She bounced back to her feet and turned around.
It was her.
“You.”
Missy Wallace smiled. “Yes.”
Lindsey moved backward, retreating until her back met the wall. She looked different from the last pictures that had circulated. The computer-enhanced ones that showed her with blonde, spiky hair. Her hair was longer now and black again. But there was no mistaking that face. Lindsey glanced at the bed and noticed a discarded ball cap and oversized black sunglasses. A very minimalist disguise, but apparently it worked.
“Please don’t hurt me.”
Missy laughed. “So you’re Lindsey. Rob talked a lot about you.”
Despite a terror level escalating by the second, Lindsey was interested. “He…did?”
Missy nodded. “He did. He said you guys were bestest pals and had been since you were kids. I thought he had to be fucking you, but he denied it. And I guess I believed him. Rob’s a sincere motherfucker.”
“He was telling the truth.”
Missy smiled again as she moved a slow step closer. Her hands were clasped behind her back and Lindsey had to wonder what she was hiding. “But here’s the sticky point. I knew you had to have some interest in him. And I guess I was right, huh? You see, I’ve been watching you a while. I know you visit him. I even found your blog online. So he says he’s in love with you?”
She moved another step closer.
Lindsey scrunched up harder against the wall. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run without having to get around Missy. The room’s lone window was on the opposite side of the room. Even if she could get to it and take a leap through it, she was three stories up. Her fingernails clawed at the wall as she took a step sideways. Her skin crawled as Missy’s eyes roved over her body, frankly appraising her the way a man would. Scoping out the competition.
She whimpered. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“You already said that, you stupid bitch. Now answer my question. Is Rob in love with you?”
Hot tears streamed down Lindsey’s cheeks. “He is.”
Missy nodded and came another step closer. “Well, that’s too bad. I have this thing. Personal quirk, I guess you could call it. I don’t like to share. But it’s okay. We’ll get past it. I know he’ll come back around in time. I guess I won’t see him for a while, but that’s okay, too. I’ve forgiven him for letting me down. I’m gonna give him a pass on that. But you, Lindsey?”
Her hands came away from her back.
One of them grasped a big knife with a serrated blade.
Lindsey sucked in air and opened her mouth to scream.
But Missy was too fast.
“You I’m gonna kill.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, thanks to my wife, Rachael, for all the usual reasons, and extra special bonus points for making last year’s Hypericon party a smash success despite being very sick. Thanks to my brothers, Jeff and Eric, who rock hard. Thanks to my longtime friends, Shannon Turbeville and Keith Ashley, who also rock. Hmm, rocking seems to be the theme this time around. Anyway…thanks to my family, especially my mom, Cherie Smith, for all the love and support, and my grandmother, Dorothy C. May, as well as Jay and Helene Wise, my in-laws. Thanks to all the following for various reasons: Brian Keene, everybody at the Keenedom, Don D’Auria, Tod Clark, Kent Gowran, Mark Hickerson, Joe Howe, Derek Tatum, Paul Legerski, Paul Synuria, Ben and Tracey Eller (www.worldofstrange.com), Mark Sylva, Brittany Crass, Blake Conley, John Everson, Rhonda Wilson, John Barcus, Shane Ryan Staley, Elizabeth Rowell, Kim Myers, David Wilbanks, Fred and Stephania Grimm, whoever it was who invented beer way back in the long, long ago, and all the people who bought Soultaker and Depraved last year. It should go without saying that you all rock harder than a drunken 80’s metal band with its amps perpetually on 11-but I’m saying it anyway.
