 
#  

# THE LONELIEST ROAD

## By Kimberly A. Bettes

Copyright 2011 Kimberly A. Bettes

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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### Chapter 1

The sound was bone chilling, sure to send a shiver down any spine. I gazed at the clear blue sky above me. The sun shone down, gently warming my face. The glare of the sun off the cold, sharp steel blade made me struggle to focus my vision. A puffy white cloud floated lazily across an otherwise cloudless sky. I couldn't help but notice that it looked remarkably like a heart.

As a young boy, I often spent my Sundays lying on the cool grass watching the clouds float along effortlessly. As I thought of these times now, I could almost feel the grass on my body. I could almost smell my mother, who would often lie beside me, finding shapes in the clouds. Whenever she accompanied me in the cloud watching, time stood still. Hours would pass without us even realizing it. We talked about so many things on the back lawn. I loved sharing my time with her. The only person I ever loved even remotely as much as my mother was my dear wife, Rose.

Oh, Rose. She was everything I had ever hoped for in life. She was beautiful, smart, fun, and so loving. It took me years to realize that I had married her because she was just like my mother. There were even many physical similarities. I probably never would've realized it if my therapist had not revealed it to me.

When my mother died, I was depressed. Rose and I had been married about a year. She was helpful, but it wasn't enough. I sought a therapist, and he helped me through it. However, it took many months to get past the death of the one that I had loved more than life for twenty-seven years. My mother had been absolutely everything to me. My father having left us before my first birthday, she was both mom and dad to me. She was my best friend. She was everything. Then I lost her and the only thing I had was Rose. Sweet, kind Rose. Who, in every way, was a duplicate of my mother.

It took a couple of years, but finally I was ready to move on with my life with Rose. All traces of depression had left me. I was now ready for children. Rose and I tried for so long to start a family, but all to no avail. The doctors assured us that we were both very able to have children, but for some reason, it just wasn't happening. We spent many nights crying ourselves to sleep in each other's arms with sadness and frustration. I would console her when she was at her worst, and she would return the favor when I was at mine. It just seemed so unfair that two people who loved each other so much were denied the gift of a child.

Another year went by, and we realized that my dear, sweet, beautiful Rose was dying with cancer. It happened so suddenly. We thought she was sick from the stress of being unable to conceive. We went to the doctor, never thinking it might be terminal. We walked away knowing we were limited in our time together. That was the second saddest day of my life.

I remember driving home, neither of us speaking. I knew I was going to lose her. My Rose. She was dying and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. I remember the pain and agony I felt. I clenched the steering wheel so hard my knuckles ached for hours. I bit the inside of my jaw in anger. I wanted to scream as long and loud as I could, but I wouldn't. Not in front of Rose. Never in front of Rose. It was rough enough on her knowing she was dying. I'd be damned if I made it any harder for her.

From that moment on, my whole purpose in life was to make Rose as happy and comfortable as I could. The doctor told us that she had somewhere between six months and a year to live. Such a short time to part with anyone you love, especially your wife. And no matter how long the doctor would've predicted she live, it wouldn't have been enough time to say goodbye.

I'd always known that everything happened for a reason. When my mother died, I was so angry. I had looked for a reason, and found none. Now that reason shone brightly. One of the things my mother and I talked about on the lawn one Sunday afternoon was her life insurance. She told me that I would be taken of when she died. I always hated talking about death with her. I wasn't able to imagine life without my mother, so I barely listened, then dismissed it all after the conversation was over. Nevertheless, true to her word, when she died, I received quite a sum of money. Rose and I saved it all, planning for the future. College, if we ever had a child. Retirement, if we never did.

I planned to spend every minute of my time with Rose now. All the way to the end, I was going to be there. I planned a budget that night, and I quit my job the next day. I stayed at home with my precious Rose every minute of every day, valuing every moment and memorizing every second.

I went through hell with her. At first, we went for walks, movies, and dinners. Then she started having days when she didn't feel like getting out, so we stayed home. Then, she never felt like getting out of the house. Then, she never felt like getting out of bed. She spent the rest of her life in bed. I spent the rest of her life right next to her.

I was holding her hand, caressing her thin hair when she said her final words. Her skin was pale, her eyes hollow. Her eyes held their luster, though. I looked in her eyes and knew that she had held on as long as her body would let her, and I knew that it had been for me. She'd suffered so much, and if I hadn't been with her, she would've given up long before. I felt so guilty for putting her through that, but at the same time, happy that she'd given me eighteen more months with her than I would have otherwise had.

"I love you so much." Her voice was weak and shaky. Tears slowly rolled from the corners of her eyes as she looked up at me.

"I love you, Rose." I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but it nearly choked me. "I'll be with you again. You wait for me. I'll finish up here and I'll be there, Rose. Okay?" It was all I could do to keep from crying. However, I knew that would only hurt her. Besides, this was the moment I would carry with me the rest of my life. These were the last words that she would ever speak to me. I had to memorize the words and the sound of her voice, for I would never hear either again. I would cry later.

"I'll always wait for you. Always." I saw a shadow of fear cross her face. She fought it back. "I love you." She exhaled her last breath. I watched her face relax and her eyes slowly cloud over, like the sky that my mom and I had watched so many years before.

I remember sitting there for such a long time repeating the words 'I love you' like some sort of mantra that would bring her back to me. By the time I let go of her hand, it had already stiffened in mine. It killed me to let go. It killed me to get up and leave that room. It killed me that she was lying dead in the same bed that we had made love in so many times. It simply killed me that she was gone. My Rose was gone, and all I had of her were things and memories. I hadn't even been blessed with a baby to carry on for her.

I walked from the bedroom to the backyard and collapsed upon the grass. I lay staring up at the sky for hours. All I could think of was Rose. Even when the rain fell on my face and into my eyes, I stared at the sky. How I longed to die. I ached to be with Rose again. I couldn't go on this way. I couldn't be depressed this time. I had no one to help me through it.

As the rain fell on me, I thought I heard Rose laugh. I knew I was hearing things, so I stared on. It was then that I decided Rose was indeed waiting for me. I would be with her again. It was only a matter of time. That thought gave me strength.

# Chapter 2

More than a year passed since Rose died. I was going crazy trapped in that damn house with nothing more than her memory. I couldn't yet bring myself to work. People tend to ask questions, and I wasn't ready yet to answer them. I wasn't ready to say that my wife had died. I just couldn't do it. Instead, I sat around thinking of her. I went through her things. I smelled her clothes, her shampoo, and her perfume. I stared for hours at her photographs. I even found myself talking to her aloud.

It was then that I realized I had to get out of the house. I wasn't ready to work, but I had to do something. I still had a lot of money left, so I decided to take a trip. It would be good for me. Some new scenery might do me some good. If it didn't, I'd come back and be miserable again.

With a destination of nowhere, I packed the Explorer and set out on the road.

The first few miles were the hardest. Even though I knew I'd be back, I was leaving Rose, in a sense. I thought about her constantly. She was still with me, and she always would be.

As I traveled along, I could hear the things that she would say about other drivers, or scenery, or songs. When her favorite song came on the radio, I had to pull over and cry. That was tough, but I managed to get through it somehow.

I drove on in silence after that for many miles. Fear of hearing that song was too much, but the silence turned out to be worse. I thought only of her. Soon, I found myself turning the radio back on in hope of hearing that song. It made me feel closer to her.

I stopped only to eat, sleep, and fuel the Explorer. I guess now, looking back on it, I was running away from the pain that I see now would be with me until my dying breath.

***

I was in the western desert on a stretch of highway called the Loneliest Road and I was starving. I pulled over and checked my road atlas again. Sure enough, there was nothing until I reached Fallon. Austin was too far back to turn around, and Fallon seemed too far away. I'd finished the chips and sandwich I had packed, and had drunk all the water. I planned to drive on to Fallon. If I sped a little, it shouldn't take long to get there.

I pulled onto the road again. I didn't drive far until I saw a little restaurant, set back a little off the road. I braked quickly and turned in. Slightly confused, I checked the atlas one more time. It showed no town between Austin and Fallon. It showed nothing, yet here it was before me.

My stomach growling fiercely, I went in to grab a bite.

Thankfully, it wasn't a noisy place. There weren't many people in the restaurant. Other than myself, there were two customers sitting at a table, a cook, and a waitress. The waitress had her back to me when I entered. The two customers and the cook glanced at me briefly. I took a booth in the far right corner, facing the door. I grabbed a menu and searched for something filling.

"Can I take your order?" The waitress asked, setting my water and silverware on the table.

"Yes. I'll have the country fried steak dinner with fries, please, and a Pepsi." I closed the menu and looked up at the waitress. My heart stopped. She looked so much like Rose; she could have been her sister. Her hair was different, though. Rose had been a brunette. My waitress was blonde. According to her nametag, her name was Chloe.

She jotted my order down and smiled at me. She must've seen the look on my face. "Are you okay, sir?"

I swallowed hard. "I'm...I'm fine." I said, when in fact, I wasn't.

"It'll be out in a minute." She walked away, leaving me staring after her. I thought I smelled Rose's perfume, but that part might have been my mind tricking me.

I tried to look away, but kept finding myself staring after her. She didn't walk exactly as Rose had, but she had the same flowing movement, as if she was floating. She was so graceful; I couldn't help but watch her and think of Rose.

She brought my food to me and set it on the table in front of me. "Here you go," she said. "You need anything else?"

All I could do was shake my head like a fool.

"Well, if you do, let me know." She walked away again, and again I stared at her like an idiot. Only this time, I noticed the other two customers watching me watch her. I tried to make myself stop looking. I didn't want anyone to think I was rapist or a pervert.

I ate as slowly as I could. I realized that I didn't want to finish my meal because I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and watch the waitress who looked like my Rose.

It was delicious, so I was really savoring every bite. However, all I could think about was someone in the room with me looked just like Rose.

I never once thought of Rose as a replacement for my mother, though it was obvious that the two were quite similar. I wasn't now thinking of Chloe as a replacement for Rose. It was just so uncanny. It had been so long since I'd seen my beloved Rose, and for the last eighteen months of her life, she hadn't been herself. Her hair had lost its shine. Her skin had lost its glow. Her voluptuous body had melted away into a thin skeletal frame. I hadn't realized until that moment that I wasn't thinking so much of Rose in all of her glory and beauty because all I was thinking about was Rose at the end of her life, as my poor, wilted Rose.

Chloe reminded me of the way Rose had been when we first fell in love. She allowed me not to erase the memories of Rose at the end of her short life, but push them aside and see the early memories of her when she was healthy. She was giving me a chance to honor Rose's memory by thinking of the good things about her. I was able to look past the cancer-ridden shadow of a woman that she had become, beyond the pale frame that always looked so small lying fragilely on such a large bed.

In Chloe, I could again see Rose's smile, as bright as it had ever been. Her laugh was the same, only slightly higher pitched. It was close enough to remind me of all the times that I'd made my sweet Rose laugh at the silly things I used to do.

I watched Chloe refill the customers' coffee cups as she smiled warmly at them. She walked over to my table and asked if I needed a refill on the Pepsi. All I could do was nod. It wasn't so much that I was still thirsty, but I wanted her to be as near to me as possible for as long as possible.

"Here you go." She sat the drink down. "Would you like me to take these?" she asked, indicating the empty plate and silverware.

"Yes, please." I hated finishing that meal. I'd been in the diner for over an hour as it was. I didn't want to seem suspicious. My intentions were purely innocent watching Chloe, but I could see how it might not look that way to onlookers.

She picked up the plate. "If you need anything else, let me know." She winked at me and walked away. I watched her every move. She was so graceful. So Rose-like.

I sipped my soda slowly, and decided to have a cigarette. That would kill a little time. The two other customers glanced briefly at me when I flicked my lighter. I pretended not to notice. I only started smoking again after Rose died. I had smoked for three years when I was younger, but had quit. The stress over losing someone like my Rose was too much. I needed something to get me through it, and I was determined not to become an alcoholic. Therefore, I smoked. I suppose that maybe, on some subconscious level, I was hoping that I would fall ill to cancer the way Rose had so I could suffer her pain as she had, and once again be with her. As sick as the idea was, I had to admit that it was a possibility.

An idea occurred to me, so I motioned for Chloe. My pounding heart made me feel foolish. It was pounding almost as much as it had on my first date with Rose.

Chloe came to my table, smiling all the way.

"Can I get you something else?" Her voice was so comforting, so familiar.

"Yes. Do you have any desserts?" I couldn't take my eyes off her, and I etched into my memory the sound of her voice sounded.

"We have chocolate cake, apple pie, and peach cobbler." She leaned a little closer, and nearly whispered, "I recommend the cake. Fred tends to slightly undercook the crust for pies and cobblers." She then stood back up and smiled.

I chuckled. "I'll have the cake then."

"I'll be right back." Again, I watched her walk away. I saw her cut a slice of cake and place it on a small plate. I saw the other two customers, a couple of old men, looking at me. I wasn't sure, but I thought they were whispering about me. It could've been my imagination, but I guess it wasn't.

I made myself look out the window until I finished my cigarette. I was snuffing out the butt when Chloe arrived with the cake.

"I brought you a glass of milk, on the house. I figured it went better with cake than soda." She smiled warmly at me.

"Thank you so much, Chloe. You're right. It is better with milk."

It was about then that another man walked in carrying a dirty duffle bag. He was a tall, skinny man with pale skin and long, stringy hair that looked far more than just oily. No telling how long it'd been since he'd bathed. He sat down at the bar, and looked around often, as if he were checking out the place. I noticed that he couldn't take his eyes off Chloe, either. When he did peel his eyes off her, it was to look around nervously. The more I watched him, the more I thought he acted suspiciously.

He ate quickly and left. No one else seemed to notice anything odd about him, so I figured he was a regular. Now with him gone, I could again focus on Chloe.

***

Sadly, I was finished eating, and could no longer prolong my leaving. I slowly walked to the counter to pay, taking Chloe in the whole way. She was leaning against the counter flipping through a magazine. I noticed that she licked her thumb before flipping the page, just as Rose had done. I stood at the counter for a few moments until Chloe noticed me. I didn't mind the wait. It gave me more time to memorize her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't notice you walk up."

"That's okay," I said. I swallowed hard, not wanting to leave.

She punched my order in to the register. "It's six seventy-two." She leaned across the counter. "I threw in the cake also."

"Thank you. Here's twenty. You can keep the rest." I smiled.

"Thanks." Chloe looked from the twenty-dollar bill to me a couple of times, as if waiting for me to realize what I was doing and change my mind. When she saw that I wasn't going to, she made the change in the register and put the tip in her pocket.

I stood there as long as was acceptable. It was now time to leave. I turned and walked slowly out the door, ringing the bell as the door opened. The Nevada night air was brisk. I slowly walked to the Explorer and unlocked the door. I slid into the driver's seat, but didn't immediately start the vehicle. I sat there, pondering the day's events.

First, there was a diner in a small town that wasn't on my atlas. That was weird. Then, I find a near replica of Rose. Now, oddly enough, I found myself not wanting to drive off into the night, when only a couple of hours earlier, I couldn't drive far enough fast enough.

I could only sit in the parking lot so long. The two remaining customers were already peering out the window, surely wondering why I was still there. Reluctantly, I started the vehicle and pulled back out onto the Loneliest Road. I drove much slower than before. I hated putting distance between Chloe and me. Watching her made it seem that Rose was alive. It made me feel like maybe I would be okay after all. Rose had promised that she would wait for me. I knew I'd be with her again. Chloe made me seem a little closer.

Suddenly I had an idea. I turned around and drove back to the diner. I tried to remain calm and act as casual as I could. The other two customers were obviously not thinking that I was acting normal. They didn't even try to hide the fact that they were talking about me now. Two white haired men, gossiping about a stranger, in the middle of nowhere. Who'd have thought it?

Chloe smiled when she saw me. "Forget something?"

"I was wondering if maybe you could tell me if there's a motel around here anywhere. I've been driving all day, and I'm getting pretty tired." Honestly, I had a few more hours in me, but I wouldn't mind staying in this little town. After all, it put me closer to Chloe, which made me feel closer to Rose.

"Yes, there is. There's a little spot down the road behind the diner called Mom's Hotel. It's small, but they're friendly people, and it's very clean. Tell them Chloe sent you."

"Thank you, Chloe." I left the diner. I drove to Mom's Hotel, where a friendly older couple sat behind a counter, as if expecting a large crowd of sleep-seekers. I told them Chloe sent me, and they were overjoyed that I'd spoken to her. I could've thrown a rock and hit the diner from here, but it was as if they hadn't seen her in years. They went on and on about her, and I let them. I was fascinated with her, also.

They gave me the key to room eight of eight rooms. I put some of my things in my room, and then walked back to the diner. I had no intention of going inside. The two old men in there would surely come undone if I were to step foot in there again so soon.

Instead, I found a nice place to hide and watch the diner undetected. I had to walk away from the diner, up the highway. I then crossed the road and walked back toward the diner. I hid myself among large rocks, under the cover of night. I could see clearly into the diner through the large front windows.

I waited and I watched Chloe.

# Chapter 3

I watched Chloe close up the diner for the night. Fred, Chloe, and the two old men walked out together, laughing. The two old men walked to their trucks and left. Fred said goodnight to Chloe and got into his van. He waited until Chloe was in her car. She drove an old car that was too large for such a small woman. I guess a waitress in a diner in the middle of nowhere didn't make as much as one might think.

Fred then backed out and drove away down the Loneliest Road. Chloe pulled onto the road that went behind the diner. The same road went to Mom's Hotel.

I glanced around to make sure no one was watching. I jumped up and ran across the road. I wanted to follow Chloe. I wanted to watch her more. She drove past the hotel, but not far past. She pulled into the driveway three houses down the street.

I hid as well as I could, but continued sneaking closer.

I hid beside the car in the driveway of the house next door to Chloe's house. I watched her unlock the door and go inside. My heart sagged a little because I could no longer see her. I wanted to go up onto her porch and peer into the windows. Knowing that I would be invading her privacy, I felt a little sad. This is what I had been reduced to; window peeping. This wasn't like me. I didn't do these things. Nevertheless, I somehow felt like I just had to. I would leave here tomorrow, probably after eating at the diner one more time in the hopes that Chloe would be there. Then I would drive off into the hot Nevada desert to live the rest of my lonely life, never seeing her again. What was the harm, really? She'd never know that I had invaded her privacy.

I looked around, and then crept up the steps to the porch. I expected a squeaky board to give me away, but there were none. I could see a light on in the room next to the front door. I walked slowly around a small table and matching chairs to better see in the window.

The curtains were white lace. There were shades on the windows, but they were only half drawn. I could see plainly into the window from a squatted position.

I was looking directly into her bedroom. Shame ravaged my body. I knew that if Rose were here, she would scold me. She would be very disappointed. I didn't want to look into that window. I didn't want to do anything that would have upset my Rose, but I just couldn't leave.

She wasn't in the room. The lamp was on, allowing me clearly to see her room. Her nightgown draped over the foot of the bed, her slippers on the floor. Makeup, perfumes, and powders sat neatly atop the antique dresser. A few more minutes went by, and still no Chloe. I decided that while waiting, there would be no harm in smoking a cigarette. I lit one and puffed slowly, scanning my surroundings nervously to make sure that no one was watching me. I heard a dog barking, but I saw no one. With no moon, I was confident that no one could see me.

More minutes passed before Chloe came into the room. She walked over to the edge of the bed. She slipped off her shoes, then her skirt. She pulled her shirt off over her head. She unclasped her bra and tossed it onto a chair in the corner. Here was a beautiful woman standing before me in nothing more than her little black lacy panties, and yet all I could think of was Rose.

Seeing her standing there, nearly naked, I realized that she really didn't look so much like Rose. Chloe was far too thin. Rose had bigger breasts. Her hips had been curvier. Her legs had been more muscular. Chloe was beautiful, but she looked far more like Rose when she was dressed and moving around. My heart sank.

I continued to watch while she put on her nightgown, and then slipped under the covers. She switched off the lamp as I dropped my cigarette butt onto the porch and smashed it with my boot. I sat down in one of the chairs for a moment to clear my head. This woman, who had only moments earlier given me such hope about moving on with my life, this woman who had reminded me so much of my sweet Rose, had just ruined everything. Of course, I shouldn't have looked in to her window. I wished now that I hadn't. It was almost like losing Rose again.

It had been so disappointing to see her looking like only Chloe, a waitress in the middle of nowhere. Someone I would never see again. Someone whom I had just met, but who had raised my spirits so high, and then had let them down so low.

Then a thought popped into my head. As I lit another cigarette, I thought it over. I was thinking clearer now than I had in months.

What if Chloe had looked and acted nothing at all like Rose? What if the whole thing had been only in my head? Maybe the realization that I was peeping into her window, something that Rose would have strongly disapproved of, jarred me back to reality, making me realize that this woman was in no way like Rose. Maybe I was losing my mind, or maybe I was hoping against hope that I'd find a woman who could fill the large hole in my life the way that Rose had.

I didn't want another woman, but maybe my subconscious needed one to deal with the pain of losing the two most important women in my life. Women are loving creatures meant to nurture. I had none. I had no one to nurture or love me. Maybe on some level, I was desperately searching for one. Sure, maybe Chloe had something that Rose had. Maybe she was graceful like Rose had been. She licked her thumb before flipping the pages of that magazine like Rose had. Was that it? Was the rest of it in my head?

I crushed the cigarette under my boot and walked back to the hotel. I figured that I was right. I was probably searching for something in someone, and Chloe had been convenient. Besides, I was lonelier now than I had been at home. Out here on the road, I had no friends and family calling to check on me. No one was stopping by to see if I was okay. My mind was...grasping.

I was going home in the morning. I was running no longer. I was tired.

***

The sun shone brightly through the little window of room Eight. I lay there for a while, thinking of the night before. I had sunken to the bottom. Now I had to begin the long slow process of climbing my way back to the top. This time, I'd have to do it alone.

I showered, dressed, and collected my things. I was going to the diner to eat, but then I was returning home. Moreover, I couldn't care less whether or not Chloe was there. It would actually be better if she weren't.

I pulled the Explorer into the parking lot, and went inside. I sat in the same booth I'd sat in the previous night. It was nine o'clock in the morning. There were four people in the diner other than myself. The two old men from the night before were sitting at the same table as they had been previously. There was another older couple, a man and a woman, sitting at the booth on the far left side of the diner. Fred was cooking, but the waitress was different. She was a short, chubby woman of about forty.

It took her forever to take my order. When she finally did come over to my table, I could see she wasn't interested in me at all. She kept looking around the diner. She looked out the window frequently. I looked at Fred, who was standing next to the grill in a world all his own.

What was wrong with everyone?

I now noticed that the two old men were acting differently now also. They seemed to glance at me often, but I could tell that they were trying not to.

What was going on? I felt like I'd missed something that everyone else got.

"I'll have two eggs, sunny side up; toast, bacon, and an ice water. That's it."

She jotted that down, and then walked away, saying nothing. I tried not to notice the old men staring at me. I looked out the window. The bright sunshine was nearly blinding. That is, until a large sheriff's vehicle pulled into the path of the rays. It was an old full-size Bronco. Two outfitted police officers got out and came into the diner. They looked around as they entered, walking to the bar.

Fred walked over to them, said something only they could hear, and then the three of them went into a back room.

They were in that room, presumably a stock room, for about fifteen minutes. When it became clear that I wouldn't be getting my breakfast anytime soon, I lit a cigarette. I tried my best to relax, but I had a feeling that something weird was going on. It was a feeling I couldn't ignore.

No more than two puffs into my cigarette, the three men exited the room. One of the police officers stared at me. Fred glanced at me briefly before going back to the grill. The cops came straight to my booth. Without asking, they both sat down across from me.

"Hello, Officers," I said, not sure of what they wanted. Neither spoke, so I continued. "Is something wrong?"

The officer to my left spoke first. He was an ugly man. He had a square face, large nose, large ears, and an ugly set of rotting teeth to match. "That's a pretty uncommon brand of cigarette you smoke isn't it?"

I wasn't sure what to say. I rolled the cigarette around between my fingers, looking at it. "I guess so. Why?"

"Let us ask the questions," said the officer to my right. He was a better-looking man, but still not very handsome. He was in his fifties, I guessed. He was thin, with white hair and a matching moustache.

The man to the left spoke again. "Were you in here last night?"

"Yes. I was driving through. I was very hungry, and saw the diner. I stopped in for a bite to eat."

"Where you from?" the man on the left was apparently the speaker, while the man on the right was the note-taker.

"Kentucky. Hickman, Kentucky." I snuffed out my cigarette, and tried to calm my nerves.

"What're you doing out this way?"

"My wife died recently, and I needed to clear my mind, so I decided to just drive around for a while." I was becoming a little uneasy.

"How did your wife die?"

"Cancer. Why?" I couldn't understand why all the questions about my wife.

The officer to the right jerked his head up from his notepad. "I said we'll ask the questions."

"Did you see anything odd in here last night?"

"No," I replied.

"Do you remember the waitress that was in here?"

"Chloe? Yeah, I remember her." They looked at each other as if they knew something that I didn't. A look that said I'd just confirmed something they thought they already knew.

"Would you mind coming with us? We need to ask you some more questions, and this really isn't the place."

"Would you mind if I eat breakfast? Fred still hasn't cooked it."

The two officers looked at each other with that look again. The one on the right asked, "How do you know his name?"

"Chloe said he tended to undercook his pie crusts." Again, there was the look.

"It's best if you come with us now. You can eat later." They stood up.

Since I apparently had no other choice, I joined them. They put handcuffs on me, and put me in the back of the Bronco. We drove past the hotel and Chloe's house. In the bright morning sun, I could see the rest of the town. It was very small. There were houses, a gas station, a small grocery store, and a hardware store. Every building, every sign, looked to be a hundred years old. It all looked run-down and dirty. Maybe it was the dust from the road, or the damage of the desert sun.

At the end of the road was a small white building, presumably the police station. The ugly man pulled into the driveway, and we all got out of the Bronco. They walked me into the building.

There was a woman at a desk that was too small for her large frame. I soon gathered that she was the wife of the ugly man. An ugly, very large woman, married to an ugly man. What were the chances?

They led me to a small room with no windows in the back of the building. A dim bulb hung bare in the center of the ceiling. It stank of mildew or rot. The old man who took notes sat at the small cluttered desk. After clearing a spot, the ugly man sat on the corner of the desk. This left the only chair in the room for me, so I sat.

# Chapter 4

The ugly man spoke first. "We have eyewitnesses that say you were acting rather suspiciously last night toward Chloe. Is this correct?"

"Not exactly." I intended to gather my words, and then try to explain with as little detail as possible what had happened. I wasn't allowed the chance, however.

"Did you or did you not act suspiciously?" His voice boomed inside the small room, bouncing off the walls.

"I guess it might've looked like that to others." I tried to sound nonchalant, but even I detected a tremor in my voice.

"How might it have looked like that?"

"Well, Chloe reminded me of my wife so much, that I couldn't help but watch her. I mean, she looked just like her." I didn't intend to reveal that I later saw that she didn't look like my wife with her clothes off.

"And you liked that Chloe looked like your dead wife?" Finally, the old man asked a question.

"No. Yes, I mean, I didn't like it, but since she did look like her, I couldn't help but watch her. She walked like my wife, she laughed like my wife. She even flipped the pages of her magazine like my wife." I briefly fell back into the memory of watching her turn those pages, licking her thumb the way Rose had.

"And did she die like your wife?"

"I told you my wife died of cancer." I couldn't help but be a little angry. I was sure they were suggesting that I had something to do with Rose's death. Then it dawned on me. "Are you saying that Chloe is dead?"

Neither spoke. They just looked at me with blank expressions on their faces.

"Chloe isn't dead, is she?" The way neither of them said anything was my answer.

"My advice to you is to tell us everything now. It'll save you in the end. We already know that you were at her house last night. Not only did we find cigarette butts on her porch that just so happen to match yours, but also we have eyewitnesses at the diner that say you were acting odd, and we have several neighbors that saw you sneaking around her house. So as you can see, telling us the truth is in your own best interest." The ugly man had me. He knew that I was there. However, I hadn't done anything wrong.

Now I faced a dilemma. In order to save my own ass, I had to admit to peeping in her windows. I mean, after all, I couldn't lie now. They knew I was there. What were the chances that anyone here in the little town along the Loneliest Road would smoke the same brand cigarette that I did? A brand that was pretty much only sold in the heartland.

"Yes, I was at her house, but I didn't do anything to her. I didn't go inside her house. I just stood on the porch and watched her. I told you how much she looked like my dead wife. Watching her made me feel closer to Rose. I had absolutely no intentions of hurting Chloe. I just wanted to watch her to feel close to Rose. She reminded me of how happy my wife was before she got sick. Back when she was healthy." I was aware that I had spewed forth more than they'd asked. I couldn't help it. I had never wanted to be farther away from anywhere in my life than right then.

"So you had no intention of hurting her, it just happened? Did she catch you peeping in at her? Did you two struggle?" The ugly man was really making me mad now. He was twisting all of my words around and using them against me.

"Did the neighbors say we struggled? I mean, if they saw me, they should've seen whether a struggle ensued. Did they say that we fought? No, they didn't, because we did not. I left. I went back to the hotel. Chloe was alive. I swear it."

Both officers looked at me for a long time.

The old man asked, "Why would we believe you? You were peeping into a young woman's bedroom window. We don't exactly take much stock in the words of a worm like you."

I thought for a moment. "I wish the neighbor that saw me would've called you. Then you'd know that Chloe was alive when I left her."

"Yes. I guess we would know that, because if we had arrested you last night, Chloe would've never died." They both sat in silence for a moment. Then, "We know you killed her."

***

Here I was, in the middle of nowhere, knowing nobody, and accused of murder. I hated to admit it, but it did look like I just might've done it. However, I didn't. I never intended to hurt anybody.

Another man in plain clothes brought in a package with a note attached to it. The old man took it. He read the note, glanced at me, and peered into the package.

I had no idea what to say or do. I'd already told them the truth. There was nothing else to tell them. Yet they were sitting there staring at me as if I should have more to tell.

"I did not kill Chloe. I didn't hurt her, either. I never stepped inside the house. Did you check the doorknob for fingerprints? Did you check anything for prints? You won't find my prints anywhere in that house because I was never in it." I found myself in a constant struggle to keep my voice at a reasonable tone.

The white haired officer nodded, as if he'd known I would say that.

The old man opened the package and dumped the contents on the desk. He then leaned forward, putting his elbows on the desktop. "We're sure we won't find any prints. These were found in the glove box of your vehicle." He then picked up a pair of black leather gloves and threw them at me.

"I always keep gloves in my glove box. That's why it's called a glove box, isn't it?"

"Don't get sassy with me, boy." The old man was losing his patience with me. What was I supposed to do?

I had my wrists shackled behind me. Had I not, I would've jumped up and beat them both until they listened to me. That could've taken forever because I was really thinking that they were never going to listen to me no matter what I said. They'd already decided that I was guilty. Nothing I could say would change their minds about that.

I was getting very frustrated. It was a huge struggle to keep myself calm. I was hoping that if I stayed collected, maybe they'd see that there was no way I could've murdered anyone. I already knew that. Now all I had to do was convey that to them.

"Look, I'm telling you honestly that I never stepped a foot inside that house. I never had any intention of going inside."

The old man spoke. "You probably had no intention of peeping at her, either. It was a spur of the moment decision. Wasn't it?" He smiled arrogantly at me.

I wasn't sure what to say. I kept feeling like they were going to twist my words to try to trap me. This situation was sticky and only getting stickier. The lump that had formed in my throat was getting harder to swallow.

If I said no, that would be saying that I had planned on peeping. That would make me a pervert. If I said yes, they'd say that making one spur of the moment decision meant that I was capable of making more. They already thought I was a killer. I didn't want them thinking any more of me. But then again, they had proof that I'd been peeping. There was no winning here.

"I didn't plan on peeping at her, and I don't make quick decisions like that." I said that all as quickly as I could, in order to keep them from stopping me from saying it all.

"Really?" The younger officer ran his tongue across his rotting teeth.

"Why don't you tell me then how long you had this trip planned?" The old man sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest.

"A while. Why?" I'd lied. I hadn't wanted to, but they'd left me little choice.

"Really?" the old man asked. "It kind of looked to us like you hadn't planned it much at all."

I looked from one of them to the other thinking that maybe this was some sort of joke, or maybe a nightmare from which I couldn't wake.

"Did you search my vehicle?"

"No, but we glanced at it as we walked into and out of the diner. Not much thought into the trip from what we could see."

I sighed. There was really no way out of this. I was quickly realizing that I was in more trouble than I'd originally thought.

# Chapter 5

The two officers left the room. I closed my eyes, my mind racing. I could see no way out of this mess. I had no idea what I was going to do. There had to be a way to prove to them that I was innocent. There had to be some evidence or another witness that saw something else. There had to be.

I had a right to make a phone call. This may be the middle of nowhere, but it was still America. I had a right to a phone call. However, I had no one to call. That made me sad. How pathetic was I that in a pinch as tight as this one, I had no one to call for help, no one to defend me.

I had to call a lawyer. That would probably make me look even guiltier, but I was getting scared now. I needed someone else in my corner. Someone who wouldn't freak out the way I would probably freak out if this went on much longer.

I took a few slow, deep breaths to calm myself down. I waited.

By the clock on the wall with the broken face, an hour had passed since the two had left the room. It was almost eleven o'clock. I was getting angry and terrified. They were gone too long.

Finally, the young officer came in alone. He grabbed me by the arm, and told me to get up.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"You'll see soon enough." He led me out the front door. I noticed several people standing out near the ugly woman's desk. They were staring at me. When I looked at them, they looked away.

"Who are they? Why are they staring at me? What's going on?" I asked, as he pushed me down the worn wooden steps. I nearly fell, but managed to keep my balance.

"Shut up. I told you you'd see soon enough. Now get in the back." He opened the door, and shoved me into the back of the Bronco.

The sun was too bright after sitting in that small dank room for so long. It took better than a minute to adjust to the brightness. My eyes watered.

As we drove, I noticed several people milling around in the street. I counted five small groups here and there of about eight or ten people standing around talking. They all stared as we drove past. Many people were walking toward the groups of others. They also stared as we passed them. I couldn't imagine where these people had come from. There weren't many houses here. Up to this point, I'd only seen a few people, but here were dozens of people everywhere. Why?

We weren't going back the way we'd come. We were going past the police station, behind the other buildings. Soon, we ran out of dirt road and began going through open territory.

"We are we going? There's no road. What were all those people doing? What's going on?" I struggled to keep the panic out of my voice. That was a challenge because there was plenty of fear and panic there to hide.

The officer shook his head, slammed on the brakes, and turned off the Bronco. He grabbed something out of the front seat and jumped out. My heart pounded fiercely.

He jerked open my door, and leaned in. His rotting teeth were directly in front of me, not two inches from my face. His breath was by far the most horrid thing I'd ever smelled. Not to mention, that you could've changed the oil in your car with the oil from his face.

"What are you doing?" I asked, trying not to breathe in while he was so close to me.

"You ask too many questions, son." He then tied a bandana around my head, blocking my vision. I now had a blindfold. If that was supposed to quell my questions, it didn't work. I now had a million more.

I heard him start the Bronco again. We drove on to wherever. The field became bumpy. I was thrown around the back of the Bronco like a rag doll. My head bounced off the window and the roof many times. I cursed loudly. I was told to shut up.

Finally, after an agonizing trip, the Bronco stopped. I heard the engine shut off, and the driver's door open. Seconds later, my door opened. The officer dragged me out of the Bronco as forcefully as he'd shoved me into it. After pushing me aside, I heard the officer slam the door shut.

The officer led me away from the rear of the Bronco. After nearly stumbling and falling a few times, we arrived presumably at the front of the vehicle. He instructed me to sit on the bumper.

I still had the blindfold, so I couldn't see. I had the feeling that he'd walked away from me. If I'd thought that I could make it, I would've run. I'd figure out a way to remove the cuffs and bandana later. However, I knew there was no way that would ever work. I would probably be shot in the back. I had a clear impression that this moron wanted to kill me. He was just looking for a reason. I sure hoped that I was wrong about that.

I could hear other vehicles in the distance. They seemed to be growing closer to us. We had driven quite a way through the field. My senses were doing their best to compensate for the loss of vision. I wasn't entirely sure that they could be trusted yet.

My nose was definitely picking up on the putrid scent of rot. An animal had surely died close by. A horrible smell burned my nostrils. It filled my lungs, leaving me feeling nasty from the inside out.

I heard the cop talking to someone. I assumed that he was on the radio reporting to the sheriff. Until I heard the old man right in front of me, and felt his hand wrap around my throat.

"Boy, you have no idea what you've done." He squeezed hard. I was having difficulty breathing, and there was no way I could swallow.

I pulled my head back to free myself from his wiry fingers that for some reason, wanted me to suffocate. His hands managed to follow me back for a while. Just before my head was flat on the hood of the Bronco, he let go. I stood erect again.

That's when he slapped me across the face.

"What the hell?" My face was burning from the force behind the slap. He was pissing me off now. I was losing my fear, and finding my anger.

"Don't pull away from me, boy." I heard the ugly cop laugh.

"Take this blindfold off me. Now. I didn't do anything wrong, and I demand to know what's going on." I felt stupid. I wasn't sure where to look. I couldn't see. I stared toward the last place that I knew him to be.

"Don't tell me what to do, you little son of a bitch. You fucked with the wrong people, this time. You should've stayed at home." They both laughed.

"I didn't do anything!" I tried not to scream, but it happened anyway.

I wasn't sure which one, but one of them punched me in the stomach. As I doubled over, he brought his knee to my face, connecting solidly with my mouth. I tasted blood as it found its way across my tongue. One of them grabbed my hair, pulled my head roughly back, and then spit in my face. I prayed that it wasn't the ugly man with the foul breath and the rotting teeth. Anybody's spit was bad, but I nearly puked at the thought of his spit touching my body.

"You need to calm down, boy." It was the old man. He was right in front of my face.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to run, to vomit, to take a pain pill, to shoot these bastards. I wanted my mother. I wanted my wife. I wanted as far away as I could be.

"Here they come," I heard the ugly man say.

The old man let go of my hair. I fell back against the Bronco, spitting blood. The vehicles were right on us now. I assumed that was who they'd said were coming. Who were they, and why were they here?

I wasn't going to ask any more questions. At least until the blindfold was removed.

I could hear engines stopping, car doors slamming one after another, and many voices. There seemed to be a hundred people talking all at once. It created such a noise that I couldn't even sort out what they were saying. I certainly tried, though.

The old man said to them, "Folks, let's keep it down." I could tell that he was walking away from me, undoubtedly toward them.

I could hear the crowd grow quieter, as they listened to him speak. He apparently had his back to me, because I could hear his voice, but not make out any of his words. I knew, though, that this wasn't going to be good for me. It was just a feeling I had.

I felt someone grab my arms and stand me up. I walked the best that I could, though I stumbled repeatedly over rocks. We walked up several steps. I was forced to turn around. I was pushed down to my knees.

I heard the old man speak, and I knew that he was standing next to me.

"This, ladies and gentlemen, is your killer. He took our Chloe. She, who done nothing to wrong him, died at his hands."

"She did not! I didn't kill her!" Something slammed hard against the back of my head. I nearly blacked out. I struggled to keep conscious. This wasn't the time to be unconscious. Who knew what these bastards were going to do.

"His cigarette butts were found on her porch. He admitted to peeping in her windows." I heard the crowd gasp. "It is him who we've been looking for, folks. He's the one who committed the crime, and it is he who must pay."

The crowd applauded and cheered.

My stomach knotted up tighter than it already had been. Convincing one or two people of my innocence would be hard enough, but convincing an entire crowd was impossible.

"I didn't kill her." I kept my voice calm this time, to try to keep from being hit again.

I heard silence for a long time, and then the old man asked, "Well, son, if you didn't do it, then who did? Who else was at Chloe's house last night?" I could feel many sets of eyes on me.

My mind raced. Who else could have done it? I was thinking quickly. If I didn't do it, which I knew that I had not, then who did? I was thinking of the possibility that one of these freaks had done it. I was thinking that maybe Fred the cook had done it. Then it dawned on me.

"Well, son. We're waiting."

"There was a guy." I was struggling to remember every detail about him.

"A guy?" I heard the skepticism in the old man's voice. I also heard a murmur from the crowd.

"Yes. A guy came in the diner last night while I was eating. He was acting strangely." I was talking fast now, trying to keep them from cutting me off before I could tell them about the man.

"Strangely?" the old man laughed.

"Yes."

"Like watching every move the waitress made, then following her home, and peeping in her windows?" Everyone laughed.

"He kept looking around nervously. Like something was going to happen or had happened. I don't know." I was realizing that they weren't going to believe me no matter what I said.

"Well, what did this guy look like?" I could tell from his tone that he was just humoring me.

I described the man to him the best that I could, relaying to him everything that I could recall. I did my best not to leave out anything. I knew that my life just might depend on this other man.

No one said anything.

"Ask the two old men that were in the diner while I was in there. Ask Fred." No one said anything for a while.

Then the old man said, "We did. They said there was no one else. Only you."

"That's not true. There was another man." They'd quit listening to me now.

"By a show of hands, who of you says this man is guilty?" the old man asked. After a pause, presumably to count hands, he asked, "Who of you believe he is innocent?"

"I am innocent," I said, mostly to myself. It appeared that I was the only one listening to me now.

"You are whatever we say you are, son. Evidence speaks louder than words here." I hated the old man. I wished I could switch places with him. I'd show him what it felt like to be innocent, but believed guilty with no way to prove yourself innocent, because you were dealing with stubborn idiots.

"You've been found guilty of the murder of Chloe." After a long pause, the old man leaned down to me and said, "You're gonna die, son."

# Chapter 6

Just when I thought my stomach couldn't knot any tighter, it did. I had to make myself breathe. I also had to choke back the vomit. The smell of rot was stronger now, and I was getting the feeling that there would be no way out of this. Period. Not all the talking in the world could save me now.

"In keeping with the traditional values of our little community, no crime shall go unpunished. In this case, the crime is murder. Cold, calculated murder. Take it off."

The ugly cop removed the blindfold from my eyes. I squinted in the desert sun. When my focus cleared, I noticed that the crowd was comprised of approximately seventy-five people. Farther back, behind the crowd, I saw my Explorer, along with dozens of other vehicles. Some dating back to the twenties and thirties, and ranging all the way up in years to my new Explorer. Rust had taken over the older vehicles, and I could tell for sure that they'd all been sitting out here for a long time. My heart began to pound. Every horror movie that I'd ever seen flashed before me. I hoped that what I was thinking was wrong. I looked back to the crowd.

They were mostly older people who all looked at me with disdain. I looked at the faces of each of those people, and what I saw scared the hell out of me.

They all wanted me to die. I looked down in defeat. That's when I noticed it. It took a minute for me to recognize the device before which I was knelt. Everyone was waiting for me to see it. I sure did see it.

It was a guillotine.

"What is this?" I asked. No one answered me. The old man, the ugly man, and the crowd just stared at me. There were two other large men a few feet from me, one on either side. They also stared. "This can't be legal. I had no trial." I shook my head, but I couldn't shake it away. "This isn't legal. This isn't right. I want to talk to an attorney."

Everyone roared with laughter.

The old officer stepped closer to me. He squatted down beside me. "Son, things work a little differently here. There are no attorneys, no judges. We, as a whole, decide your fate based on the actions you take. We don't waste time and money on judges and trials. The evidence speaks for itself."

I stared him straight in the eyes, and pleaded with him again. I somehow knew this would be my last chance. "Sir, I'm telling you that I am innocent. I did not kill Chloe. I am guilty of peeping in her windows, and I'm sorry for that, but I would never harm her. I'd never harm anyone. You must believe me. What would you do in my situation, if you were me?"

The old man thought about it, and then shook his head slowly. "I'd never be in your situation, son. I'm not a murderer." He stood up and turned away from me. To the crowd, he said, "Let's begin."

I had no choice. If I was going to die, I was going to die trying. I knew that I wouldn't get far, but I was going to get as far as I could. I saw an opportunity, and I took it.

I jumped up quickly. The ugly officer was between the steps and me so I had to jump off the platform. As soon as I started going, I heard yelling and shouting, but I wasn't hearing what they were saying. I had to get away.

With my hands still handcuffed behind me, it wasn't easy to run, or land after jumping from a platform. True to physics, I fell and rolled in the dirt, claiming a mouthful for my own.

As I landed, I heard two shots fired. It took me a few seconds to realize what they were. It took me a few seconds longer than that to realize that I was hit. The crowd didn't gasp in horror or shock. All they did was step back a step or two to keep from getting my blood on them.

As soon as I realized that I'd taken a shot to the knee in my right leg, and one to the calf of my left leg, the officers and the other two large men were surrounding me. They all looked down at me and laughed, the crowd laughing with them. I heard applause. The officers commended each other on their marksmanship.

I wanted to grab my injuries out of instinct. However, due to the cuffs, I was unable to do that.

I did manage to roll around pathetically, screaming and moaning in agony. My kneecap had shattered, I knew. I couldn't move that leg. The other bullet hadn't found the bone I didn't think, but it still hurt like hell. I'd never felt pain such as this.

I looked down to try to assess the damage. I saw my jeans ripped to shreds around the knee. They were nearly black with blood, which was gushing forth from my shattered knee. By the amount of damage, I figured a shotgun to be the culprit. The other leg was bleeding, but not nearly as much. The hole was much smaller. I could see my blood mixing with the dirt beneath me, making a sick sort of blood-dirt batter. It was thick and dark. My stomach turned.

I shivered.

I blinked rapidly to fight off the impending blackness, but I failed.

When I opened my eyes, I didn't know where I was or what was happening, but soon enough, it all came back to me. The unbearable pain and the mouthful of dirt.

I heard people talking around me, but was still unable to make out words. Everything sounded so far away. Gradually, it came clear to me.

"He's awake," someone said.

I heard the old man walk over to me and say, "I was wondering if you were ever going to come around. I wouldn't do this to an unconscious man." He chuckled, stood up, and walked away.

I looked around. I was face-down on the guillotine. I got up and ran away. Far, far away, and I never once looked back. At least in my mind, I did. My body didn't move a muscle. No matter how loud my brain screamed at it, it just laid there, unmoving. My mind was screaming at my body so loudly, it seemed deafening to me. Nevertheless, it wouldn't budge. It was in shock. I didn't know how long I'd been out or how much blood I'd lost.

I tried to speak, but my mouth was too dry, and my tongue seemed far too thick. I worked up what little spit I could, which was gritty from the dirt, swallowed, and tried again.

"No." That was it. That was all I could manage. My body was failing me. I was suddenly very angry with myself. Was this how it was going to end for me? Was I going to let it end this way? Did I have a choice?

"You should've thought about that before you went and killed an innocent girl." I couldn't keep track of who was speaking any more. I couldn't turn to face them. I couldn't raise my head more than an inch or two. I'd lost all strength that I had. It seemed that the only thing that was working was my mind. I was trapped in my own useless body.

I thought back. I knew that I was thinking my last thoughts. My body might fail me, but damn it, my mind was still working relatively well, and if this was it, I was going to enjoy the last few minutes I had.

I was angry with myself for not fighting harder to live, but then I thought that maybe my mind, on some level, didn't want my body to fight. Maybe it wanted to die, to see my Rose. Knowing that I would see her again comforted me. I was still mad at being wronged, but the thought of reuniting with my sweet Rose was more than enough compensation. I'd waited long enough. Life without her had been miserable.

I thought back to my last meal. Chloe had served it to me in the diner. If I'd known it would be the last thing I'd ever eat, I would've enjoyed it more. Maybe I would've ordered something else. I would've smoked more cigarettes. I would've had more than one piece of cake. I would've had a few beers afterward. Maybe many beers.

I wanted to cry. I thought it was funny that even though I had come to terms with the fact that I was getting ready to die, I still didn't want to. Even without Rose, I wanted to live. Why people hold on to this world when there's nothing left to live for was a mystery. Maybe it was because we never knew what was going to happen next. Maybe it was knowing that even when things were bleakest, when times were hardest, there was still positive to be seen. There was always an 'it could be worse' to be found. Life was just full of surprises. You never knew what to expect.

I wanted to live.

"No." I managed one more protest. No one heard me, though. If they did, no one acknowledged it.

I decided to enjoy the last thoughts I had. Marrying my sweet Rose. She'd been the most beautiful bride. As she walked toward me down the aisle, I'd thought that we would grow old together. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together. We were going to raise kids together. Nothing else was ever going to matter. We had each other, and that was more than enough.

I had no idea that Rose would, in fact, spend the rest of her life with me, but I would have to spend the rest of mine without her. Then there were the kids that we were denied.

My body may have failed me, but my eyes still formed tears. They fell off my face and straight down to the platform beneath me.

Had I failed my mother? Had I failed Rose? What would they think of me?

To me, the old man said, "Chris Peters, you are sentenced to death." To someone else, he said, "Are you ready? All right, then. Let it go!"

# Chapter 7

The sound was bone chilling, sure to send a shiver down any spine. I figured it had sent one down my spine, but I couldn't be sure. I gazed at the clear blue sky above me. The sun shone down, caressing my face tenderly. The glare of the sun off the cold, sharp steel blade made me struggle to focus my vision. A puffy white cloud floated lazily across an otherwise cloudless sky. I couldn't help but notice that it looked remarkably like a heart.

There was suddenly no more pain. There was nothing. Too much nothing. My brain struggled to grasp what had happened to its lifelong partner, my body.

I wanted to breathe, but there was nothing to breathe. I managed to blink. I opened my mouth to speak Rose's name, but no sound would escape me.

I watched as blood dripped slowly from the blade of the guillotine. It was my blood. So much blood. I glimpsed my body, still lying on the guillotine, thrashing around uncontrollably. I wanted to make it stop, but my mind and my body was no longer connected. All I could do was watch in horror and sadness. I had to look away. I didn't have the heart to watch my body die.

Birds were flying low overhead.

My mother's face flashed through my mind's eye so many times. How I loved her. She had been so bloody. With clouds. And Rose. I loved my floating Rose.

There were so many bloody cars. With lots of blindfolds and dust. The rot of smell was everywhere. I remembered seeing that smell. Blink. Couldn't smell it now. Couldn't breathe. Wasn't. Water far.

Blink. Loved dogs. Big. Flowers. Blink. Roses. For Rose. Blink. Falling. Feel falling...

Blue sky with birds...people talking...old man laughing...rotting teeth...ugly man's wife...blink...

My first grade teacher...country fried steak...see Chloe smiling at me...cake...ugly man looking at me...blink...people laughing...

Cloud...old man standing over me...panic in the crowd...old man picks up my head...blink...Rose's hand in mine...

I see man from the diner...people look scared...I blink slowly...can't see well...milk with cake...dirt in my mouth. I wishes Rose waits. My mother's clouds...hurts...can't breathe...want air, need air. See blood...can't blink...Rose...

Never killed anyone. I can't see. There's blackness coming...can't stop it coming. So cold...feet are cold. Fingers numb...blackness closer...hear Rose calling...

Voices fading quickly. Blackness here now...full of nothing...see Rose...

####

### About the Author

Kimberly A. Bettes was born in Missouri on Thanksgiving Day, 1977. Kimberly is the author of several novels and short stories. She lives with her husband and son in the beautiful Ozark Mountains of southeast Missouri, where she terrorizes residents of a small town with her twisted tales. It's there she likes to study serial killers and knit. Serial killers who knit are her favorites.

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Carnage: After the End Volume 1

Legends of Urban Horror: A Friend of a Friend Told Me

# Bonus Material
From BEFORE THE HARVEST

### Chapter 1

My eyes opened when I sensed that something was wrong. Maybe not wrong, but something was definitely different. I lifted my head from my shoulder, wincing at the stiffness in my neck from having fallen asleep in such an awkward position. My right leg was numb below the knee because it had been folded underneath me while I dozed. I slowly slid it from beneath my left leg, and placed my bare foot on the floor of the porch.

As the pins and needles pricked at the nerves in my legs, the blessed sign of renewed circulation, I realized what was wrong. The crickets were no longer chirping. Their loud symphony was half of what had lulled me to sleep, the glass of wine being the other half. The glass now stood empty on the table beside the rocking chair, and the night around me was eerily silent.

I was no entomologist. I knew very little about bugs, other than they gave me the heebie-jeebies. It wasn't a phobia, but it was getting there. What I knew about crickets boiled down to two things. One, only the males chirped. And two, they stopped chirping when there was movement nearby. Given that I had been dozing, I knew I hadn't moved, but something had caused them to fall silent.

I glanced out to the driveway, confirming that Tim's truck was still gone. He hadn't yet returned from town, where he was no doubt sitting at the bar, drinking a beer to calm his nerves. This hadn't been the worst argument we'd ever had, but it had certainly been among the top ten. We didn't argue often, but when we did, he always went out for three beers - no more, no less \- and I opted for a single glass of red wine.

Since Tim was still in town, it was obvious that he hadn't startled the crickets. Yet something had, of that I was certain. The silence around me was spooky. In the five months we'd lived on the farm, I'd never heard it this quiet. There was always an animal or bug making some sort of noise; coyotes yipping, owls hooting, frogs croaking, and of course crickets chirping. But now the night was filled with silence, and it was unnerving.

After rubbing the sleep from my eyes and the stiffness from my neck, I yawned and surveyed the yard in search of a small animal that could be blamed for the sudden stillness, but saw none. I sat up straighter in the rocking chair, making the pins and needles prick even harder at my leg. Wiggling my numb toes, I squinted, peering into the darkness that surrounded the farmhouse.

I was looking to the left when I heard a rustle in the corn to my right. I quickly turned my head toward the sound and waited, breath caught in my lungs. The clouds slid across the sky, revealing the bright light of the full moon, and that's when I saw movement from the cornfield.

He emerged from between the rows, knife in hand. With a painfully tingling leg, I leaned forward in the rocking chair, trying to make out his face. I was unable to tell anything about him from this distance, other than he wore all black. I didn't make a sound, and he didn't seem to notice me as he walked, almost stomping his way across the yard, toward the back of the house and the barn.

The two-story farmhouse and barn, both built in the late 1800s but holding up very well, sat on eight cleared acres of land in the middle of 1,200 acres of corn fields. A gravel driveway led from the house to the main road, which was nearly a mile away. All this was too far for a man to walk in the middle of the night, some would think. Yet one had. And at the moment, he was walking purposefully across the yard, toward the barn, as if he not only knew his way around this property, but had some business being on it. When we'd leased the property, the owners hadn't mentioned that someone would appear in the middle of the night to traipse around the yard. That would've been a deal breaker.

I wondered who he was and why he was on our property. I thought of the suddenly silent crickets, and thought that perhaps this was a neighbor who had lost an animal, a dog perhaps, and was out searching for it. The dog had probably run through the yard, scaring the crickets into silence, and had headed toward the barn. The man was just following his dog. That would explain everything. After all, we'd lived on this farm for only a few months. The man could've been a neighbor that we just hadn't met yet. Of course that didn't give him the right to wander around our property like he owned it, but I reminded myself that this was the country. We weren't in St. Louis any more. Rules - and people - were much more relaxed here.

I sat there for moment, trying to rationalize the situation. A gentle breeze blew my hair and I welcomed it. It was warm out, especially for the first of October, but not a sticky warm. I was in no danger of sweating, but the breeze felt good all the same.

The night remained eerily silent around me, and soon my skin began to crawl. A feeling of wrongness was sinking in on me, making me feel more than just a little uneasy. Then suddenly, I got the feeling that I was being watched.

That feeling grew more intense by the second until I was positive that someone was standing behind me. If the hairs on the back of my neck tingling wasn't enough warning, the chill that ran down my spine was. On the verge of full-blown paranoia, I spun around in the rocking chair to face whoever was there, which turned out to be no one. I was thankful for that, but I was aware that something still wasn't right. What had started as an uneasy feeling moments earlier was stronger and more intense now, bordering on panic.

I'd seen more than my fair share of horror movies in my life so I was aware of my situation. A woman, alone at night in an isolated farmhouse, dressed only in a t-shirt and panties, with a sleeping child upstairs and a strange man wielding a knife that came from the corn field to roam the property. It seemed the only thing missing was a director's call for action. These were the basic elements in every horror movie I'd ever seen, and each had elicited from me eye rolls and head shakes as I watched the victim make a string of mistakes. I always thought that I'd be smarter in a similar situation, and it was starting to feel as though I just may find out if I was right.

When I could no longer ignore the nagging in my mind, that small voice that was screaming at me that something was wrong, I stood and walked across the porch. The last of the tingling in my leg was fading, and I was glad to see it go. I leaned against the railing at the far end of the porch, leaned as far out over it as I possibly could, and tried to see around the corner of the house, all the way across the dark yard, and into the barn. As if a glass of red wine gave me super vision.

The door, large enough to accommodate all the farm machinery, stood ajar, but I couldn't see inside. It was too dark. Any other night, Tim would've still been in the barn, lights on, working on the combine. In fact, that's where he had been earlier. Then we argued about how much time he spent out there working on that old machinery, and he left for town and his three beers, while I poured my single glass of red wine and went to the porch.

As I leaned out over the railing and tried to see into the darkness of the barn, I told myself there was nothing to worry about, but the little voice in my head was persistent in saying otherwise. That voice was annoying, causing me to wonder if that was what it was like to have a nagging wife. Finally giving in to the voice with the hope that action would silence it and prove that nothing was wrong, I turned and walked across the porch and down the steps.

I stepped off the bottom step and avoided the gravel, stepping onto the grass, cool on my bare feet. I headed out across the yard toward the barn, fighting to keep my overactive imagination reigned in. That was more than a little difficult because scenes from horror movies kept flashing through my mind, none of which were the early scenes, where everyone was laughing, smoking dope, and naked. No, they were the ones from the end, where people may be naked, but it didn't matter because they were maimed and bloody and decapitated. So naturally, by the time I'd made it halfway to the barn, I had chills. I hugged my arms across my chest and kept walking, keeping my eyes on the barn door, focusing only on finding the mysterious man.

With each step, I became more frightened of what I would find when I stepped inside the barn. I also became more aware that I was wearing only an oversized t-shirt and panties. This worried me a little, because I couldn't name a horror movie that _didn't_ have a woman running around half-naked. I considered going in the house and grabbing my pants, maybe a bra, and definitely some shoes, but decided against it. I was halfway to the barn already, and besides, it's not like anyone could see anything. The shirt hung nearly to my knees, and my arms folded across my chest kept the girls in place. Surely it would be okay.

I walked on, wondering if the man was even inside the barn. Maybe Tim had left the door ajar. He never did before, but we'd had an argument, so maybe in his anger he'd accidentally overlooked it this time.

Then, I considered the stranger. What if he wasn't a neighbor? What if he was a murderer? I shook my head to clear my mind of thoughts such as that. I wasn't in St. Louis anymore. This was the country. Things like that just didn't happen here, which was precisely why we'd moved. I ignored the fact that most horror movies took place in the country, in old isolated farmhouses.

I told myself it was nothing sinister; just a neighbor who had lost an animal and wanted to know if we'd seen it. His animal had run through our yard, causing the crickets to stop chirping. There was a perfectly logical explanation for everything. At least that's what I told myself. But it didn't explain away the feeling I had. The feeling of horror and dread, mixed with doom and gloom.

The sound of a creaking floorboard made me stop. The loud bang that followed made me jump. I spun around and faced the front of the house, which seemed to be where the sound originated. I knew of a board on the front porch that squeaked if you were heavy enough. Tim, standing six foot and three inches tall and weighing two hundred thirty pounds could make it squeak. I could not. And I couldn't explain the bang.

When my heart began to beat again, I headed back to the front of the house, causing the hair on my arms to stand.

### Chapter 2

It was midnight, and I wasn't even halfway through my first beer when the old man plopped onto the barstool beside me. There were four empty barstools on each side of me, and yet he parked his ass on the one right next to me. People were the absolute worst.

Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I made a conscious effort to make no eye contact with him. In fact, I pretended not to notice him at all, even when he ordered what was his twentieth beer of the night, judging by the slur of his words. I looked at our reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall behind the bar and noticed that his expression matched his speech. His gray hair was wild, his shirt disheveled. This guy was lit.

Taking a sip of my beer, I felt his eyes on me. I paid him no mind. When the bartender, a burly man named John with a full beard and mustache, thumped a beer down in front of him, I still ignored him. I didn't come to the bar seeking social interaction. I came to stew in my dissonance and have my habitual three beers. Yet I had this feeling that this guy came for the conversation, and he wasn't going to leave me alone until he got it.

Maybe I should just go home and make up with Molly. Make love to her and go to sleep, like always. But this was only the first beer, and habit dictated that I have three. No more, no less. I considered rushing through them, just downing all three beers. Or better yet, I could down this one and take the other two to go. I could park along the side of the road and drink them. Or maybe—

"You that guy?"

Shit. All the ignoring in the world hadn't kept the old coot from talking to me. Normally, I wouldn't have minded at all, but I hated talking to a drunk. In my experiences, drunks were loud, obnoxious people who either loved you too much, or would love to beat the shit out of you. They were way too eager to touch you and hang all over you. They reeked of alcohol and didn't mind sharing by leaning in closer and spitting as they spoke. I wanted nothing to do with a drunken person, yet this one was hell-bent on striking up a conversation with me.

With as much reluctance as any one person has ever possessed, I turned my head and answered him.

"I'm _a_ guy." I just couldn't hide the smart-ass tone in my voice. Of course, I didn't try to.

"Yeah, but you're that guy. The guy that bought the Smith farm."

"My name's Tim Martin, and I _leased_ the _Taylor_ farm."

"Oh hell, that ain't the Taylor farm," he said with a wave of his calloused hand. "That's the Smith farm. The Taylors may own it, and they may have leased it to you, but it'll always be the Smith farm. Ain't nothin' ever gonna change that."

"Well, I never met the Smiths, but I leased the farm." I took a swallow of beer, longer than a sip this time. I was a little ashamed of myself for liking the old man's thick southern accent, but damn it, I just couldn't help it.

"Of course you never met the Smiths. It'd be downright weird if you did."

"What do you mean?"

"Hell, they've been dead...oh, about a hundred years now, I reckon," he said, scratching his head.

"Really? And you still refer to it as the Smith farm after all this time?"

"Yup. Any time there's a tragedy somewhere, the name sticks. Goes right on down the line with the place the tragedy happened." He scrutinized me for a second, eyebrows pulled together in a sea of forehead wrinkles. "You look like a smart fella. Surprised you didn't know that."

I opened my mouth to say something to the man, but closed it instead. I had a weekly limit of wise cracks and good comebacks, and I'd used them all in my argument with Molly earlier. I should've saved a couple, but who knew I'd need them? I'd planned to drink in silence before returning home. I didn't think I'd be involved in a wisecrack slam with a drunk.

The old man tilted his head down toward his chest and his cheeks bulged, an obvious sign of a drunken man belching. When he was finished, he took a long drink.

"What's the tragedy?" I wanted to end the conversation, I really did. I wanted to sit at the bar, drink my three beers peacefully, mope about my argument with Molly, and then go home. I'm a creature of habit, and I embrace it. But I was curious as to what had happened at my house. The house to which I'd brought my family only five months earlier.

"It was bad. Wasn't it, John?" the old man asked the bartender when he came closer.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Burt," John answered. I could tell from his tone that though he didn't enjoy it, he was used to dealing with drunks and being pulled into their various conversations at random. He had far more patience than I did.

"I'm talkin' 'bout what happened at the Smith place that night. It was bad, wasn't it?"

"I guess. I'm only forty-two, Burt. That was way before my time."

"It was before my time too, but I remember. When I was young, it was still the talk of the town. Couldn't go anywhere 'round here without hearin' people talk about it. Hell, people still talk about it today, just not as much. And most of what I hear folks sayin' ain't the truth anyway. They've embellished it, see. Added stuff to scare the younger folks, and left out parts that they either don't remember or don't want to tell."

The old man, who I now knew to be Burt, drank the rest of his beer and told John to fetch him another, which John obediently did. He opened a new bottle, set it down in front of Burt, and took a good look at the old man. He appeared to be considering how many more he should allow the old man before cutting him off.

"Well? What happened?" I asked.

After a moment of silence, Burt turned to me and said, "It's bad. You sure you want to know? I mean, you and your family have to sleep in that house at night. You can't _un_ know somethin' once you know it."

I thought about what he said, but how bad could it be? A guy got killed in a farm accident? Some old lady died in the house? Really, how bad could it possibly be? When we lived in St. Louis, there were three separate occasions in which I drove past a dead body on the way to work. And one of them was on fire. Surely I could handle anything this guy threw my way.

"I want to know. Tell me," I said.

Burt took a gulp of his beer and belched again. Then he began with, "It was bad."

"Yeah, you've mentioned that," I said sarcastically. I was unable to fight the eye roll this time, so I did it with flare.

"It was a hot summer. One of the hottest ever, they say. A lot like this one we just had, but that year, it was a good summer with lots of rain. There weren't no drought muckin' it all up." Burt spat those words like they tasted bad. He said them as if the drought had sent him into financial ruin and starvation, and he was holding a grudge against it. And just as quickly as the bitterness came into his voice, it was gone. He continued his story in a regular tone, no longer angry at the weather. "No, that year, the crops were sproutin' up like crazy. Everybody was hirin' extra help because it was just too much for the farmers to handle. Remember, they didn't have the fancy machinery we have now. Back then, it was done by hand." Burt looked me in the eye. "Can you imagine takin' in all your corn by hand?"

I tried to imagine it, but it seemed impossible. That was a lot of corn, and I just had the two hands, which were currently wrapped around the cold neck of a Budweiser bottle. I shook my head.

Burt nodded, and then continued. "Me neither. But that's how they did it. People had a whole different set of work ethics back then. Put in a hard day's work every single day. No whinin'. No complainin'. Just work, from sun up till sun down. That's the way they did it, see."

I sensed Burt was straying a little too far from the subject, so I decided to reel him back in. After all, nobody came to a bar for a history lesson. "And the Smiths were hard-working people?" I asked, with the hope of bringing Burt back from his adventure in yesteryear before he got lost in there and started talking about breadlines and horseless carriages.

"Oh yeah, they were. Damn fine hard-workin' family. Least that's what they say. I never met 'em, of course, but they say the Smiths worked hard, attended services every Sunday, and minded their business and their manners." Burt took a drink of his beer and rubbed his chin between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, as if he were concentrating on his words. "That summer, everybody hired extra help, like I said. The Smiths were no exception. They hired a few extra men to help bring in the corn, and they let these people stay in their barn, see. Made 'em up a real nice place out there too. Least that's what they say. I have no way of knowin' that, of course, but I believe it to be true." Burt paused for another drink, and took a glance around the bar. Seeing nothing to detract his attention, he continued.

"They hired an older man, a widower. Quiet guy, didn't talk much. Must've missed his wife somethin' fierce. Kept to himself. Believe his name was Thomas." Burt thought for a second, and then consulted John. "John, was that man's name Thomas?"

"Hell, Burt, it's your story. You tell it," John replied from the other end of the bar.

Burt went on with his story as John suggested. "I believe that was it. Then there was another man they hired, who was in his late thirties. He had a wife and a few kids with him. Their kids got along fine with the Smith children. They had a ball together, as they say." Burt smiled at the thought of a bunch of kids he'd never met running around, playing together. Then his face grew solemn. "But then there was another one. A young man, 'bout 26 years old, name was Lucius Lull. He was single. Some say he wasn't right in the head, but others say he was, and that he knew full well what he was doin'."

"What was he doing?"

"Well they say he was a fine worker, but it was what he did when he wasn't workin' that got him into a whole heap of trouble."

As Burt finished his beer and ordered another one, I wished I'd never engaged in a conversation with him. He was going around his asshole to get to his elbow in telling this story, and it was getting more than a little annoying. Plus, I couldn't help but wonder how much of this story was coming from memory and how much was coming from the bottle.

I sighed. "And what was that?"

After picking up his new bottle of Bud and taking a drink, Burt continued. "The story is that one night at about midnight, James Smith headed to the outhouse to let loose with some business. When he walked around the house, he saw Lucius peekin' into the sleepin' porch out back. Now that wouldn't have been a big deal, see, but that Smith girl was out there sleepin' that night. This infuriated him, as you can imagine. Seein' a grown man lookin' in at your little girl like that is sure to set your blood a boilin'. Well," he quickly added. "She wasn't little. I believe she was a teenager, but girls are always little in the eyes of their daddies." He looked at me. "You got kids?"

I nodded. "One. A girl."

Burt nodded. "So you can imagine how upset you'd be if you caught a man peepin' in at her. Especially if it was a man you were payin' to work for you; a man you'd put up in your barn and trusted to be around your family."

I nodded again. He was right. I would be beyond infuriated. I wasn't even sure there was a word for what I would be. I drank the last of my beer, wondering if I could invent a new word that would cover such an emotion, and then I ordered the second of my three beers.

"He was angry, that's for sure," Burt continued. "He ran up to Lucius and didn't even ask any questions, just started beatin' him to a bloody pulp. His wife Sarah was inside the house. She was plagued with bad headaches that kept her up most nights, see. She was up with a bad one that night, knittin' a blanket for the upcomin' winter. She heard the commotion and came a runnin' outside, still holding the knittin' needles. She saw the two men fightin' and ran over to them, demandin' to know what was goin' on."

I could easily picture Molly doing this. I could see the oversized t-shirt she always slept in swishing around her thighs as she ran. I imagined her curly, brown hair flapping behind her as she rushed up to me and demanded to know what was happening. Though it was totally inappropriate to do so in the midst of Burt's story, I couldn't help but smile at the thought of my wife nearly naked. I was snapped out of my lustful thoughts when Burt went on with his tale.

"James told her what he'd caught Lucius doin' while he had the boy down on the ground. James was on top of him, throwin' punch after punch, and landin' every one of 'em on the boy's face. Sarah stood there, rollin' this over in her mind, I'm sure. Of course, I have no way of knowin' for sure what she was thinkin', see. But I can imagine."

Burt paused for a drink and a cheek-inflating belch before continuing.

"When James grew tired of beatin' Lucius, he stood, but Sarah was just getting' started, see. I guess it had finally settled in on her that this man had been peepin' on her daughter because that's when she bent down and stabbed a knittin' needle through each of his eyes."

I cringed. "Jesus."

"Lucius, he just lay there on the ground with those needles stickin' out of his eyes, bleedin' from the nose and mouth, and rollin' around in agony. James took a step back and looked at Sarah in disbelief. While he stood there, shocked that his dainty little wife could do somethin' so awful, Lucius got up and started swingin'. Before James could register what was happenin', Lucius - blind now because of the needles, ya know- had managed to make one of those punches land square against Sarah's face." Burt made a fist and brought it up to his jaw to mime the event, just in case I had no idea what a thrown punch looked like.

"When James realized what had happened and he saw Sarah fall backwards, he lurched forward and grabbed Lucius. He took to beatin' him again, worse now than the first time because not only had Lucius peeped in on the man's daughter, but he had also hit his wife. That'll make a feller real mad, see. Well, James threw a punch that drove one of those knittin' needles farther into Lucius's eye. James threw a few more punches before he realized that Lucius was just layin' there twitchin', not even fightin' back. When the twitchin' stopped and Lucius got still, they thought he was dead."

"Jesus," I muttered again.

"He got up off Lucius and looked down at him. When he caught his breath and calmed down, he noticed Sarah standin' at his side. She told him he'd killed Lucius, but he didn't believe her. He didn't _want_ to believe her. He didn't want to kill the bastard, just beat the shit out of him and send him down the road. But it was too late, see. They'd already done it."

Burt stopped to finish that beer and order another.

"Don't you think you've had enough?" John asked.

"Hell no, I ain't had enough," Burt replied. "If I'm still sittin' here an' makin' sense, I ain't had enough."

John shook his head and gave Burt another beer.

"Where was I? Oh yeah, yeah. So there they were, Sarah and James, standing over Lucius's body. They wondered what they were gonna do with him. They didn't want anyone to know what they'd done. After all, they were upstanding people, see. They didn't want to tarnish their reputations. Back then, ya see, your reputation was a big deal."

"So what'd they do with his body?"

"Well, they thought about it for a while. They thought about throwin' it in the river. They thought about buryin' it. They thought about a lot of things. But they finally decided that the quickest and easiest thing to do was drag him out into the corn field and put him up on the scarecrow post. Let the buzzards take care of the rest. And that's what they did." Burt shrugged and took a long drink of beer.

"My god, Burt. That's a horrible story."

"Told you it was."

"True. You warned me." I took a drink of my beer and rolled the story around in my mind. I wondered how people knew about this if the only people that knew were James and Sarah. How had word seeped out for the story to be passed around? I considered asking Burt, but decided against it. What I really thought was that he'd made it all up, probably to scare me. I was the new, out-of-town city boy who'd just leased that farm. Burt was probably just a bored local who got a kick out of scaring newcomers.

"Now this is where the story gets weird," Burt said.

I looked at him, obviously confused. In my peripheral vision, I noticed John shaking his head while pouring someone a glass of something stiffer than a beer.

"You mean there's more?"

"Oh there's plenty more to this story. But if that first part rattled your cage, the rest of the story's gonna knock your feathers off."

### Chapter 3

I stood on the cool grass, looking through the railing of the porch at my rocking chair, the very chair in which I had been sitting only a minute earlier, which was now broken into a dozen pieces and scattered across the porch.

Quickly, I scanned the porch and yard around it, but saw no one. It had only taken me a few seconds to walk back across the yard, yet there was no one around. Whoever had broken the chair had left in a hurry, and I was certain that it was some _one_ and not some _thing._ The only logical suspect was the man from the corn field.

That was unacceptable. He wasn't going to get away with this. I loved that chair. And even if I didn't, I wasn't going to let him escape unpunished.

Angry now that this asshole had the nerve to come on _my_ property and destroy _my_ rocking chair, I walked around the house in search of him. Sure, I realized it was stupid. I should've gone in the house and grabbed a gun. I should've put on some pants and shoes. And I should've stopped pursing my lips like my mother, but I did none of those things. With pursed lips, naked legs, and bare feet, I walked around the house prepared for a confrontation.

I walked past the front porch and turned the corner. The clouds had covered the moon again, and in the darkness, I saw no one. I walked down the north side of the house, the side that was hidden in shadows even when the moon was bright, determined to find this guy. I was hell-bent on getting an answer as to why he was here and why he'd smashed my beloved rocking chair.

When I turned the corner at the back of the house and looked across the yard, the clouds slid off the moon and the world brightened once again. I saw no one, so I walked across the back yard, keeping close to the screened-in porch that ran the width of the house. When I got to the other corner of the house, my search finally ended. I found him. The bright light of the full moon cast his shadow on the ground and told me he was there, standing perfectly still just around the corner. He was waiting, knife in hand.

I froze mid-step. My breath caught at the sight of his large shadow stretched across the grass, but my heart hammered away in my chest. Common sense was starting to settle in now, and I realized that this was quite possibly the dumbest thing I'd ever done. Scenes from horror movies started popping into my mind again, and I decided that it was best for me to take my stubborn ass inside and wait for Tim. I was only a few feet from the chair-smashing asshole, but suddenly I didn't want to be.

Quietly, I retreated a few steps, then turned and quickly crept back around the house and up onto the front porch. I hoped he'd just go back to wherever he'd came from, though it seemed very unlikely that he had walked all the way through the field just to destroy my rocking chair. There had to be another reason for him to be here, but I couldn't imagine what it could be.

I crossed the porch, carefully avoiding broken pieces of my chair, opened the creaky screen door, and went inside. I loved the old screen doors on this house, even the creaky springs that screamed in protest each time the door was used. It was very country. After living my life in the city among the honking horns and blaring alarms and screaming sirens, a creaky spring was music to my ears. However, there were times when I longed for a stealthier door, one that wouldn't give me away if, say, a crazy knife-wielding man ever showed up in the middle of the night to stalk around the house when I was home alone.

Once inside, I shut and locked the door behind me, even thumbing the deadbolt into place. I made it about five steps away from the door when he knocked. Okay, knock wasn't what he did. He _pounded_ on the door as if he were angry; as if _he_ was the one who'd just lost a beloved rocking chair.

After nearly jumping out of my skin, I spun around, heart pounding furiously in my chest. I walked to the door, determined to throw it open and confront him. But when I got there, I had a feeling that if I did that, it would be the last thing I'd ever do. I don't know where the feeling came from, but I didn't want to ignore it.

I hesitated with my hand on the door, unsure of what to do. Slowly, I leaned forward and put my ear against the wood. I heard nothing on the other side.

The door was large, and there were four small panes of glass in a row across the top quarter of it. I inched my way up on to my tip toes and peeked out one of the little windows. What I saw made my pounding heart stand still and my breath catch in my lungs.

It was a very large man. Only it wasn't a man at all. His clothes were torn and dirty. Through a hole in the left sleeve of his black jacket, I thought I saw bone, but that was impossible. He wore a black, brimmed hat, also torn and dirty. His head was tilted down and cocked to the side, as if too were listening for sounds on the other side of the door, the only thing that stood between us.

I stared at him, still not breathing. It was creepy, there was no doubt about it, but when he raised his head and looked at me, it was absolutely terrifying.

In the second before the clouds covered the moon and submerged us into total darkness, I saw his face, a mangled mass of hanging flesh and protruding bones. And his eyes...He had no eyes. His eye sockets were dark, completely black. But he still seemed to be looking right at me. I must've seen him wrong. After all, I only saw his face for a second before the moon was hidden, and his back was to the moon, which cloaked his face in shadows. My imagination, paired with the wine and with psyching myself up into a horror movie frame of mind, must've made me see things that weren't real.

With thoughts of zombies on my mind, I turned and ran to the stairs, each step creaking underfoot. Mentally, I congratulated myself for not screaming. Take that, horror movies. Not all women were big bags of vocal chords, just looking for reasons to scream.

I was three steps up when the moon brightened the world and he began pounding at the door again. I stopped and turned, unable to believe the nerve of this man. As I stared at the door, I could see the chain rattling with each pound of his fists. From my position on the stairs, I could see his hat through the windows at the top of the door. That is, until the clouds covered the moon again and everything grew dark.

I'd be safe if I could get upstairs and hide. There, I could wait for Tim to come home. I could call the cops with the phone in the bedroom if it came to that. I hoped it wouldn't, but it was starting to look like it just might. So I continued on up the stairs, thinking of where I could hide and what I should do to keep both myself and my sleeping daughter safe. As this plan formulated in my mind, I turned to continue up the stairs.

When I heard the door explode open behind me, all thoughts of safety were gone. Also gone was the thought that I could hide and wait for Tim to come home. And gone was the pride of not screaming.

I told myself I wasn't going to look back. In every horror movie ever made, the fleeing potential victim risked a glance behind them which caused them to fall and inevitably be murdered. That wasn't going to me. I was _not_ going to look behind me.

I looked behind me as I stepped off the stairs and onto the second floor. I just couldn't help myself.

The man burst through the open door, crunching the splinters of wood from the busted jamb beneath his feet. I ran into the first room on the left, a spare bedroom. I took a second to decide whether or not I should shut the door. I left it open. It would've been the only closed door in the hallway, which was as good as hanging a sign on the door that said I'M IN HERE, COME ON IN. Plus, every door in the house squeaked and was sure to give away my location. And if those reasons weren't enough, I wanted to be able to keep track of this guy. I couldn't do that as well through a closed door.

I glanced around quickly, trying to decide between the closet and under the bed. The closet was small, and I would be trapped in there if he found me, so I opted for under the bed. It was an old bed, one of the metal framed ones that sat high off the floor, so slipping under it was easy enough. The bed skirt was lace, which was perfect for watching the feet of an intruder.

I settled in under the bed, concentrated on controlling my breathing, and turned my thoughts to Jenny. Second-guessing myself, I thought maybe I should've run to her room. But had I done that, I would've lured the guy right to her. This way, maybe I could keep him away from her. And if he _did_ start into her room, I could attack him from behind. I silently prayed that this was the right decision, but I continued to argue with myself about it.

Remaining perfectly still, I breathed as shallowly as possible and kicked myself in the ass when I realized that I still had no weapon. No knife, no gun, no bat, no golf club, no long fingernails, nothing. So now, my best hope was to choke him with a lace bed skirt. Nice.

I listened to the sound of his heavy footsteps as he pounded up the stairs slowly, one step at a time. I also listened as he stopped suddenly at the top. I waited for him to begin searching for me, but he didn't move.

A minute ticked by, marked by the grandfather clock downstairs.

Then another.

He still hadn't moved. This was creepier than if he ransacked the house one room at a time in search of me. There was a definite oddness in his patience.

It didn't take long for me to become uneasy. But this was okay, I told myself. The longer he stood at the top of the stairs, the more time that bought me. Maybe Tim would come home before this guy moved, and certainly before he found me. After all, how long did it take to drink three beers in a town where you didn't know anyone?

If I remained still and quiet, and he continued to just stand there listening or whatever the hell he was doing, then we should be fine.

"Mommy," Jenny called to me in a sleepy voice.

Oh shit.

His footsteps pounded down the hallway.
From HELD

### Chapter 1

I squinted as I stepped out of the store and into the glare of the bright sunlight. As I walked across the parking lot, I went over the purchase in my mind. I was certain that the bubble-gum smacking cashier had overcharged me. I stepped into the narrow space between my smaller SUV and the behemoth SUV parked beside me, and pulled the receipt out of my purse to study it. With my attention on the receipt, I was unaware of anyone else until I felt a gun poke into my ribs.

He wrapped his left arm around me and squeezed my left shoulder. With his right hand, he shoved the gun into my ribs even harder.

My breath caught in my chest, trapped by shocked lungs. Everything happened so fast. He was there, gun pressed to my side, squeezing me against him tightly. I had no time to process the situation.

We certainly looked to others as no more than a normal couple. I knew no one could see the gun. My arm, bent at the elbow with the shopping bag dangling from it, hid it well. There were only a handful of other people in the parking lot, none of which even glanced at us. How could they? We were hidden by the SUVs.

My mind, every bit as shocked as the rest of me, struggled to grasp the situation and find a way out of it. I thought of screaming. I thought of wrenching free of him, turning and running. But I also thought of my husband and my son. If I did any of those things, this man would shoot me. It would be easy to do. The gun was already buried in my ribcage, his finger undoubtedly on the trigger. If he didn't mean me harm, he wouldn't have the gun. He meant business. And if the pistol were equipped with a silencer, he could shoot me and be long gone before anyone even realized I was on the ground. Had the parking lot contained more people, screaming and running might've been an option. Surely he wouldn't shoot me with so many witnesses. But that wasn't the case here. Not today. Not on a stupid Tuesday afternoon.

Before I could hate myself for not waiting until later when more people were at the mall before shopping for jeans that were supposed to be on sale but weren't because the pink haired bubble gum smacker rang them up wrong, he spoke.

"Open it," he commanded.

I dug through my purse, wishing like hell I carried a bear spray or Mace or hairspray or anything that would give me the second I needed to get away from him. But I didn't carry anything like that. I felt the pack of gum, the emergency tampon, the extra pacifier, my wallet, and finally my keys. I jerked them out of my purse, nearly dropped them, and clumsily began to unlock the door.

The closer we got to getting in the car, the harder he pushed on the gun. I was going to have one hell of a bruise.

When my trembling hands finally managed to unlock the door, he tightened his grip on my shoulder even more, causing me to wince. He leaned into my ear, which would look to others as if he were whispering something to me. Had he whispered, I wouldn't have heard him over the sound of my pounding heart echoing in my ears.

"You're going to get in, slide over to the passenger seat, and nothing more. Do you understand?" He spoke evenly, though in a low tone to avoid being heard by anyone else who might be listening.

I didn't look at him. I couldn't. I just stood there, staring at the pavement in shock and very much afraid. My mind was racing, my thoughts a blur.

"If you do anything, and I mean anything at all, other than what I've told you to do, I'll kill you. And if you manage to get away from me, I'll kill your family, and I'll take my sweet time doing it. Do you understand?"

This time, I nodded. I wouldn't let anything happen to my family.

He kissed me on the cheek quickly, causing the knot in my stomach to roll.

"Good. Now get in."

He snatched the keys from me and I did as I was told, though the urge to open the passenger side door and flee was overwhelming.

He got in quickly and started the vehicle. I made myself as small as possible and leaned against the door, watching through the window as we drove through the parking lot and away to wherever we were going. Hopefully someone I knew would see us and the look on my face. But I saw no one I knew. I fought to keep from vomiting as I realized that no one was going to save me. No one was going to stop him from taking me.

If I'd just stayed home today like I had originally planned, this wouldn't have happened. But I hadn't. Damn me and my quest for discounted jeans.

The best thing that could happen to me now is he'd rape me and throw me out of the car somewhere. Knowing that was the best thing that could happen, I tried not to imagine the worst. But I knew. I knew from the moment I felt the barrel of his gun press against my ribs.

Even if I could somehow manage to escape him at some point, everything was going to be different. Assuming he didn't kill me first, life as I knew it was over and gone forever. If he stopped the car right now, told me he'd been joking and was sorry, then left and I never saw him again, everything would still be different. I'd never again park near large vehicles. I'd never let my guard down anywhere. I would constantly be aware of everything that was happening around me at all times. In essence, I'd drive myself mad trying to stay safe.

But I didn't have to worry about any of that because he wasn't stopping, and I was sure he wasn't joking.

In the side mirror, I watched as the parking lot slipped away behind me, taking me farther and farther from my life and from any hope I had of ever seeing my husband and son.

### Chapter 2

As he drove us through the city to neighborhoods I'd never seen, he took many unnecessary turns. There were times when he turned right four times in a row, taking us all the way around a block and back to where we were. At first, I thought maybe he was lost. Then I realized that he was trying to confuse me so I didn't know where we were or where we were going. I took this as a good sign. If he planned to kill me right away, he wouldn't have bothered to confuse me. For a while, I kept my eyes on the Gateway Arch, standing proudly above the St. Louis skyline. But after I realized what he was doing, I stopped using it to keep track of where we were and began just looking at it, wondering if I was seeing it for the last time.

Since it wasn't doing me any good to try to remember our route, and staring at the Arch was only making me sad, I decided to check out the man behind the wheel.

From the corner of my eye, I first noticed his shoes. They were dark brown shoes, sort of a low-top boot type of shoe. His socks were beige. His pants were khaki, his shirt a white long-sleeve button-down with the sleeves rolled up. The top few buttons were undone, exposing a white undershirt and a few chest hairs.

I risked a glance at the driver. He was a big man. It wasn't that he was fat and it wasn't that he was all muscle. It was somewhere in the middle. I guessed him to be about six foot two, maybe three, and he probably weighed two hundred fifty pounds or so. His hair was dark brown, bordering on black, with grey at the temples. He was cleanly shaven. He had no distinguishing features that stuck out or could be identifying. Had he not kidnapped me, I might've thought him to be a handsome man.

Though I thought I was being sneaky about stealing glances at him, he must've caught me. From his pocket, he pulled a pair of sunglasses and ordered me to put them on. I did as I was told. They were the sporty kind that wrapped around the eyes, keeping out the sunlight. But these were more than that. They didn't just keep out the natural light and block the UV rays of the sun. They kept out all light. I blinked, confused as to why I could no longer see anything more than a thin strip of light at the top and bottom of the glasses. Then I realized he had spray painted them black.

A new kind of fear gripped me now. It was bad enough that he had kidnapped me. But now, it seemed that he had planned it. No one carries around painted sunglasses for any other reason. He had come to the mall with a plan.

As he continued to drive, I wondered if he had specifically planned to kidnap me or if I was just the woman who happened along at the wrong time for me, right time for him. I could think of no one I'd wronged, no enemies of mine or my husband's, and no one who'd wish to harm either of us. And moreover, I didn't know the man behind the wheel, though he did look vaguely familiar.

Finally, I felt the vehicle slow as he pulled into what I assumed was a driveway. A few seconds later, he stopped and put the SUV in park and turned off the engine.

I reached up to take off the sunglasses. He didn't stop me, so I removed them. Risking a quick glance of my surroundings, I saw that we were parked in a garage. His garage, no doubt.

In the side mirror, I saw that he'd left the door open so we could just pull in, but now he was going to have to get out and close it. If he had a remote control for it, he'd left it in his car, which was surely sitting in the parking lot of the mall.

He sat behind the wheel for a few seconds, glancing in the rearview mirrors, and then he turned to me.

"I'm going to get out and close the door. You are to sit here and do nothing. Don't move one muscle. If you do, I'll kill you. You got that?"

I nodded.

He got out quickly and I watched in the mirror as he shut and locked the garage door. He then hurried to my side of the SUV and opened the door.

Reaching in and grabbing my right arm with his left hand, he said, "Let's go."

I thought of refusing. If I could overpower him now, I could get out of the garage and run. But he put his right hand on the gun in the waistband of his jeans, and all thoughts of fleeing left me. I got out of the car.

Stupidly, I realized that I still had the bag from the mall hanging from my wrist. My purse was still slung over my shoulder and was clamped between my arm and my side. If only there was a way to turn those jeans into a weapon. Perhaps I could smother him with them. Or strangle him. Those were the only ways I could think of, and I knew that both would be impossible. He was bigger than me. And he had a gun.

He continued to hold my arm as he closed the car door and pulled me along behind him, walking quickly enough to cause me to jog. We went through the door that led from the garage to the small laundry room. I saw no dirty laundry. No clean laundry. No laundry of any kind. There were lots of various cleaning products on the shelf above the washing machine and dryer, all sitting neatly, labels facing forward.

Through the laundry room, we went into the kitchen. I saw no dirty dishes. No clean dishes. No dishes of any kind. They were surely all put away, everything in its place. I saw no food. No trash. No food crumbs. No spills. No dust. No cobwebs. Nothing. There weren't even any visible grease spots on the stove. It was immaculate.

In the kitchen, he stopped suddenly and turned to me. I didn't see that he was stopping in time, and when he spun around, I bumped into him.

He stared at me oddly and asked, "Are you hungry?"

Shocked by his weird question, it took me a second to answer. When I shook my head no, he nodded, turned, and pulled me again, out of the kitchen into a hallway. We passed the first door on the right, but stopped at the second door. Again, he turned quickly to me. I was prepared this time, and was able to avoid bumping into him.

He looked me up and down. Then, he jerked the shopping bag from my wrist and the purse from my arm. He threw them on the floor behind him and stepped toward me.

My heart raced. This was it. This was where he was going to rape me or beat me or both.

He put a hand on each of my butt cheeks and squeezed. _So this is how it begins_ , I thought. But then, he removed his hands and placed them on the fronts of my hips, high on my thighs. He squeezed and squished, and I realized what he was doing. He was patting me down.

When he was satisfied that I had nothing in my pockets, he took a step backward. Without breaking eye contact with me, he opened the door to my right, his left. He flicked on the light.

Not wanting to, but curiosity killing me, I quickly looked away from him and into the room. It was a bathroom. Now I looked back at him, confused.

"Go in there. Do what you have to do. Clean up. Then come back out."

Unsure of what was happening, I slowly turned away from him and stepped into the bathroom.

Behind me he said, "Don't waste time looking for something to use as a weapon. There's nothing in there. And don't try to get out the window. It's nailed shut. I'm standing outside this door with my hand on the knob. Don't be stupid."

He shut the door behind me, and I looked around the room. To the right of the door was the sink and cabinet. At the end of the cabinet was the toilet. At the end of the room, on the other side of the toilet, nestled between each of the walls, was the bathtub. Again, it was spotless. He clearly had an obsession with order and neatness. I was happy that if I was going to be held against my will, at least it was in a clean place. Had the house been crawling with cockroaches and germs, I don't know if I could've handled it as well.

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't really need to pee, but I wasn't sure what was in store for me so I figured I'd better do it now.

I stepped over to the toilet and turned, facing the wall. I undone my jeans and slid them and my panties down my thighs. I sat on the toilet and looked around the room again. When the pee finally started coming, I wondered if all kidnappings went this way. Looking for the toilet paper, I saw it hanging from a holder on the side of the cabinet beside the toilet. As I reached for it, I noticed that it hung over the top of the roll. And it was folded into a point.

What kind of kidnapper kept such a tidy house and folded the toilet paper into a point? Then again, what kind of kidnapper offered to feed you and let you pee and clean yourself up? This was so bizarre.

I pulled a few squares off the roll and wiped. I stood and pulled up my panties and jeans. I fastened the button and zipped the zipper. I leaned over and flushed the toilet, considering whether I should fold the toilet paper into a point as it had been. Had I been invited over for dinner at a friend's house, I would've. But I'd been abducted at gunpoint. He and his fancy toilet paper points could kiss my ass.

As I washed my hands, I thought of a way out. I looked at the window above the bathtub and wondered if it was really nailed shut or if it was just something he said to keep me from checking. When I'd dried my hands on the towel that hung perfectly on the towel bar beside the sink, I quickly went to the bathtub. I quietly stepped into the tub and checked the window. It was small, but if I could get it open, I could fit through. I placed my fingers on the window and pushed upward with all my strength. It didn't budge. Damn. Apparently, he was orderly _and_ honest.

I stepped back out of the tub and quickly checked in the cabinet under the sink. There was a pack of extra toilet paper, a toilet bowl brush standing in a holder, and an extra bottle of liquid antibacterial hand soap. That was it. Boy, he wasn't kidding when he'd said there was nothing in here.

Quickly, I checked the four drawers that stood in a column down one side of the cabinet. A few towels, a few wash cloths, but nothing more.

I opened the cabinet again and took out the white plastic toilet bowl brush. I stood there holding it, wondering if there was anything at all that could be done with it to help me out of this mess. Had any damage ever been caused to anything other than toilet scum by a toilet brush? I doubted it. But it was all I had unless I thought I could squirt the liquid soap hard enough and fast enough to inflict serious eye damage, and I doubted that was possible. In fact, I doubted that even if I could pump it with the speed and strength of a super hero it would reach more than a foot at most. It was useless against everything except bacteria and germs.

I swung the toilet brush through the air, trying to judge whether it would hurt him.

Then, the door opened.

### Chapter 3

I stood there holding the toilet brush like a moron, and he stood in the doorway looking at me as if I were a moron.

"What are you doing with that?" he asked.

"Looking at it."

"Well, put it back and come on."

I returned the brush to the holder under the sink, closed the cabinet door, and left the room.

He flicked off the light behind me and again grabbed my arm. He led me back toward the kitchen.

"You should eat something," he said. He led me to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and shoved me down on it. "Sit there."

"Is that what you wanted me to do? I didn't get that from being forced onto the chair," I said sarcastically. Asshole.

From his back pocket, he produced a set of handcuffs. He quickly snapped one around my right wrist. He bent over and snapped the other one under the table. When he walked away, I felt around and found the metal hook he'd attached to the table, apparently for just such a purpose as handcuffing me to it. It was deep. I couldn't twist it, couldn't make it move at all.

I tried the handcuffs. They were locked tight around my wrist, so I couldn't pull my hand free, though it didn't stop me from trying. When I saw it was no use to keep hurting my wrist that way, I thought maybe I could move the table. I placed both my hands flat against the bottom and lifted. I managed to get it a couple inches off the floor on my side, but it was too big and heavy to move more than that. And that had worn me out. Besides, even if I could move it, what was I going to do? Slip quietly out of the kitchen while connected to a huge wooden table, walk through the garage and out into the street, totally unnoticed?

"You've got a smart mouth on you," he said as he pulled food from the refrigerator. "You talk to everybody like that?"

"No. Just assholes that kidnap me from the mall," I said, again trying to pull my wrist out of the cuff.

With his back to me, he chuckled.

"What the hell is so funny?"

"That you think I'm an asshole."

"Yeah, well, I think it's funny that you think you're not."

"A lot of people think I'm not," he said lightly.

"I doubt that."

"It's true. Everybody I've ever worked with liked me."

"Yeah, well, people in insane asylums aren't the best judges of character."

Again, he chuckled. "I've never worked in an asylum. Although, I believe that would make for interesting work."

"I bet you do," I muttered under my breath. My wrist was burning, but I couldn't keep myself from trying to pull free.

"Do you like mayonnaise on your sandwich?" he asked with his back to me.

"What are you serving? Asshole sandwiches? I can't imagine you'd know how to make anything else."

"Mayonnaise it is," he said.

Putting things back in the refrigerator, he said, "You're a little firecracker, aren't you?"

"If by firecracker you mean pissed off woman, then yes. I am."

He chuckled again. "I like that. Keeps things interesting." He carried two sandwiches to the table. He sat one in front of me and carried the other with him to the other side of the table where he sat facing me.

Tired of messing around with him, I asked, "Why am I here?"

He smiled. "Because I want you to be."

"That's a bullshit answer."

"Is it?"

"Yeah. Why do you get what you want? I don't want to be here, so give me what I want and let me go."

"I can't do that. You're research to me and I need you."

"What kind of research? Like experiments and stuff?" All kinds of horrible images flashed through my mind. I was terrified of mad - or even slightly angry - scientists experimenting on me, and now he tells me I'm research. Shit.

He smiled broadly. "No. Not like that."

I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate but he didn't. Instead, he said, "I'm waiting on you to eat your sandwich. It would be rude for me to eat before you, so if you would be so kind as to take a bite, I'd appreciate it. I'm quite hungry."

"No," I said defiantly to him. "You can starve."

He chuckled. "I said it would be rude. I didn't say it was impossible." He took a bite and chewed slowly.

Defeated, I could only watch.

Seeing me watching him eat, he said, "Eat it. Asshole sandwiches are good." Had I not been handcuffed to his table after he'd abducted me, I might've found that funny.

I looked at my sandwich. It did look good and I had skipped lunch. I'd planned to stop and grab a burger after the mall and before the salon, but I never made it that far.

Instinctively, I brought up my right hand to grab the sandwich, but it jerked to a stop before it even saw the top of the table. I quickly looked at him, and then used my left hand to awkwardly pick up the sandwich. Taking the first bite, I realized how good it was. The man kept a tidy house and made a mean sandwich. But he was still an asshole.

"Would you like something to drink?"

"What do you have? Piss and vinegar?"

"I'm out of vinegar, but I could whip up a batch of piss if you'd like."

With a deadly serious expression and tone, I said, "You're funny."

"Thanks. I have water, milk, tea, and I think there are some sodas."

"I'll have water."

"Interesting."

"What?"

"I would've thought you'd have taken something more complex. Instead, you chose the simplest of the things I offered."

I didn't respond. Instead, I took another bite of sandwich as he grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. He opened it and sat it on the table in front of me.

Returning to his seat, he asked, "You like it?"

"I'd like it more if I were somewhere else eating something else with someone else."

He nodded. "It's going to be fun having you here. You're so unlike the others."

There were so many things wrong with that sentence, I didn't even know where to begin. First of all, it sounded like he planned to keep me around for a while. I suppose it was good that he didn't plan to kill me. At least not yet, but I didn't want to be here. And for him to compare me to 'the others' frightened me. How many others had there been?

He must've seen the look on my face. "Don't worry. I'll take care of you." He leaned forward over the table and added, "I like you."

Somehow, that didn't make me feel better.
THE LONELIEST ROAD

© 2011 Kimberly A. Bettes
