“I was injured badly, suffering from a fractured skull and bleeding from the head, but I walked for what felt like an eternity and finally exited the forest on Route 42, where I got lucky for the second time that night. A couple of kids driving west on their way back to college picked me up, and I was able to disguise the extent of my injuries, thanks to the darkness and the fact that they were drunk off their asses.
“I rode with them for hours, finally allowing them to take me to a hospital somewhere off Interstate 90 in western New York State. They dropped me off at the emergency room door and left. I had no identification, you made sure of that,” he said, nodding at Vince, “so I feigned amnesia. It wasn’t difficult; I was badly injured and my temperature was so high by the time I stumbled into that hospital that I was hallucinating. But I forced myself to do it. And do you know why?”
Maura and Vince looked at each other without speaking. Jim leaned forward until his face was inches from the man who had hit him over the head in a desolate forest and left him to die. “Come on, big guy,” he said slowly, enunciating each syllable in a voice that would cut glass. “You’re not even trying. Why do you suppose I put myself through the agony of walking out of the forest and then suffering for seven hours in a car with a fractured skull, when I could have died at any moment? Why?”
Vince looked at him with terror in his eyes, while Maura observed the exchange with an air of detachment. She could have been watching a political debate on television. Jim finally continued, “I put up with that pain and agony for one reason, and one reason only. When you had me on my knees, preparing to finish me off with a goddamn baseball bat, I told you something, and I meant it. Do you remember what I said to you, Rexy?”
Vince was pushing against his chair-back with all his might, unable to move the heavy piece of furniture even an inch although not for a lack of trying. His head thrashed side to side. Jim couldn’t tell if it was because he didn’t remember what he had said that night or because he did. The silence lingered, Vince shaking his head but afraid to speak; Maura sitting quietly, clearly hoping Jim would expend his rage on her sap of a boyfriend and spare her.
When it became clear Vince either would not or could not answer, Jim spoke. “I told you that you were going to pay for what you were about to do to me, and tonight I’ve come to collect.”
Tears cut tracks down Vince Gower’s face, transforming it from handsome and proud into something sad and pathetic. Jim stood and stretched his back, wincing as it cracked and snapped. “Anyway,” he said, turning his attention to his wife, who looked less than pleased with this turn of events, “let’s wrap this up, shall we? It’s getting late and it’s almost show time. Just to satisfy your curiosity about how I managed to come back from the dead, I had been stashing money away for a long time after discovering your true nature. I guess to say ‘some money’ would not be doing the amount justice. It was a lot of money, very liquid, and very easily accessed.
“I knew you had been sleeping with Sexy Rexy here for years and would eventually figure out a way to take everything from me, and while I really don’t give a damn about all our stuff, I had no desire to live like a pauper forever, either. So I slowly stashed plenty of cash where I could get at it easily—it’s not hard to do when you have a friend or two in the right places—and after I recovered sufficiently in the New York hospital, I simply walked out the front door and disappeared.
“No one knew who I was, so officially, I didn’t exist as far as the authorities were concerned. I made my way back to this area to collect my money and then left again to start a new life while I considered the question of what to do about you two. I finally made up my mind, so here I am.” He smiled at his two captives. Maura looked less sure of herself, but still not overly concerned.
Jim pulled the Smith and Wesson out from behind his back, where he had slipped it under the waistband of his jeans while he was talking. He held it in his gloved hands. “And you’re right about one thing,” he said softly to Maura. “I could never shoot you. I actually still love you, God help me, so killing you is out of the question, but I’m sure you can agree that the situation as it currently stands is untenable. So you’re going to kill Sexy Rexy.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You’re going to take this pistol and shoot your lover in the head, and then you’re going to be arrested for murder and spend the rest of your miserable, greedy, grasping life in prison. Not the perfect solution, I’ll admit, but it’s the best I could come up with under the circumstances.”
Vince Gower’s tears were now mixing with snot, the whole mess running down his chin as he whimpered. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. Maura said, “You’re crazy. Why would the police think I killed Vince?”
“Well, let’s see,” he replied, checking off the reasons on his fingers. “Your pistol, the one registered to you and stored in this home, is used to murder your boyfriend, who I suppose you could say is also stored in this home. Your fingerprints will be the only ones on the gun, and poor Vince’s blood will be on your hands, as will blowback residue. Sounds like an open-and-shut case to me.”
“I’ll tell them you did it; that you came back and killed Vince in a fit of jealousy—“
Jim burst out laughing. “About that,” he said, still chuckling. “I don’t exist any more, remember? In fact, if I had to make a wager, I’d be willing to bet that the police will begin looking for me again, all right. They’ll be searching for my body, figuring since you killed poor, pathetic Vince here that you probably offed me last year, too.”
Horror blossomed in Maura’s eyes as she considered his words. “You don’t have to do this,” she babbled. “We can kill him together, bury the body. I’ll say you were lost and had amnesia and you suddenly regained your memory and we’re back together and—“
Jim leaned over, cocking the pistol. In one smooth motion, he grabbed Maura’s right hand, wrapping it around the butt of the weapon and forcing her finger through the trigger guard. Vince screamed and Jim guided Maura’s hand toward the target and they pulled the trigger together and the gun roared and Vince’s head exploded, splattering blood and bone and hair and gore all over the back wall of the kitchen.
Maura sat motionless, in shock, her beautiful face white but her hand steady, suddenly holding the weapon all by herself. Jim pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and sliced the zip tie securing his wife’s ankle to the kitchen chair, stuffing it into his pocket. He stood and walked toward the door.
He heard the audible click and sighed, then turned to face Maura one last time. “The reason you can’t shoot me is that I made certain the gun contained only one bullet. It’s useless now, unless you need a paperweight. I’ll place an anonymous call to the authorities when I get a little ways down the street. Run if you want, but you won’t get far.”
Jim turned back to the door and placed his gloved hand on the knob. Without looking at his wife he said, “Good luck, kiddo. Have a nice life.”
Dance Hall Drug
This is perhaps the darkest, nastiest story I have written to date. In fact, the editor of the dark fiction magazine that ended up printing it called it “a nasty piece of work” in her acceptance letter. I’m pretty sure she meant that as a compliment; I took it that way, in any event. “Dance Hall Drug” deals with abuse, both physical and mental, as well as betrayal and revenge and madness, and first appeared in the Autumn, 2010 issue of Dark Valentine. It has been nominated, by the very same editor who complimented me on its nastiness, for a 2011 Pushcart Prize.