Be Careful What You Wish For

Another voice echoed, calling the first man and asking if everything was ok. This pulled her from her frenzy and she was able to get behind the wall he would come around. He saw the man on the floor and whispered, “Holy shit!” just before she let the bar crash against the back of his head. He dropped with a thud and she didn’t have the fire left to continue to beat him. She wanted away and nothing more.

Rachel listened again and heard no more voices or sounds, but she knew there was still at least one more out there. She searched this back area carefully for a way out but there was none. However, she did notice that the second man she had knocked down had a knife tucked in the side of his belt... most likely the knife she’d felt against her skin earlier. She dropped the bar and took the knife.

Barely noticing that she was still nude, she crept slowly out from the alcove and around the pile of hay.

Ahead of her was the open barn door... wide and inviting. However, sitting before it with his back to her was the third man. He was hunched over, elbows resting on his knees, sitting on a bale. He seemed intent on something in his hands and she wasted no time to give him any chance of feeling her watching him. She sprang out and crossed the boards as fast as she could, her bare feet making no sound that wasn’t muffled in the hay. Without a second thought, she plunged the knife deep into the middle of his upper back and tugged upwards.

Blood gushed out on her hand but she let go, leaping over the bale, running for the door, every second fearing that she would feel bullets from the same gun that had killed Gary. Except for a disturbing gurgling cry, there was nothing but another thud on the floor.

Once outside, she thought her heart would burst with joy. There was enough moonlight for her to see that the panel van was there, and strangely enough, Gary’s Pathfinder, too. The assholes had evidently gone back and stolen it.

She jumped inside it, knowing that Gary kept an extra key under the dashboard. However, his keyring was still in the ignition. She couldn’t believe her change of luck. She couldn’t believe no one had come running out to stop her either so she wasted not a second before spinning the tires in the gravel and roaring off into the darkness.

Her hands shook so much that she was afraid she would lose control of the car and wreck. She needed a phone to call the police. She needed a way to find out where she was so she could get out of here.

Rachel’s eyes lit on something on the seat next to her and she paused to turn on the overhead light. Amazingly, her purse was there, and a folded terry cloth robe, just like one that Gary owned.

She’d worry about what that meant later, but right now, she dug in her purse for her cell phone and punched in 911.

The dispatcher was a very kind woman who tried to calm Rachel as she spewed out what had happened to her. She couldn’t tell the woman where she was because she didn’t know. She’d not known since Gary made the wrong turn hours ago. She lost her composure and started to cry.

“Ma’am, please don’t do that... please... just look around and pull off the road. Find a store, find a house, just find somewhere you can ask your location.”

It wasn’t that easy though, because she was so far out of the city. Finally, several miles down the road, she came to a small store. It was dark and closed at this hour of the morning.

“The sign says Jerry’s General Store,” Rachel told the operator. “Can you find me? I’m afraid to stay here. What if they are coming after me?”

“I pulled up the address and I’ve already sent it to a unit in your area. They are only a few miles from you. Just keep talking to me till they get there, okay?”

“Yes,” Rachel agreed thankfully, though most of her words were gibberish in her panic.

Within ten minutes, a police car with its sirens wailing turned in beside her. She’d pulled on the robe and sat curled up in it on the passenger seat, holding it around herself tightly. She wished it was Gary that was holding her, she’d always felt so safe with him. She could smell his scent on the robe.

She managed to tell the two officers what had happened to her and also what she’d done to the men to escape. As best she could, she gave them directions back to the farm house. One called for backup as he drove away and the other called for an ambulance and waited with her.

Everything seemed to fade in and out after they put her in the ambulance. She tried to tell herself she was safe now but she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel safe again. Ironically, she remembered talking to Gary about the rape fantasies she had. She didn’t think she’d ever have one of those again either. And now Gary was dead. Tears ran freely down her cheeks. She’d begun to care so much about him.

A couple of hours later after a thorough examination and a half-hearted talk with a rape counselor, Rachel lay on the emergency room bed, lightly sedated. She’d heard no word about the scene she’d escaped from but they couldn’t let her go home until the police spoke with her.

Two men entered the room, both in dark suits and ties. They asked the attending nurse if it was okay for them to talk to Rachel and she said it was.

Rachel sat up, tugging the scratchy hospital blanket around her.

They introduced themselves as Detective Long and Detective Paul. Det. Long said they’d just come from the crime scene.

She began to tremble again, despite the medication that had previously calmed her. She wasn’t sure now if she could listen to this or not.

“When we arrived, we found everything exactly as you said. Two men dead, and the other was brought here with a mild concussion.” Long had a very grim and critical look on his face.

Rachel put her face in her hands and sobbed again. “I killed them. I didn’t mean to, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Ma’am, that will all be worked out at a later time. We just have some questions about their identity right now.”

“Did you find out who they were?” she asked, “Did anyone find Gary’s body?”

“Well, yes ma’am, we did.” The detectives passed a look back and forth between each other.

“Who were they?” she cried out, frustrated. “Why did they do this to me?”

Det. Paul flipped open a notebook and read, “Joey Patterson, hospitalized with a mild concussion.” He paused to study the look of recognition on Rachel’s face. Gary had mentioned a man by that name, a friend of his.

“Daniel Wilson, deceased at the scene. Cause of death appears to be blunt force trauma to the head.”

Another of Gary’s friends, she had even met this one briefly once at a party but had not remembered him. Her face twisted up in agony, wondering why they would have done something like this.

“And Gary Turner, also deceased at the scene. Cause of death appears to be a stabbing from behind that entered the heart and right lung.”

Rachel’s face lost all its color. Her jaw fell open but all she could utter was “Wha....? No.....” She shook her head wildly. “No! Gary was shot... I saw them do it on the street! What ... what...?”

Det. Long spoke over her questions. “When interviewed, Mr. Patterson said, ‘We were only playing out a fantasy for Gary’s girlfriend. Something went bad wrong.”

He looked up to catch Rachel’s reaction to this but she had already slumped forward in a faint.