Contributor: Dirky Henkel
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James took her out the bonnet and undid the tape from her mouth. She winced then spat and screamed, even though it was useless in this desolation. But he wouldn't have it, so he responded with a playful smack to her jaw.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” James told her, smacking a bristly kiss on Sandra's forehead. He forced her up onto the porch and shoved her through the door of his old Piney Woods farmhouse, and Sandra saw the barricaded windows, the unfurbished void making up the inside, the passage to his bedroom drowned in fresh concrete. The door shut and the key turned. Then they were in darkness.
“Hope you don't take the tying up thing personally.” James fed a candle wick. A pair of flickers rollicked in the navy hue of his sunglasses. She was taken aback for a second, seeing that monster's face of tattoos and scars arise from the shadows.
“Think about what you're doing,” she said. “Please.”
“I've thought long and hard, darling. This is for your own good, God's plan for us.”
“You're delusional.”
“Not this time. I promise you, you'll believe. Tonight it begins: three days of hell, as prophesied. In here, you'll have a chance at life after the event. Maybe you should've paid attention before.”
“I'm sorry. I can't fucking remember because you were banging me about so much, fucking asshole. Fuck you--”
“No, darling, fuck you. Forgot what it was like between us? Ain't you my maiden no more, forever avowed?” James snagged her hips toward his, gently swaying in a mock dance, and her squirming was useless against his might. “Damn, you're still as hot as you were in your younger days, ain't ya? Remember our song?
If I made you feel second best, I'm sorry I was blind. You were always on my mind.”
“They should've kept you behind bars, you son of a bitch.”
“Yeah, but then I wouldn't be able to satisfy you like old times, huh?”
His finger went under her skirt, slid into her panties, and he tickled her clitoris.
“Fucking stop,” she said.
“But I'm taking care of you, hon.”
She hesitated, then burst out, “The sheriff's coming.”
And so he let go. “Tell me you're fooling.”
“Before you grabbed my cell, I alerted them, okay? They're on their way.”
James threw her to the dust.
“Fuck you,” she retorted.
Silently, he culled thought and scanned her cellphone for confirmation, and shook his head in disappointment. “Shouldn't have done that, woman.”
“What are you going to do? Beat me up again? Release me and it'll be over, James, I swear. I'll drop this, nullify the court order, anything you want. Just let me go.”
James clamped her face, meeting hazel beads made more frantic by the snap of the candle's flame. “This is how you thank me? I'm saving your life from humanity's inevitable harvest, pouring out my heart, and you call those pigs? Right now I should be treating you like the backstabber you are.”
She kicked his knee from the ground, but it dealt no damage he was willing to express. Instead, he taped her mouth again. “I'm not sure I know you anymore,” he said, “but I always tried to treat you right.”
The urgent rap at the front door came almost instantly, stealing his smile. By the window, he unscrewed the planks and clocked a double-barrel that seemingly came from nowhere. “Look at what you did, Sandra. Now fathers and husbands will have to die on my land.”
The instant daylight rendered Sandra's eyes askance, and illumed the room's contents: rows of crates and ammunition packed against the walls, a survivor's paradise.
James poked his weapon through and shouted, “First and last warning. Get off my porch and never come here again.”
“Code 30. Need assistance,” a voice communicated. “Law enforcement, sir. Put the gun down.”
James shouted, “Take your pistol out, I'll shoot you right where you stand, hear? You're never taking me in.” His next action was instinctive--he clicked the trigger.
Sandra temporarily lost hearing, and could see nothing beyond the filling smoke, until James fell off-kilter out the smog. She assumed it was the shotgun's power which had unseated his frailty; yet he'd been wounded, his glasses sunder. A crimson web was forming on the wooden floor, swift expelling from his chest. Right then, he was still enough that she saw her opportunity. The open window drew her to a cautious stand, teasing safety. But then she sank creeping by his body; her ex wasn't dead yet, budging from his momentary outage. Inside, she cursed. Yet she caught sight of something else, under her sole. She quickly slid it into her corner, and returned.
James recovered. “Fucker got me.”
Her fingers married the edge of the shard. She began incisions, tuning into the rope like a surgeon prying for an artery.
“Wish you could've trusted me, hon,” he started.
She was certain the liquid dripping into her palm was blood, but didn't care.
“How do I make anyone believe what I'm saying? I wouldn't have done this if I wasn't so sure about it.” Then he raised his voice, “Understand, woman?”
But she wasn't really listening.
The sirens came.
“James McBride,” a loudspeaker blared, “surrender your arms and come out with your hands up.”
James was jolted from his momentary nap. He challenged them, “Every one of you government heathens will rot. If only you knew what I knew, boys. Hell's a coming.”
Bullets bit the surroundings and set the roof to rain, right before he could flaunt further courage. He slumped to cover, sat where he was in a humored naivety. Stirring ever closer, footsteps. He got up, dragged a cupboard toward the window, and the interior was dark once more.
“Never forget that I did this for you,” he whispered to Sandra's innocent front. He crept up to her with his candle light. “All I wanted was for us to be together.”
There was a bang at the door. And another.
James tapped the gun, showed her a pair of rounds, “One for you, one for me, huh?”
She shook her head.
“Don't worry, hon, there's a special place in heaven for us. Tell me you love me,” he said, peeling off the tape.
“Sure...honey,” she assured him. “Just like...just like it used to be.”
“I knew you'd finally make sense.” James lit up.
The gun came by her jaw.
“James, wait,” she insisted.
“We have to do this now, hon.”
The door began to splinter.
“Truth is,” she said as her hands separated, “you mean nothing to me.”
She stuck the shard into his neck, and stuck it in over and over until the gurgles were over.
Sandra watched his carcass being stretchered out, his throat a smile of death. It was as if his eyes still hadn't quit that insane love. They were on her. She turned away to the first of the moon and clung dearly to a gratis blanket.
“Ma'am,” Detective Sandton startled her. “Hope you're comfortable? I can't imagine what you've been through, Miss...”
“Brown,” she replied.
“Miss Brown, my apologies, but we'll need you at the station for a bit of questioning. You might be there a while, 'till we have your word and we know every detail of what went on back there. Are you fine with that, ma'am?”
“Yes, I--”
She stopped, distracted.
“I--”
Something was playing in the rear view mirror. She blinked to make sure she wasn't dreaming.
“Are you seeing this?” she asked Sandton, who looked up, then at her, before entering an awed hush.
“Close the door,” he said.
She did as she was told, and rolled up the windows. She saw the things in the sky descending still, and the more that could be discerned of the specks, the less they alluded to being anything she was familiar with. Suddenly, there was no explosion. The entire car tremored, then a viscuous substance came slithering down the windows. There was green everywhere. On the detective. The other officers. They were doused in it. Motionless, like dolls in a display cabinet. Then they were moving, walking her way, and she saw James--dead James McBride--raise and join them.
At the windows, they scratched to get in.
“
You were always on my mind, Sandra.”
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Dirky Henkel is an unwanted child originally from Berlin, Germany, currently residing in Rehburger Moor. Follow her on Twitter @DirkyHenkel.
