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Richard stooped and started grabbing the wads of cash the men had been gambling with; all this action had made his leg flare up again, so he took a look tug on the vodka, enjoying the burning trail it left down his throat.

And then it hit him.

That bitch Polly. She was out here somewhere. And he’d wasted precious time playing with these bozos. She never would’ve come this way. She would have tried to stay out of sight, would have followed the path of least resistance.

He had to double back.

He had to find her.

It was a matter of principal now.

The sweetest blood he could ever taste on this, the night of his greatest glory, belonged to that blond haired slut.

And he aimed to drink deeply from that crimson well long before the sun gathered enough courage to peek over the horizon.

CHAPTER TEN

The man smelled like cabbage which made Polly want to gag as waves of revulsion crashed over her body. The smell brought back memories of childhood, memories that she would have rather kept buried in the depths of her subconscious. It was all too easy to imagine that the man was her grandfather, slinking through the shadows of her bedroom while the rest of the house was still and quiet. He’d smelled like cabbage, too. She’d had to taste that rancid stink every time the old man shoved his tongue down her throat, every time he whispered in her ear that if she ever, ever told anyone that he would kill her little brother. He’d make it look like an accident, he said. And nobody would believe the word of a little girl who’d developed a reputation for spinning tall tales since her parents had died; they would all think she was lying, that she was simply trying to get back at him for not buying her the doll house she wanted or that pretty yellow dress. No, who would believe a little girl over him? She’d just better be a nice little girl and do exactly what he told her if she knew what was good for her….

So night after night he’d slip into her room and hurt her in ways a little girl should never be hurt. All the while telling her how beautiful she looked, how sexy she was, and how he knew she wanted this as much as he did by the way she stared at him when he was chopping wood. She would bite her bottom lip to keep from screaming, would squeeze her eyes shut so tightly the tears were forced out like water from a sponge, would pray that her father would somehow burst through the door to save her, that everything could go back to how it used to be, before the car crash. But no one ever came. Night after night, year after year… even when she’d tried smearing chicken blood inside her panties to make him think she was having her period. Even when she really did have her period. And each time there was the smell of cabbage souring the air around her, suffocating her in its stink….

But she didn’t need that bastard haunting her. Not now. Not with so much at stake. She had to bring her attention back to the present, to remember that it was her life she was trying to protect this time.

Focus.

The man was whistling again and he drug the pipe behind him, allowing the metal to grate across the floor with a scraping that set her teeth on edge. And he just kept circling her: never moving away, never drawing too near. It was almost as if he had some sort of onboard radar that let him know she was close… so very close… without ever giving away her actual position.

She wasn’t sure how long she could keep this still and quiet. The muscles in her legs were beginning to ache, her arms and shoulders becoming sore. She tried willing individual muscles to flex slightly, just enough to keep the shakes from setting in; but it required so much concentration she was afraid something else might suffer. That she might exhale a little too loudly. That her bladder might give way and mark her location with a pungent puddle. There were so many little things that could go wrong.

Maybe this wasn’t such a bright idea after all.

And the cabbage… it had to be cabbage, didn’t it? Her stomach acids churned and she felt them threatening to shoot up her esophagus, to flood her mouth with the bitterness and sting of bile. But even the smallest hitch, even the slightest wretch, and it would all be over.

She could hear the man muttering under his breath now. So very close.

“Where you at girlie-girlie-girl? I know you’re around here somewhere. Come to Daddy. Come on now.”

He retraced the same path he’d been traveling for the last ten minutes: through the circular clothing racks, past the mannequins in their slinky black teddies and baby doll nighties. As he passed each one, the fucking perv trailed his free hand over their cold, plastic breasts.

“Damn it, I’m tired of this bullshit!”

His yell made her eardrums feel as if they were trembling and was so sudden and unexpected that she was surprised she didn’t jump. Or at least gasp. But no, she’d somehow managed to remain as still as the dead; maybe she had more control than she’d ever given herself credit for. Maybe she was really as strong, after all, as her t-shirt slogans lead the world to believe.

“You come out now and I’ll make it quick. Hell, I might even let ya live. But I definitely won’t make you suffer. Not if you just come out right now.”

He was standing in front of a mannequin dressed in a rather plain set of bra and panties, scanning the darkness with a slow swivel of his head.

“Shit, bitch,” he mumbled, “you’re gonna suffer so bad you’ll wish I had killed ya.”

He reached out as he peered into the gloom and gave the dummy’s left tit a little squeeze. The breast flexed slightly beneath his fingers like a balloon filled with warm water.

“What the….”

The mannequin’s raised arm swooped downward and for a fraction of a second the man who smelled of cabbage screamed. His yells echoed through the empty department store as if mocking the searing pain that had exploded through his skull; but then he fell silent as blood oozed from his ear and coated the yellow handled screwdriver that had somehow sprouted from the side of his head.

Polly let go of the tool and the man immediately fell to the ground as if her grip had been the only thing keeping him aloft. He laid there, twitching and jerking, as a crimson halo blossomed around his head. His eyes were still moving so he was still alive… technically. Not really much of a life, though. How much could you actually function with a six inch screwdriver embedded into the soft tissue of your brain? Judging from the smell of shit wafting from the rear of his trousers and the dark stain spreading across the front, not a whole hell of a lot.

Polly bent over and picked up the pipe that lay beside the man’s convulsing body. It was heavier than it looked; lead probably judging from how solid it felt in her hands. She took a practice swing and frowned at the amount of strength it took just to control the pipe’s arc. But it would have to do. Unless something better came along, that was.

She stood in front of the man’s body and the image of a golf pro lining up a shot sprang to mind. She began by touching the pipe gently against the end of the screwdriver and then pulled back slowly as if for a swing. She held the position, both hands gripping one end of the pipe, the other held over her head and almost horizontal with the floor; she watched him spasm, watched his eyes dart from the business end of the metal rod to her grip on it. No doubt thinking about how far a single swing would drive the screwdriver into his head. If, that was, he was still capable of thinking at all.