Authors: Steve Gerlach
If only Helen and I could’ve worked things out.
If only…
“Too late for that now, buddy,” Richard called from his mind.
You!
“You’re so far up shit creek, pal, you can’t see the sun for all the turds.”
I don’t need this right now!
“So your little fuck-mate turns out not only to be horny and kinky, but she’s also been fucking your
other
little fuck-mate too!”
Shut up.
“It’s a small world, my friend. A small world.”
I don’t need you right now!
“Looks like everyone’s screwing everyone!”
I can handle this. I can do this myself!
“I wonder if Zoe fucked Helen too, just before she killed her.”
Get out of my head!
“Or maybe
after
…”
Get the fuck out of my head!
Lightning struck around them.
Sherrie was the first to see it.
She stopped in her tracks.
“Look!” she turned to him as she pointed.
John saw it too.
In the middle of the forest, in a tiny clearing just to their left, sat a small wooden caravan. It was badly weathered, and looked to have been abandoned a long time ago.
Both its tires were flat and it was propped up on one side by a pile of weed-covered old bricks. The brown paint was peeling from the wooden slats on its sides and the tin chimney was infected with rust.
The arched iron roof was tarnished and bent, but it looked whole from where they stood. The rain bounced on it and slid to the sides, falling to the large puddles on the ground.
The door to the caravan was wide open and the interior was dark.
Was Helen here?
he wondered.
But there was no sign of anyone.
It wouldn’t hold many people anyway,
he thought.
Just one or two at the most.
John squeezed Sherrie’s hand and smiled.
I can’t leave here without checking…
They turned and started walking towards it.
Anyway,
he thought.
This maybe just what we need!
A place to rest.
A sanctuary from the cold winds and wet driving rain.
A shelter from the dark night.
And a place to plot their final moves…
Seventy-one
They sat in the cold dark silence. The rain fell heavily on the iron roof.
The caravan had very little room on the inside and its musty disused smell was overpowering. A small wooden bunk with a tatty linen mattress was attached to one wall, and a small stool sat nearby on an old moth-eaten and dirty rug. In the far corner was a metal basin, eaten away with rust, that probably once served as a hand-bath. A thin curtain hung from the far wall, tied at the bottom and draping over a window that had been sealed shut years ago by a half-dozen nailed boards.
I shouldn’t’ve got my hopes up,
John thought as he looked around once more.
Helen wasn’t going to be hidden here. That was way too easy. Not Zoe’s style. I should’ve known that…
He shivered.
Even though they had closed the old wooden door and were out of the driving wind and the cold rains, he just wasn’t able to get warm again. He felt cold and numb, and he hoped it was because of the weather and nothing more. He still hadn’t checked his arm wound.
He sat on the edge of the rickety bunk while Sherrie sat across from him on the small wooden stool. She was rubbing her arms and staring at the floor.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” she muttered in reply.
“Me either,” he whispered.
Thunder rolled around them.
“I thought the storm was going,” Sherrie continued.
John nodded, “I thought so too. Maybe this is the second wave?”
“Just what we need…”
“It’s the least of our problems, honey.”
“I know.”
“We have to stop Zoe soon.”
“I know.”
“But I’m not sure how.”
They looked at each other as lightning flickered through the cracks in the thin wooden walls.
The rain fell and the silence between them was long.
“Use me,” Sherrie said finally.
“Huh?”
Sherrie’s eyes were bright with the idea. “She’s doing this to get back at
me
. She’s hurt because I left her for
you
and she wants to hurt you so it hurts
me
. If
I’m
the one in the frontline, if
I’m
the one in danger, she won’t do anything.”
John tilted his head, “Sherrie, she’s
sick
. I mean, really
crazy!
She could do
anything
to
anyone!
How can you be sure she won’t hurt you?”
“I just know it.”
John fingered the wound down his left arm, running his hand across the zigzagging stitches, feeling them in the dark. “I don’t know, it sounds too risky. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Do you have any better ideas?”
“Not at the moment, no,” he agreed. “All I know is we have to find Helen and get out of here.”
Sherrie looked at him across the darkness.
“You mean take her
with
us?” There was worry in Sherrie’s voice.
John shrugged his shoulders, “Yes. I think so. I mean, maybe. I don’t really know at this stage.”
“How are we going to explain a
dead body
to the police?”
“
Helen’s
body, you mean. I don’t know. We’ll work it out later…”
“No, I don’t think we’ll work it out later. If you take Helen’s body with us or they find us with it and we tell them what’s happened, do you
really
think they’re going to believe us? If we do that, it still works out for Zoe! You can’t beat her that way.”
Thunder echoed as the rain eased slightly.
John nodded after a few minutes of thinking. “You’re right. Even if we do, we still play into her hands.”
“Exactly!”
“I can’t get rid of some of the trace evidence she’s used against me. If we take Helen with us we’ll just be handing Zoe what she wants.”
“So what do we do?”
“We’ve got no choice,” John replied. “We have to make her see reason and admit to what she’s done.”
“Will that be
possible?
”
“I have no idea,” he said. “Maybe if
you
talk to her. Maybe you can make her agree to tell the cops everything and turn herself in for some psychiatric help.”
“But you said she’s crazy!”
“I know.”
“Do you think that will work?” Sherrie asked.
“I have no other plan…”
“When do you think we’ll see Zoe again?”
“She’ll be at the church,” John replied.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded, “It’s all part of the game. She’ll be there waiting for us to see how we react. She’ll be watching us. That’s all part of the thrill for her.”
“This is all so fucking
crazy!
” Sherrie balled up her hands into fists and hit at her thighs in anger.
John nodded in the night as lightning flashed outside.
“How’s your head and ribs?” he asked her.
She smiled a lop-sided smile. “I’ll live. What about you?”
“I can’t feel much. I’m too cold. I think that’s a good thing.”
“Probably.”
They fell silent for a time, listening to the rain above them.
“You should’ve told me about her,” John continued. “And what you two used to do.”
“It’s
not
something I’m terribly proud of, John,” Sherrie replied after a deep sigh. “I’m trying to forget it myself. I’m hardly going to tell the man I love that I had a lesbian relationship just before we met.”
“Still, if you had told me –”
“It would’ve made
no
difference to what Zoe was going to do to you. It wouldn’t’ve made you any more prepared and it wouldn’t’ve helped you in any way.”
The rain eased more, lightly falling on the roof.
The silence between them was long and hard.
“I’m cold,” Sherrie whispered.
John stood from the bunk and moved to her side. He took her in his arms and rubbed her back and sides, trying to get the circulation flowing in her body.
“I wonder what time it is,” she said.
“No idea,” John replied. “Zoe took my watch when we first got here, after she handcuffed me to the Jeep.”
Sherrie shook her head and sighed.
John pecked her on the cheek.
“Don’t worry about it now,” he replied. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk about what happened once we’re out of this situation. Don’t worry about what’s past now.”
“If we
get
out of this situation…”
“We will.”
He continued to rub her shoulders.
“I don’t know if this is helping,” he whispered in her ear.
“Just having you close to me
is
helping though,” she replied.
She turned to face him.
He could smell her and feel her warm breath.
He kissed her hard on her cold, wet lips. They parted and let him through. Their tongues danced wantonly, seeking and finding each other. Their breath steaming from their mouths.
He ran his hand through Sherrie’s hair, brushing it from her face and pulling it away from her neck and shoulders.
Sherrie’s hands glided up and down his back. Her breathing quickened and the warmth returned to her lips and face.
They hugged each other tight as thunder growled around them.
“John,” she whispered as they kissed. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he replied.
This is all that matters.
This is all I want.
“Jooooohhhhhnnnnnyyyyy!”
At first he thought it was all in his mind, so he pushed it to one side.
But then he heard it again.
“Jooooohhhhhnnnnnyyyyy!”
Out in the night.
And close by.
Sherrie froze.
They were both still, faces only inches apart, listening into the night.
“Jooooohhhhhnnnnnyyyyy!”
“It’s her,” he whispered.
“I know,” Sherrie nodded. “She’s close.”
The rain sprinkled lightly across the roof of the caravan, just enough to make it hard to pinpoint where Zoe was calling from.
“Jooooohhhhhnnnnnyyyyy! Cooooome toooo meeeee, Joooohhhhnnnnyyyy!”
Fear charged up John’s spine.
“What do we do?” Sherrie asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Do we stay here?”
John shook his head, “No. She
must
know we’re here, that’s why she’s calling.”
“You mean she’s been
following
us?”
“Probably.”
“Why?”
“It’s all part of her
fucking
game,” he replied.
“Pushing us to the edge?”
“Yeah, more of her edge play.”
“Why, John?”
“To see how we react, maybe?” he shook his head. “I don’t know, honey. I just don’t know anymore. She’s so fucking
crazy!
”
“Jooooohhhhhnnnnnyyyyy!”
“What do we do?” Sherrie asked.
“I don’t think we have any choice. We have to go outside.”
She nodded.
“I love you,” he whispered as he kissed her hard and fast.
“I love you too. And always will,” Sherrie replied.
“We’ll get through this,” he replied, staring into her beautiful green eyes. “You and me, we’ll survive this.”
“I know.”
“We won’t let her win. She
won’t
beat us this time.”
She nodded.
He grabbed both her hands and squeezed them.
“You ready?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Okay,” he ran his hand through her hair once more. “Let’s do it.”
They turned to the door.
“Jooooohhhhhnnnnnyyyyy!”
John reached out to the handle, turned it and slowly opened the door.
Lightning flashed, blinding them with its light as the door swung wide.
John stepped in front of Sherrie, moving her to stand right behind him, and peered out into the night.
The rain was falling as a mist, light and soft.
“Stay here,” he whispered to Sherrie as he stepped down from the caravan.
His feet sloshed heavily on the earth as he took a step forward into the night.
“Jooooohhhhhnnnnnyyyyy!”
Her voice again. It seemed to echo from all around them. He tried to pinpoint it but couldn’t as thunder rolled across the sky.
He stepped deeper into the night.
Show yourself, bitch…
The mist hung in the air, making it hard to see beyond a few feet. The night was cold, but the wind had dropped. The mist settled on him as he walked. All was still except John, who took another step further away from the caravan.
“John,” Sherrie called quietly.
“Stay there,” he said over his shoulder. “At any sign of trouble, shut the door and barricade yourself inside. Okay?”
“Okay,” she called back.
He stepped forward again.
Careful.
Take it nice and slow.
Wait for her to call again.
Work out the direction.
And then nail the bitch.
With what?
It doesn’t matter.
What will you use?
My own two hands if I have to.
Lightning flashed above and illuminated the pines in front of him.
He looked up to the sky in time to see the second flash of lightning.
When he returned his eyes to the pines, she was standing in front of him, leaning against one of the trunks.
She had a smile on her face, and her arms were across her breasts.
Zoe…
Her hair was plastered down her face and body. The rain made her skin shine and her diamond sparkle. She was wearing the leather strap bondage outfit and she was still barefoot.