shoulder she slowly sauntered over to Jill. Staring at Jim she slowly began spilling the contents of the can around Jill’s feet. The smell of gasoline slowly reached his nose making him sneeze. This just added more agony to his already tortured body. He was clear headed enough to wonder how the whole house wasn’t an inferno by now. Between the two of them rolling around a little while ago to the gasoline it was a wonder they weren’t toast by now.
Squinting he saw the interior actually did look a little darker than he remembered. He assumed the darkness was a result of his head injuries but that apparently wasn’t the case. Adjusting his head he saw most of the candles that had been lit the last time he’d seen them were now scattered, smoking as they died. Maria must’ve taken advantage of the time he’d been unconscious to extinguish most of them so she could draw out her little plan as long as possible.
In his mind he still struggled to regain enough of his senses to mount some kind of resistance; he couldn’t let it end this way, but his body wouldn’t obey him either. He was still having a lot of trouble breathing and his arm was still dead. His hands and knees were the farthest he’d been able to make it since his pummeling had begun. He didn’t know what to do. If there were ever any option he hadn’t seen them. Now all he had to pin his hopes on was a creature that didn’t exist. Oh yeah, said creature wanted to kill him so there went that idea.
Through a haze of pain he watched Maria as she danced around the room dumping gas here and there like it was water instead of a flammable liquid. While most of the candles were out he knew some were still burning otherwise they wouldn’t be able to see. It wouldn’t take much for a small flame to become a big one. Especially in an old place like this. It would go up like it was made of paper.
She made it most of the way around the room when she suddenly stopped and tossed the can to the ground. Bending over she shifted some boards and papers out of her way, let out a small squeal of delight and stood up.
“Looky what I’ve found Jimmy!” she shrieked happily.
Shit, Jim thought, she found the damn axe. Why couldn’t Pete have made himself useful and grabbed the damn thing before he left. At least then he would have been of some help instead of running around spouting stuff about the Goatman. He really did sound like some kind of freak when he did crap like that.
“So, which one of you do you think I should kill first?” Maria asked no one in particular. “Maybe I should do the Eany, Meany, Miney, Moe thing. That always works in the movies. Then again I could do the Rock, Paper, Scissors stuff but that’s no fun alone.”
She stood thoughtfully for a minute.
“Oh! I know! We can draw straws!” she said jumping up and down. “Wait a minute. Jilly isn’t awake enough for that. This is really a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be.” She stood undecided for a moment before shrugging her shoulders and walking towards Jim.
“Well,” she began sounding somewhat sad, “since Jill won’t be awake for a while I suppose you and I will just have to have our fun first. Nothing that will kill you or anything like that. We have to wait until I kill Jill for that. Who knows, maybe if we’re lucky your yelling and screaming will help wake her up, then I can have some fun with her while you watch. You have to watch you know.” Pausing again with a finger to her lips, “No, I think we’ll just make sure you’re in a lot of pain first. The fun stuff will come later.” She took a step closer fingering the blade of the axe, “Let’s see, where should we…” she was abruptly cut off as a tremor shook the floor. Jim could almost swear he heard a ringing sound accompany it but he guessed that was probably just from his injuries.
Dust sifted down from settling around them in a cloud. Jim could hear groans of protest sounding from the upper floor of the house. Maybe someone was looking down on him. If he was lucky the house might come crashing down around them. If he was really lucky it would just fall on Maria, killing her allowing him and Jill to make their escape.
“What the hell was that?” Maria yelped.
Almost as if it had been waiting for some signal the tremor rocked the house again. Pieces of plaster fell from the walls this time. Jim’s hopes rose as he thought about something falling on Maria. He also heard the ringing sound again. It sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn’t remember from where
Maria looked unsure of what to do. Obviously what was happening wasn’t part of her grand plan. She looked around the room like a deer caught in headlights. Her eyes were wide and darting all over the place trying to find the source of the miniature quakes. He’d actually like to know himself.
Glancing at the front entrance to see if maybe Pete was there causing this he saw nothing. He briefly entertained the possibility that Pete might’ve been able to reach someone and they come to the rescue like the proverbial cavalry. Apparently that wasn’t the case. There was some other explanation for what was going on. He just didn’t think he would be around to find out what it was. His vision was blurring quite a bit around the edges. If it wasn’t for the situation it might’ve been kinda interesting but as it was it was just a bad sign of things to come. Looking at Maria he could barely make her out. Between the drifting dirt and dust and his failing eyes she looked more like a ghost than an actual human being.
Jim knew the combination of all his injuries were finally taking there toll on his mind. His body was telling him it was time to shut down for a while and relax. But he couldn’t. There was still a crazy woman with an axe he had to find some way to deal with so he willed his addled mind back to the brink of consciousness. He probably wouldn’t be able to talk her out of killing them but he could try. At the very least he would face his death awake just like his friends had.
“Come on,” he croaked, “this place is getting ready to fall down around our ears. Let’s go. We won’t tell anyone what happened. We’ll all just go our own ways.”
“You won’t tell anyone?” she repeated. “What do you think I am? My name isn’t Johnny. I’m not some puppy dog following someone around so close that if they stopped his head would go up their butt. Give me a little more credit than that.”
“You’re right,” he said gritting his teeth, “obviously something isn’t going according to your plan. Maybe you should just get out of here and leave us. That would work wouldn’t it? Nobody would find us for days. We might even be dead by then.” He couldn’t believe he was saying crap like this but he didn’t really have any choice. A bum arm and a rattled head weren’t the best things to have when trying to negotiate for your life. He was about to say more when the house suddenly shook again worse than either of the previous two times. Things fell from the roof, boards splintered in the walls, a crash sounded from another room then everything stopped. Nothing broke the silence but the echo of the metal on metal sound he kept hearing. It still sounded familiar to him. Almost like something from a dream he’d once had but he couldn’t remember what it was about.
“Well,” Maria said totally forgetting anything Jim might have said, “I don’t have the slightest idea what that was,” then to Jim, “but where were we?” She acted as if she were trying to remember. “Oh yeah, that’s right you were begging for your life like a little girl and I was ignoring you and getting ready to start cutting off little pieces of your body.” She sound really excited about this. “Let’s just make sure this is sharp,” she said as she reached up and plucked some hair from her head. Jim watched the dust cloud out from her head like a man on death row watched his lethal injection be plunged into his