The problem was everything seemed so much different in the dark. She’d been in this place a hundred times, had gotten some of her favorite bags from their purse and shoe section; but now she may have as well been picking her way along the dark side of the moon for all it was worth.
Somehow, Polly had found her way to the hardware section of all places. Talk about an alien environment…. However, she was pretty sure that this was on the opposite side of the store. At least it was in most shops, almost like they thought if they could put enough distance between husbands and wives the two sexes would never know how much money the other was spending until it was too late. So it seemed as if she’d been going in the wrong direction all along. She cursed to herself, took a step, and then felt as if the carpet of the world had suddenly been pulled out from beneath her feet. She pin-wheeled her arms, struggling to maintain balance, but — as one of her many t-shirts often reminded her — she had to obey gravity… it was the law. She fell to the floor and landed flat on her ass so hard that her spine jarred and her teeth clacked loudly.
At least she hadn’t tried to break her fall with her hands, though. It would’ve been very easy to snap a wrist that way. And that was definitely the last thing she needed.
“What the hell?” she mumbled as she picked herself up with a wince. “What the bloody hell?”
After a moment of searching, she found the culprit: a big, yellow screwdriver that had apparently spilled out of some overturned bin and then lurked in the shadows, just waiting to trip up an unsuspecting woman.
“You little bastard, you won’t be doing that again.”
Tucking the screwdriver into the waistband of her skirt, she began feeling her way through the darkness again. It was a bit easier this time as her eyes had started adjusting to the gloom. She began to recognize landmarks along the way: the cosmetic counter which was now covered in a fine layer of white dust, the beloved shoes and bags, the escalator which lead up into sleepwear.
Finally she was searching through the piles of clothing on the floor, looking for a simple black t-shirt and dark jeans in her size. As usual, finding something that actually fit her was like panning for gold; she had to sift through layer after layer of worthless silt until she finally found her treasure. Down near the very bottom of the heap. Of course.
Stripping off her ruined shirt almost felt like shedding a skin. It was as if Richard’s hands had somehow tainted the fabric; as if whatever sickness had changed him into a maniac had colonized the cotton and fibers, leaving the garment feeling dirty and almost greasy to the touch. She flicked it away between pinched fingers. The skirt had to go too. He’d been all over that piece, squirming his nasty body over it like some sort of legless fucking lizard, fumbling and pulling and yanking.
A shudder coursed through Polly’s body and she stepped out of the skirt, trying to put thoughts of the ordeal out of her head. The screwdriver clattered to the floor and she scooped it up like a bird of prey catching a rabbit.
“Oh no you don’t. Fool me once, shame on you and all that jazz.”
She was just reaching for the t-shirt when she heard something. A slight scuffling in the store. She froze in place and listened as she held her breath. For a moment everything was quiet and she had just begun to think it was her imagination when she heard it again. Furtive and sneaky… not an animal. A stray dog or cat wouldn’t care if anyone in the store heard them. Human? In all likelihood, yes.
Richard? He wouldn’t come looking for her would he? No, that was ridiculous. She’d seen Jane stab him with what looked to be a pretty good-sized knife. Even if, for whatever twisted reason might possess his deformed mind, he did want to come after her, Polly seriously doubted he was in any shape to do so. Hopefully, Jane had killed the bastard.
A whistle echoed through the silence of the store and it took a moment before she recognized the tune. It was the theme from the Andy Griffith Show. Now that it was obvious that she wasn’t alone in the store, her heart began to race so fast that should could feel her pulse twitch in her left eyelid.
“Hey girlie-girlie-girl….”
The voice was high pitched and slightly nasal. Definitely not Richard.
That, however, didn’t mean that this stranger was any less dangerous.
“I know you’re in here. I saw you come in.”
There was a loud clang of metal on metal, as if he had swung some sort of pipe and hit one of the beams that the price check machines were attached to.
“Come out and play, girlie-girlie-girl. Come to, Daddy.”
Another clang.
“It won’t hurt… much.”
Laughter echoed in the darkness and she made her way toward the escalators, still dressed only in her bra and panties. Of all the rotten damn timing…. She’d always rolled her eyes when she’d watched movies and the heroines stripped down only to find themselves immediately placed in the path of the monster or psychopathic killer. She’d thought it was cheesy and more than a bit trite. But now look where she was. All she could keep thinking as she slipped through the store was you gotta be frigging kiddin’ me.
She tried to ease up the escalator in sort of a duck-walk fashion, hoping that the sides would at least keep her partially hidden from view.
From behind her, she heard another clang. This time closer. Louder.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are….”
Almost to the top now, sleepwear and lingerie.
Clang.
She struggled to keep her breathing steady: slow inhale through the nose, exhale softly through the mouth. Just like in yoga.
“Keep it together, girl. You are not going to die in this place.”
Laughter again, this time seeming to swirl all around her, as if it were forming from the very molecules of air itself. A hundred million tiny voices all giggling in unison.
“There you are! Daddy’s home… why don’t you come and give him a big, wet kiss?”
Shit. The man was at the bottom of the escalators. No time for stealth now. She broke into a run, scrambling up the few remaining stairs as he banged his pipe off the bottom step, this time resulting in more of a dull clunk than a clang.
He continued up the rest of the escalators slowly, pausing on each one to smack the step ahead of him. He was whistling again, the bastard.
Polly stood as motionless as possible and concentrated on her breathing. So shallow, so soft, that she even her breasts didn’t rise and fall. She stood rock still and watched as he worked his way through the racks, thrusting his pipe into the middle of each one in case she was hidden within the clothes like a rabbit in a warren.
“I’m gonna getcha girlie-girlie-girl. I’m gonna getcha….”
He was close now. So close that she could see dark stains covering his jacket and shirt. Stains which, in any other situation, she probably would have mistaken for motor oil.
But in this new, fucked up world she knew exactly what had caused those stains.
And she knew that unless she was very, very careful within the course of a few seconds she would be adding a few stains of her own to the ensemble.
And that couldn’t happen. Not after all she’d been through, damn it. It simply couldn’t happen.
“I’m gonna getcha….”
CHAPTER NINE
It was utterly glorious. The smoke. The fire. The blood that formed Rorschach patterns on the streets and sidewalks. Bodies were starting to pile up, heaping one on top of the other like mass Cambodian graves. Everything was swirling in chaos and Richard felt as if he were a general strolling through a victorious battlefield. The weak were falling and the strong were emerging as the dominant species, claiming the golden thrones that had awaited them for so long; even his leg didn’t hurt, not really. He’d ripped up one of Polly’s t-shirts and tied it so tightly around the wound that the leg of his pants almost seemed to bulge up around the tourniquet. Downing half a bottle of Captain Morgan had further dulled the throbbing pain and he found that he was able to walk with only the slightest of limps.