by Grace Walton
She took a quick bow after instructing the kids to do the same. If she was lucky she could get them all off the stage and back with Ruthie and Pasty before the hoard descended. That was the plan, to get away before anything nasty happened in the church. If she had to die, she figured she ought to get to pick the place. And church was not the place. Not right in front of a bunch of little folks who would never forget the sight of their teacher splattered all over the carpet.
So Carrie made a mad dash for the parking lot as soon as her friends took charge of the children. Her designer heels made a staccato tapping as she ran, eerily it sounded like the rapid report of explosive gunfire. The night was frigid and somehow in her haste to leave the sanctuary, she’d lost her wrap. So she shivered as she ran to her old beat up car and pulled open the door.
“Hey, Honey.”
Carrie whipped her head around. Her eyes widened at the sight of Sam lounging in the front seat of her car.
“I like your hair down. And you must have worn that little silver number just for me. But let’s lose the glasses and contacts, shall we?”
His smile was malicious as he pulled the spectacles off and handed them to her before pointing the pistol in his hand directly at her heart. With that kind of incentive, she was quick to comply. She threw the heavy glasses onto the pavement. And plucked the uncomfortable contacts out of her eyes, with a flick of her wrist, they joined the glasses.
“That’s better, now you look like Sexy Caroline instead of Ugly Carrie. Are you cold?”
She shivered again in spite of herself.
“If you aren’t now, you will be in a little while,” he cackled. “Get it, cold… dead cold. You know the only reason I didn’t get this over with sooner is I wanted to be sure your boyfriend was around to enjoy it too. At that blasted militia compound he could have taken me out once or twice. But he didn’t. He’s become so much of a freaking idealist these days, I hardly recognize him. He should have taken his shot when he had the chance. Cause now… well now I’ve got the upper hand. So I decided to save my ‘grand finale’, so to speak, for a time and place where I could truly enjoy his suffering.” At his shrill giggle the barrel of the black gun dipped and swayed. His evil cackles were loud and strident. Even his eyes were glazed with some kind of ugly blood lust.
Carrie knew nothing of the occult. But Sam Dole looked like a hell-born a demon.
“Sam, what are you doing?” Carrie knew she sounded stupid. It was more than apparent what the maniac had in mind. But she needed time. Time for somebody, anybody, to just walk out of the church and see her held captive. Surely, if she could keep him talking somebody would stroll out into the parking lot. She just needed one person, one witness. Sam wouldn’t do anything if he knew there would be a witness.
“Oh come now Carrie, I think what I’m doing is fairly obvious.” His true nature finally revealed, he reached over. He grabbed her hand to pull her closer.
“Why don’t you sit down, get comfortable? We don’t want any of these parents and children getting hurt because they decided to be heroes and tried to save you, now do we?”
Numb Carrie shook her head. She allowed him to drag her into the driver’s seat.
Not satisfied with that, he pulled her closer until he had an arm around her shoulders. He had forced her face against his neck. Carrie tried to pull away, but felt the cold metal of the gun against her temple.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Sam said in a conversational voice. “People are just starting to come out into the parking lot and if you stay tucked up like this, they’ll turn away to give us our privacy. They’ll be so glad we’re back together again. Won’t they? Especially after all those weeks we lived together. We’ll be back in the fold, so to speak.”
“You’re insane,” Carrie hissed against the base of his throat.
He painfully tightened his grip in response. “No, just very well paid.” He chuckled. “A man will do a lot of things for two million dollars. Course this has been more of a pleasure than a chore. Especially once I realized Ferguson loves you.” That seemed to give him a lot of satisfaction.
“What?” Carrie was confused. “No, he doesn’t.”
Sam reached up with his free hand. He stroked the length of her hair. It made her skin crawl. Seeing that, he smiled and did it again. Only this time his hand ran down her arm too.
“Oh yes, my Sweet, he does. And it’s going to destroy him to know I had you, before I killed you.” His hand moved slowly up her arm again. Carrie struggled to break free. But he was too strong. His loud curse filled the car.
“Quit fighting me.” He jammed the gun with bruising strength against her jaw. With a quick, powerful jerk he had her against his chest. His bruising mouth came down to her ear.
She recognized the smell of alcohol on his fetid breath. She began silently praying.
“Later you can fight me, all night long. I think I’d enjoy that immensely. But right now if you don’t want to see some kid popped in this parking lot, you better make these fine folks think you’re hot for me, Honey.”
Carrie’s wide eyes filled with tears. But she did as he demanded. She lay passively in his arms. In scant seconds her mouth ached from the rips and tears his teeth inflicted on her tender flesh. She tasted the bright copper tang of blood. She knew it was her own. Finally, finally the parking lot was empty. She pulled away, gasping and choking.
“Aw, look. “ He smirked. “My little love bites made you bleed.” He leaned forward to lick the blood from her lower lip. She spat at him. He stopped, cursed again. He wiped the spittle from his face.
“I’ll make you pay for that later Honey. You have no idea how much pain I can cause when I really try to be creative.” He reached in his pocket. He drew out two lengths of nylon rope. Without sparing her any discomfort he tied her right wrist to the steering wheel of the car.
“Now, you’re going to be my chauffeur. You know all that stuff I told you about Ferguson making his hits look like accidents?” He giggled wildly. “Well, I lied. It’s really me who’s known for that. So we need to find somewhere real private. Cause Honey, I hate to tell you this, you’re going to have a terrible accident.”
He leaned across her body, making sure his chest came into intimate contact with hers as he grabbed her other hand. He tied it to the steering wheel. Rifling through her purse, he extracted the car key and jammed it in the ignition. A quick turn and the car jumped to life. He flipped the switch for the lights.
Her gasp of shock caught Dole’s attention. Standing directly in front of the hood of the car, in the glare of the headlights was Gage Ferguson. In an instant Sam sprang from the car to confront him.
“Well, well, if it isn’t freaking James Bond. Yeah, I saw you go into the church with all the other penguins earlier. I think wearing a tux would have been a little over the top for my taste,” he brayed sarcastically as he walked around the back of the car.
“But then you always did like to dress up. Personally, I think you looked better in the buckskins and war paint you wore to that End of Deployment party down in Miami. Remember that one Black Knife? You have to. You bagged more chicks than even you could handle that night. Not that I’m complaining. I got to enjoy the overflow. What is it with women and the Indian thing?”
Gage’s eyes narrowed dangerously. But he didn’t say a word. He didn’t move.
“Oh come on, don’t be that way. We haven’t talked since Afghanistan, if you don’t count me being ‘good old Sam Dole’. And I don’t. Last I saw of you, you were still trying to pull that wounded SEAL’s bacon out of the fire.”
“Last I saw of you, your backside was scaling a wall, leaving me alone to do it,” Gage said laconically.
“You’re not still holding that against me? Its ancient history Black Knife, build a bridge and get over it,” Sam mocked. He opened Carrie’s door. He pulled a straight razor from his pocket. He quickly slit the ropes holding her. With one hard shove, she was out of the car. He pulled her to stand in fro
nt of him as a human shield, the razor at her throat.
“What you say let’s have some fun?” Sam taunted. “Just like old times.”
Gage didn’t respond. But a muscle jumped along his jaw as he watched the other man’s hand run the edge of the razor slowly up Carrie’s throat. It stopped to rest directly about her jumping carotid artery.
“She’s scared, Black Knife.” Sam blew an obscene kiss in the other man’s direction. “She’s real scared. And I gotta tell you, it turns me on.” His free arm clutched at Carrie’s midsection driving the air from her body. Carrie whimpered softly before she could stop herself.
“Matt you don’t want to do this,” Gage ordered in a hard voice.
“Yeah...” He nodded, smiling. “I kinda do. If for no other reason than to see you squirm.”
“Matt?” Carrie managed to whisper.
Sam cackled and replied. “Yeah Honey, my real name’s Matt Ellison, or it was. I knew Ferguson back in his wild and wooly days. Back before he became the freakin’ caped crusader. He loved to give orders then too. We were buddies in Ranger School, once upon a time, we were real tight. In fact, we were ‘Rangers of the Year’ together, right Black Knife?” Sam kissed the side of her neck just to goad the other man. “That was before he got religion and decided to save the world.”
“But the file, Africa, all those horrible pictures?” Carrie choked out.
“Yeah, I’m pretty handy with a computer huh?” he sneered. “But then you were so innocent and gullible Carrie. It was easy. A little cut and paste. Some fake government stamps and seals, and bingo. Suddenly Black Knife over there is a combination mercenary for hire and serial killer.”
“Was any of it real?”
“Oh yeah, he was in Africa. That’s when he started acting so squirrelly about religion. He was there to get some missionary old lady and her granddaughter out of the middle of a civil war.” He snorted in disgust. “What kind of wing-nut old bat tries to save a bunch of low life orphans from a war zone hospital and brings her granddaughter to help?”
“What happened?” croaked Carrie never taking her apologetic eyes off Gage.
“Black Knife saved the day, like he always does. Got them both out, killed some of my best guys in the process though.”
“You were there?”
“Who do you think was running the rebel insurgency?” He bragged. “And getting paid well to do it. I always go where the money leads. And I got out without a scratch too.”
“Yeah, using human shields is becoming a nasty habit with you Matt,” Gage growled.
The man smiled. He shrugged in response. “Hey, I use whatever works. Now how bout you get rid of your gun and that little sharp pig-sticker you keep in your boot? I’d hate for anybody to get hurt, by accident.” He giggled again.
Gage stood as still as a statue testing the other man’s resolve.
“Do it, you stubborn son of a….” He jerked his hand higher to cover her nose and mouth.
Carrie tried not to panic. But she couldn’t breathe. Her eyes widened in terror.
“Takes a long time to suffocate, don’t you think? How long you think she’ll last? You want to time her for me?”
“Let her go. I’ll double the two million,” Gage offered. He pulled the gun out of its hidden holster. He plucked the knife out of his boot. He carefully laid them on the pavement in front of him.
The other man whistled. He moved his hand away from her face. She dragged in precious air until his arm clamped down around her diaphragm again. He taunted, “You’re doing that well? Wish I could oblige you old son, but I’ve got a contract.”
“I do too.”
The blonde man laughed. “You don’t mean to tell me I went to all this freaking trouble for nothing? First, I had to set up that cheesy phony ‘Sam Dole’ identity. That took, like, a year. I’m real good with projecting innocence and fair play and all that crap. I even had the Witness Protection fooled. When we’d retrieved all those sniveling little girls they chose me, me to stay in that dirty hole of a militia compound to try and smoke you out. And I did. If you had just stayed put in that dump of a jail, I could have wrapped up all my loose ends months ago. But no,” He pointed the razor at Gage and grinned. “You had to play the hero… again. So then I had to make our little chickadee here think you were the Big Bad Wolf and I was her guardian angel. That part wasn’t too bad, it had its perks. I had the house wired. But you knew that. I heard you try to warn her the other night. It was so, so touching,” he mocked. “Let me tell you man, she sings in the shower. Like a banshee. My ears suffered, but the view,well, the view was incredible.” He smirked as Carrie stiffened and moaned.
“She never saw the camera. But I figured I needed to milk this gig for all it was worth, right? So after I pop her, I’m gonna sell the video to a tabloid. Or maybe I’ll just rent it out by the hit on the internet. It ought to be worth what? Another mil easy, don’t you think?”
He stopped to study Gage carefully. Might be nice to yank his chain a couple more times just to see what he’d do. Yeah, it’d be real nice, Sam thought. So he pushed the edge of the envelope just a little further.
“Anyway, congratulations man, welcome back to the real world. I always said you had too much talent to waste it on civilian life. I’ve got an idea. We both do her, literally and figuratively, if you know what I mean.”
His shoulders shook with laughter when he saw a murderous glare transform the other man’s face. Yeah, the old Black Knife he knew, the predator, was still there. He was still there and eager to kill. Why not goad him just a little bit more?
“And we can both collect. I’ll even split the take from the video with you, for old time’s sake. How bout that?”
Gage shook his head slowly. He smiled. That smile had ruthless destruction written all over it. “I want her.”
“Yeah, well, that’s too damn bad, cause so do I.” Sam shifted Carrie slightly to one side and crooned, “Reach in my pocket Honey. Get out that little gun. And take your time. I wasn’t lying when I told you I loved it when you touched me.”
Carrie refused. He smiled as he pushed the razor into her throat. A short line of blood rippled over the edge of the razor.
“Another quarter inch and it’s gonna get real bloody, real quick.”
Carrie’s eyes begged Gage to tell her what to do.
“Get the gun Carrie,” the dark-haired man said softly.
With one trembling hand, she did as he asked.
“Nice job Black Knife, but then you always could get a woman to do just about anything,” Sam drawled. “Hope you’re wearing your Kelvar buddy. You’re sure gonna need it.”
Carrie was so confused. She couldn’t take a decent breath because of his constricting arm clamped like a vise over her diaphragm. Her head was throbbing. A cascade of spinning stars was dancing in her peripheral vision. The gun lay heavy and cold in her hand.
“Cock it Honey,” Sam ordered. She looked at Gage and he gave her a reassuring nod. With clumsy fingers, she cocked the pistol. She felt every beat of her racing heart in the tips of her icy fingers.
“Now, we’re going to see if the good really do die young.” Sam loved having them at his mercy. “Shoot him.”
In shock, Carrie looked at Gage horrified.
“You heard me. Either shoot Ferguson or I let this razor slip right down across that crazy little pulse of yours.”
She refused to move. She closed her eyes against what was coming. She stood rigid and silently prayed.
“You better talk to her Black Knife. We both know I’ll do it. Remember Afghanistan? I had a party carving up those little wussies who tried to double cross the Seal Team. This should be even better, cause I’ll have you as a captive audience. You think she’ll squeal as loud as those punks did?”
“Carrie, fire the gun,” Gage ordered harshly. “Do it now.”
She didn’t open her eyes. She just shook her head. She felt the bite of the razor as it sliced deeper into her skin.
“Please Baby, shoot the gun. At least you’ll have a chance,” Gage begged, sorrow starkly written across his face.
“Aww, that’s so sweet,” Sam taunted. “He’s right though Honey. If you shoot him you do have a chance of surviving. At least for a little while anyway. Maybe a whole night, if you try real hard to make me happy.”
Carrie heard them both as if she was in a nightmare. All at once they were both yelling at her.
“Shoot, Shoot, Shoot!” Sam screeched in her ear.
“Do it, just do it Baby,” Gage shouted begging her to fire the gun.
Sobbing with a blur of tears clouding her vision she lifted the gun in a shaky hand and pointed it towards Gage. The smile and nod he gave her were full of love, understanding, and forgiveness. She smiled back with the same. She kept lifting the gun until it was pointed straight at her face.
“No!!” Gage’s howled cry echoed the length of the empty parking lot.
Sam swore, finally realizing what she meant to do. He jerked her higher against his body trying to stop her. From out of the darkness, a sudden shot rang across the parking lot and struck him.
Sam lurched forward, all his weight falling instantly on Carrie. His heavy shoulder threw her hand down. During her fall to the frozen pavement Carrie’s finger involuntarily tightened on the trigger of the gun. Another shot sparked and raced across the night. In excruciating detailed slow motion Carrie saw Gage give her a sad, wistful smile before collapsing slowly to the pavement. A blossom of crimson appeared on his chest like some obscene tropical flower blooming in the icy dead of the Montana winter night. Carrie stared in disbelief at the smoking gun in her hand.
“Carrie! Carrie! Are you OK?” A terrified Harvey Beasley ran across the parking lot waving a rifle as he scrambled closer.