This One's Gonna Hurt, page 14
“Got it,” Brad said. “Don’t get too close to him, OK? I don’t want him to get a piece of you.”
“Don’t worry about me. I got this. But do not hesitate. When you get to him, you take him out. We’ve got one chance here. Let’s make it count.”
Brad nodded with a mask of confidence wrapping his face. He extended his right hand and Valerie pressed her’s into his. Their hands connected at the thumbs with their fingers crashing over each other.
“Here goes nothing,” Valerie said.
“Give ‘em hell, kid,” Brad replied with a nod.
Still crouched, Valerie maneuvered to the edge of the building. She turned to look back over her shoulder at Brad, but he was already gone. The plan was in motion. There was no turning back. It was now or never.
Valerie closed her eyes, took in a deep breath and held it for a long moment. She opened her eyes as she exhaled and stared out at pure nothingness in the desert. Again, her mother’s face flashed through her mind. Followed by her siblings, and then her father. She had to succeed. There was no other way.
In a flash, she jumped to her feet and walked out of the shadows. Standing underneath one of the flickering street lights of the parking lot, she could see the masked maniac. He stood still, motionless, statuesque. If she hadn’t known any better, she might have thought he had left a mannequin there. A diversion of his own to trick them out of the building. But she was certain, she was confident. She had to be.
“Hey, you gross mother fucker!” She shouted.
Slowly the masked head turned towards her. Her blood ran cold as she gasped for air. Terror washed over her body from the outside in, as the man turned his body. He took a long, labored step towards her, dragging his bad leg behind him across the pavement. Dangling from his right hand was the rusty meat hook. He had been waiting them out, and here she was. One labored step, followed by another. The surrounding air was silent as death, and Valerie could hear as his worn-out leather boots scraped as they dragged across the asphalt.
From the opposite side of the building, Valerie saw Brad as he took light steps from the shadows into the light. He held the baseball bat handle in his hands, the barrel up high in the air above his head as he crept towards the monster. The plan was working as it was written. They figured Brad was faster and smarter than the attacker, and, of course, he was unaware anyone was behind him. Even from a faraway vantage point, Valerie could see Brad’s eyes opened wide. Like a starving, wild animal in the midst of a hunt, ready to devour his kill. He kept his eyes locked on the man so hard that he didn’t even notice the debris hiding in the sand at his feet.
Just then, Brad’s foot hit an old oil can, sending it sputtering and clanking across the asphalt. He froze, looked down at the can, then back at the man who was just out of reach. The man stopped in his tracks and turned his head to the left at the noise.
“Oh shit,” Brad muttered. “Fuck this!”
Brad burst into a full sprint at the man. The plan might have been foiled, but it wasn’t dead. Not yet.
“Brad, no!” Valerie shouted, both of her hands outstretched as though she might be able to stop him. But it was too late.
The man spun around as Brad approached. With his right hand, the man swung that rusty meat hook at Brad’s torso. Brad didn’t see it coming until the hook was already traveling at him. He planted his feet into the ground, pushing backwards with all that he had. The meat hook sliced through his shirt, just missing skin. He took another few steps back, holding the bat in his right hand. With his left, he checked his shirt to see the slice that had been cut through and to check for blood.
“You son of a bitch!” Brad screamed. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
Brad held the bat by the handle with both hands, positioned his body like he was about to face Nolan Ryan with a batting stance, and swung the bat with every fiber of strength he had within his body. The bat whipped through the air so quick, you could almost hear a swoosh. The swing connected with the man’s left side, pummeling his ribs.
He let out a painful and strained groan as he fell back a couple of steps. He leaned down with his left arms pressed hard into his abdomen. As he looked up to Brad, he put both hands in front of his body as Brad charged. He planted his left foot into the ground, lifting his right and delivering a hard kick to the man’s chest. Immediately he fell to the ground, landing hard on his back. A loud gasp escaped from the man’s throat, as it sounded like he had knocked the wind out of his lungs.
Brad jumped and stood over him, with a foot on either side of his body. Sounds like a rabid dog poured out of his mouth as he seethed. Drool and spit dripped from his mouth, his eyes squinted in fury, and his knuckles white from grasping the handle of the wooden bat.
He tried to swing the bat downward to strike the man, but he fought off each blow. The barrel bounced off his forearms, wrists and hands as he tried to strike him. Brad unlocked his knees and let his body fall, landing on the man’s chest. He began pummeling him with punches to the face. One after another, striking the man until he began to go limp. Brad stood up, wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand and lifted the bat high above his head. He was looking to land one, last fatal blow to the head, caving it into a pancake. Just like Valerie had instructed.
“See you in hell, you—”
Brad’s words floated through the air like a dead leaf in fall. A sentence that trailed off and never finished.
With the meat hook in his right hand, the maniac jumped to his knees and swung upwards at Brad, connecting the sharp point of the hook directly underneath his jaw. The point stabbed through the soft flesh just under his jaw, cracked through the bone, and protruded out of his mouth. Brad let out a horrific gasp of air as he screamed and shrieked in both pain and terror. He stumbled back a few steps before he regained his composure, dropping the bat as he went. The bat hit the asphalt, pinging and crackling along until it came to a stop far enough away, he could no longer reach it.
The man stood up slowly, breathing heavily and grotesque. Blood had begun to spill out through the mouth holes of the mask that still covered his face, though askew from the pounding he had endured. He straightened it so he could see Brad. Brad felt his face, jaw and mouth and attempted to tear the meat hook from his flesh, but it wouldn’t budge. He began swinging at the masked man, missing each and every time. Brad cowered, placing both his open palms on his thighs as he attempted to catch his breath and allow his nerves to catch with his new reality. He lifted his head towards the man as a generous amount of blood poured from his mouth to the ground. He wound up, taking another haymaker swing, but the man pushed it away with his left arm while grabbing the handle of the meat hook with his right hand.
The man held the meat hook and stared deep into Brad’s shivering eyes. Brad could see every ounce of evil beaming from his dark eye sockets. Then, the man pushed Brad away from him, grabbed the handle of the hook and as Brad fell backwards, he pulled the hook towards himself. The air filled with slight sounds of bone, muscle and tendons as they tore, snapped and pulled out of place. Brad let out a painful cry - Sharp and high pitched. Brad wobbled a bit, every bit of his body trembling and shaking uncontrollably as it shut down.
He looked to his left as he saw Valerie, just far enough away yet so very close. Their eyes met, as Brad raised his right hand just high enough to catch her attention. Dangling from his hand were the beads she had handed to him before the plan went awry. He lifted his right hand to his chest, pressing the cross and beads into his body and held them tightly against his heart. He shut his eyes for a long moment before opening them again, staring right at Valerie. She knew what that meant. Brad was saying goodbye.
The masked man grabbed the hook again with his right hand and lifted his good leg, pressing it hard into Brad’s abdomen. He pushed back with his foot as he pulled once, then again on the hook as it grasped Brad’s jaw. This pull, again, filled the air with soft sounds of bone cracking. The second pull tore Brad’s jaw clean off his skull. Bone and connective tissues snapped and cracked as his lower jaw became suspended within his mutilated flesh. Like a horse shoe hanging carelessly in a bowl of jello. Brad fell to his knees, settling upright as his body sat on the back of his legs and feet.
The masked man dragged his own body to where the bat had settled. He lifted it and sauntered back to Brad, positioning himself behind him. He looked at Valerie, who stood in shock. She couldn’t move. She didn’t want to see what was about to happen, yet she was frozen there. Frozen in a nightmare that was never ending.
He lifted the bat high above his head, striking it down onto Brad’s head. Brad fell forward, landing flat on his chest. Again and again he struck Brad in the back of the head with the bat, flattening his head and skull into the ground. All the while, he kept his eyes locked onto Valerie.
He let go of the bat and again it clinked and clanked, bouncing off the hard ground as it rolled away. He bent down, tore the meat hook away from Brad’s mangled skull and pointed it towards Valerie. Then, took a long, labored step in her direction.
Valerie gasped, turned from him and ran as fast as she could into the darkness of night. Away from her friends and away from the building that had provided a false sense of security. She didn’t know where she would go, and at that moment, she didn’t care. As long as it was as far away from this masked murderer, it didn’t matter. So, she ran, and she ran. Through the desert - Alone, cold and scared.
CHAPTER 24
Valerie ran. Deep into the darkness of night, and the desolation of the California desert, she ran. Leaving behind the crumbling garage and store, the expensive car, the madman and, worst of all, her friends - whatever was left of each of them. She hadn’t seen what occurred with Spencer, Jenna or Lexi, and after what she had witnessed with Brad, she was glad that she hadn’t. But deep down in a place where the outside light never shines, burns a small flicker of hope that maybe, just maybe, one, if not the rest of them, might still be alive. She figured that masked freak had done something awful to each of them. But if she could just find someone - anyone or anything - she wanted to believe they could be saved. Hope still lived inside of Valerie. And sometimes, hope is all you need.
She ran for what seemed like an eternity. Longer than she had run in as long as she could remember. Possibly, longer than she had ever ran in her entire life. Her arms thrust backwards and forwards, her head straight down, her legs chugging along harder and harder than she had ever attempted to run. She pushed her body to the limit to get away from that sick psychopath. She couldn’t even say “human being.” No, that was no human being to Valerie. That was a monster. A nightmare come to life, and she needed to get as far away as possible. So, she ran. She ran until her muscles tore and until her lungs gave out. She ran until her feet bled and until her veins pumped with battery acid. There was no way to be certain, but she figured she must have run for miles already. All that distance in pure darkness, alone. No living, breathing being in sight. No street lamps, no 7-11’s. No comfort and no safety. Now, at this moment, it was her versus the landscape. And even worse, it had become her versus herself. But she couldn’t give in. That little light of hope burning deep within her spirit gave her all the courage she needed to keep going. To keep pushing. To stay alive.
Just then, over the horizon something appeared. The faintest blip of dull yellow light shot into the air. From such a far distance, it appeared like nothing at all. Smaller than a single star in the frozen night sky, but to Valerie, it was everything. That faint, miniscule blip of yellow sparkled and danced in the distance like a beacon calling Valerie home. Like a lighthouse to a sinking ship just off the coast, caught in the storm of its lifetime. The storm within her was no different, nor was this call to safety. The hull of her body was cracking, but it wasn’t lost. Not yet.
She pushed on towards what she believed was real. “Please, don’t be a mirage,” she thought to herself repeatedly. She had never seen a mirage, but had heard of them and how they were always associated with people who found themselves in trouble in the desert. “Please be real,” she thought to herself. “Please, don’t be a mirage.”
As she trudged on, the slight blip of light grew larger and more intense. In fact, it wasn’t just one blip. There were many blips. With every pump of her legs an array of lights became clearer. Different shades of dull yellow and bright white. Some steady, some flickering, but each one, a sign of life. And that is all Valerie needed. That hope inside of her had proven true thus far. The closer she got to the lights, the more her eyes could see what they illuminated beneath them. She had run so far into the darkness that she had found a roadside rest stop. She had forgotten that, before they exited to find the charging station for the Zeus, they had passed on this rest stop because it had no charging stations available for use. Now she didn’t need a charging station. She needed a sign of life, a phone and if at all possible, a damn drink of water.
Once she saw the rest stop, somehow, she found the strength to increase her speed. Her body had become exhausted and her legs had taken enough, and as she tried to push on, her legs gave out and she crashed into the sand. She fell forward, pushing her palms into the desert floor as she fell. Once her body landed, she tumbled over herself a few times, landing on her left side. She rolled on to her back and gazed up at the starry sky as her lungs burst in and out, trying to fill her blood with enough oxygen to keep going. She could see her hooded sweatshirt lifting and falling rapidly as her heart beat and burst through her chest.
“I’m not going to make it,” she thought to herself. “I can’t do this anymore.”
She closed her eyes as she dreamt about her family. How devastated and broken her mother was when her father died. How she comforted her siblings for months when her mother became absent from the sinking feeling of depression and loneliness. How she cuddled her mother at night, brushing her thick, black hair back over her head as she wept, whispering, “Everything will be fine, Momma. I promise.” And how she couldn’t make her mother go through that pain again. Anyone with an outside perspective would try to explain to Valerie that none of this was her fault. But it wouldn’t matter. She blamed herself now, and knew she would in whatever afterlife was to come, as well. The pain in her mind, heart and physical body became too much to bear. As her eyes welled with tears, they began flooding down her cheeks to the sand. She shut her eyes tight as she cried herself sick. She dug her open hands deep into the dirt, clenched her fists, filling her hands with earth and screamed with everything she had left inside of her spirit. Banging her closed fists into the sand, she screamed and screamed. So loud that she thought blood may burst from her throat and pour down her lips.
The sound of a blasting horn that filled the silence awakened her. She thought she had died, and the heavens were opening to accept her. She remained there, on her back, as an eerie sense of calm washed over her body. After a few moments, something else brought her back down to earth.
“Hey!” A man’s voice shouted. “Is someone there? Hello? Are you OK out there?”
Valerie’s eyes shot wide open as she dug her hands into the sand, wrestling herself up to her knees. Just outside of the rest stop parked along the far side of the parking lot was a semi-truck. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Safety. It was so close she could almost taste it.
“Is someone there?” The voice yelled again. “Hello? Do you need help?”
She squinted her eyes at the truck when she noticed something that shot excitement through her entire body like a bolt of lightning. The trailer attached to the truck was a SWIFT trailer.
“Swift,” she muttered. Her voice grew in intensity as did her excitement. “Swift. Swift! SWIFT! I win, mother fucker! Swift! I fucking win!”
She forced herself to her feet and pushed along with any energy she could muster towards that Swift truck.
“Hey! Help me!” She screamed as she ran, flailing her arms as she went. “Please! Please help me!”
The man burst into a full sprint towards Valerie. Before he could reach her, her legs gave out yet again. As she fell, the man jumped and slid on his knees across the dirt, catching her in his arms and lap as she crashed into him. Valerie began grabbing at his arms, hands, body and face, breathing hard and furious. She needed to know if this was real. If he was real.
“Are you OK?” The man asked in a panicked tone. “What the hell are you doing out here all by yourself?”
“Help me! Please,” she shrieked through half breaths. “A man. That man. He’s trying to kill me. He, he killed my friends. Please.”
“It’s OK,” He whispered, followed by a low shushing noise. “I’ve got you, Ma’am. Come on, let’s get you to my truck.”
He was an older man who appeared at the business end of his 50s. He was tall, rail thin with white hair on the sides of his head and a matching white, scraggly beard over his wrinkled face, wearing dusty old overalls over a red and black plaid long sleeve flannel shirt. A torn trucker hat rested upon his head covering a wasteland of bald skin.
He assisted Valerie to her feet, throwing her right arm over his shoulders as he escorted her across the desert to his truck.
“What happened to you, Ma’am?” He asked sweetly as they walked.
Valerie couldn’t speak as she continued to try her best to breathe. She just shook her head over and over again as he helped her walk to safety. When they reached the truck, he reached up to open the passenger side door so she could crawl in.
“Come on, dear,” He said, grabbing her left hand and holding on. “It’s OK dear. Watch your step. Go ahead. Crawl on up into the cab. You’ll be safe now, I promise. I’ll get you out of here. Come on, up you go.”
She pressed her feet into the steel step while grabbing hold of the safety bar on the side of the truck body. She pulled and strained as she hoisted herself upwards. The man grabbed her by the waist and assisted pushing her into the cabin.
