“I want to know, Dale. I want you to tell me what you think you feel for me.”
“I loved my mother. She was the first person I ever brought back to life. My dad murdered her right in front of me. But I brought her back. She hated me ever since. She hated what I could do. She kept trying to kill herself and I kept bringing her back. Then she tried to kill me, beat me to death with a hammer. I mean, she tried to. She tried again on the day she died. She poured gasoline all over herself and burned herself up. She tried to take me with her. She poured gasoline outside my bedroom door while I was sleeping and set it and herself on fire.” He turned to look at Sarah again; his face was a riot of twitches and tics as he struggled to suppress his pain. “That’s it. No more talking now. I’ll shoot you if I have to. I can always bring you back. But no more talking.”
This time Sarah listened. She recognized the neighborhood as they pulled up to the gate. She even knew the code on the keypad. One, two, four, three. He was taking her home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“How do you see this ending, Dale? You see us being together forever or are you just going to fuck me one last time and run?”
Sarah was trying to get under his skin. She wanted to ruin whatever sick fantasy was driving him. Take away any satisfaction she could from what he was about to do to her. He seemed to be coming unhinged. Nothing about what he was doing made any sense. He had taken her back to her own house to do what? Rape her? And then what?
“Shut the fuck up and get out of the car.”
“You haven’t thought about it, have you? You’re just making this all up as you go, aren’t you? What are you going to do? The cops will be looking for me. They’ll put you in prison. Then you’ll be the one getting raped every night. You’ll be the one waking up screaming.”
“Get the fuck in the house!”
He grabbed her by the hair and shoved the barrel of the Glock against her temple. Sarah walked with him to her front door, knowing that she was in for unfathomable pain once that door shut behind her. She considered trying to fight him, forcing Dale to kill her now before he could hurt her, but that would only stall the pain. He would just drag her back into the house, revive her, and torture and rape her anyway. She stepped through the door into her home, hoping that someone would find her before Dale could hurt her.
Dale took her up to her own bedroom and pushed her down on the bed. The mattress seethed beneath her, crawling with thousands of maggots and flies. The entire room smelled like death and madness.
“You’ve never had a real woman, have you, Dale?”
Dale clamped his hands over his ears and winced. Blood trickled down his face from the wound in his head, which had started to bleed again. He wiped it away quickly. He squinted and swayed a little. For a moment, Sarah thought he was about to faint or perhaps even die on the spot. She rose from the bed.
“What the fuck are you doing? Get back on the bed!”
He pointed the gun at her and for a moment Sarah thought he was going to pull the trigger. Then he winced and grabbed his head with his left hand, still pointing the gun at her with the right. Blood was seeping from the wound and trickling down his forehead steadily now. He blinked repeatedly, trying to keep the blood out of his eye.
“I’m getting ready for you, Dale. You can’t fuck me if I’m fully dressed. Isn’t this what you wanted? You don’t have to rape me. I’ll let you have whatever you want. Maybe I’ll even rape you.”
She reached out for his belt buckle and he pulled away from her. She guessed he probably couldn’t get it up with a woman he hadn’t tortured and abused. That was part of his ritual, his fantasy. A willing victim ruined the fantasy for him.
“Come on, don’t you want to cum on my tits? Isn’t that what you told the detectives you wanted to do to me? Here I am, Dale. Let’s fuck!”
She reached out for him again and he pulled away again.
“Stop that! Not like that. Get back on the bed.”
Sarah heard a tire screech outside. She glanced out the window and saw Detective Torres pull into the driveway of Dale’s house, throw open his car door, and charge up the walkway to Dale’s front door, his gun pulled. He kicked down the front door and went inside.
Fucking idiot, Sarah thought. Didn’t he notice the car in her driveway?
Moments later the street filled with black-and-white patrol vehicles and one Saturn hybrid SUV. Josh! If anyone had the sense to check their house it would be he. The cavalry had arrived.
“They’re coming for you, Dale. You don’t have much time. You’d better get it up if you want to get in one last fuck before they send your crazy ass to the gas chamber.”
She reached out for him again. This time he had both hands on his bleeding head, eyes closed, grimacing in pain. She grabbed his cock, testicles and all, and twisted as hard as she could. When Dale cried out, she balled up a fist and punched him in the mouth as hard as she could. The gun flew and Dale dropped to his knees. Sarah never let go of his testicles. She was trying to tear them clean off his body. She punched him again, aiming for his bleeding head, and then again in the face. Then she grabbed his testicles with both hands and twisted his cock in one direction and his balls in another. Dale screamed like a woman.
The bedroom door flew open and Josh burst inside. He took one look at Dale lying on the floor with Sarah tugging at his crotch and an expression of white-hot rage twisted his features. He grabbed Dale by the throat and lifted him from the floor as effortlessly as a mother would have lifted a newborn. He began strangling Dale. Sarah did not object. She did not implore him to stop as she would have thought she might have. She remained on the floor, watching her big, strong husband, the love of her life, strangle her tormentor to death, waiting for Dale to die. She wished she had a cigarette. Revenge was even better than sex. Then Detective Torres walked in and ruined everything.
“Put him down, Josh. Let him go.”
The detective was pointing a gun at her husband.
“He tried to kill me! He kidnapped me and was going to rape me!”
“I know, Sarah. But I can’t let him do this. This ain’t the way. You said it yourself, you don’t want Josh going to jail for you and that’s what will happen if he kills him.”
Torres was right. She didn’t want to lose Josh. She needed him.
“Then you kill him. Just shoot him. You kill him!”
“I can’t do that, Sarah. I’m a cop.”
“Where’s Harry?”
“I don’t know. I can’t get a hold of him or Trina. I thought they were at the motel. That’s why I went there looking for them. That’s Trina’s car out front. I need to find out what this piece of shit did to her and I can’t do that if he’s dead. Let him go, Josh! Now!”
Dale was turning blue and had passed out. He would be dead soon. A bunch of uniformed cops spilled into the room. Two of them tackled Josh. He tossed them aside like they were rag dolls and went after Dale again. Three more cops jumped on top of him but Josh continued to fight, almost managing to break free again.
“Don’t hurt him. He’s the victim here. Just get him under control. Calm down, Josh. It’s over. You and your wife are safe.”
Josh stopped struggling but the police officers continued to hold him. One of them had his cuffs out and was reaching down to slap them onto Josh’s wrists. Sarah scrambled over to her husband and pushed the offi cer away.
“Cuff him, not him!”
The officer looked over at Detective Torres, who raised an eyebrow and gestured toward Dale, who was lying unconscious on the floor by the window. His head wound was bleeding profusely now and only then did Sarah realize that it was a bullet wound.