A Dark Autumn (13 page)

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Ricky said nothing.

“You can’t tell anyone about this. It has to be our secret. Maybe we can even do it again.”

They never did.

Aunt Jennifer learned a month afterward that she was pregnant. There had been only one person she’d had sex with in all that time. She’d probably assumed that considering Ricky’s age, his seed wasn’t a threat. She put the barrel of her deceased father’s .45 in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Ricky’s dad had been the one to find her dead body three days later. She’d left behind a message on a notepad, scribbled in pencil that read:
I deserve this.
 

That was when Laura Kelly began to manifest like a planted seed beginning to sprout. He’d started writing, just short stories at first or random dialogue scenes, but one thing he’d learned while doing it was that writing was healing. It helped him. In several of his stories, a homosexual character was conflicted with the reasoning as to why he was gay, but in each story he found a way to deal with it.
 

Over the years his writing grew to be more polished as Laura Kelly grew. Now she was as much alive as Ricky.
 

But she was every bit as different too.
 

Chapter Twenty-Four

“You’re not the first whore to try and take advantage of Ricky,” he said, clutching the ax handle so firmly his/her knuckles were turning white. “There have been many before you…even some men, but mostly women.”

His voice sounded odd, higher in pitch and squeaky.
 

“Ricky…I’m so…so…”
 

She was so what? Sorry? Like that would stop him.

“Now…just like the others.” He twisted the ax, pointing the blade toward Michelle to finish his statement. It was mucky in gloppy red streaks.
 

Helen’s blood…and possibly Amanda’s. She hoped Amanda was all right, but doubted it.
 

“Don’t do this…” She sounded like Ricky had the night before.
 

Ricky advanced. Michelle was quick to counter, grabbing the laptop and throwing it at him. The cord snapped free from the power brick. The computer shot through the space between them and smashed against Ricky’s face.
 

Michelle didn’t wait to see what damage, if any, had been inflicted. She ran. As she moved past Ricky, she swerved as far to the left that she could to avoid him. He blindly swung the ax, but didn’t come close to hitting her.
 

Her feet clapped across the hardwood floor. The rug tried to trip her, but she managed to keep going after only a stumble. Ricky exploded from the office, knocking another end table over. He kicked it out of his way with a long leg. Michelle saw a flash of black nylon panties under the skirt. It looked as if Ricky had taken the charade to the very extreme.

She spun on her heels after taking a wrong turn toward the stairs when she meant to find the front door. Ricky was already at her back. The front door was out of the question now. She had to take the stairs.

And she did.

Darting up the stairs, she felt the ax split the wood between her feet.
 

Splinters flaked her pants.
 

“Stop running,” Ricky shouted in that feminine voice. He stopped just long enough to tug the imbedded blade away from the step. Then he was moving again.

Michelle reached the top of the stairs. She faced a short hallway that separated at two doors. She assumed one was for the bathroom, and the other for the bedroom. Both doors were closed, and she had no idea which one was which. If she went to the bathroom, she would probably be trapped in there. If it was like her parents’ cabin, there wouldn’t be a window to climb through in there.
 

Ricky’s heavy tread broke her out of the trance. She darted for the one straight ahead. Her shoulder bumped the door as her hand slapped at the doorknob. It found it, and turned. The door popped open, nearly spilling her onto the floor.
The bedroom.
She wanted to cry she was so relieved. Michelle slammed the door. Her fingers found the lock and twisted it. It shook violently as Ricky slammed against it, but thankfully the latch held.
 

She turned around, her eyes darting this way and that, barely taking a moment to register anything. The bed was neatly made, an opened suitcase on top. The closest was a folding door to the right. She eyed one dresser, a nightstand, then she spotted it.
 

The window.
 

Her throat made a shrill whimper. She trotted around the end of the bed to the window, gripped the sill, and heaved. It didn’t budge. She felt a tight pull in her elbows, and her fingertips throbbed.
 

The room became a furor of splitting wood. Looking over her shoulder, Michelle caught the gleam of the ax blade twisting and tearing through the wood, then it disappeared. A diagonal, rectangular hole was in its place. The blade fractured the door again, but this time lower. Another few good whacks and Ricky would be able to come in.

Michelle heard herself screaming. She faced the window again, yanking with all she had. Her arms felt as if they were being slowly torn from their sockets, but it still wouldn’t move, so she pushed the blinds out of the way to check the lock. It was angled left.
Locked.
She couldn’t believe she had wasted so much time.
 

Valuable
time.
 

Precious seconds that could mean her death.

With the window unlocked, she lifted again. It sprang up so fast, the window slipped from her grasp, causing her to stumble forward, and rap her head against the aluminum paneling. She saw a flash, then blackness before it slowly began to fade back in. Bright splotches pranced in front of her.

The door imploded.
 

Michelle shook the fog out of her head. Ricky was moving in, so she didn’t bother with the screen, just stepped back, then sprung herself forward. Her head and arms went first. There was a brief resistance when she hit the screen, but it quickly gave way. Then she was weightless. It lasted only a moment before the roof punched her from underneath.
 

Then she was rolling.
 

The golden light of the day whirled before her. She saw flashes of bright colors from the trees. The gutter around the roof’s edge rammed her in the ribs as she toppled over. The weightless feeling came again. Then she was plummeting.
 

The deck came up to meet her.
 

Her cry was silenced by a thudding huff when she landed on her back. Air blasted out of her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. As her lungs tried to pull in air, she looked up. Ricky was at the window, looking down at her.
 

She blinked, and he was gone.
 

Oh God… He’s going back down the stairs…

He’d be down here in a matter of moments. She needed to move. Rolling over, pain rattled her hips. Her right leg was throbbing numbness down to her knee. She wondered if it was broken.
 

It didn’t matter. Broken leg or not, she was going to run.
 

Gripping the deck railing, she dragged herself to her knees as if doing a pull up. It hurt so badly that she felt nauseous. She’d done something to her hip, all right; maybe not her leg, but definitely her hip.
 

The thudding sound of Ricky descending the stairs resonated from inside the cabin. Hearing him was like a slap to the face. Michelle quickly fought her way to standing. She could put weight on her left leg, but not so much on her right. But it was still working. She held her leg under the knee, rocking it back and forth.
 

It would have to do.
 

She ran the best she could.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Britt stomped the brakes. The truck skidded to a halt. To his right was another old, broken dirt road that divided the woods. The path looked even worse than the one he’d been using for the last half hour.
Is that it?
He used the rearview mirror too see as he backed the truck onto the shoulder. Then he wrenched the gear into park.
 

The map was on the seat beside him. He grabbed it and his pack of cigarettes, then pushed the chrome button for the lighter inward. As he waited for it to heat up, he used one hand to unfold the map, and fished a cigarette from the pack with the other. The lighter popped out. He lit the cigarette and began scanning the map.

On the paper, he followed the route he’d taken, and it looked as if he was where he needed to be.
Has to be it
. Britt had assumed the driveway would look…well, more like a driveway and not some busted horse path. He’d expected a mailbox, or at least a house marker, but there was neither.
 

He rolled the window down to let the smoke waft out, and pushed the button on the instrument panel to engage the four-wheel drive. The front wheels clicked as they became ready. Biting down on the filter of his cigarette, he put the truck into drive, slowly veered onto the dirt road and turned onto what he hoped was Michelle’s driveway.

Drooping branches scraped the sides of his truck as he drove.
 

Michelle’s balance was off as she trudged through the woods, forcefully tugging her right leg behind her. Ricky was a blur in the rear, but close enough she could easily see the ax by his side like a saber.

Michelle darted around an oak tree. Branches slapped her. A bouquet of leaves whacked her in the eye. Her feet tangled. She landed on her stomach. Her feet shot up behind her and kicked her lower back.

She pushed herself up on her hands. Looking behind her, she spotted Ricky as he appeared from behind the oak tree.
 

“It will be easier for you…” He was winded. Fragments of his real voice cracked through the womanly pitch. “Just one whack and it’ll all be over.”

Michelle rolled onto her back, bracing herself up on her elbows. Hunched like a ghoul, Ricky crept closer. The ax refracted light from the sun in dazzling lines. She watched it rise above Ricky’s head. One blade was aimed down at her, the other pointed over Ricky’s back.
 

She waited for him to get a little closer…
 

Hoping for the best, Michelle shot her knee up, smashing it between his thighs. She felt something mash under her knee.
 

Stunned, the ax slipped from Ricky’s grasp. The blade punched in the ground beside her. Michelle’s father liked to say when she was kid:
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
Even though Ricky had faked the appearance of a woman, he still had a cock and balls.
 

And being struck there paralyzed any man.

His mouth formed the shape of a ring as he cupped his hands over his crotch. He dropped to his knees. Michelle scooted back on her rump. Rocks jabbed her through her pants. She reached for the ax.
 

But Ricky’s foot stomped on her hand.
 

There was a sound like breaking celery when her wrist snapped. Pain shot up her arm and into her chest. Ricky was wounded, but not conquered. She tried reaching for the ax, again, but her hand just drooped limply to the side. No way could she grip it. She collapsed on her back.
 

She wanted to lie there, to rest, but she couldn’t.
 

Michelle clumsily got to her feet.
 

Ricky latched onto to her ankle, and pulled her foot out from under her. She went down, landing chin first. Her teeth clacked together. He towed her towards him, bouncing her breasts across the ground. She bucked in his hand, writhing, until she managed to roll onto her side. She continued to thrash her legs. Finally, she slipped from his grasp.
 

On her knees, she looked at her foot and saw only a sock. Then she glanced at Ricky who was holding her shoe, staring at it dumbly. She didn’t bother trying to retrieve it.
 

She crawled to a run, and didn’t let her exposed foot hold her back.

The driveway had somewhat settled. The truck only bounced over a bump or gulley every few feet now instead of continuously. He increased his speed, hoping to see a cabin come into view soon.
 

But he was beginning to wonder if one ever would.

Michelle’s equilibrium suddenly shifted. She was heading down.

Straight down.
 

Trying to keep her balance, she shambled down the steep hill. As the ground leveled out, her feet had trouble adjusting thanks to the lack of one shoe. The ground was rough, uneven. Roots protruded everywhere she stepped. She stumped her pinky toe on one of the snaked lumps, and fell against a tree, her arms embracing it as if giving it a hug. Her foot was screaming. When she looked down, she didn’t find a toe poking out from the torn sock. Instead, there was a wet red stump with a light-gray object cleaved to the side. Inside the freshly made nook was an even darker red, and below that was blackness. The toenail had been dislodged, and only clung there by strands of flesh. She immediately regretted looking at it as throbbing blasts seared through her leg.